“Thing is, this person has a fambly person sick, like to die. This person knows the…the thing takes souls to Joy.”
Ferni made a sound of rude derision. “Oh, again I’m sorry to hear that. That story is put about by the things themselves, so people will let them in, let them near. I’ve met with teachers, wisemen. The creatures don’t take the soul to Joy. They just eat it until nothing’s left. Envoys like her upstairs are sent to stop the soul-eating, to trap the evil thing and see it’s put where it can do no harm.”
“Y’mean there’s no Joy? No bein’ took up?”
“Who would say the good are not taken to Joy? They may well be, but not by these things. The person who found this one was worried because his dear one is near to dying?”
“She,” B’Oag corrected. “Where’s these things come from, then, these evils? Did a man make them?”
Ferni said, “They’re parasites, Oastkeeper. Like a louse or a flea, only more deadly. We don’t know who makes them, but we will find out!”
“You’re one a them, then. Them silence people.”
No sound. Ferni didn’t agree or disagree. Perhaps he only waited, his nose full of the same wonderful smell that had opened my eyes wide. Someone had opened the oven door and filled the oasthouse with the aroma of new-baked bread.
“I’ll see to breakfast,” said B’Oag. “Ya’ll wait?”
“I’ll wait,” Ferni said. “No need for you to make the trip upstairs.”
I dozed, only a moment until I heard the thud of Ferni’s step on the stair, and I grinned when he came in, unable to help it.
I sat upright, pulling the blanket around my shoulders. “By the Ghost of Joziré, that smells edible.”
He set it on the foot of the bed, turning a troubled face toward me. “By the Ghost of Joziré? Why’s he a ghost? I thought…I thought he was just hiding out somewhere.”
I examined his face. “It bothers you to think he might be dead? Did you know him?”
“Of him, yes. A good man, so I’ve been told.”
“It’s just something people say, Ferni. What did you bring for breakfast?”
“Eggs,” he said. “Sausage and fresh bread and tea and what looks like”—he uncapped the small stoneware jar to see what it held—“honey.”
I made a lap and beckoned for the tray.
“I have news,” he said.
“The oastkeeper decided to speak of it, eh? I thought he knew where it was.”
“Well, he hasn’t told me where, yet, but he’s told me why. Somebody’s on death watch.”
“Then we’ll hope we’re not too late.”
“After breakfast,” he agreed. “And, by the by, what’s this oath on King Joziré’s ghost?”
Spooning honey onto fresh bread, I said, “I’ve seen it, the ghost.”
His mouth fell open, and it took a moment for him to latch it up again. “Come now.”
“You’re the one sent me to that shaman, Ferni. What’d you think she’d teach me? How to make tea?”
Now it was his turn to think. “Quite frankly, I didn’t think about it at all. At the time, I was just told to do it, send you, I mean, and I thought you’d be safe there.”
“Safe I was for a time. Then safe I wasn’t, but I was less fearful than previously. You say you’ve heard a threat. Well, I’ve seen one. Someone does want me dead.”
“What did the shaman teach you?”
“She taught me ways to fly, to escape, to die, if necessary. To see spirits and converse with ghosts. To speak at a distance to someone receptive. Though she seemed to think I knew most of it already. It was in my bones, she said, else all her teaching would have done naught.”
Ferni asked, “So what did the shade of King Joziré have to say for himself?”
Around a mouthful of egg, I said, “When I saw him on the night road, he said he was wandering, seeking Wilvia and his children…”
“His children?” Ferni gaped at me, forehead furrowed.
“Twins. A boy, a girl.”
“What makes you think Wilvia and the children died?”
“I didn’t say they did!” I snorted. “I didn’t say he did.”
He muttered, “Well then, what you saw wasn’t a ghost. What you saw was a night wanderer, a spirit: alive, asleep, dreaming.”
This was perfectly possible. “He seemed so familiar to me that I didn’t even wonder. I didn’t think of him being a spirit wanderer, though I do that myself.”
After we had eaten and put on multiple layers of additional clothing, I put the chitterlain in a cage Ferni had borrowed from the oastmaster, set it in a warm place with food and water inside, and went to retrieve the basket from the lockroom. Then we heard B’Oag’s reluctantly given directions, which concluded with: “She’s only a lass, Envoy. Go easy with her.”
“Easy as I can,” I replied. “If it’s not too late to go any way at all.”
The ice storm had given way to frigid calm. The road was only a shadow-edged depression that curved around the snowy hillocks before us. Ice lay beneath the thin layer of new snow, too slippery to traverse until we strapped thorn-feet over our boots. The world was painted in shades of metallic gray, silver where weak light struck it, pewter where shadows fell, iron beneath the cover of ice-laden trees. When we had gone far enough to be out of sight of the oasthouse, I gave Ferni my tool kit to carry before opening the coin-sized window in the basket. It had to be held well away from me as the questing tentacle emerged hesitantly into the cold. It squirmed, then slowly flailed the air, up, down, right, left, suddenly becoming rigid as it pointed in the direction we were traveling.
We held our breaths as much as possible, for when the ghyrm were not well fed, they stank, sending out their smell to others of their kind, calling a gather of the hungry. Alone, ghyrm were weak, easily crushed, burned, poisoned if one had the right
