Distant tales of the Dichotomy

They made camp in a hollow in the forest, three hours from the city, under a ledge of rock that hid them from the road.

There was no discussion. There was no fire. Old Clatter settled around them like a wall, folding his great wings with a long, tired sigh, and the four of them sat in the dark with their backs against his shell and did not speak for a very long time.

Fel had washed. He had scrubbed his hands and his face and his hair in a cold black stream, until the water ran clean and his fingers went numb. It did not help. He could still feel it. A thin, tacky film on his skin, like the memory of a spill.

Brannoch, at last, was the first to speak.

“They will say we did it.”

“We didn’t do it.”

“They will say it.”

“He exploded! His head exploded! On his own! In front of four people! Who would…” She stopped. She pressed her fists against her eyes. “Oh, gods. They’ll say we did it.”

No one answered.

“He was reading my fate,” said Fel, dully. “He said that it happens to very powerful people. That the Weave was too thick. And then he…” He stopped. His voice wasn’t working. “It was the same blood. Did you see? It was the same as mine. It came out of his eye, and it was the same.”

“I saw.”

“What does that mean?”

“I do not know.”

“He said what have you done. He said it like I’d done something.”

“I know.”

“I don’t know what I did!” It came out louder than he meant. His hands were trembling. “I don’t know where I am, I don’t know what I am, I don’t know anything. Everyone looks at me like I’m a… like I’m a bomb. And I…”

A warm hand closed over his.

It was Veyra’s. She had moved. He had not noticed. She was sitting beside him in the dark, close enough that he could feel her breath, with her long fingers wrapped around his bandaged ones, over the glow, over the blood.

“Breathe,” she said.

He tried.

“You are not a bomb. You are a boy with a bad week.” Her voice was soft. “It was not your fault. It was not your doing. Whatever he saw, it was not you who tore out his eyes. Nobody can be blamed for what another man’s madness does.”

“But if I’d…”

“Fel.”

“If I’d said no…”

“Fel.”

He stopped.

“Look at me,” she said.

He looked. In the starlight, her eyes were deep and dark and kind.

“We will find out what happened,” said Veyra. “We will find out who he was and what he saw. We will find the dwarves. We will fix your swords. And I will be there for all of it.” Her thumb moved once across his knuckles. “Do you understand?”

He nodded. He did not trust himself to speak.

She did not let go of his hand. She did not say anything else. They sat in the dark, side by side, with their shoulders touching and the glow from his palm lighting the underside of her chin, and eventually, in spite of everything, Fel slept.

“This,” said Thara, “is the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard.”

“It is the only one we have.”

“We’re disguises. We’re a joke.”

It was the next morning. They stood at the edge of the forest, in the cold grey light, looking down on a small, ugly, crooked tavern beside the road. It was a day’s ride from the city. It was the sort of place that had no name, only a faded board over the door with a picture of a barrel. A dozen carts stood in the yard. There was smoke in the chimney. There was a great deal of noise.

Taken from NovelPhoenix, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

They needed information. They needed to know what was being said. And the only way to find out, Veyra had decided, was to walk in the front door.

The disguises had taken an hour.

Veyra’s horns were hidden under a thick wool scarf, wound round and round her head like a turban. She wore a dull brown cloak, a long grey dress that she had bought off a passing peddler, and a basket on her arm. She looked like a woman who sold eggs. She was holding the basket as if it might explode.

Brannoch’s antlers had been sawed down, with an air of deep pain, to a pair of short, rounded stumps, and wrapped in cloth. He wore an apron, a cap, and a barrel on a strap across his shoulders. He looked like a very large, very sad cooper.

Thara had given up entirely. She had wrapped a ratty red scarf around her head, smeared her face with ash, and slung a battered lute across her back. She was going to be a drunk bard. She had, she said, been practicing for years.

And Fel had a mustache.

It was horsehair. It had been glued to his upper lip with a sticky resin that Veyra had produced from her pouch. It tickled. It had a distinct smell of stable. He wore a wide-brimmed hat, a long brown coat that came to his ankles, and a pair of thick wool gloves over the bandage, and when Thara looked at him, she doubled over and had to be held up by Brannoch.

“I can’t. I can’t. It’s… it’s so bad.”

“It’s a perfectly good mustache.”

“It’s a caterpillar. It’s a caterpillar that died.”

“Thara.”

“I’m sorry. It’s just so…”

“Thara.”

She stopped. But her shoulders kept shaking.

They went in.

The tavern was dark, low, and smelled of spilled beer and wet dog. It was packed. Farmers sat in groups, wagon drivers argued over dice, a gaggle of wide-eyed merchants huddled in a corner whispering. And everyone, every single person in the room, was talking about the same thing.

They found a table near the back. Thara, true to character, collapsed onto a bench and began to strum her lute with great enthusiasm and no discernible skill. Brannoch set down his barrel. Veyra ordered four mugs of ale in a thin, wavering voice that was definitely not her own. And Fel, with his hat pulled low, sat with his back to the wall and listened.

“…found him in the tower. Headless. Headless. They say there was blood all the way up to the ceiling.”

“I heard it was a curse.”

“It was murder. The king’s own brother. The Wise One! Dead in his chair!”

“Who’d kill the Wise One?”

“Foreigners. That’s what they’re saying. Outlanders from the mountains.”

At the next table, a fat man in a leather apron leaned forward with an air of tremendous importance.

“I had it from my cousin, who has a friend in the guard. Four of them. They came to the Spire at noon. A horned woman, tall, with a bow. A great brute with antlers. A little knife-thrower with a lute.” He lowered his voice. “And a boy.”

Thara’s lute stopped.

“A boy?”

“A boy with a scar. Or a ring. Or a glowing hand, or something. Nobody’s quite sure. But he was the one who did it. He cursed the old man, and his head burst like a melon.”

There was a long, appalled silence.

“The king has gone mad with grief, they say. He’s shut himself in his chambers. He’s sent riders to every corner of the kingdom. He wants them found.” The fat man shook his head. “Whoever they are, I wouldn’t want to be them.”

Fel did not move. He did not breathe. Under the table, Veyra’s boot found his ankle and pressed down hard.

Across the room, a door banged. Someone laughed. A mug shattered.

“We are leaving,” said Veyra, in a low, even voice, from the corner of her mouth. “Now. Slowly. Pay for the ale.”

They left.

It was Thara who saw it first.

She had been walking a half step ahead, with the lute banging at her back, scanning the yard for guards. They had almost reached the trees. And then, abruptly, she stopped.

“Oh,” she said, in a very small voice. “Oh, no.”

They followed her gaze.

At the edge of the yard, next to the stable, stood a notice board. It was a plain thing, old and warped, covered in a dozen sheets of curling parchment, the usual rubbish: lost dogs, wanted laborers, a sermon. But in the center, nailed up fresh, with the glue still wet, there hung a large new poster, and the drawings on it were astonishingly good.

He knew the face at the top.

It was his own.

It was a very good likeness. Somebody had caught the set of his jaw, the line of his brow, the stubborn, hunted look in his eyes. Below the face, an artist had sketched, with quick vicious strokes, a long, glowing, ringed hand, and the words beneath it, in thick black letters, were unmistakable.

WANTED FOR THE MURDER OF CORVANE VAEL, GRAND SEER OF SORTICIA, BROTHER OF THE KING.

To the right of him were the others. Veyra, tall and cold and fierce, her horns and her bow unmistakable. Brannoch, a mountain of antler and muscle, scowling. Thara, with her grin and her hatchets and her grass-green hair, an unrepentant imp. Four faces. Four names. Four lines of careful description.

And beneath them, in a neat, careful, officious hand, a single line of fine print.

REWARD: ONE (1) BRILL EACH.

Nobody said anything for a very long moment.

“One brill?” said Thara at last, faintly.

“Mm.”

“One brill. Each. A single brill. That’s… that’s a hundred thousand glims. That’s a farm. That’s a ship, with a crew.”

“I see that.”

“For me? I am worth a brill? I have never been worth more than a sandwich.”

“Thara.”

“I am only saying that, in their place, I would turn me in.”

“It’s not a compliment,” said Fel slowly. His mouth had gone dry. His horsehair mustache had begun to peel at one corner, and he did not notice. “It’s a warning.”

They looked at him.

“A brill each isn’t a reward for catching us. It’s an army’s pay. It means the king doesn’t just want us found. He wants every hunter, every sellsword, and every farmer with a pitchfork in the whole kingdom looking for us.” He stopped. “It means we can’t hide in a town, and we can’t trust a friend. A brill is the kind of money that turns friends into strangers.”

The wind rattled the poster. A crow cawed on the barn roof.

Fel stared at his own face, painted in ink, with a price on its head large enough to buy a ship and its crew. He thought about the Gallows. About a velvet letter, and a hall of black glass, and a basin of silver threads. About a headless old man in a tower and a voice, screaming, what have you done.

He thought: This is bad.

He thought: This is so much worse than bad.

“Right,” said Fel. His voice was not steady. “Does anyone have a plan?”

“I have a very small one,” said Thara.

“What is it?”

“Run.”