A Play of Shadow (42 page)

Later. To his sure knowledge, the boys hadn’t been to Mellynne. “How did you recognize where your mother was, Werfol?” he inquired, keeping it to a curiosity over pudding.

His nephews, back to being two halves of a whole, gave each other sidelong looks. Semyn shrugged and gave a tiny nod.

“Father brought home a map, but it wasn’t a map, it was—” Werfol waved his hands as he groped for words.

“You might mistake it for an ordinary drawing, Uncle, but if you look at it like this—” Semyn crouched until his eyes were level with top of his bowl, “—you can see buildings and canals and bridges—”

“—and when you touch them, they say their names! Ancestors Witness, Uncle!”

Clearly the best part of the map. “Channen is a source of marvels,” Bannan said agreeably.

Jenn frowned; not the reaction he’d expect in someone who dearly loved maps. “Shadow District. Why that name?”

“Because the sun doesn’t shine there,” Semyn answered eagerly. “But it only seems so. There are thick clouds overhead, always. Father said it’s like walking through twilight. Every evening, there’s fog as well.”

“Sounds bloody awful.” Tir put down his mug. “Why build a city there?”

Werfol gave him a surprised look. “For the magic.”

“Father said the Shadow District was beautiful. He wanted to show us, but—” Semyn stared down at his pudding. “The situation became unstable.”

Spoken like the son of a baron. Or Lila, Bannan reminded himself. The boys had been steeped in politics from birth; moreover, they were trained observers. He found himself asking, as he might of their parents. “Channen’s Shadow District. Why is your mother there? What does it have to do with your father?”

“Sir.” Mild, that protest. The look Tir gave him wasn’t.

Bannan lifted a finger. Wait.

“Go on,” Semyn told his brother. “Tell them what you told me, Weed. What you saw. Why you screamed.”

“It was a shout,” Werfol grumbled. “I was surprised, that’s all. You’d have been too, you know, seeing that thing!”

“From the beginning, if you please,” the truthseer asked, doing his best to sound calmer than he felt at this. “You aren’t in trouble,” guessing what would come next.

His youngest nephew gave him a relieved look. “I went to—go—under the bed, Uncle, but there was something there. I pulled it out of the way, and the blanket came off, and there were eyes, staring at me!” He spread out his arms to indicate size. “I didn’t like those eyes. I didn’t like them at all. When I tried to cover them up, Momma’s pendant touched the glass.” Werfol’s eyes were shimmering gold. “I couldn’t be scared then. I heard her voice and I knew I was seeing what she could see.”

He frowned before continuing more slowly. “There were soldiers coming. I tried to warn her, but she didn’t hear me. She started to run away, and she didn’t hear me, and then—” a shrug, “—then maybe I was a little scared, because more were coming. I don’t remember anything else, Uncle.”

“You fainted,” Semyn reminded him with brotherly satisfaction. “You ask about our parents, Uncle? Mother wouldn’t be in the Shadow District unless she thought Father was there too. I’ve heard them talking about it. They said the true power in Mellynne lies along Channen’s canals, not in its court. That . . . if Father couldn’t bring those who fear an Eld influence in Rhoth to see reason, he’d have to seek out the shadow lords and—” a waver in that otherwise sure voice, “—if anything went wrong, he’d not so easily leave.”

Heart’s Blood. That they’d spoken like this in front of a child? No, Bannan reminded himself, not a child.

Emon’s heir.

Who sat looking at him now with expectation written on his face. I’ve told you what you needed to know, that expression said, loud as words. Tell me what you’re going to do about it.

Lila’s son in truth. “What we can do,” Bannan said heavily, “all we can do, is wait.”

“Yes, Uncle.” Semyn subsided. “If you say so.” Werfol nodded; he didn’t appear convinced.

Because of the mirror. He looked at Jenn, who’d suggested looking again. Did he dare? Could he control it? Or would the mirror show him what used it to spy on Marrowdell?

How could he not try? was the real answer.

Him, not Werfol. Never again. His resolve firmed on that point. Heart’s Blood, he’d thought he’d lost the boy. Take that risk, for a look at what they could do nothing about?

Worse, to witness what they couldn’t bear, for that was as likely as any other outcome. Lila wouldn’t forgive him. He’d not forgive himself.

Bannan made sure the boy was looking at him. “Tell me what you think of the mirror.”

“It isn’t safe, Uncle.” Werfol repressed a shudder. “There’s something in it. Something that didn’t want me to see it.”

“If I keep the mirror in the house, what will you do?”

“Stay outside!”

Tir snorted.

Bannan’s lips twitched. “Fair answer. Then the mirror goes out, into the barn.” He studied the child’s face, those eyes still aglimmer with gift, the round jaw as ready to set in determined courage as anger. “Werfol, I won’t ask you to promise, nor will I order you. I trust your good sense to keep away from the mirror.”

“I’d box his ears,” Semyn offered, giving his brother an affectionate cuff.

Truthseers’ eyes met, amber crossed with gold. “You can trust me, Uncle,” Werfol said finally. “But we like to play in the barn. Isn’t there somewhere else to put it?”

A breeze slid by Bannan’s ear, cold and sure. “Not with me.”

“I’ll take the mirror,” Jenn stated, her chin set in a line every bit as brave as Werfol’s. “Wasn’t it to be mine?” she asked as Bannan opened his mouth to object. “I’ll keep it safe.”

Said with the intensity of a turn-born’s wish.

“Then it is yours,” Bannan told the woman he loved and trusted, relieved beyond measure.

For the rest of their little feast, he thought how the day would end better than it had begun, with the easing of grief and pointless worry. Afterward, it seemed he was right, for Semyn played his pipes, and Werfol ate an extra helping of pudding, to Tir’s delight, and Jenn sat close, holding his hand. Though he’d wondered how best to transport the bulky mirror, at some moment between pipe and pudding and hand-holding, it disappeared.

So he was a much happier man, when he kissed and was kissed on his little porch, and said good-bye to his love.

Until the dragon whispered in his ear what stole every bit of Bannan’s peace.

“She can take you to your sister.”

Bound in canvas, ropes, and firm intention, the mirror arrived in Jenn’s bedroom without notice or remark. Wisp could be helpful.

When it suited him, that too. Meaning he’d approved.

Jenn eyed the mirror as she readied herself for bed. It leaned against the wall under the map and she’d meant to tell Gallie and Zehr, over supper, but they’d been eager to talk about the gathering for Frann, and Wen’s news, and wasn’t it wonderful for Wainn?

What they didn’t say, being kind, was that no one in Marrowdell—except Wen, it seemed—had expected him able to start a family, Wainn having been simple of mind since his accident and in the care of the village.

Which wasn’t the whole truth about Wainn Uhthoff, or even close, Jenn thought, but had kept her peace at the table, Peggs having told her Kydd was to have a talk with his nephew, it being unclear how much Wainn grasped of family matters.

Snuffing out her lamp, Jenn tucked herself into bed. Instead of lying back, she hugged her knees to her chest.

Staring at the shadow that held the mirror.

And so very many questions. She put her chin on a knee, considering.

A moth landed on her other knee. Jenn turned her to head to gaze at it. “I wondered when you’d come.”

The moth drew a slender jointed leg across one eye. When it spoke, its voice rolled through her with the crushing weight of the Bone Hills. ~I do not leave.~

Not moth, but sei. This was what had helped Bannan and sent Wisp to rescue Tir and the boys. “Why do you—” care wasn’t the word. There was nothing of that feeling, nothing of compassion or empathy, in what faced her. Curiosity, perhaps. “What would you tell me?” Jenn asked, feeling her own stir.

“You are less. Be more.” The moth fluttered into the air, changing between wingbeats to a great looming stone, glistening of pearl . . .

. . . to the head of a dragon, green and strangely shaped, its body elsewhere,

. . . then to a sky, shot through with colors of such aching beauty Jenn stuffed a fist in her mouth to stifle her cry of longing.

“Come. Be more . . .”

As suddenly, she was alone in the dark.

Or was she surrounded by light, safe in a room of blue stone that knew her every need? She was filled with such belonging she might have found her true home at last, never knowing it was lost.

“NO!” Gasping, Jenn dropped her forehead to her knees, holding herself in a tight little ball. This was home. More home than Wisp’s sanctuary in the Verge. More home than anything sei. Here, she was surrounded by memories. Here, she could remember herself. “This is where I belong. Here.”

Words, against the will of beings so powerful they could reach beyond the edge and pull worlds asunder?

Beings, nonetheless, who spoke through a fragile white moth. The sei coaxed and confounded, Jenn thought, lifting her head. And confused, she mustn’t forget that. But so far they’d merely offered her choices, that, and saved Bannan, the boys, and Tir. This particular sei, however mad, held the edge together with its own flesh. It made the Verge and Marrowdell possible.

She mustn’t forget that either.

Ancestors Blessed and Beloved. For all she knew, the moth had been waiting in Bannan’s loft to bring Werfol, pendant, and mirror together, simply to hurry her back to the Verge.

What had it said? “Come. Be more.”

If Wisp knew the sei wanted her in the Verge, he’d not be so eager to see her take Bannan to Lila. If Mistress Sand knew, she—and all turn-born—could well blame her for the sei’s strange interest.

And might not be wrong.

Jenn’s thoughts were interrupted by a sound she couldn’t place.
Rustlerustle.
It wasn’t Loee, fussing before bed, or Zehr sanding wood.
Rustlerustle.

From the mirror?

Werfol hadn’t mentioned a sound. As to how a wrapped mirror could make one in the absence of mice, Jenn couldn’t begin to guess, though this was Marrowdell and the mirror, by all accounts, wasn’t behaving as mirrors did elsewhere.

How curious. Terrifying as well, but she wasn’t a child.

Or woman. Jenn slipped out of bed, becoming glass and pearl. Seeing by her own light, she went to the mirror and undid the knots, careful of the string.

And let the canvas fall.

Each night, when Bannan put Semyn and Werfol to bed, he’d said his own prayer. That they not have nightmares. Thanks to Jenn’s kind wish, or perhaps their own natures, they’d been free of Marrowdell’s strange dreams.

It hadn’t meant they slept well or easily. At first, Semyn would thrash as if running and Werfol would cry out. The dragon slept with them; perhaps their fear at night was why. He’d known from the start how Wisp had made himself at home. Known, and been grateful.

They’d been better of late, but tonight he’d no such hope. They’d asked for a familiar story, then another. He’d read until Werfol fell asleep and Semyn couldn’t keep from yawning; turned down the lamp, but left it burning.

A hard day for them both. Bannan had waited till the bed creaked under more than two boys and whispered, “Call me, Wisp, if they wake, or have troubled dreams.”

He’d gone downstairs. Played nillystones with Tir—been beaten soundly by Tir, in truth, game after game, but that was familiar. They raised the stakes from nuts to doing dishes and Bannan roused himself to the effort, winning once before losing and badly. “I’m done. Remind me again who thought this was a good idea?” he complained cheerfully.

“I’d be— Sir?”

He’d heard the faint cry too. “Wisp?”

When the dragon answered, the breeze had an uneasy feel. “The truthseer sleeps, yet speaks.”

Bannan got up. “I’ll check on them.”

With a nod, Tir put away the ’stones. “Poor lads.”