Ghostwalker

by Erik Scott De Bie

  “Something draws near,” said Walker. “Something powerful.”

  He swung down from Swiftfall’s back, landing on his feet and appearing not the least bit weakened.

  “What is it?” she asked again.

  “Stay there,” Walker said. “I shall look.”

  Then he vanished into the air, as though he had never existed.

  “Walker?” asked Arya, surprise in her voice. She could no longer even feel his living presence. She and Swiftfall seemed alone in the dark forest. “Walker!”

  “Walker!” came her panicked cry.

  The ghostwalker did not answer, but it was not out of rudeness. Rather, he understood that she would not have heard his voice had he spoken. Ethereal himself, he would be just as hidden from whatever approached.

  In the Ethereal, the night was not as dark, or perhaps it did not seem so because everything was gray and blurry. Arya and Swiftfall were luminous beings seen from that realm—so vibrant that their flesh and bones seemed made of blazing sunlight. The knight looked around frantically, trying to find him, and Walker felt an odd twinge of regret that he had not given her more warning before he had shifted into the Ethereal plane.

  It was difficult to see beside the shining horse and rider, but Walker was immediately aware that the three of them were alone. The spirits that always seemed drawn to him had vanished as though driven away by some greater force.

  Walker bit his lower lip in thought. What could frighten spirits of the dead?

  It did not take more than a moment for his question to be answered, for in that moment a huge, roiling creature of flame emerged from the trees ahead of them.

  Walker’s eyes widened as he looked up at the creature. Vaguely human-shaped, it towered over him like a giant composed entirely of shadowy fire.

  The most significant thing he noticed, though, was that the creature existed on this—the Ethereal—plane.

  He had heard of elementals, but never a beast of this ghostly sort—nor did he have any idea how to battle one. He did know two things, however: being ethereal would not hide him, as had been his intention, and the beast was coming fast.

  Drawing his shatterspike, Walker stepped back into the Material and put his hand on Swiftfall, as though he could command the horse to carry Arya away with but a touch.

  Indeed, his sudden appearance startled the animal, even as his ghostly aura had unnerved it. Carried past the realm of comfort, the horse panicked and snorted.

  “Run!” he shouted to Swiftfall. “Flee!”

  Then he rushed toward the elemental. Though it was invisible on the Material plane, the creature, in all its fiery fury, was fully visible to his ethereally sensitive eyes.

  Arya, however, did not share his ghostsight. To her, the ghostwalker charged toward empty air.

  “What? What are you—”

  Her voice trailed off as the creature manifested, shimmering out of the Ethereal directly in front of her.

  The forest erupted into an inferno of gray-silver fire, translucent flames shifting like ribbons of burning silk. It made no sound—even the raging flames, which should have roared, burned silently. The ghostfire elemental loomed over her and pulled back one of its massive tendrils. Arya, shocked at its sudden, majestic appearance, stared into death itself.

  “Arya!” shouted Walker.

  He slashed down into the mass of flame and the weapon pulsed with cold, ghostly power. It bit into the elemental, disrupting its essence and causing the creature pain. It bucked and turned toward the ghostwalker, growing a new fiery arm to lash at him. Walker stabbed his sword at the creature, warding it off, and ducked its swipe. He retreated and the elemental followed.

  The knight, broken from her spell, swung down from Swift-fall and slapped the horse’s rump. With a whinny, Swiftfall ran and Arya stalked back toward the ghostfire elemental, drawing her sword.

  “What are you doing?” hissed Walker as he thrust at the elemental again and ducked its countering swing. “I told you to run!”

  “You told Swiftfall to run,” corrected Arya. “I have no intention of leaving you behind!”

  She slashed her sword into the elemental with all her strength, but the blade passed through the ghostfire with no effect. “What, by Torm’s blade?”

  “I told you to flee for a reason!” shouted Walker. “Your blade is useless! Look—”

  His warning cut off, incomplete, as a fist of ghostfire slammed into him. The elemental was certainly material enough to knock the man tumbling back through the air. Walker’s body cracked against the thick trunk of a fir and he slumped to the forest turf, momentarily dazed.

  The opponent with the stinging sword defeated for the moment, the creature turned its attention to the opponent whose hair resembled its material body in the moonlight.

  The knight ducked as fiery tendrils struck out at her and scrambled back, leading the creature from the inert Walker. As she went, she uncorked a potion from her belt and splashed a silvery substance onto the sword. It suddenly glowed in the firelight with a cold blue radiance. “Come!” she shouted. “Come, demon-spawn!”

  The elemental was only too happy to oblige, and flames roiled as it flowed toward her. Before Arya could escape, the creature raged around her. Arya swiped, slashing at the beast with her fine steel, but the blade swished through the ghostly flame with no effect. The elemental flickered between the planes, such that it was only really there half the time—the other half of the time, it was hopelessly ethereal.

  She ducked an attack and slashed again, and this time the sword did not pass through harmlessly. Instead, the blade bit into its essence, causing it pain.

  The creature swung a huge, fiery tendril at her, and Arya drew up her shield desperately. The ghostfire arm, however, passed right through the stout steel shield and struck Arya’s arm full force. The knight screamed as the ghostfire tore at her flesh, her strength, and her spirit. Arya fell to her knees.

  The scream jolted Walker from his stunned daze and the ghostwalker climbed to his feet. He ran toward the elemental, retrieving his blade from the ground. The elemental raised a fist in the air, preparing to bring it down on the staggering knight, but Walker lunged in and stabbed his shatterspike into its fiery depths. The creature whipped away from Arya.

  Walker snapped his blade up to block the elemental’s swipe. Its punch did not pass through the weapon, enchanted as the shatterspike was, but the force threw Walker to the ground. The ghostwalker struggled to rise, but the elemental slammed its arm down on his sword again, crushing him to his knees. The elemental flowed over him and held him down, manifesting entirely into the Material world, preventing him from rising.

  The forest was suddenly lit with red, raging, material flame, and those flames licked at Walker around the sword. He gritted his teeth against the heat. Walker delved into his ghostly focus and distanced himself from his body so that he could ignore the pain.

  Arya, seizing her opportunity, slashed at the elemental with two hands on her sword hilt. The temporarily enhanced blade cut into its fiery body but had little effect. The elemental countered and the knight managed to block the incoming punch with her shield. Though the fire did not strike her flesh, the force of the blow sent her reeling back. A second strike sent her flying into a fir tree on the other side of the clearing, where she crumpled to the ground, thrashing and moaning.

  Amidst the pain of the flames, Walker blinked through the blood in his eyes and looked at the elemental standing over him. He stopped moving, allowing his body to go limp as though he had died from the flames. It was not a difficult task, for Walker could feel his flesh blistering and blackening and see that his bracers were white hot. He could endure, though, if only he could convince the elemental to leave….

  Sure enough, the weight on Walker’s chest vanished as the ghostfire elemental faded from the Material. His tearing eyes could see that it was not gone. Rather, the creature had turned from Walker’s inert form and now flowed toward Arya.

 
With the elemental no longer standing on him, Walker struggled to push himself to his feet. It was, however, to no avail. Scorched and blackened, his body would not obey his commands.

  “Ar-Arya …” he called, but the knight was unconscious.

  Walker felt his concentration wavering and his burned body crying out in pain. The burning specter loomed over Arya and raised its two fiery appendages to crush her. He tried again to move, but he could not even lift his scalding sword from the ground.

  Arya was about to die, and there was nothing Walker could do.

  Nothing, except for the last action he would ever consider.

  “Gylther’yel!” Walker shouted, blood spurting from his lips. “Aid us! Gylther’yel!”

  He called for his mentor with all the breath he could muster. He knew that she was watching and he knew how much she hated humans such as Arya, but he knew that she could not leave him to die, not after she had spent fifteen years to mold him as her guardian.

  Nothing happened.

  The elemental paused in its attack as though to laugh at him, though it made no sound.

  In that moment, Walker felt hope die. Gylther’yel was too far away. This creature would slay them both. He felt like a fool.

  The beast turned and raised its fiery tendrils to batter the knight to a scorched pulp.

  Then the forest became utterly black as a dark cloud moved over the moon. The ghostfire provided the only light. The air around the elemental chilled and hail began to fall. The creature paused, as though it heard something Walker and Arya could not, and shifted again, shedding its body. Hail battered at its suddenly diminished flames. The magic struck it even though it was incorporeal—the spells were halfway between the planes.

  “Gyl … Gylther’yel …” rasped Walker.

  Then a bolt of lightning shot from the sky and slammed the elemental to the earth. The elemental burned low, stunned, and another bolt struck it. The elemental struggled to rise and lash out at the knight, but a third bolt struck it, then a fourth, and a fifth. Lightning bolts flew from the clouds and battered the beast to the ground.

  The elemental, reeling from the blows, managed to rise, but then the hail increased and a veritable ice storm descended upon the creature, icy shards tearing apart the flames.

  When the dust and fog cleared, the elemental was no more. The last flickers of ghostly flames licked up into the sky and vanished. Arya slumped against the tree, knocked out cold but unscathed save for several burns and a thin stream of blood that trickled slowly from her split lip.

  Gray-green cloak billowing and whipping around her slender figure, the gold-skinned Ghostly Lady stood in the elemental’s place, hugging her arms around her stomach. Her waist-length golden hair wafted around her cold face like fire. She looked down upon Arya exactly as the elemental had.

  Walker, as he watched, was not sure he was any less afraid for the unconscious knight.

  “I am your teacher and your friend,” Gylther’yel said to him. The slow, beautiful Elvish sounded out of place on the battlefield. “I brought you back from death and raised you as my child, taught you all your skills and powers, and this is how you repay me? With betrayal?” With the last word, Gylther’yel’s voice rose in volume above an undertone—it was the loudest Walker had ever heard her speak.

  She stared down at Arya, and her hand pulsed with black energy, the killing magic that she had wielded against the Quaervarr soldiers.

  “Gylther’yel, please,” croaked Walker. His voice was broken and wretched. “Spare her … She saved me … If you must be angry … be angry at me….”

  “I am not angered that you disobey,” replied the Ghost Druid. Her fingers, blazing with destructive power, twitched idly. “I am merely … disappointed that you do not heed.”

  Then she waved, like brushing aside a flea, and the power crackled out of her hand. She walked over to Walker and placed her hand upon his forehead. He might have flinched, having seen the terrible magic she had just held, but he trusted the ruthless sun elf. The same hand that dispensed death so easily could also caress life into mortified flesh.

  Gylther’yel’s druidic magic soothed his mortal burns and he sensed—rather than felt, for his focus separated mind and body—his flesh re-knitting.

  “I will allow you this diversion, while it lasts,” said Gylther’yel. She stood, watching his wounds heal. “But know that you have brought this, my disappointment, upon yourself, and remember that the next time you cry to me for help, I will not be so quick to answer.”

  With that, the Ghostly Lady was gone. She vanished into the air as quickly as she had come, blown away with the passing mist and clouds.

  Walker, his body healed such that he could move, pushed himself to his feet. He crossed to where Arya had fallen and, slinging the unconscious knight over his shoulder, began the trek west through the dark woods, on foot, seeking the sanctuary of his grove.

  He prayed that he would have the strength to make it that far before he collapsed.

  CHAPTER 11

  29 Tarsakh

  A heavy rap at the door awakened him. Stirring from troubled dreams, at first Greyt thought the knock was the sound of ribs crunching under a blow and he gave a startled gasp. He awoke but could see nothing in the darkness, as though he were blind. He soon realized, however, that he was alone in his bed and, exploring with his hands, that his body was whole. After a few tense breaths, the rap sounded again.

  “What is it?” shouted Greyt.

  The sickly-thin Claudir entered, robes carefully pressed and neat as always. He gazed imperiously down his thin nose at the Lord Singer buried under a small mountain of furs. “Important business, sir,” he said.

  “What could be so important?” Greyt threw back the covers and slid out of bed. He crossed to the window and yanked the latch open. The sun had not yet risen. The cold air surrounding his bare body sent shivers down his spine. “Especially before dawn?”

  If Claudir minded or even noticed the Lord Singer’s nakedness, he gave no sign. “There is a large group of townsfolk at the door,” he said. “They have gathered in the square outside and wait upon your pleasure.”

  Greyt cursed under his breath, translating Claudir’s words into tactical terms. “What is the general mood of the crowd?” he asked.

  “They seem somewhat … ill at ease.”

  Greyt cursed again. “Angry mobs never ‘wait upon your pleasure.’” He wrapped a blanket around his body. “Fetch my robe, yarting, and sword. I’m going out.”

  “Of course, my lord.” Claudir bowed slightly. “Shall I send for several guards, two to escort you and half a dozen to filter through the crowd?”

  “Naturally.”

  Claudir moved to leave, but Greyt stopped him with a call.

  “And bring me a bottle of elverquisst after,” he said. “I’m either going to toast a great success or the bodies of a dozen ignorant villagers. Or more.”

  “Of course, my lord,” said Claudir with a bow.

  The crowd gathered in the courtyard of Greyt’s manor, spilling into the main plaza of Quaervarr, was just as “ill at ease” as Claudir had described. Almost three hundred villagers stood in the plaza; nearly a third of the town’s population. Most bore weapons, whether new purchases or dusty heirlooms, and others carried the saws and axes they used in woodworking. Those who did not carry weapons carried torches. Frowns were smeared across most of the faces and angry shouts rang out from the crowd.

  “Well, sounds like the Lord Singer’s going to get it,” a thin voice observed, as though to no one in particular. “This reminds me of that time in Newfort, when we—”

  “Derst, must you bring that up again?” the hulking man by his side whispered. Facing away from one another, the two warriors seemed totally unconnected, and their soft words were lost in the crowd. “That was not the best of experiences, and I’d rather not—”

  “As I recall, we had gathered before the Hero’s Reward and called out Mayor Uhl—”

&n
bsp; “The situation quickly turned on us, and we had to flee the town,” said Bars.

  “Well,” argued Derst. “That was hardly my fault.”

  “Your plan.”

  “Well, if you’d remembered the horses—”

  “You distinctly said: ‘leave the horses behind. We’ll be back for them later.’”

  “No fair pointing fingers,” argued Derst. “But since we’re on the subject, if you hadn’t exposed our identities—”

  “If you hadn’t slept with Uhl’s maid Emmi, we wouldn’t have had to hide our identities.”

  A smile crossed Derst’s face. “Ah, Emmi,” the roguish knight said silkily. “Bars, you know I can’t resist a pretty smile and a well-rounded ankle—”

  “I suppose you didn’t notice her chest,” murmured Bars.

  “Well, a little,” he admitted. “It was hard not to, with a bodice like—”

  At precisely that moment the Lord Singer swept out from the double doors that marked the entrance to his manor. He stood upon the raised entryway overlooking the crowd in his golden robe of office, carrying his fine yarting under his arm. To all appearances, Greyt looked as though he had been up all night and might be heading out to a dinner party. Bars and Derst knew better, though. Greyt’s eyes gave him away: red-rimmed and containing a hint of savage anger. The eyes of a tired man on edge.

  “My neighbors and friends,” Greyt said in his smooth baritone. “To what do I owe the honor and pleasure of this visit?”

  At his tone, the crowd quieted, except for a few discordant shouts. Derst swore. Greyt’s disarming manner had just that effect: disarming.

  One man, however, was not so affected. Black cloaked, he stood tall in the middle of the crowd and spoke in a rumble.

  “Lord Singer,” he called. “We demand justice.”

  “Sounds like you, Bars,” said Derst. “Always straight to the point.”

  The paladin did not reply.

  “By all means,” Greyt called back with a smile. “I didn’t think you’d all risen early to bid me a good morning.”