CHAPTER TWELVE
*~~~**~~~*
Jameson Wicket
*~~~**~~~*
16th of Decepter, 935 PC
----------------------------------------
When Wicket was a boy his mum would wrap him up in a blanket, cuddle him tight in her arms, and tell him a story every night. Except on the nights when she was at the pub. Which, if he was being honest, was more often than not. But on those nights when he got to hear a story, she’d always tell him the tale of Ragathorn Meroughty, a man with too many friends to count despite being known for his beautiful outside and his hideous inside. At least that’s until he upset a hag who’d wandered into town disguised as a dumpling of a woman with burns all over her body. When Ragathorn ridiculed the woman for her appearance, the hag cursed him to look as ugly as she did on the outside but gave him the kindest, gentlest soul in the empire on the inside. He spent the rest of his life alone.
Maybe his mum was trying to warn him. Maybe she knew of the horrible fate he would suffer one day. Maybe she knew the arrogant thoughts that danced around in the back of her gorgeous little boy’s head and wanted him to change before it was too late. Whatever the case may be, he couldn’t help but see the similarities between Ragathorn and himself, especially after Iris Everton had wandered into Locke and ruined his life. She’d taken a man who knew charisma inside and out and turned him into a shell of himself. A simple hello used to turn into lifelong friendships. Now, a hello was anything but simple. Where gorgeous wavy hair and a body to be jealous of had once made women weak in their knees, a fat stomach and thinning hair now disgusted nearly anyone who laid eyes on him. Yes, his life had become damn near horrible and if he had to reckon, he deserved every bit of it.
“Wick, pay attention,” Elgar said, slapping his shoulder.
Whiskey had gotten dangerously close to the edge of the trail. He veered the one-eyed stallion back to safety and patted his neck. “Don’t wanna go falling off a cliff, ol’boy.”
The heat of Elgar’s glare warmed the back of Jameson’s neck. Fuck him. He was lucky to be on a horse at all after losing his own in the ambush. Course, the ambush was Wicket’s fault but that wasn’t the point. See, he’d drifted off while keeping a lookout and left the fire burning just strong enough to let the Lotus find them. Not like he’d meant to do it, all the wine and rum had made him sleepy, but if there was a man in the empire that cared less for your excuses than Alaric Sampson, Wicket sure hadn’t found him. It was a damn lucky thing nobody died, not even the old prune Diedro was so bloody worried about. Miracle there. She’d looked like a duck sitting on a pond in the middle of a lightning storm. He’d never speak a word of it, but she smelled like she’d pissed her pants when he’d checked on her afterward. Still did. The fact that she was sitting in Alaric’s saddle made him chuckle.
“When are you getting a new mount? Elgar asked. “One that’s not going to get you killed.”
Wicket laughed. “I know he ain’t a prize-winner but he’s a good horse. Just needs a little help from time to time. Reckon it’s the least I can do since I sit on his back and ride him all over this wretched empire.” And that’s exactly what he’d done, rode the poor stallion all the way across the Merusk Plains that basically made up the whole bottom third of Resk and Resk wasn’t a tiny realm. Last thing Wicket wanted to do was force Whiskey to walk up the dirt trail that wound around the rocks to The Hawk’s Nest Inn on top but there wasn’t a chance in the three hells Elgar was going to walk up the monster of a hill.
Elgar went back to smoking and grumbling about something only he cared about. Reckon that fella could find a way to complain while gettin’ his cock sucked. That made Wicket laugh on the inside but the laughs didn’t last long. His back hurt too much and his belly was too empty. He’d be mighty glad when this whole thing was over. He needed some rest before the big adventure and he hadn’t seen Lily in a couple weeks now. Hadn’t seen her big, beautiful eyes, hadn’t kissed her soft lips. Just the thought of her got things woken up in his pants. He’d almost fallen off his stool when she’d walked into the pub at the Black Boar Inn. Long, black hair, green eyes, tan skin. She looked so much like Iris he’d put his hand on his dagger to be safe. Lily was too sweet to be Iris though. Lily was a cake made of nothing but sugar, Iris was a mud pie.
“That damn boy better be worth all this,” Elgar said.
Maddy stirred up all kinds of emotions in Wicket. “Not a bad kid. Quiet enough. Reckon I haven’t heard him say a word since we took him from his mum.” Lords, those last words sounded bad in his head.
“I bet Diedro sliced her up real good. He’s a menace with that dagger of his.” It wasn’t like Elgar was getting turned on by the woman’s death, but he did sound awfully strange. Reminded Wicket of himself when he’d think about the torture racks he’d seen in a dungeon once. He didn’t want to be the one on the racks, but he wondered what they looked like in action.
“Ain’t no reason why he did that,” Wicket said.
“Course there is… my brother thinks everyone in the empire is out to get him.” Suppose there was some truth in that. There’d be a whole lot of truth if they were talking about Wicket. Or maybe that’s just how he felt inside.
“There ain’t a good reason then,” Wicket said. The whole thing left a bad taste in his mouth but who was he to tell Alaric otherwise? Righteous words don’t mean much coming out of a scoundrel’s mouth.
Elgar just scoffed. He wasn’t the kind of man to let a conversation go too long. Bit of an ass, really. He hadn’t even thanked Therrin for pulling him from the jaws of death the night before. Just kicked the branches of the tree that had fallen on him and walked away.
Truth be told, it surprised Wicket that the younger Sampson was so friendly with him. If it could be called that. He figured most of it had to do with pissing off Alaric. That was the motivation for most of Elgar’s choices. It gave Wicket stitches most of the time but lords be damned, every once in a while the two of them could get real mean. Scary mean. First time he saw them go round and round he thought they were two hounds trained to fight to the death. Guess they were, but not with each other. All they ever did with each other was bark real loud and fight over who’d marked what territory.
When they got like that Wicket found himself slipping behind closed doors or wandering off into the night for a bit. No sense getting caught up in one of Alaric’s angry outbursts. He’d seen more than a few men die that way. He always came back though. A fact he didn’t like all too much but couldn’t do anything about. He had a knack for that, getting himself caught up in bad situations with people he couldn’t stand up to. Out of the pot and into the frying pan as his mum used to say. Wise woman, she was. Dead as dead can be now though. Iris made sure of that.
*~~~**~~~*
There was a brisk breeze at the top of the hill, one to make your eyes water. He wiped them clear and looked at the inn. All he could call it was square. Or was it the other one that was a lot like a square? That one probably. Two stories tall and not an interesting feature anywhere to be found. The two short chimneys on top were twins, real ones, not like Therrin and his odd brother. He frowned when neither was puffing smoke. He’d been hoping to warm his hands by the fire.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Ya ever been here?” he asked Elgar. They were the only ones outside now. Everyone else was always in such a hurry, moving too fast to see the world around them. He’d been like that once upon a time. Then he realized the part of life worth living was seeing what The Creator had given them.
Elgar handed him his smoke stick and climbed off Whiskey. “We’ve been here together, Wick. You were just too drunk to remember.”
“Oh.” The sun was setting in the west, between two pointy mountains. It glowed a burned orange color like butternut squash. Which he only knew the name of because Iris had eaten it damn near every day each autumn. Made him eat it too which wasn’t so bad because it turned out he liked it. “Ya don’t say. Reckon I’d remember that sunset.”
“It’s true,” Elgar said, offering no further explanation. He was like that – stingy with words. Except when he was chewing someone. Words came out like water over a fall when he got a stick in his ass.
They finished the smoke stick and took in the beauty around them. The Ickerly Mountains to the north were dark shades of gray and black in the distance and as tall as the clouds that slept above them. The Merusk Plains weren’t so beautiful this time of year, but he’d seen them in the summer too and he knew something gorgeous was hiding in the ground. His favorite were the trees to the west. Something about looking at the tops of trees from up high made him happy. There weren’t many things he could think of that were as beautiful as this entire picture. He decided he’d try to stay sober enough to remember it this time.
The only eyesore anywhere to be found was the well-known flag of the Lotus Army that hung over the front door of the inn. An all-too familiar purple lotus laid in the middle of a field of green. Hardly an intimidating image but the message it sent had a way of putting the jitters in his knees. “Can’t believe your brother lets that thing hang there,” he said as he led Whiskey toward the tie stall.
“Has to. You know that,” Elgar said, making his way toward the door but moving slow enough for Wicket to catch up.
The Lotus Army had innkeepers on their payroll all over the empire. Any of them that got a whiff of magic in someone could send a falcon out and a Cloudcruiser would show up with too many Lotus to count. Not the quickest process but he’d heard stories of it working a few times. Alaric paid twice as much as the going rate to claim a handful of inns as safehouses but he left the flags up to avoid suspicion.
He spotted a stone bench sitting near the hillside after he’d given Whiskey’s neck a quick rubdown, thanking him for doing twice as much work as usual. “Ay, go ahead. I’ll meet ya in the pub later.” Elgar threw a hand at him dismissively and walked away.
The stone slab offered even less comfort than the saddle. He fidgeted around until he finally gave up and shoved his hand into his pocket. That’s why he was out here anyway, not for a comfortable seat. A small, golden locket lay in his palm and the world around him was quiet and lonely enough to risk opening it so he slid his overgrown thumbnail between the two sides of the locket and pried it open, its latch having broken off before his mother had ever given it to him. Reckon Iris would have never let my fingernails get this long.
A folded piece of parchment so worn it didn’t even try to unfold on its own whispered hello weakly. The creases looked like they only had a few uses left as he opened up the note. Not a note, really. More of a reminder. Seven of them to be exact. Seven short black lines. One for each life he’d ruined while with Iris. The lines were all he could do really, putting letters in the right order wasn’t his greatest skill, far from it, and he’d be damned if he’d disrespect the victims anymore. He didn’t need the names written down to remember them anyway.
The memories started coming, bringing with them a wave of emotions. Should have seen it coming. A sadness grew in his chest as he gave each line life but it still felt better than when he’d taken their life from them years before. Poor Ceralline, wasn’t doin’ nothin’ more than following the rules. He shook his head. Martin. Handed him right to her. Alexander Petrovi. Didn’t even hesitate to go round him up. The last line practically screamed at him, just as Isaiah had when he’d begged Jameson to help him escape. That had been the tipping point; why he’d run from Iris, escaped. I should be the one lookin’ up at dirt. Not them. There’s a special place in the three hells for people like me.
The backdoor of the inn shut loudly, making his eyes snap open and his back straighten up. The footsteps wandered toward him carelessly enough that he knew it wasn’t Alaric which helped him relax but made sure to put the parchment back in its golden tomb anyway. He squeezed it in his fist as Therrin sat down beside him with a friendly greeting. From what he’d seen, Therrin was what Wicket would have turned out to be if he hadn’t been born with a mischievous side that grew into a devilish one – good personality, natural charm, easy to be around. Dump some black ink in his hair and it’d be like looking into the past. A better one than the one he remembered.
“Want some bread?” Therrin asked, holding out a tasty-looking piece of black rye. It was in Wicket’s hand before Therrin finished his question.
“Snuck away from Alaric, ay?” he said with his mouth full. Iris never quite broke that habit for him.
Therrin let out a long breath. “Aye. Good man, but he makes me uncomfortable sometimes. Always feels like he’s thinking about something that’s going to make him snap.”
“Ya ain’t the first to say it.”
They stared at the sunset in silence for a bit. Everything about the healer said something was weighing on him. Funny how the body could make more sense than words sometimes. Most of the time in Wicket’s case. That’s why he stuck to lending an ear more than giving advice but sometimes you couldn’t lend the ear unless you got the other person rolling. “Somethin’ wrong?”
The healer rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m worried about Maddy. I made a promise to his mum. I’d hate to break it.” The air felt suffocating around Wicket. Poor sap don’t know she’s dead. “Alaric’s going to send him to Tevron and he’s not coming back. I can feel it.” Hard to argue when you agree with what you’re hearing, so, Wicket just sat there letting the boy work through his own thoughts. “He’ll have Garth with him though, won’t he? And Shade. Can’t think of too many better people to send him off with.” He sighed. “My mum always told me I have too big of a heart. Made me cry the first time she said it. Thought it didn’t fit in my chest.” He scoffed quietly. “I remember standing in her doorway that night. Had tears all over my cheeks while I just stood there waiting. I used to do that, stand in the doorway of her room and hope she could feel my presence. That way I didn’t wake up my dad. She did too. Every time.”
“Mums,” Wicket said, watching a flock of birds fly by.
“Aye. Mums. Don’t know how much you really love them until they’re gone.” Wicket grunted in agreement. “Can I ask you something?”
“Don’t plan on stoppin’ ya.”
“How does Alaric’s magic work? It doesn’t seem to make any sense. Mum always said The Creator built the world with magic and what each Purist got was just a little piece of a bigger project. But I don’t know what can hold a man so tight he can’t move.”
“I know something that can do that.”
Therrin stretched his legs out and crossed his ankles. “What’s that?”
“Ya know that feeling ya get in your legs after a long day of work? Like they’re seizin’ up on ya.”
“Aye. Mum used to call ‘em knots.”
“Exactly. Feels like one of the three devils is reaching right up through the earth and tying knots in your legs, don’t it?” Therrin nodded. “Well, Alaric is like one big knot. Takes your whole body from ya and don’t give it back until he’s good and ready. If at all. At least that’s how it’s felt every time he’s grabbed me. Ain’t a damn thing ya can do about it either.”
“He’s used his magic on you?”
Wicket nodded. “Can’t think of too many things that feel worse.” He squeezed the locket. There’s at least seven of ‘em though.
Therrin thought about it then said, “He scares me.”
“Scares me too. But don’t worry. You’re useful to him. He’d never hurt ya.”
“Really?”
Wicket stared at the sunset, not wishing to lie to the boy, but knowing the real answer might scare him half to death.