It wasn’t part of the mission but being so close by he had to take a detour. Once more pay his respects and see this time if any of the ghosts wanted to talk over old times.

LifeGuard Fileman Trex once more looks upon the ruins of Parledach. Cities that suffered prolonged sieges with the expected sackings did not come back quickly. And Parledach had been a very bad one. Just one in three of The LifeGuard Company of Engineers had come out, Captain had died with guts torn open, and veteran Sergeant Ferred had finally broke, and slit his own throat. Only one of his friends had come out, the laconic ‘Cheerful Chye’ and then.

Then they’d been given a ‘Community Mission’ one of those they did for villagers and all small towns to prove The LifeGuard could be nice and helpful. Repairing a bridge. What could be easier? Only Chye had slipped on a plank giving way and had plunged into the fast-flowing river. Lost. He’d survived Parledach dammit. He was helping folk. Where was the justice in that? Sacrificed for being good.

They finished the work, but after that last loss what was left of Company no longer had any morale to give and its various troopers were disbanded to other units.   He had been not so much an engineer, more a trooper who defended engineers about their work. Another one sent to fill up a gap. He did the work for three of his then ten years. Killing, saving, surviving. He was useful in any place where the LifeGuard worked.

And ended up at an Outpost a relatively quiet posting, with its Hounds file, those who scouted, and did things to make sure the area the Outpost covered remained, relatively quiet. Maybe some of the folk on the receiving end didn’t deserve what was meted out, maybe they could have been made to see the errors of their ways, but as every trooper knew in keeping the stability of The Empire, small sacrifices had to be made, or taken, or something like that. After all, if you didn’t there’d been another Parledach.

Dismounted he crouched on the grass and looked out over the jagged gap, the place where they had finally blown down the main doors and let the imperial army swarm in. A city to be sacked. The LifeGuard units did not stay when that started, they were ordered out. Not their problem anymore. Anyway, all units were worn down from their specialist tasks. They had paid their dues. LifeGuard were normally like thin blades in the night. Not to be used as blunt instruments. Whatever imperial general or noble on the ground who had thought the sacrifices were worth it, well a long-serving trooper knew LifeGuard command would have attended to him, its own way. When lent out to the Imperial its troopers were not to squandered.

Only the memories drifted in. The ghosts still didn’t seem inclined to be wanting to talk. Well, he wasn’t about to disturb their rest.

‘Sleep well,’ he began and spoke each name, faces still clear in his memories.

One set of recollections led to another. A short while after joining Outpost Dorigen, who should ride in with a whole pack horse’s worth of equipment but Medician Beritt. The blonde haired ‘suddie’ trooper Beritt who had been with them at that damn town. She who had dragged men back to trenches, patched and sewn them, saved some. When she had arrived at the Outpost, she was lean and long-staring, but after a year in the friendly neighbourhood, being sent to work her healing skills for locals and delighting a few girls, she had softened. Getting recompense, he reckoned for her own costs. All LifeGuard paid those out. Some forgot they could get recompense, only the paying out seemed to satisfy them. They went down The Long Road, they never came back until Death coming a’calling brought them rest, at least it was hoped it did.

At that outpost, all was settling down quite well, when something involving The Astatheia or Ethereal or Stommigheid, call it what you will came up. Hounds went off with Beritt in tow. Things went into a Second and Third Hell’s worth of chaos in a town called Prendaelyn where they were chasing down a culprit just as some pirates raided. The Hounds should have all been crushed by a falling building but someone or something using that Astatheia made it slow down and they just got buried in a cellar. Sergeant Erzns and Trooper Norvan were invalided out to hobble around the bastion, Castle Drygnest. Trex always reckoned that hurt Erzns a bit, the man was made for riding out and far. Dangerous ending. That place had a wide share of sergeants and filemen not suited for The Outside anymore, ending up drinking their spare time away, or jumping off the battlements into the sea.

From there it had gone peculiar like you couldn’t rid yourself of that Astatheia, every mission involved some trace of it, and Beritt with those other two girls always turning up. With the strangest tales around them.

Always with a quirky funny twist in them though.

Scratching his stubble, he let slip a soft laugh of reminiscence. You had to hold those good times very close, particularly when you were riding solo on despatch duties. He never liked working alone. You knew where you were with a file, good or bad, it was a family, replacing the one long gone from years of duty. But he had been so good at surviving, it got noticed. Veteran good at staying alive, ideal for getting papers to and from places, at a pace.

The trouble with that was there were folk who wanted to know what those papers were, who had no business knowing, and there were others who didn’t want the papers to get where they were going. Some could go crazy if they thought too much about where those papers might end up, if that was the place they were supposed to end up?

That’s why troopers like him were chosen, you got a sense for these things, knowing whether the person you were supposed to hand them over to was actually that person. Maybe you had to be a kind of crazy to be able to think that way. Maybe

‘You always were a sly one Trex,’

And there he was, as doleful looking as ever but still with the hint of understanding how things were. His thick-set body and features still intact.

‘Cheerful Chye’ Trex said, surprised, not frightened, glad. ‘You finally got here,’

‘Yeah. Washed up in a stream full of reeds. Wasn’t sure about what was what until I realised, I wasn’t breathing. So had to be a ghost. It’s difficult y’know? Trying to get direction when you’re dead. There’s lots on this side wandering, but Parledach? Well, that’s a place I was bound to get to. And you all shining with The Ethereal?’

Up until then the conversation had been sort of easy for Trex to follow. But him with The Astatheia? What the scraith was that all about?

‘Ethereal? Is that any different from Astatheia? Is that where you come from these days?’

‘Couldn’t tell you that Trex. We’ve not got any old fellah with a beard halfway down his chest and an inclination to talk at length,’

Trex looked at his hands. He remembered that dark girl with Beritt, her hands were supposed to glow red and blue at times. His weren’t. He was floundering here.

‘I didn’t touch any of the stuff,’ he complained ‘I didn’t get drenched in it, like some do,’

‘You don’t get all-seeing, all-hearing just because you are a ghost Trex. No, I don’t know anything about that. Only I don’t get what you’d call rest. That’s all. Seems to be a trooper’s fate,’

Trex pressed on trying to make sense.

‘I’ve been here three times in the last five years. Nothing like this has happened before. What’s all this about Chye? Have you got some sort of message from,’ his voice took on an ironic tone ‘The Other Side,’

Chye smiled always a wry, crooked thing.

‘Yeah. Deliver your despatch and get back here. I’ll be waiting,’

‘Aww, scraith,’

As if delivering a despatch under strained situations was not bad enough, now he was holding discourses with a ghost, who had once been a friend they’d shared a lot with and was now being mysterious.

Trex rode off, in a foul mood. He reckoned that was better than being troubled. Troubled got you distracted. Foul put an edge on your senses.

He reached the appointed location. A reasonably sized village on a market day. He walked in leading his horse, riding made you too good a target. He was approached by a fellow driving a cart. The horse shied; the drover swore at him blaming his beast for scaring his. He swore back. In the sort of daily altercation of Anywhere, the despatch pouch was slipped into the hay. Trex and the drover went their separate ways grumbling about the other idiot. Trex visited the local tavern for a drink and a meal and sat with his back to the wall. He rode out, swigged peppermint for the indigestion always brought on by bad tavern food combined with the tension of such a delivery.

In the settling dusk of a late summer’s day, he stopped in an open place affording good all-around vision and rested. That village had smelt of ambush. Maybe it had fallen on the drover instead. He should worry? He’d done his bit, and anyway, there were ghosts in his life now.

‘I’m getting too old for this,’ he said, out loud for once.

‘Me too,’

Knife out, swinging around into a crouch, peering into the gloom Trex was confronted by a ridiculously young fellow. Ridiculous for agreeing and sounding like he meant it. And lying there, hands knitted together, like he had nothing better to do.

‘Fileman Trex? It is. Isn’t it? I’m Trooper Wailsteg,’

‘Talk informative and clear trooper,’

‘That knife has seen some work I bet. Anyway, been keeping watch. Not for that despatch. Not my concern. It’s about you stopping off at Parledach and ghosts,’ Wailsteg sighed, bitterly ‘So they sent me out of my cosy Outpost. My Captain thinks the orders were just to keep an eye on you despatching and report back. Y’know how it goes,’

‘I used to,’ Trex said. That face might be young, but those eyes had age crammed into them too fast ‘Talk on trooper,’

Wailsteg eased up from his prone position into seating, hands now clasped about his legs, he rocked slightly.

‘It’s the Ethereal or whatever you want to call it. Stuff has been going on for the past five or six years like it’s leaking out. Apparently, it’s affecting folk more than usual, some say choosing. Folks at Castle Drygnest have been watching. What with ghosts an’ all. You’ve been noticed Fileman. Drygnest wants you for its own, like me and a few dozen others of course,’

‘You’re not making much sense there Trooper. You’re good at the soft approach, but your explaining needs work,’

The boy’s face hardened.

‘That’s because I know scraith all as much as you’re likely to know it the next year or so. They, whoever they are want you to be triple layer. Ordinary trooper, courier,’ he spread his hands ‘And this. You met ghosts. Go and talk to ghosts. Find out what they have to say and report back. NO, I don’t know to who. Gotta go now. Make up a report to my Captain,’

He slipped away.

Trex was bone tired but did not sleep. The world was coming at him from all directions.

In the morning he would ride back to Parledach. Talk to ghosts. They had things for him to do, and so would the LifeGuard.

And experience taught him, he could not get out of any of it.