Ghost in the Yew: Volume One of the Vesteal Series

by Blake Hausladen

  Barok tried to read as we rode. What he was doing or what progress he could have made atop a trotting pony, I did not learn until later.

  All of Urnedi, most of Enhedu in fact, stood around the long pyre quietly waiting for our arrival. I knew well the number of those laid upon it and guessed at what Barok had been reading when he handed the sheets to Fana. She had prepared for him a list of names. I groaned inwardly. Reciting all 734 of them from memory was beyond him—beyond anyone.

  He looked a bit green when he stepped out of the crowd and toward the pyre. Dia and I followed, and I took him by each arm.

  “Don’t, Barok. This is not a good way to bid them farewell.”

  “But I must. They died for me.”

  Dia stepped in front of him. “No. They fought for what we have built here in your name. You are the reason it was possible, not the reason so many have died. Turn around and see what we have bought with our blood. Turn around, my love, and look upon the birth of a nation.”

  Barok came up, stunned as much by her words as I. We turned together, and the truth of it was stark. The thousands stood shoulder to shoulder, men and women from across Enhedu, Trace, and the Kaaryon, yet I could not tell one from the other, and I daresay no one else could either.

  The sight sparked something inside the prince. He rose up, stepped free of us and said to the crowd, clear and strong, “Each of us now lives because of the fight we made. Each of you stood and fought. You felt the evil touch of those who meant to end us. We live because we would not yield.

  “This is not the first time I have stood before you on such an occasion, and though I wish it otherwise, it will sadly not be the last. I had come with other words prepared, words like those you have heard from me before. But I see they are not needed. I see in you now what I have been striving to build but could manage only pieces of—a well, a mill, a consortium, and a harbor. And this goal, this most priceless and intangible goal—it was our enemies who made it possible. It was our enemies who put us together in a way that makes the places we came from seem distant. We stand now together, under a single flag, men and women of a new place. I stand here before you, a man of Enhedu. What say you. What place do you call your home?”

  “Enhedu,” they replied with a single deafening voice and it became a chant. Tears of loss, victory, and pride streamed from their eyes. “Enhedu. Enhedu. Enhedu.”

  Barok held up his arms and waited until he could be heard.

  He said to them, even and somber. “Come, stand with me now. Not all of us lived to see this moment, but all of those who paid for this day with their lives will be carried beyond this place by our unerring love. Come, Enhedu, stand with me and bid them farewell.”

  Enhedu gathered close and fell silent as parents and friends carried torches forward and lit the long line of tall dry wood. The birch bark kindling crackled deafeningly, and the flames roared. All stayed quiet and watched while the dead were consumed and their souls were carried up into the wind.

  The sound of singing snatched away my thoughts, and we all turned. Geart had moved and stood by himself before the burned-out pyre of Tracian dead. His deep voice rose; his song was one of great magic. I was drawn toward the sound of it and began to understand that all was not well. The three of us started across, and Enhedu slowly followed until all stood before the long pile of ash and bone. My hair stood on end, and I felt very faintly the same tussle of warm and cold as when the Hessier had assailed us. I shared a knowing look with Barok as we drew closer. The ghosts of the Tracians clung to the earth before us, ethereal, though just as present as Kyoden and his kin. They were in torment.

  Geart’s song rose again, and a profound sorrow pulled tears from my eyes.

  Then Dia stepped forward and with arms outstretched she prayed, “Wayward spirits, stay from my path and be but a wind behind me. Of you and yours, I know no ill and pray that you will walk lightly.”

  Heathen benedictions. What utter folly.

  I stood in shock and waited for the fiery words of Bayen’s faithful and the terrible invocations they reserved for heathens and heretics. I searched for the grimace of a despiser or the angry eyes of Bayen’s offended.

  There were none, but it did not seem possible. My walk from Bayen to the Great Spirit had taken a year, my faith a joke long before I had found my way into a wine bottle. But of all those we had brought to Enhedu, they could not all be so willing to step away from the one and only church.

  The same fear painted many faces, yet it seemed our collective dread of Bayen’s faithful had uncovered another lie: Bayen had no allies there that day. Not one face showed the ugliness of affront.

  My heart could not contain itself. So much darkness poured from the blackened swath of earth. My guts twisted as though touched by the dark magic of the Hessier. A few backed away.

  There were tears and more whispers. Geart’s song continued, drew us further in, made us look down upon the lingering souls. The air about us warmed, and the sky became as clear as the moments after a long hard rain.

  My hand felt another. Darmia’s grip was tight and so welcome. Her face mirrored the awe and fatigue of Urnedi’s survivors.

  “I forgive you,” she said to the dead, and others began to say the same.

  “Go from here,” Umera wept loudly. “Go from here in peace.”

  Compelled, I bowed my head and urged the ghosts most ardently, “May you walk lightly.”

  Darmia kissed me once, and we stood against the long black wall of sorrow together. Enhedu crowded close.

  The dead were wished well—all of them, by all of us—and all at once, the dark weight let go.

  100

  Druid Geart Goib

  My ears still wrung with pain as Dia led the four of us up the keep’s stairs. My song of forgiveness had been as expensive as my song of healing. But it was not what I intended it to be. I had not asked the Spirit of the Earth to forgive men. I had demanded that men forgive men. It was a song of the Shadow and had spent from the vile blanket above Enhedu—consumed it as my song bent all who heard it to my will. I was left knowing the result was good but that the act itself was evil. I had not given Enhedu a choice. My song had forced them to forgive. The Mother Yew would not be pleased. I was ashamed.

  We continued all the way up to the top of the keep in an effort to find a place apart from the proud men and women of Enhedu.

  The cluttered battlement atop the keep was deserted, and the pyres below were burnt out—two sad gray lines beneath a bright sun and waning moon. Dia was well at ease, Leger less so. Barok, like Sahin, had much yet bound up inside.

  The prince said to us, “Not all who heard Dia’s prayer were warmed by it. There is much left of Bayen in the Zoviyans we brought here. What happened today was a terrible mistake. We are exposed.”

  “I don’t agree,” Leger replied. “I did not see Bayen in that crowd. I expected to find him, but no one narrowed their eyes or clenched their jaws.”

  I replied, “You may both be right. They were not there today, but the blue light for many is the touch of Bayen. Today will remind them of the faith they once had. We cannot yet ascribe it to the Spirit of the Earth, so they will think it Bayen who saved us. And even if we do decide to bring forward the religion of Edonia, I believe many will want to hold to the faith they were raised with. Convincing a man to look to something else takes more than a day or even a season. I know this well, for I was one of them.”

  Dia said, “I know others who changed more profoundly during Enhedu’s last winter.”

  Barok scoffed, thinking, perhaps, she referred to him, but the rest of us chuckled dryly.

  “If we four could be so changed,” Leger surrendered, “then I will wait until the spring to worry.”

  Barok was not convinced, “Not everyone can be so changed. I am still my father’s son.”

  I said to him, “I’d thought the same of you when first we were reunited here, but more and more, I think you are your mother’s son.”

&nb
sp; Barok gripped his forehead to hold back tears, much as Sahin had. It wasn’t a healthy thing. I was about to counsel him against it when he looked up and demanded, “Geart, what happened to you that you can be so different?”

  “I heard the voice of She who made the Mother Yew and the mountain.”

  This did not help his anger. “I’ve Kyoden’s memory of Her touch from the day he called out to Her, begged the Spirit of the Earth to bless the Chaukai. Nothing I’ve done has earned me Her attention or Her touch. Not even the Mother Yew’s voice reaches my ears.”

  The truth of his blood, his precious Vesteal blood was not for him to know. I regretted for a long moment keeping the knowledge from him, but the legacy and the promise of the Vesteal were not things to tell a man on such a day. How could I tell him that for my magic to succeed, for the Spirit of the Earth to be roused, that I would have to put a knife to him or his children?

  I said to him, instead, “You and Sahin are wrong in your thinking of the Spirit of the Earth. She isn’t a maiden to be wooed or drawn by great deeds. Walk upon Her and settle your pride. Clear away the noise and weight of the Shadow. She is there. She sleeps, but She is there, and one day She might touch you as She has touched me.”

  “You speak riddles to me, Geart. Even alone in a quiet room, I can’t find such peace. For too long I have shared my head with ghosts, so long I have lost part of myself. I live now with their desires as my own. There will be no peace for me in this lifetime.”

  “You love Dia?”

  “What? Yes. With all my heart,” he said and took her hand. “What is she in this?”

  “Listen for Her voice when you are at peace and Dia is at your side. Alone it’s too hard.”

  “Don’t you walk alone?”

  “Only now while the tree sleeps. Since the day you came to Enhedu, the Mother Yew’s voice has been in my ears. Without her, I would have perished in my black box.”

  Barok seemed stricken. Leger set a hand upon his shoulder. The prince said heavily, “It should have been me in that dungeon. Not you.”

  “Yes, you should have been, but not in my place. I deserved it, for my part.”

  “Is there absolution within Adanas?” he all but pleaded. “What penance can I give to the Spirit of the Earth to atone for my deeds?”

  I closed my eyes and put his good question to my understanding of the Earth. But I could not say what it was that weighed down a man’s soul. I had forced Urnedi to forgive without understanding what it meant to forgive. I could find no words, and my shame grew.

  Dia filled the silence. “It is how you are remembered that matters.”

  We stared, and she added, “It is our deeds that matter. A dark road through life binds us to the Shadow. Those who walk lightly and are remembered well by those they touched are freed of him. We forgave those who attacked us, and in so doing, they were let go and are at peace.”

  The silence that followed was long. We were each bound to the Shadow by the things we had done. Dia and Barok just as much, it seemed, even though their lives had only just begun. I fell to worried contemplation.

  “How will we get free of Him?” Barok asked at last.

  “Enhedu is a noble place,” I said after a time. “The Shadow will have little hold upon you in the center of such a creation.”

  “My lordship balances my evils?”

  “No, it is not authority. Enhedu exists because of your labor and the giving of yourself to it. Absolution for our acts can perhaps be found in creation—the creation of a place, the creation of life.”

  This struck a chord, and he didn’t try to stop his tears this time. “You healed Dia,” he wept.

  “She saved me also.”

  “You misunderstand me. She was given the women’s medicine. You healed her. She and I ... she and I ...”

  What a happy turn. I had not known it, and the learning filled my heart. I asked them, “You can create a life?”

  “Would that be a start, do you think?” Dia asked me, squeezing Barok’s arm.

  “Enhedu was a start,” I told her. “Raising a child and the children of Enhedu to know and to walk with Adanas is more still. We must live the rest of our days measuring our deeds.”

  “We may one day walk lightly?” Barok asked.

  “Yes, friend, I do believe we four might still find an uncluttered path.”

  Barok let his dread and ill emotions out in a great sigh. It had been too long since I’d seen him do it, and it cheered me immensely to see so much sadness and gray weight shed with the great exhalation. He was so simple a man—still a wounded child in need of his mother’s love. I prayed I could help him heal, help us all step away from the Shadow.

  As far as we had come, all things seemed possible.

  The End

  In Memoriam

  There are many whose help and creative energy fueled this winding adventure. As with this story, however, not everyone makes it to the end. We lose those dear to us and when they are gone, we are left with holes through which we see deep inside ourselves.

  Suzanne Lavenz

  Suzanne reached out to me in the closing moments of her final battle. She had unfinished business, which included correcting my juvenile understanding of horses. I could not refuse her and her guidance had more of an affect upon this edition than any other voice. She lost her battle with cancer, and my heart is lighter for having witnessed someone choosing so ardently to give of themselves as their curtain fell.

  Frances and Envor Johnson

  Glimpses of my grandparents, Frances and Envor, can be found throughout the series. Francis was a potter, scribe, and my Dame. Envor was a driver, master sergeant, and my Thell. Francis fought off cancer twice, and on her deathbed, demanded to know how the series ended. Their spirits remain alive with me, and like Kyoden, their voices turn me from my darker nature.

  Bill Dunbar

  I met Bill at a wedding as he was preparing to read the part of Leger Mertone in the audiobook version of Ghosts in the Yew and spent time with him in the haunted halls of the Chicago fandom. It was a cruel trick that he was taken from us so early. His passion filled the room, and I will never be able to read Leger without Bill’s voice in my head.

  Glenn St. Charles

  I corresponded with Glenn after reading his books on bowyery. He was the first subject matter expert I reached out to, and proved a gracious and patient teacher. He served as inspiration for both Kyoden and Sahin and lived a more storied life than both. He was an archery pioneer and towering exemplar of a well-lived life that was perhaps best known for cruising the forests in search of the best billet for the perfect bow.

  Also by Blake Hausladen

  Ghosts in the Yew - Vesteal Series Volume One

  This omnibus volume includes:

  Part 1 - Beyond the Edge

  Part 2 - Opposing Oaths

  Part 3 - Reckless Borders

  Part 4 - Bayen’s Women

  Part 5 - Falling Tides

  Native Silver - Vesteal Series Volume Two

  This omnibus volume includes:

  Part 1 - Sutler’s Road

  Part 2 - Forgotten Stairs

  Part 3 - Thrall’s Wine

  Part 4 - Corsair Princess

  Part 5 - Tanayon Born

  The Vastness - Vesteal Series Volume Three

  This omnibus volume includes:

  Part 1 - Silent Rebellion

  Part 2 - The River War

  Part 3 - The Blinded

  Part 4 - Crimson Valley

  Part 5 - Singer’s Reward

  About the Author

  Armed with an English degree from Ripon College and an MBA from Chicago’s Stuart School of Business, Blake has delved for twenty years through the shadowed realms of the financial industry. He currently solves financial crimes during the day and gives life to wild fantasies during the blackest hours of night.

  Glossary

  Abodeen - A poor northern coastal province

  Adanas - A monster in a chil
dren’s story

  Aderan - A rich western plains province

  Akal - Tak - The fierce warhorses of the Hemari

  Almidi - Provincial seat of Trace

  Alsman - A bodyman appointed by the Exaltier to each of his sons

  Alsonvale - A rich western gateway city of Zoviya

  Aneth - An eastern coastal province

  Apped - A prison in Aderan

  Arilas - A provincial governor and hereditary title

  Ataouk - A royal family defeated by the Yentif

  Avica - Granddaughter to Kyoden

  Avin - A former church lawyer

  Barok - A junior prince of Zoviya

  Bayen - The god of Zoviya

  Bendent - Arilas of Thanin and cousin to the Exaltier

  Bergion - The southern sea that often sends cold winds north

  Berm - A vast southeastern province of tundra and mountains

  Bessradi - The capital city of the Zoviyan Empire

  Bluecoat - Another name for a Hemari soldier

  Bunda-Hith - The monstrous mountains in Berm

  Clever - An Akal - Tak stallion

  Daavum Mountains - A thick mountain range that runs south from Enhedu through Trace into Heneur

  Dagoda - A Zoviyan school that trains young women to serve the rich and powerful men of Zoviya

  Dahar - A poor eastern province

  Dame - A familiar title for the oldest woman in a family or place, grandmother

  Darmia - A barmaid in Bessradi, sister to Evela

  Deyalu (way of the blood) - A wing of the Bessradi Palace where the Exaltier’s sons are raised

  Dia - A student of Dagoda

  Disand - The Sten of Zoviya

  Dooma, Avinda - Avin’s full name