by Graeme Ing
“I hope the Covenant is in there right now.” She flexed her fists. “I’ll avenge my father.”
“I’d rather they weren’t, so we can do what we came to do.”
I cast Perception, pushing the boundary of the invisible sphere all the way to the tower, a hundred feet away.
Ayla spun to face me. “I felt that.” She hopped from foot to foot. “That’s your sensory aura thing, isn’t it?”
“You won’t learn Perception for some time, but you can share mine. It takes getting used to. Do you feel that tingling?”
She twitched. “It tickles in my head.”
“Concentrate on the exact sensations, the tempo, the intensity, the ripples. That’s what skeletons feel like.”
She shuddered and scanned the swamp in front of us. “Where are they?”
“Inside that balcony door, guarding.”
“I’m not afraid of them.”
The memory of the last skeleton battle flooded back. No, she wasn’t.
“There’s four,” she said as we splashed through the swamp, jumping from islet to islet. “A pair and then another, further back.”
“Good.”
She really was a fast learner.
“Are you going to blow them up again?”
Should I? Bones to Dust would alert everything in the tower, but I’d feel safer if Caradan knew we were coming. I didn’t want to surprise him, for sure. He was certain to spell first and ask questions later.
We stepped onto dry land at the base of the tower and I peered up at the arrow slits. They resembled sinister, narrowed eyes watching us. The back of my neck itched. It was too quiet. Even the red hawks were nowhere to be seen. Getting trapped inside on Caradan’s home ground wasn’t my idea of fun. Perhaps there was another way.
Ayla nudged me. “Are we doing this?”
Too late to back out now.
Our boots thumped on the plank, and then we stepped onto the slanting balcony and peered into the dim room beyond. My pulse roared in my ears. Going inside as a skeleton had been one thing, but now we had no such disguise.
Two skeletons jerked as if startled awake, swished their swords in front of them, and advanced. I let loose Bones to Dust. The skeletons disintegrated. A flurry of bone fragments whirled around the room like a tornado, bouncing off the walls and finally settling, to cover the floor in a white carpet that resembled snow. The clanging of their metal blades on the stone floor reverberated through the tower.
We knocked on the door. Time to find out who was home.
Ribs and finger bones crunched underfoot as we moved deeper inside. The interior hallway was gloomy and constrictive, quite different from last time. I put that down to the red-tinged vision I’d possessed as a skeleton. Ayla looked resolute, absentmindedly picking pieces of bone from her hair as she peered into every shadowy corner. Sharp rays of daylight sliced through arrow slits on the staircase, creating a grid of light and dark that resembled prison bars.
A dull thump sounded from behind heavy wooden doors. We glanced at each other.
“What’s that?” she whispered.
My Perception oscillated in an erratic manner.
“Feel the tempo of that? Something incorporeal.” This teaching business wasn’t so difficult.
I pushed open the door to the great hall. The room appeared much as it had when I’d spied on the Covenant meeting, except the fireplace was dark and cold. Daylight streamed in from above.
A flash of green caught our eyes, and a beer keg rattled in the corner. We both jumped. A rat would never budge one of the large barrels. Ayla headed toward it, but I hesitated before following. I couldn’t stop the sickening feeling that expected lochtars or revenants to materialize en masse.
“Nothing here.” She frowned.
Nothing we could see, anyway.
Something else jabbed at my Perception. A tall man dressed in a black robe appeared in front of us. I sucked in a sharp breath. I knew what came next. He erupted in white fire that flickered across his body and ignited his hair. His mouth opened wide in a scream but he made no sound. Flesh peeled from his body and his face melted. Ayla gasped and took a step back. The man thrashed and panicked. Finally, he pitched to the floor, kicked some more, and then faded out of existence.
Ayla circled the spot where he had fallen, picking at her lip.
“What happened?” she said.
Lightning flashed through arrow slits high on the walls, followed by the boom of thunder. I shot a glance outside. The sky was bright and cloudless. I shook my head to clear it. Ghosts loved to torment the living.
“An apparition,” I said and laid a hand on her shoulder. “It’s not real.”
Her eyes were wide and her breathing rapid. Then she cried out, a deafening sound in the tomblike tower. A bodiless arm had grabbed her leg. She tried futilely to shake it off. The skin of her leg turned black and sloughed off in shreds.
“Oh, Gods. Get it off. Get it off me!”
She kicked and kicked but the blackness continued to spread upward, until her leg crumbled like a pile of dust caught in the wind. She toppled and screamed.
I whipped up a hasty Dispel and smothered her with it. Her leg returned to normal, but she grabbed it and touched it all over to make sure, panting and whimpering.
Mocking laughter echoed through the tower.
“Damn it, Caradan,” I muttered and helped her up. I squeezed her trembling hands. “Don’t believe your eyes.”
She gritted her teeth, pulled her hands from mine, and balled them into fists. Her glare challenged me to dare comment on her moment of weakness.
“Enough of this tristak nonsense,” she said. “Ghosts can’t hurt us, right? Let’s get on with it.”
We hurried back out into the hallway. It faded and I stared down at Phyxia’s blood-soaked, stiff, and bloated corpse on the bed. I shook my head again and stamped my feet. I wasn’t in the mood for games anymore.
I led the way up to the gallery where Kolta and I had lurked as skeletons. The stairs beyond were still bricked up, as was the exit on the opposite side of the gallery. Who had done so and why? Even as I pondered the next move, everything shimmered. My Perception bucked like waves in a storm. Ayla clutched her belly.
“What now?” she snapped.
I tensed. Caradan had started a new game.
Color leeched from the world. Her dress turned gray, as did her hair and the daylight. The walls became indeterminate and hazy, as if unsure whether they wanted to exist or not. Waves rippled through the floor, yet it remained solid underfoot. Ayla blinked repeatedly, her face determined, but I knew she couldn’t disbelieve this. This was no apparition, no ghost in our world. The situation had reversed. Now we were impostors in the spirit world.
Caradan had sucked us into The Gray. Kristach. Here, everything could hurt us. Worse, I didn’t know the spell to get back.
Ayla studied the condensation on the walls as it dribbled steadily upward. Fine cracks ran through the stone, and layers crumbled away. Ridges snaked across the surface, as if worms burrowed within the walls. Cobwebs expanded from nowhere to fill the gallery.
“The wall is decaying,” she said. “How can it do that so quickly? Another ghostly trick, right?”
“The Gray,” I said, assuming that explained everything.
She looked at me quizzically, then glanced behind me. Her hand slipped into mine, the only warmth in this chill place.
I turned to witness black shadows pooling in midair high above the great hall. The darkness circled lazily, deepening, spreading. My heart pounded. Shrieks of pain and cries of mercy echoed in my head, and I remembered from my nightmare how many men this wraith had consumed.
I dragged Ayla back to the stairs. I’d intended to go down, but the way up was no longer blocked. The brick wall had turned transparent, flickering in and out of existence. An invitation. I would regret my next move, but what choice did I have? I stepped through, cringing at the unnatural pressure inside my body as I did. A
yla followed and shivered violently.
“How did we do that?” Her hands probed the insubstantial bricks. “It was solid when we came by, I swear.”
“The Gray is a warped version of our world.” I studied the stairs curving up and away from us. “Caradan wants us to go up. I don’t think we should argue.”
I was certain that the wraith would prevent us leaving, anyway.
“Are you going to capture him in your knife?”
“My Ashtar gem won’t hold him.”
The sky rumbled with repeated booms of thunder, accompanied by an incessant whispering and cackling that shifted location whenever I tried to pin it down.
“Don’t leave my side. The creatures here are vicious and even ghosts have power in this place. He’s testing our resolve.”
“He won’t break mine again.” She grabbed my hand. “Make him aid us. I’m not taking no for an answer.”
I hesitated and rubbed my nose, all too aware that I didn’t have a plan, but things usually worked out for the best.
Lines creased her brow. “We can’t do this if you’re scared.”
I snorted. “I’m never scared. This is my job. Let’s go.”
The stairs curved around the inside of the tower wall. I paused on the next landing, peering into a gloomy hallway full of closed doors. A gust of wind blew from nowhere, passed me, and rushed up the stairs. I took that as a hint and ascended once more. Opaque, gray water dribbled down the steps and walls, which rippled and flaked as we passed. Two floors higher, the walls leaned in over our heads as if hastening to catch our every whisper.
Thick webs choked the hallway. The chill wind blew along it, rustling them, giving the appearance that they breathed. Light shone through them, and when they moved I realized they belonged to hairy spiders as large as my hand. Ayla grunted her disgust.
No sooner had she done so, than she was dragged from my side and thrown to the ground by some invisible force. I reached for her but she shot off along the damp tiles, kicking and trying to grab a hold of the walls, her hands coming away with nothing but slimy mortar and sticky strands.
“Maldren,” she yelled.
Then she was gone.
Utter silence fell over the tower. Kristach! He had Ayla. Why her? In my mind’s eye, his dagger stabbed into the heart of his wife, Yolanda. Gods, no!
I hurtled down the hallway, clawing aside the webs and sweeping the spiders from my robe. Double doors stood wide at the end. Warding symbols had been branded into the wood and later scratched out. Whatever. I burst through and skidded to a halt just inside, scanning for, but failing to see her.
“Ayla? Where are you?”
The rotted remains of a bed dominated the room. Its legs had decayed, allowing the frame to sink to the floor. The bedcovers lay shredded and blotched with darker shades of gray. Thank the Gods Phyxia wasn’t lying there. Or Ayla. The other furniture lay in heaps of timber. My skin tingled in the magical residue that permeated the place.
“Ayla!” My voice broke. I coughed and swallowed hard.
Shadows gathered in the far corner, forming a black smear that consumed the daylight oozing through the shimmering, bricked-up window. The walls cracked and splintered at the shadow’s touch. They physically cringed. Warts and pustules formed on every surface, bursting and dribbling a gray pus. Teeth set, I stared into the corner. I was immune to such foolish haunts now. Show me something to fight.
The boiling shadows grew to resemble the thing in the great hall, a stark reminder that Caradan was no innocent ghost but a wretched, depraved wraith.
Never had I sensed such malevolence—not the grak, nor the soul wraith. The elemental had projected a chaotic, primeval power. This entity overwhelmed me with a focused rage. I stumbled backward. The shadows coalesced into a middle-aged man, hair below his shoulders. Runes writhed across his black robe. He drew himself up to his full height of seven feet. Fierce, unblinking eyes bore into me.
Lak and all his demons!
I stood tall, fists clenched. “Where is she?”
“Manners. Is this how you address all your elders?”
My shoulders drooped. My resolve wilted. “Please, Lord Caradan, don’t harm her. We came—”
“Why did you bring that traitor here?”
“I…I don’t understand. She’s my apprentice.”
“Lies. You brought this…monster into my house.”
He gestured toward the window and Ayla materialized, feet together, hands at her side. I started toward her, and then slammed into a force wall that knocked me crashing back against the doorjamb. It splintered under my weight. I stepped forward again, then hesitated.
“Ayla, look at me.” I turned on Caradan. “What have you done to her?”
Magic flared from his fingers. It burned through my body and I cried out. It was like a thug had me in a bear hug. I gasped for breath and wheezed, desperately trying to tell him to stop. Still, his spell constricted me. Ribs cracked. Searing pain narrowed my vision to a shrinking, dark tunnel. The force let up and I crumpled into a heap. Each time I sucked in air, hot fire lanced through my chest.
“How dare you break into my home and make demands of me in such an insolent tone? Such arrogance. It was my will that you came here. Did you have sweet dreams?” He gave a crooked grin. “You’ve seen my history firsthand. I wanted to show you the choices that I made. For a hundred solars I have relived them. I regret the corrupted path I set the Guild upon, and regret more that Fortak perpetuated my mistakes. I can see into your soul, do you know that?”
Kristach. I didn’t dare move, wincing at the pain in my chest. My mind tumbled over everything I had done, every decision, every action. I bet it didn’t look good, but I was no Fortak.
“I see no evidence of our nihilism in you,” he said.
Blowing out my breath made an unnatural wheezing sound. I glanced at Ayla but she remained statuesque, her gaze fixated on Caradan across the room.
“Phyxia told me about you,” he said. “But I needed to see for myself.”
The room fell silent. One agonizing breath. Two. Three. I knew that I played into his hands but couldn’t help myself. “See what?”
“If Fortak had tainted you.”
I hoped he liked what he’d seen. I was still alive. For now. I was walking a treacherous line here.
“My choices brought me damnation,” Caradan said. “I hope that yours bring salvation.”
His expression turned wistful and I seized my chance.
“Lord Caradan, long ago you served Malkandrah.”
No need to expand on that. He had served, just incurred the wrath of the people.
“Our city needs you once again. Will you help us against Fortak and the elemental? Perhaps such an act would lift your curse.”
His eyes flared. “You can speak for the Gods now? I have conditions, one of which is that Fortak must die.”
I blinked. I hadn’t considered going that far, but Fortak had tried to kill me. It seemed just for the hundreds he had murdered. Besides, who was I to prevent Caradan from killing him?
“Agreed. The other conditions?”
His gaze turned steely. “She is mine.”
With a wave of his hand, Ayla’s body jerked into action and she took a labored step toward him. I caught the glint of a knife blade as it appeared in the hand behind his back.
Oh Gods, no.
“Stop!” I reached for her.
“Yolanda, come to me, my darling,” Caradan murmured with a sneer.
She took slow, deliberate steps toward him, head high, her body rigid, each step reluctant, forced.
I crawled across the damp, unnaturally spongy floor.
“Ayla, it’s Maldren. Turn around. Fight it. Caradan, don’t do this.”
“Let me help you, my love,” she said to him. Her voice had changed, taken on a southern accent.
She raised her arms and he stepped forward into her embrace. Mechanically, her arms closed around his neck and she stroked his back
. Head pitched down, he nuzzled her hair and nibbled her ears.
“Ayla, no,” I said. “It’s a trick. Run to me. Run…”
One hand clutched to my chest, I pulled myself to my feet. Needles of agony stabbed my torso. I cried out, fighting the heaviness in my head, blinking against the sparks in my vision. If I breathed softly, the pain reduced to a jaw-clenching throbbing.
Caradan brought the knife to within an inch of her body. Her eyes fluttered shut, and she mewed at each caress of his lips on her neck.
I took a step forward, my empty hands palm up and trembling.
“Lord Caradan, I beg you. She’s not your wife. She isn’t Yolanda. I can free you from your curse, but you have to stop. She’s innocent. You spoke of choices. Don’t fail another. Please.”
He pulled back and his gaze wandered up and down her body. Then he turned to me, eyes narrowed. I had a chance. I had to have a chance.
My pulse raced and my legs shook. I couldn’t hold on to consciousness much longer. I gasped for air. Pain lanced through my chest and I bit down on a moan. A whisper was the most I could manage.
“The city, my lord. You can escape your curse.”
“If I help you?” he asked, deep furrows on his forehead. The knife wavered.
“Yes, yes.” I stepped forward, regretted it, and doubled over in agony. “Don’t…harm her… We can talk…you and I.”
He took long, deep breaths while mine were short and ragged.
“She isn’t my bitch wife?”
I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak.
He glanced down at Ayla, who hadn’t moved or reacted to anything we had said, then back at me. The knife hand lowered and he reached out with his other hand. It was gigantic compared to Ayla’s head, but very gentle as he stroked her cheek, trickled his fingers through her hair. She gazed lovingly up at him and he smiled.
Thank the Gods.
“I send you to The Deep, Yolanda. We’ll be together again.”
He thrust the blade into Ayla’s chest.
Caradan and the knife vanished. No theatricals, no blast of shadow magic.
Ayla crumpled into a heap, blood gushing from her body. I stumbled across the room and dropped to my knees at her side.
