The Outstretched Shadow ou(tom-1

by Mercedes Lackey

  Kellen took the bucket and stepped back to pour its contents over his head and shoulders. The icy shock made him gasp, and he shook his head, toweling his head and chest quickly dry before slipping into his tunic. He followed the man inside, setting the bucket and the damp towel down just inside the door.

  "Come—come!" his host urged, more cordially now, and Kellen passed through the kitchen into the room beyond.

  It was a parlor, dominated by a large table covered with a white cloth upon which had been set a sizable plain luncheon. His host was seated at the head of the table, and gestured for Kellen to sit beside him.

  "My boots—" Kellen began, stopping at the edge of the rug.

  "It's only a little mud," his host said graciously, "and my girl hasn't enough to do just looking after me. My name is Perulan. And yours?"

  "Kellen," Kellen said, sitting as he'd been bid. Perulan poured him a large beaker of cider, and Kellen drained it thirstily, then, at Perulan's urging, poured himself another, of water this time. He'd gotten very thirsty digging outdoors all morning.

  The servant-girl Perulan had mentioned a moment before entered, carrying a large china tureen of soup, and for a while there was silence while Kellen satisfied the hunger honed by several bells of hard labor. There was hot thick vegetable soup, hefty slices of cold mutton, large chunks of golden cheese, and thick slices of warm bread with fresh butter. Perulan watched him eat, a faint approving smile on his face, but restricted himself to no more than his soup and a little cider.

  "So, Master Kellen," he said when Kellen had slowed down a little, "what do you do when you aren't cleaning out cisterns for… former… writers ?"

  "You're that Perulan?" Kellen asked without thinking. He suddenly wished he'd curbed his tongue, for the older man winced, as if Kellen had spoken of something very painful. "I mean, I'm a Student, Gentlesir Perulan," he said hastily, trying to remember if it should be "gentlesir."

  "noble-sir," or "lord."

  "I study."

  "Just 'Perulan' if you please, Master Kellen. My family has disowned me long since, and I have no patience with empty honorifics, nor do they have any place between friends. As for study… it can be a broadening thing, if a bit dangerous," Perulan said. "You must be careful in your studies, Master Kellen. You might learn things you didn't wish to discover."

  "I know," Kellen said, sighing. "Look, I was wondering if you could tell me… do you know how deep that cistern is?"

  Perulan had obviously been expecting him to ask something else: his face first showed surprise, then relief. "I believe it goes down about ten feet. Certainly not much deeper."

  "And… do you know if it feeds into a spring? Or is it solid at the bottom?"

  Perulan smiled. "Quite solid, young Kellen. When I was a young man, and first bought this house, that cistern was still empty. I recall making plans to turn it into a fish pond, or something of the like, but those plans, like so many others I made as a young man, came to naught. But I think it best if you fill it in now, or people will simply come and throw more garbage into it."

  "That's what I plan to do," Kellen said, relieved to have Perulan fall in so easily with his own plans. "It needs doing."

  AFTER lunch, he worked for a few bells more, marking time by the distant echo of the carillons that sounded faintly over the roofs of the City, for the nearest bell tower was several streets away, and had not paid its bell tax in some time. He would have continued working far longer, but Perulan called him back into the house and insisted on giving him tea before sending him home for the day. It occurred to Kellen that the old man must be lonely, and he wondered if Perulan might be the source of information the Wild Magic had sent him to.

  He wondered about that all the next day as well, while shoveling smelly black muck out of the cistern. From somewhere, Perulan had provided a bucket and wheelbarrow for his use: Kellen would fill the bucket, use it to fill the barrow, wheel the barrow to the back of the lot, and dump the contents into an ever-growing, stinking pile. Maybe the sun would dry the sludge out into something he could use. Maybe he could dig it into the ground and bury it when he dug up fresh earth to fill in the cistern.

  As he worked, he wondered if it would be just too cold-blooded to ask Perulan what he wanted to know about the City and the lands beyond. He liked Perulan, and he didn't want to make trouble for him, and Kellen had already come to realize that there were some questions meant never to be asked—or answered.

  But even without asking outright, Kellen found out some things that, just as Perulan had warned, he would have been happier not knowing.

  "SO you're from a Mage family, young Kellen?" Perulan asked. "I would not have thought it. You haven't the look, as you are no doubt long tired of hearing."

  Kellen choked on his lunchtime cider, managing (with an effort) to swallow decorously. "But how did you know?" he asked when he was able.

  "Come come, young sir. A writer must be observant, and I was born .into a Mage-family myself, as you are certainly aware. While you have a talent for hard labor, you're no laborer, and a member of a Trade family would be hard at his apprenticeship at your age. What does that leave?"

  "Mages," Kellen said bitterly.

  Perulan raised his eyebrows and smiled faintly.

  "Ah, speak softly of our beloved rulers—or else they'll find what you love best and cherish most, and turn it to ash before your very eyes."

  Kellen stared at him.

  "I'm Perulan the Writer, as you know—only Perulan the Writer's last and greatest work was denied a publication license, and so it was destroyed by the High Council before his very eyes. For the good of the City, of course. It is always for the good of the City." The smile faded, and Perulan stared bleakly off into space, contemplating something Kellen couldn't see.

  "Do you think it really is?" Kellen asked before he could stop himself. "How can they know! Aren't they just trying to—well—make all of us quiet and fat and not think, just so we'll want to keep things as they are, like them? So we won't want to even think about leaving the City? But the City isn't the only place in the world!"

  "No," Perulan agreed. "There are other places—across the sea, across the forest—and they do things very differently there. To be different is not to be wrong, or even inferior. Only… different."

  "Can you—" Kellen said, and stopped himself.

  "Can I tell you about them?" Perulan asked. "Yes, and perhaps I will, if you are certain that is what you wish. But not now. Think about whether you really want to know, Kellen-of-a-Mage family, and ask me again. Perhaps you will come to dinner, and we will talk, once you have finished with my cistern."

  IT was the backbreaking work of several more days, but at last Kellen had dug down to bare stone, and then filled in the cistern again. From somewhere a load of old brick appeared to greet him one morning, and on another day, an iron-bound cistern cover cut to size—Perulan's doing, Kellen supposed. Kellen tumbled the bricks into the hole, layering them in with fresh-dug clean dirt from the lot and stamping on each layer to pack it tight as he put it in. He buried the muck and trash he'd dug out of the cistern in the hole he'd dug to get the fill dirt, and stacked the bigger pieces of trash to be hauled away.

  Last of all, he used the back of the shovel to bang the heavy wooden stakes that would hold the cover in place into the dirt around the edges of the cistern, then stepped back to admire his work.

  No more rats, no more garbage, no more stink.

  He was done.

  "Excellent work, young Kellen," Perulan said. The older man came to stand beside him, gazing down at the cistern cover. It was the first time Kellen had seen Perulan leave his house. "I suppose now that your task is done, our fair neighborhood will no longer be graced with your presence?"

  "I…" In truth, Kellen hadn't thought much past getting the cistern filled in.

  "No matter," Perulan said graciously. "I think I shall not be here much longer myself. And now, the time grows late. Would you care to join me in my
evening meal?"

  Looking around, only now did Kellen realize that he had grown so engrossed in his task that he had not even heard the sound of Evensong Bells. In fact, he had stayed later at Perulan's house than ever before. The sun was westering, and it was already almost too dark to see. But his father wouldn't be home yet—and even if he was, what would it matter? Whether Kellen tried to do what Lycaelon wanted or not, the end result was the same: these days, it seemed, they always ended up arguing.

  "Sure. I mean, I'd like that, gentlesir."

  Dinner was a more elaborate meal than the lunches Kellen had enjoyed at Perulan's house, with a large hot meat pie brought from the local cookshop, roast fowl and potatoes prepared by Perulan's all-but-invisible maidservant, baked apples roasted on the hearth, and candied fruits and wine to follow.

  The parlor was mellow in the golden light cast by the fat white candles in the fixture hanging over the table, and warmth radiated from the tiled hearth tucked into one corner.

  "You asked me once what I knew of the world outside the City," Perulan said when the servant had cleared away the dishes and retired to the kitchen. "Would it surprise you to know that when I was a young man, I had a correspondence with, well, let us call them Folk From Away?"

  Kellen stared at him, a piece of candied ginger halfway to his lips. "But how? That's not possible!" he stammered.

  "Not quite impossible, merely difficult, my young Student. The Selken-folk smuggled my letters out, and smuggled my correspondents' replies back in. It can be done, with trust, and for a price—the Selken-folk have no love for the Mage Council, and are happy to trick them if they can.

  And I was young and adventurous—just as you are now—and wanted to know everything about the world and all it contains.

  "But—alas!—then I grew famous, and well regarded, and had more to lose than when I was a hungry young struggling writer. I thought of that and became cowardly. I stopped writing to my friends across the sea because I feared the risk of discovery."

  Perulan stopped, and took a long drink from his wine cup, staring down into it broodingly. "But now… I no longer have anything to lose. Now, I think, I will pay my Selken friends to smuggle me away. It will hurt to leave Armethalieh, but if I cannot write the books I want to write, I might as well be dead, and in the face of death, exile holds no terrors."

  "But— But— Why can't you just go live in the country if you don't like the City anymore?" Kellen asked, floundering to accept this torrent of new ideas. It was one thing to see someone leave, to dream of leaving himself, but to actually talk to someone about leaving…

  Perulan smiled sadly, shaking his head.

  "My dear young Kellen, have you ever heard of anyone who did? The villages exist to serve the City with their crops and their taxes and their labor, as much our beasts of burden as the horses who pull our carts. Citizens and villagers don't mix and never have, despite the foolish fables I have written. If I were to go out into the villages, the villagers would know me for a citizen and hate me for it—and for the hope of reward, cheerfully turn me over to the Council's soldiery to be returned to the City. No. If I am to leave, I must leave Armethalieh entirely: leave the City and all its lands."

  "But couldn't you just go openly?" Kellen asked. It was true that he'd never heard of anyone doing that, but surely some people…

  He realized that, deep down inside, even though he had imagined leaving, buried in that daydream had been the surety of coming back someday. As much as he hated the restrictions Armethalieh placed upon its citizens, hated the thought of living the life his father had planned out for him, the City was the only home he had ever known.

  Perulan laughed bitterly and patted his hand. "Dear boy! I forget how young you are! I assure you: the Council would never let someone go forth to bear tales to 'unknown enemies.' No, Armethalieh the Golden hoards her treasures—and her people—for always. But I hope, if the Light is kind, that there may be a way for one of her Golden Children to escape her…"

  Kellen turned his head, distracted by a flicker of movement at the kitchen door. But when he looked, there was no one there.

  "But how?" he asked, turning back and forgetting the momentary distraction. "If the Council won't let you go—?"

  "It is best that I tell you nothing more. What you do not know, you cannot reveal, even under Truthspell, and more lives than mine are at risk upon this venture. But though we may see one another again, I think it best if we say our true good-byes now. I have enjoyed our friendship, Kellen, and allow me to offer you one last piece of advice: if you ever think to leave Armethalieh the Golden, go quickly, go far, and trust none of her citizens with your intentions."

  "I won't," Kellen said, getting to his feet. "Good-bye, sir. May the Light go with you."

  "And with you," Perulan said gravely.

  IT was nearly midnight when Kellen reached home, for he had gone slowly, his thoughts full of his conversation with Perulan. To leave the City! It was one thing to stow away on a ship as a young man of Kellen's age, like the fellow he'd seen down at the docks. But for someone as important, as well connected, as Perulan to be contemplating it…

  Where did they go, the ones who successfully escaped Armethalieh's golden chains of privilege? What other lands did the Selken ships trade with? What was beyond the Delfier Forest, beyond the City lands whose farms fed the City?

  The Council didn't want anyone to know.

  Why not? What was so bad about them? And if the places over the Sea and Beyond the Forest were so bad, why did Armethalieh trade with those places? Yet they did: by ship and trading caravan both.

  It didn't make sense.

  Nothing made sense.

  The house was dark when he eased open the unlocked garden gate, carefully locking it again behind him in case someone should check in the morning. This was no time to rouse the servants. He'd remembered to bring the pick and shovel with him, and groped his way down to the gardener's cottage to put them away. He didn't think they'd been missed in the last sennight, and as long as they were back now, there shouldn't be any trouble about them having been gone in the first place.

  Mission accomplished, Kellen headed up to the house. He'd better find some way to get rid of the clothes he'd been wearing all this time as well—even if he washed them, he didn't think they'd pass muster as something suitable for a son of the House of Tavadon.

  HE knew something was wrong the moment he came through the servants' quarters into the main part of the house—knew without having any way to forestall whatever disaster was to come. All he could do was just walk right into it, and hope the consequences weren't too terrible.

  "Don't you know that people talk?"

  His father came out of his first-floor study—just like an adder out of its hole, Kellen thought unkindly—just as Kellen entered the reception chamber. Kellen froze, his hand on the panel of white marble that led to his staircase, then turned back to face his father. Lycaelon was standing in the doorway of the study, backlit by the yellow glow of candles.

  "Why is it, do you suppose, that you have plenty of time to spend digging ditches and wallowing in muck but not one moment to attend to your studies?" Lycaelon asked him, in the same voice Kellen's professors used when they asked him a question they didn't really want an answer to.

  Kellen stared at his father in dawning horror. He'd been so focused— obsessed, really—with getting the cistern cleared, with paying the price the Wild Magic asked, that it hadn't occurred to him until this moment that he'd simply disappeared for a sennight—cut his regular lessons at the Mage College, missed his private sessions with Undermage Anigrel, everything! What could he possibly say?

  "I was busy," he muttered. "I'll do better, I promise." He winced inwardly at the sound of his own words, knowing they were a feeble and inadequate defense.

  "You'll forgive me, Kellen, if I don't think your promises are worth very much. Promises, excuses—all they are is evasions—evasions of your duties and responsibilities! All
you care about is yourself and your own pleasures," Lycaelon answered scornfully.

  "That's not true! You think cleaning out a clogged cistern is a pleasure?. It wasn't—but at least it helped someone, and it was more constructive than sitting around repeating sigils that I've done a hundred times already and listening to useless lectures! You don't know me—you don't know who I am or what I think about!" Kellen burst out angrily.

  "Think?"

  He should have known better than to try to justify what he'd done.

  Lycaelon obviously wasn't listening. He'd probably been planning his little lecture for bells now, and he was going to deliver it intact no matter what Kellen said to him.

  " 'Think'? I don't believe you think at all. You certainly don't act as if you do. Don't you know that people see you—and talk? Don't you know that everything you do reflects on my position? Don't you know that you have a tradition to live up to?"