They advanced along the paths that ran between the tombs, and little by little Elysia realized that the cemetery was a true necropolis, a city of the dead.
It had its neighborhoods and palaces just like the city outside. There was the neighborhood of the poor, the place where the homeless were thrown into mass graves without identification. There were well-kept headstones there, where members of the prosperous middle class rested, and they competed with each other in the ornamentation of their headstones as jealous neighbors competed in life.
Winged saints armed with stone swords held aloft books listing the name and occupation of the deceased. Stone dragons crouched over the merchants' final resting place like dogs guarding their bones. Hooded figures armed with scythes representative of Mortis stood guard over black marble tombstones.
In the distance, Elysia saw the great marble mausoleums of the nobles, who occupied palaces in death as they had in life.
Here and there black roses had been arranged in arbors, and the cloyingly sweet scent of her assaulted Elysia's nostrils. Letters, gifts, or other mementos left by the living for the dead were sometimes seen, and an overwhelming sense of sadness began to mix with the cat girl's previous fears.
Those things were some indicators of the futility of a mortal's life. It did not matter how rich or prosperous the men who lay in those graves had been; then they were all gone, just as they would one day be with her. In a way, she could understand the dark hero's desire to be remembered.
"Life is written in sand." She thought her. "and the wind is taking away the pimples."
They chose a site near the open graves and hid behind some fallen tombstones. The scent of flesh turned to earth filled Elysia's nostrils, while the chill of the mist seeped through her clothing. She could feel wet patches on her breeches where they touched the dewy plants. She wrapped her cloak around her tightly against the cold, then settled down to wait.
Elysia looked up at the sky. The moon had already made more than half of its journey and still nothing had happened. During that time, she had only heard the scurrying of common rats; they had seen only evil vermin with wild eyes. There was no sign of the ratfolks.
"Maybe she was wrong." she thought to herself, half disappointed and half relieved. "Maybe we'd better head home."
This was a good time to leave. The streets would be deserted, since most honest people would be sleeping in the safety of their homes. With the edge of her cloak, she wiped her nose, which was dripping with water. She knew that this night spent abroad would not be good for the cold that afflicted her. She stretched out her legs to get rid of her stiffness and numbness, but Frey put a hand on her shoulder.
"Stay." whispered the dark hero. "Something's coming."
Elysia froze, staring into the darkness. She heard her heart pound inside her chest. Her muscles, contracted in an unnatural position, began to protest against the tension, yet she stood still, hardly daring to breathe, hoping that whoever approached would not see her before she could.
Suddenly, she caught a foul, nauseating odor in the air. She smelled of rotting meat and oozing sores, like the body of a sick person who had not been washed for weeks or years.
"If the disease had a characteristic odor, this would be it." thought the cat girl. After an instant, she knew that her assumption was correct. In order to stave off gagging, she held the herbal ointment to her nose, as she prayed that her spells would protect her from whatever came close to her.
A monstrous figure limped before his eyes. It resembled a ratfolk, but it was not like any wererat Elysia had ever seen before. Huge boils were visible all over his mangy fur, and something horrible was dripping from his oozing skin. He had most of his body wrapped in filthy bandages and encrusted with pus and dirt. He was drawn, and his eyes shone with a mad, feverish light.
His movements were almost like those of a drunk, and he staggered as if afflicted with some disease that affected his sense of balance. And yet, when he moved, he sometimes did so with obscene speed, with the excruciating energy of a man summoning the last of his strength to accomplish some monstrous task.
He uttered disgusting little squeals as he walked and talked to himself in his strange language. Meanwhile, Elysia realized that she was carrying a cage full of rats in a paralyzed hand. She stopped for a moment, hopped on a skinny leg, then opened the cage and picked up a rat. The others shot to freedom through the open door, and fell into the graves. Piss and foul droppings dripped as they fell, and when they hit the ground, they released a hideous, overpowering odor that almost made Elysia gag, and which she subsided very gradually. The rats crawled out of the graves and feebly crawled for cover. Elysia saw that they left a trail of foul goo behind them, and it was obvious that they were dying.
"What scary thing is happening?" Elysia wondered.
The ratfolk brushed past them, and the catgirl was surprised and aghast when the dark hero did not attack him immediately, instead gesturing for her to follow and trailing after the wererat.
It took Elysia no more than a few moments to understand Frey's plan. They were going to follow this member of the Clan Morbus Plague Priests, for that's what he supposed it was, to his lair. They were looking for a path that would lead them to the very heart of the corruption that had settled in the graveyards.
♦ ♦ ♦
As they followed the priest, who was hopping around the mist-shrouded graveyard, Elysia noticed that other ratfolk were present. Judging by the empty cages they carried, they had been engaged in the same evil task and were now returning to the lair. Some limped, weighed down by the weight of rotting corpses, recently exhumed according to the dirt that still adhered to the clothes in which they had been buried.
She and the dark hero were forced to move cautiously: hiding behind tombstones, taking refuge in the shadows cast by trees, moving from one hiding place to another. In a way, Elysia thought it was unnecessary, since the Plague priests didn't seem to be as alert as the ratfolks she had known until then. They seemed quite insane and often unaware of their surroundings. Perhaps their brains were as rotten as their bodies because of the diseases they suffered from.
Sometimes they would stop for a few minutes and scratch until they bled, or until the scabs of festering wounds broke, and then they would taste the pus that covered their claws. Sometimes they would stop and stare into space for no reason at all. Other times, nauseating droppings shot out from under their tails; then they would lie down and roll around on top while uttering lunatic shrieks.
Elysia felt the fur on her tail rise. These creatures were not sane, even by insane ratfolk standards.
Finally, they headed towards a huge mausoleum located deep within the noble quarter of the cemetery. They walked along paved paths that ran through well-tended gardens. Everywhere stood statues on sundials, useless at that hour.
There were more and more Plague priests, and on more than one occasion Elysia and Frey hid inside the arched doorway of some noble's tomb. Only when the ratfolks had passed did they rejoin the nightmarish procession that slowly made its way deeper into the old part of the cemetery, where the largest and most crumbling graves were located.
They stopped at a corner, and Elysia watched as the ratfolks disappeared through the entrance to the largest and most ancient mausoleum. The building was built almost like a temple, with columns supporting the roof of the entrance hall and statues of characters that Elysia guessed were from the owner's family, set within niches between the columns.
Only after the last of the ratfolk had disappeared did Ella and Frey move toward the stairs that led up to the entrance.
In the moonlight, Elysia saw that the mausoleum was in a state of great disrepair. The stonework was crumbling, the friezes had been worn away by centuries of wind and rain, the faces of the statues were almost shattered, replaced by lichen. She gave the impression that the stone itself was suffering from some terrible disease. The surrounding gardens were abandoned and overgrown. Because of all this, Elysia guessed that the family that had built that palace was extinct. The building looked neglected, as if no one had visited it in years. During the day it had to be quite a formidable place, but tonight she Elysia felt no urge to look inside.
Frey, however, bounded up the steps at full speed. The runes on the sword gleamed in the moonlight, and he smiled at the prospect of facing the ratfolk inside his own lair.
A fleeting thought passed through Elysia's mind that Frey was just as crazy in her way as the ratfolks were in theirs, and that perhaps it would be best to slip away, get away, and leave them all to do as they please. win. She was fighting to control that urge by the time they reached the door, and she was surprised to discover that there was no entrance, just a smooth stone wall.
Frey stopped before her; Baffled for a moment, he scratched his head with an armored finger, then reached out to touch one of the stone faces to the side of the arch. As he did so, the wall in front of them silently rotated, revealing the entrance.
"Terrible work." Frey muttered. "It was very easy to detect, these ratfolks lack street to be able to deceive me."
"Yes, yes," Elysia muttered uneasily, and then she followed Frey through the open entrance to the tomb, the door sliding quietly shut behind them.
In the moonlight, Elysia saw that the mausoleum was in a state of great disrepair. The stonework was crumbling, the friezes had been worn away by centuries of wind and rain, the faces of the statues were almost shattered, replaced by lichen. She gave the impression that the stone itself was suffering from some terrible disease. The surrounding gardens were abandoned and overgrown. Because of all this, Elysia guessed that the family that had built that palace was extinct. The building looked neglected, as if no one had visited it in years. During the day it had to be quite a formidable place, but tonight she Elysia felt no urge to look inside.
Frey, however, bounded up the steps at full speed. The runes on the sword gleamed in the moonlight, and he smiled at the prospect of facing the ratfolk inside his own lair.
A fleeting thought passed through Elysia's mind that Frey was just as crazy in her way as the ratfolks were in theirs, and that perhaps it would be best to slip away, get away, and leave them all to do as they please. win. She was fighting to control that urge by the time they reached the door, and she was surprised to discover that there was no entrance, just a smooth stone wall.
Frey stopped before her; Baffled for a moment, he scratched his head with an armored finger, then reached out to touch one of the stone faces to the side of the arch. As he did so, the wall in front of them silently rotated, revealing the entrance.
"Terrible work." Frey muttered. "It was very easy to detect, these ratfolks lack street to be able to deceive me."
"Yes, yes," Elysia muttered uneasily, and then she followed Frey through the open entrance to the tomb, the door sliding quietly shut behind them.