by Jesse Teller
“That one is sought after, Konnon. Tomas has his eye on her when he is old enough. You had better claim her now or your chance will pass you by,” Poncan said.
“It’s too soon,” Konnon said. “I can’t make that woman happy. She deserves a man who is devoted to her and only her.”
“Is there another that holds your heart?” Poncan asked.
Konnon lifted an eyebrow.
“Another living woman?” Poncan said.
Konnon gripped the bale at his feet and tossed it in the cart with a grunt.
“I’m not ready,” Konnon said. He hoped the curt answer would stop the conversation, but knew better.
“Will you ever be?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Konnon said.
“Doesn’t it?”
“What does that mean?”
“Sometimes we must accept that we will feel a way forever and move on anyway,” Poncan said.
“So I accept that I will love my wife—”
“Your dead wife—”
“Yes, my dead wife, for my entire life, and dedicate myself to another woman anyway?” Konnon said.
“Might have to,” Poncan said.
Konnon chewed the idea for a while before spitting it out. “Love is not a thing to move on without. Either I will fall in love with Teryal and marry her, or I will live alone.”
“Forever?”
Konnon looked back at the beautiful, lean and lovely woman who bent over shearing hay, and he felt nothing of love or desire. He looked at her brilliant white top and her dark blue skirt, filthy at the bottom hem, and he sought any lingering need. But Konnon had to admit, though she was captivating, he felt no sexual draw to her at all. He had only ever lusted for one woman. That was over.
He walked and bent and lifted and tossed as the day burned into the fields. The air shimmered around him. He tasted the grit of the dust the horse kicked up, and he kept walking. It felt strange not wearing his swords on his hips, felt as if he was taking chances he need not take. He had enemies. He had powerful enemies. But the swords tied under the wagon would be easy to get to if things went wrong, and as far as he could tell, no one knew of this place. He kept working and kept eating dirt.
The load lightened when the sun went down. The work did not stop. This was harvest; the work would stop when the crop was in. But without the hungry heat, Konnon felt the ease of the workload slipping from his shoulders.
“Too much damn hay this year,” Dalophan snapped. “Not enough corn.”
“We are selling the hay to buy the corn this year, Dalophan. We all decided on it.”
“Sounds idiotic to me, Poncan. Why waste the time? Why not grow our own food. The one that came up with this plan is out of her depth.”
“Am I?” Plana said. Konnon held back his laugh. The woman had a gift. She was smart, powerful, wise, and a good leader. She was strong in back and mind and had many traits that made her the perfect village elder, but by far the gift that served her best was the ability to be present at the perfect time. As far as Konnon had seen, the woman was there every time someone questioned her motives or methods.
“Just saying that we need to see to ourselves is all.” Dalophan took a swig of his flask, as he did every time he was nervous, and he shook it in frustration. It had been empty for a while.
“And what of the six-year beetle?” Plana asked.
“We don’t even know if the six-year beetle was our problem last year,” Dalophan said.
“So a beetle that looks like the six-year eats half of our corn last year and we are supposed to gamble they won’t show up the next five?” She placed her hands on her hips and swiped a black and gray lock of hair from her eyes. “As far as I know, the beetle doesn’t eat hay, Dalophan.”
“Get back to work, old man,” Poncan said. “We have hours more to go before the crop is in, and we are not going to rest until all is done.”
“Old man is right,” Dalophan said. “My joints are so swollen. I can barely walk. Let me sit on that horse and work that switch.”
Plana looked at Dalophan. Konnon was sure he could see what she saw. The man was old and drunk and tired. He was getting too old to be working this field anymore. She nodded to him.
“We can do the rest, Dalophan. Go check on Bree and the Havrc sisters, then get yourself some sleep,” Plana said.
The old man nodded. He shuffled off to do as he was asked, but Konnon knew he would stop to top off his flask first.
Konnon dipped his head in the rain barrel outside the barn and whipped his thick brown hair around after. The cold water shocked the sleep right out of him. It rolled down his back in rivulets that brought his skin to goose flesh, and he pulled back, gasping. He stumbled and a pair of hands, small and tough, touched his back. He spun and Teryal stood behind him, blushing.
“Konnon.” She seemed about to say something else, but her hands touched his dripping chest and she stammered. She was holding his shirt, and he sighed.
“Ma’am,” he said, pointing.
She stared at his scarred chest in the light of the moons. She nodded and handed it back.
“That one is new.” With a trembling hand, she pointed to the wound he had taken recently. He looked down at the scar, pink and thick, and he nodded.
“Recent,” he muttered.
“You don’t have to go back out there, you know. You can just stay here with me, with us. The village loves you. We would vote to take you in if you asked us to.” She stepped closer. “You could come to be with us, Konnon. You could come to be with me.”
He pulled his shirt on and threw his hair back. He looked her in the eyes and took her hands. She gasped and he frowned at her.
“She needs medicine,” Konnon whispered. “I can’t raise the money for it here. The roots she needs are very rare. I can only get them at great expense. I will not give up on her. Not ever.”
“Bree is sweet, and we all love her, but she is not long for this world,” Teryal said.
Konnon’s anger rose up, hot and furious. He held back the fist, held back the words that rattled within him. He held back his rage at the thought of losing his daughter, and he held on to all of it very tightly. He shoved it all down, forced it all deep within him. He was used to pushing his feelings away. He had been doing it all his life.
She saw the anger in him and stepped back. She held her hands up before her. “I didn’t mean anything by it, Konnon. Please don’t be mad.”
But the sound of her voice enraged him further. He stepped toward her and shook his head.
She saw it then and turned to run. She gripped the hem of her dress and ran as fast as she could. He watched her go, his heart hammering in his chest. Suddenly he needed his weapons.
Four hours of beating on the pillars of the barn with his practice rattan and he heard a wheelbarrow behind him. He dropped his sticks and spun.
Bree started clapping and he laughed. He ran to her and dropped on his knees before her.
Teryal looked down at him with apologetic eyes and he smiled at her.
“Did she wake you up, Bree Darling?” Konnon asked.
“No, Daddy, I was awake. You don’t have to call me that. I’m five now, you can just call me Bree.”
“One day I will tell you why I call you that, and you will ask me to never stop,” Konnon said.
He looked up at Teryal and smiled. “Thank you,” he said. She nodded and walked away.
“It’s almost morning, father. Did you sleep last night?” Bree asked.
“No, darling, I did not. I was up bringing in the harvest.”
“Then you came in here to beat on the poor barn,” she said with a chuckle.
Konnon looked at her, seeing the smile of her mother, and his heart hurt so badly he was sure he would die from it. “Do you think it minds?”
“That you come in here and beat on it for hours?” Bree said.
“Yeah, do you think it minds?”
“It’s just wood and nails, Daddy. The barn does
n’t mind at all.”
“Nothing is just what it’s made of, Bree Darling. Everything is more than its parts. This wheelbarrow is more than just a farm tool,” he said.
“It’s my legs again, now that the harvest is in,” Bree said.
“Yes, my love, it sure is.” He bent her head with his hands and kissed her hair.
“So, the barn does hurt when you beat on it?” she said.
“This barn is very much like your mother was, or your uncle still is,” Konnon said.
“Stubborn?” she said.
Konnon laughed. He picked her up from her wheelbarrow and spun her in the air. She wrapped her arms around him, but her legs stayed lifeless below her. He kissed her cheek and smiled as he slipped his arm under her legs. “Want to hear a story?”
She giggled. “Yes, Daddy, please. Tell one about the king and his love, the dragon.”
He laughed and smiled. “This tale is from a long time ago,” he began.
“Were things better then, Daddy?” Bree asked. He fought back against the tears and shook his head.
“Not better, Bree Darling, just different.”
The Witch of Maskalorn
Rayph hit the ground outside Maskalorn and settled into the area slowly. Something moved in this land, something cold and angry. It seeped into the bones and clawed at the mind. This place held an edge. Rayph realized how badly he wished to be anywhere else.
The village was a scene of grays and blacks, where ragged buildings leaned toward or away from one another like angry neighbors harboring ancient grudges. The ground here was dry as powder. Long ago abandoned as a site to grow crops, this area was naught but a logging town now, tearing out old cypresses from the swampland far to the south. Soon that source of income would be exhausted, and this town would become as forlorn as the wind that rushed through it or the parched soil that stained it.
There was a plague on this land, and the only person who could combat it was huddled deep in the quickly disappearing woods. Rayph turned that direction, moving swiftly. This was no place to be at night.
The trees rose from the ground as monoliths, immense in size and scope, their roots wide and hungry. The ground here slowly went back to dirt, then mud. The swamp began to take hold again, but Rayph knew better than to hold out hope.
The mud was a thin type. It held little in the way of nourishment. Everything in this ecosystem was dying. Soon, the devil grass that thrived here started strangling the road, and Rayph trudged his way through the dregs of the swamp.
The water gasped, belching up mouthfuls of gas. Fires rippled across the water, lighting the swamp in lurid colors and filling the area with lunatic shadows, flickering and sprinting in their madness. Rayph felt something watching him, something old and bitter. He choked back his fear and forced himself to calm, to seek rationale before emotion. He slowed his progress in the face of a blistering panic that threatened to overtake him. He made himself go slower when every fiber in his body begged him to run.
Flames danced around a ring of cypresses that held a small wooden shack out of the water. A knotted rope dangled from its bottom. Flickering in its window appeared to be a flaming skull. Rayph shook his head and stopped to hail Drelis Demontser. It was no good sneaking up on her.
“Hail, Drelis, Guardian of Maskalorn, Alchemist of Smite, Speaker for the Silent, Consort of Shadows, it is your long-time friend Rayph Ivoryfist. Let me come before you and seek your wisdom.”
The fires beneath the shack erupted into an inferno. The water bubbled around it, and Rayph felt the heat of the water slowly rising. The flames took on the shape of a face, and then a body, and slowly walked the surface of the water toward Rayph.
“Ivoryfist,” the flaming specter hissed. “Long has it been since you have darkened my door. You are either feeling sentimental, or you are in dire need. Which drives you?”
“Can it be a little of both?”
The flames took on the vague shape of her face. Her hair, done in smoke and steam, danced wild and free.
“Bring me into your home. Let me sit your fire and speak with you on the events that transpire beyond the boundaries of your domain. An old enemy of yours has risen. This is a story you will want to hear.”
The flaming spirit moved around him, pulling close and sniffing him. Its heat was nearly unbearable, and Rayph winced as it placed a hand on his back.
“I have much to do, and am unfit for company. I am not what I was. They have diminished me.” Her tone grew solemn and Rayph found his heart breaking.
“They know not what they do,” he stated. “Theirs is a small mind. Mobs have the intelligence of animals. I wish to see you and help, if I may. And I have pressing matters to discuss with you. An old lover of yours has come to me. I need for you to show me his mind.”
The flaming specter lifted into the air and exploded to nothing. The fires parted around the cypress circle and Rayph entered her presence.
He grabbed the rope and hauled himself up. The trap opened for him when he reached it. He stepped into a much larger shack than was apparent from outside. He glanced about the dark shack, little light and no sign of his friend.
“Which of my lovers have you been dealing with, Rayph Ivoryfist? Mine is a dance card filled with twisted minds and dark souls.”
“Meric came to me.”
“Ah yes, the eternal boy, arrogant and boastful, but rightly so. Did you two come to blows? I can’t imagine you killed him. Did he escape you?”
“He actually helped me. He brought something to my attention that I needed to assess. And so my confusion begins. Why help a sworn enemy? Why point out an injustice to me? I can’t see what he has to gain.”
“Meric is, at heart, an anarchist. He is difficult to predict. What did he tell you?”
“Mending Keep has fallen.”
A ghostly pale face eased from the shadows before him. Her narrow face seemed older than it should, her eyes more haggard than her age should allow. She glided forward, graceful as wind, and stopped a breath before Rayph. She stared into his eyes. She held an earthy, rich aroma he found comforting. She proffered a blade and, with adroit fingers, sliced a cut across his face.
Rayph cursed and pulled back. She licked the blood and strained a weary grin. “Rayph Ivoryfist is scared. Rayph Ivoryfist feels overwhelmed.” She seeped back into the shadows. “Something big is happening. Darkness gathers. An organized storm will assault you. Your future is,” she spit and stomped her foot, “…uncertain. Meric was never one for organization, never wanted a leader. If one presented itself to him, he would be offended by it. He would balk it. No, my Meric was never one for commands. This is why he hates you so.”
Rayph nodded. “What can you tell me about this organized storm?”
“Should I help the Hope of the Nation? I do not know if I will.”
Rayph rolled his eyes and huffed. “You know you will help me. Your love for me is great, and as much as you flirt with darkness, you have a pure heart. What can you tell me?”
The room filled with laughter from all corners, from all different mouths, low tones, high-pitched giggles, and raucous laughter that spoke of lunacy. “My charges are amused,” she said.
“I have wasted my time. When next you find yourself in need—”
“Let’s not get petulant. Long it has been since you came calling on me. And when you do, you need a favor. Meric is not your concern. Bother yourself with him no more. He has played his part and is on to other deeds. Lay your mind to the immediate. What will you do about the problem before you?”
“I must refill my prison.”
“Prisons are a thing of the past, Ivoryfist. You cannot keep them safe. You cannot hold back this adversary with stone and mortar. The Maiden cannot help you any longer. You were a fool to think she could. You must learn to kill the unkillable. You must learn to end this evil where it lives.”
Demontser stepped forward again and slipped to a table. With the wave of her hand, a set of candles sparked t
o life. The candlelight seemed afraid of her, leaving all but her face in darkness. “Sit, friend. Drink with me,” she said.
She waved her hand over two dusty mugs and a steaming liquid bubbled up from within. Rayph took his seat and his drink. “You face a greater enemy than you have faced before. What can I do to help?” she said. She sipped her tea and winced. Rayph took a swallow of what tasted like heated swamp water, and he fought against the grimace.
“I need to know how they will come at me. Until I can get ahead of this, I am on the defensive. They will not come at me now. Not yet, I don’t think. Black Cowl must get a few victories under his belt before he can rally his forces for such an attack. First, he will make a statement, something bold that will be his first decree to the world. I need to know what that will be.”
Her face creased, and she took a second swallow of tea. She ran a trembling hand across her brow and nodded. “When seeking the plots of darkness, one must go to darkness.”
“I cannot ask you to do that. There is another way, I’m sure of it.”
She pulled on a shy smile and shook her head. “There is not.” She reached across the table to his hand and patted it gently. “I will do this thing for you, but this is not why you came to see me. You had something else in mind when you came to my home. Tell me what it is.”
“I need a way to tie myself to my comrades, a way for instant communication no matter the distance. It can’t be a spell. There will be no way for us to cast it. I will ally myself with more than casters for this. It cannot be a magical item. There will be times when I must negate magic in order to do battle. It must be spiritual, must be a fetish. It cannot carry a taint of evil. It must be something wearable to a warrior of Cor-lyn-ber. Can you do it?”
She grinned. “How many do you need?”
He ran his numbers through his mind and doubled it. “Give me eight of them.”
“Fine. How long do I have to make them?”
“I need them before I leave here,” Rayph said.
