by Robert Beers
Adam and Charity were more than willing to do so. Both of them had forgotten to bring a hood, or a hat.
One bright morning at breakfast, Milward looked up from his cup of tisane. “This is the morning. The last of the snow is gone from the forest floor, and the frost no longer forms during the night.”
Adam shifted in his new tunic. Both he and Charity had outgrown the clothes they found in the parcel with the weapons. Charity was looking more woman than girl now, and he had begun to notice a fine growth of hair upon his chin. Milward had prepared them for this day, they were going to travel south to the village on the edge of the wood and try to get their bearings from there, but it was still hard. The cave now felt like home, and the old man like a father.
Charity put down her spoon, a tear forming at the corner of her eye. Milward reached across the table, and wiped it away with the side of a forefinger. “Now, now. No tears, my dear. We'll meet again. You two have you own journey to make, as I have mine. When I've done what I need to do, I'll find you; you can count on that. Remember, we've talked about this day, and I've done what I can to prepare both of you for what is to come.”
She sniffed. “But I'll miss you so much.”
He took her hand. “I know you will, dear, but that will pass, as all sorrows do.”
Adam looked down at the tabletop and ran a fingertip along the pattern of the woodgrain. “We've been gone from home an awful long time. What about Uncle Bal and Aunt Doreen?”
“I'm sure they miss you very much.” Milward shrugged, “I did some checking during the winter. They did survive, but with you and your sister gone, they left the village. You're on your own now, at least until they can be found.”
Charity threw herself into the old man's embrace, and he hugged her back, patting her shoulder with a gentle hand.
“Remember my teachings, that's all I ask.” Emotion thickened Milward's voice.
Adam swallowed his own waterworks. “We will; I promise.”
Milward leaned back, holding his cup. “Good.” He sipped from the cup. “Good.”
Chapter Five
Silgert lay at the edge of the forest with a vast pasture stretching to the South below it. A dim line of trees drew a black shadow at the far edge of the pasture. To the East, in the distance, mountains scraped the edge of the sky. From the very first the twins had an uneasy feeling about Silgert, and began to understand Milward's derision of it. Men, women and even children looked at them either furtively with fear, or searchingly with suspicion. One woman spat the word hussy at Charity as she walked past them. Of the three Inns they tried, two were closed with the windows boarded up. The one that was open nearly turned them away until Adam got the Innkeeper's attention with a gold.
The Innkeeper muttered more to himself than to them as he accepted the payment. “I'm takin’ me life in me hands, I am. Town don't like strangers or them what takes ‘em in, they don't. Be touched in head, that be it. Gold, though, never seen a gold, for a room not worth two cop, touched that be it, Touched...”
He showed them to the room, and went away still muttering and fingering the gold coin. The twins stowed their pack against one of the walls. The Innkeeper was correct. The room wasn't worth a gold, by any means. The lone table held a chipped water basin, and wobbled alarmingly. The bed sagged worse than a spavined nag, and creaked when sat on. There was no chamber pot in the room, and neither of them had seen any sign of a jakes on the way up.
Adam got up from the bed after testing it. “I'm going down there, and get my coin back. That Innkeeper is a thief.”
“You better not.”
“Why?”
Charity sat on the bed, wincing at the creak. “I don't think it would take much for the people in this place to become a mob aimed at us. Did you see the looks we were getting as we walked through town?”
“I noticed. I don't think the people in this village like us.”
Charity smirked. “You noticed, huh?”
“Now who's being snide? Yeah, I noticed. I was afraid I'd have to pull the sword more than once. I wonder what caused this town to be so suspicious?”
“I'd like to know why they don't clean up the place. It stinks.” Charity wrinkled her nose in demonstration.
Adam sniffed the air. “Probably comes from the same root, as Milward would say. I don't like this place, Charity. Let's do what we need to do, and get out of here.”
“What is it we need to do, again?” Charity prompted her twin with a raised eyebrow.
Adam leaned back and mimicked the tone Milward adopted when lecturing. “You need to get to know the people in the world apart from the little village where you grew up. This can only be done by seeing the world at large, and the people in it at work, at play and at worship, if they are so inclined to do so.”
Charity laughed. “You sound just like him, and he holds his hands like that, too.”
Adam laughed, as well. “I've had lots of practice. I figured on taking a little tour of this dump, learning what Milward said we should and getting out of here. I don't think I even want to spend the night.”
Charity got up from the bed and reached under it, feeling for the now-grown cat. “Sounds good to me. Come on you ... got her. OK, let's go.”
The Innkeeper stared at them as they left the Inn. His unblinking gaze was nearly as bad as his muttering. Outside of the Inn, the street was empty of people, and so was the next.
Adam sidestepped to avoid a pile of dung in the street. “Where are all the people? This street was full, not an hour ago.”
Charity craned her neck to look through a dust-covered window. “This shop's empty, too. They're not in the street, and they're not in the shops; maybe they're all in church?”
“Wouldn't want to be in any church this place supports.” Adam muttered.
Charity's sharp ears caught her brother's undertone. “Well, I can't think of any other place they'd be, can you?”
Adam nodded. “Only one way to find out. Shall we go to church?”
It took them a good while to find where the townsfolk had gone. The best and last clue was when Charity noticed a trend in the grime covering the streets. There appeared to be depressions and smears, almost footprints, heading in a northwesterly direction. The number of them increased as they came to a cobblestone street. They followed the prints, and soon saw others from the cross streets merging into the flow. A building stood at the far end of the street, sparkling clean, which caused it to stand out from the rest of the town, looking like a diamond on a dirt pile. The footprints led straight up to its doors.
A large oak grew in the shade on the north side of the church. Climbing it gave the twins a view into the interior, and kept them out of sight from the townsfolk who filled it. A man dressed in brilliant white robes was speaking to the congregation.
“I remember that fellow.” Adam whispered at Charity. “He was talking with a small group of men as we came into town. I didn't like the look he gave us at all.”
Charity edged closer to the window. “I can hear what he's saying, now. Put your ear against the wall like this.”
Adam followed his sister's example, and the voice of the man in white came to him clearly.
“Strangers are always a danger.” The speaker's resonant voice came to their ears. “Can you tell how they may act? Can you? Of course not. They are an unknown, and the unknown may contain evi,l and therefore must be avoided at all costs. If you cannot avoid it, you must destroy it.”
He thrust his arm at a woman sitting in the front pew. “Do you know what your neighbor does at night?” She shook her head. “Then how do you know she is right with the Creator? You cannot. That is why it is imperative we must watch each other, watch for any sign of contamination. Watch for weakness in resolve, and you will be blessed. Watch for any crack that the Evil One can slither through. It will be there.”
* * * *
He had them now. He could see the eyes shifting left and right. It had to be like this. He had to rais
e an army to win his war. Since that day, nearly five years ago now, when he was visited by a messenger of the Creator, and told of his special mission, his goal, nay, his obsession had been to eradicate all influences of evil. Magik and the users of it, those who were trying to subvert mankind to the obviously lesser races and, of course, the Dragons. Some claimed they no longer existed. That only proved they were dupes of the Dragons, themselves. They existed, and he would be the instrument of their destruction, along with all the other tools of Evil.
This village was just the start; once he had these fools eating out of his hands, he would move on to bigger and better breeding grounds.
The Priest brought both hands up as a signal for his congregation to rise. “Trust no one.” He intoned. “Until you learn from me what to watch for, you can never be sure of that one across from you,” He turned to the side, and looked at the people over his shoulder. “Maybe even your neighbor is plotting against you. Go now. Be vigilant. Be right.”
* * * *
“What a load of frog droppings.” Adam repeated one of Milward's favorite sayings.
“You can say that again.” Charity watched the congregation begin to filter toward the door. The cat balanced herself between Charity's shoulder and a branch.
“What a load of ... ow!”
“You deserved it. We better get out of this tree before these kind people see two ‘strangers’ peeking in on their meeting.”
They jumped the couple of feet to the grass, and moved quickly to the rear of the church as the first of the congregation left through the front doors.
Charity peeked around the corner. “Do you think we've learned what we needed to?” The cat jumped into Charity's arms and took her accustomed place in her sling.
Adam dusted off his knees. “That and more, I believe. Let's go back to the Inn, get our stuff, and go. Camping under the stars looks real good to me, right now.”
They cut across to the fourth street west of the Church, and then headed back towards the Inn. People were back out on the streets, and gave them the same suspicious looks as before.
“It's happening again.” Charity hissed to Adam, as they passed a small grouping of women standing outside a cloth monger's shop.
“I know. The Blacksmith watched me like he expected me to snitch a horseshoe as I walked by. Let's keep moving, maybe they won't attack if we don't stay in one place.”
They turned aside to avoid a large knot of townsfolk ahead of them. A small girl sat alone, huddled against an alley that divided two rundown shops with apartments in the second story. She was crying, with her head buried in her knees.
Charity knelt beside her. “What's wrong?”
The little girl looked up, but not directly at her. Charity saw eyes that would never see. The pupils were muddy swirls of color with no iris. She turned her head back and forth. “Who's there?”
“You don't know us. We're strangers here.”
The little girl stiffened.
Adam knelt beside Charity. “Why did you tell her that? Now she's afraid of us.”
The little girl turned her head toward Adam's voice. “I'm not afraid.”
Charity stuck her tongue out at Adam, and turned back to the girl. “Why were you crying?”
The little girl sniffed. “I'm lonely. No one will play with me because I can't see, and Brother Vedder says I'm being punished, but I don't know what I did.” She started to sob.
Adam's outrage at the town began to boil. He wanted to do something to show them where they were wrong, but he felt directionless. Milward had warned both he and Charity to not strike out blindly when attempting to solve a problem. Here, he felt like he was a drop of water trying to extinguish an inferno. His anger warred with his compassion toward the little girl. “Can we do anything to help you?” He put his hand onto her arm.
She didn't pull away. “Can you make me see?”
Charity was about to let the little girl down lightly when she saw Adam's face. He had gone pale, nearly white, and sweat was dripping from him. The amulet holding his lucky rock glowed through the material of his tunic. The little girl gave a soft cry of pain, and pulled her arm free of Adam's hand. She put her hands to her face, and cried again. The cat meowed and pulled further into her sling.
Charity hissed at Adam. “What did you do? There's people in the street there; they're going to think we attacked one of their children.”
Adam rubbed his forehead. “I didn't do anything. I got a headache all of a sudden. Maybe I squeezed her arm too tight.”
“I can see you.” The little girl looked at them through beautifully clear, blue-green eyes.
“Adam...” Charity felt her stomach beginning to tighten.
“Thank you, mister.” The little girl focused her gaze on Adam.
“I know, Charity.” Adam's skin was crawling; the feeling of destiny was bearing down on him again.
“What are you doing to my daughter?!” A plain, rather dumpy woman bustled over to them in a flurry of petticoats. A gangly man with a large nose, no chin and a turkey neck followed close behind her.
Charity stood up to face them. “We were just talking to her; she was lonely.”
The woman bristled. “She's supposed to be lonely! Brother Vedder says ... iiieee!” The woman screamed. “Her eyes!”
The man looked at his daughter. She looked back.
“Witchcraft!” He yelled at the top of his lungs. “Minions of Evil!” He and his wife began shouting and screaming at the top of their lungs. The little girl watched her two new friends run down the street, away from the forming mob.
Townsfolk gathered to see what all the shouting was about. The girl's parents showed them their daughter's restored sight, and they also picked up the cry of evil being done to their poor little girl. The mob began its deadly march toward the Inn, where the two objects of its wrath were believed to be staying.
Adam and Charity ran past the Innkeeper without a word, and up the stairs to their room.
Charity hefted the linked bags Milward had given her, and slung them over the shoulder opposite her bow. “I've got these, how about you?”
Adam shouldered his backpack with the bedrolls. “All set, let's get out of here.”
They hit the stairs at full speed,and knocked aside the Innkeeper and a rough looking man who was following him up to the room. As they pushed through the front door of the Inn, they could hear the Innkeeper shouting, “Thief! Thief!” at the top of his lungs. The tough tried to chase after them, but he was no match for younger, faster legs.
Adam looked over his shoulder as they ran out of the town. A mob had reached the Inn carrying torches and various sharp tools as weapons, led by the parents of the little girl.
They ran for nearly a league past the outskirts of the town, checking to see if the mob was still following. As they were passing a Birch grove, Adam slowed to a walk. “I think we've left them behind. Can you hear anything behind us?” Shouts of “Witch", “Sorcerer” and “Magik Worker” had followed them as they left the town.
Charity cocked her head, listening. “Nothing. We may be safe, but I'd like to keep walking for a while, just to be sure. Bad as those people are, I wouldn't feel right putting arrows into them.”
Adam reset his sword into the scabbard by pulling it partly out, and letting it fall back into place. The metal sang. “I don't know. Brother Vedder sounded like a fine candidate to me.”
Charity tickled the cat under her chin. The eyes closed, and loud purrs came. “On that point, I agree, but I wouldn't feel right about the rest. They're Vedder's victims just as much as that little girl. Which reminds me ... what happened back there?”
Adam shook his head. “I don't know. I got this shooting pain through my head, and then I became dizzy for a moment. It passed almost as quickly as it came. When I could see again ... I saw the eyes.”
“Yes, the eyes.” Charity looked at Adam levelly. “You do know it was you, don't you?”
Adam looked back at her,
bafflement running across his face. “I'm ... not ... sure. I hope not, and yet I want to think I did. I'd like to be able to do that; heal people, I mean. It would be good to correct some of nature's mistakes.”
“Your amulet glowed the same time you turned pale. You're magik, Adam, whether or not you want to be.”
Adam looked down where the amulet hung on its chain. He fingered it through his tunic thoughtfully, and then looked back at Charity with a wan smile. “I guess I'll have to learn to live with it, then, won't I?”
Charity looked at her twin brother for a long moment, and then said with a completely straight face, “I guess so.”
They turned back to the path and continued on their route away from the town of Silgert. The dark line on the horizon in front of them soon formed into individual trees. Pasture grasses on either side of the path held wild flowers offering their promises to both butterflies and small birds that hovered in front of the blossoms like honeybees. In the last league before entering the forest, the path rose slightly, and the tops of partially buried rocks poked through the ground.
They were passing a group of boulders being pushed aside by a number of large black oaks when Adam stopped and began looking around.
“What is it?” Charity asked Adam.
“I hear someone snoring.”
“You've got to be kid ... wait, I hear it, too. Over there.” She pointed to one of the larger oaks. A booted foot showed just beyond the trunk of the tree.
Adam levered himself up and over the space between two of the boulders, and edged around the tree's rough trunk. A man lay sleeping, with his head back and his mouth open. Snores popped and bubbled from him. He cradled a stoneware jug between his arm and his left side. A sword in a well-worn scabbard was strapped to his hip. His hair was long, brown and worn in the style of the western military, pulled back and tied with a leather thong. He would have been clean-shaven except for a day's growth of beard that showed touches of gray. Charity thought his face looked pleasant in spite of the beard. His clothes showed a mixture of brown and olive green with worn areas at the knees. Leather edging protected the bottom of his jacket.