by Ben Spencer
The priest hatched a disturbing, crooked smile. The many lines on his face looked like the scrawled lines of a poem written by death.
“Yes,” he lied.
8
The priest rode on to The Last Traveler, Mossbane’s only inn. Doshensa turned the dapple grey around and left. Emmaline stood in the middle of the street, watching them go.
Regina Houghton approached, trailed by her husband, Dillon. “Let’s get you home before the questions start,” Regina said, pulling Emmaline away from the encroaching crowd. Much like a year earlier when she had followed Oostri’s clan, Emmaline complied for lack of a better option.
They walked the two-mile trek out to the Houghtons’ in silence. Emmaline sensed that the Houghtons had a million questions but wanted to give Emmaline space. A quarter mile away from the Houghtons’ home, Emmaline caught a glimpse of her childhood cabin through a tangle of trees. Through the broken vista, the cabin looked like a fragmented dream.
The Houghtons served rabbit for supper, the same garlicky concoction as the last time she had been there. The sensory memory of the last time both her brother and father had been alive triggered silent tears. Regina thought the tears were an invitation to pry, but, when Emmaline met her questions with the same silence that had occasioned her crying, the queries drifted away like wisps of smoke. When supper was finished, Dillon Houghton looked at Emmaline and said, “You’ve got the rest of your days to figure out what you want to say. There’s no rush.”
Dillon’s words played in Emmaline’s head later that night as she lay in bed, trying to drift off to sleep. The rest of your days. After all that she’d been through, and after all that she’d seen, the thought that her part in the incipient drama of the Deer King’s life was effectively over, and that she would have the rest of her life to make sense of it, galled. She, whose father had been a Stoneman. She, who had bested the great priest of the Bronze Titan and stolen a Saving Stone. She, who had parleyed with the Raven Queen. She, who had called the Deer King by his true name and soothed his troubled soul. She, whose last name was Rain. No, she thought, I will not be cast out of the story of my life.
But then what role would she play? She sat up in bed. Tried to clear her head. But the Houghtons’ cabin was too stifling for rational thought. She climbed out of bed and crept past the Houghtons, outside the cabin into the Havenese night.
The night was alive with weather. Up above, a cavalry of luminescent clouds stormed across a field of stars, stirred to action by the trumpeting of winds. Somewhere far off, the sky growled, though whether it was thunder or moaning winds, it was impossible to say. Emmaline braced herself against the swirling gusts, relishing their wild caresses. They cleared her mind with the sudden force of a blunt truth. I do have a role to play. But I don’t yet have the knowledge to play my role well. She needed to know more about the Deer King. She needed to know more about the history of her people and the history of the Massaporans. And then, once she had that knowledge, she could decide for herself if the Deer King was a deity that deserved to be saved, or deserved to be killed.
She began the walk back to Mossbane. And as she walked, she formed a plan. If she truly wanted to play a part in the paramount story of her life, she needed power. Without power she was simply the orphaned daughter of a Stoneman, destined to live out her life as little more than a local curiosity, the object of scorn and pity. But with power she might forge her own destiny, yoke her own story once more to those forces which would, for better or worse, shape her life.
Everything became clear. She knew exactly what she was going to do. It was a forty-minute, two-mile trek to The Last Traveler, Mossbane’s only inn. The priest was inside. Sleeping, possibly dying.
And on the priest was the Saving Stone.
By the time Emmaline reached Mossbane, the heavens had opened. The frontier city’s buildings, which resembled more a sprawling collection of structures rather than a uniform whole, had hunkered into themselves for the storm, every candle snuffed out and every window closed shut. The single exception was The Last Traveler. Edgar Broggs, the proprietor, kept a single candle lit to signify vacancies. Through the blinding squall, Emmaline could just make it out in the window.
She was soaked when she arrived: her buckskin dress was dark with water, and her very bones felt soft and swollen from the rain, like puffy bread. Her first instinct was to get out of the rain, but she forced herself to take the lay of the land first. She looked for a place to hide. She settled on a willow tree opposite the inn. The tree’s slender leaves cascaded from the heights like a bounty of slicked hair. Underneath, Emmaline hid behind one of the longer flows, and from there spied on the inn.
Nothing appeared amiss. Every window save the front was dark, and, to the best that Emmaline could tell, no shadows roamed the interior. While she watched, the rain began to taper into thinner and thinner sheets, until at last the droplets were once again distinguishable from one another. Calling on a memory at least two years old, Emmaline tried her best to visualize the inside of the inn. The foyer inside the front door spilled into a large common room. To the left was the kitchen. Tucked behind the kitchen and located on the backside of the house was Edgar and Anne Broggs’s bedroom. Turning right past the foyer led to a straight staircase, and past the staircase were three bedrooms. Up the stairs were six additional bedrooms, three on each side of the bannister.
The priest could be in any one of them.
Resolved, Emmaline marched out of her hiding place and crossed over to the inn. Halfway there, a scything moon slashed open the belly of a dark cloud, exposing her to the world. Instinctively, she picked up the pace. As she stepped onto the inn’s white wooden porch, she couldn’t help but worry that she had been seen.
Reaching the doorstep, she tested the knob. As expected, there was no barrier to entry. Timing her movements to the patter of the rain, Emmaline eased inside. Turned right. The wooden floors threatened a greeting with every step, but Emmaline’s footsteps were feathers, making the floor’s salutations little more than sighs. Passing the staircase, she got her first glimpse of the downstairs bedrooms. Two of the rooms had open doors like wanting mouths. Only one door—the middle bedroom in the group—was closed.
Before the enormity and the dangerousness of what she was attempting could stop her, Emmaline approached the closed door and opened it. Inside, a topography of swells covered the bed. It’s him, she thought. She looked for living land, a respiratory rise and fall. After a moment she spotted it: the plateau of the priest’s chest fluttered like a rippling lake, suggesting the possibility of life. Undeterred by the possibility that he might still be alive, she approached the head of the bed, and positioned herself for a look at his face.
The priest’s eyes shot open and his hand sprang to life, grabbing her by the left wrist.
She didn’t scream. Not when she saw his empty, soot-black eyes and not when his familiar grip threatened to break another bone. She stared back at him, fearless. She had stared into a god’s eyes and seen the horror of the ages—why would she be scared of a dying man’s empty and vacant stare? In a moment she knew that she was right: the priest’s grip weakened and his stare collapsed back into itself like quicksand. She thought he was dying at that very moment, but then he drew a breath, and she realized that he was transferring what little remaining energy he had left to his voice.
“The…(gasp)…Raven (gasp)…Queen. She’s…(gasp)…killed me.”
He found her with his eyes. His head a withered stalk. She wasn’t sure, but it appeared as if he recognized her.
He spoke again, his voice desperate and yearning. “Remember…(gasp)…what I…(gasp)…told you. The boy…(gasp)…must die.”
She refused to nod. She thought herself an angel of death, come to visit the priest at the appointed hour. She wasn’t here to take orders. She was here to take the stone.
The priest groaned, losing eye contact. She didn’t hesitate. She patted him down, searching for the stone, the jorkwood
cast on her left index finger scratching the sheets. The priest was still dressed in his vestments—he appeared to have come to his room and gone directly to bed—so that when she patted his ribcage, she found the stone hidden in an interior pocket, presumably the same pocket from which she had stolen the other stone a year prior. The weight of the stone surprised her: it was almost twice as heavy as the one the Raven Queen now possessed.
Her instincts stung her like a scorpion. Leave now. She turned to go, but from somewhere in the house she heard the creak of trodden floorboards, and, to her surprise, not one but two sets of footsteps. She froze long enough to confirm her fears. Not knowing what part of the house the footsteps were coming from, she took a risk and left the priest’s room, closing the door quietly behind her before slipping into the next room further down the hall. She moved along the room’s wall until she was out of sight of the hallway, and then she went as still as a rock, her only movement the slight tremble of her breathing.
She waited and listened. After a moment she heard the hushed whispers of Edgar Broggs and his wife, Anne.
“No more arguing. You check on him, Edgar. I know a sick man when I see one.”
“It won’t go over well if I wake the priest from his sleep, my dear. Guests don’t take kindly to being rustled awake in the dead of night.”
“You’ll do it if needs be. I know he told you not to send for the doctor, but he’s a stubborn sort, the sort that would rather die than admit he’s dying. I’ll apologize if I’m wrong. But if he’s on death’s doorstep, you’ll go next door and bring Doc Pritchard back with you.”
They reached the priest’s room, and the whispering stopped. The door opened and someone entered the priest’s room. Emmaline listened with a desperate intensity, but for the next minute or two she heard nothing. Then, once more, the married couple resumed whispering.
“He is fading, Anne. Short of breath and he looks like a fresh corpse. I’m sorry… I should have heeded your advice. Go in and keep a watch on him. It won’t take me a minute to rouse Doc Pritchard. I’ll be back shortly.”
Edgar’s footsteps scuttled away. Anne trod softly into the priest’s room. Once again the inn went quiet.
The silence expanded like a bubble until it was popped by the soft hush of Anne’s nervous singing. Under cover of the melody, Emmaline moved closer to the door. Pricked her ears. She didn’t recognize the song at first, but then it came to her. Shores upon Shores. The song was a melancholic hymn sung in the temple of the Bronze Titan, a song that had originated during the time of The Great Torquec War. A fitting tune for a deathbed. Beneath the melody, Emmaline thought she could hear the priest’s death rattle.
Now that she was closer to the door, Emmaline verified what she had suspected: the door to the priest’s room remained open, which meant there was no way for her to escape without risking being seen. She weighed her options. She could run and risk exposing herself, or she could wait in the hopes that everyone would eventually leave and she’d have a clear path for an escape. With Edgar and Doc Pritchard due to return, and with the priest on the verge of death, she knew that there was only one real option.
She had to leave now.
She had scarcely taken her first step when she heard the creak of a floorboard. It was a soft creak, befitting either a cat or an intruder. She listened for the sound again. Her eyes rather than her ears were rewarded: a shadow appeared in the hallway, lithe and clever, contorting itself in such a way that it stayed out of sight of the priest’s doorway, although Emmaline could see it from her vantage point. The shadow crept forward inch by inch, stalking the room. Emmaline, pinned against the wall, worried that the person who belonged to the shadow would see her if they continued advancing, but then, with a movement so quick it scarce seemed to have happened, a man appeared in the doorway of the priest’s room and entered, failing to notice Emmaline at all.
Emmaline didn’t have to wait long to discover the intruder’s intent. Anne Broggs made two sounds: the first a befuddled coo that brought the singing to an end, and the second a scream that died in its infancy. Fear momentarily paralyzed Emmaline: she didn’t know whether to run or to hide. But then the muscle memory of survival kicked in, and she retreated, sliding back along the wall away from the door.
Bedlam erupted at the sound of Anne’s scream. Upstairs, a guest opened their door and cried out, “Is everything all right?” Then a different, distant door opened, followed by the sound of footsteps. Edgar Broggs, newly returned, shouted, “What’s the matter?” to the upstairs guest, his voice full of false bravado. “There was a scream…” came the reply, but the guest’s response was interrupted by the shadow come to life, a Massaporan man stepping into the hallway looking wild and flustered. The man had a long face that registered in Emmaline’s subconscious a split second before she processed who it was. Prala. Prala, sensing her presence, turned and stuck his head in the room. When he saw her, understanding dawned on his face. He had come to steal the stone from the priest, but she had beat him to it, and now there was nothing he could do.
Behind Prala came a rumble of footsteps. He turned to face his fate.
When Edgar and Doc Pritchard crashed into Prala, it was like a colliding of planets. The three men fell across the face of the door, landing with a violent thump. A struggle ensued: Edgar grunted and Doc Pritchard swore and Prala made no sound at all. Footsteps clump-clumped down the stairs. The guest—a scrappy-looking pilgrim—flashed across the doorway and joined in the assault. Emmaline knew without a doubt who the winners would be.
Now.
She was out the doorway in an instant. The Saving Stone clenched in her right hand, the men a peripheral blur. They shouted Stop! and other words that Emmaline couldn’t decipher, but the business with Prala was too intensive to spare the able-bodied, so no one followed. She burst out the front door and into a night scrubbed fresh by the rain.
She ran west, away from civilization. Into the woods. The trees and the clouds and the night sky cloaked her in a hardy blackness. Her worry that she was being followed dissipated with each passing second. She dodged trees with an effortless grace, her feet guiding her back to the Houghtons. Soon she was on the same dirt road that she had traversed many times in her youth, the uneasy quiet of the woods all around her.
She slowed to a walk. Brought her breathing back under control. The world righted and the realization of what she had done washed over her. She stopped and brought the stone to eye level. Her personal conduit to the Deer King. The stone weighed heavy in her hand like original sin. But she felt no guilt. None at all.
She looked deep into the stone’s blue-grey face.
“Dachahelu,” she whispered.
9
She slipped back into the Houghtons’ cabin in the small hours of the morning. Dillon awoke when she returned, groggy but conscious enough to note her return. “Where did you go?” he asked.
“Outhouse,” Emmaline whispered in reply. Dillon nodded and dozed back off to sleep.
Regina Houghton shook Emmaline awake a few hours later. The sun was a newborn in the sky. There was a frenzied look in Regina’s eyes. “Boy from town brought news this morning,” she said to Emmaline. “Your priest and the innkeeper’s wife are dead. Murdered. Plus, the Saving Stone is missing. Word has it they’ve captured a native. He’s to hang later in the day.”
Emmaline said nothing. Regina noticed Emmaline’s buckskin dress, the way it lay damp against her skin. Her face screwed up in confusion, but only for a moment; she quickly willed her disconcertion away, a tranquil expression taking its place. “This heathen’s dress won’t do. We’re going into town for the hanging. You’ll wear my extra petticoat and gown.”
The petticoat and gown felt like a layer of dead snake skin, obscuring Emmaline’s true self. But when they arrived in Mossbane later that day, Emmaline was glad for the camouflage: Mossbane was teeming with humanity, the news of Prala’s impending execution having traveled far and fast. Executions in Mossbane being infr
equent, there had been no time to construct a gallows, but a stunted dew oak—a rarity this far south—had been appropriated for the occasion, a noose hanging from its branches. Scores upon scores of people loitered around the tree, staking out a prime vantage point from which to view the proceedings. Emmaline knew that were she wearing the buckskin dress, she would have drawn an excessive amount of attention, but in the petticoat and gown, only those close enough to confirm her identity showed interest, cupping their hands over their mouths and speculating about the past year of her life to their hearts’ content.
They brought Prala out at noon sharp. The damage done to him by Doc Pritchard and the others made his lengthy face look even longer: Prala’s countenance was smeared with bruises to the degree that he resembled a piece of fruit gone to rot, his skin oozing purple, blue, and black. But he held his head high as the sheriff—a forty-year-old man named Henry Malls—led him to the dew oak. A procession of Prala’s captors trailed in the sheriff’s wake: stocky, white-chinned Edgar Broggs; broad-shouldered, bald-headed Doc Pritchard; and the inn’s guest, a wiry man with a moustache that reminded Emmaline of her brother.
The five men stood and faced the crowd. Apparently there were matters of business to attend to before the hanging could commence.
Sheriff Malls spoke first. “This native stands accused of entering The Last Traveler last night and murdering both Anne Broggs and Kern, a high priest of the Bronze Titan. Edgar, Doc Pritchard and…What’s your name again, son?”
The wiry traveler responded with a scratchy voice, “Reed Hall, sir.”
“…and Reed Hall all attest to the fact. As this native is not one of the seven Koeceti, he is also guilty of trespassing on Havenese territory. As such, I condemn this man to death by hanging, by the power vested in me by the Havenese Territorial Legislature. But first, there’s another matter to address.”