Page 2 (1/2)

The thin sliver of the consciousness that had once belonged to a man known as Ghost remembered that barn Ghost had seen this body, his body, charred by that wicked Cadderly in that very barn! The evil corpse drew in so where this undead thing was concerned - and dragged his blackened and shriveled body the rest of the way out of the hole The notes of that distant, yet strangely familiar, melody continued to thrum in the back of his feeble consciousness

Unsteadily, Ghost loped more than walked toward the structure, theback more fully with each stride

Ghost had used the Gkearufu, a powerful device with ies directed toward the spirit world, to steal the body of the firbolg Vander, an unwilling associate Disguised as Vander, with the strength of a giant, Ghost had then crushed his own body and had thrown it across the barn

And then Cadderly had burned it The nant monster looked down to his bone-skinny arms and prominent ribs, the hollow shell that somehow lived

Cadderly had burned his body, this body! A single-minded hatred consumed the wretched creature Ghost wanted to kill Cadderly, to kill anybody dear to the young priest, to kill anybody at all

Ghost was at the barn then Thoughts of Cadderly had flitted away into nothingness, replaced by an unfocused anger The door was over to the side, but the creature understood that he did not need the door, that he had beco now blocking his way The shriveled forh the wall

He heard the horse whinnying before he came fully back to thewild-eyed, lathered in sweat The sight pleased thellndead thing; waves of a new sensation of joy washed over Ghost as he smelled the beast’s terror The undead ue drop out of his rily With all the skin burned away fro far below Ghost’s blackened chin The horse htened to move or even to draw breath

With a wheeze of evil anticipation, Ghost put deathly cold hands against the sides of the beast’s face

The horse fell dead

The undead creature hissed with delight, but while Ghost felt thrilled by the kill, he did not feel sated His hunger demanded more, could not be defeated by the death of a siain walked through the wall, cohts within the farmhouse A shadowy shape, a human shape, moved across one of the rooms

Ghost was at the front door, undecided as to whether to walk through the wood, tear the door apart, or simply knock and let the sheep come to the wolf The decision was taken froh, when he looked to the side of the door, to a slass, and saw, for the first tilow emanated froone, replaced by a blacker hole edged by ragged flaps of charred skin

That tiny part of Ghost’s consciousness that reht of that hideous reflection The monster’s unearthly wail sent the barnyard animals into a frenzy and shattered the stillness of the quiet autuhtfroed th far beyond that of any h the center of the door and pulled out to the sides, splintering and tearing the wood as though it were no more than a thin sheet of parch the uniforuardsman and an expression of sheer horror, his ed out so far that they seemed as if they would fall froh the broken door and fell over hied, under the creature’s ghostly touch; his hair turned froe cluuards his arms

helplessly

Ghost ripped at hi screas,

The creature heard a shuffle of feet, looked up fro beyond the foyer, in a doorway at the other side of the house’s sods," this man whispered, and he dove back into the far room and slammed the door

With one hand, Ghost lifted the dead man and hurled him out the shattered portal, halfway across the barnyard The undead creature floated across the floor, savoring the kill, yet hungry for ain, and he walked across the rooh another closed door

The second , swinging his sword frantically at the horrid ht through the insubstantial, ethereal mist the creature had become The man tried to run away, but Ghost kept pace with him, walked past furniture that the h walls to meet the terrified man on the other side of a door

The tor tiht, losing his sword as he tumbled down the porch steps He scraht, ran with all speed for Carradoon, howling all the way

Ghost could have, at any time, re materialized and torn the man apart, but somehow the creature felfthat he enjoyed this sensation, this s Ghost felt stronger for it, as though he had somehow fed off of the horrified man’s emotions and screaone, and the otherdead and offered no ain as the thin sliver of re consciousness considered what he had become, considered retched Cadderly had created Ghost re the highest paid killers in the living realm, a professional assassin, an artist of host, a hollow, aniies

Afterin possession of the Ghearufu, Ghost had come to consider mortal forms in a much different way than others Twice the evil e bodies, killing his previous for the new one as his own And now, somehow, Ghosf s spirit, a piece of it at least, had come back to this plane By some trick of fate, Ghost had risen from the dead

But how? Ghost couldn’t fully remember his place in the afterlife, but sensed that it was not pleasant, not at all I shadows surrounded him; black claws raked the air before his rave, what compelled his spirit to walk the earth once n of the regenerative ring Ghost had once worn But he distinctly re had been stolen by Cadderly

Ghost felt a call on the wind, silent but co eyes up toward the distant ain

The Ghearufu,

Thethe melody from his place of eternal punishment The Ghearufu had called him back By the power of the Ghearufu, Ghost walked the earth onceood thing or not He looked again to his shriveled, gruesoht of day What future awaited Ghost in such a state? What hopes could the undead thing hold?

The silent call caain

The Gheantfyt!

It wanted Ghost back - and by its power, the creature’s spirit could surely steal a new for form

In Carradoon, not so far frouards for his slaughtered coate held any doubts about the man’s sincerity, they needed only to look into his face, a face that appeared much older than the ent ofa priest froate less than an hour later, hell-bent for the farnant spirit Ghost was far gone by then, so across the fields, following the call of the Gkearufit, his one chance for deliverance

Only the cries of the nighttihtened screech of a night owl, erous line

The dawn had long since passed, but the rooht to the s The young priestto disturb Headmistress Pertelope’s sleep If Headate father, then wise Pertelope had been his ht into the har of Deneir, Cadderly felt that he needed Pertelope more than ever For she, too, heard the ; she, too, transcended the normal boundaries of the clerical order If Pertelope had been beside Cadderly in his discussion with Thobicus, then his reasoning would have been bolstered, and the withered dean would have been forced to accept the truth of Cadderly’s insights

But Pertelope could not be with hiht in the throes of a one wild Her body had been trapped in a transformation somewhere between the sed denticles of a shark, and now neither air nor water could satisfy the headmistress’s physical needs

Cadderly stroked her hair, ed He was somewhat surprised when she opened her eyes, which still held their inquisitive luster, and ed a smile in his direction

Cadderly strained to return that look

"You th," he whispered to her

"I need you"

Pertelope sain, and her eyes slowly closed

Cadderly’s sigh was one of helpless resignation He started to turn away froth, but the headmistress unexpectedly spoke to hi with Dean Thobicus?"

Cadderly turned back to her, surprised by the strength in that voice, and surprised also that Pertelope even knew he had met with the dean She had not been out of her room in many days, and on the few occasions Cadderly had co

He should have expected that she would know, though As he considered the revelation, he re of Deneir She and Cadderly were intimately joined by forces far beyond what the other priests of the library could even understand, joined by a co

"It did not go well," Cadderly admitted "Dean Thobicus does not understand," Pertelope reasoned, and Cadderly suspected that the heads with Thobicus and other priests who could not comprehend her special relationship with Deneir

"He questionedKierkan Rufo," Cadderly explained "And he ordered that I hand the Ghearufu" Cadderly paused, wondering how he erous device Pertelope squeezed his hand, though, and smiled, and he knew that she understood

"Dean Thobicus ordered me to turn it over to the library supervisor," Cadderly finished

"You do not approve of that course?"