Confessor: Chainfire Trilogy Part 3

The man nodded earnestly. "I'm just not sure what it could be."

"Like something just feels out of place?" Cara suggested.

He waggled a finger skyward. "Yes, I think that's it. Rather like in one of those dreams where you get lost in a place because the rooms are all mixed around from where they belong."

Cara nodded absently as she watched the crypt staff gliding along close to the opposite wall. They moved on down the corridor, their heads weaving up and down as they peered at the walls. They reminded Verna a little of hounds hunting through brush.

"You run the crypt staff," Verna said to the man. "Wouldn't you know if something was out of place?"

She couldn't imagine how anything could be out of place. There were carpets in a few places, a chair or two in small, side rooms, but other than that there wasn't much of anything to be out of place.

Dario watched his people for a moment, then turned back to Cara and Verna. "I take care of everything surrounding their service. There are quarters to see to, meals, clothes, supplies-all that sort of thing. I run the crypt staff. They are the ones who actually attend to the work down here."

"What kind of work, exactly?" Verna asked.

"Well, in general, sweeping, cleaning, dusting-that sort of thing. There are miles of corridors down here. The staff replaces lamp oil and candles in some places, keeps fresh torches in others. Occasionally a piece of stone will crack and need to be repaired or replaced. The caskets that aren't entombed within walls or in the floor have to be kept in good condition-the metal on some polished, on others kept free of rust, and the carved wooden ones need to be waxed to keep the wood from drying excessively. There have occasionally been leaks down here, so the exterior of the caskets must be carefully inspected to make sure they aren't getting damp or moldy.

"The crypt staff is ultimately at the service of the Lord Rahl. They see to his specific wishes, if he has any. Those entombed down here, after all are his ancestors.

"It used to be, when Darken Rahl was alive, that the staff primarily carried out his wishes having to do with his father's tomb. Darken Rahl was the one who ordered that the tongues of the crypt staff be cut out. He feared that, while they were down here alone, they might speak ill of his dead father."

"And what if they did?" Verna asked. "What could it hurt?"

The man shrugged. "I'm sorry, but I wasn't about to question the man. When he was alive there was a constant stream of new staff workers replacing those who had been executed for various reasons. It was unhealthy to be anywhere near the man, and the crypt staff often found themselves the object of his rages. New staff were rounded up from time to time and pressed into service.

"Darken Rahl only left me with my tongue because my work didn't take me down here very often. I oversaw the staff. I need to interact with others on the palace staff, so I need to be able to talk with people. The rest of the staff, in Darken Rahl's view, didn't have anything worthwhile they needed to say, and no need for a tongue."

"How do you communicate with them?" Cara asked.

Dario touched his lips again as he glanced at his staff slowly making their way farther on down the hall. "Well, the way you would imagine. They use signs. Grunt a little, or nod, to make their thoughts known. They can hear, of course, so I don't need to use signs to speak to them.

"They share the same quarters and work together, so they are almost always alone among themselves. For that reason they've come to be quite conversant with signs they've invented among themselves. I'm not nearly as familiar with their unique language as they are among themselves, but for the most part I've come to be able to understand them. Enough to get by, anyway.

"Most of them are quite bright. People sometimes think they're stupid because they can't talk. In some ways they are more aware of the goings-on in the palace than most of the other members of the palace staff. Since people know that they're mute, they often don't even consider that they listen just fine. These people often know what's happening around the place long before I do."

Verna found their little world down in the tombs a remarkable, if somewhat unsettling, revelation. "Well, what about down here? What do they think is going on down here."

Dario shook his head with a look of concern. "They haven't brought anything to my attention, yet."

"Why not?" Cara asked.

"Fear, probably. In the past crypt staff were frequently executed for the most trivial things. Such executions never made any real sense. They learned that to stay alive it was best to be part of the background, to be as invisible as possible. Bringing up problems was not the way to live a long life.