Chapter 14. The Meeting

endaran,” said a strange woman into his sleeping mind.

Halfway between dream and waking, he mistook the voice for that of a former teacher, Golda Tunnoke.  Shuddering, he rolled over on the hard floor of the public house and groaned.  He had long dreaded running into her again and half-hoped she had died in the Searing.  His memories of her face were vague and nightmarish for he had spent most of his lessons blindfolded and what he had glimpsed of her had been hidden behind a cold steel mask.  She was big on experiential learning and using fear as a motivation.  Pendaran had endured every one of her hexes until he had finally learned to master them himself.

“No more lessons,” he murmured.

“But this is an important one,” the voice insisted.  He woke with a start and pushed the intruder from his mind.  No honorable mesmer would ever pry inside a sleeping mind and now that he as awake, he would show them a thing or two about Golda’s hexes.

Except that as he mentally swept the crowded chamber for an enemy he was greeted only with the dull ticking over of drowsing minds.  To his left he felt the raw mental pain of Uriel and recoiled from it.  There was a contented drunken haze hanging over the strangers sleeping on his right.  Lemony was snoring near his feet and he recognized the pink cloud of her carefree mind and resented it.  And then he sensed the mental interloper, a pinprick of livid blue that flared before his closed eyes, a presence, not a living creature.  Above him.  Over him.

Instinctively he pressed toward it, opening the way for a hex that would prey upon the intruder’s fears and send it reeling away.  But there was nothing.  It was like mentally clawing at polished marble, so cold and smooth he could gain no purchase.  He rolled free of his meager bedding, rising to his knees and clutching his mink cloak against his fully clad frame, shivering as he gazed upon Luitha for the first time.

“Boo,” said Luitha coldly.  Pendaran winced, his mouth dry and his blood fleeing at the sight of her.

“Wh…what do you want?” he stammered, inching backwards and gratified when she remained floating above his pack. Pendaran flung himself face downward on his blankets in a pathetic attempt to hide from the avenging spirit. 

“It is time to talk,” she replied, “Look at me, worm, at least show me some courtesy.”

His mind raced, trying to recall if he had ever stolen anything from a tomb or mausoleum.  He certainly did not recognize the woman, although in truth he remembered rather less of some people’s faces and rather more of their bodies.  And he was almost certain he had never bedded a ghost.  At her request, however, he forced himself to sit up and kneel before her even though the cold of Grenth’s domain emanated from her eldritch form and caused him to tremble.

“I’m listening,” he croaked.

“Look upon me as a mesmer,” she demanded, “not as a petty thief.”

He swallowed around the lump of terror that now resided in his throat.  Focus.  He had to focus.  Put aside fear.  He raised his face to lock eyes with her and felt…  sadness, unending centuries of sadness.  Despair.  So deep he teetered at the edge of its abyss and pulled away as if he had been burned.  Loneliness.  Again his body quaked as his mind recoiled and he gasped in anguish as her anguish melded with his own accumulated reserves. 

“…to exist while all around you dies…”

“Look at me, worm, and continue,” the ghost commanded as he let his gaze slip.  Panting now as cold sweat erupted from his flesh, he did as she asked, moving deeper into her psyche.  Exhaustion.  The long grind of centuries.  Anger.  Betrayal.  Such grief, unending grief that had no succor.  He broke eye contact and collapsed at her feet.  Merciful Lyssa, he could endure no more.

“…what is the point of living now… all dead…”

“I belong to you now.  And you belong to me.”

“…stop… I can’t endure this heartache… too much….”

“No,” he moaned, aware that the ale and stew he had enjoyed earlier no longer wished to stay in his stomach.  What had he ever done to deserve this?  He staggered toward the door and rushed outside, the cold winds of the pass blasting him as he plunged to his knees.  His vomit turned to ice and shattered as it hit the ground.  He gulped the freezing air until his lungs seized in pain.  Sweet physical pain.  His mind was empty at last.  The bitter cold would claim him. 

The ghost shrieked at him to go inside as he heaved and grew calm, his body trembling with cold.

“Come on,” said Lemony, grasping him under his armpits.

“No, let me die,” he pleaded in a low agonized rasp.

“That’ll be enough of that,” the monk said severely, hauling him through the door.  She was deceptively strong for such a small woman, “Let Grenth decide the hour of your passage.  The gods get mad if you don’t.”

“I don’t care,” he hissed, laying on the flagstones now as she slammed the heavy door against the wind and latched it.

“Right now you don’t,” Lemony replied, pushing her healing energies into his body until his breath came easily again, “So I’m caring until you do.”

She reached inside her shoulder pouch and pulled out a metal flask.

“Drink,” she said, thrusting it into his shaking hands, “Three swallows at least.”

Pendaran shuddered as the bitter concoction burned a trail down his throat.  He did as she asked, knowing full well she would not leave him alone until he obeyed her. 

“Your order makes awful whiskey,” he coughed, handing the flask back to her.  His formerly rebellious stomach was oddly soothed by the harsh tasting drink and its warmth spread quickly back into his numb limbs.

 “Do I look like I live in a monastery?” she mused, “That’s prime dwarven fire water.  I won it over a game of knucklebones last night.”

“They probably gave it to you so you’d stop singing,” he groaned, discovering that he could stand once more.

Lemony laughed.

“See? That’s why I’m not in a monastic order.”

Now he laughed for Lemony had to be one of the most ridiculous monks he had ever met.  She yawned expansively before turning toward the common room.

“Next time Luitha troubles you, keep it down,” she muttered.

“Luitha?” he called to her back.  Lemony ignored him and curled up inside her untidy nest near the foot of his bedding.  Uriel had awakened and was watching him blearily from her own mounded blankets.  At his glance she rolled over and showed him her back. He regretted that he had been such a boor and that she would not lie with him.  A little lovemaking would have been nice right about now to help him forget.

“That’s all it is to you,” the ghost said harshly, “It’s never about love, it’s just about forgetting.  Why do you even call it lovemaking?”

“Get out of my mind!” he shrieked, and to his chagrin, an assortment of boots, mugs, and hats pounded him as the other guests grew weary of his stirrings.  He winced as they variously cursed at him and admonished him to shut up.  Daring to emerge from his cocoon, he saw the ghostly woman floating at the head of his bed yet again, unfazed and unseen by all around her.

“I can read your thoughts,” she said wordlessly, her pale form shimmering with irritation, “No need to wake everyone else up.”

“Go away,” he thought angrily.

“For now,” she replied, “but I’ll be watching you.”

He swore at her as she faded from view.