The Jack of Souls (Multi-award winner!)

Chapter 32 - The Unseen

Though life and well-being come only from the Bright Mother, and the Mad Moon gives power to destroy, such is but the endless round of death and rebirth in this sphere. In the Unseen lies transcendence.

 — From the banned Iberg tract, "The Void of Salvation," credited to Lupistano Uscelana, Black Moon apologist

Chapter Thirty-Two

When the door closed behind Willard, Harric raced across the room and opened the shutters to peer into the forest, which was now splattered with the silver light of the Mother. No fog around the tower, but through the trees he caught glimpses of the valley below, which was bright with silver fogbanks advancing up its sides.

Harric buckled on his sword and flew down the stairs. Memories of the fog in Gallows Ferry nearly paralyzed him as he reached the bottom of the tower. He forced himself to lay his shaking hands on the bar securing the outer door, then heaved it up, and opened the door. He saw nothing waiting in ambush, but a mist seemed to exhale from the ground beneath the trees, where it made a ghostly haze above the roots.

He drew sword with his right hand and witch-stone with his left, and sprang down the outer stairs for the trees. Up the path he sprinted, stumbling over roots and plunging through patches of darkness and moonlight until he reached the clearing where he'd summoned the imp.

As if he'd never left, Finkoklocos Marn awaited in partial darkness, hunched and bobbing like a grounded bat.

"Took you long enough. Where you been?" His voice was that of a life-long ragleaf smoker, graveled and dry.

"In the tower. I wasn't sure you'd be out here."

"Where else would I be? I almost came looking for you."

Harric's first urge was to turn and run. The sight of Fink's needled jaws and plague-boil eyes sent pricks of terror up his spine. It wasn't enough to banish the thought of his mother's continued haunting, however. His second urge was to tell the imp that his mother was on her way with an army of ghouls, and beg Fink for help. What stopped him was the possibility that Fink might fear the fog spirits and abandon Harric to his fate. He had to allow that it was just as possible the imp would help without hesitation, but Harric couldn't risk it.

"Let's find a place farther from the cliff," Harric said, thinking of the fog spirits' attempts to cast him from high places. He tried to sound casual, but to his own ears it sounded like a squeak.

A thicket of needle-like teeth glinted silver in the moonlight. "Sure, kid."

Fink stepped into a patch of the Bright Mother's light, blank eyes turned to Harric, bulbous nose wagging. The creature appeared to be totally hairless, with skin like smooth black leather stretched over skinny limbs, and about the size of a seven-year-old child if you didn't count his peaked wings. The wings almost doubled his height when folded, and extended a fathom to each side when he flapped for balance, which he did often, as if unused to walking or standing on solid ground.

Harric started to move, but a movement behind Fink caught his eye, and he stopped. It seemed part of the forest began to move with them. Something huge was there, and very close.

"HE'S PRETTY." It was a grating, basso voice, so deep it was hardly audible. Its vibrations set his guts thrumming, the hairs on his body on end.

An answering wind like a giant's whisper stirred beside it: "Brighter than the last one."

"Shut up, Sick, you're scaring him," Fink snapped. "Sere! Back off!" He turned to Harric. "Don't worry, kid. They're my sisters. Here to protect you."