Chapter Six: Part Three

Continued from Chapter Six: Part Two

“Aside from my training,” Jarvela said. “I can only remember that you always asked for more ghost stories. I discount my training as important to you. So we must be ghost hunting.”

“Do not be so quick to dismiss yourself,” Kyouki said, looking sidelong at Jarvela. “You are right, though. We are ghost hunting. A specific ghost. We have almost found him.”

The next morning they started early. Unlike every other day since Jarvela had joined company with Kyouki, the Oswemend seemed to have a clear idea which way to go. They continued southward along the scrubby edge of the desert. Gradually, hills grew and slowed their horses. For a day no further adventure beset them.

The next dawn burned hotter than any Jarvela had ever felt. He shed many layers of clothing before they started and still dripped with sweat before an hour had passed. The hills grew hotter and drier as they went south. Large, sandy rocks began sticking up from the ground, becoming larger as they went. After not many hours there was more rock than hills. The wind formed rocks swept up taller and taller. Soon their rode wove around tall rock formations.

Wind grew through the rocks. The sparse sand whipped up. Jarvela wrapped a cloth around his mouth to protect his breath. The going got more difficult every mile—the wind threw around more grit and the ground was always stonier. Jarvela did not want to believe that some ill will set against them. He had trouble disbelieving it. A dry voice laughed or cursed in the wind, raising the hairs on his neck. The first few times he heard it he thought he imagined it, spiraling through the coarse dust into his face. It sounded so faintly and seldom that he thought it a brush of wind. The sound of the voice grew louder, clearer, frequenter, till Jarvela could only believe it. The laughter sounded scornful and ironic—the curses as bitter as the grit in the wind blowing in his face.

The sand blowing around had grown so thick Jarvela saw a few feet ahead of him and no further. He had no clear idea of the terrain anymore, except that the ground had become dry stone. Kyouki still seemed to know where he wanted to go. He rode a little ahead of Jarvela, his head bowed and wrapped in his black silk hood. The cruel voice in the wind drew him on through the sand. He had found his ghost, Jarvela supposed.

Though the wind developed no change, Jarvela became vaguely aware through the closening of the air and the tightening of the rushing sound that they had ridden into a canyon. Jarvela felt they had been riding in it for some time—perhaps two miles. The walls swooped closer around them so that what little sunlight strangled through the gritty wind turned dim and red. The horses didn’t like the wind and sand. They wanted to turn back. The voice in the wind scared them the more. It had become shouting with a renewed vigor.

The walls of the canyon narrowed to nearly a cave for a hundred feet. They whooshed out again suddenly and they rode into a wide place in the canyon. The sand had been thinning for a while. Through it Jarvela could see vague shapes in the distance. The walls of the sandstone canyon, windswept and winding, stood tall and a uniform yellow-red from the ground up shaped like a very slow creek bed eroded with very fast wind. The[1]  far wall was featureless except for a pale X shape chained to the wall thirty feet off the ground.

“A man,” Jarvela shouted, bending near Kyouki’s protected head.

“Very nearly,” Kyouki said. If Jarvela could have seen his face he would have guessed Kyouki smiled.

“Your ghost?”

“Yes—the wretched creature,” Kyouki said. The familiar, rasping laugh in the wind broke forth again, louder than ever.

Taking a pickaxe they had brought with them, Kyouki, using his own special nimbleness, climbed slowly up the cliff face to the X of a pale man hanging from the walls. Kyouki found a narrow ledge under the chains and just managed to keep his feet enough to strike the chains securing the man’s feet a few good blows. Jarvela watched, feeling loathe to release this person, so securely hanged from chains in such an unwholesome place. His voice made Jarvela nervous. And some other ill feeling hung about the place, though Jarvela could just be jumpy from riding in the hard wind in the canyon for so long. Besides, the pale man could not be trussed so roughly for being a safe person. A hazard and no mistake.

Kyouki managed to dislodge the chains securing the man from the cliff till only on chain kept the pale man’s left arm attached to the wall. Through an improbable feat of balance and strength Kyouki held the pale man by the one chain left, climbed to where it was attached to the wall, and dislodged it as well. He kept a hold of the chain and climbed down the cliff. On the ground Kyouki wrapped his own cloak around the man, who could almost not stand. They walked back to Jarvela and the horses, Kyouki supporting the other, who still dragged his chains.

“Let’s find someplace to get out of this wind,” Kyouki shouted at Jarvela. Jarvela tried and failed to get a good look at the newcomer. He kept the hood of Kyouki’s cloak over his face. Aside from being a man as large as Jarvela, broader than Kyouki, and pale, Jarvela could see very little of him.

A little further along the canyon they found a deep crevice which afforded protection from the wind. It was deep enough and wide enough to get the horses inside. Still they had enough space to sit on the canyon floor near the opening. Jarvela had a good look of the pale man, who sat against a wall in the alcove.

He smiled. It looked genuine enough. Anything cheerful in it had the taint of being formed by a purple and bruised mouth in a wax-white face, his skin chapped and cracked from maybe years hanging in the sand-swept canyon. The chains around his limbs had been welded together. Whoever put him up there wanted to keep him there.

“What crime deserves this punishment?” Jarvela asked.

“He is guilty of no crime,” Kyouki said. “Though the name may mean nothing to you, this is Iskander Younes. He was hidden here because some people are embarrassed by his existence. He reminds them of certain secrets they’d rather hide. I think he wants to tell you about it.” Kyouki fell silent while the quiet laugh of Younes mumbled from him.

“Aye, no crime but loyalty,” Younes said. “This was the body of Iskander Younes, a loyal soldier, who swore fealty to a lord and a lord bade him do, so Iskander Younes did as he was bidden. There died Iskander Younes, but not his end. Nay, for here is he still. And not the same. Nay, respawned, the first of an ill breed.” Younes giggled. “They hid him away—dangerous he is, certain. More dangerous still being present than being he. Iskander Younes is a secret clue of a bad decision. As the master yon suggests, Iskander Younes reminds them what they meant to hide. They don’t much like that.”

“Damn,” Kyouki muttered, standing just behind Jarvela’s shoulder. Jarvela glanced back. Kyouki’s eyebrows lowered, his eyes stern. “I’ve made a grave error. I hoped he’d be more stable than this.”

Younes looked past Jarvela at Kyouki. Laughing, Younes waved a chained hand to Kyouki. “Iskander Younes is free. The tidy man—oh ho, so prim and clean at every edge—has his price, no doubt. Perhaps Iskander Younes will see it in his power to repay this mild kindness extended to him. Name your warrant, tidy man.”

“Join with me, Younes,” Kyouki said, stepping around Jarvela. “Join with me and we will rebuild a place for our kind.”

The pale face of Younes looked suddenly tense. His eyes widened and his mouth fell agape. “You are not like Iskander Younes. Not by an ounce of flesh nor a turn of phrase. How could you even suppose?”

“I know better what you are than you know,” Kyouki said, lowering his voice. He sounded like he had recently become uncertain of it.

Continued on February 3...

Chapter Five: Part Four

Continued from Chapter Five: Part Three...

Digger whipped his sword to guard. He pointed it first to his left, backing away in case the enemy showed himself. The laughter sounded from his right then, however, and louder. He turned to face it. “Gods, how many?”


“There are few left in the world,” Silk said. His voice sounded serene. Twig looked at his face. Silk still smiled, looking toward the one standing in the flames of the barracks. “One is too many.”

“What are they?” Digger asked.

“They are Scarpy,” Silk said. “You know of Tetch Slander and the Scarpy. These are they. They came for me, just as you predicted that they would.”

Twig wondered what Silk’s crime really was. The Holy Assassins—the Scarpy—the classiest killers hunted Silk. When he found his own footing, Twig wondered if perhaps he would want Silk’s scalp too.

“Gods preserve us,” Digger said. He kept his voice strong and gripped his sword in both hands.

“Hold fast—here he comes,” Silk said. He brought his own sword to be on guard. The Scarpy in the barracks leapt out. Remnants of flame clinging to the oils of his skin, he began running the hundred yards from the barracks toward them. Silk and Digger stood to wait for the Scarpy. Twig had no such patience. Darting first sideways, and partly concealed in the dark—though he knew that the Scarpy could see heat—Twig ran toward the hot Scarpy. The Scarpy’s body generated the campfire heat Twig had been feeling. All Scarpy had blue and hairless bodies, tightened with muscle. This specimen, naked from the fire, stared with its glowing eyes straight at big Silk. The Scarpy had his head lowered, the small horns in his forehead pointed at Silk like a charging bull. Sparks dribbled like spittle from between his pointed teeth.

He ignored Twig. Until the last second, the Scarpy stayed intent on Silk. Somehow, Twig’s quiet charge in the dark shadows passed the Scarpy’s notice. Twig was not sure why. He pressed his advantage, however. Coming at an angle, Twig planted a foot in front of the Scarpy’s. The Scarpy gave a bestial scream that morphed to an obscenity. The Scarpy began to fall. In the middle of the Scarpy’s dive, Twig rotated to knee the Scarpy in the chest. He shoved the heavy body of the Scarpy gracelessly sideways. The Scarpy fell into a jagged hole in the bars of the near bear pit. A scream like a burning hawk escaped him as his side was pierced by several of the jagged ends of the bars on his way to the bones of the bears. A belch of fire lit the pit when he hit the floor.

“Do you think he’s dazed?” Digger said, running up to Twig.

“You can thank the man, boy,” Silk scolded.

“He will not keep for long,” Twig said. “We should run.”

“It’s a bit hard to run from them,” Silk said.

“It is harder to fight them,” Twig said.

“Damn it,” Silk said. He hocked and spat. “I always tried to keep on the same side as them during the War.”

“That is prudent,” Twig said. At the sight of the Scarpy going down, the laughs of the other Scarpy in the Gorge changed to howls and insults. Probably the insults were witty and profane. The thick Scarpy accent obscured what they said exactly. The voices all approached. “This gorge is fitted with explosives. If they are triggered it will cause a cave-in. The Scarpy will be crushed.”

“But probably not killed,” Silk said.

“They may be killed,” Twig said.

“How can we help?” Digger asked.

Twig looked at the young man’s face. He had urgency to do in his eyes. Impotency made him nervous. They would merely get in the way, however. The mechanism was supposed to be triggered by three people, but only Twig knew where the three triggers were.

“Run if you want to live,” Twig said. Digger looked uncomfortable at the command. “Give me your bow and a knife.” Twig took his cloak off and traded it for Silk’s bow and quiver of arrows.

“You’re in for a flailing if this goes otherwise than you say it will, boy,” Silk said. He took the cloak and handed over the bow, however, and produced a knife from somewhere. “Come on, lad. Let’s leave him to his arena.” Silk turned and jogged back to the zigzagging road up the wall of the Gorge.

Twig turned his back to them. He slung the quiver of arrows onto his back, tightened its strap. The knife he stuck under some of the straps on his leather sleeve. The snowy ground stretched flat from him. The building where the bears had been bred stood to the right—the stable to the left. Behind the breeding building the wall of the gorge loomed up, sheer and straight. Ancient mining equipment clung to its face, dirtying the clean stone. Among the catwalks and cranes hanging on the wall a series of cleverly placed charges, based on the Scarpy design, could be triggered to make the whole stone face crumble and bury the Gorge in stone. There were three triggers. Three Zombies were meant to light them at the same time. They were hidden.

Motion caught his eye. He looked toward the breeding building. Someone jumped from the roof. Orange-glowing eyes stared at him. A second Scarpy, walking toward him. A third ran around the stable, his eyes visible in the shadows.

“Well, cold one, we know what to look for now,” the lead Scarpy said.

Twig swung his foot back and drew an arrow. He looked at the wall of the Gorge, recalling the triggering process. It should take three people. Now he looked at it, he wondered if he might have thought of a way to do it by himself. The idea seemed ludicrous, though. He had no idea how to execute it.

He would need some rags.

Continued on December 21...

Chapter Five: Part Two

Continued from Chapter Five: Part One

Having cleaned the last of his knives, Digger put them away. He sat cross-legged on his bedroll, leaning on his folded hands and watching the fire flicker. He contemplated it. Under his eyes, the flames couldn’t get away unnoted. Changes in the patterns attracted his attention. Digger learned things from how the fire moved and how it consumed the sticks. Twig could tell that much from the intensity of his gaze. It was like Digger thought he could divine the secrets of winning fights from the way the flame traveled up and down the sticks.

A few minutes later, Digger turned away from the fire, so that the glare wouldn’t make it hard for him to see in the night if something should happen. Twig could still see part of Digger’s profile. Almost an hour passed in silence. Then Digger glanced over his shoulder at Twig.

“What’s your story?” Digger asked. Twig thought about a good answer. He felt disassociated with the life he had left. Before boot camp, Twig Lithnmark led a common enough life. He had grown up on a ranch, the son of a lord but rarely treated differently than the other boys on the grounds. When time came, he found a wife. When duty called, he joined an army. He joined the Wildhagen Militia first. After only a few weeks with the Militia, a man approached him and invited him to join the Zombie Corps. The man assured Twig Lithnmark that the training program of the Zombie Corps fitted Twig Lithnmark’s talents. The Zombie Corps was an elite fighting force unlike any other, the man said. Excited by the proposition, Twig Lithnmark joined the outfit. He shipped to Camp Younes in a secret location far to the north. Training blurred together after that.

The whole course of experiences felt distant to Twig, like a life lived and finished. It all sat in his mind like the vague wisps of dreams. He sometimes doubted any of Twig Lithnmark’s story had ever happened to him at all, it seemed so disjointed from his current reality. Though he knew it all had happened. He was Twig Lithnmark, and the same who had been born more than sixty years earlier and lived in Wildhagen for twenty and more years before ever going into the military. It felt strange.

That might be the story that Digger wanted, asking for Twig’s story. Twig felt disinclined to share it. It belonged to him. He wanted to keep it.

“I have been in a rebuilding hibernation,” Twig said.

“What does that mean?”

“I am not certain. Some magic worked on the Zombie Corps to add to their preparation for the Wars.”

“Do you know what kind of magic?”

“No,” Twig said. He put new snow in his empty cup and erected the little tripod he had made earlier. “They told us it would occur at some point. We would be magicked to be less afraid and more fear-striking. We thought it sounded superfluous after the training we received.” Digger nodded. He was no stranger to hard training, Twig could see it in his posture and the small scars all over him. “The magic never occurred during training. I began to think they used the term magic as a metaphor. The Zombie Corps never saw fighting. Those bold soldiers would have reckoned hard against any enemy. Any who fought us would fear our cries.”

“You never saw the War?” Digger asked. Twig shook his head. “You’ve been, say what like, hibernating for these years?”

“For many years. The magic worked on us while we slept, it seems. I have not always been like this.”

“Ah, I see.” Digger seemed comforted by the information, knowing Twig had once looked different. His back relaxed a touch. Twig thought he ought to be offended. He failed to conjure the energy. Digger seemed to have thought of a few more questions. Hesitating, he asked one that sounded like not his first choice. “The magic worked on the whole Zombie Corps, did it?”

“I do not know. I have not come across any.”

“Perhaps the ghoul wandering the hills is one,” Digger suggested, turning halfway around to look at Twig.

“Perhaps,” Twig said.

“Why don’t you look for him, then?”

“I could not track him. Just as he would not be able to track me.”

“I tracked you,” Digger said, smiling sideways.

“I lured you to me, Wiggend Lordling,” Twig said, lowering his chin. Digger’s face was blank, his posture unamused. “And there is a Zombie Corps rallying point near here,” Twig looked west, toward the mountains, where the road led them. “He would have checked in there.”

“You’re sure?”

“No. It is protocol, however. It is the most likely place to find members of the Zombie Corps.”

Frowning at the idea that he had been lured anywhere, Digger looked back out into the night. Twig found it curious that Digger refrained from asking why he had been lured out into the hills. All the obvious questions that Digger refrained from asking gratified Twig. They were points he preferred leaving dark. “Where is this rallying point?” Digger asked.

“Cankerous Gorge.”

Digger’s sideways smile returned. “That is the quarry where most of the gods mined the stone for their castles in the mountains.”

“Yes,” Twig said.

“There are stories of awful things happening to people who have recently desecrated those grounds,” Digger said.

“That is reasonable. It is the kind of technique which the men funding the Zombie Corps would have used to discourage prying eyes.”

This time seeming to misbelieve, Digger shook his head again. “Likely we’ll see, then, eh?”

Twig stared at the fire. It hardly mattered if anything calamitous had occurred in Cankerous Gorge. If Zombies had been there, they would have weathered, averted, or avoided the calamity. They would either be at the barracks built in the Gorge or they would have left clues. Either would be useful to Twig. He felt confident that the Gorge would provide answers.

“Why are you alone?” Digger asked. Twig looked at Digger. He had no immediate answer. The question seemed peculiar. He was alone. That seemed logical. Digger glanced at Twig’s eyes, raising his eyebrow. “If there’s a whole Zombie army, where’s the rest of it? Weren’t all of you wakened at once, eh?”

“I do not know,” Twig said.

“Seems strange,” Digger said. He looked back out at the night.

Twig thought about that for a second. His brain began running through reasons why the Zombie Corps would have been wakened without him. Perhaps he had been kept in reserve. There would have been at least a few others kept with him, probably, at least. It could be. The people giving the orders might have placed him to execute a solo mission. They were trained to do that. But the Zombies had been always assured by Geving—who had always claimed to be Ferryman’s representative—that there would be orders to follow.

It confused Twig to operate without orders. He knew he looked like he operated with steely calculation. His head worked with a steely calculation that would have been useful during the confused months of boot camp. Inside, befuddlement kept him from predicting his next step.

Digger’s quiet posture indicated that he lacked any desire to speak any more tonight. Twig rolled onto his back. The stars began to be hazed over by thin, misty clouds. Hours passed. Digger gave up his watch to Silk and Silk sat in silence. They swapped watch twice in the night.

With his eyes open, never blinking, Twig stared at the stars and the slowly gliding clouds. He recalled the details of Cankerous Gorge he knew from a visit.

It was a two day journey to Cankerous Gorge, a canyon cut in the foothills of the mountains. Legend told that Groesn, the Stone God, had rent the Gorge in the side of a hill, so that the gods could get to heavy, grey stone buried in it. The grey stone Gorge yawned deeper in these centuries than ever. The stone had been quarried for the great citadels of the three chief gods: Ythig, the god of chaos; Groesn, called the Stone God; and Ferryman, also called Morthweorc, the god of death, who stood at the end of things.

Continued on December 15...

Chapter Four: Part One

Continued from Chapter Three: Part Five

Twig contemplated the last words of the last Holy Assassin he had killed: Silk the Beast. It was the name of the next target of the Holy Assassins. Twig trusted the killer’s dying words. For some reason, the Holy Assassin had felt the need to tell Twig to kill Silk. “Carry on since we no longer can,” the Assassin had said. Sometimes, people called the Assassins the Ferryman’s Messengers.

Night surrounded Twig. He sat on a stone sticking out of the side of a hall. It commanded a clear view of the road north out of town and the woods around it. With only one break, he had been sitting on the stone for three days watching the valley for motion. Animals that moved among the woods caught his eye--wind moving the trees around--occasional resettling of snow as it melted or froze. From the stone he could see a mile to both the north and south. In the time, though Novoselic the murderer had been quiet in his movements, Twig had watched him move here and there in the valley. Novoselic checked his several snares for rabbits and ferrits and birds. He caught nothing for the first two days—his hunger must have been ravening. On the third day, Twig watched the subtle bending of bracken and the rushing of little creatures that indicated Novoselic’s passage along one of the gametrails on the far side of the valley. Novoselic must have found some creature in his snare because after a short time Twig saw the glare of a small fire, lit behind a pile of stones and whitening the already white snow only a tiny bit. Cooking his meal Novoselic would remain still for a time. That suited Twig.

Rising, Twig jumped off the stone jutting from the hill. He landed in loose snow—snow from the nights on the stone fell off his shoulders. Where he landed the hillside fell steeply to the road. In the powdery snow, Twig slid down the hill, keeping his feet and pushing off the trees that got in his way. Soon he reached the flatter bottom of the valley. He scurried across the road. When he reached the far side of the valley he began running up the rising ground. It soon became too steep to run straight up the hillside. He began grabbing onto trees, swinging to the higher side of them, and leaping further up to the next tree. Soon, he gained the snow-covered pile of rocks providing Novoselic cover for his cooking fire. Twig felt the flickering heat from the fire and the gurgling heat from the murderer. The smell of a quaill being skinned tinged the mostly still air.

Landing from his last leap on a craggy stone, Twig climbed the pile. Gloves tucked into a strap on his pants, he pried his cold fingers into the snow-filled cracks in the stones, the rough edges threatening to cut his skin. He kept his movements light, protecting his hands. Soon he reached the top of the stones and crouched just past the apex, looking from under his hood down at the rough man and his little cooking fire. Novoselic had a waxpaper poster in his hands. He examined it close to the cooking fire—the quaill half-skinned in the snow beside him. The poster had the face of a far southern man, with thick black hair and a trimmed goattee. In the etching his eyes looked intense and he smiled wildly. The poster said, “Wanted: Silk Golinvaux, enemy of the state. Known psudonyms: The Beast, Garrote, Black Ghost…” The list continued. It never listed his crimes--though it offered a huge reward. Far larger than Novoselic’s. Novoselic no doubt wished to turn in Silk and hoped to gain his own pardon.

There was the face of the man a dying Assassin asked Twig to kill. A strange suggestion. And Silk an enemy of the state. With the new turn his life had taken, Twig almost thought he’d do it.

Novoselic rubbed the back of his neck, as if he felt a chill. He glanced behind him as he did. Twig’s silhouette caught the corner of his eye. For a moment, Novoselic paused, looking sideways toward Twig. He then dropped the poster of Silk. Wheeling on the balls of his feet, staying in a crouch, Novoselic spun to face Twig. With the wheeling momentum, he drew and launched a knife at Twig. The knife flew well—Twig watched it spin toward him. It flipped through the frigid air. Novoselic began moving away from the fire the moment he released the knife’s handle.

The knife came within Twig’s reach. He moved aside. While he did, he raised a white hand. His fingers touched the cold, unpolished blade. Brushing the coarse metal, he slowed its flipping momentum. His hand found the handle; his fingers wrapped around the old bandages winding round it. Looking back at Novoselic, Twig stood. Novoselic had already started running.

Words seemed unnecessary during the last few weeks in the hills. Twig killed three murderers and gave them his message to carry. Each of them, with frighted recognition widening their mad eyes, attacked him like he had walked from their nightmares. They feared someone else who looked nearly like Twig. None of the desperate murderers had been willing to tell him anything. When he caught up to them, they fought tooth and nail—big rough men that they were—and went into a mad rage. He tried to preserve them long enough to inquire. The first died of stress—he had been starving and freezing for weeks. The second ran off a cliff. The third began to babble; he had already lost his mind and fought till Twig subdued him. Each were more fragile than men usually are. They were cold, mad men, and Twig got no wisdom from them. Their ghosts, he hoped, carried his messages. Ghosts have more stability of character, or so the stories say.

Novoselic ran from his little fire, his half-skinned quail, ran from whoever it was he mistook Twig to be. Twig began to hunt, Novoselic’s old knife loose in his hand.

Continued on December 23...

Chapter Three: Part Two

Continued from December 11, Chapter Three: Part One

Silk grinned. It felt like finding a letter from an old friend, perhaps not for him but for someone else he knew well. He had never met the person who wrote the message. Van Vleidt had. Van Vleidt told Silk things about the lost soldier, now hunting murderers in the hills.

“All three of the brigands had the same message,” Digger said. “At first I thought they were for me. I came across him, though, and now I think he means them for someone else.”

Silk raised an eyebrow and looked cheerfully at Digger. “You met him?” Silk said. “Do tell.”

“You know, your attitude about this is far too revelatory. It brings your sanity to question. Anyway, yes, I met him. I went hunting for him. On the third day out I picked up a faint trail—hard to follow, like a panther or some such. Best I had to go on, so I followed it. Tracking that trail put me on edge, and I don’t muss easily. I already felt like someone’s eyes followed me. The feeling got worse when I found the trail—gradual like, not quite enough that I wanted to turn back. The trail led me on through that day—an eerie day, unnaturally still. I never saw any animals. When I pitched camp I couldn’t ever quite settle. I made an extra big fire that night and tried not to sleep. I should have taken someone with me.”

The story lacked humor. Silk chuckled anyway, puffing on his cigar. “What then?”

“I thought I heard something. I have no memory of any actual sound, now that I think of it. It could have been nothing but a gust of wind. Whatever it was, I took up a torch and my crossbow and went out into the dark.”

Silk was enjoying the story. The nervous quiet—the paranoid watching. It was all good fluff. He gestured to Digger, encouraging the end. “Did you find anything?” Silk asked.

Digger thought for a moment before continuing the story. He had a blank expression on his face. “Not a sound disturbed that black night. A sliver moon cast deeper shadows than no moon would have. My torch wavered. I walked through the unnatural silence, feeling oddly lost. Eyes seemed to follow me—I felt them watching. On a rise, in a clearing, I paused to look back and see if I could judge the distance to my camp. I turned once and saw no firelight except my torch. My emotions rose slightly. Again I turned, judging I may have missed it. No noise except those I made interrupted the night. And yet, without any clue, there he stood, not a yard from me, in his white face his cold eyes stared into me.”

“Hmm,” Silk said, growling the syllable. “What did you do?” 

“Raised my crossbow,” Digger said. “And dropped my torch. It sunk in the snow and went out. I shot toward the person anyway—I’m a pretty good blind shot. When my eyes adjusted to the sickle moonlight, however, I could see nobody where he had been.”

“Well, you ought to be dead,” Silk said without sympathy. He smiled, though. It was the kind of thing that got you killed in enemy territory. Sometimes, though, it couldn’t be helped.

“I thought the same thing,” Digger said. “I could see my campfire when the torch had gone out and I hurried back to it. I thought for certain that he’d come get me in the night. I’d have made a sure reckoning of myself if he did.”

“No doubt.”

“Aye, no doubt there is. Anyhow, he never came to get me.”

“Perhaps he didn’t know who you are,” Silk puffed on his cigar and looked again at the board of outlaws. He tried to guess who would be next on a hit list made of the outlaws.

“Aye, that being so, I’m unlikely to be the person he wants to come get him,” Digger said. “He knows I’m sheriff here.”

“Does he?” Silk thought he knew the next name he’d hit if he were hunting the outlaws: Krist Novoselic. Murdered six. Large reward.

“Aye. He’s obviously been sneaking into town to read this board. A few townspeople saw a black-cloaked stranger who they couldn’t explain. He’s been here.”

“Hmm,” Silk growled again. He hovered his hand over Novoselic’s poster. “I think I know who he wants to come for him.”

“The vigilante?”

“Yes,” Silk took his cigar out of his mouth and rubbed his chin. He glanced at Digger. “So you are obliged to follow me around and learn from me?”

“Aye,” Digger said. “Call it a novitiate.”

“How long do you expect this arrangement to last?”

“Till I am capable of killing you,” Digger stated.

“Well, that’s rather final.”

“It’s the way of things,” Digger said. Silk would have liked a little more expression in the young man’s voice—perhaps some gravitas or drama. He spoke thoughtfully and introspectively. At this point he nearly sighed, but didn’t quite. Not very useful cues. The voices mumbled their agreement from around his ears.

Silk rubbed his beard, looking vaguely at the down-at-the-edges eyes and round face of Novoselic. Whoever had done the original etching made him look a little slow. Silk sometimes wished for the blissful ignorance of the stupid. The context of his actions constantly wore him down. He had condemned himself to a certain course of action. He had thrown his lot in with Van Vleidt, who no one quite understood, and would be stung with the association that came with the allegiance as soon as it became public. Van Vleidt and his theories, especially his later ones, had such an unsightly reputation that public declaration in their favor made you immediate enemies. Also, Silk had declared war on Engelkind, which went on a very small list of acts he had done with only limited calculation. He still waited to see how Engelkind would react; there were any number of ways and all of them would make Silk’s life suddenly exciting. No matter what would happen, Silk had put himself into a position where he could only forge ahead. Any other course had become deadly.
Silk stretched his hand. Old scars made his joints stuff. Too many more would end his finessing powers.

“You can come along,” Silk said. “You might learn a thing or two.”

“Why? Where are we going?”

“We’re going to find your vigilante.” Silk turned away from the board.

“Why?”

“I think he’s writing to me,” Silk held the note up—Come get me.

“Do you?” Digger said. Silk paused as he walked across the chessboard in the square. He turned to look at Digger. “How will you find him? I couldn’t.”

Smiling, Silk glanced at a man who’d walked into the square. He had a large rolled-up poster in his hand. “Oh, I don’t think I’ll have much trouble,” he said. The man unrolled the poster and secured it to the board. It covered many of the smaller posters. Digger glanced around to see. The poster had Silk’s face, Silk’s name, and a massive reward on it. Enemy of the state, it proclaimed.

Continued on December 15...

Chapter Three: Part One

Continued from December 9, Chapter Two: Part Four

A couple days passed, and Silk and Digger spent them resting.

With a half-eaten apple in one hand, Silk stood in front of a board covered in relics from the War: wanted posters. The War went everywhere, changed everything. It’d been one of those confusing wars—no one knew for sure what side they fought for day to day. It got confusing after only a few years. The War had lasted for forty years. When Silk had been growing up, an urchin on the far southern docks, the War was already old. Just the War. It didn’t need a name. Probably the history books would call it something, but no history books had been written about it yet.

No one ever knew what side they fought for, no one except the choice few like Engelkind and the gods. Failing in that certainty, there was a certainty about what sides fought the War. On the one side stood the gods themselves: Ythig and his pantheon, ruling from castles and leading vast armies who believed the old stories and stood by how the way things had been for all recalling. The gods defended themselves against an insurrection: a coalition of atheistic men rallying to cry that mankind had outgrown the gods. Ironically, when that coalition of rebels lost their leader, the person who replaced him was a god. A new god—a god who never appeared in any old story. People took it as a sign that they would win.

And they had won. The coalition of men, led by the new god Kunig and his warlords—Engelkind being first among them—defeated the gods and threw them from their keeps. The gods lost the War.

Silk inhaled cigar smoke around a bite of apple. The War’s outcome was so monumentally impossible. The whole of Eardbána—the only known continent in the world—took on a greyish cast. No parades or celebration marked the end of the War. Quietly, the new regime established, and the population went along with it. The new god, Kunig, assumed rule in the south, and Engelkind and his armies moved into the greatest fortress in the middle belt of Eardbána. The most pivotal warchiefs who had supported the gods took up abode in the northland of Wildhagen. Kunig declared them exiled. Ythig and the old gods disappeared. Folk presumed them also exiled, but rarely inquired because they feared Engelkind’s secret police.

 The gods had lost the War. The concept could hardly be understood. Perhaps the impossibility of it affected men—perhaps the feeling that the gods no longer watched them made more of them turn bad—perhaps fewer people chose to police each other any longer. Silk thought it was because Wildhagen had become a no-man’s land. The only real authority there was the exiled King of Wildhagen, who stayed in hiding because his power was now illegal. Whatever the reason, boards for wanted posters had more posters than ever. Engelkind offered most of the rewards. Many stated that the reward would be paid forward regardless of the criminal arriving dead or alive.

Silk blew a smoke ring at the poster-covered board. A handful of the posters were slashed through. They had the highest rewards and names Silk recognized. Brillig Oxley—Strags Curran—Gerick Cham—all of them vicious murderers, highwaymen destined for the gallows. They had been war heroes, for what side didn’t matter. Now they were wrong-minded psychos. This was the effect of the War. These men could not recover.

Digger walked up next to Silk and looked at the board with him. They stood for a moment with some town folk walking past behind them. Silk blew out a lung of smoke.

“How did you become sheriff here?” he asked.

“I go where the wind takes me,” Digger said.

“That’s sort of ridiculous.”

Digger shrugged.

“How long are you going to stay here?” Silk asked.

“Well,” Digger said, drawing out the word. “That rather depends on you, as it happens.”

“Does it?”

“Aye. As per preparing to become the Wiga, I’m obliged to learn from anyone who can beat me in a fight.”

“Is that a fact?” Silk said, scratching his cheek and raising an eyebrow.

“Aye. A tradition passed down through the ages.”

“I hate tradition,” Silk said. It was true, though he respected magic. It sounded like one of those magical contracts, like the legend about how the gods had declared that Engelkind could not be killed. A legend, most said, though the now eighty year old warlord gave the tale some credence. The gods made magical promises like that sometimes and men lived with the consequences. Some things could not be negotiated. The gods had a tricky way of declaring things that would happen no matter what.

Digger shrugged again. “Tradition means little to me one way or the other.”

“You’ve never gotten around it, though,” Silk said. Digger shook his head. Silk looked close at Digger’s calm expression. Digger’s eyes had a touch of resignation in them, as if he had tried to outwit the tradition and had failed. The look on Digger’s face made Silk think the consequences had been grave. It must be strange to live a life with a destined place in the world. Silk took joy in little, but he did find a great deal of comfort knowing that he made his own tomorrows.

Digger smiled and looked at Silk sideways. Such a child. Silk puffed on his cigar. He turned back to the board of wanted posters.

“These posters that have been slashed—the outlaw was caught?” he asked.

“For these here, I caught them,” Digger gestured at a handful in the corner. “Some of those were caught by locals or by travelers or mercenaries,” he pointed with an open hand to several others. None of them that he had pointed to so far had very high reward. “These,” he pointed at the three with the highest rewards—Oxley, Strags, and Cham. “These men turned up dead on the highway into the north.”

Silk smiled. “No one has tried collecting a reward for them?” He thought he knew the answer but he asked it anyway.

“Some have tried ,” Digger said.

“You didn’t give them the money,” Silk said, more a statement than a question. He smiled around his cigar.

“They weren’t up for hunting these brigands,” Digger said. “Anyway, whoever it was that killed them is still roaming the hills.”

“Do you know anything about him?” Silk thought he knew a little more himself about this vigilante. Van Vleidt said that Silk would find the vigilante useful. He wanted to know what Digger knew anyway.

“He’s stuffing these in the mouths of the outlaws’ corpses,” Digger took a little piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to Silk, “wrapped around a rock.”

Silk took the piece of paper. Come and get me, it read in simple, straight letters.

Continued December 13...

Chapter Two: Part Four

Continued from Chapter Two: Part Three, on December 7 http://lithnmark.blogspot.com/2011/12/chapter-two-part-three.html

Silk hit the ground on one shoulder and slid a few feet, smearing blood from many small abrasions on the flagstones. As he stopped, he became again aware of the crowd. They roared their approval, whistling and chanting Digger’s name. Silk panted for a second—needed to catch his breath. Before it could be said that he was down, he rolled to his knees. His head hadn’t really cleared of the shaking from the uppercut. He’d get past it.

Kneeling and breathing, he looked around at the excited crowd. Ale aplenty and spiced wine circled the people. Chunks of meat—loaves of steaming bread and pretzels. A good time was being had by all. Silk laughed.

“Are you laughing?” Digger said. He bent over, leaning on his knees, trying to catch his own breath, but had his face to Silk.

“Yes. It’s just so ridiculous.” He thought watching a fist fight for entertainment so boorish. Study, maybe--to know your enemy if you would fight one of them, perhaps. Entertainment, though, not so much. The crowd made him laugh.

Digger looked unconvinced. He didn’t see it. People often didn’t see what Silk thought funny. Ah, well.

“Are you done?” Digger asked. Silk felt his jaw to be sure it was neither cracked or sprained. He shook his head. He still had fight left in him.

“You have a second,” Silk said from his spot kneeling on the ground. “You could bet on me—make some money.”

Digger raised an eyebrow. He was not amused.

“Just a thought,” Silk said.

He rose slowly to his feet. When he had, he went at Digger again. This time, his mode of attack was simple and reactive. He watched where Digger’s hands were and guessed where they would be next. Consistently, Silk put his hands just a little bit wrong for the blocks and punches that Digger expected. It’s how he often fought in the last few minutes. It looked sloppy. It was sloppy. His head still spun from the uppercut. When he’d been pressed to a point when he ought to quit he filled his head with breathing sounds, felt only his heartbeat and heard only a cheering crowd, as if a choir of excited and drunk ghosts stood as spectators to his fight. He heard them, always. They cried out for the success of his every move. And nearer, as if over his shoulders, a half dozen voices whispered to him, telling him what to do and where the next fist would swing. The voices were only sometimes the same and only rarely familiar. He used to ignore them, except occasionally and only grudgingly. They often said things contrary to the action he wanted to take. It made him assume they were hallucinations. Though he still wondered what exactly they were, he had decided recently to try listening to them. A mentor had suggested it to him. His life had gone in interesting directions since then.

The voices whispered—jab—feint—blindside—block—kick. He embraced the suggestions. The choir of voices like ghosts—invisible but seeming above the real crowd of people around the fight—sang a violent drinking song. Silk’s attacks had gone just sideways enough that Digger couldn’t compensate. He missed a block. Silk’s attack landed haphazardly on Digger’s cheek. The Wiga’s son tried to jab back. Silk caught his fist. In three quick punches, Silk put Digger off-kilter.

Now, the voices whispered. Silk threw a back-kick into Digger’s head. He fell to the ground, down for the count.

The crowd stood quiet at first, not sure what to do now. It suited Silk, who dropped to a crouch next to Digger. Checking his heart rate and breathing, Silk determined whether Digger would be all right—just to be certain. He had often been the only person near his fights who cared to check and knew how to check of the felled fighter would survive, so he’d gotten used to doing it. A moment of appraisal later Silk had finished. Dazed but not badly, Digger would recover soon. That was good.

The voices like ghosts applauded the effort. They quieted down and dispersed to the normal hubbub he heard all day every day, without there ever actually being noise.

“Well, stuff that for a game of soldiers,”someone in the crowd of humans watching the fight said. Someone else whistled an incredulous whistle. Murmurs traveled to the back as the people who couldn’t quite see asked what happened. Even the bookies had stopped talking. The upset took them all for surprise.

Nearly full dark had arrived. Freezing snow fell on Silk’s and Digger’s bare torsos.

“Does he have apartments?” Silk asked.

“He’s staying at the Currycomb Inn,” someone said.

“My inn is nearer,” Silk said.“The Crossed Wands. Take him there.”

A small crowd obeyed, picking Digger up from the ground. Six men carried him toward the Crossed Wands Inn. Pulling his shirt and jacket on as he went, Silk followed them. He carried Digger’s things.

Not sure what else to do, the crowd dispersed, chatting about the fight. “Bit strange,” some called it.“Thought our sheriff had him at the end, didn’t you?” one said to his mate.“They say Silk uses some mischief or witchwork to win fights,” at least one person muttered, but he was quickly hushed. None wanted the Secret Police down on their heads. Engelkind’s Secret Police were allegedly everywhere, though no one knew if they had ever seen one—not for sure. The Secret Police wandered through recent urban legends, as pervasive as the Boogeyman. And as imaginary, some would say in hushed tones. Still, they explained to one another, best not to risk it. That idea always received warm agreement.

At the Crossed Wands, Silk saw to it that Digger had a room. Then he sent away for Digger’s things to be brought over from the Currycomb Inn.

“He ain’t got much there,” one man told Silk. “Travels light, does our sheriff.” Silk, weary and beginning to feel the fight, grimaced at the man. He had no patience. “Right you are, sir,” the man said. He and his companions skittered off to get Digger’s things.

Without saying another word to anyone, Silk thumped up the flight of stairs to the room he had rented for himself. He shut the door behind him and tugged off his shirt and jacket again. Exhausted, beginning to ache, he fell onto the four poster. Blissful sleep seemed eminent…. Then it felt too cold. He tried to ignore it. A draft from the chimney blew on his skin, though. It fluctuated—cold for a moment, colder for the next. The skin of his side shrank and went goosepimply at the wind’s bidding.

Without speaking, Silk rolled to the floor. He walked in his now bare feet across the well-scrubbed wood slats. Next to the fireplace he found a heap of wood and a pile of wood shavings for kindling. He could light a quick fire. So he did, using the matches on the mantel of the fireplace. Soon, the logs lying in the grate crackled and smoked.

Good and better. He stood—his back felt over-worked—and went back to bed. Falling onto the covers, he closed his eyes. He let himself sink into the downy comforter. The warmth of the fire caressed his aching sides.

But now that he had awaked again, he heard whispering. A voice spoke in the corner of the room. Though the volume and the proximity were near enough, he couldn’t make out the words it said. If he listened to it—he tried not to listen to it but found his attention drawn to it—he thought he could make out every third word or so. When he tried to remember the words he didn’t know what they were.

Though he knew what he’d see, Silk opened his eyes and looked at the corner where the voice nattered. Empty, as he knew it would be. The voice seemed aware of his presence. It turned its attention to Silk and made some salutation, then it went back to talking to itself.

More voices followed. Some in the room—others outside the room but still nearby—most of them moved. He never heard any of them with his actual ears. They more took the form of distinct imaginings that had some origin outside himself. He had no idea where. They went about their own business, if they had any business at all aside from chattering. They always, always talked. He had spent a lot of energy running from them and had never succeeded.

Their inane hubbub filled Silk’s subconscious. They had long since driven him past the edge. He heard a great deal from folk about how he came off as mad and gone astray. Theories aplenty accompanied what folk said, as many theories as towns Silk had visited. Some theories had to do with him selling his soul—others thought that he’d been to the edge of the world—many suspected he’d been tortured so that his mind had gone. The theories all had enough truth in them to be getting along. The voices did little to keep him sane. They never made any sense. Except in desperate moments—near the ends of fights, during raids, at critical moments in negotiations—at those moments the voices assumed perfect clarity.

A mentor of his had recently observed that something important might be happening there. He’d been a much wiser man than Silk. A man called Sagan Van Vleidt who had written books about asceticism and the workings of the mind. Van Vleidt had been a good friend to Silk for the last few years. He had warned Silk against attempting to quiet these voices. “They might be trying to tell you something important,” Van Vleidt had said. Then died—assassinated by Holy Assassins. Now Silk felt guilty. He had always argued with Van Vleidt, never allowing that Van Vleidt might know a thing or two.

Grimbling, Silk rolled onto his back. He tugged a cigar and a box of matches from a pocket in his jacket. When he'd lit the cigar he lay still, smoking slowly and listening to the voices.

End of chapter two. Continued on December 11...

Chapter Two: Part One

Continued from December 1, Chapter One: Part Four: http://lithnmark.blogspot.com/2011/12/chapter-one-part-four.html

All the electric zing of the prettiest uppercut Silk had ever received tingled up and down his body, which made a long arc up, back, off his feet. He gave the Digger kid credit. This was not the easy fight that Silk had put money on to win. In fact, at the moment of the uppercut, Silk thought that he might--impossible as it sounded--lose. Fire and brimstone, what a ludicrous thought.

Still, it was a real thought that went through his head as he fell to the ground. His bare shoulder hit the cold stones of the courtyard and he skidded for a few feet before coming to stop in a smear of the red blood leaking from abrasions on his bare brown chest and face. He tried to keep the world, spinning in his dizzy head, from moving too much.

What a day.

He had arrived in Súthende early in the morning. Hardly anyone in the town walked the streets. Those that did stared at Silk as he passed. Silk attracted attention most places. He rode a palomino war stallion so he loomed over everyone, and he dressed in red leather and velvet with gold brocade so he caught the eye. Even when he walked he stood taller than many people. In this cold end of the world, where men tended to be pale-faced and tawny haired, Silk’s dark skin and black dreadlocks made him stand out even more.

Arriving at the best inn he could find in the small Súthende, Silk handed his horse’s reins to the boy at the door. Silk went inside the inn and asked for a room from the man at the bar.

“Aye, we’ve got one,”the man said, looking up at Silk’s face. Silk grinned at the man. It was a cheerful grin—disarming. The man looked put at ease. He led Silk upstairs and opened a room for him. Silk asked for some food and a bottle of wine, which the innkeeper brought and left by the door. Silk ate it quickly. Then he lit a cigar, took the bottle of wine with him, and went out into the town. He couldn’t bear to be still in the quiet room.

Súthende was a town of a few thousand. There were a couple inns and markets, and enough people for a healthy gambling population . Silk ambled down the street, saying hello to people he saw. None knew his face—not yet, anyway. He’d be famous soon. Every new town he entered he tried to become somehow famous. A comfortable level of fame greased the bearings in his shenanigans.

And news was hard on his heels that would ruin his reputation. Súthende would be the last town he could be popular. The thought of having notoriety again somehow thrilled him. He’d been feared, held in awe, and, since the War, generally respected—or feared so that men held their tongues in his presence. He was the Warlord Engelkind’s primary hit man—his name the stuff of legends and monster stories. As such, Silk Golinvaux could mention his own name and everyone fell in line, did what he said without question. His presence created order. It had been more than a decade since he had needed to fight for anything. The pseudo-calm felt nice, to a certain point. Without expecting to bash a few heads in daily his life had attained a new and unknown level of decadence and gaiety—comfort, almost. The leisure had allowed him to explore the intricacies of his position; as Engelkind’s hit man, Silk had always understood the significance of his movements inside Engelkind’s armies and larger military strikes. The title of“hit man” had been assigned arbitrarily when no one could quite figure what Silk was meant to do. He performed assassinations throughout the latter years of the war, certainly, but he also conducted armies in military actions, designed siege weapons occasionally, delivered politically touchy messages to enemies and friends alike, and aided in guerrilla strikes on enemy establishments. The guerrilla strikes perhaps fit his talents best. They demanded most of the talents he gained in the farthest south among the dark skinned pirates around the southern peninsula.

Every year he kept a personal tally of his accomplishments, always pushing for the next most impossible task. He had achieved as he went the level of freedom he always wanted: he commanded nothing and could not be commanded, but everyone knew his name. And he had accomplished every feat of cunning he could imagine. Only one great task remained to be mastered, and it required an abandonment of everything he had done before it. His culminating work: he had declared open war on Engelkind. Just himself—no other people, unless he gathered more to his cause. He was not likely to attract anyone to it. Engelkind was the big dog. Opposing Engelking got people killed.

Silk’s letter to Engelkind announcing his personal declaration would have arrived a day or two ago. News of it would spread and get this far north soon…. Or Engelkind would ignore it. Silk ran that risk. The proposition sounded ludicrous. A man declaring war on another man—not quite reasonable at first blush. And Silk had been careful to declare war on Engelkind the man, not on his institutions. In his position as warlord ruling a third of the world, the most effective armies in history at his disposal, Engelkind could very well ignore Silk’s letter. He’d deal with that if it happened. Engelkind would never ignore Silk’s actions.

And, first action, Silk waited for an agent from the north, due to arrive in Súthende soon.

Silk turned down an alley, pulling his gold-brocade-hemmed hood onto his head. At the end of the cobblestone alley several men played dice and gambled on the game against the back wall. He exhaled a drag off his cigar and sipped from the bottle of wine. Stepping lightly, so as to not startle anyone, he came to stand next to a big man near the back of the small crowd watching the dice rolls. Like any bored farmers and craftsmen would, the crowd found the game of dice enthralling. The cheered one of the men playing—booed another. Silk watched the game with the others, feigning as deep an interest as the others. He kept his cheer of a good roll quiet and his reaction to a bad one neutral. After a few more rolls he judged that he’d stood there long enough to be taken for granted by those nearest him.

Another good roll from the favored dice player. The crowd cheered. The big man next to Silk chuckled and clapped.

“Good roll, that,” Silk said.

“Aye—our lad has a supple wrist,”the man said.

“You got money on him?” Silk asked. The man, smiling, tapped the side of his nose knowingly. “Who’s your bookie?” Silk offered the man the bottle of wine. Smiling wanly and raising a suspicious eyebrow, the man took the bottle of wine and raised it to his lips anyway. “I know of a game that I think I could make a killing on.”

That got the man’s attention. He lowered the bottle and looked closer at Silk. Silk scratched his cheek and yawned, blocking most of his face from the man’s view without looking suspicious. It was enough to distract this big man, most probably.

“I hear there’s a big time fighter from the south in town bragging he can best the sheriff,” Silk said.

The big man chuckled again. “No man can best our sheriff,” he said, raising the bottle of wine to his lips. He looked thoughtful, though, considering the angles of a fight like that.

“I’m not so sure,” Silk said.“This fighter was in the Wars—part of some elite militia.”

“I was in the fucking Wars,” the big man said. He handed Silk back his wine. The big man looked curious. “No man can best our sheriff, not even some southern elite militiaman.”

“Might be the case,” Silk said.

“You just consider switching your bet,” the big man said.

“Might have to do that,” Silk said. He turned to leave. As he did he listened to the big man asking the next man along if he’d heard of this alleged sheriff versus the southern stranger fight. The second man also insisted that no one could best the sheriff, but he also expressed that the “southern shitegob” must have the stones of a horse.

Silk smiled. He meandered through town. Down that alley—more gambling is happening there. Turning down the alley he inquired about a bookie because he had heard that the Man Monster Silk Golinvaux was in town, raring to start a ruckus. After planting that seed in the imagination of a young, greedy bookie, Silk needed another bottle of wine. In the wine shop he found he let drop that he heard the other wine shop he’d seen had told him that they were going to go and set up a little shop out in town square to sell wine to the spectators already planning to show up to the big fight between the out of towner and the sheriff. Silk took some satisfaction in the sight of the shopkeeper’s boy running out of the shop, clearly on some urgent mission, a message on a piece of paper clutched in his hand.

Coninued on December 5...

Chapter One: Part Four

Continued from Chapter One: Part Three, posted on November 29: http://lithnmark.blogspot.com/2011/11/chapter-one-part-three.html

“Is he leaving already?” Hilda warbled. They passed her as they went into the great hall. “I’ve already turned down a bed and all.”


“Yes. Mother wants him to leave now,” Trilby said shortly.

“Well, the better demons be leaving, anyhow,” Hilda muttered.

“Hold your tongue, old woman,” Trilby chided.

Rather than obey, Hilda mumbled and wandered off on her business, a broom in her hand. Twig still heard every word she said about demons and witches. He hoped she guessed wrong about him. He had no comfort to give her. It would comfort him to be away from this house and these people—for their sakes, not for his. Although he felt in perfect control of himself, the thought of what he had the power to do to them made him uneasy. If he ruled this house he would make himself leave.

He helped Trilby pull a shawl around her shoulders, then they went out the large front doors back into the chilled sunshine. When they came onto the porch, Trilby slipped her hand through the crook of his arm, in a polite gesture. She flinched at how cold his arm felt; she tried to hide it, but Twig noticed it. He dismissed it. Appreciating the warmth of her hand meant more to him just then.

Exhaling completely, he filled his lungs with her smell, and thought about it. Clean, milky, warm. She kept herself well fed and she spent a great deal of time outside. Her heartbeat calmed him. He kept its rhythm in his mind. Listening deeper, he got a read on the baby’s heartbeat.

“She has a strong heart,” Twig said. Trilby smiled.

“You can hear it?” she asked. Twig nodded. “That’s curious, isn’t it?”

“It is strange,” Twig said.

“Useful, though.”

Yes, it was useful. Twig remembered how it came in useful hearing the variations in the hearts of the Holy Assassins, telling him when they were sure or unsure or surprised, where their blood went to older injuries that he could use to his advantage. Very useful skill.

“His father has a strong heart,” Trilby said, resting a hand on her belly. “Or her father, rather. I’m glad that she has a strong heart.”

They had reached the stables. Trilby drew up the latch on the door and they went inside. The twenty horses in the thirty stalls whinnied, nervous, more wary than shocked now that they’d become a little used to Twig. Trilby frowned at the horses but made no comment. Horses had good instincts. Twig trusted horses. It took courage for Trilby to give him the benefit of a doubt.

“Mother doesn’t like my child’s father,” Trilby said, clearing her throat and guiding Twig along the line of nervous horses. “She says he’s a vagrant and a deadbeat. I think he’s charming.”

“You are not married to him,” Twig concluded. He wondered if the boy was some gypsy. The thought had a story in it of a poetically minded Trilby who enjoyed fantastical things. It met with no disapproval from him.

“He is the son of the Wiga. There was a Wiga when you went to war, was there not? Lord of Chaos, say that five times fast, eh?” She smiled. There had been a Wiga when Twig went to war. In times of legend, the gods had blessed the greatest warrior to beget a line of warriors as great as himself. There had been a Wiga ever since—only ever one. The son of the Wiga spent his life traveling, training, learning. Adventure found him, and he learned what he could from it. Whenever the Wiga died, the son inherited the title and the supernatural blessing. That’s how the story went. It showed good taste on Trilby’s part, Twig thought. “He travels too much to be married just yet,” Trilby finished.

“I see,” Twig said.

She smiled again. “You are so straight-faced, I don’t know if you disapprove.”

“I approve,” Twig said. “The Wiga has strong blood.”

She smiled more gently. “He is a faraway man—or boy—perhaps he is a man. I am not sure. He strikes me more as a poet than a fighter, always gazing at nothing and getting lost in little things. I have trouble knowing what he thinks. I don’t mind that, though.”

Twig had known a woman like that once.

They paused on their walk past the skittish horses. The stall next to them held a grey mustang, a low horse who would be capable of walking and trotting practically for days. The mustang stood quietly chewing hay, unconcerned by the skipping of the other horses in the stable.

“Well,” Trilby said, “I had rather thought this horse would never see the light of day again. No one likes him, except the grounds man, who died not long ago on his way back from the plains. Bones here carried the body back. He’s not a bad horse—solid little pony, obedient and calm, and I think he’s very bright. The lads just find him a little too quiet for comfort. They found him wandering out in ghost country a few seasons back. Curious.” She looked Twig in his calm face. “I’m sorry you feel that you have to go,” she said.

“It is best,” Twig said. He looked the mustang called Bones in its big eye. Bones looked back, chewing the hay.

“I suppose. Mother is dedicated, and you do make the animals nervous.” She gestured at the horses. “That is never a good sign.”

“No. It is a bad sign,” Twig said.

Trilby looked unhappy. She frowned and looked away from him, though she had to agree. Twig felt better that way, a very little bit. Being so near this girl’s hair, her face, her dress, her voice—so familiar, and so different… He would never be at rest here.

“Where will you go?” Trilby asked.

“I will call out an enemy.” The Holy Assassins made the first move. Twig would make the next. His quarrel was not with the Assassins themselves. The Assassins were soldiers, as he was. They followed orders, leaving the questions to be asked by men higher up the chain. He would reach higher up the chain. The Ferryman himself had earned Twig’s retribution. The Ferryman had been in charge of the Zombie Corps as well. He should not have sent his dogs after Twig. Someone had to account for that. “I have to send my enemy a message,” Twig said. “I trust that Súthende still has a board where the wanted posters hang.” Súthende: the nearest town.

“Yes,” Trilby said. “More full than ever. More people are out of favor with the aristocracy than ever were. Somehow the lords who rule us now have brought out the worst in all the lowest men. It’s dangerous to travel.”

“I do not know who rules now,” Twig said.

“Oh, no, I suppose that you wouldn’t. It’s strange to think of,” she cleared her throat again and her expression turned thoughtful. “The north is nominally ruled by the sorcerer, Considine, but he does nothing to govern. No one’s seen him since I was five. The land south of Súthende is split in two. The middle is ruled by the warlord, Engelkind. His territory borders all of Wildhagen,” she said. Wildhagen was the name of the North Country.

Engelkind had been the name of a general when Twig joined the Zombie Corps. If he ruled most of the world then the wrong side had won, like Widow Lockwood had said. Engelkind had been an enemy of the Zombie Corps. “And the whole continent is divided in only three,” Twig stated.

“Well, there’s the far west, where the desert is past the mountains. No one much cares about there,” Trilby said. “And the Savages on the east coast still keep control of the islands and things. Nobody bothers them. But Wildhagen, Engelland, and the land far south watched by the rulers in Kunigsgrad are the big countries. It’s peculiar to imagine, really, that everything is so set and regimented. I remember things being different.”

“As do I.” Twig wondered what Kunigsgrad was. He had never heard of it.

“I’m sure it’s a shock to you,” Trilby said.

“I feel no shock,” Twig said, and truthfully. All the new information merely went into his head and began filing itself as if he wrote it all down and could look at the words from behind his eyes. His mind organized itself as he learned new things. Cross-referencing with the new information into old information began happening without his making it so.

“I wish things were different,” Trilby said. “The world feels so cold.”

“Perhaps a spark could be lit under it,” Twig said.

Trilby smiled. “That’s pretty,” she said. Twig liked to see her smile. She sighed, seeming to have no hope for the future. “Let me help you pack Bones,” she said.

They got a black saddle on the mustang and some saddlebags. Trilby offered to get Twig some supplies. Every whiff of food that he had since waking had caused him revulsion and he declined. When she insisted, he accepted some tea leaves.

“And surely you will need a weapon—we have some swords that—” Trilby said. Twig cut her off, though.

“No. Please—um…” He had spoken too quickly and startled her. Concern entered her eyes. He scratched the side of his nose with a hand still clutching the end of his cloak’s sleeve to hid the bloodstain on the sleeve of the leather. “Thank you. I will be all right. You have already been kind enough to me.”

“Hmm,” Trilby said, looking away with a motherish purse to her lips. She dropped it, though. He was grateful. Soon, he had prepared to leave, with his melancholy mustang and his empty saddlebags.

Sitting on Bones, he and the mustang turned toward the road to Súthende.

The household had mostly turned out to see him off. Hilda had showed up to cheer him away. “And good riddance!” she said out loud. No one shushed her this time. The men who worked the manor lands stood nearby, stoic, quiet, just watching Twig ride away from them.

“Goodbye, Twig Lithnmark,” Trilby said. “May Lady Wendy be your comfort on the road and guide you to a safe landing.”

Twig rather hoped she would—Lady Wendy was goddess of comfortable things like mothering and food. She supposedly had good wishes for everyone. Twig hoped to be included.

He looked up at the manor. A curtain in a second story window dropped into place. Twig managed to see Widow Lockwood before the curtain hid her.

A daughter. It pleased him. She had done well.

He turned his eyes to the road.

End of Chapter One

Continued on December 3...

Chapter One: Part Three

Continued from Chapter One: Part Two found here: http://lithnmark.blogspot.com/2011/11/chapter-one-part-two.html

Trilby closed the door as she walked into the room. She went straight to a rocking chair near the fire. Her grandmother had sat in that chair. When she’d sat, Trilby took a deep breath, relieved to be able to sit. Twig, watching her, superimposed another scene on her. A woman in that chair, in that dress, with that hair, sitting with her fingers wound together, staring out the window. The light in the memory had the dim of midnight moonlight.

Noticing Twig’s gaze on her, Trilby smiled. “Would you be so kind as to bring me a cup of tea?” she said. “This is hers,” Trilby’s mother gestured at a cup of tea already prepared. Twig took the tea up in both his hands, the corpse-white skin of them exposed to sight. He’d taken off the black leather gloves he’d been wearing which had belonged to the Holy Assassin. He’d gotten all of his clothes from the Holy Assassin. The Assassin had stopped needing them.

“Are you a monk? Is that where you’ve been all this time?” Trilby asked. It was a reasonable question to ask. He wore the black leather, covered in mismatched buckles, and the voluminous black cloak that belonged to the Holy Assassins, the Acolytes of Ferryman. The Holy Assassins had been one of the most common and respected religious monastic orders since times of legend. Although no two Holy Assassins wore exactly the same black leather suit the cloak and the overall impression was common enough that they were easily recognized wherever they went. They had been taken from a Holy Assassin a few days earlier. Twig had no clothes of his own to wear. He had needed the clothes. The Assassin no longer needed them anyway.

The sleeves of the leather shirt covered parts of the backs of his hands. The ends were soft and suede with age. As he handed Trilby her tea he saw on one of the sleeves a brown bloodstain, hardly visible on the black leather. He knew it was fresh. Looking up at her face he saw that Trilby had her eyes on his, like the well-bred lady he was glad to see she was. He looked at people’s hands.

When she had taken her tea from him Twig took his hands away hastily. He held the hem of the cloak sleeves to hide his hands and the bloodstains.

“No. I am not a Holy Assassin,” Twig said, turning from Trilby.

“Where have you been, then?” Trilby asked.

“I do not know,” Twig said. “I believe have been asleep.”

“Asleep for forty years?” Trilby said, her eyebrows rising in surprise.

“If it has been forty years since I left then I have been asleep for forty years.”

“You don’t know where?”

Twig shook his head. He knew nothing about it. On the day he and the rest of the Zombie Corps graduated from boot camp—Camp Dradel far in the north, the only Zombie Corps boot camp in the world--they had gathered for parade in one of the warehouses. After a speech from Geving, the mastermind behind the Zombie Corps project, Twig remembered a bitter smell. He remembered watching his comrades fall down around him while his body went limp. There had followed rushing, noisome dreams, with no reason in them and no rest to be had. Dreams that, apparently, had lasted for forty years.

He had then awakened in a blizzard, two days earlier. He survived in the blizzard. He did not know how, because he had awakened naked, at the base of a cliff. For hours after that he wandered until he felt some warmth in the distance. It turned out to be a fire and four men—four Holy Assassins.

The Holy Assassins were allies of the Zombie Corps—the Ferryman, the god of death and the lord to which the Holy Assassins swore allegiance, had been the god who had blessed the Zombie Corps as well.

Holy Assassins never yield except to their lord and master, Death himself. Their methods were diverse and their training intense. The Zombies stole many of the techniques used by the Holy Assassins. Twig knew their methods. He knew when he snuck up on them that, if he saw four at camp, at least three others concealed themselves in the forest nearby to keep watch on the camp. They caught sight of him, which he had supposed would not matter. They were allies, and he supposed that making himself visible would save him.

It did not. He heard whistles from the Holy Assassins on watch and the Assassins in camp disappeared in a cloud from smoke pellets, their fire extinguished. It was what they would do if they saw an enemy approach. Rather than wait and be forced to defend himself in the confusion he ran away. That ought to have been enough. The Holy Assassins hunted high profile targets—princes and warlords. As a foot soldier, Twig knew of no reason to attract their attention.

But they pursued him. For the rest of the night and through the next day the Holy Assassins hunted him unshakably through the hills. When he thought he had evaded them two would appear in his path, practically tripping him. When he had found a hiding place he would hear their whistles, signaling to the others that they had found Twig’s trail, and he would be on the move again. For hours he stayed only barely ahead of them. Then he decided to let them catch him. He had announced his identity. From the honesty in their open faces, he knew the recognized his name, the name of the Zombie Corps. They wanted him, and dead. They never took hostages.

Holy Assassins never yield except to Death himself.

“I woke not far from here,” Twig said to Trilby. He considered making some lie about how he had obtained the Holy Assassin clothes—say something clean and comforting, like that they had been given to him or that he had found them somewhere. He could not bring himself to say anything of the kind. Instead he merely looked at Trilby, his expression completely blank, and hoped she’d stop asking questions. Somehow he preferred hiding that seven Assassins were laying on a wide stone atop a hill, their bones to be picked clean by birds and animals. It was an old tradition sometimes used by his family. Lords of Lithnmark had often been left exposed, their flesh contributing to the continuation of things and then their bones buried in the family cairn. It was the most respectful way that he could leave the bodies of the Assassins in the time he had.

“And you chose to come straight to my home?” Trilby’s mother said, her tone harsh. Twig turned to meet her annoyed gaze.

“Mother, you haven’t introduced yourself to our guest,” Trilby said.

“He may call me Widow Lockwood,” she said. Widow Lockwood—an old woman’s name—the name of a matriarch. Twig heard a whole story in that name, but a story without any middle. A childhood with an incomplete family during a cold war, then a man who came in and out of the story, leaving his name and his daughter behind. Twig played no part in it. The knowledge of it was too much to feel.

“Why have you come here?” Widow Lockwood asked. “Did you expect to find anything here? Anything at all?”

Twig had nothing to say. The moment stretched. Trilby rocked her chair slowly.

“You remain silent,” Widow Lockwood said. Her mouth curled, between a sneer and a grimace. “You are here, forty years wrong, here at all, and you remain silent.” Twig scratched his cheek and averted his eyes from hers; cold and sharp as they were he wished to avoid them. “Gods in hell, you’re an ass,” she said, quiet but her voice cracked. “Say something. I need something from you—lords of chaos and stillness,” she swore, “I need something from you.”

After these revelations, all he could think that remained was the War. The Covenant Army was disbanded, Widow Lockwood had said. The Zombie Corps was missing. He had come back to this house because he wanted to know his family. But they were gone.

All that remained was the War.

“The War,” he began. She interrupted him.

“The War is over,” she said. “It has been over for more than a decade. The wrong side won. The wrong side always wins.”

Twig wondered which side she had taken. He had no reason to think it had been his. There it was. The War had ended. He missed it. His training had been for nothing. The mess of a war that had so upset the fabrics of reality had come to some conclusion. It had been a wretched, twisted affair. People had rarely known who their allies were one day or who would die the next. It had been a bad time. And entirely without his aid, it had come to some conclusion or other.

A profound simplicity rose in him. Not a peaceful simplicity—he felt malcontent and ill at ease, as if he stood fastened to a rock on the coast and a hurricane had just breached the horizon. Still, with no lords to look to for orders and no war to join he could only feel simple.

He misliked the feeling—too pointless.

“I am sorry,” he said.

“For which part?” Widow Lockwood said. She stared at him, and he stared right back. She flinched first.

“I wish you would leave,” she said, her voice dropping and her eyes roving away from Twig. “You are not part of this place.” Twig stared at her cheek, not certain how to proceed.

“I will leave,” he said.

“Not immediately, of course,” Trilby protested. “We can’t throw him out on his ear. He must at least stay the night.”

“No. I will leave now,” Twig said. It was better if he left immediately. He could tell that. Widow Lockwood’s jaw clenched and her hand tightened on the wooden locket she had been fiddling with. Twig had sat for the image in the locket with Trilby’s grandmother. His hair and skin had been colored then, rather than black hair, wild around his white face.

“You’re sure?” Trilby said.

Twig nodded.

“But,” Trilby started. Widow Lockwood interrupted.

“Trilby, take him outside. He can have a horse, if any will carry him,” Widow Lockwood said, looking out the window. Trilby looked to her mother, seeming to decide whether any argument could be made. The set expression on Widow Lockwood’s faced, so limned in growing morning light from the window, denied contradiction.

Though she frowned while she did it, Trilby pushed herself up from her rocking chair and went toward the door. Twig followed.

Through the corner of his eye he watched Widow Lockwood open the wooden locket. She touched the carved image inside with the tips of her fingers.

Continued on December 1...