Rainwillow Crossing (part 4 of 4)

“Is your hand burnt?” Eminlae crouched bes ide him.

He'd been crying--wailing like a child. This poor girl had been helpless beside him.

Yondel swallowed a shuddering breath. She was supposed to be in his care. He held his hand out for her to see. “It's nothing.” His hand was reddened, small blisters forming.

“You have gomilroot, don't you? On that shelf?”

“At the top, near the end.”

She spread the pink salve over his palm and covered it in linen strips.

“It wouldn't have scarred.”

“It might have infected though.”

What does it matter? He echoed her words from when he'd brought her up here.

Eminlae settled back on her heels. “What was happening?”

“That was my daughter.”

“She's down... there?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Yondel sighed. “Because she has always been a good girl. Because I was fool enough to raise her right. She has a mind not unlike your grandmother's, except that the memories are not as vivid, not as... brutal. She went out there because she thought she should help the ones in need, collect up survivors; because she thought there must be an answer to this world. She can remember, can't she, every time her mother went swimming in the lake, her great-grandmother walking through the fields picking poppies; her great, great uncles going fishing in a clear, bubbling river? She thought the world needed restoring to that glory.”

“Well, doesn't it?”

He repressed a snarl. “Yes.”

“She must be brave,” Eminlae offered.

“Of course, she is. And stupid--in a way, and sharp-minded. Listen, Eminlae: things are worse than you know. The world is contracting out there, there's places where the fog is so thick it becomes solid, where it takes magic to even try to push through. And those places are advancing, forming a ring--a noose--tightening. That's what's happening out there.”

“And what's on the other side?”

“Exactly.”

“Well, what if she finds those clear waters, and fields?”

“Or death, Eminlae. The crossing will tear her to shreds, trying to get through the mist: it's rock hard and chaos, the storm still rages there. Whatever magic she's found, I don't know if it'll get her through.”

“But there's hope.”

“Little hope she'll come back again.”

The girl leaned forward. “But hope that she'll find something better.”

“A selfish old father ought to be glad of that, huh? Not mourning that he'll never see his daughter again?”

“I didn't mean...”

“No. Ignore me. I'm rough-edged because of her news. I didn't mean to take it out on you.”

“What if I do gut you?”

“I don't think you will.”

“I heard what Shorgbran said, and he's right. It'll be my nature by that point.”

She was changing fast. In the few days he'd had her here, already her curse was advancing. Her skin was blacker and more bulbous; her eyes had retreated into her head; he could see where hard claws were enveloping her fingernails, where the top of her head was beginning to swell and harden, to form an almost stone helmet. Stony scales were coming up along her back.

He heard himself say: “Nobody understands the nature of the Cursed. Why they attack people around them, what control they have or don't have. We don't really know what you'll do, if you'll remember enough to do no harm.”

“Has anyone ever?”

“This thing is too new, there aren't enough memories.”

“Of all the ones you've seen?”

“Well, we killed them quickly.” Little Anjesha, younger than this one. And he'd been younger again, lunging at her with that knife.

“It'll hurt though?”

“Yes.” He'd seen that. “Is it hurting you now?”

“Not much. Not yet. But it gets worse.”

What do you say? There was no honest comfort he could offer, not even a set of good lies. She'd suffer, she'd change and die. He hadn't found a solution to that. Old man, you've found no solutions to anything, not since you started digging, or since you let your daughter out into the lowlands. What use have you been?

Yondel steadied himself. “Listen. There are things I can give you that'll dampen the pain, they'll keep you from violence too if I give you enough. I can keep you safe and comfortable. I know it isn't much.  But I'll do all I can, I'll do the best I can not to fail you. To find a way if I can. Can you trust me?”

It was an odd little smile: “Who else is there I can trust?”

#

He sent her to sleep that night with one of his treasures cradled in her arms. Maybe there would be something in there that could heal her? He gave her a honeyed draught of wrenswood and fiston, sat with her as she slipped away into a drugged sleep. In the firelight he stroked her clay-brown hair. Just a girl, so young, and with such a cruel fate awaiting her.

He walked out into the night and listened. The darkness made the cloud-swirl invisible downhill. The night sky had held onto its colour throughout--it was white against black, stars against void; a clean, clear vista that all the storms and curses hadn't reached up into. In that darkness there were the sounds of creaking, of the mountain as it moved and settled. There would be faint, grating, whining sounds—like a fiddle played too high--which further down the hill would in truth be mist-born predators, scouring their domain for fresh blood.

They'll come up here one day.

He had this thought: has the carnage now shrunk, is it only our part of the world still infected, have the edges retreated away from the rest of the world and left it its green old self? Or have they raked over it, annihilating everything--is it a graveyard?

His daughter might learn that, but he never would.

He sighed and turned back into his house. He raked ashes over the fire and lay down in the straw beside Eminlae to sleep.

#

She was gone in the morning. He realised that he hadn't really expected otherwise. Braver than he was. And yet he felt cheated. Cheated of her company, cheated of the chance to do battle against her curse, to find a way to save her, to undo a little bit of the harm. The chance to have finally done something of use. Maybe all lives are wasted. Maybe, when you look at them across a great enough distance. If all he'd done was live his years, raise a child, bury a wife, father, mother, brother and sisters: wasn't that what most men did?

He wished she would’ve told him of her intentions. He would have begged her against it, argued, but then he'd have helped her, provisioned her as best he could, given whatever advice he had. Rather that than she had trekked out there alone, into the mouth of the monster, swallowed up in the mist, and probably fighting her way through it even now.

The sphere was still glowing, even by daylight. Its innards had been scooped out, and Yondel wished her luck with them: maybe she'd find them a purpose, grow a forest; ignite a cleansing, killing fire. He didn't know what to hope for. Well, there was this: he shouldered his shovel and began his way up the hill. Where Eminlae had buried her seeds, now the ground had formed a tiny hillock, and there were cracks on it, spots where something would hatch or sprout. He squatted down there, running his fingers over it. Whatever grew out of here, at least it would be something new.

 

Picture credit/discredit author's own work