by Ben Galley
‘Why?’
His aunt nodded. ‘Shohari saw the magick in him. Got it from his mother, I hear. They let him go because of that. Rumour has it he comes from an old line of wilder-walkers—explorers and trailblazers to you and me—and the story is that they might have had Shohari blood running in their veins.’
Merion put a hand to his nose. ‘Is that how he does his sniffing thing?’
Lilain nodded, flicking a strand of yellow hair from her eyes.
Merion was not about to waste any time mulling over the answers. He launched straight into his next question. ‘So who’s this Lord Serped?’ he asked.
Lilain hummed as she opened up the cat and bared its organs to the lantern’s light. She was looking for something now, her fingers inching towards the syringe and the empty vial at her elbow. ‘So you were eavesdropping.’
Merion shuffled around. ‘No, actually. I heard his name mentioned today, in town.’
Lilain fired off question after question. ‘By whom?’
Merion answered as fast as he could think. ‘A man.’
‘Where?’
‘At the station. He was complaining about the railroad.’
Lilain wasn’t buying what Merion was selling, not for one moment. ‘Was he now?’ she mused. ‘Lord Serped,’ she began, and here she made a little sound of disgust as she reached for the heart of the cat. Merion leant forwards so he could watch her deftly slicing the connecting arteries and veins. It was gruesomely fascinating, he had to admit. ‘Lord Serped is Empire-born, no doubt an affiliate of your father’s at some time or another. His business is transport. His father designed the roads of Washingtown, so he’s got some big boots to fill, where Lincoln is concerned. So what better way to prove himself than driving a railroad straight to the shores of the Last Ocean, taking upon himself a task that no ship nor horse nor pair of feet has ever succeeded in doing.’
‘Has he bitten off more than he can chew?’
Lilain smirked at that. ‘Probably, but he’s a stubborn bastard. And stinking rich. He’ll see it through.’
Merion hummed. ‘I’m starting to get the impression that you might not like the man.’
‘I’m not overly fond of the kind of men who exploit the desperation of others for profit, throwing the lives of men aside like old handkerchiefs whilst blindingly surging forwards into the unknown without due care, attention, or respect. So no, Lord Serped won’t be invited to sit at my table in the near future.’
Merion couldn’t help but ask. ‘An Empire man, you say?’
Lilain threw him a sour look. ‘Getting more ideas about leaving are we?’
Merion shook his head and looked back at the cat. Its heart now lay in a porcelain dish at the tail-end of the table. Lilain’s hands hovered above it, the needle of the syringe dancing over the organ’s puckered chambers. Lilain’s lips began to move, slowly at first, then faster. Merion watched as she gently slid the needle into the heart and drew back on the plunger. Dark red blood gurgled into the syringe’s glass chamber. There wasn’t much to be had, but Lilain got every last drop. She did not rest until the syringe was over half full.
With a level of gracefulness and precision that bordered on the reverent, Lilain gently decanted the contents of the syringe into the conical vial. When every drop had been squeezed from it, Lilain laid it down, put a tiny cork in the mouth of the vial, and held it up to the nearest lantern.
‘What are you looking for?’ Merion asked. His words shattered the silence, and he felt for all the world as though he had just farted loudly during a church service.
‘Purity,’ Lilain whispered.
Merion pulled a face. ‘Are you … collecting that?’
Lilain licked her lips and put the vial down. ‘Let me ask you a question,’ she said, placing her hands on the edge of the table and leaning forwards so she could look Merion clear in the eyes. ‘Have you mourned for your father?’
Merion was quite taken aback. ‘Excuse me?’ he spluttered.
Lilain kept on at him. ‘Have you mourned for him, Merion, since leaving the Empire’s shores?’
‘I fail to see why this is any of your bus—’
His aunt’s face was like flint, hard and unflinching. ‘Because it’s important, Merion, even though real men cannot be seen to cry, they are allowed to cry. Do you understand me? I guess what I’m asking is, have you wept for your father since he died?’
Merion once again hopped down from the stool, bristling with anger. That old fire was back and burning bright. His aunt had most certainly struck a nerve this time, and a raw one at that. ‘That is none of your business! I wouldn’t dare ask anybody such a question!’
Lilain slapped her hands on the edge of the table. ‘But if you did, I would answer yes, Merion, that I have wept for my dead brother. Because it’s necessary for getting the anger and frustration and hurt out. Trust me on this one, Merion.’
But Merion had been pushed too far. ‘I don’t want to trust you,’ he snapped. ‘And I don’t want to talk about this!’
‘Merion …!’ Lilain called after him, but the young Hark was already halfway to the stairs. ‘Tonmerion!’
‘No!’ came the reply, swiftly followed by the sound of a slamming door.
Lilain grit her teeth and thumped a palm against the table. ‘Shit!’ she hissed.
*
‘And what’s the matter with you?’ Rhin asked as Merion stormed into the bedroom. The door almost burst from its hinges he shut it so hard.
Merion paced like there was no tomorrow. ‘That aunt of mine, that woman, dared to talk to me about father. Asked me if I’d cried for him, as if that was of any importance!’
Rhin shuffled out from under the bed and leant against one of its legs. He seemed a little more comfortable now. A few inches had disappeared from his swollen belly.
‘Well, have you?’ Rhin asked.
Merion threw his hands up into the air in exasperation. ‘You as well?’
The faerie quickly surrendered. ‘Enough said, lad. Pay me no heed.’
The young Hark pressed his hands to his face. ‘That blasted woman …’ he could be heard muttering. When he pulled his hands away he sighed. ‘I’m exhausted. And tired of today. I’m going to bed.’
Rhin looked out of the window to check that yes, the sun was still firmly stuck in the azure sky. ‘But it’s barely evening, Merion.’
‘Like I said,’ mumbled the boy as he flopped onto the bed. His breathing had already slowed and deepened. Rhin climbed onto the bed and watched his chest rising and falling.
‘That you apparently are,’ he replied. He walked across the bed to where a second pillow sat scrunched up next to Merion’s head. Rhin fluttered his wings and then sat down. It was definitely a lot comfier than his suitcase, he thought, as he shuffled around, all the while sinking deeper into the pillow. When he was comfortable, he crossed his arms and took a few contemplative breaths. ‘So what’s the plan?’
‘Gold,’ mumbled the boy, already drifting into the land of sleep. ‘Magic. Failing those, a rich lord of the Empire.’
Rhin pinched the bridge of his nose between his claws. ‘Right you are then,’ he said in reply. Visions of what the next few weeks might entail passed before his squinting eyes. Torn was the faerie, torn between being a boy’s only friend in a foreign land, and a selfish, singular desire that he had come secretly to harbour. He had stored it away in the deepest, darkest recesses of his faerie mind, along with all the other secrets. He knew that if he uttered it, it would have crushed the young Hark to an emotional pulp. Rhin did not want to go home.
Chapter X
THE SHOHARI
‘I must be mad. I must have lost too much blood to be thinking this … [some illegible scribbling here]
The boy. That impetuous little sod.’
12th May, 1867
Another three bodies graced Lilain Rennevie’s mortuary table before the week met its end. And what a scorching week it was. Every day seemed hotter than
the last. The ground cracked and the home-grown trees in yards and gardens splintered. No wind. Just the dust, and the dry prickling heat to contend with.
But then Sunday arrived, and with it came rolling black clouds of wind and lightning and deafening thunder. The merciless storm battered Fell Falls into a muddy pulp for a whole afternoon. Merion spent it gawping at the forks of lightning and the strange flashes of green and blue that ran through the black clouds whenever the thunder rolled. The town was soaked to the bone by the time the thunderclouds grew bored, and slipped to the west. Merion was sad to see them go. He had been able to close his eyes and hear the Empire in the pattering of the raindrops.
All in all, it had been a deeply dissatisfying week. The young Hark’s days had been spent roaming the town, sleeping through his boredom, or kicking cans across the graveyard while he stewed in his anger and thirst for home.
Evenings had been a completely different kettle of fish. Lilain was an owl. Her work filled the twilight hours. She barely slept more than a few hours a night. Merion would have dropped from exhaustion, but it never seemed to slow her down. Not one bit. Bodies were easier when they were kept cool, or so she said. Night was perfect for that. Merion tried not to form an opinion on the matter.
The railwraiths had struck twice during that blistering week. One was a prospector, found dead and ripped to bloody shreds at the end of the line. There were many different things to carry to the cart that day. Nobody knew his name. Lilain just kept calling him Mr Doe.
The second was another worker, an older gentleman with a face full of creases. Some of the other workers had called him Ole Pa, and he had been like a father to more than a few of them. Lilain had known him as Old Jaspar. The wraiths had kindly ripped his head from his shoulders and left it a hundred yards down the track, almost like a warning.
It was the third body that caused the greatest uproar. A scout by the name of Jeeber had been sent from Kaspar City to prepare the town for Lord Serped’s arrival. Unfortunately, he never made it. He was found on the north trail, barely ten miles from the fringes of Fell Falls, a long arrow driven straight through his heart. An arrow fletched with blue and purple feathers. Shohari colours.
All Scout Jeeber’s death did was ignite even more anger and fear in the citizens of Fell Falls. With the town swollen with workers and guards, there was gossip aplenty. Emotions were running high. On Merion’s long walks and trips to the post office, he had seen more than a few black eyes and missing teeth, and kicked the shattered necks of many a broken bottle with his dusty shoes.
Lilain refrained from sharing her thoughts on the matter, never echoing the gossip. Perhaps it was due to the silver coins that jangled in her pockets, or maybe she simply wanted him to make up his own mind, Merion was not sure. In any case, he felt the fear of the town, and shared it.
By the Almighty, did they talk! Once Merion had firmly asserted to Lilain that the subject of his dead father was not, under any circumstances, to be a part of their conversations, and once Lilain had kindly suggested to Merion that if he was going to make a habit out of laying down rules, he might want to look into the architecture and methods of building a suggestion box, they formed a pact. Merion would get the answers he had begun to thirst for (and what meagre pay his aunt could offer whilst Eugin was slowly yet firmly ousted from her gainful employ), and Lilain got an ear to bend, and a helper to boot.
And so while Merion helped carry limbs and severed heads, and helped clean the tools and table, Lilain let her tongue wag. The work was revolting, but the stories and answers took his mind off the murderous little town, giving him ideas, and therefore hope. There was always a little sting of secrecy in each one of her tales, as though she were still skirting around a truth she was not ready to share.
It was exceedingly curious the way Aunt Lilain harped on about blood. She seemed fascinated by the stuff. In between her stories, his aunt would ramble on about how blood works, and how it sustains life. Honestly, Merion could not have cared less. But he let her prattle on, hoping she would soon get back on topic. What was even more curious, was that she only spoke of blood when she was busy dissecting the variety of dead dogs, cats and rats that Fell Falls had to offer—without forgetting the wild animals that found themselves trapped in fences or drowned in wells. All sorts of strange things found their way onto Lilain’s scrubbed table: three-horned goats; desert foxes of a smoky blue colour; beetles as big as Merion’s head; dragonflies that actually resembled, well, dragons, even down to their tiny scales and little pin-like teeth. And every time one of these creatures graced her table, the faithful syringe and empty vial were standing ready at her elbow, waiting to be filled.
All this talk of blood posed quite a problem for her young nephew. While his aunt was coldly professional about the whole business, utterly oblivious to the gore she handled so skilfully, blood was the one aspect of a dead body that turned his stomach the most. Merion did not truly know why; all he knew was that the way it dripped, or dribbled, or seeped … made him shiver. She was too distant, too cold for Merion’s liking. He did not want to be like her. The disgust and incredibly strong urge to vomit he felt reminded him he was still normal.
Merion thought it all highly irregular, and wondered whether his aunt were a collector of sorts. Perhaps it was just some strange science, maybe another burial ritual. Merion didn’t know, and didn’t care.
*
Fell Falls felt subdued after the rain. The gossipers and minglers had retreated to the saloons and bars, and there they remained. The streets were empty but for a few stubborn sheriffsmen on horseback, churning the wheel ruts and bootprints into mud.
Rhin peeked out at them from under the flap of the rucksack, skin shimmering, half-vanished. Their faces were grim and their beards trimmed short. They were grim yet somehow reassuring, a sign that law and order still held sway at the edges of the world; that even in a place like Fell Falls there were men dedicated to patrolling, and watching, and guarding. Rhin stared at their blue coats and white stripes, and at the triple-barrelled rifles balanced across their laps.
As they trudged deeper into town, it soon became apparent to Rhin that alcohol was very important to the citizenry of Fell Falls. He had lost count of the number of saloons he had already seen. He shrugged. Tough times and alcohol were never far apart. As Merion’s quickly deteriorating shoes squelched through the mud, the faerie noted down the places he would explore at another time. The apothecary was high on the list. You could never go wrong with an apothecary. The blacksmith’s, that was another stop—he could sharpen his blades nicely if he got a chance. And the stables; it had been a long time since Rhin had last spoken with a horse; they were dumb creatures with a simple tongue, but like faeries, they never refused a chance to gossip. Rhin rubbed his hands in anticipation.
‘Where are we going?’ he called up to Merion.
‘Post office.’
Rhin rolled his eyes. ‘Letters. Fun.’
He could hear Merion tutting from above. ‘Have some respect. I’m waiting to hear from Pagget.’
‘About what?’
Merion elbowed the bag sharply. ‘About my father, idiot!’
‘Of course.’ Rhin bit his lip. ‘How long have you been waiting?’
‘Almost a week. And last time I had to bicker with an utter dolt behind the counter. You’ll see what I mean.’
Rhin didn’t know what to say to that, so he just stayed quiet and watched the painted post office emerge from behind a corner. Soon enough, he was being tucked under a counter and poked with a foot. Rhin listened to the clerk shuffle his way out of his well-used chair, heard the crackle of saliva as his lip curled.
‘Ah, the little lordlin’ returns. That’s right, I heard all about you, I did,’ said the clerk. Rhin quickly realised that Merion had been right. The man was quite obviously an insufferable little shite.
Merion ignored the clerk’s jibes like a trooper. ‘Are there any letters for me yet?’
‘Not a scrap
of paper for you, Lordling.’
‘Can you at least look?’
‘Of course, your Majesty!’ the clerk crowed. Rhin wondered if the clerk would still feel like making jokes if he dug his black knife into his thigh. Rhin’s slender hand strayed to the scabbard at his belt, twitching.
There was a moment of rustling and commotion as the clerk made a show of looking through every single pigeonhole and poking his crooked nose under piles of paper and envelopes. He was muttering something about the Empire, that much could be heard. Rhin began to reach for the lip of the rucksack.
‘See? Nothin’. Next train won’t be in ’til tomorrow, just before the Serpeds arrive. Won’t get no mail ’til then. Go away and come back tomorrow, Lordling.’
‘Tomorrow,’ muttered the young Hark as he slipped carefully between the swinging doors. He dragged his rucksack behind him like a broken shield, head low and eyes frustrated.
Merion trudged down the steps, across the street, and down a side-alley, thankful for the coolness of the dark, narrow space, damp and sodden after the rain. The rusted pipes running above his head dripped solemnly. A light mist had begun to rise from the dirt.
The boy shook the rucksack. ‘See what I mean? Intolerable.’
No answer came.
‘Rhin?’ Merion asked again, reaching for the flap.
If you have ever experienced that awful moment where you are on the cusp of falling asleep, mind already wreathed in the first inklings of dreams, and abruptly find yourself falling or tripping. Then you know that lurching ache in your stomach, the flash of dizziness, that thin sliver of panic puncturing your heart. You will know all too well what drove Merion to his knees, and made his fingers tear frantically at the rucksack’s fastenings.
‘Rhin!’ Merion cried. There wasn’t a scrap of armour to be seen. No angry buzzing of wings. No grey skin and purple eyes. The pack was empty.
Merion had always been prone to nightmares. Even before his father’s murder, he had often spent his nights shivering at the foot of his bed, trying to shake the monsters from his wide eyes while Rhin patrolled the corners and shadows, knives drawn and wings buzzing. The faerie had always been there to keep him safe. And so it was that his darkest nightmare of all was losing the only true friend he had ever known.
