Ischade listened to all this with pursed lips and a faraway stare.
"Your friend. Tell me about him."
"He was a Hell-Hound, like me. His name was Razkuli ..."
Zalbar would have continued, but Ischade had suddenly raised a hand to her forehe ad, massaging it as she grimaced.
"Razkuli. That's where I've seen that uniform before. But he isn't one of the ones that I keep."
"I don't understand," the Hell-Hound frowned. "Are you saying you know him?"
"He has ... assisted me from time to time," Ischade said, shrugging lightly. "Now, what can I do to help you?"
Zalbar tried to digest what Ischade was saying, but his mind simply wasn't up to the implications. Finally, he abandoned his efforts and returned to his original line of questioning.
"Could you tell me what's going on? What did Razkuli mean when he said that he couldn't 'cross over'?"
"For some reason his spirit is trapped between the realm of the living and the realm of the dead. Something is keeping him from a peaceful rest, and he wants you to help him on the physical plane."
"Help him how? What is it I'm supposed to do?"
"I don't know for sure. It could be any one of a number of things. I suppose the only way to find out is to ask him."
Zalbar straightened in his chair and glanced nervously around the room. "You mean you're going to summon the spirit? Here? Now?"
Ischade shook her head in an abrupt negative. "First of all, that's not the way it works. I don't summon spirits ... I send an agent or occasionally fetch them personally. In this case, however, I think we'll leave the spirit alone and pursue alternate methods for obtaining the necessary information. As you've probably noticed, spirits aren't particularly eloquent or informative. Besides, I just got back from a quest like that, and I'll be damned if I'll go to hell again for a while."
"How's that again?" the Hell-Hound frowned.
"Nothing. Just a little joke. What I mean is, I think we'll have better luck simply animating his corpse and asking what the problem is."
"His corpse," Zalbar echoed hollowly.
"... Of course, someone will have to fetch it. Do you know where he's buried?"
"In the garrison graveyard north of town ... the grave's clearly marked."
"Good. Then you'll have no trouble finding it. As soon as you bring it here, we can ..."
"ME?" Zalbar exclaimed. "Surely you can't expect me to dig up a grave."
"Certainly. Why not?"
The thought of digging up a well-aged corpse ... any corpse, much less that of his friend, horrified Zalbar. Still, he found himself strangely reluctant to express his revulsion to this woman who spoke so lightly of animating corpses and trips to hell.
"Um ... I'm Hell-Hound, part of a royal retinue," he said instead. "If I were caught, a charge of grave-robbing would be scandalous."
In his corner, Haught snorted. "Open fighting in the streets and the authorities are worried about grave-robbing? I doubt there would be any danger of discovery."
"Then you fetch it if you're so sure there's no danger of arrest," Zalbar snapped back.
"Yes, that's a good idea." Ischade nodded. "Run along, Haught, and bring us the contents of Razkuli's grave. With luck we can see this business done by sun-up."
"ME?" Haught scowled. "But ..."
"You," Ischade ordered firmly. "Now."
Haught started to reply angrily, then apparently thought better of it and slammed out the door into the night without another word.
"Now then. Officer," Ischade purred, focusing hooded eyes on Zalbar. "While we wait, perhaps you can tell me what you think of the Beysib-Nisibisi Alliance."
In the next hour, while anxiously awaiting Haught's return, Zalbar became firmly convinced that Ischade was insane. The silly woman seemed to have some idea that the arrival of the Beysib in Sanctuary was somehow part of a Nisi plot ... this opinion apparently based on the observation that both cultures were snake-cults. Zalbar's efforts to point out that the Beysib used small vipers, while military reports indicated that the Nisibisi were into man-sized constrictors, fell on deaf ears. If anything, his arguments seemed to reinforce Ischade's conviction that she was the only one who could see the true ramifications of what was happening in Sanctuary.
He assumed her mental imbalance was the result of her profession. If she was indeed a necromancer, constant involvement with death and corpses was bound to be unsettling to the mind. After all, look at the effect that dealing with one dead person was having on him!
As much as he dreaded viewing his friend's remains, Zalbar's conversation with Ischade was so unsettling that he was actually relieved when a footstep sounded outside and Haught appeared once more in the doorway.
"I had to steal a wheelbarrow," the necromancer's assistant said in a manner that was almost an accusation. "There were two corpses in the grave."
"Two?" Zalbar scowled, but he was talking to thin air.
Haught reappeared in a moment carrying the first moldering body, which he dumped unceremoniously on the floor, and turned to fetch the second one.
Ischade bent over their prize, beckoning Zalbar to move closer.
"Is this your friend?"
Zalbar was still shaking his head. "I don't understand it," he said. "How could there be two bodies in the same grave?"
"It's not uncommon," Ischade shrugged. "Gravedig-gers get paid by the body, and if you don't watch them, they'll dump two or more bodies into the same grave rather than going through the trouble of digging several ... especially if there are two graveyards involved and they don't want to have to drag the second corpse across town. Your friend was probably buried with someone else who died about the same time. The question is, was this him?"
The corpse was almost beyond recognition. What skin and flesh was left was dried and mummified; bone showed in many places. There was a gaping hole in the abdomen, and the internal organs were not in evidence.
"N ... No," Zalbar said carefully. "I'm sure this is someone else ... maybe Kurd."
"Who?"
"Kurd. He was a butcher ... a medical researcher he called himself, but he performed his experiments on the bodies of living slaves. He died the same day as Razkuli, disemboweled by ... a dissatisfied customer. I saw his body at the charnel house when I went there to identify my friend. They were the only two there at the time, so if you're right about the gravediggers' negligence, it stands to reason that his would be the second body."
He was babbling now, trying to avoid examining the corpse more closely.
"Interesting," Ischade murmured. "I could use a repairman. But you're sure it isn't your friend?"
"Positive. For one thing, Razkuli was ..."
"Here's the other," Haught announced from the doorway. "Now if you don't mind, I think I'll retire for the night. A little of this type of assisting goes a long way."
"That's him!" Zalbar said pointing at the new corpse.
"I think I see the problem," Ischade sighed. "You could have saved us all a lot of trouble if you had been more specific. Why didn't you tell me he had been beheaded?"
Sure enough, the corpse which Haught had propped against the wall noticeably lacked its hatrack.
"I didn't think it was important. Is it?"
"Certainly. One thing that will always hold a spirit in limbo is if its physical body has been dismembered ... particularly if an important piece, like its head, has been denied a burial."
"What? You mean his head hasn't been buried?"
"Apparently not. As I said earlier, gravediggers are notoriously lazy, so I doubt they would dig a separate hole just for the head. No, my guess is that that portion of your friend's body has somehow gone astray. The reason the spirit hasn't been able to instruct you in more detail is because it can't tell which part is missing, much less where it is."