“Not at all,” X’on replied, his eyes glued to the page. “There is not one, but two fine purveyors of literature in this city. I’m really getting a chance to catch up on my reading.”
“How wonderful,” Ven said, his tone only a little sarcastic. “Find out anything about the ravine while you were talking shop? Or do you want to just go ahead and move on?” Of course, without the use of the ravine's bridge, “moving on” would add almost two weeks to their travel schedule as they circumnavigated it. But it was his trip, and no skin off Ven's beak if the big nerd wanted to take the scenic route.
“I did learn something, actually,” X’on said, sitting up. After another moment of reading, he marked his place with a strip of cloth and continued. “That ravine--Hanteer’aviin, the locals call it--and the bridge that crosses it have both been focal points of local superstition for hundreds of years. It was said that Death herself crosses that bridge to enter the world of the living, in order to ply her trade. The legends weren’t clear if that meant the deaths in this area… as well as famine, blights, sickness, et cetera… or if they really believed that Death used their land as a way station between planes of reality.”
“So what you’re saying is, the Lutins think Death is an actual being, and that it uses Siplait as, what, a coach change?”
“I’m saying they did at some point, yes.”
“But not now.”
“Well.” X’on ran a hand over his bald pate. “It seems so ludicrous on the face of it. These are old superstitions, no one has taken them seriously in decades. I mean, I don’t want to dismiss the idea of the supernatural, but may as well say the dragons are returning as say the incarnation of Death takes a stroll through rural Geveda every night.”
“Well, maybe we should keep one eye skyward, then,” Ven said. “Something’s off here. Common folk can be big, dumb herd animals, but they don’t get this frightened over nothing. Where’s my gear?”
X’on chucked a toadstool of a thumb at the window. “I left it outside, in the wagon. Don’t worry, it’s secure.”
“I’m not worried. But I think I’m gonna need it.” He looked up at X’on, dead in the eye. “I’m heading for the ravine. Tonight. I don't like being in the dark.” He paused. “Unless you want to go around. But if you do, I suggest we pack heavy, especially on food. If I remember my geography correctly, there's not another city nearby, and we'll be living off the land again for a bit.” He tried not to bite the word “again” as he said it.
After a moment, X’on nodded. He stood up. “No. I am with you. We've lost too much time already. And I’d like to point out that while there is a joke to be made about you being in the dark all the time, I am too polite to make it.”
Ven rolled his eyes. X'on hadn't quite taken to humor yet.
*
“Are you sure this is going to work?” X’on sang under his breath.
“It will if you shut up and act, I don’t know, touristy,” Ven muttered back. “And no Lathshian, that’ll attract too much attention here. Elvish Common until we hit the city limits.”
With that, he marched up to the front counter, travel cloak billowing behind him, as regal an air as he could muster, and said, “Gentlemen, we thank you for your hospitality, but my client and I are moving on.” He pulled two objects from his pocket with a flourish. “Here are the room keys, I’m sure your cleaning service will find everything in order, if we could just have back the deposit that my vacationing friend here left you we will be on our way.”
X’on, who towered above the two Lutins at the desk, waved a good-natured hand, a goofy smile plastered on his face. It was a good act, and Ven had to give him credit. Especially since he hadn't been too fond of bilking the hotel in the first place. Ven had argued for almost an hour that a deposit upfront was, in itself, an act of theft; all they were really doing was reclaiming funds that should have been theirs anyway. In the end, X'on had agreed, though Ven had a sneaking suspicion that it had just been to shut him up.
Whatever. He'd be damned if these two-bit penny-pinchers screwed him out of what was his.
“L-leave?” one of the Lutin--the fatter of the two, and probably the manager, Ven guessed--stuttered. They looked like kissing cousins to his bosses in Garuth Dal, but with bright orange skin instead of the usual peat ,moss, and hair in even more worrisome places. They smelled peach and lime green. “But sir, it’s been dark for hours now! It’s full moonrise! I’m sorry, but I can’t in good conscience let you leave this facility until morning!”
Ven harrumphed impatience. “Nonsense! The crisp night air will only do my client good! You see, he has a rare agoraphobic condition that causes him to seize up and lash out violently if he is confined to a single space for too long.”
He looked back at X’on expectantly. X’on, ever the team player, began to look around the room nervously, then knitted his eyebrows together in agitation.
The effect was not lost on the poor hobgoblins. “All right, sir, all right,” one said, snapping his fingers at the other, who drew a ring of keys from his pocket with all speed. They both hurried to the front door. “Now, as to the, ah, the deposit….”
“Yes, yes, the big galoot gave you the money for the room, not realizing that the Travel Guild would offer restitution for a comped suite!” He slapped X’on high on the tricep, as far as he could reach, which earned him a glare of his own. “It’s fine, we’ll take repayment in cash now, I’m sure the Guild will contact you shortly with recompense.”
“Well, sir, that’s what I’m trying to say… we make daily deposits, and quite frankly we don’t have the funds on hand to return to you. If your excursionist client could possibly wait until morning, we could go to the bank and sort all of this out.”
“No, no, never mind, I’m sure the Guild will be happy to compensate me for my time and your incompetence,” Ven snapped, trying to keep his voice as testy as possible. He pushed X’on out the door, even as the half-giant was trying to offer his compliments on the service. Oh well. It was worth a shot, anyway.
“You do realize that you meant claustrophobic, not agoraphobic,” X’on said as they piled into the wagon.
“Like it mattered. You can say anything you want and it’ll be taken as unblemished truth if you do it with enough style.”
“I still don’t see the point of trying to swindle them as well, Ven. It was a nice facility, and they treated us well.”
“Like I told you before, my friend: waste not, want not,” Ven said. He tugged the reins, bringing the horses up to a trot and away from the befuddled, worried hobgoblins.
X'on brightened. “I guess this makes us both SongWeavers, eh?”
Ven snorted, but offered no further reply.
*
The waxing moon was still high and shimmering above them as they approached the ravine. The pair had tied down the horses and wagon a couple of furlongs back from it, preferring to travel the rest of the way on foot. Ven had re-equipped himself with what was left of his gifted armor--the cuirass was hidden beneath his cloak, on top of the hauberk, and he wore his gauntlets, trusting the metallic talons over his own. His sword was strapped to his waist at his back, within easy reach of his right talon. He rushed through the dark foliage on fleet, silent feet; X’on kept pace behind him, disturbing nothing despite his size and bulk. They flew like shadows in the night, stopping at the edge of a clearing, about three hundred paces away from the bridge that ran across the ravine. The chasm stood before them in the night like an open wound in the earth, the wind howling through it like the screams of the damned. There was a bouquet rising up along with the wind, chill blue and black in even measures. With an abrupt realization, Ven could understand why the townsfolk had thought this place haunted for so long. Not only that, he sympathized. It creeped him the cold hell out.
X’on hovered above him, just to his left, squinting out into the night. “I don’t see anything,” he mumbled in a low voice.
Ven shook his head and whispered back, �
�There’s nothing. Not yet, anyway. But something smells….” But he wasn’t able to finish the thought, as a sudden rolling thunder of footsteps crashed through the vegetation not a hundred paces away from them. As the mob tumbled into view, Ven could make them out: mostly Lutins, dressed as farmers and merchants, wielding chipped, worn short swords and ratty pitchforks, torches, and crossbows. But there were a few goblins, too, and brownies, and even a couple of hogboons, tiny little mound dwellers known for being pacifists and disliking violence. They all stank of fear and booze, a tarnished copper smell that made Ven crinkle his nose. He held up a hand, steadying his companion.
“Be still,” he grunted. “We need to see how this plays out.” Best case scenario, the yokels take out whatever's threatening everyone and we go about our business. Worse case, they all get slaughtered and I get to see what I'm dealing with.
The mob was shouting, screaming, an unintelligible mess of noise, rich with anger. And Ven was picking up another stench, underneath the surface; they were reeking of the tight, aquamarine stench of loss.
Slowly, as they shouted and cursed and surged around each other, thin white mist began to rise from the canyon. Before his eyes, Ven watched as the mist coalesced, taking shape and form and weight, until it amassed itself into a slip of a pale-skinned female, dressed all in white. She looked like everything and nothing, her features flowing and changing as one looked upon her; her ears first elven points, then rounded, then spiked and distended; her eyes large, then beady, then dreamy, then gone; her lips a rosebud, then a gaping maw, then a thin, shapeless slit. Through it all, only three things remained static: her milk-white skin, her onyx black hair, and her bone-colored dress.
She smelled of nothing.
She was the most beautiful creature Ven had ever seen.
The mob’s cries strangled off as their gazes fell upon her, the lady in white. She bent low before them, her arms spread wide, her fingers crooked and waiting, her eyes never leaving them. When she had a mouth, she smiled.
“Look,” X’on said in a choked whisper. “She’s preparing to attack. Death herself is welcoming them to her embrace.”
“I don’t…think so,” Ven murmured.
Then the mob, as if guided by a single mind, poured forward, a great bugling cry rising up from them. And the lady stood up, raised her hands daintily above her head in a perfect bras en couronne, and… skipped towards them.
Okay, Ven thought grimly. Worst case it is.
The first hobgoblin to reach her was decapitated by a kick to the face, his head shooting off and tumbling into the ravine behind her. The next two lost their eyes as she lowered her hands and spun in a circle; she went up on one foot, pushing her knee out with the other leg, which broke the nose of a fourth attacker so hard the cartilage was pushed into his brain.
“You don’t think so?!?” X’on's low voice was hoarse with rage and fear. “What do you call this then?”
“Her stance wasn’t aggressive,” Ven said, almost to himself. “She was…” she was curtsying?
Another attacker was gutted as the girl's leg kicked out, spraying the ground around them with gore. The victim screamed as his newly freed intestines sprung out into the night air like a demented novelty toy, steaming as they hit the ground. The rest of the mob turned and ran as the Lady, in what may have been an act of mercy, kicked out again, breaking the disemboweled Lutin’s jaw so hard it cracked the back of his head between his shoulders.
The others rushed past Ven, their hate and anger micturated into fear, screaming out as they ran that the monster could not be stopped, that Death had come for them all. And, as Ven watched, she turned slowly towards him… and bowed again.
“She sees us,” X’on said. Ven had never heard fear in his voice before. Anger, confusion, even hopelessness. But not fear. It was disconcerting. He swallowed.
“Stay here,” he said. There's something in her posture, something in the way she… could it be that simple? He stood from his crouch, and walked out into the clearing.
“Ven!” X'on hissed. “What in the seven molten hells are you doing?”
Ven ignored him. He had to; he got the feeling that if he took his eyes off the Lady, that would be the end of it. He was taking their lives in his hands, now, and he knew it. But something about her movements stirred a memory deep within him. A memory of Jakat's older sister, who had practiced after school in the fenced and graveled lot behind the house.
He moved to within a few paces of the Lady, and bowed low before her.
Her smile, such as it was, was wide as she stood back up and began to walk towards him. Ven, for his part, managed to straighten without loosing his bowels. As he did so, he undid the straps of his gauntlets, and let them fall to the ground, leaving his hands bare. Then he unbuckled his sword belt; it, too, fell from him. He was sure that any sign of a threat would end with his death at this creature’s hands.
Her approach was careless grace, and when she reached him, she put her right hand on his left shoulder. It was cold, but not unpleasant. She reached out for his right hand, and he let her clasp it, raise it into the air. With no small amount of effort, he brought his other hand up to her waist.
Then, though there was no music to be had, and though his legs were water, the two began to dance.
Ven had not an ounce of rhythm in his body, but the lady more than compensated; while he was definitely leading, at all times she was in control. They waltzed and spun together for time Ven could not account for. He’d lost his senses in the Lady’s presence, his eyes and nose and mouth and touch were filled with emptiness, filled with her. But his ears… he could hear the music she’d wanted so desperately to dance to: the pulse of heartbeats, the measured breaths, the damaged, elastic, harmonious oscillation of life in all its forms, everywhere. Death had been listening to the cadence of life, and she’d wanted someone to dance with.
They broke with the moon still high overhead. She’d left him plenty of time for Ven to find shelter before dawn’s break. The lady leaned forward and kissed his cheek. He could feel the icy burn on his pebbled skin.
“Thank you for the dance,” she said, her voice chill and hollow and very, very alone.
Ven gulped in air and tried not to sound terrified. Even after everything they had just shared, he was still a hair's breadth from Death. Literally. It paid to tread carefully. “It was my pleasure,” he said. He was proud that his voice shook only a little.
She glanced at X’on, off in the distance. “Do not trust him,” she said. “He is closer to me than you could ever be.”
“What…what do you mean?” Ven was having a hard time forming words.
“You will see,” she said. Her body was already fading, falling away. She took his hands in hers, though they were losing all density. “Take care. I may wish to dance again someday.” And she was gone, and Ven was overpowered by a feeling of loss so complete, it brought him to his knees.
As he fell, he heard X’on running up to him. “Ven!” he shouted. “Ven! Are you all right?!?” He skidded to a stop on the wet grass and reached down. Ven took the proffered hand. Do not trust him. The words echoed in his thoughts. But what else could he do? He was already in so deep, and he’d come so far. He had to keep going. For now, anyway.
“How do you fare, my friend?” X’on was saying.
Ven blinked a couple of times. “I just… I just danced with Death. And not just metaphorically,” he said. The he looked up at X’on and grinned. “How many people in my profession can say that and mean it?”
Chapter 21
“Look, I’m just saying, it would have been nice to get a ‘thank you’.”
“And I am just saying that maybe you should be a little more thankful that your rather desperate gambit paid off. Are you going to finish those skins?”
Ven licked the salt off his talons and pushed the plate forward. “Here,” he said, then stretched his arms and looked around the café.
It was nice to get back to civilization
again. Even though he had stopped Death (or a reasonable facsimile thereof; X’on continued to insist that it must have been a ghost with delusions of grandeur) and saved Silpait and the surrounding cities, the folk were not yet ready for their night lives to return to normal. It wasn’t a surprise, considering all they had been through, but it had meant that they needed to keep going. Tonight’s stop was the cosmopolitan Weipare, the largest metropolis in Gedeva and the home of the Goblin’s Gratuity Investigation Guild, motto: Sumus Invenies Eam, Estes Persolvo Nobis: We Find It, You Pay Us. It was simple, direct, and effective. It also wasn't Gloobeec; Ven had no idea what language it was supposed to be, and the Book was mysteriously silent on the subject. But he'd always been a fan.
He did plan on stopping by the Guild house before they continued west, but for now, he and X’on were enjoying a new type of cuisine that was getting popular in the area--food that was prepared before it was ordered, then kept warm by means of dwarven Heating Lamps until it was required. It was a unique experience.
Ven was catching snatches of Gloobeec from the other diners in the café, goblin families dressed to the nines, all out for a night on the town. Weipare was one of the single richest cities in the Known Lands. It was the Goblin homeland, and almost every male goblin of age went into banking, business, or Guild bookkeeping. The cost of living here was far out of Ven’s means, but he and X’on still had some coin left, so a couple of days wasn’t going to hurt. X’on was still munching happily on what was left of Ven’s Fried Skinned Potatoes.
“The things you discover on the road,” he said, his face pure joy. “I would never have thought to use fat and salt so prodigiously on a vegetable!”
“It was pretty great,” Ven agreed, but he was distracted. He’d thought he’d heard, among the babble of background noise, someone say “payday.” And another voice saying, “biggest”.
He cocked his head and glanced at X’on. “Are you catching any of this?”
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