As was so often the case, local merchants, vegetable farmers, and even a few fisherman would bring their wares for sale in the centre.
And it was with them she hoped to learn what she needed to know.
Near one end of the some dozen temporary market stalls, Melisse saw a young man standing before a wagon that had been tipped up into the air. Its interior was clearly visible and within were nestled an impressive array of bright red tomatoes, rich green courgettes, and a good number of frilly lettuce heads.
Without hesitating, Melisse went up to him and, as she had guessed, he turned out to be a merchant himself.
"Good day," she said to him, then glanced over his shoulder at the wagonload of vegetables, "I suppose since your back is turned to such lovely tomatoes, that you stand guard over them, rather than taking an interest as a likely customer."
The man's serious face slipped briefly into a half smile before turning back again.
"You suppose rightly, M'lady. And that'd mean that you be the customer as I see it’s you facing them tomatoes and me."
She wanted to be just as serious as he was, she certainly had every reason to be, but the sunny day had its way and she laughed at the way he had echoed her.
"Aye, you suppose rightly, monsieur, as do I."
Despite himself, it seemed, he chuckled.
"Aye, and you mock me for it," he glanced back at his vegetables, then continued, "And for that, I'm afraid to say that the price on those tomatoes just went up."
Melisse nodded, then said, "As tempting as they are, my business is not with your tomatoes, monsieur. Rather, I would simply like to ask you the way to the broken tower I have heard lies somewhere near Urrune."
The half smile that threatened to reappear upon his face fled and it looked as if his blood went with it for as white as his visage turned at her mention of the tower.
"Good heavens, m'Lady, but why on earth would you go there? Don't you know it’s cursed?"
Then the young man actually shuddered and grew even paler than before.
"No," he said, "I take it back. The tower isn't cursed. It's worse than that. If such a thing exists that’s worse than a curse, it’s that place. You're surely not from these parts, or you'd know it already and that no one talks about it. Ever."
Melisse sniffed as she considered what he said.
"Oh, I suppose local legend has turned people superstitious over the thing. But really, I find myself in the region and would have a look at what I have only heard of until now.”
“'Tis a shame, then,” he said, "A beauty such as you going off to see your last day so soon. And that is surely what will happen if you venture to the tower, m'Lady.
“You're right. When the townsfolk discovered the tower cracked and fallen to the ground so long ago, no one gave it much thought. They'd always known the alchemist was just as cracked as the tower, only it had happened to him long before the tower hit the ground.
“Some said he searched for a means of turning lead into gold. Most others, though, said he was after something of much greater value. Most said that he hunted unending life, instead.
“Then came the day that they heard a terrible sound. People still tell it that it was like a thousand storm clouds letting loose their thunder, but all of them at once.
“It shook the entire town when it happened and the sky turned black as night.
“When the ground stopped shaking, there was a terrible smell in the air, and folk went into their homes and shut themselves in for a week or more.
“After a while, when they had decided that maybe the world wasn't about to end after all, they came back out. Then they screwed up their courage as much as they could and a group of them went out to the tower.
“It might have been to ask that crazy old man if he knew what happened, or it might have been that someone saw that the tower had fallen from far off.
“But when they got there what they saw was broken stone blocks lying in every direction. There were many that had been cracked through and through, and lots of those lay far enough away from the tower that it simply falling over wasn't enough to explain it. No, what the few who made it back that day described made it sound like a pot that had its lid screwed down tight then set to boil until it was too late.
“What they talked about was like the thing had exploded.
“Two of the bravest of them rushed in, probably thinking that they'd save someone trapped in the rubble if they could. But what those two didn't see, and the others did later on, was that the ground around that tower had turned brown.
“Not a healthy, natural brown, like when the fields lie at rest and waiting during the cold months of winter. No, it wasn't like that. It was like the grass and plants had been blown clear out of life and when those two poor souls rushed over that blighted line, why they fell down dead as a pair of cold stones.
“The rest of them saw it happen. Not one of them dared cross the line after that.
“They followed it instead and what they found is that it made a rough circle that went round with the broken tower at its center.
“Later, some men went back, thinking to at least retrieve the bodies of the two who had fallen and when someone reached over into cursed ground, why his hand curled right up into a withered claw before he could jerk it back out again.
“That poor, foolish soul spent the next month in agony as his flesh withered ever further up his arm and over his shoulder, until, in a final bit of mercy, the withering bit down on his heart.
“No one went back to try crossing that dead line again.
“And for a long time, it went on like that. No one spoke of the place and after a while, like people are wont to do, they forgot the danger.
“Folk like fool goat herders who brought their flock too close to that terrible place, especially when any better pasture was leagues away while the land near the broken tower lay there sparkling green and rich like a jewel.
“And that would have been fine, but for the fact that once in a while, and with no rhyme or reason behind it that anyone has ever been able to tell, the cursed ground gets hungry.
“Someone noticed that the goat herder didn’t come down with his goats one evening, and when someone else decided at last that it seemed passing strange, they went off to have a look.
“The line of brown, lifeless terrain must have jumped all of a sudden, because what they saw was that it had moved, covering almost twice the distance from the tower as it used to.
“Of course, inside that boundary lay the goatherd and his beasts, all of them just lying there and not even a fly buzzing about. Or, at least, if there was, it didn’t make it very far.
“People were reminded that they needed to be more careful after that. The tale was told and told again, and watchers were sent to check that the ground hadn’t died some more without no one to notice it.
“After a while, folks stopped talking about it and no one ever spoke of how even the birds flew wide around that bare ground, or of how bones lay in the dust with the skin still on them like dried up leather, sometimes covered over in dirt, then peeking back out after a heavy rain.”
Melisse realized that her mouth was hanging open with surprise as she watched the young man speak. She shut it, yet she remained just as fascinated by his face, grave and ashen, while his words kept coming.
“And so it’s been for many a long year. Only now the horror of that place has stirred itself once again.
“Oh, from time to time, the dead line would jump forward a little more, taking just a bit more as it did. Then it would fall quiet again for a long time.
“But, it was only two months past that it woke up and began gobbling up good land like it can’t get enough.
“A stubborn farmer and his whole family were lost a week ago. Their family home had stood three leagues distant from the tower and had done so for five hundred years, since long before even the tower itself was built. He was told that the line had begun moving again, but he refused to be
lieve it would ever take so much, or so fast.
“It ate him up just a week gone by. His wife and his three darling girls, too. All of them dead and lying there behind that brown line of death.”
Melisse started as she realized he had stopped speaking at last. His eyes were on her, looking intently to see if he had been clear enough. He searched her face with such sincerity that she wanted to reassure him.
“So this sound like much more than just a local superstition. I thank you for the warning,” she said.
“If you don’t mind, how close is this dreadful border to the town now?”
He shrugged, then replied, “Hard to tell. It’s been moving almost every day for weeks. It used to be eight leagues off, now it’s half that and coming closer.
“No one wants to come right out and say it, but Urrune is done for. And all of us with it, if we don’t leave before it’s too late.”
“Well, you’ve made your point,” she said, “It’s clearly far too dangerous for someone like me thinking to visit. But as I intend to continue my travels northward, I wonder if you could tell me which direction I should avoid?”
Her awkward effort at trickery had little effect on the young man.
“Look, you can’t still mean to go there. It’s madness and what I have told you is the truth. You can ask anyone. They’ll shut their mouths and squeeze their eyes shut, pretending you had never mentioned the tower, as if they can somehow change the truth of what’s coming. And when they do, you’ll know the reason why and that all I’ve told you is true.
“You must not go there. Please.”
Melisse’s voice softened as she replied.
“I thank you. Truly, I do. But I have no choice. I understand that you don’t want to tell me. You think that would make you responsible for me in some way.”
Melisse shook her head solemnly.
“It won’t. If you don’t tell me, someone else will sooner or later, and I will go there anyway. Whether you tell me or not, it is only a question of time.”
The young man sagged, his shoulders sloping in defeat, then he lifted an arm to point behind Melisse.
“Do you see that church steeple over there?”
Melisse followed his finger and picked it out easily enough.
“I do.”
“The tower lies in that direction. Out beyond the church, you will come across an old road, recently fallen into disuse, and if you follow it, you will come soon enough to...to the most dangerous thing you will ever lay eyes on. And probably the last thing you’ll ever see.
“But, if sense comes back to you before it’s too late, I’ll give you one last warning.
“If you are there at night, and the moon shines down, you might see someone walking there where no living thing can walk anymore.
“Do not be fooled into thinking you can follow him. While no one can say for sure, he’s been seen often enough over the years that we know him for what he is. A shade straight out of hell is what.
“What are you saying? That there is a ghost haunting the tower?” Melisse asked.
“Just...if you see someone, just turn around and run the opposite way,” was his reply, “Keep running and don’t you look back. Not if you value your life more than it seems you do.”
Melisse nodded, then said, “Thank you. You’ve been more than helpful.”
The young man turned around to look down at his tomatoes and had nothing more to say as Melisse left in the direction of the church.
He studied those tomatoes a long time after she had gone but what he saw as he looked down made him feel ill and not helpful at all.
The young man had spoken truly. Just after the church, Melisse found a road that ran off into the countryside and as she walked along it, she saw weeds growing up in the ruts left by wagons and carts.
Nothing had passed this way in some time and despite her desire to have done with the Marechal’s business and be back to take care of her own at House Perene, Melisse did not travel as rapidly as she could have.
Soon, the gentle sounds of a cheerful day began to disappear, almost so slowly that one might not notice.
At first, the happy birdsong that had accompanied her in the thickets running next to the road quieted, then died out altogether.
Not long after, the whispering of tree leaves in a light breeze, the sound which lay underneath everything else, was stifled as well.
In short order, Melisse saw why.
She crested a rise, then came to a stumbling halt.
Before her, like a foul brown carpet, the land rolled out into a wasteland of devastation.
Not a living thing moved. All of it lay there, still as cemetery bones, not one blade of grass stood still green with life.
She saw ragged tree trunks standing here and there, their craggy forms naked of leaves, with blackened branches reaching skyward as if in supplication to be delivered from such an unjust end.
But it was too late. Even she could see that.
And dread stole over her heart.
Somewhere within that blighted ground lay the broken tower and, apparently, the answers to the riddle that is the Marechal.
Melisse knew there were no more choices left to her. If she had come this far it was because she would dare what others could not, perhaps to find her own end, or the end of a tragic man’s questioning of his forgotten past.
She went down the gentle slope of the road and stopped at the edge of death where she saw a trail of black ants working tirelessly on one side of an invisible line.
Apparently, even the tiny beasts could smell the doom that lay so close at hand and were not so mindless in their decisions as the woman standing over them.
Melisse took a breath, then walked forward into hell.
There was no warning, no sound that presaged what happened next.
Instead, it was as if an enormous, invisible hand had made a fist around her.
Suddenly, Melisse could not breathe, then she felt the air on all sides of her slide away as an enormous pressure brought itself to bear.
As if the hand of giant had begun to squeeze.
Without realizing how she got there, Melisse found herself on her knees, then felt herself tipping forward as a kind of lassitude slipped through her flesh.
The steady rhythm that had accompanied her every day of her life, so constant as to be forgotten, skipped a beat...then another.
And then, her heart beat no more as she fell over facedown in the dust.
There was silence. No sound to break the terrible serenity of the place.
Nothing stirred. All was lifeless.
And if anyone had been there to witness the death of the young woman, they would have remarked something stranger still in the next moment.
They would have felt a wave of heat buffeting their faces on the roadside. At first, it would have been only warm, almost pleasurable.
But it grew quickly in its intensity and if there had been someone there, they would have tried to run away as the heat of an oven roared to life. If there had been anyone there, they would have felt the skin flayed from their backs as they fled, but not fast enough.
Nothing could have fled fast enough.
The fire burst into a conflagration and with it there was a roar of an angry beast that shook the ground, toppling the lifeless trees nearest to where the young woman had fallen.
And around her, the fire bloomed like an terrible and beautiful flower. Its petals wrinkled as power licked through them, rippling in it horrific force.
The color of that flower flowed from deep red to bright orange in its interior. And at its heart, it burned white hot, so brightly that no one could have bared looking at it for very long.
In that white heart, there was a dark form, and its arms were raised as it lifted up from the ground. Her hair blew about her and her eyes were wild with the power awakened within her, the wild coruscation that surrounded her.
She was a thing of fire and light, and the desire to burn it all
down brought a savage smile to her lips.
Burn it all...yes, all of it...to the ground.
Then the woman who stood upright in the flames, her feet well off the ground, remembered something she had said to someone not so long ago.
It wants to burn you to the ground....
She remembered his scarred face then and how he had winced at what she said next. Her refusal of him as he had pleaded for her companionship.
Not again...not now.
The feral beast of her power hissed in frustration as she pulled back upon its unseen reins. Melisse drew it back, forcing it inward as she willed herself calm.
She felt the dusty ground under her feet and the omnipresent threat of the stifling force that waited for her to lower her guard at any moment. It was a thing of unthinking malevolence that would not hesitate to take her life if it could.
Melisse forced her power back, but she did not let it fall entirely to embers. Instead she held it carefully in balance, at the ready, the inferno it could become only an instant away.
Anywhere else, she would have never dared such a thing. Should her concentration waver but an instant, the danger she could unleash would be devastating.
There, though, in that blighted land, deserted of all life, the risk seemed worthwhile.
As she had done each day after leaving House Perene and setting out for southern lands, Melisse walked forward, her determination leading her onward, her purpose clear.
She passed a few buildings fallen into ruin. One of them might have been the home of the misfortunate farmer and his family. Melisse could not have said, nor did she spare the time to try.
Quickly after that, she found the first of the great stone blocks lying upon the ground like a giant child’s toys left behind and forgotten.
She saw where some of them were cracked and split, others still whole. And they grew in number as she advanced.
Melisse picked her way through a clump of blocks that had tumbled together and once she climbed over the last of these, she saw the foundation of the tower not far away.
Rather, she saw what remained of the foundation.
It was a circle of broken stone, like a mouth opened far too wide to expose its cracked teeth and as she went toward it, she saw a dark figure step free of that ring of stone.
The Marechal Chronicles: Volume IV, The Chase: A Dark Fantasy Tale Page 9