The Death of Dulgath by Michael J. Sullivan Page A

Hadrian had never suffered the trials of turning the soil in Hintindar, but he knew many who did. Most came to his father with mangled plows, battered mattocks, and anguished faces. Rocks were as much a curse to farmers as the weather.
    Only two things can be reliably grown—rocks and weeds. He’d heard the saying repeated by the villeins in his childhood village of Hintindar whenever spring threw up another crop of each. And every year the walls surrounding the fields got higher and longer. There had been a time when he wondered if those walls would seal him in.
    Noting the height of the wall he now rode beside, Hadrian couldn’t help but wonder why it was so short. Once more that feeling of strangeness descended, underscoring the notion that everything about the town was off, askew.
    No, not just askew, awry.
    Approaching the twin oaks that marked the southern boundary of the town, he noted how they resembled a pair of porch pillars. These broad columns, however, were clad in dark bark and hid beneath a canopy that cast deep, wide shadows. The hollow—the dale —where the village clustered was a leafy pocket at the base of the ravine where that singular road from the outside entered the Valley of Dulgath.
    Outside. Already Hadrian thought of things in such terms as here and beyond here, as if he were in a different place from everywhere else, from normal. On this, his second visit to Brecken Dale, he thought the gathered ivy wasn’t simply decorative and pretty but a blanket that hid everything. The sound of Dancer’s hooves on the stone road echoed in the hollow.
    Everything echoes. Noises bounced back off the ravine. Not even sound escapes.
    When he reached Pastor Payne’s ramshackle hovel, the old man was outside, pulling loose boards. More than a few had come free and teetered in a stack next to him.
    “Hey there,” Hadrian called. “Could you recommend an inn? I’m going to get a room for myself and Royce.”
    “This town doesn’t have one. At least none I could recommend. Your best bet would be Fassbinder’s place.”
    “What’s that?”
    “Fassbinder is a soap maker, but his two boys died last year. It’s where I stayed my first night, but now Bishop Parnell has arranged for this”—he gestured toward the shack—“ wonderful abode. He’s assured me the new church will be the envy of the region.”
    Hadrian tried to imagine Royce taking supper with Fassbinder and his wife. He didn’t relish night after night of awkward silence.
    “How about something a bit more public. A tavern with some lodging, perhaps?”
    “There’s Caldwell House, but as I said, I wouldn’t recommend it.”
    “Why wouldn’t I want to go there? Do they have bugs or something?”
    “Worse. It’s down by the river near the square where we first met.” Payne’s arm stretched out, one bony finger aimed downhill toward the center of the village, where the ivy and old oaks grew the thickest. “A house of sin and debauchery.”
    “They sell beer then?”
    The pastor’s response was an irritated pfft, which Hadrian took as yes.
    “I stay away from the river. The far side is godless; that’s the bad side .”
    “What’s over there?” Hadrian lifted his head. A depression snaked through the far side of town, where he imagined a river ran. Beyond roofs and gables, he saw only trees and a hill.
    “Nothing—nothing of any worth.”
    Hadrian had trouble reading clergy in general; they always managed to project a disconnected yet knowledgeable attitude—less than helpful when gauging reliability.
    “Fassbinder is up that way,” Payne told Hadrian, pointing toward the majority of the freshly planted fields to the south.
    “Thanks.” He dismounted, preferring to walk through the remainder of the village and guessing Dancer appreciated the gesture.
    The sun was in the middle of the sky and warm—another beautiful day in Maranon—but few people were out. A pair of boys and a dog chased sheep in a high meadow up the