Casket of Souls

Retha’noi had been. He concentrated harder, trying to get past the initial sensations to something solid.
    Atre owned this. He’d owned it for a long time. A very long time. He’d handled it, filled it, sealed it many times. And drunk from it. Thero had a fleeting sense of the tall actor Brader drinking, too, but none of the others. He tried to catch a clearer memory of what Atre actually did with the phials, but it wouldn’t come, perhaps because of the magic itself.
    While the physical sensations he was getting from it were mildly unpleasant, he felt nothing malevolent. Trusting that, he cut the wax at the neck of the phial with his ivory knife, then carefully worked the cork free.
    Nothing happened, but a bitter smell rose in his nostrils. It wasn’t a physical scent, but rather a magical emanation.
    “I’m not certain what it does, but I think they are elixirs ofsome sort,” he told the others as he poured it into one of the silver cups.
    “You’re not going to drink it?” exclaimed Alec. “What if it’s poison?”
    “I doubt that. I saw Atre drinking from it.” Thero swirled the milky liquid around in the cup. “Still, I wish I had some creature to test it on.”
    “You’re not using my cat,” said Seregil.
    “I could check the rat trap in the kitchen,” said Alec.
    Thero nodded. “A rat would do nicely.”
    Alec hurried out, and returned a few moment’s later with the wire trap; there were three sleek brown house rats inside.
    “Good, I’ll use them later, after I’ve looked at the second bottle.”
    He set the bowl aside and cut the seal on the other bottle, the one without the central symbol.
    As soon as the cork was out he felt a powerful surge of energy flow through his fingers. Startled, he managed not to drop the phial as a white mist shot up from the mouth of it and whirled around his head in a windless tempest, caught in the magic circle. It was cool and moist and in it he saw a child’s face, like a shape seen in a cloud. It was a young boy and he looked terrified. Thero also thought he sensed some more familiar magic, but he couldn’t be certain.
    “It’s all right,” Thero whispered, but the face remained drawn with fear and the mist swirled more quickly. “Who are you?”
    Mika
.
    Thero blinked in surprise. He didn’t have experience with ghosts or spirits—it wasn’t his area of expertise—and hadn’t really expected an answer.
    “How old are you?”
    Almost nine
.
    “Where do you live, Mika?”
    There was a long pause.
Yew Lane. The house with the green-and-yellow door. I want my mother!
    “I’ll try to help you.” But he had no idea how—except one. “My name is Thero, and I live at the Orëska House. I wantyou to come and see me as soon as you can. Will you do that?”
    You’re a wizard?
The cloud-image of the face was still there, but some of the fear was gone. The unseeing white eyes were wide.
    “I am, Mika. Please come and see me. Do you promise? You may bring your mother, too, if you like.” How best to coax a frightened child? “I have good things to eat.”
    I promise! Can I go home now?
    “Where are you?”
    I don’t know. I’ve never been here before. Who are those people watching us?
    “You can see this room, and my friends and me?”
    Yes
.
    “Amazing,” Thero murmured. “Where were you before you were here?”
    In my street, with my friends
.
    “Did someone trade with you? A beggar, perhaps?”
    An old woman. She gave me a dragon tooth for one of the marbles my gran gave me
.
    Thero’s lips pressed in a tight humorless smile. It couldn’t be much clearer than that.
    “I’m going to send you home now, Mika. Do you think you can find your way home?”
    Where am I now?
    “You’re in Blue Fish Street.”
    By the Harvest Market?
    “Near there, yes. At an inn called the Stag and Otter. Do you know it?”
    I think so
.
    “Good. Remember what we’ve said here, and come and see me.”
    I will. I want to go now!
    The voice was much fainter and the features were beginning to blur. Thero quickly cut the circle with his knife and the mist disappeared, leaving nothing in its wake, not even a mental sensation.
    “What was that all about?” asked Alec.
    Thero found the others regarding him as if he’d just done something rather surprising.
    “You couldn’t hear the—” Spirit? Ghost? Soul? “There was a child in the mist. He spoke to me.”
    “All we heard was you talking to someone named Mika,” Seregil replied. “We