Ghostwalker

Chapter 12

29 Tarsakh

She woke from a dream where a hauntingly beautiful melody surrounded her, bathing her in its dark warmth, like a lover draped in a black cloak…

Awareness returned to Arya gently as she relaxed in the grove, bathing in the warm dawn sunlight that pierced the clouds overhead. The grass was softer than any bed she had ever known. The breeze was cool and soothing and, despite the winter, the air felt almost warm. She was dimly aware that her armor sat stacked a couple paces to her right. Clad in the light garments she wore beneath, she stretched languidly.

It was only when she rolled over onto her side that Arya remembered where she was and how she had come there. She saw that Walker lay limply on his back a short distance away. His cloak pooled around him like blood and the black of his heavy collar made the exposed half of his face seem a skull.

"Torm's shield," Arya breathed. She pushed herself to her knees and crawled over to Walker. Her limbs were surprisingly sore, and she took quite some time to make it those few steps.

"Walker?" she asked. She unlaced his collar so that he could breathe and saw his face for the first time. His handsome elf-touched features were pale and clammy, and his limbs were stiff. She slapped his cheeks and listened at his lips, but there was no breath. Neither could she feel his heart beating within his chest. "Walker!"

Arya tore open the leaf-shaped clasp of his cloak and pulled the dark leather apart. He wore a much-patched cuirass of boiled leather under the cloak and she immediately unlaced the clasp at his shoulder. Her dexterous fingers, used to working with armor ties, had it free in moments, and she ripped it off to give him space to breathe. She was almost surprised to find that his face was not scarred.

Walker's chest, muscular and pale, was another matter. Upon his skin lay a network of crisscrossing scars from countless wounds, some minor, some serious. Standing out against his bone-white skin, four wounds in particular caught her eye. Two seemed half-healed: a shallow cut on his chest where his ribs had been crushed and a devastating scar on his upper chest, near his throat. There were two others-a gash on his shoulder and a puncture in his left arm-that were closed and seemed to be healing. The scar below his throat was the worst, a sort of wound Arya had never seen a man live through.

At first she thought the wounds had been inflicted the night before, but she did not recall seeing Walker stabbed. No, they must be old injuries. Why they still looked fresh, refusing to scar, she did not know.

Then she snapped back to reality. Arya had been around dead bodies in her time, and nothing distinguished Walker's body from a corpse.

Had Walker made it to the grove alive only to die in the night? Arya remembered nothing beyond the ghostfire elemental's attack. Had she fought so hard to save Walker only to fail now? Had she lost him before she could figure out the key to this whole mystery?

Tears leaking down her cheeks, Arya knelt beside Walker and pleaded with him to wake, open his eyes, and rise up.

Then, to her surprise, he did.

Walker's eyes flickered open and he looked up at her in confusion.

"What is the matter?" he asked matter-of-factly, though worry flashed through his eyes.

Blinking with wonder, Arya thought her senses had deceived her. "Walker?"

"Of course," said the ghostwalker. "What is wrong?" He sat up with startling smoothness of movement, looking around for attackers, and Arya stumbled back, stunned.

"N-no," she stammered. "I–I just thought you were… you were…"

"Dead," finished Walker, his voice a dry rasp. He made no move to replace his leathers. She noticed he rubbed at his silver ring, as though reassuring himself.

"Yes," whispered Arya. Remembering the tears on her cheeks, she wiped them away with an embarrassed jerk.

If Walker had noticed the tears, he made no sign.

Rising, Walker drew his sword and stalked around the clearing, peering into the shadows cast by tree branches. It was a wide grove, surrounded on all sides by towering shadowtops and firs taller than any Arya had seen before. A stream ran through it, and a few boulders were scattered around in piles. A doe and her two young stood on the other side of the grove, drinking at a small pool, paying no attention as Walker made his way within an arm's length of them, though he paid them scrupulous attention.

Alone for the moment, and without worry gripping her, Arya felt surrounded by the deepest feeling of peace she had ever known, as though this grove were a font of the primeval nature that had given birth to humankind and all races of Faerun. She had heard rangers and druids speak of the tranquility of the natural world, but she had never felt it herself. Everything seemed right, in balance… all except for the shadowy man walking toward her.

"What is it?" asked Arya, surprised at how calm her voice sounded. "What were you looking for?"

"No one," answered Walker, sitting down cross-legged before her.

It was not until he fixed her with his sapphire gaze that she realized he had not answered her question as she had asked it, but by then it did not matter.

The two sat and stared at one another, neither speaking.

Arya was not sure why, but she felt more comfortable around this man who looked so forbidding than she felt around her friends. She was peripherally aware of his cold aura, but she saw through it. In the light, his eyes shone blue and his hair was a dirty blond. His ears were slightly pointed, though not as pointed as a half-elf's. This man definitely had elf blood in his family line-perhaps even a parent who was a half-elf.

"Why have you brought me here?" she asked, without really meaning to speak.

"I do not know," said Walker.

"You don't know or you can't tell me?"

"Either," came the soft response. Walker reached for the cloak discarded at his side.

Arya caught his hand and his eyes shot to hers. She shook her head. "It's all right." She motioned to his scars. "They don't frighten me."

Walker seemed assuaged by this, but he still hesitated before he sat back, no cloak in hand. Arya had watched an inner conflict take place, she knew, but whether it was over his cloak or her hand on his wrist, she did not know.

She smiled. "You haven't been around many women before, have you?"

For just an instant, the thick aura of resolve slipped from around Walker and she caught the hint of an ironic smile.

It might have been the first real show of emotion she had perceived in him.

"No," he said. "I apologize if I seem… distant."

"No," said Arya. "No need." She put out her hand to take his again, but he pulled it out of reach. At first she felt hurt, but then she saw the pain in his eyes.

"What's wrong?"

"Until I met you," whispered Walker. "No one had ever touched me without violence."

A wave of sadness washed over her. "No one?" she asked. "Not even your mother?"

Walker's face became stony. "I have no mother," he said. "No father." His eyes closed. "My life began fifteen years ago. The day I was murdered by Dharan Greyt." His face twisted in awful hatred for a breath, then smoothed again.

Arya sat in stunned silence.

"I wield powers beyond your world. You cannot understand." He opened his eyes and looked at her. "Having never died, that is."

"How do you know a priest has never raised me from the grave?" asked Arya with a raised eyebrow and a tiny smile.

"The same way you know I have not known many women," said Walker. "I can tell by looking at you."

Arya conceded the point. "If not parents, then who taught you these powers?"

"My teacher is not as important as her teachings. I feel the pulse of the earth, the power in every leaf, rock, and tree. It is not the vibrant life, but the opposite, the spiritual energy of the dead. You cannot see the spirits around you, but they are there. I see them at all times-even now, in this very grove, all around us. Dozens."

"The souls of the dead? Ghosts?" Arya's face went pale as she looked around the grove in vain. She could see nothing but the forest-even the doe and her fawns had bounded away.

"Not ghosts," explained Walker. His voice sounded almost clear. "The departed are not fully departed. They wait for something to be resolved-unfinished business. Just as I have unfinished business with Dharan Greyt."

The comparison sent a chill through Arya.

The noon sky darkened as the clouds that had merely been lurking before asserted their presence over the sun.

"Rarely, I find wraiths, specters, haunts-all things men call the undead," Walker continued. "These are not the same spirits that surround us, but dead people, fully formed in spirit. They grow jealous of the living and malevolent. These spirits avoid such as I, for they have no new secrets to tell, no new horrors to show us that we do not know. But the other spirits-they are always there."

Arya shivered. "And these monsters… surround us all the time?"

Walker's eyes flicked back to her and he shook his head. "They are not monsters. The spirits that surround us-spirits most cannot see, even with magic-are mere figments of departed souls. They are tiny echoes of those who have lived, loved, hated, and died. They exist so long as someone lives to remember them, so long as someone listens to their whispers, and so long as someone looks for them." He smiled wistfully. "As I do."

Arya's heart fluttered at that smile. Describing the mysterious spirits as though they were his children, Walker seemed almost happy. She felt her body grow warm all over.

Hardly aware that she was doing it until she had done it, she reached out and placed her hands over Walker's ears, pulled his face to hers, and pressed their lips together.

At first, Walker sat in stunned shock, then the kiss took on a mind of its own.

Then he seemed to remember himself and pushed her away. Arya fell back onto the ground and gasped, finally aware of what she had done. Her cheeks flooding with heat, she grinned sheepishly and stammered an apology.

"I'm-I'm sorry, I didn't-"

He wrapped strong arms around her and pressed his lips against hers, and she lost herself in that embrace. For a sweet moment, as he held her, she felt safe and secure for possibly the first time in her life.

And for just one thrilling moment, she felt exactly where she was meant to be.

As though realizing what he was doing, he broke the kiss and scrambled away. She sat there for a breath, held in the lingering sensation of his lips, before her senses returned.

"What's the matter?" she asked.

"No," said Walker. "I cannot."

Arya sat back, weighing him with her eyes. Walker made no move, except to look away into the darkening sky. His words had been simple, short, and seemingly empty, but expressed a pain that tore at her heart.

"Will you do something for me?"

"Perhaps," replied Walker.

"Sing."

The druid courier paused on her mare, furrowing her brow.

There was nothing unusual about the road, at least nothing she could see. The sun was shining and a stream trickled water down a side path. The wind was not overly cold today-it was, perhaps, the first warm spell Quaervarr had known in a long time.

"No worries, girl," Peletara said to her mount in the druidic tongue. "Just thought I heard something, that's all."

The chestnut mare snorted.

A crossbow bolt flew out of the boughs of a tree farther up the road, driving into one of the horse's eyes. The mare, killed instantly, fell, trapping the startled druid beneath her. The huge weight fell on her leg, snapping it, and Peletara gasped in pain. She looked all around for her attacker, struggling to draw her sickle.

A black boot stepped on her hand.

She looked up, following the length of black breeches to a mottled green and gray cloak that had, until just then, blended in perfectly with the trees.

Peletara recognized him.

"Lord…" she said. "Lord Meris?"

He smiled. Even as his sword scraped out of its scabbard, the attacker bent down and traced a finger down her cheek.

The touch of death.

Walker stiffened, as though something had gouged him. Arya reached out, but he shook his head.

With a troubled look, Walker turned to her.

"What?"

"Sing for me," she repeated.

Walker hesitated. Then he shook his head. "My song was ended," he said. "Fifteen years ago."

When he was distracted, Arya kissed him. She pressed her lips against his cold mouth, kissing him gently at first, then in passion and hunger. She could feel the heat that lurked beneath his icy lips, felt it begging for release.

She pulled back, staring into his eyes, and placed her hand on his cheek. "I want to hear the song they tried to end."

Then she was away from him again. He had pushed her back. "I cannot," he said. His voice was sad. "Not now. Not ever."

"But Walker…" Arya said.

Then, as though helpless to reply, he began to sing. Voice broken, song discordant and ragged, still there flowed a certain beauty through its shape, in the rise and swell of his music. Arya heard, rather than saw, the man he might have been, a golden god who had once sung in these woods but now walked in darkness.

After a moment, she became aware there were words to his song, words that flowed and ebbed with a melodious disharmony that was inexplicably balanced. They were in Elvish, and she did not understand them on a conscious level; the words cut to her soul.

There was pain, hatred, and vengeance. Walker sang of his death, sending images into Arya's heart that sent chills through her body. Without realizing it, she reached out to take his hand, as though to comfort him.

He ripped his hand out of her grasp so quickly the silver ring came off in her hand, but he did not notice in the singing, and she did not notice in the listening.

She found herself wrapped in the melody of his voice. Torn and shattered, leaping between notes no bard would play together, and perfect. The haunting melody enfolded her like a cool, dark blanket, and she felt her senses floating free of her body.

Walker's voice trailed off, but Arya, lost in his art, hardly realized it. Her heart was throbbing and breaking all at once. It was simultaneously the most blissful romance she had ever heard and the saddest tragedy she could have imagined.

When she finally looked up, she perceived, through tear-blurred eyes, that he was staring at her.

"Is that not ugly?" he asked. He had misinterpreted her.

"Walker-" she started.

"I am lost to you, Arya," Walker said, interrupting her. "All that remains is my task, and when it is done…" He trailed off, and the silence was palpable.

Bitter emptiness welled within her. "Walker," she said. "That's not your name, is it? What is it, your name, so that I can-"

With a frustrated growl, Walker slammed his fist into the ground, and though she could hear bones crack, he did not seem to care. Then he coughed so violently Arya wanted to cover her ears. Blood came up-the legacy of ancient wounds. Arya touched his hand in concern, closing her fingers around his. If Walker noticed, he made no sign.

When he spoke, his voice was calm but sad. "I do not know," he said. "Where do these songs come from? I do not know. How do I remember them? I do not know. If I remembered my own name, would it still hold true? Would I still be… I…" The last words were quiet, helpless.

He seemed on the verge of opening to her, as though…

Then nothing. He fell silent again.

Arya felt frustration well within her, along with deep sympathy. How long had this tortured man existed in this state? He could not open himself, could not confront the demons of his past, the feelings of his present, or his fears of the future. Whenever he tried, whenever he came close, he would cough violently as though to tear himself in two. Sometime in his past, Walker had forgotten how to feel. He was a man without fear, hope, or love.

But no, that was not it.

Her heart denied that. It told her he couldn't open up, not because he had forgotten, but because he could not face what would come.

Trusting her feelings, Arya reached out and took his hand.

Walker pulled away.

"Walker," Arya said. She leaned in again, but he pushed her back, gentle but firm. He pulled his gloved hand from her grasp.

"Do not do that again," he rasped, menace-and pain-dripping from his broken voice.

Somewhere in the trees above them, a pair of phantom lips smiled.

"Yes," said the feminine voice.

Having said that satisfied word, the face became that of thrush. The bird beat its wings once and was gone.

Arya turned away, and he could see her shoulders shaking, whether because of fear or relief he did not know. There. He had done it. Walker had just reinforced everything his training had taught him. Everything Gylther'yel had hammered into him about being alone, everything he had learned about the dangers of bringing others into his violent life, everything he had thought in these last fifteen years was coming true once again.

He would not, could not share his bleak, bloody, and short existence with anyone. No friends. No lovers. No family.

He was the spirit of vengeance, meant to walk alone.

He thought he caught a glimpse of Tarm Thardeyn out of the corner of his eye, but the spirit was not there when he looked. A wave of sadness came over Walker, but he let it pass through him, leaving him empty.

Now that he had done it, how did he feel?

He should have felt nothing. All his experience told him he should feel nothing but ice inside, project nothing but cold outside, and take comfort in his retreat from the world of the living. The dead understood and never judged. The spirits that surrounded Walker would never turn away in fear.

But that was not the way he felt. Instead, he felt… he…

He did not know, and that was what frustrated him.

"You should go," he said, as much to stop his thoughts as to break the silence. "I am…" Then nothing, not even the word he had meant to say, which was "sorry." He wanted to say more-about his fears, his quest, anything more-but the words would not come. He had forgotten how to speak them, he thought.

But all the while, he knew he had not.

Some tiny voice deep in his frozen heart, a voice he had kept hushed for so many years, was trying to tell him how. And he knew. He understood. He was just…

"Afraid," he breathed.

Arya had risen as though to leave, but she turned back. "What?" she asked, her voice a shade above a whisper.

Instantly, Walker was silent, but he had already said the word, and it had been enough.

Arya saw then, as through a tiny crack in his stone will. She saw Walker with his defenses down, terrified, empty, hollow…

And alone.

"It is nothing," he said.

Arya heard the pain in his voice-not so much in his words, for they were few, but in how he spoke them. He was struggling with himself. Walker had been forced to face death, the hellish cry of vengeance, and fear of himself, and he had done it all alone.

Arya made a decision then, a decision that would steer the course of her life until her last breath. She gathered the courage to look into his blue eyes. She suddenly became aware of a small object in her hand-a silver ring. His one-eyed wolf ring. Arya gently took his left hand and began drawing off his glove.

"What are you…?" asked Walker.

As she bared his flesh, though, his thoughts leaped to his abhorred power to sense spiritual resonance, insights that would steal images from her thoughts and cloud his vision. He did not want that emotional turmoil-he did not want to lose himself when Arya was there, her beautiful face before his.

But she was touching his skin, and there was nothing. No resonance, no visions, no knowledge-only the warmth of her skin.

She pulled the glove entirely off, and with it went Walker's last line of defense, the barrier between him and the sword. Like the walls he had built around his heart, his gloves hid him behind a layer of black. And now she had stripped that defense away. She laced her fingers through his. So soft, so warm…

"Arya-"

She held up his left hand-the wrong hand, but he hardly noticed-and slipped the ring on to his fourth finger. She reached delicate fingers up to brush his cheek.

"Your song," she said, "was beautiful."

Some part of Walker-the fearful part-wanted to argue, scream, or turn away, but he could not. He merely sat, dumbfounded, as she caressed his cheek, then leaned her head against his bare chest.

Then it occurred to him. Though he had touched Arya's hands, kissed her lips, and hugged his arms around her waist, he had not felt any psychic resonance from her. No visions. No feelings. He simply felt what she felt. This unknown sensation would have had him collapse into tears just as soon as he'd have clasped the woman in his arms. It might have frightened him, this lack of resonance, as he had not imagined it possible, but he understood intuitively what it meant.

And that frightened him even as it set his body tingling.

"You cannot," he said. "Arya… I… I live for vengeance. It is my unfinished task. When this is over, I will have nothing else. I will die-whether in battle or in silence. There is nothing for you here; only darkness and a grave."

Arya gazed into his eyes, and he could see tears sliding down her cheeks. "I do not care," she said without trembling.

Walker was overcome with a new wave of feeling, which frightened even as it excited him. At first, he thought he had never felt the sensation before, but then he discovered that it was there, buried deep, beneath the ice and shrouded in the mists of his heart. It was warmth in his chest, a feeling of loving and being loved.

His eyes slid closed-eyes that were bleary from the moisture gathering there.

This time, when she leaned in to kiss him, pressing him down, he did not stop her.