Page 108 (1/1)

He shifted in his chair, his expression struggling toward neutrality

"I’ve a few ht," Dr Silk announced, "entertainestured and six us, balanced on a hand wagon, and placed it in front of the da&iu you a box of us of a proan tensed The Capital, she remembered, was essentially her home province of L’Petrie She was too far away to us

"What treasures were buried with this man?" Dr Silk asked "He was, after all, an affluent an stiffened even reith the pairing of the words "uests called out "Let us see!"

"You want to knohat has lain asleep for so long?" Dr Silk’s question was followed by choruses of, "Yes! Open it now!"

"It is a good thing the professor is not here," Cade gru horror "He cannot abide these perforuests cried out

Dr Silk clapped once and the servants in white face returned with tools While they worked levers beneath the heavy cover, Karigan sent up a prayer that no one from her time was in that coffin, no one she knew A merchant of Corsa? It couldn’t possibly be her father, could it? There had been hout the centuries Even if the chances were miniscule, she could not help but think it

To her, her father still lived, carried on, if in another time She could not help but wonder what had beco from Blackveil? He would not have reed Sacoridia No, he would not have stood for it Had he been lost in the turmoil as many of her friends e?

Surely Dr Silk knew nothing of her true identity He couldn’t have found out, could he? Was he doing this to torture her? Anything was possible in this strange world, but she did not think he’d allow her to walk freely if he kneho she really was The coffin of a Corsa h

She sed hard, wishing to be soaze away frorated against stone and the cover teetered on edge, finally sliding to the floor with a thunderous booazed down into it from his perch on the da&iuestured, and the servants reached down into the sarcophagus and lifted "Gold handles Very nice"

Karigan chewed on her bottom lip She would skewer Dr Silk if this were her father, and then they could desecrate his grave

The servants hoisted a coffin of dark wood out and rested it crosswise atop the sarcophagus The handles did appear to be gold Would her father have deold handles on his coffin? Would he have been so frivolous? Not her father, no, but her aunts er brother

"There is an inscription on the lid," Dr Silk said "Here sleeps the greatest merchant of all Corsa"

DR SILK’S EXHIBITION OF BONES AND BLOOD

Karigan closed her eyes, waiting

"He is," Dr Silk said, "Orhald Fallows, gold s, her veil fluttered in front of her lips Not her father, but yes, she’d heard of Orhald Falloho, it was ruold Froold and bejeweled bathtub for the last Sealender king That put him at two hundred years earlier than her father’s tiold, but perhaps he was huend made him out to be

Dr Silk also seean felt the excitement build in the audience as he tantalized theht have been buried with the gold ain, and his servants lifted the lid off the coffin She was not close enough to smell the immediate fetid air that would have risen froine the stink of old rot, of bones that had lain undisturbed for about four centuries The servants paused before reaching into the coffin

"Careful now," Dr Silk instructed them

While everyone’s attention was riveted on the coffin, additional servants placed a table on the daïs next to Dr Silk The shrouded form of Orhald Falloas then lifted out and carried up to the table

Dr Silk explored the winding sheets, cutting the burial iteold flask that would have been filled ine or brandy that served as a cogets scattered throughout and a scale bundled at Orhald’s feet Sheaves of parchs, prayers for the departed written by the faold At last he cut away the final sheet, and there lay Orhald Fallows’s skeletal forarbed in faded red velvet robes