The as-yet-unidentified corpse grinned at them in a friendly manner.

  At least, it grinned at them. The mummification of its face had drawn the skin tight, pulled the lips tight, and rendered ‘grinning’ and ‘gawping open-mouthed’ as its two go-to expressions. The friendly manner was entirely down to interpretation, but Konstans had trouble equating the voice as being anything other than friendly.

  It was a relatively local accent to that region of Lower Arronea, albeit quite a rural one. Normally, the voices had a sort of fuzziness and depth about them which Konstans felt suited friendliness, incomprehension or rage. The voice of the body in Ulthunc’s tomb had lost some of the richness that it probably had in life, its words now sounding papery and thin. Yet it retained elements of friendliness. And indeed incomprehension.

  The latter emotion appeared to be infectious.

  “I’m sorry: you’re not Ulthunc?” Professor Astridottar was visibly bewildered in a way which Konstans had not seen before. She stood before the tomb, gaze fixed on the summoned dead body, crinkling her nose as if to sneeze. Beside her was Alberic, frozen halfway through opening one of his notebooks. His eyes slowly switched from the corpse to his professor.

  “Ho no, not me, I’m not! Why, I be’n’t looking at all like him, I’m zure!”

  Professor Astridottar narrowed her eyes, as if the coming sneeze had moved a step closer, but said nothing. Alberic’s eyes flicked between the two of them a couple of times before he looked over his shoulder at Konstans.

  Konstans shrugged.

  “I’m not great at faces of people even when they’re alive. When they’re dead, well...” he blew a breath out of his mouth. “Most bodies down here probably look the same after a few decades. I mean, he won’t be like his pictures any more.” Konstans gestured at the pictures on the wall. Seeing how worried Alberic looked, he felt he had to offer something more. “All I can tell you is that he’s wearing Ulthunc’s clothes.”

  Alberic nodded gratefully, and looked back at the corpse. But even as he opened his mouth to question that detail, they noticed the corpse looking down at the red burial robe in possible surprise. At least, his mouth had dropped open: the rest of his features stayed much the same.

  “Well! I wurzn’t wearing theze when I wuz died, that’z for zurtain!”

  “Um, if you don’t mind me asking, how did you die? Oh, and who are you? Sorry, I should have asked that first...”

  The body in the tomb waved away Alberic’s concerns. “Now, don’t you be worrying about thart, maizter. I be called Zoront, an’ I wuz killed in the building of thiz ‘ere tomb for Ulthunc.”

  Alberic’s eyes lit up.

  “You were involved in the construction of the tomb!? Amazing, this is... I have so many, I mean, do you mind if I ask you some ques-”

  The young man’s enthusiasm, which appeared to have taken the corpse by surprise, was paused somewhat when the professor put her hand on his arm. He stopped in mid-flow and looked at her quizzically.

  “Hold on just a second, Alberic. This is something of an unexpected situation: do you mind if we have a quick chat, Master Zorron? We’ll get back to you soon.”

  “Ho no! I don’t be moinding thart at all. You jezt takez your toim, Miztrezz Profezzor, Oi’ll not be going anywhere!”

  The Professor led Alberic to beneath the carving of the Battle of the Golden River and gave Konstans a look to join them. For its part, the body in the tomb looked politely away to give them some privacy. Professor Astridottar nodded. The need to sneeze had vanished from her face, and her eyes held some of the same enthusiasm that could be seen in Alberic’s.

  “Good, good. Now, Konstans. Did the tomb, the sarcophagus, look any different to how it normally would when you opened it?”

  Konstans frowned, casting his mind back. “It is difficult to say. Often, Ulthunc’s body might be in a position that is a little different. When he has been summoned and then let rest again he might have moved. But nothing seemed wrong. The corpse is wearing the burial robe, the diadem, has the sword next to it. Maybe they are different, but they look the same enough at a glance.” He shrugged, in summary. As far as Konstans could tell, before Alberic’s summoning that should have been Ulthunc’s body.

  “I don’t suppose...” he paused but Professor Astridottar nodded at him encouragingly. Alberic had swapped his notebook out for an empty one in which he was feverishly scribbling. “Well, I don’t do the magic bit, but could it be the wrong spirit got pulled to the right body?”

  Even before he’d finished speaking, the professor was shaking her head.

  “It’s a good thought, but no, not here. Alberic made no mistake, and the enchantments on the sarcophagus prevent the body from ever fully leaving the tomb, or any other spirit being fixed to that body but Ulthunc’s. If they’ve been broken, then somebody has gone to the trouble of meticulously repairing them and I can’t see why. The only people who would notice if they weren’t correct would be those who would probably be summoning Ulthunc. And they would notice as soon as any substitute corpse was reanimated.”

  Konstans frowned.

  “But I don’t understand why. To come down here, they’d need a guide, and if we let Ulthunc’s body be stolen... Well, people would visit, but not as many. It’s not good business!”

  Professor Astridottar was nodding, and even Alberic looked up. Not that he’d been paying much attention.

  “Professor! I’ve rewritten my questions in light of the new source, if you wouldn’t mind going over them? This is actually...” He stopped as the professor patted him on the arm again.

  “Alberic, I’m sure they’ll be all right. You’re getting to be the expert in your field, now. Go! Ask them! I just worry you might not get the answers you are looking for.” Her eyes retained the light of interest that had been sparked when the corpse revealed its identity. “Remember to call him Zerrun!”

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  “Oh! If you’re sure... I... Zerrun?” Alberic hesitated, shifting his weight as if balancing on the edge of a wall. He breathed in, spun around, and approached the sarcophagus. Konstans felt Professor Astridottar’s hand on his arm, holding him still as Alberic began to speak.

  “Greetings, Famed Ul... Zerrun? My... I have travelled here from afar to ask questions of you so as to expand the bounds of knowledge. Um, my name is Alberic Hasker, and with me are my Professor Astridottar and Konstans... of the Red Wolf Peak. I have some questions so as to expand knowledge...?”

  Konstans leaned in to the professor and whispered as discreetly as he could. “I’m not really of Red Wolf Peak, but from the Giantreach Mountains. And, I thought his name was...” Not unkindly, the Professor hushed him.

  For his part, the corpse had started in surprise. His dry voice rattled across the room, as he twisted slightly to see Alberic.

  “Questions? But I’m not Ulthunc! Oi be juzt a lowly labourer ‘oo died digging out theez catacoomz...”

  Alberic stepped around so that he was more directly before him, nodding excitedly. “Yes! But I’m not researching Ulthunc, I’m interested in the tombs! I mean, why all the elaborate challenges and traps? But then the exquisite carvings here: if you want to make the tomb look this good, why try to prevent people coming here? Or maybe that question should be the other way around...” Alberic paused a moment in thought, jotting something down in his notebook as the corpse placed his head in his hands. The researcher continued on, oblivious:

  “And then the enchantments involved! They’re centuries old, yet only a handful of places are showing any signs of wear. To me, those seem like an oversight in the initial casting, which means that there must be an incredible power source somewhere, but nobody knows what that is. But you were involved in the construction, so you’ll have information about the hows and...”

  “Alberic.”

  Professor Astridottar said only his name, and quietly, but it was enough to stop Alberic’s stream of consciousness pouring from his head. In the sudden silence, every living person in the room could hear the low moaning coming from the corpse in the sarcophagus.

  “I’m sorry Alberic. It is Ulthunc after all.”

  The corpse brought its head up with a crack that made Konstans wince.

  “No, I’m not Ulthunc! Oi, baintn’t him at all, miztrezz Astridottar, I be Zerrunt, joist a puir old labourer down in the tunnels... tunnelz... damn it.” His shoulders dropped, and the infinitely black eyes twitched in the professor’s direction momentarily. “It was the voice, wasn’t it? It’s hard to practice accents when you’re dead: I could hear it drifting all over the place...”

  “It was the voice a bit, yes. But it was more the wards, the clothes, you didn’t correct me when I messed up your name, Petrosk remaining by your side, you not wanting to look in this direction...” Ulthunc’s eyes flashed over again, almost guiltily. “...There are too many things that showed you couldn’t be anybody but Ulthunc. And some of them aren’t things you can do anything about.”

  Ulthunc placed his head in his hands once more and gave a loud, despairing groan. Professor Astridottar moved away from the carving of the Battle of the Golden River to where Ulthunc could more easily look at her.

  Alberic stood there, running a finger down one side of the notebook filled with questions for a person who didn’t exist. Konstans thought it strange that somebody whose mind had seemed so quick to jump from thought to thought should have such trouble accepting this new state of affairs. He supposed Alberic’s thoughts would run on so quickly and so far down a pathway, that he had trouble stopping them, turning them around and herding them back to where they had taken a wrong turning. His own thoughts had still been trying to unravel Ulthunc’s not being in the tomb so it was a fairly simple matter for him to accept he actually had been the whole time. Ulthunc had been trying to trick them.

  “But why? Um, I mean, why the deception? Why claim to be somebody else?” From his questions, it seemed like Alberic was at roughly the same point as Konstans again. Professor Astridottar remained ahead of them both:

  “Hmmm... I could speculate of course: I’ve got a couple of theories, but maybe Ulthunc would prefer to...?”

  The reanimated body of Ulthunc heaved air into its body, then expelled it in an approximation of a heavy sigh. He remained unmoving, so the professor continued.

  “Well, there’s a general reason, or a reason specific to Ulthunc.” Her voice slipped into a very clear and precise tone. Listening to her, Konstans felt like he was getting a glimpse of what an education might be like. It was as if the professor was opening up the world and revealing its hiding places for hows and whys.

  “The general reason is a dislike of being disturbed. The dead are supposed to rest in peace, or that’s what we say when we bury them, but the increase in historical research over the last few centuries, coupled with University and other authorities willingness to sanction ‘Primary source acquisition and direct investigative interaction,’ (as the dean describes it to the bursar) means that this is no longer the case. Konstans, you’d know better than anyone,” she glanced at Ulthunc, who remained near frozen in his stillness, “or almost anyone, that Ulthunc, as a major historical figure, must be getting questioned at least every month. Alberic, you mentioned in your literature review how Causworthy argued that the presence of traps and obstacles in tombs was a way to deter those who would disturb the dead: both by graverobbing and other activities. I’m afraid we ourselves are the ‘other activities.’ By pretending that Ulthunc was no longer here, he must have hoped that he would be no longer summoned. Although I rather suspect that more people would have wanted to talk to one who had helped to build the tomb than Ulthunc realised.

  “I have some supporting evidence. There are reports of summoned spirits being... recalcitrant in their answers. Sometimes they may be compelled to answer, but offering the bare minimum of responses can make it hardly worth it for the researchers. Other spirits have become aggressive: the wards around the summoning tend to protect the innocent, but Gunther the Devious managed to fool one of his interlocutors into stumbling to their death.

  “Ulthunc, in my experience, is too polite to carry out these actions. But that does not mean he doesn’t wish to be left in peace.

  “Which leads me to the more specific reason. Ulthunc is, based on the occasions we’ve met, polite and unassuming to a fault. I hope he’ll forgive me when he says that this almost doesn’t fit with Ulthunc the Slayer, killer of thousands of men and monsters, invincible in battle, who flinches when these things are mentioned. Whose tomb is decorated with depictions of his greatest triumphs, most of which he can’t bear to look at. Whom I’ve never once seen acknowledge the presence of one of the most widely known magical weapons on the continent by his side.

  “I’m sorry Ulthunc, but you never wanted this. Not the sword, not the fighting, not the celebrity. The whole thing... well, I don’t want to put words into your mouth, but I can tell it sets off some pretty strong negative emotions.”

  Ulthunc raised his head to look at the three living people there with him. Konstans had heard people describe how the stars in the sky were pinpricks of light unimaginably far away. Ulthunc’s eyes were black with the depths of a starless night: it suddenly occurred to Konstans how terribly cold and lonely it must feel looking out from those eyes into the land of the living. He shivered.

  Ulthunc’s voice, when it came, was ancient and slow. The first words were forced from the desiccated lips like the first links of a heavy chain, but once they had emerged they pulled every other link after with an inevitability like that of the grave itself.

  “Some pretty strong negative emotions, you say? Guilt, shame, hatred, horror... it’s all of these and more. I think... I think you have guessed some of this, Professor Getchude Astridottar, and you are close to finding out other bits, Alberic Hasker. My secret and the secret of the tomb are intertwined with a deeper secret. You are pulling at the threads, and if it becomes unravelled too soon then it does not bear thinking about. So, I must tell you the whole to avoid it being picked apart. But you must promise me: there are things that I will say which can not become known to all. Swear that once I am done, and you know the why, you will help me keep what must be kept, for as long as it must be so.”