"Not only was I not inducted into this ghostly procession of yours," said Tamlin, "but somehow you and I both ended up in this strange place. It looks a bit like Stormweather here, doesn't it?"
"I was just thinking the same thing. That looks like the banister Tal and I used to slide down when we were boys."
"What do you suppose happened to the other ghosts? Were they destroyed?"
"I don't think so," said Chaney. He pointed to an open hallway lined with windows. "Look there. Can you see it?"
Tamlin saw a shadowy figure lurking by one of the windows. It pressed its smoky hands upon the glass as if trying to escape.
"And there," said Chaney, pointing to a door far below them.
Tamlin saw a pair of dark specters tugging at the latch of a portal that looked exactly like the kitchen door at Stormweather Towers. Despite the shadows' efforts, the latch remained stubbornly fast.
"Why're they here?"
"It must have something to do with that big stone block you dug up. What was that thing?"
"I'm not certain," said Tamlin, "but I suspected it was a secret relic of my grandfather's. Also, it might be the key to my parents' disappearance."
"How so?"
Tamlin told Chaney his story since the kidnapping. While he'd never known his brother's friend very well, he decided it was safe to confide in him. After all, Chaney was already dead. He wouldn't be spreading much gossip in the Green Gauntlet.
"So this portal somehow intercepted them from being trapped inside a magic painting? If so, they must be in here somewhere," suggested Chaney. "Maybe this is some sort of magical family mausoleum."
"I hope you're wrong about that."
"Sorry," said Chaney. "Never mind me. Sometimes I say ridiculous things."
"My bet is that it's some sort of otherworldly hiding place, like the secret passages in Stormweather Towers."
"That makes sense if your grandfather had some secret magical powers," agreed Chaney. "After all, you aren't dead. I mean, you don't look like a ghost."
"And my wound is healed," said Tamlin. "If old Aldimar had some contingency spell that could be triggered only on his death, then it must also be designed to heal him of the wounds that killed him."
"Too bad he didn't spend the extra coin on the clothing spell."
"At least I wouldn't be caught dead in those threadbare rags," Tamlin shot back. "I would make a far more fashionable corpse, I assure you."
He meant it as a friendly jest, and he was glad to see Chaney took it that way.
"You see? It's all much easier when you don't take it too seriously." He stopped laughing abruptly and said, "Hey, how did you do that?"
Tamlin was fully dressed in his favorite attire: a green and blue quilted tunic threaded with gold and pearls, russet velvet trousers held with a jeweled belt, and thigh-high boots made of black leather so supple it might have been silk.
"I need a sword," Tamlin said, and his favorite blade appeared at his hip."
"Nice trick," said Chaney, appreciatively. "Can you get me one?"
Tamlin smiled and buffed his fingernails upon his chest.
"A blade for my friend, if you please."
A short sword appeared in Chaney's grasp. His triumphant grin transformed into a frown as the weapon fell through his intangible hand and down to the distant floor.
"Dark," said Chaney.
"Enough of this. That murderer is still in my house. We have to go back and stop him."
"You mean go back and get killed again?"
"I won't make the same mistake again, I promise you. This time I'll fetch the archers and have him perforated from a distance."
"Not bad," said Chaney, "but how will you get back there?"
"Good question," said Tamlin. "This place is full of doors. What do you say we open a few?"
They flew down. When Tamlin set his feet to the floor, he felt vaguely disappointed as weight settled once more around his shoulders. He willed himself to levitate once more, and he rose a few inches in the air. Satisfied that he'd not lost this miraculous power, he settled down, once again obedient of gravity.
"Nice trick, isn't it?" observed Chaney.
"Somehow, I feel I could do anything here," he said. "It's as if all the powers of my dreams were suddenly real."
Tamlin approached the two dark specters. They withdrew slightly at his approach, but still their hands scrabbled uselessly at the edges of the door. Their faces turned to him hopefully, and they moaned like dogs begging for their supper.
He recognized one of them as the ghostly remains of Stellana Toemalar, a shrewish old widow with a notorious dislike for children and an insistence on hideously complex contracts. Tamlin still hadn't relinquished his own childhood resentment for her scolding ways, but he felt more pity than anything else to see her reduced to a mute and desperate phantom.
"Here," he said, pulling at the latch.
It opened easily, revealing an endless expanse of clockwork machinery-not just a room, but an entire world of gears and pistons and wheels. Cogs and levers formed the plains and mountains, even the seas and clouds of the mechanical world. Tremendous clusters of pulleys and chains floated above the land like clouds. Everything was the color of metaclass="underline" dull lead, bright brass, deep copper, black iron.
The moaning of the specters turned to a regular pulsing sound as they drifted out through the door. Tamlin watched their bodies transform into solid matter as they came ever closer to their destination. Before they were too distant to see, Tamlin thought he saw them transforming into simpler, puppetlike shapes.
He shuddered and closed the door.
"What in the world…?" he asked, though he felt he knew the answer already. "Another world entirely. Another plane."
"Was that their afterlife?" asked Chaney.
"Perhaps," said Tamlin. "The other specters seem drawn to different doors. Let's have a look."
Tamlin released another phantom into a world of lush forests and prowling beasts. He fell to the grassy ground in a hunter's crouch, his body solidifying into a younger, stronger version of Gorkun Baerent. Tamlin knew him as a fair-dealing man who loved hunting far more than managing his shipping affairs. A feral smile formed on Gorkun's lips as he realized the nature of his new surroundings. The man looked back at Tamlin with a joyous and grateful expression. Tamlin waved to him as he closed the door to the arboreal world.
He tried another door, slamming it almost immediately after the specter lingering at the portal slipped through, falling down into a mass of fighting bodies. The clamor of the place, the screams of triumph and agony, were deafening and repulsive.
"What is this place?" asked Chaney.
"Some sort of nexus of worlds," speculated Tamlin. Even as he said the words, he heard their ring of truth. "The ghosts seem drawn to particular worlds, perhaps their just rewards… or torments."
"Then why don't I feel drawn to any of them?"
Tamlin shrugged, then said, "Wait a moment."
He closed his eyes and tried to feel any attraction to a particular door. Soon he realized he was merely listening rather than extending any intellectual or emotional sense. Still, he imagined he could feel currents flowing through the weird house, invisible avenues running from door to door-or to the windows and chimneys, and up and down the stairways.
"Are you getting anything?" asked Chaney.
"Something, yes… but I still don't know what it is. Let's try some of those windows."
Together, they flew up to a high balcony housing six windows. The glass appeared clear from their side, but all they saw beyond was starless night.
Tamlin opened one.
The smell of autumn leaves rushed into the room, and the breeze chilled his body. Beyond the open portal, clouds rushed across the full face of Selune and her attendant shards. Far below, the moonlight illuminated a grassy plain where hundreds of wolves loped toward them. Their pace increased as they strove to keep up with their leader, a naked, hirsute brute whose dark hair whipped back like a war banner. He raised a sword the size of a wagon axle and lowered its point toward Stormweather, and all the beasts swarmed down from the hills.