The Shield of Weeping Ghosts

by James P. Davis

  “You are welcome, Rashemi,” Anilya said before turning away.

  “Duras,” Thaena croaked, then cleared her voice. “What did she do?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, bringing a waterskin to her lips. “It doesn’t matter now. You’re fine. The bleeding has stopped.”

  She ran a hand along her thigh where the bone-beast had bitten her. Fearing her leg would be gone, she was surprised to find smooth skin, clean and whole, albeit a little numb. She drank more of the water and held her arm out to Duras, who carefully raised her to her feet. Finding her balance, she felt refreshed. Her leg had no pain. In fact her entire body, once aching and bruised, seemed restored.

  Looking around she found the chamber empty and quiet. Only the faint sound of the wind outside and her own breathing disturbed the silence. Bones lay scattered around the floor as before, but now they were broken and splintered beyond what time had done to them. Raising her eyes to the high balcony, she felt the heavy silence. There were no arrows to fall or archers to loose them. All were gone and swallowed by shadows.

  “We are trapped here?” she asked, afraid of his answer.

  “We checked the rest of the tower,” he said, his voice low and bordering on grim. “Every floor below this one has collapsed.”

  “I feared as much.” She looked back toward the hallway at the top of the stairs, remembering the woman who had died, sacrificing her body to keep them in this tower.

  “But the Creel are defeated,” Duras said.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said, her voice feeling stronger. “They were going to die anyway. They came here for that purpose.”

  “I don’t understand.” Duras took his hands from her shoulders, turning her around to face him.

  “I watched a woman, back there,” she said, pointing to the hallway. “She gave herself to keep us here. She destroyed herself for whatever cause these Nar have come for.”

  Duras didn’t answer, merely stared at her, trying to understand.

  “This wasn’t just a trap, Duras. It was … a sacrifice.”

  “Then it was a meaningless sacrifice,” he said. “We’re still alive.”

  Thaena looked away and crossed her arms. She couldn’t help but feel that more could have been done. It was on the tip of her tongue to suggest returning to Rashemen, getting help from the hathrans, and returning with a larger force, but she couldn’t say it. She loathed to return in defeat—a vremyonni exile escaped and a wychlaren post lost to the Nar. The Creel could be given no quarter, no time to finish what they had planned.

  “You’re right,” she said. “We are still alive, still here, and we must make something of that—at any cost.”

  “Any cost?” Duras said, though she could see something else in his eyes and his bearing. He looked over her shoulder, and she turned to see Anilya above them on the stairway, looking out the eastern window.

  “We will not suffer wolves at our gates, Duras. We will do what we must for Rashemen.”

  “This isn’t Rashemen,” he replied. “Just an old castle.”

  “You know what I mean,” she said.

  “And you know what I mean.” His voice rose sharply, then softened. “You’re starting to sound like her.”

  Lowering her head, Thaena did not reply. He spoke truly, and she could not deny that truth. There was something in the durthan that she respected and at the same time feared. She saw something of the same growing in herself, an anger that could only be sated in her enemies’ blood. Looking around, she saw naught but bones on the floor and flickering torches on the walls. She had no monstrous shadows on which to blame her emotions, and though her old self loathed the feeling she could not deny its usefulness.

  “Where are the others?” she asked.

  Duras said nothing. She placed a hand on his arm, squeezing just enough to let him know his words did not fall on deaf ears.

  “Preparing a climb,” he answered finally. “There is a small ledge on the inside of the collapsed chamber we can use to reach the bridge. With some rope and a little time …”

  “Good,” she said, eying Anilya. “We’ll go as soon as they’re ready.”

  She listened to him walk away, then let out a held breath and ascended the stairs toward the durthan. Reaching the window she saw the snowstorm had lessened. The wind barely whistled as snow piled within the Shield’s walls. The durthan did not move, but stood staring out into the white nothingness. Before Thaena could break that silence, Anilya spoke.

  “They don’t understand, wychlaren.”

  “They?”

  “The warriors,” Anilya said, still watching the falling snow. “Your berserkers, my sellswords. They fight for vengeance, honor, blood—”

  “And gold.”

  “Yes. My men have less passion perhaps, but they know quite well which end of the sword earns their pay. But they don’t understand the magic in this place, the power that hides in the walls.” Anilya turned to face her. “Not like we do.”

  “Do not liken me to your understanding, durthan,” Thaena said, still contemplating her conversation with Duras. “I sense nothing but what the Creel have awakened here.”

  And what brought them here? she thought. Suppressing a shudder, she recalled the frozen figure on the bridge and the eyes that had chilled her very soul.

  “Do you think the Creel awakened the darkness here?” Anilya asked. “Or was it hathran magic that kept it hidden, existing beyond their notice, sleeping and ignorant, until the hathran were … removed?”

  “I fail to see how that matters now,” Thaena answered.

  “When this is over,” the durthan said, “when the Creel are gone, their mysterious leader dealt with, and your hathrans return to their precious outpost, perhaps then it shall matter to you more.”

  “As I recall, it was durthan magic that summoned those wraiths during the battle.”

  “And it was out of respect for your authority in this that I gained your permission before doing so,” Anilya said. There was no anger or defensiveness in her voice.

  Thaena looked away, shaking her head for falling into the durthan’s logic.

  “It was the right decision, Thaena,” Anilya said. “These Creel are fighting a war here that we don’t understand, making sacrifices more like fanatics than mere raiders. We must match them if we are to succeed.”

  “And what then?” Thaena said, though she feared the answer, a justification that might ease her troubled mind. The durthan returned to her window view, her secret thoughts, and the swirling snow. Thaena looked upon her enemy and ally with new eyes. It wasn’t just philosophical opposition that separated them, but the knowledge that, deep down—in the darkest wisdom of the oldest othlor—the durthan could be right. “We could fall as well.”

  “Before I answer that, think about the path that lies ahead of us and the blood that still must be shed,” Anilya said. “Then ask yourself if you really want to know.”

  “Ethran!” Syrolf’s voice echoed in the chamber, startling Thaena from contemplating how to answer the question. “We are ready.”

  She ascended the stairs, returning to the place where she had watched a woman die and seen eyes of ice in a face far colder than winter.

  Berserkers and sellswords parted as Thaena and Anilya entered, making a path that revealed the dark abyss that now dominated the chamber. Wind and snow entered through the open door at the opposite end of the pit, flakes tumbling down and down into darkness. Duras and one other stood near there, already across and double-checking the ropes placed along the curve of western wall. The room seemed far larger now than before.

  Syrolf reached for the rope to begin his climb, but Thaena stepped forward and laid a hand on his shoulder.

  “No,” she said. “I shall go.”

  The warrior nodded reluctantly and let her pass. The ledge was as narrow as Duras had said, merely bits of the stone floor clinging to old supports. She gripped the ropes tightly and began to climb across. There were spells that might
have made the process easier or quicker, but she knew the fang needed to see their ethran’s strength, her resolve. A simple climb for such rugged warriors might be a little thing—there were far more treacherous stretches of terrain in Rashemen—but a leader must lead.

  Holes pocked the walls, most filled with ice and bits of stone from the blast that had taken the floor. Thaena focused on her hands and her feet, ignoring the long drop that yawned beneath her. At two-thirds of the way she paused, hearing something echo from below. A growl reached her ears, a tiny far away sound. She moved more quickly, looking toward Duras who reached out his hand, ready to grab her.

  The growl grew louder, and the walls began to shake.

  “Thaena!”

  She heard the voice of Duras as if in a dream. She moved her hands along the rope, finding another foothold, then glanced down, beyond her boots. She reached farther, closer to Duras. Her foot, overextended, slipped on a loose stone and she fell.

  The ropes held, though they shook with the walls. The stone she had knocked free fell away into the blackness. The growl receded, growing softer and disappearing. The shaking calmed, but Thaena could not reach the remaining ledge. Her fingers barely held as she raised her leg higher. Her right hand slipped.

  The moment became an eternity as her weight shifted, her legs dangling. Her eyes looked downward, and she imagined she could see a tiny light down there waiting for her. Something caught her wrist. Her arm jerked straight and the plummet was over before it had begun. Duras had her.

  Pulling her up, Duras grabbed her with both arms and rolled away from the pit. She breathed deeply in his embrace before meeting his eyes, seeing him once again from the other side of death’s door. They stood slowly, her arms and legs shaking, but sure and strong as she faced the others. The ropes had held to their iron posts, and the worst seemed to be over.

  She crossed her arms and dipped her head with true Rashemi pride.

  “Who’s next?” she asked, the challenge in her voice bringing a smile to the face of Syrolf as he took the ropes and found a foothold.

  Flakes of snow drifted into Bastun’s light, settling on his robes and slowly melting. The scent of fresh air was both refreshing and alarming. Peering through the crevice just above him, he wondered just how much of the Shield had come crashing down.

  Satisfied that the rubble was done with its settling he reached up for the edge of the fallen door and pulled himself toward escape. The others no doubt believed him either far from Shandaular or working against them. The durthan would be awaiting the return of her assassin, and with him the Breath.

  Gritting his teeth, he pulled and pushed himself higher. Stone scraped his sides and tore at his robes as he climbed. Keeping the light of his staff ahead of him, he found himself thoroughly buried. Still, flakes of snow managed their way to him, swirling and falling on a distant breeze. Searching the roof of broken and shattered rock, he found what he hoped for. Through a small hole above he could just barely make out a faint gray light.

  Trapped in a space far too narrow for his body, he wedged an arm back and fumbled at his pouches. Feeling a cylinder of cold metal he pulled it free and held it up before the light, reading the markings along the side of a silver vial.

  “Silver is impractical,” his fellow apprentices had said. He uncorked the vial, recalling their jibes.

  “Well, it doesn’t shatter easily,” Bastun had replied.

  Pulling his mask up, he tipped the vial to his lips and drank the bitter-tasting liquid within. The magic of the potion coursed through his body, pulsing and rippling through his limbs. His robes and equipment became as light as air, changing along with his body into an amorphous plume of living smoke. Transformations such as this were usually uncomfortable, but the lack of stone jutting into his back and legs was invigorating.

  Swimming on the air he slipped through the ruin, flowing through the hole and several others beyond. He was drawn toward the light and soon found himself floating above the massive pile of rubble. The distance upward was quite far. He must have been below the Shield’s central tower.

  Broken stairways and dangling doors hung from the walls. Large chunks of ice remained frozen to the stone, collecting the snow that fell from above. Voices echoed from somewhere, but he couldn’t make them out, the magic of his mask lost in his current state. The potion would not last long enough for him to reach the top. He would have to wait for the effects to wear off.

  Somewhere within his shapeless body was the ancient blade, the Breath, now free of its secret grave. The magnitude of such a well-concealed legend on his person was astounding, and he couldn’t help but think of the Firedawn Cycle and the lyrics he’d heard once for every year of his life.

  … to steal the Breath, to seal the Death

  Of the Shield and speak the Word.

  Of the Shield and speak the Word.

  Once again the Breath was to be stolen from the Shield and, he imagined, by those who did not understand what they were stealing. Even he did not fully understand the relationship between the Breath and the Word—their strange merging of Nar and Ilythiiri magic—only the destruction that the two were capable of. As he considered, shadows gathered at the edges of the rubble, coalescing hands and bright eyes as the child-ghosts observed his spiritlike form. Their clinking chains and faint whispers echoed around him, but they did not attack.

  Seven children in chains, he thought curiously.

  The Cycle came to mind again, and the ancient lyrics revealed another of the Shield’s dark secrets. Pity flooded his being, seeming to carry a palpable weight as the potion wore off. His hands felt the stone beneath him, his knees pressed under the growing weight of his returning body. The Breath pulled at his belt as the song tumbled through his thoughts.

  They came at dawn to break the wall, by Seven were they led.

  To frozen walls and to weary core, Seven cross’d the plain,

  To gates of Shandaular, of fallen kingdom, Seven came.

  Shattered souls, bound in chains, by Nentyarch’s crown, the Seven came.

  “Children,” he croaked as his throat reformed. He coughed, acclimating his lungs to breathing again. “He sent children to start his war.”

  The whispers grew louder and more frenzied as the shadowy spirits shifted in and out of the walls. Standing and turning in a circle, he reached for the Breath, wary of the ghosts. He recalled their fear of the weapon below when he was fighting Ohriman, and though he pitied their fates, he would protect himself against their madness if need be.

  Coming back around he froze, finding the smallest standing just a few strides away. She appeared as before, pale and dark haired. Her bright eyes regarded Bastun with curiosity and also the same odd familiarity he could not fathom. She reached up and he flinched, her movements quick and hard to follow. Touching her continually flowing hair, she brushed away several errant strands and traced her face.

  Reaching up to his own face, he traced the edges of the mask in wonder.

  The mask, he thought. They must have known the vremyonni caretaker! How could he have kept this secret? Lived here among them?

  Even as the question occurred to him he suspected the source of that secret and sighed in understanding: the wychlaren. They would have guarded the knowledge of anyone succeeding where they had failed.

  He kneeled down to her eye level. She shied away from the movement, fading for an instant, but did not leave. She averted her eyes from him, hiding her face behind an ivory hand. The others kept their distance, still agitated and confused by the strange meeting between the living and the dead.

  “You were sent here to die,” he whispered.

  She looked back at him, tilting her head as her eyes widened and her lip trembled. There were no more tears in her—they were left behind with her physical form—but he could see the streaks of those she had cried in life. Pleased with gaining her attention he tried to keep it, to discover why she had come to him.

  “You said something before, about the
cold prince,” he said.

  A shudder passed through her and the others rumbled. Their chains clinked and clattered against the walls. Shivering and paler than before, she nodded just enough for him to notice. Her eyes drifted to the Breath at his side, his hand upon the hilt.

  The prince, he wondered, from the Cycle?

  History lessons turned through his thoughts. Late night conversations with Keffrass came to mind, along with old scrolls and bits of forgotten lore. Narrowing his eyes, he recalled the Creel. The tribe, though often perceived as mere savages, were obsessed with ancient legacies and boasted of powerful bloodlines. The idea was there, on the tip of his tongue, before the realization struck him. When he found it, the name was linked as closely to the history of the Shield and as far away from the present as the ghost that stood before him.

  “Serevan Crell,” he whispered.

  Mere mention of the name had an instantaneous effect. The girl disappeared. The others’ forms grew and trembled, a thundering growl emanating from the shreds of shadow they had become. The walls shook, and he thought he could hear a scream echoing amid the sound of tumbling stone and rubble. Standing on the largest piece of intact floor he could find, he held his arms out for balance and turned in circles again. He prepared for an attack.

  Gradually, the shaking stopped, the growls faded, and though the spirits still hovered at the walls Bastun breathed a sigh of relief. Cautiously he knelt, taking stock of the situation. Staring up to the distant light near the top of the tower, he knew he would have to find Thaena and the others. Anilya would lead them to the Word, likely using them as fodder against the Creel.

  For several moments, he contemplated the alternative—taking the Breath as far away from the Shield as possible and abandoning his old friends to their betrayer and the Creel. The long years away were apparent in that he didn’t immediately reject the idea. Without the Breath, Anilya couldn’t use the Word. Wasn’t that what mattered?

  Still … having an idea and acting upon it were very different notions. He couldn’t abandon the Rashemi.