From Across the Clouded Range

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  The sun was well below the mountains by the time, Ipid managed to pry himself from Governor Rawlins and make his way through the town. Hours of conversation on the state of the district, the need for roads, repairs to buildings, and any number of other expenses that were ostensibly the responsibility of the landlord still rang in his ears. He had agreed to each request with less and less resistance, just wanting to leave. Why had the insolent man been bothering him with all that now? He was going to be here for days. Just now, the thought crossed his mind that the governor was savvier than he gave him credit for being, that he knew exactly what he was doing and it wasn’t all for the benefit of the district – he did seem especially prosperous. Ipid filed it away for future consideration and returned to the present.

  He walked slowly through the village, the pull of nostalgia weighing on his every step. Elton followed, his lone companion. At several of the houses, people watched him pass. The women bowed, men removed their hats, children stared in awe. He tried to acknowledge them, smile and wave, but it all made him feel sick to his stomach. Twelve years ago he had been nothing more than the local shopkeeper. Wasn’t he still that same man? No, he told himself. That ended as soon as you bought the lumber rights. Now you are the lord. Their lives are in your hands and they know it. It can never be the way it was.

  He had always been somewhat of an outsider here. His father had sent him to Thoren when he was just a boy. He had studied there like his father, then apprenticed with a merchant family who ran caravans into the western woods, and only returned to stay when his father died and the shop became his. Somehow, he had found Kira waiting for him. They had been joined that next summer, and she proved to be his perfect match. She was smart, strong, independent, and beautiful. She was far more than he ever deserved.

  With that thought, he came to the far south-western corner of the village and pulled to a stop at his destination. There, standing well away from the other buildings, was the only unoccupied house in the growing village. He had heard that they considered it haunted and could see why. The roof had caved. The shutters had fallen away. The glass windows were broken, leaving leering holes. The walls were a weather-beaten gray marked green with moss and lichen. The porch sagged, stairs broken and falling away. The house did not need ghosts. It was a ghost. And beyond it, past an overgrown field of grass, were the charred remnants that he had come to see. A few black posts still stood, rotting boards clinging to them like starving children. The scrap pile, more rust now than iron, defined where one of the walls had been with its multitude of sharp angles. Opposite it, the big stone hearth was clear, as was the anvil. The mighty stump that held it was charred but too big to have been consumed, even in that fire. The grass that grew around it was almost tall enough to make it appear that the great metal shape floated above it.

  “Please leave me,” Ipid whispered to Elton without looking back. He was not sure he could manage any other words.

  “I’ll be by the road,” Elton assured. “You won’t be out of my sight.” The big man paused but did not withdraw. “May I say,” he started, his booming voice little more than the rumble of distant thunder, “I would have loved to have met them. I am sorry.”

  “Thank you, Elton. I am sure they would have loved to meet you as well.” A big hand came to rest on Ipid’s shoulder. He heard a low rumbled prayer. Then he was alone.

  Ipid took a few more steps into the sea of grass. It reached well above his knees. Bugs swarmed around him. Mosquitos sought his exposed hands and face, buzzed in his ears, crawled through his thinning hair. Sweat dripped from his nose, ran down his back. The collar of his shirt was soaked. It chaffed his neck. His jacket weighed heavy on his shoulders. His belt pinched at his belly where it strained to hold his growing gut. His feet ached as did his back. But all these discomforts were outweighed by the ache in his middle, the sensation of his heart breaking all over again. He was so overcome that he could not even cry, could not feel anything but that numb ache. Then, as if the strings holding him up had suddenly been cut, he collapsed into the grass. His knees buckled, and he crumpled into a ball. The grass hid his shaking. The whir of insects drowned out his sobs.

  When he recovered from that first blow, he sat for what seemed a long time, watched the shadows lengthen, felt the mosquitos draw out his blood, listened to the cicadas whir. Finally, he found his voice. “Hello, my love, Burke, Marin. I have missed you. You have no idea how much I’ve missed you.” He stopped, felt his emotions rise, tears replaced the sweat running down his cheeks. “I have made a mess of things, I’m afraid. You were always right, Kira, I am hopeless. I was never meant to do this on my own. I needed you. I still do. I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to lose them, but I don’t know how to keep them. I can only seem to push them away.” From there, he started his story. He stopped many times, too overcome to continue, but he told it all, every foible, triumph, pyric victory, and they listened. Somehow, he knew they were listening and that they understood.