Chapter 14

Even though it was mid-autumn, it was still hot, and getting hotter with each step south they took. They had made it to the border of Eldamar and for the last week had been wandering, almost aimlessly.

Villages in this corner of the forest were pretty spread out, but they were the only real option, as far as a place to start went. They’d tried two so far, and no one had ever heard of Jasper Fitzwilliam or a scholar of any type living in the woods.

“Maybe Godfrey was lying. I mean, he knew who I was the whole time, and that he was going to try and capture me, right? What if there’s no cleric out here? Why would he have told us the truth?”

“Sometimes men like that think they are above any kind of repercussions, and do it to show their power,” Rowan suggested. “They think that they can tell you what you want to know, but it doesn’t matter since you won’t be able to use it. Or maybe because the truth sounded better and he was trying to get us to tell him what we knew, or why we were looking for this guy, hoping it was connected to your ring and that document you stole.”

“But we should have found something,” Osric said.

“Maybe not,” Talia countered. “We haven’t been looking that long and it’s a large area. We should keep going, at least for a little while longer.”

“And why is it so damn hot? I know we’re on the edge of the forest, so there’s less cover, but it’s only two months until winter. Shouldn’t it start cooling down? I swear it didn’t feel this hot in Farvale.”

“I’ve only been this way a few times,” Rowan said. “But I don’t remember it being like this.”

Osric sighed, adjusting his pack, and kept walking, putting one foot in front of the other. They were following a simple road, one of the many that twisted in and out of the forest, connecting villages and towns away from the Great Road. Normally, as they got close to a village, there’d be signs, farmhouses or just increased road traffic, so Osric was surprised when they walked around a bend and saw one in front of them without any kind of warning.

While that should have filled him with cheer, since with each village there was another chance that maybe someone had heard of this Jasper, Osric had a feeling this village wouldn’t help them. While Osric wasn’t exactly well-traveled, he’d started getting a feeling for what other villages were like as he had seen more cities and villages in the past month than he had in his entire life.

Which is why it was pretty easy to see something was wrong here. There was a stillness in the air. There weren’t people milling about, which was a major warning sign, since gossip was the number one way most villagers spent their time. No work could be heard coming from the shops in the area, and there were no animals or children about. He would have thought it abandoned, except there were a handful of people, heads down, going wherever they needed to go.

Strangers in a village were a big deal, and yet no one looked at them or otherwise acknowledged their presence. Everyone seemed to go out of their way to avoid eye contact, their shoulders were slumped and their faces almost gaunt.

What should have been the main street of the village was lined with partially boarded up buildings and an abandoned cart sat in disrepair, weeds growing through the spokes.

“What happened here?” Talia whispered.

“I don’t know. There’s a tavern and it at least looks to be open. We should go find out,” Rowan said.

The trio made their way across the near-deserted street, and into the tavern. Inside, the common room was dim and musty, thick with the scent of old ale and despair. It was mid-day, so Osric wouldn’t have expected a full tavern, but there would usually be one or two people sitting about, even in small villages. Old-timers with nothing but time on their hands and a want for some company.

Not here, apparently. Except for the barman, there was no one in the room at all. Osric approached the bar, where a gaunt, haggard man stood polishing a pewter mug with a stained rag.

“Quiet in here,” Osric observed, trying to sound friendly. “We’ve been on the road for a few days and could use something to drink and maybe a little information, if you have the time.”

“Ain’t got nothing to drink, I’m afraid. Barely enough water for washing, let alone brewing.”

“Really? I thought I saw a pretty good stream a ways back heading in this direction, and assumed it ran into the town. You have no water here at all?”

“Stream runs through town, alright, but can’t use it. It’s tainted. Folk who drink it, they get sick, waste away. Same goes for the crops and the livestock. Hell, can’t even bathe or play in it. Anyone who’s smart stays as far from it as possible.”

“Someone poisoned the water?” Rowan asked, shocked. “Wouldn’t it just wash downstream? We were in a village a day or so to the north, and I would have thought it the same water. Why hasn’t the poison washed down to them?”

“Don’t rightly know, although I don’t think it’s a poison. Like you said, something in the water would have gone downstream, but their water’s fine. Hell, we send someone out that way every day or two, so they can bring back enough water to drink. Not possible to bring back enough for the crops though. This harvest is gone and our stores aren’t much. We sent word to Farvale, asking the baron for help, but he’s a long ways from here.”

“So it’s just your stretch of the river that’s tainted?” Talia asked. “How is that even possible?”

“No idea, just know that it is. Can’t drink it, can’t touch it, can’t use it.”

“Has anyone gone upstream to investigate the source of the trouble?” Osric asked.

The barman nodded wearily, setting down the mug. “Aye, we sent two groups of men that way. Brave men, but none of them came back. Now, no one dares try. They’re all too scared. I reckon this village is done for. But still, it’s good to have folks here, even if I’ve got nothing to sell ya. What brings you to these parts anyhow?”

Osric felt bad, bothering him with questions with everything he was dealing with, but they really did need answers.

“We’re searching for an older cleric or scholar named Jasper. Heard he might have a cottage in the area somewhere. Would have a lot of books, although mostly histories and things like that.”

The barman scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Can’t say I know anyone like that around here.”

Osric’s heart sank. Another dead end.

“But,” the man continued, “I might know someone who might.”

“Really?” Talia asked, hopefully.

“There’s this girl, Grace Thornton. Hell, thief’s more like it.” The barman chuckled ruefully. “Wild child, that one. Moves around constantly, or gets chased out of places constantly, more like. But she seems to know everybody in these parts. If this person lives within a week’s journey in any direction, Grace would know them.”

“Do you know where we can find her?” Talia asked.

“Last I heard, she was in the village of Tillsby, about a day and a half west of here. Of course, she could have moved on already, but she’s kind of loud, I guess is the word for it. For someone who has as light of fingers as she has, she isn’t particularly shy about people knowing where she is. Gods, if she didn’t have a way with people, someone would have strung her up by now. Hell, I’m half surprised they haven’t anyway.”

“Thank you, my friend. You’ve been a great help.”

The barman waved off the thanks. “Ah, don’t mention it. Just be careful with that one. She’s a slippery little minx.”

“For the information,” Rowan said, setting down a few silver on the counter.

It wasn’t a lot, and Osric could see the man looked like he wanted to say no, but he just nodded and slid the coins into a pocket. Pride tended to be one of the first things to go when hunger came.

“We can’t just leave them like this,” Rowan said as they pushed through the tavern door and were back outside. “As a ranger, it’s my duty to investigate what’s poisoning their water. I have to go upstream and see if I can find the source.”

Osric exchanged a glance with Talia, a silent understanding passing between them. Their mission was important, but he’d want someone to help Eldham, if it was in this kind of trouble, and he knew Talia felt the same.

“We’re coming with you,” Osric said. “We’re all on this journey together, and you might need our help.”

“Especially if this isn’t just a poison,” Talia added. “The way the barman described it, it sounds more like magic to me.”

Rowan looked relieved. Osric had no doubt that, if they had stayed silent, he would have gone off on his own. Besides, it was the right thing to do.

The stream followed along the very edge of the forest, bumping in and out of the trees. They followed it for a few hours until the trees opened up as the stream emptied into a small-ish lake, half of which had trees along its bank and the other, western half without, as it looked out onto the plains.

At one time, this must have been good farmland, this close to the forest and a source of water, with gently sloping planting grounds. There was even a farmhouse not far away that was abandoned, but only recently so, with signs of human habitation in and around it that had started to decay, but hadn’t all been carried off by animals and scavengers yet.

The other thing notable was how few animals there were. In the forest, there were normally lots of animals near ponds and lakes. Good grounds for foraging and a large source of water, it would have been ideal for them. Rowan actually confirmed as much.

“A place like this shouldn’t feel so empty,” he said. “No bird noises, no deer or stag. Just trees, dirt, and water. It’s unnatural.”

“That’s not the only thing unnatural,” Talia said, hugging herself in spite of the unusual heat. “I can feel ... something, in the air. It feels like something that isn’t there crawling on my skin.”

There were other things. Old stones here or there, most buried enough that there could have been whole buildings under the sediment. The stones were rough, pitted, and cracked from years, maybe even centuries, of exposure, with all manner of moss and plants having found homes in the crevices. Something had been built here a long time ago, but time and the encroaching forest had reclaimed much of what had once stood here, giving no hint as to what it might have been.

Cinder sniffed the air and stayed well back from the water, not that they needed the warning. It was dark, almost thick-looking, but none of them were eager to put a limb in and test it. It reflected the trees and the sky like a black mirror, undisturbed by even bugs, which Osric had never seen before on any pond or lake. A faint, acrid odor clung to his skin, making him wrinkle his nose in distaste.

“Clearly, this is where the taint in the water is coming from, but I have no idea how to fix it,” Rowan said. “I’ve never seen water like this.”

Osric stepped closer to the water, picking up a stick and swishing it about. It moved like water, the mirror effect rippling and fading as the stick passed through, but settling down again into a shimmering solid after just a few ripples. Faster than Osric would have thought.

“I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

Talia stepped behind him, looking over his shoulder. Reaching a hand out, she moved it around the stick, not quite touching it, but seeming to react to it as she hovered over it.

“It’s not natural, that’s for sure. There’s something almost ... other, about it. Like it doesn’t belong here.”

“Of course it doesn’t belong here,” Rowan said. “Water doesn’t smell or look like this.”

“I don’t mean here in this lake, I mean in our world.”

“You think it’s from the other side of the Veil? From one of the other realities?” Osric asked.

“The Sage said it was getting worse, that the Veil was weakening enough to let things through. What if it let something through, into the water?

Osric looked back at her, over his shoulder. “Like what?”

Before she could answer, there was a massive splash as a creature burst from the depths of the water. It was a nightmare made flesh - a twisted amalgamation of sea creature and monstrosity. Its body was a bulbous sac, pulsing with a sickly light. Underneath, a cluster of jointed appendages twitched and grasped, reminiscent of the legs of some great aquatic insect. But most horrifying of all was the gaping maw atop its body, ringed by seven writhing, suction-cupped tentacles. It let out a screech that shook the trees, its eyes burning with a feral rage.