by Darryl Fabia
Then the sides began to writhe and sway like grass in the wind. The bricks tugged back at the chains, drawing the horse teams and their riders into a swirling storm of colors. Korophel whipped his steed to flee, but the tendrils of the house grasped for him, for his warriors, for their dogs and horses and servants, for the grass, the wind, the earth, armor, weapons, supplies, everything sucked in by the power released from the broken, beautiful house of dreams and promises.
The nightmare spun and screeched until it had erased the divisions between blade and flesh, dog and horse, man and earth, all melted together in a rotting mound capped by a giant, horned skull made of iron. The house was gone and Corpse Hill stood where it had been, the final resting place of the warlord Korophel and his mighty warband.
But not the resting place of Delirah and Ramire. Had you the will and stomach to pick apart Corpse Hill, you wouldn’t find a speck of either. Some say the house sent them to the land of dreams, while others say they learned of a great promise where they might exist in all things. Some say they became the beautiful power within. No one knows for certain.
The Shadows are Coming
In the cold lands, Branya’s mother kept a blanket with the girl to fight back the chill of winter, and Branya kept it close in fear of the shadows. The family couldn’t burn a fire in any room but the den, and while its warmth stretched to all but the fringes of the house, its shadows seemed to creep everywhere. Even in Branya’s room, in the dark of night, when the fire shrank and clung weakly to charred splinters of woods, its light cast shadows through her doorway.
“You will not grow brave when you’re fearing the shadows of our home,” her father Tumark said. “Better you know that you’re safe here, and fear only men.” Tumark was a man of the town watch, but he had friends in the czar’s army, some of whom had friends in their commanding officers, and so Tumark often knew the goings-on of raiding vagrants and foreign invaders.
Branya’s father was brave beyond her understanding, and her fear was beyond his—he could not see the shadows or the fear they struck in her. All he saw was a daughter he loved.
There came a night when Branya couldn’t sleep. Her parents were arguing somewhere, their voices muffled but their tones vehement, and worse, the shadows were livelier with the grand fire, built strong to fight the winter cold. She faced the wall beside her bed and forced her eyes closed, but the shadows danced on the wall and flickered through her eyelids. So she got up in hopes that her father might know what to do.
“They’re coming,” she heard him say to her mother. “This is our village and home. I will not flee. The guard must fight.”
“Then we stay here,” her mother said to him. “We’ll freeze to death if we hide in the woods through the night anyway.”
When her parents turned from each other in disgust, Branya tugged her father’s pants and told him of the fearsome shadows. Tumark’s mood remained dark and pensive, but he scooped his little daughter into his arms and carried her back to her room.
“Ignore the shadows,” he told her. “Put your blanket over you and hide, for it might mean your life. If you must, no matter what your mother tells you, run into the woods. Keep the blanket over you tight and stay warm, stay alive, under any circumstance.” He then kissed her cheek, put the blanket over her, and marched back through the house, grabbing his sword along the way. The front door opened and closed with a gust of wind and Branya’s father was gone, off to fight some enemy she was supposed to fear worse than the shadows.
They danced on the wall once her father had left her, but she did as he said and tucked the blanket over her body. It covered her feet, her legs, her chest and arms, and finally she pulled it over her head. The warmth soaked into her clothes and skin, and while the shadows were still there, unseen, she could feel safe under the cover knitted by her mother.
Her eyes fluttered open again in the middle of the night, when the fire had died down, yet still cast enough light for tiny shadows to creep into her room. Only tonight they seemed to be large shadows—not the narrow lines cast by embers in charred wood, but the wide pillars of darkness made by men. She heard commotion outside, and screaming, and more shadows broke through her window, as if a great fire had engulfed their neighbor’s home. The shadows sprayed over the room like running women and armed men, like sword points and devil horns, and Branya knew only one place safe from shadows.
The blanket swept over her head, covering all her body, and she sat motionless on the bed, hoping the dancing shadows would carry their parade off to some other town, to dance in its fires. She did not move when she heard stamping in the den and didn’t make a peep when she heard her mother’s scream. Nothing moved before her eyes but the shadow-free darkness of the blanket’s inside.
Heavy feet stomped in the doorway and Branya’s breath rattled out through chattering teeth. These shadows were the biggest, she was sure, heavy enough to make noises like the other shadows couldn’t. They laughed too, as if their dance had amused them, and then she felt the heat of them through the blanket. No wonder these shadows were so great—they carried a fire with them so there would always be light to make them.
“What’s this one?” a voice asked. “Someone’s child?”
“Another for the pile,” another, gruffer voice answered.
The two men raised their swords while Branya sat petrified, terrified of shadows the two raiders weren’t aware of, and they thought they’d found an easier kill than the squealing babe they’d yanked from a young woman’s arm in the last house. Yet when their swords hit the blanket, one man’s ricocheted off like he’d slashed at a steel shield, and the other split from its hilt. They cursed, confused, and the one with an intact sword tried running Branya through. His blade bent, crumpling like paper, and both men believed there had to be an enchantment here.
One reached out for the blanket to pull it free of Branya. He would keep it for himself, beneath his clothes, a better protection than any shield or armor. Yet when he touched the wool, his fingers became tangled in the knitting, and when he tried pulling back, his hand came free, but his fingers remained stuck in the blanket.
Shouting in pain and panic, the two men returned to the den and snatched up what remained of the fiery logs in the fireplace. Then one grabbed an oil lamp from the kitchen. One burned his finger stumps on the log to stop the bleeding, and then laid the fiery wood on Branya’s bed. The other stood at the girl’s bedroom doorway, hefted back, and tossed the lamp onto the floor. Oil sprayed over the room, touching the log’s embers, and then flames tore through the wooden walls, the cloth of the bed, and engulfed the room.
“Let us leave, before the fire catches us too,” said one man, and the two quickly fled the house. Half the village burned, but the raiders seemed to be losing, and the two who’d entered Branya’s house and slain her mother retreated into the woods with their comrades.
Tumark didn’t return until dawn. He’d lost a half-dozen friends in the fighting near the frozen river and beating back the marauders there had taken the town watch away from the village. He would’ve preferred to lose another half-dozen friends if it meant changing what had become of his home. A square of black ash awaited him where once there had been a wife and child. Not a single wall stood, not a piece of furniture remained bigger than Tumark’s thumb, and he hoped against all glaring truth that his daughter had run into the woods, though he knew that was where the retreating raiders had gone.
“We should have fled,” he said, falling to his knees in the snow. “I shouldn’t have fought.”
Something shuffled in the ashes and he looked up. He was afraid then that he’d seen a ghost of his daughter, one that would haunt him all his days for leaving her to fend for herself with a mother who refused to flee. Only this ghost hugged him and began crying, and a knitted blanket fell from her shoulders as he picked her up. He stroked her back and held her head against his chest, vowing to build a new house, a safer one, and promised his daughter that the shadows would do no
thing to her ever again.
When Tumark looked back to the ashes to fetch his daughter’s blanket, to protect her against the cold, he saw only a new pile of ash flaking across the snow, drifting from a cluster of small, white chunks that resembled a man’s finger bones.
The Cold Thing
There are things that winter brings, and things that winter makes.
There are things in winter that want, and things in winter that take.
On a cold winter’s eve, Ann awoke in the darkness. Every candle in the house had been snuffed out. Something scratched at a wood floor, like a small creature running, and Ann leaned over to her bedside drawer for a match. Her hand pawed blindly until she found one in her rummaging, but she might’ve run instead had she known she was watched by the cold thing.
Ann heard the scratching again as she clutched the long match in her fist, and didn’t know if the sound came from out in the hall or from within the room until something heavy struck her from behind, clouding her head in blackness. Her breath struggled in and out, like her face was covered by a damp cloth. She struggled to fully awaken too, drifting in and out of consciousness.
At last, she shuddered awake from the stinging at her fingers and toes, a spiteful chill creeping over her arms, her legs, and under her clothes. She’d been dropped flat on her belly on a tree-spotted, snowy slope in the dark of night, and two other girls lay nearby. Then she heard a scraping from something in the snow, and spied a rail-thin figure vanishing swiftly into the night, and dragging a sack behind it. Its burlap surface had dampened on the bottom half, darkening most heavily against the ground, and it left a dark streak in the snow to the point where it vanished too.
Ann clambered to her hands and knees and shook the other girls’ shoulders. Like her, they were clothed only in nightgowns, and one sported a dark splotch in her fair hair. She urged them to wakefulness, to awareness of their place in the snow, on a slope of sparse trees, and of their abductor lingering near.
Again came the scratching and scraping, something slipping over the snow, and Ann struck her match over one calloused finger, to give she and the girls a light for their way. Something stood in front of her as the match dragged over her skin, and was gone again when the tiny flame bloomed beneath her face.
She wondered for a moment what this thing was that stole people from houses and shied away from fire, and then it showed its liking for the girls when the fair-haired one shrieked that something had grasped at her leg. Ann carried her tiny flame to a weathered old stump, barely a black splotch on the white snow, and shredded some of her gown from behind her neck to help set the wood alight. The fire sputtered and threatened to die more than once, but quickly the fabric’s flames caught the wood and the three girls clustered close. They grabbed at small sticks and twigs within range of the firelight, to drop on the stump and keep the fire burning.
All the while, the cold thing watched the girls.
They huddled close for warmth, all three being cold, and they huddled in fear, though they didn’t know each other. They waited while watching the fire, and they waited while warily watching the night, and after long enough of watching the fire, it again began to sputter and die.
Ann decided that one girl must fetch sticks and twigs that hadn’t been taken yet, ones beyond the fire’s light. They pulled hairs from her head and drew for the short one, and the dark-haired girl lost the draw. Ann and the fair-haired girl urged her to take a charred stick from the stump, a bit of embers to protect her and light her way.
She took her time stepping barefoot through the snow, away from the safe, warm glow, and the fire weakened a little more before the girl faded from view. The soft embers of the charred stick shown through the darkness a bit longer than the girl, but grew more and more distant at each step. At last, the darkness swallowed the light, and silence swallowed the girl’s steps.
Ann and the fair-haired girl waited a while more, watching for the girl to reappear. Their fire shrank lower and fainter by the moment. They called out for the girl, begged her to return, even if she hadn’t found firewood, but her face didn’t emerge from the darkness, and not a sound answered but the chilly wind.
All the while, the cold thing watched the girls.
Ann decided one of the two must try again for something to burn, or else both would die with the fire, but the other girl only shook her head. Even when Ann pulled out another few of her own hairs, the girl wouldn’t play at drawing them. Ann wouldn’t herself go unfairly, but her game of chance gave her another idea. She pulled out one clutch of her hair, and then a few more, and fed the strands to the weary flames. Then she held the other girl’s head in her arms and began to pluck out each strand, letting the fire eat the hair so fair.
The stump seemed desperate, barely helped by the offering, and so Ann grew desperate too. Despite the chill nipping at her skin, she tore off her nightgown, and the other girl’s too, and gave them up to be burned. Now their skin ran with bumps and their teeth chattered, and the small fire ate their clothes faster than they liked. Bald and naked, it once again came time for one to fetch wood, and neither girl would go.
Ann shoved the once fair one, and they tussled in the bitter snow. A fist hit a wound on the back of Ann’s head and she jabbed her own into the dark stain on the other girl’s skull. They tossed and rolled, scratching and shoving, until Ann pressed the girl down, her knee in the gut, one hand at the throat, and the other hand clamped over the girl’s mouth and nose.
She wriggled and kicked at Ann and the snow, and ran sharp nails through Ann’s skin. Her wide, wild eyes begged for air and freedom, but found Ann’s cold eyes unrelenting. After a minute, the squirming weakened like the fire, and after two, the kicking ceased. After three, Ann lifted her bloodied hands away and moaned over what had become of her.
All the while, the cold thing watched the girl.
Curling her arms under the other’s breathless chest, Ann dragged the girl toward the stump and laid the lifeless body into the flames, which they eagerly lapped up. She cringed by the livening fire, alone and nipped by cold, and she watched the once fair-haired girl melt away, layer by layer, from skin to bones.
The fire lived through the night and dawn found Ann sitting in a pit of dampened embers. Scant sunlight rewarded her waiting and patience. The cold thing was gone. Now she waited for nothing, cross-legged, naked and bald, and her breath barely made a mist. Her skin ran red from the freezing night and she’d never again move certain fingers or toes. A blackened skull sat in her lap, and to Ann’s fortune, it didn’t struggle, scream, moan or kick.
There are things that winter asks for, and things that winter takes.
And there are things that take for winter, and things left in winter’s wake.
Serpent's Tongue
Once there was a small village with the curious tradition of sending its betrothed maidens to the wisest of its women, so that they might receive blessings on their engagements. Sometimes this wise-woman happened to be a witch called Modee, as was the case when three sisters sought her blessing on the same day.
The youngest sister was betrothed to a kind stable worker. The middle sister loved a farmhand, who would someday inherit his father’s land. The eldest, Angelina, had her claws on a shopkeeper. The first two received the witch’s blessing, leaving the little hut with smiles, but when Angelina asked of her match, Modee shook her head.
“Why not?” the eldest asked. “Are your eyes so old you cannot see a good match?”
“You’re a harsh girl,” the witch said. “You will break this soft man’s spirit. Better you marry a hardened warrior, and a witless one, so your cruel words will be lost upon him.”
Most women of the village would have accepted Modee’s judgment, for in the presence of the wise-woman, they gained the wisdom to fear a witch. But Angelina had never been wise, and so rather than bow her head, she opened her mouth again.
“You couldn’t understand me and my Rufford. So tarnished is your beauty, you scarc
ely remember having a man. Perhaps you should step down as wise-woman so that another might make matches, one more skilled in love than witchcraft.”
“I gave wisdom,” the witch said, her mood darkening. “But if you came seeking witchcraft, you and your serpent’s tongue will have it. Go to your Rufford.”
Sending Angelina to her betrothed was as good as blessing her, the girl reasoned, and she quickly left the hut for Rufford’s shop. Along the way she found a woman out hanging clothes on a laundry line. “Hello, Angelina. How did your visit go with Modee?”
Angelina opened her mouth to say, “How do you think it went?” when her tongue grew into a fanged snake and bit into the woman’s throat. She stumbled and fell, crying out for help, and Angelina darted away, fearing the snake would get her too.
Soon after, she passed a farmer on his way to market. “Hello, Angelina. How goes the wise witch?”
Angelina kept her distance and opened her mouth to say, “A serpent’s chasing me, and I fear it’s from that old hag,” when her tongue grew into an angry cobra, spitting its venom in the farmer’s face. He stumbled and fell, cursing in pain, and Angelina ran away, realizing now that the snake had come from her.
“That evil witch has cursed me,” she tried to say, but another viper sprouted from her tongue and sank its poisonous fangs into a little dog as it ran past. “She will pay for this insult,” Angelina wished to announce, but her tongue became a hissing asp and its bite killed a small bird, innocently flying by.
When Angelina at last reached Rufford’s shop, she hid herself in the corner, facing the wall to keep him safe. Her betrothed emerged from the back of the store. “What’s wrong, my love?” he asked. “Did the wise-woman not give her blessing?”
“She gave it, all right, and a curse too, so don’t come near,” Angelina warned. Or she would have, except now her tongue grew into an enormous python, stretching over her shoulder, across the shop, and coiling around Rufford. In one swift flex of its serpentine muscles, it snapped all his bones and swallowed him in a single bite.
