Casket of Souls

the Sea Market and entered the temple. A drysian met them and led them through his small shrine to a smaller room beyond it.
    A haggard, fair-haired woman knelt beside the pallet, watching as another drysian let some liquid drip between a little girl’s lips. The child was no more than seven, a golden-haired, blue-eyed little thing. She’d been bathed and put into a clean nightgown, Seregil noted. Too late again. The woman, presumably the mother, was in worn clothing, but remarkably clean for a Ring dweller. She glared fiercely up at the two well-dressed nobles approaching her girl.
    “What do you want?” she demanded, her accent marking her as southern-born.
    “We have an interest in this affliction,” Seregil told her. He went down on one knee on the other side of the pallet and took two silver sesters from his purse. “I’d just like to look her over a bit, and ask you a few questions.”
    The woman hesitated, then snatched the coins “Go on, then.”
    “How long has she been like this?”
    “She fell ill yesterday morning.”
    “Did you see her talking to any strangers?”
    “An old woman give her a treat the other day.”
    “Was the old woman one of what they call the raven people?” asked Alec, trying to mask his excitement.
    “Never heard of any raven people. But she had the look of a beggar.”
    “Did she make an odd trade?”
    The woman gave him a surprised look. “She give Lissa the sweets for her broken doll.”
    “Can you describe it?” asked Seregil.
    “What, the doll? What you want to know that for?”
    He held up another silver coin. “I have my reasons. Please, tell me.”
    She accepted the coin. “The usual sort: flat baked red clay, with some lines scratched in for a face and hair.”
    “And the old woman traded her a sweet for it?”
    “Aye, that’s what Lissa said.” She looked sorrowfully down at her daughter. “Was it poison, sir? Why would anyone do a child so?”
    “I wish I could tell you.”
    Alec gently lifted the child’s head. “Her hair hasn’t been cut.”
    “Are there any marks on her body?” Seregil asked the drysian.
    “No,” the woman told him.
    “What about the old woman?” Seregil asked the mother. “What did she look like?”
    “I hardly noticed. I was scrubbing laundry—that’s my trade—and saw Lissa talking to her. She didn’t look evil, sir, just old and bent, in ragged clothes needing washing. She had on a kerchief, blue I think, pulled forward so I couldn’t make out all of her face. She did have a drinker’s nose, though, all red at the tip. She leaned on a knobby stick— Oh, and she had a few oddments hung from her girdle.”
    “Like what?” asked Alec.
    “I don’t know! What’s that to do with my girl?”
    “It might help,” Alec replied.
    The woman thought a moment. “A cat’s skull for one; I doremember that, since it was so odd. The rest of it I couldn’t say, but there were more.”
    “Did she hang the broken doll from her girdle, once she had it?” asked Seregil.
    “I didn’t see. Like I said, I was at my washing. She just went off.”
    Seregil took out another coin and gave it to her. “How long ago was all this?”
    “Just two days, my lord.”
    “Thank you. That’s most helpful. I’m very sorry about your little girl.”
    “And I,” said Alec. “Maker’s Mercy on you both.”
    “Thank you, sir, for not calling on the Old Sailor,” she said softly, stroking her daughter’s hair.
    Astellus the Sailor—in addition to being the patron of those who fished and sailed—also ferried the dead to Bilairy’s gate. Seregil guessed Alec had invoked Dalna instead out of kindness.
    Seregil left her there and drew the drysian out of the room. “Have you seen any others like this?”
    “No, my lord, this is the first one that’s been brought to me. It’s the Lower City plague, isn’t it? The sleeping death?”
    “Most likely. Please, Brother, will you send word to me when she dies?”
    “Of course, my lord.”
    Seregil gave him their address and they took their leave.
    “Do you think it’s poison?” Alec asked as they headed back to Wheel Street. “She did give the girl something to eat.”
    “But from what Kepi said, it wasn’t usually something to eat. I wish the mother could have told us what else the woman had hanging from her belt. You’d think if there had been hanks of hair she’d have noticed.”
    “We have to go look, Seregil! It’s been two days already for Myrhichia. I think