"I picked up his trail on Astram, shortly after you left. I may not have your power, but my nose still serves me well."
He walked over to the edge of the dried-up oasis, giving me a brief over-the-shoulder glance.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"He's down there," Herbert said. He padded down into the bowl-shaped hole, his claws sinking into the red sand. He stopped for a moment, sensing something beneath. Stretching his neck, he blew over the crimson dust, forcing it to scatter away and reveal… a dead Reaper. His throat slit. His eyes empty. Much like the ones we'd seen on Mortis.
"The Spirit Bender," Dream murmured, utterly disgusted.
Nightmare stepped forward and whispered another spell into his blade. He waved it around, and the red sand responded to his command, pulling back like a curtain and revealing dozens of Reapers—all murdered by True Death. I could now see where the Spirit Bender had gotten his material for the specters.
Pieces of their clothing were missing, as were their scythes.
"What the…" Nightmare mumbled, equally aghast.
Herbert sniffed between the dead Reapers and through the red sand, until he reached the bottom and started digging through it. Dream, Nightmare, and I watched in awe as he managed to bring out another Reaper. This one didn't seem dead. And I recognized the pocket watch still clipped onto his lapel.
"Is that—" I asked, but Dream beat me to it.
"The Time Master! Holy smokes, you found the Time Master!" she squealed.
We rushed down to join Herbert, and Dream took Time in her arms, carefully checking him from head to toe. His eyes were closed, so she gently pulled his eyelids apart, revealing dark galaxies of ancient origins. He was definitely still with us.
Nightmare kneeled next to him and Dream, his trembling fingers touching Time's face. "I can't believe it… He's here…"
"Herbert, I have to admit, I'm amazed," I said, giving the ghoul a warm and honest smile. "We needed a win. Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet." Herbert sighed. "The Time Master is not in good shape, I'm afraid. Even I can tell."
I looked at Dream and Nightmare. "What is he talking about?"
Dream kissed her scythe's blade and moved it up and down the Time Master's body. Red dust fell from his curly, dark hair as she jostled him, trying to get him to wake up. Nothing worked.
"The Seals. Spirit put the Seals on him," Nightmare concluded, his brow furrowed.
"What seals?" I asked, even more confused.
Dream glanced up at me, and her expression filled me with a sense of dread—the kind I doubted I'd ever be able to overcome.
"The Seals of Agalor," she replied. "The Seals of Silent Sleep."
Whatever this was, I doubted it was anything good. What good was a Time Master if we could not use him?
Kelara
We brought the Time Master to ground level. Being surrounded by resurfaced Reaper corpses just didn't feel right. I stood on the edge of the dried-up oasis, staring at them, while Dream and Nightmare tried to figure out how to break the seals on their brother.
Herbert watched his comrades as they scattered and chased the few specters left in the area. It was such a stark contrast from earlier, when all the spirits had just wanted to hurt us. As soon as they were outnumbered, and many of them had been consumed by ghouls, their demeanor did a 180-degree turn. Not that I minded, of course. We clearly had bigger issues to deal with.
"Don't you worry you'll lose the other ghouls?" I asked Herbert.
He shook his big, deformed head. "They'll answer my call when it's time. I told you, we share a common goal," he said, and glanced down at the Time Master. "Do they know how to wake him up?"
I shrugged. "I guess."
"Don't guess," Nightmare said. "We know how. It's just not as easy as one, two, three."
Dream drew a line in the red sand with the tip of her scythe, around the Time Master's body. Her brother scribbled various symbols along the line, muttering spells under his breath.
"What exactly are the Seals of Agalor, or Silent Sleep, or whatever?" I sighed, feeling as though our troubles were only getting bigger and nastier as we advanced through this suffocating ordeal.
"We had them as a contingency plan, a long time ago," Dream said. "When the first batches of Reapers that came after us were made. It's something we, among the First Ten, thought we might use to… punish Reapers who might—"
"Color outside the lines," Nightmare added, giggling.
"Right. If they broke one too many rules, for example. It had been Death's policy at the time that they all had to serve a specific term, which varied from one circle to another. When a Reaper stepped out of line, repeatedly, we'd invoke the Seals of Agalor to put them to sleep, to isolate them for a certain number of years."
"The Seals were freshly placed on Time, here, and were probably meant to last for at least a couple of centuries, which was the usual minimum," Nightmare continued. "We could wait it out, but that would obviously not help our cause. So, to break it, we need certain protocols, which we are now engaging in."
Dream began a series of chants in a language I didn't recognize. Nightmare noticed my confusion and did not hide his amusement.
"What?" I replied. "It's weird. Answer this, then. You guys have been off the grid for a long time. Who enforced the Seals of Agalor on Reapers who got out of hand, in your absence?"
"The instances of using the Seals were ridiculously scarce. I’m sure the Spirit Bender would've handled them, discreetly," Nightmare said. "Or Death herself. I mean, she taught us the spell to begin with."
"I'm still shocked I haven’t heard about the Spirit Bender among our ranks for so long," I replied. "Surely, the word would've gone out. I thought all of you were just… I don't know, the stuff of legends."
Dream grinned, but continued her chants.
