Amanda C. Davis
When Quentin Meeks set out from the base of Mount Whiterock, he had a donkey, his best surveying equipment, a kit of high-quality travel gear, and two commissioned jobs from Duke Greeble—one explicit, and one secret. By the time he poked his head over the summit, his kit was down to the barest necessities (still, of course, high-quality) and he was starting to think neither commissioned job was worth the trouble.
His donkey remained some distance below him, feeding vultures. Quentin had tucked the surveying equipment nearby. He expected to collect it on the way back down. After all, you didn’t strictly need to survey a town to gather its census—the surveying was a bit of extra fun. (Quentin, despite his adventurous occupation, had an academic’s idea of fun.) And investigating the town for the presence of a smuggling ring of high-potency foreign liquor known as “glint”—why, that hardly needed any equipment at all.
He had no sooner crawled onto a packed flat of dirt that might well be the start of a path, than he spotted his first resident of Mount Whiterock.
She was about six years old. She was walking a rag doll along a fallen log and pretending that the dolly was tumbling to its death. Inauspicious. But after two weeks with no companion save a live donkey and, later, a dead donkey, he was willing to talk to anyone.
“Hello,” said Quentin.
She gave him a steely, appraising look. Her rag doll took another deadly plunge. “Who are you?”
“I’m Mister Meeks. I’m from the government.”
“The what?” said the girl.
He had expected this. He hoisted his teetering knapsack, and tried to look like anything but the muddy, stooped, skewed-spectacled man he was. “Why don’t you take me to your mother? I’m sure she’s heard of us.”
The girl looked doubtful, the rag doll doubly so. But she stood up and gave Quentin an impatient “come with me” gesture. He followed eagerly.
Soon the great jagged stones of Mount Whiterock parted to show a village sprouting from the dry soil. Quentin heaved his burden along behind his guide, openly marveling. Every plot had a garden and a cottage pieced together from the garden’s first bounty: rocks. In most of the gardens stood a pole that impaled two baskets, in the stylistic shape of a person.
“What a lovely village,” said Quentin.
“You smell like dogs,” said the girl.
She led him to a house where a woman sat on the stoop, weaving another garden-pole basket. The woman did him the favor of pretending not to see them until they were within speaking distance. When they were, she squinted up at them and said, “Janiza! Leave that poor man alone.”
“Oh no,” said Quentin, “she’s been very helpful. Quentin Meeks,” he added. “I’m here to take a census of Mount Whiterock.”
The woman’s hands slowed in her basket-weaving, which still left them at a pretty impressive pace. She was a red-faced, broad-shouldered type. “A census.”
“It’s a commission to count the citizenry. From Duke Greeble.”
“I’ve heard the term,” the woman snapped. “Greeble. Is that who’s Duke now?” She grabbed her mostly-finished basket and stood. “Janiza, run and get your brothers and sisters for dinner.” The little girl darted off. “You look like you’ve got a heavy burden there, Mister Meeks.”
“It’s loathsome,” said Quentin, who hated to dissemble. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”
“Martle Eadly.”
“Martle, I hope you can tell me where I might be able to stay for the night. I’ll pay, of course.”
She looked him over. Her gaze was unnervingly thorough. “It’s nearly nightfall. You best stay in my house. Go on in. The sick room’s empty, and it’s clean, too. Give you somewhere to throw down all that kit. You should have brought a donkey.”
“My donkey died,” said Quentin.
The woman’s laughter was ungracious but at least, Quentin thought, it was genuine.
* * *
Inside, a couple of young people of a familiar red-faced, broad-shouldered type showed him to the sick room, where he unloaded his gear and took a moment to stand there being grateful the weight was gone. The inside walls were plastered to hold in the heat from the kitchen fire and for a stone hut on a desolate hill, it was surprisingly comfortable. Martle Eadly’s hospitality was almost enough to make him feel sorry about investigating her, and her town, over some unlicensed glint.
Almost.
Janiza appeared in the doorway. “Mama said I should tell you to come eat.” She dashed away without waiting for a reply.
Quentin emerged into the kitchen. The young people had multiplied. Several were bustling around with dinnerware and several more were already seated. In addition, there was a mild-faced, bearded man at the end of the table opposite the fireplace.
“Hello,” said Quentin.
The man raised a noncommittal hand as if accustomed to strangers appearing around the table for dinner.
“My family,” said Martle, from the fireplace. “Everyone, this is Mister Meeks. He’s taking a census.”
“Where is he taking it?” said an older boy.
“You en’t that ignorant or that funny,” said his mother. “Make a place for Mister Meeks.”
The young people obliged. Of them, Janiza was clearly the youngest; he placed the oldest at fifteen or so. Martle began filling plates from a kettle over the fire, and the children passed them around in a surprisingly orderly way. Quentin accepted his plate gratefully.
“Sit,” said Martle.
It was a quiet and unimpressive command, but it was obeyed with rigor. Quentin sat where he was put. He dug in.
The food was some kind of boiled grain, surprisingly salty with a good flavor of game, and the first hot meal Quentin had eaten in weeks. He relished the moment. The moment passed much quicker than he intended.
“That’s an appetite,” Martle observed. She nodded to the oldest boy, who got up and refilled the plate. “I hate to think what you’ve been eating lately.”
“I hate to tell you,” said Quentin. He filled his mouth again. “Mmmfmazing. I can’t thank you enough.”
“No need,” said Martle. Still, there was a hint of the merchant in her voice that made Quentin wonder if she had something in mind. Surely she didn’t suspect why he was here…?
The bearded man, the presumed Mr. Eadly, said, “Agnis tells me to expect the Roofnight tomorrow.”
“Is that so?” said Martle.
“So says Agnis.”
“Ah, she would know.”
Quentin perked up. “The Roofnight? Is that a local celebration? I adore local celebrations.”
“More work than fun,” said one of the oldest boys. By the looks of things, Janiza had the honor of kicking him under the table, though there were many contenders.
“It’s both,” said Mr. Eadly mildly. “Harvest of sorts. You came at a special time of year, Mister Meeks.”
“How lucky,” said Quentin. “I should love to participate, if you’ll allow me.”
“I don’t see why not,” said Mr. Eadly.
Mr. Eadly didn’t, but Quentin did: nothing loosened a tongue like a local celebration. He let his eyes roam the house while the children described their respective days. The place was rustic and rugged, with nothing frivolous: even the decorative pots and pans that hung from the ceiling were still pots and pans. (He thought of the baskets on poles in every field. Perhaps these people kept their ornamentation out of doors.) No house would allow a shipment of glint to pass by without taking a share…
His eyes lit on a corked jug behind the firewood.
Quentin’s eyebrows did a delighted dance. He knew without checking what was inside that jug—although he’d check, unquestionably, before making his report, and probably load some into his pack as proof. The suspicions of the capital would be confirmed. There was glint in this village. And where there was a little, there was almost always a lot.
Nobody in Duke Greeble’s kingdom knew how the northern witches made their glint, although the intelligentsia (among which Quentin counted himself) believed it was magically extracted from flowers that only grew far outside of their borders. But it was getting to them somehow, and Mount Whiterock, so close to the northern border and so far from the Duke’s authority, would be a smuggler’s dream. Finding glint here explained so much about how it seeped through the kingdom. And finding that would go a long way toward stopping it. At least in untaxed form.
Quentin said, in a voice of innocent curiosity, “Now, that jug—”
“I expect you travel a lot,” said Martle.
It was, Quentin, reflected later, exactly like throwing a stone into a flock of birds. Martle’s children burst into questions and excited gestures and chatter about what they had heard about other places that they were sure were true but could Quentin please confirm? It’s just they told their best friend something and they didn’t believe them…
He answered what he could and laughed off the rest, but what he failed to do was keep an eye on the glint jug, because when he finally tried to get a good long look at it after dinner, it was no longer there.
* * *
Quentin began his census at the crack of dawn, in the best way he knew how: with a map.
All his best surveying tools were halfway down the mountain with his donkey, so he paced it out. The main street wound directly from the mountain pass to the mouth of the mine. Along it were stone houses, clearly constructed of leftover mountain, four and five deep, peppered with gardens and surrounded by fields that Quentin guessed were half root vegetables, half stone. Quentin started at the mine and began marking down residences as he came to them.
The man at the first house said, “What are you doing?”
The woman at the second house said, “Get off my land.” She leaned across her porch railing to the man at the first house. “Who is this? Have you ever seen him before?”
“I’m Quentin Meeks,” Quentin told them both. “Duke Greeble has sent me to take your census.”
“You tell that greedy blue-blood we want it back,” said the woman. It did not sound like a joke.
Quentin said, “May I come in? I’ll be doing the official count over the coming days, but I’d love to get an idea of the layout of a typical home here.”
The man gave a shrug. “If you must.”
“Right now?” Quentin pressed.
“I don’t see the harm.” Nearby, the woman raised her hand and let it fall, as if she couldn’t do much about the intrusion, but didn’t care too much either.
Perhaps neither of them had any contraband. But the glint was somewhere. His attention swiveled back to the mine. A large underground space would be perfect for hiding a smuggled cache of glint. “I don’t suppose I could take a tour of the mine as well? Only I’m so curious—”
“No,” said the man, simultaneously with the woman, who added, “Nobody lives in the mine, you fool.”
“Of course,” said Quentin, with a deprecating chuckle. “What a silly notion.”
Notion confirmed, he thought.
In fact (he thought, as he mapped all sixty-one of the town’s residences on an increasingly smudged and wrinkled page) there seemed to be no mining going on at the moment, which boosted his suspicions further. Perhaps Mount Whiterock did no, or little, actual mining at all. Perhaps this town lied about its ore production and sent every grain of it to the capital, so it could focus on its real source of income. The more people he spoke with, the more sure he became, and the more fiendishly clever they seemed.
When his map was done he headed back to the Eadly house.
Mr. Eadly was on the porch, with his various children scattered within earshot. Quentin came up to him, in what he believed was a companionable way.
“Doing good work?” said Mr. Eadly.
“Things are going very well,” said Quentin, truthfully. He indicated the mine. “I can’t help notice no one seems to be going into the mine.”
“It’s nearly the Roofnight,” said Mr. Eadly. “A few days off.”
“I see,” said Quentin. He sat, stretching his shoulders. He expected he’d be sore from his mountain trek for years. Curse that frail-constituted donkey. “Tell me more about this Roofnight. What does it entail?”
Mr. Eadly looked him over. “Ah, well,” he said slowly. “It’s not one of your riotous holidays, you understand. No revels in the streets.” He pointed to the neighbor’s field, where two women were settling a hat and coat on the pole-basket. “We set up our scarecrows a few days ahead.”
“How festive,” said Quentin.
“Then we all go into the town lodge and pass the night drinking and telling stories. It’s a real contest to tell the best story. You should compete, Mr. Meeks. Just don’t think your far-off tales are an easy win over our local ones. We have some frightful legends in these hills.”
“I’m sure of it.”
“Then in the morning we eat all the food we’ve had cooking in the embers all night, and drink a bit more to clear our heads, and go take down our scarecrows, and it’s a day of rest before we all head back to work.”
“In the mine?” said Quentin.
Mr. Eadly gave him a strange look. “Yes, in the mine. Or in the home, or what have you.”
“I’m delighted to have come here when I did,” said Quentin. “My timing was perfect.”
It all added up too perfectly, he thought gleefully. The scenario was clear in his head. An evening when the village turned their backs on the mine, so they could claim to know nothing of what went on there. A dark, empty night and a big, private storage space. He might even catch the smugglers at work—!
No, no, that was too much for one man. He would confirm the plot and let the army take care of the rest. Good luck to them making the miserable trek. He hoped they had stronger donkeys.
He gazed at the mouth of the mine. What a brilliant scheme. He had to admire these mountain folk for their acumen…
An old woman came hobbling out of the mine.
Quentin stood. So did several others, he noticed. Doors opened. Martle came onto the porch, wiping her hands.
“It’s tonight,” the old woman called, her worn croak cutting through the air. “The Roofnight is tonight!”
“I thought no one was working in the mine today,” said Quentin.
“Now who told you a thing like that?” said Martle. (Mr. Eadly chuckled.) She oriented Quentin toward the town lodge. He felt a hat being stuck onto his head. “Go on ahead now. Follow the children, they’ll already be gathering. Janiza, make sure Mister Meeks doesn’t get lost.” Janiza appeared and took hold of Quentin’s sleeve, like she would a dog’s scruff. “Tell everyone to give Mister Meeks a good warm welcome.”
“I hope I don’t get in the way,” Quentin said, while Janiza was dragging him to the town lodge, but the moment they arrived it became clear that getting in the way was simply the nature of the event. There were fires to be lit and chairs to be placed, barrels to be hoisted from the basement, preliminary drinks to be passed around. (Quentin gave his a sniff. Did he detect a glintish hint? Perhaps, though it wasn’t strong.) He did everything they asked of him—even if it involved undoing what someone else had asked him to do.
After a hurried hour or so, the last town resident came into the lodge, the doors were barred, and the Roofnight began.
Quentin Meeks, widely-traveled but with a scholar’s tendencies, found this among the pleasantest revelries he had been privileged to attend. It was jolly without being boisterous, lively without being loud. (Was there an anxiety in the air that muted the joy? Quentin couldn’t say.) When the story contest began, he told about his friend the giantess of Duvolle and her love affair with a traveling bard. He was eliminated early. And while a much better storyteller explained what lurked in the shadows under the tallest trees in the woods, Quentin Meeks slipped out the back, into the empty village.
He moved as quickly as he could in the dark. Surely he would be missed soon.
At the entrance to the mine he took a pickaxe from the rack, intending to break the lock, but the door was wedged open. He swapped the pickaxe for a lantern, lit it, and entered the mine.
The low ceiling stooped him further than the equipment he had hauled up the mountain on his back. He held the lantern far out before him. At every branching tunnel he peeked inside, expecting to find the cache of crates or bottles or kegs that would prove the dukedom’s glint came through here.
His lantern light caught on a hint of metal. Quentin turned. He knew just enough about glint production to recognize a still.
“Making your own?” murmured Quentin. “I haven’t seen a flower on this whole mountainside…”
A hand closed on Quentin’s arm.
He jolted as if he’d been gripped by a ghost, and whirled around, where he found to his relief that he had not been. It was Martle Eadly, deep furrows in her brow. “What are you doing down here?” she hissed, her voice a whisper. “Who sent you here?”
Quentin contemplated pretending to be lost. It didn’t seem like it would work so instead he drew himself up. “Duke Greeble sent me, madam. And I suspect you know why!”
“Keep your voice down, you fool!” She grabbed for his arm again. Quentin dodged. “I mean which fool of my neighbors sent you into the mine tonight… never mind, I’ll find out later. Come on! There’s still time to get you safely into the lodge.”
“I know what’s going on here!” said Quentin.
“Do you now?” said Martle, her whisper brittle. “Then you’ll come with me before—”
A thick rustling and chorus of high screeching rose like a tide from deep within the cave.
“What?” said Quentin stupidly.
The rustle grew to a roar.
Martle tackled Quentin to the ground. In a flash, something suspiciously like her sweater fell over their heads. It was not a moment too soon. The fluttering turned to heavy, sharp slapping of wings just above, and the squeaks rose to shrieks as a thick storm of something burst from the depths of the mine and zoomed past.
“What?” shouted Quentin, over the racket. It was the only word he could produce that was not a curse.
“Bats,” Martle shouted back.
The next word out of Quentin’s mouth was, in fact, a curse.
The flock blew past like a winter storm. Quentin imagined pricks and pokes at his head through the sweater—or perhaps didn’t imagine. The burst of sound went far longer than Quentin would have expected. It trickled away slowly. The shrieks of the bats continued to echo down the mine far after their wings stopped stirring the breeze.
Quentin threw the sweater from his head. He scrambled to the wall. It was all he trusted. “This is the Roofnight?” he gasped. “Bats? Why didn’t anyone mention the bats?”
“I meant to have you too drunk to notice them,” said Martle, brushing the dirt from her knees. “Everyone else, I suppose they were trying to get you killed.” Her face took a serious turn. “Tell me who it was sent you here. That wasn’t right.”
“I came on my own,” Quentin admitted.
“Ah.”
There was a beat.
“What do you know about the glint?” said Martle gently.
“We know it’s smuggled through here,” said Quentin, taking as much strength as he could from the authority not here to actually protect him. “Although I see you’re producing it. Tax-free, of course.”
“Of course,” said Martle.
“I’ll have to report it.”
“I assumed as much.”
Another beat of silence, this one more uncomfortable.
“Where do you get them?” asked Quentin.
“Hmm?” Martle raised her head.
“The flowers, the northern flowers you brew it from. Such a bizarre liquor. It’s such a well-guarded secret. Indulge me, if you will.”
“Flowers,” Martle echoed. She covered a bray of a laugh. “I’ll show you.” She drew him to the door of the mine. “Hush,” she said. “Look.” They peered into the open night.
The night was not so very open after all.
Quentin’s first thought was that he had not noticed so many trees scattered around the village. Then his eyes and his brain caught up with one another, and he sank back with a chill. In every garden, the scarecrows were flocked with bats so thickly they looked like leaves.
“You see now why we gather inside?” she murmured. “Stay back before a hundred of them mistake you for our bait.”
“Yes, but where’s the—”
One of the scarecrows snapped in half. A swarm of bats, gnawing and clawing, followed it to the ground.
Quentin Meeks, who had traveled from one end of the dukedom and learned hard lessons about when to retreat, backed further into the darkness of the mine.
He and Martle watched from the shadows as one scarecrow after another fell under the flocks of bats. When the nearest flock left its field, with a devastated scarecrow behind it, she gestured to the grass. Quentin squinted. In the moonlight he could see the brittle grass and stone had been coated with an amber-colored sludge.
“Flowers,” Martle sniffed.
The taste of the beer he’d drunk earlier rose in Quentin’s throat. “Oh,” he said. “I see. How unappetizing.”
“You get used to it,” said Martle. “The scarecrows draw them into our gardens for long enough to make sure they drop it where we can get it. They save it up most of the year.”
“I wish I had never asked,” said Quentin.
“I know. Glint is some ugly stuff, but its trade goes a long way to making this mountain livable. Ore doesn’t sell for what it used to, and you can’t eat it.” She crossed her arms. “I suppose this will cost us more in taxes than it’s worth.”
Quentin Meeks, who knew something of numbers, knew that was true. He thought of the salty, filling gruel, the warm plastered walls, the cheerful young people. He thought of the village massed in the town lodge to keep from being torn apart by bats. He thought of Martle slipping into the night after him, knowing what was coming.
“And yet,” said Quentin slowly, “you’d have no new tax and no trouble if you’d simply left me to die in here.”
Martle tilted her head. “Don’t I know it.”
Quentin nodded, deciding. “One thing I’ve learned in my travels, Mrs. Eadly, is to follow the example of the locals. And yours was a generous act.”
She smiled. It occurred to him that her generosity in saving his life was perhaps not uncalculated.
When Quentin Meeks set out to return to Duke Greeble, he had a loaned donkey (that he swore he would return the moment bought one for himself), a thorough and accurate census of the town, and a definitive report stating that no glint was being smuggled through the town. It was quite true, of course. Quentin prided himself on honesty.
He also had a handful of friends in Mount Whiterock and a reason to never imbibe glint again. But he didn’t put that in any of his reports. Some things, like the saving of one’s life, simply could not be calculated.
He did, however, request reimbursement for the donkey.
* * *
Amanda C. Davis has an engineering degree and a fondness for baking, gardening, and low-budget horror films. Her work has appeared in Crossed Genres, InterGalactic Medicine Show, and others. She tweets enthusiastically as @davisac1. You can find out more about her and read more of her work at amandacdavis.com. Her collection of retold fairy tales with Megan Engelhardt, Wolves and Witches, is available from World Weaver Press.
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