Parasite Soul (15 page)

“For your benefit,” she said, “As it appears you both have
difficulty wrapping your minds around the idea of a symbiotic being such as
we.”

Niu bit her tongue, chastened.

The three of them followed an old stone wall toward the barns as the
sun met the horizon, keeping a wary eye out for farmhands. Niu pointed out an
old man in the distance, tottering from his tumbledown old cottage to a nearby
shed, but Simon recognized him as Old Man Pendegast, whose sight and hips were
failing in equal measure. Even if by some miracle he sighted them, he
would hardly be able to pursue them. The old fellow was Simon’s friend
Jeb’s grandfather; Simon prayed that Jeb had already left on his monthly
excursion to Dunhallow to visit his sweetheart Branlynne, as was his
habit. If Simon had brought misfortune down upon his village, he
preferred his friend suffered no part of it.

They reached the barns without incident. Simon gave thanks to
Vanyon for their relatively smooth journey, even if he wondered why the god had
saddled them with a bruxa. If the deity’s blessing held, he would reach
Brand and discover his father alive and well. With fears for Veter’s
safety banished from his mind, he’d be able to plan his own future with greater
focus and attention.

Just as the three unlikely companions were about to wade into the
sea of corn separating them from Simon’s hometown, a voice rang out from behind
them. Niu’s daggers flashed and Sasha actually hissed, coiling like a
snake. Simon completely forgot about his shortsword and whirled
empty-handed.

“Where do you think you’re… wait,
Simon?
”

“Rollic!” Simon gasped as his thundering heart began to slow.
A gangly, ungainly youth, heavily freckled and sporting a shock of ginger hair,
was emerging from the nearest barn, pitchfork in hand. Rollic was about
Simon’s age, but the two of them had never had much contact with one
another. Neither friends nor rivals, they were no better acquainted than
to exchange trivial observations about the weather at market. Rollic was
a stolid lad, committed to his father’s farm, with no great ambitions in life
and a commitment to brutal pragmatism. When Simon had set out on his
quest to kill the Cannevish Wyrm, Rollic had dismissed his plan as
‘ill-conceived,
if not downright stupid’
which did, Simon thought bitterly, at least prove
that he was the smarter of the two.

“Who are these, then?” Rollic demanded, indicating Niu and
Sasha. “Is it true what they’re saying about you in the village?”

Simon’s mouth went dry. “Why, what are they saying?”

“That you’re a wanted man.”

“Wanted for what?” Simon’s heart resumed its staccato
drumming. Niu placed a steadying hand on his arm.

“No one knows, but we know it must be bad. The King’s men came
two days ago, they arrested and hanged your father…”

The next thing Simon could remember was Niu and Rollic helping him
up off the ground. Sasha stood idly by, watching curiously as he clutched
at Rollic’s shirtfront with both fists, his mind afire, yet simultaneously
numb.

“Tell me it isn’t true?”

Rollic frowned. “Why should I do that? It
is
true.”

“Why… why would they kill father? He did nothing!” Simon clung
now to Niu as though she were driftwood in a storm-tossed sea. He was
probably hurting her, but he didn’t presently care and she bore the discomfort
with stoic sympathy.

“They only arrested him at first. Then they told him something
which made him go mad.” Rollic screwed up his eyes as he recalled the
scene. “He struck one of the soldiers and tried to steal his sword and
got himself executed for his pains.”

“Oh, no.” Simon moaned, his knees shaking, the world spinning
vertiginously.

“I told you, you shouldn’t have gone after that dragon,” Rollic said
bluntly.

“This is not the time for such remonstrations,” Niu snarled, barely
able to hold Simon upright.

“Should I kill him?” Sasha asked, eying the ginger lad with a
healthy dose of hunger.

“No,” Simon muttered. Tears flowing freely, he released Niu’s
arm and sank to his knees. “No, he’s right. I’ve made such a
terrible mess of everything. Father. You, Niu… I’ve done nothing but ruin
the lives of everyone around me.”

“I’m content enough to be here,” Sasha shrugged.

“I’m not sure if I shouldn’t be turning you in to the guards,”
Rollic mused. “I don’t want you bringing trouble down on
my
family.”

Simon couldn’t banish an image of his father dangling at the end of
a rope, his face purple and distorted, ravens pecking at his bulging eyes.
He wanted to scream, in rage or in sorrow, but both emotions were locked
away behind a bleak wall of shock. In place of emotion, he experienced a
disorienting disconnection from the world, as though he were all that was real,
and he answered as though he were following one scripted line from a play with
another.

“Do what you must,” he said numbly.

“I won’t if you leave now.”

Simon nodded. His mind was a fog and he wasn’t quite sure what
he was agreeing to. He beckoned to Niu. “Come on.”

“Where?” she asked simply.

Simon didn’t know. The world hadn’t yet coalesced into a
reality he recognized, and it didn’t seem to matter where he wound up. He
vaguely remembered agreeing to escort Niu home to Jynn, and he supposed he had
nothing more pressing to occupy his time. It wasn’t as though he could go
home.

“I’ll help you to go home,” he said at length. Some of his scattered
wits were returning to him now. “But first… I have to see him.”

“Your father?” Niu asked quietly.

Simon nodded.

“He’s been buried,” Rollic chipped in, blunt as ever. “They
had him strung up in the square for a day or two, but they put him under
yesterday.”

“That is
enough,
” Niu snarled, fists curling.

Simon held up one hand wearily. “It’s alright. Where did
they put him, Rollic?”

“Well… they threw him in the swamp,” the ginger lad responded, with
all the tact of a charging
jaggermund.

“Swamp.” Simon repeated dully. “Fine. We’re going,
Rollic. There’s no need to call the guard on us.” He gestured for
Niu and Sasha to follow him and pushed his way into the field of maize.

“Not through our
cornfield,
you’re not?” Rollic called after
them, disbelieving.

“Yes, that’s the plan.” Simon waved a distracted farewell.

“Look,” Rollic yelled as Simon slipped between the stalks, Niu in
his shadow. “You can’t just…”

What would certainly have degenerated into a furious stream of
invective ended in a yelp of shock and alarm which dissolved into disturbing
gurgling. Simon slowly, unwillingly turned and found he was unsurprised
to see Rollic pinned to the side of the barn, slowly sagging, one tine of the
pitchfork jammed clean through his throat. Nor was he surprised to see
Sasha, head bowed, holding her hair delicately away from her lips as she
slurped greedily at the wound. She caught his eye and smiled slightly,
the first indication of a genuine expression he’d seen her employ.

Simon was dimly aware of how he should have reacted. He should
have berated Sasha harshly and cut his ties with her. He should have been
consumed by horrified guilt for having failed to prevent the bruxa from
murdering Rollic. Instead he felt, and did, nothing at all.

This is what my life has become,
he
thought, and kept walking.

At the far edge of the cornfield, Simon, Niu, and Sasha found
themselves overlooking the hamlet of Brand. The anticipated glorious
homecoming of Simon Dragonslayer was instead indisputably the worst moment of
his life. The untidy scattering of dwellings crowding the tiny marketplace
seemed less like the warm, inviting homes he remembered and more like the jaws
of a trap. The dying sun reddened streets which were largely silent, with
only a few folk about their business. His own home - largely obscured
from his perspective by an evergreen windbreak - seemed to be cringing away
from him, lurking behind its leafy shield like a wounded animal. Simon
found himself wondering whether anyone was looking after old Adelaide the
cow.

A newly-erected gibbet squatted at the center of the market, a tumor
on the face of a trusted friend become stranger. Simon couldn’t bear to
look at it. His father had died there, kicking and jerking as his face
darkened, blue and swollen. Tears pricked Simon’s eyes.

“How are you?” Niu asked with genuine concern, one hand on his arm.

Truthfully, Simon didn’t know. He hadn’t processed the loss of
his father. Part of him wanted to believe that Rollic had, for some
unfathomable purpose, been lying about the execution; that the man who had
raised him was forever gone seemed almost laughably unreal.

Rollic’s death also failed to resonate, as though he’d dreamt
it. While the two of them had never been friendly, he’d known Rollic all
of his life, and the young farmhand had never done him harm. Sasha’s
bloody handiwork should have struck a deep and shuddering chord of horror in his
soul, but in place of revulsion and regret, he felt only hollow emptiness.

Some distracted speculation on Simon’s part had narrowed the bruxa’s
motives for killing the unfortunate young farmhand down to just two. The
possibility that she’d simply been hungry was alarming; if true, Simon and Niu
might well be next on the menu, and they had enemies enough to contend with
without one so vicious in their own camp. The alternative, however, was
even more worrisome: that Sasha had murdered Rollic out of some misguided
sense of empathy for Simon. In the former case, she was as any hungry
beast, her driving motivation easy to understand if not to deal with. In
the latter, she was completely deranged.

Still, providing she didn’t wind up opening their throats in the
night, he supposed she might be useful. He was no fighter. The
rash, impulsive boy who had drawn overoptimistic levels of confidence from a
rusty old sword had, in this past week, withered and died. While he had
ample proof that Niu could take care of herself, she was only one person; King
Minus and his daughter commanded an army. Sasha, however, was as a shark,
designed for killing. Simon had never heard tell of any undead with a
conscience, but there were tales of such creatures forming temporary allegiances
with humans if it suited their interests. He could only hope this was one
of those instances.

Sasha wasn’t his biggest concern at present. He knew it was
foolish to risk visiting his father’s final inglorious resting place: the
small stretch of swamp to the north of the village. He wouldn’t even be
able to view the body, but he was desperate for closure. Veter deserved
an apology; to hear his son admit what a fool he’d been, how naïve, unworldly,
and ultimately destructive his actions had been. No doubt his father was
already watching him from the Afterworld, but that wasn’t enough for
Simon. If he didn’t make the effort to deliver his message personally,
what kind of greeting would his father give him when he finally joined him in
Vanyon’s great halls? What forgiveness could there be for a son who had
brought ruin on the family and then fled from it? He’d made a lot of
stupid mistakes lately; if he intended ever to sleep again, reparations were in
order.

And I have to do it alone
, he decided
.
I can’t risk Niu’s life
.

He told the handmaiden as much; predictably she argued, but he was
adamant. One person who knew the area well, he said, could move more
swiftly and was less likely to be spotted. She was unconvinced by his
reasoning, most probably since she had no confidence in his ability to cross a
street on his own without courting disaster. Changing tactics, he asked
instead for privacy in order to commune with his father, and she relented, nodding
wisely.

“It is similar in Jynn,” she said.

“I thought you didn’t believe in life beyond the mortal kingdom,”
Simon returned combatively. In light of his loss, the last thing he
wanted to have doubts cast upon was his belief in the Afterworld, but he
couldn’t resist challenging her.

“We do not,” she replied patiently. “But we speak to the
memories
of our loved ones. Once on the evening that we learn of their passing,
while emotions still run raw; once again on the same evening, a year later,
when we are calm and reflective. It is very healing.”

This seemed reasonable enough, if misguided, so Simon elected not
pursue the conversation. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Wait here
for me.”

Niu smiled slightly. “I will. In the meantime, I will
sample the corn. Be careful.” She melted back into the field.

“You too, Sasha,” Simon told the bruxa, who was showing a
disinclination to follow the handmaiden. She gazed back at him blankly,
head cocked to one side. When he started downhill, however, she stayed
put, and he sighed in relief. Of all the mistakes he’d made in recent
days, leading a bruxa to his sleepy hometown had the potential to be the most
destructive.

Under the sparse cover of runty trees and low walls, he skirted
Brand as best he could. The tiny village had never seemed so large; while
it was possible to walk from one end to the other in scant minutes, navigating
the perimeter undetected took time and planning. Leaping a sluggish
stream, he dashed through a small copse to Widow Oakland’s cottage – the newest
building in the village, and one its owner maintained with pride, using gains
which gossip suggested were ill-gotten. From there, he crab-walked behind
a wall until he crouched behind the property of the widow’s significantly less
tidy neighbor, Renford, sheep farmer and enthusiast. The sheep in
question were ambling about peacefully in their paddock. One or two
glanced questioningly at Simon as he slipped past, but neither Renford nor his
wife or children were anywhere to be seen.

Simon’s luck held as he dashed from home to home. It was
easier to believe that he was hiding from his own people than he might have
imagined a week prior, but it still ached. Twice he was forced to lie low
as one of the villagers pottered about in his yard, but not once was he
spotted. The darkening sky had driven most of his old neighbors
indoors. By the time he’d ducked into the cluttered and overgrown yard
behind Brand’s little church, he was free to disappear into the scrubby
undergrowth which separated the village from the marsh to the north. He
couldn’t shake the sense that he was being followed, but saw no pursuers and
attributed his jumpiness to nerves.

Brand’s marsh wasn’t a popular destination for the locals,
especially as it was said to be haunted by will-o-wisps and worse. Simon,
who had played here with Jeb and Dannon as children, had never seen anything of
the kind. Presently, he wasn’t much in the mood to care. He moved
carefully but quickly. As the ground grew softer and more treacherous
underfoot, reeds springing up amongst the mosses in place of grass, he looked
for traces of activity. Swatting at small, biting flies, he circled the
stagnant pools and quaking stretches of sucking mud, keeping a wary eye out for
human activity.

In the distance, he heard voices. An argument, it sounded
like. Straining his ears, he thought he discerned the strident tones of
Gemma, the local baker. Growing up, Simon had felt the old harridan’s
broom more than once – she liked to swat unruly children about the shins – but
now that her body was growing too feeble for physical assault, Gemma’s voice
still packed a punch. He couldn’t make out whom she was arguing with, but
he imagined that person was contemplating their bootlaces in a desperate attempt
to avoid eye-contact with the rheumy old bat. Smiling wanly, Simon
realized he very nearly missed her, doubting as he did that he would ever
suffer through one of her interminable scoldings again.

Distracted by this fresh pang of loss, Simon nearly missed the
telltale signs of something having been recently been dragged through reeds
which were just now recovering from the weight which had briefly flattened
them. His heart began to thump as he followed the track, knowing that he
was unlikely to find physical evidence of his father’s demise, but feeling the
horror of it just as acutely. Leaden legs drew him forward with little
regard for his will.

The fading trail terminated in a small swampy pool, by which point
Simon’s thundering heart could probably have been heard in Brand.
Duckweed blanketed the water’s surface, save in the center, where something
large had disturbed the growth. Peering reluctantly through this murky
opening, Simon could detect a disturbance in the mud; some object had indeed
been devoured by the swamp.

Rollic hadn’t been lying, then. An awful emptiness seemed to
make a shell of Simon. Sagging wearily, he slumped to his knees and his
hands began to shake. A small moan escaped his lips unbidden, and he was
glad no one was nearby to hear how small and childlike he sounded.

Did his father truly lie just ahead, forever buried in the
mire? Without seeing the body it was hard to credit, but he felt in his
bones that it was true. Ingloriously interred in the reeking muck before
him was the man who had raised and cared for him; a stolid and unimaginative
man who’d failed to comprehend Simon’s flights of fancy but who had stood by
him even in moments of dispute. His only family. How had the
soldiers treated him so cavalierly? Did they not have fathers, families
of their own?

He remembered Veter’s gruff warning that his quest to slay the
Cannevish Wyrm had been purest foolishness, and his heart ached – if only he’d
listened! Yet he also recalled how King Minus had bestowed upon Simon the
name Dragonslayer, a title which would have infused his father with lasting,
heartfelt pride. That he could never boast of his accomplishments before
the hearth of their little cottage while the fireflies danced beyond the open
windows was Simon’s deepest wound.

“I’m sorry, father,” he whispered, tears trickling down his
cheeks. “Truly, I… this was my fault, I am to blame for where you
lie…” He clenched his fists around a handful of reeds he could not even
remember plucking. “I was reckless and foolish, like you said, like you
all
said, Jeb and Rollic and everyone. I know mmother would have taken your
part if she’d…”
Survived the plague which had swept Cannevish, shattering
countless families, when he’d had been too young to remember.
Simon
swallowed thickly. “I… I ruined everything. I’m so sorry. Can
you forgive me?”

For a moment, an aching silence reigned across the marsh. Then
he heard the harsh laughter of children in the village, who had found someone
or something smaller than themselves to bully. The petrified squawking of
a chicken identified their victim, followed by shouts from its owner. The
spell was broken.

Simon stared sadly into the pool for some time. He couldn’t
know if his father had heard him in the Afterworld, he could only hope.
As to forgiveness, he longed for it, but wasn’t at all sure he deserved
it. He wasn’t certain he would ever recover from this moment, from the
finality of having condemned his strongest supporter and only kin to the
stinking depths of this wretched boggy grave.

Time to go
, he thought dully. Had
it not been for Niu, waiting for him, he might have remained for a time, or
perhaps forever. But he’d derailed the handmaiden’s life with his
stupidity as well, and he had an obligation to see her to safety. Knees
damp, pants clinging, he hauled himself to his feet and put his back to the
marsh.

Retracing his steps toward the church, the marsh sucking reprovingly
at his heels, he tried to focus his thoughts on the trials ahead. He
couldn’t yet imagine how he and Niu were going to escape the country.
Niu’s strategy -
walk through checkpoints with confidence
- was hardly
going to work at a border crossing. Might it be wiser simply to lose
themselves in the wilds for a time, until the princess and her father relaxed
security, assuming them dead or fled? Surely they wouldn’t continue to
expend their resources searching for an insolent peasant and a renegade
handmaiden indefinitely. Or would they? Could they be so petty?

Lost in his worries, Simon failed to notice the rustling reeds and
shivering branches amongst the small copse to his left until it was almost too
late. A pale blur launched itself from the cover of the straggly growth
and barreled toward him headlong, howling shrilly, mud spraying beneath broad,
slapping feet. With little time to react, Simon shrieked and pitched
himself facedown into the mire as the apparition leaped, clutching arms folding
upon the space he’d occupied a split second earlier. A flash of snarling
teeth, wide, woeful eyes, and a flying mat of filthy black hair sparked a shock
of recognition in Simon: this was the wendigo he and Niu had encountered
in the cabin outside Saber Bend.