Page 5 of A Blade of Lies and Spirits

He didn’t talk anymore, and by the time we reached the outskirts of the town, curiosity in general had become painful. Why would people choose to live here? No water, and so hot and dry it was as if only rocks could live here without pain. And what was Walker’s connection with this place?

It offered a harsh beauty of stone and sky. Like the mountains back home, stark and challenging. I understood clinging to a place, even if it made no sense. Kalderon, my homeland, was beautiful and free, despite its lacks. It was a place mostly outside of our government, as free as we could be, but also without a lot of the technology the cities had.

A bend in the canyon revealed an entirely different world. A cluster of dwellings climbed a sheer cliff face, built into it. Children ran away from us, laughing, pursued by a tiny barking dog. The smell of water pervaded the air near the buildings. Green snuggled against red and yellow rock where gardens softened the edges of the canyon, even though the plants were unfamiliar to me. Some climbed stakes, some sprawled close to the ground. A group of women worked in them, weeding. They wore long loose skirts and shirts, gathered in by vests, their braided hair hanging down their backs or coiled beneath straw hats.

Several straightened and eyed us, one wiping her brow. They moved with an attractive angular grace. Tall, skin darkened by the sun, high cheek boned—Walker could be their cousin.

The eldest of the women, hoe in hand, walked over to me, ignoring Walker.

“Why are you here?” Her face, closed and forbidding, indicated that she didn’t want to speak to me, but I had ways of warming people up.

“To talk. I’ve got some things to trade, too.”

A gleam of curiosity cracked the granite mask of her face. “Thirsty?”

“Yes.”

I drank my fill, the water sweet and cool, but Walker refused it when I offered him some. She didn’t return to the garden patch, and the other women watched us from the sides of their eyes. My greeter examined the items I pulled from my satchel.

Everyone ignored Walker so hard it was obvious they all knew him. Hopefully, I figured that out myself soon. For now, I’d do what I was brought here to do, which was to get information about the murdered Representative.

I wiped a trickle of water from my chin. “Where did Representative Malcolm live?”

“Why do you ask?”

Sometimes it was smartest just to be honest. “I’ve been sent to look into his death.”

Her right hand made a sign against evil, which told me she felt there was something supernatural or evil about the way the representative died. She pointed down the ravine, toward the highest house on the cliffside.

She turned her gaze to the batteries, the candies, and the multi-tool. I propped the LawBook next to me, not yet set to record.

“Do you have any extra clothes? These aren’t very practical. Or sunblock?”

The ghost of a smile passed over her face. She nodded.

“I’ll be back.” She walked at a brisk clip to the other women. A conference ensued. Most of them were taller than me.

I just hoped it wouldn’t be kids’ clothing.

Walker had settled in by the trough. I used the nearby bucket to wash sweat and dirt off as I waited. The children stared. In contrast to their even tans, I was pale where I wasn’t various shades of red.

While I waited for the clothing, I talked with a grandmother who came to sit close by. She was minding the children, who’d grown bored and started playing ball again. In exchange for several seasoning packets and all my salt, she was willing to discuss the Representative while the LawBook recorded her words.

“The one who died, I won’t name him. He might come back and haunt me. He had a son, Onni, then twin girls. Unlucky, one of them died at birth. He named the living one Mara. Foreign names.” She paused, and the sheer force of her stare herded the children away from the garden whose edge they’d approached.

Okay… so Representative Malcolm had three children but lost one of them. Onni and Mara remained after his death. Nothing about this so far sounded worthy of the worry and fear in this woman’s voice. But the truth was, we wouldn’t be here if everything about this situation was normal.

Her voice low, she continued. “He knew magic. When the Guild soldiers came, he said he would be the Representative and bring tech back here. He did… to his house, anyway.” She rolled her eyes, her tone cynical and less fearful for a moment.

Big surprise. A Representative that used his political connections to only help himself when all his people would have benefited greatly from being given technology. I would have rolled my eyes if her expression hadn’t changed to a fearful one once more.

“Every new moon, we’d see lights, hear things. The folk who spoke against him were unlucky, then they died.” She shook her head, and made another sign against evil. “Bad things happened in that house. Things that should see the sun and wind dry them up and blow them away from here. And their evil with them.”

I shivered, but held my tongue, waiting to see what more she had to say.

After a pause, she continued, her gaze locked on mine. “The night he died, the wind—it howled and screamed. Some people heard it, some didn’t. The new moon made it black as pitch, and the horses broke out of their pen down the canyon. A couple of the horses died doing it. That wasn’t the first wind like that. It blew when folks spoke out, then in the morning, they’d be gone. Even if you walk with him, you be careful.” She tilted her head toward Walker, a quick jerk. Her laugh broke in the middle. “You should wear more clothes, too.” Walker, standing like a silent sentinel, said nothing, the ghost of something passed him, but it was fleeting, and I couldn’t catch it.

I thanked her as I waited for my new clothes, my mind spinning. Some of what she was describing could have just been the lights and sounds of the new technology Representative Malcolm was using, but the rest of it? I wasn’t sure what to think. It could be magic. Or a spirit.

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