Naja shook her head. “They have no will. They are dead. They are like a raw material which, through the methods dreamed up by makers, is crafted to serve as the emperor wants.”

“Serve? How do they serve?” Merritt asked. “What purpose would the dead have that could serve Sulachan better than the living?”

“The dead never get weary, they don’t know hunger, or pain, or pity. They don’t need to eat, or sleep, or rest, or stay warm, so they don’t need any supplies. They have no ambition but the one given to them. They have no capacity for fear so they act without hesitation.”

“Act how?” Magda asked. “What do the emperor’s forces use these dead people for?”

“For all those reasons I mentioned, they make perfect assassins.” She gestured beyond the door. “They can be right there, in your midst, and you never know it. You walk by them and never see them for what they are.

“The dead can be animated as needed. They are then given a single-minded purpose. They never stop trying to carry out that purpose.

“For these reasons, they also make the perfect warriors. The dead have their limits of service, though. There are things for which Emperor Sulachan cannot use them.

“When he needs the same sorts of things done that the dead do well, but with some intelligence behind them, he uses the half people.”

“Half people?” Magda leaned in. “What are half people?”

“Living people he has stripped of their souls.”

Chapter 76

Merritt folded his arms across his chest. “How much, exactly, do you really know about all of this? How complete is your understanding of it?”

“I told you, I was Emperor Sulachan’s spiritist.” Naja heaved an impatient sigh. “Must we discuss this now? Can we please go and talk about it later?”

“We need to know some things, first,” Merritt said.

Naja gestured toward the door. “What you need to know is that any one of those dead could be a servant of the emperor. You wouldn’t know it until one of them sat up, grabbed you by your throat, and ripped your arms off. If the emperor or his minions knew we were in here, they could set one or a dozen of the dead on us to tear us apart.”

“She’s right,” Magda said, recalling the horror of what had happened with Isidore. “We should get out of here.”

“How could he get any of those dead people down here to do his bidding?” Merritt asked, not ready to leave before he had a better grasp of it all and exactly what they faced. “He may be powerful, but he’s all the way down in the Old World. How could he do a thing like that from such a great distance?”