“Not necessary,” the practitioner said. “All regular patients have been moved to my home. There is no one here except for us. Well, us and…” The doctor looked toward the back of the large room, where the darkness was gathered. “You have been told what you would see here, haven’t you, Mr. Nye?” The doctor looked back to Gildwyn, and the envoy could see how tired the practitioner’s eyes were in the light of the lantern.
Gildwyn nodded without speaking, and the doctor led him through the dark room, the lantern’s light illuminating each empty bed as they passed it. The sheets had been pulled from the beds with the exception of the last, against the back wall and to the left. Gildwyn could now see it well enough by the lantern light, sitting all alone in the corner like an insolent child. No patient was in the bed, but a thick white sheet was covering something heaped up in the middle of the mattress, causing the sheet to tent up in the center. Gildwyn immediately thought back to the infirmary forts he and his father made so long ago, but like everything else about this infirmary, what stood before him watered that memory down, faded it into obscurity, and somehow disfigured it.
The two men stopped walking when they reached the foot of the last bed, both staring at the tented sheet. Then the practitioner turned to Gildwyn.
“This is so far beyond my medical capability that I…” The man’s words drifted off as if his thought had simply left him in an instant. “Can I pull back the sheet now?” he asked after a moment passed.
Gildwyn turned to the man and swallowed, finding his throat painfully dry. “Okay,” he said as quiet as a whisper.
The practitioner pulled the thick white sheet off of the underlying heap, and a single shriveled syllable escaped from Gildwyn’s dry throat. He gasped heavily as the terrible sight assaulted him, and felt light in the head. Then he spun away, doubled over, and vomited on the wooden floorboards. No story or description could have prepared him for what was under the sheet. That half second of a glimpse would haunt his dreams for the remainder of his years; he was absolutely sure of it. He caught his breath after vomiting, but he couldn’t turn back to the bed.
“Cover it,” he gasped.
The practitioner gently laid the sheet back over the heap and came around so he could face the envoy. “So you see why we had to send a message to the tribe chief. You see what situation we are in. As soon as they touched her, she crumpled inward like a leaf on fire, and afterward the poor girl’s body turned inside out. We have no way of knowing when life left her, except for the assumption that it was close to when her screams stopped.” The practitioner paused after saying this. His eyes glazed over as if he was caught in the memory of a nightmare. Then his attention snapped back to Gildwyn. “Her parents want her buried properly, but we knew someone from the palace had to see her first, or else…who would believe us?”
“What did this?” Gildwyn muttered, unable to look up into the eyes of the man who stood before him.
“They hover over the lake now. I should take you there before the sun sets completely.”
The men walked down the village road toward the lakeshore, and as they did, the villagers came out of their homes to stand and stare. Gildwyn looked at their terrified faces as he passed, one wet footstep at a time. Hoods were pulled down over the tearful eyes of some, and others openly wept. Brinvarda was a small village of Whiteclaw tribe, and the people lived simple lives. Many of them had never left the borders of their tribe, and they looked at Gildwyn with a mixture of hope and hurt he shamefully wished to turn away from. He was an envoy, not a hero. He had no idea how to save people from nightmares.
The practitioner led him to the sandy lakeshore but stopped his trek far from the water’s edge. The bald man pointed out over the water, and Gildwyn raised his gaze to find a large black orb hovering maybe thirty feet above the surface of the lake. The orb seemed to move as if its surface were boiling. But as Gildwyn’s focus set more acutely, he realized he was looking at not one object but thousands.
“Butterflies,” Jennigan whispered to him.
Now Gildwyn could see them properly, their dull black wings moving back and forth as they crawled over and on one another. They created a great mass in the sky, like a sphere that fluttered and crawled, ten, maybe fifteen feet in diameter. The man’s eyes widened with curiosity even as his legs beckoned him to retreat. The doctor took his glasses off and rubbed his tired eyes with the back of his hand.
“Please,” Jennigan said, “tell me you know what this is and how to get rid of it, or tell me you at least know of someone who does. Please. Please, I’m begging you. Stop looking at that thing as if you were trapped in a dream.”
“Those butterflies did what I saw in the infirmary?” Gildwyn was having difficulty grasping the reality of the situation.
“Her name was Illia Leary,” Jennigan said, “and she was ten years old. She walked to the water’s edge and raised her hand, and they funneled down to her like a dark cyclone. The butterflies landed on her for a brief second, and then what you saw in the infirmary happened to her. It was a perfect sunny day, a resting day for the village. Many people, including me, were here and witnessed what happened. Please, Mr. Nye, tell me you have some answer for this.”
Gildwyn Nye lowered his head. “I don’t.”
“We had hoped Chief Redcroft might send someone who could use zulis,” Jennigan said.
“I can use zulis,” Gildwyn responded. “Better than most in the tribe, but this…” He shook his head sullenly. “We need a master.”
“That could take many days,” Jennigan said worriedly. “All four tribe chiefs have to elect a zul master. What if those things come into the village? What if they are not content to stay above the lake? What are we supposed to do?”
“Leave,” Gildwyn said, suddenly feeling a rush of adrenaline. “As soon as you can, leave. All of you.” He turned and walked back to the village road. The sky was darkening to a deep violet, and mist was gathering.
“Where are you going?” Jennigan cried as his hope walked away from him.
“To the stable,” Gildwyn said. “Mayddox and I have a long road ahead.”
The envoy stomped through the mist and mud in a cold sweat and then suddenly broke into a full run. His body was begging him to run away from the lake as fast and as far as he could. The faces of Brinvarda’s citizens were following him every step of the way, their silent cries for help haunting him yet powering his legs. His boots mashed the mud, causing it to spray against his legs as he ran. He had to get to Mayddox, and he had to get away from Brinvarda.
Gildwyn’s memory was haunting him again as Brinvarda’s faces watched him run. The sad, drawn faces took him away, and suddenly they weren’t the faces of Brinvarda but the faces of the people of his village, his childhood home. They were watching him as he and other men carried his father’s casket in procession. It had been fifteen years since his father had died, fifteen years since the accident. Gildwyn had been in his seventeenth year and decided he wanted to become a zul master. His father had been petitioning the masters, and it would soon be time for Gildwyn to travel to Ferrenglyn to await apprenticeship. Henron had been so proud of his son. There had never been a moment of doubt in Henron’s mind that Gildwyn would become a great master.
One evening in the forest, while Gildwyn was helping his father gather wood for the fire, Henron gave his son a gift. It was a bottle stopper, made of both wood and metal. Henron had crafted it with his own two hands, and it bore their family shield. Henron had told his son he would need many stoppers once he was a master, as masters had many substances they needed to store. Gildwyn had been so appreciative for the gift, and so excited for his future, that he and his father had begun talking of Ferrenglyn and of things to come.
Alas, father and son became so lost in conversation they neglected the time, and as darkness descended, a pack of horned boars found them. They were attacked, and Henron swung his axe over and over, trying to fight the pack off. Gildwyn used the zulis he always carried with him
, and he smote the boars with a cloud of fire. They ran away, squealing into the depths of the forest. However, when Gildwyn looked back to his father, he saw Henron had been gored. Henron sat on the dirty ground, with blood pouring from the wound in his belly. Gildwyn had rushed to his father, emptying the pouch of zulis into his hands, and done all he could to mend his father’s wound.
Gildwyn ran now through the roads of Brinvarda, away from the nightmare at the lakeshore, away from the sad faces of Brinvarda, away from the sad faces in his memory, and away from his failure to save his father’s life that night in the forest. Tears blurred his eyes as his boots hit the mud, and he grabbed the bottle stopper in his breast pocket, which he kept with him always.
When he finally came to the stable, he stopped and slipped, falling into the mud. Gildwyn scrabbled back to his feet and dashed into the stable.
“Corbin!” he cried. “Corbin!”
The man walked out from behind a short wall where he was tending to a brown horse and stared as Gildwyn yelled his name.
“That was fast,” Corbin said.
Gildwyn ran all the way up to Corbin and placed his hands on the man’s shoulders. “Mayddox,” he said, trying to catch his breath.
Corbin pointed calmly to the right, and Gildwyn turned to see his beautiful green stag waiting patiently for him to return. The sight of Mayddox calmed Gildwyn some, and he walked over and petted the stag along its neck. Standing in the stall, Gildwyn looked about at the dried yellow hay and the thick wooden beams, things so common and natural to a man who had lived his whole life in Whiteclaw tribe, among the granite and trees of mountain and forest. He breathed in slowly and closed his eyes, letting the musk of his stag and the smells of the stable remind him he was still home and he was still among his people. This was his tribe, and it needed his help.
Gildwyn had never gone to Ferrenglyn. That night his father had died had stopped his wanting to be a zul master. In fact, it had been a long time after that night before Gildwyn had been able to use zulis again, and now he used it only when he felt it was necessary. Feeling the fine granules of zulis on his fingers only brought him back to that night; it only brought him face-to-face with the worst failure of his life. But as he pressed himself against his stag, his friend, he knew he had to take action. He couldn’t have another tragedy on his conscience. Zulis might not be something he could use as he once dreamed of, but he had Mayddox, and he had his voice. Gildwyn Nye was an envoy of Chief Redcroft, an ambassador of Whiteclaw tribe, and now was not the time to be lost in the past.
With a newly steadied demeanor, Gildwyn turned back to Corbin. “How long have you lived in Whiteclaw tribe?” he asked.
“My whole life,” Corbin answered.
The envoy looked at Corbin, with his hood pulled down over his eyes, and for the first time, Gildwyn realized the man did not look exactly as he thought he had. There was something odd.
“Can you lift your hood, Corbin?” Gildwyn asked.
Corbin stood motionless for a moment but then pulled his hood back from his face, and Gildwyn realized he was right. Gildwyn had seen dark men before. He had lived among them his entire life. There were not as many dark-skinned people in the northern and eastern tribes as in the southern and western, but dark-skinned people were not uncommon to him. Corbin was dark skinned but in a way that was foreign to Gildwyn. The envoy was used to brown tones of skin, rich and robust in color. The color of Corbin’s skin was black, like ash, flat and without depth. It seemed almost as if the man were colored in a very dark and muted gray. There was no element of brown in his skin at all.
“I’ve never seen anyone who looks like this either,” Corbin said as Gildwyn looked at him oddly. “No one other than myself, that is.”
“How did it happen?” Gildwyn asked.
“Born this way,” Corbin said. “To parents paler than you. It’s why I keep the hood low. It’s easier if people just think their eyes are playing tricks. Most just think I’m extra dark and let it be.”
“I’m sorry,” Gildwyn said, not knowing what else to say.
“I’m not,” Corbin said.
Gildwyn could see the strength Corbin had, and envied him for it. Maybe growing up with a strange skin condition had given the man a healthier perspective than most, or maybe it just made him defiant. Either way, Gildwyn trusted the man. Something about him seemed real and indomitable. Gildwyn needed a man like that now.
“I have to ride north, Corbin. I have to ride to Zehnder tribe, and then west, and south. A zul master must be elected.” Gildwyn opened one of Mayddox’s saddlebags and pulled out a strip of parchment and an already-inked quill. He quickly scratched a message and then rolled the parchment. “I need someone to ride to the palace and deliver this message to Chief Redcroft. I can’t waste time going myself. I need your help.”
“Kimball can watch the stable while I’m gone,” Corbin said.
Gildwyn walked to the man and handed him the message. Then he pulled the bottle stopper his father had made him from his brown coat and handed it to Corbin as well. “This will get you to Redcroft. When you reach the palace gate, tell them I have sent you, and ask to speak to Gatemaster Saunders. She knows me, and she knows this stopper. She will get you to Redcroft.” Gildwyn looked Corbin fiercely in the eyes. “Do not lose that stopper. My father gave that to me. Have Redcroft send it back to me in Ferrenglyn with his choice of zul master.”
Corbin nodded and tucked both items into a pocket on the inside of his cloak. “Have you ever seen anything like them before?” he asked. “Those butterflies?”
“Never,” Gildwyn answered. “So you understand how important this is. You understand how dangerous this could become. I need you to leave as soon as possible. We need a zul master in this village.”
“I’ll leave within the hour, Mr. Nye,” Corbin said. “This village means a great deal to me.”
“Good,” Gildwyn said plainly and patted Corbin on the shoulder. He then walked back to his stag, raised himself up by the stirrup, and sat in the saddle.
Without another word, Gildwyn Nye took the reins, and Mayddox leapt forward. Like a green streak, the stag flew out of the stable and onto the dark roads of Brinvarda. It would be a long night of traveling ahead. With luck, Gildwyn thought, they might reach the southern border of Zehnder tribe by midday tomorrow. As far as he was concerned, Whiteclaw tribe was under attack, and there was no time for rest.
VI
Rainart, Echo, and the twins spent a long and boring night in the garage. Zigmund spent his time scanning through the channels on the video screen, wondering why his uncle hadn’t updated to an ether screen or purchased any of the better channels. Finally, he settled on a news report about another shooting. It seemed as if there was a reported public shooting at least once a month. They happened mostly in the middle-class counties, as crime in the poor counties was never reported. However, this shooting had happened in a rich county in Illinois. “Twenty dead at a shopping mall in Lake County” flashed the headline across the screen. Zigmund shook his head when they showed the face of the shooter, a middle-aged woman who looked as if she could have been a teacher, or a doctor, or any other normal person. Every once in a while, there would be a truly crazy person, the kind that hears voices that aren’t really there or thinks he or she is mowing down zombies and not just innocent people, and about one out of every four shootings was a religious zealot, but more and more the shooters were turning out to be completely normal people who just snapped for one reason or another. The report explained the woman had recently lost her job and knew her family was going to have to move to a poor county. The police thought that was what made her lose it.
Zigmund looked over at his sister, now asleep on one of the cots. Echo was asleep on the other, and Rainart was sleeping against one of the walls. He wondered what kind of crazy person his uncle was. He wondered what had caused him to snap. Zigmund refused to believe the story Rainart was telling him and his sister, even if Echo was backing it up. Th
ey were probably both crazy. Whatever it was that had happened in the dining room, there was no way it was because of some alien magic his sister had used. Zigmund shook his head again. It seemed as if the whole world was going insane. He turned off the video screen and decided to join the others in sleep.
When morning finally arrived, they each walked out of the garage as if nothing had happened. Echo left without much of a good-bye, Rainart disappeared into his bedroom, and the twins ascended the stairs to claim their own bedrooms. It seemed like such an unceremonious end to an eventful first night, but Zigmund was just happy to be able to get himself and his sister away from Rainart.
The next few days passed by uneventfully as well. The twins didn’t see their uncle as often as they thought they would. He was very reclusive, and it turned out the meager host he had been on their first night was actually Rainart at the height of his capabilities. Since then, he had spent literally no time sitting in conversation with the twins. If they saw him at all, it was in passing or around the kitchen they had been forced to find on their own. No rules had been set out for them. What was expected, where they were or were not allowed to go in the house, and what they were or were not allowed to use were never determined. It seemed Rainart had a very laissez-faire way of dealing with houseguests. The teens set their own schedules to do whatever it was that pleased them. In a lot of ways, it was what every teenager wants, autonomy. Yet Zigmund and Zerah found the whole thing unsettling.
It was late June, so they were in the fortunate situation of not needing to be anywhere specific, but they wondered what would happen as the school year got closer. They would, obviously, need to be enrolled in a new high school, and they were doubtful Rainart would have that taken care of. It had been a couple of days, and no mention had been made of getting the dining room window replaced. They hadn’t seen anyone come or go from the house, and from what their uncle had said during their first night, he seemed to be the sort of man who thought taking care of his own needs was important. However, he didn’t seem to ever actually take care of anything. Did he shop for groceries? Did he do housework, inside or out? He was obviously employed, but he didn’t seem to need to go anywhere. The twins were utterly confused by their situation, and the thought of leaving was pressing on Zigmund’s mind.
The Hands of Ruin: Book One Page 8