The Child Eater

by Rachel Pollack

  Despite Horekh’s suggestion of simplicity, the room Malchior took him to contained a four-poster bed of carved walnut, tapestries and paintings, a polished chest of drawers with gold handles, a wide walnut table inlaid with marble, four brass chairs that looked as uncomfortable as they were elaborate, and a life-size jade statue of a tiger sitting back like a dog waiting for instructions. Yellow brocade curtains framed a large window overlooking the courtyard. There was a single bookcase, ceiling-high and as wide as Matyas’ arms stretched in both directions. Malchior said, “I hope this will suit you.”

  Matyas nodded. “Yes, of course.” Then, a moment later, “No. No, take everything out.” He swept his arm around, as if Malchior might not have understood him. “Bring me a small bed. And a plain table. Wood but not carved. And more bookshelves.” He looked directly at Malchior. “Will you do that?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Matyas had to struggle not to grin. Of course. As seriously as he could manage, he said, “Good. I will be in the library.” On his way out, he suddenly saw lights flicker around the bed canopy. The Splendor had come to welcome him, and for once he saw Malchior’s calm face open with amazement. Now Matyas did allow himself a smile, but when he returned, hours later, to his now cell-like room, the lights were gone.

  Matyas studied. He began before dawn and continued so late it sometimes felt as if one day ran into the next, and soon they overlapped each other and whole weeks became lost. At first he thought he would continue with Florian, or even the Child Eater, but he decided all that was a trap, a trick to keep him from his true subject: flying. The Spell of Extension was terrible, of course. He could understand the Creator’s tears, and if he could have saved Rorin or brought him back, he would have grabbed the chance. But it was too late for Lahaylla’s brother, and if Joachim himself could not have stopped his own disciple, how could Matyas even think to attempt it? And besides, what did it all have to do with him?

  Or will you try as

  Ancients cry, as

  Children die, as

  No one dares to talk?

  Try how? What was he supposed to do? No, Matyas knew very well what he needed to study. Flying. Books, scrolls, letters, parchments soon overflowed the shelves Matyas had asked Malchior to provide for him. He found treatises on artificial wings, with details on what kind of feathers to use, and the best wax to avoid melting as one got closer to the Sun. Matyas thought these latter comments showed a misunderstanding of the Sun and its sphere so profound they revealed the authors’ worthless ignorance. Others suggested bat wings as a model, with the warning that any wizard who used such wings must do so only at night, for the bright day would cause the leather wings to dry up and crack.

  Matyas was slightly more impressed with the idea of shifting awareness directly into a bird, a hawk, for example, so that you felt the air as it soared and dived, saw through its finely honed eyes. Matyas could lean back and imagine himself as a hawk—a dark and lonely hawk—an idea so bright it made him dizzy. He could do this, he was sure of it. Only . . . the man he’d seen that night in the woods had flown and landed as himself. Not a hawk with a man’s mind, not any kind of trick, but a true flying man. Matyas went back to his studies.

  He took his meals alone, in his room or at the library: simple meals on plain dishes, brought by apprentices who were often older than he was, and who either looked at him with awe or refused to meet his eyes. Malchior invited him to dine at the Masters’ table, and he tried it—once. The gold plates looked all wrong, there were too many utensils and it annoyed him that he didn’t know just what he was eating. He listened around the room for something, any comment at all, that might interest him, but all they talked about, apparently, was politics and money.

  He began to think about Veil, more and more, it seemed, as the weeks went by. At first it was with anger: anger at all the tricks she’d played on him, all the humiliations. Anger at her using him like a slave. Anger at her secrets. Most of all he just thought over and over how she pretended to teach him but kept back the one thing, the only thing he really needed from her. Veil knew all the magic there was to know, whatever she pretended when he asked her. There was simply no question about that. She probably even knew the hidden name of the Child Eater (not that he cared about that). Flying existed, and so Veil had to know about it. When she said she didn’t, she was lying.

  Sometimes he stood in the courtyard and stared up at the tower, shaking with clenched fists as if he could will her to appear in the window so that he could bring down lightning on her. Or maybe he would turn her into a toad, the way Medun had almost changed him all that time ago. He didn’t notice how everyone fled the courtyard at such moments. He saw only the tower, with its empty window.

  And then, slowly, something terrible happened. He began to miss her. At first it was just twinges, a flash of a thought quickly drowned in a fresh wave of rage. After some weeks, however, he could no longer deny it. He tried to tell himself it was only her books, the shelves that opened into chambers that opened into tunnels and caves, all of them crammed with words. And along with the books there were all the wondrous objects, some of which he could bring to life to watch them work, or dance, or do strange things he could never quite understand. Finally, however, he simply had to admit it. It was not just her books he missed, but Veil herself.

  He missed seeing her in her narrow rocker, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes far, far away. He missed the odd things she would say, or the way she stared at a single page for over an hour and then go through the next twenty in less than a minute. He even missed cooking for her, the simple vegetable stews he prepared in her iron pots. And he missed brushing her hair. In recent months she had not asked him very often, but he always remembered that moment when he’d run the plain brush down her hair and unleashed a flood of letters.

  And yet these thoughts and memories also fueled his anger. After all her mistreatment of him, he still longed to see her? Had she cast a spell on him, did she control his thoughts, his feelings? Now when he stared at her tower, it was with a mix of longing, rage and fear.

  As for Veil herself, the old woman became even more reclusive than before. Sometimes people would indeed see her standing in her window. It appeared to happen, or so people said, when Matyas was walking below, but if so he never noticed, and no one dared to tell him. At rare moments, she ventured out to dart across the courtyard on some unknown errand as quickly as possible, like some woods animal crossing a road. Once she even showed up at a council meeting and sat at the back, as small and quiet as a child. Matyas wasn’t there, he never attended such things.

  In his confusion of feelings around her, Matyas sometimes wondered how she lived without her slave to bring her water and food and lay a fire for the cold nights. There was no sign she’d found any new street boy. He pretended to himself that his concern was sarcastic, a derisory thought on how she’d treated him. And yet . . . One afternoon, drinking tea with Horekh, Matyas asked in as casual a manner as he could how Veil sustained herself. To his surprise, Horekh smiled and shook his head. “Ah, Matyas,” he said, “don’t you know the three forbidden questions? What is the name of the Creator’s older sister? Where was your mother before the Creation of the world? And most difficult of all, what does Veil eat?”

  “But I have seen her eat—ordinary food. I spent years cooking for her.”

  Horekh sipped his tea, brewed with the leaves of an ancient plant that “opened the warehouses of the mind,” as an old saying had it. Horekh said, “As inspired and well taught as you are, there are times . . . Do you really think Veil needed your rice and cabbage?”

  “Then why would she—?”

  “Perhaps she wanted you to feel comfortable. After all, you needed to eat.”

  That night, Matyas spent a long time thinking about Veil, remembering the times he’d seen her eat and the times she’d simply nodded when he’d told her dinner was ready and continued her study.

  One time he caught sight of her
in her window. Maybe it was the influence of that disturbing conversation with Horekh, but it looked to him that she had grown thinner. So much for that idea, he thought. Of course she needed to eat, the same as anyone. The same as him. But as he continued to stare, he thought how it was not skinny so much as . . . He frowned. Her substance had grown thinner. Light shone through her, as through a translucent painting of an old woman. Was it the light of day or from some other world?

  That was the next to last time he saw her. The final time came a few weeks later. He’d been thinking about her more and more, sometimes unable to sleep or even study. He tried to go without food or water, just to see if it was in fact possible, but could not last more than a week. It was all a trick, he decided, it had to be, though if someone had asked him just what was a trick, he might not have been able to answer.

  He passed the winter like this, with a kind of pressure slowly building through the cold and snow. At times he found himself wondering if she was warm enough. The Residency and the library were both supplied via grates from large fires in the cellars, but Veil’s tower had no such luxury. As far as Matyas knew, no one was bringing her wood from the pile just outside the Gate of Light. That had been one of his jobs, of course, and no one had replaced him. Then he would get angry all over again that he even cared. If she didn’t need to eat, maybe she wouldn’t freeze, either. Or maybe she knew some spell to warm the tower. But if that was so, why did she send him down into the courtyard to pile wood in his arms and stagger back up the stairs?

  Finally, on a bright day in early spring, after weeks when he couldn’t sleep, or read, or think, he left his room and strode into the courtyard to shout up at the tower, “Veil! Show yourself!” He did not notice the tremor in the buildings, or the way two apprentices carrying a pile of books dropped everything and ran into the stables.

  And there she was, thin and straight in the window, impassive as always.

  Neither of them spoke a word, or even moved. Matyas stared up at her for a long time, days it seemed, and maybe it was, or maybe it was hours, or just minutes. He did not see that the Sun had grown dark blotches, or that the ground trembled, or that people were yelling at him. Finally, when he thought she was about to turn away, he spun around so she would not be the first. Only then did he notice the fissures in the ground and the people throwing up or leaning against walls which themselves looked shaky. With a gesture Matyas steadied the buildings; with another he sealed the cracks in the earth. As for the people vomiting, they could clean themselves. He strode to his room and slammed the door, then went and sat heavily on the edge of his bed. He stayed there for what felt like a very long time.

  Three days later, the council came to see him. He had not left his room in all that time and so they had to come and knock on his door. Despite everything, he smiled as he noticed that they had left Lukhanan behind and brought Malchior in his place. He thought Veil might enjoy that—if she ever enjoyed anything.

  Their demands were simple. Either Matyas stop his “duel” with Veil or leave. When Matyas asked, “What duel?” Malchior rolled his eyes.

  Matyas said, “Why don’t you ask Veil to leave?”

  Angrily, Malchior said, “This is a serious matter, Matyas. We have no time for verbal games.”

  Matyas considered. It struck him suddenly that he had in fact been thinking of leaving the Academy, thinking of it for a long time really, and only his obsession with Veil had kept that thought from becoming a plan. In truth, he was fairly certain he had exhausted all their resources. If he really wanted to fly, he would have to find some other kind of magic. Keeping him here was somehow just another of Veil’s tricks.

  He set out the next day, packing only a sleep roll, a few basic texts that he carried more for comfort than knowledge (he could recite any of them by heart), a knife, a sheaf of papers, a pair of quills and a block of ink. At the gate, he looked back at the tower one last time. She wasn’t there. Goodbye then, he thought. Goodbye.

  That night he made camp on a green and yellow hillside, by a soft stream. He found some sticks and set them on fire by writing a sacred name in dust on his finger and blowing it at the sticks. He closed his eyes and called a rabbit to come and give its life to aid his quest, but when he opened them a woman stood before him.

  Tall and thin, she had white hair so long it graced her ankles as it moved back and forth like a gentle wave. Her black skin was smooth and bright, almost polished, and her eyes were blue flecked with gold. She wore a green dress covered in tiny mirrors that reflected the campfire light back and forth between them, as if it had caught the flames and would never let them go. Matyas knew stories about that dress, those mirrors, and he knew not to look too closely, for if any of the fragments caught your gaze it would bounce it back and forth, and even if you walked away and never saw the woman, the mirrors again, your image, your eyes, would remain trapped in that infinite maze.

  Matyas knew the stories for he knew who this was, though he never expected to meet her. For wasn’t she dead all these two thousand years? “Mistress,” he whispered and bowed his head. “Great Florian. My heart thanks you for the blessing of your appearance.” It was the Standard Formula of Acknowledgment should any seeker receive that greatest boon, a visit from the Lady of the Mirrors. It was also true.

  Matyas knew that Florian the Wise had appeared this way when she returned from her visit to Forever, the Queen of the Dead. Florian had gone to the Land of Rock and Shadows to talk with Joachim, and although nobody knew what they’d said, Florian would sometimes ever after appear to seekers in need of help. She would not solve their problems, it was said, but give them just enough to send them further.

  Should he ask or simply wait for her to offer assistance? After a few moments, when she said nothing, he spoke, hardly above a whisper. “Mistress,” he said, “I have followed you, devotedly, all my life.” And it was true, for his life had not begun until he discovered her. “Now I seek the great secret. How to fly. Please. I have seen this, I know it can be done. Teach me.”

  She didn’t answer right away, and for a moment she grew faint. He thought he could see the evening through her body, the trees and hills behind her, until he realized the land here was flat, the bushes sparse and low, like the scrubland around his parents’ inn, so that what he was seeing was someplace else. And then the green dress returned, and she spoke, in a voice surprisingly high and clear. “I shall speak and you will listen. You who are my truest disciple.” His mouth opened, eager to answer, but he stopped himself. “You need to find a True Ladder. Only then can you climb to the place of beginning. And I will tell you something else. You are doing two things wrong. The first is that you are looking in the wrong place.”

  He wanted to ask where the right place was, but again knew to keep silent.

  Florian said, “And the second thing—”

  But right then a spark flew up from the fire toward his face, and without wanting to he cried out. Just a small noise, but it was enough, for if Florian indeed had finished relating the second thing, Matyas had not heard her. Once again she began to fade, her skin just as dark but translucent, like rice paper. He could see her veins and arteries like tubes carrying liquid light. Now instead of a hilly landscape, he saw a garden in her dress, with two bright trees, and a boy and girl holding hands.

  “Mistress!” he cried. “What is the second thing? What am I doing wrong?”

  Suddenly, inside Florian’s garden world, Matyas saw a man, far away but coming closer. His left hand loosely held a stone knife. No, Matyas thought, not him! Then everything inside Florian turned to light, blinding Matyas and forcing him to cover his eyes. When he could see again she was gone.

  The fire had burned out, not even a glow remained, as if hours had passed. Matyas paid no attention, only turned around and around. “Mistress!” he called out. “Come back. Please! What was the second thing? What am I doing wrong?”

  No answer. He began to shake but forced himself to stop, to think. Even if he d
idn’t know the second thing, he knew much more than when he sat down by the fire. He knew he needed to find something called a True Ladder. He could not remember seeing a mention of such a thing in any of his books, but now that he knew about it he could find it.

  And he knew that he was looking in the wrong place. Well, that much he’d figured out on his own. Wasn’t that why he’d left the Academy, left Veil? So now all he had to do was find the right place, where someone could lead him to the True Ladder. Suddenly he had a good idea of where that might be.

  As he repacked his small belongings, it struck him that he could guess what the second mistake might be. The wrong place and the wrong person. Veil would never tell him, she’d never even hinted at a Ladder. But after all, despite all her great knowledge, she was just a wizard. What Matyas needed was a Prince. Smiling now, he set off, his back to the Academy, his face toward a dark grove of twisted trees.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  SIMON

  On the first night before he was due to go with Dr. Reina, Simon met an old woman in the attic. He was lying in bed when he heard a sad voice call his name. For a while he tried to ignore it, even put his hands over his ears, but when that didn’t help, he got up. “It’s not fair,” he said out loud, but it felt like he had no choice.

  He walked up polished steps to a wide attic room lit by thick candles mounted on gold sticks shaped like trees. There were shining tables and carved chairs whose arms were shaped like animal heads, bears and wolves. In the corner, an old woman sat all by herself on a plain wooden chair. She wore a white dress so bright it reflected the candles like a soft mirror. Despite her elegant clothes, she wore no shoes, and her feet were worn and bent. Her hands, resting on her knees, were slim and graceful. Currents from the candlelight lifted her thin hair which looked like white gold, and yet her lined face looked impossibly soft, like a child who’d grown instantly old.