The Shadow Isle - Katharine Kerr [103]
“They shall become part of the mountain forever,” Miccala said. “Soon enough the soft flesh rots away, leaving the hard bones. Slowly the stone covers the bones. They meld with the rock, become rock. Such is the destiny of our folk.”
“I see,” Berwynna whispered. “Born of the mountains, and to the mountains we’ll come in the end.”
“Just so.” Miccala smiled at her. “You learn fast, child.”
The men carried the bier to one of the platforms and laid it down on the ground nearby. Miccala pulled back the coverlet to reveal Otho’s naked body, lying on its side, his limbs curled and his hands tucked under his cheek. He looked so peaceful, with all his bitterness and complaints stilled at last, that Berwynna felt her grief lighten. Two of the men picked him up and laid him onto the platform. Miccala carefully rearranged his body to fit.
“Sleep well,” Miccala said. “You are home forever now.”
Everyone raised their arms into the air and stood for a long moment, praying, perhaps, to the gods whose names Berwynna had yet to learn.
“We shall remember our kinsman until we join him here,” Miccala said. “For now we shall leave him in peace.” Yet she laid a light hand on Berwynna’s arm to keep her at her side.
The men picked up the bier and trooped out. Mic lingered, caught Berwynna’s attention, and murmured, “We’ll wait outside.” He hurried off after his father.
“I have something to show you,” Miccala said. “If you’d not mind.”
“Not at all,” Berwynna said. “This is fascinating.”
Miccala took the basket of light and led the way into the approximate center of the cavern. As they passed the various platforms, Berwynna noticed skeletons, some covered with a thin film of translucent rock, others, more recently placed, merely spotted here and there. It would take a long time, she supposed, for the dripping sea-rock to do its work. Miccala stopped at a pair of very different platforms, rectangular and cut out of ordinary stone.
Each on its own platform, two skeletons lay full-length on their backs, their ghostly hands crossed over their chests. The travertine had completely covered them to a depth of perhaps an inch, making it difficult to pick out details. In the blue light from the mosses and the river, they seemed to be encased in smoke turned solid.
“Those aren’t Mountain Folk,” Berwynna said.
“No, they aren’t,” Miccala said. “Some say they’re of the race known as the Children of Air, the ones that Deverry men call the Westfolk. Others say that they’re Deverry men. I don’t know which is correct.”
“They must have been here a very long time.”
“Well over a thousand years. The founders discovered them when our people first came to Lin Serr.” Miccala held up her basket and moved it this way and that to make the light fall upon the rib cage of one of the skeletons. “When I was a child, you could still see a gold bird with spread wings lying under the blanket of rock. It must have been some sort of ornament around the person’s neck. I can’t make it out now, though. I was a child a very long time ago.” She lowered the basket with a sigh. “Let us return to the land of the living.”
At the entranceway they paused to put out the candles. Mic and Vron accompanied Berwynna the entire way up, but Miccala left them, turning down one of the side tunnels after they’d passed several landings. By the time they climbed the long stairways back up to the entrance hall, Berwynna was panting for breath, and her legs seemed to have turned to mud under her. Fortunately, Dougie was waiting by the inlaid maze. He picked her up and carried her down the corridor to their chamber.
After Otho’s funeral, Kov invited Mic and Enj to his quarters to partake of what he called a "restorative,” a golden liquor less potent than the dark brown stuff he’d served the night before. In his small reception chamber stood a stone bench with a wooden back and a welter of cushions for guests. After he set out the bottle and stoups, he himself took the only chair. In the dim bluish light from baskets of fungi, the liquor shone green. They toasted each other