by Erik A Otto
“I first stumbled across it when I was younger, when my parents and I used to camp in Albondo together. I was just there before the Day as well. I thought Sebastian and the others might find it interesting. There’s a waterfall there—where you can swim.”
“It sounds like an enchanting place.”
When Nala didn’t elaborate, he asked another question. “Did you know the blue oak trees of Albondo are the best wood for structural supports and furniture? Their load-bearing potential exceeds all other woods by a large margin. The Belidorans have a strong asset in these woods.”
It bothered her that he would think of Albondo as an “asset,” but she didn’t say so. There was quiet for a time as they enjoyed the colorful vista of the forest coming into view.
“Is there anything we should be wary of while we are at the ruin?” the Purveyor asked.
Sometimes Nala had a nagging feeling the Purveyor knew more than he was letting on, but she could never really be certain. “No, nothing really. The silverstone can be sharp in places, though, so we need to be careful. You should do fine as long as you wear those bone cleaning gloves you brought with you.”
A few minutes later, the Purveyor asked, “Tell me about this man Sebastian. Is he a naustic like you?”
Why did he always accuse her of being a naustic? It made her blood boil. “He’s not a naustic, and neither am I! Why do you always say that?”
The Purveyor put his hands up defensively. “I didn’t mean to offend. But he is a Marked Man, isn’t he? Both of you tread upon the ruin, an offense to the Sandalier protocols, and you were both cast out of the Old Keep, him Marked and you put in stocks. I can only think because you both are naustic.”
Nala’s face felt hot. “We didn’t do anything wrong! More likely we saw something we shouldn’t have and the arrogant Sandaliers wanted to get rid of us. That doesn’t mean we’re heathens, like you.”
The Purveyor bowed his head as he responded, “My apologies, Nala. I didn’t mean to cause you such duress. But at the same time, what you say intrigues me. What did you see? I’m curious.”
“We saw…we saw…it’s none of your business.” Nala tried to subdue her temper. She wasn’t supposed to tell.
She realized then, in the heat of the conversation, that what she’d said about the arrogant Sandaliers was what she truly believed. She hadn’t done anything wrong. It was just stupid Sandalier rules that she’d breached. And now, away from the Old Keep, traveling with a naustic heathen, it mattered little what she told him.
“We saw a gargoyle.”
The Purveyor stopped his horse and gave her his full attention. “A gargoyle?” he asked. She didn’t expect him to believe her, but he didn’t seem skeptical, only interested. “Please continue,” he said.
She obliged, eager to finally tell someone about the ordeal. “Sebastian and I, we fell into a dark chamber in the ruin. There was a big door that looked like a giant sideways mouth with big teeth. I had a sprained ankle from the fall, so I stayed put while Sebastian looked around. I heard a scream and then hobbled over toward Sebastian. He had passed out, with a small cut on his arm, and then I saw the gargoyle, standing there. I froze, and the gargoyle moved past me, ignoring me. It was huge, twice the size of a horse.”
After a moment’s reflection, she continued, “I was screaming, of course. The gargoyle sat on some blue pattern on the floor, and the big sideways door opened and it went in. I thought it was gone for good, but then in a few minutes the door opened again and it came out. The whole time I thought it would attack or kill me, but it ignored me as I limped away from it. Then it just sat there, in the corner of the chamber, until the others pulled me out. Someone went to get help, and eventually the monks came. They went below and attacked it. I only saw a glimpse of the fight. Or rather, it wasn’t really a fight. It just stood there while the monks killed it.”
The Purveyor didn’t respond for a while. She knew that a naustic like him would never believe her, which was part of the reason she felt safe saying it. He surely thought she was crazed. And yet, he looked thoughtful. He seemed to be taking what she said seriously. In fact, his eyes adopted a sort of fervor, darting back and forth in contemplation.
“And when did this happen?” he asked.
She wondered why that would matter, but maybe he was just curious. “It was the end of last year. I think it was about a hundred days ago.”
The Purveyor started to utter things to himself. “But if…? That could explain…” Then he directed another more succinct question to her. “Did anyone else see the gargoyle?”
“Timothur came to the lip of the hole we fell in when he heard me scream. You know, Timothur Granth, the colonel. He must have seen the gargoyle go in and out of the bone mouth door. Perenna de Nagar might have also seen it, and…Hebert Flan, I think his name was. Timothur’s squire. He was nearby, but I don’t know if he saw it.”
The Purveyor became self-absorbed again. Nala asked, “What could this explain?”
“Pardon me?”
“You said, ‘That could explain.’ Explain what?”
The Purveyor put his hand on her arm. “There are some complicated Fringe theories about the world being…unnatural, as I have told you before. You would consider it blasphemy. Don’t concern yourself.” Then he went back to thinking to himself, as if making some big calculation, as if he were counting all the leaves on all the trees around him.
Nala didn’t like being patronized, especially after telling the man her deepest secret. “Why don’t you try me? I’ll let you know what I think. And yes, I may consider your words to be blasphemy, but why are you so concerned with that? Didn’t you just say you thought I was a naustic? Did you all of a sudden change your mind?”
The Purveyor was still in his mental machination. He waved at her dismissively. “Let’s continue to the ruin. Perhaps when we camp I can tell you more about it.” Then he was distracted in his thought processes again.
Nala let him be while he was off in his cerebral world.
The silence gave her time to contemplate the situation. It infuriated her when he adamantly claimed she was a naustic, yet now he made a comment in passing to insinuate he never thought she was one. Was the man just taunting her the whole time? Why would he do that? He seemed satisfied with himself, so maybe he finally got what he wanted.
But what did he want? Thinking back through their conversations, she had told him quite a bit about her life—about secrets she kept. She had told him about the silverstone ruin and about the gargoyle. These were her deepest secrets. Maybe this man liked to collect secrets?
Maybe this was why he kept taunting her as a naustic; to get her flustered, to get her to talk.
In hindsight, she recalled the suggestion he made to her in the bone mound, about her being able to get out of her bone cleaning duties if they knew about a silverstone mine. It seemed almost forced—like he knew she had information about the ruin and was trying to get her to volunteer it.
This whole time, was he just manipulating her for information?
She pulled the reins of her horse and slowed to a stop.
The Purveyor seemed to finally escape his daydreaming and pulled up as well.
“Let’s keep the pace, Nala. I would like to make the ruin before twilight.”
“No,” she said, keeping her horse immobile.
“Pardon me?” he asked.
“No.”
“Fine, I can explain the comment about the gargoyle, but please let’s keep pace.”
“No.”
The Purveyor looked more than a little confused. He spoke louder, making his frustration evident. “This was our agreement, Nala. You take me to the ruin and I relieve you of bone-cleaning duties. Isn’t it nice to be out in Albondo, near your home?”
How much did this man really know about her? Maybe he knew every detail of her life. “How did you know I knew about the ruin?”
The Purveyor’s eyes softened. “I see,” he said. “Well, we’
d been tipped off by the man named Hebert, Timothur’s squire. He said there was a great silverstone ruin in Albondo—and that you led them to it. He couldn’t recount the directions. So yes, Nala, I was hoping you would convey the location to us. I certainly didn’t select you because I thought you would be a good bone cleaner. But what harm is there in that? You have the opportunity to travel through Albondo during your naustic indenture rather than being locked in stocks, and we Fringe are able to harvest more silverstone. It’s mutually beneficial.”
Nala didn’t forgive that easily. Perhaps the man didn’t know her that well after all. “And what of Sebastian and the gargoyle? What did you know of that?”
The Purveyor sighed. “It’s of lesser importance, but yes, the man Hebert said you had seen something terrifying, but he couldn’t say what. This was one of the things I suspected it could be. It’s more of a matter of curiosity for me, as Purveyor, to know these things. Perhaps I shouldn’t have pried.”
He may have been telling her the truth, but she found it hard to trust him. Would everyone in this world try to betray her? Was there anyone who had decent scruples? The only one who she could think of was Sebastian. He was honest. He was virtuous.
She longed to see him again.
And then she had an idea.
“I want to find Sebastian Harvellian before we go to the ruin.”
“What?” The Purveyor’s mouth gaped at her unbelievingly.
“You heard me. I want to find him and speak with him. Give me a week, and I promise I’ll take you to the ruin afterwards. I think you owe me this for lying to me.”
“Nala, I’m sorry if I didn’t…fully disclose what I know, but Sebastian is a Marked Man. He could be taken by the Sandaliers at any time. Moreover, I’m sorry to say it, but he could already be dead. And even if he’s alive, how would we find a man who flees from the world?”
“Give me a week.”
“Nala, be reasonable,” he said condescendingly.
“No,” she said, and she told herself then and there she wouldn’t back down. If this man had truly done his research on Nala Réalla, he would know not to cross her.
“Nala, we Fringe need this silverstone. It’s more than a matter of economics. There are forces in this world you don’t understand.”
The Purveyor had never before shown desperation, but there were clear signs of it in his voice. The more Nala thought about it, the more she realized that the location of the ruin must be critical to the Fringe. The Purveyor was the most important Fringe man she knew, and for him to go through all this effort, for him to buy her indenture and seek out this information, to conduct this charade, must mean this was a find of great significance.
Still smarting from his patronizing behavior, she reiterated, “I will take you to the ruin, but first I want to find Sebastian—or at least look for him. You won’t be able to find the ruin yourself, I’m sure of that.”
The Purveyor spent some time staring at her, as if trying to gauge her strength. Several minutes passed this way, until finally he looked into the trees. “I sometimes underestimate people’s propensity for letting emotion rule over reason.” And he whipped his head back to look at her accusingly.
Was this supposed to be some sort of insult? Nala was unperturbed.
Then he said, “You know we could use other means to acquire this information. As Purveyor, I’m aware of numerous forms of torture.”
A spark of fear assailed her, but ultimately she sensed this to be an empty threat. The Purveyor could be devious, but Nala didn’t think him a sinister man.
She held her ground.
A few moments later, the Purveyor sighed and said, “One week.”
Nala smiled. “One week.”
Chapter 14
The Good Son
A day before they were going to break camp, when Baldric thought his brothers were busy enough with packing, he went for a walk by himself. He didn’t have any particular direction in mind, but his feet naturally took him back up the path where they had chased the naked Sambayan.
When he reached the boulder field he took time to feel the contours of the stones, and to examine the moss. He climbed up one large mound of stone and looked down, but his view of the ponds and camps was obscured. He descended and continued meandering. He knew he was getting close to the cave.
Then he found it.
It seemed darker than he remembered, so he took out a dry wyg lamp and added some water from his canteen to brighten the surroundings.
There was a patch of sedimentary rock on the side of the tunnel. When he scratched at it, it crumbed fairly easily. He wondered what kind of rock it was. Father would surely know.
The crumbly rock reminded him of the salt mines. Perhaps this is why he had come back to the cave. In his youth Baldric and his brothers would spend countless hours in the tunnels near Father’s mining operations in southern Thelonia. They would play tag, hide and seek, and have contests of strength throwing or hauling stones of various shapes and sizes. Once they had a blind journey to the end of the tunnels.
A memory flashed to the fore of his conscience. Clyve had pulled down Baldric’s pants so that he inadvertently mooned father’s business associates at one of his meetings in the mines. Myron, no doubt urged on by Clyve, did the same to Radley. Of course they were reprimanded, but even Father couldn’t help himself from breaking his stern countenance and curling his cheeks into a grin when it happened.
The looks on the faces of those mining magnates was something else. They were trying to remain so austere in front of father. It took all their will to bottle their glee.
Baldric couldn’t help but laugh remembering the incident.
But then another memory passed over him, another time somebody’s pants were dropped; the scout with the Sambayan children, and that hideous image. He felt betrayed by the memory, as if it had sullied his mind. He didn’t want to see it again. He didn’t want that image littered in his brain alongside the images of his youth.
He had reached the large cavernous room at the end of the tunnel. There were still a few signs of habitation—a leftover animal skin, the trash heap, a faint smell of body odor. Everything else had been cleared out.
The conflict returned to him—the woman charging with the mace, and Clyve parrying the blow from the one-armed man.
Although the outcome of the battle plagued him, one bright spot was Clyve’s actions. He hated to admit it, but he might have saved Baldric’s life. Maybe what happened with Radley was finally giving him some kind of moral direction? Or maybe he felt he had some kind of debt to pay, at least when it came to his brothers? Knowing Clyve, it was hard to believe. It could be he was just being a soldier—just fighting the enemy reflexively, like they were trained. It probably had nothing to do with saving Baldric’s life.
He kept moving, carefully navigating up the uneven stones leading up to the back of the cavern. He’d been curious about the two that were digging away at the cavern offshoot. It probably went to another opening, or tunnel branch, but it could have been something else that they’d hidden. Weapons maybe? Henly said he would dig it out.
Baldric could tell the stones had been moved, to be sure, but it was hard to tell how much they had unearthed. There was a large mound of stone just below the offshoot, so clearly some excavation had been done.
He reversed course and stopped at the mound, turning over the stones, as if their composition might provide some clues as to the Sambayan’s actions.
Then something caught his eye. A stone rolled over toward the base of the pile, exposing an object that was shining back at him. He kneeled down and picked it up. It was a pendant, or rather half a pendant, the rest likely crushed off by stone. He recognized it immediately. It was the back half of a cougar; the pendant that belonged to the girl.
His heart beat heavily in his chest. He moved a few more stones, and a few more, until he saw what he feared. He poked at it. It was beige, and soft, and cold. Human skin. There, under the mound
was someone’s skin, perhaps part of a body, perhaps part of a group of bodies.
It could be that these were the ones who died in the battle, but the pendant defied that explanation. Could they have killed the refugees? Who would do such a thing?
He moved with purpose out of the cave, his face flushing with anger. He needed to get to the bottom of this. He needed to report this to Henly immediately.
He jogged back around the boulders, into the softer terrain, and down towards the encampment near the pond. Before he could reach the camp two men were blocking the path, waiting for him. When he came closer he could see that one was Henly’s personal guard, and one was Henly himself, sitting atop his horse.
“Sir, I have something to report.” Baldric said, stopping in front of Henly.
Henly put his hand up, indicating he should hold. He looked to his personal guard and said, “You can go.”
“Yes, sir,” the guard said, and he marched away.
Henly still had his hand up in Baldric’s face. Baldric breathed heavily, teeth clenched, waiting for leave to speak.
“My sentry saw you enter the cave,” Henly said.
“Yes, sir, that’s right. I need to tell you—”
“No.” Henly interrupted. “There’s nothing to say, because you didn’t see anything in that cave.”
“But sir, surely—”
“I follow my orders,” Henly said forcefully. “I do what I’m told. I expect you to do the same. Do you understand?”
Was he saying that he was…ordered to kill the prisoners? It sure sounded like it.
“Do you understand?” Henly asked, his tone even firmer. Henly looked deadpan, the way he sometimes did when he delivered his sarcastic barbs. Only he wasn't kidding around, he was being deadly serious.
“Yes, sir. I understand.”
“You did well to find these Sambayans. You could be in for a medal, in fact. Don’t screw it up by disobeying a direct order.”
“Yes…yes of course, sir.
Henly nodded, turned his horse about, and left.