sister-mine. We'll go together…"
Chapter Four
His last companion had gone to pieces days before. He wasn't sure how many days, sunrise and sunset had grown so much alike of late, but he remembered holding her tenderly as the last of her flesh rotted beyond the point where it would contain her. When it was all over and her kigh had fled shrieking into the darkness, he'd taken one of her few remaining finger bones, threaded it on a silver wire, and added it to the multitude hanging from the silk cord he wore around his neck.
He kept a bit from all of them. They were his family, his friends, and he owed it to them not to forget.
If he lifted his head, he could see the Capital growing like a carbuncle on the horizon. Although old muscles ached, he was too near his destination to rest.
As he walked, he scanned the faces of the other travelers on the road. A glance, no more, and then his gaze moved on. He'd been searching for so long, he no longer remembered what it was he searched for—he only knew it was important and that he couldn't be complete until he'd found it again.
His heart began to pound uncomfortably quickly as he finally distinguished the first of the stone tombs that lined the road. Trembling fingers tightened around the carved, bone knob of his walking stick. Once it had been part of a shoulder joint which had, in turn, been part of a young shepherd he had loved. They'd stayed with him longer back then, back before age had weakened his Song.
The sun had risen past the center of the sky when he reached the first tomb, and he shuffled gratefully into the small bit of shade it offered.
" When I was alive ," he muttered, tracing the stone letters as he read, " I was a candle-maker. I was the first to add the scent of oranges or lemons to the wax. My candles burned in the Imperial Palace. I gave one tenth of all I made to the temple of Leetis … Who in the Circle is Leetis?" He'd never been able to keep track of the Empire's gods—not that it made any difference in the end. Once it had enraged him that the Circle had a place for gods created from nothing more than a bit of misremembered history but no place for him. He'd grown too old for rage, but he still felt the old pain, the old betrayal. " Every festival, I gave two dozen beeswax candles to the healers. I employed three craftsmen and twelve laborers. My name was Elkan. My mother was Yolandis ."
He tapped a ridged and discolored nail against the crudely cut bias relief of a man dipping candles. "Elkan Yolandis. A good name. My name is… is…" He frowned. No one had called him by name for so long, he had trouble remembering. "Well," he sighed after a moment, "it doesn't matter." Clearing his throat and hacking a mouthful of phlegm into the dust at the side of the road, he began to hum.
A number of those jostling past on their way along the East Road to the Capital grew suddenly uneasy and began to hurry. No one paid any attention to the old man in the travel-stained brown robes as he padded about the tomb.
His circuit complete, he sagged against the barred and bolted door. Although three of the eight panels prepared for epitaphs had been filled, no one had answered his call.
"Too old. Too old." A long drink of brackish water from his leather flask did nothing to wash away his disappointment. Shoulders slumped, he continued on his way, less certain now that he'd find the companionship he so desperately desired.
He almost didn't recognize the funeral when he saw it approaching. It took up fully half the road, and the noise rising from the crowd seemed more likely to wake the dead than lay them to rest. As most of the traffic grumbled its way over to the remaining side of the road, he hovered near the edge of a small cluster of the curious.
"Would you look at that." A beefy arm waved at the four blue-veiled figures carrying a small but working fountain between them. "What's the point in