The gathering gloom made them difficult to make out, and the firelight was behind them, but Azkun could see that they were as tall as Althak. Their clothes were roughly made unlike his own, and among them stood some children with blankets wrapped around their shoulders. These were pushed back inside the house as soon as their presence was realised by the others. With their movements Azkun caught a glint of metal, an ornament or a weapon. Several of them were shouting to the other houses now and one of them ran to the nearest house. A horn blew, alerting the whole community.
More people appeared. Glints of metal were everywhere. They seemed tense, not quite afraid, but not at ease either.
He wanted to call to them. He was not to he feared. He was the bridge to the dragons. He would not bring the darkness of the chasm to them. But their anxiety had insinuated itself into his own mind and mingled with his native fear of the growing gloom.
“Say something, Althak. Tell them we are friends.” Menish spoke wearily from behind.
Althak nodded to Menish and called something in the Vorthenki tongue. Azkun did not understand it but it carried a tone of reassurance that eased his fear. The tenseness in the air evaporated to a vague uneasiness. Most of the Vorthenki folk returned to their fire sides and the few that remained were more curious than concerned.
But Azkun had been shaken. The darkness gathered about him, releasing its spectres. He clutched at the reins of his horse and clamped his jaw so that his fear would not be voiced. He must have fire.
Then it happened.
The villagers in their doorways wavered like ghosts. They became suddenly transparent. He could hardly see them. For a heartbeat he thought it was just the darkness, but he could still see the houses. The darkness was not complete. Even the hills behind were still solid to his vision. He had seen two nights now. People did not turn to ghosts at night.
He turned to Althak, hoping for an explanation. But before he could speak he realised that Althak was just the same.
Althak noticed his sudden movement and returned it with a raised eyebrow, an unspoken question. His wavering transparency made the gesture into a mocking death’s head with diamond eyes.
“Azkun, what is it?”
But he could not speak. Terror clutched at his throat, robbing him of speech, robbing him of the gift of the dragons. He could not speak to a spectre. He could not admit that this was happening.
A dog barked and they passed more people, all wavering ghosts, all adding to the paralysing terror. Grath, Bolythak, Hrangil, Menish and Drinagish, they were all ghosts. Was this how they had appeared to the pig?
He thought of running, but he had already rejected that way. Flight was madness unless there were some goal. Besides, how could he ever outrun this horror? If only he could reach a fire. But the fires were in the houses and the ghostly forms of the villagers guarded the houses.
Desperately he scanned the skies for the sight of a dragon. But all he saw was the black sky looming over him like death.
They stopped beside a building that was different from the long houses. It was taller and made of stone blocks. A warm glow came from the open doorway, bringing Azkun some relief. But, clustered on the roadway in front of the building, were more ghostly villagers. They stared at the horsemen, especially at Azkun. He felt as if they were sentencing him to death.
Behind it all he could hear a rushing, hissing sound, like the sighing of lost souls, but he could not see its source. More insubstantial figures came out of the building and spoke to the ghost of Althak in their harsh tongue. The others dismounted, but Azkun clung to his horse. It was his anchor of sanity. He stared at his own hands, finding a superficial comfort in their solidity, watching them lest they too dissolved in the darkness.
“Come, Azkun. We've arrived.” It was Althak at his side, or the wavering form that had been Althak. It wanted him to dismount.
“No,” he managed to croak back, a refusal of everything.
“Come, we must go inside. Climb down.”
He shook his head and closed his eyes, shutting out reality, or what was left of it.
Menish called something to Althak, a question and an order, and Azkun felt the hands of the Vorthenki as he was lifted from the horse. The shock of the solidity of his grasp was numbing and the movement hurt his sore arm. Althak set him on his feet and the horses were led away by the ghostly shapes of Grath and Bolythak.
But still he could not move. He did not trust his senses. The ghost of Althak loomed beside him, it asked him questions with Althak’s voice but he refused to listen. With the solidity of the rocks that had tried to kill him, Althak’s ghost pushed him forward towards the door. Ghosts that leered at him from their transparency guarded the door. Then he saw the woman.
She stood apart from the cluster of villagers near the door, a strange little figure among these giants. A loose blue robe hung from her shoulders and fluttered in the wind. She stared at him vacantly, just another curious villager.
But she was different. She was solid. No, more than solid. The others were wavering ghosts blown in the wind, but the buildings were solid; he, himself, was solid. She was like a blinding pillar of light, solid as massive granite in the darkness. He felt himself fading in comparison, paling away to nothingness.
When he looked back at Althak’s ghost his eyes had to adjust before he could find him. He seemed less threatening now, an insubstantial, ineffective thing against the solidity of the woman. But it had been Althak, and Althak had been kind to him. He pointed to her. It was impossible that they had not seen her.
“Look!”
“Azkun, this is no time for wenching.”
Althak’s ghost nudged him towards the doorway, but he twisted away from its paradoxically solid grasp. A sharp pain ran the length his injured arm and he thought he had made it worse. But the woman was all that mattered. He crossed the space between them and reached out to her. He had to touch her.
Suddenly another of the ghosts stood between them. An old woman, he could hardy see her insubstantial form against the first woman, barred his way. She wavered and floated in the wind, but wrath was etched in her face as she said something in the Vorthenki tongue that was unmistakably a rebuke. Then both were gone, the old woman and the young, they disappeared into the night.
Althak’s hand grasped him by the shoulder and he turned.
He blinked. The world was normal again. Althak was no longer a ghost, none of them was. The others looked at him curiously, as if they had not noticed the change. The light spilling from the doorway looked friendly, as did the faces of the villagers nearby.
Drinagish had already gone inside and Menish was about to follow, but he was troubled by something. For some reason Azkun could not fathom he was suddenly deeply upset.
“That was ill done,” said Althak as he herded him towards the doorway. “One does not take women in the road as one fancies, whatever you may have heard of my people.”
“I do not know what you mean,” replied Azkun. “Could you not see her?”
“She was comely enough, I suppose, though I've seen better. But that's not the way these things are done.”
“But she was real!”
They stepped through the doorway into a large room with faded frescoes on the walls and heavy wooden rafters. The walls were made of stone and the floor was strewn with rushes. In the centre of the room a great cauldron hung from one of the rafters and a fire below it filled the room with the smell of smoke, which mingled with the other smells of ale, fish and sweat. Lamps hung from the rafters, shedding a smoky light. There were benches and tables scattered around the floor, occupied by big, yellow-haired Vorthenki seamen. Along one wall lay a series of wooden barrels.
An unusually short Vorthenki, who made up for his lack of height by an enormous girth, beamed broadly and bowed incessantly at each and all of the company, speaking quickly in the Vorthenki tongue as he did so, and giggling nervously at the strangers. Althak was the most richly dressed so he received most of the bows. Menish seemed barely interested.
“Have him roast some of our meat, Althak, I don't like the smell of that cauldron. We'll sleep here tonight. Ask him if he can organise a bath.”
Althak nodded and passed Menish’s message to the proprietor who bowed again and beamed even more
