He was speaking to her. She didn\u2019t hear him at first; she asked him to repeat.<\/p>\n
He repeated, \u201cI said, for what cause would your estimable personage travel on such lonesome roads?\u201d<\/p>\n
There was an honest way to answer, but also a more honest way. She chose the first: \u201cMy wagon bears important research that may be vital to stemming the Blight. But I must find a ship, and so must reach Eastfen, the last safe port on the southern coast.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow fortunate that this world has a sage of your abilities,\u201d he gushed, and she kept her eyes forward, for she could not bear to show her face.<\/p>\n
#<\/p>\n
JORGOS<\/p>\n
They arrived late at the Hollows Edge Inn, and yet folk were still up and about, hot, savory winds radiated from the open door of the kitchen, the air thick with the aromas of sour beer and of meat unraveling in a stewpot with cabbage. Jorgos had not meant to go this way. He had been going north, away from the Ballyhole Hollows. But how could he part from his saviors? It didn\u2019t matter which way they went\u2014he\u2019d be safer with them than alone.<\/p>\n
A crude wooden Sidereal sigil\u2014nine rays instead of the proper ten\u2014had been affixed above the inn\u2019s entrance, along with other religious charms; protection against the Blight. This was a welcome sight, for if the innkeeper could still believe these baubles would protect him, then the Blight had not found his inn yet.<\/p>\n
The inn was not a large one, nor particularly well-lit. Two fireplaces created cones of rosy light, while candles on the serving counter and on the tables created pockets of indifferent illumination. The rest was obscure, and it seemed that many of the patrons preferred to linger in these dark spaces. A few kettle helmets spoke to the presence of deserters, (or would survivors be more apposite?) of the Royal Army recently routed by a host of Blighted at Roaryshire, from whence Jorgos himself had fled. These men were insensate, slumped upon the benches, too drunk or dispirited to even bother to find cots or chairs to sleep in. The rest were a motley bunch, the usual road merchants, a fat, prosperous looking fellow whose singed fingertips and stench of brimstone outed him as an alchemist, and a pair of monks in muddy habits, their faces sallow and miserable as they chewed on heels of dark bread dipped in beer soup. As they approached the counter the innkeep regarded them with eyes gray as if filmed with decades of fireplace smoke. He had the rough, sharp look of a hatchet.<\/p>\n
Jorgos remarked a bright flash of copper in the side of his vision\u2014a young redheaded girl sat at the end of the counter, nursing a tiny cup of stew, what local folk would call a \u201cpauper\u2019s ration.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, well,\u201d said the innkeep, crossing his thick arms. \u201cTwo foreigners\u2014one of them a swiving minstrel\u2014and a knight what looks like he\u2019s dunked himself in shit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jorgos bristled at being called a minstrel, but held his tongue.<\/p>\n
Berhane leaned across the counter. \u201cAre we unwelcome here?\u201d<\/p>\n
He took in a deep breath through his nostrils. He spoke slowly, deliberately. \u201cThese are unwelcome times. Ill omens abound. Summer is cold as winter, the sun rises scarlet in the mornings and the moon rises like a murderer\u2019s bloodied coin. Dead men stalk the roads and devour folk by the thousands, and the harvest fails as corn rots on the stalk. I hear talk even holy men have been foully translated into flesh-eaters, that even temples are despoiled and befouled. Yesterday, it rained salt; the corns big as rye seeds. But, mark ye me, come whatever may, this is a house of welcome. All what\u2019s still alive is welcome. Now what will ye have?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFood, drink, shelter,\u201d Berhane said. \u201cAnd a guide to take us through the Hollows.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYe mean to pass through the Hollows?\u201d the innkeep asked.<\/p>\n
The disbelief that bent his voice Jorgos felt as well. He was not from these parts, not even from this realm, but even so Jorgos knew of the terrors of the Ballyhole Hollows. Even before the Blight, those woods had been long benighted by bandits, robber knights, hags, feral sprites, and creatures of unreckoned taxonomy. But nothing was as bad as the lord of robber knights, Sir Ekbert of Toling, better known as Lord Ballyhole.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going to Eastfen, and the fastest way there is through the Hollows.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cStraight lines on maps ain\u2019t always straight when ye try to walk them,\u201d the innkeep said.<\/p>\n
A bright, girlish voice spoke up. \u201cOi! Pretty foreign lady\u2014I can lead ye.\u201d<\/p>\n
Though her freckled, ruddy countenance, big eyes, and gap-toothed smile all portrayed innocence, there was a slyness to the girl\u2019s posture and bearing. Her clothes were of good, sturdy make, but badly soiled and in need of cleaning. Her accent was unmistakable\u2014the musical Cynish drawl. Folk of the Cynwrth Princedom across the River Yon always sounded as if they might break into song at any moment; naturally, Yorgos was well-disposed to them.<\/p>\n
They all looked at the girl down the counter. The innkeep hot her a sour look, then waddled over before rapping her on the forehead with his knuckle.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019ll be all from you, little one,\u201d he said. He turned back to Berhane and Jorgos. \u201cPay her no mind\u2014just a ratty little orphan I can\u2019t rid meself of.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s your name, child?\u201d Berhane asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cLlewella. I\u2019m ten-and-four.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf she\u2019s ten-and-four, I\u2019m Emperor Pertran,\u201d Jorgos muttered. She looked twelve at oldest.<\/p>\n
Llewella stuck her tongue out at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you know the Hollows?\u201d Berhane asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cI sure do, like the back of me hand!\u201d And to make her point, Llewella flourished her hand, tattooed with what looked like a map of forest paths.<\/p>\n
The innkeep growled. \u201cOi, don\u2019t ye go swindling these stupid foreign folk.\u201d<\/p>\n
The innkeep was about to cuff the girl, but Berhane slammed a coinpurse down on the counter. \u201cPottage, if you please,\u201d she said, firmly. \u201cThree bowls\u2014for myself, for my tropadoro, and for my new associate.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd a big beer!\u201d Llewella cheered.<\/p>\n
\u201cA small<\/em> beer for her,\u201d Berhane countered.<\/p>\n The innkeep looked at the purse. His brow raised. \u201cWhat about your knight?\u201d<\/p>\n But Sir Cadog had left to go stare at the fireplace.<\/p>\n \u201cEating would require him to remove his helmet, which he has not done once in the week I\u2019ve known him,\u201d Berhane said. \u201cGo on now, we\u2019re hungry.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSwiving foreigners,\u201d the innkeep said, and took the purse. He turned away but then stopped and leaned close to Berhane to whisper something, his eyes on the girl, who pretended not to pay attention to the little conference.<\/p>\n Berhane\u2019s face was impassive when the innkeep turned away.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat was that?\u201d Jorgos asked her.<\/p>\n Instead of answering, she grabbed the tropadoro and gave his arm a squeeze. He looked at her, into her eyes, at her lips.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019d like to repay me, yes? For saving your life?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cErr\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis place, its silence depresses me. Pick up that lute of yours and brighten the mood. Or are the strings for show?\u201d<\/p>\n How he felt his face light up. \u201cAt once, dama mia.\u201d<\/p>\n #<\/p>\n THE PHYSICIAN<\/p>\n The physician spoke to the child, who, as Jorgos had pointed out, was clearly not four-and-ten. She might not have even been eleven.<\/p>\n But she was clever. She understood that they meant to go to Eastfen, the last safe port on the southern coast, and she knew how to parlay her waifish looks to worm her way into the physician\u2019s graces. As the food arrived, Llewella tore into her portion, making the physician\u2019s own considerable hunger seem paltry.<\/p>\n \u201cHow do you know about the Hollows?\u201d she asked the girl.<\/p>\n Llewella swallowed fast, and was hiccupping when she answered. \u201cI grew up there. Mam and da kept a little farm in a clearing\u2014good soil in the Hollows, they always spoke.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat happened to your parents?\u201d she asked the girl.<\/p>\n \u201cMmm,\u201d Llewella answered, with a mouth full of stew.<\/p>\n She decided to change the subject.<\/p>\n \u201cAre you well taken care of here?\u201d<\/p>\n She gulped down her stew. She glanced at the kitchen, where the innkeep had gone in to work, and frowned. \u201cOld Hork is nice enough. Patient with me. But I miss Mam awful.\u201d<\/p>\n The physician regretted asking, and turned to her food. The stew was good. Cabbage and sausage. It was even better when she seasoned it with a few Khottan peppercorns and some fireseeds she\u2019d stored in a pocket in the sleeve of her gabi. But more nourishing than the food was the tropadoro\u2019s playing.<\/p>\n At first, he seemed tentative, distracted, and none of the patrons paid his strumming heed. But that soon changed. Jordish music, whether Edish or Ijassian, was strange to the physician\u2019s ear, but delightful in its own way. And there was an undeniable poetry to the Ijassian tongue with all its trilled consonants and elongated vowels. When Jorgos launched into full voice to sing of bounteous harvests and the succor of spring after winter, and of love unbridled by courtly stricture, his bottom fangs protruded, and he seemed even more handsome.<\/p>\n She mouthed the first verse\u2019s final couplet to herself, which he sang so beautifully.<\/p>\n \u201cVedas luma, la luma de tis amoro?<\/p>\n Vedas luna, la luna de tis malkoro?\u201d<\/p>\n Hast thou seen the light, the light of thine beloved?<\/em><\/p>\n Hast thou seen the moon, the moon that aches your heart? <\/em><\/p>\n After the second verse, a few of the customers began to clap and strike the tables with their fists. By the third verse, half the establishment was on its feet, dancing. While little Llewella stuffed her face on cabbage stew and Sir Cadog meditated before the fire, the physician began to augur her own immediate future. How she would sleep, and with whom.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n While the tropadoro snores, his face pressed into her spine, the physician feels herself slip into the drain of dreaming.<\/p>\n In the dream, she is back home, back in Zenabe. In her parent\u2019s home in the great city of Kon Daawa, and it must be late summer because rain lashes down from the roof and gushes from the copper gutters into the cobbled streets below. In this dream, the doorway to her room is a bright mouth of lamplight, and in the light a figure imposes itself. Herself.<\/p>\n \u201cMother,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n And there is Mother, standing before as if alive. Beautiful as she remembers from childhood, when she was younger than the physician is now.<\/p>\n Mother smiles too wide. She spreads out her feet to stand in a wide stance, and lifts up the many colorful folds of her summer skirts, revealing a vast and tormented gash in the flesh of her inner thigh. And now, as the physician recoils, Mother offers her the torn chunk of flesh, the blood and meat juices steaming just like the rain on the hot cobbles. She desires nothing as much as she desires to eat of her mother\u2019s flesh. When she takes the parcel of still hot flesh in her hands, it is like stone, and yet also yielding to her fingers\u2019 press. When she takes it into the gates of her teeth, the flavor is an eruption of savory ecstasy. For a moment. And then a taste like rust, like corrosion blooms on her tongue, but she knows it\u2019s too late, and the blood which has turned black dribbles down her numbed lips, and Mother smiles down, her mouth stretched too wide, her eyes nothing but portals of night, black windows.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n TWO<\/p>\n <\/p>\n JORGOS<\/p>\n While Berhane slept, Jorgos drove the wagon, Llewella nodding every so often to confirm they were on the right path. The Ballyhole Hollows was a forest, Jorgos supposed, in the same way the Blight was a plague. No other forest had ever filled Jorgos with such dread.<\/p>\n Every tree was the same as every other. Identical in height and span and shape, identical in their grim, agar-touched black rot, and all possessed the same exact hole at the same exact spot, only where that spot was changed depending on your own position, as if they were black, empty eyes following you.<\/p>\n But that wasn\u2019t what troubled him. It was the silence. Even in sealed mausoleums he imagined there would be some sound\u2014rats nibbling at cadavers, the draft leaking in through cracks, the soft shudder of masonry dreaming of itself. But here? Nothing. Only the sounds they brought with them: the creak of the wagon, the horse\u2019s nickering, Berhane\u2019s breathing, Llewella\u2019s whistling, Sir Cadog\u2019s clinking armor, and Jorgos\u2019s own heartbeat.<\/p>\n And yet for all that silence, they were still taken unawares when the men came tramping out from a dense copse.<\/p>\n \u201cOi!\u201d called out one of the fellows, dressed in a thick wool cloak and a Cynish knit cap. \u201cTravelers! Who be ye?\u201d<\/p>\n He was a big, ruddy fellow and he carried a bear spear. The other two men resembled him\u2014brothers perhaps. One bore a shortbow, the other, with a comically long mustache, bore a rusty falchion.<\/p>\n Berhane had nodded off, but she roused at his voice. Llewella, who had been sitting on the driver\u2019s board beside Jorgos, quietly climbed back into the wagon bed to sit with Sir Cadog.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are peaceful folk,\u201d Jorgos called out. \u201cAnd alive, as you can see.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAlive\u2019s as may be, peaceful is less a given,\u201d replied the big man with the spear. He and his brothers stopped at the edge of the road, and he leaned against his spear, squinting at Jorgos and then at the others in the wagon. Looking back, it seemed to Jorgos that Llewella was making herself as small as possible, hiding between Berhane and Sir Cadog.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you doubt our intentions\u2014\u201d Jorgos began.<\/p>\n The mustachioed man stepped forward, sheathing his falchion. \u201cForgive Celyn, he\u2019s unfriendly in the best of times, and these ain\u2019t the best times.\u201d<\/p>\n The spearman spat and shrugged his beefy shoulders.<\/p>\n \u201cI am Lewin. These are my brothers, Celyn and Goff.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cJorgos of Kandreva.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell met, Jorgos. Have you seen a young fellow, four-and-ten winters old?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFairhaired, poxy faced, stupid eyes ever agog\u2014you\u2019d know him at once,\u201d said Celyn.<\/p>\n \u201cYour brother?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy son,\u201d grunted Celyn.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have seen no such person,\u201d Berhane said, stretching in an almost catlike way as she sat up.<\/p>\n \u201cFunny looking folk,\u201d muttered Celyn.<\/p>\n Lewin patted his brother\u2019s arm. \u201cThey look normal somewhere, brother-mine.\u201d He then turned his attention back to Jorgos and Berhane. \u201cIf ye find such a lad, please bring him out of the Hollows. Don\u2019t matter which side, anywhere\u2019s safer than here.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat happened?\u201d Jorgos asked.<\/p>\n Celyn spat again. \u201cFew days ago, boy told me someone needed his help. He wouldn\u2019t say who, nor what help they needed. I was deep in me cups, ye know, didn\u2019t think to ask. That was last I saw him. And me, drunk and useless\u2014damn it all. He walked from the farm. Found his scarf on a tree at the edge of the Hollows. Stupid damn boy. I\u2019ll kill him if he ain\u2019t dead.\u201d Celyn\u2019s strong voice trembled. Jorgos saw the lie in his words\u2014if the boy emerged now, he would break and blubber with tears of relief.<\/p>\n Lewin patted Celyn\u2019s arm. \u201cThere, there, brother. You\u2019ll have chance to kill him, I\u2019m sure. Now then, I must ask\u2014what brings ye here? What good folk would traffic through the Hollows? These woods, there\u2019s worse\u2019n Blighted here. Lord Ballyhole for one.\u201d<\/p>\n Lord Ballyhole\u2014now there was a legend. An undying scoundrel and his band of ghouls and kobolds, waylaying travelers for over a century now, or so the story had it. Jorgos had sang a few picaresque ballads of the Lord of the Hollows, always popular in the company of outlaws who revered the robber knight.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the fastest way to Eastfen,\u201d Berhane explained.<\/p>\n Goff grumbled something incomprehensible\u2014he spoke in Cynish, a tongue outlawed by Royal edict.<\/p>\n Lewin grinned. \u201cHe speaks true. Goff says, A quick man arrives quick, a slow man slow, but a dead man never<\/em>. Ye folk ought to have gone around.\u201d<\/p>\n Berhane was unmoved. \u201cIt is to avoid those dead men you say never arrive that we are here. But we thank you for your advice.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd we\u2019ll thank ye to keep a look out for a stupid boy,\u201d Lewin said. \u201cGod be with ye.\u201d<\/p>\n The men passed on across the road, and though the air was bright and clear and there was ample space between the trees where one might follow them, they soon vanished from sight. Only once they were gone did Llewella emerge from her hiding place.<\/p>\n \u201cAre you all right, little one?\u201d Jorgos asked.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t like strangers,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n It was a quick thing, a little flinch\u2014most folk would have missed it. But Jorgos knew, though he did not press, that she was lying about something.<\/p>\n #<\/p>\n How swiftly did daylight fail and night descend. Every day in this freakish, cold summer the days seemed to shrink, and that day as Jorgos and company drove through the Hollows, the light seemed to last no more than six hours before the sky turned red then bruised to an empyreal purple.<\/p>\n Berhane now sat on the coach board alongside Llewella. The girl seemed more effusive again, having overcome her bout with shyness. Strange, that.<\/p>\n As the light failed, the trees bothered Jorgos anew. How was it that so many trees could grow to identical configurations in such great number? Unless it was an illusion, conjured by some intelligence or by a caprice of nature, and there was but the one tree, duplicated in the thousands. The unreality of such a thought struck him, and the forest now with its unwholesome replication reminded him of a lecturer at the University of Telvinas who had opined that there were no forests anywhere in the world, only trees, and that it was the folly of men to see unities where only dissimilitudes and isolates existed.<\/p>\n Llewella climbed back from the coach board and perched herself on one of the traveling chests, coming to sit beside Sir Cadog, who had been silent for many hours.<\/p>\n What a strange fellow the knight was. Jorgos had begun to wonder if he was not a man at all but an automaton, like those constructed by the mad artificer Askolos of Inenga. It would explain why he had not eaten back in the inn.<\/p>\n \u201cMaster Jorgos?\u201d<\/p>\n Llewella\u2019s question shook him from his reveries.<\/p>\n \u201cYes?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMistress Berhane told me all about her country. Did ye know in Zenabe they have talking cats? Only they don\u2019t like ye knowing they can talk, so ye must sneak up and listen when they think they\u2019re alone. How do ye like that?\u201d<\/p>\n He had of course eavesdropped on the whole exchange, but it was always important to show enthusiasm for children. Children, after all, had been among his most loyal patrons when he performed on the streets in Gativo.<\/p>\n \u201cRemarkable indeed,\u201d he said. \u201cYou know, from whence I hail, on the isle of Kandreva, there are trees whose boughs sag from sweet fruit we call Suvenitas\u2014little memories<\/em>, for if you eat them, your mind swims with the memories of others who have also eaten of the tree\u2019s fruit. And sometimes, the memories of the tree itself.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s silly. What can trees remember?\u201d<\/p>\n He called her attention to the last light dying upon the tree tops to the left side of the path. \u201cWhat it feels like to drink the sun, for one.\u201d<\/p>\n Seeing he had her interested, he picked up his lute and began to pluck and strum. With each note he felt the oppressive atmosphere of the forest subside, as if around him he had erected a bubble of tranquility. And then it was pierced by a woman\u2019s shriek.<\/p>\n It was not Berhane who had cried out. The sound was from somewhere distant.<\/p>\n It came again, and this time, Jorgos made out words: \u201c\u2014make them stop.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n His spine tingled.<\/p>\n The knight had risen from his slump and now sat up. \u201cSomeone is imperiled,\u201d Sir Cagod said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe should keep driving,\u201d Berhane said. \u201cIt\u2019s not our concern, whoever, whatever it is.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s right,\u201d Llewella said. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing good comes from following screams in the Hollows.\u201d<\/p>\n But Jorgos felt his stomach churn when the woman screamed again, and this time he knew where it was coming from. To the righthand side of the road\u2014the dark, eastern horizon where the sunlight had long drained, a structure with the peaked silhouette of a temple rose from the dark of the woods, black against the blue twilight.<\/p>\n He felt something else, too\u2014a powerful urge to follow the screams, to render aid.<\/p>\n Llewella grabbed his sleeve and tugged it, her eyes were full of beseeching. \u201cPlease, Mister Jorgos\u2014don\u2019t go. Tricksy\u2019s only as good as stupid allows. Believe me, ye won\u2019t be happy with whatever ye find.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey eat of my flesh!\u201d shrieked the woman with unprecedented violence, such that it was as if she was howling into Jorgos\u2019s ear, such he was surprised he did not feel her breath on him. He almost felt the scream inside his skull. He had to go\u2014he had<\/em> to follow the screams.<\/p>\n \u201cTricksy\u2019s only as good as stupid allows,\u201d Sir Cadog muttered to himself.<\/p>\n Jorgos jumped from the wagon. He had no weapon except the knife in his belt, which was more useful for paring nails than cutting throats.<\/p>\n \u201cWait!\u201d Berhane called after him, and then he heard someone light\u2014not the knight\u2014leap out after him, perhaps Berhane, perhaps the girl.<\/p>\n Whoever it was, they didn\u2019t catch him. He couldn\u2019t hear them anymore, he could barely hear his own thoughts, as if they were submerged. He ran through the trees, which were closer together than they appeared, tearing at him with their branches, sticking out their roots to trip him, but he made it to the temple.<\/p>\n A crumbling ruin of blackened wood it was, with gray moss growing upon the rays of its tarnished silver star.<\/p>\n \u201cHelp me, help me please!\u201d sobbed the voice from inside.<\/p>\n The temple\u2019s double doors groaned as he pushed them open, and no sooner had he gained entry than he was assaulted by a fetid stench of rotting meat. Having run breathlessly, he now stood in the doorway, panting, regarding the long, darkened nave of the ruined temple before him. The pews had been smashed, the windows shattered, and where shafts of failing sunlight broke through the holes in the roof, shards of glass sparkled like embers.<\/p>\n At the very end of the nave lay an altar. A human figure rested its head against the altar\u2019s plinth. A peasant woman in a white dress darkened by blood.<\/p>\n A hand grabbed Jorgos\u2019s wrist from behind.<\/p>\n \u201cFool,\u201d Berhane whispered. \u201cWhat are you playing at? Being a hero?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2014\u201d he stammered, gesturing toward the woman\u2019s corpse. \u201cI only thought\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe all heard it,\u201d Berhane said. In the darkness the whites of her large eyes were very bright and intense. She looked even more lovely when she was furious with him. \u201cBut you\u2019re the only one who followed it. Now come along, before\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHelp!\u201d<\/p>\n They both jumped from fright and surprise. The scream had come from where the body lay.<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe it\u2014maybe she\u2019s not dead,\u201d Jorgos said. \u201cMaybe you can help her.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis feels wrong,\u201d Berhane said, taking a step back.<\/p>\n Then came the sound of sobbing. \u201cPlease, oh don\u2019t leave me. Don\u2019t\u2014don\u2019t leave me like the others. God\u2019s truth I need ye.\u201d<\/p>\n Berhane still held Jorgos\u2019s wrist, but he took a step forward. And Berhane moved with him. Together they crossed the aisle of splintered wood while glass crunched under their shoes.<\/p>\n In the shadows, the slumped figure continued to sob and whimper. The light slanting in through the holes in the ceiling turned from orange to red and finally a mournful indigo.<\/p>\n They came to stand over the woman, and only when they were a few ells away\u2014almost close enough for Jorgos to think to nudge her foot with his shoe\u2014did he see the woman\u2019s face.<\/p>\n She was fresh\u2014perhaps only a day or two killed. She had died with her eyes and mouth agape. Those eyes now stared at the cracks in the temple\u2019s roof. A deep gash stared back redly from the ruin of her throat. Pieces of her limp arm, which rested against the altar\u2019s plinth, were missing.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t understand,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cHelp me,\u201d called the voice again, and this time it came from behind them.<\/p>\n They turned, but there was nothing there.<\/p>\n \u201cHelp me.\u201d This time the voice seemed to come from behind the altar.<\/p>\n \u201cHelp me.\u201d The words came from the ceiling itself.<\/p>\n And then, the voice changed, and Jorgos\u2019 blood chilled for he recognized his own voice. \u201cHelp me.\u201d<\/p>\n Jorgos turned his head to the left, toward the temple\u2019s whisperbox where confession would have been heard. From out of the shadows emerged a pale figure.<\/p>\n She\u2014it?\u2014was white as death but vivid with black, startled veins like so many corpseworms wriggling under the skin. Her red eyes even now wept fresh trickles of black ichor, while her teeth were bared in a wild snarl. She was naked except for gore and blood which she had painted her breasts and loins with.<\/p>\n \u201cHelp me,\u201d she said again in Jorgos\u2019 voice, and then, in Berhane\u2019s stolen whisper, \u201cFool.\u201d<\/p>\n In the moment, all Jorgos could think was that it felt like a miscarriage of some cosmic rule that a Blighted could be a ventriloquist. More than that\u2014that a Blighted could weave a spell, for even now he felt his mind clouding over.<\/p>\n Splintered wood clattered as human figures emerged from the gloom. Two other Blighted: a boy with half his face eaten off, and an old man armed with a crooked baling fork. They moved to block the temple\u2019s entrance.<\/p>\n The ventriloquist pounced at Jorgos and Berhane.<\/p>\n Berhane had her traveling stave and struck the Blighted across her jaw, but the blow seemed to do little except slow her down. She cackled with delight, and when Berhane tried to strike again, she grabbed the stave and pulled. Berhane was overbalanced, and fell forward onto her face. Jorgos moved to her defense, but he paid for his clumsy gallantry, as the Blighted smote him with Berhane\u2019s stave. He fell onto his hands and knees, splinters and shards scraping his palms, while his left arm went numb from the blow.<\/p>\n \u201cEnough. Your violations are at an end.\u201d<\/p>\n The knight\u2019s voice seemed to radiate through the broken timbers and cracked plaster of the temple. At the end of the nave, near the entrance, Sir Cadog was approaching, his sword drawn. The two other Blighted spun around to face him, while the Blighted ventriloquist looked upon him with an expression of\u2014what was it exactly? Blank confusion?<\/p>\n \u201cOi, what\u2019s this?\u201d she grumbled, sounding if anything annoyed by the interruption. \u201cYe\u2019ve no right to\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n Sir Cadog broke into a sprint, and from where he lay on his side, Jorgos could scarcely believe a man of such size in full plate could move so quickly. He bashed the boy aside with his shield while parrying a clumsy thrust from the old man\u2019s fork.<\/p>\n Jorgos seized on the ventriloquist\u2019s distraction and swept her legs with his, toppling her. Berhane was on her in an instant. They struggled for control of the stave, but Jorgos, now totally free of her spell, sprung to his feet and stomped the heel of his traveling boot onto the ventriloquist\u2019s jaw. Once, twice, thrice. And again, and again, each time the jaw and skull offered less resistance, each successive blow it felt more like he was stepping into a rotten gourd.<\/p>\n And then all was quiet. The other Blighted lay in pieces. Sir Cadog wiped his blade upon his tattered cloak, then sheathed it. \u201cIt is done,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Jorgos could not find his voice to thank the knight. His shoulder stung where he\u2019d been struck, and he could barely breathe.<\/p>\n Berhane wrenched her stave free from the clammy hands that held it. \u201cWhat were you thinking, bard?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI was ensorcelled,\u201d he asserted. \u201cAnd I shall forgive that you called me a bard<\/em> just now.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEnsorcelled<\/em>. What a convenient excuse for idiocy. Your head must be empty\u2014you may sing of deeds of daring and gallantry, but we do not live in that world anymore, if ever we did. Next time you go off alone, I shan\u2019t follow you.\u201d<\/p>\n But she had followed him, foolishness or no, and behind her glare he could see the relief glittering at the edges of her eyes.<\/p>\n Back in the wagon on the road, Llewella was waiting, hands on her hips like a disappointed mother watching the children return from a summer storm.<\/p>\n #<\/p>\n Night seemed to lean against the little fire that Berhane had built. A gruel of buckwheat and field peas bubbled in a pot hung by an andiron over the fire. It was all they had. There was nothing to forage in the Hollows, which was probably why there were no birds there.<\/p>\n Jorgos felt useless. Llewella had gathered the kindling and Berhane had built the fire and filled the pot with water. The clearing they\u2019d made camp in was a mossy gap in the Hollows, and the full moon in all its rosy, eerie glory hung above, its light collecting on the branches of the dead trees, dripping like unctuous sap and collecting as luminous puddles in places before evanescing back into gasps of light that soon faded. He would pen something to immortalize such a scene, except his poesy had abandoned him that night, still hiding from the memory of the Blighted woman and her putrid teeth.<\/p>\n The knight stood by himself, scanning the dark through the slits of his helm. When Jorgos came to stand beside him, he only gave the scantest of acknowledgement with a shrug.<\/p>\n \u201cI am again in your debt, Sir Knight.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd what good is it, having you in my debt?\u201d<\/p>\n Jorgos felt himself become even smaller, even more pathetic under such a chastening.<\/p>\n But the knight continued, turning to look at him. \u201cThink not of debt. I would never have left you to die\u2014my vows would not permit it.\u201d<\/p>\n Moonlight struck his visor, and for a moment Jorgos fancied he saw the knight\u2019s eyes, but because what he saw was impossible, he dismissed the glimpse as a hallucination. They were merely dark brown, he told himself.<\/p>\n Sir Cadog glanced back at the fire. \u201cThey are upset with you.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWas I a fool?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes,\u201d the knight said, without hesitation. But then he continued, \u201cBut in a man\u2019s turn on the stage of life he must tread many roles, and the fool is but one of these, and its ways are keen-close to that of the gallant. I cannot condemn you for foolishness born of virtue, and if we are to accept what the good physician asserts: that this world has been translated to something inhospitable to gallantry, then we should conclude that the world is already dead.\u201d<\/p>\n Jorgos was taken aback. He had known few Edish knights, and those few he\u2019d had dealings with had left with a dim view of their character, to say even less about their wisdom. Knights were venal creatures, transparent in their appetites and their conceits. And yet, this heretofore taciturn kabajero had just revealed a soul of a greater opacity than Jorgos would have credited.<\/p>\n \u201cWell said, Sir Knight. How is it you travel with Berhane? I take you for a knight errant\u2014did she hire you with coin?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cShe found me, she and her late mistress,\u201d Sir Cadog said. \u201cI have traveled with her since.\u201d<\/p>\n Jorgos waited, thinking perhaps he would offer more. But nothing more came. It was only after he walked away that he realized Sir Cadog had referred to Berhane\u2019s \u201clate mistress.\u201d By then the supper was ready, and Berhane was calling him to the fire.<\/p>\n Jorgos, Berhane, and Llewella ate in a miserable silence. It was not only their own silence, as the Hollows were also complicit in the tomblike hush, offering not even a creak of branches. The food was bland and shapeless, hot mush to be pushed through the lips and swallowed down like so much dirt shoveled to fill a hole. During this interminable meal he pondered the knight\u2019s words, and decided he\u2019d been right: to cringe from the shadows, to hold one\u2019s breath as if a single false step might be one\u2019s end, this was not life; it was merely borrowing oneself from death.<\/p>\n When he took up his lute, Berhane cut him an irked glance, and her look only darkened when he strummed the first note.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat are you thinking? This isn\u2019t an inn.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s right,\u201d Llewella said, glancing to-and-fro at the trees. \u201cThere\u2019s things alurk, things alistening.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf that\u2019s true, they already know we\u2019re here,\u201d Jorgos said, and he stood. He plucked the simple opening bar of a time-worn ballad, \u201cErrar\u00e9 Conmi.\u201d<\/p>\n Before he could move to the next bar, Berhane grabbed the neck of his lute. \u201cEnough,\u201d she hissed.<\/p>\n \u201cWait,\u201d Llewella said, standing up now. \u201cLet him play. I know this one\u2014me Da used to whistle it.\u201d<\/p>\n Jorgos looked to Berhane, one eyebrow cocked, but it was Llewella\u2019s plaintive, beseeching stare that broke the physician\u2019s resistance. His lute released, Jorgos played anew, and began to sing the old song about wandering.<\/p>\n \u201cOnt kollinas j boskas esperar,<\/p>\n Kelki ont las bon ventas nos prendar\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Llewella got up and began to dance, a preposterous, artless kind of swaying, but quite charming in its way.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you insist on being fools, you should at least dance the right way,\u201d snapped Berhane. \u201cYou musn\u2019t dance like that to a ballad.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy not?\u201d Llewella protested. \u201cDancing\u2019s dancing, innit?\u201d<\/p>\n The physician took the girl\u2019s hands and began to guide her, showing the basic steps to an Ijassian courtly dance.<\/p>\n As the ballad gained momentum, Jorgos sang louder.<\/p>\n And in answer, the ground rumbled beneath their feet.<\/p>\n He stopped playing, and Berhane let go of Llewella. \u201cNow you\u2019ve done it, tropadoro.\u201d<\/p>\n The knight strode forward, one hand on his swordhilt, for a few ells away, the soil was trembling, as if something were digging its way up.<\/p>\n \u201cBehind me,\u201d Sir Cadog said.<\/p>\n The soil broke, and out from a fresh hole in the ground emerged a long, furry face that terminated in a wet, pink, star-shaped snout with little feelers that fingered at the air. A rotund, velvet-furred body emerged, and two large spadelike claws scraped at the ground as the thing, mansized and vaguely man-shaped, dug its way free.<\/p>\n \u201cAhem\u2026\u201d the thing said, with a sharp, scratchy voice. \u201cSpeek yow laag-alp?\u201d<\/p>\n Do you speak Low-Alpish? <\/em><\/p>\n Jorgos could hardly believe his eyes or his ears. It was a burrowman, a mole-fellow. He\u2019d always thought them legends. And here it was, out on the surface, speaking in Low Alpish, the tongue of parley among many of the continent\u2019s less sociable races.<\/p>\n Berhane said something awestruck in her native tongue.<\/p>\n \u201cYa, ik speek,\u201d Jorgos said, slowly, carefully.<\/p>\n The mole-thing scratched its head with one of its claws and wrinkled its star-shaped nose. \u201cWatvar ben yow neet meer speelen? Speel vider, zag me!\u201d Why have you stopped playing?<\/em>\u00a0 Play on, says I!<\/em><\/p>\n While his new audience watched impatiently through two tiny, mostly-blind eyes, Jorgos\u2019 fingers found their places again, and the song resumed.<\/p>\n The burrowman nodded its head side to side and thumped its stubby lower legs to the melody, while Berhane and Llewella resumed their slow, halting courtly dance. As he sang and played, the trees bent and shuddered, and other creatures began to emerge from the darkness, lured by the music.<\/p>\n First it was a wild sprite, a gnomish creature about as tall as a man\u2019s knee, with the large, compound eyes and segmented limbs of an insect, and skin like waxy armor. Two tiny vestigial wings on its back buzzed and its chitinous fingers clicked as it mimicked Berhane and Llewella\u2019s twirling.<\/p>\n A family of living rocks crawled out from the shadows on their tiny legs and perched at the edge of the campfire\u2019s reach, content to listen.<\/p>\n Two kobolds, looking like very ugly, very hairy children and stinking like wet dogs marched into the clearing hand in hand, saluted the musician, and then proceeded to dance with one another such that not even the most critical of courtiers in Gativo could have found fault with their technique, form, or timing.<\/p>\n But most remarkable of all was the lanky, pale creature that leapt from the darkness and nearly extinguished the fire with the sudden cold wind that followed its arrival. It resembled the bastard offspring of a man and a marsh hare, long of limb and ear, covered in luxurious white fur with a billowing tuft around its breast. At the end of its forelimbs were large, humanlike hands. Its face was long and its eyes were the color of a starless night, and there was something noble and dignified in the way it swept its ears back, fell to one knee, and extended a hand to Berhane.<\/p>\n \u201cMight I vouchsafe the honor of a dance, darkeyed maiden?\u201d the creature asked her.<\/p>\n Llewella nudged Berhane forward. \u201cGo on, he asked nicely enough,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Jorgos had stopped playing, which seemed to annoy the harelike creature.<\/p>\n \u201cTropadoro, if you please, our revelry is not done.\u201d<\/p>\n Jorgos resumed his song, and as he did, Berhane accepted the creature\u2019s offer, and soon they were dancing under the dazzling moon, the creature\u2019s fur shimmering and wicking away the light that thickened like sap upon whatever it touched. The same evanescent glitter radiated from Berhane\u2019s smooth head as her hood fell, and her breath rose in great clouds as she laughed. Compared to her inhuman swain, Berhane was rather clumsy, but the creature didn\u2019t seem to mind and patiently slowed its steps to accommodate her.<\/p>\n As the song built to its crescendo, all gathered that had voices and knew the words, except for grim Sir Cadog, took up the chorus with Jorgos, for it was a famous one known throughout the continent, one sung at feasts and weddings and horse races and over tankards of ale and goblets of the finest wine, or even in a forest with sprites and kobolds:<\/p>\n \u201cLa la la, errar\u00e9 sempre conmi,<\/p>\n Aj aj aj, seremos immortelli!\u201d<\/p>\n Come wander with me always, <\/em><\/p>\n We will become immortal.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n And as the voices reached their peak, the earth shattered, and a great belch of dirt showered the clearing, snuffing out the campfire and sending all into a shrieking panic. Jorgos himself was thrown from his feet, and his lute spun from his hands and struck the ground with a twang more sickening than the sound of any broken bone could have been. From where he lay, Jorgos saw something slither from the ground, a black tentacle, slick with mucus and the heme of the moon. A greater bulk lay behind the tentacle, a shadowy presence whose obscurity the moonlight could not dissolve.<\/p>\n The kobolds were the first to run. One made it to the trees, the other did not, and could only howl as a black appendage ripped through the meat of its body and then dragged it into whatever maw hid in the shadows.<\/p>\n The sprite also made a run for it, and was so slow and ungainly he would have surely perished like the unfortunate kobold had Sir Cadog not intercepted the tentacle and cut its tip with his cleaver. A shower of black ichor sprayed from the cloven tendril, and where the vileness touched the earth, dark smoke belched from sizzling ground.<\/p>\n More tentacles shot up from the vortex of shadow that seemed to expand with each blink, a waxing miasma that choked all light. One tentacle snaked at Jorgos, but he was able to roll out of the way. Berhane, too, was able to dodge.<\/p>\n Llewella was not so lucky. The quickest, most slender of the tendrils aimed for her, and it found its mark, seizing her by one of her ankles and dragging her off her feet. She shrieked as she was dragged toward the darkness, and though Jorgos grabbed her hands and tried to anchor her, they inexorably slid toward the unliving shadow.<\/p>\n Sir Cadog charged forward, intent on cutting the tentacle, but was smote by a mighty blow from one of the larger stalks, which knocked him off his feet and sent him clattering across the clearing and into the truck of a tree.<\/p>\n Berhane hugged Jorgos from behind, trying to help pull him and Llewella free, but it was a losing battle.<\/p>\n All the other creatures had fled. All except one.<\/p>\n \u201cThy defilements are at end!\u201d<\/p>\n Light a bolt of pale lightning, the hare-creature, the Leaper, struck at the darkness, kicking the shadowy bulk with both legs. As the blows landed, the moon seemed to brighten, and the darkness shrunk, and gouts of dark ichor squelched from where the Leaper had struck.<\/p>\n The tentacles swarmed the Leaper, but the great hare seemed untroubled, swiping them aside with its hands, then plunging its fists into whatever gelatinous corpus hid behind the miasma. When the fists emerged, dripping with dark mucilage, the tentacles fell slack. The thing, whatever it had been, collapsed, and quickly it shrunk. Only two blinks later, it was gone entirely, and only a vast fissure in the earth and Llewella\u2019s wounded, bleeding ankle stood as evidence it had existed at all.<\/p>\n #<\/p>\n THE PHYSICIAN<\/p>\n The tropadoro shook her shoulders and yelled into her ear, as if the physician didn\u2019t know what her own eyes revealed.<\/p>\n Nasty gashes in her ankle and her thigh, an artery ruptured, wounds that showed no signs of coagulation. Llewella would soon bleed out.<\/p>\n The girl lay on her back, face white as linen as she gazed up gormlessly at the pink moon that glittered in her irises. She held Jorgos\u2019s hand while the physician tried to remember the very basic steps to staunching an open wound.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re the greatest physician in the world, do something!\u201d Jorgos implored.<\/p>\n But she wasn\u2019t. Her hands trembled as she dug up a clod of dense soil and packed it into the larger of the two wounds.<\/p>\n Just like Berhane taught you, staunch it first with soil, you can clean it later, but the bleeding must be stopped. <\/em><\/p>\n She did the same for the laceration on the inner thigh. Next was to find the cleansing salve. She sent Jorgos to the wagon, where in a pouch she kept the concoctions and preparations Berhane made before she died, including a small bottle of a salve made from flocculated extract of callowroot mixed with grain spirits.<\/p>\n The little girl yowled like a wounded cat when the stinging salve touched her wounds, but she was brave, very brave, the poor thing.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re very brave,\u201d the physician said, first in her own language, and then, once she realized her error, again in Edish.<\/p>\n And she was brave again when the physician sewed the wounds shut, barely even squeaking when the needle wove through her tender flesh. Only after the wounds were sewed, did she remember that she had a tincture of numbing among her sundries, of which she administered one drop on the tip of her finger which she wiped across the girl\u2019s lips, numbing her muscles and relaxing her mind, though she was yet conscious.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat was that thing?\u201d Jorgos asked.<\/p>\n \u201cA cyst,\u201d the Leaper replied. He was still among them, looming over the physician, his massive black eyes seeming to stare through the physician\u2019s very essence. \u201cA cyst grown from the world\u2019s skin. Such blasphemies are yet more common by the day as this Great Blight defiles the land.\u201d<\/p>\n The physician fell into a slump beside the injured girl. As Llewella managed to turn her head to look at her savior, a single tear ran from the corner of her eye.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s my fault,\u201d Jorgos said. \u201cMy music lured it here.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNay,\u201d the Leaper said. \u201cIt has been many a season since mortal music touched these woods, and thy song was a rare gift to the living creatures here, who have suffered just as men have from the Blight\u2019s depredations.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThank heaven you were here,\u201d Jorgos said to the Leaper. \u201cYou and the knight. Sir Cadog, are you all right? Perhaps Great Berhane should tend to him.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI am aright,\u201d Sir Cadog said. \u201cShe need not worry o\u2019er me.\u201d<\/p>\n Great Berhane<\/em>. What a farce. Like sour bile, the lie began to torture her throat and make her queasy. She could stand it no more.<\/p>\n \u201cI think my next song shall be an ode to the great healer who saved a girl\u2019s life,\u201d Jorgos declared. \u201cAn ode to Great Berhane.\u201d<\/p>\n She could bear it no more\u2014the lie had become poisonous.<\/p>\n \u201cGreat Berhane is dead,\u201d the physician said. She meant to whisper it, but it came out full voice, and a silence followed after.<\/p>\n Jorgos was the first to speak. His eyebrows climbed high as he looked down on her. \u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d<\/p>\n She hesitated, but then decided there was no gain in further dissembling. \u201cI mean she is dead. She died on the road, rent to shreds along with her guards by the Blighted. This was a moon ago. I was with her, for I was her assistant. I left her to die.\u201d<\/p>\n It was said in many cultures, in both Edane and Zenabe among others, that the truth may set one free. She did not feel liberated; she felt like a heavy chain had fallen over her, and even now it dragged her down.<\/p>\n \u201cI left the greatest physician this world has ever known to die. I saved myself. I took her wagon and rode away even as she called my name. Mizan<\/em>. I heard her call to me.\u201d<\/p>\n Jorgos knelt beside her. What was in those gentle eyes? Was it reproach, or simply confusion?<\/p>\n Like vomit whose flow once admitted could not be dammed, Mizan continued with her confession, so much like a good, faithful Siderealist in a whisper box. \u201cWhen the Blight started, I followed her to Cynwrth, to the city of Cwffyd where it began. She thought she could cure it, like every other plague she\u2019d contended with.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut the Blight is a disease of the spirit, not the body,\u201d Sir Cadog said.<\/p>\n \u201cSo she discovered,\u201d Mizan said. \u201cStill she wanted to remain here, to help as best she could. She was kind and selfless, but also stubborn. Stubborn and slow. When the Blighted swarmed through Cwffyd\u2019s eastern gate, the wagon had already been packed, everything except Berhane herself. She was in bed, suffering from a cough. I could have carried her, I suppose. Yes, I probably could have. But I could hear the screams, I could smell the slaughter in the streets. I lost my nerve, and I left without her. And so I heard her call to me, but I did not look back. At the eastern gate, the soldiers were letting the nobles and clergy through but no one else. That\u2019s where the lie was born. Berhane might have still been alive when I claimed her name. What did they know? The soldiers knew not Berhane\u2019s face, only her complexion, and one Zenabian was as good as any to them.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo they let you through,\u201d Jorgos said.<\/p>\n Mizan blinked the tears from her eyes. The whole time she\u2019d been stroking Llewella\u2019s hair, while the girl looked up with hazy eyes, her face slack from the tincture. Now she looked up at Sir Cadog and the Leaper, both impossibly tall, both inscrutable. But Jorgos she could read\u2014he regarded her without contempt, only understanding. Damn him.<\/p>\n She continued, \u201cAnd since then, I have kept the lie. A foreigner in such times is always in danger, but a famous physician? Protected, celebrated.\u201d She met Jorgos\u2019s eyes. \u201cDesired, even. Every time you called me Great Berhane<\/em>, you may as well have forced a needle in my heart. I\u2019m not great, I\u2019m a coward.\u201d<\/p>\n Sir Cadog shook his head. \u201cTo meet one\u2019s end with imperfect courage\u2014this is common. To condemn it in one, we should soon condemn the world entire.\u201d<\/p>\n Jorgos laid a warm hand over her own. \u201cI admired Berhane the physician,\u201d he said. \u201cSo many of the songs of my trade extoll the virtues of murderers and thieves, but the songs of Berhane were always pure\u2014what could be more noble than to heal?\u201d<\/p>\n She watched him, expecting his condemnation, perhaps craving it.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I never knew Berhane,\u201d he continued. His fingers closed around hers. \u201cI know you. Mizan, was it? I know you, Mizan. Not for long, but what I have seen, I have admired. Look at the girl you\u2019ve just tended\u2014Berhane did not save her, you did.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAye,\u201d rasped Llewella. \u201cAye, t\u2019was ye.\u201d<\/p>\n The Leaper cleared his throat. \u201cAhem. I think it time I took my leave. Forgive me, but I\u2019ve begun to feel distinctly voyeuristic intruding upon such intimacy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNay, why not travel with us?\u201d Jorgos said. \u201cWe\u2019d be much heartened to have you as a companion, goodly\u2026whatever you are.\u201d<\/p>\n The Leaper\u2019s enormous black eyes narrowed and his whiskers twitched. \u201cWhatever I am<\/em> indeed, for I am ancient beyond thy ken, and thy kind had yet to descend from their sheltering trees when the name for my kin was already forgotten to the world\u2019s tongue. I cannot go with thee, for whilst I may occasionally dance with mortals, I do not travel with them. Nothing personal, I simply cannot suffer the smell<\/em> for long.<\/p>\n \u201cBut listen to me, all, for there is wisdom I need impart. Firstly, the physician\u2019s confession is but the first lie thou shall unravel. Second, thou must make a nest in thine heart for loss, for it shall fly in as it please. Third, know when thy hour has tolled, and shirk not, for it shall not shirk from thee. Thy dreams will instruct thee\u2014heed them well. In dreams we are naked, in dreams the Dark shall find us and embrace us with its cold touch. Am I understood?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026no, you are not understood,\u201d Jorgos said at length.<\/p>\n \u201cAll the same,\u201d the Leaper replied, with a very humanlike shrug, before bounding away with an inhuman leap that soon took him beyond all sight and reckoning.<\/p>\n As soon as he was gone, the clearing seemed to darken, as if he\u2019d taken the moonlight with him. Above, the sky was black now except for those clouds passed over the red moon, smoldering like dying coals.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat did any of that mean?\u201d Jorgos asked. \u201cThe matter of dreams\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat one was a vastly old spirit of the land,\u201d Sir Cadog said. \u201cThey never speak straight, but always true; even when they lie, they tell the world\u2019s truth.\u201d<\/p>\n Mizan understood the bit about dreams at least. Before her end, in the days before the Blight took Cwyffd, Berhane had had a theory borne from observing those patients who succumbed to the Blight and turned. It was through these observations she determined it could not have spread by humors or bad air. There was but one commonality in every case: complaints of lurid dreams in the days before.<\/p>\n Make a nest in thy heart for loss<\/em>.<\/p>\n When they went to sleep in the queer hours before dawn, Jorgos held Mizan as one would a deserving lover. Not a coward and a liar.<\/p>\n #<\/p>\n Great Berhane smiles even as the Blighted tear strips of meat from her useless arms. She is an ancient woman, her eyes cataract pale and rimmed with dark pouches, her teeth almost all gone, and yet she smiles with the few she has.<\/p>\n \u201cHe might even love you,\u201d the great physician sneers. \u201cAnd the girl too. You saved her life. Isn\u2019t it wonderful to heal?\u201d<\/p>\n The Blighted are laughing, hooting as they gnaw at her wrinkled legs, scrawny and shriveled like last year\u2019s tubers left too long in the cellar.<\/p>\n They have not noticed Mizan yet, even though Berhane speaks to her. Mizan will not reply, because they have not seen her yet, and this is her only protection. If they notice her, if they realize she\u2019s right there\u2026<\/p>\n \u201cI trusted you,\u201d Berhane says.<\/p>\n \u201cI know,\u201d Mizan can\u2019t help but whisper.<\/p>\n One of the Blighted, a brawny fellow attired in knightly armor, with a black cloak and an ivory skull mask somehow less pale than the flesh face beneath it, snaps his head back and stares with those crimson eyes through where Mizan floats helplessly, anchored by the immobile logic of her dream. He does not see her, but he has heard her. Soon he is distracted by the vivid flesh close at hand, and he attacks Berhane\u2019s foot, biting into the tough leathery meat of her heel.<\/p>\n Berhane\u2019s old eyes roll back with an almost erotic satisfaction. \u201cWhen you stop fighting, when you wake from the dream of being alive, you will know what I have seen, what we<\/em> have felt\u2014you will know the Cold Hand\u2019s touch.\u201d<\/p>\n Then Berhane reaches up to touch the skull-masked knight with an arm so mangled it should be limp. She gestures with the stump of a finger at where Mizan is, and the red eyes beneath the skull mask again fix on her.<\/p>\n Only now they see her. The Blighted all look up from their old, tough feast and behold something fresher, tenderer.<\/p>\n She must wake, right now, before they reach her. Oh heaven, please let her wake, please\u2014<\/p>\n <\/p>\n THREE<\/p>\n <\/p>\n JORGOS<\/p>\n Somewhere in the silver, winking time before dawn, Jorgos dreamt that Llewella was speaking to him. She was crouched over him, while Mizan shuddered against his arms in her sleep.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026it\u2019s not right,\u201d the little girl said in his dream. \u201cWhat I done, what I\u2019d do to ye, when ye\u2019ve done naught but kindness. So I\u2019ll go, and ye\u2019ll be safe.\u201d<\/p>\n He said something profound to her, or perhaps he said, \u201cMwap mupp,\u201d for his mouth was muffled by Mizan\u2019s cloak. Whatever the case, it was only a dream, so what did his answer matter?<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t follow me, promise me that,\u201d Llewella said, her little strong hand stroking his hair. How detailed the dream was, down to the stitching in the girl\u2019s bared ankle, already tearing, the wound beginning to bleed again. \u201cGo your way, and leave me mine.\u201d<\/p>\n And then the dream ended, and he woke up to himself, to the dubious light of a rising sun.<\/p>\n \u201cThe girl is gone,\u201d Sir Cadog announced. He sat upon a stump a few ells away from where Jorgos and Mizan lay\u2014he seemed to have been watching them sleep.<\/p>\n Mizan bolted upright so quickly her head knocked into Jorgos and he bit his tongue. \u201cWhat?! What do you mean she\u2019s gone?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI mean she has left our camp,\u201d Sir Cadog explained, infuriatingly calm, passionless. \u201cI asked her where she meant to go, she only told me \u2018home.\u2019 Did I err not waking you?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes, you very much erred!\u201d shouted Mizan, taking up her stave. \u201cWhich way did she leave?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFollowing her would be little recommended,\u201d said Sir Cadog.<\/p>\n \u201cDo you know which way she left?\u201d Jorgos demanded, grasping the knight by his spaulders.<\/p>\n \u201cYes. But t\u2019would be safer not to follow.\u201d<\/p>\n They didn\u2019t listen. She had taken a narrow path through the woods, so narrow they could not bring the wagon, and so they tied the horse to a tree, covered the wagon with its tarp, and took to their feet down the path.<\/p>\n Not too far along, Jorgos found a shock of thorns spackled with fresh blood, and Mizan said that Llewella must have been caught by it, and it might have opened her stitches. They followed her drips and drops of blood, smeared on branches and brambles, and it led them to a farm gone to seed and turned to a wild field, enclosed by the woods, and at that field\u2019s center, a crumbling cottage beside a collapsed barn.<\/p>\n \u201cIs this her home?\u201d Jorgos wondered aloud, his voice hushed.<\/p>\n The daylight was anemic, the sun a rosy red as it hung bleary in a curtain of cirrus clouds, and its low slant on the horizon cast deep shadows from figures Jorgos first took to be scarecrows.<\/p>\n They were scarecrows. As Jorgos, Mizan, and Sir Cadog drew closer to the three staked figures, and as the shadows yielded their truth, Jorgos felt his legs become weak and his stomach qualmish from a mounting terror.<\/p>\n The largest of the \u201cscarecrows\u201d was ruddy faced and wore a knit Cynish cap. The one next to him was missing most of his face, but the long red whiskers of his distinctive mustache were still in evidence. The third brother, Goff, could only be identified by context as one of the trio they\u2019d met on the path, for his face was completely stripped to the pinkish white bone of his skull. Each of them had been dispatched with their own weapon, Celyn skewered on his own spear, Lewin with his falchion sheathed into his spilled guts, and Goff with two of his arrows stuck into the sockets where eyes once took in the world.<\/p>\n All three of them were missing pieces of flesh\u2014some morsels cut cleanly by knives, others gnawed from the bone.<\/p>\n \u201cSur kel enferno somos troparos?\u201d Jorgos asked aloud. What Hell have we stumbled on?<\/em><\/p>\n In the field behind them, riding spurs and rings of mail clinked. They turned. A man in armor, a knight<\/em> appeared before them, bearing a notched and well-worn longsword in his gauntleted hand. He was tall and robust, and a long black cloak trailed behind him, snagging on the brambles that grew high in the overgrown weeds. On his tabard was emblazoned a faded but still recognizable sigil: a winged sturgeon on an orange field.<\/p>\n The knight wore a skull mask in lieu of a visor on his helm, and through the eyeholes two cruel eyes the dark red of arterial blood stared back at Jorgos and the others.<\/p>\n \u201cGod in Heaven,\u201d Jorgos declared, recognizing from the sigil and from the infamous mask that they had encountered Sir Ekbert of Toling\u2014Lord Ballyhole himself. In life, a murderer of hundreds, and now, it seemed, made truly deathless by the Blight.<\/p>\n \u201cGod? I don\u2019t believe He\u2019s here,\u201d Lord Ballyhole replied, holding his sword nonchalantly over his shoulder as he appraised the three of them.<\/p>\n \u201cGet behind me,\u201d Sir Cadog commanded.<\/p>\n \u201cOh my, thou art most confused, Sir Knight,\u201d said Lord Ballyhole, his voice fizzing at the edges with incipient laughter. \u201cWhy not lift thy visor and show these sheep who and what they\u2019ve been shepherded by?\u201d<\/p>\n As he spoke, the fields rustled, and shapes emerged from the tall grass. Two, three, no four other Blighted. They were attired in the motley rags of desperate folk, highway robbers and beggars. Their mouths were smeared with old gore. They made a staggered ring around the trio, cutting off all paths of flight.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere is the girl?\u201d Mizan said, her voice shaking. \u201cWhat have you done with her?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou mean dear little Llewella?\u201d Lord Ballyhole asked. \u201cShe\u2019s fine\u2014with her mother, in the house. I haven\u2019t hurt her\u2014after all, in her own way she did as I asked and brought me fresh meat. Well, that\u2019s a fib\u2014I haven\u2019t hurt her much<\/em>. But fie, if a father need punish his disobedient seed by nibbling off one of her fingers, well that\u2019s his business, isn\u2019t it? And she is yet my daughter\u2014while she has use to me.\u201d<\/p>\n Jorgos began to understand. The disparate pieces of a strange puzzle fell into place, but still something was missing. She had been leading them here all along, but why? Out of love or loyalty to her undead father? Nay, it had to be something else\u2026<\/p>\n Lord Ballyhole filled the ensuant silence with his laughter, a rich, deep, cruel sound like pitch sloshing around a bucket. \u201cHast thou felt the Cold Hand yet, bald maiden? I can smell the Blight on thee. And thee, minstrel\u2014I shall extract a song from thee before I extract the cords from thy throat and thy tongue from its harbor.\u201d<\/p>\n Jorgos knew not what he meant about a \u201cCold Hand,\u201d but the way Mizan shuddered suggested she knew.<\/p>\n Sir Cadog drew his sword with a harsh rasp of steel as it cleared its scabbard.<\/p>\n \u201cHow sporting,\u201d Lord Ballyhole said, settling into a duelist\u2019s stance. \u201cPrithee, provide more diversion than those rustics we slaughtered.\u201d<\/p>\n All the time, the other Blighted had been slowly cheating forward, like a noose closing. Jorgos reached for the little knife by his belt, but then realized he had a better weapon. Not without some gloom did he unsling the lute from his back and brandish it as a cudgel. A lute his cousin Zabine had gifted him, and that had been restrung in the famous shop of Giavelli & Korona after a regrettable misadventure in Soriba. To consider such a sacrifice was as painful as if he\u2019d turned his own arm into a club, but there was no choice.<\/p>\n \u201cYou should flee,\u201d Sir Cadog said. \u201cI shall forestall them as long as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo,\u201d Mizan replied. \u201cWe fight together.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cQuaint,\u201d said Lord Ballyhole, and at his signal, the other Blighted flung themselves forward.<\/p>\n Sir Cadog\u2019s cleaver severed the head of a Blighted bandit. Another of the brutes lunged with a partisan, but Sir Cadog parried the thrust aside. Meanwhile Jorgos swung the heavy end of his lute at the grubby, one-eyed woman who menaced him, but she ably dodged his essaying strike.<\/p>\n \u201cConserve your strength,\u201d Mizan said. \u201cThey\u2019ll try to tire us out.\u201d<\/p>\n As she spoke, another of the undead bandits came at her with a heavy spiked club, and rather than try to parry it with her stave she sidestepped the charge, then swept the ugly brute\u2019s legs out from under him. Jorgos then brought down the full weight of his lute on the bandit\u2019s skull. On impact, he felt the blow reverberate through his wrists and the long bones of his arms, and he winced as he realized the instrument\u2019s beautifully carved bowl had split, and even if it were to be repaired it would never make the same sound as it did before.<\/p>\n And as hard as he\u2019d struck, it wasn\u2019t enough. No sooner had Jorgos turned from the felled bandit than did a cold, clammy claw clamp around his ankle and dragged him down.<\/p>\n \u201cJorgos!\u201d Mizan cried out, but she too let out a shriek as she was seized.<\/p>\n Jorgos kicked at the bandit\u2019s face, knocking teeth loose from the grinning jaw, but still the hand would not release, its grip crushing, its jagged nails cutting through socks and into the flesh below.<\/p>\n More clammy hands pinned him by the wrists, and above gaped a salivating mouth whilst two crimson eyes regarded him with a hunger that could not even be called bestial. It was a young lad\u2019s face, almost handsome in its way, pale and struck through with hideous black veins.<\/p>\n A pace away, Mizan howled with pain in the grasp of a lumbering bandit who was chewing on a piece of her neck he\u2019d torn off with his teeth. \u201cWrong,\u201d he said, spitting out the morsel. \u201cToo close to the turn.\u201d And with that he flung her down, and sprung at Sir Cadog, who was engaged in a clash of swords with Lord Ballyhole.<\/p>\n
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