Shadowdance

by Robin W Bailey

  "You would have bent his spine, would you?" Innowen said with a wry grin. "You'd have knocked out his teeth?" He clapped Drushen on the shoulder and made a show of straightening the woodcutter's tunic.

  "You'd have done that to Kyrin, your king, king of Ispor?" He hugged Drushen and kissed his cheek politely. "I didn't know how much you cared for me."

  Drushen pushed his charge back. "Kyrin?" he sputtered, his face clouding with shock at Innowen's news. "What do you mean, calling him king of Ispor? What happened to Koryan?"

  Innowen bit his lip. Koryan was dead, but how could he tell Drushen without also explaining that the Witch of Shanalane was accused of his murder? Drushen wouldn't understand; he was already too upset about their meeting and what her magic had done for him. Yet he didn't want to lie to his guardian, either. He hated lying.

  Drushen waited impatiently for an answer, and at last, Innowen made his choice. "Koryan is dead, that's all I know." He turned away and stared at the empty chair in the gazebo where Dyan had sat. "I'm only a woodcutter's waif. They don't tell me state secrets."

  "But how did you find out?" Drushen pressed.

  Innowen shrugged. "Minarik told me on the ride here. You were still sick and unconscious."

  The wind blew down into the courtyard, making a low susurrus as it swept along the walls and over the paving stones. The gazebo creaked musically under the gentle force, and the green vines that grew on it rustled.

  Innowen listened, then raised one arm gracefully. He leaned to the side and extended into a lunge. He stepped quickly through and drew himself erect as he raised his other arm and repeated the same phrase of movement.

  "What are you doing?" Drushen asked uneasily.

  Innowen closed his eyes. "Dancing," he whispered.

  Drushen grunted, and Innowen heard the old man's steps on the stones as he moved out of the way. "I don't know any dance like that," Drushen commented.

  Innowen didn't miss the strange edge in Drushen's voice, but he ignored his guardian. The wind was with him now, and from somewhere came an echo of Dyan's pipe. That was impossible, yet he heard it. The rush of the wind and the sound of her music filled his head. And there was the Witch's storm. The memory of thunder made a wild timpani that drove him. He spun and whirled as the pipe ascended an impossible scale, straining for notes undreamt of. He leaped, and the wind seemed almost to lift and buoy him. His muscles throbbed with energy, stretching in ways they never had before. Sweat quickly beaded on his skin; it ran in thick streams down his neck and chest until the chiton was soaked and clung to him like a rag.

  Around the gazebo he moved, throwing back his head with every turn of his body, stopping before Drushen. He jumped, and his right leg described a perfect arc above his guardian's head. He pivoted three times on the ball of his left foot, stopped and clapped his hands together twice under the old woodcutter's nose. He whirled and stopped, leaped and turned and stopped. Each time he stopped, it seemed the world stopped with him and resumed its dance when he did.

  He lifted one leg out before him and moved it to the side, a slow, perfectly controlled motion. The thigh muscle bulged with the effort. Sweat glistened there, catching the lamplight as he held it high. The muscle began to quiver, a delicious sensation, and he lifted the leg higher still, pointing his toe, extending his line as far as possible.

  Suddenly, another movement caught his eye. With the lamps at his back, his shadow loomed on the far wall. It extended its leg just as he did, but that dark limb seemed to go on forever, reaching around the courtyard. He moved an arm, and his shadow moved, too, with an elongated grace, imitating his motion. He lunged, and it lunged, covering more distance, filling more space, mocking him with its immensity.

  But Innowen would not be mocked, not by his own shadow. He challenged it instead, moving with a wild tempestuous frenzy, daring it to follow. It whirled as he whirled, leaped as he did. He couldn't defeat it, he realized. It was not a competitor, but a partner. They danced, his shadow and he, each the equal of the other, one black and ominous and insubstantial, the other in the light, gleaming with sweat-sheen.

  He rolled his head back between his shoulders and stared at the small patch of sky visible above Whisperstone. Suddenly the stars were not stars at all, but the eyes of the gods all turned upon him. He danced for the hosts of heaven, danced until his heart was close to bursting.

  He leaped and touched the ground, crouched like an animal, ready to spring again. He snapped his head to the side sharply. One hand shot upward to grasp those stars. And froze. The last burst of thunder shivered and rolled away. The last flurry of pipesong diminished and faded. The wind receded. Innowen sustained his effort until the final quivering notes melted away into the night.

  Then the silence closed in upon him, and he sank to the ground. A small cry escaped his lips as he sprawled upon the cold stones and gasped for breath. He lay there for a moment, prostrate with exhaustion, too weak to move. Gradually, his heartbeat slowed, and the trembling left his limbs. He raised himself onto his elbows.

  "What did you think?" he asked Drushen, his chest still heaving as he struggled to get out the words.

  Drushen didn't answer. He stood mutely, hiding his face in his hands. His huge body shook all over. Innowen got to his feet and hurried to his guardian's side to see what was the matter. He slipped one arm around his old friend's shoulder. "Drushen, what is it?" he asked in a hushed tone. "What is it?"

  Drushen took his hands from his face and regarded Innowen as if he were a stranger. Slipping free of Innowen's arm, he backed away a few paces and stared at Innowen again. His eyes were full of fear. Innowen went to him and tried once more to embrace him, to reassure him. Something about his dance had upset his guardian. But Drushen wouldn't let him near. He knocked Innowen's arms away when Innowen reached for him, and backed quickly toward the door. "No!" he whispered. "Stay away!" The old man lingered only a moment more, then turned and walked stiffly into the keep.

  Innowen let him go. Alone, confused, he walked back to the gazebo and sat down in the only chair and tried to think. He didn't know what to make of the old man's reaction. Drushen had been afraid of him, Drushen, who had killed a wolf with his bare hands one winter when it attacked him at the woodpile as he fetched fuel for the fireplace. Innowen had seen worry on that rough, weathered face before. He'd seen desperation, and outright rage. But never had he seen Drushen in such a state. The unmistakable fear in his eyes, that had been plain enough to see. But there'd been something else, too. Something Innowen didn't understand.

  He jumped up and ran across the courtyard. He had to find Drushen and learn what was the matter. The Witch had only healed his legs, that was all. That was nothing to fear. It was a gift, a blessing, even if he could only walk at night. Drushen had to see that. He had to.

  He raced into the keep, back down the corridor they had taken to the courtyard and into the main hall. A sweeping stone staircase ascended to the upper levels, and he took the steps two at a time. The passages bent and twisted, seemingly without logic or reason. Sometimes lamplight illumined his way. Sometimes he ran in darkness. He began to fear that he was lost until at last he entered a familiar corridor.

  He stopped just outside the door to his quarters and waited for his breathing to calm. Then he pushed it open quietly. Drushen was not in the first room. Innowen found him standing before the opened window in the second, staring outward, biting the knuckles of one hand.

  "Don't come in," Drushen warned. "Go away."

  "Drushen, I had to dance," Innowen tried to explain from the archway. "The music was so powerful...."

  The woodcutter refused to look at him. "There wasn't any music!" he snapped, driving a fist against the stone wall.

  "I heard it!" Innowen insisted. "The wind and Dyan's pipe and the thunder. Maybe it was in my head, I don't know. It had to be," because the sky was so clear. All those stars! I don't understand everything, yet. But why are you so angry with me?"

  Drushen spun around. In
the shadow it was impossible to see his face. Innowen wished uselessly that he had lit a candle or grabbed the lamp from the other room. His guardian came toward him with outstretched arms. "Angry with you, child?" But before he reached Innowen, the old man stopped and clutched his hands to his chest. There was still half the room between them. "No, I couldn't be angry with you. I couldn't." Suddenly, he covered his eyes and rubbed his fists in the sockets. "But what I saw! You were beautiful! It made me feel things! It made me... You made me want..."

  Innowen moved swiftly, reaching his guardian and flinging his arms around his shoulders. "What, Drushen? What did you want?"

  "Don't touch me!" Drushen pushed him back with a force that sent him sprawling in the middle of the floor. "You don't know! Gods, help me! I never would have! I never meant to!"

  Innowen rose slowly, uncertainly, as Drushen took a step toward him. In the dim light that seeped from the other room, he saw his guardian's face and the anguish there. But there was more, too, and worse. Drushen's eyes burned with a dark desire.

  "I never would have hurt you," Drushen whispered, coming closer, bending down. Innowen crawled back until the wall stopped his retreat. "I never would have. I promise I won't." The old man shook his head from side to side, but his gaze never left Innowen. "You shine like the moon, boy. You know that? So beautiful!"

  Drushen's huge hands caught Innowen around the waist and lifted him as if he were no more than a doll.

  Innowen pushed uselessly at his guardian, suddenly frightened and acutely aware of Drushen's powerful strength. "Drushen!" he screamed. The woodcutter didn't say anything as he carried Innowen across the room. "Drushen," Innowen appealed once more, resisting the urge to scream this time, trying instead to sound reasonable and calm. "Please, stop."

  "I can't!" Drushen hissed, his breath hard and ragged. He laid Innowen on the bed, pinned him there with one hand, and lifted the blue hem of his chiton with the other. He leaned closer and placed a kiss on the boy's cheek.

  "Drushen!" Innowen shouted as he tried to roll off the bed's far side. But a hand crushed down on his mouth, pinning him to the pillow, preventing any more cries. The old man loomed over him like a big monstrous cat, and Innowen was the mouse. He couldn't get free!

  "Be quiet," Drushen urged with a terrible, certain calm. "I won't hurt you, child. But your dance! Oh, when I saw you dance." He spoke with a dreadful serenity as he unfastened Innowen's garments. Innowen squeezed his eyes shut, barely able to breathe for the hand over his face. He kicked and flailed to little avail, and the woodcutter ignored his feeble blows. A slight wind brushed over his suddenly naked flesh, and a hot hand began to massage his belly. "Dance for me, Innocent!" Drushen moaned softly. "Dance for me now."

  Drushen bent down and kissed him in earnest. Innowen's head swam, and tears spilled from his eyes. The old man's hands roamed through his hair and caressed every part of him, creating fire wherever they touched, strange heatless fire that grew and spread all through him. He lay dumbfounded, burning with a terrible, dark fear and an awful pleasure. Too frightened to look, he turned his face to the pillow and covered his eyes with an arm. When Drushen entered him, he bit his lip, not daring to scream. The bed beneath him seemed to disappear; he melted into endless darkness, floated to a confusion of sensations, all beyond joy or pain, lost in a cruelly consuming tenderness.

  He awoke later with the taste of Drushen still in his mouth. From the floor by the bed came a low, pitiful sobbing. Innowen listened weakly until he was sure of who it was. Then, he turned on his side to look. The woodcutter huddled on the carpets, clutching the edge of the bedsheet in one hand as tears streamed down his face. He looked up at Innowen.

  "I'm sorry!" he said. "I couldn't stop myself. Innowen, I never would have hurt you!" Drushen got to his knees. His elbows pressed on the bed, and Innowen cowered away. "Forgive me," he begged. "I don't know what possessed me. Forgive me, Innowen!"

  But Innowen slunk further back, his throat dry, his body trembling all over.

  "Innowen!" Drushen stared in horror and shame. He extended one hand toward his charge while the fingers of the other clawed in the bedclothes. Abruptly, he let go a cry of pure anguish and leaped to his feet.

  "I've got to get away," Drushen said in a stricken whisper. He shot a look wildly around the room, as a trapped animal might. "Far away from you before it's too late." He looked once more at Innowen, then fled. "I'm sorry! Sorry!"

  Innowen heard the door wrench open, and Drushen's panicked footsteps echoed loudly in the outer corridor until they gradually faded.

  He rolled onto his back, shut his eyes, and wept. Out of the darkness came the memory of Drushen's wide, pleading eyes to haunt and terrify him. Slowly, he curled into a ball and hugged himself. He burned all over with strange sensations, yet he felt hollow. His tears fell on the sheets, which were already damp with sweat. No matter how he tried, he couldn't stop them.

  Alone, he thought forlornly, utterly alone. It was his greatest fear.

  He turned over onto his back again, opened his eyes, and looked to the sky beyond the window. He waited for the sun to rise, and he waited for the life to drain from his legs. He waited for Drushen to return, and knew he would not.

  Chapter 4

  Innowen didn't sleep at all that night, and the sun was high in the sky when someone knocked at his door. He didn't answer. After a moment, they went away. He listened to the receding steps, remembering Drushen. Sometime later there was another knock. He didn't want to see anyone, didn't want to talk, and shortly, the corridor echoed again with retreating footsteps.

  It was almost noon when someone knocked again. He refused to answer, but this time the door opened anyway. Taelyn poked his head through the archway. "Are you awake?" he whispered. Taking a step into the room, he stopped, made a face, and pinched his nostrils shut with his fingers. "Oh gods!" he exclaimed in disgust. "You've soiled the sheets, young man. Couldn't you reach the slop jar? It's right under the bed!"

  Innowen said nothing, just turned his head to the side on the pillow and looked away.

  "Don't you play silent on me, boy!" Taelyn snapped. "You may be Lord Minarik's guest, but I'm the one who cleans up the messes around here. Now get out of that bed and wash yourself. Those sheets have to be scrubbed at once, or they'll never look clean again." He clapped his hands together sharply. "Move!"

  Innowen closed his eyes. "I can't walk," he said without emotion. Languidly, he draped one arm over his eyes.

  Taelyn came closer and bent over the bed. The distaste on his face was obvious as he pulled Innowen's hands down and peered at him carefully. "Where's your guardian?" he asked, suddenly quiet, his anger fading, a note of concern creeping into his voice.

  Innowen pulled his hand free and covered his face again. "Gone."

  Taelyn stood there a moment. "I'm going to get Minarik," he said finally. "But first, a drink for you. You're feverish." He left Innowen's bedside, went into the other room, and returned with an earthen drinking cup and an ornately decorated hydria jar. He poured a half measure of water into the cup and lifted Innowen's head while he held it for him to sip. Innowen only moistened his lips a little and turned aside again. "I'll get Minarik," Taelyn repeated, setting both cup and vessel where Innowen could reach them easily.

  Once more, Innowen found himself alone listening to the sound of fading footsteps. He stared at Drushen's unused bed on the other side of the room, then shut his eyes and shed thick silent tears until, at last, he drew his hand across his face and wiped his nose. Taelyn had gone for Minarik, and lying in his own mess was shame enough. He would not cry before the Lord of Whisperstone if he could help it. He pushed against the bed with his hands and drew his back up against the wall until he could sit up. Beyond the window, the day was bright and crisp, but it failed to cheer him. He pulled the coverlet up to his chest and waited, thinking of Drushen and fighting back the tears that threatened to come again.

  Minarik touched his shoulder. Innowen had not heard him ente
r. He looked up into his benefactor's worried gaze, and then down at his own dead legs. Taelyn came in behind Minarik with an armload of clean bedding, which he set down on Drushen's empty bed before coming to peer over his master's shoulder.

  "How are you, boy?" Minarik said, settling gingerly on the edge of the bed.

  Innowen turned his gaze slowly back to the lord. Minarik looked terrible. His faced appeared drawn and sleep-deprived. Shadows circled his eyes, and dirt runneled the deep lines of his neck and brow. He smelled, too, of sweat and horse-froth, as though he had ridden some long distance. Yet he had taken time to come see his guest.

  "The day passes," Innowen answered in a flat voice, realizing he owed Minarik the courtesy of a response. Still, he could generate no enthusiasm. His lids quivered shut, and he hugged the coverlet as a chill rippled through him. "Drushen is gone."

  "I know," Minarik said quietly. "The gate guard told me he left in the middle of the night, taking nothing with him. He said your Drushen was weeping, and that he mumbled a name over and over as he passed through the gate." A hand brushed tenderly over Innowen's damp forehead and pushed back a lock of hair. "Your name, Innocent."

  Though he tried to stop it, a droplet squeezed from Innowen's eye and glided down his cheek. He reached up to intercept it, but Minarik instead caught it with his fingertip and held it up to sparkle in the light.

  "What passed between you and your guardian last night, boy, to cause you both such grief?" Minarik lowered his hand and wiped the bit of moisture on his tunic near his heart. "The love you bore for each other was plain enough. No father and son could have shown more."

  Innowen remembered the pain of Drushen's hands upon him, so strong, hurting, pinning him. Again, confusion and fear swept over him, so powerful, numbing. Yet he recalled also, one layer of memory over another, his guardian's anguish, his pleas for forgiveness, the sorrow and shame on the old woodcutter's face.

  What had driven Drushen to hurt him?