Part 70 (1/2)
50.
Raveler IN THE DAYS following the battle in the caves, Uncle Argoth and Lord s.h.i.+m began raising dreadmen. The Creek Widow and River began teaching Talen and the others the first things about using Fire and soul and the history of the earth, but Talen found he couldn't focus. The monster had saved them all. He needed to honor its last wishes.
Talen shared his thoughts with River and the Creek Widow, and they joined him on a trip back to the refuge. They stood on the hill above the vale and looked down at the valley where the Divine had battled. The damage was clear to see: great erratic swathes and loops of dead gra.s.s and trees. Off to one side of the meadow a boar staggered and sounded out its pain.
Talen suspected he knew why. By the time he descended the hill, the boar was on its side kicking weakly. There was a wound on its side: that was probably the spot where the raveler had wriggled in. The boar might have been sleeping or eating. It could have been doing any number of things when the weave had found it. But Talen was sure it was the cause of the boar's throes.
They waited until the boar ceased its struggling; not much later the raveler worked its way out from underneath the animal and snaked into the gra.s.s.
Wearing the white, gold-studded gauntlets, Talen quickly plucked it up. The raveler immediately stilled, and he placed it in the Skir Master's case.
The monster had talked of stomachs. Uncle Argoth and the Creek Widow had taken the remains of the original monster and opened it up to discover its lore. They'd also search their books for any record of the sons of Lamash. But they did not unlock its mysteries. In fact, the mysteries seemed only to multiply.
However, Talen was able to identify what the monster had been talking about, for inside the creature's chest had been a row of similar organs, black as coal, woven of willow withies, and merged into the flesh of stone. One, Uncle Argoth said, contained soul.
The monster had spoken of the stomachs the woman had already taken. And where would she put them but somewhere close to her? And so Talen went back into the cave with the others.
They searched the chamber of battle. They searched the pa.s.sageways leading in and out. They found many rooms, but they never saw a nest.
They were about to descend the broad path that led to the belly of the mountain, when Sugar asked if they'd been looking in the wrong place. Perhaps, she suggested, they should look up.
It took less than an hour to find the woman's roost. In one room with a sulfur pool there were a scattering of her dead eel creatures lying on the floor. When the group held their torches aloft, they saw an opening to a small chamber above. It contained silk clothing that Lumen, the former Divine of the clans, wore, an ancient, cankered sword, and a handful of abominable weaves, including two of the monster's stomachs.
The morning of the next day, Talen placed the monster's stomachs on a large slab of granite on their farmstead. The survivors of the battle in the cave gathered round.
Talen donned the fine white, gold-studded gauntlets and removed the last Hag's Tooth from its silver case. He held it up.
”This,” he said, ”is to honor the bravery of Barg, Larther, and all the many other things that composed the servant of our enemy. May they find the safe path in the world of souls.”
Then he lowered the tooth to the stomachs. When its sharp tip touched the first stomach, it came to life, and wriggled out of his hand.
All stood round the stone, watching the tooth weave its way in, around, and through the stomachs that lay on the rock. As it worked, the blackness of the withies leached away, leaving behind simple wood.
A small breeze gusted through, and then, for the briefest moment, Talen thought he heard singing.
The tooth wriggled out of the pile of spent stomachs and rolled off the rock into the dust.
Talen picked it up. It had yet one more task to perform.
That evening Talen stood on the hill above the farmstead. At his feet lay three graves: one for Mother, a new one for Da's body, and another for that of Sugar's mother.
When Sugar had said she had no home, River and Talen had insisted she did. It was too risky for her to go back to her village and gather up any of her father's bones that might remain. But that didn't mean they couldn't make a small monument for the time when they could retrieve the bones. Nor did it mean they couldn't bury Sugar's mother here.
Talen had expected someone to desecrate the graves, for the Fir-Noy were becoming more belligerent than ever, but that had not happened yet. Instead, they'd found gifts left on the graves in respect: apples or bunches of late summer flowers. There weren't many gifts. But it surprised Talen there were any at all. Yesterday, they'd found a bowl of blood from a small sacrifice, clearly from someone who believed that the ancestors could drink the Fire of a newly killed animal as it poured forth.
But well-wishers weren't the only ones visiting the area. There were reports of something in the woods, something killing the deer and sheep. Legs said he'd heard and smelled it one night in the yard. They had found footprints the next morning, and the evening after that Talen had seen its face in the shadows staring at him. They'd tried to track it, but lost the trail, and the dead bodies of animals began to mount.
”It's Da,” said Talen. ”Who else could it be?”
”Let us hope it isn't the woman seeking revenge,” said Sugar.
”If it were, wouldn't it be killing humans?” asked Legs.
”I don't know,” said River. ”We hardly know anything.”
”Well, I know this,” said Talen. ”During that last battle, it was Da that was looking at me from the eyes of the earthen figure. It was Da in that awful body wanting release. It's him. I can feel it.”
They built a fire, Legs sang a few mournful songs, and then they waited, watching the sun set and bats come out to flit over their heads. An owl swooped silently across the field below. Next to the graves, Nettle crawled in circles as if searching for something in the gra.s.s. It pained Talen to see his friend in such a state-half mad, the other half lost. But he respected Nettle for the sacrifice he'd made.
When the light finally faded completely, Talen pulled on the gauntlets and removed the last raveler from the Skir Master's case. The late summer air had turned cold with the promise of autumn. It had not yet frozen hard enough to kill all the insects, so the mosquitoes rose as the sun set, but an evening wind kicked up to blow them away. River fed the fire, and they waited, the stars s.h.i.+ning above them in the night sky, a hard-edged sliver of a moon giving them light.
One by one each of the others fell asleep in their bedrolls, but Talen did not. He waited and watched, and when he began closing just one eye to rest it, he roused himself and stood.
A light burned in the window of their house on the other side of the field below. Ke was there, being nursed back to health by the Creek Widow.
Talen walked to a stone on the far side of the hill. When he came back, he found River awake making them both a cup of tea, the Creek Widow sitting next to her. Talen took his cup gratefully, then sat with the two of them, sipping the red liquid and letting the cup warm his fingers.
He looked at his sister. She had tried to kill him. He did not hold it against her. However, she was not quite the sister he knew from before.
He'd just poured himself a second cup when a branch cracked at the edge of the wood behind them.
Talen turned.
He could make nothing out at first; the shadows along the forest edge were too deep.
”Just to the left of that great pine,” River said.
The earthen figure, the one with the vicious muzzle, the one Da had been poured into, stood in the night shadow of the tree.
”Slowly,” the Creek Widow said.
They rose and faced the creature.
”Da?” Talen called out.
The thing did not move. It was covered in gra.s.s as the first monster had been, and that gave Talen pause. They didn't know if he and the monster had killed the woman, or if she'd merely fled. If she wasn't dead, then this creature, Da, could very well be her thrall.
Behind them the fire popped, and Nettle snuggled up closer to Legs.
”Father,” said River, taking a step forward.
The creature stepped out of the deep shadows of the wood into the remaining vestiges of the moonlight. In one hand, it held a doe by the leg, dragging it along behind like a child might an overlarge doll.
”Careful,” the Creek Widow said.
”We've brought help,” Talen said and held up the raveler.