by JDL Rosell
Erik refused to get angry. The comments on his color used to rile him up when he’d been a child and adolescent, but he’d found if he spent all his time fighting, his skin would only be darker for the bruises.
“I’ve lived most my life in Zauhn,” Erik said, hating how much it sounded like justification. Then he realized what he'd admitted: how easy would it be for someone to find him now that he’d said where he was from?
But it didn’t set off bells in Wil’s mind. “Yeah, I’ve got some trade over there,” he said, his hands leaving his mug for the first time to fold atop his head. “Used to be schooled there, too, in my wilder years.”
“Schooled?”
Wil’s face twisted into a wry smile. “Of course,” he said. “I was to be a scribe, if you can believe it.”
“Ah. That’s… unorthodox.”
Wil laughed. “All the more considering I was such a poor fit for it. Got kicked out my third year, finally. Should have been done with me the first. The old man wasn’t too pleased, anyhow. When he got through hiding me, I never thought I’d be able to see leather without breaking down and bawling on the spot.”
He laughed again, but cut off when Erik didn't join in. “Of course, that’s what my father set me to: leather and tanning. That’s my trade.”
“Right. Though it seems like you’ve got another profession now.” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them, and he winced in anticipation.
But Wil just chuckled. “Aye, you could say that, though a man can’t sustain himself on drink, nor his family, neither.” He grew more sober at the thought. “No, I’m a tanner, no changing that.”
They lapsed into silence, and Erik glanced around the alehouse for a more hopeful prospect. One of the lone drinkers glared at him, while the other rose, bent and swaying, and made a meandering path to the door. Erik once again wished he could leave. His palms were sweaty, and his stomach hurt, and he couldn’t keep his leg still. He also felt strangely guilty speaking with the tanner, as if he were committing a crime by acting human. But he needed information, and this tanner looked to be his only option.
“Well, what brings you here?” Wil asked.
Erik said the first thing that came to mind. “Looking for a tanner, actually.” The devilish part of him mocked the words: How convenient. You just happen to be looking for a tanner.
“Really?” Wil said, his eyebrows shooting up. “My reputation outruns me!” But he didn’t look as if he believed it as he pointed at Erik’s waist. “But why need me when you have whoever made that fine craft around your belly?”
Erik looked down, blinking. He’d forgotten about his belt. His fingers traced over the familiar etchings as he struggled for a response. It had been made by a tanner in Zauhn who’d died three years back, but it wasn’t him Erik thought of. You’re still all about me, aren’t you, Ilyse? he thought. As if she could hear him.
He was pulled from the thoughts as Ilnuk and his companion rose from their table, and Wil turned for one final shout after them. “Keep your niece’s bed warm for me tonight, eh, Ilnuk?” He looked at Erik. “Man took his niece to wife if you can believe it.”
Erik scraped for something to say, but Wil was already somewhere else. “Speaking of my leather, I had the damnedest order come in the other day. I shouldn’t say this probably, but who in the blighted Void’s going to stop me? Order comes in, dunno who he was, all cloaked and such, and you know what he orders? Do you?”
Wil kept waiting, eyes wide, so Erik shook his head.
“Leather made of lurcher skin. Can you believe it! Now what the hell would a man need that for, eh?”
Erik perked up. Lurcher skin was a more hopeful strand.
Wil continued before he could speak. “Live human’s skin would be hard enough to tan, but lurcher? It’d fall apart in your hands and make for a ragged dress. Imagine that! A man, walking about in that tattered thing, balls swinging for the world to see. No, if you want leather that wears, horsehide’s the thing for you. Sheepskin’s one thing, cowhide’s another, and calfskin sure feels nice, but if you’re needing leather and want it to last, en’t nothing better than horse.” He finished his ale, froth streaming down his beard, and slammed it empty to the table.
He gazed intently at Erik for a moment, then glanced down at the empty table before him with exaggerated shock. “But here I am talking, and you never got a drink!” He turned and yelled into the backroom, “Clot, one for my friend here, and another for me!”
“No, that’s all right.” He’d thought he wanted a drink, but his roiling stomach convinced him otherwise, as well as a vague remembrance of Vodrun telling him eating and drinking would no longer be necessary after his… transformation.
But Wil was not easily dissuaded, and he shouted until the hapless Clot came out with two full mugs, mumbling about her sleeping daughters. But she left them alone quickly enough when Wil taunted, “I’ll wake one of them if you really want!”
Erik’s throat throbbed painfully as he looked at the drink in front of him. His tongue scraped against the sides of his mouth. Perhaps a sip wouldn’t be so bad. He took one, and savored the refreshing malt and hops, the wetness on his throat. But the immediate pain in his gut took the sweetness out of it.
“Not bad, eh?” Wil said. “Clot’s beds are shite, but her brews en’t bad, and that’s the Mother-sent truth.”
“Hm.” He massaged his belly with one hand, debating whether it was worth another sip and wondering how to get back on lurcher leather.
“I nearly forgot!” the tanner suddenly exclaimed. “Any news us family-town folk might not have heard yet?”
“News?” Any news he might know would be weeks old—two weeks, at least, if he was right in his estimation—but in a backwater place like Lienze, that might be the freshest they had. He had to try, anyway. Sharing news was the surest way to earn a stranger’s favor. “Let’s see… There were rumors that King Arnuf is sending a legion to the isle.”
“A legion? That young beaver?” Wil dismissed the notion with a wave. “I’d sooner bet on a hoofless goat in a footrace! Our king hasn’t the loins to take down his logs and sail over here. Come now, I didn’t ask for fairie stories! What else do they say?”
Erik thought harder, taking an absent sip and regretting it as his gut throbbed. “Someone said a duke was murdered. Down in Brav’Stradt, I think.”
“In the foothills of the Este’Tors, I know it. The Spire of Stars is there, en’t it? Where the first Arnuf held back the Thousand?”
“Right,” Erik said, confident at least in that. “But it’s said it won’t hold back any armies now. It went up in flames.”
“In flames? The Spire? That damn watchtower stood the whole of the last Ennish war, and it falls when all we’re doing is exchanging arrows with the savages across the Moat? Smells of fairie stories again, goodman.”
The pain in his stomach had Erik on edge. “But if it’s true, that’s a sight more than arrows, isn’t it, assassinating a duke and destroying a national monument? And this, as nautded attack more and more towns and cities, and not just here on Erden. I can’t say I blame the Beaver King for damming where he can.”
He tried ignoring the irony, but the voice in his head didn't: Aren't you part of the reason it would be dammed?
Still, he continued. “Besides, that’s not all. Strange things happened there it’s said. A giant lizard appeared from nowhere in the castle’s courtyard and brought down half the entrance with it. And where did the flames come from? Some say—” He hesitated, anticipating Wil’s response. “Some say Recarnates have returned.”
“Myths!” Wil seemed disgusted with the caliber of his news. “Listen, goodman, I can tell you mean well. But I’ve had an education. There may be small workings of magic these days, but nothing like what the tales tell. No man can rend the earth apart, or break the moon, or make towers burst into flames. Leave that to the Sons Incarnate, and them alone.” He returned to his drink, looking morose.
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br /> But Erik saw his opportunity. His mouth felt immensely dry as he leaned in close. “Small workings of magic, you say?” He couldn’t help licking his lips. “Is there someone around here like that? An herbalist, perhaps?”
Wil’s eyes were suddenly sharp and considering. “What’d you say your name was?”
“Er—Kirik.” He couldn’t remember if Wil had asked before.
“Kirik? Strange name, that.” Wil he leaned forward as well, so that Erik inhaled his sour breath. “Let me tell you something, Kirik: You don’t want to be asking that question here. Not as dangerous as some places, true, but still not what a smart man should do.”
“I have to find him. I need him for something.”
But Wil drained in his mug in silence and rose. “Good meeting you, Kirky,” he said. “But I’ve told all I will.”
Then Wil left the alehouse—without paying.
Erik shrugged and rose as well, slipping out before Clot could emerge from the backroom and stop either of them. He moved into the moon-touched darkness and followed the faint shadow of the tanner down the road.
What counted as Lienze’s main thoroughfare was a dirt road just wide enough for a single-horse cart, if the cart was narrow and the horse didn't miss a step. Along it ran numerous dirt patches where vendors could set up shop on market days. This late at night, the lane was quiet and deserted with few houses in the immediate vicinity. Most of the small, clay huts with thatched roofs were spaced widely so their gardens could stretch between them. Erik wondered if they actually grew lentils, or if, like other places named around here—say, Mt. Brunnen and Grim’s Woods—there was some lost story explaining the whole thing. Maybe they were magic lentils that gave you gas enough to fly. It was a sad, desperate attempt of levity that made him glad he had no one to say it to.
He sniffed, noticing a smell worse than gut gas, an odd stench lingering in the air. Yes, there was the ever-present manure, wafting in from the fields and stables, but something else lingered beneath, something like—
Lashed to crossed beams, his head strapped between the planks, the cold blade cutting red hot as it slit down the back of his neck, screaming flesh—
Shivering, he put a hand to the scar on his neck. It didn’t ache like his chest, but the skin was ridged with stitches. Another wound that won’t heal.
He spent a moment imagining all the things he’d do to Oslef if he ever saw him again.
But the stench brought him out of it, and with all those morbid thoughts in his head, he thought he finally recognized it: decay. His stomach throbbed again. No wonder he’d thought of Vodrun’s tower.
But Wil hadn’t stopped plodding ahead of him, so Erik had to walk fast to catch up, making noise enough that the tanner looked around. But after a moment, the big silhouette moved on, ambling down the road to the other end of town, and Erik continued after him, slow and careful as a stalking mooneyes.
As little as he wanted to, curiosity compelled him to sniff the air again. There was another scent mixing in with that of cloying flesh, another sickening smell, but in a different way. It bothered him. He knew all the plants around and what would be blooming this midsummer, as his father had commonly used local flora in his formulae. Including the elixir coursing through Erik, keeping him… alive.
The world settled into twilight and drained to shades of slate, alleviated partially by the half-lit moon. He just kept his eyes on Wil’s figure, still swaying before him. Can’t be much further.
An animal sound erupted from the woods, and Erik stopped dead. It sounded like a dog’s howl, but spinning to find it, he knew he must be wrong. It was the eyes that did it. They seemed to suck every bit of moonlight from the night and flare it out like stars in a clear sky.
They weren’t called mooneyes for no reason.
Erik, heart hammering, breath rasping, watched the deadly nekros approach, and knew his second ending wasn’t long in coming.
Three
After he'd left the broken tower, Vodrun resting cold and still at its pinnacle, Erik had drifted through the dark streets of Zauhn, little more corporeal than a phantom. Two weeks absent, everyone would no doubt think him dead even if they saw him. They'd be right. There was only one way men came back from the grave.
He shuffled to his door, knowing he had to collect his things and leave town, but he hesitated at the threshold. On the second story of the house next door was a diamond-paned window lit with a single candle. Even that little flame made the glass glitter like the sun on a pond's surface, and despite his urgency, despite his need to be away, Erik stood and watched that light flicker back and forth, back and forth. He expected a shadow to move before it and blot it out as the man inside looked out over night-cloaked Zauhn. He hoped the man would wonder where his son had disappeared to, and if he might come back, hope still flickering in his heart like the candle.
But Erik knew he couldn't hope for that now. Not after what Vodrun had said. Not after what Erik had long suspected, but never dared voice to himself. Never dared face.
Erik tore his gaze away from his father's window and stepped inside his own house.
Though he couldn’t see beyond its eyes, Erik knew how the mooneyes—or nightstalker, as it was sometimes called—should look: lion-like in shape, longer and thicker than a man, with a mane that flared out like shadowy flames. Its claws were dangerous enough, and its bite worse, but the worst was its cunning. Mooneyes weren’t seen often, but when they came out to kill, there was no hope in escaping.
It growled and howled like a hound, then advanced, and Erik stumbled away. He was helpless even with his knife in hand. The killing only went one way with mooneyes.
The nightstalker came on barking, jumping forward by margins, though a mooneyes shouldn’t bark. But Erik still backed away fast, yelling and swinging his knife before him. The creature snapped and growled and yelped, its fury seeming to grow by the second.
His heel caught. He was weightless for one terror-filled moment, then he crashed to the ground, and the beast was on him, snarling, its breath smelling of death and decay. Erik tried to lash at it, but his arm was pinned beneath him and the creature, and he couldn’t get it unstuck.
The mooneyes snarled and dove for his other arm, teeth sinking in.
“Ach!” Erik flailed at the nightstalker as it bit hard, tearing through cloth and into the skin. He lashed out, panic rising in his chest, knife still stuck under his side. Blood ran down his sleeve. The beast’s claws pressed against his chest, weight bearing down. Erik hissed through his teeth at the pain and pushed at it harder, but the beast just clamped down tighter.
“Hey! Off him!” The voice came from behind. Erik punched the nightstalker’s head, and its grip loosened, but it didn’t back off. It lunged for his neck this time, and Erik just managed to twist his leg around to push at its flank. It came again, snapping viciously, then suddenly stopped. Erik scrambled to his feet and away, turning back when he’d gone a few paces, panting and clutching his arm. He finally managed to get the knife up, but the animal bowed away, bright eyes watching warily.
“Get the hell away from him, yah damn mutt!” the voice said. It was Wil, Erik saw, the big man running back up the road. “Get back to your master!”
“What are you doing?” Erik croaked. Bending down, he pinned his torn arm to his chest, trying to stem the blood. “It’ll kill you!”
But it didn’t. The beast just whimpered like a scolded dog. Mutt, Wil had called it, and Erik suddenly realized why. It was a dog—a nautded dog.
Despite the hot pain in his arm, despite the incongruity of the thought, he felt the sudden urge to laugh.
“Get! Hear me? Scram!” Wil waved at the creature.
The dog looked at Wil, then back to Erik. He growled again.
“Scram! The hell is wrong with you, mutt? Go gnaw some deadwalker’s leg.”
Erik watched with amazement as it gave him one last, almost regretful, look, then turned and padded away. He pinned his arm tighter as Wi
l came over and clapped him on the shoulder, to much wincing on Erik’s part.
“Damn foolish thing you did, following me in the dark,” the tanner said. “He catch you at all?”
“My arm, but I’ve had worse.” He found his thoughts remarkably clear of pain, as if he were remembering it rather than feeling it at that very moment. An advantage of his nekros state, it seemed. Now he knew how nautded could fight long after they should have reached their limits.
“Was that blighted thing what I thought it was?” Erik asked.
“Let’s get you back on to my place,” Wil said, ignoring him. “The old lady can fix you up, then we’ll find you a patch of floor to rest on.”
Erik leaned into the other man, letting it slide for now, trusting the beast wouldn’t be back. His stomach roiled as he briefly glanced at the lacerations on his arm. Instead of seeing his own wounds, he was remembering the crack of the lurcher’s arm in his hands, each of her limbs breaking, fingers crumbling to dust.
He stumbled away from Wil and let loose the beer left in his stomach.
When he was done, the tanner straightened him up. “Come on, goodman, don’t throw everything up. Let’s see to those wounds of yours.”
It wasn’t far to Wil’s house, though his discomfort made it seem further. Erik spat out the taste of bile and winced at his bleeding arm. The sickening stench from before was stronger now as he leaned into the tanner. Do the men here wear fek as perfume? He wrinkled his nose and kept his mouth shut.
A house emerged from the darkness before them, looking indistinguishable from the other houses he’d seen, all the more for the veil of night obscuring it. Wil shoved in through the door, bellowing a greeting as he did, and Erik blinked in the dim candlelight.
“Fafa!” two girls yelled as soon as the door opened, throwing themselves on Wil’s legs. Erik saw two other girls in the back corner, one near adolescence, watching demurely from beneath ragged black locks, while the other was approaching womanhood, and sat on a stool sharpening a half-rusted knife.