The Book of Deacon Anthology

by Joseph R. Lallo

  A smile slowly came to Ayna's face. "When do I begin my lessons?"

  ###

  That was the first of what I hope will be several peeks into the lives of the Entwell masters. Read on for one final short story, but if you’d like to be kept in the loop on future installments to the series, sign up for the newsletter! And for books in other settings, check out the complete bibliography at the end of this anthology.

  The Stump and the Spire

  A Book of Deacon Short

  By Joseph R. Lallo

  Foreword

  Some years ago, during a time when the Book of Deacon series was doing particularly well, I received an invite from Roger Bellini and Rebecca Lovatt to write a short story for an anthology they were kickstarting, called Neverland’s Library. It had been a while since I’d attempted to write something short, and I was honored by the invitation, so I agreed. The theme was rediscovery, so I thought a little story set in the same era as Jade that gave a glimpse into the darker parts of the world’s history might be interesting. I actually kept the length down to something manageable, and the result was The Stump and the Spire.

  If you want to get to the root of something, you’re going to have to dig.

  It is a useful bit of wisdom in any walk of life. Time has a way of covering things up, after all. To get to the essential truth of a thing, the place where it all started, you will have to brush away the layers left behind by the passing years. The words may mean different things to different people, but the wisdom behind them remains. When a healer says you must dig to the root, for instance, he means you must find the cause of an ailment. When a diplomat says you must dig to the root, she means you must learn why a war began. The words could mean a dozen different things; it only depends on who is doing the speaking, and who is doing the listening.

  On this day it was William who was doing the listening. He was a young boy of ten who had grown up working the land with his parents and his sister. The one doing the speaking was William’s father, and he was not a diplomat or a healer. He was a farmer, and when a farmer says you must dig to the root, he is holding a shovel and pointing to a tree stump. Farmers don’t have time for metaphors.

  “Father, I can’t dig out a whole tree by myself,” William objected.

  “I did it when I was your age. It just takes time,” his father said, handing the boy the shovel and tousling his hair. “It will do you good to get some proper work done, and this stump is long overdue to come out.”

  William looked to the stump again. It was an ancient gray thing, the remains of an oak that had been dead the day they found it. The tree had been on the land since long before they had taken it over the previous season, and it was at the center of a patch of barren and lifeless field. It had been simple enough to cut down the trunk, and after a bit of sawing and chopping it provided some much needed firewood. As for the stump, they had been in too much of a hurry to take care of it thus far. The growing season was short, and the planting season shorter. During those months, their time was better spent elsewhere. Now the harvest was over, and the air was already taking on the harder nip of the long winter ahead. There was no better time to dig out the stump and see what could be done to nurse the soil back to health. It wasn’t a terribly large job, all things considered. The stump was only half as tall as the boy and perhaps equally wide. The tangle of roots beneath it was daunting though, particularly considering how deep it likely ran.

  “But it’ll take me forever!”

  “Just do as much as you can do today, then come back tomorrow. It’ll be done before you know it,” William’s father assured him with a firm slap on the back. “And do your best while the weather is still warm, because once the ground starts to freeze it’ll be that much harder.”

  “But—”

  “William…” he said, his voice stern and his gaze hard. “Remember what happens to little boys who disobey their parents. A dragoyle will come along and eat your toes in your sleep.”

  “Yes, Father.” William had been hearing stories about dragoyles for as long as he could remember. They were supposed to be evil creatures left behind by the D’Karon, dark wizards from long ago who had come from another world and nearly conquered this one. Dragoyles were said to be vicious monsters, and the D’Karon were the blackest of evils, but mostly they seemed to exist specifically to frighten little boys into doing what they were told. William had stopped believing in them years ago, but he knew that once his father started talking about them, the next words would be punishment.

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “I’ll dig up the stump, Father.”

  “That’s my boy,” he said.

  William sighed and put the shovel to work, hacking at the first of what would be many, many roots. The boy wasn’t shaping up to have what one might call a farmer’s physique. He was short for his age, and he'd never lost his baby fat, despite plenty of hard work on the land. His temperament left something to be desired as well. Whereas his father could think of no finer way to spend the day than getting his hands dirty tilling the soil, William had other interests. The boy would much prefer to while away the hours sketching shapes on the ground, daydreaming, and asking questions his parents wouldn’t have known how to answer even if they’d had the time and inclination to do so. It was a source of great concern for William’s father that the boy didn’t show much interest in the family work, but he was a simple man and confident that a few more summers with spade in hand would make the boy see the light. After all, it had worked for Layla, William’s sister.

  Layla was four years older than William and taller by a head and shoulders. Though she still gave her parents plenty to worry about, she was at least happy enough working on the farm. She tended to the animals and was never shy to take up a rake or a hoe if an extra set of hands were needed. It had left her with a fit build and boundless energy, which was something of a mixed blessing. Though her parents were grateful for her help and enthusiasm on the fields, they would have preferred a bit less energy afterward. She already had a habit of getting into trouble when the day’s work was through, and it would only get worse as her thoughts began to drift toward more amorous pursuits.

  As the sun was hitting its highest point, Layla paid her brother a visit. She was wearing her dirt-encrusted work clothes, and in her hand was a familiar cloth sack.

  “Lunchtime, Willy!” she chirped.

  The boy looked wearily at his sister as she offered him a smile and set the sack down beside the stump.

  “So Dad finally decided to have you dig something up,” she said, untying the corners of the sack to flatten it into a tablecloth of sorts. Inside was a pile of golden-brown pockets of baked dough and a leather water flask.

  “Yeah. All by myself,” he replied. He wiped his hands on his pants and eagerly tried to stuff an entire dough pocket into his mouth. They were a treat his mother had concocted when she grew tired of her family attempting to eat their midday meal while in the fields. After most of her bowls were lost or broken, she started baking meat, gravy, and vegetables into a pocket of dough so that they could eat with their hands.

  “He does that. Remember when he made me dig up all of those bushes when I was ten? It is like a test. Do it right and you’re a grownup.”

  “It’s hard, it’s no fun, and I’m only doing it because I have to,” he said through a mouthful of meat and dough. “What’s that supposed to teach me about being a grownup?”

  Layla smirked. “That about covers it I think.” She slapped him on the back. “You always were the fast learner.”

  “Does that mean I can stop?”

  “Nope. Being a grownup is for good.” She grabbed a pocket of her own. “Besides, what else are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know. Anything. Think about stuff. Let my mind wander.”

  “You know what Dad says about that sort of thing.” She adopted a gruff voice and an educational tone. “Things that wander tend to get lost.”

 
“Don’t you ever wonder about things?”

  “Like what?”

  “Well…like why do they call this place Oddspire Fields?”

  “That’s easy. Because of the spire,” she said, pointing.

  Just beyond the fence at the edge of their land, about a dozen yards away from the stump, was a spire. It was ancient and worn by the elements, but one could still see the intricate designs that had been carved into its surface. It was about twice as tall as Layla and jutted out of the ground at an odd angle. “It’s a spire, it’s in the fields, and that’s odd. Oddspire Fields.”

  “But how did it get there? The closest place with spires like that is New Kenvard, and that’s miles away.”

  Layla treated the question with her usual level of diligence. She gave it half a thought, then shrugged and took a guess. “I suppose people liked it better that way. Anyway, eat up. Plenty more digging before this thing is out.”

  William nodded. The two finished their meal and each went back to work. For a while he continued to think about the spire. New Kenvard was a long way away. If someone had really taken the spire from one of the roofs of the old buildings and installed it here, he couldn’t imagine why, and they’d done a poor job of it besides. It was standing at an odd angle and didn’t have so much as a path leading to it. When he was done turning that mystery over in his head, he started to wonder why no one else had been curious enough to find out the answer. It seemed like no one really cared how things were, or about the mysteries of the world. Not anymore, anyway. Now they just cared about their own little corner of the world and how to get by. As the day rolled on, his thoughts were eventually reduced to variations of “This tree sure has a lot of roots,” and “I wonder how much more I’ll have to dig.”

  The last answer, he learned several days later, was plenty. The tree may have been dead, but in its day it must have been mighty, because the roots seemed to go on forever. William hacked through the ones he could, but the main taproot was as thick as his arm and as tough as nails. Day after day he dug deeper, trying to find a point where the root was thin enough to chop through. In the evening of the seventh day, when the hole beside the stump was now well over his head, his shovel struck something strange nestled among the roots.

  It wasn’t a stone or a particularly stubborn root. He’d struck enough of them to be a veritable expert. Leaning his shovel against the wall of the pit he’d dug, he got down on his knees and clawed at the object with his hands. It was extremely entangled, whatever it was, but the roots around it were thinner and more brittle than he’d encountered thus far. With a bit more digging, he managed to unearth what turned out to be a small metal box. It was only about two feet square and a few inches thick, but it was unlike anything he’d seen before. Rather than being rusted beyond recognition, the box was barely corroded. It was a dark gray color, and when he hauled it out into the fading sun he could just make out some thin engravings forming a complex pattern. One side had a delicate hinge, and the other had two latches. From the looks of it the roots had managed to work their way inside, snapping one of the latches and providing a glimpse within. He twisted and turned the box in the dim light, trying to catch a peek of what it held, but before he could see anything useful, he heard his mother’s voice calling him home for dinner. He tucked the box under his arm and climbed out of the hole, scurrying toward the house.

  Their home was a simple one, consisting mostly of one large room. The fireplace, which currently had a heavy iron pot hanging in it, filling the home with the smell of boiling cabbage, nested along the wall opposite the entrance. The room had a table and a few chairs, and the family used it for almost everything but sleeping. For that, there was a pair of bedrooms, one for the children and one for the parents. Outside the house, the family was lucky enough to have its own well and a barn a bit further away.

  William ran to their barn to stow the shovel. With the tool in its place, he made ready to bring the box to his father, but something stopped him.

  Like most people these days, William’s father had little use for a mystery. He tended to dismiss things he didn’t understand as unnecessary distractions from planting or harvesting. If William showed this box to his father, he would simply tell William to throw it away, or perhaps take it so that he could see about selling it at the market. Granted, William reasoned that selling the box was probably the best idea…but not before he’d had a chance to take a closer look. He lowered it carefully to the ground beneath the feed trough, brushed some hay over it, and hurried to the house. He tried to take a seat as his mother dished out the cabbage soup she’d prepared.

  “Uh-uh-uh. You know better than that. You’re filthy. I don’t want you eating with a filthy face and filthy hands. The bucket’s by the door like it always is,” she scolded.

  William grumbled and pushed open the door. A heavy wooden pail filled with clean water from the well hung on a hook outside. He splashed enough on his hands and face to get rid of the bulk of the accumulated soil from the day’s digging, then hurried back. When he shut the door behind him, his father and sister were taking their seats. His mother put a hearty bowl before each member of the family before she sat as well. William hungrily dug into it. A full day of shoveling was enough to make any meal a banquet.

  “There, you see. A good appetite is a sign you’ve been putting in a good day’s work. You’ve made a lot of progress, William, I’m proud of you. Another few days and we’ll be able to hitch the oxen to that stump and pull it out.”

  William simply nodded and industriously went to work emptying his bowl, as though doing so quickly enough would win him a prize. When the meal was through, he made a show of stretching and yawning.

  “I’m really tired, Father,” he said. “I’m going to go to bed early, all right?”

  “Of course,” his father replied. “Get a good night’s sleep. Maybe if you get an early start on it tomorrow, you can have the job done by nightfall.” He watched with a smile as his son carried his bowl to the washbasin, then gathered his nightclothes and went to his room. “You see, Clara? I knew giving him an important job would turn him around,” he said proudly.

  “He just needed some time, Tom,” said William’s mother. “And you just needed to have faith in him.”

  “Isn’t it good to see your brother finally showing some interest in the land, sweetie?” he asked Layla.

  The girl pursed her lips and looked to the bedroom door. “He’s interested all right,” she remarked with a raised eyebrow. “Dad, I’m a little tired too. I think I’ll turn in.”

  “Good night, then. Maybe if the two of you are up early enough and finish your work, we can take a trip to New Kenvard.”

  “Sounds great, Dad,” Layla said, standing up to kiss him on the forehead. “Good night.”

  He watched as she got herself ready and slipped into the bedroom as well, then smiled to his wife. “We’re raising a great couple of farmers, Clara.”

  “I’ve always thought so, dear,” she said.

  #

  William struggled to stay awake in his darkened bedroom. He hadn’t been lying when he said he was tired. A week of digging from sunrise to sunset would be enough to make anyone exhausted and sore, but he forced himself to stay awake until heard his parents retire for the night. Once their door was shut, he crawled out of bed as quietly as possible and eased open the shutters to his window. They swung open with the whisper of a scrape. He held his breath and looked toward his sister. In the light of the moon, he saw her still motionless in bed. He released a sigh of relief, then pulled himself to the sill and promptly tumbled to the ground.

  He sat up and shook his head, then winced and waited for his parents to swing their window open and order him back to his room, or his sister to poke her head out and demand to know what he was up to. A few moments passed with nothing, but he should have expected as much. They all worked as hard as he did. It would take more than a ten-year-old plopping down on the grass to wake them. He brushed himself of
f and ran barefoot to the barn. For many people, the air would have been a bit too brisk to be running around in one’s pajamas, but Oddspire Fields was a part of the northern kingdoms. Locals like him tended not to bother with a coat until it was below freezing.

  William grunted against the barn door and tugged it open. The unmistakable fragrance of large animals wafted out from inside, but there was little moonlight and few windows, so the interior of the barn was pitch black.

  “Darn,” he muttered. “I should have brought a—”

  “Looking for this?”

  The voice came out of nowhere, startling William. His panicked brain told him to run, but without selecting a useful destination first, he only made it three steps before colliding with the barn door and falling to the ground. Dazed, he blinked until the smirking face of his sister came into view. She was holding an unlit lantern in one hand and had the other outstretched to help him to his feet.

  “You know, for such a bright kid, you’re lousy at running away from home,” Layla said, pulling him up.

  “I wasn’t running away from home,” he defended, brushing himself off.

  “Then what are you doing out here?” She set the lantern down and sparked it to flame.

  “Nothing!”

  “Just felt like visiting the cows? Come on, Willy. What’ve you got?”

  He crossed his arms and huffed. “Fine, I’ll show you. But you can’t tell Mother and Father until I say, since I found it.”