​​​​40 A Day for Visitors

Year 910YC, fourteen years earlier

A BOY, WHO WAS almost a man, reached out to touch a hand. It felt cold, but the leathery skin and the calluses felt right. The face above him was a pulped distortion of bone and dried blood. That wasn’t right. Neither were the small feet dangling so high. He had to stretch to touch those blackened toes.

Grat didn’t remember much of Tharonis. His father had sold him into slavery to a Tiralian family. He had since learned Icarthians didn’t like slavery, but there would always be slaves. Tharoni didn’t care about imperial laws. There were always ways around the rules, secret ways. He’d learned a lot, listening to his adoptive family.

Although he’d worked hard for the next eight years, life had been good. The family, who had purchased him, hadn’t treated him like a slave, or even thought of him as one. They had felt sorrow for his plight, and had freed him of his chains. He could have left them any time, but he’d chosen to stay. They had given him what his father never had. A home. They had shown him kindness, and the other children had accepted him. The only difference was how much work he’d had to do, but Tharoni were tough. Their farm was large and supplied the city of Tiral with grain. For the first time in his life, Grat had been happy.

In a single hour, he’d lost it all. He stepped along the row of corpses, noting one had fallen; the nine-foot spear hadn’t been set in the earth deep enough, the weight toppling it. The youngest, they had hung from a gallows. A sludge fouling his feet, he touched another bloodied hand here, or the foot of a sister there.

An orphan, and he didn’t understand why. He’d hidden while they’d killed his family. Grat had never been brave, had never had reason. The discovery of his cowardice had been a horrible surprise. He hated himself, hated the fear clenching his gut when he looked at the dead. He’d heard his new father cry out something about, exemplars, a name he would not forget, like their blood-coloured cloaks.

The boy sat in the mud and blood of his family. He stared up at those macabre faces. Long into the summer evening, flies buzzed around him. Into the night too, when moths took their place. He took no notice. Crows arrived after the dawn, insensate to his presence, but he didn’t see them either. The sun cast a lurid glow across the courtyard and Grat’s face. He didn’t stir.

Something inside of him was changing. He didn’t understand the light growing through his insides, where pain had taken root. He didn’t understand it, but neither did he fight it.

People appeared in the fields beyond, watching him. Grat realised they waited for him. After a time, a dark-skinned woman approached. Behind her trailed several children, some older than him.

They stopped a short distance away, and the woman came on alone. Her eyes caught his attention. Power filled them, and a promise.

‘Who are you?’ he asked in a whisper, throat dry, tongue and lips blistered.

‘You feel it,’ said the woman, who got down on one knee within arm’s reach. ‘Don’t you.’

Grat wasn’t afraid. What remained to be afraid of? ‘Yes,’ he answered.

The woman glanced back at the others. ‘They have chosen their names. Perhaps you would like a new name too. A new name, for a new beginning.’ She gestured to those others, and they stepped forward. ‘This is, River,’ the woman said of a stick-thin girl about his age, maybe a year younger. She smiled at him shyly.

‘And this is, Raze.’ A pale boy, head bald as an egg, and his own age, stepped up and offered a dirty hand. Grat didn’t take it. The boy had a furious look and Grat didn’t know what to make of him, but he bunched his fists, readying to fight.

‘And who is she?’ he asked, looking past the boy at a tall girl. She hung behind the rest. The girl was scowling, taking no notice of him, or anyone.

‘Ah,’ said the dark-skinned woman, ‘this is someone like you, I suspect. Someone filled with pain and anger, and hate. Her name is, Lorn. Like the others, she had a choice. She kept her old name. It is up to you.’

Grat stood, his legs, back, and shoulders in agony. He refused to let the pain show, in front of Raze in particular. He shoved past them to stand before the tall girl. He offered her a smile, though he didn’t feel like it. It seemed right. She glared at him, but a glint in her eyes said she’d noticed. Yes, they would be friends. He was certain of it. ‘My family are all gone,’ he said to her.

‘Mine too,’ answered Lorn. She hesitated, staring at him with an odd look, and then added, ‘There is a darkness inside of you. I can see it. It stretches back, far back from before you were born ...’

Grat blinked, confused by her words. ‘Who are you?’

She shrugged.

He turned back to the woman. ‘What is your name, then?’

The woman smiled. ‘I am called, Scatter. I gave up my old name. It is a pleasure to meet you. You will join us, and you will learn why a light is burning a hole through you.’

‘What about the darkness?’ asked Grat.

Scatter gave the girl a reproving glance, before smiling at him. She didn’t see Lorn sticking out her tongue afterwards. ‘You will learn to control it my young one. One day, you will have your revenge.’

‘I want them, those who murdered my family,’ he said with clenched fists, glancing back at the bodies, ‘I want them all to die, to wither away.’ He had made a decision before, while sitting and staring at the dead. He would never allow anyone to hurt those he cared for again. He would find the power to destroy them all.

‘It’s a good name for you,’ said a quiet voice behind him. ‘Wither, I mean.’

Grat turned and looked into Lorn’s eyes, and knew he had found a new family. Not that he would forget his old one. No, never forget, but if he was to avenge them, he needed a new place to start. He nodded in agreement. ‘I need more time here. Then, I will go with you.’

‘When you are ready,’ Scatter agreed. ‘We will be waiting.’

After they’d left him, the day grew into evening, then late dusk. Wither, once named Grat, sat beneath the dead as before, honouring them with his vigil.

It seemed today was a day for visitors, for as the light failed, he saw a new girl approach. It was not the one named Lorn, or River, for this girl had horns. Also, where Lorn had been darkness, and River was shadow, this girl was light. The horns protruded from her neck down along her spine and across her shoulders. She had white-silver hair, pale skin, and golden eyes, which captivated him and purged his mind of all but her.

She stopped in front of Wither, who had gotten to his feet. He had met her in his dreams. He’d known she’d come one day. When his dreams had been at their darkest, she had led him out into the waking world. He didn’t question why she was there in the flesh. It seemed right, when his world was darkest. Perhaps, he thought, she is an angel come to protect me, although he’d heard they had wings, not horns.

She took his right hand in hers, palm facing up. On to his palm, she placed a short cylindrical metal object. It looked white-hot, as though pulled from a fire. He flinched, but she held his hand with unnatural strength. She rolled the cylinder along his palm, up his arm to the elbow. Strangely, the glowing metal felt cold.

In its wake, a script formed as red welts. He looked into her golden eyes. He didn’t feel fear, despite knowing her to be dangerous. An instinctive warning, which he chose to ignore. He liked her.

‘It is angelic script,’ she said. ‘A day will come when you face true darkness, Grat.’

‘I am now called, Wither.’

‘I see,’ she said with a frown. ‘Well then, Wither, a dark light will consume this world. You will press your flesh to the darkness and seal it. Then you will claim your inheritance.’

‘Why?’ was all he managed, uncertain he wanted to know.

‘I will take your memory of this moment, though not your knowing, for such memories can be stolen. I cannot risk exposure. Do not fear your dreams, mortal. They are but echoes of your blood, your inheritance, and your right. You will not know me when we meet next time, but you will trust me. I will come for you when the time is right.’

The strange girl faded away, and Wither stood staring at where she’d been. After a time, he turned and left the bodies to the carrion feeders. The light inside of the boy, who was almost a man, was brighter than those of the others. He knew it, instinctively, and he realised Scatter knew it too. The light promised to overwhelm his pain.

However, he also knew Lorn had seen true. Hidden within the shadows cast by the light, a darkness slumbered, ancient and forgotten. The boy didn’t understand it, though he was aware. It was a, knowing. He raised his hand to see white scars, which looked like some form of lettering. He didn’t recall where he’d gotten them, but he knew they were important. He couldn’t remember why. Still, he liked them.

They promised justice.

They pledged death.