by Terah Edun
“I told you I could have carried it,” Richard said.
“Yeah, I know, but I wanted to.”
“Suit yourself,” he said, searching the sky. “Looks like the rain’s going to hold off for another few days.”
Mae trailed her fingers in the grass and picked up a sunflower blooming right on the edge of the path. “It’s been raining heavily this whole month. We don’t need any more.”
Richard shrugged. “What the gods provide, we take with thanks.”
“As long as they don’t drown our crops while they do it,” Mae muttered.
He ignored her, and that was fine with Mae.
With a long sigh, she picked up the pace. They needed to get to Old Man Bergin’s before more than an hour had passed, and she and Richard knew that the terrain would get far worse in the forest itself.
It didn’t take them long to reach the edge of the meadow, where the tallest trees in the area stopped just off the grassy plain as if ordered to by an invisible hand. Inside, the forest was dark and more mysterious than she usually had a taste to explore randomly, but this was for a good cause.
Mae motioned her chin at the forest. “Lead the way.”
With a grunt, he stepped inside, and she followed.
True to his nature, Richard set a quick pace, and she didn’t complain as he loped across the forest floor, occasionally reminding her to jump over fallen logs or asking her to cross shallow creeks by his side.
Before long, Mae was sweating and her shoulders ached, but she still didn’t give up the grimoire. It was her find and hers to keep. But she was seriously regretting not demanding they take some steeds instead of making their way by foot. Unfortunately, the guards at the gate would have questioned two teens running off with holding horseflesh, and questions were exactly what Mae and Richard didn’t need.
So she pushed on through.
When they reached a part of the forest that was denser than most, Mae had reservations. The trees were bigger and the canopy broader. That meant sunlight didn’t reach as far down into the base of the forest where Mae was walking. She stumbled over a rock and nearly tripped flat on her face. “All right, stop. I can’t see anything.”
When she looked up, she couldn’t even see him anymore.
All around her were giant trunks with moss covering most sides and vines hanging down overheard. Mae frantically searched the deep gloom of what felt like a world of green everywhere she looked.
“Richard!” she called out.
“I’m here,” he said as he came back into view.
“Don’t ever do that again!” Mae snapped.
“I didn’t do anything but walk,” he said.
“You left me.”
“You stopped walking,” he countered.
She puffed out her cheeks in irritation, but it was true. “I just got…disoriented.”
He grunted. “Well, keep up—we’re almost there.”
“How soon is ‘almost’?” she said.
He flashed her a grin. “It’s just a few feet north and we cross the moat,” he said, then turned around and kept walking.
“Moat?” Mae said. “What moat?”
“Old Man Bergin put it up for protection,” Richard said cheerfully.
Mae, having no choice, followed him while muttering about paranoid hermits and moats.
Before long, they had reached a body of water that Mae would most generously call a bog. It wasn’t much to see, though she wondered how the hermit had managed to build it. The land their family lived on wasn’t very moist, and the seasons didn’t lend themselves to heavy humidity or dense rain. But as she stared at the stagnant water with slime spreading across it and the tiny bridge that led to an island big enough for a single hut, she had to admit that it was a good defensive perimeter.
“Now, there’s a safe way to get across there,” Richard muttered. “I just need to find the pattern.”
He began to look at the cleared ground leading to the moat, to Mae’s confusion. Pacing ahead toward the bridge itself, she thought she’d get a head start on knocking on the hermit’s door. They didn’t have much time, after all, and she’d rather get out of this forest quickly.
“Mae, watch out!” Richard called out as she got within a foot of the bridge.
She turned to see what he meant, and her eyes widened as she saw a log heading straight for her. It was floating midair and held up by two ropes on either end.
The log hit Mae waist high, and she went flying.
She did manage to save one thing—the grimoire.
She tossed it and the bag behind her, hoping Richard would protect their find as she fell into a soup of stagnant water.
Her hands flailed as she instinctively kicked toward the surface. But the water was so dark and filled with grime and weeds that she couldn’t tell up from down. Luckily, it wasn’t so deep that when she hit the bottom she was out of air. So Mae reoriented herself and kicked back the way she came with a mighty push off the bottom of the moat. Through the fluttering weeds in the water, she saw daylight, and when she broke through the water to gasp that first breath of air, she couldn’t be more grateful.
She’d survived.
Swimming back to the edge of the moat from there was easy, and this time she saw two figures standing where there had only be one. Mae briefly hesitated as she treaded water in the moat.
She didn’t know the person standing next to Richard, and even though she heard him yelling at her to get out of the moat, the individual was standing in the darkness like a specter.
“I’d get out of the water if I were you.” The specter walked forward, and his visage resolved into the figure of a hunched old man.
By this time, Mae was in the shallows, with her feet on the solid ground of the edge of the moat. Before Mae could respond, though, she heard a low-pitched roar from behind her. Far too close.
“What in the seven gods is that?” Mae screeched as she back-pedaled out of the water as fast as she could.
“That’s my pet alligator,” the old man said proudly. “Imported it from the Windswept Isles all by myself.”
“What kind of blind fool keeps an alligator as a pet?” Mae yelped as she knelt at Richard’s feet, breathing heavily. Her heart felt like it was jumping out of her chest.
“This one’s a funny one—you can bring her around anytime, Richard.” The old man cackled.
A drenched Mae shivered on her hands and knees as she glared at the hermit that she decided she hated on sight. It wasn’t often that Mae made split-second decisions on someone’s character like that, but this time, she felt mighty comfortable, seeing as he was an evil spirit come to life.
21
Mae imagined all sorts of scenarios of vengeance in her mind, but in the end, she put them aside for the greater good.
“All right there, Mae?” Richard said as he helped her up.
He held the grimoire under one arm, and Mae didn’t miss the fact that he used the other hand to hold her back from attacking the old hermit. Which she mightily felt like doing.
“So,” said Old Man Bergin. “What are you two doing in my forest?”
“Your forest?” Mae said. “This is the private land of the greater holding of the Darnes clan.”
For the first time, she saw something other than jolly amusement in the old man’s eyes.
“This land is my private domain, from here to the meadow—you hear me, girl?”
Grumpy old coots don’t scare me, Mae thought. “I doubt the greater holding would see it that way.”
“Then they’d be wrong, and I charge any of them to come out here and say that to my face,” he said, staring her down.
“And the log?” Mae said. She was still mad about being soaking wet.
Her feelings on her adventure didn’t seem to matter, though. In fact, none of her questions swayed him. He had straightened so quickly that she realized perhaps the hunched-over-old-hermit act was just a façade. When he stood tall, a terrible look grew in h
is eyes.
“Protection against those who think they own what’s mine,” the old man snarled.
His wild gaze pinned her to where she stood, and Mae shivered, partly from the wet clothes and partly from fear, as she realized now just why the rest of the Darnes clan feared this hermit. He might be old and alone, but he was not in any way senile or vulnerable. He was as cold as that alligator when he needed to be.
“She didn’t mean anything by it, Bergin,” Richard said as he shoved Mae behind him and reached out to sling an arm around the old man’s shoulders. “She’s just blood proud.”
“All those fools in the castle on the hill are,” Old Man Bergin said sourly.
“Yep,” Richard replied. “So why don’t you show us some of that legendary hermit hospitality?”
“Eh?” Bergin said, scratching his chin.
“Your moonshine, old man!”
Mae glared at their backs as they walked across the bridge, but she had no choice but to follow like a stray cat. She hoped that Richard hadn’t dragged her all the way out here for the wrong reasons. She had not come out here for hermit booze.
After clomping across the short bridge, Mae stepped onto the old man’s island for the first time. As he opened the door and waved them into the darkness, she looked behind her longingly for the forest that didn’t seem so dark now compared to the depressing interior she was being forced to enter. The floor was dirt, he had a rough-hewn bed made of strapped-together logs and a lumpy mattress, and a pot of stew—at least that was what it smelled of, though there was no telling what kind of meat it contained—sat over the firepit.
He waved a hand for his guests to sit together on the bed while he took the only other spot available—a sturdy stool he unhooked from the cabin wall.
Before they’d even begun, Bergin grabbed up several wooden cups and passed them around with a bottle of sloshing liquid Mae thought it best not to investigate too closely. She wanted to decline, but she was already on Bergin’s bad side, and they desperately needed his aid. And besides, liquor was not something anyone else in the holding or outside of it would have given to a teenager. She had to give the old man his due for that rather liberal policy.
So she poured her brew, handed it off to Richard—who took substantially more—and took a sip.
She spluttered and coughed before taking down more than a gulp.
Old Man Bergin laughed while Richard slapped her on the back.
“Easy there, fire-shot,” the hermit said. “Don’t want all of that coming back up.”
Mae gave him a weak smile that was more of a grimace, but she didn’t say anything derogatory. Instead, she raised her cup in silent salute then brought it to her lips as she pretended to drink more. Determined that Richard would be the one taking the lead here, she kicked his foot where the hermit couldn’t see and cleared her throat loudly.
Richard had brought them here. He could beg for the help. She’d already been nearly eaten. The least Richard could do was speak up.
Getting her cues, Richard shifted away from her. “There’s a problem up at the greater holding.”
“Oh?” Bergin said with a belch.
“More children have been struck down this year than ever before,” Richard said. “It’s desperate times.”
Mae thought he was leaving a lot out, but from the expression on the hermit’s face, he knew exactly what Richard was referring to.
Bergin was silent for a moment. “Bad business, that.” He actually sounded like he meant it.
Richard said, “That’s why we’ve come to you. We knew you could be trusted.”
“Trusted?” Bergin said warily. “Trusted with what?”
Richard gave Mae the side-eye, as if asking her permission to proceed. She nodded—they were already here; might as well get on with it.
Richard stood up and opened the grimoire that had been resting underneath his arm. “We think this grimoire holds the key to wiping the scourge from our history books.”
Bergin’s eyes gleamed in a manner Mae didn’t like.
“The wasting sickness, you mean?” Old Man Bergin barked. “There ain’t no wiping it out. It’ll keep coming—every decade, sometimes every other year. The only thing you can do is wait it out and hope it doesn’t strike those closest to you.”
Unable to stand being silent any longer, Mae said, “It already has. My sisters were claimed weeks ago, and time is running out.”
For the first time, the old man’s face softened, just a tad. It was rapidly going back to stoic and angry, though, so Mae wanted to capitalize on his empathy before it was closed off.
“We just need you to take a look at what we found,” she said. “So we can go back to the holding and do what needs to be done.”
“You mean you want me to verify your findings?” the hermit asked.
“Yes!” Mae and Richard said at the same time, excited that they were getting through to him.
“Why would I do that?”
So much for empathy, Mae thought. “Don’t you want to know how?”
This time, the hermit laughed—long and hard.
“Foolish girl. I know how,” Bergin said once he caught his breath. “That’s the reason you’re here, isn’t it? I’m a full mage, and probably the only one that will assess your fool plan without turning you in before you can blink.”
“Yes,” Richard said. “That’s true…we can’t go to the Council of Elders because, well, you know why. Magic like this is considered dark. They would forbid it before we had a chance to test it.”
“We just need to know if this incantation will do what it says,” Mae said. “That’s all.”
“That’s more than enough to get me in a heap of trouble,” Bergin grumbled.
“I thought you feared no one from the greater holding?” Mae asked.
That was the wrong thing to say. The hermit stiffened then stood up in a rush and grabbed their cups.
Hurling them to the floor, he yelled, “Out, out! Get out of my home and leave my lands. Go back to your pillows and castles before I throw you back in the moat.”
“Bergin, she didn’t mean it,” Richard said. “Just read over the incantation—that’s all.”
“She doesn’t mean a lot of things,” Bergin yelled. “Get out!”
Mae and Richard were backing toward the door by this point. The hermit looked furious, but Mae couldn’t leave without one more attempt at peace.
“You don’t know what it’s like now,” Mae said.
“To the seven gods I don’t,” the hermit yelled. “I said get out!”
Mae pushed in front of Richard and stood face to face with the old man.
“No,” she said staunchly. “I won’t leave.”
“Did you hear me?”
“I heard you. I’m not deaf, but I’m just as stubborn and can be as crochety as you.”
Bergin turned away and grabbed his cane from where it was leaning against the wall. But this wasn’t just some ordinary cane. It had a large knot of wood the size of Mae’s fist at its base, making it more of a club than a cane.
She winced as the old man came at her. She stood firm, but before she knew it, Mae felt herself being whisked off her feet. Richard danced back into the interior of the cabin and away from the door, dragging Mae. She didn’t know what Richard’s plan was; he was dancing back around the pot of stew above the firepit while keeping them both just out of the hermit’s reach.
Yanking herself out of Richard’s strong grip, Mae said, “I have spent days tracking down this cure, and you know what it took to find it?”
Bergin snarled, “No, and I don’t care.”
Mae rolled her eyes. “Well, I’m going to tell you anyway. I stole this grimoire from your mother’s private collection.”
That caught his attention. Just admitting that could see Mae jailed, and even if the man was a hermit, he still had the blood of the Darnes clan running through his veins.
Mae heard Richard’s breath choke off in a gasp
, but she didn’t turn around to look at him. Her attention was focused on the hermit she needed to ensure her siblings’ survival. To her surprise, he didn’t look surprised—he looked eager.
“How?” Old Man Bergin said, clearly intrigued—he even stopped limping menacingly toward her.
Mae shrugged. “She has a private hideaway—much like yours—that I was able to get into.”
The old man paused and stroked his beard. “And once you got into her collection, how did you open that book? Their true natures don’t appear for just anybody.”
“His balls,” Mae said, pointing at Richard behind her. “Do you know how mortifying it is to put your heart and soul into something only to have someone accomplish it with a snap of their fingers?”
The sounds Richard was making were that of a choking seal, but at least she was getting somewhere. The old man was taking her seriously now—very seriously.
“That I do, dearie,” Bergin said with narrowed eyes. “You might not be so bad yet.”
Encouraged, Mae continued, but this time she told him the story of the screams that were echoing in the hallways night and day. She told him about how desperate times were upon the greater holding. That the entire commune stank of fear. That even though they were fearful, there was hope in the darkness. And it was that hope that made Mae think they could fight back the scourge. Most of the victims died within days—three at the most. But Mae’s siblings? It had been nineteen days since the fatal illness had reared its ugly head. It could have been their personal strength, it might have been the bloodline’s will, and it was certainly beyond her own knowledge, but one thing Mae did know—their time was running out.
“Now that we’re here with you, there’s a chance that we can bring them out of this before the illness claims them,” Mae said, her voice breaking.
Bergin narrowed his eyes and tapped his fingers on the club of his staff in a rhythmic pattern.
Silence reigned until he said gruffly, “Show me this incantation you found, girl. It’s the least I can do.”
Mae smiled. “Thank you.”