There was a man standing in a large room, blurred almost unrecognizably . Halley turned her attention to the walls and ceilings, and they began shifting between bright and dark, and colorful and dull. She could tell the room was spacious, and adorned with many carvings and cloth banners, but the constant motion of the colors gave her a headache, so she refocused on the man. The man, unlike the room, was unwilling to divulge any of his defining features even when she drove all of her attention to him. He remained fuzzy and incoherent, but her efforts seemed to have grabbed his attention, since he began to turn around. Someone was shouting. The voice was deep and booming, like thunder, but distant, and Halley felt compelled to look for its source. She knew it had said something important, but failed to find where the voice originated, and she wanted to see the face of the man, and so looked back, where the man had returned to his original position. She thought about the man turning again, and again, the man began to turn…
A bird was calling for its mate in the distance. Light warmed her face, and she readjusted herself in the cloak of blankets she had wrapped around herself. She quickly drifted back to sleep under their onslaught.
Her dream picked up where it had left off. The man’s back taunted her. She tried once more to turn the man around. The thunderous voice rolled again, but this time it was followed by a shrill tone. The shrill tones were just as loud, but scraped against her mind, gouging out the comforting cocoon of sleep. The dream receded with every second, and she could feel her focus slipping.
Halley gave in, and rolled out of her bed, bleary and sluggish. She felt as if she had forgotten something important, but dreams were just that. Dreams. Besides, if it was really important, I'm sure I’ll remember it eventually. The shrill tones returned, and Halley finally registered the source of the two voices that had called her out of the subconscious realm as belonging to Feirm and Leann. The light filtering in through a gap in the curtains bathed her room in a gentle, midmorning glow. That’s strange. She usually woke up at dawn. Well, woken up might be more accurate. Maybe Feirm was feeling merciful.
"Halley, come get some food!" That was Feirm "She can't hear you, dear, let me try. HALLEY!! BREAKFAST!!" Without the protective cushion of pillows ensconcing her entire head, Halley was nearly deafened by Leann's bartender voice. Her headache complained by putting on an orchestra of bells for a few seconds before she could rally with a response.
"HAL-" Leann bellowed again, but Halley interrupted before her head could resume the symphony of ringing, "I'm coming!" She rummaged through her as of yet unopened pack, and dragged a well-worn set of folded clothes out and hastily put them on. The clothes were her designated working clothes, and would probably stink if she hadn't grown used to the scent of horse and highway grime. She'd have to fix that after the daily chores.
Halley tromped down the stairs, and saw that the Bar was empty, save for a plate of bacon and cubed potatoes, and a glass of well-water. She scarfed down the food, looked wistfully at the empty plate and willed it to refill, and instead worsened her headache. Taking this as a sign that she should stop, she set out to find Feirm, and begin the daily chores.
Break
She plunged into the stream, and was briefly reminded of a steaming pan of oil being doused with a torrent of water. Halley had finished her chores only an hour before sundown. Halley floated for a bit in the cool water before pulling herself onto a flat rock. She closed her eyes, and lay down, using her work clothes as cushions. The stream was shaded by a line of trees growing along the bank, but this stretch was mostly open, making it an excellent spot to dry off. Her mind wandered. Feirm, it turned out, had intentionally let her sleep in, but Leann had noticed and took it upon herself to double the length of Halley's chore list. When Halley had tried to protest these revisions, Leann had replied, "Feirm may not admit it, but he needs an extra hand around the farm, and since there's no one around but you and Peter, he has to make do." This would have been a compelling argument if Peter's chore list was just as long as hers, but upon strong-arming him into showing her his chore list, she found that it was just his regular list with "Repaint room 5" hastily tacked on.
Fuming, Halley used her anger at the injustice of the world to complete her chores as fast as possible. It still managed to take all day, primarily because one of her chores had been "Re-Shoe horses'' and while the horses on Feirm's farm were all fairly docile, one hated her with a passion greater than a mortal, non-sapient creature should be capable of sustaining. Halley knew that he had a name, but she had long since started calling him certain names which she could not repeat in good company. It had taken several hours to tire him out and by the end, neither was able to muster the energy to be angry, which slowed Halley's progress on the latter half of her chores.
Why does Leann’s food have to taste so good? Halley would have considered leaving early with some sort of excuse about her delivery being late, but she just couldn’t stand one more day of nothing but dry road food. Well, at least Feirm and Peter make it bearable. She was pulled from her thoughts by a sudden and unwelcome shadow falling over her.
"Unless the inn is engulfed in flames, it can wait five minutes." Halley said to the shadow without opening her eyes. To her chagrin, it did not leave.
"I'll go tell mom that we have to start a fire when I get back. In the meantime, we need to talk about the trip." Peter sat down beside her, and sighed "Obviously she doesn't want me to go anywhere. I think she's worried that I'll die, and whenever I try to convince her to let me leave anyway, she shuts me down. So I won't ask permission anymore. When are you leaving?"
"Peter, you're underaged. I'm not gonna kidnap you."
"It's not kidnapping if I agree to it, besides, I'm not a toddler anymore."
"I know that, but if your decision involves giving your mother terminal anxiety maybe it isn't the right decision."
"So now I have to fight you and mom just to get out of here? I can't believe this. Feirm said you'd be on my side, why are you so stubborn?"
Halley was shocked out of her comfortable reverie "Feirm said you could go? You're kidding! He always agrees with Leann!" She hoisted herself to her feet "You should have said that to begin with, I only needed one of them to let you go. I just never guessed Feirm would be the easier one to convince."
Peter's face lit up "So you'll take me with you?"
Halley looked at him "I made a promise didn't I?"
Peter's expression shifted from excited, to consternation "I've got a few things left to pack, it'll be quick, I promise! I can't wait to tell Ava!" then he took off toward the inn
"I'm not leaving today, you don't have to rush!" Halley shouted after the quickly retreating form of her brother, though she couldn't help feeling a nagging doubt like she was forgetting something. Halley hesitated, before giving up and returning to the inn. If it was really important, then she'd have remembered it.
---Break---
Leann had been unusually quiet once they had returned to the Trail's End. Peter was still running up and down the stairs, packing apparently random objects into a duffle bag before Halley reminded him that she wasn't leaving tonight, and he should relax. Halley then reluctantly walked to the bar where Leann was doing her best to look anywhere but in her direction.
"Leann, it will be okay, I promise that I'll stay off the larger roads, and at even the first sign of danger, we will turn tail and..." Halley trailed off upon staring into the eyes of death which now sat behind the normally placid face of Leann. Leann returned to seething and ignoring Halley after several seconds, and Halley took that to mean that she was dismissed. She walked up to her room, resigned to a few days of hard labor and living off of her remaining dried fruit and jerky. She began chewing on the scraps of food as she reviewed her maps. With Grimoire off the table, she hadn't been able to restock her supplies before Trail's End, and would probably need to stop at the nearest city to buy some. "But which one?"
"Which what?" said a voice from behind her. If Halley hadn't nearly jumped out of her skin, she might have protested having someone enter her room uninvited. As it was, she wheeled around and prepared to throw her entire weight behind a punch aimed directly at the source of the voice. Feirm, carrying a plate of food, stood in the center of the room, forcing Halley to abort the motion halfway through. Her arms windmilled once before she regained her balance. Being on the road had made her too jumpy, alert to everything, especially other humans. At least animals were predictable, and even reasonable with a few exceptions but she’d had too many close calls with humans. They always wanted something, be it coin or company, so Halley kept a knife on her person at all times now. She'd also begun wearing a long cloak, and cutting her very black hair short, so she could pass as a somewhat effeminate boy in rougher areas.
Halley then realized she had spent a full three seconds standing silently in front of Feirm. Taking it upon himself to break the awkward silence which now encompassed the room he said, "I brought you your dinner. Thought you might not have been feeling well."
Halley tossed aside the map she had been reading and eagerly took the plate "Thanks Feirm, you're the best!" She began devouring the food, and Feirm chuckled.
"I'm glad to see that you still remember the forms I taught you. It has been a while since we sparred, but you are still sharp as ever."
Halley paused in her imitation of a starving homeless person to respond "How could I forget? I can still feel the bruises. But thanks."
Amiable silence drifted through the room, until Halley could ignore the nagging thought on her mind no longer.
"What made you agree to let Peter leave?" She asked
Feirm did not answer right away, but Halley had expected nothing else. Feirm was a ponderous thinker. He looked out the window and began "Youth is not meant to be spent in a cage. Anategin is a pleasant town, but it isn't enough. I want Peter to be safe and happy, but he will not always be safe, no matter what I do. If I sacrifice his happiness for it, he will end up with neither."
Feirm looked back toward Halley "You should get some rest, it'll be another long day tomorrow." He got up and left the room, quiet as he entered.
Halley wanted to think about what Feirm had said, but found that the word rest rattling around her head in Feirm's voice made it impossible to think about anything else, so she polished off her food and allowed sleep to drag her out of the world.
A cathedral-like structure rose in front of her. Something about it was...wrong. Something about the shape. Halley walked toward it, and noticed that no matter how close she got to it, it never became clearer. She heard a voice, without hearing any real noise coming from behind her. It told her to leave the massive church immediately, and a pulse of fear shot through her.However, a new sound echoed from within the church which brought with it a feeling of bliss and comfort. She walked toward the church to the protest of the voice, and just as she stepped across the threshold of the main doorway, was struck by a splitting headache. A rumble echoed within the church, and she was pulled back by an unseen force. The once inviting doorway had taken on the appearance of tar, and a viscous substance spilled over the stairs of the cathedral. The surface of tar bubbled and shifted, but at that moment, Halley realized she was in a dream, and was simultaneously disgorged from the shifting dreamscape. After several seconds of the usual dazed confusion at being in an entirely different world that came with waking suddenly from deep sleep, she dusted the cobwebs from her mind and got dressed, the dream now just another distant memory.
The breakfast for the day was toast slathered in butter, and a cheesy omelette, and Halley ate with an appreciative deliberation that befit the meal. Leann, while not talkative, did decide that Halley was deserving of a 'Good morning' before continuing her stubborn silence. In stark contrast to Halley's punishment, Feirm was greeted with one of several flavors of angry shouting anytime he stepped into the room. It seemed as though only Peter was exempt from Leann's wrath, and it was clear he was thoroughly uncomfortable with the special treatment. Halley considered making up for Leann's mercy by being especially rude to Peter, but decided against it because he seemed to be slowly boiling himself in embarrassment, and because he was the only person to talk to in the inn.
"So what's the nursery like??" Peter asked her for the third time.
Halley swallowed her food and replied "It's a garden surrounding a big tree. There's lots of bees there, I guess? I dunno, they don't let me very far into the garden itself, I'm not important enough."
Peter frowned "You're terrible at story-telling for someone who has spent years travelling the world."
"Well for someone who spent their entire life in a forest full of predators, you're terrible at listening." Halley shot back. She thought for a moment "Well, there was one time about a month into my first contract where I 'got lost' in the gardens. There were a whole bunch of different environments that they were imitating, obviously there were the forest patches, and some grasslands, but the most stunning feature(Other than the tree itself) was a huge cliff running in a horseshoe shape around the more secure inner gardens which had these huge vines winding their way up the rocky bluffs, their leaves would have individually dwarfed the Trail's End because there were lianas and bromeliads the size of small trees growing on them." Halley trailed off, remembering how lucky she was to have been able to both see the gardens, and keep her job after the incident. The sight was awe-inspiring, and totally worth the rewriting of her contract. It made her wonder at how the Church had managed to keep the huge area safe without any weapons or any defense other than a simple wall. She was shaken from her thoughts.
"What's a broomy lad?" Peter asked
"Hmm? Oh, it's plant that only grows on top of other plants and has no roots"
"Right, next you'll tell me that they have a plant that eats animals."
"They do, there are three main kinds and dozens of species."
Peter's face was a very satisfying mixture of confusion and fear. "Are you sure these people are..."
"Sane?" Halley finished his sentence for him "I still wonder about that myself"
"I was gonna say friendly. They seem like they really want to keep people out."
"Well if they wanted me dead, they could have done it when I was trespassing." Halley noticed that Peter was still apprehensive. "Listen Peter, they're some of the most amiable people you'll ever meet, and if I'm wrong about that, you can string me up from that tree."
Peter still looked unconvinced, but relented "Alright, but I'm not going anywhere near those monks or their death plants."
Halley grinned "I'll just act like you're my butler, and tell them you made an oath of silence under threat of execution."
Peter smiled and made a flourishing bow. "Then I shall leave you to your feast, o princess of the dungcart." He left, jogging down the hall and Halley realized he had left his plate and utensils on the table for her to clean up.
Halley shouted after him, "You're gonna have to sit in that cart you know!" She listened as his footsteps receded into the background noise of daily life and contemplated leaving him behind as punishment, but decided that such a betrayal was beneath even a dungherder.
Halley finished scrubbing the last glass, and took a deep breath. The day was reaching the end of its life, and the twilight blazed through the open door of the inn. The world began to slow, a creeping drowsiness felt by both the exhausted day-dwellers and still sleep-drunk nocturnal creatures. This was always her favorite time of day. She had nearly mustered up the will to drag herself upstairs for the night when she saw a staggering form approach the inn. As the figure got closer, the silhouette resolved into a familiar guise. Gunther was back. Halley stifled a groan, and braced for the wave of drug and alcohol stench to hit her when Gunther reached the door to the inn. He braced himself against the doorframe, his arms wrapped tight around his torso, and sucked air through his gritted teeth before sinking to the floor,a pained expression flitting across his face. This behavior wasn’t out of the question for Gunther, given Halley’s past experiences with the man, but she noticed that a small, crimson pool lay on the floor beneath him. Even at his worst, Gunther had never shown up injured. On multiple occasions he had shown up speaking total gibberish, but the vast majority of his visits were a surprise, they rarely saw him enter at all and Halley suspected he sometimes stopped by without anyone noticing he was ever there. It wasn’t surprising to see that he had gotten into trouble, but it was alarming to see that he hadn’t escaped it. She rushed to help him, and began “What happened, are you al-”
“Stop.” Gunther’s voice projected clearly through the room, with an air of command that was totally foreign to the image of the perpetual drunk she had in her mind. He inhaled sharply and exhaled before continuing, “Leave, now. Get Leann or Feirm, I don’t care which, and tell them I need something heavy. They’ll know what I mean.” With what must have been a monumental effort for the volume of blood he had lost, Gunther stood and walked to his regular room, leaving Halley to follow his orders.
After a few seconds of thinking of every gang or criminal organization that could be on their way to collect from Gunther by any means necessary, she decided that his suggestion might not be such a bad plan, and hurried out to the stables.
Feirm was hanging up a saddle in the barn when Halley found him, and explained the situation. “Feirm, Gunther is here, but I think he’s in serious trouble. He was bleeding and ordered me to find you two. I think he might have finally pissed someone important off, we might not be safe at the Trail's End while he is here.”
Though his expression did not change, Halley had known the man for years and his body language had definitely become stiff. Feirm gave Halley a stern look and said “What did he say word for word?” His voice was level, which only made his demeanor more worrying.
“He didn’t say much, like I said he ordered me to find you.” Halley paused, unsure of what Feirm was looking for, “ He did tell me he wanted something heavy?”
Feirm face seemed to gain thirty years, but he quickly drew himself up and spoke in a tone that Halley had previously only heard him use when speaking to a rowdy bargoer usually just before kicking them out. “Go find Leann, tell her exactly what you told me, and do not enter the inn. I will bring you your pack.” He left without another word, and for the second time that day, Halley was forced to reevaluate the character of a familiar face.
Leann proved more difficult to find. Most of Leann’s responsibilities revolved around the bar, so when she stepped out, it was usually because she wanted to relax and Leann preferred to be away from the center of her work to do so. However, while most people were satisfied with just finding a seat on the porch or a well-lit room to relax in, Leann seemed to be magnetically repulsed from the inn when not working. This is why it took Halley several minutes of hard running down a well-trodden dirt path to catch up to her, and another half-minute before she could catch her breath well enough to communicate the problem. Leann looked at Halley with a mix of concern and confusion which Halley's wind-blasted eyes missed, and said “You did the right thing, Halley. Now go back to your cart and get some rest, I'll take care of the rest.” Leann, having not sprinted her way along the path, and possessing legs that could crush stone, had absolutely no trouble in leaving Halley in the dust on their return trip leaving Halley alone with her thoughts.
The creeping darkness of dusk was settling over the forest, and an array of bugs had taken to the stage to perform their unique songs as the curtains of day were drawn back to reveal the starry depths. It was a perfect ambience to fall asleep to, and she wished she could, but Halley couldn’t shake the thought of a looming misfortune. She wanted to believe that Gunther’s suspicious arrival was the only cause, but her anxiety had been building for days. Something was going to go wrong. It wasn't a thought she could explain with logic, just a feeling, so she had ignored it. Then a mangled body stumbled through the door and gave the feeling something to latch on to, and all hope of ridding herself of it had gone.
Halley thought back to her foster parents. They'd been a much needed source of stability for her, and while it had taken years to build, her confidence in them was absolute. They had been through worse, and weathered it all. They could handle Gunther’s latest breakdown. Her next step took her out from between the pillars of wood. Things felt distance, unreal somehow. The sun had finished its daily traipse across the sky, but her day seemed far from over. Night had always made her mind clearer, offered her a calmer perspective. Except tonight. The Night had apparently taken offense at her benefitting from its presence and decided to revoke that privilege tonight because her mind remained consumed by anxiety. So much anxiety, that she stopped short, realizing she had accidentally passed the doorway.
As she reached for the door, a murmur from beyond it caught her attention. She pressed her ear against the door, and heard distant voices, the occasional creaking of floorboards. Was it okay to enter yet? She listened. Nothing. After a great deal of hesitation she knocked, unpleasant and awkward memories surfacing of her first visit to the Trail's End. Several seconds of silence. I should just leave, she thought. Then footsteps. Light poured from within the inn, casting shadows on Feirm's face.
“We left your bag in your cart. You don’t have to sleep there, but it would be better if you waited. There's a new book waiting in your cart." His voice sounded odd. Like he was trying out an accent and forgotten to stop.
Halley looked at Feirm, wanting desperately to ask about what was going on, was Gunther dead, was he blackmailing them, was someone blackmailing him, why was it necessary for her to wait outside?
“Book?” what was that!? She cursed herself. Feirm nodded and with a great deal more understanding than she had earned, addressed her unspoken questions "Gunther is fine. We just need you to stay outside while we clean up a bit." He handed her a blanket "Stay warm, we love you." With that, he closed the door and left Halley at the mercy of the night.
Halley felt empty as she walked to her cart. Despite Feirm’s reassurance, she felt her subconscious pour anxiety into her conscious mind. Too many things had happened at a time and place that was solidified in her thoughts as a place of rest, and the dissonance between her expectations and reality gave her a headache. Her body took her to the cart and numbly picked up the book Feirm had placed there. She tried to read the title, but her focus slid off of the exhaustion that had built up on her eyes and the words remained hopelessly out of reach. She put the book down again and tried to sleep with her duffel bag as a pillow. After twenty minutes, Halley had become trapped in a mental loop of asking herself how long it had been since she had lay down, wondering what was happening in the inn, followed by an apparent eternity in a state of ennui which was always followed by a brief lamenting over the sleep that it could have been.
“Halley?” A voice broke through Halley’s fugue state, and in only a few seconds of confusion she had identified the voice as Peter, who was standing a few feet from her cart. “Dad said it was all clear. You can go back now.”
Halley mumbled an acknowledgement and sat up. She walked back to the now quiet inn. She could feel a part of her mind nagging her, telling her that she was forgetting something. Luckily, her body was shouting “I’m tired!” loud enough to drown out the nagging. She managed to reach her room and her bed, not bothering to change before laying down and within the minute she was asleep.
Shadows slipped across the floor, briefly dimming the light seeping under Halley’s door. The shadow’s owner made no noise. The normally eager creaking of the floor was absent, the low pitch thumps of weight against an unmoving object which characterized footsteps had gone to sleep with the world at large.
“How are your wounds?” A hushed voice broke the silence
“Fine, but what do you really want to ask me?”
“Is it time yet?”
“...I don’t know. It could be, but we should wait and see.”
“I don't care how bad the truth is, you owe it to us to be open. Now tell me how long we have.”
Gunther paused, his face flashing doubt, then settling into conciliation “Okay. We have at most a few hours. Happy?” The man across from him said nothing, merely watched Gunther expectantly. The look was met by an explanation “ I’ve been trying to set up a plan to lead any pursuers away from the Trail's End. I’ll be starting a few campfires in the forest around the inn, in a number of directions.When you leave, go in a random direction that keeps you out of the firelight. That distraction will buy us a minute or two. The girl’s cart should carry you, and I’ll be covering what tracks you make.”
“Don't patronize me, Gunther. We know these woods, there won't be any tracks to find.”
“I believe you, Feirm, but you and I both know that everyone makes mistakes and too much is riding on this. I have to light the oil after you, to both cover your escape and erase my presence here.”
Feirm sighed “They’re going to miss this place dearly. I wish we could have at least warned them that they’d be losing their home. Give them time to say goodbye before they left”
“I doubt they’d leave at all if I told them what I was planning.” Gunther pointed out and in a more serious tone “They’re strong kids, Feirm. They’ll adapt.”
Feirm turned “Oh, they’ll be fine. Maybe even better for the experience. I’m worried more for her.”
Gunther rubbed the back of his neck and exhaled “I know how much work Leann has put into this place. I’ve been hopping from one crisis to the next for so long I’d forgotten how it felt to have a real home. When I found this inn, I couldn’t help but fall for it, even knowing how it had to end. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”
Feirm turned to leave “I’m not the one who needs to hear that.” He looked back at Gunther “But it is appreciated anyway.” His footsteps, quiet but audible, punctuated the conversation.
Gunther could not shake the doubt from his mind. Was he really worth all this? He sat down heavily and held his face in his hands.
The dreamscape was clearer than it had been before, with the intricate carvings of the cathedral now visible against the shifting colors of the dream. Halley, only now remembering the events of the last dream, hurried toward the church before she could be ripped away. Moving with superhuman speed, she passed through the yawning gates to a darkened interior. She slowed down to let her eyes adjust. The floor was massive and after several steps, noticed it sloped gently downward. The floor was polished stone, greyish in the dim light, and completely smooth when uninterrupted by the various types of debris, including wood and stone shards. The space beyond descended into total darkness, the echo of her steps resounding once from behind her, consumed when they met with the wall of nothing in front of her.
Pillars were sparsely arranged along the hall, from them hung no sconces for torchlight but looming statues of long-forgotten beasts and gods, cats and crocodiles, birds and bivalves, even plants and fungus and forms the likes of which she could not recall seeing in all her life. When she viewed them out of the corner of her vision the hands, claws, and tentacles of the stoneworks seemed to reach down toward her, in grasping motions, as if straining to recall the precious sense of vitality she exuded in this decaying world.
She wanted to explore, to stop and simply look at the structure of her discovery, but the warm feeling which drew her to this space returned, more insistent now. Where before the suggestion was merely inviting, now it was demanding. She looked with unease to the descent before her. The world stretched before her, her peripherals distorting the statue-laden pillars and the darkness seemed to rush towards her as if it was an object of its own. She tried to take a step back and her leg jerked as it resisted her command. Panic set in, and Halley screamed in desperation, putting all her will behind it. She stumbled back, control of herself returning, and scrambled to her feet. The sprint to the entrance, to safety was only seconds, but those seconds were more than enough. Halley grabbed the edge of the arched doorway and was jolted awake. The delirium of half-sleep was absent, likely due to the adrenaline that Halley could still feel coursing through her blood.
She sat up and rubbed her eyes. It was still dark, but she could tell sleep was no longer an option, to the chagrin of her body and mind. She heard voices from outside. Thankful for something to think about that was not her sleepless torment, she lent her ear to the new arrivals.
That's strange She thought, and then with a leaden feeling in her gut Gunther did say he was being followed
Luckily, she had collapsed on her bed fully clothed, so she could embark immediately on the journey of finding out who was awake this time of night and why. Halley opened the door to her room and stopped. She whipped around and dug through her pack and drew out a small vial containing a bright red powder and a dagger, then hurried out the open door. She made it halfway down the steps, each one creaking as if it was trying to insult Halley’s weight before grinding to a halt.
The trickle of words from unknown throats had gotten closer. The three voices were actually four and all of them were male. At least one new person had come to the Trail's End. She looked out of a window from the landing between the two sets of steps. All she could see was amorphous shapes, all of various shades of gray. The voices stopped. Halley walked down the remaining steps and pressed against the wall beside the entrance. The voices were there, but had grown fainter. She waited until they faded into distance, and the sound of crickets returned. Halley put on her boots and carefully, quietly opened the door, determined to find out who had come all this way, only to leave without checking for an empty room. It must have been someone Gunther knew, or who knew him, and wanted to find him.
The woods were bustling with life, under the guiding light of a full moon. This was both good and bad. Good because the sounds of what felt like every insect in the entire world would mask her approach, but bad because she would be effectively deaf. Just to be safe, she took a route through the densest, most gnarled undergrowth. Halley took her time, even though it was agony to delay herself.
She heard the voices from before. She guessed twenty minutes had elapsed since she left the inn.She stopped. Through the bushes and saplings she could see a clearing. Ten silhouettes huddled in the center of the clearing, apparently arguing. Halley had time to reconsider her choices before the group turned simultaneously toward her. She flattened herself against the ground, heart pounding and sat very still for an entire minute before realizing that the group of strangers hadn’t seen her. There was a shift in the lighting of the woods. Where once the dull pure light of the moon had ruled there was a deep orange topped with a haze of grey and black, pervading the foliage of the night. Halley’s heart sank.
Abandoning all pretense of stealth, she sprinted back the way she came. A part of her recognized the futility of trying to outrun a force of nature, but she stifled it, and pushed all of her focus on where to put her next step, then her second and third. Leaves whipped past her, she ducked under a branch nearly sprawling flat and scrambled to regain her pace. The orange light deepened, smoke rushed past her, eager to announce the arrival of change in the forest. Then she broke free of the forest and saw Trail's End, her home, was still standing. Halley took a ragged breath, and saw that she had reached the inn just as the flames had begun to lick the grasses at the edge of its clearing. Her lungs protested as she forced them to carry her into the inn.
The fire was not yet close enough to bite at the inn, but there were only minutes, if that. Halley asked herself why the men outside wouldn’t have simply set the inn on fire immediately, rather than risked getting caught in their own forest fire.
They're trying to force us into an ambush. Her mind raced for an escape, the fire burned in both reality and her mind, chasing her into a corner.
She burst through the doors and dragged herself up the stairs, knowing she had to warn everyone, fast. She rounded the corner to the rooms, but was stopped in her tracks by the sight of doors flung wide open. In a stunned silence, she looked through Peter’s door. Prepared for the worst, she was relieved and confused to see the room immaculate, save for the sheets thrown off of the bed. Checking Leann and Feirm’s room yielded the same result.
They left? How had they known what was coming? Why would they leave without me? Where were they now? How could they forget her?
Halley took a step back, spun about and rushed to her room. Her pack was still lying on the floor where she left it. She ditched all of its heaviest contents and took only one set of clothes, a firestarter, and the knife she had brought with her. She ran out, then caught herself in the doorway and leaned into the room to grab the necklace off of her desk.
She reached the stable to find that Vinny was gone, along with her cart. Halley could feel her chest tighten. She couldn’t outrun a forest fire on foot. She curled up against the solid wood beams of the stable, and retched. Get out, run! Her mind screamed at her. She couldn't. Halley thought about her family, where they were, if they had escaped both the intruders and the flames or... She imagined her brother motionless on the forest floor, body a charred mess, flanked by their parents. But they had the cart. They had Vinny. They could outrun the fire. They'll be waiting for you. She held onto that, her breathing evened out, and she stood. She ran for the woods.
The orange light of the blaze had grown in the short time she had been inside, and now she could see the roaring maw of the inferno approaching from all angles. Smoke choked her lungs and eyes, and normally familiar paths were foreign. Flames emerged from within tree trunks, wreathed the burning forms in cloaks of light. The forest transformed now just fuel for an enormous furnace. She coughed, one hand to her mouth, the other bracing against a burnt tree, discarded by the fire once its fuel was spent. She staggered on, carefully avoiding any still burning trees. Halley realized that her legs didn’t hurt anymore, and then they buckled under her. She began coughing, couldn’t stop, and a distant part of Halley was aware that she would die here. Waves of pain washed over her, but they were growing more and more faint. As her vision darkened at the edges, her mind drifted to better times.
She was sitting by a gently flowing stream in the height of Summer, her legs dipped in the cool waters. The sound of wind through the leaves above her and the air awash with the scent of flowers and the humidity of the stream. Halley looked up, closed her eyes and took a deep breath, savoring the sunlight on her face. She got to her feet and stretched.
Halley’s head swam as the sunlight scene dropped into total darkness. She fell into another coughing fit, but she wasn't choking on smoke anymore, the air was clear. Gradually she could breathe normally again. She opened her eyes. The world slowly came back to her, her eyes adjusting to the darkness. There were charred husks of former trees standing around her, uniform in their post-inferno appearance. No sounds of the nightly insect drone greeted her, no swaying of leaves in the wind. The forest was dead. But she was alive.
Halley stood for a long moment in the ash, feeling numb. Am I really alive? She thought. Halley looked back to see the fire was still sending up smoke in the distance. If this was the afterlife, she must have seriously pissed off one of the gods. The Inn, her family, her job. There was nothing to return to. She adjusted her backpack and started walking.
The trees were all wrong, burnt, and fallen, the normal paths blocked, but she could still navigate by other landmarks, and settled on tracking down the stream. All she had to do was find that, and she could make it out of this place. But then what? She thought
Obviously finding Leann, Feirm, and Peter was the highest priority. Halley had no idea where to start the search for her family, and was reminded that most of her other friends and/or contacts had existed in cities that were now so underpopulated by the plague that they were functionally ghost towns.
Regardless, she couldn’t very well afford the time it would take to bumble her way around the half empty cities looking for leads. Feirm, Leann, and Peter would be long gone by then. That left one viable option. Halley clenched her jaw. They weren't going to be happy, but what choice did she have? She was going to finish the journey she started months ago. She’d go to the Sahayans.
Break
Peter awoke to the familiar sound of bird calls. Among the ever present murder of crows he could pick out the piercing cries of a Blue Jay, as well as the subtler tune of some sort of FInch. He sat for a time listening to their calls before the indignity of being left completely ignorant of all their plans came to a head and he steeled himself for a drawn out confrontation with his parents about trust. However, this future was not to be as at that moment his father peeled back the flap of their improvised cart-based tent and said
“Get up, we’re heading to Tybalt up north. We'll rendezvous with some other people Gunther knows. It’ll take us a few days.” Feirm sat down on the cart. “If you have any questions, now is the time.”
It took Peter several seconds to compose a new, less aggressive set of questions. He exhaled and began “Who is Gunther, really?”
“In a word, a soldier. He and I fought together in the war, and were like brothers. The last few years haven't been kind to him, and we've drifted. To be honest, I'm not sure you could call him a soldier anymore.”
"That's it?"
"Like I said, we've drifted. He didn't want a married life, and Leann and I were too busy to go find him. When he comes to us…well you've seen. He hides away."
“So who attacked us then?”
“Gunther hasn’t told us.”
Peter was nonplussed “So we’re following the orders of a man who refuses to tell us who he is, what he does, and why he is being attacked by a group of very determined murderers?”
Feirm just sighed “I promise you that Gunther has nothing but our best interests in mind. We owe him a lot.”
Peter tried to contain his indignation, and failed “So I suppose Halley owed him a lot too? Maybe even her entire life?”
Feirm’s face hardened and Peter knew he'd made a mistake.
"I'm sorry, that was uncalled for" He quickly corrected himself.
"It was." Feirm's face softened a bit "Gunther and his contacts confirmed that there were no bodies in or around the inn, and they are still searching for her.”
“And we’re just taking his word for that? Cha toil leam sin, athair. It seems awfully convenient that they just can’t seem to find the person that we’ve blatantly stolen from. It isn’t like she could get very far on foot, they should have found something by now.” Peter stared his father down. “Why are you so willing to trust this man?”
Feirm looked away, scratching at his beard. “I guess we have time for a story, and it's not a secret. Gunther is the reason that our inn was able to stay open all these years, despite it being so poorly traveled.”
Peter couldn't help the bitterness seeping into his response “So? The inn is gone now. It isn’t like he can hold that over our heads, we aren’t his slaves.”
“You misunderstand. He did not save us from poverty, he was only the reason we built the inn where we did, if anything we were saving him.”
Peter had been preparing to interrupt, but this new information stuffed his reply back into his throat and instead he choked out “Then why…” He trailed off
“Why help him at all? We were brothers in arms during the Empire's last campaign. He and I saved each other countless times. It isn't something to let go of lightly.”
Feirm looked away, hesitating. “Just as things started to calm down, he left. I heard neither hair nor hide of him despite living in Croisrath, flush with merchants. I thought if I stayed in the city, I could at least find a lead, by listening to gossip, or trading for information. I never found any surefire evidence for where he went. Just rumours that led nowhere. Your mother found me wallowing in a bar one night, and after a few months we began making plans to move out of the city together. As we were finalizing our preparations for our new life, Gunther resurfaced. He was a complete wreck, completely incoherent and any normal person would have considered him a raving lunatic fit only for a prison cell. But this was my battle brother, so I did my best to calm him down. It was a few days before the Gunther I had known began to peek through again and eventually I was able to unravel snippets of his ramblings. He had been checking the shops for fresh shipments of pipeweed when he saw a strangely dressed man wandering the marketplace. Gunther had never been the most...Forward thinking man, so he decided to follow the stranger. What he lacked in forethought, Gunther made up for in sheer endurance and a great deal of experience with hiding. He followed that man for several days without getting caught, but the stranger met up with some of his friends, and Gunther was quickly and ruthlessly subdued. They knocked him unconscious and when he woke up, they had him tied to a tree. He didn’t understand their language, but it was obvious they were arguing over what to do with him.”
Feirm looked back at Peter. “That’s as much as I ever got out of Gunther. After his initial outpouring of insanity, he flat out refused to tell me anything more. I didn’t pry, I figured he’d tell me when he was ready.”
Peter, his irritation replaced with fascination and curiosity, asked “What did he say when he was acting insane?”
Feirm paused. The endless march of time had not worn on him so much that he could not remember, but the memories were not particularly pleasant. He recalled the terrifying fervor with which his friend had recounted the apparent hellscape he had been dragged through in his absence. A face of abject horror plastered on the man’s face had told Feirm all he needed to know of that experience. “He talked in a foreign speech for the most part. It sounded a bit like the Eastern language Halley likes to babble in. What I did catch sounded like the wildlands. Huge beasts with strange forms and hostile people. Blazing lights and screams echoing everywhere.” Feirm remembered the “screams” distinctly. Gunther had been very eager to share his impressions of a combination pig and goat call. Some of them even sounded close to the real thing. Gunther was a man of many talents.
Peter stayed silent for a minute, thinking of the many stories he’d read as a child with monsters and men in them. Alice in Wonderland in particular sprang to mind, along with worrying overtures of Frankenstein and The Tell-tale Heart. The worry produced a disconcerting idea “So he never told you how he escaped from the kidnappers? Doesn’t that mean that he could be working for them?”
Feirm’s face saw a brief visit of surprise which he quickly shook off before replying “If he was going to betray us like that I would know. I know all of his ticks and tells.” The doubt in his voice was obvious.
“Hey, Good news!” Gunther’s voice rang out in that new confidence he wore. “Halley left some pretty large footprints so our tracker should catch up to her in a few days.”
Peter looked at his father, then hopped out of the wagon ““Thanks for the talk dad, maybe next time we can actually accomplish something.” Then, more quietly “We’ll talk again later.I’m going to find mom.”
Peter passed Gunther on his way out, doing his ample best to look like an angry teenager. Gunther watched him as he left, then turned to Feirm “He’s handling this about as well as we could hope, huh?”
Feirm replied “He doesn’t trust you at all, you know. I can’t say I blame him either, he made some good points.” Feirm turned toward Gunther “You haven’t exactly given us much reason to trust you.”
Gunther scratched at his neck and said “Well, you aren’t wrong. Fine. I’m still being hunted by those people who kidnapped me. They only released me when I agreed to keep silent about their activities in exchange for a bribe. When you found me, I broke that agreement by telling you everything I had seen. Even though you never believed me, they knew the contract was broken, and have been doing their best to kill me ever since.”
Feirm nodded “Okay, but what exactly did you see?”
Gunther shrugged “To be honest I’m not really sure. My memories of then are confusing and jumbled like a fever dream. They had me drugged, that much I know, I just don’t know with what. Considering they moved me enough that my legs didn’t atrophy, I probably walked through a great deal of I’ve recently discovered their main keep as well, so they don’t have a dearth of reasons. They aren’t imperial, I do know that. Probably why I haven’t been arrested yet. They seem to avoid the major imperial holds. My leading theory is that I stumbled upon an invasion force, and they don’t want their presence known until the invasion itself.”
Feirm watched his friend carefully “You’re still leaving something out.”
Gunther began to object “I-”
Feirm stopped him “No, it doesn’t matter anyway. I’ve forgiven you for a lot in the name of our past friendship, but this was the last. I want to help you Gunther, I really do, but I can’t put my family through anymore. As soon as you find Halley, we’ll be leaving the Empire. Maybe we can settle down in a more peaceful place.”
Gunther’s face fell. He knew that this wouldn’t save them. They had already spent too much time around him, and his hunters didn’t take any chances, nor would they give up simply because a target had moved vast distances. He tried to speak up, to warn the man of this, but Feirm cut him off again, saying “I think I’ll make some lunch. Maybe Peter can help.” Gunther watched in utter dismay as Feirm walked off in the same direction as his son. If this was Feirm’s reaction to the milder news, Gunther dreaded his family’s reaction to the true depth of the danger they were in.
Gunther sighed. He wished that his friends were not victims of his mistakes, and in his darker moments, found himself wishing they were the only victims of his presence. He fell into his memories.
A family who had housed him shortly after his captivity, the Managans. A family of four, the mother of which was named Ava Managan. She had found him hunkered under a tree in the bleak Autumn rain. He had run from Feirm only a few days before, to draw his pursuers away from his friend, but he hadn’t the strength to refuse the kindness displayed by the Managans, quite literally. Ava had invited him to stay the night, and ignored his feeble protests, as her husband, Duirm, practically carried him to their home. He ate a proper meal for the first time in a week, and had a warm, dry place to rest.
The only thing he could think to offer in return was vigilance, and vowed to keep watch over the sleeping family. For the first few nights, he succeeded. No one approached their home while he watched, and the Moon never caught so much as a glimpse of his dozing form. By the third night the fear had subsided, his flight from the Trail’s End slipping into the past, forgotten, but still, he held fast. At some point during his fourth vigil, he fell asleep, lured into a slumber by the comfort and congeniality of his hosts. He woke suddenly to a scream. He sprinted to the room it came from, but wasn’t fast enough. The scream was cut short. The tribal had already completed their task. He could still remember the sight of a dripping blade drawn out of the body of the youngest child and then leveled at him. Gunther had overpowered the man and cut him down with his own sword in a desperate rage, but the damage was done. Sleeping was no longer a time of rest for him.
Gunther considered praying. For victory, for safety, for his friends. He thought about it, and then returned to his memories.
__________________________________________________________________
Peter found his mother next to their pile of clothes. When they left the inn they had shoved as many articles of clothing and other various items into what bags they could find. Leann had decided to take the time to fold and repack their luggage to save space and relieve her mind of facing their new reality. She had made it halfway through her clothes before she found a photograph, crinkling in the pocket of one of her old shirts. It was an old family photo, taken just after the inn was built.
Feirm had claimed he had chosen the spot because he thought the country air would be good for their, as of then, hypothetical child, but Feirm was a terrible liar. He just couldn't bring himself to believe in a world that didn't exist in front of him, just one of many traits that had drawn her to him in the first place. She could tell that he didn't want to move away from the city he loved, but had convinced himself that he could help Gunther out of the mess that the man had gotten into.
Leann still remembered the night she had confronted Gunther about his situation. She had verbally lambasted him for over four straight hours. To his credit, he stood by his incredible descriptions of the place his captors had kept him and their plans, which were worthy of a crown in an insane asylum. He succeeded in convincing her that between him and his captors, he was the more sane and so she agreed to help, but in exchange for their help and discretion he had paid a hefty price. Leann had ordered the man to stay away from the inn whenever possible, and never converse with any other tenant, especially her son. When he had had the bad form to point out that he was already expecting to become a recluse for the foreseeable future, insinuating the request was trivial, she had stapled on a fee for staying in the inn. He only argued for a few seconds once he realised she was writing up fees for every complaint.
Frustration built up as she recalled all the effort she had put into the inn and in keeping her family safe, all ash. She piled Gunther with undeserved resentment. If he just hadn't come back, she would still have a home. Her family wouldn't be under attack by shadowy forces. She could have had a normal life.
She knew this wasn't fair to Gunther. The man hadn't hung them out to dry, and it couldn't be easy to fight with several unarmed people to protect, but couldn't bring herself to face the fact that she was powerless to save anyone, and the world didn't care. But of course, trying not to think of something is the surest way to bring it to the forefront of your mind, and she felt the anger slipping into a cold bath of despair. Time slipped away with everything else.
She jumped when she heard footsteps approaching her, and quickly wiped away the tears that had stained her face before she heard her son's voice speak up
"Mom? Are you okay?"
She tried to contain a sniffle, failed, and turned around anyway.
"Hello dear, I was just finishing up with the clothes, when I got distracted. I'll be done in a minute and you can have your bag back then, alright?"
Peter looked at the large mound of unfolded clothes and said "it'll go faster if I help." He sat down and started folding. "You didn't answer my question" he pointed out
"I'm fine" she lied "But I'm the one who should be asking you that."
"I'm managing, but I do have some concerns about our choice of company." He finished folding a shirt and handed it to his mother to put away.
“You don’t have to worry about him, Peter. Gunther is many things, but he isn’t a liar. If he said he is going to keep us safe, then he will.” Leann did her best to convince herself.
“Dad said that, too.” Peter passed another shirt “But I still don’t trust him. I know that dad has known him longer than I have but isn’t it possible that he is...I don’t know, biased?”
“Yes, well, I’m afraid your father is loyal to a fault. Cutting ties with people doesn’t sit well with him, never has.” Leann finished a stack of clothes and carefully put it into a pack.
“So, shouldn’t we have a plan that doesn’t involve following Gunther around?”
“Of course! Your father and I had several plans for moving out of the inn eventually, and we had already made arrangements for some of them.” Leann frowned “Although we hadn’t planned on doing so until later, and with the money from selling the inn.”
“Great! I had an idea for how to find Halley, but I had no idea where to go from there. I’ll be right back” Peter handed over the last pair of pants and got up. Leann looked over her shoulder and called out “Don’t wander off, we’re not safe yet, remember?”
“Yeah, I won’t” Peter replied in a tone that told Leann that he was going to wander off immediately. Leann sighed and finished packing the clothes neatly into the packs. She would have to follow him. It wouldn’t do to be alone while being hunted.
Gunther passed by one of his soldiers on his way out of the campsite and said “Hey, Treshkova can you guard the campsite while I’m gone, make sure no one leaves? Thanks, you’re the best. Oh and tell Laidir to stay out of my whiskey!” and as he got further away he heard a muffled “Should have asked for triple for this.” so Gunther shouted back “My friend, if we survive this, you’ll get ten times what you were offered!” Treshkova replied with a dismissive wave and a grunt.
Once he had found a secluded copse of trees, Gunther sat cross-legged against a tree. He looked inward and felt himself slip into trance. He looked up and saw an endless expanse of water, light rays piercing the haze from both above and below. He waits for a moment, and color seeped into the waters around him, carried by the currents he could not see. He scanned all directions, orienting himself with the eddys and swirls created by his troupe of travellers at the campsite. Time slid and sped along with the currents, and eventually he spotted a small whorl drinking in all the color around it, off in the middle distance. Gotcha He thought. The pinpoint of color faded into a dull green, and Gunther stared at it, confused, before the form of a fish claimed the green coloration. It stared at him with the cold, but animated eyes.
Gunther ripped himself out of the trance, and despite the nausea and dizziness it caused, managed to climb to his feet. Pushing through the feeling, he unslung his crossbow and reached for his last Lasair arrow. It was gone. He swore and reslung his bow, before rushing back through the foliage that he had so carefully chosen for the impediment it would provide to searchers. He had to get back as fast as possible. In searching for Halley, he had essentially sent up a beacon to his location. The only saving grace was that he had been far from the campsite when making this mistake. They’d still have a wide area to search as long as the other stayed quiet.
____________________________________________________________________
Halley watched the fading twilight with a combination of disdain and dismay. She had spent a fruitless hour searching for a place to camp out. In her frustration at the injustice at the world she had resolved to stay up all night in protest at the universe’s treatment, a decision which she was beginning to regret more and more. The sheer beauty of the clear sundown sky mocked her.
Then, a thunderclap sounded behind her, echoing off the distant hills, and causing her to spin around. A blinding flash of red light was dropping quickly below the treeline. Halley was stunned. Who had thought that revealing their position was a good idea? Either that was an all-clear signal from her family, or the faceless pursuers had finally caught them. Should she risk her own freedom to find out, and abandon even the possibility of getting help from the Siblings? She looked down at the pitiful crumpled form of a bedroll lying at her feet. Halley stuffed the sack into her pack and started walking in the general direction of the red light.
_____________________________________________________________________
Gunther looked up at the blast of his last Laisir arrow falling nearly directly over their campsite, shocked out of his stride. How drunk were they?? He thought No, not even a blackout drunk Treshkova would ever do something that stupid. Someone else had stolen his arrow, someone younger who hadn’t yet experienced enough pain to be afraid of such a massive mistake. On one hand he hoped Treshkova wasn’t too drunk to flee, on the other hand he hoped the man had gotten his fill of drink for a lifetime because if the death squad that was on their way to the light didn’t kill him, Gunther would see to it himself.