It was then, once Roy was beginning to lose momentum, that two spears of ruby light cut through the crypt. He and Percival halted in their ministrations, then twisted to the entryway. There stood a ghost, its eyes trained on Roy.
Roy watched, his feet fixed to the ground, as the shadow lifted a silhouetted hand. It curled its fingers into a fist, then slashed diagonally. Not an attack, Roy thought, but a gesture of some kind.
“Valusvar,” Roy said. “Or Kharuan. Something about the swords...”
Percival boomed, “What is this, Roy? What thefuckis this?” The muscles of his throat stood on end, and his veins bulged like thick cords of rope. Then his face fell. “You told me about a... a shadow when we played the drinking game. This is it, isn’t it?”
Roy nodded weakly.
“Fuck,I shouldn’t have questioned it. What is it?”
“It’s a ghost, Percival,” Roy answered, dragging a long breath of cold, stale air into his lungs. The ghost made the same gesture as before, slashing out its transparent arm, and Roy added, “I think it wants the swords.”
The ghost drifted closer, its feet not quite touching the ground. It rolled its head back, casting crimson light upon the coffins of the Protectorate, then dropped its brightening gaze to the swords. It was standing upon the edge of the dais now, each of its steps forward earning a step back from Percival and Roy. It rose higher into the air, remnants of darkness unfurling from the soles of its feet. It stretched outward like kneaded dough, its eyes taking on a spine-chilling liquid quality.
Roy monitored its ascension, a small, choked sound of fright escaping his lips.
Then came a voice, shrill and desperate, issuing from the general direction of the ghost and resounding throughout the chamber.Please, please, please,it hissed.Help me, help me, help me.Its pleas were abruptly cut off by a high, wavering scream.
Roy jumped, his heart climbing up his throat, and stumbled back into Percival, who clutched Roy by the nape of his neck, his harsh, ragged breaths bursting across the shell of Roy’s ear. They stared, horrified, as the ghost started to crumble apart and fracture, breaking off into infinitesimal pieces of shadow. It curled its body inward, like a snake coiling to strike, then dove down and plummeted soundlessly into the sarcophagus at the heart of the chamber, the sarcophagus in which they’d found the swords.
Percival shouted, “Run! Run,now!”
But Roy could not move. He was locked in place, his eyes fixed on the central sarcophagus. He could feel the air shivering, then slowly realized why. The chorus of screams from before had thinned out and was now narrowing into one voice, an articulate and oddly aristocratic one. It sounded sharp and clear in Roy’s mind.
Fret not, mortals. I mean you no harm and bear you no ill will.
Then a creature sat up from inside the sarcophagus, made from the bones of the Elder Scribe that had been buried within and outlined with shadow. Its strange eyes had dimmed but not died out.
Roy whispered, “Who are you?”
The ghost cocked its head with a strangely feline curiosity, as if in anticipation of their reactions.I am Atticus Walestone, though in the latter half of my days, unbeknownst to my peers, I also went by Razkamun.
Roy doubled back, reeling, and nearly knocked Percival over. He stared, uncomprehending. While he hadn’t read much of Walestone’s bibliography, as he wasn’t particularly interested in the cosmos and the possibility of other worlds existing beyond his own, he had mentioned to Percival during their drinking game that some kind of amorphous magnetism had drawn him toward Razkamun’s oeuvre. Perhaps he hadn’t discerned any specific parallels between Walestone’s and Razkamun’s works, as the two scholars seemed to have engaged with entirely different fields of study, but Roy supposed Walestone had likely planned for this, considering the detestable criticisms Razkamun’s papers had received. As Roy thought on it, he couldn’t remember ever coming across a sketch of Razkamun, either, but this hadn’t troubled him. Many old-world scholars had preferred to remain anonymous, terrified as they were of backlash.
“What?” Percival shouted. He spun to Roy. “Wearguedabout Razkamun when we first got here, and now your addlebrained hero is going to kill us in these fucking tunnels.”
But this wasn’t his hero... and yet, it also was. Because he’d always admired Walestone, too—his eccentric interest in cosmology was unorthodox, sure, but also courageous—and knowing they were one and the same... It somehow clicked. And part of that was the fact that they had nothing to fear from this ghost.
As if sensing Roy’s assent, Walestone leaned forward.I heeded your summons, scholars—not to cause fright or alarm, but to deliver a warning. There is a great evil afoot, a tremble in the air.As he said this, he stared raptly at the swords.
Roy wasn’t sure what that look meant, but something more pressing nagged at him. “There are more of your kind, as we’ve seen in the library, but only you have thus far made yourself known. Why haven’t any others?” Roy recalled, then, the unseen barrier that had prevented him and Percival from making out the whispers within the catacombs. They had heard voices, but only a few, and those only slightly, like they were indeed caught behind, or enclosed within, some sort of obstruction.
Although I have come to your world from my own,Walestone said,others may be hesitant to do so.
As though completely disregarding what Walestone had revealed, Percival demanded, “Release them from whatever cage contains them.”
You argue it was I who captured those adrift souls.Walestone’s red eyes flickered in a horrifying imitation of anger.But how could that possibly be when I have withstood my own suffering?
Roy assured Walestone, “We’ll come to your aid and find a way to release you and your kind, if you might tell us what occurred. You can have peace.Freedom.”
My memories are a frail web, Walestone said, his elegant voice shaking with grief.I have roamed too long a path to reflect and remember my end.
Roy looked down at his feet, ashamed and slightly disappointed. He’d expected Walestone to impart some crucial piece of information after millennia of drifting through the afterlife. Perhaps he was still clinging to the echoes of his grief, though, something to feel so he did not lose his way.
“No memories?” Percival pressed, his face paling. “None?”
There have been... impressions, of late, Walestone admitted.Screams. Cries. Pleas for mercy.
