Sturm backed into the chair and sat down with a thump. He knew his family tree well enough not to be surprised that a Di Caela lord was hungry for gossip and news.
Sure enough, the ghost leaned forward, white face framed in a well-kept, elegant white beard. Robert's countenance was a pantomime mask, the dark mahogany paneling visible in the vacant sockets of the eyes.
"A quest, Lord Robert-" the unnerved boy stammered.
"Sir Robert," the ghost corrected. "Time was when we didn't priss and petticoat with conflated titles. 'Sir' was good enough for the likes of your great-granddad and for the likes of men every bit his equal."
Sir Robert seated himself on a rickety bench, passing somewhat through it as he spoke, and settling with a puff of dust.
" 'Twas a time when a quest was a great thing, lad! We went after enchanters! After lost civilizations and worms encircling the continent itself!"
The ghost closed his eyes, as though he dreamt of those days as he spoke.
"And what," Sir Robert asked bluntly, as his pale eyes flew open, "is the quest on which you're bound, little Brightblade?"
As though he were charmed, enchanted, or starved past lie or even concealment, Sturm told the ghost the whole story, from the night at the banquet through his own foggy wanderings and his time of entrapment here in Castle di Caela. It struck him as he told it-how long and venturesome it had seemed in the doing, and yet how weak and simple and even foolish to recount.
At the beginning of the story, Sir Robert listened intently, but his ardor didn't last long. His expression changed from intent to politely attentive, then abstracted and drowsy, then nodding on the edge of sleep.
"Is that all?" he asked. "You've set out to meet an opponent no doubt your superior in strength and craft, and you've managed to get yourself locked into my estate before you're even halfway there?"
Sturm flushed and nodded as Sir Robert laughed, a low thin chuckle.
"Well?" the ghost asked, standing and hovering not twenty feet from the lad.
"Sir?"
"Look to your ghost lore, boy! What revenge have I asked for?"
"None, sir."
"And what unfinished business have I asked you to complete?"
"Indeed, none."
"Absolutely. As I see it, you've enough unfinished business for a lifetime of your own. What treasure do I have?"
"Sir?"
"What treasure, damn it! You've combed the premises from battlements to cellar. What am I hiding?"
"Nothing, sir." The lad was weary of interrogation. He was hungry and tired.
"Then what is left?" Sir Robert prodded.
"Sir?"
"What else do we ghosts do?"
Sturm stood in silence. Sir Robert approached him, green and yellow and red.
"We answer questions. I have returned to answer a question. No, I shall answer two questions."
Arms outstretched, the ghost of Sir Robert di Caela hovered scarcely an arm's length from Sturm's chair. Hunger racing through him like fever, Sturm peered at the ghost intently.
"I had always thought," the young knight ventured, "there was something magical and right in the answering of three questions."
"Don't bargain with me, boy!" Sir Robert snapped. "It will be two questions or none. We stand on no foolish traditions here. Two questions."
A thousand questions flashed through Sturm's mind as he stared at the ghost, questions historical, metaphysical, theological…
But which questions?
"Why you, of all the ghosts that might visit me?"
"That is your first question?"
"It is." Sturm regarded the ghost cautiously. Sir Robert hovered a good three feet off the ground, as though he were floating in water.
"Why me?"
"'Tis what I ask," Sturm replied.
"Damned if I know," Robert replied. "Next question."
"That was your answer?" Sturm exclaimed.
"Is that your second question?" Sir Robert asked.
"What? Well… no…" Sturm muttered. He fell silent, and the green light in the great hall shifted and deepened. Now the shadows of bench, throne, and rubble lengthened along the dusty stone floor until it seemed that the furnishings themselves had grown beyond human proportion.
"I… I'm not sure what to ask," Sturm said finally. His mind lodged against the ancient stories of captured mages, bound to grant wishes-how they tricked their captors into asking for a sausage breakfast rather than immortality or infinite wisdom. Whatever the nature and design of the ghost before him, he was not about to let it trick him.
"I think that the question is evident," Sir Robert said with a curious smile.
Sturm gaped at the ghost and settled back into the chair. Sir Robert stood above him now, thin arms folded over his ethereal breastplate, eyes fixed on a ghostly distance. Slowly he lowered his gaze to the high-backed throne and to the young man, baffled and trembling, who sat upon it.
"The question is evident," Sir Robert repeated. "I think you need to ask how to get out of here."
Chapter 8
"Very well. How do I get out?" Sturm asked.
"I thought you'd never ask," Sir Robert replied with a chuckle.
He should have known all along, Sturm told himself, for the ghost turned suddenly in stagnant air. Behind him, watery pools of light dripped from his locks and clothing, green and iridescent, as he made a path from the center of the hall, out the doors, and into the anteroom. Sword drawn and at the ready, Sturm rose from the chair and followed.
The footsteps led, to his surprise, back to the cellars of Castle di Caela, where Sir Robert, floating ethereally ahead of him, rushed back beneath the stairway.
"Bradley the engineer's work," he muttered. "So we could get the wine out after the worm tore up the cellars."
The ghost flitted past a capsized wine barrel, headlong into the far wall, where he vanished entirely, leaving the stone surface shimmering with green light.
"Follow!" a voice urged from the other side of the wall, and when Sturm set hand to the glowing stones, they pivoted suddenly, and he was bathed with fresh air and moonlight. He stepped from the cellar into the castle bailey, bright in the silver glow of Solinari.
Sturm looked behind him. Surely enough, Sir Robert had vanished. Again he wondered why this ghost, of all possible ghosts in a castle long abandoned and no doubt richly haunted.
Luin trotted across the courtyard from the stables, apparently no worse for her time left alone. She looked cared for, even well fed, though she was still saddled and bridled as he had left her when he thought his stay in the castle would be a matter of minutes.
Sturm rifled through his packs, coming up with some jerky, some quith-pa, and some stale bread, all of which he wolfed down with no regard for manners or health. As he ate, Luin nuzzled his shoulder contentedly, and after a while, Sturm stroked her long nose and spoke to her, ashamed that she had been so long from his thoughts.
"And how, old girl, did you keep yourself so well over these days? How did-"
It was then he looked around and saw that the castle gardens were green, that grass sprouted up thickly between the stones of the courtyard. The grazing had been plentiful. Bright green the foliage was, not the pale of new leaf.