“Long story,” Emmie whispered, feeling her lunch roil in her stomach. “I know I’ve only given you scraps. . . I do mean to tell you.”
“Brie told you his name, yeah?” Renn turned her by the shoulders to face him. “I was only four, so it’s sketchy, but I remember bits now. In the courthouse, he was muttering, and then, scared the pants off me. Don’t remember a lot, but his eyes—like he wanted to kill me—like he had killed. I don’t know. Dad got me out pretty quick after that.”
“You remember. . .” Emmie began walking again as other travelers got within hearing distance. “Brie didn’t think you did.”
“Can’t be positive I’d recognize him. But maybe: those eyes.”
They tromped along in-step, before Emmie finally responded.
“He and two others apparently tried to drown me,” Emmie said tentatively. “Shortly before you saw him, probably. Dad rescued me, adopted me. But he has no idea who they were, why they did that to me, or anything.”
Renn digested that disturbing information. Then he rubbed his shoulder into Emmie’s, insuring nobody else could hear, to whisper a hundred questions. They huddled together for hours and hours until the whole story was more-or-less spilled out and talked over.
“So, we’re going to ask this guy—crazy man, if he’s even alive—why he wanted to kill you,” Renn summarized. “Where they kidnapped you from. How you ended up at Winnepaca.”
“Something like that. Fun, eh?” Emmie paused, asked fearfully. “You still with me?”
“How can you even ask? You got no prayer of ducking out on me.” Renn gave Emmie’s arm a little punch. “Once we’re in Longardin, we’ll find what we find. Go from there.” He reached for her bag. “Here, let me carry your pack a bit.”
“I can hoist my own load. Have been for days. For my whole life.”
“Just offering, you know, so you can enjoy the forest.” Renn smirked. “Maybe catch sight of some big wolves.”
“You and your wolves. . .” She gave him a squinty smile and let him take her pack.
He swung her big unmistakably-Khuulie pack on his back with his own. They were friends, travelling together. Renn wanted to wipe any question of that from anyone’s mind—not least of all hers, and his.
Emmie felt light and free as air. It wasn’t just having the pack off. It was sharing what she knew of her frightening, mysterious past and still having a willing companion. Though, truthfully, for Emmie it was much more basic; it simply felt good to have a friend.
XXIV - Longardin
Upon their momentous arrival in the capital, Renn and Emmie wasted little time in inadvertently getting lost. In the bustling city streets, they quickly got separated from their caravan and found themselves swallowed within the thronging crowds that, to them, seemed to be everywhere.
They were carried along like a leaf on the waves, into a chaotic six-block-by-six-block open market. Jostled from all sides by thronging masses of people, with every manner of product waved in their faces, accompanied by fast-talking sales pitches. Their packs, pockets, and belts were poked and tugged on for anything that could easily be snatched or pulled loose. Emmie didn’t at all care for the groping pats searching her person.
They grasped each other’s cloaks and fought their way through. Holding hands would’ve been more reliable, but neither had the gumption to suggest that. Once they’d finally gotten free of the market, they ended up futilely roaming the eastern end of town for hours, stumping through rows of blandly identical government buildings, and underneath long shadows cast by the grandiose spires of buildings such as the central cathedral and national courthouse. Finally, dusk upon them, they stumbled across the Northeast Consulate just minutes before it was scheduled to close.
The title was more impressive than the building. Representing the Vale backwaters, it was hardly an important place in the grand scheme of government life. But those were their Vale backwaters. They scampered inside without hesitation.
“Can I help you?” a doughy nattily dressed clerk addressed them immediately upon entry. He looked over their attire, and with a condescending smile, added. “Ah, just in from the east, are we?”
Renn nodded a tentative yes.
“You have that well-worn bumpkin look. Screaming ‘I’ve never seen anything this huge!’” The man chortled at his own joke. Emmie and Renn stared quizzically, unsure if they were being made the butt of the joke or not. He waved them to sit. “Oh, never mind. Name’s Leeman. Been here nine years, but I hale from Gohlhomish. Nothing to be ashamed of.”
Renn located the town in his mind. Much to the south of them, maybe 2/3 the size of Drennich. Gohlhomish also passed as a major town in the east. Emmie vaguely remembered passing it on their move from Bermark to Drennich.
“Now, how can I help you?” He snapped his suspenders importantly. “Because, no doubt, you’re in seriously need of help. Come, shed those dusty cloaks. Rest your rumps. Enjoy our lavish consulate hospitality.”
Emmie stole a glance at Renn as she started sliding off her sweltering hood. She froze. Just behind his head was a placard she was all too familiar with: No service for panhandlers, night-women, or wheat-heads. She hastily whipped her hood back up and peered at Leeman. His gaze was locked in on her grey eyes. Emmie’s heart beat double-time.
“Ah. . .” Leeman pursed his lips.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Renn asked. Oblivious to the sign behind him, he nonetheless was fairly sure ‘ah’ meant the man realized he had a wheat-headed girl, not a good Vale girl as he expected, in his office.
“’Ah’ means. . .” Leeman stole a glance at two closed doors behind his boxy desk, then motioned them to a little side room. “. . . let’s meet in our, uh, conference room.”
“How about we meet right here.” Renn, hands on hips, held his ground.
“No need to get touchy. Off to the side room with you.”
“Because you don’t want anyone to see her in your lovely little building.” Renn clenched his teeth. “That it?”
“Exactly.” Leeman gave Renn a forced smile, then snapped his fingers and thumbed them towards the side room.
“S’okay, Renn,” Emmie said quietly, and tugged Renn’s cloak. “Side room’s fine.”
“You kids have an awful lot to learn,” Leeman admonished them in the side room, slamming the door behind them.
“What, like you think she’s not good enough to be seen up front?” Renn replied.
“Drop it,” Emmie whispered, her stomach roiling.
“Thank you, Miss. Voice of reason: right here.” He held out both hands as though he were presenting her theatrically, then hooked a thumb towards the main room. “I’m your friend, kid. Your two high-filutin’ eastern delegates? They’d throw Miss Blondie out on her yellow-haired skull. Me? I’d like to think I’m a peck more open-minded.”
Emmie’s ears turned pink. She looked away in shame.
“If you’re from the east,” Leeman said. “And you dress—not to mention smell—like you are, it’s my job to accommodate. And I intend to, k?”
“Thank you,” Emmie peeped, giving a slight bow.
“You get it, Blondie.” Leeman shot Renn an exasperated look. “But Goat-boy, you need to be smarter, more subtle. Now. . .” He rubbed his hands and a measure of his well-oiled pleasantness returned. “Welcome to the Northeastern Consulate! How may I be of service, my fine young constituents?”
While Renn quietly sulked, Emmie warmed to the intense, theatrical man. “We need a couple nights in the hostel.” She handed him their letters from Drennich. “And an assist in securing a jail visit.”
“Fascinating.” The round-faced man mumbled the words as he read. As mid-level bureaucratic clerks see little excitement beyond paperwork and law minutiae, Leeman now sized up the mismatched raggedy pair with new interest. “You’ve come to the right place. Well, whatever about the place; but me, I’m your man. I’ll give you the grand tour of our exquisite accommodations and then tomorrow, priso
n visit! Take you personally, k? First class service all the way. And Goat-boy, maybe me and Blondie here can work on your smarter-subtle reflexes. Good?”
“Yes, very good.” Emmie flashed him a sunny smile. The look Renn gave the man was nowhere near as sunny. But Renn rarely was near as sunny as Emmie.
The hostel consisted of two adjoining rooms with three sets of worn wooden bunks and a lukewarm washbasin. It was no more than a night’s sleep with a roof, but a welcome change. Even more welcome were the biscuits Leeman promised to bring for breakfast the next day.
Renn and Emmie were waiting expectantly by sunrise: the promise of warm buttery biscuits all the motivation they needed. They were still waiting—minus the expectancy—at half-past-nine when the late-sleeping bureaucrat finally strutted in.
As the afternoon dragged, they were still at the hostel, now with arrangements to visit the prison the next day. Renn and Emmie were perplexed as to why they’d been delayed but Leeman shrugged it off as typical bureaucratic paper shuffling. He treated them to dinner and an evening of light banter, before a frustrated Emmie and Renn turned in early.
Alone in her room, Emmie sifted through the ‘relics’ Dad had found on her. The beautiful lynx (or whatever sort of big cat it was) necklace she was always so tempted to wear but didn’t dare. The mysterious map. The awful tarot cards. She shook the three limestone figurines into her palm and was consumed with dis-ease. One little man in particular seemed to burn her fingers as she inspected it. Disturbed, she jammed them back into her bag, and huddled in the corner of her bunk, eyeing her pack with wariness. She rarely touched the horrid things, but still. . . that had never happened before. She longed to rush to Renn’s room, but Emmie thought better of it, lest he think she was going a trifle loopy.
The next day, immediately following breakfast, Renn prepared to head straight to the prison. Emmie, however, had given herself the jitters. It’s not every day you plan to meet somebody who once tried to murder you. She floated every possible distraction she could: sight-seeing, fresh market fruits, maybe Renn would like to climb the stairs of the cathedral bell tower?
But Renn and Leeman won out, and at the prison they were granted a 2 pm audience, though to Emmie it felt like a sentencing. Leeman bid them luck and hustled back to work after securing a promise from Renn they’d check in with him that night. As they sat on a cold bench waiting for a guard, Renn realized they had never settled on an agreeable plan of approaching this Kelebis. Emmie was no help to Renn in concocting one. She felt she could hardly breathe, let alone speak, let alone plan anything agreeable.
A guard ushered them up the long, winding staircase of one of the corner towers. He didn’t recognize the name Kelebis but the inmate in the tower—uncooperative and only intermittently coherent—fit the description. Though the inmate denied it, he had Lone Mountain written all over him and had unsatisfactory explanations for being apprehended in the Vale. After 13 years of incarceration, he was still regarded as a dangerous mystery.
Emmie fastened her hood tightly, hair held back, as they climbed the musty staircase. The guard, a modest older man named Vaudeth, voiced repeatedly his apprehension at two teenagers visiting the strange man, before unlocking the stone door and explaining that ‘Kelebis’ would be on the other side of an iron grate.
“Arm’s reach from the grate at all times. Four feet. . . five’s better. Especially you, girl.” He doffed his helmet as Emmie pulled her hood tighter. “No need to hide from me. But this man. . . I’d feel better going in with you. But I guess privacy’s your prerogative.”
They stepped into the dark stone cell with its iron grate partition. Their side was bare except for a few scraps of straw. In the shadows of the other side, they could only see the shapes of a bed and bucket.
“Four feet minimum. Knock and I’m here.” Vaudeth shut the door with a clang. The far end of the cell darkened even more.
“Whatcha want?” A harsh voice echoed from the darkness.
A gaunt man in drooping prison garb lurched to the iron grate bars. Greasy, greying hair and thin strands of stringy beard hung about his craggy face. He looked more like a wolf suffering from the latter stages of mange, than a human being. Renn studied his eyes, horizontal slits of white with pinpoint black pupils; just as he remembered.
“Kids? Ha! They feedin’ me kids, is they? Come closer. Lemme have a taste.”
His course laugh cut off as abruptly as it began. He turned away. Renn peered to Emmie—now what? Two steps inside the door, Emmie stood still as a statue, and looked about as lifelike. Her eyes, frightened and pleading, were barely visible under her hood. It was all up to him, Renn realized. He generally wasn’t much of a stepper-upper, but for Emmie. . .
“Excuse me, sir,” Renn asked politely. “May we have a few minutes of your time to chat?”
Kelebis snorted and his slitted eyes glowered as they locked with Renn’s. There is a man there, Renn reminded himself. Somewhere.
“Well?” the convict finally replied. “You wanna chat, boy? Chat. I ain’t no animal.”
“Right. You’ve, uh, been here 13 years, sounds like.”
Kelebis merely kept staring, his mouth moving like he was chewing.
“Um, what’d they lock you up for? Sir?”
“I’s hungry. They lock up hungry men down here.”
Yes, Renn remembered that. “Your only crime was being hungry?”
Kelebis cackled a humorless laugh and shot Renn an obscene gesture. He climbed atop his bed, crouching as if to spring. Okay then, Renn thought. Let’s try something else.
“You said down here. Not from the Vale?”
“Not the brightest thing, are ya?” His eyes trailed off Renn for the first time, searching under Emmie’s hood for hers. “Neither’s your scummy tagalong. She can’t hide that.” He loped to the iron grate, glaring at Emmie. “I can smell your foul northern stench.” He spat and taunted her. “Filthy Wheat-head!”
Emmie cringed. Her whole body felt numb and rigid. This man had drugged, tied up, and left her two-year old self to drown. In his presence again, she felt the same—helpless, immobile, mute. Emmie had no harsh words for him. She only wanted to ask, ‘What’d you do to my family? What did I ever do to you?’ But she didn’t dare cry. Didn’t dare move. He’d give her no answers anyway. That was clear now.
The man kept taunting. Renn’s heart pounded. Seeing Emmie shrink under his cruelty stirred something inside him. He advanced towards the bars, forcing Kelebis’s murderous eyes back to him and off Emmie.
“She’s not hurting you. Leave her alone.” Renn managed to meet Kelebis’s glare with defiance.
“She killed ‘em all. How ya like that, trash?” Kelebis tried to peer around Renn, his fingers raking through his snarled hair. “I kill anyone you know? Hope so.”
Emmie ducked her head. His eyes went glassy, searching the cell walls, mumbling incoherently.
“Kelebis,” Renn called. “Your name’s Kelebis.”
“Never heard of ‘im. It’s Boren.”
“No,” Renn repeated. “It’s Kelebis. We know who you are and what you did.”
“I say Boren! Wait, now. . . I know you.” He searched Renn’s eyes. Renn tried to hold under the steely gaze. “Little boy. . . come back to leer at me? Thought it funny, eh? I could’ve killed you. I’s a killer, you know.” Then he cast a greedy gaze towards Emmie. “Don’t know you, but I’d liikkee to. . .. Come, little girl.” He beckoned to Emmie, then snapped again. “I’ll slice your throat, you, you. . .” Kelebis let loose with every vile and coarse name Renn could imagine.
“You were at the lake!” Emmie rocked up on her toes, whipped off her hood, and with her eyes ablaze, screamed. “Why? Tell me!”
The sudden outburst made Renn jump. Kelebis recoiled, then stilled for a long time.
“No. . .” The wild man’s mouth began convulsing and contorting. “Impossible.”
Then he shot both arms through the bars, flailing his bony fingers inches from Emm
ie. Renn jumped between them, batting his arms away from her. Kelebis managed to grab a fistful of Renn’s hair and Emmie leapt forward with a scream, trying to help Renn wrench himself free. The scream was enough for the guard. Vaudeth burst through the door and cracked Kelebis’s hands against the bars with the shaft of his spear, then pushed the Renn and Emmie out. Renn had to physically guide Emmie down the winding staircase.
“You, man my post,” Vaudeth commanded another guard as he hustled them through the prison. “Old Boren’s lost his grip again”
“Yessir.” The other guard didn’t seem surprised.
In the guards’ quarters, Emmie fell into a chair, her usually expressive face ashen and lifeless. If the man had beaten her physically, Renn wasn’t sure she would look worse. Vaudeth set a loaf of bread and a lump of butter in front of them and poured two mugs of wine. Emmie gazed vacantly at the cup he handed her.
“Drink something, girl.” Vaudeth forced a smile. When Emmie still showed no signs of life, he added. “You’d make an old man feel better if you did.”
Once Emmie drank—wine dribbling down her chin—Renn cut her a slice of bread and buttered it. He had to place it in her hand. She seemed so lost, he was afraid he might have to feed it to her. Renn was relieved when she finally absent-mindedly took a bite, albeit a poorly aimed one that left butter on one of her cheeks.
“Old Boren’s nuts,” the guard said. “Every here and there, he’s a man, but I’m not sure which is worse, the screaming animal or the brooding man. What were you kids thinking?”
“He, uh, was arrested up our way years ago. Emmidawn. . .” Renn looked at Emmie, still dazed and pale.
Emmie just wanted to curl up in the corner of her hostel bed. No, she just wanted to go home. Her lip trembled; home had little meaning for her anymore. What she truly wanted was Dad. Emmie fought back tears.
Renn’s mind raced to complete the sentence he had started. As nonchalantly as he could, he shrugged. “Well, she lost her parents years ago. We thought this guy, maybe, might know something. Grasping at straws but, uh, had to try.”
The Silver Claw Page 14