"Doing what?"
"You know full well what I mean! Stop reading my thoughts!" A terrible grin spread across the wraith's face. "No," he said.
"I don't care what you do," Torgan said. He flicked the reins and Trey started forward again. The creature seemed perfectly calm. If the wraiths bothered him, he showed no sign of it.
"He can't see us. Only you can."
Torgan ignored him, staring straight ahead. He knew better than to think that the ghosts would leave him alone. But if they were going to haunt him throughout the night, he could at least cover some ground at the same time.
"What do you know about wraiths, Torgan?" Jasha asked him. "What do you know about this night?"
Torgan refused to answer. The young merchant seemed to be floating along with him, as did the wraiths of the Fal'Borna. They didn't appear to be moving, yet they kept pace with Trey. In fact, they appeared to be coming closer, pressing in on him.
"Do you know that if you touch us, you'll cross over into the god's realm and be lost forever to the world of the living? Do you know that you don't even have to mean to touch us? It can just be an accident. A chance encounter."
The other wraiths laughed.
"Leave me alone," Torgan said.
Their laughter grew, and immediately Torgan wished that he'd kept silent.
"Leave you alone?" Jasha repeated, sounding delighted, as if Torgan had just shared a joke. "That's the last thing we want to do! There's so much each of us wants to say to you. One night is hardly enough."
Torgan clamped his mouth shut, determined not to say anything more to any of them.
Still the glowing figures closed in on him, eyeing him hungrily. Torgan tried to ignore them, but he couldn't help but wonder if what Jasha told him was true. Would he die if he touched one of them? Could the wraiths make him touch them? Could they kill him, in effect, by giving him no choice but to touch them?
"Of course it's true," Jasha said. "The dead cannot lie, Torgan. Bian forbids it. Isn't that ironic? The god known as the Deceiver demands the truth of all who dwell in his realm." The young merchant leered at him. "Do you know what else? Since we can read your thoughts, you can't lie to us, either. All those times you lied to me when I was alive; the way you deceived all of us at the end, when you sickened Grinsa and Q'Daer. And now that I'm dead I can finally have an honest conversation with you." He shook his head. "Don't you find that funny?"
Suddenly Jasha swung his fist at Torgan's face, making the merchant jerk away.
"I asked you if you thought that was funny," the wraith demanded, his voice so hard and cold that it could have been the god himself asking the question.
"No!" Torgan said. "I don't find any of this funny."
Jasha shook his head, grinning again. "No, I don't suppose you do. Aren't you going to beg for our forgiveness, Torgan?"
"Would it do me any good?"
Jasha laughed, a terrible sound, like boulders grinding against one another. "Now that's the Torgan Plye I know. Always looking to make that profit." He laughed again, then shook his glowing head. "No, Torgan. It wouldn't do you any good at all."
The moment he said this, two of the Fal'Borna wraiths broke away from the others, soaring up into the night sky, wheeling like hawks, and diving straight at Torgan's face.
Torgan ducked out of the way and pulled Trey's reins, making the horse veer off to the side.
Immediately two more wraiths did the same, coming directly at him again, so that once more he had to turn sharply. He'd barely recovered from that assault when a third pair swooped down at him. Soon they were diving toward him from every angle, so that he had to turn his horse repeatedly. It was as if he had stumbled upon a swarm of giant hornets. He did everything in his power to keep them from touching him, knowing that one mistake would mean his death. Torgan wasn't an accomplished rider, and he could feel the beast straining against his increasingly desperate attempts to turn. He also sensed that the horse was tiring. He tried reining the animal to a halt, but instantly the Fal'Borna wraiths altered their attacks and dove at him from the side. He had no choice but to spur his mount into motion again.
On and on it went. The wraiths, it seemed, were immune to fatigue, or perhaps by taking turns they kept themselves from growing weary. Torgan, though, could barely keep himself in the saddle. The muscles in his back, legs, and arms were on fire. His hands shook with exhaustion and terror. His breath came in great gasps and his clothes were soaked with sweat so that the cold night wind knifed through, chilling the merchant to the bone.
"You look tired, Torgan," Jasha called to him.
"Make them stop. Please."
"I could, you know," Jasha said.
"Then do. For pity's sake."
Abruptly, Jasha was beside him, matching Torgan's every movement as if the wraith were also on a horse. "Did you know that in the Deceiver's realm Eandi and white-hairs live together?"
Torgan dodged another assault, and then another.
"I hadn't known," Jasha went on, as if they were chatting over ales in some city inn. "I hadn't thought about it much, really. But if you'd asked me I would have told you that there must have been two underrealms; one for our kind and one for theirs." He shrugged. "I was wrong."
Two pairs of Fal'Borna ghosts dove at him simultaneously, one pair from the left, the other from the right. Torgan was forced to pivot first one way and then the other. Trey reared, nearly unseating him. And no sooner had Torgan righted himself than he saw another pair of ghosts streaking toward him. Again he turned the horse, and again it tried to throw him off.
"I can't help it!" he told the animal. "They're trying to kill me."
"No, we're not," Jasha said, beside him once more. "If we wanted to kill you, you'd be dead by now."
"Then what? What is it you're trying to do to me?"
Still more of the wraiths flew toward him. Torgan fought his mount, trying to make the animal respond. But apparently Trey had reached his limit. Torgan pulled hard on the reins, frantic now. Wraiths were coming at him from both sides. If he didn't move they'd surely hit him. He yanked back with all his might. Trey reared once, twice, kicking out with his front hooves.
And Torgan tumbled back, slamming into the cold ground, the force of his landing knocking the breath from his lungs. He heard Trey bolt away, but before he could raise his head to see where the beast had gone, he found himself surrounded by the wraiths once more. They pressed in around him, staring down hungrily, their pale eyes like flames, their hair gleaming as if lit by the white moon. They began to reach for him. One might have thought that they could pluck the life from his body, so eager did they seem to touch him. Torgan huddled in a ball on the ground, trembling, cold, terrified, certain that he was about to die.
"Enough."
Jasha didn't raise his voice. He didn't need to. The wraiths sighed as one. Torgan could tell without looking that they had backed away from him. He opened his eyes slowly and unfolded his body. He felt ungainly, thick, dull. The wraiths still stared at him, their hair stirring slightly, though for the moment the wind on the plain had died away. From what he saw in the ghosts' eyes he could tell that they had broken off reluctantly, that they had yet to satisfy their desire for vengeance.
"Thank you, Jasha," Torgan whispered. He sat up, and his head began to spin. He tried to look past the wraiths to see where Trey had gone, but they blocked his view.
"Don't thank me," the young merchant said.
Torgan climbed to his feet, staggered a bit, but managed to remain upright. He thought he could see Trey a short distance off to the… the south? Torgan turned a slow circle, peering over the heads of the ghosts. He tried to spot something-anything-that might allow him to orient himself. He looked up at the sky, but it was still covered over with clouds. What time was it? How soon until morning?
"You seem confused, Torgan."
He looked at Jasha. Had this been their purpose all along? What had he said before? If we wanted to kill you, you'd be dead by now.