Belamy smiled again and said, “It’s going very well indeed. Bereziah and his entourage are returning home, their mission complete and mostly successful. However, several problems still face them: harsh terrain, unfamiliar groups not present at their first passing-by, and general malaise at being gone from home for so long. His use of emotional language here is quite moving, especially since such displays of emotion are comparatively rare in the extant elven literature; they seem to have a cultural taboo against such expression in writing that they breached only at the most poignant moments.”
“What, they were never happy or sad?” Such a way of living seemed impossible. “They didn’t feel anything?”
“Presumably, they did experience emotion. After all, Bereziah felt it appropriate to display emotions in this section,” Belamy said, pointing to the large block of text in front of him; to Skate, who was only just now learning the Thervonian alphabet, the elven writing looked like random squiggles on a page. “They just very rarely thought it appropriate to express such feeling in writing. I’m not as sure about what they were like in person. Their skittishness about revealing powerful emotion may have been confined to the written word.”
Skate thought of Haman, then, as he went about his work for the Ink: always serious, rarely showing anything on his face other than polite disinterest. “I bet they were like that in person, too,” she said.
Belamy smiled indulgently. “Very possibly.” He marked his place and stood. “Are you ready for your lessons?”
Skate nodded. This had been the pattern each night: Skate returned after hours and hours of observation of Gherun, and then had her reading and writing lesson with Belamy and Rattle. They had agreed that Belamy’s fee for such generous tutelage would be an extra book each week, with the option to defer book delivery up to one week as needed. She planned to take far more from Gherun than she had from Ossertine, which should not be hard. Belamy was not interested in any specific books of Gherun’s; just any that he did not already have. Rattle, who had already devoured many times over the whole of Belamy’s library, would be able to quickly pick out new books for Belamy’s enjoyment.
“I plan on doing the next job tomorrow night.”
“Good!” he said, motioning her toward the stairs and gathering his book to follow her up. “And you’re sure you’ll be able to move around unheard and unseen? Laribel wasn’t home when you visited her house, remember,” he said for perhaps the fifth time.
“Yes, I’m sure,” she responded a fifth time. “I’m actually really good at moving around without getting caught.” She began walking up the stairs.
“I caught you.”
Skate stopped in her tracks, one hand on the decorative banister as she glared at the old man. “Yeah, I guess you did.” The old man’s face was impassive, but she thought she saw dancing laughter in the darks of his eyes. “How’d you do that, Mr. Belamy?”
The old man smiled. “I have excellent hearing,” he said, gesturing again for her to continue up the stairs. “Excellent hearing perfected with years of practice.”
“You ‘practiced’ hearing better?” She turned and moved up the stairs as she spoke. “Doesn’t make any sense,” she muttered under her breath.
“Of course it does,” Belamy said from the bottom of the stairs.
Skate spun around to face him. With the crackling fire and the sound of her footsteps on the stone, it should have been impossible for the old man to hear her murmur.
Before she could say anything, he pressed on. “The ear can be trained to hear better just as the eyes can be trained to see better, the tongue to speak, the hands to manipulate, and on and on. A musician knows her craft because she has trained her body—and in particular, her ears—to be most in tune with her work.” He smiled, arms spread in a welcoming gesture, inviting a discussion on the matter.
“Okay, yeah, you can be trained to listen better,” Skate said, rolling her eyes, “but I meant just ‘hearing.’ If something hurts your ears, there’s nothing you can do to get your hearing back. There’s no exercises you can do, there’s no ‘training’ to get them back where they need to be. Ears are either strong or weak, and that’s all there is to it. You just have strong ears.”
“Ah, but I’m old. Old people have weak ears, don’t they?”
Skate thought about that. He was old, but his hearing was very strong—probably stronger than her own, if this conversation was anything to go by. Skate reminded herself of the most likely true reason for his impressive hearing abilities: something about the transition from life to unlife had made him better at it.
“If they’re alive, yeah.” She was not sure why she said that out loud; she had not been aware of making the decision to do so.
The old man did not look surprised; instead, his eyes narrowed, and he nodded. “Say more. I’d hear your reasoning, please.”
Skate swallowed before speaking. “You move too…neatly for an old man. Too loose. You sit for hours at once without griping about soreness. You don’t eat. You don’t sleep. You don’t breathe. You don’t use the latrine. You don’t even get tired. You aren’t bothered by the cold—at all, even though it’s the dead of winter. The only thing you want is books and their stories—things that last forever, or at least last a really long time. I know there’s things that move and think and talk even though they’re not alive anymore. I think you’re one of them.” She took a steadying breath. “I think whatever magic you did to yourself killed you, kind of.”
The same narrow-eyed expression stayed on Belamy’s wrinkled face. He answered, “I can do magic. Isn’t that as good an explanation for all of it as anything? Why do you go so quickly to assuming I’ve somehow cheated death?”
“I don’t know,” Skate answered half-honestly. She herself knew little, but Boss Marshall and Haman had been fairly convinced. She could not readily cite them as sources, though, given the context of the conversation. “But it would mean magic does way more than I thought it could.”
The suspicious expression expanded to a smile. “Yes, that’s probably true. Nevertheless, you’re right. The reason I don’t draw breath, eat, sleep, tire, or shiver is that I’m not alive. I haven’t been alive for about two decades now. I’m a lich.”
Chapter 10
In which a term is defined, disguises are explored, and the man in the ball is explained.
Silence greeted Belamy’s confession. Skate knew the word; Haman had mentioned “lich” while listing the different varieties of monsters that the old man might be. Belamy could not know about that, though, so she chose not to react. He had confirmed her suspicions, at least partially; while not a vampire, Barrison Belamy was no longer counted among the living. Looking for something to say, she asked, “What’s ‘lich’ mean?”
Belamy’s face neutralized somewhat, changing from the oddly proud and interested expression to that of the practiced lecturer as his voice fell into a more pedantic pattern. “It’s the name of a particular group of undead who have willfully chosen to avoid the ravages of the grim reaper by escaping, through the use of magic, into a state of half-death. As such, I am no longer bound to the limitations that most people have to deal with, as you’ve so thoroughly explained.