But in the room itself, all was silent. Lala smiled to herself. Content that she had held her audience captive in the palm of her hand, and while returning to her seat, adopted a modest expression, as befitted one who was an apprentice priest.
“Er…yes. Very…imaginative.” Peebles seemed to have some sort of trouble speaking, and Lala focused her attention on Lady Sandor when the latter rose and made her way to the front of the room. She paused as she passed by Lala, her lips twitching a little when she looked down at Lala’s hopeful—yet modest expression. Then she was gone, the door closing quietly behind her.
Lala glared at the door, annoyance mingling with anger for a moment until she realized what had happened. Obviously Lady Sandor didn’t want to show favoritism by promoting Lala on the spot. It might make for hard feelings in the older girls. No doubt that’s why Sandor had to appear indifferent.
Thus it was that while Peebles called on one of the other apprentices to recite, Lala planned just how she’d make a fair copy of the poem and present it to Lady Sandor later, so it could be framed and hung in the head priestess’s bedchamber. Perhaps she might slip away from Peebles’s attention long enough to run into town and give a copy over to the local weekly newspaper. Yes. That was a satisfactory thought. A very satisfactory thought, indeed.
Chapter 1
“You do not belong here, Allegria Hopebringer. Begone before the Eidolon make you one of their own!”
A face materialized in the almost complete darkness of the crypt, the eyes appearing black and hostile as they considered me. Little tendrils of ghostly light surrounding the face evaporated just as if bits of him were turning to dust before my eyes.
“Blessings of Kiriah, my lord,” I said politely, digging through my admittedly scant knowledge of history. This particular spirit had to be one of the Eidolon thanes, long-forgotten kings who had ruled the seven lands of Alba well before the coming of the modern races. It was rumored that the tunnels honeycombing the area under Kelos were home to beings who had been dead longer than the memory of man, and evidently the rumors were correct. “I mean you no harm, although I wonder how you know me.”
The face seemed to fade into the blackness, only to suddenly appear again, parts of his visage drifting off into nothing as he spoke in a slow, ponderous tone. “You bear the grace of the sun goddess as well as the stink of mortals. Who else would you be?” He faded again, then materialized immediately in front of me, his ethereal face thrust into mine, his voice carrying the heavy rumble of thunder. “Your kind is not welcome to walk our paths! Begone, I say again!”
I held my swords easily, one in each hand, the runes on the blades dulled by the fact that we were deep underground, out of the reach of Bellias Starsong, goddess of the night sky. “I mean you no harm, lord thane, but pass I must. I have been charged by Hallow, the Master of Kelos to search the crypt.” That was not wholly the truth, since said master, who also happened to be the man I loved, believed there was nothing in the crypt but spirits best left to them selves. But I had a bet with the captain of the guard in charge of protecting the ancient center of magic, and I wasn’t going to let him best me.
“Search for what?” For a few moments, curiosity lit the black eyes of the thane.
“Three moonstones hidden by the previous Master. Do you know of them?”
The face faded, remnants of the ghostly halo around it remaining for a few seconds before dissolving. “Mortal concerns mean little to the Eidolon. Leave now.” His voice echoed off the stone arches that lined the crypt.
The fact that he knew who I was made me wonder if we weren’t too quick to dismiss the spirits here as being of no help to us. If he knew me, he might well know the whereabouts of Queen Dasa’s moonstones, scattered after they were last used. “That’s not really an answer. I don’t want to be annoying, but a yes or no would be helpful,” I said, mindful of the way the hairs on my arms rose, warning me of unseen movement around me. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist on an answer. A proper answer, that is, not one that is nothing but confusing.”
A hissing noise followed, as if the thane was sucking in all the air of the already airless crypt. Although I’d placed a lit torch in one of the brackets on the wall, the glow of its golden light didn’t penetrate very far into the cloying darkness. I could make out large rectangular shapes that I knew were sarcophagi of the arcanists who had once resided in Kelos, but beyond the tombs…another shiver rippled down my back. The inky black beyond the pool of light cast by the torch seemed to move and shift, little flickers of shadow visible only in my peripheral vision.
“You challenge the Eidolon?” The words seemed to roll around me like the growl of a cave bear.
“I do not challenge. I simply seek information. If you won’t answer my question, then I must search the crypt.” I gripped my swords and sent a little query to my patron goddess Kiriah. There was no answering warmth, just a claustrophic sense of being buried deep in the earth. I held onto the panic that wanted to rise at the knowledge that somehow I’d displeased the sun goddess, and she was withholding her blessings from me, and instead reminded myself that I had fought deadlier enemies than a single spirit.
But then I’d had Hallow and our friend Deo at my side.
The rush of air behind me gave me less than a second to respond, but it was enough to send me whirling to the side, both of my swords flashing. The thane emerged from the shadows fully formed, his body encased in ghostly armor from at least two millennia in the past, and his translucent white hair flowing around him as if it had a life of its own. But it was the sword he raised that held my attention, and I barely had one of my own narrow blades up in time to block the blow that would have sundered me in twain.
I leaped to the side, clambering onto one of the sarcophagi as he swung his sword low; the visible section of his near-translucent face was frozen in a snarl, his eyes all but spitting black ire at me. I didn’t attack him, using my weapons only to defend myself, but my breath came short when I spoke.
“I know you’re annoyed at being disturbed—” I dove off the stone structure when he leaped up, his sword held high overhead, only to stumble backward when he lunged after me, my swords dancing in the air to parry the lightning-fast blows that seemed to rain down on me. “Goddesses above, how is it that spirits are able to move so quickly? I just want to know if you’ve seen the moonstones! Ow! Oh, now you’re in for it!”
That last was in response to the tip of his blade scratching across my upper arm when I swung both of my swords upwards, crossed in order to stop another of his two-handed blows. He snarled something, but I hadn’t survived the battle of the Fourth Age for nothing. I dove downward, my blades slashing as I rolled past him, only to leap to my feet and watch with satisfaction as one of his legs collapsed. Although I couldn’t kill a spirit, I could attack the energy he used to become corporeal, and I had just weakened the stream of energy that flowed up the thane’s left leg.
He collapsed with another snarl, kneeling on his good leg to glare at me.
“I’d say I’m sorry for hurting you, but we both know that you’ll be fine just as soon as you rally enough energy to restore your leg,” I said, panting a little. “Now, perhaps you’ll answer my question—”
A faint breeze behind me stirred my hair. To my horror, the fallen thane smiled, then stood up, his damaged leg apparently whole again.
Fear gripped me good and hard then, along with the awareness that I had done something extremely foolish, and if I didn’t get out of there, I might well join him in the spirit world.
“It is too late,” was all he said