Leovann Coron was lost.

His way should have been a straight shot east through the snow-laden woods to Ryaz. But Moroz saw fit to send him along more arcane paths. The blizzard struck with sudden ferocity, like the highland wolves back home, half-starved and mad with winter’s chill. Giant snowflakes, fangs of ice, lashed at his hands and cheeks as Leovann stumbled through pale waves, the boreal tempest tossing the wanderer about like a ship at sea.

He pulled his thick fur cloak tight around his body, strained his eyes to see through the icy veil enveloping him. His vision blurred, went white. It was useless. Leovann put his shoulder to the wind and trudged onward, clutching a cross-shaped pendant depending on a chain about his neck, praying for deliverance from the storm.

A livid shadow emerged at the edge of sight. He could hear loose boards rattling against their frame. An old shack, warped and twisted by time and hard weather, materialized in the wintry gloom. Leovann charged through the snow.

Crashing headlong into a wall, his hands leaped out from under his cloak, searching as a blind man for a door, a window, any portal that would grant entry inside. Leovann rounded a splintered corner and raced along the wall. A moment, and his frozen fingers curled around a door jamb. He grasped for the handle.

A jolt ripped through his body. His fingers trembled just above the handle. Yet it was not the cold that stayed his hand. No… What is this? he thought. Fear?

Leovann backed away.

A black shroud seemed to fall over the door as unseen hands grabbed at his cloak. A voice pitched with misery sounded in the depths of his mind, at first, a distant call, then growing louder as it drew near. Leovann fought against the spectral grip as the voice loudened to a wail.

The cry ceased as he tumbled backward into the snow. Chest heaving, Leovann lay in an ice-encrusted drift, green eyes gazing up at a clear sky. Snow crunched beneath his boots as the wanderer climbed to his feet. The silver light of Xors cast all in the moon’s ethereal, cerulean glow. Silence—the night held its breath.

“Good evening, friend!”

Leovann spun in a flash, the stiff leather of his glove whining as he gripped his sword. A short, stout man bundled in furs stood several paces away, hands raised, his sheepskin cap crooked atop his head. A horse-drawn sled sat behind him.

“Easy, friend. I’m not looking for trouble. May the Redeemer strike me dead if I’m lying,” the man said, taking a few cautious steps forward.

“You swear by the Redeemer?”

“Of course. And you?”

“Aye, His light guides my way.” Leovann straightened, relaxing his grip on his sword. “Who are you?”

“‘Tis I should be asking you, stranger.” The stout man chuckled. “Alas, my name is Gerazim. My friends call me Zim,” he said, extending his hand.

Leovann took a deep breath, closing the distance. “Forgive me, Zim. I did not expect to meet anyone out here.” He accepted the proffered hand. “My name is Leovann Coron.”

A broad smile bloomed on Zim’s face. “A pleasure, Sir… Coron…” His lips struggled to form the sounds. “Leovann. Truly, ‘tis the name of a foreigner, if ever I heard one, and many I’ve heard,” he said, with a snap of his fingers. “Yet, your Enostrani is impeccable!” Zim pinched his lips, grunted, then said: “From where do you hail, young warrior?”

Leovann ran a hand through his frost-coated, copper-blonde hair. “From Tírna’ræst—”

“The Western Isles! You are quite far from home, sir.”

“Aye, quite far indeed.” Leovann smiled. “You know of the Isles?”

“Of course, sir.” Zim’s sapphire eyes glimmered like sun-bathed crests of ocean waves. “In my youth, I worked in the south as a fisherman off the coasts of the Raider’s Jewels. I met many of your people crewing the merchant vessels arriving in Sevast, when we brought the day’s catch to market. Truly, it is strange to see one of your kind so far north… yet many are the paths the Redeemer lays before us. Well, forgive me for asking, sir, but are you lost?”

“I fear that I am. I was travelling to Ryaz, from Novogor, when that violent storm fell upon me and I lost my way.”

“Storm? What storm?” Zim scratched his chin. “Weather’s been clear all evening, sir.”

Leovann furrowed his brow. “What mean you? The very breath of Moroz tore at my flesh mere moments ago.”

Zim blanched. “Caution, young warrior, lest you call upon a terrible storm in truth! We do not speak his name here. ‘Tis bad luck. This forest is his domain, and old Frost is always listening.” He laughed. “Forgive me for saying, sir, but perhaps you are simply in need of rest.”

Leovann lifted his chin, his eyes narrowed. 

“Wait,” Zim pointed at the shack, “you weren’t planning on staying there, were you?” 

“The thought surely crossed my mind.”

“No, no, no, sir. That won’t do. We stay far away from that wicked place. You would do better to stay in the village.”

Leovann frowned. “We? What village? My map told of no villages between Ryaz and Novogor.”

“Oh no, sir. You won’t find our village on any map. Most people don’t know about our little town of Nyevid.” Leaning in, he whispered, “And that’s the way we like it.

“Still, can’t leave you stranded out here.” Zim moved toward the sled. He waved Leovann over. “Hop on! I’ll bring you to the inn. ‘Tis not much, but the fire’s warm and the beds are soft.”

Leovann followed, smiling as he climbed onto the sled. “Thank you.”

“No problem, sir. Happy to help.” Zim whipped the reins, and his horse set off at a canter. 

“I’m no sir, my friend. You may call me Leo.

“Of course, Leo.”

Leovann’s face pinched as he looked at several hide sacks piled at his feet. “Zim?”

“Yes, sir?”

Leovann stared at him for a moment. “What’s that smell?”

“Perch. I was returning from a fine evening of fishing on the ice.”

“Smells like a big catch.”

“Bigger than I expected,” Zim said with a wink, as they raced through the diamond drifts toward the moonlit village of Nyevid.

***

Nyevid was a dump.

Nestled in the middle of a vast birch grove, it was a haphazard assortment of ramshackle cabins and shops. The church at the town’s center was a pitiful edifice, with a single onion-domed turret, bent in permanent supplication to the mercy of the Almighty. Nyevid’s inn, a generous descriptor, was naught but a collection of smoky huts, cobbled together like a band of vagabonds fighting for position around a meager fire.

“Nice place,” Leovann muttered as they stopped in front of the inn.

“Beggars and choosers, Leo.”

“Indeed.”

The warrior alighted from the sled.

Zim laughed, his hands cradling his paunch. “Take any room you like! Make yourself at home. I’ll check on you in the morning and set you on your way to Ryaz.”

“How much will I owe for the night?” Leovann asked, rolling his shoulders as he stretched his neck. 

“First night’s free.”

Leovann arched an eyebrow.

“Are you certain? Will the owner not disapprove?” he said as Zim started to pull away. 

Zim looked back, grinning, called over his shoulder, “Of course not! This is my inn, sir.”

Leovann smiled, bowing his head as the joyful master faded into the silver gloom.

***

Sweat pouring over his brow, Leovann tossed in his cot. The voice again came to him, at first a distant cry, then harmonizing into a song, a cold lament of some forlorn love. Spectral hands pulled at the edge of his mind, drawing the warrior into a world between worlds…

            Leovann crawled out of bed and, with sleep yet heavy upon his eyes, ambled to the door, enthralled by the discordant melody. The wretched door wailed on its rusted hinges. Beyond, a maelstrom of ice buffeted the village. A figure shimmered within the whirlwind, fading in and out, languishing on the limits of perception. She looked up, held out a ghostly hand. The song rose. The storm raged.

Panting, he bolted upright in his bed.

The gilded light of early morning filtered in through the cracks in the walls. He looked toward the door. It was shut. No song played in his ear. Rather, the frantic grousing of an aggravated mob clamored in on the morning chill.

Leovann donned his mail, threw on his cloak, and clasped his sword to his belt as he stepped into the crisp winter air. The townspeople were gathered near the church. He tilted his head, screwed up his eyes trying to see past the throng. They were gathered around nothing. Finding Zim among the crowd, he strode over to stand beside the innkeeper.

“Good morning, Zim. What happened?”

“Truly, ‘tis morning, Leo, but not so good, I’m afraid.” His ashen face settled into a grave expression. “We lost another one.”

“Lost what?”

“Another home. And another family.”

Leovann turned toward him. “What mean you?”

Zim sighed. “They’re gone. Vanished. This makes five in as many weeks. We’ve searched everywhere, but…”

The phantom song swelled in Leovann’s mind. He breathed deep, released it, then forced his way through the crowd. 

Zim chased after him. “Wait, Leo!”

The warrior crouched over the empty space where a cabin had stood just hours before. He combed soil and snow with his fingers, searching. 

“What are you doing?” The innkeeper stood behind him, cast a few wary glances at the bystanders pressing around them.

“I was stricken by a terrible chill, when I sought to enter the shack in the woods.”

The crowd gawked at the stranger, a dread murmur passing through their ranks.

Leovann glanced back over his shoulder. “But it was not the cold of the storm that seized my heart. It was something deeper. Colder.”

He returned his gaze to the dirt; he lifted something from it, an azure, crystalline shard, as though the light of the moon itself was captured in a perpetual moment. “It was longing,” the warrior whispered, holding the shard out to Zim. 

The innkeeper took it, turning it in his fingers, his eyes wide. “What is it?”

“A wraith stone,” Leovann said as he stood. “A remnant of spirit magic. Powerful. A kind that only the dead may produce.”

Hissed questions slithered through the crowd.

Leovann took the shard. “Zim, tell me about the shack in the forest. I must know what happened there.”

***

Zim placed a steaming cup of tea in front of Leovann, then sat beside him with a cup of his own. The innkeeper’s home was cozy, warm, a large fire crackling in the hearth. His little children scurried across the floor, giggling as their mother chased after them.

Zim stared into his cup for a moment. He sighed. “A young woman, Anaya, used to live there. She was an odd one, truly. Preferred the company of strangers over her own people. Her parents died when she was young, and she spent much of her life alone.”

He took a sip from his cup. “That is, until a stranger found his way here, not unlike yourself. Anaya attached herself to the man instantly. He was handsome, strong. And she was an exceptional beauty, make no mistake. Yes, the two were inseparable. For a time.”

Leovann drank from his cup. “Who was this man?”

Zim shrugged.

“No one really knows. ‘Tis strange. Truly, I don’t remember him ever giving his name. Stranger still, no one ever asked. Many believed he was a sorcerer. There was always this… darkness, which seemed to follow him around. Anaya appeared ignorant of it, but the rest of us, well… Horrible as it was, we were glad when he was gone,” he said, a slight tremor in his fingers. 

Leovann watched him for a moment. “What happened?”

“One night, about thirteen moons past, not long after their daughter was born, a hellish blizzard smote Nyevid. Truly, young warrior, ‘twas not the winds that howled through the alleys, but demons, and the ghosts of the dead knocked at our doors that night… The next morning, Father Danil and I went throughout the village to check on everyone. Redeemer be praised, all were well.” Zim breathed deep. “But when we went to check on Anaya and her family, we found that her… husband, and her child, were missing.”

Leovann’s eyes narrowed. A pit formed in his stomach. “And Anaya?”

The innkeeper’s wife gathered the children and ushered them into another room.

“Dead. The poor woman froze in her sleep.”

Leovann turned the wraith-stone in his fingers, watching the firelight flicker over the fractured surface. “What happened next?”

“We tried to move her body.”

“Tried?”

“Yes. Though when Father Danil and I tried to lift her, she scattered like diamond dust in the wind. Then a monstrous storm blew in, wailing as a mother bereaved. May the Redeemer strike me dead if I’m lying, that storm chased us all the way back to town.” Zim finished the last of his tea, the cup quivering at his lips.

Leovann drank the last of his. He remained silent for a time. 

“Would you like more tea, Leo?”

“No, thank you.” Leovann put on his sword and cloak as he moved to the door.

Zim leaped to his feet, the chair scraping on the wooden floor as it slid back. “Where are you going?”

“To Anaya’s home. I believe our answers lie there.”

“Wait, my friend. Let me take you,” Zim said, reaching for his fur coat. 

“No, Zim. It is best you stay here, with your family. You have helped me enough. Allow me to return the favor.” Leovann strode out the door, not waiting for an answer.

***

The warrior approached the forsaken shack, sword drawn. He reached for the door. Nothing stirred; his mind was silent. He pushed and the door creaked open. The faded afternoon light spilled in through the portal, casting the room in a gray haze. A small bed lay rotting in one corner, a tattered blanket thrown across, one of its corners pulled aside. In a back corner, a clay oven lingered, the edges of its mouth charred from fires long burnt out. Beyond, a faint blue light emanated from a far room, otherwise clothed in shadow.

Leovann crossed himself, then entered the shack, his gleaming sword leading the way.

He passed through to the far room, slipped inside. On the back wall, resting on a gnarled shelf, were five wraith-stones hewn into rough orbs, like azure plums. Leovann stepped closer. His eyes widened. Inside each orb, suspended in frozen time, was one of the five homes, the five families, which had vanished.

In his years of exile, Leovann had, of course, encountered many spirits, faced their might and ire. Yet never had he seen such a display of raw spiritual power, and with such refinement in its execution. There was macabre artistry in the crystalline gaols, an intent which hinted not at damnation for the poor souls confined within, but at preservation, which spoke not of torture, but delicate care, of mercy.

He reached a hand toward one.

Just as his fingers brushed its frigid surface, a cold hiss sliced through the dim silence. On instinct, Leovann tilted his head to the side; a crystal dagger plunged into the wall where his head had been. He whirled as two more daggers shot toward him. The warrior deflected them with a twin flash of his blade.

A sweet voice issued from the darkness. “He stole my family… left me empty. Alone. Always alone.”

Leovann followed the voice into the main room. A shade hovered in the center, with eyes like painted glass and hair of flowing water, a woman of stunning beauty. The one from his vision. “Anaya.”

She smiled. “So, I took theirs. They will all belong to me. And soon,” she said, holding out her hand, “you will too.”

Anaya faded from sight, her song rising in his ears. Leovann stepped into the center of the room. She circled the warrior, flitting in and out of sight, her form shimmering in the gloom, then fading in the light. 

Leovann closed his eyes, holding his sword near his lips, reciting an ancient, ancestral prayer. He lifted the pendant from his neck and drew it along the length of the blade. The sword erupted with a celestial golden flame.

Anaya opened her hand, fragments of wraith-stone coalescing into her palm, forming a long knife, its keen edge ringing. She glared at him, then screamed, her mouth opening overwide as her features twisted, her teeth becoming fangs. A boreal gale, the wraith flew at him. 

She slashed. Leovann parried the blow.

That same instant, Anaya vanished.

Again and again, she appeared and struck. Again and again, Leovann parried her attack, and she would vanish. After a dizzying exchange, enraged, Anaya charged. Leovann went on the offensive. She faltered at the sudden counterattack, lifting her knife. Leovann’s blazing sword shattered the knife. He followed through, seizing Anaya by the throat, holding the point of his blade over her breast, where her heart once beat.

“How?” she said, unable to resist.

“The Golden Fire is sacred, for the Light of the Redeemer calls lost souls to rest.” The warrior held her gaze. He released her. “I want to help you, Anaya.”

The shade drifted back a few paces. Her eyes flared, then softened. “Help me?” Her eyes fell. “What could you do?” Her voice was an echo, ripples over a still lake.

“Release the people you have taken. Let them go, and I will bring you with me. We will find a way to free your spirit. Give you peace.”

Anaya drifted in, hovering just before him.

“There is only one way to grant me peace, my warrior,” she said, caressing his cheek with fingers cold as death. Her voice was a whisper, her lips brushing his ear. “Find my daughter. And the one who stole my Vera from me, the husband who left me to die!” Anaya’s eyes went black, like liquid onyx spilling over glass. “We will find Rasik. And we will kill him.”

The warrior sheathed his sword, placed the pendant around his neck. He held the eight-pointed cross in his hand for a moment, then looked at Anaya and said: “I will not help you murder your husband.”

Boards rattled, groaned under Anaya’s fury as frost limned the floor beneath her.

“But I will do all that I am able to find your daughter. Redeemer willing, we shall see it done.”

Calm descended upon the shack and the frost dissipated. She sighed, turned away. “Yet, it is only a fantasy. I cannot leave this place. This nightmare.”

Leovann placed a hand on her shoulder. Anaya turned, looking up at him. He smiled.

“I have an idea.”

***

Zim sat upon the steps of the church, praying as he awaited Leovann’s return. A tempest of snow coursed through Nyevid, a faint song on the tongues of the winds. Five booming sounds rang out, like distant cracks of thunder. Then, just as quickly, the storm dissipated.

He climbed to his feet, jaw hanging open in awe. Across the square, a dazed family poured out of their home, the very same that had been taken the night before.

Nyevid surged with excitement as the villagers rushed to greet the other families as they emerged from their restored homes. Shouts of joy, descant to the ringing bells, resounded through the village. The people joined Zim at the church, and Father Danil led everyone inside. Songs of praise were carried out on voices renewed by hope.

Later that night, Zim waited at his door, at any moment expecting the return of Leovann Coron. But the warrior did not come back. The innkeeper sighed. Thank you, my friend… I don’t know what you did, he thought, going back inside. He held his wife, kissed her cheeks, and watched as his children tumbled through the house. He smiled.

“Beggars and choosers, I suppose.”

***

Leovann looked at the road sign as he passed. Seven leagues until Ryaz. A long way yet, he mused. Such is the path.

He continued along the narrow road as the morning sun wakened and rose into the sky. A crystalline azure orb hung from his belt, gleaming in the light of the pale dawn. An old shack, warped and twisted by time and hard weather, rested within.

“You are quite clever, Leovann Coron.” Her voice came from the ether, as arms of ghost-light enfolded his shoulders. Anaya nestled her chin in the crook of his neck.

“I felt some company would be welcome after so many years alone.”

“Even the company of the dead?”

The warrior stopped. “The path I walk, Anaya… It is the only company I am fit to keep.” They lingered in silence for a moment. Leovann breathed deep, released it. He continued along the road, Anaya resting upon his weary shoulders.

---

Join The Call and follow at:

• Facebook