Hours passed as the failures piled up about him. Uneven poles, triangles, large pieces and small ones, tips and slivers. When at last twilight came, Mykel was in a dour mood as he came for dinner. The old farmer met him on the porch. “Well boy, I hear you did some logging today.”
“Not really,” Mykel answered. Every bit of him was on fire from the day’s exertion. “I’m afraid I’ve made...some unusual blocks.”
“If they burn, it doesn’t matter. Come on. Mother has dinner ready.”
The sweet smell of potatoes reminded Mykel he’d have nothing since breakfast. He took his place at the dinner table and waited until everyone was seated before he succumbed to his hunger. Even then it was difficult to maintain a polite demeanor while he wolfed the food down.
“So,” said the farmer’s wife as they ate their potatoes and meats. “Tell us. How did the two of you meet?”
Mykel fell silent. So focused on dinner, was he, that the mention of stories hit him like a barn door. He glanced at Shayna, took a deep breath and told the story. “Well that’s a funny story, actually. I was traveling across the Silmar Sea with my father – his name is Steven, by the way, and a fine merchant – when the captain introduced to his daughter, Sara. I am embarrassed to say I had no eye for her till the end of our journey. You see, the captain and my father were good friends. They often traded with each other. When Sara turned eighteen, our fathers arranged our marriage. It’s been two months now, and I’ve never been happier.”
The farmer’s wife smiled as though she was in a daydream. “Ah youth. So romantic. When are you going?”
“Tomorrow. My uncle owns an inn in Kal Jada. I am to be his right-hand man.”
The farmer grunted. “Come dawn I’m going to Arnice to sell some supplies. You’re welcome to ride in the wagon if you like.”
“Thank you, sir.”
That night the Versi came like the shadows they were crafted from and killed the whole family. Man, wife, babies all. Mykel and Shayna escaped them by inches. Mykel felt craven, but it didn’t stop his legs from running.
The old father was a blessing that did not return. Sometimes the farmers didn’t offer a free night. Sometimes the farmers wouldn’t let them through the door. The two walked through so many villages they began to bleed together, just one long stretch towards the horizon.
“Do you think it will ever end?” Shayna asked.
“What do you mean?”
“This. Our flight. The Versi. All of it. Will it ever end?”
“Of course it will. We’re halfway there already.” Shayna moped so much it was if the promise might not have been said. Mykel couldn’t convince himself either; the words were simple. The emotion behind them was lacking. Better chance of holding a star than this nightmare ending.
The days passed walking. It became so long that Mykel was beginning to forget a time when he was not walking. He’d planned to reach the next village by nightfall, but they would have to drive themselves all day to do it. That was not really a problem. They were in just as much danger sleeping on the road, but at least civilization would offer a gossamer illusion of safety.
Then even that was torn away.
“Here. Eat.”
A grimace turned Mykel’s mouth. A full week of mushrooms was enough to turn any taste raw, which made the wine flask hanging at his hip even more seductive. He offered it to Shayna to distract him from the dryness of his throat.
Shayna sniffed the bottle, then pulled back in disgust. “Gods! It smells rancid.”
Mykel glanced at the bottle. “It’s Vaziner wine. Very rare.”
“You drink it then. It turns my stomach.”
“Sorry. I don’t drink.”
Shayna gave the librarian a puzzled look. “Is that a custom of your people?”
“No. Just mine.” After a moment, he continued. “I drank, once. I was egged into it by my stepbrother. I had one drink, which of course soon turned to ten. In a haze, I was released to my stepfather’s quarters, where he was entertaining barons from neighboring fiefs. I vomited on five of them. That was the end of drinking for me.” A heavy silence descended upon them, as cold and hard as a brick wall.
The next day, Mykel glanced to his side to find Shayna enraptured by a smoking ruin. Lithe flames popped and crackled amidst small mounds of ash and soot. Mykel saw the cross half-buried in the iron vice of ash, the unearthed part black and feeble from the fire’s savage hunger. “A church. This must have been a local church.”
“Are resources so low none can be spared for rebuilding?”
“Not if people want to eat. 2201 was a particularly lean year.”
“Was?”
Mykel blinked. “What?”
“You said “was.” You spoke of the year in past tense.”
Shit. Nervousness had him by the throat. “Oh, did I? It was a slip of the tongue. I mean, what else could it be? It’s not if I’m a seer of visions.” He ended with a laugh that was painfully false.
Shayna met him with flat eyes. “Seers are frauds, Mykel. You should not dabble with their ilk.”
“Of course I know that. Everyone knows that. Well, not the true believers, I suppose. But who knows what goes on in their heads? Not me. Like I said, I’m not a seer. If you believe in that stuff. Which I don’t.”
“Okay.” Shayna said nothing further, but Mykel couldn’t help noticing an increasing distance between their horses the rest of the day. Rambling idiot.
Maybe silence was better, maybe the matter would go away on its own, but that was difficult when the danger was losing the sole travel-mate. When they stopped for the night, under the shelter of a small fire, he made his attempt.
“So why do you dislike seers?”
Shayna dropped her horn spoon into its small wooden bowl; in the glow of flame her eyes took on a hellish cast. “What makes you think I dislike seers?”
Where do I begin? “Your tone is too flat, too bitter. That tells me you had a bad experience with seers. Probably during childhood. You believed completely, the way children do, and what he told you is not what happened. You blamed the seer; hence the cynicism.”
Shayna’s eyes became tapered points. Has anyone punched you in the face when you pull this little stunt?”
“It’s just a question, Shayna.”
A pause, then. “A seer told me I would be a celsius.”
Mykel chose to comply with the assumed importance Shayna attached to this sentence. “And you didn’t want to be a celsius.”
“No. I wanted to be a jord. I was always fond of the gardens the servants built. Sometimes when it rained there were not enough tarps to cover the flower beds, and so the servants would not cover the flowers, or these not to be saved. I watched the flowers wilt and die from too much water on days like that. I remember wishing, “If I were a jord, then I would raise the flowers back to life.” She gave a tiny shrug of indifference. “What did you want to be?”
“Me?”
“Yes, you. You had your question; now it’s my turn. What kind of Weirwynd did you want to be?”
“I wanted to be an enshou.”
“Fire? Why Fire? Fire can only harm those against the wielder.”
“That’s my point.” Mykel retorted. “I wanted to hurt a lot of people when I was younger.” The good fingers squeezed upon the knuckles of the dead, and the lifeless wrist shook from the pressure. “A great many people.” He paused when Shayna’s hand slid over his own.
“And...now?”
And now I still want to hurt them. Mykel did not say it, could not say it. Those dark eyes, so wide with worry and hope. He could not destroy th
at. “Not anymore.” And he drew his hands back. A man could drown himself willingly in those eyes. “It is only a child’s dream, after all.” He burned to tell her of the shackles of his birth, the shackles that which imprisoned his arm in cold, unforgiving iron. He burned, and Lazarus’ words echoed in his ears. Some things were more dangerous than children not yet born.
Night descended quickly, followed by snow. It was the kind of snow that seeped into the bone and drained its victims of every inch of warmth. The pair had no choice but to endure; there were no trees to sleep under, no grass to snuggle into for an illusion of warmth. Just the road and the snow, until finally a barn rose from the fogged air. Its bright windows wriggled the promise of warm seduction. Shayna shot for the house like an arrow, forcing the librarian to brave the icy road underfoot to catch up. By the time Mykel was within earshot to caution Shayna, she had already knocked on the door and was negotiating with a heavyset woman with a face resembling a labyrinth of crags and welts.
“Will you give us shelter from the snowfall? We’ll work any chores you desire.”
The woman – the mother; Mykel saw a pair of children clinging to her dress – tried to pierce Shayna’s humbleness with a glare that pronounced her hatred of invasions on her privacy and the interlopers that disturbed that fragile solitude. Still, she grunted and jerked her head back to welcome the newcomers into the house.
Shayna was blubbering with larded thanks as Mykel took in the room. Small couldn’t begin to describe it. It was a kitchen, a bedroom and a privy rolled up into one. Each piece of furniture was ragged with rot and tended with filthy scraps of linen. Smudged dirt denied any resemblance to normal clothes, though it could not hide the sparse ribs on each chest, or the sallow black sacks below each eye. This family looked ready to eat each other, and none of them would make a proper meal.
“Thank you for your staffing us, madam.”
“Your backsides will be thanks enough, miss. And don’t call me madam.”
Shayna twitched. Mykel gestured her to take a seat, shut up and eat the spartan dinner provided. It was a vague collection of roots and grass-blades, and yet Mykel felt rather than saw the children’s eyes follow his fork’s every motion as though cheated by a viper’s seductive gaze.
Most, but not all. A slight tug at the sleeve brought Mykel’s gaze downward to the youngest son, still bearing eyes with a child’s mischievousness...and his failure to understand the full implications of the poverty weighting down his mother’s weary shoulders. The flush of pity stayed Mykel’s hand long enough for the child to tug the librarian’s sleeve to reveal the iron bracer straightening the dead arm. “Wow...”
“No!” Mykel barely felt the mother’s wooden spoon smacking the dead hand, and that intrigued the youth even more. “Don’t ever touch things that aren’t yours!” A second rap on the table shattered the child’s trance and pulled his head down into a sullen nod. The mother scowled, but the intent was clear as though put in writing. Should have been tossed to the wolves.
Mykel groaned at the fire igniting Shayna’s eyes. He grabbed her wrist to meet her gaze and flicked his eyes to the children. The Companion’s rage was soothed to a far more docile creature, though she still fired venomous glares whenever the mother’s back was turned.
Suddenly the door flung open and three men marched from the cold. Their clothes were so thick with mud it was almost impossible to tell the uniforms beneath; here a bronze eagle in flight, there a lion’s head with fake rubies for eyes. Soldiers’ medals. They were soldiers and they were muddy and they were marching into the house, taking seats as though they owned the room. Which only meant one thing.
The mother served them without protest. Gone was the surliness, the bitterness. There was still a violation of privacy, but she hid it under a smile that almost looked real. The soldiers didn’t care. They were fighting for the civilians’ safety, and should any fighting man desire a room and roof over their head, they need only to walk into the house of their choice. It was a small price to pay for freedom.
It looked now that the soldiers were abusing that bargain. They shoveled generous portions down their throats like pigs, sometimes tossing food to the floor after a single bite. The children looked longingly at the discarded food, but they didn’t dare move. Even muddied the cudgels at their hips shone in the candle-light. Mykel watched sadly as Shayna’s eyes lit up with realization. The mystery of the child’s welts dragging a horrid map of pain across shoulder and torso. The black eyes thought made by the absence of sleep. Fear of starvation now mutated into something far more sinister. It almost made the librarian cry to see such innocence crushed underfoot.
Shayna would not have it, as Mykel knew she wouldn’t. Desperately he grabbed at her, but Shayna threw off his fingers as though they were dressed in maggots. The scrape of wood on wood was a thunderbolt as she gave her plate to the closest child. Warily the child reached for the food...and cried out as the soldier’s backhand blow folded him into a ball on the floor, shaking with silent tears. Then a girl’s cries cracked the air, followed ominously by the abrupt slam of a door. Screams and slaps alternated from the door as though crafted from paper. No one did a thing. Raped child, pure child. They were all the same to them.
The soldiers had their fill, laughed as the bowls shattered upon the floor. When night came the soldiers took the rooms hostage, leaving one and all to shiver and sob upon the brittle wooden floor. Shayna desperately wanted to help them, but the mother’s needling glare stopped her every time. She hoarded her children in her arms, as if the pair was somehow in league with the soldiers responsible for the night’s ruin.
Mykel could only offer a shrug for explanation and an arm for a makeshift pillow. The last thing he saw before succumbing to sleep was the rancor in the children’s eyes. He wondered if any of them would remain a child after tonight.
He woke to screaming. Anxiously the librarian fumbled to his feet and lurched into the master bedroom. The scene before him was plain. The soldiers lay in their beds, with fans of dried blood staining the linen of the blankets they slept upon. All three had their skulls carved with craters, shining with the wet mixture of gray and pink reflecting off the moonlight. Idly Mykel heard someone retching; he felt too empty to retch. Empty and cold as though his blood had been frozen within his veins.
The soldiers were not alone in their death throes. The two boys stared up at Mykel with glassy eyes; their small hands carrying testaments to the innocence they had sacrificed for revenge. The large boulder – how had a child had obtained such a stone was a mystery, topped only by the question of how the boulder was carried by children’s hands – resolved the issue of the soldiers’ crushed skulls. The boy must have dropped the damn thing again and again to ensure the depths dividing skull from brains. He died from a broken neck; the only solace was that the boy died quickly, with little pain.
The second boy was bloody from head to toe. There was a dagger driven all the way to the hilt just above the heart. Since a boulder could not create the horror of stabs and slashes and slices upon the soldiers, Mykel concluded the knife was the child’s own, and ultimately died under a soldier’s brute strength as his weapon was turned against him. Brave boys. Or stupid boys. Often, they were the one and the same.
“Madam...” Shayna’s face was crumpled and wet, her voice raw from the atrocities laid before her. “I...”
“Get out!” Red-faced, the mother began throwing anything and everything she could get her hands on. Plates, vases, silverware, all crashing against the walls like fine crystal. Mykel grabbed Shayna and fled into the night, flogged by the faces of the children, flogged by the silent questioning of their fate.
XLIII
Things, Lazarus decided, were not going as he’d hoped.
The city once called Ercdul was not as fabled as t
he White City of Tor’ver, or Twi-les-roa, whose name translated from the old tongues as “King of the Sea.” Fame and fortune did not grant Ercdul a fair life, but still it carved its own niche in the tides of time. Once called Ercdul al’Orm, the city enjoyed prosperity as the chief breadbasket of the ores so desperately valued by man. No more, thought Lazarus. No more.
It had been weeks since he lost Mykel and Shayna, giving himself ample opportunity to see the desertion now plain to his augur eyes. Like most villages he crossed, many commoners fled their city from whispered rumors of a dark army, one that turned arrow and sword aside like playthings. A great engine of men filled the hills with their steel, it was said; their banners not of any crests of the world. Fear festered from vague doubts and forced laughter, of lies and tales of the men who comforted their quaking hearts, until the city was ripe for the taking.
Those who remained – those who couldn’t afford to leave, danger or no –made the city a haven for a darker sort of men. Tall houses and halls now lay in smoking ruins. The wind whistled through the empty streets, causing those still within to shutter against it. Those abandoned on the streets were a dirty sort, hunched like starving predators, their fangs long knives glinting in the light. One look did Lazarus take upon his entrance and knew it all. Cities changed over-night was a daily chore in war, and Lazarus had seen his more than fair share.
No doubt all the boats left are worm-eaten. Still he ventured forward. The dingy stone road took him through narrow lanes between abandoned buildings and clusters of debris too thick for any man to cross over. Again and again he turned away from his course, and like the thin shrill of wind that chased him, Lazarus found very little that gave encouragement.
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