Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  And just suppose the beans got pecked a bit by birds, or a deer wandered in and ate some of the young corn, things that he couldn’t possibly have any control over - why, that was all the fault of his Dad and Mum. It was the Pelagiris-beasts come to take revenge on the village for the terrible trappers who had invaded the Forest. Even the most normal of beast depredations was always blamed on some monster from the Pelagiris that had followed Dalian’s parents back to Errold’s Grove. Though what self-respecting monster would pull up carrots and eat them, or trample down a hill of beans, or pick at ripe strawberries - well, that was beyond him. Must have been a monster with a singularly vegetarian appetite.

  Funny how they all forget those coats and rugs and bedcoverings they all have that Dad and Mum traded for food and supplies, he thought sourly, looking up from his rock and noting one of those bedcoverings hanging out on a line to air. A soft shade of subtle cream it was, too, with markings and mottlings of a darker shade of pale brown. Quite a handsome fur, thick and warm, and probably a fine thing to have on the bed in the dead of winter. Darian even remembered what the beast had looked like when they’d caught it - a terribly dangerous beast, it was, completely unable to defend itself, much less attack anyone. It had looked like a huge hassock; with four tiny little legs and a head the size of an apple all stuck on a body easily the size of a fat cow, and certainly much wider. If anything had been born to become a tanned hide, that thing surely had been. It was a wonder it had survived long enough to be trapped in the first place.

  Poor Justyn hadn’t even gotten the benefit of having furs traded to him in return for taking Darian as an apprentice. He didn’t get anything at all, not even other peoples’ cast-offs, and he was the one who probably deserved some kind of repayment the most. Widow Clay of the bad leg that kept her from hard physical labor had been appointed to make him bedcoverings, which she knitted from odds and ends of yarn that she unraveled from worn-out sweaters or scrounged from leftovers or other projects. She also made quilts of scraps that no one else wanted because they were stained, or faded and threadbare, or too drab to be desirable, even as a patch for a quilt. Poor Justyn! He always got the tag-ends of everything. He was the last person in the village to get a share of meat, of clothing, of anything. Who-ever’s turn it was to supply him always gave him what they didn’t want. Take now, for instance; there was an abundance of turnips, beans, and peas, so their meals featured either turnips, beans, or peas, depending on how the donor herself felt about those vegetables. Mostly, they got turnips, and he was not looking forward to the time when the squash ripened.

  Now his mood turned to guilt, as it always did at this point, for the worst part of it was that in his heart he knew he was being treated fairly; well-housed and well-fed, and Justyn, though short-tempered and appallingly sloppy, was fundamentally kind.

  He kicked his stone back and forth, from his left foot to his right, making slow progress in the direction of Justyn’s cottage. He kept his eyes down on the path and his stone, for it was just possible that if any adult saw him doing this, they would think it was some ridiculous exercise that Justyn had set him, as it certainly would look too tedious to be a game. Justyn had set him tasks that looked sillier in the past, and the one thing they all had in common was that they were tedious.

  It’s not so bad with Justyn, and I wouldn‘t mind so much if I was learning something useful. It’s just that he keeps insisting that this magic stuff is good for something. I’ve heard the stories and I’ve seen the bad art on his walls. He’s talked about great mages and even one or two Hawkbrothers, and told me about their great spells and “weaings.” But so far I haven’t seen him do anything that couldn’t be done easier by plain old ordinary hands. For that matter, a lot of what Justyn did was accomplished by mundane means, and old Justyn sure didn’t get a lot of respect, wealth, or even appreciation. So why would anyone want to be a wizard in the first place? What’s the point of being a wizard if you get taken for granted and paid only in what no one else wants? If I was learning something like being a fighter, a warrior - something that was useful and got respect - well, things would be different.

  The old man was good at small spells and minor healings; simple magics that made life better and safer for the villagers. But nobody really seemed to notice just how much he did for them; they acted as if he was supposed to be at their beck and call for the most minor of trivialities, and on the whole they treated him very little better than Lilly, the barmaid at the inn. Justyn just accepted that treatment, as if it was what he expected and deserved.

  That isn’t doing either of us any good, if it comes right down to it. He doesn‘t get respect, so I never will either - but he also doesn’t ever do anything to make people think he was important. And any old wisewoman knows almost as much as he does about healing and medicines.

  Everything Justyn did or wanted him to do seemed to involve a great deal of stupid, plodding, repetitive work. So what good was magic, when all it did was make for more hard, tedious work? He knew why the villagers didn’t respect Justyn’s magic - wasn’t magic supposed to be spectacular, instantaneous, and take one’s breath away? Wasn’t that the way magic happened in the tales? When the village was buried in snow, shouldn’t Justyn have been able to clear the snow away from the paths and the doors with a snap of his fingers? Shouldn’t he be able to hold back floodwaters with his will, or make a well by wishing it there?

  Shouldn’t he have been able to keep people safe when they went into the Forest to make a living? After all, that was how the people of Errold’s Grove were supposed to make a living - shouldn’t a proper wizard be able to make sure they could still do it, no matter what those mage-storms brought? That may have been what earned their scorn - when the monsters came, Justyn wasn’t able to do things that let the village prosper despite their presence.

  If they’d thought that he was going to be able to get rid of any monsters that came in from the Forest, people wouldn’t have been half as hard on Dad and Mum . . . in fact, they might have helped them out a bit that last winter, when running the traplines was so hard.

  And if people had been pleasant to him and his parents, if they’d been able to prosper on their own, maybe his Dad and Mum wouldn’t have felt as if they had to go out into the Forest as often or for as long. They might still have been here, if they hadn’t felt so unwelcome in Errold’s Grove.

  He shook his head angrily to keep from crying all over again. He had to think hard to be able to get a breath; he felt as if he were in a constriction trap, and the trap kept getting smaller every day. I don’t think I can bear too much more of this, he thought, but this time the thought had more of a feeling of desperation behind it. I’ve got to get away; I’ve got to figure out how I can take care of myself, and get away from here. This place, these people - they’re trying to make me just like them, and I don’t want to be like them! Wanting everything just alike is what’s killing them all, they just don’t realize it.

  There had to be more to life than the kind of life the villagers were living - a dull, pedestrian, day-to-day existence. When he wasn’t being badgered, he was being bored to death.

  Every day is exactly like every other day. Only the weather and the seasons change, and even they don’t make that much difference, unless there’s something like a flood or a blizzard. Or a monster or something they think is a monster. Or maybe a Herald comes along once a year at most. It’s always the same food, the same gossip, the same things going wrong or right. Nobody ever does anything just for the sake of doing it, and nobody ever dares try anything new.

  There were times when he thought that even the appearance of a monster from the Pelagiris Forest would be preferable to the day-in, day-out sameness. It might wake up some of these people, show them that there were more important things than complaining about one small boy.

  No one ever makes songs or tales about people plowing their bean fields. What’s the point of living on the edge of a perilous and magical place like the Fo
rest if you don’t go looking for adventure in it? Or if not adventure, why not just - life? People used to go looking for adventure - or for mosses and other dye-stuffs, anyway - but now they would rather hide in the village and pretend the Forest wasn’t just beyond their carefully cultivated fields. They’d rather do without prosperity than take a chance against danger, and Darian could not understand that.

  My folks went out looking for adventure; maybe there is something in my blood. Only it isn’t bad blood, it’s just - I don’t know. I just know if I don’t do something different soon, I’m going to burst. I don’t know how these folks stand living like this. Maybe they don’t burst because they’re hollow.

  He looked back over his shoulder at the Forest with longing. He always felt more contented when he was in there, and the temptation to keep going, to keep on looking to see what was beyond the next stand of trees, behind the next patch of undergrowth, was often overwhelming. It always felt as if there was something exciting out there waiting for him, if he just went far enough in.

  And maybe Dad and Mum are still alive in there, somewhere. . . .

  His belly wrenched. He was thinking that again, as he had for ages, and he still could not let that hope go. Until someone found proof otherwise, he would always be certain that they weren’t dead, that they were trapped or imprisoned somewhere, waiting for someone to find them. As long as he could believe that, he couldn’t give up, and he had something to hold onto in the middle of the night, when he woke up and found himself beneath a thick, thatched roof instead of the open sky, or tent canvas, or forest canopy.

  That hope faded a little more with each passing day, though. It got harder to believe they were still alive somewhere, when there was never any trace, either of what became of them, or of a force or person that could have imprisoned them.

  Maybe when a trader comes, I can get him to take me with him. I could work for him until we get somewhere where there are more people, then I could join the Guard. I bet I’d be a great fighter - in fact, I bet I’d be one of the best fighters there ever was! He was easily one of the best bowmen in the village; more than half the time he’d been apprenticed it was his skill that put meat in Justyn’s stew, and not the “gratitude” of the villagers.

  Then again, all the wars were supposed to be over now, and maybe they wouldn’t need fighters. Well, that was all right. I could remind people about the furs and the dyes that used to come from here - I could get them to put together an expedition to explore the Forest, that’s what I could do! I know all Dad’s trapping trails; I could be famous for opening up the Forest!

  Or maybe he could just work for the trader until he had enough put by to buy his own supplies and traps. He could go out into the Forest himself, and become as good a trapper as his Dad was. He remembered his Dad saying more than once that he was doing the villagers a favor by trading those furs for “kind” instead of “cash” and that the traders never gave but a fraction of the worth of the fur. If I took my furs to a big city myself, I could get a lot of money for them. I could get rich - and I’d probably be famous, too.

  As for the people of Errold’s Grove, well, when they saw how he was prospering, maybe they would stop cowering in their houses like rabbits in a burrow, and dare the Forest themselves again.

  I haven’t seen that many monsters, and most of them weren‘t dangerous if you kept your wits about you. I’ve never seen any “forest spirits” or “vapor demons” or anything you could even mistake for something like that. Hellfires, I haven’t even seen Hawkbrothers, and I know they‘re supposed to be out there somewhere - so how dangerous could it be now that the mage-storms are over really? I’ve probably spent as much time in the Forest as anyone here, and I just don’t think that hiding in your house and pretending that the Forest isn’t there is going to do anyone any good.

  He looked up slyly for a moment, and realized that he had managed to kick his stone up to the back of the inn - or what served as an inn here in the village. It really wasn’t much more than another cottage with two rooms, one large room full of benches and tables, one a kitchen, and a loft above the kitchen where the owner slept - it was owned by Hanbil Brason, who brewed the beer and dispensed it to the men who gathered here of an evening, and in earlier years besides selling beer and food, he at times had sold floor space at night to passing traders. Nowadays, when there wasn’t much in the way of coined money in the village, Hanbil sold his brew by tally - you brought in a bushel of barley, a bunch of hops, a dozen eggs, some pork or chicken, and he would reckon up how much in “real” money that represented and put it on a tally-stick for you.

  Then you drank and ate until you used up the tally. Hanbil was the only man with whose tallies no one argued, because he was the only source of beer, and his was the only place in the village where men could gather to complain about their wives in relative peace.

  He was aided in his endeavors by Lilly, who served beer and meat pasties, cleaned and washed up, and dispensed some other unspecified services that caused the good wives of Errold’s Grove to frown and pronounce her “no better than she should be.” Whatever that meant. It might have had something to do with the fact that she wore skirts kilted up above her knee, extremely tight bodices, and blouses that continually fell off one shoulder, showing a great deal more of her than the wives liked. Lilly was no girl; she was older than some of those wives, and really no prettier. The women had no cause to feel any jealousy about her looks. But they did, and they took some pleasure in snubbing her at every opportunity. However, like poor old Kyle, folks said she was not especially bright, so she didn’t seem to take any notice of being slighted. Or if she noticed, she didn’t care; maybe having the approval of the husbands was worth the snubs of the wives.

  Darian had some doubts about that; he didn’t think it was that Lilly was stupid at all. He thought it was probably more the case that she was so resigned to her lot and position that she just didn’t think about it anymore.

  The boys said she was also not quite bright enough to count past ten - anything more than ten was simply “a lot” - and as every child in the village knew, if there were more than ten pasties or fruit pockets cooling on the windowsill, Lilly would never notice one missing. Once again, Darian had doubts, for he’d seen her taking in the plates of cooled baking with a slight smile when one or more was missing. He had the feeling that she knew very well that the baked goods were gone, and that she rather enjoyed the fact that bold children were snitching Hanbil’s goods.

  And since Hanbil was notoriously parsimonious when it came to his share of the support for Justyn, Darian always considered it his duty to filch something to eat from the inn when he got the chance.

  This was his day of golden opportunity. Lilly must have been out berrying on the old road this morning, for there was a line of fine, golden-brown berry-pockets cooling in pans on the windowsill and just beneath it, sitting on upturned buckets so she could reach them from the window. Juice oozed from them enticingly, and there were at least two dozen of them.

  Darian sidled up to the window and took a quick glance around to see if anyone was watching, but the area was deserted, and he could hear Lilly talking to Hanbil up in the loft. He snatched, and ran, juggling the pocket from hand to hand to keep from getting burned, while his mouth watered with anticipation.

  A moment later he was safe in a spot he often used for strictly temporary hiding, the hollow behind some juniper bushes under the window of what passed for a shop in Errold’s Grove. Nandy Lutter and her husband used to buy their goods from traders, but with fewer and fewer coming through, they had to go fetch their own goods. They were the only people in the village who ever went up the road to the outside world. Once every three months, Derrel Lutter would hitch up his horse to his wagon and drive off across the bridge with a wagon full of whatever he and Nandy had traded for over the previous three months. When he came back, he would have the things that the village could not make for itself, and he and Nandy would set them up in th
e shop, and make trades over the next few months. They brought in things like needles and pins, ribbons and colored thread, sugar-loaves, spices, and salt. They were two of the Errold’s Grove elite, and as a result, Nandy had gone to the effort of planting things around their house that were pretty, but impractical, as a means of displaying their wealth. She had beds of spring bulbs, flowering trees that had no real fruit, rose vines, and evergreen-holly and juniper. The latter were planted against the side of the house, and the hollows against the wall where the branches had died back for lack of sunlight made a good hiding place. That was where Darian went when he’d filched a pie; better to get under cover, eat it quickly, and dispose of the evidence at once. They couldn’t accuse you for having a blue tongue; you could claim you’d been berrying yourself.

  He wriggled into place just below a window, and proceeded to nibble delicately at his treat so as not to waste a single crumb. For such a poorly regarded woman, Lilly was a remarkably good baker, and her efforts certainly surpassed anything Darian could produce. The pastry was flaky and light, perfectly browned and crunchy, the filling sweet and juicy without being too runny. He took a great deal of satisfaction, not only in the fact that he’d cheated Hanbil out of something, but out of the fact that taking it by sleight-of-hand had been a great deal more efficient than trying to get it by levitation or some other daft method Justyn might have suggested. I don’t need his stupid magic to get what I need. I can do anything I have to do with my two hands and my wits.