by Unknown
“Arcil’s right, of course—ghosts never appear unless they want something from you.”
“I am Lord Dolandryn,” he answered, “son of Telsek, grandson of Nylesos.” The ghost paused. “I see by your faces that you know them not.”
“We are not of this land,” Elyana replied.
“And you are not of my time. I have lost track of the centuries. How long has it been since I cursed this land, and my people, to everlasting death? Do you even track your years from the same point?” He turned away to gaze once more over the far-flung ruins.
“You did this?” Elyana could not keep the horror from her voice. She noted a few corpses still milling about at the foot of tower.
“The fault lies solely with me,” the ghost intoned mournfully, keeping his gaze without, “But this was not my intent.” He encompassed the whole of the valley with a sweep of his hand as he turned back to them. “I meant to preserve us.”
“How did this happen?” Arcil repeated.
“Surely, you have seen the beauty of my valley—its soil is fertile and forgiving. It was a blessed place. A desirable place. Folk fought for it many times over the centuries. In my time we repulsed invaders again and again, but our numbers became depleted. I lost my only brother, and every one of my first cousins.”
“We, too, have lost friend and loved ones,” Elyana said. “We understand your sorrow.”
“I thank you. I hope, then, that you might better understand my actions. My great uncle had many magical tomes locked away, and I threw myself into their study, thinking I might learn ways to better safeguard my people. I found one. It was my thought to use the remains of those who had attacked us as defense, but while the idea had merit, I could not long control those I called forth, nor command sufficient numbers to turn back invaders.”
“And this is the result?” Elyana asked.
“Not entirely. I learned of a tool that I could craft. With it under my power, I thought to control hundreds upon hundreds of the dead so that nothing could harm our valley ever again.”
The spirit’s voice took on a harder, almost maniacal edge to which Elyana paid careful heed.
“In the midst of my experiments came the raiders of the Veldur clan sweeping in on their horses. I used my tool before it was ready. It worked, you see—worked well. I felt my mind touch the empty vessels of the dead, and knew that I could command them. But they were not enough, and I called upon more, knowing as I did so that I stretched my power to the limits. I felt the Veldur falling before me. They were dying, and I was raising the fallen to fight against their fellows… and then everything passed from me.
I know now that I had pushed myself too far. When I was… aware, once more, I found myself as you see me now. The town was long abandoned, weeds growing up between the cobblestones. The living are fled. But the dead—the dead still rise, ready to do battle with all who enter the valley. Those living who fall are added to their number. I have seen…” His voice faltered. “I have seen my own people among the dead, folk that lived when I lived, and I think that they were destroyed when I lost control, but I do not know. I cannot know.”
“I am sorry,” Elyana told him, and she was, though it seemed trite to tell him so.
“Now I wish only for release,” the ghost continued. “For myself and for my land. But I cannot make it so. If I venture from the tower, I feel my mind fading, for the pull of the pendant I fashioned is too great. Yet I fear that if I return to it, it will consume me entirely, and perhaps extend the curse even farther.”
“Now we come to it,” Arcil said quietly, but Elyana ignored him. Sometimes his superior air was too much, even for her.
“Can you help me?” The ghost stepped forward, hands outstretched.
“How?” Elyana asked.
“It is the pendant that powers the sorcery. And I think it is the pendant that keeps me here. If it can be destroyed, then the dead will fall, forever. And I will finally be at peace.”
Elyana ignored Arcil’s knowing look and kept her eyes fixed on the ghost. “Where is the thing, and how can it be destroyed?”
The spirit turned from her and drifted over to the rim of the balcony, where it pointed back the way they had come.
“I can still sense it,” he said in his cold, lonely voice. “You, wizard, might be able to feel its power if you extended yourself. It must lie where my body lies. Only a magical weapon can destroy the pendant, for I shielded the thing against harm.”
Arcil glanced over to Elyana before speaking. “It does not seem… especially feasible, then, to seek the pendant now. Your dead will rip us limb from limb, and then we’d be keeping the valley safe with the rest of your… comrades.”
The ghost nodded. “I think I may be able to offer you some small protections along the way.
“You say that Arcil will be able to sense it,” Elyana said. “How?”
The ghost looked surprised. “In my day, any wizard would have such spells at his disposal. I have witnessed your friend’s magics—he should feel the pendant’s pull, though I suppose some might be more sensitive to it than others.”
Elyana looked to Arcil for confirmation.
“There was a strange, unwelcome attraction to a certain area we passed through the ruins,” he admitted. “But I was not inclined to investigate. To be honest, I was otherwise occupied.”
“An ‘unwelcome attraction,’” Elyana repeated. “And you say, Lord Dolandryn, that some might be more sensitive to its power than others. A necromancer, perhaps?”
“Almost certainly.”
Elyana frowned, and the moment she looked at Arcil she knew he was having the same thought. She saw his eyes narrow.
“We’re done for now,” Arcil said.
“We can’t let the Galtans have that thing,” Elyana said. “Do you know what they would do with its power?”
“How do you know their wizard is even alive?” Arcil asked.
“He’s a necromancer,” Elyana said. “And a powerful one. We saw his work. If we made it to safety, I’m sure he did. And if he finds the pendant, it’s only a matter of time before he figures out its use.”
Arcil sighed deeply. “Well-reasoned, unfortunately. I suppose we’ll have to find it before he does.”
“It seems we need each other, Prince,” Elyana agreed. “What assistance can you give?”
The ghost drifted back to them, considered them for just a moment, and began to speak.
Chapter Four: The Pendant
Prince Dolandryn explained that in life he’d known only a handful of spells, for he had bent his concentration upon necromantic studies to the exclusion of almost all other magics. Yet he had learned one or two useful tricks, and upon Elyana and Arcil he placed a dweomer that hid their pulse and gave them a semblance of… Elyana was not sure how to describe it, for she saw nothing different in Arcil’s appearance once the spell had been cast, but she certainly perceived it upon both of them when she looked down at her hands.
“You will no longer seem alive to the dead you encounter,” the spirit told them. “But you do not have long. You must move quickly.”
And so they did. They left Mirelle on the steps near the horses, neither of them offering suggestions as to what she should do if they failed in their mission. The girl would have no good options left her.
Elyana and Arcil hurried through the streets toward the city outskirts. Here they finally saw more of the moving dead, and sign that at least some of the Galtans lived, for scores of the animated corpses had gathered around a square redoubt that looked like a watchtower. Lights burned at its heights; figures in Galtan liberty caps were silhouetted in the vacant windows of the place. By that light Elyana recognized men in Galtan uniforms gathered in the ranks of dead about the tower and knew that many of those who’d tracked them to this place must already have fallen.
“How are we going to get through there?” Elyana asked.
“I don’t think we’ll have to do so,” Arcil told her, breathing a lit
tle heavily. He pointed out into the darkness. “As far as I can tell, the pendant is that way.”
“Lead on, then. How much longer do you think we have?”
“Probably not long enough,” he said, and was so startled by her abrupt laugh that his grin was rather charming. She slapped his back.
“Onward then, Arcil.”
They did not have much farther to go. Out there in the darkness they saw another light, near a copse of trees. A group of dead men ringed the light, and their shadows were etched upon the surface of the earth before they stretched into the surrounding darkness. From within this ring came the distinct chuk of shovels thrust into the soil, the grunt of men at work, and the sound of earth being cast from the tools. Elyana perceived then that inside the ring of corpses were a handful of Galtan soldiers, along with another figure that was quietly cursing them to quicken their efforts.
It looked as though Elyana and Arcil were not the only ones protected by some kind of shielding enchantment.
Elyana decided then that things could quickly be made much simpler with a few easy steps, and so she darted behind a bush and slipped her bow from her back. Arcil went with her, smiling as she bent the bow and slid the string into place around the nock.
“A well-placed arrow, eh?”
“Or three,” Elyana said. “It should save us a little trouble.”
“And if this doesn’t work?”
“I guess you’d better have your wand ready.”
It did not take long. Elyana had three of her finest arrows remaining; the rest had been scavenged from Galtans. She watched the diggers for only a few moments. They did not seem to have been at it for very long, for their dirt pile was but a low mound.
One of the men with the shovels bent down, lifted something, and brushed at it. The hooded figure stepped closer.
“The mask might actually improve the necromancer’s appearance.”
Until then he’d been partly obscured by the protective line of corpses and the diggers themselves. No longer. As the necromancer stared at what Elyana thought must be the pendant, she loosed her first arrow, then the second, in quick succession. As they soared through the night, she took a moment longer to aim a third.
The first one tore through the air, over the shoulder of one of the dead sentinels, then passed just beyond the head of the Galtan wizard, who looked up. The second one came within a handspan of his throat, but somehow dropped away just as it drew close. Elyana cursed—the Galtan necromancer must have some sort of protective barrier.
The third, though, took the fellow in his chest. He sank to one knee.
Arcil leveled his wand then, and at his shouted words a firewall appeared beside the Galtans, casting all of them in stark red light. The men with shovels screamed in anguish.
Elyana fitted more arrows and fired again and again even as the wall of fire raged.
Then the corpses were running toward them, eight in all. Five were the long-dead skeletal remnants of the valley, but three were Galtan soldiers. Their opponent was apparently an equal opportunity necromancer.
“Do you have anything else?” Elyana asked.
“A web,” Arcil told her.
“Perfect.”
The wizard set to work, and with a few whispered words a long strand of material glistened into existence between a bush and wall directly in the path of the charging corpses. They rushed right into the sticky strands, where they flailed helplessly. Elyana was already on the run, arrow in one hand, bow in the other. She and Arcil bypassed the writhing bodies, closing on the Galtan position. The necromancer was standing once more, and she fit the arrow to her bow as she ran.
And then there was something clasping her ankle and leg, and a rope of darkness had snared her wrist and waist. Black tentacles formed of shadow had shot up from the ground and wrapped her with implacable power, pinning arms to her sides, holding her legs in place. She turned her head and saw Arcil caught in the same fashion. The eerie, cold restraints were secure and inflexible.
The wall of fire had faded finally, but by the light of the lantern he bore, the necromancer could be seen as he walked to meet them. Two of his still-living guards paced at his side.
Upon closer inspection, the fellow did not seem especially intimidating. He wore a tanned, gray leather mask that concealed all of his face but his eyes, his mouth, and his chin. His hair was hidden by a hood that seemed tied to the mask itself.
The man was round and short, with large hands and stubby fingers, and though the high boots of a huntsman flashed from beneath his robe, his waddling stride made it clear they were an affectation rather than his customary dress. Probably he was a merchant of some kind when he was not serving his state as a Gray Gardener.
He stopped only a few feet before them. In one hand he held a tarnished pendant of silver and gold. The only sign of the arrow Elyana had skewered him with was a dark patch upon his jacket near his heart.
His two uniformed guardsman looked scorched, from their blackened faces to their singed coats and eyebrows. One of them had both his sword and his teeth bared.
“I would have been much more upset with you,” the necromancer said in a mild voice, “if you had not led me to this place with this treasure. Why, if you’re still alive when I decipher its workings, I may have to thank you.”
“You don’t need to decipher its workings,” Elyana said. “I can tell you what it does.”
The necromancer chuckled. “Really. And why would an elf know anything about it?”
“You hold the pendant fashioned by Lord Dolandryn to ward his valley from invaders.”
The necromancer’s mouth set firmly. This was apparently not the answer he’d expected. “How do you know?”
“Why do you think we came here?” she asked. “I could have lost you the moment we entered the forest.”
“You should just kill her, honored citizen,” the soldier with the sword suggested.
“Hush,” the wizard replied without looking at him. “Elf, I have ways to learn the truth from you.”
“There’s no need for any of that,” Elyana said. “If you free me, I will promise to tell you how the pendant’s magic works.”
The Galtan laughed, a merry sound such as friends share at a good jest. No one joined him. “You wish me to free you both?”
“Just me.”
“Elyana!” Arcil said.
“Now what would the state say if I were to show favoritism to a criminal? Justice must be blind, elf.”
“Think what you’ll be able to do for the state with the power of that necklace.”
The necromancer hefted the thing in one hand, clearly considering it. “Your proposal intrigues me. I sense the power in this thing, and know that it is linked to these dead.”
“Then free me.”
“No, no. I think you must prove your loyalty to me. Tell me its use, and then I will free you.”
Elyana knew that he would never do that, but to acquiesce too quickly would make the fellow suspicious. “You must swear.”
“Very well. I swear, by the love I hold for the republic and people of Galt, that I shall free you from those bonds once you have told me the secret of this necklace.”
“Don’t listen to him, Elyana!” Arcil spat.
It was clearly a very poor sort of oath. The necromancer might mean he would free her of those bonds but put her in others, and he had in no way indicated that she would be freed generally. She knew only that the necromancer would want both of them alive for the guillotine if at all possible, for Galtans loved a show.
“Very well.” Elyana feigned reluctance. She heard Arcil still begging that she say nothing. “You must extend your power into the necklace itself,” she said. “You will feel the stirrings of the dead when you do so. If you are truly talented, you might be able to command dozens upon dozens of the folks, though they say only Lord Dolandryn could send forth the whole of the valley at once.”
The Galtan smiled. “I can do anything that this lord
of yours could have done. He could not be so great, if I have never heard of him.”
“Free me now,” Elyana said.
“First,” the wizard said, lifting the necklace, “I will test the truth of your words.” He fit it over his neck, and the pendant hung down, shining incongruously on the pot belly that distended his robe.
The necromancer stared off into the distance, then smiled, then laughed. “By the glorious state! You did not lie! I can feel them. I will command them to depart the fortress… I can sense them all the way through the valley. They are set, somehow, to guard the place from intrusion.” His voice sounded strained.
“You make it sound easy,” Elyana said. “The prince had to work harder than that.”
“I can command them all,” the necromancer declared.
“Prove it,” Elyana said.
He lifted his wobbling chins proudly. “I will. You will see me march from this forest with my new army, for you will be my prisoner! Oh, I will free you from these bonds, but you were a fool to think I would release you from the custody of the state and the justice you are due.”
“You’re all talk,” Elyana told him. “I have yet to see this army you command.”
His lips curled.
It took only a moment, then. He stared off into the distance, fists clenched. “I can feel them. I can feel them all! Come, children. Come to me—he will… we will… all…”
Quite suddenly he dropped limp to the ground. He made no attempt to catch himself, and lay twitching. The guardsmen started, unsure, and Arcil shouted a command. The tentacles vanished.
He had dispelled the Galtan’s work by use of the ring he wore, looted like his wand from the River Kingdom crypt. Elyana snatched up her bow, charged forward and caught the blade of the lunging Galtan on the edge of her bow. She backhanded his face with its other end and drew her sword as he staggered, crying out in pain. A quick thrust sent him groaning to the ground.
By then the other Galtan was advancing.
Arcil shouted for her attention. “Elyana—the dead!”
She saw them from the corners of her eyes, advancing from every direction. The maddened or enfeebled necromancer lay on the ground, racked by spasms, but the last command he’d given through the faulty artifact still worked, and they had been called to him. Thus they came.