by A. H. Lee
“Look on the bright side,” said Sairis as he lay down. “We might only bring a monster with us.”
“I might just let you hunt it down yourself, then,” said Marsden.
“You know you wouldn’t.”
Candice lay down in the circle, her tattered dress and wild hair pooling around her. She looked more like a storybook witch than a princess. Or perhaps just a storybook child, lost in the haunted forest. She turned her head to look at the sword, fixing her eyes on the bloody place where she’d made her mark. She murmured something over and over, as her eyes fluttered closed, but Roland could not understand the words.
Sairis did not murmur. He lay down on the other side of the sword and composed himself as though for sleep, with his hands folded over his stomach. His eyes flicked to Roland’s and blinked once behind his glasses. Then his dark lashes settled against his cheeks, and his face stilled. His breathing slowed until it was almost undetectable. After a moment, his feet settled a bit further apart, and his shoulders dropped. Such tiny changes, and yet his body looked less occupied. Empty. Roland would not let himself think, “Dead.”
A movement above Sairis caught Roland’s attention. The sword was no longer a mirror. It was a slit window on some kind of foggy room. Roland could see the back of Sairis’s phantom head and his shoulder. Sairis moved forward and Roland thought the fog would swallow him up. Then he turned and looked back through the sliver of window provided by the reflective blade. Roland thought at first that he didn’t see the people standing around the edge of the circle. And then he did. Sairis gave Roland a little smile. Roland thought of words written on foggy glass. He wanted to call out for Sairis to stop, come back, forget the whole thing.
Then, just like last time, Sairis’s ghost walked away into the mirrored surface.
Chapter 26. The Tower and the Forest
Sairis stood still, getting his bearings. He was in some kind of circular room with fog blowing through open windows. He could sense the River nearby, but he could not hear it. The air felt moist.
Another look out the window behind him explained why. Gone was the view of the well and campfire in the woods. Now, Sairis was staring down through drifting streamers of low cloud. Dark, gnarled trees stretched to the horizon, mostly leafless.
I’m in a tower, he thought. A tower in the Shadow Lands. Something about that seemed familiar. I saw it. When he stabbed me. I saw it from the River. The memory had faded like a dream, but now it returned.
Sairis looked for the gleaming line of the Styx and found it. The River was not far off, cutting through the trees. It came near the tower, but not right up to it. Sairis tried to see what was directly below, but cornices and drifting clouds blocked his view.
He turned back to the room. There was a doorway a little further along the wall with a view of stairs beyond. A desk near the door was piled high with papers covered in a scrawl of runes and diagrams. Just as Sairis was processing this, he noticed a man who stood gazing out a window on the far side of the room. The man was tall and dark-haired. Something about the set of his shoulders was familiar. Hastafel? Sairis did not speak aloud, but the man turned anyway.
It was Lord Hastafel without a doubt, looking much as Sairis remembered him in battle leathers, with an intimidating glare. Sairis shrank away, but there was nothing like recognition on Hastafel’s face as he gave Sairis a cursory once-over. “Did I make more of them?” he demanded.
Sairis had no idea whether to answer. He forced himself to calm down and use a little magic on his sight. What he found astonished him. Hastafel was a ghost. Not a spirit-walker. A ghost. What the hells?
The man turned away from him dismissively to pace around the room. “Just a peasant. You probably don’t know.”
Sairis looked down at himself. He was wearing the sort of patched and worn garments that he was accustomed to wearing at home. The Shadow Lands were like that unless you made special preparations. You often ended up wearing what you expected. Sairis did a brief, anxious exploration of his face and pockets. Usually magical artifacts made this journey with ease, but sometimes mishaps occurred. He was relieved to find his glasses still on his nose, a few tiny charms he’d managed to put together over the last day still in his pockets.
At that moment, Candice stepped through one of the slit windows. She’d taken a little longer to sink into the proper trance, but she’d made the journey intact. Her hair was neatly braided in a long, thick tail down her back. She was wearing a full dress, which seemed impractical, but it did at least give her freedom of movement. The dress was black as starless night. It suited her.
Candice took in the room, just as Sairis had done, her gaze fixing for a moment on the ghostly Hastafel, who’d returned to staring out the window. Candice saw Sairis. Then, just as he had done, she turned and looked out and down. She stared for a long time.
Sairis walked over to stand beside her. He spoke softly. “That’s the Shadow Lands.”
Candice bit her lip. Her eyes tracked the gleam of the River.
“And that’s the Styx,” said Sairis.
Candice looked down at her dress. “Why am I wearing this?”
“It must be how you see yourself,” said Sairis. “You can make anchors to clothing if you want to wear something specific.”
Candice started to say something else, then stopped herself. She stared for a while longer. “I was so jealous when I heard about you,” she murmured at last.
Sairis was astonished. You were jealous when you heard that Mistala had an outlaw necromancer and his apprentice with a price on their heads? “Because I was living in a tower?” he ventured.
Candice smiled. “Because you had a teacher.”
That made Sairis pause. He thought of all the times he’d considered running away from Karkaroth, how he’d yearned to go to the university. He’d wanted more, too—freedom to go to places like the Tipsy Knave. There’d been a time when that yearning had felt as though it would suffocate him. “I was pretty lonely,” he said at last.
“But you had one person who understood you,” said Candice, “who didn’t think you were a monster, because he was the same.”
“Yes.” Sairis glanced around at the ghost of Lord Hastafel. “Can we talk about this later?”
Candice turned from the window. “Let’s go down. I don’t think what we’re looking for will be this high up.”
“You know what we’re looking for?”
“I know what I’m looking for.”
All of this talking had gotten Hastafel’s attention again. He was staring at them with a puzzled expression. “You’re not ghosts...”
“No,” said Sairis, “but you are. That’s odd. Has the demon eaten you after all? But that doesn’t make sense. Demons usually consume everything, ghost included.”
Hastafel paced towards them. Sairis made mental preparations to bind him if need be, although he would prefer not to use so much magic. He might need it later. “I think I made more of them,” muttered Hastafel. “I’m not sure. I’m not sure whether I should have. I’m not...not certain!” He became increasingly distressed as he spoke, clutching his head on the last words.
Candice ignored him and moved towards the stairs. She paused beside the desk, visibly torn by a desire to inspect the papers, but then shook her head and continued on out of sight. Sairis was less interested in Hastafel’s sorcerous notes than in the state of the ghost himself.
“You’re not complete, are you?” said Sairis. “He...splinted you off. Like a memory locked in a vessel.”
Hastafel stared at him. “Yes. I...I am not complete. I feel this. I am...hungry.”
His eyes took on a wet brightness that Sairis had seen before. Damn. He backed quickly towards the door as the ghost moved again, this time with less human grace and more of a lurching, instinctual stumble. “I need...life,” it muttered. “I need...I require... I am not complete. Yes. I am...hungry.”
As Sairis suspected, the ghost could not pass the threshold of its chambe
r. Of course, it’s quite mad. It cannot fully die, so it yearns for living blood. However, Sairis had no sooner left the room than the ghost seemed to forget its bloodlust. As he followed Candice down the dark stairs, he heard it wail again, “Did I make more of them?”
* * * *
When it became clear that Sairis and Candice would be gone for more than a few minutes, Roland went to tend to Cato. He removed most of the tack, brushed him, and tethered him loosely, so that he could escape from predators if need be. Roland gave him what few oats remained in the saddlebags, and made sure he could reach nearby forage. “Tomorrow,” Roland promised him as he soothed the horse’s nose, “we will be in Mosshaven, and there will be hay and oats.”
When he returned to the fire, Marsden was finishing his dinner and he wordlessly offered Roland more of the same. They ate in silence, sitting around the summoning circle. The demon had stretched out on his side, eyes half-closed, for all the world like a torpid cat.
Something began moving in the circle. At first, Roland thought it was the sword again, showing them a reflection of what Sairis was seeing. But the effect was only on the ground around the sword—a shimmer like heat, and yet the air had gone chilly.
“Hell’s teeth,” muttered Marsden. “Well, that’s necromancy for you. Stay away from it.”
The shimmer was spilling out of the circle like water from a broken cup. Indeed, as Roland stared, he became more convinced that it actually was some type of water. It followed the path of least resistance out of the circle, and wound away through the trees, down the hillside.
Mal scooted away from it daintily, rolling his eyes at Marsden’s quick retreat, but even he didn’t seem anxious to touch the shimmer.
“What is it?” Roland whispered.
“The Styx,” murmured the demon. “The echo of the Styx. It happens sometimes, when you make a portal into Death.”
“What happens if it touches someone?” asked Roland.
“Nothing good,” said Marsden.
“If you are concerned about the people living at the foot of the ridge, be at peace,” said Mal. “The echo of the River is weaker the farther it runs from its source. It will be a harmless anomaly in a short distance. Right here, though...it would be possible to cross by accident. Not easy, but possible.”
Marsden seemed to agree with this assessment as far as it went, so Roland settled down again. He could not help but stare at the illusory River in fascination. At first, it was just a shimmer that seemed almost a trick of the eyes. But it flowed around rocks and trees like a stream and threw back the faintest reflection of firelight. As time passed, it gained more definition. After a while, Roland could swear he saw the reflection of a forest in its depths—not the forest of evergreens where he sat, but the leafless branches of hulking, twisted trees, rising into a twilight sky.
Chapter 27. Faces of Lord Hastafel
Sairis was not surprised to find the second highest room of the tower very like the first. It, too, contained a desk covered in papers, and there was a crude summoning circle chalked on the floor, although Sairis sensed it had never been activated. A ghostly Hastafel paced back and forth across it. “This is enough,” he murmured. “This is almost more than I can control. I do not need more than this. Unless...unless... But I don’t.”
He seemed entirely consumed by his internal monologue. Sairis inched around the edge of the room, angling for the stairs. He saw no sign of Candice, but he couldn’t blame her for not wanting to linger with an insane and agitated ghost.
Halfway to the stairs, the creature noticed Sairis. Instead of attacking, it barked, “Is there such a thing as enough power? Enough control?”
Sairis kept moving.
“Well?” demanded the ghost.
Sairis could see it was becoming more agitated, so he answered, “I should think so.”
The ghost seemed relieved. “Of course there is! There can be no contentment if there is never enough. What is life without contentment? What is all this striving if there is no end? This is enough! It has to be enough!”
Sairis reached the stairs and darted along the dark wall. He was beginning to have an unsettling notion of exactly what had happened here. I should probably tell Candice what I’m thinking. Sairis risked a low call, “Candice?”
He came into the next room, but she wasn’t here, either. This version of Hastafel was visibly younger, probably in his early thirties. He was sitting at the desk, writing furiously. When he saw Sairis, he bounced to his feet, clutching a sheaf of papers. “Oh, thank the gods, I thought no one would ever come. Look, I’ve got to share this. I know that not everyone wants to know, but I’m learning so much. There must be someone who could benefit from the things I’ve seen, the risks I’ve taken, the sacrifices I’ve made. What if I die in the next campaign? What if the anti-magical faction stages a coup? What if someone finds the demon and kills it? This knowledge can’t die with me. Please, take it!”
He thrust papers into Sairis’s startled hands. Some of them fluttered to the floor, but Hastafel bent quickly to scoop them up and shove them under Sairis’s chin. The pages were covered in lines of dense script.
Some of Hastafel’s excitement seemed to dissipate as he saw Sairis’s expression. “There’s something wrong, isn’t there? I feel as though I’ve been here for much more than an afternoon. Am I...” He swallowed. “Am I alive?”
Oh, gods.
“I have to go.” Sairis carried the papers, just to see what would happen, but as he expected, they evaporated as he crossed the threshold. The ghost wailed behind him. “You can’t leave me here! I have so much to share! Please, I can’t have done all this for nothing! Please don’t leave me here!”
Is he talking to me? wondered Sairis, Or to himself?
* * * *
Roland felt like he was on sentry duty. Sentry duty after a long, hard march. He did not sleep, because he was a soldier, but the night took on a dreamlike quality as they sat in an increasingly dark and chilly wood, watching the stars wheel overhead. The waxing moon had not yet risen. As the fire burned down to embers, the three of them became just lumps of shadow—Marsden in his coat and Mal stretched out on his back, still in human form.
Roland could no longer discern breathing in either Sairis or Candice. He told himself this was only because the darkness stole details. However, as the night dragged on, he could not help but think of a wake—the sword like a tombstone, the two bodies still and pale beneath it, and the silent watchers keeping vigil. Only the illusion of the River moved, throwing back pinpricks of starlight.
Roland judged the time was near midnight when, from far off, came a long, wavering howl, rapidly joined by others. Gooseflesh prickled over Roland’s arms. Marsden jerked, indicating that he had been dozing. Mal sat up on the opposite side of the circle. Its voice sounded surprisingly uneasy for a demon. “What was that?”
* * * *
The next iteration of Lord Hastafel was curled up behind the desk, sobbing. He didn’t raise his head as Sairis passed, so Sairis couldn’t gauge how old he was. Surely younger than the previous version.
By contrast, the next young man was animated and hardly recognizable as the battered veteran Sairis had met in the Malconwy’s strategy room. “How many chances do you get at love?” he demanded when Sairis walked into the room.
Sairis hesitated. The ghosts seemed to want a response. “Probably not many.”
“Precisely!” announced Hastafel. “And she loves me back! How rare is that? I can walk away from all this, install a stable government, leave my officers in charge. We will run away, take ship to the islands, or simply hide until things have settled. We can live in the hills for all I care! I can herd sheep and goats again. Gods know I’m familiar enough with that.” His face took on a hint of uncertainty as Sairis inched around him towards the stairs. “It seems like I’ve been waiting for her a long time. Who are you, anyway? I seem to encounter many strange people here, and that’s...that’s not right...is it? Oh, gods. I d
idn’t... I didn’t do anything, did I? Surely I wouldn’t have wanted to be rid of...of love!”
Sairis tried to step away, but the ghost darted forward and caught him by the shoulders. “What happened to me?” he demanded. “What happened to her?”
Sairis thought of the sobbing version of this man one layer above. Nothing good. “I have to go.” He tore himself away and left the youthful Hastafel still hurling questions after him.
Where are you, Candice?
* * * *
“Should we wake them?” asked Roland.
Marsden shook his head. “If you move them or break the circle, they might never find their way back to their bodies. And you’d make it easier for a monster to take possession in their absence.” He frowned. “I’m tempted to cast an illusory fold to hide us. The problem is the River...”
“The River would create a flaw in your illusion,” agreed the demon.
Marsden got up and walked back and forth beside the ghostly waters, muttering words that sent streaks of color sparking on the surface.
“There’s no hiding it,” muttered Mal, “not without an enormous outlay of magic.”
He seemed to be correct, because Marsden finally sat back down without making any visible changes to the River. After a moment’s hesitation, Roland got up and poked the fire to life again.
“I don’t like wolves,” muttered Mal.
“Game has gone scarce along with the rain,” said Marsden. “Predators have gotten more aggressive. We will just have to fend them off if they approach.”
Roland shifted uncomfortably. He wasn’t afraid of animals, and he pitied the wolf that took a snap at Cato. However, he hated the idea of being attacked while Sairis could not be moved from such a helpless position. “Maybe they’ll wake up before the wolves get here.”
The chorus of howls erupted again. They sounded closer.
Mal dissolved into the leopard, his tail visibly fluffed. “Or maybe not.”