IT WAS A DARK NIGHT—not a stormy night, not at all—but very dark, and that was good for ghosts. To be more explicit, it was a good night for seeing ghosts. Ghostly ectoplasm has a faint luminescence about it, so the darker the night, the easier it is to see a ghost. In theory you should be able to see them during the daytime if you are in a totally dark room, but for some reason this never happens. Nonetheless, a deep, dark, non-stormy night is quite an advantage if you want to find ghosts, and even better if you want to see them and avoid them. How the ghosts feel about this is not known.
The castle itself was rather new as castles go, having been completed only a generation earlier, but it had a traditional design, with square walls and towers. Most of the other castles being built at that time had round towers, which gave their archers overlapping fields of fire, and round walls, which were less susceptible to collapse from tunneling. Damask Castle was built on a mountain of rock, though. No one was going to tunnel under its walls. And square rooms are so much easier to live in. The furniture fits better.
There was no drawbridge. There was no moat. Neither Damask Castle, nor the city that surrounded it, nor the cultivated plains that lay beneath the mountain fortress, had water to spare.
None of this mattered to the guards patrolling the parapets of Damask Castle. The castle was parapet intensive. There was no good reason for this. The architect just liked parapets. At the time the castle was built parapets were the hot thing in castle architecture. They ran all along the outer walls, the inner walls, the ramparts, rooflines, the towers, and the citadel. They took a lot of patrolling.
“You have to wait until it gets really dark,” one of the guards told Oratorio. “That’s when he really stands out. Otherwise you’ll walk right past him. Even a bit of moonlight will wash him out.” The guard’s teeth chattered a little, but that could have been the cold. The wind was bitter, and the temperature dropped quickly in the dark reaches of the night.
Oratorio looked up. On the horizon a few stars could be seen, but overhead thick clouds made the sky impenetrable. And the moon would not rise for several hours.
“It’s the King,” said the other guard.
“The ghost of the King,” corrected the first.
“Don’t be nitpicky, Turic. He knows what I mean.”
“Rod, how did you know it was the King?” said Oratorio.
“It looked like the King.”
“You saw its face, then?”
The two guards looked at each other. “No, not really,” said Turic. “But it had the image of the King.”
“What image was that, exactly?”
“It was carrying a bottle of cheap rotgut.”
“Ah,” said Oratorio. That did rather point to the King. Oratorio was a knight, however, and he felt he had to show some logic and leadership to the two guards. “We don’t want to jump to conclusions, though. The King died just this week, a ghost appears, naturally the tendency is to assume…”
“It was a bottle of Old Duodenum,” said Rod. “We could see the label.”
“That’s his favorite brand, all right,” Oratorio conceded.
“Aye, and it was like no other spirit I’ve seen. The look of it, a horrible putrid yellow. And a rank smell.”
“The ghost?”
“The liquid in the bottle.”
“Yeah, that’s Old Duodenum. Some batches are like that. The quality control isn’t really great. Well, boys.” He clapped a hand on each of their shoulders. “As the ranking guard on duty tonight, it is up to me to confront this apparition. If the King—may he rest in peace—has sent back his shade, I can only surmise that he has something important to say to us.”
“Good thinking,” said Rod.
“I concur,” said Turic. “You’re just the man for the job, Oratorio. Although, of course, we’ll be right behind you. And indeed, it probably is the King and not some demon from Hell that has taken on the appearance of the King in order to trap you.”
“Say what?” said Oratorio.
“‘Tis not at all unlikely,” said Rod. “It takes a brave man to confront an apparition of this sort. Remember that haunting at Lockhaven Manor? The drowned little boy, and his appearance, and the sad weeping from the boathouse? Aye, but of those who ventured inside, the poor lad to comfort, came out none of them again, but their gruesome remains were collected at daybreak and buried in very small caskets.”
“‘The poor lad to comfort?’” repeated Oratorio. “‘Came out again none?’ Why are you talking backward?”
“Ghost stories sound better in archaic language.”
“He’s right,” said Turic. “Not about talking backward, but about apparitions. Tricky devilish things, and not above taking on the appearance of a loved one to lure the unwary. We all know it happens—sailors who are lured overboard by the appearance of a ghostly maiden, or mothers who follow their spectral child into the graveyard, and in the morning their drained or decapitated bodies are found, the features twisted into expressions of utmost horror, mute testimony to the terrible…”
“Yes, yes, all right!” said Oratorio. “You don’t have to go on about it.”
“There!” said Rod.
It was faint, but they all saw it, the dim white glow, rippling like moonlight reflected on a puddle. It was at the far end of the parapet, moving at the speed of a sedate walk, and it passed behind a wall only moments after they first saw it.
“Same as last night,” said Turic. “It’s taking the outside stairs up the south tower. Are you going after it?”
“Of course,” said Oratorio. “I said I would confront the apparition, didn’t I?”
“You’re not moving.”
“Well, I didn’t say I would do so right this very minute. A good soldier does a reconnaissance first. He collects information. He studies the situation. I should probably come back for a few more nights before I make my move, to see if I can pick up a pattern of behavior.”
“He’s over there,” said Turic. “That’s his pattern of behavior.”
“He’s going up the tower again.”
“All right then.” Oratorio raised his lantern, so he could see along the parapet, and made his way quietly to the bottom of the tower stairs. As with the other towers, the stairs were wide enough for only one man and rose along the outside wall in a clockwise direction, which gave a defender above more room to swing his sword, while limiting the movement of an attacker from below. The candlelight gleamed on the dark stone. The steps rose above his head and disappeared into the black night. “We don’t want to go charging up these steps in darkness,” he whispered. “We’re liable to miss one and plummet to our deaths. That may be exactly what it is luring us to do. But using the lantern will reduce our night vision, and we won’t be able to see it. So this is the plan.
“I’ll go first, leading the way with the lantern. You two will follow close behind, but my body will shadow most of the light from your eyes. So you should still be able to see it when we reach the top. If it’s there, draw your swords and try to corner it. Ready?”
He glanced back over his shoulder, frowned, then marched back to the blockhouse. “You said you’d be right behind me!”
“Well, right behind you is a rather nebulous term,” said Turic.
“Right,” said Rod. “I mean, who’s to say just how far behind is right behind? I think it’s entirely possible that a fellow could be right behind another fellow and still be a pretty fair distance off.”
“Exactly.”
“Shut up!” said Oratorio. “Get out your swords. We’re going to charge up those stairs. I’ll lead the way. You’re going to be behind me, right behind me, which means if I get atop that tower and you’re not there with me, you’re going to be joining that demon in Hell. Is that clear?”
He raised his lantern so he could see them nod. He nodded curtly back, turned away, and held his lantern close to his chest. When he judged they had regained some of their night vision, he said, “Let’s go!” and took off briskly down the parapet. At the stairs he hesitated only long enough to make sure he heard the clump of their boots behind him, then trotted up as quickly as he dared in the dim light. For the final corner he quickened his pace, and leaped onto the roof with his sword thrust out in front of him. Nothing attacked. He stepped quickly to the side, out of the way of the two men following, who also reached the roof with swords at forward guard. Oratorio shut his lantern, and all three men looked around for the ghost.
It was easy to spot. There was a dim white glow in the middle of the roof, flat against the stone. Moving closer, the men could make out the faint figure of a man, lying on its side, clutching a bottle. Its hair and beard were matted with sweat, and a thin line of ectoplasmic drool ran down one side of its jaw. Its eyes were closed. They fell silent, listening carefully. Above the background of chill wind they could hear, rising and falling, the unmistakable sound of a drunken snore.
“Oh yeah,” said Turic in disgust. “No doubt about it. That’s the King, all right.”