Michael J. Sullivan

Royce had heard many bizarre tales over the years. Most he didn’t believe, but he’d actually seen a few things that made him wonder. He’d watched a four-day-old corpse sit partway up, burp, and then lie back down. And he’d watched a dead man shaking his head, although that turned out to be a rat rolling around inside an emptied skull. He had personally witnessed the fight on top of the Crown Tower and couldn’t understand why there hadn’t been any bodies at the bottom afterward. That last one still haunted him. But, if he were really talking with a three-thousand-year-old dead elf, this bizarre conversation took first place.

“Who’d you kill?”

“It doesn’t matter. I was young and foolish and oh, so arrogant. When I died, I was alone—a face pressed up against a window looking in at the world I used to know but couldn’t touch. I didn’t know about entering bodies then and could only watch helplessly as the people I used to know made terrible decisions. The person I cared the most about was another Fhrey, who, like me, also broke our sacred law. I wanted to be with him when he died, but once separated, I couldn’t find him. I looked everywhere. Then…well…I just kept heading west until I came to the land’s end, to this place, and here I stopped.”

“Nice place.”

“Yes, until the humans came. I tried to keep them out. Can’t do much without a body, but if I try really hard, I can make things move. I even possessed a few dead animals. Got a raccoon once. They have fingers, you know? Hands make all the difference and soon these will be too stiff to be of use. With hands I’m able to—” She stopped, refusing to look at him.

Said more than she wanted to. More than it wanted to, he corrected. This isn’t Nysa.

He was having trouble remembering that and had to remind himself that if he touched her skin it would be like ice.

“So you were Dul the Ghast’s nature spirit,” Royce said.

“Ugly, ugly man. Sunken eyes, looked just like a skeleton. I don’t know why I did it. I was lonely, I guess. He was up on top of this mountain crying and begging for help. They were starving to death, you see. Dul’s son and daughter had died, and his wife was sick. The whole lot of them wouldn’t have survived another month, so he climbed up and begged for help. I like it up here, nice view. I sat on top of the mountain often and was watching the sunset when Dul came up bawling and wailing. I’d started to leave when I heard him say, I know you’re there. I know you can hear me. Please help us. At that time, no one had spoken to me for centuries, but here this creepy little man was talking right to me. I don’t think I can explain how that felt—to be acknowledged after so long—to have someone recognize that you exist when even you had started to doubt.