Shadowdance 05 - A Dance of Ghosts

by David Dalglish

  “Every day,” she shouted at Deborah, her own anger letting loose, her dagger a winding cobra always on the strike. “Every single day, you humiliate yourself! Slave! Fool!”

  Deborah had her back to the tree, unable to dodge, and letting out a wordless cry, Zusa thrust for Deborah’s heart. But the shadows were deep beneath the yellow leaves, and instead of piercing flesh, her dagger thudded into the ashen bark, the faceless woman falling into the dark as if it were an open doorway. Zusa spun, knowing Deborah would reappear from another section of shadow nearby, one of the trees or …

  From beneath the pond, Deborah emerged, water splashing out in all directions as she lifted into the air, rising as if she were a forgotten beast of the ocean deep. One arm she held against herself, the other stretched out to the side, both her legs dangling. Her wet hair rose as if she were amid a torrent of wind, her eyes shining a bright white from behind the cloth. Her mouth opened, and all her rage and fury came shrieking out in a single word.

  “KARAK!”

  The noise pierced like the cry of an eagle, the very air shimmering from its force. Drops of water caught in its path turned to mist. Zusa crossed her arms and dug in her heels, but it meant nothing. The cry tore into her, ripping gashes into her wrappings, blood pouring down like rain. Her feet left the ground, but it was not for long. Her back slammed into a tree, stealing away her breath. After such a noise, she wondered why no guards had come to save her yet, to protect their lady of the house. Not that it would matter. No one would come in time to save her, not from the demon that landed just beyond the water’s edge, a hungry dagger in her left hand.

  “If only you had remained loyal,” Deborah said as she stalked closer. “If only you could have accepted the gifts Karak had to offer. Your place in our order will never be forgotten, Zusa, but it will forever be tainted by your heresy.”

  “Give it time, girl,” Zusa said, laughing even as she slumped to the ground, convinced several of her ribs were broken, due to how painful it was to breathe. She let out a sigh as she looked up at the faceless woman lurking above her. “Give it time. No animal ever truly loves its cage.”

  Deborah grabbed Zusa by the hair, pulling her head back to fully expose her throat. The other readied a dagger.

  “May the fire take you,” she said, and Zusa could do nothing to stop the fatal thrust, only laugh.

  Ghost remained atop the mansion as Deborah leaped off, hoping to overtake Zusa before the woman could realize the ambush was upon her. Together, they’d climbed to the top after finding a gap in the patrols, though Ghost had more floated upward than climbed. He couldn’t do it in open space, but while clutching something solid, he found he could will himself to rise or fall. As he watched Zusa and Deborah crash into each other, he laughed at the order the faceless woman had given him.

  Stay out of my way, even if it looks like I may lose. I’d rather die than accept your help.

  “Only fair,” Ghost muttered as he watched the fight. “I think I’d rather die than help you in the first place.”

  Even saying the words made his head ache with a steady throb. Closing his eyes, he focused on Zusa lying before him, her body bleeding from multiple wounds, and that seemed to make it go away. As he did, he heard sounds of alarm to his right. Opening his eyes, he ran along the rooftop to the corner, not a single step making a noise, and then peered down over the edge. Several soldiers were drawing their weapons and moving to join the fight. Ghost felt his face twitch at the sight of them. Letting them interfere would be dangerous, and given how even the fight between Zusa and Deborah appeared, the slightest aid could be enough.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, leaping off the side.

  Swords drawn, he crashed down atop the rearmost soldier. Ghost felt no fear for his body, no danger at the great height from which he fell. His blades smashed through the man’s armor and into the soft flesh beneath, slicing off one arm and shattering the collarbone of the other. Upon hitting ground, he did not stop, only continued on. As his head slipped beneath the dirt, he felt his vision shift, gaining a greater awareness of his surroundings. It was as if he could feel the vibrations of the soldiers above him, could see the great expanse of dirt and rock in all directions. When he pulled his swords to him, he saw their steel was immaculate, whatever blood that had stained them unable to pass through the ground.

  He moved without needing to run, merely by thinking of the direction and willing himself to be there. It wasn’t far, and when there, he jumped. The physical action may not have been necessary, but it felt natural, and he emerged from the ground before the remaining soldiers, head bowed, swords out, and a smile on his face.

  Their fear at the sight of him was overwhelming, and to his otherworldly senses, it smelled like a fine perfume.

  “Fall back!” the foremost man shouted before Ghost took off his head. The other two impressed him with their bravery, ignoring the command and instead slashing out at Ghost with their swords. Ghost blocked them both, pushing aside their strokes as if they were children. Another step, closing the distance, and they were his, their weapons positioned awkwardly, given his new proximity. One stab through the throat killed the first; a looping slash cut the other across the belly just beneath his breastplate. As he fell, innards tumbling, Ghost showed him mercy and opened his throat as well.

  More would be coming, he knew, which meant Deborah needed to end her fight soon. Running back to the garden, he watched the women battle in midair, smashing into one another. As they fell, Ghost felt himself cheering for Zusa. Had he not promised to kill her last? But no, his opinion was now irrelevant. He felt the curse pulsing in the veins of his face and neck, boring deep into his muscles, or whatever it was his body now had. When Zusa slammed hard to the ground, seeing it filled him with a sensation almost sexual in its pleasure.

  Yet deep down in his chest, Ghost felt only rage and sickness.

  Swords still drawn, he flew across the grass of the garden, doing his best not to think. Not to breathe. He embraced that rage, clung to it like a shelter in a thunderstorm. It pushed aside his doubt, denied the curse pounding angrily in his veins. Focus only on the act, on the betrayal they’d committed.

  I am not yours, thought Ghost as he came barreling in toward Deborah, who knelt triumphantly over Zusa. Not your puppet. Not your slave.

  He leaped, legs extended, and slammed straight into her chest with his feet. The woman let out a startled cry, rolling along the ground several times before she could skid to a halt. The faceless woman glared at him from behind the white cloth of her face, her legs crooked beneath her like a spider, much of her weight supported on one hand still clutching the grass from halting her roll.

  “I should have known as much,” Deborah said, and she coughed. Dark blood spread across the wrappings of her face around her mouth.

  “Indeed, you should have,” Ghost said, fighting to concentrate. Zusa lay beside him, and it felt like every part of his mind was screaming at him to finish her, to drive a blade through her eye and out the back of her skull. Instead, he grinned at Deborah and remembered the hours he’d lain on a cold floor while above him roared the phantom image of the Lion.

  The woman’s eyes narrowed, and when she attacked, Ghost was ready. Instead of meeting her head on, he leaped backward, arms crossed over his chest. His body passed through the tree Zusa leaned against, and he felt a chill spike up his right leg as it brushed Zusa’s body. Pushing it out of mind, he jumped as high as his legs would let him … which was much, much higher than it had ever been prior to becoming whatever Daverik had made him. He soared through the branches, felt the moisture of the leaves as they slid through his face, and then was falling. Deborah had hesitated upon his disappearance, and when she looked up, he realized she had deciphered his maneuver.

  “Karak!” she shrieked, waves of power rolling across him, knifing into his exposed skin. For a moment, he hovered there in the air, his fall countered by the shriek, and then he landed, his blood splashing all across t
he grass. Deborah was on him in a heartbeat, slicing and stabbing with her daggers. Ghost blocked the first two, the third sneaking through as he struggled to regain his sense of balance and vision. As he felt pain from her blade cutting into his forearm and saw the blood spill, he confirmed that blades could still hurt him, at least when he was in the open instead of shifting through walls or the rocky ground.

  Good to know, he thought, though that knowledge would benefit him for only moments more. Deborah pressed the attack, and it took all his skill to keep her at bay. At least the ache from the curse had subsided. Battle was a wonderful medicine, and he much preferred the pain from the cuts of blades over the insidious pulse deep in the center of his being.

  Into the dirt Ghost dropped, and when he reemerged behind Deborah, she had already turned, blocking his slashes. She lunged toward him, her daggers a flurry of steel, and he blocked them with growing confidence. Her skill was great, but damn it, prior to fighting the Watcher, he’d never even considered someone could be greater than he, and it was time he remembered that.

  Parrying aside one thrust, he stole the offensive, his feet a blur beneath him as he shifted closer and closer, giving her no break. Her defenses grew desperate, they both could tell, and then she inhaled deep.

  “Karak!” came the cry, only this time Ghost denied it with every piece of his soul.

  “No!” he screamed, swords crossed before him as the power rolled forth. “Not … this … time!”

  His swords opened, and he pushed aside the attack as if it were just another blade. He saw the fear in Deborah’s eyes, that flash of doubt, and he knew the end had come. Into her chest his swords sank deep, and as the blood flowed, she looked up at him with a mixture of fury and confusion.

  “No one…” she said as he pinned her to the dirt. “No one can … can resist…”

  Ghost knelt down close, and he ripped off the wrappings that hid her face.

  “I just did,” he said, kissing her forehead. “And I will again. My life is my own, precious. A shame you never felt the same about yours.”

  To that she could say nothing, for her eyes had rolled back into her head, her movements merely the final twitchings of a dying body. Ghost pulled free his swords and looked about. All around him was a scene so bizarre he could only laugh. Dozens of soldiers had come in from outside the mansion, and they’d formed a circle around him and Deborah. How long had they been there, he wondered, watching their fight? He could only guess. It’d taken a knife-edged focus to defeat Deborah as well as keep all thoughts of Zusa from his mind.

  “I mean no harm,” Ghost said to the soldiers about him. “I killed the invader, or have you not noticed?”

  To the front pushed a man in fine silver armor, a yellow circle with wings upon the front of his tunic.

  “What is the meaning of this?” he asked, his own sword drawn.

  “This has nothing to do with you,” Ghost said. He saw where Zusa lay against the tree, Alyssa huddled over her, and then he pointed.

  “Only her,” he said.

  A shadow crossed over the man’s face.

  “Get out,” he said.

  “With pleasure.”

  Ghost dropped into the dirt, the last sound he heard before the earth swallowed him that of the guards’ gasps. Like some strange worm, Ghost swam through the ground, focusing on exiting the compound. As he did, he felt a sensation building in his stomach, and with each passing second, it grew stronger. His speed slowed, and his otherworldly vision dimmed. For a panicked moment, he thought he’d be lost underground, forever entombed as the powers Karak had given him diminished.

  And then the pain hit.

  It was like a lightning bolt through his mind, a crystal-tipped spear ramming into his gut. He felt like he needed to breathe, yet couldn’t. Over and over, he saw Zusa in his mind, lying there, her life ready to be taken by the faceless woman, yet he’d stopped it. He’d saved her, and now he heard a deep voice chanting as if from some great distance.

  Betrayed.

  “No!” Ghost screamed, but it was only the whisper of a man long buried in a grave.

  Betrayed.

  “I was never your servant,” he said, clawing in an attempt to climb back to the surface. The pain heightened, and a multitude of colors swam across his vision. It was like razors cutting across his skin. His movements ceased, for he was unable to focus on anything, to move, to climb. A swirling vertigo overcame him, and he felt as if he were falling amid a great fire.

  Fight it, Ghost knew he had to fight it, but how? Only one thing had worked before, and so he tried it out of desperation. He thought of Tarlak, and of how he would sneak into the wizard’s home. He filled his mind with images of the man’s death, by poison, razor wire, and blade. As the pounding in his skull faded, the thoughts grew soothing, his promises calming. Yes, he could kill the wizard, he told himself. The man was a nuisance, and his magic had left him horribly burned. Killing him was good. Killing him, he could do. Over and over he swore, and desperately, he tried to believe it.

  At last, the voices were gone, his sight returned, and with a gasp, he emerged from the ground in the open street just outside the Gemcroft mansion. Blood poured down from his body like rain, marking the place of his emergence. Ignoring the surprised cries of those around him, he ran, wanting to get as far away from a certain woman, whose name he’d not dare think, as fast as he possibly could.

  CHAPTER

  16

  Marion smiled at Thren from the other side of the bed, her face glowing in the early-morning light that streamed through the stained glass of their room. Their blankets were bunched around her waist, revealing her full breasts and even fuller belly. Thren put a hand atop her belly, feeling the movement of the little life within.

  “I say we name her Mary, after you,” Thren said, his fingertips circling Marion’s navel.

  “Seems a bit prideful,” Marion said. “You’re the one wanting a legacy, not me.”

  Thren laughed.

  “Well, then, what name would you prefer?”

  She shrugged.

  “Mary is fine. And if it’s a boy?”

  He kissed her lips.

  “Aaron,” he said. “After my father.”

  “I didn’t think you knew your father.”

  Thren pressed his forehead to hers.

  “He’s but a distant haze in my mind, but it doesn’t matter. He was my father, and it is only right to respect him.”

  Marion winced once, then rubbed her belly, a sign Thren had long deciphered as their child turning in the womb fast enough to make her uncomfortable.

  “Aaron it is,” she said, staring down at her stomach as if she could see through the layers of skin and right into the face of the life yet to be born. “Tiny little Aaron…”

  Thren reached for her face, wishing to kiss her again, to feel her warmth against his body, but she was not there. He paused, confused, for he was in an empty bed. The room was dark. Whatever light had shone through the window moments ago was gone. Frowning, he slid naked off his bed and began to dress. When his breeches were tied, he strapped on his sword belt, then strode shirtless toward the door. Something, or someone, was outside his room. He knew it, deep down he knew it, though the knowledge disturbed him. Where had Marion gone? Why had the day vanished so quickly? Had he fallen asleep again?

  He touched the doorknob, found it ice-cold. His frown deepened. With how hot the summer had been, even nightfall shouldn’t have cooled his house so well. Sensing a trap, he put one hand on the hilt of a short sword, then pushed open the door with the other. He rushed on through, meaning to attack whoever laid an ambush, but the scene was too bewildering for him to react beyond gaping.

  “Hello, Thren,” said an older man, his hair gray, his skin starting to wrinkle. Around his neck was a silver chain decorated with the emblem of a lion, and it hung before his dark black robes. Instead of being inside his house’s hallway, they stood in a plain field with but a single tree in the distance.
The sky was filled with stars, and slowly they moved across the horizon, as if locked in a dance that baffled his reeling mind.

  “Who…” Thren asked, trying to make sense of things. The grass was cold and wet beneath his feet, and when he looked behind him, there was no sign of the doorway he’d just entered, only more fields stretching on for hundreds of miles, ending at a deep white fog.

  “Come, now,” said the stranger. “You aren’t as slow as this. Where you are, when you are, should be easy enough to decipher.”

  When? What did he mean by …

  And then the past years came slamming into him. Marion’s murder, Grayson’s arrival in Veldaren, Randith’s death at the hands of Aaron … all of it, he remembered all of it, and in doing so, he knew where he must be.

  “I’m dreaming,” he said. “But no normal dream. Who are you who would dare enter a man’s most private sanctuary?”

  “A desperate man,” he said. “A man I believe you’ve come looking for. My name is Luther, and I am a priest of Karak.”

  At the word Karak, it seemed the sky rumbled, and along the horizon, he watched a red line pierce the hills, signifying the rising of a blood-colored sun.

  “Luther,” said Thren, and the name felt heavy on his tongue. “So, you’ve come where you think me vulnerable, is that true? Would you kill me in my sleep, where I have but thoughts and dreams to defend myself?”

  Luther smiled, and it was strange, for he seemed so nonthreatening, just an aging man in the crossroads between his middle years and the elderly stage beyond. He still had all his hair, but his smile looked tired, his eyes heavy with many, many years of struggle.