Old Willum’s Final Tale

Old Willum looked down at the figure in the shadows, and knew he had run out of time. He’d had a good life, he supposed; seventy-six years was astonishing in a place like this. He had his neighbours to thank for that – the generosity in this strange little town was remarkable.

And how had he repaid them?

Staring over the ledge, he had a sudden impulse to step off it and tumble down the mountain. His body was already falling apart, and he imagined it would be over quite quickly. And at this stage it didn’t make much of a difference.But he owed them more than that.

A ghost blazed overhead as he turned away and started to hobble back towards his little hut. To his old eyes, it was little more than a rush of brightness, but he remembered what they looked like – featureless figures being pulled by the chest towards Goulcrest Mountain, like they had fish-hooks lodged in their ribs. Sometimes they screamed. Everyone had seen them; he didn’t know anyone who hadn’t had a grandparent, or a sibling, or a child die, and stayed up to watch the ghost leave. It was one of those things you just had to do, like looking after the deceased’s pets, or keeping an eye on any widows. It would be wrong to just leave them alone.

He stumbled over a loose rock and tore the old skin of his palms against the ground. He stayed down for a few seconds, waiting for his insides to catch up with his outsides, and then slowly dragged himself back up.

Another two ghosts flashed past. They were everywhere here. Of course, they would be. Willum had seen a lot of the world, and he knew that there was far more he hadn’t seen. He thought about every town, every village, every magnificent port city. How many people died out there every day? The souls of a whole world, all dragged to this mountain in a brilliant light show, where Kol, god of death, received them all. Soon his soul would be one of them. Would he be aware of it, as he was yanked into the great god’s maw?

Actually, Kol didn’t eat the ghosts. Willum had learned that when he first arrived here, over a decade ago. Instead, it spread its enormous wings – wings that covered a good half of the mountain as it slept in the day – and gathered the ghosts in. At dawn, it curled those wings in again, and by the next night the ghosts would be gone.

Willum reached his hut – a sturdy little thing put together by Lewin Fogg, the local stonemason. It sat comfortably near the centre of the village, nestled between Lewin’s own home, and the communal kitchen full of big bread ovens, across from the mountain stream they all collected water from. One advantage of living this close to a god of death was knowing that your stream was always safe to drink from. No animals would live this near to Kol; only humans were that crazy.

Willum stared blankly at the smooth, slightly soot-stained stone of his door for a few seconds, then turned sideways and knocked on Lewin’s door instead.

One of his children opened it – the middle one, Ivo. The boy grinned. “Dad! Old Willum’s here! Can we go do stories?”

A brief smile pushed through Willum’s [gloom] as Ivo’s sister Lina emerged, and little Tedric, the four year old, ran up to him. Years of watching after the village’s children, telling them stories about the world beyond Goulcrest and keeping them out of trouble, meant that he knew most of them better than he knew their parents. The middle-aged man coming up behind them, with the impressive wrinkles on his forehead and the large nose, was an exception.

“It’s after dark, Ivo.” Lewin said, as he edged past his children to face Willum. “Do you need something?”

Suddenly incredibly conscious of the time, Willum backed up. “No. No, it can wait.” he said.

Lewin frowned, and took a step forward. “Something’s wrong, isn’t it?” he said.

Lina, Lewin’s eldest, peeked out from behind him. “He’s been sad lately,” she said. “He’s been telling sad stories and doing the sigh-thing. He always does that when he’s sad.”

“Does he?” asked Ivo, and the two children started to whisper to each other.

Lewin ignored them, staring into Willum’s eyes with an incredibly disconcerting intensity. The silence stretched out between them, and Willum couldn’t stop himself from filling it. “I-I did something bad. A long time ago. And…”

He trailed off, staring at Lewin pleadingly.

“And now it’s time for me to go,” he finished.

Lewin narrowed his eyes. “Go how?”

Willum didn’t answer, but he could tell that Lewin knew what he had meant.

“I see.” The man said quietly.

They stared at each other for a little longer, and then Lewin turned around to where Lina and Ivo were rapidly getting into one of those arguments that always spawns when small children are up too long after bedtime.

“Lina,” he said, “I want you to go get Audley and ask her to light the big fire, okay?”

Lina looked from her father to Old Willum with worried eyes, than darted past him and disappeared into the dark.

“What about me?” Ivo demanded.

Lewin eyed him, then turned back to Willum. “You’re… going away?”

Willum nodded hesitantly, and Lewin looked back at his son. “Then you can go by every house in the village, and tell everyone that Willum is leaving us, and we need to say goodbye.” Ivo set off running, and Lewin called after him, “Tell them to meet us by the big fire!”

Willum felt a flickering of panic, but he pushed it down. Lewin was right. He had to face them, and tell them what he’d done. He nodded, and hobbled towards the centre of the village.

*

The little village of Goulcrest didn’t have a leader – they didn’t need one. When everyone knows everyone, and they all look after each other, there’s no need for the complicated systems of the big feudal cities. Still, there was a kind of hierarchy, based on who liked who most, and who was most useful to have around. Lewin, as the most skilled stoneworker in a mountain village which really needed not to be flammable, had a lot of respect. It wasn’t just that he had built most of their homes; he had a calm way of just dealing with things and was always the sensible voice in a crisis.

So when he sent his children to call everyone in for a night-time meeting by the big bonfire, the whole village turned out.

Even as his insides were twisted up with nerves, the storyteller in Willum noted that the atmosphere was perfect. The screaming ghosts scoring bright lines across the sky, the giant fire casting flickering shadows across the worried faces of the villagers. Any other night he’d have been telling them about the abandoned cities in the northern forests where the Siyala people once lived, or about the rebellion he’d joined in Synti, where they’d won against a terrible ruler despite being outnumbered one to one hundred. But tonight was different.

He stared into the concerned eyes of the villagers he’d lived with for over a decade, and his courage failed. “I…Uh…”

“Story!” little Tedric burst out in that particularly angry voice used by small children who feel that the adults around them are fundamentally failing them.

In a single beautiful moment, Willum realised that the boy was right. He was a story teller. He should tell his story. He took a deep breath, and slipped on the animated, grandfatherly cloak that always hid his emotions when he was storytelling.

“I’ve lived a long time,” he said, his voice suddenly stronger, “and I’ve seen a lot of things, and heard a lot of stories. In the time I’ve lived here, I’ve told them all to you. All but one. My story.”

“But all of your stories have been about you.” Lina pointed out, confused.

“Yes.” Willum admitted, “But this one is different. This is the story of my life, and of why I came here.”

And of why he shouldn’t have added to himself.

“I’ve always travelled from place to place, and done foolish and crazy things to find out what would happen. I never had time for a wife, and I never had children…” He paused, glancing at some of the smaller faces peering out of his audience. “…of my own.

“But I did try, once. Her name was Kari, and she loved adventure just as much as I did. I met her when I was working at her sister’s tavern, in exchange for my board. It was the longest I’d stayed in once place since leaving home-”

“But you’re a storyteller!” Ivo burst out indignantly, “Why were you working at a tavern?”

“You accumulate stories with age, Ivo. I didn’t have any back then.” He chuckled. “And now they’re all I have got left.”

He’d said it as a joke, with a twinkle in his eye, but under the cloak he could feel the truth of it. Seventy-six years, and all he had was a collection of stories, and a lifetime’s worth of guilt.

He turned, his eyes dancing across his crowd as he went on. “I was already thirty, and she was a bit older. She had black hair but with two beautiful silver streaks down the sides.” Willum gestured at one of the watching women, “A bit like Missus Gibbs has.” Missus Gibbs smiled, and Willum went on. “She’d been stuck in that same place for a long time, and it was killing her. Bit by bit, second by second, she was fading away. I was the same. I was putting myself in danger all the time, travelling constantly, trying to find some kind of meaning. We got it from each other, and when I moved on, she came with me.

“We travelled together for months, exploring deep caves full of unseen horrors, and sailing to far away places where the air is like steam, and you can’t see a foot in front of you, and you’re so hot you could burn.

“But it was back here in Azandia, not far from my own hometown, where we came to a strange little town.” He looked up at the screaming ghosts and re-calibrated, “Well, quite strange. It had grey buildings clustered together just as all of you are around the fire. Scared little building and scared people, too. And such strange people, as well. There were no children there, and adults looked as old and wizened as-”

“As you?” asked Ivo brightly.

Willum widened his eyes and leaned forwards. “Even older. They had heads like sultanas with eyes.” He winked pointedly at the boy, then went on, “We tried to get them to tell us what they were so afraid of, but not one of them would say a word.” Willum raised a finger. “Except for one old woman.

“‘What is this place?’ we asked her, ‘Why is everyone so frightened?’

“She lowered her wrinkly head, and pinned her pale eyes on the ground. ‘Run away from here.’ she whispered, in a rough old voice.

“‘No chance!’ said Kari, ‘and anyway, I want to explore that forest of yours.’ Her eyes shone. ‘There could be anything in there!’

“The old woman lurched forwards, and grabbed her arm, gnarly fingers digging into her skin. ‘Don’t!’

“Kari pulled herself away and stared at the woman. ‘Why?’ she asked, ‘Why will none of you tell us what’s going on here?’

“But the old woman wouldn’t answer. She just stared at us with big, pale eyes until we walked away. It gave us prickles down our necks, and we could still feel them as we walked into the forest.”

“That was silly.” said Lina, “She said not to go in there, so why did you?”

Willum’s stomach tightened. He’d been thinking about it for decades, but it still hurt to hear it. Ivo answered for him, and he answered it perfectly. “It’s obvious.” he said, “He wanted to know why she said not to.”

Lewin gave his son a look, and Ivo grinned back.

“He’s quite right.” said Willum, “We just had to find out.

“The forest actually looked quite beautiful from the outside, orange and red as fire with its autumn leaves. We told each other that the townsfolk were silly and superstitious, and we laughed about their sullen eyes and the old woman’s warning. We settled next to a tall tree at around noon to eat. Its bark was strangely grey, and I prodded it mistrustfully. And it prodded me right back with one of its branches!”

Willum slowed for a second, wondering if he was going to lose his adult audience – he was so used to telling stories for children… But, no, they all seemed to be engaged.

“So I said to Kari, ‘This tree just hit me!’” – One of the listening children giggled – “And she laughed at me. She had a really weird, snorty kind of laugh, and I loved to hear it. She got up, still laughing, and took the ribbon out of her hair. She wrapped it around the offending branch and tied it back, then sat down beside me. ‘You,’ she said, ‘are a very odd person.’“‘Not compared to you.’ I told her, and she laughed again. We-”

“Was something watching from the shadows?” asked Lina.

“Maybe.” said Willum, honestly, “But we certainly didn’t see it. I was so focused on Kari that a whole chorus of fairies could have danced past me and I wouldn’t have noticed.

“We moved on again soon after that, and it started to get dark. Normally we liked the dark, but this time it was different. The shadows were stretching wrong, and the wind had picked up, and our breaths were suddenly making clouds. We leaned closer to each other, and I could feel that Kari had started shivering.”

A particularly low flying ghost screamed past, and everybody ducked. For any other audience, Willum would have shouted as they straightened up, trying to scare them, but no-one could live in Goulcrest for more than a few years without becoming completely immune to jumpscares. Instead, he paced around the edge of the fire. He was feeling better now. Better than he had in years, actually. He didn’t want to be telling this story, but in an odd sort of way he needed to. It was like it had been trapped inside him for years, clawing at his insides, and now it finally had a chance to get loose.

He continued. “I don’t know how many of you have ever been somewhere and just known that you were in danger. Like the ancient animal part of you is screaming. That’s what I felt then. A few seconds earlier I had been determined to brave anything, especially in front of Kari, but now I just wanted to get away. I started to run, as fast as I could. I thought Kari would follow me, but she didn’t. She’d frozen. I turned around and I screamed at her to follow me. To get out of there. But she wouldn’t move.”

“Did you go back for her?” Lewin asked. His lined face was full of concern, where everyone else was eager and curious. Willum loved him for that.

“Yes. I ran back towards her. I was stumbling over roots and getting hit in the eyes by branches, but I was too frightened to care. I got to her just as it did.”

He paused, waiting for someone to ask the question.

Ivo obliged. “What was it?”

Willum spread his old arms. “A demon, or as close as. It was tall, like a human and it had ragged spiky wings, and a tail like a long chain with a scythe blade on the end. It had no hair, and massive teeth that couldn’t fit in its mouth. 

“It leapt on Kari and bit her, and she started to scream and struggle. She stabbed it with her knife, but it just ignored the blade, and kept biting and scratching. I tried to stop it, and it hit me with its tail and knocked me back, cut a giant slice across my shoulder. I hit the back of my head and bit my tongue. Everything tasted of blood as I watched it kill Kari. She aged so fast, went grey, crumbled, and it got younger. Its skin got shiny, it grew hair on its head and feathers on its wings. Then it dropped what was left of Kari and turned on me.”

Willum ran a hand unconsciously over the old scar it had left on his shoulder as he went on. “I ran as fast as I could, tripping and stumbling and pulling myself upright again. I ran back through the forest and into town where everyone seemed so old and I begged them to help me, but they wouldn’t.”

“Did they say ‘told you so’?” asked Lina disapprovingly.

“They didn’t say anything.” Willum answered distantly, “They just turned away.

“I ran to the stable, mounted up and rode away. It couldn’t ride, and-”

“I thought it had wings.” said one of the adults, “Couldn’t it fly?”

Willum shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think it just walks. But it never stops. I rode through the night and reached another village the next day. I slept for a few hours, then went on again. I was sure it was following me.”

“Was it?” asked Lewin.

“Yes. For thirty years, every time I stopped somewhere for too long, it caught up with me. I always liked to move around, but after that I didn’t have a choice. Eventually, I decided that there was one place it wouldn’t dare follow me.”

He looked up at the bulky dark mass that was Kol,  its dark body decorated with the little burning ghosts. “In the shadow of the god of death, I thought I would be safe.”

“Here?” asked Tedric, his eyes big and wide as copper coins.

Willum smiled down at him. “Yes, Teddy. There aren’t that many mountains in the world with death gods on.”

Tedric frowned. “How many?”

His older brother prodded him. “Only one, stupid.”

Tedric pulled a face.

“So, you arrived here.” Lewin prompted, pulling his son onto his lap.

“Yes. I climbed the mountain in the middle of a night like this one and stumbled into the village.” He looked around at the watching faces, bright with the reflection of the fire. “And you took me in. Never even asked questions. About me, at least.”

“You were the first visitor we’d had in years.” Lewin mentioned.

Willum looked up again at the ominous figure of Kol looming over their little village, and decided not to comment. “Yes. I couldn’t work well at that point. I was already getting old, and I didn’t have children to look after me. All I had was sixty years of stories-”

“Really cool stories!” Ivo corrected, and Willum smiled slightly.“I’m glad you think so. But it’s not a particularly useful skill.”

One of the village’s farmers, a large woman with huge brows, snorted. “Not useful? I think you’ll find having these little mites -” she ruffled her daughter’s hair “- accounted for when we’re working is extremely useful.”

There was a chorus of agreement from the rest of the crowd, but it only made Willum feel worse. “You don’t understand.” he tried, “It’s here. And once it takes me, it will go after you.”

He looked pointedly at little Tedric, who was flopped in his father’s arms.

“Hah.” said the farmer, nodding towards Kol, “I don’t think He would like that.”

Of course, Willum mentally sighed, these people viewed Kol as their protector. Why would they fear some strange, unnamed beast when they had the god of death on their side? Willum didn’t share their faith. His story over, he felt old again, and incredibly tired.

“Why now?” Lewin asked abruptly, “You’ve been here for years. Why would it risk Goulcrest now?”

“Because it’s desperate.” Willum answered, “It’s been decades since it ate Kari, and it’s withered again. It’s after me, and it will take me. I’m hoping that if I go down from the mountain, I can lead it away from you before it gets me.”

“You can barely walk.” pointed out one of the village’s teens, “It’ll kill you.”

“It’s an evil thing.” Willum said quietly, “And I brought it to your doorstep. I have to try.”

He braced himself for an argument, but everyone had gone still. They were standing, staring up at the mountain. Willum turned slowly, expecting to see the demon behind him. Instead, reaching down with an enormous clawed hand, was Kol. The god moved like a glacier, painfully slowly, and Willum was frozen with awe. Once, the old man  had seen a volcano erupt. He’d been a long way away, but he’d still been floored by the sheer power of it. This, he imagined, was what it must have felt like to be on the mountain at the time.

The stony limb dug into the ground in front of him, and a head like a mountain of its own looked down at him from incredibly high. He stumbled forwards on shaking legs, grabbing at the craggy fingers with his hands, the injuries from his earlier fall wailing at him. He leant against it, feeling suddenly incredibly frail as he fought to drag himself onto it.

He felt a touch on his shoulder and turned to see Lewin. Eyes averted from his beloved god, the stonemason held his arm and helped him clamber up. “Goodbye.” he whispered, and Willum’s old heart nearly stopped.

Kol lifted him higher and higher, and the air grew painfully thin. Collapsed on its stony palm and wheezing, Willum stared into an eye like a cliff-face, and trembled. The colossal head slowly, slowly bent forward in a nod, and the other great hand came up. One clawed finger reached forwards and touched Willum on the face. Ice surged into his skull, and he screamed, black blotches spilling over his vision.

He lurched in and out of consciousness as Kol lowered him again, and tipped him out on the rugged ground.

As the world swam back into place, he gripped the cold, craggy ground beneath him with bloodied hands, and dragged himself a little way forwards. He was on a small ledge, and he dragged his head out over it and looked down. His eyes were blurry, but he thought he could just see a dark figure down there, huge shapes over its shoulders. He took a hold on the edge, and his sinewy muscles screamed as he forced himself over it, and fell forwards.

There was a rush of cold air, and then he hit the mountainside hard, a loose rock jabbing into his stomach. He rolled a little way down, bruising his old body still more, and then finally came up facing the sky. He stared at the ghosts blazing by above him – little flashes of light. His body ached, and his head thumped, and his blood was full of spikes, but those lights were beautiful. Would he burn that brightly? Had Kari? Or would their souls be destroyed by the thing that hunted him? The thing that, even now, he could hear approaching. The teen had been right; he couldn’t lead it away. He could barely move.

“I’m ready.” he croaked, as a shadow blocked out the searing lights, “I’m not a-”

Claws dug into his weathered skin, and he gasped, his last words lost. He felt his body starting to dry out, his skin cracking. It hurt less than he would have thought; the ice in his blood seemed to be leaving him and he shut his eyes, waiting for it to end.

But something was wrong. The creature dropped him, and he opened his eyes again, dimly seeing it above him, screeching and thrashing. It fell beside him, its ragged wings shattering against the hard ground. Its long tail scythed around, and then it fell still. A fountain of fire erupted out of it, and Willum could just pick out individual shapes in the blaze. Was Kari there?

He managed a last smile, and then closed his eyes again. Perhaps he would join her, and they would fly to Kol together.