On Marlfox Island, lines of manacled beasts, squirrels, otters, hedgehogs, mice, and voles, were hard at work. None of them had tails; the Marlfoxes had cut them off to forever brand them as slaves. They pulled vegetables and hoed the dirt. If they grew tired, they could not stop to rest, because nearby there were rats who would beat them with whips if they stopped working.
The leader of the rats, Captain Ullig, cracked his long whip threateningly, looking for any excuse to cut loose on the slaves who toiled in the dusty heat around him. "Keep those 'eads down, you scum, or I'll teach yer a lesson you won't forget the rest o' yore lives!"
Overhead in the sky, a flock of magpies circled, led by a magpie named Athrak. These birds followed orders from High Queen Silth. It was their task to guard the sky so that nobeast could escape or enter Marlfox Island without being seen.
One of the workers, a vole, suddenly threw down his hoe and tried to make a break for it. "I can't take this anymore!" But the magpies took him down.
"Let that be a lesson to all of you," Ullig told the other slaves. "There's no escape from 'ere! You stay alive only by the mercy of 'er majesty Queen Silth!"
A palanquin approached, a long boxlike affair with silken tasseled drapes around its sides, borne on four thick poles running between its length and width. It was so heavy that it took over thirty rats to carry it. The silk curtains were thrown back, revealing the gaunt and hollow-eyed figure inside, Queen Silth herself! By the side of the litter walked her youngest daughter, Lantur.
"Well, this is a pleasant surprise," said Ullig. "What brings you out here, your majesty?" Usually, Silth stayed inside her castle. She was so old she couldn't walk anymore, so she needed to be carried everywhere.
The queen's harsh rasping voice held a petulant note, like that of a spoiled young one. "Noise! All night long. Noise! I hear the waters of the lake, trying to eat away the rocks of my island! I hear the night breeze whispering like death, swirling about my castle, trying to find me! But what have you done about these things… Nothing! Sleep will not come, it flies away from me on dark wings, I cannot catch it. Why?"
Soldiers and slaves alike stood rigid, not daring to move a muscle, watched by the bright searching eyes of the magpies above them. Lantur strode up and down among the ranks of slaves, chastising them with her tongue. "You are growing fat and idle while your queen suffers. There are no excuses for your stupidity. At night, the White Ghost wanders the rooms and corridors of Castle Marl!"
Silth interrupted Lantur, her voice shrills with fear. "Fools! I know what you are thinking, but I have seen it! I've seen the White Ghost!"
At that point, one of the unfortunate ratguards, Rigglent by name, dropped his shield with a loud clang. Silth jerked her head in the direction of the sound. "What was that?"
"Take it easy, mother," said Lantur. "This idiot just let his shield slip out of his paws."
Silth fixed her steely gaze on Rigglent. "Have you seen the White Ghost?"
A thin smile played about Lantur's features. She adopted a tone of reasonable inquiry. "Well, friend, have you seen the White Ghost, or haven't you? Answer your queen."
Rigglent was in a quandary. If he said he had seen the White Ghost, Silth would make him describe it. If his description did not ring true, then what? His only hope was to tell the truth.
"Oh, High Queen, I have not seen the White Ghost, I swear it!"
It was the wrong answer.
"O' course you haven't!" Silth raged. "Because you've been sleeping on duty and idling your time away! Athrak, tell my protectors of the skies to remove this worthless heap of offal from my island! He shall answer for his laziness to the Teeth of the Deeps!"
Rigglent gave a pitiful moan as Athrak and the other magpies seized him with wicked joy and bore him into the sky. They carried him out over the lake and dropped him into it. As the rat fell through the air, he screeched, "No, no, I lied. I've seen the White Ghost! EEEEEEYAAAAGH!"
He fell into the water with a splash and was devoured by the pikefishes that lived in there.
"I knew he was lying all along," Silth said. "If I've seen the White Ghost, then others have. Right, Lantur?"
Her daughter smiled slyly. "It is as you say, oh great one!" Under her breath, she muttered, "Wool covered piece of ignorant monkey spit." Silth heard her but she thought she was talking about Rigglent.
Silth snapped her fingers. "Take me back inside, to my chambers. I don't like it out here, there's only ugliness, nothing nice. I must be surrounded by beauty. Death will never visit where beauty reigns!"
Groaning under the weight of the palanquin, her rat attendants turned and carried her away.