Bosk felt his shoulders sag. “You doubt he will approve.”
“As do you, or you would never have asked me first.” Turjan gripped the boy’s shoulder and urged him to rise. “Come, let’s walk a little closer to the manse and speak of mushrooms. That’s the lore you know already, after all.”
Bosk sighed and nodded.
For ten generations, the Septentrions had dealt in mushrooms from Boreal Verge, and their knowledge of their wares was as deep as the gorge itself. Countless times, Bosk had gone with his father and brother on the day-long journey to the north, where the western face of the gorge was pocked by tunnel openings, and perilous trails of green serpentine, cut by centuries of miners, slanted down to those entrances. In the tunnels, the miners nourished their pale bounty and dried a dozen varieties that could only thus survive the journey to the south. Twice a year, the Septentrions transported this produce and returned with golden coins and foodstuffs that southerners took for granted but which were delicacies in the north—flour, dried fruit, vegetables preserved in oil.
It was a commerce that made Bosk feel trapped.
Turjan had been gone almost a month when the boy finally broached the subject of sorcery.
“What nonsense is this?” thundered his father. The family was at dinner with a newly carpentered table, the one with the tree having been consigned to a windowed alcove. “You will do as we all have done, and there’s an end to it!”
Bosk pushed his plate of gratineed mushrooms away. “Father, please. Fluvio can serve the family as well as I can.”
“Let him go, Father,” said Fluvio.
“Be silent!” said their father. “We will not discuss this further.”
Two nights later, after family and servants had retired, Bosk tucked a few coins into his waistband, packed panniers with clothing, provisions, a handful of fresh mushrooms for himself, and a sack of dried mushrooms for trade, and crept out of the manse. He was in the stable, saddling his favorite horse, when he heard a step behind him. A chill ran up his spine as he turned to face his father’s wrath, but instead, there was his brother, in robe and slippers.
“He’ll never change his mind,” said Bosk.
“I’ll tell him you went to the mines. That should be good for at least three days.”
Bosk nodded. “You’re welcome to every part of it.”
Fluvio smiled slowly. “I was wondering when you would finally say that.”
“He’ll be as hard on you as he has been on me.”
“I doubt that. He doesn’t have another child waiting behind me.”
Bosk turned back to the horse and sealed the pannier on the near side of the saddle. “I’m sorry it’s been that way.”
“I doubt that, too. But it won’t matter once you’re gone.” Without another word, he turned and left the stable.
Bosk moved south by starlight, following the familiar route toward the markets of Ascolais. There was a road of sorts, and with dawn its fragmentary pavement was occasionally visible beneath the vigorous undergrowth. Bosk knew that road, knew the isolated dwellings that dotted it, some in ruins, some still inhabited. He stopped at a few of the latter and traded mushrooms for hospitality, a long-established custom. The householders would tell his father he had passed, but that mattered little, for his father would surely guess his destination. He was surprised to see that the last of the ruins, which, in his memory, was a crumbling hovel half hidden by tall grass, had been transformed. It was whole now, the grass trimmed back into a broad esplanade.
The door was open a hand’s breadth, and someone was peering out.
“Good afternoon!” Bosk shouted.
The door closed.
He glanced at the low sun. He had planned on camping in the shelter of the ruins. There was a brook nearby where he could fill his water bottle and catch a fish for his supper, and dry wood in plenty within a dozen paces of the road. Now he hoped he could still stop here, set his camp on the mown grass and sleep in the open on a night that promised to be fine. He led his horse to the water, then looped the reins over a low branch a respectful distance from the hut and removed the saddle to serve as his pillow.
The door opened again, not far enough to let him see inside, and a woman’s voice called out, “Go away!”
He drew a fishing line from one of his panniers, baited it with a fragment of yesterday’s supper, and soon had a fish, which he filleted with his dagger and set aside while he kindled his fire. He had a slick-surfaced pan for the fish, and a few fresh mushrooms left for adding to it, and soon the scent of supper wreathed him. When it was ready, he carried the pan to the door of the hut, knocked once, and said loudly, “You’re welcome to join me.”
Suddenly, the pan was wrested from him, and hard hands swept him off his feet and slung him over a surface as solid as a fence rail, knocking the breath from him. As he hung head downward, gasping, he realized he was doubled over the naked, muscular shoulder of a Deodand. His sheathed dagger was pinned between their bodies, unreachable; but the miners, who fought often for sport, had taught him a few things, and he managed to lodge one hand in the creature’s armpit for leverage and hook his other arm around its neck. He wrenched fiercely. The Deodand made a guttural sound and clawed at his legs, and Bosk fought to curl his knees into its chest and use that purchase to increase the pressure on its head. The creature was strong, but Bosk’s desire to avoid being eaten was strong as well, and the contest continued until, abruptly, the two of them were on the grass. The Deodand’s grip relaxed, and Bosk scrambled away from it, pulling his knife.
There was a golden arrow lodged in the creature’s back.
“No need to run,” said the woman’s voice. “It’s dead.”
He looked up and saw her standing in the doorway of the hut, a golden bow in her hands, and for a moment he could not speak. She was a woman such as he had never seen before, beautiful, slender, and graceful, her hair and eyes as golden as the coins in his waistband, her skin a paler, creamy gold. Still breathing raggedly, he said, “I wasn’t running,” and he sheathed the blade once more.
“I see you were not,” she said. And more softly, “You’re just a child.”
He straightened and felt the throb of strained muscles in his arms, shoulders, and thighs. “I am the heir of Boreal Verge,” he said, though after saying it he remembered it was no longer exactly true.
“I don’t know that land.”
“To the north.” He waved vaguely in that direction. He was surprised, when his hand passed before his eyes, to see it shaking. He swayed a little.
“You’re injured,” said the woman.
“Battered,” he admitted.
She seemed to consider the matter. “Come inside,” she said at last. “You would have shared your supper with me.” She bent to retrieve his pan. The fish was nowhere to be seen. “I have enough for two.”
“That is kind of you. But I should do something about that first.” He nodded at the Deodand. “Before the scavengers come.”
“I’ll deal with it.”
He shook his head. “I’ll dig a trench for it over that way.” He pointed down the road.
She circled the corpse and caught his arm. “Come.”
At her touch, a thrill surged through him. She was a trifle shorter than he was, and her eyes, looking up at him, were wide and slightly tilted, and her bright hair brushed his skin like silken thread. He let her help him to the hut.
Inside, four globes shed yellow light from the corners of the room, showing a round table flanked by two armless chairs, a small cupboard against the near wall, and a narrow couch beyond. She pressed him into one of the chairs and set his pan and her bow on the table beside him. At the cupboard, she selected a small jar and took it outside, where she opened it and spilled perhaps a thimbleful of dark, heavy dust over the Deodand’s body. The dust expanded to a cloud cloaking the corpse entirely, and a few heartbeats later, it dissipated, leaving nothing behind but a faintly depressed spot on the grass, and the go
lden arrow.
Bosk stared, open-mouthed, as she returned to the hut.
“It has no effect on the living,” she said. She put the jar away and took a loaf and a plate of sliced cheese from a higher shelf and set them on the table. “Are you afraid to stay for supper?”
He shook his head and with awe in his voice said, “That was powerful sorcery.”
She inclined her head. “I have some small knowledge.” She took the other chair and tore a chunk of bread for herself.
“I am Bosk,” he said.
“And I am Lith.” She smiled the faintest of smiles and raised one finger beside her cheek. The lowest door of the cupboard opened of its own accord, and a carafe and two golden goblets floated out and settled on the table beside the loaf. She curled her finger, and the carafe poured pale, golden wine into the goblets.
Bosk picked up the nearer goblet. “I am bound to Ascolais to apprentice to a sorcerer,” he said. “I hope to learn such things.” The aroma of the wine was light, fruity, and appealing. Still, he waited for her to drink before he tried it, waited for her to eat before choosing from the plate himself. He did not want to think ill of her, but he was his merchant father’s son, and he knew that no gift was without its price. He had wanted campfire space on her lawn in exchange for a fish supper. Now he was in her debt not only for a meal but for his life, and her golden beauty did not cause him to forget that.
“There is no poison in the food or wine,” she said. She sipped from her goblet. “But suspicion can be a healthy habit. You would have done well to keep a better watch a little while ago.”
“This was a safe enough place a few months past.”
“There are very few truly safe places,” she said, and she glanced over her shoulder, toward the far wall of the hut.
He followed her gaze. Above the couch hung a tapestry that shone in the light of the globes, a tapestry worked of every possible shade of golden thread, the tones rich and subtle, making a landscape of a broad river valley, a small village, and boundary mountains so real-seeming that they might almost have existed under some impossibly golden sun. The bottom of the tapestry was frayed, as if someone had torn it from the loom just before it could be finished. Perhaps, he thought, she was still working on it.
She turned away from it and drank from her goblet again.
“That’s a beautiful piece,” he said. “Your own work?”
She nodded. “A powerful piece of sorcery.”
“Sorcery,” he said with interest. “Of what sort?”
“A doorway to Ariventa. Or it would be if it were undamaged.”
“Ariventa?”
“My home.” She blinked a few times, and he could see the wetness of tears on her golden lashes. She took a deep breath. “But that’s in the past, as so many things are.” She drank again.
“A doorway?” he asked.
She lowered her eyes. “When I was very young, I had a great desire to travel to exotic lands. I studied the art, and finally I was able to create the tapestry and step through it to a place you might visit on your horse, but remote for me. And I had my travel. Oh, I had my fill of it. And then someone hacked the tapestry and stole away the finishing thread, and Ariventa became much too far away…” Now the tears began to trickle down her cheeks, and she wiped them away with the back of one hand. “Sorry,” she whispered. “It’s just so long since I’ve been home.”
He glanced at the tapestry again. “Is there no other way to make the journey?”
She sighed deeply. “None that I know. None that anyone I’ve met here knows.”
He wanted to reach out and stroke her hair reassuringly. “Will mending the tapestry allow you to return?”
“With the original thread, it will.”
“And the thief—do you know anything about him?”
“Oh yes.” She set her elbows on the table and leaned her forehead against her clasped hands. “It is Chun the Unavoidable.”
He frowned. “Who?”
“He lives in the ruins north of Kaiin and keeps the finishing thread wrapped about the neck of an antique tourmaline vase. He finds amusement in withholding it from me. We are not friends, you see. He is…an unpleasant creature.”
Hesitantly, Bosk touched her arm. “Is there some way I can get it back for you? If he loves mushrooms, I carry a supply of the north’s finest, worth more than any golden thread.”
She shook her head. “He has other tastes in food. I prefer not to think of them.”
He took a deep breath, drawing strength from the feel of her smooth skin under his fingers. “I will find a potent weapon and force this Chun.”
She shook her head again and eased her arm away from him. “You are a dreamer, young Bosk. Chun is much more dangerous than any Deodand. You won’t even be able to enter his hall. Powerful spells keep out all but the golden-eyed, and your eyes are blue as the sky.”
“I will hire a cadre of bravos, all golden-eyed, to enter for me.”
One of her eyebrows rose a trifle. “You carry more mushrooms than I would have guessed.”
He thought of his waistband, his panniers, and realized his assets were woefully deficient for that plan. “Well, perhaps not,” he murmured.
“Never mind. I will be no worse off when you leave than I am now.” She leaned back in her chair. “You have a long journey still ahead of you. You should rest. There is a mat stored under my couch, not uncomfortable, and the night promises fair. Take the bread and cheese with you.”
He knew a dismissal when he heard it. Outside, the darkness was profound, but he traced his horse by its welcoming nicker and bedded down with Lith’s mat and his own blanket beside his saddle. As he closed his eyes, he thought of the silken skin of her arm and the brightness of her hair, and his waking merged with a dream of her bending over him, smiling that faint smile.
In the morning, the hut was a ruin once more, and there was no trace of Lith, not even the mat upon which he had slept. Only the grassy esplanade remained to show that the place had been recently occupied. The pan, scrubbed clean, lay beside his saddle.
Bosk thought of her often during the remainder of his journey—when he lay down four nights later at an inn, the harbinger of more settled territory, when he asked at a farmyard for directions to Miir, as he rode down the causeway that led to the castle gate. His heart quickened in his chest as the gate responded to his knock, opening of its own accord, for he knew at that moment there must be something he could learn in sorcery to help her.
Turjan himself stood within the arched entry. “I wondered how soon you would undertake the journey.”
Bosk descended from his mount. “My father forbade it.”
“He will forgive you when you return home.”
“Will I return?”
“We all return, someday,” said Turjan. “Exactly when will be your own decision.” He gestured for Bosk to enter.
The stable was near the gate and housed several fine horses and a groom who took over Bosk’s own.
“An uneventful journey, I trust.” Turjan guided his guest across a small courtyard to the main hall, a high-ceilinged chamber of marble floors and rich hangings, of tables inlaid with precious woods and chairs cushioned in crimson velvet.
“There was one event,” the boy said. “A somewhat strenuous encounter with a Deodand, followed by a pleasant meal with a beautiful golden-haired witch named Lith. She had a magical dwelling that vanished in the night. Perhaps you know the lady?”
Turjan studied the boy’s face. “You were lucky to be born with blue eyes. Were they golden, I doubt we’d be speaking now. Lith has a habit of sending golden-eyed men to an unpleasant fate in the home of Chun the Unavoidable. I believe she has quite depleted the golden-eyed population of Ascolais.”
Bosk weighed that information against his own experience of her. “She seemed very unhappy.”
“She has been unhappy for some time. A wise man would leave her to it. Ah, here is a much happier lady, and a sweeter one, too.�
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A child had emerged from a doorway on one side of the hall, a girl of perhaps nine years, wearing long, raven-dark braids and a tunic and hose that mimicked Turjan’s. She strode up to Bosk with a cordial smile, and offered him her hand. The top of her head was barely higher than his waist.
“Welcome to Miir, Master Bosk. I am Rianna.”
“My daughter,” said Turjan.
Bosk bowed deeply and kissed her hand.
“We shall apprentice together,” said Rianna.
“I consider that a privilege,” said Bosk.
“You’ll meet her mother at supper,” said Turjan. “But first we’ll show you your quarters.”
His room was reached by climbing the broad staircase at the rear of the hall, and it was nearly as large as his bedchamber at Boreal Verge, with a lush carpet, a soft bed, and a window that looked out onto the courtyard. His belongings had been delivered already and the contents tucked into one corner of a wardrobe that occupied most of a wall. New clothes were laid out on the bed, and in an alcove at the far end of the room lay a private bath, with steaming water waiting.
“One of the servants will escort you to dinner,” said Rianna, and she and her father closed the door as they left.
The hot bath was welcome after so many days of cold brook water or none at all. He tried not to dawdle, but by the time he was dressed, the servant was already tapping at the door. In the main hall, the table was set for four, with three places occupied. The woman opposite Turjan was obviously the child’s mother.
“My dear, this is the new apprentice,” Turjan said to her. “Bosk, this is T’sain, my wife.”
She was dark-haired and pale-skinned, as beautiful in her way as Lith, but completely different, for she had a quick, full smile. Turjan and Rianna were smiling as well, and Bosk nodded to all of them, feeling faintly jealous that there had been so few smiles at Boreal Verge’s table. The meal, which included no mushrooms of any variety, was excellent, and the conversation flowed easily from one topic to another, from gardening to sorcery to the latest addition to Rianna’s dollhouse.
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