The Shield of Weeping Ghosts (17 page)

She slammed against the stairs, fresh pain erupting from the wound in her side. Her fingers slipped from the tooth and she fell as the undead-serpent disintegrated around her. She hit the stone floor, and the wind was forced from her lungs. Bones rained to ground, burying her legs. Choking for breath, her vision fading, she tried to raise her head to find Duras. The

berserkers still fought, advancing up the stairs as bloodcurdling screams echoed off the walls.

Pain flooded Thaena’s senses, and her head fell back even as Anilya appeared over her, kneeling down with outstretched hands, her dark eyes glittering behind her mask.

Beyond the durthan, high above, shadowy wraiths swarmed around the ceiling and dived one after the other into the Creel’s balcony. Each dive preceded a scream, and though bile rose in Thaena’s throat at the method, she relished the sounds of her enemy’s fear and pain.

Anilya’s voice whispered words of magic, her mask and dark hair merely a blot to Thaena’s half-lidded gaze. The durthans spell mingled in the cacophony of noise as the ethran’s haze of pain drew her into oblivion.

+

(jleaming eyes peered at Bastun. Tiny hands, dark and translucent, reached out and caressed his robes, brushing against his skin. Bastun shivered, each touch carrying the chill of the grave, but he did not resist. He kept moving forward. Ghostly chains rattled from their wrists. The manacles left scars that only the dead could bear. These he observed carefully, wincing at each chill-inducing touch. Their spectral bonds seemed familiar, but he had not yet placed the memory, and without knowing what they were, dealing with them could be dangerous.

Glimmers of light drew him to an open room, the light from his staff reflecting on walls coated in ice. Steps measured and slow, he made no quick movements lest the spirits become angry. He indulged their curiosity with feigned complacency. Anything to keep their voices—and their painful intrusions into his private thoughts—at bay.

He counted seven of them, these childlike ghosts embedded in the walls of the Shield. In their quiet pleading whispers he detected bits of their language, words in ancient Nar that provided some insight as to their origins, but little else.

Through long halls and dark stairways he marched, surrounded by the spirits, studying them and being studied by them. The smallest slipped around corners just ahead of him. Her bright eyes kept a constant watch as he followed the

vremyonni markings on the walls. He had tried to speak to her, but this had angered the others. A long, very tangible cut on his right arm was a testament to the pain they were capable of dealing. Spells lay but a whispered word away, and he was growing weary of the constant presence of the spirits. If their previous encounters held true, their curiosity could only last so long before madness once again set them upon him.

Stepping out of the hallway, he breathed deeply as the space between himself and the walls opened up. A flight of descending stairs lay at the opposite end of the room. Moving toward them he kept his head down and his eyes up..

The spirits withdrew, keeping to the shadows of the hallway as Bastun widened his stride, noting the vremyonni mark on the top step. The significance of the spirits was secondary to his pursuit of the Breath. Taking the first step, he heard their cries and growls become louder, more agitated. Looking over his shoulder, he saw their forms churn at the edges of his light. They hovered just inside the previous hall. At their center stood the largest, an older boy with dark brown hair and eyes of smoke.

Not waiting for the attack to come, Bastun bounded down the stairs, casting as he did so. The growls became a roar, a chilling gale that shook the walls. The lesser of the spirits gave chase, rushing like black water across the stone and reaching for his robes and his hair. They hissed and whined as he swung his staff at them, the illumination briefly keeping them back.

At the bottom of the stairs he whirled, completing the spell. A sphere of searing light shot from his hand, hovering in the stairwell and burning any ghost that neared it. Searching quickly, knowing the sphere would only hold them back for so long, Bastun studied several doorways until he found the vremyonni mark. As he rushed toward it, the shadows screamed. Their smallest had disappeared, no longer leading Bastun through the Shield.

A wooden door blocked his path, and he found it locked.

Not hesitating, he summoned his axe blade in mid-chop, hacking and kicking at the door until it flew open. Another short flight of stairs led him still deeper into the citadel. The sphere of light flickered out, and a wave of darkness crashed into the wall. At its center, chains reached and pulled, propelling the spirits toward him.

Jumping down the stairs, he kept the glowing axe held high. Curving walls led him south to an open door. Ten strides away he started chanting, seeking a more permanent solution to the spirits. They grew closer, scratching at the walls, rattling chains and shrieking in demonic voices that no child’s throat should have possessed.

He tossed his axe ahead of him into the chamber, gripped the doorframe with both hands, and shouted the last of his spell. Glowing energy flashed and spread outward, tracing the walls and floors in an ever-widening circle. The chains disappeared, the shadows faded away, and furious voices became the quiet weeping of scolded children before they silenced altogether. This last caused him a pang of sudden guilt, imagining the pained face of the little girl among their number.

He waited, searching the stairwell, but they were gone. Staring a moment into that darkness, he wondered at his concern for the long-dead and helplessly mad children. Resigning himself to his task he knelt to retrieve the axe-staff.

Raising the axe’s light high, he found himself in a round chamber, eight large doors lining the walls. Carved into the floor and each door was the arch-within-shield standard of Shandaular. The nearest of those doors stood open, and he could see spears leaning against the walls, arrowheads scattered on the floor.

“An armory,” he whispered.

Searching the room, he spied the vremyonni rune softly glowing above the fourth door on his left. Approaching cautiously, he studied the floor for footprints in the dust. Nothing—but such things could be obscured by those with

the knowledge or magic to do so. He knelt to examine the marked door’s lock and curved handle. No markings lay upon either, nor corrosion for that matter—an addition made by the vremyonni. The lock appeared simple and almost ornamental, though the fact that it seemed unengaged gave him a jolt of fear. Bashing it in like a berserker was practical, but patience and spells might have told him much more. Reaching for the handle he took a deep breath.

As his fingertips brushed the door a spark of heat caused him to flinch. A moment later the door exploded in a flash of white. Stumbling backward, tiny particles of ice scoured his mask and stung his eyes, blinding him. Wind, snow, and ice blasted the area around the door, but his entire body felt awash in flames.

When it finally ceased he eased his eyes open carefully. The floor around him was covered in white from the blast, but not a single flake of errant snow was left on his robes. Mystified, he brushed at his sleeves, a slight dampness becoming a steamy mist, drying as he watched. The Ilythiiri-runed ring upon his finger caught the light of his axe, and he eyed it curiously— protection against the Shield’s ice traps?

A creaking sound drew his attention to the door, now opened just a crack. He wasted no more time on his miraculous lack of injury and entered the dark room beyond. Bronze and iron reflected his light. Swords, axes, spears, daggers, and shields hung on every surface and covered the floor. Many were bejeweled and carved with silver runes, some made of precious metals. He ignored them, bait left simply to misdirect those foolhardy enough to hunt for treasure. The real treasure, if he was not too late and the scrolls were to be believed, lay elsewhere.

A tiny mark in the center of the room, the vremyonni symbol, summoned him forward and down to his knees. The floor stone was small and cut like every other, save for the mark only those of his order could see. Keffrass had described

the Breath to him, and he had marveled at the tale. Still he wondered at the path that had led him here, to the place his master had always spoken of in fear and awe.

Reaching down, he wedged his fingers around the edges of the stone and lifted it carefully up. He set it to the side. Placing his hand inside the hollow beneath he felt the leather-wrapped handle of what he had sought and pulled it free.

Covered in dirt, the wavy blade bore intricate symbols and crude markings. Holding it in both hands he inspected the sword with a mage’s eye. Sharp to the touch, it was nothing like the weapons that surrounded him. Forged by wizards and enchanted by King Arkaius of Shandaular himself, the Breath was the key to the Shield’s most powerful weapon—the Word, a weapon that had marked the end of the city.

To Bastun’s knowledge, Keffrass had been the last person to lay hands upon the sword before the wychlaren had laid claim to the Shield as their outpost. He had always meant to return, to study the altered runes of the Ilythiiri and try to dismantle them, but his responsibilities in the Running Rocks prohibited it. In the meantime, the Breath remained hidden, buried, and spoken of only to the othlor and those hathran deemed worthy. And Bastun.

Bastun’s knowledge of the Shield’s secrets had been his greatest treasure for many years, a gift from an old man who had seen something in him that no one else ever had—potential.

Holding onto the Breath for a few moments longer, satisfied of its safety, he dipped the point of the sword back into the hole. With the blade halfway in he felt the floor shake, and the walls shook. Eyes wide, he froze and listened. Dust fell from the ceiling, and he could hear the edges of tiny cracks popping as they grew in the stone. Alarmed, he turned around, raising his staff.

A thin cloud of dust filled the outer chamber, and a crash from above sent more spilling from the ceiling. He stood, the

Breath in one hand, his axe-staff in the other, as the sound faded to faint and distant rumblings. In the brief silence that followed, a second sound reached his ears—the scuff of a boot on loose gravel.

A silhouette appeared outside the room. Bright eyes regarded him through the fog of dust, and he could make out the sound of a slow, measured breath—the breathing of a thief on the prowl or an assassin before a kill.

“Ohriman,” he said, his earlier relief fading in the face of reality. He felt foolish for indulging his fears—and even more so for believing, however briefly, that he had been alone save for ghosts and memories.

“Vremyonni,” the tiefling replied. He stepped into the light, a thin blade held at his side.

“How did you follow me?” Bastun asked, stalling for enough time to prepare a defensive spell. Ohriman seemed in no hurry, though his catlike eyes did wander to the ceiling more than once. “The haunting in this place is quite formidable.”

“Yes, the ghosts,” Ohriman said, standing his ground in the center of the room. He appeared casual save for the sword. “Terrible little fiends, aren’t they?”

The walls shook yet again. This impact felt closer. Larger chunks of the ceiling fell, and stones the size of walnuts bounced in the dust. Bastun didn’t answer, raising his staff as he lowered the Breath to his side. He took one long, cleansing breath, preparing himself for the next few moments. Ohriman raised an eyebrow and smiled as he surveyed the growing cracks above them.

“Well, no matter to me. Your witches have a knack for keeping little beasties like that quiet and out of the way. I like having them around, long as they’re paying me no attention.” He held out a hand. The glove upon it was of a black cloth and held a barely perceptible nimbus of shadow. “Now, I suppose I can guess your answer, but considering the reputation you have among your friends upstairs, I’ll ask anyway—”

“I will not give you the Breath,” Bastun said.

Ohriman nodded, smirking as he did so. “Have your own game to play?” he said, eyes narrowing. “I can respect that.”

The tiefling lunged, his blade lightning-quick. Bastun parried the strike with his axe blade and swung the Breath in a wide arc. Ohriman skipped backward, spreading his arms and smiling as he gave the vremyonni space to join him in the central chamber.

Accepting the pause, Bastun stepped out from the weapons room, quickly surveying the tenuous integrity of the ceiling and detecting movement to his right. A deep darkness leaked into the room, crawling at the edge of his light. As soon as the Breath crossed the threshold, the returning spirits whined and growled. He ignored them and circled the tiefling. Ohriman snarled and came again.

They traded quick blows, and Bastun struggled to match the tiefling’s speed. He didn’t dare drop the Breath to free a hand for spellwork, so he was limited to what lay within the axe-staff. Calling upon the power he had, he managed to trap Ohriman’s sword in the curve of his axe. Bright blue-white sparks leaped from the weapon, singeing the tiefling’s hand, and Bastun slashed the Breath at Ohriman’s legs. He cursed as Ohriman jumped nimbly out of the way, freeing his blade.

Though the shocking spell had done little damage, he pressed the slight advantage, bringing his axe to bear again. As another thunderous impact shook the room, Ohriman kicked the flat of the axe away and tumbled backward, dodging a large chunk of stone. Dust, rocks, and ice showered from the newly made fissure.

The tiefling rolled into a crouch, licking the back of his singed hand with an obscenely long tongue. Steam rose around his lips and he smiled.

Bastun circled around the cloud of dust, considering his options. The exit was several strides away, but he had no way of knowing how much damage had been wrought to the tower.

As if mirroring his thoughts, the spirits drew closer, circling the pair, though their shining eyes remained fixed on the Breath.

“Walls falling down, little ghosts sneaking up from behind.” Ohriman smirked and stood, his head low as he moved forward. “You’ve got more skill with a blade than I gave you credit for, wizard. But you can’t hold out for much longer.”