Fiction
Fantasy
I’m too exhausted to fight you, and there is no point in remaining silent about these accusations. My ears ring from the latest blows, and I can still taste blood. Maybe you don’t even want to know my story. Maybe you just enjoy causing me pain. I’m not sure you really want anything more from me, aside from my death. Regardless, my hope endures.
It was about three months ago, before the colder winds came down from the north, when I found out about Lucille. It was one of the farmers who came to me that evening. A man I vaguely recognized but had never spoken with before. He never did tell me his name.
“Mister,” he said repeatedly from the other side of my door. His knock was forceful, like he was using his entire forearm with each rap. I thought it might be one of you coming for me, so I answered.
The man was a full six inches taller than me and as sturdy as a plough horse. He smelled of livestock or worse, but I feigned a smile nevertheless. “May I help you?” I asked politely.
“Mister, there’s a girl who’s sick. Her pa and I were friends while he was alive, and I watch out for his family. The girl’s mother didn’t know what to do, but I’d heard about you and—”
“Say nothing more out here,” I interrupted forcefully. He took a breath and looked around with his dark eyes while his boulder-like head remained still. “Please, come inside.”
My wife lay asleep in the other room (though how she slept through the earlier pounding bewildered me), so I asked the man to keep his voice down. I led him to a small table in the far corner near the hearth. The dying embers glowed, casting but a wisp of illumination. As we sat among the fading shadows whispering our conversation, I half-imagined that when the fire extinguished completely, we too would disappear.
“I heard you’re a healer,” he said.
“I ask those whom I help to protect my secret. How did you find out?”
“Rumors and guesses, mister. No one said anything to me directly, and I promise I won’t say a word to anyone. But if there’s anything you can do to help little Lucille, her mother would be more than grateful. And so would I.” He let a small purse fall onto the table, and it chinked from whatever coins lay within.
“I’ll meet you out front shortly.”
While the man let himself out, I stepped into the second room. I held out my arms, feeling my way along the wall until I came to the foot of the bed. My hand followed the blanket over the shape of my wife and rested atop her shoulder. “Jewel. Jewel, I have to go.”
Her hand found mine and pulled it down to the apex of her belly that had begun to show the pregnancy. “There’s a girl who’s fallen ill,” I said.
“Be secretive, Thadryn. For all of us.” I kissed her in response and then lingered for a moment in prayer at the side of the bed before finally withdrawing.
Keeping up with the man required more effort than I had imagined, a feat complicated even more by the weight of my shoulder pack and staff. My feet felt numb in my boots as we left the main road to follow a small path into the north. It was like a ribbon that lay upon the earth, curled and twisted in disarray. How far we walked I can only guess, though a bird could likely have made a straight path in a quarter hour.
Our destination was a quaint cottage just off a turn in the path. The moonlight accented dark beams that formed a number of rectangles upon the exterior walls. Smoke seethed from a stone chimney on the near side and rose towards the purple pre-dawn sky.
My companion strode to a door with a round top and demonstrated an ability to knock considerately. The entrance opened almost immediately, but I couldn’t hear the first exchange of words well enough to understand them. When the way opened wider, I followed the man as he went in.
Four-year-old Lucille lay beneath thick blankets on a cot in the middle of the floor. Her mother stood behind the cot, one arm at her side and the other covering her mouth. Tears ran in two tiny streams from the young woman’s eyes and flowed over her puffy cheeks. Her face, had it not been wrought with sorrow, would be the type that painters and sculptors desperately try to capture through their arts.
“Can you help her?” Her bloodshot eyes rooted me to the spot, and I had to look down before answering.
“I will do all that I can. You must cling to hope, for hope is all we ever have.”
I laid my staff against the wall and removed the pack from my shoulders. As I dug through it, I felt Lucille’s mother and the man watching me. My fingers traced the outlines of two flasks, and I removed them both.
After creeping to the side of the cot, I knelt down and touched the girl’s forehead. It was cool and clammy. Carefully, I opened each of her eyes, but they were completely unresponsive. “How long has she been like this?” I asked.
“It’s almost morning now, isn’t it?” she asked herself. “Then it was two nights ago when she lay down. She never got up the whole day. Nothing could wake her.” She took a few shaky breaths and wrung her hands tightly.
I peered into Lucille’s mouth and then asked permission to give her one of my potions. There was nothing special about what I poured into her. It was a simple mix of crushed capholin leaves in water. Anyone with a basic knowledge of herbs would have thought to try it.
When the girl did not stir even after ten minutes, I knew I had missed something. This was not a routine illness. Nothing else that I carried would have helped me to discover the cause of her state. I shook my head, realizing how unprepared I was to treat her, foolishly assuming her condition was mild and recognizable.
The rising sun began to shine through one of the windows. “I need to take her back to my home,” I said. “I have books there and other...supplies.” Explanations in my own terms often confused those I worked for, so I’d found it best to use generalities as much as possible.
Lucille’s mother turned aside. “Adellen,” the man said, “what else can we do?”
“Yes, I know,” she said. “I know.” I stepped aside as she came around and scooped Lucille from the cot. The child, dressed in a nightgown that ended just above her bare feet, hung limp from Adellen’s arms.
“I will carry her back,” the man said. I was grateful for his offer, knowing that even as young and strong as I was, it would be difficult to manage her along with my pack and staff.
Moments later, we were returning to the winding path and met another man coming towards us. The stranger had graying hair and a face with the slightest of wrinkles upon it. He wore leather gloves and a blue supertunic that came down to his boots. We inclined our heads to the nobleman. “Where are you taking that child?” he asked us.
“She needs help, Lord Dairret,” the man carrying Lucille answered. I recognized the nobleman’s name at once. He had relocated to Greyshire shortly after our town’s authority, Lord Effmun, formally requested a successor from the provincial magistrate. In many practical purposes, Dairret had already become Greyshire’s leader while Effmun took longer and longer retreats to various parts of the kingdom.
“What she needs is to be lying in bed until she’s well again.” His eyes glanced at my staff a second before looking at me. “I suppose you’re someone that can help her then.”
“I can try some herbal remedies. Surely there is no harm in doing so.”
“That sounds like the work of a magicera,” he said, inflecting the last word with a deeper tone.
“Surely the king’s task force has rounded all of them up by now,” I replied. His dark eyebrows angled downward momentarily. I doubt he had much confidence in your work, or perhaps he shared a growing sentiment that the taxes funding your operation seemed exorbitant and unnecessary. There was nothing more said between us, and we made way for him as he marched towards the cottage.
“He’s been a bit protective of them since he began to court Adellen,” the man told me.
“I can understand that. If you see him again, assure him that I will care for Lucille as I would my own daughter.”
My wife watched after Lucille for two days while I roamed the countryside, gathering fresh ingredients for new elixirs. When I returned to our home, she beckoned me to the second room where Lucille lay. “How is she?” I asked, not expecting much change.
“I found something unusual,” she replied. Jewel took one of Lucille’s hands and held it up. “What do you make of this?”
I took the child’s hand and studied it carefully. There was a black discoloration beneath the fingernails. “This can’t be right,” I said. “I thought she might be suffering from Tagan’s Sickness based on what I saw before. It is rare, but what else could I have thought?”
“Do you know what this is?” Jewel asked.
“Yes, but I haven’t much time to counteract it.” I slapped my hand. “What a fool I’ve been! I should have waited for something like this to show up.”
Jewel stood back and let me work for the rest of the day and through the night, assisting me when possible. The first offense you charged me with occurred then. I used my gifts to heal. Without shame, I admit that I am not entirely a man, for my father was a magicera. My blood is of two races, and no amount of bleeding can change that.
“Momma?” Lucille’s first word remains in my mind as clearly as if she were saying it now. All the pain you’ve inflicted upon me was worth that one small cry.
After several days of recovery, Lucille seemed to have the same energy as any other child her age, so I asked her if she felt strong enough to return home. “Yes, sir,” she replied.
“Then we will go as soon as we finish dinner.”
Lucille walked all the way to the smaller path before asking to be carried. I hefted her up with my left arm and prodded my way forward with the staff in my other hand. She wasn’t a terrible burden, but I felt relieved when she decided to walk the final mile.
Adellen answered the door slowly. Her daughter rushed up to her, and Adellen shrieked. “Oh, my baby! You’re well!” She held Lucille for a long moment before setting her down.
As Lucille ran into the cottage, Adellen turned towards me. “Sir, you cannot understand my gratitude.”
I closed my eyes and bowed my head briefly. “Thank Onarre, good woman. He did a much greater work than me.”
After a loud sigh, she asked, “What was it that she came down with? I hope it won’t be spreading through town.”
“It wasn’t sickness,” I said. “It was poison.” I told her this in part because she asked, but I also wanted to see her response. I’d heard of parents murdering their own children, and I needed to be sure I wasn’t giving Adellen a second chance to succeed in such a scheme.
Her mouth dropped open. “Poison?” Her voice was low, and her mouth kept falling agape. “Are you sure?” This reaction assured me of her innocence.
“I didn’t think so at first, but once I saw all of the signs, I knew what it was. Her body was cool, and her fingernails had blackened. I’ve seen this sort of thing before with ladnacide poison. It’s not cheap, but several merchants sell it. Normally it’s used for killing stray dogs or even wolves. Do you keep anything like that here?”
“No, not at all. I thought ladnacide killed people in a matter of hours.”
“It usually does. My only guess is that she didn’t ingest much of it. Perhaps at her age she was also able to combat it better than an adult. Personally, I believe that it just wasn’t her time to die.”
I still wasn’t thinking as clearly as I should have been. Apparently, I hadn’t learned from misdiagnosing Lucille. You heard about me soon after that and were beginning to make plans. I can imagine your eagerness and the wicked laughter you shared.
After a day’s rest, I told Jewel about the poison. Her eyes grew wide. “I’m still not sure how it happened,” I said. “Farmers may be setting their poison too close to town. My worst fear is that some of their traps leaked into the water supply.”
“What are you going to do, Thadryn?” she asked.
I ran a hand over my head of thinning hair, simultaneously thinking about her question and wondering how early in life I would be bald. “I need to talk to Lord Dairret. Perhaps I can work with him to identify how this poisoning took place, even if he doesn’t completely trust me.”
Neglecting the safety of night, I went to his residence during the early evening. A high stone gate tipped with half-foot metal teeth surrounded the two-story house. Three armored guards stopped me at the gate’s entrance, asking my business.
“I must have an audience with Lord Dairret at once,” I said.
“Our lord will not see anyone during his resting hours,” the guard to my right said. “Tomorrow, go to the courthouse and file a motion with his clerk.”
“There isn’t enough time for that,” I argued. “Please tell him that there has been a case of poisoning in Greyshire, and we need to discover the source.”
The guards looked at one another, and the center man nodded. “Wait a moment,” he said before turning to go into the house.
A few moments passed before the guard reappeared. “How many have died from this poisoning?” he asked.
“One girl nearly died,” I answered.
“So no one has actually died from poison,” he stated flatly.
“No, but—”
“Our lord informed me that unless three have died, the matter is isolated. He asks that you file a motion with his clerk in the morning so that the incident will be recorded. Unfortunately, Lord Dairret receives unsolicited reports from townsfolk all the time, so he is unable to respond to you personally. On his behalf, I bid you farewell and good evening.”
Lord Dairret may have justified what I perceived as laziness due to the fact that so few had been affected, but I couldn’t be idle, waiting for it to become widespread. By then it would be too late to do anything other than dig graves. There was something else to be done, and my action was noted as my second criminal offense.
When night came, and the clouds covered the moon, I crept to the rear of Lord Dairret’s gate. Using a spell I had not practiced in years, I became concealed to the eyes of men. Only the strongest of minds could have witnessed my appearance, but even then I would have seemed like a shadowy form or trick of the eyes.
The guards neither saw nor heard me as I circled the gate and passed through the entrance. Before me, the darkened house waited placidly. Wood planks creaked beneath my feet as I stepped inside, but these sounds were also swallowed up by my incantation.
I walked from the entryway into the great room, carefully navigating towards a winding staircase. At the top of the stairs was a hallway leading to three rooms. The final door opened to Dairret’s bedchamber.
A bearskin rug lay at the foot of an enormous bed. The bedposts towered upwards, meeting a frame of rods that nearly touched the vaulted ceiling. Thick drapes hanging from the rods concealed the bed’s occupant from me, but his snores assured me of his presence.
Raising my staff, I chanted powerful words that only magiceras can use. To you, they would do nothing and sound silly. For me, these words opened a way into Lord Dairret’s mind, a skill that I had only used once before and prayed I could still control.
While my physical body remained at the foot of the bed, my mind invaded his. My goal was to place the urgency of the poisoning into his mind so that in the morning he would act. This was completely experimental on my part, but I felt that I had no other choice. And so began my final offense.
I accessed his thoughts like the index of a tome, searching for relevant ideas of poisoning. Placing a random thought in him would do little good. I needed to append it to existing ideas and then place significance upon it.
Images flashed before me, and I could do little to stop them. I was standing before a peddler near the town square, bargaining. The man was cheating me, or so I felt, but at last I relinquished and paid him for his ware. I placed the small package into a burlap bag and hurried away.
The next scene was within the great room I had walked through moments ago. It was brightly lit by candles within a chandelier and wall sconces. Several men sat with me at the table, but I couldn’t recognize them. I kept watching a lanky man next to me, eyeing his chalice more than his face. Whenever the man drank, I felt excited as well as a bit afraid. A quick glance down revealed the burlap bag as it lay against my chair.
I could hear Lord Dairret mumbling. In the bedchamber, he was stirring, but I could do nothing. Whatever course I had begun in accessing these thoughts could not be altered. If I woke the man, he would see me; the concealment spell had long ago worn away.
Now I stood at a gravesite, giving my condolences to a veiled woman, someone I strongly desired yet felt hindered from having. Briefly I looked to her young daughter. “Lucille,” I whispered. The feelings surging through me regarding her were not of compassion but of a higher level of excitement and malice.
Lucille’s blue eyes stared innocently up into mine. In the shared mind, I heard a clear thought. “You’re next,” it said.
Lord Dairret shouted. I struggled to sever the bond between us, and my mind split between the dreaming world and the curtains before me. Everything was real, and everything was an illusion.
The drapes parted, and the wild eyes of Dairret beat down upon me. “What are you doing to me?” he asked.
His hands gripped my tunic, and he began to shake me. I steadied myself and closed my eyes. Still, the thoughts came.
I was within Adellen’s home, bent upon one knee. Lucille stood nearby, and I held a cupcake out for her. My other hand clutched the empty burlap bag that hung from my belt. “Dairret, you’ll spoil the child’s appetite,” Adellen said behind me.
“Surely one cupcake will not ruin her hunger,” I argued.
Adellen sighed. “You may have half now and half tomorrow,” she told the girl.
The man before me shrieked, and I could hear someone running through the first floor below. “Get out of my head!” Dairret commanded.
I pushed the nobleman away and started to chant, hoping to break the spell. He withdrew, grasping his head in his hands. If he would have been quiet, I might have been able to unwrap myself from him.
Footsteps sounded from the stairs, but there was nothing to be done. Lord Dairret cursed me and then leapt headfirst through the window nearest him. I felt his fatal impact upon the spiked wall before my mind became free of his.
The guard, now at the doorway, said something to me, but his words seemed muddled. A moment later, I collapsed. That was the last thing I remembered before waking up here.
You must have arrived moments after the guards took me into custody. I know that Lord Dairret requested your help after Lucille recovered, for there is no other answer for your fleetness. He needed me incarcerated or dead so that nothing would impede his second attempt at murder. However many men you mustered ended up a waste of effort since exercising my power left me in a three-week sleep.
It must have been quite a moment to bring me to the capital and throw me into the dungeon. After all, when was the last time you had seen one of my kind in this province? The king will likely grant quite a favor to whomever takes credit for my capture, and the taxes will continue to be imposed for years to come. Anything for the king’s mighty task force!
To the charge of being a magicera as proven by three incidents, I plead guilty. But I have no remorse for my actions. This is who I am, and I believe I acted rightly.
To the lesser charge of murdering a noble, I plead innocent. Dairret didn’t jump through the window because I made him. He was a coward, afraid of what would become of him now that I’d learned his secrets.
I’m certain that by penning this confession you think I have hopes of seeing my wife again or of my life being spared. My hope does not rest in these false promises you offer, nor in the goodness of mankind, for I have seen what humans are capable of. I hope for that which is unseen, to meet my god and maker, Onarre, in whom I have trusted since an early age. Now sharpen the executioner’s axe, for Onarre is waiting for me, and I do not wish to tarry.
Click Here for Easy-to-Read B&W Format
If this contribution met with your satisfaction, please consider making a contribution of your own so we may pay our authors and keep the magazine delivering great speculative fiction far into the future. Thank you for visiting.
Copyright 2009, Matthew Wuertz. All rights reserved. Matthew Wuertz is a software developer by day and fiction writer by night. His stories have appeared in Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, The Sword Review, MindFlights and Aoife's Kiss. Matthew resides in Indianapolis, Indiana with his wife, daughter, son and three amusing cats. To learn more about Matthew, please visit his website: www.matthewwuertz.com.
Contents
|