"Yet what justice hath Heaven given here, that the lass's ghost abides in torment, while the lord's is gone!"
"Gone where?" Geoffrey said, with a curl of the lip.
"Good point," Rod responded. "And for the damsel Sola—well, I can certainly understand why she lingers here, weighed down by false guilt for the lives of her whole family."
Cordelia turned, eyes wide. "Dost mean that, to free her, we have but to tell her 'twas the Count's guilt, and not hers?"
"No, we have to convince her of it—and with a good person, that can be very hard indeed."
Gwen eyed him narrowly. "Thou hast summat in mind, mine husband."
"Only a little demonstration," Rod said easily.
Chapter 12
They slept for the remainder of the day. As the sun was setting, they were rising for a quick breakfast of porridge and water.
"Are we to fight spectres with naught but oatmeal?" Geoffrey demanded.
" 'Twill stay with thee, and give thee endurance," Gwen assured him. She glanced at Magnus, then looked again. "Didst thou not sleep soundly?"
"Aye, yet with many dreams. This Hall was the Count's prime place, Mama. 'Twas not the setting for his most shameful acts, yet 'twas filled with an abundance of petty cruelties and large humiliations."
"Thou hast awakened angry."
Magnus nodded. "I cannot wait to brace him!"
"Good," Rod said. "Good."
When darkness held the castle, and the only light came from the fireplace and a single sconce nearby, Magnus turned and strode to the dais where the count had sat, presiding over debauchery, two hundred years before.
The great chair stood there still. Magnus laid his hands upon it and called, "Rafael Fer de Lance, Count Foxcourt! Come forth to judgement!"
The evil laugh began once again, distant, but swelling closer, till it rang and echoed all about them—and Foxcourt was there, fully formed, even with faint colors glowing, so strong was his spirit. He was in his prime, his early thirties, his frame still muscular, his harsh features darkly handsome—but filled with sixty years of knowledge of human perversity, and delight in cruelty.
"Judgement?" he sneered. "And who will judge me, stripling? Thou?"
"That shall I! Yet I confess to wonder, that thou hast not yet been called before the greatest Judge of All!"
"I have been too much addicted to the pleasures of this life—most especially the delight of witnessing the suffering that I've caused." The ghost advanced on Magnus, slapping his palm with his riding whip. "I find the joys of cruelty too great, to wish to depart upon my final journey; though I'd have no choice, were there not foolish mortals like thyself, whose curiosity gives me an anchor with which to hold to this, the scene of all my pleasures."
Magnus stood firm, almost seeming to radiate a glow of his own. "Thou hast come to thy last journey here. Yet an I weaken, I have stronger spirits than mine, or thine, to draw on." He gestured toward his family. "Behold!"
An eldritch light shone about the Gallowglasses. Gregory started, but the others held firm.
The Count's laugh rang through the room. "What have we here? Two babes? And, ah! Two beauties!" He came down from the dais, advancing on Gwen and Cordelia. "One young, one in the fullness of her bloom—yet both fresh female souls!"
"Aye," Magnus said, from behind him. " 'Tis meat and drink to thee, to despoil the innocent, is it not?"
"Thou speakest well." He lifted his hand as he came closer to the women.
"Hold, foul worm!" Rod stepped in front of his wife and daughter, rage seething just beneath the surface of his face.
The count paused. "What have we here? A peasant, come to face a lord? Begone, foolish knave!" And he reached through Rod to caress Cordelia's chin.
Rod erupted into flame. White-hot flares licked out from him, searing the night, crisping the flesh on the spectre's form till spectral bones showed through. The Count's ghost screamed, whirling away, arms coming up to shield his face. Then Magnus's eyes narrowed, and the fabric of the spirit tore, and tore again, parting and parting like mist in a wind, as his shrieks rang through the hall, until his substance was shredded. Finally, Rod's flames withdrew, and darkness returned.
Out of the silence, Magnus asked, amazed, "Is that all? Is there no more to do than this?"
"Wait," Rod answered. "See his tatters, drifting? They're coming back together now."
And they were—swirling through the air like flakes of glowing snow, they pulled in upon themselves again, coalescing, returning to a form.
"I am ever proud when thou dost stand in my defense," Gwen said, low-voiced, "yet mayhap thou shouldst not have spent so much of thy power so soon."
"No fear—I've just begun to tap it," Rod answered. "Not that I had any urge to control myself, you realize."
"He comes," Geoffrey said, his voice hard.
The Count was there again, though without color now, only a pale and glowing form, but one with fury contorting his features. "Foolish mortals, to so bait a ghost! Hast thou no sense of caution? Nay, I shall be revenged on thee!"
Magnus was eyeing him narrowly. "He hath less hair, and more belly."
The Count whirled, staring at him in rage. "Avaunt thee, stripling! Up, men of mine! All mine old retainers, out upon him! Men-at-arms, arise!"
Magnus stepped down and over to his parents. "What comes now?"
Rod shook his head. "Can't say. Let's see if he can bring it off."
But the Count was succeeding. With drunken laughter, his retainers appeared—men-at-arms with ghostly pikes, and knights in spectral armor. But they were only outlines, and their laughter sounded distant.
"The lesser evils," Rod muttered.
"To horse, and away!" Count Foxcourt called—and suddenly, his knights were mounted on ghostly Percherons, and his men-at-arms advanced not with pikes, but with sticks and horns, blowing a hunting call.
"The game is up!" the Count cried. "Ho, bearers! Drive them from the covert!"
The men-at-arms came running, eyes alight, shouting with laughter and glee, thrashing at the Gallowglasses with sticks while the Count and his knights came riding, seemingly from a great distance.
"Avaunt thee!" Magnus shouted, and a wall of flame encircled the family.
"Oh, be not so silly!" Cordelia sniffed. "We must banish them, "not hold them back!" And the sticks writhed in the spectres' hands, growing heads and turning back on the men-at-arms, becoming snakes which struck at their holders. With oaths, the soldiers dropped them. Instantly, the snakes coiled and struck, then struck again, and the men-at-arms fled shouting in disorder.
"A most excellent plan, my daughter!" Gwen cried, delighted, and the hunting horns grew limp, then swung about, their bells turning into gaping jaws, glowing eyes appearing behind them as they sprouted wings, and dragons drove at the men who had them by the tails. The soldiers yelled in fear and fled, pursued by instruments of destruction.
Then the whole band of soldiers ran headlong into the advancing wall of knights.
Their masters rode them down with curses and galloped toward the Gallowglasses, faces filled with hungry gloating, their mounts' eyes turning to coals, flames licking about their outthrust jaws.
"This, then, is mine!" Fess galloped out between the family and the knights and, suddenly, he seemed to swell and grow to twice his normal size, bleaching into a pale and giant horse with mane and tail of flame, glowing coals for eyes, and bright steel teeth that reached out past the Percherons' heads to savage their riders as he screamed with insane, manic glee.
" 'Tis a pouka, a spirit horse!" Gregory shrank back against Gwen, and even Geoffrey had trouble holding his ground. "What hath possessed our good and gentle Fess?"
"The same thing that possesses him every time someone tries to hurt us," Rod said grimly, "and the foe are of his own form, this time."
But the horses were fleeing now, ghosts overawed by ghosts, while their riders saved face by kicking and cursing at them, as they dwindled into distance.
"The false cowards!" Cordelia stormed. "They were as struck with fear as their mounts—nay, more!"
The pouka had faded, darkened, and dwindled, and it was only their own, old Fess who came trotting back to them—albeit with a ghost of glee in his plastic eye.
"When did you learn how to do that trick?" Rod asked, fighting a grin.
"I have been considering its feasibility for some time." Fess said, with airy disregard. "I had wondered if I could exert the same ability to project illusions as you could. Indeed, use of psionic amplifier…"
"Aye, wherefore not?" Gregory said, eyes alight as he stepped away from Gwen.
"Yet would real folk see the seeming?" Geoffrey frowned. "Ghosts are illusions themselves, and would certainly hold another such to be as real as they. Folk of flesh and blood, though, might not."
"Yet 'tis ghosts we fight at this time and place," Gwen reminded, "and Fess's devising is most puissant with them."
Magnus's lip curled. "Assuredly, we shall have no difficulty with so tattered a band."
"We won't have any trouble with his lordship, either," Rod said, "except that he'll come back every time we tear him apart. We need to banish him, not kill him."
"How will that aid the damsel Sola?"
"It will not." Gwen touched Rod's shoulder. "Hurt his pride."
"Of course." Rod lifted his head with a grin. "He's nothing but egoplasm, now—where else would he be vulnerable?"
The Count had rallied his courtiers now, primarily by banishing their horses. "Slay them!" he screamed, pointing toward the Gallowglasses.
The ghosts turned to look, then began to march with low, gloating laughs.
"Show me how he looked when he was old,'' Rod suggested.
Magnus frowned, concentrating—and, at the head of his troops, the Count began to age visibly. His hairline receded, then crept down the back of his head as his belly grew, and his whole body began to swell. His cheeks thickened as liver spots bloomed all over his skin.
His courtiers began to mutter among themselves, pointing. Someone giggled.
The Count halted, his lascivious leer turning into a scowl. He turned to look at his retainers, saw the pointing fingers, and turned to look back at the Gallowglasses. His face had swollen with fat and sagged into jowls.
"Is this how he truly looked at the end of his life?" Gwen asked.
Magnus nodded. "So say the stones."
"What kind of illnesses did he have?" Rod asked.
Magnus grinned.
The Count took another step, and howled with pain. "My gout!"
"Thou art no longer young," Gwen informed him. "Thou art an aged fool!"
But the malice in those eyes was anything but foolish.
"Didn't you say something about jaundice?" Rod muttered.
Magnus nodded, and His Lordship's skin gained a pale yellowish cast.
"Summon Sola," Gwen ordered.
Sweat beaded Magnus's brow, and the ghost-girl was there, wailing, "Wherefore hast thou brought me forth?"
The Count looked up, aghast, trying to balance on one foot while he cradled the other.
"Behold," Gwen called out, "thy tormentor's triumph! Old age!"
Sola turned, her weeping slackening. Her eyes widened, her lips parted. Then she began to laugh.
"Be still!" the Count commanded, alarmed.
Sola laughed the louder.
"Now!" Rod said to Magnus. "The pratfalls!"
The Count's remaining foot skidded out from under him, and he landed flat on his back with a howl.
Sola howled, too.
His courtiers stared, astounded.
The Count scrambled to rise, but he was too heavy. He roared in anger, trying to turn over, but even then, he had to kick a few times before he could finally work up enough momentum.
Someone in his court began to snicker.
"I—I shall be… revenged!" the Count panted, getting his feet under him, and treating his courtiers to a great view of his expanded backside. They began to laugh openly. He looked back at them, startled, then managed to heave himself to his feet and turned on them, his hand going to his sword, crying, "Be still, dolts!"
"The sword," Rod muttered. Magnus nodded.
The Count tugged at his hilt. He tugged again, then frowned and looked down. It was still there, all right. He set himself and gave a mighty pull—and the blade flashed out, describing a glittering arc through the air, heaving him around. His feet tangled, and he fell again.
The courtiers bellowed with mirth.
Livid, the Count tried to scramble to his feet once more, giving Sola the posterior vista. She howled the louder. "I should… not…"
"Nay, do!" Gwen encouraged. "Thou dost owe him far more!"
Sola's eye gleamed.
The Count struggled to get his knees under him.
Sola stepped forward, her dainty foot swinging hard in an arc.
The Count slammed down on his face again, and the Great Hall rocked with hilarity.
"Husband, this is humor of the lowest," Gwen said, trying to contain her laughter.
"Not quite." Rod turned to Magnus. "Aren't there always dogs under the tables, at these feasts?"
And the dogs were there, sniffing at the Count and wrinkling their noses in disgust. One fastened its teeth in his pants, then let go with surprising haste, hacking and coughing as it backed away. The rest of the curs gave a snort, turned their backs, and scratched dust into his face. He was roaring, of course, but nobody could hear him any more.
"Nay, let me join this mirth," Gwen said, and, suddenly, a duplicate of the Count appeared, advancing toward Sola, but with his rum-blossom nose a bit more swollen, the malice in his face somehow become foolish. "Behold, milord!" Gwen called, and the Count turned about, on hands and knees, and looked up to see—himself.
Himself, as others saw him, waddling toward a pretty girl with a swollen paw outstretched, burbling, "Nay, my pretty, dost thou wish advancement?"
"Why, aye, my lord," the ghost-girl responded, and stepped aside. The doppelganger blundered on by, groping about, finally managing to stop, while Sola watched it, giggling. There was nothing threatening about it now—it turned back, still groping and loosely grinning, merely an old, ugly, coarse, and foolishly leering dotard.
But Count Foxcourt laughed, too. "Why, what old fool is that?"
"Who?" Cordelia cried indignantly. "Art thou so blind? Nay, then, here's thy mirror!"
And a full-length cheval glass appeared in front of Foxcourt, right next to his doppelganger. He could not help but see, and blanched, turning to stare at the co-walker, then back to stare at the mirror, glancing from one to the other as his visage slackened.
Then rage contorted his features. "Nay, thou shalt not mock me! All men of mine attack! Or wouldst thou yet be banished?"
The laughter died as though it had been cut off, and the ghosts stared, horrified. They all knew what awaited them.
"Now!" the Count howled, and they started forward, faces grim.
"Remember, all they can do is scare you," Rod said quickly to his children. "Everybody take a dozen or so, and keep them from being scary."
"Like this, dost thou mean?" Gregory chirped, and Sir Boreas's ghost slipped, skidded, and flopped floundering down.
"Yeah, that's the idea! Keep it up!"
Sir Dillindag hauled out his sword, and found it was a daisy. A man-at-arms chopped with his halberd, and it kept on going, spinning him around and around in a circle while he howled.
"Good idea," Rod grunted, and another halberdier went spinning, but this time rose up slowly, his halberd acting as a helicopter rotor, until he dropped it, screaming with fright.
Then Fess reared, his whinny a scream of fury as he whirled and struck out with his forehooves at advancing knights.
It was a mistake; this, they could understand. The knights descended on Fess shouting, englobing him in seconds, a melee of flailing swords and ghostly battle axes.
"Get away from that
horse!" Rod shouted, humor forgotten in the threat to his old friend, and he waded through the knights, struggling to reach his companion.
He got there just in time to see Fess go rigid, knees locking; then his head dropped to swing between his fetlocks.
"A seizure," Rod groaned. "Too many enemies, too fast."
"Who is elf-shot?" cried a treble voice.
" 'Tis the horse!" answered a crackling baritone. "Yet who did fling the shot?"
" 'Twas none of us," answered a countertenor, and Rod drew back, staring in disbelief—for miniature ghosts were climbing out of chinks in the walls and coalescing out of thin air, translucent and colorful, and none more than a foot high.
"Mama," Cordelia gasped, "they are ghosts of elves!"
"Yet how can that be?" Gwen marveled. "Elves have no souls!"
" 'Tis he hath done it, mistress!" An elfin dame pointed at Magnus. "He doth call up memories of such of us as once did dwell here."
"Yet what can have slain thee?" Gregory wailed. "Elves are immortal!"
"Not when we're pierced by Cold Iron—and so cruel were this Count and his men that they did hunt us out to slay us!"
" 'Twas good sport," said Foxcourt, with a feral grin. "And it shall be again, if thou dost not take thee hence!"
"Indeed it shall," chuckled a pretty elfin damsel, "yet 'tis we who shall make sport of thee! Gossips, what use is a count?"
"Why, for numbering," answered a dozen voices. "Shall we tally all his bones?"
And a skeleton grinned in the dark, a foolish thing that busily ticked off each of its own pieces—and somehow bore Count Foxcourt's face.
"How dost thou dare!" the Count cried, livid with rage.
"Why, for that thou canst not slay us now, foul count," said a larger elf, grinning with malice, "for we are dead. Now ward thee from the wee folk!"
People were laughing again, and in the gloom, a ring of merry elfin faces was appearing—faces crowned with caps and bells, forms bedecked in motley. The fools and jesters had come to take their turns in the audience.
Foxcourt couldn't stay on his feet; the floor kept sliding out from under him. At one point, he was actually bouncing about on his head, while Sola laughed and laughed, one hand pressed to her mouth, tears streaming down her cheeks.
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