Gossa nodded. “Plain as plain, that one was. Greatly to his family’s relief amidst their grief.”
Oswyl began, “I should explain something more about the fugitive we hunt—” but Penric flung up his hand, interrupting him.
“Wait just a little on that, Locator, if you please.”
It didn’t please Oswyl much, but Penric was turning to Gallin. “How far is it to this maybe-haunted rockslide of yours?”
“About five miles up the East Branch road, or thereabouts. An hour’s brisk ride.” Gallin squinted intently at Penric. “You say you are a Temple sensitive. Can you sense ghosts?”
“Ah… with a bit of special help, yes.”
“Can you get that help?”
“I carry it with me.”
Gallin grew eager. “Could you—would you—would you be willing to ride out to the fall with me, and sense what you can? It would put my mind to rest.” He reflected. “Or not, but at least I’d know.”
Such an expedition couldn’t be back till nightfall, Oswyl calculated. They would be stuck in this village till tomorrow. “Time,” he gritted under his breath.
Penric’s glance flicked up. He murmured back, “You could go on without me.”
“No. I can’t.”
“Well, then.” He turned to the acolyte. “I’m willing to take a look, yes. I can’t make any promises.”
Gallin actually clapped his hands in relief. “We can be off as soon as the horses are saddled.”
“We should take the red dog,” added Penric.
Gallin stilled. “Ah. Aye.” He rose to lead the way, pausing only to grasp his wife’s hands in a farewell. At least the goodwife eyed them all more approvingly, as they clumped out after him.
VIII
Penric studied the dog, Blood, as it cantered along behind the acolyte’s horse. It wasn’t undog, or not-dog, or even, really, terribly uncanny. It was just… more-dog, a peculiar density of itself.
Can you show me more? he asked Desdemona.
You are seeing what I am seeing, more or less, she replied. Turnabout being fair play.
Hm.
Oswyl nudged his horse up beside Pen’s on the rutted wagon trail—it was unduly flattering to dub it a road. After a moment he murmured, “You really can sense ghosts?”
“Desdemona can. I don’t have her share the sight with me unless I ask. It’s distracting, especially in old places where many people have died over the years.” When first this skill had come to him, a few months after Des had moved in, he’d tripped himself up dodging around things no one else could see, much to her amusement, till he’d worked out how to get her to shut it off. Some people had thought he’d been taken with fits. The real explanation hadn’t improved things by much.
“Can all sorcerers do so?”
“I imagine it varies. Those possessing younger or less experienced demons may be less adept.”
“I wonder that my Order does not requisition them more. The ability to interrogate the dead… would be most helpful in the instance of a murder.”
“Mm, not as much as you’d think. Most souls go at once to their gods, when severed from their bodies. It’s the god who is present at the funeral, not the person. An invoked messenger.” An odd thing when Pen thought about it, that so great a Presence should stoop to so small a task.
Oswyl frowned in what Pen was beginning to recognize as professional frustration. As distinguished from the dozen other ways he could frown.
“In any case,” Pen consoled him, “it would be hard for the sensitives to correctly interpret and report what they see. Even a fresh ghost still holding the form of its body can’t speak. The sundered soon grow muddled, like an old man who’s lost his wits along with his teeth. They exhaust the ability to assent to their god by the time they exhaust their ability to refuse. Which is what makes them sundered, I suppose.” Indifferent, beyond attachment or pain, attenuating into pale smudges, and then, at length, gone. Pen wasn’t sure he could convey how disturbing this process was to see, midway, without being frightening, exactly. Well, not after the first brush.
You squeaked in terror, said Des.
Did not, Pen thought back. That was just a yelp of surprise. The ghosts, once understood, had seemed less horrifying than his first fear, that he was hallucinating or going mad. Still, not comfortable.
Gallin turned his horse aside onto a narrower trail, weaving up through the trees, and Pen and Oswyl fell into single file behind him. After a damp, scrambling time, Blood bounded ahead, whining, and the steep woods opened out abruptly onto the rock fall.
Rock fall was a serious understatement, Pen realized. The slide was perhaps a hundred paces across and three times that in height, a fan of debris including boulders the size of wagons, mud, and a tangle of uprooted and snapped trees. At its wide foot, the local stream had backed up and routed around; at its narrower head, a raw and ragged new cliff marked where it had heaved itself out of the mountain’s weakened side. He imagined being caught under the roar, not knowing whether to run forward or back, so screened by the trees on the shuddering path as not to know either was equally futile till too late.
The three horsemen all pulled up at the edge, but Blood sprang onward, scrambling over the treacherous footing, sniffing and uttering small yips. Penric did not at first see what the dog sought, and then, at a shift from Desdemona, did.
Oh.
The old man sat on a boulder midway across the scree and a little down from where the path was cut off. He wore the common garb of workmen in this country, boots, trousers, rough-spun shirt, a capacious sheepskin vest fleece turned inward and hanging open around him. A short-brimmed hat was pushed back on his head, a few feathers stuck in its band. Penric could not discern their hues, for feathers, clothes, and the man who wore them were all faded to a colorless translucency.
As Pen watched, Blood made his way, not quite unerringly, to the man’s side, and whimpered and yipped around him like a dog sniffing around a badger’s den that was too small to enter. The man smiled faintly and lifted his hand to stroke the dog’s head. The beast calmed and sat, silky tail waving like a signal flag.
Pen dismounted and handed his reins to Oswyl. “Hold my horse, please.”
“Can you see anything?” asked Gallin anxiously.
“Oh, yes.” Pen turned and began to clamber across the debris.
“Be careful!” called Gallin. “It could be unstable!”
Pen waved understanding.
Incurious as an old idler on a town square bench, the man watched him approach. Pen’s gloves saved him from tearing his hands as he tested each hold, seeking balance rather than suspect support. He was breathing heavily by the time he arrived at the boulder and found firm-ish footing. He stared down at the revenant, who stared back up but then returned his attention to his worried dog
“Master Scuolla,” Pen tried. “Shaman, sir.”
The man seemed not to hear. But he had noticed Pen, and was most certainly interacting with the dog. A sundered soul some, what, two months into its dissolution ought to be a lot more vague than this. More distanced.
He looks as if he hasn’t been dead more than a few days, Des agreed.