In the tunnel, Bugg lit a lantern using a small ember box, and set it down on the threshold to the tomb. He then applied his shoulder to the door.
‘Is that you?’ came Shurq’s voice from the darkness within.
‘Why yes,’ Bugg said, ‘it is.’
‘Liar. You’re not you, you’re Bugg. Where’s Tehol? I need to talk to Tehol.’
‘He is indisposed,’ Bugg said. Having pushed the door open to allow himself passage into the tomb, he collected the lantern and edged inside.
‘Where’s Harlest?’
‘In the sarcophagus.’
There was no lid to the huge stone coffin. Bugg walked over and peered in. ‘What are you doing, Harlest?’ He set the lantern down on the edge.
‘The previous occupant was tall. Very tall. Hello, Bugg. What am I doing? I am lying here.’
‘Yes, I see that. But why?’
‘There are no chairs.’
Bugg turned to Shurq Elalle. ‘Where are these diamonds?’
‘Here. Have you found what I was looking for?’
‘I have. A decent price, leaving you the majority of your wealth intact.’
‘Tehol can have what’s left in the box there. My earnings from the whorehouse I’ll keep.’
‘Are you sure you don’t want a percentage from this, Shurq? Tehol would be happy with fifty per cent. After all, the risk was yours.’
‘No. I’m a thief. I can always get more.’
Bugg glanced around. ‘Will this do for the next little while?’
‘I don’t see why not. It’s dry, at least. Quiet, most of the time. But I need Ublala Pung.’
Harlest’s voice came from the sarcophagus. ‘And I want sharp teeth and talons. Shurq said you could do that for me.’
‘Work’s already begun on that, Harlest.’
‘I want to be scary. It’s important that I be scary. I’ve been practising hissing and snarling.’
‘No need for concern there,’ Bugg replied. ‘You’ll be truly terrifying. In any case, I should be going-’
‘Not so fast,’ Shurq cut in. ‘Has there been any word on the robbery at Gerun Eberict’s estate?’
‘No. Not surprising, if you think about it. Gerun’s undead brother disappears, the same night as some half- giant beats up most of the guards. Barring that, what else is certain? Will anyone actually attempt to enter Gerun’s warded office?’
‘If I eat human flesh,’ Harlest said, ‘it will rot in my stomach, won’t it? That means I will stink. I like that. I like thinking about things like that. The smell of doom.’
‘The what? Shurq, probably they don’t know they’ve been robbed. And even if they did, they wouldn’t make a move until their master returns.’
‘I expect you’re right. Anyway, be sure to send me Ublala Pung. Tell him I miss him. Him and his-’
‘I will, Shurq. I promise. Anything else?’
‘I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘Let me think.’
Bugg waited.
‘Oh, yes,’ she said after a time, ‘what do you know about these tombs? There was a corpse here, once, in that sarcophagus.’
‘How can you be certain?’
Her lifeless eyes fixed on his. ‘We can tell.’
‘Oh. All right.’
‘So, what do you know?’
‘Not much. The language on the door belongs to an extinct people known as Forkrul Assail, who are collectively personified in our Fulcra by the personage we call the Errant. The tombs were built for another extinct people, called the Jaghut, whom we acknowledge in the Hold we call the Hold of Ice. The wards were intended to block the efforts of another people, the T’lan Imass, who were the avowed enemies of the Jaghut. The T’lan Imass pursued the Jaghut in a most relentless manner, including those Jaghut who elected to surrender their place in the world – said individuals choosing something closely resembling death. Their souls would travel to their Hold, leaving their flesh behind, the flesh being stored in tombs like this one. That wasn’t good enough for the T’lan Imass. Anyway, the Forkrul Assail considered themselves impartial arbiters in the conflict, and that was, most of the time, the extent of their involvement. Apart from that,’ Bugg said with a shrug, ‘I really can’t say.’
Harlest Eberict had slowly sat up during Bugg’s monologue and was now staring at the manservant. Shurq Elalle was motionless, as the dead often were. Then she said, ‘I have another question.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘Is this common knowledge among serving staff?’
‘Not that I am aware of, Shurq. I just pick up things here and there, over time.’
‘Things no scholar in Letheras picks up? Or are you just inventing as you go along?’
‘I try to avoid complete fabrication.’
‘And do you succeed?’
‘Not always.’
‘You’d better go now, Bugg.’
‘Yes, I’d better. I’ll have Ublala visit you tonight.’
‘Do you have to?’ Harlest asked. ‘I’m not the voyeuristic type-’
‘Liar,’ Shurq said. ‘Of course you are.’
‘Okay, so I’m lying. It’s a useful lie, and I want to keep it.’
‘That position is indefensible-’
‘That’s a rich statement, coming from you and given what you’ll be up to tonight-’
Bugg collected the lantern and slowly backed out as the argument continued. He pushed the door back in place, slapped the dust from his hands, then returned to the ladder.
Once back in the warehouse office, he replaced the flagstone, then collecting his drawings, he made his way to the latest construction site. Bugg’s Construction’s most recent acquisition had once been a school, stately and reserved for children of only the wealthiest citizens of Letheras. Residences were provided, creating the typical and highly popular prison-style educational institution. Whatever host of traumas were taught within its confines came to an end when, during one particularly wet spring, the cellar walls collapsed in a sluice of mud and small human bones. The floor of the main assembly hall promptly slumped during the next gathering of students, burying children and instructors alike in a vast pit of black, rotting mud, in which fully a third drowned, and of these the bodies of more than half were never recovered. Shoddy construction was blamed, leading to a scandal.
Since that event, fifteen years past, the derelict building had remained empty, reputedly haunted by the ghosts of outraged proctors and bewildered hall monitors.
The purchase price had been suitably modest.
The upper levels directly above the main assembly hall were structurally compromised, and Bugg’s first task had been to oversee the installation of bracing, before the crews could re-excavate the pit down to the cellar floor. Once that floor was exposed – and the jumble of bones dispatched to the cemetery – shafts were extended straight down, through lenses of clay and sand, to a thick bed of gravel. Cement was poured in and a ring of vertical iron rods put in place, followed by alternating packed gravel and cement for half the depth of the shaft. Limestone pillars, their bases drilled to take the projecting rods, were then lowered. From there on upwards, normal construction practices followed. Columns, buttresses and false arches, all the usual techniques in which Bugg had little interest.
The old school was being transformed into a palatial mansion. Which they would then sell to some rich merchant or noble devoid of taste. Since there were plenty of those, the investment was a sure one.
Bugg spent a short time at the site, surrounded by foremen thrusting scrolls in his face describing countless alterations and specifications requiring approval. A bell passed before he finally managed to file his drawings and escape.
The street that became the road that led to the gravel quarry was a main thoroughfare wending parallel with the canal. It was also one of the oldest tracks in the city. Built along the path of a submerged beach ridge of
