6 – 2
Is this what my keen eyes were meant to find? This small scrap of cloth, torn ragged and embroidered with some strange, unknown emblem? I follow the darkened lines with the pad of my thumb, tracing the loops and whorls as they dance above the cresting waves. Water rains from it, and from me, and the beginnings of a shiver set in as a gust of autumn's cold wind blows in from the lake. I look from it down at the water I just hauled myself out of. The silt I disturbed with my kicking feet and groping hands swirls in the lap of little waves, shades of brown spiraling as it begins a slow journey to settle on the lakebed once more.
Water falls from me like rain, splashing clean spots into the ash-coated floor. I should feel proud that I managed to find what the spirit bid me seek. Clarke and Edith stand to either side of me, heads bowed over my small, sodden treasure. I should be. It was hidden well by the ruined bulk of a fishing boat, shadowed over by the mad tangle of line, sail, and timber. Yet, all I have managed to find within me are more moon-cursed questions.
“How ever did you manage to see this?” Clarke asks. She looks up from it at me, something like admiration in her eyes. It does well to combat the chill my soaked, clinging hair and clothes are seeping into my skin.
“I suppose...” I start to answer, then trail off with a shrug. It was my own fraught emotion that bid me turn to the lake, and embarrassment that had me studying the waters below my feet. So, indirectly, “it was Edith.”
Edith too looks up from my prize. “Hm? How's that, now's?” I mean to answer, but instead bite my tongue as a full-bodied shiver runs from the crown of my head to the toes of my very bare feet. Her look of confusion shifts to one of concern, and she says, “Never minds that. Let's have ye outs in the sun a spell.”
Clarke murmurs her agreement and curls her fingers around my wrist. At first, I think the warmth that blooms from the contact to be an act of magic, but the silver-trimmed ice at her throat's hollow is dark and dormant. Edith scoops up my boots and dangles them from her hand instead of giving them to me. Another shiver rattles my teeth.
As we leave the fishery I feel the weight of eyes upon us. Most, I imagine, are curious; wondering who this girl is that jumps into the lake and why she does it. Some look at Clarke or Edith, and I can only guess as to why. There are among them a small few, whose regard falls heavily upon me. It didn't before my clothes wettened and clung, itchy, scratchy, and cold, to my body. They've neither right nor invitation to look at me, and yet they do. Anger presses my lips into a thin line as disgust flexes in the muscle of my jaw.
I pass Harlan by without a word. The old, graying donkey leans against his beast of burden in its traces and nods at me as I pass. His mouth curls in amusement at Clarke's dirty look. If there's any curiosity about what we're doing or why, he says nothing to satisfy it. It's doubtful he ever will. As we step out of the cold, reaching shadows of the fishery he barks over his shoulder, “Wastin' daylight! Step to!” His words, followed by a hacking cough, echo in the hollowed corpse of a building. It jolts the idle drudgers with their shovels and their eyes back into motion.
In the bright and warmth of Her light, I find it difficult to keep hold of my anger and disgust. I imagine them rising from me like the cold, curling in wisps to be blown away in the wind. I close my eyes and lift up my face, drinking deeply of Her gift to us. In the quiet of my heart, I give thanks. For a moment, we're unmoving. Then Edith hums and jabs my hip with her sharp, pointy elbow. An indignant noise leaves my mouth, a high and strangled sound, and my eyes fly open. I turn a narrow-eyed look on her.
“What?” she asks. Her tone is one of innocence, without a trace of guile to be found. I've a sudden impulse to give her a tight hug and not let go until she's as damp and chilly as I am. I say nothing. She knows full well what she did. After a roll of her steel-gray eyes she waves a hand towards the town square and says, “Gran's got some tables outs. We can haves us a good looks at this important thing ye had to soaks yer head t'find.”
Clarke turns away from where she was looking back into the fishery. There's fading traces of frost in those distractingly blue eyes of hers. They're gone as she says, “You can get dry and warm there as well,” Her next words carry some of that stern, scolding care she turned on Harlan. “I would hate for you to catch a chill.”
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As would I. Though there is a place, deep within me, that doesn't mind the idea, so long as it's Clarke that nurses me back to health. Especially if she were to use that tone some more. Since we are all in agreement, it's off to that table we go. The trail of water drippings I leave behind lessens with every stride. My hand still curls tightly around the little scrap of fabric. True to Edith's word, there are a small number of tables set out in the square, along with the beginnings of preparation for dinner. From the large pot, it looks to be stew again.
We sit at one of the tables and put our heads together. It becomes clear that none of us, even Clarke, have any idea where this came from or what it means. Maybe this wasn't what I was meant to find at all. Maybe the knots we're tying our minds into is for nothing. Maybe the spirit should have been clearer. A hard, sharp breath in gets my attention. Not from Clarke or Edith, who sit beside me, but from behind. It's Agnes' voice who demands, with no small alarm, “Where did ye finds that?!”
- - -
Both Edith and Clarke startle. In Edith, it's little more than a twitch in her shoulders and a flinch across her face. In Clarke, it's a high, strangled shriek that isn't funny at all and her hands flying to her mouth. “Stony hell, Gran!” Edith says, turning to face Agnes, “Ye can't just sneaks up on us like's that.” If she had more to say, it leaves her after taking in the look on her grandmother's face. “Gran?”
Hesistant now, with some growing concern. I see why, and easily.
It's not fright that presses Agnes' mouth into a thin, grim line. Not anger that ages her face, deepening the shadows beneath the steel-gray eyes she shares with her granddaughter. As she stares down at my prize, spirit-tasked find, the only word that I can think of to fit her demeanor is 'haunted'. By what or who, I know not, but she has a deep history with this emblem. That's as clear as a sun-blessed sky. “Where did ye finds that?” Agnes demands again, quieter instead of louder.
“At the fishery,” Clarke says. There's a keen edge to her study of the old dwarf, her eyes bright, curious, and suspecting. “Zira – we think it might be related to how the fire started.”
“Ye know what's this is,” Edith says, certain. Certain, worried, and now afraid. There's a tremble to Agnes' fingers as she reaches out to take up the cloth and trace her thumb over the embroidered design. To the shock of us all, the old dwarf's eyes brighten and shine with tears. None of us, not even Edith, have seen her weep.
Agnes nods. “Yes,” she says hoarsely. “I know what's this is.” We wait for more, the beginnings of some strong feeling in my heart, but she says nothing. I want an answer, one that for once does not lead to further questions. The longer I take in the memory that haunts Agnes' face, I begin to fear it as well. If this ragged scrap could shake this woman who I knew to be unshakeable, what would the full knowing of it do to me?
I need to know. Not just because a spirit of the wood bade me learn. I swallow past a dry mouth and ask, “What is it?”
Agnes' eyes flash to mine. She studies me for a long moment. There's suspicion in her look. It hurts to see. She shakes her head and it disappears. “It–” she has to clear her throat. “Ye say ye founds it in the fishery? Where?”
“In the water,” I answer. “nearly buried beneath a wreck.”
Before Agnes can mull my words over, Edith speaks. Her words are hurried. To see her grandmother frightened has frightened her in turn. I know it well. Never have I been more afraid than when I saw it on the faces of Mother or Father. She says, “Gran. What is it?!”
“Please,” Clarke adds, and there's a touch of calm to her words. A forced calm. On her part, she seems more eager for the answer than worried about Agnes' state. The worry is there, but for subservient to her magi's curiosity. “tell us. We want to know.”
“No,” Agnes says, clenching the scrap in her fist, so tightly that it trembles. “They're gone.” She declares. It's not clear whether she believes it to be true or hopes for it. “This is...a prank, is what it is. Some fool kid's not knowings what they're bringing back.”
Are they monsters, I wonder? Fiends born of shadow and moonlight? Are they cursed to forever walk the sanded shores of the lake? Do they feed on smoke and fear? “I need to know,” I say, and Agnes' eyes snap to mine. “I need to.”
I do. Whatever this is that I've found, it has a size so much larger than it's actual form. I feel caught up, pulled into its wake by the force of its arrival. She looks at me, again for a long moment, before saying, “They called's themselves 'They Who Run Before the Wind'. Terrorized the towns, they did. All's of 'em. Took every knight from Fort Tanner just t'keep's 'em in check. Had to brings up fighters from th' south to drives 'em out.”
“I've never heard of them,” Clarke confesses. Her lip is drawn between her teeth.
“Neither have I,” Edith says, and Agnes shakes her head.
“Ye have,” She corrects. “I've mentioned 'em a few times, when I was in's my cups. And Clarke, maybe they're in those books ye reads at yer school. The full title took too long to say, ye see, so we shortened it.”
“To what?” I ask.
“Windrunners.” she says. I hear its echo on the lake-blown breeze. The chill of it travels down my spine, cold where it was once cool. It curls in my belly and saps the sun's warmth from my skin.
Windrunners.