realize that that’s exactly where we are. “We’re in a cemetery?”
“At least it’s quiet,” Aron says. “No mob here.”
He’s got a point. I stare around me in the darkness, still shocked at what I’m seeing. Headstones and monuments dot the grassy yard we’re in, and distant trees rustle their leaves against an iron fence. For such a big city, Katharn has a very crowded graveyard, and I get to my feet, shaking my clothes off. “How is it that there’s a grave over the sewer?”
Aron looks at me as if I’m crazy, then points at the cobbled gutter I appear to be standing in. “No one’s buried there. They’re buried in the grass.”
I study the graveyard itself. He’s right. The graveyard itself is about the size of a football field, all told. There’s the gutter that cuts through the middle of the graveyard and ends right in front of a fountain. The gutter itself is angled and sloped so the water runs away from the hillsides and over the grass itself, there are headstones. Not dotted and delicately arranged like in the graveyards I’m used to, but lined up in tight rows with nowhere to step except on someone’s final resting place. It’s clear that space optimization is the name of the game here, and there’s not an inch to be wasted in Katharn’s graveyard. Even the trees aren’t wild growing. They’re in enormous earthen pots set at the four corners of the courtyard, and at the center of the courtyard, there’s a fountain with another statue of an enormous robed man with big shoulders and a cowl hiding his featureless face. He’s got a sword made of bones in one hand, a skull in the other, and the crown atop his cowl looks as if it, too, is made entirely of fingerbones. At the base of the fountain’s lip, there are dozens of old candles, half melted and all unlit. This has to be a representation of another god, though the name escapes me. All I know is that he’s a scary-looking motherfucker. I turn to Aron and point at the statue.
“Rhagos, Lord of the Dead,” he says, and then gestures at the cobbled gutter and the stepping stones raised up inside it. “If you’re done fawning over his visage, I’d like to get going before someone realizes we’re here.”
“God, you’re such a cranky bitch,” I snap at him, moving to his side. I nearly trip over one of the stepping stones, and kick it, my mood foul. “And why are these stones raised up in the gutter? A person could fall and hurt themselves.”
“It’s so you can cross when the gutter is full.” He narrows his eyes at me. “I worry about your cities. It sounds like they’re a mess. No sewers, no gutters, no cemeteries.” The god shakes his head. “I’m picturing a bunch of helpless fools sitting atop a mound of trash and calling that home.”
I grind my teeth. “My home is very nice, thank you very much.”
He only snorts in disbelief. “If it’s so nice, then why are you here?”
The throbbing vein in my forehead threatens to explode. “Oh my god. I don’t WANT to be here, Aron! I’m trapped here! You—“ I break off in shock when he glances over his shoulder and there’s a hint of a smirk on his firm mouth. He’s joking. “Oh, you are such a dick.”
“A dick that wants to leave this place behind for fairer cities, yes.”
On that, we’re agreed. When he puts his hand out for me, I take it again and move to his side. My sodden cloak squelches and slaps against my legs when I move, but I can’t abandon it. At this hour, it’s growing chilly, and my breath is starting to frost over. At least his hand is warm, and I instinctively move closer. “It’s really quiet. No one’s here in the graveyard even at night?”
Aron shrugs. “The prayer candles are dark. I guess no one bothers when they know Rhagos is not in his deathly kingdom to hear them.”
I look around, half expecting to see mobs of people with torches in the distance, but things are quiet. Off at the front of the gates, I see what looks like a lantern, but no one’s coming to check us out. Why guard a graveyard? Are they having trouble with looting? I’m afraid to ask Aron because he might make another salty comment about where I come from and make me feel stupid. Still,