What Do You Carry in That Coffin?

The coffin creaked with every step.

In a harsh tone, the mournful groans of the wood, on the uneven paving stones of the Outer Ring, made clear that the nails and hinges had not been built for such strain. Carrying a bier through the streets of Castra Devana drew eyes from every direction.

Some stepped aside to avoid her path, while others made the sign of the Walker of the Margins — the god of Orthodoxy who guided the dead along the subterranean river.

Lais Ambrosio did not correct anyone. Superstition served as her shield, as long as no one dared to draw too close.

The bier followed her, wrapped in a faint bluish glow that dissipated into shimmering runes. The glowing inscriptions renewed themselves every ten steps, rewritten by the will of the Magus. A silent, solitary cortège.

The grinding of cartwheels, together with the rhythmic clatter of the metal joints of old automata working nearby, created a coarse chorus that mingled with the woman’s firm strides. The whole Ring smelled of burnt oil, old fish, and cheap perfume that scraped at the back of the throat.

At every corner, the wind carried new voices — charlatans peddling remedies, beggars lamenting, and the sweet smoke of opium dens. But the faint groans of the man she had hunted for two weeks reminded Lais that she was not in Gran-Devana as a mere traveler.

She crossed a square toward the marble columns that supported a covered passage leading to the Middle Ring. The guards stationed there glanced sideways at her but did not approach. From a distance, she resembled a priestess leading a funeral — and that was the idea.

Children stopped their play to watch her pass, and mothers pulled them away by the hand. Some vendors lowered their voices, as though death itself might overhear.

“Stop!” Barked a harsh voice behind her.

Turning, Lais saw that although the sentries at the gate had not moved, three men of the Custodia Civilis emerged from a side alley near the market at the entrance to the Middle Ring. Segmented armor, red tunics beneath, and tridents scraping against the paving stones.

The eldest, with an unkempt mustache and gray eyes, stood at the front. The other two — one short and stocky, the other far too young to have faced a true enemy — spread out to widen the cordon.

“What do you carry in that coffin?” Asked the elder in a dragging voice.

Lais drew in a slow breath. The air was thick with iron and dust. Her runes adjusted on their own, holding the bier a few inches above the ground the moment she halted. The faint blue glow pulsed steadily.

“Were you speaking to me?” She returned in a neutral tone.

“No… I’m throwing coins to whores” the man sneered.

The youngest gave a stifled laugh, awkward and strangled.

“Then move along. Until another day.”

Lais made as if to continue, but the elder struck the paving stones furiously with his trident.

“Answer the question!” He stepped forward, the weapon’s shaft carving a half-circle on the ground.

“I carry what we will all one day become. A body.”

“And who died?”

“The Walker of the Margins does not ask names” Lais replied evenly. “I only fulfill my part.”

He narrowed his eyes. The street grew more silent. For an instant, all that could be heard was the faint jingling of a water-seller’s bells half a block away.

“We’ll open it” he decided.

The floating bier lowered gently back to the ground. The energy of the runes cushioned the impact, yet the hollow sound reverberated down the alley nonetheless. Lais bowed her head, as if in respect, and let her voice fall low and heavy:

“Do you truly wish to draw the Walker’s attention, soldier? Some things are simply not meant for living eyes.”

The younger soldier stepped back half a pace. The stockier one nudged him with an elbow, chiding him for cowardice. The mustached elder, however, held her gaze, the veins in his neck bulging at the audacity of her defiance.

“Orders are orders” he ground out. “No corpse passes into the Middle Ring without record.”

“The seal is where it must be” the Magus answered firmly. “At the temple. The cortège is my responsibility. The writ remains with the priestess.”

“Name of the priestess.”

“Maccila” Lais said at once. “If you wish, I can summon her, but the Pontifex Maximus is a busy woman. And she does not appreciate soldiers meddling in Orthodoxy’s affairs.”

The nervous youth tried to sound braver than he was.

“This is the Imperial City!” He declared, his voice pitched higher than intended. “No one is above the law. Open the coffin — or we’ll open it.”

“You’re trying to intimidate the gods, boy.” Lais gave a rough laugh, though her eyes remained locked on the elder. “It’s prudence. Some of the dead were magi. We cannot know how thaumaturgic power altered their bodies. Some carry curses from other lands. Do you want everyone here damned?”

The silence of the crowd did more than her words. Two vendors crossed their fingers. The water-seller vanished as though his stall had sprouted legs.

“That’s… superstition” the young man retorted, as if trying to convince himself.

“Even if it is, you still won’t open it” Lais shrugged.

The elder breathed deep and struck the trident against the ground twice to draw attention.

“Transit papers, then” he demanded more formally, eyes flicking toward the gathering onlookers.

Lais drew from her satchel a writ stamped with an imperial scribe’s mark, a magistrate of the legal class. It was not a perfect forgery, but enough for men who sought excuses not to open coffins.

He read, his eyes leaping across the lines, as though searching for a clause to absolve him before the small crowd now pressing around them.

“The crest and countersign are missing” he said, less harshly.

“The crest was spoiled by damp, and the countersign was filed in the report sent with the Vestals. Do you want to delay the Walker’s cortège with paperwork? You’d delay a man’s rest.”

The loudmouthed youth stepped forward, pressing the trident tip against the bier’s latch.

“When you open it” Lais fixed him with a hard look, “you assume whatever may come out.”

The crowd began to mutter protests.

“What could come out?” The soldier tried for bravado, but it sounded childish. “The corpse will jump out?”

“Sometimes…”

The elder clicked his tongue, impatient. Her words sharpened the dilemma: risk the people’s wrath or let a possible fraud pass.

“How heavy is it?” He asked, changing tack.

“Lighter than the conscience of one who opens what should not be.”

“There’s a living smell inside” pointed out the stocky soldier, silent until then.

“The Walker harvests when he wills. Sometimes the breath is the last thing he takes. Want to listen?” Lais bent, tapping the wood with her knuckles. “Silence.”

The young man, still smarting from humiliation, pressed on:

“Where’s the registry number of the dead?”

“On the back of the writ” she lifted the same false document again. “But do you really want to check? And if you tear it, who pays for a new copy?”

“The Custodia pays” he muttered.

“Damn it, boy” Lais snapped, hoping her sharpness would pass as the righteous irritation of a cleric. “The Custodia doesn’t even pay for your beer.”

The elder scratched at his mustache, thought for a moment longer, then lowered the trident.

“Go” he spat onto the stones. “But if this is contraband, if it’s deceit, I’ll take you in gladly.”

“If it is…” Lais reclaimed the bier, the runes glowing once more “…I’ll buy the drink.”

“Name?” the elder asked at last. “For the record.”

She turned her head slightly, already moving on.

“The Walker of the Margins is name enough.”

“Yours” he pressed.

“Dhalia” Lais said curtly. “From Éilanthir.”

He wrote it slowly, as though carving it into memory. Lais walked on, her lips brushing together in a faint smile. Even if they caught her one day…

She would never pay for that beer.