by J. M. Frey
I don’t know what sort of emotional depth main characters have in other fantasy works, but it seems that Kintyre and Bevel are not feeling this loss as keenly as the rest of us. Or, at least, they are pretending not to. I recall Pip’s words, her assertion that some “minor” character always perishes during the Fourth Station. I think back on our quest, and . . . ah, yes. Pip chose to free Capplederry instead of slay him.
But if what my wife says is true, then Kintyre and Bevel have lost a minimum of eight other companions in similar circumstances before. Perhaps they are not being callous so much as simply trying not to let her death wound them too deeply. To carry on carrying on.
They are not hardened to these deaths, only exhausted by them.
I catch them sharing a sad gaze in a tender moment, when they think no one is looking, and turn away. Let them have their privacy, and let them mourn in their own way. We are all devastated.
When Wyndam is patched, and his shirt is closed once more, I take the time to observe the scholar’s tent in the distance. Three of Saetesh’s colleagues are milling around the door to the tent, and one is hurrying toward them with a large kettle, still steaming from its time over their nearby cook fire. I assume the last two are tending to Saetesh.
I feel obligated to go over, to inquire after his health, but at the same time, the last thing I am feeling is social. I want to curl into my sleep roll, wrap myself around my wife and daughter, and bid Capplederry to knock the ball of the sun lower in the sky. There are hours yet before sunset, and I am weary in a way that I haven’t been since Mother’s death.
Body, soul, and mind, all I want to do is shut off, shut myself down, and sleep. But no, not yet. For Kintyre rises from the edge of the basin, shaking water from his hair, and sits down beside Wyndam.
“Come now, Wyndam,” Kintyre says, his voice firm yet gentle. “Enough is enough now. Speak to me, son.”
Wyndam takes a long, slow moment to drag his gaze away from the wrapped bundle on the cart, sliding his eyes along the ground before they land on his father’s boots, and then shift upward. The lad takes a deep breath, opens his mouth, then clicks it shut again. He peers over his father’s shoulder to raise pleading eyebrows at me. I tilt my head to the side in a question: Are you sure?
His answer is a small, shaky nod, and a thinning of his lips as he rolls them inward to bite at them, nervous.
“I’m not gonna like this, am I?” Kintyre rumbles, watching our silent communication.
“No,” I say. “But you must hear it all the same, Kintyre. And,” I add hastily as Kintyre bites his own lips in a manner identical to his son’s, “you must keep your temper.”
“Aye,” he grunts.
“Do you swear?”
“I swear!” he snaps, impatient and belying his promise immediately. I hold up a scolding finger, and he contritely says, “Apologies. I’ll try.”
“Very good,” I say, and then take a deep breath. “Now, where to begin? Wyndam has lost all ability to speak.”
“What do you mean, you can’t speak anymore?” Kintyre shouts, startled, and swings back around to goggle. “Explain!”
“Kin . . .” Bevel sighs. “Temper.”
“Sorry!” Kin snarls. “But . . . how long has this been going on? Why didn’t you, I don’t know, write it down? Writer’s calluses, Wyndam, I am your father! Did you think I would turn you away when you came to me for help?”
Wyndam looks at me helplessly, desperate.
“Kintyre,” I say. “Quiet, please, as you promised. And let me explain.”
✍
We leave the Lost Library empty handed. I had returned to the astronomy building with Robfarn, Saetesh’s half-dryad colleague, to search the collection by Wisp-lamp light, but we are unlucky. There are no tomes or tales of disappearing constellations, but, now that I had pieced together what I hoped was more of this mystery, I hadn’t really expected it.
In the morning, Saetesh is conscious and watching as we load our saddlebags, packing all of our traveling supplies onto the backs of the horses or onto Capplederry. He is propped up in a chair in the sunshine outside the tent, a travel desk already on his lap and a wan but genuine smile on his face.
Before we make the long, slow walk back to Gwillfifeshire, I decide to speak quietly with him.
“Well, now,” he says, exhibiting the customary elvish good cheer in the face of darkness. “That shall be, I think, my first and last adventure. Do you suppose Sir Dom will write about this one? If he does, I hope I come off as heroic.”
“You were very brave,” I comfort him. “How is your leg?”
“It was a clean break. Olissa says it will heal well, and I have elvish blood on my side. I shall be dancing at Solsticetide.”
“I hope so, my friend,” I say, and shake his hand. In another life, I might have invited him back to Turn Hall for the duration of his healing, become his patron and given him free reign of my library, perhaps even made a true friend of him. He could have been one of the most profound relationships of my life, held alongside Pointe and Pip. Now, I must say my goodbyes, knowing that if this quest is successful, and Pip, Alis, and I return to Victoria, I will never see him again.
A sort of bittersweet resentment crawls up my throat, but I swallow it back down. I cannot afford to mourn for friendships missed. I have neither the time nor the emotional capacity.
I make my farewells, and go back to our horses, passing Bevel as he comes to make his and Kintyre’s farewells too. Behind me, I hear Bevel apologize to Saetesh for his getting caught up in what was clearly a fight between the Deal-Maker Spirit and Kintyre, but Saetesh waves him off and only bids Bevel to depict him handsomely and with a twinkling smile. Bevel laughs, though it is strained, and promises that if he writes up this adventure, he will do as Saetesh asks.
I know, of course, that Bevel will not, cannot write a scroll about this quest.
Ever.
✍
Returning to Gwillfifeshire is as horrible as we all feared it would be.
The streets are less crowded, because it is not market day when we return, but we draw followers all the same. The funeral procession creaks and trundles its way toward the Pern, people gasping and covering their mouths when they realize that there is a body in the back of our cart, and one person missing from our party.
What we had hoped would be a joyous homecoming for us, filled with handfuls of scrolls and stuffed with gaiety and new information, is somber instead. Someone has run ahead, because, when we enter the inn’s courtyard, the Goodwoman and her son are already standing on the threshold, clutching one another. Anne and Thoma are subdued. There is no screaming, no hysteria, for Lanaea was virtually unknown to them, but there is a damp misery for the life and niece lost. And such horrified guilt in Kintyre and Bevel.
And in me.
Nothing is said. No one asks for explanations. No one rushes to blurt excuses. We simply look at each other, mute and miserable, united by our grief, yet separated by that gulf of the unfathomable loneliness that contemplating our own mortality always brings.
At length, Anne nods, just once, and then turns away and ushers Thoma inside. Kintyre and Bevel are joined by two other men—strangers from the crowd—and together, they lift Lanea down and carry her into the inn after Anne. Pip and I follow slowly, the marshalls of our grim parade of townspeople.
The women of Gwillfifeshire descend upon the Pern to cook, and clean, and comfort Anne and Thoma. Someone washes Lanaea’s body. Someone else anoints it. Someone styles her hair and dabs cosmetics on her lifeless lips, and someone else lays her out in a side room. Kintyre and Bevel hunch in the corner booth of the taproom, as far away from everyone else as possible, carving wood and smoking pipes, and scratching pencil on parchment. Pip, Alis, and I sit at the bar, where we can take it all in. No one asks us questions. We are not ignored, but we choose not to participate. Food fills the tables, and though no wake is planned, everyone in town, including Lord Gallvig, slowly trickle in.<
br />
Music breaks out like a rash of whooping cough: slowly at first, in fits and sports as a fiddle and a harp are tuned to one another. Someone runs home and returns with a flute, and the music becomes faster, louder, until suddenly, all at once, someone adds a voice, and then another. And then a whole chorus takes up song after song after song.
Far beyond the curtains of time and fate,
Beyond the misty vale of the Reader’s tears,
The Writer sets down his quill, his intent filled,
The narrative played out, the ink bottle empty.
Here the story is finished, here joy abate
Here an end to pain, and an end to fears.
Here is the story told as He has willed.
Here the empty spot on the Shelf left for thee.
My heart fills with such a complex weight,
Grief, thick like syrup, in my breast appears,
My own tale, with you missing, I must rebuild.
Until my own The End also folds over me.
The mournful, chanting tone of the dirge-music drives me out to the front step of the tavern. I do not worry that anyone will tread on me, nor that they will want to pass me, for it appears as if the whole of Gwillfifeshire is in the blazing hot, candle-bright room behind me. The party reminds me too much of Solsticetide, of the beginning of this adventure, of a time when my family was safe and my life stable. Or so I thought.
Foolish Forsyth.
And so here I am, again, alone on a step, staring up at the sky and wondering, wishing, my mind a tangled skein of facts that I cannot unravel, cannot knit together to form a pattern that makes any sort of sense. I see the pieces. I know there must be a pattern. But I do not know what it is. I do not know why.
And without the why, I cannot stop it.
Oh, I am utterly stupid.
What use am I? What use is the know-it-all younger brother of the hero, the man who is supposed to find answers in books, when he searches and still yet finds none? What good is a scholar on a quest who holds no information?
No good at all, that is what.
Impotent in my stupidity, I clutch the sleeves of my jacket and grind my teeth, forcing myself to breathe deep and steady. To re-evaluate what I know. To take out what little information I have and look it over once more, reorder it, try to assemble it in a new way.
Wyndam called down a Deal-Maker who took his voice. The stars are burning out. Books are vanishing at the same rate as constellations. And there is a weather witch who is not a weather witch, but the Deal-Maker who stole Wyndam’s voice and will not allow him to tell us why.
Above me, only one solitary, lonely figure of stars remains: The Great Tale. Together, the stars form the picture of a desk, a figure seated behind it with quill in hand, and another standing alongside, reading over the first’s shoulder.
And there is no reason for it. None that I can see.
The constellation of the Writer is entirely useless. It does not move. It does not look down on me, and call me “son,” and explain. It does nothing but twinkle, and I hate it. Isn’t this the part of the narrative where the Deus is meant to Ex Machina?
And Reed can’t even bloody well do that right.
It isn’t until the sun is fully set, the sky near-black without the constellations to light it, that Pip finds me seated by the front door, watching the people come in and out, and asks: “Where’s Wyndam?”
I had not forgotten the lad, not really, but his misery had been so encompassing that he had refused all food and company and gone directly upstairs.
“I would say his room,” I guess. “But you are about to tell me otherwise?”
Pip points a finger-gun at me and fires. “Gotcha. I just went up to put Alis down. He’s gone.”
“Blast,” I curse. “Stay here, I’ll . . . go see if he went for a walk.”
I huddle into my jacket, pulling up the collar against a chill in the spring night that has more to do with my state of mind than the temperature. There is no clue as to which direction Wyndam might have gone, if he has gone for a walk at all, so I decide to make for the areas we have already passed through, as they would be the best known to him. It is a good choice, for I find him by the edge of the crumbling old well in the middle of the market square. The well is made of more gray stone, shored up on one side with red clay brick and weather-whitened wooden joists. A cypress tree crowds against the side of the wall, twisting along the mortar paths and splaying like a mourner’s umbrella over the open pit of the well. Around its roots, the stones of the square heave and buckle, unable to resist the strength of life and time.
And on this wall sits Wyndam. He has his head between his hands, and he is hunched over. The paving stones between his feet are wet, and I choose not to comment on that. Instead, I walk to his side, making a deliberate and obvious amount of noise so as not to startle the lad, and then sit gingerly beside him. The wall shifts a little under our combined weight, but doesn’t collapse. Still, mortar dust rains down into the water far below us, with a few small pebbles that make soft, echoing, plinking noises.
“I would ask if you want to talk about it, my lad, but . . .” I say softly, and beside me, Wyndam snorts. “The truth of it is this, nephew: you are Kintyre Turn’s son. And he is a hero.” Wyndam stills, and I turn my face up to the sky, mourning the loss of the stars that were so comforting, so bright in my childhood, and hoping deep within my guts that I will be able to restore them. That other children will have the opportunity to revel in the magic of their glow.
Wyndam grunts. He is listening, but he doesn’t like it.
“I have come to understand that you dislike people comparing you to your father,” I go on, “or judging you by his merits and achievements, but in this, you must acknowledge your connection. You are the son of a hero, Wyndam Turn, and that means that, simply by virtue of your existence, those with harm and evil in their hearts will hurt those closest to you simply because they are closest to you. And that threat is even greater if those people are women. Villains . . . Writers are forever harming women to hurt male heroes. It is lazy writing, but a staple of the genre, which, unfortunately, makes it a fact of life for us.”
Wyndam jerks to his feet, face twisted with disgust.
“No,” I say, guessing what has him so wroth. “No, I am not excusing it. I am warning you, my lad.” I sigh, scrubbing my forehead with the heel of my hand, exhaustion and grief pulling on my body. I want to sleep for a week. “This is not what you expected life with Kintyre Turn to be, is it?” I say gently.
Wyndam shakes his head.
“I will tell you a secret, nephew mine,” I say, leaning close. “It was nothing like how Bevel’s scrolls paint it for me, either. We are, both of us, living in the shadow of a hero who never truly existed. Bevel is a romantic, and his scrolls are a fantasy. The road is a hard, exhausting, boring, filthy place,” I say. “It is gruelling. And it is horrible. Bevel writes fairy tales.”
He looks as if he’d like to protest. I wish he could.
“I do not say this to disillusion you, Wyndam, but to apprise you of the realities of it. Were you to, say, take up your father’s sword and mantle, for example, we would very much wish for you to be prepared for what you might find.”
Wyndam looks up at me, jet eyes wide and shining, mouth dropped open with slowly dawning understanding. He presses his hand against his chest, expression hopeful.
“I do not see why you couldn’t,” I say, conspiratorially. “It seems there is already a great tradition of the Lordling Turn leaving home to go on an adventure. First Kintyre, when he was heir to the seat, and then me. If you were to take the title, you would be the third. I would even venture to say that it’s practically expected, at this point.”
He chews on the corner of his lip for a moment, tugging at his own sleeves, thoughtful.
“Stay with us for now. Finish this adventure. See how you like it, first.”
And if I don’t? his gaze challenges.
I s
hrug. “Then there is a position with the Sword of Turnshire. It is not as exciting as questing, that is true, but there is . . . there is infinitely less heartbreak, my lad,” I say softly. “And you will have the opportunity to prevent the sorts of things that happened to Lanaea.”
Her name sets off a bout of furious, tight pacing, and he scrubs angrily at his eyes. When he slows, I stand, sling an arm around his broad shoulders, and guide him back toward the Pern.
“Come, my lad,” I say softly. “Let us say our goodbyes, properly, and then get a drink into you. And tomorrow . . . tomorrow, we shall leave for tomorrow.”
When we return to the inn, we join the rest of our family in the corner booth. Pip is staring, wide-eyed and stiff with surprised horror, at a ghost that is floating in the middle of the room, corralling delighted children.
“That’s Mandikin,” Bevel says, when I shoot him a questioning glance. “She’s Gwillfifeshire’s childminder. Pip’s never seen a ghost before.”
“No,” I agree. “I don’t believe they have ghosts in the Writer’s world.”
“Shame,” Kintyre says. “They’re a good way to gain closure. Look.”
And there, behind Mandikin, is a new ghost. She is so freshly dead that there is still color in her cheeks, in her corn-silk hair and pretty pink lips. The hems of her pearlescent dress and sleeves are so barely transparent that, if I didn’t know better, I would have assumed that Lanaea was still alive.
Stories
Solinde is a Deal-Maker Spirit who prefers the sea, the shadow’s hearth, the cool of night. She loves water and waves, and was imprisoned inland for so long that she grew parched for wonder and water alike. A fury boils in her like thunder, like a gale, like a hurricane, and it has been howling for release since the day she was tricked into Dealing away her own magic and freedom. She has walked the world, leaving ruin and tears in her wake, like a tidal wave of wrath. She has extinguished whole realms with her fury.