David Dalglish - A Dance of Ghosts

“And now,” said Ghost, “all I can feel is a need to cut your throat. It doesn’t matter, my desires, my thoughts. That need is there, an ache, an addiction. I’ve been made into a monster, wizard, and my heart rebels against it with every last vestige of my pride.”

“Then fight it,” insisted Tarlak. “No one can make you into a monster, Ghost, only show you the way.”

The blade quivered at his neck. Ghost’s eyes narrowed, his obsidian skin considerably paled. Tarlak could hear his breathing, and he swore he could even hear the hammering of the giant man’s heart.

Ghost let out a scream, turned, and drove his sword with all his strength into the floor of the tower. Back to him, the man stood there, shoulders rising and falling as he gasped in air. His hands were clenched into fists, and they trembled.

“The man I killed,” Ghost said. “Senke … was he a friend of yours?”

Tarlak swallowed down a sudden knot in his throat.

“Yes,” he said. “A good friend.”

Ghost turned his head.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his eyes firmly locked on the floor. “I long told myself it was because of the job, but it never was. I killed because I could, because I thought it elevated me beyond all others. But when the choice is taken away … when it’s still my hands…”

“You’re sorry,” Tarlak said, and he rose to his feet. His hands were still tied behind him, and he pulled against them as he felt his own rage growing. “You’re sorry? Good for you, you bastard, but I’m not the one you should be apologizing to. Senke was my friend, but he was a brother to Delysia, and you butchered him like a piece of meat.”

Eyes still on the floor, Ghost opened his mouth to speak, but instead, he collapsed to his knees … and then seemed to sink into the very floor. Tarlak’s mouth dropped open, baffled by the sight. Letting out a slow groan, Ghost pushed himself back up through it, his feet setting back atop the floor with a heavy thud before he collapsed onto his hands and knees. Boils shimmered across his arms, rising, popping, and vanishing without leaving a trace beyond the faintest of scars.

“Delysia,” he said, and he sounded feverish. “She’s … she’s the priestess that was with you. Your sister?”

“Yes,” Tarlak said. “You nearly killed Senke once, but she saved him, brought him back. And then you stabbed him again, except this time, she wasn’t there, and you know why? Because I made her stay behind. I wish she’d have just blamed me like any normal person, but she never did. Just herself for not ignoring me, for not coming with us. You killed him, and she carried the guilt instead of you. I don’t want your damn apology. I just want you out of my life. I want to stop thinking about how if I’d only been stronger, if I’d only turned you to ash before you ran into Leon Connington’s mansion…”

His voice trailed off, unable to finish, too angry, too hurt.

“If that’s what you want, then so be it,” Ghost said. Retrieving his sword, he slipped it into the sheath strapped to his thigh, then slowly rose to his feet. He wobbled, grabbed the doorframe to steady himself. His back was to Tarlak, and he looked over his shoulder to ask his question.

“Where is your sister?”

Tarlak glared at him.

“Why do you care?”

“Because of Senke,” he said. The white paint began to run down his neck as if it were melting. “I have to tell her. I have to know.”

It made no sense. Why would he even ask? Did Ghost truly think he’d just reveal Delysia’s location?

“I won’t tell you,” he said. “Kill me if you must, but I’m not putting my sister’s life in danger.”

He’d thought Ghost would be upset or threaten him, but doing the expected appeared to be the last thing the giant man intended.

No, instead, he laughed.

“Threaten?” he asked. “Threaten? Look at me, wizard. Look at the fever in my face. Look at the rot in my flesh. Death comes for me, not your sister. I just want to talk. You say she carries the guilt, so let me absolve her of it. That’s all. Can you do that? For her?”

It was insane, Tarlak knew. Absolutely insane. Every part of his mind told him to lie, but deep in his chest, he felt something insisting he speak the truth. Haern would be at her side, and he’d have to trust them to be strong enough to endure whatever it was Ghost had planned.

“She traveled west months ago, toward the Stronghold,” he said. “I don’t know how long it will be until she returns, but if she does, it’ll be by the main road.”

“Thank you,” Ghost said, swallowing heavily. His eyes closed for a moment, opened again. Blood had pooled in them, washing away the white with red. “Thank you.”

With that he was gone, leaving Tarlak standing there by the wall with his hands bound behind his back.

“What in the world did I just do?” he wondered aloud. Hurrying to the stairs, he climbed up to Brug’s room, where there were more than enough sharp instruments scattered about the workplace for him to cut into the rope binding his hands. Once they were free and he felt the feeling returning to his fingers with each painful throb of his heartbeat, he looked to the roof and shook his head.

“Keep an eye on her,” he said to Ashhur. “Because if something happens because I just told that lunatic where she is, you better be hiding when I enter the golden lands for myself.”

Their travel back to Veldaren was somber, despite Delysia’s best attempts otherwise. It wasn’t as if Haern never laughed or smiled when she joked, or that he did not stay close to her come nightfall. With Thren no longer around, Haern was comfortable enough to remove his hood, and at one of the larger towns, he bought a plain shirt and breeches so he might appear as any other commoner during their walk. But the clothes never seemed to fit just right, and his smile was always temporary, his laugh an ephemeral thing. Whatever joy she’d known in him, it seemed to have left that night he’d spoken with his father.

“Are you all right?” she’d had the courage to ask him only once, after they’d crossed the rivers and into the land of Omn.

“I will be,” he said, and she trusted him enough to let the matter remain at that.

Every night, when she closed her eyes to sleep, she prayed that Haern would find a way to move on. And every night, she listened for the quiet footsteps she knew she’d never hear, those of Thren Felhorn sneaking into their camp to do away with the scars of his past. As week followed week, it seemed neither would come to pass.

They bought their rations at the trading towns they came across, ate them in quiet meals, and traveled the miles with comfortable silence. Sometimes, Haern left her to hunt, but not often. Their rations, wrapped cakes, were more than enough to last until the next town, and so long as they foraged whenever they came upon a patch of berries or fruit hanging from low branches, they managed to keep themselves from ever feeling hungry.

“It’s my turn this time,” Haern said as they prepared to set up camp for the night. “You tend the fire and let me scratch up my arms picking through the thorns.”

He referred to a patch of blackberries they’d passed only minutes before, a patch for which Delysia had insisted they sacrifice a few more hours of travel to pick for dinner.

“If you insist,” Delysia said, casting her eyes about in search for proper kindling. “I’m better at it than you, though.”

“Yes, but you have such delicate baby skin. A single scratch would be a great travesty.”

She rolled her eyes, and he laughed.

“Just don’t be long,” she said. “I’d hate for my pretty little head to start feeling worried during your absence.”