No…
It sounded like the mournful wail of a distant wind, but Diran knew he was hearing a voice. The coldness surrounding him intensified, and he thought he could feel delicate fingers gripping the wrist of the hand that held the flint. But when he looked down, he saw nothing but his own flesh.
"Diran, what is it?"
Diran tried to answer his friend, but his lips felt sluggish and numb, as if he'd been outside in winter cold for too long, and his voice refused to come. He felt his strength begin to ebb, and he knew that the unseen creature holding onto him was stealing his life essence.
"Use your arrowhead, Diran! Thrust it toward the creature!"
Excellent advice. Unfortunately, Diran couldn't move. Whatever foul power the invisible creature possessed, it had rendered him immobile. But then again, perhaps not entirely. He tried to wiggle the fingers of his right hand-the hand holding the flint-and though his fingers were too numb for him to tell whether or not he succeeded, Diran was rewarded with the sound of the flint hitting the floor. Marshalling all the strength remaining to him, Diran concentrated on speaking a single word.
"F… fffff… Fire…"
Leontis understood. He dropped his bow and ran forward to snatch up Diran's flint. He moved quickly away from Diran lest he be caught by whatever force had taken hold of his companion and then drew a fresh arrow from the quiver slung over his shoulder. Holding the arrow near the metal tip, Leontis knelt down close the floor and began using his makeshift striker on Diran's flint. Sparks leapt forth from the flint, arcing into the air and landing on the mill's wooden floor, only to fizzle out in the layer of dust covering the planks.
Diran felt vertigo wash over him, and his vision was starting to go gray. As consciousness began to desert him, he prayed that Leontis would be able to get a fire started before their unseen attacker finished draining the rest of his lifeforce. If not… well, then Diran would just have to experience his reunion with the Silver Flame a bit earlier than he'd expected, wouldn't he?
Diran heard the spectral voice whisper mournfully once more.
No… fire…
And then the voice spoke a word that startled the young acolyte.
Please…
A spark hit the floor and ignited into flame, causing Leontis to let out a shout of triumph. The flame grew quickly, and Diran knew that within moments the mill would be beyond saving.
Though he had virtually no strength remaining, Diran somehow managed to speak three more words. "Put… it… out…"
They were little more than whispered exhalations, and Diran wasn't sure that Leontis had even heard them, let alone that he would understand and heed them. But the other acolyte looked at Diran for a long moment before finally rising to his feet and stomping out the fire he'd just made. It took several tries, but Leontis managed to extinguish the flames.
"I sure hope you know what you're doing, Diran Bastiaan."
Diran wanted to say, So do I, but he couldn't force out any more words. If he'd guessed wrong, he was dead, and perhaps Leontis was too. But if he'd guessed right…
Diran felt the icy fingers let go of his wrist, and the cold that gripped his body began to recede. He was weak as a newborn, but he no longer felt dizzy and in danger of passing out. He looked to Leontis and gave his friend a reassuring, if somewhat shaky, smile.
Before either acolyte could speak again, the air between them began to shimmer as strands of white mist appeared. The strands grew thicker, joined together, and coalesced into the ghostly apparition of a young woman in her late teens. She appeared solid enough, but her flesh and clothing-a simple dress with an apron tied over it, a cloth wrapped around her head to keep her hair in place-were both marble-white.
She looked at the two acolytes and gave them what was unmistakably a grateful smile.
"I take it we're looking at a ghost," Leontis said. He sounded oddly calm, given that a specter had just manifested before them, but then the priesthood did run in his family, and he'd been training with Tusya for a while now-long enough for strange sights not to seem so strange anymore.
"That would be my guess," Diran said. "I've seen a few in my time." Caused more than a few as well, he thought wryly.
"And she evidently would prefer that we don't burn down the mill," Leontis added.
My mill… the ghost's voice sounded clearer and more distinct now, though still very ethereal. But when she spoke, the movements of her lips lagged behind the sound of the words themselves, adding to the unearthly effect.
Keeping his gaze firmly on the ghost-girl, Leontis tucked Diran's flint into one of his pockets then retrieved his bow and silverburn-coated arrow. The spectral girl watched him, but made no move to stop him. Why would she? Diran thought. Silver had no effect on ghosts.
"Why do you think she's haunting this place?" Leontis asked, his arrow trained on the ghost-girl's heart-or rather, where her heart used to be. Diran was certain Leontis knew the arrow would prove little more than an annoyance to the girl, but he supposed his friend felt a need to do something other than just stand there while they talked.
The girl shook her head emphatically, the motion making her ghostly features blur a bit. Home… she said.
Diran thought he was beginning to understand. "From the way she's dressed, I'd say she used to work here. Perhaps she died here as well."
The girl nodded, the action again making her features blur.
"All right, so this is her home," Leontis said. "But what does that matter? She's a creature of evil! You can feel it all around us! We shouldn't be standing around here having a conversation with her. We should be destroying her!"
"You said it yourself: evil is all around us. But do you sense any evil emanating from her?" Diran gestured at the ghostly mill girl.
Leontis looked at her and frowned. "Actually… no, I don't."
"She didn't manifest when we first entered," Diran pointed out. "And she didn't appear when I attempted to summon her. She had ample opportunity to attack us if she wished to harm us, but she only acted when we attempted to burn down the mill… her home."
"That may be," Leontis said, "but then where is the evil coming from? Is there another creature of some sort lurking here?"
Though he'd had no formal training in how to do so, Diran attempted to stretch his senses outward, to feel what could not be seen. "I don't think so. I think the mill itself is the source of the evil. Something wrong happened here… something that bound this girl's spirit to this place and infused the structure itself with the echoes of the evil that was done here."
Leontis looked at the girl once more. "You mean she was… killed here?"
"I believe so," Diran said. "Remember what you said earlier, about tearing up the floorboards to see if any bodies were hidden under them?"
The two acolytes lowered their gazes to the floor beneath their feet.
Diran and Leontis sat atop the unmoving waterwheel, legs dangling over the side. The ghost-girl hovered in the air beside them, her malleable features contorted in an exaggerated mask of fear, her terrified eyes larger than a human's could ever be, her mouth a grotesque slash of a grimace. Diran wondered how many ghosts assumed a hideous appearance not to frighten others, but simply because they were themselves afraid. The Thrane River rushed by less than thirty feet below them, moonlight sliding across the surface of the water like a liquid silver sheen. The river smelled clean and pure, but another scent hung in the air, growing stronger by the moment: the scent of smoke.
"How did I let you talk me into this?" Leontis grumbled.