"What kind of work, exactly?" Verna asked.

"Well, in general, sweeping, cleaning, dusting-that sort of thing. There are miles of corridors down here. The staff replaces lamp oil and candles in some places, keeps fresh torches in others. Occasionally a piece of stone will crack and need to be repaired or replaced. The caskets that aren't entombed within walls or in the floor have to be kept in good condition-the metal on some polished, on others kept free of rust, and the carved wooden ones need to be waxed to keep the wood from drying excessively. There have occasionally been leaks down here, so the exterior of the caskets must be carefully inspected to make sure they aren't getting damp or moldy.

"The crypt staff is ultimately at the service of the Lord Rahl. They see to his specific wishes, if he has any. Those entombed down here, after all are his ancestors.

"It used to be, when Darken Rahl was alive, that the staff primarily carried out his wishes having to do with his father's tomb. Darken Rahl was the one who ordered that the tongues of the crypt staff be cut out. He feared that, while they were down here alone, they might speak ill of his dead father."

"And what if they did?" Verna asked. "What could it hurt?"

The man shrugged. "I'm sorry, but I wasn't about to question the man. When he was alive there was a constant stream of new staff workers replacing those who had been executed for various reasons. It was unhealthy to be anywhere near the man, and the crypt staff often found themselves the object of his rages. New staff were rounded up from time to time and pressed into service.

"Darken Rahl only left me with my tongue because my work didn't take me down here very often. I oversaw the staff. I need to interact with others on the palace staff, so I need to be able to talk with people. The rest of the staff, in Darken Rahl's view, didn't have anything worthwhile they needed to say, and no need for a tongue."

"How do you communicate with them?" Cara asked.

Dario touched his lips again as he glanced at his staff slowly making their way farther on down the hall. "Well, the way you would imagine. They use signs. Grunt a little, or nod, to make their thoughts known. They can hear, of course, so I don't need to use signs to speak to them.

"They share the same quarters and work together, so they are almost always alone among themselves. For that reason they've come to be quite conversant with signs they've invented among themselves. I'm not nearly as familiar with their unique language as they are among themselves, but for the most part I've come to be able to understand them. Enough to get by, anyway.

"Most of them are quite bright. People sometimes think they're stupid because they can't talk. In some ways they are more aware of the goings-on in the palace than most of the other members of the palace staff. Since people know that they're mute, they often don't even consider that they listen just fine. These people often know what's happening around the place long before I do."

Verna found their little world down in the tombs a remarkable, if somewhat unsettling, revelation. "Well, what about down here? What do they think is going on down here."

Dario shook his head with a look of concern. "They haven't brought anything to my attention, yet."

"Why not?" Cara asked.

"Fear, probably. In the past crypt staff were frequently executed for the most trivial things. Such executions never made any real sense. They learned that to stay alive it was best to be part of the background, to be as invisible as possible. Bringing up problems was not the way to live a long life.

"To this day, they even feared to come and tell me things. Once, there had been a leak staining a wall. They never said a word, probably because they feared they would be put to death for the stain tainting the tombs of the ancestors of Lord Rahl. I only found out about the stain because one night I went to see them in their quarters and they were gone. I found them down here, all working feverishly to scrub the stain away before anyone saw it."

"What a way to live," Cara murmured to herself.

"What are they doing, anyway?" Verna asked as she watched several of the staff running their hands along the wall, as if feeling for something hidden in the smooth, white marble.

"I'm not sure," Dario said. "Let's ask them."

Some distance back down the corridor a force of the First File waited. Some of them had their crossbows loaded with the special red-fletched arrows that Nathan had found for them. Verna didn't like being anywhere near those wicked things. Their deadly magic made her sweat.

The crypt staff, made up of both women and men, was gathered in a clutch, inspecting the walls and every intersection along the way. They had all been down in the various tomb levels most of the day and Verna was tired. She was usually in bed by this time. That was where she wanted to be. As far as she was concerned, the meticulous inspection of nothing at all could wait until the next day.

Cara didn't look tired. She looked intense. She had this "problem down in the tombs" bone in her teeth and she wasn't going to let go for anything.

Verna would have left Cara to it, except that when they had searched out Dario Daraya, the man in charge of the crypt staff, to ask what he could tell them, he had not dismissed the inquiry, as Verna had expected. He seemed nervous that they had even asked the question. It turned out that he shared Cara's uneasy suspicion but as of yet hadn't mentioned it to anyone. He told Verna and Cara that he strongly suspected that the members of his staff were also aware of something being amiss.

Verna had learned that among the vast force that was the palace staff, the members of the crypt staff were considered the lowest of the low. Those with responsibility over important sections of the palace dismissed the work down in the tomb areas as simple, menial work for mutes. The crypt workers were also shunned because they spent their existence working among the dead, thus carrying the invisible taint of superstition.

Dario had explained that such attitudes had left them a shy and withdrawn lot. They didn't eat in the common areas with other people on the staff. They kept to themselves and kept their own counsel.

Verna watched them down the corridor a ways, conversing among themselves in their strange language of signs. Having developed the language among themselves, no one else understood them except, perhaps, for Dario Daraya.

As much as Verna, and especially Cara, wanted to question the staff directly, they were forced to allow Dario to do it. The mere close proximity of an outsider-especially a Mord-Sith-sent the silent group into trembling and even tears. These were people who had been treated very badly by the last Lord Rahl, and probably the one before that. Many of their number, no doubt close friends and loved ones, had been put to death for allowing the petal of a white rose to lie too long on the floor of the tomb of Darken Rahl's father. They had lived and died by the decree of a madman.

These people were, understandably, quite terrified of authority.

Verna had cautioned Cara that if she really wanted to get answers then she had to stay back and let Dario get those answers for them.

Verna watched Dario, standing in their midst, quietly asking questions. The people surrounding him became excited at certain points, pointing this way and that, and making signs to him. Dario nodded from time to time and gently asked more questions, which drew more of the silent language from some of the staff.

Dario at last returned. "They say that there is no problem in this corridor. Everything here is fine."

Cara spoke through gritted teeth. "Well then if they don't-"

"But," Dario interrupted, "they say that in that corridor there"-he pointed ahead to the right-"there is something wrong."