Chapter 290

Chapter 290: Visitor in the Cemetery

He guessed that the place he was in now was a public facility used to store corpses for a while. The voice outside the coffin should belong to the warden who ran this place.

The warden sounded very experienced. He calmly called the strange movement from the coffin a “Restless One” phenomenon and spoke with Duncan in a clear, sensible way. During the whole time, he did not show any panic at all.

The body Duncan was using now seemed to belong to a worker from a mine. The cause of death was a fall from a great height, and the body had suffered serious physical damage.

While he talked with the voice outside the coffin, Duncan quietly summed up this useful information. At the same time, he became even more certain that this body was not very useful.

Even if he did not think about how weak this body felt because of the anomaly, it would still be hard for him to go running around with a caved?in skull. Of course, this world did have “Living dead”. The sailors on Tyrian’s ship included more than a few strange fellows whose skulls were missing a piece or whose hearts were missing a chunk. But even as a Living dead, one could not just walk around openly in a city?state. That did not meet his needs at all.

While Duncan made his plans in silence, the old caretaker outside the coffin kept his nerves tight and never relaxed.

The double?barreled shotgun in the old man’s hands still pointed at the coffin. The herbal powder he had spread on the ground earlier now gave off a pale glow. His voice stayed calm, but his fingers on the gun were already turning white.

He was waiting for the Restless One in the coffin to use up the last of its obsession and reason. He was waiting for that talkative dead man to grow tired and accept the fact of his own death. According to his experience, this usually did not take long. Under the strong soothing effect of the consecrated lantern and the herbs, half an hour was often enough to calm a restless soul.

Normally, the dead would slowly grow dull and muddled as they talked. Very soon, they would even forget how to speak at all. Normally, the voice in the coffin would turn into vague muttering, then into hoarse rambling. Normally…

So why did the one in this coffin seem more and more energetic the more he talked?!

“You know where I am right now? Ah, of course I know this is a place for keeping corpses. I mean where it is exactly… You know, I couldn’t see anything around me when they brought me here.

“How’s the weather today? It should be pretty cold, right? I think I can hear the wind outside. Frostholm nights are hard to get through…

“What time is it now? Have you eaten? Do you have any coworkers with you?

“Any news in the city lately? I don’t really remember what happened before… Oh, right, do you know someone named Brown Scott? I think he’s a folklore scholar or maybe a historian. He lives on Hearth Street. A friend of mine knows him very well…”

Fine beads of sweat slowly appeared on the old caretaker’s forehead. He could swear to Bartok that in all his long career he had never seen such a strange case. A restless corpse, after having a “Gatekeeper” from the Church of Death personally perform a soul?calming ritual on it, and under the strong soothing of the consecrated lantern and the herbal powder, showed not the slightest sign of going to sleep. Instead it was waking up more and more, like a living person!

This could not help but make him think of the troubling rumors that had been spreading through the city?state lately. He thought of all those stories about “the return of the dead”.

Had the boundary that Bartok, God of Death, had set between life and death really developed a gap?

“Mister,” the old caretaker tightened his grip on the shotgun. His tone grew a bit more serious as he said: “You’ve said enough. If I were you, I’d quiet down right now and go back to proper sleep as soon as possible – otherwise, when the Sun comes up, you’re the one who’ll suffer.”

Duncan thought for a moment inside the coffin, then said helplessly: “I’d really like to cooperate with you, but I honestly can’t fall asleep right now… How about you help me open this lid and then give me a good medicine for calming the mind and helping sleep?”

“Now you’re asking for too much…”

The old caretaker spoke in a low voice, but just then, a sudden, harsh pounding on the iron gate at the cemetery entrance cut him off.

Who would visit at such a late hour of the night?

The old caretaker looked in shock toward the source of the pounding. He saw several figures in black coats standing under the streetlamp outside the tall carved gate. The glow from the gas lamp fell on them, stretching their shadows long and wrapping their backs in a halo of light.

One of the figures raised a hand and showed something in the lamplight.

It was a triangular metal sigil, the symbol of an envoy of Bartok, God of Death.

The old caretaker’s heart gave a little jolt. He turned back without thinking and glanced at the brand?new coffin.

The voice inside the coffin had gone quiet for the moment.

After a short hesitation, the old man turned and walked quickly toward the cemetery entrance.

With a clatter of loosening chains and the creak of turning hinges, the tall cemetery gate swung open.

The old caretaker lifted his head and studied the figures under the streetlamp with wary eyes.

Three men and one woman, all wearing thick, pitch?black coats and equally heavy wide?brimmed hats. They stood in silence in the night wind. Their clothes and their quiet stance made people think of a Crow standing by a gravestone at midnight.

While the old man was looking up at these uninvited guests, the uninvited guests were also studying this gloomy old gravekeeper. Very soon, a shorter man stepped half a step forward, lifted the triangular sigil in his hand, and spoke in a solemn voice:

“The peace of death will in the end shelter you and me. By order of the city’s Cathedral, we have come to take away one of the dead. He should have just been sent to this cemetery.”

“priests of the God of Death?” The old caretaker felt a flash of doubt. He frowned slightly at the triangular sigil in the man’s hand. “Gatekeeper Agatha left only a few hours ago. She didn’t say any other priests would be coming here to guide the dead. And… it’s midnight. This is not a good time to guide the dead.”

“Special case. This dead man needs to be taken somewhere safer,” another person among the visitors spoke. It was the woman. She was of medium height, her facial lines were hard and cold, and her lips were very thin. “Please cooperate. It’s a matter of life and death. There can be no delay.”

When the old caretaker heard the words “special case”, his heart moved. He thought again of the talkative voice in that coffin, and at once all his doubts faded.

It seemed the Restless One in that coffin really was unusual, and the Church had already noticed. He did not know how the priests at the Cathedral had made their judgment, but in any case, the experts were here now.

The old man did not like outsiders disturbing his cemetery, but since the other side held the proper emblem of the God of Death and claimed to be official priests, there was no need for him to stand in their way.

He only hoped this trouble would end as soon as possible tonight.

“Come with me,” the old man muttered. He turned and stepped aside, opening the way into the cemetery. “You came at just the right time.”

“Just the right time?” One of the tall, broad?shouldered men in black was about to follow him in. He paused for a moment at those words. “Why do you say that?”

“That corpse has already started to get restless. Ha, muttering and rambling, talking nonstop, the more we talk the more awake he gets. I’m starting to think he’ll cross the First Threshold and turn into an Undying – and that would be a real problem. The nearby residents wouldn’t like that at all,” the old caretaker said, shaking his head. “Nobody likes the Undying. People in Frostholm like them even less. It makes them think of that battleship cursed by the curse. That ship was full of Undying…”

As they listened to the old man grumble all the way, the four people in black traded quick glances, as if a bit surprised.

But soon, the thin?lipped woman shook her head slightly, signaling them to hold back for now.

The other three nodded a little and kept following the old caretaker in silence. The short man who had shown the Church emblem earlier casually tossed the sigil onto the ground.

The emblem fell without a sound. The moment it touched the earth, it turned into drifting black dust and blew away on the wind.

The group soon crossed the narrow paths of the cemetery and reached the morgue where the dead were stored for a time.

Plain coffins sat in neat rows on raised platforms, lying silent in the night wind. The consecrated lantern the old caretaker had hung on a post earlier still burned with a steady flame. The herbal powder on the ground still gave off a faint pale glow.

Seeing that these sealing measures were still working normally, the old caretaker clearly relaxed a little. He then took two steps forward and pointed at the newest coffin: “This one. The one you’re looking for. It was brought in tonight.”

The four people in black exchanged a look. The thin?lipped woman walked up to the platform and frowned slightly as she looked over the coffin in front of her: “…So this is it…”

“Probably,” Duncan said casually from inside the coffin. “Who are you?”

The woman’s eyes widened a little at once, as if the voice from the coffin had startled her. The other three men clearly jumped as well. They looked at each other nervously, and the tall one could not help but mutter under his breath: “Something’s not right…”

“What’s not right?” The old caretaker seemed to have very good hearing. He asked curiously: “Is it too much for you to handle?”

“No, we’re here to take care of it,” the woman in black answered right away. Then she glanced at her three companions, as if weighing her words quickly, and nodded to the old caretaker: “From here… we’ll need you to step aside for a while.”