by Shane Lee
The souls are leaving her, Monty thought. Black grains of weightless sand pulled free from the cloud, disappearing in the dark night sky. All the souls she took.
“Mom’s up there,” Terra said, and she pointed, but Monty couldn’t tell where her finger was aimed or what she might be seeing. Whatever vision was in her eyes was for her, and that was okay. If their mother was seeing Terra, he hoped that she could see him, too, and feel what he felt.
There was no sound, no grand final scream or swear of revenge from the witch. Her spirit shrank until it was nothing but a wisp, just barely visible. Then she was gone in the time it took to blink.
Slowly, Monty lowered his head to Terra, who was straining to get back to a seated position. He helped her up and dropped down on the ground next to her.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “Just really tired.”
“Okay.” He was still holding her hand, and he let it go, watching her stretch the fingers out. “Why’d you come back?”
“Stop it,” she said, looking at him. She looked sleepy and beaten, but her eyes were alive with light as the fire behind him danced, reflected. “I wasn’t gonna leave you to fight her all by yourself.”
“You promised,” he pointed out.
“You made me,” Terra said, adding, “and it was a stupid promise.”
Monty laughed, something he didn’t think he was remotely capable of doing right now.
Terra matched it with a grin. “I told Iselle that I was going back and that she shouldn’t follow me. She tried to stop me, but she couldn’t grab me. She got close, and chased me for a little bit, but she knew she couldn’t come to the circle.”
“Good thing,” Monty said, looking in the direction of the town. If Iselle had been here, she would have been fodder.
“Did you see how big she was? Nal’Gee?” Terra craned her neck up again, although there was nothing to see. “I don’t think we needed to pull up all that grass. No way she would have fit.”
“Maybe,” Monty said, then he laughed again. “Don’t tell Iselle that. She’ll be—what did she say? Sore at us.”
“She’s gonna want to know what happened, though.”
“She deserves to.” Monty finally got to his feet, the shakiness and nerves subsiding as he and Terra talked. He brushed the dirt off his clothes, then pulled a big clod from the ground and used it to snuff the torch. A burning smell drifted through the air. “We should go and find her.”
“Yeah.” Terra stood up, brushing herself off as well. She turned, looking at the lumpy robes on the ground. “Um, is Mullen...is he...?”
“Oh, hell,” Monty said, eyeing the body. “I forgot, somehow...but yes. He’s dead. Nal’Gee killed him, right in front of me. Drained him dry.”
“Eugh.” Terra shivered, stepping back from the corpse and closer to Monty.
“I guess both our problems are solved,” Monty said, bitterly and without humor. He looked from the body to the scattered pieces of the rites book, barely visible in the muted moonlight.
“Do you think she’s really gone?” Terra was looking at the sky again.
“I was going to ask you the same thing,” Monty said. “We can’t really know, not yet. We’ll have to watch and wait...see if anyone else gets sick, or if the Dromm starts to die again. But...I do think so.”
“How do you know?”
He shrugged. “I can...feel it. I felt it, when Nal’Gee was trying to take me, and then when she tried to take you. She was trying to hold on to save her own life, and she couldn’t. She knew she had everything to lose.”
“And she lost,” Terra finished, pulling her eyes from the sky and looking to Monty.
“Yeah.” Monty grinned. “She lost.”
Terra seemed to accept this. She closed her eyes for a moment, breathing, then opened them and said, “Iselle’s gonna be mad at me. She was yelling a lot of stuff when I ran away.”
“By the time we’re done telling her what happened,” Monty said, “she won’t even remember why she was mad.”
57
When they found Iselle pacing the outskirts of town, the storyteller ran at them. At first, Monty feared she was indeed mad enough to lash out, though it didn’t come to that. She did have some words for Terra, but the fire behind them dissolved almost as quickly as it had come.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” she finally said, her breath slowing down, and the look on her face showed she meant it.
They went back to their place in Irisa. Monty figured that it was safe now—no one saw them come and go in the dead of night, and it would already have been checked by Mullen’s men, if they were even still operating without his orders.
“So the Judge is dead, then,” Iselle said. They were all sitting as they had before, in an array of chairs pulled from around the house. Several candles were lit, placed around them on tables and ledges built into the walls. “Good riddance.”
“They won’t think Monty did it, will they?” Terra brought up.
Monty winced; he hadn’t considered that.
“How could they?” Iselle shrugged. “You said Nal’Gee got him with the black, right? The body will show it.”
“Yeah,” Monty said. “I guess I’ll just tell someone in the Commons I found him in the field like that. It’s not very far from the truth.” And also nowhere close.
“Sure,” Iselle said, and leaned forward in her chair, her fingers arched and pressing into her knees. “Now, I want the meat. What happened in that circle?”
Terra, too, listened intently as Monty recalled the events of the past few hours, starting with his initial conviction that Mullen wasn’t going to show up at all, and ending with what he and Terra had seen as Nal’Gee was ripped away from them and disappeared.
Iselle sat back in her chair with a mirthful smile on her face, giving her head a little shake.
“What?” Monty asked. “You don’t believe me?”
She held up a hand. “Please. Save that for the people who don’t make a living from this. I believe you, I’m just amazed at what Nal’Gee did.”
“Impressed?” Monty asked.
“Hardly.” Iselle tossed her hair to the side, her scarf nowhere to be seen. “She was cocky, and she was stupid. And it seems she must have truly hated you and your family, to want to take her revenge by taking your body.”
“I had no idea she could do something like that!” Terra said.
“Nor I.” Iselle shrugged. “Can all spirits? Or only ones as strong as she? We may never know. Which is probably for the best.”
“She was so attached to the land,” Monty said, “that she hated us just for living on it? Enough to kill us?”
“Nal’Gee didn’t discriminate much in who she killed,” Iselle said. “She went for whoever was closest, right? Somewhere along the way, she discovered the power to take bodies, like she took Mullen’s—and others, for all we know. So her goals changed.
“But—and I mean this—she was stupid. She wasted Mullen’s body in a show of power, killing him to scare you and get more strength for her attack. She assumed she’d be able to take you.”
“She was right, though.” Monty looked over at his sister. “If Terra hadn’t shown up, she would have had me. I was almost gone.”
“It’s good that I couldn’t catch her, then,” Iselle said, and Terra let out a surprised laugh. “Nal’Gee was foolish to kill Mullen, arrogant to try to take you, Monty, and then outright dumb to think that she’d have a chance at taking Terra.”
“She was desperate,” Monty responded, remembering the spirit’s thumping panic that had bled its way into his own feelings. “She had nowhere else to go.”
“And now she’s gone.” Iselle clapped her hands.
Terra pulled her legs up into her chair, sitting on them. “Is it really over?”
“Time will tell,” Iselle said. “But it does sound like the plan worked.”
Monty said, “Well, the plan didn’t really go through, b
ut I do think she’s gone. What we saw—she lost all her power, and there were no other lives that she could steal.”
Terra turned away from Monty. “I wish...I wish I could’ve saved mom. If I knew what was going on, I could’ve. I just let her lay in bed because that’s what she said I should do.”
Monty, who had experience with exactly this type of thinking, was quick to leap on it. “Don’t dwell on that,” he told her. “It won’t do you any good. We didn’t know, and there was nothing either of us could have done.”
“He’s right,” Iselle said, watching Terra until the girl turned her head to meet her eyes.
Terra gave a little nod. “I know...I know.”
“Besides,” Iselle said, “both of you should take a moment to be happy! Happy this is all over, and that Mullen went down in the bargain.” She was smiling; it faded as she looked over the two of them.
“It’s...” Monty began, unsure of what he wanted to say.
Iselle held up her hand, stopping Monty before he could try to piece together his thoughts. “Sorry. One good thing doesn’t undo all the bad things that happened.”
That’s actually...pretty close to what I was thinking.
Monty leaned back. He was far from perfect, but he felt a good deal better. Some of the weights and worries on his shoulders had been lifted, leaving far fewer behind. He rubbed the back of his neck against the chair. “I’m exhausted. Feels like I’ve been awake for three days.”
“Me too,” Terra said.
“The fight took a lot out of both of you,” Iselle said. She stood up, stretching her own arms behind her back. “And these chairs aren’t very comfortable, truth be told. No offense.”
“They’re not really our chairs,” Monty said with a tired smile, looking around the rented room.
Iselle chuckled. “I haven’t seen a lot of this place. Is there another bed?”
“There’s four,” Terra said. “It’s too big for us. I’m glad we’re not gonna keep it anymore.”
“Just for a couple more days,” Monty said. “Till the Judge’s money runs out.”
“Then what?” Iselle asked, already peering around to find a bedroom.
Terra looked at Monty, asking the same question with her eyes.
Monty stood up from his own stiff chair, thinking of the farm. Where they had grown up and where they had lost their father. Where they’d learned almost everything they knew, and where they’d seen their mother die. Where they’d fought with their very souls in defense of their family, their land, and their village.
“We’re going home,” Monty answered, the words springing warmth in him. “This time, for good.”
Epilogue
As was expected by Iselle (though it had still worried Monty), Elrich Mullen was ruled as a victim of the black, and his body was taken the same as all the others. The man’s office and house remained locked up, and when people in Irisa spoke of him, they did it in whispers. Mullen had burned many bridges—savagely ripped them apart, in fact—and it was the general wish that he be forgotten.
Few were in attendance at his sending. Monty, Terra, and Iselle were among them, watching the pyre burn with stony faces, though there was some satisfaction in the storyteller. Her revenge drifted into the air, smoke and ash. While the final rites were read, she let herself mourn her caravan family. She had abided by the rule of moving onward for days, and felt it was finally time to let it bend, just for a few minutes.
Terra had reached over and taken her hand, and Iselle didn’t refuse. When Terra asked her later if she was okay, Iselle just gave her a thin smile and said she might never feel better than when she’d watched Mullen burn.
It was a lie, but that was okay with Terra.
No one else in Irisa fell ill, at least not with the black. The wave of deaths was over, and the mood around town had brightened considerably. Monty wondered what Bradley would spread rumors about now.
They invited Iselle to stay with them, at least through the winter. They were not surprised when she refused, though they were a little disappointed, especially Terra. Iselle said she’d already been here far too long.
“Where are you gonna go?” Terra asked her, once her small arguments against Iselle’s departure were over.
“I never know,” Iselle said, “but I have this country back to front. Show me a painting of a road, and I’ll tell you where it leads. The caravan and oxen are in fine shape—the stable that kept them did a better job than most have in the past. And that broken wheel is good as new.”
“It’s an entirely new wheel,” Monty pointed out.
“That’s what I said.” Iselle held his gaze, straight-faced, until Monty’s composure broke and he laughed.
“Make sure you travel through here again,” he told her, and Terra reaffirmed the sentiment. “And come here for dinner.”
“As long as you get more salt,” she told him. “I’ll be coming back to make sure the story makes a complete circle through everyone. So when you see me again, you better have heard some tale about all of this from someone else, or I’m the worst storyteller to ever ride.”
After she left, Monty found her scarf in their house. It was in Terra’s bedroom, folded and placed in the corner where it wasn’t easily seen. She hadn’t worn it since they’d reunited outside of town, and Monty just assumed she had finally shredded it to pieces between her fingers.
“She hid it because she knew if you found it, you’d try to give it back,” Terra said, holding the blue cloth.
“Hm.” Monty considered that. “Iselle is too smart for us.”
“I think she let me go,” Terra said. She tucked the scarf in her pocket. “That night, with Nal’Gee. I think she could have caught me, but she didn’t. She knew I needed to be there.”
“And she knew I couldn’t let you,” Monty said.
“We’re really lucky she was here,” Terra said.
“Yeah.” Monty looked out of Terra’s bedroom window, which faced the circle of earth in the field that would forever remain barren. “It cost her a lot, though. And I don’t think being part of the story makes up for it.”
The winter stretched on ahead. Monty got the farm animals back from the Gartens and brought them home, sincerely thanking his neighbors for all of their help. Life was almost back to normal, save the absence of their mother, which they felt every day.
But there was one last surprise waiting for them.
It came in the form of a missive, run out to their farm by yet another new courier who was even younger than than the last. He was the temporary Judge’s son, a boy by the name of Nick. He was polite and kind, and it seemed he had learned that from his father. Monty had met the Judge once, when he arrived to town two days prior, just after Mullen’s sending. It seemed that he had been on his way already to assist Mullen.
Judge Selton was not particularly esteemed, but was thrust up from the role of assistant Judge to interim Judge, and would likely be chosen to fill the role permanently. The people liked him, as did the king, who had appointed him personally. Monty thought he was fine. The bar for being better than Mullen was quite low, and Selton stepped over it comfortably.
Nick handed Monty a very small scroll and then quickly disappeared from his front door, as a good courier should. The seal was not from the Judge’s desk, but from the town treasurer.
“A pickup?” Monty read, confused. His neck tingled, still on alert. Mullen was dead, but his sycophants might still linger. Could it be a trap?
“Let’s go,” Terra said immediately once she told him. “Iselle might still be in town, maybe we can see her and I can thank her for the scarf.”
“All right.”
He’d be damned if he was going to spend any more time being worried about betrayal and deceit in his own village. He’d seen the evil leave with his own eyes.
They walked through the thin sheet of snow that covered the ground on the path to Irisa. Flakes fell from the sky, but they could see the outlines of footprints still, b
oth Iselle’s and the courier’s. Monty held the scroll curled in his hand, keeping it shielded from the snow.
The treasurer’s office was a small, square building on the corner past the Commons, with inches of space between it and the buildings next to it. The officials called it the box. It was tight and short, and there was room for about four people as long as one of them wasn’t Rodney Talhauer.
“Hi, Peter,” Monty said to the treasurer when they arrived. He’d run messages for the man before, and had always liked him. The town treasurer was slightly pudgy and spoke fast, but usually with a smile. He was one of three people in town who wore spectacles, and he complained often about losing them, only to find them moments later.
“Monty, it’s been a while,” Peter said, his hands moving as fast as his lips while he arranged papers and scribbled down notes. His spectacles hung on the edge of his nose, and his short brown hair was thin and a little wild. “Pardon me for not chatting, but it’s been a whirlwind here with the arrival of the new Judge. I should have gotten that message to you sooner.”
“It’s no worry.” Monty set the scroll on the desk. “Peter, this is my sister, Terra.”
“Charmed,” Peter said, but he didn’t look up from his desk. Monty looked down to Terra, and she shrugged.
“So, what’s this pickup?” Monty asked, and before he had finished speaking, Peter hefted a lockbox onto the desk. He had to use two hands, and he groaned with relief when it slammed down onto the wood.
“Hope you brought a wagon,” Peter said. “It’s eighty-and-one-seven-tenths pounds of heavy coin. From the late Judge Mullen.”
Monty blinked. “What?”
“Again, I apologize. It’s been here for days. It was actually the last order he gave me before he passed.” Peter was already working again, eyes on paper and pen and coin. “You should have had it sooner. I hope you didn’t take out any loans in the last few days. Just kidding, I would know.”