Ruby Ruins

by J M D Reid

  “I asked him,” Fingers said, “but he’s got his wife to worry about. They got a child on the way.”

  “Indeed,” said Dajouth. “Jilly is a flower that any man would stay behind to protect, though she dims before your radiance, Avena.”

  Ōbhin shifted. “You spoke with him, Dajouth?”

  “I did,” said Dajouth. “Right before I finished packin’. He asked me to take care of you all. He and Cerdyn will watch over the women. But the three of us were worried about Avena and wished to see her made whole.”

  “And to see the ruins and fight darklings and crystalmen and bogarts!” said Bran, his face bursting with delight.

  “Crystalmen fought darklings,” Avena muttered, a chill running through her. She glanced at Ōbhin.

  His eyes met her. She could see the truth in her lover’s eyes. Smiles had taken on a new form. Either Fingers, Bran, or Dajouth lay dead in a ditch or thrown in Lake Ophavin. The shapeshifter’s mission was to protect Dualayn, so, of course, it wouldn’t be that easy to keep him away.

  We should have let Smiles come. She looked away to battle her grief and guilt. If they hadn’t rushed their leaving, they would have realized what the thing would do.

  Which one is it? Which two can we trust?

  “Get us down the road, Miguil,” Ōbhin said, his voice tight. “As they said, they’re free to ride where they want. We can’t stop them.”

  Bran whooped his excitement.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Worry itched at Ōbhin as he studied the three riders following the wagon. Bran cast his gaze around with boyish enthusiasm. He ogled the passing farms, the oxen pulling carts, the fields of withered crops while grunting men hauled buckets of water from shrinking ponds or from deep wells. Dajouth waved his hand before his face, batting away flies, his brow glistening with sweat. Fingers rode slouched, hand resting on the pommel of his horse, face flushed.

  One of them was a threat. Which one would the thing masquerading as Smiles have chosen to be? Which had the monster killed and replaced? No way to answer the question without revealing Ōbhin’s suspicions. No good way to send them back, either.

  They wouldn’t go.

  Need to be on my guard on how I treat Dualayn. Ōbhin stiffened at that thought. Unless that’s a way to reveal the impostor.

  “Fingers, look alive,” Ōbhin said, moving to the back of the wagon.

  The older man lifted his head. He blinked like he was coming out of a nap. His horse snorted at his shifting weight. It tossed its mane of black hair as Fingers mopped at his sweaty brow. The sound of cicadas buzzing grew louder as they passed a small stand of willow trees around a muddy pond.

  “What?” Fingers asked, blinking.

  “If I’m not around, you’re in charge of watching Dualayn,” Ōbhin said. He hated suspecting one of his men, one of his friends, of being a monster. It horrified him no matter which one had been replaced. “If he tries to get us captured, break his neck.”

  “With pleasure,” Fingers said, a vicious grin spilling across his face. It made him look ugly and monstrous, his brows knitting. “I’ll strangle him with my bare hands.”

  “I’ll crack him so hard with my binder across the head, I’ll split his head right open!” declared Bran.

  Dajouth spat to the side. “You hear that, old man? We all want to gut you for what you did to the fair flower. You don’t get to pluck her petals and stick ‘em on another plant. You’re lucky you didn’t destroy her radiance.”

  Sour disappointment churned through Ōbhin. All three wholeheartedly wanted to eviscerate Dualayn. The thing was good. Too good. How to detect a perfect mimic? It could heal wounds. Fast. If he could get any of the three alone . . .

  His stomach turned queasy. What if it had replaced Avena or Miguil? He struggled to remember when he’d last seen Smiles as his head snapped around. He stared at the two on the driver’s bench, his spine crawling with the terror of not knowing which was the fake.

  No, no, Smiles saw us off. The thing was there. It’s not Avena.

  Relief relaxed tension. He leaned against the wagon’s side.

  “You okay?” Fingers asked.

  “Just the Black Toned heat,” he muttered. “It doesn’t get this hot in Qoth.”

  “Nor is this usual in Lothon,” groaned Fingers. “Bad summer to be a farmer.”

  “You’ve been through droughts?”

  “Oh, I remember one before . . .” He shifted. “Well, before I ran from my wife. Couldn’t get anythin’ to sprout. Lost a whole crop o’ turnips. My buckwheat was barely hangin’ on. Spent hours haulin’ water until my back broke just tryin’ to save enough to feed us through the winter, never mind sellin’ it and payin’ my landlord rent. Had to pawn my ma’s jewels that winter just to keep the farm. Not that my wife ever noticed.” His eyes grew distant.

  Ōbhin shook his head. The emotion was real. Spoken with such conviction. It lined up with everything Ōbhin knew of the man, and it wasn’t enough to prove if he was the real Fingers. Somehow, the thing filched memories. It stole everything about a person; the worst sort of chameleon.

  Scenarios played through Ōbhin’s mind as they road west. He broiled through the afternoon, drinking warm water to keep the parched burning at bay. His leather jerkin grew sodden with sweat. Avena drooped even with her bonnet shading her face. Miguil held the handle’s reins in a relaxed grip. Bran slouched, his excitement vanished beneath the hot sun. Dajouth’s flowery compliments dried up after an hour, his lips growing chapped.

  Ōbhin pondered ways to “accidentally” injure the three guards. Tripping and plunging a knife into their arm. Dropping something heavy on a foot. Even punching them in the face in a pretend fit of anger to see what happened. They had jewelchine healers with them. If he hurt the wrong person, the damage could be repaired.

  And potentially tip off the thing.

  Right now, the impostor believed to be fooling everyone. How would its behavior change if revealed? Would it strike hard and rescue Dualayn before they ever got to the ruins? Or perhaps it wouldn’t do anything so long as he didn’t try to cut off Dualayn’s head.

  Ōbhin didn’t know. He knew next to nothing about it, even how to kill the disharmonic thing. It was tough, healed swiftly, and could run faster than him. Was it stronger? A better fighter? What if he was wrong and it killed him?

  Replaced him?

  What if it tricked Avena like poor Jilly? She’d spent more than sixty days living with a thing and not realizing it wasn’t her husband. It was such a good actor, Avena would never realize the difference between the real Ōbhin and the fake. She would trust it. Love it.

  Ōbhin hated it more and more with every passing hour while despising his helplessness.

  As the sun set, they stopped at one of the farming villages. They all lay about the same distance apart, a day’s walk between each. This one was a little larger, bedecked in green pendants and flags. The town constable marched up and down the main road in ill-fitting armor with a pike in hand, his eyes hard on theirs. The defiance in the village seemed baked into the soil by the unrelenting heat of the summer sun.

  They found hospitality at a nameless inn. Dualayn retired to his room to eat his meal, a sparse affair of buckwheat noodles in a thin turnip soup. It was served cool, left in the inn’s root cellar all day to keep the summer heat away. Ōbhin fumbled with the chopsticks. He still hadn’t mastered the strange eating implements the others used with casual ease.

  “How much longer ’til we get to the ruins?” Bran asked before he scooped up several noodles and slurped them into his mouth.

  “A few days,” Ōbhin said. “Three, if I remember right.”

  Avena nodded, quiet. She sat beside him, her bonnet off and short hair falling loose about her face, freshly scrubbed clean of the day’s dust.

  “We shall purloin the ruins and find wot you need, don’t you fear, Avena,” Dajouth said. “Why, my mother always said my father was part miner. It explains why I got no fear
of venturin’ into the caves. Know a thing or two ‘bout bein’ underground, I do.”

  Avena rolled her eyes. Ōbhin smirked.

  “Nothing quite like bein’ underground,” said Dajouth. “You can feel the weight above you. All that earth o’er your head, but it can’t touch you ‘cause the cave is sound. Things echo, too. Your voice can live for a while, y’know, amid all the drippin’.”

  “Drippin’?” Bran asked.

  “From the water.” Dajouth leaned back. “Always drippin’ in caves. And dark, too. You don’t wanna be trapped in the dark.”

  “No, you don’t,” Ōbhin muttered. He remembered the sunless mines beneath Gunya, the capital of Qoth. That day, he’d felt the weight of the city above. The mine’s walls had felt fragile after the quake. He kept thinking the rocks possessed the same strength as rotten wood.

  “How do you stand it?” Bran asked before slurping up more noodles.

  “You just have to be brave and keep your head on when things go dark,” Dajouth said, glancing at Avena. “Once, my torch just went out. Not sure why, but I was all alone in the dark. I wanted to panic, but you can’t do that. Gotta keep your head.”

  “Wot did you do when you lost it?” Bran asked, leaning forward. He had a piece of noodle plastered to his chin.

  “Fouled his britches,” Fingers grunted. He leaned back in his chair, the piece of furniture creaking. “Wot else you gonna do?”

  “Didn’t foul my britches,” Dajouth said, his cheeks pinking. “I kept my head. I felt the air movin’, that slight breeze from the entrance. The inhalation. Deeper in the cave, there’s the exhalation, but near the mouth, air flows inward. I just moved forward slowly, feelin’ the current on my face until I found my way out.”

  Bran shook his head, still oblivious to the noodle. “I hope that don’t happen in the ruins. Our torches goin’ out.”

  “We’ll have jewelchine lamps,” Avena said. She stirred her chopsticks through her broth before picking up her bowl in her left hand. “And we’ll be together, so if one of ours does go out, it won’t matter.” She drank from her bowl, draining the broth.

  “True,” Dajouth said. “Though, I took this girl down into the caves and turned off the lights on her. Y’know what happened?”

  “She screamed her head off and then slapped you like the idiot you are for scarin’ her,” said Fingers. “Don’t even claim you flipped up her skirt and doused your wick.”

  “Her screams can still be heard today,” said Dajouth. His eyes slid to Avena still drinking her broth. “Some women won’t be scared, though. They know how to face the danger and appreciate a man who can give her a taste.”

  He winked at her.

  Ōbhin snorted with laughter.

  Avena set her bowl down with a hard thump. “I’m going to retire. This was a long day.” She rose and then bent over. “Blessed night, my bright diamond.”

  The words surprised him, but the kiss was welcome. Her lips tasted of the turnip broth, but he didn’t mind. Blood spilled hot through him. Bran sniggered; Ōbhin did not care at all. Avena broke the kiss and had a smile playing on her lips.

  “Blessed night,” he said, his voice hoarse. His cheeks burned from such a public display. Kissing in Qoth was for the bedroom when a woman could remove her mask.

  Dajouth scowled. “So you and her finally . . .”

  “Yep.”

  The younger man leaned back. “Well, I had to try, y’know? I could see she was buildin’ a fire to warm you, but so long as you didn’t sit at it, I thought it might warm me just as well. You can’t know wot will turn a woman’s affections. Like to be chased, they do.”

  “They do?” Bran glanced at one of the barmaids, a girl not much older than him. She was pleasantly plump with a bright smile. She drifted through the room, chatting with the locals.

  He stood up and darted over to her, boasting about their adventure to the heart of the forest and the buried ruins they would dive into. The barmaid had a patient look on her face as she listened.

  Dajouth shook his head. “He don’t know he’s got a noodle on his chin.”

  “Just matters that he tries,” Fingers said, nodding in approval. “Boy needs to grow up. Have his first woman.”

  “I don’t think she’s impressed,” Dajouth noted. The woman’s attention wandered as Bran kept animatedly speaking to her.

  “Nope. But he’s tryin’. As you say, Dajouth, you can’t know a woman’s heart. All you can do is throw yours out before her and see what she does with it. Like baitin’ a trap. You never quite know wot beast’ll wander into it. Maybe wot you expected to catch, maybe somethin’ surprisin’, or maybe they’ll just snatch the meat and run.”

  “You think women are like wild beasts?” Dajouth said. “No, wait, ‘course you do. You think your wife’s tryin’ to kill you.”

  Fingers grunted. “Just sayin’, Bran’s a good kid. Want him to find some happiness. We’re goin’ into trouble. This ruin sounds dangerous.”

  “Yeah,” Dajouth said, glancing up at the ceiling. “Is it really a good idea to take that untrustworthy bastard with us?”

  “We’ll never find what we’re looking for without him,” Ōbhin said. “The only reason he’s still breathing.”

  “Just sayin’, goin’ underground is dangerous enough. It might be safer to leave him above. Have someone guard him while the rest of us go spelunkin’. You know, don’t risk the guy who can actually fix Avena once we find it.”

  Ōbhin studied Dajouth. Is it you?

  Fingers chuckled as Bran led the barmaid across the room to a private corner. “Good for him. He sold that adventure and danger. Farm girls get bored.”

  “You sound proud of him. Like he’s your son or something,” Ōbhin noted.

  “Never had a son. Bran’s about the closest, I guess. Known him since he was, oh, ten or so. Good lad, if a little excitable.”

  “If Bran can get a barmaid to talk,” Dajouth said, standing up, “I might try with the other. She’s got a nice smile.”

  Fingers grunted as Dajouth slipped from the table.

  “I thought you never had children.” Ōbhin furrowed his brow. “You said that, right?”

  “Huh?” grunted Fingers, still watching Bran. He’d settled the barmaid sitting at another table. He leaned over her while her eyes looked more animated now.

  “You said you never had a son, but it’s like you were implying you had daughters.”

  “Never had daughters. Never had sons.” He shrugged. “Good thing. Woulda made leavin’ my wife harder. I’d mighta hurt her worse if’n there was a child or two tyin’ me in place.” He stared down at his hands. “I know I woulda hurt her worse if we had children. Small blessin’ we didn’t, I suppose.”

  “You ever going to stop pretending to the others why you really left her?” Ōbhin asked. Fingers had confessed to Ōbhin before Ust’s attack that his wife wasn’t the village whore like he claimed.

  “No.” He shook his head. “Never gave me a single cause to think she mighta strayed. A good woman. Too good for a bastard like me. But if I don’t make myself hate her, I’d just hate myself for hurtin’ her. Then all I think ‘bout’s the rope. Got to tie that knot right, y’know. Or it’ll go bad.”

  The casual admittance chilled Ōbhin’s blood.

  “Some days . . .” Fingers stretched his back. “Well, not much to live for save these kids I’ve grown fond of workin’ with at Dualayn’s.” He spat on the floor. “There’s ’nother monster walkin’ around lookin’ human like me.”

  “We’ll fix Avena,” Ōbhin said. “And Bran will find himself a good woman. Someone that can calm him down.”

  The barmaid stood up from the table and left a bewildered Bran behind.

  “Not tonight.” Fingers chuckled. He glanced at Ōbhin. “I’ll see you in the mornin’. Try n’ sleep while it’s coolin’ off. I can’t wait to get to the ruins. Least we won’t be roastin’ when we’re underground.”

  Ōbhin nodded. As Fin
gers stood, Ōbhin’s gaze drifted to his sable-gloved hands. The last time he’d ventured beneath the earth had ended badly.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Avena gasped awake at the first tingles racing over her fingers.

  She could feel it, the control slipping from her body. Interference assaulted her even with her mind so close. The trunk lay beside her bed holding her awareness. Thoughts. Feelings. Soul. She stroked the lid, hardly feeling the trunk’s wood through the fuzzy prickles rippling up her digits.

  She rolled off her bed, her chemise clinging to her body. She lurched to the door, her feet too heavy, her gait thrown off by the numbness spreading up them. She fumbled with the latch of the door, pulling up on the handle twice before she managed to get it open.

  Terror seized her. She hated this. Dreaded collapsing. Her body should always be under her complete control, not stolen away at a moment’s notice. She leaned her bare shoulder against the rough walls made of logs caulked with dried mud. She slid down it, using it to keep her upright as she stumbled for Ōbhin’s door. She reached it, knocking hard, her fingers curled into tight fists.

  “Ōbhin!” She knocked again.

  Her mind threatened to abandon her body. The hallway spun about her.

  The door opened. He stood before her, illuminated by a pure silver-white. Honesty’s moonlight flooded through his window, revealing him wearing only his breechcloth. A sheen of sweat covered his muscular body, skin dark brown. She fell into him, pressing her face into his warmth.

  “It’s happening!” she whimpered, her entire body shaking. She hated this. Hated her fear. Being helpless.

  Ōbhin’s arms engulfed her. “I have you.”

  Three simple words, but the fear that had filled her already retreated. She closed her eyes and pressed her cheek against his chest. She felt the fine down of wiry hairs above his firm strength. His heartbeat thundered in her ear.

  Despite the impropriety of it, she didn’t care, asking, “Can I sleep in your bed? If it happens . . .”

  “I’ll be here,” he said, his bare hand stroking down the back of her chemise. His other slid through her short, fine hair. “You have nothing to fear.”