The Ghost's Crusade

Chapter VI: Tiernan (cont)

Nodding, Drystan strode forward and came to a stop right in front of the man. For a moment he ceased struggling, peering down and squinting as though everything around him had become remarkably hard to see. Then his mania slowly began to fade away and was replaced by an abject fear of the man standing in front of him.

“You,” the man gurgled at the Inferi. “You don't belong here! Out, damn you! Out out out!”

“Was it your doing which trapped their poor souls in that foul hex?”

Tiernan involuntarily shuddered as he heard Drystan speak. There was something about the way his friend phrased the question that sounded... wrong to his ears. A foreign edge to his voice, something otherworldly he couldn't quite pin down but which hadn't been there a minute ago and definitely wasn't there eight years ago when they parted ways. He had heard people changed drastically when they joined Antenox, but like everything else about them he dismissed it as fantastical legends. The man before him looked exactly like the man he had grown up with, granted with much longer hair and pale stubble, but it wasn't... Drystan.

The reality of it unnerved him. But there were more pressing matters to deal with. The horde of corpses laying dormant in the room kept there by a load of fallen flour sacks was at the top of the list. He didn't fancy ending his tenure as Inquisitor Captain in a killing field clawed to death by the shackled spirits of the enslaved undead.

The lunatic tried to lunge at Drystan and failed miserably, reaching the end of the length the knives allowed him and falling far short of his target. Drystan slammed his palm against the man's chest to force him back against the door. “Do not lie to us. What are they guarding for you?”

All at once the man seemed to wither beneath Drystan's hand as though it were a burning brand fresh off the fire. “The voice... it calls. It beckons. It praises. It's a pretty shiny thing, but so weak still...”

“What does the voice praise you for?”

“I am a good keeper,” whispered the man with a toothy smile which was missing a few pieces. “A good, good keeper!”

“What are you safekeeping?”

“Oh, you can't go there.” He cackled from deep within his throat at Tiernan's question. “That's where the whispers are strongest. Lavender... lavender whispers.” Beady eyes peered over the Inferi's shoulder and fixed on Tiernan. “Can you make me tell the truth? Break me of my lies? What would Junan do?”

The fanatic's voice disturbed him. He switched from complete insanity to being as rational as a scholar more quickly than he blinked—and he was blinking quite frequently, as if trying to squint dirt out of his watering eyes. “You are indeed broken. 'Twas not I who did it, though.”

Again the lunatic laughed. “Silly man! Stupid boy of a silly man! The whispers will break you too! They break EVERYONE.”

Drystan backed up to stand beside his friend as the man began to squirm again, resuming his vain attempt wrest himself free of the knives. “We need to dismantle the killing field.”

“You think they built it over something.”

“The Shalewarrens are pretty close to the surface in the central regions,” said Drystan with a shrug. “Wouldn't be the first time, would it.”

“No.” Tiernan's scowl deepened. “It would not.” He looked around the room. “The locus would be in something nearby. Something always kept around but nondescript. That's usually how they hide them, anyway. Let me concentrate for a minute...”