The Return - 1. Chapter 1

The first drops of freezing rain hit Mordred's cheek, making the skin shiver. A few more drops and the body sprawled on the lakeshore twitched, mouth frowning. Mud-caked, matted hair stuck to the ground as he levered himself into a sitting position. Thunder growled overhead and the young man looked up, letting the water wash his face, filling his mouth.

"I'm alive," he said. A vast disappointment filled him and he leaned forward onto his hands, warm tears chasing the icy water down his face.

Slowly he stood, getting to his feet as the rain came down harder, turning the sky above the lake gray and dark. He watched for a moment and then picked a path down to the water's edge. He crouched there, washing his hands and face, before standing up and walking away without another look back. An overhang created by a fallen tree provided some shelter during the storm. Damp leaves provided both bed and blanket, the growling of his stomach the only sound beyond the patter of rain overhead.

He walked far in the succeeding days, the forest melting away behind him, and only then did he look back, but no enchantment remained for Mordred beneath the mysterious boughs. Only death waited. The horror replayed behind his eyelids and he knuckled his eyes frantically, pivoting away from the only home he remembered.

In the countryside he walked, devastation lurked behind every hill and tree. The gaunt, ashen faces with their eerie blue eyes watched Mordred suspiciously. Communities clustered tightly together for survival and strangers were not welcome. Half the time Mordred felt such an overwhelming sense of loss that he couldn't move, and others a rage filled him, shining out of his dark brown eyes to terrify any human who crossed his path. After awhile, he avoided towns altogether, but a sense of displacement lingered, like teetering on the edge of dreaming and wakefulness.

One day in early Autumn found Mordred walking along the edge of a road worn into the dark earth by countless wagon wheels. The sun shone down brightly and even the seagulls overhead seemed happy. He turned his face into the wind, warm fingers against his scalp pushing the long, white hair back from his face. He had a moments puzzlement over the long length, not remembering when he'd last cut it or dyed it into a more acceptable color. Jingling and a snort from behind him distracted Mordred from his musings.

Just coming into view was a wagon pulled by a pair of heavy-set ponies. Their tack bounced and jangled with every step, the driver's tuneless singing trailing along after. Mordred stepped to the side off the road, pushing his hands into his pockets, eyes on the ground in front of him.

But he looked up as the wagon began to overtake him and a voice called out, "Greetings, Stranger! Can I offer you a lift? Headed into Whispering Cliffs this fine day!"

Mordred stopped walking so suddenly he tripped, catching himself palms-down in the dirt.

"Whoa! Whoa, I say!" shouted the wagon master. Leather and wood creaked, followed by a heavy tread and a thump as booted feet hit the road. "Forgive me, lad, didn't mean to startle you none. All right there?"

"Uh." Mordred's voice was raspy and dry, as if gone unused. Right then he could not have said when he'd spoken last. He coughed, politely, into his hand. "Yes." He stood, dusting himself off. "Yes, I'm fine. Thank you for the concern."

"Clein," boomed the big man, shoving his meaty hand in front of Mordred's nose. "Glad to hear it! Where you off to? Come along, be glad of someones to talk to."

Shocked speechless once more, Mordred shook the man's hand and climbed onto the driver's seat next to Clein. He didn't have to say much; the merchant talked more than enough to avoid any awkward silences. He even accepted Mordred's description of home as a vague "West" and didn't pry. The disinterest was so unlike a human's that Mordred found himself simply letting the words flow over him as he studied this stranger who was so free with his friendship and supplies.

Clein, as Mordred learned, was the son of a merchant. They had a small but steady business carrying supplies and trade goods between the towns along the coast. The route was smaller than it had been in Clein's father's grandfather's time, but then the towns were smaller and fewer and, really, what with the plague and all ....

"You don't know about the plague?" Clein asked in astonishment.

"Oh, uh, no," Mordred answered hastily. "I mean, of course I know about the plague! I'm just surprised, is all."

The merchant's suspicious expression cleared and he laughed heartily, clapping Mordred on the back as if in appreciation for the good joke. "Of course! Lookin' the way you do, of course you know the plague! Though, reckon I never did see anyone 's young as you with full white hair."

"Yes," sighed Mordred, touching a tumble of hair over his shoulder. He frowned. "It was just like this one day."

"Ah, but lucky you are to be alive, lad, as we all should be. Gods' mercy." He briefly touched fingertips to his chest and gave a bob of his head.

Mordred's eyebrow went up. "You still believe?" he asked. Another strange look from the merchant and Mordred felt his face heat.

"Lad, we all do in these here parts," said Clein solemnly. "Look here." His arm swept over to the side towards the ocean. The road hugged the cliffs overlooking the wide, salty body of water known as the Silent Sea. The tide swayed softly against the seaweed-strewn rocks, birds flitting along the edges and darting below the surface for food.

Mordred knew that if he went closer the water would be clear and still like water in a bucket. No, clearer. The sunshine bouncing off the water, the birds ... Mordred closed his eyes and let the tranquility seep into his skin. There was a peacefulness here.

"Yes," said the merchant, as if he could read Mordred's mind. He slapped the reins, setting the ponies to walking again. They had stopped, seemingly as affected as Mordred by their surroundings. "We're getting on into Whispering Cliffs' lands. See?" He pointed to where the road began its incline up and away from the direct water's edge.

Mordred shaded his eyes, looking up ahead, up as the road turned, up to where smoke curled lazily towards the sky. He fought against a mad desire to leap from the cart and away.

"I shouldn't go there."

"Don't be daft, lad. Whispering Cliffs is friendly 'nough. Long as you don't mind working they'll take you in."

"I'm bad luck."

"Gods' Mercy," said Clein, again touching his chest with the accompanying bow. He looked at Mordred and the younger man shrank a little at the look, as if he'd done or said something truly sacrilegious.

Quickly, Mordred copied the move. "Gods' Mercy."

Clein smiled and cuffed Mordred's shoulder. "You'll see, lad. Whispering Cliffs is home to all sorts of folk. As prosperous a town as any this side of the wars."

"Wars?"

"Oi, lad!" He stared at his youthful, white-haired companion again, silently fuming over the lack of education in the world these days. But, seeing as he'd frightened his guest again, his expression softened. Clein reminded himself that reading and writing and education were not well-prized in a land where most people clung with their bare hands just to survive.

"Of course the wars, lad," he began in a calmer tone of voice. He thought back to his father's father and the stories he would tell. "Our land wasn't always kingless. We weren't always plagued by this curse or seen brother turn against brother, mother against child. Once our people were not mad, but in fact very, very glad and happy. There was peace and prosperity for all, anyone could become anything they desired, and the Gods sent angels over the land to answer our prayers."

Heartache so profound as to make Mordred gasp burst from somewhere deep inside, a place with no name. Luckily, his outburst was interpreted as shock and disbelief rather than pain. By the time Clein finished telling him all about the kings and queens of Vrede, Mordred had recovered, sitting as still as he could, hanging onto the edge of the wagon's seat.

They stopped for lunch in a shady patch of blue-green grass overlooking the ocean. While the horses grazed, Clein told Mordred more about the end of the Kings' reign, the wars, the dragon, and the curse.

"This count, see, Lord as he was over the Fire Mountains --" He waved an arm towards the line of smoky mountains marching towards the North-East. The very tips were lost in the clouds, but they seemed to glow dully, malevolent in their oversight.

"--He wanted to be king, you see, but the Queen didn't like this nephew of hers. She wanted a different heir and, they say, just before the youngster could be acknowledged, she was stolen away."

"Kidnapped?"

"Aye. The Count swore it was the Monkeys, see, and that's when the wars began. There were the Loyalists, and then there were the mercenaries and those of the Mountains, cruel, haggard men, they say. Only yea high but old and gnarled like a twisty tree. They swarmed the Palace of Kings and destroyed all."

That painful twitch again. Mordred took another bite of his sandwich to hide his reaction. Eyes wide, he asked, "They killed the Queen?"

Clein shrugged. "So they say, but no one really knows. The Count named himself King and conscripted a huge army to send against the Monkeys. They're out there, somewhere," he added, gesturing towards the sea.

"Where?"

"No one knows, you see, because no one ever came back."

Mordred's stomach growled in complaint as he stopped chewing. "I thought you said they sent an army?"

"They did." The merchant nodded and took a drink from his wineskin. "Ten thousand men set sail, and none returned, though they say that the tide turned red. It's been silent to this day. Fisher-folk claim they see ghosts upon the waves at twilight. Strange folk, the fishers." He glanced to the wide-eyed youth sharing his lunch. "You could be one 'o them, all lean and lanky as you are. Skin too pale, though. Pale as the underbelly of a fish." He laughed.

Mordred glanced at his hands. He hadn't thought about it before. Indeed, his skin was very pale for someone who had wandered under the sun for countless years. "A lot has changed," he mused.

"Yes, of course." And Clein proceeded to educate his young friend on all those changes enacted by the last King of Vrede. "There was a vast university, in the Queen's City. Folk went from all over to learn mathematics and history, become scribes and councilors, investors and ambassadors to other lands. Now the borders are closed -- Oh, not by any physical means." He pish-poshed that notion. "With the onset of the plague, our neighbors killed anything and anyone found crossing into their lands. They couldn't risk it, see?"

Mordred nodded, following his host and helping as he could to ready them once more for travel.

"But the Monkeys ran the University," Clein continued, "and the King had declared war against them, and so the University burned." He shook his head at such folly. He nodded to himself in satisfaction as they set off once more.

"We'll be there before nightfall."

"Then what happened?" asked Mordred after the ponies' hooves had held the silence awhile.

The merchant shifted in his seat and drank a little more before passing the wineskin over to Mordred. "Well, the King needed money to pay his soldiers and he created a tax that soon destroyed the guilds. Anyone with magic or knowing their letters fled lest they be killed for treason -- because they learned from the Monkeys, see?"

"They were thought to be traitors?"

"Yes, lad. Or so the story says. After that, the only ones left were the priests, but they'd seen the direction the wind blew and retreated to the Sacred Mountain." He looked but didn't wave towards the North-West, giving the little homage to missing gods: "Gods' Mercy."

With a sigh, Mordred copied the gesture. "The war?" he prompted. Why this was so important he couldn't say, except that he could feel, inside, a low undercurrent of anticipation.

"They barricaded the Gates and refused to surrender," continued Clein. "Even with the army camped just beyond their walls. Armed with little more than prayer, the Cathedral, its surrounding village, and all the people who had sought shelter there, were massacred. Everyone." He looked at Mordred. The traveler swallowed.

Clein's voice took on a sing-song tempo that Mordred at once recognized as belonging to a bard, "At that moment, the mountain rumbled, day turned to night, and lightning flashed down from the clouds, striking the King dead where he stood. The Cathedral crumbled to ashes, and the mercenaries panicked. They fled.

"But no one truly escaped that day." The merchant's voice was his once again as he shook his head sadly, mouth pursed into a tight frown.

Mordred passed over the wineskin.

Clein took a long draught. "Thanks, lad." He clucked to the ponies who swished their ears back and forth.

"That's when the plague came. It descended upon those at the Mountain first, but they say that the whole sky turned black as pitch. Smoke boiled from the mountaintop, then fire. Boulders carried this fire all across the land, bringing death with them. The Queen's City was destroyed. Nothing remains now except rubble, and they say that the whole plain sank that day, filling with water. There's still people who live near there, but they stay to where the trees yet remain alive."

Mordred shuddered and took some wine for himself. "And still the plague comes," he murmured.

"That it does, lad. That it does."

They rode in silence for a time. Mordred watched the road creep up before them, eyes wandering over the blue-green ocean below, to the fluttering of birds' wings in the trees and bushes. His fingers itched, beating a soft rhythm against his thighs until the dark atmosphere brought forth by the old stories dissipated into the breeze.

Above them, closer with every turn of the wagon wheels, came the top of the cliffs, and the town of Whispering Cliffs. There was happiness lurking there; Mordred could feel it, and it called to him, quickening the beat of his heart. At the same time he yearned to flee and he wondered how he could feel so alive and yet so asleep at the same time.

They saw the town long before they reached the top of the gentle incline. Still, as the final buildings came into view, Mordred didn't quite believe it. Most villages he had traveled through were no more than a handful of homes clustered together for protection. A town or two here and there on the old trade routes had an inn, maybe, but there was no end in sight to Whispering Cliffs. Actual children ran towards the merchant wagon, smiling and laughing, and Mordred could see no sign of the plague.

He twisted to stare at Clein. "What?"

The merchant grinned. "Welcome to Whispering Cliffs, my friend!" He pulled the wagon to a stop in front of a large, central building. Already townsfolk surrounded them, shouting greetings and asking for news.

The noise and crowd froze Mordred in his seat. He looked and he looked, but blue lesions, baldness, blue eyes ... he could see few signs of the plague. It was almost as if the plague had never come here. People were not so welcoming when they chased Mordred out of their villages with stones and angry curses.

"You coming?"

Mordred jumped at the clap against his knee. All of the surrounding people were now staring expectantly up at him. He blushed, fumbling as he hastened to get down.

"Picked him up this morning," said Clein, shoving Mordred forward with a hand on his shoulder. "Needs a place to stay. Seems sane. And healthy."

Mordred stared at him, and swallowed hard.

There were three people before him, with varying degrees of suspicion, resentment, and resignation. To Mordred's left was a woman in a plain, green dress. She wore the harshest expression, arms folded across her chest. Directly in front of Mordred was a man with eyes so light a blue they were almost clear. He was also bald and bare-chested, a thick, leather apron wrapped around his waist. He was easily twice the size of the merchant, and Clein was not a small man. The third person seemed the happiest and Mordred could not stop staring at him.

He had brown-gold eyes, eyes that on first glance looked almost orange, a dark orange, like bronze. His hair was thick and full and a dark, dark black. He was also wearing an apron, like the woman's, but he had his sleeves rolled up and the collar open. Flour had turned him an almost uniform shade of gray-white. He had a wide smile, relaxed and confident, standing with his hands on his hips, feet wide-spaced. He seemed young, but he stood included with the leaders of the town.

"No," said the woman. "I won't have him in my inn."

"Nika," sighed the younger man.

"Well, boy," said the bald man. "You have any other talent than being a lay about?"

Mordred glanced to the man with the golden eyes. The humor there stung, as if the boy was laughing at him, enjoying the way his fellows were scrutinizing Mordred. He was a no one in their eyes, a wanderer and beggar, but he wasn't! He wasn't! Once, some time before, he was . . . He --

"I'm a smith," he told them. He ignored the bald smith's bark of laughter, keeping his attention on the other, younger man. "Metal-work. Bronze and silver. Some iron." He shrugged into the face of their disbelief, seeing the metal in his mind's eye, glowing with heat, reverberating with the impact of his hammer, hissing up clouds of steam as he quenched it.

There was silence for a moment as the three town leaders stared at him, and then the giant snorted and cracked a smile. "All right. I'll put you to work, son."

"Good," said the woman, Nika. Now she smiled. "Why don't you come in, Clein, have something to drink. The boys'll get the supplies in."

"You know I love your wines," Clein agreed, letting himself be led away.

"John," said the big guy, sticking his hand out. Mordred accepted the handshake. "Hm," said the smith. "You have a good grip there." He glanced to the younger man. "Could be a smith. Apprentice, maybe."

Mordred stiffened, but the other man had his hand out. "Dmitri. I run the bakery."

"Bakery?" Mordred echoed, shaking the man's hand automatically. They had a bakery? He couldn't recall ever having heard of such a thing. He glanced around him again, at all the buildings, the people still milling about. There were children, many children. A little girl seemed to feel his eyes. She stopped, waved shyly, giggled, and ran off.

Mordred closed his eyes, fingers moving towards his chest in Clein's nervous gesture. "Gods' mercy." He cleared his throat, and then again as he couldn't at first speak. "You, uh, you don't get the plague here?"

The smith and baker glanced at each other.

"No," Dmitri answered. He, too, made the superstitious movement. "Not in almost twenty years." Since his arrival, but he didn't add that. He received enough strange looks as it was. "Well, John, if you've got this one, I'm going back to work."

He left the stranger there in the smith's keeping, glad to leave behind the weird, white hair and pale skin. He'd looked at him as if he knew that Dmitri was different, as if he knew that Dmitri was this town's good-luck charm. "Gods' mercy," he added. He was just a man; he wasn't lucky. This was not fate or some mysterious will of the gods. The gods were gone. They'd left their curse behind to punish mankind, for why else had they not intervened? Why else would an ill wind strike the land, killing one in three people and sending the other half mad?

He shuddered, glad to step inside his shop and the heat there. He remembered the last time the plague struck, when blue-gray lesions appeared on the skin, followed by fever and madness. He was young at the time, traveling with a dozen others as they fled to the South. People turned pale, just like that new man outside, their eyes glazed, mouth drooling and slack, hands frozen into claws as they turned on each other.

There was work to be done, bread to make for the morning. Dmitri took solace in grinding the wheat into flour, setting out the last of the pies to send over to the inn for supper, and getting the shop cleaned up for the morning. It was mindless work, rigorous enough to keep his mind from spinning out of control. That had always been his problem; he thought too much. An imagination was not an asset in these times. Everyone else might be confident in their immunity, but Dmitri knew their odd reprieve would not last forever.

"Hey," he said at the end of the day as he stepped from his shop upstairs to his home. His wife looked up and smiled. Dmitri set his worries aside for another day.

The work was hard, but no more than Mordred expected. Clein stayed in town most of a week and left with barrels of wine, wine that the townsfolk made from fields and fields of grapes. The people of Whispering Cliffs traded their wine and fruit for the other items they needed, things like metal ore. Mordred had to admit that the metal in John's shop was the finest he could remember using.

In the evening the men gathered at the inn, and there were real bards to entertain them. They drank wine and talked. John introduced him to all the other townsfolk, as well as the farmers come into town to see the merchant's wares. They listened to the ballads, sang along with the rowdy tunes, clapping and foot-stomping, and for the first time in as far back as he could remember, Mordred felt welcome and content.

Except at every turn he seemed to see golden-bronze eyes. Dmitri, the baker Mordred met his first day, was indeed one of the town leaders. They called them councilors in Whispering Cliffs, from a town council of six men and women. They listened to disputes during these gatherings at the inn, while the singing and gossiping happened in the main room.

Dmitri, he learned, had a wife, but no children. The townsfolk remembered when he and his parents arrived in town. There had been five of them, survivors from a town much further North, by the ruins of the Old City. They were scarred and starving, and many people argued against letting them stay. Now the townsfolk scoffed at those old councilors. Hadn't Dmitri brought an end to the plague? Hadn't he brought the town prosperity and new growth?

"That's why you're here," one drunken man told Mordred one night. "Same as me. Folks 'round here, they take in everyone." He raised his mug. "Even me."

One man couldn't possibly do all that, Mordred thought. He watched the baker, but all he saw was a man, just an ordinary, hard-working man who loved his wife. He saw them sometimes, together. The woman wore a scarf over her head, but she smiled often. Her blue eyes were kind, and Mordred could see a sadness in them. He watched the way she interacted with the children of the town, and thought he knew why, but he didn't approach her. He couldn't.

Maybe that was why he wasn't surprised when the baker slid onto the bench beside him one night. They sat quietly, listening to the music for a minute.

"They're good," said Mordred, using his cup to indicate the bards.

"Yes. Chessa, she's the best we've ever had. That's her father, there." He pointed to an older man by the bar. He looked like a gruff, no-nonsense sort. "My wife's brother."

Mordred smirked with one side of his mouth, covering his expression by taking a drink. "What do you want?"

"I think it's more like what you want."

Mordred glanced sideways and fell into the solemn, golden eyes. Strangely, he saw warmth there, and humor. He had to curl his fingers tighter around his cup to keep from reaching for that gentle face. He had to look away to regain control.

"I think I know you from somewhere," he said, when he felt sure his voice wouldn't shake.

"Right," came the drawled reply. Their eyes met again.

Dmitri rose and walked away without looking back. Mordred watched him leave, watched him circle an arm around the waist of his wife and lead her away. They were smiling at each other, whatever they said lost in the press of voices and beat of the drums. Mordred gulped down his wine. The liquid went down his throat into the emptiness he couldn't rid himself of. That night there was something more. The cup warped under Mordred's grip.

He couldn't sit there and listen to the happy music. He rose and went outside, feeling the moist air on his skin, but inside was still only the empty heat. Mordred threw the mangled cup at the ground, striding South, to the cliffs. The moon and stars reflected off the water below. True to its name, the crashing of the tides was little more than a whisper. Standing there, looking out towards the sea, Mordred thought he might go, find the men who sailed those waters. He'd go South, as far South as he could go, and leave this place behind.

Then he thought of those eyes, and knew he couldn't leave. There was something wrong in this town, and it grew stronger every day. He needed to go, he needed to, but he couldn't. He should have never come, but here he was.

Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw only the light and joy of the town. They were happy in their lives, alone in a world filled with scared, lonely, dying people. He thought he should feel wonder in all they'd accomplished, but it was a hollow victory. To Mordred, it felt like a trap.