like water.
This is the ghost world, she thought. From here, we step into Shadow.
An ephemeral man lunged at her out of the darkness, so violently and with such rage burning from him that Arya screamed and clutched at Walker. At the same time, a wave of panic washed over her.
'I am here,' came a voice, a deep and resonating voice, along with a wave of comfort. The angry spirit spun past her and continued on its way, jabbering about orc chieftains it had faced.
A wave of sadness not of her own making swept through her.
'Gharask is an old spirit-the father of Dharan Greyt. He has haunted Quaervarr for fifteen years,' said the voice. 'Kept there by anger, rage, and helplessness. Perhaps tonight we will set him to rest.'
Caught up in Walker's arms, Arya felt herself borne away on wings of shadow. The angry spirit, and the gathered multitude vanished, along with the darkened buildings of Quaervarr. Soon, Arya found herself in the woods, where Walker continued his slow steps, each of them covering dozens of paces.
Then there came a scream, jolting Arya's attention to a spirit who ran beside them. Her face was blurred, but when Arya focused upon her features, they shifted and cleared. She was a comely woman, younger than Arya, but her features were lined with wrinkles of madness and her eyes burned with impotent wrath. There was a bloody wound in her breast.
'Why? Why? Why?' she asked, repeating the word again and again, building in volume until it was so loud that it stung Arya's ears. The spirit wept black tears, which disintegrated in the smoky air.
'Chandra Stardown?' asked Arya, as she recognized the spirit. She had known Chandra in Silverymoon-both had served under Sernius Alathar as cadets, but Arya had not seen her since her promotion into the order.
Chandra's spirit seemed stunned for a moment. Then she burst back into her demands, reaching for Arya.
'Why! Why! Why!'
Startled, Arya cried, 'I know not!'
At this, Chandra paused again, but then gave a wrenching scream, stunning Arya to silence, and reached at her with fingernails grown into claws. The knight gasped and reached for her sword, but a warning hand clamped down upon her wrist.
'Whatever you see, do not reply!' repeated Walker. 'I am here-I am the only one here!'
Arya started to argue, but then the spirit gave a gasp and vanished, as though it had suddenly fallen from a galloping horse they rode. Chastened, Arya clung to Walker, her only protection in this strange and fearful place. They continued their trek through the Shadow.
For the longest time, Arya did not dare to look up at Walker. Fear and horror surrounded her like the very air, and it was only through Walker's soothing presence that she was able to keep her sanity in the darkness.
'Walker?' Arya finally asked, trembling. 'Tell me something?'
'Perhaps.'
'Do you live… all your life like this?' she asked.
'Always in darkness,' was Walker's only reply, a reply that sent a chill of fear down Arya's spine. If her ghostly, shadow body had a spine, that is.
As if in response, a wave of adoration came over her, then sympathy for her fear. With a start, Arya realized she could feel his emotions, rather than just hear his voice. For the first time, Arya mustered the courage to look up. She caught her breath.
Walker's darkness was gone. In its place, his skin was golden and his hair glowing. His body seemed built of light and his life-force warm. He had spoken true of healing, for his body seemed to be siphoning energy from the shadow and turning it into light. In the world of the dead, Walker shone bright and alive, a shining beacon among the shadows.
'Walker, you… you're so different,' said Arya. 'So… bright.'
A wave of confusion came to her then, and when she explained, she felt his disbelief.
'You must be mistaken,' Walker explained. 'You glow brightly to me, a creature of life. I should not shine brightly, for I am a creature of shadow-I dwell always in darkness.'
'I only describe what I see,' said Arya.
Walker inclined his head, which registered to Arya as a blur of light.
'Perhaps,' he allowed. Then he stopped walking and clutched her hand. A wave of trepidation came from him, and Arya realized she had never known Walker to be afraid.
'What is the matter?' asked Arya, worried. She could see no attackers, no spirits at all. Even the trees seemed to have vanished.
'We have arrived.'
Chapter 24
30 Tarsakh
Pulling Arya with him, Walker stepped from the Shadow Fringe into the center of his grove and the Material. He quickly became aware of two things that had changed since his last visit. The three bodies of the Greyt family rangers were gone, and the body of an unknown woman lay entwined in vines not far to the north.
'Druid Clearwater?' asked Arya wonderingly. She ran toward her.
'No, wait!' Walker shouted, but it was too late to stop the knight.
Arya knelt beside Clearwater and felt at her throat. Even as Arya confirmed that the druid rested in a magical slumber, the vines that held the druid prisoner began to twitch and sway, as though with an eerie mind of their own. Arya gasped and scrambled back from the vines that reached, fingerlike, to ensnare her arms and legs. Despite her struggling, they caught her, pulled, and dragged her to her knees.
Walker sprang to her side, the shatterspike whistling through the air as he sliced low and then high, horizontally over Arya's head, severing two thick tendrils of vines that held the knight fast. Freed for a moment, Arya managed to draw her sword and hack away at a vine that had caught her left arm. After two swings, it ripped apart and whipped through the air like a snake, recoiling from the knight.
'Back!' Walker commanded, and Arya staggered away, leaving him next to the enwrapped Amra Clearwater.
The entangling vines did not attack the ghostwalker, however-almost as though he were not there. Instead, the vines coiled snugly around Clearwater's limp form, awaiting their next target.
'Are you amused, Gylther'yel?' he called, his voice rolling across the grove. 'Are you watching us from hiding, awaiting the time to strike us down?'
There came no response. Arya looked at Walker, but he waved to the knight, reassuring her.
'Have you become a watcher once more, apart from the affairs of humans?' he asked.
The grove was silent.
'Or are you afraid?' he pressed. 'Afraid to show yourself, because I remind you so keenly of your failure?'
The Ghostly Lady appeared, rising from the ground in a mist, her ghostly body as insubstantial as the spirits Walker saw every moment. Afraid? she asked, her voice sounding in Walker's mind. I fear nothing.
'I have left the ghostly realm,' said Walker. 'Face me upon the ground of mortals.'
Why, when the two of us should be gods? Gylther'yel asked in reply. When Walker said nothing, she laughed. Very well. Then her form became substantial. Arya, who had never seen her, was stunned at her golden beauty in the fading sunlight.
'You pick a fitting time to come against me, Rhyn Greyt,' she said in Elvish. 'When the sun of life sets and Selune rises, bringing the night in her wake. The night is our ally, a friend to all of us who dwell in darkness.'
'I have come to destroy you,' Walker said in the Common tongue.
Gylther'yel merely laughed. 'The prodigal son has lost his way, and returns with helpless dreams of violence,' she replied in kind. 'You have no inkling of my power.'
'Nevertheless, I have come to sweep your perversion from the face of Faerun,' said Walker, drawing his sword.
'My perversion?' asked Gylther'yel. Both humans could hear the anger in her voice, anger hidden carefully
