Gift of Gold (The Year of Churning Bloods) (53 page)

“Where am I?” I wondered, plugging my nose and staring out of the nearest window. There was no trace of the concentration camp.

              “
What are you doing
here?”
A scratchy voice barked from the back of the room
.

I revolved on the spot and met eyes with p
robably
the
most
disgusting looking person
I’d ever seen
.
He had thick
hair the color of straw
and
seemed to be wrapped in a scarf made out of the disgusting
tangle
. The only bits of his face that could be seen below
his scabbed forehead
, were two
polluted looking eyes, four buck yellow teeth and a bulbous nose
which was
covered in soot
and
purple veins
.
I had to bite my tongue to keep myself from
gagging.

              “Am I not outside yet?” I asked
,
breathing in through my mouth.
He squinted and
gave me a
titer
of
disdain
.

“You're one of those people are you? Well
isn’t that a surprise
. I guess I'd better step aside as the great and mighty
Grimlar
s
storm through my leather shop
.”

              “Sorry but, did you say your
shop
?” I asked in confus
ion.

The raggedy man seemed to take this personally.
“And what of it? I'm entitled to own land aren’t I?
” he growled, propping himself against a table and folding his arms.
“
This place is the only thing I
’ve got
.”

              “I know, I can see that, but...” The
o
ld man cut me off as he
instantly
held up a hand for silence.

              “I know what you're trying to ask
because you’re not the first.
Not by a long-shot.”
H
e gave me a flicker of a smile before taking a seat and gesturing outside. “You've walked for a while and you've climbed up a lot of stairs.”

              “That’s true
,
” I admitted.

              “
Y
ou
’ve
come all the way up here
a
nd you're maybe wondering why it looks like you haven't climbed at all. You
’re maybe wondering w
hy everything around us is so flat. You
’re maybe wondering w
hy
you can’t see this concentration camp of yours.
”
He folded his arms and frowned
. “Three guesses why.”

              “I
s it
invisible from the outside?” I as
ked timidly.

He shrugged. “It is, but not in the way that you're thinking.” The old man seemed to be enjoying himself. “Two more guesses.
”

              “It
’
s got a distraction charm on it?”

The old man shook his head, sending tufts of his fur in all directions. “That would be the same to it being invisible from the outside. Last guess.”

My blood ran cold as a shocking possibility ran through my head. It was
like I just climbed out from a tub of water only to have a frosty gust of wind sweep me over.
There was no way it could be possible. There had to be another alternative
b
ut it was all I could think of. Without
thinking about it any more
, the words burst from my mouth.
“
The camp is
underground.”
I looked at the hermit with a pair
wide
eyes, waiting for him to laugh at me
and
to tell me I was wrong.
I waited for him t
o tell me that there was another way that the camp could
could have been hidden for all those years
.

The man simply nodded.

“
That’s
impossible
,
”
I exclaimed flatly.

The man snorted and spat into an empty flowerpot, which landed with a muddy splat.
“How's it impossible boy?”

              “You can see the sky
,
t
he moon
, and
t
he sun!
” I protested loudly.
“
It even rains and snows there!
I
can’t have been underground!
”

The old
man
considered this as he licked his dry skin caked lips.
“I've seen a bit of anti-magic in my day
and I’ve noticed that this Caterwaul fella’s pretty good at what he does. A powerful Aqua charm and
poof
! He’s created another atmosphere that looks like it sees the light of day.
The man averted his eyes as if he
quickly getting tired of me
.
“The same thing holds true for all the rain and snow. Your Caterwaul could sneeze and end up accidentally covering the place he wasn’t careful.” The old man suddenly leaned in close and began to whisper. “
What if I were to tell you that all of your weather is planned, right from the beginning? If the
Grimlar
s want it to rain buckets, they barely have to
click their fingers
for it to happen
. 'Same goes for
the frozen stuff.”

              I stayed silent
and felt my c
hest pounding from the
shock of it all.
I
stumbled
out the front door and took a deep breath. The air was the same
but perhaps
a little fresher? The sun maybe felt warmer. The sheer size of it all
, however
was the biggest difference. The
m
ountains in the distance scraped the sky
with their snowy peaks.
Beneath that
and
tucked neatly between the
valley
, was a breathtaking
body
of water
which was
t
he largest I had come across. The way the snow suddenly ended at the waterfront was so sudden and abrupt, it looked almost like
a
different climate altogether.

              “Is that... Is that Ocean?” I asked with wide eyes.

              “Aye?” The man asked, stumbling outside. “Nah thats not
an ocean.
It’s just a lake. The ocean’s tens of hundreds of times bigger. I rubbed my forehead, trying to understand what he was saying.

              “Is it possible for it to be any bigger?” I asked in wonder. “How does it stay in one place like that?”

The scraggly man shrugged before withdrawing a bottle from his coat pocket and sipping noisily.

The light snow on the ground was crisp and crunchy looking, with freshly made footprints leading to and from
the shack
. Following the footprints with my gaze, I suddenly realized we were in
a small town.
As I continued to look, more and more houses met my eye
, most of them
scattered in
groups
around the edge of the water.
Behind all of this and to the
east,
was a small dirt and gravel plaza
which
hous
ed
a wooden general store, a small supply shop, a locksmith, a butchery and a huge hamper of street vendors selling
mostly
fruits and trinkets.

“Where are we exactly?” I asked
,
looking for some sort of sign or other landmark.

The old man hobbled back out onto the porch and took refuge on an old rocking chair just under the roof of the
building
.
“A fishing village named
Opendure,
”
he said, taking another long drink.

              “Why did the Grimlars decide to build their camp here of all places?” I wondered, squinting off into the distance.

“Well, a long time ago when the Grimlars started to come into power, they decided they needed a way to recruit more members without the public intervening.” He shrugged slightly. “People might get angry if they found out their protectors killed hundreds of orphans every year. Or maybe not. Plenty of people already know, they just don’t do anything.”

“Why?” I wondered angrily.

“Why?” he repeated loudly. “Cause they’re scared! That’s why!” The ratty old man pointed back to the opening in the floor where I’d come from. “Nine hundred years ago, there was a mineshaft there. It had a fair bit of iron and coal but not much else. The Grimlars took it by force and got rid of all evidence that it was ever there in the first place. Over the years, they expanded the cavern, built this pub on top of it and bound me to it.”

              “Bound you to it?” I
asked uncertainly.

The old man grimaced.
“If
I leave this building for more
than
twenty four hours, my blood will literally start to boil.” The man slammed his hands on th
e porch railing
and peered at me with a pair of
exhausted
eyes. “
One day thought, I just had enough. A couple decades back, I set out for the south and I didn’t plan on coming back. W
hen the sun was rising on the second day
, it happened.” He bore his teeth and snarled at me.
“
Let me tell you what it felt like
,
”
h
e insisted.

              No
p
lease, I think I understand now
,
” I stammered, not at all anxious to hear this story any longer.

              “Well
my
blood began to boil
and
I was a couple miles
from the shed to keep myself from coming back.” He raised his arms angrily and continued to rant
.
“
So I just
sat there on the spot, doing nothing but waiting to die as
my skin twisted and what not.” He pulled a
second bottle from his pocket and began to drink out of that one as well.
“Well,
after
the first couple of hours of me sitting under th
is
one tree-” I
gasped
, suddenly
interrupting
his stor
y
.

              “The first couple of hours?” I exclaimed in awe.
“
That must have taken a great deal of willpower.
”

              “If anything it took a great lack of willpower
to stay there
, but
l
et me finish.”
The man inspected his first bottle with disgust once he had realized it was completely empty and threw it on the footpath where it shattered loudly.
“Yeah, so after the first couple of hours, I began to realize I wasn’t
dying
anytime soon
.
Slowly and steadily, I crawled back to my
shop
on all fours
w
here only at the front porch did the boiling stop.

              “Why didn't you die?”

              “Good question. I'll get to that
,
”
h
e sai
d, rocking back
in his chair
.
“After my trouble with the boiling blood, I realized I should have had chosen
something much quicker
.
F
or the following months I tried everything I could. I hung myself for five hours straight and came off with only rope burns on my neck. I Filled my lungs with water only to have coughing fits for the next couple of days. I jumped off my taver
n, landed on my head
and walked off with a migraine and sore
neck
.” He pulled out a steak knife. and set it down gently on his lap.
“
I was
sure
my last
try
would work. I
’
d even planted a suicide note to the
Grimlar
s.
”