“Why is a rug merchant selling in the Maesor?” she wondered aloud. As soon as she asked the question, she had her answer. They passed the ragged remains of a tapestry still stretched on a loom, its center exploded outward as if something had burst through it from the other side, snapping warp and weft in its escape.
Trap shadows. She recoiled from the tapestry, and her skin shrank tight against her bones in an effort not to brush against anything in the awful stall. Revolted by her discovery and frightened, Siora was tempted to disregard Gharek’s warning and flee outside, leaving him behind to continue his search for a monster who trafficked in enslaved souls.
“I see you’re familiar with trap shadows,” he said, peering into various alcoves half hidden by beaded curtains or sheer drapery. “A lucrative business for Koopman along with extortion. Outlawing sorcery only made it exceptionally profitable.” He stopped to stare at her. “Do you see any ghosts?”
The question brought her up short. She’d been so focused on the newness and strangeness of her surroundings, and the fact no other living person besides her and Gharek occupied the Maesor, she hadn’t thought to note if the dead remained. “None, thank the gods,” she said. At least she hoped their absence meant those who lingered chose not to do so here in a place scoured clean of anyone. She eyed the tapestry, wondering what happened to the imprisoned soul that managed to break free.
Finally satisfied that Koopman was truly absent instead of hiding from visitors, Gharek gestured for her to return outside. He didn’t have to do it twice. Siora led the way, relieved to escape thetent and its vile contents. “Now what?” She hoped they wouldn’t visit another stall like this one, though this was the Maesor. The gods only knew what else the merchants here sold, and she doubted demon bowls and potions were unique or that trap shadows represented the worst things traded.
“We check a few more stalls,” Gharek said, disappointment etched into his features. “And then we leave. I’m not a scrounger or a mage to know what in these stalls might be of use to us without guidance from the seller. I’d have better luck at the royal library.”
How she wished they’d gone there instead of here. She regretted her curiosity concerning the Maesor. No wonder whoever entered the brothel and stalked them chose not to go through the gate. “Do you think your friend Koopman disappeared with the others?”
Gharek snorted. “Koopman was no one’s friend, just everyone’s source. If that torn tapestry tells the story I think it does, Koopman is dead and his slave souls finally freed.” He bent for a closer look at whatever floated in an apothecary’s jar on a stand placed outside of a nearby stall. “It’s why I asked if you saw any ghosts. The fact you haven’t is a good thing.”
No sooner had he uttered the words than an unearthly shrieking—horrific enough to freeze the blood in one’s veins and one that nearly made Siora jump out of her own skin—shattered the market’s stifling silence. A wind that wasn’t a wind tore through the stall, snapping curtains aside and knocking over display cases. Invisible, violent, it hurled Siora hard enough against Gharek that he fell backward, taking her with him. Sharp pains tore across her back, as if something raked her with claws. She yelped, thenyelped again when the shrieking entity yanked her hair hard enough to wrench her head back and bring tears to her eyes.
Gharek wasn’t spared its aggression either. He clapped a hand to his cheek when a bloody line suddenly bloomed along his cheekbone, flesh parting under the same unseen talons that struck Siora.
As quick as the spirit attacked, it retreated with another blood-curdling screech and fled in a small whirlwind of dust. Siora caught a glimpse of it as it spun down one of the deserted alleys, a shifting, warping shape becoming vaguely human with the hint of a face twisted by absolute madness.
She and Gharek watched it until it disappeared and its shrieking died away, leaving only the suffocating silence. He turned to her, the nasty scratch marring his cheek dripping thin lines of blood like the teeth of a hair comb. He smeared the blood away with a swipe of his sleeve. “Are you wounded?”
Her back stung, though she didn’t feel any warmth or telltale trickles on her skin. “I think it scratched me too, though not as deeply as you.” She touched her scalp. “The hair-pulling hurt worse.” She peered down the alleyway where the entity had disappeared. “Was that one of the trap shadows?”
“Most likely.” He touched his cheek. “Vicious bastard, yet you can’t help but pity them.” He frowned at her raised eyebrows. “Anyone with a sense of their own existence would feel sorry for those creatures and pray such a fate would never become theirs.”
Siora shook her head. “You always manage to surprise me, lord.”
He regarded her for a moment, as if deciding whether or not her reply held some hidden condemnation. She chose not to enlighten him.
Fearing the trap shadow might return for another screeching round of scratching and hair-pulling, Gharek suggested they linger no longer and head back to the gate. “If we hadn’t managed to avoid that second assassin, I’d call this a failed endeavor and a waste of our time,” he grumbled. “I’d suggest raiding one of the stalls for something to sell, but the risk is too great. The Maesor holds many things that will literally eat you if you’re not careful.”
More than happy to depart, she hurried alongside him. She desperately wanted to leave but without anything in hand to break wards or help Zaredis’s brother, Estred remained at risk and Gharek would surely be executed if the library too offered up nothing. “I hope the library has something,” she said.
His features had grown grimmer with every step. “So do I. The records available to the public won’t have anything we need, but one of the oldest librarians there was once my mother’s lover. He may be able...”
Siora’s heart knocked hard against her breastbone when Gharek abruptly went silent, clapped a hand over her mouth, and nearly tore her arm off yanking her into the stall behind them. In the semi-gloom, his eyes were wide as they stared into hers, pupils dilated like those of a terrified feline. He pursed his lips in a silent “shh” and, at her nod, eased his hand from her mouth. Body so tense he practically quivered against her, he pointed out furtive movement not far from the gate.
She stared at what he indicated, and her fear turned to horror, the kind that reduced one’s knees to water and made your bladder forget to hold its contents. Like the trap shadow, this creature was human in shape but had a solidity to it the trap shadow lacked. The color of bleached bone with misshapen limbs far too long andlanky for its torso, the thing scuttled along the main avenue, pausing randomly to raise a bulbous head and sniff the air.
Only it had no nose. No eyes either, just a wide mouth with fleshy, crimson lips stretched partially over a cage of jagged teeth. The talons tipping its bony fingers looked as lethal as the teeth, with the same purpose of shredding whatever unfortunate victim it caught in its grasp. Those claws dragged across the dirt and cobblestones, making quick skittering noises as they spidered along the wooden supports holding up one of the stalls.
Every survival cue inside her screamed for her to run, yet also kept her frozen in place, barely breathing in case the abomination without ears heard her. Gharek, motionless beside her, had ceased breathing as well.
The thing drew nearer to where they hid, darting in and out of stalls, its movements quick and nimble. Here was the ultimate predator, a thing that made wolves seem like rabbits and lions like sheep, the Spider of Empire a sweet toddler who loved flowers. As it got closer, Siora’s eyes blurred with tears and her throat seized closed on a scream. She knew what it was to be the hare under the serpent’s stare.
She clenched her jaw to keep the scream in her throat trapped there when a misty shape suddenly took form in front of her. Relief made her knees buckle when she recognized the beloved, familiar wraith standing there.
Papa.If her thought had been voiced, it would have bellowed across the Maesor. Relief instantly changed to fear.You shouldn’t be here.Whatever this new horror hunting the Maesor was, she suspected it was somehow tied to the eater of ghosts and the two were likely not far from each other.
Take my hand, daughter, so the cat’s-paw can see me.Skavol held out his hand, and for the first time in her memory, Siora touched her father’s ghost. Next to her, Gharek startled, his body twitching in surprise at the sudden appearance of an apparition in front of them.
Skavol’s touch was as cold as Kalun’s had been, but his beloved presence blunted the razor’s edge of her panic for a moment.
You don’t have much time before it reaches this stall. I can distract it. The moment you see your chance, don’t hesitate.His phantasmic features hollowed with their own terror.I won’t have my daughter suffer the same fate the Maesor traders did at the hands of that thing.
His revelation regarding the disappearance of so many, once more sharpened the edge of her panic, made it jagged, but she only nodded.Thank you, Papa. Be careful.