Paul Thompson - Destiny

“Faeterus?” Kerian asked.

He shook his head. “No, an elf he captured and forced to aid him. I’d know the prints of Favaronas’s ragged sandals anywhere.”

Kerian choked on a mouthful of water. “Favaronas? He’s here and alive?”

“He was two days ago, when the prints were made.” Robien was surprised that the Lioness knew Favaronas. He’d thought Favaronas an itinerant scholar.

“He’s the Speaker’s archivist! The question is how do you know him?”

They had met weeks before, Robien said, by the creek near the entrance to the valley. Scholar and bounty hunter traveled together for a time, and when Faeterus left Robien to die in the grip of the strangling sand, he’d kidnapped Favaronas. From the signs Robien had deduced that Favaronas was doing all he could to delay the sorcerer’s progress to Mount Rakaris, even though he must think Robien dead and there was little hope of aid.

Kerian brought the discussion to an abrupt end, telling Robien to take the lead. Once they reached the trail left by Favaronas, she quickened their pace. Hytanthas struck up a conversation to talk with Robien, eager to compare their experiences in the tunnels. The two of them led, with Taranath and Kerian close behind. The Lioness mentioned the part Favaronas had played in her first expedition to Inath-Wakenti. She’d thought him lost with the rest of her unlucky band after its departure from the valley. Robien’s news amazed her. Tough, battle-hardened veterans perished, but the inexperienced, comfort-loving librarian survived.

Fate was strange.

Huddled inside their makeshift shelters, the elves listened in terrified silence to the slow, muffled footfalls outside. Lamps were extinguished lest their light attract attention. Some elves, braver or more curious than their fellows, peered out through small tears in the fabric and beheld a prodigious sight. Illumined by only starlight, the dead walked among them.

The ghosts were gaunt, clad in plain shifts or kilts. Faces were greenish pale, with dark holes where eyes should be. They walked with measured tread, heads turning slowly right and left, as though seeking something. Standing outside the tent flaps closed firmly against them, some sobbed and groaned, wringing their hands. Others shook fists at the night sky, or scratched at the tents with spectral hands. A few crawled along the ground, clawing at the dirt to drag themselves forward. Although the elves heard the thud of numerous footfalls and the scrabbling of those who crawled, none of the spirits left any prints in the dust.

Now and then one shrieked loudly, like a victim receiving a deathblow. The blood-chilling screams sent them hurrying away from spy holes and back to the center of their shelters, where they clung to each other for comfort. The nation that had borne the wrath of the nomads of Khur was paralyzed by an army of ghosts.

Round and round the apparitions tramped. As the priestess had hoped, they could not enter a closed tent, but neither would they give up trying. The assemblage of living souls drew them as a feast draws starving folk.

Accidents occurred. Several tents collapsed when the frightened occupants knocked down the support poles. By the time the tents were up again, the ghosts were inside. They reached out with gray hands, their icy touch straight from the grave. Some elves fled their fallen shelters only to face more spirits outside. Others, frozen into immobility by terror, simply sat in horror as the ghosts clustered more and more thickly around them, crying, wailing, holding out pleading hands.

Up close the specters displayed strange features. Despite having the upswept ears characteristic of full-blooded elves, some had thick tufts of hair on faces and arms. Others had only three or four fingers on each hand or bizarrely shaped ears—not even round like a human’s, but triangular and set atop their heads, like the ears of a dog or cat. Long, pointed teeth framed lolling black tongues. Elves who challenged the invaders with sticks, stones, and tools quickly regretted their courage. Ghosts who met defiance seemed to grow stronger and become more solid, and they returned violence with violence. Elves attempting to defend home and family mobbed, buried beneath raving, laughing apparitions. No elf could bear such torment. The fortunate ones lost consciousness. The rest went mad.

In the Speaker’s tent, everyone gathered close around their king. The fire in the central hearth burned brightly. Gilthas ordered it built higher, that they should not be cowering in darkness. A terrible scream split the air. No ghostly wail, that sound had been wrung from a living throat, and it brought Hamaramis and the other warriors to their feet, hands going to sword hilts or reaching for bows.

“This is not a threat weapons can defeat,” Gilthas said. I Although outwardly composed, he, too, found the anguish of his people nearly impossible to endure. His own physical suffering he’d born with silent fortitude. His nation’s pain cut at his very heart.

One young warrior strode to the heavy tapestry covering the opening. Sa’ida warned him not to open the flap. The elf whirled to face her, hand gripping his sword hilt so tightly the knuckles showed white.

“What do they want?” he cried.

“What we all want. To live.”

“But they’re dead!”

The priestess nodded. “They do not know that. Or they do know but are fighting against that truth.”

Obeying the Speaker’s quiet request, the young elf returned to the fire. The others gathered around as Sa’ida told what she knew of ghosts. They are, she said, souls trapped on the mortal plane by magic, by the power of a curse, or by their own unspent desires. So numerous a legion of specters in Inath-Wakenti hinted at a great conflict in ages past. Those exiled here had been imprisoned by magical controls so strong that even their souls were not allowed to leave. Like Gilthas before her, the priestess sensed loneliness from them. Being more attuned to such things than he, she went further, explaining that over the centuries, the spirits’ loneliness had hardened into a terrible rage, a thirst to be revenged for their suffering. She shivered and rubbed her arms as if chilled.

“Perhaps they’ll depart now that their masters, the will-o’-the-wisps, have gone?” Gilthas suggested.

A scream caused all of them to flinch. Something heavy hit the canvas wall of the tent and caromed off. Sniffling sounds followed then slowly faded away.

Varanas dropped his broken stylus, which he’d snapped in two at the sound of the scream. “I cannot bear this!” he said.

“Will it go on all night, lady?”

“The dead have motives the living can scarcely comprehend,” Sa’ida answered. She repeated her hope that sunrise would disperse the ghosts.

“Here’s to the dawn,” said Hamaramis, downing a swallow of potent fluq. The Speaker and Sa’ida echoed the sentiment, lifting their small cups of kefre in salute.

A reddish glow brightened one side of the great tent, and the smell of burning canvas filled the air. Warriors, attendants, and scribes were on their feet in an instant. They couldn’t let the camp burn down around them!

Gilthas rose, leaning heavily on his staff. “Lady?” he said, offering an arm.

A high priestess could not lose face before the laddad. Exiled and humbled they might be, but theirs was a civilization stretching back millennia. The Speaker, a young adult by the standards of his race, likely had seen more summers than the most aged Khur alive. His eyes, shadowed by travail, regarded her with steady confidence.

With great dignity, Sa’ida took his thin arm.

He smiled. “There. Whatever befalls me, I shall have a healer close at hand.”