by Rachel Gay
“Will this work?” she asked Terra, holding out a badly made horseshoe.
He took one look at it and grinned. “Perfect. Go back inside and put it over the door, it will keep them from coming in.”
“What are they?” Erin asked, unable to hold the question in any longer.
“Shadows, that’s all,” Terra said, and she noticed that he was trying to sound much more soothing about it than he should have been. He readied an arrow and peered down its shaft at the approaching shapes.
Now that they were closer, Erin could see that they were shadows, bizarre and out of place without anything to cast them as they moved under the bright, sunlit sky, flitting across the ground and moving in random bursts of speed. They changed shape and size several times, and as hard as she stared she could not figure out how many of them there were before they shot forward again.
“Get inside,” Terra said again, and this time Erin listened. She turned and managed to take two steps before she saw something move out of the corner of her eye. She blinked and stared at the space between them and the front door of the inn, which was now suddenly occupied.
“These things don’t like iron, right?” she said, trying to sound calm.
“Yes,” Terra said. His hand moved and an arrow flew straight into one of the shadowy creatures, and right out the other side. The hole where the arrow pierced it closed itself, and the shadow continued to come closer without even missing a beat.
“How long do you think a horseshoe can hold them off?” she asked.
Terra risked glancing over his shoulder and saw that some of the shadows, in their deceptively strange movements, had slipped past without him seeing it. They were surrounded, with no way back to the inn.
Entry 52: Iron and Light
Erin and Terra kept moving away from the approaching shadow creatures until they were back-to-back with nowhere else to go. The shadows were dark and dense despite the sun overhead, and as they came closer they took on vaguely human shapes that towered over the two. They moved in with absolute silence.
Erin swallowed as she stared up into the nearest blank face and held out the horseshoe in her hand like a poor excuse for a shield.
The shadow halted in its tracks and wavered. Despite the fact that it had no eyes, she thought she could sense the thing’s attention turning to the small piece of iron.
Terra turned and put one hand on her shoulder and the other on the hand holding the horseshoe. “Follow my lead,” he said.
Erin’s immediate instinct to knock Terra’s hands away faltered as she realized that she could not even work up the nerve to move an inch closer to these things. They took one hesitating step, and before the outstretched horseshoe the shadows slowly retreated.
Terra breathed out. “This might work.”
“You mean it might not have?” Erin’s hand shook and she tightened her grip on the horseshoe.
Together, they slowly and steadily moved toward the inn. The shadows shifted and stirred, their absolute silence allowing Erin to hear her heartbeat roaring in her ears. She felt Terra tense, but did not see the shadow behind them move until the hunter pushed her away.
The shadow fell upon the hunter, as a split in its head opened to reveal a great, gaping hole rimmed with innumerable teeth. Still it made no sound, until Erin swung her fist with iron in hand and connected with the creature.
An earsplitting shriek filled the air as the shadow split and dispersed, and then all of the shadows leapt.
Utter darkness surrounded Erin, cutting out all light. As much as she swung the horseshoe around and the shrieks of the shadows pierced her ears, there seemed no stopping them. She could not see the ground beneath her feet, much less Terra, and something latched onto her elbow at the same time as the disturbingly heavy weight of the shadows pulled her down.
Immediately, all of the feeling besides a searing pain disappeared from her arm down to her hand, and Erin realized she could not tell if she still had the horseshoe or not. She screamed, but the sound was drowned out by a long, haunting howl unlike the shrieks of the shadows.
The shadows split and fled, blinding Erin by the sudden return of the sun. She blinked away the tears streaming in her eyes and saw the shadows lurching across the yard of the inn in every direction, chased by a gray and white blur.
She rubbed her eyes and blinked some more, and the blur became a large wolf with a yellow and orange mark blazing over one eye and a gleaming piece of metal in its mouth. One by one the shadows shrieked and disappeared when the iron touched them, none of them making it any farther than the fence.
It wasn’t until the wolf slowed to a stop and dropped the horseshoe on the ground that Erin remembered Terra, and only thought of him then when she heard the distinct sound of an arrow being pulled from a quiver.
The wolf turned at the sound and saw the hunter sighting along the shaft. Both stood absolutely still, neither daring to move.
“Terra,” Erin said quietly, afraid that even that small noise would startle one or the other into action.
“Did you see that?” the hunter said, his lips hardly moving and his eyes still locked on Kota. “I knew we weren’t dealing with a normal animal!”
It was only a matter of time before one or the other did something, and Erin could not wait for that to happen. She tried to think of something, anything, to distract the hunter, but the pain in her arm flared up so suddenly that she could only gasp.
Terra’s eyes darted toward her and the wolf’s ears picked up. It started to take a step forward and the hunter hastily fired a shot without aiming.
Before the arrow even pierced the ground by the wolf’s front paw, Terra had another arrow in his hand, but before either one could make another move something else pierced the air: a long, low note that turned into a quick, eager melody.
The wolf snarled, and even Erin took a step back as it shook its head and then took off running, toward the woods. Terra started to aim another arrow, but stopped with a frustrated sigh before remembering Erin.
“Are you okay?” he asked, returning arrow to quiver and turning to her with open concern.
She shook her head and ran her hand over her arm again, shuddering at the radiating pain through which she could feel nothing else.
“It will wear off.” This came from the rider standing at the front door of the inn. “Just worry about bandaging that wound.”
Erin looked at the flute in the rider’s hand but said, “Why were those things chasing you?”
“They were a warning, that’s all.” The rider pulled back the hood of her cloak, fully revealing a beautiful face and dark hair pulled back into a ponytail. Her large, bright eyes drilled into Erin even as she smiled and said, “I have a tendency to annoy the wrong people in my line of work.”
“Just a warning?” Terra said. “Yeah, I guess so, since they attacked everyone else but you. Here, let’s put something on that bite.”
This last bit he said to Erin and led her inside the inn past the rider, who watched them with the same little smile on her face.
“That was certainly an interesting creature out there,” the rider said, following them to the table where Erin sat down. “I would have loved to get a closer look at it.”
“Then why did you scare it off?” Terra snapped as he searched behind the desk for the bandages Erin thought were back there.
“Why do you think I was trying to scare it away?”
The hunter thumped the first aid box down on the table and glared at her. “That music you played? You’re a tamer, aren’t you?”
“No use denying it, is there?”
At this Erin stared at the young woman. She had heard of tamers before, but she usually thought of them in connection with traveling circuses and that sort of thing. People said tamers could control any animal, beast or monster with enough time or talent. At least one of the townsmen claimed to have seen a tamer make a dragon do tricks like a tame dog, but those traveling shows had never bothered to stop in
her town for as long as she could remember.
“So you played your little pipe and ran off my wolf,” Terra said.
“Your wolf?” The tamer laughed and leaned toward him with both of her hands splayed out on the table. “Funny, since I was the one hired to bring that wolf to heel.”
Entry 53: Stop the Noise
Kota rushed into the Inn’s common room from the kitchen, out of breath and red in the face. He stopped and stared before asking, “What’s going on?”
Erin looked up from bandaging her arm and shrugged. On either side of the table where she sat, Terra and a young woman that Kota did not know were yelling at each other so loud that it was impossible to hear what either one was saying.
Terra turned on him and yelled, “This tamer woman–”
He stopped when he saw Kota flinch and cleared his throat before continuing, in his inside voice, “She came here with some shadow creatures tailing her, and one of them bit Erin.”
“What?” Kota did a good job of feigning disbelief as he stepped closer to look at Erin’s arm. “When did this happen?”
“Just a few minutes ago,” Erin said.
“When you say shadow creatures...” Kota started.
“Shadows,” the rider said. She looked Kota up and down more than once as she explained, “Of the fair folk. Their master sent a few to make sure I kept my promise to leave their land.”
“Ah,” Kota said, but Erin doubted he was listening. He tilted his head and said, “I think I might have something in the kitchen that can help that bite, if you don’t mind waiting a minute.”
“Thank you,” Erin said, for more than one reason. Her eyes had teared up a few times already from the pain, and she would take anything to dull it.
Kota walked back into the kitchen and opened and shut a few cupboards, just for the look of the thing. The herbs he’d gathered from the edge of the forest were already sitting on the counter, but he had to wait for the pan on the stove to come to a boil.
He could hear the others talking in the common room. but he only really started to listen when he heard his own name spoken.
“Kota? He’s my partner, we run this inn together,” Erin said, in answer to some question the tamer had asked. “Were you really in the land of the fair folk?”
“Just passing through,” the woman said, followed by what Kota could only assume was a snort from Terra.
“Bit more than that, if those shadows have anything to say about it,” the hunter said. “Look, lady, believe me when I say I’m sorry you came all this way, but your services won’t be needed here.”
“Lani.”
“What?” Terra said.
“My name is Lani, and I don’t plan on going anywhere without that wolf,” she said, and in the kitchen Kota buried his face in his hands. Two of them?
The sound of water boiling on the stove presented a welcome distraction, and Kota spent the next few minutes washing and cutting up the herbs before dropping them into the bubbling water. He stared intently at the water, doing his best to focus on it and tune out the rising voices in the common room.
Soon the kitchen was full of a bittersweet smell, and Kota took the pan off the stove and carefully drained away the water in the sink until only a dark green mass was left at the bottom, which he spread over a cloth before returning to the common room.
“Try putting this on the bite,” he said, handing the cloth to Erin while trying to ignore the raging argument going on.
Erin nodded and unwrapped the bandage around her arm. They both winced at the sight of the set of puncture marks surrounded by blackened skin, and Erin quickly draped the cloth over the wound so she didn’t have to look at it anymore.
She sighed and gently added pressure to the cloth, smiling at the spreading relief. “Thank you, Kota.”
Kota smiled, briefly, before the tamer, Lani, turned her attention on him again.
“Where did you say you were when the shadows were attacking?”
“I didn’t,” Kota answered with a shrug. “I was down in the cellar, moving some barrels around. The only reason I came up was because I heard all of the yelling going on.”
“Which needs to stop,” Erin filled in for him. “If it bothers you two that much, then why don’t you go and see Geld about who he hired?
Terra and Lani both did not seem too thrilled with that idea, and after an awkward pause during which they stared at each other, daring the other to speak, Kota sighed.
“Honestly? He probably sent out requests to more than one hunter or tamer or whoever else Elzwig told him about. You two are either the only ones who responded, or the first ones to get here.”
At that, Terra and Lani crossed stares again before turning to the door.
“I’ll be back later,” Terra said, making it out of the door before Lani only because she held back to say, “I told my horse to go on ahead to the stable, so if you could make sure he’s well provided for that would be great. I’ll pay for my room and board when I get back, okay?”
Without waiting for an answer, she ran out the door which slammed shut behind her and left Kota and Erin alone in the inn.
“Do you really think there’s more coming?” Erin asked.
Kota pulled out a chair and sat down across from her with his legs sprawled out. “Probably not. Madame Elzwig seems like the sort of person who doesn’t like redundancy. One job, one tool.”
“So that means one of them isn’t working for Geld?”
Kota shook his head. “No, it just means he did a little recruiting of his own. Can you blame him? There was no guarantee that the person he sent out for would show up, even if he or she did come with your Judge’s recommendation.”
“Huh.” Erin sat back in her chair and looked at her arm as if just now noticing that the pain was gone. She removed the cloth to reveal a few small punctures, but otherwise normal, healthy skin. “Wow, what was in this stuff?”
“Just some plants from the forest,” Kota said, shrugging again. He closed his eyes and sank further into his chair as if he might fall asleep right there and then.
Erin remembered Lani’s horse and started to go and check on it, but another thought occurred to her and she asked, “Do you really think it was a good idea to tell them that though? Now they’re out there and in an even bigger hurry to track down the wolf.”
“Fine with me, as long as they stay out there,” Kota answered without opening his eyes. He did not see Erin shake her head and walk out, but after a while he gave a deep, contented sigh in the quiet, dark inn.
Entry 54: To Be Selfish
After tending to Lani’s horse, Erin went back into the common room of the Last Inn and placed the box of chel shells on the table where Kota sat. She originally had the idea of waiting until Kota asked about the box, but soon realized they would be there all day. Instead she said, “Do you remember when I asked you about the mer?”
Kota glanced at her and opened the box. He sighed when he saw the shells inside, glittering in the light overhead, and asked, “So what did the mer say?”
“Sollis was looking for something, something that could break a curse!”
The news did not have the expected effect on Kota, although Erin had to admit she wasn’t sure what she expected. Surprise, for sure, maybe even a little bit of excitement, or even just a smile would have been a start.
She did not expect him to sigh and run a hand over his face, pushing the hair out of his eyes so he could look fully at her with an expression that looked a lot more like pity than relief.
“Erin, even if Master Sollis was looking for something to break a curse, there’s no reason it should be able to help me. There are no cure-alls.”
“But your witch said Sollis could help you,” Erin said, putting as much emphasis on the words as she could. “She must have heard he was looking for this thing from one of the mer or the other people he asked for help, and sent you here for it! I mean, it can’t just be a coincidence, can it?”
Ko
ta sat back in his chair and sighed again. “Erin...”
“What’s with you? Don’t you care at all? This is your curse, your problem, and you’re not doing a thing about it!” Erin bit her lip when she saw Kota bow his head and hunch his shoulders. “Don’t do that!”
“Don’t do what?” Kota asked, even as he sank lower in the chair.
“That! Hiding behind yourself, acting like you’re scared, trying to make me feel bad just because I’m trying to help you.”
“I’m not–” Kota started, but there was no stopping Erin now.
“Since you got here, you haven’t done a single thing to help yourself. You haven’t looked for a cure, you didn’t even leave the inn until Miles and I forced you to, you ran away when he offered you a chance to get better, you hide from everyone and act like they’re all out to get you,” Erin said, and would have kept going for longer if she did not have to stop for a breath and Kota used the opportunity to get a word in.
“...Did the mer tell you anything else about this cure?”
“Not really. Just a roundabout way of saying only a human could find it, and then that I already knew how to find out, which I don’t,” Erin said, realizing that this bit of information did not help her case much. “But I don’t think the mer was lying, not about the cure.”
“I don’t suppose Master Sollis ever said anything to you?” Kota asked.
Erin shook her head and then, because Kota’s eyes were trained on the table, said, “No. I never really saw him that much. I mean, sometimes he would tell me stories, but they were just stories you would tell a kid. Nothing about curses, or ‘chains’ like the mer called it.”
Kota ran his hand over his face again but this time stopped when his fingers touched the mark branded over his left eye. After a minute he let the hand drop and asked, “May I see the journal?”
“Sure,” Erin said. She retrieved the journal from the desk and handed it to him just as a knock came at the front door.
Kota had just enough time to sweep his hair back down over his forehead to cover his mark before the door opened and a couple of guests walked in.
By the time Erin and Kota set them up with a room and helped them take their bags upstairs, more people were coming in, and then more after that, until it was time for Kota to start worrying about feeding all of these people. Erin saw Terra come in and immediately start up a conversation with a group of strangers, and sometime later spotted Lani sitting at her own table, surrounded by several men who were hanging on to her every word.
