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Chapter Twenty-Six

Dalhmun Prison

Former Transellia

Amos Lowe

There was a ghost in Amos’ cell.

It was the cold that woke him. Many years had passed since he’d last felt that kind of unnatural chill. Worse than winter. Like a shiver that came right out of your bones. He sat up on his cot and looked around. It was hard to see a ghost, even for someone born with his gifts, but there it was, a spectral figure in the shadows of one corner.

“Who are you?” Amos asked, more curious than alarmed. As he spoke, Amos’ breath frosted in the air.

The ghost turned toward him, just shreds of a spirit that had been broken, tortured, and abused.

“82.”

“A number is no name for a man,” he said gently. This was not the first time a lost soul had sought him out. His power was like a beacon to them, like a moth to flame. He knew he had to tread very carefully. “Who were you before.”

The ghost was quiet for a long time. “Edek?”

It said the name like it was unsure. But that was a common Prajan name. Had this been one of the brave volunteers who had sacrificed their lives to power the golems protecting their city?

“Let me help you, Edek.”

“I am broken. Where is the rest of me?”

The poor thing wasn’t even a whole ghost, just a fragment of a soul, doomed to roam this world until every part of him was freed. It was a horrible fate. Probably the handiwork of Nicodemus Firsch. “Did you have a body of wood, clay, metal, or flesh?”

“Body of steel. Nerves of wire. Blood of oil.”

“You were trapped in a machine?”

“Lost in the gas. Driver dead in my chest. They scratched my face. Scratched until I died again.”

“I don’t understand.”

The fragment was growing angrier. Amos’ meager belongings, a few items of clothing and his scriptures, were picked up and hurled across the cell. The book hit the stone wall and bounced off. It fell open, probably to the page with the verse that specifically forbid the casting of spells, consulting with ghosts or familiar spirits, or inquiring of the dead, because fate was ironic like that. Amos had been banished because of his crimes, but he couldn’t simply stop talking to the dead now, especially when there were so many of them out there like this poor thing.

“Be calm, Edek. Everything will be alright.”

The rest of his belongings dropped to the floor. That was good. Amos had been injured by agitated ghosts before.

“Were you trapped in this machine by Nicodemus Firsch?”

The tortured spirt screamed. There was so much fury there that Amos winced and covered his ears. He’d take that as a yes.

Normally, Amos was a calm, kind man. Not given to wrath, but this abominable crime filled him with anger. How could Nicodemus be so vile that he would split a man’s spirit into pieces? Yet, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Cruelty was his brother’s nature. He’d seen spirts as nothing more than an endless source of energy to be exploited. Thankfully, Nicodemus had never mastered guiding spirits like Amos had. He was limited to what he could parasite off the work of other magi. Amos shuddered when he thought of the horrors someone like that could accomplish if he had a greater supply of captive spirits to enslave.

Amos used a soothing tone, like he was trying to get a child to go back to sleep after a nightmare. “I can help you find rest, Edek. You won’t be able to move on until all of you is freed from whatever other machines the rest of you is bound to, but this part—you here—I can help you be at peace until then. But first, can you tell me what Nicodemus is doing now?”

“He invades Hell.”



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