I clambered in.
Evis was there, wrapped in yards and yards of black silk and hiding his eyes behind the black lenses of those fancy spectacles the halfdead favor on their rare daytime excursions.
Seated across from him was a dead woman. She hadn’t been dead long. The undertaker’s rouge on her cheeks and the make-up on her hands lent her a nearly lifelike appearance.
“Good morning, Mr. Markhat,” she said. Her voice seemed natural, save for a slight slurring. Her gums behind her too-red lips were white. “I trust you won’t mind if I take up a portion of your day?”
I nodded a grim hello at Evis, unable to read his eyes behind the dark glasses.
“Always happy to be about the Regent’s business.”
The Corpsemaster laughed through the dead woman’s throat. “Well put, finder. I believe you know Mr. Prestley.”
“He’s in trouble too?”
She ignored me.
“There is a thing I wish to show both of you. I can, of course, count on your discretion afterward.”
She hadn’t spoken it as a question. The threat was clear enough.
I settled back into my seat. It was cushioned and it rode on springs to smooth out the potholes. Had it been any other seat in any other carriage I’d have been glad of the luxury.
“This thing-”
The dead woman raised a finger to her dry pursed lips.
“Nice seats in this carriage,” I finished.
The dead woman smiled. Evis rustled in his silks. I wasn’t sure he was awake. I hear the slumber of a halfdead is akin to a coma.
We rattled on. The dead cabman cracked his whip at horses that weren’t there, while a dead woman watched me through eyes gone flat and dry.
All in all, my day was off to a decidedly rocky start.
Evis began to snore.
I clasped my hands behind my head and leaned back into the Corpsemaster’s fancy carriage seat. If Evis was so unconcerned he could slumber, I wasn’t going to be seen fretting.
The Corpsemaster smiled.
“I should’ve brought a picnic basket,” she said. Her smile was so wide it cracked the thick undertaker’s rouge and let slivers of grey peek through at each dimple. “We’re going to have such fun.”
I didn’t ask. I didn’t dare.
I was getting sleepy. It was happening so quickly I almost didn’t notice it. My eyes drooped shut and I caught myself and opened them with a start, terrified at the prospect of dozing off across from Encorla Hisvin, sure that would be construed as a mortal insult to one who bore no insult, however slight.
My arms fell to my sides, heavy as wet sand, and suddenly just as useful.
“Sleep now,” whispered the dead woman. My vision was failing. She leaned forward toward me and stroked my cheek with fingers oh so cold. “Better if you sleep.”
I didn’t have words. Didn’t have the strength left to speak them.
“Sleep.”
I fought with everything I had. Lasted maybe another pair of heartbeats.
I hoped I wouldn’t dream.
Somebody had my right arm and was yanking on it.
“Wake up,” shouted a gruff voice, so close to my ear I could feel warm breath. “You’re too damned heavy to carry.”
The voice was male and unfamiliar. I managed to open my eyes about the time I went spilling out of Hisvin’s carriage and onto the cobblestones below.
An effort was made to catch me, but it was halfhearted and accompanied by a pair of loud guffaws.
I landed, rolled, stood. I would have punched someone in the gut had my eyes not been blinded by a sun that beamed down hot and bright.
“You’re awake. Good. Here’s some water. You’ll want it.”
A cold pitcher was pressed into my hand. I squinted about me, trying to arrange my most recent memories into some semblance of order so I’d know who to hit first.
“Drink it,” said a different voice. “The longer you wait the worse your head will hurt. The Corpsemaster’s naps aren’t the restful, healing kind.”
“Do tell,” I managed. My throat was so dry it came out in a rasp. I gave up on any plans for pugilistic retribution and drank.
The water was cold and clear. It tasted of peppermint and another herb I couldn’t name.
“I’m Piper. This is Lopside.”
I lowered the pitcher.
The sun wasn’t just hot and bright. It was far too hot, far too bright. And it was beaming down out of a sky so blue it appeared to have been freshly scrubbed and painted.
Hadn’t the sky been the color of old lead when I’d set foot in the Corpsemaster’s black carriage?
It was hot. Summer hot, dog days hot, not the milder early spring hot it should have been.
Chills made tiny footsteps up and down my spine. How long had I been in that damned carriage?
I mopped sweat. Felt my clothes stick to me. Hell, I was soaked.
My shadow was pooled and tiny at my feet, on cobblestones that made up a circle maybe twenty yards across. There were patterns set into the circle, formed by swoops and swirls of copper and lead that intersected and wove and parted and looped in ways that made my eyes water.
I thought at first the cobblestone circle was fenced at its perimeter. But as my eyes and head cleared, I could see that while the circle was bounded by a ring of waist-high stakes topped with ornaments of some kind. There was no fencing between them.
Beyond the circle was an endless plain of swaying green grass that flowed like a sea away in every direction. No trees. No walls. Not a hint of Rannit. Nothing but tall green grass rippling in the wind.
And no telltale sign of wagon-wheel ruts that might mark the long way home.
“What the Hell?”
Piper and Lopside snickered. “You all say that,” said Piper.
Piper was little more than a kid. His face still bore an enthusiastic crop of pimples. His Army uniform was too short at the ankles and the sleeves, which only accentuated his boyish appearance.
He wore plain Army dress blues. But the uniform, though familiar, wasn’t complete. His name wasn’t sewn over his chest. No unit identifier. There was no collar insignia, nothing to mark him as infantry or cavalry or sorcerer’s corps or Wagoner. He showed no sign of rank at all. The Sarge would have burst a vein at the sight of such a uniform.
“Would you mind waking your pal, Mr. Markhat?” asked the other man. “I’d rather not startle a halfdead, no disrespect intended, sir.”
Lopside was maybe my age. His uniform matched Piper’s, in that it didn’t tell me a damned thing.
“You didn’t seem to mind startling me.”
“Kids these days.” He rolled his eyes at Piper. “Maybe this will help. You’re a guest of the Corpsemaster. This place doesn’t have a name, because it doesn’t officially exist, but we call it the Battery. Everyone who comes here arrives asleep. You’ll leave the same way, get back home a few hours after you left. No, I don’t know where we are in relation to Rannit. No, I don’t know where the trees went. And no, I don’t know why it’s so damned hot. It’s been this way for eight months. You get used to it.”
I drank some more water.
“Fine. I’ll wake my friend. One question first.”
“I probably can’t answer it. But I’ll try.”
“You said everyone arrives asleep. Who is everyone? Who else comes here?”
“Can’t answer that.”
“Didn’t think so.” But it hadn’t hurt to try. I tossed him the pitcher and eased my way into the carriage.
“Evis,” I said. I poked him gently. “Wake up.”
He didn’t stir. He’d managed to cover his face in a fold of his cloak and I braced myself and yanked it back, exposing his pale face to the sun.
If Lopside hadn’t grabbed me by my belt and hauled me out of the carriage ass-first my career as a finder might have ended then and there, at the hands of a grumpy vampire.
“Evis,” I said, mopping blood off my cheek. “It’s me, dammit. Wake up.”
“Finder?” I kept my distance while Evis composed himself. “What the Hell?”
“Told you,” muttered Piper.