"Have you swept the tavern and scrubbed the tables?" When Stara said "the tavern," she meant the common room. She'd hoped to get a little practice in before the evening customers began to file in. "Yes, Mother?" she called over her shoulder. Rune sighed, and her hand dropped to her side. Her mother's nasal whine echoed up the stairs from the tavern sleeping rooms below. Rune reached up to the shelf over her pallet for her fiddle case, and froze with her hand less than an inch away. The attic cubicle was dark and stuffy, two conditions the tiny window under the eaves did little to alleviate. But I warn you-the moment my attention lags, little girl-you'll die like all the others and you will join all the others in my own private little Hell." If you please me, if you continue to entertain me until dawn, I shall let you live, a favor I have never granted any other. And pray to that Sacrificed God of yours that you fiddle well, very well. The Ghost laughed, a sound with no humor in it, the kind of laugh that called up empty wastelands and icy peaks. "I've come to fiddle for you-sir?" she said, gasping for breath between each word, trying to keep her teeth from chattering. Rune had to swallow twice before she could speak, and even then her voice cracked and squeaked with fear. "Why were you waiting here? For me? Foolish child, do you not know what I am? What I could do to you?" "Why have you come here, stupid child?" it murmured, as fear urged her to run away. Instantly, but in terror that would make dying seem to last an eternity. It could have been born of her imagination, yet Rune knew the voice was the Ghost's, and that to run was to die. Series: Bardic Voices A Ghost of a Chance Mercedes LackeyĪ voice, an icy, whispering voice, came out of the darkness from all around her from everywhere, yet nowhere.
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