SMOKE AND BLADES

by D Elias Jenkins

  Maybe that’s what happened to all the other folks. They just became the wind. Hope they weren’t waiting for the same fella I am.

  Gaunt felt the weakness begin to spread up from his feet. He was sure that he was here for a purpose but he just couldn’t find the motivation to care. He took one last big draw of his rillo and was about to lay down forever when something glittered before his eyes, dazzling him a little. He squinted at his fingers beneath the smoke stub, holding his hand up in front of him like it was a new appendage.

  His wedding ring gleamed with a warm golden light, totally at odds with the cold silver hue around him. Gaunt’s memory suddenly lit up. He smiled and whispered.

  “Izzy.”

  The moment Gaunt remembered his wife, the wind died down and the worst of the dust began to settle to knee level. Gaunt felt full awareness of where he was return to him with a shiver.

  The wizard Rak-Tan Dang had sent him over to the land of the dead to find

  two things, the soul of his wife and the only weapon that could stop Jonas Reach from destroying Free Reign.

  With an acceptance of the weariness in his bones, Gaunt stood up and flicked the rillo away into the dust at his feet. He stood on it with his scuffed boot and ground it out.

  Don’t want to start a fire. Not quite yet.

  He looked up at the wooden signpost next to him. The nameplate at the top of the post was crudely nailed and dry as cracked bone. It pointed ahead up the road to where the vague outline of a town could be seen through the dust.

  NOBODY HOME

  2 MILES.

  Gaunt adjusted his gun belt and took a sip of water from his skin. The dust was beginning to land on his face and hair, settling in the creases of his rugged features.

  “Alright Sparky, let’s go see how this place takes to strangers.”

  Gaunt’s senses began to return sharper as he progressed along the deserted road. He looked above him at the stars in the night sky and became aware that they were wheeling overhead at a rate easily visible to the naked eye.

  As he looked to the horizon on either side it became apparent that it wasn’t sky as such that barreled above him, or more precisely he wasn’t standing on earth. Spiral galaxies were way too close and huge clouds of green and red interstellar dust streaked across the void. To the west a scattering of planets peppered the dark in a solar system unfamiliar to the observatories of Free Reign. Streaky clouds of purple gas spun high above him, caught in a vortex Gaunt could not feel slowly corkscrewing towards some point far out of view.

  Gaunt thought of the mist priest’s description of an umbilical cord between planes and realized that he walked on a thin sliver of rock through a vast cosmic tunnel. It was a shaky bridge of matter balancing in a wormhole between worlds. Or maybe that’s just what his brain wanted him to see. Gaunt was pretty sure he’d gone insane the second he’d stepped through the Slip.

  The thought occurred to him that he could just walk on, past whatever lay in Nobody Home and onwards to the true afterlife. Maybe he could still find Izzy and they could go together. Yet he felt a tether attached somewhere in his body that he knew could draw him back through the Slip and into the world he knew. A living strand extended from him that still burned for the all too human thirst for revenge.

  Through the bone dust Gaunt saw a figure approach. A larger shape walked by its side.

  He swung the rifle down from his shoulder and held it ready at his hips. As the dust cleared Gaunt saw an old man leading a horse along the road towards him. Gaunt stood his ground and nodded as the man approached. He was wrapped in a thick poncho and many scarves. A wide brimmed hat obscured his face save for a long grey beard that reached his knees.

  His head was bowed low against the dust and he leaned his meagre weight forward into the wind. When the man was in earshot Gaunt called out to him.

  “How do you do?”

  The hat tipped up to show a face so mapped with years and toil that his true age could not be guessed. A rattling strained voice in an accent Gaunt did not recognize answered back across the storm.

  “I do as I must.”

  As the man drew closer, Gaunt could see that his eyes were filmed over milky white with blindness. Gaunt gave him a little nod anyway.

  “That’s what I do too.”

  The old man gave a tug on the reigns and his horse stopped with a jitter. It was still obscured by the dust but Gaunt thought there was something off about how the animal moved. The old man looked in Gaunt’s general direction as he spoke.

  “Unusual to meet another traveler on this road. Especially one with warmth in his veins. Where you headed?”

  Gaunt tapped the signpost with his glove.

  “Up ahead. The town. You?”

  The old man took off his hat and a pile of matted white dreadlocks cascaded down his back. He scrunched up his sunburnt old face for a moment then shook his head and laughed.

  “You know, it’s escaped me. I been going from place to place for so long, I forget the names. Things get cloudy in here and other roads like it. This old mind only gets sharp again once I’m out the other side. You ought to be careful though.”

  Gaunt cocked his head at the skinny old vagabond.

  “Good advice, place like this. Anything in particular I should be looking out for?”

  “Well you don’t want to be trekking along this road on foot. Suck the life right out of you. Yes it’s clear you’re a living man, brought your breath all the way in here for nothing. You’ve got sand, I’ll say that much for you.”

  The old man spat thick phlegm into the dust and stretched out his turkey neck. Gaunt imagined that under all those bulky layers he was little more than a wasted collection of sticks. The old man chewed his moustache for a while but seemed disinclined to talk first. Finally Gaunt coughed and broke the silence.

  “The road? You were saying, old man.”

  The old man frowned and nodded. After a few grumbling sounds he spoke.

  “This is a road no one leaves a footprint on, if you take my meaning. By the time you reach that town, you won’t know why you come here. I can help you if you wish. Ferry you up there. Done my fair share of getting people places hard to get to in my time. My horse can carry you.”

  Gaunt looked beside the man to where the outline of the large horse shifted nervously in the dust. However close Gaunt was, he couldn’t seem to see it clearly but it still troubled him. Along with everything else in this strange place. He looked around him and had to accept that his legs were weary and any help was appreciated.

  “I’m much obliged. Don’t have much to offer in return.”

  The old man reached out and his hand wavered over Gaunt’s, as if drawn to something. Gaunt was pretty damn sure what it was.

  “That ring sure is shiny, so my mind tells me anyhow. Sentimental value?”

  Gaunt was aware that the ring seemed to give off a warmth and a light that was very different to anything else in this bleak realm. He figured the old man could just sense it.

  “Most certainly. Not for trade. If you’re heading where I’ve come from you’re gonna need currency. Few silver Florreks do you?”

  The old man’s attention lingered on the ring for longer than Gaunt was comfortable. Then he broke off with a toothless grin and nodded.

  “That would be most kind. Get myself a meal.”

  The old man gestured the horse and it stepped forward out of the gloom. It was tall, about seventeen hands high. It was cloaked in about as many blankets and hoods as the old man was, obscuring most of the flesh. Gaunt found that he didn’t like looking at for more than a moment. Something his mind didn’t want to see. Still, beggars can’t be choosers, thought Gaunt as he mounted the beast.

  The old man gave a few soft clicks and whistles and they moved off down the road at a gentle pace. After a minute or so the old man cranked his head up to Gaunt.

  “So what brings you over here, Breath-man?”

  “Come looking for someone dear
to me. Someone that ought not to be here.”

  The old man shrugged.

  “Don’t reckon anyone ought to be here, stranger. Whole town’s built on bones that couldn’t rest.”

  “You passed this way before?”

  The man shook his head and frowned, searching for the memory.

  “As I said, my mind’s shaky, but I think I been this way lots of times.”

  Gaunt flicked his chin up ahead. The silhouette of the settlement was becoming clearer in the dust.

  “You been past the town before? Where that vortex leads? Looks like it’s drawing the clouds in towards it.”

  “Yeah I been there. But I can’t guide you through there, breath-man. Only me and my horse can travel safe through there.”

  Gaunt peered up at the strange clouds of gas and dust that swirled high above, making their slow inexorable way towards the other end of the wormhole.

  “To where?”

  The man worked his mouth, searching for the right words.

  “Well the where I can’t rightly put into words. But if you turn this way and that, you can find shooting off it are tunnels like this one in all directions. A wanderer like me can take a lot of short cuts. What’s your friend’s name?”

  “Izabella.”

  “Then I wish you luck in finding her.”

  They rode on for a minute. Gaunt was glad of the ride, his limbs were starting to feel heavy and tired. He knew that time was of the essence.

  “Something else I’m looking for, maybe you seen it?”

  “I been blind for eight hundred years, boy, I ain’t seen shit.”

  Gaunt smiled down at the man, his teeth becoming coated in a fine film of bone dust.

  “Oh your eyes are blind but you seem to see just fine. You’re guiding me safe, aren’t you?”

  “Ha. Thinks he’s safe. Blind leading the blind true enough. So what you searching for?”

  “Jade statue. Figure with many arms holding a scepter and a sword. About half as big as a man.”

  The man offered his gummy toothless grin.

  “Ha. Well you won’t have to look too hard to find that. Took a sip of drinking water right next to it when I was last in town.”

  “Hidden in plain sight?”

  “You keep making blind jokes, son, I’ll lead you right off the edge of this road. There’ll be no end to your falling.”

  “You take my meaning and you know I mean true. No riddles, where is it?”

  The man chuckled up at him.

  “Fountain. Right in the middle of the town square. Just sits on top like an ornament spitting water. Not sure if the residents will be happy about you defacing their fountain though. People do love a cool drink of water here.”

  “I guess I’ll just use my charm.”

  “You do your best son. No one can ask more of you. Town’s coming up. I’d keep my hat tipped down if I were you.”

  “How so?”

  The man flicked his blind eyes up as if it were obvious.

  “Son, you’re a living breathing man, you’re an oddity. How would your home town act if a corpse walked into it?”

  Gaunt took a deep breath and sighed.

  “Fair.”

  As the town came into view, Gaunt felt cold in his hands despite his thick riding gloves. He felt no such iciness in his face so he held the reigns with one hand a pulled a glove of with his teeth. His hand was turning a stony grey and losing colour by the moment. Turning it over he saw the fingernails tinged with a deep sickly blue. He glanced down at the old man.

  “I hear this place ain’t too healthy for the likes of me.”

  The old man kept his sightless eyes fixed ahead and did not answer for a long moment. Gaunt was unsure if he had been heard when the old man spoke.

  “You’d be right. My eyes don’t work so good but I always had a good nose. Been smelling your flesh dying from the moment we started talking.”

  Gaunt made a fist a couple of times to loosen up his stiffening fingers.

  “Well that ain’t so good.”

  “Nope.”

  The old man took a swig from the water skin Gaunt had given him. The moisture dribbled down his chin to soak his beard leaving trails through the dust.

  “You must really love this woman.”

  Gaunt nodded.

  The old man gave a wry little smile.

  “I loved and been loved. Lived in the mountains with a woman for many a year. Can’t recall which sky I was under. Not yours if you take my meaning. Folks down in the valley thought we were gods, thought we brought the rains.”

  Gaunt squinted down at the man and wondered for the first time where he was trying to get to.

  “Did you?”

  “Nah.”

  “What did you bring?”

  The old man screwed the top back on the water skin and sucked his teeth.

  “Bad luck.”

  Gaunt had a sense it was better not to ask further. He couldn’t shake the idea that the more he knew about this place and the folks in it, the less likely he ever was to escape it. He felt as if to acknowledge its reality diminished the true reality of home to less than a dream.

  So he shut his damn mouth and looked ahead as they entered Nobody Home.

  From what Gaunt could see through the dust-blown town it was aptly named. At first he could not see another soul, living or dead.

  Then little twin lights began to flicker behind grimy windows. One or two at first, then as he rode in to the centre of the settlement, more began to twinkle in shady corners and alleys. Gaunt clenched his jaw and kept his eyes front.

  “Who are they?”

  The old man looked up.

  “The restless dead. Those who won’t go on down this road to the next world. If the woman you are looking for is here, it means she has unfinished business. That or her own heart holds her here. Guilt, love, fear.”

  Gaunt was feeling more unsettled now as the luminous little eyes were shining out from behind the dirty glass of nearly every window in town.

  “Are they dangerous?”

  The old man seemed to consider this.

  “They fear you.”

  “I’m not too keen on them either.”

  The old man smiled.

  “They’re a strange bunch. This place mercifully fogs up the mind. You’re an unpleasant reminder of the life they left behind. So they’ll rob you of it if they can. And not in pleasant ways.”

  Gaunt looked down at his hand. The skin was even greyer and the fingernails a bruised shade of blue.

  “I don’t think they have long to concern themselves with that.”

  The dust cleared and as Gaunt looked up he saw that they were in a town square. At its centre was a broken down stone fountain in faded granite. A poor stream of water trickled from it. However the centerpiece of the fountain stood out from every other colorless thing in town. It was a jade statuette about two foot high of a many-armed deity. It stood atop the fountain in benign watchfulness. Gaunt squinted at it as he suddenly felt a thirst descend upon him like he’s never felt. He coughed to clear the bone dust from his throat.

  “That’s what I’m here for.”

  The old man shrugged.

  “They won’t let you take it. It’s the only trinket they have, the only thing of beauty.”

  Gaunt twisted his mouth and felt a hundred pinpoints of light bear down on him from the windows.

  “Well I didn’t say I wasn’t gonna bring it back.”

  The old man chuckled to himself.

  “The other thing you seek. If you’re to find it anywhere it will be over there, within the guesthouse.”

  Gaunt looked across the square and saw a ramshackle old inn whose sign swung creakily above the porch. It read vacancies.

  The old man led the horse over to the steps of the inn. Gaunt dismounted and stood before café doors that swung restlessly in the breeze and a thin layer of bone dust blew like gauze in the entrance. He could see nothing of the interior. He turned
to the old man, who was leading his mount back the way they had come.

  “Wait. What’s through here?”

  The old man fingered the silver coins Gaunt had given him. He licked his lips.

  “No idea what it is for you. Different for everyone. You’re still thinking as if this is a place, mister. This ain’t a place.”

  As the old man led it away, Gaunt’s mind allowed him to see the horse clearly for the first time.

  It was not a horse at all. It was a horse shape, made up of the contorted bodies of men and women. Gaunt felt himself turn dizzy at the realization. He knew it was some eldritch abomination the moment the old man had dragged it through the dust, but Gaunt’s mortal mind would not accept it. Like some dark mantra Gaunt repeated under his breath.

  “Not a place at all.”

  Gaunt nodded and turned from the old man. He took a deep breath and walked through the doors of the inn. As he stepped inside, the light changed and the constant howling of the dust storm outside vanished. Gaunt turned back to see the same gauze of dust obscuring his view back onto the street. He looked to the streaky window on the façade and the only view outside was and endless night of stars. Gaunt stepped up to the window and rubbed some of the grime off with his sleeve. He peered out, craning his neck in all directions. There was no ground, no town, and no old man leading his mutie horse off into the distance. Just the same deep space he had seen stretching out forever past the limits of the wormhole.

  Gaunt turned and took in the interior. Couple of nightlights left on, chairs all stacked up on tables, empty bar and dance floor. No patrons, staff or barkeep to be seen. There was a fine array of whiskies and wines stacked up behind the bar however, and Gaunt felt the sudden hankering for a drink. He realized that the past day was the first time he’s been sober since he travelled east.

  As he took a step towards the bar the music started up.

  A piano was playing a gentle tune.