Duvan smiled at her. “Let’s just say, I’m not disagreeing for the moment.” When he was sure the pilgrim and the cleric were tightly bound, he swung up onto one of their horses.
“What are you doing now?”
“Leaving. Taking the horses with us. I hope that’s not a trick question.”
“Help me get this one onto his horse,” she said pointing to the body of the archer.
“Just leave him here. Scavengers will get rid of the body.”
“No,” she said. “He needs a proper funeral-a ceremony to celebrate his connection to the living and the dead.”
Duvan gave her a blank, disbelieving look. “What?”
“Everyone deserves-”
“Yes, I heard you, and there again, I agree with you, but we don’t have time for ‘a proper funeral.’ It’s not like it’s going to matter to him.”
Slanya scowled. “It will matter to those who cared for him,” she said. “And it’s important. Either we take the body with us to the temple, seek out his loved ones, and give it to them, or burn the body here and now.”
Duvan shook his head and considered arguing. However, if past experience were an indicator, this stubborn cleric would not be swayed. Arguing would just waste more time. He considered leaving. These sorts of disagreements were why he almost always worked alone. But he had promised Tyrangal, and he wouldn’t back out of that promise.
Duvan sighed. “All right. You’re in charge,” he said. “If you insist on a funeral, then we should do it here and now. The fewer people who know what happened here, the better.”
Slanya nodded, then turned to the body of the dead archer. She knelt down and straightened his garments.
Duvan swung down from the horse and helped her prepare the fire. He dragged the corpse through the tall grass to the ruined guard outpost. Crumbling rock walls would hold vigil to his passage, and weed-pitted flagstones would be his bier.
The man’s clean and well-mended clothes told a story of aristocratic upbringing. He had a callused right hand, so he was well practiced at bowmanship. His face was round and boyish-the son of a merchant, maybe, who ran away to the changelands for his spellscar. Or perhaps he was an Order of Blue Fire recruit from a faraway land, moved here recently. He smelled of soap and perfume, but that was overwhelmed now by the iron tang of blood that leaked out beneath him. And that, in turn, was overwhelmed by the smell of his voided bowels.
There is no dignity in death, Duvan thought. He rifled through the saddlebags and found a small skin that smelled of fire oil. He doused the body with it.
Slanya bowed her head over the corpse. “May Kelemvor judge you well,” she said, “and guide your passage through the Fugue Plane to wherever next you land.” She stepped back and nodded to Duvan.
Striking the rings of his right hand together to ignite a spark, Duvan lit the fire. He stepped back as the oil caught. First the flames were yellow and the smoke billowed clear, but soon enough the flames turned orange, then red. The smoke rose in gray clouds, turning to black as the man’s flesh caught and his fat ignited.
Staring into the flames, Duvan remembered many burnings. Too many people gone to fire-the gossamer flames of blue fire. He saw his papa’s dark ruddy face beneath a black beard, always stern. And always right … until he wasn’t. Until he was gone. Spellplague. So many dead. And Duvan the only witness to their passing.
But that was another life, another existence. He had often wished he’d died along with everyone else, and perhaps he had. His death had not been due to fire, but to the loss of everything he knew. After Talfani had finally succumbed, leaving him alone among the decomposing corpses, Duvan had gone as cold inside as drifting snow.
He knew he’d gone cold hearted, and yet he didn’t care. It was better that way. Ice couldn’t be hurt. Imperviousness to emotional pain was far better than compassion.
As he watched the fire consume the flesh of this unnamed archer, he saw Talfani’s face in the fire. It had been a gossamer fire that had taken them all, but she-his sweet sister-had lingered on, sick and suffering.
Steeling himself, Duvan grit his teeth and forced away the memories. Since Talfani’s death years earlier, he’d shunned friendships. No reason to risk pain. Even Tyrangal was not a true friend, although they understood each other. Perhaps Duvan would miss her, ever so slightly, if she were gone.
“Good-bye,” he whispered into the flames engulfing the dead archer’s corpse. “I did not know you, but I hope that your continuing journey be not alone, but among friends.”
Standing in the heat of the rising sun, the sharp sculptures of ancient crumbling masonry like twisted sentinels around them, Slanya reflected on Duvan’s words. They struck a chord inside her. For all that he lacked in civility, there was a vestige of compassion in this wildman.
The fire caught on the dead man’s clothes soaked in oil. Slanya resisted watching at first. But the flames drew her, and she stared into them. They glowed like sunlight through an open doorway-a gateway to a realm of chaos and light, a portal into a wild universe, abandonment of reason and law.
Involuntarily Slanya took a step toward the funeral fire. The searing heat coming off of it stung her skin, and she felt water rising in her eyes.
“We should leave now.”
Duvan’s voice snapped her from her trance.
“It’s not safe to stay here any longer,” he said.
Not safe, she thought.
Flames licked the body in front of her, leaving blackened and blistering trails. The smell of burning fat brought her back to her childhood, back to her memory of the event.
The vision was always the same. Evening had come to the city and the cacophony of the sprawl had finally quieted. Aunt Ewesia’s breathing had slowed, and she had started to snore-asleep in her rocking chair.
It was the only time little Slanya could relax. The only time she knew that she wouldn’t get in trouble.
In the vision, she looked down on her younger self. Little Slanya in her stained dress was six years old with blond hair flying out in tufts from the braids that tried to keep it organized. She watched in her mind as little Slanya finished removing the linens from their drying line next to the fire, folded them, and put them away. They had to be folded just so, or she would have to do it again when Aunt Ewesia discovered her failure.
When little Slanya returned from the bedroom, Aunt Ewesia was on fire. Alarmed and frightened even then that she would be punished for this accident, young Slanya blanched and she held her breath. Aunt Ewesia’s clothes blazed, but she awoke slowly despite that. The infusion she drank to put her to sleep every night worked too well.
And then, the fiery behemoth that had been her aunt heaved itself from the chair, screaming like a thousand banshees, making the hair on Slanya’s skin stick straight out. Aunt Ewesia lurched toward Slanya. The flames had ripped through the cotton and wool of her clothing and had started in on her skin.
Slanya felt her breath catch as she watched her younger self run from the groping, screaming demon. Later she was ashamed that she had run. Later she would tell the other orphans that she had tried to help, but couldn’t stop the fire. But she hadn’t tried to help; fear had gripped her, and she had run away from the beast of flame and anger.
“Can you ride?” Duvan’s voice shook her from her reverie.
Slanya squeezed her eyes closed to block out the fire. She held her breath to avoid smelling the burning body. She waited until her heart’s frantic beating slowed and some semblance of calm returned to her.
Then, nodding to Duvan, she took the reins of the pilgrim’s black mare. Slanya straightened and stretched her back. “I’m ready,” she said, climbing up into the saddle.
Riding the dead archer’s horse, Duvan led them expertly through the rubble away from the pillar of black smoke that rose from the burning body. He headed away from the old outpost and along the path that led around the city to the monastery.