Authors: Julie E. Czerneda
More and more hammers lent their music to the air, accompanied by at least one saw. Zehr had stopped by their wagon on his second trip bringing tools to Jupp’s house, missing shingles thanks to the wind. “We’re happy to earn our supper,” offered Bannan. “Could we help with repairs?”
“I’ll be using anything sharp,” Tir broke in. “Unless it’s a sword, he’s apt to slice off a thumb.”
Zehr chuckled. Bannan grinned, his hands out and open in mock surrender. “I’ll learn.”
“Start with fetch and carry,” his helpful companion suggested. “It’ll be safer.”
Something villagers were doing everywhere, now that the storm had passed, including Kydd, who walked toward them with a thick bundle under his arm. He waved at the three, but turned off the road to the mill. Was Wyll awake? Bannan hoped so. He had questions. Innumerable ones. Starting with the shape beneath the wounded skin.
Zehr noticed too; his face lost his cheer. “Have either of you skill with injuries?”
“Wyll’s taken a turn for the worse?”
“No, no. He’s on the mend.”
Good news, surely. “But there’s a concern,” Bannan guessed.
“He threw some kind of fit before the storm,” the villager admitted uncomfortably. “Covie refuses to care for him and who can blame her?”
Tir came closer, eyes intent. “What did he do?”
“He pushed her to the floor, hard enough to bruise. I understand a man not being right in his head after an injury, but that’s no excuse to hurt someone trying to help you. Wen took over, but she—Wen isn’t—” The honest man floundered, but struggled on. “We’re not sure she’s capable, and Kydd—Kydd paints and keeps bees.”
“I’ve experience in such matters.” The vague wording would, Bannan hoped, imply all manner of battlefield stress and madness. “Tir, why don’t you help our friend here with the roof? I’ll see what assistance I can offer.”
Relieved, Zehr didn’t argue. “Most kind of you. Both of you.”
Leaving Tir to rummage happily in the wagon for the tools purchased in Endshere, brand new and oiled in their leather wraps, Bannan strode to the mill, eager to solve the first of Marrowdell’s puzzles: the man who was something else.
The air inside the mill was noticeably cooler and more pleasant; the night would indeed be “sticky” as Zehr had said. Bannan paused to listen. Someone worked below; pumping water, by the sound of it. Quiet voices above. There.
He climbed the stairs on his toes. What he hoped to surprise at the top, he couldn’t have told himself.
At first, it seemed he’d surprised nothing more mysterious than a clothes’ fitting. Kydd’s bundle lay open on the floor, revealing an assortment of men’s apparel. He stood holding a shirt against Wyll, who was definitely on the mend if he could dress.
Bannan hadn’t made a sound. Before he could, Wyll turned his head to gaze at him with silver eyes.
No, they were brown. Why had he thought silver?
“Glad you’re feeling better,” Bannan said.
Kydd looked up and smiled a greeting. “Bannan Larmensu, this is Wyll. Of Marrowdell.”
Of the valley, if not the village. Interesting. “I’m honored.” Bannan stepped forward and swept a full bow, touching the floor with his fingertips. As he did, he saw that something the size and shape of a fist had crushed the wood in three places. Rose petals lay scattered nearby, with no flowers or vase in sight.
“Bannan.” Wyll’s voice was pleasant, with a trace of the villagers’ Lower Rhoth accent. His seeming? Pitiful and twisted, the wreck of an otherwise comely man barely able to stand erect without help.
A lie. The wounds that had bled over Bannan’s hands and shirt were gone. Pants hid the shattered hip and the stance was confident despite its bend. Where not disfigured or scarred, the flesh was strong and healthy.
And beneath the shape, if he stared long and hard, there was another. Stronger. Stranger.
No wonder Covie had fled.
“Tir won’t let me near a saw or hammer,” Bannan explained, deliberately casual as he walked toward the two. “I came to see if you could use a hand.”
Kydd nodded. “Thanks. Pants were the easy part. The shirts will need tailoring, but the Treffs can take care of that,” this to Wyll, who looked politely interested and wasn’t, Bannan was sure. Going to the clothes on the floor, the beekeeper picked out a garment. “This should do for now.” “This” being a well-worn, sleeveless leather jerkin, laced with leather strips along the sides as well as partway down the front. “Let me—”
“I can manage,” Wyll said gently, taking it in his good hand.
Not one-handed, he couldn’t, Bannan knew.
Then, what he knew changed.
Like supple snakes, the laces slipped from their holes and curled against the leather. Wyll pushed his head through the neck opening and shrugged the jerkin over his shoulders. Once the garment settled, the laces wove themselves back through and finished in tidy knots, save for a gap in the front; explained once Wyll took his withered left hand and tucked it securely inside.
“This is comfortable.” He stroked the leather with his good hand. “Please thank your brother for me.”
“Thank him yourself at supper,” Kydd said, so calm Bannan gaped at him. Seeing his expression, the beekeeper smiled. “Astonishing, isn’t it? What Wyll can do. I’ve never seen the like.”
So this wasn’t Marrowdell. This was Wyll. Magic, without chant or smelly potion. “What else can you do?” Bannan asked, pleased by how normal he sounded.
“Small conveniences.” A faint, self-deprecating smile. “You needn’t fear me.”
Both were lies.
Bannan swallowed. Should he expose them? Dare he?
“Wyll is Jenn’s friend,” Kydd said, with a slightly anxious air.
Power to power. Of course there was attraction. It didn’t mean the friendship was benign.
Just as well he was staying. Just as well.
Letting none of his concern show, Bannan offered his hand. “We have something in common.”
Wyll met his grip after the barest hesitation. As their palms touched, Bannan again glimpsed silver in his eyes. And something else.
Grief. Deep and terrible.
His breath caught in his throat. His other hand rose to clasp Wyll’s, not in compassion, but to hold himself steady. To somehow endure what he saw long enough, long enough . . . to . . . understand . . .
Wyll freed his hand with a tiny, irresistible flex of his wrist. “Excuse me,” he said politely, “but I’m eager to leave this place.”
Kydd rolled the clothes back into the bundle. “You’ll accompany us?” He hadn’t missed Bannan’s moment of discomfort; he’d want an explanation.
“Delighted.”
“Then we go.” Wyll twisted himself forward, step by step, each awkward movement powerful; each with its cost in pain. Bannan could see it in his face.
At the top of the stairs, Wyll stopped. Bannan and Kydd caught up and glanced at one another. Fifteen wooden steps, wide but not deep, led straight down. Other than support beams every three, they were open to the main floor of the mill. There wasn’t a handrail.
“Can you manage stairs?” Bannan asked, considering what they could do if not.
“How should I know?” With exasperated sincerity. “These are my first as a man.”
The truth. But . . . “How—how can that be?”
Kydd’s eyes shone. “Because Wyll’s only been a man since this morning.” He kept his voice low. “You were wished into this shape, weren’t you? I was there, when Jenn came back from the meadow. I knew something profound had happened.”
Jenn Nalynn had done this. Bannan felt no doubt, though the how was beyond him. But why? And why make him like this, misshapen and in pain? If she’d meant harm, which he refused to believe, she could have left Wyll in the river to drown.
“What were you before?” the beekeeper went on, his eagerness bubbling over.
Wyll narrowed his eyes. “Different.”
He still was. That much Bannan knew. Like the road and the trees. Whatever altered Wyll’s appearance went no deeper than eyes could see. Not that eyes could be trusted in Marrowdell.
“Let’s keep all this to ourselves for now, shall we?” he suggested, remembering Zehr and what he’d said about Covie.
“I don’t know who’d believe us if we told them,” Kydd said fervently. “Marrowdell’s eccentricities aren’t like this. I mean no offense.”
“None taken.” Wyll looked at the stairs and murmured, more to himself than them. “I should fall and get it over with.”
He could see the outline of . . . wings. He was sure there were wings. As his awareness flickered confusingly between man and other, filled with wonder, Bannan spoke without thinking. “Why don’t you fly?”
Wyll turned, eyes molten silver. “You first.”
A burst of wind, oven-hot with an abattoir’s stench, slammed into Bannan and sent him sliding backward. His heels dragged and bounced along the floor. He craned his head around. He was being pushed to the open window!
He flung out his arms, tried to grab the frame. Instead, one hand found the pulley rope. With an effort that strained every muscle, he twisted to grasp the rope with his other hand as his feet and legs were swept from under him. Buffeted by wind, he hung halfway through the window.
The rope gave and he flew out!
The pulley brake caught with a snap and somehow he held, swinging over air. “Stop!” Kydd was shouting. “Stop! Bannan saved your life! He saved Jenn’s!”
The wind pushed harder, flapping his body like a flag. He couldn’t last . . . the fall wouldn’t kill him, Bannan judged in an agony of fear. It would leave him maimed, like Wyll.
“Listen to me. He meant no harm! He’s a truthseer! He can see you!”
The wind shifted, flipping Bannan back inside like a toy, dropping him on hands and knees. Arms shaking, he raised his head to glare at Wyll. “Ingrate.”
Admirable restraint, that was. Lila’d be proud.
“What truth do you see?” Wyll demanded.
Not a question he felt safe answering; not a question safe to avoid. Bannan stood with Kydd’s help, thanking him with a look and nod. Few would have stayed in the face of such extraordinary threat. He flexed his rope-scored hands as he eyed the not-man; his insides, being sensible, tried to tie themselves in knots. Weapons, strength, skill? Nothing against an opponent like this. “I asked if you could fly,” he replied at last, “for when I look at you, I see wings.”
“I’m a man. I have none.”
“You’re a man,” Bannan conceded. “But I see a different shape beneath.” Hopefully Wyll wouldn’t ask for details. What he saw . . . they were glimpses of a whole, a whole he couldn’t comprehend, let alone express in words.
“What you see no longer exists,” said Wyll calmly. “We should leave now.” He resumed his careful study of the stairs. “One of you go first, please, so I see how it’s done.”
A real man would show some sign of having tried to kill you, Bannan thought, numb. Someone born in this shape would have the decency to feel remorse or at least be bitter about failure. He’d rather have anger than be forgotten.
Present company excepted.
“We could get the smith,” Bannan said with an effort, unwilling to touch the not-man. “He carried you up.”
Wyll shuddered. “I wasn’t awake.”
“Davi’s butchering your ox.” Kydd’s voice wasn’t normal either. “It strayed into the fields,” to Wyll.
“Good news at last,” Wyll declared. The smile was the first Bannan had seen on the not-man’s face. “After dispatching an intruder of such size, the efflet’s bloodlust will be aroused.” At their blank looks, he added, “They’ll stay close.”
And that was good news? Allies, Bannan thought with dread, his pulse still a-race. Invisible beings capable of killing an ox, when Wyll himself was threat enough.
“What are efflet?” Kydd demanded. “Is Marrowdell in danger?”
“Of course not,” Wyll appeared puzzled. “Efflet protect the kaliia, what you call grain. That’s all. But they can be asked favors.” His eyes turned silver. “If I can attract a few . . .”
Bannan held his breath, his fingers itching for a sword hilt, useless or not. Kydd looked in no better frame of mind, beads of sweat on his high forehead. When Wyll exclaimed, “Ah!” both men flinched and looked around, wild-eyed, but there was nothing to see.
But something had come. For an instant, Bannan glimpsed how the air around the not-man flickered, then thickened, as if he’d been wrapped in the finest gauze.
“Gently,” Wyll admonished. He rose off his feet and floated in midair. Before Bannan or Kydd could react, he plunged down the stairwell shouting, “GENTLY!”
The men gave chase. “He said he couldn’t fly,” Kydd gasped as they thundered down the stairs.
Wyll hit the floor with a sodden thud.
“He can’t,” Bannan affirmed.
“Silly unreliable creatures,” Wyll was muttering when they reached the bottom. He winced as he rose to his feet.
So. Not invulnerable.
Horst and Radd came from the basement, both splattered with mud, Radd clutching a shovel. “What happened?” he demanded. “We heard something fall.” His eyes locked on Wyll and widened. “You’re awake!” To Bannan’s surprise, he bowed. “An honor.”
“The honor is mine,” Wyll said at once, managing his own bow in return. “You are Radd Nalynn, miller, father, and brother.” He bowed next to Horst. “And the guardian, who today saved Jenn Nalynn.”
Had Kydd told him? Bannan wondered, seeing the truth in Wyll’s face, or had he somehow known what happened on the road? If so . . . a chill fingered his spine.
“‘Saved Jenn?’” Radd’s face lost all color. “Horst? What does he mean?”
The old soldier closed his eyes briefly, then turned to face his friend. “It’s what I came to tell you. Jenn was on the road—”
The miller dropped the shovel. His hand groped for the nearest column and closed, white-knuckled, on that support. “By the Ancestors . . . why?”
“It was my fault,” Horst said quickly. “She wasn’t trying to leave. She told me she’d argued with Roche. When I went after him, she followed. It shouldn’t have happened. We brought her back with us.”
With obvious effort, Radd composed himself, hand falling to his side. He picked up the shovel. “All’s well, then,” he said with forced cheer.
“No, it isn’t.” Kydd stepped forward, his mouth a thin line. “What’s this about Jenn being cursed?”