The Dark Ferryman by Jenna Rhodes Page A

who stays.” He thrust the reins of his horse into the hands of Verdayne, a tall lad of Dweller blood mixed with something more, who stood quietly at the tailgate of the cart. Verdayne looked up at him, worried lines knotting his brow and the corners of his eyes, but said nothing except to wrap his fist tightly upon the leathers.
    “We don’t want to go.” The boys jumbled around, giving him room to approach the cart but hanging about with stubborn looks on their faces.
    “This goes beyond death. You don’t know what you ask to witness.”
    Their mouths all tightened. The healer, Ninuon, stepped back. Bruises of effort and fatigue cast shadows under her eyes. “I’m sorry, Lord Bistel. I’ve done all I could, but I cannot heal that wound, and I cannot . . . I cannot give him the peace he deserves.”
    Bistel looked over the rough-sided cart. Blood seeped into the old wood where Magdan looked as if he’d been thrown in carelessly, and Ninuon had straightened him out as best she could without harming him further. His clothing lay in shreds about him and great pain etched the grooves of his weathered face. Bistel’s hands tightened on the cart.
    “Magdan.”
    “Lord,” the gardener rasped. “I made it back to you.”
    He did not know if waiting for him had begun the change in Magdan’s dying. He hoped not, for what had begun would be excruciating, and he could not change or alter it. None of the powers he had in this world would save Magdan from the Return of his soul before his life had gone. A rare occurrence, a frightening one, and one he would give anything to keep another from experiencing. He could not explain why it happened so, but it would be as if the Gods of their home world and the Gods of Kerith fought for the soul, a physical tug-of-war for something so ephemeral, so precious, so elemental. And it sometimes happened before the flesh died and had become insensitive. Bistel fought on battlefields and he knew a war when he saw one, and he could see one beginning now. One of Gods and spiritual planes and possession.
    He could see the edges of the gardener’s dying body blurring, the flesh growing translucent. He put a hand on the back of Verdayne’s neck, the gardener’s apprentice, and the young man looked up at him, eyes brimming with unshed tears. “Look away,” he said.
    “I can’t.” Verdayne swallowed tightly. Despite his Dweller heritage, he came nearly to Bistel’s shoulder, his thick, curling black hair hiding ears that, just barely, tipped slightly. His eyes of dark, nearly purple blue sparkled with his grief. Vaelinar blood ran in him. Bistel did not guess that. He knew it well. He nodded to Verdayne before reaching down to grasp Magdan’s rough hand tightly. “I cannot save you.”
    “I know.” Magdan coughed. Blood bubbled from his cracked lips. “Home calls for me.”
    Bistel tightened his grip. “It should be a blessing.”
    “Perhaps it is, on the other side.” Magdan ceased to speak, fighting for a moment. His flesh grew more transparent, the blood running through his veins showing visibly.
    “You go where we all yearn to go. You will chase the memories taken from us, greet the loved ones left behind by us, know the mystery of our lives.” Bistel leaned into the cart. He kissed the rough forehead of his old friend.
    “I must tell you.” Magdan shuddered heavily. “I was digging up saplings.”
    “By the fullness of the moon, no doubt.”
    “Aye, Lord. I caught an intruder.”
    Or, rather, the intruder caught him, Bistel thought. And did his best to murder him. “Do you know him?”
    “No, Lord, but he gave me his name.” His voice was as wispy thin as the snow white hair tousled about his head, barely audible to Bistel’s hearing. “Quendius,” he said.
    Bistel’s hands clenched about Magdan’s, causing pain where he did not intend. “Are you sure?”
    “He could have lied. But I know a smithy’s hands when I see them, and he held a forge-hot hatred.”