by Shane Lee
Mullen’s house was far into the east side, an area Monty normally had never gone until he was a courier. He’d become quite familiar with it since then. He’d never visited the Judge’s house directly, but he’d seen it plenty of times, and it was impossible to mistake. Whatever semblance of humbleness Mullen tried to portray in the office or about town was discarded right about where his estate gate thrust upward from the ground.
It was tall and spiked, and the iron was flawless; Monty had seen pairs of men working on it often. The gate itself was ajar, slightly. He wondered if Mullen had opened it himself, or if he had sent someone down the long walk to do it.
Monty pushed the gate open a little further and passed through, stepping from packed dirt onto impeccable cobblestone, a long path that curved slightly left on its journey from the gated entry to the tall front door.
Mullen’s mansion was not a castle, but it made Monty’s modest farm house look like a chicken coop. It was two stories of stone, darker on the bottom, rising in lighter gray shades to the barely-slanting roof. Huge windows sat in the walls, darkened by drawn curtains. Mullen often complained about the setting sun blinding him through the glass, and Monty had never seen the curtains opened. It appeared Mullen did not care for the morning light, either.
He looked left and right, scanning over the expansive yard. Maybe he was looking for a man hiding behind a tree trunk with a sword—he wasn’t sure. Mullen’s estate did not have many trees, and the ones that were there had trunks too narrow to hide even Monty himself.
If it was a trap, all he could do was walk right into it.
His boots thudded on the stones as he followed the path up to the door. Why would the Judge choose to have such a big door on the front of his house? It would only serve to make him look smaller, not to mention how heavy it must be. Would the Judge expect him so soon, immediately after the message was delivered?
He will, Monty knew. The man was focused and arrogant. He would assume that things would go as he wanted them to.
Monty didn’t know what he was going to say. But the moment the Judge opened the front door and Monty laid eyes on him, he began to form his plan.
49
“So...you came alone.”
The Judge’s first words were likely meant to be strong and imposing, but the highest-ranked official in Irisa was leaning on his door frame for support. His hair was disheveled and his face lacked color, making the heaviness of his brow look like a burden.
Sympathy never crossed Monty’s mind. The gears began turning.
“I did,” Monty said, deciding to be direct. “Do you plan to kill me?”
Mullen smiled, and the evil there was shaky and dotted with spittle, but it still laid thick. “I have many plans, boy, and you’ll never know them. But no...this is not the time of your death.” He paused, straightening up. “My message was...clear. It is time for you to make your decision. I pray it is wise...for you and your sister both.”
I pray the same, Monty thought.
“The land,” Monty told him. “The farm. You can have it.”
Surprise flicked in Mullen’s eyes. Perhaps he had expected more of a fight before Monty would yield.
“Wise, indeed,” Mullen said, and Monty noticed a change there. Color came back to his face; his posture straightened, ever slightly.
Doubt cast tingling fingers across Monty’s heart, and he ignored it.
“My office.” Mullen’s eyes flicked upward, narrowing, then returned to Monty’s face. “We’ll sign the papers there.”
“No,” Monty said.
“This is not—”
“I assume you’ll require our deed,” Monty said, “and probably other things. Other papers. It’s all a mess on our desk, and I don’t know what to look for. You can bring what you need to bring to our house, and we can do the deal there.”
Mullen breathed deeply. “It would be unwise to try to trick me, Monty. Whatever clemency I am willing to extend could be cut very, very short.”
“It’s not a trick,” Monty said, lying through his teeth and doing a damned good job of it. “I want this done. I don’t want to have to bring Terra back into town. I don’t want to have to come back into town again to sign anything that crops up, or any more than I have to. I don’t want a courier involved, either, and I assume you don’t, given how this all...came about.”
Mullen said nothing, and Monty knew he was right.
“Let’s finish this in private, and be done with it. I’ll pick up the payment at the treasurer’s box. You can have one of your men leave it.” Monty didn’t care about the coin, but he knew that Mullen would.
Most importantly, he knew—he knew—that he was right about Mullen wanting this to be as simple as possible. The man was a monster, but he was also a bureaucrat, and he wanted their land badly enough to murder. Further complications would be the last thing he wanted.
“Fine,” Mullen said. “This is an agreement, all told. You can have your...stipulation, since it’s small. I’ll be there before the sun sets. Have a lantern lit if we’ll need it.”
The door shut in his face, a gesture he was quite familiar with by now.
Monty exhaled the hot air inside his chest, hoping the tension in his neck would slide away. It didn’t. The plan was hasty and only one step had gone right so far. There were many more to go, and many ways it could go wrong. It would only take one for them to lose everything.
Though Mullen had said he wasn’t planning to kill him, Monty was still relieved to get off of the Judge’s property and back onto the road heading west. There was one more stop he wanted to make before he went back home.
The Commons was in full bustle, but no one paid Monty any attention. They hadn’t when he was courier, either, for the most part. He breezed in through the glass doors and pulled the key to the quarters from his pocket, something he’d never returned. It didn’t occur to him until he was unlocking the door that the new courier might be inside, but the quarters were empty.
He knew that Terra had left a book here—the one book that actually mentioned the Dromm woods, if not Nal’Gee. He wanted to bring it back to Iselle for her to have a look, but the book was gone. Someone must have cleaned out the room. Perhaps it was moved back to the small library shelf.
Crossing past the main hall, he glanced to the end where the Judge’s office was, and he saw that the door was ajar. His mouth opened in surprise; Mullen was rarely so careless. He pictured the Judge’s eyes flicking upward when he mentioned the office, like he had forgotten something. Today was not Elrich Mullen’s best day.
He hoped that would hold true through the night.
The decision was quick. He walked down the main hall like he belonged, expecting someone to stop him or hold him up, but no one did. He slipped inside the office and closed the door.
The Judge would surely be back here to get what he needed for the signing, so he couldn’t ransack the place or set it on fire, much as he might like to. Nor could he take anything that would be missed.
What he wanted, however, was something he figured would not be noticed absent. He found it quickly and tucked it under his arm, leaving the office just as casually as he had strolled in. He made sure to leave the door just barely ajar, as it had been.
He left Irisa behind him and went back home, piecing together his plan even as he climbed the front steps of the house and pushed open the door.
Terra and Iselle were sitting at the table. His sister lit up when she saw him walk inside.
“Monty! I was worried. Me and Iselle talked about some stuff...” She looked at what he had taken from the Judge’s office. “Why do you have that?”
“Change of plans,” Monty said, dropping the book from Mullen’s office onto the table. It shook the surface with its weight. “She’s in him. Nal’Gee is inside of Mullen.”
50
There were, as Monty knew, a dozen things that could go wrong. Probably more.
“How do you know?” Iselle asked him right
away, and Monty explained how Mullen had looked, and how suddenly the change had come on.
“We just saw him yesterday, and he was fine,” Monty said.
“It could be anything, though,” Iselle said. “Any number of sicknesses. You know that. It’s winter, and this man interacts with a lot of people throughout the town.”
“It could be,” Monty said. “But I’m sure of it. I can feel it.”
It was mostly true. Was he really sure? No.
Iselle’s next question came: “When would Nal’Gee have had the chance?”
“Easy,” Terra answered quickly, catching on with excitement. “The Judge goes to all the sendings, and to all the houses to read the rites. So—so he must have gone to Dr. Tobias’s house! Bella died there, too.”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” Monty said, flashing a grin at Terra. “Mullen is older, too.”
But Iselle shook her head. “I told you, it’s not about being old. It’s about potential. And look at this man—a kingdom-report official. On the cusp of getting your land, and presumably hungry for more power. He’s brimming with potential. It would be a very hard leap for Nal’Gee to take him.”
“You’re right,” Monty agreed, and he sat down. “He’s not bedridden, but he is sick. And he’s strong-willed. I think he’s fighting her. I don’t think he can win, but his stubbornness is getting him on his feet. And hopefully out to our farm.”
“It sounds to me like you have a plan,” Iselle said, her dismissal slipping easily into interest as her doubts were subdued. She had her scarf in her hands, twirling it around her fingers as she listened.
“We don’t have a lot of time,” Monty said. “It’s going to take all of us, and even that might not be enough to get it done.”
“We can do it,” Terra said. “But...what do we have to do?”
“For starters, we’re all going to be getting our hands dirty,” Monty said. “Iselle, I hope that’s all right with you.”
Iselle laughed and held up her palms.
“Aren’t you a storyteller?” Monty asked.
There was a surprising amount of callus painting a broken ring around each of her palms, and coloring between the bends of some of her fingers.
“I’m a caravaner,” Iselle told him, flexing her hands and lowering them again. “When I’m not telling stories, I’m whipping the oxen or helping with the load. Or helping to fix broken wheels. Don’t worry about my hands; they’ve seen plenty a day’s work.”
“Let’s go then.” Monty stood up. “We’re going to need some tools from the barn.”
There was no need to bundle up against the cold; their blood ran hot as Monty talked them through what he was thinking. The three of them discussed, heated, while they walked to the barn; while they pulled out the tools; while they went to the clearing to dig and pull at the dirt.
“It’s all got to be gone.” Monty swept his arm over the area they stood, the grassy field that stretched for a mile between their house and the Gartens’. “As much as we can get, the biggest it can be, just to be safe.”
“Is this really gonna work?” Terra asked, panting. She was carrying a twenty-pound bag of salt, which she insisted on taking all the way here by herself.
“I have no idea,” Monty said, and then he corrected himself as Iselle laughed. “I have some idea. We just have to hope it’s right. And we have to do as much as we can.”
With shovels and hoes between them, the three of them dug out the earth in an expanding circle, ripping out and discarding every piece of grass and weed they could see. It was exhausting work. The hours stretched ahead of them, but there wasn't time for rest.
When the sun was high in the sky, they stopped briefly to eat some food Monty had brought along—old bread with salted butter. Then it was back to tilling and yanking and discarding. Their hands grew caked with dirt and their backs burned with the effort. The cold didn’t stop them from sweating as they tore at the earth.
“Okay.” Monty breathed heavily, pinning his weight on the shovel in his hands, his arms and forehead shining with sweat. They’d worked for hours. He swept the matted hair away from his brows where it dripped stinging sweat into his eyes. “Okay. That's as much as we can do. Everyone take some salt and spread it. Be thorough.”
The work they had done was impressive. The three of them had created a barren circle stretching almost seventy feet across. It was an expanse of desolation amid the plain, and Monty thanked the saints that it wasn't yet cold enough for the ground to be harder.
There was still plenty of light left, but there was more to be done before the sun descended. So they salted until the bag was empty, then they went back to the house so Monty could drudge up some papers. It didn't matter if they were the deed or a shopping list. He just wanted them in his hands.
“What about the bugs?” Terra pointed out as they walked back to the house. The circle they had made was not far from the house; it could be seen through the window. “Aren't there a lot of bugs in the ground? And worms, and other things?”
“I wouldn’t worry about that,” Iselle told her. “If chickens don’t have souls, then it’s fair to assume that all the crawlers in the dirt don’t have them, either.”
“But the trees do,” Terra insisted, looking back at the Dromm forest, where the green leaves were starting to get thick enough to block out the sun. “And the grass. And the other plants in the Dromm. Nal’Gee was eating them all.”
“There’s still bugs in the Dromm,” Monty told her. “You know that.”
“I just don’t understand.” Terra flopped the empty salt bag, shaking out loose grains and rocks.
“I don’t think that plants have souls,” Iselle mused, looking down at the grass as they stepped out of their circle. “That’s an awful lot of souls to account for in the beyond. And how do you determine where a bush or a tree deserves to spend the afterlife? No...I think it’s a shared soul. The soul of the earth, maybe.”
The storyteller smiled, her face alighting. “Now there’s a thought. The tale of the earth spirit, under our feet at all times. If you hold perfectly still, you can feel the ground breathing.” Iselle chuckled. “Imagine being able to ask Nal’Gee about that. How she leached off the world to survive.”
“We’re not bringing her here to ask her questions,” Monty said. “That circle is for her to die in. We can’t go off the plan.”
“I know, I know,” Iselle said. “It’s just a...fantasy.”
Is she always this calm—this unfocused—when her life is in danger? Or does she just not care because she lost her family?
But that wasn’t fair. He was being just as reckless, even more than Iselle, considering he was involving both her and Terra. If his mother were alive, would he be so headstrong?
Don’t judge her, he told himself. Just trust her.
“The sun’s coming down,” Monty noted, eyeing the horizon. They were stopped outside the house. The fading light brought another task to mind. “I’m going to need a torch. He needs to see me and be drawn to the circle. And the Gartens...I thought we’d have more time.”
“We already talked about that,” Iselle said. “Their house is too far away. She couldn’t possibly leap all the way there. You have to stay focused on yourself. She’s going to have one place to go, Monty, and that’s you.”
“Yeah.” He looked at the house, where Mullen’s thick book of rites was waiting on the kitchen table. “Yeah, okay.”
“I think I should do it,” Terra said, not for the first time. “If she tries to get to me, I can stop her better than Monty.”
“It’s not happening,” Monty said, and he looked right in Terra’s eyes. “I’m not gonna say it again. It’s enough that either of you are involved in this at all. It’s going to be me and Mullen in that circle, and that’s it.”
Terra met his gaze, unflinching. Her head reached to just underneath Monty’s chest. There was determination there, but she didn’t retort. She turned away and went into the h
ouse.
“Iselle,” Monty said, looking away from the front door as it closed behind Terra. “Thank you for helping us. The Gartens are far enough away, but like we talked about—”
“Yes, yes, I should go.” Iselle sniffed, but Monty could see that she was mocking him a little. That was okay. He’d take a little mocking from her, and a little ire from his sister, if it would save both their lives in the end.
“I’ll try not to be offended by the lack of potential you see in me,” Iselle continued, and now she was really laying it on thick, enough to break his stern countenance into a smile.
“Keep Terra with you, however far away enough you feel is safe. You can come check on me after a good enough time has passed,” Monty said. “One way or the other.”
“Let’s hope it’s the good way,” Iselle said. “If I just dug out a whole planting field for no reason, I’m apt to be very sore with you.”
51
Elrich felt like he weighed an extra hundred pounds. He hadn’t been this sick since...well, he couldn’t remember ever being this sick. Even though his brain felt hot and addled, he knew that if he were in his best, most clarified state, he still wouldn’t be able to pull up a memory of feeling worse.
But that didn’t matter. He was hours away from having everything he wanted.
The timeline had to be moved, and what had spooked him (though he’d never use those words) was the fact that that the vagabond storytelling bitch had managed to slip between his fingers. If something so simple could go out of his control, there was no sense in leaving anything else up to chance and time. The fact that Monty had agreed so quickly was an added boon.
“About time something went right here,” he muttered to himself, wiping his forehead. He was burning hot. If there were a frozen lake at his feet, he would have fallen forward into it without a second thought. But there was only polished wood.
He swallowed, his mouth as dry as his floor. There was water in the kitchen, and he went there, staying upright. He refused to lean against the wall for support as he made his way around his own home.