Grave Ghost

by Tia Reed

  Draykan emerged from the men’s longhouse. He had gone there when Ishoa left to have tense conversation with the other leadsmen. “Erok,” he said, when it was clear his son intended to lead the hunters to Ishoa’s cave. “The soothsayers say we need the ogre alive.”

  Her hunter strode away without answering his father. The forest loomed close but silent in its dread. At the bottom of the hill she waited, looking up, straining to hear something other than ten men tramping over each other in the confines of the small cave. They returned before she had decided it was safe, filing down the steep path, lips set in grim lines. Peeping from behind a beech, she watched them return to the village, all but Erok, who took a deep breath and looked at her like he had a great deal to say.

  “You sleep in the village tonight,” was all he managed.

  “Ishoa. . .”

  Clenching his jaw, Erok looked up at the cave. “Someone will help her.”

  Sian bit her lip. The soothsayers were shuffling around the hollow bole, guided by Loyt, Brax and Farina, who tottered like she needed the support of a staff herself. Behind them, the leadsmen ambled, patient in curbing their stride out of respect for the wise ones.

  “We go,” Erok said, trying to herd her towards the village. She tucked an arm around a slender trunk and hung back.

  “This concerns her,” Orin said, stopping to rest. He seemed so frail, leaning on his staff. One brush of the claw dangling from it would rip the thin skin on his hand.

  “Can I go to Ishoa?” she asked.

  “It is your place, child.”

  The mouth of the cave yawned dark and forbidding. Gor lurked inside. Sian hesitated through a tug on her soul, a summoning like Faradil’s. Ishoa wanted her. She ducked Erok’s cautionary hand and climbed the path. He came up right behind her.

  The haze in the cave stung her eyes. “Ishoa?” She tiptoed forward, blinking out the smoke so she could see. The ogre lay subdued near the fire. She edged around him, and wished on a gasp she hadn’t. Ishoa shivered on her furs, a bruised and bloodied mess of flesh.

  “Sian.” Ishoa’s voice commanded soothsayer power.

  Sian crept to her. She was weak to whimper when she was healthy and strong.

  “Hush, child. It is the will of the spirits.”

  The spirits were too mean. She scurried to the water pot, found some scraps of cloth and began to bathe Ishoa’s wounds. Her hands trembled as she fought tears. She didn’t want the leadsmen to see.

  “These men should not be here,” she said to Erok.

  “Our respects, Wise Ones,” Brax said. She heard him walk out of the cave.

  “Sian’s staying,” Loyt protested.

  She paid no attention to Farina’s reply and wiped the soothsayer’s brow. They might hear her sniff, but they couldn’t see her face.

  “Sian. You must do what the spirits ask of you,” Ishoa murmured.

  “I have.” She had found the bones and communed with Faradil. She took Ishoa’s hand. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Ishoa, who was everything to the tribe, had endured the torture to spare her, Sian, who was lower than a gnat.

  Ishoa reached a hand to her face and wiped away the tears. “The spirits demand much, but they also give more than you can imagine.” Her voice was so weak.

  “She needs healing,” Sian said to the soothsayers. They were standing in a row, each with a staff in hand, their sightless eyes looking into her. They were humming a low chant. It rumbled through the cave, vibrating through her bones.

  “Dark times approach. This creature is but one vessel of a greater evil,” Orin said as the last note died. Erok took his elbow and guided him to the furs by the fire. The ancient one reached into a pouch at his hip and tossed a handful of crumbled leaves into the flames. The smoke thickened.

  “We thank you for your service,” the Te’akerin leadsman said to Erok in formal dismissal.

  Sian drew a sharp breath. She could not stay here alone with these men. With Gor.

  “The hunter has earned the right to stay,” Orin, soothsayer of the Pa’akerin, Guardian of Spirit Lake said, as the others seated themselves. His permission stayed further protest.

  “What is this travesty? It is neither man nor ogre,” the Pa’akerin leadsman said.

  “It is both,” Soothsayer Mun said.

  “We found this. It was on the cairn of a corpse. A woman’s corpse. They did not. . .” Erok faltered on the revolting thought. “. . .take her as food, but laid her in their graveyard.” He handed the Pa’akerin leadsman the necklace he had found, the one with the animal designs of that tribe. The leadsman pressed it into Orin’s hand.

  The soothsayer cast it into the fire. The flames engulfed it. “Berena,” he said.

  Silence greeted his remark until his leadsman said, “One of our women who never returned from a wander when I was but new to my charge.”

  “This explains his intelligence,” the leadsman of the Te’akerin said.

  “There is more to it than that,” Orin said into the silence of pondering men.

  “There must be. This behaviour is abnormal. Ogres do not desire our women,” the Te’akerin leadsman said.

  “One at least did,” the leadsman of the Su’akerin pointed out. “The evidence lies before us.”

  “Perhaps. But what is normal about the way they mass, or the way they follow orders?” the Te’akerin leadsman asked.

  “For that last, we can blame Gor. No pure ogre could command another,” Draykan said.

  “How is it he walks abroad in the light of day?” Erok asked. The question brought all eyes to him. “He feared the sun when we ran, else we would not have got away.”

  Silence greeted that statement. The fire crackled.

  “Perhaps,” the Su’akerin leadsman conjectured, “perhaps, he never had reason to discover his human side before. If he lived among ogres, he may have adopted their ways, their beliefs.”

  “His mother was human,” the Pa’akerin leadsman replied. “He would have seen what she was capable of.”

  The group fell silent and turned to the soothsayers, who stared into the fire. Its flames threw the shadow of a bear on the rock.

  “There is more to this than it would seem,” Orin repeated.

  Ishoa tightened her grip on Sian’s hand. Her lips moved and a scratch of sound escaped. Sian leaned forward to catch her words. The message imparted, Ishoa drifted into restless oblivion. Sian shivered. The men kept silent, as though they waited for her revelation. She took a deep breath, stood and faced the soothsayers. The leadsmen were watching her, their faces tense. She wished them gone from here, that Ishoa might rest.

  “Ishoa said Gor made a pact with a djinn.”

  The leadsmen erupted into debate.

  “Are we to fear attack by day?” the Su’akerin leadsmen asked above the din.

  “Be calm. Not even a djinn can alter a creature’s nature,” Mun answered his leadsman. He sat relaxed, moving his long legs and arms into positions none of the other old men could hold.

  “But this creature –”

  “Is part human. The djinn has done no more than accentuate this side of him,” Orin said.

  The leadsmen began to argue anew.

  “Leadsmen,” Draykan interrupted. “The djinn’s end of the bargain is clear. Gor has gained tolerance to sunlight. What did the djinn bargain for?”

  Sian swallowed. The smoke was making her dizzy. She tottered towards the mouth of the cave, but the fire was before it and smoke was streaming out, ash clinging to her mouth and nose and skin. In the haze, the air spirits shimmered, in the ash, the forest spirits danced. They flitted around her and whispered and their words left her mouth.

  “The ogres will join his army.” The spinning cave turned so fast her mind separated from her body and her body was falling, falling to the floor and the world was turning black.

  Chapter 26

  KAIJOOR PALACE WAS a flurry of activity. Pages ran in every direction with garments for stitching or boots for p
olishing. Servants festooned the dining hall with streamers, garlands of flowers and banners. Maids scrubbed every nook of every room and polished each curve of the myriad ornaments to a bright shine. In the midst of such chaos there was one place Jordayne was sure to find her dear uncle. Hiding in his study. Or trying to hide. Through the open door a female voice chattered, oblivious to the polite boredom in Ordosteen’s short replies.

  “Am I interrupting?” Jordayne asked, waltzing right in.

  The bride-to-be was positively glowing. Ordosteen’s proposal had smoothed the fine lines on her brow, making her appear more youthful than her years. And her blue eyes and fair hair had a lustre Vae’oenka had better choose to endow Jordayne with when she reached that age. It would not be long before her portrait overshadowed the gold-framed landscapes on the walls. Jordayne kissed Rochelle on the cheek and turned to Ordosteen, who had risen from his favourite armchair to greet her with open arms and a welcoming smile. Holding his hands, she planted a kiss on each of his cheeks. She stepped aside when it became clear he desired to continue gazing upon the love of later life. Being relegated to second position was disconcerting, the more so when the woman in question was sharp enough to run the realm. If there was any consolation in this unexpected turn of events, it was that Rochelle was past the childbearing age. If a djinn did not intercede. Which, given Ordosteen’s history, was a distinct possibility. Jordayne removed her wrap and laid it across the back of the couch. There was more to think through here than she had found time for.

  “Are the night’s events already so well under control?” she asked.

  Ordosteen snapped out of his lovesick daze. “I take it the raid went well,” he said, giving her his full attention for the first time.

  “Did Matisse not report?” she asked.

  A bang drew her attention out of the keyhole window. The chamberlain’s harried voice admonished the servants to be careful with whatever preparation they were making in the gardens below the famed terraces choked with draping shrubbery.

  “Ordo has been unavailable this morning,” Rochelle said, flashing a coquettish smile. She twisted to show off the sparkling glass beads adorning her low-cut, silk choli. They caught the light with seductive allure. “The wedding preparations are behind schedule.”

  Ordosteen cleared his throat. A hint of red coloured his cheeks. Jordayne had to admit he looked happier than he had in a long while.

  “I heard you had returned, sis,” Matisse said, entering the study and running a hand through his tousled hair. The mages appeared behind him in their emerald shirts and black shalvar, their kamarbands wrapped around their hips in an appealing manner, their dark green cloaks staving off the morning chill.

  “I take it you have news,” Ordosteen said.

  Matisse grinned at the sound of hammering. “Knowing you have such a busy schedule, I did not dare to interrupt. But you never could deny my sister, Ordosteen, and now the mages have arrived, my visit carries weight,” Matisse teased. He took a wooden chair from against the wall and set it beside Ordosteen’s favoured armchair. “Would you care to know how our plans proceed?”

  “Sit, sit, both of you. You shall always have my ear. The wedding changes nothing.”

  Matisse unbuckled his sword, leaned it against the chair, and slouched into it.

  Jordayne gave Rochelle a pointed look as she sat next to Ordosteen on the emerald upholstered couch.

  Noting it, Ordosteen said, “The shahbanu is entitled to know affairs of state.”

  Rochelle perched on Ordosteen’s armchair with a vindicated smile, the daring woman. Her breeding prevented her from settling into the lumps and sags which cradled Ordosteen after years of accommodating his body. Jordayne’s lips settled into a displeased line. Prudence kept her from pointing out Rochelle was not shahbanu yet. She really was going to have to be careful if she intended to keep her influence. The throne was growing ever more distant by the day.

  “Your Majesty,” Drucilamere began, and he described Timak’s testing. Since she knew the details, Jordayne focused on the impeccable grooming of his moustache and the scrummy proportions of his desirable body. Now they had made up, she would have to ensure he spent the night at the palace.

  Ordosteen looked at the boy. Until Druce spoke, she had quite forgotten he had been trailing her. Too quiet by far, he stared at the square spiral arabesques on the upper walls. Any other child would have been itching to play with the primitive wooden mask, the eastern wheel of years, or the stone demon on the mahogany shelves he stood beside.

  “Come here, lad, let me look at you,” Ordosteen said.

  Timak crept over. Lack of sleep had left shadows under his eyes.

  “Did anyone in Verdaan discover magic in you?”

  Timak shook his head.

  “Drucilamere?”

  The mage waited for the pause in the hammering. “I think the porrin opened his mind to latent talent, Your Majesty.”

  “It is fitting for the mages to have a new apprentice. Timak, if you can discover how to use that quartz around your neck, Myklaan will be indebted to you.”

  Drucilamere placed a fatherly hand on the boy’s shoulder, guiding him out of all the attention.

  “Which reminds me to ask what shape our defences are in,” Jordayne said.

  Drucilamere took the remaining armchair, leaving Santesh and Kaztyne to stand while Timak settled on the floor.

  Ordosteen cleared his throat. “I’ve dispatched considerable reinforcements to the border and San Xalid.”

  “The army is in full preparation. General Yurtz and I have our defence well in hand,” Matisse said.

  A sharp rap at the door interrupted.

  “Enter,” Ordosteen called.

  A soldier walked in and bowed. His fresh clothing and damp face did little to hide the grime ingrained from days in the saddle. “Your Majesty, Captain deq Lungo sent me in all haste to inform you that the Terlaani Crown Prince, Lord Ahkdul of Verdaan and their party have opted to travel the Mykver pass.”

  “They head into Verdaan?” Matisse was up, all traces of fatigue gone.

  “Yes, my lord.”

  Her brother grabbed his sword and was striding from the room before the soldier had finished.

  “Matisse,” Jordayne called, hurrying after him. The others pattered after her, the lot of them chasing after a fully grown errant child.

  Her brother did not stop until he had exited the palace, marched along the gurgling canals through the indolent perfume of frangipane, and reached the bustling stables tucked away behind the myrtle hedges to one side of the palace. “We leave in fifteen minutes,” he informed the straw-flecked grooms mucking out the stalls. He turned to the soldier. “Tell my men to be ready.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Jordayne said. “This changes nothing.”

  “This changes everything.” He turned to Santesh. “Get your pack on that bay horse.”

  The strapping young groom leading a bay gelding threw the reins over a hitch post and hurried into the stables.

  Ordosteen placed his hands on his hips and looked at the pack as though he noticed Santesh was prepared for a journey for the first time. “Where in the name of the Vae is this party heading?” he asked, though from the pursing of his lips she thought he had already guessed.

  “Where honour demands,” Matisse answered, buckling on his sword.

  “Your Majesty, my lord Matisse approved a squad to hunt down our former apprentice,” Drucilamere said, with the exact mix of authority and deference to underscore his position as master mage. “Lord Matisse, my request does not necessitate your royal presence.”

  “Nevertheless, I will go.”

  “I will not sanction an incursion,” Ordosteen said, deep furrows on his brow.

  “This,” Jordayne said, “was intended to be a hunting party, not a rescue. Your skills are not required to bring a murderer to justice.”

  “The stakes have changed. And a scumhopper may catch two flies with one tongue.” />
  “You intend to travel? Now?” Ordosteen was beginning to steam. “It is not acceptable, Matisse. My wedding is next week. You are heir. You must attend.”

  Rochelle placed a hand on Ordosteen’s arm, making tiny swings of her body from side to side. Anyone could have mistaken her for a young girl in the first flush of love. It was a calculating ploy if ever Jordayne had seen one.

  Matisse looked down his nose at the cultured hand with the elegant nails. “Heir for how long, Uncle, now you have bartered a life so you can breed?”

  Matisse may as well have slapped Ordosteen, the way he blanched. It was unfair. Their dear uncle had relinquished years of happiness for the good of this Realm. Much as she hated the idea of him wed to someone with influence, she had to admit he deserved a few years of happiness.

  “Matisse, be reasonable,” Ordosteen said. He had begun to sweat despite the mildness of the breezy day. “You cannot just charge into Verdaan to claim the betrothed of a Verdaani Lord.”

  “Just watch me.”

  “I forbid it.”

  “Then have me arrested, Uncle.”

  Matisse took the reins of his black stallion from a scrawny groom. The horse was a beauty with a blaze and four white socks. Timak stepped beneath the nose of the animal, that perpetual frightened look on his face.

  “I take it you have something to say about all this?” Frankly, she was surprised he had not turned tail and run from their raised voices and the arrogant horse that snorted as it pawed the ground in front of him. Looking up at her from lowered eyes, the boy opened his mouth. Jordayne let out a deep breath. “Our mages are accustomed to speaking their mind and while their apprentices are in the habit of annoying me, you have yet to have that dubious distinction. Say what you have to say, Timak, or you may regret the missed opportunity for the rest of your life.”

  The boy’s eyes moved to Matisse. “Take me with you.”

  “This is not a holiday, boy.”

  “I want to go home.”

  Jordayne blinked. The day was full of surprises. “Do you not enjoy the mage guild? Did you not say you wanted to be a mage?”