A/N: Hello! This is the new novel set in my world of Faean, though it doesn’t rely on any of the others for you to understand what’s going on. It takes place further along in the world’s history, for one thing, and characters who appear from other novels will be only minor ones.

It’s also different in another way; though still a fantasy parody, I’m also parodying Gothic and horror stories. Be prepared for ineffective booby-traps and more secret passages and ghosts than anyone could ever need.

Enjoy!

Prologue

"Soon enough, it will be gone." A withered arm waved to indicate the walls. "Gone, unless the heirs come back and take care of it!"

"I’m sure they will," said Aldon soothingly, putting a cool cloth on the old half-elf’s head. Lord Terimar just shook it off again, muttering something that Aldon thought was a curse. The steward sighed and picked up the cloth again, carefully stroking away the sweat of his lord’s exertion. It was the half-elven madness that was killing him, driving him to these wild capers, but Aldon thought sometimes that it also ate at him as a fire from inside would.

"What do you know?" Lord Terimar asked when he had his breath back. "You don’t know anything. You probably think that no one will come and take care of Terimar anymore."

Aldon’s hand clenched on the cloth for a moment. Then he said as calmly as he could, "My lord, I just said that I believed they would. You have made provisions in your will for your heirs, I trust?"

Lord Terimar snorted. "Useless heirs! My sisters’ grandchildren and further down the line. I haven’t heard from them in centuries. Why should I give them Terimar?"

Aldon dipped the cloth in the basin of cool water that sat at his feet again, using the bow to conceal his smirk of satisfaction from the old half-elf. Lord Terimar was sometimes surprisingly sharp at showing just how much he still knew and understood.

"Terimar needs someone who will care for it, and not just the secrets it holds," Lord Terimar was muttering, in yet another of the rambles that Aldon knew by heart. He didn’t quite dare to mouth the words along with him this time, though, since the lord was so close to awake. "I need someone who is faithful. Someone who has been at my side all along. Someone who will hunt out the secrets and use them with faith and knowledge."

Aldon nodded. "Of course you do."

Lord Terimar glared at him. "You’re hopping around like a cricket," he complained. "One moment you were sure the heirs were going to come back and take care of Terimar. Now you’re sure that whatever I decide is best."

Aldon spread his hands. "My lord, I am hurt. I am only trying to say that I think whatever you decide will be best. How could it not be? You are Lord Terimar, and know this place better than anyone else." Except me. "You know what it needs." Me.

The half-elf’s eyes, which had once been a bright and piercing green and now looked like sour milk, fluttered shut. "Of course," he muttered. "Know what I want to decide. Know what’s best."

Aldon sponged his head off again, and dreamed about jewels and the hidden Fountain of Forever to himself until abruptly Lord Terimar reached up and took him by the arm. Aldon looked inquiringly into his eyes.

"Leave me," said Lord Terimar. "Bring me a quill and two pieces of parchment, and then leave me." One of the crows that haunted his windowsill cawed as though to strengthen the request.

Aldon bowed and turned, walking towards the door with the dignity that would be expected of him, his heart hammering. The lord was almost assuredly making his new will, and Aldon would be the heir of Terimar. He was sure of it. Why else had he remained at the old lord’s side for all these years?

******

Aldon paced outside the door of the resting room. Lord Terimar hadn’t called for him in hours, and Aldon, though of course he had other motives, would have liked to bid farewell to the old half-elf. He did have some genuine affection for him. It was what had helped him to bear two years of his life in this place.

"Aldon."

Aldon opened the door hastily. As he had thought might happen, Lord Terimar was near death; the exertion of writing the new will must have been too much for him. He gasped and reached out a trembling hand, and Aldon went and took it, gazing into his eyes. Their milky color did not disgust him now, so near the end. Aldon suspected he would have looked the same if he wasn’t going to be heir to the Fountain of Forever and endless life.

"Aldon," whispered Lord Terimar again. Aldon nodded. In a short time, he would never hear that whispering voice give another order. He suspected that would feel strange, and beyond strange.

"I’m here, my lord."

Lord Terimar tugged him nearer, glancing around as though to make sure no hidden listeners stood in the corners of the room. "Are we alone?"

"As alone as one can be in Terimar, my lord," said Aldon, looking around himself. He saw no trace of ghostly presences or opening hidden passageways or any of the other tricks that the house would sometimes play to insure that no conversation was ever completely private. "Did you have something you wanted to say to me?"

"I did."

Aldon waited, but for a long moment, it seemed as if Lord Terimar would not have the strength, after all. His breath labored, and he kept closing and opening his eyes as though it hurt him to look on the room. Aldon, full of a compassion that he hadn’t felt in years, waited still longer.

"I made the will," said Lord Terimar at last. "Two copies of it. That was why I wanted the two pieces of parchment."

Aldon nodded, glancing around for it. "It must have been a short will, my lord."

"It was."

Aldon glanced curiously at Lord Terimar. His lips were drawn back from his teeth, and he looked as if he were going to lunge and bite. Aldon slipped back a little, only to find the withered hand had clutched him and held him fast. It was strength from madness, but it was more than enough to keep him there.

Well, combined with his own curiosity about the will, it was enough to keep him there.

"I left everything to two children I’ve never seen!" Lord Terimar cackled. "One of them descended from my sister Galia, and the other from my sister Sterra. I sent each of them a letter saying they could have Terimar if they could come and hold it and discover its secrets. They’ll be coming soon enough, and you’ll have nothing."

Aldon felt the room invert itself. He swallowed, keeping his gorge down and his voice calm with a tremendous effort. "Why would you do that to me, my lord? Why would you take everything from your faithful servant?"

"Because you are not faithful," said Lord Terimar, and released him with a violent shove. Aldon stumbled back, his mind full of tales about half-elves reviving in their final madness and causing all sorts of trouble. "You intended to take the jewels and the Fountain all along. It was why you came to tend me."

"My lord—"

"You did!" panted Lord Terimar. "I saw it in your eyes. That was why I sent two crows to the south and the north with the messages. They’ll find the heirs, and you’ll have to turn Terimar over to them. You’ll have wasted your life in mercenary ambitions, and those ambitions shall come to nothing. I swear it!"

Aldon would have answered, but a loud caw interrupted him. He turned and saw a crow sitting on the windowsill. Bound to its leg was one of the pieces of parchment he had given Lord Terimar.

Aldon turned back to the lord. He was gaping, his eyes on the crow as if he couldn’t comprehend what it was doing here. He waved a hand in an absurd shooing motion. "Go on," he hissed, as if Aldon wasn’t right in the room with him and couldn’t hear him. "Go find the Teraint heir!"

The crow cawed and extended a wing, turning to clean it with its beak.

Aldon smiled, and held the smile until Lord Terimar turned back to him. Then he drew his belt knife and stabbed it between the Lord’s ribs. He had practiced on humans for a long time before he came to Terimar, and he knew how to get a heart on the first stroke. A half-elf’s heart wasn’t so different from a human’s.

The half-elf gasped and coughed and crumpled forward, his hands beating feebly at the bedclothes for a moment. Then he looked up at Aldon and whispered, "Why? How could you do this?"

"The crows will come back, you fool," said Aldon, leaning closer. "You fed them. Where should they go but here? And I don’t need you any longer."

He twisted the knife. It seemed that a half-elf’s heart was different from a human’s after all, since Lord Terimar went on glaring at him long past the point where he should have died, and trying to mouth words as well.

Then he crumpled forward over the bedsheets, and expelled the last of his breath and his blood.

Aldon nodded to himself and watched without emotion as white light bubbled out of the body, forming into a wavering figure that tried to confront him for a moment. But the ghost was not yet strong. Aldon blew on it gently, and it scudded backward like a feather in a gale, billowing through the wall. Aldon waited, but it didn’t come back out.

He shrugged and turned to the windowsill. The ghost would no doubt try to kill him soon, but it would take years for it to achieve any dangerous strength. By then, Aldon planned to have located the jewels and the Fountain of Forever and be long gone from Terimar.

He reached out to the crow, which hopped backward, still watching him.

"Oh, come on, you stupid thing," Aldon muttered, inching forward over the bed. "I fed you often enough. And you can’t fly to the Teraint heir, whoever he is. You wouldn’t know where to find him."

There came a flutter of wings, and the other crow with a parchment bound to its leg returned to the sill. Aldon nodded. He would stab them both, or at least rip the letters free, and be done with it.

Then the ghost came out of the wall, and dived into the two birds. They suddenly fluttered their wings, looking alive with new pride and purpose. Aldon threw his knife at one of them, deciding he couldn’t risk waiting.

The crows sprang off the sill and flew around in a lazy circle, just beyond reach. Aldon narrowed his eyes. He would kill them. He closed his eyes and reached out for his Crop magic, which he hadn’t had occasion to use for a long time. He would simply make stones from the walls fall on the birds and smash them out of the sky.

The crows uttered a series of short, sharp caws, interrupting Aldon’s concentration. He opened his eyes in time to see them shoot into the air, flying together until they were almost beyond sight. Then they separated, one turning sharply north towards the Broken Lands, the other south towards the Rashar Mountains.

Aldon banged his fist on the windowsill and uttered a long string of curses. Then he nursed his hurting hand and glared at Lord Terimar’s body.

He had planned to give the old half-elf a proper burial, but now he had a different idea.

******

The crows descended with hungry cries. Often enough, thieves had tried to break into Terimar, and the place’s defenses had killed them. They were used to feeding on bodies. If they sensed that this time was different, and the broken form in the courtyard was the half-elf who used to feed them, they had obviously decided to repent after their meal.

Aldon turned around from the window and glared at the blood-stained bedclothes. He would put them in one of the innumerable secret passages about the place, and if they were ever found, they wouldn’t necessarily point to him. Many murders had been committed in Terimar in its time, after all. He would expect the letters to carry some warning about that, and about the perils of disturbing the ghosts.

Maybe the letters even carry some warning about me.

Aldon rolled his shoulders. He would deal with that when he came to it, if the heirs even showed up at Terimar. There was always the chance that they would think of something better to do than come to Arvenna and take care of a crumbling old house, after all.

Unless he told them about the jewels and the Fountain.

Aldon scowled. He wondered if Lord Terimar had told them where to find the treasures. Probably not. Lord Terimar had used the jewels on occasion, but not the Fountain, and from all his cackling down the years about people needing to find out secrets on their own to be worthy of Terimar, he might not even have known where it was.

I still have time. I just have to find out where those things are before the heirs get here.

If he could. After all, he had been looking for two years and hadn’t found the location of the treasures.

Then I have to prepare in a different way, Aldon decided. I know Terimar, and they don’t. I can make sure the heirs fall prey to a few—unfortunate accidents after they get here.

He smiled at his own cleverness and headed up to the walkways, the section of the roof that ran like a path behind genuine battlements. Those were built entirely of stone, as was most of the house, and were particularly vulnerable to a Crop mage’s magic. After that, he would spend some time with the secret passages, and the rooms where he would probably put the heirs if they actually showed up, and the halls most haunted by ghosts.

He turned a corner of the staircase and halted, blinking. He recognized the ghost who stood looking out the window, but he had rarely seen her before. The figure was of a lovely, slender half-elven woman in a black gown and a veil that didn’t quite cover her face. This was Galia, Lord Terimar had told him at one point, his sister who had married a human and loved him and borne him children, and been murdered for her trouble.

She had returned to Terimar when she died, and she supposedly came forth now only to show some trouble coming to the family. She had showed herself twice to Aldon, always just before the Lord’s madness took a turn for the worse.

She turned to face him now, and pointed one transparent arm at him. Aldon raised his eyebrows. After two years in a house absolutely choked with ghosts, it took more than this to impress him.

"You shall suffer for your evil deed," said Galia, in a voice like the shriek of wind around broken tiles. "You shall die when the true heirs come, by drowning and by burning in fire and by being impaled."

"Those are all separate deaths," Aldon pointed out.

Galia rose into the air and spun towards him. Aldon wrinkled his nose a little when her dress drifted away from her back and revealed the large knife wound near her spine, but even that was something he was used to.

"You shall suffer!" she screamed into his face.

Aldon nodded. "Of course I will. Whatever you say."

Galia spat at him and then vanished. Aldon wiped at the sticky globe on his cheek, green as the very worst of what Lord Terimar spat up, and sighed. He would have to wash it off later.

In the meantime, I have some booby-traps to set.