The ride out had been tiring for the couple, neither of whom were young.  The Duke swung stiffly off of his horse, and moved to help his lady wife dismount.  Their bodyguards took the mounts around to the stable, while the new owners opened the front door of the tower keep.
 
A plain young woman in blue homespun curtsied low at their arrival.  "Welcome, Your Grace and Your Ladyship. We hope everything will be in order for you.  May I show you to your apartments?"

Duke William James IX of Guhrya nodded and extended his arm to his wife as the chatelaine led the way up a set of winding stairs.  "Has all gone well?" he asked the woman.

"Quite well, Your Grace.  The Lady has walked twice in three months.  We doubt she will trouble you so soon.  The renovations have gone as you wished, with less expense than planned."

Duchess Cordula looked at her husband apprehensively.  "The lady?" she asked.

"A local superstition, my dear.  Nothing for devout Vanadans to fear at all," he informed her.  "And certainly nothing to disturb your long-promised holiday.  Perhaps, I shall leave the Emperor's service and reside here."

The chatelaine opened a door on a landing.  "Your apartments, Your Grace.  I trust you will find all in order.  The bell-cord will bring me at any time."  She curtsied and left.

Alone and able to relax the ceremony, Cordula moved into her husband's arms.  "Sweet William, did you truly mean it?"

"About retiring?  Of course, my love.  I am old, and no one knows it better.  Seventy year-old steel may still make a good weapon, and sixty year-old leather good armor, but a sixty-five year-old soldier is no good to anyone outside the council chamber.  If this keep is satisfactory, we shall leave the palace in the city to my successor, and live here quietly in the country."

She kissed him approvingly and summoned the chambermaids to unpack.  Dinner was eaten, and the lord of a nearby manor came to pay his respects.  The night candles were lit to mark the hours until dawn, and they retired to the large brocade-hung bed.  It had been a tiring day and they sleep soundly.

Near midnight, Cordula awakened to a low wailing.  She sat up, staying near her husband, and listened closer.  The voice seemed to be coming up the stairs.  It was definitely a woman's voice.  Now the room seemed colder, and Cordula shook her sleeping husband.  He stirred and, always the seasoned soldier, sat upright, fully awake.  They watched as a faint form entered the room without opening the door.  The figure seemed to search the room for something, walking to a place at the foot of the bed and staring down intently.

"My baby . . . " the form wailed and vanished, leaving the startled couple still sitting up, clutching each other.

"That must be the lady," Cordula hazarded.  "Did she look familiar?"

"Quite.  The resemblance between her and the Emperor's sister is uncanny, although she is definitely older.  Vanada will protect us, Cordula.  The lady only searches for her lost child, and neither of us are infants."  Having given this advice, he lay back down, pulling his wife with him, and promptly went back to sleep.  Cordula lay awake a long time.  As many women had, she had lost a baby of her own, and she felt the poor woman's loss in a way her husband could not have.  But what mother's grief could be so strong as to pull her back from the grave?  She wondered as she fell asleep.

Both arose a bit pale the next morning, and neither spoke of what had happened.  Cordula ate quickly and went to oversee the day's work of the keep, while William went to the stables to become acquainted with his new grooms and trainers.  The night visitor seemed less real in the stables with the good smell of horse and hay surrounding him.  He regretted leaving to eat the evening meal.  There was something he should be remembering, and he could not think of it.

That night, as he lay next to Cordula, feeling as strange and awkward as he had on their wedding night, forty-five years ago, she asked the question he had been dreading since dinner.  "Do you think she'll walk again?"

"I don't know, my dearest.  I can only pray she won't."

They slept.  Again the wailing came, and this time she did not vanish, but beckoned the couple to follow.  Cordula, always practical, lit a candle, knowing the stairs were treacherous.  They followed her up to the top of the tower.  She seemed content to wait as they rested on occasion.  Both knew they would be sore the next day from the unaccustomed strain.  The door she passed through was locked, but again Cordula had the key.

The room was a laboratory of some sort, probably magical.  The duke and duchess neither knew nor wished to know what many of the objects were.  The ghost beckoned them to a patch of bare stone wall.  As she pointed to it, it faded away and they saw the past.

She approached the castle at dusk.  The grey towers loomed large, and she dared not move closer.  Fell things walked the night, under the direction of the owner of the keep.  This was her sworn mission, and her doom.  She had delayed far too long, enjoying the company of Nicholas Raintree and his people.  Even so, when  Vanada had told her to part ways, she did so with no remorse.  The foul elf-woman of Theda had been destroyed.  She was stronger now than she had been, and it was time to face her real opponent.

The night was spent in prayer, on her armored knees.  The blue star and silver sword on her tabard glowed with an unearthly light, and the fey things that passed her avoided it.  She took no notice of their passing, locked in communion with her goddess.

Dawn came, and the sun rose bloodily behind a shroud of grey fog.  Momentous deeds were in the making.  She approached the tower.

"Zara beht Rima, come forth!" she cried.  "Come forth, face righteousness and die!"

"Come in, Ursala of the house of Furyblade.  Come in, and meet your doom," came the calm response, as if someone had spoken in her ear.  The door in front of her opened.

"Foul sorceress, creator of things unliving, communer with demons, weaver of spells, I come!"  she proclaimed, stepping through the opened door of the castle.  She paused in front of a hovering candle surmounted by two glowing eyes.  "You shall die with your mistress, a prelude to the destruction of all her monstrosities."

"Agreed, warrior.  But for now, follow, and I shall take you to where my mistress awaits you," the specter said.

In the living quarters of her keep, Zara tucked the quilt a little closer around her sleeping daughter.  It had been a month now, and she still was not well.  Her master had given her knowledge of the future, laughing as he did so.  She now appreciated the bitter irony of his gift.  She knew the holy warrior would kill her, but she also knew that from her daughter would come a mage more powerful than she.  Her death was necessary to enable the birth of her descendent.  Someday, in the far future, another Zara would unlock the powers within her, and rule the world.  But for now, little Ellanya had to be provided for.  There was another irony, that her bitterest enemy would provide succor for her line.  The fight was predetermined, but she would make the warrior pay for her blood.

In the workroom, the two opponents met.  Zara beht Rima, standing tall and straight, her black hair flowing  unbound down her back, her sleeveless black robe revealing the pentagram shaped scar on her wrist.  She was lovely ice facing the fire of the Furyblade.  Ursala was taller than the mage, and heavier.  Her armor seemed impenetrable, with only the long red hair cascading down her back to show she was female.  She wore no helm, but carried a fiery sword.

"Greetings, my enemy," Ursala began the ritual of battle with a formal bow.  "Five times will I do you honor, under the Laws of Vanada, may She guide me truly."

"And to you, my enemy," Zara returned with a formal bow of her own.  "Three times, by the rules of Vendan the Destroyer, Brother of Vanada, will I honor you.  And once will I beg a boon," she added although it was not in the ritual.

The warrior was non-plussed.  "Your boon, if it be wise and good, shall be granted, after your death, my enemy," she acquiesced with another bow, noticing how haggard the mage looked.

"It is wise, and good, my enemy.  I thank you for your word."  She made her second bow, reaching for her staff, as she grimaced from the pain.

"Name your boon, ere you honor me again," the warrior improvised, not wanting to have to try to make out dying words.  She bowed for the third time.  She had two more to make, meaning the wizard would get first strike.  No rule said she could not defend, but she would be unable to attack until she had fulfilled the Law.  Failure to complete the ritual made the death a murder on her record, and would strip her of all status in the temple.

"My infant daughter lies sleeping in the next room.  If you slay me, take her with you when you leave.  Find her a fosterage.  She is but a month old, and innocent.  Her power is dormant and will not awaken.  That is all I ask."  She made her third bow, and began a spell.

"Your boon shall be granted, my enemy.  By dying, you may yet do some good in the world."  She made her fourth bow.  As she prepared to announce her attack with a fifth bow, she saw the spell effect hurtling her way.  Lightbringer, her sword, was there before the fire-stream.  It absorbed the fire, devouring it, turning it into a part of itself.  "This last time, do I do you honor, oh my enemy," she announced.  "The ritual is complete.  Prepare to die."

"And you, also, Vanadan!" Zara sneered, sending another spell out, ice this time.  The pellets flew from her fingertips toward the warrior's unprotected face.  Again, the sword was there, melting the pellets with the heat stored from the fire-stream.  Leaning heavily on the staff, Zara circled the worktable warily, keeping it between her and the armored fury.  There would be energy for one or maybe two more spells, then she would taste the heaven-forged metal of the sword.

"Hell-bride.  I see the mark on your wrist.  You cannot destroy me," Ursala commented calmly, watching the sorceress move.  She was becoming slower, and less sure of herself.  She was tired, and Ursala would take no pleasure in her death.

"We are alike, you and I," the mage said, distracting the warrior from the spell she was weaving.  "I am a dark reflection of you.  Now defend from this reflection."  The doppleganger went out, taking on Ursala's shape and appearance.  Two fiery swords faced one another.  One touch from the spell's illusionary weapon and she would be lost, her soul trapped in a jar to sit on the mage's shelf forever.  She swung the real sword down and clashed with the illusions.  The movements were too perfect, and the spell could read her mind.  She began feinting and attacking, to no avail.  The spell followed her to the least nuance.  Murmuring a prayer to Vanada, whose sword it was, Ursala cleared her mind and let the sword move as it would.  This the apparition could not follow.  The sword was intelligent, but did not think.  It struck home, cleaving the doppleganger in twain.  The spell dissipated with the scent of violets and rotten eggs.

Surprisingly, to Ursala's mind, the sorceress had not left the room.  Most created a diversionary tactic and fled.  Zara gathered her energies for the last spell.  This would have to kill the warrior, or herself.  Cold fire streamed from her fingers, heatless this time that the sword would not absorb it.

And Lightbringer did not absorb it.  Ursala interposed the blade, and the fire rebounded from it, back, full force, onto the origin.  Death was painless, and instant, as the fire burned its way through her, devouring the vitals.

The Destroyer greeted Zara at the gates of his realm, and welcomed her into it with the same sardonic smile.  "Opener of the Way, most faithful of slaves, welcome home."  And it was, her own tower, which she would share with her ancestresses from time immemorial.

The sun burst through the clouds, illuminating the plain.  A lone woman, her red hair gleaming over her armor, walked out alone, a sleeping baby bundled into her arms.  The road back to Guhrya was long, but they would survive, and the child would become a great force for good.  Were she wed, she would have taken the girl for her own.  The privilege of marriage would not be hers for three more years, but there was a certain lady in Guhrya who desperately wanted a daughter.  She would make fine fosterage for the innocent child.  Ursala smiled down at the child in her arms, noticing no resemblance to the evil mother who had borne her.  A fine child, one destined to do much good.  And thinking thus, she set her feet on the long road home.

Stunned by what they had seen, the old couple worked their way back to their bed, slowly now, the sixty-odd years feeling like a hundred.  William remembered what had been eluding him for so long, and the new information could make life very difficult and dangerous at a time when all he wanted was peace and security.

They broke their fast in silence, neither having slept much.  They had lain awake, pondering the new information.  It was well, William thought, that Cordula had not assembled all the pieces, like a broken mirror.  He had and he dreaded the reflection it gave back.

He finally broke the silence.  "Beloved, do you wish to stay here?  I will send for an Immaculate to come cleanse the place, if you do.  Perhaps we can turn this into a good place again."

"Whatever you wish, my husband," she responded, glad he had not seen all the ramifications of the new knowledge.  With his powerful position, it was entirely likely the Emperor would have his head hanging in the gruesome Hall of Skulls before the week was out if he realized all she had.

It would set ill with the High Church of Vanada were it known that the great-grandson of the wickedest woman in the world now sat on the throne of the Empire.  And his twin sister standing beside him, advising him, looking more and more like woman she was named for with each passing day would be enough to spark a revolt.

Cordula remembered aiding Queen Llewella's midwife when the twins were born, and how she had cringed upon hearing the ill-fated name renewed.  Had the late queen been wise, she would have refused to nurse the girl.  She had watched them grow apprehensively, remembering the old tales.  She was not old enough to remember the reign of Zara beht Rima, being only four years older than the late queen, but she had heard tales from her mother of the creatures that had only stopped their ravages a decade before she was born.  She remembered Ellanya beht Mariah, who had taken her adopted mother's matronymic, and had borne Llewella.  It was good that men did not know or care about such gossip.  Her husband was a powerful man, and hence the more likely to draw his lord's suspicion.  She would not tell him of what she knew.  It would protect him.  If he wished to live in this accursed tower, she would do as she must and stay with him.  She only prayed the cleansing would work.

"Send for an Immaculate, if you wish to stay," she said.  "I will live where you choose."

Surprised by her tone, he sent the message at once, dictating it to a scribe and sending him to the nearest monastery.  "My dearest love, why will you not say yea or nay?  You are neither slave nor servant and if this place distresses you, I would sooner burn it than have you live here.  The Immaculate can come tomorrow and cleanse it.  If you wish to return to the palace, I will go with you now."

"Let us see if the cleansing is successful," she said.  In the city, it would be harder to remain silent.  Here, she had no one to talk to, except the servants and her spinning wheel and loom.  Her husband's life could depend on her silence now.  "Tonight, let us sleep in the servants' quarters.  I would not be disturbed again."

The night passed quietly, although the wails were heard above them.  Cordula only shifted in her sleep, and William never stirred.  The chatelaine and her husband had been sent, after a good bath, to sleep in the master bed, while they stayed on the less-comfortable pallet in the room off the kitchen.  Breakfast smells and the sounds of sobbing awoke them the next morning.  The cook was busy at the fireplace, pausing from time to time to comfort the crying chatelaine.

The woman looked up and saw her master and mistress before bursting into fresh sobs.  "Vanada's mercy, it was," the cook muttered, busying herself.

"What has happened?" demanded William, disliking scenes like this.  He felt awkward around a crying woman.

"Her husband lies dead in your bed, Your Grace.  Were it not him, 'twould be you or your lady wife.  The Lady did for him, as she will do for all who sleep up there.  Her room it was, and her baby asleepin' in it when she was killed," the cook supplied.

"After tonight, the Lady will not walk.  An Immaculate is coming, and he will put her tortured soul to rest in Vanada's mercy," the Duke informed them.  "I will have him bury your husband as well.  I am truly sorry that this occurred."  He took a piece of bread and left, mumbling something about checking the south fields for planting.

Cordula spent her day comforting the chatelaine and awaiting the Immaculate's arrival.  He came late, as the sun was westering.  She explained the problem, and attended the brief burial service held for the chatelaine's husband.  After the burial, the Immaculate sequestered himself in the haunted room to pray and commune with his goddess.  William came in to sup, and the Immaculate joined them at the meal.

"I will stay the night," he informed them.  "I will, with Vanada's help, confront the specter as it walks and banish it from the skin of this world."

"If you are successful, Immaculate," Duke William said, "I will fund the new temple in Guhrya.  If you fail, you will return to your cloister with the pittance travel expenses.  If you die in the attempt, we will pay your burial expenses and see if one of your brethren can do better.  Forgive me for my bluntness, Immaculate, but I thought it best to have this aboveboard."

"I shall not fail, Your Grace.  The ghost shall not walk again after this night."

"Be it as you say.   Would you consent to lead us in Evening Prayers before returning upstairs?"

The Immaculate consented, and marveled at the piety and love shared by the old couple.  He would surely do his best for them.  He climbed the stairs back to the bedchamber, remembering that his hosts were sleeping in a servant's bed, and the servants were sleeping near the hearth, although it was early spring.  He had never performed a ritual like this, but, Vanada willing, all would go well.

The night passed in utter silence, and the Immaculate did not appear to break his fast with the rest of the household.  Cordula insisted that they ascertain he was sleeping, despite William's assertions.

William pushed the door open, knocking lightly as he did.  Sparing a single glance for the scene, he immediately turned to block Cordula's vision, but to no avail.  The Immaculate lay on the floor, his white robes in tatters.  His hair had been red when he had arrived, now it was snow-white.  The star and sword that had hung around his neck was clutched tightly in his fingers, and the remnants of white candles guttered out in their puddles of wax.  The look of abject horror on his face was immovable.

They washed him and buried him next to the chatelaine's husband, the horrified look still on his face, despite Cordula's best efforts to soften it and close his eyes.  The grooms filled in the grave as William sat in the receiving chamber and composed a letter to the Eldest of the cloister.  The blue star and sword were sent with it, and a small purse of gold Imperials to compensate the cloister for their loss.  Cordula wept quietly, more from the uncertainty of the young man's success and exhaustion than from grief.  She sincerely hoped his sacrifice was not in vain.

The day passed quietly, neither speaking of their private fears.  Cordula wondered not only whether they would survive, but whether they actually wanted to, given the knowledge the ghost had imparted.  William silently pondered how best to go about retiring from military duty and where they would live if he ceded his duchy to the crown.  He knew the Emperor would provide generously for them, as he always did for those who had served well, but still he worried, especially about Cordula.  They were old, and he knew he should take her away from this haunted place.  He felt a sense of duty to the chatelaine, however, an obligation to see her husband avenged.

Again, they slept on the chatelaine's pallet, and William promised himself it would be the last night they ever spent thus.  He could feel the aches in his joints that got worse every winter settling in early.  He had tried to hide his stiffness from his wife, but she missed nothing.

The faint wails were heard again, growing louder.  Whatever she had been in life, the Lady Zara was not a fool even after death, and she had found their hiding place, since there were no distractions in the bedchamber.  But below the tower, in the wholesome air of the kitchen, her power was limited.  She could not touch the pair, but stood and moaned at the foot of the bed until dawn.  The couple clung to each other through the long hours, and just before the sunrise, Cordula went limp in her husband's arms.

Believing her asleep, and not wishing to disturb her much-needed rest, he crept out to the kitchen, and awakened the cook and chatelaine.  "We are leaving this accursed place.  Come back to Guhrya with us, and we will find you posts.  The tower will be razed in final hopes of destroying the phantom that haunts it."

William left the women to their packing, with the instructions to take only the new things that he had bought, and went to wake Cordula.  The chatelaine heard a muffled groan, and dashed into the room to see him cradling the limp body in his arms.  A tear slid down either cheek, and he gently picked her up.

"She was alive when I left," he said in a soft broken voice.  "She rolled over and murmured at me.  Now there is no choice.  This tower will burn, a pyre to her memory."

"Your Grace, please, you can't burn this good Vanadan woman like the barbarians do their dead.  Take her to the cloister, have her buried in full state, but please don't defile her spirit by treating her as the Fremian heretics do," the chatelaine begged, tears streaking her own face and falling on the recently-dyed black dress.

"You are right.  She will have a state burial.  But the tower will burn.  I will hear no debate.  Fetch your personal trifles, and the cook.  We set the fire at once," William commanded, once more the general in control of himself.

He sat on his horse, the stiffening tapestry-wrapped body of his wife slung over the beast's withers and watched the fire burn.  The tower was a gutted shell now, and he watched the walls bow and list under the heat as the rocks softened.  Finally, there came a tremendous crash, and the walls collapsed in on themselves.  He rode away from the glowing embers, following the servants to the cloister.

He did not know if the ghost had been laid with the fire.  It was of no consequence.  He would not be returning.  For now, he had a funeral to arrange, and then plans for the future.  What he knew now could cost him his life, but he found that of as little consequence as the pile of embers that lay behind him in the gathering night.  A low wail drifted up to him, and the horse shied.  He steadied Cordula and glanced back.  Perhaps, it had just been the wind.