The spectres of Aiguille d’Or
Genre: ghost
Word count: 1,574
The mountain rose like a blade against the sky, all ridges and knife-edges and wind-shredded banners of snow. They called it Aiguille d’Or, the Golden Needle, though in truth it gleamed white as a skull beneath the sun.
In the summer of 1865, an Eldorian named Edwin Wycliffe arrived in the village of Châtel-Doré, determined to claim its summit. He was young, restless and lean as a coiled whip, and he carried maps he had sketched himself, each creased and smudged from restless nights of study.
The villagers, accustomed to shepherds and the quiet scrape of scythes on meadow grass, eyed him with a mixture of curiosity and dread. Old tales clung to Aiguille d’Or like frost: stories of spirits stalking its slopes, of cries carried on the wind, of climbers swallowed into cracks that closed behind them.
Edwin dismissed the warnings with a polite smile. He had come to conquer the unclimbed peak, not to listen to ghost stories.
He gathered a party: Jules Reynard, a Swiss guide with eyes sharp as glacier ice; Karl Schlegel, a German porter with a booming laugh; and two brothers from Châtel-Doré, Luc and Olivier Marchand. Luc was quiet and methodical, while Olivier was reckless and eager.
The final member of the team was Alphonse Rivière, a veteran guide whose beard was going silver and whose prayers grew longer each day as they neared the mountain.
Even before they left, Alphonse took Edwin aside one evening in the inn’s darkened parlour, where the lamps hissed and cast trembling shadows.
“The Aiguille d’Or is haunted, monsieur,” Alphonse said, his voice barely above a whisper. “She demands respect. And sometimes… payment.”
On the dawn of July 14, they set out, roped together like pearls on a string. The sky was cloudless, the mountain winking in the first flush of sun.
They moved up the glacier, stepping carefully across snow bridges that creaked beneath their feet. Above them, walls of rock loomed, streaked black where meltwater ran.
Higher still, the route grew treacherous. Ice walls glittered blue, and ledges narrowed to slivers barely wide enough for a boot.
Each axe blow rang out like a gunshot.
Edwin climbed with the fervour of a man possessed. Despite his trembling muscles and the thin air burning his lungs, he felt alive in a way he never had in Veligrad drawing rooms or quiet libraries.
By mid-afternoon, they hauled themselves onto the final ridge, a narrow spine of rock and snow. When Edwin reached the top, he dropped to his knees, gasping, the wind tearing tears from his eyes.
He rose and turned in slow wonder. All around, ranges undurled in waves of stone and snow. To the east lay the jagged teeth of the Mount Couronne massif. To the south, the haze of the distant kingdom of Vallerie.
He took out a small Starcrest flag, its silk edges frayed and worn. Jules held it aloft for a photograph, the wind snapping it straight.
Edwin thought he heard something then: a voice, thin and high as the whine of the wind. But when he turned, the ridge was empty save for his companions.
Alphonse muttered a prayer under his breath. Even Olivier, normally so brash, looked pale and shivered as though touched by a sudden chill.
By four o’clock, clouds began to roil upward, swirling like dark ink in clear water.
“We should go,” Alphonse said, eyes flicking nervously over the cornices above. “The mountain doesn’t want us here any longer.”
Edwin nodded, though his chest swelled with triumph. He did not believe in ghosts, but he knew mountains could turn savage in minutes.
They began the descent, cautious on the same ridge that had carried them skyward.
Then, near a rocky outcrop, Olivier slipped.
His crampon skittered off black ice, and with a startled cry, he tumbled backward. Luc lunged to catch his brother, but the rope linking them jerked tight and snapped with a sound like a whip crack.
Olivier fell.
Luc screamed and scrambled after him, but a sheet of ice broke away beneath his boots. He, too, vanished into white space, his scream echoing off the cliffs below.
Snow billowed up in a silent plume.
Karl, frozen with horror, leaned forward to look down. His boot slipped on a smear of ice, and for a moment he dangled, clawing at the rock. Then the mountain tore him loose.
Edwin grabbed the rope, trying to haul Karl back, but the weight tore through his grip, leaving raw red lines across his palms.
The last to fall was Alphonse. He stared at Edwin and Jules, his face grey as old parchment.
“It’s the mountain,” he whispered. “It wants payment.”
Then the ledge beneath him collapsed, and he plunged out of sight.
Jules and Edwin clung to the ridge, breath steaming in the cold air. Below them, the slope dropped off in a near-vertical wall, down to a chaos of shattered rocks and snow.
For a long time, neither spoke.
“Four,” Jules said at least. Four gone. All gone.”
Edwin couldn’t answer. A dull roaring filled his ears, and he felt himself trembling all over.
The descent turned nightmarish. Loose stones rattled underfoot. Wind screamed through the gullies, carrying snatches of what sounded like voices: names being called, soft sobs, laughter that turned abruptly into wails.
At one point, Edwin thought he saw a figure standing on a ridge above, half-hidden in swirling snow. He blinked, and it was gone.
They made it back to Châtel-Coré close to midnight, their faces white, eyes ringed in soot-like shadows.
The villagers gathered in silence, lanterns swaying.
Jules fell to his knees in the square and wept.
Edwin just stood there, the wind lifting his hair, staring back at the black outline of the mountain against the stars.
The bodies were never recovered.
Avalanches swept the face of Aiguille d’Or in the days that followed, burying the ledges where the men had fallen.
That autumn, Edwin returned to Eldoria, hailed as the first man to summit Aiguille d’Or. His name appeared in newspapers, in dispatches from the Society of Global Exploration, in polite conversations in drawing rooms lined with maps and mineral samples.
But the victory tasted of ash.
Edwin couldn’t sleep. In the hush before dawn, he heard footsteps pacing his chamber, as though boots scraped over grit. He smelled cold air and snow.
Sometimes, he woke to find his window open, frost spreading across the glass in delicate ferns.
And once, when passing a mirror, he saw six figures behind him. Not two. Six.
The following summer, Edwin returned to Châtel-Doré. He told no one of his journey except Jules, who agreed to join him, though the guide’s hair had turned mostly grey over the winter.
They planned no summit. Edwin only wished to see the ridge, to offer prayers for the dead.
Late one afternoon, as mist spilled over the ridges, they stood at the base of the mountain. Snowflakes drifted around them, though the air was warm.
“It’s madness,” Jules muttered. “The spirits will not forgive.”
Edwin felt drawn upward, as though invisible hands tugged at his coat.
He climbed a hundred meters above the glacier before Jules seized his arm.
“That’s far enough,” Jules said.
Edwin stood painting, his breath visible despite the summer air. He felt the rope at his waist grow taut, as though someone else pulled on it from above.
He turned, and there they stood.
Four men in climbing gear, ice crusted into their beards, snow dusting their shoulders. Their faces were pale, with sunken eyes and faintly blue lips.
Olivier, with a gash across his temple. Luc, his mouth slack, blood frozen in the hollows of his collarbone. Karl’s parka was shredded as though torn by claws. Alphonse, silent, tears frozen in his cheeks.
They raised their hands and beckoned.
Edwin tried to speak, but his tongue felt wrapped in ice.
Jules saw nothing; yet, he knew what Edwin was seeing. He tugged Edwin backward, swearing under his breath.
“Don’t look,” Jules hissed. “Come away. They want you to follow.”
But Edwin could not move. The shapes advanced slowly, feet leaving no tracks in the snow. Their ropes hung in loops from their harnesses, ends cut ragged where the old line had snapped.
Olivier opened his mouth and whispered Edwin’s name.
Then they vanished.
Snowflakes drifted down, settling like white ash on Edwin’s shoulders. He stared at the empty slope, shaking so violently he could barely stand.
After that day, Edwin refused to speak of Aiguile d’Or again. He returned to Eldoria, married and settled in a small village in Greenvale, but shadows clung to him like damp cloth.
He wrote a book about the mountains, but never included the true story of what he had seen.
Sometimes, he woke to find ropes coiled on the foot of his bed, wet and smelling of iron.
Other nights, he dreamed of endless snow slopes and the sound of his own name echoing off invisible cliffs.
In the final years of his life, neighbours noticed Edwin walking alone at dusk, always looking over his shoulder.
He died in 1912, found slumped at his writing desk, pen still in his hand.
Neighbours swore they heard voices echoing through his house that night.
Some said they saw five shapes walking across the downs beneath a harvest moon: a party roped together, heading toward a ridge no map could name.
The end
Letters of crimson sand
Genre: giallo
Word count: 1,678
The first letter arrived wrapped in red silk.
Inspector Luca Rinaldi of the Al-Qudra Constabulary found it waiting on his desk at dawn, the crimson ribbon looped in a perfect bow. It looked harmless enough, yet as he stared at it, he felt an ache begin behind his eyes.
A warm breeze carried the distant call of gulls over the city. The soft rattle of palm leaves whispered like secrets in a corridor.
He untied the ribbon and unfolded the creamy paper. A faint scent of frankincense rose from its surface. The words inside were written in fine Kheleric script, delicate as spider silk.
To His Excellency Luca Rinaldi, Keeper of Order in Al-Qudra
I write as a true son of this desert, betrayed by shadows who promise freedom yet hide knives behind smiles. A secret agreement is being forged that will spill rivers of blood. The one you trust wears the mask of a friend, but he carries the death of thousands in his pen. Find the man who calls himself “The Correspondent” before my city drowns in crimson and sand.
Yours in faith, Al-Hussein
Rinaldi read the signature again. “Al-Hussein.” He had never heard the name. His office smelled of coffee gone bitter on the stove. A single fly buzzed around the lamp overhead.
He glanced at the wall map of Barqah Province. Al-Qudra sat like a pale star on the coast, surrounded by nothing but endless dunes and the savage rides of the Jahl Mountains beyond. It was 1915. War clawed at every border. The Sultanate of Tashran ruled here in name, but Valaranian ships anchored in the bay these days, and spies prowled the streets like stray cats.
Rinaldi slid the letter into his breast pocket. Then he picked up his tan felt hat and stepped into the rising heat, determined to find the man called “The Correspondent.”
At the Café Al-Sabah, the sun slanted through stained glass, laying vivid reds and greens across the marble tables. The air smelled of rosewater and gun oil. A fat man in a red fez played an oud near the windows, plucking out mournful notes.
Rinaldi found Captain Henry Markham there, leaning over a table cluttered with papers. Markham looked every inch the Valaran Empire official: neat moustache, pale skin gon pink under the desert sun, linen suit crips as folded parchment. A gold pen glimmered in his shirt pocket.
“Murkham,” Rinaldi said, sliding into a seat opposite him. “Does the name Al-Hussein mean anything to you?”
Murkham’s eyes darted sideways. “Hussein… not familiar. Why?”
Rinaldi set the silk-wrapped letter gently on the table. “He says there’s a secret pact brewing. One that could drown this city in blood. He calls the mastermind ‘The Correspondent.’”
Markham sniffed. “The desert breeds conspiracies like flies. Everyone writes letters. You’re wasting your time.”
“I’m not so sure. You’ve been sending plenty of letters yourself.”
Markham’s fingers twitched over the rim of his teacup. The oud’s music suddenly hit a sharp, jarring chord, as though a string had snapped.
Rinaldi leaned closer. “If there’s truth in this letter, Markham, you could be standing on a powder keg. And I’m not about to watch my city burn.”
Markham gathered his papers into a neat stack. “Leave Valaran Empire affairs to the Valaran Empire, Inspector.”
Then he stalked out of the café, leaving the oud player staring after him with anxious eyes.
That afternoon, a body washed up under the piers.
Rinaldi was there when the fishermen dragged it ashore. It was a man in Bedouin robes, throat cut so deeply his head lolled back like a hinge. Rinaldi knelt beside the corpse as seawater pooled around his knees. Flies buzzed thick as static over the blood-soaked fabric.
Sergeant Jabril handed him a crumpled piece of paper. “This was in his robes, sir.”
Rinaldi unfolded carefully. More delicate Kheleric script sprawled across the page, this time in black ink:
He has written again. Promises a kingdom in the desert for our loyalty. He claims the Sultan’s empire will fall like a crumbling wall. But I smell betrayal. I fear the Correspondent serves not one master, but two. Tell Al-Hussein.
Rinaldi stared at the lifeless eyes of the man on the sand. The gulls shrieked above, swirling in white circles. He whispered, “Who were you trying to warn?”
But the corpse offered nothing but silence.
That night, Rinaldi stood under the carved arches of the Grand Mosque, waiting. The marble columns rose around him like white giants. A breeze tugged at the folds of his uniform. Lanterns swung gently, throwing shifting patterns over the tiles. He had sent word into the Jahl Mountains through informants. He hoped the man would come.
The muezzin’s voice drifted over the rooftops, echoing off stone and dust.
Then a figure emerged from the darkness: tall, lean, draped in white robes. A thick beard obscured his face, but his eyes glittered with sharp intelligence.
“Inspector Rinaldi?” he murmured.
“You’re Al-Hussein?”
“I am.”
Rinaldi extended the crimson letter. “You sent me this.”
Al-Hussein nodded gravely. “Because there is a man whose pen writes the fate of nations. He claims to write for freedom, but he signs two names at the bottom of every letter.”
“Two names?”
Al-Hussein lowered his voice. “He signs for the Sultanate… and for the Crown.”
A gust of wind rattled the palm trees beyond the mosque walls. “You mean the Valaran Empire?”
“I mean that there is no single master in this city. Only knives hidden in sleeves.”
“Who is he?”
Al-Hussein reached inside his robe and withdrew a folded paper. “I stole this from his pouch. Read it.”
Under the wavering glow of the lantern, Rinaldi read:
To Sharif Hussein bin Ali, Keeper of Zurash
I write with the full confidence of the Crown, offering support for your revolt against the Sultan’s empire. In return, you shall hold dominion over all lands inhabited by your people, except those under necessary protection. Let us cast off the tyranny of Zeharid Dominion together.
— H. Markham
Rinaldi felt as though the marble floor shifted under his feet. The same neat, precise script he had seen at the café.
Markham was “The Correspondent.”
A savage wind battered the streets as Rinaldi raced toward the Valaran Empire Consulate, boots echoing on the flagstones. Plam trees bent under the gusts, their fronds lashing the walls.
Inside, the consulate was dim and still. Rinaldi found Markham alone in his office, pen moving across parchment. An oil lamp threw flickering gold over his pale face. Maps of the desert covered the walls.
Markham looked up, startled. “Inspector, what’s this about?”
“You’re him, ‘The Correspondent.’”
Markham blinked rapidly. “I don’t know what…”
Rinaldi slammed the stolen letter onto the desk. “You promised Hussein a kingdom. Meanwhile, you’re sending reports to Veligrad. You’re playing both sides.”
Markham’s mouth twisted. “You don’t understand the stakes. The Sultanate is dying. The Valaran Empire want the desert tribes on our side. The Khelerians want independence. I’m merely the man in the middle.”
“And the murdered man under the pier? Was he in the middle, too?”
Markham swallowed hard. “They’ll hang me as a traitor in Veligrad… or slice my throat in Tashran. Either way, I’m dead.”
Rinaldi stepped closer. “If you want to live, you’ll give me every letter you’ve written.”
Markham opened a drawer, trembling, and handed over a thick sheaf of papers. His fingers were pale as bone. “These letters… they’re the only hope we had to turn the Khelerians against the Sultan. But the promises… Veligrad might never keep them.”
Rinaldi flipped through the pages, reading fragments:
We shall support your claim…
No definite frontiers can be drawn…
The Sultan’s days are numbered…
Promises written in elegant Valaranic, riddled with half-truths.
“So you were lying to the Khelerians,” Rinaldi said coldly. “Or to Veligrad.”
Markham stared at him with glassy eyes. “I was lying to everyone.”
Outside, a metallic click echoed like the cocking of a pistol.
Rinaldi spun around, drawing his own revolver. “Stay down!”
A figure stepped from the shadows of the corridor. Eyes glittering under a black scarf, blade glinting in his fist. The assassin lunged.
Rinaldi fired twice. The gunshots roared like thunder in the stone hallway. The killer staggered, blood spraying in a crimson arc across the floor. He collapsed at Markham’s feet, dagger skittering away.
Markham crumpled into his chair, panting. “Who… who was he?”
Rinaldi knelt beside the corpse. Under the assassin’s desert robes lay the insignia of the Sultan’s secret police, stitched in black thread.
“He came for you… Correspondent.”
In the days that followed, Valaranian ships pulled farther out to sea. The harbour lay quiet except for the gentle slosh of waves against the hulls. Tropp columns vanished into the dunes. Al-Qudra simmered under a sun so bright it turned every stone into a burning brand.
One afternoon, Rinaldi stood on the parapet of the city walls. The wind whipped at his coat as he gazed out over the city roofs, the desert beyond glowing like hammered gold.
Al-Hussein joined him, robes billowing like pale smoke. His beard was dusted with sand.
“Will there be a revolt?” Rinaldi asked.
Al-Hussein’s eyes remained on the endless dunes. “The Sultan’s empire bleeds. The Khelerians yearn for freedom. The Valaran Empire desire the desert. Letters cannot hold back the tide.”
“And Markham?”
“He’s a man who tried to shape the world with words. But the desert only respects blood.”
Al-Hussein handed Rinaldi one final letter:
Inspect Rinaldi, Keeper of Order,
Remember this city when the kingdoms fall. No matter who writes the letters, it is the people who pay the price.
Al-Hussein
Rinaldi slipped it into his pocket. Far below, the call to prayer rose like a lament over the rooftops. The sun burned lower, casting crimson shadows across the sand.
And somewhere far from Al-Qudra, in the hidden corridors of palaces and chancelleries, men kept writing letters that would seal the fate of millions. And one day, one letter would spill enough blood to stain the desert forever.