AVENUES OF HILLANDER

Thursgad screamed and ran.

The way the intruders pushed and scrambled their way down the corridor, practically falling over one another, almost made Karigan laugh. If they didn’t hold the lives of Agemon and Iris in their hands, she’d consider it good fun. Her haunting was clearly having an effect. Even on the man with the knife.

The trouble was that in mere moments they’d be in the brightly lit main corridor, making her ghostly antics more difficult to pull off.

Sure enough, once the intruders reached the light, they slowed down and relaxed and put aside their lamps. Karigan watched from the darkness of the old corridor as they marched onward. She glanced briefly into the dark behind her, wishing she’d had a chance to pay her respects to King Jonaeus as Agemon had.

The intruders continued past the corridor leading to the House of Sun and Moon, and when they passed Queen Lyra’s chamber, Karigan was so tired she was nearly tempted to slip into bed next to the dead queen and take a nap.

As she followed the intruders, she wondered yet again what she could do. She’d begun to erode their confidence with her haunting, but they seemed to have regained it. If she could frighten them again, maybe they’d make a mistake, slow down, scatter, give Agemon and Iris a chance to escape.

They came to a large round chamber with a domed ceiling, murals painted in its coffered recesses. In the center of the chamber stood a huge, heroic sculpture of a king on a horse, with his arm stretched out like a conqueror offering benediction to the conquered. Down here that would be the dead. All that was missing was a pigeon or two.

A colonnade surrounded the chamber and from it led galleries like spokes to a wheel. At each entrance stood a suit of armor.

“Avenues of Hillander,” Agemon said. “This way.” And he led the men into one of the galleries.

King Smidhe, Karigan thought, looking at the statue anew. The king responsible for unifying Sacoridia’s provinces. Agemon was taking those men to his tomb.

She needed to do something. She glanced desperately around, then flitted off down a different gallery, gazing at various Hillanders in eternal repose for inspiration. A good many were installed in sarcophagi, but others rested fully garbed on funeral slabs, their parchmentlike skin taut over skulls and bony hands.

Karigan paused and tapped her foot, thinking fast. The intruders knew nothing of her or her ability to fade. Well, Thursgad might remember, but she doubted he’d connect his “spirit Rider” of two years ago with the ghostly presence in the tombs. He didn’t strike her as overly bright. To them she’d appear a ghost, even if she couldn’t fade completely in the light. In fact, being only partially faded would enhance the effect. That was her hope, anyway.

She smiled at the plan, but her smile turned to a grimace as she started removing royal raiment from its owners. Agemon was going to have a fit.

A pair of white marble sarcophagi lay at the end of the gallery, practically glowing in the lamplight, the likenesses of King Smidhe and Queen Aldesta regal in their serenity. Behind them was a false window of stained glass backlit with a lamp, depicting a king and queen looking at the castle from a distance, the crescent moon above the highest turret. The king bore a torch.

“This better be the one, old man,” the knife wielder said, holding Iris close.

Agemon mumbled imperceptibly and fiddled with his specs.

Thursgad approached King Smidhe’s sarcophagus with the book. Karigan took this as her cue to make her ghostly appearance. She’d extinguished several lamps along the way to aid the effect, but it had surely been a trial getting this far dragging her heavy, kingly mantle of thick velvet and fur along the floor behind her.

She faded out, and in the light, looking through her hand was like looking through clouded glass.

“Halt!” she cried.

They turned. Thursgad dropped the book on the floor with a resounding boom and hid behind King Smidhe’s tomb.

Agemon took to muttering and pulling on his hair, while Iris, even with the knife held close to her, looked about to laugh. The other two intruders were dumbstruck.

Karigan raised her borrowed scepter, threw her arms wide. “Desecrators!”

She stepped forward, but kept her progress slow. She couldn’t tell what made her head hurt more—the fading or the crown pressing on her scalp wound.

“Defilers!” Karigan wished the intruders would do something other than gape at her. Agemon gazed at the ceiling. Was he praying? Cursing her for despoiling his precious corpses?

“Who are you, O spirit?” the soldier asked, his voice trembling.

“Shut up, Gare,” the knife wielder said.

Karigan kept moving, allowing light and shadows to fade her in and out. What, she wondered, should her response be? She decided the ghostly thing to do was not to answer at all, so instead she moaned. “The empire will faaaaail.” And she disappeared into the deepest, darkest shadow she could find.

“You lie!” the man with the knife screamed, his voice echoing down the gallery. “Gare, the book!”

When Gare did not move fast enough, the knife wielder shoved Iris out of the way and reached for the book on the floor.

This was the very thing Karigan had been waiting for. She tossed aside scepter and crown, and threw off the mantle, and charged at the intruders, sword drawn, yelling like a crazed demon.

Thursgad, who poked his head above King Smidhe’s sarcophagus, fainted. Gare’s mouth dropped open and only the man with the knife had the presence of mind to react by drawing his own sword. Agemon grabbed Iris and ran with her down the gallery.

Good, Karigan thought. Now she had only herself to worry about.

As ready as the man was for her, he looked confused, and when their swords clashed, Karigan realized she’d not dropped her fading. She did so now so it would no longer drain her strength. After all, he could see her in the light, translucent though she was, and once they engaged, it was clear she was a solid living person and not a ghost at all.

She danced away and put Queen Aldesta between herself and them, but Gare jumped up on the sarcophagus lid, straddling the figure of the queen, his sword hurtling down on Karigan. She blocked it, but it felt like a hammer blow. Somehow she held onto the sword and swept it like a scythe into Gare’s leg. His scream was horrid and he tumbled off the tomb, crimson splattering white marble.

The last man came after her and their exchange of blows was deafening. Sweat burned Karigan’s eyes. If only she could keep this up. If only she could get past his defenses.

But as he pressed her around the king’s sarcophagus, she stumbled over the unconscious Thursgad. She managed to keep her footing, but could not properly block the man’s next blow. It sliced down her forearm, elbow to wrist, the leather guard protecting only a portion of her wrist before the blade slashed down the back of her hand.

Karigan’s sword clanged to the floor and she cried out, but the man did not pause. He came for the kill. She ducked just in time feeling his sword hum over her head.

The only thing left to her was to call on her fading and run. This she did and she had enough presence of mind to grab the book as she went.

The man was on her heels. She sought the dark places, but there weren’t enough to hide her. She pushed a statue in his path and threw an urn at him. This slowed him little. She felt like she ran in mud.

When she came to the domed chamber with the statue, she ran blindly down another gallery. She must hide, and hide quick. Someplace dark.