Wander West, in Shadow

1.

Martimeos awoke, sore and still feeling exhausted, to the dim light of early dawn, his back aching. He shifted uncomfortably against the boulder he had propped himself up against, grimacing as his joints popped, and glanced to his side. Elyse was sat next to him, snoring softly, her hat down over her face to shade her from the light of day, his crossbow still clutched loosely in her arms. With a grunt, he stood up, and set about making a fire.

After the Dolmec had left, and the feeling had come back to their bodies, they had been too afraid to fall asleep again; too afraid to even talk beyond hushed whispers. They had set themselves backs against a boulder, clutching their weapons, not daring to light their fire for fear of what attention it may attract from the dark woods that surrounded them, shivering as they stared into the darkness and their ears strained for the slightest cracking of twigs or rustling of leaves, wondering if the Dolmec might come back for them in its cruel sense of humor, deciding to kill them after all. Little enough was known about the creatures – they did not seem to seek out or hunt people – but what little the tales told spoke of the mysterious daemons deciding, as if on a whim, to turn to violence – and that once a Dolmec decided to kill you, there was precious little that could be done to stop it.

Elyse stirred fitfully, kicking in her sleep, as smoke from the campfire drifted in her direction, until with a start she awoke. Martimeos glanced at her; from the look on her face as she groaned and cast her eyes about, she felt just as sore and unrested as he did. “’Tis so early,” she muttered, looking at the dim light drifting through the trees from the sun just barely rising above the horizon.

Martimeos met her protest with silence, simply rummaging in his pack for some of the preserved fish Ritter had sent them on their way with, handing her a leaf-wrapped portion as the fire began crackling in earnest. He sat cross-legged by it as he chewed on his share thoughtfully, examining the now-useless hilt of his brother’s dagger that the Dolmec had left him with.

Elyse joined him by the fire, sitting next to him, and was quiet, too, as she chewed, watching him run his hands over the hilt. But presently she finished her meal, and her curiosity got the better of her. “So….your brother’s blade, then?” she asked softly. “How did you know?”

Martimeos, shifting his legs beneath him, pointed to the stag-head design etched into the pommel. “That is his crest.”

“I thought your father was a cobbler. ‘Tis unusual for commoners to have crests, I thought.”

“My brother was not so usual for a cobbler’s son. Though it was not so unusual in my village for even simple farmers or merchants to have crests, clung to from bloodline rights won long ago. He...claimed rights to this from my mother’s side of the family.”

Elyse glanced at him, bemused. “So….do you have a crest?”

“No.” Martimeos did not elaborate. Instead, with a sigh, he simply slipped the broken hilt into one of the pockets of his pack.

“You are seeking him?”

“Yes.”

Martim expected that she might snap at him for his short answer. Instead, she simply nodded, then added softly, “Is it a sore subject with you? I am curious, but if you...do not wish to speak of it...”

Martimeos ran his hands through his shaggy hair, pulling out twigs and dead leaves as he did so. “No, not a sore subject. I suppose you deserve to know. ‘Tis a bit of a tale, though.”

“I am in no hurry to be on the road.”

Elyse watched as Martimeos gazed into the crackling fire before them for a long moment. “Nearly ten years past,” he said eventually, his tone soft, nearly a whisper, “There was a Queen in these lands. Had been for some time, actually. Cruel, and a sorceress. No one knew her true name, though she had many grand titles. The Witch-Queen of the White Rose, that sort of thing. Most in Pike’s Green just called her the Queen in the West. Her rule did not extend to our village, though by force of arms and skill with the Art she was expanding, conquering townships. She would bring bitter blizzards down upon those her armies besieged to leave them exhausted and starving. Perhaps ten years ago, my brother and some of his companions left to join an army being raised between many towns and villages, to join the front lines against her. I was much too young at the time to join them. Though I wished I might have.”

“I think I might have actually heard tale of this Queen, even in mother’s humble little swamp.” Elyse frowned. “Though I heard that she was no more.”

“Yes. A few years after my brother had left, news reached us. The Queen in the West was dead, her armies scattered or slain, her conquered territories freed, her kingdom no more. But….” Martimeos shook his head. “My brother’s letters – and those of his companions – had long since stopped arriving. They would send us word, when they could, carried by merchants. And though the war had ended, neither my brother, nor a single one of his friends, ever returned home.”

Martimeos tapped his hands on the ground fitfully. Then, as Elyse suspected he might, he pulled out his pipe, packing it with tobacco and lighting it, quickly puffing up clouds of smoke. “Perhaps they were simply slain in battle,” she suggested.

“’Twas what we all assumed. The village sent word by merchant; some of their fathers even took journey into the west to search for word of them, but nothing was found. Eventually, they stopped looking. Funerals were arranged. Though not all thought them gone. My mother...she would not even attend any funeral ceremony. She never even grieved. She always thought my brother was out there somewhere.” Blowing out a smoke ring, Martimeos suddenly looked surprised, as if he never thought he might reveal that information to someone.

Elyse was quiet as she gazed at Martimeos. She tried to imagine what it might have been like, for him to lose his older brother, with a mother who would not even admit he was gone. “And...what about you? Did you think he was dead?”

“Not at first. At first, I would listen to my mother. Even my father was not decided, listening to his wife’s faith. As the years wore on, though, I thought he must certainly be gone. Though what a shame it was that we never had certainty, or any remains to bury. Then, when I came of age, I began thinking...why not go look for him myself?”

Elyse laughed suddenly. “’Twas the Art calling to you, you know. All those who have some skill with it are drawn to wander in their youth eventually.”

“Perhaps.” Martimeos puffed at his pipe thoughtfully. “’Twas certainly true I had no plans set in stone for my search when I first set out west. And I thought that, at best, I might find some remains. Or even simple confirmation of his death. I traveled far, into towns and villages once held by the Queen. Farmlands and plains where soldiers were left as they had fallen, where you might find bones and old armor simply by turning over the dirt with a shovel. I had searched for months, and found no word or sign of him or his friends. Until, one night resting in a tavern’s common room, I found a man who said he had served with my brother.”

“And what made you think he was telling the truth, and not simply preying on your hopes?”

“Well,” Martimeos replied, frowning at the ashes in his pipe bowl as if he was disappointed the tobacco was spent already, “First, I told him the same rule for lying to witches applied to wizards as well, and he seemed suitably frightened. Second, he did not exactly give me welcome news. He said my brother and his friends had abandoned their posts and deserted. They were pursued, but not far – they needed all the men they could spare for battle against the Queen’s forces. But he did tell me they were spotted headed into the wilderness, to the south. And so south I journeyed, into woods where the paths and roads disappeared. Until one day,” he said, giving her a mocking grin, “I came across a strikingly beautiful witch in the forest. And here we are.”

Elyse snorted, a faint blush coming to her cheeks at the memory. “So, it seems simple enough. Your brother was a deserter. Perhaps shame kept him from returning home.”

But Martimeos was already shaking his head before she had even finished talking. “Cowardice was never in my brother’s nature. Quite the opposite. He was brave to the point of recklessness; he and all his friends, but he most of all. I do not know why he left his post, but it was not from fear of battle.”

“But had he ever seen it before?”

Martimeos grew quiet, looking inward. Elyse had come to recognize this look; it was the look Martimeos got when he no longer wanted to talk about something. “Yes,” he said softly. “He had. What spurred him to join the war was a raid on our village by the Queen’s forces.” He did not elaborate.

Elyse fiddled with her ring. She was curious, and yet she knew as she watched him that Martimeos was becoming reluctant to speak more. She decided to press on, while he was still talkative. He had been tight-lipped about anything regarding his past before now. “I thought you had said that your village was not under the Queen’s reign?”

“It was not.” Martimeos seemed to withdraw, his eyes not staring at anything before him, rather lost in memory. “Nor were we bordering her territory. ‘Twas her knights and cavalry she sent, around the front, to ravage the farms and villages supplying the armies opposing her. They did not come to conquer. They came only to slaughter and burn. I think they would have killed everyone in Pike’s Green if they were able.” He raised a hand to scratch absentmindedly at his shoulder, and Elyse thought back to the long, knotted scar she had seen across his back when he had bathed. His face was grim, and she regretted having pressed him on the issue.

They sat in silence a few moments more, she uncertain of what to say, until Martimeos sighed and with a whisper the campfire died down into a few red coals, which he kicked dirt over as he stood. “Best to get moving,” he said simply, as he hoisted his pack onto his shoulders.

Still weary from the scant few hours of fitful sleep they had gotten the previous night, they made slow progress, though they started out early. The sun rose as they walked along, a rosy dawn, the sky painted in brilliant pink and yellow hues, the light shining through the trees and playing off the carpet of red autumn leaves; it was almost beautiful enough to make one forget how dangerous the forest could be. But Martimeos walked along in a grim, silent mood, not responding to Elyse’s jests, only grunting “No time,” when Elyse pointed out the spot where they had bathed on their way into Silverfish and asking him whether he would like to do so again, not even brightening when Flit and Cecil joined them, his familiar alighting on his shoulder to burble out a cheerful little song to the dawn.

Elyse did feel badly for the dark mood she seemed to have put him in, but damn the man, it was his fault she had been so curious in the first place. He could be as cryptic and unreadable as a fae when it came to his past; it was not her fault that she had been so curious as to press him on it, it was his, really. Though, she reflected, it was not as if she was being entirely forthcoming herself.

What did finally loosen his lips, however, was talk of the Art. They stopped for a small break, resting by the side of the road, Martimeos a bit winded from the combination of a lack of sleep, being unused to the road after staying in Silverfish for a month, and the lingering weakness left in him after his brush with death. Elyse was going through the satchel that Minerva had given her. The apothecary had gifted her a wide variety of roots, berries, and herbs – some of which had effects that even she, in all her boldness, would be too embarrassed to tell Martimeos about. She opened a packet containing a small, tangled clump of roots and leaves – the small note included with the packet informing her that they were from a plant known as “robber’s brush”, so named because of the supposed propensity for highway bandits to lie hidden in it – but also making a bitter but invigorating tea when harvested before it had grown very large. “Martim,” Elyse said curiously, “You have knowledge to light fires and warm your cloak with the Art. Have you ever tried boiling water?”

“Ah.” Martimeos brightened up immediately, drawn out of his dark reverie. “I have. You know flame is a curious thing. A hunger that feeds upon hunger. Once lit and burning, it becomes easier to drive it higher the greater the hunger in it grows. When I use my Art to warm my cloak, the hunger is there, too. Small, and you must keep it small, but it is there. But direct your words at water, and the hunger is drowned almost immediately. Never have I been able to bring it to a boil. Only warm it, after much concentration.” He furrowed his brow as he spoke, giving her a small grin as he explained.

Elyse was glad to see him drawn out of his silent thoughts and memories. “Perhaps if we tried together? Two working at the same goal can achieve much more with the Art than two apart, after all. And I have the skill to bring dry paper to a smolder, at least. I would like to try to make some tea.”

“Hmmm.” Martimeos scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Why not?”

Elyse drew out a small stone bowl from the satchel – normally used to mix apothecary ingredients, but it would do just as well for making tea. She dropped the roots of the robber’s brush into it, settling down as Martim poured water into it from his waterskin. And then they sat on opposite sides of the bowl, and concentrated.

Work with the Art came in many forms. Fire and heat, Elyse had found, was much different from her skill with glamour, or her small ability to heal. With a glamour, your Art spoke to a person’s mind, and minds were….soft, flexible. Some more than others. And with healing, your Art spoke to a person’s body – it was a living thing, and your Art did little more than encourage it to do what it would do naturally. But with flame and heat, your Art...it spoke to the world itself. It spoke to inanimate objects, things without life and will, and demanded that they change. Sometimes, to Elyse, it felt like talking to a wall.

Martimeos told her that the key was to remember that she was the one living, that she was the one with will and life, and that it was natural for the world to change before her – that it was the course of the unliving and the inanimate to be manipulated and changed by those who had the spark of mind and life. She wasn’t quite sure she understood that, at first. Her mother had once told her, during her lessons, that men and women were drawn to different aspects of the Art; she had wondered if that was the case, when she had tried desperately to ignite a dry leaf under Martimeos’ instruction, failing time and time again.

But eventually, she had felt the leaves, the paper, bending beneath her will. And she had realized – it became easier to do when she thought of the objects she tried to ignite as not unliving and inanimate – rather they were living things, just very weak. Something weak that she could lend strength to...until it was too much, and by trickery, it was consumed in its own strength, bursting into flame. Elyse liked that very much. She liked being tricky.

Although, she didn’t know if Martimeos thought of it that way. As he sat across from her, he peered intently at the water; pulling off one of his thick gloves with his teeth, he snapped his fingers at it. Snapping, or clapping – he said these added power behind your commands, your demands, of the world of matter. It had never worked for Elyse, though. Perhaps it really was just a difference between men who practiced the Art and women who did so. What curious creatures, men were.

Elyse realized she was losing her focus and concentrated once more on the water in the bowl before her, trying to think of it as something living. Water, she found, was easier to imagine in this way – perhaps because it moved on its own accord. She could sense, too, Martimeos’ work upon the water – in a strange way. It surged with sudden, violent strength, then died down, then surged again. But the water before them remained still. She thought there must be something they could do…

She tried timing her concentration along with the surges of Martimeos’ work, her mind and concentration ebbing back and forth, like a heartbeat…

And then, all at once, the water in the bowl before them was bubbling and boiling, hot enough to spit scalding droplets at them. Elyse yelped and broke her concentration as one of those droplets hit her arm, scrambling back, but Martimeos – he was just laughing, giving her a happy smile. “Look at that!” he said, as the water steamed into the cool autumn air and the violence of the boil died down a bit. “I wasn’t expecting that!” He stretched a hand out to feel the heat from the bubbling water.

Elyse couldn’t help but break out into a smile herself. “I...sensed your work. Did you sense mine?”

Martimeos furrowed his brow. “I thought, perhaps….maybe, for a moment...but I was unsure. Perhaps as your strength with flame grows it would become easier to sense.”

Laughing, they shared the bowl of tea between themselves, blowing on it to cool the scalding water as they passed it back and forth, taking small sips. The roots made a bitter tea, but it warmed their blood, and not long after they had packed up and set out for the road once more, sharpened their senses – shaking from them the exhaustion from the previous night, making them more aware of the world around them. Martimeos finally commented on how beautiful the day was.

Their triumph put them both in a good mood; achieving something new with the Art, especially on their first attempt, was invigorating. Lightheartedly, they spoke to each other about what it had felt like to work their Art upon the water; according to Martimeos, it had felt like throwing himself in assault against a great, cold boulder – until his strikes became more and more effective, and with a last one the boulder had simply burst into pieces. He wondered just how much water they might be able to make boil at once; perhaps if they came to camp by a river or stream, they might try with larger quantities.

So good was their mood that they did not even notice they were approaching the crossroads until they were nearly upon it. But they quieted as they drew near, the memory of the wicked rider they had seen on the way into Silverfish, the rider on a black horse with a mouth full of fangs and a cattle-skull helm that chittered and clacked its teeth playing in their minds as they approached; the memory of the fear that had coursed through them as they lay hidden beneath the leaves. Finally, they stood in the crossroads in total silence, the both of them looking down at the cobblestone – to the hoof-shaped indentations where the rider’s vicious mount had stood, where it had apparently melted into the stone itself. Though the last time they had seen these markings, they had been filled with blood, time and rain had washed that away. Unease sank into them, and the beginnings of fear; as if the rider they had seen had left a stain upon the crossroads itself.

They looked at each other, now quiet and pale, their former good cheer vanished. West, the Dolmec had said. West. From where the rider had come. The path west stretched before them, a long road into the deep forest, the bare trees looming above it, until winding, it disappeared off into the distance.

“Well,” Martimeos said quietly, “West we go.”

And so they began walking, the forest silent around them, all except for the sounds of leaves rustling in the wind.