Rasp drifted in and out of consciousness, jerking alert to catch himself each time his body listed dangerously over one side of the mule. The dark forest canopy blocked out any natural light provided by the moon or stars, obscuring his already finicky sense of time. Rasp didn’t know how many hours passed before Bonecrusher’s plodding steps came to a stop, he was merely grateful that they’d reached their destination while he still possessed feeling in some of his fingers.
Father stirred to life on Rasp’s shoulder with a shake of his feathery head. He stretched his wings, smacking Rasp across the face as he did so, before fluttering away in search of a perch that smelled less like an amalgamation of mule musk and swampy armpits.
Rasp was preparing to slide from the saddle when Hop’s steady hand braced against his shoulder. “I think it would be best if you let me assist with this part.”
The insult struck like a limp-handed slap. Fresh heat flushed across Rasp’s frostbitten face, stinging the tip of his nose. He swatted Hop’s hand away with a scoff. “In case you didn’t notice, I’m a big boy now. I can dismount all by myself, mom.”
“I only meant–”
“Stand aside please.” Rasp struck a dramatic pose. He held his left hand clenched to his chest and the other outstretched in Hop’s direction, keeping the faun at a distance. “Just because I’m blind does not mean I’m helpless.”
Hop mustered a halfhearted ear flick, so light Rasp barely heard its leathery snap. “Of course. My apologies. By all means, have at it.”
Gripping the saddle with both hands, Rasp swung his right leg over, intending to let gravity do the rest of the work assisting his body to the ground. Unfortunately, this tactic relied on fully functioning legs, and not the gelatinous noodle bits that now constituted his lower extremities. Rasp’s numb feet struck the ground and folded uselessly beneath him. He went down with a startled yelp in a flurry of flailing arms, stirring a cloud of frost encrusted leaves into the air.
“As I was saying,” Hop continued pleasantly, “it was your legs, not your vision, I was concerned about. Particularly whether or not the lack of circulation had caused temporary paresthesia. I suppose I have my answer now.”
Croak, croak, croak. Father’s harsh laughter echoed around them, bouncing between tree and stone in a manner that was far too eerie to grate on Rasp’s fraying nerves.
“Oh, shut up, Dad,” Rasp snarled, definitely not embarrassed at all by his sudden and most unexpected reunion with the ground. “You always take mom’s side!”
“If you don’t mind, I’m going to ignore everything you’re saying and just pick you up now,” Hop said as his cloven feet dragged closer, disturbing the piles of curled leaves heaped across the woodland floor. His strong hand caught Rasp beneath the arm and lifted him from the ground with far more care than he rightfully deserved.
Rasp inhaled sharply as blood rushed to his legs in a surge of pins and needles. “I take it all back, Hopalong,” he said between short gasps of breath, clinging to Hop like a helpless baby possum to its mother. “You’re an excellent mother. I shouldn’t have acted the way I did. I’m sorry.”
“Must you make everything so weird?”
“There, there. Compliments are hard to take, I know.” Rasp found the side of the faun’s face with his hand and gave it a sympathetic pat. “Anyway, now that my pride’s been buried, I’m ready to be carried now.”
“I’m not carrying you.”
Some tender face fondling would be sure to change the stubborn faun’s mind, Rasp was certain of it. “Lil horsey-back ride?”
“No.”
“Fauney-back ride?”
“Not a thing,” Hop assured him as he started to pull, intending for Rasp to fall into step beside him.
“A light dragging it is then,” Rasp said as he slid his arm free from the crook of Hop’s elbow, willing his body to assume its natural slug form once more. His wobbly knees took their cue and buckled on command, spilling him back towards the ground.
“Rasp.” Hop caught him before he got halfway, groaning, “We’ve been walking all day. I’m exhausted. Do you think we could just get to where we’re going without the theatrics for a change?”
“How dare you, sir. You know my love language is needlessly dramatic.”
“And here I thought it was because you didn’t want to step foot near the haunted ruins of a dead civilization.”
Was that the cause for his sudden bout of ‘I don’t want to do this and you can’t make me’? How insightful. It was a shame this knowledge didn’t do anything to stop the creepy crawly sensation currently skittering up and down his spine. With a plaintive sigh, Rasp reluctantly stood and threaded his arm back through Hop’s. “Can’t fault me for trying.”
“To your credit, it did delay our inevitable deaths by a few minutes.” Leading the mule with one hand and with Rasp hanging on to the other, Hop started them off with slow, painstaking steps.
The spongy forest floor beneath their feet gradually shifted to something more solid. Not completely solid, Rasp noted, as his left foot sank ankle-deep into a swampy layer of decomposing foliage. He pulled his tattered boot free with a grunt as he attempted to keep pace with Hop. The rhythmic rustle of the treetops grew faint as the smells of wet stone and moss enveloped them from all sides.
“Is there a reason this is taking so long?” Whisper’s voice rang out from up ahead.
“What? Afraid the ancient ruins are going somewhere, Whisper?” Rasp snapped back. Judging from the cavernous echo, he assumed they were near stone structures of some sort. He swiveled his head this way and that, unable to identify anything amongst the unrelenting darkness. “Alright, give it to me straight,” he whispered to Hop. “How haunted is this place?”
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“Honestly, I can’t see much at all.”
“Welcome to my world.”
“However, there is…” Hop’s voice trailed, giving him time to reconsider whatever terrible thing he was about to say. “You know what, never mind. It’s fine. We’re fine.”
The hairs on the back of Rasp’s neck stood on end as the crawling beneath his skin doubled. “Um, no. Not never mind. We’re in this together, Hoppy. You tell me everything, the good, the bad, and the nightmare fuel.”
Their voices echoed as they passed beneath what might have been a stone arc. The musty air was thick with the smell of wet stone and decayed vegetation. “It’s just, I’ve read about places like this before. Kalikose, specifically.” Hop anticipated Rasp’s next question before he had the chance to put his confusion to words. “Kalikose is another ruined city, the most famous probably, located deep in Yubak territory. Similar circumstances: ancient magic city, supposedly haunted, etcetera. My point is, every journal entry I read detailed the same strange phenomenon. A feeling, if you will, that everyone who ever visited felt before entering.”
“You mean the feeling like something is seriously off and, despite no obvious signs of danger, every muscle in your body is screaming at you to run?” Rasp ventured.
“Precisely.”
Rasp clung to Hop’s burly forearm as the pair exited the stone arc back out into open air. Dark shadows rose up on either side of them, obscured by the unrelenting dark. He was used to not being able to see anything, that wasn’t anything new. What Rasp found truly unnerving was the lack of sound. Forests were rarely silent. The rustle of the wind in the trees, birds, the incessant buzz of insects–all were eerily absent.
“Alright, Whisper,” Rasp said. “You’ve strung us along long enough. What’s so special about this place?”
“You can feel it just as strongly as can I, little bird. That tremble beneath your skin? The static in the air? It’s downright intoxicating.”
“Yeah, not how I’d describe what I’m feeling.”
“We are standing in what used to be the village center,” Whisper explained. “Look around you. Isn’t it marvelous?”
“You know I can’t see shit.”
“Because you are using the wrong set of eyes. In order to understand why I brought you here, you must rely on your sixth sense. Do as we practiced.”
Gods, he was too tired for this shit. Holding back his lashing tongue, Rasp closed his eyes and drew inwards for the simple fact that complying was easier than protesting. The shift between planes was subtle. So much so, that when Rasp opened his eyes again, convinced he would see the same unrelenting world of shades and shadows, he nearly keeled over with fright.
Veins of pale white light weaved across the ground in concentric circles, casting the surrounding crumbling walls in a ghoulish glow. The shapes moved together as one, coalescing in the middle of the ruined courtyard. A single stone pillar rose up at its epicenter, its chipped exterior carved with intricate runes. The symbols glowed, pulsing in time to the vibration crawling beneath Rasp’s skin.
Tearing his gaze from the pillar, Rasp realized his phantom vision was casting the magical auras of his companions as well. Hop’s was a dull violet, towering close to six feet in height beside him. Whisper’s blue aura was further away, glowing brighter than Rasp had ever seen it before. Faint waves of light pulsed from the center pillar, curling into the air and enveloping Whisper’s body like wisps of smoke, as though naturally drawn to the fae.
Rasp studied his open palm, fascinated by the yellow glow highlighting his individual fingers. He reached for a passing wisp of magic. It curled around his hand, prickling his skin as it dissipated between his fingers and reformed its shape, continuing its path back towards the pillar.
“You seeing any of this, Hop?”
“Not a thing.”
“The place is crawling with magic.” Rasp explained what he was seeing the best he could. He tried to be articulate, but it still came off like a toddler explaining scientific theory to a learned adult. “But it’s different looking. Fainter , I guess? Like a ghost magic. Oh, and symbols. Lots of those. They’re carved into the ground and seem to be channeling all of the ghost magic towards that pillar in the middle there.”
“You’re describing a harmony stone.” To his credit, Hop actually sounded impressed. Probably with the stone itself and not Rasp’s super descriptive explanation, though. “Most were destroyed during the Great Expansion. It’s rare to find one still standing.”
Rasp was forever amazed how, even though he and Hop spoke a shared language, he only understood about half of what the faun was saying at any given time.
Whisper, fortunately, could be counted on to help fill the gaps in Rasp’s understanding. “The harmony stone is a shrine, constructed using a combination of fae and mortal magic. It served as a representation of the amity that once existed between the two.”
Amidst the ghoulish white glow, Rasp saw Whisper’s silhouette approach the stone. The carved runes sparked blue when Whisper placed their hand to the pillar. “Once upon a time, you could find a harmony stone in every mortal village. The shrines were charmed with healing properties and served as an unspoken invitation for any fae seeking shelter to stop and stay. Helping a weary fae was thought to bring favor to the village.”
Rasp turned his head, studying the eerie light that weaved across what remained of the village. Squinting, he could just barely make out a ring of broken stone walls shrouded in moss. “What kind of favor?”
“Plentiful times of harvest, fertility, protection, to name but a few.”
“Huh,” Rasp said. “Doesn’t look like it worked.”
“I’m not with him!” Hop stepped backwards, allowing for an adequate smiting buffer between him and Rasp. “Just in case anyone or thing listening might care.”
“He says, still holding my hand,” Rasp remarked flatly.
“Attempting to reconcile that.”
“It’s too late, Hop. The ghosts already saw. They know we’re together.”
“I really wish you would be more mindful of phrasing.” Despite the faun’s commendable attempts, he was unable to shake off Rasp’s iron grip. “Seven realms! Why are you only this strong when you’re actively trying to endanger my life?”
“Active endangerment is your love language.”
“The little bird is not wrong about the effectiveness of the harmony stone.” Whisper’s shifting blue aura moved away from the glowing pillar towards them, intent on concluding the history lesson regardless of Rasp’s participation in it. “The fate of the mortals who once lived here were intertwined with that of the fae. When my people disappeared, so too did their blessings. For the first time in eons, villages such as this found themselves susceptible to a rapidly changing world. They may have wanted harmony, but their neighbors wanted power. One by one, they fell to the greed of mortal-kind.”
Rasp didn’t know whether the sudden drop in his spirits was due to the overextension of his magic, his overwhelming weariness, or the lesson itself. Feeling the last dregs of his energy slipping away, he closed his eyes and extinguished his aural vision with a flick of his fingers. “Are all of your history lessons going to be this depressing?”
“It wasn’t all depressing,” Hop countered. “The part about the harmony stone was interesting.”
“Yeah, right up until everyone died for putting their trust in a hunk of rock.”
“We have barely scratched the surface,” Whisper assured Rasp. “One day, when you are ready, I will tell you of the original gift of magic and how spectacularly that failed.”
The mere thought made his knees wobble in protest. There was only so much depressing history one could cram inside their aching skull before bedtime. “Not tonight though, right? Haunted or not, the ground is starting to look awful comfy.”
“Yes, yes. Make your bed. We will camp here tonight.”
“Yay,” Hop murmured weakly under his breath as he turned to unsaddle the mule standing dutifully behind them, “haunted sleepover.”