Ghostwalker

Chapter 10

28 Tarsakh

Arya did not know how long they had been traveling through the forest, Swiftfall picking her way between fallen limbs and avoiding holes in the ground. The deeper they went, the darker it became and the less at ease she felt. The silence of their ride did not help. Walker was far from talkative. Nightmares had gripped him earlier, and he had called out strange words she had not recognized, but they seemed to have passed, leaving him silent.

At first, she had filled the quiet with the tale of how she came to be in Quaervarr, of the vanished couriers, and of her suspicions about Greyt. Now, the knight divided her focus between ducking under tree branches and thinking about the mysterious man slumped against her back. He had long since stopped murmuring, and now she didn't know if he were even still breathing.

"Walker?" she asked. "Still with me back there?"

When there was no response, Arya turned her head back to look at Walker. He sat slumped, eyes closed, on the back of the horse. "Walker?" she asked in a frightened whisper. "Are you-still alive?"

His eyes flickered open and his intense blue gaze found her worried face.

"Of course," said Walker. "I shall speak up if I feel about to expire."

Arya looked away, hiding her relief. At first, she was upset he had frightened her, and that his voice had been almost mocking, but she laughed. It was appropriate, since she had sounded like a frightened little girl.

"Was that a jest?" she asked with a half smile.

Walker did not reply except to release her waist.

"What's the matter?" asked Arya, worried again, clutching at his hand. He felt so cold, even through the glove.

"I can sit on my own," Walker said. She heard a tiny elf touch to his voice.

"You've lost that much blood and now you can sit on your own?" Arya asked, doubtful.

"Healing." His rasping voice was soft.

"No one heals that fast," Arya said. "You were on Kelemvor's doorstep when I pulled you onto Swiftfall's back. How-"

Walker's right hand came up from her side. In the moonlight, a tiny sapphire glistened from within a silver wolf's head ring wrapped around the fourth finger.

"You have many secrets, it seems," said the knight with a nod of approval. "Lone wolf."

Walker nodded. Looking away, Arya bit her lip in thought. She was familiar with rings that healed their wearers-a warrior in the field did not always have a priest's healing at hand-and how powerful such rings could be. Still, she did not know how healed he was.

"Put your arms back around me," Arya said finally. "I don't want you falling off-I'm too tired to pick you up again."

Walker hesitated, but he did as he was told. She supposed the order was half for his benefit and half for hers. It was bitterly cold and though his arms were not overly warm, Arya welcomed them. His proximity reassured her against the dark of the forest.

That was what she told herself, at least.

"Talk to me," said Arya after a moment. "I've told you all about myself; what about you?"

"What shall I tell?" asked Walker. His voice still rasped, but he did not sound so deathly now. "I walk with ghosts. I have my task. That is all."

"Your task… you mean killing people?" She felt him wince at her harsh tone, and she quickly amended. "People who wronged you? Hurt someone you loved? Greyt? The others?"

Walker said nothing and silence fell again.

"I'm still not convinced you're not the one attacking those couriers, you know," Arya observed after a moment. "It's quite a coincidence, that I run into you exactly when I'm investigating those attacks-"

"Yet you aid me now," Walker replied. "Why?"

Arya paused. "My… Lord Greyt wants you dead, and that's enough for me." She was not sure why, but she stopped herself from drawing a connection with her step-uncle. "The same man is trying to kill us both, whatever his plans might be. Then the man's son, gods above, he's just as dangerous-"

Walker perked up. "Meris?" he asked, interrupting.

Then he stopped and looked around. "Wait." His arms were gone from around her waist.

Arya had been about to respond, but the urgency in his voice cut her off. "What is it?" she asked. Swiftfall whinnied and paced nervously.

"Something draws near," said Walker. "Something powerful."

He swung down from Swiftfall's back, landing on his feet and appearing not the least bit weakened.

"What is it?" she asked again.

"Stay there," Walker said. "I shall look."

Then he vanished into the air, as though he had never existed.

"Walker?" asked Arya, surprise in her voice. She could no longer even feel his living presence. She and Swiftfall seemed alone in the dark forest. "Walker!"

"Walker!" came her panicked cry.

The ghostwalker did not answer, but it was not out of rudeness. Rather, he understood that she would not have heard his voice had he spoken. Ethereal himself, he would be just as hidden from whatever approached.

In the Ethereal, the night was not as dark, or perhaps it did not seem so because everything was gray and blurry. Arya and Swiftfall were luminous beings seen from that realm-so vibrant that their flesh and bones seemed made of blazing sunlight. The knight looked around frantically, trying to find him, and Walker felt an odd twinge of regret that he had not given her more warning before he had shifted into the Ethereal plane.

It was difficult to see beside the shining horse and rider, but Walker was immediately aware that the three of them were alone. The spirits that always seemed drawn to him had vanished as though driven away by some greater force.

Walker bit his lower lip in thought. What could frighten spirits of the dead?

It did not take more than a moment for his question to be answered, for in that moment a huge, roiling creature of flame emerged from the trees ahead of them.

Walker's eyes widened as he looked up at the creature. Vaguely human-shaped, it towered over him like a giant composed entirely of shadowy fire.

The most significant thing he noticed, though, was that the creature existed on this-the Ethereal-plane.

He had heard of elementals, but never a beast of this ghostly sort-nor did he have any idea how to battle one. He did know two things, however: being ethereal would not hide him, as had been his intention, and the beast was coming fast.

Drawing his shatterspike, Walker stepped back into the Material and put his hand on Swiftfall, as though he could command the horse to carry Arya away with but a touch.

Indeed, his sudden appearance startled the animal, even as his ghostly aura had unnerved it. Carried past the realm of comfort, the horse panicked and snorted.

"Run!" he shouted to Swiftfall. "Flee!"

Then he rushed toward the elemental. Though it was invisible on the Material plane, the creature, in all its fiery fury, was fully visible to his ethereally sensitive eyes.

Arya, however, did not share his ghostsight. To her, the ghostwalker charged toward empty air.

"What? What are you-"

Her voice trailed off as the creature manifested, shimmering out of the Ethereal directly in front of her.

The forest erupted into an inferno of gray-silver fire, translucent flames shifting like ribbons of burning silk. It made no sound-even the raging flames, which should have roared, burned silently. The ghostfire elemental loomed over her and pulled back one of its massive tendrils. Arya, shocked at its sudden, majestic appearance, stared into death itself.

"Arya!" shouted Walker.

He slashed down into the mass of flame and the weapon pulsed with cold, ghostly power. It bit into the elemental, disrupting its essence and causing the creature pain. It bucked and turned toward the ghostwalker, growing a new fiery arm to lash at him. Walker stabbed his sword at the creature, warding it off, and ducked its swipe. He retreated and the elemental followed.

The knight, broken from her spell, swung down from Swiftfall and slapped the horse's rump. With a whinny, Swiftfall ran and Arya stalked back toward the ghostfire elemental, drawing her sword.

"What are you doing?" hissed Walker as he thrust at the elemental again and ducked its countering swing. "I told you to run!"

"You told Swiftfall to run," corrected Arya. "I have no intention of leaving you behind!"

She slashed her sword into the elemental with all her strength, but the blade passed through the ghostfire with no effect. "What, by Torm's blade?"

"I told you to flee for a reason!" shouted Walker. "Your blade is useless! Look-"

His warning cut off, incomplete, as a fist of ghostfire slammed into him. The elemental was certainly material enough to knock the man tumbling back through the air. Walker's body cracked against the thick trunk of a fir and he slumped to the forest turf, momentarily dazed.

The opponent with the stinging sword defeated for the moment, the creature turned its attention to the opponent whose hair resembled its material body in the moonlight.

The knight ducked as fiery tendrils struck out at her and scrambled back, leading the creature from the inert Walker. As she went, she uncorked a potion from her belt and splashed a silvery substance onto the sword. It suddenly glowed in the firelight with a cold blue radiance. "Come!" she shouted. "Come, demon-spawn!"

The elemental was only too happy to oblige, and flames roiled as it flowed toward her. Before Arya could escape, the creature raged around her. Arya swiped, slashing at the beast with her fine steel, but the blade swished through the ghostly flame with no effect. The elemental flickered between the planes, such that it was only really there half the time-the other half of the time, it was hopelessly ethereal.

She ducked an attack and slashed again, and this time the sword did not pass through harmlessly. Instead, the blade bit into its essence, causing it pain.

The creature swung a huge, fiery tendril at her, and Arya drew up her shield desperately. The ghostfire arm, however, passed right through the stout steel shield and struck Arya's arm full force. The knight screamed as the ghostfire tore at her flesh, her strength, and her spirit. Arya fell to her knees.

The scream jolted Walker from his stunned daze and the ghostwalker climbed to his feet. He ran toward the elemental, retrieving his blade from the ground. The elemental raised a fist in the air, preparing to bring it down on the staggering knight, but Walker lunged in and stabbed his shatterspike into its fiery depths. The creature whipped away from Arya.

Walker snapped his blade up to block the elemental's swipe. Its punch did not pass through the weapon, enchanted as the shatterspike was, but the force threw Walker to the ground. The ghostwalker struggled to rise, but the elemental slammed its arm down on his sword again, crushing him to his knees. The elemental flowed over him and held him down, manifesting entirely into the Material world, preventing him from rising.

The forest was suddenly lit with red, raging, material flame, and those flames licked at Walker around the sword. He gritted his teeth against the heat. Walker delved into his ghostly focus and distanced himself from his body so that he could ignore the pain.

Arya, seizing her opportunity, slashed at the elemental with two hands on her sword hilt. The temporarily enhanced blade cut into its fiery body but had little effect. The elemental countered and the knight managed to block the incoming punch with her shield. Though the fire did not strike her flesh, the force of the blow sent her reeling back. A second strike sent her flying into a fir tree on the other side of the clearing, where she crumpled to the ground, thrashing and moaning.

Amidst the pain of the flames, Walker blinked through the blood in his eyes and looked at the elemental standing over him. He stopped moving, allowing his body to go limp as though he had died from the flames. It was not a difficult task, for Walker could feel his flesh blistering and blackening and see that his bracers were white hot. He could endure, though, if only he could convince the elemental to leave-

Sure enough, the weight on Walker's chest vanished as the ghostfire elemental faded from the Material. His tearing eyes could see that it was not gone. Rather, the creature had turned from Walker's inert form and now flowed toward Arya.

With the elemental no longer standing on him, Walker struggled to push himself to his feet. It was, however, to no avail. Scorched and blackened, his body would not obey his commands.

"Ar-Arya…" he called, but the knight was unconscious.

Walker felt his concentration wavering and his burned body crying out in pain. The burning specter loomed over Arya and raised its two fiery appendages to crush her. He tried again to move, but he could not even lift his scalding sword from the ground.

Arya was about to die, and there was nothing Walker could do.

Nothing, except for the last action he would ever consider.

"Gylther'yel!" Walker shouted, blood spurting from his lips. "Aid us! Gylther'yel!''

He called for his mentor with all the breath he could muster. He knew that she was watching and he knew how much she hated humans such as Arya, but he knew that she could not leave him to die, not after she had spent fifteen years to mold him as her guardian.

Nothing happened.

The elemental paused in its attack as though to laugh at him, though it made no sound.

In that moment, Walker felt hope die. Gylther'yel was too far away. This creature would slay them both. He felt like a fool.

The beast turned and raised its fiery tendrils to batter the knight to a scorched pulp.

Then the forest became utterly black as a dark cloud moved over the moon. The ghostfire provided the only light.

The air around the elemental chilled and hail began to fall. The creature paused, as though it heard something Walker and Arya could not, and shifted again, shedding its body. Hail battered at its suddenly diminished flames. The magic struck it even though it was incorporeal-the spells were halfway between the planes.

"Gyl… Gylther'yel…" rasped Walker.

Then a bolt of lightning shot from the sky and slammed the elemental to the earth. The elemental burned low, stunned, and another bolt struck it. The elemental struggled to rise and lash out at the knight, but a third bolt struck it, then a fourth, and a fifth. Lightning bolts flew from the clouds and battered the beast to the ground.

The elemental, reeling from the blows, managed to rise, but then the hail increased and a veritable ice storm descended upon the creature, icy shards tearing apart the flames.

When the dust and fog cleared, the elemental was no more. The last flickers of ghostly flames licked up into the sky and vanished. Arya slumped against the tree, knocked out cold but unscathed save for several burns and a thin stream of blood that trickled slowly from her split lip.

Gray-green cloak billowing and whipping around her slender figure, the gold-skinned Ghostly Lady stood in the elemental's place, hugging her arms around her stomach. Her waist-length golden hair wafted around her cold face like fire. She looked down upon Arya exactly as the elemental had.

Walker, as he watched, was not sure he was any less afraid for the unconscious knight.

"I am your teacher and your friend," Gylther'yel said to him. The slow, beautiful Elvish sounded out of place on the battlefield. "I brought you back from death and raised you as my child, taught you all your skills and powers, and this is how you repay me? With betrayal?" With the last word, Gylther'yel's voice rose in volume above an undertone-it was the loudest Walker had ever heard her speak.

She stared down at Arya, and her hand pulsed with black energy, the killing magic that she had wielded against the Quaervarr soldiers.

"Gylther'yel, please," croaked Walker. His voice was broken and wretched. "Spare her… She saved me… If you must be angry… be angry at me…"

"I am not angered that you disobey," replied the Ghost Druid. Her fingers, blazing with destructive power, twitched idly. "I am merely… disappointed that you do not heed."

Then she waved, like brushing aside a flea, and the power crackled out of her hand. She walked over to Walker and placed her hand upon his forehead. He might have flinched, having seen the terrible magic she had just held, but he trusted the ruthless sun elf. The same hand that dispensed death so easily could also caress life into mortified flesh.

Gylther'yel's druidic magic soothed his mortal burns and he sensed-rather than felt, for his focus separated mind and body-his flesh re-knitting.

"I will allow you this diversion, while it lasts," said Gylther'yel. She stood, watching his wounds heal. "But know that you have brought this, my disappointment, upon yourself, and remember that the next time you cry to me for help, I will not be so quick to answer."

With that, the Ghostly Lady was gone. She vanished into the air as quickly as she had come, blown away with the passing mist and clouds.

Walker, his body healed such that he could move, pushed himself to his feet. He crossed to where Arya had fallen and, slinging the unconscious knight over his shoulder, began the trek west through the dark woods, on foot, seeking the sanctuary of his grove.

He prayed that he would have the strength to make it that far before he collapsed.