With the ghosts stalking his every footstep, Brudas forced himself back to his tent. He would be rid of these damnable spirits somehow! He must think like an Aurak! Think like the highest of all draconians! That was the way to solve it!
Yet as the day progressed, no clue dawned on him. He sat at his desk, surrounded hy the death-faces, trying his best to think and be inspired and always getting distracted by the burgeoning numbers, the constant, whispering demands of the ghosts.
“Give me the magic!”
“I need it!”
“I must have it!”
And on and on and on…
The trio of Baaz returned to camp without Brudas even noticing. Only when Drek came up to report did the Bozak realize that the entire day had faded into darkness.
The lowly Baaz walked ignorantly through the army of ghosts, unaware of the horrors eyeing him. He saluted Brudas as always.
Brudas forced his eyes up. “Yes, Drek? What is it?”
“Giving my report, sssir.”
Not really caring, the weary Bozak waved for his subordinate to continue. At least Drek’s deep, sibilant voice would drown out a bit of the constant pleading and wailing.
Drek, however, did not immediately begin. Instead, he first eyed Brudas with something approaching concern. “Massster Brudasss, you don’t look well. Per-hapsss you should lie down.”
Lie down? How could he lie down? If he slept, the ghosts wormed their way into his dreams, urging him to cast spells from which they could purloin the magic! Brudas had not forgotten the previous night, how he had woken to feel the power seeping from his twitching fingers. Lie down? Didn’t the fool Baaz know anything?
“Just give your damned report!”
Cringing, Drek did so. Brudas paid him little attention, however, using the droning of the Baaz as an opportunity to focus his thoughts on his predicament. He could not sleep; he could not cast magic. The ghosts remained with him at every moment and their numbers seemed to be growing. What could he do?
“… and that’sss all, sssir.”
Defeated for the moment, Brudas waved a taloned hand in Drek’s direction, dismissing him. However, as the Baaz turned to go, something Drek had said finally registered with the desperate Bozak.
“What’s that you said about a magic staff?”
With another sheepish expression, Drek replied, “We found what ssseemed a wizard’sss staff, Massster Brudasss, but I tripped and fell on it. Broke it. I’m sssorry, sssir!”
Under normal circumstances, Brudas would have punished the careless Baaz for such heinous stupidity, but a thought was stirring within his head, a possible salvation from the ghouls.
“The bracelet! Find me the bracelet!”
“Sssir?” Drek glanced at Brudas’s tent. “Isssn’t it inssside there?”
“No, you imbecile! It’s out there!” He pointed, not bothering to explain how the artifact had come to end up out in the swamp, and Drek had the good sense not to ask further questions. Instead, the Baaz called to his two comrades and, under Brudas’s manic guidance, they searched for the bracelet.
Drek finally found it, half-sunken in the mud. Had the Bozak tossed it just a little farther, it would have ended up in the depths of the swamp, no doubt forever lost. Relic in one hand, Drek trotted back to Brudas, who seized the bracelet immediately and, without another word, turned away from the three Baaz.
As he headed back into his tent, Brudas inspected the bracelet. The relic remained intact, even down to the loose stone. It was the black stones that interested him now, for Brudas realized he had not seen the first ghost until he touched one of them. For some reason, the spell surrounding the stones must enable the bracelet’s wearer to see the dead.
“You did this to me,” Brudas muttered at the black gems. “Let us see what happens if I remove you entirely, eh?”
The Bozak drew a dagger and pried at the loosest of the pair. To his surprise, it took him far more effort than he expected to break the stone free. It seemed almost as if the stone did not want to be cut from its mounting, but at last it popped out, falling to the ground at the draconian’s feet.
Glancing around, Brudas thought that the ghosts already looked less distinct. Better yet, their voices had faded to whispers. Eagerly, he went to work on the second stone.
Freeing this one proved more troublesome, but Brudas put such manic effort into it that eventually the second gem flew high into the air, landing some distance from the first. As the final stone dropped, the ghosts vanished.
Brudas listened closely, but the only sounds he heard now were those of the swamp creatures and the wind.
He slumped for a moment, exhausted. “Free…”
Then, pulling himself together, the Bozak tossed the bracelet on the table, roaring, “Drek! Get in here!”
A moment later, the rather disgruntled Baaz entered. Drek immediately saluted, but otherwise said nothing. Brudas realized that he had summoned the fool from his evening meal, but there were more important matters than filling a Baaz’s cavernous stomach.
The tall, slim draconian pointed at the stones. “Take those and throw them into the swamp as far as you can, Drek! And be certain to follow through with my command, because if I find you’ve disobeyed and kept them for yourself, you know what I’ll do to you.”
Shuddering, the Baaz scooped up the gems and rushed from the tent. As a safety precaution, Brudas stepped out of the entrance to watch. Drek stood at the edge of the water, his feet half-sunken into the soft mud. With a throw that put Brudas’s own to shame, the Baaz hurled both tiny stones far into the swamp.
The Bozak exhaled in relief. He had escaped the ghosts. An Aurak could not have been more clever, Brudas thought with some pride.
A sudden exhaustion overtook Brudas and he recalled that he had not rested much the prior night. Now, with no more dead, hungry eyes or mournful, demanding voices to haunt him, the draconian could at last get some peaceful slumber.
“Drek!”
The Baaz, only steps away from his supper, turned back to his superior. “Yesss, Massster Brudasss?”
“I’m going to sleep. See to it that I’m not disturbed by anything, understood?”
“Yesss, sssir.”
Brudas reentered the tent. How appealing his cot looked! How wonderful the thought of deep, undisturbed sleep sounded!
He dozed off almost the very moment he settled into the cot.
At first, the draconian slept well and deeply, but then something disturbed his rest. Nothing he could at first identify, but it was a gnawing, creeping feeling. Brudas tossed about, clawing his way closer and closer to consciousness, until-
With a scream, he tumbled from the cot. A shiver came over the Bozak as he glanced down at his hands, which still twitched.
“No-o-o,” he whispered, reptilian eyes glancing about. “No!”
With much trepidation, he concentrated on a simple spell of levitation. For his target, he chose the bracelet, which still lay atop the table. Brudas had cast this spell a thousand times. Casting it successfully should have been child’s play.
Yet, when the draconian tried to complete his spell, nothing happened.
He had been a fool! By damaging the bracelet, he had destroyed its ability to show him the dead, yet that did not mean that they had left. They still surrounded him… and likely in greater numbers than before. He imagined hundreds, perhaps even thousands at this point, numbers that chilled even the hardened Bozak to the core.
Thousands of ghosts swarming about him, hungering for his magic, silently urging him to activate it for them…
The tent rippled in the night wind, causing Brudas to start. From somewhere far off, or maybe right next to
