Deyilan was first into the courtyard, abseiling down with care to avoid the spikes. He took station with cocked crossbow while Bajur followed, then Aitonala, Cardnial, Chrys and Skaia. Rakt had covered the descent from above, and came last. They left the rope dangling and advanced with the utmost caution, noses wrinkled at the smell of dead Gruyush. A circle around the building revealed nothing, and they moved up to the nearest entrance. Here the smells were stronger – a mix of blood, fur, old straw, bones. Deyilan peered in, tested a step, listened, finally advanced into the gloom. A short flight of stone steps led to a large square chamber with entrances on all sides and a deep pit in the middle. A smaller gruyush lay in a heap in a corner, pummelled to death. Crossbow levelled, Deyilan took three paces and looked down. From a long way below came the suck and swish of water, the smell of brine.

The party stayed together as they scouted the building. Some entrances led to blank walls, some to small chambers strewn with gruyush bedding, Two of these also held dead gruyush, and evidence of the melee was everywhere, in patches of blood and fur, crumpled corpses and splatters of pink foam, some still pulsing feebly. A badly-wounded gruyush lurking in one chamber roused to lurch for Deyilan, scoring his mail coat with blunt nails even as he hacked it down. While Skaia expertly skinned the least damaged gruyush, Chrys and Deyilan made another reconnoiter. This found no doors leading down, but Chrys thought to look up. One passage had a hole in the ceiling. She spoke Words to lift Deyilan up and find a passage.

Chrys looked around. “The walls are scored here, as if the gruyush have tried to climb. There may be some magic defence or trap up there. We’ll get the others.”

Aitonala had painted the hides with Unrot, which would preserve them but did nothing about the smell. When she and Skaia had cleaned up as best they could they all gathered around the shaft. This time Aitonala went up, to try a spell she had learned in Umma. There was definitely something dangerous up there, she reported. Deyilan came up beside her and they tested the passage, to find a tentacled mass of clear jelly blocking the passage. Fire dealt with this; beyond was a hole going down beyond the reach of their lights. They looked at each other. Everything to now had been preliminary to entering into these depths, and none had returned.

“I will go first,” said Bajur. He looped a rope under his arms, told Rakt and Deyilan to pay out slowly and went into the black. Skaia knotted another length to the first, and they had reached the join when it went slack. Two tugs came, signalling no immediate danger. They secured the rope and one by one backed over, Aitonala last.

The depths lacked the menacing décor above. Chrys found a plain rock-cut passage, as neat, square and level as dwarf-work. Her glowstone shone on smooth grey walls flecked with tiny crystals, a floor free of dust. Bajur called from ahead, voice low.

“There is a choice here, left or right. Both ways are veiled by magic. I expect one cannot return once past the veil. I will go left.”

Deyilan cursed softly, and then his voice cut off. One by one they came to the veils and passed through, most to the left. Chrys chose right on an impulse she could not explain. The passage continued beyond but Bajur had been right. Behind was blank stone. She walked on, around one curve, then another and was abruptly elsewhere. There was still firm stone under foot, still walls within reach, but the dark was absolute. She walked on, gliding each foot forward, hand trailing the wall. The dark continued, and now she thought to hear something, a low chant. As she strained her ears it grew clearer, voices repeating in unison the command ‘Fight, Fight, Fight..” over and over.

Chrys ignored the voice, walked on. The chant grew louder, more insistent, and the passage did not end. Well, she thought, magic will have its way, and drew her knife. The chant took on an excited, voyeuristic tone. Chrys dropped into a crouch, thrust into the black. Her blade met resistance, she twisted and sprang back. She felt a sting in her leg, fell back again, then lunged. Again her blade met flesh, and again she was wounded as she recovered. A third pass left her a slash on her left arm. Chrys dived desperately forward, hoping to surprise her unseen antagonist, felt a blade cut her hip and was abruptly elsewhere, lying bleeding on a floor illuminated by her glowstone. She was again in a passage, this one sloping down. She crawled to one side and did her best to bandage her wounds, then took a sip of water, levered herself to her feet and continued.

The passage bent and there ahead was a wavering light. She approached; it was Rakt, slumped on the floor, Skaia squatting against the wall beyond. Both were wounded, blood seeping from dressings on arms and leg, Rakt’s cheek opened. Rakt smiled weakly as she came up.

“Bajur’s here too. He went on a little. He’s cut, too. Did you have to fight in the dark?”

Chrys nodded. Rakt went on “Healing does not work here, so don’t waste it trying.”

Skaia looked up. “You lead interesting lives.”

Rakt looked down the passage. “Here come Deyilan and Cardnial.”

The pair limped up, as worse for wear as any there. They sat against the wall, sipped water, ate a handful of dried fruit and compared notes. All had the same experience, of being urged to fight in the dark, of making no progress until they did, of being wounded and of thinking they dealt wounds, then being abruptly translated. When Aitonala joined them her story was the same.

“It is meant to weaken, not kill,” Chrys theorised. “Unless it is some form of blood libation, such as the ancient Menghen rulers practised. They would go alone into underground temples and slash themselves with stone knives to appease their gods.”

If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

“The Gracious God will aid us against such demands,” declared Bajur, tightening a bandage. “Further along the passage is floored with red and blue tiles. It is perhaps another test.”

“I think I preferred the final exams at the Etheric Tower,” commented Chrys, wincing as she pushed herself upright.

* * * *

The tiles alternated between large squares of a cheerful blue and soft red. Very like a restaurant table-cloth, thought Chrys, except that whoever laid this table did not intend the diners to have a good experience.

“We tie the bones of our ancestors together with red and blue threads,” Skaia told them. “Perhaps this traps our bone-souls, leaving us bereft of power?”

Chrys brought out the veil she had bought in Brafa and held it before her eyes. Dark wisps floated above the tiles, wandering slowly about. As she watched one came close, resolved into a manic face then floated away, shifting in form as it went. As she kept the veil up fanged snouts, tentacled mouths, talons, probing claws, silent desperate screams drifted in and out of view. To lower the veil was a relief.

“Are they spirits, or ghosts, or illusions?” asked Aitonala.

“Maybe Hassani would know,” suggested Cardnial. “She can sense her surrounds, if only to moan about them.”

Chrys moulded the green wax around her ear. The others could only hear one side of the ensuing conversation.

“Alright. I have heard you. Now shut up and take a close look at the things in the corridor.”

“Don’t get smart. You know what I am asking.”

“If you don’t, then we all die. Much as you might like that, then you get stuck here too. For all eternity. Or, if I feel it’s your fault, I open the jar and those things get you.”

“Thank you. That is helpful. Up yours too.”

“Hassani says they are mad ghosts who know our blood. They will bite at our souls until we die or join them in madness,” Chrys reported.

“That’s ‘helpful’?” said Rakt. Chrys pointed out that it was more then they knew before.

“What does it mean that they ‘know our blood’? queried Cardnial. After another wrangle, Chrys extracted the information that the ghosts were screaming about the line of the nomad princess, the line of the whore’s son, the line of the outcast slave and similar epithets.

“Ancestor-ghosts,” Skaia said. “If they taste the blood, they know all your line. It is how we know who is of our house.”

Those with magic sat down to pool their resources, passing around Chrys’ Everlasting Coconut while checking their books and knowledge. Only Chrys had enough access to perform a spell to capture ghosts and, as she pointed out, while she was taking one, the others would swarm in. Cardnial leafed through his book, shaking his head, then took a suck on the copper straw, turned back a page and considered.

“What if we confuse them?” The others looked intrigued.

“I have here a spell called Revelation of Blood. It makes your ancestors appear, one by one, in the aspect they most preferred, and pronounce the names they were known by. One can choose to call those in the female line, the male, or both, alternately.”

“I have never heard of that one,” commented Chrys.

“It’s an old spell, but not much used. Too much potential for embarrassment, or blackmail, so those who care about ancestry prefer the official version. I got it from a friend of my father’s.”

“Are they illusions? Or the ancestors themselves?”

“No-one knows, but the living appear as well as the dead.”

Cardnial cast the spell for himself, specifying the male line. His father appeared, a dour bearded figure in merchant’s robes, and spoke his names firmly. The grandfather was a sprightly youth in the height of an outmoded fashion, his father a rotund gentleman in a bathrobe. As each appeared the ghosts flocked towards it, the nearest snatching at the figure. Chrys thought she saw a flicker of annoyance cross one ancestor’s face, but the man had such a dyspeptic expression that it was hard to tell. She studied the spell, then cast it for herself, alternating female and male. She had always wanted to know of her maternal grandfather. He shortly appeared, a handsome man in extravagant court dress who recited nine names before vanishing. This second spell made the ghosts eddy uncertainly between one lot of ancestors and another. Cardnial added Aitonala’s family, a set of sturdy yeomen and brisk matrons for the most part, although one lady appeared in a gauze dress and fur stole.

“Great grandmother Aiblis,” murmured Aitonala. By now the ghosts were washing about in confusion. Rakt drew a breath, gathered himself and ran down the corridor. A ghost wavered after him and then returned to snatch at muscled giant wearing only a thong. At his call Bajur sprinted through, then the others one by one. Chrys felt a fleeting lash tear at her essence and then cleared the tiles. Behind the ancestors rolled on, now in archaic dress, speaking names from history.

On the far side they sat down again. Chrys reached up to remove the green wax from her ear, then paused.

“Thank you,” she said, paused again and then removed the wax.

“I think that last stretch brought home to Hassani just how much peril she is in. She actually thanked me, and offered to help where she could. I think our girl is finally learning.”

“Had to happen,” Rakt said. “That or die.”