James Davis - The Shield of Weeping Ghosts

The moment became an eternity as her weight shifted, her legs dangling. Her eyes looked downward, and she imagined she could see a tiny light down there waiting for her. Something caught her wrist. Her arm jerked straight and the plummet was over before it had begun. Duras had her.

Pulling her up, Duras grabbed her with both arms and rolled away from the pit. She breathed deeply in his embrace before meeting his eyes, seeing him once again from the other side of death's door. They stood slowly, her arms and legs shaking, but sure and strong as she faced the others. The ropes had held to their iron posts, and the worst seemed to be over.

She crossed her arms and dipped her head with true Rashemi pride.

"Who's next?" she asked, the challenge in her voice bringing a smile to the face of Syrolf as he took the ropes and found a foothold.

Flakes of snow drifted into Bastun's light, settling on his robes and slowly melting. The scent of fresh air was both refreshing and alarming. Peering through the crevice just above him, he wondered just how much of the Shield had come crashing down.

Satisfied that the rubble was done with its settling he reached up for the edge of the fallen door and pulled himself toward escape. The others no doubt believed him either far from Shandaular or working against them. The durthan would be awaiting the return of her assassin, and with him the Breath.

Gritting his teeth, he pulled and pushed himself higher. Stone scraped his sides and tore at his robes as he climbed. Keeping the light of his staff ahead of him, he found himself thoroughly buried. Still, flakes of snow managed their way to him, swirling and falling on a distant breeze. Searching the roof of broken and shattered rock, he found what he hoped for. Through a small hole above he could just barely make out a faint gray light.

Trapped in a space far too narrow for his body, he wedged an arm back and fumbled at his pouches. Feeling a cylinder of cold metal he pulled it free and held it up before the light, reading the markings along the side of a silver vial.

"Silver is impractical," his fellow apprentices had said. He uncorked the vial, recalling their jibes.

"Well, it doesn't shatter easily," Bastun had replied.

Pulling his mask up, he tipped the vial to his lips and drank the bitter-tasting liquid within. The magic of the potion coursed through his body, pulsing and rippling through his limbs. His robes and equipment became as light as air, changing along with his body into an amorphous plume of living smoke. Transformations such as this were usually uncomfortable, but the lack of stone jutting into his back and legs was invigorating.

Swimming on the air he slipped through the ruin, flowing through the hole and several others beyond. He was drawn toward the light and soon found himself floating above the massive pile of rubble. The distance upward was quite far. He must have been below the Shield's central tower.

Broken stairways and dangling doors hung from the walls. Large chunks of ice remained frozen to the stone, collecting the snow that fell from above. Voices echoed from somewhere, but he couldn't make them out, the magic of his mask lost in his current state. The potion would not last long enough for him to reach the top. He would have to wait for the effects to wear off.

Somewhere within his shapeless body was the ancient blade, the Breath, now free of its secret grave. The magnitude of such a well-concealed legend on his person was astounding, and he couldn't help but think of the Firedawn Cycle and the lyrics he'd heard once for every year of his life.

… to steal the Breath, to seal the Death Of the Shield and speak the Word. Of the Shield and speak the Word.

Once again the Breath was to be stolen from the Shield and, he imagined, by those who did not understand what they were stealing. Even hcidid not fully understand the relationship between the Breath and the Word-their strange merging of Nar and Ilythiiri magic-only the destruction that the two were capable of. As he considered, shadows gathered at the edges of the rubble, coalescing hands and bright eyes as the child-ghosts observed his spiritlike form. Their clinking chains and faint whispers echoed around him, but they did not attack.

Seven children in chains, he thought curiously.

The Cycle came to mind again, and the ancient lyrics revealed another of the Shield's dark secrets. Pity flooded his being, seeming to carry a palpable weight as the potion wore off. His hands felt the stone beneath him, his knees pressed under the growing weight of his returning body. The Breath pulled at his belt as the song tumbled through his thoughts.

They came at dawn to break the wall, by Seven were they led. To frozen walls and to weary core, Seven cross'd the plain,

To gates of Shandaular, of fallen kingdom, Seven came.

Shattered souls, bound in chains, by Nentyarch's crown, the Seven came.

"Children," he croaked as his throat reformed. He coughed, acclimating his lungs to breathing again. "He sent children to start his war."

The whispers grew louder and more frenzied as the shadowy spirits shifted in and out of the walls. Standing and turning in a circle, he reached for the Breath, wary of the ghosts. He recalled their fear of the weapon below when he was fighting Ohriman, and though he pitied their fates, he would protect himself against their madness if need be.

Coming back around he froze, finding the smallest standing just a few strides away. She appeared as before, pale and dark haired. Her bright eyes regarded Bastun with curiosity and also the same odd familiarity he could not fathom. She reached up and he flinched, her movements quick and hard to follow. Touching her continually flowing hair, she brushed away several errant strands and traced her face.

Reaching up to his own face, he traced the edges of the mask in wonder.

The mask, he thought. They must have known the vremyonni caretaker! How could he have kept this secret? Lived here among them?

Even as the question occurred to him he suspected the source of that secret and sighed in understanding: the wychlaren. They would have guarded the knowledge of anyone succeeding where they had failed.

He kneeled down to her eye level. She shied away from the movement, fading for an instant, but did not leave. She averted her eyes from him, hiding her face behind an ivory hand. The others kept their distance, still agitated and confused by the strange meeting between the living and the dead.

"You were sent here to die," he whispered.

She looked back at him, tilting her head as her eyes widened and her lip trembled. There were no more tears in her-they were left behind with her physical form-but he could see the streaks of those she had cried in life. Pleased with gaining her attention he tried to keep it, to discover why she had come to him.

"You said something before, about the cold prince," he said.

A shudder passed through her and the others rumbled. Their chains clinked and clattered against the walls. Shivering and paler than before, she nodded just enough for him to notice. Her eyes drifted to the Breath at his side, his hand upon the hilt.

The prince, he wondered, from the Cycle?

History lessons turned through his thoughts. Late night conversations with Keffrass came to mind, along with old scrolls and bits of forgotten lore. Narrowing his eyes, he recalled the Creel. The tribe, though often perceived as mere savages, were obsessed with ancient legacies and boasted of powerful bloodlines. The idea was there, on the tip of his tongue, before the realization struck him. When he found it, the name was linked as closely to the history of the Shield and as far away from the present as the ghost that stood before him. "Serevan Crell," he whispered.

Mere mention of the name had an instantaneous effect. The girl disappeared. The others' forms grew and trembled, a thundering growl emanating from the shreds of shadow they had become. The walls shook, and he thought he could hear a scream echoing amid the sound of tumbling stone and rubble. Standing on the largest piece of intact floor he could find, he held his arms out for balance and turned in circles again. He prepared for an attack.