Three Stories About Ghosts

  “Tell me again,” I said, smiling up at him. “Tell me of how we will live in the mountains and raise sheep and fat children together.” I laid my hand on his chest. He took it and gently pushed me back. He looked sick.

  “Later.” I could still see the black-leafed dirgewood sapling clutched in his hand. I had dreamed all spring of its roots twining around his skull. Later.

  I could not afford to push him—to make him think better of his actions, to make him afraid. I nodded my assent.

  “Let’s be away, then. I’ll look forward to it.”

  Our feet rang on the cold moonlit flagstones as we dashed across the courtyard and vanished into the shadows.

  The kitchens were dark, lit by cookfires and furnaces to resemble an unimaginative artist’s conception of the Torment that awaited the Vicious Dead. Hand in hand we crept silently through them, past sweating cooks and servants laden with heavy trays and carafes of wine. Where I could I directed Perro through subtle means—I would hang back at the wrong moment, or make it appear that I had caught sight of someone in our path. Bit by bit we drifted slowly to the edge of the kitchens, to where a great furnace burned all night to heat the Royal chambers far above. The banked fire flickered through the grate, casting ruddy orange bars of light broken by soot-black shadow onto the floor. High above us, the gears in the palace clock ground away the moments—the muffled toll of the First Bell of night reached us through plaster, brick, wood, and stone.

  I could feel unseen eyes on me; the masks reaching out from above, their spirits straining to see beyond their grey wooden prisons, as well as our loyal killers in the near shadows. Cold sweat trickled between my shoulder blades as Perro and I stood in silence before the furnace, watching it blaze like the mouth of an angry god ready to accept our dishonest sacrifices.

  “Is he with you?” My mouth was dry. Perro reached into his doublet and slipped out the slim, blank mask of Antonos Verocci.

  “Here,” he said, holding it out to me. I took the smooth, lifeless thing in my hands and looked down at it. After all the centuries Per’Secosa had fought the Verocci, I couldn’t recall him ever having been so close to one of their masks. He had never cradled a lifeless, inert enemy in his hands.

  Antonos Verocci felt like a seashell, light and smooth and brittle.

  “Are you sure?” I ran my thumb over the empty eye-socket, marvelling at the smoothness of the enamel. I held it in my hands, judging the weight. To me, it felt far too light. More likely than not it was made of ash, rather than inert wild dirgewood. Perro, loyal to his masters. Was I any different to him?

  He squeezed my hand, pressing it tight around the mask—his bare hand eclipsing my small gloved fingers. “It’s the only way we can ever be free.”

  “We can leave them here.” I looked up, eyes blazing. My remorse had to seem genuine. “We can leave them here and escape. They’ll never find us.”

  “You know they will. You know they won’t let this slight on their honour lie—they won’t let it be seen that they can be helpless for even a moment. They’ll hunt us, Carra.” He bit his lip and held me by my shoulders. His voice was warm and soft and sweet as honey. “This is the only way.”

  I nodded. Perro took up a heavy cloth and undid the latch on the furnace, hauling it open. The grille swung back with the haunted screech of metal against metal, and the fire blazed brightly inside. Heat washed over me, settling like a stole on my shoulders.

  The flames danced in reflection on the mask’s surface. There were no cracks in the enamel, no artistry of deceit to make it seem worn and aged. It wasn’t even a good counterfeit. It hurt to see how little Perro thought of me. Biting back a flash of anger, I closed my eyes and tossed the crude facsimile into the fire. It crackled and spat and flared up. In seconds, it was gone, its last sound the whispered crack of enamel shattering in the furnace’s heat.

  Perro was trembling. “It worked,” he said, his voice thick with relief. His palms were slick with sweat. He hadn’t even thought to wear gloves. Perhaps he didn’t know.

  “Turn away,” I said, eyes averted as I reached beneath my skirts. False shame, only natural in reaction to committing a crime considered beyond contemplation by our families. The rustling of my underskirts harmonised with the dim crackle of the shattered enamel on the remnants of Antonos Verocci’s false mask.

  “Here.” I held out the narrow, dark-lacquered face of Per’Secosa Vetruvi. The furious brows glared up at me as Perro’s hand circled it, gripping it by one of its eyes. He turned it over in his hands, examining it, running his fingers over the black silk cords that dangled from its edges.

  “So old,” he whispered. “To hold this...”

  Perro fell into a reverent silence as he looked down at the mask. “You must hurry,” I said. “We will not be alone here for long.”

  “Yes,” he said, a strange smile on his lips. “We won’t, will we?” With a casual motion he flicked the mask away into the furnace. I tried not to watch it dance over coals and ashes before it settled, silk already gone and lacquer bubbling as dirgewood split and charred.

  When I turned back to face Perro the dagger was already in his hand, its blade glinting fire-red.

  “Perro?” I stepped back, hesitant. “What are you doing?”

  “I am being rewarded for my loyalty, Carra.” He advanced a step, knife held casually in his grip.

  “Perro?” My voice cracked, laced through with notes of panic. “What about us? What about me? Perro—what have you done?”

  “In truth I regret this, Carra. You were assigned to me, years ago, but I have come to care for you.” He cast a forlorn gaze at me. “I don’t know if you’ll believe that or not.”

  “Strangely enough,” I said as I slipped around the corner of a table, “I don’t. Perhaps it is the knife that undermines your sincerity, Perro.”

  His trickster grin flickered back into life. “Perhaps. I’ll miss your tongue, Carra—I’ll miss your bold speech. There will be others, but none of them will be you. Take heart, though—I will always remember you, and treasure your memory forever.” He placed his hand over his heart. “A part of you will always live, always be treasured.”

  I spat at him. “Filth!” I cried. He cursed and sprang forward.

  I darted to the side—not quick enough—and screamed as he caught me by a fistful of hair and hauled me bodily over the table towards him. His face was contorted with rage. “That was a new tunic, whore!” he yelled, face flushed and mouth twisted into an ugly snarl.

  I reached up and snatched at his wrist, trying to push the dagger away as he bore down on me with all his weight. I could feel his breath against my face, hot and sour as he swore again, leaning down on the dagger to try and drive it into my heart. I pushed back, weary muscles working with a fury and desperation I had never before known, eyes welling with tears as they locked with those of the man I had loved.

  Like a man inhabited by a creature from the Torment, he bore down, holding me firmly in place as I struggled and kicked on the table. The world around me shook, the point of the dagger all but scoring my skin, and then everything stopped.

  I felt, rather than heard, the box-bolt strike home—wet, firm, and insistent. Perro jolted forward as if kicked, stumbling against the table, and then went slack.

  A second impact and his grip lost its power, the knife tumbling from numb fingers to land clattering on the wood of the table by my ear. He looked down at me, glassy-eyed, his face as pale and glistening as a Verocci enamelled mask. A thin trickle of blood painted his lips crimson.

  I pushed away and slid off the table, leaning on it to force myself upright on quivering legs. Perro still stood, feebly trying to reach out to me—though whether to hold me or kill me or beg my forgiveness I could no longer tell. The heavy barbed heads of two box-bolts, glistening and dark, jutted from his chest. His clothes were soaked in blood. As I stared he fell backwards, landing hard on the kitchen floor.

  I ran around the table and knelt by him. �
�I’m sorry, Perro,” I whispered and squeezed his hand. He fixed me with a pale, quizzical look before coughing violently, once, and then falling back senseless against the stone floor. “I will finish this,” I promised, as I folded his lifeless hand over his chest.

  I stood, my dress hanging awkwardly where the hem had soaked in Perro’s blood. Two shapes detached themselves from the shadows—Vetruvi men, in the garb of Palace Guards. “Are you hurt, my lady?” I dabbed at my neck, feeling a sliver of loose skin where Perro’s blade had brushed against me.

  “No,” I said, absently regarding my gloved hands. They were filthy with soot and blood. “I think most of this blood… um … I think it’s, I think it’s his.”

  Slowly, methodically, I peeled off my gloves and tossed them into the furnace.

  “What should we do?” The guard’s voice was muffled, as if he spoke through heavy furs.

  I looked down at Perro. His face was contorted in confusion and agony. His eyes, glassy and unfocused, stared up into the shadowed rafters. Dark blood shone on the floor, orange and black in the flickering light. The pool spread slowly, inching towards my slippers. “Do you have him with you?”

  One of the guards bowed and produced a slim wooden box. He held it out to me, and I placed it on the table. With shaking hands I opened the lock and brought out my mask. I held it in my hands for a moment before tying it in place.

  “There,” I said, in his voice. I kept my words steady, fearful that I would be discovered. “The deed is done—the child has no doubt learned her lesson.” I dabbed at the blood that covered my shoulders and the front of my dress, and barked out one of his cruel laughs. “And I have won my Claim. You have done well.” I waved my hand airily at the guards. “Come with me. We must alert the Royal House to this attempt on my life.”

  So it was that night, as the last dances were called in the Palace, that Carra Vetruvi swept into the hall in her white dress covered in blood, and brought the peace that had lasted a generation crashing down. I spoke with the voice of Per’Secosa, demanding an audience with the King to tell him of Perro and Antonos Verocci’s plan, years in the making, of using the Truce to lure Carra from her family with the intent of murdering both her and the Vetruvi Claimant, Honoured Secosa Vetruvi, all the while professing to love her. Tears stung my eyes. I fought them away, feeling my throat rasp as I spoke in his voice before the King, standing tall and proud and furious as he would. The mask pinched—it felt heavy, inert, unreal, and it sat awkwardly at the bridge of my nose.

  Behind me as I spoke, I heard the Verocci wail as Perro’s body was dragged into the hall, a trail of spattered blood in his wake. I told how he had wrestled me to the ground, how he had forced the mask from me, how I would have died had an off-duty guard not heard my distant cries on his way to the kitchens for a bite of supper and… I held out my hand, indicating Perro’s corpse.

  The King stood, weak joints creaking as he gripped the arm of the Summer Throne. “What would you have of the Crown, then? Per’Secosa Vetruvi, you have been wronged to the blood, and under banner of truce. What will you have?”

  I ached. Beyond the smell of old lacquer I could sense nothing but the reek of blood in the air. “I would have justice, Your Majesty.”

  A chill dropped on the room, sudden and heavy. A masked Judge shifted in the shadows behind the Throne, face white as bone. Several of the Verocci men reached reflexively for their belts, though no swords hung from them that night.

  “What more justice do you need, Per’Secosa? Your assailant is dead.”

  “My assailant,” I hissed through gritted teeth, “was nothing more than a pawn—a playing piece crafted to lure a young and impressionable host into a place where she could be removed, ending the Vetruvi Claim at a stroke.” I raised a finger and jabbed it, white-knuckled, at a tight knot of defensively-gathered Verocci. “This was not the work of one man, but of a family. I will have retribution.”

  The King nodded ponderously, hands barely moving as he beckoned his Judge forward. Outside, hooves could be heard on the courtyard’s flagstones as the more astute members of the Verocci clan slipped away from the Palace in haste.

  “I will have Antonos Verocci outlawed.” I raised my voice, letting it fill the chamber and beat back the gasps of the outraged family.

  “It is done.” The King waved a hand. “Antonos Verocci is outlaw. If he, or his bearer, are discovered within the borders of Calrisia, they and their lives are forfeit to the Crown.”

  With that simple statement, I had won. The trembling, the nervous energy, all of it bled out of me. I wanted nothing more than to slump down on the floor right there, but I couldn’t. He wouldn’t do that.

  A cold smile on my lips, I turned to face the whispering huddle of Verocci attendants. Hands behind my back, I stalked forward as he would have, conscious of the blood drying on my gown. I stopped and leaned in, fixing the dead-eyed mask of Torellos Verocci with a gaze of cold, cruel delight.

  “Run,” I whispered, baring my teeth in a smile. “Run while you can.”

  I closed my eyes. The air filled with the sounds of slippers scuffing rapidly across the wooden floor. In a moment the quiet storm had passed, and the room was cleared. Behind me the King wheezed audibly.

  With a gesture I dismissed my own family members, save for two distant cousins I would need to watch over me while I returned to my rooms. It was over. I had made the trade—burned the petulant, vindictive ghost who had bullied and dominated generations of my family, and set myself free.

  I tried not to think about what it had cost me.

  As I turned to take my leave, I looked down at Perro lying in a heap in the middle of the floor. I had never noticed before how vast the dancing-hall was, nor how small we all were. Alone amid its vast space, always loud and festive and busy, I could feel it pressing in on every side. Clearing my throat, I bowed one last time to the King.

  “Goodnight, Duke,” the old mask said.

  “Your Majesty,” I responded, bowing low so he would not see my smile.

  When I got back to my room I poured water enough to wash in and discarded my blood-spattered dress. Taking off the mask, I looked long and hard in the mirror at a face that was—for the first time—truly my own. I was covered in blood. Taking up a cloth I wiped at my hands, my shoulders, my neck and face. As I worked, my arms heavy and aching and the cut on my neck stinging, the water clouded a pale rose-blush red in the bowl. In time I was clean, and it did not seem so very much work in the end.

  I sighed, wearier than I had ever been before. I had done it. I had tricked Perro, tricked Per’Secosa, fooled my family and my enemies and my King. I had killed and lied and cheated, and I was too exhausted to feel much of anything about that.

  The night was warm, but I shivered anyway. I picked up the mask, still expecting the pull of Per’Secosa’s brutal spirit to flow into me and still surprised that it did not. It had taken so much from me to drive him in the direction I needed—to play on his anger so that my hands were badly scratched from our journey beneath the family vault. Over the long years I had given a little of myself over to drip poisoned whispers to his vanity, stoking it so that my hands would always be covered in public. Covered, so my skin would not touch his dirgewood husk if I were to hold it. It seemed so little, the nudges and whispers, but it had meant opening a part of myself to his bitter soul, and I wondered if it had left any scars—scars that no other would ever see, and that would never heal.

  I slipped under the covers of my bed and lay still, staring up at the ceiling. Exhausted but restless, I waited for my ghosts to come as I knew they would—the tight knot of guilt was already starting to push back against the numbing shock that still held me.

  My ghosts would come. For the first time in my whole life, they would be my own.

  I am Carra Vetruvi, my face bare, and these are my words.

  Martin Hall

  Martin Hall is a Scottish writer who has worked on the 7th Sea, Savage Worlds, and Edge of Midnight
roleplaying games. An archivist, historian, and qualified inquisitor, Martin finds his inspiration in the past. He writes fantasy stories, and loves using magic or technology to bend history out of shape.

  Figuratively speaking.

  Martin lives in Aberdeenshire with his wife and three children.

  MAGISTRA TREVELYAN

  By Ali Nouraei

  Chapter One

  JOHN STARED DOWN from Preston College’s clock tower as a sliver of sun crested the treetops around him, steeping the Massachusetts oak canopy in a golden light. The rustle of leaves, swaying in the brisk morning wind, lulled his mind as he watched them ripple from the clock tower’s rooftop.

  He leaned over the stone wall at the edge and looked down to scan the forest again, searching for the source of the sharp ache in his heart. Despite his efforts, he still couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched; and though he knew it was folly, he tried to stare back into the gloom of the forest floor, scouring it for a glimpse of an unknown threat.

  He wrapped his coat tighter around himself, stretched out the ache in his neck and shoulders from a sleepless night hunched over his work, turned, and leaned back on the stone wall that edged the clock tower’s roof. The roof’s shingles shook slightly as gears whirred beneath him. The clock’s mechanism clicked for a moment and the great bell, right below his feet, rang once to alert the college to the start of a brand new day. His heart leapt for a moment at the joy of hearing that familiar call to arms, and he drank in the excitement he had felt all those years ago at what awaited him in the day ahead as a student, rising from his dormitory on the East Wing. He turned to look for his old room’s window—but the memory was fleeting, and in a merciless moment he was back on the rooftop, looking for some phantom threat, trying to keep the reason he was here from overwhelming him yet again.