“What do you mean?” The smith narrowed his eyes as they darted from Lady Aveline to the minotaur and back.
“Your mother, Piotr.”
The color drained from the smith’s face. He stammered and stared at his feet. Pancras was not sure what the guard intended for him to do with Piotr’s mother. He held up his hand. “I don’t know that I can do anything. I’m not a healer.”
Piotr mumbled something unintelligible. Lady Aveline turned to Pancras. “She’s afflicted with an illness Apellon’s healers cannot cure. She lingers and suffers. Her mind is gone, yet”—she glanced at the smith—“Piotr and his wife still care for her. It is a most unfortunate situation.”
Gisella placed her hand on Pancras’s arm. “One for which a bonelord is called.”
Pancras gulped. In his heart, he realized he wasn’t ready for the most sacred of bonelord responsibilities—ending the suffering of the dying. It was a fine line between that and murder. He breathed in deeply and did something he had never done before.
He offered a silent prayer to Aita for guidance.
* * *
Kale was awakened by an insistent yipping at the foot of his bed. Through bleary eyes, he saw a glowing blue boggin hopping near his feet. When it noticed he saw it, it stood still.
“Mistress Delilah wants me to inform you that her Novice Trials are in two days. She wants you to meet her at The Stone Maiden tomorrow at dusk.”
The boggin disappeared in a puff of blue smoke. Rolling over, he woke Kali before stumbling from the bedroom. He stifled a yawn while he stoked the fire in the cooking hearth. They threw a couple of bangers into a skillet, and Kale shook it over the fire as they began to sizzle and pop.
Banging at the door drew their attention away from the preparation of their meal. Kali shuffled to answer it as Kale finished cooking. She returned, leading a drak with broken horns and whose scales were such a dark hue of blue Kale mistook them for black at first.
“Tell him what you told me.” Kali plopped into a chair at the table and buried her head in her hands as she yawned.
“Boss Steelhand wants another meeting.” The drak sniffed the air while wrinkling his nose at the sausages Kale cooked.
“Why? We did his job. He doesn’t need anything from us.” Kale dumped the sizzling bangers onto a plate and slid it onto the table.
The drak shrugged and turned his head to glance around the room. “It’s not my place to question the boss. He’s coming here around midday. You’ll be here if you know what’s good for you.”
“Fine.” Kale found he had little patience for Boss Steelhand’s thuggery this morning. He spat a ball of fire at the drak’s feet. “Get out.”
The drak squealed and hopped from foot to foot to avoid the conflagration. He scampered away as the flames flickered out.
Kali chuckled as she grabbed a sausage. “You should do that every time one of those creepers comes around.”
“I wonder what he wants this time. I don’t want to work for some crime boss.” Kale’s teeth pierced his sausage with a snap as he bit down.
“Tell him no, then. I’ll back you up.”
“I know you will.” Kale was glad to be fortunate enough to have someone watching his back. He didn’t want to wander too far from home while waiting for Boss Steelhand, as midday was not an exact hour. Although he gave fleeting consideration to run errands and have the minotaur wait outside an empty house, in the end, Kale chose to not antagonize him.
While they waited, Kale and Kali busied themselves with cleaning decades of dust and grime from the bookshelves and stairs that led to the moon gate chamber. Reluctant to touch any of the tomes for fear of damaging them, he used a small brush he acquired from one of the local merchants to whisk away the dust from the spines of the books.
Together, they finished the top third of the staircase by the time they heard someone knocking on the door. Kale placed his cleaning gear on a nearby shelf. “At least he knocks.”
“He’s polite for a crime boss.” Kali, closer to the top of the stairs, beat Kale to the door. Boss Steelhand smiled and bowed when the draks opened the door.
“You didn’t have to clean for me, little draks. I’ve been in far dirtier places.”
Kali stepped aside to let in the hulking minotaur. “We weren’t doing it for you.”
“How did you hot foot my messenger, by the way?” He leaned against the counter to keep from scraping his horns on the ceiling. “I assume it wasn’t magic because that would make you a renegade.”
“I can breathe fire, like a dragon. It came with the wings.” Kale crossed his arms over his chest. “What do you want?”
“Huh. I want to hear that story someday.” He held up his hand to stifle Kale’s retort. “That’s not why I came here. I have a proposition for you.”
“No.” Kale made up his mind before the minotaur.
Boss Steelhand laughed. “You haven’t even heard it yet.”
“We don’t need to.” Kale looked at his mate for confirmation. Kali hooked her arm in his and nodded in agreement.
The minotaur rubbed his chin. “Won’t be any risk to you, and you won’t have to do any work to get paid.”
No work and get paid? Kale was forced to admit the concept piqued his interest. He glanced at Kali. Her eyes darted under raised brows to meet Kale’s.
“All right. I’m curious. What’s the proposal?” Kale pointed at the minotaur. “I’m not saying yes!”
Boss Steelhand chuckled. “I know you’ve been talking to Jairo, so I don’t know why he came to me instead of you. His cousin is a limner and needs to set up shop. Jairo doesn’t have room, but you”—the minotaur gestured to the empty storefront—“you have plenty of room.”
“What’s a limner?” At first, Kale thought it must be someone who made or sold lims, but he didn’t know what those were, either.
“Have you seen those fancy books with gilded pages and pretty pictures in them?”
Kale shook his head. The lexicon his sister had was little more than a list of words, and her grimoire gave him a headache whenever he looked at it. Books were in short supply in Drak-Anor.
“You mean like nobles and priests are always cooing over?” Kali cocked her head.
“Yeah, well, a limner does all those fancy decorations. They call it ‘illuminating.’ People pay good money for that. Jairo’s cousin does the work here, deals with the customers here, and pays you rent.”
It sounded mundane and harmless. Kale narrowed his eyes. “What’s the catch?”
Kali grunted. “The catch is Boss Underhand here gets a cut and keeps an eye on us.”
Boss Steelhand chuckled. “Underhand… never heard that one before. I do get a cut, from his profits. Not from you. I needed a vacant space, and yours was the first one to come to mind. Of course, if you’re planning on actually doing something with this storefront, well, that’s another conversation we need to have.”
“We need to think about it.” Kali nudged Kale as he was about to respond.
“Fine. Don’t take too long. I’ll send someone by tonight to get your answer. If you haven’t decided by then, I’ll find someplace else.” Boss Steelhand bowed as low as the cramped storefront allowed and then let himself out.
Kale locked the door behind him. “It sounds too good to be true.”
“It’s not free money.” Kali watched Boss Steelhand stroll away through the cloudy window. “He’ll have an inside drak watching us the whole time the shop is open.”
Kale didn’t understand Boss Steelhand’s interest in him. It was yet another item to add to the list of odd occurrences revolving around the draks and minotaurs in Muncifer.
* * *
Gisella stood watch in the smithy with Lady Aveline while Pancras entered Piotr’s home. Like many merchants, Piotr lived in rooms built above his workshop. She heard Pancras’s hooves clop on the stairs out back as the minotaur ascended to the living quarters.
Lady Aveline leaned against one of th
e support columns in the smithy and wiped her brow with a rag from one of her pouches. It felt as hot as an oven to Gisella.
“What brings a slayer and a bonelord to Curton?” Lady Aveline stuffed the rag into her pouch. “What trouble is brewing in my town that requires the two of you to travel together?”
Gisella shook her head. “We’re merely passing through. We have mutual affairs in Vlorey.”
“Passing through on the way to Cliffport, then?”
“That’s right.” Gisella decided to indulge her curiosity. “What leads a northerner to become a guard in Curton?”
“Captain of the City Watch, and that’s a long story.”
Gisella glanced up at the ceiling. It was quiet in the smith’s home, but she supposed that was to be expected. Dignified deaths were often quiet. “We appear to have plenty of time.”
The left corner of Lady Aveline’s mouth turned upward. “I have no desire to open myself up to a transient. You come, you cause some trouble, and you go, never to be seen in these parts again.”
The Golden Slayer regarded Lady Aveline for a moment and clenched her jaw to keep her mouth from falling open. She didn’t think of herself as a transient, but the guard captain was right about one thing: it was likely Gisella would never return to Curton. Her reply was cut short by the arrival of another guard.
“Lady Aveline!” The stocky guard panted to catch his breath. Wisps of unruly black hair poked out from under his helm. “Trouble in Danica’s Den!”
Lady Aveline pushed herself away from the column and ran her fingers through her hair. “What sort of trouble requires you to race across town to seek me out?”
“Danica says she found a dwarf cheating, and there was something about a fiendling, and the whole place is up in arms. I think they’re going to lynch her!”
Gisella felt her heart leap into her throat. “A dwarf and a fiendling?”
“Friends of yours?” Lady Aveline ushered the guard out of the store. Gisella moved to follow, but the guard captain extended her hand and stopped her. “We can handle this. I’ll be back to check on Piotr, and if I hear anything other than there was a positive outcome here, I will hunt you all down. Understand?”
“Of course.” Gisella placed a hand on her chest and bowed. She watched the guard disappear into the marketplace crowd. Her first duty, of course, was to ensure Pancras made it to Vlorey. Running off to check on two people who may or may not be Qaliah and Edric did not further that aim. She passed the time by perusing Piotr’s wares and prayed to Aurora that the people in trouble were not the dwarf and the fiendling she knew.
* * *
With a trembling hand, Piotr pushed open the door to the bedchamber. The acrid tang of urine assaulted Pancras’s nose as a breeze passed through the open window. The room was bare, save for a bed pushed against the wall under the window. The bedsheets, whether discolored due to age or by the person under them, stirred. A thin, gnarled hand reached out.
“She likes to look out the window.” Piotr stepped into the room and held the door for Pancras.
Pancras held the maul low, at arm’s length. Thus far, Piotr had not tried to take it from him again, but he saw no reason to remind the smith that the weapon he held was the one for which he had not paid. The minotaur stooped to keep from brushing his head against the low ceiling and stepped toward the bed. The stench worsened as he came nearer, and he noticed an overflowing chamber pot peeking out from beneath the bed.
“What’s her name?” He pointed to the chamber pot. “Is there a reason the chamber pot is overflowing?”
“The boy’s supposed to empty it.” Piotr slammed the door. The shape in the bed yelped at the loud noise. “Mama’s name is Nika.”
“What is her affliction?” Pancras reached out to pull back the sheet, but the bony hand snatched the edge away from him. He chewed his lip and stared for a moment. Finally, he pushed some dirty rags under the bed with his foot in order to kneel on the floor.
“She complained of her bones hurting. Mama’s always been strong, tough. But she’s old. Old folks hurt in their bones on cold, wet days. My wife and the boy feed her. Change her bedding. I work. Make money to pay for the food and medicine from the apothecary… for all the good it does.”
Pancras felt blessed not to have to live with that sort of pain, but encountered many minotaurs with similar complaints in their advanced years.
Piotr continued. “She got to be hard of hearing. Then she couldn’t see. Started getting lumpy and twisted, like old, knotted wood, except hard, like rock. Healer didn’t know. Couldn’t fix her. Someone cursed her. I know it. It’s an evil spell.”
Pancras grabbed the sheet and pulled it down. The top of the woman’s head was covered in silvery-grey hair, thinned around the bulbous growth of the top of her forehead. Additional growths in her cheekbones squeezed her eyes shut, and she breathed through two holes that were once her nostrils. She wheezed a groan of agony through swollen lips. The minotaur shuddered at the grotesque countenance that turned to regard him.
He pulled his rod from his belt. He still needed it to summon arcane power since he had yet to attune himself to the weapon, though he wasn’t sure that was necessary now. Tendrils of blue smoke swirled as he tried to sense sorcery at work. There was nothing, although his concentration intensified the sensation of power he felt in the maul.
“I sense no magic at work here, but this is unlike anything I’ve ever encountered.”
“Dwarf magic. She was always fighting with dwarfs.”
Pancras doubted Piotr’s conclusion. He slid his rod into its loop and shifted his grip on the maul. His stomach fluttered as his mind raced. Pancras placed the maul, head down, and gripped the shaft with both hands as he lowered his head. He felt his horns brush against the sheets, eliciting another groan from the woman.
He concentrated on the warmth he felt in the maul, the power of Aita. It felt different than that to which he was accustomed, though intellectually, he reasoned it was the same. I have no idea what I’m doing here.
The warmth, the power, flowed into him. He heard Piotr gasp and felt the maul twitch in his hands. A warm, gentle breeze carried the fragrance of honeysuckle. Pancras opened his eyes and found himself standing on hill overlooking Curton. A woman stood near a row of red-flowered shrubs. He recognized her silvery-grey hair.
“Nika?”
The woman turned to face him. Tears welled in deep-set, piercing, steel-blue eyes as she regarded him. “Who are you? Why are you doing this to me?”
“I am Pancras, a Bonelord of Aita.” Pancras bowed to her. “Your affliction is nothing I have caused.”
“It hurts. I can’t move. I can’t see. I can’t hear. Everything hurts.” She buried her face in her hands and wept. Pancras approached her and put his arm around her heaving shoulders.
“Piotr says the healers can do nothing. He hates to see you suffer.”
“He’s a good boy.” Her red-rimmed eyes met his. “Are you here to take my soul now?”
Pancras licked his lips. “I confess, I’ve never done this before. I think I’m supposed to help you cross over. You’re suffering. You’ll continue to linger until you can no longer eat, and you’ll starve.”
Nika pushed him away and stared out over the meadow. “I don’t want to go.”
“I can’t make you. Piotr’s wife and son care for you now. They have you by the window so you can see the change of seasons.” Pancras shuffled his feet, sending a puff of white seeds into the air from nearby dandelions. Despite the breeze, the world around them was bereft of sound. No wind rustling the leaves of nearby trees, no insects buzzing. The world was still, yet in motion.
“I’m wasting away. Watching the world pass by with unseeing eyes. You’ve come to kill me, Bonelord.”
The words were knives in Pancras’s chest; a sensation he noted with amusement with which he had become all too familiar. He didn’t want to kill anyone.
“Why is your goddess doing this to me? I’ve wor
ked hard; I don’t deserve this.”
It was a common misconception that Aita not only caused death, but also spread disease and suffering. “Aita does not afflict the innocent with suffering like this.”
She spun on him, fists clenched. “Are you saying I deserve this—this—curse?”
Pancras backed away from the woman, holding up his hands. “No. No, diseases are not brought to this world by Aita. She concerns herself with the dead, not the living.”
The woman stared at him, her nostrils flaring as her lips trembled. “Then why do you haunt my dreams!”
“This is no dream, Nika. I am kneeling at your bedside, with your son. We want to end your suffering.” Pancras wanted to help this woman, but he didn’t know what he could say to convince her. Telling her the world isn’t fair seems wrong.
“Can you cure me? Make me strong again?”
Pancras shook his head.
“Then, get out!”
Pancras flew backward and gasped as he opened his eyes. He stood again in the spartan room with Piotr and the twisted form of Nika. Clutching the maul, he pushed himself to his feet. “Her mind is strong. She’s not ready to move on.”
“So? What does that mean?”
The minotaur swallowed and rubbed his eyes. “It means I cannot help her. I cannot make her cross over if she doesn’t want to go.”
“Heal her then!” The smith advanced on him. His eyes were cold, the muscles in his neck stood out like rope.
“I can do nothing. I’m not a healer. She’s not ready.”
The smith clenched his fists. His breathing was rapid, and Pancras noticed his muscles tensed. He then turned and flung open the door. “Go. Get out.”
Pancras didn’t wait for Piotr to change his mind. He heard the door slam behind him as he stumbled down the stairs behind the smithy, nearly losing his footing and falling the final third of the way down. Gisella stood inside the shop, still examining weapons on the display racks. He didn’t see Lady Aveline.
“Well? Were you able to help him?”
Lament (Scars of the Sundering Book 2) Page 28