Abysmally slowly they backed the few feet to the library door. Lehr opened the door, and Phoran took a last look at the gathering things slowly blending into the shadows of the buildings as twilight faded and darkness held sway on the streets of Colossae. Then he was inside, the wooden bulk of the door between them and whatever hunted them.
For the first time, the library struck Phoran as welcoming, the gentle glow of magicked lights tucked unobtrusively behind bits of carving in the ceiling and walls providing a sense of protection from the dark.
Seraph didn’t hear the door open or shut over the babble of voices, but she saw Jes stiffen and look toward the stairs.
“Lehr, Phoran, and Gura,” he said. “They smell of fear and blood.”
His voice was loud enough that Hinnum and Hennea stopped the calm-voiced argument—an argument so heavy with unspoken guilt and anger that Jes had been forced to leave Hennea’s side and stand alone away from the rest of them.
Phoran topped the stairs holding his left arm as though it hurt. Lehr stood just behind him with Gura. The dog’s hackles were raised, and it kept looking behind them.
“It’s night,” Phoran said. “There are dead walking the streets. And I am hoping that’s not as bad as I think it might be.”
“Magic has no hold on the dead,” said Hennea, speaking quickly, though there was no panic in her voice. “Hinnum, can they get in here?”
“They haven’t bothered me before,” said Hinnum. “But you, they will follow. The door might hold them for a while, but not after they’ve smelled blood. Magic can work on them a bit, no matter what the stories say, Hennea. Seraph, you will know what I mean when I tell you they are creatures of spirit.”
She did. Difficult to work, but if the Shadowed managed to cloak his magic in spirit, then something could be done. As long as there weren’t many of them.
“Of course,” said Hennea, sounding rattled. “I’m sorry. I had forgotten. Like at the Mountain of Names. It’s hard to remember everything. Jes, come back away from the stairway.”
“I have safeguards that can keep them out of the library,” Hinnum said. “But I haven’t used them since your Willon left, and I cannot raise them as I am. I have no need of the safeguards myself; the dead are after flesh and blood, and, in my present form, I have none to tempt them.”
“What happens if they find us?” asked Ielian. He’d gotten to his feet and loosened his sword. Steel worked against some creatures of a magical nature, but it wouldn’t help against the dead.
“It’s not a good thing for the dead to touch the living,” Seraph said, giving them the extent of her knowledge. Her old teacher had been more worried about mistwights, water demons, and the like.
“There are a few ghosts in Colossae,” said Hinnum. “But they are largely harmless and stay near their homes. I don’t have a name for these—necromancy was never an art I was drawn to.”
“I don’t remember much about the dead,” said Hennea.
“They killed all the wizards who chose to stay here with me after the city died,” said Hinnum. “Running doesn’t work; neither does most magic. It took me long time to learn how I might shield my apprentices, and it will take me too long to try to teach it to you. We have minutes before the doors give way, not days.”
“The Memory said they will demand a payment for our lives,” offered Phoran. “For whatever good that does us.”
“Seraph,” said Tier, his deliberately calm voice cutting through the rising tension in the library. “I left my lute in my packs at camp. Is there any way you or Hennea could fetch it for me?”
Seraph stared at him. Under the circumstances, it seemed like an odd request. Maybe she had misheard him. “What?”
He put his arm around her shoulders and smiled down at her, the tiredness in his eyes lifting a little. “There are a lot of songs about the dead, Seraph, and more stories. Phoran says the Memory told him that they are coming for a gift. The only gift I’ve ever heard any of the dead accepting is music.”
“I’ve heard that,” said Toarsen quietly. “My nurse used to tell us a story of a bard who tried to survive a night in a haunted castle by singing to the spirits until daybreak.” He hesitated, then said, “He stopped a moment too soon because he was distracted by the song of a nightingale.”
“I know that tale, but, fortunate souls that you are, there are no birds in Colossae to distract me,” said Tier. “So fetch me my lute, love.”
“They come,” said a strange, toneless voice.
Standing in the middle of the library was a creature of blackness. Too tall and thin for a human, it was shrouded in mists of night-colored darkness that moved as if some unfelt wind blew them here and there. It looked out of place, as if it belonged along the edges of the room where shadows gathered rather than out standing in plain view.
Phoran stepped forward, between it and the rest of the room, and she realized it was Phoran’s Memory. It looked more substantial than it had last night, as if it were closer to being a living creature than a dead one.
Just then there was a hollow boom, which echoed in the room and made Jes growl.
“Seraph,” said Tier. “I think I’d better have that lute as soon as you can.”
Seraph opened her mouth and shut it. Tier knew the state his Order was in. He knew that the convulsion fits happened more often when he sang. He didn’t need her to tell him again.
She bent her head and closed her eyes.
She’d never done this before she stole the gem, and she wasn’t certain how to find Tier’s lute without a cord of magic, however fell, to show her the way. But it had been a day of new things, and she took her magic and told it what she wanted.
Tier’s lute was almost as much a part of him as his brown eyes and his dimples. It was easier than she expected to find it and call it because it wanted to be with him. She suspected Tier might have been able to call it himself. She opened her eyes and saw it had placed itself on the polished floor at Tier’s feet.
Tier bent down to pick it up. He grimaced, then rose more slowly than he’d bent down. Another thud came from the outside door.
“I’m getting too old for this much adventure,” Tier said. “Thank you for the lute, my love.” He looked around. “Let’s get everyone gathered together here.”
He took a seat on the table, and made himself comfortable.
“Sit down,” he told them. “I want them looking at me, not at you. And that means you as well,” he told the Memory.
To Seraph’s surprise, it collapsed to the floor. When Tier said something in that tone of voice, apparently even things like the Memory listened. Seraph sat on a bench next to Tier’s table as he tuned the lute.
Phoran sat down on the floor, and his guardsmen spread around him. Jes and Hennea sat on the far side of the group, and Lehr took up the other, even though it left him nearest the Memory until Hinnum settled in between them.
“Rinnie, why don’t you come here next to me,” offered Phoran. “I think your mother might have her hands full before this night is over.” So the most vulnerable of Seraph’s children was seated in the middle, and Phoran took a good hold on Gura’s collar without Seraph having to ask him.
Tier was still tuning the lute when the door failed, with the shriek of nails tearing free and a crack Seraph assumed was the wood of the door frame breaking. They all looked at the stairs, but there was nothing to see, no sound except for Tier’s fingers on strings.
A wave of terror washed over her, worse by far than anything Jes had ever caused.
Tier played a quick scale and began tuning again. “I left it sit too long,” he muttered. “The strings don’t want to stay in tune.”
“Papa,” said Lehr, staring at the stairs. “Play.”
A mottled grey hand appeared over the top of the stair, and it pulled its body behind it.
“Run!” Ielian came to his feet, but Rufort and Kissel each caught him by an arm and pulled him back down again.