Riverkeep Read online

  The mormorach, far out to sea and flushed with triumph, leaped high in the air and roared before crashing back in a shower of spray into the water.

  Seamer leaned on the statue of the Mother, hand on his chest, watching the pigment bleed from the sky as Murdagh’s whalebone leg clicked to silence in the distance.

  As the light pierced the clouds, the breakwater became an uneven net of shadows. Seamer looked at the Mother’s basket, and saw it filled with only the cold black of the dwindling night.

  14

  Drebin Woods

  Faelkon: literally, “rot wing.” Hunting primarily using long talons, the faelkon has an average wingspan of fourteen feet. It is the largest of a family of giant, predatory ground-nesters (including gyræptors and kierks; collectively, the accibidae genus: see Dale, K.), feared for their beakless faces; their large, flat, equine teeth; and the protrusions of wood that appear as extracutaneous bones. Uniquely, this genus does not shed dead skin cells, meaning a thick layer collects under the dark plumage. Rigorous scratching of this on trees gathers the wood, which is then gradually internalized by freshly formed crust. Despite the faelkon’s frightening appearance, most who encounter it remark first upon its smell: an intense odor caused by bacterial activity in the permanently rotting crust. This is also manifest in its decayed face, and so has given rise to the faelkon’s long-used hunters’ sobriquet, “the flying corpse.”

  —Encyclopedia Grandalia, University of Oracco Print House

  Tillinghast was leaning on the bäta, picking under the fingernails of his severed hand with a pocketknife. He peered intently at his work, the hand held close to his face.

  “You found ’im then?” he said, spotting Wull and Mix emerging with Pappa. “That’s good, ’in’t it?”

  “No thanks to you,” said Wull, settling Pappa on the ground. “I thought you might come an’ help me.”

  “I did,” said Tillinghast, “then I came back. Wasn’t much point in all of us wand’rin’ in the woods, was there? An’ besides, makes sense to have someone here when you come back.” Satisfied with his fingernails, he folded his knife away and regarded his hand.

  “So you’ve left Remedie alone?” said Wull.

  “Too right. I tried followin’ her, an’ she told me where to go. Right sour woman, she is, unfriendly an’ sour.”

  “I think she seems nice,” said Mix, selecting a stalk of frozen grass to chew.

  “Nobody asked you, little miss.”

  Mix stuck out her tongue.

  Wull touched Pappa’s face. He wasn’t asleep, but was emptied completely, his mind wandering far away. Fine, thought Wull. Anywhere’s better than here now.

  “What a nightmare is this thing,” said Tillinghast, waggling his loose hand. “I’s no trouble gettin’ this fixed in the city when there’s plenty o’ seamstresses about, but what am I to do out here?”

  Wull took the hand and looked at the stitching.

  “I reckon I could fix that,” he said. “Needle wouldn’t hurt you?”

  Tillinghast narrowed his eyes. “You c’n sew? How’s that?”

  “I mend the nets, fix the ropes, sew up clothin’. Seen Pappa stitchin’ up bodies an’ all, never done it myself, mind.”

  “What’s he stitchin’ bodies for?” said Mix.

  “The ones that get cut up,” said Wull, “when we rescue them or pull them in the bäta, they . . . burst a bit. Sometimes they need puttin’ back together so’s they stay on the slab.”

  “Lovely,” said Mix.

  “You were the one asked about gruesome things,” said Wull.

  Tillinghast furrowed his brow. “I dun’t know,” he said. “If you’ve never really done it—”

  “What’s the harm if it doesn’t hurt?” said Wull. “Worst thing that can happen is it just keeps it in place until you can get it fixed properly, right?”

  “I s’pose,” said Tillinghast reluctantly. “I’s still not sure ’bout it though. What you goin’ to use?”

  “Stringed gut,” said Wull, “tough as you like. I’ve got a ball of it in the bäta, here.” He swung over the gunwale, reached into the prow. There was a hollow in the blankets where Mix had sat, and a space where the money tin had been. He flashed his hand around, seeing through the tips of his fingers.

  “It’s not there,” he said.

  Mix coughed and held up a ball wound of dull, waxy string. “Is this it?” she said.

  Wull ran over and grabbed the ball from her hand. “You stole it?” he said, checking the needle was still in place.

  “I’m sorry. I was just . . . bored, curled up there. It passed the time.”

  “An’ how much time did robbin’ it pass?” said Wull, turning the gutstring, checking for damage. “Five seconds?”

  “Well, two or three,” said Mix, “and, to be fair, the thirty or so we’ve been discussin’ it now.”

  “Let me see that,” said Tillinghast. He took the ball from Wull and examined it, tested the end between his teeth. “That’s pretty sturdy,” he said. “All right. Do your worst.”

  “How’d you get that?” said Mix. “I thought you’d no money.”

  “We have some money,” said Wull quickly. “It’s jus’ that it all goes on the river. But we don’t buy this—Pappa makes it with seulas’ guts.”

  Mix leaned away from the ball in Tillinghast’s hand.

  “How d’you do that exactly?” she said.

  “You need to gut the seulas an’ pile up their intestines, then you clean them, strip off the fat, soak them for a couple o’ days in river water, scrape off the outside skin bit, an’ soak them in lye for another week or so. You end up with a pile of skinny wee bits, an’ you wind those into strings. I can do that part. Pappa always let me help.”

  “What a treat,” said Mix, wrinkling her nose. “I bet you’re sorry you put it in your gob now, Till.”

  “I’s tasted worse,” said Tillinghast, thoughtfully tweezing the string in his lips.

  Wull looked at Mix pulling grass from the bank. “What else did you take?” he said.

  She grinned, held up a rubber hat and a wooden mallet. “An’ that’s it, I swear.”

  “She’s got a glass thing an’ all,” said Tillinghast.

  “Come on,” said Wull, rolling his eyes.

  Mix scowled at Tillinghast and handed it over.

  “It’s for whale oil, is this,” said Wull. “It was my gran’pappa’s. Don’t take nothin’ else, all right?” He tucked it carefully beside the oilskins.

  “What’s happ’nin’ with my hand then?” said Tillinghast.

  “Give it here,” said Wull. He sat down and lifted the skin’s edge from Tillinghast’s wrist. “That doesn’t hurt?” he said again.

  Tillinghast chuckled. “No, lad, look at my arm.”

  Wull, with Mix peering over his shoulder, lifted the skin higher and peered inside: Tillinghast’s arm was a damp pleat of muscle and straw, ropes of fiber and flesh that were threaded with little fronds of herbs. The ropes moved as Tillinghast breathed, the whole mass pulsing gently with a wet, fabric sound. Wull moved the skin between the tips of his finger and thumb, felt its cold, parchment thinness.

  “See?” said Tillinghast. “You jus’ get that needle in there.”

  “Right,” said Wull. The skin yielded immediately to the needle’s point. “It’s like leather,” he whispered.

  “Whose skin was it?” said Mix.

  “I dun’t know,” said Tillinghast.

  “It’s a good skin,” said Mix. “Big.”

  Tillinghast laughed. “Jus’ the right size for me, anyway. Any bigger an’ I’d be trippin’ over my own bum cheeks.”

  “Sit still,” said Wull. He had pulled three stitches tightly along the top of the wrist, his face close in and focused on the tiny movements of the gut as it worked its way through,
feeling the friction in his fingers. “It doesn’t hurt?”

  “No!” said Tillinghast again. “If it din’t hurt when that big blaggard bit it off, you ticklin’ me with tha’ little thing’s not goin’ to be much of a problem.”

  “Right,” said Wull, making another stitch, his arm reaching out as he pulled the length of gut through, making another solid bind.

  “I never much cared for this hand,” said Tillinghast. “See how it’s different to the rest o’ my skin? A bit smaller, even, an’ more pale.”

  “I hadn’t noticed,” said Wull.

  “Why’s that then?” said Mix.

  “I’s no clue. You’d have to ask the man what made me.”

  “How come it doesn’t hurt gettin’ stitched?” said Mix.

  “I’s straw, mainly,” said Tillinghast. “’In’t no nerves to give me pain.”

  “Do you have a brain?”

  “What kind o’ question’s that?”

  “Sensible one,” said Mix. “Life works into funny places sometimes; ’in’t always a need for a brain.”

  Wull, Tillinghast’s hand twitching to life in his, worked his patient way around the torn seam, binding it more strongly with each solid loop. The filling in Tillinghast’s hand stirred in the thin skin, and his fingers began to move.

  “Stay still,” whispered Wull.

  “I’m tryin’! It always does this. It’s jus’ what happens when I gets reconnected, is all.”

  Wull glanced up at him. “How many times you lost bits o’ yourself?”

  “Oh, plenty. Even meant some of ’em. You wun’t reckon on how much folks can be frightened by such a thing.”

  Wull felt Tillinghast’s insides turning under his palm like insects through soil. “Right,” he said.

  “I’s never lost the best bit, mind,” said Tillinghast.

  “Remedie’s not here,” said Wull, beginning his final few loops, adding, “I hope she’s all right.”

  “Oh, she’ll be fine. Face like that’ll keep most things at bay I shouldn’t wonder.”

  “You’ve no cause to be so rude to her,” said Wull.

  “She’s rude to me! I dun’t know why I should be expected to chin-wag with so rude a woman.”

  “You always start it.”

  “I do not!”

  “You do, and it’s needless.”

  “So?” said Mix, who’d been waiting.

  “So what?”

  “Do you have a brain?”

  “Oh gods, yes, of course I do. How’d you think I’m talkin’ and walkin’?”

  “Whose is it?”

  “Clever fella, schoolmaster,” said Tillinghast promptly. “I used to be able to speak the old tongues, but I forgot ’em, not findin’ many on the roads who shared ’em. Shared my own plenty, mind you.”

  “Where’s your straw come from?” said Mix.

  “Eh? I dun’t know. Farm, I s’pose.”

  “But isn’t your straw jus’ as important as your muscle? Like, your muscles come from these men, an’ your straw is part o’ that. Like havin’ a mam and a pap.”

  “I don’t bloody know. . . . Are you nearly finished, Wull?”

  “Almost,” said Wull, turning the needle again.

  “Do you dream?” said Mix.

  “In the name of . . . yes, I bloody dream.”

  “When you dream, are you a man or, y’know . . . not a man?”

  Tillinghast’s brows knitted. “You mean a woman?” he said.

  “No! Like straw. Do you dream you’re, I don’t know, straw, grass—part o’ the land?”

  Tillinghast sniffed and squinted at her. “Are you bein’ funny?” he said.

  Mix shook her head, ran her fingers around the line of her collar. “Course not,” she said.

  “I dream I’m a man, all right? I am a bloody man, an’ that’s what I dream. Dreams comes from brains, an’ straw dun’t have brains, does it?”

  “I don’t know,” said Mix. “There must be all kind o’ memories in the land—all the rain and sweat and blood that’ve landed on it. I jus’ wondered.”

  “Well, stop wonderin’. Gods only know, I’s never heard so many questions in my life.”

  “Do you like bein’ made of straw?”

  Tillinghast sighed, then thought for a moment. “I s’pose. There’s plenty not to miss ’bout flesh an’ blood. But I do miss the farts. Such farts I made as would cause corpses to roll over and fan where their noses should be.”

  “There,” said Wull, cutting the gutstring and binding the final stitch. “How’s that?”

  Tillinghast tried his hand, flexed his fingers. “Oh, tha’ feels great, so it does.” He shook his arm violently and grinned. “I got my arm put back in the city the other day, an’ I thought they did a good job, but, oh, I couldn’t pull that wrist apart no matter how lonely I got. You’ll need to do me other bits like this—I’d be invincible.”

  Wull looked at Tillinghast’s enormous body and suppressed a shudder.

  “Maybe later,” he said. He looked along the frozen bank and saw, sprawled at the base of an oak tree, the ursa-twisted oar. It was torn almost in half and split from the blade, pale, new wood shining through. His hand went to the bandage on his cheek, pressing the swelling of his cut. “But now what do we do?” he said. “We can’t get anywhere jus’ driftin’, an’ that’ll take forever.”

  “Oh, ’s easy, that,” said Tillinghast, still swinging his hands around. “That Bootmunch fella had all kinds o’ stuff in that cave—I’ll bet he’d some oars an’ all.”

  “The Bootmunch!” said Wull, looking at the tree line. “I’d forgotten all about him! What happened?”

  “He was tryin’ to bloody kill me. Decent effort, I has to say, but I should’ve been prepared. When he was puttin’ those herbs together, I jus’ watched him, like he was preppin’ dinner or somethin’. Daft, daft, daft.”

  “It made me hallucinate,” said Wull, remembering. He looked at Pappa on the ground, frail and bundled like kindling.

  “Really? I’d been wond’rin’ why you hadn’t jumped in to help me, I has to say. Guess that explains it.” Tillinghast grabbed hold of a tree and pulled on his wrist.

  “What happened? What did you see?” said Mix.

  “I don’t know,” said Wull guardedly. “What about you? Where did you go?”

  Mix’s eyes shone. “I had a vision too. There were ships all around, comin’ for me an’ for us, then I was all tangled in roots an’ the smell of mud, an’ when I got free, I tried eatin’ somethin’ I thought was bread, but it was a lump o’ dry earth full o’ dead things. It was weird. So, what did you see?”

  Wull tossed the oar into the long grass and shrugged. “Things. Impossible things.”

  “That’s the point of ’em, isn’t it?” she said. “Did you enjoy it?”

  Wull thought back to the weight pulling his head around, to the melding, burning colors, and the feeling of Pappa’s fat weight against him.

  “Aye,” he said, taking a long drink from his water pouch. “I s’pose I did.”

  Mix laughed. “You’ll be addicted next thing you know—bunches o’ herbs stickin’ out your pockets, rowin’ in circles.”

  Wull, despite himself, despite all the pain in his body, laughed, then laughed again to find himself laughing.

  “What’s funny?” said Remedie, climbing through the riverside brambles, Bonn wrapped tightly on her front. “I’m there worried I’ll be lost, and I come back to find you all having a lively chuckle. Hello, Wulliam, I’m glad to see you’ve found your . . . father.”

  “I know,” said Wull, smiling. He knelt beside Pappa and tousled his hair. “I’m glad to see you. Mix an’ me found Pappa. Thanks for goin’ lookin’,” he added, looking at Tillinghast.

  Tillinghast’s eyes bulged. “I t
old you I went lookin’ an’ all, only this one sent me back!”

  “I did no such thing!” said Remedie. “I merely asked you to stay farther away from me—not to stop looking for Wulliam and his father.”

  “You said I was repellent!” said Tillinghast indignantly.

  “You are! I’ve never heard so many libidinous comments in my life!”

  “You might if you fixed that bird’s nest you’s passin’ off as hair!”

  “See?” said Remedie. “This from a man of straw who hasn’t a scrap of hair. Here, Wulliam, hold my Bonn for a moment while I empty the stones out my boots.”

  “I’s proud o’ my baldness,” said Tillinghast. “It’s manly to be without hair.”

  “And so you wear a hat because . . .” said Mix, grinning.

  Tillinghast opened his mouth, then closed it. “It’s winter,” he said lamely. “I dun’t need to be standin’ here debating the merits o’ hair with you people.” He straightened his hat.

  Wull took Bonn from Remedie. She kept her hand on the baby’s head until Wull had cupped it in his own palm and begun to move his arms as she did, in shushing, gentle rocking motions that felt sharp and clumsy. She smiled fondly at him.

  “Your baby’s made of wood, miss?” said Mix, her voice innocent and light.

  “That’s right,” said Remedie, balanced on a fallen tree, shaking one boot at the ground.

  “How’s that work, then?” said Mix.

  “This one and her questions,” muttered Tillinghast, rubbing his hand over his face.

  “Well, he’s my baby, and I love him,” said Remedie. “There’s not much else that needs work.”

  “But how did, I mean . . . Where’d you get him?”

  Remedie smiled sadly, heaved a deep breath.

  “I had a son a year ago, the natural way, the blood and skin way, but he died. He was Bonn too.” She put her boot back on, swapped hands on the tree trunk, and shook the other boot. “He was a strong lump of a boy, then one morning after a few weeks he wouldn’t wake. I found him in his cradle, all cold, all heavy. So I kissed him and cleaned him and buried him.”