“Why not?” Gar countered. “If you know he can already lead you, there’s no danger in letting me know more about you. Besides, I’ve already learned how to cancel you with Cold Iron—or any sort of metal, I suspect.”
Blaize glanced at him with keen interest. He’d have to persuade Gar to explain it to him later. It could be very handy, having some kind of threat to hold over a ghost’s head.
“There’s some truth in that,” Conn admitted. “Aye, some,” Ranulf agreed.
“Don’t you dare!” roared the old sorcerer. “You don’t know what use he would make of the knowledge!”
Conn’s grin hardened as he gazed at the shadow of power. “Your time for giving orders is past, old man.” He turned back to Gar. “All we know is that if the weather becomes very, very cold, we turn into water, my lad—water, but we know it and still hold our shape and our thoughts within it.”
“Fool!” ranted the old sorcerer. “Don’t you see how he can use this against you?”
“Frankly, no,” said Conn, “but I can see him drowning if he tries.”
“Or freezing,” Ranulf chimed in. “How would you rather die, mortal? Drowning or freezing?”
“Neither is really my favored mode of departing this earth,” Gar answered. “So you’re still aware of being yourselves even if you become fluid ghosts, are you? And still able to think?”
“Better and more clearly than ever,” the old sorcerer snapped, “so if you think we poor ghosts can’t work magic, don’t come near us then!”
“Cold Iron probably wouldn’t do much to you in that phasestate,” Gar agreed, “though you might do something to it. How about your forms at normal temperatures? I notice you’re all bigger than we are by half.”
“Well, we don’t have to be, that’s true,” the old serf admitted, grinning, “but we rather like looking down on our descendants.”
“And you can’t come out by day?”
“Try to get away from us after sunrise and find out,” the old sorcerer boasted. “You just can’t see us because the sun is brighter than we are, that’s all.”
“But you’re still there.” Gar nodded. “You’re phosphorescent, though, so you glow as soon as it’s dark enough—and the darker the night, the brighter the ghost.”
“We only look that way,” Conn confided. “We really stay the same brightness all the time.”
“Of course, some of us are brighter than others,” the old sorcerer said spitefully.
“No need to be jealous, old thing,” Ranulf said easily. “Even a peasant can outshine you now, if he’s halfway virtuous,” the old serf jeered.
The old sorcerer swelled up sputtering.
“How is it you can appear from thin air, then?” Gar asked. “Oh, we can stretch our substance out so thin that mortals can’t see it even at night,” Ranulf answered.
Blaize stared. “You mean you’re there already, but we can’t see you?”
“Right you are, lad,” Conn said. “Always there. Hundreds of us, thousands of us all about you, all the time. You’ll never know when we’re watching.”
Blaize glanced at Mira, then looked away.
“Well, not all the time,” Ranulf qualified. “Sometimes there isn’t a ghost for miles around.”
“Don’t tell him that!” the younger magician snapped.
“I will if I choose,” Ranulf said easily. “Point is, though, lad, you can’t know, can you?”
“An ever-present threat,” Mira quavered.
“No, not really.” Alea stared up at the old sorcerer narrow-eyed. “Not the threat part, anyway. After all, some of us have old scores to settle, and I doubt even an old rogue like that one could match our anger.”
“Don’t be so sure,” the sorcerer blustered.
“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, you old fool.” A bent, gnarled woman shouldered through the sorcerer—literally.
He gave a cry of distress. “Don’t do that! You know how that makes me feel!”
“Aye, and I know how you made me feel while I was alive,” the old woman snapped, “or one much like you.” She turned to Alea and Mira. “Sorcerers, magicians—what’s the difference? They’re all alike. Alive or dead, all that changes is how much they can hurt you.”
“You might be surprised!” the old sorcerer threatened.
“If I could be, you would have surprised me long ago,” the hag returned. “No, I can cause you as much distress and shame as you can cause me, now—and for a very long time, too!”
“A long time?” Blaize asked. “You mean you don’t last for eternity?”
The ghosts fell quiet, glancing at one another, clearly uncomfortable. Then the hag turned to Blaize again. “There isn’t a one of us has just fallen apart and faded away, young fellow, though one or two have met with some very nasty accidents.”
“Don’t tell him that!” the magician snapped.
“Too late,” Gar said mildly. “We already know about Cold Iron—and I can imagine what lightning would do.”
The magician gave him a look that should have turned him into a ghost on the spot.
Alea glared at him, eyes fiery, and the old magician shrieked and clutched his head. “Stop! Make her stop!”
“No need for that just yet, my shield,” Gar said softly. “After all, he can’t tell us much with a tearing headache, can he?” Alea relaxed to a simmer.
“I won’t tell you anything ever!” the sorcerer blustered. “You already have,” Gar reminded him. “You just hadn’t meant to.”
“Indeed? What, for example?” the sorcerer demanded. “That you’re extremely long-lived,” Gar said. “I’d guess that comes from having very little mass to keep up—though how you replenish yourselves I haven’t figured out yet.”
“From people’s spirits,” Mira quavered.
“If they did that, they wouldn’t be completely themselves anymore,” Gar pointed out. “I don’t think any of them wants to risk a guest in the head.”
The magician grinned. “You just keep thinking that way, lad.”
“I don’t think you can draw on people’s life energy, either,” Gar mused, “since we’re Terran, and you’re made of the substance of this planet.”
“You might be surprised.”
“I try to expect the unexpected,” Gar told him. “Of course, the appeal of human life force might be why you appear when Blaize, or any other ghost leader, summons you.”
“Yes it might, mightn’t it?” the sorcerer said, gloating.
“On the other hand, it might not,” Conn said, giving the sorcerer a dark look.
“Of course,” said the hag, “it could be simply that we like the feel of human thoughts—but we wouldn’t talk about that, now, would we?”
“Then don’t,” the sorcerer snapped. “Why not?” Alea grinned.
Gar nodded. “You’re creatures of thought, mostly, so human thoughts might wake agreeable sensations in you.”
“They warm themselves at our fires!” Alea exclaimed. “You come crowding to feel our emotions, don’t you?”
“Anger, love, hatred, sympathy, grief, gratitude—no wonder you cluster around deathbeds,” Gar mused. “Tell me, what does lust feel like to a ghost?”
“Delightful,” the old sorcerer sneered.
“Don’t pretend you can still feel it, you old idiot.” The crone sniffed. She turned to Alea. “They’re as different as flavors of food are to you, child. Love doesn’t feel like the love I remember, but it wakens a delicious sensation in me, one I can’t find words for. So do pity and desire and contentment—”
“And fear,” the sorcerer interrupted, grinning. “Fear feels best of all, a thrill and a glow and elation.”
“That’s why you try to frighten us!” Blaize cried. “That’s why you haunt!”
“Those who haunt, yes.” The crone threw the sorcerer a look of disgust. “Those who haunt and don’t have a good reason, such as crying for justice or warning of danger. Yes, ghosts like him delight in human fear and pain.”