The Lifhendil sense of perspective and scale was a little skewed here, Orial thought, for the sapphire-winged dragonflies that darted across the water-meadows were painted the same size as the slender men and women who were pointing to them. The Lifhendil had portrayed themselves as tall, elegant, slim-waisted. Men and women alike wore their hair long, bound back in elaborate fillets and ribboned braids. The coloured gauzes that draped their bodies were as vivid as the jewel-colours of the dragonflies: sky-azure, crimson-garnet, grass-green emerald.

As Orial passed by her fingers drifted over the inscriptions that bordered the friezes. The people who inhabited Sulien nowadays had no way of translating the unknown language of the Lifhendil. The names of the dead were lost. The purpose of the Undercity was unknown. Ancient artefacts were unearthed from time to time in back gardens or foundation trenches when new houses were being built – but nothing had yet been found to shed any light on the practices or beliefs of the city’s builders.

Orial skirted past the Lotos Chamber and slipped through the Hall of Green Ninufars. All was dark – and all was still, not even the black waters of the funerary reservoir stirred. No ingenieurs were dredging the surface of the waters today, no Priests preparing for a funeral…

The sudden low murmur of voices took her by surprise. She crept on – and saw a gleam of light.

Light in Iridial’s shrine. Lantern-light.

She shrank close against the wall, wondering who could be in her mother’s shrine, fearing tomb robbers, necromantists.

The lantern-light cast distorted shadows. Flapping of torn wings, rotted cerecloths… In sudden panic, Orial dropped her own lantern.

A figure materialised in the doorway, frozen, as if listening.

No. It could not be. The dead do not return. And yet…

‘Who’s there?’ The voice was light as a woman’s, sibilant with fear – yet the stance and costume were those of a full-grown man whose hair was dyed a startling crimson. This was no ghost. Orial snatched up the lantern and made straight for the doorway.

And the stranger saw her.

‘Iridial!’ The whispered name went echoing up into the dark vaults, faint as the drift of incense smoke. ‘But they said you were –’

‘N-no.’ Orial shook her head. Her heart was beating too fast. ‘I am called Orial. Her daughter.’

‘Iridial’s daughter? But – I thought –’ The stranger was still staring at her.

‘Who are you?’ Orial asked, recovering her self-possession. ‘And what are you doing down here?’

‘So like her,’ murmured the stranger.

Orial felt a shiver, chill as melting snow, trickle down her spine. No one had ever mistaken her for her mother before.

‘Who are you?’ she repeated. She had the oddest sensation that the stranger was blocking the entrance to the shrine so that she should not see what lay beyond. And suddenly she wanted to see, to know what he was trying to conceal.