Rorid pretended to cough into the compass hand again. "North… It's north for you."
Chuggie cocked his head and squinted his eyes at Rorid.
"To the south you've got cliffs and swamps and no way across the river. A man would have to be very
sober
to pass through that way. People who go down there end up breaking their legs or snapping their spines. Likely end up dying a lingering death in the muck." Rorid looked at the southern terrain as he spoke. His eye passed over the rolling hills separated by tamarack swamps, and he envied the simplicity of the forest. Life would be a whole lot easier living in a cabin in the woods.
Chuggie's eyes followed Rorid's gaze, until a crow landed in a tree and the old drunk got distracted.
"North, on the other hand, is flat. There's the old trade road up there." Rorid squatted in front of Chuggie and drew a crude map in the dirt. "Stagwater is here, the trade road is up here, the river goes like this, and the old bridge is here. A man can cross it fine, as long as he's traveling like you without a team of goats or a wagon." He snapped his fingers at the drunk to regain his attention.
"If you keep going north, you can't miss the old road. There's game up there. Plenty of wild potatoes, turnips, berries. The north route gets you across the river by mid-morning tomorrow. The south route, you'd be lucky to
see
the river by tomorrow night, and you still wouldn't have a place to cross."
"Why not let me just pass through town in peace, here?" Chuggie asked.
Rorid stood and gave his back a twisting stretch. "Honestly? Because you've been acting strange on this hill all day. We've seen you. You seem like you're up to something."
"That's right, I'm up to getting this fuggin' chain unstuck from this fuggin' tree."
"We're being damn kind telling you about the bridge to the north. We could have sent you south to fall off a cliff or drown in the swamps. This is as friendly as we're willing to be." He pointed to the forest. "Your other choice is to go back the way you came."
Chuggie thought it over for a moment. "Sure, you gotta do what you think is best. Me, I can't go back the way I came. Gotta keep headin' south and east. Guess I'll take that road north o' here and get on that bridge. If I can ever get my chain down from that tree there."
The drunk yanked on the chain good and hard. Overhead a branch cracked. Some twigs fell from the tree and landed on him.
"Well, think about leaving it behind. Come morning, it won't be our smiling faces riding out to collect you. It'll be Steel Jacks, and they aren't as friendly as us." Rorid let his words sink in for a moment. Feeling a twinge of guilt, Rorid pulled a flask from his boot. He tossed it to the drunk, then led the younger guardsman back to their goats.
"Good riddance," Priole said.
Rorid paused before mounting up and glanced back over his shoulder. In all likelihood, he had just sent the stranger to die. The right and wrong of it tugged at his conscience. In the end, orders were orders. Liking them or not made no difference.
Chuggie sat under the tree thinking about the exchange. He wasn't welcome anywhere.
Shouldn't
be, he supposed, given what he was.
He stretched out on his back beneath the anchor and found that he couldn't keep his eyes open. The last thing he wanted was to fall asleep. If he did, he might sleep away the whole night, exhausted as he was from constant walking. He was apt to be woken in the morning by Steel Jacks, which could mean a number of things. None good. The big metal bastards always took a particular interest in Chuggie.
Somewhere at the back of his mind, he felt compelled to walk north. To
keep
walking north. North was the only direction for Chuggie. If he could get his eyes open and get to his feet, he'd go so far north the only direction left would be south.
He dozed.
As the breeze picked up, the limbs of the tree moved above him. The chain slowly worked its way out of the branches until —.
THWAP!
The anchor bashed into Chuggie's stomach like a kick from a mule. He balled up, moaning. Some minutes later he pieced together what had happened, wound the chain around his torso, and got ready to leave.
The anchor blow, on top of his brief meeting with Stagwater's guardsmen, had him feeling surly and sour. He thought again about skirting the city to the north. He certainly still wanted to, but he couldn't remember why. He'd had that logy feeling one got from a bewitching, but the blow from the anchor cleared it right out of his head. Such silliness.
He'd leave all right, but not to the north. The guardsman hadn't thought he
could
pass to the south, even though the terrain looked identical in both directions. And to hell with a bridge. He could swim just fine. South he'd go, if for no other reason than spite.
Still, he knew they were watching him. If authorities saw him going south, problems could arise. Chuggie sat back down under the tree to smoke and brood until nightfall. Darkness would be along soon enough.
Kale pushed through the door of the Stagwater Children's Home. The old library had been converted years ago to handle the ever-growing number of orphans in Stagwater. Kale made straight for the office of Headmaster Banden. Thankfully, the halls were silent and the lights dim. Sleeping orphans were far more tolerable. Children didn't do all that horrible sniveling when they were asleep.
Without knocking, Kale barged into Banden's office.
Banden sprung to his feet and greeted his guest. "Ah, Mr. Kale! So good to see you."
"I'm sure," Kale said. "You have another 'package' for me?"
"Yes, yes," Banden replied. "Let's walk. The other children have been put to bed, but
this one
is undoubtedly up and moving around."
"He's a troublemaker?" Kale asked.
"A bit of one," Banden said.
The headmaster and Kale walked down the hall, and descended the stairs to the basement bedchamber. Walking behind Banden, Kale imagined slipping his hands around the man's neck and shaking him until he was a lump on the floor. He hated being led anywhere.
Kale looked through the one-way glass. Beds ran along the walls, leaving an aisle down the center. Moonlight shone down from small windows near the ceiling. As Banden had warned, all the children were in bed but one.
"There he is," Banden said, pointing.
The little boy stared up at the glass as if he could see the men on the other side. One small hand touched his mask.
The undersized runt would work perfectly.
"Why is he out of bed?" Kale narrowed his eyes as he looked at the orphan. A child with no respect for authority deserved to be punished.
"He's defiant. The sooner you take him the better."
"Looks like you could use some improvement in your disciplinary methods." Kale scowled. "He's trying to take his mask off."
"He won't get it off this time." Banden met Kale's gaze briefly.
"Is he a true orphan? Or are his parents locked up?"
"That kid is a Carnie. Authorities arrested his mother when the carnival first arrived. She was one of the first to get locked up. Nobody knows who his father is."
"How old is he?"
"Must be around seven."
"Does he remember his mother?"
"Not so far as I can tell." Banden shook his head. "She's long gone anyway, if she was one of the first."
Kale stroked his chin as he studied the little boy. "At least we've found a use for the little…orphan." He didn't consider children to be real people. Tiny monsters, perhaps, but not people. Those without discipline needed fixing or discarding.
"We're all grateful for that, for the tortugy, I mean. Those orphans should be thankful that they can do their part." Banden pulled an imaginary mask over his face.
"Capturing suffering in a bottle is tricky business. Using it for conjury is even trickier," Kale said, nodding. "Children's suffering is by far the most potent. They should be proud that they can contribute."
Of course, the wretched creatures didn't care about higher service. Just one more flaw in their miserable characters.
"For the good of Stagwater," Banden agreed.
"Credit where it's due. You're a genius at creating those torturgy masks," Kale admitted. "Permanently shifting the bone structure…"
"Many find their appearance so repulsive they will wear the mask for the rest of their lives," Banden grinned, the pride showing on his face. The headmaster slid open a slot in the door and shouted, "Olin Stone! Get yourself in bed, and you stay there! If I see you up again,
everyone
gets punished." He slammed the slot closed.
The boy leapt into a bed shared with two other children.
"When do you want to take him?" Banden asked. "I'll be glad to be rid of that one."
"Soon. I still have to make preparations." Kale peered into the bedchamber at the child huddled on the bed.
Those stinking brats deserved everything they got. If he had his way, all children of Stagwater would be wearing torturgy masks, not just the orphans.
Soon.
When finally, the sun fell down over the horizon and darkness flooded the little hilltop, Chuggie hoisted up his gear and started south. He spat in the direction of Stagwater as he descended the slope of the hill.
Above, he counted three moons. Some nights there were none. Some nights he'd seen the sky nearly filled with them, but that was long ago. Scholars, philosophers, and wizards had long debated the Mystery of the Moons. As hard as they tried, no one ever did make sense of them. They never found a pattern, or agreed on a theory. Not conjury, nor science, nor a combination of the two could solve the riddle. Chuggie, unconcerned with omens, didn't bother to puzzle over the meaning of the three moons tonight. They illuminated the clouds, and he was glad to have what light they could offer.
His tote bag, slung over his shoulder, snagged constantly on briars and brambles as he stomped through the forest. His boots, falling apart as they were, helped him trip on every unseen root, rock, and hole. Small branches lashed his face and knuckles.
The bare trees all resembled monster faces and demon hands. As the wind wailed through their limbs, they bit and clawed at the clouds, also shaped like monster faces.
After passing a few hours in this fashion, Chuggie found himself trudging knee deep in stinking swamp water.
"For the love o' piss," he grumbled.
He put his hand over his boat anchor and spoke to her. "You know, lady, when nothin' goes right an' you're lost in the woods, you can always trust in one thing: people are bastards, and things can always get worse. Hmm, that's two things."
He paused to catch his breath, leaning up against a twisted old tree. He'd stirred up some kind of vapor, and it rose from the swamp like lazy green smoke.
Eventually, he trudged on into the mire. He tried to keep his possessions dry, but failed consistently.
A single nightbird perched on a branch and tilted its head as if listening.
"Who said you could poke me in the eye, you goat sniffin' frog fugger?" Chuggie asked a branch.
The trees paid no mind.
"Slime tits!" Chuggie barked as he sunk knee deep in muck.
The monster-faced clouds changed into horrible new hellbeasts and then changed some more.
Chuggie sloshed back onto dry land. A steep hill rose before him. He scrambled through briars and brambles as he climbed. Beyond the thorns, the hill turned skyward and became a sheer cliff.
"Stupid fuggin' idea right here," he said. Looking up, he lost his balance, and steadied himself by grabbing a branch. He unwound his chain and used his anchor as a grappling hook. Each time he heaved it overhead, he crouched, protecting his head and neck. Sometimes it landed harmlessly nearby. Other times it bashed into his shoulder or back. When it eventually caught hold of a tree, he climbed the chain.
The tree he snagged grew from what had once been a road cut into the side of the cliff. Chuggie welcomed the flat, dry ground, even though weeds had overgrown it. As he lay there taking a moment's rest, he looked north. He couldn't see Stagwater itself, but the city's lights gave an orange glow to the clouds above it. The cliff road led away from the town. Chuggie was glad of it.
The swamp gases joined the clouds above, painting them bright, poisonous green. The swamp itself was a black void to his left.
Not wanting to fall back down the cliff, Chuggie fashioned himself a walking stick from a sapling. He followed the road until he noticed something shiny just in front of him. He paused to study it, cocking his head left and right. A small silver bell hovered in the air. As he leaned forward, it rose. He leaned back, and it descended. Forward, up, back, down. It only took a few minutes of this for Chuggie to realize the bell was on a string.
When he looked around, he noticed other glinting bells hovering in the black.
"Now why would somebody string bells across the trail?" he asked himself. "Why would
I
string bells across a trail?" For an instant, his eyes were more alert than intoxicated. "A warning system."
Looking behind him, Chuggie saw he was deep into the web of strings and bells. Dumb luck had gotten him this far, but he doubted it would get him back the way he came. He looked back and forth. More than half of the bells were behind him. His best bet was to keep moving forward.
The wind picked up, and all the bells tinkled. He pushed through while the pushing was good.
Moonlit clouds like lumpy lanterns illuminated his surroundings. The road opened up into a clearing — no, a yard. Near the cliff's edge, a small, rickety house stood silhouetted against the green clouds. Green-gray smoke, more green than gray, oozed out of the bent chimney. A glowing yellowish, nope, greenish light shone at the edges of the door and through cracks in the wall. So much green.
Chuggie decided to give the house a wide berth. A haphazard fence ran along his right side. It looked like it was built from salvaged lumber and sticks. What kind of weather it could keep out, he didn't know. He kept a hand on the fence and an eye on the door as he made his way.