by Melanie Rawn
The boy in the room with the window wall, separated from life and magic … Vaustas, sheltering in the safety of books, rejecting his own magic … “You’ll figure something out. ’Cause they’re you, Quill.” Damn the Elf for his perception. But he hadn’t got to the very core of it: Through that window, the boy saw other people who never saw him. Denying magic, Vaustas’s soul was a stunted, ungrown thing. Denied life and magic, the boy was invisible.
He wished suddenly, passionately, for an Elsewhen that would show him how “Window Wall” ended. “The Avowal”—which, oddly enough, they had yet to do onstage—had come straight out of an Elsewhen of a performance. Why couldn’t “Window Wall” do the same?
Yet the Elsewhens, it became clear to him on their arrival in Bexmarket, were not to be relied on for warnings about the future. If they could be, he wouldn’t have been so thoroughly gobsmacked when they encountered the Shadowshapers after Touchstone’s last performance at the Smithing Guildhall. And even then, it wasn’t that the Shadowshapers were in Bexmarket, on their way to a series of lucrative giggings in New Halt and points north. It was what Vered and Rauel and Chat and even Sakary told them about over drinks late that night.
“You hadn’t heard?” Rauel asked, eyes wide with innocence—too wide, Cayden thought, frowning slightly, aware that whatever came next would in all likelihood be something he’d have to force himself to laugh at.
He was right.
Black Lightning had a new playlet. Not even a playlet, actually, for there was nothing even remotely resembling a plot. It involved the frustrated efforts of a tiny Elf with huge floppy ears to kiss an immensely tall, extremely skinny Wizard with a huge nose. There was much capering about on chairs and tables and stepladders, and attempts by the Wizard to fold his gangly limbs so that he was an approachable height, and snippy dialogue about the nose and the ears getting in their way, and a speech from the Wizard about being unable to find any girl willing to bed him because he’s so ugly which ended with, “What’s a man to do when he’s in need of a lick and a tickle?” Things became truly obscene from that point, and the Shadowshapers kindly spared them the details.
The Elf and the Wizard were, of course, unmistakable.
Cade knew where the thing had come from. Mieka’s famous adventures dressed in women’s clothing had provided a start—and Touchstone on occasion repeated the before-performance scene of Mieka showing up late and swanning up to the stage in voluminous skirts while Cade berated him. Audiences loved it. And then there was the little farce he and Mieka had played for the overly amorous young lady in Scatterseed. Her father might have talked about it; she undoubtedly had done, to excuse her failure in attracting Mieka to her bed. Cade knew she had talked because a fortnight or so ago he’d received a letter from Blye, playfully demanding to know when she ought to craft the loving cups for the wedding, and chastising him for breaking so many female hearts. It was a very funny letter, and he’d laughed when he read it to his partners.
He laughed now, too. So did everybody else. Mieka blew him a kiss that Cade pretended to catch in his two hands and press, sighing, to his heart. And thus the evening ended, with everyone pleasantly drunk and singing an old ballad on the walk back to their respective wagons.
It was only when they were alone that Cade felt he could vent his disgust. “Black fucking Lightning,” he muttered as he hooked his hammock up for the night.
Jeska snorted. “Don’t tell me you give a shit?”
Mieka turned from the cabinet where the blankets were stored. “But I owe them such a great debt!” he exclaimed. “They’ve managed to get the message across! Gods know I’ve never been able to!”
“Aw, poor little Elf,” Rafe said, patting him on the head.
“Oh, give over!” Cade snapped. “It’s not you getting laughed at, is it?”
“Yes it is too!” Mieka declared. “I can’t blame you for being a trifle peeved by the description of your nose, but I’m the one who was grossly insulted.”
“How do you reckon?” Jeska asked.
He flourished a finger at the tip of one ear. “How could anyone think that these ears aren’t absolutely perfect specimens of Elfenhood?”
They all grinned at him. He stroked the tips of both ears with admiring fingers, then delved into the cabinet for the velvet bag of withies. He picked through it for a moment, then came up with a long, slender glass twig colored a faint green.
“I think we ought to do a playlet,” he announced, holding the withie at arm’s length and pointing it at himself. “Prominently featuring someone we all know.” Whatever magic was left in it after the night’s performance was enough to give him the semblance of Thierin Knottinger: tall, thin, dark, sneering. “And what we show the audience will be the truth!”
Wearing Thierin’s sharp-boned face and prominently displayed crotch, he frowned elaborately, wriggled like a puppy, and with his free hand undid a few trouser buttons. From his—Thierin’s—crotch he produced a pair of balled-up stockings. And another. Letting them drop to the floor of the wagon, he twisted again, reached, and drew a shirt from his groin. And a towel. When Mieka gave another spasming squirm and began to pull a sheet from his pants, Cade simply gave up and collapsed onto the floor beside Rafe and Jeska, howling with laughter. Their mad little Elf had done it to them again.
He didn’t dream that night, but a few minutes after waking in the morning, an Elsewhen took him completely by surprise.
{ Cade stretched out across the seat of the carriage, boots propped against the closed window and head resting on a green velvet cushion. Pleasantly tired, still thrumming inside with the triumph of Window Wall, he squinted in the dimness at Mieka, sprawled in the opposite seat. Despite the lines crossing his forehead and framing his mouth, and even despite the silver in his black hair, he looked at least fifteen years younger than his age. Cade, who daily glared at his receding hairline, glared now at the Elf.
“What?” Mieka asked, catching the look.
“Stop looking seventeen years old. It’s despicable.”
He snorted. “With all this gray in me hair?”
“At least you still have hair.”
“Are we gonna go through this again? You’re boring me, Cayden.”
Pushing himself upright, he peered out the window at the lamp-lit street. “I thought we were headed for a drink at the Keymarker, and see that new group Rauel likes so much.”
“They’re on for tomorrow, not tonight.”
“Oh. Well, then, why aren’t you out with that pretty little Elfen girl? And don’t pretend you didn’t notice her in the front row, fluttering those big blue eyes.”
“Not in the mood. C’mon, off your lazy bum, we’re almost home.”
The carriage came to a halt beneath the central archway that divided the building in half. On one side was Mieka’s share of the house, and on the other was Cade’s. Long gone were the nights when they’d tiptoe in so as not to wake Jindra, supposedly sleeping upstairs but almost always waiting for them in the kitchen with Mistress Mirdley, a pot of tea, and eager questions about the evening’s performance. Even though she hadn’t lived here for years—first away at school and now married with a house of her own—Cade missed her.
Tonight Mieka led the way through Cade’s door, seeking the ground-floor room decorated like a very exclusive tavern. Arrayed on the bar—built from the same gray-veined marble that had gone into the Royal Theater—were bowls of berries dipped in mocah powder, a silver ice bucket with a bottle of sparkling wine, and a pair of crystal glasses that didn’t match the rest of the barware.
“You didn’t remember, did you?” Mieka challenged.
“Remember? What’s all this, then? Remember what?”
Excited as a child, he gave a little bounce of delight that his surprise had turned out a surprise after all. “Happy Namingday, Cayden!”
He was right; it was past midnight, and that meant it was his Namingday. “Forty-five!” Cade groaned. “Holy Gods, Mieka, I’m too o
ld to still be playin’ a show five nights out of every nine!”
“Oh, I know that,” Mieka said with his most impudent grin. “But try telling it to the two thousand people out there tonight screaming for more!”
“You’re crazy, Sir Mieka.”
“I am that, Sir Cayden.” He unhooked the little wire cage from the bottle and carefully popped the cork. “Pity His Gratuitous Majesty can’t see us now—we’d be Knights of the Bar instead of—oh, whatever it is we’re Knights of.”
“The Most Noble Order of the Silver Quill. Why can’t you ever remember?”
“You remember only because you’re the only person in the Kingdom with a whole entire Order of Knighthood named after him. And don’t say it was a coincidence. Miriuzca’s heard me call you that often enough.” He poured wine, and the crystal sang with their silent toast. Blye’s work was more exquisite every year.
“Forty-five.” Cade sighed. “There’s times, lookin’ at you, when I feel a hundred. You don’t get older,” he accused. “It’s un-fuckin’-natural, even for an Elf.” His gaze went to the framed imagings behind the bar. “There’s the proof.”
“All I see is proof that you keep opening the best door.”
Laughing, he toasted Mieka again. “Every single morning.”
“This life?” His head tilted to one side, shaggy hair shifting to reveal the tip of one pointed ear where a tiny diamond gleamed.
“And none other.”
There came the clatter of many footsteps in the courtyard, and voices calling out their names. A door slammed open, and Rafe roared, “You started without us!” and all at once they were in the middle of a party that Cade knew full well would last until dawn.}
“What’re you all grinagog about?” Mieka demanded.
Cade came back to himself. The sun was well up. The wagon had stopped so that everyone, including the horses, could have a peaceful morning feed. Rafe and Jeska were helping Yazz set up chairs outside. Mieka, who grouked and grumbled and took at least half an hour to wake up every morning, stood at the head of Cade’s hammock, scowling. When Cade smiled, those eyes lit with excitement.
“Was it a good one?”
“The best one.”
“The one where it’s your Namingday and you’re forty-five? Really? That one again?” He laughed and pushed at the hammock so it rocked alarmingly. “See? I told you! Didn’t I tell you? And if you had that one again, it must mean it will come true!”
Grabbing for handholds, Cade stilled the swaying hammock enough to climb down out of it. He put a worried expression on his face as he said, “It was almost the same. I think some of it changed. And I did learn something pretty awful.”
Mieka stopped celebrating and looked at him. “What? Tell me.”
“I don’t know if I should.”
“Damn it all, Quill! You said you’d tell me—you promised you wouldn’t keep them to yourself anymore!”
“I don’t remember that I actually promised.”
“As good as. Tell me what happened.”
“Well … it seems … I mean, I kind of gathered that I … well …”
“Quill!”
Judging by the threat in Mieka’s voice that he’d drawn it out as far as he could, he gave a great gusting sigh. “I’m losing my hair.”
Prepared for something horrid, Mieka simply gaped at him.
“It might not matter to you,” he went on as if affronted by the Elf’s lack of sympathy. “But it upsets me rather a lot. Not that I saw myself in a mirror or anything, but there were some words exchanged, and that’s how I know that I’m going bald.”
Mieka still didn’t react. Cade shrugged and moved to the washstand, fitted with a big glass bowl and water pitcher nestled securely into the wood, and a shaving mirror and a towel rack and a little shelf for their razors. He couldn’t help pushing his uncombed hair off his forehead to scrutinize his hairline in the mirror. No signs of it yet, but he wished he’d caught a glimpse of himself in that Elsewhen.
A comforting hand patted him on the shoulder. He shifted his gaze to look at Mieka’s face in the mirror. The Elf was smiling sweetly.
“Don’t let it worry you, Quill. After all, considered very logically, if there’s more face to your face, it’ll look like there’s less nose to your nose!”
17
Elsewhens came to Cade rarely from that day until their return to Gallantrybanks. He took this to signify that Mieka was right. If, as he’d said, that Elsewhen—twenty-one years into the future, which meant he was over halfway there—was still possible, then they must be doing something right and therefore ought to keep on doing it, whatever it was. Not actually knowing what it was bothered Mieka not at all. Cade gave the notion some consideration now and then, always ending with a shrug. Should the future be altered in some way by what he did or didn’t do, an Elsewhen would show him. Until such time as that happened, he would keep on doing whatever it was that he was doing right.
This indicated to him that he didn’t have to be so scrupulously careful, so anxiously self-questioning, with every decision he made. It was surprisingly liberating, much better than getting rid of all the old Elsewhens and refusing to see any new ones. Life was headed in that best of all possible directions, and he could relax. It didn’t matter, for instance, that all of Touchstone, not just Cade and Mieka, used more thorn and drank more whiskey than mortal beings ought to bear; they had to get through the last few weeks of this Royal Circuit and back to Gallybanks, and whatever they had to do to accomplish it had no effect on that Elsewhen. Neither did it matter much that several times in those last few weeks they had to go searching for Mieka.
Sometimes he vanished until just before a show, turning up less than an hour before they were due onstage. Twice, however, they had to scour the streets for him. In the first instance, someone who’d seen their show the night before directed Jeska to a hayloft, where Mieka lay curled up, sound asleep, with a cat and her seven half-grown kittens. The other time he was discovered in a cutler’s shop, trying to convince the man to make him a sword. He was so angry when Cade canceled the purchase that if Yazz hadn’t been there, he probably would have taken a swing at Cade. Afterwards, he didn’t remember a thing about it.
Thrice they had to go looking for him because they were due to depart for the next town. The first time, he was finally located well after midnight, climbing a forty-foot Minster bell tower, hampered only slightly by the half-empty bottle of Colvado in one hand. Rafe ordered him to come down. Mieka laughed. Jeska pleaded with him. He laughed harder. Cade sat on a bench in the torchlit Minster garden, folded his arms, said, “Wake me if he falls and breaks anything,” and pretended to go to sleep. Deprived of his favorite audience, Mieka turned back and somehow made it down safely, though he did manage to fall the last eight feet or so. Cade knew he had been right to trust in the loose-limbed resilience and the insane confidence of the very, very drunk. By that time, the Good Brothers had been roused by all the yelling, and Touchstone barely evaded a stay in quod by running for their wagon as if the Sentinel Fae were after them.
The second time Mieka went missing was on the way to Lilyleaf. They’d paused for dinner in a small town, where a tavern featured a local theater group, both recommended by Rauel Kevelock. The food was as good as promised, and the group was surprisingly accomplished for scantily trained amateurs. Cade agreed with Rauel’s opinion: They were nearly ready for some giggings in Gallybanks and an invitation to Trials. When Jeska, Rafe, and Mieka left for the wagon, Cade lingered awhile to talk with the tregetour. He had to buy the boy several drinks to cure him of awestruck paralysis at being addressed by the great Cayden Silversun. At length Cade departed, only to find nobody but Yazz at the wagon.
“Gone again,” Yazz said with a shifting of massive shoulders.
“Stupid bloody little Elf,” Cade muttered. “If he doesn’t show up until morning, can we still make it to Lilyleaf on schedule?”
Another shrug. “Gained a day this week. But t
here’s rain in the air. Smell it?”
Jeska approached up the street, lamplight glinting on his golden curls. “Is he back yet?” When Cade shook his head, he snorted. “That would be too easy, wouldn’t it?”
If they’d gained a day, it mattered little whether or not Mieka showed up tonight or tomorrow. But something nagged at him. He didn’t figure it out until Rafe returned without the Elf in tow, declared himself fed to the back teeth with Mieka’s antics, and went to bed.
When Rafe kicked Mieka’s clothes out of the center aisle of the wagon, Cade caught sight of the shirt his wife had sent about a month ago, and said to Jeska, “I know where he is.”
“And that might be?”
“Where’s the nearest whorehouse?”
Jeska frowned his confusion. “But he’s not had a woman since—well, at least in the last month.”
“Exactly,” Cade said. “Yazz, come with us, please?”
What he didn’t say, as they went a-hunting whorehouses, was that whatever magic had compelled celibacy had worn off by now.
They found him at the second brothel they tried. Yazz brought him back to the wagon by the scruff of the neck, yelping with outrage, dangling a foot off the ground. He refused to speak to anyone for the rest of the drive to Lilyleaf.
At Croodle’s, a surprise was waiting for them. When Touchstone tumbled out of the wagon midafternoon, grateful to escape the heat inside and not expecting the heat to be almost as bad outside, Croodle met them with cool drinks and a wide grin. They went inside, slurping beer, and two paces through the doorway got all tangled up, for Jeska had not only stopped short but also dropped his mug shattering onto the floor. Cade bit back a snarling reprimand, because Kazie stood there, plainly pregnant and lovelier than ever.