Observe, learn, and react. -- American McGee's Alice

The inside of Death's castle was as odd as the rest of the Land of the Dead. It included features like a dining table on the ceiling; a room dedicated entirely to what looked like coffins, pieces of headstones, and similar macabre items; and a hallway that led nowhere.

Well, it led nowhere as far as he could tell. Apparently it only led somewhere when Death was leading condemned souls along it. What it led to then, and what the souls were condemned to, she refused to say. After thinking about it for a while, he had decided he was probably happier not knowing.

His favourite part of Death's castle was the Library of Memories. Like the statue garden back in Rethli, that wasn't its proper name. Rather, it was a nickname he had given it, and Death had laughed and said that was as good a name for it as any.

The Library of Memories was, as its name suggested, a collection of memories. Kilan wasn't entirely sure of whose memories; they seemed to be the memories of souls now residing in the Land of the Dead, but occasionally they included information that the soul could not possibly have known at the time. Regardless of whose memories they were, they were endlessly fascinating. There were stories of horror: plagues and shipwrecks, spaceship disasters and wars. But there were also stories of ordinary people: farmers, tradesmen, fishermen, doctors; people who experienced only the sorrows and trials that came to an average life. Kilan liked those stories most of all. Today, however, he wanted to hear a different story.

"Are there any memories of people who lived in Malish?" he asked, idly spinning around one of the revolving "bookcases" that held the jars full of memories.

Death's eyes briefly glazed over as she mentally searched through the Library. "Yes. Here's one."

A jar detached itself from a bookshelf (or should that be memoryshelf? Kilan wondered) and floated over to her outstretched hand. Kilan took it from her and opened it.

A memory, when in a jar, looked like a roll of paper. When the jar was opened and someone looked at the memory, it unrolled itself and a depiction of the memory exactly as it had happened played across its surface, complete with occasional written notes on who each person it showed was, where it showed, what consequences the events in the memory had had.

This particular memory, it turned out, was the memory of a girl named Nekaureł KorgoAxashtę, from the village of Chlibrivauth in the south of Malish, and it began when she was ten.

Kilan watched in horrified astonishment as Nekaureł's father insisted she marry a man in his sixties, who already had four wives. The girl attempted to run away, but was caught, dragged back, and stoned to death for disobeying her father and dishonouring her family.

Stoning a person to death was something unheard of the Carann Empire. Kilan had never known it was possible to kill someone in such a way. He tore his eyes away from the memory with a muffled cry. The jar slipped from his hands and would have shattered if Death hadn't caught it. She sent it back to its shelf with a wave of her hand, never taking her eyes off Kilan.

"Why?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

"You'll have to be more specific, I'm afraid," Death said with a hint of sarcasm in her voice. "Why what? Why would they be so cruel?"

"That too, but why did you show me that memory when there must be thousands of others?"

Death was silent. Her gaze never wavered from Kilan's face. He was abruptly reminded that Death was not human, was not even close to human, and her way of thinking and seeing the world was utterly alien to him.

"Perhaps because this is what you wanted to see," she said at last.

"Wanted to see?"

"You were already sure that the Malishese are barbarians."

"I wasn't sure of it," Kilan objected, "I'd only heard that was true. And that idea has just been confirmed!"

Death made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a "hmm". "Do you still want to visit Malish?"

"I never wanted to visit it, and I certainly don't want to now. But it doesn't matter, does it? I'll have to go whether I want to or not."

Death nodded once as if she had come to a realisation -- or a decision. "Do you want to see Varan tonight?"

Conversations with Death had a tendency to involve sudden, unexpected jumps from one topic to another that may or may not have anything to do with the first topic. Kilan wasn't sure if she used it as a way of getting out of answering awkward questions or if it was just the way her mind worked. He had long since given up on trying to work it out.

"I suppose. She might have some ideas on how to deal with what's-his-name, the Eekee or whatever he's called."

"Iqui," Death corrected him.

~~~~

"But how can they order you around like that?" Varan asked, her brow winkled in confusion. "You're the Emperor! They're supposed to take orders from you, not the other way round."

"Spoken like someone who has never worn a crown," said Ranoryin dryly. "The only purpose of the High Council's existence is to make sure an Empress or Emperor cannot do whatever he or she pleases. You have to show them who's master. It'll be hard, and take at least two years in all likelihood, but once you've gotten them to understand you won't be bossed around, they should stop making problems for you."

Kilan sipped moodily at the cup of tea Varan had given him. He had wondered occasionally how there could be tea in the Land of the Dead, and had finally decided to just accept it without question. There was no other way to stay sane in a world which viewed the laws of reality as guidelines to be ignored at will. "Two years? That will hardly help me now."

"You could pretend to go along with everything they say to lull them into a false sense of security, then announce you're dissolving the High Council," Varan suggested helpfully. She paused and looked to Ranoryin. "Can the High Council be dissolved?"

Ranoryin pursed her lips. "It can be, and it has been, but only by tyrants. That would hardly give a good impression."

So much for that idea.

"I can probably get through this trip without offending anyone," Kilan said, "but I don't know if I'll be able to forget what I saw, and if the Iqui annoys me enough I might bring it up."

His sister and great-grandmother gave him enquiring looks.

"What do you mean, what you saw?" Varan asked.

Kilan told them. By the end of his explanation, Varan was clutching her teaspoon as if she wanted to use it to disembowel the inhabitants of Chlibrivauth, and Ranoryin was shaking with barely-restrained fury.

"Those-- those--!" The former Empress couldn't find a word vile enough to describe what she thought of them. Instead, she turned her wrath on someone who she could find no end of insults for. "Showing you that memory at a time like this must be some ploy of that loathsome creature's. Of course, a war between Carann and Malish would suit her just fine. More dead souls for her to add to her collection!"

Kilan was torn between defending Death, and an uncomfortable sense that there might just be something in what Ranoryin said. "I have no intention of starting a war over this."

~~~~

Ranoryin's words were still preying on his mind when Death came to bring him back.

"Do you want there to be a war?" Kilan asked her bluntly.

Death looked almost surprised. "Why would I? Wars are my daughter's purview, not mine."

"But people die in wars, so a war means more people for you to collect."

A hint of a puzzled frown crossed Death's face. "Do you think I enjoy collecting souls? Or that I'm in need of new souls cluttering up the place? Almost every soul ever to die is here. That is a number so high there is no word in any language for it, and the number increases by thousands each day. The longer souls take to arrive, the better, as far as I or my Reapers are concerned."

That explanation only half mollified Kilan. "But then why did you show me such a horrible memory?"

"You asked for a memory. I showed you one." Death seemed to consider that the only justification necessary.

~~~~

The days were flying by now. It seemed like only yesterday Kilan had been crowned, but his trip to Malish was only a week away. The High Council were trying to drill various lessons on Malishese etiquette into his head. Kilan tried to learn them, but he kept being thrown by things like "If you are served stewed sheep's eyes, politeness dictates you eat them and claim to have enjoyed the meal".

If Kilan was served stewed sheep's eyes, he would run away screaming, politeness be damned. But he suspected the High Council would not take kindly to him saying so.

In between trying to learn the proper greetings and forms of address for every rank of Malishese royalty and nobility, he had the problems of his own Empire to deal with. He had thought the amount of letters he had had to deal with while acting as Marin's secretary was outrageous. It was nothing to the amount of letters he had to deal with now.

"You should hire a secretary," Death told him when she arrived one night to find him reading through a pile of letters while having a very late supper in his bedroom.

"But how could I be sure they'd deal with things properly?" Kilan asked rhetorically, finishing one letter and picking up the next. "This one's from the Mayoress of Glulur. She wants to know if I intend to do anything about the disgraceful condition of the roads leading to her town; apparently they become impassable every time it rains. I don't know how to reply to that. How would a secretary cope with it?"

Death picked up the stack of unread letters and, with a wave of her hand, sent it floating over to the armchair. She did the same with the stack of already-read letters. Then she sat down on the bed beside him and gave him a disapproving look.

"There is a time and a place," she said, "for reading letters. I dare say there is also a time for sitting on the bed and eating toast, but I doubt that time is the middle of the night. You're getting crumbs all over your quilt."

Kilan brushed the crumbs away with the hand not holding his slice of toast. "Well, I didn't have time to have supper earlier. I was too busy working."

Death pressed her fingers to her forehead as if trying to banish a headache. "You work too much. You have siblings other than Marin and Varan, don't you?"

Kilan nodded, unable to speak past a mouthful of toast.

"Then make them your secretaries. Make your Aunt Linish your secretary. Make me your secretary if you must, but stop this before you work yourself into an early grave!"

"I'm not sure you'd make a good secretary," he said dryly. "I don't think ruling the Land of the Dead requires paperwork."

"It doesn't," Death agreed. "Something I never fully appreciated until now."

She gestured to the chair groaning beneath the weight of the letters.

Kilan finished his toast and set the plate on his bedside table. "I'll ask my parents if they'd let Nadriet be my secretary. Though I can't understand why you're so concerned about my health."

"I can't understand it either," Death said quietly, giving him an unreadable look.

~~~~

The trip to Malish was only a day away. All day long, Kilan's work was interrupted by servants coming to ask him if he would bring this, that or the other item of clothing with him. When he finally decided he'd done enough work to justify going to bed, he found his bedroom so full of suitcases that it was impossible to move an inch without tripping over one.

Kilan stopped and looked at them. There were at least twenty suitcases, all only slightly smaller than packing crates. He hadn't known he had enough clothes to fill two suitcases of that size, let alone twenty, and he certainly wasn't going to drag twenty enormous suitcases with him around Malish.

In the morning, he decided, he was going to have a few words with the servants on what was and wasn't necessary for a trip that would last at most two weeks.

Until then, he had a problem. Whoever had left the suitcases lying around had apparently not realised Kilan would need to get past them to reach his bed. Climbing over suitcases late at night was not something he ever wanted to do.

There was only one thing he could do. There were other, unused bedrooms in this wing, most of which were in fairly good condition. He would have to sleep in one of them tonight.