“Twarn’t on purpose,” he dipped his head at Royce and Hadrian. “We thought these fellas were up to something.”
Russell looked at them. “Visitors, eh? Where’d you two come from?”
“Colnora,” Thrace answered, “I invited them. Esra said they could help my father. I was hoping you’d let them stay with us.”
Russell looked at her and sighed heavily, a frown pulling hard at the corners of his mouth.
“Oh, well-ah, that’s okay, I guess,” Thrace stumbled looking embarrassed. “I can ask Deacon Tomas if he’ll-”
“Of course, they can stay with us, Thrace. You know better than to even ask.” Tucking the pig under one arm, he placed his hand to the side of her face and rubbed her cheek. “It’s just that, well Lena and me-we was sure you were gone for good. Figured you’d found a new home, maybe.”
“I’d never leave my father.”
“No. No, I ’spose you wouldn’t. You and your pa-you’re alike that way. Rocks, the both of you, and Maribor help the plow that finds either of you in its path.”
The pig made an attempt to escape, twisting, kicking its legs and squealing. Russell caught it just in time. “Need to get back. The wife will be after me. Com’on, Thrace, and bring your friends.” He led them toward the clump of tiny houses. “By Mar girl, where’d you get that dress?”
Royce remained where he was as the rest started to go. Hadrian gave him a curious look but continued ahead with the others. Royce remained on the trail, unmoving, watching the villagers racing the light: fetching water, hanging out clothes, gathering animals. Pearl wandered past the well, her herd of pigs reduced to only two. Mae Drundel came out of her house, her kerchief pulled free, her gray hair hanging. Unlike the rest, she walked slowly. She crossed to the side of her home, where Royce noticed three markers like those of the Caswell’s. She stood for a moment, knelt down for a time, then walked slowly back inside. She was the last villager to disappear indoors.
That left only Royce and the man at the well.
He was no farmer.
Royce spotted him the moment they returned, his long slender frame leaning silently against the side of the wellhead, resting in shadow where he nearly faded into the background. The man’s hair hung loose to his shoulders, dark with a few threads of gray. He had high cheekbones and deep brooding eyes. His long enveloping robe shimmered with the last rays of sunlight. He sat motionless. This was a man comfortable with waiting and well versed in patience.
He did not look old, but Royce knew better. He had not changed much in the two years since Royce, Hadrian, a young prince Alric, and a monk named Myron, aided his escape from Gutaria Prison. The color of his robe was different, yet still not quite discernible. This time Royce guessed it shimmered somewhere between a turquoise and a dark green, as always the sleeves hung down, hiding the absence of his hands. He also bore a beard, but that of course, was new.
They watched each other, staring across the green. Royce walked forward, crossing the distance between them in silence. Two ghosts meeting at a crossroad.
“It’s been a while-Esra is it? Or should I call you Mister Haddon?”
The man tilted his head, lifting his eyes. “I am delighted to see you as well, Royce.”
“How do you know my name?”
“I’m a wizard, or did you miss that from our last meeting?”
Royce paused and smiled. “You know you’re right, I might have, perhaps you should write it down for me lest I forget again.”
Esrahaddon raised an eyebrow. “That’s a bit harsh.”
“How do you know who I am?”
“Well, I did see The Crown Conspiracy while in Colnora. I found the sets pathetic and the orchestration horrible, but the story was good. I particularly loved the daring escape from the tower, and the little monk was hilarious-by far my favorite character. I was also pleased there was no wizard in the tale. I wonder who I should thank for that oversight, certainly not you.”
“They also didn’t use our real names. So again, how do you know it?”
“How would you find out your name, if you were me?”
“I’d ask people that would know. So who did you ask?”
“Would you tell me?”
Royce frowned. “Do you ever answer a question with an answer?”
“Sorry, it’s a habit, I was a teacher most of my free life.”
“Your speech has changed,” Royce observed.
“Thank you for noticing. I worked very hard. I sat in many taverns over the last six months and listened. I have a talent for languages; I speak several. I don’t know all the colloquial terms yet, but the general grammar wasn’t hard to adjust to. It is the same language after all, the dialect you speak is merely-less sophisticated than what I was used to. It’s like talking with a crude accent.”
“So you found out who we were by asking around and watching bad plays and you picked up the language by listening to drunks. Now tell me, why are you here, and why do you want us here?”
Esrahaddon stood up and slowly walked around the well. He looked at the ground where the last light of the sun spilled through the leaves of a poplar tree.
“I could tell you that I am hiding here and that would sound plausible. I could also say that I heard about the plight of this village and came here to help, because that’s what wizards do. Of course, we both know you won’t believe those answers. So let’s save time. Why don’t you tell me why I am here? Then you can try and judge by my reaction if you are correct or not, since that’s what you’re planning to do anyway.”
“Were all wizards as irritating as you are?”
“Much worse, I’m afraid. I was one of the youngest and nicest.”
A young man, Royce thought his name was Tad, trotted over with a bucket. “It’s getting late,” he said with a harried look filling his bucket with water. A few yards away Royce spotted a woman struggling to pull a stubborn goat into a house as a small boy pushed the animal from behind.
“Tad!” a man shouted, and the boy at the well turned abruptly.
“Coming!”
He smiled and nodded at each of them, grabbed his bucket of water and ran back the way he came, spilling half the contents in the process.
They were alone again.
“I think you’re here because you need something from Avempartha,” Royce told the wizard. “And I don’t think it is a sword of demon-slaying either. You’re using this poor girl and her tormented father to lure me and Hadrian here to turn a knob you obviously can’t manage.”
Esrahaddon sighed. “That’s disappointing. I thought you were smarter than that, and these constant references to my disability are dull. I am not using anyone.”
“So you are saying there really is a weapon in that tower?”
“That is exactly what I am saying.”
Royce studied him for a moment and scowled.
“Can’t tell if I am lying or not, can you?” Esrahaddon smiled smugly.
“I don’t think you’re lying, but I don’t think you’re telling the truth either.”
The wizard’s eyebrows rose. “Now that’s better. There might be hope for you yet.”
“Maybe there is a weapon in that tower. Maybe it can help kill this-whatever it is they have here, but maybe you also conjured the beast in the first place as an excuse to drag us here.”
“Logical,” Esrahaddon said, nodding. “Morbidly manipulative, but I can see the reasoning. Only if you recall, the attacks on this village started while I was still imprisoned.”
Royce scowled again. “So, why are you here?”
Esrahaddon smiled. “Something you need to understand my boy is that wizards are not fonts of information. You should at least know this much-the farmer Theron and his daughter would be dead today if I hadn’t arrived and sent her to fetch you.”
“Alright. Your purpose here is none of my business, I can accept that. But why am I here? You can tell me that much, can’t you? Why go to the bother of finding out our names and locating
us in Colnora-which was really impressive by the way-when you could have gotten any thief to pick your lock and open the tower for you?”
“Because not just anyone will do. You are the only one I know who can open Avempartha.”
“Are you saying I am the only thief you know?”
“It helps if you actually listen to what I say. You are the only one I know who can open Avempartha.”
Royce glared at him.
“There is a monster here that kills indiscriminately,” Esrahaddon told him with great and unexpected seriousness. “No weapon made by man can harm it. It comes at night and people die. Nothing will stop it except the sword that lies in that tower. You need to find a way inside and get that sword.”
Royce continued to stare.
“You are right. That is not the whole truth, but it is the truth nonetheless and all that I am willing to explain…for now. To learn more you need to get inside.”
“Stealing swords,” Royce muttered mostly to himself. “Okay, let’s take a look at this tower. The sooner I see it the sooner I can start cursing.”
“No,” the wizard replied. He looked back at the ground where the sun had already faded. He glanced up at the darkening sky. “Night is coming and we need to get indoors. In the morning we will go, but tonight we hide with the rest.”
Royce considered the wizard for a moment. “You know when I first met you there was all this talk about you being this scary wizard that could call lightning and raise mountains and now you can’t even fight a little monster, or open an old tower. I thought you were more powerful than this.”
“I was,” Esrahaddon said and for the first time the wizard held up his arms letting his sleeves fall back revealing the stumps where his hands should have been. “Magic is a little like playing the fiddle. It’s damn hard to do without hands.”
***
Dinner that evening was a vegetable pottage, a weak stew consisting of leeks, celery, onions, and potatoes in a thin broth. Hadrian took only a small portion that was far from filling, but he found it surprisingly tasty, filled with a mixture of unusual flavors that left a burning sensation in his mouth.
Lena and Russell Bothwick made good on their promise to put them up for the night, a kindness made all the more generous when they discovered how cramped the little house was. The Bothwicks had three children, four pigs, two sheep, and a goat they called Mammy, all of whom clustered in the single open room. Mosquitoes joined them as well, taking over the night shift from the flies. It was hard to breathe in the house filled with smoke, the scent of animals, and the steam from the stew pot. Royce and Hadrian staked out a bit of earth as near the open doorway as possible and sat on the floor.
“I didn’t know the first thing about farming,” Russell Bothwick was saying. Like most men in the village, he was dressed in a frayed and flimsy shirt that hung to his knees, belted around the waist with a length of twine. There were large, dark circles under his eyes, another trait consistent with the other inhabitants of Dahlgren. “I was a candle maker back in Drismoor. I worked as a journeyman in a trade shop on Hithil Street. It was Theron who kept us alive our first year here. We woulda starved or froze to death if not for Theron and Addie Wood. They took us under their wing and helped build this house. It was Theron that taught me how to plow a field.”
“Addie was my midwife when I had the twins,” Lena said while ladling out bowls, which Thrace handed to the children. The twin girls and Tad, exiled to the loft, looked down from their beds of straw, chins on hands, eyes watchful. “And Thrace here was our babysitter.”
“There was never a question about taking her in,” Russell said. “I only wish Theron would come too, but that man is stubborn.”
“I just can’t get over how beautiful that dress is,” Lena Bothwick said again, looking at Thrace and shaking her head. Russell grumbled something, but with a mouthful of stew, no one understood him.
Lena scowled. “Well it is.”
She stopped talking about it, but continued to stare. Lena was a gaunt woman with light brown hair, cut straight and short, giving her a boyish look. Her nose came to a point so sharp it looked like it could cut parchment. She had a rash of freckles and no eyebrows to speak of. The children all took after her, each sporting the same cropped hairstyle, son and daughters alike, while Russell had no hair at all.
Thrace entertained them with stories of her adventure to the big city, of the sights and number of people she found there. She explained that Hadrian and Royce took her to a lavish hotel. This brought worried looks from Lena but she relaxed as more details were revealed. Thrace raved about her bath in a hot water tub with perfumed soap and how she spent the night in a huge feather bed under a solid beamed roof. She never mentioned the Tradesmen’s Arch, or what happened underneath it.
Lena was mesmerized to the point of nearly letting the remainder of the stew boil over. Russell continued to grunt and grumble his way through the meal. Esrahaddon sat with his back to the side wall between Lena’s spinning wheel and the butter churn. His robe was now a dark gray. He was so quiet he could have been just a shadow. During dinner, Thrace spoon-fed the wizard.
How must that feel? Hadrian thought while watching them. What is it like to have held so much power and now unable to even hold a spoon?
After dinner, while helping Lena clean up Thrace was placing the washed bowls on a shelf and called out, “I remember this plate.” A smile appeared on her face as she spotted the only ceramic dish in the house. The pale white oval with delicate blue traceries lay carefully tucked in a back corner of the cupboard with all the other treasured family heirlooms. “I remember when I was little, Jessie Caswell and I-” she stopped and the house quieted. Even the children stopped fussing.
Lena stopped cleaning the dishes and put her arms around Thrace, pulling her close. Hadrian noticed lines on the woman’s face he had not seen previously. The two stood before the bucket of dirty water and silently cried together. “You shouldn’t have come back,” Lena whispered. “You should have stayed in that hotel with those people.”
“I can’t leave him,” Hadrian heard Thrace’s small voice muffled by Lena’s shoulder. “He’s all I have left.”
Thrace pulled back and Lena struggled to offer her a smile.
It was dark outside now. From his vantage point at the doorway, Hadrian could not see much of anything-a tiny patch of moonlight scattered here and there. Fireflies blinked leaving trails of light. The rest was lost in the vast black of the forest.
Russell pulled over a stool to sit across from Royce and Hadrian. Lighting a long clay pipe with a thin sliver of wood, he commented, “So, you two are here to help Theron kill the monster?”
“We’ll do what we can,” Hadrian replied.
Russell puffed hard on his pipe to ensure it lit and then crushed the burning tip of the wooden sliver into the dirt floor. “Theron is over fifty years old. He knows the sharp end of a pitchfork from the handle, but I don’t ’spect he’s ever held a sword. Now you two look to me like the kind of fellas that have seen a fight up close and Hadrian here not only has a sword-he’s got three. A man carries three swords he, like as not, knows how to use ’em. Seems to me, a couple fellas like you could do more than just help an old man get himself killed.”
“Russell!” Lena reprimanded. “They’re our guests. Why don’t you scald them with hot water while you’re at it?”
“I just don’t want to see that damn fool kill himself. If the margrave and his knights didn’t stand a chance, how well will Theron do out there? An old man with that scythe of his. What’s he trying to prove? How brave he is?”
“He’s not trying to prove anything,” Esrahaddon said suddenly and his voice silenced the room like a plate dropping. “He’s trying to kill himself.”
“What?” Russell asked.
“He’s right,” Hadrian said, “I’ve seen it before. Soldiers-career soldiers-brave men just reach a point where it’s all too much. It can be anything that sets them off-one
too many deaths, a friend dying, or even something as trivial as a change in the weather. I knew a man once who led charges in dozens of battles. It wasn’t until a dog he befriended was butchered for food that he gave up. Of course, a fighter like that can’t surrender, can’t just quit. He needs to go out swinging. So they rush in unguarded, picking a battle they can’t win.”
“Then I needn’t have wasted your time,” Thrace said. “If my father doesn’t want to live-whatever is in the tower can’t save him.”
Hadrian regretted speaking and added, “Every day your father is alive there is the chance he can find hope again.”
“Your father will be fine, Thrace,” Lena told her. “That man is tough as granite. You’ll see.”
“Mom,” one of the kids from the loft called.
Lena ignored the child. “You shouldn’t listen to these people talking about your father that way. They don’t know him.”
“Mom.”
“Honestly, telling a poor girl something like that right after she’s lost her family.”
“Mom!”
“What on earth is it, Tad?” Lena nearly screamed at the child.
“The sheep. Look at the sheep.”
Everyone noticed it then. Crowded into the corner of the room, the sheep were quiet through the meal. A content wooly pile that Hadrian forgot was there. Now they pushed each other struggling against the wooden board Russell had put up. The little bell around Mammy’s neck rang as the goat shifted uneasily. One of the pigs bolted for the door and Thrace and Lena tackled it just in time.
“Kids. Get down here!” Lena shouted in a whisper.
The three children descended the ladder with precision movements, veterans of many drills. Their mother gathered them near her in the center of the house. Russell got off his stool and doused the fire with the wash water.
Darkness enveloped them. No one spoke. Outside the crickets stopped chirping. The frogs fell silent an instant later. The animals continued to shift and stomp. Another pig bolted. Hadrian heard its little feet skitter across the dirt floor in the direction of the door. Beside him he felt Royce move, then silence.
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