The Runes of Norien

Always be thankful to the Spirits, young Feeres were instructed, for even a pittance of Their mercy can lift the direst curse.

  And as he lay in bed with his family, – Yenka and himself half-hanging over the edge of the mattress to make room for their children’s restless sleep – Yern Kobold sent his silent thanks to the Spirits; for even though there were many who claimed that these celestial rulers of life had abandoned Feerien even before the outbreak of the Shy Death, perhaps as early as the Disaster that had struck the ancient world, Yern knew that his day, which had begun in grave discontent, was now ending in something akin to happiness.

  And like everything lately, this uplift in his family’s fortune and spirits was related to food – for while she was roaming the garden in search of more snails, Yofana had come upon a hare (and a big one at that, almost the size of a wildcat) which, having grown lazy and careless by the lack of beasts of prey, was caught unawares and promptly delivered to the kitchen where, amidst the gleeful shrieks of Yofana and Yonfi, it was swiftly killed and skinned by Yenka, overwhelmed to the point of tears by their good luck.

  So they had had a proper feast, even eating some of the hard cheese that Yern had been saving, for once without anyone thinking of everyone else’s hunger but attacking the food with joyous greed, till they could barely breathe from the fullness.

  Moreover, the six-moon year that many took as an ill omen, saying that the Shy Death was a harbinger of the dreaded Seventh Moon, meant that the weather was constantly mild, so that Yofana and Yonfi, even when half-famished, didn’t have to endure a single-moon winter’s chill as well.

  Yern could feel his daughter stirring and muttering in her sleep, and to make sure the moonglow didn’t wake her before she could get some decent rest, he carefully got off the bed, went over to the front windows and drew the sackloth firmly across them; then he did the same with the back windows, and once the bedroom was sufficiently darkened, he tiptoed back to the bed.

  But as he made to raise the sheet that had come off Yofana while she tossed and turned, his eyes caught something that glistened between her thin legs – and bending over he saw to his horror that the bed was soaked from the blood that kept spouting out of his daughter’s faintly moving body; and then, noticing a solid thing in the growing black pool, he picked it up and held it in his shaking hand: it was a stillborn baby, tiny as a clothespin, with the body of a man and the head of a pig.

  Yern woke with a start, sweating and panting. He jumped out of bed, heart racing, and saw that nothing was wrong. Yofana was even smiling in her sleep.

  All’s well, he kept saying to himself. It was just a dream. All’s well.

  And yet another, inner voice kept saying, No it’s not.