Firebrand

Brienne led her down stairs, where they came to a wide arched door with bas relief carvings of the gods above it, most prominently Westrion riding his steed, Salvistar. Another Weapon stood on guard at the door.

“This is Scotty,” Brienne said, “newly come to us from the Forge. Scotty, this is Sir Karigan.”

The fresh-faced young man gave her a half-bow. “It is an honor,” he said. “I have heard about your feats, Sir Karigan, and congratulate you on your swordmastery.”

“Thank you.”

“You are most welcome.”

He was very formal, but Weapons tended to be, and perhaps because he was fresh from the Forge, he was even more so.

“Sir Karigan has an appointment with Agemon,” Brienne said. “She has not entered the tombs through the royal chapel before.”

So, Brienne had brought her to the royal chapel of the moon . . . She’d entered the tombs through other entrances, but not this one, though her first time in the tombs, she had exited from a commoner chapel within the castle.

“How many entrances are there?” Karigan asked.

“This has the same entrance as the commoner chapel,” Brienne replied. She patted the wall behind her where the corridor ended. “It’s just on the other side of this wall.”

Karigan noticed the Weapon had evaded the question about the number of entrances. Her honorary status as a Weapon only went so far, apparently.

Scotty opened the door for them, and, inside, the chapel was quietly lit with candles. Like the commoner chapel, there was a coffin rest that also served as an altar, but that was where the similarity ended. Where the commoner chapel had been plain and furnished with only wooden benches, this one was carpeted with rich red pile. There were rows of plush chairs. The candlelight glinted on silver and gold vessels and metalwork. The walls were covered with tapestries, and the ceiling paintings depicted the gods in the heavens among the constellations.

“We rarely enter through the chapels if we can help it,” Brienne said, “in case there are parishioners within. We do not wish to disturb them. However, I thought you might like to see this one.”

On the opposite wall, there was a set of double doors. Brienne strode to them, knocked, and they opened into another chamber. When Karigan followed Brienne through the doorway, she remembered it with its big fireplace and the coffin rest. It was a sort of antechamber to the tombs.

“Ah, Sir Karigan,” said the Weapon, Lennir, who had let them in. “Good to see you again.”

“You, too.” She did tend to see rather less of the tomb guards than the Weapons who attended the king and queen. She turned around to face the way they had come in. Next to the doors of the royal chapel stood another set of doors. Those must lead into the commoner chapel.

“Do you remember this place?” Brienne asked.

“I do.” It had been the night of Prince Amilton’s coup attempt, and she, along with the king, Brienne, and others, had infiltrated the tombs via the Heroes Portal, passed through the avenues of the dead, to this chamber, and then exited through the chapel for commoners. The king had then led them through other secret ways to reach the throne room.

“It is a receiving room for the royal dead, a place where the family can mourn without their retinue watching on. Of course, most of the time it is a post for our Weapons. We take tea here, warm up by the fire. But come, Agemon will become agitated if we do not reach his office at the appointed time.”

They bade Lennir farewell and passed from the receiving room into a rotunda from which three corridors spoked. The way was brightly lit in all directions, the air cool and dry, with no scent of decay or must. Fresh air currents circulated throughout the tombs. They had been well built to preserve those who slept within, and to make them habitable for the caretakers. Statues of stern kings and queens in white marble stared down at them. Along the corridors lay the sarcophagi of the royal dead.

Karigan pulled her longcoat tighter about her, chilled as much by the atmosphere as by the natural coolness of the tombs.

Brienne struck off across the rotunda and into the corridor that lay straight ahead. Karigan was hard on her heels, not wishing to be left behind and alone. The corridor was wide with lamps aglow on the walls. The sarcophagi were precisely spaced, but not all were alike. Lifelike effigies reclined on some of the lids, while others held no figures at all. The iconography was either of the gods, or showed scenes from that monarch’s life. The small sarcophagi saddened Karigan, for they contained children. A wooden toy horse was placed atop the tomb of one small prince.

In other parts of the tombs there were burial chambers that were much more extravagant. One queen lay in a reproduction of the bed chamber she’d slept in during her life, and was read to each night by a caretaker. There were chapels and libraries and sitting areas throughout that were rarely used, but nevertheless were well maintained for royals who had not wished to slumber through eternity without the comforts they had known in life, as well as for those who mourned them.

Brienne halted at one such sitting area, the stone walls covered by wood paneling and paintings of pleasant landscapes. A decanter of wine and goblets sat waiting on a table. Karigan supposed such spaces could be used by visiting family, but there were only Zachary and Estora in residence, and would they really visit all the dead, or just those they had known in life? She shuddered remembering there were already empty sarcophagi awaiting the king and queen.

To her surprise, Brienne stepped between a pair of chairs to reach the wood-paneled wall. She pressed something recessed into the ornate molding, and the wall opened inward into a narrower passage.