The Flute Keeper's Promise (The Flute Keeper Saga) (6 page)

Long-held dread stirred within me
at the sight of the woman. In life Marafae had been maniacal and cruel. Whether
or not those traits remained in death was yet to be seen.

I moved towards her. Marafae turned
her head slowly. A glimmer of recognition showed in her eyes.

“Marafae,” I said. The strength of
my own voice startled me.

The Slaugh woman jumped. Her
fingernails clawed the handles of the chair.

“You,” Marafae said. Her voice
sounded raspy, like she hadn’t used it in a long time.

I approached her from the front,
but kept my distance. “Do you remember me?”

The listless eyes sought my face
and lingered there. “Flute Keeper. Why have you come?”

I took a tentative step closer. “I
need answers. I need you to tell me all you know about Robyn.”

Marafae’s eyes widened and she
began to quiver.

“You called her your daughter,” I said,
taking another step closer. “But she’s not, is she?”

Marafae trembled even harder. “She
is my blood,” she said. “But not my child. Not my child…my blood.”

She continued to mumble “
my
blood
” over and over until I took another step closer. Marafae was not a
threat any more. She was barely in her right mind. Still, that was saying a lot
for a dead woman.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

All of a sudden, she sprang from the
chair. She lunged towards me and grabbed the front of my shirt.

I tried to pull away, but Marafae
clung to me. She was on her knees. Her lips shook.

“
My blood
!” she hissed.

“Get off of me!” I shouted, shoving
her.

“Listen!” Marafae said. She pulled
herself up until her face was close to mine. “You gave me back my memories. I’ll
share them with you. You’ll see.”

Frightened, I kept trying to pull
away, but Marafae’s grip was strong. Her fingers closed around my wrist.

A pulse of energy shot up my arm.
At first I tried to resist it. Then I realized I was being fed images.
Marafae’s eyes rolled back in her head. The rest of her body went limp as her
grip on my wrist tightened. The black veins in her arm throbbed and darkened
near the point of contact.

I felt as though I had just eaten a
piece of fruit from the cathedral orchard. Images unfolded before my eyes.

A Slaugh girl in her teens sat crying
on a seashore. The tide sent water rushing up to her feet.

“Marafae,” a stranger called down
the beach.

Young Marafae sat up and pushed her
silky black hair off her face. She hastily wiped away her tears. Time had not
marred her looks yet. She would have been quite beautiful had she not been
wearing an expression of complete woe.

The stranger approached her. It was
a Slaugh man that looked so much like Lev that they could have been brothers.

When he got closer I saw that he
wasn’t truly identical. He was taller. His face was harder with a stronger jaw
and thinner lips. He wore his hair in a straight ponytail that hung down
between his wings. Even so, I couldn’t shake the notion that I’d seen him
somewhere before.

A longing expression danced over
Marafae’s face as she watched him. She stood up and tried erase it with a
scowl, resting her hands on her belly.  There was a slight bump under her
leather dress.

The boy glared at her. “What’s the
meaning of this? Are you trying to sabotage me?”

Marafae’s scowl turned to a sneer.
“Ha! You’re doing a good enough job of that yourself! Everyone knows about her!
Why don’t you just admit you’ve been cavorting with that half-Fay wench?”

 “What do you want?” he asked
bitterly.  “I’ve given you a fine sum already, enough to go live anywhere in the
kingdom.”

“That’s not enough!” Marafae
snapped. Her face softened. She flattened her hands over her belly. “We need
more. We need you.”

The boy made a noise of disgust and
turned his back on her.

“Wait!” Marafae screamed. She fell
to her knees and grabbed his boots. “Don’t go! I don’t have anyone! You owe
me!”

The boy scoffed. “I owe you
nothing! You got yourself into this.”

“Coward!” Marafae shouted,
releasing his boots. “How can you say that? This is your fault, too.”

The boy cast a quick glance at
Marafae’s swollen belly. He frowned and looked away. “How can I even be sure
it’s mine?”

Marafae looked as though he’d just
hit her. At first it seemed as though she might cry. Her eyes watered and her
lips quivered. Then a cloud of anger twisted her features. I saw a glimpse of
the woman that she was to become.

“You’ll pay,” Marafae hissed. She
rose and staggered backwards, away from the boy. “You’ll all pay and so will
your half-Fay tramp!”

“That’s enough!” The boy shouted.

But Marafae was not to be silenced.
“Everyone will pay for your weakness; those simpering Fay, your followers—everyone!”

The boy shook his head. “This is
why we can’t be together. You understand
nothing
. There are bigger
things going on than you and me.”

“Coward!” Marafae shouted. “Just
wait until the rest of our people hear about your plans! They’ll turn on you!”
She laughed hysterically. “I’ll be there to see it! That’s right, I’m not going
anywhere! I’m going to stay here and have this child so that I can raise it not
to be a spineless weakling like its father!”

The boy seized Marafae’s shoulders.
She laughed in his face. He squeezed her arms so tight that the veins on his
knuckles stood out.

“This is your last warning!” he
said. “I’ve been patient. Is this the thanks I get for trying to help you?”

“You’ve helped nobody but
yourself!” Marafae countered.

The boy let go of her and shoved
her away. “I’m done with you. From now on you no longer exist in my eyes. I’ll
deny any claims you make on me. You can say what you want. Nobody will believe
you. Good-bye.” He turned and walked away.

Marafae stopped cackling. Her face
froze in some odd expression between disbelief and agony. “Hagan!” she
screamed. “Hagan, no! Don’t go! Don’t leave me!” She clutched her belly. “Don’t
leave us!”

Hagan kept walking. He never
stopped or looked back.

The memory changed and I saw a
dirty little wooden house. Marafae was inside, sulking beside a grime-covered
window. It let in dull, yellow light that showed her swollen figure. Months had
lapsed and her belly was twice as big as before.

There was a loud scraping noise as
someone opened the door to the hut. Marafae jumped. She watched fearfully as an
older Slaugh woman came inside. The woman was followed by a big, ugly Slaugh
man with bone piercings through his nose and chin.

“What is
he
doing here?”
Marafae asked in a scared whisper.

The older woman crossed her arms.
There were streaks of gray in her hair and her face was rough as rawhide. I
could tell that her appearance was more from a hard life than age, though.

“Don’t be so rude.” the woman said.
“Didn’t I tell you I’d find a husband for you? Tarak has agreed to marry you.”

Marafae looked horrified. “But
Mother, I don’t want to marry!”

“I’m not giving you a choice,” her
mother said. “It’s the honorable thing to do.”

Tarak shambled towards Marafae. The
bones in his wings looked like they’d been broken many times and healed over
badly. He grinned, revealing blackened teeth. “Yeah,” he said. “Let me do the
honorable thing.”

Marafae backed away from him until
she ran into the wall. “Mother!”

The older woman scowled. “You shame
me, daughter.”

“I brought you an engagement
token,” Tarak said. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a dagger. The
blade was rusty and pitted. The hilt was bloodstained. He held it out for
Marafae to take.

Reviled, Marafae pressed further
back against the wall.

“Take his gift!” her mother said.

Marafae took the dagger with
trembling hands. Tarak caressed her cheek. She turned her face and shuddered.

 “Now we can begin,” said Marafae’s
mother. “Tarak, do you take Marafae to protect and provide for?”

Tarak nodded. A bit of spittle hung
from the corner of his lips.

“And do you, Marafae, promise to
serve and obey Tarak for the rest of your life?”

“No!”

“Come on,” Tarak said, leering at
her. “I’m not so bad. Here, let me show you.” He grabbed her and tried to kiss
her.

Screaming, Marafae shrank away. His
body was far too large and too powerful for her to escape. She writhed while he
pinned her to the wall and put his lips on her cheek.

“Say yes, Marafae,” her mother
said. “Accept Tarak as your lifelong mate.”

“No!” Marafae shouted. Without
warning, she plunged the engagement dagger into Tarak’s chest.

The big Slaugh man staggered backwards.
A black stain spread across his chest. He fell to the floor and his eyes rolled
to the back of his head.

Marafae watched Tarak die with a
look of quiet fascination on her face.

Her mother’s mouth hung open. Her
beady eyes shifted from the dead man on the floor to Marafae. “WHAT HAVE YOU
DONE?” she shouted.

Fear came back into Marafae’s eyes.
She made a swift move for the door but her mother blocked her.

“Where do you think you’re going?”
her mother asked.

Marafae struggled to get past her.
“Let me go!”

Her mother grabbed her arm. “Where?
Who are you going to go? To that stuck-up prince? He doesn’t give a damn about
you!”

Marafae punched her mother in the
face. The blow was so hard it knocked the woman out. She slumped to the dusty
floor.

Marafae stared at her fist in
disbelief. Her chest heaved. For a moment, she appeared scared. Then she
clenched her jaw and jerked open the door. She was almost out when she paused
and turned back.

She pulled the engagement dagger
out of Tarak’s chest and tucked it into her skirt. After a last look around,
she stepped over her mother and walked out the door.

In the next memory, Marafae was
struggling against a wind that blew hard little ice crystals into her face. She
shivered and pulled her thin leather cloak tighter around her shoulders. Her
face was gaunt and there were dark shadows under her eyes. It looked as though
she’d been on the run for some time.

She stopped to rest at the top of a
hill. She kept her hands low to support her huge belly while she looked behind
her. Winter-gray trees stretched as far as the eye could see.

All of a sudden Marafae let out a
cry of pain. She sank to her knees and put her hands on the ground. Her eyes
squeezed shut. She breathed rapidly in and out.

After a moment the pain appeared to
stop. She opened her eyes and took in the landscape stretching before her. A
plume of smoke rose from a little stone hut on the next ridge.

Marafae smiled. “It’s going to be
okay, my child.” She kissed her fingers and pressed them to her belly. “We’re
going to be safe.”

Next, Marafae was lying on fur
blankets in the hut. A blazing hearth fire made everything glisten with heat.
She awoke from slumber, but she looked exhausted. Her hair stuck to her face
and there were marks where she’d bitten her lip.

An old Gnome lady with an eye patch
came to her with a damp rag. She placed it on Marafae’s forehead. “Be still,”
she said. “You’ve got a fever. It’s a miracle you survived labor.”

Marafae sat upright. The washcloth
slid off her forehead. She looked around the room and felt around in the
covers. “Where is it? Where’s my baby?”

The Gnome’s pinched up little face
became solemn. “The child didn’t make it.”

Marafae let out a wail and buried
her face in her hands. “No!” she cried. “My baby! Not my baby!”

“It was a girl,” the Gnome said. “A
sickly little thing…”

For a long time Marafae hid her
face while her body rocked with sobbing. When she finally looked up, there was
an emptiness in her eyes. Something inside her had broken permanently. Part of
Marafae had died on that day and she had never been whole since.

The vision of the hut faded and I
saw Marafae kneeling beside a creek deep in a forest. The trees were so tall
and thick that hardly any sunlight pierced the gloom. The snows had melted
away, leaving the creek bank muddy. Nearby was an unmarked cairn covered in
moss and vines. Marafae appeared not to notice it. She sat and stared at her
reflection in the creek like a haunted woman. She was so thin that her clothes
hung loose on her. In her hand she held Tarak’s dagger.

She held one wrist out over the
stream. “It ends now,” she said. She lifted the point of the dagger to her
wrist.

“
Marafae
.”

It was barely a whisper that might
have been nothing more than the wind in the branches above. Marafae nearly
dropped the dagger into the water.

“H-hello?” Marafae said. She
pointed the dagger around. “Is someone there?”

“
Marafae
,” the voice came
again.

She jerked her head around. The
voice came from the direction of the cairn. Slowly, she rose and approached it.

“Poor girl,” the voice crooned.
“What has the world done to you?”

“Who are you?” Marafae asked in a
shaky voice. “Who’s there?”

“You are in pain,” said the voice.
“I can sense it. You want that pain to end, don’t you?”

A breeze blew back Marafae’s hair.
Her expression turned bitter. “The world is nothing but pain.”

“Your world is pain because of
others,” the voice purred. “Others who have failed you. They’ve taken everything.
I can give it all back. I can give you everything you’ve ever wanted.”

Marafae lowered the dagger and
stared at the cairn. She brushed her fingers over her flat belly. “Everything?”
she asked with a hint of desperation.

“
Everything
,” said the voice.

Marafae knelt next to the heavy
slab of stone that sealed the cairn. Something malicious stirred behind her
eyes. “What of my enemies?”