Casket of Souls

“They have to be cut out, and even then you probably won’t live.”
    “Let me drink,” Atre rasped again. “If you do, then I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
    “I’ll get it,” Micum said.
    “You’re not serious!” Alec gasped.
    Micum regarded him stonily. “It’s my girl’s life. And you know the ones in the bottles with the completed seals are already dead.” With that, he climbed onto the stage and disappeared behind the scrim.
    “He’s right,” said Seregil.
    Alec picked up the fallen chain and examined Elani’s jewels. “Seregil, there’s a stone missing from the brooch.”
    “My pocket,” Atre gasped. “Take it. I haven’t hurt her.”
    Seregil searched him none too gently and found the loose stone. It fit the mounting on the brooch. “All right. Is Brader still alive, Alec?”
    Alec bent over the other man. “Yes.”
    Brader raised a bloody hand, motioning him closer. Alec went to one knee and bent over him. “What is it?”
    “The company—” The way Brader’s voice gurgled in his throat spoke of a punctured lung, or worse. “Merina and the others. They know nothing about any of this. They had no part. I’ve no right to ask, I know, but please, I beg you, spare them! I swear to you, they had no part—”
    “Do you know how to restore Illia’s soul?”
    “The necklace.” Brader waved weakly in Atre’s direction. “Use it! Use—necklace. He always did. Will you swear? Please! My children—”
    “Unlike you, we don’t kill the innocent,” Seregil growled. “And if they are innocent, we’ll see that no harm comes to them.”
    Brader looked up at Alec, eyes growing dim. “I’m so sorry—for all of them.”
    As they watched, Brader let out a racking, bloody cough, shuddered, and went still.
    “Saved us the trouble,” Seregil sneered, then broke off as Brader began to change before his eyes. The long, bloodless face crumpled in on itself as the skin went brown and leathery. In moments the corpse was wizened to the bone, shrunken limbs like old sticks wrapped in rags, fingers curled like leathery claws, the skin brown and dull as an old boot. Only his hair remained as it has been, coppery red against the crimson blood pooling under his head.
    “Looks like you and Thero were right about what they were doing with those souls,” said Alec. “How old do you think they really were?”
    Seregil looked down at Atre and snorted. “Far too old.”
    Micum returned with a sealed bottle.
    “Quickly!” gasped Atre.
    Seregil took the phial, broke the seal, and held it tantalizingly close to Atre’s lips without actually giving it to him.
    “Tell me.”
    “Drink—first. Or I take it to the grave.”
    Micum looked ready to do murder. But instead he softly implored, “Seregil, please.”
    Gritting his teeth, Seregil tipped the contents of the phial into Atre’s mouth. The actor swallowed convulsively, half choking, then shuddered violently. Seregil was afraid it had killed him, but instead color flooded into Atre’s cheeks and his eyes went vague and glassy. In spite of the arrows embedded in his body, he looked as strikingly handsome as he ever had onstage.
    “Ah, that’s better!” he sighed.
    “Now tell me how to save my daughter, damn you!” Micum demanded.
    Atre laughed. “I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t. I only take the essences. I don’t put them back.”
    Micum grabbed him by the throat, his face a mask of rage. “Liar! Tell me!”
    But Atre let out a strangled laugh and rasped, “Can’t.”
    “Then you’re of no further use to anyone.”
    Seregil handed Micum his poniard. The big man gazed down at Atre for a moment, then stabbed him through the heart again and again, until his own face and tunic were covered in blood.
    At last Alec grabbed his arm. “Enough, Micum. He’s dead. Look.”
    Atre’s body was shriveling and going leathery and brown, as Brader’s had, but more slowly. That handsome face gradually transformed to a horrid mask as the flesh darkened and shrank on the bones, eyes wizening like raisins. When it wasover, his exposed white teeth and auburn hair were the only recognizable remnants of the man who’d been the toast of Rhíminee.
    Seregil handed Micum his handkerchief. “You’re covered in blood.”
    “So are you. How’s the shoulder?”
    “It hurts,” Seregil admitted. And it was worse now that the excitement was over.
    Micum helped Seregil out of his bloodstained tunic while Alec tore strips from his own