The Witness for the Dead

by Katherine Addison

  We were silent for a long time, Chonhadrin no more inclined than I was to talk about the disaster of the Excellence of Umvino, wrecked before she ever left the ground. Around us, people were either silent or all but babbling, depending on how tragedy took them. Finally, Chonhadrin said, “How many people do you think…?”

  “How many people would have been in the hangar?”

  “Lots of people will come by for a floating,” she said, and swallowed hard. “And all the people who were just working. A couple hundred?”

  “At least half of them are dead,” I said, and wished I could say it gently. “And probably half of those who are left will be dead by morning.”

  “Goddesses of mercy,” she said. “Have you seen many disasters, othala?”

  “There was a manufactory fire when I was in my first prelacy. It was worse than this.” She looked like she wanted to argue; I said, “No one got out.”

  It was almost as if I’d spoken a cue in an opera; an elven Ulineise novice came up to our table, his shaved scalp streaked with the same soot that covered Chonhadrin and me. He clasped his hands and nodded politely and said, “Pardon, othala, but are you Thara Celehar?”

  “We are,” I said.

  “Would you come with us? Othalo Zanarin has need of a Witness for the Dead.”

  That boded ill. I said, “Of course,” gulped the last of my tea, and said, “Thank you, Min Chonhadrin.”

  “I don’t at all know what for,” she said, “but you’re welcome.”

  The novice and I went back outside, where matters had not improved. He led me to an area quite near the still burning hangar, where Zanarin was standing over a line of bodies so burned they were almost unrecognizable as bodies.

  “Othalo,” I said.

  She gave me a cold, dismissive look. “We think one of these men caused the explosion,” she said. “We need to know what happened.”

  “Does it matter?” I said. “It was a terrible accident. Surely that is enough.”

  She glared at me. “We had heard that you were inclined to take your duties lightly, Mer Celehar, but it is one thing to be told and quite another to see for oneself.”

  She was all but daring me to take offense at her rudeness, but I knew she wanted to make me start the argument about rank again—an argument she could then sanctimoniously chide me for starting in the face of a tragedy like this one. “Very well,” I said. “We will try.”

  I knelt down in the mud, trying futilely not to breathe in the scent of burned flesh, began the prayer of compassion for the dead, and touched the forehead of the first man in the line.

  A second later, I all but fell down scrambling back away from him and the memories of his death. “It’s too close,” I said, and disliked the hitch in my own voice. “He’s only been dead a matter of hours. It’s too close.”

  Othalo Zanarin stared at me, her mouth a close, flat line and her eyes bright with disgust or anger or disbelief. I realized, with the detachment of a lunatic, that my hair was coming out of its braid, as it always did; between that and the mud and soot on my shabby clothes and the way I was crouched there, trembling, I thought I must look like a lunatic, newly escaped from the Csaiveise hospice in the Tenemora district.

  I stood up, got out my handkerchief, which was already streaked with soot and blood, and began carefully cleaning the dead man off my fingers. “We are sorry,” I said to Othalo Zanarin, “but we cannot help you.”

  “Cannot?” she said. “Will not, more like. We expected very little from you, Mer Celehar, but we certainly did not expect that you would run away like a cowardly little boy.”

  I kept my attention on my handkerchief until I was sure I would not yell at her. Then I looked up, meeting the bright hatred in her eyes, and said, “It was foolish of us to try. Now, our duty lies with those who are not yet dead, and we think yours does as well.”

  I went back to the rows of the wounded, where there were more Csaiveise clerics working. One of them said, “Othala, you come in good time. Will you help me here?”

  “Yes,” I said, and knelt down beside him. Where Othalo Zanarin went, I neither knew nor cared.

  * * *

  I made it home, lurching like a drunk with exhaustion, sometime well after midnight but before the sky started to lighten toward dawn. I did not try to sleep, but folded down in front of my michenmeire and prayed. I prayed for the dead and for the living. I prayed for the acceptance of death and grief. I even selfishly asked Ulis to guard me against the dreams I knew I would have, old dreams of the Carlinar Manufactory fire, new dreams of the Excellence of Umvino. I did not expect Ulis to answer this prayer—he never had before and I knew what my masters from my novitiate would have said about personal weaknesses—but I still felt better for having asked.

  At dawn I went to the public baths to wash the soot and smoke and stench of death out of my hair. Then I went to the Hanevo Tree and ordered the strongest tea they had, a kolveris that could be used to strip paint. I even, though reluctantly, managed to eat a scone. Thus fortified, I went to the Prince Zhaicava Building and my cold office and my post and the howling chaos of the newspapers.

  Goronezh had found me, sometime after I left Zanarin. He was covered in soot and one hand was wrapped in a rough bandage; he had not been there merely to ask questions. I liked him better for it, and when he said, “Othala, what happened here?” I noticed that he wasn’t holding his notebook, pencil poised for my answer. He was just asking.

  I said, “Nobody knows for sure, but I think it was an accident. Eisonsar is dreadfully easy to detonate.”

  “Then this could happen to any airship? Blessed goddesses, how horrible.” And then he affirmed my good opinion of him by asking, “Othala, do you need any help here?”

  I did not, but I had no difficulty in pointing him to someone who did.

  The Arbiter’s story on the Excellence of Umvino was the most rational of the three, although all of them were laced through with the wildest of speculations. Everyone was thinking of the Wisdom of Choharo and the Curneisei and, like Zanarin, looking for evidence that this was more of the same.

  But it wasn’t. The Curneisei—even if there were any of them left who knew how to build their exploding devices—wouldn’t have set one of them to kill only workers. They would have had a target, and there weren’t any in that hangar. Just people, many of whom were probably Curneisei themselves.

  All three papers printed lurid stories, better suited to cheap novels than real life, about me “taming” the Hill of Werewolves (stories I could only pray that no one believed), but none of them was on the front page, and I could hope that readers would overlook them.

  My morning brought two petitioners I could not help. It was not conversations that I had with the dead; it was a fading series of images of the things they had valued in life. I could form a question. Where is the will? was the most common, but I had heard everything from Who is the baby’s father? to What are we to do about Grandmama? But anything more complicated than that—any time more than a week or two after the death—and I was useless. At noon, because I had no better answer, I went home, and there I found a letter waiting for me in the post.

  It was addressed to THARA CELEHAR in a crisp, impatient hand, and the first thing I did when I opened it was to look at the bottom for the signature.

  Ediro Zanarin.

  My hands went cold, and I reluctantly began to read the letter. It was brief, as crisp and impatient as her handwriting. It said that the bodies from the Excellence of Umvino had been laid out in the Amal-Athamareise Ashenavo Trincsiva’s Second Production Hangar, where she required my presence as soon as I received this letter. Her authority, shown by her signet, came not from the Ulistheileian, but from the Amalomeire. Unless I wanted to try to argue that the Amalomeire had no authority over me—an argument I would never win—I had to comply. I remembered seeing her in the Amalomeire, and now I wondered if she had been there on her own business, not on Vernezar’s. Certainly, she had gained th
e Amal’othala’s favor in some manner—and persuaded him that this investigation was necessary.

  I took the tram south again to the A3 Works stop. From there, it wasn’t difficult to find the Second Production Hangar—it loomed over the surrounding buildings like a captive moon—and as I got closer I saw signs of some of the same grim activity as yesterday. At the incongruously small door in the side wall of the hangar, a nervous Ulineise novice stopped me. I showed him Othalo Zanarin’s letter, and he immediately and with some alarm directed me to the far end of the hangar, where Othalo Zanarin was arguing with one of the judicial Witnesses vel ama about jurisdiction.

  It was a very long walk, although I knew it could have been worse. The hangar wasn’t quite half full of bodies, making this a smaller disaster than some I had seen in Lohaiso (so much smaller than the Carlinar fire), and every corpse had been laid out cleanly and wrapped in linen so that the terrible evidence of burning was hidden as one passed. But there were still too many of them, and the linen could do nothing about the smell.

  As I started between the rows of bodies, Zanarin looked around and saw me, and she and the judicial Witness watched in silence as I approached them.

  I had lived in my cousin Csoru’s household and had survived audiences with the emperor. I was proof against efforts to stare me out of countenance. Also, I realized as I came closer that I knew the judicial Witness, Zhodeän Parmorin, and respected her, which made me feel that it might not be two against one after all.

  “Mer Celehar,” said Zanarin. “We appreciate your presence.”

  “Othalo Zanarin,” I said. “We have come as asked.”

  Her close-set eyes were hard granite gray. She said, “The Amal’othala insists that you truly speak with the dead, and if that is true, we have need of your skills.”

  “The Amal’othala is right,” said Witness Parmorin, and they glared at each other, ears flat against their skulls.

  Witness Parmorin turned to me, bowing slightly, and said, “Othala Celehar, we are the Witness for the Excellence of Umvino. We will help your investigation in any way we can.”

  “Our investigation,” said Zanarin.

  “We do not entirely understand,” I said hastily, “what you are investigating. The Excellence of Umvino’s destruction surely does not need—”

  “You persist in the belief it was an accident,” Zanarin said.

  “Othala Celehar is most likely correct,” Parmorin said.

  “You can’t know that yet,” said Zanarin.

  “Not for certain, but we know how airship accidents happen,” said Parmorin. “This is not the first airship we have witnessed for.”

  That was an awful thought. “Have you found anything to suggest it wasn’t an accident?”

  “No,” said Parmorin.

  “Your investigation is hardly complete,” said Zanarin.

  “Which is why we are continuing to investigate,” Parmorin said. “But we do not think it is necessary for the Amalomeire to send a Witness for the Dead unless we find something that suggests one of the dead might have answers.”

  “We have no wish to intrude on your investigation, Witness Parmorin,” I said, since it was clear Zanarin was doing exactly that.

  Zanarin turned on me, as fast and sharp as a snake striking and with such cold, scornful anger that I nearly went back a pace. “We would have thought that you of all people would understand the necessity of investigating such ‘accidents.’”

  I could hear envy, that gnawing rat, in her voice; she was one of the many who thought that a disgraced prelate was not a suitable person to uncover Varenechibel’s murderers. I had seen that look repeatedly when I first came to Amalo—I believed it was the root of Subpraeceptor Azhanharad’s dislike of me—but it never failed to dismay me.

  I stammered a little, but managed to regroup. “But … but surely it would make more sense to wait for the results of Witness Parmorin’s investigation?”

  Zanarin said, “You are assuming that the evidence will be something Witness Parmorin can find.”

  Behind her, Parmorin was glaring cold murder, but said nothing.

  “Come,” Zanarin said impatiently. “We have a great deal of work to do.”

  * * *

  Zanarin stood over me all afternoon as we moved up and down the rows of linen-wrapped bodies. She insisted that we stop at each one, that we interrogate each body with the same questions—and I supposed, under a drearily pounding headache, that I might have admired her persistence were it not that Parmorin and I had both told her it would be better to wait, and she refused to believe it. She refused to believe anything that contradicted the idea that the explosion had been deliberate and purposeful, and perhaps more importantly, that she could find answers where Parmorin could not.

  I could guess why. Zanarin was ambitious—that much was plain to be seen—and she had made a bold move in going over Vernezar’s head to seek power directly from the Amal’othala. If she was to keep that power, she had to make this investigation worthwhile. And to make this investigation worthwhile, she had to find evidence of malice. She had in fact placed herself in an ugly bind, for if we did not find evidence of malice (and I thought it almost certain we would not), she would have alienated both the Amal’othala and Dach’othala Vernezar, and her power would have crumbled to nothing like ashes in her hands.

  I was grateful when Parmorin came over to argue with her and I could rest for a moment. I paid little heed to their argument—for I knew already the sides and rhetoric—merely stood and tried not to think of the horrible deaths these poor workers had died. The smell of burned flesh was in my hair and clothes, and I knew it would follow me into my dreams, if I could sleep at all.

  Zanarin and Parmorin’s voices were rising. I shook my head sharply and said, “We gain nothing by arguing.”

  “We are not arguing,” Parmorin said hotly. “Othalo Zanarin is questioning our scholarship.”

  Something only a fool or a zealot would do. By the cold scowl on Zanarin’s face, she was no fool. “We do not question your scholarship,” she said. “We question the scope of your investigation.”

  “You are chasing shadows, and so our report will say.”

  “You will look a fool when the truth emerges,” Zanarin said, openly scornful, and Parmorin began to turn a slow, deep, brick red. “We will not turn aside so lightly.”

  “Othalo Zanarin—” I started, but she talked right over me.

  “We will examine every body and we will find the truth your witnessing cannot.”

  Every body? We were less than halfway done, if that was her goal.

  “You will find nothing,” said Parmorin, turned on her heel, and walked away.

  “Othalo Zanarin,” I said again, more forcefully. “The Witness is right. If she finds no evidence of malice, we will not find any in this endless questioning.”

  She turned her scowl on me. “We are well aware of your opinion. We do not share it. We think there is every likelihood that one of these corpses holds an answer that Witness Parmorin’s wreckage does not.” Her mouth crimped, although I could hardly call it a smile. “We progress more slowly than we had anticipated. Come down here, and we will question these bodies before nightfall.”

  I was so relieved that she intended to stop at sundown that I followed her willingly, although I faltered a little when I saw she was walking toward the row of bodies that were most badly burned, the ones that had been closest to the explosions. The ones she had tried to make me read when they were still smoldering from the fire.

  “Come,” Zanarin said impatiently, and I knelt down beside the first body in the row.

  But all I could get from any of those seven blackened, twisted bodies was death. Nothing before the explosion, nothing to answer Zanarin’s question. “He doesn’t know,” I said again and again. “It’s no use asking, othalo. The answer isn’t there.”

  From the expression on her face, I was afraid she did not believe me, but at least she did not accuse me to my
face of lying. Instead, she said with false patience, “It is late. We should stop for the night.” And try again tomorrow, was the implied threat, but I was so grateful for the word “stop” that I did not care.

  I fled from her—I could call it nothing else—down the length of the hangar and past the novice still standing guard at the door. I did not see Chonhadrin until she said, “Othala Celehar?”

  I stopped and stared at her. “Min Chonhadrin? Were you looking for me?”

  “I was,” she said, “but they wouldn’t let me in the hangar. Do you have a moment?”

  “Of course,” I said reflexively, as I would have said to any parishioner who asked to speak to me.

  “I was wondering,” she said, but then stopped, frowning, and her ears dipped. “Are you all right? You look…”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “I have … a headache.”

  “Headache” was a kind word for a sensation like someone pounding roofing nails into the left side of my skull, one after the other.

  “You need tea,” said Chonhadrin decisively. “Come. We will go to my teahouse and have proper tea, and when was the last time you ate?”

  “This morning,” I said, and my stomach lurched at the thought of food. “But, Min Chonhadrin—”

  “Everyone just calls me Chonhadrin,” she said. “Comes with being an ashenin.”

  “You may call me Celehar,” I said. I would be glad not to have to listen for a title, for “mer” or “othala” (or the “osmer” I was technically entitled to, or had been before I was disowned). Just a name.

  “Celehar,” she said. “Come. The Pearl Dragon isn’t far, and their aikanaro is very good.”

  Aikanaro was not a tea I usually drank, but its gingery bite sounded suddenly terribly appealing. “All right,” I said.

  “Good.” She gave me a smile, although it looked like an effort.

  She led me through the growing dark to a teahouse with white fish scale clapboard. Inside I was startled by the mural of a white dragon that wrapped all the way around the room, both because it was extremely well-drawn to be a teahouse mural and because the dragon’s eyes seemed fixed on me in a most predatory manner. Dragons were popular in Amaleise folktales, supposed to have lived among the high peaks of the Mervarnens until they were killed for the veins of gold and silver that they guarded. It was a more heroic beginning than the Mervarneise mine companies deserved, with their greed and corruption and callous indifference to miners’ deaths, but I could certainly understand the desire for a better story.