Twelve Ways to Die in Galadore, Volume I Page 4

  A thought suddenly popped into his head, but it was not his own.

  What are you doing in the woods at night?

  He froze, looking through the moonlit trees. A chill the likes of which he had never known spread through his body, and he reached for his hip and drew his small knife. It was hardly more than a dinner knife, but it was something. He waited, his heart ricocheting inside his chest.

  Nothing in the forest moved. The moonlight seemed to have stilled even the wind. He looked, but he didn’t see anything. He listened but found only silence.

  But then, he felt something. It was impossible to know how he knew, but he suddenly realized he wasn’t alone.

  A shadow stood in the deeper dark.

  “Kenton? Is that you?” he asked aloud as fear took hold of his body. Every nerve inside him was suddenly alight. It would be just like Kenton to leave the festival to scare him. But he had heard the thought, hadn’t he? Just like the sprite at the festival. And it had been a softer voice. A strange voice.

  “Kenton?” he called again, unsure.

  For what seemed like an eternity, he didn’t move at all. The night seemed impossibly quiet. The breeze he’d felt on the road was gone, and not a leaf stirred, in the trees or the underbrush.

  “Who’s there?” he asked, trying to sound brave. He was beginning to wonder if he had imagined the voice. Maybe it had been a deer or a bear wandering by.

  He took a tentative step away from the tree. Twigs and leaves crunched underfoot, so loud that he was sure they might hear him at the farmhouse. He took another step, trying to be quieter. The ground cover swished against his shins. Why was it so loud? He took another step, and then another, never taking his eyes from the spot where he thought the something was standing. The road was only twenty or thirty yards through the woods.

  Where are you going?

  Again, he stopped. And this time, something stepped from behind the tree.

  He froze.

  The something moved in absolute silence, and Jake had a moment where he thought his ears weren’t working. But no, that wasn’t right, he could hear his own breaths cutting raggedly through the night. Its footsteps stirred neither branch nor leaf.

  It was a sprite.

  He paused, suddenly paralyzed with fear. How had the creature escaped its cage? How had it gotten loose?

  The sprite peered at him, cocking its head just slightly to the side. It took a step closer and he realized that this was not the same creature from the cage. No red marks marred its skin, and its clothes weren’t in tatters.

  “Stay back,” he warned, speaking aloud. His voice broke the quiet of the woods like a thunderclap.

  Quiet, he seemed to hear in his mind, and his voice left him. It was not a word but a command. He couldn’t have spoken if he wanted to.

  The creature stepped closer, and Jake began to get a sense of her. If he had any relief, it was in the fact that she was quite small, almost childlike. She was easily a foot shorter than him and slight, bony and thin, like the creature in the cage. There was a human aspect to her, but she was not human. Her ears were far too long and her eyes far too big.

  She was twenty paces away, but she moved tentatively, as though she was just as wary as him as he was of her. She stopped.

  What are you doing out here at night, lightwalker?

  “Just picking moon lilies. For Peony.” As soon as the words left his mouth, he felt foolish. Had she even asked anything? He hadn’t seen her lips move, and he hadn’t heard her words, except inside his mind. And why had he told her that of all things? Any of this was beyond him, other than he felt compelled to. He gathered his courage.

  “But I should be going now. It’s getting late. And the woods aren’t safe at night.” His last words seemed ridiculous. Of course the woods weren’t safe at night and this creature was no doubt the reason.

  Jake tried to calm down, reassuring himself that she wouldn’t possibly attack him while alone. And she did seem alone. He took a moment to consider her.

  She was pale-skinned, standing in the deep shadows of the trees. Silver hair tumbled over crude garments that looked as though she had walked through an enormous thick, green spider’s web. Her face was strange and angular—inhuman—but not unsightly. Long ears protruded from her hair—long, long ears—so long that they curved backwards and then curved upwards before ending in a sharp point. Those ears flickered cat-like as he took a step backward.

  “What are you?” he asked, knowing full well the answer.

  “I’m a sprite,” she said, stepping out from behind the tree. This time her lips moved and he heard her voice. It was strange and soft, murmured, like the tune of a song heard through a thin wall.

  Jake stood transfixed, staring at her. What was she doing here? Creatures from beyond the realm weren’t supposed to wander into the woods just beside his farmhouse. And how did he understand her? Her words weren’t human, and yet, they unwound themselves to him without any effort. His mind reeled, taking far longer than necessary to work through the fact that she undoubtedly had some manner of magic to her. Magic.

  “A sprite,” he repeated, wondering if he could get to the farm where there were lights and fires already burning. Lights, he thought. That’s how they kept that creature at bay. She cocked her head, as though listening to something. Then, as though she was feeling her way along his thoughts, she spoke.

  “But you already knew that? I’m not the first sprite you’ve seen.”

  He shivered. Was it a question? Or did she know?

  Then he felt his answer drawn forth.

  “No. You’re not,” he said.

  “You’ve seen another? Where?”

  “In the village. In a cage.”

  “Village,” she said the word back, and this time it was a mirror, said in the human tongue. She ran her tongue over her teeth, seeming to taste the word.

  He realized belatedly he was under some sort of spell. She was pulling answers from him like pulling a fish along a line. For some reason, he’d expected an enchantment to be beyond knowing, like a veil being drawn over his waking self. But this was worse. He still knew himself well enough, and he knew that he should be running, and for some reason, he couldn’t.

  “A cage?”

  Unbidden, a vision of the creature rose to his mind.

  “What sort of cage is this you speak of?”

  Jake swallowed, his breaths ragged with his fear. “The sort you’d keep a prisoner in. Made of iron or something of that matter. I don’t know. I’m not a jailor,” he said all of this quickly, as though if he didn’t leave anything out, she might let him go.

  “And how is it opened?”

  “With a key and a lock, I suppose,” he said.

  She cocked her head, narrowing her eyes. “But why hasn’t he escaped?”

  Jake shrugged, unsure if it was really a question for him. He supposed it wasn’t as no answer came forth.

  “What else can you tell me?” she asked.

  “Anything you want,” Jake found himself saying. “He’s being kept by Martin Skelm, Lord of the Holding. Skelm wants to clear the woods of sprites and demons all the way out to the Old Marshland Tower. He means to burn the woods out if he must.”

  With each word, the sprite’s face became more and more fierce. “Burn the woods? With fire? And light?” she repeated.

  Jake nodded, worried that she might think he meant to do the same.

  “But that’s just Martin Skelm. That’s not me.”

  “No. You’re are out here looking for. . .flowers?” She looked at the moon lilies in his hands.

  He nodded as though he was a marionette on a string.

  Jake was beginning to wish he had never left the road. He needed light. He needed to get to the farmhouses. He looked that way, wondering if he could shout for help. The sprite looked towards the farmhouses and seemed to guess his mind.

  “I know where they grow thick as grass. Come and see.”

  He felt a chill run
down his whole body. He didn’t like the way she said the words, but he felt his feet suddenly moving, and he found himself walking away from the lights. She too turned and walked into the darker woods, and as she moved, the forest parted before her as though she was some sort of forest queen, the branches and leaves bowing out of her way untouched and completely unprompted. Not a sound stirred from her feet.

  “No,” he said in terror, as though his voice might break the spell. But it didn’t. He followed her, and she kept walking.

  “This is a dream,” he muttered to himself. “A nightmare. I’m going to wake up drunk in the village square. I’ll go home. I’ll give Peony her flowers, and that will be that.” But he knew it was not so. He was shaking in fear.

  He stopped and found himself surrounded by even more moon lilies than before. The sprite stood in the shadows that were midnight dark, and he in the moonlight. The flowers all around him were glowing upward.

  “Look at you,” the sprite said. Her ears tucked backwards, and Jake had the impression of a feral dog about to attack. “My Astra says lightwalkers are fierce. And here you are, just another ward searching for his nit mate.”

  Jake didn’t know what an Astra or a ward or a nit mate were, but he got the sense of them through her words and he had the feeling she was calling him pathetic. He didn’t care. He was pitiful. He didn’t think he could have spoken if his life depended on it.

  Her ears batted, like a cat about to hiss. “Well? Are you fierce? Have you any fight?” She showed her teeth and tucked her ears back.

  Jake flinched, but beyond that, he couldn’t move. It was as though he’d become a tree and was rooted to the ground.

  “Why are you doing this?” he asked.

  “You light walkers, you burn and gnash and cut.”

  “For what?” Jake mumbled.

  But the sprite didn’t seem to hear what he had asked. She was moving quickly towards him now. He couldn’t have moved if he wanted to. Then he saw the knife. It was long, and moon white. Bone white. A shiver ran through him. He felt all control of his body ripped away. He couldn’t even manage to raise a hand in defense.

  “Wait!” he tried to say, but all that came out was a panicked breath.

  She was already striking.

  He was totally paralyzed. But that didn’t stop the pain as she plunged the bone knife into his neck. It pierced, like nothing he could have ever imagined. Jake couldn’t breathe. The sprite pulled the blade free, and Jake saw it was bright with blood.

  His own blood.

  He felt himself growing faint. The pain, which for a moment had been all he could know, was gone. Gone. He couldn’t make sense of it, but something warm poured down his neck onto his chest.

  His vision was fading.

  He collapsed to the ground. And the last thing he saw were the moon lilies.

  Moon lilies.

  They were speckled red.

  He had never seen moon lilies so beautiful.

  He wondered if Peony had.

  She would like those, he thought distantly, and then all knowing left him.

  Part II

  The Long Fall from Darkness

  Thonnos took a deep swig of beer, drinking as though it was air and he had never breathed before, drinking until his belly was full and his throat burned, until his mouth filled, until at last, he could drink no more. He swallowed, grimaced, and then drank again, this time until he finished, eyes upward towards the stars. But the stars here weren’t stars. They were in his mind’s eye, and they came with the rush of the beer and the buzz that followed swiftly after.

  It hit him like it always did. A rush to the head a moment before blurring his eyes, traveling past his cheeks, right down his chest, and through to his heart. It warmed there, like a flame licking at a lifeless stone, and then the feeling slowed, settling throughout his body as a low burn, a heat that finally traveled down his arms to his hands. That was where it felt the best. It numbed his fingers, the bruises and scratches across his broad, heavy hands going lifeless like his heart. Some bruises were new. Some were old. But all of them were there to stay—even if they might fade from view. They would lay there beneath the surface along with the deeper scars that would never go away.

  He set the mug down, and with a practiced motion, gestured for another. He unbraided and re-braided one plait of his beard while he waited. This wasn’t his first beer of the night, nor would it be his last. He would drink until he couldn’t see and then he would drink some more. He would drink until he couldn’t hear and then he would drink some more. He would drink until he couldn’t lift the mug, and then, only then, would he have had his fill. By then, perhaps, he would be ready for the bitterness of his return home.

  In the morning, he’d visit the warrens down in the Lowbrow to get a bit of rockweed and salt dram to ease his hangover. And then hopefully, after a day in the deep, he’d return to do it all over again.

  “What a life,” he muttered under his breath.

  The swill-tender pulled another beer from the nearest keg along the wall, then set it down in front of Thonnos.

  “Looking to finish this one on your own? Should have called you Kegbreaker,” the tender said with a nod over his shoulder.

  Thonnos snorted. Each of the twenty or so kegs was twice the size of a horse cart and filled with a small lake’s worth of beer. He raised his glass in agreement and then turned back to the Grotto. It was crowded with dwarves, and a group was gathered close to him, waiting.

  The douser was going about, snuffing lanterns and pulling down floating orbs. The sun had set on the up high of things and he was chanting as he went.

  “It’s night above, and so below.”

  The Grotto, whose natural lights hadn’t shown in years, had turned to a pitch-black pit on the other side of the hall, its once sparkling interior a decrepit, dried out memory of what it had once been. He kept his eyes from it and turned back to the younger dwarves circling him. Each had brown beards and hardly a braid amongst them. Some bore swords or axes, and a good many had the tattoos of raiders. They were gathered loosely about him, but their chatter died as they saw the return of his attention. They watched on greedily, all wondering what would come next. Normally it was stories. Stories of the up high of things. Stories of goblins and trolls, of men and elves, of seas and deserts and the monstrosities of the world above. But no, he’d already told them enough of those stories for the night, for a lifetime really. Instead, he let a grin spread beneath his beard, and he began to speak.

  An elf, a sprite, and a human walk into the swilling-hall. The swill-tender hears them arguing over their drinks, and each is complaining that their favorite drink is the best in the world, and there’s no finer drink than their own. The swill-tender hears the rock-bottom-roots of this and looks ‘em over once, thinking about putting a hammer to their heads. But he doesn’t.

  Seeing that he’s a proper dwarf, with proper hospitality, he says to them, “You each say your drink is the finest you’ve ever had? Well, ask me for your drink, and if I haven’t got it, I’ll make you each a drink finer than any that you drink at home, and if it isn’t, then your drinks are free from now until the end of your days, may they be long and warm and full of light.”

  The elf, the sprite, and the human nod agreeably to this, and the dwarf asks them what they’ll have.

  The elf, looking doubtful, says, “I’ll have a bucket of tree sap. It’s the only thing I drink. Finest sap that you’ve got. Willow or ash or elm. But not oak. Never an oak.”

  The bartender furrows his brow, wondering what rock this elf’s been hiding under. He says, “I haven’t got any tree sap. But I can give you a bit of yak’s milk infused with the powdered roots of the mountains. That ought to give you the same kick. And the roots of the mountains are stronger than the trees, so it’ll make you stronger to boot.”

  The elf considers it, then nods doubtfully, so the dwarf goes in the back and milks the yak, crushes up a rock—to thicken the elf’s blood, of
course—and gives it to him.

  The elf takes it and drinks it. And after a moment, he looks up bright-eyed and says, “That’s the best drink I’ve ever had.” And he pays the dwarf for the drink and orders another.

  Then the sprite, looking doubtful, says, “You may have pleased the elf, but you’ll never please me. At home, I take a pail of star’s blood. It’s the only thing I drink. A bright star or a red star, but not a white star. Never a white star.”

  So the dwarf, being a proper dwarf, touches his eyebrows together, wondering what rock this sprite’s been hiding under. But unperturbed, he says, “I haven’t got any star’s blood. But I can give you some yak’s milk mixed with a bit of ironwood. Ironwood bleeds the same, and stars are made of iron, so that ought to be what you’re looking for.”

  The sprite considers it, then nods, so the dwarf goes in the back and milks the yak, crushes up a rock with a bit of iron in it—to thicken the sprite’s blood, of course—and gives it to him.

  The sprite takes it and drinks it. “That’s the best drink I’ve ever had.”

  Looking satisfied, he pays the dwarf and orders another.

  The human, looking doubtful, says, “You may have pleased these other two, but you’ll never please me. At home, I drink only golden ale, bright as the sunshine and refreshing as a mountain stream. It’s the only thing I drink. Golden and clear, but not cloudy. Never cloudy. Finest that you’ve got.”

  Now, this has the swill-tender flummoxed. Golden ale? What the fuck is golden ale? he thinks to himself, but doesn’t say. His eyebrows come so close that they touch. “You mean like a beer?”

  The human shakes his head. “A golden ale.”

  So the dwarf considers it, wondering what rock this human’s been hiding under.

  “Right.” And he turns away without another word and heads in the back. He grabs a mug and looking about, realizes he doesn’t have any ideas on what to give the poor bastard. But then, after a few minutes worrying, he gets an idea. Without anything else to do, he unbuttons his britches and does the only thing he can. Reluctantly, he hands the drink to the human.