47. Look North
Look North
A week after Kain finished fixing the barn, he went about his business as if nothing at all were the matter.
His ribs no longer ached even in passing, and the garden was in full bloom.
He was harvesting potatoes and tomatoes and other vegetables every few days, and was able to maintain a slightly steady income now that he was able to devote more attention to his farm.
He still avoided Tillamore as much as possible, as the people of the town (and the people passing through) were still a bit in awe of what he had managed to do, but when he had to go in, in general, it was getting better.
On one such supply run, Kain finished purchasing some goods from Sam, then went around to the rear of the Kettle. He went up and inside the back door, and found Sasha working at the stove, preparing dinner while serving drinks.
The evening rush was starting, and without saying a word, Kain stepped up to the bar. It was the first time he had helped at the Kettle since his injuries.
Matthew, pulling up on chairs now, scooted across the floor and grabbed Kain's leg as Kain took orders and poured ale. Sasha passed him a plate as if nothing at all were out of the ordinary, and Kain went to work.
"Anything you need me to get done while I'm in here?" Kain asked as Sasha paused to put new steaks onto the stove.
"Tonight, no." Sasha shook her head. "Over the course of the next few days, possibly.
I had a traveler about a week ago who broke a mirror in his room.
I have the replacement mirror purchased, but getting it installed is a pain, and I honestly haven't had time when Matthew wasn't around.
I don't want him getting hurt, you know? "
"Makes sense. I'll get up here in the next day or two." Kain nodded. "Anything else? I know I haven't been around."
Sasha grabbed a rag and wiped sweat off her brow. "You just recovered. I don't want to hit you with a list."
"We both know that since I haven't been around for the last month and a half, things have been falling through the cracks." Kain shrugged. "What can I do?"
It was clear she didn't want to pour things on him, but there was work to be done. "There's a board on the stairs that came loose, up near the top, and then one of the windows has started becoming drafty. Not a huge problem since it's summer, but it could use being patched up."
"I'll take care of all three problems." Kain shrugged.
He was pouring a new mug of ale for a traveler when Jeremiah came in. He grinned when he saw Kain, and walked up and shook his hand across the bar.
"Glad to see you up and about. Your farm hasn't fallen apart since I last visited, so I assume you're managing things well enough."
"Enough," Kain said.
"Well, now that you're feeling better, I was wondering if you might want to swing along by my place?" Jeremiah asked. "Elizabeth has been itching to make you a good meal, and I've been hoping to teach you chess. Well, Tillamore chess, that is."
Kain shrugged. "I'd be happy to."
"Tomorrow evening?"
"I'll be there."
Jeremiah ate a quick meal and then left. It really was nice having friends, simple friends who liked him for who he was. Jeremiah, Sasha, and Carol were about the only three.
The next day, after the day's chores, Kain washed up and made his way over to Jeremiah's house. The smell of roasted chicken drifted down out of the house, while Jeremiah sat on the front porch at a small table.
He waved at Kain, and motioned for him to come along up.
"Here, sit down, sit down." He said. "I've got it all set up for you. Elizabeth and I play this almost every night, so I apologize if I beat you."
"We'll see about that." Kain pulled up a chair and looked at the board.
It was a nice board, seemingly hand-crafted. Probably by Jeremiah himself. The pieces were all hand-carved, and the squares of the board itself had been carefully cut and stained.
Kain picked up the queen, admiring the sharp features. It wasn't a perfect representation of a queen, perhaps, but it was recognizable.
"All right. You familiar with chess in general?" Jeremiah asked.
"Yeah. Never great at it, but it was common in roadside inns and things," Kain said.
"Well, here in Tillamore, we've got a variant of it. I think a lot of little towns use the same variant, but we call it the Tillamore variety." Jeremiah reached out and pointed to the corners, where the rooks should have been. "Instead of using castles, we use the farmer piece."
Kain picked up the piece and looked at it. It looked like a little figure holding a pitchfork.
"You mentioned that last year, I think. How does it work?"
"Movement-wise, it's just like a castle." Jeremiah said. "Forward, backward, sideways, as many spaces as you want. The thing is, it can't attack."
"Can't attack?" Kain raised an eyebrow.
"Nope. Can't do a thing, not even against pawns."
"Can it be killed?" Kain asked.
"Yes, but only by the queen. You also can't jump a knight across it.
" Jeremiah said. "Now, there are ways around that, since knights can jump multiple ways, but if you get both farmers around it, you can block knights well enough.
It's a little tricky, but you'll get the hang of it.
Or we can just play standard chess, if you like. "
"No, no, let's give this a whirl." Kain frowned. "Your move first."
The two of them set to it. Jeremiah brought out several pieces on the sides, quickly moving his farmer out, while Kain opened up the center and brought out his bishops.
Almost immediately, though, Jeremiah managed to block off his bishops with the farmers, and then slipped his knights right past the aggressive frontline. Kain lost within fifteen moves.
"Not bad, for a beginner," Jeremiah said.
"Hold on, let me think about this." Kain leaned over the board.
He was no grandmaster, but he knew the basics of chess. In a standard game, the rooks came out in the midgame, and were ideally preserved for the endgame.
They weren't early game pieces. Bringing them out early was a quick way to get them taken away, and to wind up defenseless when the real pieces came out later.
In this variant, getting them out quickly was paramount. Yes, it sacrificed a few turns to do it, but getting them onto the field meant that you could effectively stop your opponent where he stood.
It made playing defensively a much, much stronger option.
"All right. Let's try this again," Kain said.
They reset the board, then started over. This time, Kain decided to go for broke, and attempted an even stronger aggressive strategy.
It worked for a short time through the early game, and he obliterated a large portion of Jeremiah's pawns and lower-level pieces, but the field of battle changed the moment that Kain's early attack pieces, his bishops, were eliminated.
With that, Jeremiah took command, and kept it until Kain's king was locked in check.
They reset and tried a third time. Kain attempted to play a bit more defensively, and he held out for longer, but as he got his farmer pieces out onto the middle of the board, he found that he didn't know how to use them.
Jeremiah could anticipate his attacks, and get his farmers in place before Kain even saw the block coming. Kain had no such skill, and running a strictly reactionary game, he was unable to compete.
After the third loss, Kain shook his head while Jeremiah reset. "Well, you certainly have the advantage here."
"Like I said, I do it every night. You get to be my age, and you can teach the next generation of young whippersnappers just like I'm teaching you.
" Jeremiah leaned back in his chair, then shrugged.
"That's strange to think about, actually.
I remember when I was just your age, and thought I'd live forever.
Now, I'm the old fart around town. Sure, I could still have a good thirty years on me, but I'm in the second half of my life. Makes you think."
Kain nodded. After a moment, Jeremiah coughed.
"And, speaking of thinking, I've been doing a bit of my own."
"I've heard that such things can be dangerous," Kain said.
"Probably so. And I might be overthinking, but I don't know that I am, and I wanted to run something past you." Jeremiah said. "The gryphon."
"Yeah." Kain involuntarily touched his ribs. "That thing. What about it?"
"I did a bit of study on them. They don't tend to live around here." Jeremiah shrugged. "Near as I can tell, their closest natural range is almost two hundred miles away."
"You'd be right about that," Kain said. He already knew where the conversation was going.
"So I've just been wondering, why did it come here?" Jeremiah asked. "Did something drive it here? Or did something call it here?"
Kain frowned. There was something in Jeremiah's tone. "If I'm being honest, I've been wondering the same thing, but you sound like you know something."
"Know? No. Suspect?" Jeremiah held up his hands. "I, I don't know. Maybe."
"Don't leave me in suspense." Kain leaned forward.
The chess game, between them, had been forgotten.
"Well, even before the gryphon started attacking things, my goats were acting weird." Jeremiah began. "They would go to the northern side of the fence and just stare out across the hills. Goats don't do that, you know. They eat, they panic, they frolic, but they don't just stare."
"No." Kain frowned. "Continue."
"Well, at the time, I figured they just smelled something out on the prairie. Some wild alfalfa or something. Then, when the gryphon showed up, I just figured they were smelling the thing." Jeremiah shrugged. "Thing is, they haven't stopped doing it since the thing was killed."
Kain frowned. "Now?"
"I mean, it's not one hundred percent of the time.
They still play around the pen and things, but there's almost always at least one or two of them that are at it.
" Jeremiah said. "When you killed the thing, I figured it would take them a few days before they stopped.
Time for the scent to wear off, that sort of thing, but it's been a month and a half now.
You'd think they wouldn't still be catching whiffs of it. "
"It's odd," Kain said. "And you said it started in early spring?"
"Yeah, right about the time of first thaw." Jeremiah nodded. "At least a month before anyone lost any livestock."
Kain set his jaw. It was a lot to take in, and it was a massive clue to the puzzle that he had been missing.
"Have you talked to anyone else about this?"
"No." Jeremiah shook his head. "I didn't want them thinking I was crazy."
"If it comes up, you might mention it to someone. I wouldn't mind having a few more data points." Kain stroked his chin.
They soon sat down at the table to eat, and Kain did his best to keep his mind on the conversation, but he found his mind turning toward the north more and more.
Jeremiah and Elizabeth seemed to sense it, too, and they said goodbye shortly after finishing. As Kain and Ghost headed back home, the wolf cantered along in front of him, and Kain noticed that the wolf's head, too, began to turn to the north.
Had Ghost always been doing that? The wolf would, every five or ten feet, glance off in that direction. It almost looked like he was sniffing for prey.
Had that always been there? Kain didn't know, but he thought, now that he mulled it over, that the wolf had been sending furtive glances in that direction for some time now.
If there really was something out there, Kain needed to know about it.