“Please, hear me out.” The spirit was a fine mist in the darkness, but as Aidane watched, the mist formed itself into the outline of a young woman. Aidane could see the ghost clearly in her mind. The woman was about her own age, just a few summers more than twenty years, and she wore a gown that looked to be several hundred years out of date. Her dress suggested that she had been merchant-born, neither peasant nor royal. Dark hair in curls framed
the young woman’s face. But it was the urgency in the woman’s eyes that made Aidane listen.
Aidane sighed. “I’ll hear you. But I’m not allowed to take clients now, even if I wanted to, which I don’t.”
“I want you to take a message to Kolin.”
Aidane’s eyebrows rose, as did her suspicions. “How do you know Kolin?”
The ghost stepped closer, and Aidane could see sorrow in the young woman’s eyes. “My name is Elsbet. Two hundred and fifty years ago, Kolin and I were lovers. Haven’t you noticed how sure he is traveling through this area? Every run, he returns here. Up on the hill, you’ll find the ruins of his family’s home. That’s where he’ll shelter the fugitives tonight. I’ve seen him come time and again, but I don’t have the power on my own to contact him. Please, you have to help me.”
It had been over two weeks since Kolin, Jolie, and the others had left Jolie’s Place. The mortals in the group traveled by daylight, along a route they agreed upon each night. By nightfall, Kolin, Astir, and the
vayash moru
and
vyrkin
they had rescued out of Nargi caught up. By now, they were partway across Dhasson, northbound for Dark Haven in Principality. Each night, Kolin, Astir, and Jolie conferred in quiet tones about the next step of the journey. About three days after they had crossed the Nu River, they had met up with a group of four musicians and a peddler, all fleeing Margolan for the relative safety of Dark Haven.
Aidane glanced back at the group that sat around the fire. The musicians were playing softly. If they were practicing, it sounded good. Aidane suspected that they played to settle their own nerves, rather than to perform
for their traveling companions. They were better than the usual tavern players, and Aidane liked their selection of songs. They had been friendly to Aidane without judging, or perhaps even knowing, what she was. The peddler was a solitary fellow. He’d offered to trade any of his wares for the chance to travel with the group, and he’d admitted that a few nights before meeting them he had been waylaid and robbed of his coin.
Jolie’s girls were clustered together. They never seemed to lack for conversation, and while Cefra had invited Aidane to the circle and Aidane sometimes joined them, tonight she had been restless. Now, she knew why. She turned her attention back to the ghost.
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
Elsbet’s ghost spread her hands, palms up. “I can tell you about Kolin, but without asking him, you’d have no way to verify what I say. Let me tell you my tale, and you can decide.”
Aidane nodded. “Go on.”
Elsbet sighed. “Kolin’s family owned the manor on the hill. My father was the most successful merchant in town. By the time I met Kolin, he had been a
vayash moru
for one hundred years. We met at a dance in the village and fell in love. His family had been highborn, but they had lost much of their money and standing. Kolin stayed to help with the estate. And although I was common-born, his relatives were kind to me.” A shadow crossed her face. “My father was not happy that I was seeing Kolin. He thought it was wrong for us to be together, since I was mortal and Kolin was…”
“Dead.”
Elsbet grimaced. “According to Father, yes. I refused
to listen. Then Father got the idea to send me away, to make me live with my aunt near Valiquet. I was afraid that I’d never see Kolin again. We made plans to run away and be married.” She raised her eyes to look at Aidane, as if she expected to find judgment in Aidane’s expression. “Such things are legal in Dhasson, even if not everyone approves.”
“I know.” Aidane watched the ghost carefully. She’d heard the tales of many spirits who sought her services, and early in her vocation, she’d been lied to many times by ghosts who really wanted vengeance. More than once, those falsehoods had nearly gotten Aidane killed, and once, the ghost who possessed her had used Aidane to murder a faithless lover. But now, watching this ghost, Aidane heard nothing false in the story. “Go on.”
Elsbet’s expression grew sad. “I went home to gather my things. But my father found me, and he was drunk. He was angry that I had defied him, and even angrier that I was sleeping with a
vayash moru
. He beat me. I don’t think he actually meant to kill me, but he did. I died before Kolin rose for the night. I was dead before he could try to bring me across.”
Aidane could feel her heart pounding. “What happened?”
“When I didn’t meet Kolin as we had planned, he came to look for me. I guess he thought my father had locked me in. He found me dead, and my father was just beginning to sober up and realize what he’d done.” Her voice grew soft. “I knew Kolin to be gentle and kind, but that night, I truly understood what it meant to be
vayash moru
. It was as if he’d lost his mind with grief. He killed my father, and he carried my body up to the crypt on his
family’s land. I saw him grieving, but I didn’t have the power to make myself heard to him.” The ghost knelt and reached out to Aidane.
“Please, m’lady, I beg of you. It’s been over two hundred years since I died. But every time Kolin passes this way, he comes to the crypt. He talks to me as if he knows my spirit remains. I know about how he travels to Nargi to free the
vayash moru
and
vyrkin
. I know that he serves Lady Riqua in Dark Haven, and that he holds a place of honor among his people. But, m’lady, every time he passes here, he brings gifts to me and places them beside my bones. He blames himself for my death.”
Aidane realized she was holding her breath. “What do you want from me?”
“I want you to let me speak through you. I want to touch Kolin and tell him how sorry I am that I couldn’t return to him.” Elsbet’s eyes were wide with sadness. “I want to take my rest in the Lady. My spirit is tired of wandering. But I won’t go away and leave him alone again without saying good-bye. Please, m’lady, I can pay. There’s a mound of jewels and gold that Kolin brought to me over the years. It lies beside my dust. Take it all. Only please, give me one last night with him. I beg of you.”
“Why should Kolin trust me? I don’t think he even likes me. I got rescued by accident.”
Elsbet managed a sad smile. “I’ll tell you what you need to say. He’ll believe.”
Aidane stared back at the group around the fire. Her welcome among Kolin’s lieutenants had been grudging at best. But it had been Kolin who insisted that she be rescued along with the
vayash moru
and
vyrkin
, and it had been Kolin who had stood up to Jolie on her behalf.
“I offered to pay him for rescuing me, and it made him angry,” she said softly. “If he would accept that I carry your spirit, perhaps I can offer him payment that he would accept.”
“Thank you, m’lady. Thank you.”
Aidane wasn’t at all sure that it would go as smoothly as Elsbet supposed. But she nodded. “Kolin will go up to the crypt a few candlemarks before dawn. Meet me here and we’ll… join. Then I’ll let you guide me from there.”
“As you wish, m’lady. I’ll be waiting.”
Aidane was deep in thought as she made her way back to camp. “There you are!” Cefra waved her over to a place on the log near the fire. “I thought you might get eaten by wolves. Didn’t anyone tell you it’s not healthy to wander alone at night?”
Aidane gave Cefra a reassuring smile that did not reach her eyes. “Just needed to clear my head.”
Cefra pressed a flask into Aidane’s hand. Even before she lifted it to her lips, Aidane could smell that it was river rum. “This’ll clear your head just fine. We were just listening to Ed tell us his stories.” She nodded toward the peddler, who gave a broad smile, and Aidane guessed that Ed had not only provided the rum but had a good bit of it himself.
“I was just tellin’ the ladies about the time I took my wagon down to Valiquet, to the palace city,” Ed said. He held his rum well, so that it gave just a slight slur to his words. Ed had the narrow, angular features of a Dhasson native, but his accent made Aidane suspect that he spent most of his time trading along the river, and that he probably spoke the river patois like a native.
“I did a good business in the city, fixing jewelry and
trading new pots and pans and the like with the innkeepers and taverns.” He gave a broad wink. “But the service that was most requested was repairing fidelity rings. You know what those are?” When his listeners shook their heads, Ed’s smile broadened. “Well, now. Among the well-to-do in Valiquet, these fidelity rings were quite popular. They come apart like a puzzle, and they’re the Crone’s own to put right again. Men’ll give them to their wives without tellin’ the secret of how the puzzle’s done. Then if she strays and takes off her ring, it falls apart and odds are that she won’t be able to put it right. So he’ll know she’s been cattin’ around.”
Ed stretched. “Now fittin’ pieces together is my specialty. I fix all kinds of things. So it turns out I have a talent for figuring out these fidelity rings, even though some of them are damned difficult.” He beamed with false modesty. “Just a gift, I guess. Anyhow, after I’d done one or two, word got out among the ladyfolk, and every night, I’d have a couple of well-born ladies come looking for me ’round back of the tavern. I’d fix their rings, and they’d pay me well.” He gave another wink. “Some even paid coin, if you take my meaning.” The girls laughed at his joke, but Aidane’s thoughts remained on Elsbet’s tale.
“What happened?” Cefra asked, leaning forward.
Ed shrugged. “What do you think? Eventually, one of the husbands found out, and he came back with his friends. Nearly busted up the tavern, and I barely got down the road with my wagon in time. If they’d ridden me down on horseback, I might not have escaped, but I heard tell that the innkeeper settled them down by giving them free ale and food, and I managed to escape with my skin.” He crossed his arms. “And they say a peddler’s life is dull.”
“What’s the strangest thing that’s ever happened to you?” It was Cefra asking, and Aidane wasn’t sure whether her new friend was trying to flirt with Ed or just looking for a diversion.
Ed’s eyes grew dark. “They say that truth is stranger than the wildest tale. ’Tis true, I fear. There’s a caravan that passes through Dhasson every year. Now, lots of caravans pass through Dhasson, that’s true. But this caravan wasn’t as big as the one Maynard Linton runs. This was a nice size, with all kinds of traveling merchants, musicians, acrobats, jugglers, and fools. Of course, there was plenty of need for a peddler, and so I made it my business to set my meanderings so that I would cross their path. Lots of tin to mend, ale to drink, and sights to see.
“Well and good until a few months ago. They were going to make a loop through southern Margolan, and I told them that was a bad idea. Told them there was plague afoot down there. But they didn’t listen.” Ed shook his head. “I knew their route, and I meant to meet up with them again. That’s when I got the scare of my life.”
Cefra’s eyes were wide, and even Aidane leaned forward to catch the tale. “What happened?” Cefra asked.
“I could tell before I ever got within shouting distance that there was something wrong,” Ed said. “People didn’t seem to be moving right. Jerkylike, as if they were stumbling. There were tents up, sort of, but not proper tents, as if a blind man who had never seen a tent tried to assemble one. I could hear music, too. Always liked their musicians. But this time, everything was off-key, slow. Sent a chill down my back. And the smell! I thought I’d come upon a charnel house in midsummer. Then I saw that there was a pile of dead animals to the side of the road.” He shook
his head. “Those were the wild beasts the caravan used to charge people coin to see. Animals from all over the Winter Kingdoms, and some from beyond.” His expression was sorrowful. “Not only were they dead, but some of them”—he swallowed before he could continue—“some of them had been chewed on.”
A gasp went up from Ed’s listeners. Aidane looked hard at him, trying to tell whether he was concocting the tale, but his distress seemed genuine. “I turned around to run, and there was Venn. Venn was one of the guards I was friendliest with. Drank many a pint of ale with him, out behind the tents. Well, there stands Venn, or what was left of him, Goddess rest his soul. Lady true! I would have taken him for a corpse if he hadn’t been moving, although it was more shambling than walking. His nose was eaten off, and his eyes were sunken back in his head. He was covered with pox sores, and his skin was yellowish-white. But his eyes. By the Whore! His eyes were mad. He made a grunting noise and started after me, and I ran for all I was worth.”
“What happened to them?” Aidane couldn’t help asking.
“
Ashtenerath
,” one of the girls whispered, the word like a curse. Ed nodded.
“That’s the Lady’s truth. Not dead, not really living, and nothing but rage in his eyes. Corpses that don’t know enough to lie down and die, that don’t have the peace of the dead.” Ed’s eyes were wide with fear. “But there’s worse. I’ve seen them twice since.” Ed glanced over his shoulder at the horizon, and the fear in his eyes was real. “Saw them traveling all in a line, like they used to, only it was a caravan of the damned. Horses foaming at the
mouths, bones jutting out everywhere, mad with fear. Musicians playing songs from the Abyss, songs for the dead. Even their wagons looked like they were rotting away. I guess they’ll keep on going until they drop, one by one, in their tracks, or just rot into pieces.” He shivered and wrapped his arms around himself. “Dark Lady take my soul! I don’t ever want to see that sight again!”