Ventus by Karl Schroeder

Karl Schroeder / Ventus / Page 95
else, if he's high-born, there's the gold in his teeth."
Choltas grunted. Corres, the third member of the party,
waved impatiently from a ways down the gallery. His
impatience, Choltas knew, was not due to fear, but a simple
desire to get an unpleasant job done. Corres had no
imagination, no apparent feelings, and seldom spoke. Enneas
had no idea what he did with the money he made in these
tombs.
They joined him near one wall of the passage. "It's
somewhere along here," said Corres. He swung his lantern,
making shadows lean up and down the hall. Corres was merely
trying to get a good view, but Choltas watched the moving
darkness with growing alarm.
"It's okay," Enneas said, patting him on the shoulder. He
pitched his voice at a conversational volume. "This is our
place of employ. We belong here." Choltas stared at him
wide-eyed. Enneas chuckled.
Well, it was almost true. Fear battled anger in Enneas'
stomach every time he entered a tomb like this. The fear was
natural; he'd never reconciled himself to death. The anger was
more powerful, though, and it had to do with Enneas' legacy:
his family had fallen from one of the highest positions in the
republic. The deciding moment in his life had been the day his
mother took him to visit burial mounds of some ancient
warlords. "Your ancestors are buried here," she had said,
gesturing at the earthen hills, each surmounted by a fane of
pillars. He'd imagined men and women with his family's faces
standing at attention under those hills, watching him. Their
eyes had accused: you are poor, they had said. You are no
longer one of us.
Enneas had naively believed that fortunes lost could be
regained. His youth had been a comedy of failure; he could