HALLOWEEN SHORT STORY - “A CROW IN NIGHTSTONE” PART 3
The tavern was quiet now. The fire in the hearth had now completely burned down to ash, and the rain outside had softened to a slow, patient tap against the windowpanes.
Crow sat across from himself.
The man — no, the thing — wore the same half-buttoned shirt, the same road-worn cloak, the same faint scar that cut through his left brow. Even the way he held his cup was identical, down to the twitch of his ring finger before he spoke.
For a long time, neither moved. The silence felt heavier than any crowd.
Crow finally broke it.
“You’ve got some nerve walking around with my face.” The other smiled — his smile, only slower, like a memory repeating itself wrong. “Could say the same of you.” Crow’s hand slid down to the dagger on his thigh. “You’ve got about ten seconds to start talking.”
“I am,” said the reflection, voice low and unhurried. “Always have been. You just stopped listening.” The words sent a chill through the room. Something shifted in the air — a faint vibration, like a heartbeat out of sync. Then, from somewhere beyond the tavern walls, the bell tolled. One long, low note. The sound rolled through the floorboards and rattled the empty mugs behind the counter.
Crow blinked. The tavern had changed. The candles were gone. The hearth was cold stone. Dust filmed the tables, and the smell of age and mildew clung to the air. He rose slowly. “Where are we?” His double stood, too. “Where you left us.” The door creaked open on its own. Beyond it waited the fog — thicker now, swallowing the street in a wall of gray. Crow hesitated only a second before stepping through. The other followed.
Outside, Nightstone was silent. The cobblestone streets were slick with mist, the air sharp with the taste of old rain. Houses leaned at strange angles, their windows hollow. It was the same town, but drained of everything living. Crow walked toward the bell. He didn’t know why — only that it rang for him. Each toll seemed to echo inside his chest. Behind him, the doppelgänger’s footsteps made no sound. They passed the baker’s shop, its sign hanging by a rusted nail. The well was dry, the square empty. Each turn led them back to the same place, the streets folding in on themselves like pages turned too many times. Crow stopped. “What is this?”
“This,” the other said, “is what’s left.” The fog parted ahead. At the edge of town rose the ruined temple, its tower leaning like a tired sentinel. The bell above it swayed though no wind stirred.
They entered.
Inside, the air was still and cold. The walls were scrawled with prayers in a language Crow almost remembered. At the center of the nave lay a fractured stone — dark as obsidian, pulsing faintly with a heartbeat of light. The Nightstone. Crow felt it before he saw it. A pull — not of gravity, but memory. “You brought me here,” he said. The double’s expression softened, almost pitying. “No. You never left.” The bell tolled again, shaking dust from the rafters. For a moment, the temple flickered — whole and bright, sunlight through stained glass, people kneeling in prayer. Then it was ruin once more. Crow drew his dagger. “Stop playing with riddles.”
The reflection met his gaze. “You died on the road.” Crow laughed — a brittle sound. “Try harder.” “It was raining,” the double went on. “Bandits, or maybe wolves. You never saw them coming. You bled out before dawn. The stone called what was left of you here.” The dagger trembled in Crow’s grip.
“You’re lying.”
“Am I?”
The reflection opened his cloak — no heartbeat beneath the ribs, no rise of breath. “Look at yourself.” Crow’s hand went to his chest. Nothing. No pulse. No warmth. The world swam. The bell tolled again — once, then twice in quick succession. The light from the Nightstone surged, splitting the room into two mirrored halves: one bright, one black. In one, the temple gleamed with candlelight; in the other, it was only ash and ruin. Crow stood between them, two shadows cast in opposite directions. “Every man leaves an echo,” said the double. “Most fade. Yours wandered.” Crow’s eyes hardened. “Then only one of us walks away.”
He lunged. The dagger cut through mist, through something not quite flesh. The double staggered — and smiled. “Then fade,” it whispered. The bell struck its final note. Light and shadow folded together, collapsing the world into silence.
When Crow opened his eyes, he was alone. The fog had lifted. The temple lay still. At his feet, the Nightstone had gone dark — its crack sealed, its light gone cold. A second body lay nearby.
His own.
The same face, eyes open, empty.
Crow knelt beside it. “Guess that makes you the lucky one,” he murmured. He touched the stone once more, feeling nothing but smooth, lifeless rock beneath his hand. Outside, the bell gave one last sigh and came to rest.
When travelers passed through Nightstone that spring, they found it deserted — homes cold, wells dry, fields fallow. Only the crooked bell tower stood, its bronze heart unmoving.
They said it tolled once at dusk and twice each dawn.
And in the wet stone beneath it, someone had carved a name:
C. Hale
Addendum: Notes from Candlekeep
Recovered from the field journal of Scribe Odrin Marr:
“The Nightstone ruins bear strong traces of planar interference, likely Shadowfell in nature. Witnesses describe echoes of living souls drawn by resonance to the obsidian relic at the town’s heart — a phenomenon similar to the ‘shadow-calling’ recorded near Narfell.
Doppelgängers have been misidentified in such cases, but these reflections are not shapeshifters — rather, they are the residual memory of a soul, a kith-shadow, attempting to reconcile its own death. The bell of Nightstone seems to act as a tether, marking the threshold between world and echo.
Should you hear it toll twice in quick succession, take heed. It means the veil has thinned again — and somewhere, an echo has come home.”