The Ghost was near. Bash could feel it.
The magic of the dagger called to him, like a soft whisper on the wind, just barely audible and nearly drowned by shouts echoing around and behind him.
The Ghost was near.
The whoosh of Aribis's wings signaled his new, higher vantage point, and whistles of crossbow bolts elicited a cry from the monstrosity in the graveyard, which collapsed with a sickening crunch.
Ignoring the end of their combat, Bash struggled to calm himself as he scanned the ground.
There! A blood trail.
Gritting his teeth, he plunged into the city. The wings of a giant eagle beat the air behind him, and he paused to see Enna on approach. She swooped low, a familiar look in her eye, and Bash reached up to grab hold of her wing. Hoisting himself up with giant strength, he swung around and landed on her back, now rushing through the air at unbelievable speeds, Aribis and William easily keeping pace in the sky and on the ground. He leaned and pointed to the blood, her eagle eye saw, and they shot forward together.
Seconds later, they passed over an archway, and the trail disappeared. Enna halted, wings flapping so forcefully that Bash nearly fell off. Their eyes scanned around them, desperate to find anything to tell them where he had gone. The shadow of Aribis shot across the sky to Bash's right, swooping back and forth, eyes darting this way and that. Lifting into the sky, Enna came to rest a hundred feet over the city, and they strained to see.
"The trail is gone!" called William from the ground, his voice distant as it echoed off the buildings.
"Did we lose him?" said Bash, his voice nearly a whisper.
It can't be, he thought.
This was the night that it was supposed to end. This was the night that should have returned to him his pride and name. Instead, it was becoming another reminder of his failures.
A soft coo came from Enna, though it held none of the comfort that she imagined. Wroth and grief threatened to overtake Bash, and it was all he could do to blink away the tears that now threatened his vision.
"Is he still near?" called Aribis as he flew up to them.
Bash had nearly forgotten about the magical tether to Daemonsbane. It had disappeared.
"Fly lower!" he called to Enna, and she obliged. They plummeted, and a moment later, he sensed the dagger once more.
He shouted an affirmation to Aribis, and the search renewed. They rushed east until the feeling left, and they turned back around and shot west. Gone again, they turned north, and then south. William shouted up information from the ground, and eventually Sooka, Finwe, and the injured Kayl found a place to wait just outside Sunburst Hall, happy for the rest to nurse their seeping wounds.
What seemed like an eternity went by, Bash clinging to the thick feathers on Enna's back, the wind burning his face and stinging his eyes. He was grateful for his friends' and their double-lidded eyes, resistant as they were to this effect. He squinted, and his vision diminished, but they stayed true.
Suddenly, Enna squawked and forced a stop once again, and Aribis called, "I see it!"
As Enna shot like an arrow northeast, Bash followed their gaze and was just able to make out a tiny, moving shadow scuttling across the graveyard.
Grim satisfaction came across Bash to see the Ghost so lumbering and slow. Face turning into a snarl, he reached behind him and grabbed his shortbow, now strung across his shoulder, and nocked an arrow. Simultaneously, Aribis loaded his crossbow.
Bash drew the bow back, but he was not as used to shooting while flying as Aribis was. Somehow the little bird man could keep his arms almost motionless while his wings beat the air, but Bash was subject to the thrashing of Enna's body and the rhythmic rocking of her wings. He eyed down the shaft, but the shadow was too distant; could his bow even reach that far?
Aribis raised his crossbow to his eye, and Bash nearly shouted, but the bolt had already fired.
He watched it sail through the air, another following just after. With bated breath, Bash watched the extent of Aribis's skill, far surpassing his own, as the bolts whistled into the graveyard. One after the other, the deadly projectiles thudded into the shadow, and it slumped to the ground.
Some level of satisfaction came over Bash, but it was quickly overwhelmed by an irritation he could not identify. Aribis notified the others, and they all rushed into the graveyard. Enna landed and transformed after Bash had dismounted, and the Natural Misfits gathered around the mausoleum.
They beheld the gruesome creature, the demon himself, held up only by a bolt that had pierced his shoulder and pinned him to the stone. The other bolt protruded from his head. Blood dripped into the earth, and the rakshasa's rapier lay next to him.
All eyes turned to Bash, waiting to see what he would do.
What was he to do? The thing was dead. The fight was over. Why didn't he feel better?
Face grim, he stepped forward, pulled the Ghost so that his back was exposed, and removed Daemonsbane. As the body was jostled, something fell to the ground, and Bash leaned over to retrieve it. He held it up to the werelight, showing the signet ring of Lord Bromwell, proudly sporting a dandelion.
As pieces began to fit together in his mind, Bash turned to the mausoleum and quickly ran his hand over the decorative granite face. In the very center, there was a notch. Shaking his head in irritation, he placed the signet ring into the slot, eliciting a stony click.
Stone ground on stone as the face of the mausoleum slid downward into the ground, revealing the tomb of Latimer Bromwell. Windows on each side let light in to illuminate a sarcophagus laid with the lord's likeness, his hands clasping a bouquet of stony dandelions.
"That can't be it," muttered William as he and the others peered inside.
"I'm inclined to agree," returned Bash before stepping in and investigating.
Taking in every detail, Bash ran his hands over every surface and eyed every feature. Behind the sarcophagus were two linear grooves in the floor, tracks for a mechanism, Bash assumed. He ran his hands around the rim of the sarcophagus and felt some runes, but on the side was another slot for a ring.
The jingle of coins distracted him, and he turned to see Enna peeking through a small pouch before tossing it in her bag. The Ghost's rapier was tucked under her arm, and this she tied to her side for safekeeping.
"Got everything you want?" he asked her.
She nodded, expressionless.
He returned a nod before inserting the ring again, and the sarcophagus slid to the side to expose a set of stairs that descended into darkness.
"Here, before you head down that exciting path," mumbled Kayl before reaching out and touching Sooka's shoulder. As he muttered, the shadow of Sooka's curse was pulled from her body and dispelled.
"William," said Kayl, ushering for the monk. He approached, and received the same treatment before Kayl moved on to Finwe.
"Here," said Aribis next to Bash, and Bash held out his arm for Aribis to grab. He did so, muttering the same words as his brother, and Bash breathed a sigh of relief to feel the dark essence pulled from his chest. Much of his fatigue disappeared, and he nodded his thanks to Aribis.
"I'll, uh… stay here," said Kayl, stepping backward slowly, eyes watching the darkness carefully. "Someone should be here for whenever the guards come to investigate. I can fill them in on what happened."
They all nodded their agreement before turning toward the stairs.
"Keep your eyes peeled," suggested Aribis.
Bash took a deep breath and led the party down the shaft, Finwe following close behind him. The stairs spiraled downward endlessly, and it was another twenty minutes before they made any sounds besides the padding of their boots on the stone stairs. During the descent, Bash had kept his eyes focused on each and every step, confident that there would be some sort of trap awaiting them, and finally, his efforts paid off. He stopped abruptly when he noticed a seam in the next step, a crack in the stone that indicated some sort of pressure-triggered trap. He pointed it out to the group, and they moved easily past it.
Another twenty minutes later, the stairs finally ended, and Bash found himself facing a spiky wall.
"Good thing we noticed the trap," he muttered, and Finwe mumbled his agreement.
To the left was a passageway, and they followed it, ascending shortly before it opened into a large, long, lit hallway. Glowing blue braziers decorated the walls every fifteen feet, each of them hovering above a stone statue of a man wielding a crossbow. The eight marble faces glared at each other across the hall, keeping watch over five different skeletons of adventurers long dead. Bash shivered.
Pausing and working quickly, he eyed the door frame and the tile floor just beyond before running his fingers over them and feeling every groove. There was no indication of any type of pressure plate, trip wire, or other trap, and he took a tentative step forward.
Immediately, all the archers turned to him and fired, and he swore as he pushed off the doorway to the side, collapsing to the floor. Four bolts struck the door frame as the archers had tried to follow his movement, two struck the wall and clattered to the ground, but two struck Finwe directly in the shoulder.
Bash jumped to his feet and squealed a weak apology as Finwe grunted and stumbled backward, and the statues moved mechanically to reload their crossbows. Yelping lightly, Bash leapt back through the doorway, and the statues returned to gaze at each other once more.
Without hesitation, William had pushed his way forward and begun tending to the wound. Slumping to the ground, Finwe breathed heavily as he tried to push through the pain, but Bash noticed blood seeping through his cloak in more than one place; he hadn't noticed the wounds from the previous battle until now. They appeared grievous.
As William expertly withdrew the bolt, Enna knelt beside Finwe and ran her hand over him, muttering words as her life-giving magic did its work. A few moments later, several of his wounds had sealed, and he nodded his awkward thanks to Enna before taking his place back in line.
"Sorry," whispered Bash.
"Don't mention it," replied Finwe, although Bash couldn't decide on his level of sincerity.
Sighing, Bash grabbed his shortbow and fired an arrow across the room. Nothing happened.
"I don't think we can run fast enough to escape all the bolts," observed William.
"Let me try something," said Enna, waving her hands through the air. A rush of wind like a thunderous waterfall echoed through the chamber, buffeting the statues, but several seconds later, it died down, having done nothing except remove a tiny flake of stone from the nearest one. She sighed.
"We might have to try it anyway," suggested William. "I might be able to make it to the other side before they hit me."
William poised himself, ready to reach top speeds as he raced forward.
"Wait!" cried Bash, suddenly recalling the celestial words on the tomb face now five hundred feet above them. "The warnings were on the mausoleum!"
"What?" asked Finwe.
"The mausoleum had writings on it, quotes of Lord Bromwell," explained Bash. "The first one said, 'The descent of understanding can be a slippery slope. One must pause halfway to be sure of one's footing.'"
"That trap was halfway down the stairs," recalled Enna.
"Exactly."
"So, what were the other sayings?" prompted Aribis.
"The second was…" he fought to recall. So much had happened since he had read them. Finally, "'Penitence is tantamount to reaching your goal. When you cannot walk upright, you must crawl.'"
Without waiting for the others, he dropped to the floor and slowly inched his way out of the doorway. Watching the sentinels carefully, he breathed a sigh of relief when they did not react. He pushed another several feet into the room, and still, no bolts were cast at him. The others followed suit, and they crawled across the room, painstaking as it was. The statues slowly moved past, and the group at last stood together at the exit. Glancing back, Bash saw several streaks of blood across the floor, evidence of the battle they had fought tonight, and his cheer at their menial triumph quickly vanished as he recalled the events that led them here.
The pathway now turned to the right, and Bash followed it to lead the others into the next room of similar size but devoid of threatening statues. Instead, it invited them in with a mountain of gold piled on a raised plinth in the center of the hall. The number of coins was easily over fifty thousand.
"What's the next saying?" breathed Aribis, clearly lusting after the prize before him.
"'Gold is harmless, but its desire is hollow, for if gold is all you desire, gold is all you will be,'" quoted Bash.
Aribis swore quietly, and they moved slowly past the sparkling treasure. Across the hall, they reached a large wooden door, braced with metal and decorated with a relief image of precious metals and sparkling gems. Three lordly men and three haughty women stood, all holding out their hands, forbidding the adventurers from venturing any farther into the dungeon. Celestial letters were splayed across the base of the door, and Bash read them aloud.
"Contained within, a great evil is held, slayer of the Lords of Flowers – save the last, who built his prison. Seeker of the destruction of the Hilltop City, the Ghost of Agneward shall remain sealed until which time as the Lawbearer sends her judgment."
Bash worked his jaw as they processed the meaning. The Lawbearer had sent her judgment. Through him. And yet, Aribis had been the one to bring the Ghost to his end. Had he failed? Had he done something wrong? Was this the grand plan of Erathis? To toy with his pride?
Stepping forward, William grasped at two heavy iron handles and pulled, his muscles flexing in the dim light. Slowly, the doors swung toward them, revealing one last chamber overflowing with the scent of deathly decay. Everyone instinctively covered their noses as they took in the scene before them.
The large, circular room was poorly lit by glowing white lights around the circumference. In the center, two stone pillars shot up to meet the ceiling, supporting the weight of five hundred feet of rock and sporting fiery runes that glowed in the dim light and danced their demonic warnings to those who might intrude. Just past the left pillar was some kind of alchemy workshop, a giant iron cauldron steaming and bubbling. Surrounding the pillars in a neat circle lay five sarcophaguses, each decorated with a man or woman in gentle, stony repose supported by celestial runes detailing their life's accomplishments.
What drew their attention, however, was what stood between the pillars. From each great column, chains reached out to meet manacles that held fast a hunched prisoner.
Enna gasped and leapt forward to run to the dais, but William grabbed her arm and stepped in front of her, scanning for any abnormalities on the floor such as what had nearly become their literal downfall on the stairs. Nearly panicking, Enna strained her eyes in the dark room to make out who was being held in the fetters, but it was not until William nodded his approval that she rushed forward to determine the reality of her fears.
Upon approach, Enna halted at the base of the dais. The prisoner wore tattered noble's clothing, and her long, black hair was braided, though frayed, and draped over her shoulder. Her head hung lazily to the side, her eyes were closed, and it appeared that most of her weight was being placed on her arms as she dangled unconscious on her knees. With keen recognition, Bash felt a wave of compassion, not only for the poor elf woman chained here, but for Enna who stood beside him. In her hesitation, he reached out and took her hand in his own, ready to take the next difficult steps with her.
Together, they each placed a foot on the dais, and an unnatural wave of heat ran over them. Brushing it aside, Bash focused on Enna, but for the life of him, he couldn't remember why he had taken her hand.
Wasn't this the woman who hadn't respected his boundaries? The woman who had been so overcome with anger that she had driven her brother into hunting him? What had she ever done for him? She had cried when Rolen died. Cried! Who could weep for such a murderous psychopath?
He dropped her hand and felt content to sit back and watch. Let her deal with the consequences of her actions.
For reasons he could not identify, as he stood and watched William and Sooka begin to study the glowing red chains from afar, Bash couldn't help but think over the events of the past few hours. What had they gained, in the end? The Ghost had been slain, but it had been Aribis who had done it! Not him. This fake "Ghost" he had proclaimed himself to be had been nothing but a sham in the end. The years he had spent protecting the city, and he couldn't even succeed when the opportunity had been handed to him on a silver platter.
Bash's wrathful eyes turned to Aribis, the tiny man who gawked at the alchemy station and the fiery runes on the pillars. Why hadn't he let Bash have the shot? Why did he always have to get the glory? Why didn't he understand how badly Bash had needed to kill the Ghost himself? Fury rose with in him, and he sighed heavily in a weak attempt to dispel it.
"Mother!" cried Enna as all this ran through his mind, running suddenly forward and collapsing next to Althea.
The weak form turned her head up to look at Enna, revealing the marks of claws across her face, reaching from her forehead to her chin. The wounds were closed, but only just, and they were swollen and red. Tears ran down across them, causing them to glitter in the light of the runes.
As Althea beheld Enna, terror gripped her, and she began to pull away.
"Get back!" she yelled weakly. "Not again, please! I don't know any more!"
"Mom, it's me!" replied Enna frantically, blinking as she began to cry. "It's Enna!"
"No! It's a trick! It's a trick!" She closed her eyes and tugged at the shackles as they burrowed deeper into her raw skin.
Weeping, Enna pulled out a diamond ring that she had gotten from Ilya and choked out the words to a spell.
"Let me help you, Mom," pleaded Enna, placing her hands on Althea's shoulders to hold her still.
"Please, no, I don't know any more…" wept Althea.
Taking a deep breath, Enna closed her eyes for a moment, and the magic flowed from her hands and into Althea's body. The diamond in the ring crumbled and joined with the energy of the spell, and Althea's entire body began to glow green.
Althea gasped to feel it, and Enna's eyes crinkled as she fought against something. Her tongue stuck out between her teeth, for a moment staying Bash's wrathful heart, and Aribis approached with concern in his face. A moment later, Enna exhaled suddenly and collapsed forward onto her palms, and the fiery runes on the columns flashed and disappeared.
All at once, Bash's anger dissipated, and empathy took over his heart. Gravity itself pulled him to Enna, and he knelt beside her, placing his hand on her shoulder, searching her face to make sure that she was alright. She turned her green eyes to him, puffy and reddened as they were, and he felt a nearly overwhelming urge to kiss her.
"Help her," she whispered.
Nodding, he stood as Althea whispered, "Is it you?" to Enna.
Bash flicked out a lockpick as Enna nodded and embraced her mother, more magic flowing from her and knitting together Althea's broken skin. The lock on Althea's right wrist was surprisingly intricate for its apparently normal purpose, but Bash had it picked a moment later, and Althea's hand fell as he moved to the other side. A moment later, the other hand was free, and Althea fell backward to sit, probably relieving the pressure on her knees for the first time in days.
"What are you doing here?" she asked weakly. "How?"
"It's alright now," replied Enna as tears dripped from her face onto the floor. "It's okay."
"No, you have to leave!" cried Althea, pushing in vain at Enna. "He's going to come back! Go!"
"He's dead, Mom. He's gone."
Althea shook her head in disbelief. "He's… dead?"
"Yes."
"How?"
"We had help. We got him. It's alright now."
Reaching out, Bash touched Althea's shoulder, calling on the magic he had used on Jewel, and nearly amazed himself to see it happen again. A soft light issued from his hand, and the last of Althea's wounds stitched themselves together, though scars would forever be visible on her face, neck, and shoulders.
Enna gave him a small smile as she helped her mother to her feet. Althea stood with a surprising amount of strength, shoulders back despite her incredible suffering.
"You…" She looked around at them in confusion before turning back to Enna. "What happened?"
"I'm so sorry," said Enna. "How long have you been down here?"
"I don't know. I lost track of time after a few days. He said… he wanted to change me, but I don't know what that means. He was constantly working over there on something." She pointed toward the cauldron.
Aribis, Sooka, and William drifted over in curiosity. A quick glance revealed that the two closest sarcophaguses were cracked, the bony innards now scattered across the floor. The great cauldron bubbled, and just past it sat a desk with various bits of parchment strewn across its surface. Behind the desk was a box whose lid was covered with various bottles.
"How do we get out of here?" asked Althea. "Can we go home?"
"Yes, we can leave," replied Enna. "Do you remember anything? Us coming back? Anything?"
"No." Althea shook her head. "Enna, dear, I haven't seen you in over a year."
Sorrow overtook Enna's features.
"Wait… Rolen? Where is Rolen? Is he with you? Did you save him?"
Enna's face grew stony, and she dropped her gaze.
"He… got to Rolen before I could…"
"You mean…?"
"He's dead," inserted Bash. He wasn't so sure that Enna would be able to say it.
Althea's countenance fell, and fresh tears began to form in her eyes. Enna embraced her once more, and Althea's arms tightened around Enna as much as they could.
"I'm so sorry," whispered Enna. "If only I had come back sooner, I could've…"
For several moments, mother and daughter hugged and wept, the rest of the party waiting respectfully nearby.
A few minutes later, Bash led Enna, Althea, and Finwe out of the chamber, and Sooka stood taking in the dungeon-like room with Aribis and William. William seemed particularly attracted to the magical runes, the indentations still adorning the pillars, though they were no longer lit with hellish fire. A circle of stone tiles surrounding the cauldron were also decorated, and William drifted over to them, kneeling on the floor and poking at them with his finger. He seemed to understand them, and finally announced that the runes were in the infernal language, although he didn't understand when he had learned to recognize it.
As Aribis began to snoop around and search through the various items littered about the Ghost's desk, Sooka watched uneasily as William eyed each and every rune that he could find. Occasionally, he would speak, whispering to himself the words that he read, and each time, his voice echoed uncomfortably in her ears, as if William were breathing the guttural tongue directly into her mind. Try as she might to help Aribis in his search, ultimately, she was too distracted by this to focus.
In the end, William gave up trying to fully understand the runes, and he instead moved to make a rubbing of them. Snatching charcoal and loose parchment from the desk, the monk knelt on the floor and began the odious task of rubbing each stone's runes so that he could study them in full later.
Meanwhile, Aribis announced his finding of a full set of alchemy tools and materials, and he quickly stuffed them into his bag for use later as Sooka sidled up to the desk and began sifting through the various notes and drawings, grateful for the silence afforded by William's intent focus. Unsurprisingly, she found many scrolls that contained the same language as the runes about the room, and she picked up several of them with a curious eye. The words wrapped around the scrolls in a circular pattern, and she was amazed at the level of magic that the Ghost must have been working with. She pocketed all the scrolls and notes that she could find.
An hour later, Enna, Althea, Bash, and Finwe emerged from the tomb into the graveyard, now lit by the early morning sun. Bash blinked at the relative brightness and glanced around at the newly arrived contingent of Knights of the White Orchid who were busy cleaning up the scene. To the side, Bash saw the three fallen knights, all laid in a line, hands placed over their chests, now at rest. Quickly, he diverted his gaze as a woman with raven's feathers adorning her cloak approached the dead soldiers to attend to their souls. Several knights carried the dead body of the Ghost away and out of the graveyard. Kayl stood a dozen feet away in deep discussion with a knight that seemed faintly familiar.
As the group emerged from the tomb, Kayl noticed them and rushed to them.
"You're alright!" he exulted. "Wait… You're… Lady Althea!"
A rush of strained small talk followed, but Enna clearly had no mind for it as she wandered off toward the three dead knights. Bash eyed her as she bowed her head and breathed some words that he could not hear. The cloaked woman approached her and began discussing something.
"So, uh…" said Kayl, interrupted Bash's train of thought. "Where's the wee one? He's alright, isn't he?"
Enna nodded courteously to the woman and walked back over to them.
"Yes, he's fine," replied Bash.
"Where is he?"
"He's still in there." Bash pointed at the tomb. "Way underground at the moment."
Coming to stand next to her mother, Enna wrapped an arm around her waist and smiled weakly. Exhaustion, far from physical, had taken over her face. Dark circles had formed under her eyes, and grief shined through them between every breath.
"Does he need help? You think he'll be alright?"
Aribis? mouthed Enna to Bash. He nodded his response, and Enna smiled at Kayl's affectionate worry.
"William and Sooka are down there with him," she explained. "He'll be just fine."
"What are they doing? Don't they want to leave?"
"I think they're studying the Ghost's work area."
"Well, uh… I guess I'll wait here for him, then."
Althea rested her tired head on Enna's shoulder, and Enna cast a worried glance to Bash. He considered whether they would be able to make it all the way back to the Circle before Althea collapsed, far as they were. But a few minutes later, the men who had been carrying away the Ghost returned and offered the group a ride to wherever they needed to go, explaining that there was a carriage in the street waiting to escort them. They graciously accepted but decided to wait until the others returned before they left. Nevertheless, Althea was still exhausted and near the point of passing out; Bash helped her out and into the carriage while Enna relayed the information of the tomb and its dangers to one of the guards.
After Althea was safely deposited, Bash returned to Enna.
"You sit with your mom," he said. "I'll wait for the others."
She nodded, and they traded places.
A short fifteen minutes later, Kayl began pacing in his worry, every few minutes expressing his discomfort with the situation.
"Are you sure he's alright?" he would say. "I really think I should go after him."
"I promise," Bash would assure him. "He'll be up shortly."
In the end, it ended up being a full hour before Aribis, Sooka, and William finally emerged from the dark staircase. The excited Kayl rushed forward, joy written on his face, and held his arms out to hug Aribis before pausing and punching his shoulder angrily instead.
"You kept me waiting, magpie!" he cried. "What was that all about? What were you doing down there?" He gestured wildly with each sentence, emphasizing his incredible difficulty. "Mother would kill me if something had happened to you!"
Aribis shrugged. "I was having a nap. What were you doing the entire time?"
"I was making sure that your butts were covered!"
"Really!"
"Aye! See who cleaned up all this mess?" Kayl gestured to the graveyard, still strewn about with blood and bits of the foul monstrosities, while Knights of the White Orchid and the Archward worked to remove bodies and bones and flesh.
"Seems like they did all the work," smirked Aribis. "But I appreciate it. And I appreciate your worry. And I'm sorry to have worried you."
"I wasn't worried about ya! I knew you were fine." Kayl shifted his shoulder uncomfortably.
"You're a bad liar," accused Aribis flatly. "Always have been."
"Blasted bad liar… Why is it you're so good at it?" returned Kayl. "Where did you learn?"
"Dad, of course."
"Ah, yeah, that makes sense…"
Bash chuckled to see their interaction before announcing their awaiting carriage. A few minutes later, they were all stuffed into it, shoulder to shoulder, Althea snoozing softly on Enna, and the carriage lurched into motion.
"What did that woman say?" asked Bash.
"We're invited to the funerals of the three knights who helped us," replied Enna, her expression cold and distant. He was unsure whether her distance was aimed at him or their situation.
He nodded and turned his head to watch Agneward drift by.
It seemed… different… somehow. Perhaps he was just tired. Drawing a weary hand over his face, he gazed at the people, scarce in the early morning hours, unaware of the paradigm shift that had taken place only a couple hours ago.
The Ghost of Agneward was dead.
Frowning, Bash tried to wrap his head around the concept. In a way, the thought seemed to herald his own death. And yet, after everything, here he sat, alive and well with his friends, though each of them were now decorated with new scars that would cling to them for the rest of their lives.
And what would that life hold for him now? Could he go back to what he was? Take up the mantle of a creature slain in part because of his own actions? It seemed foolish; the return of the Ghost of Agneward, after all that had transpired, would yield nothing but panic and chaos within the city.
He sighed. He needed rest.
Suddenly, their medallions pinged, and the group snapped to attention as they heard Drasloc's voice ring out about them.
"Attention, those who are involved in the Colosso Exhibition… There has been a slight change of plan. We have been informed that one of the lead contenders in the Monster Slayer trials has been disbanded, as they are no longer answering any communication. The runners up will now take their place in the finals, which have been postponed to tomorrow night. Thank you for your patience."
Enna sighed in relief, leaning her head against her mother's, and William nodded in approval. Sooka, Aribis, and Bash did not visibly respond.
Upon arriving at Marigold Manor, Lord Kirin awaited them and ordered them out of the carriage. He praised them for their work in protecting Agneward, and William apologized for the death of the three knights.
"Without them, I don't think we would have been able to defeat him," rang out the monk's deep voice.
Blinking several times, Bash turned away and watched a bird flitting between branches of a nearby tree.
Kirin informed them that there would be a meeting of guildmasters to discuss Rolen's death, and that Lady Ilya would speak on their behalf. Upon Althea's pleas for rest, the group was escorted into the manor, and the staff awaited them in the lobby. Several greeted Enna and Althea with joy, and soon after, Enna began discussing the details of what had happened with Archibald. Feeling wholly unneeded, Bash drifted away down the hall, leaving Enna's voice to mere echoes behind him.
This place… he thought to himself as he took in his surroundings. So much had happened here. He remembered sneaking in that window, and that one. He recalled the time he had hidden behind that curtain for four hours until the coast was clear. He had slit the throat of one of Rolen's heartless thugs right over there. The stain had never completely lifted from that carpet, either, as much as they had tried.
Wandering up the stairs, he remembered once when he had nearly tripped vaulting down them, fleeing probable capture. Running his hands over the railing, he felt a tiny nick in the wood, just out of sight, where his dagger had caught the banister in a fight with a guard.
On his way down the hall, he could remember countless nights of slinking up and down this very hall, scoping out the impossible target of Rolen's study. And yet, after so many years, he had never entered it until last night.
Reaching the doors, Bash lingered for a moment, taking in his surroundings. It appeared pillaged, and not at his own hand. Someone had rifled through each and every paper and left them dispersed haphazardly across the desk and floor. The vault stood wide open before him. But he wasn't drawn to it.
Slowly, he stepped forward before kneeling on the floor and gathering the loose papers. After they were all in a bunch, he laid them on the desk before organizing the others into another neat pile. Glancing around him, he saw the hundreds of books on the bookshelves, each of them a testament to Rolen's impressive intelligence. A small display sat at chest level on the far side of the room, complete with Rolen's prized gold-tipped quills and a bottle of color-changing ink. With a grim smile, Bash sat at the desk, feeling a light tuft of air occasionally from the open vault behind him, and looked at the papers before him.
How long had he coveted this opportunity – the chance to sift through the writings and scribbles of his greatest enemy in the past three centuries? And yet, it was not what he had imagined.
He glanced at a paper and studied the writing. Simple accounting, in handwriting that did not match the true Rolen. Supposing this to be the work of the doppelganger, Bash set it aside and looked at the next. Again, a phony note. Sighing, Bash checked through each and every paper, setting aside those written by the doppelganger, which turned out to be nearly all of them. Ledger after ledger, doodle after doodle – Bash set them aside with a huff. These ledgers were sloppy, some that could have even been put together by Kragg. The numbers didn't line up on some, the zeros were sloppily drawn on others, and others didn't even have the totals on the bottom of the page. Bash scoffed. Rolen would never have been so careless.
Then, at last, he found what he desired. A note scrawled by the real Rolen Delthorn, complete with the fancy and unnecessary squiggles on the t's, the tiny extra marks on the a's, and the extra swirl on the D in his signature.
We need to find this Ghost, and right away. Let me know when you find anything.
—Rolen Delthorn
He ran a thumb over the ink at the bottom, tracing the swirly D. Rolen was dead. The man who wrote this note would never breathe again. Bash narrowed his eyes at the paper. Was he… sad?
He scoffed. What a ridiculous notion! In fact, some part of him felt great joy that Rolen was dead and a small amount of regret that he had not been the one to deal the final blow. No, his melancholy was in a sudden realization that it was over. A century of frustrating, inconveniencing, and plotting against one of the most detestable people in the world had come to an end.
Holding the note, he sighed and leaned back in Rolen's nicely padded chair. Any life could be summarized in chapters, he thought. His contained the chapter of his childhood, the chapter of his early days in Agneward, and the chapter spent thwarting Rolen. What chapter was coming to him now?
Folding the letter, he tucked it in his pocket before turning back to the desk. Quickly, he shuffled through the remaining papers, none quite as intriguing as the one he had pilfered. But then, just as he was about to get up, something caught his eye.
"Aberdeen?" he muttered aloud as he picked up the parchment.
Indeed, it was. Bash now held in his hands a ledger detailing the purchase of denr resin from Blue Clover Holding, signed by Rolen and Aberdeen the Elder. Smirking, Bash recalled the scandalous "resignation" of the embezzling Aberdeen from Primarch Cornelius Latimer perhaps a decade ago. It was no surprise that Rolen would stoop to purchasing products from someone like Aberdeen, but what surprised Bash was learning that Aberdeen had stooped to creating a shell corporation to help Rolen smuggle more denr resin into the city.
"And look where that got the lot of you," he said, placing the ledger in his pocket along with the note. Shaking his head, he stood. "Maybe good ol' Aberdeen needs a visit from me soon." Indirect and unknowing as he might have been, the old fool still had played a role in the death of so many thanks to the black taffy addiction.
Deciding to rejoin the others, he meandered toward the door, but not before eyeing those gold quills once again. Snagging one, beautiful with its multicolored feather and pearlescent box, he left the study behind and stepped into the hallway.