A Long, Eventful Night

Death In Harmony: Part Twenty-Five of Twenty-Nine

Death In Harmony is the fifth in the Tales of The Lesser Evil and this is the twenty-fifth chapter.

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This is a fantasy series—not quite grimdark, but dark nevertheless—with complicated and believable characters doing their best to survive in a world simply indifferent to their existence.

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A Long, Eventful Night

The Past: east of Youlbridge

The fire was still burning when Flin awoke. She was warm in the blankets, Kadan beside her, their woollen nest comfortable and snug. For a moment, she laid still, eyes closed, listening to the snap and pop of the driftwood burning, needing to relieve her full bladder, but luxuriating in the warmth and relaxation. Then it dawned on her—the fire should not have been burning that fiercely.

She opened her eyes. The cave was dancing with reflected flame, the entrance a thick wall of shadow. The sun had set, night had come once more. Flin and Kadan had both slept all day, and yet the fire was roaring, tongues leaping and sparks gently floating on the heat.

Someone was sitting with their back to them, poking the fuel into a better position and clearly also enjoying the heat. Without turning, the figure spoke.

‘Ah, you are awake. There is tea brewing and I can cook you something, if you wish? You had an eventful night, after all.’

Whoever she was, she spoke the language of Youlbridge, but with an accent Flin could not quite place.

‘Thank you,’ she replied, mind whirling, considering her options. Whoever this was, it appeared she knew about the tunnels, which made her a potential threat, but she also was making tea and food, which made her a potential ally. ‘Some food sounds good. Thank you.’

‘I suggest you go and relieve yourself, I imagine that after sleeping all day you are rather desperate.’

‘Yes, yes I am.’ Flin paused, wondering whether to take Kadan, or leave him, weighing up her options. If the woman had wanted to kill them, she could have easily slit their throats in their sleep. Flin chose to leave her baby sleeping and carefully stood and stretched, before heading out to the path beside the river, squatting and feeling the strange joy of the pressure dissipating.

When she turned around, the woman was slicing some bacon, a selection of fungi already rested on a tilted flat rock beside the fire, baking in the heat alongside several small rounds of bread. Clearly, the woman had been preparing for some time.

Flin went to check on Kadan, but he remained sleeping. She was sure he must wake soon, although he had always been a good sleeper.

‘I think you were both rather tired.’ The comment was phrased somewhere between a question and a statement and Flin nodded in reply, despite the woman still not looking at her, dark hair falling so as to hide her face.

‘Yes. We were. A long, eventful night, as you said. Who are you? How do you know about last night? Why are you here? Did you also escape from the city?’ Flin could no longer hold back the flood of questions.

‘Sit, have some tea.’

Flin sat at an angle, where she could keep an eye on the sleeping baby and woman both. She accepted the cup—her cup—and took a sip. She was thirsty and it seemed foolish to even consider the woman would poison her.

‘Sometimes, it is a good thing for me. To come and talk to people, to just spend time around a fire, eating, drinking, relaxing. I have found, over the years, that if I do not, then I lose a part of myself, a connection with the real, something which I do not know is missing until it has gone. Others then suffer and it takes time to rebuild once more.’ The woman spoke softly, intonation like music, placing the thin slices of bacon in Flin’s pan and resting it on a raked bed of coals.

She was young, Flin’s age or younger, skin pale and hair dark, cut neatly above the shoulder. When she finally looked up and their eyes met, Flin was startled by how bright and fierce they were, shards of glass or splintered agate, catching the light and almost glowing. White, perfect pearl-like teeth, a small nose, and sharp cheekbones completed the picture.

‘My name is Flin,’ she did not know how else to continue. A part of her mind still working through the previous statement from the woman, wondering what she meant, ‘I am a Merry-Mirth.’

‘Pleased to meet you, Flin. You interest me—it is always fascinating, to witness the urge to survive, the will to live. When it is as strong as it is in you, it is just irresistible to me, like an open box of sugar candies.’ The woman smiled, a small, knowing smile, as though she was in possession of knowledge only she knew, secrets too dangerous for anyone else.

Flin opened her mouth, but did not know what to say. The woman did not make much sense. She accepted one of the small flatbreads and pulled it apart, savouring the scent, before adding some of the bacon the woman offered.

‘How did you know I was here?’ Flin decided the best thing to do was to concentrate on a single question.

‘I heard you. With the lion.’ She smiled again, as though there was more to the statement than Flin would realise, deep secrets in all she spoke.

‘Why were you nearby?’

‘I was not nearby. But I heard you from a distance. How is the bacon? I prefer mine slightly crispier.’

‘It’s good, thank you,’ Flin replied taking another bite—it was good, the food exactly what her body needed.

‘Here, add a few of these mushrooms.’

Flin did as suggested and took another bite. She was very hungry.

‘I have rules, Flin. Rules which I, and some of my old friends, try very hard to follow. Without rules, eventually all falls apart, we learnt that the hard way, a long, long time ago. One of our rules is that I should not directly influence certain events. I have to act through proxies, get others to do the dirty work. So has it always been, but, sometimes, it is pleasurable to try and break these rules if I can. Or at least bend them, push my boundaries. Hence this conversation. I am not supposed to have it.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I will tell you some things you are not supposed to know.’

‘What?’

‘For a start, I will tell you that I am disappointed you killed my men, they were not ideal, but they were among the best I have here, in this place and time. I think I need to change that.’

Flin was silent, the bacon and mushroom sandwich partway to her mouth, paused and forgotten for a moment. She moved her jaw to reply, but nothing came out. Why was the woman not killing her, if she had been the one the men had spoken of? The words which finally emerged surprised her as much as the other woman.

‘I will kill Kadan myself before letting you have him.’

‘No, no, that will not happen now.’ The woman raised her hands, palms out, in a gesture of peace and supplication. ‘I do not want to separate you from your child. It is important you share this time with him.’

‘Good,’ Flin nodded, and slowly returned to her food, more to prove a point than to savour the flavour: her appetite had substantially lessened, ‘But why? Why not kill me and take him, as you said earlier?’ She spoke with her mouth full, chewing hard, trying to swallow past the tightness in her throat.

‘That was before I heard you and the lion. Directions of lives can change on such a small thing.’

‘So what do you want?’ Flin asked.

‘Nothing. I just wanted to meet you. I have a feeling our paths will cross again at some point, and an introduction seemed both necessary and wise. You did remarkably well, getting out of Youlmouth, and especially by the route you travelled. There are dangerous things below the city. Very dangerous indeed. Some of them are old, some new, some sentient, others just wild beasts, twisted and hungry. You did well.’

‘Thank you, I think. It was mostly luck,’ Flin licked bacon fat from her fingers. After a quick glance at the remaining bread, bacon and mushrooms, her stomach growled loudly. Even with her heightened tension, even with the fact she was sat at a fire with a woman who wanted her dead just a short time ago, her body still craved food.

The woman handed her another filled loaf, without comment.

‘I suspect you have a long road ahead, Flin. I suspect it will be some years before we meet again. I wonder what will have happened to you in between? Whether you will have met any of my friends, or not. It seems to be the case that we are attracted to the same people, always have been, like moths and flame.’

Flin was silent, stifling the urge to mention flies and shit, eating her second sandwich and enjoying it. Kadan moved, his small arms reaching up, then slowly settling back down again.

‘Kadan will wake soon, and I should go. I think it would be better for you to travel at night, if you can, at least for a time. The path here goes up again before the Falls, there are even steps carved into the cliff at parts, but the last part is a bit perilous. Strike out to the right of the scree where you find the path is covered, pass the boulders and you should make it, but be careful—it would be a shame for you to both fall, after I met you and fed you.’

‘Thank you,’ Flin said, swallowing and adding, ‘I don’t understand much of what you said, but thank you for the food and directions.’

‘And for not killing you?’ The woman laughed, then stood smoothly, her crossed legs quickly lifting her straight, ‘I shall be going now, but remember me, I will see you again, I’m sure. I shall leave you a parting gift, if you want it. I believe you already have a pair of these, but this one is yours.’

She handed Flin a tiny green carving of a hook, a smaller version of the ones carried by the men she had killed.

‘Keep it safe, if you can. It might come in useful. Now, travel well, Flin the Merry-Mirth. I hope you have the strength for what comes next.’

She took a step away from the fire, then another and, with each step, she seemed to become more insubstantial, before Flin was sure she was gone entirely. It was like watching thick smoke slowly dissipate, thin, and merge with the air, until all traces were gone.

Flin sat frozen, her sandwich once more forgotten, mouth open, eyes wide, only startled into movement when she realised the strange, low moan she heard was coming from somewhere deep in her own chest.

Kadan stirred again, waking with a murmur and Flin shook herself awake and moved to tend to him. A woman may have vanished—utterly vanished—in front of her, but her baby still needed to be fed, to be changed. The world always moved on, no matter what.

As she worked, she kept thinking—this was true magic, like in the stories. Real, true magic, the kind that she had always dismissed as fiction. The Trapper. The Weaver of Lives. The Tanuthian had told her about the woman who had founded Youlbridge and she realised, without a shadow of a doubt, that was who she had just met. She Who The Dark Fears. The names seemed to fit a lot better now.

She looked back at the fire, at the tiny stone hook she had placed there on a rock, convincing herself she could easily leave it behind, but the idea seemed wrong, illogical. Better to keep it, better to tuck it away with the other two, safe and sound. She leant over and picked it up, placing it beside the others in the small leather firelighting pouch she wore around her neck. Then she forgot about it.

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