Severed Souls Read online

  Gerald had ventured to Saavedra once, when he was younger, but on the advice of those who knew the place he had made sure to stay well clear of the citadel. Those same people whispered frightening descriptions of Bishop Hannis Arc. There was nothing to be gained from tempting trouble, so he had heeded the advice.

  He never found any work in Saavedra, but he had found a wife there. Being from a poor family with parents who could not adequately feed their children, she had cared more about having enough to eat than his occupation. Since it earned a living, she married him and they returned to Insley, and he to tending the graveyard in order to put food on the table.

  She had long ago died when she had been with her first child. It seemed a lifetime ago. He never had another wife.

  As he watched into the distance, watched all the people coming his way, Gerald had the decidedly uneasy feeling that it could be nothing other than trouble. He gave thought to running, but he was too old to run for far.

  Besides, it was a crazy worry. What could they want with him? An old gravedigger was hardly worth ransom. He had nothing of value, really. The only thing he had of any worth at all were a few tools and a rickety handcart that reeked of the dead, so unless they wanted to haul corpses and dig them graves, his possessions weren’t worth much to anyone but him.

  As he watched the vast numbers of figures spread out in the distance, his curiosity kept him rooted in place. Besides, where would he hide? The woods? There were things to fear in the woods that were likely worse than a lot of people passing through Insley.

  The strangest thing, other than what looked like numbers in the thousands, was that the figures all appeared to be dressed in white. He assumed that, strange as it seemed, they must all be wearing white robes. As they got closer, and he squinted enough, he saw that he was wrong, they weren’t wearing robes. Most didn’t look to be wearing shirts or pants, either. They appeared not to be wearing much at all.

  Their bodies, arms, and legs—even their heads—were a chalky whitish color, as if they had rubbed ash all over themselves. He had never seen such people in all his life. He couldn’t imagine the purpose of rubbing white ash on themselves.

  In the center, though, in the lead, were several darker figures. The contrast against the flood of pale figures behind them was striking and made them stand out all the more.

  The dirty haze that Gerald had seen at first seemed to be something that enveloped the throng, as if it were being dragged along with them, or created by them. As they got closer it was an ominous-looking murk, an atmosphere of threat, oddly enough like they were inside their own dreary day and bringing it along with them.

  Strange greenish luminescence crackled from time to time within that gloomy murk.

  Gerald reconsidered his decision not to run. He wanted to run, or at least walk away and maybe go visit the woods for a spell until all the people had gone on their way, but since the darker figures at the center were headed right toward him, he instinctively knew that running would be the wrong thing to do.

  Running from a predator provoked them to chase.

  Only then, with that thought, did he realize that he knew these were predators.

  He decided that his best bet was to keep his wits about him, appear friendly, and maybe offer the approaching strangers any information they might want. He was obviously no threat to them, so his best chance was to be helpful and let them be on their way.

  He knew well enough that folks kept you around if you were useful. Despite his having no real friends, and no one in Insley particularly holding any favor with him, they tolerated him with a brief smile and a passing nod because he was useful. He had survived a long time simply by being useful with onerous tasks.

  He became more alarmed, though, when he saw that the darker figures at the lead were going to come marching with all those following them right across his carefully tended garden of the dead.

  He could see that one of the darker figures had what looked like a faint, glowing, bluish green light about him—as if he were half man, half spirit. Beside him was a figure that was darker yet. That one wore heavy, black robes. From what Gerald could see of his hands and face, the man’s flesh appeared dark with tattoos of some sort. Following behind him was another person all in red. He knew well enough what that had to be.

  Gerald swallowed when he saw that the eyes of the man in the dark robes were fixed on him, and those eyes were red.

  As he strode at a steady, easy pace, the spirit man walked with his arms down, his palms out. It appeared that he was the source of the dark haze, that it was being pulled along by the man’s hands. It was like he was dragging the grim murk along behind him the way a boat dragged a wake along with it.

  Gerald couldn’t imagine what he was, other than one of the rumored beings from out of the darkest depths of the woods.

  Against all common sense, Gerald finally decided to run. But as much as he intended it, his feet seemed rooted in place as both dark figures continued walking right toward him. He didn’t know if it was something they were doing to him, some kind of magic, or if he was simply frozen in fright. Either way, he was unable to move and had no choice but to stay right where he was as he watched them coming.

  As the darker figures entered the far side of his carefully groomed graveyard, with the mass of whitewashed figures dutifully following behind, Gerald could see the ground near them begin to move. It didn’t appear to be the feet of the strangers causing the mud and clumps of grasses to shake and shiver. It appeared to be moving of its own accord.

  It was then that he realized that it was not the ground in general that was moving. It was only the ground over the graves that was joggling, as if the dead beneath were agitated and pushing up at the soil from below.

  All across the graveyard, as the dark haze dragged by the spirit man passed across the ground, the dirt over a number of the newer graves it touched began to heave and quake all the more.

  Gerald looked up from staring at the incomprehensible sight and found himself looking right into the eyes of the two men who had by then stopped not far away from him. He didn’t know which man looked more terrifying.

  One of the two appeared to be a cadaver dressed in garments covered with dark stains that looked to be dried blood. Gerald had seen enough bloodstained clothes on corpses, but he had never had one of those corpses appear to be alive.

  More frightening even than that, the cadaverous man had a bluish glow to him. To Gerald, it looked like nothing so much as a spirit in the same place as the corpse. At least a spirit as had been described to him—he had never actually seen a spirit himself. Until now.

  Together, body and spirit, there was no doubt that the man was somehow alive and aware of everything about him. He looked out at the world both with the glowing eyes of the spirit and the eyes of the corpse beneath it. As cadaverous as the man’s body looked, there was no doubt that he was looking, seeing, and comprehending.

  Gerald did not think for one moment that this was a good spirit.

  There was no doubt that the other man, the one with the red eyes and black robes, was living flesh and blood. His flesh, though, rather than being dried and dead, was covered with tattoos of strange occult designs. They were beyond counting. Every inch of the man, every speck of skin, was covered in the dark designs.

  For years, Gerald had heard the whispered descriptions. He knew without a doubt who this man had to be.

  Behind him stood a tall woman with blond hair pulled back in a single braid. Although he had never seen one before, he knew by her hair, her tight red leather outfit, and the cold look in her icy blue eyes that she could be none other than one of the notorious Mord-Sith.

  Behind the three, the sea of the nearly naked figures, their flesh smeared with ash or whitewash of some sort to make them look intimidating and frighteningly like ghost men, had come to a halt and now stood with grim expressions, watching from black painted eye sockets.

  “I am Lord Arc,” the man in the dark robes sai
d. When he held a tattooed hand out to the side, Gerald could see that even the palm was tattooed. “This is the spirit king, Emperor Sulachan.”

  Gerald had never heard of Emperor Sulachan.

  “What is it you want?” he heard himself ask.

  The spirit king’s thin lips widened with the slightest hint of a smile. “We have come for your dead.”

  The sound of his voice sent pain tingling along Gerald’s flesh.

  CHAPTER

  7

  “My dead?” Gerald asked.

  The spirit king’s thin smile grew wider and his eyes more dangerous. “Yes, your dead. We have use of them. They are to become our dead.”

  With that, he lifted his arms. Far and near the muddy dirt a number of the graves began to churn almost as if it were a thick stew coming to a boil.

  At the same time, the bluish, spiritlike glow of the spirit king changed to a disturbing greenish luminescence.

  Gerald then saw an arm here and there push up through the ground. Hands of the dead beneath that ground wriggled and threw dirt aside. Feet emerged and kicked at the imprisoning soil.

  The dead were escaping their graves.

  The dirt churned and pitched in agitation, as if unwilling, or unable, to contain what was below. The whitish figures stood out of the way of the corpses twisting and pulling themselves up from the ground. It was as horrifying a sight as Gerald had ever seen, much less imagined.

  Some of the corpses beginning to emerge were dark and desiccated. Their joints popped and snapped and cracked as they ripped at the shrouds cocooning them, tearing them away. Beneath the shrouds, the remnants of clothes had been stained with decay and then as the bodies dried and shriveled, the clothes bonded to the hardening flesh so that they were almost one.

  Other bodies were slimy and bloated with decay, their clothes soaked through from the ooze coming from the breaks in their flesh. Their wet shrouds came apart like wet paper. In their struggle to pull themselves up through the ground, moldering flesh snagged and tore. Great wet chunks were pulled off them, leaving bones exposed.

  Through splits in the flesh of some, Gerald could see gooey masses of maggots writhing beneath the blackened skin. Others of the dead were little more than skeletons with scraps and bits of sinew, flesh, and remnants of clothes holding most of the bones together. Some were so decayed that the effort of trying to emerge from the ground was too much and what was left of their bones crumbled in the attempt. Other graves were resting places where any traces left of the dead were beyond rising.

  But a great many were sufficiently intact to emerge through the muddy ground. Many of those growled in anger at the ground trying to hold them back. They snarled with menace as they tore themselves away from the confinement of their graves, their eyes all glowing red. Gerald could only imagine that such a sinister crimson glow was the mark of an inner fire of occult powers animating them.

  He stood frozen in fright as he watched the dead—the dead he had put to rest in the ground—leave their eternal rest and come back out of the ground. He recognized many of them, some by their faces, some by their clothes—remembered who they had been in life, anyway. Many were decomposed and decayed beyond recognition, so he didn’t know who they had once been.

  Now they were something else other than what they once had been. Now, they were the dead husks of departed spirits. Those husks were now somehow returning to the world of life. Gerald didn’t think, though, that their spirits were returning as well. These seemed to be spiritless bodies driven by magic, not the power of the Grace and Creation.

  For a moment, he thought that perhaps he had passed away and maybe he was actually dead, and he was at last seeing the mysteries of the underworld revealing themselves to him.

  It was a fleeting thought, banished by the stench of the dead. He was all too alive. At least for the moment.

  As the newly escaped corpses rose up they stood among the chalky figures, waiting along with them, staring with those terrible, glowing red eyes as the last of the dead were finally liberated from their graves. He noticed then that the dark painted eyes of the chalky figures resembled some of the dead, those who were little more than skeletal remains with their big dark eye sockets in their skulls, except the dead had a red glow back in those dark recesses.

  “Lead the way,” Lord Arc said at last once the ground had stopped moving and all the corpses who could had emerged.

  That’s who the man had said he was—Lord Arc. Gerald had never heard him called “Lord Arc” before. He had always heard that the leader of Fajin Province was “Bishop Hannis Arc.” It couldn’t be anyone else. It had to be the same man.

  As frightened as Gerald was, he was not about to question the change of title. “The way, Lord Arc?” he asked. “What do you mean?”

  “Why, the way to Insley, of course,” Lord Arc said. “I have yet to visit the place. Seeing as it is one of the towns in my empire, I thought it fitting that I visit it.”

  Gerald blinked. “Your empire, Lord Arc?”

  The man lifted an arm toward the southwest. “Yes. The D’Haran Empire. I am assuming rule of the D’Haran Empire.”

  Gerald had heard some of the young men who had returned from the fighting talking about some of their experiences. They had said that since the terrible war with the Old World had ended and the world was now at peace, Richard Rahl was now the Lord Rahl ruling D’Hara. As far as Gerald knew, a Lord Rahl had always ruled D’Hara.

  He swallowed, averting his eyes from the man. It was difficult for Gerald to look at the menacing tattooed occult designs covering his face and scalp, but more than that, it was unnerving to look into those terrible bloodred eyes.

  “I deeply apologize for my ignorance, Lord Arc. I am but a humble gravedigger for a little town that is quite removed from the rest of D’Hara and we infrequently receive news here. I had always heard that Lord Rahl, Richard Rahl who led us in the war, was the leader of the D’Haran Empire.”

  Lord Arc smiled indulgently. “Yes, that was once true, but the House of Rahl no longer rules D’Hara, or anything else for that matter. His flesh has no doubt already been eaten off his bones by some of the Emperor Sulachan’s half people.”

  Gerald blinked in confusion. “Half people?”

  “The Shun-tuk warriors.” A tattooed hand swept around at the chalky figures. “The half people. Ones without souls. Now, lead on, gravedigger, or you will serve us as one of the army of the dead.”

  Gerald had never heard of Shun-tuk or half people. He held an arm out, pointing. It took great effort to summon his voice as all the eyes stared at him.

  “Insley is right up the road, Lord Arc. There is no road but this one, and no other town but Insley. It’s not far at all. It lies just beyond a few bends in the road among the oak grove up ahead. You will have no trouble at all finding the humble town of Insley. I am sure the people of Insley will … welcome their new ruler’s visit.”

  Lord Arc’s disturbing smile returned. The spirit king didn’t share in the smile, nor did the Mord-Sith or any of the sea of grim, chalky faces watching him. The awakened dead glared with glowing red eyes.

  “I don’t think they will be all that happy to see us.”

  Gerald was sure of the truth of that. He turned to look in the direction of town, wanting more than anything to be free of Lord Arc and all his people, to say nothing of the newly awakened dead. “But it’s right up the road—a short walk. You don’t really need me in order to find the place.”

  Gerald wished there was something he could do to warn the people of Insley. He wanted to tell them to flee. But there was nothing he could do.

  “We don’t need you in order to find the place,” Lord Arc said with exaggerated patience. “Nor did I ask where it was, now did I? I asked you to lead us there.”

  “For what purpose?” Gerald asked, his fear of being with this nightmare collection of people and unholy monsters overriding his typical sense of caution.

  The spirit king, rather than L
ord Arc, spoke up. “We need you to bear witness,” he said in a voice that burned painfully against Gerald’s skin. It almost felt as if the hairs on his arm would be burned off.

  “Bear witness?”

  “Yes,” Lord Arc said, “bear witness so that others, in other places, will know what will happen to them should they not bow down and welcome their new ruler and the new era he brings to the world of life. We are giving you the opportunity to help all those people. You are to be a messenger, bearing witness to what has happened here so they will have the chance to avoid the same fate.”

  Gerald swallowed. He could feel his knees trembling. “What is to happen here?”

  Lord Arc spread his hands. “Why, the people of Insley failed to welcome me as their new ruler. That is an intolerable offense.”

  Gerald took a step forward. “Then please, Lord Arc, allow me to run ahead and tell them. Let me announce you. I know they will bow down and welcome you. Let me show you.”

  “Enough of this,” the spirit king said in a low growl.

  He casually pointed at the pickax still gripped in Gerald’s fist at the end of his hanging arm. The handle grew hot and crisped to black. In a heartbeat it checkered into shriveling charcoal before turning to ash that crumbled away from Gerald’s hand like dust going through his fingers. When it did, the heavy steel pickax head thumped down onto the ground and flopped over on its side.

  Gerald stared in disbelief as, in mere seconds, the entire steel pickax rusted to crumbling, reddish fragments.

  All that was left on the ground at Gerald’s side was an ashen black stain that had been the wooden handle and unrecognizable reddish fragments that moments before had been the steel head of the pickax.

  Lord Arc lifted a slender, tattooed finger, pointing it down the road as he cocked his head, staring at Gerald.