AN APPOINTMENT WITH AGEMON

As it turned out, Karigan did not have enough time to take a bath, but settled for splashing freezing water from her basin onto her face and changing into a dry, clean uniform. She considered taking one of her swords along to prove to Agemon she really was a swordmaster and approved by the Weapons, but she remembered how, when last he had seen her, she and the Weapons had deceived him into believing she was a Weapon by doing nearly the same thing. Brienne had garbed her in black and lent her a sword with its swordmaster’s silk so she could enter the tombs without any complaint from Agemon. Having a sword along with her, with its black silk band, would not impress him this time around.

She started when a knock came upon the door. She was relieved to find Brienne without, as she had been wondering how she was supposed to find her way to Agemon.

“Ready for your appointment?” Brienne asked.

Karigan grabbed her longcoat and nodded.

“What? No sword?”

“We’re just going into the tombs, aren’t we?”

“Yes,” Brienne said, “but you are a swordmaster and honorary Weapon now.”

“Does that mean I have to carry my sword all the time?”

“Not all the time, but certainly when you are on duty.”

That, Karigan thought, was going to get tedious. She glanced at both swords, wondering which to wear.

“You could carry both,” Brienne said, following her gaze, “as the First Rider once did.”

“I don’t think so.” People would assume she was overcompensating or something. She decided on her new saber. She’d had time with the longsword last night, and it would be good to get acquainted with the saber.

“How many swords do you have?” Karigan asked Brienne.

The Weapon started counting on her fingers and gave up. “Several. Some for practice only, or ceremonies. I have also collected a few antiques that are for display. There are several others that I actively use.”

“I see.”

With that, they were off. The weight of the new saber actually felt good and proper against her hip, much the same as her old one, but it hadn’t the history, the heritage, nor had it been proven in battle. The new one had not belonged to someone else before, and she guessed she’d have to give it a history of its own.

Brienne led her to the royal wing.

“I thought we were going to the tombs.”

“We are.”

Damnation. When they’d entered the royal wing, Karigan had felt the slightest kernel of hope they would not be entering the tombs, after all. They made her skin crawl, all those halls of the dead. Alas, it seemed the more she wished to avoid the tombs, the more she was drawn into them. She could not escape them. And what in five hells did Agemon want with her, anyway?

Brienne led her down stairs, where they came to a wide arched door with bas relief carvings of the gods above it, most prominently Westrion riding his steed, Salvistar. Another Weapon stood on guard at the door.

“This is Scotty,” Brienne said, “newly come to us from the Forge. Scotty, this is Sir Karigan.”

The fresh-faced young man gave her a half-bow. “It is an honor,” he said. “I have heard about your feats, Sir Karigan, and congratulate you on your swordmastery.”

“Thank you.”

“You are most welcome.”

He was very formal, but Weapons tended to be, and perhaps because he was fresh from the Forge, he was even more so.

“Sir Karigan has an appointment with Agemon,” Brienne said. “She has not entered the tombs through the royal chapel before.”

So, Brienne had brought her to the royal chapel of the moon . . . She’d entered the tombs through other entrances, but not this one, though her first time in the tombs, she had exited from a commoner chapel within the castle.

“How many entrances are there?” Karigan asked.

“This has the same entrance as the commoner chapel,” Brienne replied. She patted the wall behind her where the corridor ended. “It’s just on the other side of this wall.”

Karigan noticed the Weapon had evaded the question about the number of entrances. Her honorary status as a Weapon only went so far, apparently.

Scotty opened the door for them, and, inside, the chapel was quietly lit with candles. Like the commoner chapel, there was a coffin rest that also served as an altar, but that was where the similarity ended. Where the commoner chapel had been plain and furnished with only wooden benches, this one was carpeted with rich red pile. There were rows of plush chairs. The candlelight glinted on silver and gold vessels and metalwork. The walls were covered with tapestries, and the ceiling paintings depicted the gods in the heavens among the constellations.

“We rarely enter through the chapels if we can help it,” Brienne said, “in case there are parishioners within. We do not wish to disturb them. However, I thought you might like to see this one.”

On the opposite wall, there was a set of double doors. Brienne strode to them, knocked, and they opened into another chamber. When Karigan followed Brienne through the doorway, she remembered it with its big fireplace and the coffin rest. It was a sort of antechamber to the tombs.

“Ah, Sir Karigan,” said the Weapon, Lennir, who had let them in. “Good to see you again.”

“You, too.” She did tend to see rather less of the tomb guards than the Weapons who attended the king and queen. She turned around to face the way they had come in. Next to the doors of the royal chapel stood another set of doors. Those must lead into the commoner chapel.

“Do you remember this place?” Brienne asked.

“I do.” It had been the night of Prince Amilton’s coup attempt, and she, along with the king, Brienne, and others, had infiltrated the tombs via the Heroes Portal, passed through the avenues of the dead, to this chamber, and then exited through the chapel for commoners. The king had then led them through other secret ways to reach the throne room.

“It is a receiving room for the royal dead, a place where the family can mourn without their retinue watching on. Of course, most of the time it is a post for our Weapons. We take tea here, warm up by the fire. But come, Agemon will become agitated if we do not reach his office at the appointed time.”

They bade Lennir farewell and passed from the receiving room into a rotunda from which three corridors spoked. The way was brightly lit in all directions, the air cool and dry, with no scent of decay or must. Fresh air currents circulated throughout the tombs. They had been well built to preserve those who slept within, and to make them habitable for the caretakers. Statues of stern kings and queens in white marble stared down at them. Along the corridors lay the sarcophagi of the royal dead.

Karigan pulled her longcoat tighter about her, chilled as much by the atmosphere as by the natural coolness of the tombs.

Brienne struck off across the rotunda and into the corridor that lay straight ahead. Karigan was hard on her heels, not wishing to be left behind and alone. The corridor was wide with lamps aglow on the walls. The sarcophagi were precisely spaced, but not all were alike. Lifelike effigies reclined on some of the lids, while others held no figures at all. The iconography was either of the gods, or showed scenes from that monarch’s life. The small sarcophagi saddened Karigan, for they contained children. A wooden toy horse was placed atop the tomb of one small prince.

In other parts of the tombs there were burial chambers that were much more extravagant. One queen lay in a reproduction of the bed chamber she’d slept in during her life, and was read to each night by a caretaker. There were chapels and libraries and sitting areas throughout that were rarely used, but nevertheless were well maintained for royals who had not wished to slumber through eternity without the comforts they had known in life, as well as for those who mourned them.

Brienne halted at one such sitting area, the stone walls covered by wood paneling and paintings of pleasant landscapes. A decanter of wine and goblets sat waiting on a table. Karigan supposed such spaces could be used by visiting family, but there were only Zachary and Estora in residence, and would they really visit all the dead, or just those they had known in life? She shuddered remembering there were already empty sarcophagi awaiting the king and queen.

To her surprise, Brienne stepped between a pair of chairs to reach the wood-paneled wall. She pressed something recessed into the ornate molding, and the wall opened inward into a narrower passage.

“What’s in there?” Karigan asked in surprise.

“The offices and workshops of the caretakers.”

Karigan thought it clever that the entrance was concealed within the wall. This way, the presence of the caretakers remained unobtrusive and allowed the tombs to retain their overwhelmingly sepulchral impact.

The corridor they entered was more utilitarian and not at all sepulchral. The doorways they passed opened into offices where people worked at desks doing who-knew-what. It reminded her very much of the administrative wing in the castle above. What in the tombs could require so much office work? She asked Brienne.

“The same as Green Riders, I would guess,” the Weapon replied. “The ordering of supplies, the keeping of accounts, the scheduling and oversight of all aspects of caretaker life. The tombs are almost a city unto themselves.”

It was so strangely ordinary, Karigan thought.

“Beyond the administrative area,” Brienne continued, “are the workshops of artisans who create and repair many objects in the tombs, including sarcophagi and statues. Many of the burial goods are very old and require special care, particularly textiles.”

The caretakers they encountered in the corridor gazed curiously at Karigan. “Have you brought us a new caretaker, Brienne?” a man asked.

Like all the caretakers Karigan had ever seen, his skin was smooth and pale from never having seen the sun, and he wore robes of muted gray.

“This is Sir Karigan,” Brienne replied, “a Green Rider and honorary Weapon. She has freedom of passage.”

The man bowed. “Welcome, Sir Karigan.”

“Thank you.”

As they continued on, Brienne said in a hushed voice, “A green uniform is a novelty down here, but most will know who you are and that you are not trespassing, and that this isn’t your first time here. Ah, here we are.”

They halted at a door, and Brienne knocked and entered. Agemon’s office was not large for all that he was the chief caretaker, but it was crammed with books and scrolls of all sizes, and broken bits of sculpture. Paintings on the walls depicted ocean and forest scenes, almost as if they were windows into the outer world, one he had never seen.

Across his desk lay what appeared to be a schematic of the tombs. Karigan gazed curiously at it, but it looked very complex. He rolled it up before she could make sense of it.

“Greetings, Agemon,” Brienne said. “I have brought Sir Karigan as you requested.”

“You are late,” he replied in the querulous voice Karigan remembered well. His specs slid down to the end of his nose. Though his long hair was gray, it was difficult to judge his age with his smooth skin. His manner, however, indicated someone in his elder years.

“Not by much,” Brienne replied. “I’ll wait outside.”

“No, no you will not,” Agemon said. “What I ask this—this green may be useful for your ears, as well. What is this world coming to that Black Shields are bringing green into the silent halls?”

“You know, Agemon, that Sir Karigan is our sister-at-arms.”

“Yes, yes, but to me it has no meaning. You Black Shields are turning the world upside down. What is it coming to? ‘Here, Agemon, translate this. Here, Agemon, translate that.’ The Silverwood book, you remember? It left me in the ward of the death surgeons for an entire week. An entire week!”

“I remember,” Brienne replied, “but it is the king who requested these things of you.”

“Yes, yes, His Majesty. Then I am set to impossible tasks. Seek and find. Does he realize how great this domain of the sleeping is?”

“I think he has some idea.” Brienne’s tone was placating, and Karigan knew she had to deal frequently with him. “Can’t you get anyone to help you?”

“I do have scholars assisting with the translations of the Green Rider material.” He looked pointedly at Karigan. “But this . . . this cryptic thing, this dragonfly device I am to seek in the vastness of these halls . . . Do you know how many objects, how many artifacts lie hidden here?”

“Yes, Agemon,” Brienne replied. “Why don’t you tell us why you wished to see Sir Karigan.”

He peered through his specs at Karigan. “You,” he said. “You disrupt my tombs at every turn. You, you, you.”