Knowledge came with risks, the sorcerer knew. Wrapping the robe about his shoulders, he sat in the barrel throne to see what happened.
Nothing.
The cellar remained silent. The robe smelled of dust and mold and a snaky musk. Waiting, the minutes dragging, Johan dozed.
And dreamed.
Darkness was shot with a million stars. Lights pinwheeled to describe slow spirals. Stars shone white, blue, red, yellow, orange, infinitesimally small against the black fabric of night. Shooting stars sizzled like single-minded fireflies. Dust motes and boulders pinged on a crowded plateau. Monsters crouched, jammed together, thick as grasses on a prairie, until nor an inch of soil remained uncovered, until not one single beast could send a quivering tendril in any direction but upward. Noise bubbled. Roars and hoots and squawls and bellows rose to the heavens in a cacophonous chorus that never ceased. Everywhere pressed a crushing bruising shivering desire to be free, separate, alone, unbound. Then a lurching explosion erupted into the sky.
Startling awake, Johan jumped from the barrel throne and shed the robe. Sweat ran down his face and ribs for the first time in centuries. A dream coat, he realized. But what mad realm of Dominaria did it portray, if a real world at all? And what did Lady Shauku glean from it?
Shaking, Johan quit the chamber. The opposite room was pitchy. Shauku had not ascended the stairs so must have, passed within. Uttering a short spell, Johan adjusted his vision to see in darkness. Four wooden tuns big as hayricks were cradled in a frame against the wall. Johan thumped the ends, but all proved hollow. A few minutes' probing and prodding sprung the latch hidden on the last tun. The end swung inward on a wooden hinge. Steep stairs led down to a cave mouth. Immediately Johan was washed by the unmistakable stink of rotten flesh.
For a moment the emperor hesitated. But knowledge was the key to power. Girding his loins, Johan descended.
Not far away…
A faint moan and a demented gibbering wafted up from a different cave. The explorers stopped cold in their tracks.
Pirates and pine folk were shielded from sight by a jumble of rocks and scruffy birches and brush. Before them, a vertical slit of cave infiltrated the hill under Shauku's castle. As from many such fissures, smoke trickled out and rose into a light evening rain.
"These are the Caverns of Despair, I tell you. They're haunted. We shouldn't venture within." Magfire shifted her red-hafted spike from hand to hand. Her brother Taurion, the quick-handed Kyenou, and four more woods warriors were just as shaky.
"The Akron Legionnaires pass within," countered Adira. "You said they cut trees and haul them down into the caves on the far side of this hill. The smoke speaks of fires, for whatever purpose. But if the soldiers can enter-"
"They enjoy protection from the sorceress," said Magfire. "We don't."
"Then leave." Adira and Magfire hadn't gotten along ever since Magfire's burning kiss both aroused and disturbed Adira. Both bullheaded and used to command, the two leaders chafed like ship and shore. Adira faced the cave mouth and stroked her hands alight with a firefly glow.
"Ah-shist! Ghosts can't make me weigh anchor. Harmless as jellyfish. They're not even there, just echoes of the past. And Magfire, recall the bulk of your fighters should be pinking the legionnaires as a diversion. You can't leave them hung out to dry. Circle of Seven, follow in my wake."
Sniffing, Adira Strongheart entered the cave with her cold blue light. Four others bore torches. Despite their leader's brave words, the pirates were also spooked. Jasmine Boreal,
Heath, Sergeant Murdoch, Simone the Siren, Whistledove, and Sister Wilemina clustered like children in a graveyard as they scuffled in darkness. Only Jedit Ojanen strode tall and aloof, sniffing at the dim depths.
Voice low, he rumbled, "Something dwells below besides ghosts. I smell dead flesh, and wood smoke, but too a queer metallic tang. A great amount of it."
"I've a question." Jasmine was never one to knuckle to authority, but she whispered. "Where do we hope to arrive?"
"Somewhere under the castle," hissed Adira over her shoulder. Darkness and quiet pressed all around. Their boots crunched old leaves and pebbles in a slow descent. "Somewhere a passage must lead upward. If so, we'll root out Johan and kill him. This passage is unguarded."
"By the living," squeaked Wilemina.
"You cowards!" Adira whirled to face her followers. "You crawfishing eels! Dare call yourself pirates? I've never seen such a white-livered gutless bunch of backsliding bone-headed bream in all my years at sea… What are you gawking at?"
The party just goggled at the vision past Adira's shoulder. Slowly she turned. In torchlight and magic illumination hung a rag of black curtain suspended on nothing. As the invaders watched, the spectral rag opened a jagged mouth and gave a long strangled sigh.
Adira couldn't jump quick enough to catch her crew. Pirates whirled and smacked into foresters, then all the heroes bolted headlong up the tunnel. Not until they clattered out under the dripping sky did they stop running, though all were canny enough to keep down and quiet.
Even Adira was puffing and rattled. Things undead that cried in her face were a new experience.
"Forget it, Dira!" gasped Murdoch. "We'll fight anything alive, but the dead are too eager for company!"
"It's ill luck!" squeaked Jasmine. "To look upon the face of death invites one's own!"
"We can find some other way inside the castle!" pleaded Sister Wilemina. "We can scale the walls or skulk in by night. We needn't crawl through an unquiet graveyard!"
"It's Johan we're after," cautioned Heath. "Mayhaps we could lure him outside the walls!"
"I'll clear the way," purred Jedit.
"Eh?" Even Adira was taken aback. "Why you?"
"Human ghosts don't frighten me." The cat's amber-green eyes glowed like emeralds.
"Oh, no?" snipped Adira. Rain spotted her nose and she swiped with a filthy hand. "Or is this your chance to seize command?"
"Dira, I have no ambitions upon your position." The tiger remained calm. "I just aid as I might. As when I rescued you from the shipwreck."
That fact had no answer, so Jedit added, "I'll call when I think it safe."
"Take your time," murmured Murdoch. "A week. A month."
"Shut up, soldier," snarled Adira. To Jedit, "Carry on. Don't just seek ghosts. Anything could lurk within. Beware things with paws and teeth."
The tiger passed into the dark depths. Pirates and pinefolk took a much-needed rest amid wet brush.
The tunnel twisted between fractured rocks, and many stones had tumbled and had to be climbed, but the tiger sensed someone had cleared the path in years past. Jedit clambered on two or all fours easily as a mountain goat. Several times he paused, for the darkness was so perfect even his cat eyes had trouble seeing. More than once Jedit felt a damp chill on his muzzle as he blundered through a ghost. Farther along, the feeling became more distinct, as if he waded through mist. When cold enveloped him like a shroud, he stopped and perched on a rock, tail crooked around his ankle, and waited to see what happened.
So many shades gathering in one spot brought their own luminosity until the chill air twinkled with a twilight glow. Gradually the cat made out five, then nine, then too many floating shapes to count. Sitting unmoving, Jedit Ojanen watched ghosts hover like a flock of fireflies. He felt no terror, only a great sadness emanating from them. Some ghosts looked fresh, almost healthy, as if only dead a week, and Jedit guessed they were foresters. Some were hideous with broken necks, smashed ribs, or missing heads altogether. Others were withered as mummies or parched to skeletons. Still others, infinitely ancient, had disincorporated into black rags. Some of the dead wore clothes and some went naked. None wore shrouds that would denote a proper funeral. These disinherited souls, or victims, had died by murder. Helpless, they lingered in this world hoping for justice, restless and angry, refusing the notion of eternal death.