The Flute Keeper's Promise (The Flute Keeper Saga)

by Ashley Setzer

  I awoke again some time later to find deft fingers working on bandages around my face. The wrists were thick, but there was something soft and feminine about them. Still half-dazed, I reached up and touched one of them.

  The person shrieked and jumped back several feet. “My stars! You scared the jumping jellyfrogs out of me!”

  The voice was incongruous with the rest: definitely female, with a heavy country brogue.

  I was hesitant to turn my head or move around much. Something bright red near my feet caught my eye. It took a moment for me to realize that it was a pile of blood-soaked rags and bandages. “Where am I?”

  My mysterious caretaker sidled close by and began working on my bandages again. “I don’t rightly know how to tell you, Miss. You fell out of the sky on Signal Mountain. I’ve brought you to my hut on the other side. Middle of nowhere, you might call it.”

  I couldn’t take my eyes off the pile of bloody rags. “Is that all from me?”

  My savior cleared her throat awkwardly and removed the pile from sight. “Never mind about that. Tell me, how do you feel?”

  Her face lingered over mine. Through my bandages I saw that the chin was more rounded than I’d previously thought, though still strong. The lips were thin and gray. The white skin was weathered, but the eyes were full of spark and almond-shaped in the familiar way that got my heart racing again. “I feel horrible.”

  “Well, that’s got to be an improvement. You’re talking at least. Means you’re not damaged in the head. I’m sure glad I don’t have to put you out of your misery.”

  “Me, too.”

  She turned away to get something and I caught a glimpse of bony wings peeking out above her shoulders.

  “You’re Slaugh.”

  “So I’ve been told,” said the girl. “My name is Valory. You can rest easy. I mean you no harm. You’re going to have to tell me how you ended up falling from a house in the sky, though. All my life I’ve used this mountain as my hunting ground and I’ve never seen anything like that!”

  I carefully tried moving my head and found that it did not hurt as much as I anticipated. I was a little stiff, but the pain was gone. Very gingerly, I pushed myself up on my elbows. There was no stabbing pain in my chest like before. “You fixed me,” I said in surprise.

  “Aye, and no easy task it was,” Valory said, coming to my side with a washcloth. “Cracked skull, broken ribs, bruised up legs and arms all out of joint…phew! Makes me hurt just thinking about it! But don’t you worry none. Almyra was the best mender ever, may she rest in peace, and she taught me everything she knew.”

  “Who’s Almyra?” I asked.

  “My foster mom,” Valory said. “She lived in this mountain range for ages. Knew all the old folk remedies. She patched me up a time or two, especially when I was learning to fly. Passed away last spring. I do miss her. It’s been a lonely year.”

  Amused by Valory’s un-Slaugh tendency to chatter, I tried to smile. “You haven’t had anyone to talk to all that time, huh?”

  “Just some fur traders and a nice young Fay man who tried to sell me a rake that could work on its own. Of course, I don’t give no care about how my lawn looks what with being out here by myself and no neighbors to impress.”

  Valory’s penchant for talk was a welcome comfort while I was healing. Sometimes she gave me mashed up herbs to make me drowsy if any pain came back. During the nights while I slept, she went out hunting so that in the mornings there were always fat game birds or fish cooking in the fireplace. Unlike most Slaugh, Valory had developed a taste for berries and grains, which she stored around the hut.

  All of this helped speed up my recovery. Soon the bandages came off my face. A week later Valory removed the splints from my legs and loosened the wrappings on my torso. The first thing I tried to do was sit up.

  “Ow!” I exclaimed, rubbing my head. “I didn’t realize the ceiling was so low!” Now that I was sitting up I realized that the hut was entirely round and low to the ground. Valory had to walk in a constant stooped position. It was a strange living arrangement for someone who was easily six feet tall.

  Valory shrugged. “It never bothered me or Almyra. Makes it easy to heat in winter, too.”

  Valory’s preference for creature comforts surprised me. To my knowledge, most Slaugh preferred places that were dark and cold.

  “What are you looking at me like that for?” Valory asked. “Is there a spider on my head?”

  “No,” I said. “I was just thinking that you are the strangest Slaugh I’ve ever met.”

  Valory appeared unsure how to respond. She cocked her head, letting her black hair spill sideways from under her battered leather hat. The rest of her clothes were similarly battered, but solid and easy to move around in. She wore knee boots with patched up pants and a belt of furs. Her shirts were all made of plain, coarse fabric that did no favors for her paltry curves. She had a boyish figure, and when she wore her favorite ratty fur coat it was hard to tell that she was a girl.

  Valory seemed oblivious to her own appearance and she ultimately treated my comment with the same indifference. “Oh well,” she said, shrugging. “I don’t know any Slaugh, so who’s to say I should act like them?”

  “But wasn’t Almyra a Slaugh?” I asked.

  Valory laughed. The robust cackle was a little off-putting.

  “Almyra, a Slaugh!” she said. “She’d think that quite funny if she were here! I guess I haven’t mentioned it, but Almyra was a Gnome!” she slapped her knee and burst out in more laughter. When she finished she wiped her eyes and said, “While we’re on the subject, I’ve been meaning to ask what kind of folk you come from. I thought when I brought you back here that you was some kind of diseased Fay, but by the looks of your ears I’d say otherwise.”

  “I am part human.”

  Valory gawked. “You’re yankin’ my tail feather! Almyra said humans were just a myth, like a sort of bedtime story!”

  I had already told Valory my full name. If she knew anything about Flute Keepers she didn’t let on. It was kind of nice, actually. People who were ignorant of my origins never judged me as harshly as those who knew history by rote.

  “It’s real,” I said. “I was born in the human world. I lived there until I was fifteen. That’s when I found out that my dad was really from Faylinn and I came to live here.”

  “Leapin’ larklizards! So where are your parents now?”

  “Dead,” I said.

  Valory pinched her lips together. “Geez, I’m sorry. I never knew my parents. Almyra said she found me out in the woods, half-starved. She brought me home and here I’ve been ever since. I s’pose that’s why I don’t care much for my fellow Slaugh. Any dolts that could leave a defenseless little baby out in the woods aren’t worth two clods of dirt, you know?” She spat on the floor. “To heck with em.”

  By a month’s end, I was able to hobble around the hut on my own. There was little to do but wait around while Valory went out hunting. I didn’t get outside much, but I could hear the cold winds blasting the sides of the little hut. When Valory came back she always had to stamp snow from her boots. Her hunts became less fruitful, but she had stores of dried meats hidden away. Some days she and I just sat in front of the fire sipping hot mugs of herbal tea. I shared stories of the human world while Valory told me all her accumulated mountain lore.

  I couldn’t have asked for a better host. Valory was attentive to the point of annoyance.

  “Do you want your pillow fluffed up?” she asked five times a day.

  “No, I’m good, thanks.”

  “Your tea isn’t steaming anymore. Do you need it re-heated?”

  “It’s fine, Val.”

  “How’s your head?”

  “A little tender today, but it’s healing up nicely.”

  At this point, she’d chew on her lip for a moment and then offer to check my remaining bandages.

  “No, no, no.” They’re fine. Nothing’s falling off and I haven’t got a fe
ver, so no infection.”

  She’d look relieved for a while, then come up with more awkward questions.

  “So, um…everything coming out okay?”

  It took a few rounds before I figured out what she was getting at with this one. “No problems in the outhouse, although we could use some more dried flowers out there.”

  By the time I was fully recovered I was also crazy with restlessness. I had almost no hope of finding Garland and Lord Finbarr. There was no news of goings on at the castle so I had no idea what had befallen the Larues or if Chloe had come back.

  “Sit down! You’re giving me the jitters!” Valory chided me day.

  I stopped pacing before the hut’s lone, small window and glared at the snowdrift that covered it. “How long until this weather lets up?”

  Valory smiled knowingly. “I can tell this is your first winter in the mountains. That snow won’t melt until the first warm winds of spring. We’re in until the moon gets fat and thin again two more times. Best get comfy.”

  “TWO MORE MONTHS?” I wailed.

  “Aye, the winter can be cruel,” Valory said, blowing on her bowl of soup. She stretched out before the fire and looked perfectly content. “No worries. You can come ice fishing with me on the next clear day we get. The wind sounds like it’s dying down. Maybe tomorrow, eh? Won’t that be nice?”

  I didn’t want to go fishing. I wanted to find my friends. I had given Valory sparse details about how I’d come to fall from the sky, omitting everything about my ties to the royal family. For all Valory knew, the Larues and I were wanted for opposing the duke. Valory couldn’t have cared less. She paid no mind to Faylinn’s politics. Her awareness of the world was limited to her flying distance within the mountain range. Some days I found her ignorance refreshing. Some days it drove me mad.

  “How can you NOT know about the massacre at Moonlight Pass?” I exclaimed one afternoon as we knocked icicles from the roof of the hut. I had been trying all morning to teach Valory about Slaugh history. “It happened in this very mountain range!”

  “These mountains stretch halfway across the continent,” Valory countered. “Almyra showed me on a map once. It had drawings with all these funny little squiggly symbols.”

  I smacked a hand to my forehead. “You mean you don’t know how to read, either?”

  Looking offended, Valory pulled herself up to her full height. She could not be very intimidating, though, because her hat brim was full of snow. “I may not be some high-fangled scholar, but I can read the moon and the signs in the forest better than anyone! You think you could do better? Maybe you should go find your own dinner tonight!”

  I did my best to glare back, but the overloaded hat brim suddenly spilled snow in Valory’s face. I cracked up laughing.

  “Take that!” Valory said, shoving me into a snowdrift.

  We were both in high spirits because the sun shone brightly and even though it was still cold, the air lacked some of the bite that we’d grown used to. Winter seemed to be loosening its grip.

  Almost every day we trekked to a nearby stream. The hole that Valory had cut through the ice was growing larger. Valory had a collapsible fishing pole that she always carried on her belt. She made me one out of a stick and a thin strand of rope. We used bits of dried meat for bait.

  There was a certain technique to fishing that Valory had perfected. I was not nearly so skilled at it. All I seemed to catch were crayfish and minnows.

  Valory was usually patient with my attempts, but she couldn’t help poking fun at me. “If you catch any more minnows there won’t be any food left for the big fish to eat!”

  I frowned as I tossed a tiny fish back into the creek. “Cut it out. I’m using the exact same method as you.”

  Valory angled her hat cockily. “Now that’s where you’re wrong. You’re just poking your line in there and jerking it around a bit. You’ve got to hear the fish. Listen for big ones approaching and then tease em’ a little. Wiggle the bait ever so slightly, then let it rest and wiggle a little more.” She demonstrated by landing a fish the size of her arm. “See?” she said, holding it up proudly.

  “I can’t hear the fish under the ice,” I said. “That’s a Slaugh thing. I suppose you can smell them coming from a mile downstream, too?”

  “Oh, sure,” Valory said. She tossed her catch into a woven basket and clapped the lid shut. “I reckon that’ll do for now. We’d best get back. Smells like more snow’s coming.”

  As usual, she was right. Hard little flakes began pelting us before we made it back to the hut. I felt disappointed. The past few days had been warm enough to melt a lot of the snow already on the ground. I had watched it melt away in excitement, anticipating the coming spring. Much as I enjoyed Valory’s company, I was eager to set off after the Finbarrs.

  I trudged grumpily up the barren slope that led back to the hut with the fish basket on my arm. Valory took to the air to see if she could spot any animals roaming about before the snow got too heavy. For once, I was glad to be free of her.

  Valory unnerved me sometimes. Part of it was definitely her laugh. It was very loud and hearty, but it always hit me like an unpleasant case of déjà vu. Then there were the other mannerisms that struck me as unpleasantly familiar. There was something in the way she tossed her chin and in the haughty stiffness of her shoulders when she stood up straight. Her eyes bothered me the most. In the rare moments when she was being quiet or thoughtful, her dark eyes with their thick, black lashes roused all sorts of strange feelings.

  A slick patch of rock tripped me up. I dropped the fish basket and caught myself by putting out my hands. Grumbling curses, I sat up and brushed myself off. The hut lay just over the next ridge. It looked tiny sticking out of the mud and snow. We’d left the fire going. A thin trail of smoke came from the chimney.

  Goosebumps rose all over my arms. I’d seen this before. The little stone hut, whipped by snowy winds, wasn’t my own memory. I’d seen it from another’s point of view.

  “Marafae,” I whispered.

  It was the very same hut where Marafae had gone to give birth under the care of the old Gnome lady with the eye patch. The Gnome must have been Almyra. But Almyra told Marafae that her baby had died. A baby girl, she’d said, a sickly little thing…

  That was roughly nineteen years ago. Valory couldn’t be much older than that. With a prickle down my spine, I realized that the thing I didn’t like about Valory’s laughter was that it was so much like Marafae’s. And those eyes—those are Hagan’s eyes! I knew it because Lev’s were the same.

  When Valory landed next to me several minutes later, I was sitting with my head buried in my knees, laughing hysterically.

  “Are you okay?” Valory asked. “Why are the fish on the ground?”

  My whole body shook. It was my first real mental breakdown and I was determined to make the most of it.

  “She lied,” I said in a high voice. Then I broke down laughing again.

  Looking alarmed, Valory reached out a hand to help me up. “I think you’ve been outside in the cold too long. Come on in and I’ll get you some tea.”

  I slapped her hand away and jumped to my feet. “SHE LIED!” I shouted with all the force in my lungs. “DO YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE?”

  Valory wrinkled her brow. “Who lied? What are you talking about?”

  Without a word, I sprinted down the slope. A little burial mound stood near the hut. Valory had adorned it with rocks and an arrangement of sticks and animal furs. I kicked the little memorial, then picked up some of the rocks and threw them violently at the mound. “STUPID, LYING HAG!”

  Valory pounced on me from the air. She dragged me backwards. I kicked, clawed, screamed and cursed. It was no use. Valory was much stronger. When gentle force didn’t work, she hauled back her fist and punched me in the jaw.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Valory shouted. “That’s Almyra’s grave!”

  Stunned, but still unhinged, I rubbed my jaw and pointed at the dirt. �
��That old Gnome is responsible for things you can’t even imagine! A demon is free because of her—because of a lie she told to your mother!”

  Valory bristled. Her eyes blazed black fury and her wings tensed stiffly above her shoulders. “How can you say that? You never knew Almyra! She raised me from a baby, took care of me—”

  “She stole you from your real mother!” I shouted. “She caused her to go mad and countless people have died because of it!”

  Valory roared and launched herself at me. She wrapped her hands around my throat. “Take it back!” she said, shaking me. “Almyra was harmless!”

  I began choking. Sparkly lights danced into my field of vision. It was the wake-up that I needed. It occurred to me that I was dealing with a very angry, very powerful Slaugh who could snuff me out in an instant if she really wanted to.

  With my own emotions back under control, I sought strength from inside myself to create a barrier. It pushed Valory backwards, causing her to fall. I stumbled away from her, wheezing for breath.

  Valory got quickly back to her feet.

  “I’m sorry,” I wheezed. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” I held up my hands as a sign of defeat.

  Valory stood rigid, clenching and unclenching her fists. “What’s got these crazy notions in your head? I ought to kill you where you stand you ungrateful little wretch!”

  She looked frightful. The similarity to Marafae was uncanny. I gulped and took a deep breath. “We need to talk about this. I’ll tell you everything. When I’m done you can decide if I’m crazy or not.”

  “After you fix the grave!” Valory said, pointing to the toppled memorial.

  I lowered my head meekly and bent down to pick up some of the stones I’d thrown. I had no idea how to convince Valory of what I knew. I had no proof that Almyra had lied. All I had was a memory that wasn’t even my own.

  Then I recalled a small detail.