The ghost stared a moment, with the empty darkness of its eyes. Then its face creased, and broke open, and laughter spilled out—harsh, mocking laughter, that all the ghosts echoed, ringing from one to another, clamoring and sounding like brazen gongs, until all the Great Hall rang with it, while spectral fingers pointed at Rod.
And the rage built to fill him, striving to master him; but he held himself rigid against it and, in a last attempt to avoid it, cried, “Fess! To me, now! In the great hall!”
“Why, then, mannikin, work thy will!” the ghost sneered. “Hale me down, and grind me under! Work thy wonders! Show us this power thou canst employ, against ghosts!”
Steel hooves rang on stone, and the great black horse charged into the hall, rearing to a halt bare inches from a peasant couple, who scrambled away in panic.
Arendel turned his wrathful gaze on Fess, staring in outraged anger. “What beast is this thou dost summon! Hast thou no shred of courtesy within thee, that thou wouldst bring thine horse into a lord’s hall?”
“Fess,” Rod bellowed in agony, “What are they?”
“Rrr… Rrrodd… th-they awwrr…” Suddenly, Fess’s whole body heaved in one great convulsion, neck whiplashing; then his head plummeted down to swing between his fetlocks. He stood spraddle-legged, each knee locked stiff.
“Seizure,” Rod snapped. “They’re real!”
Arendel stared in disbelief for a moment; then he threw back his head, and his laughter rocked the hall. “Elf-shot! He summons his great aid, his model of all that is powerful and perfect—and ‘tis elf-shot!” And his merriment rolled forth, to batter against Rod’s ears.
Then Rod’s own natural fury broke loose, his indignation that anyone should mock disability, make a joke of the truest companion he had known from earliest memory—and that fury poured into the building rage to boil it over the dam of Rod’s willed control. The red haze enveloped him, and the icy, insane clarity stilled his thoughts, ringing one clear idea: Ghosts could be exorcised. Rod bent his brows, eyes narrowing, and a thunderclap exploded through the hall, crashing outward from a short, balding man wearing spectacles and a green chasuble over a white robe. He blinked about him, stupefied. “I was… What… How…”
“Welcome, Father,” Rod breathed, in a voice of dry ice.
The priest blinked, seeking Rod out with watery eyes. “But I was even now saying Matins, in the monastery chapel! How came I here?”
“Through my magic,” Rod grated, “in response to the ill manners of this churlish dead lord! Exorcise him, Father—for his soul’s barred from Heaven whiles he lingers here!”
The ghost roared with rage, and his fellows all echoed him, with screechings and roarings that made the priest wince and cry, “ ‘Tis a foretaste of Hell!”
“Banish them,” Rod cried, “ere they linger to damn themselves!”
The priest’s face firmed with resolve. “Tis even as thou sayest.” And he held up one palm toward the ghosts while he fumbled in a pocket with the other, beginning a sonorous Latin prayer.
Lord Arendel shrieked, and disappeared.
With a wave of wailing despair, the other ghosts faded.
In the sudden, soft darkness, Magnus cried, “There! Against the eastern wall! Nay, stop her, seize her! Mother, a light, I prithee!”
Sudden light slashed the darkness—a warm, yellow glow from a great ball of fire that hung just below the ceiling, and Magnus and Geoffrey were diving toward a woman in a blue, hooded cloak, who hauled out a broomstick and leaped onto it, soaring up through the air to leave them in a wake of mocking laughter. Magnus shouted in anger, and banked to follow her, but she arrowed straight toward the window, which was opened wide to the summer’s night. She trilled laughter, crying, “Fools! Dost not know the witches are everywhere? Thou canst not escape Alfar’s power, nor hope to end it! Hail the Lord Sorcerer as thy master, ere he doth conquer thee—for Alfar shall rule!”
With a firecracker-pop, Gregory appeared, directly in front of her, thrusting a stick toward her face. It burst into flame at its tip. The witch shrieked and veered to the side, plummeting toward the open door, but Cordelia swirled in on her broomstick to cross the witch’s path, hurling a bucketful of water. The fluid stretched out into a long, slender arrow, and splattered into the witch’s face. She howled with rage and swirled up and around the great hall while she dashed the water from her eyes with one swipe of her hand. Magnus and Geoffrey shot after her, closing in from either side. At the last second, the witch clutched at a great whorl of an amulet that hung on her breast, cried, “Hail, Alfar,” and disappeared in a clap of thunder.
The hall was silent and still.
Then a low moan began, and spread around the outside of the chamber. It rolled, building toward a wail.
Magnus hung in the center of the hall, beneath the great fireball, his eyes like steel. Slowly, his mouth stretched wide.
Gwen’s voice cut like a knife blade. “Nay, Magnus! Such words are forbidden thee, for no gentleman may use them!”
For an instant, shocked stillness fell again. Then one woman began to giggle incredulously. Another gave a little laugh, but another laughed with her, then another, and another, and the horror in the hall turned into full-throated laughter—with an hysterical edge to it, perhaps, but laughter nonetheless.
Then the Count of Drulane stood on the dais with his quaking wife behind him, gazing out about his hall silently.
One by one, his servants and thralls saw him, and fell silent.
When the whole hall was quiet, the Count turned to a waiting servant. “Light fires, that we may thank this lady for her good services, and be done with her flaming light.”
The servant turned to the task, and others leaped to join him.
The Count turned to the priest and said gravely, “I must thank thee, reverend Father, for thy good offices.”
The priest bowed. “My office it was, and there was small need to thank me.”
“Naetheless, I do. Still, Father, I own to some concern, for these were the spirits of mine ancestors. Are their souls destroyed, then?”
“Nay, milord.” The priest smiled. “I’ troth, I misdoubt me an a soul can be annihilated. Yet even an ‘twere, ‘twould not be now; for I saw no need for exorcism. Nay, I merely did bless this hall, and pray for the souls of all who have dwelt here, that they might find rest—which they did.”
“And I had feared thou wouldst attempt to blast them with power of thine own,” Gwen said softly to her husband. “How is’t thou didst think of the clergy?”
But the rage had ebbed, and Rod was filled with guilt and remorse. He shrugged impatiently. “Just an odd fact.”
“It was, i’ truth, for thou hast never been greatly pious. Where didst thou learn it?”
The question poked through Rod’s miasma; he frowned. Where had he learned that ghosts could be banished by clergy? “Common knowledge, isn’t it?” He glowered at her. “Just came to me, out of the blue.”
“Nay,” said little Gregory, reaching up to catch his hand. “ ‘Tis not from the blue…”
“Who asked you?”
Gregory flinched away, and self-disgust drowned Rod’s irritation. He reached out to catch the child around the shoulders and jam him against a hip. “Oh, I’m sorry, son! You didn’t deserve that!”
The priest was still reassuring the Count. “They have fled back to their graves, milord—and, I hope, to their well-earned afterlives.”
“For some, that will be a blessing,” the Count said non-comittally.
Rod looked up from the shame filled ashes of his wrath. “Shall I send you home now, Father?”
The priest looked up, appalled, and the Count said quickly, “Or, an thou dost wish it, Father, we can offer thee hospitality and, when thou art rested, guardsmen and a horse, to escort thee south, to thy monastery.”