Helix jerked out of his reverie, nearly cutting himself. It goes well, he started to say, but a sudden image of Minda Fletchins' nude body shimmering beneath the surface of the lake drew him up short. "Not well," he breathed, trying to sound weak. "It's so hot in here, I... I think I'm getting hotsick."
Let me go home. He pushed the thought outwards as if it had the power to compel the man. Let me go, let me go, let me go...
"Oh I know, this summer's been a slice of Hel, ain't it?" the innkeeper grunted, without turning around. "Still, can't be any worse than that forge of your dad's. If ya need to sit down for a spell, that's fine, so long as ya get those salmon steaks ready for cookin' by sunset. And don't forget those spices. House secret."
"Yeah," Helix grunted, choking back a surge of frustration. "Of course, the spices." Don't know why I'm mad at him, he forced himself to realize. It was my mom that put me up to this. He resolved to tell her he was done working at Mellerson's little inn when he got home. He was seventeen, for the love of winter—a man grown, by all counts—and he should be spending the last precious days of summer—
Being responsible, his mother supplied.
He grumbled and grabbed another fish.
~ ~
By the time the steaks were lined up, seasoned, and safely wrapped in saltleaf for good keeping, the light from the east window had dimmed. Minda would be long gone by now, probably off with her friends someplace.
He sighed and turned to the dishes. Tomorrow.
Mellerson banged through the door again just as Helix grabbed a rag. "You can leave the rest of those, Master Smith," he said. "Thanks for yer help tonight."
Helix threw down the rag he had just grabbed. "Sure," he said, and made for the door to the common room.
"Smith!"
Helix turned around, dreading that the man was going to change his mind and ask him to stay.
"Yer pay," Willis said, laying a silver coin on the wooden counter. "It's a little more than yer mom and I discussed, but ya did good work. Don't be expectin' it every time, now."
A silver shell? Helix fought to keep a look of disdain off his face. Money had never been a problem in his family, not with the level of clientele his father kept. That's why it was so bizarre that his mother wanted him to get a job. Dad was paid a thousand of those for his last piece for Lord Locklyn. He talked about it for months.
He was about to shake his head, dumbfounded by his mother's odd behavior, when he realized Dad had sold that piece three years ago.
Has it really been that long?
"Smith?" Mellerson prompted.
"Sorry." Helix stuffed the coin into his pocket. "Thanks," he muttered.
"Yer mom said you could watch the counter in the morning for me, too. See ya at dawn, then?"
"M'sai," Helix agreed off-handedly as he started walking away. Then he turned back. "Wait, tomorrow morning?"
"Yuh."
Helix cursed silently. "For how long?"
"Oh, 'til about highsun."
He couldn't suppress a groan. Mellerson chortled. "She didn't tell ya, then?"
Helix shook his head.
"Well, you'd best work it out with her, 'cause I'm countin' on ya now. I'll be here long enough to check ya in and set ya up and then I'm headed over to Brogund's."
Helix sighed. "All right. Don't worry. I'll be here."
"There's a good boy."
~ ~
The common room was busier than usual. He saw Horace Brogund and Old Maid Betsy sharing a table (That ought to raise some eyebrows, he thought), Melachi of Locklyn drinking alone in a corner (As usual), and at a table near the door—
Helix drew up short. "As I breathe, if it's not Lyseira Rulano at the bar. And with some swarthy Northerner, no less."
Angbar chuckled while Lyseira, who had been hunched forward talking to him, startled straight. "I'm not 'at the bar,'" she said, flushing as she scooped a long curtain of hair away from her face. "I ordered a milk."
"'Swarthy Northerner?'" Angbar repeated. "I like that. Fancy talk for a smith's boy."
"Must be spending too much time around you," Helix threw back, and felt himself returning Angbar's grin. It was always hard not to. "And you may not be at the bar," he directed to Lyseira, "but you are in a bar, at least, milk or no." Teasing Lyseira was an old, comfortable garment; it slipped right on and put his father's questionable finances and the missed lake trip out of his mind.
Lyseira scowled. "You are a hopeless chunk of meat, Helix Smith."
Harsh, for Lyseira. He glanced a question at Angbar, who nodded acknowledgement, wincing.
"Lyseira was just telling me about the new abbot," Angbar said.
"He's not an abbot! For the love of winter, were you even listening to me at all?"
"Right, sorry. He's a—what did you say? A deacon?"
"A deacon," Lyseira echoed.
"Well, that's good," Helix offered. "Isn't it? I mean, a priest closer to your own age will be..." Her look withered the words on his tongue.
"He must be forty winters," Lyseira whispered, glancing around the room. "His left eye wanders. It's bizarre. And he..." Her mouth snapped shut, as if she'd suddenly realized she was speaking ill of a priest. She circled her heart with one hand, then glanced away, her hand darting to her eyes.
By Akir. Is she crying?
"Hey," Angbar said. "Come on, it can't be as bad as all that."
"He's not even sure he's going to let me stay on," she murmured. "He thinks a boy would be better. And he keeps looking..." Her lip curled; she shook her head. "He's horrid," she hissed.
"A boy?" Helix snorted. "He doesn't want me up there, I can tell him that."
This did nothing to cheer her up. He was about to try to change the subject when Lyseira spoke again.
"I'm getting too old, anyway. Most initiates—"
"Too old?" Angbar challenged, incredulous.
She spoke over him. "Most initiates start very young, eight winters, maybe as many as twelve, but sixteen?" She shook her head. "It's ridiculous. Akir wants me to do something else. I just wish He would've told me before I wasted sixteen winters on this."
Helix's breath caught. He'd never heard Lyseira like this. He looked again at Angbar, helpless.
Angbar's eyes drew into a scowl. "Rev'naas take that," he snapped. "You know what's going to happen? He's going to stumble around, blinder than Abbot Forthin ever was, for a few days, maybe as long as a week. Then he'll be at your door begging for help, and you'll have him by the balls."
Lyseira sighed. "I doubt it."
"You said this elderman's got over forty winters behind him, but he's still a deacon?" Angbar scoffed. "Lyseira, come on. If you'd performed a miracle at eight—and I know you didn't, m'sai, but if you had—you'd be a deacon yourself by now. He didn't stay an initiate for forty winters by being good at anything."
Lyseira considered this.
"I'll put copper on it," Angbar went on, slapping a copper heel on the table. "If he doesn't come crawling after you like a whipped dog in the next..." His hand groped for the right timeframe. "Call it one week, this money's yours."
"Gambling is wrong," Lyseira answered, but she looked somewhat mollified.
Helix fought down a relieved smile. There's the Lyseira I know. "No way I'm taking that bet," he put in. "I like my copper right where it is."
"You're both just trying to make me feel better," Lyseira accused.
"If the truth makes you feel better," Angbar rejoined in a mock imperious tone, "so be it."
~ ~
Helix stayed with his friends for maybe half an hour, keeping an eye open for Minda. When she failed to appear, he excused himself and headed home.
He found his mother in the living room, sewing in her favorite chair. His father had gotten it years ago.
For the first time, it occurred to Helix that it was a very nice chair. It was upholstered, with a thick, cozy cushion; its dark green fabric bore an intricate pattern of whorls. No one else in the village had
anything like it, except for Mister Mellerson, and Helix's family had two of them. At the moment his father was sitting in the other one, smoking a pipe.
The rug, too, he thought, taking in the broad runner that carpeted the family room. Even the front porch. Nobody has anything like them.
His mother looked up and smiled. "Hello, dear." Father, seated across from her, looked at him and nodded.
"Hi," Helix said, glancing at both of them. He set his things down just inside the door and crossed the room to his mother. "This is what he gave me," he said, handing her the silver shell. A sudden look of apprehension stole across her face; she glanced behind him toward his father. "He said it was more than you asked for."
She slid the coin from his hand, the color slowly draining from her cheeks. "Thank you, darling," she said.
"Bella." The word was a warning. Helix turned to see his father standing, his pipe clutched in one hand.
Mother drew herself up and looked her husband in the face. "We have no choice, Kevric. I know how you feel about this, but we have to—"
Father turned to Helix and cut her off. "Where have you been?"
"Uh—up at Mellerson's inn, helping with dishes and such." His father's vehemence took him completely off-guard.
"Oh? And how much did he pay you?"
"A silver shell," Helix answered.
Father whirled toward his wife. "A silver shell?"
"And we need every heel of it!" she answered, defiant. "Kevric Smith, you haven't sold a piece in a year and a half!"
Helix's father jerked a finger up in warning.
"We'll be lucky to have enough to buy food for the winter!"
"You are not turning my son into a housemaid!"
"No, you are! Because you weren't willing to do the work yourself!"
Father turned back to him, his face nearly glowing with fury. "Helix, you are not to go back to that place, do you understand me?"
Helix nodded, his mouth agape. Behind him, he heard the front door open. Syntal came in, her eyes taking in the scene uneasily. Bad timing, coz.
"And where have you been all night?" Kevric demanded.
"I was swimming," she said. "I fell asleep at the lake." She had a black ring that she twisted when she was nervous. She was twisting it now.
Father stared her down. "Get in your rooms. Both of you." Helix immediately obeyed; he saw Syntal scurrying behind him. He ducked into his room and beckoned for her to follow.
"What's going on?" Syntal said as he shut the door.
"I don't know. Mom asked me to help Will Mellerson in his kitchen tonight, and I guess Dad didn't know, because he exploded when he found out."
"What's so bad about you helping at the inn?" Syntal asked. She sounded exhausted; the words dribbled from her mouth like water from a dropped skin.
"Dad doesn't want me doing women's work," Helix said, but he sensed it was more than that. "Mellers gave me a silver shell for doing it. I gave it to Mom when I got home, and when Dad saw it, he got so mad I thought he was gonna pop a cork."
Syntal nodded.
"Mom said we don't have enough money for food for the winter," Helix said. This seemed to wake her up; Syntal locked eyes with him, anxiety painting her face.
There was something strange about her eyes, something that made Helix's stomach twist.
"She should've asked me," Syntal said. "I'd have done it too."
"Syn," he said. "What's wrong with your eyes?"
She glanced away. "What? Nothing."
"They have that weird look again."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
He wanted to grab her chin, to force her to look at him. "Were you looking at the book again?"
Her silence was all the confirmation he needed.
"Sehk. Syntal, you promised me."
"Helix, please, I don't—"
"There's a new abbot at the temple. He's not blind, Syn, he's gonna notice. By Akir, it's a wonder Mom and Dad didn't—"
"It goes away overnight. I just need to sleep." Her jaw cracked in a sudden yawn.
"I thought you were sleeping at the lake?" he accused, sharper than he'd intended.
She looked at him. Her green eyes seemed to command the space around them, to drink in his gaze like they were the only real thing in the room.
"It's nothing," she said, and slipped out.
iii. Iggy
Tonight, it would rain.
Some people got a pain in their bad knee when the air was changing. Some could smell a tang in the air. Ignatius Ardenfell could hear it in the wind, as clear as a voice whispering.
He closed his eyes as he stood alone beneath the trees, thanking the wind for the knowledge of the coming rain but trying to listen past it, for the subtle whisper of the saltleaf he was looking for.
Thanking the wind? Every now and then, the absurdity of his behavior struck him. He could only imagine what his father would say if he knew. But then, his father didn't understand. Nobody did.
The wind hadn't always spoken to him. He had spent years trying to deny that it was happening, and then years more denying when it had started. But this was the truth: the morning of the Storm, as his parents had stared skyward with terror in their eyes, he had heard the wind laughing.
He'd never heard a sound of such joy, then or since. It had sung and leapt, dancing across the plain like a child on the first morning of spring.
In the weeks after, the wind had whispered things to him and he'd shared its wisdom with his parents. He would casually mention that the horses were hungry, or that the rain would let up by midnight, and they would ignore him in the good-natured way that parents had.
Then Abbot Forthin had given the first of his sermons about the Storm.
The Church called it The Rending. It meant Akir was bringing judgment. The end was coming. Rev'naas, mankind's manifest sin, would soon consume everything, and only the righteous would know peace in death. For the rest, there was Hel.
"The world has changed," Iggy remembered him saying. "The world you knew is gone. This one is damned, and only Akir can save us."
Something had told Iggy to be quiet about the things the wind told him then.
The Storm transformed everything. It snowed in the month of Summermorn, and rained in the dead of winter. One day the sun reached its high point and stayed there until midnight, when it abruptly winked out. Iggy remembered wondering if it would come back.
The wolves of Veiling Green turned rabid, striking at travelers from the wood. Crops died overnight, or ripened as fast. For a time, every morning seemed to bring tales of new horrors from abroad, and each week's Dawnday sermon was an island of reason in a sea of madness.
The next year had brought the first stories of witches, miracle-workers who acted without the blessing of Akir and outside of the Church. They were hunted by the Tribunal and put down, no match for the might of the Church, but there were more stories the next year, and the next.
When Iggy was thirteen, as the weather grew stranger still and the insights the wind brought him continued to sharpen, Abbot Forthin had explained to the congregation how to tell a warlock. He read, from the book of Gilleus, the old story of Iis-alac and the witch, "whose eyes were like lanterns before dusk."
Iggy had checked a mirror every day since. But whether due to good luck or Akir's grace, his plain, hazel eyes always stared back at him.
The weather never returned to normal, but there were good years and bad years. The Tribunal's witch hunts grew more frequent. In the worst stretches he would hear of a new one every couple months, though thankfully never in Southlight. It always happened in some far-flung big city: Shientel, or Keswick, or Tal'aden.
All the same, when the world failed to end, life went on. Farmers kept planting, and usually they were successful. Children were born; old folks died; people grew up and moved away. Someone struck by one of the Storm's arbitrary calamities went to the temple for censure, tithed extra, and prayed for better luck the next season. And e
ventually, Iggy had grown daring enough to mention his insights, though he always couched them in vague references to how the clouds looked or how the air smelled.
There. It was quiet, a murmur beneath the clamor of the coming rain, but it was unmistakable. Delicate and beautiful as a spider's web at dawn: the song of the saltleaf.
Putting old thoughts behind him, Iggy hitched up his pack and started into the woods.
~ ~
Saltleaf grew like crabgrass: long and low to the ground, with five thin, forked leaves. He knelt in the patch and pulled out his knife, cutting one leaf expertly from each plant. He left the stem and the other leaves, though he knew his father and others who cut wild saltleaf typically just took the whole thing. The leaves kept longer that way at home, but it killed the plant. He didn't want to do that. There was no need.
He had paused, calculating how many leaves his mother would need for the week, when the wind cried out and an animal roared.
He jerked his head toward the noise. A copse of bushes, sandwiched between two giant trees, rocked like a ship in a storm. The roar dissolved into a tortured yelp.
A bear. He heard it in the wind at once. Its leg is caught in a pair of steel teeth, like a mouth that leapt from a cover of grass.
He circled the copse and approached from the rear. The bear was a huge black, easily six feet tall, its leg a bloody mess from the rusted metal sunk into the flesh. It heaved, trying to get away, and its roar again became a yowl of pain.
It's going to tear its foot off, Iggy thought, and held out his hand. "Stop it!" he called, as he saw the bear crouching to try again. The animal turned to him, desperation plain in its face. "You're making it worse."
The bear's paws fumbled at its leg as a growl burned in its throat. It didn't understand. Get out of here, Iggy told himself. You'll get yourself killed. For the love of winter, it's just a bear.
Then he caught a hint of the bear's pain through the wind, and realized how senseless this was to the animal. It had sprung a random trap, old and forgotten, and because of man's lazy malice it may never walk easily again. Things like this happened all the time in the woods. Casual injustices, inflicted as easily as men could walk.
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