Ghostwalker

by Erik Scott De Bie

  Gylther’yel stepped fully into the Material. Colors became more vibrant and the shadows disappeared. The glare made her squint, but only for a moment. Smells and the sounds of birdsong returned, but Gylther’yel paid them no mind. Instead, she crossed over the soft forest turf toward the faint pulse of life.

  “Ah, my poor little Wayfarer. You’ve wandered too far.” She smiled.

  Meris, wrapped in vines, made for a helpless target. His body did not move, but the Ghostly Lady could tell that he yet lived. She wondered if either of those observations would change if she drew on more of her ghostly power and lit those vines with shadowy flame.

  She reached one lithe, deceptively delicate hand down to pour her power into the vines that entangled Meris’s chest….

  Even as she was about to do it, the ghost druid thought better of burning the boy alive. Instead, she drew herself up and craned a pointed ear. Something caught her and she turned away from Meris, threw her gray cloak wide around her thin gold body, and shifted into a ghostly raven. The bird leaped into the air and took wing into the gathering storm.

  If Meris had been awake, he might have heard a lonely wolf’s howl.

  CHAPTER 18

  30 Tarsakh

  Lightning cracked and torrential rain tore the grassy earth to muddy ruin. It was noon, but it might as well have been midnight for all the hidden sun’s power to pierce the thick storm clouds. A lonely, unmarked grave stood in the center of Walker’s grove. The blood had finally run out of the stream, but pockmarks filled with crimson fluid remained, and scars from blades and scrambling footfalls rent the earth, turning the peaceful glade into a battlefield. Three bodies—one crushed and the other two dead of wounds from which the knives had been removed—lay twisted and staring at nothing.

  A terrible silence gripped the grove. The doe and fawns that often visited the tranquil glade were nowhere to be found. The birds and even the crickets had ceased their singing. Occasional peals of thunder rent the deathly stillness, but there was not a sound of life to be heard.

  A lone spirit—that of Tarm Thardeyn—haunted the grove. He paced a circle around the grave, silent as always, pacing as he had for half a day. Finally, he looked up to the heavens, as though he heard a ghostly voice from on high. He knelt, threw his arms wide, and turned his face upward, letting the rain fall through his spectral body.

  Perhaps he was praying to the god of justice he had served in life. Perhaps he was locked in a moment of silent, necessarily private thought.

  Or perhaps he was merely waiting.

  Then a rare smile brightened his middle-aged features and he mouthed a word of thanks. Tarm put his hand down toward the earth, as though reaching to help someone up.

  A single sound answered: a lone wolf’s howl, a sound of despair, anger, loss, and …

  Vengeance.

  A left hand burst from the ground, its clawlike fingers covered in a mixture of blood and clay. The muck obscured even the silver ring on the fourth finger, but not the single sapphire that burned brightly in the storm light. It met Tarm’s outstretched hand and paused for a moment, as though it felt the spectral flesh.

  Then, passing through it, the hand scrabbled along the ground. It achieved a hold. Corded muscles wrenched an arm encircled by a dull steel bracer up out of the loose earth. Then another hand joined the first, then another arm. Together, the arms strained and pulled.

  Into the rain and death, Walker hauled himself from the grave. His tunic hung in tatters around his pale shoulders and chest, where a long puffy ridge and mouthlike scars had joined the others. His sword belt hung around his waist but his sword was gone, as were his throwing knives. His hair lay matted with blood and his face was stained with tears, filth, and gore, but his eyes burned as fiercely as his ring’s eye shone. Lightning cracked.

  Walker pushed himself to his feet, clutching his arms around himself, and took a tentative step toward the tiny waterfall on the north end of the grove. He fell immediately, slamming his face into the dirt. Rain pounded his back and tore at his hair, even as his body shook with a coughing fit that threatened to tear him apart. He waited long, agonizing moments as the retching passed.

  Then, when his coughing was done, Walker looked up. The spirit of Tarm Thardeyn stood on high, reaching down as though to lift him up. The old spirit’s face was encouraging. Walker reached up for his hand—a hand he knew he could not touch. He thought he felt something, though—something of Tarm’s spirit, a gift from beyond the veil.

  It was a touch that gave him strength.

  In firm silence, Walker levered himself up again, only to fall a second time after two steps. Stoically, burning with resolve, he rose and fell a third time, then a fourth, and a fifth, covering about twelve steps. The sixth time he stood, his legs finally fully supported him and he managed to limp toward the fallen shadowtop that made a natural waterfall in the creek.

  When he arrived, he sank down beside the small pond and reached a shaking hand toward the water, as though to splash his face. He plunged his hand and arm into the freezing water and searched the bottom of the pool for a moment. His fingers closed on something hard and he pulled it up and out of the water. It was a simple wood box sealed with wax to render it waterproof. With a grimace, Walker broke the seal and pulled it open. Eight throwing knives gleamed up at him.

  Loading them into wrist, belt, and boot sheathes, Walker gazed about the grove. His eyes lit upon Thin-Man’s corpse. He hobbled over to it and gestured to the air.

  A mortal observer would have thought him mad, but only because he lacked Walker’s ghostsight. In truth, Thin-Man’s spirit lingered over the corpse, caught in a state of confusion.

  “Be free,” said Walker. “Free as the wind through the glittering aspen leaves.”

  Thin-Man gave him a smile and dissipated like mist caught in a stray sunbeam.

  Rain dripping from his nose, Walker inspected the body, but not for weapons or armor, which he knew would be gone. He did not even notice the stench of a body dead for half a day. He appraised Thin-Man’s shoulders and chest and shook his head. Too small.

  He moved on to One-Eye’s corpse, dismissed that spirit in similar fashion, then scanned the man’s huge body. He frowned. Too large.

  “What are you doing?” came a sonorous voice from behind him.

  Walker closed his eyes but did not turn. “Making ready,” he said.

  “Why? Where are you going?”

  “To Quaervarr.” He removed One-Eye’s eye patch but otherwise left the body alone. He rose and went to Red-Hair.

  “Why?” Gylther’yel asked. “You are not recovered enough yet to go, and it would not matter. I have planted the seeds that will lead to Greyt’s downfall. Your revenge will happen anyway. All is done.”

  “Revenge is not why I go.”

  When Gylther’yel did not reply, Walker turned to look at her. In her shadowy gown, untouched by the rain that drenched Walker, the sun elf looked radiant in the half light—a creature of beauty that did not belong in a scene of such misery and destruction.

  He noticed that, surprisingly, the spirit of Tarm Thardeyn had not fled at her approach. Instead, his father stood calmly next to his grave, saying nothing. Walker took strength from his courage.

  “You would not understand,” said Walker. “I will go.” He started toward Red-Hair.

  With a growl, Gylther’yel caught Walker’s arm and held it with the strength of an enraged grizzly bear.

  “You will not,” she said, her face drawn in rage and her eyes glowing crimson in the storm’s light.

  The ghostwalker looked back at her, his eyes wide with surprise. Since when had she touched him? To his knowledge, she never had.

  He felt visions coming to him, flowing from her touch. Her psychic resonance, showing him her memories …

  A dark night, laughter—the night of his death. Words … “Whether you will or no.”

  As though remembering herself, she released Walker’s arm and backed away. Her face
was calm, but her eyes remained furious.

  “I forbid you to go.”

  What vision had he seen?

  “You have no control over me any more,” said Walker without emotion.

  “I am your master and you are my champion,” argued Gylther’yel with steel in her voice.

  “You sent killers after me, and you yet believe that?” Walker’s voice seemed to cut Gylther’yel like a knife, but the ghost druid regained control in an instant.

  “I sent them to kill that little harlot of a knight, not you, of course,” said Gylther’yel with a dismissive wave. “It was for your own good—she was leading you astray, diverting you from your path. I am not about to throw away the fifteen years of work I spent on you, training and arming you, teaching you the powers you and I alone share—”

  “But do you love me, Gylther’yel?”

  The question set her back on her heels. For the first time Walker could remember, the ghost druid was speechless. Gylther’yel mouthed words, but no sound came out. She looked at Walker as though at a maddened animal.

  Walker nodded sadly. “As I thought.” He walked toward Red-Hair’s corpse.

  “You turn your back on me, on everything I have taught you, on the years we have spent together, running the forest as mother and son, all because you feel neglected? Oh I’m sorry, you spoiled child!” Gylther’yel spat. “Love is not of nature, but is human artifice! You are better without it! The way I made you!”

  Walker did not look at her. “Farewell, Gylther’yel,” he said. Walker arrived at Red-Hair’s corpse, sent the man’s spirit away, and nodded, finding this one to his liking. He crouched down and began pulling off the man’s clothes.

  The ghost druid stared at him in shock.

  “After all I have done for you. Even after I forgave you the female….”

  With a grimace, Walker tore away the tattered remains of his tunic and slipped the Quaervarr watch uniform over his head. Then he strapped the sword belt around his waist.

  Understanding seemed to dawn on Gylther’yel, and she stepped in Walker’s way as he turned.

  “Then she is what this is all about!” she said. “Do not bother. Meris and his men probably dispatched her quickly, as soon as they had enjoyed her to the fullest. Your heroism is amusing, but there is no one left to save.”

  “She lives.” It was a statement of fact.

  “How can you know that?”

  “Her spirit is not here with me,” said Walker with a shrug. “So she has not died.”

  Gylther’yel looked around then eyed him curiously.

  “Why do you expect her spirit to be with you?” the ghost druid asked.

  Walker looked at her. “She loves me,” he stated. “And I love her.”

  Gylther’yel had no reply except to stare at him in shock.

  Gliding around her, Walker crossed to the patch of grass where he and Arya had lain together and pulled something from a low fir branch. With a flourish, he threw his black cloak over his shoulder and stepped into the shadows, only to vanish as though he had never been there.

  The rain dissipated and the lightning stopped.

  Gylther’yel stared at the shadow into which Walker had disappeared. They had never spoken to each other so bitterly as long as he had been in her keeping—and none of the bitterness had come from Walker.

  A memory of long ago flashed into Gylther’yel’s mind—the most painful she possessed. It was a day not unlike this one, with angry clouds overhead, and a conversation not unlike the one she had just shared. It was the day that marked the dawn of her hatred of the humans.

  It was the day her sister Wyel’thya had told her she was going to the fledgling town of Quaervarr on an overture of peace from the druids of the Moonwood. She taught them the ways of the druids, of coexisting with nature—the ways of peace. Then a lover had come, and a child: Lyetha Elfsdaughter.

  The ghost druid, betrayed, had never forgiven Wyel’thya, refused even to see her when she sought out Gylther’yel’s aid. Then Wyel’thya had grown sick, deathly ill …

  It had been a human disease.

  The sun elf had lost control of herself for the first time in her long life. Much of Quaervarr had burned that day, but the fledgling druids of Wyel’thya’s order repelled Gylther’yel, the golden angel of the Dark Wood.

  Alone, left for dead in the forest, she had learned of a new power, borne of her hatred of the humans and all life. She had become the Ghostly Lady.

  Gylther’yel’s eyes turned back to the shadows. A tear slid down her cheek.

  “I loved my sister,” she said. “But I never got her back, did I?”

  Then the ghost druid let out a keening shriek that pierced both the Ethereal and Material and collapsed to her knees. The spirits remaining in the grove started and sped away as fast as they could manage from the enraged ghost druid. The force of that shriek caused all the songbirds and animals in the trees to shudder and die, their life-force wrenched from them.

  All was silent except for Gylther’yel, who wept bitterly into the mud, screaming in rage and frustration.

  Finally, Gylther’yel sniffed and wiped her tears away with the fringe of her cloak. There was one card left to play, and play it she would. Her face still red, she rose.

  “Forgive me, Wyel’thya,” she said. “Forgive me for prolonging his suffering. And forgive me now for what I must do to the last of our blood.”

  Spreading her arms like wings, Gylther’yel leaped into the air and blinked out of the physical realms, turning into a ghostly raven. Riding the winds left spinning by the storm, she soared to a little grove near the edge of the forest, where she had left that last card slumbering.

  CHAPTER 19

  30 Tarsakh

  The guards at Quaervarr’s only gate had seen many strange comings and goings in the past few days, but none quite so strange as this.

  The storm had passed but the sky was far from clear. A gray sheet of clouds still obscured the sky. The air hung thick and heavy, and a lingering tension caused more than a few watchmen to shift uneasily.

  Both did a double take when a figure—a watchman by his garb—appeared some distance away, seemingly out of the very shadow of one of the great firs that flanked the road. In that silence, they should have heard him coming almost a mile distant. The man took a few zigzagging steps toward them, lurched, and fell.

  They ran to him. Clad in the ring mail of a watchman, the man lay on his back in the mud. His face and tangled hair were plastered with mud and gore, obscuring his features except for a black leather eye patch that covered his right eye.

  “Aye, Belk, it be one-eyed Tamel, eh?” said one guard, a hefty man named Mart.

  “What’s ’e doin’ in one o’ our tunics? In’t ’e one of the rangers?” the pock-faced Belk replied. Mart shrugged, but his eyes flashed with worry. Unddreth would have both their commissions if he found out they were more loyal to Greyt than Quaervarr. Though Unddreth seemed to have disappeared, it was better not to take chances.

  Belk checked the man for a pulse and breath, but neither were there to be found. His flesh felt like ice.

  “Beshaba’s bosom, he’s dead! And ’e looks like he’s been dead days!”

  “What? What do we do?” asked Mart in a panic.

  “Let’s get ’im inside quick, afore someone sees ’im!” Belk hoisted the man’s arms and Mart took his legs. Together, they carried the body inside and carted him over to an alley, where they dumped him.

  “Where do we take ’im?” Belk’s eyes darted this way and that, as though seeing spies hiding in every shadow. “Not to them druids, nor to Greyt’s manor.”

  “We gotta think o’ something—”

  “But I don’t know—”

  “Silent as mist.”

  Belk looked at Mart.

  “Aye? What was that?”

  “I didn’t say nothing,” denied Mart.

  “‘Anything.’ You didn’t say ‘anything,’ you halfwit. Gods, I’m soun
din’ like one o’ the druids, wit’ their grammar-ical lessons. An’ you did say something, something about—”

  “Still as death.”

  “No, it wasn’t nothing like that,” argued Belk. “Something about mist—”

  Mart opened his mouth to protest then yelped when something grabbed his ankle. Belk’s eyes went wide. As one, they looked down, only to be yanked from their feet.

  Their heads struck the hard cobblestones and unconsciousness took them.

  Shaking off the last influence of his deathlike sleep, Walker wiped his face clean with the fat guard’s cloak and stripped the Quaervarr tabard from his chest and the borrowed eye patch from his face. Dressed once again in his comfortable black, he sheathed one of the long swords at his belt. He would carry the other. Lastly, he opened his satchel and pulled out his thick black cape, which he draped around his shoulders. Walker stood, throwing his cloak wide and adjusting the high collar.

  He looked over at the spirit of Tarm Thardeyn and nodded. The spirit did not respond, of course, but Walker thought he could feel grim pride resonating from Tarm.

  After steadying himself, Walker padded over to the lip of the alley, bracing himself against a rough oak wall. Walker had not yet fully healed—not by his ring or by absorbing the energies of Shadow—but he had no time for weakness. When he reached the main street, he crouched and peered around the edge.

  The street lay deserted, but Walker could hear shouts from a mass of people gathered in the main square of Quaervarr, farther up. Flitting between the shadows along the street was a simple matter and, indeed, hardly necessary—no eyes came upon him.

  In the plaza, most of Quaervarr’s population shouted for the Lord Singer. Guardsmen stood at the edges of the crowd, weapons drawn as though to ward off attackers, but their attention was just as fixed upon Greyt’s door as were the eyes of the gathered hunters, trappers, traders, and families. Walker could see three dressed in the robes of druids wearing expressions of worry and undisguised anger. Walker noted the distinct absence of Captain Unddreth and Amra Clearwater. He wondered what had become of them. Perhaps Greyt had removed them, for they were well-known as his enemies.