Chapter 9: Ghosts

He looked down saw a silver cat looking up at him from the roots of the tree. It turned its head quizzically. Jarlath reached out to pat its head, but it scampered off into the shadows.

His fellow Champions were still there in the woods. Annafrid walked up to him and hugged him gently. "Hello, love," she said. Jarlath smiled silently and rested his head on her.

"Here ya go," said Andrea. She handed him a makeshift eyepatch from her adventurer's kit--a set of trinkets that might be useful ove the course of an adventure, including cloth, string and hairpins. Unfortunately, Vincent hadn't finished working on synthesizing the unique dimensional properties of the Doctor's coat to create pouches of infinite capacity. "Now you can be a pirate."

"Yarr," said Jarlath, without a lot of conviction.

"So... Anybody got a plan? Cause we sure could use one," said Andrea.

"I am going to speak to my brother," said Jarlath.

"Yeah, aren't you worried you'll creep him out?" said Andrea. "I mean, you do kinda do that sometimes."

"Perhaps," said Jarlath. "But I know him well--if he's anything like my Fred or the others we know." This was always a gamble. Traveling to an unfamiliar world was dangerous, but traveling to one that was almost, but not quite, like one you knew was worse. "I know what would convince him."

"And hopefully Astra is holding her own too," said Annafrid. She looked into Jarlath's eye, and sighed: "This isn't how you were hoping to spend the honeymoon, I'll bet."

"No. Though this is hardly the place for that." He did his best to put on a playful smirk,

"And it doesn't feel the same without Astra," answered Annafrid. Jarlath chuckled. He could tell what was going on between them, even if they couldn't, just as it had the others had with him and Astra. He hoped it would work out--they meshed so well together. There was an awful doubt in the back of his mind, though--if they had each other, would they need him anymore? His finger reached up to scratch the itch where his eye had been.

"Wait here," said Jarlath. "I will return." Andrea growled at the order, but made no move. "Good luck," said Annafrid, bending down and kissing him on the cheek one last time.

After waving goodbye to his wife, Jarlath cast a simple cloaking spell around himself, one he'd used many times in the old days, though he spuspected anyone who looked closely enough could see his blurry outline. Each world's magic had its own unique rhythm, and he wasn't quite used to this one--that was part of why the fight had gone as badly as it did. And there was something wrong with this world's magic-- there was a destructive power in the air, like a storm about to break. He could feel it pressing down on him. He made his way to the Keep of Hindsight, and no one saw him stumble along the way, still adjusting to the loss of his eye.

He knew that Fred would be staying in the west tower. He closed his eye and climbed up the wall, with an art well practiced from his days as a wandering beggar. When he reached the window, he opened it and saw his brother on his knees holding a rune-engraved sword [6125]; it hummed with magical power. Fred was trying to say prayers but no words passed his lips.

Jarlath dropped the cloaking spell. "Hail and well met, Lord Frederigo D'Honaire," he said. Fred, startled from his reverie, looked up at his brother. He'd be seeing the image of a man who--given the pattern of things across worlds--was very likely to be dead. For someone like Jarlath, who'd spent ten years of his life on Terra, it could be easy to forget how strange it was to see someone who looked just like you or someone you knew.

"You--what are you?" He raised his sword to strike at Jarlath, but hesitated. "Are you my brother?"

"I am a messenger of the heavens," said Jarlath, which was true enough, as well as useful. There were stories across many worlds of gods or angels taking human form to test the hospitality of the faithful. "We have received ill welcome here, but it is not too late for you to aid us." It occurred to Jarlath that the fact he had one eye was in his favor--many of the Freds' worlds had one-eyed gods of wisdom who wandered the earth in disguise.

"You're one of those strangers."

"Remember, the stranger, aye, and even the enemy that you help today may be the friend that saves you tomorrow." This was one of his father's favorite sayings. [5733] Though Jarlath's father was Charles and not, as was likely the case on this world, Drederick, this had the desired effect, as Fred staggered back.

"Are you then the rider I saw in the woods of the Goth? Or the beggar that spoke to my sister and me upon the Tumbar Road? [8797]"

"There are many messengers abroad in these days," said Jarlath. "Some bear truth and some bear lies." The old enigmatic wizard act fit him like a well-worn shoe. It should have worried him how easy it was to get back into it.

"Rowena..." Fred whispered, lost to memory, and he raised his sword. A mist began to seep into the room. "Why did you kill my sister?"

"We did not," rasped Jarlath. "The men of this keep did, and they shall pay dearly for their sins in time. But there will be far more who die if we do not act soon. The magic of this world is warped and cracked, and only we may repair it."

Fred watched him, fear and hope battling within him--dare he hope to regain a brother after losing a sister? "I--the woman. The one who was with you. Is she Astra? Is she truly alive?"

Jarlath shook his head. "She wears the form of Astra, but she is not your Astra." Then a vision came to him--a woman alone in a cave, watched over by dwarves. "But your Astra yet lives, and we may yet save her if we act in time."

Fred looked at the reflection of his own face in the sword. "She lives... Then so be it. Be you heavenly messenger or damned Naebolg-wight, if there is even a chance you can save Astra, I will follow you."

So they'd save this world, and Astra 9, and perhaps this Astra too. If only they could have saved Rowena. He still felt she could be alive--he'd seen her body trampled by the horses, but stranger things had happened. He'd been sure she was alive earlier [73232], but couldn't remember why. He had sent out his sight as best he could to find her, but there was nothing. Either she was dead, or she was somewhere beyond the reach of his sight...

Demetria Croix rode up to the ruins of Ligeia Keep. This was where the family of Croix had once made their home, before Lord Simon and his disastrous error. The curse still hung over the castle over all these years, though it had faded, and things that should have been dead or never alive in the first place still walked this land. But she had to venture here to save her daughter's life from something even more terrible. For Andrea had fallen into Naebolg.

Through the crumbling wall, she saw two other women. One was dark-haired and buxom, dressed in the gaudy costume of a dancing girl. The other she recognized--it was Rowena, daughter of the house D'Honaire, who were old allies of her family. She'd been one of Andrea's dearest friends [42154]. Seeing her here was strangely heartening--but something was wrong.

The moonlight shone through their transparent forms. They were ghosts...

1. Meanwhile, Astra 9 was being interrogated by Oyael of the White Hand.

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