by James Lowder
“Your repair was a bit more complicated than I’d anticipated,” the Cobbler offered. His eyes twinkled with a mischievousness Ganelon found disarming, despite the menace of the gore-flecked knives in the case. “I should have realized that some of the more serious debilities of the, er, donor would carry to you. The brace will allow you to walk your road with a surer gait.” “Why?” the young man stammered. “Why choose you? Because a life of adventure was the destiny you desired,” the Cobbler replied. “It was a life you deserved.”
“No,” Ganelon said. “Why do this at all? What are you?”
“That sort of curiosity could get you in trouble,” the Cobbler said darkly. “It killed the man for whom that brace was first crafted.”
“Tell me anyway. I have to understand at least that much to be able to go an.”
A satisfied smile lit the Cobbler’s face. “Just the attitude I’d expect from a traveler on your lonely road,” he said. Brushing back his cloak, he settled against a tree. “The best way to explain my purpose is to tell you a little story. You’ve no doubt heard variations on this unpleasant epic before, but never the truth.
“Once,” he began grandly, “a long time ago, there was a knight of great renown. The man was graced with an agile intelligence and a strength of limb that perfectly suited him for his role as a champion of virtue. He possessed wisdom enough to recognize his destiny.” The Cobbler laughed, the mirth tainted with a surprisingly potent bitterness. “A blind man could have recognized this knight’s destiny-to lead his land, perhaps even the entire world, into a new era ruled by the just. Of course, you know the identity of this fabled warrior. He is the father of this black place.”
“Lord Soth,” Ganelon offered tentatively.
“Just so,” the Cobbler replied. “But this was in the days before he died for his sins, when a heart still beat within his chest. He was a good man then, who saw the road to glory stretched out endlessly before him and chose instead to tread the gutter alongside.”
A burst of icy air swept from the moonshadow of a twisted oak. “That tale outstrips your talent as a storyteller,” said the death knight as he stepped from the darkness. “It also takes far longer to tell than you have life to live.”
Ganelon prostrated himself before Lord Soth. The Cobbler remained where he was, leaning idly against a tree. He crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head. “You never were a fair judge of talent,” he said. “Just consider your success with seneschals.”
“There is a difference between bravery and foolishness,” Soth rumbled. “Let me teach it to you.”
The death knight traced a glyph in the air, watched as it took fire and flew toward the Cobbler. But the magical symbol passed right through the man’s pale form. It struck the tree, which began to shudder. Its branches curled, fingers clenching into a fist. A sound went up from the trunk like an agonized groan.
“I learned all the lessons you had to offer quite a long time ago,” the Cobbler said. “If you let me bid my friend farewell, I will demonstrate how well I mastered them.”
Soth moved between the Cobbler and Ganelon. “I will deal with this spy, too,” he said, “and without the lenience I showed him when Azrael first brought him to me.”
“You mistake him for someone else,” the Cobbler said. “It’s the brace that fooled you. Ho, Ganelon! Let your sovereign see your face.”
The young man looked up at the death knight, and saw those burning orange orbs regard him from within the tasseled helmet. “I am your loyal subject,” Ganelon said. “I’m a worker from Veidrava.” “What are you doing here?” Soth asked. The Cobbler answered for him. “Hunting for his ladylove,” he said. “Surely that is a pursuit that can draw some sympathy, even from you.” He chortled. “Especially from you.”
Soth stepped aside and waved Ganelon away. The Cobbler extended a gloved hand to the young man. “I can tell you where to start your search,” he said as Ganelon got to his feet, “but you must swear never to reveal the information to anyone.”
“Of course,” Ganelon replied quickly.
The Cobbler frowned. “It’ll have to be more formal than that, I’m afraid. What should you swear upon, though?” He regarded Soth coldly. “The Measure, perhaps?”
The reference to the code of conduct of his former order surprised Soth. The death knight regarded the cloaked figure more intently.
“I swear upon my love for Helain,” Ganelon offered.
“Perfect,” the Cobbler said. He leaned close, the scent of roses clinging to him still, and whispered, “Continue north, to the Iron Hills. The place where she is heading is the first thing in the hills touched by the morning sun.”
Ganelon thought to ask for better instruction, for a weapon, perhaps, but one glance at Soth told him that he was lucky to escape this meeting with his life. He hurried off into the night. The Cobbler could hear the steady clank of his brace long after the Fumewood had swallowed his form.
“Alone at last,” the Cobbler said. “This meeting has been a long time coming.”
“You know my history,” Soth said, “so you must serve Kitiara.”
“The White Rose,” the Cobbler corrected. “I have other names for her, too, ones you could never use.”
Soth snorted his derision. “Are you her lover, then? She’s had many, boy. All dead by her treachery.”
“You’re one to speak of treachery,” the Cobbler said. “How many thousands of lives are on your conscience?”
“None,” replied Soth. “To feel guilt I would have to believe what I have done is wrong. I do not.”
The Bloody Cobbler scrutinized the master of Nedragaard, as if his pale blue eyes could see beyond the death knight’s blackened armor. “You remember all that you have done and been?”
Soth did not reply. He had pieced together most of his past through the power of the Lake of Sounds. In fact, he had been at the lake, listening for those still-elusive fragments of his history, when the Cobbler spoke his name. “I remember that I am at war with the White Rose,” Soth said after a moment. “I know what I will do in the days to come to defeat her.”
“You forfeited your title to the future when you abandoned the path of the Rose Knights and allowed the gods of Krynn to wreak havoc on the world. The past is all you have,” said the Cobbler. He gestured to the blackened rose on Soth’s partially melted breastplate. “You wear its symbol. That cold that chills your bones is its breath, the dead sigh of a million misused lives. They all have claims upon you.”
Soth grabbed the Cobbler by the arm. “If those lost souls concern you so much,” he snarled, “I will add you to their ranks.”
The Cobbler’s laughter was more cutting than any blade that had ever touched Soth’s flesh. “I already am part of their ranks,” he said.
The Cobbler vanished, and Soth’s fist closed on empty air. Twined scents lingered in his wake, roses and burned flesh. His laughter persisted, too, until it finally diminished to a noise that had lost all its mirth and derision.
In the instant before it silenced, the Cobbler’s laughter became the agonized scream of a child.
Nine
A chill lingered with Ganelon long after his meeting with Soth and the Cobbler. It wasn’t the harbinger of some sickness. Neither sunlight nor a fire’s warmth could lessen the sensation. By his third day in the Fumewood, he came to think of it as an icy shroud that had enwrapped his soul, one he could not shake off.
Thoughts of Helain only seemed to make the pall cling to him more fiercely. The Cobbler had called her “mad,” not “sick” or “distracted” or any of the other euphemisms Ambrose and the others used. Ganelon knew that the mysterious man had been correct.
That fact didn’t disturb him as much as it once would have. The whole world seemed mad now, full of walking dead men and living nightmares. Since no creature in the wilderness had so much as sniffed around his camp since that first night, Ganelon had to wonder if he, too, might not be crazed. That was what the Cobbler had
said, wasn’t it? “The things in the Fumewood give the mad a wide berth.”
No, Ganelon could cope with Helain’s madness and had no trouble envisioning himself caring for her. He still loved her, after all. What saddened him was the growing certainty that he had played some part in bringing on the insanity. Perhaps she’d mistrusted his promise to curb his wanderlust. Fear that her one true love would leave her might have driven her mad.
As he looked around him now, at the expanse of stunted pine that marked the vague border between the Fumewood and the Iron Hills, Ganelon could not deny the quickening in his blood. The Cobbler had told him that an adventurous life was his destiny. He’d even killed someone else to set Ganelon back on that path.
A ragged sigh escaped Ganelon’s lips. He was on the right road, but it was a lonely one. All the times he’d wandered off from the mine, Ambrose and Kern and Ogier had known where he was going. It was a sort of game they played. He dropped hints in between demands to be left to his own devices. They carefully noted his plans, all the while grumbling about being kept in the dark. Ganelon’s friends thought of themselves as safety lines, like the ones the miners used down in the pit when someone explored a newly discovered cave. It was a role they treasured.
They couldn’t pull him back to safety now, though. No one could.
Ganelon glanced up at the late afternoon sky, swiftly darkening to match his mood’s grim hue. Rain was on its way, and soon. For the hundredth time that afternoon, he cursed himself for his hasty departure from the shop. He’d managed to compensate for most of the things he’d left without. Soon after parting ways with the Cobbler, he had literally stumbled across a hunk of timber suitable for a club. The clanking of his brace prevented him from sneaking up on any small game and putting the makeshift weapon to use, but he knew enough woodlore to keep his stomach filled with roots and berries. Nothing in the forest, however, would suffice as a cloak.
Best find a place to spend the night, Ganelon thought, though his prospects didn’t seem to include shelter from the storm. The Iron Hills were still too far away for him to hope for a fortuitously placed cave. He was well clear of any woodsman’s paths, where he might find a lean-to or some other improvised haven.
The trees in this part of the Fumewood didn’t offer anything in the way of potential building material either. Much of the growth here was old pine, blighted and misshapen. The trunks crawled with some sort of termite that devoured flesh as readily as it did wood. The fallen limbs and needles burned only grudgingly and produced a thick smoke that reeked worse than anything Ganelon had ever smelled. If he tried to harvest a living branch, it seemed to struggle against him. It was as if the woods knew what he was doing, just as in all the childhood stories Ganelon had ever heard.
That was reason enough for him to leave the trees alone. As the past few days had taught him, those old stories held more truth than he’d ever suspected.
So it was that the thrashing of branches and cracking of limbs behind him brought to Ganelon’s mind an image of an angry uprooted tree instead of a more mundane traveler in the forest. At the sudden commotion, he dashed behind a fallen log and camouflaged himself as best he could beneath a blanket of pine needles. He had barely finished his work when the large figure blundered into view.
Ganelon couldn’t see his face at first, but his hulking frame was clad in tatters of once-bright Vistani clothing. Scratches crisscrossed his bare arms. A gash in his side wept dark blood that told of a deep infection. The man reached up with both hands and pushed a branch away from his face; the dirty remains of bandages circled the wrists.
As the branch came away from the stranger’s face, Ganelon gasped. It was Bratu. There were only mangled stumps where the man’s ears should have been. Pus and dried blood smeared his face. The Vistana’s bald pate was blistered from sunburn. His ponytail had come undone, and the tangled hair trailed down his neck like a horse’s mane. Gone was the pompous bully of a fortnight ago. A ragged madman swayed in his place.
Ganelon decided to take a chance. Just after the Vistana passed the log, he pushed himself to his feet with his makeshift club. “Bratu,” he called quietly, “what are you doing here?”
The Vistana didn’t turn, didn’t pause. With a silent curse, Ganelon hurried after him. It was obvious. With wounds like that to his ears, the man couldn’t hear.
As Ganelon got close, he could hear the constant rumble of odd, feral noises coming from Bratu. He was delirious with pain and probably starving. That made him dangerous. Ganelon hesitated, his hand part way to Bratu’s shoulder.
Whatever senses left to the Vistana had alerted him to the presence of something behind him. With a bestial grunt, Bratu turned to Ganelon. The frenzy in those eyes made the young man back away.
“It’s Ganelon, from Veidrava.” He let the club drop to his side and extended his other, empty hand. “I’m a friend.”
Bratu rolled his head from side to side, eyes fixed on Ganelon’s face. Whether he recognized the younger man or not, he seemed calmer. With a broad gesture at their surroundings, he opened his mouth to speak. All that came out was a pitiful moan of rounded vowels divided by blubbered Bs and Ws. His tongue was gone.
Ganelon turned away in disgust. Bratu’s own people must have done that to him. It was probably part of some banishment ritual. This way, he couldn’t speak of their secrets.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered. But when he turned back, Bratu had already started off again.
Ganelon stood there for a time, uncertain what to do. There was nothing he could do to help the Vistana. Truth be told, he wasn’t even doing a very good job of helping himself. If he was going to make it to the Iron Hills and find Helain, he was going to have to keep to his own path and let Bratu wander off on his own.
As the first drops of rain began to fall, Ganelon decided that the log and the pine needles were going to be the best shelter he could hope for tonight. He wedged himself against the wood and heaped needles over his legs and stomach. It would have been warmer to cover himself all the way to his neck, but that would only serve as an open invitation for the roaches and weevils to venture up to his face. They needed no extra help finding his ears and nose.
He fell asleep with a nightmare already half-formed in his brain: Blood-red beetles pressed into his mouth. Razored pinchers clacking in anticipation, they scurried to the root of his tongue and set to work.
The next morning, Ganelon awoke feeling more rested than he had any right to expect. The rain hadn’t been as bad as the clouds had threatened, and the insects had only bothered him a little, despite his nightmare. He lay there for a time, eyes closed, willing away the last vestiges of the night’s unquiet dreams. Finally, he stretched his arms and cracked open one eye at the morning light. The bright glare made him hiss and clamp his eyes closed again. What was going on? The sun couldn’t possibly be that bright through the canopy of branches overhead.
“Don’t think of reaching for that stick, sleepy head,” admonished a decidedly female voice. “It’s already gone. Besides, it wouldn’t have done you any good anyway. Not against this.”
Ganelon felt the slightest of stings on the tip of his nose. He opened his eyes again and saw the cause: a dagger, its thin blade shining with reflected sunlight. The dagger shifted slightly and the reflected light flared, blinding Ganelon again. “Get up,” the woman said. “Slowly,” Ganelon propped himself on his elbows and, from this half-reclining position, was able to assess the situation. It could have been better.
After meeting Bratu the previous evening, Ganelon was only moderately surprised to discover Inza Kulchevich on the other end of that alarmingly sharp dagger. The striking, dark-haired Vistana had swapped her flowing skirt for leather leggings, and had tied her hair back with a scarlet ribbon. She also sported a heavy cloak, Ganelon noted enviously.
“All right,” the girl continued imperiously, “your nap is over, giorgio. I’ve got some questions for you.” As he looked up into the girl’s green eyes, al
l Ganelon could think of was Bratu’s wordless groans. Monsters, he thought, you and all your kind. He cast a disdainful eye over the half-dozen other Vistani arrayed behind Inza and said, “I don’t have the answers you want.”
Inza flicked the dagger toward Ganelon’s left leg. The blade touched the brace so lightly that he didn’t feel its impact. It scarred the metal nonetheless.
“Think of the damage such a weapon would do to your face,” Inza said.
“Or tongue,” Ganelon offered. The defeat in the man’s voice made Inza smile. It was not a pleasant thing to see. “Then you do have some answers for me.” She motioned to one of the other gypsies. “Bring him something to eat, and some clean water. Oh, and a cloak, too.” She nodded to Ganelon. “Don’t think I didn’t recognize the envy in your eyes, giorgio. There isn’t a Vistana alive who doesn’t know what it’s like to be cold when all around her are warm.”
Inza waited until Ganelon had splashed some water on his face, wrapped himself in the brightly dyed woolen cloak, and sat down to a plate of bread and cheese before she spoke again. “It was Malocchio Aderre’s men who cut out Bratu’s tongue,” she said, “though we were ready to do so, too. He was passing secrets to the Invidians.”
“Why would the Invidians want his tongue cut if he was working with them?” Ganelon asked between mouthfuls of bread.
“He’d been found out. They were afraid he would reveal the names of their other agents in Sithicus,” Inza replied casually. “So, tell me, how long did you travel together?”
“We didn’t,” Ganelon said. “We crossed paths in this very clearing. He went on, I stayed here.”
Inza scowled. “I heard the men at Veidrava describe you as kind and compassionate, but they must be liars. You let an injured man wander off into the night without so much as offering to share your fire.”