Chapter Three - The Boy with the Death Mark
Everyone who lived on the farm agreed; Ren was marked by death.
It had been a rare night, when he was born, a night where thunder crashed against the dark and lightning lit the sky like white fire. Rain thick as fingers had sliced across the grasslands, and the low hills of the South Realm had come alive with the shaking peel of the sky’s rage. The night shook, flashed, burned. And his mother lay dying, coughing up blood.
He’d been quiet, when he’d arrived, his grandparents always told him. They’d buried their daughter the next day, holding the new babe in their arms, and he’d made not a sound. The father, some faceless ghost who’d disappeared before she’d started showing, didn’t deserve thinking about. So his grandfather had told him, once he was old enough to listen. So he didn’t.
But farmers are a superstitious folk, especially then, and it had not been long before their whispers had started. The child was born in the storm, born in blood, they said. It was a poor omen. A death mark. That lasted for a while, until one of the more talkative farmers lost several teeth. Now, the whispers were quiet, out of sight, at least from the adults, but Ren saw the way they looked at him, still, when they thought he wasn’t looking. He didn’t blame them. Nothing much of importance happened in the South Realm, and nor should it. Not since the rebellion, anyway, and Ren was too young to remember it. What do such places know of fire and darkness, basking in the glow of summer sun? They didn’t know the terrors of the night, the screams of mothers for their silent babes. A place of calm, a place of plenty. Peaceful in the way so few are.
Over time, Ren came to ignore the whispers altogether. What did he care what people said? Youth has little time for such thoughts. Time was for running and dancing and climbing and laughing, rushing headfirst through the heady thrills of the summertime. Belonging was a feeling he learned not to need.
But he remembered the words. A death mark, they whispered, and when he slept he imagined he heard her screams, wailing over the sound of thunder.
*
He was four years old when the old man first came to visit.
Old was the only word Ren had known to describe him, but it didn’t seem to fit, somehow. He was old. That was beyond doubt. But the rest of him had a strangeness that defied Ren’s ability to describe him. A hairless head, weathered like an old jacket, stitched to his lean skull in deep lines around eyes the colour of gold candles. His ancient clothes were patch-worked and road-stained beyond any recognisable colour, save his cloak, which was mostly grey. He looked like he had been pieced together from many things that didn’t quite match, made whole by many years spent adjacent, if nothing else.
His grandparents told Ren he was a friend, so Ren took him as one, even if they didn’t seem to believe it themselves. He had a voice like wood-smoke that could lull a storm to sleep, but he spoke in riddles more often than not, and Ren kept both eyes on him as often as possible.
‘What is your name?’ he had asked, and Ren told him.
‘A good name.’
‘What’s yours?’ the little boy asked the old man, folding his arms.
‘My…?’ The old man’s eyes twinkled.
‘Your name. Everyone’s got a name.’
‘Very true, though not everyone has so many as me.’ The old man watched him thoughtfully. ‘I’m not sure I need one.’
Ren thought for a moment. He nodded.
‘No, I don’t think you do.’ he said seriously.
‘I suppose not.’ the old man agreed.
The old man visited more, after that. Appearing like a stray wind, rolling in from whatever direction suited him, and off again in much the same fashion. The intervals of his arrivals were as changeable as the spring grass; a month, a year, longer, but he would always find an eager ear when he returned. Ren could not help but enjoy his visits; the old man brought stories of the world beyond the farm, beyond the South Realm, where no one even knew about his death mark. One evening would be enough. That was all the old man often had to spare, anyway, and Ren needn’t worry about sharing his few short hours of stories with the other children. The rest of the farm folk seemed even more distrusting of the old man in his old patchwork cloak than his grandparents did. Said Greycloaks weren’t to be trusted. Cursed Ones brought sickness, some said. Worse, said others.
Ren, for his part, didn’t know what a Greycloak was, and even if he had, he wouldn’t have cared. It didn’t seem to suit the old man, anyway. His death mark had left him uniquely unaffected by the superstitions of the South Realmers, and even if he didn’t quite trust the old man with his gold eyes and tall tales, he liked his stories, and that seemed far more important.
*
When he was seven years old, a travelling tinker came through the farm on his way to Overwood.
The man arrived at dusk in a little wagon with the sign of the sight wobbling on a post over the canvas cover; a lidless eye glaring down at the farmyard from a pentagon of pale paint. Young Ren had never seen a fortuneteller before. Many tinkers had passed through that way in his short life, but most had little to offer but salt and butter and leather-wax, maybe a whetstone or two picked up on their travels. This was something new altogether.
The children of the farm gathered first, spooling about the ancient little wagon like loose coils of rope, clamouring and laughing and singing tinker songs as the man holding the reins eyed them silently. He was a strange man indeed, Ren decided, not much taller than most of the children, broader than an oak bough and twisted like an old root. His tawny eyes glared back at the them from a face of deep, scarred lines, and his bramble thicket beard had wrapped itself all the way up and over his head like a knotted salt and pepper cloud. His patchwork cloak seemed more mist that wool, travel-stained and worn beyond the point of guessing its original colour. The other children gathered round, and Ren stood a little back from them, as was his way, watching the fortuneteller with the somber eyes of a child who thinks more than he ought to.
‘Wha-whatya got for us, mister?’ Seril, a skinny little boy with more energy than a vibrating bowstring, was the first to speak.
‘Last one brought us candies!’ one of the boys shouted, and Ren saw Trin looking up hopefully at the man atop his wagon, chubby red cheeks dimpling.
‘What about cordial? Bet he’s got cordial!’
The tinker watched without a word as the children bickered about his imaginary wares, eyes flashing tawny in the evening light. At last, he held up his hand, and the children fell suddenly and completely silent, looking up at him with wide eyes.
‘A tinker might bring sweets.’ he said, and his voice had the deep gruffness of a smoky room in winter. ‘I’ll do you one better. I’ll tell you your future!’
‘I’d rather have sweets!’ one of the girls replied, and a scattering of giggles broke out.
‘You may ‘ave sweets, yet. You may ‘ave a fine harvest, or a nasty fall, live long ‘nd happy with children more’n you could count or alone as a leaf in winter time.’ The man cast his hand over his head, gesturing grandly to the sign of the eye bobbing on its pole behind him. Then he sang lightly: ‘Fortune told is fortune known, an’ knowing cuts right t’the bone.’
The children fell quiet. The fortuneteller hopped down from his perch onto his little knotted legs and climbed out of sight into the back of the wagon. When he emerged a moment later there was a little sack and a bundle of firewood under one of his twisted arms. The children watched without a word as he carefully built a small pile of fuel in the shadow of a cartwheel, then rummaged inside his sack, casting a cloud of black powder over the wood. He struck flint, showering the kindling in bright sparks, and a flame the colour of silver leapt up, drawing little gasps from his young audience. The fortuneteller did not smile.
‘Draw a fire and draw it quick,’ he sang lowly as he worked. ‘For fire will tell who fortune picks.’
Ren watched with the rest of them, eyeing the strange silver fire suspiciously. He could see Seril twitching near the front of the crowd of children, and Trin a little further back, distrusting outsiders in his bones. Tomon, already a head taller than the rest, stood quite still, his slow eyes slack. The two girls, Helen and Dina, giggled quietly to themselves. Ren saw them glance at him, and he quickly looked away, face reddening.
‘Who’ll be first?’ the fortuneteller asked them, gruff voice creacking.
‘Me!’ Seril nearly jumped forward, his twitching getting the better of him. He stuck his palm out towards the fortuneteller, grinning. ‘What does it say?’
The tinker scowled. ‘Palms tell nought but the ditch they’ve been diggin’, boy.’ He rummaged in his sack again, and drew out a little pouch of dark velvet. From it he produced a handful of small, black stones, no larger than acorns, mirror-edged and glinting in the silver firelight. He took hold of Seril’s outstretched hand, pressing the stones into his palm, and looked at the skinny little boy gravely.
‘Are you sure, boy?’ he asked him, eyes flashing darkly. ‘A fortune told will truth beget, and no one can a truth outstep.’
Seril hesitated, his nose twitching, then nodded, pursing his lips seriously.
‘Cast them there, beside the fire.’
Seril did. The stones jumped and hopped across the dirt in the pale light, then came to a stop. The boy froze, and Ren realised it was the only time he’d ever seen him so still. The fortuneteller stood silently for a long moment, hunched neck bent over the stones. The children waited, transfixed. Ren, too. There didn’t seem to be any marks on them. Just black, gleaming stones. The silver flames flickered, flecked with amber now, and the dusk deepened. Finally, the tinker bent down and swept up the stones with one gnarled hand, looking at Seril with dark eyes.
‘Beware the call of kings, little rabbit.’ he said gravely. ‘The grass is full of foxes.’
Seril looked up at him with wide eyes for a moment, then swallowed, turning back to his place. There was a moment of silence as the children soberly digested this new information as though they might somehow, in their youth, discern its meaning. When that failed, they began to murmur again, and the fortuneteller cast his eyes amongst them, searching for his next victim. Some of the mirth had gone out of their voices, and their eyes were a little twitchier than before.
‘What about you, boy?’
Ren looked up to find the fortuneteller looking down at Trin, and watched as the boy’s red cheeks darkened.
‘No offence, mister, but my ma says not to take to strangers telling stories.’ Trin told the tinker seriously, shaking his head. ‘No good’ll come of such wondering!’
‘Your ma has some wisdom then, boy. All the same, it’ll do no harm.’
The fortuneteller led him over to the fire, and Trin reluctantly cast the stones into the dirt, and the children stood watching in silence again as the old man began his knowing.
‘Once abandoned, once found.’ the tinker said after a while. ‘To rising storms by friends be bound.’
Trin scowled at that, shaking his head again, and stomped off back to his place. The fortuneteller went on with his work. To Tomon, he promised twelve good winters and a short spring. To Dina, a husband with sandy hair and children healthier than stallions. To Helen, a thimble of luck and a chest of moonlight, though Ren found that one more puzzling than all the rest. Another he told to wait on the waves for their breath, and counselled his fellow that summer winds bring the hardest snows. As he went, the children began to brighten again, and soon they were murmuring and giggling to themselves, comparing fortunes and riddling riddles in the gathering dark. Ren stood apart from them, watching the strange hunched man and his stones, waiting.
‘And you, boy?’
Ren blinked, looking up to find the fortuneteller watching him with eyes that flashed silver in the light of his fire.
‘Do you fear knowing?’
‘No need to read his fortune, tinker.’ one of the children told the old man. ‘Got a death mark, everyone know it.’
Ren frowned. He ground his teeth, stepping confidently into the little ring of silver light, and the fortuneteller eyed him thoughtfully.
‘A death mark, eh? And what d’you do to get one of those?’
‘His ma died, night he was born.’
‘Did I ask you?’ the tinker grumbled, casting his eyes darkly into the little huddle of children, and the quiet returned. ‘Not just a death mark, I see. Where did you get that stone, boy?’
Ren looked down at his chest, and tucked the little teardrop pendant of black stone with its silver veins back into his tunic. ‘It was my mother’s.’
‘A princely gift.’ the tinker told him. ‘Nightglass is a watchers stone, a keeper of precious things. Keep it close.’
Ren looked up at him, still frowning, tumbled hair half-covering his dawn-grass eyes. The fortuneteller handed him the stones, and he cast them, just as the others had, end over end over middle into the dirt beside the silver firelight. A moment passed, no more than a breath. Then the tinker snatched them up out of the dirt, turning a dark eye on the waiting boy. The other children leaned a little closer in anticipation.
‘I promise you a thousand eyes.’ the fortuneteller told him. ‘But a thousand more will not be enough to see.’
There was a little murmur of interest at that, and Ren stepped back, frowning all the harder. Eyes? The voices of the other children seemed suddenly very distant, and he went on watching the fortuneteller through the narrowing blur of his darkening eyes. The hunched old man went on with his craft, and soon the farm children had had their fill. The night was settling in, and the adults were done stowing the toils of the day. For a time he traded more practical wares with the farm folk; some butter for a roll of brass coins, a hunting knife for a pot of black pepper, new wool for a scratched tinderbox. When their haggling was done, the tinker retired to his wagon, and though he was offered food, ate but a little. He was gone by the morning, and only a little circle of ash told of the strange fire that had burned the night before, black stones flashing in silver light.
*
There was a hill a stones-throw outside the farm buildings; a low, sudden thing carpeted in all manner of shrubs and trees, worn twisted by the tangling winds. The woods near the crown were particularly thick, and kept their shade greedily, even on the hottest and clearest of days. It hadn’t taken Ren long to discover the refuge they offered, especially up in the high branches, where no one (or, almost no one) thought to look. Quite foolish, after all, for a boy with a death mark to go climbing quite so high.
There was one tree in particular he loved best; a tall, ancient, oaken thing, full of nooks and ledges and hidden places, right on the brow of the hill, that poked up above the shifting canopy in its highest of places. Which, of course, were Ren’s favourite. From there you could see out over the farm fields as far as Hector’s little bush lines crept out over the grass, and further still, across the rolling green map of the South Realm beyond. He fancied, on clearer days, he could even see the silver gleam of the Swiftwater in the distance, though surely that was just a fancy.
That day, as it happened, was the clearest since midsummer, and the heat of the sun had baked the farmers off their fields by late afternoon, chased into shade-sipping malaise. Ren, for his part, didn’t care what they were doing, so long as they weren’t looking for him. Which, of course, they weren’t. So there he was, perched in his favourite nook, thinking of anything but old farmers and their dark glances, and the day drew on as they have a habit of doing in the South Realm. Uneventfully. He hung carelessly out of the leafy shade, and the oak branches swayed familiarly under his weight. He was getting bigger now, but they would take him a while, yet. And, besides, the view was worth it. He squinted into the blue-green blur, all sandy hair and sun-fair skin, tracing line after line of empty fields, and the breeze whispered, setting waves racing over the endless green murmerance of grass. His eyes moved further, greedily gnawing at the northern horizon. Was that Overwood in the distance, steaming and sputtering in the hazy breeze. Or Feringham, or even far Orly? And that, the Swiftwater? Silver and gleaming and so far from home. He peered at it, and it peered back. He fancied for a moment he could see across the silver waters, to the shadows of the far bank. They murmured back at him over the endless air, tugging at his skin, and he leaned out a little further from his branch, squinting at them curiously. The nightglass pendant felt heavy around his neck, cold to the touch. After all, why not? No one that far from the farm knew about his death mark.
‘Waiting for someone?’
Ren started, fingers slipping for a moment on their branch, then yanked himself back into the relative safety of the shade, looking down irritably. A man in a muddy patchwork cloak was standing at the foot of his oak, hood dragged low over his shaded face. Ren slumped back against the trunk behind him, scowling.
‘No, actually.’ he muttered.
‘Well, you’ve got someone anyway.’ the old man replied. ‘Come on, let’s have a look at you.’
Ren rolled his eyes, then slid sideways off the branch, flitting downwards through the shifting leaves with all the ease of a squirrel. He dropped softly onto the loam a few steps from the old man, eyeing him suspiciously.
‘One of these days I’ll see you coming.’ he muttered.
‘Not likely.’ the old man told him. ‘Still daydreaming, I see.’
Ren blinked, thinking of the distant gleam of the Swiftwater and the shadows beyond the water, and shook himself, frowning.
‘You’ve grown.’
‘And you look like a beggar.’ Ren replied, and it was true. The old man had always had a touch of the roughness of the road about him, but his condition appeared to have deteriorated. His many-coloured robe was threadbare and faded past identifying the various elements, stained to a patchwork of muddy wool as though put together from a dozen different garments, and the hem of his hooded cloak was torn like fraying rope. Ren looked at his mismatched boots, giving them a disapproving look.
‘When are you going to replace those?’
The old man tugged back his hood, looking down incredulously at his feet. He was exactly as Ren remembered him, tall and bald and rough and seamed like an old goat, with eyes that twinkled gold in the dappled sunlight. Those scheming, knowing eyes. Ren almost frowned.
‘Replace them?’ the old man muttered, looking back at him. ‘Do you know how hard it is to find boots that fit this well?’
‘They must be older than I am!’ Ren told him.
‘Considerably.’ the old man said, wiggling a toe at him through a hole in the leather. Ren realised he was wearing two left feet. ‘What’s your excuse?’
Ren looked down at himself. His boots were scuffed and muddy, his shirt ripped and covered in a hundred shades of green and brown. He looked more like a beggar than a farmer himself. He could already hear the scolding.
‘You’re still wearing it.’
Ren frowned, looking down to find the little nightglass pendant hanging out over his shirt, and tucked it quickly away again.
‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
The old man seemed not to hear him.
‘Come, then, boy.’ he said, nodding away into the trees. ‘Your grandparents will be waiting.’
The hill wasn’t so difficult to descend, when you knew the way. Ren did his best to draw away from the old man at his heels, but, even at his advanced years, he didn’t seem to have any trouble with the uneven ground, and they were soon emerging together from the eaves, past the little line of gravestones at the tree’s edge. The sun was starting to dip lazily toward the horizon, filling the air with a golden haziness that rippled like water over the endless farm fields. Closer by, the farm buildings waited, solid and simply and steaming as the kitchen got to work on dinner. Ren’s stomach rumbled in spite of himself.
‘How are they?’ the old man asked at his side, looking over at the low-buildings thoughtfully. His gold eyes flashed in the sunlight, and his hairless, wrinkled head gleamed. He still had the faint lilt in his voice, an old accent Ren didn’t recognise.
'Well enough. Didn’t think you cared to check.’
'I suppose it has been a while.' the old man murmured thoughtfully, scratching at his short beard.
‘Three years, next week. We’d begun to think you’d forgotten about us.’
The old man gave him a look. ‘I have been busy, boy.’ he said, as if that explained it, and his eyes were suddenly grave and grey, somber as the dark lips of sunset on the horizon.
‘With what?’
‘Reading sunlight. Talking to the wind.’
‘Farmers were right.’ Ren snorted. ‘You are mad.’
The old man smiled, and his eyes took on the merry gleam of sunlight again. ‘Mad as a fox.’ he told him, then, suddenly: ‘I am hungry. Let us be off.’
With that he turned and walked off over the grass, long legs eating up the ground eagerly. Ren hurried after him, and they went together towards the farm, into the dimming, amber light of the evening sun.
*
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
The farmstead was set like a sheltering animal in the western lee of the hill, a little cluster of buildings home to just over two dozen; the number agreed by some unspoken alchemy to be the right amount for the lands attached. Soft, orange light was filtering over the handful of thatched roofs as they drew into the buildings, dappling across the ground like brush-strokes on canvas. It was not so late yet that the farm folk had retreated from the day, and men and women were moving between the low wooden buildings, bearing bales of hay overhead, steering carts across the grass, pulling squealing children towards their dinners as they protested, clinging to the remains of the day. A quiet place, a place for laughter and warm hearths and soft voices. For most, anyway. The farmers moved to and fro across their path, indifferent, laughing, aiming good-natured jibes at their fellows. Ren watched them as they noticed him, picking out the slight hesitation in their smiles, the barely hidden frowns. He sighed. Even that, he was used to, now. Didn’t matter what he did. Death marks don’t wash off. Not with all the water in the Swiftwater.
Fortunately for him, he wasn’t the most remarkable sight, that evening. It was so long since anything of any significance had happened here that it took the farm folk some time to even notice the old man beside him, in all his patchwork mysteriousness. Once they did, though, their attention came all in a rush, and soon it seemed the entire farmstead was tracking their progress across the yard with open suspicion. Smiles dissolved. Laughter trickled out into a heavy, pregnant quiet. Didn’t see Greycloak types much, in the South Realm. Which was just as well, since they had about as much business being here as a fish did up a tree. Had magic, folk said. The old kind. Which was to say, the only kind. It’d be better for everyone if such folk steered well clear of places like theirs. Nothing but trouble came of them. So, the farm folk watched, and they folded their arms, and they did their best to seem uninviting. Ren wasn’t sure he blamed them, but he was too busy being grateful for not being the object of their scorn to dwell on it too much.
The old man, for his part, seemed entirely oblivious to the farmers’ attentions. He walked on beside Ren, smiling carelessly, humming quietly to himself as they made their way through the conspicuously full yard. Ren did his best not to frown at the old trickster as they went on through the buildings. Past the barn, where one of the younger farmhands dropped a hoe in fright, disappearing into the tool shelves. The stables, next, two rows of dark, blinking eyes, ponies shifting restlessly on tired legs, ready for feed and rest. Then the houses, low-beamed and fresh-thatched, fires glinting over foot-worn doorways, filling the air with smokey breath through their open windows. Fresh bread, roasting meats, broth on the boil. Dogs nipping at each other’s tails, chasing phantom leftovers through the grass. The old man watched it all, being watched himself, eyes gleaming like brass buttons. He watched it all, and knew it all, and more than he seemed to, as usual, right down to the seams. Familiar, contented, close, and exactly how he remembered it. Ren, who had not yet acquired the knowing eyes of the old man, thought only of his belly rumbling.
The sun was dipping below the sagging thatching when they arrived home. An ordinary house, much the same as all the others. Low beams, a narrow porch, two old rocking chairs swaying softly in the eaves. The faint creak of weary wood. But for a few familiar details, it might have been identical to the others they had passed. A little ash mark on the arm of his grandfather’s favoured chair. A few notches on the doorframe, pressed over Ren’s eager head on tiptoes. Railings well-worn from infant climbing. Nothing remarkable at all about it, really. Neither should there have been. Simple, plain, sturdy. Home. The one place on the farm no one spoke of his death mark. Where no one gave him dirty looks. There was always a fire flickering beyond the door, and forever something delicious cooking on it. He may have lacked the old man’s knowing eyes anywhere beyond that porch, but here he knew better than anyone.
A pair of rheumy eyes watched them from beside the door, swaddled in a wheaty nest of uneven fur. The hound blinked as they approached, sitting up lazily, but its companion, a ruddy-faced youth swaddled in an ill-fitting, well-patched shirt, didn’t stir, snoring softly with his head rested against the door behind him. Presently, hound lumbered clumsily to its feet and began to sniff half-heartedly at the old man’s muddy cloak. The old man smiled, giving the ageing animal a scratch behind the ears.
‘He’s looking old.’
‘He is old.’ Ren told him, patting the dog’s flank fondly. ‘Thought you’d sympathise.’
The old man threw him an offended look at that, then looked pointedly at the slumbering youth beside the door.
‘Training a replacement?’
Ren ignored him, clearing his throat loudly. The youth flinched, blinking sleepily, then caught sight of Ren, and his eyes snapped open, hurrying to straighten his shirt.
‘Ren!’ he exclaimed, shoving himself to his feet with some effort, face red as an overripe beet.
‘Trin.’
‘Where have you been?’ the boy demanded from his place on the porch, folding his arms over his chest. 'Your gran almost had a fit! And Hector had me digging for two, as well! Been looking for you all afternoon!’
‘Looks like it.’ Ren replied, raising an eyebrow.
‘Don’t you start! Not now.’ Trin scowled. It had been years now since Ren had sprouted, but Trin was still languishing in involuntary stoutness, and his penchant for the kitchen leftovers had left him more than a little plump, red cheeks round as apples in a frame of ruddy curls. His britches were strapped hurriedly over his shoulders, and his shirt was seamed like rope-cord.
‘You!’ he exclaimed suddenly, eyes going wide as he noticed the old man.
‘Me.’ the old man agreed.
‘That explains it!’ Trin looked back at him suspiciously. ‘Been wondering when you’d show up, again. Hasn't been any trouble round here for a while.’
‘If you’re referring to that business with the cat, I believe that was resolved to everyone’s satisfaction.’
‘Don’t mean we have to forget, though, does it!’
The old man looked at Ren pointedly. ‘I thought a few more years would calm his nerves.’
‘He means well.’ Ren told him with exaggerated earnestness.
Trin made a small, exasperated noise, and his cheeks somehow managed to get redder. ‘I'm right here.’ he said indignantly, then to Ren; ‘We were supposed to go riding today.’
‘Tomorrow, Trin. I promise.’
Trin gave him a long look, weighing up his guilt.
‘I’ll knock.’ he said at last.
‘You’re always knocking.’
‘I’ll stop knocking when you stop answering.’
Ren smiled, and Trin caught himself just short of returning one of his own.
‘Keep your eyes on him.’ he said pointedly, shooting the old man a dark look, then turned on his heel and disappeared off towards the kitchens, muttering to himself about Greycloaks and possessed cats. Ren watched him go, grinning in spite of himself.
‘A rather strange fellow.' the old man said thoughtfully.
‘That might be the opposite of his problem.’ Ren gave him a sideways look. ‘Besides, he’s right; South Realm’s no place for vagabonds and mysterious old men. Everyone says so.’
‘Mysterious?’ the old man said incredulously.
‘Mysterious.’ Ren repeated, and the old man’s gold eyes flickered. He looked up at a passing farmer and inclined his head politely, smiling, but the man lowered his eyes and hurried past, ignoring him. The old man scowled at his back as he fled.
‘South Realmers.’ he muttered, giving the old dog another scratch behind its ears.
Ren was already at the door. A commotion started inside at his knock, and something heavy crashed to the floor, followed by a stream of particularly choice curses and a stifled cough.
‘Just a moment!’
Some more cursing, a little quieter this time, and footsteps. Then the door swung open, and a small, balding man with thin grey hair stood blinking up at them, brushing crumbs from his impossibly bushy silver moustache. There was a broken plate on the floor behind him, which he was doing his best to shield from their view.
‘Where in the Makers have you been?’ his grandfather demanded, levelling a finger at Ren, apparently unaware of the old man in his patchwork cloak standing behind him. ‘Look like you’ve been swimming in a sty.’
Ren lowered his eyes, no mean feat considering how much taller he was than his grandfather, already. ‘I am sorry, grand-’
‘I don’t want to hear it! You know the rule. No wandering off on your own. Been looking for you since noon! Hector is out for blood.’ Ren’s grandfather made an exasperated sound, puffing out his already rounded cheeks. ‘Another hour and your gran would have been out there hunting you down herself!’
‘The wind himself would flee in terror.’ the old man muttered, stepping up onto the porch beside Ren with a half-smile on his lips.
‘And who…’ his grandfather trailed off, blinking up at the new arrival, then all the anger went out of him in a rush. He frowned, and his shoulders tightened. ‘You!’
‘The very same.’
‘Where… where have you been?’
‘Talking to clouds, apparently.’ Ren muttered.
‘That’s enough out of you-’
‘Other business has kept me away.’ the old man interjected, looking down his long nose mysteriously. Ren rolled his eyes.
‘And what brought you back?’ Ren’s grandfather asked, successfully distracted from his grandson’s truancy.
‘Old promises. And your wife’s cooking.’
‘Derin, who is it?’ a woman's voice called from somewhere inside, followed by the tap-tap sound of a wooden spoon against a pan. Ren's belly rumbled again.
‘Seems you’ve been enjoying it for the both of us.’ the old man looked pointedly at the other man's midriff, straining slightly against his shirt.
Derin frowned, straightening his shirt, but a little of the tightness had gone out of his shoulders. ‘Never mind that! You’d better come in, before they run for their pitchforks.’ He told them, looking over their shoulders towards the little handful of watchful neighbours peering around their stoops. Ren made it a step before his grandfather’s hand stopped him short. ‘I’ve not forgotten about you. Go clean yourself up before she sees you… ’
He had his boots off in an instant, sidestepping his grandfather’s attentions and darting in ahead of them both. The room beyond the doorway was not large; the walls seemed to sag at their edges, and four identical armchairs lounged against them, like pins to hold down the rug-lined floor. The fire was small, but well-fed, and the orange flames licked outwards from the hearth with a healthy glow. Ren knew, in principle, that this had been where he was born. Knew it like he knew that spring followed winter, before there are any signs of it. There was no trace of that night in the way of this place. No room for such bloody memories in the certain comfort of home.
‘Have you found him?’
He could see his grandmother’s shadow in the kitchen doorway, lurching against the walls, tall as a plough-horse. He could almost taste the stew on the air, and his stomach twisted anxiously. But she had a hunter’s sense for unwashed feet on her floors, so he took one last look at the kitchen, the shadow looming against the doorway, then darted for the staircase. Better safe than…
‘Don’t you dare!’
The shadow in the doorway lurched taller, and footsteps creaked ominously on the floorboards. Then, all of a sudden, the shadow in the opening vanished, pushed aside by its owner; a woman tiny enough to make Derin look tall. She swept into the room like a vengeful spirit, a sudden flurry of movement, apron flying out about her legs like a ghostly gown. Her face, worn well with care, was currently furious, and she was wielding a wooden spoon in one hand like a club. She rounded on him immediately before he could make the stairs, rapping him soundly on the arm with the improvised weapon. Ren yelped, more out of a certain sense of theatre than pain, and jumped back, but she was on him again, pinning him in place.
‘Grandmo-’ he began, but she cut him off, poking him in the chest with the spoon.
‘Where have you been?’ she snapped, her face thunder. ‘Gods, what happened to your clothes?’
‘I wasn’t far!’ he protested, holding up his hands to ward off her next assault.
‘You know the rules! Never – wander – alone!’ she told him sternly, adding another poke of her spoon with every word. ‘Hector’s been having a fit. You’ll be lucky if he doesn’t make you dig a hole for yourself, when he gets his hands on you!’
Ren knew better than to say anything else. Instead, he clamped his lips shut and looked pointedly over her shoulder, nodding at the unnoticed arrival on the doorstep behind her. She frowned, suspecting a trick, and her face creased like a well-worn shirt, eyes narrowing to small, dark beads. She gave him one last poke with the spoon for good measure, then whirled about, apron flying, and came face to face with the old man as he ducked beneath the doorway, the ancient dog hot on his heels.
‘You!’
‘Me.’ he agreed.
There was a moment of silence. Ren looked at the floor. Derin looked at his wife. Pamla looked at the travel-stained old man, and for a moment it seemed she might turn her spoon on him as well. Then she glanced at Ren, and softened slightly, lowering her hand.
‘I suppose you ought to come in, then.’ she said softly. ‘Are you hungry?’
‘Very.’ the old man replied, watching her quietly.
‘Of course.’ She was already moving again, vanishing back into the kitchen. ‘It’s almost ready.’
‘That’s that, then.’ Derin muttered, watching her go.
‘So it seems.’ the old man agreed, watching the empty doorway thoughtfully. Then he clapped his twig-lean hands together, looking at Derin. ‘I don’t suppose you have any port in the pantry? I find I am quite parched.’
‘I…’ Derin hesitated, looking up at the strange old man in his living room with a frown. ‘I’ll see what I can find.’
Ren, who had been doing his best not to be noticed, froze as his grandfather’s eyes locked on to him.
‘And you! Get moving!’
‘Yes, grandfather.’ he replied, and took off up the stairs. The third stair creaked softly beneath his bare feet, and his grandmother began to hum in the kitchen below, an old tune of remembering and firelight.
*
A little while later, they sat around the table in the kitchen to break their fast. The sun was gone, and candles filled the room with flickering, yellow light. Ren’s grandparents were quieter than usual, despite the old man’s curiously specific attempts at conversation. He asked about the harvest, about the new barn, what tall tales the farmhands had been telling. What travelers had passed through this past summer. Ren’s grandfather was polite, but brief, and his grandmother made herself too busy with serving to speak, much. So it fell to Ren to answer his questions, mostly, which he didn’t mind. Gave him time to think about all the questions he would ask, when it was his turn. No matter the reception the old man got from the rest of the farm, or his grandparents, Ren knew his appearances were an opportunity not to be wasted; not when even the most adventurous of their neighbours had scarcely made it over the Swiftwater. Still, his presence was not a comfortable one, and even Ren found himself strangely wrong-footed by the strange old traveller. Between his peculiar eyes and the tricky twists of his tongue, the evening was soon taking on the disjointed feeling of a dream, one many times interrupted and resumed.
As Ren pondered this, and found little in the way of answers, his grandmother was at work, arms balanced precariously with all manner of pots and plates, waving away any offer of help, and soon a modest feast had assembled itself before their waiting eyes. What it lacked in inventiveness, it more than made up for in taste and volume; pork stew, fresh loaf and butter, port to wash it down (though Ren was left with water). It was a meal with the clever familiarity of knowing hands. Most of the farm folk ate their meals together in the hall beside the main kitchen, where there was enough room to fit all the two dozen of them, when needed. But his grandmother had never been one to let someone else cook her meals, and insisted on catering for his grandfather and him herself from a perfectly chaotic workshop of pots, pans, blades and hearth spots only she knew how to master. They both knew better than to complain.
So they sat, and they ate, and Ren whiled away the prickly quietness by feeding the old hound tidbits under the table when no one was looking. The moment his grandmother had resumed her labours, whisking away their empty plates, he saw his opportunity.
‘What of the lands beyond the South Realm.’ he blurted, more abruptly than he had intended. His grandfather’s eyes turned towards him with a frown, but the old man spoke before he could interject.
‘Busy with the busyness of life, as always.’ he said willingly, flashing Ren a knowing smile. ‘Things of great import, and none, in equal measure.’
Ren rolled his eyes. ‘What of the capital?’
‘The usual.’ the old man began, candle-bright eyes still on Ren’s. ‘Which is to say, nothing good. The King, if you would call hi-’
‘That’s quite enough of that!’ his grandmother interjected suddenly, appearing from behind a pile of plates. ‘Won’t have you filling the boy’s head with more of your talk. He should be thinking about his work here. Nothing else.’
Silence. The old man looked at her quietly, and Ren could have sworn he saw his grandmother squirming. His grandfather fidgeted with his moustache. No one spoke. Then the old man relented, looking back at Ren.
‘I suppose you have had a long day, boy.’ he said quietly, tawny eyes flickering. ‘You must be tired.’
Ren clenched his jaw, stifling a sudden yawn.
‘I think it might be time for you to find your bed.’
Ren blinked, frowning at him. But his full belly seemed to have caught up on him, and the weary warmth of sleep had come creeping into his eyelids.
‘You heard him, boy.’ his grandfather was saying. ‘To bed with you.’
‘…ade enough mess today without you falling asleep in your plate…’
Ren blinked, and the hearth-fire blurred.
‘Fine.’ he mumbled drowsily, suddenly on his feet. He managed a garbled farewell as he guided himself slowly away from the table. Gods, but he was tired. He would question the old man more thoroughly in the morning, when his grandmother was fetching water. Yes, that would do. For now, his bed was calling him, and questions could wait. Behind him, the old hound watched him go sadly with rheumy eyes, and the room around the empty table filled with a fire-crackle silence, wordless and full of murmurs.
*
It was dark outside, and his grandfather was singing to him.
The trees were moving.
Whistling. Twirling. Churning. Brushing crumbled fingers against his bare feet.
It was early still, and the pale light shifted between the branches, curling through mist thick as syrup. Blurred like contorting glass. Full of green and new.
He was walking. He knew this place. Knew it like he knew his own hand. The whispering leaves. The soft touch of the wind. His bare feet in the loam. No one knew it better.
There was someone walking beside him. Old and tall and faceless. The morning light bent around the man’s shoulders, and the shadows of his hood were black as midnight.
Still daydreaming, I see.
He was flying. The ground fell away between his toes, dragged into a blur by clawing branches. Then, nothing but air. The air, he did not know. He was alone, now. The wind howled in his ears, racing over his skin, setting his hair on end. High above the trees, now, and the sun beat like fire. Filling him with heat. He held a hand over his eyes, and the light filtered around his fingers, pulled apart into beams of coloured incandescence. There he remained, for a time. Weightless. Watching. Eyelids full of fire.
The wind was falling away. Away to whispers. Licking at his skin. His ears. Pulling at him. Louder now. Tugging. Dragging. Clawing. He tried to listen, but the words were not for him to hear.
He looked down. The trees were gone. Rocks, jagged, black as midnight. Twisted fingers crept out of the shale. Dead trees with dead claws. Reaching for his feet. He was moving, again. Black mountains loomed overhead like waves in a dead sea. Inching closer. There was something dark behind the peaks. Creeping through them like shadow. Wraiths at twilight. Storm clouds swallowed the sun, and thunder cracked against the swollen sky.
He was in the rocks. Half-dead trees, swelled about his bare feet, scratching at his flesh. Through the branches, clouds rolled over endless peaks. An unending wave. The wind was in his ears again, filling his blood with whispers. Thunder rocked against the stones, shaking them loose. The sky turned white, black, shuddering. The trees shook and groaned. Leaves were falling, thick as rain. Cutting at his skin like blades. The clouds were almost on him. He tried to close his eyes. To shout. To run.
But he couldn’t, and the leaves swirled around him, thick as water, until they were all he could see.
*
Ren sat up gasping.
Leaves like blades. Raking his flesh. His hands flashed to his arms, his chest. But his skin was cold. Untouched. The storm was gone.
He blinked, exhaling hard. He was alone, lying in his cot. Panting. Skin wet with sweat. A shaft of pale moonlight was falling through his narrow window, dashed to a thousand pieces by the thin fabric of the curtains. Outside, he could hear the breeze moving softly over the thatching. The storm was gone. Just a dream. Just another dream.
He lay there for a time, listening. To the wind outside the window. The creak of old timber. The beat of his heart. He was still dressed, and his shirt was clinging damply to his chest. A bead of cold sweat slid slowly down his forehead, and he wiped it away, frowning. The night was not cold, but there was an icy knot in his gut, heavy as lead, sinking through the small of his back. Pinning him to his mattress. He closed his eyes. Set his jaw. The wind rustled over the thatching. The moon blinked back from a cloudless sky. His heart thumped in his ears.
He scowled, swinging his feet onto the floor. There’d be no sleeping. Not now. There never was. He shoved himself to his feet, and the moonlight from the window scattered around his shoulders, gleaming. Outside, he could see the trees on the hill swaying in the breeze, whispering to him. He stood there for a moment, watching them. Savouring the thought of the unsought dark beneath the trees. His grandfather’s old map of Valia lay beneath the window, unfurled, and he found himself picking at the blank spaces at its edges with half-blurred eyes. Then he reached down, picking up his boots, and slipped silently into the hallway beyond his door, bare feet padding against the floor.
The third stair from the bottom creaked faintly beneath his foot as he passed it. He froze, foot dangling in the air, and peered down into the gloom beyond the stairwell. Nothing stirred. The room below was dark, but not completely; the dying embers of the fire whispered in the hearth, pulsing amber, and the shadows of the four identical armchairs loomed against the low walls, rising and falling in dim eddies as though the room itself were breathing. The hour was late. Closer to dawn than dusk. The old man was crumpled in one of the chairs, facing away towards the last of the heat. He was snoring softly as he slept, and there was an empty mug on the table beside him. The old hound was snuffling at the traveller’s mismatched feet, no more awake than he was, and the way to the door was open. Ren padded on towards it, putting a hand on the latch.
‘Going somewhere?’
He started, snatching back his hand, and turned to find the old man watching him quietly from his place beside the dying fire, eyes gleaming amber, as though he had never been sleeping at all. The shifting shadows of the hearth loomed back and forth across his ancient face, picking out lines deep as riverbeds, the strange patchwork features of his hairless head. Ren realized he had never really thought about how old he must be. At his feet, the hound raised his head sleepily, then set it back on the floor indifferently, closing his rheumy eyes again.
‘You’re in grandfather’s seat.’
‘I can see why he likes it.’ the old man told him, eyeing the other identical armchairs dubiously. ‘Far more comfortable than the others.’
‘I thought you were asleep.’
‘I was. You haven’t answered my question, boy.’
Ren hesitated. ‘For a walk.’
‘A little late for that, isn’t it?’
Ren opened his mouth, then closed it again. The old man’s eyes did not relent.
‘I will not wake them.’ he said, and Ren felt suddenly foolish. ‘A nightmare?’
‘It was just a dream.’ Ren told him, lowering his eyes.
‘Come.’ the old man replied. ‘Tell me about it.’
Ren hesitated, halfway to refusing. But there was something different about the old man, in the gloomy light of the dying fire. Some of his strangeness seemed worn smooth, leaving behind hard edges, an unexpected weight to his words. So, instead, Ren went over to the dying fire, setting his boots on the floor by the door. He picked up the poker and busied himself prodding at the embers for a few moments. The little orbs pulsed in the hearth, breathing, and for a moment a flicker of flame licked out of the ash. At length, he set the poker back in its place and sat down, still rather reluctantly, staring at it. He could feel the old man’s hard eyes on him, prickling at his damp skin, and he almost shivered.
‘I… I was in the trees.’ he began, frowning. He rarely spoke of his dreams, and found the words tacky against his tongue. ‘Walking.’
‘Where?’
‘On the hill outside the farm.’
The old man nodded, apparently satisfied by that answer, and sat back in his chair, waiting for him to continue.
‘That was it, for a while. Just walking. The sun was warm. You were there.’
The old man did not seem surprised. Ren shifted where he sat. The storm clouds seemed a long way off, now. Like winter in spring. But his skin felt hot, even now, traced with lines sharp as glass, and his resting heart sounded to him as loud as a drum.
‘Then I was… flying. Above the trees. Away from them. Away from here.’ Ren went on, frowning at the embers. ‘I could see the mountains. There… there was a storm. I could feel it in my skin. The thunder. And… there was this whispering.’
The old man said nothing. The pulsing light of the embers lurched against the walls, filling his wearied face with shadows. Ren swallowed.
‘I was in trees again. Not like the ones… here. Taller. Sharper. The wind… The leaves were falling. Everywhere. All around. Cutting me. I tried to close my eyes, to cry out, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t even move.’
He shifted in his seat, suddenly aware of how close the fire was. His skin prickled. The old man did not stir.
‘That was it.'
Silence. The embers murmured beside them, and the old hound snuffled in its sleep, stirring. Somewhere outside, one of the ponies snickered in the stable, and the wind rustled over distant trees.
‘Dreams are tricky things.’ the old man said at length, half-murmuring it from the shadows of the armchair. ‘It is for you to choose what to remember, and what to forget.’
Ren almost rolled his eyes. Even changed as he seemed in the dimming firelight, the old goat always had more riddles.
‘You have them often, still? These dreams?’
Ren hesitated. ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’
‘And the nighttime walks? Your grandparents don’t know about them, do they?’
‘No.’ Ren admitted, lowering his eyes. For a moment, neither of them spoke. Then the old man straightened in his seat, smiling, suddenly again that strange old wanderer with his patchwork cloak and tall tales. As Ren watched, he reached inside his threadbare robes, and drew out a battered old waterskin, tossing it over the fire. Ren caught it, blinking. The cork was worn and stained, leather fraying at the edges.
‘Go on, then.’ he told him.
Ren stared at the skin dubiously, then back at the old man, weighing up the chances it would turn him into a goat, too, then quickly decided he couldn’t think of a motivation for poisoning him, just then. No matter what the other farmers said. He uncorked the battered old skin and took a deep swig. Fire raced over his tongue, and he gasped, spluttering, as the it burned down his throat, splashing like a furnace in his belly, then surged outwards to his fingertips, toes. He closed his eyes. There was no pain. Only heat, spreading through him piece by piece, swallowing up the dark in balmy firelight. He gulped, and an aftertaste sweet as honey rolled around his tongue.
The old man was smiling his knowing smile when he opened his eyes. He held out his hand, and Ren tossed back the old skin, frowning.
‘What…’ Ren began, swallowing hard again as a wave of drowsiness washed over him. ‘Is that?’
‘Naptha, the Elahi call it.’ the old man told him, vanishing the leathery pouch back into his ragged robes. ‘Brewed from the waters of the Rir l'Ifiel. Always keep a few drops handy. Just in case.’
‘You were in the High Places?’ Ren asked incredulously. ‘You crossed the Dread Stones?’
‘Not for a long while.’ the old man replied, shadows flickering around his well-seamed cheeks. ‘But every wall has a door, boy, if you know how to find it.’
Ren sat back in his seat, blinking. The High Places. No one went into the wood, anymore. Not since the war. He could feel the heat receding into his fingertips like evening sunlight, and he was left with a feeling of contented warmth, like he could bathe in ice water and leave without a shiver. He sat there for a time, watching the embers stir like fireflies in the dim light, tossed and turned by the shifting air. He frowned at them sleepily, shrugging his eyebrows.
‘I should like to go there, one day.’ he found himself saying. ‘The High Places, I mean. There was a tinker that came through the farm once. Said he’d been there. Said the Sacred Wood… that there are trees there tall as mountains.’
‘Not so tall as mountains.’ the old man replied somewhere far away. ‘But tall all the same.’
‘Good for climbing, I bet.’ Ren murmured sleepily.
The old man was watching him over the pulsing hearth, deep brows heavy.
‘You are your mother’s son.’
‘You knew her? I thought…’ Ren blinked, vision shifting unsteadily. ‘I feel…’
He sagged in his seat, closing his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, again, the old man’s gold eyes watched him, unblinking. ‘I think it’s time for you to find your bed again, boy.’
Ren nodded. He got groggily to his feet and took a couple of steps towards the stairs. He almost stumbled, slumping sideways, but there was a hand on his shoulder, holding him upright.
‘Easy, boy.’ The old man was looking at him closely, and Ren looked back at him. At his golden, firelight-shimmer eyes. But as he looked, they seemed to him not to be gold at all, but made of every colour he could think of, a thousand thousand sparks, the sky contained in every shade beneath his brow. Ren frowned. Cold fingers brushed his forehead, and the old man’s lips twitched. Then he stepped back, leaning away through blurring air, and Ren got his feet beneath him again, a little sturdier than before.
‘Too much naptha for the uninitiated.’ he said softly. ‘Time to sleep it off.’
Ren nodded agreeably, making for the stairs again, boots forgotten by the door. He looked back, once, from the top of the lurching staircase, and found the room below quiet again, frozen for a moment in the crystal focus that sometimes evades the hazy twilight of imminent sleep. The embers stirred softly in the hearth, whispering into ash, and the old man sat in his grandfather’s armchair again, staring at the orange glow, sparks playing across his wrinkled cheeks. Gleaming like faded moonlight in his golden eyes. The old hound was snuffling at his feet, chasing phantom rabbits in the grass. That’s where Ren left them. A moment later he stumbled clumsily into his blankets, eyes closed before his head touched the pillow, and dreamed a dreamless sleep until morning.
*
When he woke, the sky was clear and blue, and not a breath of wind stirred the trees on the hill outside the farm. His grandparents were eating breakfast, talking softly, and outside, the farmers moved about their morning rituals, calling out to each other in the gleam of a bright summer sun. The old man was gone, as quick as he had arrived, vanished before the dawn, and Ren had soon forgotten his dream altogether.