The Scribbly Man

10

Richard looked back over his shoulder at her. “What’s the rest of the reason for you making such a long journey? I suspect there is more to it.”

Shale confirmed that with a troubled sigh. “Some of my people have been killed in a very strange fashion.”

“Killed by who?”

“Not who, what. We find remains—larger bones and the dirty end of a gut pile—much like a mountain lion might leave from a calf or lamb kill. And the head. It always leaves the head. We don’t know what is doing the killing, but no horses or farm animals have been killed in this same manner. This is something that hunts people exclusively.”

“Is the Northern Waste covered with snow yet?”

“It’s early in the season, but the snows have already come to large parts of it. It has snowed in some of the places where victims were found.”

“Snow would make for clear tracks. What do the tracks look like?”

“There were markings in the snow,” she said, looking somewhat at a loss. “Markings, of a sort, I guess you could say, but not exactly tracks. The snow was disturbed by networks of conflicting lines. There were no tracks as such, no indication of what sort of beast it might be, just a crisscrossed matrix of lines.”

“I presume you followed them?”

“They were only in the immediate vicinity of the kill. They came from nowhere and led nowhere. There are no footprints, no claw prints, no wing impressions of something landing. Just those slashes and streaks in the snow, and then, of course, blood and the bones that were stripped of flesh and left. Sometimes some of the clothes were left as well, but not always. We find the flesh stripped from the skull and the eyes sucked out, making it difficult to identify the victim. There simply were no tracks to follow and even these strange slashes never went very far. It’s as if it simply appeared out of nowhere and then after the kill vanished into thin air.”

Richard looked off, thinking out loud. “Right off the top of my head that doesn’t make any sense. A gar could drop in on prey but they would have left plenty of distinctive prints. Same with a dragon. Anything I know of that’s large enough to snatch up a person and spit out the bones would have had to have left tracks. Of course, I’m not familiar with all the beasts in D’Hara, and I know virtually nothing of the Northern Waste.”

“Well, I can tell you that there has never been any beast in the Waste I know of that would leave these kinds of marks in the snow. There are things like wolves and such that will take a person, but this is very different.”

“Any other strange things going on that might help give us the bigger picture?”

“There is something else that I’m pretty sure is related.” Shale clasped her hands as she looked away for a moment. “Do you remember that gravedigger up in the great hall, earlier today?” she asked.

“The one who said they had found dead animals on graves?”

She nodded. “We have been finding dead animals on graves, just as he described.”

Richard stared in shock. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“No. Not only that, but on a few of the graves we have also found people. Freshly killed people.”

Richard stared at her. “Killed how?”

Shale looked up at him with a grim expression. “They were mauled just like your wife—clawed to death, eviscerated—only the thing that attacked them had time enough to finish the job. The difference is they weren’t eaten like the other victims. Their remains were simply dropped on graves.

“I recognized the Mother Confessor’s wounds immediately when I saw them. The dead people on the graves were infected with something that wasted away at the flesh and organs even after they were dead. That was why I knew to look for it in her. I felt sure she would be infected the same as the victims found on graves and I was right.”

“Are you sure they were killed by the same kind of creature that eats their kill? What about tracks?”

Shale clasped her hands in front of her as she stared off in thought for a moment.

“There were those same odd tracks. It was the same kind of creature that killed them. I’m sure of it.”

“Can you describe the tracks better? What did they look like?”

“Well…” Shale squinted as she tried to think how to be more specific. “Imagine if you took a very thin willow switch and smacked it against the ground over and over from every direction all around, hundreds of times—maybe thousands of times—as you moved along, always changing the direction of the strikes. We followed these strange marks, and over a short distance they gradually became less and less until there were no more, leaving only virgin snow.”

Richard, his left palm resting on the sword, tapped a finger against the raised gold wire spelling out the word “TRUTH” on the hilt. “I can’t even imagine what could have left marks like that in the snow. Except maybe someone with a thin willow branch hitting the ground over and over from every direction, trying to deceive you?”

She looked over out of the corner of her eye. “Then there would have been footprints all around as they whipped the switch against the ground. There were no footprints of any kind—none—just all those strange marks.”

Richard was at a loss and could only shake his head.

“There’s something else,” she said in a troubled voice. “I have had murky visions of some kind of being. I’m sure it was the goddess spoken of by that man, Nolo. Shadows of her have visited me unbidden while I have been in meditation. That was another reason why, earlier today, I came forward when I did. I felt sure that the same visions I’ve had are the goddess he spoke of.”

Richard found this to be disturbing news. “Were you able to learn anything of her in these visions?”

Shale opened her hands in a helpless gesture. “Nothing, I’m afraid. I only had this vague, shadowy image. It did not speak. I had no idea what it could mean until I heard Nolo speaking, and then I knew there had to be a connection, much like I knew when I heard the gravedigger talking about dead animals left on graves that the same thing was happening to us.”

Richard’s first thought was to wonder if the goddess was trying to control Shale the same way she was possibly controlling Nolo. That thought alarmed him.

“There’s nothing you can describe from this impression? Nothing at all? Even the smallest thing might be helpful.”

Shale shook her head. “Sorry, Lord Rahl. I’m afraid not. Except that it felt like perhaps she was probing. I might try meditating again and see if I can learn more.”

“I’m not sure that would be such a good idea. That may have been what Nolo thought, too. I never really thought that anything good came from meditation. I suggest you not invite trouble into your head.”

“You may be right. We can discuss it later. Right now I’m exhausted.”

“Of course,” Richard said. “You need to get some rest. It’s going to be morning soon. There are rooms nearby. I’ll take you to one. You can use it as long as you wish to stay.”

“You need to get some rest as well, and I think it would be best if you take one of those rooms for yourself and sleep somewhere other than with your wife. Just for tonight. It would be best if she not be disturbed.”

Richard didn’t like the idea, but their bedroom was inaccessible except through the entryway he was in. Between the Mord-Sith in the room and the men of the First File all throughout the halls, nothing was going to get near Kahlan.

He let out a deep breath, resigned to sleeping alone. “At least she is going to be all right. That’s what matters.”