Preta steps forward frantically waving her arms. “No stop. Deet. Please, Selenik, stop it!”
“It’s so much easier if you just give in,” Selenik says to Deet.
Preta hugs Deet and eyes Selenik. “Stop, stop, I’ll play. I’ll play for my brother—for my soul!”
Selenik snaps his fingers and lowers the chalice.
Clutching his throat, Deet gasps for air and falls to the ground.
Yaz bends over to help his brother.
“My young lady, you?” Selenik leans forward with a gleam in his eye. “You want to sit at my table?”
“Yes, yes,” Preta says, “just don’t hurt my brother, please.”
Selenik strokes his gold earring. “Hmm—I think we can work something out, for the right price.”
Preta sits in the chair. “Stakes?”
Selenik nods. “One hand. If I win, I get your brother’s soul and yours.”
“And if I win?”
“If you win, my lady, you shall all cross my river. But, I will still require payment equal in value to your brother.”
“Deal,” Preta quickly says without thinking on the offer.
“Preta!” Agna says as her eyes bulge.
Preta snaps her head away. “Not now!”
Selenik rubs his hands together. “Good, I love a good compromise.” He points at the cards. “It’s your deal.”
Preta passes out the cards.
Selenik takes two.
Preta takes three. “Aces and threes,” Preta says, tapping her finger on the table.
Selenik frowns. “Tens and deuces. Good hand, young lady, good hand indeed.”
Preta jumps up with a sigh and hugs Deet. “You scared me so much, Dee.”
Yaz pats Preta on the back. “Nice hand, Sis, good job.”
“Far too risky,” Agna says, frowning.
With a relieved smile on her face, Preta hugs both her brothers at the same time.
Selenik, with his inch-long fingernails, taps the glass chalice. “Ahem—now, my young lady, for my payment.”
“Yes, all right,” Preta says.
Selenik waves his hand at Yaz. “The pale man’s soul it is for my chalice to drink.”
Preta kicks over the chair. “No, wait, what? That wasn’t the deal I made.”
“Yes, it was, my young lady. What did you expect?” Selenik gives her a devious grin. “Equal value to your brother is your brother.”
“Wait, take all our silver and coppers. Deet, give him our coins.”
Selenik shakes his head not approving. “Silver and coppers don’t equal a soul, not by a far. What do you think I am, a fool? No, no, no, no, only a soul will do now.” Selenik rubs his cup. “My chalice is thirsty, and it needs to be quenched.”
“Wait, please wait.” Preta runs over to the boulder and unties the bandit. “Here! You can have this soul.”
The bandit squirms, and Preta rips off his gag.
“What? Y-you can’t do this, w-what are you doing?”
Pinching his chin, Selenik scans the bandit from head to toe, calculating his worth. “Hmm—no, sorry, my young lady, this is not equal value.”
“Fine, then him and all of our coins,” Preta says.
The bandit’s eyes widen, and his body shakes. “You evil, g-girl, how c-can you do this to me?”
Preta snaps her head toward the scum. “Shut up.”
While pinching his chin, Selenik again scans the bandit. He looks at Deet. “Other-man, how much coin did you say? Was it two silver and twelve coppers?”
Deet avoids Selenik’s gaze, and he doesn’t answer.
Selenik grins at Preta. “My lady, my lady, for you I shall bend. This man it is for my chalice to drink this fine, fair-weathered foggy day, and one gold nib, four silver, and fifty-six coppers. It seems the other-man has a particularly interesting silver canister I shall require as well. And lastly, I’ll need something to wipe my behind, so I’ll be having your credits too. Deal?”
“Deal!” Preta says, not allowing anyone else to speak.
Selenik holds out his hand toward Deet. “All of it, I said.”
Deet drops the pouch into Selenik’s hand and removes the silver cylinder from his pack and sets it on the table.
Yaz pats Deet on the back and sighs.
Selenik rubs his hands together. “Now for my soul.” He waves his hand in a figure eight toward the bandit and the red smoke floats out his fingers.
“N-no, stop.” The bandit eyes Preta. “You evil g-girl, look at m-me, remember my face, m-my eyes will haunt you for eternity.”
Preta looks away, realizing what she’s done. She sentenced this man to death, used as nothing more than a bargaining chip for her brother’s life. A deep pit forms in her stomach and aches. But then she pictures the bandit’s reptile eyes and his fluttering milky-yellow tongue between his blackened, rotten teeth. With drunken eyes and flared nostrils, his body gyrates. Gagging stench flutters into Preta’s senses. She envisions his dirty, clammy hands touching her skin and his pack of wolves howling and attacking Agna. Preta glares at the scum. “You’ll not haunt me.”
The red smoke enters the bandit and his body convulses. The veins in his neck pop out. In vain, he gasps for air, and his eyes roll back into his skull.
Selenik extends his chalice with both hands. “Come to your new home, my friend, my love, fill my chalice, quench her thirst with your soul.”
The bandit’s head vibrates violently in fits and twitches. His eyes bulge from their sockets, and in a faint exhale his body goes still. A misty grey smoke seeps out of the scum’s eyes, mouth, and ears and slowly floats through the air in front of Yaz’s face.
Yaz’s jaw drops. His eyes track the smoke, fluttering in the wind in front of him and passing right over his nose. He holds his breath and gulps.
The smoke enters the chalice, and the bandit’s hollow, lifeless, pale-white body drops to the ground.
The scum’s smoke fills the clear cup, and the vodník places a silver cap over the top. He raises the chalice and kisses the glass, leaving a slimy imprint of his lips.
The grey mist transforms to swirling black smoke. The bandit’s face forms. With no sound, he violently screams, his hands pressed and pounding against the glass. Then his face disappears back into a swirling cloudy mist of black.
Selenik kisses the chalice again. “Good, good, good, now for your payment, a deal’s a deal, right? Follow me.”
Deet and Yaz both clutch their stomachs, sick.
Yaz drops to his knees and vomits.
Agna picks up her pack, grips Preta’s arm, and leads her away from the table.
Deet snaps out of his sickness and helps Yaz to his feet. “Gather yourself, let’s get the hell out of here.”
“Yeah, out of here, right.” And Yaz’s body convulses.
Selenik leads them to a small red row boat at the river’s edge, the green paint peeling and chunks gouged from the pockmarked wood. “Here it is. You won’t find such a boat anywhere else along this river; lucky day it is for you this fine, foggy day.”
Yaz convulses again.
Deet scans the surroundings, eyeing everything other than Selenik’s gaze.
Preta and Agna fill the water pouches.
Selenik stretches his arms above his head. “What a fine, fine, foggy day.”
Preta glances at the rotten wooden boat. “Is it safe?”
“Does it matter?” Deet says. “Let’s go, get in.”
“You can swim across if you’d like,” Selenik says. “Or, you can stay here with me, my young lady.” He winks at Preta. “I have another thirsty chalice for you to sleep in if you’d like.”
Deet tosses his things into the boat. “Preta, no more questions, get in. Yaz, in the back, and paddle.”
Preta holds the boat steady for Yaz to climb in, and she follows him.
With his foot, Selenik pushes the boat into the river. “Come back any time now.”
The boat rocks back and forth from the gent
le cross current.
Yaz paddles smoothly through the water.
The fog is cool and thick, Preta can taste the river. Her clothes stick to her skin from the moisture lingering in the air; a chill runs up her neck.
The boat cuts through the cross current with a subtle knocking against the hull.
Yaz paddles for ten minutes, and the tips of pine trees finally pierce through the fog.
The boat scrapes and vibrates as it touches the rocky bottom and it crashes into the riverbank.
Preta lurches forward.
Deet steps onto shore. He tugs the boat out of the river, and without a word, nods toward the forest, climbing up the embankment, and disappearing into the pine trees.
Preta peeks back toward the river one last time, and her eyes narrow as something appears; bubbles rise from the water.
“My fine fair ladies, there will always be a chalice and a place for you by my side.”
A BETTER ROAD
“Wait up, Dee, slow down,” Preta says as she scrambles up the hill and trips over a root.
Deet doesn’t turn around or stop. “I need to check ahead to make sure it’s safe.”
“It’s all right, you know.”
Deet spins around and faces her. “No, it’s not. That little green man outsmarted me, and it cost us all our coin and almost our lives.”
Agna catches up to them. “That little green man outsmarts many people, don’t take it personally.”
“Yes, but I’m not most men.”
“You can’t win them all, Deet,” Preta says, and she quickly turns away, remembering who she heard say that last.
Deet scowls and clinches his teeth. “The stakes were too high not to win.”
“The stakes were high for us but not for Selenik,” Agna says. “Anytime you gamble, you may lose—and lose everything.”
Preta crouches down and leans her back against the base of a pine tree. “It doesn’t matter, we’re here now and alive, and we found another way.”
Yaz joins them. “What’s wrong with you guys? You really want to argue in little green soul-sucking man land? Let’s go.”
“I agree, time to go,” Deet says, and he turns around and ventures deeper into the forest.
“How long do you think until we get to Bielston?” Preta says, hiking close behind Deet.
“If no trouble and we make good time, maybe late tonight or midday tomorrow. If we don’t get lost and Yaz can stay upright and we don’t run into anymore trouble.”
“That’s a lot of ands,” Preta says.
“There’s a lot of ifs,” Deet says. “But we’re almost out of food, and we have no coin. We need to make good time and think of something.”
“Agna,” Preta says, “you have a daughter in Bielston, can she help us with payment for passage?”
“I didn’t want to involve my daughter in this mess. Let’s just see what happens when we get to the city.”
They hike the rest of the day through the forest. It’s dusk, and up ahead the trees thin, revealing an open wheat field.
Yaz pushes by Preta and steps out into the open. He raises his arms waist high and spins in circles, brushing his hands along the wheat chaff. “Never thought I’d be so glad to see wheat.”
Deet yanks him back into the tree line. “We’ve got to worry about being seen, so keep your wits about you.”
“There’s a road over there,” Preta says, pointing.
“No roads,” Deet says.
“But—”
“No roads, I said.”
Deet travels along the tree line between the field and the forest and drops to a knee. He motions for the others to do the same. Deet points to a grey barn on the other side of the field. Four horses chew on straw in a pen. He peeks back at Yaz.
“Would be nice not to walk if we don’t have to,” Yaz says.
Deet sighs, looking away from the barn. “You know what it means if we steal?”
Yaz shrugs. “Brother, at this point I’m so tired of walking, I really don’t care.”
Deet eyes the girls. “We’re gonna check out the barn to see if there’s anything useful we can borrow. You two, make your way down the tree line for about ten minutes. Keep your eyes on the road and make yourself invisible. When you see us near the road, come out.”
Preta and Agna nod in agreement, and Deet and Yaz creep into the field.
After ten minutes, next to a few large dead drooping trees, Agna stops. “This will do.”
They lie on their stomachs and watch the road for any signs of movement.
Ten minutes, twenty minutes, thirty minutes, still no sign. The sun is setting and a dark cover takes over the forest and field.
“Something’s wrong,” Preta says.
“Wait, be still,” Agna says.
Another ten minutes pass.
Thoughts and images flood Preta’s mind of all the bad things that might be happening to her brothers. I can’t just lie here and do nothing. She presses off the squishy ground.
Agna places her hand in the center of Preta’s back, pressing her down to the ground. “Keep still, keep quiet.”
Night takes root, and Preta’s vision gets murkier by the second.
Crack—
A twig snaps.
Preta flinches.
Agna gets to a knee behind a tree and motions for Preta to do the same.
Preta peers round the tree.
A man approaches, ducking under a vine and a branch.
She readies herself and draws a blade.
The man stops and is right on top of her.
His breathing makes Preta shiver, and she imagines Lomasie standing on the other side of the tree.
The man steps past her.
Preta lunges and slashes at his head. A cool breeze clings to her wrist as the blade cuts through the chilly air. Her hand jerks to a sudden stop. The man’s hand clutches Preta’s wrist. Preta growls and snarls.
“Easy, Sis, easy, it’s just me,” Yaz says.
Preta drops her arm and hyperventilates.
Yaz lets out a wry laugh and slaps her hard on the butt, pushing her forward and off balance.
“Dang it, Yaz,” Preta says, huddled over with her hands planted on her knees.
“Sister.” Yaz giggles. “It’s just me.”
“Shut up, it’s not funny, stop laughing.”
Yaz coughs between chuckles. “Sorry, but it kinda is.”
“Yaz Penter, you scared the crap out of us,” Agna says.
“What did you want me to do, yell out your names? Come on, quit complaining and follow me.”
They trail Yaz past the barn and head to the A-frame stone cottage with a dark-grey tiled roof. Smoke snakes out of two fireplaces, and the porch’s wooden planks creak.
Yaz knocks five times, stops for five seconds, and knocks three more times.
Deet opens the door. “Come inside and sit,” he says, strolling by a large oak table.
An old stoic man with a shiny bald head on top and bushy thick grey hair on the sides stands across from Deet; and a plump, elegant woman with rosy cheeks and a pleasant smile of similar age sets a steaming pot of stew on the table.
The old man holds out his hand. “Come, come, sit and eat.”
“Rufus—Edna,” Deet says, “this is my sister, Preta, and my brother, Yaz, and Aunt Agna.”
“Nice to meet you all,” Rufus says with a nod. “Looks like we’ve got a full house tonight, Edna.”
Preta and Yaz sit next to Deet.
Deet squeezes Preta’s thigh under the table to get her attention. “Preta,” Deet says, “I was just telling Rufus and Edna how bandits robbed us on the way to Kirkton and we fled into the Yelton and got lost. We crossed the Rivers and came out in Rufus’s field.”
“Yes, yes, quite an ordeal from the sound of it,” Rufus says. “Amazing you made it through alive. Strange things go on in that there forest.”
Yaz holds out his fork, aiming for a thin piece of pork. “You can say that a
gain, Rufus.”
“Smells great,” Deet says.
Edna scoops stew into the bowls and hands them out. “I hope you all like it.”
Rufus rips off a hunk of bread from a crusty loaf.
Preta’s mouth waters. Her senses go wild when the meat and stew melt on her palate. Her mouth and brain tell her it’s the tastiest thing she’s ever eaten. A deep, warming sensation rises within, her head slightly dizzy from the shock of delicious food after days of oats, iron, cold, wet, and blood.
Deet swallows hard and sets down his spoon in the bowl. “Edna, this is wonderful, absolutely delicious.”
Preta and Yaz both quickly nod while chewing with full mouths.
Edna shakes her head in disgust and puckers her lips. “I don’t know, too much salt, I think. I may have overcooked it a tad.”
Preta continues piling in the food, not letting her mouth be alone for more than a second.
“Nonsense, very good tonight, dear,” Rufus says. “So where are you all headed? Back to Kirkton I presume?”
Deet takes a sip from his water cup. “We may catch a skiff from Bielston since it’s closer.”
Rufus smiles and points his fork at Deet. “I’d be glad to take you into town tomorrow if you’d like.”
“We’d be forever in your debt,” Deet says.
“Would be glad to do it, and I have to go into town tomorrow anyway; besides, what would this world be if we didn’t help those who needed it.”
Edna extends the pork platter toward Preta. “Would you like more, my dear?”
“Uh-huh,” Preta says.
Edna eyes Yaz. “You too?”
“Uh-huh, uh-huh.”
Agna leans forward and clears her throat. “So how far is it to Bielston?”
“Not far, about thirty minutes by carriage,” Rufus says.
“We sure appreciate the hospitality, especially after the last few days.”
Rufus stands up and slips his hands into his pants pockets. “No problem, Aunt Agna. Tonight you’re more than welcome to sleep in the barn—should be a welcome change from the cold, wet Yelton. The crapper and washhouse are out back, and all of you may freely use both.”
Deet extends his hand in gratitude. “Thank you again.”
Rufus shakes Deet’s hand and strolls to a recliner next to the fire and lights a pipe.
Wintermore (Aeon of Light Book 1) Page 22