The Silenced Tale

by J. M. Frey

  And listening to the song now, feeling the way this particular gentle orchestration seems to reach out and snag on his heart, he’s glad he did.

  All at once, the gentle music swings into the fiddle-and-fife tune that’s going to be the show’s opening theme song. But it’s been made brighter, brasher, more confident, bullying the tempo into keeping up with it.

  With no title card or credits as a warning, the darkness on the screen surges bright and focuses on the image of a grand, three-storied manor house made of sandy-gold marble at the end of a long, wide, impeccably manicured white gravel drive. The trees on either side of it are landscaped within an inch of their lives. Then, all at once, with a dramatic flutter, two massive Turn-russet banners are unfurled from the roof. They’re easily as wide as a man’s outstretched arms, and long enough to brush the top of the house’s grand portico. Bordered in gold fringe and tassels, they’re embroidered with the massive image of a key lancing a lock, the sigil of House Turn.

  The crowd goes bananas. People start screaming, “Oh my god!” and, “No way!” and, “I knew it!” and, “The rumors are true!” and all manner of expletives.

  Elgar feels a surge of pride and excitement and, strangely, a bit of paternal affection. He knew that keeping the series a secret would be worth it.

  “Oh,” he hears Lucy gasp from the front row, and Elgar can see just enough in the glow of the screen to catch the way she turns her head to watch her husband and nothing else. Between them, their hands are white-knuckled. Forsyth flexes his fingers, and brings the basket woven of their fingers to his lips to cover his expression.

  The film isn’t long—ten minutes, give or take—and follows Kintyre Turn as he walks around the estate, overseeing and approving of the work being done on it in advance of his eighteenth birthday celebration. The exterior set of Turn Hall was already mostly completed when Elgar had been asked to write this, so it was nice to be able to show it off. Kintyre swiftly thereafter sneaks out of the stables dressed in Shiel-purple, with a horse, a full set of saddlebags, and enough food to get him to the Urlish border, where he can volunteer for the foot-soldiers brigade fighting in the war. Everyone knows that what happens next is his first meeting with Bevel Dom, seventh son of a seventh son, then just an illiterate blacksmith-in-training. It’s the first actual scene of the first book, that fateful meeting.

  But this story doesn’t go that far. Instead, it focuses on the few hours after Kintyre escaped, when he stopped in a glade to water his horse and realized that his bratty younger brother had followed him. He and Forsyth fight, and scrap, and tussle, and Forsyth falls through a bit of rotten sandstone into a wide, deep cave. When the young boy playing Forsyth drops out of sight on the screen, Pip makes a sound of horror that is echoed by a few other people in the audience.

  In the film, the young Kintyre races back along the road to fetch help from Turn Hall, but stops when he finds an abandoned farm. Stealing rope from the ruins of the tilting barn, he returns to the chasm and rappels down to rescue his unconscious and bleeding brother in his first act of heroism. But before hauling them both back into the daylight, he spots something glittering on the bottom of a still, deep pool.

  It’s Foesmiter. The crowd whoops and applauds hard when, after his third dive, Kintyre breaks the surface of the pool with the sword held aloft, glittering in the lone shaft of syrupy-golden sunlight. The music surges, the room cheers, and Elgar can see tears running down Forsyth’s cheeks in the reflected light of the film.

  Homesickness? Elgar wonders.

  The rest of the film is taken up with Kintyre getting Forsyth home and being scolded by his father for trying to run away on the eve of his own birthday party and the opportunity to choose a wife from all the pretty, stupid girls tittering at him from behind their fans. But Elgar isn’t watching anymore.

  All he can see is the way Forsyth pants and shakes, the way he flinches at every movement on the screen, clenches his jaw at every word. The way Lucy presses her forehead against his shoulder, squeezes his thigh with her free hand, as if she has to hold him down, hold him still as Forsyth, who has always been intensely private and buttoned-down, is forced to experience one of the most profoundly emotional ten minutes of his life—in public.

  Just for the sake of catching the Viceroy. Just for the sake of protecting Elgar.

  He suddenly feels very small, and profoundly guilty. He wishes, suddenly, that he’d thought to offer Forsyth a private viewing first. But then the lights snap back on, and Elgar is caught staring. Heads swivel and murmurs rise as people try to figure out what he is looking at. Mortified, Forsyth mops at his face and ducks into Lucy’s embrace.

  “So, what the heck was that?” the moderator asks, wrenching Elgar’s attention back to the stage, and the conversation he’s supposed to be having. The moderator says it with wide eyes and a grin he can’t quite conceal.

  “What do you think?” Elgar replies, and then barrels on, too excited to actually let him answer. “It’s a teaser for the new . . . wait for it . . . Tales of Kintyre Turn television series!”

  As he knew they would, the crowd surges to its feet again, screaming and hollering, stamping and applauding in joy. When the noise has died down again, the moderator says: “So, this series is about the Great Hero of Hain himself?”

  “Yeah, it’ll follow the path of the books, tracing the story from when Kintyre leaves home at the end of this snippet and meets Bevel at the start of book one, right through to the defeat of the Viceroy.”

  Elgar stops. Waits. Listens as the crowd cheers and thunders their feet against the carpet. He squints against the stage lights, searching. Now, the moment is now, it has to be. . . . He holds his breath, scanning the rafters, muscles clenched, ready.

  Nothing happens. Nothing changes. Nothing jumps out of the shadows.

  God dammit, Elgar thinks. I thought that would be his cue. Where the hell is he?

  “Wow!” the moderator says, filling the awkward silence. “How awesome.”

  Elgar jolts his attention back to the stage, where the moderator is making a “go on” face at him.

  “Oh, uh, there’ll be more, too,” Elgar says slowly, drawing it out. Waiting, waiting. “Uh, it will follow some of the life of the people Kintyre left behind in Turnshire. Um. Like, uh . . . like his little brother, who, I am happy to report, has a whole storyline of his own now.”

  Forsyth starts in his seat, eyes wrenched back to the stage by this pronouncement. His eyes are red-rimmed, his nose puffy, and he looks shocked. Shocked, and pleased.

  The hall quiets. There is no crackle of fire, no evil laugh, no shouted oath. Nothing.

  “That’s exciting!” the moderator says. “So we’ll be seeing everything, all eight books?”

  “Absolutely, including how the Viceroy is finally defeated.” Elgar waits again, watches, braces himself.

  Nothing.

  Nothing.

  Goddamn fucking nothing, Elgar snarls mentally. What’s taking so long?

  He slips his downstage hand back to the hilt of the knife, unable to stop himself. His hand is shaking. His chest burns. The bottoms of his feet itch.

  “That’s right, we don’t get that in the novels, do we?”

  What? Elgar thinks stupidly, and yanks his gaze back to the man on stage with him, who’s starting to look annoyed.

  “No. I’ve always had an idea of what happened to the villain, how he got his comeuppance,” Elgar says, feeling daring. Feeling invincible after the overwhelming positivity of the reception of this short, feeling reckless. Feeling like the kind of bait that’s getting sick of dangling. “He was always a bastard.”

  In the front row, Lucy tenses, the corner of her mouth turning down.

  “True enough!” the moderator laughs. Then he claps his hands, a sharp burst of sound that makes Elgar jump in his seat, wild-eyed and heart racing. “Right, we’ve got some folks lined up for the microphones, so let’s have at it, people! Who do we have first?”

  �
�Hi!” a young woman says over the sound system, and the lights in the auditorium come up enough for Elgar to see her standing to the far left of the room, wearing a shirt with the map of Hain printed on it. “I’m Adrienne. I wanted to ask, can you talk a little about your writing process?”

  Elgar takes another swallow of water, then a deep breath, and reapplies his performing-monkey smile. A quick glance at Forsyth and Lucy shows that they are as confused and on edge as he is.

  “Sure, Adrienne,” Elgar says, and answers. And answers. And answers.

  Elgar talks for two hours, his ears pricked, eyes straining, mouth dry with anticipation, his heart thudding against his ribs the whole time.

  And nothing happens.

  CHAPTER 11

  FORSYTH

  As soon as the moderator has thanked the crowd for coming, and the lights have come on to signal the audience to trickle out through the large double doors at the back of the ballroom, Ahbni pokes her head out of the small, curtained-off area beside the stage and gestures for Pip and I to come in.

  Pip and I rise with the rest of the crowd, hands still laced together, prepared to draw our blades if need be. We share a look of a confused anger, and I know that I am grinding my teeth in my frustration, a disgusting habit. I take a deep breath and shake out my shoulders, which startles Pip.

  “Where is he?” my wife asks.

  But I have no answer to give her. Instead, I tug her hand gently, hopefully reassuring, and we follow after Ahbni. Elgar stands in the middle of the overcrowded curtained-off area, bumping the computer banks behind him as Kashif removes his microphone. Elgar’s eyes are wide, his face sheened with sweat, and he is scrumpling the cuffs of his cardigan.

  “That went well,” Ahbni says conversationally, tapping away at her smartphone. Pip snorts, and I resist the urge to growl. “Good crowd?”

  “Uh, yeah,” Elgar murmurs, subdued. His tone makes Ahbni’s eyes snap up to him.

  “Hey, you okay? You hungry, or . . . ?”

  “I could . . . coffee?” Elgar asks, clearly remembering her annoyance at the request last night.

  Ahbni just nods and says, “We’ll get you set up in the con suite upstairs for a bit, okay? There’s a few hours until your signing session.”

  “Sounds great.” Elgar raises his eyebrows meaningfully at me. “It’s all going so smoothly.”

  As ever, my creator thinks he is more subtle than he really is. Ahbni shoots me a confused look of her own at his theatrical emphasis, and I shake my head minutely, dismissing it. She doesn’t seem placated, but at this point, I frankly do not care.

  The beginnings of fury itch the underside of my skin. And beyond that, the place in the back of my mind, the place where the puzzle pieces usually float, is a throbbing agony. Elgar Reed Wrote me to need to understand. And right now, I do not. And I despise it.

  “Okay,” Pip says, attempting to hasten us along. “Someone’s feeling a bit hangry. Let’s go.”

  “I am not—”

  Pip kicks my shin, and I gape at her.

  Fuming, though now my ire is directed at Pip’s audacity, I let her pull me along in her wake, through the back hallways again, to the Green Room, then out to the escalators. A few steps above us, Elgar turns to me and blurts: “You said he’d—” Pip kicks his shin, too. Affronted, and agitated, Elgar snaps his mouth shut and glowers.

  Once in the con suite, I push both of them into the spare bedroom with a quick, “Excuse us for a moment,” and lock the door behind us.

  “Your coffee . . . ?” Ahbni starts.

  “In a moment!” I snap back through the door.

  Pip tugs me hard through our joined hands and grinds out: “Quit it.”

  “I don’t get it,” Elgar starts again. “You said that he’d—”

  “There was always a chance—” I begin, but Elgar barrels over me with:

  “If he wasn’t there, then where the hell is he? Can’t you feel him, Lucy? Where is he?”

  “I’m not a magic compass! How do you expect me to—?” Pip protests.

  “Enough,” I snarl, and both Pip and Elgar turn mulish expressions toward me. “We cannot change what happened, and we cannot force the Viceroy to show his hand, clearly.”

  “So what now?” Elgar asks.

  “Now, we fetch coffee, and eat something to cure our hangriness,” I say. Pip rolls her eyes at my childish tone, but I will not lie, I am feeling very close to an Alis-style tantrum. I would very much like to scream and break something, but of course, I will not. It would only cause more problems I do not need, and solve none of the ones I already have. “And then we sit down and figure this out.”

  “You can’t just think through every problem,” Elgar says.

  “It is what I do!” I reply. “I am no Kintyre Turn, to bash at things he cannot see! Though I wish he was here. Maybe that would draw out—”

  “Forsyth, hey now,” Pip begins, but Elgar interrupts with: “If we keep waiting, then—”

  “There is no foe before me to slay,” I counter. “So what else do you suggest I do?”

  “Okay, let’s all just . . .” Pip takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “Let’s all just chill for a second and stop sniping at each other, okay?”

  “But what if—?” Elgar protests.

  “Deep breath!” Pip interrupts, pointing at his face. He obeys, albeit grudgingly, and she swings her finger toward me. “You, too.” I obey, as well.

  Once we’ve all taken a moment to breathe and chill, Pip lifts our twined hands between us with a question in her face. I nod. Slowly, finger by finger, we release one another. My joints ache, and my skin is damp with sweat when we finally let go. Elgar gasps and straightens, as if someone has dropped snow down the back of his shirt. I wipe my hand dry on my shirtsleeve as best I can.

  Elgar sits in a chair beside this room’s desk, slumped over and morose now that our mutual impotent anger has dissipated and the tension in the room has been dispersed. He takes another deep breath, and holds on to it for a moment, clearly chewing on his thoughts. Finally, in a small, quiet voice, he says: “He’s not here, is he?”

  Pip and I share a look that lets me know that my wife isn’t entirely certain what her answer ought to be. She walks over to the window, flexing out her hand, and opens the door to the narrow balcony that looks down onto an interior courtyard that appears to be connected to the foyer with the fountain. She leans her elbows on the rail and hangs her head. I am reminded of how little we all slept last night, how exhaustion pulls at our eyelids.

  “It didn’t work, and he’s still out there, and I . . .” Elgar’s gaze is broken, glassy, the skin around his eyes pinched. His mouth trembles. “We have no idea, and I just—I can’t!” He hunches over the desk, back to me, I assume, so I cannot see him crying. His shoulders are moving, though. The blade of his dagger is sticking up from the sheath clipped awkwardly to his belt. I must remember to adjust it in case it slips loose.

  “The Viceroy doesn’t usually appear until the third act,” Pip reminds him, as if he was not the one who Wrote it that way.

  “Except I saw him in the hospital,” I remind her.

  “Well, then, I don’t have any fucking clue, do I!” Pip snaps, whirling back around to face us. “I can’t just deconstruct the plot and—Elgar, what are you doing?”

  She straightens and sweeps down to grab something out of Elgar’s lap. Before I can see what it is, Elgar reaches up and clasps the part of Pip’s neck where it joins her shoulder, where her shirt gapes just enough for his palm to touch skin. Pip grunts, staggers slightly to the side, as if she’s been pushed. Light flashes in my peripheral vision, but it is not the green glow I expect, that I fear. It is white. It is colorless. It is familiar.

  There is a sound like a world shattering. I know this noise intimately. It makes every hair I possess stand straight up, goose bumps flashing across my flesh and fear splashing ice-cold up my spine.

  I turn back to blink at Elgar through the haze, b
ut he’s not sitting at the table anymore. He’s standing beside Pip, his palm cupping the back of her neck. Pip’s body is tensed upward in one long line of agony, her eyes wide open, her head thrown back, her arms a rictus, fists balled so tight I fear she will cut her hands with her fingernails. And her eyes, her eyes, they glow. They glow green. Pupil-less, iris-less, whites-less. Solid, verdant, acidic, dangerous green.

  “Writer, no!” I shout, my heart jerking so hard in my chest that I feel my whole body lurch.

  Elgar, thinking I am speaking directly to him rather than swearing, jerks his hand away from Pip, stumbling up onto his feet and back into the desk. Pip sucks in a great gout of air, and collapses downward. For once, Elgar is quicker than I, for he catches Pip in his arms before she hits the garish carpet.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” Elgar babbles, cradling Pip against him, lowering them both to the floor. “I couldn’t think of any other way. Lucy? Lucy!”

  The white light is slowly, slowly fading, and I turn my back to it, swooping down over Elgar like a harpy. A touch to the side of my wife’s neck tells me that her pulse is rapid, but not dangerously so. She’s panting, smacking her lips together as if parched, and she shakes, a fine earthquake of tremors that wrack her whole body.

  It is terrifying, but moreso because I can do nothing to either help her or stop it.

  There is something white in my creator’s hand, and I focus on that, instead. It is paper. Yes, the desk had a little pad of notepaper on it—I remember seeing it as we came in, but I didn’t think I would have to take it away from Elgar like an errant toddler. I am stunned, stunned that he would . . . that he has . . . I snatch the piece of paper out of Elgar’s hand, horrified to see his thick, familiar scrawl all over it.