Mistshore (24 page)

Icelin gasped. The crates were gone, transformed into a wide, foot-high stage that stretched from the port bow to the starboard. The boy pranced from one end to the other, pulling lit torches from a bag at his hip. He placed them in sconces at the edges of the stage. Their fiery brilliance lit up the suddenly shadowed hold. It was as if all the sunlight had been sucked from the ship, replaced by torches that gave off light but no heat.

“They can’t be real,” Icelin whispered to Ruen. “It’s wizardry. Illusion.”

“Complex magic that can transfigure and interact by itself, all for a crowd of beggars?” Ruen said. “No one would take such trouble.”

“Then what are they?” Sull asked.

It was Hatsolm who answered. “Ghosts,” he said.

A woman strode to the center of the stage and pulled a lute from her back. She began to play a lively tune for a pair of jugglers that somersaulted onto the stage. They tossed a dizzying handful of colored balls into the air and caught them before they gained their feet. Hatsolm laughed and clapped. The beggars were enraptured.

“They’re such a motley troupe,” Icelin said. “Shouldn’t they be haunting a playhouse?”

“That’s the charm of it,” Hatsolm said. He leaned closer so his voice wouldn’t carry to the stage. “They’ve never said, but I think the whole group was lost in a shipwreck. I’ll wager they’re chained to it still, so they seek out the audience that’s closest. Before we came, they said they performed for the crows. After we arrived, they took the shape of the crows and performed for us. Isn’t that lovely?”

“They sound friendlier than the sea wraiths, but are they dangerous?” Icelin asked.

“Not so long as you fix your attention on them and keep your tongue between your teeth,” Hatsolm said pointedly. “They don’t like to be interrupted.”

“Of course.” Icelin gave up and fell silent. She sat back against the hull and watched the boy, Kaelin, flitting through the crowd. He straightened a cloak here, shushed an errant tongue there, and teased an old woman who called him her boy. He seemed excessively fond of touching everyone. Icelin didn’t know if they could feel him, but all the faces turned up eagerly at his approach.

The jugglers bowed and ran offstage, leaving behind a trail of balls that burst into sparkling fireworks. When the light spots faded from Icelin’s eyes, the lute player was back, changing her tune to something mournful. It took Icelin a breath to recognize the tune.

The last falling twilight shines gold on the mountain. Give me eyes for the darkness, take me home, take me home.

Icelin’s heart stuttered in her chest. It was the same song she used to sing for Brant. The woman on stage looked directly at her while she strummed the lute.

“What’s wrong?” Ruen asked. He reached out but stopped short of touching her with his gloved hand.

“Nothing,” Icelin said, “I’m cold.” She wrapped her arms around herself.

Ruen continued to watch her intently. Icelin kept her eyes forward, but she couldn’t look at the woman’s face. The song was painful enough. She stared at the bard’s feet and tried to blank her mind.

She felt a weight across her shoulders. She looked up, off balance as Ruen pulled her against his side. His arm, hidden under the cloak, was draped across her shoulders. He was staring straight ahead.

“Ruen,” she said, fighting a smile, “your arm seems to have fallen on me in a suspicious gesture of comfort.”

“Is that so?” He still wouldn’t look at her. “I suppose your virtue is distressed by this turn of events?”

“Terribly. I believe I will expire from shock.”

“Better than expiring from the cold. Why is the song bothering you?”

“Brant, my great-uncle, loved this song,” Icelin said. She let

the words in. The lute players voice enveloped her like a warm blanket covered in needles.

“It’s a sad song,” Ruen said. “He’s lost in the wilderness. Does he ever find his way home?”

“The song doesn’t tell,” Icelin said. “What do you think?”

“I think a bard should say what she means. Otherwise what’s the point of the show?”

“What’s the point? “Kaelin shouted incredulously from right behind them. The lute player’s song ground to a halt.

Icelin sucked in a breath. Kaelin’s hand came down on her shoulder; it was ice cold and strangely invasive, as if he had put his hand inside her skin. She could tell by the lack of color in Ruen’s face that he’d had no idea the boy had been behind them.

Kaelin patted Ruen on the back before the monk could flinch away. “The point, he wants to know. He wants the full story of the boy lost in the wilderness.” Kaelin’s eyes sparkled. “But will he want it told, after all’s done?”

He looked at Ruen expectantly. Ruen shrugged. “Tell your tale. You’re the bards, and it’s no difference to me.”

“Truly, then, I have your permission?” Kaelin bent in a half-bow, so that his face was close to Ruen’s.

“Truly,” the monk said through gritted teeth. “Be gone.”

“How wonderful,” Kaelin said. “It will be a fine tale. Clear the stage! Places!”

The lute player vanished. She reappeared a breath later, without her lute and wearing a black cloak. She flipped her hood over her face and joined the rest of the troupe assembling at the back of the stage. They were all dressed identically, their clothes and features covered by the cloaks.

Kaelin jumped onto the stage, taking his place at the front of the assembly. “Who will play the lead?” he asked. He put his hand theatrically to his ear to hear the response of the crowd.

“Kaelin!” they cried on cue.

“Yes, and don’t you forget it,” Kaelin said. “Tonight, I will be playing the part of the boy lost in the wilderness, the boy named Ruen Morleth.” He swept an arm up, and suddenly he was swathed in black too.

Ruen sat forward, his jaw muscles rigid. “What are they doing?” he said.

Hatsolm answered. “They’re going to tell your story,” he said eagerly. “You’re lucky to be chosen. Most newcomers never get picked until they’ve been here at least a season.”

“How do they know what to say?” Icelin asked, as Ruen lost more color. “They know nothing about us.”

“Silence before a performance! We know all we need, just by touch,” Kaelin said from the stage. His voice sounded deeper, older. He swept off the cloak. It dissolved into a flurry of crows that flew out over the crowd. The stage transformed in the birds’ wake.

The bow of the boat was now a forest glade, draped in dense green ferns. A small, stagnant pond dominated the scene, its watery arms wrapped around the exposed roots of an oak that crawled up the hull.

Icelin’s eyes blurred at the sudden appearance of the illusion. She knew it wasn’t real, yet she swore she could smell the moss clinging to the pond stones. Unseen, a sparrow chirped its shrill song. Wind rustled in the wild grasses.

“Not natural,” Bellaril said. She swiped a hand across her nose, as if she could smell the green too. “Magic can’t mimic life, not like that.”

“Ah, but death can mimic life. The dead remember.” Kaelin’s voice echoed from the heart of the glade, though they could not see him. His voice still sounded strange.

Two cloaked figures, male and female by their shape, came from opposite ends of the glade to stand in front of the pond. They faced each other. Only visible were the skin of their hands and bare feet.

“Where is my son,” the woman cried, “my foolish, fanciful boy, who runs through the forest like a wild animal?”

“He likes to run,” hissed the man. “Loves to run away and worry his mother. What a terrible boy; he thinks the village is not good enough for him. Poor, foolish boy.”

“That’s not true,” Ruen murmured, but only Icelin could hear him above the cloaked woman’s wailing.

“Where are you, Ruen!” With her slender arm extended to the forest, the woman dropped to her knees as a blue light foun-tained from within the green pond. The light cast the ferns and the cloaked figures in glowing relief. The woman shouted, “He is doomed!”

She disappeared. The man crouched to address the audience in a stage whisper.

“But does the boy know why he is doomed? Did his mother never warn him of what lurks in the forest? Poor, poor mother. Poor, ignorant son.”

The blue light faded, and the man vanished, his cloaked form revealing a small figure sitting by the pond, his back to the audience. Lazily, he reclined on his elbows and tossed a fishing line into the water. Somewhere, a bird called, and the boy turned his head to stare at the audience.

Icelin felt Ruen stiffen next to her. She made to put her hand on his arm, but he moved away, closer to the stage.

Icelin looked at the boy. It took her a moment to realize that it was not Kaelin sitting there, but an older boy. He lacked Kaelin’s mischievous air and had an overly serious demeanor, his mouth twisted in an introspective frown.

His hair was dark, with brambles and grass clinging to its wild strands. But his eyes… they were common brown, yet so familiar.

Icelin looked from Ruen to the boy and back again. In her mind she filled in the progression of years—the widening jaw, the added height and musculature of manhood. Ruen was in his

early thirties, the boy only thirteen or fourteen, but Icelin could see it. They were not so different, except for the eyes. The boy was Ruen.

Icelin watched the young Ruen strip down to the waist and wade out into the pond. Up to his elbows in the green muck, he took swipes at the water, coming up with a bright green frog. He put it back in the water and watched it swim.

When the blue light came back, the boy didn’t see it at first. He was too absorbed in watching a dragonfly glide in dizzying circles over the water. Its wings touched the edge of the blue light. There was a flash, and the dragonfly disappeared, vaporized by the magic surge.

Seeing the light, the boy waded to the spot, his hand outstretched.

“Don’t do it,” Icelin said. “Don’t touch it, you’ll be killed!” Hatsolm and the others were looking at her strangely, but she ignored them. She looked at the adult Ruen. His body was still tight, but he watched the scene with a kind of detached resignation.

The boy stepped into deeper water. The light wrapped around him, flowing up his legs and chest until he had to squeeze his eyes shut against the brightness. Panicked, he tried to back away, but he lost his balance and fell, his head going under the water.

The beggars gasped. Hatsolm murmured, “He’s lost now. The plague’ll rot his mind.”

Icelin knew better. She waited, her hands clutching her skirt.

The boy’s head burst from the water, and he was screaming, clutching his face, and thrashing while he tried desperately to find the shore. He crawled onto the bank and collapsed in a snarl of cattails. Their brown heads quivered above him.

The blue light continued to glow, but Icelin could see the pond’s surface bubbling. The floating plants and moss shriveled up and turned black, their essences consumed by the spellplague.

Soon, the water itself began to recede, pulling away from the bank and leaving behind a jagged shelf of claylike soil.

The boy rolled onto his back, his eyes staring vacantly at the crater where the pond had been. Streaks of blood ran down his cheeks. He climbed unsteadily to his feet and ran blindly into the green glade, away from the empty crater.

He stumbled and fell against the oak tree. There was a loud, sickening crack. The boy screamed and clutched his arm. He stumbled and ran on.

The boy vanished, the glade melted from green to brown, and suddenly a small parody of a village square grew from the ship’s hull. The tallest buildings stood to the port and starboard side. Each adjacent building was smaller than these, making the village appear to recede down a long tunnel.

An old woman hobbled across the dusty path down the center of the village, passing in front of a thatched house with no windows. In the open doorway, a sullen boy crouched, playing with the rocks at his feet. A dirty linen bandage covered his left eye. The other was red and swollen. He blinked rapidly when the wind kicked up.

That same wind yanked the old woman’s shawl from across her shoulders. The scrap of green fabric tumbled through the dust and tangled with the boy’s dirty feet.

Wearing an irritated expression, the boy tore the shawl away and started to hurl it across the square, but he stopped when he saw the old woman. They watched each other—the shawl dangling from the boy’s hand—each unsure what to do.

Slowly, the old woman walked to the doorway and stood over the boy. When she stretched out her hand, he put the shawl in it and started to back away, but she caught his hand in both of hers.

“I am so sorry about your eyes, boy,” she said. “My sight is failing me, just as yours is. Someday soon, we both of us will have to help each other.”

“I’m not going blind,” the boy cried. “I don’t need any help! Let go—your hands hurt.” The boy struggled to loose his hand, but the old woman clutched him tighter.

“It’s all right to be scared,” she said. “It won’t be so bad.”

“You’re cold,” the boy whimpered. His hand had turned blue in the woman’s grip. “Your hands are too cold. Get away from me!”

He shoved her. She dropped his hand and fell in the hard dirt. Her cry of pain brought more figures running from the neighboring buildings. The boy ran inside his house, screaming, “Mother!”

The old woman’s shawl drifted away on the wind. Icelin’s eyes were still following the patch of green when the scene changed again.

This time it was the smoky interior of one of the thatched cottages. The old woman lay on a bed below a dark window. Candlelight illuminated her sunken features. She was cleariy dead.

Kaelin’s black-cloaked figures stood over the bed, talking in hushed whispers.

“They say he touched her, the day before she died. His hands were red and raw, like he’d been frostbitten. Frostbitten in the middle of Flamerule!”

“I say he made it happen,” a female voice whispered. “The spellplague wormed through his fingers and killed poor Megwem. Any of us could be next. Don’t let him touch you. He’s got death in his hands!”

The black cloaks melted, and the scene changed again. Another cottage, a dirty kitchen, and the boy now sitting on the floor in front of a fire pit. A woman sat on a chair behind him. She had gray hair and bony arms. She cut herbs in quick little chopping motions on a board. Every few breaths, she would look up at the boy. Her eyes were shadowed.