The Power and the Glory

Book 2 Chapter IV: Irímé Has an Idea

Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception. -- Niccolò Machiavelli

This night was full of nothing but things Irímé never expected to do. Now he could add yet another one to the list: hiding a reanimated corpse in someone else's tomb. Even stranger, it was an empty tomb. In fact it was little more than a stone coffin placed against the wall with a name and date carved on it. Obviously it wasn't meant to be opened. Yet Ilaran was pressing at different parts of the lid as if he expected it to open.

In the background Abihira was busy talking to the corpse. Well, she said she was trying to tell how much awareness it actually had. To all intents and purposes it just looked like she was having a very one-sided conversation with it. There were times -- which were increasingly frequent nowadays -- when Irímé seriously doubted her sanity. For the sake of his own he tried to ignore her.

"What are you doing?" he asked Ilaran.

"Magic." That hardly answered his question. "I'm separating the lid from the rest of the coffin so we can open it."

Oh. That was actually a good idea. Irímé briefly got distracted by wondering what sort of magic he was using. Would a spell for cutting or one for breaking be more suitable for this work? No wonder it was taking so long. Obviously he had to work slowly so he didn't damage the stone too badly. Only magicians who had studied special branches of magic in depth would be able to piece the coffin back together if he, say, cut its side in two. Or worse, damaged the crypt wall. How in the world would they ever be able to explain that?

He took a step back and stayed quiet for several minutes. It wouldn't do to distract Ilaran when the consequences could be so dire. To pass the time he read the inscriptions on the tombs nearby. Some of them were the graves of immediately-recognisable historical figures. Everyone had heard of Empress Nulrunan[1]. Everyone had also heard of Empress Mirutam[2], for all the wrong reasons. At first Irímé was surprised to see a memorial to her in the crypt at all. Then he saw the inscription under her name: "Tyrant, lunatic, kinslayer. A shining example of what we should never be." That was a surprisingly mild inscription for a woman who beheaded her own mother within months of taking the throne, to say nothing of everything else she did later.

A little further away were the graves of much saner, vastly more respected royals. Suarol the Peacemaker, Abihira VI, Josir the Great, Prince Yuastúl the Wise, Gilnreith II... He looked back at the tomb Ilaran was still working at. The name on it was unfamiliar. Who was Princess Aderthril? And why was her memorial here, among those of the famous or infamous?

Abihira -- the present-day Abihira, not one of her long-dead relatives who shared her name -- was still busy talking to that corpse. Now it seemed to be replying. It was waving its arms around like a ghoulish scarecrow, at any rate. Irímé resolutely refused to think about it. There was a limit to how much insanity he could tolerate before going mad, and he was getting very close to that limit.

The date of death on the memorial was only twenty thousand years ago. As a way of ignoring the corpse Irímé focused on that with more intensity than something so trivial warranted. If Princess Aderthril had done anything notable people would still talk about her. Her memorial must have been put in this section of the crypt as a mistake.

"I hope her family don't mind us meddling with her tomb," he said aloud.

"Whose family?" Ilaran asked, getting up from where he had been kneeling on the floor.

"Princess Aderthril's."

Ilaran gave him a very odd look. It was somewhere between bemused and mildly offended. "She was my mother. And I doubt she minds anything now."