Jules approached the village wall. It was more like a picket fence, gouged with claw marks and spotted with scorched wood and puddles of old tar, but villagers tended to get oddly snippy if you portrayed their efforts at defense as flimsy.
As he passed the gates, he noticed the place seemed hushed. No children playing in the streets, no grandmothers gossiping in their doorways. The few people he saw rushed from building to building, darting him nervous glances as they sped past.
Excellent. There was money to be made today.
Jules walked into the once-impressive inn off the town square. Well crafted furniture, but clearly past its prime. A dozen or so hunch-backed locals clustered around the room. He nodded to the bartender. “You have a room for the night and something in the pot?”
“Aye,” she replied. “You want summat now?”
“Along with whatever you have on tap,” Jules said, sauntering to the table next to the second-largest group, the men with the finest clothes.
They glared at Jules and lowered their voices as he sat down. It didn’t take more than a few minutes, however, before Jules caught the drift of their conversation.
A ghost problem, eh? Jules could handle that. Even better, their local enchanter clearly couldn’t.
“The spirit was clearly some kind of soldier or mercenary,” the enchanter said. “We need something else to draw it in, like a musket – or a sword, if he’s pre-War of Wars.”
Jules snorted. “I’ll save you some trouble, unless it’s a nobleman’s dress weapon, don’t bother.” He turned to look at the enchanter. “Soldier or not, no ghost comes for anything less than gold. And not some little bit, like a touch of gilt or an earring. They like the good stuff, heavy rings or a broach with a fat gem.”
“Tosh,” the enchanter replied, glaring at Jules. “I’ve never heard of such a thing, and we don’t need some stranger nosing his way into our town’s business.”
“Forgive me,” said Jules with a slight bow of his head, “since you are clearly able to handle this on your own, as a task that should take an hour and few grams of red sulfide has by your own admission taken you over a week with no success.”
One of the other men at the table, a man with white hair and a fine burgundy cloak, eyed Jules. “Red sulfide isn’t easy to get this far from the city – not much use for it away from the factories and labs, Mr…”
“Call me Jules. Hard to get, yes, but blasted handy against ghosts, liches, and werecats, so any traveling enchanter worth his salt carries it.” Jules ignored the death-glare he got from the enchanter.
“Don’t listen to him, Lord Charlemagne, he’s clearly a charlatan.”
Jules shrugged and turned back to sopping the remains of his stew with a piece of bread.
After a moment, Lord Charlemagne spoke, “Jules, you say. You think you could get rid of our problem with a bit of red sulfide and something valuable, say, my cloak clasp?”
Jules craned his neck to see the clasp in question. A piece of art, it was – two golden lion heads with full-carat rubies for eyes.
“For the price of the clasp, yes,” he replied.
Charlemagne burst into laughter, waving Jules off. “You are a charlatan. This clasp has been in my family for two generations and is worth more than this building.”
“Price gouger, yes; charlatan, no,” shrugged Jules, standing and brushing crumbs from his jacket. “As I see it, you have a problem you need to solve before the Nobleman’s Annual Hunt this month, otherwise they and their profligate friends will pass your town by – they are a superstitious lot, after all, and your animals will have all gone mad from the ghost pestering them. You can’t make this problem go away on your own, but I can, and quickly. Simple supply and demand, your lordship. Not to mention solving your problem will take the rest of my red sulfide, as well as a full bag of anathium, which will force a trip back to Gearhaven and leave me vulnerable in between, turning your problem into my problem, and I don’t take problems on for free.”
Lord Charlemagne glared at Jules for a long moment. He waggled a forefinger bejeweled with a heavy gold ring and a two-carat emerald. “You can have this ring as payment, you’ll banish the ghost with us all watching, and you’ll do it within the hour or be out of my town.”
Jules considered for a moment. “Agreed,” he said with a nod. The clasp would have been fabulous, but the ring would turn a tidy profit. He liked emeralds better anyway. “Show me where this ghost has been lurking.”
The five men walked to a nearby stable. “Here,” Lord Charlemagne pointed. “The ghost started wandering around this area and now goes all over town, as if looking for something. We’ve already had to put down two fine hunting horses that went mad with fright and broke their legs, and we’ve had to cram all the animals in smaller stables elsewhere in the town.”
Jules nodded and studied the building, in and out. Nothing notable about it, just a typical large boarding stable.
He gathered a few twigs and some straw from around the building for a small fire, muttering some nonsense about how it was always better to use materials from the local area if possible.
Considering the inside of the stable again, Jules chose an area without a direct view from either entrance. “Stay at the ends of the corridor, if you please,” he advised. “You never know if they’ll turn vicious rather than mournful.”
Jules sprinkled red-dyed salt in a large circle, intoning incantations and leaving an opening just wide enough for a man to walk through. He placed a wooden dish at one end of the circle and then motioned Lord Charlemagne over. “The clasp in here, please, your lordship.”
Charlemagne glared at Jules. “You said a heavy gold ring would do, so you better make good on it,” he said, putting the ring in the bowl, his clasp safely out of reach. It had been worth a shot.
Jules shrugged and waved Charlemagne back as he recommenced his chants, using a nearby spade to dig a small hole just behind the jewelry. He dug an inch or so until he hit a blood-soaked piece of paper. Jules built a small fire in the hole, then chanted louder, willing the ghost into the circle. He stood for a few minutes, eyes closed, arms outstretched, until he heard the suppressed hisses of proud men unwilling to appear afraid in front of their fellows.
Jules smiled as a ghost with a tattered military uniform entered the circle, appearing to inspect the jewelry while Jules closed the salt ring and added an enchantment that would prevent sound from escaping the circle, followed by one to facilitate the ghost’s departure to the undershroud.
The ghost continued to stare at the fire as the flames reached the paper.
The dead soldier, beginning to fade as the banishing enchantment took effect, turned to Jules “You were the one who took my daughter’s photo – who lured me to this place with something I treasured. I saw you with my body. You could have ushered my spirit to the undershroud there. Why lure me here?”
Jules raised his arms as if delivering a powerful curse. “FOR MONEY!” he thundered and tossed a few iron filings into the fire, unleashing white sparks.
The waning ghost cringed as the photo burned in the mystic circle. He glared at Jules with loathing. “You toy with my spirit and this town for your own gain. You’re a worse scourge than I was.”
“No less a scourge, perhaps, but far more enterprising!” Jules pretended to bellow as he continued to toss filings until the ghost faded.
“After all,” Jules said to the final wisps of the ghost,” If I’m going to do the right thing, I may as well get paid for it.”
