Excerpt: Ravenstone

The leaves on the trees were green and the sun was shining through them on the ground. I couldn't hear any noises - the whole forest was silent as I walked towards the clearing where I could feel the power coming. I had driven for hours, the power of another shaman had been calling me so clearly. Kill me, kill me, it sang and I had grabbed a knife and started walking through the forest. The woman was waiting for me though she didn't know it. Waiting. She didn't see me. She was staring in front of her but I didn’t think she saw anything at all. Her gaze was in the other side of the river. I walked behind her and she didn't even flinch when I grabbed her hair and pulled her head back. The blood was everywhere.

I woke up with a gasp and I realised I had sat up. The covers were wet from sweat. It was still night and the only sound I heard was my own erratic breathing.
“May I ask what you were dreaming about?”
I hadn't even realised Klaus was there. He was sitting quite comfortably looking - even though he was a ghost and probably could have slipped through my bed - on my bedpost. He was looking at me with his head slightly tilted. Ghosts shouldn't appear curious, I decided. They shouldn’t even sneak upon people and scare them to death.
“Why are you here?" I asked when he didn't seem to be moving anywhere.
“Honestly said I was bored”, the ghost turned to stare outside. “Many days I have stared the world outside but it seems to me that the world has not been able to see this house. I am not able to go there and no one will come inside. Then they suddenly opened the door and talked loudly. I confess I did not know how to make myself talk to them. First I thought they were speaking some other language I did not know... I did not dare to appear to them though they were clearly commoners unlike I am.”
“Am I a commoner also?” I had to grin.
“Indeed you are but unlike them I seem to be more at ease with you. You do not make me as nervous as the others do.”
“It’s because of what I am. I’m a shaman - I deal with ghosts. I think I’m more”, I grinned to him, “at ease with ghosts than real people.”
“A shaman, hmm. Interesting, Since I am unable to recall my life from before I can not say for sure but methinks you might be the first shaman I have ever made acquaintance. My father was a war mage. Are there wars in that odd world of yours?”
The ghost was old. The way he talked, the gestures and the way he made me feel like I was a commoner even though nobility wasn't such a big matter nowadays.
“War mages were banned after the first world war. Almost a hundred years ago. There are wars but no war mages.”
The humans who used magic had been classified in four categories, as one might say. There were mages, who served the four Gods of the elements. There were sorcerers and magicians as well as wizards and witches. In my opinion there weren't so many differences between them since all of them served the Gods but sill they had demanded that a line had to be drawn between them (apparently to them being a magician or a sorcerer was different from being a wizard or a witch). Then they were warlocks, who had betrayed their Contracts with the Gods and had turned traitors. Usually just killing someone broke the Contract. War mages had been those who had served the Gods and they had been allowed to kill and destroy. But since they had blown up both enemies as well as allies they had been banned and no one was allowed to practice war magic.
“Do you remember in which war your father fought?”
“My father fought?” the ghost asked and even though he didn't sound surprised or anything else - ghosts weren't good at expressing their feelings but I had always understood them and the ghost was definitely surprised.
Sighing I lied down and pulled the covers on me. I had almost forgotten it was no use to ask a ghost anything regarding their lives. They might drop hints in their sentences but answering a question was an impossible task for them. Hopefully I would catch a few hours of sleep before dad would wake me up.
“It is not polite to ignore your guests. I might have been wrong to assume you had manners of a proper gentleman.”
“Sod off”, I mumbled. Since when he had been my ‘guest’? I didn't even remember inviting him to spent the night in my room.