[coronatiger]

26th of Ratanu, year 412 (continued)

O Ashtar, Mother of Snakes, Keeper of Death’s Door, hear my confession!

I struggled to sleep. Yana’s hair tickled my nose, as I drew in the sweet, intoxicating scent that was her. Always when we went to sleep together, or at least when we were safe and private, Yana would take the arm I wrapped over her and put my hand on her breast. Now, like a trained pet, my hand had sought out that delicious softness on its own. I itched to caress her, to tease out a hardening bud against my palm. My imagination had my body convinced that it was in for a treat, that Yana would wake up, turn around, and kiss me all over. I had to think of something else, something disgusting to take my mind off Yana’s promise. Something like that awful stench of undeath. The memory of having my nostrils so brutally violated made me sneeze. I froze. Had I woken Yana? I dared not even breathe until I realized that the slow rise and fall of Yana’s chest was undisturbed.

I had to find something else to think about. My companions had seemed upset when they learned I knew Nynos’s name and didn’t tell them about it. Was I too secretive, too unwilling to open up? Was that why they were so reluctant to trust me? It had seemed to me that we’d never meet him again, so his name didn’t strike me as important information that I needed to share. It wasn’t as if I had deliberately withheld his name. If we had discussed him at all, I probably would have said his name. Wouldn’t I?

Chanting from the cargo hold interrupted my musings. Wolfram was casting a spell. Hadn’t he taken Xipil’s advice, or had he been unsuccessful at finding sleep, like me? I didn’t think I’d been lying down for more than a few minutes. I wondered what spell Wolfram was casting, and figured it had to be something to help with watch-keeping. An alarm, perhaps, or something that allows anyone not using the ring – or blessed by You – to see into the spirit world. I didn’t think his spell was a response to an attack already happening. He’d surely alert me if we were under attack.

After the spellcasting, Grogg, Hylda and Wolfram spoke heatedly, but their voices were muffled by the intervening wall, so I couldn’t discern what they said, other than Hylda mentioning ashes. After the discussion, Hylda and Grogg must have gotten it on, for I heard her making that kind of noise. I didn’t want to listen to that, and I tried to shut it out, hoping that Wolfram kept watch while Hylda and Grogg were occupied. I would have shouted for them to keep it down, if that hadn’t been certain to wake Yana.

My mind busied itself with thoughts about the secret sign language that Yana and I were developing. We should have signs for each person in our party, and for the concepts of “disguise”, “magic” and “spirit”. It would probably be useful to have modifiers to indicate degree of goodness and badness, so we could say “good disguise” as a compliment or to alert each other about something they might not have perceived, or “very bad spirit” if we saw a wraith; those ghosts I fought in the alley would only be “bad spirits”. Signs for “friendly” and “hostile” might be useful, too.

A humming pervaded the ship, and I felt it more than I heard it. Uncertain what was happening, I instinctively clutched Yana closer to me. If that hadn’t woken her, Wolfram’s bellow that a wraith was attacking certainly had. I tore away the blanket and nearly trampled Yana in my rush to get up. Leaving an apology hanging in the air behind me, I dashed out of the room and into the cargo hold, stark naked.

Wolfram’s totem pole was glowing, and I noticed it was the source of the humming. The pole was set up under the cargo hatch, and Wolfram had drawn his mystic symbols on crate lids under the totem pole. I wondered for a fraction of a second why he hadn’t simply drawn on the floor, but then realized that the lids covered the grate to the lower cargo hold; it wouldn’t be easy to draw on the grate.

Wolfram was praying to Tiri, so loudly that some of the soldiers had to come and investigate, even if they somehow missed the humming. Grogg held up the ring to his eye and scanned for the spiritual invader, but I don’t think he saw any. I didn’t either. Xipil came running, too, no more dressed than me.

Since there was nothing for me to attack immediately, I ran over to the chest that contained my gear. I wrapped my knife belt around my waist and had just managed to throw on my cloak to cover myself when the first of the ship’s soldiers peeked down the hatch. He was aghast at what he saw; perhaps it would have been better to show some skin to distract him from the supernatural glow and humming.

I asked Wolfram, “Where is it?” but he couldn’t interrupt his spell prayer to respond. In the hallway, Yana peeked nervously out of our room. Above, the soldier barked something in his language, and I imagined that I could hear Nynos’s voice responding from the gangplank.

When Wolfram finished his incantation, I knew what spell he had produced, for I had seen it before. This spell allowed anyone within range to see each other’s auras. Xipil immediately set his eyes on Yana, and I ran back to protect her, quite irrationally. The glow Yana exuded did nothing to lessen her beauty, and it complimented her eyes so prettily, it looked like they glowed too. Perhaps they did. She asked what was happening, and I replied that Wolfram said there was a wraith nearby, but I couldn’t see it. Wolfram overheard and clarified that it wasn’t necessarily a wraith; any monster or spirit creature would set off his alarm. My thoughts immediately went to Korro and Nillet; if either of them died, that would certainly bring forth something terrible. I needed to check on both of them.

Hylda hadn’t witnessed this spell before, and she freaked out, screaming that “it” was inside all of us. Running feet on deck warned me that we might have company soon, so I asked Yana to get dressed. I took her place at the door, peeking outside in case a spirit did appear. With Yana out of the way, Xipil scrutinized me instead. By his face, I could tell there was something strange about my aura, or perhaps he saw something he didn’t expect. Grogg studied his own glow for a minute, then set about calming down his girlfriend. I was suddenly uncertain if Yana had experienced this spell before, so I explained it to her and said she didn’t have to worry about the glow.

Nynos appeared above the hatch, looking down, and Wolfram gestured towards the totem pole, making it stop humming and glowing. Xipil looked up, presumably to study Nynos’s aura. Wolfram asked Nynos what he had brought. Indeed, the alarm going off just as he returned seemed unlikely to be a coincidence. Still, there was the possibility that there was a wraith lurking around, so I didn’t take my eyes off the scene for a second. When Yana had finished putting on her sailor’s clothes, I told her to dress me too.

I held out my arms and lifted my feet when Yana told me to, and she was quick and businesslike. I half-hoped she would take a moment to appreciate the sight of me and perhaps run her hands over my more sensitive parts, but she didn’t fall into the temptation.