Raiders from the Ghost World

by Brian Herbert and Marie Landis

In the year 2078 two perfect human specimens in black uniforms, a male and a female, stood in the shadows of an alleyway. They watched a man approach. The man, nattily dressed in a light-colored suit with jeweled lapels, swaggered, unaware of their presence.

“That’s the guy,” one of the pair whispered. They were Los Angeles police officers.

The man in the jeweled suit saw them, and his small rat-eyes filled with rage and fear. He brought out a long-barreled gun.

But one of the officers, the male, raised a large weapon and pointed it at the man. A brief flash of light came from the shadows and the man fell to the pavement. His body twitched and the skin fell in upon itself, undulating slowly as it separated from muscle and skeleton. In a matter of seconds, flesh and organs became liquid, and bones dissolved.

Now a powerful stream of water shot from the black weapon, and the remains of the man were washed down a city drain.

The cops climbed into their unmarked car and drove away.

Fellow officers called this pair “The Titans,” a name that fit their physiology and achievements. Using newly enacted Liquidation Laws, they had liquidated hundreds of drug dealers and violent gang members in recent months.

The male’s name was Edward and the female’s, Lizbeth. Edward drove the car and used the Liquidator. His partner did most of the tactical work, forming plans and angles of attack. Their sworn duty was to keep criminals from harming children, especially in the economically depressed neighborhoods of the city.

Lizbeth was six feet tall, an intimidating presence with long supple muscles, firm breasts and a mane of platinum hair pulled into a sleek ponytail. Known as “Liquidator Liz,” she had been penalized by her superiors for being overly aggressive, to the point where she had been banned from using a Liquidator except to protect the lives of herself or fellow officers.

She hated criminals with a passion, especially those who targeted children.

Fair-haired with eyes the color of a glacier, Edward stood a muscular six foot five and looked as if he might be Lizbeth’s brother, but wasn’t. Nor was he her lover, though his interaction with her led other officers to speculate that the tie between them was too strong to be a mere working arrangement. They had an eerie sensitivity to each other’s thoughts, to such an extent that at times they seemed to be connected to a single complex brain.

“Captain wants to see us when we get back,” Lizbeth said, from the passenger seat. She checked the monitor on the dashboard. “New assignment, he says.”

Edward stared at the seedy buildings they passed, at garbage in the streets, at the pitiful dregs of humanity creeping from dumpster to dumpster under dim street lights. He was overwhelmed by the amount of police work remaining. It would take many lifetimes. “Wonder where he plans to send us,” Edward muttered.

Lizbeth pressed a console button and read from a news bulletin that appeared on the amber screen. “Almost every adult in LA carries a gun. Seventy-two percent of children over the age of nine are packing heat.” She whistled. “Forty-nine percent of the citizens of this city are lawbreakers.”

“That’s some kinda bleak shit,” Edward said.

“If only we didn’t have to get court permission to liquidate,” Lizbeth said. “We’d make one hell of a dent in these statistics!”

“Watch it. You nearly lost your badge for offing that baby-raper without court approval.”

“Aw, who cares?”

Edward stopped the car at a light, rested his arms on the steering wheel. “Yeah, well the law’s the law, and the only reason you’re still my partner is because of Judge Reynolds. He could have thrown the book at you.”

“I kept that pervert from raping again, didn’t I?”

“Yes, but—”

“Well, I’d do it again. I had the evidence and went with it. Court orders take time.”

“So does justice.”

“To hell with the law. If it worked, LA wouldn’t be a cesspool.”

“If you feel that way, you may as well pack it in.”

“Not yet. There’s a certain bastard I want to take out first.”

“I know who that is,” Edward said. When the light turned green, he rolled forward with traffic. He let his thoughts drift. The source of his partner’s wrath, and much of the city’s pain, was the man she called “Prince Slime,” the drug lord, Lorenzo Bashida. Like a jungle predator, he targeted the weak and disabled, and in the process had become a billionaire. He had no conscience.

“They say we’re a civilized people,” Liz said, “but I don’t know about that. Chaos rules, not Law. Evil breeds two of its kind for each one we destroy.”

“I know. I’m damned tired of it, too.”

Edward touched the handle of the Liquidator at his side, a weapon unimaginable in human society a few years earlier. In seconds it could dissolve a large man with voracious, piranha-like bacteria bullets. Like that dark-skinned man on the sidewalk ahead, waiting to cross the street, Edward slowed, and Lizbeth pointed an identity scanner at him, lighting up his forehead with a red light. The man looked terrified.

“He’s clean,” she said.

Edward accelerated. He thought about his connection to Lizbeth, whom he had met six years before. She filled a void in his life, ridding him of a feeling of incompleteness. Before she came into his life, albeit only on a professional basis, he had suffered frequent nightmares in which he flew across hellish landscapes that had gnarled hands reaching up to pull him down, hands that were always waiting for him when he fell asleep.

Prior to Lizbeth, he’d been unattached to anything or anyone. Memories of his family were muddy, too painful to fully recall. Lizbeth never asked questions about his background, and he never inquired about hers. Today, however, his thoughts spilled from his brain. “He was a son-of-a-bitch,” Edward said.

“Your father?” Lizbeth asked.

Her question didn’t surprise him, because of his apparent telepathic link with her.

“I don’t know where that came from,” he said. “Yeah, my father.”

“Tell me about him.”

“I don’t remember much about him. Mostly that I hated his guts. He was a British lord … royal title, money, the whole bit. I think he’s dead. Hell, I probably murdered him in a drunken rage. I don’t know.”

“I doubt that. Is your mom still alive?”

“I think … I think she died when I was born.”

“That’s tough,” Lizbeth said. Then she grinned. “You could have been a Lord with a high-society wife and hunting dogs. Yeah, I can see your name in the society columns. Lord Edward Yarmouth the Second and his wife entertain the Prime Minister this weekend.”

His lips curled in distaste. “No way,” he said. “I’m too much of a maverick.”

She laughed.

They pulled into the police garage and reported to their commanding officer, Captain Big Bill Angel, a well-fed man with jowly cheeks. He looked up from his desk as his subordinates walked in. “We got a line on your buddy, Bashida,” the captain said. “Built an expensive house in the North LA hills.”

“We get to liquidate him, sir?” Lizbeth asked, her eyes afire.

“Not yet, but maybe soon. First I need you to scout around his property. Heli-sensors picked up something weird out there, a long metal structure buried under the garden. We think it’s a tunnel.”

“Used for what?” Edward asked.

Captain Angel shrugged.

“Bashida put his name on a real estate title?” Lizbeth wanted to know. “Hard to believe, considering the security measures he takes.”

“Take a look,” the captain said with a broad smile. He passed her a stack of documents. “Central Control tracked him all the way from Bogota. Construction was paid for by a Mexican Corporation owned by Bashida. One of our undercover agents works for them, and information is filtering in.”

“Not fast enough,” Lizbeth said.

Edward caught her gaze. She was seething, and that was what he liked about her. She had a passion for her work.

“Take an unmarked car up there tonight,” the captain said. “A luxury model, so you won’t look out of place in that neighborhood. Wear nice clothes. Make yourselves look like an upscale young couple out for a walk in the night air. Find out what that underground structure is.”

That evening The Titans walked the streets and golden hills near Bashida’s new home, a magnificent structure fashioned to look like a castle. It had imposing river rock sides, glistening copper steeples and a silver roof. The yard was surrounded by a high wrought iron fence, posted with electric shock warnings.

Discreetly, Lizbeth trained a probe on the compound. An illuminated needle on the device registered that metal of an undetermined type was buried beneath the ground.

“Strange,” she said.

Headlights illuminated the night, and the pair ducked into shadows. A large black limousine rolled by, and the gates of the compound swung open. The car entered and proceeded up a long driveway.

The police officers moved parallel to the perimeter of the compound, following a gully along the fence. Lizbeth waved her probe over the ground as they walked.

She stopped suddenly. “Wait. I’ve got something.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know. The same metal, I guess. It isn’t identifiable by the meter.” She pointed down. “Here, under our feet.”

They scraped aside dirt and shale, and in low light exposed a wide metal lid that slid aside under pressure from their hands. An opening became apparent, and Edward stared into what looked like a huge corrugated pipe with a dimly-lit interior. He dropped into it with an echoing thump, and felt the metal give. The diameter of the pipe was a bit more than his height, permitting him to stand upright.

Lizbeth followed, closed the lid behind them.

Edward noticed that the surface had a peculiar yellow glow. Light seemed to come from the metal itself. He touched it. The surface was warm and pliable.

“I don’t know what it is,” he said. “Some kind of alloy, I guess.” He flipped on a flashlight to study the surface, then switched the light off.

“Looks like this tunnel goes toward the house,” Lizbeth said.

“I’ll check it out,” Edward said. “You wait here and watch the hatch.”

“We go together,” she said in a determined tone.

He argued a little, but soon gave up.

They walked forward into the semi-darkness. Lizbeth followed close behind Edward. The corrugated metal made a dull, echoing sound from their footsteps.

A low rumble caused them to stop. Bright lights filled the tunnel, and suddenly a dark-skinned man appeared before them. Close enough so they could see beads of sweat on his bald head.

Lizbeth let out a cry. “Bashida!”

“I see you fell for my little trap,” the bald man said.

Edward reached for the Liquidator at his hip.

Bashida laughed, and the world turned upside down. Bashida disappeared, and Edward found himself sliding forward rapidly into a kaleidoscope of color. Bashida’s incessant laughter filled the tunnel.

Suddenly darkness enveloped him, and Bashida’s laughter ceased. The movement of the tunnel slowed.

“Lizbeth?” shouted Edward.

No one answered.

Edward tried to brace his body against the sides with his hands and feet, but there was nothing to grasp. The walls broke away with a disconcerting crunch, and he was cast into darkness.

He felt oddly reborn and invigorated, and was assailed by feelings he’d never before experienced. It was as if an Otherness had seeped into his pores and bones and sinews—a curiously familiar Otherness. Someone or something was watching his every move, no … experiencing every move. Inside him, sharing his thoughts.

“You are one now,” a voice said, and in his mind Edward saw the lips of the speaker moving blurrily, thickly.

Abruptly he realized he was staring into a mirror-placid pond of water, at his own reflection. Red and orange locks of hair framed his face and fell to his shoulders, hair that was the wrong color and length for Edward Yarmouth of the LAPD. His body seemed heavier, and not as tall.

An illusion?

His reflected face was strong and hard and familiar, but the eyes were a shade of green. Unlike his own glacial stare, these eyes held warmth and passion.

The reflected lips in the pond moved, as if they had impetus of their own and belonged to a man who lived beneath the surface of the water. “You are no longer Edward,” the voice said. “You are Ultor, the Eternal Champion. You know what you must do.”

Edward who was Ultor dove into the pond, and his face merged with the face that had been speaking to him. He passed through the face, to the other side of it. Powerful arm-thrusts and leg-kicks propelled him downward. His eyes shone ahead like tiny brilliant headlights. He saw no fish, no life forms at all. Deeper he went, with no thought of his earthly existence, no worry that he could not breathe underwater, and that his heart might cease to beat.

He had but one purpose now, but with only a vague understanding of it.

His eyes illuminated a lacy membrane at the bottom of the pool. Then, like a theater curtain, the veil slid away, revealing a golden chest sitting upon a dais. As Edward approached, the chest’s surface became clear as crystal, and he could see its contents, a coal-black object, an indeterminate lumpy shape. He sensed it had been formed from atomic fires so long ago that its time of creation could not possibly be determined.

It pulsed and pounded like a living organism. Was it signaling him?

Ultor hesitated. Incomplete memories flickered in his mind.

He had left the object here long ago.

Was he meant to retrieve it? Was this his purpose?

Time hung in suspension, and Ultor realized he was no longer breathing, though this startling fact seemed to have no deleterious effect upon him.

He reached into the chest and touched the object tentatively. It looked hard but felt soft and pliable. With a quick motion he lifted it from the crystal chest, and holding it with one arm, began to swim upward, kicking his way toward the surface.

When he emerged from the pond, he sucked in deep, rattling gasps of air. He climbed from the water and lay down beside the misshapen object.

“You’re a bit out of condition, aren’t you?” a male voice said. Something metal clanked.

Ultor leaped to his feet, and turned to face a dark-skinned man whose body was protected by gleaming golden armor. He wore no helmet and his bald head glistened with beads of sweat. His expression revealed no emotion. He held a drawn sword.

“Bashida?” Ultor asked.

The man shook his head. “I am Lord Roon.” With his sword he gestured toward the lumpy black object on the ground beside Ultor. “Aren’t you going to release it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Say the magic spell, utter the secret words to release the weapon from the stone. Hurry!”

“But—”

“Whisper the words if you prefer, so that I can’t hear.”

Ultor’s eyelids narrowed. “What spell? Even if I knew what you were talking about, why should I accommodate you?”

“To fulfill your destiny.”

Memories flooded Ultor’s mind. He was the timeless warrior, the Eternal Champion destined to use a magical weapon again and again in the service of mankind. He had a partner. Her name eluded him. Where was she?

More memories returned to Ultor, drowning him, suffocating him. He and the woman had been crime-fighters. Once, eons ago, they had traveled the highways of the stars through space and time, and had hidden something at the bottom of this pond.

A sacred weapon.

Time seemed to stand on end, as if it contained events that were in no logical or easily recalled sequence. He put up a mental barrier to protect himself from the overwhelming data that was spilling into his brain. He envisioned a face, and a name went with it.

“Lizbeth?” Ultor said.

“I told you, I’m Lord Roon.”

Ultor caught the impatient gaze of the armored man. “Not you. I’m looking for a woman.”

“Then you’ve come to the right place,” Roon said. “In the Kingdom of Greehyll we have many lovely lasses, as you must recall from your last visit.”

“Something tells me I’ve been to this place before, with a female partner.” He paused and added, “Lizbeth.”

Lord Roon shook his head. “All I know is the message of the prophets. You were destined to appear and utter the spell, releasing the power that has been held captive.”

“We are one,” a woman’s voice whispered, within Ultor’s head. “You must break the spell.”

Ultor lowered the mental barriers and dropped to his knees. The words that formed the spell appeared bright and clear in his mind. He spoke them, and the crust of the object beside him broke away, revealing a lusterless black dagger.

“Take it,” Lord Roon said.

The Eternal Champion looked at the gleaming sword in the hand of Roon, then beside him at the pitifully small dagger. Why hadn’t Roon attacked? Why was he so anxious to have the dagger released? Certainly it was no match for a sword.

Was this a bad dream?

It occurred to Ultor that a knife could be hurled, but the thrust would have to be a head shot, the only unprotected area. He gripped the handle of the knife and brought it forth. It was heavy for its size, but had a nice balance. The blade was sharp and icicle-cold.

Ultor stood up and stared hard at Roon.

“Follow me,” Roon said. He sheathed his sword and gazed toward the gray-blue hills rimming the horizon. “We have a distance to travel today.”

“Follow you? Never! I’m taking you into custody, so we won’t have time for your little trip.”

“Because you are our Eternal Champion, I will overlook your arrogance. What reasons have you for disrespecting a Lord? You want to take me into custody? How dare you? I’m not a fugitive!”

Something in the man’s indignant tone, if not his appearance, rang true. Ultor explained the situation in Los Angeles, and how he and Lizbeth had been in pursuit of the evil drug lord, Bashida.

“Interesting,” Roon said. “You say this devil looks exactly like me?”

“Could be your twin.”

Lord Roon frowned, and put a finger to his lips, thoughtfully. “Perhaps what you say is true. According to our legends there are many dimensions, multiple universes. It may be that you have seen two aspects of me, Bashida and Roon. Darkness and Light. But you are here now, in the kingdom of Greehyll, and I am your friend, not your enemy.”

Ultor ran his thumb lightly along the blade of the dagger, without drawing blood. The blade was very sharp, but what sort of material was it? In its blackness it reminded him of the Liquidator, and of other weapons he had carried on other assignments, including a Black Sword and a Black Bow, all with magical powers.

“I’ve played warrior for you before, haven’t I?” he said.

Roon showed open impatience. “We must hurry. The King is waiting. Ultor, you are the one who fights for mankind. That’s what you did in your Los Angeles life, and that’s what you’ll do here.”

“But I didn’t complete my assignment there. I was interrupted.”

The bald man shook his head. “If I was that Bashida character, and I lived in Los Angeles, you must have done something to displace me. Obviously I can’t be in two places at once. Worry no more about such trivialities, and let’s be on our way. Our transport is just beyond those trees.” He pointed.

“A woman’s voice has spoken to me,” Ultor said, “announcing that we are one. I interpret that to mean that I am two parts—male and female—Edward and Lizbeth. Why has this happened to me?”

Roon shrugged. “Perhaps the legends are true, oh Champion, that you split and merge in various ways while traveling through time dimensions. You were split into male and female previously, and you’re male now. It is said that incarnations can be black-white, human-alien, human-machine … The variations are endless! I had hoped that you might explain some of these mysteries to me.”

“I cannot.”

“Then come with me!”

They walked through a forest of trees that resembled giant pink and white flowers. There were no sounds other than their footsteps. The tranquility was pleasing to Ultor, but he was startled by the incongruous scene directly ahead of him, as the trees cleared. Parked at the side of a wide road was a red sports car, with a medieval lance secured to a roof rack by a padlocked custom bracket. The vehicle’s license plate read, “KNIGHT 1.”

Ultor became aware of highway noise, not unlike Los Angeles at rush hour. As he and Roon neared the car, a freeway became visible to the left, down a little incline. Buses, trucks, and cars moved at great speeds along the thoroughfare. A bus stopped and people who had been waiting boarded, men and women dressed in medieval garb, with sandals on their feet and strangely styled hair. One carried a computer, while another had a miniature television set. They looked around nervously as they climbed on the bus, as if afraid of something.

Overhead, airplanes in the shapes of giant birds shot across the sky.

“Get in,” Roon said. He climbed into the driver’s seat of the car. Ultor noticed a gaping hole in the middle of the dashboard.

As they sped down the super highway, toward hills in the distance, Lord Roon explained Ultor’s task. “King Marklanos needs you to defeat a terrible menace. Plunderers from the Ghost World have been attacking, carrying valuables back with them, looting the kingdom. That’s why people were carrying things with them wherever they went, in an effort to guard the articles, and why I locked my lance on the top rack.”

“I see,” Ultor said.

Lord Roon pointed at the hole in the dashboard. “The little devils took my radio. They carry tool kits and can steal anything in a matter of seconds. We’ve tried everything to slow or stop them, but nothing works. The King is exceedingly displeased with this state of affairs, for our people are strongly linked to consumer products and living well.”

Lord Roon sighed. He looked around nervously. “Marauders make us uneasy. In some quarters there is even talk of rebellion against the king.”

“Who are these plunderers?”

“Creatures the size of human children, with great cunning. We call them ghost-children, since they come from the Ghost World.”

Ultor looked puzzled. “How many are there?”

“Hundreds, perhaps thousands. They are dangerous adversaries who slide in and out of dimensions, much as you do.” Roon shook his head. “Rumor has it that they are not satisfied with stealing our material things, but suck our souls as well. This is unconfirmed, but has spread panic through the kingdom.”

“And I’m supposed to destroy the plundering soul-suckers with a little dagger?”

“The King knows nothing of your weaponry. If you wish, he can provide you with a lance, a mace, a club, or a sword. Whatever you wish will be provided.”

“How about a gun? Better yet, how about a Liquidator? You have any of those?”

“Gun? Liquidator? I’ve never heard of such things. Are they weapons?”

“Yes,” Ultor said, dejectedly. He decided this must be some cruel trick of the Fates, perpetuated upon him by the Lords of Chaos. Names came back to him. He had been many heroes in the past, all separate but linked … Elric … Erekose … Allaros the Red … Eternal Champions all of them. And he thought of Tanelorn, that magical land where he would dwell in peace one day, where all of his dreams would be fulfilled.

Roon continued to speed down the highway. At the edge of a range of hills, he made a sharp turn and bumped onto a paved brick road. They passed through vineyards and orchards, and at the crest of a hill a broad blue sea came into view, with a glistening white city beside it. The road wound down the hill and entered a wooded area of black and white trees. They emerged from the woods, and Ultor beheld a sprawling villa at the edge of the sea. The elegant home had towers and swimming pools and broad, verdant gardens.

In an immense, barren room inside the villa, Ultor was introduced to King Marklanos, a diminutive man with a crop of thick brown hair, combed straight back. Dressed in a royal purple suit with a lacy white collar, he sat at a folding chair that was set up at a card table. There were no other furnishings in the room, and only a single picture on one wall. The picture hung slightly askew.

“I’m so glad to see you,” the King said, rising from his chair. He waved his hand. “Look around you. This room is like others in my home, and in the homes of many of the subjects of my kingdom. We are left with only a few items. The plunderers raid us at will, with nothing to stop them.”

“We’re working to develop alarm systems,” Lord Roon said. “Ghost detectors that will sense the ethereal creatures and destroy them. Thus far there has been no success.”

“At one time we had nine ghost-children imprisoned,” King Marklanos said. “We found that by grabbing them and holding tight, we could prevent them from shifting back to their realm. The moment we let go, they escape, so we must assign guards to remain with them in shifts, with someone always holding on. The creatures aren’t very strong, but they are crafty and full of tricks. Eight have escaped. Only one is left.”

Suddenly a commotion arose and two royal guards ran into the room chasing a tiny elfin creature. The creature had a pale, narrow face and oversized eyes. It wore a green costume with red tassels at the sleeves and on the tops of the shoes.

“That’s one!” King Marklanos said. “Get him!”

Stunned, Ultor stood and watched as one of the men grabbed hold of the ghost-child and then lost his grip. The creature leaped onto a ledge and snatched the last painting from the wall. Then the thief vanished with its prize.

“Damn it!” the King said. “That was my favorite painting. What will they do next, take my chair and table, too?”

The words were hardly out of his mouth when two creatures appeared out of thin air and spirited away the articles he had just spoken of, leaving him with nothing in the room.

Ultor noticed now that the monarch wore no jewelry, and that there were spots on his suit. The ghost-children had probably stripped his wardrobe as well. This certainly was a problem-plagued kingdom, and Ultor began to feel a sense of duty and responsibility.

“Why didn’t you defend my property?” King Marklanos demanded. He stared at Ultor.

“I’ve just arrived,” the champion responded, “and I must understand the enemy before taking action. I would like to be shown the prisoner.”

“If he’s still here,” King Marklanos said. He motioned to the guards, who stood nearby with their heads down, dejected at having failed to protect the property of the royal personage.

The guards led Ultor and Roon to an elevator, which carried them up several stories into a tower. Inside a large cell, Ultor saw eight beefy guards sitting on the floor around a ghost-child, with each guard holding tight to the creature. The prisoner struggled fitfully to escape, but stopped and smiled when it saw Ultor.

“This ghost-child calls itself Jikall,” Lord Roon said. “We believe it is one of the leaders, and have assigned extra guards to it.”

As Ultor started to enter the cell he was suddenly confronted by three creatures who might have been the twins of the first. They rushed at Ultor out of thin air, brandishing golden swords.

The Eternal Champion moved quickly to one side, dodging the attackers. They rushed at him again, and he shifted the dagger from hand to hand, then pointed the blade at them. To his shock the dagger was suddenly wrenched from his hands by an unseen force, and sent spinning in the air in front of his face. It swiped at his neck, leaving a thin line of blood and nearly cutting his throat. Ultor grabbed hold of the weapon once more and held tight. How could this be?

The knife writhed and twisted in front of his face as he struggled to get control, and beyond it he saw the attackers, no longer moving toward him.

“We don’t need to do anything,” one of the ghost-children said. “A spell has been cast on the knife. It will kill him for us.”

Ultor felt blood trickling down his neck, and this enraged him. He cursed the Lords of Chaos. Immediately he felt the dagger change, so that it no longer fought him and became one with him, under the command of his will. The dagger became a chameleon to meet his particular needs. One moment a gun, the next a sword, the next a bright light to blind his opponents.

He drove the trio of ghost-children back against a stone wall. With frightened, high-pitched squeals, they disappeared into the stone.

Ultor raised his dagger, and immense loops of energy leaped from it, surrounding the ghost-child prisoner known as Jikall, wrenching him from the guards and encapsulating him until he was no more than a bulky cocoon. Ultor lifted this strange object and carried it to a window, where he intended to cast it out with a magic curse that would send it and all of its brethren, wherever they were, into oblivion, never to bother anyone again.

When Lord Roon heard the curse, he clapped his hands in glee.

“Wait!” a voice said, from inside the cocoon, just as Ultor was about to throw it. “The magic of your weapon has released a spell upon me. I have information for you.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Lord Roon cautioned. “Ghost-children are full of tricks. Throw him out the window!”

“We’ve been under an evil influence,” the voice said, which was that of Jikall. “The Lords of Chaos had us doing their bidding, stealing things we didn’t need in order to foment unhappiness in this kingdom. Televisions, microwaves, stereo receivers, CD players, toaster ovens, computers. Such things are of no use to us, for we do not live in houses and have no electricity. We are people of the forest, living in the trees and in underground warrens. In our once lovely Ghost World the articles we stole are decaying in great, unsightly piles. The Lords of Chaos put a spell on your weapon too, Eternal Champion, and for a time they controlled it.”

Ultor, who considered himself an excellent judge of truth and falsehood, heard sincerity in the voice, even through the barrier of the cocoon.

“Let me out,” the ghost-child said. “If you cast me away, all of my people will go with me, and there will be no ghost-children any more. This will set in motion a chain reaction throughout the universe of unimagined, catastrophic proportions. Each realm is dependent upon the others, in mysterious but important ways. Without the Ghost World, there can be no Law or Chaos, no life or death, only nothingness. All will fall into black oblivion. You know this is true, Ultor. Open this cocoon, I implore you.”

“Don’t listen to his lies,” Lord Roon said.

But Ultor did so anyway, and the ghost-child sprang out. The creature waved a hand, and a dozen ghost-children appeared in the cell, each carrying an article that had been stolen from the Kingdom of Greehyll.

“Restore them to their rightful owners,” Jikall commanded. He pointed toward the door.

Obediently, the ghost-children carried the articles out of the cell.

“At this very moment the stolen items are being restored, all over Greehyll,” Jikall said. “All decay and deterioration in the articles has been reversed, for the spell is over.”

The ghost-child laughed, a great peal that carried through the cell and outside, traveling a considerable distance. He clasped Ultor’s hand, and said to him, “You are victorious, Eternal Champion, and once again there is stability and apparent happiness in the kingdom. But consider this: Are these people really better off with all of their possessions?”

With that, Jikall spun in the air, forming a brilliant light. Then, in a puff of smoke, he disappeared.