Chapter 33
Chapter
Thirty-Three
The villagers wore their everyday clothing beneath their beige shawls, the colour of which matched the robes of the Monks of the Way of the Dove. They even had little doves sewn onto the shawls too.
Wraith and Konrad stood silently by the road, watching the procession approach. The wailing and crying grew louder. Wraith inclined his head as they passed. Konrad did the same. Many glanced in their direction but paid them no mind otherwise. They were too absorbed in their mourning.
Konrad sucked in a breath.
But Wraith was too focused on the crying little girl to pay Konrad much mind.
She was young. Perhaps only four or five. Dark hair hung loose around her shoulders. She wore clothing in a similar style to the others, except without the shawl.
She looked like one of the villagers. Except she was very much dead, her skin and body foggy and translucent, sapped of the colouring of the living.
The little ghost girl ran after a man at the front of the group. He had his head and shoulders bowed. Tears steadily fell down his cheeks and disappeared into his scraggly beard.
“Daddy!” the ghost child cried out, stumbling behind him. “Daddy!” she screamed.
Wraith’s chest clenched. She did not know or understand that she was dead.
The procession continued on. But the little girl collapsed into the dirt, weeping as the people she’d known in life walked past and through her. She wailed and sobbed.
“Wraith?” Konrad shook his shoulder.
Wraith glanced at him. Then he realised that Konrad had been speaking to him and Wraith had not been listening.
“I need to do something.” Then Wraith stepped forward into the road. “Umbra. I need you,” he whispered. “Come to me. Come to me now.”
She appeared immediately by his side. “I’m here!” She pressed against him. Wraith placed a hand on her head.
The little girl sobbed into her knees. The procession had moved on. Wraith knelt before her.
“Hello, little one. My name is Wraith. What’s your name?”
She lifted her head slightly, wiping at her eyes and cheeks. “I’m Mary. You can see me?”
Wraith smiled. “Yes. I can see you.”
“Daddy can’t see me.” She sniffled. “Or hear me. No one can,” she wailed.
“I know. I’m sorry. But we’re here to help you now.”
She looked up and saw Umbra for the first time. “Oh! You have a puppy!” She smiled.
Whilst Wraith did not mind how Umbra looked, he knew that her hellhound appearance tended to be quite startling to others. But to the dead, Umbra appeared as she had in life, just a beautiful fluffy white dog. At moments like this, Wraith was grateful for that. He needed Mary unafraid of Umbra.
“I do. And she is a very friendly dog. Her name is Umbra.”
Umbra barked and circled Mary, rubbing her body against her. Mary laughed and patted her.
“She likes you,” Wraith said as Umbra licked her tear-stained cheeks as if wanting to prove Wraith’s point.
The sound of a Bone Door opening sounded behind Wraith. The sunny day turned suddenly cold. Wind flowed, stirring his hair.
Wraith stood. “Will you come with us? We’ll lead you somewhere safe. Where everyone can see you and you will be happy.” He held out his hand. She took it and stood.
“Will Umbra come too?” She placed her tiny hand on Umbra’s back.
Umbra barked.
“She will. She’ll be with you every step of the journey.” Wraith turned towards the door.
They walked towards it.
“She’ll actually be the one who leads you. I can only come with you for the first few steps. But you stay close to Umbra and you’ll be fine.”
Her fingers tightened in Umbra’s fur. “Okay.” She looked up at the open Bone Door, eyes widening.
Umbra leaned against her, lending her support. They stepped through the doorway into the shadows and fog that lay beyond.
“Wow!” she said. Although, Wraith could not see what she saw.
Wraith took a few steps. Then he said, “I can’t go any further with you.”
Even though he was a reaper, he was still a living being. The further he went through the door, the less chance he had of finding his way back. But since she was dead, Umbra had no trouble moving between worlds. “Umbra will continue with you and keep you safe. Okay?”
But the little girl was already running forward, Umbra at her side. They disappeared amongst the swirls of shadow. Wraith stared after them.
I hope she’ll be okay.
Then he heard her laughter and Umbra’s barking. He smiled and left through the door. It shut behind him with a firm click.
Konrad rushed forward. “Wraith! Where did you go? One moment, you and Umbra were right in front of me, talking to someone … Was it a ghost? Then you and Umbra just disappeared in the middle of the road. What happened?”
Wraith filled Konrad in. Konrad listened, eyes wide.
“I saw the coffin. It looked so tiny. Far too tiny.” Konrad’s brows lowered. “It was on a cart being pulled by a donkey.”
Wraith had not seen any of that. He had been too focused on Mary.
“So that is what you do,” Konrad said.
Wraith tensed, remembering how Konrad had reacted when he’d assisted the dead woman during the couple’s quest.
But Konrad did not look angry now. “That’s a very noble role, Wraith. I’m glad you helped Mary.”
Wraith’s muscles unwound. “Umbra will look after her. She will make sure that Mary is all right.”
“What’s it like, the afterlife?” Konrad asked.
“I don’t know actually.”
“But you said you stepped through the—what did you call it? Bone Door.”
“Only the dead can see beyond. To me it is all shadows and fog. I can’t see what it is actually like. But Umbra has told me it is peaceful. She says there are lots of treats and everyone gives her pats.”
Konrad chuckled. “It sounds very pleasant.”
“She says the people there are happy,” Wraith said.
The cries and wailing of the funeral procession grew quieter.
“Where do you think they are heading?” Konrad asked.
“To the cemetery. There is one a short distance that way.” Wraith pointed. “I saw it when we flew overhead.”
“Really? I didn’t see anything.”
Wraith hesitated. He still did not feel entirely comfortable sharing information about necromancy.
Mainly because Konrad hated it. He knew the shadow king and queen would not want him to share as much as he had with Konrad and Elias and the others, but this was his family now and their kingdoms were at peace.
“I could see the cemetery because I can sense where the bodies have been buried,” Wraith said. “It’s a necromancer thing.”
“I see,” Konrad said.
Wraith studied his face, but he was unable to read the blank expression.
“During the war, I fought against the reanimated.” Konrad stared straight ahead. “From the time I was old enough to fight, I was sent to battle against Necros. I remember the first time I fought the necromancers. We had won and were victorious. Then our own dead soldiers rose and turned on us.”
Konrad’s jaw clenched. “Anton, my friend, he—” He closed his eyes. “He came back. I had to kill him. But he wouldn’t die,” he said, voice strained. “I had to hack him to pieces to stop him attacking me.”
“I’m sorry. That must have been horrible.” Wraith hesitated. “But you know it wasn’t him, right?”
“What do you mean?”
“With the reanimated, their soul is not there. His spirit would not have been connected to his body. He would have been … elsewhere”—he waved to the ether—“when you hacked him to pieces.” Anton might have lingered after death or moved on straight away.
Wraith did not know. But he would not have been in his body when he attacked Konrad.
“I am glad to hear that at least.” Then Konrad grimaced. “Still, it was not right.”
“I suppose putting a sword into the body of a person you once knew is difficult, even if the spirit is not there.” Although, honestly, Wraith had never considered what that would feel like.
“You think?” Konrad said, and Wraith could hear the fury in the words. But also the pain.
Wraith looked at the spot where Mary had sat in the middle of the dirt road. “I have never felt the connection others do to the bodies of the dead. How can I? They are husks.”
Konrad exhaled sharply.
But Wraith kept talking; he wanted Konrad to understand. “When death comes the spirit usually leaves the body within minutes, unless you bind a soul to the corpse, of course. So the body has no real significance.”
“How would you feel if your own corpse came back and was controlled by your enemies?” Konrad’s green eyes flashed.
Wraith almost wanted to step back in the face of Konrad’s anger.
He will not hurt me. He is just upset and hurting. But he will not harm me.
And Wraith knew that to be true. He knew Konrad might be angry, but he’d learnt that Konrad wouldn’t actually hurt Wraith.
“I do not see how I would feel anything,” Wraith said. “I’d be gone. What happens to my body after my death has nothing to do with me.”
Konrad looked away. His hands balled into fists. He clearly did not like Wraith’s answer.
“When you saw the coffin, you were sad by the loss of a life so young. But I didn’t even notice it. I was too busy staring at the crying child trailing after her father, calling out ‘Daddy’ whilst he couldn’t even see her,” Wraith said.
“Her body was empty. She was not there. Nothing done to Mary’s corpse could hurt her anymore.
” Although, technically, her body could have been used to call her back.
But that was not relevant right now. “But Mary was still hurting. She was weeping and in need, and that was what mattered to me,” Wraith explained, hoping he could get Konrad to at least see his point.
“Dead bodies seem less important when there is an actual spirit that needs assistance.” Wraith had never seen reanimating skeletons and corpses as a big deal. The reanimated did not suffer or hurt.
It was the suffering spirits he cared about. And it was the not letting the dead move on that made him uneasy. Especially if they wanted to go.
Wraith knew the dread knights he’d created during the war had been enthusiastic volunteers, who’d been desperate to join the eternal army. They’d not wanted to move on.
Still, Wraith as a reaper had not liked to be a part of it. He had no stomach for creating undead armies and was glad those days were behind him. Now, at the Castle of the Dragons, he could just help the dead find peace. Konrad would not see that as bad.
Wraith thought of Konrad’s experience from the war. He had a feeling that the necromancers who’d raised Konrad’s friend had probably done so knowing how traumatic it would be for the Draconians to fight their own. It seemed like the sort of tactics his people would use.
Konrad didn’t speak for a moment. “I guess that makes some sense,” he said finally. Although, his tone was begrudging.