by NS Dolkart
Hunter jerked his head toward the door. “Let’s go then.”
They walked over to the gatehouse together, Psander carrying along a wooden torch. Criton was about to take it from her when Bandu said, “Wait. Where is Goodweather’s seed?”
Psander stiffened. “It will remain in my library until you come back,” she said. “I will need to study it for longer if we are to be successful. It would only weigh you down on your journey.”
“Don’t worry,” said Phaedra, coming to the wizard’s defense. “Psander is right. It’ll be easier if we don’t have to carry it around. We were planning to use it here anyway.”
Narky frowned. “And if Magor tears this place down before we get back? It would be good to have some fallback, wouldn’t it?”
“That’s a risk you’ll have to take,” the wizard said with finality. “The seed stays here.”
She didn’t trust them, Criton realized. They had never failed her once, and yet Psander, the woman who had fooled the Gallant Ones into serving her, and whose fortress had devoured an entire village, did not trust them. The thought infuriated him.
Still, what could he do? The wizard thrust the torch into his hands and walked back toward the tower door.
“Come back with your king,” she called over her shoulder, as she closed the door behind her. “You do not have long.”
“Well,” said Narky, “I guess that settles that. Let’s get on with it.”
Criton blew gently on the torch and a flame sprang up on its end. At the gate itself, they stopped and lit their candles. When that was done, Criton placed the torch in a sconce, opened the gate and stepped out into the daylight.
The Ardisian guards stood before him, staring straight through him without any recognition. The army bustled noisily behind them. Men and horses were carrying cut logs into camp from the forest, to be sawed and carved and hammered by their comrades into something new. Ladders. Criton looked to the others to see if they saw what he saw, but they had vanished. He was standing alone.
“Bandu?” he whispered. “Are you still here?”
“Yes,” her voice came back, from only a few feet ahead. “We go now. Candles don’t burn long.”
“Try to go due east,” said Hunter’s voice. “We’ll regroup when the army’s no longer in sight.”
Criton nodded, then realized that they could not see him. He sighed, and, shielding the candle flame with his hand, strode for the enemy ranks.
Luckily, the Ardismen were far louder in the day than during the night. Criton slipped between tents, wagons and workers without so much as a single one of them noticing him. He dodged a pair of soldiers as they nearly walked into him, then turned and hopped to one side as a horse trampled by. Even so, his progress was swift. Soon he was halfway through the camp, and his candle had barely burned down by a quarter. He silently congratulated Psander for her excellent work. This was going quite well, so far.
He stopped at the sound of Bestillos’ voice. He spun around to find the priest standing not far to his left, talking to Charos of the Gallant Ones.
“We’ve caught them now,” the priest said. Then he turned and looked directly at Criton.
Criton froze under his gaze, and his throat seemed to swell shut. Psander’s magic hadn’t worked after all – the red priest was too powerful even for her.
“Hey you!” Bestillos called to him. “Yes you, fool. Come here.”
There was so much power in his voice that Criton began to obey. Yet he had only taken a single, unwilling step when a voice behind him suddenly said, “I’m sorry, Your Holiness. How may I serve you?”
Understanding came to him slowly, and Criton only barely leapt aside in time to avoid colliding with the young man who had been standing behind him. He was so close that he felt the man’s shirt sleeve brush against his arm as he walked by. Criton’s throat reopened. Bestillos hadn’t seen him after all!
His nerve left him, and he fled. He ran, leaping over obstacles and dodging between soldiers as he sped through the camp. His candle nearly went out as he ran, but he lifted it to his mouth and kept it alive with his own flame. The hot wax dripped down onto the scales of his hand. The whole thing would melt before he got out of here!
He forced himself to slow down, but it was too late. In his hurry he had already melted the candle to a tiny nub, and he hadn’t even left the camp yet. He considered simply running or flying onward, trying to escape despite his visibility, but that would be disastrous. It would spark a chase and a search that could only end up with the others, at least, being captured. He thought too about disguising himself as an Ardisman, but here in the camp, someone was bound to notice his sudden appearance out of thin air. It was no good. Criton lit his second candle.
As soon as the camp was behind him and he was alone in the woods, he brightened his skin and blew out the flame. His claws transformed into hands as he stuffed the half-length nub in his pocket. All he could do now was keep walking eastward, and hope that his friends would eventually find him.
He stopped to rest after a while, sitting down on a fallen tree. The others were likely somewhere behind him, assuming that only he had been reckless enough to run.
It took only half an hour before Hunter came tromping through the woods to meet him. After that, Criton climbed a tree and spotted Narky and Phaedra, who had found each other on their own. But wait as they would, Bandu did not come.
“She’ll find us,” Hunter reassured him. “Nobody can track like she can.”
Criton nodded, but he was troubled. He wanted to tell them about his encounter with Bestillos, but the words wouldn’t come.
After two hours of waiting, Criton began to suspect that Bandu was ahead of them rather than behind. “Either way,” Narky said, “we haven’t got forever. Let’s go.”
They made camp in the woods that night, taking watches. Though the night was warm, Criton sat by the fire and shivered. With every rustling leaf or snapping twig, he thought he heard Bandu approaching. Or had Bestillos somehow captured her? No, it couldn’t be. She would come. Any minute, he would hear Goodweather’s cries and know that everything was all right.
When she arrived the next morning, Criton was so relieved he wept. Bandu embraced him until he pulled away to wipe his eyes and really look at her. She looked strong and healthy and covered with dirt. Being alone in the woods with their tiny daughter had apparently done her no harm at all. He asked her where she had been, but didn’t understand her garbled answer. He hardly cared, though. She and Goodweather were safe. That was all that mattered.
The journey to Atuna went by in a blur. They had no money but ate whatever they could find, be it a handful of mustard greens or a stray lamb from some inattentive shepherd’s flock. Only when they finally reached the city did they realize that having no money meant that they could board no boat, for Tarphae or for anywhere else. They stood helplessly watching merchantmen and fishing boats come and go, wishing they had thought to ask Psander for money before they left. Then, without saying a word, Hunter strode away from them toward the docks.
“Hey!” called Narky, “Where are you going?”
“To claim my inheritance,” Hunter said.
They followed behind him, wondering what he was talking about, until finally he stopped and pointed. “There,” he said. “That’s the one.”
Criton followed his finger and saw, moored to the farthest dock, a familiar fishing boat bobbing on the tide. Hunter set off toward it with long, confident strides, and they all hurried across the planks after him. When they arrived they found a man inside, mending a net with a needle and thread. The man was perhaps twenty, with the olive complexion of Atunaeans and a dark scraggly beard.
“This is my boat,” Hunter told him, ignoring his stares. “I will be needing it today, to go to Tarphae. You can take us there, if you like, or you can get off.”
“This ain’t your boat,” the man answered, looking simultaneously confused and intimidated. There were five of them, after all.
“I bought it myself,” he added.
“The man who sold it to you did not own it,” Hunter told him. “The boat is mine.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” the fisherman said. “All I know is, I paid good money for it, and I’m not just going to give it to you for nothing.”
“Where is the fisherman who sold it to you?” Phaedra asked. “If you take us to him, I’m sure we can sort this out. He’ll have to give you your money back.”
“I don’t need to take you anywhere,” the fisherman retorted. “I bought the–”
Hunter drew his sword with such speed and violence that the fisherman fell over backward in terror. Hunter leapt into the boat after him.
“Get out,” he said. “Show us the way. We’ll all go together.”
The house he led them to was large, with an extensive vegetable garden visible through a tall fence. A servant answered their knocks.
“We’re here to see your master,” Hunter said.
When the old fisherman saw them, his face froze. He was sitting in a padded chair with a crutch resting at its side. He had lost a leg since they last saw him, and from the horrified way he stared at Bandu and the way his eyes fell to waist height as he glanced nervously past them, Criton had no trouble guessing how. Infection. It had killed Four-foot, and it had nearly killed him.
“What do you want?” he demanded. “Where’s the wolf?”
“You kill him,” Bandu said, her eyes flashing.
The cripple gulped, and his eyes widened. “Why are you here?” he asked, with dread in his voice.
“This is a nice house,” Narky remarked, glancing about the room with his one good eye. “Not half bad for a cripple.”
“My father bought your boat,” Hunter spat, “and you turned around and sold it again.”
“You didn’t claim it!” the old fisherman cried. “Your father was dead, and then you all just disappeared. My nephews died in Karsanye thanks to you, and I can’t sail anymore, not alone. What was I supposed to do?”
“Lend it,” suggested Narky. “Or rent it. That’s really not our problem, is it? Our problem is that we need a boat, we own a boat, and you went and sold it to this guy.”
The old fisherman’s eyes finally found the younger one’s. “Well, what do you want me to do?” he asked.
“Give him his money,” said Hunter. “We’re taking the boat back to Tarphae.”
“I haven’t got it all on hand,” the cripple objected.
“Give him what you can,” said Criton. “We won’t be in Tarphae long. When we come back, he can have the boat again. The least you can do is rent it for us.”
“What if you don’t come back?” the younger fisherman demanded. “Where will that leave me?”
“Here,” said Hunter. “Alive. If that’s not good enough for you, you’ll have to come with us and make sure we don’t sink.”
Goodweather awoke and began to cry.
“I’m not going to that island of ghosts,” the fisherman said.
“All right,” Hunter said, with a shrug. “Then you can either make do with the money he can give you, or you can call him a thief and punish him accordingly. Again, that’s not our problem. I suppose I can bequeath the boat to him as soon as we come back from Tarphae, and then you can consider the sale honorable. But until then, it remains my property and mine alone.”
With that, he turned and swept from the room with Criton and the others in his wake. The two fishermen, stunned, simply watched them go.
“Oh my,” said Phaedra, when they were back outside. “Hunter, that was… amazing. I don’t know how you had the nerve to do it.”
Hunter clearly did not know what to do with such praise. He said nothing, nor did he slow his pace until they had reached the docks again and were able to climb aboard their new property. Old property? Ah well, it didn’t really matter, did it?
Their voyage to Tarphae was a little too calm for Criton’s liking. Though none of them were sailors, they had no trouble reaching their homeland over the strangely peaceful ocean waters. The tides and currents seemed eager to welcome them home, tugging them gently into the harbor of Karsanye. Goodweather fell asleep again from the rocking of the boat, and by the time Hunter jumped out to tie them to the dock, even Bandu seemed only half awake.
The empty docks groaned as they stepped off the boat. Hunter groaned too, a soft groan that could barely be heard above the lapping of the waves. Phaedra caught his hand and clutched it tightly. It was harder for them, Criton thought. To these two, even this harbor felt like part of home.
They proceeded up the planks toward dry land, and Criton saw Hunter turn back for a moment. “What is it?” asked Phaedra.
“Our boat’s the only one,” he said, a little shakily. “All the ships are gone.”
“Scavengers,” said Narky. “They might be too afraid to step onto the island, but a ship’s something else.”
“Not too afraid,” said Bandu, pointing with her free hand. “Only dead.”
Criton followed her finger and jumped a little when he saw the corpse on the edge of the dock. A pile of rope had mostly obscured the body from his view, but the stench as he approached was unmistakable. The man had been rotting away here for at least a couple of months.
“The plague?” Criton asked.
“Maybe,” said Phaedra. “Either way, it was definitely a God that killed him. Look, the seagulls haven’t even touched his body.”
Criton nodded quickly and turned away. Gulls or no gulls, it was still a nauseating sight.
They reached the end of the planks and stood there hesitating, afraid now to step onto the dry land.
“Karassa protect us,” Hunter more or less pleaded. “Eramia too. And God Most High.”
But it was Bandu who first stepped off the dock, with Goodweather still cradled in her arms. “We are alive,” she stated. “We go now.”
Criton wanted to scream at Bandu for the way she’d endangered Goodweather, but he held his tongue. Soon they would pass the customs houses and reach the city. His clawed hands shook in fright and anticipation.
A man stepped out of the customs house, reaching out to them. Criton let out a weak cry and stopped in his tracks. The man turned to him and disappeared for an instant, winking in and out of sight as if he were somehow too flat to see head on. His face was blurry and indistinct, but his hollow eyes had a longing in them that Criton could not ignore.
“What’s the matter?” asked Phaedra. She and the others had turned around when they heard his cry. Could they not see the figure?
“There’s a…” Criton began, and stopped. The man’s pleading eyes were fixed on him.
“Go away,” Bandu hissed. The man took a single step back and disappeared.
Narky looked around, frightened and confused. “What?” he said.
“Ghost,” Criton finally managed to answer.
They were everywhere in the city. Apparitions met them at every turn, coming out of houses or simply appearing out of nowhere on the dusty streets. Some of them pointed angrily at the living islanders, their silent shouts causing the air around their mouths to ripple. And yet apparently only Criton and Bandu could see them.
“What do they look like?” asked Narky. “Can they see us?”
“They definitely see us,” said Criton. “And they’re angry.”
“Why?”
A whole crowd of them was gathering now, staring and pointing. Criton shuddered. “I think they blame us,” he said.
They fled from the crowd of angry spirits and went to Karassa’s temple, where the bones of the dead lay all about the altar.
“The king’s not here, is he?” asked Narky. “You don’t see his ghost, I mean? I know we think he’s alive, but I just want to make sure.”
“What does the king look like?” Criton asked him, surveying the few half-seen figures that wandered about the area.
Narky frowned. “I don’t know. Like a king, I guess.”
Hunter sighed
. “The king is about ten years older than my father,” he said. “He’s tall, and his gut is bigger than my father’s. At least, it used to be. He’s been living here alone for a year. I wonder if I’ll even recognize him.”
“That shouldn’t be too hard, as long as he’s still alive,” Narky pointed out. “Just find a man who isn’t dead, and it’ll be him.”
That wasn’t nearly as easy as it sounded. The king wasn’t anywhere to be found, in his palace or his unkept gardens, or anywhere else they could think of. They wandered through the city streets until the sun began to dip perilously close to the horizon, and still the king was nowhere to be found.
“We’re going to have to stay the night,” Phaedra said, her voice strained.
“We’re not going to my house,” Criton said hurriedly. “He might be there.”
“We should sleep somewhere without ghosts,” Narky suggested. “What if they attack us while we sleep? There must be some place here where nobody was around to die.”
“I don’t think they’re tied to the place where they died,” Criton told him. “They’re all sort of wandering around.”
Bandu pointed behind them. “That one follows us,” she said.
She was right. When Criton turned, the apparition from the docks was standing in the street behind them, its soulful eyes still pleading. The sight made Criton shudder.
“How long has he been there?” he asked Bandu.
The girl shrugged. “A long time,” she said. She handed Goodweather over to him and stretched her back. “Wait here. I go talk.”
Criton clutched Goodweather to his chest, watching his wife approach the ghost. She came within an arm’s length of it before she stopped and said something, too quietly for him to hear. The ghost pointed past her at the group, its blurred mouth moving silently.
“What’s going on?” Phaedra asked.
“Wait,” said Criton.
Bandu nodded at the spirit and held out her hands to it. “Bandu!” Criton cried. “Don’t!”
He ran toward her, but he was too late. The spirit took her by the hands, and its ephemeral body melded with hers and vanished. She turned to him just as he reached her, and held up her hand.