by JDL Rosell
One of the girls on Wil’s legs noticed Erik with a startle and ran back to her mother. The woman—Wil’s wife, Erik assumed—had been kneeling in front of the stove, obscured by its open door. She now stood slowly, looking as if her knees pained her, and wiped her hands on a sooty apron.
“Who’s this, Wil?” she said, in a tone somewhere between suspicion and weary indifference.
“Move over now, Vila,” Wil said to the daughter still wrapped around his leg, shaking her off when she refused. The girl huffed and threw a silent tantrum next to her oldest sister in the corner.
Wil shook his head. “All daughters,” he said to Erik. “Getting to a point where I wonder if I lack balls, too.” Then his eyes fell to Erik’s wounded arm, and he blinked. “Need some bandages for this man,” he barked at his wife. “And some sewing!”
His wife eyed Erik like a skittish doe but obeyed her husband’s orders. Erik tried to keep the blood from falling on their floor while she prepared, but he was doing a poor job of it. “Sorry,” he muttered to no one, and nobody paid him mind.
“Who is he, Fafa?” the daughter by the tanner’s wife asked.
“A man that needs help,” Wil said—deflecting, Erik thought, probably already forgetting his invented name. A good thing—Erik himself couldn’t remember it.
The wife indicated a stool for Erik to sit. “Just the arm?”
He sat and nodded, and she started in on the arm. Pulling up his torn sleeve, she drew her own sudden breath and quickly went to work scrubbing and cleaning the wounds. Then she bound up some of the smaller wounds on his arm as she set to sewing up the biggest gash.
“So,” Wil said over the grinding of the knife against the sharpening stone and Erik’s restrained grunts. “What made you follow me? Would have hoped you had more sense than to wander around a strange town after dark, what with the increasing nautded about and all.”
Oh, because I should have known you kept nekros dogs. “Damn foolish of me, I know, but I have a sick child back home, and—” He paused, considering. “You said something interesting—”
“This is about the damn hermit, isn’t it?” Wil interrupted loudly.
His wife pulled hard enough on the thread to make Erik wince, but her expression remained placid. “That depends,” Erik said. “Should it be?”
“You asked for an herbalist, and you’re not the first. People from the smaller villages come around sometimes, always asking for some sick relative, as it were.” He gave Erik a meaningful look. “You want to get your rocks off? The hermit en’t the man for you.” Then he burst out laughing.
His family hardly reacted to the vulgarity, his wife simply tying off the thread of Erik’s largest wound and moving to the next one, leaving behind a tight, if ragged, seam.
“Nothing like that,” Erik said, coloring slightly. “A sick child, like I said.”
“Then it’s something worse, if you’re keeping with that old lie… Thought it might be. I’ve got another guy off near the Brunnen Barrows for that nasty bit of stuff, but the hermit en’t into that business.” His host moved to lean over Erik’s shoulder. “It’s serious to see the hermit,” he said, his voice low. “Very serious. Can’t let every mangled stranger visit that walks through.”
The cloying scent wafted from the tanner, and it made Erik think of something. “Why didn’t that nautded dog attack you?”
Wil seemed to freeze, but perhaps it was just his imagination, as a moment later he laughed heartily. “It’s learned not to mess around with me,” he said with an air of bravado. “I taught it a few lessons way back!”
Erik doubted it, but he kept silent. His wife, however, did not refrain from a derisive exhale.
A frown spread over Wil’s face as he considered Erik. “But you,” he said as he walked around to stand in front of Erik, “why did it attack you, hm? That doesn’t happen to every stranger. In fact, they attacked just like you were nautded yourself.”
The tanner’s wife again pulled too hard and Erik bit back a yelp. Sweat broke out on his palms, stinging his wounds. They can’t know. I’m the first nautded to speak, to think. They can’t know. I’m too human. He thought fast, grasping for some way to divert the conversation, while Wil looked on with increasing curiosity. “You say that like you’ve seen it before,” Erik started. Then a thought occurred to him, and he latched onto it. “Wait, that’s not some stray. That’s how you don’t have fences or walls. That dog, and others—”
Now Wil seemed caught by surprise. Hemming and hawing, he said, “All right now, I see where this is going—”
“There you go again,” his wife interrupted, thankfully restraining from tugging the thread as she glared at her husband. “You always have to run your mouth when you’ve been drinking, and now this stranger knows—”
“Now wait a moment here, Fili!” the tanner cried. “I’m running my mouth? There wasn’t nothing suspicious said ’til you butted in—”
“No, you wait a moment! Bringing your soaked friends back home after you waste all our coins on booze and blaming me!” His wife Fili pointed at the oldest daughter in the corner. “Oska’s been running the tannery, you know that? No, you wouldn’t, not when you’re out most the day and half the night. As long as there’s money for your drink, you don’t give a damn where it’s coming from!”
“Oska,” Wil said, ignoring his wife. “You don’t mind the work, do you?”
The girl looked up. “Mind it or not,” she said, “here I am.”
“There, that’s the attitude I like to see!” her father said. “See, Fili? We’re doing just fine.”
His wife just shook her head wearily and bent back to tying off the last knot, though she’d left the smaller cuts unsewn. Though he resented each drop seeping through, he said quietly, “I’m sorry if I caused trouble.”
Fili remained silent.
Erik cleared his throat. “I guess I’d best be off.”
“Now?” the tanner said, surprised. “You just got torn up by a dog! And besides, it’s night. A man’s got to sleep sometime, and we’ve plenty of floor here for it.” He shrugged uncomfortably. “And… We’re not monsters, whatever our town's arrangements look like. Just ordinary folk, trying to survive. You understand that, don’t you?”
Wil worried about seeming a monster—Erik could have laughed for the irony. Instead, he stood and gingerly tested his arm. The stitches were tight and hurt like Er’Lothe’s immolation, but they stayed. If Vodrun had spoken true, they wouldn’t heal on their own, but they would hold until he could cauterize them. Heat seemed to mend his flesh now, or so his days-old scars led him to believe.
“Can’t stay scared forever,” Erik said. “Besides, I’ve got to find this hermit. My sick child, you know.”
He didn’t really want to leave just then. If he was honest with himself, he was a bit lightheaded, and more than a bit queasy. But if the tanner thought he was serious, he just might…
“Fine then,” Wil said suddenly. Pushing past Erik and almost sending him sprawling, he went through a doorway that, in a house this small, could only lead to his tannery. When he came back, he bore a cracked clay cup with a poorly fitting lid, and held it out to his guest.
“What’s this?” Erik asked, accepting it with his free hand.
“Yungleaf sap,” the tanner replied. “It’s what keeps the nautded like that dog from attacking us. Smells like a blighted lurcher, but you’re going to need it if we’re visiting.”
We? Erik couldn’t help a small smile. “I never knew it was used for that,” he observed. The sap had never been requested by his father during his tutelage in formulaism.
Opening the container, he took a whiff. Wil was right, it did have a horrible resemblance to rotting corpses. At least he knew why the tanner and town reeked. He dipped a finger in and started spreading it on his neck as best he could, the sticky substance resisting.
“Sorry to ask, but do you have flint and steel as well?” Erik tried to ignore his mounting guilt
. “I can pay for it…” He reached into a small pouch at his belt and withdrew seven silver marks. All the money he had, but he wouldn’t much need it now. “And, if you can spare a tunic, this one is a bit… used up.”
Wil waved a hand. “You’re our guest,” he said, then went back to other room. When he returned, he gave him the two items and had donned a cloak of his own.
It was then that the tanner’s family fully realized his intentions. Fili turned away in silence, and the daughter that had clung to him when he first came in started to wail. The tanner said, “Quiet down!” but it only added to the din. It made Erik sorry he ever came, and sorrier to take their father away so soon after he’d returned.
But seeing as how Wil was going to lead him to the hermit, Erik swallowed the guilt down.
“I’m going,” Wil said stubbornly—or callously, as his wife and daughters probably saw it. “This man’s in need, and I’m going to help him.”
Finished with the sap, Erik set to changing. He managed to take off his cloak, then hesitantly took off his tunic, very conscious of the many eyes on him. They gasped at his scars, visible even in the low light, and Wil’s eyes lit with interest, so Erik quickly pulled over the big man’s tunic. It fell like a dress around him, but it was better than nothing. He looped his belt over it and donned his cloak again.
“Nice meeting all of you,” Erik said with a nervous laugh.
They just continued staring, silent, like a family of disturbed deer.
Still, as he and the tanner departed, Erik let the seven silver marks drop inconspicuously to the floor. That would help things a bit, so long as their father didn’t get hold of them.
Though his sense of direction had been turned around, the position of the hanging moon indicated the tanner led them southeast, deeper into the Brunnen Forest. The twisted, half-stunted brun trees had grown taller and folded over each other to form a canopy nearly devoid of light.
“Are there more of those dead dogs where I’m going?” Erik asked. Even with the yungleaf sap smeared on his skin, he hated the thought of walking near any of them. His arm throbbed painfully, and from the dampness on his sleeve, he was fairly certain it still bled.
“Ah, yes,” Wil said. “But they’ll not hurt you. You saw how they backed away from me, didn’t you? It’ll be the same once they smell that foul stuff on your skin.”
“But what makes them different? Are they trained somehow? Or would any nautded turn away from yungleaf sap?”
“How the hell should I know?” The tanner spoke loud, louder than Erik was comfortable with, but Wil didn’t seem to notice. “Nautded don’t make an ounce of sense. Sure, corpses walking about are nautded, but what about nightstalkers? They’re not dead, least not from the way folk tell it. And yes, they’re eerie animals with glowing eyes, but what’s that got to do with being not-dead?”
Erik had to hold himself back. He remembered the lesson he’d received from Vodrun, back when he was still Uncle Vodrun, over nekros and their various classifications. The common thread that Wil couldn’t see was voidic influence. Each of these beings were, at some point in their formation, exposed to the Void’s vast, transformative emptiness and changed in ways that broke the natural laws of reality. Of course, the common label, nautded, was deceptive; nekros was a much more encompassing label.
But he couldn’t say any of that. “Maybe it has something to do with the Void.”
“Maybe it does. But then, how come folk don’t call far’egan nekros? Those freaks do their tricks using the Void, don’t they?”
But that was the difference between utilizing the Void and being changed by it, Erik knew, at least according to The Sons Incarnate and the other Amodist texts. Since the ancient era of those events, when the children of the Mother rampaged across the world and some men were risen from the dead with magic at their fingertips, it seemed most wonders had fled the world but for minor workings, like Wil had said earlier.
But Erik had always had his doubts about it leaving. If there had once been magic, why would it dissipate? It didn’t make sense for a thing to be around one age and gone the next. And now, he had a rather good reason to hope it wasn’t gone. That the Recarnates were more than just legends.
“Bah!” Wil said. “Nobody knows a thing in this world.”
They walked a bit further. “Does the hermit live around the Barrows?” Erik asked. Though he tried to remain calm, his heart beat hard in his chest. It was one thing to walk the Brunnen Forest during the day; it was another entirely to do it at night after he’d already been attacked.
“Not so far,” Wil said. “Just a bit into the forest here. He likes his privacy, the hermit does. Just follow the path—you can’t miss it.”
Erik stopped. “What, you’re not coming?”
The big man shifted like a child caught sneaking sweets. “Well, wouldn’t look good for the hermit to see me leading a stranger to his door. 'Pologies, but I’m afraid you’ll have to go it alone.”
Erik looked between the twisted trunks and into the dark woods. No need to be frightened at least, the voice in his head mocked him. You're the strangest thing here.
He turned back to the tanner. “Thanks for leading me this far.”
“Nothing to it, nothing at all,” Wil said, heartily shaking his hand. “I’ll wait for you here, how about that? Just come back along this way once you’re done, and I’ll find you a spot by my hearth for the night.”
Erik nodded, smiling despite himself. The man was far kinder than he’d expected, kinder than he ought to be. You never know what you might let into your house.
He thanked him, then turned away. The hermit was waiting.
Four
Erik hadn't meant to enter his father's house. He had a sack of his meager possessions thrown over one shoulder, his cloak wrapped close about him, and he'd been headed for the Fost'Fluum River. But instead of passing by the door, Erik found himself bringing out the key, putting his hand to the handle, and stepping inside as naturally and unthinking as breathing. Just as he'd done nearly every day since he and his father had come to Zauhn sixteen years ago.
He stepped carefully in the house, but the floorboards still creaked beneath his boots. The paintings lining the walls were cast in shadows, but Erik knew their visages. Vestorian princes, kings, heroes—the same meaningless drivel you could find in any well-to-do artisan's home. Erik had always resented their presence, but he let them stay hanging, unscathed, even now.
He made his way slowly, inevitably towards the stairs up to the study. The way was narrow, and they curved up like a snake wound about a man's neck. His Sudenian ancestors were mad for that sort of thing, if the commonfolk in Zauhn were to be believed. Erik never had asked his father about it.
Then Erik creaked open the door, and there the man stood, facing the window, his back to him. Erik had his belt knife on his hip. He always kept it sharp.
But he left it sheathed and took another step in, and his father spoke without turning. "Erik," he said in his deep, accented voice. "You have come." His accent had always made even common words flow out as smooth as honeyed wine.
Erik didn't say anything. He didn't know what to say. Blighted world, he didn't know what to feel.
"When did you awake?" his father asked quietly.
Erik answered reflexively. He'd had the habit of obedience to his father once, and in the absence of anything else, it took up the old yoke. "Just now. Tonight."
His father sighed, audible even facing away. "I…" His words trailed off, deadened in the small, comfortable space. His father's entryway may have been as devoid of essence as any merchant's, but he'd always belonged in his study.
"There are not words in this tongue," his father said. "None to convey what I feel for you, right now. My son."
"I must leave, Tacitus. Will you help me?" The coldness, the firmness of his own words surprised Erik. The address of his father by his given name, rather than the name Erik had always known him by, the name of the man who h
ad given him strength when he felt weak. Father, he yearned to say. Fafa. But he held the words back.
"So little time," his father murmured. "And still the time has not yet come."
"Will you help me?" Erik asked again, an edge of anger to the words now. He knew no hard truth of his father's guilt, but he had suspicions, and they were enough. "I need to go, but I don't know where. Who can help me if not you?"
"Vodrun might, if he were willing… But no. You would not be standing here if he could."
"You left me there." Erik's eyes burned now, and his throat tightened. "You knew I was up there, tortured back into life, and you left me there." He wouldn't call this man his father, not again. He didn't deserve the word.
"There is so much more he needs to know," his father whispered as if to himself. "So much to prepare for. But can he be ready, now? Can he ever be ready?"
"Listen to me!" Erik hissed, taking a step forward, and a book tumbled from a shelf. His father flinched, half-turning back as it clunked to the floor, its pages splayed out like a lurcher's spilled guts. He had turned as if afraid. Afraid of his own son.
"If you won't help me, then who? Who do I go to?" Every word had to be pulled out from behind clenched teeth.
His father finally turned around, his head bowed. Before two weeks ago, Erik had never seen his father look half so decrepit. "Look for the Rook," he said. "There you may find…" He trailed off again.
"Find what?" Erik asked, despite himself.
His father met his gaze, the flame of the candle reflected in his eyes. "Recarnation," he whispered.
As Erik moved through the black, twisted forest, the trees grew thicker about him, pressing in on the already narrow path and hiding what lay ahead. Creatures of the night made sounds all about him, and he startled when one came too close. But they were harmless, these creatures. Hiding under fallen leaves and twigs were scuttlers, shelled sideways walkers that more often lived by the sea but could be found inland if there were water. And there were the lunegazers, clacking their wings, their middles shining as they often did during the summer cycles. It was said they waited for Er’Lothe to come down and collect them, those little pieces of his moonlight, when he incarnated once more to save the world from his brother A'Qed's return.