by T. A. Miles
Perhaps it would be better if he left Andaria altogether, at least for a while. The light of Dawnfire may have been glorious, but it still could not burn away the awful memories or the guilt that came with recalling them.
THE INN OF the Howling Wolf had a bustling, cheerful air about it, and at the same time, it invoked an underlying sense of gloom. After several days’ travel from Stormbright into Lower Yvaria, the company felt not only weary, but chilled. As the air gradually cooled around them, so that even a soft spring rain felt icy soaking through their clothing, the chill swiftly began to bite down on their spirits as well as their flesh and bones. There was something profoundly disturbing about the deep forest they’d entered and something indescribably unsettling about the broad smiles and loud voices of the patrons crowding into the lodge at Nidwohlen.
Half the bodyguards came in with Xu Liang, Tarfan, and his young niece. The others stayed outside, watching over the horses and equipment along one of the town’s forested paths. The manner in which Nidwohlen had been built among the woods, which lay beneath the beginnings of the Alabaster Range, added a shadowed depth that only furthered to instill the sense of isolation and discomfort.
Xu Liang’s exploration into this region had never brought him to this village before. He had come to it now purely as a measure of expedience in getting into the mountains, since crossing them seemed the best way to reach the Flatlands on the other side.
“You feel it, too,” Tarfan observed, several minutes after they’d seated themselves at an unoccupied table in a corner near the common room’s large, blazing hearth. “There’s something peculiar about this place.”
“Gypsies,” Taya whispered, as if in explanation, but when Xu Liang glanced at her, he saw that her eyes were elsewhere.
The mystic discreetly followed her gaze to one of the larger tables near the bar, where a crowd of at least a dozen colorfully dressed individuals carried on multiple animated conversations at once. Men and women alike were laughing and drinking, and where there weren’t enough chairs for everyone two of the women sat in the laps of men, who balanced them with one hand and drank large mugs of ale with the other. Xu Liang contained the feelings of disgust rising within him at their public display. He was far from Sheng Fan now and unqualified to judge the behavior of those he would encounter.
Tarfan seemed to disagree. He quaffed from his mug, then blanched at the sight of the gypsies. “Bah! Disgusting folk! Wild...weird. Don’t trust them.” He stabbed the rough wooden table with his forefinger to emphasize. “And that’s a fair warning, friend!”
Xu Liang simply listened and said nothing. He watched the gypsies curiously until someone coughed beside him. He looked to the young guard as Guang Ci made a sour face and shoved the cup of western alcohol at arm’s length across the table.
Tarfan laughed derisively. “What’s the matter, boy? Can’t handle your drink?”
Unable to understand the words, Guang Ci answered the dwarf’s tone with a scowl and said to Xu Liang in Fanese, “It is swill. These barbarians poison themselves.”
“There are some ‘barbarians’ who would say the same of us if they tasted our food and drink,” Xu Liang answered. “Which, I’ll add, we have brought with us in limited supply. Perhaps it will be in your interest to not taste some of what you consume on this journey.”
The guard nodded regardfully, then said, “I wish that I could get by as you do, my lord, without having to taste anything but the clear water of Mount Ding Zhu.”
“And when that runs out, I will taste nothing at all,” Xu Liang told him seriously. “It is a great risk that I take with my body for the sake of keeping my spirit at its strongest. The Empress and I are depending on the strength of your body, Guang Ci, and at a time such as this, of your stomach.”
Guang Ci grimaced and recovered his cup, looking pale when a skillet of red meat and vegetables, still boiling in grease, arrived shortly afterward, placed down by a barmaid wearing a full skirt and a puffy-sleeved, low cut shirt with multiple stains. Her yellow-brown hair was carelessly pinned up, slipping from the loose binding in tendrils that clung to her face in the overheated barroom air. She set bowls and forks out before the company of foreigners.
“Is there anything else I can get for you?” the barmaid asked in the most common Yvarian dialect, which both Xu Liang and Tarfan understood. The dwarf answered her and when she left he was the first to begin filling his bowl with the steaming western recipe. Taya followed closely. The guards took their time. It was evident in their faces that they envied their fellow guards outside, who had been charged with watch duty and would be dining on Fanese rations beneath the large dark trees of the Hollowen Forest.
The meal was taken in slowly, even by the previously eager dwarves, as the strangeness of the place—for a moment uplifted by Guang Ci’s and Tarfan’s outburst—began to settle again.
Xu Liang stared at the empty bowl in front of him, not seeing it as he contemplated their trek through the Yvarian mountains, recalling that the Alabaster Range was much more treacherous than the mountains of Ying, which had wider passes and less jagged ledges. Xu Liang almost consulted Tarfan about what he would consider the quickest, safest route, but he maintained his silence when he sensed someone approaching. He looked at the slim youngish man long before anyone else might have noticed him, startling him briefly.
At first the individual who’d strayed from the table of gypsies halted, a look of astonishment on his bold, dark features. Then he smiled somewhat crookedly and swaggered to the table of strangers, a half-empty mug in his hand. He was dressed modestly in comparison to some of his fellows, wearing black trousers and a full-sleeved white shirt, unlaced to his breastbone, along with a deep red vest adorned with embroidered patterns that formed no discernible images. Small golden hoops dangled from both ears, which were partly hidden by his thick crown of wild black curls. His eyes were dark and cunning.
The gypsy stopped at the end of the company’s table and finished off his ale before speaking. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and finally said, “Would those be your men outside?”
“And if they are?” Tarfan replied gruffly.
The gypsy seemed more amused by the dwarf’s rough tone than offended or intimidated. He traded his empty glass for Tarfan’s, throwing back the swallow that remained, then looking at the dry mug with disappointment. He said, “Best to get them inside, little man.”
The dwarf began to rumble, his face reddening. “Little man! You outstretched, bauble-wearing...”
Xu Liang intervened. “May I ask what inspires such advice?”
The gypsy looked at him. His smile broadened with amusement. He set down the misappropriated mug and leaned slowly over the table, glancing over all of its occupants before settling his dark gaze once more on Xu Liang. He said, “You may, yes.”
Xu Liang did not repeat himself. He met the man’s gaze coolly in the silence that followed, waiting for his answer.
The opportunity for fun slowly escaped the gypsy, and a frown came to his lips just before he straightened and said seriously, if not somewhat bored, “Evil dwells in the forest of night. Best get your men in, I say.”
Xu Liang inclined his head in acknowledgment and looked to Tarfan as the gypsy sauntered away. “Do you know what he speaks of?”
The dwarf shrugged. “Gypsy superstition! They make their living on startling the ignorant with their tricks and lies. Sometimes they take themselves too seriously, particularly when they’re drunk.” He glared at the empty mugs in front of him. “There’s nothing worse than a soused gypsy!”
“Perhaps,” Xu Liang said softly. Then he rose. His bodyguards did as well. “Only one of you,” he said in Fanese. The others stay with the dwarves. Protect them if the need arises, exercising only what force is necessary. It is not my desire to build a reputation for myself in this land. Guang Ci, accompany me.” He switched to Tarfan’s preferred tongue. “My friend, I will return shortly. I wish to see for myself if the man spea
ks only nonsense.”
Xu Liang departed, and across the common room of the Howling Wolf, the gypsy troupe watched over the rims of tipped glasses and out of the corners of their eyes.
“GYPSIES,” TARFAN MURMURED with disgust. Then he glanced at the three guards left behind, sitting rigid and unsure in the absence of their master. It was clear that he wondered what Xu Liang had said to them before leaving.
Beside her uncle, Taya took in slow forkfuls of food, her eyes wandering the crowd. The gypsies were the most colorful of the locals, by their look, their manner, and their talk. The rest of the patrons consisted of a smattering of townsfolk, keeping loudly to themselves. In spite of the mage’s obvious foreign aspect—foreign beyond what most Yvarians experienced in their simple lifetimes—not one person outside of the gypsies so much as glanced at them, and the gypsies lost interest quickly. Xu Liang and her uncle were right. The place was odd.
Taya’s eyes continued to wander from table to table, eventually settling on a pair she hadn’t noticed before. Though much of their features were obscured in the shadow of the distant corner they occupied, they didn’t look Yvarian. Taya tried to get a better look at them, but they were wearing thick black cloaks with the hoods drawn up so that their faces were darkened from view. There was food in front of them, but they didn’t seem to be eating. She stared at them in silent wonder until dinner at her own table was interrupted for the second time.
“You travel with strange folk, dwarf,” a large, bearded man was saying.
Taya watched as the heavyset gypsy took Xu Liang’s seat, continuing to speak to her uncle. The ill feeling she’d experienced days ago was coming back.
The red-vested youth from before smiled at his companion from the end of the table, arms folded casually across his chest. “Stranger than us? Strahm, you injure me.”
Strahm chuckled, inviting others at the gypsy table to laugh as well. The bodyguards sat quietly in their places around the table, obeying whatever orders Xu Liang had given them, paying no attention to a conversation they couldn’t understand.
“Strange armor,” the large gypsy said when some of the laughter subsided, glancing at one of the bodyguards. “Doesn’t look like anything forged in Stormbright to me.”
“Neither is the dagger your friend’s fingering,” Tarfan growled, and Taya discreetly lowered her hand to her sword’s hilt.
She sighed with relief when the red-vested man spread his hands before him as if in a display of peace, though she didn’t like his crooked smile.
“Where do you suppose they come from, dressed like that?” the one called Strahm asked.
His companion shrugged. “Where does a soldier don armor adorned with demon faces? Where are the lords slight and delicate as a painted doll?”
“Evondorf,” Strahm blurted. “The count and his sons, as frail as his daughters, oozing in riches, speaking with their long noses in the air.”
The other held up a finger in contradiction. “But this stranger is not oozing in riches, none but the silk of his robes and his hair. And his nose is not all that long, nor is it in the air. Yet, there is an eerie confidence about him, like he knows something that we do not.”
Tarfan laughed. “If it’s the man’s intelligence that intimidates you unsightly orphans, go back to your caravan! It’s the only place you’ll find people as dung-headed as yourselves!”
Surprisingly, the gypsy ignored the statement and concluded his own. “He is not from any class or part of Yvaria, my friends. He is as strange as strangers come, and...”
“And?” Strahm prompted, as if he’d rehearsed the cue.
The other gypsy’s smile faded slowly. “And I think that I smell magic.”
“Would you be referring to real magic over your gypsy trickery?” Tarfan barked.
The gypsies bristled now and Taya’s heart leapt into her throat. She wasn’t afraid, but she always felt a small rise of panic before a fight began. Her uncle seemed to stir a lot of them—particularly when he’d suffered too much to drink—and he was busily stirring at the moment.
“I advise insolent rabble such as yourselves to go back to your drinks and your women before I give you a taste of something that was forged in Stormbright!”
The larger gypsy stood, throwing back his chair in the process. Tarfan shot up as well, reaching for the war hammer at his back. He climbed up onto his chair, then stepped one foot onto the table, glaring at the gypsy. Taya hopped down from her own seat, unsheathing her short sword while the red-vested gypsy presented his dagger and his larger companion balled his enormous fists. The other gypsies were just beginning to move away from their table, either to watch or to help, when the bodyguards made their presence known.
Each of the Fanese men rose nearly unseen out of their seats, grabbed up the swords leaning beside the chairs, and tore them from their scabbards. They rushed the gypsies, knocking them back in such a fierce tide of action that Taya was sure they’d killed them on the spot. Somehow the gypsies lived through the moment and slowly picked themselves up off the floor, standing wide-eyed and unsure at the ends of the guards’ bloodless swords. One of them hissed at the gypsies in Fanese, clearly giving a first and final warning as to what would happen if they tried anything else.
Tarfan watched the gypsies back away scowling and hoisted his hammer onto his shoulder. He chuckled. “I almost forgot what it was like having these lads around!” He looked to Taya, who stood dumbstruck and filled with adrenaline that had nowhere to go. Her uncle said, “Never wonder how the mage has managed to live as long as he has.”
Taya just shook her head.
WIND STIRRED THE tops of the trees high overhead, none of it reaching the town scattered beneath them. The pole-hung lanterns stayed motionless along the dirt paths that connected one building to the next, casting shadows upon the shadows. An owl alighted on one of the low wooden poles, then fluttered away into the depth of the night to continue its search for a meal. Horses milled about. Many of them were attached to carts, some of which were completely enclosed with doors at the rear to allow entrance. Lanterns adorned nearly every cart, and a few of them were glowing, perhaps in a vain attempt to add more light to what seemed unwilling to be lit.
The darkness hadn’t quite settled this deeply when Xu Liang and the others arrived in Nidwohlen. It would not have mattered, except that this darkness had a presence to it, a will almost. The gypsy might have been correct in his claim. And now Xu Liang was faced with the decision of bringing his men indoors and entrusting the horses and much of the equipment to the respect—or lack thereof—of these strangers, or attempting to leave Nidwohlen now.
They had entered the Hollowen Forest at its southeastern edge and traveled only a few hours in. Tarfan’s maps showed that the mountains were less than a day from the town. However, less than a day could be most of a night and while they had lanterns, firelight did not seem effective against such a thick cover of darkness.
“Lord Xu Liang,” Guang Ci spoke. “What troubles you?”
The mystic turned to face the bodyguards, having forgotten for a moment that they were standing with him in the shadows. He looked into each of their faces, searching now for that instinct of theirs that had forewarned him of the rogues at Li Ting. He saw only the restlessness of men too far from their homeland. Perhaps he was reading too far into the darkness of the Hollowen Forest and the strangeness of Nidwohlen’s residents. He started to speak to his men, but then fell silent when one of their horses suddenly jerked its head and pulled away from the pole its reins were wrapped around.
Gai Ping went to the animal to calm it, begging the assistance of his fellows as the others started to panic as well. Xu Liang looked around at the horses belonging to Yvarians and noticed that all of them acted nervously, though none quite so nervous as his own. Undoubtedly, like the villagers, these animals were more accustomed to whatever moved through the darkness here.
A nearby presence stole the mystic’s attention. Xu Liang looked to one o
f the enclosed wagons sharing the bole of the enormous conifer the company had stopped beside earlier in the evening. He watched a thin old woman move slowly down the two steps suspended beneath the wagon’s door. She leaned heavily on a plain walking stick. Once on the ground she stood in the warm glow spilling out from what may have been her home and began to speak to the still air around her. “It is chaos that makes them uneasy.”
Xu Liang frowned pensively, wondering at her choice in words. Was she unconsciously referencing the Dragon, like Cai Shi-meng when he’d written about the Spear of Heaven as a weapon against chaos? The unlikeliness of that almost brought an amused smile to his lips as he pictured himself a paranoid doomsayer on a mad quest for weapons that would come together and do nothing more than glow a bit brighter than they might have on their own. And then he thought of what he’d felt in his homeland, and what his Empress felt, and all traces of mirth drained from him in the very instant. Somehow the Dragon was real. Somehow it was waking.
“Or being awakened,” the old woman suddenly said, and she looked directly at Xu Liang. She smiled a toothless smile at his silent dismay. She had read his mind.
“Yes, I can hear your thoughts, young man. Come,” she beckoned. “Come closer and talk to me for a little while.”
Xu Liang recovered himself and his manners, bowing respectfully at the waist. “Forgive my rudeness, madam. I was not expecting to meet one of such talent.”
“Come,” she said again.
Sensing nothing at all threatening about her, Xu Liang stepped closer. He bowed again. “I am honored.”
Before he straightened, she took his hand, pressing her thin, old skin upon his own that was smooth from lack of toil and from the youth he managed still to hold onto while his mind seemed to age at a much more rapid pace.
