Casket of Souls

shadowed and cool. At the far end of the vaulted room a bright, welcoming fire burned on a huge stone altar carved with sheaves of wheat bound with serpents biting their own tails. A line of people stood waiting their turn to place their offerings of food and wine on the altar and get their blessing for the day. Priests, rather than drysians, served here, except for Valerius, who was both.
    A young priest in simple white vestments led them through to the high priest’s meditation room and knocked softly. Seregil steeled himself; Valerius was a renowned drysian healer, as well as a fellow Watcher, but he was also the most ill-tempered person Seregil had ever called a friend.
    A little acolyte answered the door and put a finger to his lips as he let them in. Valerius stood at a small altar similar to the one in the hall, wreathed in incense as he made the daily offerings for the queen, the city, and the land, assisted by two older acolytes, one male and one female.
    Alec made a sign of respect and bowed his head. Seregil folded his arms and leaned against the wall by the door.
    When the last of the wine, grain, and oil had been dispensed with, Valerius dusted his hands on the front of his gold-embroidered green robe and turned to them with a look of annoyance. “Well? I suppose you have some good reason for interrupting my morning ritual?”
    “We need your opinion on something,” Seregil replied.
    “What’s wrong with your voice? Do you have a cold?”
    Seregil nodded slightly toward the acolytes.
    Valerius dismissed them. “What’s all this, then?” He noted Alec’s bandaged hand. “In trouble again?”
    “We were attacked by assassins,” Alec told him.
    Valerius snorted. “Surprised it doesn’t happen more often. Let me see.”
    He unwrapped Alec’s hand, then inspected the shallow cut on Seregil’s throat. “Clean cuts. No infections.” He rested a hand on Alec’s head and gave some healing that made Alec shiver.
    “What about me?” Seregil asked.
    “For that little scratch? You’ll heal. Is this what you came for?”
    “No, Valerius. We were wondering if you’d heard anything about a strange sickness in the Lower City?”
    “It’s being called sleeping death,” Alec added.
    The drysian raised a bushy black eyebrow at that. “Sleeping death? No, not a word. Since when have you two turned physician?”
    “It’s just something we stumbled across,” Alec explained. “Last night I found a few people with it up here, near Brass Alley.”
    “I’ve never seen anything like it, and neither have your healers,” Seregil said.
    The drysian’s frown was ominous. “Why haven’t I heard about this from them?”
    “I think they’re afraid of quarantine, but it doesn’t seem to be passed by touch. Alec and I both have handled the sick ones before we realized what it was and we’re fine. So are the drysians taking care of them.”
    “What are the symptoms?”
    “People just fall down and lie there with their eyes open until they die,” Alec explained. “Do you know what could cause that?”
    “Sounds like some sort of fit.” The drysian led them through the cool dark corridors to his chambers. The sitting room and bedchamber, visible through an open doorway, were austere and sparsely furnished. His private library overlooking the gardens and grove, however, was impressively stocked, lined with floor-to-ceiling shelves of ancient books and racks of scrolls, with ladders for reaching the highest ones. Deep, comfortable armchairs flanked a couch in front of a black basalt fireplace carved with garlands of herbs.Another chair, more worn than the others, stood by one of the tall open windows, the table beside it already stacked with books.
    “Make yourselves comfortable,” Valerius said absently, already perusing a shelf.
    Seregil helped himself to a gold-stamped book on herbal medicine. Alec found one filled with pictures of poisonous plants and they settled down to wait.
    The drysian climbed a ladder, retrieved several weighty volumes, and sat down in the chair by the window. For nearly an hour the only sound in the room was the soft flutter of turning pages and the rustle of leaves in the grove outside.
    At last, Valerius added the books to the pile on the table beside him, then consulted another book and several scrolls in quick succession. “No, nothing exactly like that. Not that lasts that long with the eyes open.”
    “Care to come see for yourself?” asked Seregil, knowing