His stomach turned queasy. What if it had replaced Avena or Miguil? He struggled to remember when he’d last seen Smiles as his head snapped around. He stared at the two on the driver’s bench, his spine crawling with the terror of not knowing which was the fake.
No, no, Smiles saw us off. The thing was there. It’s not Avena.
Relief relaxed tension. He leaned against the wagon’s side.
“You okay?” Fingers asked.
“Just the Black Toned heat,” he muttered. “It doesn’t get this hot in Qoth.”
“Nor is this usual in Lothon,” groaned Fingers. “Bad summer to be a farmer.”
“You’ve been through droughts?”
“Oh, I remember one before . . .” He shifted. “Well, before I ran from my wife. Couldn’t get anythin’ to sprout. Lost a whole crop o’ turnips. My buckwheat was barely hangin’ on. Spent hours haulin’ water until my back broke just tryin’ to save enough to feed us through the winter, never mind sellin’ it and payin’ my landlord rent. Had to pawn my ma’s jewels that winter just to keep the farm. Not that my wife ever noticed.” His eyes grew distant.
Ōbhin shook his head. The emotion was real. Spoken with such conviction. It lined up with everything Ōbhin knew of the man, and it wasn’t enough to prove if he was the real Fingers. Somehow, the thing filched memories. It stole everything about a person; the worst sort of chameleon.
Scenarios played through Ōbhin’s mind as they road west. He broiled through the afternoon, drinking warm water to keep the parched burning at bay. His leather jerkin grew sodden with sweat. Avena drooped even with her bonnet shading her face. Miguil held the handle’s reins in a relaxed grip. Bran slouched, his excitement vanished beneath the hot sun. Dajouth’s flowery compliments dried up after an hour, his lips growing chapped.
Ōbhin pondered ways to “accidentally” injure the three guards. Tripping and plunging a knife into their arm. Dropping something heavy on a foot. Even punching them in the face in a pretend fit of anger to see what happened. They had jewelchine healers with them. If he hurt the wrong person, the damage could be repaired.
And potentially tip off the thing.
Right now, the impostor believed to be fooling everyone. How would its behavior change if revealed? Would it strike hard and rescue Dualayn before they ever got to the ruins? Or perhaps it wouldn’t do anything so long as he didn’t try to cut off Dualayn’s head.
Ōbhin didn’t know. He knew next to nothing about it, even how to kill the disharmonic thing. It was tough, healed swiftly, and could run faster than him. Was it stronger? A better fighter? What if he was wrong and it killed him?
Replaced him?
What if it tricked Avena like poor Jilly? She’d spent more than sixty days living with a thing and not realizing it wasn’t her husband. It was such a good actor, Avena would never realize the difference between the real Ōbhin and the fake. She would trust it. Love it.
Ōbhin hated it more and more with every passing hour while despising his helplessness.
As the sun set, they stopped at one of the farming villages. They all lay about the same distance apart, a day’s walk between each. This one was a little larger, bedecked in green pendants and flags. The town constable marched up and down the main road in ill-fitting armor with a pike in hand, his eyes hard on theirs. The defiance in the village seemed baked into the soil by the unrelenting heat of the summer sun.
They found hospitality at a nameless inn. Dualayn retired to his room to eat his meal, a sparse affair of buckwheat noodles in a thin turnip soup. It was served cool, left in the inn’s root cellar all day to keep the summer heat away. Ōbhin fumbled with the chopsticks. He still hadn’t mastered the strange eating implements the others used with casual ease.
“How much longer ’til we get to the ruins?” Bran asked before he scooped up several noodles and slurped them into his mouth.
“A few days,” Ōbhin said. “Three, if I remember right.”
Avena nodded, quiet. She sat beside him, her bonnet off and short hair falling loose about her face, freshly scrubbed clean of the day’s dust.
“We shall purloin the ruins and find wot you need, don’t you fear, Avena,” Dajouth said. “Why, my mother always said my father was part miner. It explains why I got no fear of venturin’ into the caves. Know a thing or two ‘bout bein’ underground, I do.”
Avena rolled her eyes. Ōbhin smirked.
“Nothing quite like bein’ underground,” said Dajouth. “You can feel the weight above you. All that earth o’er your head, but it can’t touch you ‘cause the cave is sound. Things echo, too. Your voice can live for a while, y’know, amid all the drippin’.”
“Drippin’?” Bran asked.
“From the water.” Dajouth leaned back. “Always drippin’ in caves. And dark, too. You don’t wanna be trapped in the dark.”
“No, you don’t,” Ōbhin muttered. He remembered the sunless mines beneath Gunya, the capital of Qoth. That day, he’d felt the weight of the city above. The mine’s walls had felt fragile after the quake. He kept thinking the rocks possessed the same strength as rotten wood.
“How do you stand it?” Bran asked before slurping up more noodles.
“You just have to be brave and keep your head on when things go dark,” Dajouth said, glancing at Avena. “Once, my torch just went out. Not sure why, but I was all alone in the dark. I wanted to panic, but you can’t do that. Gotta keep your head.”
“Wot did you do when you lost it?” Bran asked, leaning forward. He had a piece of noodle plastered to his chin.
“Fouled his britches,” Fingers grunted. He leaned back in his
