Wildmane

by Todd Fahnestock

  He looked up. Another woman had arrived. She was small, older, with graying hair and dark brown eyes. She led Deetra toward the door. Medophae turned to Lo’gan.

  “The next door neighbor, sir. She came when she heard the screaming.”

  “Yes...” He turned away from his lieutenant. He put his hands on the porch rail. The tears welled up, burning his eyes. He let out a slow breath and blinked them back.

  “Sir, are you all right?”

  He nodded, took another breath. “Come back in a few days, Lo’gan. After the funeral. Let her know that Galden’s wages will continue to come to her. Tell her that the Guard takes care of its own.”

  “Yes, sir. Of course.” Lo’gan paused, then said, “And tomorrow, sir?”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Yes, sir. Tomorrow we find the beast and destroy it.”

  Medophae nodded slowly. Not on your life, Lo’gan. Not on yours or anyone else’s.

  The beast dies tonight.

  4

  Mirolah

  Mirolah was soaked to her skin, but she didn’t care. When the heavy clouds had rolled in more than an hour ago, she had closed up her table, stashed it inside Lawdon’s workshop without letting anyone in the house know, and gone for a walk.

  The rain still fell steadily, giving the hard-packed dirt streets a slippery sheen of mud. If it persisted, they would soften, sucking at horses’ hooves and miring wagon wheels. Lawdon hated the rain. It made travel difficult and his business depended on delivering tiles to his customers.

  But Mirolah loved it, and even though she was cold and thoroughly wet, she paused across the street from her home and leaned against the wall of the bakery that had closed an hour ago. Her house was a rather plain, two-story structure with a single-level workshop jutting out from the left side. That was where Lawdon formed and baked his tiles. When she first joined her adopted family, Lawdon had collected most of his tiles by sorting through the wreckage of abandoned buildings in Rith and even Old Rith. Since the Sunriders moved on and commerce began flowing again, every year brought more people to Rith. New people meant rebuilding old houses, giving them new roofs, or in rare cases building new houses. The usable tiles from Old Rith were almost depleted, and Lawdon was one of the few in town who could make new ones. There was always a demand for his work, and she was happy for his success. No one deserved it more.

  Rith was rebuilding, growing. The difference between now and the last decade was subtle. More wagons. More people. More colors—from plants on window sills, and from a rare bolt of bright yellow cloth brought into the city and turned into twenty dresses, one worn by every woman who could afford it. But the most colorful addition to the streets was the smiles. Those had not been present when Mirolah first came straggling into Rith, hungry, scared and silent. For the first time, Rith had begun to feel safe to her.

  The rain had brought a premature darkness to the city, but it wasn’t quite dusk. Though she couldn’t see it, she could feel the sun behind the clouds, blazing a sunset that no one would see. With the rain-blurred view of the city, she squinted her eyes and imagined how the broken buildings must have looked during the Age of Ascendance, when a festival of colors was an everyday sight, when exotic trees and plants laced throughout the city, and houses shimmered with whatever use of GodSpill its owner had set upon it. When threadweavers appeared through portals or trundled down the street in carts drawn by nothing but air.

  People back then had created so many books. She couldn’t imagine how many scribes must have worked days and years and even lifetimes creating books for there to have been so many.

  But such things were hated now, mostly. Almost no one could read, and any books that looked like they had even the slightest reference to GodSpill were piled next to the hearth, their pages used as kindling for fires. Lawdon had a pile of them of his own, taken from an old library he found while looking for tiles. She had peeked in them when no one was around. She’d read about the threadweavers and what they could do. She had read about heroes from the Age of Ascendance, when kingdoms spanned miles and miles. She had committed the names of her favorites to memory.

  The information the books held was wild and foreign, and it set her imagination alight. They told stories of wondrous things that could be done during that time, ordinary people using GodSpill for the most mundane of tasks, like commanding a broom to sweep a floor all by itself, like making water flow upward instead of down.

  It was said the gods had punished Amarion for its hubris during the Age of Ascendance, for overreaching and acting like gods themselves. But Mirolah had read one bedraggled text that said the loss of these fantastic powers was because a group of threadweavers—a name for skilled users of the GodSpill—had capped something called Daylan’s Fountain. The writer of the book claimed that this was what had stopped GodSpill from flowing into the lands, not the wrath of the gods themselves. It was insanity, but it compelled her.

  When the gods delivered their wrath, thousands died on that very day, just dropped dead as though they were marionettes whose strings had been cut. The threadweavers who had immorally used the GodSpill for their own selfish desires died. It was as though their blood had been sucked from their veins. Almost everyone was a threadweaver during the Age of Ascendance. All of humanity’s leaders—its most learned women and men, its wealthiest tradespeople, its most influential royalty—they all died. The writer of that book estimated that ninety percent of all the people in Amarion had died.

  Entire cities were abandoned, and the great kingdoms of Amarion dwindled to a few patches of frightened humanity, like in Rith and Buravar to the north.

  No living person remembered what Amarion had been like during that time, and it was dangerous to wonder about it. Mirolah kept her reading secret. GodSpill was not spoken about in Rith, except to be used as a curse. What were once called threadweavers were now referred to as rot bringers. The very notion of trying to understand GodSpill was a crime in Rith.

  It was a crime to do so, but sometimes Mirolah wondered about all of the writings that had been lost over the centuries, all the books that had been burned. It was said there was a library in Buravar, a small one filled only with the histories of the time after the judgment of the gods and the subsequent penance of humankind.

  Only verbal stories now remained, mostly of heroes. Never of threadweavers. While threadweavers were cursed, called rot bringers, people clung to heroes. They were bright and colorful and always fought for the good. One of her favorites was Vlacar, who was something called a paladin, but also the archer duo, Bardus and his brother, nicknamed “Clincher,” who traveled all over the lands and beyond with twin bows that never missed. There was Sasha Braen’dite, who closed the Godgate and saved humankind from being overwhelmed by the crack in the Godgate. There was also Meetris Deneer and his dancing sword. And, of course, her favorite: Wildmane and his lady love, Bands, the dragon who could shapeshift into human form. Wildmane was her favorite. There were so many stories about him.

  The legends didn’t create danger or apprehension like the books did. Instead, they gave hope; they ignited belief that better days would come, that there were women and men of strength, so much strength that they could lend it to others.

  Mirolah blinked, focused again on the rain, imagining shimmering cobblestones over the muddy road, bright paint on every building. She pictured rich blue fabric draped over white horses as they clacked up the street in procession, noble riders holding lances straight up, colorful pennants snapping in the breeze, burnished armor glinting in the sun. People cheering. Children laughing and running through safe streets.

  She closed her eyes, and the vision vanished, transforming back to the gray rain and dirt-smudged buildings. There was no glorious parade, only an empty, muddy street....

  Mirolah drew a quick breath. A slender, cloaked man stood in the doorway of her home across the street, watching her.

  Of course he’s watching you! He’s probably wondering if there’s something wron
g with you, standing in the rain like an idiot.

  She broke from the wall and splashed across the street. He was probably just a customer, but she kept one hand on the small knife Lawdon had given her.

  “Good evening, young lady,” he said in a deep voice that rumbled her chest. It was the type of voice she would expect to hear come from a giant of a man, seven feet tall and three hundred pounds, not a slender man barely taller than her. Under his cowl, the man’s brown hair curled down the sides of his face and ended just above his shoulders. His skin was tanned and weathered, and laugh lines wrinkled the edges of his eyes. He had a bent nose, as if it had been broken sometime in his past. The man inclined his head, touched the handle, and opened the door for her. As he did so his plain, brown cloak opened, and she saw a finely tooled black vest over a white shirt. Expensive clothes, far more expensive than most clothes in Rith.

  She realized that she was staring and rushed to find her tongue. “Good evening, sir,” she said. “Please, come in. There’s no reason for you to stand in the rain.” She glanced into the house. Casra was spreading the tablecloth over the dining table, readying for supper, and she looked up, her eyebrows rising. The man moved inside the room, and Mirolah closed the door.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “Did no one answer your knock?” Mirolah asked, holding out her hand for his cloak, which he gave to her. His rich clothes were dry underneath, and she realized his seemingly plain cloak had been treated with some kind of oil to repel the rain.

  “I enjoy storms,” he said. “It evokes my imagination. When I look at the rain, I see heroes.”

  That was odd. She found it eerie that she had been doing almost exactly that. She removed her own cloak and hung it, dripping, next to his. Her own clothes were wet; she would need to change before supper.

  “What about you?” he asked. “I wondered if we were looking at the same thing. Heroes in the rain.”

  “I was just...” She stammered, trying to think of something safe to say. Telling him that she envisioned the Age of Ascendance was not a safe conversation.

  “The rain is something like a new canvas, isn’t it?” he asked.

  “Canvas?”

  “In some places, they make pictures on canvas. Did you know? They smear pigments across it to make images.”

  “You’re talking about paintings.”

  “Just so. Rain makes the lands like a painting, don’t you think? Everything fades a little, becomes less distinct. When it storms, I imagine painting the world differently, changing a little something here, a little something there.”

  She didn’t like how he seemed to know her thoughts, to know what she had really been doing across the street. “Lawdon hates the rain,” she said quickly. “It makes business difficult. If you’re hoping for a delivery from him, you may have to wait.”

  Tiffienne bustled into the room, carrying a bucket of rainwater. They had a well, but she liked to collect water from the sky. “Oh, Mirolah,” she said, noticing her. “Good that you’re home. This man has been waiting for you.”

  Time slowed for her. “For me?” No. That could only mean one thing. This was the man that horrible Prinka woman had called. This was Reader Orem.

  “Yes, dear,” Tiffienne said, not noticing that Mirolah had gone stiff. “He’s been waiting for you for an hour now. He went by the town circle, but you’d already left. Where have you been?”

  “I...had some things to get...” she said, then realized she had nothing in her hands, “...straightened out in my head,” she finished lamely. “I went for a walk.”

  Casra rolled her eyes. Tiffienne pretended not to notice the blatant lie, and she turned to the man. “Are you sure you won’t stay for dinner? It will only be another half an hour or so.”

  “Honestly, I cannot. Thank you so much for your kind offer.”

  “Well, don’t let us stop you,” Tiffienne said. “Casra, come with me.”

  Casra pulled her gaze away from the man, then adjusted a plate on the table. “But I’m not done,” she said.

  Tiffienne gave her a pointed look.

  Casra glanced at Mirolah, then at Tiffienne. “Fine.” She pouted. The two left the family room and disappeared up the stairs.

  Mirolah desperately wanted to call out to Tiffienne not to go. Instead, she slowly turned to face the man.

  “You’re him, aren’t you?” she asked. “That horrible old woman sent you.”

  “You can call me Orem.” The man’s eyes were dark brown and gentle, his deep voice soothing.

  “Reader Orem,” she said, looking over her shoulder as though someone would catch her saying that near-blasphemous title.

  “That’s just a nickname. It wasn’t meant to flatter, but I’ve grown fond of it. Unfortunately in this time, some people don’t trust those of us who can read.”

  “They trust us as long as we don’t read books. They trust me.”

  “I’m sure they do.”

  “But you read books, don’t you?”

  “Every book I can find.” He glanced at the three thick volumes at the hearth. His wistful gaze at the impending destruction of those books made her feel guilty.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Because there is knowledge in them.”

  “Too much knowledge destroyed the world.”

  “Almost destroyed the world,” he corrected her.

  “Some knowledge is only meant for the gods. That’s the lesson humankind has learned the hard way.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Trying to use what spilled through the Godgate centuries ago is dangerous. It’s immoral.”

  “Reading isn’t threadweaving.”

  “Don’t say things like that,” she hissed, looking around in alarm. No one used that word!

  “But it’s true. Reading isn’t the same. If it was, I’d be a threadweaver of great power by now.”

  She winced and stepped away from him as though he was pointing a spear at her. “Stop saying that. People get killed for such things!”

  His eyes were just a little bit sad, like he was looking into her heart, like he could see her fear of what they did to her little brother, Dorn. She didn’t want him in her house. It was like being trapped in a cage with a wild animal. If he would say the word “threadweaver” aloud, what else would he do? She glanced at the stairs, then at the kitchen doorway, but it was as though the house was suddenly empty.

  Orem sat down without invitation, put his hands quietly on the table, and laced his fingers together. “Do you still have the stone Prinka gave you?”

  “No,” she lied quickly. She didn’t want the stone. She wanted to have left it at the town circle, but she couldn’t make herself do it. The truth was that the stone sat snugly in a thick pouch against her chest. She had slept with that pouch for the last five nights. For some reason, it felt good to have it near her, and that haunted her. If anyone caught her with it, they’d know she was just like Dorn.

  “May I see it?” he asked gently.

  “Why don’t you just go?” she asked bluntly, wanting to offend him, but he just chuckled.

  “If you like,” he said. “But it won’t make the stone go away, especially when you keep it so close. And it won’t keep the others away, the ones who will come looking for you.”

  “Others? What are you talking about? I didn’t do anything!”

  “Bad things don’t happen just because of what you do. Sometimes they happen because of who you are. The lands are not fair. Or gentle.”

  She saw little Dorn’s face, his happy face, just before they killed him. It was like he was reading her mind. “Stop it,” she hissed.

  “Having as much knowledge as you can is the only way to see clearly. I claim the title ‘Reader’ with pride. It means I know more, and that’s what I wanted. It’s what I’ve earned. I worked very hard to know what I know.”

  “Are you bragging?” she asked.

  He paused, still not offended. Mirolah didn’t know how she could
be any more rude.

  “Tell me,” he said. “How did you learn to read and write?”

  She felt heat in her face as she flushed. “I just know. Why do you care?”

  “It is strange for someone like you to be here, in this town, and know how to read.”

  “I’m not strange!”

  “Were your parents nobility?”

  “No.”

  “Did they work for nobility?”

  “I don’t want you asking so many questions about my life. I don’t like it, and I don’t like you,” she said. She thought of her mother and father, dying at the hands of the Sunriders like so much wheat cut down by a scythe. Those stories weren’t for him.

  “Then how did you—?”

  “If I tell you, will you leave?”

  He paused, then slowly nodded, again with the sad eyes. “Of course.”

  “There was a book, okay? It was a book describing how to make a mill and a water wheel. It was not some book about GodSpill. My father and his brothers wanted to remake the mill, so they had the book because it had pictures. But they couldn’t get the plans to work. So I...” she trailed off.

  “You helped them.”

  “I read it. There were instructions in the words that were missing in the pictures.”

  “How did you do it?”

  “I don’t know. The more I looked at it, the more it made sense. That’s all.”

  He put a hand to his chin, tapped a finger on his lower lip. “That’s a rare gift.”

  Her heart raced. “You want to be a rot bringer and harness GodSpill. That’s evil!”

  “A rot bringer?” He seemed amused by that term. “Is that what they call the threadweavers of old?”

  She wished he would stop saying that word! “You promised you’d leave if I told you. You’re still here.”

  He nodded. “Fair enough. I will leave. Before I do, may I look at the stone?”