David Dalglish - A Dance of Ghosts

They were the bones of a man or woman, long since deceased. It did little to improve Haern’s opinion of his situation.

“Left to starve,” he muttered. “Gods damn it, is this how it all ends, starving in the darkness?”

“Not quite,” said a voice, and the surprise nearly stopped his heart. He rolled to his knees and turned to face the direction the voice had come from. At first, he thought his mind played tricks on him, but he saw the faintest hint of blue light twinkling in the distance. As he watched, it grew stronger, larger, until he could see clearly the blue flame of a torch, only it burned on nothing, merely floated in the air like a bizarre sun. With its light, he could better see the reaches of his room, though it was less of a room and more of a cave. There appeared no doors or further passages, just a circular dome with a ceiling covered with stalactites, maybe a hundred feet from one side to the other. Covering the floor were bones, and sitting beneath the magical torchlight, his face an ashen gray and his rustic armor covered with dust, was a man with a long scar on his cheek.

“Welcome to my home,” said the man. “It has been a very, very long time since I had company.”

Haern stood, both hands falling to the swords at his belt.

“Who are you?” he asked. “Where am I?”

“Beneath the Stronghold,” said the man. “In a place forgotten by most, though I would guess you knew that. As for who I am, well…”

He rose to his feet, dust billowing off of him. His armor groaned with each movement, and the way he moved, the way his joints cracked, made it seem as if he were a statue come to life. When at his full height, he stood at attention and saluted.

“Boris Marchant, at your service,” he said, his deep voice scratchy and frightening in the enclosed space.

“Well, Boris,” said Haern, trying not to panic, “care to tell me how to get out of here?”

Boris laughed.

“Look at me,” he said. “If there were a way out, do you think I would still be down here?”

It was hardly what Haern wanted to hear, not that he could deny the logic.

“Perhaps you want to be down here,” Haern said, hoping to keep the man talking. Something about him unnerved Haern immensely. He hardly carried the look of a paladin of Karak. In fact, he bore no markings at all of the god. His clothes were ratty and torn, and his armor was of a most peculiar make. He’d not seen banded mail of that style before, nor did he recognize the crudely drawn golden hawk on his chest. Much of it was crumbling along the edges, the metal tinted with green. At his side was an ancient sword, still sheathed.

At Haern’s words, Boris erupted into laughter that went on for far too long.

“Want to be down here?” he asked when finished composing himself. He wiped at his face as if to remove a tear, yet there was not a hint of moisture on his skin. “Oh, no, good sir, I do not want to be down here. I have not wanted to be down here for decades, yet still I am.”

“Decades?” Haern asked. “Then the paladins must bring you food and drink.”

Boris shook his head.

“I do not require food to live, nor drink. Not here, not in this prison the prophet made for me.”

Haern felt all the more certain something was amiss. The man looked to be in his thirties, a far cry from a man who had spent decades in isolation. And what man alive could survive without food and drink? He looked at the pale skin, the body covered with dust.

Unless he wasn’t alive …

“My name is Haern,” he said, deciding to introduce himself. Until he knew what was going on down there in that blue cavern, he’d try to play along. “And forgive me, but I still do not understand. You say you’ve lived here for decades without food and drink … I do not see how that is possible.”

Boris sat back down on the smooth floor, and it was as if he were settling into a throne of bones, judging from how many were piled on either side of him.

“Sit,” Boris said. “There is nowhere to go, and we have all the time in the world.”

Haern did so, but only after ensuring he sat on no bones.

“When I say there is no escape, you must believe me,” said Boris. He pointed to the blue light above him. “It lights only when the night is deep and the moon shining. I have used it to count the days as they pass, and those days have passed into years, and years into decades. For over five hundred years I have dwelt underneath the Stronghold, for that is my curse.”

“They will not let you die?” Haern asked.

“Oh, I am already dead, but they will not let me pass on. I am bound here, forever bound until the curse is broken.”

Haern shuddered at the thought of such torture. To be alive yet alone, locked in solitude with no hope of escape as the years rolled on and on, with no promise of relief?

He glanced at the bones around him. Well, not quite alone …

“What did you do to deserve such punishment?” he asked.

“I stole from him,” Boris said. “Jacob Eveningstar, Karak’s special little chosen servant. I never thought he’d find me, that he’d know I took it … but he did, oh, yes, he did, Haern. He found me, and he dragged me here, back when the Stronghold was first built. They flung me into the depths of this cave, sealed me in, but not before he used his magic. The prophet is powerful, so very powerful. ‘You will not die,’ he told me. ‘Not until Karak once more walks the land.’”

Boris gestured about his prison.

“And so I wait.” He grinned. “Tell me, Haern, does Karak walk the land?”

“No,” Haern said, the very thought of it unnerving. “No, he does not.”

“Of course not. I doubt he ever will. And so it goes. I’d ask you what transpires above ground, but after the first two centuries, I learned nothing changes. The names of rulers shift and dance, a few wars move the boundaries of lords like pieces in a game, but nothing ever truly changes.”

“Used to ask … the bones, they throw prisoners down here to starve with you?”

“Only the most disloyal,” Boris said. “Only the ones the paladins feel are truly deserving of such punishment. I am sent the heretics, the doubters, the men who turn from Karak and seek another way. When they are found, they are cast into the pit, where I wait like a monster from stories they tell their children.”

Boris settled in, throwing more of his weight against the wall. It sent up a cloud of dust, and it shimmered a pale blue in the ethereal torchlight.

“What does change,” he said, his voice quieting, “is the reason I find men and women thrown down to join me in this pit. So, tell me, Haern, what crime have you committed against the Stronghold? You hardly look like one of their paladins. Did you steal from them, perhaps, or get caught blaspheming a bit too loudly in a tavern?”

Haern normally would have been amused at how wrong his guess was, but there was no room for humor in that dark void. Returning to a stand, he walked toward the wall opposite Boris, his eyes scanning the ceiling. He knew he’d fallen down from somewhere, a chute or hole, and it had to have remained. Yet despite how well the phantom torch lit the walls and the floor, it seemed powerless to light the ceiling. Was it because of how high it stretched up, Haern wondered, or were tricks in play, games messing with the heads of their prisoners?

“What is it you’re looking for?” Boris asked. “I told you, there’s no way out.”

“I wasn’t thrown in here by the paladins,” Haern said, ignoring him. It seemed best that way. “My … friend and I were breaking into the Stronghold, and we used a secret path to climb to the top. I slipped, fell, and landed in here.”

On the other side, Boris broke out into creaking laughter, his voice as pleasant as rust.