And Time Will Claim its End!

 Oat and sekeker-sweet-wax cakes are left out on doorsteps for mourners and spirits alike; pottage of meer-a-pot is cooked and left untouched by those who can afford food for the dead; those living within the Dual-Cities dress in black, though those of means use the opportunity to display their "mourning" in the newest style; and all the while, the mourning societies fill the streets, keening for the ancient dead, singing hymns to ancient heroes, and marching along the Pallbearers' Way with paeans rising up as they go to guard the tombs of the warriors of old.

Ostentatious use of wealth in public mourning is at a premium during these four weeks of the Long Wake, a time commemorating human heroes (especially those of the Man-Kzin Wars), and no citizen would dare forget to spend at least a small donation during this time.

Those denizens, metics, and other resident-barbarians who wish to advance their station likewise dare not forget to spend some coin on commemoration of the dead ...

And indeed, certain of the barbarians new-come to the Mother of Cities have publicly expended coin according to custom during the Long Wake:

Durham, associated with the guesthouse at the Kantor Kabljauhof ignores the scoffing of the Hanse foreigners and sets out to hire one of the gladiators of the Coreguyi Arena to represent the ancient hero Sekeilos and also to hire a number of the Poor Brothers of the Dead for a proper procession to the Necropolis, lighted during the night by a number of torchbearers singing hymns for the living and the dead (spending 300 gold altogether):

"Full of life, shine,
"without any pain,
"for life is short,
"and time will claim its end!"

Meanwhile, Torkol and Gan of Cothon-Under-Star spend 350 gold together to hire tomb-watchers from among the Poor Brothers to ascend to the entrance of the crypt and Heroön of Dalan II. the Great. There, the Poor Brothers are not merely to watch and guard, but to engage in sparring and athletic contests, as attested of heroes in the ancient epics.

And fellow Survivor of the Tel Sesel further spends his own 300 gold on a separate remembrance, having a sweet-wax effigy of Itra the Swift formed and laid on a bier, and then carried to the Necropolis by the Poor Brothers, led by a Coreguyan gladiator in the guise of Itra's spirit. Wunderman Barabajagal was further enticed to join this procession, and to offer a cup of his "cosmic drink" both to the living warrior, and to leave a cup at the doorstep of the dead ... the hymns remembered for Itra are of a distinctly different character, recalling the warrior's obsessive loneliness ...