A dead man serves the Final Court as a functionary. This duty fell to him only recently, in the scheme of things; he was not a particularly faithful man, or a folk hero, or anything of that sort, but rather, he had a soul of a very particular type, made so by continuous lifelong effort, and so, rather than passing on into an ordinary sort of afterlife, he was conscripted to serve the gods. Contrary to what one might expect of one who contorted his soul through lifelong effort at a task, he was not a monk. Indeed, the furthest thing from it; he was a merchant.

At his death, he was stripped of his name, and of the burdensome aspects of his humanity, all to make him more efficient in his work to achieve his new purpose. He is stationed in a small shrine, which takes a shortcut where the Processional Way veers through a statue gallery. Ghosts pass through, and he assays them, as if he were counting coins, noting where they gleam and the weights of their flaws, and the burdens of their misdeeds. He prepares a report on each to send to the gods below, that each ghost may go to their proper afterlife once passing through the Gate.

His powers and insight into the nature of a soul are not restricted to the bare souls of ghosts; he can read the living with equal facility. For those few live ones who approach and receive an audience (easier, perhaps, since the closing of the Gate; though roughly as many ghosts arrive at the Tomb now as did before, they tend to progress downward slower, and in larger groups and less order (so when they do pass, they do not all wait for him to review them all). With fewer ghosts to assay, he has more time to oversee mortals, though if a ghost does come he will quickly shoo the mortals out), he can identify alignment, misdeeds that weigh on them, either in the consideration of the gods of the Final Court or even just by their weight on the thoughts of one being weighed, and prescribe means of atonement and amends for when such things are possible. He can even identify curses, their causes and effects and how they might be removed.

If his name were to be discovered and spoken to him, he could, perhaps, gain some semblance of his humanity back. The gods of the Final Court below would not look highly on such an act, but with the Gate sealed there is little they can do to express that displeasure. This might make him more pliable for giving readings to living visitors at the expense of his duties. He was not a remarkable man in life; he was singleminded at his trade at the expense of all family, indeed all social ties that were not business, but despite that did not distinguish himself as a great master. Nor was he an ancient; there might be those still alive who knew him in life. Perhaps, also, were he so restored, he could turn his powers on himself, and know why he was placed here: because with that singlemindedness, there was nothing for him beyond the Gate. A flight of fancy suggests that even that could be changed, were he restored; perhaps, when the gate reopens, he can join the ghosts passing through into the next life.

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