Fearsome Journeys (The New Solaris Book of Fantasy)

by Jonathan Strahan

  And now the axe was gone. Beside the stump lay only the small spade they used to bury ashes from the stove. Majka snatched it up and advanced on the chelu. The weasel only narrowed its eyes.

  Suddenly furious, Majka charged, brandishing the spade like a madwoman.

  “You want this, thief? You want me to split you in half?”

  The creature bared its perfect fangs—and then thought better of the confrontation, and dashed away across the yard. In a white blur it flowed to the top of the garden wall. Looking back over its shoulder, it favored her with a different sort of noise: an odd, almost sympathetic keening. Then it sprang away towards the ravine.

  Majka glanced quickly over her shoulder: the kitchen door remained closed. That was something. No one else knew the animal had appeared.

  A gust of wind blasted the garden; the leaves of the withered sunflowers rasped together, gossiping women in a bread line. Feel that cold, now. Look at that sky full of bruises and rage. She knew this sort of weather: it had roared in from the northeast every autumn of her thirty-three years, scouring the last whiff of summer from the high country, sealing the villagers in their shacks.

  Majka stomped into the barn. Chelus were horribly unlucky. Even to glimpse one in the forest could prompt certain old hunters to call it a day. She couldn’t imagine what they’d make of a chelu in the garden. There were stories—

  But damn the stories; it was after her birds. She counted quickly: fourteen laying hens drowsing in the rafters, three speckled geese. These and nine rabbits were all the life remaining in that barn that had once boasted hogs, goats, dairy cows, a draft horse with a braided mane. They were not enough for the coming winter, but she would make do, make them last, along with the tubers in the cellar and the beans and amaranth she would buy at week’s end. No one under her roof would starve. But what if she hadn’t stepped outside? If she had stayed in the kitchen for pleasure’s sake, listening to her son’s lovely tune?

  She looked around for the axe but did not find it. She crouched before the chickens’ nesting crates and found an egg. Beside the crates, the grimy rug where her husband’s dog had slept for years. After his death the big animal had spent a fortnight whining and watching the road, then descended purposefully into the ravine and not returned.

  “Pussy Willow.”

  Majka leaped up, nearly stumbling as she did so. “God damn you,” she said.

  Pankolo, the horse breeder, stood laughing in the doorway, his beefy shoulders twitching up and down. The wind tossed his stringy hair forward to tangle in his beard. He pointed at Majka’s hand.

  “There’s a waste.”

  She had cracked the egg in her fist. She wanted to hurl it at Pankolo, but that would only make him laugh the louder. The big man stepped into the barn and placed a small package on the chicken crates. Majka threw the egg into the yard.

  “What in the stinking Pits do you want?”

  “Ain’t you nice,” he said. “I brought you a sugar loaf.”

  Majka sniffed. “Baked it yourself, did you? Or was it another present from Slager’s girl?”

  Pankolo just stood there grinning, and Majka realized that he thought she was jealous. They had been lovers once. Her husband had caught them in this very barn, not even undressed yet, not even touching. After a moment when no one could think of what to say, Pankolo had stepped over to her husband and lifted him from the ground by his shirt. He slept with Majka, he declared, and would go on sleeping with her whenever he liked. “And you, my little scholar: just keep to them rocks.”

  Dangling like a sad marionette, her husband had looked down at Majka. He was a scholar; the fact marked him indelibly, as did the fact that he had come here from the lowlands: two unpardonable sins. Majka had stepped forward and touched Pankolo’s elbow, and the big man had shrugged and dropped her husband on his feet. Yet that calming touch had nonetheless ended her marriage. Her husband might have forgiven her for sleeping with Pankolo—he knew his own shortcomings—but that gesture of intimacy burned like a brand.

  “If you came for rabbits, you’re a month early; they’re too small to skin.”

  Pankolo chuckled. “Ain’t that a shame.”

  He liked to pretend it wasn’t over. He brought food, too, sometimes; food he could well afford. He sold twenty or more foals a year, and the occasional full-grown stallion. He was the only man in the village with something to sell.

  Which meant that it was not over, entirely. He entered the barn and pulled her near. Majka sighed, put her egg-sticky hand into his trousers, closing her mind to the smell of horse dander and beer. She moved quickly, before he could object, although it meant the brute would only leave her gasping, unsatisfied, not well fucking served like him. Majka’s son never asked for second helpings, but he cleaned his plate like a cat. Sometimes, if the boy stepped away from the table, Majka or his grandmother would scrape their food onto his plate.

  “Get them shucks off,” said Pankolo. “Get ’em down to your knees.”

  “It’s too cold.”

  She worked faster still. He groaned and groped and then was finished, and Majka bit her lips in frustration. She had sworn to herself never to ask the least favor of this man. She had never liked him. It was a very small town.

  “Pussy Willow—”

  “Don’t fucking call me that.”

  Pankolo glared. “You got nothing but snarls for me today. Ain’t we friends at least?”

  Majka closed her eyes. They were not friends. “I saw a chelu,” she said.

  The man froze, then took his hand from beneath her shirt. When he spoke his voice had changed. “What were you doing in the woods, then?”

  “Not in the woods. It was here, in the garden. It was after the birds, I expect.”

  Pankolo rubbed his hands together. “That’s bad, ain’t it? You ought to hire one of them Shyram witches, Majka. Get yourself a house cleansing.”

  “A cleansing. You believe in that old fluff?”

  “Not... for certain.” But he was retreating, buttoning his pants. Majka smirked, guided his hand back to her breast.

  “Thought you wanted to do it properly. Or is once all you’re good for these days?”

  “Too cold. You were right.”

  “Not if we’re quick about it.”

  “Let go, Majka.”

  She put her head back and laughed. “You’re scared. Of a weasel. If only the lads could see you now. Better yet, Slager’s girl—”

  Pankolo snatched his hand away and slapped her. Majka staggered, astonished. The birds screeched; the rabbits slammed against the walls of their cages. Pankolo hovered in the doorway.

  “Slager’s girl,” he said, hovering there. “Tabitha. That’s right. I don’t need your old cunt no more, do I?”

  “Get off my land.”

  “It’s you who need me. To keep your brat from starving. Does he know how you pay for them cakes?”

  Majka wiped blood from her lip. “No,” she said, “but you do, don’t you? You know how I take care of my boy.”

  Pankolo’s face froze; then he turned on his heel and fled. A moment later she heard the gate slam shut. Majka stood in the dark, staunching her lip on the sleeve of her blouse. She put a hand on the sugar loaf; it was still vaguely warm.

  THE MANDOLIN HAD fallen silent. Majka swept into the kitchen, already shouting at her son, “You go find that splitting axe! I’ve told you fifty times, never leave things—”

  She broke off. Her son and mother-in-law were staring at the open front door. A tall man, a stranger, stood on the threshold, one hand raised as if to knock.

  “Forgive me,” he said, “the door opened at a touch.”

  It was true that the latch was failing; for some weeks they had relied on a sliding bolt to keep the door closed in windstorms. The stranger removed his hat. Then he bowed and pressed fingertips to forehead: an old and very humble gesture of greeting, rarely seen in those hills. He was middle-aged but very strongly built. And his skin: so pale. The
villagers had skin like dark olives; this man was clotted cream.

  “Who are you? What do you want?” Majka demanded.

  The stranger turned his eyes in her direction: ice-blue eyes, unblinking.

  “I’ve walked all day,” he said simply.

  The thing to do was to invite him in. The only thing. He bore no weapon, unless a knife were stashed somewhere in that coat of tattered wool. He looked prepared to stand there forever, icicle-straight, the fierce wind gusting about his ankles. Majka couldn’t breathe. The other two might as well have been stone.

  “Why are you standing there?” she cried at last. “Come in, sit down. Udi, God’s love, why don’t you bolt that door?”

  The man stepped into the parlor—that was what they called it, the parlor, although it was the only room on the first floor beside the kitchen. It had a table, three wretched chairs, a woodstove shaped like a fat man sitting cross-legged, a coat rack, a butter churn rendered useless when the last cow was sold.

  The room seemed to shrink around the newcomer. Majka’s son moved towards him sidelong, on unwilling feet. At last he darted around the man and shot the bolt home.

  Majka felt ashamed of their behavior. “Pour him some wine, tata,” she shouted at her mother-in-law. “Udi, bring logs, if you’ve split any that is.” To the stranger, Majka said, “We’ll build a fire in no time. You’ll be wanting some bread and soup. They didn’t feed you in Shyram, then? Of course not, they don’t help anyone; if Saint Jal herself came and asked for a sip of water—”

  She was babbling. She stopped. With a lurch she dragged a chair to face the lifeless woodstove. “Come and sit.” Brisk now; what had she been thinking? She’d be dead before she turn a man away into a storm.

  But he was too pale. Majka had seen his like only three or four times in her life. He was from the capital, or some distant country. No one ever came from such lands to the village, this place of wind and nothing, this clutch of sixty houses strung out along a gorge.

  Unless they came for the ruins. The thought made Majka break a precious match.

  The man crossed the room slowly. He held his hat against his chest like a peasant in the house of a lord, but there was nothing of the peasant in his bearing. He lowered himself into the chair.

  “Don’t go to any trouble,” he said.

  Majka was crouched almost at his knees, trying to light the tinder at the back of the stove. The man smelled of earth and moss and wind-dried sweat; there were small brown burrs on his trousers. From the corner of her eye she saw the hand he rested on his knee: a powerful hand, tough and sinewy, a harness-leather hand.

  He moved his chair to give her room. There was nothing wrong with him. She was losing her dignity, and without it everything else would slip through her fingers.

  The tinder caught. Majka blew gently, added twigs as though feeding a baby. The blue eyes studied her. She closed the iron door and stood.

  “This is Chamsarat Spire?” asked the newcomer.

  “Chamsarat Village,” said Majka. “The Spire’s just a heap of rubble, further up the hill. There’s nothing but ruins here. The fortress was destroyed four hundred years ago they say. The tower survived, but twenty years ago it collapsed as well—”

  “There was an earthquake,” cried her son from where he stood by the cellar door, so excited he was all but dancing in place. His grandmother, suddenly restored to life, turned on him and shouted “Logs!”

  “It’s true,” said Majka, as Udi fled. “There’s nothing left here but stones. I hope you didn’t come all this way to see the tower.”

  She put the soup kettle on the stove: it would have to stretch to four tonight, and this man looked as though he could empty the kettle at a draught. Once more, accidentally no doubt, she found herself meeting his gaze.

  “I didn’t come for the tower,” he said.

  “That’s good.” Majka considered laughing at her own remark, but what if her mother-in-law joined in, with her raven’s cackle? The man was still looking at her; Majka felt her composure about to dissolve.

  “You’re welcome to ride out this storm with us,” she said, astonishing herself. “We’ve a spare bolster. You can sleep here right here by the stove.”

  Her mother-in-law was gaping. The man looked down at the hat on his knee. After a long pause, he said, “I might just. You’re very kind. It’s a long road I’m on.”

  Majka stared hard at her mother-in-law, who bethought herself and fetched the wine. Majka poured him a generous measure. “Where are you bound, then?” she asked.

  “Where God wills.”

  And mind your own business, woman. She was about to turn away when the man glanced at her sidelong.

  “God, or the Proconsul, whoever remembers us first. Isn’t that what they say in these hills?”

  This time Majka didn’t meet his eye. They did indeed have such a saying. Neither the Prince of Heaven nor the leader of the Republic was much loved in Chamsarat.

  But why had he mentioned the Proconsul? They were six hundred miles from the capital. The village stood in a distant corner of a neglected province on a road like a long bad dream. Even the local ministers rarely bothered with the climb.

  “We say the same as everyone,” she answered lamely. “A republic is a fine and fragile thing.”

  “Yes,” said the stranger, lifting the wine to his lips.

  “We have the vote here,” said her mother-in-law, as though confessing some shame.

  The man turned in his chair to look at her. Majka tried to smile and achieved a grimace.

  “The vote. She means that every few years they send a soldier and a mule, and an iron box with a padlock. He shows up unannounced and sets the box on a chair in the tavern.”

  And drinks all day. And notes the color of the ballot slip in every hand. And bears the box away in the morning with a smirk, and a coin or two for the girl whose favors he’s enjoyed.

  “And you vote your conscience.”

  It was not a question, or an order, or even a jibe. It was merely a statement. The man spoke as though saddened by his own remark. And for some reason his words sparked a terrible idea in Majka’s mind: that she stank. The room was close and the man could smell her unwashed skin, smell the barn and the broken egg, smell Pankolo.

  She excused herself, reddening. She snatched up the wash pail and a cake of soap and fled through the back door again.

  Crouched by the rain barrel, she scrubbed to her elbows. The cold was agony, but also a relief, like putting her head back to scream. Udi, laden with firewood, staggered out of the barn.

  “I can’t find the axe, mama.”

  “Well what in the Nine Pits did you do with it?”

  “Nothing, I think.”

  “Nothing you think! Take the wood inside. Then go back with a lamp and search properly. And wear your coat, you little fool! If you catch a chill I’ll slap you.”

  Udi looked at her in horror.

  “Oh stop that, boy. I wouldn’t really.”

  “I don’t want him to be here, mama.”

  “Saints above! What’s the matter with us all? Can’t we be decent to a soul in need? What in the Pits are you afraid of? I’ve told you about white men.”

  “In the capital. Is he from the capital?”

  “Maybe. They come from other places, too.”

  “What’s he here for?”

  The soap leaped like a fish from Majka’s hands. “That’s his business,” she snapped. “Yours is to be gracious. Only peasants lose their heads at the sight of a foreigner. We’re not peasants, Udi.”

  He blinked at her over his armful of logs.

  THE SOUP WAS delicious. The man sipped his portion slowly, making it last. The room warmed. Majka all but shoved her mother-in-law into a chair beside the stranger. Udi stood behind his grandmother’s chair, spellbound. Majka herself could not dream of sitting still, invented tasks to take her endlessly from parlor to kitchen and back again. Dusting under the table. A small rug tossed over
the crack in the floorboards. The lamp in the window for a husband dead not quite a year.

  Suddenly the man, wonder of wonders, spoke to them unprompted. “I thought I might go and see the Thrandaal, beyond the mountains. They say the valleys there are lush, and the rivers clean.”

  That was it: he was running. Majka could have laughed with relief. The man needed to get out of the country, and you could do that here, you could climb from these hills into the mountains, cross the border into the Thrandaal, and pass unchallenged into that empty land. That was why he had looked at her so oddly when he mentioned the Proconsul.

  “But I’ve waited too long, you see,” the man continued. “Down here you’ve had rains; up in the peaks it will be snow. I don’t mind a little snow, but I do mind dying in it. I’ve waited too long.”

  He looked again at his hat. Majka felt dizzied: what in the Pits was he trying to tell them? Could he possibly mean to spend the winter in Chamsarat? To spend it under her roof?

  The thought was rending. She couldn’t feed this man. Did he have money, would he offer to pay? And who would she be harboring? Would his enemies track him here? No, he couldn’t stay. Not in this household, twenty feet from her son. Not if he filled the barn with cattle and their pockets with gold. Not even if he fancied her, if there was kindness in those hands.

  “What’s your name?” her son asked quietly.

  “Wren.”

  “Like the bird?”

  The stranger glanced at the boy. Ever so slightly, he smiled. “They teased me when I was your age. Flap your wings, Wrenny Boy. Fly away home.”

  Udi glanced at Majka, seeking permission to grin. Majka felt herself blushing once more and rose to stir the soup.

  She cleared her throat. “Well, Mr. Wren—”