Twenty-Four: Apparition therapy

  “Well done, everyone,” Ko-Rethal told his people. “Off with you now, I need to talk more with our visitors.” He turned back to us.

  “So, how does our proposal sound to you?”

  We were still sitting down where we had slept. Freydis drew up her knees and put her arms around them. Caiside said nothing, either.

  “Well,” I said, “we are, of course, still chained up. And you have all of our supplies. So it would be difficult for us to say no.”

  “Splendid,” he said. “We’ll set out in the morning.”

  “I, for one,” Caiside said, “will be glad to help. I look forward to resolving this, if we can.”

  “Very good,” Ko-Rethal said. “All these korreds terrorized night after night will thank you.”

  “I am speaking of that apparition, rather than you and your people,” she said. “It looked so despairing. I hope I have something to contribute in allowing it to continue its journey.”

  “Freydis?” I asked her.

  “Drop kick,” she answered.

  Ko-Rethal’s brows dropped a notch again.

  “What would that mean?” he asked.

  “We agree that we will make this journey with you,” I said.

  “Excellent,” he said. “We will ready the boats.”

  *

  We spent the rest of the day milling about the large cavern. We did exit once, back out into the Stillwold, with a vigilant escort of two dozen korreds, their spear points rising up as high as our head even though they themselves certainly did not. The twisted trees and shadows did not make us want to venture more than a few paces.

  Back inside by the pool we were left alone again.

  “Freydis,” I said, “you’re truly willing to do this task they’re asking of us?”

  She shrugged. “As you said, it’s not clear we have much choice. I suppose it sounds as if they might allow us to go free if we refuse, but how many of our belongings would they return? Any of them? They’d probably turn us out with just a spare tunic each and a rack of roast newt ribs. I certainly doubt they would give us back the map.”

  “They’d be sure to keep it,” Caiside agreed, with a sober nod.

  “Caiside,” I said, “that reminds me of something I’ve been curious about. Slade gave you the map he drew. Why did you get out of the Wastemoor dungeon, when he did not? Or has not yet?”

  “Well,” she said. “You asked me that before, when we first met. I suppose we are rather closer now, aren’t we.

  “Your uncle was a smuggler, and the Mage herself determined that he had deprived her of much income in the way of duties, and tariffs, and tolls, and levies, and excises, and so forth. She does not take kindly to that. And in addition to the losses, it was the flaunting of rules. And the participation of other subjects of hers. She will want to make an example of someone like that.

  “As for me,” she continued, “it was more a case of – jealousy.”

  “Jealousy of you?” I asked.

  “That’s right,” she said.

  “On the part of whom? You’re saying – the Mage herself?”

  I must have sounded gobsmacked. Freydis let out a sort of half-cough, half snort, and scraped a boot along the ground. I looked at her, and her eyes were cutting into me, plus her brows were drawn together in a near-korreddian scowl. She said nothing, but I imagined her snapping something like “Flicker, really?”

  I looked back to Caiside. The Mage of Wastemoor was – by definition, given how long she had ruled – an iron-fisted potentate who controlled a vast territory through magic and guile; and she was also said to be physically an imposing and handsome woman. With all respect to Caiside, and how she got along so well despite the one leg, and was always quick with a song . . . she was not the sort of person I would have thought would spark jealousy in someone like the Mage.

  Perhaps it was cruel of me to think that; but to be fair I was sure that I would have garnered no respect from the Mage, either.

  “Yes, the Mage herself. Jealous of me. There was a potential suitor of The Mage who sailed down to Wastemoor from a principality to the north. He was a count; its ruler.”

  “I never pictured the Mage as the partnering type,” Freydis said, “from what I’ve heard of her.”

  “Yes, well, seeking out a husband would certainly not seem a major concern of hers, but of course one has to take steps if one wants to hand one’s oppressed domain to one’s tyrannical child and other ruthless descendants for perpetual domination.

  “So, this count came with his entourage over a pass in the western reaches of Wastemoor, south of his realm. I happened to be there, waiting on the arrival of Slade, coincidentally, who was bringing a – delivery. We were at altitude, and there was a snowstorm that prevented any movement for a few days. Even this count’s heavy horses and many potentially-snow-shoveling servants could make no headway.

  “There was just one inn, there. The count and his entourage took it over, save for a room I had already occupied. The innkeeper offered to evict me from it, but the count saw me – I was there in front of the downstairs fireplace – and said that a woman of my beauty could not be thrown out into the snow.”

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  I looked at her as she said this. Her skirt was the same long one she had worn when she first came to my house down in Enkel Kanindal, and I’m not sure it had been washed in the near ten days since. Her hair was not much cleaner, if any, and fairly tangled. Her facial expression was most often one of pained suspicion, I would say, which frankly did not encourage me to – keep my eyes on her for extended amounts of time.

  “Was this,” I said, “long ago?”

  “Flicker,” Freydis said aloud at that point. Caiside didn’t seem to hear her.

  “Not so long. I found myself in prison not long after, and I was not in for too long, fortunately. Anyway, the count and I spoke, there in front of that fire. We stayed up quite late. We spoke of blizzards, and auroras, and jackalopes. Word of this apparently got back to The Mage. Not too long after, I found myself arrested by elite guards of hers, on the accusation of interfering with affairs of state. But I knew the real reason.”

  “But they did not lock you up very long for that?” Freydis said.

  “Well, it was the better part of a year. But it seemed that the Mage decided that keeping me incarcerated made her look weak. Also, the proposed match with the count fell through.”

  “Did it?”

  “Indeed.”

  “Do you know why?”

  “There were rumors that she was going to forbid him to ever return to his city-state again. There seemed to be a bit of a power imbalance.”

  Later we spoke of the mission we were being sent on.

  “I just hope,” I said, “that they’re not frustrated with us if that apparition really does turn up again and then we are inevitably not able to do anything about it. I don’t know what sort of necromancer they would need to deal with this, but I certainly don’t think it’s any of us.”

  “It may not be so difficult,” Caiside said. “Ko-Rethal is probably correct in that it has not seen humans in a very long time.”

  “What good does that do us?” Freydis asked.

  “Well,” Caiside said, “I believe that often a lost spirit like this may be entertaining a simple misconception, or guilt, and if we can learn what that is we may be able to send it on its way:”

  Some ghosts are looking for treasure

  and are trying to measure

  paces back to the place

  where it was stowed;

  but they may have forgotten

  – with their memories rotten –

  that they blew it in life

  on debts they owed.

  A chap might hold himself guilty

  for some foul scheme he built; he

  may be sad that it swallowed

  up his friends.

  He will think all the worst,

  that the endeavor was cursed, and

  he’ll assume that they came

  to bitter ends.

  He may regret that he never

  wrote his mom a nice letter

  thanking her for the migraines

  he would cause;

  he planned to do it some time soon

  but got hit by a harpoon

  and in death he’s just maddened

  by his flaws.

  Perhaps he took his dad’s trotter

  to impress someone’s daughter

  and he planned to return it,

  take the blame;

  but the horse went and bolted;

  he was tragically jolted

  off a cliff, and he perished

  full of shame.

  Maybe a daughter was headstrong

  and she knew she was dead wrong

  to depart from her parents,

  who were nice;

  and she got gored by a narwhal

  after taking an ice fall

  and she wishes she’d heeded

  their advice.

  Or maybe this one aspired

  to go and get herself hired

  in a smuggling gang

  to rescue slaves;

  but then her attitude soured

  and she feels like a coward.

  She just slouches and creeps

  amid the graves.

  “Well then,” Freydis said. “It sounds like many people may be left adrift after they pass on.”

  “I’m afraid so,” Caiside answered.

  I thought she was finished, but then she resumed; but much more quietly, almost as if she were singing to herself:

  A young girl set off from her home,

  trekked around on a long roam;

  sought to make her own name

  out in the world.

  But after years of endeavor –

  while she still thinks herself clever –

  she’s apprehensive that she . . .

  She added nothing more.

  “That one needs work, still,” she said.

  *

  In the late afternoon we were served more porridge – it seemed the roast giant newt, fortunately, was not a regular offering but rather just something for special occasions – and we ate while watching young korreds frolic again in the cavern’s pool. They splashed, and chased each other, and threw around a hide ball. Even the quite young ones already had the formidable eyebrows, unsuppressed by the water.

  As darkness fell, all the korred families again exited the passageways to sleep all together near us by the pool. Once again they were subdued, but this time there was no return visit by the apparition.

  “Almost as if it knows we are decided to go, and so feels less drive to come to us,” Caiside said.

  .

  .

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