FicWad

Chapter 1
He’d been here before, though many years had passed. The town seemed unchanged by the passage of time; only the people seemed different, older. The wind blew his long coat around his thin frame as he walked down the dusty road that ran past the old bar and what used to be the town store. Thayer pulled his hat down further on his head, it was a good hat and he didn’t want to lose it to the whims of the weather.
He caught an old man looking at him from the window of a ramshackle building and thought he saw a glint of steel before the man disappeared back into the shadows. He walked on, reminding himself of why he was here, why he’d come this far. A rumor, maybe a half-truth, but he had to know, he had to find out for himself if the barmaid had been right.
He glanced over at the bar as he walked. His fingers twitched as a shadow moved across a window then it too was gone. He had expected this lonely greeting, but not the unease and wariness that had his hand ready to pull his weapon from its worn sheath. He thought he shouldn’t have come, he should’ve left well enough alone, time had passed, things had changed, and some things happened because they were meant to happen.
He hadn’t walked down this worn road in twenty-three years, this little broken town had only entered his mind on the edge of dreams just before the sun came over the horizon and shone full on his face waking him as it reminded him he still had things that needed to be done, there were still too many things that had to be finished. Maybe this was one of those things, a ghost from his past that was long dead, but then things had changed and the dead didn’t always stay that way.
The old house sat just outside of town, fragments of long gone windows still clung to splintered panes. The porch lay in ruins, a few haphazard boards pointed skyward, leaned against each other in silent prayer. Careless patches lifted by the wind banged against the holes in the roof. Rusted nails struggled to hold warped and weathered wood that barely covered the gaps in the walls. Paint that had long forgotten its true color flaked off the building, its defiant hold apparent only in the deep grooves of the boards.
He didn’t know if anyone was there, if anyone dared to live in a building that threatened to give up its fight with gravity with the next storm. He pulled a cigarette from his pocket and lit it as he looked at the house. This is what he came to see, but the place held no answers and seemed to regard him with as much indifference as it could muster. He wasn’t sure what he expected to find, but an empty, ragged house wasn’t it. He turned and headed back into town as the wind picked up again; a storm was brewing and he needed to get a room until it passed.
He caught glimpses of faces in dirt-covered windows that seemed to disappear as soon as they appeared. He pushed through the bar doors, his boots echoed across the wooden floor as he headed for a table near the old piano. The worn chair creaked beneath him as he sat down, the wood protesting under his weight, but didn’t give. He motioned to the man behind the bar and leaned back against the wall as he surveyed the room. Dust, it seemed, was the prevalent decoration in the building; he could feel the grit of it under his boots and beneath him on the chair. The ledges of the windows, the tabletops, the corners of the room, hell, even the piano has its share of sand in its crevices.
The bartender brought a glass to the table and, setting the tawny liquid in front of him, turned to leave without a word, dismissing him.
“Know anything about that house outside of town?”
“Ain’t no one thar.”
Thayr nodded at this and raised the glass to his lips as he watched the man resume his place behind the bar. He already knew no one was there or hoped the boy he was looking for wasn’t foolish enough to risk living in the decrepit building. If the kid had been there, had been that dense, well, maybe he wasn’t the right person and he’d made this long journey for nothing. A waste it would’ve been, maybe, but it would’ve answered the question that had sent him here in the first place.
How many more miles, how many more towns, how many more questions stood between him and the boy? Maybe he was chasing ghosts, maybe the kid didn’t really exist, maybe he’d come all this way only to realize it was a useless trip, wasted time and nothing more. He thought about all the years he’d spent wandering the barren and desolate places, searching for a person who might be nothing more than a rumor, a myth, a story told to children to get them through their perilous existence.
He’d seen the unknown, or maybe just unspoken, horrors that waited in the forgotten places. Creatures that had no names, unnatural things that didn’t exist before everything had changed. He knew why people were afraid, why they seemed to watch him with a nervous dread, why they didn’t want to speak to him. He knew the path he walked, knew from an early age that he’d walk it alone and that people wouldn’t welcome him into their towns.
He finished his drink and asked the barkeep about a room for the night; he wasn’t surprised when the man told him all the rooms had been rented out. He tossed a few coins on the table, more than enough to pay for the drink and a room.
“Could be I might ‘ave a room.”
He nodded again as he rose from the hard chair and walked toward the stairs that led to the guest rooms above. The bartender called a number to him and he climbed the groaning stairs to his room. He knew the man hadn’t wanted to rent the room to him, but in rundown towns like this, money spoke louder than any argument could.
The room was what he expected, a bed, a window and nothing else, but it would serve its purpose tonight. He tried the window and snorted at the numerous nails used to keep anyone from getting in or out. He closed the door and noted the many chains and bolts that would secure the room further. Maybe this was supposed to be a safe room, a place where the bartender could save himself if things got too rough.
He sat on the bed and unsheathed his sword. It had brought him through many towns, many unknown places, many nights and had seen him through many battles. He pulled a sharpening stone from a pouch on the sheathe and ran it along the blade. It didn’t need it, but there was something soothing, calming about the mundane task and the sword seemed to sing as the stone smoothed the small nicks. How many years had the sword kept him alive, how many beasts had fallen beneath its silver blade?
The sword had been his constant companion, but he’d not been its first owner. A woman, who had walked the lonely road he traveled, had passed it to him. She had sought him out, hoping that he would be the next to wield the blade she called Gwyar. She had taught him how to handle the sword, how to care for the blade, how to find the places where people feared to tread and how to battle the fiends found there. She told him he would have to pass Gwyar on to another and when he asked her when he should do it, she told him when the next wielder was ready, he would know.
He put the sword back in its sheathe and laid it on the bed next to him. He stretched out and tipped his hat down over his eyes as he listen to the rumble of thunder in the distance. He would sleep this night, like so many nights, with Gwyar within reach and thoughts of more peaceful days playing through his mind.
He woke in silence, the storm had passed and no sound came from anywhere in the building. He pushed his hat back as he rose and turned to the window, the sky warming with the approaching dawn. He secured Gwyar’s sheathe on his belt and opened the door to begin another day of travel and questions. He wanted to get out of town, back to the solitude of the lonely road and the journey that still lay before him. He left the room as he thought of the boy he sought, the boy with grey eyes that marked him as Gwyar’s next wielder. He knew nothing of the kid, no name, and had followed any rumor of a boy with eyes the color of a storm.
The bar was quiet, and he headed out into the street toward the old house. Maybe some clue was there, something that would hint at where the boy was headed, if he even existed. The town seemed deserted as he passed through, no half hidden faces in dust-covered windows peered out at him. News of his absence would be spread and he would be forgotten, just another stranger that had passed through Still Rock.
He left town as he’d entered it, quiet and alone. He hadn’t found what he’d came for, he didn’t find the boy, and Still Rock could be added to the list of places the boy wasn’t. It seemed he’d been there, when questioned, the defensive tight-lipped people told him nothing. He had wasted another day talking to people who might as well have been statues.
He made camp under a weeping tree in a field that overlooked a fork in the road. He smoked as he contemplated the two paths. The left road would take him through Krill Wood and into River Front; the other led to Moon Falls through Yavick Pass. There was no way to know which way the boy had gone, which path would bring him closer and which would be a dead-end. There were no signs to track; time or weather had left no clues as to the boy’s passing. Thayr leaned back against the weeping tree, pulled his hat down over his eyes and slept.
Night had passed in a calm that was rare in this region and Thayr woke with a feeling of unease. He scanned the landscape as he tried to find the cause of the discomfort that had settled over him. He saw nothing, but the feeling of something, something wrong wouldn’t leave him. His body was rested and calm, but his mind was alarmed and every nuisance noise seemed to hold unseen malevolence. He rose and secured Gwyar to his belt as he continued to search the shadows for an oncoming battle. His eyes turned to the east toward Yavick Pass; he felt that something was there, something that was hidden and wrong, though he saw nothing.
He still had no way to know which way the boy had gone, but there was something, an instinct maybe, that warned him away from Yavick Pass. He looked toward the northwest where a light fog had settled over Krill Woods. He knew if he chose the wrong town, more time would be wasted and he would be left with backtracking or passing through Mechi Desert. Though the road that led to River Front passed closer to the desert, it didn’t fill him with the same dread that the path to Moon Falls did.
His mind now made up, a decision reached; Thayr headed toward the dark and twisted forest that lay between him and River Front.