The Quest for the Important Thing to Defeat the Evil Guy

Part 1: The Gathering of the Good Guys

Chapter 1

The lone rider clattered up the road to the castle, his black horse’s iron-shod hooves striking sparks in the darkness. A watchman above sounded a horn at his approach, the long note echoing through the rocky valley, until it was defeated by a peal of thunder. When the horn sounded, dark, misshapen forms rushed to the capstans, driven by snap of their masters’ thirsty whips. The creatures began to chant in hollow, tongueless voices as they leaned into their task. With a groan and a rumble the black iron portcullis lifted, and the rider passed through without pausing. More whips bit flesh and the portcullis lowered once more.

The dark rider pulled up at the massive oaken door of the main keep, his horse quivering from exhaustion, coated with sweat, foam coming from the mighty steed’s mouth, the fiery glow of his fearsome eyes diminished. It had been a long ride.

The rider dismounted. Servants swarmed around horse and rider, bowing and scraping as they took the reins of the devil-horse and opened the door for the rider. From his saddlebags the dark rider produced a bundle. Cradling it carefully, shielding the precious object from the rain, he strode into the castle.

“The master awaits,” a slightly taller, slightly less missapen servant said in a voice that bubbled with fluid. “He is in his laboratory.” The servant made no attempt to escort the dark rider; it would only slow him down, and slowing a dark rider down was a good way to die unpleasantly. The dark rider nodded and began the climb to the top of the improbably tall tower in the center of the castle.

The master was seated at his reading table. He looked up when the dark rider entered. “You have the book,” he said in a rich baritone voice.

“Yessss, Masssster,” the dark rider said, his voice the whisper of a winter wind passing through the bare branches of a graveyard tree.

“Bring it to me.” the Master closed the book he had been reading and made space for the latest addition to his library. The dark rider crossed the room in three strides, then carefully unwrapped the book. With a bow he offered the book. The Master lifted the tome off outstreatched hands. “It’s beautiful.” He ran his fingers over the gilt lettering on the cover. The book was bound in soft leather – human skin, the master was willing to bet – reinforced with brass at the corners. It was difficult to believe, looking at it, that it was one of the oldest objects in the world, old when the mountains themselves were young. Almost nothing remained of the ancient civilization that had created the book, mighty as they were, time proved mightier yet. The book smelled of time, it radiated age. The master wasn’t sure it the book was vibrating gently or if that was just his nervous fingers. The room brightened and a bare instant later a crack of thunder shook the tower. Neither dark rider nor master seemed to notice.

“You have done well,” The Master said.

“Thank you, massster.” the dark rider whispered.

“Any word of Trabant?”

“No, Massster. Not that I have heard.”

“He’s up to something, I’m sure of it. Go, then, and help your brothers.” The dark rider bowed and backed out of the room.

Alone, the master centered the great volume on his reading table. A simple incantation released the catch, and he opened the volume. The paper crinkled and a musty smell greeted his nose, but there on his desk were pages that no man had seen for thousands of years.

The master frowned. The page appeared to be gibberish. He had studied all the fragments of the language of the ancients that he could get his hands on, but this text was different. Code, The Master thought. The power that this book revealed would be carefully protected. Code, or simple misdirection? With a wave of his hand he extinguished all the candles in the room, plunging himself into darkness.

Now the master smiled. Floating in the air in front of him, blood-red squiggles twisted and danced, forming themselves into words. Lightning lit the chamber and was just as quickly gone, and as the thunder rettled the shelves the master read the opening dedication:

Qua’alox Linnor!

Qua’alox Linnor!

Narding u’hjit,

Nerding b’hoom,

Nording g’hnkl!

Important Thing!

Important Thing!

Above space,

Beyond time,

Mightier than the pantheon!

“Cower in fear, all who read these words, stand in awe of the Important Thing, who’s true nature can only be revealed to the few capable of weilding such tremendous power. Within these pages lie great power and great responsibility.

Chapter 1: What is the Important Thing?”

The master rubbed his hands together in anticipation. At last! He held the key to the important thing, whatever it was. Soon the world would bow before him!

The next words written in the air were like a punch to the gut:

“FREE SAMPLE ONLY. ENTER PASSWORD TO CONTINUE. PASSWORDS MAY BE PURCHASED FROM S’RNGRVE & S’RNGRVE, YOUR ONLY SOURCE FOR THE FINEST TOMES OF UNTOLD POWER.”

The Stan-Man Plan

The bus lurched and wheezed its way up the hill, leaving a cloud of black smoke behind. The driver made no effort to avoid the potholes and ruts in the once-paved road, jarring the kidneys of the passengers, their children, and their livestock. Robert McFadden was bounced and jostled with the rest of them, but he seemed to feel it more. The others, even the livestock, had been on this road many times before.

The pitch of the engine rose, making it impossible for Robert to hear the steady stream of profanity issuing from the driver. He suspected that in the coming weeks and months he was going to need to know those words.

The bus reached the crest of the hill, and after a moment of roller-coaster anticipation went careening down the other side, trying to build momentum for the next climb. Robert tried not to think about the sheer drop just to his right. There was no guard rail. No one else on the bus seemed to notice that pain and death were only a meter away.

He pulled out his map and studied it. By his best guess they were in Ztrtkijistan now.

They crept up through a cleft between two snow-capped peaks and the bus shuddered to a stop. There was a shack there, and a uniformed guard wearing a fur cap and carrying an AK-47 sauntered over to and spoke to the driver through the open door.

“Anything I should know about?” he asked the driver.

“There’s a foreigner today.”

“Huh.” The guard stepped up into the bus and immediately spotted Robert. He paused, his brows knit as if he was contemplating something perplexing, then came to a decision. “Can you come with me for a moment, sir?”

“Certainly,” Robert said in Ztrtkijistani. He stood and the other passengers made way for him, watching him with the same open curiosity they had shown for the entire trip.

“You speak our language?” the border guard asked, surprised.

“Yes, I do. That’s why I’m here.”

“Huh.”

They climbed off the bus and Robert was grateful for the opportunity to stretch his legs and rest his backside. The cold mountain air was thin and bracing, only slightly tinged with the smell of the overheating bus engine. Inside the shack a small oil stove produced more heavy, clinging smoke than it did heat. McFadden wondered why the soldier even bothered. The massive soviet-era desk barely left enough room for the two chairs.

“Please, sit,” the guard said, unconcerned for the busload of people who were waiting. Close up, Robert could see that his uniform was faded and worn almost through in places. “May I see your passport, please?”

Robert handed over his passport and his visa paperwork. The soldier looked at the visa, nonplussed. “You intend to stay here?”

“Yes.”

The guard set down the papers and scratched his head while he regarded his guest with open confusion. “Why?”

“I am a professor at a University. I am studying your culture and traditions.”

This seemed to raise more questions that it answered in the mind of the soldier. “Study us?” he asked incredulously.

Robert understood his confusion. This was not a country famed for arts or sciences or even any sort of military tradiditon. The Soviet era had efficiently erased what little unique culture the country might have had.

If Ztrtkijistan was even a country at all. No one seemed quite sure whether the isolated people were an independent nation or an autonomous province of neighboring Kyrgyzstan, least of all the Ztrtkijistanis themselves. The ambiguity could have been cleared up by the two countries easily enough, Robert thought, but neither side had gone to the trouble. In the end, no one cared enough either way.

Robert hesitated before answering the soldier’s question. In all truth he was no more interested in the culture of these isolated people than anyone else in the world was—which was not at all. Still, he needed some story to make it plausible that he would be there, and the options were few. Tourism was not going to work. This gray, rocky country was goverend from a dusty, gravelly city of block buildings that utterly lacked charm. The city lay in a pall of smoke from countless wood fires and greasy oil stoves, a haze thick enough to bring tears to the eyes of visitors. Even the mountains surrounding the country somehow lacked any sort of soaring grandeur. The guide book Robert had studied for this trip had tried gamely to come up with interesting things to say about the country, before throwing in the towel. “There are more goats than people,” it pointed out. “In the market square one can find a variety of handicrafts.” “The mosque in the center of the capital had a lovely mosaic on the floor, which can be seen at the XXX museum in Moscow.” “The hotel has running water.”

Telling the truth about why he was there was out of the question. Robert McFadden was a spy.

Had Robert McFadden known how he had come to be assigned to Ztrtkijistan, it would not have made him feel any better.

It was a particularly tedious political coctail party, and General Harold Martin was on his third martini in the last hour when he fell into the trap. One more drink, he thought, and I’m out of here. He was almost to the bar when an analyst he recognized from the office struck up a conversation with him.

Always important to treat the troops well, he thought, as he signaled for another martini. He watched the analyst’s lips move and idly tried to remember his underling’s name. My God, this man is boring. I need to say something, and get the hell out of here.

“… the gross domestic product of Ztrtkijistan,” the analyst concluded.

The general had already opened his mouth to break off the conversation, but he stopped short. “Where?”

“Ztrtkijistan.”

“That’s a country?”

“Of course,” the analyst said, pleased to catch the general in his ignorance, even though the analyst had not known Ztrtkijistan was a country either, until two weeks previous when a coworker had trapped him at another coctail party.

The general chewed on that for a moment. That smug bastard is going to spread it all around the office tomorrow that I didn’t know that Zert-whatever was a country. Not acceptable. The best defence, he knew, was a good offense. “Has the situation there stabilized?”

The analyst balked. “Situation?”

The general smiled inwardly. “Of course the situation. Why the hell did you bring up Ztort… that place if you don’t have more information about the situation?”

The analyst backed up a step. “I—”

Got you! Nobody was going to make the general look like a fool. He turned to the aide standing patiently at his elbow. “Who do we have on the ground there?”

The aide scowled, pretending to be in deep thought for a moment. “No one, I think, sir.”

“No one? We don’t have a single person in the entire goddam country?”

“I think not.”

“You mean the people of the United States of America are relying on us to keep the world safe for democracy and we’re letting entire countries slip through our fingers?”

“
I don’t think Ztrtkijistan qualifies as a threat to democracy.”

“You don’t think so, eh? Well, that’s the difference between you and me, Chumley.”

“It’s Crumley, sir.”

“Don’t interrupt me. Ever. The difference between you and me is that I’m not satisfied with just thinking a country is not a threat. I have to know. It’s the one you’re not watching that will put a knife between your ribs. I need someone on the ground there to infiltrate their institutions and see what’s really going on, and I want it yesterday. No stan is going to catch me with my pants down.”

“Stan?”

“Tanjistan, Uzbeckstan, all them stans. I want a man in every stan.” He barked a laugh. “Ha! Man in every stan.” He took another swig of his martini and glared at the retreating analyst.

The next day the general had forgotten the entire conversation, but Crumley had not. With a malicious glint in his beady eyes he combed over the agency’s personnel records, looking for the ideal person to send. Someone who was qualified on paper but would be difficult for the general to explain later. Crumley would enjoy watching the general squirm when he had to explain why a resource needed back home was rotting in some piss-hole country no one had even heard of. “The difference between me and you, general,” he muttered to himself, “is that I’m competent.”

Crumley’s eye scanned down the list and came to rest on Robert McFadden. A desk jocky, a slacker, and one of the few people in the western hemisphere who could speak Ztrtkijistani. He spoke a lot of languages, and was currently working on translating Iranian communications. He would be sorely missed. Perfect.

Crumley smiled and began to type the orders.

Robert McFadden shifted uneasily on the wooden chair. “I’m here to catalog the idioms and mannerisms in everyday speech. The language here is not like any other in the area, or anywhere for that matter.”

The guard still looked skeptical, but with a grunt he shrugged and rooted around in his desk for his stamp, and having found that, some ink for it. “Don’t use it so much,” he explained. No one else in the world is dumb enough to come here. He carefully stamped Robert’s passport, inspected his handiwork, and returned the papers. “Welcome to Ztrtkijistan,” he said. His forced smile revealed a gap where his front two teeth should have been.

“Thank you.” Robert stood to leave. The guard put his fur cap back on and walked over to the bus with Robert.

“It seems like on my map the border should be a few kilometers up the road.”

“Which map you got?”

“Fremming’s.” Robert held it out for inspection.

The soldier dutifully studied it for a moment, then said, “That map’s no good.”

As they walked toward the bus Robert blew into his hands, envying the heavy gloves the other wore. It was October, and things were going to get much colder, he knew.

“What map should I use?”

The soldier thought. “They’re all no good.” He shrugged. “Enjoy your time here,” he said skeptically and moved to raise the gate.

Robert climbed back onto the bus and surveyed the other passengers as they watched him frankly. He moved back to the seat he had been occupying for the last few hours and settled in next to a middle-aged man who was also missing his front two teeth. The man was shorter than Robert – these were not a tall people, they were thin and small, like the sparse vegetation once again flashing past the windows of the bus. This was not a place for towering trees or rich jungle, it was the place where toughness was the only dominant gene.

“You are from America?” the man asked.

“That’s right,” Robert said, and wondered what question he could ask the other man in return. He had difficulty enough conversing in the US, where at least theoretically he he had something in common with the people he was talking to. The man had spoken occasionally during the trip, saying things like “The bus crashed here once,” and “I have a cousin who raises goats up there.” Each time Robert tried to think of possible replies, but beyond “Oh, I see,” or “You don’t say,” he came up empty.

“Yes, I’m American.” He tried to expand. “I live in Washington, but I’m from California originally.”

“The man nodded. Ah, California.” Robert suspected he had no idea where California was. Not even Hollywood had penetrated these mountains. Not, at least, as an actual place that people could be from. “Why have you come here?”

“I’m a professor…”

“You have come to teach us things? How to speak English? Some people think we should teach all our children English, the way we all learned Russian.” He didn’t look enthusiastic about either. “I am not so sure…”

“No, I’m not here for that. I’m here to learn about your culture.”

“Why?”

“It will help the Americans to understand you better.”

He shrugged. What’s to understand? We’re just regular people. “Maybe we should send someone to study the Americans.”

Robert laughed and the other man smiled at his apparent joke. “Maybe you should,” Robert said. “In the meantime you have me to study.” He gestured vaguely at all the others watching him on the bus.

The other nodded solemnly at Robert’s joke. “Yes, yes, we will study you, too.” Suddenly he laughed and slapped Robert on the shoulder. “We will all be professors.”

The Monster Within

I watched other patrons come and go as I nursed my beer. You’ve seen a hundred Taverns and pubs like the Crossroads Inn. It was a large room, with a bar at one end, a fireplace at the other, tables in between. Most of the smaller tables were occupied, and one of the two long tables was filled with a boisterous group of mercenaries who were there for the same reason I was. Looking for work.

It was a chilly day; Winter was reminding us that she was waiting for us. There was only one way to avoid her icy breath, and I wasn’t ready for that. Not yet. So I sat in a corner away from the heat of the merry fire and people that enjoyed it. “Bring it on, Winter,” I mumbled into my beer. “You haven’t killed me yet.” She had tried, and even come close, but I was still there, with all my fingers and toes, and a room to stay in until my money ran out. Tomorrow.

“Did you say something?” asked the serving girl as she passed my table, laden with crock mugs for the mercanaries.

“Just talking to the Universe,” I said, “but it’s not listening.”

She laughed prettily even though she didn’t understand and went off to flirt with other patrons. Her hips swayed even more as she approached the long table with her cargo of ale. I heard her laugh clearly across the room, ringing high over the rest of the conversation.

The name of the Crossroads Inn is descriptive if not particularly creative. The town of Rinth sits at the intersection of two important trade roads, and prospers by catering to the merchants passing through. There were several inns in town, but this was the favorite among soldiers and free lances, so it was the place merchants came when they were looking for a little extra muscle as they continued east into more dangerous territory. It was also the place where they would drop off unneeded muscle as they headed West. The area to the east was lawless not because neither Landreth or Garadel claimed it, but because both did. Most of the bandits were technically in the employ of one state or the other, although they rarely seemed ineterested in advancing anyone’s interests but their own. They were little more than bandits and petty warlords.

Some merchants specialized in the road east from Rinth that eventually reached Landreth. Some had even made special tarriff arrangements with the bandits. In the end, however, no matter who you paid, you had better be ready to defend your cargo.

Some mercanaries made a living off that road, and had arrangements of their own, but I wasn’t so much a specialist myself. I had traveled that road often enough, but I couldn’t keep doing the same thing for very long. Still, beggars can’t be choosers, and I hadn’t been getting much work lately.

There were some merchants at the smaller tables. One group had obviously just come from the East; they were drinking heavily and I watched as the worry of the journey was lifted from their shoulders. They had made it. They had taken a risk and now they would profit handsomely. The local working girls had picked up on their mood and were vying for their attantion. No one that visited the Crossroads Inn and had a little coin would sleep alone if he didn’t want to.

Most of the merchants that traveled the east road were younger, trying to establish themselves and build a reputation. Very few older men took that risk. Traders either died young on the East road or they made their money and moved on to safer, but more competitive, routes.

That made it more difficult for me to get work here. I depended on regulars, merchants who knew me and knew what I could do. Getting a new client was the most difficult part of my profession. Killing I could do, dying I was prepared to do, but approaching a man and asking for work was almost impossible for me. I’m not that much to look at, really, smaller than most other hired swords, with a baby face that makes me look like a boy barely past puberty. People who know me, people who have fought on battlefields and in the caves at Algarth with me, know that I am a capable soldier, and more honest than many. Strangers usually just laugh. I’m not much of a salesman – not much of a talker, really. Sometimes I would try to tell them about my military record, but it would just add to the merriment.

There were no friends or acquantances here tonight, only strangers. Usually in a group of mercanaries the size of the one at the long table I would be able to recognize someone. I recognozed one of the Westbound merchants, but he would be reducing his payroll now that he was through the danger. I knew I should talk to him anyway, just to renew the relationship, but I’m not much at small talk. I looked over the other merchants, trying to spot the one who would need more muscle and would not laugh in my face.

I had one picked out, and was rehearsing my sales pitch, when he got up and went upstairs. I started over. No one looked like a very good prospect. Still, people were coming and going all the time. Maybe another caravan would come in before my money ran out. I’ve been out of money plenty of times, and I am quite capable of living off the land, but when you’re broke it just shows. People prefer to hire people who look successful.

Eventually, as it became obvious which of the prostitutes were going to win the affection – and money – of the merchants, the other working girls began to scout around the rest of the room. Finally one of them decided to give me a try. She sashayed over to my table and I had to admit to myself that she was very pretty. Her shirt – blouse, or whatever they’re called – was cut very low, revealing ample cleavage beneath. Her skirt had a slit cut far up the side, revealing at least one shapely leg.

“Would you like some company for the evening?” she asked sweetly.

“I’m not your type,” I said, trying with only limited success to make it sound like a growl.

“Don’t be silly, kid. Everyone needs a little company now and then.”

For a moment I was tempted. It sounded nice, someone to lie with in the darkness, talking about nothing much in particular, sharing body heat as the night got colder. Maybe even laughing at some little joke that wasn’t really that funny. To not be alone. I had been alone for so long now I wondered if I was even capable of any form of intimacy. I felt a hollowness in my chest that I had almost forgotten. The place where most people have a heart. I had something else there instead. A monster. Perhaps for one night, though, I could pretend.

The monster moved inside me and I came to my senses. “I’m the type with no money,” I said.

The look in her eye said that I had cut her more deeply than I had intended. She had offered comfort, and I had called her a whore. “That’s not always what I want.” She pulled herself together and returned to the warmer end of the hall.

What if I had said yes? What if I had let down my guard for one night and gone with her? What if I hadn’t been sitting there when the stranger came in, looking for someone to do a job for him? But the man was looking for me, and the monster saw to it that he found me. I was no more able to accept the comfort of that girl than I was able to end my own life.

The monster wasn’t real in the sense that it was a separate creature that lived inside me, although most of the time it felt that way. It’s just a name I gave to a part of me that seemed to have its own life. It certainly had its own goals, and I suspected that my survival was not one of them. We didn’t talk much.

I didn’t pay very much attention to the stranger at first; he wasn’t wearing the outward signs of wealth that traders seem to be so fond of, and he didn’t look like any sort of hired sword. He paused at the door, surveying the room, and, walking very slowly, he eased himself into a rough-hewn chair in the no-mans-land between the rest of the patrons and me. A traveler, weary from the road. No doubt his companions were nearby, and would be joining him soon.

Where he sat, I could not help but look at him further, and the more I looked at him, the more curious I became. Although he was clearly weary from the road, he held himself erect. There was discipline in his posture, and pride. His clothes, too, though simple, were tailored to him and made of sturdy but soft material. Beneath a layer of dust his boots gleamed with fresh polish. The hilt of his sword was finely worked and well-worn.

I realized that he was looking at me, appraising me as I was appraising him. He smiled slightly. “May I offer you a drink?” he asked.

I wasn’t working, so I decided that another couldn’t hurt. I don’t drink when I’m on a payroll, but between jobs I sometimes allow myself to dull my senses a little. Every once in a while I allow myself to dull my senses a lot, a cowardly attempt at oblivion, but they always come back. I had promised the owner of the tavern that I wouldn’t start a fight tonight – this was not my first time in Rinth and tavern owners have better memories than my employers – so there was really nothing to lose.

“Mind if I join you?” he asked after he had ordered our drinks.

“Be my guest,” I said.

He pulled himself up slowly, but with a grace that spoke of training. Either dance lessons at court or combat training. Both, I decided. I shifted my chair to allow him an equal share of space at the table. He stood over me, his dark clothing making him look even taller than he actually was, which was pretty tall to start with. He smelled like horse and money. “My name is Smith,” he said, offering his hand.

I took his hand and shook it, pumping twice firmly, not squeezing so hard it looked like I was trying to prove something. “Hunter,” I said.

“Hunter? Is that the name your mother gave you?”

“That would be a remarkable coincidence,” I said.

He laughed, and sat with a sigh.

“Long road?” I asked.

“You have no idea. Traveling like this always takes it out of me. But I have been in a hurry.”

The serving girl arrived with our drinks. When she set them down the table rocked, causing some of the dark liquid to slosh onto the table and onto me. She didn’t notice; she was flirting with my guest, giving him an eyeful as she bent over to set down the mugs and brushing against him quite unnecessarily as she turned to leave. She could smell the money as well. I was a little jealous of the attention, despite myself.

Smith didn’t seem to notice her at all. Holding his mug so that nothing would drip on his clothes, he sampled the beer. “I’ve had better,” he said with a slight grimace. I had had better ale as well, but not here. There didn’t seem to be anything to be gained by belaboring the point, so I sipped my beer, letting it drip where it might.

“Why do you call youself Hunter?” he asked.

“It’s left over from my army days. You get all sorts of names in the army.”

“What were you called before that?”

I shrugged. “Thomas, usually.”

“But now you’re Hunter.”

I nodded.

“You know how to use that?” he looked meaningfully at my sword.

I nodded. “And I know how not to.”

Smith raised one eyebrow. I had always wanted to be able to do that. I resisted the urge to try again to do it right then. He looked around the bar. “Who do you think the most dangerous person in this place is right now?”

He was testing me, which would have been annoying except that it probably meant he had work of some sort to offer. “Dangerous to your money bag, that little hooker over there with the light fingers. Dangerous to your health, probably the cook in back. But dangerous overall…” I surveyed the other patrons. Some of them looked like they could be trouble, but as I sized them all up the monster whispered in my ear and I knew it was right. “…you.” I said.

This time his smile revealed a neat row of narrow, white teeth. A wolf’s smile. “You could be right. I need someone to do a job for me. Are you interested?”

“That depends on the job, but probably, yes.”

“I have a mesage to deliver to the palace in Garadel. The messenger requires a bodyguard. Discretion is very important.”

I raised my eyebrows. Garadel was the seat of the largest and arguably most powerful kingdom in the world. A delivery to the palace implied that this was royal business. I wondered what rank Smith held in the royal household.

“Where is this messenger now?”

“We can discuss the particulars after you are in my employ.”

“Why me?” I asked. Usually for a bodyguard you hire the biggest, ugliest man you can find. More often than not, his presence alone would prevent trouble. I was better in situations where the fight was already a given.

“As I said, discretion is very important. If the bodyguard looks like a bodyguard, then everyone will know that he is protecting something. What I need is someone who can protect without appearing to be a protector. There is another thing as well. I believe that I am a good judge of a man. Usually when I meet someone I can tell right away what their character is. I believe that you would never betray an employer. Am I right?”

I nodded. “Yes.” I was compelled to add, “as long as he doesn’t betray me.”

He smiled, congratulating himself on his perception more than appreciating me. He put a coin on the table. “This is for the next hour of your time. Do you accept?”

I didn’t even look at the coin. It didn’t matter what it was if it allowed him to describe the job. “Sure,” I said.

“What I am about to tell you is secret. You are not to tell anyone about it, even after our current contract expires. Do you understand?”

I chose not to be insulted. If the guy needed to state it formally, he could knock himself out. “I understand,” I said.

“The messenger will be prepared to leave from Monkham the day after tomorrow. You are to be there before nightfall the day before.”

Monkham lay to the south, straight down the road. I was between mounts at that time, and Monkham was long way to go on foot in one day. At least I would have a night to rest before the journey started. It would take about two weeks to get from there to Garadel by horse, depending on how fast the messenger could move. “Is anyone likely to cause trouble?”

He nodded. “If certain people find out about the message, they will try to stop it. I have lost messengers in the past.”

And bodyguards, I assumed. I sized him up, and made a guess at what he would be willing to pay. “Thirty crowns,” I said.

He smiled again. “Ten,” he said, “and you can keep the horse.”

Depending on the horse, that would be a fair price. Depending on the horse. “Twenty and the horse,” I said.

“Fifteen,” Simth said, “and you will like the horse.”

I hadn’t had fifteen crowns jangling in my pocket in a long time. It was a lot of money to make for two weeks work; in the army I had earned less than that in two years. I could stretch that kind of money over months, and then I could sell the horse. That would easily get me through the winter, and well into summer beyond. “All right,” I said.

“Good.” He gestured to the coin on the table. It was a gold crown. A lot of money. This had been the most lucrative hour of my life. He handed me another. The way he was throwing money around, I wondered why he had bothered haggling. Probably just for the fun of it.

“Use this to pay for our drinks and you may use the rest for whatever, ah, accomodation you wish for this evening,” he said. “There will be five crowns and a horse waiting for you in Monkham. There will be ten more crowns in Garadel.” He stood. “Ask for Haversham. You’ll find him in the stables just outside of town to the north. Tell him you are the escort. Do not use my name; it would mean nothing to him anyway. The code word is ‘glory’.” He frowned. “Not what I would have picked. If he asks about Bill, Bill is dead.”

He stood so I did too. After all, he was my boss now. “I am pleased that I found you here, Hunter. I look forward to a long and beneficial relationiship. I will see you again after you are finished in Garadel.” We shook hands again and he left the inn without looking back. It was too late for him to start a journey tonight, but I was not surprised to see that he had found accomodation in a different inn. There were other places that offered services more suited to one of his class.

I paid for the beers and had plenty left over. The girl I had insulted was still there. She had seen me pay and now she saw me looking at her. She came back over, proving she was braver than I was.

“Change your mind?” she asked.

“I, uh, no, I mean, I’m not interested.” I felt myself turning red.

Her smile became more genuine. She touched my cheek gently. “I’ll be gentle, lad. You won’t forget it.”

“Look, here, just take this.” I handed her a coin, a ten-heller coin as it turned out. Rather more than it would have cost to have her stay with me all night. But I knew now that was impossible.

She looked at the coin, angry. “That’s all you think I am, isn’t it? That’s all you think I want?”

“No, I -” But she was gone. She did take the coin, though. So she couldn’t have been that badly hurt.

I stood and looked down on my unfinished beer. I wanted it, but I was on the job now. The crown he had given me bound me to his service as much as all the King’s gold would have.

There was nothing left to do but go up to my room and prepare for the trip. I had been camping in a copse of trees on the outskirts of town for the past few days, but I had felt the cold snap coming and had booked a room for the night, spending the last of my precious cash to be more comfortable. I must be getting soft to spend my last few coins just to be warmer for one night. Now I was flush again and glad to be indoors. I heard the wind picking up outside. The worst of the storm would pass by morning, but it was still going to be a cold journey. Fortunately I would be moving quickly and keeping myself warm.

The Test

Jane was just a little girl when her mother died of the shakes. Her mother had tried to shelter her from the truth, that she was dying, but Jane knew something was wrong. Late at night she would awaken to the sound of her father giving futile reassurance to her mother as she silently wept.

It wasn’t until Jane overheard a neighbor talking that she knew what was wrong.

“Such a shame,” the woman had said, shaking her head. “The shakes, and her so young. Such a sweet girl. And she with them little ones, too. An’ thet lass a queer duck, ‘erself. Gives me the shivers when she looks a’ me. She’s a touch o’ the dark blood in her, I’d nae be surprised.”

“It’s thet way she talks,” another agreed. “Like a steamin’ princess.”

“Thet’s ‘er Ma’s doin’. She thet it might ‘elp ‘er rise in station.”

The first woman clucked. “Jest made the lass odd, is all she did. Jest talkin’ like a steamin’ richie don’t make yeh one. Jest look at ‘er with thet book.”

They hadn’t realized that Jane was listening, or they would not have mentioned the shakes. There had been a careful conspiracy to keep the truth from Jane, as if that would change anything. Nobody ever got better when they had the shakes. The disease was as inexorable and unforgiving as it was painful and humiliating. Jane had seen someone with the shakes once before, a neighbor in the crowded row house, another woman who worked the wonders down at the factory. Her screams had echoed up and down the hallway. By the time she died, the whole building let out a sigh of relief.

Jane pretended she did not hear. She just sat quietly, forming the letters in her most treasured possession, a reading and writing primer she had found on the ground outside the school where the children who didn’t have to work went to learn. Nobody paid any attention to her as her tears smeared the lines where her fingers passed over the inscrutable shapes. The corner of the room where she sat had markings all over the floor, from the times she had a scribbler and she practiced making words. Jane fancied that it was a spell she had placed on that corner of the room, that the simple words were actually powerful runes to deflect any evil that might try to reach her there. She didn’t mind when her mother made her clean them, for it gave her a chance to replace the simple words with longer ones, and now even whole sentences.

Jane’s mother never made her clean the markings if she didn’t have a writing stick to make new ones.

She wished she had a scribbler now. She wished that her mother had let her practice her writing in other parts of the house, to create words that could keep the shakes away. She reminded herself that they were just ordinary words, not the mysterious symbols used by the Great Ones, but she wanted to be able to do something, and that was all she had. No one would stop her from writing wherever she wanted right now, but she didn’t have a scribbler and there was not going to be any money to buy one.

After a few weeks her mother’s tremors were undisguisable. She started to forget things, and remember things that had never happened. The tremors started in her hands and slowly spread throughout her body. For a few weeks there was no other indication that anything was wrong. When mother slept they would look at her and fool themselves that everything was as it had always been.

As time passed, however, Jane’s mother slept less and less. The last two weeks were marked by the catastrophic loss of bodily control and sanity. When her voice gave out she continued to rave in a hoarse whisper, seeing things that were not there, speaking with people long dead, and crying piteously in terror as unseen demons tormented her.

It was on a quiet morning that she died. The sudden stillness in the building was unnerving. The entire block paused, took a breath, said a prayer for the departed, and after a moment moved on.

The stillness continued in the room that Jane’s family called home, however. They all just sat, Jane, her father, and her brother. Her brother was still too young to understand what was going on, but he took his cues from the other two. Finally he asked, “Is mama better now?”

Jane’s father took a moment to answer. “No, John, she’s passed to the shadow world. The spirits came and took her by the hand and showed her the way to somewhere where she doesn’t have to suffer anymore.” To Jane’s ears, it didn’t sound like he believed what he was saying.

“I want to go there, too, Papa. I want to be with Mama. I want to go to the shadow world.”

The neighbors who were visiting then all sucked in their breath. Some of them made motions in the air to ward off bad luck or worse. Even Jane’s father seemed alarmed. “Nae, lad, Yeh mus’ nae ever say a thing like ‘at. Nae even breathe it. Nae even dream it. Yeh nea ever know the dark ears what may be listenin’. Yeh will be goin’ to see yer ma anon, boy, long hence, I pray, but if yeh go tae soon ye will nae be ready, so the dark ones will take yeh for theyselves, to eat yeh or worse. The dark ones alway be lookin’ for the little boys they can fool into followin’ them, but yeh must not listen to ‘em. Yeh have to work your whole life to earn yeh place there, so yeh can be in peace there.”

“When will Mama come back?”

“She’s nae comin’ back tae’ us ever, little mon. ”

John’s face started to cloud as he began to understand. “I want mama tae come back.” The tears were coming.

“Aye, I know.” The big man gathered his son into his arms. The hard man was crying too. “I know.”

Jane watched them cling to each other from across the room. She wanted to go over to them, to share their sorrow and comfort, but she did not know how. She watched as Father’s big, gnarled hands took in her brother and built a fortress to protect him. Her father looked up and his eyes met hers, and she felt that he wanted to cross the gulf as well, he wanted to give her comfort and protection, but he was just as lost as she was. When a neighbor came to the door, it was Jane that answered.

The visitors had become a procession, bringing food and words of condolence to the most recently grieving family. A display like this happened every week in the building, it seemed. Everyone pitched in, because they knew that it might be their family next. Jane often had carried the offering to the bereaved; for some reason the gift was better received when delivered by a child. Perhaps it was without the taint of obligation when it came from someone who didn’t really understand what was going on.

Jane did not take comfort in any of her father’s platitudes. She did take comfort in the knowledge that her mother was no longer suffering, but she did not believe they would be together again in some happy place some day. While she allowed that there was a remote chance her mother was in some improbable better place, she was confident that was a place she would never go. She didn’t believe, and the place she didn’t believe in was a place only for believers. So even if she was wrong she was out. She knew that there was a shadow world, she just didn’t believe the descriptions of it that she heard, since no one had ever come back from there.

Days passed, and slowly the sympathy visits dried up as new tragedies supplanted the old, and gradually life settled into a new routine. There were still some women who would call, women who had lost husbands to the lumps or to the blood cough. They would bring food and dote over the children, praising them and giving them sweets. Their own children would never come over with them.

This parade, too, slowly petered out as Jane’s father began to drink more and more.

The first time had been about a week after Jane’s mother had died. He had been sitting in his chair, quiet, brooding. Suddenly he had jumped up, startling both children. “Look after the lad,” he said to Jane. “I need tae get some air.” He didn’t come home until the middle of the next day. He had staggered in, disheveled, reeling, reeking of vomit, and had gone straight to bed. Hours later he called out “Breakfast!”

Jane did her best to make him something, but there was almost no food in the house. Her father had been angry at the thin broth she had given him. “Yeh air the goddam woman innis house now, and I expec’ yeh tae act like it. There’s nae mon will want yeh like this, sniveling and whining. Get down to shop and bring me some proper kip.”

She was relieved to get out of the house. She went down to the shop that her mother had always taken her to, and walked in as if everything was normal. She selected her bread and eggs the same way her mother had, and approached the counter. She had to stand on tiptoes to see the butcher over the counter. “A pound of bacon, please.”

“Well, bless me if it isn’t Jane! She’s been a far time since I’ve seen yeh, lass. And now yeh be grown up and doing the shopping for the family.” He paused. “And how is your lovely mother?” He asked the question casually, but Jane could see that he was very interested in the answer.

“Mama died. She had the shakes.”

The butcher’s face lingered briefly on sympathy before resting on caution. “The shakes, eh?” He shook his head and made a gesture to ward off bad luck. As if he could catch it. He recited an old proverb. “The spirits are greedy, always taking the finest ones. And how will yeh be payin’ today?”

“On the account, just like Mother did.”

“Ah, darlin’, do yeh know what thet means, account?”

“No.”

“It means that yeh’ll pay me later. Yeh already owes me quite a pile o’ money. For yer ma, I was willin’ teh wait ‘til she could pay it, but if she’s gone I’m afraid thet I can’t be lendin’ yeh any more coppers until I have the silvers yeh already owe.”

“But I don’t have any money.”

“Nae anyone has any coin, Miss Jane, but if I gave everyone free food then I would be theh one starvin’. Yeh unnerstand?”

Jane nodded solemnly, although she didn’t. She didn’t want him to explain any more, though. “I need to bring breakfast for my father,” she said.

“I’m sorry, Miss Jane. I wants to help yeh, I do. But I’ve got enough problems of me own. I can’t help yeh with yourn.”

She fought the urge to cry. She pushed that part of her back inside herself until she couldn’t feel it anymore. “But I have to bring him breakfast.”

The butcher was becoming less sympathetic. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but nae wi’out money. Yer pa is working. ‘E must have some coppers. Go and get some coin from ‘im and bring it back. Then I can give yeh ‘is bacon.”

Jane wasn’t sure why she was confident that would not work, but she couldn’t think of any other plan. She dragged her heels as she walked back home, not sure of the reception she would receive.

Her father was sitting at the table when she came in, head cradled in his hands. He wasn’t wearing any trousers, and he smelled bad. “Did yeh get me kip?” he asked.

“No, father. The man said I had to give him money.”

“Well, of course yeh hae tae give im money. ‘ow the ‘ell dae yeh expect tae buy tings wi’out money?”

“But I don’t have any money. He said to get money from you. He said we already owe him money for the account.”

“Account? Account? Weh don’t owe thet goddam shyster a goddam bean! Yeh get yer goddam arse down there and bring me me goddam breakfast!”

Jane scampered from the house and started walking back down to the shop. Listlessly she avoided the puddles of filth and worse in the street. There were few others out in the lane, and they moved like animated corpses, which some of them were close to being. She passed a man with oozing sores on his face. He stood staring directly at the weak sun, muttering unintelligibly. Most of the families on the lane knew each other, but she was not surprised that she did not recognize this man. When they had the sores they tended to drift about in the tide of traffic, finally washing up dead in some lane far from home. No one would take in one of these – a simple act of charity could wipe out an entire family. Jane passed as far from him as she possibly could. She hoped he would move on before he died. Sometimes it was a long time before anyone would come to this neighborhood to remove the corpse.

She still had no money and she knew that there was no way she was going to be able to come home without her father’s breakfast. She followed her feet, with no particular destination.

Some time later she realized the day was failing. She watched the sun sink in the west, chased by the fat, lazy, river, which rose and fell with the tides of the mysterious sea beyond. Jane had never seen the ocean, but she wondered about the vast water that was alive somehow. It breathed, its great watery lungs rising and falling, pushing the river back on itself and lifting the ships anchored there.

Jane was not supposed to go down to the docks, but she found herself there now. She was far from home. She turned and started walking quickly back the way she had come.

Without the sun, the autumn air turned cold in a hurry. Jane walked as quickly as she could, which helped keep her warm, but slowly the cold crept into her fingers and toes, stabbing her with tiny needles. Still she pressed on. Eventually the pain in her extremities was replaced with a welcome numbness. She imagined she was walking on pillows; it didn’t seem like she was touching the ground at all.

That is how they found her, floating dreamily on frozen feet, pretending her light jacket was a set of wings, flapping it and feeling it carry her away over the rooftops. It was not her father who found her, but one of the neighbors he had pressed into the search. By the time she had been delivered safely home her father was there waiting, along with some of the women who had come over to look after young John while the men went searching.

As she came through the door Jane’s father rushed forward and swept he up in his arms. “Oh, my wee one, my sweet, I thought I hed lost yeh, too. Yeh’re all thet I have left of me dear Shannon.”

Jane rested in the warm embrace of her father’s hands and felt his strength, protection, and love. She felt far away. Somewhere down below her knees sensation was returning, the promise of agony to come. Her mind felt fuzzy and detached; she was watching herself being held. It was just like watching her brother sitting in her father’s lap; somehow the love he was showing was directed at someone else. She watched as he wept and promised never to do wrong again. She watched him promise to be a good father, the way he always had before she died. She listened to him promise that he would support them all and they would never want for anything. Even from far away she knew he didn’t believe the promises himself, but he felt the need to make them anyway.

He held her in his arms while she slept, and massaged her feet and hands to restore the circulation. Neighbors came visiting again, bringing hot food and contradictory advice. Jane drifted through it all, knowing she was the center of attention for the first time in her life, and liking it, but also knowing that the situation was fleeting at best, and hating the world for that.

Eventually she recovered with all her fingers and toes, and not long after that father disappeared again. His absences got longer and more frequent until one day he didn’t come back.

Rio Blanco

The plane banked sharply as it made its way through the clouds. I was generally nervous when I wasn’t the one flying the plane, and descending into the airport, knowing there were mountains out there, and not being able to see the ground was nerve-wracking indeed. Down, down, we went, and I wondered how close we were. It seemed like we should be below sea level by now.

Suddenly we broke through the deck of the clouds and I could see the lights of a small town about 1500 feet below the belly of the plane. Although the sun would rise soon, the clouds kept the land below dark. By the layout of the town I guessed that it was Ciudad de la Santa Fe del San Domingo, or San Domingo on the map. We were almost to the airport at Rio Blanco, my destination. If anything, I noted, we were coming in high. The pilot began to drop more quickly, scrubbing off as much speed as he could on the way in. The attendants defied reason and continued to move about; had I asked, I probably could have had another tequila. I didn’t ask.

A few minutes later the last stewardess strapped herself in moments before the wheels of the plane bounced once off the runway and settled back down to stay. The engines roared as we slowed to taxi speed and pulled off onto the taxiway. As we approached the terminal, I noted that there was one other plane, smaller than ours and apparently deserted. With a lurch we rolled to a stop just as the clouds opened up and the rain started to fall with vigor. Beyond the airport the lush greenery of the rain forest bowed and waved under the buffeting of the gravid raindrops.

Ground crew members rolled the stairs up to the plane and a flight attendant opened the door. A breath of the air outside replaced the stale air around me, and I inhaled deeply, savoring the clean, damp air. A good rain can even make an airport smell good. The ground crew undertook the task of getting the tourists off the plane without getting them too wet. The efforts to escort passengers down the stairs while holding umbrellas over them was the culturally correct thing to do, but was laughably ineffective. They were escorting the passengers in stages, first getting them under the shelter of the wing of the plane, and from there another crew was escorting them to the terminal building. I declined escort down the slippery stairs, and dashed under the wing of the plane. From there I intended to jog to the terminal unprotected, and save everyone the trouble of keeping someone dry who didn’t really care that much about it.

I was in no hurry to depart that place, however. I have an affinity for machines and was distracted inspecting the engine, now quiet except for the tiny pings the metal made as it cooled off. Over the sound of the rain, I was probably imagining those sounds as well. As so it was, so it was meant to be, that it became my turn to be escorted to the terminal.

“Sir, if you will come this way,” she said politely.

I hade been vaguely aware that one of the ground personnel escorting passengers through the rain had been a smaller woman with a nice figure, but contrary to my usual nature I had not really paid her any attention. My, but I had been distracted by the air, and the airplane. Now, suddenly, those things vanished. She was beautiful. She was small, but had a nice figure. That paled in comparison with her round, brown smiling eyes and her sweet, almost-sincere smile. “I’m going wherever you’re going,” I managed, and I meant it. I realized that I had responded in Spanish.

Her smile grew a little more (white perfect teeth lined up like dominoes, red lips full) and her eyes crinkled at the edges in a way that suggested playfulness. “Well, I’m going to the terminal,” she replied in credible English. With a suggestive swish she turned and raised the umbrella over our heads. I picked up my bag and we headed towards the terminal. Her perfume added to the smell of the jungle close by, and it was perfect; a blend of the exotic and the alluring, with just a hint of the cheap. She was the goddess of Rio Blanco come down to Earth; she was all that the town promised, all that the town dreamed of. I was in love with my umbrella girl.

I tried to walk slowly, to prolong the moment, to cheat one extra breath of the perfume, to feel her hip brush mine once more as we walked under that tiny shelter, but mostly to earn one more smile. I needed something to say, anything, to get her to smile once more, to turn towards me with that swishing motion, to give me a glimpse down into her blouse just before swishing away again and looking at me over her shoulder in mock scolding for how I teased her.

That’s the way it would have happened, had I thought of the right thing to say. I did not.

As we reached the building, I touched her arm, the one not holding the umbrella, smiled at her and said, “Thank you.”

She returned the smile with one that made mine seem like a horrific grimace (but a sincere horrific grimace, I hoped), and said “You’re welcome.” Before I could ask her if she was going to be at the festival she turned, making my heart stop for a moment with the pure grace and sexual suggestion of the motion, and headed back to retrieve the next passenger. I watched her for a moment, and I hoped she knew I was watching, hoped that she liked the idea that I was watching her, but just standing there waiting for her would be too obvious, too lame.

The interior of the building was much like the perfume my umbrella girs had been wearing, filled with things you have never before seen or smelled, but somehow cheapened by the entrepreneurial spirit that is America’s primary export. The airport had been built in a different time, by people with different priorities than the airports of the States. I stood under a wide roof, next to a building whose walls served as doors and were currently wide open, letting the tropical air move through the space unhindered. People also moved about the space; there was about an even mix of travelers and those whose purpose was to separate the tourists from their money. Sprinkled here and there were police in neat uniforms, carrying serious-looking weapons in their white-gloved hands. In two hours, after the plane had finished exchanging its passengers for a new set, most of the businesses here would pack up and head back into town. I picked up my bag and moved into the flow of people.

Near the opening that I entered the shelter through, there was a folding table staffed by three middle-aged women with a full set of teeth between them. On the table were some bottles of the local rum and a stack of small paper cups. There were several cups arrayed on the table, each filled about 1/3 full with the booze, and a sign, neatly hand-lettered, which read “Free Rum. Welcome to Rio Blanco.” There was no sign that said the same thing in Spanish.

I paused to sample the local drink, testing it as if I had never had it before. It had been a long time, but the stuff still didn’t taste very good. Still, there is something to be said for supporting the local industry, especially if that industry is a distillery. At the behest of one of the women I had another sample. She didn’t realize that she had already closed the sale. I allowed her to offer me one more before I bought a bottle. I didn’t want her to think I was easy. The bottle cost three times what I could get it for in town, but I wasn’t in town. Location, location, location. It’s the key to a successful business.

I looked back towards the plane, and it seemed that all the passengers had finally been safely ferried to the terminal. I looked for my little umbrella girl, but I couldn’t see her. I convinced myself that could feel her nearby, but people can convince themselves of just about anything, and I’m no exception.