The Shield of Weeping Ghosts - James P. Davis [109]
Bastun stood slowly, purposefully, the tip of his axe resting on the floor as he closed his eyes and breathed. He began to count backwards, matching his heartbeat and performing the old rituals.
Where is your breath?
He let go of the surrounding world, of memory and petty anger, of life and pain, and the sensation of his own presence. In that space lay a balance between living flesh and the Weave of magic-a cooperation of spell and primal thought.
Skin tingling, the familiar fever of Serevan's presence washed over him. The Breath trembled, the bound spirit of the Magewarden reaching out in anger and sorrow. Bastun allowed the intrusion but kept it in check, maintaining an authority over Athumrani's desires. The sounds of battle rose in volume, resonating with an order that wrapped itself around him.
Opening his eyes, he watched as Serevan appeared through the gloom of wraiths, ever hungering for the power of the Breath and the Word. The stain of his fallen friend's last battle still darkened the prince's blade. Bastun would give in to history, to all of Athumrani's anger and his madness, but he would give direction to that wild emotion. He would give the Magewarden what he truly needed. He would give him rage.
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Swords still lay in freezing hands. White faces stared in horror against the ground or looked sightlessly up into the clear, night sky. Dim stars reflected in eyes glazed over with death. Gaping wounds would fill with snow and ice over time, taking over their forms and cementing them against the stone like sttange sculptures of grim warning. The durthan's sellswords, their unwitting souls soaked into the stone, pulled down by the Shield's curse and Ilythiiri magic to haunt Shandaular till chance or mercy set them free.
Blood and ice encrusted Anilya's hair. Dark cuts crisscrossed her skin, and powerful cuts had rent her robes. One of her arms was twisted, fingers crushed beneath the heel of the passing prince. Her mask lay askew, revealing her face.
A gentle snow began to fall. Still and silent, the quiet of the scene was broken only by the echoing sounds of battle and the phantom flames of Shandaular's burning. Ghostly smoke intermingled with the ever-present mists that thickened as dawn cast the first faint glow of a distant sunrise.
An orphan of time, the Shield was a ghost of stone and ice suffering nightmares of history.
"I will free you," a voice said wistfully.
The body of Anilya shimmered, the image rippling away to reveal the body of a fallen man. The sellsword had suffered many of the same injuries as the illusion that had obscured him, but he had fought with sword and shield before dying at the hands of wraiths and the time-worn prince. Anilya had fought with magic. She turned from the battlements, her form still invisible, to peer into the living darkness of the guard tower. Hidden from the eyes of the living and the dead, she watched and waited.
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Magic tingled through Bastun's body, the room blurring for a moment as his eyes reacted to the unnatural speed that filled him. His axe swayed menacingly, lighter and faster to match Serevan's quick sword. The fever returned in full, skin burning as if bare under a desert sun. The prince's feeding cold could not touch him, caused him not the slightest chill. The ring on his hand had begun to burn as well, its metal hot to the touch. Whatever Ilythiiri magic had been woven into the simple band was somehow connected with Serevan's goals and the Shield's history. But Bastun had no time for history now. He was becoming a part of it.
Their blades met twice in the space of a blink, sparks flying. The prince's mindless anger had faded, his reason now accepting the re-enactment of his duel with Athumrani. No longer beset by unfamiliarity with history's course, he settled