“Mundle!” Ms. Shrake snapped.
Sam yanked his gaze from the window to find Besfen’s schoolmistress — and indeed the rest of the class — glaring at him. It was easy for them to do that, as Sam’s desk was right at the back of the schoolhouse, with a five-foot gap to the next row. According to Ms. Shrake, that was the minimum ‘safe distance’ to ensure no one ‘caught’ Sam’s silly ideas.
Shrake was at the other end of the room, wrapped in three shawls and covering her mouth with a handkerchief — another precaution when speaking to Sam.
“Sorry Miss,” Sam said.
Shrake returned to the chalkboard. “As I was saying, Besfen was founded in…”
Sam had already turned back to the window, tuning out Shrake’s lecture on Besfen’s founding a few hundred years ago. The exact same lecture she gave every Tuesday for ‘history’ class.
Beyond the window panes, if he squinted down the alley between the tailor’s and the watchmaker’s, he could make out the Edgewall in the midday sun, the light making his eyelids heavy. Each night that week, fear had kept him up, staring out of his bedroom window, eyes fixed on the Edgewall until sheer exhaustion eventually took him off. He wished he knew what the voice wanted. Why did it speak to him, then linger on the other side of the Edgewall? Sam had the horrible sense it was waiting for something. The ‘Spirit Rider’ maybe?
“Latimer!” Shrake bellowed, making Sam jump and turn back.
“But Miss,” Ben Latimer, one row ahead, whined, “I wanted to see what Sam was looking at.”
Shrake shifted her bloodthirsty gaze to Sam. She covered her mouth with her handkerchief. “Mundle, move your desk back another foot.”
“There isn’t enough room, Miss.”
“Then… just go as far back as you can.”
Sam dutifully shuffled his desk as far as possible, the back of his chair hitting the door.
Shrake’s bulging eyes frantically scanned the room. “Children!” she shouted, panic edging her voice, “what is within the Edgewall?”
““Besfen,”” the class said in dull repetition, Sam mumbling along.
“And what is Besfen?”
““Safe.””
“What is beyond the Edgewall?”
““Paralex.””
“And what is Paralex?”
““A vicious, dangerous death-trap, filled with diseases, monsters, murderers, and high taxes.””
“Excellent work, class.” Shrake patted her chest and breathed a sigh of relief.
Sam had only ever peeked through the gap in the Edgewall, but the way Shrake went on, he’d have thought Paralex was a fiery wasteland swarming with terrifying beasts. His eyes wandered to the tiny bookshelf where the textbooks were kept. The one marked ‘World Atlas’ contained only a poorly-drawn map of Besfen.
Something thudded at Sam’s back. Someone was banging on the schoolhouse door, drawing everyone to look.
“Come on, Mundle!” Shrake snapped, “Move!”
Sam dragged himself and his desk out of the way as the schoolhouse door banged open and Mr. Pike, the town butcher, stood in the entrance. An apron discoloured with a decade of stains ballooned over his large gut, his many chins jittering as his tiny eyes swept over the class.
“Eleanor,” he said to Shrake. “It’s Halfred. He needs to speak with us.”
Many of Sam’s classmates whispered to one another and he wondered too — what did Mayor Halfred want with the schoolmistress and the butcher? If Halfred was gathering his fellow town-councillors, it had to be something big. Sam’s stomach clenched at the realisation — the voice.
“Class dismissed,” Shrake announced. She swept past them all, following Pike as he led her away.
Besfen’s children swiftly dispersed, clearly excited to get out of their lesson early. A few called to one another about meeting up later or heading to the town square to play a few rounds of Kitter. No one called to Sam.
Last to leave, he knew the meeting had to be about the voice. Sam was involved, it might even be his fault. He grabbed his jacket from the coat-pegs and headed out into the winter air. The snow was patterned with the two-dozen footprints of his classmates heading here and there, but Sam took the way past the town clinic, heading for the mayor’s house.
Passing the Threefold Temple, he gazed up at the bell tower, the only place in Besfen that stood taller than the Edgewall. Curtains were hung between the bell tower’s pillars ensuring the Trisworn didn’t accidentally catch a glimpse of anything beyond their mountaintop home, when ringing the bells. Yet that afternoon, the temple was silent. The Trisworn must be at the mayor’s house as well, Sam decided, hurrying a little faster.
He cut through Miss Indra’s back garden, ducked under the bed sheets and green robes drying on her washing line, and rounded the street corner just as Halfred’s front door slammed shut. The town-house sat apart from the other homes, bordered on one side by a high fence. A fly buzzed in circles above the rubbish bin at the edge of the neat front lawn, beside a tall, leafless tree that shivered in the wind. Sam crept up to the house, looking around to make sure he wasn’t being watched. At the door, he pressed his ear to the icy surface, catching a few muffled voices, but nothing more.
Feeling something at his feet, he jumped back. But it was only Halfred’s cat, a fat grey thing that stared up at him distastefully. The cat waltzed away, curling up contentedly on a snowless patch of grass beneath the sill of a downstairs window. The sight sent a silly idea whizzing through Sam’s mind.
He sidled over to the cat’s spot beneath the windowsill, the feline giving a disgruntled “mrrup” as it moved on. From here, the conversation inside was louder, but still impossible to make out. Sam reached up and scratched at the windowsill, then immediately snatched his hand out of sight. There was a brief lull in the voices and Sam scratched the sill again. Feet shifted indoors, then the window flew open. Sam pressed his back against the wall, drawing his knees as tight against his chest as possible, praying he wouldn’t be seen.
“I told you, Trisworn,” Pike said above him, “there’s no bloody cat out here.”
“By the Tersiark I swore I heard —” the Trisworn muttered.
“Leave it open,” Halfred’s reedy tones cut across him. “I let Tibbs out before, he’ll be due his next meal soon.”
Pike muttered to himself and stepped away.
“But is it definitely a seedug?” Shrake’s shrill voice joined the conversation inside.
“It’s a bright blue dog,” Pike groaned. “A puppy, but a seedug all the same. We need to see its message.”
As if in response a high-pitched bark echoed within. Sam had to keep himself from looking inside.
“This isn’t our way,” Shrake hissed. “Trisworn, you have the last vote. What do the Great Books say?”
“Well —” the Trisworn started.
“Eh?” Halfred butted in. “Great Cooks? What good will they do?”
“Books!” Pike shouted. “Great — books!”
“Well, mayor,” the Trisworn continued cautiously, “the Book of Soil teaches that knowledge inspired by choice, is holier than ignorance born of desire.”
“Eh?”
“He said yes!” Pike snapped, clearly in no mood to shout-translate the sermon.
“Yes, eh?” Halfred said. “Sorry Eleanor, that’s three to one. We’ll see what the seedug wants to show.”
“Need to put it in water, don’t we?” Pike said uncertainly.
“So says the Book of Drops,” the Trisworn intoned.
“It’s a seedug,” Halfred said loudly, as if he’d dozed off and was only now re-joining them. “We’ll put it in the hot-tub out back.”
Something — the seedug, Sam guessed — barked in agreement.
“The hot-tub?” Shrake gasped. “Outside? It’s bad enough we need to know what’s happening in Paralex. What if someone sees?”
“Give over Eleanor,” Pike said. “Have you seen the height of Halfred’s back fence? No one will have a clue.”
He was right, Sam thought, biting his lip irritably. This ‘seedug’ would show them something when put in water — and Sam had no way of seeing it.
Something rattled indoors, then Pike said, “Back door’s locked. Halfred — where’s — the — key?”
“Eh…? Pea?”
Sam tip-toed to the fence beside the house. Definitely too high to scale. His eyes found the tall tree a few paces back. It was just about climbable and would allow him to see over the fence.
A new silly idea raised its hand and sent Sam hurrying back to Miss Indra’s washing line. He took a final look around, then snatched up her bedsheets. With a quick dash back to Halfred’s tree, Sam aimed as well as he could, then tossed the sheets up, over the ends of the branches near where he planned to climb, as if poorly decorating it for a linen festival. Then with shaky hands he made his ascent, finding handholds in the weathered bark. The tree-limbs creaked threateningly as Sam shimmied along, towards the hanging bedsheets, which he hoped would conceal him from view. He reached his spot in time to hear the back door open.
“Oh?” the Trisworn said mildly. “Why are there bedsheets in Halfred’s tree?”
“Gibson, no doubt,” Shrake hissed, “he’s been vying for the mayorship for years. It’s political, I tell you.” The seedug barked again. “No — Trisworn, keep hold of it!”
Hoping no one was still looking his way, Sam inched one bedsheet aside, granting him a view of Halfred’s back garden. The mayor himself, armed with his oversized hearing-trumpet, stood beside a shivering Shrake and a stoic Pike. The top of the Trisworn’s bald head bobbed around the garden, brown robes flapping in his wake, three glass orbs around his neck – holding blessed soil, water, and vapour – clacking against one another. The seedug he pursued did indeed look like a bright blue puppy, but with a tail nearly twice as long as its whole body. Finally catching the seedug, the Trisworn scooped it into his arms and returned to the others, who were gathered around the hot-tub. A wooden cover lay beside them, leaving a large circle of water to stare up at the sky.
Seeing the waters, the seedug scrambled free of the Trisworn’s grasp and dived head first into the centre. A wash of colours exploded across the surface. Swathes of green and brown blended into patches of yellow and purple as the shades forced themselves into a coherent image. The rush of colours formed a picture of a town, not dissimilar to Besfen, with figures Sam couldn’t quite make out, moving across the scene. He realised he wasn’t as close as the others, but still the image seemed out-of-focus.
“Hmm, Mereton,” Halfred said sagely, “just at the foot of the mountain.”
The image shifted slightly and a new picture formed. It was much the same, but the figures were different. They seemed hurried. Some were definitely running.
“They’ve seen something,” the Trisworn said.
“Something terrible,” Shrake added fearfully.
Flecks of red appeared across the watery image, as if a mad artist was trying to scribble out the picture.
“This is bad,” Pike said as the whole image was overrun, momentarily leaving the hot-tub as a glowing red circle.
Another scene emerged and the watchers — Sam included — shrank back. Dozens of bodies were strewn about ruined buildings. Sam wanted to run, to look away, but he couldn’t. He was transfixed, watching as the waters changed again.
A new figure now stood amongst the corpses. Someone draped in a hooded black cloak and grasping a fearsome scythe. The hood left the face in shadows, save for a pair of fiery orange eyes. They seemed to stare right out of the water, burrowing into Sam’s mind. If ever there was a figure who suited the voice — this was it.
“No!” Shrake cried, splashing at the waters.
The image rippled away and the seedug emerged from the hot-tub. As the others rushed around Shrake, Sam crawled backwards. In a trance, he wriggled down from the tree. Heart pounding, his head in a fog, he heard a door slam within the house. The window was still open and his feet guided him back to the spot beneath the sill.
“If that was —” Pike started.
“The Grim Reaper,” Halfred breathed, Sam barely catching the words.
“You don’t know that,” Pike said, though he sounded distinctly unsure. “The seedug’s only a pup. It might have gotten confused?”
“By the Tersiark, I pray you’re right,” the Trisworn said. “Is there anything we can do?”
“Against the Reaper?” Pike scoffed. “It’s death. Once it comes hunting for someone’s soul, there’s no stopping it. They say it’s got the face of a monster —”
“A skeleton, so I heard,” the Trisworn muttered.
“— And ruthlessness to match. Get in its way and… we saw what happened to Mereton. I’m telling you, there’s no getting between that thing and the soul it’s hunting.”
My soul, Sam realised. That was why the voice had spoken to him.
Without another thought he lurched to his feet and ran, not caring if anyone saw or heard him. Back through Besfen he fled, ignoring Miss Indra who shouted at anyone who passed about her missing bedsheets. He held up his arms to shield himself from a hail of pebbles the ducks mentally tossed his way, not breaking pace until he was out of town and amongst the fields.
He froze, thinking he saw movement at the edge of his vision — but it was just the scarecrow amongst the wheat-rows opposite his home. He raced inside the house, slamming the door behind him and pressing his back up against it, breathing heavily. His parents were nowhere to be found, but their absence was explained when he opened the fridge and found a large slightly squashed chocolate cake and a note.
Sam,
Me and dad pullin’ all-nighter in bakery. Big order for first thing tomorrow. Cake’s for dinner. Back by morning.
— Mum
Sam drummed his fingers at the edge of the plate, his legs ready to carry him to the bakery. Once he got there, he’d tell his parents everything: about looking through the gap in the Edgewall, about hearing the voice, and about what he’d learnt spying on the meeting with Halfred and the others.
If they believed him.
If he didn’t get into trouble.
Think, he told himself, cutting a slice of cake. A fly buzzed somewhere over his shoulder. Taking up his plate of cake, he moved to the living room. He dropped into one of the comfy armchairs surrounding the fireplace, and put his cake down on the coffee-table.
So what if the voice had spoken to him at the Edgewall? That didn’t mean it was here for him. Maybe it wasn’t coming to Besfen at all? Maybe Besfen was just on the way to wherever it was heading?
The only sound in the house came from a small fly, buzzing softly as it zipped around the living room. Where everything had felt like it was rushing by at a million miles an hour a moment ago, the world now eased back into its normal speed, as if Besfen itself had taken a deep, calming breath.
The fly quieted and Sam’s gaze dropped to his plate of cake, where the insect perched on the rim of the porcelain. Very slowly, he leant over to the end table and inched open the drawer. Keeping his eyes fixed on the fly, he blindly sifted through the miscellaneous items: pen, spare key, loose change, another pen, screwdriver… His hand finally came upon the fly swatter. He wrapped his fingers around the weapon, triumphantly raised his right arm high — and swung.
The fly exploded into a column of smoke, Sam squirming backwards in alarm. The smoke shifted into a silhouette, then a solid figure, looking down at him from atop the coffee-table. The person wore a hooded black cloak, the cowl casting their face in shadows, save for a pair of luminous orange eyes, like two glowing pits. In one gloved hand, the person grasped a scythe, the silver blade gleaming coldly, whilst a belt of peculiar objects was secured around their waist.
“Hello... again,” the figure said, and Sam recognised the echoing, warping tone of the voice at once. “I am the Grim Reaper, Stealer of Souls, Guardian of the Underworld, one of the Seven Forbidden Forms, and most importantly — here to save your life.”