by Shane Lee
The tavern itself barely poked into the east side, sticking out from the other line of buildings like it didn’t quite belong. There was a small, hanging sign over the door that simply read ‘MOON’.
Monty had never been inside. He’d heard of the place, but only since he had been running messages. Had he arrived just twenty minutes earlier, he would have seen Judge Mullen coming out of the front door, tucking his bottle into his robes.
As it were, he and Terra walked in to the empty tavern, but the barkeep was there behind the polished length of bar, working on something beneath the counter. He was thin and balding, but his eyes were lively. He looked up and saw the young man and little girl approach him.
“Don’t get people your age in here much,” he said as they walked up to the bar. “Yer parents know you’re wandrin’ around a drinkin’ spot?”
“I just have a question,” Monty said, regretting bringing Terra inside. She was mature for her age and size, but you couldn’t tell that by looking at her. And the barkeep was definitely looking at her.
“No, you can’t have any beer,” the man said. “Go on, kids in here ain’t any good for my business.”
“We don’t want any beer!” Terra got annoyed quickly when people treated her like a little kid (Something she might have picked up from me, Monty thought). She put her feet on the bottom of the bar and climbed up so her head and shoulders were standing over the edge. “There was a storyteller in here, right?”
“My name’s Monty,” he told the barkeep. “This is Terra.” His little sister glanced back at him and gave him a little nod, and he understood what she was doing. He grinned abashedly. “Sorry, she just gets real excited about stories. We’re both hoping that the lady storyteller is still around.”
The barkeep didn’t offer his own name, he just shrugged and went back to whatever he was fiddling with beneath the counter. “She ain’t here. We don’t have rooms here, if ya didn’t know.”
Terra peeked over the bar, pulling herself up further. “What are you doing?”
“Counting money,” he muttered, staring at Terra until she backed up.
“Looks like a lot,” she said.
The barkeep huffed. “Unless you got some yerself, hop down off my counter and get the hell outta here.”
“Do you know where she’s staying, sir?” Monty asked, coming up behind Terra and putting his hands under her arms, but not lifting her off right away. “We can go find her and get out of your hair.”
The man behind the bar stopped counting his money, pulling his hands up and leaning on the wood. The annoyance slipped off his face, and he eyed them both closely. “What you wanna go findin’ her for, now?”
“We wanna hear some stories,” Terra said, layering on eagerness. “I have a coin for her.”
One hand still tucked around Terra, Monty reached into his own pocket for a coin, laying it on the counter. It wasn’t a heavy one, but it was more than a pence. “Here’s a coin for you, if you can help us out.”
“You’re the courier, ain’tcha?” He slid his eyes down the coin, then back up to Monty. “You got some message for the woman?”
It didn’t bear explaining that he was no longer the courier. “Nothing official, sir. Just trying to get my little sister a story so she’ll stop pestering me to read to her every night.”
The barkeep did grin now, relaxing. “If you say so, kid. She’s staying at the Montgomery. I’d hurry, though. You might not get to her first.”
“What do you mean?” Monty said.
The barkeep plucked the coin with long, strong fingers, adding it to the pile below. The friendliness came off his face as quick as it had settled in. “It’ll cost ya a lot more for that information, boy. Take your sister off my bar and get out, or I’ll get my hittin’ rod.”
Monty knew he was done talking. He took Terra off the bar before she could say anything else. “Thanks,” Monty said.
Silence was the response, and it followed them to the door as they left.
“Good job in there,” Monty said to Terra in a low voice. “Reminded me of when you’d bother me for stuff.”
She smiled, a trifle mischievous. “He probably woulda talked without paying, I think.”
“I’m not so sure.” The barkeep had tightened up very suddenly when they asked where the woman was staying. “Something was off. I think he’s right—we’d better hurry.”
Night was coming on fast, the afternoon light sliding away between the houses. Montgomery was a place he knew, and he’d been inside plenty of times. Luckier still, it was close to the Moon, just a few streets deeper into the east side of Irisa.
Had Monty decided to wait another day, all would have been lost. But as willing as Mullen had been to stroll into the Moon, the Judge was not foolish enough to hunt after the storyteller himself. He left that to his men, and his men had to be informed, instructed, and paid in advance. This took time.
Monty and Terra entered the Montgomery to find the small band of caravaners eating in the downstairs room of the inn, taking up a table by the fire. There were four of them; loud, cheery, and—judging by the smell of beer in the air—mostly on their way to being drunk.
Among the four bodies seated and eating was a woman with a blue scarf wrapped around her head. She was the only one who didn’t have a mug in front of her, but that didn’t seem to have dampened her spirits.
“Let me do the talking here,” he said to Terra. A tingling crept across the back of his neck. He approached the table, ignoring the other few patrons who were scattered around the dining area. They paid him the same courtesy.
The woman in blue looked around as he got near, and unbelievably, her eyes flashed with recognition. She was older than Monty by a decade or so, and she fleetingly reminded him of his mother. She had the same dark hair, but with white woven into it, visible even in the little bit that stuck out from under the scarf.
She stood and walked over to them, the rest of her party talking loudly and not paying her any attention.
Monty put a protective hand on Terra’s shoulder.
The woman pointed a finger at him. The nail was painted a deep, dark red.
“You,” she said.
41
The storyteller’s face broke into a smile. It made her look even more like his mother, but that might have been his aching heart speaking. Her eyes were the wrong color; not brown, but a crisp blue, a few shades lighter than the scarf that sat above them.
“It is you, isn’t it? You’re the Monty boy?”
What? His mind ran in circles, first trying to determine if he did, in fact, know this woman, but he knew that he didn’t. A friend of the Judge? That would be a bad thing, almost for sure. Had the barkeep known something else?
I should have asked him more, shouldn’t have just walked away so easily—
“You know us?” Terra asked, breaking the short silence.
“No. I’ve heard of you,” the woman said. “You’re here to ask me about Nal’Gee.”
Terra nodded, while Monty gaped. The storyteller moved closer, and she noticed Monty tense up, ready to run with Terra in his arms if he had to.
“I’m a friend,” she said. “I can be, if you like. My name is Iselle. And if you’re Monty, then you must be his sister, Terra.”
“Yep,” Terra said. “Do you know about Nal’Gee?”
“Hold on.” Monty held up a hand. “How do you know who we are?”
Iselle turned her palms up. “I have big ears,” she told him with a grin. “Every town I go to, I hear everything. And I heard a few tales about you and the show you put on at your mother’s funeral.”
His ears grew hot, and he shook it off.
“Okay,” Monty said. “Well, you’re right. We do want to talk to you. But...” He looked around the place, counting heads. “It’s a little crowded here.”
And I’d rather not spread any more rumors about myself if I want people to take this seriously.
“Can you come to our hou
se? Now?”
“Lead the way,” Iselle said, leaning into the idea with surprising ease. She must have seen Monty looking at her fellows still sitting at the table, because she waved her hand in front of his eyes. “Don’t worry about the family. They know I come and go, just like they all do.”
“They’re your family?” Terra asked, as Monty turned and gestured for Iselle to follow them out.
“Not blood,” Iselle answered. The three of them walked out of the Montgomery inn, cloaked now in the darkness of night. “But they might as well be. We’re a caravan, you know that. But you don’t know that we’ve been together riding the roads for over ten years! You spend ten years with anyone, you’re family.” Stopping only for a beat, she continued, “Nal’Gee, she’s one of my favorite legends, you know. I’m interested in what you’ve—”
“Stop,” Monty said, glancing back. “I just—we shouldn’t talk about it out here. Our house is close.”
“All right,” Iselle said, her voice brimming with intrigue. Curiosity practically radiated around her in an aura.
As they went around the corner and moved down the street, three men entered through the front door of the Montgomery inn. The villagers who recognized them were quick to leave their tables and go outside or back up to their rooms.
Monty, Terra and Iselle got to the house undisturbed. Monty opened the door and let them inside, then locked it once they were in. That tingling, uneasy feeling had yet to leave him, the hairs on his neck brushing against his shirt.
“Okay, we’re safe and secure,” Iselle said, giving the place a quick once-over before plopping down in a chair that sat by the desk in the main room. “Not likely to draw a crowd in here, are we?”
She crossed her legs, her long skirt shifting over her calves.
Monty pulled another pair of chairs out of the bedrooms and set them close to Iselle, but not too close. He sat on the edge of his, toes on the floor. Terra climbed into hers and crossed her legs ankles-to-ankles.
Terra seemed very excited, so Monty spoke before she could, wanting to stay focused. “Tell me what you know about Nal’Gee, Iselle. The story you know.”
“I usually charge for that,” she replied, stretching her foot in the air where it dangled over her knee. “But you do have something to offer me besides coin, I’m hoping.”
The tale she told was the one she knew, albeit far more detailed than Monty recalled. It had been years, and his memory wasn’t perfect, but he was fairly certain his father had never mentioned the names of Walter’s family or the village, or the kinds of magic Nal’Gee used before she settled near the woods.
A bubble of hope began to grow in his chest. It seemed Iselle knew quite well what she was talking about.
“Wow,” Terra breathed as Iselle finished. “You tell it a lot better than my dad did.”
Iselle said, “It’s my calling, little Terra. Now, I’ll ask the both of you—no, just Monty, here. What happened at the sending?”
Monty’s bubble wavered. “What did you hear, exactly?”
The storyteller gave a little shrug of her shoulders. “A few things. Most of it rubbish, I’m sure. But the common thread was that you seem to think Nal’Gee was present at the sending. That she was there to claim the souls of everyone there.”
“I don’t remember saying anything like that,” Monty said, which was true. Could he say with certainty that he hadn’t, though? That evening had been hell brought to life.
Iselle merely looked at him, blinking once. Waiting. Monty gave Terra a glance before he started to speak.
“There’s truth to that,” he admitted. “Something has been happening here. You probably heard about all of the...deaths.”
“It’s been quite interesting gossip around the place,” Iselle acknowledged, her glee in it just barely hidden. “Small towns are usually so boring.”
“So you know how people have been dying.”
“The black,” Iselle said, slipping into her storytelling voice for the phrase. “People are shriveling up like old vegetables. First an old lady, and then more of her family. Then it would have been...”
Iselle trailed off there, like she just realized she was talking to people whose mother who had, in fact, shriveled up just a few weeks past.
“Hells and saints, I’m sorry,” she said. “My mouth gets going and it takes me a while to catch up. I never knew my mom, but I imagine it would be very tough to lose her.”
“Yeah,” Terra whispered.
Iselle blinked slowly, drawing in a breath. “Go on, tell me. What’s your piece?”
Monty told Iselle the same story he’d told Judge Mullen, leaving nothing out and adding more. The legend he knew; the growth in the forest; finally, the appearance of Nal’Gee in the body of Dr. Tobias.
Through the tale, Iselle sat quietly. Her hands found their way to the scarf on her head, fiddling with it unconsciously, until she eventually unwound it and held it in her lap. Her long, dark hair fell around her shoulders, streaks of white shocking among the black. Her nails stroked the scarf gently, not picking at or tearing it, but turning it over and touching every inch while she looked in Monty’s eyes, and Terra’s when she spoke.
“The Judge threatened us,” Terra said at the end of it. “He laughed when we told him. He thinks we’re up to something. We just want to stop Nal’Gee.”
Monty winced. He hadn’t wanted to share that.
Iselle said, “Sounds like a lot of Judges I’ve run into. Like to have things wrapped around their little fingers. Especially little, in the case of this Mullen.” Her eyes sparkled with the joke. “You don’t need to ask if I believe you. I might, I might not. I wouldn’t know all these stories if I didn’t believe in them a little bit. But so far, I like what I’m hearing.” She hesitated again, catching herself. “I am interested. This is something I can take with me. I want to know more.”
Terra’s whole face brightened at that, but Monty was slower to cheer. A maybe wasn’t a yes, and even a yes wouldn’t get them anywhere. They needed her help, not to be added to her catalogue.
“Okay. But we need more from you.” Monty met her eyes, determined. “What else do you know?”
The storyteller pulled her scarf taut in her hands. The sparkle in her eyes disappeared, going solemn. “You may not like what I have to say.”
42
“I’m not a demon hunter,” Iselle said, looking back and forth between Monty and Terra, weight on her words. “I’m not a monster slayer or a spirit catcher. I’m a storyteller.”
“I know,” Monty responded, the bubble in his chest getting smaller.
“But,” she continued, and she raised a hand, one long finger pointing straight up, “knowledge is power. That is something I have, and it’s something I can share.” That captivating energy she had began to spiral in again, lifting her shoulders and pulling her forward.
“Nal’Gee is not a monster or a demon. She’s not a witch, either. Not anymore. She is a corrupted spirit trapped in our realm. Most corrupted spirits will kill off a nest of animals or poison a well with their spite, and then all their energy is gone and they...fade away.” She danced her fingers in the air. “Nal’Gee is different. She’s strong. She has guile. I respect it. Few wills are strong enough for what she’s done. But she’s evil. She’s a life stealer. The Dromm forest was hers for centuries, and now—perhaps—she’s taking to people.”
“Lots of people,” Terra murmured, shifting in her chair. Anger touched her brow.
Iselle dipped her head once. “If this is true, it will lead to a horror this world has never seen.”
Monty’s throat trickled dry. “What do you mean?”
Her face was grim. “A corrupted spirit like Nal’Gee...there is no other one like her. She is powerful, and she is filled with hate. Hate that’s grown for many years. Spirits that don’t relinquish life have one goal, and that is to get it back. I’ve never heard a story about a spirit managing to claw all the way back to our realm, but...it would
take a lot of life. A lot of lives. And by your count, she’s swallowed dozens now.”
“Yes.”
“She spoke to you.” Iselle’s scarf was bunched up now, tucked into one fist. “That can only mean that she is close. I don’t know how much life she needs, but she’s much, much closer now than when she was trapped in the black forest.”
“Why did she kill our mom?” Terra asked, and there were tears in her eyes, but her face was hard and angry. “She said she’d kill us too. Why does she want us?”
“That,” Iselle said, her head tilting back, “is something I don’t understand. Why she’d threaten you, choose to speak to you... Yet, there is a particular way that a spirit like her would choose her victims.” The scarf went from one hand to the other. “It’s about potential.”
“Potential,” Monty repeated.
“A person’s potential. Not the life they have, but the life they have left. Has Nal’Gee killed any children?”
Monty thought back, revisiting a familiar path. “No. Not that I’ve heard.”
A sagely nod from Iselle. “And the first to die was the oldest woman in the village. An easy target. Someone with life to live, someone with potential, is much harder for Nal’Gee to wrestle with. She’s been building up her strength, I would say.”
“But the next person to die was Audrey,” Monty protested. “The woman’s daughter. She wasn’t that old. There’s plenty of older people in the village.”
“Ah,” Iselle said, “but potential doesn’t simply mean age. It means what is left in a person’s life. This woman, the daughter—Audrey. Did you see her after her mother died?”
“I was there,” Monty said. “At the burning.”
“Tell me.” Iselle set the scarf in her lap, folding her hands over it.