Epilogue

The Shadow of Doubt, Chapter 15

If you’re new to the story, head for the index by clicking this big red button 👇

After the chapter, you’ll find a few notes from me, Nick.

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Loucet walked with his head down, black thoughts chasing one another around his mind like ravens after a bird with a broken wing. On either side of the path, the evergreens soughed in the chill autumn breeze.

“How long is the journey to Irthun?” asked the mayor.

He was walking behind Loucet, his wrists bound together. A long, thin rope ran from the bindings up to Loucet, who held it in one gloved hand.

“That depends,” said Loucet.

“On what?”

“Conditions on the road. The rains. Whether any of the night paths are open.”

Loucet was wondering about this himself. Conditions on the roads were already bad, and the stormy season was approaching. It might be a full month before he entered the Valley of Irthun, where the wizards had made their city of towers. Plenty of time to think.

“I hardly think it’s necessary to keep me tied up the whole time. Perhaps once we’re past Kherova I could convince you to take off these bindings?”

They entered a clearing. A cottage sat on one side. A rack of pelts were stretched up to catch the sunlight.

“Well? What do you think?”

Loucet didn’t answer. He was looking around at the stumps which studded the grassy meadow on either side of the path.

“This is good,” Loucet said to himself.

He approached the stump he had selected: a big flat slab where an oak had stood. A pair of gnarled roots stuck up on either side, forming loops like eyelets. The mayor followed him, still talking.

“You don’t seem to be open for conversation at the moment. You’re angry, I suppose. But I hope you can see my position. I didn’t go looking for the key. It came into my possession on accident; a sorcerer gave it to me as payment at the brothel, and only after did I discover its use. But look what I’ve been doing with it! Conspirators need to be dealt with, don’t they? So what if we catch a few innocents by accident? Who cries about such things in this barbaric world we call home? And of course I used the Tatterer to keep myself safe, but that’s what any authority does. You can’t say I’m an outlier there. All in all, everything I did was in the best interests of the crown.”

Loucet knelt beside the stump and inspected the root eyelets. They were thick enough to hold an ox, he guessed.

“As for you?” the mayor blathered on. “Poison seemed like the most obvious way to handle someone with your skills. Consider it a compliment. I had to do something before your friends in the red cloaks came to get you out of the dungeon, and from what I was told about the poison selected, it was meant to work very quickly. And hey, you did get a chance to taste some very, very fine wine, didn’t you? None of it was personal, you understand… Eh… What are you doing, there?”

Loucet had pushed one end of the mayor’s rope leash through the holes formed by the roots. He hauled on it, and the mayor was jerked forward.

“Hey! There’s no need for incivility.”

“Kneel.”

The mayor’s face blanched, and he swallowed. “You’re a gentleman. You’ve promised to bring me to face justice. You’re not going to… to… take matters into your own hands, are you?”

“I’m not going to hurt you. Kneel.”

Slowly, the mayor knelt down. Loucet pulled the rope taught, so that the mayor’s bound hands were drawn down to the ground, bending him over the stump.

“This isn’t necessary,” said the mayor, looking awkwardly up at Loucet as the Inspector tied the rope’s other end to the bindings about his wrists. “Where are you going? What… Whose house is this?”

Loucet disappeared around the side of the cottage.

“Inspector?”

Mayor Kopesh strained his ears, trying to hear if anything were being said. He tried to wiggle the bindings, but they were tight, and tied very carefully. A bead of sweat dripped down his forehead and fell onto the rings of the stump, making a tiny dark circle.

“Inspector?”

The spruce trees rushed, riverlike, in the breeze.

A figure appeared outside the house. It was a woman, with pale blue eyes that burned like bale fire. She was coming towards him.

A woodsman’s axe swung in her hand.

Her red-gold hair gleamed as it caught the fading sunlight.

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A Note from the Author

If you’ve accompanied Loucet on this latest adventure, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I write these stories because I am compelled; the process is both arduous and in some inscrutable way necessary. The reward I get for all the hours poured into the tale is knowing that you, the readers, are getting to go on the journey with me.

Please, if you’ve gotten this far, let me know what you think. Do you want to read more stories like this? Would you prefer something else from me? I’d be happy to know what resonates.

In other news, I’ve been working professionally on a video game called Don’t Fret, which is going to be released later this year. It’s a musically themed horror game, and I’m the lead writer.

I’ll give more updates on it soon, because there are some very exciting developments that I just can’t share quite yet! One thing I can say is that we’ll be dropping our release date trailer at Future Games Show in just a couple of weeks.

Ok. Enough for now. Thank you all for spending some of your very precious attention with me. I hope to make it worth it.