Barnaby the Wanderer

Chapter 28: Where Parallel Lines Meet

Dark Michael

Hear then, a dark truth: ghosts fear death more than do the living. Beyond the gate of Life waits a long and perilous road. The innocent mortal fears the mere crossing of the gate. Ah, but once passed on, eyes now open to eternity, a soul gazes down all the road beyond that gate; and trembles.

In life I was not a kindly man. Nor yet unkind, excepting to myself. Excepting to myself. I worked hard, living harsh. I believed in duty. To Demetia, to my king and fellow soldiers. To the House of Saints, I suppose. Though I thought little of that grand construction in life.

The witch spawn and I labored to gather companions for the boy. Folk that would keep him alive on his noble fool's quest. It proved absurdly easy. Hard not to imagine that as we worked in shadow, we in our turn were guided from yet deeper shadows.

A strange group, these gathered Benefactors. Lonely sorts, of the kind that talk to themselves as much as to another. The Silenian excepted. She seems so entirely sound of mind that one must wonder, was she the maddest of them all.

She sat on a bench in the steam wagon depot of Salmoneus. Grinning to watch the boy-rogue pace up and down, looking from the clock to the grand entrance of the station. Arguing with his own inner ghost, waiting for the rest of his band to show; else the gendarmes of Hefestia.

I found myself sitting beside her. Recalling for a second the memory of hard benches. Splinters in the ass, aches in the feet, the back of one's head uncomfortably pressing against brick. Ears drumming with the echoes of the depot hall, the hiss of the steam engine, the clatter and chatter of travelers.

The recollection faded, leaving me to sigh. At which sound the Silenian's sharp ears twitched; her slotted eyes turned upon me. As always, she acted as though it were a grand pleasure to behold my glowering shadow.

"Well, hello, Mister Deceased Soldierly Person."

Hard not to smile at such welcome.

"Miss Silenian."

"And how do you fare this fine day wherein we gird our souls to travel by magic mechanical teakettle upon flame?"

I contemplated the question and the questioner. The creature was no fool. No, she chattered pretty nonsense to put others at ease. A clever strategy when one differs from the norm by shape of foot, ear and eye. Doubly so when one is a pretty female serving tables in taverns.

"I have ridden in Hefestian steam wagons," I shared. "They require no special girding of soul."

"Oh, have you now? Is it like riding in a box carriage? Did that very thing once outside Pomona. Till the driver got frisky, the way they will do with a poor girl on the road. I had to kick him into sense and sensibility, let the horses wander." She gave a demonstrative kick of flower-painted hoof.

I recalled an adjunct with a Silenian wife. He made her wear wool stockings to bed, lest her hooves tear his legs as they mated. Later I wondered if Silenian couples followed the same custom; or was the plaint mere human softness?

"This is a primitive affair," I told her. "Merely a chain of enclosed carriages pulled by the steam engine. In Daedalus you see more advanced ones with doors connecting the wagons like separate rooms. Some for passengers; some for dining. Quite elegant."

She studied me awhile with her goat-slotted eyes.

"Really, you're quite the well-traveled ghost. Seeing so many different lands and folks, not to mention all that coming and going twixt life and death."

To that I said nothing. Though I might have said much. Too much, in truth. She filled the silence easily.

"I've been round and about Demetia. And in and out of that old boneyard Plutarch. And once as far east as Artemisia. Never up to St. Silenus, though I've plenteous cousinry there. Have you family still on live in the world's wild woods, Mister Soldier Michael?"