by Barb Hendee
Turning to Stàsiuo, he said, “This disk will help, but we’ll need more. We’ll need to set a trap, with bait, like before.”
The captain’s expression darkened. “Last time, the spirit didn’t go for the bait you set. It went for Bródy.”
“This time, we’ll use several tactics, including gathering a number of the men you singled out as targets. I suggest we place them inside the stable. There is room in there, but it’s a contained area.”
“And how will you protect them from four spirits?” Stàsiuo challenged.
This was a fair question, and Tris looked to Heil. “I’m thinking once we gather the men inside the stable, I’ll hide myself and you call for the spirits. When they come, I’ll call up the portal and vanquish one of them as quickly as I can and go for another. My hope is that once they have arrived, the men they seek to punish will work as a temptation and so will the conch if you continue to use it. If a spirit tries to flee or kill one of the guards, you can use the disk to deter it.”
Mari was listening closely, and she looked to Stàsiuo. “In a true pinch, Tris can punch through a ghost and shatter it as well. I’ve seen him do it. It doesn’t vanquish the spirit, but it works in the short term.”
Heil stiffened, and his consternation grew.
“I’d rather not,” Tris said to Mari. “I want to keep their manifestations whole long enough for me to send as many as possible through the portal.”
“Can you do that?” she asked. “Banish more than one in a night? I mean . . . just taking out one of them seems to make you so tired. You can barely walk afterward.”
Heil’s expression shifted to alarm. “How long have you two been—?”
Tris waved him off. “Not now.”
Stàsiuo was watching and listening. “Most of this makes sense to me, or as much sense as all this madness can make, but I don’t see how one element is going to work.”
“Which one?” Tris asked.
“If your friend here, Heilman, is manning the conch, using it to continue calling the spirits, how will he be able to dodge around with the disk at the same time?”
Tris tensed, running this scenario through his mind and realizing the captain had a point.
“I can use the disk,” Mari said quietly.
“No!” Tris answered without thinking. There would be too much risk of a ghost flying through her. In truth, he didn’t even want her in the stable. He wouldn’t be able to protect her.
“It should be me,” she insisted. “Using the disk will take speed. I’m fastest, and you know it.”
Heil said nothing, but by the expression on his face, he was wildly searching for other options and failing.
“Will the disk function for her,” Tris asked him, “even though you created it?”
Heil was silent for a long moment, and Tris feared he might not even answer. Then with an angry nod he said without commitment, “It works for any user.”
“I’m risking my men,” Stàsiuo said. “Is Mari as fast as she claims?”
“Yes,” Tris answered tightly.
“Then she’s right. It should be her.”
“Settled, then,” Mari said. She looked to Stàsiuo. “I won’t let your men be hurt.”
Tris struggled for an argument and found none. If they wanted the captain’s agreement, Mari would be the one using the disk.
Then Tris closed his eyes. In a short while, he’d be doing battle on a scale he’d never tried before. He couldn’t let anything interfere with his focus. He would have to trust Heil and Mari—even if they clearly did not trust each other.
Opening his eyes, he spoke to the captain. “All right. You decide which men to send, or let them volunteer. I’d like at least four. That will offer enough targets without giving us too many to protect. Have them gather in the stable after supper.”
In resignation, Stàsiuo sagged and put one hand on the desk. “I’ll ask them now. Volunteers would be better.”
Straightening, he walked out the door. Mari followed, and Tris walked a few paces after her.
A few steps out, Heil caught up to him and touched his arm. “Wait! Tris . . . who is this girl?”
Tris could not explain Mari’s presence here, nor why he allowed her to remain with him, not even to Heil.
“Leave it,” he said, walking away.
—
That night’s dinner was quiet and somber, not that Mari had much appetite anyway. Whatever was going to happen tonight, too much of it seemed to depend on Heil. He was not exactly the right kind of companion or friend for Tris, though she’d never thought about this before.
Until now, she’d not given thought to how anyone who knew Tris would view her connection to him. Not that it mattered.
How much influence did this Heil have over him?
Could the old man talk Tris into sending her away? Or into sneaking away without a word to her? That wouldn’t have worked, but still, it was risky, an extra snarl in all this mess.
She couldn’t sit still any longer.
Leaving Tris—and Heil—at a table, she went to the hearth, where most of the refugees sat to eat. From what she understood, Stàsiuo hadn’t mentioned anything or insisted they leave. A few days of food and warmth had done them good.
She crouched by the young woman who had lost someone named Tichen. The woman’s sling was gone, and her arm seemed better. She also appeared to have taken on the boy Mari saved, and was feeding him dinner. Mari didn’t know either of their names.
“How are you?” she asked.
The woman was a little wary. Maybe that was just the life she’d lived and had nothing to do with Mari, herself.
“Well enough, I think,” the woman answered. “I found some scullery work at a nearby public house. There’s a small room for me, for us.” She looked at the boy. “It’ll be warm enough, near the kitchen, and I can keep an eye on him, even when working.”
Mari wasn’t certain what to say. “Sounds good . . . a good start.”
While struggling to find something else to say, she spotted Tris getting up to leave, though Heil didn’t follow him.
“I’ll look for you again later,” she told the woman, and hurried off.
Down the short entryway, Tris stepped out the barracks front door.
Mari followed. He wasn’t dressed for the cold—no cloak—and he was heading for the stable. She caught up quickly, making enough noise that she didn’t startle him once she did.
He looked back upon hearing her.
“Your friend doesn’t like me,” she said.
“He does not know you,” Tris answered, stepping onward as if that ended the matter.
Mari couldn’t help thinking, Neither do you, and wouldn’t let it go.
“He doesn’t trust me. I can see it in his face.”
At this, Tris stopped again near the stable’s front bay doors.
“Heil always enjoys the company of women,” Tris said.
Mari snorted. He was obviously trying to avoid the reason for Heil’s dislike for her.
“But he is mistrustful of strangers,” Tris went on, “and by his own experiences, something in his past, I think, he seems to find women to be . . . self-serving.”
Mari raised an eyebrow. “I’d say the same about him.”
“You do not know him, any more than he knows you.”
“You don’t know me either.”
After this, Tris was quiet so long that she started to regret her words. Had she just given herself away? Why had she said that?
“No, I suppose I do not,” he answered softly. “But I saw you rush into that stream to help those trying to cross the border. I know you a little.”
She stood there with no idea what to say. Though shadowed from the full moon by the stable and the city wall, she could still see his eyes in the dark. Th
ey were nearly colorless in a face far paler than her dusky skin. He looked so helpless.
Mari pushed that thought away; he was far from helpless.
“Once this starts, what do I do?” she asked. “What’s the best way to use the disk?”
In truth, she still didn’t believe such an object could do what Tris claimed. She’d wanted only an excuse to be present at the banishing.
“Just do whatever Heil tells you, and if need be . . . use it to protect yourself first.”
He started to raise a hand, slowly, maybe to reach for her for some reason. She inched back, half a step. Then he turned away and headed into the stable before she could say anything.
—
Tris went straight into the stable and toward its rear to get out of sight in one of the far stalls. All horses had been removed, and a few lanterns were already lit around the main space. He did not hear Mari’s footfalls, though he had grown accustomed to this and knew she followed.
“Wait for the others,” he said.
Not looking back, he slipped into the last empty stall, closed his eyes, and took several deep breaths. A moment alone was necessary to prepare for what would come. The truth was that he did not know if he could banish four spirits, one after another. And would one continuous portal give that other him a greater chance of stepping through?
It was a tenuous plan at best. All he could do was focus on catching a spirit and seizing the next—and the next—as quickly as possible. Hopefully, Heil could keep them contained and Mari would do as instructed in the moment. Hearing voices, he peered over the stall’s gate and around it with one eye.
In the stable’s open area, Mari had picked up one lantern on a crate. She strung it up on a center post to spread its light as the men began arriving. Guardsman Kreenan came first with three others. Tris knew them by sight if not name, for they had all spent the last three nights in the same bunk room. One of them was called Jacques.
All were volunteers from what Tris could guess, and none of them supposed cowards like Bródy. These few were willing to risk themselves to help rather than to leave him to deal with everything.
Heil entered last. He went straight at Mari, and their mutual dislike was obvious. She still listened intently to what he told her. Then the alchemist hesitantly held out the disk to Mari.
Tris clenched his hand on the top of the stall’s gate.
By Heil’s pointed gestures and expression, he was reluctant to let Mari handle his “spirit shield.” Whether she could do so was another matter. Such devices were never simple to wield, regardless of assumptions. Using one—at all, let alone effectively—required more than simply knowing what it could do.
There was no other choice; Heil needed both hands to use the conch. Even then, he might be running and dodging for his life, if it even worked. Mari would have to handle the disk, at least until Heil could retrieve it and use it more effectively.
Tris wished all of this were otherwise. Sending her out of harm’s way would have been better, for she had already done far more than should have been asked of her.
Now that everyone was gathered, he wanted this over and done.
Heil stepped back from Mari, looked about the stable, and, upon spotting Tris, nodded once. Then he crouched to dig in his pack.
As he rose, all others fixed on the conch he held. It was big enough to have filled a third of the pack, and it was unpredictable, but there was no other way to draw all the spirits in for Tris.
Heil stepped to the stable’s center, lifted the conch’s sheared end to his lips, and blew.
The sound from it was like nothing found in nature. Like a human voice pulled tight by sorrow, the long note from the shell carried pure and mournful into the rafters.
All four guards, and even Mari, backed away. None could take their eyes off Heil, as if waiting for that note to stop and another to begin.
The dead were not the only ones the conch could affect.
Mari blinked, shuddered, blinked again, and backed away as she looked about, finally raising the disk in her hands as if awaking to potential threat. The long note faded in echoes within the rafters, and Heil blew again.
The boy appeared first, translucent, white, and phosphorescent. One of his arms dangled as if broken and a crescent gash in his forehead looked as if it had come from a horse’s shod hoof.
Mari retreated at first, as did the guards, though no one ran as yet. She then sidestepped toward Heil, never taking her eyes off the boy.
The girl materialized just above Heil.
Ghost-light increased subtly inside the stable. She would have been no more than ten or eleven when she died. Her left leg was crushed and twisted with its calf shredded off. She floated overhead, mesmerized as Heil blew again into the shell.
Both children, near Heil, were halfway between Tris and the stable’s front doors—a good distance away from Tris. This was the risk in having to remain hidden until all the spirits gathered.
The woman appeared next. Half of her skull was caved in, and her head was crooked rightward on her neck. Mari spun toward her, startled, and held out the disk with both hands. Guards backed away in all directions, some reflexively reaching for swords.
The woman was closest to Tris, but he would still have to make a run to grasp her.
Then the man appeared about five paces from him. With that spirit’s back turned, Tris could see the jagged hole between the man’s shoulder blades. This spirit fixed upon Heil as a fourth tone bellowed from the conch.
Tris slammed the stall’s gate open and charged. As the male spirit twisted toward him, he grabbed its upper arms. As always, his fingers sank in slightly at first, until his focus sharpened.
Cold crept into Tris.
The spirit pitched forward at him with an echoing shriek and began fighting and writhing to get free of a grip it had not expected. Tris held on as his feet slid.
Beyond the spirit of the male refugee, the stable began to darken, with light being sucked into a point hidden just beyond the ghost’s back. All darkness there began to turn, sucking into a hole in the living world.
—
Mari bent at the knees, ready to act, when a stall’s gate slammed open, and Tris rushed the ghost nearest to him. White sparks burned in his eyes again as he grabbed the ghost man. And the big seashell’s tone came again. The other three spirits twisted away from Heil. Not a one seemed to hear that last tone.
The woman was distracted when she spotted Kreenan. Then the stable started to darken.
Mari saw something happening around the ghost Tris had grabbed, as if darkness was gathering. It was the same turning of the air that she’d seen when he’d gripped the ghost that killed Bródy. A screech in the stable felt like it was piercing her skull.
Mari spotted the girl ghost with the shredded leg. That smaller one swirled toward the stable’s west wall. Shaken to awareness, Mari bolted past two shocked guards toward the west wall, not even knowing what she could do.
She didn’t trust anything that old man told her.
But she wasn’t letting Tris out of her sight.
And he was already tangled up with one ghost.
Mari neared the wall at a full run and shoved the disk out. Its metal scraped the wallboards. She felt splinters pierce the back of her hand as the disk slid in, right in front of the girl.
The girl struck the disk, face-first.
Mari felt a chill spread from the disk into her hand and down her arm. It took her breath away for an instant, but then it faded.
The girl ghost blew apart like a splash of flour in the air—and then re-collected into the small form again.
Even though she’d volunteered to do this, Mari was relieved, and shocked, the disk had worked.
The girl ghost shrieked in fear, fury, or both, and veered off, flying like a white wisp toward the boy. Heil’s sh
ell-horn sounded again, but as Mari cast about, the noise didn’t seem to work this time.
The woman with the bashed head was still focused on Kreenan and dove at him.
Mari shook off fright and uncertainty and ran to get between them. If she lived through the night, having taken part in this would still be the stupidest thing she’d ever done.
—
Tris shoved with all his strength, and the spirit struggled to escape. It pitched forward into his face, thrashed, and heaved backward, trying to break his grips. He gained momentum in the last of its struggle and drove it toward the portal.
As all others before, the dead refugee’s form began to shred as it touched that inky swirl in the air. Vaporous white pieces spun in that pitch-black whirlpool.
. . . my Tris . . . me Tris . . . I Tris . . . not you . . . Tris . . .
Tris panicked, released the ghost, and lurched back. For an instant, the refugee’s ghost appeared to struggle out of the portal. And then it tore apart and whirled away to nothing. Tris stumbled, and then he saw Mari block the girl spirit with the disk to keep it from fleeing. As it coalesced, it raced off toward the boy.
Tris ran in, trying to catch the girl by her mangled leg.
—
Mari raced after the woman ghost. It veered toward Kreenan, who lurched back and away to the left. That was just what she needed.
As the woman ghost sailed toward Kreenan, Mari cut it off, thrusting out the disk. This spirit did not collide with the device, but veered away.
. . . my Tris . . . me Tris . . . I Tris . . . not you . . . Tris . . .
A voice echoed through the stable.
What did that mean?
Where had it come from?
Mari whirled around, searching for the woman’s spirit.
And there was Tris, snatching the little girl by her mangled leg. Then Mari saw it clearly—that swirling black hole in the air—like the last time he’d banished a ghost. He pulled and wrenched the little glowing girl in the air, as if she were solid though floating.
More whispers tore at her ears to scratch in her head.
. . . my Tris . . . me Tris . . . my life . . . not yours . . .