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Stepping through the ghost, Apsalar began the ascent.

'That was a vicious thing to do,' Telorast hissed behind her. 'If I possessed you I wouldn't do that to me. Not even to Curdle, I wouldn' t. Well, maybe, if I was mad. You're not mad at me, are you? Please don't be mad at me. I'll do anything you ask, until you're dead. Then I'll dance on your stinking, bloated corpse, because that's what you would want me to do, isn't it? I would if I was you and you were dead and I lingered long enough to dance on you, which I would do.'Advertisement

Reaching the crest, Apsalar saw that the track continued along the ridge another two hundred paces before twisting back down onto the lee side. Cool morning wind plucked the sweat from her face, sighing in from the vast, dark cape that was the sea on her left. She looked down to see a narrow strand of beach fifteen or so man-heights below, cluttered with driftwood. Along the track to her right, near the far end, a stand of stunted trees rose from a niche in the cliff-side, and in their midst stood a stone tower. White plaster covered its surface for most of its height, barring the uppermost third, where the roughcut stones were still exposed.

She walked towards it as the first spears of sunlight shot over the horizon.

Heaps of slate filled the modest enclosure surrounding the tower. Noone was visible, and Apsalar could hear nothing from within as she strode across to halt in front of the door.

Telorast's faint whisper came to her: 'This isn't good. A stranger lives here. Must be a stranger, since we've never met. And if not a stranger then somebody I know, which would be even worse-'

'Be quiet,' Apsalar said, reaching up to pound on the door – then stopped, and stepping back, stared up at the enormous reptilian skull set in the wall above the doorway. 'Hood's breath!' She hesitated, Telorast voicing minute squeals and gasps behind her, then thumped on the weathered wood with a gloved fist.

The sounds of something falling over, then of boots crunching on grit and gravel. A bolt was tugged aside, and the door swung open in a cloud of dust.

The man standing within filled the doorway. Napan, massive muscles, blunt face, small eyes. His scalp shaved and white with dust, through which a few streaks of sweat ran down to glisten in his thick, wiry eyebrows.

Apsalar smiled. 'Hello, Urko.'

The man grunted, then said, 'Urko drowned. They all drowned.'

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'It's that lack of imagination that gave you away,' she replied.

'Who are you?'

'Apsalar-'

'No you're not. Apsalar was an Imass-'

'Not the Mistress of Thieves. It is simply the name I chose-'

'Damned arrogant of you, too.'

'Perhaps. In any case, I bring greetings from Dancer.'

The door slammed in her face.

Coughing in the dust gusting over her, Apsalar stepped back and wiped grit from her eyes.

'Hee hee,' said Telorast behind her. 'Can we go now?'

She pounded on the door again.

After a long moment, it opened once more. He was scowling. 'I once tried to drown him, you know.'

'No, yes, I recall. You were drunk.'

'You couldn't have recalled anything – you weren't there. Besides, I wasn't drunk.'

'Oh. Then… why?'

'Because he irritated me, that's why. Just like you're doing right now.'

'I need to talk to you.'

'What for?'

She suddenly had no answer to give him.

His eyes narrowed. 'He really thought I was drunk? What an idiot.'

'Well, I suppose the alternative was too depressing.'

'I never knew he was such a sensitive soul. Are you his daughter?

Something… in the way you stand…'

'May I come in?'

He moved away from the door. Apsalar entered, then halted once more, her eyes on the enormous headless skeleton commanding the interior, reaching all the way up to the tower's ceiling. Bipedal, long-tailed, the bones a burnished brown colour. 'What is this?'

Urko said, 'Whatever it was, it could swallow a bhederin in one bite.'

'How?' Telorast asked Apsalar in a whisper. 'It has no head.'

The man heard the question, and he now scowled. 'You have company.

What is it, a familiar or something? I can't see it, and that I don't like. Not at all.'

'A ghost.'

'You should banish it to Hood,' he said. 'Ghosts don't belong here, that's why they're ghosts.'

'He's an evil man!' Telorast hissed. 'What are those?' pqdm.com