A Dance of Ghosts

CHAPTER 15

The hour was early when Zusa heard word of Victor’s arrival at their gates.

“I can send him away,” she told Alyssa, who was lounging in a warm bath beside her.

“He will only come with the same promises as before,” Alyssa said, eyelids closed and head tilted back so her long red hair was fully submerged. “Gods, I am tired of listening to it. I’m not sure there is a more stubborn man alive on the face of Dezrel.”

Zusa sat at the edge of the tub, dressed in her elaborate dark wrappings, and she drummed her fingers atop the hilt of one of her two daggers.

“I can make him stay away forever,” she said.

“He’s stubborn, not dangerous,” Alyssa said, and she laughed.

“I merely meant to frighten him.”

Alyssa turned her head to the side, and Zusa easily recognized it as the equivalent of a glare ever since her mistress lost her eyes.

“Is that so?” Alyssa asked.

Zusa scratched at her neck.

“Maybe?” she said. “He is rather annoying…”

Alyssa laughed again, and it warmed Zusa’s heart to see her do so. They were in an extravagant washroom, full of mirrors, white walls, and gold-tinted frames, and the air was heavy with the scent of lilac. Alyssa was nearly hidden by the steam, they’d heated the bath so hot, but it was one of the few things that could truly relax the lady in charge of the Gemcroft fortune.

The door cracked open, and a female servant stepped in and bowed with her hands behind her back.

“Milady,” she said, “Lord Victor refuses to leave the gates and insists I relay another message.”

“What is it?” Alyssa asked, her good humor replaced by annoyance.

“He says he must speak with you, and it is most urgent.”

“He always insists that is the case,” Zusa said.

The servant woman blushed.

“Yes,” she said, “but-but this time he said to tell you that he has spoken with Antonil Copernus, and that he has learned of matters most urgent to the well-being of this city … and of a potential ally.”

It was the clear the woman knew she was relaying information that was both private and dangerous, and she grew more nervous with every word. Alyssa let out a sigh, and at her nod, Zusa rose from her seat at the tub and gestured for the woman to go.

“Bring him, and put him somewhere he can wait,” Zusa said. “Alyssa must first dress appropriately for the meeting of a man of such … high regard.”

The servant curtsied again, then hurried out of the room. At the shutting of the door, Alyssa rose from the tub.

“My towel,” she said, holding her left arm out and waiting.

Zusa retrieved one from a cabinet, then sat patiently as Alyssa dried herself. She pondered over what Victor had come for this time, how it might change things.

“If Antonil has sworn to help Victor against the Sun Guild, it may only make matters worse,” she told Alyssa.

Alyssa pulled the towel from her body and wrapped it about her head. That done, she reached out and waited for Zusa to take her hand and guide her from the tub. From there, Zusa led her from the room into the adjacent bedroom, where atop the bed, the maidservants had already laid out her clothes for the day, a simple enough dress the color of grass. A younger girl waited patiently in the room to help, but Zusa dismissed her with a wave and began dressing Alyssa herself.

“Muzien’s left us alone,” Alyssa said, and she sounded troubled. “Compared to the other guilds, he’s almost … civilized.”

“You fool yourself if you think it will last,” Zusa said, lacing up the back of the dress. “We will be next, I assure you.”

“We don’t have to fight him,” Alyssa said, and Zusa’s deft fingers stopped their weaving.

“I fear I misheard you,” she said.

“No, you didn’t. We don’t need the Watcher’s truce. There was a time we merely endured the thief guilds, accepting their take as a part of doing business. Why not return to that? Muzien may seek the same. It was Thren who sought to unite them, to lift up the underworld as if it were a conquering army.”

Zusa turned Alyssa around so she might look upon her face. With Alyssa’s eyes unfeeling glass, there was nothing she could read in them, but there was no hiding the defeat she heard in the woman’s voice, the tension in her neck, the exhaustion tugging at her lips.

“Now is not the time to surrender,” she told her mistress. “You have been strong your whole life, and-”

“And I am tired of being strong,” Alyssa said. Water built around her eyes, dripping down in slender tracks. “Look what being strong has cost me. I’ve lost my father, I’ve lost friends, my sight … it’ll cost me you one day, I know it, and it will cost me my son. I cannot do this anymore. If Victor wants to fight a war, I won’t help him do it. I won’t give him my hand just so he can lead me into more fire and bloodshed.”

Slowly, carefully, Zusa wrapped her arms around Alyssa’s neck and pulled her close. She said nothing, only held her as her mistress silently cried.

“What about Nathaniel’s future?” Zusa asked after the moment passed, and she sensed Alyssa’s composure returning.

Alyssa stepped away, and she turned so Zusa might finish putting on the dress.

“It’s the only thing I have left,” she said.

“And is that not something worth fighting for?”

Alyssa crossed her arms, and Zusa wondered where the laughter had gone she’d seen only moments before. Where was the joy? Was the mantle of leadership truly so heavy?

“What is it you want from me?” Alyssa asked her. “Truly, what? Do you want to see me married? Do you want us to run from Veldaren, dragging Nathaniel with us so we might escape and leave the scum to pick apart our remains? Or do you want me to die fighting a war we cannot win, spilling blood as I have spilled it so many times before?”

Zusa took Alyssa’s hand into hers, and she squeezed her fingers tight.

“I’d have you know joy,” she said. “I’d have you feel safe. I’d see you smile again and give not a damn for what all others would think or do.”

Alyssa smiled at her, and it was so sad, it broke her heart.

“My hope for that is gone,” she said. “It left me the moment Stephen ripped the eyes from my face.”

She gestured to her dress.

“Am I presentable?”

Zusa swallowed down a knot in her throat.

“Beautiful as always,” she said.

“Good. We have left Victor waiting long enough.”

She offered her hand, and Zusa took it and led her down the hall. After asking a servant for Victor’s whereabouts, she found him waiting in the garden behind the mansion, nestled between the long east and west wings of the building. He sat on a cracked marble bench, chin resting on his fist as his eyes stared far into nowhere. As usual, he looked prepared for war instead of a casual conversation. When he noticed their arrival, he bolted to his feet, then bowed low.

“Lady Alyssa, Zusa,” he said, addressing each in turn. “Thank you for agreeing to visit with me on this fine morning.”

“Better sense would have had me send you away,” said Alyssa as she sat next to him on the bench. Zusa remained standing, lurking behind the bench with her fingers tapping the sides of her daggers. With each passing day, her trust of Victor had shrunk. It was more than just his stubborn display the last time he’d spoken with Alyssa, at how he’d laid his hands upon her. There was a hunger in his eyes, a desperation that belied his handsome smile. The morning sun might have lit up his blond hair like spun gold, but to her eyes, he was the rotting corpse of a beggar with outstretched hands.

“Better sense,” said Victor, leaning back and feigning being relaxed. “Now, when have either of us been known to be well in supply of that?”

“I’m not here for idle banter,” Alyssa said, not bothering to hide her annoyance. “You’re lucky to be in my presence after your last visit, so make this quick. You said you brought word from the Guard Captain … What is it, and how could it possibly change any answer I’ve given you before?”

Zusa slowly paced behind them, only half listening to Victor as he began making promises of Antonil’s aid. It was intriguing, of course, but she doubted it would influence Alyssa’s decision. Victor wanted her hand in marriage, and it’d take more than some extra soldiers and illicit coin to win that. Her eyes were on the garden, the soft violet columbines and pink roses buzzing with the occasional insect. She couldn’t shake the feeling that something was amiss. It was like a familiar presence in the back of her mind, no stronger than the buzz of the honeybees flitting from flower to flower.

Again she scanned the garden, searching for the source. It was as if the more primitive part of her mind had spotted and recognized something she did not. Somewhere lurking in the rosemary bushes, hiding behind one of the slender birch trees, perhaps? Or …

She looked to the rooftop of the mansion overlooking the garden, and there she saw it, the crouched specter of a faceless woman, the only one Zusa knew to still be alive.

“Deborah,” she whispered, and she felt ice chill in her veins.

Deborah leaped from the rooftop, and Zusa could tell she knew she’d been spotted. Drawing her daggers, she took a step, meaning to fling herself between Alyssa and the faceless, only to realize as the woman’s trajectory neared that her mistress was not the target.

She was.

Zusa backflipped away as Deborah slammed into the dirt, the impact seeming to have no effect on her body. Her pale cloak settled about her shoulders as she crouched there, daggers in hand.

“You’ve insulted us long enough,” Deborah said as the tall woman rose to her full height. “Today, you will go to Karak, and you will find no mercy in his fire.”

“What is the meaning of this?” Victor asked, leaping from the bench and drawing his sword.

“Stay back,” Zusa said, the muscles in her legs tensing. “You have no place in this fight.”

“Zusa?” Alyssa asked, and she clutched Victor’s wrist in alarm. “Zusa, what’s going on?”

She had no time to answer, for Deborah launched herself into an attack, her body turning in midair to add strength to her downward slashes. Zusa blocked one of the strokes as she fell back, the other coming up short so that it knifed the air before her chest. Instead of taking the opening before her, Zusa continued to retreat, wanting to gain space between them and Alyssa. Besides, she sensed if the fight remained near, that idiot Victor would try to get himself involved. Legs pumping, she leaped once, and then again, soaring through the garden so that her toes brushed the tops of the birches.

The air whipping the cloak about her body, she turned to see Deborah following, the pull of the world meaningless to her as well. As she fell toward another tree, she braced her legs, and upon slamming into its trunk halfway up its length, she kicked off, flying back into the air. Her body extended, her daggers reaching out, and with Deborah still falling, she should have been easy prey.

“Karak!” Deborah shrieked, and the word was like a thunderbolt. Zusa’s upward momentum halted, and she screamed as she felt her bones rattle from the sudden shift. And then it was Deborah who slammed into her feetfirst, blasting her abdomen. Together, they fell to the earth, the other woman’s weight atop her, and she knew upon landing she’d be crushed. Letting go of the dagger in her left hand, she reached out to grab Deborah by the elbow and then pulled with all her might. The motion tilted her just enough so that when they hit the soft grass, it was side by side. Zusa’s head struck dirt, and her vision blacked out as her stomach heaved its contents up and out her throat.

Panic overwhelmed her as she crawled on her knees, still struggling to see. If Deborah had managed the landing better than she had …

Something hard struck the side of her face, and out of instinct, she flung her other dagger in the way. The metal rang against metal, and as the scattershot stars in her vision gave way to sunlight, she caught sight of Deborah preparing another stab. Wishing she still had her other blade, she continued to retreat, twisting her body out of the way to avoid the thrust and then parrying aside a second and third from Deborah’s other hand.

“Did you think I would come unprepared?” Deborah asked as they stepped onto a cobbled walkway running through the center of the garden, the faded violet stones cool beneath Zusa’s feet. “The deciding hour approaches, and Karak has rewarded our faithfulness above all others.”

“That’s wonderful,” said Zusa, spitting out a bit of bile that had collected in the back of her throat. “A shame you’ll die anyway.”

Deborah stepped closer and closer, head tilted to one side, staring out through the thin white cloth covering the opened slit across her eyes.

“Still in denial,” she said. “Still a fool.”

Again she rushed in, and Zusa twisted and danced side to side, parrying whatever she could not avoid. Back onto the grass they went, the march of their combat taking them toward a shallow pond near the heart of the garden. Surrounding it were five rowan trees, tall and thick with creamy white flowers. Zusa tried to retake control of the engagement to fight her way past Deborah, but the woman battled as if possessed, denying her any escape, her daggers always there. Closer and closer to the pond they went, and Zusa knew if she were forced into it, it’d hamper her ability to dodge, leaving her trapped.

“You humiliated me when you escaped our dungeon,” Deborah said, slashing out for Zusa’s face. She knew it’d be blocked, but she wanted Zusa kept on the defensive, wanted her to feel overwhelmed. Again and again, slashes to the face and chest, Zusa forced to shift her weight side to side to brace accordingly. They were between two of the trees now, the pond so very near.

“You humiliate yourself every day you wrap your face in that mask,” Zusa said, her pride stirring in her chest. She was far more experienced than the whelp she faced, and even lacking a weapon, she should have been able to find victory. “You humiliate yourself every day you let Karak rule over you like a slave.”

Deborah’s controlled demeanor broke for just a moment, and she stretched forward for a killing lunge. The overextension was all Zusa needed. Sidestepping the thrust, she trapped Deborah’s wrist between her elbow and her side, and she kicked as hard as she could into the woman’s armpit. She heard a pop from Deborah’s shoulder, followed by a scream. Zusa let her go to block a desperate swipe, then flung herself into the offensive. Deborah was wounded now, her right arm pressed against her waist as she battled solely with her left. For Zusa, who needed no advantage, it was more than enough.

“Every day,” she shouted at Deborah, her own anger letting loose, her dagger a winding cobra always on the strike. “Every single day, you humiliate yourself! Slave! Fool!”

Deborah had her back to the tree, unable to dodge, and letting out a wordless cry, Zusa thrust for Deborah’s heart. But the shadows were deep beneath the yellow leaves, and instead of piercing flesh, her dagger thudded into the ashen bark, the faceless woman falling into the dark as if it were an open doorway. Zusa spun, knowing Deborah would reappear from another section of shadow nearby, one of the trees or …

From beneath the pond, Deborah emerged, water splashing out in all directions as she lifted into the air, rising as if she were a forgotten beast of the ocean deep. One arm she held against herself, the other stretched out to the side, both her legs dangling. Her wet hair rose as if she were amid a torrent of wind, her eyes shining a bright white from behind the cloth. Her mouth opened, and all her rage and fury came shrieking out in a single word.

“KARAK!”

The noise pierced like the cry of an eagle, the very air shimmering from its force. Drops of water caught in its path turned to mist. Zusa crossed her arms and dug in her heels, but it meant nothing. The cry tore into her, ripping gashes into her wrappings, blood pouring down like rain. Her feet left the ground, but it was not for long. Her back slammed into a tree, stealing away her breath. After such a noise, she wondered why no guards had come to save her yet, to protect their lady of the house. Not that it would matter. No one would come in time to save her, not from the demon that landed just beyond the water’s edge, a hungry dagger in her left hand.

“If only you had remained loyal,” Deborah said as she stalked closer. “If only you could have accepted the gifts Karak had to offer. Your place in our order will never be forgotten, Zusa, but it will forever be tainted by your heresy.”

“Give it time, girl,” Zusa said, laughing even as she slumped to the ground, convinced several of her ribs were broken, due to how painful it was to breathe. She let out a sigh as she looked up at the faceless woman lurking above her. “Give it time. No animal ever truly loves its cage.”

Deborah grabbed Zusa by the hair, pulling her head back to fully expose her throat. The other readied a dagger.

“May the fire take you,” she said, and Zusa could do nothing to stop the fatal thrust, only laugh.

Ghost remained atop the mansion as Deborah leaped off, hoping to overtake Zusa before the woman could realize the ambush was upon her. Together, they’d climbed to the top after finding a gap in the patrols, though Ghost had more floated upward than climbed. He couldn’t do it in open space, but while clutching something solid, he found he could will himself to rise or fall. As he watched Zusa and Deborah crash into each other, he laughed at the order the faceless woman had given him.

Stay out of my way, even if it looks like I may lose. I’d rather die than accept your help.

“Only fair,” Ghost muttered as he watched the fight. “I think I’d rather die than help you in the first place.”

Even saying the words made his head ache with a steady throb. Closing his eyes, he focused on Zusa lying before him, her body bleeding from multiple wounds, and that seemed to make it go away. As he did, he heard sounds of alarm to his right. Opening his eyes, he ran along the rooftop to the corner, not a single step making a noise, and then peered down over the edge. Several soldiers were drawing their weapons and moving to join the fight. Ghost felt his face twitch at the sight of them. Letting them interfere would be dangerous, and given how even the fight between Zusa and Deborah appeared, the slightest aid could be enough.

“I’m sorry,” he said, leaping off the side.

Swords drawn, he crashed down atop the rearmost soldier. Ghost felt no fear for his body, no danger at the great height from which he fell. His blades smashed through the man’s armor and into the soft flesh beneath, slicing off one arm and shattering the collarbone of the other. Upon hitting ground, he did not stop, only continued on. As his head slipped beneath the dirt, he felt his vision shift, gaining a greater awareness of his surroundings. It was as if he could feel the vibrations of the soldiers above him, could see the great expanse of dirt and rock in all directions. When he pulled his swords to him, he saw their steel was immaculate, whatever blood that had stained them unable to pass through the ground.

He moved without needing to run, merely by thinking of the direction and willing himself to be there. It wasn’t far, and when there, he jumped. The physical action may not have been necessary, but it felt natural, and he emerged from the ground before the remaining soldiers, head bowed, swords out, and a smile on his face.

Their fear at the sight of him was overwhelming, and to his otherworldly senses, it smelled like a fine perfume.

“Fall back!” the foremost man shouted before Ghost took off his head. The other two impressed him with their bravery, ignoring the command and instead slashing out at Ghost with their swords. Ghost blocked them both, pushing aside their strokes as if they were children. Another step, closing the distance, and they were his, their weapons positioned awkwardly, given his new proximity. One stab through the throat killed the first; a looping slash cut the other across the belly just beneath his breastplate. As he fell, innards tumbling, Ghost showed him mercy and opened his throat as well.

More would be coming, he knew, which meant Deborah needed to end her fight soon. Running back to the garden, he watched the women battle in midair, smashing into one another. As they fell, Ghost felt himself cheering for Zusa. Had he not promised to kill her last? But no, his opinion was now irrelevant. He felt the curse pulsing in the veins of his face and neck, boring deep into his muscles, or whatever it was his body now had. When Zusa slammed hard to the ground, seeing it filled him with a sensation almost sexual in its pleasure.

Yet deep down in his chest, Ghost felt only rage and sickness.

Swords still drawn, he flew across the grass of the garden, doing his best not to think. Not to breathe. He embraced that rage, clung to it like a shelter in a thunderstorm. It pushed aside his doubt, denied the curse pounding angrily in his veins. Focus only on the act, on the betrayal they’d committed.

I am not yours, thought Ghost as he came barreling in toward Deborah, who knelt triumphantly over Zusa. Not your puppet. Not your slave.

He leaped, legs extended, and slammed straight into her chest with his feet. The woman let out a startled cry, rolling along the ground several times before she could skid to a halt. The faceless woman glared at him from behind the white cloth of her face, her legs crooked beneath her like a spider, much of her weight supported on one hand still clutching the grass from halting her roll.

“I should have known as much,” Deborah said, and she coughed. Dark blood spread across the wrappings of her face around her mouth.

“Indeed, you should have,” Ghost said, fighting to concentrate. Zusa lay beside him, and it felt like every part of his mind was screaming at him to finish her, to drive a blade through her eye and out the back of her skull. Instead, he grinned at Deborah and remembered the hours he’d lain on a cold floor while above him roared the phantom image of the Lion.

The woman’s eyes narrowed, and when she attacked, Ghost was ready. Instead of meeting her head on, he leaped backward, arms crossed over his chest. His body passed through the tree Zusa leaned against, and he felt a chill spike up his right leg as it brushed Zusa’s body. Pushing it out of mind, he jumped as high as his legs would let him … which was much, much higher than it had ever been prior to becoming whatever Daverik had made him. He soared through the branches, felt the moisture of the leaves as they slid through his face, and then was falling. Deborah had hesitated upon his disappearance, and when she looked up, he realized she had deciphered his maneuver.

“Karak!” she shrieked, waves of power rolling across him, knifing into his exposed skin. For a moment, he hovered there in the air, his fall countered by the shriek, and then he landed, his blood splashing all across the grass. Deborah was on him in a heartbeat, slicing and stabbing with her daggers. Ghost blocked the first two, the third sneaking through as he struggled to regain his sense of balance and vision. As he felt pain from her blade cutting into his forearm and saw the blood spill, he confirmed that blades could still hurt him, at least when he was in the open instead of shifting through walls or the rocky ground.

Good to know, he thought, though that knowledge would benefit him for only moments more. Deborah pressed the attack, and it took all his skill to keep her at bay. At least the ache from the curse had subsided. Battle was a wonderful medicine, and he much preferred the pain from the cuts of blades over the insidious pulse deep in the center of his being.

Into the dirt Ghost dropped, and when he reemerged behind Deborah, she had already turned, blocking his slashes. She lunged toward him, her daggers a flurry of steel, and he blocked them with growing confidence. Her skill was great, but damn it, prior to fighting the Watcher, he’d never even considered someone could be greater than he, and it was time he remembered that.

Parrying aside one thrust, he stole the offensive, his feet a blur beneath him as he shifted closer and closer, giving her no break. Her defenses grew desperate, they both could tell, and then she inhaled deep.

“Karak!” came the cry, only this time Ghost denied it with every piece of his soul.

“No!” he screamed, swords crossed before him as the power rolled forth. “Not … this … time!”

His swords opened, and he pushed aside the attack as if it were just another blade. He saw the fear in Deborah’s eyes, that flash of doubt, and he knew the end had come. Into her chest his swords sank deep, and as the blood flowed, she looked up at him with a mixture of fury and confusion.

“No one…” she said as he pinned her to the dirt. “No one can … can resist…”

Ghost knelt down close, and he ripped off the wrappings that hid her face.

“I just did,” he said, kissing her forehead. “And I will again. My life is my own, precious. A shame you never felt the same about yours.”

To that she could say nothing, for her eyes had rolled back into her head, her movements merely the final twitchings of a dying body. Ghost pulled free his swords and looked about. All around him was a scene so bizarre he could only laugh. Dozens of soldiers had come in from outside the mansion, and they’d formed a circle around him and Deborah. How long had they been there, he wondered, watching their fight? He could only guess. It’d taken a knife-edged focus to defeat Deborah as well as keep all thoughts of Zusa from his mind.

“I mean no harm,” Ghost said to the soldiers about him. “I killed the invader, or have you not noticed?”

To the front pushed a man in fine silver armor, a yellow circle with wings upon the front of his tunic.

“What is the meaning of this?” he asked, his own sword drawn.

“This has nothing to do with you,” Ghost said. He saw where Zusa lay against the tree, Alyssa huddled over her, and then he pointed.

“Only her,” he said.

A shadow crossed over the man’s face.

“Get out,” he said.

“With pleasure.”

Ghost dropped into the dirt, the last sound he heard before the earth swallowed him that of the guards’ gasps. Like some strange worm, Ghost swam through the ground, focusing on exiting the compound. As he did, he felt a sensation building in his stomach, and with each passing second, it grew stronger. His speed slowed, and his otherworldly vision dimmed. For a panicked moment, he thought he’d be lost underground, forever entombed as the powers Karak had given him diminished.

And then the pain hit.

It was like a lightning bolt through his mind, a crystal-tipped spear ramming into his gut. He felt like he needed to breathe, yet couldn’t. Over and over, he saw Zusa in his mind, lying there, her life ready to be taken by the faceless woman, yet he’d stopped it. He’d saved her, and now he heard a deep voice chanting as if from some great distance.

Betrayed.

“No!” Ghost screamed, but it was only the whisper of a man long buried in a grave.

Betrayed.

“I was never your servant,” he said, clawing in an attempt to climb back to the surface. The pain heightened, and a multitude of colors swam across his vision. It was like razors cutting across his skin. His movements ceased, for he was unable to focus on anything, to move, to climb. A swirling vertigo overcame him, and he felt as if he were falling amid a great fire.

Fight it, Ghost knew he had to fight it, but how? Only one thing had worked before, and so he tried it out of desperation. He thought of Tarlak, and of how he would sneak into the wizard’s home. He filled his mind with images of the man’s death, by poison, razor wire, and blade. As the pounding in his skull faded, the thoughts grew soothing, his promises calming. Yes, he could kill the wizard, he told himself. The man was a nuisance, and his magic had left him horribly burned. Killing him was good. Killing him, he could do. Over and over he swore, and desperately, he tried to believe it.

At last, the voices were gone, his sight returned, and with a gasp, he emerged from the ground in the open street just outside the Gemcroft mansion. Blood poured down from his body like rain, marking the place of his emergence. Ignoring the surprised cries of those around him, he ran, wanting to get as far away from a certain woman, whose name he’d not dare think, as fast as he possibly could.