Hello everyone! I am pleased to announce that hiatus is officially over. I should be posting every other week from here on out in the foreseeable future. As for the story, this is a three-part story I adapted from a college assignment. I hope you enjoy!
1.
The Road
Two nights a week, Maxim KienVera traveled four miles by foot to and from his home in Little Vertim to the town’s older and original counterpart. The fellows at the Old Vertim Inn laughed at him when they saw him walk in each week. This night the air was thick with noise and smelled of cigar smoke and cheap beer. Maxim walked across the room to a back table, a handkerchief pulled over his face
“Maxim,” one of the men sitting there called around the cigar hanging from his mouth “welcome, friend. Welcome, traveller from afar. Tell us again… why do you walk so far at night? Aren’t you afraid you’ll be attacked by brigands?”
Maxim, his face set like a block of stone, only the glint of his blue eyes betraying life, answered them the same way he always, his voice low and monochromatic but steady, “No, Stirling. I know that dangerous men and creatures hide in the trees, but the road is well marked and well lit. No danger dares cross onto it for fear of the king. No harm has come to me thus far, and no harm will come to me yet.”
Every time the fellows would laugh. “Of course, of course,” another would cry, slapping his friend on the shoulder. “Though the road has been left for years with no one to tend it and no one to guard it, the primal fear of the evil ones can keep our Maxim safe.”
Then they beckoned Maxim to pull out a chair and offered him a cigar with friendly, teasing smiles. He declined the cigar but took the chair, sitting stock-straight beside the others. As much as they teased him, the other men respected Maxim. Though he never gambled, he played fairly in every game. No one could complain against him, and there was something sturdy and reliable about the wide chin and deep-set eyes. Eventually someone would bring out a deck of cards and another bought drinks. Maxim took his turn, taking only a clear juice for himself, but by the end of the night a smile would split his stone face.
He stood with a slight bow at the end of the night, tipped his Homburg, and pulled on a slightly ragged twill jacket. Stirling gave him that day’s paper, already scoured by the rest of the group, for Maxim to take back to Little Vertim, and then Maxim walked out into the darkness. The streets of Old Vertim once blazed as brightly as day in the darkness, but now the smoke of the city clouded the electric blaze of the street-lamps. The thick air stung Maxim’s nostrils, and he trudged through the streets to the graying forest on the town’s edge.
Mrs. Huld of the fifth street bakery popped her head out of the window above her shop as he passed. Her hair hung around her face and over her nightgown, almost completely gray now. Maxim stopped and tipped his hat to her.
“Heading home so late?” She called across the street. “Our inns have space, you know.”
“Thank you,” Maxim said, “but I will sleep soundly on my own pillow. The walk will do me good, too, in clearing my head.”
“Those woods are dangerous,” Mrs. Huld said. “Be careful tonight. The boys said the chasm bridge is out.”
“The chasm bridge will never get out,” Maxim replied. “The king’s guard walk it daily. If it were shaken, they would know.”
“If you say so,” Mrs. Huld said. She brushed her hands down her nightgown, wiping them clean from some unseen dirt. “Just take care. Old Vertim Inn wouldn’t be the same place without Maxim KienVera.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, ma’am. God bless.” He tipped his hat at her. Mrs. Huld shook her head at him and disappeared back into her bakery.
Maxim walked out of the city and onto the path in the forest. Lanterns set at regular intervals fled away from him through the trees, their light obscured as all light was by the smog of the city. The woods themselves hung with an evening fog, white and cloudy around the lights before blending into the gray-black that snaked between the trees. A hollow wind blew somewhere in the forest, rattling branches. Skitterings and snuffles filled the night silence. Maxim straightened his coat and stepped forth into the woods. A hundred feet passed, then another hundred. He had walked the path time and again, and he thought nothing of it this time. His mind began to drift with thoughts of home and his wife Kristine waiting for him. He clutched the paper more tightly.
“Hello fellow traveler,” a pleasant voice said somewhere to his left. Maxim jolted from his thoughts, jumping nearly off the path to the other side. A little man stood just out of the light of the lanterns, a fedora pulled low over his eyes. He wore a tailored suit and carried a cane with a metal ball on the end, which he swung lazily from one hand. The bronze ball caught the light of the lanterns, refracting it towards the ground. The ends of the suit pants dissolved into the fog.
“Hello,” Maxim said. He began to walk again. The little man kept step with him, his feet rising and falling in a merry jolt.
“Late night for a stroll,” the little man said.
“Likewise,” Maxim said. His thick, firm brow creased in the center.
“I find it odd-“ the little man turned around so he was walking backwards just parallel to the road, his face to Maxim- “that someone such as yourself would not be frightened by a stroll such as this one.”
“I can see my next step,” Maxim said. “What is there to fear in that? I believe it is more odd that you walk there, off the path.”
“There are many things to fear on the king’s road.” The little man cocked his head. “They say the chasm bridge is out.”
“Then they lie,” Maxim said, “and I have nothing to fear from them also.”
“You would deny such a thing? If everyone is saying it, it is foolish to dismiss it so quickly.”
“It is only foolish,” Maxim said firmly, “to deny those things that the king declares. He has never failed Old Vertim or Little Vertim either. I will believe the bridge is out when I hear it from his mouth.”
“Well enough,” the little man said with a shrug. “I must leave you, friend. I dare not take such a chance.” And he turned around and fled into the darkness. Maxim continued on his way, his footsteps the only sound in the trees. The mist thickened across the path, diffusing the lights of the lamps. Maxim shivered. Had it always been this cold? If the mists got any thicker, he wouldn’t be able to see the path.
“It’s no matter,” he said to himself. The chasm bridge would be firm when he came to it.
“What’s no matter?” A deep, reedy voice asked from his right. It took Maxim longer this time to pick out the figure, standing to the right of the road. An old woman, hunched over, her face hidden in the fold of her cloak, stood in the shadows between the trees.
“The fog,” Maxim replied. “It’s blocking the lights.”
“Ooh-oh,” the woman said, gliding along beside him. Her steps made no sound in the underbrush. She was tall, Maxim realized as she walked. If she stood straight, she would be taller than him. “Tonight’s not the night to be walking on this path in the dark, ooh-oh.”
“Because of the bridge?”
“What bridge?” The woman asked.
“The chasm bridge,” Maxim said. “Others told me it was broken.”
“And you doubted them?”
“I have no reason to believe them,” Maxim said. “The king has always kept this road.” Even as he said it, his foot snagged. He had drifted as he spoke towards the forest beyond the lit path, dangerous and full of potholes.
“I see that he has,” the woman said. Her eyes barely glinted under her hood. “And you should not doubt that.” Her gravelly tone mocked him. Maxim shook his head at her.
“I will not doubt him.”
“The king is not this path,” the woman said. “The king rules over the whole land, forest and towns included. If this path has faded, surely he has protected another. He will not let any of his people fall.”
“True,” Maxim said. “This is the path he has claimed, though.”
“This is one,” the woman said. “Only one.”
“The only one,” Maxim said. She continued along the path. The mist swirled around the lights, night shadows dancing across the path. Maxim looked down, and his feet were hidden from him. He looked back up and the woman was gone.
He turned around, peering into the darkness.
“What are you looking for?” A pleasant female voice asked behind him.
“The old woman,” he said, without turning around. “She must have lost her way in the fog.”
“What fog?”
Maxim turned around sharply, straightening his hat as he did so. The lights, now so hidden by the fog that he feared he would lose the path, barely lit the slim figure in the white dress. Her light hair blended with the fog around her.
“Can you not see?”
“I see a man wandering in the woods,” she said. “What do you see, Maxim?”
“I see…” Maxim trailed off, confused. “Who are you?”
“I am no-one,” she said lightly, tripping alongside the path. “And everyone. Where are you going?”
“I am going home,” Maxim said, “to Little Vertim. This is the king’s path, and it is swimming in fog.”
“There is no fog here,” the girl said. “I can see as clear as day.”
“Impossible,” Maxim said. “There is too much mist.”
“For you, perhaps,” the girl said. “But then, you are on that path.”
Maxim stopped walking. “What do you mean, that path?”
“Don’t you know?’ The girl said. “That path is the hardest one. There are roads and trails aplenty in these woods, less winding and treacherous than this.”
“This is the king’s path.”
“It is a path,” the girl said, “nothing more.”
Maxim stumbled again. His boots squelched in a muddy patch. This time he could barely see the lights, showing that again he had slipped off the path’s edge.
“Come on,” the girl said. “Let me show you the better way. The night is cold, and you should be home.”
Maxim shook his head. “I must stay on the path.”
“Why?”
Maxim looked back. The weak lights along the path barely glimmered in the darkness. The fog hung heavy around them, heavy on the path. He looked over at the girl. Here on the path’s edge he could see her expression, pleasant and happy. She held out a hand for him. “Will you try?”
The chasm bridge is out, his mind reminded him.
He took her hand and stepped off the path.
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