Saturnalia (SAMPLE)

chapter eight: the rites of the dead

The last of the voices that haunted him belonged to his aunt, forgotten by the town and replaced with an image of pity.

"Get up, Mr. Lutton - I think they're ready to burn your aunt!" Iyan blinked and coughed, the smell of smoke filling his lungs. Was somebody dying? It smelled of overripe fruit and incense, and a copious amount of fire. Perhaps a house had caught alight.

"Who's being burned?" he asked groggily, not sure where he stood so shakily, or who it was that spoke to him in such strange tones.

"Mr. Lutton, open your eyes!" A gentle smack on his cheek woke him up fully, and he stared into the unfamiliar eyes of a rather pretty young woman. Her own pale-brown irises stared back, half-amused. "Your aunt, they're burning your aunt. You're at a funeral!" She turned her head for a moment, taken with the shouting and exclaiming. Iyan himself did not know if they had allowed a fire to go uncontested, or if they were in good cheer. The expression of the woman when she returned her gaze confirmed the latter. She wore a look of half-interested amusement. It was a confusing look, and gave Iyan pause. Was she used to worse displays of excitability?

To his great surprise, she hit him just a little harder, and smacked some of his memory back in place.

"There you are!" She grinned and bared her strange teeth. They stole Iyan's attention for a hypnotic moment, before Kairie cleared her throat. "Come, poor boy, and let us taste some the food these good people have brought." Stumbling after her, Iyan felt the panic of the funeral nestling into his bones. There were far too many people here, all with their own set of loud sounds and cries. It was impossible to tell if they were being killed or not, so great were the ecstatic cries of the mourners. If he were a ghost, Iyan decided as Kairie pulled him to a table laden with glasses and local fare, he would hate to see the sight that played out in the cemetery of Kenton Abbey.

"They don't even know her," he whispered, not meaning to be heard. Kairie leaned forward and raised a glass of wine in the air.

"Didn't know her. Why do you say so?" Iyan swallowed the lump in his throat at her correction, still terribly unused to the lack of Myra Lutton's life in the world.

"I know so," he replied, taking a sip when Kairie offered the glass to his lips, "because she hardly ever left the house. Who are they? Where were they, in her life?"

"Is this not an apology, then?"

"Apology? If they really were sorry, they should shut up so."

"At least your aunt's having gone and died could provide some warmth and food to these clearly starved people."

"They're only here for the food," remarked Iyan bitterly, and he downed the rest of the wine. "That's all funerals are here, Miss Felling. Drinking in excess, and a fondness for pyromania."

"Isn't there a purpose to your lighting of the dead?"

"It's rather ridiculous, is what it is," he answered with a sardonic laugh. "Would you believe it, that we think the smell of our feasting and burning will convince one of our gods to return to us?"

"I believe that very much," came Kairie's amused reply. She gazed at the roving crowd with impartial eyes. "It is of course, not the most ridiculous thing I've heard of your gods, but I'll admit, it's rather romantic." As they drank more wine, bodies came bustling between them, and Iyan found himself apart from Kairie for a few minutes. Concerned for her safety amongst the wild mourners, he called out to her, but heard nothing in response. Jeering and crooked singing, the bellowing of one too many out-of-tune songs, cups thrown against the surrounding walls of the cemetery - they all filled Iyan with a sense of encroaching dread, as though he was a rat doomed to the trap.