Latest writing vlog is out – day late but hey, I got electricity again so I call it a win!
Night Train to Hardwick Chapter Nine – Chorus of the Lost
The ghosts were everywhere. Even in the orphan’s public car, previously swept clear, specters were flitting through the walls briefly. However echoes of Cassie’s magic remained there, driving the ghosts away quickly. It left a strange impression, as if the edges of the car had turned blurry with the faces of ghosts flicking in and out. The other cars were worse, with ghost flailing, yelling and swooping at people at random intervals.
“Strange that we haven’t attracted any ghosts,” Brandon muttered.
“We’re probably too far away from any remnants of people we know,” Cassie said. “Small blessings from the Lady there.”
“Are you sure none of this is dangerous?” Brandon asked, watching as a living woman struggled against tears, clutching at the intangible form of a boy on the seat beside her.
“So long as they remain in the normal classes of ghost they don’t have any physical power,” Cassie said, looking away from the scene uneasily. “But that doesn’t mean specters can’t manipulate people verbally, in fact they’re uniquely suited to it because they know those they’re bound to. They’re just as dangerous to the mind as any living creature. Haunts – ghosts that are bound to places or objects – are less likely to do it but all I’m seeing and hearing are specters.”
Brandon stepped out into the airway between the last public car and the luggage car, eyeing the growing swarms of ghosts that billowed through the night sky, voices merging with the wind in a constant surussus of half heard, unsettling words. “What happens when they stop being normal ghosts?”
“Then you have a revenant,” Cassie called over the wind. “Or a poltergeist if you ask the Teutonic wizards. Either word means the same – a ghost that can fling objects, freeze people and is no longer bound to a single person, place or thing.”
The luggage car door slammed shut behind them but to Brandon’s surprise the piles of luggage were swarming with just as many specters as the rest of the train. “Interesting. Are we changing our mind about there being no haunts on this train?”
“This may be the locus of power Mr. Harper was looking for. That, or every piece of clothing and luggage is bound to a haunt,” Cassie murmured.
Brandon frowned and started looking through the luggage carefully. Most of it was in trunks, locked closed, difficult if not impossible for a regular person to open. Smaller items were kept in wooden cubbyholes with locked doors, which Brandon knew could only be opened by a conductor with a master key or the passenger who rented it, who was given the relevant key.
“If an object was the focus of all this, how big would it be?” He asked.
Cassie shrugged, resting her ear against one of the trunks while working the fistful of Harper’s magical scrap in one hand. “It could be as small as a jewel or curio portrait.”
Brandon grunted and closed his eyes. Cassie might be able to hear and speak to things beyond but his initiation into the stone circle had given him the strength and heart of the yew. He ran his fingers along the doors of the cubbies and the lids of trunks, looking for the telltale signs of recent human touch. Behind him, Cassie began humming quietly. Brandon frowned, annoyed that she kept pushing her gift when she was in no danger. No matter how Harper’s gizmo interacted with her talents it wouldn’t help her forever. Either its magic would give out or Harper would take it back but the habit of relying on it would remain.
And at the rate she was going she’d be blind by thirty.
Then again all stone singers had to face that reality sooner or later, even if they never consciously used their magic. He thought he’d accepted that, watching his father slowly lose his vision as he grew up. But it turned out dreading his sister’s eventual decline had its own kind of horror to it. He realized he’d stopped searching and pushed himself forward again. A few minutes later he reached the far end of the baggage car and sighed, shifting his shoulders as the yew roots relaxed and his magic went dormant. “Nothing here. I’d guess no one needed their luggage in the last twelve hours. Any chance someone set their ghost attracting talisman earlier in the day and we just saw the effects now?”
“Most magic dealing with spirits only functions at night,” Cassie said between bars of her tune. Another half minute of humming and she opened her eyes again. “None of these ghosts seems more powerful than the others. If there’s a ghost general behind this its not at this end of the train.”
“Could the magic be set up one night and activated the next?”
“Not if sunlight touches it.” She gestured to the high windows of the train car. “So the windows make it unlikely the spell was cast out in the open. If none of this luggage has been tampered with then there’s no place for the spell to survive the dawn.”
Brandon glanced at the back of the train car. “That just leaves the caboose.”
“That’s the crew’s territory,” Cassie said, doubtful. “Why would one of them sabotage their own train?”
“Maybe they’re not,” Brandon countered. “Maybe one of them is just haunted by the ghost general, as you put it.”
“Well either way they aren’t going to let us in. The crew cars are always locked,” Cassie mused. “Though I’m sure Mr. Harper could gain entry. Perhaps we should go and find him.”
She turned and headed past him towards the door but Brandon stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. “Cassie. When you heard the call, what was it?”
“I told you, Brandon, there weren’t words. Just stonesong. And I could tell it was coming from this direction.”
“Cassie. Just because I can’t hear stonesong myself doesn’t mean I don’t know anything about it. My father is a stonesinger, same as yours.” He gave her a knowing smile. “And he knew us well enough to warn me of the kinds of things you might learn but not share. So. Out with it. What did you hear when the call came?”
She sighed. “A sound like an ocean of trees, all folding in on themselves until nothing was left but the whisper of wind through the leaves.”
A frown pressed down on Brandon’s face. “And that was enough for you to rush us out onto this sky train with less than half an hour to spare?”
His sister nodded glumly. “I’ve heard it before.”
“Really?”
“Not exactly the same, you understand,” she hastened to add. “But something very similar when I was nine and we went to Stonehenge for your initiation into the First Circle.”
“You believe there’s a druid out here somewhere,” Brandon said, realization dawning. “Perhaps even Harper himself. He knew enough to recognize me, although he didn’t identify himself as such.”
“Morainhenge is gone,” Cassie replied. “There can’t be any proper druids here anymore, can there? Besides, Harper talks like a Regular, not a Lakeshire man.”
Brandon snorted, she was wrong on the first count and they were hardly the best judges on the second. The again, there were many things she could hear that he couldn’t. “Then we keep looking for the druid that’s the source. Do you think he’s connected to the ghosts here, somehow?”
She shook her head. “No druid I’ve met sounds remotely like that. But I have heard the sound before, from the Book of Linds.”
“Is that a fact.” Which changed all the implications entirely, didn’t it. “You were called by a relic, not a druid.”
Cassie nodded. “Either the Manual of Sulfur or Pelinor’s Journal is somewhere nearby. I can’t say where, just that it’s in this direction.”
“Well,” Brandon said, “that’s useful if we survive these ghosts. I doubt either one is close enough to help us right this moment.”
Weekly Writing Vlog – 08-04-2021
Weekly writing vlog! Is there any end to the new projects? No, there isn’t.
Night Train to Hardwick Chapter Eight – Shades of Cold
Technically, as a Railway Detective, Roy was able to enter other people’s compartments as needed. He’d only ever done it twice, both times to check on passengers who’d fallen asleep and overstayed their time on a train, so it still felt strange to just let himself into a compartment in use by others, even if they weren’t there. He did his best to ignore the luggage, discarded coats and other signs of habitation. Instead he focused on Jenkins’s ghost, who stood looking out the window and making the whole experience even more surreal.
“You’re sure you want to be here?” He asked. “The girl says you’re just an afterimage, like an echo. So I suppose you’re not really being hurt but still…”
“You’ve changed since we last met.” Roy gave Jenkins’s ghost a curious look. “I suppose it’s been a few years but still…”
The mirroring was uncanny. The shade matched his tone, cadence and even choice of final words. Roy wasn’t sure if it was some kind of ploy or just something intrinsic to the nature of ghosts but he was sure that it wasn’t the kind of behavior Sam Jenkins would have indulged in his life. Once again he wondered if the spirit was partially a projection of his own mind rather than an echo of a man he’d met years ago, during the Summer of Snow.
“Do you remember?” Jenkins asked, unprompted. “When the Browncoat told us he could only fight the cold if we paid him?”
Roy shifted on his feet, uncomfortable. “Yes, I remember.”
“I thought you would tear him apart yourself.” The ghost moved as if it was laughing but to Roy’s horror he just heard a distant wail. “When he refused to leave I started to hate him. I hated myself more when we finally agreed to his price.”
Roy shoved his hands awkwardly into his back pockets. “I felt much the same at the time.”
“There are worse deals to make,” Jenkins whispered. “Many times since I’ve wondered if he was trying to show us we should be careful when we strike a pact. Many times I’ve wondered what happened to him, to ask. Do they still talk about him?”
“From time to time, in the Treaty Lands,” Roy admitted. “I take it you haven’t seen him since Tyson’s Run?”
“Not me, or Tad Heller.”
“Heller’s still kicking?” Roy whistled. “That old man has spirit, I’ll give him that.”
“In the end I convinced him.”
Jenkins abrupt, unprompted subject changes left Roy off balance. “Of?”
“That the Browncoat was untrustworthy. That the price was too high to ask for help of the Strongest Man in the World a second time.” The train car shuddered under Roy’s feet and he found himself anxiously looking about, expecting the specter to give way before the arrival of the single most terrifying human being Roy had met in his life. But the moment passed, the name of power unanswered. If it noticed the momentary disruption Jenkins’ ghost gave no sign of it. “I made the choice to seek another deal. I paid a different price. And I never stopped paying that price until the day I died. Let me do one last thing, free of those shackles once more.”
Roy nodded, starting to see what the ghost was trying to say. “Then let’s see if we can figure out what’s going on here.” He raised his voice a shade. “Are you done over there, Fairchilds?”
After a moment’s pause Brandon appeared in the doorway. “Well?”
“I do have a few questions for the pair of you.” Cassandra joined her brother and they crowded into the compartment. “First of all, we need to assess the situation. Miss Cassandra, you can hear the ghosts even if you can’t see them?”
“A little,” she admitted. “But it’s hard to tell them apart. And I think they’ve started avoiding me since I led the children in the March of Joy.”
“There is something frightful about you,” Jenkins admitted. “As if staying near you will send us somewhere far away. If that makes sense.”
“It doesn’t,” Roy muttered.
“No surprise,” the specter said. “If it helps, I can see the other ghosts.”
“That was going to be my next question,” Roy said. “We need to figure out where the ghosts are concentrated and who, if anyone, on the train may be attracting them before we take any steps to clear up the situation.”
“Is it even necessary to clear it up?” Cassandra asked. “They’re unsettling but not dangerous, at least so far.”
“I’m afraid it is,” Roy said. “To protect the K&O Railway Company’s reputation if nothing else. No one wants to ride a haunted train.”
“Do you think this is some kind of sabotage?” Brandon asked. “An attempt to discredit the rail line by rivals?”
“It’s a possibility,” Roy said. “But I was thinking of the Gulf Locomotion Company that went bankrupt because people wouldn’t ride with them after a passenger died mid flight and haunted the train.”
“That’s a bit different don’t you think?” Cassandra asked.
“Doesn’t matter,” Roy said. “The way the West works, people will jump to conclusions regardless. But ultimately I suspect summoning this many ghosts here is not the easiest way to bankrupt K&O, there must be dozens of easier ways about it. So I find sabotage unlikely.”
Brandon folded his arms with a thoughtful air. “What is your working theory?”
“Someone is forming an army,” Jenkins’ ghost said.
A moment of silence filled the compartment. Roy gave Jenkins a hard look. “What makes you say that?”
“Well, I’m no soldier, that’s certain.” Jenkins leaned his body halfway out the wall and looked about outside the train, his voice still somehow echoing through the compartment. “But the ghosts out here certainly look like an army.”
Roy shifted uneasily. “They’re in a formation? Banners? Officers?”
“The first and last, though no banners,” Jenkins confirmed. “Although not all of ’em have uniforms the leaders definitely do. And there’s the numbers.”
“How many ghosts are out there?” Cassandra asked, a slight quaver entering her voice.
“At least a couple hundred of them and it looks like there’s more coming,” the specter said.
“Dust and ashes,” Roy muttered, ignoring the obvious discomfort of the Fairchilds. “Right, then the leader is either at the front or back of the train. Jenkins, search for a ghost who could command this army in those places. We’ll look for a human capable of it. Let’s get moving.”
“Why there?” Cassandra asked as she got to her feet.
“If it’s an army it has a front and back line. The quiet parts are ahead of the front line and in the back lines, everything else is busy and confusing. Generals are usually in the back line, where it’s quiet.” Roy hesitated, thoughts of Briarheart Ridge flicking through his mind. “Most of the time. There are no ghost sightings in the locomotive or the caboose, so the back line of this army is in one of those two places.”
He opened the door of the compartment and started to step out into the hall only to stop short when he nearly ran over the conductor, who was in the process of lifting his hand to knock on the door. “Oh! Mr. Harper, there you are. I’ve been looking for you.”
“What’s the matter?” Roy demanded. “Beyond the obvious.”
“Well…” He gestured helplessly towards the front of the train. “We can all see them now.”
Roy took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Of course. Well, you and I will head to the front, Fairchilds to the rear.”
“What are we doing?” The conductor asked, confused.
“I’ll explain along the way.”
Writing Vlog 07-28-2021
Latest writing vlog, talking over some worldbuilding and other adventures in writing!
Night Train to Hardwick Chapter Seven – Samuel Jenkins
After sharing seventeen years of life with his sister, including almost two of them traveling the Columbian West, Brandon had an intimate understanding of the signs that she was using her magic. He also knew the costs and she’d promised she would only sing the orphans one song with the force of her gift. So when the familiar prickle filled the air a second time annoyance surged through him. Quickly wrapping his sandwich in its napkin he pushed up from his table and hustled two and a half cars toward the rear of the train. As he traveled his annoyance changed to bafflement. The song felt different than any other he’d heard Cassie sing and it lasted less than a minute, barely enough for a verse.
And, by the time he’d gotten back to their compartment car, he realized she wasn’t back in the public cars anymore, the buzz of her magic was coming from their part of the train. As he got back to the door of that compartment he realized Roy Harper’s voice was coming from inside. Suspicious and annoyed, Brandon yanked the the compartment door open and stepped in, mouth open, prepared to yell.
He stopped short when he saw Harper talking to the ghost of a wiry old man in dirty denim clothes and blood covering his front. “Why?” Harper demanded, ignoring Brandon for the moment. “Why would you want to just roll over and die?”
“It was time,” the ghost said, its voice soft and echoing as if from a great distance. “You’ll understand when your time comes. I could ask the same – why did you summon me, Roy?”
“We were hoping you could help us understand the situation,” Cassandra said. She was seated beyond Harper, holding a strange bundle of sticks – bones – and leather in her lap. She gave Brandon a meaningful look and motioned him in the door before continuing. “I admit you were not who we were expecting but we’d hoped you could help us understand what is happening here.”
“No,” Harper cut in. “We’re not keeping Jenkins here. You were supposed to bring Colbert, so send the poor man on and try for the captain again.”
“I don’t mind, Roy,” Jenkins’ ghost said. “Now that I’m dead I find the living less taxing than before.”
“And I’d prefer you not press Cassandra’s talents, Mr. Harper,” Brandon said, his annoyance bubbling up again.
“I don’t mind Brandon,” Cassie said, her fingers worrying at the objects in her hand. “He’s right, there is something here we need to be involved in. I’m sure of it.”
Brandon’s jaw worked back and forth as he tried to resolve the conflicting impulses. Finally he glared at Roy and said, “May we have a moment alone, Mr. Harper?”
Harper glanced at the ghost then back at Brandon. “What about him? I can’t very well take a visible ghost into public right now, can I?”
“I’ll meet you in the next compartment,” Jenkins’ ghost said. “It’s empty at the moment.”
Harper gave it a frustrated look. “Sam.”
“It’s fine, Roy. I’d like to do one more worthwhile thing before I’m gone.” The ghost sank into the seat behind it and vanished.
Harper made a frustrated sound in the back of his throat. Cassie raised an eyebrow and asked, “What’s the difference between this man and your Captain? You were all soldiers, weren’t you?”
“No,” Harper turned the word into a sigh. “Sam Jenkins never took an oath or marched in the Regulars. He’s lived out West his whole life. Deserved better than he got.”
“Don’t we all?” Brandon muttered as Harper moved past him to the door.
Harper hesitated and glanced over his shoulder. “No. I, for one, already have far more than is just.”
Once Harper was gone Brandon sat down, pulled his red kerchief from a pocket and held it in his lap. “What can you see, Cassie?”
“You’re holding your red kerchief. Brandon, it wasn’t even-”
“Where am I holding it?”
“In your lap!” She threw her hands up in frustration. “Brandon, I’m fine.”
“Cassie,” he said, drawing deeply on well developed patience. “You nearly sang yourself blind just two weeks ago.”
“And my sight came back in time, just like it always-”
“Our father’s doesn’t return anymore. Cassie, there is a price for your gift.”
His sister took a deep breath, clearly straining her own patience. “Brandon. My eyes are fine now. Mr. Harper lent me an -” she glanced down at the fistful of detritus in her hand “- admittedly somewhat distasteful relic of the local people that assisted the song. The world is a little blurry, like it always is after a short song. That’s all.”
Brandon frowned, reached out and took the bones – horns? – and rolled them in his hand. They seemed unremarkable. “What is it?”
“Pieces of some kind of spirit trap.” She held up a handful of leather strings. “This used to hold it all together. You can’t hear it, but when the antlers and strings are near each other they… wail? But there is a tune to it. I was able to draw a song from it to call a ghost known to Mr. Harper.”
Brandon handed the pieces of debris back. “That’s fascinating. Why does he have such a thing?”
“Apparently he’s safeguarding it until it can be stored somewhere more secure.” She wrapped them in her handkerchief and slipped them into a pocket. “We were expecting the ghost Mr. Harper first saw in the orphan car.”
“And instead you got this Samuel Jenkins?”
“That’s correct.”
“Who is he?”
She tied the bundle closed with a helpless shrug. “I haven’t the faintest idea.”
Weekly Writing Vlog 7-21-2021
Today’s writing vlog – getting the most out of feedback.
Night Train to Hardwick Chapter Six – Brazen Joy
It turned out people were seeing ghosts all over the train. Once he retrieved his amulet from Oliver, who returned it with only a touch of reluctance, Roy went up and down the length of the train and found at least one person who had seen ghost in all six passenger cars, though not in the locomotive or caboose. The crew seemed to be exempt from the hauntings so far, recent deaths among them or no. However both the conductor and the porters admitted they were seeing people talking to empty air with growing frequency.
Roy himself didn’t see Colbert again, or any ghosts at all.
As he worked his way forward through the trained after ninety minutes of fruitless talking he found himself no closer to understanding what was going on than he had when he started. There weren’t any through lines among the people who admitted to seeing ghosts in terms of age, place of origin or kind of ghost haunting them. But the mood in the train was shifting from the bored acceptance of most travelers to quietly repressed panic and that worried him. Panicked passengers were a danger to themselves and others.
He was expecting to find the orphan car to be in the worst mood of them all, given their circumstances and likelihood of being haunted. Instead he walked into a wall of noise.
The children were singing and clapping along with some kind of high spirited marching song with a steady cadence and simple tune, well suited to the untrained voices of the young or soldiers on the march. As Roy passed between the rows of orphans the sound took up residence in his breastbone, ringing through his body with a joyous, coppery tone. At the far end of the car he finally spotted the source of the sound. Cassandra Fairchild sat on a bench there with a young girl on her lap, leading the song as the child laughed and clapped wildly.
For a moment irrational excitement surged through Roy, carried on a wave of light, airy magic. Then his own fiery reserves roared forth in response. The rush of joy and anger warred for a moment before Roy’s iron hand of discipline, built over years, clamped down on both and returned them to their places. With joy and anger both quietly bubbling in the back of his mind Roy had a moment to just appreciate the music and its results. Fear was swept out of the car, driven by the bronze blade of rhythm and song. Thirty children, theoretically the most fearful and vulnerable people on the train, had become a bastion against the ghosts. He waited for a moment, listening but not joining with the song.
Once it was finished and the children had dissolved into laughing and excited discussion Roy approached and put a hand on Cassandra’s shoulder. “A moment of your time, Ms. Cassandra?”
She looked up in momentary surprise, her eyes wide, deep blue pools filled with the sparkling power of the storm. Then they focused on him and she frowned. “Will it take long? The children are restless.”
Roy gestured around the cabin, rapidly shifting from a gleeful energy to a sleepy contentment. “You seem to have worn them out.”
The Hearth Keeper, who was seated in the row in front, turned hallway around and said, “Go on, Cassie, he’s right. I think I can manage them like this, I already have for the last two weeks!”
The young woman deliberated for a moment then sighed and carefully shifted the girl out of her lap and got her settled on the bench. Even this child was quickly drifting off to dreamland. A moment later they were quickly moving towards the front of the train. An odd air settled around Cassandra, a distance that Roy couldn’t quite parse. He realized that Brandon wasn’t there as a buffer between them and he wasn’t entirely sure what direction to take with the conversation. Brandon had made an agreement and Cassandra had theoretically overheard it, but she hadn’t shared in it directly.
“Allow me to congratulate you, Ms. Cassandra,” he said as a way to make conversation.
“On?” There was a surprising edge to the question.
“Well… on setting up a stronghold in the center of the train,” Roy said, a bit taken aback. “I’m sure the children appreciate it if nothing else.”
“Oh… yes, I see.” She deflated a bit, whatever nerve Roy had touched apparently salved and the crackling energy leftover from her song quickly dissipating into the atmosphere. Her presence in the room diminished as well. “So why did you ask me to leave them?”
“Because I hope you can help me ensure their safety – at least to the extent we can at two hundred feet.” His gaze swept over their current car as they passed through it. It was a normal car, not set aside for orphans, and the passengers were the usual mix of middle class individuals with the occasional family mixed in, all moving to parts unknown. But even here there was an undercurrent of tension he could pick up on.
“And what could I do toward that end?” Cassandra asked.
Roy held up a finger, forestalling the conversation, unsure if anyone in the cabin was related to the ghost plague. But there was no indication that anyone gave them a second thought. Nevertheless, only once they cleared the passageway between cars and he confirmed the corridor was empty did he answer her question.
“I had a thought, just now,” he said, “and I hoped you could give me your thoughts on it.”
“Go on.” She seemed a bit more open to the discussion now. Perhaps she was just nervous in front of the crowd.
“Your brother tells me ghosts are tied to people via some emotional bond.”
“Simplistic but accurate,” she said with a smile. “Brandon’s forte.”
“Where is he, by the way?”
“He turned peckish ten minutes or so ago and went to the dining car for a sandwich. The yew shares its power with him but he is also the soil it draws nourishment from. If he is hungry his power wanes.” Another trip between cars halted the conversation for a moment. She resumed as he held the door to their car open for her. “But to your question, yes, some part of a person’s dying thoughts can shape a spell that becomes what’s called a ghost. The feelings and direction of a person’s thoughts molds a ghost in that sense, forming a sort of magical echo of those moments that lives on after them.”
Roy opened the door to their compartment as he mulled that over. “Does the feelings of the person on the other end have any impact on it?”
Cassandra swept into the compartment, a contemplative look on her face. “Perhaps. But not much of one, I would think. Places and objects can be haunted just as easily as people and clearly they do not have feelings as you and I do, yet those ghosts are as fully formed as those that haunt people. But perhaps a haunted person tints the ghost, like a colored film over a lantern would tint the light? I don’t know as anyone has ever studied it, or how you would do it without becoming a monster.”
Roy frowned, watching as the young woman’s hair drifted slowly behind her, his mind absently mulling over other approaches to the problem. “So feelings direct the ghost?”
“The feelings of a long dead person, certainly,” she mused, turning to regard him with a skeptical look. “Why?”
“You just turned thirty or forty frightened orphans into the happiest people on the train.” A deep blush spread over cheeks and up to her bangs, which were just now settling into place. Roy’s frown deepened. “Couldn’t you change the mood of the ghosts just as easily? Redirect them elsewhere?”
“It’s not clear if ghosts have feelings of their own or if they’re just an echo of the dead.” She looked more and more flustered for some reason. “As I said, they’re defined by the people who died when they were created and they’re quite static. You can overwhelm them and break them, but it’s incredibly difficult. Or…”
She trailed off, her gaze unfocusing and her attention drifting. After a moment Roy decided to prompt her. “Did you hear something, Miss Cassandra?”
“No. I was just thinking of whether you could swamp their feelings…”
He cocked his head, trying to parse that. “I don’t understand.”
“Certain sounds naturally cancel each other. Our feelings aren’t quite the same, but you can drown them in other emotions…” She shook her head, her loose hair drifting in a nimbus around her. “But as far as I know its never been tried. I have no notion whether it would work or not.”
As he watched her hair settle into place inspiration struck. “What if you channeled your magic through something we know does effect ghosts?”
“Again, it’s never been tried so…”
“Let’s try an experiment.” Her eyes widened as he crossed over to her and flinched away as he reached up over her shoulder to collect his saddlebags. She darted over to the other side of the compartment, looking a bit indignant for some reason. But it probably wasn’t important so he just retrieved the bundle from the pouches and unwrapped it. “This is an old Sana artifact called a nawonota.”
The indignation drained from her face when he fully unwrapped the old bits of leather and ivory for her inspection and ghostly air whipped her hair about her face. “What is that sound?”
“I’m afraid I don’t hear anything,” Roy admitted.
“Nothing good was in there.”
“Don’t I know it. But the ghost that was here had most of its power dispersed.” He held the pieces out to Cassandra. “Perhaps you can repurpose the magic that’s left to influence the ghosts in some way?”
She looked at the fragments of the relic doubtfully. “That’s one very unsavory artifact, Mr. Harper. I don’t know if I can help you with it or not.”
Roy sighed. “It was only a thought. I’d hoped the old ghosts atunement to the power of the air might make it easier to use, your being a stone singer. But-”
He actually saw the inspiration strike. “An interesting thought, Mr. Harper. There is a sort of melody to it.” She took the pieces from him, her fingers brushing his with an electric snap. “I might have something at that. But I think I’d need your help with the experiment…”
Roy smiled and gestured for her to continue. “By all means.”
Writing Vlog 06
My latest writing vlog – thoughts on starting a new project!
Night Train to Hardwick Chapter Five – Echoes of Treason
From Brandon’s vantage point Roy Harper was more and more of a chimera. He was remarkably graceless, rough around the edges and brusk. Yet he knew a remarkable amount about druids and their power, organization and rituals. But his attitude and the obvious gaps in his knowledge suggested he, himself, had never studied at any of the Great Henges.
“Oaths upon the graves of the Founding Knights are only for druids ourselves,” Brandon said, watching Harper carefully to gauge his reaction. “I could bind myself with one but only to another druid and Cassandra will be totally exempt from any such oath. I wouldn’t mind swearing such an oath but I don’t know as it would do much unless you yourself are sworn to the Stone Circle. I suppose I could swear on the dolmen themselves, if you like. It’s the pledge we generally use with the people of Avalon.”
“That’s acceptable,” Harper said, his expression twitching slightly but not in a way Brandon could interpret.
Brandon raised his right hand and said, “I am Brandon Fairchild, and I swear upon the dolmen of Stonehenge to follow your direction for this train flight and answer all your questions truthfully, to the extent my other oaths allow.” He let his hand fall and waited for Harper to nod in acknowledgment. “Now what would you like to know, Mr. Harper?”
“Let’s get out of this corridor if you don’t mind.” He gestured forward. “The dining car is just ahead, and I could use some coffee to keep me on my feet if this goes on any longer. Will you need to let your sister know?”
“I’m sure she heard.”
It was a relatively short walk to reach the dining car, which was much like the public cars in that it had a corridor running between rows of benches except walls divided them into pairs of two in narrow booths, with an equally narrow table between them. Eating in an airborne dining car was an adventure in and of itself, but at least most trains served reasonably neat food. Soup, for example, never made the menu. An attendant took their orders – coffee for Harper and tea for Brandon – then left them to their relative privacy.
“Now then,” Roy said, leaning back on his side of the table, folding his arms over his chest. “Tell me, what is your druidic specialty? I should warn you now, if it involves burning incense in any way I don’t want you using it. Even if you use one of the handful of incenses that aren’t toxic I don’t want rumors that that kind of thing is allowed on sky trains circulating. Most people can’t tell the difference.”
“Fortunately, smoke is not the root of my power. I cultivate the yew.” Brandon held up his hand and flexed. The symbiotic plant living within him surged through his body, standing out in visible ropes under his skin. A moment later layers of bark broke through on the back of his hand. Brandon relaxed and the traces of yew influence vanished. “As you’ve already guessed, it makes me much stronger than the average man. It also makes me very difficult to hurt and I can manipulate yew wood, living or dead, with much greater ease than my peers. I know a few protective charms as well, but we’re not likely to need protection from wild trees up here.”
“Unlikely,” Harper conceded. “What about ghosts? Any defenses against them?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know much beyond the general theories of ghosts,” Brandon admitted. “We don’t engage much with the specifics, we simply study a few active countermeasures that allow us to ward them off using incense. Of course, even if you were willing to allow the use of it in this case, I’m afraid I don’t have any on hand right now.”
“Not much call for it, I presume?”
“No. If it comes down to it Cassie can deal with a ghost or two, although it’s something I’d prefer to avoid.” Brandon drummed his fingers for a moment. “Ghosts always haunt something they had a strong emotional connection to in life, be it person, place or thing. From what you’ve said in passing I take it the ghost people are seeing is someone you knew during Columbia’s civil war?”
“My company captain, in fact.”
“You must have been close.”
“We weren’t on good terms at all,” Harper admitted with a moment’s hesitation. “I was surprised to learn he was haunting me. If you know the theory of ghosts, do you know why a large number of them would gather in one place?”
Brandon considered that for a moment. “It’s difficult to say. Traumatic death is more likely to create a ghost than a peaceful death, so orphanages tend to see more of them than most. Especially since the children can see them where most people outside the haunting victim cannot.”
“But what if a large number of them arrive from another place?”
The sharp expression Brandon had noticed on first meeting Harper had made a return. “Are you referring to anything specific, Mr. Harper?”
“Colbert’s ghost visited me and claims there are other ghosts haunting this train, including some from a village we flew over.” Harper stopped to take a fortifying gulp of coffee. “Tell me, is that even remotely possible?”
“I… can’t be sure, one way or another.” Brandon considered what he knew. “It certainly wouldn’t be accidental. But if someone deliberately manipulated an emotional thread? Perhaps. Cassie might know more.”
Harper looked like he was about to say something else when he spotted something coming from the other direction. Brandon swiveled to see the conductor moving through the dining car, pausing to greet the smattering of other passengers still occupying it in the late evening. When he reached them he nodded to both men. “Everything to your satisfaction, gentlemen? I understand there was some trouble earlier.”
“Some,” Harper said. “Nothing terribly out of order, some of the orphans were jumping at ghosts. There’s something amiss on the train but it may just be a matter of flying over an old Sanna graveyard. I’m looking into it but I don’t think there’s a danger to the train just yet.”
The conductor absently scratched at his beard, his jaw working in contemplation. “Well, that is as it may be,” he finally said. “Let me know if you need my assistance with anything specific, or if there’s something the crew should be aware of.”
“Certainly.” The conductor turned to go when Harper added, “Do you know the crew well?”
The other man paused, looking a bit startled. “Well enough?”
“Have any of them lost family recently?”
He put a finger to his nose in an almost comical display of deliberate thought. “I think the day shift’s engineering captain recently lost his wife to consumption. Do you want me to check?”
“No, that’s fine. Thank you.”
Harper watched him leave long enough to confirm he was out of ear shot before he leaned back against the back of the booth and stared into his coffee. “Not good.”
“You’ve learned something important, I take it.”
“The Captain’s ghost mentioned that death specifically,” Harper said. “I was hoping he was making things up to unsettle me.”
Brandon took a sip of his tea, watching Harper and trying to parse what was bothering him. “The two of you clearly had a very interesting relationship. Care to elaborate on it?”
With a long gulp Harper emptied his coffee mug. “How much do you know about the Lakeshire War in Avalon, Mr. Fairchild?”
“We heard some news from the druids in Morainhenge, of course, but the Henges themselves are not entirely trusting of each other so it was given due skepticism.” Brandon shrugged. “Of course there are tools built into the Stone Circles to mitigate dishonesty, as you clearly know, but they really only work well in person. Binding oaths don’t do much in letters. However even if we took everything they said at face value we still wouldn’t know much.”
“Do you have any notion of how things were on the Columbian side?”
“Very little,” Brandon admitted. “Just what we read in the papers, which I have no doubt was entirely accurate and not distorted to favor or demonize any person or side of the conflict.”
Harper shared a sardonic grin with him. “No doubt, although I never saw a newspaperman within a dozen miles of a battlefield myself.”
“This relates to your captain somehow?”
Haper refilled his coffee before answering. “The Columbian regulars have a professional officer corps, you understand,” he said. “The problem was the Lakeshire War forced the Regulars to add tens of thousands of troops a year. There weren’t enough officers to go around. So when we formed new units recruits would elect their sergeants. Sergeants would elect a captain and lieutenant. And there you had it. Instant officers.”
“Elect?” Brandon kept the incredulity from his voice. “That’s an interesting approach.”
“And overall, probably an unwise one.” Harper’s gaze wandering over the dining car and into the past; a thing Brandon had seen veteran knights do time and again when recounting unfortunate memories. “For the most part companies were led by affable men with little potential as soldiers. Sometimes you got great captains like Trevor Rogers and sometimes you got captains who fooled everyone long enough to get elected but everyone came to hate. Then there were the people who were total incompetents.”
“I take it you got the latter.”
“We got the last two in one package.”
Brandon nodded slowly. “That must have been… difficult.”
“Too often it was fatal.” Harper turned morose. “We were nearly wiped out at Willow Falls because we got flanked and Captain Colbert refused to fall back and merge with the rest of the line. We lost five men we shouldn’t have.”
There was a ring in his voice that, though quiet, unsettled Brandon to the point his stomach churned and his muscles twitched. He’d heard it before, from veteran knights speaking of long ago quests, a sense of emptiness that provoked both fear and contempt. With practiced ease he put both sensations down. “Do you think your hatred of him is what ties you together?”
“In a way.” Harper had started the long trip back to the present. “We went up against a druid, dug in on Briarheart Ridge, and he raised the forest against us.”
Brandon nodded. “And your captain refused to give up the ground.”
“We didn’t have the numbers or the equipment to stop them but he insisted we stay there.” Harper’s smile was deeply unsettling, regretful but resigned. “I was second in command of the company so I was there, at the forward observation post when we saw the trees coming. Nothing I said to him could change his mind. So I removed him from command. I have no proof but given the situation I’m certain that’s when we were tied together.”
“I see.” Brandon turned to look out the window. But the sky was cloudy and the moon and stars hidden, so there was nothing but darkness. “Put in that light, I suppose I’d be more surprised if the man wasn’t haunting you.”
“I can’t be haunted by every man I’ve ever killed,” Harper said with a snort. “Half this train car would be full.”
“Even so,” Brandon said, “you can’t have betrayed the trust of all of them. With your captain you did and in a very stark fashion.”
Harper heaved a sigh. “I suppose you’re right. It doesn’t help with the problem at hand though.”
“The matter of your captain? Or the question of what is attracting the ghosts?”
“Oh. The latter, of course.” Harper shook his head to clear it. “I do find it unlikely Olivia’s parents betrayed and murdered one another nor does she seem capable of doing it to them. So I don’t think your shared emotional tie theory works in their case.”
“Perhaps its something else, then. Did she think they were idiots, as you did your captain?”
“She seemed to think they were quite normal, respectable parents,” Harper said dryly.
“Was there anything about your captain you liked?”
“Not that I can think of,” Harper confessed.
“Then perhaps some other tie binds her parents here and your ghost has simply grabbed hold of that connection and used it to make itself visible to you,” Brandon mused. “The connection between the two of you is very unique.”
“I suppose that’s as likely as anything.” Harper got to his feet. “Let’s see if anyone else is seeing ghosts. Perhaps we can find a common thread.”
“Mr. Harper.” He paused, an eyebrow raised. “Do you regret it?”
The older man didn’t hesitate. “Not at all.”
For a moment Brandon wondered at that. It was entirely possible he’d bound himself and his sister to a deeply disturbed man. But there wasn’t much he could do about it now besides stay vigilant so he finished his tea and followed Harper out of the dining car.
Nate Chen Publications 