The Swords of Corium Read Online Free PDF

exited the pool the way it had entered. It turned ponderously, wheels bumping and rasping over the innumerable stones. Then it rolled slowly way, seeking more lively game.
     When it had vanished beyond a column, Gruum slowly turned to face Nadja. He gave a start. The girl had grown dramatically in the short months since they had returned to Corium. She was much taller, there could be no doubt of it. Before, he had thought her to be three. Now, she could not be a day under six.
    “It’s good to see you, Gruum,” she said.
    “Thanks for telling me about the gatherer, princess,” he responded. He bent down to work his lamp. The only light he had was the faint blue-white glimmer of his sword, but that was not enough to travel the Necropolis. The flint and tinder worked this time, allowing the wick to spark and flare. A guttering, yellow light illuminated their faces.
    “Did my father send you?” Nadja asked.
    “Yes,” he said.
    “Do you always do what father says?”
    “Usually,” Gruum admitted.
    “Did he command you to take me back to him?”
    Gruum thought about it. “No. He only said I should find you.”
    “Good! Then can I show you where I like to play?”
    Gruum looked this way and that, but saw no sign of the rolling gatherer. Nor did he see any sign of an exit.
    “All right,” he said to Nadja at last. “Show me what you know of this place.”

-8-

    There was a large structure up ahead. From it, shafts of cold white light shone through the natural fog of the under-city Necropolis. The fog gave the light a ghostly quality, Gruum thought. Or was the effect caused by the Necropolis itself? He was uncertain.
    Ahead of him, Nadja hopped lightly from stone to stone, never seeming to misstep. Gruum, on the other hand, found that every rock rolled when he pressed his foot down upon it. Normally a sure-footed man, he found the Necropolis more difficult than ever to traverse as they moved closer to the source of the cold light.
    Gruum stopped. Something felt wrong beneath his feet. The sensation did not hearten him. The stones were harder to navigate because they gave way under his weight when he trod upon them. Each stone sank downward, ever so slightly, as if the ground beneath were spongy turf or shifting mud. He shuddered uncontrollably. He knew then, without a doubt left in his mind, that he walked upon mounds of the dead. The rocks covered them, but they must be thicker here, more common and perhaps—fresher.
    “Come on ,” hissed Nadja, turning back to wave him forward. She held her skirts up so they wouldn’t drag, pinching up folds of cloth. Her quick feet blurred over the stones. Perhaps her light body had less trouble with the shifting stones.
    Wincing, Gruum pressed onward. He focused on the girl and the light and tried not to think about the bodies beneath him. Then a new thought struck him.
    “Nadja?” he called.
    “What?”
    “Why does it not reek down here?”
    “Because, silly Gruum, we are not barbarians!” Nadja called back, giggling as if she ran in a sunlit field. “We preserve our dead.”
    “People should be allowed to rot properly,” Gruum muttered. He swallowed and forced his legs to keep striding after her.  He had a thought as he marched grimly onward. Perhaps this process the girl hinted at, some kind of preservation , had something to do with the tendency of the dead to walk here. What if the process went awry at times—what if it went too far? Occasionally, instead of keeping a body from rotting, the alchemical rituals and ointments might provide a corpse with some semblance of false life. As disgusting as his theory was, Gruum felt it might explain a lot.
    They came in time to the source of the cold, white light, and found it to be a mausoleum of sorts in the midst of an area empty of great columns. Dozens of figures moved here, and Gruum sprang forward to snatch up Nadja.
    She squirmed and he clamped his hand over her mouth.
    “Be still, girl,” he whispered in