He stood at the bottom of the stairs and saw them all, each soldier in their place, trying not to listen to the raging storm that had brought no rain. Their faces and names were burned in his memory, sellswords from all walks of life and parts of the world, gathered together under the banner of the Keepers of the Cerulean Sign. A banner of war against the aboleths he had not seen since Tohrepur, nor ever desired to see again.
“We did what we had to,” he whispered, his breath quick and his pulse erratic. A sudden anger clenched his fist as he cursed the road that had brought the soldiers to Caidris. “We cleaned up the mess.”
“And left a fair mess behind, I would say.”
A swift breeze rushed down the stairs as Uthalion turned toward a voice as much a ghost as the phantoms he’d been speaking to. He backed away from the dark figure standing at the basement door, shaking his head in disbelief.
“Khault?” he said, trying to reconcile his memory of the man with the hunched silhouette at the top of the stairs.
“I am surprised you remember my name, Captain,” Khault replied smoothly, a humming edge in his words that cut like a saw through Uthalion’s skull. “Though I am not surprised to find you here, moping in a dusty basement, speaking only to ghosts.”
“Not just ghosts it seems,” Uthalion muttered, unable to tear his eyes away from the old farmer. Thunder rumbled as lightning flashed through the upstairs windows, giving him a glimpse of dirty white robes and a ruined, scar-laced visage that bore only a faint resemblance to the man he’d known.
“I was here once, like you, talking to the past, trying to sort out what had gone wrong first,” Khault said. The basement door creaked ominously on its hinges; a sound like nails being dragged through the old wood echoed down the stairs. “But I found myself alone. Within months my sons had left me, along with everyone else; but I stayed, unable to leave my wife’s side.”
Uthalion pictured the simple gravesite and recalled lowering Khault’s wife into the soil, burying her in silence as plumes of oily smoke rose from the fields outside town. Hers was the only body not burned that day, the only grave that bore a marker instead of soil darkened by ash.
“I spoke to you a hundred times down here, pleaded with you to leave, thinking I could change the past somehow, make it right,” Khault continued. His shoulders shook as he spoke, and his voice rose with a growl that clawed painfully through Uthalion’s thoughts. “I killed you a hundred times over as well, Captain.”
Casually drawing the first handspan of blade from its sheath, Uthalion stepped forward, bracing his boot on the bottom step. Pity drew him toward the brave man he had once known, the farmer that had sacrificed so much to do what was right, but Uthalion let anger grip the sword at his side, to wield against the thing Khault had become.
“I am no captain,” he said sternly, slowly taking the first step. “A dying man handed me a sword and ordered me to lead a retreat. Nothing more.”
“I found your Tohrepur, Captain,” Khault spat. The single thrumming word slammed into Uthalion’s chest like a thrown brick, briefly stealing his breath. He fell back, coughing as Khault continued, “I had sought only another answer, some reason for the battle that had come to my doorstep. Instead I found bones … and singing … and in the ruins of your foolish battle, I found what you left behind.”
“No,” Uthalion whispered, breathless as his mind raced. He wondered where the Keepers had gone wrong, fearing the horrors they’d left alive in Tohrepur. As the powerful vibrations of Khault’s voice shivered across his skin, he looked upon the old farmer with new eyes, seeing the trapped man beneath the tortured flesh, and the work that he had left unfinished.
“You were my only reason for coming back here,” Khault said, sliding away from the open doorway. Its rusted hinges groaned as the door swung to close. “I wondered at your reasons at first, but now I see … the trembling man, his heart racing, speaking to the long dead … He never really left this place, did he?”
Lightning flared, a brief, narrowing band of light.
“Do you remember what you said to me before I left?” Uthalion said, forcing the words out swiftly. The closing door paused. “You said to save pity for myself, that you didn’t want it.”
“Yes,” Khault growled. Again came the sound of long claws scratching deep into wood.
“Truth be told, I didn’t pity you,” Uthalion continued, standing straighter and staring hard at the dark silhouette of the old farmer. “Until now.”
A long moment of quiet passed between them, and Uthalion suspected he might have goaded Khault into the fight he desired. But the door slammed shut, the sound followed by that of wooden bars being slid into place-then silence. In the dark, Uthalion felt his nerve waver for a heartbeat, a breath of panic that he quickly stifled.
Faraway, through the wood of the old house, he caught the faint sound of roaring monsters. Even through the mud beneath his boots, he could feel the thunderous howling erupting from outside. Banishing the urge to crawl away and wait out the storm as he once had, he considered his options and set a course of escape.
Relighting the nub of the candle, he set it down upon the bottom step. He pulled his hand away and froze at the sight of twin, gleaming flames behind the stairway. The glassy eyes swiveled in the candlelight as the rumbling growl of the hidden dreamer stole his brief hope away.
Ghaelya leaped beyond Sefir’s reach as the walls shook with the painful roaring of the dreamers. She gasped, bracing herself until the sound passed, the pressure in her temples threatening to burst outward. Sefir winced slightly, but was otherwise undeterred by the chorus of howling beasts. His bandaged, clawed hand stretched out, offered to her with a smile that reached her most primal fears.
She slashed at the hand, taking another step back, all too aware of the dreamer at the top of the stairs and unsure of which threat she should deal with first. Clouds of dust fell from the ceiling, falling dryly on her arms as tingles of warmth rose like gooseflesh across her body. She gritted her teeth, the elements of water and smoldering flame warring through her spirit, each calling for dominance and promising blood.
“Peace, child!” Sefir called, his hands spread wide, but held beyond the reach of her blade. “We mean no harm to you! Pain is a blessing only our Lady shall bestow.”
As she recoiled at the serenity in his voice, her elemental spirit chose. Crashing waves rushed through her body, and she rolled into a swift flow of liquid motion. Her skin erupted with swirling blue flares of light as she charged the mutilated man, her body bending through his faltering grasp, her sword rising to cut at the throat of his maddening voice.
Her blade rang loudly as it caught the rusted, serrated blade that appeared between them, a length of steel that bore her solid blow without bending. Hot, strangely sweet breath washed over her face, an overpowering scent of flowers and blood stealing her breath away.
“I bring to you promises of song and suffering,” Sefir whispered over their crossed blades, the power in his words caressing her cheeks lovingly as they tried to soothe the tempest that stormed within her. “Why do you deny what your twin accepted so willingly?”
Shaking free of his voice, she pushed on his blade, bracing one foot on the wall as she jumped and spun. Steel scraped on steel as she turned in the air, dragging her blade up and across Sefir’s face. She caught a glimpse of his bandages falling away, of the ruined, empty socket beneath them, before kicking off the opposite wall and charging the dreamer above. A shrill scream of pain chased her up the stairs, the sound rippling across her skin.
With its fangs bared, the dreamer crouched low, snarling and shaking its head as if in pain. White hot needles of agony stabbed through Ghaelya’s skull as Sefir thrashed against the walls of the stairway, but she ignored the sensation. She thought of Tessaeril with each step taken, she heard Sefir’s promise of suffering with each quick breath, and felt a glimmer of the dream-song pacify the pain of the twisted man’s scream. Like a near-forgotten childhood memory, it whispered in the back of her mind and steadied the edge of her blade.