Even though she was his sister, Hakoore hissed. No one was supposed to know about the gun, or about whatever other bribes Rashid doled out to the Council of Elders. Still, what did Hakoore expect? Veen's husband was Vaygon, and Vaygon was an Elder; it went without saying Veen knew everything that happened behind the Council Hall's closed door.

If I'd been Hakoore, I'd have let Veen think whatever she wanted; but I suppose the Patriarch's Man didn't want the town to go wild with rumors about firearms. "Bonnakkut didn't die from any gun!" Hakoore growled.

"Then what happened?" Veen asked.

Hakoore should have known the question was coming, but he had no ready answer. Veen always had that effect on him — he just couldn't think fast enough in her presence.

Sometimes I'm glad I'm an only child.

Smoothly, Rashid spoke up for the tongue-tied Hakoore. "This isn't the place to discuss details," the Spark Lord said. "No doubt there'll be a public announcement in due course." Putting an armored hand on Hakoore's shoulder, he gave the gentlest of nudges and the old snake quickly spurred himself forward.

Veen didn't move from the middle of the street. Hakoore was forced to skirt around her, giving her a wide berth like you'd keep your distance from a porcupine. Dorr, on the other hand, murmured, "Auntie," as she passed Veen, and planted a vigorous kiss on the old woman's cheek. It seemed to surprise Veen as much as the rest of us.

When we reached the murder scene, Steck was sitting on a low limestone outcrop, carefully stripping the greenery out of an oak leaf to get down to the bare leaf skeleton. As far as I could tell, Bonnakkut's body was exactly how we'd left it. (For a moment, I contemplated what would happen if Steck touched the corpse. Could Bonnakkut suck in a Neut soul to serve as his death-wife? Just imagine the dead Bonnakkut's reaction when he saw what he'd done!)

Rashid asked, "Everything all right, Maria?"

Steck nodded. With the possible exception of Dorr, we all knew the Neut's real name… but I suppose Rashid liked addressing his Bozzle as a woman. "Okay," the Spark turned to Hakoore, "do what you have to."

The Patriarch's Man lowered himself stiffly beside the body and blinked at it. Then he touched his hand to Bonnakkut's throat and stroked the bloodied flesh, running his fingers along the length of the death cut. I couldn't tell if this was part of the last rites or mere curiosity — I'd never seen the last rites ritual before. Funerals, yes: I'd attended many funerals up on Beacon Point, swatting mosquitoes in summer and blowing on my hands in winter. But last rites were held in private, seldom attended by more than the priest and the corpse.

Hakoore lifted his fingers to his nose. I suppose the old snake enjoyed smelling the blood on them. Then he turned to me and hissed, "Get over here, boy. Watch and learn."

Rashid and Steck turned to me with curious expressions on their faces. Dorr smiled to herself. I didn't want to explain and I didn't want to take part in the rites, but I also didn't want to stir up a hornets' nest by refusing Hakoore. Reluctantly, I set down the stretcher and went to kneel by the corpse.

"Can you explain what you're going to do?" Rashid asked. He had the sound of a man who wanted to jot notes, but was restraining himself in deference to the solemn occasion. Hakoore didn't answer so I had to hold my tongue too. Surprisingly, it was the usually silent Dorr who finally spoke up.

"Bonnakkut's soul is a child in the womb," she said in a voice barely above a whisper. "It doesn't want to leave the comfortable enclosure of his body. But the body can no longer see, hear, or feel. That makes the soul isolated and lonely. It seeks a death-wife."

"A death-wife," Rashid repeated. "Oh, I like that name. What is it?"

"A completion — the dead man's missing half. When we are born, we are each male and female, both in one. At Commitment, the male or female half of our soul is absorbed back into the body of the gods. Except those who keep both halves." Her eyes were on Steck… which meant she knew Steck was Neut, and Hakoore was no better at keeping secrets from his family than Vaygon the Seedster. I doubted that he actually shared confidences with his granddaughter, but I could easily picture him throwing a tantrum about the presence of a Neut in the cove. He'd do that in front of Dorr with no more thought about her than a piece of the furniture.

"So," Dorr continued in her half-whisper, "a dead man longs for a death-wife, just as a dead woman longs for a death-husband. The half-soul wants to become whole again. If I were to touch Bonnakkut now, he would seize my spirit like a lover and lock me to him in the deep forever blackness. We would lie together in that decaying flesh, feverishly coupling till the end of time… all in a futile attempt to crush ourselves into one complete being."

She looked at me. Her eyes gleamed. It could have been a kind of desire… but I told myself she was just baiting me.

"So," said Rashid, "males should avoid touching female corpses and vice versa. Fascinating." His fingers played with the pouch on his belt where he kept his notebook; clearly, he wanted to whip the book out. "And you're about to perform a ritual that makes the body safe?"

"My grandfather will entice Bonnakkut from his body by offering him a proper death-wife: one of the gods."

"A god. Really."

I could tell Rashid had to make an effort to sound impressed rather than amused.

"The gods are great," Dorr replied. "They may take any number of husbands or wives. Think of Mistress Leaf, for example." Dorr gestured to the woods around us. "Mistress Leaf fills the trees here, and in the forest beyond, and in all the forests of the Earth, and all the forests of all the planets from here to the edge of the Glass. If she chooses Bonnakkut, she has ample abundance to be his wife forever, and wife to every other she may take for her own. Do you think a mere man would ever be disappointed with her? She's beautiful and sweet… maybe not clever, but Bonnakkut will do well if she accepts him."

"And what other gods are available if, ah, Mistress Leaf decides Bonnakkut isn't Mr. Right?"

"Mistress Water, Mistress Night, Mistress Deer…"

"Mistress Want," Steck suggested from her seat on the rock.

"Who's Mistress Want?" Rashid asked.

"Not all the Tober gods are happy and woodsy," Steck replied. "Mistress Want is a symbol of poverty. Starvation. Despair. She's usually depicted as a skeleton, creeping invisibly past your hut at night."

"And she can be a death-wife too?"

"If no one else will take you," Steck said. "Most other gods have standards — I don't imagine Mistress Leaf wants anything to do with a bear-fart like Bonnakkut. But Mistress Want will wrestle almost anyone into her bed. As will Master Disease."

Steck smiled at me, teasing. I glared back at her.

"This is quite an elegant system," Rashid said with too much patronization in his voice. "Bad people obviously suffer a hellish afterlife with Mistress Want or Master Disease, while good people are taken into bliss with one of the other gods. And since you have a lot of benevolent gods, people with different tastes can all have something to look forward to. A woodsman might be happy with Mistress Leaf, a sailor with Mistress Water…"

"Don't get it backwards!" Hakoore hissed. "The gods do the choosing, not the mortals. Right now, there may be a dozen gods standing among us, talking over which will take Bonnakkut for a husband."

Dorr gave me a look. Obviously, we both doubted that Bonnakkut would have so many takers.

"How do we know which gods are nearby?" Rashid asked.

"We don't," Hakoore snapped. "It's none of our business, who's here and who isn't. We just have to persuade Bonnakkut to come out of his body. If he takes even the tiniest peek into the world at large, he'll see the goddess who's chosen him and it will be love at first sight."