‘That’s why we’re going to have a bit of a change. Tomorrow we’ll do some practical work,’ I continued. ‘The prince has told me that in the eastern wing of the palace there are a number of sealed, haunted attics which aren’t used. It’s time these ghosts were sorted out. So we’ll see if you can manage to send a lingerer to the light.’
Lingerers were souls trapped on Earth – often ghosts who didn’t even know that they were dead.
The previous evening, thinking of Jenny’s training needs, I’d asked Prince Stanislaw if his ancient castle had any ghosts.
He’d smiled with his mouth but not his eyes. ‘Yes, we have ghosts. Many ghosts. There are places we cannot go. There is big danger. Many dark rooms. When lit by candles, shadows move strangely and air become very cold. We lock rooms long time. Seal danger inside. Old problem.’
‘I need to train my apprentice,’ I told him. ‘I could clear the ghosts from those rooms for you and then you’d be able to use them again.’
He’d looked at me like I was crazy. ‘You think you can do this? Many fail. Magowie have tried also many years ago. They try and die.’
I smiled at him. ‘I’m sure I can help. Will you let me try?’
Ghosts couldn’t usually kill people but did sometimes drive them insane. But there were exceptions – for example, there were strangler ghosts back in the County that spooks ranked from one to three. The very strongest, those of the first rank, were extremely rare, but they could asphyxiate their prey. They put their hands around the neck of their victims and squeezed. If they did it to the weak they could stop their breath.
In my master’s Bestiary, his personal compendium of creatures of the dark, there was also an account of something even more dangerous – his own encounter with an exceptionally strong strangler ghost that had killed a number of people.
But it hadn’t been able to kill John Gregory because of what he was. However, the news of the magowie deaths did make me think. We were far from the County. Perhaps things were different here?
‘I’m a seventh son of a seventh son,’ I told Stanislaw, giving him a confident smile. ‘Even the strongest ghost can’t kill me.’
The prince had shrugged. ‘Then I will give you the keys. So try do it. But flee if danger too great. Magowie who died were stubborn. They went back again and again. Best to know when you cannot win.’
Now, looking at Jenny, I took those keys from my pocket and dangled them in front of her. ‘The keys to the haunted attics,’ I told her. ‘So what do you think the first steps will be in dealing with the ghosts?’
‘Entering the attics and seeing what they contain,’ she replied, her face lighting up with enthusiasm. ‘Seeing how big the problem is and what needs to be done.’
‘So what will our biggest difficulty be after we’ve assessed the situation?’
‘Language,’ she replied thoughtfully. ‘You told me that you have to talk to a ghost and persuade it to go to the light. But Polyznian ghosts will talk Losta. They won’t understand our language.’
‘So?’ I demanded.
‘We’ll have to learn Losta!’
I nodded.
Jenny beamed at me. ‘I already know quite a few phrases that might be useful when dealing with a ghost – Grimalkin has been teaching me.’
The prospect of visiting those haunted attics clearly appealed to her. If she could eventually send a soul to the light, she’d feel she was making real progress, which was important for her development and confidence. So despite my weariness, I had to make the effort.
‘You can look after the keys,’ I told her. ‘There’ll be no theory lesson tomorrow – you can have the afternoon off – then soon after dark we’ll investigate the first of the attics in order to get some idea of what we’re dealing with.’
The following evening I was sitting in my window seat again, staring down at the flickering campfires. A cold wind was blowing from the north. I could hear it whining past the tower. It wouldn’t be long before the first fall of snow.
It was well after dark and Jenny still hadn’t arrived. I was beginning to worry. It wasn’t like her to be late.
Then I heard rapid footsteps outside my room. The door opened and Jenny burst in past the guard. Something was badly wrong.
However, I nodded at the man to signal all was well and he retreated, closing the door behind him. I turned to look at my apprentice: she was wearing my silver chain tied around her waist and carrying a rowan staff, but her eyes were wild and she was breathing hard.
‘I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!’ she cried, collapsing onto a seat.
‘What have you done?’ I asked, trying not to raise my voice.
She gabbled out her tale so quickly that I struggled to follow. She’d taken the keys and entered one of the haunted attics on her own. She’d expected to find ghosts but had stumbled across something far worse. There’d been what appeared to be a circular stone well. A glass had filled with blood and dropped down the shaft. Then the stones had begun to steam and some terrible entity had risen up out of the pit. The lights had gone out and she’d been confronted by a monstrous being with six glowing eyes that reached towards her with its tentacles.
‘I was terrified but I reacted without thinking,’ Jenny said, hardly pausing for breath. ‘I dropped my staff, reached into my pockets and grabbed a handful of salt and another of iron filings. Then I flung both straight at those frightening red eyes.
‘I’ve never been so scared in my life. I knew that if it was some sort of ghost it wouldn’t work. If it was a daemon or something else from the dark, it might not do much good either. The thing gave out a loud roar and the whole chamber began to shake. The head dropped towards the pit and the tentacles seemed suddenly shorter, shrunken. It wasn’t destroyed, but the salt and iron gave me just enough time to escape. I snatched up my staff and ran for my life. I slammed the first door shut behind me. Once through the second door, I locked it – though I knew that this might not be enough to stop it. I feared that thing might get out into the castle and attack other people and I’d be responsible for their deaths. I’m sorry, Tom. I’m really sorry for being so stupid.’
‘Why? Why on earth did you do it?’ I asked.
‘I just wanted to prove to myself that I’m good enough to be a spook. I thought it would be easy. I’ve learned some useful phrases from Grimalkin. I know enough Losta to be able to say Think of a happy time in your life and Go to the light! I was hoping to come back and say that I’d done it, that I’d sent a soul to the light. But I didn’t expect that . . . It wasn’t a ghost. The prince told you that they were attics haunted by ghosts. I thought I might be able to do more to help you – take some of the burden off you when you’re such a long way short of being fit.’
My heart was thudding at the thought of the risk she’d taken. She could have been killed. And she was right – that entity might have been able to get out of the attic and into the castle. Many lives might have been lost as a result. Although Jenny had behaved irresponsibly, I tried to remain calm and spoke slowly.
‘We’re in a foreign land now, not back in the County where we have generations of experience on how the dark manifests itself. Things are different here. We shouldn’t take risks with the unknown. That was probably the most stupid thing you’ve done in your entire life!’ I told her. ‘There are worse things than death. Some of the entities from the dark can do more than just put an end to your body. They can snuff out your soul – as if you’d never existed.’
‘I’ll never be so stupid again. I’ve learned my lesson!’ Jenny exclaimed. ‘It’ll be good to leave the practice and get back to the theory!’
She was trying to put on a brave face, but she was still shaking with fear. I had to be cruel to be kind, to impress on her how serious her actions had been.
‘It’s not something to joke about, Jenny!’ I snapped. ‘Yes, it was a lesson – one that I hope you’ll never forget! We have a duty to others. In some situations we might have to sacrifice o
ur own lives. You stupidly put others at risk!’
‘I’m sorry! I’m sorry!’ she cried, tears streaming down her cheeks.
‘But you’re right about one thing. We do need to get back to the theory. That’s exactly what we need to do,’ I told her firmly. ‘We need to find out a lot more about that attic before we go back there together.’
‘We’re going back to face that?’
‘Of course we are. I told you that being a spook was dangerous. And when we start a job, we finish it. You might have awakened something really dangerous – something that might be able to break out of that attic. We have to make it safe.’
‘How can we find out more about it?’ Jenny asked, brushing away her tears.
‘I’ll talk to Prince Stanislaw tomorrow. I should have asked more questions when I spoke to him previously. That was no ghost – though the prince called it that. He speaks our language far better than I speak Losta, but—’
‘That’s not too difficult for him,’ Jenny interrupted sarcastically.
I stifled an angry response. One minute Jenny was in floods of tears, I reflected; the next she was being cheeky again. I would never have spoken to my master John Gregory in that manner, I thought wryly. But Jenny had a natural impudence and she’d just survived a very stressful situation. We both had.
‘True,’ I told her, ‘but the prince’s vocabulary is limited. I should have realized that we might not be talking about the same thing. At least that’s something you can learn from my mistake. When dealing with something unknown, gather as many facts as possible before you get anywhere near it.’
In my weakened condition, I hadn’t been looking forward to going into the attics, but I’d still expected it to be a routine training exercise. Now I realized that even if Jenny and I had gone together, the encounter with the entity from the well would have been very dangerous. I’d been assuming we’d meet the ghost of some Polyznian nobleman or perhaps a guard – which would have given me some serious communication problems. I wasn’t sure what the entity in the attic was, but it was clearly something extremely powerful.
‘Was it some sort of daemon?’ Jenny asked.
I shrugged. ‘It certainly doesn’t sound like anything I’ve come up against before. It might have been a daemon or even something unknown; something that we County spooks have no record of.’
I didn’t divulge my true fears regarding what she’d encountered. Her account had shaken me to the core. I was far from home and the threat was way outside my experience. I had enough problems without this. Jenny had probably awakened something that might threaten the whole castle and beyond.
It had to be dealt with.
The following morning I checked the rooms below the turret and found no sign of any type of chimney leading down. The well that Jenny described didn’t pass through the kitchens or the throne room to reach the ground. She had called it a well, but I was certain it was really some sort of portal to the dark.
Prince Stanislaw was busy dealing with affairs of state and it was late afternoon before he found time to receive me. As we walked along the battlements, our breath steaming in the cold air, I gave him an account of what Jenny had experienced.
‘I expected to find the ghosts of people in those attics,’ I explained. ‘I think that what Jenny faced was some type of daemon.’
‘Is daemon not same as ghost? No?’
‘Daemons are far more powerful and dangerous.’
The prince nodded thoughtfully. ‘Many years ago – before my lifetime, before my father lifetime and his father – this castle was captured by Kobalos. Wicked enemy live here many years before driven back. Many years when they do as they wish. Their mages talk to dark ghosts in that attic. They whispered to dark things in dark pit that leads to Hell. Some magowie who entered that room were never seen again. Others blasted by heat. Only bits of burn flesh remained.’
I nodded. So we were dealing with dangerous Kobalos dark entities.
‘Your apprentice chose most dangerous room to enter. Others not so bad. One has ghost of a Kobalos. We think he once mage but power now gone. He mutter to himself. Scare people but do no harm.’
‘Then I’ll go and talk to his ghost next,’ I said. Maybe that ghost would know something about the entity that Jenny had encountered. Grimalkin had told me that most Kobalos mages spoke our language as well as Losta.
‘Where is he to be found?’ I asked. ‘In which attic?’
‘The tallest tower in north-east. But rest tonight and save strength. We are almost ready to cross river and attack,’ the prince continued, gesturing down at the army below. ‘You speak to us tomorrow? Talk about plan?’
‘Yes, I’ll talk tomorrow,’ I told him. Grimalkin had finished helping me to rehearse my speech. She had already warned me about tomorrow. I was as ready as I would ever be.
‘Just one thing,’ Stanislaw said. ‘Remember, we not tell them you just farmer boy. It is for the best. Keep to sorceress’s plan, no? You agree? They follow better if it is so.’
I smiled in agreement and then went off to tell Jenny that she wouldn’t have to face the monstrous thing in the attic again until we’d talked to the ghost of a mage.
TOM WARD
I WAS NERVOUS at the prospect of addressing the rulers of the principalities, even though I knew exactly what to say and how to behave.
When I arrived, they were already gathered around a large square wooden table in Prince Stanislaw’s throne room. The mullioned window above showed scenes of forests, glades and lakes.
Grimalkin followed me in, carrying the map. Jenny was still posing as my personal servant, so her presence wasn’t required. She’d been annoyed about that – her natural curiosity had made her eager to attend.
I looked around. Despite all my rehearsals, would I be able to carry it off? I wondered. Guards resplendent in ceremonial dress were stationed along the walls, each armed with a sharp spear and a stout club.
Despite the log fire burning in the grate behind the throne, the long room was chilly. It would be a miserable place in winter. It had a high vaulted ceiling; torches flickering in brackets dispelled most of the gloom, but pools of darkness lingered in the far corners of that vast space. And high above us, in the attic, was the portal to the dark that Jenny had seen.
I looked up at the ceiling, remembering her account of the dark entity that had emerged from it, and shivered.
I was dressed in the garments that Grimalkin had brought with her from the County – garments that befitted my station as a prince. On each shoulder was embossed the red rose of the County; she had sewn them on herself. Those here to meet me were clad in their finery and I had to look the part. As Prince Stanislaw had explained, it was in all our interests not to reveal that I was just a commoner.
Grimalkin, however, was in her usual garb, her skirt hitched up to aid movement. She wore the usual leather straps across her body, but the scabbards were empty of blades in deference to the occasion; only the guards were armed.
So I hadn’t got the Starblade with me. The weapon had let me down when fighting the shaiksa but had defended me against dark magic on other occasions. There was no reason to expect a threat here but I did feel naked without it.
Those gathered around the table smiled and nodded at us. They acted in a deferential manner, looking at me in awe. Grimalkin had prepared me for this and I took it in my stride. I had risen from the dead – it was to be expected. A servant offered us glasses of wine the same shade of red as the County rose. Immediately it made me think of the glass that Jenny had seen filling with blood beside the portal and I suppressed a shudder.
Grimalkin and I politely refused the offers; I simply walked over to the table and, after smoothing the map flat, pinned it into position.
Prince Stanislaw introduced each member of the company in turn and I nodded politely, trying my best to remember the names, most of which were almost impossible to pronounce. But I had already learned that six principalities were represented.
Prince Stanislaw’s Polyznia was by far the largest; the next most significant was the mountainous Wayaland, closely followed by Shallotte, which was near the coast.
The easiest one to remember was Prince Kaylar of Wayaland, because in addition to his immense stature – he must have been at least seven feet tall – and broad muscular body, he had a long black beard that almost reached his waist, ending in three plaits that curled upwards, pointing at us like a trident.
This alliance of princes had provided an army which, according to the witch assassin, would total just over seven thousand fighting men. Four thousand would be mounted, and among the infantry there would be two thousand archers. We could also field three eighteen-pounder guns, each pulled by a team of mules. We had sappers too – men who could dig tunnels and undermine fortified walls.
In addition to the soldiers, two thousand ancillary staff would act in support: they included cooks, smiths, those responsible for stores and a variety of servants to attend the royals. It was a lot of men to lead. And here was I, struggling to lead one apprentice!
Despite her earlier misgivings, Grimalkin was now pleased by what had been mobilized by the relatively small principalities. She believed that if the larger kingdoms to the south were to provide forces in the same proportion to their size, especially the Germanic ones, we would eventually have a real chance against the Kobalos.
We were a long way north-east of the County, which was separated from this battlefront by a huge continental land mass and the stormy northern sea. But, if we didn’t defeat it, in time the dark army that we faced would directly threaten the County.
I turned to face the princes and caught the eye of Prince Stanislaw, who gave me a faint smile and the lightest of nods. Then, trying to speak calmly and firmly, as the witch assassin had instructed, I told the first of my lies.
I pointed to the map, indicating Valkarky. ‘That is our objective. We should arrive in less than two weeks. It may take another week to successfully breach the walls of the city.’