Fairmist

by Todd Fahnestock

  “At least one more.” She winked at him.

  “Got Stormy on an errand?” said a husky voice to her left. The hair on the back of her neck prickled, and her newfound calm fled. She turned and narrowed her eyes, tried to keep the frown off her face. It was Blevins.

  How did such a fat man move so silently? By all rights, he should stumble and bumble about.

  She served up a drink and slid it down to another patron, wishing she could ignore Blevins. Everything about him annoyed her. He had a squinty-eyed gaze, seeking places where he could cause trouble. He was wealthy, which allowed him to be here, drinking all the time. And he never looked at her with desire, had no apparent interest in the saucy persona she flung about with abandon. He looked at her like he knew her game, knew she was false, and that this amused him.

  Most of all, she hated that he was friends with Grei.

  She let him sit without an answer while she filled a glass with Ox beer from a keg under the counter. It was expensive, made only in the southern reaches of Trimbledown, and it was as powerful as its namesake. Apparently, when Blevins had arrived in Fairmist three months ago, he had given Seydir a bag of gold large enough to buy the tavern twice over. The fat man quietly requested they serve him until the money ran out. Based on the size of the fortune, he would drink himself to death long before the bag was empty. She was surprised he hadn’t died already.

  She set the mug of molasses-dark beer on the bar and stared at him. “I’m sorry, did you say something?” she asked.

  “Mad at me, Rose?” he asked evenly, using that stupid nickname. Heat climbed her cheeks. Blevins couldn’t call anyone by their real name. Grei had to be “Stormy” and Adora was “Rose,” which was also the name of the Imperial Delegate’s parade horse. She wanted to slap him.

  Blevins took a drink of the Ox beer and gave her a small, sweet smile, which disappeared as quickly as it had come. She glared at him.

  He shrugged, took another pull. No smile this time. Adora filled a second mug and set it in front of him just as he finished. It never took him more than a few moments to drain the first. Quick as he drank, though, he never spilled a drop, as if each was precious.

  Most gluttons had stains on their clothes, but not Blevins. He was well-dressed, usually in non-descript browns. His movements were economical, precise. He could obviously be something different than what he was, but he didn’t care enough to bother.

  “Did you send him on an errand? Offer him a dare?” Blevins asked. “Young Grei is reckless and able. The perfect combination for a good dare.” He took another drink. “There’s an adventurer in that cobbler’s son.”

  She frowned, then turned to help another customer. She served up three Thiaran Darks, two shots of Thiaran whiskey and a Dead Woods liquor, forcing herself to smile and keep her gaze away from the fat man.

  She turned away and knelt, rummaging through the cupboard on the pretense that she was searching for another bottle of whiskey. He was just another patron. Blevins didn’t matter.

  Grei did, and tonight she would begin. She would lay with him and use the skills she had learned watching the whores with Shemmel, and it would be business. The prophecy would begin—

  A mewling sound came from outside, soft and distant.

  The glass slipped from Adora's fingers, crashed on the floor. Everyone near stopped talking and looked at her. Adora never fumbled drinks.

  No.

  She thought of the Order as she stood up, looking about the room.

  They can’t have meant this. The Event couldn’t be this.

  The din of the tavern roared in her ears. It was so hard to see! Drifts of pipe smoke obscured her view of the room. She moved around the edge of the bar.

  Return to your work. She could hear Lyndion as though he was in her head. Do your duty.

  A man at the bar called to her for another drink, but she ignored him, moving through the patrons, drawing glances. She searched every face. Tears of frustration welled up.

  Where was the—?

  By the Faia, no!

  With a gasp, she lunged forward, bumping a patron aside. This couldn’t be happening. Not this.

  Grei’s parents, Resh and Fern, sat at a small table with his younger brother Julin. All of them were drinking. Grei’s mother and father were toasting. Something had happened. Good news. It was a celebration.

  They all turned their bemused smiles on her as she approached. Julin looked up and smiled shyly.

  She wanted to explain, to soften the blow, but there wasn’t time. Her stomach twisted.

  “An Imperial Wand is here,” she said, keeping her voice down. This went deliberately contrary to the Order’s plans. She was opening herself to incredible risk, from the Order and the empire both. She could hear Lyndion yelling at her in the back of her mind.

  Their smiles vanished.

  “No,” Resh said, barely audible. He looked, horror-stricken, at his son.

  “You have only seconds,” Adora said. “Use the back door. Go to Stonewove, not Clapwood. Run through the alley. Run east. Into the forest and keep going. Don’t go home. If you go home, they’ll find you.” Her head felt light.

  She saw the torture in Resh’s eyes. He was an upstanding tradesman. He’d made a small fortune for himself and his family, possessed everything a middle-born shoemaker could hope for, but his life as he knew it was over tonight. One way or another. The hopes and dreams for his family were dashed, everything for which he had worked. Adora saw it all now, how this was part of the prophecy, how this would “temper” Grei, as Lyndion would say. The Imperial Wand could only be here for Julin.

  A few people were looking their way. As soon as they heard the mewl that Adora had heard, they would try to stop Julin’s escape. Everyone had heard the story of Moondow, of what had happened there when they resisted the Debt of the Blessed.

  Resh bowed his head in resignation. “We cannot,” he said. “The Debt protects us,” his voice was choked.

  “Daddy?” Julin said, standing up.

  “Resh—” Adora began.

  “I’ll do it.” Fern stood up. Her thin mouth set in a line, and she took Julin’s arm.

  Resh stood up, also, but as though he would stop them. “The Blessed cannot hide.” Tears leaked from his eyes; his jaw clenched. “Don’t make it worse.”

  “Worse?” Fern shouted, yanking Julin to her. She started for the door.

  Resh looked at Adora, then back at his retreating wife.

  “Go with her,” Adora said. She wanted to die.

  “What about Grei?” Resh asked hoarsely.

  “I’ll—” She choked on the irony. “I’ll take care of Grei.”

  “Where—?”

  “Go!” she whispered, slamming her hand on the table.

  Resh jumped up and followed his family. His limbs moved jerkily as though his body wasn’t working right. Adora wanted to scream at them to hurry. The mewling cry came again, and everyone heard it this time.

  Boots stopped on the other side of the tavern door, audible in the suddenly silent room, and the latch clicked. The Imperial Wand would enter, and he would see Julin fleeing. She had to distract him somehow. She spun around, lunging for the door—

  An enormous figure got in her way, his back to the door as it opened, blocking the entrance. Adora drew up short. Blevins!

  He looked down at her with black, unreadable eyes. The boots stopped on the other side of him, their wearer blotted from sight.

  “Stand aside, civilian,” came a commanding voice.

  Blevins turned, his belly bumping into the man hard enough to knock him down. Adora caught her breath. She was about to see Blevins die.

  But somehow, Blevins had a hold of the Imperial Wand, steadying him.

  “You oaf!” the Imperial Wand shouted, his snow-white hair disheveled. He brandished a steel rod in front of his body. Blevins bleared at it, then backpedaled as though it was a poisoned dagger.

  Adora spared a glance. Julin, Fern and Resh wer
e gone. They’d made it out.

  “Apologies, master,” Blevins slurred, swaying. He tripped on the edge of the door, stumbled, and crashed to the ground, smashing a chair to kindling. He did not rise.

  The Imperial Wand kept his wand trained on Blevins, his mouth a resolute line. He held that deadly rod tight, but an unconscious man was a pathetic target.

  Instead, he turned toward the crowd. Not a single murmur rose in the smoke-filled room, and most people wisely kept their eyes on their drinks.

  Two Imperial Highblades entered, flanking the Wand. The telltale pommels of their great swords poked over their right shoulders at an angle. Their short swords were drawn.

  The Imperial Wand scanned the room just as Adora had done, looking for that youthful face, that victim for which he’d been sent.

  “Julin Forander?” The Imperial Wand inquired of the silent room. Crazy Rat Mathens stood up and glared at the Imperial Wand, who narrowed his eyes in return. The Wand crossed to the table and touched his five thin fingertips to the wood. “Did they run?”

  Rat’s gravely voice warbled out. “Cela went to the north. I saw her.”

  The Imperial Wand watched Rat.

  “The slinks are everywhere,” Rat growled. “Hanging from the ceilings and hanging from my hair. There are more of them when I stare. They took my wife. My wife, my wife. My life. They killed her and she walked away. And I begged her to stay. She went to the north and she’s waiting there. Hanging from my hair.”

  The Imperial Wand frowned, realizing what everyone else in the room already knew. Rat’s mind was burned up by the slink sickness.

  “My wife is alive!” Rat said, his eyes wild. “I saw her walk away! She’s not going with you. I’m going to meet her in the north!”

  Adora drew a long breath, hoping for every extra second. Let the Imperial Wand watch Rat while Resh, Fern and Julin made good their escape. Let them—

  A cry of fear erupted just outside the door.

  The Imperial Wand turned and strode out of the tavern, stepping high over the prone Blevins and his mountainous belly. The Highblades followed him. Adora wanted to run away. But she had run once, had run so far it had taken her here, and she had promised she would never run again.

  Her feet were as heavy as river stones, but she shuffled to the doorway to witness the Debt of the Blessed.

  Only a handful of people clung to the shadows of alleyways or shop archways on Stonewove Street, unable to tear themselves away from the blood-chilling spectacle.

  Three more Imperial Highblades had been waiting outside The Floating Stone. One held Julin facedown on the cobblestones. Another held Resh upright, with his arms pinned behind his back, but the cobbler didn’t struggle. He looked at his son. The third stood by Fern, whose shoulders slumped. She also stared at Julin.

  Visions flashed through Adora’s mind of another time, another girl taken weeping through the night. The shale slope leading downward into a nightmare filled with glowing eyes, the Slink Lord waiting with his wide shoulders and thin arms.

  And then the green light. The Faia who saved her.

  But for Julin there would be no green light, no salvation. No one had ever escaped the Debt of the Blessed. No one except that one lost girl.

  With an animal cry, Fern suddenly grabbed for the Imperial Wand. She gouged his cheek, raking for his eyes, and he gasped, staggered back as he raised his wand.

  “No, Fern!” Resh yelled.

  A yellow stream shot from the wand and hit Fern in the chest. She flashed yellow, then was a stone statue with her hands reaching forward.

  “Mother!” Julin cried raggedly from where he was pinned.

  “No!” Resh screamed, then sagged in his captors’ arms, hanging his head. “No Fern,” he whispered. “Don’t...”

  “Give him to the cat,” the Imperial Wand said, his shoulders slumped as though he’d just run a great distance. He pressed his hand against his ravaged cheek. Blood trickled through his fingers. After a moment, he straightened and threw back his head. Flecks of blood marked his snowy hair.

  “The Debt of the Blessed protects us,” he spoke loudly, glaring at the crowd as he turned in a slow circle. “Without it, everyone dies.”

  The Highblades dragged a struggling Julin to the Imperial Wand’s mount. Two Highblades held Julin’s arm under the giant cat’s mouth. It obligingly sank the tips of its poisonous fangs into Julin’s arm, and Grei’s brother stopped struggling. His head lolled forward, and he went limp. The Imperial Wand swung into the two-seated leather saddle on the great cat’s back as the Highblades lifted Julin up and strapped him to the second saddle.

  Adora realized that she had not only screamed denial during the scuffle, but she was incautiously staring. The Imperial Wand turned his attention to her. He held a white cloth to his bloody cheek. “It must be done,” he said. “We are safe for another month.”

  He turned the huge cat and loped off.

  Chapter 10

  Grei

  Grei’s shoes left watery prints on the cobblestones, squishing as he approached The Floating Stone. His blood had been on fire when he’d set out for the Wet Woods. He had pushed past dripping ferns and marshy grass, weaving through the trees with Adora’s face in front of him. The feel of her lips on his.

  But it had taken hours to find the midnight lily, and now he was cold and wet. His thoughts were less on romance and more on dry clothes. But he had the flower.

  He squished into Adora’s alley and looked up at her balcony. Surprisingly, she was there, sitting at the edge with her knees pulled up to her chin, her blue cloak spread around her in a circle.

  “Grei,” she said, standing. The sight of her quickened his pulse. Her proud shoulders. Her lithe body. The swing of her hips as she walked to the top of the stairs. His annoyance vanished and he began climbing the steps.

  “I got it,” he said. “Sorry it took so long—”

  “Grei—”

  He stopped one step before the top. “You’re crying,” he said.

  Her eyes were red, her cheeks flushed. Uncertainty washed over him. “Adora, what’s wrong? What happened?” He put a hand on her arm, held the lily at his side.

  She touched his chest. Her fingers were light, hesitant.

  He took her into his arms, held her. She was trembling. “Adora—”

  “It’s your parents. Your...brother,” she said.

  “What about them?”

  She held her breath, reluctant to say more, and Grei’s pulse quickened.

  “What happened?” he repeated, his voice more stern than he meant.

  “They—” She swallowed, then spoke quickly. “Your brother was chosen tonight.”

  An invisible wind swept through his body, scooping out his organs and tossing them away. He couldn’t breathe. The edge of his eye began to twitch. “No...” He looked away to the west.

  “Grei—”

  “Where did they go?” he rasped. He grabbed her arm, crushing the midnight lily against her.

  She winced. He was hurting her. He let her go, and she stumbled back. The balcony creaked.

  “Your mother tried to stop him,” she said.

  Cold fear twisted in his belly. No one stood in the way of an Imperial Wand. He threw the lily at her feet and raced down the rickety stairs.

  “Stop,” she said, and the quiet plea in her voice made him hesitate. He looked back at her. “They’ll kill you,” she said. “And you can’t die. You, of all people.”

  She flung the mystery at him, knowing he had to pick it up. Knowing that he had to know.

  Well, she was wrong. Dead wrong.

  He turned away from her and sprinted into the night.

  Chapter 11

  Grei

  Grei slammed through the door of his house and skidded to a stop in the common room. His father sat at the table, a large, full bag in front of him. His hands rested on either side of it, palms upward, fingers half-curled. The painting he had bought last month hung behind him. Onl
y wealthy merchants could afford paintings. It had been another step up the social stair. It was a pastoral scene, the Felesh plantations, far too calm for the guts that had just been ripped out of this house.

  Grei vibrated with anger.

  Father’s brown hair, always so meticulously combed back from his face, had fallen down into his eyes. His long face stared at the bag, and his neck sagged as though the muscles had been cut.

  “Father,” Grei said, stepping to the table.

  “They left this,” his father said in a monotone. “They took my family and left me this.”

  Grei jerked open the top of the bag. It fell on its side, spilling gold coins across the table. The remains of the Forander family would never be chosen again, and they would never want for anything: their recompense for allowing an abomination.

  “And Fern?” he managed to say, though he felt the truth of Adora’s words like coals burning into his temples.

  Father leaned over, so low that his forehead touched the table. A single sob shook his body.

  And where was I when they came? Grei thought. Splashing through the Wet Woods, looking for a flower.

  He stood over his father for a long moment, water from his cloak dripping onto the floor as he beat back the futility. The whole empire was bound in threads, each citizen tied tight, helpless to change their own destiny.

  So we don’t try, he thought. We sob into our bags of gold.

  Adora’s final words echoed in his head. You can’t follow them. They’ll kill you.

  He went to the workshop and grabbed a hammer, a knife, and a leather puncher from the work table, and then he left, giving his broken father one last look as he slammed the door.

  Adora stood in the street. She was without her cloak, drenched and bedraggled. Her blue eyes shone in the darkness, begging him like they had on that day seven years ago in the forest.

  “Don’t go,” she said.

  He clenched his teeth and ran the other direction, all the way to the stable where father kept the horse, the one he had newly bought to train Julin, to teach him to ride like the noble classes.