Marcus Vesper's Arc

Chapter 7 of 7

Marcus slept badly by the shallow water. The sealed letter pressed against his chest all night. He had crossed rivers and storms to deliver it, but he still had no name and no house for the man who waited. Before dawn he woke to a small weight on his pincer. His gecko, the one pet he had carried since he left home, sat blinking on the plate. It licked its eye once. Marcus stroked its speckled back. "I promised her," he said. "And I can't keep it." A scorpion-woman by the fire heard him. She told him of a man up the road who sold books, who asked strangers questions no one else asked. "If anyone knows who waits for a letter," she said, "it is him." Marcus walked half a day and found a low shop with a rounded door. Inside sat a small man in a cardigan stitched with tiny cactuses. Ink stained his fingers. He looked up through round glasses and did not flinch at the pincer. "Benny Okafor," the man said. "You've walked a long way. I'll ask you three things before I help." He set down his pen. "Who gave you the letter? What did you promise her? And who are you afraid to find?" Marcus answered all three. He told of the fevering woman, her hand pressing the letter into his, her trust after she saw him shift. He said he feared the man might claim something from him. Benny listened without moving. Then he stood and pulled a thin ledger from a shelf. He turned pages until he stopped. "A man came through here two seasons back. He waited every day for a woman on the road. He described her hands, her cough." Benny closed the ledger softly. "He stopped coming last month. He went to the coast to die of grief. He believed she was already dead." Marcus sat down hard on a stool. "Then I'm too late." "You may be," Benny said. He did not soften it. He reached past three shelves and drew out one slim book. He pressed it into Marcus's hand. "But she loved him enough to send a stranger across the country. That letter still belongs to someone. Read it, or carry it to the coast. Don't let it rot in your coat." Marcus broke the seal. His hands shook. Inside, the woman had written that she forgave the man for leaving. She wrote that she had found people who took her in without fear, and she wanted him to find the same. Marcus folded the page. The promise was done. He could not reunite them. But he understood now what she had been searching for, and it was the same thing he wanted. He would carry her words to the coast himself. First he had to answer Serqet, whose task still waited by the water.