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Once upon a time, an old woman whispers, a Corpse-King was slain. The armies of the righteous tore down his dread palaces and sealed him forever to wail alone in his dark tomb...
~
Every single member of this party is a liar.
“Light guard you all,” the grave-robber dressed in sun-armor drawls, with a lazy wave. She is a child’s caricature of a perfect Sun-Champion: powerful, confident, with a beaming smile and a swaggering gait and strong, sword-calloused hands. “Give me another bowl, I’m famished.”
There is no sunlight in her eyes, only laughter and cruelty. Her false blessings will protect no one. Her mocking imitations of a Sun-Champion’s prayers will only draw down the wrath of those who are dead.
In the bleak desolation of corpse-kingdoms of old, even true Sun-Champions have been cut down. Sûle knows that their spirits linger.
“Our guide hasn’t eaten, my lady,” the monk poorly dressed as an adventurer protests. “We must leave the last--”
The grave-robbers of the party laugh. The last of bowl of stew is snatched away. Sûle keeps his eyes down and his hands on his work, unpacking and unfolding bedrolls to lay out in neat rows. “Let it be, Kymur,” another monk - this one in the ill-fitted leathers of a guardsman - says. “The stew will be cold long before he’s done. There’s still bread.”
“I’ll bring him some,” Kymur says.
Sûle hastily pulls a bedroll over the guard-runes he’d scratched in the damp earth. Sun-Champions have always unnerved Sûle, with their sunlit eyes and brutal strength and their easy, eternal kindness. The absence of one now frightens him more. Sûle doesn’t need the Sun’s blessing to walk unharmed on the Tomb-Trail - if he did, he wouldn’t deserve to carry his great-grandfather’s ashes. But everyone else here should.
He doesn’t understand why they don’t.
The night is dark and the Tomb-Trail darker, yet Kymur picks his way across the clearing, concerned only for Sûle, bearing a hunk of bread and his own half-eaten bowl of stew.
His smile is too sweetly gentle for this dead place.
Where grave-robbers walk, innocents die.
~
Sûle is washing dishes in a haunted river when a distant ancestor’s drowned ghost appears.
“Hullo, auntie,” Sûle says, scrubbing at the stew-stained pot with a handful of bone-white river sand.
“Oy,” the drowned ghost says, plaintive, “I died too young and fresh-faced to be an auntie. Can’t you call me your cousin instead?”
“I can,” Sûle offers, “for an answer.”
The drowned ghost laughs in girlish delight. “Clever, clever,” she croons. Her voice bubbles from her waterlogged throat. “You might live to be older than me! I’m feeling generous, so I’ll answer fully and without trickery if you also answer a question of mine.”
“Cousin,” Sûle says. The icy thread of a ghost-bargain-accepted coils around his heart. “Elders first.”
The eyes of the drowned ghost crinkles with mirth. “Cheeky,” she says, baring sharpened teeth in a merrily bloodstained grin. “Very well. You carry his ashes. You think you’ll succeed?”
“I-- I hope I can.” The stew-stained pot is easier to focus on than the worried ghost of Sûle’s long-dead kin. “He’s waited a hundred years. I have to try. Those people, they--” Those grave-robbers, Sûle means, and he knows the ghost understands. “--I think they can open the door.”
“Mhm,” the drowned ghost says. “Make sure you’re not their blood sacrifice. Grave-robbers lie.” She sighs like a soul blown away in the wind, but souls don’t blow away on the Tomb-Trail. “Your turn, little cousin. One question. I’ll answer as well as I can. Maybe it’ll bring you a better fate than mine.”
“I lead a party full of liars,” Sûle says. The ghost grins like she already knows. “Three little bookish monks who believe a Sun-Champion protects them, but the grave-robbers have array stones and are stealing their devotional energies to strengthen ghost-wards.” The theft is clever. Sûle only noticed because it’s a half-step from corpse magic, and Sûle is the great-grandson of the Corpse-King’s general. “Their power isn’t enough for the Tomb-Trail. We’ve walked too far unbothered. Why?”
“You’re their guide. You think we won’t give you face?”
“Not every ghost here is blood-kin of mine.”
The drowned ghost sinks deeper into the waters of her grave, down to her bloodshot, smiling eyes. “True, very true,” she says, “and I promised you an answer.” The corners of her eyes crinkle. “One in your little flock is pretending they’re a Sun-Champion. Another is pretending they’re not.“
~
Sûle wakes before dawn to heat water for porridge and tea, and worry bubbles in his heart in time with the boiling water in the stew-stained pot.
One is pretending they’re a Sun-Champion. Another is pretending they’re not.
The trio of monks are up early too, arguing in low voices, still half tucked into their bedrolls. Kymur wants to keep to the plan their monastery approved, and split from the party early to seek younger, safer tombs. The other two have the greedy glint of glory in their eyes: The Corpse-King’s tomb, brother! Don’t be such a bore. Of course the abbott-- the boss didn’t agree, but he’ll sing a different tune when we return with--
Kymur untangles himself from his bedroll in a huff, and strides to the fire for tea. His hair is sleep-tangled and his robes are a mess; his fingers are smooth and delicate when Sûle hands him a cup. His smiling eyes are rueful and innocent.
If Kymur is anything more than an adventurer-seeking young monk, he’s a better liar than Sûle himself.
“I can take you to some tombs nearby, sir,” Sûle offers, when Kymur has taken a bracing sip of strong tea. “They’re not far. It’ll be no trouble at all.”
There are tombs in this part where the mild-natured sleep, and Sûle is distant kin to some. All are bored and lonely, most are chatty; the worst Kymur will befall there is a bit of a fright.
Sûle hopes Kymur will accept.
He wants one innocent to live.
There is a Sun-Champion amongst us, Sûle wants to say. And there are grave-robbers who seek to plunder the Corpse-King’s tomb. Blood will be spilled before our journey ends; I don’t want that blood to be yours.
But, “No, no.” Kymur makes a noise like laughter, but his brow is furrowed and his eyes are distant and pained. “I’ll go where they go. And yourself? You’ve completed the terms of your contract, surely. I’ve heard the people in these parts whispering of a curse on the Corpse-King’s tomb.”
You should listen to those whispers, Sûle wants to say. Don’t go there.
But the rest of camp is waking, and a Sun-Champion is amongst them; Sûle has heard whispers too that their sunlight exposes lies. “ I won’t be meddling with the Corpse-King’s seals,” he says, and this is the truth. The righteous carved the seals against the Corpse-King and his servants. They will lash out at Sûle. “But I’ll stay close if you have need of me, sir.”
And if the seals break and the door opens, he does not say, I’ll be the first to enter.
Whatever traps the Corpse-King laid within won’t touch him. His great-grandfather’s ashes are in a stone urn by his heart; the Corpse-King’s general has waited a hundred years to return to his lover’s side.
Kymur nods. His smile is soft and sweet and sad. “A safe journey to us all, then,” he murmurs...
And there is sunlight in his eyes.