by C S Vass
“You’re forgetting Brent,” Godwin said as he cracked open the shell of an oyster and slurped it down.
“Brent!” Robert said, palming his head. “Of course. Who is Brent?”
“Sara’s brother.”
“Quite right! How could I ever start slipping up on such important details?”
It had only been a few hours ago that the two of them spoke to Samwell and Jane. It could all be nonsense, of course, but Jane’s theory that a witch was responsible—drunken and incoherent as it might have been—was just as likely as anything else that Godwin could put together. He could think of no better use of their time than listening for that shrieking she had mentioned, and so the duo decided to go back to the inn to rest until nightfall.
As the day drew on, Godwin found himself becoming eager to bring the contract to a swift close. Not for the first time, doubts were creeping through his mind. Iryllium was so close. Lyra was waiting for him. Why had he accepted this strange mission when he was so near to concluding his initial one? The Shigata did not have an answer to that question. It was just something he felt he had to do.
Robert was happily oblivious. “What if it was the mayor himself!” he said, smirking with pride at his cleverness.
“Why would Rolph do that? Godwin asked, annoyed.
“Perhaps he’s gone mad with power. Or flown into a state of jealous psychosis over the infidelities of his spouse. I once heard of a man back in the Empire who killed his entire family because he had fallen in love with a horse.”
“Robert?”
“Yes?”
“Please. Shut up.”
They dined on delicious food under Rolph’s tab while observing a crowd at the inn for the first time. It seemed that the last days of winter combined with the fear aroused by the murders was enough to keep patrons away at night, but during a beautiful spring day folks would not be content to simply board up inside their homes and wait for the killings to stop.
“Well, if it isn’t our Shigata hero,” an angry voice slurred.
Turning, Godwin saw an intoxicated Brent and embarrassed Sara standing by their table. “How do you do, fine people?” Robert asked as he bowed dramatically.
“Better with you lot gone,” Brent huffed, and he skulked off out of the inn.
“I’m so sorry about my brother,” Sara said, her face beet red. “You must understand, the strain that this is putting on the village—”
“Sara,” Godwin said, putting his hand up. “It’s all the more embarrassing for a man when he has to have someone else make his apologies for him. Don’t dwell on it any more. I know what he thinks of me.”
Sara struggled to find the right words for a few moments, but in the end just muttered some polite nonsense. Then she said, “I really do hope you know that most of the people here are good folk who want you to succeed. Rolph would never be so generous with you if it were not so.”
“Yes, your husband has been beyond welcoming,” Godwin said. “Tell me, do you have any opinions on what’s been happening here?”
“Other than that I want it to stop, of course not,” Sara said. “The pressure we’re all under since its started has been horrible. Production in the mines is barely a fraction of what it used to be. People are drinking too much, or not drinking enough in some cases. Grandmother has descended into an even madder version of herself, if such a thing is even possible.”
“Who is Grandmother, my dear?” Robert asked.
“Oh! I’m so sorry. How rude of me.” Sara helped herself to the spare seat at their table. “Grandmother is Rolph’s mother, so she really is my grandmother, but the whole village just calls her Grandmother. She is… a difficult woman.”
Godwin was on the verge of getting up and walking away from the boredom of the conversation, but Robert somehow hung on every word. “Is that so? Please, do tell me more.”
“Well, she’s what you’d expect for a nearly hundred-year-old dwarf woman.” Lowering her voice, she added, “She’s quite ill-tempered to be completely honest with you. She does love her son, but her abilities are so strange.”
Suddenly Godwin found it much easier to pay attention. “Abilities?” he asked. “What is it that you’re talking about?”
“You really don’t know?” Sara asked. She paused a few moments, and Godwin knew she was wondering if there might be some reason why she shouldn’t have told him.
“Well now we do,” Robert said gently. “Tell us, what is Grandmother capable of?”
“Well, I don’t exactly know. She sees things. She’s a psychic, they say. She knows what the weather will be like in a day and in a week and in a month. She knows when to plant things and when to dig in the mines and when to stop. She knows when we should greet the strangers that wander through the village, and when we should let them be off on their way.”
“So I suppose we’ve earned her approval,” Robert said.
Sara smiled. “I suppose so.”
“I see,” Godwin said. “And has anyone found themselves willing to ask her about the murders?”
“Well, I don’t think I know the answer to that,” Sara said. “I certainly have not. I wouldn’t want to upset the old woman. And she does frighten me.”
Godwin did not miss the eager glance Robert shot at him. But one villager’s psychic was another Shigata’s raving old lunatic. He had seen plenty enough misdiagnoses of magical abilities that he knew to remain skeptical until proven otherwise.
“Oh, I didn’t realize my brother would really strut off like that. The day must really be getting on. I’m going to have to go and start making dinner for Rolph.”
“Of course,” Godwin said. “Just one thing, if you don’t mind. Tell me, which house does Grandmother live in?”
“Oh, um, well mine of course,” Sara said. “Mine and Rolph’s, I mean. Not in the house proper, but she has her own carriage house on our property.” There was an uncomfortable silence. “I suppose I can take you there, if you’d like me to.”
Godwin grinned. “Just what I was waiting to hear. Finish up your oysters, Robert. We have a visit to make.”
Twenty minutes later they were standing behind a withered old dwarf woman who stared at them through milky blue eyes from her rocking chair. She was toothless and had a voice like a saw hacking through a log. Robert had been rather reluctant to leave their oysters and beer to come speak to the old woman, but Godwin was insistent. It was, after all, only a small village, and every person he spoke to could help draw the whole ordeal to a close.
“I’ve not spoken with a Shigata in forty winters,” Grandmother rasped, showing off her pale pink gums with each word.
“I hope to represent my order well,” Godwin said.
“And a man-whore I’ve not spoken to in thirty winters,” she added, with a glance at Robert. “I watched you with my mind’s eye as you came to the village. I’ve already warned Rolph to keep on eye on that wife of his.”
Robert did not blush. “Never fear, dear lady. I only use my powers for good.”
Well, she either has a good eye for men who are willing to take coin, or she’s a psychic, Godwin thought dully. But how useful her powers would be when aimed in a more important direction remained yet to be seen.
“It won’t surprise you to know that we’re here about the murders,” Godwin said. “We were hoping that perhaps you could help us.”
The old woman licked her lips. “I told Rolph just as I told his father Ralph before him. But the men don’t listen. They never do.”
“What did you tell them?” Godwin asked.
“They all do the same thing,” she said. “Ralph tried it with bricks and stones. Rolph does it with money. But it matters not. There is no wall thick enough, no bribe steep enough, to keep the darkness of the human heart from swallowing its victims.”
Godwin had talked with enough difficult old women in his time to know that it was better to let them speak and try to steer the conversation to where he wanted it to go. Whether it would ev
er get there was an entirely different matter.
“So you think that your son shouldn’t be so concerned with money,” Godwin said. “But money has bought him me. And I’m here to solve the pressing problem of the murders. What can you tell me about that?”
“Sixty-three stone,” Grandmother said sagely. “That’s how much the demon of the gilded wood weighed.”
Godwin and Robert looked at each other. Grandmother did not elaborate.
“Is the demon of the gilded wood here?” Robert ventured. “Is it causing these killings?”
“What are you, drunk?” Grandmother snapped. “The gilded wood has been lost for three-thousand years. What would its demon be doing here? It got its head split open by the axe of Christobel the Bold. Made out of diamonds, that axe was. It glittered in the sunlight in a splendid rainbow. But all it left behind was red. They called him the first Shigata.”
Godwin shook his head. The conversation was going nowhere. “They certainly did not,” he said, somewhat defensively. “But that’s besides the point. We’re interested in events that are taking place a little closer to the modern day. We’d like you to tell us—Ow! Shit! What was that for?”
The Shigata was rubbing his head angrily. The old woman had smashed her cane on top of the crown of his head with more force than he would have believed possible from the decrepit old dwarf. Just looking at her, he hardly had any idea how she had reached the top of his head.
“You must forgive an old lady,” she said as though she had just accidentally stepped on his toe. “Time, you see, does not work the same for me as it does for others. It never has. I have never been able to stay in one time for long the way that others say they do. Place yes. Mind yes. But the flow of time… they say it is as grains of sands in an hour glass. I have never agreed. To me it is grains of sand whipped about in the frenzy of a desert storm.”
“There’s a storm in your village right now,” Godwin said. “A storm of death. The people here say that you’re a psychic. Is that true? Can you help to halt these winds?”
Grandmother stared directly at him, but it was as if her eyes saw right through him. Then she spoke. “Sins of the mother, sins of the daughter. Rawena, cruel and bold, did as she pleased. Daphney the helpless let herself wash away in a river of her own tears. It is the same today. And my son goes and marries a human, the stupid fool! Watch that woman if you are wise, Shigata.”
“Sara?” Godwin asked. “You think that I should watch Sara?”
“Watch all the black-hearted vipers. There are some snakes so manipulative that they’ve learned to shed tears. Filth. Debauchery. And that terrible, terrible wind from the east. It blows an evil chill that will burst through the crevices of these fine houses, freezing men in their beds.”
“Why do you say that we should watch Sara?” Godwin pressed, desperate not to lose the subject. “Do you suspect that she has something to do with these killings?”
“Samwell is a fool, just as my son is,” she said without paying heed to Godwin. “The dumb bastard. His wife cries and shrieks and he cares not. He would rather be the maid than protect one. All of them are despicable to me. A village rotten to the core.”
Godwin and Robert had both grown unnerved at this point. Not only was Grandmother rambling nonsense, but she seemed to be working herself up into quite a fit. She sucked in air desperately, her cheeks puffing like a pair of bellows while red splotches appeared on them.
“I try to escape,” she rasped. “But every time, every era, it’s just more of the same. More foolishness. More pride. And death. Always death. A brief thought of terror to a child, quickly forgotten. Then something to be wrestled with as one grows to adulthood. You demand to know, what’s the point of it all when everything will be blown away like the sand paintings of the ancient monks? Then one grows old and death is there waiting, not a terrifying specter, the gatekeeper to oblivion, but a long-lost friend you had forgotten. One I’m ready to meet.”
Godwin watched the old dwarf woman carefully. Frenzied eyes rolled in her head while her nostrils flared. “Tell my son I’ll be waiting.”
She died.
Godwin and Robert were speechless. There was no question that the old dwarf has passed. Her final moments were a volcanic eruption that left behind a stinking, quiet room. Godwin was turning over the options in his mind. Robert simply opened and closed his mouth without making a sound. Nobody was there. Should they simple leave and detach themselves from the awful mess?
“I think,” Robert managed to mumble after a few moments. “I think she may have defecated.”
“For hell’s sake,” Godwin said, rolling his eyes.
“They can’t blame us for this,” Robert said. “Can they? I mean, she was ancient.”
“They can’t blame us if we’re not here,” Godwin replied. He had decided suddenly. Being present at the death of the mayor’s mother certainly wouldn’t help them any. “Let’s go.”
Just then they heard the front door swing open downstairs.
“Mother!” Rolph called.
“Come on,” Godwin hissed.
Robert’s face was white with shock as he saw Godwin climb through the window. It was just a brief drop down into some bushes. The window faced the back of the house and there was nobody there to see.
“No,” Robert replied back, tugging the Shigata’s arm.
“Don’t be a baby,” Godwin insisted as he lifted his leg over the window sill. “There’s nobody out there. Come on.” He heard the dwarf’s heavy footsteps climbing up the stairs. “Hurry up! Unless you want to explain to him what just happened.”
“Fine, fine,” the Tarsurian whispered as he started to follow the Shigata out the open window.
Godwin dropped safely into the bushes when he fell into a tangle of bony lumps. Something was terribly wrong. He had fallen on something… alive. It was moaning. Laughing. “Sin! Sin!” Sin shrieked from underneath the Shigata.
Groaning, Godwin tried to orient himself when he heard something that made his heart skip a beat. “Robert!” Rolph cried from upstairs. “What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Sin! Sin! Sin!” Sin shrieked.
“Is that Harold?” Rolph’s voice said from above. Then, “Hey, careful!”
The Shigata heard Robert scream. Then something pummeled into him from above, driving all the wind from his body.
“Oh, shit!” Robert mumbled.
“Fuck,” Godwin said.
“What’s going on down there?” Rolph roared.
“Sin! Sin!” Sin shrieked.
Grandmother was buried in dwarven fashion. The same day she died, body lain in an ornate casket that had been carved years ago from pine wood, and without the fuss of a long ceremony.
All in all, Godwin was stunned that the whole ordeal only took about an hour. Then came the apologies and explanations. Rolph was not exactly angry with them as far as Godwin could tell, but was more keeping up the pretense of anger because it felt appropriate. Once the Shigata had offered profuse apologies, done the cleaning of the body and grave-digging, and assured Rolph he would continue working to find the person or demon responsible for the killings, the dwarf had lightened up quite a bit.
“But you’ll not be about any of that business tonight!” he shouted in the inn which to Godwin’s surprise was still crowded close to sunset. “No. Tonight you’ll pay the penalty for your crimes by drinking with me until we’re both blue in the face. A dwarf can’t face the loss of his mother sober, and a mayor can’t get drunk with his villagers. So tonight you sit here.”
“Here here,” Robert ventured cautiously as he raised a glass. “But let’s pace ourselves. It’s a long night, and I’d like to be awake to enjoy some more of those delicious oysters.”
“Shove your pacing up your arse, man-whore,” Rolph snorted as he poured them each a tumbler of vodka. Godwin grimaced as the clear liquor slithered down his throat. When Robert looked at Rolph inquisitively, the mayor shrugged and said, “M
y mother told me all about you and your debaucheries. Oh lighten up will you, you bloody baby. There’s going to be a lot more of that kind of talk before the night is through.”
Oh great, Godwin thought.
In truth, the Shigata was only half-present while Rolph and Robert drank themselves blind. He kept wondering about his time with the old dwarf. She spoke a river of nonsense. Certainly there was nothing uncommon about that. He had dealt with his share of lunatics as well as his share of psychics, and Grandmother resembled the former far more than the latter. But still, there were glimmers of coherence spread throughout her ramblings just thin enough that it was impossible to say for sure what to make of them.
She seemed to be telling him to watch Sara, but just as soon as he had asked why she changed the subject to Samwell. Godwin shook his head, lost as to what to make of it all.
“What are you pouting about over there, Shigata?” Rolph asked. “I’m the one who lost a family member. Or did your mother die today too?”
“How’s your wife?” Godwin asked.
“What?” the dwarf’s eyebrows raised.
“I just mean is she okay?” Godwin said. “Was she close with your mother? It might be hard if she’s alone right now.”
“As close to my mother as I am to my pig’s shit,” Rolph spat. “But she’s not alone. She’s with her brother, doing just fine, thank you. He’s a good lad despite getting a little tipsy from time to time. Hell, these days I would be inclined to be suspicious of anyone not getting a little tipsy.”
“Fair enough,” Godwin said.
They spent the night drinking. Food came, but nobody was much interested in it. Even Robert who had been talking about nothing but oysters every chance he got had become more interested in drink than food. They drank tankards. Then tumblers. Then played cards without gambling. Godwin was dominating the early Tanzen hands, but then started to let Rolph win when he realized how drunk his companions were and how little he cared about the game. His mind was on other things.