A Wizard in the Way

8

Let’s hope your bargaining works better, too,” Gar said nervously. “Talk to them, Blaize.”

“Talk?” Blaize looked up at the ghosts, some formless and faceless, most looking exactly like people, some grim, some amused, some with wicked grins. “What would you have me say to them?”

“That we’re friends, for starters.” Gar swallowed, his eyes bulging. “That we’re sorry to bother them, and they might as well go back to sleep.”

“Ghosts don’t sleep,” Blaize said, not really thinking about it. “They would be cross indeed if they felt we had summoned them to no purpose, Master.”

“I’m not your master!”

“Teacher, then. Can we not find some question to ask them?”

Gar’s eyes began to glow; he seemed to relax a bit. “Yes, now that you mention it. There might be one or two things we’d like to know.”

“How would you have me speak to them?”

Gar pursed his lips, thinking fast. “Well, you might begin with hello.”

“Not courtly enough.” Blaize shook his head, then raised his voice. “Good evening, O Ancestors of Our Kind. We greet you and honor you.”

“Courteous, at least,” rumbled a frowning ghost with jowls, a large nose, and a fringe of hair around a bald pate. “If you have summoned us to no purpose, you shall regret it sorely!”

Gar eyed the specter’s clothing, trying to place it—a sort of open-necked doublet with tight-fitting trousers; the clothing might almost have been a businessman’s suit of several hundred years before, romanticized and made a bit more dashing.

“We have certainly not called upon you in vain,” Blaize said quickly. “My teachers seek information which only ancestors can give. They are strangers in this country and seek to better the lot of the common people.”

“The common people! Faugh!” the rotund ghost said. “I am the Sorcerer d’Autrois, and I know of my own serfs that their lot should not be bettered—they must be kept in their place!”

A scream of anger pierced the air and another ghost streaked toward the first, snapping to a halt and yelling into his face, nose to nose. He wore rough tunic and hose and was considerably younger than the sorcerer. “Never should they submit to your yoke, villain! Now after death you know the truth—that you, too, are common, or that all of us are noble!”

“One might almost say that death has made you all equal,” Gar interjected.

“Be still, foolish human!” the sorcerer thundered.

“No, speak, for you pronounce good sense!” The serf turned, bending down toward Gar. “Equal in death we are indeed, for what little magic one ghost can do, any other ghost can do, too! Fools that we were, not to see that we were equal in life, too.”

“You were never my equal in life!” the sorcerer bellowed. “You had not a tenth of my power, not a hundredth!”

“No, but we were a thousand to your one!” The serf turned on him again. “If we had ceased to fear death and marched on you together, you would not have had a tenth of our power, and we would have hauled you out of your mansion to your death!”

“Spoken like the craven knave you are! You would never have dared death, for you knew the ghosts would eat your soul!”

“Yes, you made us tremble with that lie,” the serf said with a nasty smile, “but we all know the truth of it now, don’t we?”

“I do not!” Blaize cried. “Tell me, tell!”

“Do not!” the sorcerer ordered. “You know that is forbidden to the living!”

“Forbidden by whom?” the serf sneered, and turned to Blaize. “Know that it is not the ghost who devours the human’s soul, lad, but—”

With a roar of anger, the sorcerer’s ghost plunged into the serf’s. Shouting and screaming filled the clearing as the amorphous glowing blob that was the two together heaved and twisted and bulged.

“Stop that now! Stop!” shouted another voice, and a fourth echoed it, “Stop!”

Two ghosts plunged into the melee from either side, actually into the glowing cloud itself, doubling its size. The amorphous form pinched in the center, its two halves drawing apart and settling into the forms of serf and sorcerer again, glaring at each other and spitting insults—but in front of each and blocking it from its enemy was a ghost in hooded tunic and hose, a bow and quiver on his back, a dagger at his belt, each firmly forbidding its prisoner to fight.

“Really, now!” said the sorcerer’s restrainer, “you’re setting a horrible example for our descendants!”

“No descendants of mine, you common fool!” roared the sorcerer.

“Come now, cousin, we’re all common here,” the guard said. “Aren’t we, Conn?”

“All equal in death,” Conn agreed, and gave the sorcerer a wolfish grin. “Shall I shoot an arrow into you to prove it?” The sorcerer shuddered but still tried to bluster. “You are common fellows—woods runners!”

“Outlaws we are.” Ranulf shrugged. “For me, it was the greenwood or the ruined city with its madmen and twisted outcasts. I chose the forest.”

“City lunatic or forest outlaw, it’s all the same!” the sorcerer spat. “You’re bandits and should be hauled to the gallows!”

“Why, so I was,” Conn told him, “and if you had been the lord who ordered it, I would make a pincushion of you, then follow as you recovered and pull out my darts, the better to fill you with them again. Ranulf, now, there was no gallows for him. A keeper sprang from ambush and put a sword through his heart, didn’t he, Ranulf?”

“That he did,” the other outlaw answered, “but I bear him no ill will for it. After all, I had laid an ambush for him the day before.”

Blaize stared, his face tragic. “I had thought there was peace in the grave!”

“Oh, there is,” Conn told him, “but we’re not exactly in our graves, are we?”

“I’m sure our souls are peaceful,” Ranulf said, “filled with bliss and delighting in the glory due those who were downtrodden during life—but we aren’t those souls, only shadows of minds.”

“Be still, you fool!” the sorcerer shouted.

“Fool?” Conn asked “Well, I was a fool once—a jester until my magician lord ordered my true love to his bed. I came to amuse him as he disrobed and drew a dagger from my bauble to plunge into his heart. Then I ran to the greenwood with my lass, but his ghost followed and learned by accident what happened when he ran upon a sword made of cold steel.” Conn shook his head, remembering. “It blasted my arm to a lifeless lump for a day and more.”

“Grounding out electrical charges?” Gar said, eye gleaming. “Very interesting.”

“Electrical?” Another ghost shot forward to hover over Gar. “What manner of man are you who knows of electricity?”

Gar looked the phantom up and down. It wore a tall pointed hat and long robe; even in the pale glowing cream color of its substance, he could make out stars and moons and signs of the zodiac. “What manner of man should know it? A magician.”

“Throw a fireball, if you are,” the ghost challenged.

Blaize turned to Gar with a sinking stomach. “Don’t tell them you are a fire-caster!”

“Am I?” Gar asked mildly. He gazed off into the night for a minute, then causally raised his hand and swung it toward the ghost. As his hand arced downward, fire seemed to gather in his palm, then spring off his fingertips straight toward the spectral magician. The phantom shrieked and disappeared. The fireball shot onward; the ghosts screamed and leaped aside from it. It struck against the face of the cliff in a shower of sparks and vanished.

“Yes, I suppose that’s part of what I am,” Gar conceded. Blaize looked up at him, shaken. “Is there anything you can’t do?”

“Quite a bit,” Gar said. “Just ask Alea.”

“No, we’ll ask you instead.” Conn floated away from his serf and glowered down at Gar. “The lad says he called us here at your request. What do you want of us?”

“Yes, what?” Ranulf drifted over, too. “Ask!”

“Well enough, then,” Gar said, unruffled. “What are you made of?”

Several ghosts gasped in shock and several muttered about rudeness, but Conn only grinned. “What are you made of, mortal? If you can tell us that, maybe we can tell you our substance.”

“A bargain,” Gar said. “I’m made of protoplasm, mostly in the form of muscle, blood, bone, and sinew. And you?”

Conn lost his grin. “Like that, is it? Well, we’re made of ectoplasm, my lad—ectoplasm, and a fine stuff it is.”

“Fine indeed,” Gar agreed. “What is it?”

The ghosts were all silent for a minute, glancing from one to another, clearly nonplussed. Then the sorcerer blustered, “It’s not for a mere mortal to know what ectoplasm is!”

An order from him was all the incentive Conn needed. “Not for us to know, either,” he said with a roguish smile. “It’s a mortal word, don’t you know—one our ancestors brought from the stars, if the old legend is true, and I’ve met some ghosts who swear it is, because they claim they came from old Terror herself—or so they say. If it was anything like they tell it, a terror it was, and no wonder they wanted to leave it.”

“Terra it is, and a wonder in its own way,” Gar answered. “Still, there must be something you can tell me about the way your substance behaves.”

The ghosts exchanged glances. “Well, now,” said the serf, “why would we be telling it to a ghost leader like your lad here?”

“Why not?” Gar countered. “If you know he can already lead you, there’s no danger in letting me know more about you. Besides, I’ve already learned how to cancel you with Cold Iron—or any sort of metal, I suspect.”

Blaize glanced at him with keen interest. He’d have to persuade Gar to explain it to him later. It could be very handy, having some kind of threat to hold over a ghost’s head.

“There’s some truth in that,” Conn admitted. “Aye, some,” Ranulf agreed.

“Don’t you dare!” roared the old sorcerer. “You don’t know what use he would make of the knowledge!”

Conn’s grin hardened as he gazed at the shadow of power. “Your time for giving orders is past, old man.” He turned back to Gar. “All we know is that if the weather becomes very, very cold, we turn into water, my lad—water, but we know it and still hold our shape and our thoughts within it.”

“Fool!” ranted the old sorcerer. “Don’t you see how he can use this against you?”

“Frankly, no,” said Conn, “but I can see him drowning if he tries.”

“Or freezing,” Ranulf chimed in. “How would you rather die, mortal? Drowning or freezing?”

“Neither is really my favored mode of departing this earth,” Gar answered. “So you’re still aware of being yourselves even if you become fluid ghosts, are you? And still able to think?”

“Better and more clearly than ever,” the old sorcerer snapped, “so if you think we poor ghosts can’t work magic, don’t come near us then!”

“Cold Iron probably wouldn’t do much to you in that phasestate,” Gar agreed, “though you might do something to it. How about your forms at normal temperatures? I notice you’re all bigger than we are by half.”

“Well, we don’t have to be, that’s true,” the old serf admitted, grinning, “but we rather like looking down on our descendants.”

“And you can’t come out by day?”

“Try to get away from us after sunrise and find out,” the old sorcerer boasted. “You just can’t see us because the sun is brighter than we are, that’s all.”

“But you’re still there.” Gar nodded. “You’re phosphorescent, though, so you glow as soon as it’s dark enough—and the darker the night, the brighter the ghost.”

“We only look that way,” Conn confided. “We really stay the same brightness all the time.”

“Of course, some of us are brighter than others,” the old sorcerer said spitefully.

“No need to be jealous, old thing,” Ranulf said easily. “Even a peasant can outshine you now, if he’s halfway virtuous,” the old serf jeered.

The old sorcerer swelled up sputtering.

“How is it you can appear from thin air, then?” Gar asked. “Oh, we can stretch our substance out so thin that mortals can’t see it even at night,” Ranulf answered.

Blaize stared. “You mean you’re there already, but we can’t see you?”

“Right you are, lad,” Conn said. “Always there. Hundreds of us, thousands of us all about you, all the time. You’ll never know when we’re watching.”

Blaize glanced at Mira, then looked away.

“Well, not all the time,” Ranulf qualified. “Sometimes there isn’t a ghost for miles around.”

“Don’t tell him that!” the younger magician snapped.

“I will if I choose,” Ranulf said easily. “Point is, though, lad, you can’t know, can you?”

“An ever-present threat,” Mira quavered.

“No, not really.” Alea stared up at the old sorcerer narrow-eyed. “Not the threat part, anyway. After all, some of us have old scores to settle, and I doubt even an old rogue like that one could match our anger.”

“Don’t be so sure,” the sorcerer blustered.

“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, you old fool.” A bent, gnarled woman shouldered through the sorcerer—literally.

He gave a cry of distress. “Don’t do that! You know how that makes me feel!”

“Aye, and I know how you made me feel while I was alive,” the old woman snapped, “or one much like you.” She turned to Alea and Mira. “Sorcerers, magicians—what’s the difference? They’re all alike. Alive or dead, all that changes is how much they can hurt you.”

“You might be surprised!” the old sorcerer threatened.

“If I could be, you would have surprised me long ago,” the hag returned. “No, I can cause you as much distress and shame as you can cause me, now—and for a very long time, too!”

“A long time?” Blaize asked. “You mean you don’t last for eternity?”

The ghosts fell quiet, glancing at one another, clearly uncomfortable. Then the hag turned to Blaize again. “There isn’t a one of us has just fallen apart and faded away, young fellow, though one or two have met with some very nasty accidents.”

“Don’t tell him that!” the magician snapped.

“Too late,” Gar said mildly. “We already know about Cold Iron—and I can imagine what lightning would do.”

The magician gave him a look that should have turned him into a ghost on the spot.

Alea glared at him, eyes fiery, and the old magician shrieked and clutched his head. “Stop! Make her stop!”

“No need for that just yet, my shield,” Gar said softly. “After all, he can’t tell us much with a tearing headache, can he?” Alea relaxed to a simmer.

“I won’t tell you anything ever!” the sorcerer blustered. “You already have,” Gar reminded him. “You just hadn’t meant to.”

“Indeed? What, for example?” the sorcerer demanded. “That you’re extremely long-lived,” Gar said. “I’d guess that comes from having very little mass to keep up—though how you replenish yourselves I haven’t figured out yet.”

“From people’s spirits,” Mira quavered.

“If they did that, they wouldn’t be completely themselves anymore,” Gar pointed out. “I don’t think any of them wants to risk a guest in the head.”

The magician grinned. “You just keep thinking that way, lad.”

“I don’t think you can draw on people’s life energy, either,” Gar mused, “since we’re Terran, and you’re made of the substance of this planet.”

“You might be surprised.”

“I try to expect the unexpected,” Gar told him. “Of course, the appeal of human life force might be why you appear when Blaize, or any other ghost leader, summons you.”

“Yes it might, mightn’t it?” the sorcerer said, gloating.

“On the other hand, it might not,” Conn said, giving the sorcerer a dark look.

“Of course,” said the hag, “it could be simply that we like the feel of human thoughts—but we wouldn’t talk about that, now, would we?”

“Then don’t,” the sorcerer snapped. “Why not?” Alea grinned.

Gar nodded. “You’re creatures of thought, mostly, so human thoughts might wake agreeable sensations in you.”

“They warm themselves at our fires!” Alea exclaimed. “You come crowding to feel our emotions, don’t you?”

“Anger, love, hatred, sympathy, grief, gratitude—no wonder you cluster around deathbeds,” Gar mused. “Tell me, what does lust feel like to a ghost?”

“Delightful,” the old sorcerer sneered.

“Don’t pretend you can still feel it, you old idiot.” The crone sniffed. She turned to Alea. “They’re as different as flavors of food are to you, child. Love doesn’t feel like the love I remember, but it wakens a delicious sensation in me, one I can’t find words for. So do pity and desire and contentment—”

“And fear,” the sorcerer interrupted, grinning. “Fear feels best of all, a thrill and a glow and elation.”

“That’s why you try to frighten us!” Blaize cried. “That’s why you haunt!”

“Those who haunt, yes.” The crone threw the sorcerer a look of disgust. “Those who haunt and don’t have a good reason, such as crying for justice or warning of danger. Yes, ghosts like him delight in human fear and pain.”

“The emotions become compelling, do they?” Gar asked, somewhat detached and clinical.

“I hunger for them,” the sorcerer said, grinning, and some of the other ghosts chorused agreement, magicians, hulking bandits, old roues still handsome in age forever fixed, and sly evil-looking courtiers.

“Compelling, yes,” Gar said thoughtfully. “I might even say addictive. So if a mind reader directs anger against you, the feeling is too intense. What would happen if you didn’t flee from it? Would it shake you apart?”

“You’ve no need to know that, foolish mortal,” the sorcerer bellowed.

“You’re right, of course,” Blaize said to Gar, though his gaze was still on the ghosts. “I am learning a deal of magic tonight.”

“Not least is that you are apparently a projective empath, and a powerful one,” Gar said. “That means you feel what others feel and send out your own feelings to waken them in others. That’s why the ghosts come flocking whenever you summon them—because you send out emotion, whatever emotion you’re feeling at the time, whether it be fear or curiosity or joy. They come soaring to taste.”

“Would you really flee if I felt anger at you?” Blaize asked. “You? Not likely,” the sorcerer said scornfully.

“It’s a matter of strength, boy,” Conn explained. “That woman with you, now, she’s been hurt sometime in her life and hurt badly, and it’s left her with a river of fury likely to spill over its banks at the slightest insult. When she feels anger, it cuts like a whiplash. You, lad, if you want feelings that will do us any harm, think about folk who have wronged you or wronged people you love, then aim it at whatever ghost you want to shake apart.”

“Traitor,” the sorcerer hissed.

“I never swore allegiance to you or your kind,” the outlaw retorted, “and I never asked to become a ghost.”

“Something in you did,” the magician snapped, “or you’d never have twisted a wild spirit to your likeness.”

“You mean if I can make my anger intense enough, I can scare ghosts away?” Blaize asked.

“Well, we wouldn’t really go very far,” Conn temporized, “just thin enough and far enough away so you couldn’t see us.”

“Aye,” said Ranulf. “Then we’d coast along beside you, like a hunter stalking a stag, waiting for you to fall in love or taste a delicious meal or look out at a beautiful sunrise.”

“Or lust after a beautiful woman,” the crone snapped, glaring at the magician.

“That’s why ghosts come so quickly to me?” Blaize asked. “Because you can tell I’m going to be feeling deeply?”

The ghosts fell silent, glancing at one another.

“You’ve guessed rightly,” Alea said. “The more mental energy a person gives off, the more these creatures are attracted to that person—and as Gar said, you’re an empath, unusually talented.”

“Perhaps also gifted with an unusual sensitivity. What you feel, you feel very sharply and deeply.”

Mira’s gaze snapped to Blaize, but the boy only said, “Do I?”

“You do make quite a racket, when you’re calling for help or even just company,” Ranulf admitted.

“Not one word more! Not one!” the sorcerer thundered, fists on hips. “He is our quarry, not we his!”

“Congratulations,” Gar told Blaize. “You’re a natural resource.”

“Don’t you mean a supernatural resource?” the magician sneered.

“No, that’s you—or the stuff you’re made of, anyway.” Gar looked up, spectacularly unintimidated, at the ghost who towered over him. “You do know, of course, that people with his talent are rare.”

“Of course we know that!” the magician said contemptuously.

“If they were not,” the sorcerer said with scathing scorn, “how would they gain power among their fellow humans?”

“In the usual ways,” Gar said easily. “Power is power, and its abuse is an old story.”

The sorcerer huffed up and the magician’s eyes narrowed, but the crone cackled.

“Such talent is even more rare, however, among the people of Terra, from whom your ancestors came,” Gar said, “so rare that few people believe there really is such a thing. How did these gifts develop among your people?”

Silence fell over the ghosts; they looked from one to another, startled—the idea had never occurred to any of them before.