Ghostwalker

by Erik Scott De Bie

  “Abilities you taught me.”

  Gylther’yel accepted the compliment without a twitch.

  “You are not ready,” she said. Walker felt a stab of irritation.

  “We have spoken of this before,” he rasped, his tone flat in warning. “You tell me the same thing every year—that I am not ready.”

  “I am not about to question your methods, or even your need for revenge,” Gylther’yel said. “I only question your timing. Perhaps another year of training—”

  “My training is complete. I have struck the first blow,” Walker said. “I have delivered my warning. My task is a matter of speed now, and I cannot stop.”

  “I understand, but why now, of all seasons?” Gylther’yel asked, her voice tranquil. “The snows are falling away and the sun is returning, but Auril still holds sway. The winter is not over.”

  “All the more fitting for my vengeance,” said Walker. “Let them feel fear colder than the snows around them. I am at my strongest when a chill wind blows.”

  “And I am at my weakest,” Gylther’yel countered. Indeed, Walker knew that the ghost druid was most powerful with her fire magic. “The cold is anathema to my powers.”

  “My deathday approaches—less than a tenday,” Walker said. “It is a fitting time.”

  She continued despite his reply. “You are my guardian, my champion—what if they were to follow you back here? I have not raised you to bring danger to my doorstep….”

  Walker smiled. “I did not realize you were so humorous, Gylther’yel,” he rasped. Walker had watched the Ghostly Lady hurl fire and call down lightning to smite adventurers who strayed from the paths. He turned away. “Anyone foolish enough to challenge you deserves to feed the earth with his ashes.”

  Gylther’yel did not nod, but a hint of a smile crossed her golden face. “Still, I warn you against allowing your vendetta to harm my woods.” Her face grew stormy. “If you fight here, you will be on your own, and if you fall, so be it. I will not interfere with the will of nature—”

  “The strongest and fittest will survive, I know,” Walker said. “But fear not. Even the fiercest wolf leads the wild boar away from its den—and family.”

  His silver wolf ring gleamed as he stood. Its single sapphire eye radiated a calm but dangerous light. It was silent, stoic, and resolute; like Walker himself.

  “You speak true,” the sun elf said. “Only your timing—”

  He rounded on her. “I saw him, Gylther’yel!” he shouted, suddenly speaking in the Common tongue. His voice shattered and broke in his ears. “I saw the boy! He is important, I know it!”

  With that, Walker sank to his knees, his hands over his face, racked by unknown tremors. His cloak billowed in the strong breeze and all was silent.

  Gylther’yel moved as though to comfort him, but stopped, her attention turned to another face. Tarm, priest of the Justicar, appeared out of the shadows as though drawn to Walker’s grief, trying to speak. She hissed at Tarm and the spirit retreated. His father had always feared Gylther’yel, the only mother Walker had ever known.

  The ghost druid stepped back and folded her arms over her breast. “I am sorry, Walker,” she said. “I remembered for a moment your sweet voice, wafting on the breezes that breathed through this place, before….” She trailed off.

  His blue eyes opened. “Do not remind me of days that are gone,” he said, speaking Elvish again. His ragged voice was bitter. “I remember the sword that silenced my song. Now all that remains is vengeance.”

  “Walker, I remember your song—” Gylther’yel started.

  “The only song I sing is the scream of steel, the hymn of the duel,” Walker said.

  She was silent, bowing to his words.

  “Do not fear for your lands,” he said, rising. “This place is precious. It is the only home I have ever known. The only one I can remember.” He turned away, looking into the sunset.

  The Ghostly Lady’s thin lips turned up in a bittersweet smile. “I am sorry, Walker,” she said. “I did not mean to remind you—”

  “It is nothing,” he said, interrupting her. There was pain in his voice, pain in the suppression, but Gylther’yel said nothing.

  The two were silent for a long moment. The sun dipped fully below the horizon and darkness cast its shade over Faerûn.

  “Night falls,” Walker said. “The third night. Time to return to my task.”

  “Old green Drake, jolly as the day is long,” rang the chorus, hollered at the top of Derst’s lungs as he danced upon the table.

  “Raids a town, not for food but mead!” Bars responded in his deep bellow. He tried, unsuccessfully, to push Derst off the table, but the roguish knight danced out of the way.

  “Carries his booty along—” Arm-in-arm, their voices joined in a raucous disharmony for the last lines of the chorus. “A little drink is all he needs!”

  The Whistling Stag was filled with laughter. The knights sang, voices slurred with plenty of the same honey-brew of their refrain, and danced—poorly. The ditty used an old Iluskan folk melody but Amnian words pilfered from Derst’s favorite bard of that southern kingdom. The crowd loved it. Bars and Derst, arms locked and feet flying, twirled awkwardly amidst a sea of smiles.

  Over at the bar, Arya was careful not to allow her hood to slip and reveal her identity. As it was, she gave a small smile and raised her tankard of weak ale in tribute to the dancing fools.

  The two were never more amiable than when they were deep in their cups. All their biting wit and competition vanished, to be replaced with jest and good-hearted friendship. Arya wondered if the two ever clearly remembered their sodden revels, and if they would be embarrassed that their seeming rivalry ended with only a mug or dozen of mead, ale, or elverquisst. Especially elverquisst.

  Arya found herself wanting to join them, as a noble lady did not often have the chance to engage in such pursuits-Regent Alusair of Cormyr a notable exception—but she had other plans.

  She had retired early, feigning weariness, and emerged without armor or sword, clad in woodsman’s garb. In plain, earthen tones, Arya would not leave the sort of impression the daughter of Lord Rom Venkyr of Everlund in blue and silver would strike. Perhaps on this, the third evening, she could finally find some answers to the questions that had brought her to Quaervarr.

  Finishing her ale, Arya waited until Bars and Derst were finished with their merry tune about the drunken wyrm. Then, while the crowd clapped and cheered the two staggering singers on, she set two copper coins on the bar and made her exit unobtrusively.

  Arya stepped out into the night and pulled her cloak tightly around her slim frame. Her breath crystallized before her face. While the snow that had dusted Quaervarr the previous night was gone, the air was not warmer for it. The street was deserted, and Arya felt a familiar emptiness creeping up on her, as it always did when she was alone, but she pushed it away as best she could and made her way to the other local tavern, the Red Bear.

  Unlike the Whistling Stag, renowned throughout the Silver Marches for its fine brew and finer company and visited by almost every adventurer in the north once or thrice, the Red Bear catered solely to Quaervarr locals. The ale was of a lower quality and the conversations were correspondingly less lively. Still, it was an excellent meeting place for hunters, trappers, and frontiersmen of all kinds, providing a common ground where they could come after a day’s work and compare tales over tankards of Keeper Brohlm’s finest. The old, hardened patrons were the most likely to know about life in the Moonwood.

  Thus, they were the most likely to have heard word of the missing couriers.

  Arya stepped into the smoky bar, stooping to avoid knocking her head against low-hanging, mildew-stained rafters. With a tiny gasp, she managed to catch herself before she stumbled down the steps into the tavern.

  “’Ware, lass,” a gray-bearded man said at her side, reaching to steady her. He forgot to set down his mug and splashed ale over them both, but he didn’t seem to notice. �
��The Bear’s not what she used to be.” Arya accepted his hand with a nod and a smile and ignored the creeping wetness he had just spilled all over her wool breeches.

  Taking her response as encouragement, he launched into an explanation of the rafters and the sunken floor. Local legend had it that the founder of the Red Bear had built the tavern on the finest ground available to compete with the Stag, but the curse of Silvanus on certain disloyal worshipers had caused the ground to soften and brought the tavern sinking down.

  “That’ll teach us to skip ceremonies for a brew, aye, lass?” he asked with a chuckle.

  Arya accepted the tale with an easy manner, though it held little interest for her. It would not hurt her cause to ingratiate herself with the townsfolk. The barkeep caught her eye, and she ordered a weak ale.

  “What can you tell me about travelers who pass through the Moonwood?” Arya asked the old man. “Messengers from Silverymoon, mayhap?”

  “Well, the one who’d be knowing about that’d be Lord Singer Greyt.” The name set his eyes to shining. “He meets all the outsiders and adventurers passing through. E’en wedded a few o’ them.”

  Arya held up her hand. “I’m not really interested in hearing about—”

  “Did I hear ye mention the Lord Singer, Elbs?” a particularly buxom serving maid asked beside their table. She was a golden-haired woman of the north with steeper curves than Arya had thought possible on a woman’s body.

  Arya was about to pipe up, but a huge smile painted her dining companion’s face. “Annia … Aye, lassie,” he said. “Just telling Goodwoman—”

  “Goldwine,” Arya said. She reasoned Bars and Derst wouldn’t mind if she borrowed their names. “Maid Goldwine.”

  “Goodmaid Goldwine about Quickwidower’s wives,” he said.

  “Quickwidower?” Arya asked, frowning at the nickname.

  “Aye, Greyt can’t stay married more than a year or three,” said Annia. “Just like any man, if’n ye ask me. Charmin’ though—just look at the wives and babes. Though …” A shadow crept across her face. “They was all sickly. Poor babes, only one survived to ten.”

  “Greyt has separated from many wives?” asked Arya.

  “Aye, after a fashion. The lasses tended to meet with accidents,” Elbs said somberly. “Greyt’s got the rottenest luck with women. Shame, such pretty things. Died, most o’ them. Or left town—just couldn’t settle down. Hey, that sounds like one o’ the Lord Singer’s rhymes—”

  The barmaid slapped him on the back of the head. “Lord Greyt certainly made that mistake,” the barmaid said. “Should’ve ne’er settled down, but Lyetha was here.”

  “Lyetha?” Arya asked, wondering what the half-elf woman had to do with this.

  “The woman he’s always loved,” Elbs said wistfully. “Lyetha, heartbroken after her husband and son disappeared. The most beautiful woman in Quaervarr.” The barmaid’s face turned stormy. Elbs smiled widely and patted her bottom. “’Cept for me pretty Annia ’ere.”

  Apparently appeased, the voluptuous woman smiled and moved away.

  Elbs turned back to Arya. “Only babe still breathing, though, be that fancy-faced Meris,” he said. “Dashing, but something about him I just don’t like, ye know?”

  “What?” Arya asked.

  “I don’t be knowing,” he replied. “Never talks back to his father—right respectable lad, that Meris.”

  “You mean respectful,” corrected Arya. “They are not the same thing.”

  “Oh aye,” Elbs replied. “Even when Lord Singer goes against Speaker Stonar …”

  As he continued, Arya nodded without speaking. She had been thinking about getting up and trying her luck elsewhere, but something about this thread of conversation was appealing. She offered to buy Elbs another ale, an offer he heartily accepted. Arya smiled, thinking that she was already on the right track to the answers she sought.

  Nursing his glass of heated wine, Greyt wasn’t surprised to find himself alone for dinner. Claudir had set three places with the hope that he might serve his master, mistress, and Greyt’s son, but, as usual, it was only Greyt who graced the table with his presence.

  The dinner was elegant, Greyt decided, though too simple for his liking. Roast lamb, imported from warmer climes, was a delicacy Greyt could afford and so feasted upon regularly. Despite having lived all his life in the North, the Lord Singer had never developed a taste for the hard rothé meat from the herds that sometimes wandered the plains to the east. Trays of rich mustards and sauces provided pools of myriad colors among the winter flowers spread across the table in crystalline vases.

  His preference for decadent dishes, coupled with his obsession for the various fruits and vegetables arranged in sunbursts and crescents around the table caused many to call him a “man of weak stomach.” Grey preferred to call himself a “creature of delicacy and culture.”

  To Greyt it hardly mattered; he was, after all, Quaervarr’s hero.

  Greyt was disappointed a certain half-elf woman was not there to sit with him, but he was not terribly troubled. He could appreciate silence once in a while, even in his line of work.

  As though in response to his thoughts, a door swung open and Claudir stepped inside. “Lyetha Elfsdaughter, the Lady Greyt,” he announced.

  His forehead suddenly itching, Greyt thought it might serve him best to forbid her entrance. He was about to reply to his steward’s announcement when Lyetha swept into the room, almost bowling over Claudir. Greyt had to remember to suck in his breath when he saw her, or he might have berated her then, and the illusion would be spoiled.

  A cascade of glowing amber hair fell around Lyetha’s shoulders and her eyes blazed with sapphire light. Her face, with its distinct gold tinge, hinted clearly at her sun elf heritage. Slim and perfectly rounded, she radiated beauty in her gown of gleaming black, even as the color made Greyt wince. The frown on her full lips drew her face down, exposing soft wrinkles that hinted at her age, but she was still stunning. Lyetha had aged much more gracefully than Greyt ever would, and while they were nearly the same age, he looked at least two decades her senior.

  Greyt had once thought Lyetha an incarnation of Hanali Cenali herself and pursued her with single-minded determination.

  Once.

  “Ah, my matchless darling,” he said grandly as she swept toward him. “Do you find this evening to your liking, Morning Star?” His tone was purposefully poetic.

  Lyetha ignored the compliment. She stood a short distance from the table, crossed her arms, and shifted her weight onto her back foot. “Care to explain yourself, Dharan?” she asked, the sarcasm thick on her tongue. Even so, the tone of her voice was rich, with a hint of a melody begging for release.

  “I beg your pardon?” Greyt asked. He swept his hand out, gesturing for her to sit, and sipped his wine. “Pray, try some of this vintage. Amnian, I believe—or so Claudir tells me. He’s always the one who keeps track. I just tell him which wines I like and which I don’t.”

  Lyetha sat but did not follow Greyt’s advice about the wine. She served herself, taking some of the vegetables on the table. After she had filled the plate, she ignored her food. Her attention remained on the Lord Singer.

  “You know exactly what I mean,” she said. “A bard with your long years of training and experience doesn’t falter on a simple lyric, particularly one in a song you wrote yourself and have sung for almost a decade and a half.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Greyt said, only half paying attention. “I would never—”

  “The song about the children?” Lyetha pressed. “The missed note?”

  Greyt was about to dismiss whatever she’d been about to say, but he was knocked off his guard. Of course she would ask about that. After all, it did ring with some importance to her.

  “Ah yes,” he said. “A minor mishap. Must be getting on in years. Watch out, I might become Elminster before you know it.”

  “Pausing on Ghar—on that monster’s name is a minor mishap?
” Lyetha countered. She stumbled over the name of Greyt’s father, Gharask. “I could feel a chill, and yet….”

  A retort died on his lips and he looked her in the eyes for the first time that evening.

  “I’m sorry, love,” he said. “Coincidence, and that ’twas a cold night. No man is perfect, right?”

  There was silence for a long moment. Greyt, who was purposefully not looking at Lyetha once more, could feel her eyes on him. He took a long time cutting a piece of lamb into tiny pieces and raised the pink meat to his lips. Though it was too hot, he suppressed the wince. Such an expression would not do, not in the current situation.

  He noticed again her black dress. Of course Lyetha would be wearing mourning colors near the end of winter. This year made even more sense, being the fifteen-year anniversary of the murders that had claimed the last thing she had loved.

  “But that name—” Lyetha started.

  “Yes?” Greyt asked impatiently.

  She opened her mouth to ask a question.

  At that moment, the door from the inner hall flew open and Meris stormed into the room, muttering something. He wore his white tunic, but there was a black robe in his hand. No sword was belted on his hip, but the fierce expression on his face was just as dangerous as any length of sharpened steel. Lyetha started, almost leaping from her chair.

  Meris stopped and scowled at her.

  “Don’t rise, Lyetha,” the dusky scout snapped. “I won’t be staying.”

  Greyt stretched lazily. “Meris, sit—eat with us,” he offered.

  “I’m not hungry.” Meris didn’t bother regarding either of them. “I’m going out.”

  “At least offer a kind word to your lady mother,” Greyt said. “You’ve startled her.”

  Meris stopped in his tracks. He turned his head toward them. “I am under no obligation to show any courtesy to her,” he said to the Lord Singer. “My mother was not an elf-get trollop.” With that, he looked away and strode through the double doors. They slammed shut behind him.