Nightspell (19 page)

“I should be asking you that, shouldn’t I? You’re more recently dead than I am.”

Cal ie said nothing, and Clarisse moved suddenly back to float beside her. On the other side from Darri,

fortunately, or Darri might have either screamed or at acked her. Or both.

“So,” Clarisse said conversational y, “how long have you been dead? And why didn’t you let us know?”

“It was a struggle,” Cal ie said dryly. “You know how I hate keeping things from you.”

“Don’t you think Jano wil be hurt that you’ve kept it from him?”

“He tried to kil my family. We can consider the score set led.”

Cal ie’s voice had an edge that surprised Darri. Even Clarisse shot Cal ie a startled glance before going on, in

a marginal y more sober voice, “How do you like it so far?”

Cal ie looked sideways at Darri, then away, too swiftly for Darri to react. “I don’t,” she said.

“You’l become accustomed to it.”

“I don’t intend to have time for that,” Cal ie said.

“One of those, are you?” Clarisse shook her head reprovingly. “That’s not the right at itude.”

“What is the right at itude?” Darri cut in, knowing it wasn’t smart. “To float around making cryptic

pronouncements and vague threats, pretending you like being dead?”

“Of course I like it,” Clarisse said, eyes widening. “Death is immortality.” She smiled and ran her hands over

her hair. “I thought it would be nice to give it a try.”

“It’s not a try,” Darri said. “There’s no going back from what you are.”

“I don’t want to go back.” When Clarisse let her hands drop, her hair was glowing, adding more light to the

dance of shadows along the wal s. “You won’t want to go back either, once you know the secrets of the dead.”

That was directed at Cal ie, who jerked her shoulders and said, “Nobody’s seen fit to let me in on the secrets

of the dead.”

“That’s because they don’t know you are dead.” Clarisse came to a stop and swirled slowly in midair to face

them, her gown flaring out and set ling against her legs. “But now that I know, I’m happy to complete your

education.”

Darri stopped too, so suddenly it threw her of balance; her foot went out from under her and she sat down

hard on the slippery ground. The dagger flew out of her hand and clat ered to a stop several yards away. Her

face flushed as she scrambled to her feet, but Clarisse was too focused on Cal ie to take time out for mockery.

“Your people say death is freedom, that dead spirits join the wind, no longer human but more free than

when they were alive. You say we are the trapped ones. I say you are wrong. What is the value of being part of

the wind, just another breath of air among thousands? Of no longer being you?”

Darri’s muscles were clenched so tight they trembled, but Cal ie merely sighed. “Assuming you have a point,

could you get to it soon?”

“My point is that you shouldn’t be so ready to throw away your existence. You’re dead now, and truly one of

us. You no longer have to think like a Rael ian.”

“Even the Ghostlanders,” Darri snapped, “want vengeance, don’t they? Don’t you?”

“Of course I do.” Clarisse looked at her with such focused fury that Darri fought the urge to step back. Then

Clarisse’s face smoothed out, and she smiled. “But I can control it. And when the man who kil ed me dies, it

wil become easier to ignore.”

“You know who kil ed you?” Cal ie said. Darri glanced at her. The rapt at ention was gone, and Cal ie was

now staring at Clarisse with genuine horror. “You know, and you haven’t done anything about it?”

now staring at Clarisse with genuine horror. “You know, and you haven’t done anything about it?”

“It wasn’t easy,” Clarisse said smugly. “I remained down here for two years, out of sight of my murderer,

until the urgency of the desire passed. I devoted myself to serving the Defender, to learning to control the

powers of the dead.”

“The reason we have those powers,” Cal ie said, “is to avenge ourselves!”

“You’re such a child.” Clarisse shook her head almost fondly. “Do you truly think al the ghosts in this castle

are here because they failed? There are many of us who hold of the desire for vengeance, who fight for our

existence. It’s not easy, being dead. But it’s not so easy being alive either. Is it, Cal ie?”

Darri waited for Cal ie’s response. When none came, she looked sideways at her sister, and saw Cal ie’s

throat working.

“It’s not the same,” Darri snapped, almost spit ing out the words. “Just because some of you want it, that

doesn’t make it right. You shouldn’t exist, not any of you. This was done to you. And if you weren’t lying to

yourselves, not one of you would believe your existence is worth it.”

“But we do believe it.” Clarisse slid her fingers through her hair. “Al of us, even those who aren’t strong

enough to take what they desire. Tel the truth, Cal ie. What do you real y want—to keep your body and your

mind and your daily pleasures, or to cross the line into a darkness you don’t know? Now that you’re dead, are

you real y no longer afraid to die?”

There was a moment of silence. When Cal ie final y spoke, her voice was shaky. “Of course I’m afraid. But

that’s a weakness. To be control ed by fear.”

It sounded like a question, not a statement. Darri tensed al over, and Clarisse rol ed her shoulders languidly.

“And being control ed by someone else’s reasons for al owing our existence—is that not a weakness?”

Clarisse shrugged. “Do as you wil . But nobody controls me.”

“Nobody?” whispered the darkness around them.

Darri screamed, then felt hot shame wash through her. Even Clarisse looked startled. Cal ie flinched, but

recovered swiftly and turned, eyes darting among the shadows. Fol owing her gaze, Darri saw it come to rest on

a patch of darkness that seemed somehow deeper and blacker than the rest.

“I know you,” Cal ie said.

The voice came, not from the place she was looking at, but from behind them. “I assure you, you do not.”

Despite firm intentions not to, Darri shrieked again. Cal ie’s face went white, but she spun and said evenly,

“I mean that I’ve met you before. You sent me to save my siblings when Clarisse and Jano were trying to kil

them.”

Darri could not force herself to face what her sister was talking to. She tried, but the sound of that raspy

voice sent an irresistible, uncontrol able fear over her, as if she were stil a child trying to believe there were no monsters hiding in the dark.

She managed to turn her head slightly, but could not bring herself to look over her shoulder; and because of

that, she saw Clarisse’s face go slack with shock when Cal ie spoke.

A number of things suddenly became clear. The silver dagger in Jano’s hand, when he at acked them on the

hunt. Clarisse, sneering, “What did you think you would achieve by coming here?”

You sent me to save my siblings.

She spun around. In front of them, the blackness was not deeper but rather more blurred, moving and

shifting. A moment ago her stomach would have tightened with terror; now her fear was swamped by rage. She

saw in front of her, not a monster, not a ghost, but something much simpler. Her sister’s murderer.

“Why would you do that,” she said, “when you were the one who told them to kil us?”

The darkness drew itself upward. Darri’s breath ran through her, swift and cold and clear. “You didn’t send

Cal ie to save us. You sent her so she would be kil ed with us. That’s why Jano had a silver dagger. To use on

Cal ie.”

“No,” Cal ie said. “He didn’t know—” She stopped.

“No one knew you were dead,” Darri agreed grimly. “Except the person who kil ed you.”

Cal ie made a sudden, jerking motion, but no sound.

“It had to be done,” the darkness whispered. “You are, al of you, more dangerous than you know. You are

pawns in the hand of someone much more powerful than yourselves.”

“When haven’t we been?” Darri said. She moved two steps to the side, so that she was standing next to the

dropped dagger. Darri had never yet kil ed anyone, but she had grown up on stories of kil ings brave and true;

the yet had always been there, just waiting for a reason. “My sister,” she said, very quietly. “You took my sister from me.”

“She’s stil here,” Clarisse said. “Don’t you understand? We mean dif erent things when we say ‘dead.’”

“My sister is dead,” Darri snarled, and she knelt and rose the way she had been taught. If you did it right,

you would never be of balance. She did it right. The dagger was in her hand, ready to be thrown.

Clarisse shouted a warning. Darri threw.

The dagger struck something, point first. It made the wrong sound, though, piercing something softer than

skin, and al at once the cavern was fil ed with light.

A man stood before them, the hilt sticking out of his chest. His form was more blurred than Clarisse’s, but he

was undeniably a man, and a rather unremarkable-looking one: black hair, pale skin, a long face, and an

was undeniably a man, and a rather unremarkable-looking one: black hair, pale skin, a long face, and an

aquiline nose.

Darri had nothing else silver on her, but she balanced on the bal s of her feet, ready to fight, eager to fight.

The Defender looked like a man, and that sent a wave of relief through her despite the silver dagger jut ing

harmlessly from his chest. She could fight him. Even if she was bound to lose, she could fight him. She couldn’t

fight a shifting nonentity of darkness.

The man took hold of the dagger, pul ed it out of his chest, flipped it around, and of ered her the hilt.

Darri hesitated, her instincts screaming at her to take it.

The man smiled at her. “Did you never wonder,” he asked, in a quite normal voice, “why silver hurts

ghosts?”

“I’ve spent the last couple of nights around dead people,” Darri said tersely. “My sense of what’s

questionable may be a lit le of .”

“Ghosts can’t bear the touch of silver because I made them that way,” the Defender said. “A safeguard, built

into my spel to keep them from being unkil able. The safeguard does not apply to me.”

The silence was broken by Cal ie. “Your spel ?”

“Of course.” The man’s smile widened—but it looked, al at once, nothing like a smile. Nothing like a

human expression, for al that it was on a human-looking face. “I created the spel , and was the first person

brought back from death by its power. I am older than you can imagine, and more powerful. Age does not hurt

me, nor silver.”

“Nor sunlight,” Cal ie whispered.

Darri, somehow, was no longer in a fighting pose. She didn’t know when that had happened. Instead of

returning to it, she reached for Cal ie’s hand, and was surprised when her sister accepted her grasp. Cal ie’s

hand was smal and cold and trembling.

“Why kil me?” Cal ie asked. “Why wait four years and then kil me?”

The Defender made an irritated gesture and said nothing.

“Why drown me?”

“The spel is bound in the earth of our country. That’s why it only works within the borders of this land.”

The Defender grimaced. “I thought it might not work on water. I know bet er now.”

Darri drew back in disgust, but Cal ie didn’t flinch.

“Then why are you doing nothing?” Cal ie shouted. “I’m here now. You have a silver dagger in your hand.

Why not kil me now?”

Darri should have been proud of her sister’s bravery. But she knew, despite Cal ie’s defiant tone, that this

wasn’t a chal enge. It was a plea.

“Kil ing you now would accomplish nothing,” the Defender said.

Now, but not on the hunt. The dif erence, then, must be that now Darri knew her sister was dead.

Darri opened her mouth, then closed it, the taste of unsaid words bit er on her tongue. You could kil me

too. Then no one would know. She should be wil ing to die, if it would set her sister free. She owed Cal ie

that.The words wouldn’t make a diference. The Defender must already be aware of the possibility. Just as her

father had always been aware that he could have sent his older daughter instead of the younger. Even if she

had said to him, “Send me instead,” it wouldn’t have changed anything.

So she had told herself, night after night, as she woke from dreams of her sister being devoured by darkness.

It was true, but the truth didn’t help. She stil should have said it.

This time I’l do bet er, she thought. But before she could draw in breath to speak, Cal ie whispered, “I can’t

take vengeance on you. I can’t do anything to you. I’m looking straight at you, and I know you kil ed me, and

there’s nothing I can do about it. Do you know what that’s like?”

“I’m sorry,” the Defender said. He sounded sincere.

Cal ie choked out a sob. Darri gripped her hand, feeling more helpless than she ever had in her life.

“I’l be unavenged forever,” Cal ie said, with such despair that even the Defender frowned.

“You’l grow accustomed to it,” he said. “They al do, in time.”

The sound that came from Cal ie this time was almost inhuman; not ghostly, but the cry of a wounded

animal. She tore her hand from Darri’s grip and threw herself bodily at the black-haired man.

The light vanished. In the darkness, Darri heard a thud, and a shriek. And then, as she made her way across

the now-empty ground and knelt beside Cal ie, the broken sounds of her sister’s sobs.

Varis had just reached the end of the glit ering gray trail when he realized that someone was fol owing him.

He covered his torch immediately and stood stil . He heard nothing; the silence was so intense it was

practical y a sound, more terrible even than the darkness. That meant either that the other person had stopped