The Dead Seekers Read online

  “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Why did you stop and . . . You didn’t hear me at first?”

  She had called to him? If so, it would have been the first time she used his name. No one besides Heil had ever seen him sink that deep into his waking nightmares.

  “Nothing is wrong,” he finally answered. “Move on. It is getting late.”

  She still stood there watching him for a long moment and then finally turned onward. Her pace was slower now, and though she never halted, at times her head appeared to turn a little to one side—always to the left—as if she might look back.

  She never did.

  Tris followed, still unsettled that he had left himself completely undefended in her presence. She could have done anything while he had been trapped in his waking nightmares again.

  Anything at all.

  He could not let that happen again.

  Neither of them spoke again as they walked; he kept three paces behind her, and she appeared to know where she was going. Although he eventually located any given destination, he found navigation a necessary annoyance. It was almost a relief to have her to follow.

  After about two more leagues, the sun vanished and twilight began to fade. She stopped ahead of him and pointed.

  “There,” she said sharply.

  Tris followed her nod to the left and ahead. Hanging lanterns glowing through the trees in the late evening illuminated the outskirts of a village. She stepped onward, he followed, and as they drew closer, the place proved to be larger than expected.

  No wooden stockade surrounded Jesenik; by its location, most likely it did not need one. At least twenty wattle-and-daub huts were visible through the trees, though there could be even more beyond clear sight. Thick smoke from a smithy or a communal fire pit hazed the lantern-lit air between them. That good-sized central space was enough for an open-air market in summer and early autumn.

  As Tris drew closer, people dressed in earthy browns and tans went about all ways. He halted short of the village’s edge, and Mari must have heard him stop.

  “Are we going in or not?” she asked.

  He waited for someone to see them first.

  A young woman with dark blond hair stopped, staring directly at them. Her gaze flicked quickly between the two strangers among the trees, expressing a mix of fear and hope.

  Tris had seen this mix too many times.

  The young woman’s eyes finally locked on only Mari. Perhaps seeing two visitors, and one being a woman, somehow assured her. She half turned, calling out in general to others.

  “Someone . . . get—get the zupan!”

  He followed most of her words, and this at least saved him for the moment, since speaking their language versus Old Stravinan often wore him down. If nothing else, “zupan” was a common word in nearly all languages in the region.

  Something less than noble as a village’s prime elder.

  When the young woman’s eyes turned back to him, he nodded once, and she spun to run off deeper into the village.

  Mari glanced back at him as well, her eyes somewhat questioning, but he had no wish to enlighten her. He never entered a village or a town without local leadership present. Doing otherwise led to panic if not open hysteria over strangers arriving after nightfall. Especially when something had driven one of them to come seeking someone like him.

  The wait was not long.

  The woman returned with two men: one young and one past middle age. Tris recognized the younger, almost a boy, as the villager who had come to the herb shop. He must have run half of the journey home but could not have been here long.

  The other man was in his late forties, perhaps early fifties, with wiry muscles in his forearms below the rolled-up sleeves of his smudged canvas shirt. He had the start of fattening below straining wooden clasps of a leather vest. His peppered brown hair was long enough to pull back in a tail, exposing a lined, severe face not recently shaved.

  Tris matched the elder’s steps, closing the gap between them, but the elder spoke so quickly that Tris caught only the words “Dead’s Man” and “zupan.”

  At that, he noticed Mari had stepped in as well, though she looked at him and not the villagers.

  He knew what to expect, but it never got any easier. Most common people in northern Stravina spoke a dialect of Belaskian that borrowed words from the more contemporary lands of Belaski to the south. Only the old-blood nobles of this land spoke Stravinan anymore, or at least its traditional dialect. And that was what he had grown up speaking.

  Heil had tried in vain to tutor him in other local languages, let alone dialects. As with navigation, it quickly became too tedious compared with other preoccupations. Not only did this zupan speak a local dialect, but his accent was so thick that Tris barely identified separate words.

  Other villagers began to gather around with their fearful but hopeful gazes shifting between Tris and their elder. He remembered the youth who had come seeking him, and he was about to try speaking with that one when he noticed Mari was fixed only upon the zupan.

  Whatever the man was saying, she understood it.

  Tris whispered to her, “What is he saying?”

  She blinked twice. “You don’t know?”

  When he did not answer, she frowned slightly.

  “His name is Zupan Alexandre,” she explained, causing the elder man to pause. “The other is his youngest son, Martin. Martin told his father of someone he’d heard of called ‘the Dead’s Man,’ and that’s why he came looking for you. The zupan wants to know if that’s really who you are.”

  Tris took a long, slow breath and tried not to cringe or become angry. He was sick of that title. He eyed Mari for an instant, making her scowl back in renewed suspicion. At least she might be helpful here, though a large number of villagers had gathered around them.

  “Tell the zupan I prefer to speak in private,” he instructed quietly.

  Mari looked about the gathering. Without word to him, she prattled off something to the zupan, who replied shortly, and turned away with his son.

  “Come on,” Mari added. “We’re going to the village common house instead of his cottage. It’ll do if we shut out everyone else.”

  She headed off after the zupan without waiting for him.

  Tris followed in silence, ignoring the stares from everyone else around him.

  Language had often been a problem over the years since he’d left home, particularly once he began rendering unique services in his hunt for more information to suit his own needs. That he was fluent in only one language—that of the land’s nobles—set him apart as someone of higher rank and greater respect. But occasionally this worked against him among the more oppressed.

  They headed deeper into the village, though too many other villagers followed behind, whispering among themselves. They stopped before a large, two-story, log-walled dwelling, and Zupan Alexandre opened the heavy front door. He waited, ushering in the “guests.”

  Mari did not move and stood waiting as well, so Tris entered first, though he had little chance to look around before he heard the door clunk shut. Mari was looking about, as if unsettled, as she joined him. Alexandre and his son followed, and the zupan gestured to a long, crude, and stained wooden table ahead.

  Three long tables with benches or chairs filled the large room. Other smaller tables with chairs were arranged around the room nearer the timber walls with fully shuttered windows. Welcome heat radiated from a fire in a stone hearth set in the back wall. Two doorways at either end of the front wall led to somewhere else in the structure.

  Zupan Alexandre waved all of them to the nearest long table as his son retrieved a taper from the fire and lit a lantern.

  Tris rubbed his hands together and shifted the pack over his shoulder, though he did not take a seat.

  “Ask him why they called for me,” he told Mari.


  Three nights back in Strîbrov, young Martin had told him little, only that his “skills” were desperately needed.

  Again, Mari hesitated, and then came several exchanged words with the zupan that Tris could not follow. He was not concentrating on the words as much as on the strange Móndyalítko woman who had rescued him in the forest and then run away at the sight of him and then joined him.

  He watched Mari’s eyes grow wider with each exchange of words. When she further questioned the zupan, Alexandre cut her off with a wave of one hand and pointed at Tris.

  Tris was careful not to react when she turned his way.

  “He says they are plagued by a . . . ghost,” she began. “The ghost of a girl from this village—named Brianne—went to Soladran and came home sick. She wasted away before morning and nothing helped her. She died half a moon ago, but—”

  “But she reappears here at night,” Tris finished.

  Mari frowned.

  “You do not believe in ghosts?” he asked.

  “Yes, but—”

  “Ask the zupan if there have been any other deaths.”

  Still, she stared at him before finally turning back to the elder. She spoke briefly, and at Alexandre’s reply, she related, “No other deaths, but he says the visage is terrifying. His people are scared, just the same, and . . .”

  “Problems with livestock,” he finished for her.

  She fell quiet for another breath.

  “Hens have stopped laying,” she said. “The cows have gone dry. He wants to know your price.” She paused briefly. “What do they expect from you?”

  He did not answer the last question. “Tell the zupan we will discuss the price later, once I know more.”

  Mari just kept watching him too much like that lynx in the clearing—as if she was not certain whether he was something to hunt or another predator and thereby competition for survival.

  —

  Not long after, Mari sat at one of the long tables in the common house. The zupan and his son had left after telling them food would be brought.

  No one would’ve ever given just her a free meal.

  Sitting across from her, Tris ignored her as he rummaged through his pack, likely checking for something, since he rarely pulled anything out besides food. She kept going over everything she’d heard since arriving here and translating for him.

  And he seemed to have heard some of it before, perhaps more than once.

  “So they’re plagued by a ghost,” she began, “or think so. And they hired you . . . to do what?”

  He didn’t answer her, though he stopped fiddling with the pack. His gaze drifted to the far hearth, and he watched the low flames. She waited for an answer, and then spun around at a creak of wood from behind.

  An aging woman with a kind face and a drab dress entered the common room. She came through the room’s far back, carrying two steaming clay mugs and a small loaf of dark bread on a wooden tray. Upon spotting Mari watching her intently, the woman slowed, glanced quickly at him and then back.

  “Some hot, spiced tea,” she explained, slightly raising the tray. “I’m sure you need it after walking so far.”

  Her voice was as kind as her face.

  Mari didn’t know how to respond to kindness—not anymore.

  The woman didn’t appear to expect thanks and set down the tray. “I’ll be right back with your supper.”

  The scent of spiced tea quickly filled Mari’s nostrils as the woman vanished back through the door. Mari eyed the mugs she hadn’t asked or paid for. Tris hadn’t even seemed to notice the woman’s arrival or quick departure. Mari picked up one of the mugs.

  Hot, spiced tea was a luxury—especially the spiced part—in a place like this. For a moment, she just let that scent fill her head, and then took a sip. It filled her mouth even better than her nose. And then there was the rich, dark bread. About to grab for it, she hesitated and looked across the table.

  He still sat there, staring at the fire in the hearth. Though he appeared lost somewhere else, it wasn’t the same as whatever had happened to him earlier on the road. He was thinking about . . . something.

  As Mari took another long sip, the woman returned carrying two plates and set them on the table.

  On each plate, potatoes and carrots and onions surrounded pieces of roasted chicken. Broth or drippings had filled the plates’ hollows, and that bread was waiting to be used. A baked apple sprinkled with cinnamon also sat on the side of each plate.

  “Will this do?” the woman asked.

  Do? Mari couldn’t remember having seen such a meal.

  “Yes . . . it will be fine.”

  After a partial smile, the woman turned to leave.

  “Oh,” she said as if it was an afterthought, “if you go upstairs, you’ll find padded mats with blankets on the floor.” And again she glanced briefly at him. “There are hanging curtains between the mats, if you wish for privacy.”

  Sleeping indoors—with blankets—had become as rare for Mari as the meal in front of her.

  “I’m Erath,” said the woman, with a nod. “Leave the plates when you’re done. I’ll get them in the morning.”

  “Thank you,” Mari called out.

  The woman, Erath, glanced back, lingering in the doorway, suddenly looking frightened. She glanced at him, Tris, and then back.

  “We are grateful for your coming . . . for him coming,” Erath said. “I hope he works quickly.”

  She turned and left, and the door clunked quickly.

  Mari was alone again with the Dead’s Man. Everything on this table was because of—for—him, not her. She tore out a hunk of bread with one hand. Before shoving it in her mouth, she paused. He was still watching the fire.

  “Will you stop staring at nothing,” she said, “and eat something.”

  “Hmm?” He looked down and saw the food. “Oh . . . yes.”

  Digging in his pack again, he pulled out his small knife and used it to cut both his chicken and potato. Then he used the point to stab small pieces and lift them to his mouth.

  Mari ate with her hands, thinking again on all she’d seen and heard. Apparently, these villagers wanted him to rid this place of a ghost. Though she knew his title as “the Dead’s Man,” she hadn’t understood what that might mean to others, not fully, not until now. She’d been told that he called spirits and controlled them. What else could he do?

  Maybe he’d been the one to raise the ghost girl, just as a way to gouge coins from peasants. He didn’t seem to be playing a game with them, but maybe he wasn’t going to reveal himself while she was watching. She’d have to wait and watch and see what exactly he did and how he did it.

  And then she’d know for certain that she’d finally found . . . him.

  The food was delicious. Saving the baked apple for last, she ate it slowly. It had been a long time since she’d eaten something sweet, a long time since she’d eaten anything that wasn’t just for survival, to keep going, to keep hunting. Cinnamon dissolved on her tongue among the apple’s juices, and she sat there as the taste drowned out all her other senses.

  Then she realized he was watching her almost curiously. A small piece of chicken was stuck on the tip of his knife with the blade hovering halfway to his mouth.

  “What?” she asked.

  He dropped his gaze. “Nothing.”

  Once her dinner was gone, all she could think of was the padded mat, warm blanket, and curtained privacy waiting for her upstairs.

  “I’m tired,” she said.

  He nodded and returned to staring toward the fire as he sipped his tea.

  Mari pushed up off the bench and hefted her pack.

  “You speak their dialect,” he said, startling her.

  This was a statement, not a question. She was still surprised that he didn’t. She spoke four di
alects of Belaskian as well as her people’s tongue that had no name. This was not unusual for Móndyalítko, but he should at least know the one spoken here.

  He turned his pale eyes on her. “And Old Stravinan. Do you speak any Droevinkan?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “I have no gift for tongues,” he returned, and then, “Good night.”

  For an instant, she wanted more, anything to give her one sliver of certainty that she’d found her prey. Instead, she walked away, though she stalled after stepping through the same door Erath had used.

  What if he slipped off when she couldn’t see him?

  No, game or not, he wouldn’t leave until he got whatever he’d really come for.

  She headed onward for the crude steps at the hallway’s far end, ignoring two side doors along the way. At the top of the stairs, she entered an open loft area, but Erath had spoken true.

  Wool blankets stitched to cords hung as curtains that draped off four private spaces, two to each side of a center path to the common house’s back wall. A chipped pitcher and basin sat on the floor to one side of the stairs’ top.

  Mari crouched, refilled her water flask from the pitcher, and then washed her hands and face. She went to the near right curtain and brushed it aside. The space around the padded mat and folded wool blanket wasn’t large, but it offered more comfort than she’d had in a long while. She stowed her pack at the mat’s head, where it couldn’t be grabbed by anyone peeking in, and she undressed down to her long muslin shirt before settling behind the blanket. Most passing travelers probably had to pay a few coins for the pleasure of a meal and a bed here, but not Tris—and therefore not her.

  Her thoughts churned with all of what might happen tomorrow, though she didn’t know what to expect. Tris was supposed to now hunt a ghost. Or maybe he’d wait until no one was watching and simply command it to appear.

  She closed her eyes, listening for his steps and even the creak of the far door to the common room, but she drifted off until . . .

  Mari came awake in the dark and then started upright in panic that she’d fallen asleep. Whatever had awoken her, her first thought was to listen for Tris or sneak out to see if he had come up here yet. She never got that far.