Wraith(38)

I closed off my emotions, detaching myself as wholly as I would detach my shadow, and continued walking. When I reached Eric Quiddle’s cell, I glanced in although I didn’t slow my steps. He was curled up in a corner, his chest rising and falling with gentle snores. His infraction was minor, at least in the eyes of the goblins. He’d be released before too long. Probably.

At this point, it was tempting to send off my shadow self to find Ange. Given what little I knew about the circumstances of her arrest, I was sure that she’d be held at the furthest, most secure point in the Tolbooth. The further I got from Eric Quiddle, the harder it would be to explain away my presence if any goblin guards noticed me. But I was still wary of being apart from my shadow for too long after what had happened with de Florinville, and I was conscious that the goblins would probably be conducting sweeps for wraiths after what had happened in the castle. I had to bank on there being only a skeleton crew inside the Tolbooth as the guard at the front had intimated.

Taking care to tread more lightly now, I stayed on the balls of my feet but maintained my speed. When I didn’t see Ange in any of the cells on this floor, I tiptoed down the winding staircase to next one, then the one below that. The further down I went, the more my trepidation increased.

The air grew danker and by the time I reached the deepest part of the Tolbooth basement there was very little light. In the last corridor, lined with more cells, there were only two flickering torches hanging off the wall. Water trickled down between the stones and even in the gloom I could see the sheen of slime clinging to the granite. There was a faint scuttling sound from up ahead: rats. If Ange was down here, her situation was very dire indeed. Only the worst criminals were kept in the worst cells.

Ignoring the shudder that ran down the length of my spine, I pushed on. There was a lump of rags in one cell which, when I stared, moved slightly. At first I thought it might be a human being but when a small questing nose and quivering whiskers pushed out from underneath it, I shook myself and moved on. I didn’t really want to know whether there was a body under those rags as well.

I was almost at the end of the line of cells – and losing hope that Ange was here – when I heard a sharp, feminine cry. Alarmed, I sprinted forward until I saw the shape of a woman through the bars of the last cell but one. We were some distance from the flaming torches; it was so dark at this end that it was difficult to see anything. There was another yelp and the sounds of a scuffle inside the tiny cell. Ange’s terrified face loomed out of the darkness just as another darkness, a deeper darkness, dragged her back. A wraith.

I didn’t waste any time. Abandoning my physical body without a thought, I detached my shadow and darted through the rusty iron bars of the cell. My sight adjusted almost immediately to the shadows. I just had time to see Ange being held against the wall by her throat before I flung myself at the wraith, barrelling into it and knocking it away from her.

It sprang up, facing me, arms aloft and hands curved into claws like some kind of monster. We stared at each other, one shadow to another, neither of us moving an inch or yielding a breath. I’d never come across another of my kind before, not face to face like this.

In the end it was Ange who broke the deadlock. She squeaked and scuttled backwards, pressing herself into the corner as if she could escape by merging into the walls. The wraith tilted his head slightly and pointed at her then at himself, as if to indicate possession.

I vehemently shook my head and shifted slightly to shield her from him. For the first time I understood why people found wraiths so menacing. Facing a dark shape, which had no facial features and was nothing more than its own wellspring of midnight black, was genuinely terrifying. I couldn’t read either his expression or his body language – but he couldn’t read mine either.

‘Saiya,’ Ange whispered, recognising my inert body standing just beyond the cell door. ‘Where is Becky? Please tell me she’s safe. Please tell me the goblins don’t have her.’ A ragged sob escaped her lips as if the thought of her daughter in the hands of the Filits was too much to bear.

I couldn’t do anything to soothe her; to answer her would mean abandoning my shadow and returning to my physical body. Even if it were only for a few seconds, the other wraith would be free to do whatever he wanted to her. It didn’t take a genius to recognise that he was here for no reason that I would like.

‘They keep asking me about the Stone. They say I know where it is. They say I have the key.’ Ange’s voice rose as her desperation increased. ‘They can’t get it. If they do, we’re all lost. Help me, Saiya. Help me!’

I sensed rather than saw the wraith fix his attention back on her. Something she had said was important to him. Ghrashbreg and the other goblins had mentioned a stone too but what was it and why would it matter? I needed to find a way to communicate with the wraith but I didn’t have the faintest idea where to begin.

I raised my hands to use some sort of rudimentary sign language. The wraith stiffened immediately as if I were about to attack him. I shook my head but he jerked towards me, indicating he’d attack me first if I moved again.

In the end, the decision was taken out of both of our hands. Muffled by the stone walls around us, but unmistakable nonetheless, came the sounds of heavy goblin boots hammering towards us from above. There were shouts and garbled yells. Whether an alarm had been tripped or my absence at Eric Quiddle’s cell had been noted was unclear but it was obvious that several goblins were hurtling towards us.