A Mischief in the Woodwork

CHAPTER 7

A Stranger at the Door

That night, I read more from the diary. It was a haunting thing to read it, but it felt important that I connect to this voice. This lost voice of a woman who had disappeared off the record. It was as if my reading it anchored her somehow, paid tribute to her life as a person, rather than leaving her solely to the disgrace of the claiming rubble. I honored her memory by reading it. I raised her from the ghostly dust. I pieced her back together, word by word, from wherever she had been disassembled, crushed, snuffed.

It was clear that she had entertained her life near the beginning of when things began to sour in Darath. She was one of the first. One of the baffled. I tried to imagine what it would have been like back then, seeing the first phenomena, being struck by the first disasters. Rising from the first dominoes of tragedy into the eerie aftermath of what you surely began to suspect was frightfully more than coincidence. The days when the first patterns began to manifest in the settling dust. Who would be the first to notice?

Lady Sebastian began to speak of the brick walls that housed the courtyard of her complex. I followed her day-by-day account of their prospective demise, as with each day they appeared to have slouched more than before, growing somehow sloppy in the set mortar, until she began to question her sanity just a little bit. But she knew those brick walls. She had walked them as a child, trailing her fingers along the lines of mortar. Straight lines. Sturdy lines. Now, the walls were a jumble of pale red blocks, like a horridly made patchwork quilt, crudely stitched together, every square askew. Within a week, a total disarray.

Yet solid, still. The wall itself did not change proportion. It remained the sentry it always had. Its peak did not buckle. Its edges did not crumble. Its roots remained set in their stone.

But Lady Sebastian no longer felt protected. She came to feel trapped. And she was no longer set in her stone.

It started with wariness. Then suspicion. These things evolved into anxiety, until she would not go near this mutant wall. She wrote of it from her window, with a more agreeable wall between her and the decaying thing outside.

But how long until her boundaries constricted again, the walls of the very house catching this structural disease?

Lady Sebastian's handwriting grew more sloppy as her account went on. Three times she left an entry with a question of her sanity. 'Could it be I am losing my mind?' 'Have I gone mad?' 'Are these things some sort of trick I am playing on myself because I am disturbed so?'

My heart went out to her as she struggled through these early stages of mischief. I knew that many – most – had lost their lives, but how many had lost their minds as well? I was lucky, I realized for perhaps the second time. Lucky to be surviving in the dark age that I was. Bleak as it was, I had been essentially born into it and raised to cope. None of this buckling under the unfathomable trauma in the early stages. I was crafted for this. I was a child of it. I did not mind being forsaken. It made me independent. It made me sturdy.

But Lady Sebastian... She had been born into order. She had been born into a world that had a way about it, and a society that bent to that way. There were rules, and manners, and clockwork. The most unpredictable beast of the earth's ways was mother nature. The elements.

Nothing that walls could not bar. Nothing that roofs could not defy. Nothing that blankets, and fire, and shelter could not starve out.

Until things changed. And no one could put a name to the mischief.

They would have been hard-pressed to cope, I granted. For they would not have even known how to survive.

I closed the diary, my thoughts churning for the night. I tucked the volume absently away as I rose from the crack of moonlight at the window and quietly treaded to my pallet. My thoughts were tumbling through a realm of destruction and intrigue, lost in the history of a time of fascinating paved roads, and the devastating prick of impending destiny that paved the broken road to my decade. A time when childhood walls began to drive people mad.

*

My wounds were beginning to heal. They itched and stung at times, maddeningly so, but Letta kept me in check about bothering them. If she caught me fussing, she promptly smeared root salve all over me again, and then the only potential result of my fussing was the threat of gooing up my fingers.

I kept up with the rest of them despite my injuries. A tribute to that 'sturdy stuff' we of recent times had been melded into. As a child I had been like metal to a blacksmith. Hammered, pummeled, pounded, melted, smelted, beaten and bruised – but refined into a great chunk of masterpiece. Something staunch. Something purposeful. And, yes, even something beautiful. It was odd, but true – even as a forsaken figure in this lawless, classless, decayed time, I was proud of who I was.

I paused in my work on the garden to look out across the countryside. It was sunny today, the air crisp on my cheeks but warm on my back. Something stirred in the distance. A heat wave. We had heard or seen nothing of the Wardog since evidence of it first rang out.

I wiped a smear of dirt from my cheek with the back of my arm. A rock clucked under my boot as I shifted. Even that echoed.

“Tell me of Serbae,” I prompted Letta. I loved hearing of her country.

“There is not much you have not heard.”

“I should like to visit it, if I ever have the chance.”

“Well, alas, minda, for it is not ours anymore.” She sat back, thinking. “Let's see. I have told you of the great cats, with their manes like fire. I have told you of the beasts of the water that lurk beneath the lily pads – the fat gray hippohs, graceful one moment and ready to maul and crush you into the mud the next, and the terrors that are the armored, fanged lizards with snouts like splintered logs, the ghators. I have told you of the teeming herds of spotted and striped horses. Have I told you how the horses can fight off the water beasts?”

I shook my head.

“One sees beauty and elegance when they look at the horse – strength, yes, but fragility. They are great creatures, but prey. They spook. They run. And they can run like the wind, but have you considered their legs? So slight. So spindly. Little more than bone ready to snap, it seems, under all that wild, prancing, rippling muscle.

“But those hooves can crush. Those bones can strike. I saw it, once – a true thing of wonder. I always held the horses in high esteem, but I never knew they could fight a beast like a warrior, until I saw it with my own eyes.

“Serbae is a dry country. You know that. Dry and hot, for miles, two out of three parts of the year. The horses, always on the move, must drink. There is nowhere to go for it but the water holes and lagoons that keep the hippohs and the ghators. They know, but they must drink.

“I watched as a stallion came to the water's edge, lowered his maw to the murky water. He swallowed once, twice, three times – and then in a great cascade of erupting water, a ghator emerged from the depths and lunged for the creature's throat. It caught the horse's neck, and my heart raced for the animal. I thought it was gone, chomped, just like that. But it bayed – a sound I had never heard before. A frightful, angry bellow, and it struck out with its front hoof. What happened next was a frightening blur, but the ghator was thrashing, and the horse kept bellowing and striking, its ears pinned against its head like a wicked thing.

“It fought off that ghator and stomped it into ashes, Vant. It was savage. It was stunning. The thing would not stop until it had pulped its attacker, rearing and stomping, rearing and stomping. Baying and gnashing its evil teeth until the ghator moved no more, dead on the bank, and then the triumphant creature grunted its approval and sailed away on prancing, bloody hooves, and the rest of the herd went to drink from those conquered waters.”

I stared in awe, imagining, my task completely forgotten.

Letta smiled. “You would like the horses, I think.”

“Aye,” I agreed. We had our own horses in Darath, but not around here, not anymore. I had certainly seen them when I was very young, in the rich circle I was born into. But the creatures escaped with the ruin of the city. There had been a year or so that we spotted them running free, picking and prancing around the rubble, but they had gradually run off into the distance. I had been sorry to see them go. They were beautiful. But, unlike Letta's horses, they were not spotted and striped – and they seemed to have been scared off by the wardogs.

Letta gathered her pile of harvest in her apron and rose to spirit it inside. I looked down at my own, shamefully smaller than her crop, and hastily shooed it into its own barely-respectable pile, gathering it quickly in my arms so Letta would not chide me over it. But my fumbling was enough to draw attention by itself, and she smiled in amusement at my antics.

“You are a dreamer, Vant,” she told me fondly. It seemed I was not in trouble. Still, I kept quiet as I followed her back toward the manor. “Let losing your lunch over daydreams be the first lesson; a dreamer's road is not easy. There are consequences to setting your heart on things. Things you must consider when you let your mind wander. But I would be so reckless as to hazard a word of encouragement where dreamers are concerned. I would hazard keeping dreamers around in times like these. I would guess they are rare these days. Mostly choked out. I don't see how they could thrive. Yes, rare and a thing of hope, as far as I am concerned.” She smiled at me as she held the screen door open for my passage. I ducked under her arm and into the interior of Manor Dorn.

I supposed it was a novel concept, now that she mentioned it; someone who dreamed in a time of darkness and despair. Others hoped and prayed the obvious, day in and day out: that things might get better, that the depression would stop. But a dreamer's prayers still held poetry. A dreamer still lusted over the thought of great things, still possessed the ambition to touch down on the rich soil of distant lands far, far from this sick trap. A dreamer still turned her eyes to the horizon as if she could see past the curve of the earth, rather than merely to check the perimeter for the dangers that made a habit of closing in from all sides.

Did others ask to hear about the wondrous spotted and striped steeds across the border, and the bravery that made them such heroes to be talked about for the sake of morale? Did they ask to hear about the climate so they could imagine breathing different air? Did they ask about the soil so they could imagine a different feel beneath their weary feet?

Who gave a care about the lands beyond, when the land around us was in such turmoil?

I shook the greatness of my mental escapades from my mind, chiding myself for neglecting my own soil. I felt suddenly treasonous for glorifying other homesteads in my mind, for taking the time to flesh out these fantasies instead of focusing on the dire grounds under my own feet. This was my home. It deserved my loyalty. It needed my attention. Never mind if it was wretched. Who was I to disown what I had? It would be foolhardy. I knew this soil. I had roots in it.

Unaware of my little self-induced realignment, prompted by her own un-intending words, no less, Letta deposited her load on the kitchen counter for my attention and went to start the laundry off the lines. I set to work scrubbing the vegetables in the sink and chopping them into little bits for our daily supper stew. The knife thunked against the counter as I went, rhythmically mincing each entity until a bad spot caused a discord. I paused to cut it out, then resumed my chopping.

I don't know how long I stayed at the task. Whether I liked it or not, my mind took to wandering again as the blade in my hand seemed to do the work for me. I simply could not dedicate my full mind's capacity to slice after endless slice. The pot was half full before I realized it, but then I looked up as I noticed Letta's figure filling the door frame. The knife hovered quizzically over the anchored stub of carrot.

She did not look spooked, I decided – but she did look guarded.

“Minda,” she said uncertainly, casting her eyes over her shoulder into the other room. “There's a stranger at the door.”

The knife turned cold in my hand then. I couldn't have heard her correctly.

“Letta, what do you mean–” I began with the slightest hint of a skeptical scoff, just because I couldn't believe it.

“A stranger, minda. At the door.”

She had said it again.

Very carefully, I put the knife down. Then thought better of it and drew it back up. Slowly, I moved from the counter and followed her into the other room. At the window, I pushed back the curtain and peered out.

And, by the gods, it was true.

A young man stood just a ways beyond our bottom step, as if avoiding directness in his engagement but clearly there addressing Manor Dorn. I swept him with my eyes, wondering, suspicious. Letta peered out beside me.

“He knocked, minda.”

“Maybe he'll decide we aren't home,” I suggested, still uncertain what to make of him. Visitors were unheard of these days. They didn't exist.

“He looks decent,” Letta took the authority of judging.

“No one's decent,” I objected. “I wouldn't trust him past the edge of the porch.”

“At least see what he wants.”

“Why should I?”

“Don't you want to know what it means? A visitor like this? I don't think you could live with the itch of letting him just walk away, not when he has appeared so. This is most unorthodox.”

“Exactly why I don't like it.”

“Well you are not in charge, are you, minda?”

I cast her a brief look of irked resignation, and abandoned the curtain for the door. Stowing my knife where I could snick it out in a moment of need, I did the deed and opened the door.

A pair of dazzling paint-blue eyes looked up as I came out, and I treaded guardedly under their visage to the edge of the step. It was a comfort standing taller than this wayward newcomer, and I stopped there and refused to budge from that spot.

“Monvay,” he offered, a tinge of uncertainty in his voice. I wished his hair, almost too dark to be called light brown but not quite, did not fall into his eye on one side, for I wished to look him straight in the eyes. It was short everywhere else, I noted in irritation, as if pointing that out to myself was challenge enough to convict its existence. “Are you the mistress of the house?”

“No,” I said. “I'm one of them.” Snicked my head slightly over my shoulder to indicate Letta where she stood like a dark ghost in the doorway.

“The Baedra?” he asked, frowning a little. I do not know if it was merely in confusion or dislike, but he used that word, Baedra, so I didn't take fondly to him.

“A slave,” I differentiated, though I didn't feel like there was a need to be differentiating so.

Oh, he seemed to conclude. “Where are your masters?”

“Upstairs,” I answered without enthusiasm. “They don't come down.”

Again: oh. His head bowed slightly in comprehension and resignation, thinking. Then he glanced to the side, took in the house, and back to me. “I came from Cathwade,” he said.

It was a name I had not heard in a long time. One did not deal with other cities these days. Other cities were essentially irrelevant; we had enough to worry about in our own, and travel was folly anyway. But Cathwade was a city in the east, quite a distance from here, and much smaller than this, the capital: Dar'on.

What, by the gods, was he doing all the way out here?

“That's a long way,” I observed.

He nodded with the smallest sense of wryness for my stating the obvious.

“Why so far from home?” I inquired.

“Home is gone,” he said as if that should be obvious too. “It's a shambles. I came looking to see if...other areas were hit like us.”

“And,” I prompted, “are you satisfied?” He didn't have to come all this way to satisfy that curiosity.

He shook his head, his eyes falling to the side – but it wasn't in answer to my question. It was a look that said how a shame his findings were. “City after city... When that's all I found, I couldn't stop. I had to know if there were any that hadn't been hit.”

I suppose I did not know for fact that everywhere was like this. It was just a common assumption, because it was certainly all we had heard about. But we were rather limited in our intel, cooped up here, weren't we? If he came all the way from Cathwade, though, that mostly answered the curiosity. If everything between here and there was in ruins, there was not much hope for a pocket or corner elsewhere that wasn't. He had mostly covered everything.

“I thought maybe the capital would prove stronger. It seemed impossible that the great symbol that is the capital of our nation could just...crumble. Do you know? I couldn't imagine it. I had to hope...”

“Well you were wrong,” I said. Again, the obvious.

He nodded – bitterly? Or was that mere rawness? I suppose I could afford him that. I let him have the moment unchallenged. A moment of sympathy.

But I still did not trust him. I offered him nothing.

He looked up, only half seeing, and I realized I was right: that was raw pain in his painted eyes. They were like two pieces of sky. Broken sky.

“Did I get your name, Monvay?” he asked, looking weary.

I decided he might as well have that. “Avante, of Manor Dorn,” I granted. As a slave, I had no last name. And being defiant and claiming any relevant name that used to be there would only name the family that had given me up. I didn't want that name anyway. But either alternative was sour – so sour. My pride curled at both. I wanted to spit the mixture from my mouth.

He nodded. “Tanen Nysim,” he offered back.

I did not feel like I needed to offer him anything further, but failing to introduce Letta as well seemed as if I was neglecting her, and I felt defiant against my impression of this man's regard – or disregard – for the darkskins. So I opened my mouth again, for pride's sake. “And this is Letta,” I said, daring him to react differently to being equally introduced to one of the 'Baedra'.

He looked at me a moment, then at Letta over my shoulder. Nodded.

My eyes narrowed in calculation.

“It is a pleasure, Tanen,” Letta said.

He was not looking at her anymore, but his eyes flicked back to her in acknowledgment, very briefly. When he spoke, though, he had already looked away. “Likewise.”

My insides stewed under the heat of my suspicions. He was being polite, but I sensed an underlying tension in his mannerisms. I was sure this fellow was a product of prejudice. I could smell it on him.

I wanted him gone. “Where will you be off to next?” I prompted pointedly.

He shifted. Clearly, he had other ideas. And after all, he had to have come to the door for a reason. Not just to check the status of our city. He didn't need word of mouth for that.

“I saw your manor standing, and hoped I could beg some ounce of hospitality.”

“Hospitality doesn't exist here,” I said.

“Minda,” Letta piped up gently, as if in warning.

She was about to make me look foolish because, in the end, I respected those compassionate ways of theirs so much, wasn't she? I would deny this chap like I had cold authority, and she would object and compel me to take it back and be more amiable.

“We have nothing to spare,” I tried again, determined.

Resignation came to his face again. That's it, I thought triumphantly. Keep that bit of decency. Humility will be your one redeeming quality. Don't lose it.

“I see,” he said, and I nodded with approval.

I willed Letta to stay docilely quiet behind me, but could barely help from cringing imagining her impending protest. But Tanen spoke before she could;

“Thank you for receiving me,” he said as he turned away, and took the first steps away from our manor.

“Minda,” Letta objected more loudly, not to have her voice excluded. “He can't go back out there now. It's getting dark.”

Tanen paused to glance over his shoulder at the potential exchange. A small trace of hope returned to his face, but he waited patiently.

“He's lasted this long,” I pointed out. “He's come all the way across the country, Letta. I'm sure it's gotten dark once or twice between here and there.”

“You should be ashamed, Vant,” she said, and she had me. A lump of hurt and vengeful humiliation caught in my throat as my judgment was overturned in front of the man I had turned away. But I could not help it. The conviction of the darkskins affected me. My eyes fell to the porch as Letta turned to Tanen.

“We have a fire for warmth, and a corner for sleep,” she told him hospitably.

He doesn't like you, I wanted to tell her, to convince her she was loathe to be kind to him. He has opinions about you. He would demote you. Demean you. Shame you. Don't cater to him, Letta. He would triumphantly take advantage of her and think nothing of it.

“Thank you, Monvay,” he said – and it was true; he looked more triumphant than grateful. I ignored the fact that he had called her 'Monvay'. My eyes, risen from their shame, seared into him with unwelcoming disdain. He suffered that conviction, even acknowledged it, but turned back in acceptance of Letta's offer.

What have you done? I despaired in regards to Letta's blind generosity. We had just welcomed a stranger into our house. One who called the darkskins by that dreaded name, who carried a superior and otherwise unknown air about him.

And if he had survived in the dark all those nights of his journey, and blazed a trail across the entire forsaken country, I had to make the evident assumption:

This man was dangerous.