David Dalglish - A Dance of Ghosts

She felt her own tears building, and she looked at the rotting wretch before her, saw a man mired only in misery. She knew the rage she should feel, felt the sorrow, but it wasn’t right. It wasn’t her. The man wanted to find some sort of cleansing death. Appearing to her, giving her a chance to slay him … it was a gift, the only one he knew to offer. To be so broken, to think the sorrow she’d known could be made pure by the taking of a life …

“I cried my tears long ago,” she said. “And no, I don’t hate you. You were a broken man long before you came into our lives, and I only pity the life you led that carried you to such a place.”

Ghost wiped at his eyes, smearing blood across his white-scarred face.

“My road,” he said. “My choices. Don’t you dare pity me.”

“You wanted my forgiveness, and now you have it. What more can you ask of me, Ghost?”

He tried to answer, but instead, he took several steps backward and clutched at his head. His face was the purest expression of pain Delysia had ever seen. Doubled over, Ghost let out a scream, and his fingers scratched deep grooves into the sides of his neck.

“Not yet,” he screamed. “Not yet!”

And then it was over. Ghost stood there, tired, bleeding, but acting as if it’d never happened.

“I was given a task,” he said, and he seemed a bit more coherent than before. “Three jobs, that’s it. You Eschaton, the Watcher, and Alyssa’s faceless woman. Karak wants you dead. That’s what they told me.”

“Who told you?”

He chuckled, shook his head.

“Doesn’t matter. It’s simple, so simple. If I didn’t kill you, if I failed my task, then my life was the price of my failure.”

Ghost drew both his swords, but she remained where she stood, defiant, unafraid. There was no malice in him. No danger, only regret. The giant man fell to his knees, and he stabbed both swords deep into the dirt of the forest. The act done, his entire body racked with shivers, and it seemed he would soon pass out.

“Ghost?” she asked, feeling the first edges of panic tingling up her spine. “Ghost, what are you doing?”

He looked up at her, and for the first time, he smiled.

“I’m failing. ”

Blood dripped from his mouth. His arms were nothing but burned scars, and she saw thin trails of smoke rising into the air. His obsidian skin paled, as if all color within him were draining away. His hands gripped his swords hard enough to turn his knuckles white. Eyes closed against the pain, she watched him as he gasped, waves of agony overwhelming him, striking him down, tensing the muscles in his back and ripping gashes across the front of his neck.

Dying for her, she realized.

She stepped toward him, hand outstretched, palm pressing against the very center of his white face. The heat of his skin was incredible, the paint burning her like fire.

“No,” she said, and with her words she released all the power she’d built up inside her. Channeling it through her hand, she poured it into Ghost. She imagined the shadowy chains, and she smashed them. She saw his burns, and she flooded them with light. The color returned to his flesh, his mouth opened to scream. As she watched, the paint upon his face hardened, peeled away, and then fell to the ground like scales. His head snapped back, and it was as if his entire body were smashed with an invisible force. Delysia felt the wretched presence of Karak, and she prayed it away, denying it with every last shred of her being. In her ears she heard a constant ringing, intensifying as her spell reached its end.

She pulled back her hand, and Ghost knelt before her, his eyes wide, mouth open amid his bewilderment. His burns were gone. For the first time ever, she saw his face without the paint, saw how handsome he was. He looked up at her, tears running down his cheeks.

“Delysia,” he said, and he reached out a hand.

She reached back, a smile forming on her lips, a smile that died the moment she saw the blur of cloak racing toward Ghost.

“Haern, no!” she screamed, fearing it was already too late.

Picking through the blackberries, Haern felt at peace, and it was almost strange. Veldaren wasn’t far away, and though he was eager to return, he also felt a bit of trepidation, and he welcomed the excuse to remain back and add several more hours to their trip. Still, what relief to return to the life he knew. The guilds, the Trifect, their scheming and ruthless games … those he understood. Those he knew how to play. He’d let down his armor around his father, allowed himself to become vulnerable. Hopefully, it’d not happen again.

When he had two handfuls, he knelt down so he might place them on his cloak and wrap it as a basket. Then came the scream.

Haern was racing back to the road before it was ever finished, with no care for the thorns that scratched at his skin or tugged on his clothes. The scream, it had been a man’s voice. Delysia was in trouble, perhaps ambushed by thieves or thugs with rape on their mind. Legs pumping, he flew across the road, then cut off toward where they had planned to set up their camp. Reason overcame him at the last moment, and he slowed so he might at least get the jump on whoever might be there.

It was only one man, Haern saw, and so far, Delysia stood unharmed before him. He felt relief, but it was fleeting, for something about the man was horribly familiar. His skin was dark, his head shaved, and as Haern crouched down and slid from tree to tree, he caught glimpses of the man’s face … his white, painted face.

Ghost, thought Haern, and he felt his blood chill in his veins.

The man who’d captured Delysia, knocked Tarlak unconscious, stabbed Senke through the stomach. The man who’d finished the job later in Leon Connington’s mansion. His friend’s murderer … right there, in the forest, kneeling before Delysia. His entire body was covered with burns and blood, and Haern could only guess at whatever road the man had traveled to get there. Last Haern knew, he’d left Ghost for dead. The wounds had been fatal, he knew, surely they had been fatal …

Haern drew his swords. Apparently not. Ghost lived, and whatever he’d told Delysia, it clearly troubled her. His body began to convulse, she reached forward, and then came a burst of light that hurt his eyes, forcing him to look away. Healing, he decided. The man had tracked Delysia down to force her to heal him. Surely no priest of Ashhur in Veldaren would have been foolish enough to do so.

Shifting back, keeping himself low and out of sight, he prepared his attack. He wouldn’t make the same mistake again. Ghost was a monster, a vicious killer who’d relished every second of Haern’s pain as Senke died before him.

Mercy cuts deep and will only hurt those you love. This cruel world will make sure of that.

Not a mistake he’d make again. When he’d left Ghost, the man had been breathing. This time, this relic, this memory of pain and hate, would die and stay dead. Haern angled himself back around toward Ghost’s blind side, with Ghost still on his knees and unaware of his approach. Delysia’s eyes were on him too, the woman bent over with her hand outstretched. Haern knew he’d have no better time, and he flew across the forest floor without care for stealth, only speed.

He was almost there when Delysia caught sight of him, and instead of hiding the realization, she opened her mouth and screamed.

“Haern, no!”

Too late to stop himself, but her cry was enough to hesitate, to slow the killing thrust. With speed unreal, Ghost whirled, pulling his swords from the earth to successfully parry the attack. Their blades interlocked, and Haern’s momentum slammed them together. He tried to continue, to bowl over the giant man, but Ghost’s legs braced, resisting him. With narrowed eyes, the man returned Haern’s glare.