Book of The Dead

Priest Balwyn Galloway had a headache coming on.

“You can’t possibly be serious,” he groaned. “How are they running out of capacity again?”

“They’re understaffed,” his useless aide, Crillian, told him, “or at least, that’s what they’re claiming. Many of their workers have fled. Supposedly.”

Galloway grit his teeth, anger and fury building within him until it eventually petered out, leaving him drained and trembling. Fatigue warred with fear in him as he slumped face first into his desk, the walls of his tiny office hemming in around him.

“A-are you all right, Priest Galloway?” Crillian hesitated to ask.

“Shut up,” the Priest groaned, “I’m trying to think.”

The purge was, of course, a massive undertaking, logistically. So many moving parts were involved, so many people. The great machinery of the bureaucracy was screeching as it fought to shake off the rust that had built up over the centuries, pushing everything to breaking point.

So it wasn’t that surprising, all things considered, that some of the… less glorious aspects of the Duke’s crusade weren’t run as well as perhaps they should have been. Galloway was grateful for the role he occupied, since it kept him tucked away in a small office in the capital, rather than trudging through villages looking for crones to abduct, but he truly hadn’t expected it would be this difficult to dispose of the… refuse.

“How is it possible that every crematorium in Kenmor is full?” he muttered into the solid wooden surface of his desk. “All they do is burn people. That’s it! How long can it possibly take?”

The Priest frowned, still not bothering to raise his head.

“You know perfectly well I don’t. After praying and applying the blessing, I don’t have anything to do with a corpse in my role as a Priest. Is it really that complicated? They get wood, they stick them in an oven or something and….” he shuddered… “cook them.”

“I would say roast rather than cook,” Crillian said, “to be accurate. You have the right idea, but it's a lot harder than it sounds. The amount of wood required is staggering, and the logging camps are also short of manpower. Then there’s the difficulty of bringing the lumber into the city, which takes forever thanks to the checkpoints and inspections. Merchants and Wagoneers are in short supply as well, since most are unwilling to travel at the moment. Delivering the ashes to the families of the bereaved is another nightmare. Nobody can be found, and half the time, the bodies haven’t been properly identified.”

As his assistant ticked through the many issues Balwyn was facing in his attempts to put the dead to rest, the Priest slumped even further into the table, a feat which had seemed impossible only moments ago.

“Yes, thank you for reminding me of the many difficulties I face in the course of my work.”

“Of course.”

“I was being sarcastic.”

“Oh.”

With immense effort, Father Balwyn picked himself up, his forehead noticeably red from being pressed into the table for so long. If he didn’t come up with a solution, and soon, there was going to be a serious problem.

“How many… uh… ‘clients’ are we required to rehouse per day, Crillian?” he asked, attempting to centre himself and focus on the problem.

“It varies day to day,” the assistant hedged, fishing around on the desk for some papers the Priest had scattered. “At worst, a thousand, at best, a few dozen.”

“Let’s not talk about the thousand,” Balwyn shuddered.

He did not want to be reminded about that particular incident.

“And what is the current capacity of the city's crematoriums?”

“Right now, it’s dropped to… about a hundred a day.”

Which meant they were one bad day away from disaster. Bodies piling up in the streets. Foul Magick would begin to accumulate and the dead would begin to walk shortly after. If an infectious zombie got loose in a city of millions…

It didn’t bear thinking about.

“Has the palace responded to our requests for more expedited cremations?”

That was the phrase he used to describe mass funeral pyres, which they had been forbidden to use on the city’s citizens.

“The reply came in today, Father,” came the answer.

“And?”

“They refused. The potential for civil unrest is considered too high.”

The same reasoning as before. The populace was terrified and angry. The poor and disaffected citizens had no recourse when it came to their lost family members. What were they going to do, come forward and ask for the remains? Outing themselves as relatives of cultists in the process?

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Those bodies could be safely tossed into the fire. It was the more well-to-do citizens where delicacy was required. If those wealthy, influential members of the city found out their cousin, or parent, or child, was dumped into a mass grave along with the ashes of a hundred others… they wouldn’t be pleased, to put it lightly.

“There is a possible solution… father.”

“Your mysterious benefactor again?” the Priest scoffed. “You want me to believe someone just stepped out of the shadows to help us out of the goodness of their heart? How did they even know we were in a pinch?”

The young assistant shook his head.

“Madam Yor is a successful businesswoman in the city. She happened to hear of the difficulties the city was facing and offered a potential solution.”

“And just what type of business does this ‘Madam Yor’ run? Hmm?”

Crillian blushed furiously and the Priests eyes narrowed.

“If you think I will turn over the hallowed dead of this city to some whore–”

His aide flashed him a spirited glare, face set in a mask of defiance.

“Madam Yor is not a whore,” he declared hotly.

Father Galloway raised his brows and his aide coughed, embarrassed by his passionate outburst.

“Besides,” the young man continued, trying to brush the moment under the carpet, “she didn’t offer to help us herself, but to introduce us to someone who could.”

“And who might that be?” Father Galloway sighed.

To think he would ever find himself this desperate…

“I believe his name was… Elten. Elten Priorus.”

~~~

“That is indeed my name,” said the man, bowing at the waist as he swept back his cloak in a serviceable bow. “Elten Priorus at your service.”

“A pleasure to meet you, sir,” Father Galloway said, taking a measure of the man before him.

Elten presented as quietly wealthy, his clothes and cloak all made of fine materials, but fashioned in an understated style. Modest, almost to the point of severe, he was dressed largely in dark colours which matched the tousled head of black hair on his head and the deep grey of his eyes. Thin in the face, he appeared as a cautious and reserved person. The Priest was warming to him already.

“And this is?” he asked, turning to the figure that stood just behind Elten’s right shoulder.

“My employee, Mr Ratly Underwood.”

“Ratly? That is an unfortunate name, sir.”

“As you can see, he was born with rather narrow features which, sadly, stayed with him into adulthood.”

The man in question twitched slightly, which had the unfortunate effect of making him look even more rodent-like. He did indeed have a rather unusually shaped face.

“Well, I apologise if I caused any offence. Please, step inside and we can discuss the purpose of your visit.”

Luckily, Crillian had remembered to book a more comfortable sitting room. If four people had tried to cram into his office, they would have been packed in like fish in a barrel.

When they were comfortably seated and a young attendant had brought them refreshments, the conversation began to flow.

“I must confess, I was surprised to find you were not operating out of the cathedral,” Elten said. “Considering the work you do…”

“It is precisely because of the work I do that I have been placed away from the rest of the Priesthood,” Galloway replied smoothly. “It is best not to taint the sacred spaces with the less… seemly consequences of the Duke’s great mission.”

“As you say,” Elten bowed his head, “I hope I have not overstepped.”

“Not at all. Now, as much as I would like to continue to chat, I’m afraid our business is most pressing.”

“So I understood from the haste in which this meeting was arranged. I am at your service, and by extension, the Duke’s, Father.”

“How soon would you be ready to begin processing?” the Priest asked bluntly.

“We can begin tomorrow.”

“Really?” Balwyn asked, surprised.

Elten smiled slightly.

“It isn’t so surprising as that. I own several warehouses and facilities in the city and Shadetown that, due to the current state of the province, sit empty, my workers idling with nothing to do. As it just so happens, I also have a contract with some loggers north of the city. They’ve recently come into the possession of some land and want to get started, but are having difficulty moving the processed lumber. If you allow us to assist, you will be helping to keep many people employed, Father.”

The Priest frowned. Wood was almost impossible to come by right now, but this man had a surplus?

“Can you elaborate on your wood supply?” he invited the gentleman to speak.

“Of course. Though, I must speak in confidence, if that is alright?”

“Naturally.”

“You are aware of the scandal at the Oldan estate?”

Almost involuntarily, Balwyn Galloway shuddered. There had not been a scandal, but a massacre.

“I am,” he said hurriedly.

“The land was naturally seized by the Empire in the wake of the incident, and, as I’m sure you are aware, there is a large forest included in the estate. However, despite the desperate need for wood…”

The Priest shared a look with his assistant and both of them grimaced. If the land was in the hands of the Empire, then it would take the officials forever and a day to get around to doing anything with it. With everything they had on their plates, logging rights were low on the list of priorities.

“It just so happens that I was able to make just the right connections to create some movement in this specific instance,” Elten said humbly, a satisfied expression on his face.

“You mean…?”

“Indeed, I was able to secure the logging rights and place them in the hands of a trusted subsidiary. Everything is in place so that we might give the hallowed dead of the Empire the respectful end they deserve and return their remains to their families. Heretics or not, it’s the least we can do.”

“I assume you want the Duke to pay you the same rate as what we pay the other crematoriums in the city? Or should we reduce the rate in light of your patriotism?”

A pained expression flickered across Elten’s face.

“As much as I would love to cut the rate, I wouldn’t be able to buy the wood or pay my workers. I’m sure you understand, Father.”

“Oh, I do, very well.”

He sighed. Making a snap decision, he stretched his hand across the table and Elten leaned forward to shake it.

“We can work out the exact numbers later, but whenever the crematoriums are at capacity, we will send the excess your way.”

“I am most grateful, Father Galloway. You will not regret this,” Elten smiled, then laughed.

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