by Eric Asher
“Where do you wish to go?” Gaia asked.
I blinked, realizing that I hadn’t told Gaia where I needed to go. We’d just launched into the conversation about Appalachia. “Greenville. The old ruins south of the cabin.”
Gaia glanced down at me, her lilting voice a source of comfort as we passed tentacled creatures of pure madness. “You seek the spirit of the drowned city.”
I didn’t think it had been a question. My talk of Appalachia likely gave away exactly who I was looking for. “The forest god who dwells there. Appalachia’s child? I met him last year. What’s his name?”
Gaia didn’t answer for a time. “Sometimes I can hear them. The whispers of the spirits, they still reach me. Some of them are in pain, and some of them are no more, spirits lost to the unrelenting force of humanity’s progress.”
The goddess winced as the words left her lips. She didn’t have to tell me what was happening for me to know that the compulsion the Mad King placed upon her so long ago was causing great pain.
“That’s what I wanted to hear,” I said. “You’ve done well.”
Gaia shook her head. “It’s not that, little one. It is the emotions, the anger. If I feel it too much, I am reminded not to.”
The thought angered me. A being not allowed to feel her own emotions without being punished for them? It was monstrous.
“But I hear their whispers,” Gaia said, drawing my attention back to her. “The one you seek has taken a mortal name, Dirge.”
My brain scrambled, trying to think if I’d heard of a forest, or a landmark, or mountain range, or anything that would bear the name Dirge.
“You seem lost,” Gaia said. “It is not a name taken lightly, like that of Appalachia, named for the forested mountains she protected. Dirge was named for the songs played upon the hills where the dead were buried. The old cliffs above the river, before the city drowned.”
“The cemetery?” I asked. “Dirge took his name after the music?”
Gaia nodded. “And the friend he lost who played that music.”
“Friend? The forest god had a friend?” I stared into the distance at a towering mass of what I imagined would be writhing serpents if not for the odd slow of time in the Abyss. “A human friend?”
“Yes. Is that so hard for you to grasp? For are we ourselves not friends?”
“Of course we are,” I said.
“Dirge’s friend played songs at the humans’ memorials. But he did more than that. He planted trees. For every one he cut down to build the burying boxes of your people, he would plant three more. Always three.”
“To revive the forest?” I asked.
Gaia nodded. “Even then, that was not a common custom among your people. I do not know the entire story, but I know that Dirge had affection for the human. When that human died, and the city drowned, and those seedlings grew no more, Dirge despaired. And a spirit in distress can be a dangerous being indeed.”
“We kind of … broke some of their forest in the battle last year. You think they’ll want to talk to me? Do you think they’ll even realize I’m there?”
“They know when all people are there. If you did their forest harm, I am certain they will greet you.”
“Awesome,” I said, wondering just how much more worried I should be.
“We are here,” Gaia said. “Go in peace, and the spirits will guide you.”
I thanked Gaia, released her hand, and fell through the darkness until the stars fled and the green grass of an old cemetery spun beneath my feet.
* * *
I took a moment to steady myself. The transition from the shadows of the Abyss to the early evening of the quiet hilltop was jarring at best. I turned to look behind me and check my surroundings, when I realized how close to the edge Gaia had put me.
A hurried step took me backward. I doubted the fall to the Black River below would kill me, or at least not kill me quickly, but it wasn’t something I wanted to experiment with. “Cutting it a little close, aren’t we?”
I brushed my thighs off, as if trying to remove dirt that wasn’t there. I slowed when I felt them. Old ghosts, and a few angry ghosts, whose homes had been destroyed in the floods, destroyed in the wars, and now even some whose resting places had been torn apart by the battle that had come here.
“I know you can hear me, boy,” a voice said, and though the sound was barely above a whisper, the anger was plain to hear.
I let my eyes unfocus and let the gray shroud of the dead fall across my vision. It wasn’t a single ghost that waited for me, but a cluster of them.
The man who spoke wore a scraggly beard and a torn-up uniform, indicating he’d once served the Union Army. Other ghosts were newer, one wearing a spectacular leisure suit that led me to believe he only died a few decades before. Others were older, buried there long before Greenville had been built up into a city. I recognized the rough straw hats, the corncob pipes that were such a common sight around Coldwater, especially near the old sawmill that had been long lost to time.
“What are you all doing here?” I asked.
“He can see us!” the man in the leisure suit said.
“Of course he can,” the soldier said. “Were you not paying attention when those vampires came through here?”
“I hardly think they were vampires,” leisure suit said. “Everyone knows those are just stories.”
The soldier pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a slow breath. “Of course. Now that you’re dead, and a ghost, and stuck in a leisure suit forever, it’s the vampires you don’t believe in. Of course it is.”
“Uh, guys?” I asked. “Did you need something? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a cemetery with such a lively … congregation.”
“Rest has been hard to come by,” the soldier said.
A couple of ghosts standing around him nodded in agreement, including a young boy holding what I suspected was his mother’s hand. I couldn’t place the clothing, but even as ghosts, it looked like rough wool. I had little doubt their short lives had been damn hard.
“Why?” I asked, leaning up against a nearby tree. “Being dead seems like the perfect time to rest.”
“You’d think so,” the soldier said. “But instead there’s been fighting, and dying, like we was trying to babysit toddlers with long rifles. It’s been chaos.”
“The old town rose right out of the earth,” leisure suit said.
I turned back toward the younger ghost. “Not exactly. That may have partially been my fault. Or a lot my fault. Probably all my fault.”
“So, you are the necromancer,” the soldier said.
I nodded, somewhat surprised that he would know the term in anything other than the biblical sense. “And you’ve seen the vampires that came through here? The ones me and my allies fought?”
“Yes,” the soldier said. “We saw them, some of us fought them. And some of us … died.”
“Uh …”
“I know,” he said. “We all know we’re dead. We ain’t idiots. Those things, the ones that could talk but stayed in the shadows. They tore more than one ghost apart. Claws like an eagle, and I …” The ghost shivered. “I’d never seen anything like it.”
I looked around the gathering of ghosts. A few nodded along with the soldier’s story. I didn’t have any reason not to trust his word, but the thought of dark-touched rending ghosts left a sour taste in my mouth. I frowned and looked past the dead, at the damage the forest service still hadn’t fully repaired. Most of the old ruins were intact, but where great swathes of earth have been carved up, either by the harbinger or my own incantations, chaos remained.
“We’re still fighting them,” I said, studying the edge of the forest. “I’ll try to make sure they never come back here again.”
“I would appreciate that,” the soldier said. “There’s only so much I can do as a dead man. Scare a few kids off here and there. A couple vandals.” He balled his hands into fists. “But there’s not much else I can do.”
I gave the soldier a small smile. “You can be with your friends. And that, perhaps, is worth more than you know.”
“It will be nicer when the forest is fixed. Maybe then things can get back to normal around here.”
I perked up as the soldier studied the tree line behind us.
“Something happen?” I asked.
“Some government folks been out here,” he said with a nod toward a pile of dead trees. “They burned some of the dead wood, mulched some others. But I don’t think the forest will be happy until it’s begun to recover in earnest.”
“Do you know the forest god?” I asked.
“The forest god?” The soldier frowned briefly, and then his eyes lit up. A small smile broke through his melancholy expression. “You mean Dirge. I’ve known him a very long time.”
I tamped down the excitement rising in my chest. “How I can find him? We need his help. It might help us stop those vampires.”
“What might?” the soldier asked.
“Information, if he has it. Some of our allies, the people and fairies fighting the vampires, they’ve been compromised by spies.”
“Like those damn Pinkertons?”
I blinked at the old ghost, but I was quite sure he was referring to the more legitimate Pinkertons, and not Philip. But the thought still sent me reeling, wondering how many of these people had been touched by that man.
“Yes,” I said.
“I used to see him when I played the dirge for a funeral,” the old soldier said.
The man’s words hit me like a brick. Who he was had been so obvious, I hadn’t even thought that Dirge’s friend could be this soldier.
“Thought I was hallucinating the first few times I saw him. But he was different then. He doesn’t take too kindly to ghosts now, and I’m afraid that might mean he won’t take too kindly to you.”
“That and the fact we tore up his forest,” I muttered.
The soldier shrugged. “Even he, unreasonable as he can be, saw that giant tear up those trees. I think he could hardly blame you and yours for fighting that thing.”
“Guess we’ll see.” I pulled out my phone and opened the music app.
“What do you intend to do?” the old soldier asked.
“Play some music. See if he’ll come out and talk.”
“On one of those flat boxes?” the soldier said. “You need a real instrument, son.”
I smiled at the old ghost. “Let’s just hope this will do.” I cued up a funeral dirge and cranked the volume on my phone as high as it would go. Out in the open, even in the calm air, the music wasn’t very loud. But in the silence that surrounded us, it sounded more like a sad thunder. One mournful note followed its brothers and sisters through the darkness of loss.
The ghosts fell silent, and we waited.
It wasn’t long before the trees swayed as if a strong breeze had moved them. But the air was still, and the movement of the trees was isolated. I focused on that patch of woods, until I saw the flash of glowing eyes and the bark that shifted inside the shadows.
“You picked a good one,” the old soldier said. “Played that one myself once or twice. Back when I still could.”
Another minute and the song wound down. The trees stilled, but the glowing eyes stayed focused on me. A slow blink was the only movement I saw. I waited, wondering if I should call out to the forest god, or if that would have me running screaming from an angry tree. It wouldn’t hurt if I waited a little longer. I let out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding when the tree line separated, and the mass of the forest god known as Dirge stepped into the clearing.
“That song,” the forest god boomed. “I have not heard that song in a great many years. A lifetime, by your mortal standards. Why have you returned here, necromancer?”
“I thought you might be able to help us. My allies were fighting the vampires you saw in your woods, who hurt the ghosts here—the spirits of the people, and even your friend.”
“The dead are dead,” Dirge said. “They are friends to none.”
I frowned at the forest god. I’d met many beings over the years, and some could perceive the dead better than others. Something as powerful as the green men, and the forest gods, I’d assumed would see them clearly.
“He’s right here,” I said. “He still wears his uniform. A little tattered, but you can still tell it’s him.”
The forest god’s voice rose. “You injure my lands, my trees, and now you seek to pierce my heart. I left you in peace once, necromancer. Join the dead in oblivion.”
The hands of the forest god erupted into spikes. Thorns grew down the length of the vines that formed his arms and legs.
I cursed and turned to the ghost beside me. “Hold on, this is going to get a little weird.”
My aura flashed out before I could give him more warning than that. And a knowing filled with more loss and sadness than I’d ever seen sent me to my knees.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Terrence Holtzman. His father had been the first man he knew that died in the war. A family torn asunder when his sister became an abolitionist. It was a dangerous time for women to have an opinion, much less an opinion on what had cut the nation in half. She left Missouri to work with the abolitionists.
It was the last time he saw his little sister. But he heard the stories of what they’d done to her. He swore that so long as he lived, he would fight in her memory.
He served in Missouri most of his years, fighting for the right to raise the first colored regiment near Kansas. And they finally won, and those proud men marched for the Union.
Terrence saw a dozen skirmishes with various units. Some were filled with his friends, some people he would’ve one time considered enemies, but most died. It was Price’s disorganized campaign that tore through the heart of the state. They cut down his friends, and while many bodies were lost to the woods, some remained. But no matter what, Terrence played his guitar in their honor at their memorials.
The last song he played was interrupted by fire, and a ball of lead. His last vision was the boy in gray, marching over the fresh graves, screaming that Terrence’s daddy had killed his, but now he’d return the favor in kind. He recognized the boy. He couldn’t be more than fourteen, couldn’t understand what he was doing, taking up arms for the Confederacy, and murdering his one-time neighbor.
The boy never saw what got him. Never saw the shadow rise from the woods, the angry flare in the forest god’s eyes. One moment he was alive, and the next vines had risen from the forest floor and shot through him like spears.
The lumbering shadow kneeled beside Terrence. It spoke. “Your music was beautiful.”
In his last words, Terrence whispered, “I knew you were real.”
* * *
I broke away from the vision with a cry. Tears stung my cheeks, and I defiantly stared up at the forest god. His charge had slowed until he came to a stop not ten feet from us. But his eyes weren’t on me. They were on the glowing spirit beside me, the tattered and stained uniform of a friend gunned down.
“But you died,” the forest god said quietly, the spikes on his body slowly receding.
Terrence barked out a short laugh. “Yeah. It sucked. But I’m glad you were there.”
“And the shadows around you?” Dirge asked. “They are ghosts, too?”
Terrence nodded. “But I don’t know why you can see me and not them. We’re the same.”
“I think I know,” Dirge said. And he turned his gaze to me. “You spoke the truth.”
“I did.” I bit my tongue, not wanting any sarcasm to slip out and possibly anger the very, very large forest god. “We were only here for the vampires and those who would do harm to the ghosts and commoners of this place.”
Dirge gave a slow nod of his colossal head before turning his gaze back to Terrence. The vines in his chest moved, slowly revealing what lay beneath. Dirge reverently removed an ancient guitar from where he must have held it for over a century. I didn’t unders
tand how it could be so well-preserved, but the magic of the Fae and the gods could be a strange thing indeed.
Dirge gently held the guitar out to Terrence, and the ghost glanced between me and the forest god.
“I can’t, though, can I?”
I nodded. “For a time. Oh, and you’ll probably be visible to the commoners, so you might want to stay out of sight for a little bit.”
Terrence’s solemn expression broke into a small smile and he reached out for the guitar. He hesitated at first, as if worried his fingers would pass right through the strings and the fretboard, but they didn’t. Whatever magic had preserved the guitar hadn’t kept the strings in tune, but they were still pliable enough for Terrence to fix that.
Dirge sank into the earth, until he was not much taller than us, though his face and shoulders were still quite a bit broader. “We lost friends here in the battle. But I could not play your song for them.”
Terrence gave the forest god a sad smile as his fingers danced. The strings resonated, and the music that vibrated out of that old wood pulled me right back into the visions of loss that Terrence had tried to soothe with his music. We listened in silence: the ghosts of the cemetery, the forest god, and the necromancer.
* * *
The skies grew dark, and Terrence must have been playing for an hour. The lilting notes at once soothing the loss and building a beautiful memorial to those Dirge couldn’t play for.
When the last note died, the forest god didn’t wear the expression of rage that I’d seen on him like a fixture in the battle, and even when I arrived here.
“Thank you,” Dirge said.
“I can teach you,” Terrence said. “If I have enough time.” He glanced back at me.
“You’ll be able to hold the guitar for at least a few days, and you’ll need to watch out for the commoners longer than that. And since Dirge here seems to have better perception than them, you’ll probably have a while to tutor him.”
“Done and done,” Terrence said. “If that don’t beat the Dutch.”
Dirge frowned and turned to me. “Why would you do this?”
“I need help,” I said. “The things we fought here, the vampires?”