Pan followed the dead ghost seer. She’d sacrificed some of her light to ensure her secrecy. The flashlight’s glow bobbed, enough to see by, but dim.
In return, the ghost seer gained form. She seemed more mummy than ghost now. She floated ahead, and her feet dangled above the rock floor, toes pointed down. She twisted her neck to look back at Pan and beckoned.
For forty minutes, Pan followed. She checked her clock after the first twenty, and then, she checked it every five.
She wondered if the others would get on her trail. She wondered if they got through to Kat after all. She worried the life of the party, who wasn’t the miner, might find them. Most of all, she worried they would know her for a reaper. The ghost seer did. The ghost seemed to like it.
After forty minutes, the ghost brought Pan out of the mine and into a natural cave. Pan balked at the transition. She stuck her head into the tight passage and found the floor to be a rocky mess.
“You’re in here?”
The ghost seer nodded.
Pan exhaled and stepped inside. With care, she placed her feet between the rocks. The ghost seer smiled, just a little. Then, as Pan picked her way among the rocks, the ghost disappeared around a corner. Pan trudged on, hoping she wouldn’t have to go too deep.
She slipped and tripped around the corner. Rocks skittered from her clumsy gait, and Pan scratched her hands on the rough walls.
Just around the corner, Pan stopped. The ghost seer waited. The passage continued on, but the ghost pointed at a tight, circular hole. Pan approached the hole and looked inside. It was another passage, a tunnel set halfway up the wall, tighter still. The ghost continued to point.
“In there?” Pan asked.
The ghost seer nodded.
“You?”
Again, the ghost nodded.
“Can you show me the others?”
The ghost withdrew her pointing finger and then, vehemently, pointed again at the hole. The ghost’s eyes flickered in red and white. Pan’s light dimmed.
“I will get you out, but first, show me the others. You’re difficult to retrieve.” Pan backed away.
With angry eyes, the ghost floated towards Pan. Pan leaned away. The deceased seer stopped a few inches shy of Pan and veered onto a new course, back towards the mine.
Pan let out breath that she didn’t know she held. Then, she followed. She struggled to keep up.
The ghost left the cave and left Pan behind, but Pan found her way to the mine again. The ghost waited there, with her head tilted and eyes glowing red. Pan thought of it as the deceased’s equivalent of crossed arms and toe tapping.
Back in the mine, Pan breathed easier, but not for long. The ghost seer floated into another crevice, right back into the natural cave. The ghost seemed set on taking Pan here. Apparently, they’d all died outside the mine proper.
This entrance Pan found rocky and steep. She put both hands against the walls and climbed her way down the jagged slope. She followed the ghost and moved very slowly. Water rushed nearby, and Pan wondered if the cave possessed its own exit to the outside. The ghost took Pan deeper and left the underground river behind. Then, the ghost stopped and fell out of sight.
Pan paused. The ghost had gone straight down. It appeared that she’d fled into the rock itself – not impossible. Pan crept closer and found herself on the edge of a deep, seemingly bottomless pit. Pan stepped back and was beside the ghost seer again.
“I see now that you would be a lot easier to retrieve than this one. Who is that?” Pan pointed down the hole.
“Power sharer,” the ghost’s whisper dimmed Pan’s light.
Pan made a sound of discomfort.
“Portal maker,” the ghost added.
The light remained steady.
Pan raised her eyebrows. “They’re both down there?”
Again, the ghost nodded. Her eyes turned blue. Satisfied that she’d cut ahead of her two friends in this would-be rescue, she beckoned Pan back out of the cave.
“I still need to see the healer.” Pan kept close to the spirit as she followed it back up the jagged slope.
The ghost seer nodded and waved a hand as if to say yes, yes.
Together, they slipped out of the cave and back into the mine. Pan followed the ghost through more twists and turns. The last dead arcane lay in a junction, filled with supplies. There Pan found the healer’s body in a mine cart. It was a smooth mummy, trapped between decay and perpetual self-healing. The power sharer wasn’t the only mummy working her magic.
“I can’t believe no one found her here.” Pan put her hands on the mine cart’s edge and peeked inside at the healer’s strange corpse. “Go back to your body. Wait there. I’m coming.”
The ghost stared hard at Pan and wouldn’t go.
Pan put more force in her voice. “Go wait by the entrance to the cave so I can find it. I’m going to move the healer’s body towards the front of the mine. I know the way.” Pan moved to grab the dead healer.
“Reap her here,” the ghost whispered.
Pan sighed. “I would dearly love to, but I can’t. They’ll know. I need to take her out and reap her later.”
Pan looked up to find the ghost gone, disappeared.
Good.
Now, Pan could dispose of the body without a witness. No one dead would leave the mine.
The healer’s ghost might still appear. Pan checked the junction for another girl, but she remained alone. The healer’s ghost was nowhere in sight, and Pan wondered if she’d stuck around at all.
Pan reached in the cart and braced herself. Then, she scooped. To her surprise, the body rose with ease. The mummy seemed to weigh no more than five pounds. Pan stood a moment in shock.
Then, she hurried back to the second cave entrance. She squeezed the body ahead of her and then, she squeezed through herself. She hurried down the rocky slope, slipping on loose rocks. She passed the sound of rushing water, and she approached the drop.
Pan longed to touch the dead healer in the way a reaper might. She could become a healer herself. But, if she reaped the healer’s power, the others would know. It was the same reason she couldn’t use her telekinesis. They would feel it.
Pan felt flutterings of her companions’ powers. Merit’s telekinesis tickled like static, different than her own. Uda’s fire starting felt like warmth in Pan’s extremities. Lita’s ice shaping manifested as a chill in Pan’s core. Somewhere in the mine, Pan knew they worked their arcane abilities.
She drew on the powers herself, testing them. Little drops of ice formed on the walls, and sparks danced at Pan’s feet. She could manage only an echo of her companions’ abilities. She had little control, but she could do little. What was the point of this power sharing if she could never match the others?
Pan had strong feelings about the remaining powers: Hagen’s dream invasion and Ruair’s healing. She never felt Hagen’s power, and she would cast such a power to the winds of Scaldigir. Who needed to know what others dreamed? Who should? As for Ruair’s healing, Pan needed it. She felt its echo.
“Pan?”
She jumped and almost dropped the body.
Ruair’s voice came over the com. “Have you found a ghost? I can’t get through to Kat. We’ve just been running from that miner.”
Pan keyed her com. “Yes, I’ve found a ghost. I’m following it now.”
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Pan laid the healer’s body on the edge of the drop. Then, she rolled it in. A breeze wafted up, and Pan withdrew from the edge.
“Pan, I’m going to find the others, and then, we need to leave. Where are you?” Ruair questioned.
“I’m towards the back of the mine. I’m okay, but I’ll head back now.”
Ruair’s sigh came over the com. “Okay? Be careful. We can come back for the ghost later.”
“Understood.” Pan rushed out of the cave and headed back to the ghost seer. A sneaky thrill coursed through her veins. She’d gotten away with most of it. Now, she just had to make sure no one would find the ghost seer.
A sudden question popped into Pan’s head. Could she reap a power she already possessed? If not, then she would find no harm in saving the ghost seer, especially since she could take the ghost seer out of the power sharer’s influence.
She’s wandering this place, and I could help her. She’s like the reapers, dead because of some elder arcane’s bad decision.
Pan hurried back to the ghost seer. She had an understanding of the mine’s layout, but she wasn’t sure she would remember the twists and turns when she left. She circled back and approached from an earlier section of the mine, to add credence to her lie of moving the healer’s body towards the entrance.
Pan rounded a corner and saw the cave entrance ahead. The ghost seer hovered by the cave’s narrow maw, looking a little forlorn.
“I’m back. Just as promised.” Pan spread her hands.
With force, the seer pointed at the entrance. Her feet faded again, and she looked more ghost than mummy.
“I know my way.” Pan squeezed into the crevice. She turned sideways and scooted through. She emerged on the other side and hurried toward the small tunnel.
Rocky ground dotted the path ahead, and Pan put both hands to the passage walls. She looked back and saw the ghost behind her. Pan flinched but didn’t take the full weight of the jump scare. She faced ahead and saved her complaints.
Finally, the tunnel came into view. Pan trotted the last stretch, took a deep breath, and ducked her head inside. She found she could just fit.
As she worked her way inside, Pan’s light bounced over the tunnel’s walls. She laid on her stomach and dragged herself forward. She found the terrain rough but smoother than any untraveled cave had a right to be. Pan surmised the tunnel belonged to a giant worm from a long time ago.
Pan wriggled her way forward and finally got her feet inside the hole. She paused. “Why did you come in here?”
“Scared…” came a distant whisper.
Pan’s light dimmed, and she froze. She preferred the ghost’s silence. With a small sigh, Pan worked her way deeper, praying for the passage to widen. The tunnel twisted, and she couldn’t see far enough ahead to garner any comfort. In fact, the tunnel seemed to narrow. Pan squeezed past.
“Pan! Where are you? I’m coming for you.” Ruair’s words were a shock.
Pan bumped her head on the top of the tunnel. She struggled to grab her com and get it to her mouth. “I’m in a tight spot. Give me a few more minutes. I’ll come to you.”
“No, no more time. I’m back at the central room – the one where we split up. I see your passage, and I’m taking it. Uda is coming with me. Hagen will take Lita and Merit out.” Ruair’s plan seemed sound.
Pan would have agreed to if she didn’t have secrets. How long had she walked the mine before finding the cave? Forty minutes?
Pan didn’t bother to answer Ruair. She shimmied forward, worried that she might not be able to get out. She had an urge to push her com and beg for Ruair’s rescue, but she had someone else to rescue first.
With a final struggle, Pan pulled her way into a more open space. She didn’t exit the tunnel. The space ahead was nothing more than a den, probably some worm’s old nest. Pan’s heart pounded, and she struggled to breathe.
She searched for the ghost seer’s body but couldn’t find it among the rocks. She didn’t want to receive an answer at the expense of her light, but she needed to ask. “Where are you? I don’t see you.”
No answer.
Then, Pan’s light dimmed. It winked on and off and finally regained some light, albeit dimmer.
By Pan’s head, a violent jerk disturbed loose stone. She jumped and finally saw the ghost seer’s mummy. The body twitched again. The body twitched. Pan had never seen that before. The body pushed itself forward on twisted feet. Pan looked right into the dead eyes.
She did something she hadn’t done in a long while. She panicked. Pan pushed herself back into the hole and kept going.
Pan wanted nothing to do with a body that moved itself. She didn’t know what that meant or what the ghost seer had become, but it seemed too dangerous to save. She wasn’t letting that thing out of the mine.
The stone felt rough as she moved quickly. The rock scraped her belly and knees and elbows as she tried to back out.
Pan’s light bobbed ahead, but she paid it no attention, until she saw the girl right in front of her, crawling down the tunnel. At first, Pan thought she saw the body in motion, but soon, she realized she saw the ghost, more substantial than before.
Pan pushed back. Her arms stretched ahead of her, and the ghost grabbed her wrists.
“I can’t,” Pan pleaded. “I can’t do it. What was that?” She pulled her hands free.
The ghost’s attacks were more of a suggestion than a reality, but since Pan could see them, she found herself in danger of believing them.
Again, the ghost tugged her arms and pulled at her hair. Pan just moved back.
Suddenly, she slipped free. She bumped her head on the small tunnel’s roof, trying to stand up before she fully exited. Once out, Pan turned and fled through the narrow passage.
The ghost seer tried to block her path, but Pan moved right through the ghost’s spectral person and felt an electric chill. The ghost tried to grab her wrist and pull her back. A couple of times, Pan felt a strong hold. She pulled herself forward, clutching at the rough rock. Her light dimmed but always regained brightness. Pan prayed to keep the light.
She exited the narrow cave and ran back into the mine. The dead ghost seer followed and blocked her path twice.
“My body,” the ghost whispered.
Pan ran through the spectre, feeling only some resistance as if she ran through water.
Out of breath, with a stitch in her side, and with tingles running up and down her left arm and leg, Pan paused. She shook and tried to catch her breath. The ghost seer had gone, finally spent, and Pan’s light survived the encounter.
The ghost would be back though, and Pan couldn’t know if it would put energy into conversation or physicality. Or, maybe the body itself would come. Pan couldn’t fathom why a body that could move needed her to rescue it, unless it had all been a trick – bait.
When she felt able, Pan ran again. She pulled out her com and pressed the button. “How far are you? I need help. I’m running back along the path.”
“We’re coming.”
“The arcane’s ghost got angry. She’s pissed.” Pan felt a strong numbness in her left foot, but she ignored it.
“Try to stay calm. Why is she...?”
Pan’s com crackled. “Oh, wonderful, Ruair?”
The com still crackled, but a man’s voice carried through the speaker. In an old dialect, the voice sang a soft tune. If Pan knew ghosts, and she did, she knew it had to be a nursery rhyme. The words were fuzzy, but Pan heard something about a lost girl.
Pan’s flashlight dimmed, and ahead, she saw red eyes. Now, the song came from the com and the shadow in front of her.
“Ruair? The miner is on this path. He’s in front of me.”
Pan’s light dimmed to a fragile glow, and the miner dragged his pickaxe along the wall. Sparks flew.
While her light lasted, Pan tried to bolt by the miner. He appeared just ahead of her and tried to catch her in his free arm. For a moment, Pan felt the restraint of a real man. Then, she fell through his arm, found her feet, and ran. She put a hand to the tunnel wall, and her light blinked out.
Pan kept moving forward. She walked and grasped that wall, like a lifeline. She had no light, so she didn’t dare run. She didn’t even know if she could. Her hands shook, and her legs felt weak.
The miner’s rhyme followed along, and his pickaxe played an accompaniment on the rock. Pan glanced back and saw his red eyes amid the sparks. Stupid of the miner to drain her light so quickly. He would have no energy to attack her again. Then again, he might not need it.
Pan faced forward and walked. The miner followed. They executed one of the slower chases Pan had ever witnessed.
Again, Pan glanced back. She saw the miner very close. He smiled now. His person remained in shadow, but his white teeth and red eyes lit the tunnel.
Pan reached for her cheek and wiped at it. She noticed her mask had gone. She had no idea where she lost it.
The miner grabbed Pan’s arm. This time, she couldn’t pull away. He possessed the strong grip of a living man. Pan pulled on his grasp.
“Just let me go. Let go.” Pan jerked free and fell against another masculine body. She struggled to stand upright and find her bearings.
“Pan. Pan!” Ruair grabbed Pan’s shoulders. “He’s gone. I don’t see him anymore.”
Pan stopped. She whirled. She could see the mine walls again, courtesy of Uda and Ruair’s lights. The miner really had gone.
“Let’s go.” Ruair pulled Pan along.
She didn’t need much prompting.
Pan sat in the mentor’s lounge. She occupied a chair with a high back. It faced away from the door, aimed to keep her gaze on the rest of the team.
One by one, they trickled out. They left for their homes and rooms, assured that they had done their best. First, Lita and Merit. Then, Hagen and Uda. Finally, Ruair. He offered Pan some light healing and went on his way.
Pan would leave too, if she could find the energy.
She put down the tea that Chara gave her. She closed her eyes and drew her feet up. Some mentor could levitate her up the stairs. She’d wait for them to find her in the corner of the room.
Footsteps sounded behind the chair. They stopped at the door.
“Looks like Pan went up to her room,” Chara said into the quiet.
Chara didn’t see Pan, hidden behind the chair’s tall back, with her feet pulled up into the seat.
Pan perked up but still feigned sleep, just in case they entered the room, rounded the chair, and found her. She didn’t want them to ask why she hadn’t answered. Pan curled into a ball, waited, and listened.
“I think they did rather well. Unfortunately, we’ll have to send them in for round two.” Brynn’s staff slid along the floor.
Next came Kat’s voice. “No. I say we just find an aged arcane and wait till they die. Test the young arcanes that way.”
“How will that work? A reaper can choose not to reap. Anyway, who would you suggest?” a man asked. Pan didn’t recognize the voice well enough to place it to a face or name. “No one wants to be food for a reaper.”
“Someone would volunteer,” Kat said. “We need to set a trap.”
“Oh please,” Spy begged. “Let’s not subject someone to that.”
The group paused. Pan continued to listen.
Finally, Brynn spoke. “We test them again. We use the mine. The power sharer is the best option. We give them a short break, and then we send them in. Maybe, we should send all twenty. A ghost miner can’t terrorize twenty people.”
The man sighed. “That means we’d be in the same position. We wouldn’t know who among the twenty was the reaper. We need to narrow it down.”
The group murmured their goodnights. Pan heard nothing further, until…
“The reaper is among them,” Chara said. “I just know it. Sotir’s vision wouldn’t have included those six. He wouldn’t have picked them if one wasn’t the reaper.”
After some final pleasantries, the mentors dispersed. They never found Pan in her feigned slumber.
Pan opened her eyes. Sotir picked her to go into the mine. It wasn’t Detective Casimir’s fault. It was Sotir’s. He could see every twist and turn of a chosen decision. He was what she needed now. He was what she needed before she set herself on this path.
It was too late to consult the fortune. If the others didn’t discover Pan before he got back, he would have the honors.
Pan was sure what he would do. He’d say something. Pan’s potential house arrest didn’t affect him negatively. After all, it might help him get exactly what he wanted.