by Alec Hutson
“Just a what?” Vhelan said, then sucked in his breath when he saw what she was staring at. “Oh. Is that it?”
She nodded, her gaze scouring the ruins for any hint of movement or pale, flickering lights. But the fire-blackened windows that remained held only pooled darkness. Could something be watching them from within? Nel shivered. She approached the shattered entrance; shards of splintered wood hung down from the frame, giving the doorway the look of a monster’s fanged mouth. Inside was utter blackness.
“Nel…” Vhelan whispered, and she glanced back at him.
“Are you coming with me? I want to see if there’s a ghost.”
He swallowed. “Why?”
“Why not? I told you, they can’t hurt us. Cook said so.” She beckoned him to come. “Are you a coward?”
“I’m not a coward,” he said softly, his eyes not leaving the darkened entrance, “but I’m also not stupid. This place could collapse at any time; in fact, they’re probably expecting it to fall soon – otherwise they would have knocked it down already.”
“Sounds like you’re a coward.”
“I’m not a coward!” he hissed, a little angrily.
“Then hurry up,” she said, and slipped beneath the collapsing wooden beams blocking the doorway.
Darkness swaddled her, so thick it seemed to clot in her mouth. She almost turned and dashed out of the ruin, but then she felt Vhelan beside her, and fresh courage filled her. They stood there in the blackness, straining to hear or see anything. His hand brushed hers and they laced their fingers together. She thought she could feel his pulse thundering in the stillness, but that might have been her own.
As her eyes adjusted, shapes resolved in the dark. She saw scattered mounds that might once have been furniture, and a wide staircase ascending to the second story.
“Nothing’s here, Nel,” he said softly. “It’s empty.”
Then a sound came, floating down the stairs, making Nel’s flesh goosepimple. A moaning, so faint it might have been the wind, if there had been any wind that night.
“What’s that?” Vhelan hissed.
“The ghost,” Nel murmured, taking a step toward the stairs. “It’s upstairs.”
A tremor went through Vhelan, but he did not pull away. “Nel,” he said, almost babbling, panic in his voice, “my nan told me about ghosts too, and she didn’t say they couldn’t hurt you. She said they were always looking for chances to get revenge on the living and she –”
“Shhhh,” Nel said, and Vhelan quieted. She put her foot on the stair’s first step. It gave a little, perhaps weakened by the fire that had raged through the ruin.
But it held. Another step, then another. The moaning grew louder, as if it could sense their approach. Vhelan’s palm was slick and cold, and she squeezed his hand to try and give him strength.
At the top of the stairs, she paused. Most of the roof and walls had collapsed, and moonlight silvered the debris. Where was the ghost?
She could still hear the moaning; it was coming from where a ragged chunk of the roof remained, the floor beneath drenched with shadow.
Nel moved in that direction, and the boards beneath her feet creaked loudly.
The moaning stopped.
“Nel…” Vhelan began. Then he yipped in fear as something shifted in the darkness. Nel tensed, a wash of cold fear going through her. But she did not flee.
“You’ve come,” something rasped from the blackness. It was a dead voice, a voice that made her shiver. “You’ve come for me… I’ve missed you so much.”
A huddled shape uncoiled, moving into the moonlight. Vhelan tried to pull away, but Nel held him tight. He mewled in terror.
It was a man. Or maybe the spirit of a man, though he looked alive. Barely. He lay on his side, his hands pressed to his stomach. Even in the faint light Nel could tell that he was deathly pale. He breathed heavily, his lank hair plastered to his forehead, and she realized that he sprawled in a pool of deeper blackness. Around where his hands clutched his belly his tunic was also stained dark.
Nel took a steadying breath and stepped forward. “Are you dead?”
“I must be,” the man whispered, “if I can see you. Oh, Charise, I’ve wanted to look on you again. I prayed and prayed that you would be the one to come for me.”
Nel crept a little closer. “I’m not Charise. I don’t know who that is.”
The man didn’t seem to hear her. “I’m so sorry, sweetling. I wasn’t there when you needed me most. And I didn’t… I didn’t kill him. He was too fast.” The man coughed wetly.
“I’m not Charise,” Nel repeated. “And I don’t think you’re dead. We need to go get help for you.”
The man moaned and writhed, his hand leaving a dark smear on the shadowed floor. “Wine. He said he wanted crystalwine. He must have known that there would be none in my cellar. I would have to leave the inn, and then he could be alone with you.”
Nel glanced over at Vhelan, a prickling dread creeping up her arms. What was this poor fool talking about?
“He killed her?” Vhelan whispered. “He killed Charise?”
A tremor passed through the dying man. He made a sound of such piercing sorrow that Nel felt her own chest start to ache. “Broken. I found you broken, a dagger in your heart. And my beloved Anabel. She must have tried to stop them. I wept for you! I promised vengeance! But… I failed.” Another wracking sob. “He cut me down before you could taste his blood.”
“Me?”
“Yes! I brought the bloodmage to your body. He bound your soul to the blade they left in you, and your sister’s soul to the one in her. I wanted you to spill his life… to taste his suffering.”
Something fluttered at the edge of Nel’s memory, a fragment of a conversation she had overheard the night before. “The Toad… you were the one who tried to kill Baern ri Vhalus. He stabbed you, and you crawled up here.”
“Ohhhhhhh! That name…”
“He killed your daughters?”
The man did not move for a long moment, and Nel feared that he had died. When he finally spoke again his voice had changed – the ragged edge of madness was gone.
“You… you are not my Charise. I am not dead.”
Nel swallowed. “I’m not, and you’re not. We can bring a chirurgeon here to stitch you up. You can try for your vengeance again, if that’s what you want.”
“No,” the man said. “But… but perhaps you truly are the answer to my prayers. My daughters… someone must care for them.” He withdrew two long thin objects from the folds of his blood stained clothes. “Perhaps you are meant to do that.”
Her mind was fervently telling her not to take what the man was offering, but Nel found herself stepping forward. She reached out, and with bloody fingers the man pressed two hilts into her small hand. They were so large and awkward that she nearly dropped the daggers.
The man collapsed backward, as if exhausted. “Good. Good, they are yours now. Cherish them, as I did. Their names are… no. No, I cannot say their names again. I do not know whether it was chance or fate that brought you here, but… but… Chance and Fate. Those… those are their names now.”
The leather-wrapped handles felt unnaturally warm. Almost alive. Nel imagined she could hear a faint whispering…
“Nel,” Vhelan said, roughly grabbing her shoulder. “He’s dead.”
And he was.
Over the next few days the memories of that night faded, and at times Nel found herself wondering if it had all in fact been a dream. She would pause in her sweeping or scouring, her hand drifting to the sash beneath her tunic, where she’d hidden the daggers. As soon as her fingers brushed cool metal, though, every detail would come flooding back, as stark and vivid as when she and Vhelan had spilled from the ruined house into the cool, damp Lyrish night, terrified and excited.
Merik hadn’t given her as bad a beating as she’d feared, almost as if he were distracted by something else. A few lashes with the leather strap across the back of her l
egs, which made lying down uncomfortable, but if she stayed on her feet then the pain faded quickly. Maybe he’d guessed that she’d seen her mother with the scarred bravo, and somewhere inside him a tiny spark of sympathy glimmered.
Four nights passed before Vhelan returned to the Moon. Nel had heard the girls gossiping about a big game of chalice that night, so she’d suspected he and Tarris would come. Usually when word got around of a match with a sizeable hoard a steady trickle of players passed through the door, but this night only Baern ri Vhalus arrived, the riding spurs on his boots harshly clanging as he strode across the common room. I found you broken, a dagger in your heart. Nel shuddered. Could that story be true? Was this man with his cruel smile a murderer?
Tarris, by contrast, seemed even more haggard than usual when he finally appeared, with bruises beneath his eyes and a noticeable limp. Vhelan flashed Nel a small grin as he passed, but otherwise gave no indication that he knew her. Glancing from Merik, scowling behind the bar, to Tarris, Nel thought that that was probably a good idea.
“Imp,” Merik said a little while after Tarris and Vhelan had vanished behind the carved screen, “go see if they want anything to drink or eat.”
Nel nodded, trying to keep her face empty of the excitement she suddenly felt. Given the drama the last time Tarris and Baern had played chalice, she was desperate to see how the game unfolded tonight.
Baern was shuffling a chalice deck as she slipped into the room, the cards blurring together and becoming a cascade of flickering shadows that he moved from hand to hand with expert skill.
“I thought your note said there would be other players coming,” Tarris slurred, massaging his temple, his eyes half closed. He did have only two fingers on his left hand.
Baern grinned. Nel had never seen him attempt to be friendly, and the sight made her shiver. He looked just like the crocodile she had once glimpsed in a traveling menagerie, glittering black eyes above a toothy, predatory smile.
“Soon, old man.”
A clatter arose from the other side of the screen. It sounded like a large group was marching through the tavern’s common room, coming closer.
Baern heard it too, and he set the cards down in a neat stack with a flourish. “Ah. They’re here.”
The fog Tarris was struggling through seemed to lift. His eyes cleared, and he started to rise from the table, his hand on Vhelan’s wrist. But before he could move, a tall warrior in the same orange-and-black livery Nel had seen before came around the screen.
“Sit,” he said to Tarris, his voice flat and cold.
The old gambler collapsed again into his chair, goggling up at the warrior looming over him.
Nel receded into a corner of the room, her heart thundering. For a moment she considered making a dash back to the bar, but more and more warriors were entering the small room, until she couldn’t see how she could possibly escape without being noticed. Nel counted seven guards in orange and black, all broad shouldered and grim faced. They arrayed themselves in the room, forming a circle around the table, their hands on the hilts of their swords.
“What’s this –” Tarris said, but Baern put a finger to his lips and the old gambler fell silent.
Then Nel heard it. More footsteps were approaching, but softer this time, the whisper of silk on wood rather than the heavy clomp of hard leather.
A wizened old man shuffled into the room, leaning on an ebony cane topped with a gleaming silver ball. He was draped in robes of velvet and ermine, and jewels glittered in his nose and ears.
Behind him came a young woman, dressed more humbly in a simple frock of pale blue linen. She was blindfolded, a length of dark cloth hiding her eyes. A small, unremarkable man with a steep widow’s peak gently held her arm, and he guided her over to an empty chair and helped her to sit.
Baern rose and bowed smoothly to the old man. “Father,” he said.
The elder Vhalus ignored him and pushed past his son to claim the seat he had just vacated. He shrugged out of his rich vestments, and as if by sorcery, the slight man appeared next to the old man, accepting the proffered robes gracefully. Nel blinked. She hadn’t seen the man move – one moment he had been standing behind the woman’s chair, and the next he simply wasn’t.
The old man drummed his fingers on the table, studying Tarris, and the gambler seemed to wilt under his scrutiny.
Still standing beside his father, Baern crossed his arms and frowned, as if annoyed by his father’s indifference toward him.
“Father –” he began again, but the old man held up his hand.
Swallowing away her fear, Nel started to slide along the wall, toward the screen and freedom. Before she could move very far, though, the small man’s calm gaze found her; he shook his head slightly, and she froze like she had been stuck with an arrow, fear coiling in her belly.
The old man clasped his hands together on the table and leaned forward. “Do you know who I am?”
Tarris swallowed. Even from across the room Nel could see the sheen of sweat on his brow. “Aye. You are Menosh ri Vhalus.”
The man smiled broadly, as if the old gambler had just complimented him. “I am!” He clapped his hands together once, sharply. “And you are Tarris from Cinder Street, a man of such low birth and standing that you do not even have a family name you wish to claim as your own.”
Tarris flushed crimson, but said nothing.
“And yet here I am, a patriarch of a great house, the owner of fifty ships and the largest trading company in Lyr, sitting across from you in this wretched winesink. Why do you think that is?”
Tarris swallowed and shrugged, his face ashen.
“Answer your betters when they speak to you!” Baern shouted, spittle flecking the table.
Tarris gaped, but still did not say anything; rather, it was the elder Vhalus who rounded on his son, anger twisting his face for the first time. “Out!” he commanded, jabbing a finger in the direction of the common room. “Find something to distract yourself with out there. You won’t be in the game tonight, and your childish outbursts have no place at this table.”
“But, Father –”
“Out!”
With a last, poisonous glance at Tarris, the scarred bravo whirled on his heels and shoved past the dividing screen.
Menosh gave a quick shake of his head and turned his gaze to the ceiling, as if imploring the gods for help. “My apologies,” he said, again addressing Tarris. “I should have had him raised as a cabin boy on one of my ships, or sent him off to the Reliquary to lug books around for scholars. Perhaps he would have turned out better. A life of indolence and ease corrupts the soul – I knew this, and yet still I let his mother spoil him terribly.”
Menosh gestured toward Vhelan. “Look at your boy, so still and silent he could be a statue. Proper behavior for the young and ignorant, at least while their elders are talking, don’t you agree?” He smiled warmly at Tarris. “Now, I did ask you a question a moment ago, and I still want an answer. Do you have any suspicion as to why I’ve come here tonight?”
“You… you want to play me in chalice?”
Menosh slapped his palm on the table, and both Tarris and Vhelan jumped at the sound. “Just that! My worthless offspring tells me you sprung the cup on him, an impressive accomplishment. This intrigued me, and so I made some discreet inquiries about you, and was astonished to find that this is the third time in the last month you’ve claimed a hoard by having the emperor drink from the chalice.” The elder Vhalus’s hand went to his breast. “I consider myself a student of the game, and so I know that this is an almost unimaginable feat. Of course, I suspected mischief.”
Tarris shifted and cleared his throat, but Menosh forestalled him with an upraised hand.
“No, please, no protestations. I am a fair man, and I would not exact the archon’s justice without proof. So here is what will happen tonight: we will duel each other in chalice, one player against another. Of course, I expect to lose handily. If you truly possess the skill demon
strated in your recent run of victories, I cannot hope to compete. In that case my suspicions will be allayed, and you may leave this tavern with my blessing.
“But if you should lose,” Menosh continued, his voice hardening, “then I can only conclude that you employed some deviousness to rob my son of his money – which, I’m sure you do realize, is in fact my money. In that unfortunate scenario, my manservant will cut out one of your eyes.” As if summoned, the slight, nondescript man who had taken the elder Vhalus’s robes appeared beside Tarris. This time Nel did see him move – he glided around the table with such grace and quickness that she let out a little gasp. In a flash, the blade of a curved knife was laid on Tarris’s cheek, its point nearly brushing his wide, panicked eye.
“But I do know that mistress luck can turn her radiant visage toward any poor fool for one game – given that, if I do win, I will allow you to choose which eye my servant takes. You see, I am generous.
“Oh, but be warned, my manservant is quite perceptive. If he catches you pulling a card from your sleeve, or bending the corner of another as you deal, I will have you killed where you sit. We both know the punishment for cheating at chalice in this civilized city is death, and the magistrates will accept whatever I tell them about what happened here tonight.”
Menosh smiled, his expression friendly again, and picked up the stack of cards his son had set on the table earlier. “Now, let us begin. Poor as I am at it, I do so love the game.”
Nel had watched enough games of chalice to realize very quickly that Menosh, despite his claims to the contrary, was in fact a canny player. He feinted early, sacrificing some lesser beasts to learn the disposition of Tarris’s run, and after a flurry of challenges had claimed a half dozen of the old gambler’s cards, including the yellow duke, one of the stronger nobles. For a brief moment, Nel thought Menosh might take the game there and then, but Tarris baited him into playing his sorcerer, second in the game’s hierarchy only to the emperor, and his challenge proved to be the paladin.
“Ha! The damned Pure!” cried Menosh, shaking his head and grinning ruefully, as if amused rather than angered by the loss. He twisted in his chair to face the blind woman. “Paladin takes sorcerer! This good fellow might keep his eyes yet, Philias!”
