XVI
"And we will say our prayers and set our wards
To guard us; this is the land of the dead,
And we tread univited."
--Centran epic, "The Rime Of Retuculus"

Kam readjusted the rocks which anchored the three tarps, tugging at them until they overlapped and held to his satisfaction. A light wind played against the makeshift walls, causing the doorflap to sway slightly. Nightbugs whirred outside, sounding wholly unlike the crickets that colored the Galbadian and Balamb nights.

"Anyone know any good ghost stories?" Aya asked, only half in jest as she stared at the battery-powered lanterns they had opted to use over the more traditional fire. "...scratch that. Does anyone know how to tell good ghost stories?"

"I always hated ghost stories," Kamalyn muttered.

"You're not still afraid of them, are you?" Aya asked pointedly. Kamalyn gave her a tired look.

"By now, I think I've seen half of the things in them and killed a good forth. Still, I have bad memories."

Aya sighed. "How about funny ghost stories?"

"How about the one about the Viper?" Cabe spoke up. "You know, the one with the old lady who gets this call an' she's in an apartment and the call says 'Hello, this is the Viper, I come for you soon?' And then--"

Aya glanced at Kamalyn with a grimace so comical Kam had to suppress a laugh. "No funny ghost stories, then," Aya broke in.

"What are we going to do tomorrow?" Tam asked.

Aya snorted. "Leave, most probably," she said. "Unless you can think of any pressing reason to stay?"

"We should sleep," Tam said. "So we can get up early and head home."

Aya sighed. "Nothing like a long, boring day to make you want to knock yourself out for a few hours," she conceded. "Right. Lights out, all."

"Maybe we should leave one on?" Cabe asked hopefully. Aya stared at him.

"Don't tell me you're--"

"No!" Cabe flushed. "But it would be nice to be able to see, if I had to get up for something..."

Aya rolled her eyes. "Put the canteen next to your bedroll, and sleep next to the door," she suggested. "Anyway, you try sleeping with the lights on. It doesn't work too well."

Cabe shrugged, looking pointedly away. "'kay," he muttered.

"Good night," Aya said, flipping off the lanterns deftly and plunging them into darkness.

"Begins the herd stampede."

Tam stirred faintly, a thin chord of thought beckoning him back from the depths of sleep. He groaned and squeezed his eyes shut more tightly, hoping to fall back asleep.

Kam rolled over somewhere in the tent. "Aya," he muttered sleepily (and probably in his dreams), "did you take my GFs?"

No one answered him. Aya was evidently just as asleep as Tam wished he was.

"You must run, your hoofs away this place," whispered the insidious little voice. "Flee, colt. Flee."

"'m tired," Tam muttered.

There was a thin scratching against the outer edge of the tent, as if a small wasteland rodent was trying to find a way in. A warm trickle of wind teased its way into Tam's bedroll.

The voice came again, this time more insistent. "Run, colt!"

"Can't run," Tam answered groggily. "Get too... tired."

"Tam?" Kamalyn asked, just waking. "Are you all--"

There was silence for about a second.

"FLEE!"

Kamalyn screamed.

Tam sat bolt upright, looking around for whatever had frightened Kamalyn--and found himself staring into what could only be described as eyes.

Really, they had no features that identified them as such; they were simply a pair of globes formed out of a concentrated, green light--a green that evoked feelings of sickness and images of disease. They cast a baleful radiance on everything in the tent, and Tam knew from a sick feeling in his stomach and a shiver snaking down his spine that they were looking directly at him.

The eyes shifted, rotating around each other until they had turned to gaze on Cabe's waking form. A cone of light showed their direction, surrounding Cabe and his bedroll with the green. Now out of their horrific shine, Tam could see a crouched shape of pale fog--almost invisible in the gloom. It looked... almost human.

Aya rolled over, saw the thing, and leapt to her feet, scrambling for a dagger as a few tendrils of fog silently penetrated the tent tarp behind her. Tam shuddered, and his heart gave a small lurch--one that sent a stabbing pain racing through his chest.

The first apparition let out a slow rumble, one so low that it was nearly off the register of audible sound. The noise was lethargic and drawn-out, but the modulations in it were intensely reminiscent of speech.

"G-ghosts..." Cabe whispered.

"Behind you," Tam said--that being the only thing he could think well enough to say.

Aya whirled, shifting her weight as if to back up before realizing that backing up would drive her into the first phantom.

"They all died here," Cabe was babbling. "They died here and they were afraid and in pain and now they're stuck here forever and oh, God..."

"Donnn't be afraidd," Tam whispered, slurring his sounds in abject terror as the beating of his heart sped up without so much as a by-your-leave. Kamalyn closed his eyes, taking a long breath as he reached for his staff.

"Oh, hell," Aya murmured as she passed a dagger clear through one without so much as disturbing the fog.

The monster sprung forward, and Aya hit the ground as it sailed over her. Kamalyn leapt to his feet, swinging the quarterstaff in an arc that took it through the tarp wall and both apparitions. There was a flash of bright light as the weapon encountered the mist, and both disappeared.

However, as the walls flew away under the force of the blow, the rest of the Glow came into sight--and for the first time, it became aptly evident as to why it was called what it was.

Strange little whorls of unholy energy danced across the landscape, glowing with a lurid intensity. The sky above was without stars, the ground glow dimming them out and causing a green glow to spread across the sky. But what was infinitely more frightening, infinitely more surreal, was the hundreds upon hundreds of green eyes and indistinct, foggy shapes that prowled the landscape, gathering around the stone cairns which in turn glowed a pale white. A good number of the phantoms faced them, advancing slowly from all sides to congregate around their cairn--and rumbling with a malevolence that didn't seem to be imagined.

There was a soft whicker in Tam's mind, and he imagined the sound of hoofbeats. Then horror of a different sort entirely overtook him as he felt the warm touch of a mist demon reaching through his skin--and his heart began to gallop with a painful, spasming beat.

"What did you do what did you do?" Aya shrieked, hands on her daggers and eyes blazing at the glowing landscape. Kamalyn tightened his grip on his weapon, ignoring Cabe--who was beginning to sob quietly--and Tam--who was trying to make himself as small as possible against the cairn that had formed one of the walls of the tent.

"Hellcall," he answered breathlessly, shifting his grip and tightening it again. "Limit. Paramagic affects them--"

Aya shuddered slightly. "Have any Holy?"

"No," Kamalyn shook his head.

"Damn," Aya whispered. "Here's for nothing--"

"Aya!"

Kamalyn lunged forward as Aya broke into a run, charging into a stand of beasts and deploying her daggers in a visual symphony of slashes and spincuts. A bluish-white crackle split the air in the wake of the metal, and Kamalyn realized what she was doing--one of her trademark feats, she had junctioned a different element to each one of her blades and was using them to create as much mayhem as she could.

The phantoms turned their attention to her, and Kamalyn felt a rush of warmth as one leapt through him to join its comrades in the fight. With the warmth came an unsettling feeling of dissolution, as if he was floating apart on an atomic level--and he yelped as a haze of red clouded his vision. He had been lucky with his first Limit--the element chose itself to be Holy. This time, however, he wasn't as fortunate, and it was a blaze of fire that cut the air as he swung his staff.

The phantom rounded on him, apparently more startled than hurt. It made a pass that intersected his right arm; his muscles shook, and the staff slipped from his right hand. Hefting it over his head, he brought it down on the phantom and watched as the monster shuddered under the impact. Three hits later the beast decided to abandon the confrontation, and it turned and roiled quickly away.

Aya seemed to be having less luck, surrounded as she was by a number of the beasts. She was still fighting, but her movements had become sluggish and almost drunken; the Ice- and Lightning-elemental attacks sparked from the tips of her weapons but served to do little more than keep the creatures at bay. Kamalyn rushed toward her--

A burst of light from behind him brought him up short as he winced, momentarily blinded. The light increased slightly, then again, and again, until the immediate area was flooded with lanternlight.

The beasts stopped, wincing away from the light and slinking back toward the darkness. A few remained to try to attack but, blinded as they evidently were, they abandoned the idea and moved quickly away.

"K-Kam," Cabe said, and Kam turned around. Cabe was standing in the middle of the wrecked shelter, clutching one of the lanterns in his hand. "T-Tam is--he's--"

A stab of worry went through Kamalyn, and he ran back to the pair of younger boys. Tam was gasping in pain, eyes wide but unseeing--Cabe was crouched over him, trying to hold his shaking body still. Kam quickly slung his staff strap back across his shoulder, bending down and trusting to the lanterns to keep them all safe. "It's his heart," he realized, feeling Tam's pulse. "Oh, god. Oh, Hyne."

"Get him out of here," Aya whispered, having stumbled up beside him without his notice. "Get him up past the crater edge and away from these things and we can see what we can do. Give me a lantern."

Cabe shoved a lantern at her, and she grabbed it firmly. Kamalyn picked Tam up, giving Aya a concerned look.

"You two run. I'll catch up," she said. "Cabe, keep the light on Kam."

At the moment, Kam ccouldn't see his way to protesting. With a glance at Cabe, he broke for the crater wall as fast as his legs would carry him, and counted on Cabe to keep up.

They reached the crater edge much sooner than Kam would have expected, and he didn't stop until he had put several metres between himself and the Glow. Laying Tam down on the ground, he felt a moment of sick helplessness as he tried to think what to do.

Cabe dropped two of his three lanterns, and dashed back to the edge of the crater. "Aya!" he called. "Hurry up!"

"Calm down, Tam," Kamalyn tried to mutter soothingly. "Calm down. Breathe--"

It seemed like hours before Aya hauled herself up to them, dragging herself over to Kam's side. Kam was, by this point, almost as anxious as Tam was--and it showed as he grew more and more frantic.

"Kam, do you have any Curagas?" Aya asked urgently, shaking him to catch his attention.

"They don't do anything for heart problems, Aya--don't you think if it was that easy--"

"Do you have any?" Aya snarled.

"Yes, but--"

"Cast one on three!" Aya snapped. "One! Two! Three!"

Trusting to Aya's judgment, Kam summoned up the Curaga. The glow surrounded Tam, just as a bolt of Thunder ripped out of the air above him to strike the boy. Tam spasmed, sucking in breath.

"Good god, Aya!" Kam yelled, turning to stare at her. "What in hell do you think--"

"Three!"

There was little Kamalyn could do other than call up another Curaga, hoping that whatever damage was done by the Thunder would be headed off.

"Aya!"

Aya pushed him out of the way, taking Tam's shoulders and holding him still. Checking the pulse in the artery in his neck, she shook her head. Closing her eyes, she reached out to her junctions--

"Kam," Aya said slowly. "When did you give Tam your paired GFs?"

Kamalyn paused. "What?"

"...one of them, at least," she continued. "He has a junction."

Kam closed his eyes. "...I only do have one GF," he realized. "That's--"

"Give me every Thundara you have," Aya demanded. "Now."

Kam opened his mouth to object, but thought better of it at the last moment. Sending her the paramagic in a concentrated mental burst, he waited to see what she would do--and if he was going to have to intervene.

Aya muttered something under her breath, and took hold of Tam's head. The magic arced from her into his mind, and he shuddered slightly upon receiving it.

"Stand back."

Aya stood, backing away. With a side glance at Cabe's frightened face, she decided that he was safe where he was.

"Thundaga," she whispered.

A pillar of white lightning impaled Tam, and he shook violently as it hit. Kam jumped.

"He has it Junctioned," Aya explained absently. "He's absorbing it. Don't worry. ...Thundaga."

Kam forced himself ot go through every breathing exercise he knew, watching worriedly as Tam shook under assault after assault. Aya clenched her teeth, using up the last of her reserves and stepping forward to take Tam's pulse again.

"It must have been the GF that kept him alive until you got him up here," she said quietly. "Thank god. ...this is all I can do for him now."

"Aya--" Kamalyn started.

Aya closed her eyes, spreading her hands forward and summoning up a dark cloud. Out of the cloud a goatskull reared, followed by the terrible cut of a scythe--"

Cabe screamed and dashed at her. The spell finished itself, Tam lying limp and motionless on the ground, as Aya was tackled by the the younger boy. Cabe began to try to pummel her, screaming things like "What did you do!" and "You killed him!" unintelligibly at the top of his lungs.

Aya fended him off, rolling him and pinning his wrists to the ground. Shaking her head, she snarled "It will calm him down and even out his heart rate. He's not dead, just knocked out. He--oh, good god. Kam!"

Kam shook off his shock, and moved to help her keep Cabe in line. Glancing at her, he shook his head. "That wasn't smart, you know," he said, voice shaky.

"You weren't doing anything constructive," she growled back. I did what I could think of."

"Messing around with people's hearts is--Cabe? Cabe, calm down. Calm down."

Aya extricated herself from the mess, falling to the ground and sitting a short distance away. "I wasn't going to just leave him. You ever see the charts on what paramagic does to the body? I have, and I remember most of them. I knew what I was doing, mostly."

Kam finally succeeded in clamping a hand over Cabe's mouth and forcing him into submission, but he shook his head. "I don't know what to say, quite," he admitted. "It was a damn stupid thing to do, but..."

"...but better than doing nothing," Aya finished for him. "A thousand gil says that the chocobos bolted."

Kam sighed. "Probably."

"Well, let's not go anywhere tonight," Aya said, wincing. With a glance down at the Glow, she noted all of the phantoms quietly going about their (un?)lives. "Let's wait until light. I'd rather."

All Kam could do was agree.