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That evening, after a day of leisure and doing nearly naught, they all lay by the fire. Val was on Erlan’s bedroll while he leaned back on a set of blankets with his head propped by his pack. They’d eaten plenty and drank their fill of water - a small creek running through the plain nearby. They would have missed it were it not for the green grass running along its edge. The red clay soil did not allow it to absorb into the ground, so it traveled south after the summer rains.
It seemed to Val that the brothers were no longer planning on leaving her behind. This gave her a bit of bravery to begin asking questions. It had been so long since she got to talk to anyone - the Hag and her lunacy aside.
“What are all those things strapped to your pack?” she asked them, not directing it at either one in particular.
“Sleds,” Marat answered.
“Trophies,” Erlan said.
“Trophies of what?” she studied the strange things that decorated the leather bags, cords and straps fastened with steel buckles around them.
“The Deep Wood. Many treasures hide there.” Erlan looked at where her eyes were fixated. “We hunt. It is what we do.”
“Those do not look like animals…” she said, looking on with interest at the jar full of sharp yellowed teeth.
“They aren’t,” Erlan confirmed. “They are Nothing-touched.”
“Ingredients. For medicines and various concoctions.” Marat said, annoyed at how much his brother talked.
“Medicine!” Val perked up. All the books she read that belonged to her father were returning to her now. “I know of medicines!”
“She knows of medicines!” Marat laughed. “Why, the girl from the countryside that can not only read but practices as an apothecary. What have we stumbled across, brother?”
“My father was a doctor…” she admitted quietly, slightly shamed by his tone. “He taught me to read and gave me books.”
Marat’s eyes narrowed slightly; there was more to this girl than he had thought, and something did not sit so right with that.
“Perhaps,” Erlan said, “You are also practiced in the ways of alchemy.”
“I don’t know what that is…”
The conversation lasted into the night. The next day, they packed up again and went on their way.
Marat had gone ahead to scout. In plains like these, you could never be sure how far one could see, and if you had seen them, they would have seen you already.
Erlan and Val walked behind.
“What did you trade back at the hut? Why did you trade with her?” She asked although any mention of the Hag had sent an unpleasant feeling through her body that ended in her gut.
“Trinkets. Valuable trinkets.” Erlan said, mentally cataloging what they traded as neither brother had the chance yet.
Val thought over his answer.
“I saw you give her gems for a flute.” She said.
“A flute which compels all who hear it to follow its song, no matter how long or far it goes.” He said. “The crone only holds very special things. Things that men rarely come upon, if at all.”
“And the feather?”
“A phoenix feather. A firestarter. If it touches anything flammable, it will burn - should you command it.” He explained. “It is not very convenient to have in your pack, though.”
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She laughed, and it granted him a slight smile of his own.
“What is a phoenix?” Val asked.
“A bird, very large. They burned as an inferno, their light never going out.”
“Burned?”
“They’re dead now.” Marat appeared as if out of nowhere. Not even Erlan had noticed his brother coming up on them. “No one. Not anywhere nearby. Hills to the right, beyond them, is the main road - half a day ahead, if that. We’ll stop for the night before going into the open. We do not know how long the forest claimed us or what in the world had shifted in that time. The powers that clash in these lands very well could have changed.”
Marat had noted that his brother, a tracker the likes of which were not often seen, had slacked and did not see him return. It seems he was preoccupied.
The darkness in Marat’s mind grew.
They stopped early that day; the sun had not yet set. They found an alcove in the hills that stood above the main road. It sheltered the fire from being seen and would provide cover from anyone coming by.
The three sat in the camp, the conversation far more sparse than before. Erlan had picked up on his brother’s discontent and, trusting it was fairly judged, had remained silent. He’d gone to sleep first, away from the fire. Marat took the first watch, and Val went to sleep in a corner of her own.
But the second she closed her eyes, she appeared in the Glade again, the Hag standing over her and muttering nonsense.
“Your bones I’ll grind, Little Bird, fill the skull with wine, I will, I will…”
She sat up from her blankets, hugging her knees. She must have only dreamt briefly because the sun had only recently set. The skies still held a thin line of red and yellow that blended into the darkness of the night beyond. She tried to turn in her blankets and go back to sleep, but sleep would not come.
Val got up and quietly approached the man sitting at the alcove's edge. She sensed that Marat did not particularly like her, but she did not care for him either, as he had been cruel in his jokes.
“May I?”
He nodded without looking over. She sat down, and it was quiet for a while.
“I’ve told you where I’m from, and now it’s your turn.” She finally broke the silence.
“Far away. ” He answered, his eyes still forward and away from her.
“Do you have family there?” She continued.
“No.”
“A home?”
“No.”
She stopped talking. He had no interest in speaking with her. But Val was not one to give up easily, especially when someone had made it so abundantly clear that she was a great annoyance.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“You’ve asked many already; it seems you will again.” He said.
She paused. He made it difficult and refused to speak with her as an equal.
“Why did the Hag call me a ‘Golden Goose’?”
It seemed that was the right question because his body tensed and then relaxed. There was something like victory in that. A hunter that had caught her prey.
“You come from a very remote land, girl.” He said, “If you do not know why she had called you that.”
Marat seemed to pause as if debating whether he even wished to tell her.
“In the beginning, in the Great Encounter,” He began, and his eyes had traveled to the sky, “what we call the All-Father had defeated the Nothing and created all that is. But in their final battle, they’d struck each other with such force that both had shattered. The All-Father, broken into a million pieces, fell to the earth below.”
She listened silently, not sure how she had felt. The look on his face was different - this was something that he cared deeply, deeply about.
“The Nothing fell and left traces in the mountains and forests. Those of notable size hit the earth and created tears between the Nothing and the Something. The Deep Wood is one of such places. There are three in all.” He went on.
This subject had changed his tone as if he was not speaking to her. To him, this had been holy.
“The All-Father shattered and fell to the earth as well. But in the pieces of him - suspended between space and time, rose golden suns. To preserve against the Nothing and the parasites it had brought with it, the suns had hidden in the wombs of mortals, remaining broken and scattered throughout time.” His eyes fell on her. “These mothers, keeping inside them the potential to bear gods, were named the Golden.”
“Why does she think I am one of those, ‘the Golden’?” She asked, a strange mood hanging in the air. While they had talked, the sun had fallen, and only stars remained.
“A Hag is of the Nothing. It’s Daughter. One of Three Sisters. Inside her are a thousand whispers of the Nothing. The Nothing yearns to find the All-Father. It's drawn to it. It is said she can taste the blood of the gods inside a mortal woman…” he paused, omitting that the Hag could tell by consuming the moon’s blood. Even for him, the act was too repugnant to say out loud. “The Hag is crazed and full of tricks, but should she be right - to leave you in her hands would be disastrous, to say the least.”
“So… what happens then?”
“You give birth to a god. You will name him, and he will be that name.” He said.
They sat silently for a long time, although not everything he said made sense to Val.
“Thank you.” She said finally, “Thank you for telling me.”
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