David Dalglish - A Dance of Ghosts

It was one of the rungs pounded into the stone that formed the ladder.

Once he had a firm grip and his weight was fully supported by the ladder, Haern hung there, once again debating. He could leave, he knew. The exit was just opposite him. He could crawl through the dark until reaching Delysia, and together they could flee the Stronghold, leaving as if they’d never been. But above him was where Luther should be, and where his father had gone. Leaving now, giving in … he couldn’t do it. He had to know. So, up the rungs he went, and after the tedious process earlier, the ladder felt like a gift from the heavens.

Multiple times he felt the soft blowing of cool air upon his neck, alerting him to side passages, but he never took them. Luther was supposed to be at the top, so to the top he would climb. As he did, he listened to the noises that came to him through the stone. They were distorted, of course, but he still found himself occasionally surprised by the proximity or clarity he heard. Much of it was soft discussion, deep voices talking about things he could only guess at. Once he swore he heard a man in prayer, and on another floor, two men arguing. Whenever he heard such sounds, he slowed his ascent, always fearful that somehow they might also hear him scurrying up the walls like a rat.

At last, he reached the end of the rungs. He reached out behind him, but the wall was solid. Steadying himself, he paused a moment, felt the softest flow of air from his left. Taking his foot off the rung, he tested, and sure enough, he found a tall tunnel. Slowly, he shifted his weight off the rungs and into the short tunnel, at the very end of which he saw the tiniest slivers of light, like cracks in a wooden door. To his eyes, though, they were blinding, and he blinked and kept his gaze to the side until he might recover.

It turned out his comparison wasn’t far off. It did seem to be a wooden door before him, slender and rectangular. He could only guess as to what it appeared to be from the other side, as well as how he might open it. Slowly, he ran his hands along it until he found a single bit of metal for him to grab. Gently, he pushed inward, then pulled toward him, and he found the door had far more give into the room than out.

Putting his ear to the side, he listened for signs of life, heard none. Double-checking his swords at his waist, he pulled his hood low over his face and took in a deep breath. This was it. Time to discover just where he was. He pushed against the metal knob, heard a crack, and then the rectangular slab of wood swung out. The light inside was blinding, even though it was only two separate lanterns on each side of the room with tall slender candles burning within them. Squinting against it, he dipped his head so his hood would block much of the light, and with what vision he had, he checked his surroundings.

Haern found himself inside what appeared to be a library, with four free-standing shelves of books before him. Turning about out of curiosity, he looked to see what it was he’d emerged from. Shutting the entrance, he saw that it was an enormous wooden carving that had been mounted upon the wall. Etched into the wood with amazing detail was a lion devouring a stag, with the carver having used heat to blacken wherever there was supposed to have been blood. Testing a corner, he found that pulling against it made the wall itself open up to grant him entrance back into the darkness.

Should be easy enough to remember, Haern thought to himself as he reshut the door. If he were to somehow get lost, all he needed to do was find a library and the giant wood lion carving within it. Getting to it without being killed or spotted, however, he had a feeling would be the real trick. Hurrying past the rows of bookshelves, all of which were blessedly empty of any odd midnight readers, he reached the door and put an ear to it. Again, he heard nothing. Opening it, he found himself facing a large set of stairs curling around the outer walls of the Stronghold. To his right, they descended, curving out of sight, and so he hurried left, moving ever higher. A red carpet ran along the center of the stairs, its edges laced with gold-colored thread. The stone shaping the walls and stairs was a deep gray, with spiderwebs of black racing all across the surface. Candles hung above him, high enough he felt glad he wasn’t the poor soul who had to change them somehow when they burned low. A glance out one of the thin windows showed him just how high up he was, and he fought down a shiver. He’d never been inside a building as tall as the Stronghold. Not even the highest towers of the king’s castle in Veldaren could compare. Haern had never considered himself afraid of heights, but peering out that window made him think all men could be made afraid of them if the ground were far enough away.

The stairs curled up into the next floor, the grand wooden door to it closed. Haern heard muffled prayers from within despite the lack of any light shining through the cracks. Deciding to check higher first, he continued on, resolving to return only if he could not find Luther in any of the floors above. A few more steps up, and he knew that his search was over. Lying before an open door, throat opened and armor bloody, was a young man. Haern stepped over him, peering into the final room at the uppermost reaches of the Stronghold. Inside he saw a small bed with violet sheets, a slender, half-empty bookshelf, a glassed window facing the east, and a desk. Slumped over the desk was an older man in black robes.

Haern stepped into the room and drew his swords, even though he knew what he would find. There was too much blood on the chair, too much blood on the floor. Coming up to the man, he pulled on his shoulder, and his body slumped back, head lolling.

“Damn it,” Haern whispered.

His father had beaten him to the top, learned or taken whatever he needed, and then fled. He was too late.

“What did you want from us?” Haern asked the body. The man looked like any other, skin starting to wrinkle, hair all gray. There was dried blood on his left hand, and a fatal wound to the back. Haern had a feeling the wound to the hand had been first, a way to prevent the priest from casting any potential spells. Had Thren interrogated him afterward? A cursory glance showed no additional stab wounds, no obvious broken bones. Whatever information Luther gave, it must have come easily.

His eyes fell on the book that lay open before him. It was stained with blood, but the lone paragraph on its pages was still legible. Based on the pen and inkwell on the desk, Haern assumed the writing to be Luther’s. The script was tight, carefully controlled, and reading it did little to illuminate matters.

Tonight he comes, I know it. I would pray, but what god would answer? I condemn a city to save a nation. Perhaps Karak would be proud after all.

No answers, just as Delysia had promised. Only death and betrayal. His only hope now was to find Thren, assuming the man even stuck around to be questioned. He felt a momentary rush of panic, thinking of Delysia lying dead by the exit to the building, and he pushed it down. For her to die while he was crawling up from the pit, to die while waiting for him to return from a place she’d begged him not to go …

“Luther?”

He turned around to see a boy no older than twelve carrying a lit candle in one hand, five more unlit in the other. The boy stood just before the body of the dead guard, his jaw hanging open. Haern swore, leaping toward the door in hopes of stopping him before he could escape and sound the guard. But the boy had no desire to run. The candles dropped from his hands, and before Haern could reach him, he’d already drawn a slender dirk from his belt and begun shouting at the top of his lungs.

“Intruder! Intruder! Intr-”