She lifted her head and was transfixed by his gray eyes. They had a frightening intensity.
“Yes. Um. I shouldn’t be doing this. But you seem so nice. So...normal.”
“Mr. Jubb!” yelled the sergeant. “We go!”
Whatever did he mean? Normal?
“Keep this.” He pushed it into her hands. “Look carefully at that. I have checked it several times under magnification and it could be a double exposure but...”
“Mr. Jubb!” called the sergeant.
“I’m sorry. I have to go.” He strode to his horse.
As they left, the sergeant gave her a small salute and she forced herself to wave and smile as if nothing were wrong, the photograph casually turned inward beneath her hand. Something made her sure she should hide it, at least until she could decide if Mr. Jubb was completely unhinged. What had he seen?
From then on she and Pascolli were the center of attention and there was no opportunity for her to study the photograph. She hid it in her haversack, the one she’d kept with her since before...before everything. It held all manner of private, treasured things.
A midday feast was planned. The actors took the opportunity to bring out their most sumptuous garb. The tag traders jibed them for it then put on their own baubles, silver and satin. Hilas Frope’s visit had in some way unified them into a single, good-natured company. All the while her new secret gnawed at her.
She glanced down at her green, yellow and stain-colored embroidered shirt, black leggings and low-slung plaited belt. This would do. It had to. She relaced the leather jerkin over the shirt, and sat on a stool to gingerly put her wind-blown hair into a fresh ponytail.
Pascolli had been safely settled into the most comfortable bed – a camp bed with leather straps to suspend the bedding. The sergeant had put it about that he was a hero. He was dosed with willow bark, had his wound dressings changed and was presented with a large bowl of Beth’s best soup. When he thought himself unobserved by Beth, he grinned and waved to her.
“Heaven,” he signed. It made her laugh quietly for a while.
She too was given the soup and treated to several of Beth’s smothering hugs.
The rest of the day was a procession of people talking to her and walking past, with food offered and eaten – though it was tasteless to her. The sun ticked past overhead at a draggingly slow pace.
On any other day she would have relaxed and thoroughly enjoyed it all. Even Kurt came over. He stood with folded arms and stern face while he talked. Then, as he turned away and, as if it were an afterthought, he asked if she were well. Before she could answer fully he shook his head, told her she needed to eat more and stalked off.
For much of the afternoon Jerome sat nearby repairing stage props. Though he spoke to her a few times she couldn’t summon the energy to talk. His friendliness was too much for her. No doubt he thought it was the strain of the violence the night before. When the sun hid below the tree line, shadows crept out upon the clearing, submerging them all in black and gray and the darker shades of purple.
There was to be no full performance that night, for the town had called in a ghost trapper.
More and more people gathered. The town notary was there, the wife of the ghost, the ghost trapper in his official and very distinctive uniform – split down the middle into black on one side and white on the other – life and death. Many others she didn’t recognize – as many, if not more than had gathered to see the play the night before. People loved tragedy, and this was real, not some imagined story.
Some of them watched Ellinca.
Whoever had murdered this poor man had apparently never been found out. Why had the ghost chosen to return? It was said ghosts would only return to the land of the living if something unfinished drew them back. Did he yearn for his killer to be found? If so, she thought glumly, it was not to be.
The popped corn, kebabs and other tidbits sold well and soon people relaxed on their stools and chairs, munching heartily as they waited for the show to commence.
The widow of the murdered man began weeping silently. In the firelight the tears made glinting tracks on her cheeks. Two large campfires lit the clearing, as well as a few lanterns – a standard precaution most nights in this district – for skagwolves hated strong light. A flagon was placed on the stage, ready for the ghost, silvered inside, the same as her perfume bottle. Once trapped within, no ghost could escape.
The ghost trapper climbed the stairs to the stage. He held up his hands for quiet. Ellinca squinted. He wore his long black hair in a neat ponytail and she was almost certain he had stage makeup on, his face dead white and his lips a nicely gleaming red.
A gray-haired man at the front stood, spat on the ground and croaked out, “Blood money! You’ll all rot in your graves. Jon Watters was a good man. He don’t deserve this!”
There was an uncomfortable hush. Good for you.
Another man rose to his feet. “Go back to your cave, Wylie! We’re civilized, we are, not superstitious savages!” A growl rumbled forth from the crowd.
“I’m goin’! I’m goin’! I’ll leave you to your grubby entertainment!” The old man tottered off.
An undercurrent of murmuring lasted until they heard him find his mount and trot away. The widow wept a little louder than before, though the woman beside her comforted her with an arm about her shoulders.
“Eh-hem. Welcome! Welcome!” The trapper clapped his hands. “I’ll continue. Though I am no great showman like these players here, I do have a small thing to demonstrate to you before we begin the trapping.”
From a waist sheath he drew a long weapon that gleamed with yellow and white embellishments on the barrel. The butt appeared to be the broad curved beak of some foreign bird. “This is a gheist pistol, loaded with a fully charged gheist cartridge. As you know, compressed ectoplasm is marvelously explosive!”
A hum rose from the people.
“This is how we will win the war against the Grakkurds. Bring us your brave, your young, your heroes!” He paused. “We need young men. We will turn them into true soldiers. Yes, like you, young sir. Your Imperator needs you!” He raised the pistol, holding his wrist steady with one hand and aiming the pistol at a straw dummy that was strung up at the other end of the stage. He pulled the trigger. With a bang, a gout of blue erupted from the barrel, and the dummy jerked sideways. Blue flames spouted from its back, writhing ’round, dying down then once more squirting out from hundreds of tiny holes.
“If that had been a man he would be either dead or incapable of rising. And mad with terror as well.” He smacked his lips and waggled the pistol at the mist-wrapped dummy. “Our best weapon.”
“Will I get one of those if I join?” somebody sang out.
“Not yet. The army is a tad short of these high-quality armaments at present. But soon. Now. The rest of the show!”
Beth and Jerome arrived in costume and mounted the steps. It had been a scene from the play that had drawn out the ghost the night before. Ellinca turned away. At last, she could be alone. Everyone wanted to see the ghost trapping and ghosts rarely entered the trap on the first try. There should be enough time. She just needed somewhere private and well lit.
With haversack in hand, she pushed through the flap of the dressing tent. A lantern hanging from the center tent pole cast a fluctuating light.
The photograph was hidden inside a thin book on the healing properties of herbs. She slid the book from the bag and opened it to the page where the photo rested, flat, shiny and full of some mysterious secret.
A padded chest made a good comfortable seat. She stared at the photo, scanning it before she held it closer to pick out smaller and smaller details. It had no colors except for black and white and many shades of gray but still it showed an amazingly crisp picture.
Where was it, this secret? She rotated it, she turned it over. Nothing was written on the back. Magnification, Mr. Jubb had said. What could she use? She frowned and looked around the tent.
There was a magnifying glass they used in one of the plays...
Outside a woman wailed then sobbed in a most heart-wrenching way. Ellinca froze until the sobs died away. The ghost must have appeared. In the rush to make money people forgot that the dead were once somebody’s husband, or father or son.
After some searching she found the glass in the chest upon which she sat. She slammed the chest shut and plonked herself down again. By now she was more annoyed than anxious. This was getting to be tedious, though at least she had this photo to keep.
She held the magnifying glass over the photo. Whatever Mr. Jubb had seen would probably involve either her or the tuskdog. She found it immediately, small blue marks she had dismissed as some fault in Mr. Jubb’s developing. After all, why should a black-and-white photo have any blue in it?
Now she could see how the marks were the whorls and ridges of the tips of her fingers. She could even see, and this was the part that jarred her – she could see through, the blue shining through the tuskdog’s flesh. She sat there for what must have been ten minutes or more, thinking on it and wondering what to do. Every so often, she would look at the photo again, hoping the marks weren’t really there. But they were.
The way those lumps had vanished... It hadn’t been natural. She’d known it, known it, known it... Gods and, and...scum-suck-it and...
She would have to speak to Mr. Jubb. This didn’t make sense. But first she should pack some essentials – food, clothes, a knife and the small amount of money she had saved because...she might have to leave in a hurry.
The room wobbled. Her head began to ache as everything squashed in on her. She closed her eyes and tried to breathe. Slow and steady.
“This is crazy!” Ellinca whispered to the empty tent. “Crazy!” She put her hands over her face.
The tent flap rustled and moved.
Jolted, she flipped the photo and covered it with one palm.
Casually she looked up. Pascolli stood there, his expression puzzled. He had changed out of his grimy, blood-stained doublet and, though he still wore the same tan leggings and boots, he had on his second shirt – russet and long-sleeved – its front laced so neatly it had to be Beth’s handiwork.
“Found you!” he signed. “Have you been here all the time? I...We missed you. Beth said you were squeamish about ghosts being trapped.”
“Yes. I am.” Her face warmed. “I-I just needed to be alone for a while.”
“Everyone is sleeping close to the carts tonight. There are supposed to be skagwolves around, and that other creature. An undead? They say the Finder and his men were seeking it early this morning.” He shuddered then winced.
“Your back! Pascolli, perhaps you should be resting?” She hoped he would get the not so subtle hint, though it made her feel awful to shoo him away.
He shrugged and again winced, realizing his mistake too late. His face stilled. “You want me to go?”
“I’m sorry. I – ” This might be the last time she would see him. She bowed her head, closed her eyes and sighed.
He walked over, touched her head. When she opened her eyes he held his hands out and started signing rapidly. “What is wrong? Tell me, Ellinca. We can trust each other.” He knelt and repeated it. “You can trust me.”
“I know.” she croaked. “I know. It’s just...this is too...”
He waited as she struggled for the right words. How could she tell anyone this? Ah, but she had been going to tell Mr. Jubb. She would trust him and not Pascolli?
She needed to gather her thoughts and held out her hands, signing, “Wait.”
He sat back on his heels.
The simplest way would be to show him the photo. She lifted it by one corner, turned it over, and offered him the magnifying glass.
He gazed at the photo. “You want me to look? This is Mr. Jubb’s photograph? Can I touch it?”
“Yes.” She nodded and tapped it.
He took the magnifying glass and bent his head over the photo. After a few minutes, he put everything down. “I can see an odd blue color where your fingers are. What do you think this means?”
Not, what does this mean. He wanted to see what she thought before he committed himself. She couldn’t say it out loud.
“It means...that I was using wild magience?”
He screwed up his mouth and waggled his head. “Maybe it means you have blue fingers.”
“This is a black-and-white photo. It can’t be blue. Unless by magience.”
“What was it you meant to tell me yesterday? About magience.”
Her headache got worse. She never got headaches. “Something happened. A week ago.” She didn’t take her eyes off his face, didn’t blink. “A wound healed...strangely...when I touched it.”
He made an O with his mouth. That was it, no horror. No accusations? “What does Mr. Jubb say?”
“I’m going to ask him.” She stood, collected the photo, went over to the haversack and started stuffing inside it anything that might be of use. She kept an eye on Pascolli to see if he wanted to say anything else.
“Now? There are wolves out there! And...maybe something worse. At least here we have the protection of Beth’s wolfsbane deterrent and, of course, Kurt will be very cross with anything that attacks us!”
She grinned.
“I made you smile! Good! Now forget this craziness. We will go see him in the morning.”
“The Finder will have seen the photo by then.” She cleared her throat. “I’d rather have a head start if I have to run.” There, she had said it. In a way it meant admitting to herself she was worried about Hilas Frope. She’d been trying to forget him.
His hands fell to his sides. He backed away to the tent entrance, signing, “Wait. I’m coming with you.”
“No! You can’t. Your back. Remember?”
He turned and pulled up his shirt. Although she could see the tracks of the whip, there was only one area of deep redness where the tail ends of a few stitches stood out. He let the shirt fall back and turned around.
“See? I will live. Just let me get a few things. Do not leave without me!” He disappeared out through the flap.
“Oh.”
If she left before he returned he would follow her anyway. Pascolli was that sort of person.
She ended up sitting on the chest again, scowling at the bulging haversack on the ground at her feet. What was missing? On the way out she should be able to pick up some food from their stores. Cheese. Onions. Smoked meat. Firelighters. She’d leave some money, enough to cover the cost.
A little later Pascolli pushed back through the flap.
“Thank you for this,” she said quietly. He looked sheepishly back at her. She stood, and Beth appeared behind him.
“I’m sorry,” he signed. “She spotted me.” He dumped a sack at his feet. The flap fell open.
From it slid the hilt end of a sheathed knife and then, rolling merrily, a glass ball filled with pieces of foil and herbs, including the blue flowers of aconite – one of Beth’s wolfsbane balls.
These glass balls were hung at the four corners of every campsite they ever made. Beth avowed she had bought the bane off a herbologist in Carstelan who owed her a favor. Some said, out of Kurt’s hearing, that the herbologist was an old admirer. Either way, wolves never bothered the camp, though an angry crocodile had once wandered through, snapping at those too slow to avoid him. Wolfsbane, apparently, only worked on wolves.
Beth glared at them both, picked up the ball and shook it fiercely. “My wolfsbane! What is going on here, you two?” A forbidding silence settled. “I am going nowhere until someone tells me!’
What could she say? Ellinca ached to explain everything. She wanted to collapse into her arms and pour out all her fears. She wanted to curl up in a bed knowing that someone else watched over her and would defend her against the world. She wanted her mother back.
But neither Finder Frope nor his lieutenant struck her as being kindly men. If they found out that Beth had helped her aft
er knowing she might be a mage... Pascolli had been whipped for a lesser offense. The penalty for helping an illegal wild mage, even if she wasn’t truly one – her imagination took her to places that made her shudder.
She shook her head slowly. “I’m sorry, Beth. I can’t tell you. I wish I could.”
Beth took a step farther into the tent. She looked from Pascolli to Ellinca. She frowned and folded her arms.
Ellinca resisted the urge to drop her gaze. She might not be able to tell Beth the truth but she owed her respect. If anyone could replace her mother in even the slightest way, it was Beth.
“I may have to leave. The reason, I can’t explain, not now at least. I’m sorry, Beth. I know how much we owe you. I wish this wasn’t happening. I’ll only take my own things. Pascolli shouldn’t have taken the wolfsbane...and whatever else he has picked up.” She gave him a look. “He’s only coming with me to see...someone. After that...”
Alarm had slowly grown in Beth’s eyes. “Rubbish. You’re going nowhere. Either of you!”
Mechanically, Ellinca bent and picked up her haversack. The ache in her chest deepened. This was hurting one of her favorite people. She took a deep, shuddering breath and tried to stay stony-faced. She had to do this.
As though Ellinca were a bird about to take flight Beth threw her arms out to the sides, fluttering them about and blocking the way to the entrance.
“Wait! This is... This is...” Hesitantly she lowered her arms. Her mouth trembled. “This is to do with the Finder, isn’t it? Of course it is. Yes. You know the ghost trapper says he’s still off searching for that creature. Such an awful, awful thing. Why would he be wanting you? You’re not afraid that man of his will come back? No... It’s not that, is it? No.” Her eyes widened. She grew pale and swayed as if about to faint.
Ellinca ran over and helped her to sit on a stool.
“It can’t be! No,” Beth whispered. The horror in her eyes was enough to make Ellinca move back. She waited, saying nothing, and Pascolli took his cue from her.
Magience: second edition Page 5