Magesong (12 page)

As Reyin had predicted, Farlo was politely told that he must
ride atop the coach.  Only a shortage of gentle passengers and his minstrel
colors saved Reyin from the same fate.  Perhaps the driver thought he would entertain
the richly-attired matron and her nineteen-year-old son who sweated profusely
in his new ensign's uniform and could hardly wear a dress sword without causing
injury to himself, or perhaps the footman thought that if Reyin was spared
daily exposure to sun and dust he could play for them at the inns where they
stopped for the night.  He did neither.  Glad to be out of Farlo's sight for
hours on end, he sat back, determined to watch the countryside drift by and
have his mind sit easy for a few days.  But the dry interior of Jakavia sent
his thoughts across the sea to the dry valley of Lorendal, and he sank quickly
into despair.  Farlo's sharp words had reminded Reyin that he didn't know what
he was doing, that this was sheer folly.

At the end of the fourth day they climbed a low pass in a
range of hills.  To Reyin's surprise, the summer breeze grew chilled soon after
dusk, and he did not mind so much sharing a bed with Farlo that night.  The
next morning was a winding, laborious descent to sea level.  Shortly after noon
they turned out over the last low ridge and, leagues in the distance, a
gargantuan cluster of square and linear forms squatted on a desert coastline. 
East of the modern city, the ruins of the ancient capital lay on a sandy plain
that ran down to a wide beach.  The coach passed the north gate of Mira-Delvin
an hour later, but they found the way to the central stables narrow and thick
with ox-carts, and the sun westered before the overland journey was finally
done.

The inn across from the stables catered to the well-to-do
traveller, so they took to scouring the back streets for cheap lodging. 
Darkness came full upon them before they found an open chamber.  The matron of
the house, an enormous woman (Reyin figured she could push Farlo to the ground
in a shoving match), eyed them suspiciously as she took their money.

"You're too late for supper," she told them,
"so you'll have to go out and find your own.  The door gets locked at half
past nine and that's it.  Don't come knocking later than that — I'll set the
dogs on you if you do."

After she left them alone in the room, Farlo said, "If
I snore too loud, do you think she'll call the watch on us?"

"No doubt, but we got a good price."

Late that night when the street outside fell quiet, Farlo
discovered to his misery that his bed was directly above the matron's, and that
she snored louder than any sailor he had ever known.

They found the estate with the yellow tiled roof the next
day.  "It's worse than I feared," Farlo moaned.  "This
blackguard is unbelievably rich."

"And all that goes with it," Reyin said.

The street where they stood, not far from the ruins of the
old city, cut a lane past several fairy-tale town houses, all with granite
towers vying for dominance over exotic gardens where a trellis would be trimmed
in gold.

"Look, he even has liveried guards in a gatehouse.  Are
you sure this is the place that you, uh, saw?"

"Yes.  This is it."

"I'll bet he's the sort who has bull mastiffs running
the grounds at night."

"Perhaps.  We really do not know.  We don't even know
the name of this man whom we deem an enemy."

"By the gods of the deep, Reyin, it's been over a month
since we stood on the Skialfanmir.  How do you know that it is still
here?"  Farlo clutched Reyin's arm, his fingertips digging painfully into
the flesh.  "It could be anywhere."

"Go easy," Reyin said, "we will answer these
questions soon enough."  He gnawed at his lower lip.  "Let's not hold
conference here on the street, though.  Already folk are looking at us."

They turned back toward the center of the city and walked in
silence for a time.  The afternoon sun, which earlier in the day had beat upon
them hotly, now slipped behind one of the big clouds that had drifted in from
over the ocean.  They came to a place where five streets ran together,
connected by a road encircling a large group of palm trees.  Then Farlo said,
"Do you need to be alone now, some quiet place?"

Reyin's puzzlement crossed his face as a silly grin. 
"Whatever do you mean?"

Farlo didn't look at him.  "Aren't you going to —
"  He searched for the words.  "You told me yourself you have ways of
knowing things."

Reyin laughed in a flat tone, the joyless spasm coming
harder and harder, the laugh becoming more and more sarcastic and twisted with
anger as it rose.

"What," he spewed between gasps for air, "did
you have in mind?  That I should take myself to yon grove of palms and cast a
ritual seeking?  I've a better idea.  I'll bring forth my wand of power from
under my cloak, stride to the gatehouse, and with a simple tap split the gate
asunder.  Then, the light of the Essa shining like an aura all around me, I
will walk past the frightened and cowering guards, right up to the master of
the house, and by eldritch threat bring him sobbing to his knees, begging me to
do whatever I desire if only I would lift the power of my hand from o'er his
house."  Huge drops of sweat ran from his forehead to meld with tears of
anger.  "I could do one as easily as the other, which is to say not at
all.  I have no power of my own."

His forearms were knotted by the strain of clinching fists,
and his fingernails cut into his palms.

"Don't you see?" he said desperately.  "This
is not the high land of the Pallenborne, and I'm not a magician.  There are
less than a hundred in the entire world and when they are gone no more will
come.  That age passed before you or I were ever born.  They have been undone
by the merchants and scientists who will now take their place, and not even the
kings and princes of this world have long to rule.  Even — "  A new
thought shocked him into stillness, and he spoke softly once again.  "Even
the firebirds beyond the Western Sea will pass away."

He sat on the hard ground and wept quietly, not for himself.

Farlo didn't understand all of what Reyin had said, but he
knew what to do.  He led his friend over to the grove of palms and sat him in
the shade, next to an old well.  The bottom of the well lay deep in darkness,
but when Farlo drew the water it was clear and cool.  They each took long
draughts, then sat for a time, not really watching when the dark-eyed folk of
the south came to fill their earthen jugs.

"It's alright," Syliva said to the old man,
"I've already had mine."  Never a good liar, she looked down at the
table.  Older than she, it had at one time been rough of surface and
sharp-edged, now rounded and smoothed by many generations of hands and bowls. 
A large dark stain near the center had been scrubbed deeply into the wood by
Kestrin's mother one summer day, Syliva remembered, after making a pot of black
currant jam.  She began to rise, saying, "I'll just leave you two in
peace."

"Don't be foolish," the old man said.  "Sit
back down."

"If we can eat your soup," Kestrin said, "I
think we can have you sit with us while we do it."

Syliva looked at her protégé.  Kestrin was coming into
womanhood in ways Syliva had never foreseen.  Syliva could teach her only the
herbal craft; where Kestrin learned to sense the feelings of others and how she
got her fearless nature, Syliva did not know.

"Mmm, sure smells good," Kestrin said
deliberately, looking at her father.  She made a show of eating, drinking her
soup loudly and saying, "Ahhh," while her father sipped cautiously
from his oversized wooden spoon.

The house was small and dark.  A few thin planks tacked at
the floor and at a crossbeam formed the one interior wall in the place,
dividing the house into two rooms.  Great webs hung thick in the corners, but
in this season of drought no spiders haunted them.  They were only cobwebs.

The old man's face wrinkled in pain.  This man has had his
food stolen, thought Syliva.  How would she feel in his place, angry and
shamed?  She couldn't imagine it.  And she could not think that one of her
neighbors did the inhuman deed.

Everyone at the dance had rushed to Kestrin and said that it
could not be true.  It could not be one of us.  It must have been some rogue
travellers, they had argued.  Celvake and Aksel and some of the others had
looked for footprints or animal tracks leading into the woods, but said they
could find none due to the hard ground.  Groups of men with hunting bows roamed
up and down the valley for the next few days finding no sign of a camp or that
anyone had passed.  Kevas and Haron Monjor even took a three-day trek past
Eldera Gorge.  They didn't see any bandits, but they managed to bag a handful
of rabbits.  Kevas gave most of them to Kestrin in a quiet, almost apologetic
way.

"Is it your stomach again?" Kestrin said to her
father.

He dropped his spoon, soup half-eaten.  His grimace cut deep
furrows across his already lined face as he nodded to his daughter.

"He's started getting this pain when he tries to eat. 
Last night some of it came back up.  I've been giving him sagemint tea each
morning," Kestrin offered.  "For nearly a week now."

"Hmm.  Not just a tummy ache, eh?"  Syliva lighted
a candle and held it close to his face.  She looked hard at the whites of his
eyes, checked the color of his tongue, then pushed and prodded and listened to
the man's stomach.

"Does it only hurt when you eat?"

"Mostly."

"But sometimes for no reason?"

The old man nodded.

"Keep up the sagemint tea," she said quietly,
almost absentmindedly, as she glanced over his hands.  "Better still, give
him a second cup in the evening as well.  Maybe a little starseed in it
too."  She looked again at his eyes, then stepped back and smiled big.

"We'll see if that helps," she said brightly.  She
turned to Kestrin and tried not to look puzzled.  "I'll come back
tomorrow."

The sky was still bright as Syliva made her way home.  A
gathering mass of people milled at the center of the village, and as Syliva
approached them she heard heated voices.  Two fishermen stood in front of the touching
stone.

"Just start over again," Celvake was saying to
them.  "Everyone needs to hear this right from your mouth."

The grey-whiskered fisherman nodded, and turning to the villagers
took off his cap, holding it awkwardly in both hands.  "The matter
is," he said, pausing to clear his throat, "the smokehouse, where we
dry our fish, was near emptied last night."

"And they think we did it," Taila Keyvern called
out before he could speak further.

The other fisherman and half the villagers all started
talking at once.  Syliva stepped up beside the older man.

"For goodness sake," she said, "let him have
his ay.  He's our neighbor."  She touched him on the arm.  "How are
you feeling today Yothan?"

"I'm well.  Thank you, Syliva."

"I'm sorry you were interrupted.  What were you
saying?"

"That we're not pointing a finger at anyone, or even
all of you.  But when we discovered the fish gone, we figured that someone from
outside did it because, well, it's a community smokehouse.  Everyone had their
catch in there."

Taila Keyvern pushed her way to the front.  "That
proves nothing.  One of your own fisher families could have taken it."

An entire family.  Syliva had not thought of that.  They would
all have to be in on it, even the children would figure the truth about any
extra food.  Then she had another thought.

"Yothan, you said the smokehouse was
near
emptied?"

"Well, about half-emptied is closer to right.  The
thieves took only the fish that were fully cured."

“And a ten-stone basket to carry it all," the other
fisherman added.  "We think it was two men; loading the basket to the top
would be about as much as they could carry and still walk quickly and
quietly."

"You still haven't said why you think it was us,"
Taila said.  Syliva thought that Taila must tie back her hair too tightly, for
her face was always taut and strained.

Yothan cleared his throat once again and looked at his feet
before he spoke.  "We found a few cod on the trail leading here."

Celvake nearly jumped blurting out, "A clever thief
would do that to throw others off the real trail."

Yothan turned to Syliva.  "Like I said, we don't figure
anyone here did it.  We were just wondering if anyone saw anything here last
night."

"Well," Syliva said, scanning the faces in what
was now a crowd, "did anybody see someone toting a basket after
dark?"

Almost everyone shook their heads or shrugged.  Taila,
looking as if it were really the most innocent question asked, "What about
your son Jonn?"

"What about him?"

"Everyone knows he often gets up hours before morning,
or is still up from the day before, I suppose.  He goes roaming the woods at
night, doesn't he?  Was he out last night?"

Syliva didn't like her tone.  "If he had seen anybody he
would have told me."

"He might have forgotten.  We all know how he is."
 Taila smiled at everyone, looking for agreement.  "I'll bet he goes out
all the time and you don't even know it,Syliva."

Syliva stepped close to her so that neither of them need talk
loudly.  The conversation had quickly begun to smell of Taila's trademark — a
bit of truth, a bit of poison — but Syliva wasn't going to let this become a
village affair.  "I know when he's been out all night.  Better than you,
Taila."

"Of course," Taila said in the lightest manner she
could affect.  She looked only at Syliva now, as if they were having a private
little talk, but she still spoke loud enough for all to hear.  "Of course
you do.  I'm not accusing Jonn of being a sneak thief.  Why he's the nicest
young man in the valley, respectful and quiet, quiet as a mouse, you hardly
notice when he's around.  Now that's rare for a fellow who can lift ten stone
with one hand."

Everyone fell silent as Syliva's eyes narrowed, her face
reddening.

"I'll tell you," the younger fisherman said,
"if it was him he should be tied and beaten.  I know how you folk say that
he has a sick mind, but he still knows right from wrong."

"He didn't do it," Syliva said.

"Of course not," Taila said.  "As you told
us, you would know if he did.  The man is just saying that no one can be so
sick that they don't know right from wrong.  I think everyone can agree on
that."

"It's late, we have to go, Syliva," Yothan said,
giving her a chance to turn away from Taila.  "Stop at my house next time
you're down that way."

Walking with him a few strides, moving out of earshot of the
others, she asked quietly, "What do you really think, Yothan?"

"I'm still hoping it were boys playing a bad prank, or
even some wild nomads from out of the mountains."

"Me too."

"And if it isn't?"

"Everyone is very angry.  I don't know if I could
protect . . . I'm afraid someone could be badly hurt."

"Syliva, if one of us is stealing food, why would you
want to protect them?"

"There's never been a killing in this valley.  Never."

Yothan's eyes went wide.  "Who said — "

"Fights, yes.  Even a bad one I remember, but never a
killing.  I won't let it happen, Yothan.  Whatever comes, I will not let it
happen."

It was late by the time the crowd disbursed in the village
and she walked the lane to her house.  The shadows grew long as she crossed the
yard to her kitchen door.  She missed the evening song terribly.  It had
brought everyone together in spirit, talking, touching, seeing each other's
faces.  Her friends seemed far away.

Steamy air rolled out of the doorway.  Aksel was there in an
apron of all things, the baker's paddle in one hand, a dripping spoon in the
other.  "Just in time," he said.  Jonn sat at the table grinning
broadly.  Before him lay cheese and dried apple, and a roasted hen with peas
and cranberries.  Syliva stood staring with her mouth open.  The iron pot over
the fire smelled strongly of the lentil soup she had made earlier, intending to
serve it alone for their supper.

"Let's eat," Aksel laughed, dashing across the
yard to the kiln, returning with an enormous loaf of flatbread that drooped
over the edge of the paddle.

"Yeah," Jonn shouted from inside, still grinning,
I'm hungry."

"A roast hen?"  Syliva tried not to sound
dismayed.

Aksel shrugged lightly.  "Sure.  Why not?"

"I know we talked about it, taking one to give the
others a better chance . . . but all this at once."  She went to the
table.  "What's this?  Where did you get white cheese?"

"Tossed pebbles with Kurnt Monjor over it."  Aksel
turned back to the kettle, but not before a sly grin passed his lips.

She stiffened slightly.  "That's not right, not over
food." 
Especially with Kurnt being weak when it came to gambling.

"Oh, come on, where's your sense of adventure?" 
He reached into the pantry.  "And I'm going to slaughter another kid in
the morning, too.  Just as soon as I sharpen the hatchet and the butchering
knives," he said with a mischievous tone, pulling out the last jug of
honey.

"Honey!"  Jonn yelled triumphantly.

"Not the — " Syliva started to say, " — oh,
all right, just a little."  She wasn't going to argue now.  Now they would
have a family dinner, father and son happy together, and hope they had no
visitors.

The sun stood two hands over the horizon when Syliva awoke
the next morning to find her husband already up and gone.  They didn't own a
clock (those things cost as much as a horse), but it couldn't be later than
five.  In her kitchen she discovered a gallon of porridge simmering over hot
coals and evidence of a few breakfast trimmings.  The water crock sat full, the
woodbin fully stocked.  Looking out from the back door, she didn't see him in
any of the yards.  Perhaps he was behind the tool shed sharpening his knives.

She walked across the dead grass of the back yard, onto the
dry, hardened earth of the barnyard, slowing as she came around the shed to
where the grinding stone sat.  Aksel wasn't there, but he had been.  All the
butchering knives were laid out meticulously, freshly and thoroughly
sharpened.  A new cutting edge shone on the hatchet and the ax, as well as the
shears, a saw blade, the garden hoe, and the shod of the plow.  Odd, she
thought, he's even sharpened the tips of the hay fork.

The chopping block was clean, but she smelled a fire in the
smokehouse.  Then something far away caught her eye, beyond the village.

Smoke.  A thick column drifting upward at a lazy slant in
the light morning airs.  Not a cooking fire.

Syliva ran toward the house.  A fire in the east wood could
spread to the village.  The land was so dry. It could burn down the forest, and
they needed the forest now more than ever.

"Jonn," she screamed.  Why wasn't someone in the
village — now she heard it — someone finally blew the great horn.

"Jonn," she yelled again as she threw herself
against the door, "there's a fire in the woods; we have to go put it
out."  But he wasn't there.

She found him with the firefighters.  She had grabbed a
shovel, a bucket, and her medicine kit and ran all the way across the village
to where the wildfire raged.  Luckily, the wind had died, and the scores of
men, women, and boys digging trenches and hauling buckets of earth to douse the
flames had managed to contain the blaze.  Soon it became only a big smoldering
patch of blackened forest.  Some of the teenagers fetched water from the stream
and hunted down every last spark.

Aside from a few minor burns, no one was hurt.  When the
excitement died down, Syliva asked after her husband but no one had seen him.

"It must have been a wild spark from a chimney,"
Kurnt said to Celvake.  "Not much chance of it happening again."

Celvake shook his head.  "I wouldn't be too sure about
that.  I'm surprised it hasn't happened before."

Syliva stepped into the conversation.  "Celvake is
right.  We need to take precautions against this happening again.  If the wind
had been up, we might have lost our homes, or even our lives."

"Everyone keeps a bucket of dirt or water at their
house just for fire," Kurnt said.