“Oh! Ayo! Who’re you?” a large man demanded, his voice booming at Charlot’s side. He had a big gut and a short sword on a scabbard at his waist, and he hastened to stand before Charlot, blocking his way. The man was close enough now for Charlot to make out his features, and he was displeased to find a familial resemblance between the brute accosting him and the bowman who’d shot him this morning.
For a moment, Charlot considered just burning him down where he stood, but he was weary after the long walk. Charlot held up a palm of peace, and then combed his fingers through his beard, pondering what to do about this complication. Why was everyone so set on confronting him today? When had the Arc turned so combative?
Fraughten was large enough to support a sheriff apparently, or else this dumpy lout had simply taken it upon himself to accost travelers. Charlot had barely walked into the little square at the base of the bluff before the man had bothered him.
He’d been pleasantly surprised at how clean and well-kept the village was. Someone had the foresight to pave the square in stone, so the whole thing wasn’t churned into a mud pit. The cottages were unusually well-maintained, and some were even painted. There were woven wreaths of dried flowers and nettles over doors for luck. A few homes had even planted flowers along their walls. How bitter the thought that it would all have to be destroyed.
“I am Adon the Wanderer,” Charlot lied, giving the name of his old rival. He was in the habit of using Adon’s name whenever he thought he might cause trouble.
“Welp. Wander off, then.” The man slid the blade a few inches up from the scabbard, and it gleamed brilliantly in the sun. Likely, the man had polished it that morning. At once, Charlot felt more at ease. The stranger was a birdbrained bully and could be dismissed. Charlot shrugged and stepped past him, making for a woman walking toward the river with two large jugs.
“Hello, madam! Have you seen a young boy pass through town? Around yea high, dark hair with a white blaze, perhaps speaking Terhaljatani? His eyes are two different colors, one blue and one green. An odd-looking scamp for certain!”
“No, I can’t say I have. Pardon, sir,” the woman said, with the hint of a sly smile at him for disregarding the brute. Small surprise, she didn’t care for the oaf either! It was valuable information. The woman had lovely dark brown eyes, and a small face with prominent thick eyebrows.
“No trouble at all,” Charlot said with a wide smile. “Is there a place an old man can get a drink?”
“Hah! Wander off I said. You deaf?” the oaf bellowed, tromping across the square. Charlot rolled his eyes at the young woman, and she snickered in reply. If only he were a young man again! He could batter this clod, then later sing her a song and win her heart. Behind him, Charlot heard the scrape of steel against scabbard. He shook free of his fancies. The threat could no longer be ignored.
A few women were leaving their work to come see what the commotion was. There were many children, but no men or boys of working age. Probably out in the fields doing their spring planting. Seeing he had an audience, Charlot wheeled around and tried a new tact.
“I heard you, young man, but I could not believe my ears! Such rudeness! Such disregard for the advanced age of a friendly traveler! I told myself: No! It could not be, no one would be so bold as to tempt the wrath of the Laughing Star! She watches over wanderers, young man!” Charlot raised his voice so everyone could hear him.
“Got yer wrath right here, you old letch!” The oaf waved his shining sword, and Charlot heard gasps from everyone in the square.
Charlot had blundered, trying to shame the shameless. Now, he would have to do something drastic. He wondered if a blow from his staff would kill the man outright. He’d never actually struck someone with Flaccaro before and had no idea what it would do. More likely than not, the fool would burst into flames, and then it would be impossible to get a drink or find the boy. He steeled himself to find out.
“THUM CLAY! You leave that man alone, Thum!” An uncommonly loud voice cut through the air, and the swordsman could not help but wince at the sound of it.
“Go back up the hill and stop bothering people, you worthless dolt!” a woman with graying hair and an impressive bust shouted. She walked right between Charlot and Thum, heedless of the drawn blade.
“Ayo! Shove off, Millian! This is official business,” Thum protested.
“Y’can officially fuck off, Thum! Pulling your stupid sword on an old man, have you lost your mind completely?”
“He disrespected me!”
“You’re disrespectable! You’re detestable! You’re a disgrace to this town, Thum Clay! Your father will hear of this! Keep on going like you’re going, I’ll put a hex on you that’ll rot your pig cock right off, you sheepfucking shant!”
The town square was full of gasps, and hands covered mouths. Charlot grinned, raising his eyebrows. What a vulgar woman! The threat was almost certainly a bluff. Charlot couldn’t think of any hex that would specifically rot off just the man’s cock. His lower extremities perhaps with some kind of blackblood curse. It certainly wasn’t his area of expertise. But Thum Clay seemed to believe. He grew pale and fumbled at sheathing his sword, his face growing redder by the moment.
At last, he got it in and stomped off, muttering his way along the cobbled path up the hill. Charlot was pleased to see a foe vanquished without the need to hex or incinerate him.
At first, the women were all smiles, but one by one their faces crossed with worry. The big woman, Millian, was still staring at Thum Clay’s back as he marched up the hill, gloved hands on her hips. He stared at them for an instant, they were thick, treated leather. He noticed mottled discoloration and pitting on the fingertips, much like his own workshop gloves. His interest grew even keener.
“Thank you for your assistance. I hope I haven’t caused any trouble,” Charlot ventured, certain he’d done just that.
“The shants will use this as an excuse to pester us more. Bloody thieves. On behalf of the real folk of Fraughten, I apologize for that imbecile. What brings you here, traveler?” Charlot noted the swell of authority in her voice. He glanced at the others who were close enough to recognize, and he saw no surprise at this. She was their leader.
“A boy! I met him on the road, and he begged alms, which I gladly gave, sharing my fire and my humble repast. Only later did I find he’d helped himself to my holy symbol! Lifted it right from my pocket, the blasphemous scamp. It’s a silver teardrop, well-weathered and of no great worth, but it has been in my order for four hundred years. The boy was about this tall. He’s got a blaze of white in his hair, and hetero–er…that is to say, his eyes are two different colors, one blue and one green. He spoke Terhaljatani.”
“Far from home, that one,” Millian offered, and Charlot nodded, combing his fingers through his beard again. She knew the shape of the Arc and had become the leader of the villagers. Unusual for a woman on the frontier.
Her accent was quite faint, but Charlot was a master of placing them. In her voice, he heard a note of the east, the telltale nasal inflection that hinted Yarlee was most likely her first language. It could explain the education and the arrogance both in one fell swoop. What was a Yarlee woman doing so far from home pretending to be a witch? It was likely not by choice.
“My name is Adon the Wanderer.”
“I am Millian of Millmauth. It’s–”
“West of Wyrth. I know it well. An honest town, hard-working people. Keenly I remember their raspberry wine,” Charlot offered, careful to keep the slyness from his face.
“You’ve visited? Oh, it’s been too long, I haven’t tasted it in almost twenty years!”
She had never been there. Raspberries did not grow anywhere near Millmauth. The soil there was all wrong. They made wine from crabapples and ciderroot, and the result was anything but memorable. He’d caught her in a lie, for what that was worth. She was pretending to be a witch, and then tossing out a town in the middle of nowhere that he wasn’t meant to know, in exactly the opposite direction from where he’d placed her accent. Now, he was certain she had something to hide. “It’s been a stretch longer for me, I’d wager. The star shines, and I follow, for nearly fifty years of wandering.”
“I remember an Adon, a sage from Urth’Wyrth. Quite famous,” she offered, perhaps trying to catch him in a lie of his own. But he had played this game before, many times.
“A common enough name! Alas, I have often been mistaken for that one. More than once I have taken the blame for his odious crimes.”
“Crimes? I had no idea. He was spoken of highly.”
“The so-called sage of Urth’Wyrth, this man–and I strain the term by uttering it in conjunction with that wretch–is a coward, a fraud, and a fool. He practices the dark arts and befuddles and swindles anyone unfortunate enough to darken his door. I await the day justice finds him! May it be swift!”
Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
Charlot’s eyes were fixed on Millian as he said the phrase “dark arts,” gauging her reaction carefully. It certainly wasn’t impossible she was an actual witch pretending to be a charlatan pretending to be a witch. The thought made his head ache faintly.
All their faces were upon him, and he wondered if he’d perhaps oversold it. No one spoke.
“Apologies, fair women, I did not mean to utter such bile unprompted. A man of the star should not speak so! It is only that I have wandered very far this morn and have not eaten in some time. Is there a tavern in this town?”
“The shants have a fancy teahouse on the top of the hill, if you like your wine watered and your pockets emptied. That aside, we are only too glad to offer hospitality to a holy man of the Laughing Star.”
There was a brief murmur of approval, and then, at once, half a dozen women were offering him food and a place to rest. They were good folk, these Fraughten women.
“Stars’ blessing on you all. Merely a bit of bread and cheese is more than enough for an old man. I must be on the road after that young devil who’s got my symbol. What I lack in speed, I must make up in perseverance. Again, I ask, have any of you seen the boy? Around yea high, dark hair, speaks Terhaljatani.”
A girl began to speak, but Millian’s eye found her, and her mouth fell shut before she got a word out. At once, his mind flashed ahead. The witch had sent the boy. She’d lured him out into the heart of her coven, where she was strongest. His mind wheeled with a spell that would send spokes of flame coursing around him and burn them all down before they could act. He pushed the impulse back, and instead tuned his senses for a sign of sorcery, trusting his own wards would hold against the coven’s initial assault.
He could sense none. There wasn’t a lick of magic in any of them. Not even a remnant. A chill ran through him at what he’d been prepared to do. They were just a group of kind women, and he would have roasted them all for a moment of paranoia. Millian looked at him oddly, and he blinked.
“Please. I need that symbol. It’s been in my order for centuries. I know the boy must have passed this way,” Charlot dropped his voice low and serious.
“We saw him. I shall tell you which way he went, but please, grant us a boon. Is it true the priests of the Laughing Star can heal the sick?” Millian asked.
“A blessed few have the ability, but I am afraid I am not among them. I only spread the good word and do her will where I can.”
“Please, can you look at Elda’s youngest son, Berto? He is stricken. Hale yesterday morning and at the Void’s gate last night. I have been tending him in my cottage.”
“I can promise nothing, sadly, but I will look. Please, do not raise your hopes. I am but an old man, with no special gift save tough feet.”
“Come with me, please,” Millian asked, and the whole cluster of women walked with him to a small cottage on the south side of town. The cottage walls had been stuccoed with pale blue daub, and the builder had mixed his clay with the crushed leaves of blue varl.
A few other houses had the same hue, which meant someone in town was from Khem. It was a Khemerian practice, said to bring luck. It actually did, in a way. Mice could not stand the smell of varl, and it was better than a cat for keeping them out.
Millian’s cottage was one of the blue ones. She motioned for the other women to wait outside and led him in, shutting the door behind them. Again, he worried that this was an ambush, and he reflexively slid on the ring of protection.
“A light, if you please. I’m afraid my eyes aren’t what they used to be,” Charlot said. The shutters in the cottage were drawn, and he could make out only a thin mote of light in the darkness.
Millian lit a candle for him, and he waited for his eyes to adjust. Satisfied that there was no immediate threat, he slid off the ring and, at once, he could see a tiny bit better.
As he anticipated, the woman was more than she appeared. Within her cottage there was a great profusion of jars and glassware, far more than any simple villager could ever afford. Inside the main room, a small boy lay atop a straw pallet beside a smoldering brazier. He was naked, and the straw was dark with sweat. He’d kicked his blanket off, and Millian hastened to his side to cover him.
The boy was in terrible condition. His eyes were shut tight with suffering, and his whole body gleamed with sweat. He was deathly pale, save for the black splotches that rolled across his skin like billowing clouds, moving so slowly their motion could just barely be perceived.
“A very serious ailment. The boy has eaten…”
“Shayberries,” she cut him off as if it were obvious. He frowned. It wasn’t obvious at all. They were quite rare, tending to only grow deep in the forest, and the black lynx loved them. The poison didn’t hurt the lynx a whit.
“I see, sadly I can do nothing for…”
“Stop,” Millian said, holding up a gloved hand. She removed both gloves and set them on a workbench teeming with glassware. Then, she dipped a cloth into a small pail, twisted the liquid from it, and set it over the boy’s brow. Charlot sniffed, detecting comfrey and white sage, perhaps nettles as well.
“I’m not stupid,” she said, rinsing her hands in another pail.
“Then, what are you?” Charlot asked. “The boy should have been put to death the moment he showed the taint. You know what will happen?”
Millian nodded her mouth tight.
“The villagers think you may have caused this?” Charlot guessed.
“They don’t say it, but the whispers have begun. None have ever seen a case of shay flush.”
“End the boy and be done with it. It’s not as dangerous as if a man had it, but even a boy can do tremendous harm,” Charlot said. The kindly tone was gone from his voice now, the act through. “I know who you are. You’re the wizard from the red tower,” Millian said with great care. “Who else would come down from the northern path?”
“Then, you know what I’ve done. What I can do. I’m no healer, and there’s no cure for shay poisoning but death. Do it before the boy is in full flush. However angry the villagers are now, they’ll be twice as mad when he’s tearing around smashing things, purple as a grape.
“There is a cure. I need needles.”
“I don’t knit.”
“Silverpaw needles! You can draw the flush with them.”
“I’ve never heard of that,” Charlot said, wondering if she was serious.
“I’m sure there’s a great deal you’ve never heard of. Here.” The woman held up her left palm and tattooed at the center of her hand was a small perfect black diamond. “Do you know what this is?”
Now, it was Charlot’s turn to tread carefully. She was of the Manatramord. The black monks were not to be trifled with. There were angles within their angles, ulterior motives to their ulterior motives.
“Yes. I have contacts at the Abyssimus. What in the Void are you doing in this pissant town?”
“Work that must continue. I need those needles.”
“So, send your menfolk to kill a bear.”
“Silverpaw can’t be killed by the likes of these folk. I could send every man in the town to kill one, and they’d all die. The shants won’t help. They’re afraid of getting their fancy armor dinged up. I need this village intact.”
“And your price is which way the boy went, I gather?”
She nodded.
“Well, that information is useless to me now. If I have to go traipsing about to kill some monster bear, I’ll never catch the boy. There is, of course, no holy symbol. I only wanted the boy for a bit of help cleaning around my tower. Give me another child to take his place, a hard worker, preferably mute, and I will kill your bear.”
“I can’t simply give you a child,” Millian snapped.
“Call it an apprenticeship, dress it up however you want. Just find me a servant, and we have a deal. They don’t have to be a child, but I want to get a good ten years out of them before I have to train another.”
“Surely there’s some potion, some elixir we can barter for instead.”
“Do you know any that restore failing sight?” Charlot asked, carefully. What a dangerous piece of information to give the Manatramord! Yet, he had to take the chance. She shook her head, and he nodded, unsurprised.
“Then, it’s a servant I need.”
“I can’t give a child to a warlock to barter away to some demon.”
Charlot rolled his eyes.
“Look at me.” Charlot relaxed his glamor, appearing before Millian as he truly was. “I’m an old man, in no mood to be scrubbing my own pots and sweeping my own floors. The trader who brings me supplies is months late.”
“The old boatman, Bricksson? He died. Bandits at Gray Ford. He was too old to be on the river alone.”
Charlot paused a moment to take the news in, feeling a flicker of anger. He would make a visit to Gray Ford after he’d settled all this.
“Well, so am I, and I need a servant. Can you find me one or not?”
“You will swear an oath not to harm them?” Millian asked.
“Yes, yes.”
“Or let them come to harm?”
“Impossible. Children are idiots. I can swear only to be a reasonable master.”
“I will find you a servant.”
“Good, or you’ll be doing it yourself,” Charlot said, and what a hateful glare she returned! “I’m not joking either, Manatramord or not.”
“What happened to your arm?” She saw the injury, the bloodstains on his robe.
“Some idiot shot me from a bush, claimed he thought I was a Wiquwic!”
“Pfft, a Wick wizard?” Millian snorted.
“I know!” Charlot grinned. How pleasant to have one’s thoughts echoed! Though he was wary, he couldn’t help but take a liking to the willful woman.
“Did he die?”
“No, but he lost his hand for it. Charged me with a knife and took flight into the forest. He had a scar, like a second eyebrow on his sinister side, and wore a cloak trimmed with red.”
“That’ll be Braeburn Clay, brother of the man who greeted you in the square. Just as witless, but a sadder tale. His son vanished some time ago, and he thinks the Wick took him. He’s been stalking the woods since, looking for them.”
“How long has it been?”
“At least two years.”
“Gods. What actually happened?”
“It was before I came here. Probably wandered into the river. But two Wick had passed through town and gotten chased out a month before, so in Braeburn’s mind, it had to be them. What would Wick want with a child?”
“I told him the same thing before he fled. The fool. I don’t even look like a Wick!”
“Well…” Millian began and he shot her a poisonous look.
“Do you want something for your arm?”
“Already taken care of,” he said, waving the suggestion away.
“With what?” she pried.
“Anemone dust.”
“Stars, what a waste. Tapperroot would have been a twentieth of the price. It grows everywhere.”
“A twentieth of the price, half as effective, and I’d smell of cat piss all through the day. No thank you,” Charlot retorted. Now, it was her turn to give the vile look.
“Where the hell am I going to find a silverpaw bear?” Charlot asked. He was no hunter.
“North,” Millian said and, for a moment, she nearly grinned.