The Pangolin Post

By Emily Leclerc

I give what cannot be given and provide what cannot be found. Most seek out my services for selfish reasons but, if they can pay, I give them what they ask for. Exactly what they ask for. He was different. For reasons I am still unraveling, I gave him something more than only what he wanted. Something precious. Most people forget that I am not the light they seek. He was an exception.

He found my home one morning during an unusually cool summer. I had just finished brewing a cup of tea and cleaning the table of blood when a tentative knock sounded at the door. I sighed, pushing the blood-stained rags into a basket. The blood soaking the floor would have to wait. I opened the door to find a young man dressed in royal finery standing on the step.

“I have come seeking your services. I bring with me a bag overflowing with gold and silver in hopes that it will be sufficient compensation as I know your services do not come cheaply.” His voice was even and confident, his posture tall and proud. I noticed the bulging saddle pack sitting by his feet.

I sighed again. “Whatever you have in that bag will not be payment enough. I do not deal in something as trivial as silver and gold.” I closed the door. It was obvious the princeling did not know who he had come to do business with. His knock sounded again. I opened the door, not even deigning to speak.

“What can I offer you then?” He asked.

“Come back when you know.” The door swung shut with a resounding thud.

He returned a month later. The path to me is only open in the several days leading up to the new moon. That visit, his ears dripped with precious gems and his fingers bore several masterfully crafted rings. His face was drawn with shadows under his eyes.

“I think I understand,” the princeling said in a low voice.

“What do you seek?”

“The knowledge and strength to overthrow my father.”

“The price will be high for such a request.”

The princeling fidgeted slightly. A light breeze ruffled his hair. The summer had not grown any warmer.

“He sells my people as slaves. Gold floods his coffers as people disappear from their beds.”

“I see,” I said evenly.

“Perhaps it was a mistake to come here.” The princeling turned from me and walked back to his horse tethered at a nearby tree.

The next month, he returned again, closer to the end of the path’s open window. His clothes bespoke of a great influx of wealth with golden filagree painted delicately across his coat. A ruby the size of my fist glimmered at his sword’s pommel. His eyes were dull, his shoulders rounded in, and his fingers picked raw.

“My father engages in frivolous battles, squandering the life of our young people. Less and less return each day. The guards are running out of people to round up,” he said before I could open my mouth. But I could tell he was not ready.

“I do not know why you came to tell me this. Are you prepared to agree to my terms?” I asked.

The princeling shivered slightly. “I am not sure.”

“Then please be on your way.” I watched from my window as he trudged back to his horse.

He returned at the end of each month following as summer shifted slowly to autumn before fading into the chill of winter. Each time his clothes and gear grew more lavish and opulent. I had never seen such rich fabrics and gems of that quality. As his clothes became brighter and richer, his countenance continued to darken. As months passed, his eyes lost all light and the bags beneath them darkened. His posture stooped lower. His fingers remained raw with traces of blood caked beneath the nails.

Each visit is also accompanied by increasingly horrific tales of his father. Walls had gone up around his people. The guards restrict coming and going. Famine and disease plague them. Women start to disappear after being escorted to his father’s chambers. Each time I asked him if he was ready and each time he hesitated longer before saying no. And each time I asked him why he kept returning to my door. It was always met with silence.

At the end of the eighth month, his tentative knock once again sounded at my door. The sound was now a familiar marker of the end of the month. Fresh snow dotted the grass and trees outside.

I opened the door to find him sitting on my front step. His brocaded jacket is a deep rich purple with flawless diamonds rimming the collar. “I think I am ready.” He said in a hoarse whisper. “My sisters are dead and gone. Lost to wounds inflicted by my father. I have nothing left.”

“What do you seek,” I asked quietly.

“You know what I want.”

I turned my gaze to the snow speckled forest surrounding my house. “I can give you want you seek but the price will be heavy indeed.”

The prince nodded. I caught the slight shine of tears on his cheeks as I stood. I beckoned the princeling forward and into the shadowed rooms of my home. He sat quietly at the table waiting as I prepared what I needed. A meticulously clean set of knives joined several small glass jars and a collection of clean bandages. After a thought, I pulled out a poultice as well that can soothe pain.

“Are you ready?” I asked him.

He sat straighter in the chair. “Yes.” His voice was the strongest I’d heard in months.

“Then please remove your coat and shirt and we can begin.”

The fabric created a soft rustling sound as it landed on the floor. I selected a small sharp bladed knife and two small jars from my supplies. I arranged the jars next to his arm on the small side table attached to the chair. The clinking of the lids settling on the wood seemed too gentle a noise.

“To grant your request I must take from you the future possibility of love. You may feel it for others, in its variety of forms, but it will be forever unrequited. You will never again share that bond with another person.” I said quietly.

His composure cracked as despair filled the lines on his face. But a moment later, he had smoothed his features back to neutral. “I give it to you freely.”

A soft chime sounded, and I felt my gut clench tightly. The deal had been struck.

I pressed the knife against the outside of his forearm and cut a deep wound several inches long. The blade sliced through skin and tissue as if through warm butter. He did not move or even wince. I placed one jar under the wound to collect blood streaming from it. The second jar I positioned directly under the start of the wound, where the knife first made contact. There it collected a silvery ichor leaving the princeling’s body. Stoically he watched as all possibility of love dripped into my small glass jar, its silvery sheen pearlescent in the dim light.

As those jars filled, I picked up a smaller knife from my set and moved to his back. From shoulder blade to shoulder blade, I carved a line of runic script into his skin. I periodically wiped blood away with a small towel. I saw nothing of the pain I must have caused him besides a slight clenching of his fists. As my knife curved through the last sigil, the knot in my gut released. The deal was done and it didn’t feel right.

I quickly stowed my bloodied knives and capped the filled jars. I coated his arm in the poultice and wrapped his forearm tightly before smearing the poultice across his back.

“Be sure to keep the wounds clean as much as possible. I can do nothing for you if you allow infection to take hold,” I said.

His head was bowed, and tears dripped from his eyes. I felt it in the air when something inside him broke. My heart wrenched in a way I had not experienced in a long time. The sour feeling of the deal lingered.

“Thank you. You have given me much.” He stood shakily and held out his hand to me. I took it gently. His eyes were hard, his grip firm, and his jaw set. It felt so unfair. The payment had always been equal to the desire, but this was too much. Sadness welled up in me, unlike anything I’d ever felt for a patron. An urge to ease his suffering possessed me.

“Wait here a moment,” I whispered. I hurried past him and down the staircase tucked into the corner of my home. At the bottom, I grabbed a torch racked on the wall. I wove through rows and rows of shelves that held jars I had lost count of years ago, each holding the remnants of a brokered deal. I saw the flickering before my torchlight fell on the shelf I was looking for.

A gentle light suffused the space between two shelves. I slipped between them and grabbed the light from its resting place. It was another glass jar but this one held a small star that had been plucked from the inky skies decades ago. The moment I touched it, I was suffused with the heady feeling of new and blossoming love. Someone special had given it to me years ago but I had put it out of sight because the reminder of what I had lost hurt too much. Now it felt right to give to someone who would be able to take comfort in it.

I made my way back through the meandering labyrinth of shelves and placed the torch back in its holder. Upstairs, the princeling was standing right where I had left him. I moved to stand in front of him.

“This is something I hope can bring back some of what you have given away. It is a star that was taken from an evening sky some time ago to remind me of a precious moment. These days I hold it sparingly as it brings back more than I wish to remember. I hope it can be a balm in times of need.” I handed the jar over to him.

He takes it carefully, cradling it in his hands. I watched his face soften and a small smile curve his lips as the star’s emotions washed through him. He brought the star up and clutched it close to his chest.

“It is beautiful,” he said simply. “Thank you, Light Bringer, for all that you have done for me.”

A small measure of strength seemed to return to him. He stood a little bit straighter, and his eyes brightened some. I nodded back.

I watched as he walked from my house to his horse that was tethered at a tree several feet from my door. The snow crunched under his footsteps. He held the jarred star as if it were a newborn baby. I waved farewell as the princeling turned his horse to the east and disappeared among the trees. It was the last I ever saw of him.

I have not met anyone yet willing to pay such a hefty price for my services. It was the first time the payment I collected felt unbalanced, crooked. It was also the first time I felt the need to give more to try to mitigate what I had taken. Even now, decades later, I think of the princeling from time to time. No one since has been near his equal. ~