Ghost Ascension, Episode 9

“Good work,” you tell Ark. “I think I’m going to pay a quiet visit to yellow-eyed man.”

Ark nods. “I’m with you, if you need help.”

Your father’s voice hisses inside your skull. “You’ll lead him to his death. His wife will whore for her bread, his children starve on the street…”

You force the voice aside. You are a Ghost of the Empire, and you do what is necessary to protect the people of the Empire. Regardless of your own feelings.

“Good,” you say. “Oh, the woman?”

Ark peers at Sophia. “Dressed like that, she’s either a prostitute or a musician. Or both.”

“She says her name is Sophia,” you say. “The Kindred were trying to kill her this morning, but Lucan and I got in their way. She’s either insane or a very poor liar. If she tries anything, deal with her.”

Ark nods and walks back to the bench, picking up his broadsword and heavy Legion shield. Lucan lifts his eyebrows as you approach, while Sophia merely stares at everything with a sort of wide-eyed curiosity.

“This is a friend of mine,” you say, “and we’ll call him Angle.” Ark snorts at the very poor pun, but there’s no reason for either Lucan or Sophia to know his real name. “He’s tracked the yellow-eyed man to Skullyard Court, in the catacombs off the Via Triumphalis. We’re going to take a closer look at him.”

Lucan hesitates. “What about Sophia?”

“She stays with us,” you say. You don’t want to leave her to be butchered by the Kindred. “You two will keep an eye on her. First, we need to make a stop.”

You stop at a Ghost safe house not far from the Imperial Foundry, and change into the leather armor and ragged clothes of a poor mercenary, the sort of disguise you’ve used to great effect before. Some makeup to create the illusion of stubble, and your black hair raked into greasy curtains over your face, and you’re done. You also retrieve your shadow-cloak, a cloak that will blend with the shadows, and also shield your mind from sorcery while you wear it.

If you had been wearing it over the last three days, your memory would not have been damaged.

Sophia applauds when she sees you.

“Marvelous!” she says. “Oh…you are the very image of a mercenary. The very image. The armor, the hair…perfect, just perfect. If I did not know you were a woman, then my eye, even my eye, would be fooled by your disguise. And I have a very excellent eye, you know.”

Lucan and Ark share a look, and you resist the urge to laugh. If Sophia is a spy, she’s a terrible one.

“Let’s go,” you say, your shadow-cloak rolled into a bundle under your arm, and you lead the way to the catacombs.

The entrance is near the Via Triumphalis, a massive iron grate in a stone wall, secured by an intricate steel lock. Fortunately, you’ve had a great deal of practice picking locks, and you make short work of it. Ark produces lanterns, and you descend into the catacombs. The passageways are wide, with high ceilings, occasionally steams of light descending from wells in the ceiling. There are no bodies in the walls, but hundreds of small niches in the walls, each of them filled with a grinning skull.

“So many skulls,” murmurs Sophia. “Such a…profound impact. The inescapability of death, laid out before our eyes. So very artistic.”

“A plague,” you say. “A few centuries ago. There were so many dead that they burned the bodies and only interred the skulls here.”

“So many dead children,” snarls your mother’s voice, echoing inside your head. “Like the orphans you’ve let in your wake, perhaps…”

You ignore the voice, and the passage opens into a wide domed chamber. Beyond, a stone stairwell descends to Skullyard Court.

“Wait here with Sophia,” you tell Lucan and Ark, tugging the shadow-cloak around your shoulders.

“Surely you’re not going down there alone,” says Lucan.

“Surely I am,” you say. “I can move more quietly than either one of you, and someone needs to keep an eye on Sophia if the Kindred follow us.” Or if Sophia decides to try something.

They’re not happy, but you’re right, and they know it.

“Then good luck,” says Lucan, and he steps forward and gives you a quick kiss.

You blink in surprise. Your mother’s voice starts hissing in your head again, snarling about killing him, while your father’s voice mutters how you’ll kill anyone who ever loves you.

“For luck,” he says. “I understand it’s traditional.”

You smile. “Traditions are important,” you say, and then start creeping down the stairs.

As you leave, you hear Ark’s voice echoing after you. “You are a brave man, sir. I thought she was going to kill you…”

Halfway down you reach up and pull the shadow-cloak’s cowl over your head.

And all at once, the voices in your head vanish.

You stop, astonished, and after a moment pull down the cowl. The voices do not return, and you pull the cowl back up. The shadow-cloak shields your mind from sorcerous attack. Does that mean the voices were not a product of the damage to your memory, but from an active spell?

Disturbing thought.

You keep going and soon enter Skullyard Court, a massive stone fane below the earth, its walls lined with thousands upon thousands of skulls. A few glass globes, enchanted by the Magisterium, throw a pale blue light over the gloomy hall. A wooden table sits in the center of the Court, covered with books and scrolls, and at the table sits a figure wrapped in a hooded gray cloak.

You catch a gleam of yellow eyes beneath the hood, and the hand you see resting on the table is gray, the gray of a man who’s been dead for a few days.

The yellow-eyed man.

You crouch in the doorway and watch him.

He does not move, not even a little.

After a moment, you realize that he’s not even breathing.
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