by S A Maus
***
Beneath the Council Chamber sat a small division of four offices, separated by a thin hallway that cut down their middle and ascended back up into Shalim proper, called the Mastery. It was a blank and oppressive space, largely unadorned and plain. There was no carpet, no furnishing, and no window to see the outside world. There were only simple plaques attached to the wall beside each door, one for each resident Master who took their work there. Of course, there were more than four Masters in Shalim; there were fourteen, in fact, who called it their permanent home, but most of them preferred to work in the newer chambers that were built high into the mountain wall and overlooked the plains of Oreeon in the east. Only Master Azod spent any great deal of time in the Mastery, being oldest of all living Masters in the order, and himself older than the new observatory. Masters Polis, Iphilia, and Thorhlin held the other three offices, but they preferred the bright halls of Shalim when tending to their own work in the places they specialized. Azod was the only spirit to consistently haunt the rooms, and Omer suspected he liked it that way. He was not a man for luxury or company, and the Mastery kept him deprived of both.
The first door on the right led to Azod’s office. Omer found it already open when he stepped down into the Mastery. He entered into a room that was nearly dark, lit only by three far candles on a high desk of oak, behind which Azod sat looking over papers. Omer’s Tested eyes were able to perceive the whole room, even in the dark, and it was as he remembered it, nearly empty save for a cabinet of books on the one side and a small couch on the other. A home for someone who did not like company.
Azod looked up as Omer entered. His hood was gone, his face adorned only by the gray beard that always lingered. Few were the number of Hunters who lived long enough that their body would relent and show the weary of time, as the life of a Hunter, while prolonged, was still wont to be ended early by dark beasts in deep places of the world. Azod was the oldest Hunter alive and the silver upon his face was testament, yet Omer had always believed Azod’s age was not in his body but in his gaze. The elder Hunter always seemed to be staring far off. Even in conversations, his eyes would tread beyond the present, down into a deep place, a place only someone with many years of weary work knew how to access. That gaze fell on Omer now, and even though the Trial of Wills had emboldened his body, Omer still felt far too much of his spirit was laid bare before the Master.
“How are you feeling?” Azod asked as Omer entered. Gone was the sharp, commanding tone that had snapped many a young novice to attention after their foolery had gone too far, and replacing it was a soft timbre that seemed to soak into the stone about them, welcoming and friendly.
“I am well, Master Azod,” Omer answered with a bow. “Master Polis said my Cost is not debilitating. Master Zekhain, however, insists I should be cautious and not strain myself too much over the coming days, but I feel much better than I did before the Wills.”
“You look much better,” Azod said. “I confess that I was worried. We do not make a habit of allowing rest between Trials, as a Hunter must be tenacious in his spirit to persevere in the wild; but few novices have ever come to the Chamber in so poor a condition as you after the Blades. I feared that your weakness of body would overcome your strength of spirit, especially in the Will to Stand.” He smiled, warm and welcoming, like a father remembering a fond memory of his son. “I am happy you succeeded.”
“Thank you, Master,” Omer bowed, holding back his own smile at Azod’s words.
“On to it, then,” the Master said. He stood. In his hand was a rolled parchment with a broken wax seal. He held the parchment up and towards Omer. “This is a contract,” he said. “You will see many in your time as a Hunter, though in a better world I would have had your first arrive much later.” He placed the parchment down on the table, letting it unfurl on its own as he lifted his gaze to hold Omer. “You are aware that this is not normal procedure, I assume?”
“I have been told so a few times,” Omer answered.
The Master nodded his head and sighed, long and deep. Then he waved to the couch that waited beside his desk. “Sit,” he said, and Omer obliged.
“Sir, if I may ask -,” Omer began, but Azod lifted his hand.
“You are not a novice anymore, Omer. You are En’shen. Not a Master, no, but in these halls you are equal in all but age and the wisdom that comes with it. You need no permission to do your work in Shalim. Ask.”
Omer bowed his head, and when he looked up he began again. “Master Zekhain seemed to think this was a very strange happening, not least for the fact you would not tell him what was going on. Why is this so secretive? I admit to a bit of nervousness at how mysteriously it is being treated.”
“Zekhain is keen,” Azod said. “I did not tell him, it is true, but there is a cause.” He tapped the contract on the table. “This is a contract for a Sphirum.”
“A ghost?” Omer frowned. “Shalim does not take contracts for ghosts. They are not dangerous.”
“No, they are not,” Azod said. “We would simply pass a contract request like this on to a priest somewhere in the cities closest… under normal circumstances.”
Omer felt his stomach turn, though he was not sure why. “But this is not a normal request, is it?” Omer said.
Azod shook his head, and for a moment Omer thought he saw pain fill his eyes, though what caused it he could not be sure. “It is not,” Azod said. Then he sat down and fell silent for a moment, staring into his desk as if he apprehended a problem Omer could not see. He sighed, deep and weighty, and placed his hands on the desk. “How long has it been since Gaul died?” he asked.
Omer leaned back on the couch and started for a long moment. The flutter in his stomach became a tight fist and for a passing second his mind went blank, unprepared as he had been to hear his friend’s name. When he had gathered himself a moment later, he answered. “I… do not remember the date,” he said. “Nearly two years, I think. Maybe a little longer. Why?”
Azod did not answer. Instead, he slid the contract on his desk over to Omer. Omer took it had held it up to the light of the candles. He read it aloud. “Here we request; no, beseech, dear Hunters, that one of your order be sent down to our land for the putting to rest of a spirit. Our son has returned, unexpected and unlooked for, and we are fearful for what that means, both for ourselves and his own life. We do not have your wisdom, Master Hunters. We seek your aid.” Omer frowned. It was not so odd a request. Grief-stricken parents often sent missives to Shalim for such things. Then his eyes fell lower to the signatures that marked the request. “Aileen and Morel Falln of Timmelan.”
Omer’s hands fell weak at the last words and the contract dropped from his grasp. “Gaul’s parents,” he whispered. The knot in his stomach became a roiling storm, and in spite of his hardened years of training, he felt tears rush suddenly to just behind his eyes, threatening to break forth at a moment. He looked to Azod. The elder Hunter’s pained look had become full and a grim frown was on his lips. “How can this be? Master Taillus said the Wills prevent En’shen from becoming a ghost. He cannot have returned. Not like this.”
“The Wills do prevent such a thing,” Azod answered. “Hunters do not return from the dead. Never once in the history of our order, since the Wills were made, has such a thing happened.”
“Then… what is this?” Omer asked, voice breaking against the question.
“A mystery,” Azod answered. “This is a strange request. Either Gaul’s own parents have mistaken his return, which I shall call unlikely, as he spent nearly two full months with them a few years prior; or we must conclude that something unknown to the Hunters has come to be, that Gaul has returned… or else was never gone at all. The third option, of course, is that it is merely a mistake. Perhaps grief has finally boiled over and driven the Falln to see things which are not. I cannot say. But we would be ill-served to ignore so odd a request.”
Omer sank deep into the couch, his thoughts a sudden mess in his head. Gaul had
been dead for so long that Omer found it difficult to even remember his face clearly, though he still remembered well his grief that had filled his chest long ago when he first heard. Gaul had been lost in an encounter with an Abhorrent somewhere deep in the Irgiklod. The Abhorrent had somehow become allied with a Wraith, a strange and unknown alliance that none of the Hunters on the contract were prepared for and overwhelmed them. Omer had wept for his friend for weeks. He had buried an empty casket in the graveyard deep in the dark of Shalim’s mountains. Omer had buried his best friend in the waking world.
“Could the other Hunters have been mistaken?” Omer wondered aloud. “The others on the contract, I mean. They all attested that he fell into a deep pit and that he was dead before he fell. But mountain depths are dark. Could they have been wrong? Could he still be alive?”
The Master leaned back and with a gentle voice he answered, “I do not know. I am loathe to say they were, for if it is so… then it was not only a mistake on our part, but casts to question why Gaul has not returned to Shalim. This is perhaps the strangest request I have ever seen come across my desk in all the years I have been a Master. The simplest answer would be: yes, they were mistaken, and that Gaul has lived somehow without knowledge for over a year. But it is all too strange for me to make a pronouncement.” He stood up then and walked over to the couch, where he sat down beside Omer and placed a comforting hand on the young Hunter’s shoulder.
“I am at a loss on what to do, if you will allow my candor,” Azod continued. “It is unheard of for Shalim to take a contract for a ghost. There are far greater threats to Mankind than wandering spooks in the night. And yet… if Gaul has truly returned, we face perhaps the greatest mystery the Hunters have encountered in a thousand years. I feel this puzzle must be sought out, if for nothing more than to be sure that Gaul is not returned and our science is not in question. Yet, I cannot entrust this contract to a simple novice, for a returned En’shen may be very dangerous; but neither can I entrust it to any En’shen, for even a Master will not likely give this task the attention it deserves. Most would be offended that even the suggestion of chasing a ghost would be offered to one of their stature.”
He took a deep breath and shook his head. “I am hesitant to ask any work of you so soon after your Testing, Omer, but… I fear there is no one else in Shalim who will rightly see this through. If you feel you are able, and if you desire to, then I would have you go and learn of the strange happenings this letter speaks of. You were the dearest friend of Gaul. If any will know his spirit, if indeed it has returned, it will be you.”
“And if he has?” Omer asked with shaking breath.
Azod furrowed his brow, and slowly, with great care, he reached down and picked the contract up from the floor, laying it in Omer’s lap. “Then you complete your contract,” he said grimly. “You put him to rest.”
Omer shook his head. He could not understand what was being asked of him. Gaul was dead. Had been dead for a long time. His best friend was lost to the distant memories of his mind, a fond recollection for restful days when Omer had idle hours to spend. “He cannot be alive,” he echoed his thoughts aloud. “He cannot be, Master. It… it cannot be.”
“It may not be,” Azod said. “In fact, I would say it is not likely. The En’shen have existed for millennia, back perhaps to the very first Men, and in none of our tales have the Tested dead returned from beyond the veil, not even in forms unknown. En’shen stay dead. But we cannot ignore this request. We must ensure that history holds form. Will you go?”
Omer stared at the contract in his lap and ran his fingers lightly about the edges, resting on the names of the contract givers; the names of Gaul’s parents. A sudden thought occurred then. “They are hurting too,” he said, looking up to Azod. “They grieved as we grieved. They dug an empty grave for a son that will not return. They outlived their own child, and even were he not En’shen that would have been tragedy. Now the wound is reopened. That is a pain I could not know.” He clenched the paper in his hand and stuffed down the storm in his stomach. “Duty above all,” Omer spoke part of the Hunter Creed aloud. “It is our duty to relieve the burden of Men. I will take the contract, Master.”
Azod stood. He stepped into the center of the room, turned, and squared up to Omer, clasping his hands and placing a grim gaze upon the new En’shen. “So be it. You will go to Timmelan and seek out the Falln. Search out the truth of this mystery. But not today. Today you rest. Tomorrow will see your journey. Go. Ready yourself, Omer. This is your First Contract.”
Chapter V
A Hunt Abroad
Omer left the Mastery with a heavy heart. He returned to his quarters and spent the rest of the evening packing a light fare for his journey. That night he slept restless and worried. His dreams were haunted by the specter of his fallen friend, the lean form of Gaul around every corner and every tree, his brown eyes unnaturally bright in the otherwise dark scape. The last dream Omer had before waking was a memory of the last day he had seen Gaul. They had been sitting atop the Observatory, watching the flowing plains of Oreeon far below, a gently swaying sea of high grass that seemed to roll like the oceans far away. In Omer’s memory that was a happy night, the last good hour spent with the dearest friend he had ever known, but in his nightmare the sky was not starry and clear as it had truly been that evening, instead foul and reeking with heavy smoke, like the ash of a city thrown to the wind; and beside him Gaul was a gaunt skeleton, with sunken eyes and withered hands that reached for Omer in the dark. It was the reaching hands that had woken him. The sky was still dark outside Shalim, though the first rays of morning were creeping up its edge. Omer sat up in his bed and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He was set to leave at first light, and that light was nearing fast.
With a sigh, he leaped out of bed, surprised at how quickly his body shook off the slumber. Not a moment awake and he felt as if he had been up for hours. He grabbed his rucksack from his dresser, clenched his fists once to push away the creeping pain of his Cost, and then crept out into the dark hall. He had only taken a step when he stopped. The new strength of his eyes beheld a waiting shadow at the hall’s end. A huge, hulking dent in the night resting against the entrance to the hall with folded arms, sleeping so far as Omer could tell.
“Tahr?” Omer hissed at the shadow. The huge Hunter startled awake with a grunt.
“Mmm, yes, yes, awake,” Tahr mumbled. Then he looked about and seemed to realize where he was. “Ah! Omer, I have been waiting for you. What time is it?” he wondered.
“Time for me to leave,” Omer said. “I was hoping to be gone by first light.”
“Oh? And run out on your friend?” Tahr said. “You’re not too sore over the Blades to keep me from joining, yeah?”
Omer frowned at the shadow. “Join me? Is it not customary for the First Contract to be taken alone?”
There was a brief flash of white as Tahr smiled, but it was quickly replaced by the night. “I pried the details out of old Azod yesterday,” he said. “Timmelan is far away and full of sour folk and should not be faced alone. Besides, an uncommon journey deserves no less than my uncommon aid!” The huge man bowed then, his broad shoulders straining the cloak he wore. “If you will have me, I would accompany you.”
“I won’t turn you down,” Omer said. “It’s likely to be a boring road, and if it really is a Hunter ghost waiting at the end… well, I think it would go for you first?”
Tahr frowned. “It would?”
“Of course. Ghosts hate joy of all the living emotions, and you are burdened most of any Hunter I have met.”
Tahr seemed to think on that a moment, wondering if he had been insulted or complimented. Finally, when he decided it was a compliment, he smiled and rapped Omer on the shoulder. “Maybe some of it will rub off on the way. More laughter for you and you can force me into dark moods at your leisure. Balance each other.” He winked, though Omer could only just make it out in the dark.
Omer began on again and Tahr
fell in step beside him, hefting his own small pack over his shoulder. Together they crept through the dark halls of Shalim. They were not completely alone, of course. Shalim never truly slept and full-fledged En’shen needed barely an hour of sleep every other day, and only that if they were at ease and could spare it. Here and there shadowy forms would pass in opposite halls, or could be seen laboring through a cracked doorway as they sought some hidden knowledge or practiced a needful lesson; but these Hunters cared little for the First Contract of a newly Tested, each having finished their own long ago and moved on to greater things. It was only the last shadow they passed which gave them any notice, startling Omer by grabbing his shoulder as they passed in the entrance hall, just before the great doors.
“May your journey find you well,” the shadow said, and then it let go and was gone. It was only when the Hunter had passed some steps down the hall that Omer realized it had been Master Azod, and that the elder Hunter had to have spent the whole night waiting for him by the doorway to see Omer off.
“Thank you, Master,” Omer whispered to the fading form. Then his attention was turned as moonlight filled the hall. He looked back to see Tahr standing with the great door open.
“Ah, it is a fine night,” Tahr said, inhaling deeply the morning air, his smile reflecting the moon. “How are your eyes adjusting? That was the hardest part for me. The night is far too bright for my liking. Like I am never truly in the dark.”
“It is odd,” Omer answered. “The moon looks like the sun to me now, only dimmer by a few margins; but it has made the shadows seem all the darker when I spy them. They are too… hard, I think. As if I never truly understood how little light dwelled within the dark before the Wills.”
Tahr stared at him a moment, his onyx brow raised. “Hey now, you have to at least wait until we reach Timmelan to start placing gloom on me,” he said. “You should be enjoying your new strength! Look out there, at the far stairs beyond the courtyard. See the cracks on the fourth step? That is advantage, my friend! Advantage most do not have. Who but a Hunter might spy it in the dark? Most Men are fearful creatures in a fear-filled world, but you are a Hunter among the prey.”
