Grave Ghost

by Tia Reed

  Triumphant cries bounded off the trees. More of them would be pursuing her now. She looked around for a thicket to hide in, a tree to climb. The moonbeam glided over a shadowy clump and sailed on. She left it and jumped inside. Leaves swished against her body as she crawled beneath huge fronds.

  A hand latched onto her ankle and dragged her out. She pulled free and scrambled up but the squat soldier was there, holding a torch which lit an ugly leer beneath his stubble. He lunged, grabbed her arm and pulled her to him. His grip burned. She kept still, hoping to avoid his fists. As he rammed the end of his torch in the ground, his leer deepened. Without warning, he kicked her legs from under her. His fist pummelled into her head. She grunted. He grabbed her hair and pulled, squatted over her and drew his knife, positioning it over her stretched neck. Flames reflected in a mean blade. Menace dripped from his mean words. “Hill rat.”

  Teal light brightened the forest. The soldier flew off her, thudding down in the clump of ferns. Sian scrambled up, brought her knees into her chest, wrapped her arms tight around them and rocked. The magic man’s robed figure appeared like a wraith in the firelight. The soldier picked himself and gestured in her direction. He said something that claimed credit for her capture.

  “Morik,” the mahktashaan said, and something more she did not understand. His crystal glowed teal. The soldier rocked onto the tips of his toes, his arms and legs splayed, his eyes bulging as he gurgled for a sliver of breath. The light in the crystal died. With a shudder, Morik collapsed to his knees. The mahktashaan beckoned her.

  Sian rose, sidled past the gasping soldier, and followed the magic man to camp. They had moved away from dead ogres who would turn to stone with the dawn. She settled as far away from all the men as the leader would allow. Her hunter knew though; he might have seen the redness in her face or the stiffness in her walk. He was up before she was settled by a fire, facing off the magic man, who pointed at Morik sauntering in. They had already bound her hunter’s hands but Erok lunged into the soldier, knocking him to the ground. He used both fists like a club, battering Morik on the chest, against the head, in the nose. The soldiers erupted into action, lunging at Erok.

  “Halt!” the magic man called.

  Morik fell still, as surprised as she. She could tell by the widening of his eyes. He recovered quick enough to block Erok’s next punch and land one of his own. His two free hands were an advantage to match Erok’s bulk. He soon weakened Erok enough to roll from under him.

  “Did he hurt you?” Brax had wriggled over to her.

  She shook her head. Did not want to look him in the eye.

  “Are you sure?”

  She nodded. “He didn’t. . . Not like the other. . .” She bit her lip. She was stupid to blurt her dishonour to him. “He tried to kill me.” She rocked. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  Brax put a hand around her. “You are not stupid.”

  She hadn’t meant to speak aloud. Tucking her chest against her knees, she tried to become a leaf, anonymous amongst all the others.

  “I did not mean what I said, Sian. The soothsayers say you must reach Spirit Lake. Erok and I. . . we have failed to protect you.”

  There it was in the open, their intended destination. She swallowed. Refused to answer him, instead watched the men wrestling, fighting until Erok lurched. Morik punched him in the stomach and then struck him across the nape. Erok fell. Sian gasped. The crystal glowed. She cringed but the ropes fell off Erok’s wrists. Morik formed a fist, but Erok twisted, raising an open hand to block the hit. Now there was no stopping her well-built hunter. He was driven by a protective rage and landed kick after punch until Morik was a bloody mess on the ground.

  “Enough,” the Mahktashaan said.

  Erok kicked Morik again.

  “Enough.”

  Erok clutched at his throat. He had to stagger close to the other soldiers before the magic man allowed him a deep breath. Four lowlanders fell upon him, binding him tight. His scrapes and bruises made her feel small and stupid. If she had not run. . .

  “I will die before they hurt you,” Erok said, sitting next to her. “Sian, you must go alone if need be. If you get the chance, you must go to Spirit Lake.”

  She curled up on a blanket on the floor, facing away from him because she didn’t want to go. She could never go alone. Long hours passed before she fell asleep. She was almost sick with worry about how Morik might plot his revenge. But the soldiers shunned the stunted man and let her sleep between Erok and Brax that one night.

  Chapter 39

  ROUGH HANDS DRAGGED him off the street. Timak struggled and scratched and kicked but they forced him down and used thick rope to bind him. He bit calloused fingers as they pinched his nose. That earned him a couple of slaps. The fingers squeezed, forcing him to open his mouth so he could breathe. A bitter porrin brew sluiced down his throat. He coughed and spluttered half of it back up. He was dizzy when they stuffed him into a sack and carted him away.

  When they shook him out, he hit the floor hard. For a time he floated over Teqrin, chasing seagulls, splashing in the sea, riding in front of his father. All the while his mother was singing to him, right there beside him, so bright. And then she was not, and he was so far from her, lying on damp rock in a chamber hewn from rock. He dragged himself up and tottered to the door. It was bolted, didn’t even budge at his rattle. Feet shuffled towards it, though. He skittered away as Rough Hands threw the door wide open. Pink scratches swelled on the thug’s cheek and hands. When he saw Timak, he spat into the chipped jug he was carrying.

  “I’ll have none of your fighting, brat. Give me another scratch and I’ll leave you wishing you were dead.”

  Timak eyed him until he was inside. Then he bolted.

  “Scumsucking toad!” Rough Hands dropped the jug. He was chasing Timak down a sloping tunnel by the time it shattered on the rock.

  A man with a barrel chest and stumpy legs sprang out. Timak kept running. If he was fast enough, he might tear right out of those big hands. Except he wasn’t that fast. The man caught him and flipped him onto his back. The impact juddered up his spine. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t even turn his head when Stumpy set a booted foot on his chest.

  “That little brat is in for it.” Rough Hands stomped up and kicked him in the head. Pain shot through his ear and exploded out of his head. The world turned black.

  “We could have us some fun. Teach him a lesson. Send a finger to the palace. Maybe a toe tomorrow.” The cold flat of a knife pressed against Timak’s cheek. “Scar him a little.” The sharp tip pressed under his cheek bone. Patches of silver flashed through the black.

  “Ask Prahak. I bet he’ll like the sound of that.” A shadow that had to be Rough Hands reached down. The weight on his chest lifted, and Rough Hands hauled him up. “No permanent damage until the boss gives the okay.”

  Stumpy chuckled. “No need to leave a mark to have some fun. There’s rumours he come from Lord Ahkdul of Verdaan.” A calloused thumb stroked Timak’s cheek. He tried to turn his face but movement worsened the pain shooting through his head.

  Rough hands dragged him along the tunnel. “Where’d you hear that, you filthy pig?”

  The rocks spun around him.

  “Same gossips as say he hears djinn.”

  Timak’s stomach heaved. Nothing came out his mouth. His feet rolled. Rough Hands kept dragging him.

  “That true boy?” Stumpy asked. “You serve Lord Ahkdul?”

  “If he don’t spill, Prahak’ll let you do whatever disgusting thing you want.” Rough Hands swung him around and squeezed his chin between thumb and forefinger. The thug’s face blurred into a hideous collection of pieces. He looked worse than an ogre, even. “Let that be a warning to you, boy.”

  They pushed him through a door, and threw him to the floor. Fragments of broken jug wobbled in a pool of reddish liquid.

  “Clean up the mess,” Rough Hands said, pointing to a bucket in the corner.

  Timak crawled over and dragged the
bucket back. Piece by piece, he stashed the fragments. A sharp edge cut his finger. Blood welled up, but he didn’t make a peep. It didn’t hurt compared to the stabs in his head.

  “All of it,” Rough hands said when he clinked the last shard inside. He kicked Timak down. Timak’s sleeve dipped in the spiked water. “Drink it up like a good mongrel.”

  Timak lay there, cowering. Maybe if he was still enough Rough Hands would just laugh and go away. But Rough Hands squatted and scratched a knife along his nose. “You do as you’re asked, or I’ll let Keb have his fun. And he’s not inclined to leave his bitches in as good condition as that fancy lord you came from.”

  He couldn’t help the whimper. He hadn’t fooled them anyway; he was shaking something bad.

  “Drink.” Rough Hands pushed his face into the liquid.

  Timak lapped at the spill.

  “Good mutt. We’ll have you trained in no time.” Rough Hand patted Timak’s head, just like he might a favoured dog.

  The shakes were easing now the bliss was numbing his pain and his fear, but something just as trembly was building inside him. His captors didn’t notice, just left him lying there on the wet, uneven floor. They had long left, or maybe just gone, when the bucket flew across the room, dumping the whirling pieces of broken jug into the air. They whipped around him until they crashed into wall and door. Their clinks spun Timak out of the cave, past the Mage Guild, over Lake Tejolin where mutilated ghosts rose from murky depths to menace him with their cold hands as they groped at him and drew him under the water, tearing his clothes from his body. Their gruesome faces turned into Lord Ahkdul who grinned at Timak’s feverish screams.

  He was shivering and sweating when he woke on a ragged blanket he didn’t remember crawling onto. Every knob of rock poked right through it. He drifted to the ceiling and against the walls. Drifted down through the rock beneath him. It pressed so cold around him.

  “Unacceptable!”

  Timak curled tight. He hated that voice, that indigo colour.

  “I made a pact,” Yazmine said, whispering, shivering.

  Timak loosened. He would be safe if she blew him a caress.

  “With a man who could not talk,” Indigo said.

  “He would have agreed.”

  Couldn’t she see him, weak and quivering? Help. He wasn’t sure he said it. His sticky, swollen lips wouldn’t part.

  “Imbecile. Our rules are clear. She must be punished, Tiarasae.”

  “I do not think the mahktashaan will complain. Shall we ask him, indigo brother?” The Queen’s voice was the music of a harp.

  “Help,” Timak croaked.

  “His life is worth more than the rose genie demanded.”

  “A kiss?” Tiarasae was amused.

  “Not to me.” Yazmine sighed through her lament. “Mahktos took me before I found my first love.”

  “You agreed, little rose,” Tiarasae said.

  “So I did.”

  The door creaked opened. Feet scuffled across the dirt floor. Timak whimpered.

  “He’s been trouble,” a hollow voice said, kicking a piece of broken pottery across the room.

  Timak blinked. Rough Hands split into three blurred figures. Each one set a crude jug on the floor with a head-splitting thump.

  A second man walked over, crunching broken pottery underfoot. His heavy black boots came to rest against Timak’s knee. Timak lay very still, trying not to think about the terrifying pink splotch on his neck.

  The man grabbed a fistful of his shirt and hauled him up. “Do you hear djinn, boy?”

  Timak drooped sideways, would have fallen right back down if the man had not held tight.

  “Is your djinn here?”

  Timak’s head lolled. He blinked again. His captor was growing and shrinking in the whirling room. The man gave him a shake. Timak whimpered. It was a terrible thing to hear djinn. They might kill him for it. The man gave him two slaps to his face. He didn’t mind because he couldn’t feel it.

  “Is your djinn here?”

  A gurgle was the best he could manage.

  “You’ve given him too much.”

  The man let go and he toppled onto the louse-infested scrap of blanket. The door clicked shut. The porrin carried him through the roof and into the sky. The voices of the djinn echoed through his mind.

  “. . .Tiarasae almost killed. . . Mahktos set his Sight into the Eye as an eternal watch over our recalcitrant indigo brother.”

  There was a wheeze. “Please don’t stop.”

  “You should rest,” the tinkling voice said.

  “Where is he?” Yazmine yawned.

  “Rest.”

  “Oh, he’s going to get her killed.”

  “Don’t go, little rose. You’re not. . .”

  Sweet Yazmine. He didn’t hurt so much when he thought about her. He could feel safe enough to close his eyes and breathe calm.

  He woke feeling light-headed and heavy-limbed. A few blinks settled the wobbling room. It was quiet, except for his heartbeat thumping in his ears. He didn’t half mind lying still except thirst seared his throat. He pushed himself up, licked his swollen lips, and stared at the jug. Burning temptation won out. He crawled over, lifted it to his lips and swallowed. The water tasted sweet but his tongue was so fuzzy he couldn’t tell if it was tainted with the drug. When he took another swig, the room grew steadier so he drank his fill. He needed to use the bucket after that. He sat with his knees drawn to his chest, watched the door and tried not to think about his grumbling stomach. It was so quiet his kidnappers might have forgotten he was here. He tried the door, but it was still locked. There wasn’t anything else in the room except the broken pottery. He picked up the largest shard and gouged the wood around one of the door hinges. With luck and lots of time, he might work the nails loose.

  Feet scuffled outside. Timak scuttled to the blanket as the door opened. He dropped the shard too late. Rough Hands saw him do it. He was in for it because the thug narrowed his eyes. Timak couldn’t help looking at the door. It was a good mistake. He palmed the shard as Rough Hands turned to examine it.

  “Why you little –” The thug slammed a fist under the gouge.

  “What’s the mutt done now?” Keb asked, pushing past his mate and setting a chair in the middle of the room.”

  Rough Hands strode to Timak and hauled him up. It was plenty close to lash out with the shard. It pierced muscle as Rough Hands whacked him on the side of the head. The thug yelled louder than he did, which was all the victory he could claim. Rough Hands slammed him into the chair and hit him again. Timak struggled. The piece of pottery was on the ground. He couldn’t reach it. He couldn’t break the men’s grip. They were binding him, slapping him but he was going to keep struggling. The hits didn’t hurt so much with porrin in his blood.

  Prahak walked in. His cold confidence slapped Timak into sitting still. The thug picked up the chair with Timak in it and set it down square to him. He drew a knife from his belt and pricked Timak’s knee. “There is nobody that can find you here. There’s nothing either palace or mages can offer that I’ll trade for you. There’s only one thing that can save you.”

  Timak gripped the arms of the chair and stared at Prahak’s middle. Prahak pressed the tip of the blade under Timak’s chin. “What is the name of your djinn?”

  Rough Hands left off rubbing his arm to draw a finger across his neck. Terror devoured Timak’s words.

  Prahak pressed the knife a little harder. “The name, boy.”

  “I don’t know,” he whispered.

  “What do you call him?”

  “Genie.”

  Prahak eased up with the knife. “Is she here?”

  “No.”

  “Has she been here?”

  Timak swallowed. He didn’t think the ghosts had been real. He didn’t think Ahkdul had stormed this cave. But the bright light he had thought was his mother? “No.”

  The knife pressed up. “Don’t lie to me.”

  “Yes.�
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  “Does she come when you call?”

  “No.”

  Prahak rested a hand on his right forearm and pressed the sharp blade of the knife against Timak’s fingers. Timak whimpered. “An intelligent Verdaani lad like you must know what his lords do to uncooperative scum.”

  Timak closed his eyes so tight his face hurt.

  Prahak rocked the knife. “Does she come when you call?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Call her.”

  Timak opened his mouth. He couldn’t make any words.

  “If you’re not going to use your tongue, I’ll cut it out.”

  He whimpered. “Genie.”

  “Louder.”

  “Genie. Genie, please come.”

  Prahak prised his thumb and middle finger apart. The knife rocked over the knuckle of his pointer. “Is she here?”

  “No.”

  The knife sliced through his skin; Timak screamed. Blood welled up and trickled over his finger, down the splintery wood of the chair, onto his lap and the ground. His bladder emptied; pee ran into his churidar and down the sides of his legs. Prahak sidestepped the puddle. Timak managed a shuddery gasp against the pain. Snot dripped from his nose onto his wet lap.

  “Well?”

  “She’s. . . not. . . here.”

  “You want to keep those fingers? Your ears, your eyes, your tongue?” Prahak touched each with the knife. “This is how you’re going to do it. You’re going to keep calling your genie, and when she comes you’re going to discover her name. You’ll trade that name for your life. Understand?” He couldn’t say he did when his mouth was clamped with fear. Prahak placed the knife against his throat. “I asked you if you understand?” He hoped his stiff neck was nodding his head. He didn’t know because terror had turned him to ice. “And if any of us hear the word ‘deal’ out of your mouth, you’ll be dead before you know what hit you. Do you know what happens to people who die before they honour their pact?”