Torchlight

by Theresa Dahlheim

  He pressed his forehead to his quarterstaff, held braced to the cobblestones tight in both hands. The sound of his breathing seemed the only proof that he was still alive and not a ghost, a mindless spirit of self-loathing and anger. He had been doing well, he’d thought. But now nearly everything he’d earned since coming here was gone, because he’d been so stupid stupid stupid stupid.

  A rippling heat rushed through his chest, tripling his heartbeat, shooting down his legs and arms to prickle at his fingertips, and a blizzard of white stars stabbed his eyes shut. Only when he gasped did he realize that he had stopped breathing. He forced his eyes to open, he blinked and blinked, but he kept seeing a grey haze stretching out from him along the ground in all directions, centered and strongest where his staff rested, and now he wondered if he was actually losing his mind.

  Stop. Stop. Stop.

  He whispered it, and kept whispering it. At last the grey haze on the ground sank down and disappeared, and his heart relaxed into a better rhythm, and his stomach knocked itself against his spine to regain his attention.

  He was so hungry and so tired, no wonder nothing seemed right. He resumed walking, again tapping his staff on the ground in front of his feet to keep from tripping on anything he couldn’t see. That was all, he was just too hungry and too tired. Food and rest, and then things wouldn’t look so bad.

  Trudge up one street, down another. The city wasn’t just asleep, it’d been knocked unconscious. He was the only one outside. He told himself that the total quiet was natural. Serving in taverns had taught him that on Godsday night, people went home after chapel services and stayed there instead of going out again. But this hush was not holy. It was enough to push questions about his sanity to the front of his mind again—and then he finally saw a yellow glow at a ground-floor window.

  It was a tavern, and it was open. The door creaked horribly when he pushed at it, and he heard annoyed growls from the open room to the right where people were bedded down on the floor. The tavern keeper, a red-haired Khenroxan, was sitting behind the counter, reading by the light of two fat tallow candles. Only his eyes moved as Graegor sat on one of the stools. “Any food left?” Graegor asked quietly.

  “Day-old bread and hard cheese,” the tavern keeper said, his lilting accent so strong that his words were hard to understand. “Some pig tomorrow.”

  The day-old bread and hard cheese went down remarkably well. Graegor paid a nickel ounce for the food and a strip of floor to lie on. Using his pack as a pillow and his raincloak as a blanket, he got as comfortable as was possible on a wooden floor with a dozen other travelers, tucked his quarterstaff under one leg and one arm, and tried to go to sleep.

  Still it would not come. Still his brain refused to let go. Still his thoughts swirled around and around his head, never settling. The horse fair. The next job. The first fight. The second fight. His mother. His father. Money. Jolie. Jarl. Audrey. Rooster’s chicken pies. Service on Godsday. Jail. The horse fair. The next job. The first fight. The second fight.

  Long before first light, he sat up. He picked up his pack and staff and carried them across the room to a bench at one of the tables next to the windows. The tavern keeper was still reading, or, at the very least, was in the same position behind the counter, and paid no attention. Graegor stared at nothing. Why hadn’t he been able to sleep for so long? He certainly didn’t have anything better to do. He was even willing to try reading the holy tracts stuffed in the bottom of his pack, but it seemed too much trouble to ask the tavern keeper to part with one of his two candles.

  Both candle flames reflected in the windows, and Graegor watched them because they were the only things to see. The shorter one danced and flared more than the taller one, clearly needing its wick trimmed. It reminded Graegor of a customer of Rooster’s, whose puffy left eye was a constant spasm of uncontrolled squints and tears. It was easy to imagine a monster beyond the window, with orange-yellow orbs set unevenly in its massive skull, wounded by a sword thrust to the eye socket but still alive, and angry. The eyes were peering back at him, as if the monster were trying to decide if it knew him. The image felt so real that Graegor felt a shudder down his back—but that in turn pulled him back to where he was, and the candle flames were again just yellow reflections on a dirty windowpane.

  Slowly, without really knowing why, he smeared his sleeve across a few of the windowpanes to clear them of soot and grease. Night still held the street beyond. But when he let his eyes relax and stare at the same space, he found he could make out rooflines, and then the pitch-black rectangles that were windows in the near-black walls of the buildings across the street. The windows seemed painted onto the walls instead of cut into them, entirely flat and black and black and black ... but then ... black, but deeper, with dimension, a ... thickness. The dark outlines of doors and lintels came up to focus as he watched, like fish reeled up from the lake depths.

  Some of the windows had shutters, and they were less black than the windows that did not. The roofs were not smooth slants, but sagged here, and had lost shingles there, and the degrees of shadows along each pitch showed him where birds nested, where rain and drafts slid in, where chimneys had been covered or moved. He realized that the roofs on the next street over were higher than those on this street, and that his eyes could trace the break between one roofline and the one behind it.

  It was fascinating, this slow recognition of these shades of black. Shades, slants of black, the barest difference between one roof shingle and the next, lines so faint it made no sense for him to see them. Blue-black beetles, four of them, crawling across a window sill, a fifth some way behind. Little brother black beetle, trying to keep up, but the older brother black beetle was with his friends and didn’t want the little brother black beetle around. Starlight bounced on their blue-black backs. Graegor followed the light up to the sky, just this side of black-blue, and three pricks of pure white peeked through a hole in the heavy grey clouds. Then they vanished again, the layers of clouds moving with ponderous wipes, scrubbing the sky like giant mops.

  But wipe, wipe, wipe, back and forth, two yellow dots wouldn’t lift. Two stubborn stains, one lower and brighter than the other, both insistent on their place, right there, where his eyes rested. Black all around, grey all around, hiding the moon, now hiding all the stars. But still two yellow lights.

  Tiny movement drew his eye to a gutter hanging beneath a roof. A drop of water shone like a diamond on the gutter’s edge, so bright it seemed impossible that he hadn’t seen it before, that he’d had to look right at it before it looked right back at him. He could see into its brilliance and pick out the three individually reflected stars again peeking from the clouds, distilled into the space of a fingertip.

  There was something else on the gutter’s edge—a mouse? A long nose poked around the corner and the rest of it followed, first along the gutter, then up to the roof. Yes, a mouse, a bold one, or a stupid one, scurrying along the peak of the roof, lighter grey against the dark grey sky, nowhere to hide from cats or owls. But in a few seconds it slipped through a tiny hole between two shingles and was gone.

  Graegor imagined its route under the shingles, the beams supporting the roof laid out in a grid like a little city. The mouse would know its way easily in the dark, following scents and memory, down this beam, make a turn here, cross a beam to the other side of the house, a bridge over a chasm. It would pass other nests on its way to its own, nests of mice it had known all its short life. Maybe this mouse was a guard, or a scout, or an adventurer, who routinely risked his life on the rooftops and then returned to report on what he had seen—what holes were new, what owls had grown old. For the homes in the mouse-city were under constant siege, kept safe only by silence and smallness and night. When day came, slips in the shingles would let through lines of sunlight to briefly touch the nests, and the close air of the attic would grow warm, and the mice would burrow together, and sleep.

  Sleep ...

  Sound and motion right in front o
f his face made him jump, and the clatter and thump of his staff falling to the floor made his heart pound. He sat still, blinking, his hands braced on the sides of the table, and he realized he could see each colored stain on its top very clearly. The window in front of him was wet—rather, the outside of it was wet, and he could see a woman moving down the line of the tavern’s windows, tossing water on them from a bucket. The tables near him were occupied, and the rich smell of bacon hung with the smoke. A murmur of voices surrounded him, and the sky outside, though grey, was daylit.

  Had he slept?—He hadn’t slumped, he knew, his neck and shoulders felt stiff and his arms hadn’t borne any weight. And his eyes—his eyes hurt like they had after staring contests when he was little. How long had he been sitting here with his eyes open?—It had to be hours, it was light, the morning was well advanced, and many people were going about their business, in here and along the street.

  He did feel a bit more rested, so maybe he had slept—the incredible detail he’d been able to see in the dark almost had to be a dream. It felt dreamlike now, although it wasn’t slipping away like dreams did on waking. The yellow lights, the stars, the water droplet and the mouse and the beetles, the shades and shades of black ...

  The smell of bacon again wafted past him. His mouth watered, but his stomach didn’t rumble, and after thinking about it he realized that he didn’t feel hungry anymore. That didn’t make any more sense than his sense of feeling rested did—but it meant that he could stand to be without food for a bit longer, and save his money for when he really felt famished.

  And the thought of money brought with it the thought of getting more, and the thought that he had better find a job today. This place wasn’t promising, because a glance around the common room showed two servingmen bringing out food to the customers—full staff for a tavern this size. He turned back to the street, to all its colors brought back by the daylight, and looked at each door to see if any of these other buildings were taverns. A few doors up, a swath of dark grey pulled his memory back to the night. The grey was the shadow of a recessed door, and Graegor could see a man standing in the shadow. He had unremarkable clothes and an unremarkable face, but he stood straight and intent instead of slouching into the doorjamb—and he was looking at Graegor.

  That startled Graegor until he realized that the man probably couldn’t see him, because it was much brighter outside than it was in here, and he wasn’t sitting under any of the scattered lamps. So the man wasn’t actually looking at Graegor, but he was definitely watching the tavern. Maybe lying in wait for one of the guests? Maybe someone in here owed him money. Maybe someone in here had killed his brother. It might be interesting to see what happened, when whoever he was waiting for left the tavern. Interesting from a safe distance.

  Reluctant to get up, Graegor amused himself with variations on the man’s story. Someone in this tavern had killed his brother—no, his sister. Long ago. It had taken him years to hunt down his quarry, but now he was so close he could barely hold himself back. What was he waiting for? Why didn’t he come in and finish the job? Another brother ... he had a brother, who was on the way ... and then ... and then ...

  At the next table, two men got up, murmuring to each other, and gave the tavern keeper at the counter money for horse feed before leaving by a door which Graegor presumed led to the stables. Other people left, by that door and the door Graegor had come in by, but the man across the street didn’t follow anyone who came out.

  The place was nearly full, but no one asked Graegor to move aside, which would have been perfectly reasonable to do since Graegor wasn’t eating or drinking. More people came in, more people went out. Still the man across the street kept his vigil. Graegor could see him better now. He wore a grey hood over a black cloak, he had a full beard, and it looked like he might be wearing a sword. That was even more unusual. Graegor had been in Farre for three months now, and he’d very seldom seen anyone with a sword who wasn’t a bluecloak or a foreigner. The prevailing attitude here seemed to be that carrying anything larger than a knife was just inviting trouble. If this man was trying to be inconspicuous, he was going about it all wrong. Whatever he was doing, he probably wasn’t a professional assassin or anything like that. One never actually saw assassins.

  Suddenly there was another man next to the first one. He really does have a brother! Graegor thought, and grinned. They were talking, standing close enough to whisper. The second man looked over his shoulder at the tavern. He, too, carried a sword and wore a beard, and he had a brown cloak with an orange hood. Something about him seemed familiar to Graegor. After a long look at the tavern, the second man turned back to the first and said something; the first seemed annoyed in his reply. Perhaps not brothers, but surely accomplices.

  Graegor frowned. Hadn’t he seen the second man before? He remembered the color of the hood, he’d seen it before, but where? It had to have been before he’d been locked up ... wait ... right before, in fact. The man in the orange hood had been standing next to the bluecloak who had arrested him. He’d been staring at Graegor, staring like he couldn’t believe his own eyes—just like that ringless one in that chapel had, before begging Graegor to come with him.

  This was much less amusing than the story he’d been making up. Was this man related to one of the boys he’d beaten up? Had he been stalking Graegor since then, waiting for him to get out of jail? So why hadn’t he jumped him last night, when Graegor had been wandering the streets blind as a bat?—Of course the stalker would have been blind as a bat too. Or maybe he’d been waiting for the first man. Or the first man had followed Graegor and the second man had finally found them both.

  Was he just imagining all this? He had to be—an orange hood wasn’t all that unusual, even if a sword was. It might not be the same man. And even if it was, it could just be a coincidence that he was here watching this particular tavern—they could be after someone else.

  Or they could be ringless ones and had been looking for him since last autumn.

  The back of his neck was prickling, and he reached down for his fallen quarterstaff. As his fingers closed over the purpleheart, a flush of heat spread from his chest to his arms and legs. Now he wanted to move. Now every second he spent sitting at the table was almost painful, but he suppressed the impulse to stand up. If these two men were waiting for him, he had to slip out without them noticing, and if they weren’t waiting for him, then slipping out without them noticing would do no harm. He obviously couldn’t go out the front door, but the stables also opened onto this street. He wasn’t sure if there was another exit behind the kitchen into the alley.

  But why sneak around? Why not come out boldly and walk right up to them? If they weren’t after him, they wouldn’t even react. If they were, at least they couldn’t surprise him. He’d beaten off more than two attackers before with this staff.

  Not attackers armed with swords, though. One mistake and he wouldn’t just be hurt, he’d be dead. And if he got himself arrested for fighting again, that would mean more time in jail and more of his precious coins into the magistrate’s hands. Worse, they could expel him from the city, and he’d have to find work in the countryside ... or walk all the way to Naben or Rochden or the Khenroxan border ... or go home.

  So, sneaking around was definitely the best thing to do. The kitchen had to have a door to the alley—nearly every tavern kitchen did. Once out, he’d turn left, so that when he emerged from the alley at the next block, they’d be facing away from him.

  He stood up, and banged around the table a couple of times before extricating himself and his staff from the corner. It was bad manners for a guest to go into a tavern’s kitchen, but he walked quickly and purposefully, and he only heard a mildly surprised “What ...” behind him as he circled the worktable to the door he spotted on the far wall. He slipped outside and winced at the bite of the wind tunneling down the narrow alley. There was a boy sitting against the wall, his coat wrapped tightly around him, and he gaped at Graegor and tried t
o stand up, but Graegor broke into a jog with the wind at his back and made for the street at the alley’s other end.

  He felt he had to peer around the building at the corner to see if the two men were still watching the tavern. But when he did, it was at a moment when the two were facing each other to talk, and the man in the orange hood looked over his companion’s shoulder and saw him. Graegor’s doubts vanished at that look—he was their target. The other man was only starting to turn when the orange-hooded one dashed out to the street, and Graegor ran.

  Find people, he told himself, lose yourself in a crowd. The marketplace. It was this way—he turned a corner and slowed, not wanting to draw attention to himself in case his pursuers decided to yell and point to enlist others in their chase. He slipped past a wagon, another, and steered around a big woman herding children into a shop. He risked a glance back, and saw the men, but they had also slowed—they didn’t want people to notice them, which meant they probably wanted to steer clear of the bluecloaks as much as he did. That meant he could move faster, and he did, his heart slamming against his ribs as he dodged and weaved through street after street toward the marketplace, never ducking into alleys because he knew that half of them ended in walls, always looking for wagons and carriages that would give him a moment’s cover, screaming to himself the whole time the questions of who the men were, what they wanted, and where he could go to hide from them.

  At last he passed through the archway that marked the western entrance to the marketplace. He saw the stall of the man who had sold him the quarterstaff, the dough-ring vendor’s cart, the spice-merchant’s shop. It was crowded, as it usually was on Sunsday when the market opened. Graegor ducked behind the false front of the spice-merchant’s shop and peered back to see if the two men were still there.

  They were. Only seconds later a cart crossed the street and the orange hood appeared beyond it. Graegor shrank back until the false front hid him completely, squeezed against the rain barrel. From a crack between two boards he could see the street, and he saw the orange hood again, turning this way and that, but still moving away. Graegor thought about staying where he was, but there was no room to fight here if he had to, and it wasn’t a good enough place to keep him hidden for long. He peered through the crack again. He couldn’t see the orange hood or any sign of the other man. Double back. He slipped out and hurried back toward the archway, but at the dough-ring vendor’s cart he heard a sharp cry. When he looked back, the orange hood stood in bright relief against all the other colors of all the other people milling around. He could even see the man’s eyes, piercing, not angry, but anxious. Graegor didn’t take time to ponder that as he raced away.