The Witness for the Dead

by Katherine Addison

  “Thou needst not,” I said. The blush was scalding in my face. “I have no desire to be eaten by a ghoul. I promise thee I will be careful.”

  Anora gave me a dubious look over his spectacles, which as always had slid to the end of his nose. “See that thou art. And come see me when thou returnest. I should like to hear about this ghoul.”

  “I will,” I promised. “Let us hope that my story is very boring.”

  Anora smiled. “I admit to a fondness for boring stories. Be safe, Thara.”

  * * *

  I packed as lightly as I could for a trip into the mountains. After considerable thought, I left my silk coat of office hanging in its place by the door. Travel was going to be rough, and there was no telling what hunting this ghoul might entail.

  Well before dawn, I joined the train of Oshenar and Puledra’s dry goods caravan to Tanvero. The caravan guards, goblins all, were flatteringly pleased to see me. They, too, had heard about the ghoul. They asked me if I preferred to ride on horseback or in a wagon, and I was torn, knowing that I was not horseman enough for two days’ ride in bad terrain, but also knowing that the wagons’ progress would be slow and bone-jarring. Honesty forced me into the wagons, where I at least was able to find some cushioning among the bolts of cloth.

  The wagon driver was a middle-aged woman named Csano, who promised she’d give me as smooth a journey as possible. She talked cheerfully and inconsequentially about her family, mostly her married daughter and her daughter’s two small sons. She sounded far more like a family friend than a doting grandmother, but she was a good storyteller. She said when I asked that she had taken over the wagon when her husband died, “and that was when my daughters were only a little older than my grandsons are now. I was fortunate that my sisters were unmarried and were willing to join my household.”

  “You haven’t remarried?”

  “I don’t have the time,” said Csano. “And time is what it would take to find a man who wouldn’t try to assume that my wagon and my money belonged to him. No, I thank you, I prefer to be Widow Tolinbaran and keep control of my house.”

  “Did your son-in-law marry in, then?” I said, surprised. That was something that happened occasionally among the noble houses, but not to my knowledge among the working people of Amalo.

  “He was a foundling,” said Csano. “He had to marry in if he was going to marry at all.”

  Foundlings were far less uncommon in Amalo, but they were usually taken in as servants, not as husbands.

  “It was the scandal of the neighborhood,” Csano said, laughing, and proceeded to tell me stories of her daughter’s wedding until I almost felt that I had been there.

  The roads to Tanvero were every bit as bad as I had expected. In the hotel that night, a tiny establishment that existed only because it was halfway between Amalo and Tanvero, I lay in bed and swore I could feel every separate bone throbbing. I was sharing the bed with a caravan guard named Suru. He was from one of the coastal cities far to the south, and his Ethuverazhin, while better than my Barizhin, wasn’t very good. But he was good-natured and apologized for taking up so much of the bed. I said that at six-foot-seven, there wasn’t much he could do about it, and he laughed.

  In truth, there was something pleasant about having another body in the bed. It evoked old, dim memories of comfort. And Suru did not snore. I did not sleep well or deeply, but it was better than no sleep at all.

  Csano waved me back to her wagon in the morning. I settled among the big bolts of calico as best I could and listened with a pleasure I couldn’t define to Csano’s stories of her sisters and her two unmarried daughters, one of whom, it turned out, was a member of the chorus for the Parav’opera in the city’s westernmost district, Paravi. It took only a question to get Csano telling her daughter Soviro’s stories about the Parav’opera.

  The Parav’opera did not have a house composer, and I began to understand why Pel-Thenhior was given so much leeway. He was a valuable commodity, especially since he had produced successful operas before (two of them, as I had learned from the Vermilion Opera’s singers: The Empress of Ravens and The Zolshenada), and if he chose to go elsewhere, he would be welcomed.

  “How many opera companies have composers? Successful composers, I mean.”

  “I have no idea, othala. You should talk to Soviro. She knows more about opera in Amalo than any three people. She’s learning the music for as many operas as she can. She says if she ever wants to do better than the Parav’opera, she needs to be prepared.”

  “Does she want to do better?”

  “She has her eye on the Amal’opera, but there’s nothing she can do about it until there’s an opening, which she says doesn’t happen very often, and then you’ve got all the opera singers in Amalo vying for that one spot. I’m not sure what kind of chance she has, to be honest, but I’m not going to tell her not to try.”

  She went on, but for a few moments, I barely heard her. Min Shelsin had wanted a place at the Amal’opera. Pel-Thenhior didn’t think she had a chance, but what if someone else thought differently? What if some other singer thought Min Shelsin was competition that needed to be eliminated?

  Therefore they decoyed her down to the Mich’maika and threw her in the canal? That seemed overelaborate—unless the competitor was a singer at the Prince Orchena Opera, the new opera theater built in honor of Prince Orchenis’s father (and already being shortened to the Orchen’opera). It was on the northern shore of the lake, where the wealthy bourgeoisie and the lesser nobility had their summer houses, and it was making the area around it extremely fashionable. A mid-soprano there might well be able to persuade Min Shelsin to a meeting on the south bank of the canal.

  But a meeting alone with a mid-soprano was not a meeting that was going to end with Min Shelsin dying in the Mich’maika. I thought again about hired help or a co-conspirator, but it suddenly seemed too far-fetched—this hypothetical mid-soprano hiring someone to kill Min Shelsin for being competition for an even more hypothetical position with the Amal’opera—and my theory collapsed like a gelatin mold disturbed too soon.

  * * *

  In the late afternoon, we reached Tanvero, where a delegation of concerned citizens waited, having been informed by courier that Prince Orchenis was sending me. Like most of the people of the Mervarnens, they were of mixed heritage, some of their ancestors being the elves native to the mountains and some of them the goblins who had come north to prospect for gold and had stayed when they found the trade in furs. Their skin ranged in color from black to white, and their eyes were all hues from gray to brilliant crimson. They were all very frightened.

  They had brought rolls stuffed with cheese and a jug of cider, and they did not mind my eating while we talked. I was too hungry to balk at being ill-mannered, for I found it impossible to eat while the wagon was moving, and breakfast had been at dawn.

  The mayor, tall and stout, ash-gray with muddy brownish-red eyes, said, “Othala, we thank you for coming. The letter from His Highness says you have experience of ghouls?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Our previous prelacy was in the plains to the west, where ghouls are very common. How long has this one been walking, do you know?”

  They glanced at each other, and finally a matron, dark-skinned and light-eyed like Anora, said, “It’s at least two months since Keveris started finding disturbed graves.”

  “At least?” I said.

  The othas’ala, elderly, elven, somewhat stooped, and wringing his hands in distress, said, “We have discovered that our cemetery caretaker has been delinquent in his duties.”

  “Blind stinking drunk,” said one of the other citizens, only just audibly.

  “Thus,” said the othas’ala, ignoring the interruption, “we cannot be sure how long it was before he thought to notify anyone.”

  “We trust something has been done about this situation,” I said, ice starting to crawl up my spine. The longer a ghoul was allowed to continue feeding, the likelier it was to start attackin
g the living, but also the stronger it became and the harder it was to find its name and thus quiet it.

  “Oh yes,” said the mayor. “We have a new caretaker.”

  “Good. Have there been any instances of this ghoul attacking people?”

  There was an exchange of uneasy glances. “Not that we know of,” said the mayor, and I disliked his emphasis on know. “But there are many outlying homesteads and trappers’ camps, and we have no way of checking on all of them.”

  “So that it could have,” I said.

  No one answered.

  The ice around my spine was getting thicker. “Is it likely?”

  An elderly elven citizen, who hadn’t spoken before, cleared his throat. “As best we can tell, the ghoul comes from Irmezharharee,” and he pointed roughly east. “There are any number of trappers who work the forests east of Tanvero, so I think we must say that if the creature has developed a taste for living flesh, it would have found easy targets.”

  “Osmer Thilmerezh is a historian,” the mayor said, although he did not sound entirely happy about it.

  Osmer Thilmerezh made a dismissive noise and said, “Osmer Thilmerezh is an exile who has taken up history to keep from perishing of boredom. But that’s beside the point. Othala Celehar’s question is, how dangerous do we believe this ghoul to be? Unfortunately, I believe the answer is, quite.”

  “We don’t know that!” the mayor said, as if uncertainty made things better.

  Osmer Thilmerezh merely rolled his eyes.

  “Has it been seen?” I asked. “Any sightings at all?”

  “Keveris says he saw it,” said the matron.

  “Keveris would say anything to prove he isn’t a drunkard,” said the othas’ala with unexpected venom.

  “No one has gone looking for it,” said Osmer Thilmerezh. “We sent a message to Amalo instead.”

  “Athru—the new caretaker—has found its leavings,” said the mayor.

  “May we speak to Athru?” I said.

  All of them except Osmer Thilmerezh looked surprised, but the mayor said, “Of course. He’s working in the Clenverada Mining Company Cemetery today.”

  “How many cemeteries does Tanvero have?” I said.

  “Too many,” said Osmer Thilmerezh. “Too many mining accidents—although Irmezharharee was originally for plague victims.”

  That was a cheerful thought. I said, “Might someone take us to the Clenverada Mining Company Cemetery?”

  There was a strange, unhappy silence.

  I said cautiously, “Unless there is something else you think we need to know?”

  This time, the silence seemed almost guilty. Finally, the matron said, “The Ulineise prelate of Tanvero, Othala Perchenzar, argued very vehemently against sending a message of distress to Amalo.”

  “Does he not believe the ghoul is a problem?” I asked incredulously.

  “No, it’s not that,” the matron said, but then seemed unable to explain further.

  Osmer Thilmerezh said, “He believes we have no need for outside help.”

  “Is he a Witness for the Dead?”

  “No,” said Osmer Thilmerezh.

  “Then…”

  “He has a book,” said Osmer Thilmerezh. “The author claims that anyone can quiet a ghoul.”

  That seemed an almost suicidal belief, and I had to bite my lip to keep from saying so.

  “We cannot find Othala Perchenzar,” said the mayor, “and we are very much afraid that he is attempting to prove his theory.”

  I censored my reaction carefully. These poor people already knew Othala Perchenzar was an idiot; there was no need for me to say so. I said, “Well, there’s very little damage he can do before sundown, and we think the more important thing is to find and quiet the ghoul. If he succeeds, we will congratulate him.”

  “There’s no chance he’s right, though, is there?” said the matron.

  “We do not believe so,” I said apologetically. “Unless his book can teach him another way to find a ghoul’s name.”

  “No,” said Osmer Thilmerezh. “For we looked at it, when he was making his arguments. It is specious nonsense.”

  “So we feared,” I said. Then, more briskly, “We would speak to Athru first.”

  The mayor nodded and gestured to the two young goblin men talking to the caravan master. One of them came over, and the mayor tasked him with taking me to the Clenverada Mining Company Cemetery to find Athru.

  “Of course,” the young man said.

  The cemetery was a brisk ten-minute walk from the town square. The young goblin man, whose name was Tana, proved to have better sources of information than those who had greeted me. He knew two people who had seen the ghoul. “Only at a distance, mind you.”

  “That’s the best way to see a ghoul,” I said, making him laugh. “Was it still in Irmezharharee?”

  “No,” said Tana. “It has traveled south, for they saw it in the Old Town Cemetery along the South Road.”

  “The Old Town Cemetery?”

  “They didn’t plan for Tanvero to grow as much as it has, and the space in the old cemetery was used up almost fifty years ago.”

  “Do people still tend the graves?”

  “Oh yes,” said Tana. “Othala Perchenzar is most emphatic about that.”

  “Good,” I said, and was relieved that the missing prelate showed at least some sparks of intelligence.

  The Clenverada Mining Company Cemetery was laid out in a neat grid with square, identical gravestones. We found Athru, elven white with goblin red eyes, weeding one of the paths that split the cemetery into quarters. He was profoundly grateful to learn that I was the Witness for the Dead and willingly told me all he knew about the ghoul.

  It wasn’t a great deal. Athru had found disturbed graves in Irmezharharee, and he confirmed, his expression pained, that the graves’ occupants had definitely been mauled by something—something he knew was two-legged, for it left footprints in the freshly disturbed dirt.

  He didn’t know of any trouble in other cemeteries, but his work took him in a counterclockwise circle around the center of Tanvero, first north of Irmezharharee, then west, while if my information was correct, the ghoul had headed south.

  I asked him about what lay to the south of the city; he named several cemeteries and added, “Most of the farms are to the south.”

  I remembered the isolated farms I had seen from Csano’s wagon.

  I had another question: “How long do you think this ghoul has been awake?”

  Athru hesitated.

  “I don’t care about Keveris,” I said.

  “I would think three months. It is strong enough to push aside a slab stone. I suspect, othala, that it did not rise in Irmezharharee, but in one of the tiny trappers’ cemeteries further east—the cemeteries that the town of Tanvero doesn’t even know about, much less maintain. Many trappers, too, are Vikhelneisei, and believe that their names are known to the gods and therefore they cannot become ghouls.”

  I nodded wearily. The Vikhelneisei were uniformly hostile to Witnesses for the Dead, believing that our work was nothing but profanation. “The grave might not have had a headstone at all.”

  Athru said, “It is possible, othala.”

  “Thank you,” I said, and he looked like he wanted to pat me on the shoulder.

  Athru walked back to town with us and told me more about the cemeteries of Tanvero, from the ornate New Cemetery to the tiny family cemeteries that might hold no more than two or three graves. “Osmer Thilmerezh will tell you that this region has a long history of religious independence.”

  “Stubborn as mules,” Tana said cheerfully.

  “So we’ve never had a single, unified ulimeire,” Athru continued. “It makes Othala Perchenzar mad as fire, and he condemns Othala Dathenchar and Othala Monmara as vagabonds.”

  “That’s a harsh word,” I said, surprised. It implied that they were frauds, without either a genuine calling or a mandate from the Archprelate.

 
“Othala Perchenzar is very harsh,” Athru said feelingly.

  “The mayor thinks he has gone to try to quiet the ghoul,” I said.

  Neither Athru nor Tana seemed shocked by this idea. Athru said, “He has been saying there is no need for a Witness for the Dead to anyone who will listen. He and Mer Halvernarad nearly came to blows.”

  “I would have paid to see it,” Tana said. “Mer Halvernarad is the president of the Blacksmiths’ Guild.”

  “I am glad no one listened to Othala Perchenzar,” I said.

  “Othala Perchenzar has never seen a ghoul—or what’s left when one finds a living victim,” Athru said. “I have, when I was a boy in Mesivo, which was a logging camp about twenty miles north of here.” He shuddered. “We were all Vikhelneisei until that.”

  “Vikhelno wrote far to the south, where there are no ghouls,” I said. “He could afford to call them folktales to suit his anticlericalism. But I am always surprised at how popular his teachings are in the north.”

  “You would think people would know better,” said Tana.

  Osmer Thilmerezh was still sitting in the town square when we reached it. I could not judge his age well enough to tell if he might have been exiled by Edrehasivar’s grandfather, Varevesena, but most likely he was another victim of Varenechibel IV, who was popularly reputed to exile anyone who annoyed him.

  Osmer Thilmerezh waved, and I went to join him on the steps of the stolid brick town hall.

  “Othala Celehar,” he said, “what can we do to help you?”

  It was nice to have someone ask. I said, “It seems likely that the ghoul is somewhere south of Tanvero. We need a powerful lantern and it would help to have a couple of strong men with shovels. We’ll want to bury it where it falls.”

  Tana, who had followed me over, said, “Vera and Valta would help willingly.”

  “They assist Athru in digging graves,” said Osmer Thilmerezh. “That’s a good idea, Tana. Will you go ask them?”

  “Of course,” said Tana, and loped off.

  Osmer Thilmerezh said, “South is an unfortunate direction.”