Ritual of the Stones (Ballad of Frindoth) (17 page)

“You
mean to be nosey and find out who the other two are?” a voice from the back of
the growing crowd said.

The mayor
shrugged as if the reason did not matter. He helped his wife onto the wagon and
grabbed the reins to his horses. Unlike everyone else, who only had one horse
to pull their wagon, the mayor had four. All were white with no markings, a
sign of extravagance. Before he could signal for the horses to go, another
voice called out from the crowd.

“How
long will you be gone for? Who is in charge of Longcombe?”

Despite
their tendency to laugh at the mayor, the townsfolk were generally at a loss
without him. Not so much because of his excellent leadership, but more for the
fact that it was generally accepted, his was the final say.

“I
expect only three weeks. You will be fine. I am leaving Banbury of the Green
Stag Inn in charge. Farewell, people of Longcombe, it is with a heavy heart—” Before
he could finish the sentence, he was thrown back in his seat as his horses
mistook his speech as a command to depart.

The mayor
left Longcombe to the laughter and jeers of his townsfolk whilst frantically
trying to regain control of his horses and looking back in despair as his hat
flew off his head onto the road behind him.

When
he was to return several months later, he discovered a completely different
town from the one he had left.

***

Three
other people left Longcombe that morning. The third stoneholder, Elsie Brookman,
and her husband packed their saddlebags on their horses and attracted a much
smaller audience than the mayor. They rode out of Longcombe, Elsie with her
head held high and staring fixedly on the path ahead, her husband glaring at
everyone that watched them go.

The
third person to leave left far less conspicuously. He did not pack any
belongings other than basic rations. If the mayor’s horses were grand and a
sight to behold, Maxhunt’s horse was a ragged animal, its skeleton showing
through its body and clumps of its mane missing. He had watched Kiana and her
family leave earlier in the morning and had followed shortly after, skulking
through the gates, barely acknowledging the town’s guards. They were the only
ones to see him go and they certainly didn’t miss him.

It
had been four days since Rhact had come to see Marybeth. She admired him in
that he had integrity, a man willing to do anything to protect his family. In a
way, he reminded her of her own father.

She
absentmindedly fingered the pendant around her neck. She found the cold metal
reassuring. It was the only physical possession Marybeth still had of her
father’s. In truth it had been her mother’s, but as she had never met her
mother and her father had always worn it in her memory, Marybeth considered the
necklace a memory of him.

Marybeth
had been very young when she had learned her mother’s fate. Her father told her
through teary eyes that she had died giving birth to her. He had always been
brutally honest with Marybeth, which she had appreciated. Other parents often
tried to shield their children from such knowledge they deemed inappropriate.
Marybeth’s father had never done that, subscribing to the belief that the
sooner Marybeth become aware of the horrors in the world, the sooner she would
learn to deal with them.

She
remembered the overwhelming feeling of guilt that had swept over her. Her eyes
instantly filled with tears. She was sad she had killed her mother and
frightened that her father blamed her for it at the same time. Her father had
been confused by her discomfort and asked her what was wrong. When she
explained, he laughed in a good natured way and reassured her that her mother
would have been more than happy to give her life up to make way for her
beautiful baby girl.

“That
is what she called you, right from when she knew she was pregnant, you were her
‘beautiful baby girl.’ When I asked her how she knew we were having a girl, she
just smiled at me, rubbed her belly and said, ‘you’ll see, you’ll see.’”

She
felt a sudden pang of sadness. Her father had been everything to her. He loved
her and wasn’t afraid to show it. Her childhood, although tough, had been a
happy one. Even when they were struggling for food, her father made sure
Marybeth had been happy.

He
was a carpenter but did not have anything as grand as his own shop. Instead, he
did odd jobs for people, accepting whatever payment the customer could afford.
Sometimes this meant he would end up with items such as fur hides they didn’t
particularly need or on one occasion a cotton wheel they didn’t know how to
use.

They
had travelled a lot. Marybeth got to see the majority of Frindoth. Initially,
the small towns and villages each held a unique mystical feel to them. The
people had subtle differences in their appearances and ways, such as the tall,
proud folk of Leweston, Luciana, who slapped their elbows as a way of greeting
each other or the disgusting bearded villagers (yes, even the women) of Goperty
in Shangon. Each time they moved on, she could not wait to see who they would
meet next.

As
she grew older, though, Marybeth learned that despite the physical appearances
and customs, the villages and towns were largely the same. They all had the
same characters, the same hierarchies. After a while, she stopped trying to
make new friends. She knew they would be moving on soon and so could not see
the point. This concerned her father and he tried to persuade her that you
could never have too many friends. Marybeth would nod but still did not make
any more effort.

She
did not blame her father for the nomadic existence. If it was not for her
father, she would never have enjoyed her youth. She simply loved being with
him. He seemed to know so much and always had time to teach her. His attention
to Marybeth fulfilled the absence of childhood friends.

They
finally stopped travelling around the time of her eleventh year. They had
settled in a small isolated village in Nalendar. It was here that her father
first met and worked for Iskandar.

Marybeth
remembered the moment clearly. She had been sitting on a large stone chatting
away to her father about the pointlessness of butterflies. Her father was
constructing a new front door for an elderly couple, his first job in Nalendar.

He
had spotted the dilapidated old door as soon as they had arrived in the village
and had wasted little time in offering his services. She had always marvelled
at how easily he had found work; he offered his services but was never
intrusive. He had a way of talking to folk that was both calming but also
exuded confidence.

“I
mean, what do they do? Bees I understand, but butterflies do nothing,” she had
said.

Her
father had paused from shaving the edge of the door and straightened up, his
back cracked as he pushed his palms into his spine. He wiped the sweat from his
brow.

“They
look pretty,” he said.

“That
is not a useful role to have. Just looking pretty.”

“Why
not? They bring me pleasure to look at them, all those different colours,
fluttering by in jerky motions. I like to watch them.”

“That’s
stupid. Their purpose in life can’t be just to look pretty for other people who
may or may not look at them.”

Her
father had gone back to planing the wood.

“Well,
what is your purpose in life, my sweet girl? What do you do?” he said without
looking up.

“What
do you mean? I am a girl.”

“Does
that make you any better than the butterfly?” he asked.

“Of
course it does, potentially I can do anything, even rule Frindoth.”

“Ah,
such lofty ambitions. Potentially you can and maybe you will. But what is your
role in life? In the great scheme of things, is you ruling Frindoth any more
significant than the butterfly flittering about from plant to plant?” When she
did not reply, he continued. “So, I ask you again, what is your role?”

Marybeth
watched as his skilled hands shaved the wood off the door frame. The action was
so smooth and effortless for him. She considered the answer for some time.

“To
look pretty too,” she had said with a grin.

Her father
had laughed at this, really laughed. He had stood up and ruffled her hair, the
one time it didn’t annoy her.

A
tall silhouette formed over the nearly finished door.

“Looks
like you know what you are doing,” a voice said.

Marybeth
looked up at the figure that had appeared so suddenly. The sun was directly in
her eyes, so that she had to shield them with her hand. She still couldn’t make
out much, other than a tall man, dressed in a long purple cloak.

“I
like to think I do,” her father replied, barely acknowledging the man.

“If
you are looking for work, I need a place renovated. Should be a good couple of
months labour involved. I can pay you handsomely on a daily basis,” the man
said.

Marybeth’s
heart leapt. Her father had never received an offer like that before. Her hopes
were soon dashed though.

“Thank
you, but we never stay anywhere that long,” he said. “Besides, we have no place
to stay.”

“Well
I can solve that problem too. You can stay in the house whilst you work on it.
When it is done you can be on your way. The quicker you work, the sooner you
can move on, only with a nice bit of gold in your pocket,” the stranger had
said.

Her
father stopped what he was doing and stood to face the man. He seemed to be
weighing him up. If the man seemed uncomfortable with this, he did not show it.
Marybeth had willed him to agree to the job. She had yearned to be in the same
location even for a little while, just enough for her to make friends and not
feel as if she was going to desert them the next week.

Looking
back, she now recognised her father’s instincts had been to decline the
proposal. Instead he had seemed to sense her desperation. She must have looked
pathetic, as she tried to signal her preference by smiling and making her eyes
big. She was not sure how this was meant to simulate her intentions, but it
worked. Her father had returned her smile and then agreed to the man’s offer,
much to his delight.

That
was how Marybeth and her father first met Iskandar. If she had known how it
would change their lives and what would happen next, she would have done
everything possible to discourage her father from taking that job.

She
pushed all thoughts of her father aside as she found Ucking Jhon kneeling by a
stream splashing his face and attempting to scrub off the dried vomit that
adorned his shirt. He hadn’t been hard to find, she just followed the discarded
trail of bottles from his home.

As promised by
the mysterious face changer, Jaegal appeared to be having difficulty with one
of his stoneholders. He had sent her a message via one of his crows that asked
her to keep an eye on the other two stone recipients. The fact that the two she
had to keep an eye on also possessed two of the three stones she needed, was
further reassurance that for now she had an ally in her quest to thwart the
Gloom. 

She
watched Ucking Jhon for a little while from the cover of the trees. He really
was a disgusting excuse for a man. Drinking himself into oblivion. At least he
still had a sense of duty, which in a way Marybeth had to admire. Even in his
drunken haze he was still making his way to Lilyon. She was here to test that
sense of duty now.

“Fucking
vomit,” he muttered. “Pissing shirt.”

“One
would have to question, why, if you cared so little for yourself to waste your
life away in the bottom of a bottle, you would care about going to Lilyon,” she
said.

“Wha
fuck. Who the fuck is there?” he said, stumbling to his feet quickly and then
immediately holding his head to soothe the searing pain.

“Calm
yourself. I’m here to help you.”

“Oh
yeah? Well fucking show yourself then, you stupid bitch. Never met any whore
who offered to help me from the shadows. They’ve taken my money.”

Marybeth
stepped out from her cover. Ucking Jhon’s eyes widened as his gaze fell upon
the emblem on her cloak.

“Fuck
me, you’re that witch,” he said.

“I
prefer the term lady, but I take no offence.”

Ucking
Jhon shrugged and turned back to the stream and cleaning his shirt.

“What
do you want? I’m a marked man now, got no reason to fucking fear you.”

“It
is precisely about that I wanted to talk to you.”

Ucking
Jhon stopped what he was doing and sat down and groaned. He shut his eyes and
pressed his palm into his forehead as if it would ease his headache.

“Unless
you got something to deal with these needles sticking into the back of my eyes,
I ain’t interested, crone,” he said.

Marybeth
sighed. She returned to her wagon and rummaged in one of the chests. Finally
she found some red leaves belonging to a rare plant native to Lyretia. She
placed the leaves into a mortar along with a few drops of a viscous purple
liquid from a vial. She then returned to the stream and filled the rest of the
mortar up with water.

Ucking
Jhon watched through squinting eyes as she ground the leaves in with the
liquid. She dabbed one of her fingers in the concoction and tasted it.
Satisfied, she handed the drink to him.

He
took it without question and swallowed it within three quick gulps. She watched
as a look of disbelief washed over his face.

“Fuck
me, my headache’s completely gone. I could do with one of them every morning,”
he said bewildered. “What the fuck was that?”

“One
of my own recipes. I will give you five bottles of the stuff, plus ten barrels
of ale if you don’t take the stone you are carrying to Lilyon,” she said. This
was it, if she had assessed him correctly and she thought she had, as Ucking
Jhon was hardly the most complex person in the world, then he would accept her
offer.

He
narrowed his eyes suspiciously; a lock of his hair fell across his face. He
raised a finger and prodded her chest, “What are you planning, crone?”

She
grabbed his finger instinctively and twisted it. Ucking Jhon to his credit did
not yelp but his face showed he was in pain.

“Do
you really care?” she said. His reply was instant.

“Not
in the fucking least. It’s a deal.”

*
* *

It
had taken another day to track down Mira. She had been a little trickier to
convince to part with the stone. Unlike Ucking Jhon, Mira had not left an easy
trail to follow and Marybeth had resorted to asking local farmers and villagers
if a family matching their description had passed through their land. After
several blank stares or in some cases, enduring people running from the sight
of her, she eventually tracked the family to an inn just inside the town of
Buxley.

The
Grizzly Bear Inn consisted of no more than three long tables and a few
armchairs that had seen better days. All of which were empty. There were only
four candles scattered about the room giving the Inn a dim, depressing air that
matched the furniture. A rickety staircase stood in one corner and a bar
stretched along the back wall.

Barrels
of ale lay in manufactured holes along the stone wall only interrupted by a
small doorway leading to a dark room. The length of the bar was actually quite
comical given the absence of clients. Marybeth had travelled all over Frindoth
and doubted that she had ever entered such an unwelcoming Inn as this one.