Magic of Mirstone, page 21
The flecks of gold in the cobblestones were nearly blinding by the time he reached the crossroads, late in the afternoon. The inn was a tall, white-washed house with a weathered timber frame, the only thing to announce its hospitality was a small sign over the door with three letters pressed in the wood and embossed in gold. Roul couldn’t read, but he admired the letters all the same.
The traveling house was parked before the Inn, all its garish color a contrast to the stark white wall. The boy and the horses were nowhere to be found, but a blue girl a few years older than the boy sat on the steps, surrounded by pots, pans, and washtubs, haggling with a dusty farmer over some sacks of grain.
The inn was full of music and people, but as he looked around the common room, Roul realized that most of them were peculiar players. The teilfing stood by the bar, in earnest conversation with another traveler. The others occupied tables and stools, but none of them were drinking. They were all engaged in conversation, even the veiled women.
At the end of the room, the beautiful elf lady in red pants and not much else stood, singing, and the gnome in the loincloth played a dulcimer to her tune.
“An extra, an extra, we truly need this
Extra . . . We asked him, we asked him—”
She pointed straight at Roul here, and he felt all the eyes in the room swivel to face him—
“But he’d rather be the star
In his own play,
Oh, won’t you, won’t you, won’t you . . .
Be . . . Our . . . Extraaaaaaa . . .”
She hit a high note and kept going. Reddened, Roul tried to be casual as he approached the proprietor at the bar, a safe distance from the teifling.
“I need a meal and a stall or a loft for the night, if you have it,” Roul said, loud enough to be heard over her song. He could have slept in a haystack again, but he wanted to look his best when he reached El Tal. “I’ve no coin, but I’m good for fixin’ things. If you’ve pots and pans you need mending or horses you need shod.”
“No coin, eh?” The innkeeper was a portly man with stains up and down a once-white apron. He tapped out a pipe on the counter and brushed the ash down to the floor. He tamped the pipe and stuck it in his jaw unlit. “Dunno about no coin. I’ve brand new pots and all. Smithy came last week to shoe my horse.”
“Well, I can wash-up, or haul anything heavy you’ve got. Please, Sir? I meant to reach the city today, and I ate the last of my bread.”
The innkeeper glared down his nose at Roul. A big boil was on the end of it, and Roul wanted nothing so much as to pop it. “Alright. You can haul up the wash water tonight for a loaf of bread. There’s no room for you here, though. You’ll have to sleep in the hedge tonight.”
Roul wanted to haggle, but the teifling was approaching and he did not desire a conversation with him. “Alright, Goodman. I’ll get started right away. Which way to the pump?”
Before the innkeeper could speak, the teifling reached them and clapped Roul on the back in a friendly way. Roul suppressed a shiver of dread. Up close, the teifling was big. His horns looked sharp.
But his tone was pleasant when he said, “The name’s Lajic, my friend. I’ve a tip for you. Be our extra tonight, and the troop might cut you into a sweet little profit. Want to know what draws us to the Feywilds?”
Roul was suddenly curious, but he stifled it with a shrug.
“Legend has it there’s a ring, hidden deep in the Feywilds, which endows its wearer with the power to smith gold from any metal. We plan to distract the Fey Court with an outrageous performance, while one of us sneaks away and steals the ring. Extra for us in the Feywilds and a percentage of a great profit could be yours.”
The allure of a ring that would make all metals gold tugged at Roul, but caution stayed him. Bad enough that he was face to face with a teifling. The Feywilds teemed with all manner of creatures, many benign, others far more dreaded than demon-descent.
“I’m for El Tal,” Roul said firmly. “Surely one of these other wayward souls will extra for you?”
“Lanise has had no luck yet,” Lajic replied. “It will really be a shame if we show up in the Feywilds without our extra. We might have to use our driver, Ghen, but he’s all wrong for the part.”
One of the barmaids came then with buckets and showed Roul to the yard, where he pumped the buckets full. He spent the next few hours hauling water up and filling the ten copper tubs in the men’s bathroom, while the stable boy brought wood for heating them. The room turned smoky and steamy. On the stairs, he passed a girl in buck-hide trousers hauling buckets up to the women’s. She gave him an impish grin as he stared at her strained shoulders. The third time they crossed paths, she with empty buckets coming down, she spoke.
“Off to ‘prentice in El Tal, are ya?”
“Goldsmithy,” Roul grunted. The buckets were damn heavy. “You?”
“Tailor, can’tcha tell?” She giggled all the way down.
“You workin’ off your bread and board too?” She asked on the next pass, surprisingly chatty with the weight of the buckets on her shoulders. “I’m savin’ every coin for my ‘prentice fees.”
Roul said nothing to that. Tailors must be a strange folk if they charged willing workers to learn. On the next pass, he mentioned it to her. Curtly.
“Oh, all the Crafters in El Tal are like that. You think we’re the only bumpkins to come to the great city to learn? Do you mean to say you’ve nothing laid by at all?”
On the next pass, she said nothing, only looked at him strangely, and after that, she said in a softer tone, “I don’t mean to be discouraging. But you’ll have a hard time of it if you show up in El Tal asking after all the smithies without a ‘prentice fee to show. Go home, farmer, and save up some coin. Sell extra tomatoes or eggs in the market or something. I hunted deer and tanned and sold hides for three years before I had the coin I needed.”
He tried not to pay her heed, but her words troubled him, and while he was eating the meal he’d earned—a surprisingly generous portion of roast chicken with bread, sardines, and olives—he asked a couple of other travelers to confirm her story. The players still dominated the common room, but they had either found an extra or given it up because they were subdued as they ate their evening meal. The couple on the stage had been replaced by the fish-headed man, wearing baggy trousers and playing a washtub bass.
The would-be tailor’s story was confirmed by no less than five other travelers, some going toward their own apprenticeships, others heading out from El Tal to start their careers. None had worked with goldsmiths, but one, a handsome man in a silk waistcoat, said with a haughty air that the apprentice fee charged by his master, a jeweler, had been worth the price of a mid-sized farm.
By the time he’d buttered his last piece of bread and choked it down, Roul was completely disheartened. And just around that time, Lajic clapped him on the back again and set down two ales in front of him, pulling up the chair to his side, nearly knocking down the haughty man’s tankard.
“A gift for you, my friend,” Lajic said, a little slurred. “Just to prove to you there are no hard feelings. I drink to your health.”
“Did you find an extra, then?”
“No. The driver-boy will play the extra, leaving his own part unfilled. A hole in the play may arouse suspicion, but we will take the risk.”
“You’re certain this ring is there? That you can find it, and make it work?”
“We are certain. My friend, you cannot imagine the riches! We will have enough money to build a theatre in the heart of El Tal if we succeed in this. A permanent theatre, with a stage as large as a throne room! With ropes and cranes and trapdoors and the most beautiful, red-and-gold velvet seats you can possibly imagine! Balconies and chandeliers and damask wallpaper! We will have it all if we can please the rulers of the Feywilds . . .”
“I’ll do it,” Roul found himself saying, swept up in Lajic’s description of the theatre. Surely a mere fraction of that wealth would pay for his apprentice fees and more. And if they allowed him to use the ring himself . . . Beyond the wealth, the allure of working huge bars of iron into gold tugged at Roul. “I’ll be your extra.”
“ . . . Riches beyond your wildest dreams, farmboy! Your percentage would be a tiny fraction of the wealth, but you could buy your mother five farms and the slaves to work them if only you would—”
“I said I’ll do it,” Roul said louder, taking the first sip of his ale. It was stronger than the stuff the brewer in his village made. “I’ll be your extra.”
The clap on his back nearly made him choke, and he almost regretted consenting when Lajic burst out in loud, jubilant song, “He’ll be our extra, our extra, he’ll really be our extra . . .” And all the other players joined in.
When the noise finally died down, Roul asked the questions he should have asked first. They would only be in the Feywilds a fortnight, Lajic assured him. Their appointment was to perform for three nights, but time in the Feywilds worked differently, so they’d be coming out in a fortnight. And the players would be coming directly to El Tal after they left the Feywilds. His share would be a generous twentieth of some vague sum of riches that Roul could not quite pin him down on.
“Will you pay for my lodging for the night?”
“Lodging?” Lajic swallowed his ale and laughed. “You’ll sleep on the pageant wagon tonight, my friend. We set off at sunset. You can only approach the Feywilds at certain times, and tonight is one of those rare times. Under a full spring moon, as the constellation Riazonid is rising on the eastern horizon, when it hasn’t rained in exactly four and a half days, and when a two-headed calf has been born within six leagues of the Feywilds. Only tonight are the signs all correct.”
So it was, without a decent night’s sleep to call his own, Roul found himself sitting atop the wagon, yawning while the girl in buckskins yelled at the horses.
“You!” Roul said in surprise.
“I have a name. Katrice.” She rolled her eyes. “Ghen fell ill and has to stay behind, so they hired me on to drive. I’ll have a chance to sew costumes, too. Besides, I couldn’t pass up a chance to see the Feywilds.”
A scarlet sky framed the shoulders of the deep, dark valley where the Feywilds lurked. When the inn had disappeared completely, Lajic’s horned head appeared beside Roul, startling him, from a hidden window in the wagon house. “Any metal on ya, extra?”
“My name is Roul. I’ve a pocket knife.”
“Chuck it in the ditch, my friend. We’ll pick it up on the way back. Can’t take metal into the Feywilds.”
He disappeared into the wagon again. Roul hesitated, then considered the girl selling pots by the inn, and threw his knife into the bushes. He had no coin, and his belt was woven linen without a buckle.
“What are the horses shod in?”
“Pure ivory,” Katrice said with a grin. Roul did not know if she was making fun or not.
The sky faded to a deep cerulean and the stars came out, followed by the moon, a pale, featureless head on the shoulders of the Feywilds. Swaths of farmland gave way to dense forest. The night grew chill. The road grew narrow, and the cobblestones turned to bare earth, moss growing in the center between the ruts. The horses slowed as the grade steepened up the valley. Roul thought he could see lights far away between the trees, and moonlit shapes moving beside the road.
Presently, a distant lantern drew closer, illuminating the road ahead with a bright orange glow, warm and welcoming. Katrice slowed the horses, finally pulling them to a stop where the road leveled out.
They were close enough that Roul could see the lantern casing casting shadows over the peculiar procession that followed it. The woman who held the light wore a long dress of white silk, the perfect backdrop for the shadows. Did Roul imagine it, or did wings like a butterfly’s grace her shoulders? She wore a crown of forget-me-nots on her brow. Behind her came a train of Fey folk so long that it disappeared behind the bend of the road. More winged ladies like her were in it, and strange little elves with hats made of leaves and bramble, and a young boy leading a unicorn, several small folk riding foxes, and even a girl on a wildcat.
Those were the creatures he could see clearly in the light of the lantern. In the shadows, even stranger creatures lurked. Roul squinted to make out concubus, hags, bark-skinned Kapre, and mouthless, whispy marunae. All around them, sprites and fairies fluttered and glimmered like little stars catching the light.
While Roul was staring agog at this strange procession, the beautiful winged lady had stopped beside the foremost horse of the pageant wagon, stroking its nose, and the wagon door had opened. Roul half expected the stage to open again, and the play for the Fey Court to begin, but only Lajic stepped out.
The teifling made an elaborate leg before the lady with the lantern and spoke quietly to her. Roul could not hear the words he uttered, but her reply was projected to carry.
“I am sorry you have come all this way, but the Feywilds are closed to mortals at this time.”
Her voice was like a clear, tinkling brook, enchanting Roul. He began to question his decision to seek his fortune in the city. Might not it be better simply to live in the Feywilds forever, merely to hear that voice again?
Un-enchanted, Lajic argued. “But we have a show, a spectacular show, and we’ve been rehearsing for months and months to offer this entertainment to the Fey court. Is there nothing you can do, my friend?”
“The border is closed for your safety, player. There is an infestation of blights about. Come no further down this road; only death and despair await.”
“We have come far, and it is quite late. Can we at least camp here for the night?”
“Of course. The blights will not stray past the border. Rest, teifling, and turn around tomorrow.”
The door opened again, and players poured out of the wagon. They soon had a fire lit, horses unharnessed, pallets set up beside the road. The Fey watched them for a while with apparent fascination, but eventually, they lost interest and melted back into the shadows.
As soon as the wildcat’s moonlit tail disappeared into the night, Lajic whispered, “break stage!” In seconds, the horses were harnessed again, the fire doused, the bedding stowed.
“How did they do that so fast?” Roul asked Katrice as she whipped the horses forward again. “It should have taken at least twenty minutes to set and break camp.”
“They’re players,” the girl said in a tone that made Roul feel ignorant. “That’s what players do. They didn’t actually unharness the horses, silly.”
Roul thought about that and realized that he had seen a flurry of activity around the horses and assumed they were being unharnessed, but they hadn’t broken from their places in front of the wagon.
“But we’re continuing? Even after that warning?” Whatever the blight were, Roul had no desire to meet them.
“Of course. This is our only chance to enter the Feywilds. The blight’ll prolly just try to scare us.” She sounded nervous, though.
The road continued through thicker and thicker forest. The night grew darker and colder. A shadow fell across the moonlit road ahead. A wide, dark shadow, black as tar, surrounded by strange, twiggy shrubs.
The horses in the front shied at the sight and tried to veer from the road. Katrice whipped the reins across the backs of the horses nearest the wagon, and they plunged forward, pushing the front pair into the shadow.
The front horses fell to their knees and screamed, a sound that ripped across Roul’s heart like a piece of broken glass. The twiggy shrubs rose, surrounded by shadow, to pull them forward and down. The other horses fought the pull, but it looked like the whole wagon would be consumed by the shadow mire in seconds. Windows and doors opened and the heads of several players popped out, but the wagon was lurching with the motion of the horses, and in the darkness, Roul knew they could not see clearly what he knew was there.
“Cut the harness!” Roul shouted, leaping from his seat atop the wagon house. He searched his belt for his knife and found it missing; cringed when he recalled chucking it into the roadside. Katrice leaped down beside him and worked the fastenings; together, they freed the bulk of the team from the foremost struggling, screaming horses just as they disappeared completely into shadow.
The second the hind four horses were free, they turned alongside the blighty darkness. In their haste to be away from the terror, they reared and plunged, and the entire house tipped on its side, straight into the shadow mire.
Roul watched in stunned disbelief as the shadow swallowed up the gleaming wagon house. He caught a shadowy glimpse of veiled figures trying to flee out the side windows, but the shadows pulled them back into the mire. The remaining horses were screaming and trying to break free. For a moment that stretched to eternity, Roul and Katrice were too shocked and horrified to do anything.
Katrice came out of her shock first and managed to get one of the horses free of its harness while Roul watched dumbly. Roul thought she would free the others, but instead, she climbed the horse like a tree and slapped its rump. The horse was happy to comply; the two disappeared back down the road toward El Tal.
Then the twig blights came out of the shadow. Roul took a stunned step backward when several dark tree shapes rose from the mire and took on demonesque forms. He shivered in terror, afraid to move. They paid him absolutely no heed, but instead lifted the sides of the shadow mire like a blanket and carried it away into the dark depths of the forests—horses, house, players and all.
They left behind an eerie silence, and Roul just stared at the road where the mire had been, too shocked and horrified to move. The coldness dug into his bones and he played the scene over and over in his mind, wondering if he could have saved them somehow.
Presently, he heard a quiet singing above, rich and deep. He looked up to see a vague outline of an elven woman’s huge, pale face in the starry sky. Her arms rested on the shoulders of the valley, and as she sang, she reached down toward Roul. Frozen in place, he did not resist her touch, and her arms folded around his shoulders, soothing him. He grew warmer, and after a moment he realized that a creature of flesh was holding him in her arms. He stepped away and saw a mature elf in a cerulean, star-studded dress standing before him. Her hair was pitch black, and her face glowed softly like the moon.
