The Trespassing of Souls

by M S C Barnes

The knights bowed their heads and waited.

  “Then the naming of your year is …” Seb heard nothing. He glanced at Mr Duir whose lips moved once but no sound came out. Then his voice was audible once more, “… is that satisfactory to you?”

  Again the ghostly voices answered, “Sufficient to serve.”

  Mr Duir waved his hand over their heads, a faint sparkling dust illuminated the air and then the pair of knights stood up and marched to their previous positions in line.

  “Second knights.” Mr Duir still had not raised his voice above a bare whisper. The same ceremony was repeated. The two knights elected to continue and Mr Duir spoke an inaudible year.

  The ghost-voices of these two knights spoke, “Sufficient to serve.” Again, they returned to their place in the line.

  “Third knights,” Mr Duir called and the next two knelt in front of the Custodians. This time, however, when asked if they wished to continue there was a silence for several seconds. Seb waited and then glanced at Mr Duir to see if he looked worried that they had not answered. Just as Seb was about to speak, the voices on the wind came, “Ours for release on the condition of service completed.”

  Mr Duir smiled sympathetically. “At the end it will be done,” he said and these two knights stood up and marched to stand behind Seb and Mr Duir.

  The next two elected to continue in service and returned to the depleted line.

  As with the third pair, the final two stated, “Ours for release on the condition of service completed,” and were directed to join the previous two, standing behind Seb.

  Mr Duir now addressed the six who remained facing them.

  “Your honour does honour to the Custodians. With gratitude you are dismissed to await summons.” He bowed low and Seb just stood and gawped. The six knights bowed and, as if they were nothing more than ghostly apparitions, faded out of sight.

  Now Mr Duir turned and indicated for Seb to do the same. The four knights behind them were facing the wall of carvings.

  “Kneel,” Mr Duir said, a bit louder now.

  As one the sentinels knelt.

  “Be certain you desire this. It is beyond recall.” Each nodded. “Then let it be known that your service has been prestigious, your honour is beyond question, your vigil distinguished and your obligation at an end. Let Nature find the mark on your souls and keep you together, one and one.”

  He paused and turned to Seb. “This mark is for the Knights Sentinel alone and is never to be used otherwise.” Seb nodded seriously but waited, hoping what Mr Duir was talking about would become clear.

  Turning back to the knights Mr Duir said, “First two, speak your year.”

  The windblown voices whispered something Seb could not discern and as they did, Mr Duir revealed his birthmark, captured the light from the small aperture above and shone it onto the hilt of a sword carving in front of which these knights knelt. Blue light shot back out from the hilt, splitting into two beams which struck the chests of the kneeling sentinels. Seb noticed, for the first time, that these two knights gripped one another’s gauntleted hands. As the light struck them their heads, which had been bowed, raised upward and their whole bodies were consumed in blue incandescence. In a second the bodies vanished and two vapour trails circled upward to disappear through the aperture to the right.

  Without pause Mr Duir continued, “Noble sentinels, speak your year.”

  Again the ghostly voices, words indiscernible, floated on the air. Mr Duir illuminated the sword hilt, the forked blue lightning struck the knights, their bodies vanished and the two vapour trails drifted aloft to disappear through the small hole.

  Seb waited in the echoey silence that followed, wondering what the heck he had just witnessed. Mr Duir seemed to have killed four sentinels – with their blessing.

  “Walk with me, Seb,” Mr Duir said, re-entering the lake cave. There was a scraping sound as the section of wall repositioned itself.

  Seb walked beside Mr Duir, accompanied by two lines of sentinels, to the bank of the shimmering lake. They sat on the opposite side to where the teachers, The Caretaker and Seb’s group were chatting, laughing even. They seemed a very happy gathering but Seb, once again, felt his mood drift into sadness.

  Mr Duir looked at him and smiled kindly, his eyes reflecting the dappled light bouncing off the lake waters.

  “Seb, it is not a cause for sadness.”

  Seb lifted his eyebrows.

  “Well, to me it appeared …” He felt embarrassed at the accusation he was about to level and paused.

  “Yes?” Mr Duir waited.

  “Well, like you just killed those sentinels,” Seb whispered, hoping his voice wouldn’t reach the knights standing feet from them.

  Mr Duir laughed. Seb had never really heard this man laugh before and it brightened the whole cave. The fireflies danced frenetically, their light causing the massive diamond to sparkle more vividly and the group on the other side of the lake looked across.

  Mr Duir placed a kindly hand on Seb’s shoulder.

  “Seb, I released them to their gift.”

  Seb’s puzzled look elicited, for once, more explanation from Mr Duir, but The Head spoke in hushed tones.

  “The Knights Sentinel come in pairs, Seb. They are pairs of souls whose affinity and connection to each other transcends all when they first meet. They strike an instant bond and become devoted to one another. It does not happen often in the innumerous soul encounters over the millennia. Other than the twin-souls of the Dryad and Custodian, few experience that bond of … well, you would call it eternal love. Many love, many have strong connections with souls in their sojourns here. You know there are people in your life you instantly feel drawn to, comfortable with, a love for – but this is different, deeper, indissoluble, constant.

  “When Custodians encounter such souls they have it within their power to offer a gift. The gift must be earned and the earning is done by the completion of an allotted span of service to the security of the Custodians within this or other specified Ancient Places. They sacrifice their recognisable bodies for the guise of the Knights Sentinel and are given the powers and skills of that position and role.”

  He stopped and stared across the lake, smiling into the distance at some quiet thought in his head.

  “So what is the gift, then,” Seb asked, “that makes that worthwhile?”

  Mr Duir looked at him, his eyes unreadable.

  “The gift, Seb, is an assurance by Nature to always return their souls together. Every decade they fulfil as sentinels represents the number of returns to this reality they will have as a united couple. On each visit to this reality they will find one another, remember one another and be with one another.”

  Seb wondered at that – to love another soul so much you would want to always be with them. He stared across the lake now himself, and gazed at Nat as she sat laughing with Aiden.

  Mr Duir called his attention back.

  “These souls, Seb, swear allegiance to a specific Custodian and between them and the Custodian they agree the span of service they wish to pledge. The only time they are permitted early release is on the passing of that Custodian, which is why the offer was made to these, Heath’s knights.

  “The six that remained have now sworn service to me and it is for them and me alone to know the decades they have pledged to serve.”

  “Who keeps count?” was all Seb could think to ask.

  “The Custodian.” Mr Duir sounded surprised by the question.

  “So if I do this, pledge some people to be knights, I’ll have to remember what years they agreed to and when they agreed it and work out when they’re finished?”

  Mr Duir was amused. “Yes,” he smiled.

  “What if I forget?”

  He chuckled. “You will not. Now,” he stood up, “we shall dismiss the sentinels and rejoin the others. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

   

   

  Retelling

  Standing by th
e lake bank Mr Duir waved a hand. All the Knights Sentinel lining the walls shook off their stone-like appearance and marched over to him. He dismissed them and they faded out of sight.

  “Come on,” he smiled at Seb. “I think if Alice is excluded for much longer he will lose all his leaves.”

  They rejoined the others. Alice was on Seb’s shoulder in an instant. The Caretaker, being pestered by Cue, had somehow managed to cook up a delicious-smelling porridge and there was a good deal of fussing as bowls, spoons, cups and the like were shared out. Finally everyone took seats on rugs around the fire.

  Most of the party seemed to want to avoid any heavy conversation while they ate and Zach took advantage of the general jollity to play the fool, trying to get Miss West to take her boot off to compare shoe sizes.

  Seb, Alice beside him, ate in silence, wondering how the others could brush aside the events of the night so quickly.

  Mr Duir and The Caretaker talked quietly together and, compared to the now raucous laughter and conversation coming from everyone else including Dierne, Seb noted, they were subdued and serious. Realising Seb was watching him, Mr Duir looked up.

  “Well?” he asked, smiling.

  At the sound of his voice the others fell silent.

  Before Seb could speak, Zach jumped in. “So did you know Heath was a baddie? Cos it came as a surprise to everyone else,” he said bluntly.

  Mr Duir sighed sadly. “Zach, I suspected something after the attack here, but it was only really yesterday morning, thanks to Nat, that I started to realise.” Nat looked embarrassed and confused. Mr West, beside her,