by Shane Lee
“...taxes assessed yearly as follows...paid...paid...paid...”
He licked his lips. His eyes moved frantically across the page. He read the words aloud, but he didn’t listen to himself.
The last rushed sending he had attended was for the brother-by-marriage of Rodney Talhauer, the father of the boy he’d had a chance to berate in the short weeks before his uncle’s body was shriveled into nothing and burned like the same.
His father—
“Dim-witted, bellowing behemoth!” Elrich screeched without realizing it.
—had gone so far as to take Elrich by the shoulders, shouting in his face, blaming him for the death of his family and his neighbors. Elrich had put that to bed quickly, pinching his strong fingers into the fleshy web of fat and tendon beneath each of Rodney’s thumbs, digging hard enough to make the beast hiss and withdraw (of course, Tobias and Priest Yorick, or Yanelle, or whoever-the-fuck-it-was, had sat there and watched with stupid, hanging jaws), reminding the overgrown fellow in short words that laying hands on a Judge was a capital offense
And then they had burned the body and left, Mullen striding ahead and ignoring any person who tried to get his attention.
Since then, he’d been locked in here, reading and muttering. Exhaustion dragged his eyes down and colored the skin below them, but he read and pulled more scrolls and read those, all the while knowing one simple thing: he was losing control of his town. People were dying, and there was no end in sight. It would only be a matter of time before the unease and worry became a full panic—even in his bare brushes with the public, he’d heard the word plague uttered more than once—and from there would come an exodus.
Bellamy. He needed the Bellamy farm. And he wouldn’t get it if the children decided to flee town, or if Monty caught sick next and died before he could strike a deal with him. He might be able to buy it from the kingdom in that case, but that could take months. A direct deal with the family could be done the next day.
Monty was being peppered with questions and inquiries just the same as he was, as the courier told him all the same, no doubt curious for the answers himself.
People are wondering what’s going on...
Is there anything I can say to Meera Sand? She’s relentless.
Has Dr. Tobias said anything?
Elrich shook his head hard enough to make it throb, though gods knew that was happening enough on its own lately. He thought he could wait until things settled down, but things weren’t moving in that direction. It was getting worse, it was getting bad, and it was happening faster with every passing day.
He had to act fast if he was going to secure the land he needed. And the way to do it had just slithered into him, a plan drawn from his frantic plotting inch-by-inch until it was fully formulated.
Mullen would sleep later. It was time to talk to Monty.
30
For Monty, the last two weeks had been a mix of dragging, painful hours and a horrifying blur of death constantly visiting him each day. If it wasn’t memories of his mother’s sending, it was wondering who at the sending had seen his outburst, and who had just been told secondhand. The time with his mother on his mind was slow, and the times when he was told there had been another death—and he was the first to hear about half of them—made everything feel like it was flying by, and he was the lethargic one.
But what could he do?
The tears had come within that time, two days after the sending. He knew they would have to, and he was just glad he was alone when they did.
It was an evening when he was heading back to his quarters in the Commons. With no warning, the sadness had overwhelmed him like a tall wave, and he ducked off the street and into an alley. There, he collapsed against a wall, his messenger bag slapping into the wood. He slid down to the ground, his knees bent, legs askew, his vision blurred until he closed his eyes and let the Tears come out. There was no sound. Just a deep, deep pool of loss escaping him a drop at a time.
He felt better, in some small way, when it was over, but he still thought that his mother deserved more. He wondered if Terra had had a breakdown of her own, and imagined that she must have. He just didn’t think that she’d want to hide it in the same way that he did.
But it was a trait they had learned from their mother: a strong face for others, but not to be afraid of yourself.
Terra was staying in his quarters now, ever since the sending. It was snug, but Monty didn’t mind. He much preferred it to her being alone at home, and he knew that she did, too, even though he was the one to suggest that she come and live in town, after ensuring the Gartens could house their few farm animals.
She had gotten into reading lately, ever since he’d secured a book on fairy tales and legends for her. Terra had asked for it the day after the sending. And since then, she’d pulled at least three more books from the small library in the Commons, sitting and reading by the light of the sun and the candles.
Two weeks after the sending, the two of them were sitting on the bed in his quarters. Terra was reading, and Monty, preoccupied, was pretending to look along when a knock sounded. They both jerked their heads up.
Monty got up from the bed, taking the few short steps across the room to the door. It was late in the evening, so when he opened the door to find Judge Mullen there, surprise flickered across his face. He assumed that the man had gone home by now. In fact, Monty had seen him leave his office and lock the door behind him.
Mullen didn’t miss the surprise. He spoke with his usual formality, sounding tired. “I do hate to disturb you after hours, Monty,” he said, and looking past him, added, “And you, Terra. But I need to borrow you for a minute, Monty, if you don’t mind.”
Monty did mind, a bit—he always felt reluctant to leave Terra alone, as though he might somehow be able to stop a Dromm spirit from entering her body and pulling out her life as long as he was within a few feet of her.
But like most requests from the Judge, it wasn’t really a request.
The man didn’t look well—his eyes held heavy circles beneath, his hair was a little unkempt, and his robe was shifted off to the side and dirty on the bottom from road dust. He looked like he hadn’t slept in over a day, and as far as Monty knew, that was true. So it was best not to try any temper he might be treading on.
He told Terra he’d be back soon, hoping it wasn’t a lie, and he closed the door behind him.
Instead of walking the two of them back to his office, Mullen took them outside through the front doors of the Commons and to the street. It was winter-dark and cold, but Monty liked the brisk snip of the air and how quiet and empty the streets were.
“This must be a difficult time for you and Terra,” the Judge said, as they started down the main road of Irisa.
“It has been,” Monty agreed, wondering why the Judge was walking him through town, especially since lately he’d seemed so eager to be shut up in his office. Maybe he needed fresh air.
“It has been difficult for me as well,” Mullen commented. “The deaths...the endless sendings. And of course now I am worried about you, my confidant and courier, and his family. I noticed that you have been having Terra stay in your quarters.”
It hadn’t occurred to Monty that such a thing might be against the rules. “I hope that’s all right, Judge Mullen. I just don’t want her to be alone.”
The Judge waved away his concerns with a lazy hand. “It’s fine. I mean to say—I understand, you know. I think of Terra alone in that house, and it makes even me worry. It’s good of you to be with her. You’re strong for your family, Monty. And now you’re the one who has to make the tough decisions. The ones that will affect your future, and your sister’s.”
They turned onto another road, Mullen falling silent while Monty took in those words. Don’t suppose you can help me decide how to deal with Nal’Gee, sir? he thought, and the darkness hid his humorless grin.
“Your farm,” Mullen said after a pause. “I’ll be frank, Monty, because I’m too t
ired for much else. I don’t think you and Terra will be able to maintain it with your mother gone.”
Mild indignation thrummed in Monty, and he said, “That isn’t true, I’ve been running—”
“You’ve done a lot,” Mullen said, and his tone was firm, “but for every part of that business you’ve touched, there’s five more you’ve never seen. Trust me. I’ve done it myself. And I ask, have you given the farm any thought since the sending?”
With burning in his cheeks, Monty realized that he hadn’t. In fact, he’d barely been back to the house at all after that night, not even to sort through his mother’s papers. The sheaves and stacks which had once been so important to him had completely disappeared from his mind. Thinking of them now, he felt a little sick.
He hadn’t given the Judge an answer, and Mullen didn’t need one; silence was enough. “I’m concerned for you and Terra, Monty. You have enough to handle right now, and your living situation shouldn’t have to be a burden.”
“We’re fine, Judge.”
“Let me say what I have to say.” Judge Mullen stopped, and he looked up at Monty. “I will buy your farm from you, Monty. I will pay you a hefty sum, fifty percent more than the worth of the land. Enough money for you to build a house here in town and pay the taxes on it for the next five years, at least. You and Terra can move on from this tragedy.”
The unexpected proposal sat down heavily on Monty. He struggled with it.
“Sell the farm?” he asked.
“Move on,” Judge Mullen repeated. “I know you don’t want to live in that house anymore, Monty, and I know the pain you feel when you walk through the front door. I’ve been thinking about it at length the past few days, and I knew I had to find a solution for you. I think this is a good idea for you and for your sister.”
The words sounded sincere, and Monty actually felt a little touched that the Judge would think of his family in such a way. His cheeks burned again. Since Mullen’s furious outburst, Monty had been staying at arm’s length from him. But thinking on it now, he’d been judging Mullen at the tail end of an extremely stressful time—and now the man was willing to offer him a wheelbarrow full of gold for his farm so that he and his sister could have another place to live.
He was glad the Judge couldn’t see him in the darkness. He was sure his face was pasted with shame.
“Judge Mullen...that’s very generous of you.” And it was. Kind, even.
“What do you think?”
The night was quiet, and Monty’s mind was blank. Accepting was the right thing to do...right?
“It’s what your mother would have wanted,” Judge Mullen said, and that snapped Monty’s thoughts into focus.
No, it’s not.
But this wasn’t just about his mother and her distrust of Judge Mullen. She was gone. Whatever the Judge’s motivations were, his points were true, and it probably would be better for Monty and Terra to be away from home.
Away from home...forever?
“I’ll need to think about it some,” Monty said at last. There was no way he could sort through his thoughts in the next few minutes.
Judge Mullen didn’t respond. Monty thought he saw his brow furrow, but in the dark, he couldn’t be sure. Before he could look any closer, Judge Mullen gave him a nod.
“Yes, of course. It’s not an easy decision. But you know what the right thing is to do. In the meantime...” Mullen began walking again, turning them around to head back towards the Commons. “The quarters in the Commons are far too small for both you and Terra.”
Monty could have refuted that, but it would have been a lie.
“I am going to arrange a better living space for the two of you here in town,” Judge Mullen said. “No argument. It will be paid for, so don’t worry about that.”
“I—Judge, are you serious?”
“Always, Monty,” Mullen replied. “Consider it collateral—a gesture of my goodwill and intent toward the deal for the farm. It will be an experiment, of sorts, to see how the two of you feel about living in town. I think you’ll find it pleasant.”
Another flush of warmth. “Thank you, sir. We both appreciate that very much.”
Careful, his mother’s voice whispered, making the hairs on his neck stand. Careful with this man.
Mullen smiled, his visage visible as they approached the Commons and the single torch that illuminated the doors. “I try to achieve some good, even if it’s for only a pair of my townspeople.” He snuffed the torch with the tin cap that hung from the sconce. The smoke dispelled, tickling Monty’s nose. “I pray that this difficult time passes soon, so that I might do more. This is where I’ll leave you, Monty. Tomorrow, I’ll have someone get you and Terra moved into your new quarters.”
Mullen bade him farewell and set off in the opposite direction, toward his own home. Monty lingered outside the doors of the Commons for only a moment before pulling them open and stepping inside.
It was a short walk from the front door to his quarters where Terra was waiting, but he didn’t take it just yet. He leaned back against the wall, closing his eyes. He wanted to hear the voice of his mother again and listen to her advice. But he couldn’t make it come.
The last two weeks had been a strange, blurring hell, and the only thing that kept him focused was Terra. He did his work and made few mistakes, which was surprising, considering how muddled his head felt. Whenever he could latch onto a thought, it was a sad string of memories, or the threatening rope of Nal’Gee—the threat he still had no proof of, but could not shake from his mind.
And all the while, people had continued to die.
He went back to his quarters, seeing that Terra had made it through an impressive amount of pages in the time that he had been gone. She read faster than he did, and faster than their mother had. It made him smile.
“How’s the book?” Monty asked her, sitting down on the bed.
“It’s good,” Terra said. “I still haven’t found anything about Nal’Gee, though.”
“I’m not sure it’s in there,” Monty said. He’d never read the legend, and neither had Terra; they’d only heard it from dad. It might not be written anywhere, but it didn’t hurt to look and try to learn more.
“What did the Judge want?” Terra looked up from her book.
“He...” Monty tilted his head, stalling, but only for a moment. If he was going to be honest with Terra about Nal’Gee, there was no sense in keeping secrets about anything else. “He wants to buy the farm.”
“The whole farm? Our house and everything?”
“Yeah,” Monty said. “He said he’d give us a lot for it. So that we could build a house in town.”
Terra twisted her hair around one finger. “Why’s he want our house?”
“He just wants to do a nice thing for us,” Monty said. “We talked about how...hard it is to be there. And that it might be better for us to, um—” What had Mullen said? “—move on.”
It seemed obvious now that the Judge just wanted the land. He had his own mansion on the east side of town, and Monty was sure he wouldn’t be doing any farming. People didn’t buy land over its value out of the goodness of their hearts, even if it that was part of it.
But was that worth worrying about when it had nothing to do with them?
“I don’t like living there right now,” Terra said. She curled her hair around her fingers, uncurled it, and then did it again. “But mom would hate it if we sold the farm. I mean, she would—she would have hated it.”
“I know.”
Monty sat up a little straighter. Terra was thinking the same way he was, and that was something that he noticed more and more. It was probably time to stop being surprised by it, and maybe even time to stop thinking of her as a little kid.
“He’s gonna move us into a bigger quarters tomorrow,” he told her. “Let’s give it some time. See how you like living in town after a little while. Then we can decide.”
“Really? I’ll have my own bed? And a place to put b
ooks?” Terra let her fingers slide out of her hair.
“Probably,” Monty said, and added, “but I get the biggest bedroom.”
They read the book together for a while before Monty slept. The legends about other monsters and spirits helped, oddly enough, to push Nal’Gee from his mind, and he dozed off before his sister did.
Terra stayed up to read.
31
The unlikely thing to set Monty’s actions in motion was a visit from Meera Sand, the woman who irked his mother with her polite but unwelcome offers of help. In his work in town, he’d seen her husband quite a bit, but not her.
Mullen did indeed come by the next day to move them into their new quarters, which he’d managed to arrange during the early morning. He waited till Monty’s lunchtime lull in work to bring him and Terra to the new place, which was five minutes from the Commons.
“Patricia Stetter will be your landlord, of sorts. She owns the house,” Mullen had told them, but mostly Monty, as they walked along. Terra had her ears perked and listening. “You know her.”
He did know Patricia, barely—you can only get to know someone so well by delivering scrolls to them, unless they were the kind to stop you and talk to you as you were trying to leave, and Patricia wasn’t.
The house was big—big enough to take Monty’s breath away at the thought of living in it, but Judge Mullen explained that Patricia had split the space inside into five separate living quarters that she rented out. That was fine with Monty; there was such a thing as too much space. He had only to think of his house on the farm, sitting empty, to know that.
They had carried everything they wanted to bring with them, so moving in was done the moment they stepped through the door. Their space was on the ground floor, and it had two bedrooms, and a kitchen that was big enough to house a little sitting area beside its narrow table. The windows were wide, and let in a lot of light.
This is really nice, Monty thought, and almost protested to the Judge—he was really willing to pay for this? He knew the Judge would just smile and nod and Monty would feel stupid for asking, so he instead thanked the Judge again, and Terra did, too, commenting on how much she liked it.