Dark Magic (8 page)

The old woman stashed her purse up there. All the silver she took from the people who wandered into her camp day and night buying her salves and cures. They gave her money and the old woman was anything but trusting. She didn’t know Mari as she knew herself. She was a good young lady, brought up honestly and properly, despite her current state of being. She was no thief.

Satisfied that she had answered the riddle, she stayed content for two full days. They were long days, full of sweeping and cooking. When people brought chickens as payment, she plucked and dressed the birds. When the old woman worked on a potion that took a particularly long time to brew, she was left to stir the pot for hours.

It was on the third day that she went to find the crone and saw her pulling upon a rope that ran up a tree. She paused, not calling out. The woman was a bit hard of hearing, and with only one dim eye would never notice that she was being watched. So, watch she did.

The woman pulled a leather sack down from the trees where it was cleverly hidden. She dropped silver into it, and then hauled upon the rope again, sending the sack back up to hide in the thick needles of a sugar pine tree. Mari stepped quickly around the hut out of sight as she finished the task. She did not want to be seen.

She chewed at her lip. Her hand went to her swelling belly and sat there. The baby kicked her hand, almost as if it knew precisely where its mother’s hand rested. Perhaps it did.

If the old woman kept her silver in a tree, what then, was up the chimney?

Mari waited until the morning of the third day to investigate. With habits now familiar, the crone climbed out of bed and awakened Mari with a hard buffet.

“Lazy girl,” she said, just as she did at dawn every morning. Then she sipped some broth and headed out into the forest to do her gathering of bark and mosses.

At first, Mari played at sweeping up. With each stroke, her feet and her broom led her ever nearer the chimney.

She became nervous and left the hut entirely. She did not feed the fire, however, and the old woman had left without stoking it either.

Mari worked outside for a time, before venturing back into the hut. The fire had burned down to embers. She felt a guilty squeeze of conscience. She had promised to keep up the flames, and up until this very moment, she always had. She eyed the dry stack of kindling near the stove. It would be the simplest thing to toss in a few sticks, and forget about it. The crone would return not long after and another day would be done.

She knelt before the stove and used a stick to open the hot iron door. Inside the embers glowed their deepest red. A color so deep, that was almost black.

She had the kindling in her hand, but she didn’t add it to the fire. Instead, she put her face close to the hot stove and craned her neck. She saw nothing up there but blackness at first, years of accumulated soot.

Then, she thought to make something out. Something that dangled down from the chimney. Something like a collection of thin sticks. The sticks were gray-white and between them were flakes of black soot. She knew what they were then, they were bones. What she was looking at, she realized all in a rush, was the dangling foot of a skeleton. A skeleton had been shoved up that chimney, or had fallen down it from above.

The worst realization was that the skeleton was very small. It had to be one of the Wee Folk, or a child’s foot. While she stared at it and the fire cooled underneath the foot, she saw the dangling foot bones
waggle
.

“I’ll give you credit girl, none have lasted three days ‘ere this,” said the crone from behind her.

Gasping, Mari scrambled to her feet and nearly toppled onto the stove, which was still boiling hot.

The crone gazed at her with one shining eye. “What? Surprised? Did you think I would not know what goes on in my own house?”

“But what is it? Whose bones are they?”

The crone stuffed the smallest, driest wood into the stove and slammed the door shut. Mari, despite her state, noticed that the woman used no gloves or implements, she laid her bare hands on the burning iron door. She must have palms like leather, Mari thought. The stove brightened and yellow flames flared up almost immediately, consuming the kindling.

“Fool of a girl. I give you one thing to do, and you see fit to ignore me. You deserve no answer.”

“No child’s burnt foot should awaken like that. Is it one of the Wee Folk?” asked Mari, her voice hushed. She looked at the stove in dread and watched the chimney for any tremor or cry. She heard nothing but crackling and a quiet hiss.

“Idiot!” shouted the crone and cuffed the back of Mari’s head, “it’s a troll, of course. Don’t any of the young know what creeps in their very backyards?”

“But, how did a troll come to be in your chimney?”

“Because it was trying to climb out of the stove and got stuck up there. Use your imagination, girl.”

“I thought trolls were larger.”

“Nay, not when they are just born.”

Mari turned horrified eyes upon the crone. “You mean you—?”

“Yes, naturally. And if that thing in your gut is a troll, as I suspect it might be, we’ll have to do the same with it.”

Mari was speechless. She put her hands upon her belly protectively.

“You have to have the flames very hot for trolls,” explained the crone matter-of-factly. She added more sticks to the stove as she spoke. “And you have to keep the fire burning. Or else their flesh will surely grow back, you see.”

Chapter Eight

Gronig

In the morning, they returned to the noisome grove and the circle of black mushrooms. The foul growths had been burned by Ambros’ wrath and hacked to poisonous slices. They produced a strange, burnt-meat smell which tickled the nostrils and irritated the eyes.

“This is a foul place,” said Tomkin, tutting at the pile of stone corpses and charred fleshy fungus. “What you have wrought here will not soon be forgotten by these creatures of the dark.”

“I hope not,” said Brand, “they had best never forget and accost good folk along this path again.”

“I hear they have excellent ale,” said Tomkin, “did you taste it?”

Brand shot him a dark look. Was the creature mocking him in such a grim place, in the very face of the destruction of which he was capable? He thought, looking at Tomkin smirk and glittering eyes, that the manling did mean his statement as a joke. The Wee Folk did not, he reminded himself, seem to be able to feel the pain of another. Only their own discomforts, which they tended to magnify and expound upon, concerned them.

Brand took a deep breath and snorted. “No, I did not. To have tasted it, I would have been lost, am I right?”

Tomkin nodded. “Most likely. Even you might not have been able to extricate yourself from them if had taken their ale. It truly is rumored to be the best, however. Even the Kindred grudgingly acknowledge its legendary qualities.”

Telyn came into the clearing behind them. She sat upon the roan horse which had refused all other riders, save for Tomkin’s tiny weight. Her knee was wrapped in linens and she sat on the horse’s neck, as most of the space on the horse’s back was occupied by their supplies.

“How is your leg?” Brand asked her.

“It will be fine in a day or two. What of the boy?” she asked. Her voice sounded haunted, and Brand found he didn’t like this new quality. He wished he had brought Corbin instead. Of course, he knew she wouldn’t have allowed him to leave her behind. She would have trailed them if nothing else, shadowing them in the woods like a ghost.

“We must bury him,” said Brand, “but not here in this foul spot. Let’s take him closer to the road and build a cairn. Let it mark forever this place as a warning to our kind and theirs.”

“What of the gnomes?” asked Tomkin.

Brand looked at him, and saw he was serious. He glanced back at their stone bodies, piled like so many broken statues. There were so many he could hardly consider burying them all, and besides it wasn’t like they would rot in the sun. Looking upon them, in fact, gave him a feeling of anger, which smoldered still. He had grown steadily more tired of various strange folk that thought they could do as they pleased with the River Folk.

“Excellent suggestion,” he told Tomkin, who looked baffled. Brand explained, and both Tomkin and Telyn were alarmed by his idea.

“This wasn’t what I meant at all!” said Tomkin.

But Brand wasn’t listening. While the others watched open-mouthed, he set about his work, grunting and straining. He dragged and rolled parts of the rocky bodies, mostly heads and arms and severed fists, toward the roadway. He buried the young boy there, on the side of the road. And then, he piled up the stone body parts of the gnomes atop the boy’s grave.

“A fine cairn in the middle of a forest. No scavengers will be getting at the boy easily now. Let the gnomes serve him in death as they failed him in life,” said Brand, smiling at his grim handiwork.

Suddenly, the whole thing struck Tomkin as funny. He laughed long and loud. “A heart of brass thou hast grown in thy chest, boy!”

Telyn, for her part, was not amused. She urged them to hurry from the place. They did as she asked and made good time along the path. As they walked, it seemed the path had widened. The trees no longer encroached as closely, and they soon traveled what any man would name a real road. Here and there, cobblestones could be seen, sprouting from the black earth like fresh molars under their feet.

Brand wondered if their slaying of the gnomes had frightened back the noisome Deepwood, or if the road was simply better kept up as they neared the lands of the Kindred. He could not be sure of the answer, but he was certain of the effect. Soon, even the branches above loosened their weave and plain sky could be seen overhead.

When they finally reached the foot of the Black Mountains, of which Snowdon was the tallest peak, they found a watchtower awaiting them. It was evening when they arrived and the watchtower was built of stone, not rickety stilts and lashed-together saplings.

Inside, several Kindred manned loopholes and pointed crossbows at them. They were ordered to stop and be identified as soon as they emerged from the depths of the forest.

Telyn clucked at the roan, which halted as if born with a saddle upon his back. Brand still felt amazed at how well the mean beast tolerated her. He did not stop, however, but took another ten paces forward before standing tall and facing the Kindred. He sensed their nervousness. The axe on his back twitched, but he ignored it. Something of its excitement showed in his face, however, and he greeted the Kindred with upraised arms and a shout.

“Kindred! I’m Brand, Champion of the River Folk. Know that we come to your lands to aid your people.”

The commander of the watch poked his head up fully over the highest square tooth-like merlon of the tower. He gazed down sternly at Brand.

“To aid us?” she harumphed, “what aid do the River Folk offer?”

“We come at the call of Gudrin of the Talespinners,” said Brand. He thought of explaining further, but decided against it. He did not know what kind of politics were in play here with these folk. If they were governed by a body that was anything like the Riverton council, not everyone was in agreement with any decision made. The less said, the better.

“Tell me more of your business.”

“Our business is our own. Do you refuse us entry?”

There was a half-minute of silence.

“No. We do not refuse entry. You are welcome here, Brand of the River Folk. You may pass.”

So they entered the land of the Kindred, and Brand’s heart was gladdened. He had never visited the lands of any other civilized folk. He had seen much of the wilderness, and of course he knew every corner of the Haven. But this was something different. As soon as they entered their land, even as he passed the border itself, everything
felt
different.

The buildings were more squat and thick in design. They were designed for a people of different dimensions than someone like Brand. The road was also narrower, but better kept. Each cobble had been fitted into place like a vast mosaic and none were cracked or missing.

Immediately beyond the watchtower stretched a few miles of snow-covered hills. Shepherds and sheep were plentiful here, along with fine fields that in summer would be bursting with crops of barley and hops. Breweries and mills dotted the landscape as well. Brand smiled at these all-too-common choices of Kindred cultivation. They were a popular combination that together provided their favorite meals of mutton and ale.

They came soon after to the frontier town known as Gronig, which stood at the very foot of the Black Mountains. Rising up right behind the town were the sharp stone walls of the mountains, into which numerous mines had been driven. Gronig was the equivalent of the town known as Hamlet at his people’s end of the road on the far eastern side of the Deepwood.

The town was small, but bustling. Everywhere was a sense of energy, of industry. The Kindred were anything but lazy. Those that were not chopping wood or hauling stone were marching off somewhere in long chanting lines. They pushed ore carts down directly from the mines in the Black Mountains that loomed over the town. The ore carts rode on tracks, an idea Brand had never witnessed before. One Kindred, having good leverage and arms like iron, could push a cart full of ore along these tracks alone. These tracks ended their runs at the smoke-belching smelting factories that encircled the settlement.

Indeed, Gronig was quite unlike Hamlet. The Kindred, he saw, did not just build structures out of stone. They built each building out of heavy slabs of granite. Every building in sight consisted primarily of these stone slabs, sometimes showing chunks of wood as a secondary material. This was the opposite of River Folk designs, which were generally built mainly of wood, sometimes using bricks or stone as a foundation.

And the stone used was itself not comparable. Instead of mortaring together stacks of sun-baked bricks, each not much larger than a man’s hand, the Kindred used
slabs
of stone. These slabs, tilted up to stand on end as walls, were single sheets of cut granite, five feet tall or more and as long at twenty feet. The stone was thick, always thick. Each slab stood independently, hooked together with mortar and spikes of iron as thick as his thumb. He suspected that even if the slabs had not been connected, they would have stood, free-standing. Just toppling a free-standing slab might have been beyond the strength of a normal man. Brand shook his head, taking it all in. They must use teams of Kindred and animals to drag these slabs down from the mountains and place them carefully. The few wooden parts consisted of oaken doors and window casements that sat in chiseled holes. The roofs as well, were usually thatch or shingles. But for the most part, the Kindred built things with thick stone.

They decided to stop at the only Inn Gronig boasted, called the
Shepherd’s Rest
. Night was soon to fall over the land, and they were all very glad to just to be out of the Deepwood before that happened. Heaving heavy sighs, they quartered the roan in the stables and rented a room. The first thing they did was head to a Kindred physician, who were known for their craft. Their bandages were rewrapped and fresh poultices of spice and mustard were applied. They headed back to the Inn with spirits lifted. After washing the dust from their faces and hair they headed down to the common room, hoping for some of the best beer they’d tasted in months.

They were not disappointed. Not even bothering to ask, the Kindred serving wench brought them each a tall wooden mug of brown ale. The mugs, being made of polished stone, were very heavy indeed. Tomkin wasn’t able to lift his at all, so stuck his face down into it. Unable to reach the bottom, he requested a bowl. This was also made of stone, but allowed him to finish his beverage in comfort. Drinking deeply, they all quickly cleared the dust from their throats.

While they drank ale, they noticed a large evergreen that stood in the midst of the common room. It was living and planted in a circular planter built apparently for the specific purpose.

“The Kindred always like to have a bit of greenery in the center of their homes and Inns,” explained Tomkin with a belch. “Cheers up their stony dwellings which rarely sport decorations, I suppose. Strange folk, but quick with good ale.”

By the time the glow of the ale had set in, a great platter of food had arrived. They had not been asked to make an order, as in Kindred lands apparently, choices and menus were unnecessary. Glistening mutton chops, steaming and stacked higher than was reasonable, topped a bed of brown rice and huge mushrooms. They dug in and soon their moods were uplifted.

Tomkin grew festive. He hopped from one stone table to the next, insisting upon singing songs to everyone present. The Kindred, when serenaded, at first looked stern and annoyed, but after hearing his limericks they set to chuckling. After a time, they were roaring in laughter. Brand looked on, smiling for the first time since he’d buried little Ari Sacken in the Deepwood.

Th
ere was an old Kindred of the isles

Who suffered
deeply from piles

He couldn’t sit down

Without a deep frown

So he had to row standing for
miles

Tomkin sang his limericks perfectly. While he did so, he performed a dance and walked on his hands. The Kindred loved him. They pounded the tables and let fly with gouts of beer from their beards.

When they had finally had enough carousing and retreated to their room, everyone was ready for sleep. Brand found his feet hung over the end of the bed, but such was his state of mind and body that he didn’t care. He slipped into a deep sleep almost immediately.

In the morning he found he had the axe, still in its pack, wrapped up in his arms like a babe. He roused himself and set it aside, eyeing it blearily. He could not recall having taken it to bed with him.

After they had bathed and dressed they headed down to the common room again in search of breakfast. Brand for one was glad not to see more mutton. They were served omelets stuffed with mushrooms and meat. Brand chewed and then smiled. He thought to taste a hint of goat.

For the first time in perhaps weeks, Brand sighed contently. He felt gratitude toward the Kindred. Here were a folk he felt comfortable with. They did not consider his manners gruff and rude. They were not concerned with his doings and moods. They were friendly, but not overly nosy. He felt they understood adventure and risk better than his own folk did, as his people had grown unaccustomed to such things and worried overly much.

Even as he was thinking these thoughts, he noted a figure, taller than all the rest in the room save for Brand himself. The man sat in the darkest corner of the common room. He had his arms crossed and his hood pulled low. Brand could not see it, but he suspected the man wore a heavy frown.