Solem

by Clive S. Johnson

  More tutting.

  “Even now, we’re only going to make it to Athergap; the days are still short.” Sharman stared at the girl’s white face, stark beneath a splay of jet black lashes. Her small nose had a tinge of grey to it, a glistening trail leading from her nostril as though a snail had been visiting. Unblemished skin—maybe a sixteen- or seventeen-year-old’s—led his gentle gaze to her full, slightly parted but blue lips.

  “Oh well,” he breezed as he sat up straight, slapping his knees, “I’m sure you’ve lots to be getting on with, Dwelgefa. We’ll take our leave now and—”

  “Like ‘eckers you will,” and Fulmer scowled at them both. “You’ve sprung this one on me, so you can damn well stay and give me a hand with it.”

  “But—”

  “First off: you can help me sort out my bilancis. Come on,” and he leapt to his feet. “And bring that with you; jiggered if I’m going to do my own back in; bad enough with kids.”

  In the manner they’d brought it in from the cart, Sharman and Craith slid the roll from the table and slung it between them, following Fulmer out through the backdoor. He led them to the lean-to but then down a short flight of steps to a path that ran below the pigsty. Sharman noticed some of the handful of pigs snuffling around beneath the lean-to, under a seat into which a now-stained hole had long ago been cut.

  “Remind me never to accept bacon or ham from him,” he mumbled to Craith, who was too busy trying to keep hold of the feet end of the roll to answer.

  Tucked against the forest at the edge of the clearing, a large timber shed now lay open, Fulmer finishing off propping its doors back as they shuffled in with the roll. Inside rose a mountain of disparate items; cut logs, old chairs, a chest of drawers, a plethora of gardening instruments, two stone sinks, a stack of cartwheels, and a whole host of other less identifiable objects that sank into obscurity the further in Sharman peered. They set the canvas roll down just inside the door, the only space available.

  Craith’s mouth had already dropped open, his wide eyes like saucers as he stared around in wonder. “By ‘eck,” he gasped, “but you’ve an ‘oard o’ crap in ‘ere.”

  Fulmer looked affronted. “All useful stuff I’ll have you know,” he insisted, “one of the most useful of which is down here,” and he started pulling rolls of rope out from one side of the shed. “Here,” he said to Craith, “make yourself useful and stack these over there…no, not there, further over. We need to keep it clear here,” and he pointed at the canvas roll.

  It took some time, and a growing pile of “useful stuff” heaped outside, before Fulmer clapped his hands and yelped, “Ah, here we are.”

  First out was a big wooden box full of large stones, each one, it seemed, bearing an inscribed mark. Then came a length of plank, one large and one small square board set at either end. Only when Fulmer toppled onto his backside did the final part emerge, still grasped in his hands. After groaning and rubbing his rear for a moment, he placed the triangular frame neatly in the only space left free: beside the canvas roll. Fulmer then placed the plank across a blade set at the apex of the frame, shaking it to make sure it slotted into place. When he let go and stood back, the plank pivoted down at one end, clunking against the ground.

  “Bugger,” he said before freeing a clamp by the smallest board and pushing it in a short way. This time, when he let go of the plank, it remained level for a few seconds before slowly sinking once more.

  “It’ll do,” he said, now beaming at Sharman, and particularly at Craith. “Right, you two: stick the roll on the big board.”

  “Eh?” Craith said.

  “But it won’t fit on there,” Sharman added.

  “It will if you put it face down, but make sure the ends don’t touch the ground when it’s up in the air.”

  Sharman and Craith stared at one another for a moment before shrugging.

  The roll in place, as best they could arrange it, Fulmer placed each stone from the box on the other end of the bilancis. After putting the last one on, nothing happened, the roll still resolutely at the lowest end.

  Fulmer let out an exasperated breath. “I thought that might be the case. Buggered if I know what to do now,” and he sat down dejectedly on a beer barrel.

  “I take it this is important?” Sharman said, rubbing his chin. Fulmer only lifted his gaze to the roof. “Well, it’s simple then. Here you go. Come on, Dwelgefa; get up,” and Fulmer frowned but did as asked.

  Sharman removed all the stones then rolled the girl off the board and onto the floor, replacing her with the barrel. When five of the stones were added to the other end, the plank lifted the barrel as the stones themselves gently descended.

  “Five stones,” Sharman announced before removing the barrel and all the stones once more. He rolled the girl back onto the large board and placed the barrel this time on the other end of the plank, where it remained aloft. The addition of three stones finally lifted the canvas roll until the weighted end slowly lowered and softly struck the ground.

  “Well, bugger me,” Fulmer marvelled as he clapped his hands, but then he frowned. “So…what does it mean?”

  “She weighs a barrel and three stones,” Craith said, drawing four pairs of wide eyes to stare at him. “A five stone barrel and three stones,” he said, a rare glint in his eye, “so she’s the same as eight stones…or a bit less,” he corrected as he looked at the tipped end of the bilancis.

  “The dolt’s right, you know,” Fulmer finally enthused, surprising Sharman. “Somewhere between seven and eight stones. Ah, but then…” and he ran his hand over his head and through his sparse hair. “I did say this was going to be ‘highly irregular’, didn’t I? Well…it’s a damn sight worse than that.”

  Back in the house, the roll once again laid diagonally across the table top and only a little worse for wear, Fulmer slumped into his chair for a second time. He glanced at Sharman but soon turned his attention to Craith.

  “Maybe your astute mind for numbers can come up with a solution to my next problem,” but Craith’s brow only resumed its usual deep furrowing. Fulmer opened a drawer beneath the table and slid out a long varnished-wood box which he placed before himself, beside the girl. He unlatched and lifted its lid so, when turned to them, they could see its contents.

  It contained four rows of small glass phials, each holding what looked like a white, crystalline powder. Above each row, inscribed on the underside of the lid, were each of the numbers between “2” and “5”.

  Fulmer leant over the box and pointed at them. “Which one of these I use is determined by how many stones each demon equals.”

  “And we now know,” Craith confidently said as he tapped his finger on the girl’s forehead, “that this one is the same as eight…or a bit less.”

  “Which isn’t written here,” Fulmer said, running his finger along the range of numbers.

  “No,” Sharman said, “but why can’t you just put one ‘5’ and one ‘3’ together and use them?”

  “Probably nearer a ‘5’ and a ‘2’,” Craith said, drawing his brows together, “seeing t’barrel and t’roll were both tipped up.”

  Dwelgefa Fulmer turned the box around to face himself and stared at the numbers, stared for a long time, long enough for Sharman once again to turn his own gaze out through the window. He breathed in heavily and slowly shook his head until his gaze fell on Craith.

  The lad shrugged and returned a flat grin. “I don’t think we’re going to make Athergap,” he quietly said, voicing Sharman’s own thoughts.

  “Hmm,” Fulmer rumbled, “then I suppose I’m going to have to find you somewhere to doss down here.”

  “As long as it’s not in the shed,” Craith grumbled, but then seemed instinctively to duck his head.

  “Certainly not; that’s for important things, like my Gryffic gear…and other stuff.” Fulmer drummed his fingers on the table top, beside the box of phials, and pressed his lips together as Sharman and Craith let their gaze wander disparag
ingly around the room.

  “Right,” Fulmer startled them by saying, “devil and the deep blue sea, and all that.”

  “Eh?” Craith naturally uttered.

  “Doing nothing isn’t an option. So…so all I can do is as you’ve suggested,” and he prised out a “2” and a “5” phial, standing them on the table top before closing the lid of the box. “Then, once I’m done, I can get stuck into preparing us all some pork.”

  Before Sharman could protest, Fulmer pushed his chair back, rose and stooped over the roll. “You can save me a job by unrolling this,” he told them, patting the canvas, “while I get on with this.”

  By the time Sharman and Craith had unlaced the canvas and rolled it back, the dwelgefa had uncorked both phials and poured their contents onto a large wooden spoon.

  “By Solem,” he breathed when he at last looked down at the girl, “she certainly isn’t a kid, not by a long chalk.”

  “Or two at least,” Craith snorted as he angled his stare down her top.

  “Right. Sharman? You open her mouth and lift her tongue out of the way.”

  “You what?”

  “You heard me; lift her tongue clear.”

  Sharman glanced at Craith and probably wished he hadn’t—the fool only grinned back.

  Wiping his hands down his smock, Sharman tentatively pushed the girl’s chin down, her mouth easily falling open. With his other hand, he prised her dry tongue towards the roof of her mouth.

  “Make a bit of room,” Fulmer told him and then brought the tip of the laden spoon to her lower lip, smoothly tipping in its charge of glistening white powder.

  “Finger out and tongue back down,” the dwelgefa instructed, finally lifting the girl’s chin himself to close her mouth. “That’s it…for now at least. Time to get that pork on, and for you two to go get your donkey and put it in my goat paddock. It’ll be happy enough in there.”

  Sharman and Craith both stared dumbly down at the girl’s face as Fulmer put the box of phials away in its drawer and wandered out of the room, but then he popped his head back in.

  “There’ll be nothing to see for a couple of hours at least, so, once you’ve got your donkey in, you may as well get yourselves a beer each, and one for me.” He smiled at their blank expressions. “I’ll be back with a side of pork in a—”

  An ear-splitting scream laced the room and Sharman’s heart leapt as pain seared through his nether regions, stinging heat racing to his belly. As his vision wavered and he doubled over, he came face to face with the girl. Her bloodshot eyes stared straight through him, her mouth agape, foam filled, a rise of gargling air flecking his face before yet another scream erupted. A sharp head-butt finally knocked Sharman senseless.

  10 What’s in a Name

  “Convulsions,” Fulmer told Sharman as he again tried to lift his head. “She’s given you a nasty bruise to your forehead but there’s no bleeding.”

  “It’s not my…argh, shit! Not…not my head I’m worried about.”

  “I think she kneed you in the goolies when she doubled up,” Craith supplied. “Whipped round like a birch rod she did.”

  “Do you think you could get off my floor now?” Fulmer said, slipping his arm behind Sharman’s shoulders and nodding at Craith.

  “I don’t think I can—” Before he knew it, they’d hoisted him onto his wobbly legs and guided him to a chair where he sat, hunched forward, groaning.

  When his tears had cleared enough to see, the girl’s face once again lay before him—just not quite as close this time. She lay on her side, half off the table, her knees gripped to her chest. Sharman tried to sit up, to distance himself, but quite literally couldn’t tackle it. He dragged his gaze from the girl’s blank stare and looked up at Fulmer.

  “You could’ve warned us.”

  “Never happened before.”

  “Never?”

  “No. They always remain stone-still.”

  “Then why—”

  “Er, well,” and he looked anywhere but at Sharman, “I think it might be something to do with mixing those two phials together; that’s my guess, anyway.”

  Sharman turned his gaze back to the girl’s eyes. Like the rest of her, they hadn’t moved, just a drip of foam from her mouth steadily pooling on the table.

  “Is she likely to do it again?” Sharman asked, groaning as he shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

  “Don’t know.”

  “She looks peaceful enough now,” Craith ventured.

  “She looks dead,” Sharman offered.

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” and Fulmer tentatively snatched strands of the girl’s disarrayed hair from before her face. “At least, I hope not,” and he stooped a little nearer to peer into her eyes.

  That evening, they ate their servings of pork—or pushed it around the wooden platter in Sharman’s case—from their knees, not wanting to risk it being dashed from the table by another of the girl’s convulsions. She had, though, remained unchanged throughout, even when, much later and after a few more beakers of beer each, Fulmer took up the only lamp. He invited Sharman and the lad to an unused room at the front of the building.

  “I’ve found you some draymen’s sacks,” he announced as he showed them in, “and stuffed them with as much leaf litter as I could find in such short order. Best I could do.”

  To either side of the otherwise bare room, two large sacks lay on the earthen floor.

  “Found in your shed, I take it,” Craith mumbled.

  “Told you it was full of ‘useful stuff’,” and Fulmer’s closely lamp lit face beamed at the lad.

  A loud crash and a clatter came from the other room, and for a moment they stared at each other before dashing back.

  The girl lay on the stone floor beside the now shifted table, amidst an upturned chair and the contents of the table’s drawer, the box of phials amongst them. She groaned, her eyes tight closed, one hand clutching at the table leg, as though she were trying to lever herself up. Craith reached her first, but then froze, clearly unsure. He flashed a look at Fulmer.

  “Get her a beaker of water,” the dwelgefa barked as he put the lamp down on the table and pushed the fallen chair out of the way, crunching through the cutlery and other assorted knickknacks that had spilled from the table’s drawer. “Here, give me a hand,” he directed at Sharman.

  Between them, they carried her, mumbling and dribbling, through to the previous room, Craith close behind carrying the lamp and the water. They lowered her onto one of the sacks, where, despite it looking plumped, she came hard against the floor. Sharman shifted her up, so her back came against the wall, before Craith put the lamp on the floor and passed him the beaker.

  “Here you are, lass; see if you can get some of this down you,” and Sharman held the lip of the beaker against her own.

  Her eyes still closed fast, it was as though she’d smelt the water for she opened her mouth and tipped her head towards it. Sharman carefully angled the beaker but most spilled down her chin as she thirstily gulped what she could; then she retched, bringing it all back up and down Sharman’s arm. When her head tipped back against the wall, her tongue eagerly sought what water still wetted her lips.

  “Try again, my dear,” Fulmer softly coaxed then nodded at Sharman. This time she kept a couple of mouthfuls down, but Fulmer held Sharman’s hand back from offering more. “Let’s take it easy, eh? Mustn’t rush it.”

  The girl nodded slightly as she sucked in her lips a few times, noisily but emptily swallowing.

  “Before you have another,” Fulmer now no more than whispered as he leaned in closer, “I want you to open your eyes and look at me, hmm? Do you think you can do that for me?”

  Sharman shot him an inquisitive look.

  “Come on, dear, just a peek; so you know who I am.”

  When Sharman frowned and opened his mouth to speak, the dwelgefa briefly shook his head and raised a finger.

  “So you know you’re safe with your Uncle Derek, my little one,” an
d Fulmer’s voice had somehow softened, become more melodic than spoken. “So soft is the surety of such sweet safety, eh, my pretty one, my dove; mellow in the midst of dearest family and friends…”

  Sharman had to blink and hold his head from nodding forward as Fulmer continued to pour his words like honey into the girl’s clearly receptive ears. Her lids flickered, a glint of lamplight reflected in the crack that appeared beneath them, then she screwed them tight, breathed in deeply and opened them wide.

  Tears spilled from them for a moment before she snatched her arm across them, mewling in pain as she flicked her face away from the lamp.

  Fulmer’s “What?” drew Sharman’s gaze, and he saw shock on the dwelgefa’s face, shock and confusion. He seemed quick to gather his thoughts, though.

  “What’s wrong, Susan? Eh, my dear? You can tell your Uncle Derek.”

  The girl now threw both her arms across her eyes as she turned to his voice, bowed her head, and in a cracked and whispered voice, pined, “Pain; pain in my eyes,” and broke into bitter sobbing.

  “I think,” Fulmer quietly told the boy, “you’d best go bring our beers through. I think it’s the safest place for Susan for the time being, and I don’t want to leave her alone, not again.”

  “I’ll stay with her,” Craith immediately offered, but Fulmer would have none of it.

  “Hmm, I’ll go with you,” Sharman said, “and you can help me tidy up a bit first.” He picked up the lamp as he got up. “You be all right in the dark?” to which Fulmer only nodded, not taking his eyes from the girl.

  Back in the other room, between them they turned the table so its legs once more stood on the cleaner patches of the stone floor they’d previously hidden. As they searched for its drawer’s contents, Craith said, “So it’s Derek then?”

  “What? Oh, no, no it’s not, and that’s why I wanted to have a private word with you: the dwelgefa’s name’s Chracchen; Chracchen Fulmer. I’ve no idea why he’s telling her he’s her Uncle Derek.”

  “Eh?”