Gail Martin - The summoner

Tris turned back to Carina and gently called her name. The healer's eyes were glazed, her expression astonished, still standing rigid as death.

"What's wrong with her?" Carroway asked, not attempting to hide the fear in his voice. He reached out toward her, but Tris caught his wrist.

"What are you doing?" Carroway protested.

"That's Carina's body," Tris said quietly, stretching out his mage senses, "but there's another spirit in control."

"What the hell are you talking about," Vahanian snapped, his hand on the pommel of his sword.

"Last night, while Jonmarc was on watch, a ghost came to me," Tris said, staring at Carina's motionless form.

"I didn't see any ghosts," Vahanian differed.

Tris shook his head, staring at Carina. "She wasn't strong enough for anyone but me to see her," he said quietly.

"She?" Carroway said breathlessly, stealing a look at the corpse. "That she?"

Tris nodded, and told them the dead girl's story.

Vahanian looked at him skeptically. "So this ghost thought you could snap your fingers and bring her back from the dead?" he recapped incredulously. Unspoken, the next question seemed to hang in the air. And could you have? Tris knew they wondered, though they did not dare to ask, and Tris, remembering the fiasco with Alyzza and the field mouse, was grateful they did not.

"Even if I could," Tris said, "it is forbidden by the Lady. I had to turn her away," he recounted. "That's when she swore she would find a way back on her own," he added in a voice just above a whisper. "I set a warding over us. I thought we would be safe."

"Yeah, well it didn't work," Vahanian clipped.

"The warding was breached," Tris replied. "Carina stepped outside the circle. The ghost must have called to her."

"Can you bring Carina back?" Berry whispered, a dagger clutched in her fist.

In answer, Tris laid a hand on Carina's shoulder and closed his eyes. He stretched out his senses, searching for Carina's life force, the glowing thread he had felt the night they saved Vahanian's life. To his relief, it burned-dim but present-within her form, but it was not Carina's spirit that rose up to meet him.

Instead, heady laughter greeted him. I told you I would find a way, the ghost's voice mocked. Look what I can do!

"Look what I can do," Carina's voice shook him from his trance. Tris's eyes snapped open to see Carina's mouth moving, her voice flat and toneless, her eyes still staring sightlessly ahead.

As they watched in horror, Carina's form began to tremble, and then one arm jerked up, suspended as if by a puppeteer's string. It fell to her side as the other arm rose, and then awkwardly the healer shuffled forward, bumping into the well without reaction before blindly turning toward them.

Vahanian, his face contorted with rage, stepped forward, sword drawn. "By the Whore!" he cried. "Let her go!"

"What do you expect to do with that sword?" Carroway said quietly. "That's still Carina's body."

Gathering all his courage, Tris moved to block the shuffling form. "By all the faces of the Lady and all the power of the Goddess," he swore in a low, still voice. "Return her spirit and go your way."

"Not yet," a voice replied, emanating from Carina's mouth though it was not the healer's voice nor did Carina's lips move. "Not until I have what I came for."

"You cannot take this body," Tris replied steadily, holding his ground. "It is not yours."

A chilling laugh broke the moonless night. "It is mine now."

Tris lunged forward, wrapping Carina in a tight embrace as the spirit made the healer's form buck and struggle. On instinct, Tris held on as he called together all his strength, and breathing a

prayer to the Dark Lady, closed his eyes and plunged into the darkness.

Down, down he traveled, just as once before, when Vahanian lay dying, he and Carina had taken a similar inward journey. The healer's body convulsed in his arms, trying to tear itself from his grip as he drove resolutely onward in his mind. Just as Carina nearly wrenched herself from his grasp, Tris felt powerful arms encircle both of them.

"Whatever the hell you're doing, we won't let her get away," Tris heard Vahanian swear, his voice distant, as the mercenary and Carroway tightened their grip.

With a scream of rage, Carina's form went slack, and Tris dove downward, pursuing the spirit of his ghostly visitor. Give her back, he commanded as he hurtled through the darkness of the pathworking.

Take her if you can, Lord of the Dead, the ghost taunted. She is mine now.

It seemed to Tris that he and the ghost reached the glowing life thread in the same instant, and in a sudden flash of horror, Tris realized the ghost intended not to break the fragile strand, but to stretch out her own presence along it, driving out Carina's spirit and replacing it with her own.

Lady of Darkness, hear me! Tris cried as he made his desperate gamble. Once before, he'd borrowed from the glow of his own thread to hold Vahanian to life. Now, Tris threw himself on the blue-white thread, overlaying it with his own life's strand, and with all of his will, drove back the ghost in the brightness of its glow.

No! the ghost girl screamed, and Carina's body contorted wildly. Hanging on with every bit of power he could summon, Tris held the image of the two glowing strands in his mind as he felt his friends' arms tighten around him, holding fast as Carina convulsed and beat at them with her fists. The glow grew stronger, pushing back the darkness, and finally, as a cry tore from Carina's throat and stabbed through Tris's mind, he hurled the darkness from them, leaving only the glow behind.

For a heartbeat, everything was silent. Then Tris felt the glow of Carina's life strand pulse stronger and, gently, he drew back, relieved and amazed, to see the healer's thread glow steadily on its own. As Tris came back to himself, Carina sagged against him and would have fallen except for the support of the arms that encircled them. Tris felt his knees buckle, and it was sheer willpower that kept him on his feet as the fatigue swept over him, leaving him utterly spent.

There was only the crunch of snow behind them as a warning, and then Carroway staggered as something struck him from behind. Tris glimpsed one clawed hand over the bard's shoulder as Vahanian released his grasp and reached for his sword.

"Look… at… me…" Words rasped from the corpse's mouth as it clawed at Carroway. The bard, eyes wide with terror, beat back the lurching form, tripping over himself in his haste to

break free. Vahanian stepped forward, sword drawn, interposing himself between the reanimated corpse and Tris and Carina, who slumped together behind him.

"Dark Lady take my soul," the mercenary breathed. "Get back!"

The thing lurched toward him, once again. Just as the first light of dawn broke over the horizon, Vahanian's sword swung down with all his might, glinting in the pink glow of morning.

"No, please!" came the strangled cry from the dead girl's unmoving mouth as the blade connected with a sickening thud, and as the sun glistened on the snow, cleaved through the corpse with a mighty blow. The body fell at Vahanian's feet, once more silent and lifeless.

"What happened?" The voice that broke the stillness was Carina's, and from the baffled look on the healer's face, Tris was sure she had no idea of what transpired, nor why she found herself in his arms.

"What do you remember?" Carroway breathed, rejoining them. His face was ashen and his eyes wide.

Carina pushed back a little from Tris, then a look of complete exhaustion crossed her face and she did not struggle to break away. "I heard someone calling me," she said, looking at Tris searchingly. "Maybe I dreamed it, but it seemed so real. I got up and walked over to the well, but no one was there." She shuddered, remembering. "I looked into the well and saw a face staring back at me." She paused. "That's all I remember," she said, leaning hard against Tris as Carroway helped them to their feet. Reflexively, Tris put his arm around her, and patted her hair as if he were comforting a small child. A strange look crossed Vahanian's face in the instant before the fighter turned away.