Crier's Knife

by Neal Litherland

  Dirk gently pushed the door open further, and stepped into the cottage. It was surprisingly roomy, with a sleeping loft above, and furniture scattered through the main room. The flagstone floor was carpeted with heavy rugs, most of them made from animal skins. The far wall was dominated by a huge bookshelf, and each shelf was tightly packed with unlabeled volumes. The books were behind a thick, distorted pane of glass held in place by brass locks on either end. A small table sat before the bookcase, covered in a dark cloth. Intricately carved knuckle bones were tossed in a jumble atop the cloth. The house smelled like vanilla and incense, overlaid with wood smoke and herbs. It was a perfume Dirk always thought of as the scent of home.

  His grandfather's skull grinned from his place of honor above the mantle. The bone had been worked with a blade for countless hours, until it was a scrimshaw masterpiece that told the tale of the man's life. The skull was not the only omen in the place, either. Polished hag stones spun on woven cords hung from the roof beams, and amulets dangled from nails driven into the heavy studs. High on the east wall, a tiny hand mirror with a chaste silver frame sat in a small niche. The mirror was spider-webbed with faint cracks, as if someone had thrown a small stone right at the center of it.

  The cottage's owner sat in a high-backed chair by the fire. She was a tall, willowy, handsome woman, swathed in a faded, white dress. Her silk-fine hair made the dress look dark, and her complexion was the color of fresh cream. Her lips were a pale, winter rose. Even her eyes, bordered by nests of fine wrinkles, were strangely colorless; the shade of rain falling on a sunny day. Blaise Crier regarded her grandson for a moment, then returned her attention to her tea kettle as it started to fuss.

  “Go wash your hands,” she said, swinging the tea kettle out of the fire. “There are fresh cookies cooling in the kitchen. Take one, then come have tea with me.”

  Dirk inclined his head, and pushed through the bat-wing doors into the kitchen. The knot in his stomach loosened slightly. Blaise didn't offer her hospitality to transgressors, which meant that whatever his grandmother needed to speak to him about, it wasn't something he'd done. Dirk dunked his hands in the wash basin, scooped a handful of coarse soap from a bowl, and rubbed the harsh grit over his palms. Blood and grease flaked from his fingers, staining the water a muddy pink. He dried his hands on a hanging rag, tossed the dirty water outside, and refilled the bowl from a tall pitcher. Then he plucked a cookie off the cooling table. It smelled of cinnamon and nutmeg. Dirk took a bite, and smiled as he chewed.

  When he returned to the main room, the malk was curled up on the back of his grandmother's chair. The misty cat watched its mistress as she poured tea, adding a dollop of honey to each cup and stirring it in with precise, elegant movements. Dirk sat in the chair opposite her. Blaise smiled slightly. The expression was a brief glimpse of sunlight, soon swallowed by the rolling storm clouds of her foul mood.

  “She's worried you're not eating enough,” Blaise said, tapping her spoon against the edge of her cup. “She may be right. You look like a starveling cat-a-mount, boy.”

  “I appreciate the worry,” Dirk said, taking another bite of the cookie. He made himself eat it slowly, as he doubted his grandmother would let him take a second.

  “She also wishes you'd learn to hunt proper,” Blaise said.

  The malk turned her head, and regarded Dirk for a long moment. Dirk looked back at her without saying a word. The malk closed her eyes halfway, then rested her head on her flank. Blaise sipped her tea.

  “Is this about my claim?” Dirk asked.

  Blaise shook her head, swallowing. “The Glade has stood empty since your grandfather brought me to this place. I'd nearly forgotten it was there. It seems Ben Morgh knew you were looking for a patch of your own, and wants to keep you close.”

  Blaise fell silent after that, turning to stare into the flames. When Dirk had been a boy, she'd told him that if you looked hard enough into a dancing fire that you might see a flicker of truth in it. A glimpse of the future, or an answer to your heart's worries He'd looked as hard as he could when he’d been a boy, but he never saw more than light and shadows. Once, he had asked her what she saw when she looked into a fire. After she told him, Dirk never asked that question again.

  “Teller's gone,” she said, setting her tea aside. “He's been gone for more than a season now.”

  Dirk sipped, and let the tea settle on his tongue. Once it had cooled slightly, he swallowed. The fact that Teller was gone wasn't unusual, nor was the amount of time he'd been away. Dirk's cousin had a fierce wanderlust, and nothing short of iron chains or snowbound trails could dampen his enthusiasm for the road over long. The only time Dirk could remember Teller spending the summer months at home after he was old enough to journey on his own was when he'd broken a leg. Even then, the boy was gone as soon as his steps were trail-worthy again. Dirk's gaze flicked to the cracked mirror, then back to his grandmother.

  “His omen?” Dirk asked, jerking his chin at the broken glass.

  “Broken in the wee hour this morn,” she said.

  Dirk nodded, set his tea down, and chewed the rest of his sweet. He dusted off his hands, and stood. “I'll go fetch him, then.”

  “Linger a moment,” Blaise said, lifting two fingers from her chair's armrest.

  Dirk sat again. He put his hands in his lap, and looked at Blaise the same way he had when he'd been a boy taking his lessons. He'd always been a quiet student; a cup waiting to be filled instead of a pup trying to drink. The corner's of Blaise's mouth turned up for a moment as she regarded Dirk. She sipped her tea, and when she lowered the cup she'd swallowed her smile along with the brew.

  “Teller is far and away from this place,” Blaise said. “He has walked off the known paths, and into danger. The road afore you is strewn with perils, and where it leads I cannot see. It is a dark place, though. A cold place, where something has long slept. Something you must not wake, though it stirs at your every step.”

  “How great is the peril?” Dirk asked.

  Blaise sighed, and looked down into her cup. “If your brother were still here, I would have summoned him. This is the sort of errand that Silence was born to. But I have neither the inclination nor the time to find what hole he crawled into when he was banished from the mount.”

  Dirk slipped out of his chair, and took a knee in front his grandmother. He cupped her hands. They were smooth, warm, and still strong even though his now dwarfed hers. He looked up into her eyes, and held her gaze.

  “I'll get him,” Dirk repeated. “And I'll bring him home.”

  “You're a good boy, Dirk Crier,” Blaise said, smiling as she patted him on the cheek. Her smile curdled around the edges, and grew teeth. Something old and sly peered out from behind her no-color eyes. Something from the depths of the blackest swamps, where she'd been born and bred long before she'd come to sit atop a sleeping mountain. “Leave that goodness at home. You won't need it where this trail wends.”

  Blaise stood, and took down an oak box from its niche in the wall. She opened the latch, and frowned as her fingers scrabbled through the makings inside. She drew out a length of fire-scarred leather cord, three copper beads gone green with corrosion, and two hawk talons trailing mummified strings of gristle and tendon. She combed a hand through her hair, and plucked three silver strands from her head. She whispered to the charm as she wove her hair through the beads, shushing and singing as she strung the pieces together. She removed a polished blue stone the size of a robin's egg from the box, and crossed back to the fire.

  “Breath and blood,” she said, holding the stone out to Dirk.

  Dirk drew his knife, and made a quick, shallow cut across the meat of his forearm. He flexed his fist until blood welled, and he turned his arm over. Three, fat drops spattered the stone's surface. He took a deep breath, leaned forward, and exhaled. His breath fogged the stone, and as the fog faded, so did his blood. All that was left were a few rust red freckles. Blaise plucked several hairs from his head, and retu
rned to her working.

  It took no more than a few minutes for her to finish the spell. Dirk lowered his head, and she tied the leather cord round his neck. Dirk was careful to hold his injured arm well away from the omen. Blaise cupped Dirk's chin, and tilted his head up. Her face was more severe than it had been a moment ago. Her expression was cold, and her gaze empty.

  “Listen to me, now,” Blaise said. She spoke softly, then, enunciating like she was teaching a child a new word. “Do you ken?”

  “Yes ma'am,” Dirk said.

  “Speak the words back to me,” Blaise said.

  He did. When he finished, she nodded in approval, and let out a breath. She sat down again, and crossed one leg over the other. She picked up her tea, and drank as she leaned back in her chair. Shadows danced across the far half of her face. She gazed at Dirk through the rising steam from her cup. Dirk stood, and bound his kerchief around the shallow wound in his forearm.

  “Are you certain Teller lives?” Dirk asked.

  “For the time being,” Blaise said.

  “And if he is otherwise when I find him?”

  Blaise's eyes hardened, and her mouth turned down at the corners. Despite the summer day outside, and the heat from the fire, a chill crept into the room.

  “Bring him home all the same,” Blaise said. “And make certain his soul has plenty of company on the dead man's cart.”

  Dirk nodded, and cinched the knot tighter around his arm. He flexed his fist, and when he was satisfied, looked down at his grandmother. He gave her a smile of his own. It was a feral thing, and it was proof that even boys raised atop the mountain still had some of the swamp crawling through their veins.

  “I'll bring my good blade,” he said.

  Chapter Three

  When Patience Crier left her mother's home in the shadow of Ben Morgh's peak, she'd retreated to the mountain's opposite face. The home she'd built with her husband Silas was low and wide, made from strong timbers held at rigid angles. It was built right into the face of the cliff, as well, which gave the wide cabin a gentle curve. The house faced the glow of the setting sun, and no curtains or shutters ever shrouded the huge front windows. Even on the coldest, cloudiest days, the sun was always welcome in their den. The light was starting to fade by the time Dirk's steps brought him home. Despite the evening hour, though, smoke still rose from the cabin's two stone chimneys. His mother stood on the porch, a shawl wrapped around her shoulders, watching the trail as if she knew he would be coming round the bend at just that moment.

  The eldest of Blaise's children, Patience had the same, strong features that made her mother so striking. In her case, though, they were tempered by the round cheeks and dark curls she'd inherited from her father. Her children had etched fine lines in her face over the years, though. They'd also streaked her hair with silver, and when the wet season came her knuckles sometimes swelled with the dry twist. Despite all that, when she smiled it was like the sunset; a fleeting glory, and all the more beautiful for it. She held out her arms, and Dirk embraced her dutifully.

  “Did you find a claim today?” she asked, squeezing him gently.

  “I did,” Dirk said. “It's a secret spot, on the third turn of the Western switchback. It's perfect.”

  “I'm sure it is,” Patience said, kissing Dirk on the cheek. “What did she want of you?”

  Dirk hesitated, and Patience's smile grew momentarily wider. “I saw the little gray queen on the hunt. She only comes round here when she's casting for you, and the only reason she seeks you these days is when you're wanted up the mountain. Aside from that, you've a fresh omen hanging ‘neath your shirt, a bandage from its making tied round your left arm, and you're coming down a trail you never use except to come home from the high places. So what did she want of you?”

  “Teller needs fetching,” Dirk said. “Gran says it's serious this time.”

  Patience nodded, and reluctantly let go of her son. “That explains the signs. I'll wrap some trail fare for you.”

  Dirk followed his mother into the house. The remains of the evening meal lingered on the table, and to judge from the fare, neither his brothers nor his sister had been home for supper either. They were finally of an age where that was growing more common. Patience lit a candle, and opened a door in the rear wall of the kitchen. She stepped directly into the living rock of the mountain, where his father had carved a pantry. Dirk turned down the left hall, and lifted the latch to the small room he stayed in more and more rarely these days.

  The room was simple, and sparse. There was a straw pallet against one wall, and a single pillow sat atop the folded, wool blanket. Two travel-worn cloaks hung from hooks on the wall; one for snow, the other for rain. A hard-used leather pack sat atop a rag rug in the corner, and a small chest held Dirk's remaining possessions. He knelt before the chest, lifted the lid, and removed what he was going to need for the journey. He took a single change of clothes, rolled tightly and bound with twine to take up the least amount of space. Next was a whetstone half the length of his thumb. He added two deflated waterskins, each fitted with a belt loop, to the pile. A sling with three, smooth stones that he wouldn't be carrying long enough for their weight to be a bother was next. He hung a leather pouch of trade rocks round his neck, just in case he couldn’t barter for what he needed any other way. He tucked a small cake of soap wrapped in a clean rag into the bundle as well. There were only a few miscellaneous clothes and trinkets left inside the chest, but beneath them, tucked into the rear corner, was his dagger.

  The weapon was forged from Ben Morgh's own iron. It had been weighted to his hand by his father, and married to his muscles through endless hours of practice in the grove outside. He knew every whorl in the steel the way he knew the scars on the backs of his own hands. Every wire in the hilt, and every groove in the pommel, was an extension of his own flesh. He removed the blade, and eyed it for pits, scratches, nicks, or rust that had crept in since he'd last held it. He found nothing, and when he tested the blade against his thumb, the lightest touch nearly cut him. He slid the dagger back into its sheathe, then threaded the sheathe onto his belt. Dirk adjusted the fit so it sat comfortably just behind his right hip, tilted forward for an easy draw with either hand. Then he packed his bag, rolled up his rain cloak, and stepped back into the main room.

  His mother stood at the table, tying up a small parcel of cheese, bread, and smoked meat. She glanced at the additional blade on Dirk's hip, but didn't remark on its presence. Instead, she held out her hands.

  “Give me your burden,” she said. “Go farewell your father. If you wait till your return to have words with him, he'll have forgotten the sight of you entirely.”

  Dirk unshouldered his pack, and set it down on the table. He headed down the opposite hall, making his boot heels loud on the boards to announce himself. He heard no hammer from the workshop, and felt no forge fire when he put his hand to the door at the end of the short hall. There was only the soft, ugly whisper of a rasp at work. Dirk rapped his knuckles on the wood, and a grunt sounded from within. He lifted the latch, and entered.

  Silas had been a man of many trades in his youth, and all of them were on display in his sanctum. Horseshoes from his time as a farrier in the town below hung on the walls next to cabinets from his days as a carpenter. A knotted whip from his long months as a drover along caravan roads was coiled on a hook, and near it was heavy, two-headed ax he’d used when he’d been a woodcutter for a brief time. The forge loomed against the far wall, sooty and silent. The anvil stood before it; an iron altar of creation where sweat and fire were sacrificed for the blessing of steel. Miner's picks leaned against the wall, intermingled with a stonemason's chisels and wedges. Adzes and awls hung from curved leather loops on the near wall, standing in a row alongside hammers, crow beaks, and marking chalk. Silas sat at his workbench in the center of the room, his thick shoulders hunched, and his eyes narrowed in concentration as he ran his heavy fingers over a steel shank. He looked up, and the corners of his da
rk beard lifted slightly. It wasn't much of a smile by most men's standards, but it was more than Silas gave to almost anyone else.

  “Dirk,” Silas said, nodding before returning his attention to the unfinished work in his hands.

  “Da,” Dirk said, approaching the work table. “I'm going away for a time.”

  “Find a place to build that cabin you were talking about?” Silas asked, frowning as he found a patch of rust on the steel, and started carefully scraping it away.

  “Aye,” Dirk replied. “But what I mean is I'll be leaving the mount.”

  The rasp snarled off the shank, and Silas grimaced at it. He laid the metal down on the table, and looked at his son again. He said nothing, but the question was clear on his face.

  “Teller's in need,” Dirk said. “Gran wants me to fetch him.”

  His father eyed the twin blades on Dirk's hips, and nodded his shaggy head. He pushed himself to his feet. He leaned heavily on the table, coming around the side. Dirk stepped forward, and his father drew him into a fierce embrace. He smelled of iron, sweat, and worry.

  “When you find him, clout him,” Silas said gruffly. “Tell your mother how to find the claim you made. I'll head down there and mark the best trees while you're gone. That way we can start cutting on your return.”

  Dirk clapped his father on the back, and Silas returned the gesture. His father held on a moment longer before making his way back around the table, and easing onto his stool. He returned his concentration to the steel he'd been shaping, frowning down at it. A tinker's work was never done, and he would likely be in there until Patience came to fetch him to bed. Dirk slipped out, letting the latch fall into place behind him.

  Patience stood at the wash tub, rinsing and drying the dinner dishes with her back to the room. Dirk's pack was closed, with his rain cloak cinched beneath the upper flap so its bulk took up the least amount of room.

  “I had a dream last night,” Patience said, without turning from her task. “I don't remember much of it, but I heard your cousin playing that silver flute of his, and I saw you stumbling along a black road in search of him.”