Letti soon trailed behind Candor as they ran towards the village. This was the moment every parent feared; their child running pell-mell to the village in a desperate escape from some deadly thing. Except, Letti thought in spasms of images, she had no idea what they were fleeing.
Candor could smell the village before she could see it. Barreling through the palm grove that hid the village from the sea, Candor drew her sword. The trees deposited her on the wreckage; Candor nearly lost her balance but sidestepped the debris quickly. Ashes floated down from the sky as Candor beheld what had been the main path. Hroth’s smithy left a charred ring marking where its perimeter had stood that morning. Candor made no move forward, frozen at the smell of burning flesh and copper. Letti’s heavy breathing startled Candor from her vigil, and she put her hand back to catch her friend. Candor might have been able to navigate the pieces of their childhood at a dead sprint, but Letti would fall.
Letti slowed as she saw Candor’s outstretched arm and stepped to Candor’s right out of the small forest. Already out of breath, Letti moaned, knees crumpling beneath her. Candor caught her. Just as quickly as Letti had fallen, she stumbled forward and began to run again. Almost immediately, her foot caught a piece of debris and she began to bleed.
“Letti!” Candor dashed after her.
Through the jagged pieces of wood that had once formed homes and shops, through the ashes and embers that burned Letti’s feet, past lumps and shapes that Candor did not examine too thoroughly, Letti ran home.
Candor spared a thought for Mo and Lola, but reasoned that between they and Letti, Letti needed her more. Grimly, Candor doubted anyone had survived this massacre. Shock and adrenaline prevented any further reaction, and Candor followed Letti through the mangled garden. The bean vines lay against their wall, charred corpses.
Letti loosed a shriek that choked into a sob. Sidestepping a smoldering barrel of tomatoes, Candor knelt next to Letti whose knees had once more failed her. The small palm-made building of her childhood seemed to have exploded. Few items that had once inhabited the house remained in its footprint, except for the forearm of whom Candor was reasonably certain was Letti’s mother. Letti leaned over and threw up.
“Come on.” Candor hauled Letti to her feet. “You can’t stay here.”
“They’re dead!” Letti screamed and began to strike at Candor.
Candor pinned Letti’s arms to her sides but could not cover her mouth.
“They’re dead and it’s your fault!” Letti screamed so loudly, Candor was certain she had bruised her throat.
Unsettled, Candor entertained that thought for a moment as Letti sank against her shoulder. Had she somehow willed this into existence by being ungrateful for their easy peace? Had she opened the village to retribution from the universe? Was this what Mo and Lola had expected? Candor’s stomach dropped. Mo and Lola.
“Come on.” Candor muttered, and half dragging, half supporting Letti made their way to the hill house.
The wooden outbuildings were gone, but the hill itself, Candor was surprised to see, was intact. Perhaps whomever had destroyed the rest of the village had not seen fit to enter a hill.
Not keen on leaving Letti by herself, but even less inclined to bring her into a potential fight, Candor deposited her friend on the ground where she curled into a ball.
Drawing her sword, Candor approached the front of the hill house. The door had blown off its hinges, the inside dark. Flipping her sword point to the back, Candor carefully picked her way to the entrance. Her
heart thudded in her chest; never had adrenaline flowed so readily through her veins. Sparring was an exercise that did not offer the reality of thick, desperate fear. Candor pulled her breathing into control. Before she cold lose her nerve, Candor stepped inside and placed her back against the wall, enormously grateful that her moms had insisted on a cylindrical house. Belatedly, she wondered if this was a purposeful defensive choice.
After a moment, Candor’s eyes adjusted, and she could see that she was alone. The furniture of the interior lay strewn across the floor, some pieces smoldering slightly, but with no space for an intruder to remain hidden. Candor breathed out before inching her way around the back to Mo and Lola’s bedroom. Miraculously, the door had remained on its hinges, but nothing else remained in the room. Idly, still trapped between shock and terror, Candor wondered where the bed had gone. Walking across the room, Candor checked the closet. On her way back across the smoking carpet, Candor stopped. Something did not sound right, but deep as she was in survival brain, she could not identify what had given her pause. She walked back to the closet. Then she walked back to the door. Then to the closet, then the door. A few more laps and Candor finally returned to herself and discovered her audible irritation. The floor under the carpet was hollow.
A small spark quaked to life in Candor’s belly. Kneeling, Candor rolled the carpet, taking care not to burn her hands. Pieces of it fell apart as it revealed a small trapdoor.
A tiny hole marked the location a finger could enter to pull the door away from its camouflage.
“You witch.” Candor breathed. The trapdoor opened smoothly, revealing a dark hole into which shaded steps descended. Candor searched quickly for a lantern, before remembering that every of her possessions was smashed or burned and elected to allow her eyes to adjust once she entered the space. She need not have worried, hung on the wall at the bottom of the stairs was a flint and just below it, a small bowl of what smelled like whale fat. A small ball of string sat in its middle. Candor struck the flint, showering sparks on the makeshift light and it roared to life. Candor gasped. The room flickered into view, maps, books, weaponry, and other tools and machines Candor could not identify ringed the walls. In the center stood a small dais on which an old book sat. From the layer of dust that coated the entire room, Candor knew neither Mo nor Lola had visited in a while.
“By the Goddess,” Candor breathed, running her hands over the spines, and pulling out scrolls. For the briefest of moments Candor forgot her village burned even as her friends and family lay somewhere above in pieces.
Candor’s finger slid over spines, knocking dust off accounted histories of the land. A sullen rage grew in Candor’s chest, but unable to process anything but awe, she continued to catalogue the room. In the corner, for there were corners in this space, Candor found a stand on which hung a magnificent sword. Its quillons angled towards the blade of the weapon, tapering off to sharp points. Wrapped in leather, the grip looked to be near to the length of her own sword, and in the pommel rested a brilliant purple gem inlaid with a silver owl. The entire blade itself shone nearly indigo in the dim light; Candor had never seen a sword like it. Gingerly, she grasped the handle and swung it up in front of her face. The blade whistled in such a way that Candor was intimately reminded of both the wind off the Black Teeth and the waves of a storm. It felt good in her hands; it felt smooth. It was also light. Candor frowned. She swung it again. No sword she had ever wielded flicked through the air that way. It simply violated the natural world. Looking around for its scabbard, Candor found what looked to be a quiver, but was in fact a shoulder holster. Candor never drew from her back, only her side, but she sheathed the sword and slung it anyway. It landed between her shoulder blades, its point drifting slightly past her right hip. Candor reached for the hilt but found the movement cumbersome; all in all, she preferred her belt, but could learn to fight from the sling.
Turning once more to regard the chamber, Candor felt the overwhelming truth of the moment begin to crash over her. She gasped as her heart bent within her chest. Tears rolled hot and thick over her cheeks. Candor sank to her knees. She wondered vaguely if Letti were still outside in fetal position. This thought sobered her, and Candor rose, steadying herself on the little dais. She was not ready to leave this place, not yet, but she knew they needed to leave the hamlet, lest the perpetrators return. Quickly, Candor scanned the walls, snatching a few of the more interesting and durable looking instruments. The book on the dais she grabbed as well, inferring its importance from its location. As her pile grew, Candor spun once more desperately scanning the shelves for, ah, Candor smiled a dark grimace in spite of herself. No wonder Mo and Lola had hidden this room for her; in the corner facing the sword stand lay maps. Candor rolled them all and tied them with a string she stole from another scroll. Now they had a way to escape.
Candor paused on her way to the stairs. Hanging next to the exit were two empty rucksacks. Loading her discoveries in one of the bags, Candor slung both over her shoulder and trudged up the stairs. Turning back to look at the room one last time, Candor noticed she’d left the lamp burning. Quickly she returned and placed the hinged cover over it, snuffing the flame.
As Candor stepped out the door, she found Letti sitting cross legged, staring back at the smoking village. Candor circled her and gently offered her hand.
“We can’t stay here Lettishae.” Candor used Letti’s full name, an expression of affection. Named for the goddess twin of fertility and perpetuity, Letti rarely heard anyone but Candor employ her full name.
Letti stirred, looking up at Candor uncomprehending. “What do you mean?” She asked, voice slow, as if she were speaking through water.
“We have to leave, Letti.” Candor squatted so she could look Letti dead in the eye. “Someone wrecked our home. Someone killed your parents and mine and everyone we’ve ever known. They could be near here. Even if they are not, we need to find them and end them. We need to leave.” Candor articulated he last sentence as clearly and slowly as she could.
Finally, Letti seemed to grasp the situation, and her breath quickened. Color returned to her cheeks, and she scrambled to her feet. Without a word, Candor handed Letti the extra ruck sack.
“You have a new sword.” Letti said, belatedly noticing Candor’s shouldered weapon.
“I found it.” Candor briefly explained the chamber she had found and the maps in her pack. Letti whistled softly, but otherwise did not comment. Candor had not expected her to say anything; there was not much left to say at that moment.
The girls turned from the hill house and the looming Kotemor and returned to the village. Blessedly, a summer rain threatened the horizon, its preceding breeze blowing the smell of charred bodies and spilled blood toward the ocean. Picking through the rubble, Candor tried to find anything of use they might be able to take.
Letti found a few skirts and some spilled peaches before turning to Candor, whimpering.
“What is it?” Candor jumped to her side.
A body lay in front of Letti, moving feebly. Letti put her hand over her mouth, before turning and retching once more. Candor knelt, unsure what to do. The kindest option would be to kill the victim; there would be no surviving their burns. Paralyzed, Candor waited for something, anything to guide her. She heard nothing; she was alone. Unable to deliver the blow, Candor stood and looked away. Feeling bile rise in her throat, she too stepped back and threw up. Letti looked on sympathetically.
“Boots.” Candor mumbled.
“What?”
“Boots. We will need extra pairs of boots.” Candor seized on this truth to distract herself from her failure. “We will be going through woods without paths. We need boots, and your feet are already a mess.”
Letti looked down, her feet were, in fact, swollen and bleeding, a fact she had not yet seemed to grasp.
“Everyone’s stuff is gone, Candor.” Letti said. “And it’s not as if many wore boots here in the first place.”
“Then we will take them off the feet we can find.” Candor steeled herself. “What choice do we have?”
“Are we not going to bury them? Or burn them?” Letti asked. Burial and ritual were significant pieces of life in the village. The entire community rallied for the events.
“There’s no one left to help.” Candor shrugged sadly. “We will say a prayer and hope the Twins shepherd them home.”
Letti nodded, numb.
Quickly, the girls set about searching for bodies that were not burned past recognition and that still wore boots. The search was more arduous than they expected, and by the time each girl found a second pair of boots, the storm hovered overhead. Candor felt wrung, as if she were a rag. Flashes of bodies screamed across her vision. Death, brutal death. Candor couldn’t conjur a monster evil enough to complete this deed. She moved forward. If she stopped, Candor knew, she’d not be able to start again.
Nothing of the garden remained, and the few fruits and vegetables Candor and Letti had scrounged would not last long.
“You think any of the dried fish will still be here?” Letti peered at the clouds over the drying rock.
“We can check.” Candor sighed. She had wanted to escape the village before nightfall but reconciled that beginning their journey at night would not be wise. “Let’s check the rocks and get back to hill house before it rains.”
“We need to make a plan anyway.” Letti eyed Candor. “We’re not walking off willy nilly into the Teeth. That is also a recipe for death.”
“We’re going to have to brave them at some point.” Candor wound around a few remnants of chairs. “There’s no way to get out of here but south.”
“We could follow the coast and see where it goes.” Letti offered hopefully. “We could go east.”
“We can check the maps.” Candor shrugged. “That’s an option, but I think the mountains wrap around the far side as well.”
“How did anyone ever get here?” Letti groused. “If they never wanted to touch the Teeth.”
“Now you’re getting it.” Candor murmured. Something changed in people when they joined the village, something kept them there.
“Or they had to endure the teeth and never wanted to do that again.” Letti added to Candor’s thought process.
Neither continued the conversation, as they had reached the drying rocks.
“Oh, thank the Twins above.” Letti tried an approximation of a smile. It fell on her face as a grimace.
The rocks still bore the last few days’ labor, the meat of fish laid out to dehydrate for preserving. Candor and Letti picked the driest morsels and carefully wrapped them in Letti’s shawl before placing them in her pack.
“I wonder why the birds didn’t take them.” Letti threw her head back to face the sky.
Candor frowned. Now that Letti had mentioned it, there were no birds to be seen, no crows feasting on carrion, no seagulls circling. Candor shivered. Perhaps it was the storm.
“Let’s go.” Candor turned from the rocks.
“Water.” Lett seemed incapable of producing complete sentences.
“What about it?
“We’ll need some.” Letti elaborated. “To bring with us.”
Momentarily stymied, Candor nodded. “We have our skins.”
“Those won’t last long.” Letti blinked as a fat raindrop struck her cheek. They both looked skyward before jumping to a dead sprint to the hill house.
Once there, they unpacked and repacked their rucksacks.
“This is the best chance we’ll have at freshwater for a while.” Letti murmured.
Utterly exhausted, Candor nodded. Dragging herself to stand, she moved quietly to the place that had been the kitchen. Searching in the debris, Candor discovered what she had hoped had survived the onslaught. Two large cauldrons sat, covered in soot and half filled with splinters. Candor emptied them, wiped them down, and stuck them outside in the rain.
“If we keep an eye on them, we can refill them a couple times.” Candor leaned against a broken chair. It slid, and she caught herself.
“We still only have our own skins.” Letti reminded Candor.
“Wait here.” Hoping against hope, Candor returned to her mothers’ room sidestepping the hole she’d left open. A few of the shelves remained in the closet, as if whomever had destroyed her home hadn’t bothered searching the far corners of the house. This thought chilled Candor; either they had found what they had been looking for, or they had simply been looking for destruction. Candor reached the top shelf and felt Mo’s soft water skin made of the stomach of a beached whale. Much bigger than was reasonable to carry daily, Mo had kept it “just in case.” Candor sighed sadly; they had been right.
“Here.” Candor thrust the stomach into Letti’s lap. “We can fill that a couple times. One of us can carry the water; one of us can carry most other things.”
Letti nodded and placed the soft container on the floor, still looking at the rain. Annoyed, Candor snatched it and went to tip the water from the pots into its small mouth. Silently, Letti joined her and held the skin open. “Sorry.”
Candor nodded curtly. “This is not going to be easy, Letti. I’m going to need your help.”
“I know.”
Candor relented. She had so far successfully managed to separate the reality of their situation with what she needed to survive. Candor could see that Letti was living every moment with a heavy understanding that their entire reality had shifted. Candor was not excited for that moment to return for her.
“We need to figure out where we’re going.” Candor said. She pulled the top of the skin taught and rolled the mouth over itself, sealing it.
“I guess we do.”
Candor spread the maps on the ground in front of the girls as they watched the cauldrons fill again. Some of the maps were clearly much older and made on the skins of animals. Two of those had runes that neither girl recognized.
“We need the most recent map.”
“This one looks the newest. It’s on reed paper.” Letti held up a map with darker markings than its neighbors.
“What’s reed paper?” Candor asked, intrigued. Rare was it that Letti possessed a piece of information that Candor did not.
“It’s paper made from river reeds.” Letti shrugged. “Lola explained it to me one day when I asked her why some books and scrolls looked different.”
“Huh.” Candor had never considered the provenance of the texts in the library. “So, it’s from the south?”
“Everything is from the south from here Candor,” Letti rolled her eyes, and Candor was heartened to see that she seemed to be returning to herself.
“Not true. Some things are to the east and some things are to the west.”
“Not by this map.” Letti pointed to a little star on the reed-paper map. “This is us.”
Next to the star, penned in tiny perfect runes read Ilia, the name of the village so rarely spoken. Had the annual celebration of its founding not named it, Candor would not have known it even had a name. Around the star shuttered the Kotemor mountains, and through the mountains ran a long straight line.
“What’s that?” Letti pointed to the line.
“I think,” Candor paused, “That’s the Great Stone Way.” Candor sat back, thoughtful. “It’s a majiked road, designed so that nothing bad can happen to travellers on it.”
“How is that possible?” Letti asked.
Candor shrugged. “The Fae did it; I don’t know a lot about the Fae majik.” Candor did not say it aloud, but she reckoned many of those books were in the chamber beneath her mothers’ floor. “There was a brief mention of it in the scroll about the Citadel. Apparently, it was quite a feat.”
“Indeed.” Letti muttered.
Candor scanned the map again. “Look!” She cried.
“What?” Letti, startled, drew back.
“I’m sorry Lettishae.” Candor had not meant to frighten her friend. “Look. There’s the Citadel.”
A tiny star sat at the very edge of the map, next to it, neat runes spelled out the name of the institution. The Citadel.
“What does that matter?” Letti asked, bewildered.
Candor realized belatedly she had not told Letti about Lola’s instructions.
“Lola’s voice spoke to me when we were on the cliffs. That’s why I collapsed I think,” Candor tried to explain. “In my head, she said ‘The Citadel.’”
“And that was how you knew to return?” Letti asked sharply. “Did she say anything else? Are you sure you didn’t imagine it?”
“I am sure.” Candor replied softly. “And they are gone.”
Letti fell silent, watching the rain.
Candor and Letti filled the skin once more. Near to bursting, Candor worked the skin into her rucksack, and placing most of her items into Letti’s.
“What are these things?” Letti held up one of the instruments Candor had swiped from the lighted room.
“I don’t know.” Candor admitted. “But I can’t bear to leave them all behind.”
“Surely we’re not bringing all of these?” Letti stood and tested the weight of her pack. “I honestly think I’d rather take the water.”
They exchanged packs, and Candor acquiesced. Though the water was slightly heavier, it was not as unbalanced as the other ruck.
“We should try to get some sleep.” Candor murmured. Letti nodded and laid back on the floor.
“Hold on.” Candor unfolded herself and hurried back to her room. Maybe there was a blanket or two that had survived the attack.
Candor’s door was gone, but curiously her bedroom remained untouched. Candor’s hair stood up and her arms freckled with goosebumps; why hadn’t the assailant wrecked her room? Quickly Candor gathered up the blankets and small mat that covered her floor and, upon consideration, the rest of her trousers and tunics, and returned to Letti.
“They didn’t touch my room.” Candor informed her friend.
Letti did not enjoy this revelation any more than Candor. “Then…”
“Yes.” Candor replied grimly. “I think they were looking for Mo and Lola.”
Letti gulped. “I don’t think I saw them in the wreckage.”
“Me neither.” Candor stared out the door, through the darkening rain. Neither girl mentioned that they had tried to identify the remains of their friends, family, neighbors as they had searched for boots. It felt too callous, too much a nightmare to be voiced into their new void.
“I think we go south.” Candor finally said. “We move by day and try to find the Great Stone Way as fast as possible.” Candor returned to the map and drew a line from the little village to the dark slash across the Black Teeth. “Alternatively, we could try going directly west, but I think trying for any sort of hypotenuse rescinds the benefit of positioning by the sun.”
“And we try to reach the Citadel?” Letti asked.
“Yes.” Candor looked up at her friend. “That is our only lead.”
A slip of dread wound its way down Letti’s spine and settled in her gut. Something about this course of action felt wrong, dangerous.
“We keep the sun directly to our front in the morning, our back at night.” Candor explained. “Or left and right respectively, depending on which way we go. That way we can always orient ourselves.”
“What if we can’t see the sun?” Letti asked.
Candor had not thought of this and did not reply.
Letti shook her head. “It’s not a criticism Candor, just something we have to mind as we move.” She sniffed. “For my part, I’d rather go south.”
“Oh?” Letti’s surety surprised Candor. “If we’re going to be travelling, I want to be moving towards something.”
“Fair enough.” Candor couldn’t argue with this logic, especially as the map showed no towns northwest of the Black Teeth. There was a simple depiction of the land that resembled a claw in the northwest. It was uninviting. Candor shivered.
“I’ll take first watch.” She murmured.
Letti nodded gratefully, and laid back on the ground once more, this time on Candor’s blankets. Candor would not have suggested a watch this first night, but the unperturbed state of her room disturbed her. Through Candor’s heart snaked a horrible suspicion that her mothers had been hiding something, a great secret that had cost the lives of everyone in their village. Candor had counted the bodies, secluding her sentiments in the deepest, darkest part of her brain until she could revisit them. Every one of the village members was dead, except for two. Mo and Lola were not among the wreckage. Who were they? Candor thought to herself. Who am I?
As images from the day drifted through her vision, the emotions Candor had suppressed to function returned, and she slunk closer to the door to shake with silent sobs so Letti would not wake.
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