Nathye brought his booted foot down on the remains of the dead dallen again and again, stomping it into a meat pie and splashing blood on the floor and walls. He did not remember moving towards the creature, but could now not bring himself to stomp until there was nothing left of the infernal thing.

The creature had come to life, speaking to Nathye. He had come to speak to his father, and instead some horror from the beyond had taken control of a furry excuse for a light meal or a child’s pet, and had prophesized Nathye’s doom.

Nathye was shocked at first. Faintly, in the background, he heard noises, but could not bring himself to look away from the horror. Then, when the thing had finally stopped describing, in detail, what will happen to Nathye, stopped mocking him, it just went back to being a dead, decapitated morsel.

Hands grabbed Nathye, pulling him back from the evil thing on the floor, the thing that now resembled a rat that had been run over by a farmer’s cart on market day.

“Nathye, Your Grace, are you well?” asked Ser Dafeld.

Nathye, seeing that the meat pie on the floor was no longer speaking, no longer screaming out his secrets, pulled his hands away from the castellan’s grip. Turning around, he saw his retinue and the master of acolytes all looking at him.

The master of acolytes was looking at the corner of the room where the dead dallen lay. “Your Grace,” he said, “would you like to talk about what you heard?”

“No. I want to speak to my father,” Nathye said, pushing his way through the group and out the door.

He walked into the other chamber, seeing his father strapped to the wall, awaiting their conversation.

It could not be worse. Breathing deeply, he looked down at himself and saw the blood splatters from the dallen on his pants. His father would have to forgive this too.

“Close the door when you are ready,” said Edmund Eyser from the hallway.

Clenching his fist, taking one last look at his father’s peaceful face, he turned around and slammed the door shut.

He stayed there, back to his father, waiting for the men to speak, to lob accusations at him. Nothing came.

Nathye turned around, looking at his father, who was still peacefully sleeping the sleep of the death.

“Father?”

“Father?” he said again, repeating the faked conversation from the night of the murder, this time in earnest.

His father remained silent. Was his ghost refusing to talk? Nathye had not known this was possible.

He walked over to the body. Drawing his sword, he reversed his grip and used the pommel to poke his father in the chest.

“Father?”

Using the pommel to try to shift the head, he found it stiffly held in place. The Duke was dead.

Sheathing his sword, he opened the chamber door.

“Edmur Eyser, is it possible for the dead not to converse with the living?” he asked the master of ceremonies who was having a quiet conversation with the men outside.

“Your Grace?”

“Can the dead refuse to return?”

“If the body is intact, or enough of it is, they return if only for a short while.”

“My father will not return.”

Edmur Eyser walked into the room, Nathye giving him way. He checked the body, quickly removing the rest of the shroud.

“The body is not maimed or damaged, Your Grace. The spirit should return for its only conversation if there is only one living in the room.”

The room was sparse enough, with no places to hide. There were no elaborate furniture under or inside which or a person could hide. Nathye quickly scanned the room, then turned back to the master of acolytes.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“You said only conversation?” Nathye asked.

“Yes, Your Grace. I said the dead can only come back once. Your next conversation with them is when you have passed on as well. It happens if someone is with them, and the door is shut.”

“Your Grace,” said one of the men who was standing in the doorway, “I…the door was shut.”

“Why was it shut?” Nathye asked.

“When we could not open the door to your chamber, I wanted to make sure the duke’s body was not disturbed, Your Grace. I did not see anyone inside, so I shut the door.”

“Is it possible for the dead to speak to one of those animals if they were inside when the door was shut?” asked Nathye.

Nathye could hear a few mutterings from behind, but was focused on the master of acolytes.

“No, Your Grace. They only speak to humans.”

“Where is that young man who helped set up the room?” asked Ser Dafeld, “Wasn’t he here preparing the body?”

No one had seen him leave.

“Search the building,” said Nathye. “Ser Dafeld, I want someone guarding the exit. He is not to leave until I’ve spoken to him.”

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The men dispersed to search through the building. Ser Dafeld took Edmur Eyser to show them around.

Nathye took the shroud that had previously covered his father and dropped it on the floor. Leaning on the wall, he ran his boot on the shroud, scraping off the dallen blood and meat that had clung to it. He bent down and used the edge of the cloth to shine the top of the other boot, where splashes of blood had landed, then wiped down his pants.

It took the men twenty minutes to return. Nathye kept staring at his father who continued to ignore him and remain dead. They trickles back in, Ser Dafeld and Edmur Eyser in tow, none having found the man.

“Edmur Eyser, where would he have gone?” Nathye asked.

“If he is not here, he would have gone to his bed, though I cannot imagine him doing so without telling me, Your Grace.”

“You,” Nathye told one of the men, “go with the master and check if the man— what is his name?” that he addressed to Edmur Eyser.

“Roge, Your Grace.”

“—if Roge is in his bed. Bring both of them back.”

The men nodded, taking Edmur Eyser with him.

“Run another check of the building,” said Ser Dafeld, directing the men.

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It was another half hour before Edmur Eyser and the man dispatched to accompany him returned. Roge was not there. The rest of the men have also not found anything. Roge had done his own quick check of the chambers, tired of seeing his father’s visage.

“Why would he have run?” Nathye asked Edmur Eyser.

“Run? Roge? There is no place for him to run, Your Grace. This is the only place he has known. He has lived here his entire life.”

Nathye drew his sword, holding it at Edmur Eyser’s throat. “Think carefully about your answer, master of acolytes. My father is not coming back to speak with me, so he has already spoken to someone. Your man was the only one who could have, and he is gone. Now, where could he have gone?”

Edmur Eyser, his face losing what color it had before, was wringing his hands. “Your Grace, I don’t know where he is or what he has done. We do not speak to the dead on behalf of the pilgrims coming here.”

The sword thrust was easy. Nathye had never done it in cold blood, but the man was lying. He had to know where his man had gone. These acolytes stole secrets from the dead and the living, and Nathye knew how to find out. He was now committed.

The sword entered Edmur Eyser’s throat, slicing through his windpipe. Nathye held it there, watching the eyes of the man bulge as the sensation registered and his breathing was blocked by the blade. The master of acolytes’ hands tried to go up to his throat, trying to find what was obstructing it, but the sword was in the way.

Ser Dafeld was the only one who understood what had happened. The others, if they noticed, might have thought Nathye had nicked the man. Ser Dafeld said “Your Grace?”

Nathye moved the sword right and left, slashing the major veins in the neck, then pulled the sword out. Blood spurted out of Edmur Eyser, spraying Nathye. It covered Nathye’s face, as well as the front of his tunic, and dripped down to his pants.

The master of acolytes looked at Nathye, hands still trying to stench the bleeding, then his eyes closed, and he slowly collapsed to the ground.

The men had gone quiet. They had not spoken before, but now even their breathing had stopped, so eerie was the silence. Someone coughed, but Nathye would not take his eyes off the man making his last convulsions on the floor in front of him.

“Everybody out!” he yelled.

“Your Grace, do you want help cleaning up?” asked Ser Dafeld.

“Out! I want to speak with the man again!”

The room cleared in seconds. Nathye sheathed his sword, then went to the door and slammed it.

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This time, the reaction was instantaneous. Edmur Eyser’s head righted itself, and he… it?… looked directly at Nathye.

“Did Roge speak to my father?” asked Nathye.

“I do not know, murderer.”

“Did anyone else?”

“I do not know, slayer.”

“Where is Roge?”

“I do not know, man-killer.”

“Are there places to hide in this building?”

“This is no place for the living. What did the harbinger of the dead tell you?”

Nathye took a step back. That…thing that spoke to him in the other chamber. He did not want to think about it.

“H… How do you know?” he asked.

“Because our job is to keep life away from this building, yet a live dallen made it to that chamber, bloodshedder.”

“Stop calling me that! I did what I had to!”

“Does the cleaver force the man to become a butcher?”

Drawing his sword again, Nathye stabbed the corpse. It did not react.

“Is there another exit to this building?”

“The only other way out is the exit of the dead, through the chutes, slaughterer.”

Nathye slashed at the man’s face with the sword. It did not flinch.

“Could Roge have exited that way?”

“The drop to the desert is hundreds of feet below, lawbreaker.”

“I set the law, you miserable excuse of a ghost. Your body will join the host of unmourned below!”

“Consider that your man was also alone with your father,” said the dead.

Slashing one last time at the body, Nathye backed away from the talking head, holding the sword up between them. He waited there, back to the door, until the head dropped to the floor, lifeless forever.