LI.

LI.

Jakob found it quietly comforting to once again have someone he could work side-by-side with and not having to fret that revealing his true nature would scare them off.

You know, Harmlig said, as he was cracking open the cranium of a recently-diseased adolescent boy to get to the brain within. It is nice to have a work companion that does not judge me for my work.

Jakob did not tell him that his thoughts were the same, but instead just grunted in acknowledgement, while he was laying out the bones of the freshest male corpses on his slab. While Wothram was a tireless worker capable of loading and ferrying a cart of corpses to the catacombs once every half hour, it was nowhere near enough to compete with the steady flow of new corpses. So Jakob was constructing another servant.

The previous few days he had been making the tallow candles of human fat that he needed, making more than enough, just so he had enough for yet another servant if the need arose.

It was fortunate that the basement of the morgue was so extensive, as it allowed for both Harmlig and Jakob to work their craft, while also staying clear of the hole in the backwall where new corpses arrived by the dozen every couple of hours.

After laying out the bones, he began to chant the Amalgam Hymn, and while working his way down the bones he was fusing together to reinforce them beyond the limits of human capabilities, he felt Harmlig observe him quietly.

He had just finished the longest of the sections, the torso-and-waist, when Harmlig came over with a cold cup of mead. Jakob took it gratefully and used the deeply-flavourful spirit to treat his tired vocal cords and throat muscles.

Its impressive how you can maintain a steady rhythm for that long. Tell me, can you breathe through your ears, Goddard?

Jakob looked at the Magister, who was wearing a mask that he had made from the bones of two female hands. Harmlig had insisted that Jakob kept the appearance of the hands, rather than smoothen out the bones as originally intended. The result was that the design of the mask looked as though a bone spider was gorging on the lower half of his face. The vents were crude, but functional, and, strangely, when presented with the choice of what sort of scent-ball he wished for, Harmlig had said he would make his own, ending up with something that had a mixed scent of cinnamon and a pungent leaf that Jakob suspected was a lesser narcotic. But he would allow the Magister this vice, for it did not rule his faculties, only seeming to mellow him out somewhat.

Help me lift it up, Jakob told him.

The Magister let out a puff of vapour as he chuckled at the command, but obeyed nonetheless, despite the fact that they were equals in this place.

They both grunted with effort as they lowered it to the dirty floor, which Jakob had attempted to scrub clean for the ritual circle, though to no avail.

Thank you, Jakob said.

Harmlig clapped him on the back and returned to his study of the tiny parasites.

You gave it a soul?

Not a soul, for it will never truly be alive. But from the outside, it may appear just like a soul grafted to a human-sized doll.

Harmlig nodded, quite taken aback by the ordeal, but nonetheless fascinated.

Jakob was about to go to work, when a commotion from the nearby main street drew his attention. He ignored it until the Magister commented, Another noble-born has passed, from the sounds of it.

Really?

They always do these long processions of mourning, as they take the bodies to their family tombs just beyond the southwestern wall where the nobles have their graveyard complex.

Jakob let out a puff of vapour and began cleaning up the leftover tallow and wiping the charcoal drawings from the stone floor. It went without saying that, seeing as he was hired as an Undertaker, leaving behind evidence of ritualistic work was a bad idea.

Wanna see who it is?

Why?

It may be Selvmon. That chubby bastard has somehow survived catching the disease twice, so he is due, if you ask me.

He did not seem affluent enough to warrant such a procession, Jakob replied in something that might amount to sarcasm.

Harmlig chuckled. I suppose youre right. Still, lets go take a look.

Jakob was about to argue that it was a pointless waste of time, but then he changed his mind and followed the Magister out of the basement that they had, for the most part, been living in for over a week as they worked and discussed theory.

It struck Jakob as peculiar that he had not seen Ciana and Heskel in all this time, but he supposed they were hard at work themselves, the Elphin seeking fame and fortune, and the Wight obligingly acquiescing to her desires.