Tapestry of Dark Souls

by Elaine Bergstrom

  “You could have run away,” Jon responded.

  “My master thought the same, so he devised means to keep me in his service. He was a poisoner, though I didn’t find out until later. The potion he put in my food had no taste and no effect. But when I tried to leave him, as he knew I would, the drug faded from my body and pain began, a pain so terrible that all my thoughts centered only on ending its agony.

  “I went back to him and begged forgiveness. He put me in irons in the courtyard of his castle. His other slaves, for that is what we truly were, listened to me scream for two days before his potion ended my pain. After that, I believed I could never leave his service.”

  “How did you escape?”

  Hektor laughed. “By being foolish and very lucky. A man owed my master money and left for Dorvinia without paying the debt. I was given a mount and sent after him to collect it or, if he proved stubborn, to make an example of him. But, when I reached his estate near Lechberg, his men ambushed me.

  “They beat me senseless and carried me away. Sometime on the journey, I woke. I was in the back of the wagon and when I raised my head all saw around me were barren rocks. A harsh, frigid wind lifted dust into my eyes and, through my tears, I saw that those who guarded me had their faces covered to protect against it. Some time later, the wagon stopped and the guards rolled me off the wagon and left me, bound hand and foot, beneath the midday sun. By the time I managed to free myself, the wagon had disappeared, its tracks destroyed by the incessant wind.

  “My master had assumed I would be gone a day or two, no more. That would have been a long enough time to make me uncomfortable, though hardly in any real pain. Instead, I had been abandoned in what I later learned was G’Henna. As the effects of the potion wore off, the torture began.”

  Hektor looked at the land that had nearly claimed his life as he went on. “In agony, I suffered through that night and the next. On the third day, I found a stream and drank some brackish water. It forestalled my death, but didn’t end my pain. Eventually I ran upon a path that led into the hills where there might be some shelter from the wind.”

  He paused. The boy knew nothing of the cloth. Though Hektor disagreed with the order’s belief that Jon’s calling must come before his knowledge of the tapestry, he was oath-bound to respect it. Nonetheless, the boy looked at him expectantly, and Hektor went on. “Night was coming when I heard chanting. I headed in the direction of the sound and staggered into the fortress where the Guardians had just begun … their evening prayers. They were so caught up in their ceremony that at first they didn’t notice me.

  “In that moment it seemed that my past was crying out to me. I had a choice—to go or to stay. I moved toward them, shouting one curse after another, anything to get their attention. Leo turned to me. And Dominic. They drew me into their circle. I let myself collapse and, pressed against the ground, I prayed to whatever gods they worshipped that my curse be lifted from me.”

  “And was it?” Jon asked, his voice filled with awe.

  “Not directly. Leo tried to help me, but didn’t have the skill. Later, he brought Ivar from Linde. Ivar knew of ways to lessen my agony. It took weeks for the pain to leave me completely, but, when it was gone, I was free for the first time in my life. There were many things I could have done with my life. I chose to remain here with the others. Like the others, I have never regretted it.”

  “I would like to stay as well.”

  Jon was only seventeen. So ignorant, Hektor thought. So ready to abandon all the possibilities of a world he had never known. “You should live for a time in the world outside these walls before you decide that,” Hektor said.

  Hektor was giving support to a suggestion Dominic had already made. “Dominic says I don’t have to go far,” Jonathan thought aloud. He looked at Hektor and went on. “He spoke of a town called Linde in Tepest.”

  “Come with me,” Hektor stood and gave Jon a hand up. Jon followed him to the opposite side of the fortress and down a footpath that led to a high cliff overlooking Tepest. The land was green and a river ran through the center of it. Hektor pointed to the valley. “Linde is just across the river. How far away do you suppose that is?”

  Jon brightened. “Close enough for me to visit.”

  “Exactly.” The huge monk hugged him. “No one would ever close these doors to you.”

  A bell sounded in the great hall, summoning Jon to help prepare the evening meal. “Thank you,” Jon said and ran up the path to the fortress.

  Jon thought of Hektor’s final words throughout the meal. In spite of his usual nightly sleep potion, Jon lay awake, trying to decide what to do. Moonlight streamed through the cracks in his shutters, throwing strange shadows on his chamber walls. On the edge of sleep, he heard a whisper in the familiar voice that always sounded so much like his own. “Leave the monks. They can teach you nothing anymore.”

  “Leave,” he responded. As always, he was half convinced the thought was entirely his own. Hektor’s words blended with the whispered ones.

  He was still debating what to do the following morning when he sat with Leo in one of the upstairs rooms, studying as he had for so many years.

  He had started learning simple spells from Leo soon after he had been taught to read. At first the lessons were no more than tricks, a way of testing his talent, discretion, and dedication. His natural memorization ability served him well, though the gestures that accompanied the words were as difficult for him to master as they would have been for any novice. However, as time passed, Jon began to show an aptitude for magic well beyond his years.

  Nonetheless, Leo doled out his wisdom in small, miserly pieces. Though he would sometimes let Jon light the hearth in the great hall or start the cooking fires with a word and a gesture, he taught Jon only enough to assure his survival in Markovia. “The hills around are filled with enemies. Markov, the beast lord, dwells to the east. He leaves us alone because we live in hiding in a fortress that the beast-men think haunted. Do nothing to draw attention to us.”

  “What’s the use of learning this if I can’t use it?” Jon once complained.

  “For protection. But if you display your power outside these walls for any reason except to save your life, I’ll burn your spellbook. Do you understand?”

  After this threat, Jon strove to always be properly respectful. If he assured his teacher of his sincere desire to obey, Leo would continue to allow him to copy the spells he had perfected into his own book. If he was particularly well-behaved, Leo would teach him a new spell or two. But, despite his words, Jon found himself more often than not set to work perfecting a spell he already knew. If he said the slightest word of reproach, his lessons would stop altogether, sometimes for weeks, leaving him frustrated and furious.

  Leo’s discipline had the opposite effect the monk hoped for. Jonathan knew that he had great native power for magic. As the years passed, his desire to use it grew, rather than diminished. Sometimes he thought he would do anything to acquire the knowledge to wield it.

  When Dominic first suggested that he leave, Jonathan was filled with a familiar panic. The farthest he had strayed beyond the fortress was into the scrub around to hunt rabbits. But the more Jon considered the matter, the less panicked he felt. He’d met Ivar a few times and knew he had been Leo’s teacher. Perhaps Ivar would teach him as well. The prospect of learning more magic from someone who might encourage his talent might be a compelling enough reason to leave the fortress, Jon thought. He’d hardly mourn leaving Mattas, would actually relish saying good-bye to Leo. He’d miss Peto and Dominic, though. As for Hektor, the thought of leaving the huge gentle man for more than a day or so filled Jonathan with sorrow. Nonetheless, tomorrow he would go to the river to get a glimpse of Linde. By that evening, he hoped to have reached a decision.

  The smell of yeast always hung in the air of The Nocturne—yeast rising in the bread and bubbling through the ale. The heady scent mixed with the fruity aroma of fermenting Linde wine—a blend of grapes and cl
oudberries famous through Tepest and Nova Vaasa for its taste and potency. Famous also for its price—paid in lives lost in cloudberry harvests.

  The berries grew near water—on the steep hillsides on either side of the river and on the edges of upland bogs in the high valleys above the grazing lands. The berry patches were widely separated, and each yielded only a few pails of berries. Due to the isolation and size of the berry patches, harvesters worked in small groups, which made them vulnerable.

  In some harvests, no workers died, but in many others, tragedy struck. Sudden, fierce storms sometimes swept down from northern hills like an invading force, toppling trees onto workers, freezing them in the wilderness, or flinging them from the narrow mountain paths. Others would slip and be dragged into the icy, turgid river, or fall from a sheer face to the valley below. Just as often, people would simply disappear never to be found again

  The Tepest goblins were most vicious in the autumn, gathering for winter, so most townsfolk blamed them for the harvest deaths. Others believed that creatures more deadly lay in wait, knowing that when the harvest came, so would their chance for tender meat. No mother would let a young child go to the harvest; the young village children spent the harvest days at the inn. There, they were tended by some of the older girls, who drew lots to decide the privilege of staying behind.

  Though she had lived in Linde nearly two years, tomorrow would be Sondra’s first year helping with the cloudberry harvest. Even so, she would get little rest tonight. The harvesters would be hungry after their day’s work. Since her father and uncle owned the winery, adjoined to the rear of The Nocturne, it was the inn’s responsibility to provide the workers’ food. Sondra had just finished adding flour and honey to her aunt’s dough starter when she heard a scratching on the tiles of the roof. A hungry raccoon, lost and starving after last night’s storm, had probably smelled the dough, Sondra thought. She thumped the broom handle on the ceiling to scare it off. Something skittered down the roof, and Sondra continued with her work, determined to do everything perfectly this time so that her aunt would have no reason to scold her.

  Instead of leaving, the shape on the roof moved stealthily from the tiles above the kitchen to the dense mass of stick and wattle that covered the inn’s tavern. The storm had weakened a section of it, and the creature paused there, rooting its flat face in the sticks. With sensitive, pointed ears, it listened to the people moving within.

  “You’ll not be picking tomorrow, eh Mihal?” Andor called to a drunken patron sitting alone in the corner.

  “Nor any day,” Mihal replied, his voice slurred. “Someone’s got to tend the barn and protect the little ones left behind.” The man laid his knife on the table and ran his finger down its long, curved blade. “Besides, I’ve little use for the wine. Ale’s the drink of men, after all.”

  “Of men without coin, you mean,” a patron called to him. His companions, circling the bar, hooted in agreement.

  “Of men!” Mihal insisted. “Cheap. Plentiful. I’ll take another mug of it, Andor.”

  “If you’re able to come and get it.”

  “I can come.” Mihal managed to push himself to his feet and take a single step before admitting defeat and falling back into his chair. “I guess I’ll settle for this,” he grumbled and soon after lowered his head to the table and slept, snoring loudly.

  The men at the bar were planning how to make this harvest safer than the last. Eventually they grew tired of Mihal’s noise and moved their discussion to one of the long tables in the dining hall, leaving Mihal alone in the dimly-lit tavern. After they had been gone for some time, the creature on the roof began digging through the sticks, listening all the while for the footsteps of someone awake and wary.

  Sondra had just put the loaves in the oven when she heard a soft whistle coming from the tavern. She paused and listened, then returned to her work until a second, less familiar sound caught her attention. Brushing the flour from her hands, she went to the door beside the bar, stood, and listened.

  The sound came again, a sighing as if the room itself were breathing. Sondra felt a cold draft and glanced at the door, surprised to see that it was closed and latched.

  “Mihal?” she called, walking to the far corner of the room, where the drunken man lay motionless, his head on the table. “Mihal? Are you all right?”

  Her only reply was the breeze curling slowly around her feet like a hungry cat.

  She had just stretched out her hand to touch the man when she heard the rustling of the wind in the stick roof above her. She looked up and saw the hole.

  “Mihal!” she whispered and shook the man. As she did, he fell sideways out of the chair. The blood from his cut neck had pooled on the table, dripping slowly onto the white bones that were all that remained of his legs. The knife he might have used to defend himself was gone.

  A scream caught in Sondra’s throat. She gripped her neck, trying to make some sound, trying to see the creatures scurrying through the shadows beneath the tables. She sensed that they were measuring her terror and waiting confidently for her next move. Mute, shaking, certain that if she encountered the things that had devoured Mihal, she would be as easy prey as he had been, she backed toward the kitchen door.

  As she turned to bolt for the kitchen, she saw one of them standing in her path. Its hairy arms and legs were a grotesque imitation of human limbs, its flat face expressionless save for a dull, predatory intelligence. Though it was shorter than Sondra, the red-skinned little monster was far more muscular, and it gripped Mihal’s knife in one hand. Sondra stepped backward, moving slowly away from it. The creature began scratching at its piecemeal armor and gibbering softly in a harsh and high-pitched voice—sounds impossible for a human throat to produce. Behind her, another of its kind answered, then a third.

  Sondra tried to scream again, but the only sounds she could make were strangled grunts of fear. Though she could hear the men talking in the dining hall behind the tavern, her cries attracted no more attention than a pot falling in the kitchen. She wouldn’t think of Mihal and how silently the goblins had taken him. No, instead she concentrated on how close the men were, and how the noise of any attack on her would bring them running.

  Perhaps the beasts sensed this as well because the two closest to her padded silently to the main door and pulled it open. The well-oiled hinges made scarcely any sound. The third bolted after the pair, pausing to turn and study her a moment longer, its head cocked sideways, its dark, deep-set eyes glowing in the light from the kitchen. Then, as silently as it had arrived, it was gone.

  Sondra closed and bolted the door after them, then rushed to the window and, peering through a crack in the shutter, saw the trio race away through the night streets. Checking the lock on the window, Sondra returned, shaken, to the kitchen. No one would know what a coward she was, she vowed as she buried her hands in the dough. The men had heard nothing. Neither had she.

  As she worked, Sondra’s fear began to grow. How could she go into the forest tomorrow when the beasties would be everywhere? She had thought the tales of harvest deaths were legends designed to frighten children into obedience. Now Sondra knew the truth. And it terrified her.

  Her hands shook as she lifted them from the bread, shook as she stirred down another batch of rising dough. The men were filing into the drinking hall. She heard one of them swear, the sound of a chair being overturned as the men rushed toward Mihal’s body. A moment later, her uncle ran into the kitchen. “Are you all right?” he asked, hugging her tightly. “Did you see anything? Hear anything?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing,” she replied, surprised that she could speak at all.

  Early the next morning, Sandra stole into the kitchen and tossed all her dolls into the cooking fire. In the two years since she had come to Tepest to live with her father, they had been her only close companions, their tiny wooden bodies and delicately painted features reminding her of mother and home. The dolls’ house, a miniature duplicate of the one she had aband
oned in Gundarak, was a home she could take with her wherever she went. Her mother had made it in the months before the sad woman had gone away.

  Gone away was Sondra’s chosen phrase. Even though she had watched her mother slowly languish and die by Gundar’s terrible decree, the words meant that her mother might, through some magic of her father’s, be restored to life. Sondra dreamed that she might leave her father’s cluttered rooms in the rear of The Nocturne, walk down the road, and find her mother waiting, her arms outstretched.

  Gone away was easier to say than dead.

  But dead was the real word, and now Sondra decided she must destroy all reminders of the life she had lost. The fire in Aunt Dirca’s stove flared and died with each small addition.

  When all the dolls had burned to ashes, Sondra put the first of the loaves into the oven. In turn, she drew out the small, fully baked breakfast rolls and filled a bowl with them. After spreading them with butter and jam, she carried them down the narrow, curving stair to her father’s study, in the cavern below the inn.

  She rarely went into the cavern unless he summoned her. The subterranean darkness frightened her in much the same way that the beasts had. She never quite understood why he chose to work in such secrecy. He had told her once that the powers of Tepest would seek him out if they knew of his existence, but then he had added, in a conspiratorial tone, that Tepest was a far safer home than Gundarak had been. It was true. Here, she could walk through the daylit town alone without fear, and here the word “someday” meant only a vague promise, not a whispered defiance to the lord of the land. Indeed, if her father hadn’t told her that someone must rule Tepest, she would have believed that Linde and Viktal and all the other towns were kingdoms unto themselves.