by A. R. Wilson
Heluska stood up. If it were possible for smiles to shine then that was the moment Tascana saw it for the first time. Heluska briskly walked into the kitchen area.
“Grab a towel, Daughter. We can carry this pot between the two of us over to Kidelar’s house. It isn’t that far. We should probably bring some bowls and spoons too.”
“Why do you assume that he expects us to bring dinner to him?”
With hands on her hips, Heluska turned back laughing. “What were his exact words?”
Good, it worked. She believed nothing was out of the ordinary. “He said, ‘If your mother doesn’t have a stew waiting then we will find something to prepare’.”
“Exactly. Thank you for proving my point. Now grab that towel over there.”
Doing as she was told, she followed Heluska’s lead in gathering the needed items to transport dinner to their neighbor. They walked to Kidelar’s in silence. Tascana felt certain her mother was delighted the two of them were simply doing something, anything, together. Possibly even telling herself not to the spoil the moment with questions. Praise the Fates!
Kidelar stood waiting in his doorway as they approached.
“I knew I could count on you.” He stepped forward to hold the door open for them.
“We always have plenty. Happy to share with a friend.” Heluska placed her pot on the corner of a table next to three piles of books. Smiling, she served up three bowls and passed them out.
Kidelar rushed into a lengthy discussion about whether they were in for a heavier than usual snow this winter. Sighting things such as certain flowers blooming earlier back in the spring, the length of time since the last really big storm, the color of ferns compared to last year, and on and on with other pointless details.
Heluska was polite enough to act as though she cared about the subject. Twice she tried to say it was getting late, and both times Kidelar continued as though he never heard her.
Tascana remained patient through it all by visually perusing the piles of books. The one she wanted was somewhere in those stacks.
Eventually, Kidelar apologized for the late hour and offered to let the women stay the night. As soon as Heluska agreed, Tascana insisted on going straight to bed. It would only take a short nap to rest up from the day’s events and sneak in to go through the library stacks.
* * *
When Tascana woke during the night, hands fidgeting with anticipation, she carefully sat up from the bed she shared with her mother. Looking out the door, Tascana saw the light from a lamp still burned in the other room. She tiptoed down the hallway to find Kidelar sitting in a chair with three open books in his lap.
He spoke softly without looking up. “I wondered how long you would wait.”
“You must have ears like a cat.”
“Actually, I had almost given up on you sidling out here to look at this.” He lifted a book from the top of the pile on his lap.
She stayed in the entrance to the hallway. The other chair sat conspicuously empty and turned at an angle to face him. When he bid her come, she complied, drawn by her desire to read what was on that page.
“There is only one detailed encounter with a goblin in any of these books. Written on two loose pages, dated over a hundred years ago by an unnamed author. Somehow, it found its way tucked perfectly into the pages of a book on oracles in my home. There are a few narratives of brief observations made by trackers from about the same time, but nothing else.”
“What happened? What did it do?”
Kidelar took a deep breath. “I will tell you the story on one condition. We are going to discuss the scrolls you found.”
“We already talked about that scroll, a long time ago.” Muscles flexed along his jaw in such a way that she knew he would not listen to her side-stepping this time. “But, I will tell you whatever I can.”
His eyes held the same reservation from years ago when he asked her if there were other scrolls. “This is important. Perhaps, once you have learned what transpired the last time a goblin wandered through this land, you will agree with me.”
“So what’s the tale? What happened?”
Kidelar gave another sigh.
The story began with a litany of remorse and guilt from the author’s desire to make an account of something he swore never to reveal. And Kidelar read every word of it before advancing to the actual story.
Late one night, the unnamed came to the home of a healer assisting two injured men. The author sat at the bedside of the lesser injured. As the night progressed, he worked to keep the man calm as he slipped in and out of consciousness. The injured man’s ramblings spoke of a group of hunters traveling through the ghostwoods. They had stumbled upon a goblin.
Since there were seven of the men and one goblin, they decided to attack. The goblin killed all but two of them: the two men lying ripped and torn on the sickbeds of the healer. During one of his screaming rants, the semi-conscious man claimed the goblin told them, “You cannot interfere. This marks the beginning of the prophecy!”
The account went on to claim the wounds were almost beyond their healer’s ability to mend. As though the wounds themselves were resisting attempts to stitch them together, taking unusually long to scab over. Almost as if the tears in the men’s flesh were alive.
A few days later, the survivors seemed to regain their strength even with the badly healing wounds. As the days wore on, the men began to act irritable.
Physical changes came upon them as well. Tufts of dense hair sprouted from the waist down. Their skin became ashen and gray. It wasn’t long before the healer concluded the creature in Gaulden had somehow infected them in a way that caused them to change into goblins themselves.
This led to the decision to kill the wounded to prevent further infection. After their funeral pyre burned out, the healer and all assistants were put into quarantine. The leaders had to be certain no one else contracted the disease.
More words of sorrow and distress followed toward the bottom of the page as the unnamed author begged forgiveness from whoever found this account. He never forgave himself for being the hands that helped take the lives of two gravely ill men.
Kidelar leaned forward, the open book shifting on his lap. “If this story is true, then it means 100 years ago, a goblin killed five men and was instrumental in the death of two others. That goblin was here on a mission to mark the beginning of a prophecy. In the same woods where you found those scrolls.”
Tascana bit the inside of her cheek. This was not what she expected. Taking down a wolf was one thing. Killing five grown men armed with full hunting gear and critically injuring two others was an entirely different matter.
Swallowing hard, she tried to push the searing lump of dread back down.
The pull of the scrolls, the ease with which she translated them, the buildup of magic within. Everything she had pursued for the last three years. Had it all been a ruse set up by a goblin?
“That goblin was the start of something in our land. Now, this parchment does not give any details as to what that is.” Kidelar slipped the sheet back into the book and closed it. “Things of this nature usually mean magic is involved. For this author to know what to call the creature and to mention where it came from says this is not the only time in our history a goblin crossed into our borders.”
The lines on his face deepened as he continued. “It would not be prudent for a goblin to travel all this way to hide a single piece of parchment. There would need to be several more, and they would need to hold significant information to be worth the effort. A cache of scrolls to lure someone into becoming a pawn of something dark. Which brings us to the ones you found.”
He paused with his hands spread out in front of him.
She wracked her brain, trying to find something to pull him away from guessing her secret. “What if that scroll I gave you had something worth hiding on it? Were you able to translate it?”
He closed his hands over the books in his lap. “No, which is why I handed it over to o
ne of the Grand Wizards. The one I spoke to would only inform me it contained dark magic.”
The hot knot within Tascana continued to burn. Strings of heat twisted in her chest as though a seed of doubt had sprung forth into thorny vines of fear. There had to be another explanation. Her magic was not dark or evil. It was simply magic. What she practiced in Gaulden wasn’t evil!
“Tascana, where did you retrieve that scroll? And don’t tell me it was in the forest somewhere. I want to know specifically where and how many.”
The stinging vines tightened around her heart. He had to be wrong. If he was right, that meant she had to give up all those scrolls, admit to training in secret, be punished by the Grand Wizards, accept that a goblin wanted to track her down, and ultimately face her father’s reaction to all of this.
No, it was a lie. Kidelar was jealous of her. Somehow he knew she translated the other scrolls and wanted to trick her into admitting it because he couldn’t decipher the one he had. Well, she wasn’t going to fall for it. None of it.
“That was three years ago. How do you expect me to remember a walk I took in the woods way back then?”
“Because we are going before the Council tomorrow afternoon. Both of us, you and me. And they will insist on a full investigation into this matter.”
“The goblin described on that parchment left and never returned. Why do we have to go to the Council?”
“Because silence has the potential to be deadly when we do not comprehend the power of the words we hold within us.”
His eyes stared at her without a hint of fatigue.
One way or another, she would have to do this. If she complied with Kidelar’s desire to speak to the Council then she could at least try to claim she had nothing to hide. It would be weeks or months before anyone allowed her to be alone in the woods again, but eventually, she could go back to study that eleventh scroll. Once word came back that the goblin was gone then life would go back to way it was. The way it was meant to be.
“If you think it best, then I will go with you to speak to the Council.”
“We need to discuss the scrolls first.”
“I already told you everything I can about the one I found.”
“And the others?”
“What others?”
It was hard to tell if the look on his face was frustration or resolve.
CHAPTER 5
Jurren leaned over to grab the pitcher of water at his bedside. Tilting it back to take a drink, he noticed movement. A small, brown mouse had the misfortune of falling inside. The slow motion of its legs indicated it was at the last of its strength.
“What a way to start the day, eh?”
Fishing the mouse from the pitcher, he debated whether or not to give it to Zemarick. It had fought so fiercely to stay alive; it seemed a cruel irony to rescue him only to take his life. With a smile and a shake of the head, Jurren placed the mouse on the ground and watched it stumble its way into the corner.
He reached for his travel pack then remembered he no longer had one. Images of the fight and ensuing fire sparked across his vision. They needed to get home.
Tossing the room key onto the mantle, he headed outside to find his companions.
A familiar screech came from above, and Jurren raised his arm to receive Zemarick. The raptor chirped a greeting to him. Jurren stroked his feathers, grateful for the distraction from going home empty-handed. At least he still had his favorite pet.
In the restaurant, much to his surprise, Ellam and Arkose sat in front of three plates. Jurren had planned on getting a few sandwiches for them to eat on the road then heading to wake the other men. As soon as they looked up, he gestured to them it was time to leave. They simply motioned back at their food. With Zemarick still perched on his arm, Jurren walked to their table.
“We ordered you some breakfast.” Ellam pointed to the untouched plate of eggs and sausage.
“I didn’t know you cared, old man.”
“I was hoping you would sleep in so I would have an excuse to eat two meals.”
“Well, shove it down. We need to get going.”
“I think we should take the long way home.” Arkose stared into his plate, shoulders hunched. “I don’t want to run into any more trouble.”
“We don’t have any way of knowing where they will or won’t be.” Ellam gestured again at Jurren to sit down to eat.
Their eyes met for a few moments before Jurren forced himself to sit.
“It’s a week’s travel to get home if we take the road around Gaulden.” Jurren pushed half a sausage into his mouth.
Arkose started massaging his temples. “My soul can’t take another night like that. They were only kids.”
Jurren swallowed his half-chewed sausage, nearly choked, then scooped up one of the eggs. “They weren’t kids.”
“Okay, they were young men, but that —”
“No. They weren’t.” Dropping his tone, he leaned closer to Arkose to avoid the listening ears of other patrons coming in for a morning meal. “When I grabbed that boy Kase — like this — I noticed an odor on him. It was unlike any smell I have encountered on a person before. It wasn’t filth, it wasn’t sweat, and it wasn’t food. I don’t know what it was, but it wasn’t human.”
Ellam was on his elbows, straining to hear. “What’s this all about? Are you trying to say Kase was under the influence of something?”
“I’m not saying anything, exactly.” Jurren shoveled the last of his eggs into his mouth and pushed the plate away. “I am only saying that in my heart I do not think he was human, and it worries me to have such thoughts. People do not smell like that. And they especially do not act like that. Not in these lands.”
“I smelled it too, but I wouldn’t say it meant they were not human.” Arkose dropped his hands into his lap.
“Maybe a better way to word it would be I sensed something unhuman about them.” Jurren stood up and waited for his friends to do the same.
Arkose came up to eye level with Jurren and spoke loud enough to turn a few heads. “I do not want to take the road through Gaulden Forest. It’s too risky.”
“Keep your voice down.” He stepped close and grabbed the man’s wrist.
With an overly gracious smile, Ellam stood and tilted his head to the side as he walked toward the front door. Jurren let go by shoving Arkose’s hand in Ellam’s direction. Outside, they marched toward the stables around the back of the inn. Once out of sight of passersby, Jurren took hold of Arkose’s arm and spun him around.
“Are you trying to get us taken into custody? Shevenor told us to keep this silent.”
“Stating a preferred path is not breaking our vow.”
“It is when you say it loud enough to turn heads at six different tables. We have the eyes of all Kovarilos on us. I cannot afford a single one of them pointing us out. My family is counting on me to be home in two days.”
“Not everyone has that luxury.”
Great, he picked a fine time to open his mouth about that one.
When Arkose lost his wife while delivering their stillborn child, Jurren empathized with the loss. As the weeks and months passed, Arkose refused to talk about it with anyone, and Jurren defended his grieving. No man should have to speak of such things if they didn’t want to or couldn’t. Countless times, Arkose abruptly left a gathering when talk turned to weddings, funerals, or pregnancies. Of all the times to finally vocalize the burden of such a loss, he had to pick this moment. Today of all days he chose to break his silence.
Jurren took a deep breath, searching his gut instinct. They needed to hurry home. Something was coming, and they needed time to prepare. He gave Zemarick a few whistles then raised his arm to encourage the bird to forage.
“I have stood by you all these years, Arkose. Your loss was mine when the world ripped out from under you, for my old friend has not returned since that day.” He watched the hard lines on the man’s face soften. “We all hate what happened the other night, but running i
n fear will not prevent it from happening again. I learned something else last night, though I dare not tell you about it here. Trust me when I say we must choose the shortest course. Time is not our ally.”
Arkose ran a hand along his shaved head, lowering his eyes. “I do not want this course. But I trust you.”
With hand extended, Jurren waited for him to look up. “May I never lose that trust.”
Ellam waved at Jurren. The horses were ready to be secured to the wagon, and the job always went faster with extra hands.
They set to work and rode out of town within the hour. Arkose requested to take the reins for the first leg of the trip so he could have something to do with his hands. The other men agreed. Ellam sat on top of the sixteen barrels of grape wine he traded yesterday for the strawberry wine, while Jurren sat next to Arkose. Zemarick circled back around before they entered Gaulden Forest, and Jurren moved him to sit on the wagon’s post.
When Arkose flicked the reins to push the horses into a faster pace, Jurren said nothing and was glad Ellam remained silent on the matter. Protocol in Gaulden dictated horses stay at a walk except in extreme emergency. This leg of their trip was not an emergency, but it was still putting them at risk.
As morning waned through, he saw the tell-tale broken branches where they untangled the horses after the fire. Dark splotches in the dirt hinted of blood.
Up ahead, a man signaled them to sweep a wide berth around the shelter in the ghostwood tree they had stayed in two nights ago. He spoke in a cautionary tone as he pointed.
“Keep to the right, please. An investigation is going on.”
Arkose seemed glad for the excuse to avert his eyes and keep moving forward. Jurren put a fist to his chest and bowed his head in respect.
A few minutes later, the spatters on the road disappeared. Either the thieves were not badly injured or they had fled into the forest away from the main road. If only the men had a way of knowing how far the youths had gone.
Back in Kovarilos when Ellam offered to sit in the rear, Jurren initially thought it a great idea. Having the keener eyesight, he was a better lookout to what was ahead than Ellam. Now, with the ghostwood shelter behind them, Jurren second-guessed his intuition. Would the young thieves try to attack them from ahead or from behind?