The Wanderer Returns

They had many names for him. Heathen. Trickster. Even witch.

Woodwal didn't mind though. He even leaned into it a little, wearing a long black cloak and hood, and encouraging any of the stories he heard that entertained him. Some he started himself.

There were villages where it was said he danced with the devil, or drank the blood of innocents, and others where the people swore blind that his very breath could wither crops. That was one of his favourites.

Fear was good. Fear was almost respect. Let the backwards and the boring mutter all they liked; their words only added to his reputation.

They might fear him - they might hate him - but they could never be rid of him. Because more than anything, the poor fools needed him. They knew it, he knew it, and they knew he knew it, which only made them resent him all the more.

So they would welcome him with open arms and narrowed eyes, feeding him, sheltering him, then encouraging him to be on his way as soon as possible.

He had another name, one less rooted in fear and superstition: the Wanderer.

It was accurate enough, but Woodwal liked to think of himself another way. He was a fixer. The fixer. The one everyone turned to, whether they liked it or not, to make all their problems go away.

For all the muttering and mistrust, there was no magic to Woodwal's miracles. Not real magic. Just knowledge and research gained over the experience of a lifetime.

A visit from Woodwal could cure an outbreak of disease, or stop a village from being overrun by rats. All because he knew which kinds of fungus to remove, or where to dig for clean water, or the best natural poisons to use.

And, more importantly, he was the only person who knew these things. He'd made sure of that.

For a while he'd entertained the foolish notion of training an apprentice, but he'd quickly realised the folly of this. The lad had been too keen, and asked far too many questions.

He'd learned quickly, sure enough, and for all the world he'd seemed wide-eyed and innocent, but Woodwal had easily seen through all that. The lad must have been plotting something. He'd experienced the soft beds, hot meals and cosy fires, and he'd wanted it for himself.

So now Woodwal travelled alone once more, stopping off in a new village every few days. Today was no exception. The village was tiny, and one he hadn't visited for a good few years. He barely remembered it. Just a cluster of modest houses surrounded by farmland.

No matter. They'd have a problem he could solve, whether they knew it yet or not.

He eased his horse through the narrow streets, searching for the local tavern or inn. Anywhere he could lay his head for the night.

All the while he kept an eye out for signs of trouble - anything he could work his magic on. But the streets were clear. Eerily clear, in fact. There wasn't a soul to be seen.

His horse's hooves echoed between the houses, the only sound to be heard. Woodwal had never seen a village so still. Every door and shutter was closed, but the place wasn't deserted. He could see the light filtering through from inside.

There were people here all right, they were just staying indoors.

So be it. Woodwal would go to them.

He dismounted at the local tavern, a grim-looking place with an etching of a headless horse on the sign outside. It hardly looked like it would be able to offer the level of comfort he was accustomed to, but there were no other guest houses in this dump and the sun had already sunk too low to have any hope of making it to the next village before nightfall.

No wonder he hadn't come back here in so long. He made a mental note to strike the village completely from his future rounds. There could be little value in a place so small.

He raised a hand and knocked sharply on the tavern door three times. The sound echoed even louder than the horse's hooves before it, fading until only the gentle creak of the sign remained.

There was no answer. Woodwal knocked again, but the door remained resolutely closed. He tried the handle instead, and was unsurprised to find it locked.

‘Open up,’ he barked, hammering even louder with his hand. ‘I know you're in there.’

Still nothing. Not even lowered voices, or movement beyond the shutters.

‘I'm coming in, one way or another,’ he promised. ‘The Wanderer has returned, and he won't be kept waiting.’

‘It’s’ no use,’ said a woman's voice behind him. ‘They won't open, not tonight.’

Woodwal turned. There was a young woman in the middle of the street, stood with her head cocked to one side and a strange expression on her face, partway between amusement and... was that surprise? Or something else - confusion, maybe?

‘Why not?’ he asked in his haughtiest voice. ‘The Wanderer doesn't wait.’

The woman smiled at that, and shook her head slowly. ‘He does tonight. No doors will open until the fog passes.’

He tried to ignore her smile; he had the feeling it was mocking him in some way. She'd pay for that. Everyone here would pay for the disrespect they had shown him.

‘Fog isn't dangerous,’ he said aloud. ‘Why cower inside?’

The woman shrugged. ‘This one is. It's magic.’ Her smile stretched somehow even wider. ‘You know all about magic, don't you, Mr Wanderer?’

A gentle shiver passed through him, but he suppressed it. It never did to show weakness in front of peasants.

What was it about this woman that bothered him so much? Was it her strange, mocking manner? Or was it the way her voice sounded almost like she was singing and whispering at the same time?

‘Magic fog,’ he scoffed.

‘Kills everyone it touches.’

‘Perhaps I can fix that.’

She raised her eyebrows. ‘Perhaps. If you're as powerful as they say.’

She sounded as though she doubted it. How dare she? How dare this lowly villager treat him as though he were any other man? Hadn't she heard the stories?

‘I am and more,’ he promised her in a growl.

She nodded, and bobbed a little curtsy. Some respect at last.

‘We’d be most grateful,’ she said. ‘I can offer you shelter, if you'd like.’

He hesitated, then nodded curtly. If these halfwits were scared to open the door for a little fog, he'd just have to take shelter where he could find it for tonight, even if it was with this strange little creature. Tomorrow they would wish they had opened up.

He followed her, on horseback for the look of the thing, to a little tumbledown shack that looked as though it wouldn't survive a strong wind, never mind deadly fog.

‘It's not much,’ she said as she unlocked the gate. ‘But it will keep the fog at bay.’

Woodwal grunted, but said nothing. Inside was little more than a barn, with heaps of hay strewn between the wooden posts. The horse would be comfortable at least, but this was no place for a man - especially a man of his stature.

Her eyes watched his face carefully.

‘We're a little town,’ she said, ‘we don't have much.’

They'd have even less come the morning.

'It'll do,' he said sourly.

‘Oh,’ said the woman, ‘you're most gracious, thank you sir.’

Sir. At least she was finally starting to show him the respect he deserved.

She closed the door, and sat on one side of the room near his horse. Woodwal hung back on the other; he hadn't counted on sharing a room.

‘You don't have a place of your own?’

‘We're very simple here, sir. This place is all I have now.’ She frowned. ‘We never thought you’d come back.’

‘The Wanderer always returns,’ he told her, but it didn't sound as grand as it usually did. Especially once she laughed.

‘Something funny?’ he demanded.

He'd been aiming for authoritative, but somehow his voice just sounded sulky, like a petulant child.

‘No,’ she said, with startling coldness. ‘Nothing's been funny for a very long time.’

‘Since the fog?’

She laughed again, but it sounded hollow this time. ‘Since long before the fog.’

‘How long has it plagued you?’

‘Oh, not long,’ she trilled. ‘Not long at all.’

That horrible smile was back. Oh how he longed to wipe the damn thing off her face.

‘You don't remember me, do you?’ she asked.

‘I meet so many people,’ he said magnanimously.

‘How many do you kill?’

‘I'm not in the habit of killing anyone.’

She shook her head again. ‘Just the once, was it?’

Ice flowed through Woodwal's veins. Where was his sword? Still strapped to the damn horse, and she was sat right next to it. He had his knife though. He reached for it slowly, subtly, as though he was simply scratching his leg.

‘Looking for this?’ The woman held up his knife with a smile.

When the hell had she snatched that? There was something, very, very wrong here. He cast about wildly - there had to be some kind of weapon he could use.

‘Stay back,’ he warned.

The woman just laughed again, a mocking, angry laugh. He stared at her face again. Should he know it? Had he seen her before?

‘I don't know what quarrel you think you have, but I assure you –’

‘Oh stop it,’ said the woman. ‘The great Wanderer, reduced to begging? Perhaps you should use your witchcraft on me.’

‘Perhaps I will.’ He tried to look stern and imposing, like he was ready to cast a deadly spell. ‘Drop the knife, or I will have no choice.’

Her laughter simply grew more vicious, then stopped abruptly. She fixed her gaze on him, eyes like steel.

‘Go on then. We had to find new ways to defend ourselves once the Wanderer stopped coming to town.’

‘New ways?’

‘New magic.’ She paused, scathing. ‘Real magic.’

She was mad. She was actually mad.

‘We wondered why you stopped coming at first. Was it something we'd said? Something we'd done?’

‘My travels take me far and wide,’ he tried.

‘Then we realised. It wasn't anything we'd done. It was you. Your guilt kept you away.’

‘I have nothing to be guilty about.’

The woman smiled and pointed at the door with his knife. ‘It's here.’

Woodwal stared. There was a green light coming under the door, strange and ethereal, like nothing he'd ever seen. He took a small, stumbling step backwards.

‘What the hell is that?’

‘The fog,’ she said. ‘I told you.’

‘That's no fog.’

‘Yes it is.’ She strode to the door and flung it open. ‘We made it ourselves. See?’

Green, billowing mist surged into the room.

‘No!’ cried Woodwal. ‘Close it! For the love of god, close the door!’

‘Can't you stop it?’ The woman's eyes were cruel, pitiless. ‘Won't your magic save you?’

The fog was glowing green, pulsating. He stumbled backwards, but there was no escaping it. It writhed up and around him, wrapping tighter and tighter around his throat, strangling his every breath.

‘There's no such thing as magic,’ he choked.

‘Then you're a fraud,’ spat the woman. ‘You'll die a fraud. Alone and afraid, just like my boy.’

He saw it then, in the monstrous face staring down at him as he collapsed to his knees - an echo of his apprentice. The boy’s mother? Was this where he had picked the treacherous wretch up?

Woodwal tried to speak, but the words wouldn't come. His breaths were too tight and sparse, his vision blurring.

‘Goodbye, Wanderer,’ sang the woman.

The last thing he saw was her shadow swooping down at him, face contorted in monstrous fury. He never even felt the blade.