Chapter Twenty-Six
The room darkened. Rae’s lungs prickled with frost, and his blood hammered fast through his head. He wrapped his arms around his chest and tried to squeeze some warmth into his body. Shadows leaked like spilled ink across the floor, reaching toward Rae and Estev. Estev stood across from him, that black stone still in hand. Faint runes hung in the air where he had sketched them, fading with each second that passed. A nimbus of sparks danced across Estev’s skin like friction. Rae thought he could see the outline of something larger hulking over Estev’s shoulders: an antlered spirit, its eyes and flesh a swirl of green light. The lifebinder flexed his fingers nervously, and the spirit disappeared.
“This place doesn’t like me very much,” Estev said. “I’m afraid the feeling is mutual.”
“Where the hell are we? What did you do?” Rae demanded.
“We are where we were, just a little . . . shifted. The Lashing lets me tap into Oblivion without a bound wraith. It will be easier here.”
“Oblivion? You’ve taken us to the land of the dead?” Rae took a step back, his head on a swivel. The colors of the room were washed out, the floorboards gray and weathered, and a thin nimbus of light hung over everything, like a painting whose paints had run. But otherwise things looked normal. No tortured spirits. No stalking wraiths. “Wait, ‘easier here’? What will be easier here?”
“You are haunted, Raelle,” Estev said. Delicately, he pocketed the black stone. The sparks surrounding his body flared brighter, and he winced. “Gods, this is almost too much. We will have to be quick. I don’t know how you did it, young man, but a wraith has found its way into your soul. I’m sure that wasn’t your intent, based on what you’ve told me, but the result is unquestionable. And something will have to be done.”
“I’ve bound no wraith, only a storm mote, from my father’s . . . from that sword,” Rae said. “You’re right, something has been haunting me, but it’s not because of something I did.”
“That remains to be seen. The point, child, is that if you’re not careful, that wraith is going to scoop you out and pour itself into your flesh. You bound a wraith without forging a spiritblade first. Without the ’blade to focus your soul, you leave yourself open to all sorts of nastiness.” Rae couldn’t help but think of the soulslave, and its burlap sack of runes and mildew. He shivered. “Yes, an unpleasant prospect,” Estev continued. “There have been traces of the spirit since we met. I assumed you were a wraithbinder when we first met in the wastes. That’s the only explanation for your being able to unlock my shackles in the justicar’s camp. That you claimed otherwise, and demonstrated your ability to bind a zephyr, was a complicating factor. You have proven a strange knot to unravel.”
“Sorry to be so complicated,” Rae said. “Hate to be an inconvenience.”
“Don’t be smart,” Estev said. A deep grinding sound echoed from outside the room. Estev cast his gaze to the walls with a troubled expression. “They are drawn to the fae in my soul. There are things I would rather not encounter in the depths of Oblivion.”
“Then why bring us here? Why take the chance?”
“Because you will need to bind that wraith before it consumes you. And you can’t do that until you’ve forged your own spiritblade. The proper way of doing this would be to seek the wraith out from the safety of a demesne, or scry its form with the help of a master wraithbinder, and use that to form the basis for your ’blade. Those routes are closed to us, so we must find another.”
“And the first step on our path is into Oblivion?” Rae asked.
“We are still far from Oblivion, friend. I could not venture that deep into the land of the dead, not with a fae bound to my soul. I can barely stand here, on the very border of the shadowlands.” To emphasize his point, a shroud of sparks washed over Estev’s body. For a moment his form flickered, threatening to disappear. He gripped the stone in his palm, and the flickering settled down. “What do you know of the shadowlands, Rae?”
“The shadowlands? Are they any different from Oblivion? I thought it was just another name for the realm of the dead.”
“A common misconception. The first explorers into death, those who came voluntarily and were able to return to the land of the living, came first to the shadowlands. For a long time we thought that this”—he gestured to the room around them—“was all that death held. A pale memory of the living world. But deeper truths were discovered, and—” A new column of sparks swirled around Estev’s figure. “No time for that. I can’t guide you any farther than this. You bound a storm mote, Rae. I have seen you summon a spiritblade, apparently by instinct, in the material plane. Draw it now, and bind the wraith. Before it rips your soul into Oblivion and takes your body for itself.”
“But how? How do I do that? For the mote I had a scried soul, and a rune to focus on.”
“And this time you have the wraith itself, already in your soul. You will have to unravel the knot that is already there, and tie it once again.” The edges of Estev’s form faded into mist. “That is all I can give you, Rae. Do this now, or risk destruction.”
“Can’t you train me more? Can’t we—”
“The ’blade, Rae. Let it guide you.”
Estev’s image dissolved into thin air, leaving Rae alone with the moaning walls and the grasping shadows. The last sparks that clung to Estev’s form floated to the ground. They sizzled against the floor and then winked out.
“Well, what am I supposed to do now?” Rae mumbled. Estev had left him with little instruction—mostly threats about what would happen if he didn’t bind the wraith, and even those were unclear. “Why do I have to do this now?”
The room groaned again, the walls shifting and the floorboards creaking, as though the whole room was under tremendous pressure. Beyond the single window, all Rae could see were swirling mists and indistinct light. Remembering Estev’s advice, Rae tried to recreate the spiritblade he had summoned during the fight with the stonebinder. He held his hand out to the side, then reached into his soul to find the storm mote. His consciousness brushed up against something much larger, much more powerful than then meager mote he bound in his family’s root cellar. A hurricane of primal Air growled through his soul, a storm lurking beneath the surface of his awareness. Rae jerked back, wondering at the source of that power. What had Estev said? He was bound to a wraith. Why did a wraith feel like a thunderhead? None of this made any sense.
Tentatively, Rae ventured back into his soul. The spiritblade was supposed to be a manifestation of the mage’s control of the bound spirits in his soul. The weapon evolved over the career of the ’binder as they grew in power and bindings. The ’blade Rae had summoned on the road outside Aervelling looked like a stormbinder’s sword. Why not start there?
He tried to recall the feeling of drawing the spiritblade. If he closed his eyes he thought he could still sense the weapon lurking in the tapestry of his soul. With effort, he was able to drag the weapon into his hand. It moved through his soul like an iron-prowed ship through pack ice, cracking the subtle patterns of his spirit and leaving a swirling void in its wake. But when he opened his eyes, Rae held a spiritblade. Kind of.
The weapon in his hand was a misty approximation of a sword. The hilt felt real enough, but the blade was nothing more than half a dozen shards of foggy metal strung together by a thread of sparkling light. It didn’t look substantial enough to cut water, much less a spiritbinder. It didn’t matter. Rae had his spiritblade.
“I don’t care what Estev says. This feels like the land of the dead. It’s sure as hell spooky enough.” He held the misty ’blade in a low guard. “He said I needed to go deeper into the shadowlands. I suppose that means walking. And there’s only one way out of this room.”
Rae turned and approached the door. In the material plane, this door led into the tavern in Aervelling. But the shadowlands didn’t work like the real world. From his studies Rae knew that the land of the dead ran through the material plane like a spiderweb, anchored in the memories of those who had lived and died and were now trapped in Oblivion. Here, in the shadowlands, that door could go anywhere, or nowhere. And Rae knew where he wanted to go.
The door dissolved as Rae reached out to open it. Beyond the opening, mists quickly coalesced into a hallway that stretched an unimaginable distance, tilting slightly downward. Rae braced himself and walked out of the room. A few feet into the hallway, he heard a rattle behind him. When he turned around, the door was back, sealing his retreat.
“Well. Guess I’m going the right way, then,” he said. A steady light pulsed from the blade in his hand, and a directionless glow filled the hallway.
He turned away from the door to face down the hallway, but had a moment of vertigo. While he was sure there had been walls that stretched the length of the hallway a second ago, when he held the sword out, the light didn’t fall on anything. He turned left and right, stretching his arm out, trying to find the walls. There was nothing. In a matter of seconds he was turned around.
I’ll just face directly away from the door, he thought, and walk in a straight line. How hard can it be?
Turning all the way around, he felt for the interior of the door. It, of course, was gone as well. He took a hesitant step in the direction he thought the door should be, but the ground under his feet was soft. The door didn’t appear at the glowing edge of his light after one step, or two, or a dozen. But now a soft mist surrounded him, cloaking even the ground underfoot.
I’m going to die here! I’m going to get lost and wander away from the trail, and I’m going to walk until I die! His heart beat a quick tattoo in his chest. Well, at least my ghost won’t have far to go . . .
Something tugged on his hand. He raised it, and saw that the mists around the spiritblade swirled in tighter and tighter eddies, corkscrewing away from him to disappear into the gloom. He pointed the weapon toward the current and his whole body shivered. The path opened up before him, cutting through the mists like sunshine.
“Glad you got that much right, Mr. Cohn,” Rae said, just to hear the sound of his own voice. The words echoed through the mists, echoing back at him, stuttering as they washed over him. He swallowed what he was about to say next. Silence was better.
Rae followed the path deeper into the realm of Death. The darkness around him eased back, solidifying into shapes, inky pools that grew larger and larger with each step. The nearer shadows rose into trees and buildings, their exact details indistinct in the turbulent mists. A sky of swirling stars formed overhead. Each star was a soft dot in the inky darkness, familiar constellations blurring into bands of clouded light. Only the moon was constant. Rae looked up at its silver light, and was shocked to see that the face of the moon was smudged by blackened runes. It looked like a pale coin hanging among the stars.
“Have you come to finish the job, boy?” The voice growled out of the shadows, familiar and close, but disembodied. Rae whirled around, holding the misty sword in front of him, eyes darting around, trying to find the source. “Or will you merely blind me this time? There isn’t much to see in this place.”
With the sound of stones scratching together, a vertical line of light appeared in front of him, hanging in the air at eye-height. The wraith coalesced around its wound. The billowing hood and bony shoulders, scraps of cloth trailing in an unseen breeze, appeared out of the shadows. Bright fog cascaded off its body, churning as it crawled across the ground in smooth waves.
The world took shape around the wraith’s shifting form, as though it cast a light that cut through the darkness, even though everything was still in shades of gray. Rolling ground surrounded them, littered with wreckage and covered in a thick layer of ash. A circle of stone pillars loomed in the background. Rae thought he could see a forest in the distance, though it could just as easily have been the broken towers of a ruined city.
“Where is this?” Rae asked. “I was trying to get to Hadroy House. Where have you taken me?”
The wraith’s shrouded head swung back and forth.
“You brought us here, child. This is your ground. Not mine. Is it over now? Dragging me from place to place, like a plow through dry earth. I have no taste for it.” It floated closer, lifting a translucent hand toward Rae. “Have they found you, yet?”
“Has who found me?” Rae asked warily. “Who would be chasing me, and why?”
“There are so many answers to that question. The demon who killed me. The storm that feared me. Perhaps the fire that seeks to burn me.” The wraith paused, its cloak rippling, though no wind stirred the surrounding mists. “Though they may all be dead. Gods know I’ve eluded them here. What lengths would they go to to find me? Would they die, to hunt me in Oblivion? Would they live, to lay a trap in the shadowlands?” Its hood flickered closer to Rae, the shining light of its eyes narrowing. “Would they send a boy?”
“Whoever is pursuing you, they killed my father. Tren Kelthannis. Does that name mean anything to you?”
The wraith stopped, hanging in front of Rae, twitching in the mist. Its head tipped back, staring at the runed moon.
“I have no memory of that name. Or any other. But my memories were cut short, long before my body . . . my body . . .” The wraith focused on Rae. The burning light of its wound flashed. “My body can never rest. Not while they hold it.”
“Your body may not rest, but your spirit can,” Rae said. He raised the spiritblade, forming the complicated runes with his other hand that were necessary for a proper binding. He had learned these motions in a book, borrowed from his father’s library. His dead father. If he bound a wraith, maybe Rae could travel Oblivion and find his parents. Maybe he could still save them. The wraith’s gaze flashed to his hands, then back to his face.
“What are you doing, boy?” The wraith rushed forward like a bolt of quicksilver. Cold fingers closed on Rae’s wrist, and he almost dropped the sword. “Do you think you can contain me? You are much safer with me free. That stonebinder would have crushed you without my help.”
“I could have managed, if you’d let me,” Rae said. “If you hadn’t been so anxious to take control.”
“I can show you such power, boy. Such glory!” the wraith screeched as it tightened its hold on Rae’s arm. “I have been free for too long! I will not be tied down once again!”
The grip burned through Rae’s skin, the wraith’s touch like frostbite. He tried to yell, but the cloying fog filled his mouth, muffling his screams. The wraith pressed closer. The misty robes wrapped around him, drawing Rae into his chest. Horror numbed his senses. A susurrant whisper filled his mind, words slipping through his skull like a cold stream, drowning him. He tried to draw back, but the spirit’s grip was like a steel band on his wrist. He felt the shimmering sword pressed against his chest. It felt real enough now.
“I won’t go back, child. I won’t. And if they still hold my body, then I must find another,” the wraith whispered. “Your flesh will do.”
Estev’s warnings came to him. Stories of spirits consuming their human hosts, to walk the land in flesh once again. No one knew what became of their souls. Rae couldn’t face that. He wouldn’t let the wraith take control!
Rae screamed in frustration. He grabbed at the sword with both hands and twisted, pushing the blade away from his chest. The wraith growled, those icicle-teeth opening and reaching for his face. The veil flickered against Rae’s cheek.
I’m not strong enough. I never was a wrestler. A fool thing, Rae thought. To lose a sword fight with a creature that doesn’t have a body.
Doesn’t have a body. This is all a lie. Bend it to your will.
Rae released the sword, and smiled when the wraith matched him. It was already bound to his soul, after all. Just not fully. It still had a will of its own. For now.
The sword hovered between them, rotating slowly on its axis. Lines of power traveled from Rae’s soul, through the sword, and into the wraith. Rae gestured, and the bonds tightened. The wraith struggled, and they grew loose.
This is how it must end.
“I’m not here to give you the grave, or a host, or anything like that. I’m here to break you.” Rae gestured with his hand, gathering the glowing skeins and drawing them tight. The wraith bucked against the binding, but Rae bore down. The wraith reached for the spiritblade, but the weapon was part of Rae’s soul. It obeyed him. With a flick of his wrist, Rae commanded the sword to the side, cutting through the wraith’s outstretched hand. Bright light marked the wound. The wraith curled around it, howling. “I’m going to bind you! And together, we’ll destroy the people who did this to you!”
The wraith scowled up at him, bony hands clutched to its chest.
“You do not know the weight of your actions,” the spirit growled. “I tried to save you. I tried to save us both.”
“I’m tired of being saved,” Rae said. “I’m done running, and hiding, and hoping someone else can rescue me. La’s wrong. This isn’t my fault. It’s yours. And you’re going to help me put everything right.”
Rae reached out to the wraith with his will, using the glowing blade to guide his focus. This deep into the realm of Death, the tangled skeins of Rae’s soul took form. Glowing lines of force twisted out of his chest and traveled the length of his arm, tangling around the blade before arcing across the space that separated Rae from the wraith. The cloud of unraveling lines folded around the wraith. The spirit screeched as the bonds formed around it, tightening, squeezing. Rae felt resistance in his soul as the wraith strained against the snare. It tried to take flight, but Rae immediately countered it, grounding the spirit with his own body. The wraith achieved its immaterial form by drawing deeper into the realm of Death. Pulling it back to the material plane countered the effect, and gave Rae something he could grapple with.
It was working. The spirit grew more and more solid. The fog dissipated, and new pain blossomed in Rae’s chest. Like friction, the strands of his soul were stretching thin, cutting into his ribs. He buckled down, using the reverse edge of the wraithbound blade to draw the strands tight. Their hands met, and Rae grabbed tight. This time it didn’t burn. This time, the wraith struggled under his grasp.
“Your final chance, mortal. I am worth more to you free than bound!”
“Maybe. But the threats are getting a little old,” Rae said. “Trust me, it’s going to be better this way.”
Something snapped, and the wraith dissolved into him. For a brief moment, the spirit wrapped around him like a cloak, its memories melting into his skin like acid, burning their way to his bones. He felt a flash of pain in his eye. That pain traveled through his bones, as the spirit scrawled itself into his soul, a stroke of lightning cutting through his blood. Rae howled, his voice twinned by the wraith. Memories flooded through him . . . memories of the Hadroy estate, justicars surrounding him in a dark room, a flash of pain as a knife plunged into his eye.
Then it was over. Rae’s breath came in ragged gasps, puffing out in clouds of fog that crystallized on his lips. He tasted blood. The spiritblade quivered in front of him, his knuckles white as they pressed hard against the hilt. The length of the blade was more substantial, the string of glowing shards closer together, like steel with a stroke of lightning cut out of it. There was a connection there, between his soul and the spiritblade. He understood now, how the ’blade served as a conduit between the material plane and the spiritual one. He released the sword, then drew it close with the wraith’s hand. The misty blade dissipated in a puff of mist, traveling down the length of his arm to disappear into his soul. Just as quickly, he summoned the blade, snapping it out of his soul like a switchblade. As solid as steel, as light as air, forged from his soul and the bound wraith. A gesture, and the spiritblade was gone again.
Rae stared at his empty hand, then laughed. It was forced at first, the relieved bark of a man who had escaped death, but quickly he was seized with hysterical joy. The shadows, the whispers, the threats in the night and the fears . . . all of it was gone.
“Wraithbinder,” he whispered. He laughed again, raising his voice, for no one to hear. “I am a wraithbinder. I did it! I did—”
Rae was jerked from his feet, falling to his knees, as a tremendous force grabbed his soul and pulled down. The wraith manifested, dropping like a veil across his face. It screamed in pain, and Rae matched it, struggling as the sudden weight dragged him down. It felt like a net of barbed hooks was woven into his bones, and was slowly being pulled free, one gleaming hook at a time. He tried to stand, but the dragging sensation continued, jerking rhythmically at his soul, keeping him off-balance. His fingers dug into the loamy earth of the ground. A jerk, and his hands sunk into the earth. Another, and cold clay wrapped around his elbows.
“What is happening?” he shouted.
“Deeper . . .” the wraith answered. “You must see. You must know. Oblivion.”
The earth split and, again, he fell.