The man called Creedan stood above the town of Hillport. He was in a guard tower that looked over low foothills that gradually rose to meet the Ghost Peak Mountains. No one knew where the name originated, but it was common knowledge that anyone venturing into the mountains would be found unconscious at the town limits if they tried to enter the large mountain range.
That was also the reason he was in a guard tower in a town much too small to justify it. For as long as anyone remembered, the people of Hillport kept watch on the mountains both night and day. No one had ever seen anyone come out of the mountains, but there were plenty of rumors of the phantom hosts that lived there, else why would the tradition of guarding the mountain have been started? The people of Hillport were satisfied with the way this logic worked, and so they always passed the tradition on to their posterity. It also made for great stories of the gruesome phantom hosts that would one day invade, stories that were told to the children around fireplaces in the dark of the night.
Creedan had been standing watch since his fifteenth birthday, almost thirty years ago. In all those years, the only thing he had seen on his watch was local game and people that came from the universities at Anopolis. The latter were just foolish enough to try entering the mountain, scoffing at the local community's paranoid superstitions. So it was with great astonishment that Creedan spied four figures in the distance coming down the Mountain. He peered intently at them, trying to glimpse their features, but they were still just specks in the distance. He felt his heart beating in his throat as he reached shakily for the rope attached to a large bell. It had been brought on a large wagon all the way from Anopolis. He hesitated, thinking how foolish he would look ringing the alarm—only used in celebrations before—if the figures in the distance were just travelers that had never been up into the mountains. Even as he watched them intently, one of them flickered and vanished, leaving only three. Gasping in terror, he jerked the bell-pull with all his might.
* * *
Leanne had shed her extra layer of clothing as they descended the mountains into the warmer lowlands. They had been traveling for three exhausting days down the mountain, stopping only long enough for them to sleep a couple of hours. The three youths had dark circles under their eyes, which were tight with the strain of uncertainty.
Shalay mentioned to the black-swathed stranger that they couldn't just say, "Hey you," thereby asking his name without actually phrasing a question. He looked at her with those dark-hooded eyes. They constantly seemed to be deciding whether he would just kill them to get them out of his way or ignore them. After a long, unpleasant silence, he had said that they could call him Lochnar. As far as Leanne could tell, he hadn't slept once since they had met him. Maybe he didn't need sleep.
After the second day of their journey, the stranger had swathed his entire face in black cloth and donned a set of black gloves. Leanne also sensed that the holes she had felt in his aeri were in different places now. She gazed at his back uneasily, wondering what he was. He had not opened up any more than he had when they first met him. The three youths were too tired to talk to each other and Lochnar had nothing to say.
As the horizon began to lighten in the north, they crested one of the foothills and found themselves staring down on the village of Hillport. Leanne was surprised at how small it was. After being raised in Avenry, she came to expect other cities to be relatively the same size. There could not be more than a few thousand people living in the sleepy village below them.
"These rural folk are a superstitious lot," Lochnar growled softly. "I will not be visible to your eyes until we reach the other side of the village." Before he finished speaking, he flickered and vanished.
Leanne looked at the other two questioningly, but Thalian just shook his head resignedly and continued moving toward the town. They all stopped dead as the sound of an alarm bell reached their ears. People began to stumble out of their houses in the village, staring at the watchtower where a guard was yanking the pull rope frantically and shouting at the top of his lungs. Some of the people in the village spotted them and began pointing toward them excitedly. They looked terrified, even at this distance.
"Fools," Lochnar muttered, and Leanne heard him spit.
They all halted, staring in consternation at the small village that had turned into a kicked anthill. Some of the Guardians claimed that they had been to Hillport in disguise and talked to the people. She had not heard that they reacted like this to strangers.
"What should we do?" Shalay asked urgently, abandoning Lochnar's rule of no questions.
"Keep going," Lochnar snapped irritably. "They think that you're phantoms from the mountain. Just tell them that you are travelers from Anopolis and that you are looking for a special plant that grows on this mountain."
Leanne's mouth was dry as she looked at the other two. Thalian was nodding slowly, but Shalay was frowning in thought. After a moment, she glanced at Leanne and winked. Leanne worked moisture back into her mouth. She always had felt like a coward around Shalay, but sometimes Leanne thought that Shalay would try to make a joke while plummeting to her death. Being afraid of a mob of frightened villagers was only sensible, she told herself firmly, even if Shalay is as crazy as she pretends.
The four of them walked carefully down the hill to the village below. They slowed down at the edge, making it obvious they meant no harm. A short, chubby man with a bald pate strode out of the mob that was beginning to gather at the mouth of the main road. He stopped a good twenty paces short of them and looked at them doubtfully.
"Have you come from the mountain?" he demanded with an uncomfortable glance at the mountains looming behind them. He was wearing a pair of dark trousers with a shirt that had been hastily tucked in and boots that went to midcalf but were still unlaced.
"From Anopolis," Thalian replied, stepping a little in front of the others. "We are gathering some roots that we had been told grew in this mountain range." His thumbs were looped through his belt, well away from his sword hilt.
"Creedan," the short man bellowed, "come over here!" He stood tapping his foot impatiently as the man called Creedan made his way through the crowd, his feet dragging.
"Do you mind explaining why you felt it needful to awaken the rest of us?" he asked mildly, at odds with the dangerous glint in his eyes. "Perhaps you are beginning to find your position in this community onerous and desire to create some excitement for the rest of us, hmmm?"
Leanne found the odd way the short man spoke fascinating. It was very precise; more so than she would have thought for a small village like this.
"No, governor, not at all," Creedan protested weakly. "There was another person with them, and he just vanished into thin air! I didn't imagine it!" he finished with an angry growl.
The crowd was listening intently to the exchange. At Creedan's reply, many of them laughed while most of them shook their heads, muttering about being woken up in the early morning hours. Fully half of the crowd wore only their undergarments. They began to return to their homes quickly as they realized their lack of clothing.
Frowning at the departing crowd, the short man turned back to them. "I apologize for the unseemly welcome," he said with a cordial smile as he studied them each from head to toe. "My name is Kiplin Sturgis, Governor of West Realm. I welcome you to the town of Hillport, a welcome that I hope is not standard practice when I am not here."
"Thank you," Thalian murmured politely. "I am Thalian, and this is Shalay and Leanne. We appreciate your intervention."
"Not at all," Kiplin replied dryly. "I believe that they become weary of keeping watch and so stimulate themselves with enough ale for anyone to see a phantom." Squinting at the western horizon where the sun was just beginning to climb into the sky, he motioned them to follow him. "Come and have some breakfast with me, and you can tell me about life in the capital."
Leanne tried to shake her head at Thalian without being seen, but he just nodded to Kiplin Sturgis, thanked him for his hospitality, and began to follow. Leanne looked at Shalay to see what her reaction would be. Her eyes shone with excited anticipation, much the way they did right before someone fell into one of her jokes. Leanne felt around with her aeri and realized for the first time that she could not sense Lochnar anywhere. She wondered if he were still there—hiding his aeri—or if he had abandoned them.
They followed Kiplin Sturgis down the main street where a few villagers who had decided it was too late to go back to bed stared at them as they walked by. They continued down the main street until they reached another street that was just as wide crossing horizontally. The house that Kiplin Sturgis led them to was on the corner of the intersection of the two main streets. The house itself was three stories high and twice as large as any of the other buildings that were in the village. Supporting the front of the building, it had broad wooden columns with scrolling artwork. There was a small garden in the front and a pathway that led up to the front door. Kiplin Sturgis led them around to the back of the building and into the kitchen.
There was a long table large enough to seat forty people. As they sat down, Kiplin Sturgis walked into the kitchens that adjoined their room and asked for breakfast. He returned with his shirt properly tucked in and sat down at the head of the table, studying them keenly.
Leanne began to feel nervous as the silence stretched out. A servant brought them water to drink and returned to the kitchen. Leanne did not need Thalian's warning glance to refrain from drinking the water.
"What news have you from Anopolis?" Kiplin Sturgis inquired as he sipped from his glass of water. "We hear very little here in the back country."
"I couldn't tell you anything new, governor," Thalian replied with his arms folded in front of him. "We have been away for a long time now. We hoped for information on current affairs ourselves as we returned to civilized lands."
"Ah," Kiplin Sturgis said, smiling into his glass. "Aside from a new guild master, we have heard of nothing new."
Leanne watched her brother in amazement. If she did not know him, she would never have guessed he was lying through his teeth. Shalay was also staring at him as if he had sprouted horns.
"Will you be traveling to Anopolis from here by ship?" Kiplin Sturgis asked them casually. Leanne felt a kind of probing in the questions he asked. His dark eyes seemed to glow with an inner light that made Leanne feel like there was someone else behind those eyes that watched her.
"Perhaps further down," Thalian replied easily. "We have some colleagues we are meeting up with first." Though Thalian appeared relaxed, Leanne could see he had not moved his right hand more than a few inches away from his sword hilt.
"I see," Kiplin Sturgis murmured smoothly, contemplating them as he sipped from his glass. Leanne had a feeling he had been expecting someone to come down out of the mountains. She also did not think they were the ones he expected.
Servants appeared from the kitchens, breaking the silence with clattering platters of ham and eggs as well as toasted bread with jam. Leanne barely stopped herself from drooling as the smells wafted across to her. They had barely eaten as they descended the mountain, snatching only enough to keep them going at the breakneck pace that their silent guide set.
"Please eat," their host urged them. "It is the least I can do to absolve our village of your rude welcoming."
Leanne reached out with her aeri to sense the food, looking for properties that should not be there. She had eaten these foods enough to recognize any irregularities in their aeri.
The difference was immediately evident. The eggs had been seasoned liberally with something that was foreign to her, but she knew what the effect of the substance would be from the make-up of its aeri. It was very like Spiritsnare, except that it would sever the body from its spirit or similarly damage it. She wondered if Kiplin Sturgis thought that they were helpless or if there was something hidden deeper that she could not sense. She reached into the seasoning with her aeri to change the properties to something safe when she realized the trap. She would have to change the properties of each individual grain of seasoning, which would take hours.
She looked inquiringly at Shalay, who also realized the complications that making the food safe presented. Before either of them could say anything, however, Kiplin Sturgis's head fell onto his plate while the rest of him sat upright. Leanne gasped, staring wide-eyed at him as he suddenly burst into a flame that consumed him in seconds. He left no ashes, nor did his chair show any scorch marks.
"Evictor scum," muttered a voice coming from behind their late host's chair. "It's time to go. Now."
Unexpectedly, Leanne could feel a small part of Lochnar's aeri. It was just large enough that she could follow him even if she could not see him. She stood up unsteadily and began to follow. She saw Thalian glance uneasily at the empty chair at the head of the table and knew that he was wondering the same thing that she was. What would have happened had we refused to eat the food?
As they left the building, some of the villagers waved at them. Most, however, ignored them and continued about their business as if no one else existed. They followed the sense of Lochnar's aeri as he led them through different intersections. They eventually arrived at the outer edge of the village opposite the side they had come in on. They began making their way down the south road.
"We need to meet your friends tomorrow morning," Lochnar told them, investing the word "friends" with scorn.
They just nodded mutely and followed. They were too tired and hungry to argue. They still had not had a decent meal or a decent night's sleep for four days.
"What I wouldn't give for a bath," Leanne muttered to herself. Shalay flashed her a quick smile and nodded fervently. The two of them were still dressed in the same clothes in which they had left Avenry. They were covered in a thick layer of grime from travel. Leanne's dark hair was gnarled with tangles, and her face was smudged with dirt. Shalay looked even worse, with her light blond hair filled with dirt and twigs. Her innocent face was beginning to take on a gaunt cast and her already slender frame seemed ready to wilt. Thalian's normally handsome face was also covered in dirt and his hair looked like a collapsed haystack.
They continued down the south road for the rest of the day and night. They had fewer breaks than they had before Hillport, and when evening came, they did not stop to make camp until well into the early morning hours. They were just reaching a place where the road came within fifty paces of the river that they had been paralleling when Lochnar finally called a halt. He gestured for them to follow him off the road and walked over to a small copse of trees next to the river. Leanne tried to settle down to the ground gracefully, but her legs gave out beneath her, and she sat down with a thump. Beside her she heard Shalay drop as well, followed by Thalian.
* * *
As the three exhausted youths fell asleep, Lochnar began the nightly routine of scanning the area for enemies, a practice he had been doing for centuries now. He was not looking forward to the meeting in the morning. Kallath had a way about him that rubbed Lochnar the wrong way, which made every meeting a thorn in his side. He had a feeling that he would be seeing his daughter as well, something he really did not look forward to.
As he neared the western edge of the trees, he felt a familiar resonance as he scanned ahead with his aeri. Pausing, he quickly scanned the entire perimeter to see if anyone else was approaching from the other directions. Sensing nothing, he went out to meet the new arrival, flexing his fingers with the desire to throttle someone.
"Lochnar!" Thistledown shouted jovially as he approached the camp. Lochnar winced even though he knew he was the only one that could hear the shout. If his own continued existence did not depend on it, he would have killed Thistledown where he stood.
"Still playing the faithful hound, I see," Lochnar said contemptuously.
Thistledown strolled up to where he waited, unperturbed by the cold reception. He wore his brown country trousers—held up with suspenders—over a grey farm shirt. His black boots went up to midcalf and were caked in grime and mud. The way that he chose to look disturbed Lochnar almost as much as the way that he chose to act. To some, the folksy character was disarmingly charming. An idiom did not exist that Lochnar despised more, however.
"Still your cheerful old self, I see," Thistledown said with a sunny smile. "Are the others here?"
"No," Lochnar replied acidly, "I ran out of food on the way and decided to make something useful out of them." Lochnar felt his already black mood darkening. Asking questions that you already knew the answer to was one of the dumber human traits.
Thistledown laughed as if he had made a joke and walked into the camp to survey the slumbering trio. "They look pretty worn out." He sounded concerned, another stupid human trait.
"They are still alive," Lochnar growled, sounding not entirely pleased by the fact. "Are you just here to irritate me or is there a reason that you dropped in?"
"Kallath sent me to lead you to the cottage," Thistledown replied, still fussing over the state of the three youths. "Did you have any trouble on your way down?"
"No," Lochnar replied shortly, spitting on the ground next to him.
Thistledown looked at him for a moment longer, sensing that he was not telling the whole truth. "Well, that's good to hear," Thistledown said finally. "We found some interesting critters on our way down. Kallath thinks they were waiting to meet you."
Lochnar grunted without saying anything. He would not play Thistledown's game of prompting him for details. Thistledown apparently realized that he was not going to ask any questions. Lochnar felt a stab of satisfaction at the flash of irritation that swept across Thistledown's face.
"Somehow, the Evictors have discovered how to create their own hosts," Thistledown said, his face slightly puzzled. "They won't need to be able to use aeri-astra to force their way into these hosts, because they don't have a protective aura. They were also about twenty feet tall and made out of some kind of ore," he finished with a significant glance at Lochnar's side, where he kept his sword. He and Thistledown were the only known living people that could see it now.
The sword had been made before the cataclysm of the old world, when Evictors were all but indestructible. One of the Delphites had crafted it in such a way that if the wielder beheaded an Evictor, it would not only kill the host, but it would also unravel one of the elements that made up the Evictor spirit. This caused it to consume the host in a spiritual flame. Before the Delphite was able to share the secret of their making with the rest of his order, he was killed by one of the Arachnites. Arachnites were assassins that derived their name from a spider that had never been seen by anyone living but invariably left a small web around the bite. The assassins also left a small woven pattern of hair harvested from previous victims.
Lochnar ignored the obvious point that Thistledown tried to make. Even if his sword could not kill the stone men of whom he spoke, he would find a way. It was no surprise Evictors laid ambushes for him. Aside from Kallath, there was no other person who had killed as many Evictors as Lochnar.
"Your daughter is at the cottage," Thistledown spoke up suddenly. "She claimed she wouldn't let us leave with Michael alone."
Lochnar did not answer, but his silence was eloquent. He had hoped that he was wrong and that it was another teacher accompanying Kallath. As usual, hope was a vain ideal on which to depend.
Lochnar stared at Thistledown with the gaze that most of his dead enemies had received before the killing blow. "If you mention our special link to her, I will kill you."
"Wouldn't dream of it, ol' chap," Thistledown replied, completely unfazed. "In fact, I would be just as happy if never another soul learnt of it."
Lochnar glanced back at the slumbering forms, grimacing at the delay they caused with their constant need of sleep and sustenance. It had been so long ago since he had suffered from the same limitations that he did not remember what it was like. He turned away from Thistledown and began his circuit of the surrounding area, more to avoid the near proximity to Thistledown than any concern of an intruder. It was with some surprise that he felt a form skulking at the outer edges of his aeri, as if it knew it would be identified if it came any closer.
In a flash, he had unsheathed his sword and let go of the world around him so that both his aeri and physical body vanished from sight. He scanned the other directions with his aeri, looking for signs of an ambush. Sensing nothing, he pulsed between the fabric of this world and the spiritual plane, a trick that enabled him to cover short distances in the space of a second. A moment later, he was high up in the tree that he had previously been standing next to, gazing toward the intrusion. He could sense it clearer from his perch in the tree. It was clearly not human, though he was not sure what it was. Its aeri was so twisted up and tangled that it didn't seem possible for it to function within a body.
Using the inner voice that he shared with Thistledown, something that he had almost never done before, he whispered into the stillness, "Get the children out of here."
There was a moment of startled silence and then he sensed Thistledown quietly waking the youths and urging them out of the small copse of trees. Lochnar silently moved from tree to tree, trying to see the form of the creature that skulked around their camp. As he reached the edge of the trees where he sensed the tangled mess of the creature's aeri, he saw a crouched woman staring into the trees where the others were. To say that she was disparate would have been a gross understatement. She wore tattered rags instead of clothing and squatted barefoot in the dirt. Her hair was as long as her waist, but it looked like it had never seen a brush. She made small grunting noises, sometimes followed by a half-legible word as she slowly ambled back and forth at the edge of the trees.
Lochnar felt his veins ignite with white-hot rage as he realized what she was. He had only met two other women in this state because they almost never survived the ordeal. He would have been in that same state had Kallath not appeared when he had. Lochnar's race did not feel pity, but he had killed both of the other women that he had found like this. He knew that he would have to do the same thing to this one.
As he prepared to leap to the ground and take her head from her shoulders, she looked up at him with her catlike eyes, recognition lasting only a moment before she scampered off into the distance.
Screaming in fury, Lochnar leaped to the ground and used his aeri to strike every tree within sight. As fast as he could, he howled with the need to kill and torched everything within range. Pouring his aeri deep into the earth, he sent his shout through the very crust of the planet. "Jared!" he screamed. "Wherever you go, I will find you and make you suffer for eternity!"
* * *
On a newly risen island in the Cordaln Sea, Jared smiled in pleasure as he heard the cry of rage echoing through the bedrock below him.