Vaegon shivered at the thought, and forced it away. He didn’t want to think about it. He didn’t want to know. All he wanted was to get back into the open, to see the sun, the moon, or the stars overhead, and to breathe in the fresh air. He had been sitting there so long, that he wasn’t sure if it was night or day anymore.
He decided that when Dugak woke, they would go. There was no way he, or the dwarf, could tell if the sword had been replenished. The important thing was that he now knew where the cooling stone was hidden so that he could bring Mikahl here if…No, he corrected his thought. Not if, but when, Mikahl recovered from his injuries.
Vaegon stood, looked at the sword, and seeing that it appeared no different than it had the last time he had looked, let out a frustrated sigh. He began to pace the dusty gravel floor of the chamber, trying to fight off his claustrophobic feelings, and his unease, in general. The crunch of his footfalls gave him a strange comfort, in the otherwise silent catacombs. He was sure he would have felt much better if he still had his elven vision. Seeing in the darkness is one of the things he had taken for granted all of his life. He could still make his way in the dark without the torch, but with his vision he could have…Could have what?
“No use in might’ve been, foolish elf!” he said to himself out loud. “It’s the lot I’ve been left with so I must accept it and move on.”
“Who are you talking to?” a wavy, liquid voice said from the doorway.
The sound of it, and its suddenness, startled Vaegon so badly that he almost fell to his knees. He looked for the source of it, and found a ghostly form standing there, a man in a long, flowing robe, sporting a crown upon his head. The figure had no substance, and very little color, but was still defined in smoky white, and vivid detail. The ghostly thing had been human once, with a sharp nose, high cheekbones, deeply set eyes, and long straight hair.
“What? Who are you?” Vaegon asked, as he eased his way back towards the cooling stone.
“I was once a King,” the ghost said sadly. “But now, I’m just a harmless ghost.”
There was a hint of sarcasm in the tone of his voice.
“There’s so many undead up and about, that I decided to go look for a conversation. It’s lonely down here, you know. I felt the sword there, and heard you singing.” The apparition pointed a bony finger at Ironspike on the cooling stone. “It’s not every day a power such as that comes around. It’s driving them away. As I suppose it should do. No undead soul wants to feel its edge biting into them. It’s such a final thought, don’t you think?”
“What?” was all Vaegon could manage to get out of his mouth. The dwarf’s powerful snore filled the silence that followed.
The ghost looked at Dugak curiously and then back to Vaegon.
“Well sir, there are no ghosts or undead in here, and I doubt you can relate to my situation well enough to sustain a decent parley, so I’ll be on my way.”
The ghost bowed regally.
“Good day,” it said, just before it disappeared entirely.
Instantly, Vaegon felt the air begin to warm around him. He had been too frightened to notice how cold the chamber had gotten. He spent long moments blinking his good eye, trying to figure out whether he’d really seeing the thing, or if he’d gone crazy down here in the underground. It didn’t matter, he decided. Crazy or not, the thing had felt Ironspike’s power, so it was time for them to go.
He put the sword back in its sheath and, as politely as he could manage, he woke Dugak.
They started back the way they had come. Vaegon had never been happier to see the light of day than he was when they came out of the mouth of the necropolis, into the afternoon sun. The moment they were drenched in the bright, welcoming warmth of it though, he knew something was wrong. He turned, and saw the source of the rancid stench that had assailed his nostrils. A troop of soldiers was there, looking just as surprised as he and Dugak were. Every one of them was dead, and rotting on the bone, but coming at them with murderous intent nonetheless.
Mikahl was back in his childhood bed, in his mother’s tiny apartment, in the servants’ wing of Lakeside Castle. His mother was in the old, creaky rocking chair in the corner, needling something or other out of a peach colored yarn. The fall of her golden hair shone with angelic radiance, and he was bathed in her feelings of love for him.
“Creeek…Krooth…Creeek…Krooth…Creeek…Krooth…” the chair sounded, as she slowly rocked it to and fro. In a nearly inaudible voice, she hummed an old lullaby in time with the rocking of the chair.