The Smiling Stallion Inn

by Courtney Bowen

  “What is it, Old Man?” I cried.

  “It’s…” Old Man squinted, still dazed by the light. “It’s not something I summoned.”

  “You? You’ve been experimenting on…whatever this is?” I asked.

  He turned to me. “I’m trying to tell you, Nisa, this is just something that appeared!”

  “Old Man, what is wrong with you?” He seemed to be listening to something, but I couldn’t see nor hear anything in the spreading smoke. He turned around, obviously listening to something or someone from beyond the living world.

  “My help?” Old Man asked, ignoring me. “I’m the protector of Coe Baba and all of its people, including its secrets. Other than that, I’m just an old man who tells really good stories,” he said, smiling. “Are you a spirit?”

  “Who are you talking to?” I asked him.

  “Who’re you? And how did you know my name? Where’d you come from?”

  “What are you looking at?” I asked, but Old Man seemed not to hear me.

  * * * *

  “You can see and hear me! Thank Tau and Loqwa for bringing me here,” the apparition said, gazing down at herself. “I suppose I’m a spirit,” she explained. “Others can’t see or hear me, so I don’t know what else to call myself. My name was Kala, and I came here because I need your help. I didn’t know of you until I died,” Kala said. “The others, they told me to seek you out.”

  Others? Old Man thought he knew of whom she was speaking. Could the gods really have had a hand in this? For surely Kala couldn’t have gotten here on her own. Breaking through the walls between the worlds of the living and dead, a spirit like her wouldn’t have the strength. But if she was a demon, then it might be easy enough.

  “Old Man, what is going on here?” Nisa insisted, stomping her foot.

  “Nisa, get out of here,” he said. “It’s best you keep out of this until you can see and hear what’s going on.” He opened the door. “Once you do focus your energy, you’ll probably figure this out soon enough, like you discovered me.”

  Nisa threw up her arms in surrender and stomped out, muttering to herself.

  “I’ve a son,” Kala said as Old Man closed the door. “He was just born, and he needs protection desperately. More than the good people who hold him now can give him,” Kala said, looking away as she flitted about the room. “He needs protection of an otherworldly sort, the kind that will guard him from harm and Doomba’s magic until he’s fully grown.”

  “I’ve heard some of what happened,” Old Man said, waving a hand to his papers. “I was writing your story, in case I could send it out to the news-printers or to the pamphleteers to be published. I didn’t know—”

  “Don’t send news out,” Kala insisted. “I came here to give birth to him and die in obscurity, so that he and I’d not be found. I don’t want anyone finding out who we are, or what we are,” she said. “He’s the tiger.”

  “The…” Old Man gasped. “Oh, my dear Kala, are you sure?”

  “As sure as I can be,” she said, “I gave my life to bring him here. Protect him, Old Man.”

  “I shall keep my eye on him and make sure he doesn’t come to harm. You have my word.”

  “Thank you,” she said as she began to disappear.

  “Rest in peace.”

  He didn’t know whether Kala had told him the truth, or if it was all lies. If she truly believed her son was the tiger, then could her belief be strong enough to sustain her as she broke through between worlds to tell him about her son, even if the boy wasn’t the real tiger? He couldn’t believe that either. Yet if the boy was the real tiger…then all of those spirits, and perhaps the gods themselves, had helped her because…it was almost too impossible to be believed.

  Nisa knocked on the door. “Old Man? Are you all right?” she called.

  Old Man opened the door. “Nisa, we’ve a new mission, and maybe then we shall be free,” he said, smiling brightly when his eyes shone forth in tears. He’d make it happen.

  * * * *

  When the snow started to melt, sometime after Kala was buried, the body of a man was discovered not far from the road. The constable was called upon to investigate and noticed that, although the man had been partially eaten by animals and decayed, he had some bowstring in his pockets. He had little else in the way of personal possessions, but once the constable started digging around close to the body, he discovered the remains of a bow, an arrowhead, and a quiver, all of which had been dragged over to the side and chewed upon. The constable examined the body and spotted blood-stained piercings shaped like a sword’s point. The constable left and visited Habala and her husband, Geda.

  “Could be an innocent hunter she stabbed,” the constable said.

  “No, I don’t think…” Habala inhaled sharply, still in a state of shock over what she’d heard. “She said something about being nearly killed,” Habala said calmly. “That night, when I inquired as to why she’d been traveling out there in that snowy weather, she said she’d been nearly killed, but survived.”

  “So you think it was self-defense?” the constable asked.

  “Maybe. I don’t know for sure; I mean, she was only with us for a couple of hours, but I don’t think…” She hesitated. “I don’t think Kala could have killed that man without good reason.”

  “Perhaps he’s not so innocent then.” The constable shrugged. “Perhaps he was hunting her, or tracking her; we don’t know.” He sighed. “We’ve no evidence that she did kill this man besides what we’ve found and the sword that Kala had. We’ve no evidence that he and she met, but we think that he died around the same time that Kala came to the inn.” He looked up. “We’ve no evidence, only speculation and hearsay.”

  “Constable, do you think…” Habala hesitated, not wanting to ask, as he was clearing Kala’s name. “What of the man?” she finally asked.

  “What about him?” the constable asked. “There isn’t anything more to tell. We don’t know who he is. His face is missing. His clothes look to be from the south. We don’t recognize their make, but they are not for northern weather.” He sighed. “We hoped we might be able to bury him under his name, but I’m afraid he’s destined for a pauper’s grave.”

  “Sad thing,” Habala said, “All the way around. We could only bury Kala under her given name.”

  The constable nodded,” If she’d just give you her family name…”

  “She didn’t say a word about her husband,” Habala said. “Even refused to give me his name.”

  “I think that, whatever sort of life she led, she obviously ended up under shameful circumstances,” Geda added.

  “Shameful?” Habala said, glaring at her husband. “Basha was not born out of wedlock.”

  “Perhaps she committed some sort of crime and ran away from home or from whatever sort of employment she had, having gotten herself pregnant by another woman’s husband, or by her employer. These things happen,” the constable said.

  “These things happen?” Habala turned her scowl on the constable. “She assured me she had been married and her husband had died recently. Basha is not a balnor.”

  “Perhaps it would be best not to inquire,” the constable said, trying to calm Habala’s annoyance. He stood up. “Perhaps she’s already been disavowed by whatever sort of family she had and was left to fend for herself. At any rate, she apparently has no family. The babe appears to be yours if you want him.”

  “We do,” Geda said, wrapping his arm around his wife.

  “Good day then.” The constable tipped his hat and left

  Habala faced her husband. “Geda, how could he…”

  “Habala, there’s no point in belaboring the legal status of Basha’s birth. He’s ours now, and people will come to accept that…in time.”

  “Thank you, Geda, thank you.” Habala sighed. He was theirs, a part of their family now and always would be.

  * * * *

  For the first few years of life, the boys didn’t need much in the way of prot
ection from Old Man and me. Geda and Habala took turns caring for their sons. While one tended bar and ran the inn, the other was with the boys.

  Old Man and I tended to stick close to the boundaries of Coe Baba’s district as we tried to find out if there were any signs of activity from Doomba or his Followers and Servants. It didn’t appear they were aware of Basha’s whereabouts or even of his existence, at least not for years. Eventually, there were a few disturbances connected to a growing number of Servants and Followers patrolling this and other regions in search of him.

  However, it seemed they had no clue where he was, or who he was, for there was a randomness to the pattern of events, suggesting they were only probing here and there. The victims of the abductions and killings seemed to range in age, social status, and gender. Once or twice, they got close—too close—to Basha, but they never got near enough to identify him as the tiger.

  “We’re lucky on that account,” Old Man said.

  “How could they not know who the…you know…is if they know he exists?” I asked him. We avoided the word “tiger,” as Old Man thought it was too dangerous to speak the word out loud.

  He was loath to speak too much about what was happening around us, but I understood the horribleness of the situation. There were just too many victims. One or two a day across the country, and twice that across the continent. Arria was the target, Basha was the tiger, and I couldn’t stand to look at the faces Old Man sketched of the victims.

  “They know he exists because they’ve heard the Tiger Prophecy,” Old Man said, “or perhaps Doomba has sensed…you-know-who through the shades and shadows he possesses.”

  I shuddered at this. Old Man had told me how Doomba had shadows surrounding him that were able to do his bidding, including spying far and wide and entering the bodies of others, possessing them.

  “Don’t worry, Nisa. These shadows are not as strong as you think. Old Man told me. ‘The shadows can’t grasp anything for very long. They can stretch far, and see much, but Doomba gets only glimpses of what they see—whispers and images of things from far away, things that might or might not be, and he has to decipher what is real and what is taken out of context.’

  “How can you know so much about Doomba?” I asked.

  “Over many years, one learns a lot from observing an opponent,” Old Man told me.

  My mother worried about me over all of the time I was spending with Old Man when I should be spending time with children my own age, but I stuck with Old Man. I didn’t want to leave him on his own when he was my father and old even though he was immortal. He wasn’t strong enough to travel far or often. I trained with him and learned a bit observing the lessons Sir Nickleby taught the members of the town militia. As the years went on, I became an accomplished fighter as well as a spy.

  Finally, the boys were old enough to wander off on their own, and they certainly did that, especially Basha. Curious by nature, he liked to explore the nearby forests and fields. It didn’t take long to see there would be some trouble on that account. The curious were always bound to get into trouble.

  * * * *

  “This land is ours, our Mother Earth. Arria belongs to us,” Jawen said, pointing down at the ground as she tried to explain the situation to Talia. “Arria is earth, the ground we walk upon. The earth grows our crops and keeps us safe from harm, but most of all, Arria is our country. We claimed it and named it thus a long time ago, long before you or I were ever born.”

  “Hold on, Jawen, don’t tell me what’s what!” Talia said. “I get enough of that at school. Isn’t this land public property?” she asked. “Doesn’t it belong to the whole town?”

  “That’s beside the point. We’re supposed to be sharing it, yes,” Jawen admitted.

  “Then why can’t we just share it?” Talia asked. “Can’t we just ask them?”

  “No, Talia,” Jawen said. “We’ve tried asking them before, but they snubbed us, just like that,” she said, snapping her fingers. “Without any regard for what we had to say.” She hated the boys for that.

  “Why do we have to fight?” Talia asked.

  “We agreed to do this. We agreed to join up with all of the other girls, united to stand up against the boys! Are you with us, Talia? Or not.”

  Talia hesitated and then said, “Yes, I suppose I’m with you.”

  “Then let’s go,” Jawen said, grabbing Talia’s hand and pulling her up from where they’d hidden behind a bunch of barrels at the edge of the town square. However, as Jawen ran to avoid a rotting piece of dung fruit hurled at them, and Talia ducked, Jawen lost track of her little sister in the crowd.

  “Ooof!” Jawen cried, pushed aside by somebody, a boy or a girl, it didn’t matter, before she fell down on the ground.

  She scrambled back up, panting heavily as she scanned her surroundings. There was no sign of her little sister anywhere, and she was covered in mud and turnip juice, maybe bits of rotting dung fruit as well, from the ongoing fight around her. Jawen bent down and scooped up another mud-covered turnip. She paused, thinking that land was important, the ownership of property. She knew this land belonged just as much to her as it did to any old boy.

  She spotted a boy passing by, probably to get more dung fruit, or reinforcements for the fight, and Jawen frowned to herself. She hurled the mud-ball turnip at him, laughing when it hit the side of his face, splattering all over his brown hair. He was a mess, a bigger mess than she was, and her dress was covered in muddy turnip juice. Jawen had thought she could handle being in such a fight, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t stop the fight, or drop out of it without suffering some consequences, like the shame she might feel or the censure she might receive from other girls. But at least she could try to enjoy it while it lasted, for it would all be over soon.

  When Jawen heard somebody yelling at her, “Do you know me? Do you know who I am?” she thought it was the boy she’d just hit with a muddy turnip ball. Mud and turnip juice still covered his brown hair and oval face, small nose, big brown eyes, and large ears that stuck out like wings. She knew who he was as he and his brother, Oaka, worked alongside their parents at the inn. She also remembered what her father had called him not that long ago and she repeated it now. “Balnor boy!” she shouted at him without stopping to think about what she was saying, or what it meant.

  Silence fell over the square as boys and girls dropped their turnip mud-ball and dung fruit, and gasped. Jawen didn’t know what was going on around her, but then she heard sniffling and wheezing. She felt embarrassed that Basha was crying, and, although she didn’t know how, she must have caused it. She knew her embarrassment wasn’t anything compared to how Basha must have felt as he ran away in tears.

  Jawen felt even more embarrassed later on to realize that it wasn’t Basha who had spoken first but Oaka who had taunted her. They both sounded alike, although there was a deeper tone to Oaka’s voice. Oaka had black hair, not brown. There was a physical dissimilarity in appearance between the two boys.

  “Jawen, what did you say?” Talia asked suddenly as she appeared at her older sister’s side soon after Basha and Oaka had left. The fight started to break up among the boys and girls, disturbed by this episode.

  “I don’t know,” Jawen said, shaking her head as she looked down at her little sister. “Go home, Talia. Tell Mother I’ll be there in a short while, but tell her nothing else.” Talia hesitated, obviously considering disobeying her older sister’s orders, but finally she ran off without a response. In a minute or two, Jawen was joined by her two best friends, Iibala and Sisila, as the three of them surveyed the damage that had been wrought by the morning’s fight.

  “What a mess,” Iibala said.

  “I don’t know what I did,” Jawen said. “I just said something, and his face broke apart. He was crying, and I don’t know why.”

  “Balnor,” Iibala said, turning to face her. “You called him a balnor boy. Balnor is a curse word that means dung, and not dung fruit, but dung. It also means an illegitima
te son born out of wedlock, which some people say is the same as dung.” Iibala snorted. “But they don’t know anything.”

  “What?” Jawen asked, turning to her. “I didn’t mean that! I didn’t know!” She didn’t think Basha was as inconsequential or as disgusting as dung, and she certainly didn’t think he could be an illegitimate son born out of wedlock.

  “Where’d you learn a curse word like ‘balnor’?” Sisila asked Iibala skeptically.

  “You learn a lot from a father like mine,” Iibala said glumly.

  “Talia heard it!” Jawen cried, panicking. “She’ll tell mother I said it, or else the other children will repeat it to their parents, and eventually it will get back to my mother and father! Oh, my goodness, I’m in trouble!”

  “Jawen, calm down,” Sisila told her. “You’ll have to deal with this later. Right now, you’ve got to go apologize to Basha.”

  Jawen stopped. That was the last thing she wanted to do. “No, I can’t apologize to Basha.”

  “Why not?” Sisila asked.

  Why not? There were so many reasons why not, she couldn’t think of them all. She was worried that she’d embarrass herself even more by apologizing to him. She’d made the mistake of targeting him for her attack against boys when she should have placed the blame on his older brother, Oaka, arrogant as Oaka was calling her out like that. Yet she was afraid of hurting Basha even more by reminding him of what she’d done and exposing herself as a villain.

  “It’s not dignified,” Jawen finally said, the best excuse she could come up with. “We’re supposed to be noble, and above him, aren’t we?” she asked hopefully.

  “I might be a nobleman’s daughter, but I know when I’ve done something wrong, I should go apologize to the person I’ve hurt!” Sisila cried, glaring at Jawen. “Besides, you’re not noble. You’ve even less of an excuse than either Iibala or I do. So you should go apologize to Basha.”

  Jawen frowned. “I might not be noble like you two, but I still have some sense of decorum.”

  “You don’t even know what that word means!” Sisila cried.