Legacy of a Hated God by Patrick Samphire

Author:Patrick Samphire [Samphire, Patrick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Five Fathoms Press

Chapter Thirteen

There were many ways to die in Agatos, but there were only two ways to be dead: poor and not poor.

If you were not poor, then you could arrange your own or your loved one’s funeral. You could have it be moderate or lavish. You could be buried in a family shaft or carried through the streets in a procession, like the Stypilians, or burned on a communal bier. You could even have your body preserved and shipped abroad, although I suspected the chances of your body making it depended a lot on how angry and vengeful your relatives abroad would be when you didn’t turn up. Otherwise, your body would be taking the direct route down to the Depths.

Being not-poor in the Warrens was a relative thing. The respectable, decent parts of the Fields of the Dead were not open to even the wealthiest of Warrens residents, but the same principle applied. If you could afford it, the shafts above the Warrens, above the Lady’s grove, were an option.

But if you were poor, or if you had no one who cared enough to spend the money, then you would have to suffer one of the public shafts the Senate maintained in a corner of the Fields, right next to where the beheaded criminals were buried. There was no elegance there, no grand monuments, no memorial at all, just a numbered stone by the granite cap of each shaft.

Most Cursed Coyd Keffen wouldn’t find himself in one of those public shafts, but Mr. Inles would. At this time of year, when it could still be unpleasantly hot in the middle of the afternoon, that was when the paupers’ burials would take place, one after another, like sacks of flour unloaded from a ship, but with less care and attention.

I had plenty of time to spare before the day’s round of funerals began. Even returning home to fetch Fria, I could still be back at the Fields of the Dead with an hour to spare.

I was tempted to find Benny to discuss our progress – or lack of it – and plan our next steps. But I had made that mistake before and ended up missing things I’d committed to. The idea of missing Mr. Inles’s funeral, of letting him be buried alone in an anonymous shaft, without witness from me or Fria, left me feeling unexpectedly hollow.

“Why do you care now?” I said. “He’s dead. It doesn’t matter to him anymore.”

And yet I did, and it did. I didn’t understand those feelings. Maybe I would understand at the funeral. Maybe I never would. But I didn’t think I had a choice.

I picked up Fria, changed into my best clothes, and headed back out.

I was only a street from home when two mages stepped from an alley in front of me. The weight of inevitability was like a dead body draped over my shoulders. There was always something. Always.

I recognised one of them, but not the other. I’d tangled with the first one before.

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