The Fire and the Fog

by David Alloggia

  On his left though, there was a line. A long, continuous line of weary, dirty, slowly shambling people, waiting to do nothing more than join the already growing throng outside of Wraegn. They had been herded there by the church; Dan’r occasionally saw church soldiers patrolling the other side of the road on horseback, making sure the refugees made no trouble, but the church would help them no more. They were being left to the will of their god and Dan’r, even at his best, could not have saved them all.

  ***

  They must have come from Rege, Dan’r thought as he once again moved close to the winding line of exhaustion and dirt. The church soldiers were patrolling on the other side of the line, a fair step away from the road, but Dan’r couldn’t risk being seen. Anytime he heard the trotting of a horse, he would move closer to the refugees, would hope that he looked just as dirty and downtrodden as the rest of them.

  Dan’r was in the middle of them, a church soldier was nearby, taking longer than usual watching the line. Dan’r watched the people, shuffling slowly. Every so often he would see a mother with her children, hear a child crying in the distance, hear someone cough as their exhaustion and malnourishment caught up to them in the form of a cold. Then as he watched, he realized that the refugees were mainly women, and the elderly, almost every one. Heads down, eyes looking like they had given up all hope, the women and the elderly walked slowly towards the nothing that awaited them in Wraegn, and Dan’r suddenly wondered if there would be any riots, he wondered if the combined refugees could muster anything but frightened acceptance.

  Eventually though, Dan’r reached the end of the winding line, his last chance to ask about the fog, his last chance to be like the hero in the stories and help someone. There was an old man at the end, one of the few, walking with his wife. They were both old, and stooped, and the man walked with a limp and a cane, but he looked like he might be able to answer. Dan’r would take some papers from his cloak, and hand him several gold marks when he asked his question. Then he would get his answer, and he would help the man, and his legend would continue, with a little more realism than usual.

  ‘Hello.’ He said simply as he approached the couple, and waited for the old man to respond.

  Surprisingly it was the woman who replied, the old man simply stared forward, fixed on the back of the person in front of him, absently putting one foot after the other as he walked slowly. The woman was just as old as the man, her eyes just as dead, but still she managed to look at Dan’r.

  ‘Yes?’ was all she said, through half-lidded eyes that spoke of exhaustion.

  ‘Where…where do you come from?’

  ‘Holfar.’

  ‘That’s a week’s walk from here, no?’ Dan’r asked, and the woman simply nodded. Even as addled from the alcohol as Dan’r was, he knew he would not get much out of the woman. She had given up.

  ‘You left before the fog?’

  The woman nodded again.

  ‘When did it reach Holfar?’

  ‘One week ago.’

  ‘Where is it now?’ The woman simply shrugged in reply to Dan’r’s last question, then turned and walked back after her husband, not even closing the distance as she walked.

  Dan’r knew he would get no more, so he turned and continued on. It wasn’t until the long cobblestone road from Wraegn turned to dirt, and then sun hit the very edge of the horizon, that Dan’r realized he had not given the old couple the coin. He had not helped them, and they would die, because he was drunk, constantly. He had killed the old man and woman, had killed all of the travelers on that road, just as he had killed the thug in Wraegn. He could have helped them, could have done something, however small, for any of them. His Art would have let him. But the alcohol would not.

  Dan’r sat that night under a low tree just off the road. He sat while the stars and the moon turned above him, while the world and its inhabitants sounded around him, and he paid no notice. He simply sat, staring into the darkness ahead of him, tears rolling down his cheeks as he drank once again.

  III

  Dan’r had his same dream that night, and he thought the same thoughts as he woke. How could he be here, how could he have lost his love, his wife, his life. How could the gods be so cruel. Once again, as they had every morning for longer than Dan’r cared to remember, his hands shook, his yellowed fingertips struggled to open a new wineskin. He always struggled in the morning, always struggled until he had a few large drinks into him, then his mind and hands calmed down again, back into the haze he was used to. He simply wished the haze would cover more of the pain.

  He left the tree early in the morning, before the sun had topped the horizon. He hated to sleep. The longer he slept, the further into his dream he got. It was always worse when he remembered the end, when he remembered the look on Maeglin’s face as she stood in the doorway, the ocean spray soaking her white dress through, her arm reaching towards him as he was swept away. For years he had thought it was sorrow and loss, that it was fear and pain that stained her otherwise perfect face. Now he knew that it was contempt and relief. He drank deeply.

  She had never wanted him, never wanted to be his wife. It had been all him, all Dan’r. He and her father had forced her to marry him. Why would anyone want him. He was lower than dirt. The only reason they had married was her father, and her father had only wanted the prestige Dan’r would bring to his family as an Artist. They didn’t want Dan’r, no-one ever did. No-one ever had. His mother had left early on, leaving him when he was still a child. He could no longer remember anything about her, just the shadow of a woman screaming at his father before slamming the door and running out, never to be seen again. Dan’r drank again.

  His father had blamed him. Blamed him for everything. It was Dan’r that made his wife leave. It was Dan’r that had abandoned the family business, watched without caring as it failed slowly. It was Dan’r who had destroyed his life. Dan’r would never measure up as a merchant, as a son. Why should he even try. Sure, his father had come crawling back briefly when he became an Artist, but that was only for loans to save his struggling business, the same business Dan’r had abandoned. There was never any love for his son. Dan’r walked on, and the sun rose overhead, and the wine grew warmer the less there was in the skein.

  By midday, when the sun was at its height, and beat down the hardest on the empty plains around him, Dan’r had finished his second wineskin. His hands were already shaking as he grabbed unsteadily for one of the remaining pieces of paper in his cloak. He felt only three wineskins left as he pulled one out. He was out of almost everything, and had no paint. He only had a push or two left, and was out of fire, ice, and thunder as well.

  He stopped for a minute when he finally managed to uncork the wineskin. He had never remembered it being that hard, never remembered his hands shaking so violently. The fog in his mind, the haze that seemed to be covering everything made it hard, but for a brief moment lucidity returned to him and he stared at the skein in his hands, stared at the uncorked mouth that stared back at him.

  ‘I’m shaking,’ he thought, and his hands agreed. ‘When did I start shaking? When did I get this bad? Am…am I dying?’ he asked himself these questions and more as he slowly lifted the wine to his lips. He couldn’t understand it, he knew there was something wrong now, more so than ever before, but he couldn’t understand how it had come on so quickly. He was fine the night before, then the fight at the bar, and ever since his mind had been hazier than ever before.

  ‘I need to stop!’ he thought in his last moment of lucidity, then the haze over his mind crawled back, sank its hooks back into his brain, and he drank. His hands stopped shaking and he stumbled on again, oblivious to the sun above him as he dragged his feet slowly, heavily over the rough dirt road.

  The haze was like a heavy blanket thrown over his head, stopping all thoughts from escaping but those that he feared the most. He thought of his wife, and how she had been happy to be free of him, and of his fathers, and how they had used him, and of his
friends. Had he ever even had any friends? He couldn’t remember. And even if he had, they hadn’t been real friends. They had used him, just like everyone else in Alta. That’s all an Artist was there, someone to be used, and then thrown away.

  And it was even worse in Dohm. No-one knew him, but everyone hated and feared him anyway. He was alone on a continent where everyone killed, and he himself killed. He laughed and choked slightly as he drank from his new wineskin, laughed at the refugees from Rege, fleeing the killer fog. If the fog didn’t kill them, the church would, and if the church didn’t kill them, then Dan’r would. They could never escape. No-one could.

  The sun rose and fell overhead and Dan’r walked on without a care in the world, completely oblivious to all around him. All he knew as he walked was that he hurt. The light of the sun hurt his eyes. His head hurt, and the alcohol would not wash away its pain, no matter how hard he tried, no matter how many drinks he took from the skein in his hand. His memories hurt, and nothing had ever been able to wash away that pain.

  He emptied his last wineskin that night when he fell on the side of the road and lay there, ignorant and uncaring of the rocks and dirt that dug into his side. He was out of wine, and there would be no more. His papers wouldn’t help him, his Art wouldn’t help him. He cursed at the wine, at himself, and at the world, mumbling angrily until sleep carried him off to his dream, and he died once again, just as he had every night for twenty years.

  The next morning when he woke the shaking was even worse, and he had nothing to stop it with. He cursed at the world and everything it stood for for the first two hours as he walked, shaking as he screamed at the top of his lungs, telling the grass and the sky and the sun of his hatred for them.

  Well before noon, without warning, Dan’r’s stumbling gait halted, and he fell. His knees and face hit the dry dirt road at the same time, sending small clouds of dust whirling about him. His hands had been too slow to stop his face from hitting the ground, and he could feel them shaking just as he felt blood drip from under his right eyelid and clot quickly in the dirt below. He sucked in air and sand in equal quantities for a while, not caring till he started coughing and retching drily on the road. He wasn’t sure how long it took to pull himself up to his knees, and then stand, but eventually he was on the road again.

  The sun was at its Zenith when he fell for the second time. He only fell to his knees, saving his face another gash, but then he collapsed and rolled over onto his back. He was too hot, his body too parched. It was the cloak’s fault. The cloak and all the Art it held in its inner pockets. He hated it. Hated everything he had ever done, hated everyone he knew, just as they hated him. He unclasped his cloak from his neck and left it there, lying in the road. He grabbed the paper coins he had left, stuffing them carelessly into one of his trouser pockets, and then he was off again, stumbling once more through the hot, dry sun.

  He was in front of a small, one street hamlet when he fell for the third, and last, time.

  He had never been inside this hamlet before; he didn’t even know its name. He did not remember if it had been there the last time he took the north road from Wraegn. All he knew now was that there was a hamlet, and the hamlet would have wine and beer. That, and that it was barricaded.

  He was standing in front of the hamlet, his way blocked by a crude barricade of boxes and barrels. The few villagers must have banded together and blocked off the roads to serve as a measure of protection from bandits. Dan’r didn’t care. He walked slowly towards the barricade, as two youth on the other side yelled at him.

  ‘Stay where you are!’ one yelled, his voice cracking.

  ‘Walk around!’ the other cried, and even through his blurred vision Dan’r could see him waving a rifle awkwardly. ‘Walk around or I’ll shoot!’

  Dan’r tried to yell out that he would pay good money for wine, but the words seemed to get stuck in his throat. He knew he yelled out something about wine, and getting into the hamlet, but as he tried to blink through the haze over his mind, he couldn’t tell exactly what.

  He noticed more villagers coming out of houses, pooling around the barricades, around the two youths with their rifles, and he thought he could hear them yelling at him, but he just couldn’t think straight. If he just kept walking towards them, he was sure he could persuade them he was safe, he could show them the gold, and they would give him wine and everything would be alright. Part of him thought that was a stupid idea, but the haze brushed away his objections, and he stepped forward.

  He stopped abruptly when a thundering gunshot rang out from the barricade, stood wavering when a second rang out a brief second later. The youths, both uncertain and nervous, had pulled the triggers. They had shot at him.

  Dan’r slowly fell to his knees, his face blanching as he patted nervously at his chest, searching for a hole, for blood. But the youths had missed him. He would have laughed, if his throat had not been too parched to do so.

  The world was silent as he sat back hard on his legs and stared, unseeing, at the village.

  A minute later, the villagers started whispering, their hushed voices not reaching Dan’r's ears, and the youth at the barricade reloaded, but no-one left the safety of their barricade to check on him. They simply watched him as he sat, unmoving and unseeing, in front of their hamlet.

  IV

  ‘That was close.’ A voice said to him as he knelt motionless in front of the villagers’ barricade. ‘Shouldn’t you do something? Get up, shoot fire at them. You can do magic, right?’ The voice was taunting, haunting, it chilled Dan’r to the bones, and held him there, motionless. It was his wife. In every way, every tone, every variety of inflection, it was his wife, talking to him in his head.

  ‘Well, of course I’m talking to you in your head, where else would I talk to you from?’ the voice answered his thoughts. No, his wife answered him. But she couldn’t, she was dead. This was wrong.

  ‘Well yes, I am dead. You killed me, remember?’ And he did remember. He remembered pushing her off the boat and into the raging ocean below before he too jumped in and ran away from everything important to him, from everything he had ever known.

  His mouth moved, and Dan’r talked to himself as he knelt, still in the same spot. Why was his wife talking to him? What was he supposed to do now?

  ‘Well obviously you’re supposed to do as you’re told. Now get up, and get moving’ his wife said, and he could imagine her standing beside him, looking down, with one hand planted on each hip in mock anger. No, he couldn’t imagine her, he could see her. She was there.

  ‘Of course I’m here, now get up’ she said, grabbing his arm, and Dan’r stood.

  ***

  Dan’r didn’t notice the hamlet at all as they walked around it in a wide circle, arm in arm.

  They walked on in silence for a while, until they were out of the sight of the village, then his wife turned her head to him. ‘Why did you push me over?’ she asked, her every feature as perfect as he remembered every night. She was still wearing her white dress, damp from the ocean spray.

  ‘I…I don’t…I don’t think I did’ Dan’r stammered, and his wife turned angry.

  ‘Of course you did, don’t try to forget. You killed me. Why? Why don’t you remember?’

  ‘I…I wouldn’t have. I couldn’t have. I’m sorry’

  ‘Sorry isn’t good enough. Turn right up here.’ His wife said, pointing an officious, wet arm at a fork in the road. Dan’r complied.

  Dan’r walked, and his wife nattered away aimlessly. She talked about the friends she had when they lived in Alta, as if they were still there., as if she were catching him up on stories he had missed. She talked about her father, about how beautiful Dan’r’s art was, about how she had been so happy to be married. She just talked. She never really said anything, but somehow she seemed to fill every sentence with the pain she felt that Dan’r had killed her. Even with the guilt that came from her accusing tone, Dan’r was more than happy to just listen to her.

 
; ‘I do not natter on,’ she said, in response to his thoughts, ‘why would you say such a mean thing?’

  ‘Because…because you’re not real. I never killed you.’

  ‘Yes you did, I ran to you, and you pushed me overboard.’

  Dan’r remembered it. He saw it in his head. He saw the tears in her eyes as she ran to him, and how the two of them together managed to stay on the ship, avoid getting blown over by the wave. He remembered running with her towards the open door to their cabin, he remembered grabbing her wet hair, twisting and heaving, and throwing her overboard, he remembered her scream, and the pain in her face as he saw her fly overboard and disappear in the water. He remembered how he ran to the other side of the boat and jumped off, and swam into the distance, and how he woke up, on a new island, free of all the constraints of Arts, free of his wife, just free.

  He remembered it all, and she smiled when she looked at him, like it was ok.

  ‘No…no, I never killed you.’ He said it, and he was sure. He remembered his dream every night. He remembered missing her, loving her, wanting her more than anything else.

  His wife shimmered and disappeared, and Dan’r was alone on the road again, alone with the voice in his head.

  ‘You’re right.’ Dan’r’s voice sounded to himself. ‘Not bad. I almost tricked you, but you saw through it. I’m impressed.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Me? I want what you want. I want to rule everyone, kill everything. Why won’t you help me?’

  ‘I won’t do that, I can’t. Never.’

  ‘It’s causing you more problems than you care to admit. You’re too nice. The church, those thugs, those villagers. Everything would be better if you just killed them all. Don’t pretend you don’t have the power to. You know you can. You know you want to.’