The Last Inn

by Rachel Gay

  She shook her head and wondered if Kota had made up what he’d said about them. People from out of town were bound to be a little strange, she thought to herself as she watched him put the finishing touches on the food.

  Together they took out the plates and the cups, and put the dishes in the middle for each to serve themselves with. It wasn’t until they had put out all of the food that Erin realized it was all fruits and vegetables and cheeses, all variously cooked or raw, without a single piece of meat in sight.

  Not that the wayfarers seemed to notice, as they dug into the food nearly as heartily as Madame Elzwig did earlier. Kota and Erin were kept busy for some time refilling drinks, for it seemed as soon as they filled one glass another would be emptied, and by the time they turned around the first would be empty again. They drank more than Erin thought possible, and became louder and more talkative with each glass no matter what the drink.

  A woman grabbed Kota’s arm as he passed by and stared up at him, both of their faces red for very different reasons.

  “What do we have here?” she cried out, her grip tightening. Kota’s face went from red to pale as his eyes found Erin’s across the room and silently pleaded for help.

  Entry 29: Stories and Paths

  For one wild second Erin thought the woman had seen Kota’s mark and her mind immediately sought for some kind of distraction. Her mouth opened and she found herself saying, “Have you all heard the story of how the sun met the moon?”

  All eyes turned to her and Erin’s face flushed scarlet, but it was too late to take back her words now. Especially as one of the wayfarers broke into a wide smile and said, “No, do tell.”

  They pulled her and Kota down into chairs and, after some encouragement, Erin found herself talking about when the sun rose too early and the moon strayed too late, and they ran into each other. They fell in love, of course, and they left their places in the sky to dance across the earth and over the seas. Without them, one by one the stars grew dim and the sky turned dark, and the people begged them to return to the sky. Reluctantly they agreed, but even now when the sun and moon cross paths they stray together and the world grows dim in their short absence.

  As Erin spoke, she was uncomfortably aware that the wayfarers were hanging onto her every word. It would have been better if they had been bored, because then they would have talked about something else, instead of calling her to tell another story as soon as she finished the first.

  So she told another story, and another, until one of the wayfarers poured her and Kota drinks and asked, “Where did you hear these stories?”

  “Oh, uh…” Erin’s tongue felt tied. She had heard that particular story here in this very inn, which she supposed explained why it had come to mind first. Some of the others she’d heard, sitting by the river in town on lazy Sunday afternoons when she was a kid, but the idea of telling these people about that only made her feel more embarrassed. “I just heard a lot of stories when I was a kid.”

  Across the table from her, Kota sniffed the drink he’d been offered and started to warn Erin but the woman sitting next to him laughed and pushed the drink to his mouth until he coughed and choked it down. Erin found her own drink being pushed into her hand by the wayfarer sitting far too close beside her, and she drank as well.

  The drink was sweet and bubbly, and Erin was sure it wasn’t anything she and Kota had put out. She tried to put it down, but the wayfarers kept chatting at her and pushing the drink to her lips when she was distracted.

  Before long, everything felt distant and surreal. Erin saw Kota slump down in his chair and fall asleep with his head on the table and his mark visibly showing, but it did not seem to matter anymore if anyone noticed. She found herself laughing and chatting just as loudly as the rest of them, and when they all stood up and raced to the door, it felt only natural to follow them and leave the remains of their supper and Kota snoring softly to head out into the night.

  Outside, one wayfarer started to sing and the others soon took up the strange tune. Even Erin found herself singing along, the words coming to her and slipping away before she ever really understood what she was saying. The humming chant started in her chest and spread down to her feet, and she felt it go further, down into into the ground beneath. Before them lay the road that led into town, and to Erin’s eyes it seemed to glow with a strange light.

  She could feel the road in a strange way, as if it was a part of her. It stretched away and she could sense every bump, every twist and turn, every meandering path that lay within the forest in the other direction, and beyond that. The wayfarers’ tune changed as they marched in the dusty lane between the buildings, but Erin hardly noticed; she could feel the entire empire and beyond spreading beneath her feet, and an aching she hardly knew to go to the places she did not know existed before now grew with every step.

  Several split away, and one took charge of Erin and guided her over what felt like every alley and side street until they all returned to the center of town at the same moment. Before them lay the circle around the clock tower, and nearly every road around them lay lit and glowing with life. Laughing and calling to one another, the wayfarers split into groups and began to dance around the clock tower to the sound of their own song.

  Erin’s feet found the rhythm on their own, and between them and the wayfarers she danced along while her mind fumbled behind, lost in a waking dream. She did not know how long they spent, walking and dancing and singing, whether it was for seconds or months or years, but she never wanted it to end.

  Back at the inn, Kota woke with a start and looked around at the abandoned dishes and empty chairs. He groaned and put a hand to his aching head until he suddenly stood up, knocking over his chair in his hurry.

  “Erin? Erin!” He called as he ran to the kitchen and Erin’s room, and then up and down the stairs, but there was no sign of her in the inn. He ran outside into the gray light before dawn and saw the glowing road that led straight into town.

  Kota cursed and ran around to the back of the inn where he pushed Erin’s bike upright and threw a leg over it. With a few false starts he managed to get it going, careful to stay on the grassy verge to the side of the road.

  He rode into the silent town as the light changed around him, and reached the center of town just as the sky began to turn pink.

  “Erin!” The bike swayed and crashed to the ground as he struggled to separate himself from it and run over to the wild, dancing mass that made another lap around the clock tower.

  A wayfarer tried to slip her arm around his own, but he brushed her off and walked straight toward the leader of the group who was dancing with Erin. Her eyes were glassy and dim, reflecting the light of the road beneath their feet.

  “You had no call to take her with you,” Kota said.

  The leader laughed and said, “Who wouldn’t want to come with us? To walk the roads and see the forgotten ways? Isn’t that right, Erin?”

  Erin nodded, a blank smile on her face.

  “To never stop, never have a home or a family to call your own?” Kota countered.

  “And what do you know of home, or family?” The leader laughed again, but this time it sounded colder to Kota’s ears. “Do you think we couldn’t see it in your eyes, and in hers? To leave this place behind, and find an entire world stretching out to meet you?”

  “Do you really want that?” Kota said, this time speaking directly to Erin. He placed a shaking hand on her shoulder and said, “You wanted to go to the city, yes, but never to return? To never see your mother, or your father, or your brothers and sisters again?”

  “We always return,” the wayfarer said quickly, but the smile faded from Erin’s face and the glassiness faded at Kota’s words.

  “Yes, in your own time. After those who are here are long gone. What do the ancient roads know of the people who walk on them? Days, years, centuries can pass before you return. Do you really want that, Erin?”

  Erin shook her head and pulled away from the w
ayfarer. Her legs shook beneath her with fatigue and effort, and she ran a hand over her aching eyes. “Kota?”

  Kota started to move toward her but the wayfarer leader threw out a hand and laughed.

  “Come now,” he said, pushing Kota lightly so that he took a step back. “I have heard of wayfarers traveling with pets. We’ll take you, man or wolf.”

  Behind Kota the sun rose and its light found him standing in the center of town. The wayfarer bent down toward the wolf in his place and said, “Do you think the people here will say the same?”

  Entry 30: Warning

  The wolf crouched low to the ground as if hoping to disappear under the pavement beneath him as the wayfarers laughed and Erin looked on in horror.

  “Let’s see if you won’t change your mind,” the wayfarer said and gestured to the others. With a cry and a shout they scattered, but not before one of them screamed so loud that Erin and Kota jumped and cried, “A wolf! There’s a wolf after Erin!”

  The houses and buildings all along the street came alive with motion as the last wayfarer ran down a side street.

  Erin had regained her senses enough to yell, “Run!” before a couple of men came running, one of them armed with what looked like the butcher’s cleaver while the other grabbed Erin’s arm and pulled her behind him.

  Kota stopped cowering and took off down the street, easily dodging the man who was not so eager to get close to the large wolf. It would have been a straight shot out of town if a group of people had not come out of an alley and blocked his way.

  Paws skidding on paving stones, Kota came to a stop and turned only to find the way back to the town center blocked by another group. Among the townspeople he could see a couple of wayfarers, and it was a high, clear voice that followed him down the side street, “Quick, before it attacks someone else!”

  The dawn light did not reach all the way in the alleys and back ways of the town, and pockets of shadow covered some areas. The townspeople, most of them already muddled by jumping out of bed so early in the morning, did not know how to handle the clear, echoing sounds of claws clattering over paving stones turning mid-step into footsteps, but the wayfarers knew how to urge them on with cries of a beast and a monster.

  Heart pounding and breath racing, Kota raced down one alley after another, changing shapes so often that his hands soon became dirty and scratched from trying to run on all fours as a human. No matter which way he turned there seemed to be more people closing in, and the terror only built as he imagined what would happen if he ran into a dead end.

  His foot caught on a trash can and he stumbled with a crash that let everyone around know where he was. Kota scrambled up and into the sunlight as his paws met grass instead of stone and pavement. The sound of the river in front of him could not block out the shouting behind him, and without thinking Kota dove under the bridge and hid in the shadows beneath.

  He curled himself up into a ball and hid his head under his arms, unable to even watch as the townspeople emerged from between the buildings, armed with whatever makeshift weapon came to hand.

  They muttered and stamped as they looked around, and another group emerged on the other side of the river.

  “It must be around here somewhere,” Kota thought he heard someone say. He curled in on himself tighter, unable to stop the trembling.

  Then a voice that sounded like Erin’s called out, “I saw it! It went upriver, toward the wastelands!”

  The following minutes lasted far too long, as the people discussed what to do next. Despite a few protests from the wayfarers hidden among them, the townspeople finally decided to send a smaller group to follow the wolf while a guard was put around the town. Slowly they dispersed, some even walking on the bridge over Kota’s head.

  After what felt like a lifetime, Kota uncurled and looked up, to see the old fisherman standing not ten feet away on the riverbank with his pole in the water. His brown face looked up and a pair of bright eyes met Kota’s own.

  The fisherman put a finger to his lips and went back to staring at the bobber on the water as if it was the most fascinating thing in the world. Beside him, a duck looked at Kota and ruffled its feathers huffily before turning its back on him.

  Kota opened his mouth, but his mouth and throat felt so dry that he could not even make a sound. A fortunate thing, as the bridge creaked overhead and a man called out, “Okay there?”

  The old fisherman nodded, and a small smile crept over his face.

  “Did you see the beast? They said it came this way.”

  A shake of the head this time, and the man on the bridge sighed and muttered something about old fools before walking away.

  Eventually the fisherman looked up again and said to Kota, “That’s the same place young Daniel hid when the people of the road came for him, you know.”

  “Daniel?” Kota’s voice was barely above a whisper, and sounded thin and scratchy at that.

  “Sollis, the last innkeeper,” the fisherman said as he reeled his line in a little. “People who live on the edges are easier to recruit, and the Last Inn is one of the few edges this town has.”

  “They tried to take Erin,” Kota said.

  The fisherman’s face hardened and the ducks around his feet quacked irritably. “Yes. They also tried to take you.”

  Kota swallowed, remembering the wayfarer’s words. If he had been the one to walk the roads last night, and not Erin…

  “The road will call them on soon, but until then you two must be careful,” the fisherman said. “Your days draw short enough without their help, young son.”

  Kota started at his words, and then again when he heard something move in the dark under the bridge, far too close to him for comfort.

  “Oh, forgive Dell. He’s not used to sharing his bridge with others.”

  Kota made out a dim, shaggy shape and what looked like rounded ram horns as a very pointed face looked back at him and smiled with an even more pointed smile.

  “Ah,” Kota said, but it came out more as a squeak. Finding a troll sitting next to you in the dark under a bridge can do that to a person.

  “You should go now,” the fisherman said. He shifted his weight and the mud beneath his feet made gulping noises. “And remember the witch’s words.”

  “What?”

  “Go!” The fisherman said with such urgency that Kota’s feet obeyed without waiting for his head to catch up. He stumbled out into the sunlight and raced over the bridge so fast that he nearly did not see the horses and carriage coming, or stop in time to avoid being trampled.

  “There it is!” A wayfarer shouted, above the horses’ protests and the shouts of the driver. A few people came running as Kota stared up at the eye surrounded by vines emblazoned on the door of the carriage that opened as he watched and looked for a way to escape.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Madame Elzwig said, not to Kota but to the men who came running up with fire pokers and knives in hand. “Stop waving those around this instant, you look ridiculous.”

  “It’s that beast,” one of the men tried to explain, but the Judge barely spared the wolf half a glance. Her eyes went over the people around them and took in the wayfarers, who were quickly trying to blend in.

  “Oh, I see,” she said. “What kind of fools are you?”

  “Fools?” The man did not seem to take kindly to this, and neither did the people around him, but Madame Elzwig managed to shout over all of them. Before long they were all arguing fiercely, and it took a while before anyone thought to look around and wonder what had become of the wolf. Before that happened, Kota was already walking into the Last Inn.

  Entry 31: Back at the Inn

  Kota found the door to the inn standing half open when he arrived, and he warily looked inside. With all of the shutters shut from the night before, the only light came in through the open door and showed the table still set, and all of the chairs sitting around except for the one that Kota had knocked over in his hurry.

  The light a
lso showed Erin, who turned at the sound of the porch creaking and spotted the wolf looking in.

  “Kota!”

  Relief crossed her face, hiding what had been there a second before as Kota came in and leaned against the shut door as a human.

  “Is anyone else here?” he asked.

  “No, I think everyone is still looking around town and the wastes for you,” Erin said. “I mean, for the wolf. Did anyone see...?”

  Kota shook his head. “I don’t think so, but I can’t be sure. There were so many close calls, and by now the wayfarers have probably let it slip to someone.”

  Erin scowled. “Why did they do that? Why did they drag me out with them last night, I didn’t want--”

  She stopped, but Kota did not say anything. She had wanted to go, so bad that she didn’t even give a second thought to leaving the town, her family, everything behind.

  “I didn’t...I—” She stumbled for words, but all Erin could think was that this was all her fault. She ran a hand over her face and steadied herself by holding onto the back of one of the chairs.

  “They make it hard to say no, don’t they?” Kota smiled weakly and gestured at the table. “Not to mention, I’m sure they slipped something into our drinks.”

  Erin walked over to the table and picked up a glass. She sniffed it, but if there was something there she couldn’t tell. Erin slammed the glass back down on the table so hard that its contents splashed over her hand. “Why, though?”

  “Recruiting,” Kota said, recalling the fisherman’s words. “But they probably won’t be staying for much longer. As long as we stay away from them and don’t let them pull anything like last night, we should be okay.”

  “But what about the wolf?” Erin asked. “Everyone saw it running around town, and they saw enough to know there was something going on! I heard people talking about it turning into a man and back!”