Casket of Souls

had seen them put them down as mad for their silly trades.
    Nevertheless, Seregil and Alec soon came across a few people stricken with the sleeping death. Two were lying in the open—one a boy of fourteen or so, and the other an old woman—left to die alone. No one would admit to knowing anything about them. Seregil sensed that it hurt Alec to just walk away, but there was little they could do for them here.
    The morning was nearly gone when they passed an open-fronted lean-to. Inside, an old woman was wailing over a little boy lying on a pallet of rags.
    “What ails him, old mother?” Seregil asked, approaching slowly so as not to alarm her.
    “Dead of the sleeping sickness,” she wept. “The last of all my kin! No drysian would come.”
    “Have you lost any others to the sickness?”
    “His sister died yesterday. What am I to do?”
    Seregil knelt beside her and looked down at the child. He had hair the color of Alec’s, and a lock of it had been cut to the left of his face. “Did he and his sister trade with the raven folk, old mother?”
    “With the what?” The old woman stared up at him with red-rimmed eyes.
    “Beggars making odd trades? Did your grandchildren trade with them?”
    “I don’t know what yer talking about! Just leave me alone.”
    “Here now, don’t be badgering her about such things!” a fat man called from his own hovel across the path. Heaving himself up from the crate he’d been sitting on, he stumped over to join them. “Can’t you see she’s mourning? Leave her be with your foolish questions!” the man growled, aiming a kick at Seregil.
    Seregil grunted in pain and sprang to his feet. “Apologies to you both. Maker’s Mercy, old mother, and the Old Sailor’s peace.”
* * *
    Frustrated and hungry, they sat on the end of a broken-down wagon with the bread and sausage they’d brought, not wanting to chance eating anything they’d find here.
    “It’s like looking for one particular frog in Blackwater Marsh,” Alec muttered. “We’ve got trades with no deaths and deaths with no trades, and no sign of any raven people. It’s almost three days now, for Myrhichia.”
    “We still have plenty of daylight left.”
    A handful of ragged, hungry little children sidled up to them and Seregil threw the remains of his food to them. With a sigh, Alec did the same and after a brief squabble the children scampered away, the losers pursuing the ones with the spoils.
    One little girl in a ragged grey shift lingered behind. After a moment, she cautiously approached them and looked Seregil boldly in the eye as she held up her short brown braid. The end of it looked newly trimmed. “Trade?”
    “Hello, little bird. Did someone trade you for your hair?” asked Seregil.
    “Ain’t you raven folk?” she asked, taking a step back.
    “No, but we’re looking for them,” said Alec. “You’ve traded with them?”
    The child stood on one bare foot with a finger in her mouth as she eyed them. “I’ll tell you for a penny.”
    Grinning, Alec snatched a penny out of thin air and held it out to her.
    “Toss it,” she said, unimpressed with his sleight of hand.
    Cagey even at this age
, he thought as he flipped it to her.
    She snatched it and hid it away in a pocket of her dingy dress. “I seen the old lady yesterday. She traded me this.” Digging in her pocket, she showed them a tiny cat cunningly carved from bone.
    “Did you give her some of your hair?” asked Alec.
    She sucked her finger again and nodded.
    “When, little bird?” asked Seregil.
    The girl shrugged.
    “Do you know where we could find her today?” Alec prompted.
    “I’ll show you, for ’nother penny.”
    Alec produced another one and tossed it to her. “You drive a hard bargain, miss.”
    Satisfied, she motioned for them to follow her and led them farther into the makeshift village.
    “We need that carving,” Alec whispered.
    “I know,” Seregil murmured back. “We’ll buy it from her once she’s shown us where to find the old woman.”
    Smoke curled low over the rooftops, defeated by the mist, and the smell of horse-dung fires and poverty hung heavy on the air. The paths had been trodden to mire, and they sank to their ankles in places.
    They were nearly to the outer wall, passing between two rude shacks, when a pair of swordsmen stepped around a corner and blocked their way. Four more moved in behind them, trapping them. The girl scampered over to one of them in front of Seregil and hid behind