Chương 53: 1 The Hungry Sky

<<Name: Ingred Valentini of the Coppersmeldt Clan >> <<Race: Dwarf (Deceased)>> <<Class: Winter Artillerist>> <<Rank: Cousin in the Paradise Rock Coalition>> <<Lvl: mage-7; User-2>> <<Total: 9>> <<Stats: >> Might (STR) — 6 Will (WIS) — 6 Focus (INT) — 8 Resilience (CON) — 7 Grace (DEX) — 6 Cunning (CHA) — 6 Fog. All was murk in death. I inhaled sharply, bolting upright. Cold clung to the air.

"Tony!" I looked around, confused.

"Naomi!" I took in my surroundings, searching. I was at the Highwater Cay dig site, but the stones were devoid of color. Dirt, tools, the Anti-Astral Defense System—it was all semi-transparent. What had happened? We had attacked Puppetmaster. He was too strong. I flinched as a memory struck me, my hand pressing to my side. Puppetmaster had redirected Tony's sword with a thread, sinking it into my side. The pain was gone. The horror on Tony's face—it hadn't been his fault. I should have hung back.

That was standard operating procedure for a mage. I pulled my hand from my side. Black blood soaked my colorless fingers. My eyes widened in horror as I realized I could see through my flesh. I had become as translucent as the environment. I bolted to my feet, panting. No air came, yet my chest rose and fell, more out of habit than anything. My feet rested on solid ground, though when glancing down, ocean waves rolled under the translucent earth.

"What—" To my right, a body sat up. A yelp escaped me, and I jerked my hand forward, arcane focus rings glinting on my fingers. It was a human slaver, eyes glazed over. A blast mark marred his side, a likely wound from Bianca's dynamite. I tried to conjure the elemental might of winter, but nothing happened. He picked himself up, then aimlessly trudged forward.

"Don't move!" I called, keeping my hands up, as if I hadn't lost access to my well of power.

"I'm warning you!" He showed no sign of hearing me and marched away, eyes locked forward. The edges of the dig pit started to gust away, fog blown by the wind. I spun, noting that I was in the center of a steadily shrinking circle. More movement. I jumped back as a Drake-kin Knight pulled himself up, with the same glazed-eyed expression as the first. His throat bore the marks of a mauling—Bianca's work, again. I stiffened, but somehow knew he couldn't see me. Or if he could, he didn't care. My Messages!

I opened my terminal, hoping to find answers there. Nothing. My HUD refused to populate. Was I— I couldn't think it, I wouldn't. The dig pit continued disappearing, edges shrinking in until the sharp walls vanished completely. More slavers and Wake Knights picked themselves up, some dusting hands or adjusting armor. Their motion suggested instinct rather than intent. As a mindless herd, they started away.

"What is going on?" I said through gritted teeth. I turned. An Ogre stood there, a spectral cigar clenched between teeth. I screamed, falling back and scrambling away. If Thaddius wasn't ugly enough as a living Ogre, new burns slick with glistening pus scarred his entire back and neck. I panted, petrified as he towered over me. Without my magic, I was helpless against an Ogre. Only—he wasn't looking at me. His eyes swept the landscape, expression devoid of intelligence.

The dirt under my palms tingled, numb and cold, but otherwise lacked any of the normal texture or feeling.

"Thaddius?" A voice called. I went very still. An elderly woman stumbled over, skirt clutched tight in her hands. Dark pits gaped where her eyes belonged, tracks of colorless blood streaking down her cheeks.

"Thaddius!" Lonnie, the Psionic, cried as she rushed over to her fellow slaver. She tugged his wrist, and the brute lurched toward her.

"Thaddius, tell me you can hear me. What's wrong with you?" The Ogre glanced down at her, eyes almost sparking with intelligence, as if making a great effort to access memory or sentience.

"Thaddius!" she hissed, shaking his wrist.

"Thaddius, wake up!" The dig pit's walls puffed away altogether. Trees in a new forest landscape replaced the stone and ruins as the familiar environment faded into fog. Lonnie hadn't noticed me, so I started back, trying to move silently. My heel scraped against spectral gravel. The psionic whirled on me.

"You!" she hissed, the bloody pits of her eye sockets completely banishing her grandmotherly charm. I scrambled up, snatching a stone from the ground. Its sharp edges pressed numbly into my grip. She cast a hand forward, a finger on her other hand coming to her temple. I braced for the shriek of a psionic attack. Nothing. Lonnie blinked in confusion, hand lowering.

"It's not going to work," I said.

"I—" The words got locked in my throat.

"I think we're dead." The Anti-Astral Defense System's obelisks started drifting away, replaced by trees and bushes. Lonnie went still, keeping her arm up as she scanned the surroundings.

"So," she said at length, "this is Ghost Rock." My gaze followed the other slavers drifting away. The last of them, a Halfling with a whip, sat up and continued after the herd, joining the wandering pilgrimage. Thaddius started after them.

"No, Thaddius!" Lonnie called, tugging on his blistered hand. The Ogre stooped at her touch, glancing down at her uncomprehendingly.

"You need to wake up," she hissed, yanking his arm. I scanned the ground around me. If I were here, chances were very high that Bianca and Naomi would arrive shortly. I'd seen Puppetmaster's power. In retrospect, I understood just how hopeless we'd been. Puppetmaster would likely try to keep Tony alive, but the other two— I recalled his words to his son. He'd tried to reason with Tony, to reconcile him with the Bloodwake perspective. I also knew Tony. He'd make reconciliation difficult.

There was no telling if he'd force his father to hurt him. Another, almost more disturbing thought occurred. What if my friends succeeded? Were they about to trap Puppetmaster on this side with me? Behind me, Lonnie spoke to Thaddius, begging him to recognize her. Pleading turned to threats, which then dissolved into desperate curses of outrage.

"I don't think he's going to wake up," I said, turning. Lonnie glared at me.

"Clearly, sentience retention doesn't always happen here. Why are you and I the exceptions? You weren't a User, were you?" Lonnie's eyebrows narrowed over empty bleeding pits as she weighed her options, then she sniffed indignantly.

"No." I nodded, hugging myself, trying to drive away the chill, but my hands only brought more cold.

"Power can't be the determining factor either, or else Thaddius would be awake too." I paused, considering.

"It could be random." Somehow I doubted that, but I had no way of knowing.

"What happens if I kill you again?" Lonnie asked, a knife flashing from her sleeve.

"Maybe you leave me alone?" I flinched back, raising my stone. Lonnie was taller than me, but I weighed more than her and was a quarter her age. If she were determined to scrape with me, I'd make brine sure she paid for any flesh she took with interest. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"Stop," I warned, stepping back.

"What's that going to accomplish? Our fight is over. We both lost." She stopped, considering.

"That doesn't mean I can't have the satisfaction of flaying you."

"Alright, Grama, you want it?" I tossed and snatched the stone.

"Come and get it." She watched me, studying and doing the math. She had a knife, yes, but without her psionics, she was just an old lady. At last, she nodded.

"You're right. This is pointless." She didn't sheath the blade. The dig pit puffed away from around us completely, vanishing under our feet. Now we stood in a grove thicket, waves churning through spectral earth far below.

"I think—" I glanced around.

"I think this is it. This is our existence now." The realization filled me with disappointment. Every kid from Paradise knew the spirits of the dead went to Ghost Rock, but we knew very little about what that actually meant. Some imagined a warm paradise for the righteous and a torment reserved for the wicked. Yet Lonnie and I were sharing space. No warmth, no pain. Just a chill and numb. I frowned, dismay filling my chest. Was this the end? Why did eternity feel so much like an in between?

"The landscape changed," I said.

"Why?" Lonnie scanned the forest, considering before she answered.

"Probably a transferral process." I let my stone drift back down to my side.

"How do you mean?" She met my gaze, semi-transparent knife still clutched in her grasp.

"A lot of us died. So ghost rock transformed to resemble our final resting place." She shrugged.

"I wonder if that helps it pull our spirits here. Now that we've arrived, it can return to its natural shape." I nodded, glancing around.

"Ghost Rock is approximately the same size as any of the other islands. If the dead from all ten other islands come here, I'd expect it to be a bit more overcrowded."

"Yes," Lonnie agreed.

"Unless this works like Faerie Rock and temporal space becomes more abstract here."

"And that's assuming soul permanence!" I said, the cold growing more icy as the thought came. Lonnie glanced at me, her blood pit eyes making my skin crawl.

"Explain."

"Do we know the life cycle of a ghost? Do we fade over time? Does oblivion wait for us?" The wrinkles on Lonnie's face tightened.

"Aren't you a peach?" I laughed, the sound tight, like pressure escaping a release valve.

"Hey, I've been dead for less than an hour. Give me some credit." Lonnie frowned, scanning the woods. A Halfling and Magmote spirit wandered through the clearing, not showing any semblance of cognition.

"If Ghost Rock randomly chooses us to retain identity," Lonnie said, "and we accurately represent the percentage of intelligent spirits, there should be cities, or at least towns. If we can find a settlement, I'm sure someone there will be able to tell us what's going on." I nodded.

"Good plan." Glancing around, the edge of my lips twitched down.

"What way? How do we even orient ourselves?" Lonnie glanced up.

"That helps." I followed her gaze. A fresh hole in the sky scarred the atmosphere a way off from the old crack. On this side of Ghost Rock, the red hazy light burned brightly through the breaches, the only color on this depressive isle. Simply looking, I could feel its pull, like an updraft of cruel, hot air. I swallowed, or at least, mimicked swallowing. I had no body and therefore no need for physical functions.

"Well, that's encouraging."

"If we're on Ghost Rock, that hole's directly over Highwater Cay," Lonnie reasoned.

"That means that's south-rightward. Roughly." She turned, pointing with her knife.

"Making that inland, assuming we're not already past the center of the island." I glanced at my side, slick with blood, numb wound glistening.

"Shall we?"

"This had better not be a perpetual wandering curse," she grumbled. I couldn't help but agree. We started our trek, passing wandering souls from every conceivable island: Humans, Dwarves, Halflings, Feykin, Primords of every type, Vulcans, and Drake-kins. Nothing sentient enough to speak. One Fowl-kin followed us with her eyes, but when we tried speaking to her, she continued her directionless drift.

"Disconcerting," Lonnie remarked.

"Of about thirty dead, we had two of us awake, yet we've passed hundreds of souls with no signs of intelligence."

"Hopefully, that just supports our theory that there's civilization somewhere," I pointed out.

"If everyone's consolidated, of course we wouldn't see them out in the wild."

"Yes," Lonnie agreed.

"Let's hope it's that." A distant shaft of light cracked up into the sky, drilling a second hole in the sky. Puppetmaster had fired the Anti-Astral Defense System again. Recent memory of the weapons, pressure, and power came rushing back. I stared at the second hole, placed neatly beside the first. The malevolent pull doubled—red light harsh and drawing, like a hungry maw.

"That's bad," I said. If Puppetmaster was still operating the weapon, did that mean the others were dead? I could go back and look for them.

"Let's go," Lonnie grumbled, refusing to acknowledge her role in creating the breaches. Branches snapped in the distance, and a tremor ran through the spectral ground. We glanced at each other, eyes going wide as something big stomped closer. Treetops swayed as a figure, head and shoulders above the canopies, pushed through. Calves thick as tree trunks moved a figure in ragged trousers and a leather apron through the growth. I stumbled back as the spirit of a Hill Giant grinned down at us.

My incorporeal blood froze. As in life, as in death, Giants towered over Dwarves. His head hung to the side unnaturally, a grotesque lump bulging from the side of his neck.

"Talkers!" he boomed. His sideways grin exposed flat, wedge teeth.

"New toys!" Not wanting to be a chew toy for a Giant, I ran. Lonnie agreed with my strategy, splitting off in another direction. I sprinted, huffing and expecting a burn in my legs. It never came. I held my breath, but no burn penetrated my lungs. No body. Not oxygen. No muscle fatigue. I sprinted, maintaining the pace with no physical demand. But a Giant was a Giant. The ground rocked, branches snapping. I glanced over my shoulder just in time to glimpse him snatching Lonnie from her flight path.

She shrieked, slamming her dagger into his hand repeatedly. The spectral knife drew phantom blood, which then fizzled away, leaving uninjured skin. The brute pivoted towards me, and my eyes snapped ahead as I sprinted. A sharp branch whipped me in the face, earning no more than a tingle on my ghostly skin. No pain. Good. The shadow of a massive descending palm darkened the ground below me, and I hooked right around a tree. Branches snapped, and the Hill Giant grunted. My boots pounded ghost ground.

I shoved past a Naga-kin drifter. The massive hand snatched the aimless soul, missing me by inches. The giant brought the snake man to his eye level, examining him. Discovering the Naga-kin was a boring old drifter; he casually tossed the spirit over his shoulder, launching him like a trebuchet. I dove into the brush, crawling on my elbows and my knees as I tried to burrow to safety. Lonnie's voice called out a slew of curses as the hulk stomped through the brush, peeking under logs and lifting a boulder.

He'd lost track of me. I let out a breath I had been holding for over a minute. Not out of necessity, but my shoulders relaxed at the familiar motion.

"Talker!" the Hill Giant boomed, voice singsong and surprisingly juvenile.

"Talker, where are you hiding?" I pressed low, trying to melt into the ground. The vibration of footsteps shook the earth harder as the giant thundered closer.

"Talker! Where are you hiding!" My hand clamped over my mouth, and I shut my eyes tight. I was a stone. The forest went silent, all except for Lonnie's curses. My heart pounded in my chest—wait. No, it didn't. If I had one, it would have. The giant stepped on me, probably accidentally. His foot crushed down. My ribs shattered. I shrieked, expecting pain. There was none, just the numb tingle My side fogged, reshaping into its natural form at the moment of death.

"There you are!" The weight was released. Thick, ropy fingers seized me, and then I was drifting up towards the Hill Giant's face.

"Good!" he grinned, glancing from me to Lonnie, head grotesquely askew.

"Who to eat first?"

"Dwarves taste better!" Lonnie gasped, her ghostly dagger clean of any blood she may have drawn.

"Who's the Dwarf?" he rumbled.

"She is!" Lonnie gasped, trying to pry herself from the giant's grasp.

"Hmm," he turned his attention to me.

"Save the best for dessert." Lonnie's colorless face flushed even more pale.

"Wait, no!" She started to lift towards his lips. Someone crashed through the bush.

"Grumgor!" The Giant flinched, turning to the newcomer. A Drake-kin sailor glared up at him, sheathed spectral saber clutched in one hand. A sharp tricorn speared past his eyes. His mottled scales probably would have been blue and white if he had any true discernible color.

"Capen-Vale," the Giant said, taking a pensive step back.

"Grumgor, I've already told you. You can't eat anchored shades." The giant scowled.

"You're not jarl here!"

"I disagree," the Drake-kin said.

"Drop them, or I'll disperse you again."

"Disperse?" His face ignited, inflamed with rage.

"I hate dispersing!"

"Put. Them. Down," the Drake-kin said with finality. I pried at the giant's hands, trying to kick, but his meaty fist bound my legs together.

"Best listen to him, Grumgor!" I gasped. Only I didn't have lungs to get crushed. I was still reacting out of habit. I forced myself to relax. Ribs snapped, but my voice came out heavenly.

"Listen to Capen-vale."

"Actually, it's Captain Vale, Ma'am," the ghostly Drake-kin said, inclining his head at me.

"Alonso Vale. At your service. Some Hill giants make a habit of interpreting things a bit too literally."

"No," Grumgor snapped.

"This time I eat you Capen-vale!"

"So be it," the Captain grabbed his handle and unsheathed his blade. Icy vapors coated the black, very physical blade as he drew it. I gasped, eyes going wide. I knew metallurgy, and I recognized the cold iron on sight.

"Grumgor let go." I fell, a cry escaping me. The ground met me abruptly, yet painlessly. Lonny hit the ghost dirt at the same time.

"Ladies, stand clear!" Captain Vale said, taking a defensive stance. I rolled, scrambling to get clear. Eyeing the cold steel warily, Grumgor seized an incorporeal sapling. He jerked it free, ghost dirt rained down. The Giant raised his makeshift club. Captain Vale was already there, slashing through Grumgor's ankle. The Giant's phantom flesh burst in a jet of icy fog. He howled, sinking to one knee.

"Grumgor, stop!" Captain Vale barked. He danced back, taking a defensive posture.

"You really want to spend another decade dispersed?" I slunk back behind a tree, dropping low, but watching. Grumgor snarled, snapping his sapling around. It struck the Captain. The Drake-kin grunted as he flew back, impacting a tree trunk. He slumped to the ground, catching himself on a knee. Foggy vapors drifted off his body.

"Give me that knife!" Grumgor snarled, limping forward. More vapors poured from the wound on his ankle.

"Grumgor, I've protected this island for over a hundred years!" Captain Vale took a protective guard.

"If you think for one moment I'm going to lose to the likes of you—" He snorted. The Giant's face twisted into a snarl, and he lunged. Like a chain snapping tight, he lurched to a stop mid-attack. Vale's guard came down, and his scaled brows rose.

"What—" Grumgor flailed.

"Put me down!" Then he started to float. He drifted up, listing past the tree canopy. I rose, stepping out from my hiding spot.

"How are you doing that?" I asked.

"That isn't me," the Ghost captain said, gaze locked on the floating giant. Grumgor howled as he accelerated, drifting up and south rightward. My eyes widened as they focused on the glowing hole in the sky directly behind him.

"By Jorg," Captain Vale whispered.

"What are those?" Motion to the side caught my attention, and I shifted. A drifter zipped up after him, a human man with an eyepatch. Further in the woods, an orc lifted as if caught in a stream. I stepped back. A dozen faint blurs of spectral forms drifted up from the island, flying towards the two breaches in the sky.

"What's happening?" I asked, voice cracking.

"The souls," Vale whispered.

"They're being stolen." Grumgor howled, shrinking to a speck as the breach consumed him.