The Crypts beneath the Church of the Moon
“Sapience, sentient and abilities,” Nkemi repeated, thoughtfully, holding the grains of sand cradled between her palms; she watched him shrug, watched the glance of his eyes up and away, the thoughtful faint pursing of his lips beneath the expressionless face. She smiled, although there was something a little solemn to it, and a little sad, too.
“They do not,” Nkemi interjected, gently, “sound so different from the people they once were.” Her eyes searched the student’s dark, open gaze; she was abruptly aware of his age. Not only age, the prefect thought, but the sort of inexperience common amongst those of such an age – those for whom much of their time had been spent as a child, or else cradled in the walls of some place such as Frecksat, Brunnhold or Thul'Amat.
“Many who go through trauma can be much the same,” the prefect offered, gently. “Unable to pass the moment or moments which now define them; bits and pieces of who they were, searching for a whole. And, too, some do grow jealous, angry, bitter; some do wish for revenge. It sounds – alike, but...” Nkemi was quiet; her gaze drifted over the carvings on the walls, “but that there is still a chance, I think, for some of those who suffer so in life to recover themselves.”
Two-way, Ezrah said, and Nkemi shivered.
“I did try,” Nkemi said, honestly, “as a girl.” She tucked her hands into the pockets of Ezrah’s coat once more, unexpectedly cold. Entropic creatures, he said, and she felt a pulse through her, a deep ache with a name. “I could not find it again, and… after I went to Thul’Amat, it did not occur to me to keep trying. I remember it,” Nkemi offered, quietly, “or at least as how it looked to me, then, even shorter than I am now.” A hint of a smile curved up her lips; the Mugrobi was not in the least sensitive about her height. She could have painted it for him; there was a swath of pink stone across the canyon, there, and it had glowed rich in the darkness; it dipped down, and curled like a smiling mouth into a stripe of blue below, with two jagged little stripes in the striations between them that had reminded her of nothing so much as teeth.
An idea, Ezrah offered, and Nkemi grinned a little, not in the least surprised. She followed Ezra down the hall of mausoleums, watching tattooed fingers trace torchlight-gleaming metal plaques, looking curiously at a thin-faced magister here, with the little twin creases between his eyes forever etched in stone, and another with her hair scraped back into a bun, faint strands carved into the stone.
There was a collection of pebbles on one of the mausoleums, stacked neatly beneath the head of a man; his nose was worn down, faintly shiny, as if student after student had crept down and brushed it, and left behind a little offering to call their own. For success at their exams, Nkemi thought; what else did students pray for? One stone, all alone, had tumbled off the pile and lay at the corner of the stone box below.
Nkemi crouched as Ezrah made his careful, deliberate offer, the student’s green coat making a solid lump out of her; she heard how it ended in a question, even without looking at him. The Mugrobi picked up the stone, carefully, studying it against her palm; she curled her fingers over it, and glanced up at Ezrah with a grin.
“If you know where to find this ghost, why do you need me?” Nkemi grinned a little wider, almost teasing. She understood perfectly; she did not wish to make it too easy for him. She set the pebble back down against the stack, with a light, delicate touch, careful not to dislodge any others. She hoped it was not too late for the hopeful student, just in case.