"Yes. I've taken possession of it. Don't worry. I'll give it a good home." I tapped a few more controls. "Now, I've set your auto-pilot to take you to the dark side of the moon. You're going to hang out there for a few days. That will give my partner and me a head start."
"Partner? I like the sound of that."
I smiled over my shoulder at her. "Well, now that you know my ship so intimately I figured we'd go halves on the take." I turned my attention back to the miner. "I do not recommend you follow us. Following us will give us license to do something more permanent. Go back to the asteroid fields. Get more raw materials. And next time you go somewhere to sell them, make sure it isn't about to self-destruct." I executed the commands I'd put into his auto-pilot and broke the connection.
We watched the ship fly towards Luna. The satellite was no longer inhabited by humans. The natives had been given the run of the place after the Second Last Great War. He'd have no one to bother until he broke my lock. Once he was out of sight I turned to Annabelle. "You're really going to have to teach me that trick."
She tucked the probe away in her undercarriage. "We'll have plenty of time for that. Now, get us back on course."
I sketched a sloppy salute and got us back on course. Neverland is a place, it turns out. But that's another story for another time.
THE END
CARVINGS OF THE DAMNED by Daniel J. Kirk
Etchlings never failed to impress Mikhil with their knowledge of people. Though many of his trade frowned upon the use of the tiny insects, Mikhil had never been one with an eye for details. He could build a sturdy table or a battle-ready barn, but when it came to the character of a piece he was simply and unmistakably devoid of inspiration.
Mikhil watched the etchlings as they marched out of the jar and onto the headboard. To them, they were feasting upon the finest elkwood in all the Kingdom of Callum. But the pattern was kingly, as it should be. They carved what looked like five pedaled flowers being blown by the wind. A pattern of intricate weaves behind them. Mikhil kept an eye and when the piece looked to have the right detail, he brushed the etchlings back into the jar.
He replaced the jar on his shelf and thanked them with a smile and wink. Perhaps, they appreciated it. Perhaps, they thanked him back for the finest wood. Mikhil would never know if they truly had an understanding of their arrangement.
Mikhil turned and examined the massive headboard. It needed a stain and perhaps a bit of paint to highlight the flowers. Mikhil tapped his lips, unsure of what to do next—hesitant to abuse the etchlings’ fine work with his shaky artistry.
The bell above his door chimed. His door was opened hastily and the bell complained rather than sang as the door slammed back on its chain.
The slender Talminsuir spun his arms like a windmill. “It’s all wrong, all wrong,” he said.
Mikhil shrugged.
“You,” Talminsuir said with a fist shaking. “You.”
“I don’t follow.”
Talminsuir threw his hands into the air. “Useless!”
Now, Mikhil’s face flushed with anger. A hundred jobs or more, had he done for Talminsuir. Which one of his clients had complained? What could’ve gone wrong? Nothing! Mikhil thought, there wasn’t a better carpenter in Aufliss, and few better in all of Callum.
“What is this? Who is this for?” Talminsuir said, stepping around a table to inspect the freshly carved headboard.
“A citizen of Vinmel. She is welcoming a new child, commissioned it explicitly for the child.”
“Vinmel you dare say? They have money there?”
“What’s this about, Talminsuir?”
Talminsuir smacked his lips, then sighed. “This is too fine for Vinmel.”
“Talmin…”
“Yes, you have made a great error. Mikhil, I do not see how you can fix this.”
“Fix what?”
“Do you recall the details of the chest you made for Eimenna?” Talminsuir asked.
Mikhil nodded. “She’s not happy with it after two dead moons?”
“If a full year had passed it would not have made a difference. She saw what you carved into it. Was it a joke? Did you do it to spite her?”
“Huh?”
Talminsuir shook his head. “She’s told the whole village. You carved her husband’s infidelity into that chest. How long did you know that Eimenna’s husband was having an affair? And why, for the sake of the Kingdom did you dare include it in your design?”
“I didn’t. I honestly do not have the faintest idea what you’re talking about. Something in the carving, you say?”
“She showed me what you did. It’s revolting. There may not be a law against it, but I assure you she will own this shop by the week’s end.”
“I did nothing of the sort. Y-Y-You know I use etchlings!”
“And they did it? Little bugs carved a scene of lust? Do not think you can fool me, Mikhil, I am your only friend. I know you tool what they do. I’m sure you’d spend hours smoothing out these lines around these… they look like goldroot flowers.”
“I do, but I don’t have an artist’s mind. And I’m not going to carve something vulgar into my most demanding customer’s order,” Mikhil said. “Despite how I feel about her.”
“Well, somebody did. And the detail is unmistakable. It’s done in miniature as if it wasn’t meant to be seen for years. But as she wept on her floor at her mistaken trust, she noticed it.”
“Someone must have tampered with my design.”
“Oh, Mikhil, my dear friend. The stains would not match. You make all your own stains, this I know.”
“An artist capable of the details you mention might be just as keen to mix their own the way I do. Or if they meant to harm me, then what’s to say they didn’t steal the stain from my shop.”
“It would’ve aged differently. You stained it,” Talminsuir said.
Mikhil punched the table. The shelves on the wall shook as the floor beneath the table felt the blow. “If she wants a new chest, I will make her a new chest. But you tell her that I did not carve such indecency.”
“Tell her yourself.”
“I doubt she’ll have me as an audience.”
“She’s coming here,” Talminsuir said.
“Now?”
“Soon. She has had her husband executed. I’m sure she is dealing with the sale of his remains.”
Mikhil nodded and thought a moment. “Will she be bringing the chest by?”
“I do not know. I have an idea,” Talminsuir said. “We will tell her you had an apprentice during that period of time. He has ruined other works and was fired for something you managed to catch before. You did not believe he’d had the audacity to do it to more works and are embarrassed and deeply sorrowed that you did not inspect her chest more carefully.”
“I won’t word it that way,” Mikhil said.
“Then how will you say it.”
“What’s the apprentice’s name?”
Talminsuir shrugged. “Just make something up.”
The bell rang. Footsteps followed, and then Eimenna stood in Mikhil’s shop. She wasn’t ever a beautiful woman, but she was proportioned with pleasant features despite a face like scorn.
“Ahem.”
“Good day, Eimenna,” Mikhil said. “Talminsuir was just explaining the situation to me.”
“Of course he was.” Her eyes became slits.
“It makes sense now,” Talminsuir said. “Tell her, Mikhil. Tell her about your apprentice.”
“I-I had an apprentice two dead moons ago. He vandalized a piece I was about to send out. Upon catching him, I fired him. I did not suspect that he had altered any of the previous work. Which is unfortunately what I think you have suffered. Forgive me.”
“How did he know?”
“What?”
“How did he know of my husband’s affair? I must ask him. What is his name?”
Talminsuir returned five days later. He looked tired, defeated even. He did not make a big
scene, but Mikhil could not help but think that something was wrong.
“What is it this time? Another complaint?” Mikhil asked.
“We should’ve hired someone to play the role of your apprentice.”
Mikhil stopped work on a cabinet. “Eimenna again?”
“She found Treylana.”
“No she didn’t. There is not Treylana. I made that name up. Said he was from Delsapi. Did she go to Delsapi?”
“She did. You idiot. You chose a regional sounding name and sure enough he was there. He was a member of the village’s wreitha team. Just a boy with no clue about anything related to carpentry.”
“So she’s coming back here to call me a liar,” Mikhil said. “This is worse than it started. And I still don’t know what this is over. I never saw the lewd carving. This is all your fault. You told me to lie.”
“But I thought you would’ve been better at leading her on a fool’s errand.”
“I didn’t think she’d go looking for him!” Mikhil said.
Talminsuir didn’t get to say anything else.
Eimenna had arrived. She had arrived in silence after taking the time to stop the chime of the bell with her hand. She stood as the two men gaped in shock.
“Forgive me,” Mikhil said. “I have no explanation for how any carvings were made on my work.”
Eimenna didn’t look at him, she scanned his shelves and piles of wood as she said, “Then you should have said that to me.”
“As I said before, I’ll make you a new chest. And perhaps something else.”
“I want no more surprises from you, Mikhil.”
“He meant another piece of furniture,” Talminsuir said.
“Trust is no longer something I have for you, Mikhil.”
“That is greatly understandable. But I must reiterate, I have no idea how the carving ended up on the chest.”
“Ah-ha,” Eimenna said. She grabbed a jar off the shelf. “You are not a master carver at all.”
She waited for his answer—waited for the truth.
“No,” Mikhil said.
“That is why you asked for something of mine design wise to base your carving off of. You let these little etchlings wander about it.”
“I do fine tune what they do.”
“Then you should’ve seen the carvings they made all over my chest.”
“Please, if you don’t mind. I’d like to see the chest again.”
“I burned it,” Eimenna said.
“Oh?”
“It’s what the sorcerer told me to do.”
“Sorcerer?” Talminsuir asked. He cocked an eyebrow at Mikhil, silently communicating skepticism.
“You are not a master carver at all, if you do not know the magic within etchlings. There is a reason beyond lack of skill that your peers, if they are even that, look down upon the use of these bugs. You have bewitched all of us. Every one you have ever made something for is cursed.”
“Now, now, that’s superstition,” Talminsuir said. “You would not be susceptible to ideas held by the most barbaric of our ancestors. Remember, they feasted on dung piles as they praised the seven ghosts.”
“I have never once heard you speak the names of the dead, Talminsuir. So why is one truth fine but not another?” Eimenna asked.
“I don’t know the belief,” Mikhil admitted.
“The carpenter speaks!” Eimenna said, “Tell us. Tell me. Where did you get these etchlings? They are not from this region. The closest region was Zook, but they ate the trees from the mountains, and left the lands barren all the way through Vinmel before they were eradicated. Few of their species have been maintained.”
“Just a merchant, traveling throughout Callum,” Mikhil said.
“And they did not warn you? No it all makes sense. My husband never would have deceived me. It was your foolish dabbling that twisted his fate. Just as it has twisted mine. I burned the chest before my fate had come to pass, but that doesn’t mean the wheels haven’t already been put into motion.”
“The belief,” Talminsuir said, “was that etchlings could predict vague interpretations of futures. The flowers on that lovely headboard, must mean something to the child you have made it for. But if they had been daggers, perhaps that child would be murdered in its sleep. And that is a fate it might have escaped had the etchlings not willed it upon the tapestry of time. On the other hand, it could also mean their fate was to work a carnival, juggling daggers like most of Vinmel’s population. Of course the flowers could be ones placed upon the child’s grave if that time should come to be. Perhaps sooner rather than later.”
“And people believe this?”
Eimenna’s stare froze Mikhil where he stood. “Six days ago, I did not. Today, I stand before you, knowing it is real.”
“There is plenty in this land that we do not understand, Mikhil. I wish you had considered others’ faiths before you chose to use etchlings.”
“My fault again? Coincidence is enough?” Mikhil wanted to tell Eimenna of her ugly face, how her husband likely tired of it just as quickly as her rigid and vile personality swayed him into another’s embrace. He kept quiet.
“Leave us Talminsuir. My business is with Mikhil.”
“But I am his dealer.”
“Do you wish to tempt your fate?”
Talminsuir cowered out of the Mikhil’s shop.
The bell rang as the door closed behind him. The sound matched Eimenna’s and Mikhil’s eyes.
“I want you to carve something for yourself?”
“I have… all the time.”
“Let me see one. Let us see if it has predicted something in your life.”
Mikhil showed her works he had kept for himself. He did not tell her that he never gave the etchlings a piece of something he owned to inspire them. He would just set them loose, as they had been in the Cammurrn Forest. There, trees were said to be decorated better than the halls of Castle Narwuk. They were Helleborrah Trees, ones etchlings would only eat a smidgen of the bark. They would not eat it whole as they had done the older forests in the south. But when they did eat more than the bark—they died, and so a whole forest lived on without them, it is said the carved trees are at the center of Cammurrn Forest, but only members of the Green Militia had dared to go deep enough to see them and then returned.
“This one is of a hammer. They predicted your continued work, I see,” she said.
“Yes, perhaps you are right.” Mikhil instantly regretted agreeing. It only served to verify her claims. So he told her the truth. “Actually, I placed my hammer on the wood so that they would design around it.”
Eimenna traced the pattern on the wood, and then placed her hand on Mikhil’s elbow. She turned his body until they faced each other.
“Were you delighted when you saw the carving on the chest? When you saw us?”
“What?”
“Do not think that I am not flattered. I loved my husband, may his name rest. You had to break that love. You had to have him betray me so that my heart could gaze upon the other carving and realize it was your face pressed to mine.”
“Eimenna, please.”
“Kiss me,” she said.
Mikhil didn’t. She jammed her face into his. Her lips parted and her tongue slobbered over his chin and lips. She tried to part his mouth, but two firm hands on her shoulders pushed her away.
“Please. I do not have love for you.”
“That makes no sense.”
“There is no woman I love,” Mikhil said. “I love only my work.”
“Then the carving tells the whole story. I shall not bother you again.”
Eimenna left. The bell rang and Mikhil dropped onto his stool and used a dirty rag to wipe his face clean of her salvia. He glared at the jar of etchlings.
It was Talminsuir who came to tell Mikhil of Eimenna’s passing. Though the town had been abuzz about a terrible suicide and Mikhil had twice passed by Eimenna’s home at night and not seen a light burning.
“
Was that part of the carving?”
“It was fate,” Talminsuir said and nodded. “Just her fate.”
“I can’t believe it. This has never happened before, all these many years that I’ve used etchlings.”
“Perhaps you shouldn’t. Perhaps this is just the first time you got caught.”
“I refuse to believe that.”
“No one blames you, Mikhil. But I’m afraid that in the days since, I have not had an inquiry for your services.”
That was the day Mikhil decided to learn how to carve. It was also the day he left his home of Aufliss.
THE END
This was a tale of the Kingdom of Autumns, a series that includes Daniel J. Kirk’s novel, THE FORGOTTEN PRINCESS, available now.
This Collection is presented by THE 9 TALES SERIES for more information on this series please visit www.brideofchaos.com
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