Edwin gulped and nodded, and Walt pulled him towards the tattooed guard. Walt’s excitement was infections, and Edwin couldn’t wait to get inside. When Edwin handed the man the gold coin, the man gave him back a few silver coins and a handful of copper knots.
“Remember to buy your ticket early next year. Save yourself some knots,” the tattooed man said, stepping aside to let him pass. Walt was right behind him.
The first thing Edwin noticed was the smell of smoke and meat, which was so strong that it hit him like a brick wall, and his eyes watered and he coughed. People were everywhere, yelling, pushing, laughing… The tents, the merchants and their costumes—it was so much it made him dizzy. It made no difference whether Edwin moved or stood still, he was bumped left and right, and nobody seemed to notice. They were all looking above his head to the merchants, all of whom were trying to yell above the crowd, advertising their wares.
To his left, Edwin saw a woman selling jars of what looked like toes; he even saw what he thought were toenails. To his right was a man arranging jars of bugs. The bugs were every shape and size, from round and flat, to long and narrow with huge wings. And the colors—he had never seen anything so bright, and he wondered where they came from and why people would buy them.
“Will you look at that,” he said, turning and looking for Walt. “Walt?” He spun around but Walt was gone. At first he felt panic at being alone with all these people and their strange tents, but then he realized Walt disappearing was exactly what he’d wanted.
A woman screeching like the hens she was beheading caught Edwin’s attention: “Chicken! Come get yer chicken on a stick! Four knots for one, seven for two. Best deal ’round. Get legs, heads, and beaks too. Fresh chicken…” She brought down her cleaver on the hen’s neck and started again. “Come get your chicken on a stick!” Practiced, her words didn’t distract her from her work, and she plucked it of its feathers while other bodies sat on skewers stirring over an open fire.
“I’ll take o-one,” Edwin said. He raised and waved his hand above the table, but it wasn’t until he pulled out a few coins from his pocket that he got the woman’s attention. Holding her cleaver suspended in the air, she looked down at him.
“You got enough coin there, boy?” Edwin nodded, and the woman said, “Go ’head, then, pick which one ya want.”
She pointed at the golden brown figures above the fire, and Edwin said, “I don’t want a cooked one. Do you have one that’s still alive?”
“I don’ sell livestock. All I got is already dead.”
Edwin regarded her blood-soaked hands. “So that was the last one?”
“That’s what I just said, innit?”
Edwin backed away and tried to reassure himself. That was just the first stand he had seen. There were loads more. Not paying enough attention, he bumped into a man with the dull eyes of someone who had spent too much time in the mines.
“Watch where you’re going, kid,” the man growled.
As Edwin mumbled an apology, he noticed that most of the villagers shared the same dull expressions, and he guessed that one night at the fair wasn’t enough to erase a season’s worth of work.
“Boy, over here. Boy! Yes, you. Come here.”
Edwin turned and saw a woman through the crowd beckoning him towards her. He had caught only a glimpse, but it was enough to make his heart beat faster. She looked nothing like any woman he had ever seen in Chardwick. Her skin was as clear as fresh snow, and she had soft chestnut eyes—indeed, mischievous eyes that at once smiled and welcomed him. Behind her, inside her tent, burned an inferno that warmed his cheeks. “Come, warm yourself by my fire,” she said, and Edwin moved in closer.
Standing awkwardly, Edwin put his hands out in front of him and enjoyed the fire’s heat on his gloves.
“That’s nice, isn’t it? Now tell me, what’s a handsome young man like yourself doing wandering the tents alone?”
Edwin found himself stuttering worse than normal. “J-ju-just lo-looking.”
The woman laughed merrily, and Edwin’s cheeks burned even hotter. “Adorable,” the woman sang.
Unable to meet her eyes, Edwin for the first time noticed her tent. “Wha-what are you selling?” He rubbed his gloved finger over a red ribbon tied around a jar filled with clear liquid. At least it seemed to be full of a clear liquid; as he jolted the jar it picked up the light of the fire, making it look like the liquid itself was burning.
“Charms,” the woman said, as though charms were the most common things in the world. The tail of an inauspicious gray ribbon peeked out from behind a small wood box. The color seemed to fade in and out like the gray of his spirit. He reached out, but the woman was closer. Plucking it from the table, she twirled it around her fingers. The end of the ribbon was attached to a bottle, and she lifted it with her other hand. “You have a good eye.” Her smile made his legs weak.
“How m-much does it cost?” he asked, pulling out his coins.
“Your money is no good here.” Delicately, she laid the jar flat on the table. “No, something like this might cost you a virgin’s heart…”
As she stroked the ribbon’s end, he stood motionless, too transfixed to even breathe.
“…or maybe the twinkle in your eyes…”
He felt his cheeks burning, but he couldn’t look away.
“…or perhaps a boy’s first kiss.”
His legs frozen, he could only stammer.
With her chestnut eyes looking down at him expectantly, she asked, “We have reached an agreement?” But it was more of a statement, and Edwin nodded dumbly.
The woman leaned forward and tapped at her lips playfully. Edwin could barely move, but her body burned like incense as he got closer, hot and sweet. Almost at her mouth, his nose nearly touching her skin, she leaned forward suddenly, her mouth open slightly, and their lips met. The kiss lasted only a moment.
Pulling back, she smiled and handed him the bottle with the gray ribbon. The spell broke as soon as he took it, and he suddenly remembered he was in the middle of a crowded fair. “Now you take good care of that,” the woman said, winking. She began to withdraw behind a curtain and into her tent.
“Wait! What’s your name?” Edwin cried.
“Gretchen,” she called back over her shoulder.
And she was gone. Stunned, Edwin stood there until someone bumped into him. The first chance he got he stopped to rest in the small space between two tents. When he lifted the ribbon to his eyes he felt heat coming off the bottle. With his teeth he pulled his glove off his hand and held the bottle tight. The liquid looked thick, like honey, but otherwise it seemed normal, save the strange heat that made his hand tingle. Careful not to spill any, he pulled off the quark, curious to know what was inside.
Suddenly the ribbon came to life, flapping towards him and wrapping itself around his hand. The potion crawled out from the bottle and melted into the gray ribbon. As quick as a snake, it slithered up his arm and to his blanket, which Edwin pulled off like it was on fire, but he was unharmed. In fact, the ribbon had attached itself to two corners of his blanket, giving him something to tie. If he were taller, it would almost look like a proper cloak.
* * *
The woman who had given Edwin the charm was nowhere to be found. As he wandered from tent to tent, he saw jesters and magic tricks, food and sweets of every kind, and wonders like nothing he had ever seen. When he stumbled across a mule tied up by one of the tents, he stopped to pet its muzzle. Suddenly his spirit was at his ear, purring, “Mmm… good.”
“You’re back! Where’d you go?”
“Not sso loud,” the spirit replied. “I was finding our backup plan, but it looks like we may not need it.”
“What can we do here? Look at all these people.”
“Join with me and keep looking,” his spirit said. “If you don’t find anything, release me after you leave the fair, and I will show you our backup plan.”
Edwin said the words of joining, and the spirit’s essenc
e filled his body. He did as his spirit suggested and began fighting his way through the crowd to look for life, but he only made it past a few tents when he stopped dead in his tracks. He knew Sam had seen him first. When their eyes met, Sam’s head was already cocked to the side questioningly. Then, behind Sam, Edwin caught sight of Headmistress Vanora.
Edwin stood there a moment, dumbfounded, knowing he was about to get into huge trouble, when a ball of fire suddenly exploded between him and Sam, coming out of nowhere. Confused he ducked down and backed away, hoping Vanora didn’t see him. He had only made it a few steps back when the ground began shaking and he stumbled first over a tent stake, then over a barrel. He was so shocked he almost cried out for help, but then he realized this was an opportunity. Not knowing where the fire had come from or what had caused the ground to shake, he tried to stand up to get a better look, but a sudden gust of wind knocked him back to the ground. Not trying to stand again, he crawled backwards until he found himself in a yellow tent with red stripes. The last thing he saw before a heavy drape fell in front of him was a wave of water dousing the fire.
It was a small tent and a heavy cloud of incense hung in the air. Gold, silver, and copper colored cloth was strung along the ceiling, thick furs covered the walls, and pillows littered the floor. Surrounded by so much color, at first Edwin didn’t even notice the woman sitting with her back to him. Her hair, thick and long with black and gold streaks, blended in with her fabrics.
Slowly, she turned her head to face Edwin, and he saw that her face was remarkable only in that it was wholly unremarkable. It had all the characteristics of a face, but it appeared empty, like a blank canvas. Her eyes were like pools of clear water, and her alabaster skin looked like it was better suited for a doll than a flesh and blood woman.
“S-sorry for disturbing you,” Edwin said, trying to back out, but he couldn’t find the opening to the tent. The woman rose and glided towards him, close enough that Edwin could feel her breath. She had long fingernails, and he shuddered as she brushed them against his face.
“What are you doing here, little one?” Her voice was soft, accented, and deep with meaning, like the earth itself was talking to him.
“No-nothing,” he replied. It was strange that he was stuttering with the spirit in him, but something about her blank face and bewitching stare terrified him. “I s-should really be leaving.”
Her nail lightly followed the gray ribbon hanging around his cloak. “Don’t be so quick to leave. Come, have your fortune read.”
“I spent all my money already,” he lied.
“That’s not true, little one, but worry not, this reading is free.” The airiness of her voice made his skin crawl. “Come, sit down.”
Edwin looked back over his shoulder at the way he’d come while she led him to a group of pillows. Timidly, he sat down. The woman grabbed his gloved hands decisively, but so softly that he didn’t wince.
“Don’t!” he yelled. Then, more calmly, he said, “Don’t take off my gloves, please.”
“I can’t do this without touching you, little one. But as you wish.”
With one hand she reached into a pocket in her dress and pulled out a vial, while with her other hand she grabbed Edwin’s hand and ran her own up his arm and under his sleeve. At her touch the hair on his arm stood on end. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath that shook her whole body, and then whispered words that Edwin couldn’t understand. A breeze entered the tent, from where Edwin couldn’t guess, making the strands of cloth overhead sway as she removed the cork from the vial with her teeth. A moment passed, and she reopened her eyes; she looked wild, her nails bit into his skin, and she began moaning. Her voice ethereal, she croaked, “The mahr.”
Liquid began to crawl its way up the ribbon that hung from the vial, and Edwin recognized it as one of Gretchen’s charms. Coming alive, the ribbon unwound itself and flew into the air, becoming a liquid fire that danced around the room.
The woman was muttering in a strange language as her other hand had found his, and though Edwin tried to pull away, she held him tight. “What’s happening?” he shrieked, looking from her to the ribbon. Blood began trickling from his arm where her nails pierced his skin, and from the blood rose strange flaming symbols like nothing he had ever seen. The symbols swirled around the tent, more appearing from the blood every second, but as they burned they fell back to his arm, flashed in letters he knew, and sunk into his skin. The spirit panicked inside him—he tried to pull away, but that only made the blood flow faster. He didn’t know how it was possible, but somehow his spirit was subdued, trapped and powerless, bound by her words.
As the last of the line of symbols disappeared into his skin, time seemed to stop for a moment, and he felt a weird sensation in his stomach as the words muttered by the woman came into focus. “Thirteen mahrs rose from the ashes of the Falling, twelve to follow, one to rule them all…”
And then she was speaking normally. “I see you, Edwin Medgard,” the fortuneteller croaked. “You are an old soul, nursed in the womb of the mines for millennia. But the mines are not your past. They are your future. There you will find the answers you seek.”
Wind shook the tent. “What answers? How do you know my name? Let go, you’re hurting me!”
A smile crept across her blank face, and the burning ribbon floated down and bound their arms together. “I have tracked you your whole life, Edwin Medgard of the mines. Out of this crater, past Newick, it is the age of man. Today’s world wouldn’t recognize you. But there are Others like you, Others with mahrs split from the First, the Thirteen, Others who will follow you—Others in the mines.”
Edwin leaned forward. “That’s not possible. The villagers—”
“The villagers are hypocrites. Chardwick guards old, forgotten ways its villagers don’t understand. They fight true power with relics and stolen magic. They will destroy you and everything else in the mines if given the chance.”
“How do I find the Others? What should I do?”
The ribbon left their arms and circled the woman’s face. “Let your mahr guide you.”
“My spirit?”
The fortuneteller nodded. “It has gone by many names: mahr, daemon, shedu, spirit, passenger. You must go into the mines, but not until you are ready, for they are dangerous. Dark slayers from times past infest every corridor.”
“But I just want to be normal,” Edwin cried. He felt sick, caught between the woman’s words and the spirit’s efforts to escape.
“That is one thing you will never be. Your presence in Chardwick is causing the mines to destabilize. Dark times are coming. As long as you are here, you and your mahr are in danger—but you cannot leave. Newick is no safer—the answers you seek are in the mines. The mines will show the way. Until then you will be a danger to yourself and to those around you.”
Thinking of the nightmare his spirit showed him, Edwin thought of his mother’s fear in the mines as she ran, and the relief she felt when she found herself aboveground. His mouth felt dry. “How do you know any of this? Why should I believe you?”
“Knowing what I should not is what I do, little one. I sense great potential in you, but it is unfocused. You know nothing of what you are. Without purpose your power will consume you. And if it does not, there is always Chardwick…” She dropped his arms and droplets of blood fell from her fingernails. “…and should you remain in Chardwick you will perish.”
With those words the ribbon exploded into a handful of flickering lights. Edwin rubbed his arms and felt the spirit settle as he watched the dots of flickering light come together to take on the shape of the Lucent. His glowing form grew until it filled the entire tent. Then, with one swift movement the old man grabbed a sword of light and hurled it at the ground. Edwin cried out and tried to jump out of the way.
Behind him the air died down and the lights settled. He didn’t wait to see what happened next, and the fortuneteller made no effort to stop him as he ran out the fold in her tent, which h
e now had no trouble finding.
Outside, the crowd was still going strong, but he pushed his way through until he was under the arch and out the gate. As soon as he was away from the fair and was walking the streets alone, he released the spirit and began retching.
CHAPTER 14: NOTHING BUT ASH
Past the arch, away from the fair, Edwin finally found the air to speak. “What was that?” he asked.
The spirit crackled red with indignation. “That woman ensslaved my essence. I wass powerless.”
Edwin stood doubled over his knees in the middle of the empty road. Behind him was the loud hum of the fair.
“Come, we musst move. We mussn’t forget your hand.”
“Where are we going?”
“The pass.”
“We’re leaving Chardwick? Where will we go?” Edwin asked, almost hopeful, but the spirit didn’t stay to answer; it floated down the road towards the pass, just slow enough that Edwin could keep up if he ran. The village was empty away from the fair, and, running fast, it wasn’t long before Edwin and the spirit were at the bottom of the pass.
“Now where?” Edwin asked, still trying to catch his breath. He knew that if they started climbing there would be no reason to stop before they reached the inn.
“It is in the treess.”
In the starlight Edwin could just make out the small patch of trees at the edge of town. It was the same patch his mother had run through all those years before. Once he was off the road, it was easy for Edwin to see why this small outcrop of trees was undeveloped. Because of the incline of the pass, any rock that fell off the cliffs in the area was funneled there. As a result, even with layers of snow, the ground was uneven and littered with boulders and tree branches torn asunder.
The climb up the patch of snow was steep and slippery. Although he knew the patch of trees was small, he was impatient to see what the spirit wanted to show him here. “Can you tell me what this surprise is yet?” he asked.
“Soooon.”
The Dark Passenger (Book 1) Page 13
