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Elaine agreed. He pushed her through the door and locked it behind them. He leaned on the door with a sigh. "Safe, I think."
The room had a richly woven carpet from wall to wall. Brilliant reds, blues, yellows covered the floor in cheerful luxury. The walls were a dark polished wood. Velvet-covered chairs and couches bordered the walls. Lamps gave a warm glow to everything. And in the center of the room on little cloth-draped stands, were coffins.
Each coffin was a different color, a different wood: the near-black of cherry, the thick brown of oak, the paleness of pine. Some had golden handles, some were just painted in gilt. One was white with silver edging-dainty, a child's coffin.
"Don't have much use for these now," he said. "Just wrap the bodies in shrouds and burn them. Only just figured out that fire stops them rising."
He helped her off with the cloak and spread it carelessly on a pale wooden coffin. The cloth looked strangely at home on the wood. "Just upstairs, in my best laying-out room." He took a lamp from a wall sconce and led the way up a broad set of carpeted stairs.
Carved doors bordered the hallway. He stopped before the last door on the left. Again he unlocked the door. "I have found that a locked door can keep the dead in as well as out. I lock all the doors just in case."
Having been on the streets of Cortton after dark, Elaine couldn't argue with the precaution.
Ashe pushed the door inward, raising the lamp high. The pool of golden light fell outward, gleaming in a fall of yellow hair.
Elaine stood breathlessly in the doorway. She could not see his face, but the hair alone was enough. Blaine lay on a cloth-draped table near the far wall. The last rays of sunlight cast only grayness against the windows.
Her breath fogged in the room, and she shivered. It was as cold in this room as outside. The windows were raised to let in the winter night. Cold to preserve the body.
She walked as if in a dream. Even though she had seen Blaine in the street, his death had somehow become unreal. Perhaps this sense of unreality was a kindness. It made the grief less raw. If it simply wasn't real, it couldn't hurt you.
Blaine lay wrapped in rich cloth, hands folded over his chest. His hair had been combed and spread around his face. There was no trace of blood or what had killed him. Ashe was good at his job. In the uncertain light of the lamp, she almost expected Blaine to open his eyes, but she knew he wouldn't. He had never drunk of the contaminated water. He was well and truly dead.
An idea occurred to Elaine. She knew Blaine wouldn't rise from the dead, but how did the undertaker know? The sunlight was almost gone. Why wasn't he burning the body, or locking the door?
Ashe smiled at her. "I was at the i
Elaine shook her head, "ft didn't work. She was …" She had no word for what Averil had become. Not a zombie, but not alive, not really.
"I know it did not work as you had hoped. I have had that problem for weeks now."
Elaine turned away from her brother's body, giving her full attention to the undertaker. "What do you mean?"
"I lost my wife, as you've lost your brother. You want him alive again, don't you?"
Elaine nodded.
"I want my wife back. I have had some success with other dead, but it is never quite right. You can raise the dead back to life, but it is not quite right. Together, perhaps, we can solve both our problems."
"You poisoned the water. You brought the plague. That's why you hadn't been burning the bodies." Her voice was soft, almost matter-of-fact. It was better than screaming.
"I have been trying to prefect my spell, yes. It was only a few days ago that someone else voiced the idea of burning the dead. I knew it would stop them from rising, but I didn't want that." His face was cheerful in the lamplight, almost self-satisfied. He was mad, completely. Jonathan had been right. He was trying to raise a better zombie. No, that wasn't it. Ashe wanted his wife alive again-not a zombie, but alive.
"I can raise the body, but not the mind. If you've seen the others I've healed, you know what I've done."
He set the lamp on the edge of the table. The light gave a golden aliveness to Elaine's face. "You are very new at healing. You will get better at it, as I have gotten better working with the dead."
Elaine stared into his smiling face and had no words. What could she say to someone who was crazy? Who had seen the horrors her healing had created and wanted her to continue, to experiment, to get better at it? Ashe seemed to think practice would mean Elaine could heal without deforming the patient. Elaine feared practice would give her control of what deformities she made. She could heal, but at what cost.
There was a sound, almost like an explosion from downstairs. "I think we have company," Ashe said. He didn't sound afraid. He walked toward the door, but did not give Elaine his back. He was crazy, but still didn't trust her completely. He left her the lamp.
"Gaze upon your brother's face while I tend to our company. When I return, you can tell me if you would not spend every ounce of your life-force on bringing him back. I think I know what your answer will be." With that, he closed the door. The key turned in the lock. Elaine was locked in, alone, with her brother's corpse.
THIRTY-ONE
Jonathan stepped through the splintered door. Thordin was already in the room, naked sword gleaming in the light of many lamps. Gersalius and Konrad entered behind them. The door had fallen to a combination of Konrad's axe and the wizard's spells.
Jonathan glanced back at the gaping door, and the darkness that sat just outside. "If we can walk through the door, so can the dead. We don't want our retreat cut off," he said.
"Then we'd best hurry," the wizard said. "There is every chance that this Ashe can control the dead his spell has raised."
"You didn't tell us that," Konrad said.
The wizard shrugged, looking a little embarrassed. "I just thought of it."
"The wizard is quite correct," a voice spoke from the far doorway. Ashe stood just inside it, out of sword range. "I can control the dead."
Something crawled into the doorway behind Ashe. It was the undead Tereza had seen that first night, the one that moved with inhuman speed. This was Jonathan's first clear look at it.
Its skin was smooth, but discolored, spotted with patches of odd shapes, like the skin of a snake, mottled and patterned. It opened its mouth and hissed at them.
Ashe touched its head, absentmindedly as though patting a dog. The thing leaned into his legs, apparently enjoying the attention.
"This was the first one that had some mind left, but as you can see, it never progressed. He will always be a loyal animal." The undertaker smiled as he spoke.
"Have you missed your little blond companion?"
Konrad took a step forward, axe raised. "You have Elaine?"
"I found her wandering the streets, quite distraught. She's upstairs with her brother's body. She's quite talented in her own way." He looked at Jonathan when he said the next: "Do you know what she did to your friends at the i
Images flooded Jonathan's mind. He saw again what had been waiting for them at the i