The Charnel Prince by Keyes Greg & Keyes J. Gregory

Author:Keyes, Greg & Keyes, J. Gregory [Keyes, Greg & Keyes, J. Gregory]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Adventure
ISBN: 9780345478412
Amazon: 034547841X
Goodreads: 6981413
Publisher: Del Rey
Published: 2004-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

Observations on Diverse Things Such as Being Dead

BY STEPHEN DARIGE

I had to learn to hear again once before. It was after I walked the faneway of Decmanis. Each stop along the way took something from me—the sensation in my hand first, then my hearing, then my sight—until there was nothing left of me but a body, not even a mind. Somehow I finished the path, and it all came back to me, but different, better.

That’s how it is to be dead. I heard a lot at first, but it made no sense. It was just noise, like the wailing of ghosts in the halls of the damned. Then the noises began to make sense, and eventually to become familiar.

I can hear Aspar, Winna, and Ehawk, but my body is lost to me. I cannot speak to them or move a finger or an eyelid.

I remember I used to care for them.

I do still, in many ways. When Winna is near I can smell her, feel her, almost taste her. When she touches me, it sends shivers through me that somehow are not revealed on my dead flesh.

I heard her and Aspar last night. She smells different when they do that, sharper. So does Aspar.

Observations of the quaint and curious holter-beast—in the act of procreation, this ordinarily closemouthed creature vocalizes extraordinarily, though only in low tones. He makes rhymes of his lover’s name—mina-Winna, fenna-Winna, and the inevitable winna-Winna. He calls her by other silly appellations of his own invention, notwithstanding that Winna is already a rather silly name.

There’s someone new, a Sefry. Winna doesn’t like her because Aspar does, though he denies it every way he can. I wonder if she looks like his wife, the dead one?

They’re taking me to the next faneway, which for them is clever. I wonder what will happen there? The first was very strange, and I am hard put to explain why it affected me the way it did. It was consecrated to one of the damned saints, she who was known as the queen of demons. Perhaps Decmanis is punishing me for stepping on her faneway, and yet somehow that doesn’t feel right. The only other possibility that occurs is that she is somehow also an aspect of Saint Decmanis, which would be very interesting indeed, not to mention heretical.

Can saints be heretics?

We’re approaching the fane. I can feel it like a fire.

ASPAR SURVEYED THE CLEARING and the mound. The bodies were still there, and none of them were moving. Of the Briar King and his hunt there was no sign, save the dead bodies of slinders and the monks they had killed.

“Oh, saints,” Winna said when she saw the carnage.

“Weak stomach?” Leshya asked.

“I’ve seen bodies like this before,” Winna said. “But I don’t have to pretend I like it.”

“No, you don’t,” the Sefry agreed.

“So what do we do now?” Winna asked.

Aspar shrugged and dismounted. “Take Stephen up on the mound, I reckon. See what happens.”

“Are you quite certain this is the wise thing to do?” Leshya asked.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.