Chapter 4
The very instant she closed her eyes, Myranda found herself transported to the blackened field that had poisoned her sleep the night before. Fear and desperation filled her as she searched for some remnant of the light she had remembered. In the distance, a handful of faint, flickering lights seemed to beckon to her. She ran toward them--but, one by one, the shining embers flickered out.
The ground became uneven and she stumbled, feeling the cold, dead grass crunch beneath her palms. Unwilling to waste even the time to stand, Myranda crawled toward the lights. There was a feeling within her that if she looked away for even a moment, the last piece of light would be lost to her forever. A sudden coldness beneath her hand startled her, and she reflexively closed her fingers around it. Whatever it was that she had found, it was firmly planted in the frigid earth. She wanted to move forward, but at the same time, she could not bring herself to let go of the freezing object she'd found. She pulled and strained, finally looking to the artifact she had stumbled upon.
Even as she could feel the speck of golden light in the distance flit away forever, she saw the item she'd found replace it. It was a lantern, and the second her eyes met the wick, it fizzled to life. In the oppressive blackness, the dim flame seemed blinding. When her eyes painfully adjusted, she rubbed them to find that the world she was accustomed to had returned. The light she blinked at was the handful of rays that made it through the heavy curtains. The dream was over.
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Blinking the sleep from her eyes was a matter of moments. Shaking the powerful emotions and painful throbbing from her head was another matter. She looked in vain for a basin or such to at least wash her face, but the room was rather poorly stocked. Dejected, she slowly gathered her things and laced her boots. When she was certain she had everything, particularly the sword, she entered the hallway, locked the door behind her, and sought out her only intact pocket to place the key. On the way to the stairs, she stopped in front of the door she'd seen Leo at the day before. After a long moment she continued on, deciding to let him sleep.
The tavern was a very different place in the wee hours of the morning. Pale light from the cloudy morning sky replaced the warm light of candle and lamp. The only motion was the stirring of flies upon a half-finished plate of food left by an unsatisfied customer the night before. Where had been a room full of rowdy patrons now was only one, a filthy man who'd had a bit too much of the ale and made a pillow of his leftover cabbage.
Behind the bar was a wiry young fellow, likely the owner's son. He'd leaned his chair against the wall and gazed lazily into space through a few greasy locks that hung in front of his half-closed eyes. Myranda approached him, hopeful of procuring a few pieces of the meat from last night. In her experience, if the meat was past its prime, the kitchen would usually part with it free of charge. It might not be tasty, but it would be nourishing, and so long as it filled her stomach, she was satisfied.
"Sir?" she said.
He did not react.
"Um, sir?" she repeated loudly.
She waved her hand before his eyes, only to hear a long, grating snore. She shook her head. It was one thing to sleep on the job, but teaching one's self to do so with open eyes was quite a trick. He had earned the sleep, she would not rouse him. Her stomach already grumbling, she pushed the door open slightly. A biting wind blew some stray snowflakes into her face. She paused for a moment to pull up her heavy hood and fasten its frayed cord, all the while letting the arctic breeze whisk inside. Once she had finished preparing herself, she opened the door fully.
Despite her precautions against it, the full force of the wind passed right through the cloak. There was a time when it had been as thick and warm as the ones that nine out of ten of her fellow northerners wore, but time and use had rendered it thin and ragged. The sleeping innkeeper shifted uncomfortably as the cold air found its way to him. Myranda glanced back at the motion, suddenly reminded of something she needed to do. She walked up to the counter and dug the room key out of her pocket. The groggy keeper gave a glance of acknowledgment and drifted back to sleep.
Again, she pushed open the door and faced the blast of wind from outside. The vague white light from the clouds reflected off of the barely disturbed snow. Her slowly-adjusting eyes glanced at the mottled gray sky and dark horizon of the nearby Rachis Mountains to the east. The colorless landscape did little for her sour mood, as the chosen beverage of the night gone by made its presence known as a dull, constant ache in her head.
Finally, she could see well enough to take in the more specific sights around her. A scattering of the town's residents were up and about in these first hours of daylight. Five were huddled together against the wind, all but one wearing the ubiquitous drab gray cloak. She began to look away when the inn door swung open to allow yet another cloak-clad, faceless villager into the cold. The newcomer stood briefly beside the others, not even evoking a glance from them. It then turned and waved at Myranda with a familiar black-gloved hand. The figure, indistinguishable from the others, rushed over to her.
"Leo?" asked Myranda as the figure approached.
"Indeed," came his familiar voice. He hunched over a bit, turned his hooded head to and fro slowly, and slouched. "The bed is a devious invention, letting one sleep until after sunup. Some folks need the dawn to catch their breakfast."
"Why are you slouching?" she asked.
"I am still tall enough to draw attention. On a bright day like this, the shadowy face can seem a bit suspicious," he explained quietly.
"So I suppose you are moving on then," she surmised.
"As quickly as possible. It was fine meeting you--" he began.
"Well, now, wait a moment. I am quite through with this town. We could walk a bit together. I would appreciate a friendly ear for a few minutes more," Myranda offered.
"Wonderful, as long as we do so quickly," Leo agreed.
The pair moved swiftly out of town. Fresh snow crunched beneath their feet, and a stiff and constant wind blew in their faces, but they made sure to keep a quick pace until they were well outside the village walls. When Leo was satisfied they were quite alone, he slowly straightened and tugged his hood back enough to break its spell and reveal his face. His return to his full posture was accompanied by a sigh. Myranda shook her head.
"I am so sorry that you have to live like this," she said, nearly sickened by the behavior of her own people.
"Oh, it is not so bad. I only spend time in a city once in a great while," he said.
"It should not be that way. I honestly do not see how you could treat me so kindly when my people have never done the same to you. How can you put the anger aside?" she asked.
"You must remember that at least half of my interactions with other races are in the form of combat. When every alternate memory you have of a human consists of forcibly delivering him into an unwelcome slumber, and getting paid quite well to do so, the anger tends to fade a bit," he said with a grin.
Myranda nodded. She tried to picture this thoughtful, helpful gentleman in battle, but it seemed absurd. As her mind wandered, she casually rubbed her sore palm with her right thumb.
"How is it coming?" Leo asked.
"Pardon? Oh, the burn. Very well. Thanks for the advice. It itches a bit, but not nearly as it had yesterday," she said. In fact, it had recovered so much, she had forgotten to bandage it that morning.
"Let's have a look," he said, stopping to gently take her hand into his gloved hands. He looked it over thoughtfully. Over the night the redness had all but disappeared, leaving a thin, raised area where the red had been.
"There will be a scar. Two of them. Here and here. If you want to keep them small, leave the bandage off and don't scratch at it," Leo advised.
"You are starting to sound like my uncle," she said as he released her hand.
"The man must have given some fine advice," he said.
The pair continued on.
"So, how long can I expect your company?" Myranda a
sked hopefully.
"Until I find a decent hunting ground to live off of for a few days. A pine forest will do," he said.
"I hope we do not find one. I would hate to have to say goodbye," she said.
"We all say goodbye in time. I always say it is a good bye when we choose it and a bad one when we are forced. As such, I much prefer good byes," he said. "And besides, I am long overdue for a time in the wilderness."
"Don't you ever get lonely?" Myranda asked.
"Now and again. Woodland creatures are a fine lot, but engaging conversation is not among their talents," he said.
"So you can speak with animals?" asked Myranda, intrigued.
"I am speaking with you, aren't I?" he pointed out.
"I mean besides humans. Can you speak with creatures who cannot speak . . . No, that just sounds silly. How can I say this? You speak the language of your human half exceptionally well. Do you have to same talent with other foxes and the like?" she finally asked.
"Yes, I suppose. I can smell the scents and hear the sounds that you cannot, and I can understand them. If pressed I can make myself understood to them, but the need has yet to arise," Leo explained.
"That is amazing. I would love to be able to do that," Myranda said.
"You aren't missing much. Most animals are concerned with little more than where predators are, where prey is, and how to get from one to the other," he said.
"Are there any messages I am missing right now?" she asked.
"I am not sure. Stand still," he said.
The two halted. After a quick glance to assure they were still alone, he pulled back the hood entirely. His ears twitched slightly, and he drew a long, slow breath into his nose.
"Not terribly much. A pair of rabbits passed through here. They have nested a fair way off of the road in that direction. They are both scared half to death that we might find them," he said.
"Astounding . . ." said Myranda.
"If you say so," Leo said, replacing his hood and continuing on.
"Oh, come now. You don't think it is amazing that you can simply perk up your ears and take a whiff and learn all of that?" she asked.
"No more amazing than the fact that you can understand the impenetrable accent that these townsfolk mumble day in and day out," he said. "That was another reason I lent a hand. For once I heard someone speaking properly."
"Well, my mother was a teacher. I had little choice. How is it that you came to speak so well?" she asked.
"To speak a human tongue without the benefit of actually having a human tongue is a supremely difficult task," he said. "I simply decided that I may as well put all of that effort into speaking correctly. That goes for all of the languages I speak."
"Oh, you speak other languages?" she asked, nearly slipping on an icy track beneath the snow. The pair of gray lines left by a trade wagon was the only things as far as the eye could see that interrupted the canvas of white.
Leo's answer came in the languages he described. First was the slow, flowery dialect of the southern empire, Tressor. These words Myranda understood.
"The glorious tongue of my homeland," he said in Tresson.
What followed was an odd grouping of syllables spoken in a very clear and precise manner. Myranda racked her mind, but she could not place the sounds.
"I recognized Tresson, but what about the second?" she asked.
"Just a silly little language I learned from the fellow who taught me to handle a sword properly," he explained. "Your guess is as good as mine as to where that verbiage originates."
"Well, you spoke Tresson wonderfully. Tell me, do you remember much of Tressor?" she asked.
"A bit," Leo answered. He sniffed the air and turned to the eastern horizon briefly before turning his shrouded gaze back to her.
"Well?" she said expectantly.
"Oh . . . descriptions. Warmer. Much warmer. It only snows in the winter, and rarely even then. There tends to be a lot more green and a lot less white. The trees shed their leaves in the colder months. There are pests of all sorts buzzing about your head. I've got many an irritated memory of flies, mosquitoes, and the like flitting in and out of my ears. Mostly in.
"What else? The towns are more spread out. The space between is littered with farms. Very large farms . . . with many, many workers," he reminisced, his last words carrying a tone that betrayed a distant repressed emotion.
"It all sounds so lovely. Like a paradise," she said.
"I, for one, am glad to be rid of it," he said. "I have a natural coat that I cannot remove, and the summer can be downright unbearable. About the only thing I do miss is the hunting. My, but those forests were stocked. I could go for weeks without repeating a meal."
He breathed a sigh of remembrance, but pressed onward. Myranda scanned the stark white countryside and tried to imagine it as he had described. Gentle rolling hills, a brilliant green instead of white. Warm breezes blowing, perhaps a fluttering of butterflies among a patch of wild flowers. She realized that no sight like that had ever truly blessed her eyes. Indeed, the closest she had come was the dream a few nights ago, before the darkness had come. Leo might as well have been describing a dream, though, because it was a place she would never be. It might exist somewhere, but crossing the battlefront to see it was as likely as reaching the stars with a step stool.
"It reminds me of what I imagine when I think about the Chosen," she said.
"The Chosen?" he replied
"The Chosen Five. Surely you heard that old tale when you were a child," she said.
"As I said, most of the tales I was told focused on convincing me just how awful my brethren were," he said.
"Oh, well, you missed something. There is a long story that my parents used to tell. It tells of a time in the future when the war is at its absolute peak, and the world itself is on the brink of destruction. On that day, the gods will look down on the world and proclaim that an end to the fighting must come. And thus there will arise five warriors with the strength to strike down the strongest foe, and the wisdom to set things right again. The tale differs greatly from person to person in terms of just what these warriors will look like. As for me, I picture five noble knights in shining silver armor, astride white horses, riding across a green meadow," she said, thinking back to the bedtime stories of her youth.
"Sounds nice. I would have liked to hear that one," he said.
Pleasant conversation filled an hour or so more of walking before one of Myranda's frequent glances to the east brought her the sight she'd been dreading all day. Melorn Woods, a small forest well known for its hunting. It would certainly suit the purposes Leo had in mind, which meant that her company would soon be leaving her. Carefully, Myranda shifted to the right side of the road, away from the forest. If she could keep his eyes on her, he might not notice the woods for a few minutes more. Leo only smiled when she did so.
"Clever," he said. "I suppose I should be flattered."
"What?" Myranda said, mock innocence on her face.
"You don't want me to see the forest over yonder," Leo replied, pointing squarely at the woods without looking.
"I did not . . . How did you . . ." Myranda stuttered confused by the immediate collapse of her plan.
In answer, Leo pulled his hood back and shifted his finger to the tip of his sensitive nose, tapping it twice before tugging forward the hood to conceal it.
"Oh, yes . . . I had forgotten," Myranda said.
"This is where we part, then. I truly enjoyed your company. If ever you find yourself at an arena, do look into the fighters' listing. I fight under the name ‘The Beast,'" he said.
"I never thought I would have anything to do with one of those places, but now I just may," she assured him.
Leo held out his hand for a farewell shake, but Myranda pushed it aside and embraced him warmly. He reluctantly returned the gesture.
"Before I go, I have been meaning to ask. How much money was stolen from you?" Leo said.
"I would say there we
re at least twenty copper coins in the bag. I had plans for that money." She sighed, shaking her head.
"Well, it just so happens I have got a bit more money than I can carry, so if you will just do me the favor of taking it off my hands. . ." said the friendly creature, digging into the heavy bag in his cloak.
Even before he had finished making his transparent excuse, Myranda was shaking her head.
"I couldn't take your money. You have already done so much for me. It just wouldn't be right," she said.
"Well, if you say so," he said, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Until we meet again."
With that he turned to the woods, quickening into a sprint that no man could match. Myranda watched as her unexpected friend disappeared over the hill and into the forest. Almost immediately, the loneliness closed in around her. She sighed heavily and pulled her hood up into place, the long goodbye leaving her ears badly stinging from the cold.
The sigh turned to a startled gasp as she felt a trio of ice-cold objects creep down her back. After frantically tracking them down with her hands, she retrieved the culprits. Three large silver coins, worth fifty coppers each. Leo must have slipped them into her hood just before he left.
Myranda placed the sneaky gift into the one pocket that had not been worn through by overuse. With no company to occupy her mind, Myranda focused on the unfamiliar jingling of money in her pocket to distract her from the long road ahead. Not unlike the rest of this war-torn land, the coins had a rather troubled past.
There had been a time, long before her own, when the three kingdoms that had become the Northern Alliance were still separate. Each had coins of their own. There were different sizes, designs, and names. Then came the war. The reason for the conflict between the vast southern kingdom of Tressor and the small mining kingdom Vulcrest was lost to the ages, but hostilities soon became such that Vulcrest could not hope to face the mighty foe alone. The sister kingdoms of Kenvard and Ulvard were called upon for aid. Before long, any distinction between the three kingdoms was lost--as with nearly all aspects of life, the money was stripped of its individuality for the sake of unity.
The Book of Deacon Anthology Page 6
