by Ben Galley
The ugliness of nightmares woke her: visions of trickling water over black stone, of slipping in it over and over as she climbed and endless slope, dragged against her will by some force. She had looked behind her to see five burning points in a coal-black sky, settled around a sixth, and a glowing blue figure with a crown being lowered onto his head. Before it touched his brow, the rock beneath her fell away, and she plummeted into wakefulness.
Nilith placed a hand to her heart to steady it, but her unfamiliar surroundings weren’t helpful. No barge and strip of blue between red rocks, just shade and reaching palms. Grass and dirt filled her mouth, crunching against her teeth.
She pushed herself up before remembering the wounds on her hands and forearms. They stung, and she vowed to wash them before they festered. Other wounds spoke up as she got to sitting, then a low crouch. Standing could come later.
Farazar.
Nilith looked up through the palm fronds to eye the position of the sun. It was in the west, and at such an angle that it made her stomach clench. Though that may have been the early stink of the Ghoul.
Her eyes found the corpse, bloody and blind. The trident’s forks were still lodged in his brain. She trembled to look at him. He was not a victory; he was a sore reminder of how close she’d come to failure. One man hiding in some grass had almost ended her great toil. In truth, the narrow miss choked her, but on hearing a snore, she swallowed it and scowled liberally about the oasis. There were more pressing matters.
Anoish was grazing greedily on the grass, attempting to demolish the oasis before they departed. Nilith left him to it, glad he could finally recover his strength. She scooped up some of the smashed tubers and a coconut and went to find Ghyrab. The bargeman was curled up and snuffling. Makeshift bandages had stopped the bleeding, but his head wound needed stitching if it wasn’t to rot. In the desert, festering wounds claimed more souls than the heat.
‘Farazar,’ she said, shaking the bargeman. ‘We need to find him before Krona does. With his body, they can claim him, or worse.’
‘Mmmf.’
She hooked an arm under his and lifted Ghyrab’s dead weight. ‘Move yourself, you old bastard! I can’t leave you here.’
‘River spreads. Fucker’ll slow.’
‘I don’t know what that means.’
‘Marshes… before the turn.’
The bargeman’s head lolled onto his chest, baring his ghastly wound to her between the bandages. For a moment Nilith thought he had passed, but the beat her fingers felt in his throat told her otherwise. She tied his dressings tighter, then stole some more strips from the Ghoul’s shirt to bind her own arms.
It took plenty of attempts and some water from the puddle to be able to whistle. The horse hadn’t heard the clang of blades, but he heard that. Moments later he came trotting, looking grumpy, as though he had been disturbed from a nap. His sides had scabbed in the sun.
‘Time to run, Anoish,’ she said, patting him gingerly on the rump. ‘You carried the corpse, so I guess a grey bargeman won’t be too difficult. And I’m wasting away as it is.’ Nilith plucked at her loose shirt. There was a high chance the Cloud Court may not recognise her on her return to Araxes.
With much heaving, hauling and stumbling, she managed to get the old man over Anoish’s back. Once she had retrieved the scimitar from under the Ghoul’s corpse, she followed suit, though it took her about five tries. In the end, Anoish had to kneel.
Nilith pointed a finger past the horse’s ear, along the dark curve of the river, towards the wavering silver patches on the horizon. Heat or water, it was hard to tell, but they would find out soon enough. ‘North, boy,’ she hissed. ‘And easy.’
Anoish had no wish to be hasty. He started out at a stiff trot, then a tentative canter, until finally the wind under his chin coaxed a gallop out of him. Although slower than he usually was, the sand flew by beneath them much faster than the river had. Nilith flattened herself, trying to reduce the painful jolting. The barge had softened her riding callouses, and now she had to grow them back.
Perhaps the horse felt her unease, or maybe he too had noticed the faint cloud of dust ahead, but he piled on the pace until spit streamed from his lips. If it hurt him, she couldn’t tell, but she didn’t dare complain. Farazar and Krona had hours on her, five or six at most, and that was plenty of time to spot a bumbling barge in a canyon that was gradually shrinking away.
Between the beat of the gallop, and between half-formed plans for retrieving her ghost, Nilith’s mind slipped back to the corpse they’d left unburied in the oasis. The blood still stained her hands, and they still shook at the memory of the precipice she’d danced along, and almost fallen from.
‘Almost’ was a powerful word. It signified an escape, and yet instead of a joyous word, it could be just as horrifying as a detrimental outcome. As damning as a strike from a spade. Almost fell. Almost slipped. Almost killed… The narrowness of the escape still managed to inject fear and shame into a soul.
Just as a person standing at the top of a tower always imagined the fall, Nilith tortured herself with flashbacks of the fight; every blow, every parry, imagining a hundred different outcomes for each. In every one she came off worse. It proved how close she had come to ruining everything she had fought for.
It was the dust cloud that broke her abusive reverie, growing darker and more pronounced now that the sun had aged to a warm scarlet. She had gained on the Ghouls, busy as they were crawling along the river’s edge. They clearly hadn’t found her bastard of a husband yet. She wondered what tricks the ghost had resorted to in avoiding them. Five hours was almost… impressive.
Nilith tugged at Anoish’s mane, slowing him down so they weren’t spotted, and turned to the cargo bumping her in the back. Ghyrab had woken once to murmur something foul about horses, but other than that, his only utterances had been deep snores.
She led the horse closer to the Ashti’s curve. As if nature itself was now against her, the waters were faster, rippling along at an eager pace. There was nothing in the water besides the occasional protruding rock and shadows of blacktooths facing into the current. Nilith scowled at them, wishing she had a bow and a sunny afternoon to spend shooting them.
Sunset threw their shadows far across the sand-scattered rock, so far they tumbled over the edge of the river canyon. Nilith made sure to hug every dip and bank in the sand, hiding as much of her and the horse as she could. No doubt the Ghouls would be getting bored now. The few she’d seen looked travel weary. The man she’d fought had stunk of riding, and was far weaker than he should have been.
Krona must have driven them hard across the sands, cutting off the curves in the river. It was a good sign that Nilith had managed to keep pace with the bandits. The afternoon had felt like an endless slog. Going south, she’d been fresh. Eager for change. Now, she was running wounded and exhausted. Her bones felt like porcelain, her skin like stretched leather, and her head pounded harder than Anoish’s hooves.
As night stole in from the east, Krona’s Ghouls headed west to follow another corner. Nilith trailed in their dusty wake, so far unseen. She was glad for the lack of moon. Her exhaustion began to creep into delirium, and she found herself chuckling as they slowly plodded through the sand.
The hunter had become the hunted. As weak as she was, as unarmed, lost, and running out of time as she was, it was still funny. Having the upper hand often was.
Her grin prevailed long into the darkness.
Chapter 11
A Haunting
All things that are built can be broken. It is the very nature of existence. Whether through time or turmoil, everything has an end.
Old Skol Proverb
‘Come on, Pointy. It’s been an hour now.’
‘And I’ve told you, Caltro, I haven’t the limbs!’ The sword’s voice was tense with strain. What in the Reaches he was straining, I had no idea.
It was one of the stupider plans I’d come up with in my thirty-four years. I wasn’t qu
ite sure it could even be classed as a plan, seeing as it consisted of ‘get some oaf into the room, attack him, then escape.’ The plan had more holes than a beggar’s breeches. We hadn’t even figured out escaping the room, never mind Busk’s tower.
Currently, our efforts were confined to helping the sword fall off the mantelpiece. A good clang would surely bring somebody running. Nobody paid attention to the ghost in the wardrobe any more; that, we’d established. As Pointy had rightly put it, he lacked the dexterity of an animate object. Sheer will was his only hope.
‘Come on! I believe in you!’
‘Hnnnnng!’
I recalled the somewhat similar noises I had made while bent over the crone’s lockbox on the ship. That seemed like far too long ago now.
There came a rattle as something shook. I pressed myself to the crack in the door. ‘Yes!’
Moments later, something flashed as it tumbled, making a solid bang on the fireplace. Pointy made a noise as though he’d been winded, but I knew it was just for show.
He had done his job. After a rattle of keys, a burly man with a bald head and beard the colour of autumn came ambling through the door.
‘What’s goin’ on?’ he cried, making a great show of scanning the room. A small croak from me got his attention. ‘Who’s in here?’
The burly fish nipped at the bait, and came to stand near my wardrobe, hand cocked behind his ear. ‘You up to something in there, shade?’
Something whispered by the fireplace, and he spun around. Any sensible person might have called for a fellow guard. This man was so delightfully confused, the sword and I managed to make him wander back and forth between the fireplace and the wardrobe several more times before he grappled with the locks of my prison.
‘You’d best be in there, or Busk’ll flay you to dust!’
I grinned, removed my scarf and smock, pressed a foot against the back of the wardrobe, and braced myself to jump.
Lamplight streamed in around the guard’s dark frame. His face turned from anger to horror as I dove for him, arms outstretched. Something about my wild, naked appearance touched on some ancient nerve and he recoiled with a squeal.
My vaporous frame collided with his, but with no weight behind me I simply sagged against him like a sack against a barn wall. As he batted at me with his club, I desperately tried to hold his gaze, but his eyes were too busy rolling around their sockets as he fought to be free of my cloying.
I had no idea what I was doing wrong, and so I flung myself at him again, tensing my vapours as hard as I could manage. This time, I nudged him hard enough to cause a stumble over the foot of some ugly flamingo stool. In his tumble, the guard somehow trapped his club between the floor and his head. I heard the crack as he landed.
‘Bloody bollocks,’ I said, immediately shutting the door.
‘No, this could be good. He won’t put up a fight.’
I went to pick up the sword, gently scooping him up and holding him aloft to the dim lamps. The obsidian blade looked liquid in the light, like molten black glass. The only dullness in it came from the copper veins and patches that mottled its surface. The silver branches of Pointy’s crossguard and hilt clutched a face carved from polished black stone: the youthful, lean face of a man, and it held a big smile for me.
‘How do you see or speak? I mean—’ I was lost for words. Strangebinding was a hard enough concept to grasp, never mind deadbinding. If I’d expected the stone to move as it talked, I was disappointed. The expression was frozen in that clown’s grin, though I felt a slight thrumming through the blade. The vibrations spread down my forearm.
‘Please, be careful. It’s been a while since I was moved around so fast, and a while since I had a master. I suppose this is our first handshake.’
‘As long as it isn’t anything else,’ I said, propping him up on the couch and then clenching my fist to rid myself of the tingling. ‘And I’m not your master.’
‘You are now you’ve claimed me. I am my own half-coin. It also means I can speak to you and you alone whenever we are near.’
I shrugged, ignoring his nonsense. I didn’t care for whatever spells the Nyxites or smiths had wrought into him.
As I stood over the guard’s comatose body, I rubbed my hands, making no sound. I analysed the man like I would an unpicked lock. Red curly hairs stood out on the back of his neck, like weeds growing on a salt flat. There was a pool of blood leaking into the carpet, spreading with all the hurry of spilt jam.
‘I have no idea what I’m doing.’
‘Sit on him. Or better yet, lie on him.’
I grimaced, gingerly lowering myself down onto the man’s spread-eagled frame. Aside from turning his slumbering breaths to mist with my cold, nothing happened. Perturbed at being so close to his sweaty neck, I closed my eyes to concentrate and imagined seeing myself through foreign eyes. There was a brief moment of dizziness, but nothing like haunting. It was more likely my own straining.
‘It’s no use!’
‘Stop thinking so hard about it. A sword-master used to say that to an old owner of mine. Let your mind flow where it wants. Tensing only makes you slower.’
I glared at the blade. ‘I’d like to see you try this.’
The reply was flat. ‘I’d give anything to try, Caltro. Trust me.’
I bit my cold lip and tried again, this time kneeling by the man’s head. Rolling his shoulders so I could see his chubby face, I slapped my hands to his cheeks. I stared at the man’s eyelids. One was smeared with blood from the deep dent in his forehead. The other was half closed and showing the milk of a rolled-up eye. I dug my fingers into his skin, and tried very hard not to think.
My eyes grew leaden, so I let them close. Some innate desire told me to rock forward, and so I let myself. I felt the weight beneath me, and the roughness of his clothes holding me back. I ignored them, and let my thoughts become a roar rolling across a scorched plain. Something twitched beneath me and the firm flesh gave way, spinning me over and around so fast I felt my eyes attempt to fly from my skull. A warmth enveloped my vapours.
My eyes snapped open. The world was on its side. A landscape of yellow and orange carpet stretched out before me, turning to chequered marble under a distant lavish couch. The bejewelled eyes of a snake wrapped around a table leg stared at me. For a brief moment, all was silent save for the gentle fizzing of the lamps.
‘You did it,’ spoke a metallic voice.
I immediately retched, but found nothing in my stomach to hack up. As I hawked and coughed, curled in a ball on the bloody carpet, something flailed at me from within. It was trying to cast me out. I pushed back, hard, and felt something crumble before me, like an old brick wall before a sledgehammer. I was haunting.
If I’d expected a glorious flooding of human sensation – of feelings, emotions, and a wonderful sense of wholeness – then I was cheated of it. The first feelings were of heaviness and pain. I felt like I wore a cumbersome costume made of meat, and one too tight for comfort. The warmth grew like a dawn furnace working itself into fury. My extremities felt numb. My head was throbbing. My eye was sticky. Something itched in my lower back, and yet somehow, these were glorious sensations in themselves.
‘I—’ My voice felt deeper, hoarser.
‘Am apparently fond of the pipe.’
‘That’s what that taste is.’ I smacked my lips, biting them to feel my rubbery, chapped skin.
‘Is it a struggle?’
It was. I constantly strained to keep hold of this sack of flesh. The man’s soul fought against me still, though weakly. As I tested my muscles and got to kneeling, I would occasionally feel a kick, or a lurch. Vapours would rise from one limb or another before I wrangled it back into place.
It was like one of those magic Skol paintings of corridors and stairwells that defied reality; where if you stared hard and long enough, you saw the mess from another perspective, one you couldn’t believe you missed before. And the more you stared, the easier it became to transfor
m the painting. This haunting business was the same: the longer I spent in this body and the more it struggled, the more I understood how to control it.
I made slow circles of the room, stepping like a newborn deer for the first lap or two. Despite my difficulty and the strangeness of wearing another’s skin, I had a body once again, and I felt elation swell up in a stomach that wasn’t mine. I flexed my gloved fingers, and spoke without thinking. ‘Though I feel like I’m wearing a man as a suit, I’ve missed this.’
‘Hmm. I can imagine.’ Pointy sounded wistful.
I decided to distract him from my thoughtless words with action, and keep myself focused. ‘Have you a scabbard?’
‘Behind that chair. Nothing grand. My old scabbard was lost a hundred years ago.’
I fetched the bland black and silver scabbard without hesitation. ‘Perfect. Don’t want any unnecessary attention where I’m going.’
‘And where is that?’
‘To see Busk, of course.’
The sword groaned as I stashed him in his scabbard. At least there he was silent.
I ripped a section of silk from a curtain and wrapped it around my head as a scarf to hide the wound. I grazed it with a knuckle and felt a wash of pain so intense I felt dizzy. The rest of the blood I scraped away.
With much fumbling of unfamiliar fingers, I left both the wardrobe and room locked and made my way to the stairwell. Busk had been keeping me halfway up his modest tower, and like any noble, I knew he enjoyed the prospect of height. I set my feet to the stairs, wobbly and drunken. Every step was a challenge at first, and a tough one at that. The body resisted me anew, and it took several flights to subdue it and wrestle my limbs under control. Even then, I tottered, and found myself twitching when nodding to other guards.
Nobody challenged me, even when I arrived at the door to Busk’s study. I was ready to gossip with the guard and blag my entry, as we say in Krass, but all he did was tell me sternly that I was late, and promptly open the door for me. I strode inwards, ensuring Pointy was tucked at the back of my hip, away from any gaze.
