"I've a question." Jasmine was never one to knuckle to authority, but she whispered. "Where do we hope to arrive?"

"Somewhere under the castle," hissed Adira over her shoulder. Darkness and quiet pressed all around. Their boots crunched old leaves and pebbles in a slow descent. "Somewhere a passage must lead upward. If so, we'll root out Johan and kill him. This passage is unguarded."

"By the living," squeaked Wilemina.

"You cowards!" Adira whirled to face her followers. "You crawfishing eels! Dare call yourself pirates? I've never seen such a white-livered gutless bunch of backsliding bone-headed bream in all my years at sea… What are you gawking at?"

The party just goggled at the vision past Adira's shoulder. Slowly she turned. In torchlight and magic illumination hung a rag of black curtain suspended on nothing. As the invaders watched, the spectral rag opened a jagged mouth and gave a long strangled sigh.

Adira couldn't jump quick enough to catch her crew. Pirates whirled and smacked into foresters, then all the heroes bolted headlong up the tunnel. Not until they clattered out under the dripping sky did they stop running, though all were canny enough to keep down and quiet.

Even Adira was puffing and rattled. Things undead that cried in her face were a new experience.

"Forget it, Dira!" gasped Murdoch. "We'll fight anything alive, but the dead are too eager for company!"

"It's ill luck!" squeaked Jasmine. "To look upon the face of death invites one's own!"

"We can find some other way inside the castle!" pleaded Sister Wilemina. "We can scale the walls or skulk in by night. We needn't crawl through an unquiet graveyard!"

"It's Johan we're after," cautioned Heath. "Mayhaps we could lure him outside the walls!"

"I'll clear the way," purred Jedit.

"Eh?" Even Adira was taken aback. "Why you?"

"Human ghosts don't frighten me." The cat's amber-green eyes glowed like emeralds.

"Oh, no?" snipped Adira. Rain spotted her nose and she swiped with a filthy hand. "Or is this your chance to seize command?"

"Dira, I have no ambitions upon your position." The tiger remained calm. "I just aid as I might. As when I rescued you from the shipwreck."

That fact had no answer, so Jedit added, "I'll call when I think it safe."

"Take your time," murmured Murdoch. "A week. A month."

"Shut up, soldier," snarled Adira. To Jedit, "Carry on. Don't just seek ghosts. Anything could lurk within. Beware things with paws and teeth."

The tiger passed into the dark depths. Pirates and pinefolk took a much-needed rest amid wet brush.

The tunnel twisted between fractured rocks, and many stones had tumbled and had to be climbed, but the tiger sensed someone had cleared the path in years past. Jedit clambered on two or all fours easily as a mountain goat. Several times he paused, for the darkness was so perfect even his cat eyes had trouble seeing. More than once Jedit felt a damp chill on his muzzle as he blundered through a ghost. Farther along, the feeling became more distinct, as if he waded through mist. When cold enveloped him like a shroud, he stopped and perched on a rock, tail crooked around his ankle, and waited to see what happened.

So many shades gathering in one spot brought their own luminosity until the chill air twinkled with a twilight glow. Gradually the cat made out five, then nine, then too many floating shapes to count. Sitting unmoving, Jedit Ojanen watched ghosts hover like a flock of fireflies. He felt no terror, only a great sadness emanating from them. Some ghosts looked fresh, almost healthy, as if only dead a week, and Jedit guessed they were foresters. Some were hideous with broken necks, smashed ribs, or missing heads altogether. Others were withered as mummies or parched to skeletons. Still others, infinitely ancient, had disincorporated into black rags. Some of the dead wore clothes and some went naked. None wore shrouds that would denote a proper funeral. These disinherited souls, or victims, had died by murder. Helpless, they lingered in this world hoping for justice, restless and angry, refusing the notion of eternal death.

Having lived once, the shades could communicate, if one could bear to listen. Stone-still, Jedit tuned his ears. The ghosts voiced their sorrow in low gibberings or shrill keens or strangled moans. Many muttered the same angry phrases over and over.

"… revenge. Give us revenge. Give us…"

"… Shauku. Shauku. Shauku…"

"Shauku killed you all?" asked Jedit abruptly.

Like slamming a door, the windy whispering stopped.

Jedit weighed his words. The man-tiger knew nothing of the castle's lord except her name, but clearly she had many cruel deeds to answer for.

"Friends," he addressed the hovering mob, "we march against Johan, who marches against all Jamuraa. Johan is a guest of Shauku, and that fact alone condemns her, as does your presence. Friends, I promise you-and no one swears lightly a pact with the dead-if you let us pass in quietude, we'll do our best to punish Shauku."

He waited for an answer. None came. Except the eldritch light of the shades faded. Jedit squinted into blackness, strained his ears, in silence. Finally the tiger pushed off from his rock and padded silently up the twisted tunnel.

Pirates and woodsfolk had neither retreated nor progressed an inch. They sat bug-eyed and jumpy, staring at the dark cave. The tiger scuffed his claws to not alarm them.

Adira lifted her chin. "Well?"

"I negotiated," drawled the tiger. "The shades suffered at Shauku's hands. They'll withdraw if we exact vengeance upon her."

Rather than grow angry, Adira sighed. "That's a hell of a posture for pirates and mercenaries. If we set out to unseat every despot in Dominaria, we'll never have a day's rest and will chew through crews like spotted plague."

"If necessary," purred Jedit. "I'll enact revenge myself, for t'was I who swore the oath."

"No, no. We're shipmates." Adira rose and waved a glowing hand. "Proceed, Master Diplomat. We follow you."

"Hold," said Magfire. Everyone turned, squinting in rain, breath steaming. The warchief said, "If this is the big push, it's time to call in all our warriors."

Digging in a pouch, Magfire produced a thin bone whistle, then faced the forest and blew a triplet piping. People waited, puzzled. Then Jasmine gasped.

Winging from the trees, flying jerky as drunken bats, came two pixies. They perched on a birch tree, clinging to the bark with a hand and bare foot like sailors on a ratline. Their wings pulsed slowly as if puffed by invisible winds. Adira and her crew goggled and dared not move lest the tiny creatures spook. They were tall as a man's forearm with pale skin and green-blond hair yanked back and tied. They wore mole and rabbit skins. Tiny bangles or else tattoos decorated their arms and bare legs. Most startling were their intelligent, luminous green eyes that reminded the pirates of merfolk.

Magfire talked low in an unknown tongue to the fairies, who stared big-eyed without speaking. One asked a question in a high-pitched squeak like a bat's, waggling a hand the size of a dandelion blossom. Tribeswoman and pixies came to some agreement, and the two made to fly.

Whistledove Kithkin surprised everyone by asking a question in the same squeaking tones. Magfire looked peeved. One pixie spilled a long half-singing speech like bird song. Whistledove smiled and nodded.

"What did you ask?" asked Adira.

Shy, the redheaded brownie blushed. "I just asked if they knew someone I know."

"Have they names?" breathed Jasmine. The druid couldn't take her eyes off the pixies.

"Oh, yes. The smaller one is Sacred Tree, the larger Peace-flower."

"Let's get on." Magfire thumped her red-hafted spike in one hand.

Trooping silently, following buzzing pixies, the party trekked deep into the hill. They saw no ghosts. Wary of horrors, most missed the change.