The Shield of Weeping Ghosts

by James P. Davis

  Eyes wide behind her mask, the durthan stared, a slender, pale wand still glowing in her hand.

  Bastun raised his axe and started toward her, turning the curse on his lips into eager words of magic. The sounds of battle echoed behind him, and he only just heard the sound of approaching footfalls crashing ever closer. Reluctantly turning, he swung as the hound bore down on him. The force of the blow cracked against the beast’s lower jaw, sending Bastun falling to the right.

  He rolled out of the way as more bolts of burning light charred the hound’s back, distracting the descending jaws. Pulling himself up a drift of bodies, Bastun found the durthan gone, catching a fleeting glimpse of her figure as she ran for the western exit. Wavering, he looked between the escaping Anilya and the battle below.

  Cursing, he noted with alarm the long-dead body captured in the beast’s fangs. Throwing its head back it devoured the corpse, healing more of its wounds even as they were made. The battleground all around became more than just an unworthy graveyard—a feast of hundreds filled the inner wall.

  “Now, damn all the luck, is my chance,” he whispered, taking heart in Thaena’s continued casting, Duras’s war song, and the cries of pain as the beast was injured. He made after the durthan, eager to return the favor of her betrayal.

  Several Rashemi surrounded the open door. Neither Anilya nor her sellswords were anywhere to be seen. The Ice Wolves seemed eager for battle and the sight of him would do little to calm this instinct. He had no time to stop and explain himself. He whispered a quick spell just before entering the light of their torches. His form shifted and rippled, becoming translucent and shadowlike. Staying on the move, he barely made a sound as he slid by them, little more than a disturbance on the air.

  The stairwell to the top of the tower was intact, and he swiftly followed the footsteps he could hear above. Not quite shadow and not quite solid, he was able to see the thick darkness gathering in pools below him. Quiet sobs and whispered insanities rose as shadowy tendrils grasped at the bottom step. Ignoring the child spirits, he gained on the durthan and climbed the last few steps just behind her sellsword guards, who could not see or hear him.

  Eyeing the walls and heavy doors, Anilya strode into the room ahead of him. Shouts and curses echoed from the bottom of the tower. Her men turned to look over the railing just as she spun around, seeming to notice his odd shimmer in the air. The haft of his axe slammed into her raised arm as she attempted to defend herself. His blade whistled past her mask and she fell backward, landing on her hands. As he raised the axe to swing again, the durthan pointed a ringed finger and hissed an arcane syllable. The blade disappeared from the staff and would move no closer to her no matter how he strained to bring it to bear.

  He spun away, dodging the hurled dagger of an attentive sellsword.

  “You want the Breath?” he said through gritted teeth. “Then by all means—”

  He reached for the sword, his hand wrapping around the hilt, fully intending to end Anilya’s twisted quest in a flash of steel. Contact with the blade stopped him cold, a sensation of wracking despair crushing his anger in a vice of hopelessness. He fell to one knee as the foreign mind haunting the blade flooded his being.

  Anilya gestured swiftly, halting the blades of her men.

  Bastun struggled to assert himself, fearful of becoming lost again amidst misty spirits of the past. The durthan stood, studying him as he tried to rise. His eye caught the broken form of an old mirror leaning against the wall, and he looked in wonder upon the same stranger he’d witnessed before.

  The bearded older man in blue robes knelt much as he did. The man tightly clutched a wavy-bladed long sword that could be none other than the Breath, which Bastun fought to release from his own hand. On the spirit’s sleeve, he saw the shape of a shield surrounding a stylized archway, and he gaped in shock.

  “You are a fool, Bastun,” the durthan spoke in a hushed tone. “The door that blade opens could defend Rashemen better than a thousand wychlaren outposts!”

  Who are you? The spirit reflection mouthed the words, and Bastun felt sorrow give way to more manageable emotions. He let go of the Breath, his hand numb, and the stranger’s image faded. The implications of all he had witnessed were beginning to solidify toward a conclusion that he could not deny. In a daze, he faced Anilya.

  “You care nothing for Rashemen, Anilya,” he said, staggered somewhat by the vision. “Your passion lacks sincerity.”

  “So says the exile,” she replied, then added more softly as she drew closer to him. “Why didn’t you run? You could have taken the Breath and disappeared, but you didn’t.”

  “I wouldn’t abandon my friends,” he said. “Thaena needs—”

  “She doesn’t love you,” Anilya said, “and Duras doesn’t understand you any more than Syrolf or the others.”

  “And you understand me?” He caught his breath and drew his robe over the wavy blade, backing away cautiously. Distantly, he noticed the sounds of battle far below them were fading.

  “More than them,” she answered. “What if you died here? The Breath unburied, left with your corpse to be easily found. You know—though you may not say so out loud—you know this power could be used for Rashemen.”

  “No.” He blinked, the rhythm of her voice strange and compelling. “This isn’t a power that can be commanded.”

  “Not yet.” She came nearer. “There are no assurances save that the Word, with proper study and understanding, will be needed. Even now, Thay, our worst enemy, grows more aggressive, desires our land’s power and our people as slaves.”

  “Are the durthan any different?”

  “My sisters seek power for the sake of Rashemen, not conquest.” She stared deep into his eyes, and he found it difficult to pull away, weakened by her voice, though inwardly he found a minute spark of agreement. “Imagine the fall of Thay and cowing the raiders of Narfell.

  “And wars with Aglarond?” he asked. “Attacking the druids of the Great Dale, perhaps? Where does it end?”

  Shouts sounded from below, and voices echoed from within the tower. He wondered if the children were there, lying in wait for his countrymen, to send them up the stairs in bloodlust to find him.

  “When Rashemen is safe,” she said sternly, her voice growing softer as she approached. “When our people are no longer slaves. We don’t have to be alone in this, you and I.”

  He drew back. Though she had already tried to kill him once, he feared his attraction to her—and seemingly hers to him—more than her magic. The kindred spirit he had sensed in her since arriving at the Shield was strong and called to him. This frightened him beyond measure, for if he could find common ground with such a woman, what might that say about himself?

  “No,” he said, searching her eyes for some hint of reasoning that might hear him beyond her quest for the Word’s power. “None of us are alone in this place. You were right before, about the Shield being a ghost. Its walls and towers are just bones left to dry, but the spirit remains, just like those lost in the city streets.”

  “You think the Shield is alive?” she said, drawing nearer still. He tensed but did not move away.

  The booted charge of the Rashemi grew closer as they climbed the stairs, and he knew he would lose this chance at stopping Anilya.

  “Its past is alive. The day Shandaular was destroyed lives on,” he spoke slowly, still working things out, giving voice to his concerns. He was dimly aware that whatever charm she’d been casting was gone, and he feared the fact that it was no longer necessary. Her fingertips brushed his shoulders, and he met her gaze cautiously, grateful for the masks that prevented desire from overcoming sense. “And as we become more aware of that past …”

  “Bastun,” she said quietly.

  “… it becomes more aware of us,” he said, determined to finish the thought that had plagued him. “We’re becoming a part of that day.”

  “I cannot concern myself with the past,” she said, sounding almost regretful.
<
br />   “I believe we’ll destroy one another,” he added, still hoping to reach her, but more than aware of the staff at his side and the blade he might summon.

  A silence fell between them. The moment trembled on an edge between intimacy and enmity. The Rashemi were at the last landing outside the room, nearing the door. He sensed the first mote of imperfection mar the space between he and the durthan. She blinked, slowly, the motion drawn out as he awaited some reaction to the fate that he suspected might await them.

  “So be it,” she said, the words hammered into his chest even as he reluctantly raised the old staff. Anilya shoved herself away from him, falling to the floor on her hands. The axe blade screamed into being, flashing brightly. The door burst open and he paused.

  The Ice Wolves charged inside, shoving the sellswords out of their path. Thaena strode in with forearms crossed and Duras close behind. Syrolf limped in with blade drawn, as they all stared at the scene before them.

  Anilya lay on the floor with an arm upraised against Bastun’s axe. He fell back a step, shaking his head in anger at himself for failing to anticipate her ruse. Thaena’s eyes flashed, and a cruel scowl grew on Syrolf’s face. The vremyonni’s mind raced to come up with some explanation as he backed away from the durthan.

  A faint sound drew his attention to the northwest doors. A slow cadence, like the heartbeat of a sleeping bear, stirred a primal sense of bloodlust in his veins. Not a word was spoken as the steady rhythm of beating drums shook the air.

  Lament the day that Narfell won, and woe to those were there,

  When black wings rose among the char of fallen Shandaular;

  When Seven sang a mournful dirge within the hollow Shield,

  Where restless dead lie still, waiting, to rise and serve again.

  The Nentyarch’s son, by sword and curse, to tower tall he strides,

  At morning light, for Breath and Word, still there his fury came;

  Though cold he found among the fire, he mourned forgotten Flame.

  Within the walls, inside the halls; to speak the Word that no one heard,

  Of the Shield and break its silence.

  Of the Shield and break its silence.

  —excerpt from the Firedawn Cycle, canto XII

  chapter nineteen

  The walls and floors vibrated with the sound of Creel war drums.

  Thaena strode into the room as Bastun and Anilya separated before her. The durthan pulled herself to her feet defensively, her eyes never leaving the vremyonni. Bastun lowered his axe.

  The ethran stood between them, looking from one to the other as the Ice Wolves filed into the room, the drums affecting them much as they had Bastun—hands on weapons, eyes narrowing, and breathing becoming short and controlled. He imagined the Creel would be in for a shock if they expected their drums to inspire fear.

  Thaena’s gaze rested upon Bastun as she called out orders to the fang.

  “Syrolf, get those doors secured,” she said.

  The runescarred warrior led several men to inspect the heavy iron doors, which appeared to have opened sometime in the recent past despite the ice and rust which should have sealed them tight. Duras approached, followed by more of the fang, and Bastun backed away from them, a familiar ache growing in his head.

  Thaena gestured and continued, “Restrain the vremyonni and stick close to the durthan until we know what we’re dealing with.”

  Bastun’s hand was nowhere near the Breath, yet spirits appeared behind the nearing Rashemi. Only faint outlines and bright eyes, they looked down upon him like judges as they walked through and around his countrymen. The pain increased, and a cold sweat broke out on his brow. The Breath pulsed like a living thing at his side, growing heavier. He fell to one knee, staring at the floor as the dust appeared to shift and move beneath his feet. Tiny at first, shadows bled through the stone and welled around his boots.

  The sorrowful thoughts of the invading mind pushed against his will. Voices whispered throughout the chamber, and Duras stopped, the fang turning their eyes to the ceiling and floors as a thin umbral veil darkened the tower. Curses echoed between the sound of the drums and whispers. Bastun’s staff clattered to the floor, rolling away as he clutched the sides of his head, fighting the urge to escape, to wield the Breath and face the enemies separating him from the Word.

  Rough hands gripped his shoulders and slammed him against the wall. The sound of the drums shook the stone, and he could not separate the cadence from his own heartbeat. The foreign mind, that face in the mirror, leaked its sorrow, anger, and indignation into his thoughts.

  “Why?” he whispered through clenched teeth, not sure if the question was his own. The distant banging of swords on shields reverberated in his mind, joining the drums as the past again imitated the present. He spoke to that spirit in the blade. “Why did you do this?”

  “What are you doing, Bastun?” Thaena asked as she stared at the creeping shadows and watched as her men slowly devolved into a barely held rage. Rounding on him she grabbed his robes and pulled him close. Dreamlike, he imagined he could see the children’s dark madness swimming in her eyes as she shouted at him, “What have you done?”

  He heard her voice, but the answer that came streaming forth was not his own. The words he spoke had no meaning to him, the language strange and familiar all at once. He babbled forth anger and tears, a wellspring of loss that he could not control. The children wept with him, the whispers broken by quiet choking sobs. Trapped within memories that did not belong to him, he struggled to decipher bits of the language that escaped him.

  “Something’s wrong with him, Thaena!” Duras yelled over the cacophony of noise. “He is not doing this!”

  She released Bastun’s robes, her hands shaking as she reached for a small dagger at her belt, her eyes darting toward Duras. Thin tendrils of shadow laced her wrists as she wrapped her fingers around the dagger’s handle.

  Bastun’s words came slower, slurred and broken as he fought to regain dominance over the possession. He did not fully comprehend the language he had spoken or the emotion it evoked, but the Breath, closer and closer to the Word, was becoming stronger, its former wielder more dominant. He sensed names and betrayal among the thoughts that raced through him, and he feared he might not be able to resist another invasion.

  Cold hands pressed against his back, tiny fingers reaching through the wall. Though his mind was once again alone in his head, the children flooded his emotions with their own, and he felt an echo of their madness welling within him. Behind the ethran, men who were locked in their own struggle against the spirits’ influence bashed fists into the floor and walls. Punches were thrown. Warriors fell and cried out. No weapons were drawn as yet, but there didn’t seem to be a need.

  Bastun stared as Thaena drew her small blade. He struggled against the Rashemi guards holding him. Her eyes rested upon Duras, dagger flashing in her hand, swaying in the thrall of an anger that was not her own.

  “I loved you,” Bastun said through clenched teeth, catching her gaze, then added, “Once. I believed every day that it was true.”

  She didn’t truly hear him, he knew, and he felt the sickening courage of that fact, but kept on, keeping her attention, keeping her from raising the dagger against Duras.

  “I imagined you were as alone as I was, told myself that we might find each other again,” he continued, every muscle in his body strained. The Rashemi guards dug bruises into his arms, their breaths ragged, eyes bloodshot. The children wept and screamed in his ears, their hands scraping down his spine. “I trusted in dreams, and I lied my way through being without you.”

  “You lied?” she asked, blinking and trying to focus on him. Trembling, blade in hand, she glanced over her shoulder at Duras.

  “I lied … and I’m still lying,” he spoke over drums and howling shadows, searching for some spark of recognition. “Because you can’t really hear what I’m saying, and that’s the only reason I’m saying it at all—because deep down I love the
lie more than you.”

  “What? I—” Thaena shook her head and stepped back.

  Pain spread across his face and the room blurred. Suddenly falling, he slipped from the grip of the Rashemi guards. The floor rushed toward him, and he caught himself on his hands, his mask spinning on the ground. Warmth flowed along his cheek and jaw as the chamber came back into focus. Turning, he saw Syrolf standing over him.

  He shielded his face instinctively, warding off not only another blow from the wild-eyed warrior, but his appearance from the others. Duras tackled Syrolf against the wall and held him as Bastun reached for the mask. In a daze he turned it over in his hands. Steel clanged against stone, and Thaena backed away from her dropped dagger. She looked at him and paused, as if seeing him for the first time. The moment passed quickly as she turned to the fang, helping to pull those fighting apart and organize the others.

  Considering the mask for a moment, he dismissed the urge to put it back on. Lowering his arm, he faced Syrolf and stood. Retrieving his staff, he felt a wetness dripping down his neck and touched it gingerly. Blood stained his fingertips and trickled down his cheek where the warrior had struck him.

  Ignoring the runescarred warrior’s struggles against Duras, Bastun turned his attention instead to the shadowy spirits of the children. Spells turned through his mind as he sought another way to banish the children without wielding the Breath again. They feared the sword, but his fear of it had grown as well, afraid of becoming trapped in a past that sought to consume him.

  The drums grew louder with each passing moment, thundering in his ears, though the cries and groans of the children lessened. Their shadows faltered, drawing away from the walls and floors, as if driven away by something else. Syrolf’s spitting and cursing ceased, and a look of confusion crossed his face. The pounding drums reached a deep climax and then stopped.