by Laury Falter
It was a long trip, taking me over hundreds of heavens to place me inside a deteriorating, dirty, and bustling pub. It was not one of the more pristine heavens I was familiar with, boasting crumbling brick walls and wooden slats overhead that regularly shed deposits of dirt. It had its charm though, namely the colorful patrons who either roamed between the wobbly wood tables or sat on top of them. There were women with ample chests on the knees of brawny men twice their size and skinny barkeeps rushing between tables carrying mugs the length of their lanky arms. These were the people who felt most comfortable on earth in these sorts of places and had congregated here for the same familial atmosphere. I surveyed each one for a resemblance of the man who had sent me and, when I didn’t see him, began a stroll through the crowd.
A fight broke out in the corner, but no one paid much attention. Wounds weren’t possible here and thus it was really a battle of egos. A mug fell and broke, but the drink simply evaporated where it pooled. The place was absolute chaos but no one seemed to care, not even the husky man with the hairy chest sitting at the bar enjoying the view. I made my way across the room, dodged a chair flung in my path, and took a seat on a stool beside him.
He noticed me evaluating him and grumbled, “Back off. I was just murdered. I deserve a drink.”
“Is your name Oleg?”
“Who’s asking?” he demanded.
“My name is Magdalene. I have a message from your brother…the brother you had on earth.”
This time he gave me a full look, studying me as closely as I had him.
“Are you a messenger?”
“Yes.”
Oleg grinned to himself. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Then you know what he’s asking?”
Oleg guzzled the liquid in his mug and slammed it on the bar. “Another!” he shouted and the rest of the patrons cheered him on. “I do know what he’s asking and I know he won’t like the answer.”
A new mug was shoved into his hand by a passing barkeep. “Won’t like the answer at all…”
“He’ll want one nonetheless.”
Oleg’s grin surfaced again as he stared at the crowd. “Yes, he will.” He addressed me then with sudden urgency. “Now, when you tell him, you make sure he knows I want him to use my rapier with the silver and gold handle.”
“Silver and gold. I will.”
“That’s the rapier I use for righteousness, for justice.”
“I’ll let him know.”
“And,” he added, wagging a thick finger at me, “you need to tell him that they hit by surprise. Could have taken all three of them if-”
“All three of them?” I repeated, wondering if my assumptions had been correct.
“That’s right,” he retorted defensively. “It wasn’t a noble or one of their henchmen who killed me. I could have taken them on single-handedly. It was those damn Kohlers, all three of them.” He waited for my reaction. “You don’t seem surprised.”
“I’m not. I’ve had interactions with them.” I didn’t tell him that I’d been waiting for confirmation of their involvement for a long time, too long. “I will tell your brother who it was.”
“You do that.”
I stood but didn’t leave. “On last thing, as proof of delivery, I always ask for disclosure of a secret, something that only the two of you would know.”
Oleg leaned back, sliding his elbows onto the bar behind him and tilting his head to the ceiling. A few seconds later, a faint smile turned up the very corners of his lips. “Yey, uh huh, I got one… Richolf.“
“That’s it? Richolf?”
“He’ll know what that means.”
“That will be fine then. Thank you. It was a pleasure to meet you.” I began to weave back through the crowd, but Oleg stopped me.
“Messenger,” he called out. “You tell him to get the short one good.”
“Cedric?”
“That’s the one. He did the slicing. The slicing across the neck…” Oleg referenced it so cavalierly that I wasn’t surprised when he added, “Only good thing about it is that I ended up back here.” He lifted a silent toast to the crowd.
Then, in the mannerism of a brute, he set his mug on the bar, stood and pounded his fists against his chest while releasing a resounding roar. The room responded by breaking into chaotic cheering, sloshing the liquid from their mugs and commencing their own chest pounding.
In the midst of the revelry I snuck away, leaving Oleg to celebrate his homecoming. The trip back was long allowing me plenty of time to contemplate what the Kohlers had been doing. By the time I reached the training grounds I was riled.
Without waiting for a partner, I entered the melee and took on both Hermina and Valten together. I brought my sword down on theirs and swung around to find a better vantage point. They regained their stance and thrust their weapons at me, one a dagger and the other a spear. I spun to avoid them and lunged again. It went on this way for several turns until the dance ended and I was the only one left standing.
“Who are you fighting?” Hermina asked.
“The Kohlers.”
“Good.” This time she jerked her shoulders and released her appendages. “Now let’s see how you do against winged opponents…”
I fought hard, needing the physical release and the preparation. I was aggressive enough to draw the attention of Daniel and Jacob and a few other messengers who watched me closely before I was yanked back to my body on earth.
The first thing I noticed then were the rays of sunlight streaming through the gaps in the barn’s roof; but almost as quickly, I felt the solid warmth of someone’s arms around me. I dipped my head back to see who it was and the stirring told the person I was awake.
“You were thrashing,” Eran quickly explained.
“I was?”
“Violently,” he added.
Embarrassed, I dipped my head and noted the contours of the muscles in his arms, which he kept clasped around me.
“Do you want to share with me what you found?” he asked, his breath brushing by my ear. It was more seductive then I would have liked. “Magdalene?”
I was under no obligation to do so and the more information I shared the more likely he would be to play the role of a rescuer. “No,” I said flatly.
“Excuse me,” he muttered and released me.
He strode to the barn’s entrance and swung open the door without a word where the morning light coming over the horizon seemed to radiate from him. Facing it, he asserted, “The Kohlers did it, didn’t they?”
This stunned me. “You…You knew?”
He continued flaccidly because his calculated mind had already summed it up. “They showed themselves last night to see what we would do, to learn how far we would take this private war of ours. They’ve been here all along, committing the killings. But you presumed that, didn’t you?” He didn’t wait for me to answer and he didn’t turn to face me, illustrating how deeply I’d upset him. “It’s what’s kept you here, at the farm.”
“I’m here because-”
He cut me off. “Because you think the Kohlers have something to do with the other messenger’s murder, the one they mentioned at our first meeting, and the same one which you have sought proof of since you left your family farm.”
I thought they had something to do with all the messenger’s murders, but the fact that Eran had discerned just that much was remarkable.
In that moment I was equally in awe of him while feeling incredibly exposed.
“I’m in agreement,” he went on to say. “So we can either work together or we can work apart. I understand your proclivity toward not trusting me and I don’t blame you. I would have a difficult time yielding to anyone who made a decision about me without my participation, and I’ve imposed my will to escort you. But the truth is…together we are stronger, apart we are weaker. I believe we can discover the truth to what is taking the lives of our messengers but only if we work together.” He paused before concluding, “I leav
e the decision entirely up to you.”
In a reversal from his actions in the afterlife, one he didn’t likely remember, he had just given me free reign to decide not only my fate but all others involved. To agree would be tantamount to conspiring with him, the man whose ego historically made decisions for others, ones that tended to be infuriatingly accurate.
I studied him at the doorway, his strapping arms hanging at his sides, his strong shoulders back and his head tilted high. He would be a worthy partner if not for his ego. Yet if he could help me determine who was sending these messengers to their eternal death, I could try to tolerate it.
Standing, I walked to him at the open door and stared out across the field. “Now that we have confirmation on the Kohlers, how do we stop them?”
He finally he looked at me and for a fleeting moment I saw a release in him as if he hadn’t been entirely certain I would concede. It was swept away a second later by unequivocal determination.
“We expose them… and we do it today.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: CATACLYSM
OLEG’S BROTHER LIVED IN A WALLED city closest to where we had been staying. His one-room hovel at the side of a building consisted of a dirt floor, lumpy bed, rickety chair, and just enough space to fit fifteen people shoulder to shoulder. When we arrived there were eight, three of them with bright white hair.
They saw us as we approached the door, causing their conversation to fade away and to await our purposes for interrupting. The men’s faces were familiar from the meeting the night before, and the tension plaguing them over the grim topic of discussion hadn’t eased.
The one we came to see stood and strode to the door. By then, I was practicing my breathing to slow my heart rate and lower the hair spiking painfully on the back of my neck.
I heard Eran quietly remark, “We have your answer.”
The man nodded and ushered us inside, where Eran’s hand came up to block me from stepping any farther in than the doorway. That was fine. My legs weren’t functioning well beyond the panic-stricken reaction I was having anyways.
“Let’s have it,” the man urged with an impatient wave of his hand.
“You might want to learn it in private,” Eran suggested.
“These people are family, not by blood but by loyalty.” To reinforce his point, he added, “I am in private.”
The path was cleared for me to begin delivering the message. This was the moment in which the truth about the Kohlers would be revealed, the tables would turn against them, and we would gain allies in our fight to suppress them. Yet I couldn’t seem to formulate a simple sentence.
One of Eran’s hands remained on his sword’s handle. The other one found my elbow, settling there with a delicate touch. “Would you like me to-”
I shook my head, vehemently.
When I glanced at the Kohlers they were grinning, and it gave me the impetus I needed to overcome my reaction to them.
“Oleg is doing well,” I remarked stiffly and drew in a breath.
No one responded, so I didn’t bother with further details about the afterlife. Assumedly, what I’d mentioned already was enough.
“He asked me to tell you to use the gold and silver rapier when you go after them for retribution.”
Without delay, he stood and walked to his bed to lift the mattress and pick up a rapier hidden beneath it. Its handle was of gold and silver and its blade was a robust metal far stronger than mine or Eran’s put together. The Kohlers watched his movements closely, I noticed, especially as he made his way back to the chair.
“Before we go any further,” Eran interrupted, “we should discuss proof of delivery.”
“What’s that?” asked one of the men.
“For proof of delivery,” I explained, “I always ask for a secret that only the two involved in the message exchange would know. It acts as confirmation that I did speak with the deceased.”
Oleg’s brother nodded, both in understanding and to prompt me to disclose it.
“He said your secret was Richolf.”
All heads turned to Oleg’s brother, whose face had become frozen in shock.
“Just that…Richolf.“
He blinked.
“He didn’t tell me what it meant, only to say that word.”
His trance broke long enough for him to look out the door and lose himself again to the brick building across the muddy street. “It’s not a word, it’s a name.”
“Richolf?” Cedric scoffed, wasting no time in trying to disparage the validity of the secret. “Anyone could come up with that name.”
Oleg’s brother slowly held up his hand for silence. “Not that one. Richolf was a defector,” he said, immobile while in his dreamlike state. “Oleg and I found him in the woods. When we did, we were about to leave and warn the noble that Richolf was defecting. Before we could, a band of the nobleman’s mercenaries, his own comrades, found him. They positioned themselves to fight, to take his life for denouncing the noble who employed them, surrounding him, coming at him. He told us to run and we did…” He exhaled through the shame. “But they caught up to us and denounced us for treason and as my brother and I were about to be executed, Richolf emerged from the woods and finished them off. He saved our lives, these unknown children who were about to squeal on him. But when all was done, and the mercenaries’ bodies lay like rugs across the ground, he found he hadn’t won his freedom at all because Richolf was mortally wounded. We never discussed it, Oleg and me, with another soul, not until now, out of fear of the nobleman’s reprisal.”
As he spoke, the vehemence in the Kohlers eyes ignited, burning across the room at me, solely at me.
My heartbeat picked up again, becoming so fierce that I felt the vibration of it hitting my ribcage. A drop of perspiration ran down the side of my face, but I wouldn’t allow them the satisfaction of wiping it away.
Breathe…
I inhaled deeply.
Breathe in again…
Oleg’s brother addressed me, his voice warbled. “I believe you. Who did the killing?”
“The,” I cringed against the explosion of pain across my body. “The…”
“The what?” Oleg’s brother demanded.
Nearly breathless now, I spat out the answer in a rush of words. “It was the Kohler triplets.”
For a hesitant second, the room came to a halt. No one breathed. No one moved. No one spoke.
Then Kaila screamed a single word in defense. “Liar!”
“You’re trying to pin it on us?” Cedric scoffed. “We’re loyal to you.”
It was interesting that he was declaring his allegiance directly to Oleg’s brother, who was now on his feet. I was actually thankful for it. It deflected the intensity of their rage away from me.
Oleg’s secret was apparently solid enough that his brother had no doubt about the integrity of my accusation. His hand tightened around the handle of his rapier as he scowled from one Kohler to the next, seething as he took in the sight of them. These were the kids who he had defended just the night earlier, the ones who he had credited for giving him and his friends someone to blame for these deaths, his brother’s included. I could see these ideas swimming in his mind as his eyes grew steely and the muscles in his forearms began to flex.
The Kohlers, however, didn’t wait for the attack.
Simultaneously, the three of them sprang into the air, their weapons drawn.
The clash that followed was swift, a blinding movement of arms and weapons and angling bodies. As Cedric flung oil at the crowd and Kaila’s battle axe swung in a halo overhead, Eran gently thrust me to the side. Two men fell immediately and when they did I recognized the Kohlers’ intentions. They meant to carve a path to the door.
And my heart skipped a beat…because that was where Eran was standing.
When Deschan’s wooden hammer came down on another man, Eran became the last barrier. But they didn’t go after him. They turned their weapons on me.
I already had my sword out and
ready, but it was no match for an axe, hammer, or slick black oil. Eran knew it and lunged to take the brunt of all that would be coming down on me. As he did, the doorway opened and the Kohlers fled.
“Are you all right?” Eran asked, his voice rushed from emotions.
I nodded. “Are you?”
“Fine.”
Moans were now filling the small room as we turned to face it.
Blood was on everything in sight. The walls, the bed, across the dirty floor, smeared across Oleg’s brother.
“No,” I exhaled and ran for him.
He was slumped against the wall, so saturated with blood I couldn’t identify which wounds were fatal.
“No,” I whispered, and he opened his eyes.
His bloodied hands seized my wrists and drew me forward. The smell of blood permeated the air around him as he held me close to him, where I could distinguish the message he intended for me to hear.
“I’m going to see Oleg now.”
Tears began to form in my eyes, which I violently wiped away.
“Before I do…,” he mumbled, pulling the rapier he held across his body toward me. “Richolf gave his life to protect us with this blade. I now give it to you…I leave it in your ha-hands.” He shoved the handle onto my palms. “Finish the job, Messenger, finish the job.”
And this was when I understood this rough and unforgiving man, who had somehow turned those traits into strengths, employing them to do what was right. Now he was using his last breath to leave us with his dying wish: to take down the immoral and defend the weak.
I placed my hand on his furry cheek and opened my mouth to speak.
“He’s gone, Magdalene.”
I lifted his cheeks to me. Looking into the brown spheres that had been so formidable, so full of life moments earlier, I knew Eran was correct. The man was gone, the life having drained completely from his eyes.
