A Tale by Valena D’Angelis

If only the rain could stop. His clothes were soaked, his body tired, and his eyes needed to close for just one second. Milnor had walked for days in search of shelter. His horse was limping, wounded at the hoof by a thorn Milnor couldn’t remove. He needed help, and he needed it fast. Sarra’s leg would soon fail her if she didn’t get care.

After leaving the last village to go to the next, Milnor had relied on a rough map of the region to guide him. Nobody at the capital knew exactly what this region looked like from up close, so most of it was inaccurate. But that piece of paper, which he’d reworked himself during this journey, had been torn by the force of raindrops and the harsh wind. Now he was completely blind. He knew he needed to go east, so he’d gone east for the past three days. Kalancha should be in sight by now, but with this rain and thick fog, he couldn’t see even thirty feet ahead.

It wasn’t easy being one of the nation’s regional cartographers. Milnor didn’t board royal ships to travel the oceans and record the world’s coasts. He didn’t embark on a months-long journey with a whole caravan to discover new nations. He’d opted for something simple, something that’d keep him on the move. He didn’t like to stay still for too long because staying still would mean getting attached, and Milnor had no time nor interest in that. Regional cartography wasn’t a position most young apprentices strived to achieve, so the competition had been near null.

Milnor had been tasked with mapping the villages at the foot of Kalanch’s Ridge, a mountainous region with terrible weather. It rained almost two-thirds of the year and snowed for the other third. At first, he’d thought he wouldn’t be too bothered by that. Rain wasn’t something elves really cared about. It was part of life, of the balance of nature’s forces. But maybe staying away from his tribe this long had made him cynical, perhaps almost human. Milnor could not wait until he reached Kalancha so he could finally sit down by a fireplace and work on his maps.

Sarra suddenly snorted loudly, and Milnor realized the fog wasn’t so thick anymore. Below the hills and the mist were the contours of tiny houses made of stone and straws. A village at the foot of the Cardinal, one of Kalanch’s Ridge’s lowest mountains. He recognized the mountain because of its distinct triangular shape and silver cliff. He could see the village clearly—it was within an hour’s reach. Sarra’s snort was probably a sign of relief. She was a smart girl, and she’d walked for so long. She needed that shelter and fireplace as much as he did. She even let him ride her one last time so they could reach the village faster. By dusk, they reached Kalancha, but to Milnor’s surprise, the village was as quiet as a stone.

Milnor dismounted Sarra and walked on the village’s main road. There couldn’t be more than twenty houses here. The night was falling, and the road was empty. No one in sight, not even a merchant or passerby. There was light in the houses, so he knew the village wasn’t dead. He didn’t know what he’d expected, but it wasn’t this much…emptiness. The weather was already cold, but this felt so much colder.

Milnor spotted a large barn at the end of the road. His elven hearing allowed him to hear the sound of horses up ahead. He could also hear the voice of a man. Finally! A sign of life. Milnor walked faster. Perhaps he could ask this man for help for Sarra, and hopefully for shelter.

The main doors of the barn were ajar. The man’s voice was clear. He was talking to his horses, and he was obviously alone. Milnor first knocked, and the man fell silent.

“Come in,” he finally said with hesitation.

Milnor pulled on the heavy door and entered the stables. The man seemed slightly startled by his appearance. Milnor didn’t look like the usual traveler, even if his soaked cowl covered his long brown hair and ears. His high cheekbones were unmistakably revealing. His bright blue eyes were unnatural, at least for humans, like blue sky reflected in snow. He did the regional greeting before speaking.

“I’m sorry to be a bother, but could I ask for your help?” Milnor asked.

The man needed a second before coming back to his senses.

He was…opulent, for lack of a better word. A large bald man in a long leather coat. He held a grooming brush in his hand. He was definitely the village’s stabler.

“Whatchu need?” the man asked reluctantly.

“My horse is wounded,” Milnor replied, straight to the point. “We’ve been walking for days, and I’m afraid she will give in if we continue further.”

“I…” At first, it seemed like he wanted to deny his request, but the man’s features softened, and he sighed. “Show me your horse.”

Milnor let Sarra enter. She was limping badly.

The man examined her hoof for a few minutes.

“It’s pretty bad. There’s a piece of metal in her foot. The wound’s infected. I can treat her, but she’ll need to rest for a while.”

“How long?” Milnor asked. He needed shelter if he had to stay in Kalancha for a while.

“Can’t really tell.”

“Do you know a place I can stay in the meantime?”

The man frowned and inhaled deeply. There was something unsettling in his gaze as he was looking to the outside. It was already dark, which seemed to trouble the man even more.

“Can I stay here?” Milnor pushed a little.

The man looked at him like he’d just said something outrageous. Milnor had no idea what was going on in that man’s head. Did this village have a problem with elves? It wouldn’t be the first. No, it was something else. The way the man looked at the night was worrisome. Even Milnor could feel the man’s fear. What could it possibly be?

Milnor didn’t really have time for this. He was cold, soaking wet, and he needed to rework his maps. Spending the last decade with humans has its perks: Milnor knew human traits, quirks, and even desires, like the limbs of his bow.

“I can pay,” he said, steady.

He’d dealt with humans so often that he knew this was a convincing argument. He didn’t even expect any resistance, but the man frowned as if he was offended. Milnor had to save this before it was too late. He could try appealing to the man’s feelings.

“Look, I’ll pay you for treating my horse, and I’ll pay you for shelter,” Milnor continued. “It’s almost night, and it’s still raining arrows. Please, talking about money does seem rather vulgar, but how much do you want?”

The man changed his mood. “3 gold for your horse, and you can stay with us for 30 silver a night. We have a guest room. Just don’t scare the children.”

Children? Humph..

Milnor rejoiced nonetheless. “I wouldn’t dare. They might scare me, though.”

The joke came out rather spontaneously. The man didn’t seem to appreciate it, and he gave Milnor the look.

They stared at each other for a second before the man burst into laughter. He motioned with his hand for Milnor to follow him to the back of the barn. He still laughed as he walked.

“Ha ha! I didn’t know…your kind had that kind of humor!” He uttered between laughs.

Milnor chuckled awkwardly. “Well, you know, I picked a few things along the way.”

“Good, good.” The man paused and held out a hand as an invitation for Milnor to shake it. “The name’s Eric, by the way.”

“Milnor.” They shook hands and continued walking towards a large wooden door.

“What brings you to Kalancha, Milnor?” Eric asked kindly.

“I’m a regional cartographer for Her Majesty. I’m currently working on a few pieces of Kalanch’s Ridge. Anything special I should know about your village?”

Eric opened the door and paused again. He looked at Milnor with that familiar worrisome glow in his eyes, then he shrugged awkwardly and tapped the elf on his shoulder.

“A cartographer, that’s a first!” He smiled, but it was obviously forced.

The door was open and beyond was a corridor with stairs going up at the end. Milnor caught a whiff of something that instantly made his stomach gurgle.

“My wife’s upstairs preparing dinner. Feel free to join us. First, I’ll give you some towels so you can dry yourself.”

Eric started walking up the steps.

“Thank you, Eric,” Milnor said with candor. He was so grateful that he could finally get out of these soaked clothes and get some rest.

“Just get yourself dry. Don’t want mud all over my house.”

Milnor acknowledged and began walking up the stairs.

“Ah! And please lock the door behind you.”

Milnor did so, and they both headed upstairs.

The Colemans’ living quarters were above the barn that Milnor learned was the village’s only stables. For the past twenty-six years, Eric Coleman had been the village’s stabler, horse doctor, and blacksmith. He and Maria, his wife, had two little children, twins named Jenny and James.

The large dining table stood in the middle of the living room, right by the warm fireplace. After he’d dried himself and hung his cloak and tunic by the fireplace, Maria had offered Milnor a set of simple clothing of almost his size. Milnor sat by the table, two wide-eyed children staring at him from the other side. He wanted to make a face to tease them but wasn’t sure it’d be appropriate. Maria brought him a plate of roasted chicken and rosemary potatoes. It smelled lovely. The children no longer had his attention.

“Thank you,” Milnor said.

The woman smiled and blushed.

“My wife is a great cook!” Eric exclaimed proudly and began digging at his food. “So, tell me,” he spoke as he chewed, “What’s your plan for after Kalancha?”

Milnor took a bite of his food and instantly melted. He hadn’t tasted something like this in weeks. He needed a moment to formulate an answer.

“Hm, the villages further east. I’ll travel until the end of the ridge and head back to the capital.”

“Do you travel often?” the little girl with golden blond hair asked.

Milnor was caught by surprise. He hadn’t expected the children would talk to him.

“I do,” he eventually replied. “How about you?”

“We don’t get out of Kalancha!” the boy responded, cutting his sister off.

She pouted instantly. “I’m talking to him!”

“He’s talking to me now!”

“James, Jenny,” their mother intervened. “Let our guest have dinner in peace.”

The children were too excited to listen to their mother.

“Are you an elf?” Jenny asked.

“Jenny!” Maria seemed so embarrassed.

Milnor chuckled. He didn’t mind the questions, the weird looks. An elf away from his tribe was undoubtedly strange, but not to him anymore.

“Yes, I am,” he said softly.

The girl inhaled deeply and wiggled like she was about to fly. “Do you have powers?”

That question, he could have expected. The answer was…disappointing at best. He didn’t want to give it.

“You seem to know a lot about elves,” he said instead.

“She doesn’t!” James shouted from across the table, then at his sister. “She knows it from me!”

Maria suddenly seemed to remember something. “Oh, Eric, did you hang the catcher?”

Eric made an “Ah!” face. “Shoot! I forgot. I’ll do it now.”

The rest was a dissonant harmony of “Daddy forgot! Daddy forgot!” and two children going at each other regarding their knowledge of elves. Milnor said no more and ate while observing Eric instead. The man headed to a cupboard in the corner of the hallway, pulled out a large hoop of woven threads and dangling feathers, then headed downstairs.

Milnor was too curious. He had to ask.

“What is Eric doing?”

Maria looked at him hesitantly. “It’s just village tradition, that’s all.”

But that wasn’t all. Milnor’s instinct told him Maria was hiding something.

“Why?” he simply asked.

Maria sighed deeply. She looked at her unfinished plate, and her face changed. She seemed…afraid?

“It’s to keep spirits…evil spirits away from the house. Every night, before the first stars, we hang dreamcatchers on our door fronts.”

Milnor was more confused than anything else.

“Evil spirits? What kind?”

Eric was back. “Well, we might as well tell him.” He sighed like a man giving in. “He’ll hear it sooner or later anyway.” Milnor was all ears, and Eric went on. “Most travelers who come to Kalancha don’t stay for the night. We make sure they don’t. And that is because of her.”

Eric cast a brief glance at the window. He stayed silent, like he was afraid of saying more about her. Maria stood from her chair and came beside her two children. They’d finished eating, and Milnor could see from her body language that it was time to put them to bed. She and Eric wouldn’t continue the story until the children left the room. Reluctantly, they conceded, because Jenny was already yawning, and James, despite going at his sister, followed her to their bedroom. Maria and the two were gone for a few minutes.

The silence in the room was heavy. Eric cleared the table, and Milnor could hear Maria speaking softly while she changed the kids and put them to bed. Her voice was sweet and calm, but there was a slight tremor that did seem habitual. Milnor wondered what caused the distress she tried to hide.

When Maria returned, she was pale.

“She comes at night,” she finally said after one last minute of silence. “She walks the main road until the well, stands there, and sobs. You’ll hear her tonight.”

“She calls for our children,” Eric added, his back towards Milnor as he washed the dirty plates in a large bucket of water. “That’s why the kids are never allowed to play outside. She’s taken some before.”

Milnor remained silent. He wasn’t sure what to make of this. He knew humans believed in all sorts of things, often untrue, but these two were really convinced of the story they were telling.

“If we don’t hang those dreamcatchers, she also comes in our dreams,” Maria said.

Milnor had many questions. He really wasn’t the type to believe in ghost stories, and his skepticism had often alienated him from even the elves of his tribe.

“So…” he began, carefully but not so gently choosing his next words. “She’s a ghost?” He tried to hide his skepticism as best as possible so he wouldn’t offend anyone.

Maria picked up a kitchen towel and began drying plates.

“A ghost, yes,” she said. “The ghost of a woman named Hildra.”

Hildra…that name was elven. That detail got Milnor’s attention, and he was finally interested in hearing more.

“Hildra was welcomed in our village decades ago,” Eric said. “The people of Kalancha gave her shelter, but she hated them. You see, something was wrong with her. She was married to one of ours—they had two children, two half-elven twins. One day, in her madness, she cursed her husband and children, and they died, then she killed herself, jumping in the lake.”

“She was one evil woman,” Maria said. “She had powers, dreamwalking. Even when she was alive, she visited people’s dreams and poisoned their minds.”

“How long has this been going on?” Milnor asked, confused as to why the people of Kalancha still put up with this.

If there was such a ghost haunting this place, something could be done about it. Lifting a curse—wasn’t that a cleric’s job? The village must have a church somewhere!

“It’s been about sixty years,” Eric replied. “When I was a boy, I saw her. I was playing at night, disobeying my parents’ orders. She almost took me…”

“I saw her too, once,” Maria said. “Everybody saw her at least once.”

Milnor had more questions. “If this is happening, why don’t people leave?”

Maria and Eric were done with the dishes. She returned to the table while Eric poured himself a glass of something Milnor could smell from his chair. He put the glass on the table and showed Milnor the bottle.

“Brandy?” Eric offered.

Milnor politely refused. He didn’t drink, and he wouldn’t start now.

“We don’t leave because…well, because this is our home!” Eric finally said. “Some have left, yes. We haven’t heard from them in years. Kalancha is like a family, you know. You don’t leave your family.”

Milnor had many things to say about that last statement, but he’d let it slide. Maybe family was everything to the Colemans, but it didn’t mean much to him.

It didn’t sadden him. Milnor liked to think that it was what made him strong.

Eric finished his brandy quickly. Storytime was over, and it was time for bed. Maria fetched a few blankets for Milnor and showed him to his room. He’d been looking forward to this moment all evening. The ghost story surely wouldn’t bother his sleep at all…or so he thought.

Milnor stood by a lake. He was alone, and it was dark. The moonlight was bright enough for him to see the contours of trees surrounding the lake.

Milnor looked at his hand, his feet—everything seemed normal. The voice of a woman in the distance made him raise his head to see the lake again.

There she was, standing on top of the water as if she rose above it. But that wasn’t possible. Was she standing on a stone? Was there an island on the lake Milnor couldn’t see?

She was crying softly at first. He could hear her whispers. Her sobs in the night echoed like the wind. The air was as cold as ice.

Suddenly, after a single blink, she stood right in front of him. Milnor was startled, and he gasped, but no sound came out of his lips. He could see her clearly now. Her skin was cracked, and pus oozed out of her wounds. Fear rose in his bones. It infected his blood, and his heart was now pumping. She smelled of darkness and decay.

Milnor wanted to scream, but he was silenced by his own inability to breathe.

The woman before him smiled, and a tear of blood ran down her cheek. Her eyes were blacker than black, almost hollow. She spoke, but it didn’t make sense. It was erratic, chaotic, drowned in the sounds of other voices woven through her song.

Milnor swore her words were spoken in elven. It wasn’t his dialect, but he could understand pieces of it, despite the cacophony of demonic whispers coming out of her throat.

“Oh, my children, we are going forever,” is the last thing Milnor heard before he awoke, screaming.

***

A scream pulls him out of his tormented sleep. It wasn’t his this time. Doors were opened in a hurry downstairs. Milnor could hear Eric’s voice outside. Something was going on. There was a lot of distress, and someone was calling for help.

The first thing he felt getting out of bed was shame. He hoped the Colemans hadn’t been witnesses to his hysteria of the night. What in the gods had happened to him? Milnor wasn’t one for having nightmares, and this one was particularly troubling. It was probably because of the Colemans’ ghost story of the previous night and maybe the smell of brandy that had lingered in the air.

Milnor fetched his washed and dried clothing from the wooden chair by the door. Maria must have put them there while he still slept. They smelled of lavender. He washed his face in the large bucket by the mirror and got dressed. There was still commotion outside.

Now that it was day, Milnor finally saw what the main road looked like. It wasn’t raining—thank the gods. The sun was shining, and the road that had been muddy the night before was now dry. The air still felt cold, but the smell of wet wood gently awoke his senses.

A crowd of people surrounded the small plaza where the well was. A woman was crying. Milnor could hear her sobs grow louder as he approached the crowd.

Eric stood surrounded by other villages. Mary was by the crying woman, who crouched on the floor, her back against the stones of the well. She was utterly hysterical.

Eric spotted Milnor, and obviously, the rest did as well. He motioned for the others to wait and walked to the elf.

“What happened?” Milnor asked.

All he heard were whispers saying: “The Wailing Fay, she took him.”

Eric took Milnor by the arm away from the crowd.

“It was her,” he said gravely. “The one I told you about yesterday. It was her—she took him alright.”

“Who? She took who?”

Eric pointed at the sobbing woman. “Her son. He was ten. He was playing by the field, didn’t listen to his mother, and he was taken.”

Milnor gazed upon the woman and couldn’t help feeling sad for her.

“He was her only son,” Eric added. “Her husband died—a bad case of flu. She is all alone now.”

Another thing he couldn’t help feeling was skepticism again. He just had so many questions. Sure, Eric and probably most of these people were convinced the village was haunted by a child-hunting ghost. But Milnor didn’t believe in ghosts. Well, at least not this kind. Elves believed in spirits and beings from the other side, but child-hunting ghosts? That went a little too far.

He needed to investigate this.

“Is there evidence it was her?” Milnor asked.

Eric looked at him like he’d said something stupid. “It is her. It’s always her. She takes our children—”

“I know,” Milnor interrupted, attempting not to offend anyone. “I know. But what if something else is happening?”

Another villager, who Milnor only now realized had been listening in, took a step to the two and began speaking.

“We found this in the well.” He handed Milnor a tiny yellow scarf. “It was the boy’s. It’s what she does. She takes them down the well.” Milnor examined the piece of cloth. “Who are you?” the man asked.

Eric replied instead of the elf: “This is Milnor. He’s a traveler from the capital.”

“Y-yes,” Milnor said hesitantly. “I’m here to—”

The man didn’t let him say more. “An elf…in our village.”

Milnor frowned. “Yes? I don’t see how—”

Someone else joined the conversation. A large woman with a corset too tight. “You have nothing to seek here, elf. Kalancha is already in enough misery!”

Were these people just turning on him?

Fortunately, Eric stepped in and defused the situation. In the meantime, Milnor paid his respects to the woman and returned her son’s scarf. She didn’t say much and only gave a muttered “thank you.” She sobbed and buried her face in the yellow wool.

It wasn’t enough for Milnor. A scarf was all they had to prove the little boy was gone. And the rest was the belief in the ghost of a dead woman hungry for children. He needed more, more evidence. Milnor wasn’t a particularly smart elf, but he had a thing for scavenger hunts.

“Excuse me,” Milnor said as he turned back to Maria, who was still by the crying mother. “Where is the field her son was playing in?”

Maria pointed north.

Once the crowd had finally dispersed, and the woman was brought home by Eric and Maria, Milnor spent some time inspecting the well. First, he checked for any marks that would stand out. If the Wailing Fay had taken the boy down the well, perhaps he could find hints of a struggle or simply traces in the moss of someone crawling down. He found no such thing.

Now, he could look for prints. That was something he did retain from the teachings of his tribe. Tracking. And he was darn good at it. That’s what made him a good cartographer, always knowing where to go.

Milnor checked for prints in the mud at the foot of the well, preferably ones that came from the north, from the field. If the boy had been brought here, there would be evidence of it on the ground. And since this was an unpaved road, there was plenty of mud to leave tracks in!

Unfortunately, the crowd earlier had really made a mess in the mud. There was no clear, distinguishable set of footprints Milnor could isolate. But then, as he looked outside the apparent circle the crowd had shuffled in, he noticed a set of older footprints, possibly from the night before. He knew that because the mud had dried entirely around it. Those footprints seemed to indeed come from the fields and were heading straight to the well. Even better, now that he’d isolated that particular pattern, he identified the same one a few feet ahead, heading east, towards the woods. That was definitely a trail he’d follow.

The tracks led to the woods surrounding the village. The forest here was made of thick pine trees that formed a dark shadowy mass. Despite his excellent eyesight, Milnor couldn’t see further than a few feet away through the foliage.

It was strange that someone would have gone from the well to here in the middle of the night. Also, Milnor didn’t expect ghosts to leave tracks. Something else must be going on—he was sure of it.

He stepped into the dark woods, following the track as best as possible. It only took a few steps for him to realize how silent the forest was. Not even the sound of birds or wind through the pines. That was unnaturally odd.

Milnor walked further and deeper into the darkness. At some point, he even realized he was walking without looking at the ground, without following the tracks. He searched the ground with his eyes and couldn’t find anything but dead grass. It was so strange.

It was as if Milnor had awoken from a brief daydream guilty of making him lose the trail. He turned around, hoping to see tracks right behind him. Instead, what he saw was something he couldn’t explain.

The pines around him seemed to have drawn closer, their needles almost touching his skin. Milnor was startled by their proximity like the trees were ready to swallow him. He turned back, and the forest was gone. Before his eyes was now only darkness.

It was time to run away.

Milnor didn’t wait, didn’t hesitate twice. He had to get out of there as fast as he could. He spun on his heels and began to run. Fear overtook him and it would soon paralize him if he didn’t act.

It was like the entire forest was closing on him. The trees and branches moved to form two walls coming closer and closer, nearly trapping him. Milnor was fast, but would he be fast enough?

He finally made it out, but not before a thorn scratched his arm open. Blood dripped out of the wound, and Milnor gasped. This made him lose balance, and he fell down, tumbling down the hill he’d found himself on. Once he lost momentum, he landed on his back, eyes closed, his arm hurting.

“Kiisa!” Milnor exclaimed out loud. That wasn’t a very nice Elvish word…

He needed a few seconds of shallow pants to regain his senses. He opened his eyes, and to his surprise, it was night.

Milnor walked back to the village alone in the dark of the night. He really couldn’t explain what had happened. How could it already be night while he had woken up just a mere hour ago? How long had he spent in that forest without his knowing? There could only be one explanation: there was magic at play.

Milnor didn’t know much about magic, only that he wanted to stay far away from it. If this village was suffering from a magical curse, the ghost story people tell could still, in a way, be true. Just not the truth they’d expected.

The air was cold. Milnor accelerated the pace. Everyone was probably already inside their homes. All the lights in the houses were out. What time was it?

Milnor made it to the square where the well was. That was as close as he got to the stabler’s house.

He stopped when he saw what was standing by the well, or rather who. A woman in white. He could hear her sobbing from where he stood.

Was it the desperate mother from this morning?

No, Milnor knew it wasn’t because he recognized the woman in white. She was the same woman from his dream last night.

This was a trick, a magic trick. That was the only explanation. And yet, despite how much rationality he wanted to give the situation, Milnor couldn’t stop himself from feeling fear. And the fear rose quickly.

The woman was now looking at him. He couldn’t see her eyes, but he could feel them aiming at him. She’d stopped wailing.

“What do you want?” he eventually asked despite the lump in his throat.

The woman didn’t respond, but that didn’t dissuade Milnor from asking more, even if his senses told him to run.

“Who are you?”

She said nothing, but he could hear whispers in the air. The quieter he was, the more he could hear. Milnor didn’t dare close his eyes to focus on the sounds. The woman still stared.

But he had to blink, and as he did, he heard one final whisper.

“Oh, my children, where am I to take you?”

Opening his eyes, he no longer saw the woman. The main door of the Colemans’ home flung open at that moment.

“Milnor!” Eric called to him. “Get in! Quick!”

Milnor made a run for it. He reached Eric, who closed the door behind them. As the door closed, Milnor could swear the woman was standing by the well again.

“Where were you all day?” Eric asked, annoyed.

Milnor collapsed on a chair at the dining table. He needed a moment to calm down and to tend to his wounds. He didn’t want to show Eric his distress, but his hands still shook from fright.

“I was in the woods,” the elf eventually replied. “Searching for that boy.”

“That boy is gone, Milnor! You’re not from here. You don’t know this village like the rest of us. The Wailing Fay is the evil here. It’s what she does. Your questions bother the rest of us, and, to be honest, if it weren’t for your horse, I would have kicked you out of Kalancha a long time ago.”

Milnor said nothing else. It was best to let your interlocutor vent and walk away in these situations. Eric wouldn’t be on his side for this, and he knew it.

“Thank you, Eric,” Milnor said with candor. “Thank you for letting me stay.”

The conversation wouldn’t go further than this. Milnor headed to the guest room while Eric stayed in the living room and poured himself a glass of brandy.

***

Janeen was one of the least appreciated village elders. She lived secluded from the rest of the houses, near the forest to the west. Her backyard consisted of a large field of pumpkins.

Milnor had asked around the following day for where he could find more information on the Wailing Fay. He’d been directed to the elders, but they’d provided him with nothing new. Eric had mentioned an old woman who lived away from the Kalanchans, the village outcast, or so to speak. He said she was a little crazy, and some people even thought she was a bit of a witch. Milnor would find out for himself.

Janeen welcomed him with a cup of mint tea that didn’t really taste like anything but hot water. Her smile was full until her eyes and, even if she lacked teeth, she brought certain joy to the room.

“Haven’t seen an elf in a long time,” she said, full of excitement. “What brings you here to Kalancha?”

Milnor gave her the introduction he’d done at least seven times today.

“Well, if you’re here, it’s because you have nowhere else to go,” Janeen said, sitting down on her creaking chair. “So, tell me, what have you asked the others that they couldn’t give you a satisfying answer to?”

Milnor had figured this old woman was cunning. There was something in her attitude that inspired trust as well. Maybe she was a witch, but Milnor was sure she had nothing to do with whatever was going on in this village.

“I’d like to ask you about the Wailing Fay,” Milnor said.

Unlike the other inhabitants, the woman didn’t seem frightened by his words. Instead, she relaxed in her chair and started her story.

“The Wailing Fay is the spirit of a vengeful ghost who haunts our village,” She began. Milnor wanted to tell her that he knew the story already, but she’d anticipated that. “That’s what the whole village tells itself. But what they don’t say is exactly who the Wailing Fay was.

“Her name was Hildra. I haven’t seen an elf in a long time because she was the last elf I saw in my entire life. I remember her being so beautiful, with long blond hair, always wearing her gracious silk gowns from her village.

“They say she hated the village, but that’s just not true. She loved Kalancha. She grew white roses all along the main road just because of how much she loved this place. And she loved her husband, Peter. A handsome fellow. He was human, and they had two beautiful half-elven children who loved to play in the fields.

“It wasn’t Hildra who hated the village. It was the village that hated her. The men were envious, and the women were jealous. An elf, in Kalancha? I’m even surprised chubby Eric has welcomed you into his home. The real story is that everyone bullied her. They even went at it with her husband too. He ended up leaving her, taking their children with him. She was heartbroken. I saw her grow thinner and thinner with the weeks. I was but a little girl, but I liked Hildra. She gave me some of her roses from time to time.

“A few months later, there was an accident, and Peter and the children died. Bandits on the road to Thayra. Tragic. In sorrow, Hildra walked into the lake and drowned herself.

“The story people tell of Hildra is a way for them to sleep at night. The truth is, it is the village that tormented poor Hildra, and I’m not even surprised she still haunts this place, taking from us what we took from her.”

Milnor sat on a crude wooden chair, staring at the floor, listening to old Janeen. He needed some time to process the story, but that was one long tale. He really just had one question that mattered to him at this point.

“Do you really believe it’s a ghost?” Milnor asked.

Janeen inhaled deeply. “I believe people see a ghost, yes. I believe children go missing, and we don’t exactly know how. This village is cursed and will remain so even after I’m gone.”

“Why don’t you leave? You don’t seem to like this place very much.”

Janeen looked straight into his eyes. “Well, why did you leave your tribe?”

Milnor was taken by surprise. “I… It wasn’t a home for me. I didn’t belong.”

“Well, that’s it. Kalancha is my home. And the ghost isn’t interested in me anyway.”

Something crept in the back of Milnor’s mind. An idea was forming. Old Janeen had just said it—the ghost wasn’t interested in her. So, would it be safe to assume the Wailing Fay wouldn’t be interested in him either? She was after children, not adults. Perhaps he could wait until night and find a way to…to talk to it, do something, start a conversation. Ask her what she was really after. Before he’d set on doing that, Milnor needed to confirm one last detail.

“Did she ever harm anyone? Other than children?”

Janeen shook her head. “Not a single adult villager was ever harmed. I don’t know what all the fuss is about. Live your life as you wish and keep your children inside at night—it’s not complicated. We don’t have to live in fear. Evil spirits win if we do.”

Milnor remembered his dream, how scared he’d been. Janeen was right. He didn’t have much to be afraid of. And with that information, Milnor would head into the woods. He was sure there was something there, an answer. And it was waiting for him.

Milnor thanked Janeen and left her house and pumpkin garden. He had to walk through the village all the way back to the other part of the forest. At this rate, he would reach his destination at dusk. Good. He could have a tete-a-tete with a ‘ghost’ and solve this mystery once and for all.

He didn’t see Eric on his way to the other side of the forest, but that was alright. He didn’t have much to say to the guy anymore anyway. Sad, but he’d get over it. Friends weren’t his thing. Eric, at this point, was just a service. The man whom he’d paid to treat his horse. Milnor did get a chance to check up on Sarra in the late afternoon. She was healing fine. She’d be ready to go again soon, hopefully by the next sunrise.

Milnor made it to the edge of the village. He marched into the forest, resolute. He walked further and further into the darkness of pines and cedars. Once more, as expected, the trees closed in on him like moving walls. He didn’t mind. He had to ignore it so he could break through whatever mind game was going on.

He kept on going, despite the illusion that he would suffocate if he continued. He kept walking ahead—the forest now formed a single alley toward total blackness.

But then, as he walked some more, something changed. The darkness was no longer a solid dead end. It transformed into an opening. The trees stopped moving. Milnor was freed from the thousand needles piercing into his skin.

He walked to where the trees stopped, out of the forest. He now stood in a large clearing, one he’d definitely seen before. He could see everything thanks to the moonlight. It was the middle of the night again, but he’d expected as much. A large lake stretched before his eyes, and everything was as still as a stone.

He was back where his dream had taken him two nights ago. The exact same decor, as if he’d actually been there. This was beyond strange. He’d never seen this place, never been here, yet somehow he knew for sure that he’d been here before. Even in this dimly lit darkness, he recognized it all.

It became clear that he’d already been here when Milnor heard a whisper behind him.

We are going forever.

A familiar voice. Her voice.

The Wailing Fay.

Flashbacks to his dream made him wonder, for a second, whether he’d ever awoken.

Milnor checked over his shoulder, and when he turned back, she was standing there, right by the lake. And surrounding her were reclined figures of all sizes scattered on the ground. Milnor couldn’t exactly see what they were, until the smell reached his nostrils.

The scent of rotting flesh.

This place smelled of death now that he could see what it actually was. It wasn’t a lake. The water was thick, black, and oozed like blood. He drew one conclusion: one that mortified him to his bones. The shapes on the ground were too small to be the bodies of men.

They were the corpses of children.

All still wrapped in their clothes, all at different stages of decay. Some were simply bones, and not much of who’d they’d been was left.

Milnor’s stomach churned on itself, and he couldn’t stop himself from vomiting on the cold hard ground.

Once he raised his head again, the woman stood right before him.

The rasp in her voice made her breath sound like wind against a broken glass window. She breathed out but never in. She stared into his eyes, hers white like a cooked fish’s.

That’s when Milnor realized this creature, whatever it was, was not a ghost. It was no spirit or apparition. It was something much, much worse.

The Wailing Fay was made of flesh and bones. She was alive, or perhaps more…not dead.

And then it hit him.

Undead.

An undead creature who fed off children.

Milnor was paralyzed. The stench settled down his throat and pricked at his lunges. He looked around at the carcasses that lay sprawled on the grass. One of those was fresher than the others. A little boy in a brown coat.

A little boy missing a scarf.

Milnor’s heart broke. He wanted to cry but couldn’t. The creature, whatever she was, stared him down, and he could feel nothing but hatred for it.

“Why are you doing this?” Milnor asked, his voice breaking.

This time, she inhaled deeply. “Fate,” she simply said. She’d answered in an Elvish dialect.

Fate? What did that mean?

Milnor wanted to fight, and he cursed fate itself for not having taken the sword he’d need for it.

“You lack fate,” she said, and Milnor realized the word meant power. It was confusing when both words resembled each other so much.

“You are not alone,” she said again.

Milnor was torn between his fright and his will to run.

“What are you?” he asked.

“I am everything this place holds. Remorse, regrets…guilt. What you see is what was made.”

“What the kiisa does that mean?”

The woman lay her cold hand on his shoulder, and her touch was like a blade of ice piercing through his skin.

“I am the horror that people built. But now, now that you’re here, I can spread.” She opened her mouth wide and jagged teeth surged from her jaw. “This exchange is over,” she said. Her voice had suddenly taken the darkest of tones. She didn’t sound like herself anymore.

The creature squeezed Milnor’s shoulder until it was so painful that he had to kneel. Her other hand gripped his neck and pressed so hard that Milnor felt his throat crack. He was on his knees, staring into the creature’s eyes because he couldn’t look away.

Her skin began to rip open in various places. Maggots and crawlers slid out of her wounds onto the floor. A black beetle escaped her mouth. Out of her skin grew something else, a shadowy figure that peeled itself off the Wailing Fay’s body, leaving an empty shell behind that collapsed to the floor. The shadow now stood in front of Milnor, holding him, penetrating him with its dark glare.

Whatever it was, Milnor was about to give up. He saw his life flash before his eyes. He felt it, he felt it all. The end.

Oh, how he’d wished he’d written more to his mother. Oh, how he’d wished things had been different. He wasn’t an exemplary son, and he wasn’t a good elf, for that matter.

He was a failure. The village’s laughing stock. A powerless elf who’d run away because that’s what he always did: run.

But he wouldn’t run now. He couldn’t. And that was how his miserable life would end.

Oh, how he’d wished he’d found love.

Those were his last thoughts before he…

The shadow creature entered his eyes and mouth and spread through his body like air. Within seconds, Milnor lost his grip on all reality and sank into a deep pit of darkness, down a never ending well. He was caught in the freefall of his unconscious, never to reach the ground, never to land on his feet, lost forever, drifting endlessly.

The night after Milnor’s disappearance, the people of Kalancha slept quietly. For the first time in forever, they didn’t hear the sobs, wails, or gut wrenching screams of a desperate woman who had been wronged. Some wondered what had changed. Others were hopeful. Could this be the end of their horror?

A few weeks later, it was finally confirmed. The Wailing Fay was gone. Not a single soul had seen her, not even in their dreams.

The villagers searched the dark woods that had been her lair for so long. Much to their sorrow, many families were reunited with what they’d lost. Or, at the very least, with answers.

Milnor, as strange as it may seem, had disappeared. His body was never found.

The post Tellest Short Story – The Wailing Fae appeared first on Tellest.

A Tale by Aaron Canton

The great temple within Daimyo Tatsunori’s capital city was known far and wide. Visitors from distant lands spoke of the beautiful architecture of its buildings, the intricate statues and sculptures which flanked its shrines and graced its halls, and the elaborate rituals that its robed monks performed every dawn and dusk. Merchants called it a place of bountiful wealth where fortunes could be made by anyone whose wares could meet the stringent standards of the priests who purchased items that they deemed worthy of honoring the gods above. And criminals all over the country, from prisoners in local jails, to members of chain gangs working in distant mines, whispered to each other of the horrible fates that awaited those whose crimes were so monstrous that they were hauled to the dungeon under the temple for punishment.

Yasuoka Takako, however, just knew it as home.

The shaman smiled to herself as she stepped through the temple’s massive gates and felt familiar flagstones through her thin sandals. A mixture of scents arose from the buildings and Yasuoka could almost taste the sandalwood incense from the nearest altars, the pollen of the azaleas in the sacred garden, and the fish noodles being prepared in the staff’s eating quarters. Even the distant squabble she overheard of two monks bickering about some error one of them had made during the dawn ritual felt familiar.

“Yasuoka!” The hunter turned to see Kiyosuke Takahara, one of the temple’s gatekeepers, waving at her from his post. He sounded astonished, and Yasuoka had to fight not to laugh at his shocked expression. “You’re back!”

“Of course, I’m back.” Yasuoka allowed her smile to grow by the slightest amount. “You didn’t think a handful of decrepit ghosts could defeat me, did you?”

Kiyosuke shook his head, but then he asked, “You really defeated Goh O-Kai?”

“I did. He will trouble the people of this land no more.” Yasuoka inclined her head. “And all the other shamans he slew are finally at peace.”

“That’s incredible!” Kiyosuke glanced at a nearby jade sundial as if hoping time would suddenly speed up. “My shift ends soon. I would love to hear all about it!” This his voice grew hopeful. “There’s a food stall a few blocks from here that opened after you went on your trip. Their dumplings are spectacular. Perhaps, if the priests don’t send you on another mission…?”

“I will be happy to tell you of my battle, but for now, I need to see High Priest Kitano.” Yasuoka glanced down the temple’s main walkway, which ended in a five-story wooden building that towered over the rest of the complex. “I have important information he must know.”

Kiyosuke quickly nodded, and a flicker of disappointment flashed over his face before his expression became the stoic ideal which the temple’s monks required of all their on-duty staff. “Right,” he said. “Of course. I’ll see you later, Yasuoka.”

The shaman nodded goodbye to Kiyosuke and then walked up to the five-story building. When she reached its massive oaken doors and pressed her hand against them, she felt a tingle as an unseen force pushed back. Yasuoka took a single breath to focus before bringing forth a tiny bit of chi, wrapping it around her hand, and drawing on it to bring forth a strength that could breach spiritual barriers just as her flesh could battle physical ones. Then she pushed again, felt the door swing open easily, and stepped into the inner sanctum of Tatsunori’s ghost hunters.

The room before her was wide open, and though there were altars against the walls as well as elaborate murals depicting the gods above, the center of the room was free of all adornment and consisted only of a simple oaken floor onto which several mats had been placed. Other shamans were on the mats and were either sparring with swords and staves or were sitting in the lotus blossom position while practicing their channeling. A few additional monks scurried between the altars, some leaving offerings and incense, others bowing down to perform the rituals which were required of them.

Yasuoka could see about forty people in the room in total. But she knew from long experience there were many more entities here than that, and so she channeled a little more chi and then looked around again. And, as her gaze passed over the room, for a second time she could see the chained spirits.

Before her were two ghosts whom Yasuoka recognized as the Peng twins, a con artist duo said to have infiltrated noble houses a century ago by pretending to be servants before robbing their new employers and slaughtering everyone on the way out. Both twins were working on a scuffed spot of floor, and as Yasuoka watched, one of them chanted a few words which made the scuff marks quiver and then crumble away. An alter along the far wall was being tended to by another bound spirit, the pyromaniac arsonist Ahuinan, who was being made to use his magic to keep the candles surrounding that altar burning in perfect unity. And when Yasuoka turned to look behind her she saw the ghost of an ancient wizard who had once used magic to shield an invading army from magical attack. That mage, whom Yasuoka had once heard referred to as ‘the demon O-Tsubi’, was now standing by the building’s front door and casting the shield which prevented anyone who didn’t know how to channel from breaching the inner sanctum.

It had unnerved Yasuoka when she’d first been brought to the temple as a starving orphan and learned that the building was maintained by the ghosts of the worst criminals the land had ever known. But the priests had helped her understand that the criminals were now controlled by the shamans who channeled them, so those spirits could not possibly hurt anyone while they did penance for their heinous crimes. Now she didn’t even flinch as she passed the Peng twins to approach a ghost hunter practicing his fencing on the mats. “Ganzaya,” she said as she pressed her hands together and kowtowed to show respect. “I have slain Goh O-Kai and returned. Now I must tell High Priest Kitano about an important discovery I made during my travels.”

Ganzaya waved his sparring partner back and then saluted Yasuoka with his sword. Three magical talismans, each capable of binding a powerful spirit, dangled from its hilt and clanged together in an almost musical manner. “Thank you, Yasuoka,” he said. “Your service is once again appreciated.”

Yasuoka nodded but said nothing in response, and Ganzaya went on. “Kitano will be happy to learn of Goh’s defeat. Daimyo Tatsunori was becoming impatient with our temple’s failure to eliminate that spirit. And, of course, it is a relief that no more shamans will be slain by that damned monk.” He paused. “I don’t sense Goh’s spirit within you. Did you not bind him?”

“No. I banished him instead.” Yasuoka frowned. “If anyone does not believe I truly defeated the spirit, they can travel to his monastery and see for themselves that his blight has been eradicated. He is gone and will never trouble anyone ever again.”

Ganzaya grimaced. “I believe you, Yasuoka. Your devotion to our order is well known and nobody who knows you would think you’d lie about such a matter. But High Priest Kitano is going to wonder why you released the spirit instead of compelling him to atone for his crimes by helping you defeat the other evil spirits which still plague the land.”

Yasuoka glanced at a recessed door in the back of the room. “I would be happy to explain the matter in person. May I see him now?”

“His ritual to bless Daimyo Tatsunori’s health should have ended just a few minutes ago, so he should be available.” Ganzaya waved Yasuoka towards the door. “He is on the top floor. I’ll send my messenger spirit so he knows you are coming.”

“Thank you.” Yasuoka gave another small bow before heading towards the door and the stairs beyond it.

As Yasuoka climbed the stairs, her chi-infused senses observed a spirit named Hare racing upwards. Hare’s true name had been lost to history but everyone knew she had once been a makura sagashi ‘pillow thief’ who had seduced her way into her target’s bedrooms, robbed them once they slept, killed them if they awoke, and then used magic to bolster her speed and enable her to outrun any guards who gave pursuit. Hare had been the first spirit that Ganzaya, the captain of the ghost hunting shamans, had bound, and her ability to traverse long distances in mere moments had proven invaluable in enabling the shamans to learn of distant crises and react in time to avert catastrophes. And even now that Ganzaya was stationed at the temple itself instead of traveling some distant region which was beset by hostile spirits, Yasuoka thought, it still seemed as if Hare still had some use yet.

The thought of spirits and their uses brought Yasuoka back to the reason why she’d wanted to see Kitano so urgently, and she hurried up the rest of the stairs. When she got to the top she took a breath to compose herself, made sure her uniform was as immaculate as it could be after the week of traveling it had taken to reach the temple from the ruins of Goh’s monastery, and stepped into the most sacred chambers in all of Daimyo Tatsunori’s domain.

High Priest Kitano and six other priests were sitting cross-legged in front of the Tatsunori family altar. They wore ornate robes which indicated their high ranks as well as jeweled medallions which they used as foci to help each of them control the many spirits they had bound over the years; additionally, all had shaven their heads as per temple tradition. Incense was rising from the offering bowl in front of the altar, and Yasuoka could see two spirits fanning the incense to ensure the smoke went straight up without lingering in the room. Kitano turned to see her, then smiled and waved the other priests to turn as well. “Yasuoka,” the old man said, but then he frowned and cut off whatever he’d been about to say. Instead, he asked her, “Goh’s spirit is not with you. Have you failed?”

“No, High Priest.” Yasuoka prostrated herself before him and waited until he bid her rise before continuing. “I have defeated him. Let me explain.”

Yasuoka quickly recounted how she had traveled the land for months to locate and bind the spirits she’d thought were necessary to battle the nigh-invincible Goh O-Kai. One of the priests next to Kitano drew a list from inside his robes and began marking names off it, and Yasuoka was pleased to see that she’d eliminated several dangerous ghosts whom the temple had been trying to defeat for years. “The last spirit I wanted was that of the monk Anand Chah,” she said. “He was known to be a channeler who could manipulate many entities at once. I had assumed that he was an evil spirit, like all those we have bound for our work, and so hoped to use his power to channel all my other ghosts at once and defeat Goh. But when I met him, I discovered something important.” She took a breath. “He was not wicked.”

One of the priests raised an eyebrow. “That is impossible,” he said. “Ghosts are bound to this world by unfulfilled desires, but good desires, like protecting one’s family or seeing a pet theory proven correct, are by their very nature limited in scope. It is immoral goals and wishes, such as conquering the world or slaughtering millions, that are limitless. Spirits strong enough to manifest and cause problems are thus inevitably formed by wicked desires. We all know that.”

“We all believe that, but it is not true.” Yasuoka shook her head. “Anand had no malevolent intentions. He simply wished to continue teaching.”

“You were mistaken.” Kitano’s voice was flat and harsh, and Yasuoka fought back a jolt of surprise. She’d never heard him use that tone. “Anand must have tricked you.”

“It was not only him,” Yasuoka explained. “When I went to Goh’s temple, I did not defeat him by channeling my own spirits. Instead I called upon the ghosts of the dead shamans whom Goh had killed over the centuries. None of them were evil; in fact, all were heroes of this order. They came when I summoned them and they battled by my side freely, of their own volition. It was they that allowed me to defeat Goh.”

The priest with the list asked, “But you didn’t bind him?”

“No. The spirits who fought alongside me wanted to see Goh destroyed, and so I did. It was the least I could do to honor the help they gave me.”

Nobody spoke for a moment. Then Yasuoka glanced at Kitano and was amazed to see that his face had reddened and he was trembling as if suppressing an angry tantrum. “I submit,” she said as she tried to hide her dismay and confusion, “that we reconsider our doctrines. If innocent spirits exist, then ghost hunters like myself need not only travel the world fighting evil spirits and binding them to our service. We can also search for the spirits of good people which linger on after their deaths. No doubt virtuous ghosts have many skills that would be useful to us, just as the evil ones do, and if we help the virtuous ones achieve the final desires which bind them to this world then they may agree to help us in turn. And—”

“Stop.”

Yasuoka froze as she heard Kitano’s voice, which shook as if barely withstanding fury. “Our doctrines are absolute,” he went on. “They have been passed down for generations and are not in error. You have been fooled, Yasuoka. The spirit Anand tricked you, and no doubt Goh did so as well. I’m sure a spirit of his power would have found it easy to fake his own death… especially for a shaman who was so foolish as to not even attempt to bind him!”

“Then send Hare to Goh’s monastery and confirm for yourself that his blight is gone!” Yasuoka insisted, trying and failing to keep her frustration out of her voice. “I—”

“You have failed.” Kitano’s voice was like a slap and Yasuoka winced. “You have fallen away from the fundamental truths of our order. And you have disgraced us all.” Kitano closed his eyes. “Remove yourself from my presence and the temple grounds. When we have decided what penance, if any, would serve to redeem you and return you to our ranks, we will let you know. Until then, this place is forbidden to you. Now be gone.”

It took Yasuoka a moment to recover enough to speak. “High Priest Kitano, I defeated a ghost whom nobody else could slay. I deserve—”

“Remove yourself or we will remove you!” Kitano snapped. “At once, Yasuoka!”

Another moment of silence stretched between them. Then, at last, Yasuoka forced herself to get up and leave the sanctum.

#

“Has something happened to High Priest Kitano?”

Kiyosuke chewed his final dumpling thoughtfully before looking back at Yasuoka. They were sitting at the food stall he’d mentioned earlier, and the old lady who had cooked and delivered their orders came over to refill their tea before resuming her post at a huge wok full of sizzling noodles. Kiyosuke picked up his cup, swallowed, and then said, “Daimyo Tatsunori visited last week, and from what I could tell, the meeting went badly. Kitano was snapping at people for the entire rest of the day. That’s the only thing I can think of.”

Yasuoka finished the last of her dumplings and then sipped her tea as she considered the gatekeeper’s words. “Ganzaya said the daimyo was displeased that Goh was still afflicting the land. I’m guessing that’s why he visited. But High Priest Kitano always controlled his temper before. I can’t imagine he’d still be so upset days later that he’d throw me out without even listening to me.”

“Are you sure?” Yasuoka gave a startled glance to Kiyosuke, who drank some of his own tea and then shrugged. “I haven’t talked to Kitano that much, but he’s always seemed cold and aloof to me. Snapping at someone is just like him.”

Yasuoka shook her head. “You don’t know him like I do. After Daimyo Tatsunori brought me to the temple, High Priest Kitano and his closest acolytes raised me. They taught me everything I knew about being a ghost hunter and a shaman. Kitano can be very strict, but he never just dismissed me out of hand, even when I broke a rule and got into trouble.”

“You broke rules?” Kiyosuke chuckled. “This I’ve got to hear.”

A smile flickered over Yasuoka’s face before she pushed it away. “Another time,” she said. “Right now I need to think of a way to make High Priest Kitano understand. We ghost hunters could be so much more powerful if we learned to work alongside good spirits instead of only drawing on the powers of evil ones, but for some reason he won’t listen to me.”

“I’m sure you and he will have more chances to talk,” Kiyosuke said. “You don’t have another mission now, right? That means you can just hang around the temple training until they send you out again. Kitano has to come down to get food or stretch his legs sometime, so you’ll be able to speak with him then.” He waved for the waitress to come back. “Now, how about we have some mochi to follow up those dumplings? This place has fantastic mochi, some of the best in the city. And you can’t have had many chances to enjoy sweets while you were traveling to all those distant temples.”

Yasuoka didn’t answer, instead just staring down into her cup of tea. Kiyosuke went on to say, “I could also tell you about my own studies, if you’re interested. You know how I was thinking about becoming a ghost hunter myself, right? Well, I’ve been practicing chi exercises for months, and I’m pretty sure I finally got to the point where I can just barely perceive ghosts.” He paused. “As long as nothing else is going on. And the ghost sits still.”

His mouth quirked up in a smile, but Yasuoka still didn’t react. “It doesn’t make sense,” she told him after several moments of silence. “Kiyosuke, are you sure nothing else unusual has been going on with the high priest?”

Kiyosuke’s smile grew strained. “I see,” he said. “That’s why you finally accepted my dinner invitation. All you wanted was to pump me for information about Kitano.”

“Kiyosuke…” Yasuoka sighed. “We’ve been over this. I’m on the road for months at a time traveling to distant ruins where I fight ghosts who might kill me. I can’t return your affections.”

“Sure.” A hint of bitterness crossed Kiyosuke’s voice, but he shook his head and then quaffed the rest of his tea in one gulp. When he next spoke, he sounded like he was in control of himself again. “Well, to answer your question, everything else has been normal. He’s been conducting all the rituals and training the other monks and the shamans like always. He’s even been sitting in when Ganzaya’s hunters come back from missions and show the ghosts they bound.”

That struck Yasuoka as odd, but it took her a moment to realize why. “Usually a lower-level priest would do that,” she mused, her gaze wandering into the clouds of steam billowing up from the giant wok. She could almost imagine the shadowy, silvery shapes of spirits forming within the steam as she thought back to the many times she herself had presented new spirits to the temple monks. “High Priest Kitano has many more important things to do. How could he neglect his other duties just to check on new spirits acquired by the hunters?” Then her eyes narrowed. “Unless he wanted those spirits for himself…”

“Why would the high priest want more spirits?” Kiyosuke asked. “He’s got dozens already.”

“He would want them if he was planning on personally battling Goh.” Yasuoka nodded. “It makes sense now. Daimyo Tatsunori probably gave the high priest an ultimatum: deal with Goh soon or else the temple will be punished. So High Priest Kitano decided to fight Goh himself, and to prepare, he began checking the other shamans’ spirits and taking the strongest ones. But strong ghosts are hard to control and some can even possess those who try and fail to break them. I’ll bet when Kitano tried to control the new ghosts, one of them overwhelmed him. That’s why he was acting so strangely earlier. I wasn’t talking to Kitano, but a ghost using his body.”

Kiyosuke frowned. “Wouldn’t someone else have noticed?”

“Not necessarily.” Yasuoka finished her tea and stood. “If the ghost is very powerful, it may know how to conceal itself in the high priest’s chi. Then nobody would notice unless they were specifically examining him.”

“Or,” Kiyosuke said, “the high priest could just be rude and self-absorbed. It’s been known to happen.”

“Not in our order.” Yasuoka took a few coins from her pocket and tossed them on the counter before Kiyosuke could protest. “We have served the daimyo and the people of this land for centuries. We wouldn’t be able to do our work if we could not meet the highest standards. Someone so self-absorbed that they could not listen to wise counsel would not be able to advance to the rank of high priest; the other monks and shamans would prevent it.”

Before Kiyosuke could respond, Yasuoka went on. “And even setting that aside, I know High Priest Kitano. He is not a cruel or self-important man, and he would not normally dismiss me out of hand. If he is acting oddly, there must be a reason, and I suspect I know what it is.” She turned. “I will determine if he is possessed, and if so, I will exorcise him. Then he will listen to me.”

Kiyosuke rose too, but Yasuoka was already hurrying away. “He should still be doing the nightly rituals,” she muttered to herself. “If he skips them, the others will realize that he’s not acting like himself, and the spirit can’t risk that. I’ll be able to find him in the upper shrine.”

The doors to the temple complex had been closed for the night, and while shamans could knock and demand admittance whenever they wanted, Yasuoka was confident that the possessed Kitano would have ordered the guards to turn her away. Fortunately, shamans also had ways around that. She slipped around the temple wall until she was near a large tree, then took a breath and focused her chi. “Mi-Jae Oh, damned spy,” she whispered as she called to one of the many spirits bound to her. “Lend me your agility.”

Yasuoka shuddered as her chi wrapped around the spirit and dragged it inside of her. Moments later, she felt a surge of energy and realized she had started to balance on the balls of her feet without noticing. She allowed herself a grim smile before springing up the tree, climbing almost as quickly as she could run and flipping from branch to branch without even slowing down. Mi-Jae had famously honed her acrobatic skills to the point where she could launch herself up into rafters or down through deep caves in order to spy on her master’s hidden enemies, and Yasuoka made full use of those talents as she hauled herself up the temple wall.

When Yasuoka reached the top, she flipped over the wall and dropped down behind one of the smaller outbuildings before any of the guards saw her. Then she dismissed Mi-Jae and channeled another spirit, a sprinter named Jiwari who was said to have won every racing competition for five years before finally losing and then murdering the victor in a jealous rage. Jiwari’s speed empowered Yasuoka to race through the compound at an almost inhuman pace, and though a few guards heard her pass, by the time they’d turned, she’d rounded the next corner and was out of sight.

Yasuoka switched back to channeling Mi-Jae when she reached the five-story inner sanctum and then swiftly climbed up to the top level. Once there, she crouched in a shadowy nook as she took her staff from its strap on her back and levered one of the temple windows open. O-Tsubi’s barrier didn’t even slow her down as she funneled chi into her hand and pushed through the spirits’ best efforts. Then the way was clear and she dropped down to the temple’s fifth floor to see that the room was almost empty. It was just her…

And High Priest Kitano.

Yasuoka saw the old man meditating in front of the Tatsunori family shrine, and she took a moment to catch her breath before she focused her chi into her senses. Then she peered at Kitano with magic-enhanced eyes, searching for even a hint of a disturbance in his aura that would indicate another spirit had hijacked his body.

But there was no sign of that. His aura was as it always was: as smooth and deep as a waveless ocean, without even a single disturbance to indicate an intruder.

Then, while Yasuoka continued to peer, Kitano stood up in one swift motion. “Yasuoka. I ordered you to leave these grounds.”

Yasuoka froze. Kitano hadn’t looked behind himself, and he wasn’t channeling anyone, so she had no idea how he could have not just sensed an intruder but recognized who she was. “High Priest, please—”

“You were given specific instructions not to return unless I summoned you!” Kitano turned and Yasuoka could see a burning rage in his eyes. “Once again, you disobey!”

“I don’t know how you possessed the high priest and evaded my detection,” Yasuoka began as she raised her staff, “but I will not allow you to harm that man one moment longer.”

Kitano’s mouth worked soundlessly for a moment before he spat, “Possessed? You attribute my actions to that of some spirit? You know nothing!”

“You—”

“I guard and protect our order! I will stop you here!” Yasuoka stared at the man as he approached, but he didn’t explain the non sequitur. Instead, he ranted, “I will defend our land from all threats, including you!”

“I am no threat! I—”

Then Kitano grasped his medallion in an old, weathered hand. “You were a willful child, and though I thought I’d trained that out of you, I now see I was mistaken!” he thundered. “But I cannot allow the whole order to pay for that mistake. If you do not surrender and allow me to escort you to the dungeon, Yasuoka, I will take you by force.”

Yasuoka’s mouth dropped. Distantly, she realized that Kitano had referenced her childhood at the temple, and there was no reason for a possessing spirit to have known about that. And that meant the man before her wasn’t possessed. She was being attacked by the real Kitano.

But she knew she couldn’t worry about that until after she’d dealt with the immediate threat. “You and I both know the dungeon can’t hold me,” she pointed out. “My spirits make me too strong.”

“Oh?” Kitano smiled sardonically. “Really?”

And then he summoned some kaja spirit that Yasuoka had never seen before, and she knew she had to fight.

Yasuoka reached out with her chi and grabbed the hulking rhinotaur that she often used in battle. His strength flooded into her and she lunged for Kitano with a blow that could have knocked boulders from a mountainside. Kitano, however, twisted around her with a grace she’d never have imagined from someone as old as him. She lashed out again and again, struggling to catch or strike him, but he dodged each time.

Then Kitano channeled another spirit, this one a shrouded harpy with bone-like talons, and Yasuoka leapt backwards just before the high priest’s hands could grip her shoulders. She quickly swapped spirits and summoned a pyromancer. His knowledge of fire magic filled her mind and her fingers twisted into a complex sigil as she cast a wall of fire around herself. She needed time and space, she thought, so she could figure out what was going on and how to stop Kitano or at least escape—

But then Kitano used his harpy spirit to soar over the fire wall and drop lightly behind her. Desperately, Yasuoka switched back to the rhinotaur spirit and swung her staff to knock him down. He once again evaded her, looking more like he was dancing then dodging around blows that would have staggered any other opponent Yasuoka had ever sparred with, before he suddenly channeled what looked like an ancient, decrepit crone. That spirit seemed even more ghostly than the others and Yasuoka’s next blow passed harmlessly through the monk. She gaped as the monk stepped through her, then turned, but not before Kitano had dropped whatever spell the spirit had empowered him to cast and resolidified. She felt sharp jabs over her spine as Kitano hit her in three precise spots.

And her chi disappeared.

Yasuoka gasped and frantically grasped for her power, but it was like Kitano had ripped it away. Then she felt his hands on her head and something cold tore through her, causing her to shiver uncontrollably and fall to her knees. There was a horrific wrenching feeling and a bolt of pain unlike any she’d ever known. The floor rushed up towards her but she could do nothing to stop herself from hitting it.

A few moments later, the room swam back into focus. Kitano was standing over her with a grim smile, and as he waved his hand, all the spirits that she’d spent years capturing and binding manifested themselves next to him. She reached out to them but could no longer feel the bond, and as she watched, Kitano gripped his medallion and they were brutally dragged into it.

“A shaman with strong spirits might be able to break out of my prison, but not a traitor with no magic whatsoever,” he hissed. “Your rebellion ends here.”

“High Priest,” Yasuoka managed as pain flooded through her. “I’ve done nothing to deserve this!”

Anger flashed over Kitano’s face, but he shook his head and forced it away. “You almost destabilized the entire order and destroyed what my predecessors and I spent centuries building,” he growled. “Whatever your merits and your services, I cannot allow that to happen again.” And then he looked away. “Guards!” he bellowed with a voice so loud he had to be channeling a spirit to bolster it. “To me! There is an intruder that must be brought down to the cells at once!”

Yasuoka tried to get up again, but her body was too weak to move, and when the armed monks came to pick her up she couldn’t resist at all.

#

The underground dungeon of the temple complex was bigger than Yasuoka could have imagined.

It hadn’t seemed so large when she’d been allowed to glimpse it as a child, Yasuoka thought as she lay slumped on her thin cot. Back then, Kitano had simply led her down a narrow flight of stairs within the inner sanctum into a basement that held maybe a dozen cells. Each of those chambers had been built out of thick stone and iron bars, but their furnishings had been comfortable and there hadn’t been torture devices or anything else that would have made the temple monks look cruel. And after Kitano had explained how the temple was sometimes called upon to punish the worst criminals in the land, the ones so bad that they could only atone by having their spirits removed from their bodies so they could be made to serve the temple and its monks, Yasuoka’s fears had been assuaged.

But it turned out that the single block of cells she’d seen as a youth wasn’t the full extent of the dungeon. Now the guards had taken her down below the inner sanctum and then through another concealed door which led to a maze of passages that seemed to sprawl under the entirety of the complex. There had to be hundreds of empty cells, and Yasuoka couldn’t help but wonder why they were there. After all, it wasn’t like there were that many criminals who deserved such a harsh punishment, and Yasuoka had never seen more than a few men and women be sent down to the dungeon in a year.

Of course, she had more things to worry about than just the temple’s jail being too large.

As the hours passed and feeling slowly returned to Yasuoka’s body, she kept thinking back to her confrontation with Kitano. “Why is he acting like this?” she muttered to herself. “What did I do? I know how hard he’s fought to stop evil spirits from hurting the land, how much he’s sacrificed to uphold the temple and its traditions. He’s spent his whole life serving our order. All I did was give him information that could help us to fight evil spirits! Why oppose that if he’s not possessed?”

Even the fight in his room didn’t make sense. Yasuoka could well imagine him being mad that she’d disobeyed him and returned to the temple grounds, and of course he could be offended at her insinuation that he was weak enough to be possessed. But he hadn’t needed to fight her; he could have simply let her verify for herself that he wasn’t being controlled by some monstrous ghost and then could have ordered her out again or even suspended her and refused to send her on any more missions. Attacking her was unnecessary. And ripping away her ghosts wasn’t just an unnecessary move given how badly Yasuoka had been outmatched, but it made her completely useless as a shaman. How could she fight evil spirits when she had no ghosts of her own to draw on?

“Unless he really does plan to keep me down here forever,” she muttered.

As a feeling of pure despondence enveloped her, Yasuoka once again tried to summon her own chi, but while she finally felt a faint flicker of power for the first time since Kitano had defeated her, it was nothing like the power she’d been able to wield before. Even if she still had her ghosts, she thought bitterly, she’d never be strong enough to wield them. What had Kitano done to her?

With no answers forthcoming, Yasuoka stayed still for a few more moments before she slowly and achily pulled herself into a lotus position on the cot. She couldn’t see what use meditation would have at the moment, but it was what her mentors had taught her to do when she was confused, and she wasn’t going to doubt everything she’d been taught just because her high priest was acting strangely. She took a few breaths, summoned the tiny scraps of chi that she’d managed to recover, and then began to focus inwards.

Time seemed to slow along with her breathing as the aches in her body faded by the slightest amount. She could feel the few bits of chi she’d gathered up flowing through her, brushing past her senses and giving her flickers of sights and sounds from the spirit world. It wasn’t anything like how being immersed in chi usually felt, but it was all Yasuoka had, and she let herself open up to those sensations as she continued to meditate.

And then she heard someone crying.

Yasuoka flinched, the sound vanished, and a frustrated scowl flickered across her face before she caught herself. “Who’s there?” she called, but nobody answered. “Who else is here?”

Only silence answered her.

Frowning, Yasuoka wondered if she might have heard a ghost, but she couldn’t think of why a bound spirit would be permitted to hide out in the cells crying. Nor was it possibly that she’d heard a free spirit; the only people who could have died and left ghosts here were either prisoners being punished, in which case their spirits would have been bound immediately, or the temple monks themselves, who would have no reason to haunt the dungeon. So who had she heard?

Yasuoka shook her head and then focused as best she could on drawing out the tiny remnants of chi still within her. Soon she heard the crying again; it seemed to be coming from the cell to her left. “Spirit,” Yasuoka called. “Come before me. I want to see you.”

There was no reason to think that would work, Yasuoka told herself. She didn’t have the power to control a bound spirit, let alone induce a free one to serve her. But then a silvery presence began to appear in front of her cell and her eyes widened. “Impossible,” she hissed.

The ghost that formed before Yasuoka was a woman a few inches shorter than her. She wore a simple dress unlike any the ghost hunter had ever seen in person; it reminded her of a mural on the temple walls depicting one of Daimyo Tatsunori’s ancestors leading a small force of shamans in routing Kara “Tiger-Claw” Yatsushiko’s army of outlaws. Some of those bandits had been depicted as wearing uniforms with similar textures as that of the ghost’s dress. Yasuoka asked, “Who are you?”

“You can see me?” the ghost asked, her voice trembling as she peered at Yasuoka.

“Yes.” Yasuoka tried to stand but couldn’t; it took all her effort to just keep drawing on the remnants of her chi, and after only a few seconds her body flopped back to the lotus position.  “Who are you?”

“My name is Mai Lin, ma’am,” the ghost said.

Yasuoka inclined her head. “Why are you here?”

“I was a camp follower of a large army which came to this land long ago.” She looked down. “I cannot remember when. I have been here for so long…”

Yasuoka said, “Never mind that. You were part of Kara Yatsushiko’s bandit force?”

“General Yatsushiko led us, yes. My brother was one of his scouts and I followed him; the army let women stay with them as long as we did chores in camp.” Mai tilted her head. “But the general was not a bandit. He was a great warrior who had beaten many foes. We never expected to be defeated by the local daimyo.”

It was not surprising, Yasuoka thought, that the woman didn’t want to consider her leader a mere bandit. It was even possible that Mai had forgotten Yatsushiko’s depravity during her long stay in the dungeon; ghosts were almost always unstable, and the dungeon was hardly conducive to mental health. “How did you get here?”

“After our defeat, we were all brought to this dungeon. They did not tell us why.” Mai shut her eyes. “There were rumors they would use horrific tortures on us, so I hung myself before they could do so, but somehow I stayed here even after I died.” She lowered her head. “I could not stop myself from watching as the temple monks picked General Yatsushiko’s strongest warriors and bound their spirits into captivity before letting Daimyo Tatsunori send the rest to another prison.”

“I see.” Yasuoka fought to maintain her lotus pose even as her exhausted body demanded rest. That had to be why the dungeon was so large, she thought. It had apparently once been used to house enemy armies so the monks could pick which spirits would best serve the ghost hunters. And that also explained why nobody had seen Mai; the dungeon wasn’t used for armies anymore, so nobody would have any reason to go to its distant corners in centuries. But then why, she wondered, had Kitano put her here and not in the central block of cells everyone knew existed?

Yasuoka let her head drop into a nod. “I suppose bandit leaders like Yatsushiko often had many powerful followers who—”

“We were not bandits!” Mai cried, tears beginning to flow from her eyes again as Yasuoka made herself look up. “My brother and those with him were soldiers. I understand that a losing army is subject to being captured and imprisoned, even made to suffer, but none of them did anything to merit their spirits being seized by the people here!”

“You are mistaken.” Yasuoka tried to make her voice as gentle as possible. “The temple monks would not enslave a spirit simply for fighting on the side of a losing army. Only the worst criminals are punished in this manner. I would know; I have bound many ghosts, and each showed itself to be irredeemably evil before I battled it. The prisoners too are carefully screened so only the very worst ones are held here and subject to execution. We would never hurt someone who did not deserve it.”

“Maybe your monks don’t do it anymore, but that’s what they did to us!” Mai’s voice was pure anguish. “I was with the army. We did not steal; we paid for any supplies we took. We were not bandits!”

Yasuoka shook her head. “Even if prior generations of ghost hunters were willing to bind those who were not evil, which I cannot imagine, the current generation would never tolerate that practice. I have served with them for several years and I know them well. If your companions really were honorable soldiers and not bandits, then their spirits would long since have been freed.”

“But it’s true!” Mai wailed. “I don’t care if everyone here thinks my brother and the army were bandits and not soldiers; it’s what happened!”

The ghost sounded completely sincere, and as Yasuoka considered, she realized that her story might actually be possible. Not that the temple order as it currently existed would knowingly enslave innocents, of course; they would never do that. In fact, as far as Yasuoka could tell, nobody else in the order had ever knowingly encountered an innocent spirit, which was why Kitano’s acolytes had been so astounded when Yasuoka insisted they existed. But what if Mai was right and some previous generation had been less enlightened? And then, what if in the intervening time between Yatsushiko’s defeat and the present day, the true facts had passed into myth and everyone had come to believe that Yatsushiko’s army really was a collection of bandits? If that were true, then the ghost hunters really were unknowingly using spirits who didn’t deserve to be bound and forced to serve the temple—

Yasuoka’s eyes widened. If that were the case, she thought, it could explain why Kitano had been so enraged when Yasuoka had tried to explain that good spirits existed. If the other monks and shamans grew to believe that not all spirits were evil, they might think to check the ones who were serving in the temple. They might then find that Yatsushiko’s army didn’t deserve to be bound, and they would want to free them. But Kitano lived and died for the order. He’d worry that releasing powerful spirits like Yatsushiko and his soldiers could devastate the temple’s ability to defend itself and protect others. And so he very well might want to prevent that from happening, no matter the cost.

Moreover, who was to say that Yatsushiko and his people were the only potentially innocent spirits who had been trapped? Yasuoka didn’t think any new prisoners were being punished here who didn’t deserve it; she knew too well how stringent her companions were about making sure only the worst of the worst were forced to atone in this way. But if Yatsushiko’s army could have become bandits in legend, than so could other ghosts who had had lingered on for centuries while myths and legends sprung up around them. How many hauntings were attributed to some monstrous bandit or psychopathic murderer when the spirit in question had never really hurt anyone?

Yasuoka didn’t think any of the spirits she’d bound were like that; as she’d told Mai, the ones she’d encountered had demonstrated their evil before she’d fought them. But if other shamans believed the legends and didn’t check their targets before casting their binding spells? Then even more of their spirits, the ones they relied on to defeat hostile ghosts, defend the temple, and even fulfil its basic rituals, would need to be freed. But Kitano would never stand for that. In fact, he might do whatever he could to keep those spirits bound and in service.

Even as she thought that, Yasuoka wanted to dismiss the very notion that Kitano would cover up harm done to innocents. But she had to admit that he was a man solely devoted to the order, and that he might very well try to hide evidence such as her testimony rather than see his life’s work weakened. And while that was undeniably an evil act, just as Yasuoka had come to learn not all spirits were evil, she thought she had to at least consider the possibility that not all those who served the temple were good. After all, if Kitano was doing what Yasuoka thought he was, then he was unquestionably committing a great evil.

And he needed to be stopped.

A flicker of despair rose up in Yasuoka at that last thought, since of course she was still trapped in the temple dungeons with no spirits and barely any chi. But then she looked at the ghost standing before her and smiled as she understood what she could do. It was a plan that just might work, and what was more, Kitano could only anticipate it if he was willing to admit innocent spirits existed.

Which he would never, ever do.

“Ghosts can manifest and interact with living beings when they become extremely agitated,” Yasuoka said. “Are you still able to feel that depth of emotion?”

“I would never!” Mai quickly shook her head. “I don’t want the temple monks to see me!”

“But you could do it?” When Mai slowly nodded, Yasuoka went on. “How far, precisely, can you venture outside the temple grounds?”

Mai frowned. “Anywhere in the city. But I don’t leave the temple anymore. There is no point, and when I see the living people building up their city, I only think—”

“There is a point this time.” Yasuoka took a breath. “I can stop Kitano and make sure all the innocent spirits here are freed, but you’ll need to deliver a message and do one other thing for me.”

The ghost frowned. “What else do you need?”

Yasuoka slowly made herself stand, wobbling a little but managing to stay upright this time, and then looked directly at Mai. “How many other free spirits are down here? Surely there were others who died before the guards could bind them?”

“Perhaps fifty,” Mai said.

A grim smile flitted across Yasuoka’s face. “Please gather them up. We have work to do.”

#

Kitano’s men came for Yasuoka within a couple of hours. What she hadn’t expected was who the lead henchman was. “Get up, traitor,” growled Ganzaya as he led three other muscular ghost hunters to her cell. He kept one hand on his sword hilt as if he thought Yasuoka was about to burst free and attack him. “On your feet.”

Yasuoka did not resist as Ganzaya opened her cell and beckoned her out. “You know better than this,” she said as she exited the room and fell into step between the guards. Her body was still exhausted, but she’d recovered just enough that she could walk without stumbling. “You know what Kitano is doing.”

“I know that I serve the temple.” Ganzaya turned and spat at Yasuoka’s feet. “We’ve been this land’s only protection from evil spirits for centuries. If we fall, ghosts will destroy everything. Our homes, our families, everyone we care about will be ruined.” He clenched a fist. “I’m not going to let that happen.”

“I have no intention of destroying—”

“High Priest Kitano said you tried to murder him to take his spirits for yourself!” Ganzaya snapped.

Yasuoka shook her head. “He is lying. You told me earlier you know my loyalty to the temple—”

“I also know Kitano’s. I would never have believed you capable of this if he hadn’t told me himself.” Ganzaya’s eyes flashed with anger. “But he did tell me, and I trust him more than anyone else. He is the temple, and just like our order, he will never be corrupted.” He shook his head. “Now move along.”

They didn’t stop when they reached the central area of the dungeon. Instead, Ganzaya went up the stairs to the ground floor of the temple’s inner sanctum, and his men forced Yasuoka to follow him. That was as Yasuoka had expected, just as she’d expected Kitano to send people to get her. Enough time had passed for Hare to check the ancient monastery and confirm to the ghost hunters that Goh O-Kai was truly defeated, and no other shaman had been able to handle such a monster, so Kitano would know that Yasuoka was as powerful as she claimed and he’d fear that she might be strong enough to eventually escape despite him stealing her ghosts and sealing her chi. That meant he’d want to deal with her permanently.

Moreover, Kitano surely wanted as few people to know about this as possible. That had to be why he’d put her in a distant cell rather than one of the ones everyone knew about, and also why he’d picked the ultra-loyal Ganzaya and a few handpicked acolytes instead of sending more people. It was also why he was having her taken away now that it was time to kill her: he didn’t want to take the risk of other guards bringing some prisoner into the dungeon and stumbling upon Yasuoka’s murder, which was remotely possible even if he had her killed in the furthest cell imaginable. Instead, he had no doubt told Ganzaya to bring her up to his rooms, where nobody in the order would dare intrude without his explicit permission.

The ground floor of the inner sanctum looked deserted, and Yasuoka guessed that all the other shamans had been sent away by Kitano to further ensure secrecy. When Yasuoka glanced behind her she could see the guards had strained expressions on their faces, which indicated to her they were probably channeling. That made sense; if she had managed to keep any spirits in reserve after fighting Kitano, now would be the time to use them, so of course the guards were watching out for any ghosts she might summon.

And hopefully, she thought, not paying attention to anything else. “Ganzaya,” she asked. “Is Kitano going to kill me?”

“You deserve nothing less.” Ganzaya’s voice was a harsh growl.

“Only the worst criminals are supposed to be executed and bound to the temple.”

“Treason against the temple is the worst crime.” Ganzaya snorted as the group passed a thick statue near an altar. “I’m not sure even centuries of serving the temple will be sufficient penance for your actions. But—”

Kiyosuke stepped out from behind the statue and swept his staff at the legs of the guards who were trailing Yasuoka.

Normally, Yasuoka knew, any of the three guards could have beaten Kiyosuke without effort. But now they were completely focused on watching for any spirits that Yasuoka might summon, especially since they ‘knew’ that Yasuoka must have some very strong ghosts to have returned from her last mission alive. With all their attention on the spiritual world, they had none for mundane opponents, and when Kiyosuke’s staff tripped them, all three fell in a heap.

The men reacted quickly and raced to get up, but they needed a few seconds to do so, and in that time Kiyosuke had thrown himself down on top of their prone forms. That knocked them down again and kept them occupied as Ganzaya swiveled around. His lips drew back in a sneer and he said, “I don’t know what you’re doing here, gatekeeper, but you’ll share her punishment if you try to help her escape!” Then he brought his hands together as he began to channel chi—

And a look of horror raced across his face.

Yasuoka didn’t need to use any of her own chi to know what he was seeing. His gaze swept around at what could only be the army of unbound, innocent ghosts which Yasuoka had directed Mai to gather up, hide under the floor, and then rise and surround Ganzaya with once Kiyosuke had created a distraction. Ganzaya didn’t know they were harmless; he just believed that Yasuoka’s spirits were so powerful they’d let her defeat the unstoppable Goh O-Kai. For ghosts like that, killing one lone shaman would be simplicity itself.

“Get back!” Ganzaya screamed. “Now!”

Yasuoka didn’t wait for him to recover his wits. She instead drew on every scrap of energy she had left and lurched forwards into him, tackling him down and then falling on top of him. Her hand reached his sword hilt and she drew it from his scabbard before he could stop her. Then she put the tip to his throat and got around him so she could also look at the other three men, who had just gotten up to advance on Kiyosuke. “Surrender or I kill Ganzaya.”

“You wouldn’t.” One of the guards took a shuddering breath. “That’s – that’s murder.”

Yasuoka’s voice was quiet and implacable. “I am a ghost hunter. I travel the nation slaying and binding those spirits that would harm others. I can guarantee I have dealt more death than all of you put together.” She let the point of the katana press into Ganzaya’s neck just hard enough that a single drop of blood dripped down. “I am perfectly willing to deal some more.”

“Stop!” Ganzaya cried out.

The other guards looked at each other and then dropped their own weapons. “Lock them in a storeroom,” Yasuoka ordered Kiyosuke. “Then come back and get Ganzaya too.”

When all four men had been locked up, Kiyosuke gave Yasuoka an amazed expression. “What is going on?” he demanded. “Why are they trying to kill you?”

“It’s a long story.” Yasuoka hesitated, knowing she needed to press on and stop Kitano or else he would just keep sending people after her, but she couldn’t make herself advance on what was still possibly a suicide mission without saying something else. “But thank you for coming. You were the only one I could think of who might help.”

“Help?” Kiyosuke shook his head. “I was about to go to bed, when my shutters began banging and the shrine on my dresser fell over. When I figured out it was a ghost I channeled to see it, but before I could attack it, the ghost said you’d sent it and told me to wait here!”

Yasuoka inclined her head. “Right. I meant that you were the only person I could think of who would be able to perceive the ghost but would not immediately attack her or assume she was lying.” She shrugged. “You told me you could make yourself see them, but you are not a ghost hunter yourself, so you have not learned to instinctively hate them like everyone else here.”

“Oh.” Kiyosuke smiled a little before he shook his head and said, “Well, if these monks are really trying to kill you, then we need to leave. I unlocked one of the side doors to enter and we can use it to get out.”

“I cannot leave yet.” Yasuoka dropped Ganzaya’s sword, which she did not know how to use well, and instead took Kiyosuke’s staff. “Kitano will come after me forever if I do. I need to stop him now, for good.”

She turned towards the stairs to the upper level, but her body shuddered with exertion and Kiyosuke dashed to her side. “I don’t think you’re ready for another fight,” he said. “Let’s go and you can come back when you recover—”

“There will be no coming back from this.”

Both Yasuoka and Kiyosuke stepped back as Kitano descended the stairs. The old man showed not a trace of his age as he stepped onto the temple floor with the strength and gravity of a seasoned warrior, and when he took his staff from his back and swung it around, his motions were smooth and sure. “You will not be permitted to destroy that which has been built here,” he told Yasuoka. “You both will be slain and bound to serve this temple like any other criminal. As will all this other trash.” His eyes flicked around at what could only be Mai’s group of innocent spirits.

Kiyosuke uttered a noise of protest and stepped forward, but Yasuoka thrust out her hand. “You have already helped me immeasurably,” she said quietly. “But this fight must be mine.”

“Why?” Kiyosuke asked.

Yasuoka let out a soft breath. “Because I helped support this man’s power. It is my responsibility to stop him.” And then she managed a faint smile. “Besides. Between the two of us, I am still the more seasoned warrior.”

“He’s not a ghost!” Kiyosuke’s voice was a sharp hiss. “You haven’t fought someone like him and—”

Yasuoka advanced towards Kitano and stopped when she was about three meters from him. “How many of the spirits held here truly deserve their fates?” she asked. “And how many should have been released long ago?”

“Every ghost deserves its fate.” Kitano thumped his staff into the ground, and the building seemed to vibrate under Yasuoka’s feet. She took a quick breath and tried not to think about the army of ghosts that Kitano was no doubt calling to his side. “To question that is to risk bringing down our order.”

“Our order would survive.” Yasuoka raised her own staff higher. “We would retain all our martial abilities, and the ghosts of the truly wicked besides. We—”

“You cannot know which spirits we will have need of!” Kitano’s voice thundered through the room. “Any future battle could rely on any of them; if we release one and need it later, we could fall.”

Yasuoka shook her head. “If our order truly requires the sacrifice of the undeserving, then we deserve to fall, no matter what other good we do. But it doesn’t. Have you so little faith in our order that you think we cannot go on without sacrificing the innocent to our cause?”

“There are no innocent spirits! There cannot be any innocent spirits!” Kitano jabbed his staff at Yasuoka. “And when you are just another shade bound to me and my temple for eternity, perhaps you will finally understand that!”

Yasuoka summoned a spark of chi in time to see Kitano bringing several ghosts into himself. He leapt forwards—

And the rest of the ghosts, led by Mai, plunged into Yasuoka.

The ghost hunter felt a wave of brutal cold envelope her and for a moment she could only try to draw upon her empty reserves of chi to control the spirits that were occupying her body. But then her mind caught up and she reminded herself that these were not evil spirits who had to be wrestled into submission so they would obey her orders. These were allies. Friends.

They did not need to be ordered. They had already been asked. Nothing else was required.

And so Yasuoka stopped struggling and let their ghostly strength fill her. Each was weak on its own, but with fifty ghosts or more inside her and funneling her chi at the same time, she felt a wave of strength like she had never before experienced. When Kitano’s staff slammed at her head, Yasuoka barely had to think before her arms snapped up to block with her own weapon, and she didn’t even felt the blow as she deflected it.

Kitano let out a scream of rage and redoubled his attacks, and as Yasuoka directed a thin stream of the newly-given chi into her eyes, she could see the spirits he was using. He called upon a rhinotaur ghost to give him immense strength, and she darted to the side, relying on the energy of three dozen dead soldiers to move quicker than she could have imagined. Kitano swiveled and drew upon Ahuinan to create a massive vortex of fire from his fingertips, but one of the ghosts empowering Yasuoka had once known some shield spells, and Yasuoka reflexively twisted her fingers and muttered the few words needed to create a barrier of shimmering water which enveloped and drowned the flames. Kitano unleashed a flurry of additional attacks, even jumping in close to strike at her pressure points again, but Yasuoka dodged the attacks easily before smashing at his head with her own staff.

With a roar of anger, Kitano grabbed the ghost of Mi-Jae Oh. Yasuoka grimaced at seeing one of her own spirits bound and forced to empower Kitano, but when he darted towards her and then used Mi-Jae’s supernatural agility to slip around her and strike at her back, Yasuoka drew on her ghosts’ energy and just barely managed to dodge away. Then she summoned another water barrier and hurled it at the high priest’s head. The attack was too big to evade and Kitano had to switch spirits to block it, which allowed Yasuoka to close in and hit him in the ribs. She heard a faint cracking sound and Kitano gasped before making himself jump back.

Kitano grabbed at the spirit of the demon O-Tsubi and formed a shell of protective magic over himself. Yasuoka hit it with her staff but could not break through, and he snarled at her before backing up a step. “Deal with her!” he screamed at the ghosts around him. “Now!”

Yasuoka flashed a grim smile. “It is easy to use bound spirits, because as long as we are strong enough to compel them, they cannot resist our orders,” she noted. “But only if we are indeed strong enough. You have many spirits, Kitano. You even have the ones you stole from me. But you cannot make them all obey you at once.”

“You aren’t strong enough to make any obey you at all!” Kitano spat. “I blocked your pressure points. Your chi is sealed off and will stay that way indefinitely. Not even I could heal you. You cannot control those ghosts!”

“I don’t need to.” Yasuoka stepped back. “Just watch.”

Then she spread her arms wide, drew on the strength the spirits were giving her, and shouted in a voice she knew boomed throughout the city, “Innocent spirits who have been trapped in this realm for years, decades, and even centuries without cause, who have been forced to hide from the temple monks and shamans that would have enslaved you! I beg of you to give me your strength and help me stop the leader of those monks! In return, I will personally examine each of you and release any who is not guilty. And…”

She felt herself hesitating, because she knew the next promise she had to make would truly separate her from the order of the ghost hunters forevermore. But there was no choice. She could not back down with the knowledge she had.

“…and I will also examine the ghosts of every other shaman, and release those which deserve it,” she vowed. “I will use force, if need be. No matter what it takes, I will see justice done. Please give me the strength to carry out my mission!”

There was silence for a moment, and then Kitano looked behind Yasuoka and paled. Yasuoka turned too and froze for a moment. And then a fierce grin formed on her face.

Spirits were there, not just fifty or even a hundred but what looked like thousands. Some wore clothes that looked decades old, others had crests from ancient dynasties, and a few wore items so foreign and ancient that she could not place them at all. The forgotten spirits of the city, those which the temple monks did not think were strong enough to be worth binding or even to become ghosts at all, or those which had simply died and been overlooked. The dead of the centuries rose in a tidal wave and flowed into Yasuoka, who stiffened as she felt a vortex of energy so pure and powerful that she felt like it was pulling her apart.

Kitano screamed something, but Yasuoka didn’t hear it. She simply raised her staff and batted aside O-Tsubi’s spell as if it was made of cotton. Then Kitano grabbed an ornate ritual dagger from inside his temple robes and charged—

Yasuoka struck him in the head with her staff, and the high priest collapsed in a heap.

#

“Are you invincible now?” Kiyosuke asked.

Yasuoka smiled at him, then shook her head. She was sitting in the lotus position on the temple floor with Kitano’s form in front of her as well as Ganzaya and his three henchmen, all of whom were unconscious thanks to a sleeping spell taught to her by an innocent ghost who had been a magical doctor before dying. “If I were to try binding them all, I could perhaps empower myself that way, but I will not do that,” she said. “I pledged to help them pass on and I will. Even if I hadn’t, me potentially needing their power doesn’t entitle me to keep them here as my slaves when they don’t deserve it.”

Kiyosuke nodded and then asked, “How will you determine which ones are truly innocent? I mean, can’t ghosts lie?”

“Yes.” Yasuoka examined Kitano’s body for a moment. “Just like humans. I will need to investigate. For those who are reputed to be monsters, I will need to talk to other ghosts who knew them, and will need to unearth whatever reputable records exist to learn the true stories. I have no doubt it will be difficult.” She then looked up at the ghosts around her, using the chi a few were still lending her to see them. “But it is worth doing. And there is at least one whose wickedness I already know beyond question.”

She leaned forwards and chalked a final ritual symbol around Kitano’s body, then drew on the chi from the ghosts around her and grasped the high priest’s form. His body writhed for a moment, and then Yasuoka’s hand pulled his ghost up into the air. “You will serve me until the order is cleansed of all innocent ghosts,” she told him.

“You have no right!” he screamed. “You—”

She waved an arm and concentrated, and the high priest’s mouth slammed shut. “Better,” she said. Another wave of her arms brought forth the ghosts that Kitano had bound, as well as those of Ganzaya and his henchmen, none of whom could resist her. “I will inspect you all as soon as I can,” she pledged. “And free any who deserve it.”

Kiyosuke coughed. If he was upset by Kitano’s death, he didn’t show it, although Yasuoka figured that was likely due to Kitano having threatened to kill him too. “What about your chi?” he asked. “Will that heal on its own?”

Kitano smugly shook his head no and Yasuoka said, “I doubt it. If I need help in battle I will likely have to rely on innocent spirits who are willing to aid me in exchange for me trying to complete their final tasks and help them pass on. At least, that is, until I can find a healer who can undo what he has done.”

“Right.” Kiyosuke then gestured around Yasuoka. “What about the ghosts who helped you just now?”

Yasuoka looked at the innocent spirits around her and her mouth quirked upwards. “Fortunately, I suspect the only thing which was binding most of these spirits to the world was their desire to see the destruction of the temple which threatened all of them. With Kitano gone, I think…”

She spread her arms and drew on the spirits’ chi again, this time directing it back at the ghosts. “Be freed,” she said. “And move on in peace.”

Then almost all of her strength left her and she sagged. When she made herself look up again, she could only see Mai, who flashed a brilliant smile. “Thank you for saving them,” she said.

“And yourself?” Yasuoka asked. “What desire still binds you to this world?”

“I want to help you liberate any other innocent ghosts enslaved by your order,” Mai said at once. “And then I’ll be able to pass on. I’m sure of it.”

Yasuoka relayed that message to Kiyosuke and then made herself stand. “Kitano sent the other shamans away so they would not interfere. I will track them down so I can examine their ghosts and free those who are not guilty,” she said. “And I will also look for a healer. Just because Kitano could not undo his own damage does not mean that it is impossible for me to be healed.”

“I guess you won’t be back here anytime soon,” said Kiyosuke.

Yasuoka actually laughed at that. “I cannot return to the temple for obvious reasons,” she said. “I will no doubt journey all throughout the land. By myself if necessary… though I hope it will not be.”

“Why? Who do you think will go with you?” Kiyosuke asked.

Yasuoka just looked at him with a smile.

Kiyosuke’s eyes widened and he blushed. “I—I appreciate it, but I’m not as good at ghost hunting as you. I’m just a gatekeeper. I can barely channel!”

“I trust you to have my back and to protect me when I need it,” Yasuoka said. “That is much more important than pure combat skill. And I…” She took a breath. “I enjoy being with you. Before I could not act on it because I thought I had to devote myself entirely to the temple, but now I see how wrong that was.” She moved closer to Kiyosuke. “I would be very happy if you were to join me on my journey, Kiyosuke Takahara.”

The gatekeeper seemed stunned for a moment longer before he forced himself to nod. “When do we start?” he said as a radiant smile spread across his face.

“We need to leave town immediately before the other ghost hunters find Kitano and start looking for me,” she said. “Then we can ambush the first ones who come after me to examine their spirits, and I can also start inspecting the ghosts I just took off of Kitano and the others. Follow me.”

She headed towards the door with Kiyosuke and Mai behind her, and though Yasuoka was so weak in the absence of the spirits’ chi that she had to use her staff as a walking stick, she still felt better than she had in months. She had been wrong about all ghosts being evil and about all ghost hunters being good, but now her errors had been corrected and she’d made a start at fixing the evil at the heart of Daimyo Tatsunori’s domain. Now all she had to do was keep going and free innocent spirits just as she punished guilty ones.

And she would not stop until both evils, those of ghosts and ghost hunters alike, were purged from the land forever.

The post Tellest Short Story – Ghost Guardian appeared first on Tellest.

A Tale by Michael DeAngelo

Spira hopped down from the window, landing on the warped wooden floor, kicking up dust and dirt as she caught her footing.  The other windows, still retaining their tempered glass after many years, seemed to catch the light from far above, leaving the wooden temple alight.  It was the perfect way to see how badly time had treated the rest of the building, with nature reclaiming some of it in places, while decay and rot had taken others.

Spira thought of that balance, of life and death, and hummed when she thought that she and her companions were perhaps bringing more of it into the place.

There were, after all, the remains of some very old people said to be there.

“What do you see, Spira?” she heard from outside.

“I don’t see much,” she replied, whispering as though she knew that the place was owed some reverence.  “Isn’t that why we brought Olarind?”

“You were the easiest one to lift through the window,” she heard then.  The man’s voice was coarse and strong, and he cared not for limiting the power of it, even knowing where they planned to venture.

“Only by a bit,” she muttered.  “He weighs as much dry as I do after a pouring rain.”

“Is that so?” Olarind said as he appeared in the window, balancing upon the ledge.

“You always sound so prim and proper when you speak,” Spira said.

“Well, I am an elf,” he stated matter-of-factly, as though that was reason enough for his measured words and even tone.

Spira placed her fists on her hips and tilted her head to the side.

“Fine then, half-elf,” he said, not bothering to hide his dual lineage.

“And while you only weigh a tad more than me,” Spira said, “you’re the same age as me, so your whole ‘sagely’ act doesn’t weigh as much as either of us.  Besides, didn’t you just figure out you were part elf within the last couple of years?”

Olarind squared his jaw as he stepped onto the temple floor, the boards beneath his feet creaking under his weight—in a way that it hadn’t when Spira had walked upon that same spot, she noted.

“Don’t remind him,” the next member of their troupe said as he hoisted himself up into the window.  A crack resounded as he balanced there, and while he looked as though he could care less about the old building’s weaknesses, Spira winced at the sound of it.  The burly, red-haired fellow in the window thought she was reacting to something else, though.  “Ah, don’t worry about it so much.  Getting out of the military was a godsend to this one.”  He punctuated his statement by dropping down into the temple.

Spira guffawed when the building held fast, and the man’s heavy boots didn’t crash right through the floorboards.

“A godsend?” Olarind wondered, his voice losing the stately sound he had forced earlier.  “I wouldn’t say losing all my friends and a means of living was a godsend.”

The older, red-haired fellow puffed out his chest.  “Don’t forget, a peaceful nature was what had people questioning your heritage in the first place.  And I found you a place to live far from Peritas, where you wouldn’t be harassed.  That doesn’t sound an awful lot like ‘thank you for all your help, Paulson’ to me.”

Olarind rolled his eyes.  “Yes, you found me a place to live—an abandoned cottage off in the woods.  I have to grow my own potatoes and turnips.”

“Right, and you love nature!”  Paulson grumbled and waved his hand, absconding from the conversation.  He turned around and reached one of his wide arms through the window, locking hands with the final member of their group.  “Come on then, Takarno.  And mind the horns when you’re on your way up.”

Spira caught herself staring as their final companion filled the frame of the window.  She knew better than to gaze, slack-jawed, but she couldn’t wrench herself from the sight of Takarno.  He was a fellow who had earned his sagely demeanor.  And he had seen much worse than Olarind could have dreamed of.

“Take solace in knowing you so easily found your new home, child,” Takarno said.  “My people were all driven out,” he reminded.

The old minotaur dropped from the window with almost regal poise.  It was as though the robe that covered his back had somehow found its way beneath his hooves, for he made no sound upon the wooden floor.

Olarind offered up a subtle nod.  “Blessings can be found in unforeseen places.”

Spira noticed that the measured cadence had returned to the half-elf’s voice then and failed to hold back a grin.

“Alright, enough of all that,” Paulson said.  “We’re here for some treasure we can line our pockets with, not to sit around and play at whose had a worse time these past few years.”

“The duration of my life is not merely ‘a few years’,” Takarno quietly countered.

Paulson grumbled as he moved forward, but Spira was there an instant later.

“What are you doing?” she asked.  “You brought me here to make sure that you didn’t walk right into danger, and that’s what you were just about to do.”

“That’s right,” Olarind stated.  “You don’t hire a thief and expect them to wait about.”

“I’m not a thief, I’m a locksmith,” Spira said, in a tone that indicated that she was quite tired of having to make that distinction.  “And I could certainly benefit from a half-elf who has been learning magic in his free time.  There isn’t exactly a lot of light in here.”

“Understood,” he replied.  “That is something I can help with.”  He grasped toward his hip, pulling on the woven rope that hung from there.  In a moment, a tome sat within one of his hands, while a finger on the opposite one traced the words on the pages or flipped to later ones.  “Ah, here we go,” he said.  Under his breath, he muttered an ancient chant, and none of his companions could tell whether the words were spoken in the common tongue, or in elvish.  Either way though, only a few moments later, light emanated from the pages of the tome, filling the room with a glow that a dozen torches would still have had difficulty competing with.  The area around the tome wasn’t so awash with light that it blinded those near Olarind, and the other three adventurers nodded, intrigued by the magic in use.

Spira set to work, looking about at the pews that lined the temple.  Most had fallen into disrepair, collapsed into the floor, or broken at their foundations.  But a pair of them, the closest to the pulpit, stood standing, and as she drew closer to it, she sensed just how odd that was.  She knocked on them, understanding that they were sturdier than the rest by far, as though they were made of stone, and just covered with a wooden façade.

She waved down Olarind, beckoning the half-elf toward her.  “Tilt your book this way,” she said.  “Something isn’t right about these things.”  She pointed her finger at the benches as though she were touching them, but she knew better than to attempt a tactile test.  Spira tilted her head then, and grabbed Olarind’s arm, tilting his hand until the light fell upon the pew in a way that confirmed her suspicion.

“…and this slot…” she muttered, stuck in her own thoughts, and offering up no explanations to the rest of her group.  She knelt down, and pointed at another spot on the pew that was worthy of her attention, and then followed through with a folding motion with her other hand.  Spira hummed when she rose once more, and she peered over toward the pulpit.  Reaching back again, she moved Olarind’s hand back and forth, and she smiled at the sight of the glimmer near the floor.

Olarind looked at the other two adventurers, and shrugged in confusion.

“Alright.  Thankfully, I get to prove my worth right from the get-go,” the eager locksmith and trap-spotter assured.  “Paulson, can you get me a piece of wood that’s about, oh, this wide?” she asked, bringing her hands about a foot away from one another.  “And then after that, I need everyone to take two big steps back.”

Paulson aided her as requested, providing a hunk of debris that looked like it might crumble in his hands before he could ever transfer it to her.  Spira took hold of it though and slung it across the chamber.  Even from afar, her three companions could see as a wire was displaced by the wood falling upon it.  The benches reclined, and a sound like the cutting of air became apparent in the room.

The burly, former soldier folded his arms across his chest.  “How’d you know those hidden blades would be there?” Paulson asked as the benches reverted back to their original position.

“Part of being a locksmith is looking for the things that don’t make sense.  A lot of times, people don’t want their items found, and they go to terrible lengths to ensure that the things they care about are always protected.”  Spira spun her fingers about as she indicated toward the pews again.  “I think about this whole temple as one big treasure chest that someone really doesn’t want us to find.

“Although…” she went on.  “Even as tucked away as this place is, someone would have found their way here.  And not just anyone would have been ready for a trap like that.”

“So, you’re saying that someone must have found this place before us?” Paulson asked.

Spira nodded.  “Finding the temple would be the easy part, if anyone had ventured down from the crater.”  She walked across the room then, paying attention to her steps to ensure there weren’t any other traps along the way.  As she reached one of the windows, she looked through the glazed glass, finding one that was colorless.  There, in the distance, she could see the opening far above, where the sun shone through, although the stained glass obscured her vision enough that she couldn’t see the long stretch of rope that would help the group return to the world above.  “Depending on the light, you could even see this place from up above,” she went on.  “I’d find it hard to believe, after all this time, that none had found the place.”

Paulson folded his arms across his burly chest.  “Well, I did hear word of it through a missionary at the temple in Peritas,” he admitted.  “But they said they didn’t come inside.  Perhaps they didn’t even venture down into the crater.”

“A wise decision,” Takarno said then.  “There are far more dangerous things that reside on Ippius than weathered traps.”

“Weathered they may be,” Spira admitted, “but they have retained their edge, I’m sure.  Whoever built them knew that there would be people looking to pilfer the place.  What I’m surprised about is that the wires are still intact after all this time.  And that’s to say nothing about the bodies.”

“What bodies?” Olarind wondered.

“Exactly,” Spira replied.  “With a trap this refined and deadly, I would assume it’s claimed at least one victim.”

Paulson hummed to himself and ventured nearer to the wire.  “Let’s not be too hasty in our speculation.  There are plenty of things that could have happened.  The longer we spend chatting, the darker it will be before we go down into the lower levels of the place and find our bounty.”

“And the greater the chance that someone discovers our presence here,” the old minotaur warned.

“Don’t worry, Takarno,” Paulson said.  “Nobody knows we’re here.”

That did seem to placate the minotaur somewhat, and he drew his focus toward the pulpit.

Paulson glanced at Olarind and Spira then as well and waved them over as well.  As they made their way toward him, he drew his sword and balanced it against the floor, just a few inches from the wire that would set off the trap.

Spira shuddered at the sight.  If the sword toppled, or Paulson lost his balance, that could have been it for the lot of them.  She shook her hands and forced out a delicate breath, but hurried along, stepping over the wire with an exaggerated motion to ensure that Olarind knew to do just such a thing as well.

A moment later, Paulson joined the companions on the other side of the wire, and the lot stepped beyond the pulpit.

“Alright, so the rumors are that some of the first men were buried here ages ago,” he said.  “Well, there’s no burial chambers here that I can see.  That must mean that there’s something hidden.  And no one is going to go through all the trouble to plant a trap like the one we just saw unless it’s protecting something.  So, let’s all keep our eyes peeled for—”

“Got it,” Spira said.  She pointed to a bookshelf against the back wall, and began moving toward it, her digit seeming like an arrow flying through the air.  As she reached the shelf, her finger brushed up against the spine of an old tome.  The other three in her group noticed what had caught her attention then: the book had been put in its place upside down.  “It looks like this was always the secret book, too,” she went on.  “Look at the title: The World Below.”

Takarno passed a glance to Paulson then.  “You’re certain she hasn’t been here before?”

The burly human smiled with pride.  Bringing Spira along was a choice well made, and he was content just to watch her unravel one clue after the next.

“As best I can tell, there aren’t any triggers associated with any traps on this side of the room,” she said.  “The lot of you might want to take a step back and another to the side, just in case.”

Her three companions did as they were requested, offering up some room, without venturing too close to the wire drawn across the floor beyond the pulpit.

Spira slid the peculiar book from the shelf then, and when nothing happened, she let her shoulders drop a little.  She turned to Olarind, and pointed at his clerical manuscript then, and the half-elf hurried to her side.  Without being pressed, Olarind allowed the light of his gods to shine through the pages, illuminating the rest of the bookshelf, including the recess where The World Below once sat.  There, in the back of the shelf, a small switch had been fashioned.  Spira reached inside, squeezing her narrow hand between the other books, and depressed the switch.

A moment later, the bookshelf lurched forward, sliding away from the place it looked like it had been set within.

“I’ll be,” Paulson said.  “Finding the temple might have been a touch easier than it should have been, and folks may have laid eyes on it over the centuries.  But I’ll doubt it if anyone besides the person who flipped that book and the four of us have ever ventured below the surface.”

Spira grabbed hold of the bookshelf, and slid it out, the piece of furniture rotating into an open position that displayed the descent the quartet was bound to take.  For there, before them, was the entrance to an old stone stairwell, darkness spilling up from the catacombs below.

“Well,” the youngest adventurer in the group said then, “what are we waiting for?”

*          *          *

“…and they were never able to figure out why, but they would leave behind these tracks that looked like a wagon had pulled them.  It never seemed to be to anywhere specific though.  Just these big ol’ rocks in the middle of nowhere in the desert, looking like someone had gone and moved them in their sleep and moved on before they woke up, none the wiser for why it happened.  Folks have come to call them “dragstones”, although to me that sounds a bit more akin to a dragon than I’d want to call them, especially since they’re so close to the Dragon’s Bane Mountains.”

When Olarind reached the bottom of the spiraling stone staircase, he practically ran ahead, and only slowed when he remembered the rest of the group would likely benefit from the light of his tome.

Besides, the sight before him had his heart in his throat, and he doubled back toward the stairwell.

“Alright then,” Paulson whispered as he reached the catacombs then.  “Let’s cut the chatter.”  He turned about just in time to stop Olarind from running into him, and he grabbed the lad with a steady hand.

“You don’t have to whisper,” Spira said from up above.  “It’s not a library.”  Even as she spoke though, she could feel the reverence that emanated from her companions.  When she followed Takarno into the open corridor below, she understood the apprehension the others were saddled with.

There, embedded in the walls of the place, were dozens of skulls—perhaps hundreds, as the corridor gave way to shadow where Olarind’s book could not quite shine.

“Well, this is horrifying,” Spira said, matter-of-factly.

“I do not have a warm place in my heart for humankind,” the minotaur said, “but there is something about this place that chills it colder than I’ve ever felt before.”

“Do you think they were placed in there like that?” Olarind asked Paulson, the only one brave enough to draw close to the nearest wall.  “Or do you think they were just…disembodied heads that rotted away.”

Paulson squared his jaw as he glanced at the heads that were closest to eye level with him.  “No, this far down, you can feel it in the air, it’s not ripe for rot.  Whatever would have been put down here would have been mummified.  And if there was flesh, there would have been rodents, and they would have plucked them right from the walls.”

As Spira marched up beside him, he pulled a wineskin from his belt, and pulled out the stopper with his teeth.  After taking a swig of his own, he held it out to the young locksmith.

She was already waving her hand though.  “I don’t partake.  I have to keep steady for locks and traps.”

“Fair enough,” he said, finally matching her volume.  He looked at Olarind then and tossed the wineskin to him.

The half-elf caught it with a clumsy hand, tottering the drink and his tome for a moment before properly balancing the pair.  In that time, Paulson’s gaze fixed behind him, and he turned to see what had caught his attention.

“Takarno,” the burly redhead said.  “Do you think you can help me with that?”

The minotaur turned about then as well, and spotted the torch that sat within a sconce, just outside of the stairwell.  It was wrapped in old linens and looked just as likely to crumble away as catch fire.  Still, Takarno was not known to be conservative with his magic.  He reached into his satchel, and pulled out a stack of flattened scrolls, peering through them until he spotted one of the ones that would help Paulson achieve his goal.

“Olarind, I shall need your light until I can create my own,” the wise old minotaur said.  “Come this way and illuminate these words.”

Eager for any additional light to fill the corridor, the half-elf hurried to his companion’s side.  His tome’s brilliant radiance shone upon the parchment, showing the words that the minotaur had previous inscribed there—a language that Olarind was unfamiliar with—as well as a picture that depicted the intended effect of the spellcraft.  Before Olarind could inquire about the contents of the scroll, Takarno held it out, and read the words, a glance at the parchment unnecessary, as he had reminded himself of the chant he had once written.

“Ootevin y’atwa, kuvnyen tao okatadi.  Avayaheytai atto tiaskai.”  As Takarno spoke, his already wise and powerful voice seemed enriched by the magic he called upon.  An otherworldly force empowered him, giving his lyrical intonations an echoing quality, which had even Spira looking this way and that as though it was too loud for comfort.

At once, a speck of orange light cast up and off from the parchment, landing upon the torch at the wall.  In an instant, flames engulfed the linens, giving Paulson a tool which he could use to help brighten the catacombs.

Just as quick as the fire set upon the torch, so, too, did it seem to eat away at the scroll in Takarno’s possession.  He remained unflinching, even as the parchment faded away to ash around his fingers.  He needed not worry, for the flames did not linger long enough to hurt him.

“What was that?” Olarind asked.  “Why did your codex just go up like that?”

Takarno hummed for a second.  “Your book is a connection to your gods, and you use it to retain a stable relationship with them.”  He let his words hang there for a moment, as though he wanted to ensure the first of his lessons had been well imparted.  He tilted his head to the side then and looked down at the remainder of his stacks of parchments.  “My work is chaos.  The aether is unstable by nature, and we are not meant to keep it in perpetuity.  Once my scrolls play their part, the magic returns to whence I called it forth.”

Olarind nodded, unwilling to press the conversation forward.  The lad sent the old minotaur an impressed gaze as he stepped aside.

Spira was quick to fill in that gap.  She was behind Takarno as he turned about, and he flexed his legs hard enough that he almost hopped in the air as a reflex.

“That was the minotaur language, was it not?” Spira asked before Takarno could right himself.  “I’ve never heard it before, but it truly has some beauty in it, doesn’t it.”

As Takarno relaxed once more, he closed his eyes and bowed his head to the girl.  “To be honest, it is a language that I do not hear very often myself.  It almost seems strange to speak it. There are not many of us left in the archipelago.  The prospect of being found did not sit well with my people.  Being discovered would not mean a polite request to find some new home hundreds of miles away.  But my grandfather was too old and too proud to venture far from where he’d placed new roots.”  Takarno let silence fill most of the gaps of history, but he looked back to Spira, always trying to figure out the last pieces of whatever puzzle she tried to solve.  He sent her a sympathetic gaze, then.  “I have no one left to practice the old language with.  When I pass, I may have been the last one in Ippius who spoke it.”

The girl bowed her head then as well, more in solemnity than as a show of respect.  “It is a tragedy what happened to your people,” she said.  She corrected herself a second later, though.  “What was done to your people.”

“Greed will always drive those to seek more than they have, and more than they need.  If anything, there is a bright spot in what I’ve seen in these twilight years of my life.  When I was younger, the thought of sharing an adventure with the three of you would have been but a fever dream.”

Spira offered up a beaming smile.  “I know it’s no consolation for what was done to the minotaurs, but for what it’s worth, I’m glad you’re here with us.”

Takarno shared in her positivity then.  He stepped forward and placed his hand on her far shoulder, the pair taking time to find their way along the corridor.

Far ahead, the two who bore the light took care to watch their steps, and the walls around them.  The skulls continued to lead the way, and whenever the torchlight passed a column of them, Olarind could not help but hurry his steps, drawing closer to Paulson.

“Do you think this place might be the tomb of Arthur Ipparius?” the young half-elf wondered, trying to draw his thoughts away from the more macabre surroundings.

Paulson shook his head emphatically.  “First off, I don’t think Arthur was real.  I think that was just a fairytale we were told as children to make us feel pride for driving out the lagano.  I also think Argos still uses it to paint those of us in Peritas as descendants of Norkoth.”  He waved his hand of that notion though.  “That’s neither here nor there, though.  Even if Arthur, Iona, and Norkoth were real, all of this seems to predate them.  It may even be older than the culling.  If it is, it could prove that humans found their way to Arthica in greater numbers than we’d ever believed.  These could very well be some of the first men.”

“The Kalistrazi?” Olarind wondered aloud.

“You’ve heard of them?” Paulson asked.  “They talk about them on the mainland a bit more often than here in Ippius.”

“I’ve had more time on my hands these days,” the half-elf reminded his former compatriot.  “You really think this place could be nearly a thousand years old?”

Paulson flattened his lips and gave a shake of his head.  “I think calling them the first men gives off the idea that they only existed outside the caves and mountains for a few years before they passed.  But I’ve heard that some of them went on for decades, maybe even a century after the fact.  They say the same thing that gave them their powers gave them longevity.  Not all of them, mind you, but some.”

“And this could have been made in that time.”

“It could have indeed.”  He chuckled.  “Can you imagine?  If we’ve happened upon a Kalistrazi tomb, and can prove it… Well, whatever we find here could buy us a palace.”

“Right on the water,” Olarind dared to imagine as well.

“For each of us,” Paulson said, the torchlight and illumination from the half-elf’s tome setting his widened eyes aglow.

A different sparkle caught his gaze a few moments later, however.  After trekking down the length of the macabre corridor, they drew close to the end.  While sturdy wooden doors began to interrupt the long stretches of skull-fixed walls, it was the open area at the end of the hallway that called to Paulson most fiercely.  Even from afar, the torchlight and magical radiance landed upon piles of gold and gems and other treasures.

Before he realized it, Paulson’s pace increased threefold.

“Hold it!” he heard then.

Though Spira’s voice was a bit higher pitched, and she was far younger than he, Paulson still felt authority in her command.  He stopped in his tracks, and turned sharply to his side, waiting for her and Takarno to arrive before him.

She paused and peered down the hall, finally understanding why her companion was so eager.  Spira turned though and looked at the fellow who had brought the group together.  An arching eyebrow demonstrated a bit of disappointment there.  “You don’t think it’s rather suspect that the only way forth that doesn’t have a doorway is showing piles upon piles of riches?”

Paulson had to stop himself from countering with a protest.  He knew right away that she was right.  There was bound to be some sort of trap.  Unless…

“Well, what if the blades upstairs were the only protection that they thought they needed when they created these catacombs?”

“It’s possible, but you didn’t bring me here to watch out for one trap,” Spira said.  “You brought me here to spot all of them.  Let me at least look.”

Paulson knew that she was right, and he swept his hand out to invite her to take the lead.

Spira didn’t stop there though.  She reached up and plucked the torch from Paulson’s hand then.  She held it toward the floor, trying to see if any of the carefully crafted stones seemed especially different to the rest.

“What are you looking for?” Paulson asked.

Humming to herself, Spira crouched low.  “Well, typically a type of trap isn’t going to be used twice.  We already saw a wire trap up above, and the only way to see down here is with a light source, and that would typically show a reflection in the wire.  I’m thinking perhaps they went with a pressure plate of some sort, but nothing tells me that they went that route.”  She looked to the columns of skulls that still lined the corridor between the doors.  “Wait.  Alright, you lot, take a few steps back, and Paulson, you take the torch again.”

“What are you up to, Spira?” the burly redhead asked.

“We’ve been thinking that the skulls are just a ghastly decorative style here, but what if there’s a functional reason for them as well?”

“Such as?” Olarind pressed.

“Well, if it was me developing a trap, I would have it so that there was some sort of light that crossed from a skull on one side to the other, and if the beam was broken, it would trigger whatever danger you could fashion.  Go on.  Let me stand in the darkness a moment to see if my suspicion is correct.”

Though confused, her three companions obliged, taking the torch and the tome, and heading back the way they came.  Spira looked back at them, waving them back farther.  If she could still see them, the light they cast might have gone too far.

But then, a quiet noise sprang up from the darkness.

“Huh,” Spira said.  “There’s nothing that I can see.  Sorry to have you stretch your legs a bit.”  As the group returned to her, she nodded rhythmically.  “Let me take the lead.  If there was a trap that I missed, it should be on me to trigger it, not any of you.”

“You didn’t miss anything,” Paulson assured.  “They only thought they needed the one trap up there.  This place isn’t exactly on a map, and it’s remained hidden for all these years.  I think the worst is behind us.”

Spira handed the torch back to Paulson, but stayed close to him, her gaze darting back and forth as they neared the end of the corridor.  Eventually, even her focus drifted toward the treasure which was piled against the back wall of the last chamber.

The most plentiful riches were the heaps of gold coins.  There wouldn’t be enough room in anyone’s backpack to carry as much as they wanted, and Spira could tell that Paulson was excited about the prospect of a return trip to collect as much as they could get their hands on.  But interspersed with the coins were faceted gems, beautiful goblets, necklaces of pearl and malachite, candleholders, bowls, jars, and dozens of other attractive items that would certainly fetch a fine price at the market in Peritas.

As attractive as all the coins were, it was the mural painted onto the wall above that caught Spira’s attention soon after.  Old as it was, she was unfamiliar with the style, but it seemed to evoke a feeling of heroism, of mighty deeds and quests achieved.  She was so taken by the art, that she didn’t realize that there were a trio of sarcophagi in the chamber.

Paulson couldn’t take it any longer.  He broke out in a cheer, and leapt into the air, turning about to see the mirth that his other companions shared.  This was it—they knew.  After that day, nothing would ever be the same.

While Takarno shuffled past, Spira reached out and grabbed Olarind by the crook of his arm.

“Hey!” he grumbled.  “What are you doing?”

“I need some light up there,” Spira said, pointing toward the mural.  She brought the half-elf’s attention to the artwork, but also the letters that were etched into the wall there.  While the rest of the walls had been fashioned out of old, uneven material—likely whatever stone was already present underground—the mural was achieved atop finely hewn stone.  Just above where the rest of the wall transitioned, words that she could decipher were present.  “I can’t tell if that’s an unfamiliar language, or—”

“It’s just weatherworn from age,” Olarind suggested.  “Here.”  He unhooked the tome from his hip and handed it to his companion so that she could use it to discern the writing above.

As he drew near to Paulson, already digging through the piles of gold, he let out a guttural grunt of satisfaction.

“Can you imagine?” Paulson asked.  “A palace by the ocean?  Well fie on that.  We’re going to have enough money that we could buy Risolde out of the castle if we want.”  He leaned back then and glanced at his minotaur friend.  “Takarno, we’ll build walls around your entire island.  You’ll never have to worry about being found out there.”

Olarind turned around then and passed Spira a bit of a smirk.  “Your days of thievery are long behind you now.”

For a moment, Spira seemed deaf to the comment, for she was so taken by the sight of the art and the message associated with it.  Whether she was conscious of it or not, she said “I’m not a thief,” back to them, with very little conviction behind the statement.

While the others filled their bags with gold and trinkets, Spira continued to gaze at the mural.  It depicted what looked like three great heroes, each represented by a separate section of the wall.  On the left, a woman with a chalice seemed to float in the air, holding a sword in her free hand, which pointed toward the ground below.  In the center, a man held a tome atop his outstretched hand, with magical energy emanating from it.  On the right side, it looked almost as though the artist had failed to capture the proportions of the hero correctly, for their limbs looked longer than they ought to have been.

Shrugging off the strange art, Spira returned her focus again to the statement of the mural, holding Olarind’s tome aloft to better read it.

“A promise for her people.  A pledge to the world.  An oath for all time.”

Each sentence looked to represent the hero depicted in the art upon the same wall.  A chill ran up Spira’s spine when she read the ancient writing, and she stepped back reflexively upon pondering on it.  As the light shifted, she could see that there were smaller words etched beneath the previous words.

“Parasca Valerica.  Hara-Alecsandrai.  Thun-Sorin,” she said.  “Their names?”

She glanced at her companions then, seeing that they were not so content with just the treasures that lined the floor.  Instead, they turned to the sarcophagi, starting with the one on the left.

“Wait, what are you doing?” she asked.  “We already have more than enough.  We don’t need to disturb the dead any further.”

Paulson raised an eyebrow at the statement, but Olarind wore a mischievous grin.  “If they’ve got these treasures outside their coffins, imagine what was buried with them.”

“Takarno?” Spira pressed.

There was something about the way she asked that seemed to appeal to the old minotaur.  He gave a weary nod, and stepped away from the closest sarcophagus, returning to stand beside the girl.

With an otherworldly gasp, the stone slab atop the leftmost casket slid to the side, as though centuries of death and decay were finally able to escape after trying and failing.  Paulson’s eyes went wide, reflecting the light of the torch and the tome.  The burly fellow wasn’t frightened, but excited, and his companions realized why just a moment later.  He reached into the sarcophagus and pulled out a magnificent sword—the same one that was represented in the mural, it seemed.  Olarind spotted the other item that the woman was buried with, the gilded chalice, which was even more opulent than the image depicted.  Gemstones were fixed between colorful inlays, and the half-elf legs wobbled at the sight of it.

“This is it,” he said with a chuckle.  “This is how we start our own empire.”

“And this isn’t even everything,” Paulson said.  “We’ve got all those rooms out there, and two more coffins.”

As far from them as he was, Takarno was able to see the tremendous avarice in his companions.  He looked at Spira, who gave him a worried, knowing glance.

“Perhaps we are being too hasty,” the minotaur warned, softly.

If Paulson and Olarind heard him, they made no acknowledgement of the statement.  Instead, they moved to the next sarcophagus, sliding the stone slab aside.  Their eagerness betrayed them, and the lid fell off the top of the tomb, cracking into smaller pieces.

Spira shuddered and took a reflexive step back then.  Even Paulson and Olarind seemed to pause for a moment, distracted by the cloud of dust that burst into the air from the damaged sarcophagus.

But as soon as the cloud dissipated, they scavenged like vultures again, reaching in to pluck the treasures away from the desiccated corpse that had been interred there.  The tome that was represented in the mural was lifted from the sarcophagus—a leatherbound book with a beautiful golden circle upon it was held up, but it seemed to pale in comparison to all the other riches in the tomb.

As Paulson lay it back down, Spira thought for a moment that she saw an iridescent reflection cast out from its face.  It made no difference though and did nothing to stay her worries.  And as they reached toward the third sarcophagus, she could hold her tongue no longer.

“Stop.  We don’t need any more than we already have.”

Olarind shrugged and began to push on the slab.  “What are they going to do with it?  We can change our lives with all of these.”

As the stone slid aside, Spira couldn’t ignore the subtle differences between that coffin and the other two.  It seemed to move soundlessly to the side, there was no eagerness shown on the faces of her greedy companions.  Still, Olarind wouldn’t be dismayed, and he plunged his hand into the darkness, trying to fish out whatever treasures lay hidden there.

He grimaced, for he felt the corpse within, and did not seem to be finding anything of value.  His brow furrowed a moment later, and Spira and Takarno, looking on, froze in anticipation of what he’d found.

A cry rang out from past Olarind’s lips then, and he pulled his arm from the darkness, only to find that several of his fingers had been lost, a grievous wound marking their absence.  Blood poured from the site of the injury as he stumbled backward, and he looked ready to faint at the sight of mangled hand.

Paulson gave him a firm shove forward then.  “Get over there, lad,” he urged.

As the half-elf passed the coffin, a hand reached up out of it, slimy, fleshy fingers gripping the edge.  The person who had been buried there sat up, greasy, black hair cascading down a face that looked like all the skin had been torn off.  Instead, it looked as though only musculature remained, however the undead fellow’s vascular system, still under the fleshy outer bit, revealed that might have been a misinterpretation.  While Paulson stared at the fallen hero in fear, the haunting being stared back, through milky white eyes.

For a time, it looked as though the creature was content to only study the crypt robber.  But then, it opened its mouth, its jaw unhinging far wider than a normal person’s could, and it let out a blood-curdling wail as its tongue—easily a foot longer than was to be expected—slipped out of its mouth.

Reflexively, Paulson brought his hands to his ears.  Whether it was his sudden movements, or an evil streak that was always present in the risen dead, the monster sprang out, reaching forth with its hand.  Jagged fingers extended much farther than they should have, growing until they were the length of spears.  Without warning, the monster jabbed them through Paulson chest, drawing a scream from him.

“Go, child!” Takarno warned Spira as Olarind shuffled their way.

Hearing the sounds of their fleeing, the woken dead turned about, pulling back the horrid lances that impaled Paulson.  Spira could finally see him in all his grisly glory.  The fellow shifted unnaturally, spurs and spikes seeming to protrude from his body, along his joints, his spine, even atop his head in what looked like devilish horns.  As he stepped forth, Spira shifted the tome in her hands, and the light blinded the undead hero.  Another bloodcurdling screech erupted from him, provoking Spira to turn on her heel and run.

She knew that there was very little chance for her to outpace the monster, especially if it could elongate its limbs, and stretch them into deadly weapons.  Without being able to even see the spiral stairway at the far end of the corridor, she knew her chances of survival were bleak.

Spira couldn’t think about that much longer though, for she was grabbed around her side then.  She let out a frightened cry.

It occurred quick enough that Olarind’s tome spilled to the floor, and just striking the ground seemed to diminish its power.  That left the chamber that Spira was pulled into feeling much eerier and foreboding.  As she calmed herself, she realized that it was Tarkano who tugged her to safety, wrenching her into one of the side chambers that they’d passed by earlier.

As her adrenaline subsided, time, which felt as though it had raced forth like lightning, began to slow.  It was as though she was watching everything unfold from underwater.

“Bloody hell,” Olarind cried.  “Those were my favorite fingers.”  He hadn’t meant to say something so whimsical, but the shock had him unable to put words to sound with any manner of elegance.

Takarno leaned against the door, putting his heft against it.  Perhaps when he was younger, he would have seemed as though he’d had the strength to hold out whatever foul creature was out there.  But in his old age, it looked almost as though a strong wind could have blown the door open and bowled the minotaur over.

Fighting past her anxiety, Spira looked around the room, realizing that it, too, was meant to be an interment spot for the dead.  Holes in the wall were fashioned that were larger than the holes that held the skulls in the corridor outside.  Instead, old wooden coffins sat in those cavities.  Spira breathed quick and ragged, worrying about any other risen dead that might have been waiting for them in those coffins.  While her mind raced, it led her back to the monster outside.  From there, she replayed the final moments of her friend in her mind.

“Paulson,” she lamented.

“Don’t let grief take you,” Takarno warned.  “You must keep your heart strong if you mean to survive this day.”

Almost as soon as his words were spoken, a flesh-colored spike pierced through the area where the door met the frame.  It was just above Spira’s head, the girl’s slightly diminutive stature proving to be her saving grace.

Takarno was quick to act again, shoving her aside.

“Quick, give me something to bar the door,” the minotaur cried.  Spira was too shocked by the dead hero’s attempt to break through the room, and the half-elf was distracted by his pain.

But Takarno would not have any of it.  “Olarind, get me a damned coffin.”

The firmness in the minotaur’s voice twisted the hurt half-elf from his state, and he growled as he looked around to find the closest coffin.  He was not so worried about what might be inside as Spira was, but when he went to grasp one with his battered hand, he grunted in pain and confusion.  He quickly turned and used his other hand, tugging with all his might.  The coffin was old and crude, and whatever was once inside no longer held the same weight it once did.  It would still allow Takarno some respite though, and Olarind was quick to fumble it awkwardly into place.

The minotaur let go of a sigh of relief then, the noise growing richer as the creature’s spike withdrew from the door.

Like an axe splintering wood though, it came back through, piercing the center of the door, dangerously close to Takarno.  The minotaur gasped and hopped away, just in time to dodge a slash of the bodily weapon.

“Another,” he bade, waving Olarind on.

As Olarind grasped another of the lower coffins on his side of the chamber, Takarno hurried to the rows of coffins on his side of the room, pulling one out of a higher recess.

In time, the door was firmly blocked, and Takarno collapsed against the wall opposite the entryway.  He never took his gaze from where the coffins met the door.

By then, Spira had wrestled away her shock, and attempted to help to move more coffins into place.  A bit too short to reach the top row of caskets, she bowed her head, and fell to the floor as well.

Olarind took up a spot beside her, breathing in erratically through clenched teeth.

“Spira, I need your help.  I can’t stop the bleeding.”

“What do you need me to do?” she asked.  “I’m no healer.”

He nodded but grasped a handful of his robe then.  “I need you to tear away strips of my outfit.  Long strips.  I have to wrap my hand before I lose enough blood that I pass out.”

Spira fumbled for her equipment, first reaching toward the hip that a small hand crossbow hung from, before reaching for the opposite side, where an equally diminutive knife was situated.  She began by working at the bottom of Olarind’s robe, tearing an exceptionally long rotation of the linen that he was able to use.  Spira helped him to wrap it tight, but then sat staring at the blood that found its way to her hands.

She would have remained fixed on it as well, had the undead hero’s spikes not pierced through the door again.

“The knowledge that it remains out there is of some relief,” Takarno remarked wearily.

“It would be better if he were in here, and we were out there,” Olarind said, forcing himself to stare at the ceiling, so that he would not blanch at the sight of the blood soaking through his wrappings.

Takarno nodded.  “You heard what Paulson said,” he remarked, and the mere mention of their fallen companion’s name sucked the air out of the room.  Still, he went on.  “No one knows that we are here.  If we mean to find a way out, we’ll have to discover it on our own.”

Every time the minotaur spoke, it seemed that the creature outside tried that much harder to push his way into the room.

“Thun-Sorin,” Spira said then.  “I think that was his name when he was alive.  He swore an oath of some sort that must have upheld through his death, and now he’s become the monster he is.”

“He is indeed a frightening thing,” Takarno said, and as he spoke, Olarind’s eyes grew wide—in anger—and the lad held up his hand to show the wound he’d incurred.  “This world was lucky that he was locked down here, because if he ever…”  The minotaur’s words trailed off, and he looked toward the ceiling then as well.

Spira realized that he looked beyond the earthen roof above their heads, to the world above.  She gasped, realizing what they had done.

“He cannot be allowed to climb the rope to the rest of Ippius,” Takarno insisted.  “While I have no doubt that some of your sorcerers could find some means to stop him, he would slay many before that occurred.”

“How are we to prevent that then?” Olarind asked.  “I doubt he’d return to his coffin if we asked.”

Takarno hummed and looked past the injured half-elf.  A few moments later, he nodded.  “Spira, come sit beside me,” he said as he waved the young lady over.

She skittered over to him, her pace only quickened when Thun-Sorin’s blade came through the door yet again.

“We cannot trap him in these catacombs again,” the minotaur conceded.  “These doors all open inward, so we could not even hope to block him inside one of these rooms if we dared to try.  But we can keep him down here.  Once you make it to the top of the steps, you can close the bookshelf on him, ensuring he is never a danger to the world above.”

“But how do we get him in a room if we’re trapped here?”

Takarno bobbed his head, eager to tell the next part of the plan.  “If my suspicions are correct, the next room ought to be just like this one: rows of hollows, carved to hold the dead, just like they were here.  If they are positioned the same way—”

Spira’s eyes widened as she understood his plan.  “We could dig into the next room and try to escape from there.”

“The door from that room leads to the same corridor,” Olarind protested.  “We’re just trading one tomb for another.”

“Right,” Takarno said.  “One of us has to trap the fallen hero in here, with us.”

“And who would do such a thing?” Olarind asked.

The minotaur said nothing for a time, but Spira realized what he intended.  “Takarno, you can’t.”

“I would never be able to race to the end of the hall,” he assured.  “An escape attempt would be wasted on me.  But the pair of you?  You could make it out of this foul place.  You could warn the others above, and they would listen to you.”

“I can’t leave you here,” Spira said, tears beginning to wet the rims of her eyes.  “Especially after what happened to Paulson.”

“The alternative is us all joining these ancient people in this dismal crypt.  Please, Spira.  You were the one warning all of us.  You knew better than any of us what dangers could lie in the shadows of this place.”  He squared his jaw and looked at Olarind then as well.  “And you, child.  You’ve lost enough already.  It is time for you to go home.”

“All the treasure—everything we sought to come here for—trapped out there with him.”

“Your life is worth more than whatever you had hoped to gain here,” Takarno said.  He breathed out an anxious sigh then, and reached into his satchel, once more taking all the parchments out, and holding them in his hand.  “I’ll need some of these, in order to distract the monster.  But Spira, I want you to take the rest.  As I said earlier, I might be the last one to speak my people’s language on the archipelago.  Take my voice so that it may live on.”

She then sniffled and set her head on his shoulder.  The tears were freely falling then, for she knew she was speaking to a hero in his own rights, someone who should have been interred in a place like the one they were.

“If you should need to use these scrolls, they have been fortified by the aether.  Do you know what that means?”  He gave her a gentle push to ensure she could make eye contact with her.  “It means that you can say the words that activate the magic here.  They’ll work for you as well as they would me.”

“But I can’t speak your language,” she said.

“Maybe not now, but some day,” he said with a weary smile.  “You’re a smart girl.  I know you’ll go far in your life.  It is not meant to end here.”  Takarno leaned over, and gave her a warm embrace, before struggling to his feet, and helping her arrive at hers.  “I shall begin making some noise to keep his attention on this door.  You two, start digging.”

Spira swallowed away the tension in her throat and blew out the solemn air that infected her lungs.  Olarind was standing then as well, and he held up his battered hand.

“I think you’ll need to handle this task,” he said.  “But I can hold up the tome and offer you some light.”

She nodded, readying her knife once more.  He extended his leg, offering the girl a spot to step up from.  A moment later, she was in the earthen cavity where one of the coffins once sat.  The light from Olarind’s tome lit up the dirt around her then, and she could see the end of the hole.

Takarno began moving the coffins, slamming them against one another to produce a cacophony that would retain Thun-Sorin’s attention.  Spira started to chip away at the sturdy earth one piece at a time, throwing little piles of it behind her as best she could.

The risen Kalistrazi sent another terrifying screech into the air, and Spira froze, clenching her eyes shut.

“Keep digging,” Olarind bade.  “He’s frustrated.  That means Takarno’s plan is working.”

She squeezed out an unsteady breath, and did as the half-elf instructed, digging her knife deeper into the earth.  While she was worried that her tool would break, she was surprised to feel less resistance only a moment later.  The light of Olarind’s tome showed that her last endeavor had cut away the dirt between the two cavities.

A new hope ignited within her, Spira reached through with her hand, pulling away bits of dirt to enlarge the gap.

Behind her, a loud thump resounded against the door.  Takarno gasped, and Olarind looked away, moving the tome as he did.

“Olarind, I—”

“He’s breaking through the door,” Olarind said.  “Spira, you have to move faster.”

Panicking, she rolled to her back, freeing both of her hands for the task.  She began plucking palmfuls of dirt, knocking some down, and scattering it about.  Some made it into her hair, but she was lucky not to have anything obscure her vision.  Before long, she was certain she had made enough space to crawl through—if not for the coffin on the other side of the earthen wall.

“I can’t move this thing,” she said, struggling as she did.

Spira cried when she felt a hand wrap around her ankle and tug her back into the other room.  Olarind caught hold of her and helped to land her safely on her feet then.

She was surprised by the chunk of wood that had been splintered away from the door.  She could see Thun-Sorin’s frightening face, his milky white eyes peering into the chamber.

“K’puo vuxtas, k’puwoe tov aepa yth pouta yov.”

Spira turned just in time to see Takarno read off the last words of a scroll, and watched as it disintegrated into the air, a bluish tint to the fading parchment.  At once, a frigid air filled the room, coming to a point just before the minotaur’s outstretched hand.  A ray of blue energy shot forth then, blasting against the door, and forming a layer of ice atop the gap that Thun’Sorin had created.

“That won’t hold him forever,” Takarno said.  “Go!”

Spira turned to see Olarind already climbing into the gap that he had pulled her out of.  She offered her assistance, helping to push him into place.

A fierce growl rang out from within the hole then, and then a loud thud on the other side of the wall.

Takarno moved at once, throwing the coffins aside to create a louder cacophony in their chamber.  He pushed one closer to Spira then and offered her an assuring nod.

She dared not waste the time that the minotaur gave to her.  Spira hopped onto the coffin, and then jumped into the hole, watching as Olarind squirmed out through the other side.  Light filled the other chamber, the half-elf’s tome still casting enough radiance to make it look as though it was a place filled with hope.  Spira hurried along as well, taking Olarind’s hand when he offered it.

Once she landed on her feet there, she could see that the blood that soaked through his makeshift bandages dripped to the floor.  But they had no time to reapply them.

She ran toward the door, but Olarind reached out, keeping her from charging through it.

“What are you doing?” she whispered.

“Not yet,” he bade.  “If we go too soon, this is all for naught.”

Though everything in her was telling her to run as fast as she could, she understood the rationale behind the half-elf’s words.

Together, they listened as the noises on the other side of the earthen wall continued to ring out.  And then, they stopped.  They heard Takarno grunt, and groan, and move about in the room, and knew that Thun-Sorin had made his way inside.

“Ootevin y’atwa, kuvnyen tao okatadi!” Takarno cried.  “Avayaheytai atto tiaskai!”

Spira recognized that chant as the same one that the minotaur had said earlier when he was lighting the torch for Paulson.  A roaring flame in the next room confirmed her suspicion, and she heard as the risen hero cried out in fear or pain.

“Now!” Olarind pressed.

Together, both of them pulled the door open…

…only to see a large figure waiting for them in the corridor.

Paulson’s eyes went wide as theirs did, but he reached forth at once, covering their mouths with his hands, grimacing as he did.  When he was certain they would contain their voices, he stumbled back, gnashing his teeth as he reached toward his injured shoulder.

“What?” Olarind said.

“How is this possible?” Spira asked.

“I hid in the sarcophagus as he pursued you lot,” Paulson said.  “I’ll smell like dead Kalistrazi for a fortnight.”  He looked past them then, realizing it was just the two of them.  “Takarno?”

He was given his answer when the minotaur howled out in pain then.

“We can’t let his sacrifice be in vain,” Spira insisted.  “We have to get out of here.”  She didn’t wait to hear if there would be any protest, heading back down the corridor to the far end where the spiraling stone staircase waited.

Paulson hesitated for a moment, knowing that it was at his request that Takarno had ventured there with the rest of them.  A quiet grumble was all he could muster before he took a few steps after Spira.  But when he didn’t hear Olarind behind him, he spun about.

The half-elf hesitated longer, staring the other way, to where their lost bounty no longer sparkled, the torchlight long before dying out.

“Leave it, lad,” Paulson said.  “There’s no way for us to get to it.”  That was all that Paulson dared to warn before running back the other way.

Olarind lingered there a moment longer, wondering if Thun-Sorin would be distracted enough by Takarno to sneak by and retrieve his fallen backpack.

Another cry rang out from Takarno, one long note that rang out in the horror that preceded death.

It ended more abruptly than it began.

Olarind knew that his companion had fallen.  Clicking his tongue, he ran back the other way, hurrying after Paulson and Spira.

As he ran, the half-elf could feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, and he realized that other footsteps rang out in the hallway behind him.  He turned then, his tome illuminating the opposite end of the corridor.

There, he saw Thun-Sorin.

By reflex alone, he stopped in his tracks, and swung out with his hand.  A divine light radiated forth, striking against the undead Kalistrazi.  Thun-Sorin halted, stunned by the golden slash that drew from the aether.

Olarind’s eyes grew wide as he realized he’d inflicted what seemed like pain on his foe.  He moved forth again, calling upon the light of his gods, and sending another trio of slashes in rapid succession.  Thun-Sorin screeched, and withdrew, back into the shadows.

The half-elf grinned, counting his blessings, for he hadn’t considered such a victory possible.  He turned about and ran again, knowing that he would likely have to call on the gods again.  But knowing that the undead could be turned back toward the darkness instilled Olarind with hope that he had thought lost.

He heard the telltale thump of the monster’s approach again, and he turned around.  However, when he brought up his tome to light the corridor, he couldn’t see the Kalistrazi anywhere.

Thinking it was just his mind and his nerves playing tricks on him, he turned again.

Thun-Sorin dropped from the ceiling, his milky white eyes drawn close to Olarind.  Without pause, he reached out with his sharp, clawed fingers.

Olarind’s cry rang out through the tunnel.

*          *          *

Paulson waited there at the top of the steps for a moment, but he knew as soon as he had heard Olarind howl out that there was no saving the lad.  He stepped past the threshold then, into the temple that they’d found their way to earlier that day.

Spira had already carefully navigated her way past the wire she had warned them about earlier, and she had her hands upon the window that would lead to salvation.

Paulson slid the bookshelf back into position, hoping that it would keep the monster trapped below for another five centuries.  He hurried then, remembering to heed the good advice that Spira had offered when they were in the room earlier.

Spira hoisted herself up into the window and turned to ensure that Paulson was quick on her heels.

That was when they both heard the tremendous thud against the bookshelf.

Paulson skidded to a stop, and turned about, watching as Thun-Sorin’s tendril-like limb squeezed through the small gap he had made.  Paulson turned and looked up at Spira then, and his eyes already told the story that he planned to tell her.

“You can’t,” Spira said.  “If you stay behind, it’ll only be a matter of time before it gets to you.”

“I can barely lift my arm,” he said, lifting his hand toward the site of the injury.  “There is no way that I would be able to climb that damned rope fast enough to escape our friend back here.  But you can, Spira.  You can make sure that nobody up above ever has to worry about the evil we awoke here.”

“Paulson, I can’t be the only one,” she cried.

“You have to be,” he said, beginning the short trek back toward the pulpit.  “When you get topside again, pull the rope up and destroy it.  We don’t want this creature to be able to follow you up.”

“Paulson,” she croaked.

“It won’t be long now,” he said.  “Go before he breaks through.”

Spira couldn’t budge though.  As Paulson made his way back to the bookshelf, Spira wept, tears blinding her to the sight of the monster breaking its way through from the catacombs.

Thun-Sorin charged into the bookshelf, again and again, until finally it budged far enough from its track, and swung open with enough ferocity that it collapsed forward.  The risen Kalistrazi spotted Spira, ready to make a quick escape, and he stomped forth, extending his hand toward her.

He couldn’t stretch his limb far, for Paulson was there behind him, and he hopped toward him, wrapping him in a fierce bearhug.

“Remember me?” the burly redhead asked.

Though Thur-Sorin struggled against the hold, scratching, and chomping at Paulson, the would-be grave robber refused to relent.  With his fate already sealed, the man ignored any semblance of pain as he walked the undead creature forward.

Spira understood what he was doing at once.

Paulson lifted his boot and slammed it down upon the wire that stretched across the area just before the pulpit.

The rearmost pews bent over, sending forth a pair of blades that cut through both combatant’s lower limbs.

An otherworldly screech, and a harrowing cry rang out in unison.  Spira clapped her hand over her mouth at the sight of Paulson’s heroics.

Despite all the pain that he could no longer ignore, Paulson leaned up on his arms, making eye contact with the girl one last time.

“Go, Spira!”

She dared not waste her friend’s sacrifice.  Spira leapt from the window, tumbling as she reached the ground.  She looked up, knowing that the climb to the world above the crater would be a tremendous feat.  The descent took a long time.  The ascent would take longer and would require all the strength she could muster.

She sprang forward, grabbing hold of the rope, and wrapping her legs around it.  Before she had even stopped swinging, Spira began to hoist herself up, one hand after the other.

An excruciated cry rang out from within the temple, and the girl chose to let it inspire her to climb faster, no longer pausing to lament.

She thought of all that she had lost in venturing there.  Three friends, with whom she could see many more adventures, had all fallen to the darkness.  They had given everything to ensure that the one who hadn’t strayed would not fall.

And Spira was determined to see their last wishes through.  She climbed until her arms burned, and then she pushed past it, refusing to let weariness creep up on her.  Spira looked up, seeing how close she was to climbing over the lush ledge that led into the forest.

But then, the rope began to swing again, and she nearly lost her footing.

Though she knew before she ventured a glance, she looked down, and her heart skipped a beat.  There, at the end of the rope, Thun-Sorin began to climb as well.

His milky white eyes narrowed in the light of day, and when he was certain he had the woman’s attention, he cried out, exposing his long, thin tongue, and separating his jaws in a monstrous, unnatural way.

Spira reached for her hip, fumbling for her knife.

Before she could get a grip on it, it teetered from her fingers, sailing down to the ground, far below, past the climbing Kalistrazi.

“No,” Spira said.

Her heart pounding, with no idea what to do, the treasure hunter resumed her climb, invigorated by the sight of the monster below.  She began screaming with every foot she ascended, the noise helping to push her further than she thought possible.

Somehow, despite all her fatigue, all her pain, all her torment, she reached the top of the rope, and pulled herself atop the ledge.

Upon arriving there, she rolled to her back, just trying to get the feeling back in her appendages for a moment.  She didn’t know what to do anyway.  Running wasn’t an option, she considered.  Thun-Sorin was impossibly fast for a dead man.

She rolled to her side then and felt the hand crossbow along her hip.  But as she slid her fingers toward it, she felt the parchments that Tarkano had given her—the last words of a minotaur in Ippius.

It came as suddenly and clearly as a bell, ringing in her mind.  She remembered the words that the minotaur had chanted in the catacombs as though he was whispering it in her very ears.

Blowing out a steadying breath, Spira sat up, and sorted through the parchments, gazing at them all with narrowed eyes and a furrowed brow.  Takarno had drawn pictures onto the scrolls as well, helping to differentiate one spell from the next.

Spira’s heart fluttered at the sight of a flame upon one of the papers then, and she felt more empowered than she had ever been.

“Ootevin y’atwa, kuvnyen tao okatadi.  Avayaheytai atto tiaskai!”

She gasped at the sight of the small spark that took shape before her hand, but she cheered as it roared forth like a dragon had breathed fire from behind her palm.

The rope ignited at once, and she finally felt ready to reach for her crossbow.  At once, she had a bolt aimed at the burning, fraying rope.

She yelped at the sight of Thun-Sorin’s head poking up from the crater.  On reflex alone, she swung her crossbow toward him instead, and her finger brushed against the trigger.  With a resounding twang, the bolt fired, slamming against the creature’s skull.

Thun-Sorin’s fingers twisted, and he lost grip on the rope.  He disappeared from sight once more, and a few seconds later, a sickening thud could be heard far below.

Spira hesitated but ventured to crawl to the side of the crater.  She looked down, to the world below which she had escaped from, and saw the body of the fallen Kalistrazi.  Thun-Sorin looked stranger than ever before, his body twisted and misshapen.  The fall, it seemed, had finally put the hero to rest.

A crackling moan from below threw that notion into disarray.

Mangled limbs stretched and bent, and the monster labored to its feet then.  Spira’s eyes went wide, for it seemed nothing could send Thun-Sorin to the Nexus.

A quiet snap reported beside her, and Spira turned to see the rope separate.  Over fifty feet of woven cord plummeted to the ground below.

While the monster hadn’t been slain, he had, it seemed, been stopped.

Spira rolled to her back again, finally allowing all of the emotions she’d held beneath the surface to spill out.  She wept, knowing that no one should have experienced what she had, and that the world had lost some good people that day.

Far below, Thun-Sorin moaned and bayed, as though he was some helpless thing that was worthy of sympathy.  Spira grimaced though, knowing the monster for what he was.

With the sun beginning to set in the west, Spira struggled to her feet.  Home was far to the east, and she could think of nothing she would rather do than put some distance between her and the frightening creature who had stolen her friends from her.

The post Tellest Short Story – Don’t Wake the Dead appeared first on Tellest.