The Ghost of the Sundered Dam

The world crumbled around us. In a single generation, we witnessed an earth-shattering beyond comprehension and saw mankind rise from the ashes, begin to reassemble themselves, then turn on each other like dogs fighting over what scarce resources remained.

House Desmond and House Ormonde both formed commonwealths in the enclosed expanse of County Waterford. Why they did not form a single entity is beyond me, but almost as soon as they collected the power to establish rule of law, they turned against each other. Their conflict rose and fell in tides, but ultimately, County Waterford settled as Desmond and Ormonde locked arms over the abandoned capital of some long-dead empire. We who were beyond the limits of that city were forgotten.

In the midst of this tense peace, Desmond attacked.

Raz fiddled with the straps of her gasmask while she watched the soldier lurk in the dim before her. The night before, Desmond airships swept over Affane, loosing gas bombs. The capsules burst overhead, releasing a fog that undulated in the breeze. Raz awoke during the strafing run and saw the mist cascading down into the town. Something told her to put on her breathing mask.

The night unfolded around her as the people of Affane silently and suddenly expired. Raz slipped across town as an armored battalion rolled up across the river and bridge builders began their work. Not long after, Desmond troops wearing blue-eyed filtering helmets stalked through the foggy streets, hunting any who remained. Raz peered down from the window of the empty Fitzcameron flat, waiting for the soldier to pass by. She’d counted on Edmund’s affinity for exotic steam weaponry, and though her faith paid off, she had no intention of drawing the Desmond armies to the sound of gunfire, much less killing a man.

Raz’ hand dropped to the steam-powered carbine, an old but glorious piece of junk Edmund had rebuilt. If the man didn’t leave, her hand would be forced. But could she survive the sprint to the Sundered Dam, which had become her second home over the years?

A voice rolled over Affane, whose once-hundreds population had likely dwindled into a few score. “Survivors of Affane,” the man spoke through a breather. “We’ve need of your expertise. Though the initial culling was necessary, we promise life to all those who surrender willingly.”

Raz huffed in disbelief. Affane was known for its pioneering work in air travel, balloon and biplane, but the factory had been shut down and moved deeper into Ormonde territory. Raz was an alchemist’s’ apprentice, not an engineer. She knew she’d be executed the moment she surrendered. Desmond soldiers, in particular when up against territories ruled by the Ormonde Commonwealth, were as brutal as they came. Raz had had her share of run-ins over the last two years. Her master, now probably dead, traded across the border between the two powers of County Waterford.

The long tails of the soldier’s black coat disappeared down the street, and Raz emerged from the Fitzcameron flat, silent as she’d ever been. As she glided over the cobble-paved street, hugging the shadows of the buildings, she thought about a time when Ella Boyle (now Ella Fitzcameron) had called her a ghost for her ability to slip around unnoticed. A soldier turned the corner, and Raz froze. She’d stopped quickly enough that he hadn’t seen her movement, yet he hovered just two yards away.

Ghost indeed! Raz thought to herself when she realized the Desmond trooper hadn’t seen her. He took a step toward her, and Raz lashed out with the butt of her exotic carbine. The soldier dropped to a knee, stunned.

“Sorry!” Raz whispered, half in shock, half unsure how to react. “Sorry!” Electricity danced through her nerves, making her whole body tingle with adrenaline. She struck again, laying the man flat. “Sorry!” She sprinted the last leg along the cliff’s edge and into the Sundered Dam, bursting from the poisoned fog and sliding down a long and oft-used mudslide into the twelfth floor. Raz sprang forward and bolted the moment the floor was within reach, then vanished into the ruined dam, where no Desmond trooper had any hope of catching her.

There, huddled in a buried and lamp-lit alcove she used to practice her science in peace and quiet, little Rita Razberry Laufel considered her next steps until dawn came. Trembling fingers hovered over three long lines of half-filled vials, for no reason other than to do something familiar, when suddenly Raz realized the New Amoretti steamworks down in the lake may have been next in Desmond’s sights. She turned off her lantern and scurried up through the passage emerging onto a shadowed ledge overlooking the lake.

New Amoretti shined in the sunrise. The installation looked undamaged, untarnished, but it also looked silent. Raz stared out over the shallow waters for a long moment, considered how to proceed: alert those at the steamworks or join them?

Gunshots rang out above, and sadness mounted in Raz’ heart. She wondered who would be left alive after today, and the faces began to cycle through her mind–each and every resident of the small town. Footsteps on the floor above stole Raz’ attention, and she slipped back down into her alcove.

Raz ran her fingers through her berry-red hair and watched the sun’s light diminish. Southwest of where she perched on the ruins of the Sundered Dam, the smokestacks of industrial Kilmallock stood illumined by the sunset. Five years had passed since Desmond annexed Amoretti and renamed it Kilmallock–five years and not so much as a whisper of aggression between the two towns. Commander Tasao Byron of House Ormonde had blown the dam and flooded the lake, providing the steamworks with enough defenses to deny Desmond the last asset in the region. Desmond and Ormonde focused their attention on Munster, the capital. The warring factions had their hands full with claiming and holding the assets there, so a move on Affane–whose production was comparatively non-existent–just didn’t make sense.

“Why would Desmond attack Affane?” Raz whispered to herself. Her best guess was that Commander Byron had a victory down in Munster and Aaron Desmond, the youngest brother in the Desmond family and commander of the ground forces, had wanted to make Byron hurt. Commander Byron was local to the region, so perhaps Aaron’s intention was nothing more than to incite his enemy.

A man choked, sputtered, and collapsed a few yards below Raz, signaling her next move. She slipped down from the rafters of the half-room and alighted beside the unconscious man. He’d taken his time eating his drugged dinner. Raz had meant to be in Affane an hour ago. With great effort, Raz dragged the man and his effects into a dark corner and stripped him of his uniform and his weapon, then bound him and took his place on watch. Despite the foot or more of difference in height, Raz managed to tuck the coat in the right places and make it look natural. The blue eyes of his breathing helmet, to her surprise, didn’t tint the world. With a strengthening breath, Raz turned and headed up toward the town.

The fog rolled out to greet her, surprisingly persistent, as she reached the cobble-paved streets of Affane. Raz kept clear of clusters of Desmond troops, but walked with confidence no less. She had one mission, and one mission only: collect supplies, collect her master’s apothecary set, and signal any survivors she might come across.

Despite drawing questioning looks based on Raz’ size, she reached her master’s street-level flat with ease. Using a key hidden in the ornate doorknob, Raz let herself in. The old man lay sprawled out on the floor of the shop. Raz stopped and turned aside the moment she saw him in the dark. She squeezed her eyes and measured her breathing, regaining control and proceeding to the back room. The Alchemist’s things lay undisturbed–he’d been caught unaware and killed by the poisoned air. Raz picked up her pace, aware that her firm state of mind was weakening by the second. She found the Alchemist’s pack and gathered up what she could, then rummaged through his ice-box and pantries for what she needed.

As Raz turned to leave, she spotted the silhouettes of two Desmond troopers walking by. She dropped behind a counter in the shop and held her breath. Whatever magic had insulated her mind before was evaporating quickly.

“Wait,” one of the troopers said to the other. “Did you see that?”

Raz heard the man open the door.

“This was locked before,” the second trooper said. “Go and get–”

Raz leapt from her hiding place, firing four shots with the rifle she’d stolen from the guard in the dam. One man dropped and the other stumbled back, catching himself and drawing and turning his pistol on the dark storefront. Raz, adrenaline coursing through her veins, was faster: her carbine barked a fifth time, and the man dropped back to the pavement.

The same magic that had guarded Raz’ mind in the opening hours of the assault on Affane swept in and guarded her then. In an unthinking daze, Raz shot the Alchemist twice, then took the bags outside, her mind abuzz with an overwhelming blend of terror and panic. Numbness stretched up from her stomach and overtook the lower half of her tongue, and she stood, unsure, waiting for the Desmond reinforcements to arrive.

Within moments, a squad of troops jogged toward Raz. One, whose helmet was marked with the silver star of a sergeant, slowed while the others fanned out. He approached Raz slowly, with his carbine lowered, but his muscles twitching and ready. All this Raz saw as she stared at their approach.

“What happened here, soldier?”

Raz’ eyes dropped down to the bodies at her feet. She spoke without thinking. “We followed someone here. An old man. When we reached the door, he opened fire.” A wispy, distant quality in Raz’ voice kept the sergeant from asking any follow-up questions. He looked down to the other two men, then toward the storefront.

“Have you searched inside?”

“A brief sweep after the firefight,” Raz replied. “There is nothing else.”

“I’ll wrap up here,” the sergeant offered. “Take whatever you’ve got there back to the Outpost, and report to Leftenant Alison Kinsale. She’ll help sort you out.”

Raz weakly saluted. “Yes, sir.”

The sergeant walked past her, and Raz’ safeguard shattered. She broke into a sprint, slipping into an alley and bursting through the heavy fog, her mind too racked with horror to realize her fortune at being unseen. Raz slid down the mudslide as before and slowed as she ran onto the floor where she’d claimed the guard. There, she collapsed to her knees and held her black-gloved hands out before her. Trembling, she stripped off the gloves, slowly at first then with enough force to tear the stitching. Her frantic fingers clawed at the helmet’s straps until she’d pulled it free, then she slowed, her breath calming from its erratic flurry. She set the helmet on the floor before her, still-glowing eyes turned toward her knees. Raz leaned forward until her forehead rested on the helmet, and the full force of the emotional maelstrom she’d been tenuously holding back pulsed through every inch of her.

Days slipped by and little Rita Razberry Laufel haunted the Sundered Dam. The guard she’d drugged awoke clothed and confused, talking to himself. He remembered a woman. He remembered the astonishing red of her hair, but he couldn’t tell if it was a dream or not. He’d shrugged, finished his dinner, and gone on with his duty without so much as another word. Watch traded as Desmond solidified its hold on Affane and began to marshal its strength for other maneuvers. The guards on watch began to double up, and what had they to do but talk?

Raz stole food. She harassed sleepy soldiers and made eerie noises in the ruined dam. It wasn’t long before the superstitious among the guard began to talk amongst themselves. Raz, with her master’s exhaustive store of oils, drugs, medicines, and chemicals, began to slip poison into the food and water of the guards, began to emerge from the shadows wearing tattered clothes and cloaks she scavenged, and drip poison onto the faces of those blundering into her midst.

One night, as she listened to the pair on duty and watched the stars through a gap in the concrete, Raz heard the guards’ new name for her. They’d seen her shredded robes; they’d felt her presence.

“I’ve dreamed of her,” one of the guards told the other. “Worst nightmare I’ve ever had. And you know what happened? Nothing. She just hovered around on the edge of the darkness, chanting: ‘I am the Ghost of the Sundered Dam. I will dye my hair with your blood. I am the Ghost of the Sundered Dam! I will dye my hair with your blood!’ ”

The other guard shivered. “Can’t say I haven’t dreamt the same.”

“Isn’t right,” the dreamer said, a chill running down his spine and setting his senses aflame with paranoia. “And to think Aaron wants us to take New Amoretti. How else are we going to get down there if not through this wraith-ridden dam?”

“Might call it the dam of the damned,” the other guard chuckled to himself.

“Don’t mock lingering spirits, you fool!”

“Look,” the mocking guard countered casually, “It’s fun and all, this Ghost of the Sundered Dam thing—you know, imagining some red-haired ghost floating around in tatters and poisoning men, haunting dreams, but there is nothing to it. Nobody’s got anything other than sick. People get rashes, sure, but nothing that really evidences a ghost.”

Raz smiled. She slid a vial from a pocket in her shredded cloaks and rolled it between her fingertips. The ghost slipped down from her perch among the rafters and alighted to the ground behind the guards. She poured the contents of her vial on the ground beside the guard and evaporated back up into the darkness. In five minutes—maybe even less, if she was lucky—the mocking guard would be choking on those words, then bedridden for at least a week.

Raz’ ghostly façade billowed through the poisoned fog. In one hand, she carried Edmund Fitzcameron’s prized steam-powered carbine. In the other, she carried missive from the hand of Aaron Desmond. That day, an artillery barrage hammered New Amoretti. Its high Lifeline, pumping oxygen down into the bunkers where the people lived, had crumpled, and many of its tanks had burst. The night would draw the people living in the steamworks to the surface, and another barrage would kill each and every one of them, including Raz’ father. Her ghost-play had held Aaron Desmond back as long as it could, but now something more was needed.

So Raz slipped through the fog-ridden streets of Affane, drawing double takes from stunned guards who glimpsed her, then saw nothing at second glance. Her legend carried her unscathed to the outer edge of the Outpost, the arrogated town hall, around which Aaron’s steam tanks loomed silent in a circle.

Raz lingered beyond the perimeter. The cold chill of passing time rolled over her as she sought a way inside, and then a whisper sounded behind her.

“If it’s really a ghost, do you think shooting it will do any good?”

“I don’t know, but I’m going to try that first. If it turns and kills us, I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry? That’s the best you can come up with?”

“Shh! It can still—”

The guard swore as Raz bolted, slipping silently through the fog and wrapping around the building. She stepped into an alley and swept through a door left ajar. Once inside, she closed it slowly, then turned to find an off-duty Desmond trooper staring. He stood eating a can of beans over the sink with his breathing mask hanging limp from his face. The beans eased from a spoon and plopped back into the can, and still the man stared, mouth agape.

Raz changed her plans. She took a step forward, and the man dropped the can, searching his waist for a knife. The ghost raised her steam-powered carbine and fired. A poisoned bullet punched into the man’s shoulder, throwing him back against the counter. Raz’ red hair and scavenged robes swept around him as he collapsed unconscious, then the ghost set Aaron’s missive over the wound and vanished before the rest of the house awoke or the guards hunting her could flock to the sound.

Desmond-occupied Affane buzzed around her as Raz sought escape. The warning from the Ghost of the Sundered Dam had accelerated Aaron Desmond’s plans to bomb New Amoretti a second time. While squads of Desmond state troops in full hazard gear marched toward the cliff’s edge, the steam engines rolled by, crushing the cobbles of Affane under tread.

Raz watched the procession from a rooftop. Eventually, the young Desmond commander’s personal engine rolled through, its boxy frame gilded and etched with the most intricate craft Waterford County could muster. The ghost slipped across rooftops in slow pursuit, ever careful be glimpsed but never seen, felt and heard but never witnessed.

Her heart felt void as her mind went blank of ideas. Fear crept up her throat once more, then like a thunderclap, the answer came. Raz glided down from the rooftops and found the storefront of her former Master. The streets were empty, for the entirety of the Desmond force gathered on the cliff’s edge, waiting with an eager hush.

Raz burst into the shop, stepping over the body of her dead master and hurrying into the back room. She collected a glass vial with a wide rounded bottom and began producing the various chemicals she had squirreled away in her wraith-like garb. She lined them up on the apothecary table and began to mix them one-by-one in measured drops and calculated order. At last, she dropped a corked vial into the bottle and sealed it. With the ball in hand, little Rita Razberry Laufel ran from the alchemist’s shop, then climbed back to the rooftops and to the end of Affane.

Ahead, the poisoned fog shrouding the town cascaded off the cliff’s edge, roiling between the line of iron steam engines. The cannons adjusted upward, preparing to shell the New Amoretti steamworks. Raz watched the gilded tank of Aaron Desmond, eagerly gripping the alchemical grenade in her hand. Hordes of black-coated Desmond soldiers stood by, shifting in place as they waited for the fireworks to begin. Their blue-glowing eyes drifted over Raz from time to time, but if anyone thought they saw her, they gave no sign.

The hatch to Aaron’s siege engine popped open. The young general held binoculars to his eyes and studied New Amoretti as the tanks made their final adjustments, then he turned toward the assembled forces.

“This night you have each surely heard of an attack made on one of our men by this Ghost of the Sundered Dam,” he began. “This is my reply.”

Raz waited, watching as Aaron Desmond turned back toward the lake. She needed the exact moment–the theater of the thing would carry a greater force than a simple attack. Aaron Desmond raised his hand, and Raz cocked hers.

The general’s arm snapped down, and the steam engines belched flame. Even as the shells whistled toward their target, a glass ball of chemicals burst at Aaron Desmond’s feet. In a moment, a cloud of acidic gas overtook him; in the next, his scream ripped through, tearing across the Desmond troops and down the lines of smoking steam engines. Several shells burst on New Amoretti, but not a single soldier saw the explosions rack the facility. Everyone stared as the wind swept away the searing fog Raz had created. Their commander knelt on his gilded tank, letting out howls of pain as the poison tore at his flesh.

Atop the last of Affane’s buildings, Raz stood tall. Aaron would survive, but his campaign against Affane was ended. Not a few of the Desmond state troops looked up in time to see the Ghost of the Sundered Dam evaporate back into the fog.