Silas Wren's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Silas Wren woke with the warning already whole in his mind, and he knew it would kill someone if he kept it to himself. He was old, stooped, and tired of carrying such gifts alone. For sixty years he had spoken riddles that turned out to be true. Now he wanted only one thing before his legs gave out: a young mind to hand the burden to. But first this warning demanded a listener, and no one ever wanted to hear the end of it. He leaned on his staff and shook it. The small brass bells rang. Beside him, his little goat lifted her head and bleated, her upright ears twitching at the sound. "Yes," Silas said to her. "We go to the tavern. Someone there will hear me. They must." The tavern sat warm and full, its windows yellow with lamplight. Silas pushed inside. Wood smoke and ale washed over him. Men laughed at long tables. He climbed onto a bench, bells shaking, and lifted his voice. "Listen! I dreamed a thing with fins that walks on land. Its jaws are wide as a door. It comes when the water dries." The laughter stopped. Then it started again, louder. A barrel-shouldered man wiped his beard and grinned. "A shark with legs! The old crow's gone soft." Coins clinked. Someone tossed a crust at the goat. Silas felt the doom press closer, like cold breath on his neck. Every hour they mocked him, the danger grew. He did not need their coins. He needed their fear. He stepped down and walked the room, staring into each face. "Which of you drives cattle to the low fields? The dry beds where the river used to run?" A young woman near the hearth went still. She set down her cup. "My father does," she said. "Tomorrow. At first light." Her hands had dirt in the creases. She watched Silas the way the others would not, without laughing. "Then keep him home," Silas said. "What sleeps in the mud wakes hungry." The barrel-shouldered man laughed again, but she did not. She looked at the goat, then at the bells on the staff, then at the old man's eyes. Something in her decided. "I believe you," she said quietly. "I don't know why. But I do." Silas felt the pressure in his skull loosen at last. The warning had found a listener. The doom drew back a step. He sagged against his staff, spent and light. She pulled him toward a corner table, away from the noise. "Tell me the rest," she said. "Tell me how you knew." And Silas, looking at her steady face and her hungry, unafraid eyes, felt an older hope stir. Here, perhaps, was more than a listener. Here might be the one he had wandered so long to find. He sat. He began to speak. And outside, in the dry riverbeds beyond the town, something heavy shifted in the mud.