Blindsighted Wanderer

by E. Hibbs

  Silas frowned. “Why is the bed over here?” he asked.

  Shadow Mask didn’t answer, but after a few moments, Silas heard the tent flap open and then a faint tinkling.

  “Oh!” Irima exclaimed as she noticed where he was. “Oh, I moved it while yer was out, so’s yer wouldn’t keep a’smackin’ yerself on that there beam.”

  Despite himself, Silas raised a small smile.

  “Irima, sit with us,” Shadow Mask said gently.

  Silas listened as she settled herself down between the two of them, pausing to drape her skirt over her knees. The pearls in her hair knocked against each other again. He ingrained the sound in his memory.

  “What be the matter?” she asked warily. “There be somethin’ wrong?”

  “No, no, at least not that I know of,” replied her uncle. “But Silas had decided that he wants to tell us everythin’ that he hasn’t yet.”

  Silas felt them both looking at him expectantly, and he clutched his cane in an anxious grip.

  “Before I begin,” he said, “I want you both to know that I trust thee. I trust thee with my life, and for good reason, as ye know. But please understand me when I say that all I have not spoken of was because of what I have seen. I awoke in your care fearing for my life, but not at your hands. This is why I have been so wary.”

  Irima cleared her throat softly, and Silas could almost tell without a doubt that she was remembering the incident of when he had stormed at her about being trussed up like meat. But the silence that followed was sincere and alert, and he readied himself.

  “My name is Silas Atégo, and I am the second-born son of Araena Iténo and the late Julian Atégo. My blindness is a punishment, for crossing the Wall into the forbidden west. Whilst there, I took a boat out onto the great Lake, and caught one of the people who dwell in its depths. It was a demon, which struck my hand and stole my sight during daylight hours. It let me escape with my life, but not untouched.”

  He paused for a moment, and when neither of his listeners responded, he took a deep breath.

  You have told them half of it, Silas, he thought. So, finish it. Say why you dared to go there.

  “My father died a little over a fortnight past, during the days of the Fayre, lost to the same fate that has befallen every man in his family for generations. He fell ill with something similar to the sweating sickness, but then his eyes did become glazed and glassy, and it was as though he drowned in the very air he breathed.

  “I... I went across the Wall in hope of finding a cure, somehow. I was careless, and God help me on Judgement Day, that I was only trying to do good. But now I pay for it. I was trying to flee the demon-land when Tomas found me.”

  He fell silent. It felt wonderful to voice the weight of it all at long last, but it now hovered in the air between him and the two Peregrin, waiting and hanging on every breath they drew in. The stillness was deafening, even to Silas. He couldn’t even hear the goings-on outside the tent: the cries of birds, the chatter of people, or the rush of Larkbird Falls in the distance. For him, in that agonisingly long moment hanging separate from the river of time, the only thing that existed in the world was the dome of the tent; the hard cover underfoot; and the eyes of the man and girl.

  Eventually – finally – Irima spoke in a hushed whisper. “Uncle!”

  “I know,” Shadow Mask replied. “Maria, Mother of God.”

  Alarm welled in Silas’ throat, but he didn’t dare talk. His apprehension must have showed on his face, however, because Shadow Mask turned to him.

  “No, no, do not fear, lad,” he said – but his voice was strained in a way Silas had never heard before. He sounded a little like he had on the first night, when he had confronted Silas after Andreas and Tomas had tied him to the post. But now, there was realisation, as though whatever he had been searching for that time had now finally fallen into place.

  “What is it?” Silas asked nervously. “Do ye know something of this after all?”

  Shadow Mask hesitated. “Well... not what might lie on the other side o’ the Wall, no.”

  “I was a’wonderin’ about what that Wall could possibly be about, y’know, as soon as we pitched up the camp,” Irima cut in.

  “But it does remind me o’ somethin’,” continued her uncle. “I was a’hopin’ that it might be somewhere different, but now I think o’ it – now yer’ve told us all this, Silas – there is no way it could be anywhere else, Irima. This is the place.”

  “What?” Silas begged. “Pray tell!”

  “Calm yerself, lad,” assured Shadow Mask, “n’ listen to us now, alrigh’?

  “Yer know we’s travelled to a lot o’ places o’er the years. In that time we’s seen a lot o’ things, n’ heard many more besides. Now, we don’t know nothin’ about anythin’ like this illness... this curse... that yer speak of, anywhere outside this Valley. Nowhere we’s been to’s ever had it, as far as we know. But there be an ol’ trailin’ legend in some parts around these ‘ere mount’ns, which speaks of where it’s supposed to have come from.

  “Accordin’ to what we’ve heard, two ‘undred years past, when there was a great barrier bein’ built in some distant n’ hidden place in the mount’ns, a small group o’ settlers who lived there managed to get out. They made their way to the nearest country: our homeland, Colbion. They told o’ a man, who had fallen in love with a demon-being disguised as a beau’iful woman, but the creature had cursed him n’ his descendants to drown forever.

  “So’s these poor souls who’d come away from that place – this Valley, I now realise – they ran because they was desperate. Desperate to protect themselves, since they was sure that those demons would send all sorts o’ upheaval n’ vengeance down on every man. That was why their people had built a Wall, so as to keep the beings away forever.”

  “That demon which did bring down that poor love-struck lad...” Irima muttered. “It reminds me o’ one o’ our own Peregrin legends, o’ the Martya! The angel o’ death! Bless his soul, who could have deserved such a terrible fate?”

  Silas sat motionless. If he could have stared, he would have barely blinked.

  Shadow Mask sighed, and there was a soft scraping sound as he scratched his head.

  “Mind, I doubted this was the place in that legend,” he added. “By the Lady, I barely believed it; it be such an old one and so hardly known anymore. I thought, now, that’s can hardly be true, y’see? Else I would never have brought the troupe this way. Not just this year, but in the past, when we’s come to the Fayre before.”

  “But it be only one family that’s bearin’ the brunt o’ all that happened that long time ago,” suggested Irima. “N’ it definitely be one very long time, uncle...”

  Silas suddenly found his voice. “The Wall was built because of my family?” he blurted. “The west is forbidden because of us?”

  Father Fortésa appeared in his mind, coughing heavily and running his gnarled fingers through his wiry beard.

  Remember what it was he said to you, Silas! About the demons across the Wall! He said, ‘it is they who strike down your men, and who have done so for generations. Those abominable creatures of darkness and depth... they have set a curse upon your name!’

  Those blazing purple eyes burned in his memory, and then a furious scream, contorted into the three syllables of his surname.

  “My God!” he breathed, raising his hands. He held his face pitifully, and let out the most desolate moan that he had ever heard come from any living creature, least of all himself.

  Immediately, Irima appeared at his side and put an arm around his shoulders, wiping at his cheeks gently with her other hand. She muttered words of comfort to him, and Silas felt her body trembling, as his own shook with horror. Tears spilled out of his blind eyes, as though finally overflowing from fifteen years of being held down inside. The material about his head soaked them up instantly, but for the first time, Silas wished that the whole world could see his sorrow. Everything had, in the course of a few mo
ments, now been turned on its head, and he felt uprooted like a sorry plant.

  Shadow Mask placed a hand on his knee. “Listen, lad, let’s keep this between the three o’ us, alrigh’?”

  Shuddering, Silas nodded wordlessly.

  “Righ’. No-one else need know about this. I don’t want to panic nobody, n’ I’m quite sure that yer don’t want word to go any further than this here tent, am I righ’?”

  Silas nodded again.

  “Well, yer secret’s safe with us. Eh, Irima?”

  “O’ course, o’ course!” she said. By now, she had given up mopping at his face and instead contented herself with holding him with both arms.

  Shadow Mask brought his face closer. “Now, Silas,” he said softly. “Do yer still want to leave us tomorrow?”

  Silas nodded, and then choked out a weak “Aye.”

  “Then let’s have things go as planned for tonigh’, to bid yer farewell from all o’ us.” Shadow Mask got to his feet and made for the exit. “Stay in here until nightfall. Yer’ll be alrigh’. Irima, keep an eye on him. Make sure he’s well.”

  “I will,” she replied, and her uncle left the two of them without another word.

  Silas was terribly shaken, and it took Irima a large portion of the afternoon to calm him to a state that wouldn’t arouse suspicion later on. She hadn’t let him leave the tent and had stayed with him faithfully – eventually not talking much but comforting by presence alone. But as he felt the coming night begin to settle in, by the coolness in the air and the smells of food mingling with that of a well-sunned, saturated day – she spoke.

  “How be yer feelin’?”

  Silas swallowed. “Fine, I think.”

  Her soft hands cupped his face and held it steady. He felt her eyes on him. He was suddenly very glad that his own were closed and covered. But then alarm shot through him as she grasped the blindfold and pulled it gently over his head.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, keeping his eyes shut.

  She softly felt the skin under his bottom lids with the pad of her thumb. “Yer’ve been cryin’,” she said quietly.

  “Why, of course,” he replied. “Can thou blame me?”

  There was a pause, and the pearls tinkled as she shook her head. “O’ course not.”

  Silas hung his head, but she kept hold of him.

  “Now I have told you my secret,” he said in an undertone. “You know of my family’s curse... and my own. What must you think of me?”

  His voice lowered in shame, and the last word escaped as a shudder barely carried on his breath. One of Irima’s hands moved slowly down onto his neck. Underneath the loose green material of his shirt, goose bumps rose on Silas’ arms.

  When she spoke again, her voice was as hushed as his, and sounded strangely musical; suddenly deeper and more meaningful than any others he had heard.

  “I thought nowt less o’ yer than I did that first day, when yer woke up in ‘ere.”

  Silas wallowed in her speech, imagining it drifting around him like some kind of physical breeze, tainted an ever-changing mirage of colours. It was as though it contained an orchestra of sound and hue, and behind his blind eyes, everything was suddenly brighter and more alive than it could possibly ever be.

  “Did you... remember me?” he asked her, brow furrowed slightly. “From the Fayre?”

  She chuckled. “Indeed, I do. I winked at yer.”

  The memory came back thick and fast, and Silas saw the whole moment as though he had opened his eyes at night. There was the pipe and tabor’s music on the wind; the calls from the stallholders; the merry laughter and cries for ale. Fools busied themselves with their fun; engrossed folk looked on as a costumed king and queen played chess. And from where he sat atop the cart, watching the Patrians – the Peregrin – sell their wares from their wagons, the young girl caught a flustered Silas looking her way.

  You never thought you would see her again, he thought. And yet she has been by your side all along.

  “How long until sunset?” he asked.

  “Not long at all,” Irima replied immediately. “N’ yer seem a lot better now. That be good. Yer can’t have a face like a puddle, not tonigh’.”

  “Why? What is happening?”

  “Yer shall see,” she said, and then chuckled to herself. “Yer shall definitely see!”

  Despite himself, Silas smiled too. And he only just realised that Irima’s hands were still on his cheeks when she suddenly pressed her lips onto his. Overwhelmed with alarm, his eyes flew open.

  Almost as quickly as it had happened, it was over, and she pulled away from him. A sudden tenseness came into her fingers, as though she was anxiously waiting to see what he would do.

  Silas knew that a little over a week ago, he would have raged at anybody who dared do such a thing – but now, he couldn’t bring himself to even think of raising his voice above a whisper. Instead, he lifted his own hand – still hidden inside the glove – and found her face without difficulty. He ran the leather-coated backs of his fingers along her cheek.

  And then the pinprick of light appeared in the centre of the darkness, expanding and brightening into true colours and shadows. Barely two hands’ breadth away from him, Irima’s grey eyes looked on.

  “Think o’ that as somethin’ to remember me by, boy with the little brown donkey,” she whispered with a smile. “Now yer stay here for a little while longer, alrigh’? Final preparations n’ all, y’see. Me uncle’ll be back fer yer shortly.”

  She let go of him, got to her feet, and then slipped softly out of the tent with a final glance back, letting the flap fall shut behind her. Silas sat alone, staring into the coloured nothingness as though he was still blind, gently touching his lips with his fingertips.

  CHAPTER XXII

  The Wanderers’ Dance

  T he dusk sky turned to true night, and Silas took it upon himself to light the clay oil lamp inside the tent. He was surprised, because although the little burning wick cast a good light for its size, the tarpaulin was lit dimly from the outside as well, in a way that he had never seen before: a warm orange that flickered with a network of shadows.

  The unmistakable smell of smouldering wood confirmed a thought as it fleeted through his mind. The Peregrin had lit a fire, and from all he had to go on, it seemed like quite a large one. The air grew heavy with the smell of stew and roasting meat, and Silas’ mouth watered. The nearby leaves rustled with the wind; and it carried the excited sound of chatter and laughter.

  He wondered silently, what are they doing? What are these plans that Shadow Mask spoke of?

  In that moment, a man-shaped shadow encroached on the canvas walls; then the troupe leader himself peered inside with a wry smile on his face. His green eyes sparkled.

  “How’s yer feelin’?” he asked.

  Silas swallowed. “Much better.”

  Shadow Mask gave him a searching look, but Silas held firm, determined to show that he meant what he said. It worked, and Shadow Mask nodded.

  He scratched his head idly. “I hope yer’s not been a’earwiggin’ on us!”

  Silas frowned in confusion. “I’m sorry?”

  “Eavesdroppin’, lad, eavesdroppin’!”

  “Oh!” Silas exclaimed. “Oh, no, of course not!”

  “Good.”

  Shadow Mask came inside fully, and doused the tiny lamp’s flame with his fingers. The tent burst into darkness, but it only took Silas’ eyes a moment to adjust. The glow from outside seemed to swell, and the supple willow beams stood out as stark black lines against the flashing orange.

  Silas got to his feet slowly, and looked at Shadow Mask. Even in the low light, the curls of his hair and the neat whiskers of his beard were as sharp as anything.

  “Go outside,” he told him. “Go on.”

  Silas paused for a moment, still holding his gaze and not blinking, but then he turned and slowly drew back the flap. What met his eyes was obvious and astonishing in the same instance.

&nbs
p; On the shores of the lake, and against the backdrop of the corrie’s steep slopes, there stood a huge roaring fire. The flames licked up a conical tower of old wood that stood almost as high as Tomas, who was the tallest man in the camp. On a smaller hearth nearby, a succulent-smelling joint of pork was roasting slowly, attended to by an older woman whose long hair was ashen with her natural blonde and the creeping grey of age. And, further away, there was an open vat of drink: small by Valley standards, but there nonetheless. All of the Peregin – even the Seniors – were out and gathered around in a great throng of excitement, their laughter filling the night with joy.

  And then Silas found Irima. She was standing with a group of four others: two men and two women; all older than her. All of them – excluding one of the women – were holding musical instruments. As Silas drew nearer alongside Shadow Mask, he recognised the other four. Kenneth and Lina; two jolly-faced siblings in their early twenties, commanded percussion: she had a jingling tambourine, and he a bass drum made from a hollow tree-log covered with taught animal skin. Tomas was there too – Silas would have recognised him anywhere, with his long wavy black hair and deep brown eyes – and in his hands was a lute. Irima held a simple wooden shawm to her lips, lost in concentration as she played. And as for the other woman, Silas could see nothing, so he presumed she must be a singer.

  Irima’s eyes found the two of them approaching, and she tapped Tomas on the shoulder. He glanced up, and Silas noticed Shadow Mask raise a hand in a signal. Tomas nodded; then Kenneth struck the drum with his hands four times before the others all took up their instruments and started to play a jolly tune. The Peregrin immediately turned to watch, and some began dancing merrily, their cheeks bright with a mixture of fire-heat, happiness and drink.

  Silas grasped Shadow Mask’s arm to get his attention. “This is not all for me, surely?” he gasped.