David Dalglish - A Dance of Ghosts

Taking the box of paint Melody had given him out from his pocket, he dipped his fingers inside and began to smear it across his newly shaven face. Thicker and thicker he spread the paint, whitening him, hiding him. The last thing he wanted his opponents to see was himself, not with how sick and tired he felt. He needed to be the killer again, the brutal hunter no one could escape. With his swords, his clothes, his paint, he was as close to that as he’d been since being thrown into the Connington dungeons, and as the last of the paint spread across his neck, he let out a wide smile.

“How do I look?” he asked, setting down the mirror.

“Like your old self,” Bill said.

“And for that, I have you to thank.” Ghost dipped his head in respect. “Keep quiet about my return. Once my tasks are over, I plan on traveling far from Veldaren, and if I can, I’d like to ensure no one can follow me.”

“Of course,” Bill said. “Besides, who would believe me? All they’d think is that an old man saw himself a ghost in his sleep.”

He grinned at his own joke, and Ghost slapped the man across the shoulder.

“A shame we never fought side by side,” he said. “No doubt you were a fine mercenary.”

“Best this sorry guild ever saw.”

Before Ghost could leave, Bill returned to the front, used a key from his pocket to unlock a drawer, and then pulled out a small bag tied shut with string.

“Take it,” Bill said. “It’ll rent you a room for a bit, buy you meals when you must. And find yourself a washbasin. Even for a man of the streets, you reek.”

“The guild will not be happy with its disappearance,” said Ghost, accepting the offer.

Bill laughed.

“You don’t get it, Ghost. That there is a death bag, for families of those who die on the job. You had no family and so we kept it, but now I daresay that coin belongs to you. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Ghost flashed him a smile.

“The guild has no idea how lucky it is to have a man like you.”

“Perhaps. Before you go … you promised me a question.”

“I did,” Ghost said. “So ask it, and I promise to answer the best I can.”

Bill clapped his hands together, clearly nervous. Bobbing his head up and down, almost like an old bird, he finally asked his question.

“Where have you been all this time?”

Ghost thought it over, the years, the tortures, the dungeon cell. It seemed impossible to explain it all, nor did he desire to. So, he kept it simple, and gave the only answer that mattered.

“Darkness.”

And with that, he stepped out into the night, and he breathed in the air like a man newly awoken.

“Zusa,” he said, testing out the name of his prey. The Watcher and the Eschaton were both formidable opponents, but this woman was unknown to him. He’d take his time, gather his strength before challenging them, but until then, he knew he should find out more about his mystery target. As Bill adeptly put it, in the killing business, mysteries were rarely a good thing. More often than not, they got you killed.

Well, if Zusa was Alyssa’s watchdog, then there was only one real place to expect her to be. Ghost followed the street north for a mile, keeping his eyes open for the various thief guilds as he did. At the height of the war between the Trifect and the thief guilds, Ghost knew he could have spotted at least one man or woman keeping watch in practically every road. Now, though, he found himself feeling more and more alone. Where were the guilds? Where were their watchful eyes? When the Sun Guild destroyed them, did they have no intention of replacing their numbers with their own?

When he turned west down Copper Road, he paused. Nearby was one of many taverns, and dug into the very ground at its entrance he saw a stone tile. Its newness, as well as its stark gray contrast to the worn brown dirt, made it stand out all the more. Carved into the front of it was a four-pointed star.

“You mark your territory with stone,” Ghost said, and he chuckled. “No wonder you’ve crushed Veldaren’s weak, hollow guilds so easily.”

A scrawny man with a similar emblem sewn onto the front of his vest leaned against the tavern, just shy of the door, and he gestured him closer.

“Leaf, powder, or woman?” the man asked him, and his accent was one Ghost recognized immediately, that of western Mordan, where he himself had grown up.

“Perhaps later, when the night is not so young,” Ghost said.

“Out on business, then?” the man asked, and he pulled up his dagger so that the light from the tavern flickered across it. “Make sure it’s something we wouldn’t mind you doing in our city.”

“Your city?” Ghost asked, and he smirked at the dagger. “You’ll need more than just that little knife to claim a place like Veldaren.”

The scrawny man smirked back.

“You’d be surprised how well these little knives work when wielded in the hands of thousands.”

Ghost purposefully put his back to him and marched on. There’d be no conflict between him and the Sun Guild, not unless he started one, but it annoyed him anyway, just hearing the arrogance in the man’s voice. If there was ever a city in the world where power was ephemeral, it was Veldaren, and it’d take more than a few stone slabs to change that fact.

Down the street he walked, even more brazen than before. This time, he did see a few men tailing him, and he had little doubt as to what guild they belonged.

At last, he reached the sprawling gates to the Gemcroft mansion. A single man remained on guard at the front, standing there with his sword sheathed and his eyes drooping. Ghost remained in the shadows of the other nearby homes, curling around toward the western side. From there, he had a fine view of the expansive garden and green grass that filled the border between the fence and the mansion proper. Climbing the fence wouldn’t have been too difficult, though the sharpened spikes at the top did give him some pause. But entering the complex wasn’t necessary for his task.

If Melody needed Ghost to kill this Zusa, and considered her Alyssa’s loyal watchdog, then he had a hunch she was someone more like him and less like the bored guard out front. Someone skilled, someone capable of wielding a blade like a living extension of themselves. And someone like that would not take long to notice Ghost lurking just outside the fence, his painted face grinning in the moonlight.

Ghost settled in, arms crossed and legs folded beneath him, but the wait was not long.

“You pick a strange place to sit and rest,” said a woman’s voice from above the fence top. Ghost looked up, and his jaw dropped. The woman perched atop the bars of the fence, her legs angled as to keep the pointed tops from piercing her flesh … he recognized her. He recognized that tattered cloak, those dark wrappings, and most of all, that beautiful face with the piercing dark brown eyes.

Ghost rose to his feet, and he kept his hands on the hilts of his swords.

“Forgive me,” he said. “But I was denied the chance to discover your name before, yet today I think I was gifted such knowledge. Zusa?”

The woman tensed at the mention of her name, and he saw her peering down at him with new understanding. When the realization hit her, it might as well have been his fist.

“I remember you,” she said. “You tried to kill me years ago.”

“A simple misunderstanding,” he said. “I thought you were the Watcher, remember?”

Zusa vaulted off the fence and landed light as a feather in front of Ghost. Her daggers were drawn, and she made no attempt to hide that fact.

“Why are you here?” she asked.

Ghost laughed, and he shook his head, hardly able to believe it. The strange woman he’d had but a single exchange with, the one he’d challenged in a race to find and kill the Watcher … she was Zusa, the one Melody needed killed?