They had nothing to say, or perhaps they could not be heard, which made them nothing more than eyes, trapped in the faint memories of bodies. The thought that death was a prison horrified Wreneck, and he felt his own mind now tracking other, even crueller thoughts. I seek vengeance. I want to hurt the people that hurt Jinia and me. I want to send their souls into this empty ghost-realm. I want them to just stand there, mute, seeing but never able to touch. I want them to suffer.

He had never thought himself evil, but now he wasn’t so sure. Vengeance seemed such a pure notion, a taking away from those who’d done the same. Evening things out, death for death, pain for pain, loss for loss.

Even Lord Anomander believed in vengeance.

But now… what kind of satisfaction would it bring? How was it that even grown-up men and women talked about vengeance, as if it had the power to fix things? But it doesn’t fix much, does it. Yes, the killers and rapists are dead, so they won’t ever do it again. There’s that, isn’t there. Pushing them off the cliff of life, down into the Abyss.

But they don’t go there. They go nowhere. They join every other ghost. They could as easily have died in their sleep, a thousand years old, surrounded by loved ones. It makes no difference, not to them.

But does it make a difference to me? This killing, this justice? I guess… once they’re dead, justice stops mattering to them. So it belongs to the living. It doesn’t belong to any waiting god, because the gods aren’t waiting for those souls. Worse yet, the gods in that realm are themselves dead, no different from anyone else.

Justice belongs to the living.

He imagined driving his spear into the bodies of the soldiers who’d hurt Jinia. Imagined their faces twisting in agony, their bowels spilling out, their boots kicking at the ground. He saw them looking up at him, at his face, at his eyes, with confusion, and all the questions they couldn’t ask. But he’d tell them why they were dying. He’d do that, because that was important if justice was to be served. ‘This is why you’re now dying. I did this, because of what you did.’

He found himself crossing the outer bridge, and then the second, inner one. No one barred his path. He strode under the arch of the open gateway, into the compound, where scores of Houseblades were mounting up, their horses steaming and the hot smell of dung heavy in the air. Even here, ghosts abounded, the dead come to watch, watch and wait. He slipped through the jostling chaos, reached the keep’s entrance, up the steps and then inside.