As the light began to fade I came to the only inn for leagues around, two storeys of grey stone and lichen. An old man was sat outside weaving a length of rope, smoke rising from a clay pipe jutting from cracked lips. He looked up, shading his eyes against the sunset as I approached and dismounted. “Lad!” he shouted. “A customer!” A small, surly boy scurried out to take the reins and led my mount to a small stable around the back.
I looked at the valley ahead, the route growing increasingly steep. “I need a private room and a hot meal.” The mask was itching and my legs were burning, the skin cracked and weeping from all the riding.
The old man leaned forward, took out his pipe and cocked his head, looking me up and down. “Room and meal? Nae bother, but you don’t wanna be headin’ up those parts. There’s tell of monsters lairing in the hills now. O’course you have a big sword strapped to yer mount. Any good?”
I shrugged. “There will not be monsters for long.” I collected my pack and sword from the stables and was shown to my private room. After undressing to treat my wounds and slathering a mixture of herbs and grease across burning, itchy scars, I replaced my mask and clothing and went back out to sit at a table by the hearth in the common room. A young girl brought me a cup of ale and a wooden platter of bread, cheese and a bowl of mutton stew. She shied away from me, afraid of the mask.
The old man was not so bothered, quite the reverse. “Wounded in the war were ye? Didn’t mean no offense. You folks fought a’side our young’uns against the Skallgrim and their monstrous beasts is all.”
I nodded. His expression slumped into gratitude. “Did you know ’im? The tyrant as was called Walker?”
“I did. He was a good man.”
The old man sat opposite without asking and bellowed for ale. “That must be a story and a half.”
I looked down at my food forlornly. An audience was not welcome, given I would have to lift my mask to eat and drink.
“Have you ever heard of a being they call the God of Broken Things?” I asked instead. “Is it real?”
He paused, then slowly nodded. “So I hear. Certain to be strangeness on the path ahead through those there hills. Folk vanish. Folk go in with food and goods and come back with silver and no idea where they’ve been.”
I unfurled my map, set it on the table and tapped a crude drawing. “I am looking for this valley.”
He squinted down at it, then back at me, then at the map again. “The rock there looks like the maiden stone. Said to be a legendary druí bard with a silver tongue as was turned to stone in a storm, struck down by great spirits who didn’t like her telling tales better than themselves. It’s a little off the track. A way’s up the rise and then left through a tiny pass right by a shrine to The Queen of Winter. Horses refuse to go there so it’s said. Nothing more to see, it’s just a barren hunk o’ rock and scree down that way. Whole legend is a crock of shite if you ask me.”
I was almost at my destination. “Keep the horse. Where I am going I will have no need of it. Have your boy lead me there in the morning. Now leave me to eat in peace.”
The next morning the surly boy led me to the entrance of the pass. He seemed nervous to go any further, muttering about curses and dead spirits of evil druí stealing away and eating the hearts of wayward children. I imagined any such being might spit this sour child right back out.
I slung my pack and sword over my shoulder to squeeze my way through the small pass, a crevice in the side of a cliff really. On the other side another, hidden, valley began. A crooked stone pillar, like an old woman with a hump, guarded the route ahead. An old shrine to the Queen of Winter lay in ruins, kicked into a ditch.
I began to walk, and at my pace I would be at the mark on the map within the day. It was disappointing to only be attacked twice, once by a half-starved bone vulture, and once by a strange demon that was half-dog and half-monkey. I enjoyed the diversion of beating both to death with my bare hands.
After a few hours, rock gave way to soil and grass. I came across farmers tilling small plots of land, and tending sheep and cattle. I didn’t see what all the fuss was about. This was no hidden valley, and was surely no secret if people lived and farmed here.
A few of them waved as I passed by, and I hesitantly returned it. It was certainly not a place of daemonic terror and they didn’t seem scared to see an armed stranger with a steel mask. It was a little odd so soon after a great war, and yet none of them bore any weapon beyond hoe and shovel.
It was a pretty place, and sheltered from the winds that scoured some of the other places in the Clanholds. Swallows flitted and danced in the sky and I found myself enjoying the walk. For a time it distracted me from constant pain and the rubbing of clothing.
After another league or so past a number of occupied dwellings, and others still only half-built, I realised that something was bothering me. I had not seen any children, and a number of the inhabitants bore nasty scars. Old limping warriors and women with faces lined with grief laughed and smiled without care as they worked the land. Phantom hairs on my arms rose.
This place was not right. I kept my blade close to hand. Splitting from the main path up ahead, a gravel track led to a wide circular tower made from dry stone that loomed above every other building I had seen in the valley. Smoke trailed from gaps in a circular slate roof, and people were coming and going from the tower’s single and very defensible doorway, some laden with building materials and others hefting sacks of grain. As I approached the door leading to a large and smoky central room, a man on his way out stepped aside and with his sole arm held the thick oak door to allow me to enter. I stepped through and tried not to stare – his face was a disfigured mass of burn scarring.
“Good afternoon,” he said cheerily in a Setharii accent hailing from the cultured middle classes of the Crescent. “The ale here is cold and the food is hot. You will find what you seek, of that I have no doubt.” He pointed to her mask. “You will not need that, Eva. We are all friends here. None will judge a person on such superficiality.”
I went for my sword, but he turned his back on me and wandered away, humming merrily. I stood inside the doorway, hand on sword hilt and heart hammering.
“Are you coming in or not?” a dry, male voice said from a chair by the fireplace in the centre of the room. “It’s a little draughty with that door open.”
I advanced slowly into the room and let the heavy door swing shut behind me. The place appeared to serve as the tower’s great hall, with huge wooden beams and tables and chairs set around the central fire pit while other doors led off to side rooms and steps up and down the tower. The man’s back was carelessly exposed to the doorway, as if he was not in any way afraid of being surprised or attacked. His stockinged feet were up and resting on a padded stool, and next to him was a small table with two foamy mugs of ale.
Smoke curled in the air like dragon’s breath, drawn from a clay pipe held in his left hand…a dark and weathered hand missing a finger.
“How do you know my name?” I demanded. “Are you the one they call the God of Broken Things?”
“I am,” he said. “As to how I know your name…”
He stood and turned. My sword was up and ready to strike in a horrified second. The ancient Escharric tyrant Abrax-Masud stood before me. The enemy lived!
I flashed forward, magic singing in my veins as I cut at his neck. He lifted his right hand and my sword clanged into it, like I’d struck iron. I stared at the enchanted black iron plates enveloping his hand, and then at the cheeky, foreign smile twisting Abrax-Masud’s lips. His bald head had grown to stubble and the oiled beard shaved off entirely. On his tunic was pinned a badge that said: “A god. Yes, really.” This… this was…