The Harbinger of Change

by Matthew Travagline

  “It’s not just that I’m an echoer,” Nora said, her voice sounding distinctly familiar to Harvey, though he could not place it. “It’s how my echo affects men. You will see the face of a woman whom you have greatly hurt. It’s so ingrained with my persona, that you start to hear her in my voice.”

  Kiren. Harvey realized that he had been hearing her voice, though he did not know why it had eluded him. He studied the profile of the woman’s face behind the cloth. Did her features match those he remembered Kiren having? The scent he picked up on when she held a knife to his throat made sense now. Was the familiar blend of cinnamon and chalk coming from her a result of the echo as well?

  The mystery woman’s eyes wavered to his face; they appeared pained. “It becomes unbearable for most men to talk with me while they can see my face, so I keep it covered,” Nora said.

  Cleo and Aarez offered no response, other than nodding.

  “Whom do you see? Hear?” Roy asked Aarez.

  “Don’t bring that up,” Aarez threatened. “Not now. Not ever.” He walked out of the room and hurried upstairs, slamming a door closed in his wake.

  “You probably should not talk about it too much amongst each other,” Nora said, pointing upstairs. “I’ll let you see my face one time, just to curb your curiosity. One at a time. And you must promise not to touch me, nor to ask to see the face again, lest you begin to think that I am she. And I have Cleo’s permission to expel you from our group, should any issues arise.” Nora’s declaration seemed to shock Cleo, though she quickly wiped the surprise from her face.

  “I don’t want to see,” Roy said, removing himself from the room.

  Nora turned to Harvey when the echo of footsteps had faded. “Are you sure that you want to see it?” she asked.

  “I’m afraid I already know which face I will see,” Harvey said, lowering his eyes.

  Nora unwrapped her coverings. A pang of pain struck Harvey when he looked up and saw Kiren’s face. He backed up, his hands raised but shaking. The woman before him bore all the resemblance to Kiren, down to the light scar along her jaw, except that she was bald as a Luddite, her scalp reflecting the light from the hearth.

  Tears trickled into his beard. He fell to the ground clutching his stomach. Looking up, he saw Nora replace the wrapping around her head, then walk over and look down at him with a pitied kindness.

  “You must have hurt her deeply, for I have never brought a man to his knees with grief.”

  Through a blur of tears, Harvey saw Cleo turn away, holding her mouth as if ill.

  Chapter 17

  A hissing noise dragged Gnochi from his strange slumber. The first sensation he felt was the throbbing in his mouth. His tongue, or what remained of it, pulsated in pain. Its dull rhythm paled in comparison to the splitting sting that had lulled him to sleep the previous night, but it still nagged on the edge of his mind.

  Sitting up, his eyes inspected the ground of his cell. Immediately inside the doorway was a meager slice of stale bread atop a dirty plate. Lifting the ceramicware revealed the tiny wrapped bundle that Skuddy had been sneaking in with his food. The bundles appeared the first morning after his tongue had been partially cut off, but he only assumed that it was Skuddy’s doing, as he could not imagine that he had any allies left in Blue Haven who would risk imprisonment to lessen his suffering.

  Shavings of some unknown herb sat compressed within the bundle. Gnochi dropped a-half-dozen strategic droplets of his grimy water to mix with the herbs. After stirring the slurry with a small rock, he scooped the paste onto his hand and applied it to the raw stub of his tongue.

  The phantom limb shot a moan of pain that stung worse the remaining tongue’s raw edge. Without realizing what he was doing, Gnochi instinctively tried licking at his teeth, but the action brushed his tongue against a molar and invoked more pain that dragged tears to his eyes.

  Hungry, he held a piece of the bread under the fetid water until it felt soggy in his grip. He then placed it in the back of his mouth so the remnant tongue could push it down his throat.

  Despite the pain that radiated from his tongue and the saliva that pooled in his mouth, he knew that he would survive the torture. He adapted quickly to eating and drinking. Almost choking on a normal-sized piece of bread taught him that every bit of food he put into his mouth must be minced beforehand. And should it require further chewing, he had to manipulate it with his fingers, a process that both humiliated him and brought a smile to his lips. Despite his dire state, he could not help but imagine how his friends and family would react to seeing him eating with his fingers knuckle deep in his mouth.

  He imagined Zelda would have forbidden him from eating at the table so as not to imprint such a grotesque habit on Pippa. She was always pushing decorum on her young daughter. Thinking of his deceased family brought a tear to his eyes. He swatted it away with a grimy hand.

  Harvey and Roy both claimed to have grown up on the streets, so Gnochi assumed they would be empathetic to his eating with fingers. Oslow, who Gnochi saw as a second father, would look beyond any impediment. He smiled, thinking of the tanner and his elongated beard drooping from the hoard of gems entwined within.

  Cleo. Cleo would think—

  “Psst. Gnochi.” Ren’s voice slithered across the corridor. “Come to your porthole.”

  Gnochi realized that the pirate’s hissing must have been what roused him earlier. He rose onto lean legs that screamed from fatigue and wobbled over to the cell door. Ignoring the protests of his atrophied muscles, he leaned into the door, placing his head so that it looked through the small window.

  The guard had left a torch burning down the corridor, so Gnochi faintly made out the features of Ren’s face as it pressed against his door.

  “Good to see you up on your feet,” Ren said. Gaps in his smile stood out against the faint white of his teeth. “I was afraid you’d never get over that.” He paused for a moment, then asked, “What did they do to you?”

  Gnochi opened his mouth wide putting it to the window’s scarce light so Ren could survey the damage.

  The pirate winced. “I had one of my crew whose tongue was cut out. Good lad. Didn’t talk much, though I suppose that comes with the territory. So, you having trouble eating or drinking?”

  Gnochi wanted to reply, ‘yes, but when your survival depends on you adapting, you learn quickly,’ but he could not say that. There was no way to nod his head and qualify his response, so Gnochi settled for shaking his head.

  “I take it that means that you cain’t talk?”

  Gnochi thought long on how to answer his neighbor’s inquiry, but he figured that the man would take any answer for the same, so he shook his head.

  “That’s rough.”

  In truth, he knew that he did not lose his ability to speak. The very first moment that pain from his torturous operation no longer paralyzed him, he tested his voice. Ren had been deep asleep, the call of his snores echoing through the hall. At first, Gnochi attempted to call for his niece, but the noise uttered from his mouth sounded more akin to a drunk’s grunt than a girl’s name. He tried the same with Zelda, but to similar results. Thinking of a sound that would not require front-tongue manipulation, Cleo’s name came to his mind. “Eee-Oh,” came the sound from his throat. “Oh, Eee-Oh.” He then collapsed into another fit of weeping. It was not tears of pain, but sorrow, that fell from his eyes; they tasted of salt and blood.

  Hours later, with his eyes dry, Gnochi sat up and convinced himself that his wounds, however they now stung, were superficial. The real damage was in the question Dorothea posed by exacting the torture. If the voice of a bard is taken away, what is the bard left with?

  He had decided to refrain from flexing his speech in front of anyone, neither Ren, nor even Skuddy, lest word get back to Dorothea that his job was butchered.

  “Listen,” Ren said, dragging Gnochi back to the present. “I want to apologize for how I reacted before. I promise I will tell you about Jackal and Gideon.”
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br />   Gnochi nodded, tucking memories of his first morning without a tongue into the farthest recess of his mind. His reaction seemed to put Ren at ease. Before the pirate could say more, a pair of guards descended into the dungeon.

  “Pack your things,” one of the two said, throwing open Ren’s cell. “Moving day is here.”

  Gnochi slipped the trident pendant from around his neck and placed it in his mouth. His saliva soon tasted of the familiar tang of metal.

  The second guard threw his cell door open. “What, nothing to say?” he asked, laughing at his quip.

  In the light cast from their additional torches, Gnochi surveyed the cell that had been his home. He had no idea of how long he had been prisoner, since neither sun, sleep, nor guards came in regular intervals. He stooped, pocketing the remainder of his bread.

  “Give me your hands.” The guard secured heavy iron shackles on his wrists. “Don’t try anything.”

  Gnochi shrugged his shoulders in a defenseless way, as if saying ‘What harm can a man do once his tongue is gone?’

  The two prisoners were walked, single file, up out of the dungeon. They stopped on a higher level to retrieve three more prisoners, then continued. By the time they reached a level of the keep where natural light wafted unhindered, Gnochi’s legs screamed for respite. They paused in a room with a small window to allow the prisoners, and guards, frankly, time to acclimate their eyes to the sun that shined bright and seemed to flood the chamber with boundless light.

  Gnochi’s eyes squinted in protest. It was a matter of minutes before he could open them fully, and another few before the shapes of furniture revealed themselves against the sun’s white fury. Without a hand free, he allowed the pooling saliva to drip from his mouth. It crackled and froze the moment it hit the ground.

  An exterior door was opened and the prisoners were ushered outside. Once beyond the walls of the keep, a wave of ice-chilled air crashed into him. His teeth chattered uncontrollable and his hands shook. Though at the time, it had felt cold, it wasn’t until he stepped outside that he realized how warm his cell had been kept.

  Ren cursed the guards who laughed at how grimly underdressed the prisoners were.

  Snow coated the ground and seeped through the tears in Gnochi’s boots. It adorned the walls and topped the keep. The plague-like flakes billowed in the breeze. He shoved his fingers in the warmest place they could reach within the range of the shackles, under his armpit.

  Guards led the five prisoners through a subsidiary gate and then along a western road to a dock straddling the Old Maiden River. Along the way, they passed abandoned river inns and vacant markets. Any merchants who would have peddled by the water had either moved to another area to hawk their wares or retreated within the walls where some modicum of heat could be corralled.

  One lone vessel sat moored to the dock. It contrasted with the ocean-faring ships Gnochi was accustomed to seeing because it had no sails, nor the masts to support a sail; no oars, nor oarlocks. In short, the ship was an abomination to seaworthy vessels. The very fact that it floated at all was a sign of some deities’ favoring the clunker. A thick plume of black smoke, so contrary to the falling snow, huffed up into the sky from the boat’s central stack.

  Gnochi heard two of the other prisoners mumble about how they had never seen a sight as strange as this ship. Attached to the stern, which he spotted as they approached the dock, was a large wheel that resembled a mill’s water wheel. A name came to his mind: ‘steamship,’ though a sadness accompanied the thought. He could no longer regale anyone as to the ship’s story, or the role of the industrial revolution in first age history. No one to tell, and no way to tell them, even if he could.

  A dirty white coat of paint, chipped and peeling, covered the boat. Where it kissed the river, a layer of rusted-brown lichen, muck, and dirt, lined the hull. Faded gold lettering sat a hand below the side rail. The closer he came to the ship, the more he was able to decipher from the marred paint, The Sewer of Souls. A series of dirty windows dotted across the its hull, but what looked like years of neglect left them too opaque to allow light through, let alone the view.

  Two sailors chatted on deck. They eyed the prisoners as they were led up the gangway.

  Gnochi looked at Ren, shooting him a question.

  “Not my crew,” the pirate admitted. “I’m sure that was done purposefully.”

  “Bring them below deck,” one of the sailors said to the guards. “They can get chained up in the boiler room. It’ll keep ‘em warm enough since you haven’t given them to us with a lick of warmth on their bones, let alone clothing.”

  The guards complied, leading the prisoners. Below deck, the main space consisted of a large boiler and an engine. Five exposed pipes became their cells, as each prisoner sat shackled by one hand to a pipe. Gnochi ended up sitting across the boat from Ren, though conversation would not have been an option even if they had been paired closer.

  “Good riddance to the lot of you,” the Lyrinthian guard said as he ascended the stairs.

  A few minutes later, a hooded figure shuffled below deck. It looked between all the prisoners, then finding Gnochi, squatted and removed the cowl from over his face. He pulled a parcel from his belt.

  Gnochi’s eyes widened at the sight of Skuddy, and his hands recoiled from the touch. He peeked through the wrapping and saw the medicine that had been smuggled in with his meals. He imagined that there was enough of it to last him a month, if he rationed it. More than enough time to heal.

  “I don’t blame you for hating me, but you must know that it was either that, or your life.”

  Gnochi gave Skuddy a sullen glare but nodded.

  “I know your life would have been more generous, but that’s not my call to make. Besides, what would she say if it was my hand that stopped your heart?”

  Gnochi closed his eyes, blinking away tears. He motioned for his friend to lean closer. He reached his mouth up, chapped lips resting on Skuddy’s ear. “Eee-Oh. Eep-afe.”

  Skuddy pulled his head back in shock, but a light smile adorned his face. He hid it before any of the other prisoners saw, replacing the cowl on his head.

  Gnochi frowned. He did not know what had compelled him to trust Skuddy with his secret. He put his finger to his lips as if such was not already evident. Skuddy nodded in understanding.

  “She is, my friend. She is safe. In fact, I sent a friend of yours to look after her. Harvey, I believe it was.”

  Gnochi nodded, finally taking a breath.

  “I have to go.” Skuddy retreated up out of the makeshift prison.

  As if remembering, Gnochi pulled the trident pendant from his mouth and, after drying it on his pants, looped it over his head and tucked it under his shirt.

  Chapter 18

  One of the prisoners on the Sewer of Souls, a man named Cyrus, managed to clean the filth from the only window accessible to the prisoners. It took him an hour, after which his hands were stained the same green as the scum from the window, though the scarce light allowed Gnochi the opportunity to familiarize himself with his fellow prisoners.

  Cyrus stood tall and held little excess weight on his bones, though none of the prisoners could be called overweight. Despite his lanky frame, defined muscles set under his tattered garb and he always sat as though waiting for an instance to spring loose.

  Rush, a thick-built man, explained that he had worked as a baker in one of the poorer districts of Blue Haven. At the cusp of the winteryear, he was drafted into the civilian core of Dorothea’s army, which was tasked with supplying those harvesting winterbush. Rush had tried skipping out on his summons. Instead of forcing him off to the tundra, they decided to make an example out of him, and threw him in the dungeon.

  Floyd was the fifth and final prisoner. As betrayed by his shaven-bald head, the blood-red robes still clean from their little time in the dungeon, and the condescending cloud hanging thick over his head, he was a Luddite.

  Ren explained that he worked as the leader of G
ideon’s maritime appendage. Such an explanation was enough for the other prisoners not to pry for fear of getting on the wrong side of the sailors, his lions. He relayed his misfortune of events, boasting of how he openly challenged Dorothea’s legitimacy, and his right to rule.

  Gnochi smiled at the image in his head of Dorothea sitting on Providence’s bloodied throne, yelling for some servant to fetch him a block to sit on so he appeared taller.

  “Who are you?” Rush addressed the question to Gnochi. The baker’s dark stare roved over his hunched form. Gnochi shook his head, then pointed to his throat.

  “That’s Gnochi.” Ren said. He looked at Gnochi as though seeking permission, but his gaze did not linger long enough to see the bard nod. “They cut his tongue out.”

  Gnochi looked away from the other prisoners and stirred the medicine to a consistent paste before applying it to his tongue, shivering as it stung under his light touch.

  “He speak out against Dorothea?” Cyrus’s quiet voice asked. He offered his hands to the window’s scarce light, displaying how the pinkie fingers of both hands had been removed. “They’re quite liberal with dismemberment.”

  Ren pulled at the stubble on his face. “He assassinated Providence.”

  At the shocked expressions sent his way by the other prisoners, Gnochi nodded.

  “Why aren’t you dead?” Floyd asked, his voice taking on a quiet whisper. “If we kill him now, they’ll have to let us go. They’ll hail us as heroes.” The Luddite bore the look of a starved animal when he lurched forward, though he had forgotten his restraints, which yanked him back to the floor.

  “Killing him won’t do any of us good.” Rush’s voice calmed the Luddite. “If Dorothea had wanted the man dead, he’d be dead, not simply missing his tongue.”

  Before any of them could further debate the issue, one of the sailors opened the hatch and announced below, “We’ll be breaking dock soon. Next stop, the swamp.”