Dead Stars - Part One (The Emaneska Series)

by Ben Galley

  Excerpt from a book on Siren legend, by a little-known author Lastu Resst, salvaged from Farden’s collection

  In the southeast of Albion, the rolling land and pasture faded into foothills, and then to moorland, and what an endless moorland it was. Fleahurst the locals called it, a stretching lowland of gorse and tor, and today it was caught, pinched and trapped, between two enormous banks of cloud. A storm in the west, a storm in the east, each reticent to pounce. They both postured and frothed at the mouth, gesturing with their frosty tendrils, while the land beneath looked up anxiously, wondering which one of its attackers would be the kinder. If a traveller had looked long and hard enough, they might have even spied a few storm giants lingering at the bases of the clouds, stretching and flexing and getting ready to fight.

  Farden, on the other hand, couldn’t have cared less. It had been two days since leaving Tayn, sneaking off in the middle of the morning while Jeasin had been asleep. His brief visit to the loathsome Duke was still playing on his troubled mind. He had chewed some of his precious nevermar on the first day, but it had slowed his pace too much. For now, he simply let the sound of his boots striding across broken flint calm his churning thoughts.

  Farden looked up from his feet and towards his destination. A snake of flint road, empty save for nervous deer and the occasional curious rat or vole, led east towards the sea and the larger of the storms. The sky was a sculpture of chaos. There was a narrow band of bright sky stuck fast between the faraway waves and the roots of the impenetrable clouds. He was heading straight towards it. The wind ruffled his clothes, unsure in which direction to blow.

  Any mind wandered when encouraged by long walks and lack of company, but for Farden, it was incessant. In all his years, the mage had never quite discovered why his mind insisted on wandering into dark corners and tiptoeing along the precipices of deep, gloomy wells of memory. It simply did what it did. Farden counted out his steps. The numbers would keep his head distracted for the time being. One, two, three, four… Crunch, crunch…

  Soon a white cottage came into view, hidden in a dip between two low hills. It had a driftwood barn, a little flint wall across its front, and a half-moon of misshapen fields hugging its back. A little trail of grey smoke leaked from its chimney. Farden hadn’t realised he had come so far already, and the sight of it made his stomach roar, a sound a sabre-cat might have been proud of. Farden quickened his tired pace at its behest.

  Just as the eastern storm was reaching out to throw its first colossal punch, Farden reached the cottage and the corner of its flint and drystone wall. A sliver of lightning scampered across the sky above him. Its thunder came a little afterwards, lazy and slow. The mage followed the wall to a gate with a canewood arch. He gently pushed the gate open and then stood at the edge of the flint path that led to the cottage door. A man was leaning against its driftwood door-frame. Any other man would have grimaced or flinched at the sight of the travel-muddy, bitter-faced mage, but instead this man smiled, and even went as far as to tip the brim of his farmer’s hat.

  ‘Rabbit’s in the pot,’ he said, jovially. He had a face like a weathered oak. Wisps of grey hair were sneaking out from under his hat.

  Farden smiled a rare smile. One that he rarely used these days. ‘I was hoping it would be.’

  The man tapped the door with a finger that looked more like a dirty parsnip than a human appendage. ‘Seria’s finishing it up now. You hungry?’

  Farden reached for the handle of the gate. His eyes turned towards the east and the sea, and his hand reached to his cloak pocket for his nevermar. ‘I can’t stay long though,’ he mumbled.

  ‘No bother to me, lad. I know you never do. One day, mayhaps, and then Seria can stop worryin’ ‘bout you.’

  Farden closed the gate behind him. ‘One day.’

  Old Traffyd held out his arms and Farden embraced him stiffly. He and his wife Seria used kindness like a gang of thugs used their clubs. They bludgeoned their rare visitors with it until they either gave in or ran away. Farden was a runner, but he also kept coming back. They were masterful cooks, and the only scrap of humanity for miles. Nothing lived out in the east wilds of Fleahurst save for the creatures that could scrape a living from the thistles and the gorse or those that nibbled them: deer, rabbits, voles, hawks, perhaps the occasional wandering wolf. The human population was just as sparse, a handful of wide-flung, isolated farms, an old watchtower, one or two cottages, and, unbeknownst to everyone apart from Traffyd and his dear wife, one wandering mage. It seemed that mages and wolves had something in common.

  Ducking his head under the driftwood frame, Traffyd pushed open the door and led Farden inside. The air inside the cottage was smoky and thick, but it smelled delicious. The scents of smouldering driftwood and gorse bush, peppered rabbit, boiled carrots, crushed potatoes, and rockthyme all assaulted his senses. He could even smell the sweet tang of nettle tea in the air.

  A rather large woman stood with her back to the door, busy stirring the contents of a huge iron pot. She was singing snatches of some unknown tune in a high-pitched voice, the half-hearted, uncaring sort of singing somebody does when alone and preoccupied. Farden stood by the door and waited for Old Traffyd to tap his wife on the shoulder.

  ‘Visitor,’ he said. Seria looked up quickly. Her eyes lit up, just for a second, and then immediately narrowed at the sight of Farden’s muddy boots and dusty skin.

  ‘You’d better take those boots off in my ‘ouse, young man. I don’t serve supper outside.’

  ‘Yes Seria,’ Farden nodded. He found himself a stool and set about untangling the fraying laces of his boots. He could feel his bones sighing at the taste of sitting down. It felt as though his legs were gluing themselves to the stool. Farden kicked off the boots and stayed where he was, content with watching the husband and wife bustle about.

  ‘Fetch ‘im some tea, Traffyd, afore he dies of thirst. Look at him.’

  Traffyd did as he was told, as he always did. Farden had never heard even the faintest mutter of complaint from the man, not in the eight years he had known them. He dutifully fetched a waxed skin cup and poured the tea from a small kettle that hung on a pole over the flames. He gave it to Farden with a grunt and a wink, and went back to his wife.

  The cottage was small but homely, in the way that small places often are when care and attention is poured into them. Despite the sooty fire, the flint-dust, and the rickety thatched roof, it was also spotless. Seria was the queen of her own home, just as Traffyd was the king of his garden and his fields. She saw to it that dirt stayed at the front door and never ventured in. She was always in one of two states, cooking, or cleaning, and on rare occasions she even did both at the same time. Farden couldn’t remember a time when she had actually sat down to eat dinner with the two men.

  Traffyd found some bowls in a cupboard and beckoned to the mage to put them out, which he did, bones and weary muscles complaining. He was then given a pair of spoons to arrange beside the bowls.

  ‘Sit down, Farden, afore you fall down,’ ordered Seria. Farden smiled politely; he knew better than to argue. ‘Traffyd, you’re like a slow worm. Get ‘im some stew, you rude old man.’ Traffyd laughed and rolled his eyes. He took Farden’s bowl and returned it full and steaming and overflowing with thick, chunky rabbit stew. He tucked in eagerly.

  By the pot, Traffyd nudged Seria and they both shook their heads at the sight of the mage fervently slurping at his spoonfuls. She filled her husband’s bowl and shooed him away to the table. Then, instead of fetching herself some stew, she immediately began to clean the fireplace, sparing random moments to sip at the stew ladle and hum to herself about the apparent invasion of spiders.

  The stew was delicious, as Seria’s cooking always was. It was a marvel how they made the moorland fare taste so good. Out here in the eastern wilds, a simple cabbage would have looked exotic. Farden and Traffyd ate it in relative silence, mumbling about the weather and rabbits and the sea and other things that were simply said to
fill the gaps between the chewing. Seria bustled around them, occasionally butting in with a reprimand for Traffyd or a comment on Farden’s muddy attire. Farden didn’t mind it in small doses. Seria wasn’t Kiltyrin; her comments, although wrapped in severity and muttered from pursed lips, actually stemmed from a genuine care for the mage. Hers were never insults nor compliments, just her way.

  Both men finished their bowls, and Seria swiftly whisked them away to be cleaned. Old Traffyd went to the back door of the cottage and out onto a rickety porch he had made from thatch and driftwood. Farden followed. It had begun to rain, and heavily too. The world had suddenly turned noisy indeed: the clattering patter of the raindrops on the stone path, the muted hiss of it on the thatch above, the dull thud of single, heavy drips here and there.

  Traffyd reached inside his woollen coat and brought out a short pipe and a tin box of tobacco. He slowly and gently packed the bowl of the pipe, taking his time over every single scrap of dried leaf. Farden joined him, fishing out his own pipe. It was an old, scratched and battered thing he had bought in a market a decade ago. It had served him well. His fingers brushed the cloth bag inside his coat and he licked his lips. Not long now, he told himself.

  Traffyd and Farden sat on a pair of stools that flanked a little round table with a square box on it. Farden sat hunched over, while Traffyd leant against the flint of the wall behind him. He stared at his garden, mentally listing the things that needed doing. Farden pointed at a row of vines snaking around a gorsewood frame. ‘You making wine now?’

  ‘Traders are scarce these days. Got to trade what I can,’ Traffyd mumbled, still deep in thought.

  Farden nodded. He sucked on his pipe, eyeing the little box on the table. With a little sigh, he reached down to his belt, and plucked at the strings of a little pouch with his dirty fingers. Half of him, the darker half, the half thinking of the cloth bag inside his cloak, yelled at him to stop. The other half, the half that had grown used to living in the shadow of the first, shouted too, and for once it turned out to be the loudest. He fumbled one-handed with the pouch, worming his way inside and grabbing a handful of its contents. They were cold and sharp to the touch. Then, without a word, he lifted the lid of the square box on the table, and dropped his handful into it. The box closed with a thud and Farden went back to his pipe. ‘I’ve been meaning to do that for a while,’ he said.

  Traffyd scowled. ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘Something for a rainy day.’

  Traffyd pointed at his dripping garden and the sodden view before them. ‘Plenty of those about.’

  ‘Something for your kindness then.’

  Old Traffyd didn’t reply. He didn’t even move. Then he reached out and lifted the lid of the box with his work-tough fingertip. He lifted it an inch, no more, peered inside, and then shut it again. ‘I weren’t hinting when I said… That is…’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I shan’t tell Seria where those came from.’

  ‘Probably best.’

  ‘There would have been a time where I would have thrown that back in your face, lad. Never needed no dead man’s trinkets before. But, as they say, hard times change hearts.’

  ‘I know that more than anyone. Take it. You need it and they didn’t.’

  ‘That we do, though it pains to think what it came from, and how.’

  ‘Then don’t think about it. Leave that to me.’

  ‘Right you are,’ Traffyd sniffed, and fell silent for a while. When he finished his pipe, he stood up and lifted the box from the table. ‘My offer still stands, you know.’

  Farden scratched his head and tapped the burnt tobacco out of his pipe, leaning forward so the rain could lick its bowl clean. His mind was so full of thoughts that he had to shrug. ‘Which one was that?’

  ‘Never had no children, Seria and I, and a man of my age can’t work the fields as much as he’d like to. There’s always a need for strong hands around here, Farden. It’s not just trinkets and baubles we are in need of.’

  Farden nodded. He mumbled something and shook his head, and Traffyd sighed. ‘Right you are,’ he said. ‘I’ll see Seria puts some of that rabbit in a pot for you. You can give some of it to Whiskers.’

  Farden sat alone and watched the rain for a while before going back indoors. When he did, he found Seria busy scrubbing the table. She stopped when she heard the door click shut, and looked up at the mage. She said nothing, but rather came around to the other side of the table and gave Farden a short and simple hug. ‘Always nice to see you,’ she whispered, and then in a louder voice, ‘but I don’t know anybody in their right mind who would want to go traipsing about in weather like this!’

  Farden smiled and hoisted his trusty hood over his head, buttoning his cloak tightly around him. ‘Never did mind the rain.’

  ‘You’ll catch your death of cold out there, if the Ghoul-king don’t catch you first,’ Seria replied, and Farden rolled his eyes. Albion’s latest superstition. The Ghoul-king and his Shrieks. An old fairytale that had leapt from a child’s fable to common lore. If there truly was a Ghoul-king that stalked the stormy nights, dragging travellers and children to their cold, clammy deaths, then let him come. Farden would see to him, too.

  Old Traffyd was waiting by the door. He put a hand on the mage’s shoulder as he tied the laces of his tired boots. ‘Don’t go getting yourself killed, is what the wife means, lad.’ He leant an inch closer. ‘We’d rather have you than baubles.’

  ‘Then you’re a strange pair,’ Farden shook his head. That rare smile hovered on his face again. He turned around so Seria could push a pot, covered by a waxy cloth and sealed by twine, into his hands.

  ‘Go see to that Whiskers of yours. He’s sure to be starving,’ she ordered, hands on hips. Her cheeks were blossoming into a deep red, and Farden didn’t know if that was due to him leaving or her constant bustling.

  ‘Or he’s found another hermit to pester,’ added Traffyd.

  Farden snorted. ‘I doubt that.’ The mage pushed open the door and stepped out into the rain. Without so much as a goodbye, he jogged down the steps, through the gate, and back onto the flint road. He was soon lost in the haze of the downpour, leaving an old couple to stand in the shelter of a driftwood door-frame, arm in arm and shaking their heads.

  Every ghost needed a place to haunt, and if Farden was to be a ghost, then this lonely little shack was his.

  Moss-licked and brave, the little shack stood in a dip between two hills, square on to the boisterous eastern sea and teetering on the edge of the land. Rocks and stranded seaweed were its garden. Boulders and valiant, flint-crushed soil its foundations. A little curving dagger of sand fell out of its back door, wandering through the rocks and down into the roiling slate-grey waters of the eastern sea. The sand did its best to hold back the waves. Some days it triumphed, other days it failed. Today it was failing.

  The shack itself was a makeshift house of brick, gathered driftwood, stolen doors, and pilfered iron sheets. It had four windows, two on the front, and two on the back, and a door that swung open at a drunken angle. The windows had been filled with borrowed glass, and behind them, thick blue curtains had been drawn. Moss gave the place a slightly greenish hue. Rust painted whatever metal had bared its face. Seagull droppings and sand coated the roof and the stubby chimney. Between the gaps in its three stone steps, patches of curious molluscs shone bright red and yellow, adding a little vibrancy to the jumbled-up shack and the overcast sky.

  The storms had almost abated by the time Farden reached his little house. The flint road had died a few miles back, fading into the earth, but even in the remote wilds Farden had never failed to find his abode. He’d had a decade to practise, after all, and besides, he always had the tree to rely on.

  He looked up through its branches as he passed underneath it, as he always did. An ash tree, so he had been told by Traffyd. A spindly, skeletal thing, he was sure he had never seen it blossom, not in all the years he had lived beside it. The tree itse
lf was unremarkable. It was just an average tree, but what was strange about it was why such a thing had decided to grow here, on the edge of a barren moorland, without so much as an explanation nor a hint of how. There were no other trees for miles around. There weren’t even any gorse bushes nearby, just sharp-tongued grass. Farden had often puzzled over this on long walks and lonely days, and the answer had always eluded him.

  The mage left the tree behind and walked down the hill to the shore and his shack. Two seagulls were perching on its roof. They looked half-asleep. Their long yellow and red beaks were gently resting on each other’s backs. Farden clapped loudly to shoo them away, and then went inside his little house.

  The smell of mould was the first thing to hit him. He always noticed it after spending a long period away. He sniffed and grimaced; he would soon come to ignore it. He set his pot of rabbit stew on a nearby, and rather wonky, table, and then threw his haversack onto the cot of straw and cloth he called a bed. The haversack clanked as it landed.

  The shack was barely big enough to swing a cat in. It couldn’t have measured more than twelve foot by eight in total, and the roof was low enough that if Farden jumped in the right place he could have made himself a new skylight. There was a half-stove, half-fireplace on one side of the room. Farden sat down in front of it. Even after all these years, his first habit was to reach out and spread his hands over the dry wood he had left inside it, but he caught himself, and swore as a shiver of pain ran across his forehead and down his back. Instead, he dug flint and tinder out of his pocket, drew his knife, and after a few moments, he had a crackling fire.