Eyes Like Sky And Coal And Moonlight (14 page)

The cook roasted buffalo steaks and the fort smelled wonderful for an evening. Everyone went around smiling. But at table the meat proved stringy and tough. This far into winter, the animals are themselves half-dead of hunger and have little flesh to spare.

March 1, Duke Theo’s reign, 12th Year, Fort Plentitude

Big White, the Shoshal shaman, came to see me. It was his third visit to my cabin, but the careful attention he gave every detail was the same as the first two times. I drew the structure of the universe and its concentric circles of realms, like a vast onion, on the wall and we debated its shape, for he insists that it is different, and that spikes from other realms protrude upon our own.

At least that is what I believe he tried to sketch out for me. His English is bad, and my Shoshal non-existent. Rumor back at the College of Mages in Tabat held that the native mages, as well as the Snake people, are sophisticated in their understanding of magic, but this seemed like rank gibberish to me.

He made tea for both of us, a pleasant brew of flower petals and leaf fragments that made the inside of my cabin smell like summer. Tension dropped away as though I had shrugged it off with my buffalo-hide robe and hung it on the peg just inside the door.

Cold winter
, he said and touched the demon gems on my desk, shaking his head sorrowfully. They do not believe in trafficking with spirits, and if he knew I had traveled here in one’s arms, he might not speak with me again.

Demon travel is unpleasant at best. The beast has one duty and one duty only to discharge, to convey their burden from one point to another. They will not pause to rest, no matter how long the flight, and they are not at any pains to make their passenger comfortable. I came in the summer, when the weather was warm, but at one point we flew through a great lightning storm, and the demon would not change its course no matter how I shouted at it.

I asked Big White about the fox women, but he pretended not to know what I meant. I will have one of Lafitte’s wives teach me more Shoshal, so I have words for the magical concepts I want to convey. If there is an easy way to drive them off, I would like to know.

March 2, Duke Theo’s reign, 12th Year, Fort Plentitude

Slept exceedingly well last night.

March 5, Duke Theo’s reign, 12th Year, Fort Plentitude

My sister Sarah’s birthday. I sent her a pile of pelts last fall, martin and beaver, to make herself a coat, and warned her that, come winter, communications would be at a standstill due to the frozen river. I imagine her sitting in her comfortable, well-appointed house, eating sandwiches spread with a layer of butter and cress, the thin leaves from the greenhouse sharp and bitter against the bland bread.

She did not want me to leave Tabat, but after the failed experiment that killed Melissa and our unborn, I could not stay. Could not endure the eyes of the other mages knowing what I had done, how badly I had predicted events. Even this privation is better than that shame and sorrow.

I caught a handful of snow sprites in the afternoon, near the outer wall of the fort. They look like crane flies—insects as big around as a Spanish doubloon, but all wing and legs, and little else. They have tiny faces made of ice, but they do not speak. Why has God made these creatures that resemble us in all but intelligence?

Deep in the woods, Lafitte claims to have seen winter sprites as big as wolves or buffalo, enormous flying things that move along the edges of snowstorms, riding the winds in a flurry of icy chitin. I put the ones I caught in a glass jar. They fluttered for twenty-two minutes before succumbing to the heat of the room and dying, melting away into a noisome, clotted liquid that smelled of vinegar.

March 6, Duke Theo’s reign, 12th Year, Fort Plentitude

When Big White came today, he shook his head and said over and over, bad, very bad. He led me outside the fortress walls and showed me ice runes on the outer walls, twelve feet high, two-thirds the height of the walls.

I asked him who had put them there, for I did not recognize the language or the writing, but it was clearly set there by sorcery. I had sensed none the night before, but I am so exhausted and hungry in the evenings that I do little but imagine meals at my mother’s house back in Tabat.

He said winter and then a word I did not know, and indicated this entity had put them there. He threw handfuls of snow at the markings until they were partly obscured, but his face was troubled.

Inside the fort, I showed him a sketch Caruso had made of one of the fox women the night before. Did this woman draw the marks, I asked.

He shook his head and said dead, very bad, tapping the paper. That was all I could get out of him.

I asked him about trade for food, although I hated to throw myself on his mercy like that. But the pieces of iron were all gone and we have very few other goods. I indicated my belongings, trying to keep the whine out of my tone—surely there must be some equipment there he would like, I said. It would be easy enough to replace next year when spring came and the river thawed. Perhaps I’d even make the trip myself, and go to see Sarah in her fine new coat.

He took three small prisms, the most valuable objects there, and that evening dropped off two bushels of smoked trout. He must have said something to Lafitte as well, for one of the wives brought a sack of flour and another of dried meat. I distributed it among the pregnant women, despite the grumbling of the others, but saved a handful of each for myself.

March 7, Duke Theo’s reign, 12th Year, Fort Plentitude

Last night I stayed awake, resolved to see the fox women. I sat in the tower with the sentry, watching the wood’s edge. When I saw a blur of silver and blue fog, I looked with my spyglass.

She had Melissa’s face and she looked straight at me.

It was only the bowl in her hand, steaming beef stew with dumplings, I knew, that kept me from running to her. The smiling lure was too broadly painted and I realized it must be reading my thoughts somehow. No wonder men have run out to them.

In the morning, I told the Captain what I had discovered, that the fox women were trying to lure us out, but he would not listen. He had maps spread out across his desk. Come spring, he would take a patrol gold-panning, he said cheerfully to me. Wouldn’t that be an adventure? His fingers trembled as he traced a line across the mountain, translucent blue as frost.

The cold has driven him mad. I broke my second demon gem and sent a letter to Tabat, to the Army Corps Headquarters. I explained our circumstances and the dangers. I explained that the Captain was unresponsive. I said ‘Send food and more demon gems, and word of hope, or we will perish.’ The demon took the scroll away. This one was feathered like a peacock, and had an odd snout that lolled loosely when it sniffed at me. I wait for the reply.

March 8, Duke Theo’s reign, 12th Year, Fort Plentitude

I have been advised that the winter has affected all frontier forts adversely and that food has been dispatched overland. Due to the frozen river, it will not reach here for at least six weeks. They sent no gems or other devices of aid. I have been officially demoted for using the gem, and reminded of their cost and scarcity.

In six weeks we will be licking the bones of the three horses left to us.

I sent to Big White to ask for more food, but he did not come. At length I donned snowshoes and walked over to the Shoshal camp.

Winter has not hit them as hard as it has us. There are fewer of them, and they spent the summer gathering food while we were building the fort walls. He gave me handfuls of smoked meat and a kind of thick biscuit baked with dried berries. I ate greedily until my stomach hurt and washed it down with gulps of hot bark-scented tea.

He said danger to the fort, babies, babies.

There is danger to the children, I asked.

He shook his head and drew a figure in the snow, a woman amid pine trees. You say fox women, he said, because hair red like fox. But not fox, not women. Babies that die go into the winter and make more. They want.

I was not sure what he was saying. That babies died and became fox women?

He tapped the figure with a gnarled finger. Baby want, he said. Just want want want. No more.

Was there no way to ward them off?

He shook his head. No.

March 9, Duke Theo’s reign, 12th Year, Fort Plentitude

Yielding to my entreaties, the Captain sent several soldiers out hunting again, but they came back with only a bony elk, barely a mouthful or two of meat apiece. The cook stewed the heart for the officer’s mess, but there was nothing but meat and water. The vegetables had gone long ago.

I found tracks all along the walls. Light tracks. Barefoot tracks, each foot tiny and arched, like that of a child. Snow sprites clustered motionless along the runes like a fuzz of white velvet.

I brought the Captain out to look at them, but he only smiled and patted my arm. This is a land of plenty, he said. In the summer, the bees will sing in the sour gum trees and drip honey into our mouths.

Another seven soldiers have died of dysentery so far this week, bringing our numbers to forty-two. We cannot make it till spring.

I lie awake trying to figure out a plan. Should I use my last demon gem and summon a final messenger to plead our case? Did they not understand that we will die without immediate surcease?

There are eight babies here now, aged between two and six months. They are thin and sickly, and they cry from the cold. I imagine the fox women taking them away, making them into new monsters. I imagine them walking across the snow slopes, clothed in glittering snow sprites, legs lengthening with each stride, faces elongating, hair falling into blazes of crimson longing.

Why do they only prey on the men? Are we weaker in our hearts?

March 10
^th
, Duke Theo’s reign, 12th Year, Fort Plentitude

For dinner we had watery gruel, a scant cupful per person, measured most strictly. More hunting parties dispatched.

March 12
^th
, Duke Theo’s reign, 12th Year, Fort Plentitude

Lafitte and his wives are dead. They found them frozen in their building. The children were all taken. We brought the last of their food to the fort, but it is sufficient for only a few more days.

Hunting parties still unsuccessful. We ate the last horse today.

March 13th, Duke Theo’s reign, 12th Year, Fort Plentitude

There are definitely more of them now.

March 18
^th
, Duke Theo’s reign, 12th Year, Fort Plentitude

Finally I take up the last demon gem. I walk across the fort, pass by the dead and dying. The cook is dead now, died of bloody flux, and the Captain has holed himself up in his office, crouched over his maps.

Faithful Caruso helps me. We sew an immense bag of buffalo hide, lined with the softest, warmest furs we can find among Lafitte’s bales. We make it open at the top. We put the babies in it, one by one. The mothers that are still alive help us. I shatter my last gem and give the directions to the demon.

We can only hope a few will survive. The ones towards the outside of the bag will succumb to the cold first. They say freezing is not an unpleasant death. And when the demon arrives, perhaps it will only be delivering a package of frozen or drowned corpses. Demons are unreliable, to say the least.

But perhaps one or two will survive.

We watch the bag float up towards the sky. The demon is a kind I’ve never seen before, with rounded ivory horns and glittering silvery skin, immense wings that claw upward at the chilly air. It is quite splendid in its own way.

When night comes, I can hear the runes working on the outside of the walls, cracking them with icy pressures. Caruso and I wait in the watch tower, near the swivel mounted cannon, snow sprites swirling around its barrel.

I can hear them coming, whimpering with want as they walk forward through the snow. Perhaps one will look like Melissa again.

One of the things that intrigue me when reading American history is the idea of the frontier, of humans trying to carve out an empire from a land that doesn’t share their sense of superiority. “Events at Fort Plentitude” draws from the history of American frontier forts and superimposes a supernatural menace.