Beneath the Fog

“There weren’t always dragons in the Valley,” his arrogant voice echoed across the Mountaintop as he paced across the little wooden stage, enrapturing his audience of zealots. “But your Custodians have acted weakly, and so—” He paused, gesturing towards the cloud-veiled canyon below. “Dragons.”

As much as I despised the man, I had to admit, Aril Taradon could work a crowd. From my perch between the split trunks of the Giant Oak, I watched with disdain as his fervent followers hung on his every word. I clutched my infant son to my chest and tightened my scarf over the little bundle against me, grateful for his warmth as the winds blew, swaying the higher branches of the Oak.

“Dragons,” Taradon repeated. “Dragons, that kill our livestock. That threaten our women and our children. That overtake the bountiful farmland below, sequestering our families to this desolate Mountaintop!”

I glanced dubiously out at the bountiful farmland below, seeing only perilous jags of rock poking up through the sea of fog. Was there a Valley below? Aril Taradon was not the first to claim it so. It was the fairy tale we all wanted to believe, that someday, when conditions improve, or when we have the means, or when the weather allows for travel, or when there aren’t bloody dragons to contend with, someday—we, or perhaps our children, or our children’s children, will descend from this unforgiving mountaintop to the lush green Valley below. It must exist, mustn’t it, down beneath the fog?

Absently, I stroked my boy’s back and nestled into the tree trunk, shielding us both from the wind. That threaten our women and children. I rolled my eyes. As a woman, I doubted a hungry dragon would be so discerning as to age and gender when choosing its next meal.

The livestock, though—there was something to that. Inheritance laws were rather discerning as to age and gender, so I’d never owned any livestock myself. But my older brother Ferris had been losing goats for weeks now, and he wasn’t the only one.

“So, people of the Mountaintop, as you cast your votes, I implore you. I implore you to remember who sits idly by as these monsters encroach upon our home.” Taradon paused dramatically then, and lowered his voice. “And remember who will fight the dragons. Beat them. Win.”

The crowd erupted with applause, their voices uniting in a rhythmic chant booming across the Mountaintop. “TAR-A-DON, TAR-A-DON!”

I couldn’t take it anymore. Tightening the scarf around my son once more, I began the climb up, the familiar ascent from branch to branch until I reached the little tree hut that was my own. Wooden planks spanned two thick branches, providing a deck of sorts that doubled as my home’s foundation. From the deck, a hodge-podge of boards and sticks and panes of glass comprised the little hut, the product of many years of tinkering as my brother, my father before him, and my grandfather before him had added pieces here and there, replacing bits at a time. The overall effect was rather abstract, as though someone had forced several mismatched jigsaw puzzles together. The tree hut was homely, but sturdy. The sturdiest hut in the whole tree, I maintained. Ferris had shored it up pretty well after our parents died, before he moved out of the tree to go live with the goats.

The Giant Oak housed seven huts, including mine, and at one time, they all belonged to my family. Back when I had a family. Sitting on the deck, I dangled my feet off the edge as I unwrapped my little boy. “It’s just us now, isn’t it,” I spoke softly as I traced my finger along his cheek. It would be another two weeks before the boy would be old enough to be given a name. In two weeks, he would see his second full moon, would be deemed Likely Enough to Live. And I would need to decide if the boy would be named for his father, or for my father—neither of whom were around to plead their case.

“Just you two, and me.” I jerked, startled by the voice, and my boy let out an offended “Eaahh!” before nestling back into my chest. The voice belonged to Ulie Wyle, my ever-present neighbor and best friend. I leaned forward, peeking up at her as her long legs reached down from a higher branch, her feet landing agilely upon my deck. She had hardly touched down before she was raiding my kitchen. “Bread, check—no goat cheese, Elo?”

Goat cheese… oops. I should have picked up my weekly supply from Ferris yesterday, but had completely forgotten. Forgotten what day it was, that time had passed at all. It had been like that since my boy was born, the days and nights running together in an endless cycle of sleeping and waking and feeding and cleaning my newborn son. “Nope—no goat cheese.”

Ulie emerged from the hut, chomping a small loaf of plain bread. “How about Aril Terrible and that speech? Ugh, the way people just fawn over him. It’s disgusting.” She plopped down beside me, reaching for the baby. Bouncing him in her arms, she cooed, “There probably aren’t any dragons, little baby, noooo. That stupid man probably made it all up to scare us, didn’t he? Oh, yes he did!” She kissed the baby on the forehead, and looked to me, her voice becoming serious. “I don’t believe it, anyway. No one has seen a dragon in a century, at least. Magic has dried up just like the land has dried up. Valley, my ass. There’s a pit of rocks if there’s anything at all beneath the clouds. Why the hell else would we be up here?”

“Hmm. Dragons, perhaps?” I smiled. In truth, I wasn’t any more apt to believe Taradon’s latest claim than Ulie was, but it was just so easy to ruffle her.

“Pshh. Dragons, of course.” She puffed up her chest and lowered her voice in her best imitation of Taradon. “The Custodians would let dragons eat your children. And the sickness was a farce—” she stopped herself mid-eyeroll and glanced sideways at me, guiltily. “Sorry—I mean, for… I shouldn’t joke about it. About the sickness.”

“It’s…” It’s fine, I was going to say. But it wasn’t. Nothing about the sickness had been fine. It had taken everything, everyone from me. Everyone but my brother, and my boy. I reached for him, taking the little lump into my arms, holding him close. I gave Ulie a half-smile, letting her know that I didn’t take offense. “It’s nearly sundown. Time to go cast our votes.” And so we made the climb down, my body beginning to protest the exertion as I had not yet regained the muscle tone I’d lost over the course of my pregnancy.

“Will Ferris be there?” Ulie raised her eyebrows, never subtle in her pursuit of my brother.

“He has no choice, has he?” This was the first year that voting had been mandated, which was the only reason I expected Ferris to show.

“Yeah, well, he’s not exactly a rule-follower, though, is he?” Ulie’s mouth quirked in a little half smile, and I was glad that I hadn’t inherited my mother’s powers. I didn’t want to know what my friend was thinking about my brother. She wasn’t wrong, though. Ferris tended to draw trouble towards him—he was a bit too outspoken on matters that needn’t really concern him, matters on which his opinion was usually at odds with those in authority. He was overconfident in what he perceived to be his powers, diluted as they were, and took unadvisable risks. As though he thought himself a true shadow-walker, like our grandfather had been. Whether or not he’d inherited some trace of the gift, it had usually fallen upon me to bail my older brother out of whatever trouble he’d gotten into.

“Oh, he’ll be there. He’ll probably relish the opportunity to blather his conspiracy theories to someone besides the goats.”

Ulie widened her eyes, hungry for more on the topic of my brother. “Conspiracy theories?”

Sighing, I shifted the baby, wrapped against my chest. “You know. That Taradon has the whole thing rigged. That the election is just a gimmick to give the people—us—the illusion of power.”

“A valid perspective,” Ulie conceded thoughtfully. “Do you think he’ll wear a shirt?”

“Ugh, Ulie, he’s my brother.”

“So that’s a no?”

“He’d better be in a coat and scarf.” I shivered and hugged my baby tight as we stepped from the trees into the open air, where the winds blew mercilessly.

The election was to be held at the summit, where stone benches circled and circled, creating a spiral of seating around the mountain peak. Already, the hundreds of inhabitants of the Mountaintop had come out from their trees and assembled, waiting to cast their votes. “This is going to take all night,” I muttered as I took in the sheer volume of voters. As I found us a seat, Ulie jumped up on the bench, scanning the crowd.

She frowned, hopping back down to sit. “I don’t see him.”

The sound of a horn sliced through the noise of the crowd, silencing the inhabitants of the Mountaintop and signaling that the voting was to begin. A small, wrinkled man in a drab brown robe shuffled to the summit, coughing, then clearing his throat.

Ulie nudged me, whispering, “Gods, is that Keeper Deldan? He looks absolutely shriveled. Was it…?”

I nodded. Yes, it was. The sickness had killed most of its victims, but those who had survived were left looking like Keeper Deldan. As though the life, the blood, the vitality had been sucked from them, leaving their bodies as used-up shells for their lingering souls. That would be how I remembered my parents, in their last days. And that would be how I remembered Calem, his once powerful form laying absolutely shriveled, his weakened hand resting on the barely noticeable bump of my belly as his life had left him.

“You are here today,” Keeper Deldan paused, coughing again. Cleared his throat. “—to select your seven Custodians, who will govern this Mountaintop for the next three years. Two Keepers. Two Musers. Two Counters. One Resolver. As you know—” cough “—I will be stepping down from my post as Keeper. Your other six Custodians stand for re-election, as do a number of new candidates…”

He went on, introducing each candidate, pausing after each name for a brief, polite applause—the exception, of course, being Aril Taradon. At the sound of his name, the crowd erupted into a racket of cheers, met with an opposing chorus of boos. I held my hands over my baby’s tiny, delicate ears, as Ulie cupped her hands around her mouth and let out a bellowing “Booooo!”

As the ruckus died down, there remained a murmur among the crowd, whispers of missing livestock. The dangers encroaching upon the Mountaintop. Dragons.

Keeper Deldan cleared his throat once again. “When your name is called, you will stand and answer before proceeding forth to cast your vote. We begin with… Alis Avalon.”

Sighing, I settled into my seat. My name is Elowen Voss. I had some waiting to do.

“Present,” Alis Avalon answered, proceeded to the summit, and cast her vote, dropping her seven pebbles into seven bowls, though it was impossible to see which bowls from the benches below. The process continued as Keeper Deldan called another name, and another, marking each voter’s presence in his little book.

“Eee-YEH,” my baby boy announced. He squirmed against my chest in search of milk, so I loosened the scarf a bit and shifted, laughing to myself at my little one’s face as he worked.

“Elowen Voss.” I startled at my name, rewrapping the scarf as I rose. “Present,” I answered, meeting Keeper Deldan’s apathetic gaze as he coughed and made a mark in his book. As I approached the summit, my hand searching my pocket for the pebbles, the next name was called. “Ferris Voss.” I whipped my head around, scanning the crowd. No one stood.

Keeper Deldon peered up from his book. “Ferris Voss,” he repeated, raising his brows. But my brother did not answer, did not appear, and a speculative murmur spread through the crowd, silenced by the unmistakable voice of Aril Taradon, who rose to stand.

“Ferris Voss, a young goat herder, is he not? And what, what might prevent a young goat herder from presenting to fulfill his civic duty, to cast his vote? We hear of livestock, taken. And now—” He pursed his lips, gesturing towards the sea of fog encompassing our rocky peak. “—Ferris Voss.”

As the crowd erupted in a symphony of shock and fear and outrage, my eyes found Ulie’s, and I silently shook my head. I could think of a host of reasons that this particular young goat herder might have skipped out on his civic duty, none of which included death by dragon.

Keeper Deldan coughed. “Respectfully, Mr. Taradon, the time for candidate speeches has ended—”

“Of course,” Taradon interrupted before he might be scolded further. Looking out over the crowd, still ignited by his words, he smiled with satisfaction. “Of course,” he repeated smugly, and took his seat.

“Right, then.” Keeper Deldan returned his gaze to his book. “Ulie Wyle.”

My friend joined me at the summit, and as we distributed our pebbles, she whispered, “The nerve of that guy. Totally baseless, he used your brother to create fear…”

“Just wait ‘til Ferris hears how impactful he was at the election,” I whispered back, rolling my eyes as I dropped my seventh pebble in a seventh bowl. Coating my words in melodrama, I spoke with my best impersonation of Aril Taradon. “We’ve fulfilled our civic duty, we’ve cast our votes.”

Ulie snorted a laugh and matched my tone. “Shall we go see what, what might prevent a young goat herder from fulfilling his?”

I kept my voice low as we stepped down from the summit. “You aren’t interested in the results?”

Waggling her eyebrows, Ulie countered, “I’m more interested in the young goat herder.”

I groaned, but conceded, as I was curious what my brother was up to. And I needed to pick up my goat cheese, anyway. But despite knowing that his absence was just Ferris being Ferris, that Aril Taradon was just a politician playing the crowd, that dragons were a relic of the past, I hastened my steps. Other than the baby boy swaddled against me, my brother was the only family I had left. You are not worried, I told myself. You are just curious.

If I’d known what lay before me, I might have paused to appreciate the familiarity of the town center as we breezed past the little shops skirting the summit, the hominess of the tree huts that filled the towering oaks as we ventured towards the mountainside. The path before us was becoming less kept, washed away in places by last week’s heavy rains, with stubborn, hardy shrubs poking up between the stones. We found ourselves no longer surrounded by shops, nor by tree huts, but by open pastures, composed mostly of hard packed dirt and jagged rock faces, sloping down the mountainside until disappearing into a bed of clouds. From our vantage point atop the mountain, we could see the rough land sprinkled with goats—perhaps fewer goats than I remembered—but no sign of my brother.

An eclectic patchwork of wood and stone, Ferris’s little cottage sat nestled into the hillside, just before the rocky pastures tipped steeply downward. The door opened as we approached, revealing not my brother but an audacious nanny goat who’d dared to raid Ferris’s kitchen, judging from the baguette she’d swiped. Which meant Ferris wasn’t home.

Worry crinkled my brow as I peered through the open doorway. He hadn’t shown at the election, despite the requirement. Wasn’t out in the pastures. Wasn’t home. It’s just Ferris being Ferris, I told myself again.

“Elowen,” Ulie’s usually chipper voice was shadowed in a tone that did nothing to ease my mind. “Elowen, come here.”

I looked to Ulie, who stood in the kitchen, her finger dipped into my jar of goat cheese as she stared at the table—no, at a note on the table. She scraped the cheese off her finger along the edge of the jar and reached for the little slip of paper. She read it aloud.

“Elo, here’s your stuff. I’m out reining these goats in, they seem to have wandered down the mountain. Be back soon, see you tomorrow at the summit. F.”

My mind took a moment to register what the note implied. That Ferris had left yesterday. That he’d planned to be back in time for the election. That he’d gone after his goats, down the mountain, towards the valley, beneath the fog.

Ulie raised a brow and set the note down, returning to her snack. “After him, then?”

I stroked my boy’s back through the thickly wrapped scarf. Dammit, Ferris. Overconfident, reckless idiot. Had he not considered what danger he might encounter, chasing the blasted goats down the mountain? Had he not considered what trouble he’d inevitably drag me into, venturing beneath the fog? Not dragons, I told myself. There are no dragons.

I sighed, looking to Ulie. “What choice do we have? We’ll have to go…” I trailed off. What choice, but to follow my idiot brother after his goats? Down the mountain. Towards the valley.

Ulie’s mouth quirked upward in a mischievous half-grin, and she finished my sentence.

“Beneath the fog.”