Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception. -- Niccolò Machiavelli

This night was full of nothing but things Irímé never expected to do. Now he could add yet another one to the list: hiding a reanimated corpse in someone else's tomb. Even stranger, it was an empty tomb. In fact it was little more than a stone coffin placed against the wall with a name and date carved on it. Obviously it wasn't meant to be opened. Yet Ilaran was pressing at different parts of the lid as if he expected it to open.

In the background Abihira was busy talking to the corpse. Well, she said she was trying to tell how much awareness it actually had. To all intents and purposes it just looked like she was having a very one-sided conversation with it. There were times -- which were increasingly frequent nowadays -- when Irímé seriously doubted her sanity. For the sake of his own he tried to ignore her.

"What are you doing?" he asked Ilaran.

"Magic." That hardly answered his question. "I'm separating the lid from the rest of the coffin so we can open it."

Oh. That was actually a good idea. Irímé briefly got distracted by wondering what sort of magic he was using. Would a spell for cutting or one for breaking be more suitable for this work? No wonder it was taking so long. Obviously he had to work slowly so he didn't damage the stone too badly. Only magicians who had studied special branches of magic in depth would be able to piece the coffin back together if he, say, cut its side in two. Or worse, damaged the crypt wall. How in the world would they ever be able to explain that?

He took a step back and stayed quiet for several minutes. It wouldn't do to distract Ilaran when the consequences could be so dire. To pass the time he read the inscriptions on the tombs nearby. Some of them were the graves of immediately-recognisable historical figures. Everyone had heard of Empress Nulrunan[1]. Everyone had also heard of Empress Mirutam[2], for all the wrong reasons. At first Irímé was surprised to see a memorial to her in the crypt at all. Then he saw the inscription under her name: "Tyrant, lunatic, kinslayer. A shining example of what we should never be." That was a surprisingly mild inscription for a woman who beheaded her own mother within months of taking the throne, to say nothing of everything else she did later.

A little further away were the graves of much saner, vastly more respected royals. Suarol the Peacemaker, Abihira VI, Josir the Great, Prince Yuastúl the Wise, Gilnreith II... He looked back at the tomb Ilaran was still working at. The name on it was unfamiliar. Who was Princess Aderthril? And why was her memorial here, among those of the famous or infamous?

Abihira -- the present-day Abihira, not one of her long-dead relatives who shared her name -- was still busy talking to that corpse. Now it seemed to be replying. It was waving its arms around like a ghoulish scarecrow, at any rate. Irímé resolutely refused to think about it. There was a limit to how much insanity he could tolerate before going mad, and he was getting very close to that limit.

The date of death on the memorial was only twenty thousand years ago. As a way of ignoring the corpse Irímé focused on that with more intensity than something so trivial warranted. If Princess Aderthril had done anything notable people would still talk about her. Her memorial must have been put in this section of the crypt as a mistake.

"I hope her family don't mind us meddling with her tomb," he said aloud.

"Whose family?" Ilaran asked, getting up from where he had been kneeling on the floor.

"Princess Aderthril's."

Ilaran gave him a very odd look. It was somewhere between bemused and mildly offended. "She was my mother. And I doubt she minds anything now."

Irímé blinked. Somehow he had taken it for granted that Ilaran's parents were still alive. Yes, he was older than either Irímé or Abihira, but still nowhere near old enough for one of his parents to have died naturally.

Wait a minute. The royal crypt didn't put up memorials to foreigners. Yet everyone knew the ruling families of Tananerl weren't part of the House of Sinistrah. He spent several minutes trying to figure that out before the perfectly logical solution of a marriage between two different royal families presented itself.

That still didn't explain why Aderthril's memorial was in this part of the crypt. What had she done that was so memorable?

He was about to ask Ilaran when Abihira yelled. Irímé spun round, fearing for a minute the corpse had attacked her. Instead he saw it lying on the floor in front of her. Abihira stared down at it with the gobsmacked expression of someone who didn't know what had just happened.

"She collapsed," she said, rubbing her eyes as if she couldn't believe it. "I tried to get her to speak again, and she just collapsed!"

Perhaps she's tired of answering your questions, Irímé thought.

Ilaran said sarcastically, "I expect she's asleep. Now help me move this."

Abihira stepped gingerly around the body and joined them at the coffin. The three of them slowly and carefully pushed the lid away until there was just enough room for the corpse to fit in through it. The stone made a terrible noise as it scraped over the floor. Luckily no one was around to hear so late at night -- or so early in the morning. Even more luckily the builders had left the coffin hollow, or all that work would have been for nothing.

The body was still lying on the floor as if it was an ordinary corpse. If only it had been so lifeless after they reburied it in the graveyard!

"Get up," Abihira ordered.

To Irímé's astonishment it got up at once. Its movements were now much stiffer. Abihira frowned and moved forward for a closer look.

"Odd. Rigor mortis has set in again." She shook her head, looking bemused. "I suppose there must be a time limit on how long it can be reanimated. With more research--"

Ilaran interrupted before she could start a lecture. "You can research it after we deal with Haliran. We can't afford to let it go wandering around the city again."

Even Abihira had to acknowledge the logic in that. "Help me move her. I don't think she can walk any more."

It took them ten minutes of struggling to get her into the coffin. Dead bodies were surprisingly hard to move. Especially ones with limbs that stubbornly refused to move. Abi had to resort to tying its hand to its waist with her hair ribbon. Otherwise they would have had to close the lid on top of its hand.

When the lid was finally closed, and when they'd checked to make sure no casual observer would see any sign it had been moved, they sat down on the nearest graves to catch their breath.

"I have an idea," Irímé said after a minute's silence. "Haliran will report the corpse even though she has no evidence, won't she?"

Ilaran nodded, looking as if he didn't like where this was going. "She'd be a fool if she didn't. It would make her blackmail attempt a waste of time."

"So what if someone else confesses to disturbing the festival before she reports it?"

Both of them looked blank. Clearly this would require a more thorough explanation. That was more of a challenge than it sounded. Irímé was at that unpleasant point of tiredness when he knew he was exhausted yet he didn't feel at all sleepy. His idea made sense in his head, but he had a nasty feeling his partners in crime would disagree.

"I'll go to the empress in the morning. I'll go right now, actually. And I'll tell her that--" he gestured towards the coffin, "is one of my friends who agreed to help me win a bet. I'll say my imaginary friend misunderstood what the bet was about -- no, I don't know what I'll say it was about. I haven't thought that far ahead yet. And she had an accident with, oh, I don't know. Fell in a mud puddle or something. She turned up looking like a corpse. I'll apologise and say it was a stupid bet and pretend I was drunk when I thought of it."

"You don't drink," Abihira objected.

Irímé shrugged. That hardly seemed an important detail right now. "Does your grandmother know that?"

"Yes. She's very particular about what sort of people her family marry. Potential drunkards haven't a chance. I think she has spies keeping an eye on all her grandchildren's betrotheds."

That was a strange thought. Irímé had a vague feeling he would find it deeply disturbing when he was more awake.

"Then I'll say someone talked me into drinking for the first time and I'll never do it again. The point is..." He paused to get his thoughts in order. "If I take the blame for what happened, and if I say it was an immortal in a costume, no one will pay any attention to Haliran. They'll think she's lying to protect herself."

Silence fell as all of them considered this.

"It's plausible," Ilaran said at last. "And it will stop all the gossip. Especially if you do go now. You can convincingly claim you're feeling so guilty you can't sleep."

"Speaking of not sleeping," Abi said, "does anyone know what time it is?"

No one had a watch. All of them knew it was far too late for any sane person to be awake.

"Grandmother won't be happy if you wake her up." Abi sounded suspiciously pleased about that. "I'd better go home. My parents are probably still arguing. If I go in through the side pantry I can get upstairs without being seen."

Abi ran out of the crypt. Irímé followed more slowly. Ilaran came last, stopping to turn off the lights and lock the gate behind them. By the time they reached the main road Abi had disappeared. No commotion arose from her house, so Irímé assumed she hadn't been caught. Not a sound could be heard from any of the palaces nearby. It was somehow more eerie than the silence of the crypt.

Ilaran turned to the right, towards the palace set aside for visiting guests. Irímé took a deep breath and set off in the opposite direction, towards the Silver Palace itself.