Solace Lost

by Michael Sliter

  “We all know the great book, and none better than me,” said Terrin, still inspecting that spot on the floor. “There are references to power and magic in The Book of Amorum. By cross-referencing these allusions with other accounts of magical power, I can derive at least some informed conclusions.”

  Merigold stepped around Chad, ignoring his pleading eyes, moving closer to Terrin. She had always wanted to learn more about magic. Perhaps what she did—drawing energy—was magic. Meri suspected so, but had never talked about it or heard it mentioned.

  “Though magic has been illegal in Rostane for years, since the reign and unfortunate assassination of King Thontos, some writings still exist that can educate us on these matters.” Terrin sounded as if he were in a classroom, giving a lecture to unruly children. “One thing is clear: there is always a cost associated with the use of power. Power does not just appear—” he held out his hands, “—out of nowhere. Rather, those who are able to draw and control power do so essentially by stealing it.”

  “Sounds dark to me!” snarled Jayna. Terrin drew back, obviously concerned by the feral turn in Jayna’s behavior. Lamen began stroking Jayna’s back, but she pulled away from him.

  “Perhaps stealing is the wrong word. Reallocating? Now, I was saying … I do not know a lot about magic, but it appears that pasnes alna, or whatever magic users called themselves at a given point in history, have affinities to draw power from certain reservoirs of life, drawn from different aspects of our world. The ones I know of are plants and the earth, though there are some references to maguses being able to pull power from animals and other living things. A skilled magus might be able to pull some level of power from, say, a bush, without permanently damaging the bush. They could then make use of that power for whatever purposes they required. I’m a little fuzzier about what can actually be done with magic once the power is collected.”

  “The plants in the green… The dead willow tree on the path…” murmured Merigold.

  “Indeed. I’ve never seen magic before or its aftermath before, but there is one account in The Book of Amorum that sounded like magic stolen… reallocated from plants. ‘And as they touched the trees, they withered and died, leaves turning to ash, life dissipating in an instant.’ This was in regard to the army of Ultner, birthed of Pandemonium to unleash a terrible power upon the world.”

  “Aye, though the forces led by Yetra fought back,” supplied Lamen.

  “Correct. There is another reference. ‘Theron, a general of Yetra’s forces, drew life from the earth itself to halt the onslaught of demons, stones quivering and breaking with his power.’ Based on my other readings, Theron may have had an affinity for earth.”

  “But stones are not living! How can you get power from stones?” asked Chad, seemingly calmed by his father’s voice.

  “I’ve exhausted my knowledge of magic at this point, son. I only know enough to say magic was, indeed, used in Dunmore recently. There is no other logical explanation.”

  There was a silence at this point. An oppressive silence, like a great hand pressing down upon everyone in the chapel as each person thought about what awaited them outside. About their losses, and about how to move on.

  Jayna gave a great, sobbing shudder and slumped on one of the benches. Merigold almost wanted to comfort her. Meri understood loss as much as anyone and could relate to Jayna’s strong, negative reaction, her desire to blame someone for this travesty. But, the woman had already condemned her as a witch, and would unlikely want any consolation from such a creature.

  Lamen finally broke the silence, his hands on his wife’s shoulders, Ola clinging to his waist. “I’d best get to work. There is a lot to be done.”

  “I’ll help the best I can,” Terrin said, stepping forward. “I’m not the strongest or fittest, but the people of this town deserve a proper burial.” He had the body of a scholar, and hands stained with ink, but he seemed to be the most collected of the group.

  “Pa, I will help, as well,” said Chad, glancing at Meri and biting his lip. “I can dig.”

  “Aye, you can, indeed.”

  “I need to go to the Ducking, to check on my uncle and father. Then, I can come back here to help,” said Meri.

  “Where have you been, Merigold? Why are you coming back just now?” asked Lamen.

  “I made a mistake; ran off with a man. A traveler.” Merigold had choked on the words a bit. Part of her wanted to scream out what had happened, to bring to light the horrors she had faced. But she had little choice but to embrace the whore story. She was not yet ready to speak of what she had endured, and she knew that these people would not believe her anyway. “I… I regained my senses and came back via the west road, same as you.” She had enough of an actor in her to show some shame, averting her eyes. Little of the shame was feigned, though the source of that shame was quite different than what the others would have believed.

  Chad’s eyes darted between Meri and the adults, his face appearing stricken with emotion. Shame? Guilt? Simple self-preservation, hoping to not be implicated?

  “I knew she was a whore,” muttered Jayna, just barely audibly. Merigold’s anger flared up. She fought the urge to reach out and smack the woman, but settled for a fierce look. She couldn’t be around these people right now; it was too much. She needed to get away, to focus on her search for Ragen and Sandra, to use it to block out the fear and the shame that were threatening to overwhelm her.

  “I will be back later,” she said abruptly, moving quietly toward the door

  Just as her hand touched the door handles, a deep voice said her name in a quiet voice.

  “Merigold?”

  Lamen had come after her as the rest of the survivors huddled together, locked in conversation.

  “Yes?” Her fingers locked on the handle, grip white.

  “Merigold, you are lying. The story of running of with a man… that didn’t seem true. I’ve known you since you were a girl; that doesn’t sound like you. And, those bruises, your eye… Are you in some sort of trouble?” She felt blood rush to her face, the breath catch in her throat.

  Part of her desperately wanted to tell the big forester about her trials in the cabin. Tell him about Saren and Paul and Chad, about what they did to her. About how Saren had lied about Ragen and her, about them being witches and so on. It would be a furious relief to unload her troubles on Lamen.

  But something held her back. Was it the shame of how she had been violated? Was it the fear that he wouldn’t truly believe her? Though Paul might be known as uncouth and surly, people in Dunmore were trusting, and he was one of the village folks. Saren was well-loved among the men in the village, a quick-witted charmer, and Chad was hardly more than a boy, the son of a scholar.

  Or, was it because she knew that, if Lamen believed her story, he would find the cabin and find Saren before he succumbed to a lonely death in the dark?

  “I told the girls. I’d fallen from a wagon on the way here, bumped my eye and bruised my arms and legs.” She didn’t meet his eyes.

  “Merigold…” Lamen said her name again, almost pleading.

  “Lamen! What are you doing talking to that witch whore?” Jayna broke away from the group and gestured violently at her husband.

  Lamen’s shoulders slumped. “Aye, Jayna. I’ll be right there.” To Merigold, he spoke more quietly. “When you return, we should speak more. I’ll talk to Jayna, too. She’s just scared. We all are.”

  Merigold bowed her head gratefully.

  “Thank you, Lamen. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “Please be careful. I would go with you, but the people here need me, and Yetra will damn me if I leave our loved ones, out there, to the vultures.”

  Merigold left the safety of the chapel and stepped out into the day. In the light of the early sun, the scene before her seemed even more twisted than it had the night before. Such devastation belonged to the dusk, to the darkness of night. Now, the withered, grayed plants, the ash floating in the air, and
the bodies lying curled up, either bloodied or untouched, filled her with more terror than they had the night before. She hastened to the northern path leaving town, trying to suppress her emotions while simultaneously offering up an empty plea to a goddess she no longer trusted, in hopes that the divine had protected her family.

  Chapter 18

  Three miles. Just three miles. An hour of walking at a decent pace. Half an hour at a run. Twenty-five minutes via horse and cart.

  These would be the three longest miles of Merigold’s life.

  She was a witch and a whore now, so far as Dunmore was concerned. Or, what remained of Dunmore. Sandra, her surrogate sister, was missing. She didn’t know if her father and her uncle were dead or alive. The village itself—the beautiful, little village, filled with hardworking if superstitious people—was now a dead settlement, unlikely to be rebuilt and reinhabited. Merigold had moved straight from one terror to another.

  And what or who was responsible? Magic, some poorly-understood power, had taken everything she had ever known away. Had turned the village square to dust, turned the thoughts and dreams of everyone in the village into nothing. Had turned the sounds of children at play into a heavy silence.

  Maybe there was something to The Book of Amorum, after all. Any power that could cause this type of destruction must be evil, no matter what Terrin said. Merigold was almost glad that she no longer had access to her own power. Almost glad, considering the life-shattering treatment that had seemingly ripped that power away from her.

  Halfway to the inn, Merigold’s pace slackened. She could see the empty farmlands, bereft of the usual small army of farmers, to her left. Here and there, she could see some cattle and sheep, standing about untended. Spots of blackened grass, though, hinted that the tall corn crops may have hid the remains of those farmers. What would she find at the inn? Would Ragen and her uncle Emmet be…

  “Merigold, wait up!” called a voice from behind her. She gripped her dagger and turned, seeing Chad Umber jogging up to her. Her stomach was a nest of writhing snakes at the sight of him.

  “Stay back! Stay away from me!” she growled with her jaw tight, not sure whether to stab at him or run away.

  “Please, Meri,” he stuttered, skidding to a stop a few paces from her, winded from his run. “Lamen sent me to protect—”

  “Why would you think, for a moment, that I would ever want to see your fucking face again? Why would you think that I would accept protection from such disgusting, vile, subhuman scum like you?” she spat. She had never felt rage like this before, her near instantaneous anger so great that she could feel it in every fiber of her being, and it frightened her.

  Chad held his hands out in front of him, hair flapping in his face from the warm, gusting breeze. “Meri, please. I didn’t know what to do. Saren, he told us about you, how he had you… well, he wanted us to come with him, to do what… He said if I told anyone, he’d kill me! And he had a knife!”

  “What about after? It must have been weeks, after you raped me with Saren and Paul!” she shouted through clenched teeth, seeing him flinch again at the word ‘rape.’

  “It was twenty days, Merigold. I felt every one of them—each one lasted longer than the last—”

  “The days were longer for me, Chad, locked below that cursed cabin. You can’t imagine. There. Is. No. Excuse. You sick, perverted…” She felt a sudden urge to cry. But she would not, could not, do that in front of Chad.

  “I know, Merigold! I can never understand what it was like for you! But, Saren, and then Paul, said that they would kill me, and kill my father, if I said anything. That they would come to our house, over on the outskirts, and butcher him in front of me! They said you were a witch, that you were the reason the Michelson’s farm burned down, with the kids trapped inside. That, if I said something, that would make me a witch, too. I thought to tell someone about the cabin, to just direct some random person out that way so that so nobody would know it had been me, but Saren… he knew what I was thinking. He said that if anyone came for you, he would assume it was me who told, and he would destroy everyone I loved. I avoided them and never came back, Merigold. But I couldn’t say anything—I was scared for my father, and for myself! Gods, I’m sorry, Meri. I’m so sorry.” Chad’s eyes were glistening with tears, his features twisted with guilt and penitence.

  As much as she hated it, Merigold could understand Chad’s reasoning for not telling anyone. She would do whatever she had to in order to protect Ragen, even if it meant letting someone else suffer. But she could never forgive what Chad had done to her. Never.

  She clenched and unclenched her fists, gazing into Chad’s wet eyes. How many times had she thought about visiting vengeance on each of her torturers, using her knife—even her fingers—to tear them to pieces? And yet, here was one of them standing before her, penitent and vulnerable, obviously suffering, and she felt no joy at the sight.

  Merigold’s anger dissipated like fog in the sunlight. With a great effort, she attempted to let go of the flaming hatred that she had been holding onto for… twenty days. She felt a palpable, physical relief as she did so, also, as if she had set down a tray full of brimming beer crocks.

  She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Chad… What you did was unforgivable. It was a crime, not only against me, but against everything that you were raised to value. Against Yetra…” It felt odd to invoke the goddess’ name, but Chad winced. “You should have done everything to find a way to help me, to bring justice to the others.”

  “Meri, I’m so…” Chad began, biting his lip.

  Meri held up a hand. “I don’t forgive you. But… I know you wanted to protect Terrin. And… family is important. Family is the most important thing in the world,” she whispered the last part, thinking about what she might find at the Duckling. “Maybe one day, I can learn to forgive again.”

  Chad tentatively moved forward, a shy, grateful smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He reached out and gently touched her arm.

  Merigold was back in the cabin then, lying on her back and looking at Chad’s closed eyelids. She could hear him grunting softly as he thrust into her, barely feeling any friction since Saren and Paul had already spent themselves inside of her. His hand was gripping her shoulder, boney fingers digging into her collarbone, fingernails cutting into her skin. His hair was slapping her in the face with each thrust, even brushing her empty, unblinking eyes. Slap. Slap. Slap.

  “Don’t you dare touch me!” she shrieked, batting his arm away. Merigold reached into her pocket and gripped her knife, pulling it out and jamming it into Chad’s neck in one graceful motion, just as she had practiced with Saren in mind. The boy stumbled back, his body pulling the knife from Meri’s hand, and he was there standing for a moment and staring at her with wide eyes before he was falling to his knees, hands pawing at his neck. He tried to say something, but only blood and a small gasp came out of his mouth.

  Meri stood watching, horrified, as Chad choked on his own blood. She darted forward and pulled the knife from his neck, blood oozing thickly between her fingers as she clasped the fabric-wrapped handle. Chad fell backwards onto the rocky, dirt road, writhing and contorting as Meri tried to apply pressure to the wound. His open mouth worked silently and his eyes bulged from his head, his unfocused stare fixed on Meri.

  What had come over her? How could she have done this?

  “No, gods, no, Chad! Chad, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry! Please, Chad! Please…”

  Chad slowed his struggles as blood pulsed from his neck, covering Meri’s hands and wrists. So much blood. His eyes locked with hers, pleading for help. He gave a great heave finally, his torso lifting off the ground, and coughed blood into her face. Gargling and sputtering, his arms and legs went limp as he faded.

  Merigold knelt over his body, whimpering, not even noticing the blood that was soaking into Sandra’s dress. Now, seeing Chad lying in a slowly-spreading puddle of lifeblood, she could not imagine him hurting her as he had, perpet
rating such a terrible crime. No, this was a child—she had just killed a child!

  And now, with the remaining residents of Dunmore already suspecting her of being a witch, could she ever go back? Would anyone believe the “witch” wasn’t responsible for his death? Could she even hide it, or lie about it? She was a murderer, now.

  Covered in blood and sobbing, Meri wrestled mightily against her emotions, finally snapping into her empty, unfeeling place. Her safe place. Her escape. Then, Merigold strained and struggled to pull Chad into the tall grass. His corpse, rather. She scattered dirt over the blood staining the path, kicking and scraping at it, trying and failing to eliminate the evidence of a struggle.

  Leaving Chad’s body behind, she stashed her knife in her pocket and continued her journey to the Duckling.

  Two of the longest three miles were behind her.

  Chapter 19

  The inn stood abandoned. The sprawling three-story building, lovingly painted with a fresh coat of burgundy paint every year by her Uncle Emmet, had an empty feeling—a hive without any bees.

  It wasn’t just the visible lack of people that struck her. There was a heavy, eerie silence hanging about the place. The inn would usually have been bubbling with noise at almost any hour. There was always the telltale sound of chatter among locals: stories being exchanged, deals being made, jokes being told. Travelers would be asking for directions, stabling their horses. Wood getting chopped throughout the day generally made for a consistent ‘thud’ in the yard, with pots and pans clanging from the kitchen, and Ragen would be shouting to be heard over the cacophony. The sounds of home. Of familiarity.

  Now they were gone.

  The scene was much the same as it had been in Dunmore. There were circles of shriveled, gray grass, and at least two trees that Merigold could see were completely gray, lifeless leaves beginning to pile around their bases. An ashy mist had formed around the Duckling, leaving Merigold to feel as if she were seeing the world through dirty spectacles. The only thing missing here was the wanton destruction of human life she had witnessed in Dunmore. There was not a body to be seen.