Lila brought Malachi into the house, avoiding the closed, taped door, and said to Max's back, “This might be a bad moment but, Max, this is Mal, my partner. Work partner,” she added the last quickly at the end, not wanting any romantic puzzles leading Max to make some joke or other. “Mal, this is my sister, Maxine.”
Max turned around and leaned back on the counter, chopping board behind her and her paring knife dangling loosely from her fingers. Her kitchen presence was loose-limbed and deadly, in a quiet way. Lila wouldn't have wanted to be Max's sous-chef for anything. She always reminded Lila of Clint Eastwood when she was in her kitchen; languid self-possession, tough as nails. Lila used to envy her so much, she even felt it now. Inside her chest Tath snickered with recognition and she gave him an internal shove.
Max gave Malachi the once-over, leaving no doubt that he could be whatever he wanted as long as he understood that, in the kitchen, she was the king. King was the only word, not because Max did drag, but because she had that kind of authority. For a moment his natural jungle cat and her Clint-ness had a brief stare-down, fey to human and man to man. Then some barrier was passed. Mal made a minor tip of one shoulder and Max grinned with the left half of her mouth, arrogant and pleased.
She put the knife down and came forward to offer him a garlicky hand. His nostrils twitched but he took it without flinching. Lila knew how much he hated having clinging odours on him, so it was a mark of major approval on his part. She sighed, not even knowing until then that she'd been holding her breath.
“I've been done over by one of your lot in the past,” Max said, as if she were making small talk. “So, just as a fair warning, and I'm not saying you will, but if you let anything happen to my sis, you're gonna be hamburger on my grill.”
Mal raised his eyebrows and grinned. “Pleasure.”
Max nodded, her eyes shrewd. “Always takin' it that you aren't responsible for everything else around here.”
“That was the elves,” Malachi said without a pause, dismissing the entire notion that faeries could be responsible for anything unfortunate. He sniffed, and Lila saw his glance flick to the pounds of ground meat waiting to be browned. “And the humans,” he added, his eyes roving over the rest of the room before going back to Max, but lower; he tended to look up at her with his chin down, Lila noticed.
Deference, Tath said.
Maybe you should come out too, Lila said.
Do you really think that would be wise ? Even your cat does not know me.
Mmn, Lila was suddenly unhappy at the idea of having secrets from Max, who would take it very badly if she knew. She wanted, needed, to have Max back on her side, where she belonged. But the elf's doubt was powerful, and she didn't say anything.
“Uh-huh.” Max had dismissed Malachi meanwhile and turned back to her work, picking up the big knife and starting to create hundreds of perfectly square tiny bits of onion. “I heard a lot about faeries they…” She hesitated and then ploughed on with determination, “…have a big presence in the hotelinos.”
Lila knew it was because the fey there were high rollers coming to cream the best of the luck, hotelino owners notorious for running untraceable scams, or call girls and boys offering special experiences for the endless supplies of tourists and businessman who made the industry run so hot. Whatever they did, they were better than the humans at the same game. It was a big sore point in the places Max worked. The only thing the fey weren't good on was cookery, but only because they had such varied tastes in food and most of them weren't acceptable to human palates or stomachs.
“That where you work?” Mal shrugged and made himself at home. He ripped a binliner out of a half-finished roll lying on the top of the refrigerator and started collecting up empty bottles and packets from their resting places all around. He glanced at the books on the table but only in passing, though Lila knew he'd be drinking in all the information about her family as if it were water.
“I was head of the kitchen at the Tropicana,” Max told him.
“Was?”
“Relationship trouble. Never date at work.”
Malachi grunted, momentarily poring over a folded issue of Bayside Bugle before stuffing it into his plastic sack.
Lila, not knowing what else to do, went to the cupboard under the sink and started to look for cleaning things. She was aware of Mal's expert forensic eyes and that they were probably reading a history of neglect here she wanted to wash away. Naturally, what sprays and detergents there were had either run out or crusted over entirely. The only clean cloth was a half a T-shirt balled up in a corner. Sponges and mops were balls of mouldy gruesomeness, stained and covered with ancient, congealed things. Dad never managed to finish a cleaning job. He just lost interest and threw things into the nearest hidey-hole.
She found herself crouched in the shadow of the open door by Max's legs, eyes prickling with tears, biting her lip. Max and Malachi had got into a casual get-to-know-you conversation that existed solely to keep everyone on an even emotional keel until they could get dinner over with. She ought to be participating to help things along. Lila bit her lips together even harder and reached behind the empty shoe polish containers to try and find any useful thing. She was momentarily surprised by a round dish of rat poison when the songs changed on the radio and suddenly she was surrounded by the funky, drum and bass hook of the No Shows' latest single.
She straightened up in surprise and hammered her head on the countertop. The tears she'd so successfully held back sprang forth and she was wiping them on the T-shirt when Malachi said artlessly, “Hey, this is Zal!”
“…I bring you back from the dead, So I can kill you again…”
Lila pressed the T-shirt against her face, trying not to breathe in. When she took it away she was able to straighten up and say, “Yeah.”
Malachi was unconsciously bopping to the beat as he continued his leisurely circuit of their unhygienic home life. “Didn't he write this about you, Li?”
“What?” Lila didn't think that was possible. She hadn't even known him long enough.
“They recorded it just before you left for the tour. A last-minute thing. Released it straight to download. He wrote it the first night after he met you. What? Didn't he tell you?”
“Mal, I need a word in private,” Lila said, without trying to sound annoyed. She gave him a look that said—should we really be talking about this in front of civilians? But Max was already half turned, her knife poised in midair…
“What else has been going on that I don't know about?” She looked incredulous. The No Shows were a popular band, comprising as many races and influences as they did. They were also the symbolic heart of the Otopian eclectic free-living culture, a reasonably sized social movement, which was nowhere bigger than it was on the Pacific Coastal Rim. Of course Max would have heard of them, whether she liked them or not. They were scene. Lila found herself opening and closing her mouth soundlessly like a fish.
“I still got tons of ammo and without even a scratch on my face…”
“It was part of a job, that's all,” Lila said, abandoning the cleaning idea and thrusting the T-shirt down into Malachi's binbag with a glare at his smouldering orange eyes.
“Uh-huh,” Max said, managing to make the sounds convey the impression that Lila had better spill the details now or later.
“Jobs are security protected,” Lila said, pointlessly, since Mal had already breached the rules so far they were squeaking for mercy. He hadn't ruffled a hair either, as though he didn't care. Maybe he didn't. She paused to ponder that as he continued his cleanup and went out to take the bag to the trash bin.
“That's why Cruella is staking out the house?” Max finished chopping and started cooking at the same time as she drew her conclusion; another pale rider-ism. She found a clean glass and poured a shot of wine into it, handing it to Lila who slugged most of it in one gulp. The dogs began to snore contentedly in their double basket on the outside porch. It was a peaceful afternoon, with the exception of the sealed room preying on Lila's attention, like an unexploded bomb whose detonator was hidden, timer unknown.
“You know,” Max stated, all her concentration apparently on her skillet, “it doesn't take a Sherlock to figure out that whatever's got her spooked is about Mom and Dad. And I bet you know what it is.”
Malachi reappeared at that moment and went to the sink to wash his hands. Lila ripped him a piece of kitchen towel silently and handed it over. “No I don't,” she said, noticing Malachi's ear tips twitching and knowing he'd heard enough to know what the conversation was about. She braced herself. “I was hoping we could find out before she comes back.”
“We need magical powers better than mine,” Malachi said, frowning as he wiped his hands clean, concentrating on every finger and nail. “Nec—” he began as Lila affirmed, “Necromancy.”
The two of them locked gazes for a moment and smiled.
“Yo what?” Max said, half-turning.
But Lila was fully focused on Malachi for the moment, her grief forgotten. Remembered important facts sprang to her head and straight out of her mouth as they entered one of those brief periods of perfectly tuned partner-function. “Max saw a demon that looked a lot like Teazle. Doesn't have to be him, though. And his talents don't stretch beyond sending people into death, far as I know. I don't think he brings them back.”
Malachi nodded. “Maybe coincidence. Lots of demons have similar colourings and shapes to the untutored eye. And no telling which of any of them is Teazle's form, since he can theoretically take any. Also, he seems to like you…” His lips curled into a snarl of disgust on the left side of his face, exposing his fang teeth. He screwed up the paper towel into a ball.
“…somethin' screechin' screamin' poppin' breathin' waitin' at the end of the hall…” Zal sang cheerfully from the radio.
“I am here. Feel free to fill me in, only I thought you said something about talking to and/or possibly raising the dead,” Max said, looking between them anxiously. Something spat in the fat behind her but she ignored it.
“I don't want to call anyone,” Lila said, holding Malachi's amber stare and willing him to know why, which he always seemed to do: she didn't trust anyone but him.
He dipped his chin half an inch in affirmation. “I don't know any deathtalkers. You got a plan?”
“Yeah,” Lila put her hand over her heart. “I got one. I investigate the scene and figure out whodunnit. Then we go fix that. During, or immediately after, that we find Zal before my ticket to prison in Demonia comes into force.” She held up the wrist with the shackle on it. “We also watch our backs for a deadhead demon and a shadowkin elf terrorista with a grudge. And possibly there might be some trouble from expired duel notices I got…I'm still not sure how they work. And then…”
The doorbell rang.
Malachi was looking at her with his lower jaw hanging slightly open. There was a smell of blackening onion.
Lila breezed on. “I'll get it, while you fill Max in on the details. We need somewhere safe for her to hide out,” she said, trusting Malachi to figure that out because she wasn't sure she could think of anywhere in the circumstances. She went out to reassure the dogs as they started barking, then locked them securely into the back porch.
Grudgingly, knowing it was dangerous because it linked her more comprehensively into the Incon networks, Lila set herself to one level below Battle Standard as she walked down the hall. She needed to get back to base and get information on this incident and other things, before they figured out she wasn't planning on collecting her retirement fund. That would need to be somewhere high and soon in the plan.
She scanned through the door and saw two figures, one tall and humanoid and one short with four legs. She opened it, her left hand hanging loosely in the relaxed state that allowed maximum reaction speed, ready to defend herself.
Teazle was standing there looking recognisable but peculiarly more human than last time, as if he'd been practising. He was smiling. In his hand was a lead, and on the end of the lead was a tan and white dog of nondescript breed with a fox's tail and husky ears, wagging.
“Okie!” she said in astonishment, bending down straight away to hug her dog.
Pleased yips and whines filled her ears for a minute, and a cold nose pushed at her neck through her hair. She looked up at the smiling demon who let the lead slip from his fingers as Okie shook himself and licked Lila's face.
“I'll be your dog,” he suggested, his pale eyes shining. “Even though you seem to leave us in care most of the time.”
From the back of the house Rusty and Buster barked harder.
“Where…how did you get him?” Lila asked, fussing Okie and ignoring Teazle's remark, mostly because she had no idea what to do with it.
“I'm very persuasive,” Teazle said, tossing his hair over his shoulder with a grade-A camp flip of his head. “Also, I paid the overdue fees and the bills for his shots. Haven't you ever heard of Direct Debit?”
Okie sniffed her all over, whining a little as he smelled things she assumed he didn't associate with her, like metal and oil. In her chest a strange warmth. It was wrong to be happy in the circumstances, utterly wrong, but she was.
“Oojie boojie boozum poppet, yes, yes…” she said to Okie, burying her face in his ruff as he whimpered.
“Something's burning,” Teazle observed, his stare never leaving Lila, though his nostrils widened slightly. She was sure by the tone of his voice he wasn't referring to the dinner but used the line he'd thrown her anyway.
“Pasta sauce.” She straightened up, feeling obliged to ask him in now, her face heating up—which made her furious. “There's just one problem,” she kept her fingers on Okie's head, stroking in his fur. “I don't trust you, and I don't invite people in that I don't trust.”
There was a sharp tug on her ear and Thingamajig appeared. “If I might…”
“No,” Lila said. Okie yipped and then barked loudly at the sight of the tiny demon atop Lila's shoulder, envy and anger warring in the sounds. “It's okay,” she told him. “It's not another pet.” The barking subsided to growls.
“You never called me Oojie boojie!” Thingamajig cried sulkily.
Teazle gave the imp a look that caused it to go still and silent. “What your debased minion means to say is that proposals, defence of your life, offers of service, and the return of lost loved ones are not matters a demon would attempt in order to deceive. If I wanted to do you harm I would take the straight way. To do otherwise is dishonourable.”
“My sister saw someone who looks like you killing my parents,” Lila said.
Teazle's right eyebrow lifted slightly. “You don't know what I look like.”
She hated it when he was right. But she wasn't wrong either. “Which helps how?”
Teazle lifted his empty hands, palm up. His human version was utterly convincing, he even smelled right. She and the dog had both noticed. He sighed theatrically. “What must I do?”
Lila looked down at Okie. Rusty and Buster were pausing in their mini-outrages to listen periodically. A sudden inspiration struck her. She looked at Teazle and then at the front steps, pointing at them. “Sit. Stay.”
The demon inclined his head to her in a bow, turned his back to the door, and sat down, resting his arms on his knees and looking out across the street.
“And don't let anyone in,” Lila added, shepherding Okie through into the hall. “And no barking. The neighbours are having a good enough time already.”
Teazle waved lazily with his right hand without looking back. She closed the door and locked it. That was dealt with. Sort of. She wondered if she could leave him there indefinitely…
Back in the kitchen, Max was snapping extra-long spaghetti in half to fit the only remaining pot as Malachi talked. They both looked up as she came in, and then down at Okie, and then up at Thingamajig, riding high.
“What did I tell you about door-to-door salesmen?” Max asked.
“Oh, this is my dog,” Lila explained. “Someone brought him round…”
“Someone?”
“From the kennels,” she said and continued rapidly. “Will dinner be ready soon? I'm starving…” And, since that statement got her past the table and to the back door, she reached out, opened up, and went out to introduce the dogs to one another without waiting for more questions she didn't want to answer.
“Sooo, this is your house!” the imp declared as the screen door hissed shut. It stared around, ignoring the dogs as they tried to jump up and investigate it. “What a tragic halfway-up-the-ladder place it is too. The suburban despair of the major Otopian communities rivals any torment a mere imp could dream of. So subtle, yet so completely overpowering. Why, I bet you were an anger-fuelled harpy on the path to middle-class redemption long before they pulverized you and made you into an actionbot. Oh, look, there's a guy in the next house taking photos of us. I guess you got to expect that what with the police tape and stuff all around the place…”
“What?!” Lila abandoned her daydream of barbecuing the imp on a stick and swung around to look. Sure enough there was a sudden twitch of curtains from the big beige fake Georgian opposite. Who lived there? She didn't remember. For an instant she moved forward, ready to march across and sort them out, take their stupid camera and smash it flat. Then she realised that the Otopia Tree would delete the images anyway, since it was illegal to distribute information about crime scenes except via the police.
“Some people are just bottom grubbers,” the imp said scathingly. “No matter what they think of themselves. Total feeders. They'se the kind of crimes gets you made into lower than imps, into asprits who have only the power of swearing and the power of naysaying. Not here though. Here it gets you a fancy house. I sees that all through your world history. S'like none of you have a sense of what's right and wrong in a being. Youse never stop the worst ones when the stopping's good and you never hesitate to string up the good ones before they even finish a sentence.” It spat a tiny burst of yellow flame and crisped a few strands of dry grass that poked up between the nearest rails. “Did you know lesser demons come here on holiday to feel good about themselves?”
“Shut up,” Lila said. She calmed the dogs and prepared to leave them in the enclosed porch with bowls of dry food and water. Rusty and Buster were so soft they accepted Okie without a care. It was Thingamajig they didn't like. They all snarled at him and he cringed against her head and pulled faces at them.
She was with the dogs. The one thing that was spoiling her plan right now was the imp. She had to get rid of him, at least for long enough to let Tath out to examine the scene. Briefly she considered asking Teazle for advice, but she didn't want him any closer or to be more beholden to him than she already felt. She decided to take the demon's code at face value and said to the creature, “What do I have to do so you get lost for a couple of hours?”
“Not forever?” the imp piped hopefully.
Lila groaned inwardly. “I thought that was too much to ask for…”
“I knew you was starting to appreciate me! A'course you could kill me easy. I know that. But it's an honour to be asked, ma'am. An honour. Why, I could manage a little time perusing the city's fine sights I believe…let's say for the sum of not less than a hundred bucks?”
Lila straightened from filling the water dishes and frowned. “I thought imps were attached until Hell was all done? No reprieves.”
“Of course technically that's true,” Thingamajig declared, rubbing his paws together and looking hungrily at the dogs' dinners. “But for people who don't want us dead we can make a few rules bend. No harm in it. But afore I go I must remind you of the salient points of your personal Hell, as is my duty.” It stood straight and put its hand to its heart. “You need to face up to the fact that you were sold out big style by a whole bunch of people who don't care about it one bit. And now you're a slave of the state, and everyone who had a hand in it has their own game to play that includes you but isn't about you. They care, sure. What's not to care about a huge risky investment that's running around with half a brain of its own? That's all they know. And they'll do anything they have to so you stay in line, even give ya a fake life and a nice dog and a house and some dates with a hot elf. Sure, it's true.” He paused for breath. “Now gimme the hundred.”
Lila sent a banking instruction via the Tree. “And, what can I do about it? If getting out of Hell is keeping it real…what do I do to achieve that?”
“You figure it out,” the imp said, shrugging. “Not my problem. Listen to your heart, as my old mother never used to say cos no one in Demonia needs to know that. See, I already overstepped the line. My business ends with the telling it how it is.”
Lila told it how to collect its cash from a bank outlet downtown.
“One thing,” it said, letting go of its aching grip on her ear. “I do know ‘bout Hell. You can stay if you like. Nothing in particular will happen. There ain't no special thing about it. Sometimes it seems much better than the real thing when you don't know the real thing and it looks like a lot of pain to get to it. You choose. That's all. Everyone got their time and everyone chooses. You get me?”
“Why did you choose it?” Lila asked.
The imp went quiet for a moment. “I wonder,” it said, head hanging low, and then without warning transformed into a small orange fireball and zipped off through the unopened screen door into the garden air, leaving a tennis ball—sized hole.
“That's fifty bucks right there!” Lila shouted after it. The dogs looked at her. “Don't ask,” she said to them. “It was a stray and I was tired.”
Back in the kitchen the pasta was in the water. Max was listening to Malachi do a good impression of a secret agent with everyone's best interests at heart. They were both seated at the table. All the Great White poker magazines belonging to mother had been stacked on the counter. The top issue promised How to Hold ’Em Out for More.
“I'm going in to do the search,” Lila said, at a break in Malachi's talk. “Stay here and I'll be back in ten minutes.”
“I'll come with you,” Malachi started to stand up.
“No,” Lila held out her hand. “I've got the AI. I'll get whatever's there, then you can do an aetheric pass if you want to.” It was a bit of a weak excuse but he saw her determination and sat back down.
“Sure, go ahead.”
She nodded and slipped out into the hall. Her status was still high alert and she left it like that, pausing a moment to let her AI configure a set of responses to all her Incon instreaming commands so that people wouldn't think she was ignoring them. Then she checked the outgoing feeds and detached a minicam from a supply inside her arm cavity. She went upstairs and stuck it inside her room then switched all her outgoing information centres to that unit. It wasn't much of a ruse but hopefully she'd been so obedient in the past they'd fall for it if they chose to sneak an unwholesome inside peek on her whereabouts. She didn't linger to see what changes Max had made to her place, just went out again as though it was any other building she had to recon, but her cool left her when she reached the downstairs hall.
She stopped before the locked room and looked at the door. Dark fingermarks decorated the edge of it under the lines of red and white crime scene tape, left there by years of pulling and pushing without bothering to use the handle: hers too, she'd bet. With a jerk she pulled herself out of the reverie and looked more closely at the tape. It was the work of a few moments to pick the pathetic little doorknob lock, push the door open, and limbo under the thigh-height lowest line.
There were the cards, the vodka glass, the hollows in the sofa, the white piano, the dusty photographs missing occasional bodyparts at the edges. She waited for intuition or fear to hit her like oncoming cars in a lengthy train wreck but what struck her instead was the sense of how unreal the room seemed. She remembered it, but standing in it was like being inside a museum of her own life, so far removed that it might as well be archaeology. The feeling that washed through her was nostalgia followed by a lingering anxiety that made her want to leave as quickly as possible.
She bent down to look at the cards: two of clubs, six and nine of spades, Jack of Hearts…a shitty hand. The rest of the deck was sliding to the side towards the rimline of a splatter of dried vodka tonic. Next up: eight of spades. Why would that be face up? Maybe her mother had just picked it up…
Let me, Tath said.
She almost jumped. His presence had become so familiar she didn't know when he'd started to seem like part of her. “How?” she asked but he was already spreading out through and beyond her body, his aetherial form much stronger than she anticipated. Full of demon?
Has to be some benefit, he replied.
She couldn't really see his andalune body in this light, not in Otopia, but she had a clear sense of where it began and ended.
I need the whole thing, he said and suddenly she was immersed in him. They hadn't been like that since the night in Arië's palace. She knew that now, if anybody walked in, they'd only see elf. His power and glamour coated her absolutely as he took on his most articulate magical form. She shrank back to give him bodily control, surprised at the change that came with becoming the one who was inside. Last time he had been commanded to his performances. This time it was entirely voluntary and with that came a strange vulnerability she hadn't anticipated, hers and his. He enveloped her and infused her body but he didn't attempt to touch her mind, or heart. It was a peculiar tenderness. She was suddenly speechless in the presence of it.
But Tath, if he noticed, passed over the moment to briefly exult in his freedom. Warp residue, he said, and she had no idea what he was talking about—at least, she detected nothing. It is everywhere in this region, like trash magic.
Meaning?
Anecromancer took them into Thanatopia; stolen away in time. He breathed, even though he had to use her lungs. He reached out and touched the cards, one at a time, with the tips of his fingers. Regrettably I have no blood, else I could track the lines.
Won't mine do?
No. He touched the glass and shivered, his entire form rippling with waves of aetheric disturbances. Lila was desperate to ask him what they were but she daren't interrupt him. As he worked she could feel his self-command. His revulsion was strong but he ignored it. There was so much she didn't know about the death realm, so much his work defied in the world of her human knowledge.
Can you tell who did it? Where they went?
Only by following the path. He went back to the glass and picked it up, holding it in his/her hand carefully. It decays. Already it is very old.
You mean go after them. Into Thanatopia?
Yes. Tath sighed and turned the glass over, looking at the thick bottom of the plain tumbler which was shaped like an irregular lens. Time is place, he said. You think this room is in the same place that you left it, but every second that passes alters its position in the whole fabric. When your parents were taken, it was not from here. It was from Ago. Even the track of the world cannot go back to it though if you had a craft you might…but you have not. We cannot reach Ago from here without crossing over. We can only track in Thanatopia.
Lila wasn't sure she got it but it would do. And you need blood?
I have the demon to ride. I do not need blood. The demon's spirit will take me over. But I need a living form in order to return. The part of us that passes into Thanatopia is not the material body, but the aetheric. But the aether cannot exist here without the material form and cannot return without one.
How did it take my parents? We're human. No aether.
Humans have subtle bodies that may cross over—I believe you call it astral travel. Those forms are quasi-aetheric. I know little about them. I have never tracked or spoken to human dead. He set the glass down exactly where it had been and went to sit down where her mother had been. He closed their eyes. Lila felt cold, jumpy. He was calm though across the surface of her skin Lila felt him scattering and jittering as though he was being electrocuted. He was strong, sad, determined. If we are to find them at all it must be soon, within hours. I have no instruments or charms—nothing. Only my pact with the undead.
The who? She wasn't sure she'd heard him right.
He ignored her. Lila, if we are to do this thing you will have to come with me. We must go together. Otherwise I will be trapped in Thanatopia, as if I am truly dead, and I will never cross back. I have never attempted to carry a spirit, although I know it can be done. Just as I ride the demon, I can be ridden.
Like a conga? She supplied the image of party dancers in a huge line.
Something like this. For a moment he almost smiled, the soft glow of affection blinking on and out in him like the glimmer of a distant lightning bug. But you will be the one to carry me back because you are the only one who can find yourself in time on this side. Your astral form will call to and be called by your gross forms. As long as they persist you will be able to find them.
He opened their eyes and looked around. Other Necromancers have been here but they did not track. I feel their touches. Fey. They will have known it was a demon, and that it came here and left here through the dead gates into time. It dragged your parents with it.
But they died…she said hesitantly.
Tath was quiet.
Tath, if they didn't die…why did they look so dead in the picture? Why have they been taken away to…She stopped suddenly. A shiver went through her that had nothing to do with him or where they were. Are they dead?
When a spirit rides through the gate the body left behind will maintain life unless it is so badly damaged it cannot. If it dies, then the spirit will remain in Thanatopia, as with any dead. If it survives, the spirit can return. But those who are not necromancers do not cross into or out of Thanatopia at will. Only one who has a pact with the undead has the ability to transect the barrier. If you are taken across, you must also be taken back.
So, they're what, stuck there?
It was a punishment of certain dynasties, Tath said tonelessly. He didn't elaborate and Lila didn't press it.
If they come back…does it matter how long has passed? Can anyone just come back at any time? She was trying not to hope, not to dream it could be fixed.
Return after the passage of years was the final part of the punishment, Tath said. Entropy takes its toll. The longer the separation the worse the fit upon return, because time passes differently in Thanatopia. After a long time, there can be no reunion.
Worse than death?
They are known as the Sundered. Lost souls who live and appear to be themselves, but they are constantly torn between realities. It is not a pleasant existence. They do not know if they are alive or dead.
Lila sat for a while. What happens to ordinary dead people, over there?
In the time of your life here you have a life in Thanatopia that is the same, exactly, in every way. But there you exist only in this astral form, as energy. On your death the body is released and you cannot persist in physical realities. Thereafter the astral self undergoes a brief incorporeal existence in Thanatopia. The living and the dead are present there, but in different forms. It is hard to say, without showing you.
So, I can talk to people who are dead?
Yes. You can even talk to them when they were still alive, but none who are not Necromances know this part. It is our secret.
She thought of it and he denied it at the same moment.
You cannot go back and warn them. The means of talking with them would only frighten them. It is rare any living person can heed the warnings of their deathform, especially humans. The astral does not speak with a voice. His conviction was clear.
Right, she said. If we're going, we're going. Let's get it over with. That spaghetti is going to be done in about two minutes' time.
As you wish, he said.
How…she began to say but the room had already vanished.