I leaned my back against the garden wall and sank to my rump. The solid stone against my back was cold and damp. I crossed my legs.
He crouched in front of me, gripping his staff. "Now think about the dead. Just ghosts. Wisps of memory and being left here where they no longer belong."
"They must feel frightened," I said, thinking about it despite myself. Banar had been frightened.
"Frightened," it agreed, settling at my feet.
"Who are you?" I asked. The hob hadn't told me what to say to the ghosts when they came. I didn't really want to interrogate it.
"Mercenary," it said, the whispery voice a little stronger.
"Fighting the war. Our side was losing and the man who hired us dead. No money in it anymore. Captain said, 'Got to turn raider, boys. Lots of lords dead, estates left undefended. Find one of them. " As it spoke, the wisps seemed to gather together and solidify.
One of the raiders. I didn't think it was one I'd killed.
"It's time to rest now," I told him. I didn't want to know what he'd do if he figured out I was one of the villagers.
"Rest?"
"You've done your duty, soldier," said the hob. "Sleep."
The ghosted started when the hob spoke, as if it hadn't noticed him there. Unlike the earth spirit, it didn't seem to troubled by the hob.
"Time to sleep," he agreed, though he didn't do anything but rest at my feet.
I whispered, "Sleep." I didn't know why I whispered, but it worked. The ghost faded away.
"That one was brighter than Banar was," I said softly when it was gone.
"The new ones glow almost as if they were still tied to a soul," said the hob, though he was looking uneasily around the garden. "The old ones can be shadows so dark even I can't see them unless they choose."
"Mistake, mistake, the mountain's slave made a mistake," crowed a voice from the wall over my head.
I knew that tone, though I didn't recognize the boy who bounced down on the ground in front of me. "Hob made a mistake. Hob made a mistake." The singsong was unmistakable. The earth spirit's servant wore the shape of a boy younger than Caulem. This one I didn't know.
"Quiet, shaper," said the hob, his attention still elsewhere. "Your place is on the other side of the river."
The shaper turned to me with a bright smile, "Hob forgets a lot. Forgets my master is here, too. Forgets some ghosts are not so weak. Forgets old places have their dangers."
"The shaper's right," said the hob, his voice lifeless with failure. "Being around humans makes me arrogant. I came here because I knew there were recent dead wandering—bound to be, after a battle. Should have thought there might be older spirits here."
Defeat was something I almost couldn't associate with the hob. Not even being left alone with only a mountain for company had given him such melancholy. Nor could I see any reason for it. I looked around suspiciously.
"There's a graveyard just over the wall," I offered, because what he'd said made me wonder if he knew. "Caefawn?"
The hob bowed his head and didn't answer.
"Show yourself," I commanded the air at large.
"Here I am," chortled the shaper.
"Be quiet or leave," I said sourly. "I have enough to work out. If you interfere. I swear it'll be the worse for you."
He subsided, except for a couple of smirks. I didn't know what he thought I could do to him, but I was glad he was threatened enough to desist.
"Show yourself, ghost." I said again. "Caefawn, don't you bring me out here, then leave me alone to deal with this thing."
It was there. Larger than the garden we were in, its substance covered the ground with a deep shadow.
"Caefawn," I said again. "Time enough for despair when there's nothing left to do."
"Hobs are emotional," observed the shaper. "Ghosts affect them more than they do you mortals."
The shadows continued to deepen in the garden, frightening the moon's light away. I reflected, not for the first time in the hob's company, that cat's sight would be extremely useful. Darkness crept over Caefawn, who was bent around his staff as if it comforted him.
The shadows stopped at my feet.
"Who are you?" it asked in a voice like fiddle music in the dawn. I thought that was supposed to be my question. "Why did you summon me?"
"I am Aren of Fallbrook," I answered it, as I had the earth spirit the day before. "I am here to be taught."
Something touched me inside my head. It was the strangest feeling I'd ever had, as if something soft and ethereal drifted through my skin and bone. After an instant the touch turned to ice.
"Warm it," advised the shaper as he gripped both my hands and stared into my eyes. For once his face was serious. "Think of hot, rich food; the fire on a cold night; my master's eyes. Think of touch and life and light." Then, without loosing my eyes from his hold, he said in a different voice, "Hob, now would be a good time to help."
Would you like to join me?
I shuddered with the icy jolt that shot from my head to my spine. I thought of fires and soup, hot green-brown eyes that flared to red in an elemental's face.
I am so alone here.
Me, too, I thought before I caught myself. I'm so alone.
The shaper slapped my face. "Warmth and living, Aren."
Warmth. The touch of Daryn's hands on my flesh. Warmth slipped from his remembered touch to my cold skin. I concentrated on the one night we'd had, the passion and fire. When I ran out of memory, I built new ones. Dreaming about the dead didn't seem like the right thing to do under the circumstances, so for the new ones I substituted coal-gray skin for sun-browned, the nip of fangs gently wielded, a tail wrapped around my ankle. Thoughts curiosity had brought to me after the bargain was struck. I asked the question, What would it be like to be wed to the hob? The answers came whether I willed them or not.
The cold withdrew slowly, more slowly when desires replaced solid memory. So I tried another tack. I built the image of the gradual magic of rye and wheat pushing up through the earth, exchanging safe darkness for sunlight and warmth. Flowers opening for the first time to the dance of butterfly wings.
It was gone, and I was breathing as heavily as a drowning victim just rescued. I expect the analogy occurred to me because my clothes were wet with sweat. It started to rain. Lucky me.
"Good girl," said the shaper. "Did well enough for a mortal—better than the hob."
Behind the shaper crouched the ghost. I felt no fear of it now, for it was mine. It could do no more harm unless I set it free.
"But Caefawn's no speaker," I said with sudden knowledge of what that might mean. "The despair… that's a ghost's weapon, isn't it? It doesn't affect me."
Caefawn, his face drawn and remote, looked up from his staff. "That and fear. As a speaker you are immune to those and many other weapons of the spirit. The mountain could defend me from terror or gloom, not both. Not so far from her slopes."
Rather than tiring me out, holding the ghost under my control seemed to be giving me energy, as if I'd been drinking fizzies all night and was jittery with it.
All beings had spirits, not just ghosts. I thought that if I wanted to, I might be able to take the shaper as well, though not the hob. Not yet. It was as if I could see the will that each possessed, and measure my power against them.
See, said the ghost speaking secretly to me. See what we could do?
"Should be more cautious," advised the shaper. "Could have killed her seeing if she could protect herself from ghosts. My master would have been unhappy. He sent me to watch you."