Previous Chapter

Roy had never heard of someone losing their sight because they used magic but apparently that was part of how stone song worked. Not a great exchange in general, in his opinion. Particularly bad when you had to help the mostly blind woman down off the roof of a moving sky train. They managed it safely, but it took work. He had to walk Cassandra down the ladder as her brother assisted him from below. As they parted ways she paused for a moment with her head resting against his chest. Then she was steady on her own feet again and he took them forward, locking down the baggage car behind him.

Once he had the Fairchilds safely back in their shared compartment he went to find the assistant conductor. The small hours of the morning went to writing down details, completing the conductor’s share of the paperwork and walking the train in his place. Someone had to manage the train, after all. The only upside of the whole mess was that losing the weight of the caboose allowed them to arrive in Hardwick a full ten minutes early.

With the train firmly on the ground once again Roy found himself wishing the passengers safe travels and securing the train until a new caboose could be brought on. He didn’t look forward to his uncle Alan’s letters about this mess. The train company wouldn’t be happy replacing an entire car but Hunter Colbert had started the fight and that gave Roy some ammunition to use to defend himself and he was confident his uncle’s lawyers could sort everything out with time. Not that Roy planned on being involved in that process. Some magics were too dark to tamper with, even for him.

Since all danger was now behind him or at some nebulous point in the future Roy headed to Hardwick’s only hotel, the Carlton, to check in and get some sleep. To his surprise he found Brandon Fairchild waiting for him by the reception desk. Roy gave the younger man a skeptical look and asked, “Something I can do for you, Mr. Fairchild?”

“Allow us to buy you breakfast?”

Roy favored him with a grouchy glare. “If I must, though I’d much prefer a nap followed by a full night’s sleep.”

“Dinner, then?”

Given how much nonsense the Fairchilds had put up with the night before Roy suspected a simple ‘no’ wouldn’t be enough to deter them. So he sighed and said, “Better order two pots of coffee.”

A moment later he was seated at a small, round table across from the pair of them. Cassandra’s eyes were still unfocused so it didn’t seem her vision had returned, but she still turned to him as he approached. It was eerie. He took the seat Brandon offered and asked, “What can I do for you two? I do appreciate your assistance on the train, particularly as it turned out to be a personal matter and not railway business, but I don’t know as I’m ready to take on any new work at the moment.”

“Actually, we wanted to ask you some questions,” Brandon said.

“About the train?”

“Tangentially.” He glanced at his sister.

“I’ve listened to all your conversations with my brother,” she began, “and while you’ve been quite specific about your thoughts on our orders of magic you’ve said very little concerning your own. Quite deliberately, I think.”

Roy was tempted to speak. But that was obviously what she expected when she paused and he decided not to dance to her tune. He took a sip of his coffee instead. Grimace at the bitterness. When she realized he had no intention of commenting Cassandra continued. “When we saw you on the train’s roof we understood why. You’re a firemind.”

“Dolmen burner,” Roy corrected, stirring cream into his coffee.

“A distinction without a difference,” Brandon said.

“No.” Roy set the cream down with an emphatic thud. “This isn’t Avalon, Mr. Fairchild, it’s Columbia. One thing we learned from the people we met here is the importance of names. Of precise speech. There is a difference between a firemind and a dolmen burner, and you’d best respect it.”

The younger man was taken aback by the vehemence in Roy’s statement. “Oh? What difference is that?”

“A firemind is a talent awakened in a druid as he trains under the Stone Circle, after taking his oaths,” Roy said. “A dolmen burner is a curse, laid on a man who took part in destroying both Circle and oath.”

To his surprise Cassandra nodded affably. “So we guessed, based on what your captain’s ghosts said. But I noticed the sound of an artifact of the Stone Circle on your person as you were helping me down from the train tops. And it clearly belongs to you, or you wouldn’t be able to keep it. Did no one tell you? Or perhaps you found it after the last owner died? There’s precedent for it.”

“Is that a fact?” A number of possible remarks flitted through Roy’s mind but it wasn’t his place to bring the old owner of Pelinore’s Journal into the conversation. “Well, as it happens I was given it and told what it was. No one mentioned not keeping it, in fact I understand it’s quite the opposite. I can’t lose it. I was also given to understand it chooses its owner somehow and that was me, which I admit doesn’t make much sense but with Morainhenge gone I suppose it’s any port in a storm. Does it come with membership in the knightly ranks as well?”

“It doesn’t,” Brandon said. “Not exactly. But I think the average druid would consider you closer to one of our own than you think.”

Roy grunted and stirred his coffee absently, then sipped it, finding the taste more compatible with his palate. “So? What do you want, then? I could try and return the Journal to you, if that’s what you’re after.”

Cassandra shook her head, lips curling in amusement. “No, Mr. Harper, it belongs to you now. There’s little we could do to separate it from you.”

“Short of killing you,” Brandon added, “which wouldn’t be terribly chivalrous of us and may be outside our capabilities as well.”

“No maybes about it.” Roy drummed his fingers on his coffee mug and waited for them to go on. But it was their turn to wait on him. “Did you want to read the Journal? Is that even possible?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know,” Cassandra said. “But probably not. Certainly it isn’t appropriate, as Pelinore was a contemporary of Arthur himself and the journal undoubtedly records many secrets from the King’s founding of the knightly orders. Things not meant for the world at large.”

“Or even the rank and file of the Stone Circle,” Brandon added. “I won’t learn many of the secret histories for years and years, if at all.”

Roy reached into the inner pocket of his jacket, pulled the journal out and turned it over in his hands. Its appearance had changed slightly since he first received it, gaining a reddish sheen to the black leather cover and shrinking a touch to better fit his pocket. But it still looked a worn, old, overused thing. “It really contains those kinds of secrets? Hardly looks it.”

“The best secrets are those everyone passes over,” Brandon said.

But Cassandra’s brow was furrowing. “You sound as if you haven’t read it.”

“I haven’t. There are things I have to do before its fully mine so I can only read the first few pages as of now.” Roy tucked it back in his jacket. “Was there something you hoped to learn from it?”

“When I came of age,” Cassandra said, “I was called to find the Secret of Steel. The elders of Stonehenge gave me a list of five texts lost to us that may contain clues to discovering it…”

Roy realized that both Fairchilds were quiet and staring at him. Perhaps he had nodded off. “I’m sorry, you were saying?”

“You know something, don’t you?” Cassandra’s voice was barely a whisper.

“About what?” Roy asked.

“Steel,” Brandon said.

“Now what makes you think that?”

“For starters,” Cassandra said, “you didn’t ask what was stolen, like most people do.”

“That’s…” Roy fumbled for a response. “Listen, it’s nothing from the Journal itself. To tell you the truth I don’t know much about it, but once, years ago, I met a man with a gleaming sword made of a metal that looked like aluminum but he called steel.”

Brandon leaned forward, his voice soft. “Did he know how it was made?”

The ghost of a smile crossed Roy’s face. “From fire in the heart and iron in the blood.” The siblings looked crestfallen and Roy smothered a laugh. “He said it was forged iron, which is impossible since iron resists all magic. It’s not like throwing it in a fire will do anything. Only gold can overpower iron and even then only to alloy it. And before you ask, yes I know what gilded iron looks like and no his sword wasn’t made out of it. Steel is a much different beast.”

“Do you…” Cassandra hesitated.

“Know how to find him?” Roy asked. She nodded, sheepish. “I had no reason to stay in touch with him until this very moment.”

“What was his name?”

“He never told us.” Roy gave a furtive glance around the room to make sure no one could accidentally overhear then leaned forward, pitched his voice lower and and said, “But the Sanna call him The Strongest Man in the World. From time to time you hear rumors of him, floating around the West.”

There was a long silence around the table. Finally Brandon set his tea cup aside, brows furrowed. “I trust that’s not some kind of joke?”

“It’s not.” Roy sighed. He’d tried to explain the events of Tyson’s Run, during the coldest days of the Summer of Snow, but few of those he’d told the tale believed him and those who did were reluctant believers. The Fairchilds would have to remain skeptics. “I’m willing to allow you to study any notes I transcribe from the Journal if they relate to steel, but based on what I’ve seen it’s not really a book concerned with that kind of human innovation. In the mean time, you’re free to try and find the Strongest Man in the World if you wish. It’s not a thing I recommend, though.”

“Why is that?” Cassandra asked.

“A man of his reputation never works for free and always asks a high price.”

“I suppose he also comes with many enemies,” Brandon added.

“None that I’ve heard of. From what I’ve seen those he makes don’t last very long.”

“And how do we stay in touch with you while we look for this mythical man?” Cassandra asked. “You’ve said we’re free to look at your notes but there are other old records Morainhenge held that we’re looking for. We’ll need some way to stay in touch.”

She was right, of course, and there was a very simple solution to the problem she pointed out. He just wasn’t sure he liked it. But Pelinore’s Journal weighed heavily on him, a reminder that he owed the Stone Circle a great deal in both penance and now in duty. Perhaps these two were an opportunity to begin paying off those debts. “Very well, Ms. Cassandra. I live in Kegan’s Bluff, the southwest junction of the T and K and Sommerville Rail lines. I don’t know what kinds of steps you’re taking to recover your lost texts but its an excellent hub for travel and information. An ideal place to look for books or men.”

Brandon nodded thoughtfully. “It’s as good a starting place as any, I suppose. Does Bennett’s Bank have a branch near there? It would be unfortunate if we had to leave town whenever our expense funds run low.”

“I’m sure you can arrange something with one of the banks in town,” Roy said, gathering himself for the next bit. “However I think I can simplify things for you. You’re welcome to the use of my guest rooms for as long as you chose to remain in Kegan’s Bluff, it’s much cheaper than staying in a hotel.”

“That’s very generous of you, Mr. Harper,” Cassandra said. “We’ll consider it and let you know what we decide.”

“Do as you see fit. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to find some place to close my eyes.” Roy got to his feet and staggered out to the desk. As he waited in line for the chance to check in he tried to track how he wound up there. Ultimately he suspected it didn’t matter why he’d stumbled across his unexpected guests – and for some reason he was certain they’d accept his offer – what was more important was where he went from there.

He was going to bed. Beyond that, there was far more to the West than the ghosts of his past and hopefully for the moment such things were behind him.

Previous Chapter

The touch of a ghost was terrible. Even as Brandon wrapped himself in layers of bark the attacks of the ghost army were freezing spiderwebs of ice crystals onto his clothes and skin. Brandon could feel the cold creeping past the yew and into his flesh. He had some of the resilience of the tree that shared his body so he could withstand deep cold for days or months, but only if he was willing to lapse into hibernation.

With Cassie behind him that was a luxury he didn’t have.

Her song was carrying the ghosts away with growing speed but proximity didn’t equal efficacy and many of the ghosts most determined to push past him seemed the most resistant to her magic. Lobbing a short burst of fire from his saber dispersed a ghost easily. But as often as not they were reforming back at the core of the horde and returning for another pass. It wasn’t like he was in danger of letting any of the spirits slip past him but the fire reserve in his saber’s sulfurite was getting low.

The horde was thinning out on top. The center of the mass was moving closer to them and, as the ghosts passed on, it was dropping lower as well. There was enough thinning of the ranks for Brandon to make out the train’s conductor at the heart of it.

As the horde thinned fewer and fewer ghosts were coming on the offensive, more and more remaining with their master to keep him aloft. And that was when Brandon realized what was really happening. It wasn’t because cause he couldn’t stay in the air any longer, although that point was coming soon. He was coming to grips. “Hurry up, Cassie,” he muttered, “I don’t know how long I can hold him off.”

A subtle shift in the harmonics of her song set the frame of the train car under his feet vibrating. It was the only answer she gave. Hopefully it meant the song would, indeed, send the ghosts away faster but in the mean time a new issue crept up. He’d sent roots out of his feet and into the roof of the car to keep himself in place. But now the vibration was splintering the roof around them. There was no time to count ghosts to see if they were vanishing faster as the conductor had landed on the car only a few feet away.

He set the army of ghosts on Brandon in waves. Ice and cold rolled over him with freezing, hungry jaws and any protection Brandon’s clothes and bark might have offered failed in the face of the raging dead. Desperate, Brandon overloaded the sulfurite in his sword. It released all the power of fire stored within in a single burst, overflowing the weapon’s fuller and blasting the area with a wave of heat as strong as summer. Brandon’s layers of chilled bark kept all but the barest breath of that heat from reaching him. But the ghosts suffered terribly.

For a brief moment the space between Brandon and the conductor was entirely clear of specters, giving a brief glimpse of the portly man batting out sparks on his clothes. Then the ghosts were charging forward again. The horde had thinned even more but, with no fire in his sword, Brandon had no way to fend them off. In fact, the blade had shattered in the blast. He couldn’t even cut down the conductor if he charged him so there was no choice but to go the other way.

He pulled his roots up and pushed Cassie backwards, trying to make space. Grasping spectral hands still clutched at him, robbing him of warmth, but they were coming much slower than before. For a brief moment Brandon contemplated victory. He could transform the Yew rod currently binding him to his sister into a spear to kill the conductor with. But even as he dug his fingers into the weapon he realized it was futile. The cold had take a much greater toll on the dead yew than the living wood rooted in his body. It was far too brittle to shift without breaking.

Brandon snarled and threw the hilt of his weapon at the conductor. However even with the whip like strength of the yew behind his throw the ghostly winds easily deflected the hunk of metal before it reached its target. The bearded man leered at them, screaming, “To bad, Mr. Fairchild! Years go Avalon chose to stay out of the Lakeshire war. Wouldn’t even provide neutral diplomats! Now you finally pick a side a decade late and to top it all off you chose the wrong one!”

The statement barely made sense to Brandon. He little of the war in Columbia when he was a child but he did know there were several raging in Europe at the same time, a few going so far as to involve Avalon itself. It wasn’t like the Crown had the manpower to get involved with all of them. Then again, expecting coherent thought from the man might be a bit too much. Constantly consorting with the dead was a burden on sanity that few could endure for long.

“I don’t much care for your opinion on the decisions of the Crown or his Lords,” Brandon said. “I don’t even care why you’ve done all this. But the dead belong to the grave, don’t torture them any longer by keeping them here.”

The conductor lunged at him, his fingers cracking through frozen bark with ease. Brandon jerked away in pain and surprise. The conductor’s fingers dug in and he ripped an entire layer of bark away, shattering the roots of his belt and the yew rod that held Cassie in place. She staggered away, her song vanishing on a panicked note.

“Brandon, what happened?” She asked, the fear in her voice straining against her self control.

“Keep singing,” he said through gritted teeth.

“No!” The conductor screamed. “Enough singing! Enough of the whispering voices! I just want you all to be quiet and leave me alone!”

The man reached for Brandon’s face, layers of frost forming on his hand, face and hair. As the conductor’s fingers closed on Brandon’s forehead a surge of wind swept up from the bottom of the train. An angry red glow lit the scene from below.

As Brandon grappled with the conductor his mind grappled with these details. His mind presented him with a solution first. “Updraft.”

Confusion crossed the other man’s face when he heard the word. “What?”

Harper shot up over the edge of the sky train, a red hot piece of aluminum dragging him up by one arm. His other hand grabbed the edge of the train car and Roy pivoted around it. The fire in the aluminum jumped free, circling Harper’s head like a rogue sun. The rod of metal swung about and slammed into the conductor’s head with a sizzling thunk. The metal was still so soft it wrapped halfway around the conductor’s head covering his mouth and cutting off the man’s pained shriek.

The conductor’s hands flew up and tugged at the chunk of metal. At first the movement was frantic but it quickly grew sluggish as he slumped to his knees. Harper put a foot in the man’s side and shoved, sending his corpse toppling off the edge of the train and leaving the two of them alone at the end of the train.

“This isn’t over, Harper!” The eviscerated ghost from before appeared out of the horde, screaming. “I promise we will haunt you…”

His voice faded to a whisper as Cassie’s song surged forth with renewed vigor. The conductor’s death had weakened the hold the dead had on the world of the living and the renewed song seemed to wipe the remaining ghosts away like a rag wiped away the dew. They all vanished in a few seconds, save for one. Sam Jenkins lingered near the end of the train, a wistful look on his face, a hand raised in farewell Then he looked up to the sky and faded as well.

Harper took a deep breath and let it out, stripping his dueling gloves off. Brandon noticed the palm of the glove that held the aluminum during his brief flight had burned entirely through. “Well,” Harper said, rubbing that hand against his side with a wince. “If I ever see another ghost it’ll be too soon.”

That put an uncomfortable thought in Brandon’s mind. “Cassie?” He yelled, dashing back to her. “What can you see?”

Next Chapter

Previous Chapter

They were halfway up the length of the train when Cassie grabbed Brandon’s arm and hissed, “Did you hear that?”

“No,” he replied, eyes scanning the walls and corners of the public car but unable to pinpoint a source for her mysterious sound. Not even the ghosts were present at the moment. “What did it sound like?”

“Some kind of pipe or flute,” she said. “It’s playing a marching tune.”

“That’s probably a bad sign,” Brandon muttered, moving faster towards the forward door. The whole car bucked under their feet and two dozen voices screamed, gasped or sobbed in unison. “That’s even worse.”

“Something hit the train’s roof,” Cassie said.

“Where?”

“Two cars ahead? Maybe three?” Her eyes tracked something along the ceiling of the car. A loud bang and the ceiling cracked as a heavy weight rolled along the roof. Cassie’s expression turned to horror. “That’s Mr. Harper!”

Brandon immediately turned about, following the clunking sounds along the roof. “Is he saying anything you can make out?”

“Not over the sound of the army.”

“Dust and ashes,” Brandon muttered, feeling the yew dig deeper into his bones as it woke to danger, filaments weaving through his muscles and hardening his skin like bark. When he hit the breezeway at the end of the car he looked up. Harper was not in sight. So Brandon unhooked the mesh around the passage, reached one hand up and hauled himself onto the roof of the train.

The wind grabbed him as soon as his head broke over the top of the train car and tears filled his eyes as the force of the air assulted them. With the wind came a steady stream of horrific wails and screams. In the distance, empty grassland and high bluffs moved past at a pace made deceptively slow by the miles between the train and the horizon. Brandon put a hand up to block some of the wind and his vision cleared more. There, on the roof of the next car down, was Roy Harper, wielding his iron knife in a vain attempt to hold back a raging horde of ghosts.

It was hard to pick out details through the overlapping layers of spectral shapes. Harper’s body was clear for only split seconds at a time and, by straining a bit, Brandon could tell that there was some kind of solid form at the center of the horde, held aloft by dozens or hundreds of ghosts clustering around it. Waves of ghosts were buffeting against Harper in spite of his best efforts to keep them away. By the time Brandon got up on the roof himself Harper had taken another spill, tumbling halfway down the length of the car. The ghosts were trying to knock him clean off the train but he was staying low enough that he could turn a slip from a lethal mistake into a painful fall along the roof.

“Harper!” Brandon called, trying to find his own balance as the wind from the train’s passage buffeted him. “Push this way!”

Whether because the wind took the words away or because the sound of the ghost army drowned out his voice Harper didn’t hear. Instead he took another step back and hopped over the gap to the next car back. Brandon marveled at how certain his footing was, how easily Harper kept his feet in spite of the rushing air and raging ghosts.

Unexpected hands clamped on to his shoulders and Cassie’s voice came over the wind. “Get me closer.”

“What are you doing here?” Brandon demanded. “You can barely make yourself heard.”

“They don’t have to hear me for the power to take hold.” The tone of her voice was so startling that he turned to look and saw the most focused, ferocious expression he’d ever seen on her face.

“Don’t let go,” Brandon said, digging his heels in and shifting his focus from the yew within to that without, digging the short yew rod he carried out of his belt. It sprouted roots that looped up and around his shoulders and Cassie’s hands. With his sister mostly secured he quickly pushed towards the other end of the train car, muscles and yew roots working in tandem to move down the train.

In some ways having the wind at his back made traversing the car harder, not easier. Each step required deliberation, caution and precision or the wind could blow them right off the roof. Even with the weight of two people together it was difficult. At first he and Cassie couldn’t move in coordination. In fact they nearly tripped each other the first time they tried to take a step and, to make matters worse, Cassie’s hair came free of its bun and whipped into his face adding another complication.

Harper didn’t seem to have any better time of it. No matter how he tried Brandon couldn’t get any closer to him. The other man kept giving ground before the army of ghosts to the point where there was almost no train left! By dint of practice and a careful squint Brandon closed the distance between them to half a train car and the ghosts were starting to take note of him and his sister. The sound of spectral wailing seemed to change in tone and tenor as the spotted Cassie. “Poor things,” she said. “Most of them have no idea why they’re here. They’ve been shackled by one of their own.”

“So they have.” Brandon was so startled by Sam Jenkins’ unexpected arrival that he nearly took a fatal slip.

“Dust and ashes, warn a man next time,” he grumbled.

“You can see him there near the top.” Jenkins pointed vaguely towards a glowing mass near the top of the ghost army.

If he squinted, Brandon thought he could make out a slightly brighter figure in the overlapping mass Jenkins was pointing to. “Must be the ghost that was haunting Harper,” Brandon said. “He said it was a Captain. How do I put it down?”

“You can’t,” Cassie replied. “Ghosts are magic rooted in a vessel of water vapor. There’s nothing solid for you to cut or break. I’ll have to siphon off the power giving them shape.”

“Cassandra-”

“I can hear the harmonies, Brandon! This was the call that brought us here! Just keep the ghosts at bay as best you can.”

There were some things people had to chose for themselves. Once Affirmed an adult at the age of fifteen there was little family or friends could do to change someone’s mind once they made it up and, for better or worse, the Fairchild gift had fallen to Cassandra. If she chose to use it there was nothing he could do. Just keep her safe. “Very well, then, if they turn nasty I’ll keep the ghosts back as best I can.”

“Use the thing that you used to call me,” Jenkins said. “It’s got a darkness to it, to be sure, but that’ll encourage most of them to to move on rather than stay near it. But Roy said not to do anything until he reaches the caboose.”

“What?” Brandon demanded. “Why?”

“Best of luck, Fairchilds! Go in peace, for we’ll not meet in this world again.” The ghost vanished into the wind.

“Our Lady guide you to warm hearthfires,” Cassie called.

“Our Lord call you to walk with the storm,” Brandon said. Then, as an afterthought, “If they even have either of those in the Great Beyond.”

“Let them get a few steps further ahead,” Cassie said. “Best not to draw their attention to us before we begin.”

“It might be too late for that,” Brandon said, eyeing the fringes of the army. Ghosts there still eyed them with suspicion.

He was wondering how they might go about distracting them when Harper tumbled off the edge of the baggage car, disappearing into the gap between it and the caboose.

Next Chapter

Previous Chapter

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.”

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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.

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