alpharaposa | A story from the worldlet: Skins

This is something of a ghost story, of the kind humans on the worldlet tell each other. I leave you to guess how much of it is true there. Comments welcome!

Skins

It was a wild night. In spite of layers of thatch and years of daubing, rain forced its way into the great lodge. It dripped from the ceiling and seeped through the walls. The open ends of the roof sprayed water in spite of the eaves, and the great fire in the center flared and danced in the gusts.

Still, there were mats on the floor and furs on the walls, and the fire was hot enough to forge in. The men of the mining town were at their ease inside their fortress of wood. For a week, it'd been too wet to work in the coal pit. A powerful storm often meant sunshine the next day, at least for a while. Until then, they'd make the best of it. There were about a dozen strong men in the tiny town. Permanent residents, not the kind who visited to make a little coin during the dry season. All of them were in the lodge that night. A couple of old men napped near the fire, cider close at hand. The youngest, strong but with the barest of beards, kept watch by the firewood. His was the job to keep the great fire burning all night. Most of the rest played dice, wagering furs and trinkets and sometimes knives. The last sat back from the others, bronze gleaming in his hands as he carved a lump of coal. The shaved pieces fell and glittered in his lap as a dress took shape beneath his hands.

There was a knock at the door. For the moment, everyone ignored it. The wind had been knocking at the walls all night, and one more thump simply meant more patch work in the morning.

Then it came again, and louder. The dice game stopped. Faces lifted in disbelief.

"What kind of idiot would be out in this?"

The pounding continued. The old men stirred. "Let him in! Don't leave him in the wet and cold."

The coal carver set aside his leather lap covering and went to the door. He lifted the bar, then struggled to open it. The stranger outside pulled and he pushed, and together, they forced the door open just enough for the guest. The moment he slipped inside, the wind threw itself through the lodge and they both had to pull with all their might to bring the door closed. In the end, strong muscles conquered and they wrestled the door shut. They replaced the bar together and the carver returned to his seat.

The stranger did not waste his time in speech beyond muttered thanks. He hung up a heavy fur wrap and found a seat near the fire. He took off his boots and stood them just close enough to the fire to dry, but far enough away to avoid the sparks. His clothes soon began to steam.

The old men offered him cider, but he politely refused. The gathered crowd shifted a bit uneasily, uncertain what to do with this intrusion. The stranger was big and broad, like them, and wore trapper's clothes, but they couldn't see his eyes and they didn't know his purpose.

"What brings you here, stranger?" One of the men asked. Bronze scratched as it cut into hard coal.

“My camp was washed out. This mine was the closest place to shelter,” he told them with a shake of his head. “I haven't seen such a storm in many years.”

They relaxed. A few of them jeered at his misfortune, in the way some men will. A couple clapped him on the shoulder and offered him a share of bread, which he took. As he ate, he relaxed, too, and looked around. The craggy features of his face drew shadows over his features, and he bore a few old scars, the wages of a hard life.

The dice game was just beginning to pick up again after some argument over the last throw, when the stranger spoke, loud with dismay.

"You skinned a wah?"

There was silence. The old man still awake looked a bit shameful, but one of the dice players stepped away from the game again. "Yeah, it's mine. It's a good coat," he added, with a touch of defensiveness.

"You should return it to them," the stranger told him.

The skinner laughed. "What, are you one of those who think they're bad luck? Nonsense! I won't give up a pelt like that over some superstition."

"You should return it," the stranger repeated. "You're not the first to think that their fur makes for a nice pelt."

"I'm not afraid of them," the skinner said, lifting his chin.

The stranger sighed. "Maybe you should be." As the skinner laughed, followed a bit nervously by his fellows, the stranger noticed and picked up a bit of coal from the floor. It twinkled in the dancing light.

"Some people won't even call them wahs," he said. "They call them flame cats, or fire spirits." He nodded to the pelt.
"You can see why. Black as soot underneath, red as flame on top. Rings of smoke in their tails, and the white heat of the furnace in their ears and around their eyes. As for the eyes themselves," he lifted the glittering rock to their attention, "black and hard as a piece of coal."

He tossed it into the fire, and they lost it in the white heat of the flame. "They're pretty enough. A pelt like that should catch a good price from a merchant. Lesser pelts do well enough, so a man might think, why not one of theirs?"

He stared at the fire, at the place where he'd tossed the coal. "I'll tell you why."

The lodge grew silent. Even the wind hushed to a low moan, though the scrape of bronze against coal never hesitated.

"There's a town in the forest a fair distance from here. People've lived there a long time, and had families, and lived off the forest. They picked fruit, they trapped animals, and they gathered nuts and roots. They took a little extra to trade, but not so much as to offend the others that lived nearby. They had copper nearby, and a smith to make tools. They had a spring of pure water to draw from. Everything that a family might need was there, with a little work."

The men nodded. Some of them had come from towns like that, and the firelight gleamed on unshed regrets in more than one eye.

"Not everyone was happy, though. There was a man, by the name of Rhus. Nothing he did seemed to bring him joy. He caught animals and skinned them, then blamed the skin when he cut himself with his knife. He took a turn with the smith, and blamed the fire when he was burned, or the tools when he broke them. He courted a girl, then told the world how worthless she was when she refused him. When her father spoke to him over his conduct, Rhus broke the man’s arm.

"Folk would tell him to mend his ways, or he'd find a bad fate. He scorned them. He said he feared nothing in this world, and that one day, he'd find the key to being a rich man. When that day came, he'd be able to run the town as he liked, or so he said."

The stranger took off his jacket in the stifling air and hung it on the end of a table. He smiled a rueful smile.

"Well, Rhus got lucky one morning. He checked his traps, and there was a young wah. The teeth of the trap had caught the poor fellow's leg, and the wah was worn out from the struggle. Rhus snapped the neck and took it home. And soon, he walked proud on the street with his new skin. Even with the life gone, the coat shone and the eyes would catch the light. It was beautiful, but the townspeople avoided him.

"The brewer wouldn't serve him. No one would talk to him. You'd think he had the plague." The stranger chewed on a bite of dry bread, and this time he took a drink of cider when one of the old men offered. "Thank you. He laughed at them, of course. Called them weak and foolish. Nobody would bother him while he wore one of those skins, and he already planned how he'd haggle the merchants for a king's fortune.

"Of course he had to get more. So, he spent more time in the woods, setting traps, most in the clearing where the wah had been caught. Things began to happen. At first, the traps would be sprung but empty. He spent a week cursing his poor luck. He set more traps, with crueler barbs. He hid them in places where a man shouldn't; places where the men and women of the town might have walked. He left off the markings that would have warned the town's folk to step aside.

"Still he caught nothing, and in the morning the traps were broken. Every one had a snapped bit of twine or a broken bit of wood. So he took out an old metal trap and set it in the woods. The very next morning, he stepped on it, right on the porch of his house. It tore a great hole in his best pair of boots, and he had to make do with an old worn set." The stranger nodded to his own boots, which had obviously seen a great deal of use.

"He accused everyone in town of sabotaging him. He told them all he'd catch the trickster. I think the folk were relieved when he left town for the night. He swore that all night long, he'd camp by his traps until he caught the man or woman who'd shamed him."

The stranger paused to take another drink. Anxious faces waited for him to resume. Almost no one noticed that the wind had died, letting the fire fill the room with sweltering heat.

"Anger kept him awake, and when the moon was at its highest, he was rewarded. There was movement in the trees. Faces appeared in the leaves, faces with white markings that gleamed in the light, and little black eyes that glittered. They circled the clearing where his trap was laid, but none of them came down from the trees. He watched them, and they watched the moon. Here was an entire forest worth of wah, but unless they came down, he would catch none of them. Rhus fingered his knife and hatchet, but he waited until he could take it no longer.

"And at that moment, one of the wahs walked out of the trees. It was a large one, and its whole face was bone white except for a little splash of red on either side of its mouth, red as blood." The stranger traced a line on either side of his own with a finger. "It looked right at him, and said, 'Rhus, come out and return my grandson's skin to me.'"

Silence ruled the lodge. Not the wind, nor the fire, nor the scrape of carving, nor even the rain dared interrupt.

"'I won't,' he said, even as he stood up and walked into their midst. 'I'm not afraid of you,' he told them.

"'If you won't return his skin to me,' she said, 'then I'll take yours.' And then all the wahs came down from the trees at once."

The stranger was silent again for a moment. The fire popped, and the men jumped. "What happened to him?" one asked.

The stranger smiled. "Oh, Rhus returned to the village the next day. He cleaned himself up in the first time in weeks, and cut his brown hair, and combed it. He gave all his things away. To the smith whose tools he'd broken, he gave his own. To the girl he'd harmed, he gave his best-cured furs. To the father whose arm he'd broken, he gave the key to his own house. Everything he owned, he gave away. By the end of the day, all he had was his clothes, his boots, and his fur wrap.

"They asked him what had happened. Why had he changed? All he would say? That it’s best not to offend a wah. And that night, he disappeared, never to be seen again. I wish I could say the townsfolk missed him, but there was something not quite right with him that day, they said. Something in his eyes."

The stranger handed the jug of cider back to the old man. "And that's why you should return that pelt, while you still can."

The skinner jumped to his feet. "Oh? And what will happen to me if I don't? I'm not going to be ambushed by a bunch of animals!"

The stranger stood as well, removing his hat. "Perhaps not. But I might change your mind."

The men scattered; the carver flung open the door and they fled. For the stranger had short brown hair and a short brown beard, neatly trimmed, with tiny, glittering, coal black eyes.

None of the miners stayed to see the fate of the young skinner, and not one of them ever saw him or the stranger again.

It's best not to offend a wah.