A Mischief in the Woodwork

CHAPTER 3

Fellow Albinos

Two things the Serbaens had indeed brought to Darath were Wardogs and disease. They had fled their land in a desperate haste, careening through the battlefields and swimming the bloody rivers, tracking the carnage across the border. It was inevitable that the Wardogs would follow them here, when the feasts on Serbaen soil ran low or the alpha beasts had claimed all the available battlefields and sent the hungry runts packing.

A 'hungry runt' of a Wardog was as fearsome a thing as any. They were bigger than mountain wolves – more squatted toward the ground with their proportions, perhaps, but broad as an ox and lithe as a cat. They had large paws 'for swiping off heads', Enda said, and frightful knife-like claws 'that made ribbon stew'. Their heads, dreadfully big, were flat and short like a cat's, but their noses bashed in like a bulldog and their mouths wider than any face even of that size warranted. Great maws that grinned from ear to ear with chiseled yellow fangs zig-zagging across, like the frightening face of a rag doll with its mouth stitched loudly shut. Their tails were short little stubs, their fur coarse wiry and brown.

I had seen one, once. It was prowling the fields when I went out to sing the flowers awake, and I risked prolonging the darkness that might call more so as to wait for it to pass before I carried out my duty. We had been lucky.

Disease was the other thing. The Serbaens brought with them the infections they had merited from the uncleanliness of war. A great number of them had died. But, strangely, only a handful of the Masters had suffered the passing-on of their conditions. There was a theory that it was because the Darathians had shunned the new people from their circles from the beginning, and so disease had only lived in the slave quarters.

Most of the disease had left their ranks by the time I came into the world, but I remembered getting sick when I joined them. There was a period of time that smeared into a feverish haze in my memory, filled with dark faces peering down at me and cold things mopping my forehead, which gave way only to the crazed fever dreams that took me in sleep. They were nonsense, but frightening. Worlds of disturbed nuances unleashed to wreak havoc on my defenseless state of mind. Even today, snippets came back to me that I had forgotten upon waking. Little things in my daily life would spark the memory of them, and I would revisit that strange patch of time from my past.

I had a scar from that fever. A rash had developed on my back, and one shoulder blade now sported an immortal splotch of color, like a birth mark.

I dropped my tunic over my head after Letta used her deft root-pulling fingers to lace up my corset for the day, hiding the mark and muffling the memory. I stooped and hiked up my skirt to lace my boots, tucking a knife into the side of one. Letta knotted my light brown tresses partially back, and inserted a blade there as well. The locks fell well past my shoulders, and even if the clever means of self defense embedded in the knotwork weren't necessary, keeping it out of my face was.

“All set, minda,” she said, putting her hands on my shoulders. I straightened, and met her eyes in the mirror. The smile the middle-aged woman wore was fond, proud, but etched with concern. I could not blame her, but there was no point to it. I would either return or I wouldn't. Many others had met their end this way already.

“I'll see you at dinner,” I said.

It was either true, or it wasn't.

She nodded, and we forsook further exchange. I turned from the room and left Manor Dorn for the wilderness, finding my favorite shadows to walk in as I headed for the city in the distance, embarking on my weekly quest.

Today, I was an Albino.

*

There used to be a designated gate into the city. But the hulking pillar supports on either side had crumbled to various lows, and the gate itself had fallen on its face. It was now a rusted framework of bars trampled in the dust. The walls around the city had disintegrated, and now it could be accessed from any angle.

I slipped in at the side, navigating through the rubble with the surefooted poise of an expert. The territory had only shifted slightly since I'd last been through. There were no new obstacles to reckon with.

I breezed past the slanting half-walls and leaning buildings of the fringes, carefully descending the land-slid banks of a sunken square, where I skittered across the spidery cracks in the folded ground and climbed out the other side. I had already picked the square raw. There was nothing left in these parts.

For that reason, the quest of today differed from the usual. There was a greater element of risk than usual, in that it was time to press deeper into the city. It was time again to penetrate an unexplored sector.

I hadn't expanded my radius in months. There were endless nooks and crannies to uncover in any given locale. But there came a time when digging deeper in one spot no longer produced results in the necessary quantities. I could go back the University, I mused. It was a goldmine. It was for that reason I was loathe to go there, though. It was undoubtedly popular and frequented by competition.

I took myself a distance to the west, until I encountered the remains of a navigable alley. One of the buildings had bowed against the other, but it was holding where it was wedged high above. Various piles of rubble littered the passageway, and the ground buckled up in places like sharp hillocks. I climbed over the obstructions, slinking under some collapsed columns that were lodged across my path.

The alley felt long traveling thus, but it was tedious work anywhere in the city. I conquered it, and found myself at the edge of a vast, sweeping avenue. It tilted up to the left, a gradually sloping street, and fell away at the same rate to the right – but it was hard to say if it had always been that way, or if it was the result of some upheaval.

Looking both ways up and down the sloping avenue, I surveyed the cracks and edges before breaking out into the open, skittering across the street and alighting in the shadows across the way. A shallow cloud of powder stirred in my wake, but when it settled again, it covered my footprints almost like I had never been there. Only the prints of a ghost remained, the shallowest whisper of passage. So far, so good. I had not upset anything.

I forsook the avenue the first chance I could. Nothing good could come of staying out in the open. I ducked into another channel, hopping a pillar that lay flat like a fallen tree. My skirt trailed over the surface, leaving a silken streak through the pale dust. I wobbled a bit on the porcelain layers on the other side, but found my footing and plowed on.

Blazing a trail through the haphazard maze of sections and pieces, I alighted finally on a fresh shore of potential – the crest of a precarious rise, that dipped down by way of jutting, serrated bluffs into another sunken square I had not investigated as of yet. Well, this ought to keep me busy. Carefully, I maneuvered down the broken bank, skidding on plaster and teetering on unsteady slabs. I climbed through the pitched frame of a big window that had fallen and shattered, wedged on its edge to create a crooked diamond skeleton. The glass had long since fallen in the cracks of the bank or turned to dust. Only a scant few icicles of it still hung in the frame.

Before I reached the bottom, the toe of my boot rustled through a generous corner of parchment curling up through the debris. I paused, stooped, and dusted it off, finding a whole sheaf of scrolls buried there. Ushering away the surrounding junk, I extracted the manuscript and tucked it into the bag slung over my shoulder and across my chest. That would put off the demise of one more of the books in Manor Dorn's diminished library. It wasn't much, but we burned anything that fire would readily eat. If only it would eat plaster, I thought. Or glass, or stone, or rot.

I reached the floor of the sunken square, and began sifting around through the ruin. I found a doll, which I packed away for Viola, and a diary, which I stowed for the fire. Further on there was a small cooking pot – a bit bashed in and in need of a good cleaning, but still in working order – and some intriguing odds and ends that I discarded after fiddling around with. A slither of cloth seized my attention next, and I produced a scarf when I pulled it free of the rubble. I sincerely hoped it had not been attached to someone's neck a moment ago. I stuffed it in my bag.

I moved on, scanning the rich puzzle around me. I rustled up the remains of a shredded feather quill, and almost discarded it as useless, but remembered that Letta could make ink from a smattering of things in the garden. Beet juice, insect blood, and ashes, she said. It was a Serbaen trick. The only reason she hadn't shown me was because we had nothing to write with, and certainly nothing to write on, save the walls. Paper was for burning.

But perhaps the quill would come in handy sometime. And anyway, it didn't take up much space in my bag.

I nudged aside the bones of some animal, taken by something I saw underneath them. It was a red glass vial, unbroken, with liquid still corked inside it. Astounding, I thought, that it was not broken – but sometimes I found things like that, little miracles preserved in the carnage. Intrigued as always, I added it to my stash, to be introduced to the collection of similar artifacts I had saved at Manor Dorn.

My bag was beginning to take a toll on my shoulder. I had little but treasures in it so far, and so I narrowed my focus, re-designing it to zone in only on things of good use. To my good fortune, I spotted a tumble of books spilling down the base of the bank ahead of me, and I picked my way over to it. They would not all fit in my bag, but I could come back.

Stooping, I began to harvest the tomes, clapping closed their splayed covers and straightening them into a certain manner of order to better fit in my possession. Powder discharged as the pages boomed shut, and I fought the sneeze that tried to overcome me.

I was halfway up the rising spread of books, reaching for another one, when an onslaught of deadweight slammed into my body. I careened headlong down the bank, spilling into the square over the jutting, jarring terrain. It was like being plowed over rocks, sharp and unforgiving, battering me into what might very well be a pulp once I reached a resting place. I spasmed once, my senses shocked by the onrush, and fought the spots of blood and light that plagued my vision as I tried to push myself up off the disheveled ground.

My wrist gave out, but my elbow supported me. As I shifted, I felt glass under my body. It chimed a warning grind, and I felt the warmth of blood in numerous places before I felt the sting of lacerations. I shook the stars from my focus and rolled onto my side, and suddenly suffered the throb and lancing pain of the injuries I had attained. My body screamed in a thousand places.

Motion brought my focus to what had attacked me. The figure was scurrying about the hoard of books, stuffing them into his big coat pockets. The dirty pale blue of the garment swam in my vision as pain snaked down my neck. I let my head slacken toward the ground, maneuvering my arms underneath me to push my body up. Rubble crunched and chinked beneath me.

I resisted a groan as my wrist throbbed, and hoisted myself off the ground. With my feet beneath me, I fought my ailments and drew my knife from my boot.

The other Albino heard the sound, and spun to face me, the stiff tail of his coat furling around him. But I had already launched myself up the mound, and seized the pocket of his coat with a fearsome grip, dragging him down. He buckled, dropping books and skidding onto his backside. I hauled him down the bank, raising my knife, but he brought a slice of debris up from the bank and slammed it against my skull.

The world spun again, and I flew to the side and onto my back, and then he was upon me pinning me to the sharp slope. My knife was still in my hand, but my hand felt senseless, grazed by nerve-crushing wreckage. He seized my wrist to immobilize my weapon, his other hand going to my throat. I swept my good arm crudely upward, clutching for the blade in my hair. My fingers fumbled against the slight hilt, and then I swept it out, gagging, and sliced at his arm.

The blade tore into his coat, and he released my throat to pin my other arm, but I crashed my forehead up into his face. As he half-crumpled, stunned, I shoved him off me, scrambling to my feet. He rose as well, still slightly dazed, but came at me again. I swiped both blades at him as he advanced, cutting his cheek, then his hand.

I saw something in his eyes falter, but he lunged again, not to be deterred that easily. I danced backward, stumbling a bit on the debris, but hurled a knife at him. It was risky, giving up a weapon, and if he ended up with it I would regret it, but I was in no state to grapple with him.

The knife caught him in the bicep, and his stance flicked back. Pain clenched his face, and he folded slightly in on himself, halting his pursuit. But it was only his arm, and he braced himself and pulled the weapon free.

Prickles ran through me.

With the bloody knife in one hand, he swept a large spike of debris off the ground with the other. I did not fancy that coming at me. I crouched shakily, keeping my eyes on him, stirring around on the ground with my fingers and coming up with a sizable shard of glass. Now we were both wickedly armed. My grasp felt decidedly more feeble on my piece of glass than his looked on his brutal spike, though.

Something fluttered inside me for that moment, but then I felt a familiar sense of feral blood stir in my recesses and leak through me.

I fixed my grip on the glass, and then I did the unthinkable.

I lunged at him first.

We met in a climactic bash of limbs and slashing weapons. I did not feel my ailments. He clubbed me with his spike, and I cut him with my shard, and then I hoisted myself off a slab of an incline and planted my boot square in his chest. He stumbled back, lurched over the obstruction, and collapsed in a jumbled rush. His head bounced off a serrated edge of stone, and he lay still on top of the offal.

I hunched, panting, and then trailed slowly forward to check him. Stabbing my knife into my hair, I twined my fingers into his hair and pulled his head to the side. A bloody bruise was welling on his forehead, but he was alive.

Knowing he was sufficiently unconscious, I knelt there for a moment or two, catching my breath. It took a conscious effort of will to release the glass in my other hand, where it was clamped tight and sealed by the cutting sharp edges. Blood ran down my palm.

Hurt returned to my body, and I grimaced hard to overcome the rising agony. It throbbed and pierced and ached all over. I felt minced and shattered.

Indignant, I reached into the Albino's big pockets and withdrew the books he had stolen, transferring them to my own pack. I took the bloody knife from his grasp, too, and cleaned it on my skirt before inserting it back into its rightful keep.

Better luck next time, fella, I thought. I hoped he had learned what he ought to have already known: you didn't cross an Albino, even if you were one yourself. There was a dreadfully fierce code amongst the scavengers. Competition was alive and well without meeting face to face.

Leaving him, I shouldered my pack and turned to abandon the square. There was a terrible limp to my step, done no service by the disheveled land. It was going to be a nightmare climbing out of the city.

And the sun was disappearing behind the tops of the piled-up buildings.

*

I blazed a steady but inhibited pace, limping through the pre-twilit streets. I had managed to climb free of the square, had slowly conquered the jumbled alley and crossed the sloping avenue, but my progress was hindered. Only sheer determination and survival instinct kept my choppy strides consistent in their slow-going.

Survival was programmed into me. It was in all of us, but especially saturated in those of us who were thrust out into the open, exploited and counted on. It was why Albinos didn't cross each other. If we saw one of our kind while on a loot, we turned the other way. We avoided the promise of conflict that came with competition.

Some would think there would be kinship between us, but that couldn't be farther from the truth.

The impending twilight hounded me as I went, each minute a taunt as my steps dragged closer and closer to the symbol that was both my haven and charge. Safety lay there, but also – I had to sing the fields into bloom before dark set in.

Breath rasped in and out of my lungs. One rib grated against another like knife on bone as I breathed. I had not had the pleasure of sprawling across the city underbrush quite so artfully before. It was rather lumpy, I decided – and then cringed at the understatement. I had never felt so plowed out of joint in my life. I was certain my body had been perforated in a dozen different places from my spill; and where it wasn't dredged, I was sure it was cracked.

One apparently did not roll down these hills as the grassy green slopes of times past.

Dark colors were leaking down across the horizon.

Letta will fix you right up with her magic herbs and salves, I told myself. There was no need to worry about the speculated extent of the abuse my body had taken. In the back of my mind, I feared the consequences of being torn up in a locale so susceptible to infection, but we the children of Manor Dorn were hardy souls. The lot of us had been through hell and back, one way or another. Some of us twice.

I felt a subtle chill in the air.

The question was: should I return to that sunken square the next time to finish what I had started with the rich soil that I discovered there? Was it worth going back for further harvests, or had the novelty been shot through the heart and endangered? The other fellow ought to be more dissuaded from the area than me, I reasoned with myself, but my encounter with the place stayed with me. I couldn't help it; I was wrecked. Dissuasion was raked all over me.

Tomorrow brings new perspective. You'll see. I would be more than ready to hazard the location again when my next mission came around. After all, the other fellow had proven a point: these were desperate times. If I found good soil, I was going to dig my greedy hands in and bleed it for all it was worth.

The desperate were entitled to whatever they could get their hands on.

I limped free of the rubble, finally free of the city. Now there was only the distance, that long empty road ahead of me. I kept my eyes peeled for Manor Dorn's lonely silhouette as the outskirts crawled nearer one hobbling, maddening step at a time.

I tried telling myself: I could run.

But I could not.

My body simply would not increase its efforts without crumpling me into a heap where I stood. Pathetic or not, I was achieving my limit.

The fields expanded around me, the trails of architectural remnants dwindling into the weeds. What once had been a more rugged road this far out was now a thing of smooth wonder in comparison to the ruined city streets. It aided my handicap, but I kicked up dust.

I did not like kicking up dust out in the open. A creature could see that, across the distance. A moving cloud that meant live meat.

Yet there was nothing for it. I could do naught but blaze a trail toward sanctuary.

A pall of gray was arresting the land, but I saw it: the lonely manor rising in the distance. Soon the mist would mix with the gray to blur it into an even more tentative symbol, but I had it focused in my bearing now.

Just a ways more.

My feet burned in my boots. Each step was like I was running on bruised soles, the skin chafed raw, the bones whittled down. Shards of pain shot up my calves and shins, like recurring splinters. A pulled muscle protested in one leg, and the other had been pinched senseless by a sharp jab to the meaty muscle there. I briefly considered resorting to walking on my hands, for how useless my other limbs had been rendered, but the ridicule was lent a faulty premise when I reminded myself my wrist was just as twisted, and the nerves in my other elbow just as tweaked.

My breath began to sift into the air in frosty little clouds, obscuring my vision in hazy patches. It spread out to be united with the rising mist, and I scuffed hazardously faster for a few moments.

Presently, I could hear the others singing. It was a distant sound, but unmistakable; I knew that muffled lament. And even fainter beyond that, I noticed as I grew closer, was the sound of a single voice out beyond the other side of the house – a lone, crude chant. An ancient, wise, desperate voice.

Enda.

Hastily, I limped through the last stretch of road and plunged straight into the misty weeds, falling to my knees and adding my voice to the ritual. I had to salvage what I could. I imagined the others, fraught with the obligation to take up my task. What a bleak undertaking; for surely they knew they could only grasp at it – that the flowers would flicker in response, in deprivation, neglected by that which the others didn't possess.

Yet they had to try. The Wardogs were out there.

Only the slightest falter tickled my throat, raw from my breathy exertions, but I hollowed it out and forced it strong. Potent, keening notes rang through the mist. I closed my eyes and let it course through me, becoming a mere vessel for that greater power that had its seeds planted inside me somewhere. The darkening countryside became ethereal territory, awash with the ringing, sacred symphony of the song in my veins.

The weedflowers around me flitted with the first shimmers of light. Slowly, they awakened, dawning like pixies in the gloom. My lashes lifted as they assumed their full glow, and I let the breath of the song go out of me. Weariness and relief crashed down on me all at once. But I clambered to my feet with the need to spread out the effect, and, even after I had hastily achieved the task, I stumbled once more in a direction not of the manor – driven by one last piece of necessity this night; in the distance was Enda's voice still, wavering but caught in a vigil. I hastened toward the sound, pushing the weeds aside. They swished and bobbed in my wake, their buds like fireflies.

At times, I pushed mist aside as much as the weeds, as good as swimming through the abyss. But surely feet had never fumbled or caught so much for any swimmer.

Enda's voice grew and shrank, teasing me onward, pulling me around.

Finally, I found her. I broke free of the mist into a pocket of a clearing, and saw her folded on the ground in the middle, desperately stuck chanting. I treaded forward and folded myself at her side, putting my arms around the old, rocking woman. Again, I added my voice, smoothing out the song, bringing her back to a sense of harmonic sanity. I felt her go slack in my arms, her chant turning to a hum. Drawing her slowly up, I turned her about, ears straining for the sound of the voices that I hoped were still posed to hail us. Dusk and mist had lost me completely.

The first and most prominent thing I heard: silence. Then the second: the gem-cutting sharpness that was a brief string of voiced notes flitting through the gloom. They drifted to us over the field after that, unsteady but tangible. I huddled Enda close as we penetrated the mist, and ushered her back toward the house.

Our perimeter, swallowed by the abyss, held true as we left it to its nightwatch.