January 17, 2017

PodCastle 451: Or Be Forever Fallen

* Author : Merc Fenn Wolfmoor

* Narrator : Curtis C. Chen

* Host : Graeme Dunlop

* Audio Producer : Peter Wood

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First published in Issue 49 of InterGalactic Medicine Show in February 2016.

Or Be Forever Fallen

by A. Merc Rustad

The raven’s ghost follows first. It’s not a surprise, if I’m honest. I killed a raven once —intentional, cruel — some time ago. (I don’t remember why.) At first I saw it in the distance while I prowled the ruins of the once-majestic forest, hunting the men who robbed me. Yet the ghost never approached until now.

It perches on a petrified tree stump. The light from the campfire shimmers against its glossy feathers, blood etching razor-edged plumage. It should be indistinguishable in the night, banked in shadow. I only know it’s a ghost from the hollows of its missing eyes, how its shape bends in unnatural directions at the corners of my sight.

“I’ve naught for you.” I say it to the knives laid out on oiled canvas before me.

The raven’s ghost makes no sound. Its unnatural muteness tightens the muscles in my neck. Ghosts are never silent. Death is neither gentle nor kind.

I must act quickly, before the ghost destroys me. I don’t know why it’s waited, since it must have come for a reason. There’s no dawn in this land—a ghost can wait forever, and I can no longer endure its presence. I haven’t slept in…well. I don’t remember that, either.

The bandits who stole my name left me savaged but alive, my memory no better than moth-chewed rags, loose threads, the narrative of who I was scattered between holes. I remember cold plains that aren’t home, a familiar-soft touch on my neck, planting grape vines in summer, pain (maybe mine, maybe not), and great pools of emptiness between.

The raven cocks its head.

I will find the men who wronged me and I will unmake them. But I can find no solace if the ghost interferes.

I pull the map from my satchel and spread it before me. The map is old: vellum lined with a substance neither blood nor ink, but darker, older; the viscera from the other side of heaven.

Shall I show you what happened to your name? the map whispers. Its voice bends thoughts sideways, echoes of madness etched behind each word. It only shows you what you pay it to find.

I kneel on the edges of the map and lay a knife blade against my palm. Steel grounds me, the one thing I always remember. “Leave me, ghost, or I will let this map destroy you.”

The map purrs in anticipation and hunger.

“You would be unwise to do that, man,” says a voice from the darkness.

A wolf prowls into my camp, the firelight pooling its eye sockets. A faint line of red circles its neck, but its silver-black pelt is thick, glossy as the raven’s feathers.

I stiffen, sharp fear salted in my belly. I’ve never killed a wolf (cruel or not). I haven’t earned a second ghost.

The wolf must have once hailed from the southern mountains: it’s bigger than a pony, jagged white stripes splashed across its back, clay beads sewn into its ears and braided into the long fur along its chest and shoulders.

The wolf dips its chin to the raven, who nods its head in return.

At the corners of my eyes, the wolf’s shape warps and stretches into the darkness. Its scent is heavy with old memory.

The mountain wolves served only their land and their people, refusing to pay homage to Sun or Moon. Instead,

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