“Lyle…the village down there. It’s not called Silent Hill, by chance?”
“No,” the dwarf said. After a moment, he added, “Silent Hill’s off west. Why d’you ask?”
“No reason. Also, let’s never go west.”
“Fine by me,” Lyle said. “Hey, who’s that?”
“Yes, I wondered the same thing.” A hysterical laugh bubbled in his chest. With his luck, this would be Sephith and he would die. He had gotten into a coma because of his parents’ meddling, but it would be a video game that finished him off. It was the kind of thing that would be funny in a little while.
You know, when he was dead.
“Greetings, travelers.” The figure shook his hood back to reveal an older man. His close-cropped hair was going gray and he was clean-shaven, a fact Lyle took in with a derisive snort. “I’ve been waiting for the travelers whose fire I saw last night. I’d guess you are them?”
Justin made a mental note to not build fires anymore. “Maybe. Who are you?”
“Merely an old mercenary.” The man smiled. “And, like any old mercenary, I’m willing to offer coin to some young men if they’ll go into danger on my behalf.”
“He talks like a mercenary,” Lyle said, after a moment.
“If he were a mercenary, wouldn’t he want to go into danger?” he pointed out.
“How d’you think a mercenary gets old?” the dwarf asked him. “By doin’ things like this. If he’s smart, he also took their coin purses when they fell in battle.”
The mercenary smiled and jingled a pouch at his belt. It sounded quite heavy.
“See?” Lyle asked. He folded his arms. “What’s the job?”
“There’s a house nearby,” the man said. “And a book inside. I’ll pay handsomely for it.” He turned to point down the hill, where a crumbling cottage could be seen.
“So…what’s in there is so terrifying,” Justin said, “that you won’t take two steps inside the door to get it. I don’t think I’m interested.”
“Hey, look at that.” Lyle patted his shoulder. “You might get old, too.”
“The house holds many secrets,” the mercenary told them. “You’ll find it perhaps doesn’t look on the inside as it does on the outside. And if it holds any other riches, you may keep them. I only want the book.”
“So what’s in there to stop you from getting it?” Justin asked. He was beginning to get annoyed.
“Do you know what happened to Kural?” the man asked.
His skin prickled. He swallowed when he looked at the house. “No.”
“No one does.” The mercenary shrugged. “But his servants? Sephith took their bodies. He said that was all he needed. The spirits…well, he left them here.”
Justin didn’t think his eyes could get any wider. He’d never found haunted houses all that scary but he had a feeling this one would be different. This one actually could kill him.
“The choice is yours,” the man said. “But if you go in, you should know the spirits can’t be fought—not with your weapons or mine, anyway. They’re of the spirit world and they’re hungry for life. They’ll fight you for your flesh if they catch you.”
“I can see why you didn’t lead with that,” he muttered. He stared at the house.
A long pause followed.
“Oh, hell,” Lyle said.
“What?” Justin looked at him.
“You’re going to do it, aren’t you?” the dwarf said. “You’re actually considering it.”
“It’s a chance to learn more about Sephith,” he pointed out. “And his capabilities.”
“It’s very simple,” Lyle told him. “Sephith? Bad. Capabilities? Very dangerous. He can kill you.”
“And apparently, he practices necromancy,” he said. “That’s new. I didn’t know that before.”
“Now you do! What more do you need inside that house o’ horrors?”
Justin began to laugh. He wasn’t quite sure why and he also wasn’t sure he could stop. He clapped Lyle on the shoulder. “You know, I’m not sure.” He started down the hill. “But I’ll be damned if I spend the rest of my life jumping at shadows.”
“He’s going to die,” Lyle said to the other man as he strode past.
The mercenary wisely said nothing.
From the outside, the cottage looked like it was barely big enough to hold a hearth and a bed, but the stones looked virtually untouched by time or weather. The only thing that had rotted was the thatch. It still held together, but Justin couldn’t see how—it was blackened and seemed to be composed mostly of slime.
He decided not to try breathing through his nose.
“Think of Zaara,” Lyle told him a little desperately.
“Huh?” Justin hesitated in confusion.
“The mayor’s daughter!” The dwarf looked at him like he was crazy. “The girl ye’re trying to save? Remember her? If ye die in there…well, Sephith’s gonna keep her.”
“Ah.” He considered this. “Counter-point. If we can’t defeat these ghosts, we probably can’t defeat Sephith. So, instead of walking all the way across the valley simply to die there, we might as well die here…right?”
His companion covered his face with his hands. “Don’t go above ground, me da said. They’re all crazy, he said. Well, he was right.”
“Probably,” Justin replied cheerfully. “But you stayed, which means you’re a little crazy too.”
He realized that when all of this was over, he would miss Lyle—and this life too. Sure, he was stuck in this game, but he was surviving based on wits and he got to choose how to do that. Instead of living in a little cave of a room, certain that the next day would bring more of the same monotony, he was in a world where his choices mattered.
And honestly, he liked that.
The cottage had no windows so there was no way to know what was inside. He took a deep breath, blew it out, and opened the door as gently as he could. When it slid open silently rather than creaking, he couldn’t tell if he was relieved or worried. The dwelling didn’t look like Sephith’s magic had forgotten it.
What he saw took his breath away.
“Holy Godspawn,” Lyle muttered from behind him.
Justin took a disbelieving step into the cottage and had to stop himself from laughing. The interior was massive. Vaulted ceilings stretched so high above that they should be shrouded in shadow—but the stained-glass windows cast jewel-toned patterns over the walls and illuminated everything. Wherever this mansion existed, it was somewhere the sun was shining.
The marble floor, too, was a work of art. The sigil of circling flames, which was picked out in red and orange glass on the windows, was echoed in the stone. It shone as if it had just been polished. Barely a single mote of dust floated in the shafts of light from the windows.
He took one step and then another before he stopped to look at the room as a whole. This was the kind of ballroom Disney princesses waltzed in. Not one, not two, but three staircases lay at the opposite end, the center one wide enough for one person in elaborate robes and the other two sweeping out in two symmetrical arcs.
Kural apparently liked to make an entrance when he entertained.
Even Lyle was shocked into silence until one of them took too many steps into the hall. With a chime like the sound of a dozen bells at once, braziers sprang into existence along the walls. A carpet unrolled itself from the top of the center stairway and flicked across the floor so quickly that they barely made it out of the way.
“Welcome,” a voice said, “to the Hall of Kural.”
“We should go,” the dwarf said decisively. “We should go right now.”
Justin waved a hand for him to be quiet. He could hear something.
“Come on!” He caught Lyle’s sleeve and began to run across the floor. It was a good thing his brain had gotten the hang of these game mechanics because he didn’t have time to dither. With the room this big and this empty, there weren’t many places to hide. Instead, there were two—under
the right staircase or the left one.
The noise grew louder as he ran, and he had the sickening realization that he was running directly toward it. He might, in fact, be going to the worst place of all.
Well, it was too late to do anything about it. He raced into the space under the right set of stairs and yanked the dwarf into the shadows beside him.
Above them, two doors slammed open and he jumped enough to hit his head on the underside of the stairs. Mouthing silent curses, he leaned into the darkness and snuck a peek at the opposite set of stairs.
Just as he had suspected, spirits made their way down the staircases. They drifted eerily in procession. He couldn’t tell what they had once been. Serving girls in flowing dresses? Guards with spears and swords? Kural clearly liked to make an impression, but was he the type who wanted to flaunt that he had a good life full of beautiful women or one who wanted to show off a massive army?
Not that it mattered now, he supposed.
The procession continued down the stairs and he peeked out far enough to see the ghosts form a line along the carpet.
“Welcome.” The whisper was hair-raising. “Welcome, petitioner, to the hall of Kural.”
Definitely serving girls in flowing dresses, Justin decided. Kural clearly liked to flaunt the good life in everyone else’s faces.
“D’you think we could get halls like this when we defeat Sephith?” he whispered to Lyle.
“Shhh!” His companion waved his hands dramatically.
He merely shrugged in response.
“Did you have a plan?” the dwarf asked in a furious whisper.
“Well, there was nowhere else to hide but here.”
“Or we could have left,” Lyle pointed out.
“Oh, right.” He nodded. “Yeah, that’s a good point.”
The dwarf slapped his hands over his eyes.
Justin considered his options but he noticed something strange—faint lines in the wall under the center staircase. It looked like it was made of solid stone to contrast with the unsupported, sweeping side staircases, but in actuality, there was a door there. He poked his teammate and pointed to the wall. How did they open it?
Lyle, surprisingly, seemed to know exactly where to look. He crouched to examine the door’s outline and nodded. He crept closer, took a deep breath before he went into the potential sightline of the ghosts, and pushed on the outer edge of one of the doors. It slid open as silently as the main door to the cottage and he beckoned Justin inside before he followed him in and pushed it hastily behind them, leaving only a crack for light.
“How did you know how to do that?” Justin asked quietly.
“The door’s dwarven-made,” Lyle explained. “Kural had good taste. Now.” He looked around. The light from the door fell evenly across the patch of floor where they stood but was jagged at the end. “I’d say this stairwell leads down to the kitchens…and up to his lordship’s tower.”
“Well, I think one of those is a better place to find a book,” Justin suggested. “Come on.” He started into the darkness.
SNEAK, LEVEL 1 the game told him. FINISH THIS QUEST TO EARN SNEAK LEVEL 10.
Now that was a good bonus but also a very bad sign of how difficult this quest would be.
The staircase went straight up, a mirror to the stairway above, until they reached what must have been the back wall. At that point, the floor leveled out and magical orbs illuminated.
“These would have been useful earlier,” Lyle said.
“Shhh!” Justin waved a hand. The last time lights had come on, ghosts had followed. He noticed a spiral staircase ahead and jerked his head. “Come on, before anyone comes from the kitchens to steal our souls.”
They reached the staircase as Justin heard the telltale hissing. Without speaking, they ran up the staircase as lightly as they could but luckily, the sound seemed to halt a short distance away. Perhaps the ghostly kitchen staff were pretending to lay out an imaginary meal. He shuddered at the thought.
The staircase seemed to ascend much farther than it should, and when he finally hit his head—something his nervous system did not like, all things considered—he realized he’d missed another dwarven door set in the curved wall. Again, Lyle found the hidden catch and the door opened as if its hinges had been oiled only the day before.
The two crept into a room that looked like the quintessential wizard’s tower.
Or, rather, the quintessential wizard’s tower after a tornado made of fire. The drapes had once been a rich purple but they now hung in tatters that held both charred pieces and glowing embers.
Justin had the strange, hair-raising idea that time had stopped entirely inside this castle and that if he were to go outside, he would find the mercenary frozen in the same place they’d left him. He looked at the books and saw one or two that should be falling from the shelves. They were frozen in mid-air instead. A few specks of ash didn’t swirl in the sunlight but simply hung in the air.
Kural had apparently not been one for potions. There were no bubbling braziers and no glowing green or purple liquids. Small mercies, he thought. He glanced at Lyle. “Do you see anything you want?”
The dwarf shook his head. “This place is cursed. That mercenary will pay for anything he keeps from it, you mark my words.”
Justin didn’t think so. He began to think that what had happened there wasn’t only Sephith’s magic but also Kural’s. This hall should have been looted by now. Surely Sephith wanted the books on the walls. Surely a human soul was worth more than a soulless body.
No, this looked like defenses that had been used too late and weren’t quite sufficient to save everyone. What if Sephith hadn’t made the husks but simply found the empty bodies?
Because Kural had tried to save his servants.
It was a theory he couldn’t prove and he wasn’t sure he’d ever know the full story, but he liked the idea. He looked at the walls. “Which book do you think the mercenary…” His gaze fell on one that glittered faintly golden but only when he looked at it out of the corner of his eye. “Never mind. Found it.”
He strode to the shelf, ignored Lyle’s warning, and pulled it down. His muscles—although faintly—told him that it was heavy. He hesitated and flipped it open.
“What are you doing?” the dwarf asked, horrified.
“Seeing what’s so valuable,” he said. “After all, it’s more advantageous to seize the means of production than be adjacent to it.”
“What?”
“It’s from a book. One my father doesn’t like.” Justin gave a small, private smile. “This, however, looks like spells. Yeah. Definitely spells. ‘Draw upon your magic to…’ Huh. This must be an intermediate book. I wonder where you learn where the magic is. Maybe there’s a glossary.” He flipped to the last page of the book.
MAGIC UNLOCKED, the game announced.
“Oh, hey, look at that.” He looked to where a mana bar had appeared alongside his health bar. “There was a glossary. Kind of.”
“I suggest you read that fireball spell again,” the AI said sweetly.
“Huh?” Justin looked up.
“I didn’t say anything,” the dwarf said. “Although…do you hear something?”
He heaved a sigh. “More ghosts. Look—uh, bluff as long as you can.”
“Bluff?” Lyle asked.
“Pretend,” he said and gestured to the door, “that these ghosts want you to pay them for their ale and you don’t have any money. Because it’s exactly like that, see. They want a spare body and yours isn’t a spare. So start making excuses. I’m going to learn some spells.”
“Why can’t we simply punch them?” the dwarf demanded. “Or run!”
“The mercenary said we couldn’t punch them, remember? They were made by magic so it stands to reason”—he flipped through the pages as quickly as he could— “that they can only be destroyed by magic. Ah, here we go. Fireball.” He read quickly as ghosts began to stream through the doors. “Any moment now, Lyle.”
>
“Greetings, esteemed servants of Kural,” Lyle said pleasantly.
The ghosts surrounded them and stopped.
“We have journeyed far to bring you news of your master,” the dwarf continued. “Kural was defeated on this earthly plane but left all of you here to make ready for his return.”
“That’s good,” Justin muttered.
“Shut it,” his companion said in an undertone. To the ghosts, he said, “Your master has sent us to bring him the last thing he needs for his return—this book. On the third new moon after the solstice, the rituals in this book will help him return to the mortal plane. He will appear and reward you well for guarding the keep in his absence.”
A long pause followed.
“Liar.” The ghosts spoke in one voice. “Thieves.”
“Fireballs!” Lyle yelled. “Now!”
“Aaaaaaaaah…” Justin blew his breath out and raised his hands. “You should probably duck.”
The dwarf, thankfully, didn’t question him and flung himself down. The ghosts surged forward at that, and Justin let loose with a fireball from one palm. It went straight through the first spirit but a moment later, the being shrieked and dissipated.
The others screamed.
He pointed at each distinct shape he could make out and fireballs erupted from his hands to tear long, ragged holes through the mass of ghosts. It was very much like smoke rings, he thought prosaically.
“Behind you!” his companion yelled.
Justin turned hastily enough that he tripped but thankfully, fireballs still worked when one was falling. Even the burst of pain along his side didn’t stop the next one from streaking into his adversaries. As one rose into the air with a shriek and turned to arrow down, he shoved both hands out and—as he’d hoped—a larger fireball was launched.
The one he killed must have been the leader because the rest gave a final shriek and vanished through the walls.
PYROMANIAC, LEVELS 1-3, the game announced.
“I’ll be damned,” the AI said, “you did it.”
He rolled his eyes and stood. “There we go. Let’s get out of here with this thing.”
“None too soon,” the dwarf agreed. He banged through the main doors and went down the stairs faster than Justin would have thought possible. Lyle was apparently in no mood to stick around there. Nothing—not the dwarven stonework or the golden baubles—was enough of an incentive to keep him there.
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