I scowled. “For personal reasons, namely because it’s hellish here.”
“Hellish,” he repeated. “That’s a word I haven’t heard in a while.”
I rolled my eyes. Well, of course not, he’d been sleeping. In a coffin. I expected he’d heard little, but I bit my tongue to keep the retort from falling out of my mouth. Hugging myself, I tried my best not to glare at him as I shifted closer to the fire. It was drafty in the room and the fire hadn’t been burning long enough to chase the chill away.
“Do you know who I am?”
I scowled at him, since I’d asked him twice and he hadn’t seen fit to respond. Until now. Part of me wanted to slap the smirk off his angelic face, but the other part of me was still turning over the term punishment, and what he might do to me when the conversation ended.
“Some have called me the Devil of Dowler, but I’m better known as the Piper.”
Devil. Piper. My entire body trembled. My actions tonight had been desperate, and now I’d awakened the Devil of Dowler. I shook my head so hard my curls tumbled around my face. “No, no, no,” I whispered as I backed away from him. “It’s not possible. You’re just a scary story, a fable told to keep children from misbehaving or going too deep into the forest. You can’t be real.”
Distaste crossed his face as he stepped closer to me. When he spoke, his voice was a low warning, exactly the dark timbre I’d expect from the devil. “I’m the Devil of Dowler and you trespassed, which means you’re mine.”
His hand shot out, and I half expected horns to sprout from his head and claws to appear in place of his fingers. A scream stuck in my throat, begging to escape. Instead, I lunged for the fire, snatched up a piece of flaming wood and tossed it at him. Shaking my burning fingers, I fled.
3Tanith
During the first month of my stay in Dowler, I remarked to Uropa about the beauty of the city—the wealthy citizens, the fresh mountain air, the bright flowers that bloomed by the river, and the overall picture of health and happiness. She’d stared at me with disapproving eyes, and, thinking back, inwardly she must have been laughing at my stupidity. “Let me tell you a story.”
I’d perched on the windowsill, raising an eyebrow. “A true story?”
“Decide for yourself after I finish.”
“Alright,” I’d agreed.
“Hundreds of years ago, when the city of Dowler was still a floundering civilization, an odd man who called himself the Piper appeared. The citizens were unkind to him because of his strange looks, unusual habits, and the way he played his flute. He kept to himself in the woods outside the city, and those who went to play tricks on him never came back the same, if at all. Whispers circulated that he had the power to control minds with his flute, but since no one could prove it, nothing happened.
“One day, the city was struck with a plague from the northern reaches. Famine destroyed the crops, farm animals died, and even the river dried up until one could walk in and pick up the fish from the riverbed. Sickness was next. The children fell ill with a terrible cough, and soon it passed to the women and men. Dowler was on the brink of failure and everything that had been built was about to be destroyed. But along came the Piper.
“He walked out of the woods, playing his magic flute. The music coaxed the skies to open and brought heavy rains down on the land. The fields sprouted, the flowers bloomed, the animals revived, and best of all, those who were sick rose the next morning, healthy, hungry and strong.
“The people rejoiced and praised the Piper, who went to the Lord of Dowler for his reward. But they cast him out and asked him to return to his abode in the forest, for his power was unnatural. Disgraced and unwanted, the Piper took his revenge by enacting a series of terrors. People died under mysterious conditions, children disappeared, wolves attacked those who went out at night. Anyone who went into the woods to hunt down the Piper never returned. Until one day, the Lord of Dowler found a source of magic and made the Piper disappear.”
“And then what happened?” I asked.
Uropa shrugged. “That’s it, but the tale has shifted throughout the years. Some say if you go into the woods, you’ll hear his flute and lose your wits searching for it. Legend holds that if you find him, the Piper will force you to do his bidding.”
I laughed out loud. “Do you believe this?”
Uropa turned back to her work. “It’s part of the history of Dowler. Laugh all you want, but everyone knows the tale.”
And then she repeated a refrain, one that danced in my mind long after she’d left.
Beware the Pied Piper
His song sweet yet sinister
Hellbent on revenge
His people to avenge
Beware your last breath
For his flute sings death
* * *
