The Shield of Weeping Ghosts

by James P. Davis

  The low growls and whispers around him became tiny whimpers and fearful noises. The shadows shrank, sinking to the edge of the ruined tower’s many floors. Looking around in confusion, Bastun rose cautiously back to his feet.

  A cracking sound echoed from above, followed by a crash as shards of ice shattered on the stone. A mewling wail drew his attention to a block of ice on the wall. Something squirmed inside of it—a dark mass of long limbs writhing in an icy prison until a pair of glowing green eyes turned toward him from within. Raising his staff, Bastun flinched as more ice fell from behind him.

  Claws scraped against ice, and leathery wings unfurled.

  Taking a deep breath, he called upon his axe.

  chapter fourteen

  1374 DR, Year of Lightning Storms

  The Running Rocks

  Enjoying the quiet and the smell of old books, Bastun stood alone in the center of his small room. Fresh snow melted on his boots and dripped from the hem of his robes. No one had seen him leave. No guards came to witness his return. Two days alone, beyond sight of his fellow wizards and the laws that bound him to remain hidden from the world. Free, more than he’d been in nearly two decades, and he had returned to the Running Rocks.

  He was vremyonni, currently the youngest of the Old Ones, and no other place in Rashemen would have him. This was his place. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and lashed out. His knuckles met the stone wall. The familiar sting lanced through his wrist, and his fury subsided for a moment or two, blood welling into old cuts and scratches.

  “Welcome back.”

  Keffrass’s voice did not startle him. His master was as much a part of the Rocks as the whistling drafts in the upper caverns or the pages rustling in the library.

  “Did you find what you were looking for?”

  “No,” Bastun answered, then recalled the brief escape. A return to his village under cover of night and magic had shown him more than he’d been willing to admit for many years—that he would have left anyway, in time. “And … yes.”

  “A good answer,” Keffrass said and entered the room, sitting and lighting a candle with a wave of his hand. “There is wisdom in looking back at every regret, every misstep, and realizing the value of tragedy.”

  “I do not think I am quite that wise just yet,” Bastun said and leaned against the wall.

  “There is wisdom in that as well,” Keffrass replied, his ancient eyes sparkling, though his humor faded. “That mask … it does more than just cover your face.”

  “Yes,” he said quietly, closing his eyes and feeling the second visage. “Though I fear it, what it may become, what it will allow me to do.”

  They sat in silence, no longer master and student, but colleagues and friends in the same order. Bastun flexed bleeding knuckles beneath his sleeve, the fury he had cultivated within himself always a heartbeat away, a weapon as much a part of him as any spell. Keffrass’s teaching had forged that weapon, shaped it from raw emotion and skill, but Bastun had to live with it.

  “You’re going back, aren’t you?” Bastun said, knowing the answer, but needing to hear it all the same. “To Shandaular, to the Word.”

  “Perhaps, though only the othlor can say for sure.” Keffrass stared into the candle. “There is something out there for us all, waiting in the dark for us to discover—and fear.” He turned to Bastun, his eyes gleaming in the candlelight, full of meaning and wisdom. “We must face it alone, that abyss, in whatever form it takes—beast, guilt, magic … or the past.

  “Deny it and it will devour you. Make you forever a part of it.” He stood and made his way to the door. “Face it, accept it, and it will become a part of you, inseparable.”

  “What’s the difference?” Bastun asked.

  The old man paused, raising an eyebrow and looking sidelong at his former student. “Your choice.”

  Nightal 2, 1376 DR, Year of the Bent Blade

  Wings, teeth, and a thrashing barbed tail descended in the wake of burning green eyes.

  Bastun snapped his fingers, summoning a burst of light into the thing’s face. It shrieked, faltering in its dive, but fell just within reach. He buried the flashing axe blade in hairless gray skin, bringing the struggling beast down to flop and bleed on the rubble.

  He had but a moment to study the body before more creatures attacked, but it was enough: nearly the height of a man, emaciated and light bodied, with wings in place of arms.

  “Varrangoin,” he murmured. He cast another spell, a brief emerald glow surrounding him as the fiend’s skin cracked and popped, spraying acidic blood in all directions. Though it hissed and burned on the stone, the blood splashed him harmlessly.

  The sound of fluttering wings filled the air, their echoes bouncing off one another in a frenzy. Beyond them lay the only escape—a gray light casting the unnatural flock of varrangoin in silhouette. Bastun’s thumb found the worn scar in the staff. Closing his eyes, he felt the weight of his mask, heard the memory of his master’s voice, and made a choice.

  Exhaling a long breath, control and reason slid away, freeing his mind and sharpening his instincts. Opening his eyes, he was no longer vremyonni, no longer truly himself. He was merely the mask, the axe, the magic, and the crystal clear rage of the Rashemi.

  Thrusting his arm at the center of the descending swarm, a bead of light flew from his fingertip. It disappeared among them. He ran across the broken stone, leading them in a circle. Arcane words poured from him, a harsh poetry of magic that blurred his form as he charged into the living mass. Crashing around him, the varrangoin swirled as an explosion rocked the tower, a ball of flame erupting within the flock. The ground shook, debris fell from the walls, and Bastun found himself in the chaos.

  Broken bodies and burning blood rained down as he dived into the nearest of the varrangoin. Caustic fumes burned his nose as stone melted. The survivors rallied quickly, and still more broke free of icy prisons above.

  Claws raked his arms and scraped at his mask and leather armor, but they brought the varrangoin too close. His blade slipped through their forms, hissing with the blood of one even as it slew another. Stingers struck stone where he’d been standing, claws found only air as he sidestepped. The rage consumed him, filled his body with strength and his spirit with bloodlust. He reveled in the freedom—in the rhythm between steel and magic. He shouted in their fang-filled faces, laughed as they spit streams of acid from glowing maws. His laughter became a chant and the chant became thunder.

  Lightning blasted outward, leaving the twitching fiends to fall and flounder.

  As the blue-white glow faded, others escaped, clinging to walls, their green eyes full of hunger and violence. Turning slowly, whispering spells through a grim smile, he watched them regroup, shrieking at one another in a fiendish tongue. They leaped from the walls from all directions. Waves of tingling energy washed over him as his stomach lurched and gravity changed direction.

  He plummeted upward, the fiends screeching as they funneled into a flapping spiral in his wake. From a pouch, he pulled a fistful of pebbles, shaking them like bone-dice as he chanted and scattered them like seeds. The tiny rocks grew into boulder-sized chunks of rock and plunged through the tornado of leathery wings.

  Emerald light filled the darkness beneath him as the fiends scattered, smashed by the falling rocks and crushed against the ruin below. Their shrieks reached beyond the stone-cold demeanor of the mask to the calm that dominated the center of his being. He stopped his freefall, drifting toward the wall and rolling on the stone before finding balance again.

  Standing, his senses swam with a momentary vertigo. The tower appeared as a long tunnel, pale light behind and crawling darkness ahead. Shaking his head, he waited as the survivors, those still able to fly, rose from the chaos to find him. He couldn’t let them escape—a small flock of varrangoin could become hundreds within months, thousands in a year.

  Less than a dozen remained, slow in their ascent and splitting into groups. Directing each other in their
odd croaking language, it seemed they were regaining their wits after such a long hibernation in the ice. Letting go, gravity turning in his gut like a giant’s fist, he fell to the far wall. Two varrangoin fell to his axe, a third scoring his mask as it spun out of the way. He led the others back down, leaping from wall to wall, before changing direction and ripping through two more as he ascended.

  They floundered behind him, diving beyond reach of his axe, though the unnerving sound of beating wings grew uncomfortably close. A sudden impact nearly took his breath, and he tumbled with the fiend, freefalling toward the top of the tower. The varrangoin’s stinking breath burned his nose as he fought to breathe. It raked his shoulders, teeth snapping just over the handle of his axe. He growled as he fought to keep the fangs at bay, shifting the fall and pushing it toward the stone.

  Just before hitting, his defense slipped and he felt the hot piercing sting of the fiend’s barbed tail bite into his side. There was no time to cry out as they slammed into the stone. He managed to swing his axe as reality twisted and rolled around him. He heard the varrangoin scream and saw it falling away, one slashed wing twitching as it disappeared into darkness. He quickly rose to one knee and winced at the blinding pain in his side. Looking over his shoulder, the top of the tower lay far closer than he’d expected after the last fall.

  Rising to his feet, aching joints screamed in pain as the beast’s poison took hold. Spasms wracked his muscles and he struggled to hang on, to ignore the pain long enough for one more effort. Screeching in excitement, the rest of the flock drew closer, their chase almost at an end.

  Breathing raggedly, he fumbled in his robes for a small clump of rose petals. He forced out the words of the spell, intoning them carefully and timing the syllables to the nearness of the varrangoin.

  Just as their eyes dimmed in the light of his axe, their needle-sharp fangs glistening and long tails twitching, he tossed the petals in the air before them. The air shimmered and grew thick, slowing the creatures. They sniffed and blinked, wings beating at the air sporadically, faltering as they shook their heads, making sneezing noises. Drifting back, one by one, their glowing eyes fluttered as an arcane slumber overcame them.

  Bastun wheezed as the rage left him. He lay shaking in a pain that grew by the heartbeat. He crawled, barely hearing the faint sound of bodies smashing against the rocks below. The gravity spell kept him from joining the fiends, but it would not last indefinitely.

  Reaching one hand over the edge, he pulled himself up, raising one leg onto the floor just as his other fell straight with the normal pull of gravity. His stomach turned, and he squeezed his eyes shut. Flexing his fingers, forcing them to work, he removed his mask. Rolling slowly onto his side, he began pulling pouches from his belt. He made a pile, studying the contents of each pocket. Shivering with fever, he picked at the items, finding the things he needed, cursing and talking to himself.

  “Leave Rashemen? Live by my own rules? Find honor in my own battles? Excellent idea, Bastun.” He groaned, trembling as spasms churned his gut. Grasping a small flask of liquid, he set it aside and kept at his search. “Trade one isolation for another, leave pointing fingers and dishonor for undead soldiers, frozen corpses, tiefling assassins, and flocks of Abyss-spawned acid-spewing demon-bats.”

  With a handful of herbs he whispered a cantrip, then set them down carefully as they began to smoke and smolder. As the herbs charred and the smoke lessened, he collected and crushed the ashes. Pouring them into the flask, he closed it and shook the contents to mix them.

  “Well,” he said, teeth chattering, “here’s to adventure.”

  He tipped the flask to his lips and downed as much of the mixture as he could before coughing and spitting. The foul taste of the Rashemi firewine and the burnt herbs flooded his mouth and nostrils. He had come by the idea of using jhuild as a catalyst for simple potions quite by accident, finding some of the stuff left behind by fellow apprentices. Its nearly poisonous properties made it an interesting candidate for treating poisons found in nature and elsewhere. Unfortunately, when enchanted by the right herbs, it became the antidote equivalent of cauterizing a severed limb.

  Flashes of pain shot through his body, and he fought to contain his screams. Throat burning and blood boiling, he felt as if he were melting. Pain shuddered through his body. Bright spots danced on the inside of his eyelids. He fell onto his back, letting the potion take hold, breathing deep as fresh snow melted on his cheeks, joining the tears that streamed from his eyes.

  Time disappeared as exhaustion replaced pain. Though his mind was alert, he waited for feeling to return in his extremities. The rage-state left him tired, but the release and the comfort it gave him was exhilarating. Few others had trained as he had, studied the magic that he wielded—the magic that he sometimes feared wielded him. Vremyonni were expected to be quiet and studious, lead lives toward those endeavors, but Keffrass had led him to the place he needed—the anger that yearned for battle.

  Where is your breath?

  No time, Bastun thought and tried to sit up.

  Blinking in the pale light, he breathed evenly and took in his surroundings.

  An open door lay at the other end of the room, allowing the weather to drift inside and down into the pit he’d just escaped. Snow was piling there, and he could make out fresh footprints that had not yet filled in. Behind him was a short hallway. Torchlight flickered beyond. Wincing, he sat up and gathered his things, replacing his spell components and items in his pouches and pockets before rising to his feet.

  He donned his mask again. This he did with much thought and a brief pause, staring at it, through it, then letting it cover his face. It was the symbol of an allegiance he no longer carried, but by necessity and the magic it held, he would bear it a little longer.

  He explored the hallway and the massive chamber beyond. Bones covered the floor, broken and suggestive of some sort of lost shape. Snow piled here as well. Falling through windows along the staircases, it laced all it touched with white. But for the wind, only his footsteps disturbed the silence in the room. It was a grand hall, high and likely once adorned with all manner of decoration and tapestries. This was the home and the study of King Arkaius and, Bastun imagined, the birthplace of the Breath and the Word.

  A faint sound disturbed his thoughts, drawing his attention to the high balcony. Cautiously he ascended the stairs, his legs aching with each step. The noise he heard seemed a slow, rasping breath—a dying breath, and one he’d have missed without the mask. Peering over the top step, he found the source of the breath and the eerie silence.

  Bodies covered the floor. Dressed in the furs and armor of the Creel, the fallen warriors lay unmarked, no sign of blood around them. Pale scars graced their arms and faces, the edges like streaks of frost-burn. Bows, arrows, and swords were strewn around. At their center was one in dark robes bearing a rune-covered dagger—a priest or wizard. The breathing came from a young woman lying against the balcony’s rail.

  She did not move or seem to notice Bastun’s approach. Like the others, he found no blood around her, but she was weak and appeared to be dying. Taking no chances, he kicked her sword away, the sound causing her eyes to flutter open. Kneeling down to eye level, Bastun made sure his axe was visible and doused its light with a whispered command.

  Her eyes widened and her hand slid along the floor, searching for her lost blade. He was surprised by her sudden liveliness, having underestimated her condition. She tried to push herself up, and he raised the axe and murmured a spell. Waving his hand, he shouted the last of the spell, summoning glowing bands of force that encircled her wrists and throat. Bound against the railing, she snarled and struggled, but her strength quickly failed.

  Getting comfortable, Bastun sat and laid the axe across his knees. Meeting her eyes, he spoke in Common.

  “We will have words, you and I,” he said. He briefly squeezed her throat with the spell. Wheezing breaths escaped her when he released the grip, but she smiled, baring her teet
h like a trapped animal.

  “A word will indeed be spoken, wizard,” she hissed. “And neither of us will speak again.”

  “What word is that?” He sensed a pride in her bearing that could work in his favor.

  “The last word,” she said with a smirk, “the word of the Prince and the old blood.”

  “This Prince, he brought you here?”

  She drew her lips into a thin line, frowning and looking away defiantly. She struggled against the spell again, causing Bastun to raise his axe and slam its shaft against the floor. Its light blazed in her eyes.

  “I have magic that can wring the truth from you if you like,” he said, “but it will not be pleasant.”

  She stared at him, considering her alternatives before answering. “No,” she said, slumping and shivering in obvious pain. “We came to him. Those of us who believed.”

  “Why? Why is he here?” Bastun kept his voice firm, but he was not quite prepared to believe that a two-thousand-year-old prince of Narfell had drawn anything to himself but rot and dust.

  “Our priests say that he searches for the Breath.” Her voice bespoke the passion and the fury she felt. “That he covets the Word, and that he will summon a cleansing flame, returning the long lost empire to our people … the bloodline … will rule again.”

  Madness, Bastun thought as the woman shuddered and tensed. Her head lolled to the side, and she mumbled. He stared in wonder, looked at the bodies around them, and shook his head in disbelief.

  “The Creel are as lost as we are,” he whispered. “There is no flame to summon in this place. They have no idea what they’re doing, what they’re dying for.”

  “We die for the promise,” she murmured, her eyes rolling. “The old Order … twilight … failed us. Their old man is dead. Prince Serevan rises with a promise … of power.”

  The moment the name was spoken Bastun grabbed his axe. Rising slowly, he watched the shadows around the woman deepen and grow thick. Tiny hands gripped her legs, little fingers digging into her flesh. The children screamed as she stirred, and her pitiful cries joined them. They roared and wrapped their chains around her, pulling themselves out of the stone and pushing themselves through her.