by Brandon Barr
Rabbit’s words were like food to Winter’s hunger. She, more than most, wanted the Baron’s guilt to catch up with him.
“How can I help?”
“You being here, now, willing to risk your life is how you help us.” Rabbit reached out her hand and placed it on Winter’s arm. “You’re sure you want to answer the summons to go to the Baron’s fortress?”
“I am certain.”
“Then be our eyes and ears as best you can. We may have an opportunity to contact you while you’re at the fortress but, if we are unable, simply having you as an ally could prove important tomorrow, on summons day.”
Winter nodded. “Are you planning to attack the Baron and his soldiers at the marketplace?”
“If we must, yes. But first, we have some terms to negotiate. Anantium, the royal city, has laws against the Baron’s tyrannical contracts, as well as laws against his twisted forms of justice. Even though we are outside Anantium’s jurisdiction, we will hold him to those laws.”
Rabbits words were like a revelation.
“How do you know so much about the outside?”
“We have good ears,” said Rabbit. “It is not uncommon for me or others to scale the fortress walls at night and eavesdrop. And besides that, there are a few older farmers who’ve been granted permission to go to Anantium.”
Winter scowled, disbelieving. “But aren’t they accompanied by soldiers?”
“Yes, two soldiers. And the soldiers always stop to sleep at taverns on the long journey. The last time Foxjoy journeyed to the royal city, he had an entire night to talk and ask questions of the other tavern patrons while his two guards stumbled outside to howl at the moon before falling unconscious from drink. I swear to you, Winter, outside the Baron’s land there is a good life. Tyrants are not allowed, and farmers are not robbed and enslaved by the royals’ contracts.”
Hope stirred in Winter’s chest. She searched her memories for the scraps of stories and rumors gleaned over the years—rumors of the farms that lay within the boundaries of Anantium’s protection. They were true! Her mind turned to other things she’d heard. The royal city, it held the most fascinating prospect of all to Winter. The tale of the God’s Eye and the Guardians.
“Is there really a portal?” asked Winter. “And is it guarded by people from another world?”
“Yes,” said Rabbit.
The thought of these distant places and people always awed Winter. A portal where men and women from other worlds had come to live on Loam…they were not stories that had grown with the telling, they were true stories.
“Is it true some farmers surrounding Anantium have no contracts? That they own their own land?”
“Yes,” said Rabbit with a smile. “They are called free farms. It is hope like that which gives fuel to our cause. Imagine there being no curfew. No restrictions on travel. And imagine keeping every coin of profit from what your farm produces.”
The idea of such a possibility felt as if conjured from a land of dreams. She understood Grey Bear and Rabbit’s hunger for freedom. Her encounter with Leaf, and the visions he’d given her, were a kind of freedom. Promising her that the Baron’s cruel farmland was not her destiny. She would see other sights. Other worlds.
Her hand unconsciously slid down to the glass jar twined beneath her tunic, where she had placed Whisper for safekeeping. She trusted Leaf. He would lead her. That’s why she was here, now.
She was a chosen vessel of the Makers.
“Your mate said he wasn’t afraid to die for freedom,” said Winter. “Are you?”
“No,” said Rabbit.
Winter smiled and placed a hand on Rabbit’s shoulder. “Neither am I.”
CHAPTER 13
AVEN
He squeezed Winter’s hand as they walked the road in silence. Winter had been quiet since returning from the market. The look on her face when she entered their hovel had been strange. He couldn’t place that look with any other he’d seen on her before.
“How are you feeling?” he tapped.
“Alright. Nervous. But I’m alright.”
“Sure?”
“Sure.”
Ahead was a grey mass rising under a half moon; the fortress. The crimson glow of the fallen sun splashed a bloody tint upon the upper ramparts.
It was now clear that Grey Bear was right. The Baron’s farmland was boiling with rebellion. Coming out from every farm they passed on the road to the fortress was a farmer swearing oaths of action if the Baron moved against him or his sister. Grey Bear had spread the word quickly about the different summons he and his sister had received. He and Winter were called to the Baron’s fortress while the rest of the farmers were to report to the marketplace.
Were they so confident in themselves that they could overthrow the garrison, or that the Baron wasn’t aware? Had they not learned anything from his parents’ deaths? Spies were listening.
The uncertainty of the future made him sick. The last time he took this path, he had four lives bearing on him. Now he wondered if he didn’t carry the entire community in someway.
No, he told himself. Their blood is on their own heads.
He wouldn’t make himself responsible for anymore lives than he had to. Winter’s was enough.
Grey Bear could destroy his life if he wanted—his and all the farmers’. They were fools if they thought such a dangerous leap for freedom was worth their lives. While Aven and his sister had kept mostly to farmwork the last six months, secluding themselves in their duties, Grey Bear had seeded an uprising. He was so blinded by his ideals, did he not fear the horrific backlash he might bring upon the farmers if they should fail?
Just around a bend were the tall outer gates. A small bird flew low across their path, lit by the last violet traces of sunglow.
Suddenly Winter tore from the path.
Confused, Aven spun toward where Winter had darted. She swooped down and grabbed a stick.
Aven faltered but a moment then ran after her. He noticed she was following the bird. It landed ahead of her, by a fallen tree, but at her approach, it took to the air again. As Winter neared the spot, she raised the stick to her head then drove it down into a bulbous form on the ground. When he reached the scene, he realized she’d skewered a toad. The orange of her eyes glowed fiercely in the dying sunlight.
“I had a vision,” Winter’s voice trembled, and her hand slipped unconsciously down to the twine necklace that carried Whisper in a glass jar beneath her cloak.
Aven nudged the dying creature with his shoe, its legs jerked, then quivered. “Did killing this toad stop the bad from happening?”
“Yes. It was going to eat that bird.”
He nodded.
“But there’s another vision. A worse one.”
Aven squeezed her hand. Whatever it was, he could tell it was devouring her. “You’re not thinking about telling me, are you?”
“Do you remember what I told you about the Maker? What he said to me when he pulled me from the river?”
Aven looked up at the reddening glow over the distant hills. “That was years ago. I’ve forgotten.”
“He told me my gift would save more than it would kill.”
Aven eyed the impaled creature at his feet. Then his thoughts turned to mother and father. “Five dead and who has been saved?” said Aven with quiet wrath. “I’d say that makes the gift giver a liar.”
Winter shook her head. “My life isn’t over yet.”
A gnashing growl of dark emotions stirred inside Aven. “But Harvest’s life is over…I loved her. And Mother and Father—were they too insignificant for this Maker to save?”
Winter was quiet. Aven found her face marked by a serene confidence. Did she not feel? Had the deep wounds he still felt inside already heal in her?
“What if you’re wrong?” said Winter.
“Wrong? About what?”
“Have you ever wondered if you and I might have died along with everyone else?”
“Are you sa
ying that my going out and causing five deaths saved you and me?”
“I think that might be exactly what happened. We might all have been captured trying to escape and sentenced to death.”
Something about Winter’s picture felt wrong.
“That doesn’t make it right,” he said.
“It’s a different way of seeing.”
“But it’s still not right. The Makers have the power to form planets and stars, so why couldn’t they have given you a gift that was able to save everyone? You see? That’s why it’s not right. Either way you look at it is ugly. The gift they gave you is flawed. A curse to entertain the spirit world.
“It is just as the old farmers told us in the stories from our childhood, the Makers are no different than the Baron, or the Royals. They are drunk on their own power, and they’ve left us to fend for ourselves.”
Winter didn’t speak after that. Aven tugged on her arm and she followed him down the path. She needed to hear that, thought Aven. She needed to understand why her devotion to the Makers seemed ridiculous to him. Why he would never trust them as she did.
In truth, her god-gift scared him. The control she gave to it. She should have recanted its power the day their loved ones died, the day her visions turned on them both, but instead, she leaned on her gift like a crutch.
She hadn’t needed him, nor Mother or Father. She had her gods.
_____
WINTER
How was it that her spirit could be crushed so easily? She’d done it. Killed the toad and saved the bird. That was a victory. The gift had worked. But Aven’s words stole her confidence. She wanted the Maker’s calling, wanted to save lives—the death of her parents had strangely fueled that flame into a consuming fire. Had she needed to experience that pain? Did the agony of loss equip her to wield the gift more truly?
She could never be certain, and that would always be an open wound she would feel with every step. Her own questions quietly stalked the path she walked, manifesting themselves in different forms than the fears of her brother.
She was no longer ignorant of the decay in everything. From the gorgeous colors of worn river rocks to falling autumn leaves caught in death’s gentle release, to the wrinkles at the corners of her mother’s eyes that still lived on in her memory. All things grew old and wore down, and new life took their place. Aven didn’t know the depths to which she questioned the Makers. He seemed to think she closed her eyes and simply followed.
He had asked why the Makers had given her such a flawed gift, but that wasn’t her same question. She wanted to know why everything was flawed. Even the Maker’s promise held a forewarning that her gift would save imperfectly.
It will save more than it will kill.
She wondered if the cracks and the fissures and the imperfections in everything might serve a purpose in making better and stronger the beauty and goodness of those same things. She and Aven were only seven when Root was delivered stillborn in their hovel. It was the first time she grasped the uncertainty of life. The death of her baby brother affected her in ways Aven would never know, but did the good outweigh the bad? She never looked at Aven the same again after Root passed. When they buried his small form in the ground, she held Aven’s hand tighter, knowing it wasn’t promised that she would hold it forever. It seemed possible that bad was necessary to deepen good, but as Aven said, it still didn’t seem right. The temple she was constructing to understand both her experience and the seeming flaws in all things was in danger of collapse. Her answers created more questions.
She was tired of questions.
What kept her head above the chaotic waters, stirred by the unknown, was her memory. The awe she experienced in the presence of that Maker could not be undone. It carried her onward and pushed aside her doubts—even as she stared at the uncertainty of the Baron’s fortress, with the questions of what the summons meant for her and Aven.
Ahead, the fortress walls were bleak and practical. Five guards stood at the gates. Instinctively her hand moved to the twine necklace. Surely the Makers would conceal Whisper; she shouldn’t have to worry as she did. The guards’ ugly expressions drew her concerns toward herself. She hid her fear behind a calm face, expecting to be stopped and harassed, but none said a word. As she and Aven passed them, the large gates opened and, just inside, a man dressed in strange clothes beckoned them to enter. He was tall with a trimmed beard. A stylish green cloak was draped over his shoulders, held together in the front by a red jeweled clip. Such extravagance she had only seen on rare occasion when one of the Royals paying the Baron a visit passed by on the roads.
“Winter and Aven I presume?” The man’s voice was astonishingly rich and deep. It almost sounded fake. “The Baron has instructions for you; follow them to the letter, and it will go well for you.”
She nodded cautiously, as did Aven.
“Excellent. Come with me please. My name is Zamlah, and I’ll be overseeing your stay tonight.”
Two guards followed behind, as the tall man led them down a path that turned into a garden. Flowers of every size and color adorned the ground while vines and ornate ferns decorated the walls. Nothing she saw was from their local woods or grasslands. Winter found herself wondering about the distant lands the beautiful flora had come from; what fantastic scenery surrounded them in their native settings. Though beautiful here in this garden, they looked like wayfarers far from home. Their true beauty lay outside the fortress walls, in the wild places these strange flowers were transplanted from. The untamed design of the Makers was a reflection of something at the heart of the universe. It held power. And some unfathomable purpose she desperately wanted to grasp.
“My woods are far more exquisite,” she tapped to Aven.
“This is what our hard labor earns,” replied Aven. “Gardens for our Baron to stroll through.”
“So serious. I was lightening the mood.”
“You were tree kissing.”
“Mouth shut.”
“It is.”
She grabbed his fingers and held them tight in her fist.
Aven smiled and shook his head. She reached up and ruffed his hair playfully.
Zamlah turned and peered at them before stopping beside a bare stone wall. Overhanging the wall was a white dwarf tree with red leaves. Winter found it especially gorgeous.
“You two look rather haggard for an appointment with the Baron.” Zamlah bent and picked a silvery flower with a pink center, then reached out to Winter and tucked the flower in her hair.
It took all her strength not to recoil from his touch.
The wall slid open and Zamlah waved for them to enter. “Do what the girls inside tell you. I’ll return shortly.”
In through the small opening was an expansive bedroom. Dozens of candles lit the walls, hung from chandeliers, lined the baseboards, and rested on stands and tables. Heavy red drapes had been pulled back from a long couch bed covered in what Winter guessed were silks. A horde of young women sprang on them the moment they entered. They were dressed in loose, weightless robes, none of which covered much of breast or buttocks.
The fortress concubines. Winter disliked them instantly.
“I’m Maizy,” said a woman with cheeks as red as sape berry. “We’re going to pretty you up for your meeting tonight.”
Meeting?
“Undress,” said Maizy. “We have new clothes for you.” She was the largest of the girls, voice strong, eyes dominant. Winter noticed that none of the women looked much older than herself and all were beautiful in different ways.
She and her brother obeyed. Winter was careful to remove her tunic and Whisper’s glass jar together, to keep it unseen.
One of the women whistled softly. “She’s got decent size.”
“Be as big as you, Lyda, when she’s with babe,” said a short, slender girl with a smirk.
A handful of girls giggled and they began chatting. “…my father was a farmer…sunshine turns the skin dark like that…should perk him up, see
if he’s bigger than the Baron’s twig…bite your tongue, Neena…handsome faces, both of them.”
The women fitted clothes on them, gossiping irreverently as they prodded and adjusted. In a strange way, it reminded her of when she was a little girl, how her mother would clothe her, adjusting her homespun dress, smiling and fawning, as if she were a doll to be made perfect. Winter found her disdain for the girls ebbing. They were gentle and not unkind. Three girls toyed with her hair, braiding and teasing out her black strands.
She glanced at Aven. He had been adorned with an emerald green doublet over a long sleeved white shirt. His pants were dark leather, tied with a brown sash. It was as if they’d stolen some of the guards’ fine off-duty clothing and put it on her brother. These were items you only wore if you had money to spare, and you had to travel to Anantium for such fare.
A huge mirror was brought out. Winter’s mouth fell open when she saw herself. It was her same crooked nose on her same simple face but, somehow, the girl she stared at looked beautiful. She loved her hair, twisted up in braids that left her neck bare, and wisps of hair that fell down along her ears. The Baron’s girls fit her in a plain blue dress layered over a white lacey top. The white sleeves stopped just beyond her elbow. A brown belt was tied to her waist. The garb was simple, but there was elegance to it. Like the flowers neatly placed in the garden, she felt beautiful but out of place. She reached out quickly and took Aven’s hand.
“What’s this about?”
He squeezed her hand. She searched his eyes but found her own questions there.
Deftly, Winter bent and withdrew Whisper’s jar from her old clothing, and quickly placed it around her neck.
“A strange keepsake?” said a slender, redheaded girl with a nose every bit as perfect as Winter’s was crooked.
“It was my father’s gift to me,” lied Winter.
The redhead nodded with a kind smile.
Before long, the Baron’s concubines led them from the spacious candlelit room into a stone hallway adorned with animal pelts and heads. The teeth of the predatory animals showed prominently, their gums rolled back. Mixed in amongst the carcasses were tapestry and paintings of the Baron in full, royal regalia.