FSF, August 2008

by Spilogale, Inc

  "There is a story there,” she said quietly, “is there not?"

  "There is, but too long to be told in even one long night."

  "And you ... will be traveling on in the morning?"

  "There's little call for a bard here, and I suspect your student will soon grow weary of me."

  She nodded, admitting the truth of this. Gorlen figured that the allure of anything but more pie would quickly pale on that particular child's appetite.

  "And this hand of yours,” she said, reaching down to take his right, “is it the only part of you so formed?"

  "Of cold hard stone, you mean? Yes. The rest of me is warm. And soft. Mostly."

  * * * *

  Upstairs were several rooms belonging to the schoolmarm, which must once have seemed a luxury of suites for a young teacher fresh from the Academy. There was little joy in them now. She fixed them a small supper, a salad of shredded roots, with crumbling cheese and the loaf of bread she'd spared from the child's repast. The child himself, as she had foretold, followed his meal with a sudden torpor and had made no further sound. Gorlen found himself thinking hard as he sopped vinegar from the salad bowl and sucked it from the softening crust of bread. Such a gift of vocal mimicry was common among certain creatures, although one associated it more with birds, of course. There was nothing birdlike about the child, except his exaggerated resemblance to some kind of soft-shelled egg. And for a creature with such a finely tuned ear for subtle gradations of human speech, it was odd that the child had never attempted to sing or hum along with Gorlen's tunes. The eduldamer's notes, or at least the songs Gorlen sang in accompaniment, would have made a fine subject for emulation. But perhaps the act of mimicry relied on some sort of traumatic episode to force imprinting. The absence of his classmates had caused the child to recall them in the only way available to him. Which thought led Gorlen to the obvious question ... although he refrained at first from asking it.

  Ansylla was lovely by firelight, and lovelier still when she untangled the vocational ribbons from her copper locks and put aside her teacher's cap. Only her red crayon she did not shed, which he had to admit he found rather charming. He did not want to ruin the mood by probing Childrun's no doubt depressing history. A gloom of loneliness pervaded the town. If he could do anything to push it back, to illuminate even this one room, he meant to do so. He played the eduldamer and spoke of Riverend as he'd last seen it, as it had always been, a creased valley deep in the Shalled Mountains, where the river in question, namely Gharrousel, came down from perpetually snowy peaks, passed under the ancient Spiral Bridge, and fell away abruptly and entirely in a whirlpool. The swirling funnel churned away forever, swirling endlessly down a vortex that carried it away beneath the earth. It was a place where those who wished to forget things went to forget them. Jilted lovers wrote the names of their ex-partners on vellum boats and sailed them into the current. That was one romantic use. Other riders of the spiraling waters, only slightly less frequent, were the spurned lovers themselves. But in a far less dramatic manner, the maelstrom had also taken in rotten fishheads without number and the contents of countless garbage bins. He had heard of the beauty of the whirlpool throughout his life; but no one ever mentioned the copious rubbish and fetid debris strewn along its cobbled banks. She laughed at his story, which was nothing new to her; but a memory shared shines brighter for it, and he could see the thought of her home warming her in all her parts. Nor was his talk of lovers completely innocent, or without result.

  It was not very long before they dozed together, in an afterglow that seemed to permit more direct questioning than he had earlier dared. And indeed, no longer in fear of scaring her off, he broached what was surely the most terrifying subject of all.

  "What happened to the other children?” he asked as he lazed. She was idly scribbling red spirals on his chest, lying over him with her red crayon dangling. “You said they went gradually, yet ... how?” And as if this were not enough to start the conversation, he could not keep himself from asking the flood of questions that had been crowding in his mind all evening: “And how is it you came to take sole charge of the lad? Where are his parents?"

  "He was a foundling, I am told. Left at the village gates in a night when the mountain streams ran to flood. This was only a short time before my own arrival here, but the most popular conjecture is that he was mothered by some impoverished woman, scarce able to feed herself. You must have noticed the harshness of the terrain along your way."

  "A stingy country indeed,” Gorlen agreed. “And yet generous in finding such a village to take him in. Although I imagine they were glad enough to accept an orphan, when their own offspring were disappearing."

  "Oh, but none had been carried off just yet. That commenced after my arrival."

  "I guess you are fortunate they have not blamed you for the disappearances!"

  He found her soft fingers suddenly covering his mouth. “Do not even jest about such things! Do you not think that fear has gnawed at my heart since the first child vanished? Yet the villagers blame me not; they are most emphatic about this. There has always been another event to blame for the vanishing, and in each case they have felt their guilt to be greater than anyone else's, for not seeing the signs, for not doing all they could to prevent it."

  "And what event was this?"

  "I know it is not at all apparent from the town's demeanor in this dark time, but once the village turned a friendly face to the world. The gate was always open. Travelers were common. Thus it was when I arrived. But gradually we realized that every child's disappearance was linked to the arrival of ... a stranger."

  Gorlen felt a chill beginning, different from any foreboding he had felt so far in Childrun. Less sourceless now; something very like an icy accusatory finger that had begun to tap upon his bare shoulder.

  "What ... which stranger?"

  "Oh, no particular sort. Not at first. It could have been anyone. But after the third disappearance, we noticed that always there was someone about, someone unseemly, someone never seen here before, who appeared one day and disappeared the next. He might have been a merchant or a tinker, a peddler, a wandering monk. As I say, at first we suspected no one. But gradually we—well, I mean, they—began to suspect everyone. Every strange face that appeared was suspect of being the next abductor. Still, the village's innate hospitality held sway. All visitors were welcomed, even though with less open gladness than before. This was only natural, for as sadness took hold, it began to cover the whole village with its shadow."

  "So ... any sort of stranger wandering through ... a bard, perhaps...."

  "I do not recall a bard ever before,” she said. “Not in connection with a child's disappearance. It is strange, now that I speak of these things for the first time in many months, that we have never uncovered any connection between these isolated strangers. Nothing, that is, apart from the fact of a child's abduction."

  "It seems a very fragile thread from which to hang an accusation against someone you ... scarcely know.” He realized he was slowly drawing away from her beneath the coverlets, and estimating the whereabouts of his scattered clothes. “And these strangers, what ... what became of them?"

  "Why, nothing, of course. They vanished in the night. Along with the children! That is why eventually the villagers came to see such a clear connection between the two events. But as their grief grew, so did their unwillingness to let this happen again. Thus they took to locking the gate even during the day, as you have seen."

  Gorlen sat up and slowly pulled on his garments. She watched him quietly. “Why do you rise at this hour?"

  "As a stranger in this place, I find myself suddenly ill at ease,” he said. “Say I wished to try the gate at this hour of the night? Do you think I would be permitted to leave?"

  "I very much doubt it. Not, at any rate, until the whereabouts of all the children...” She giggled. “...which is to say, the child, had been verified. That would only take a short time, however. And then I'm sure all
would be well."

  Gorlen was not able to share her certainty, especially now that he was quite sure he heard stealthy shuffling steps somewhere nearby. The chamber had one small lozenge window, which he unlatched and opened a very small amount, having first ascertained that the room's one lamp had been snuffed. He peered out through the slit and found himself looking down on the public square where the villagers had heaped pies that afternoon. It was a dark night, moonless, but there was enough ambient light to show him that the square was thronged by darker shapes, all moving quietly, wordlessly, toward the schoolhouse.

  He closed the door as quietly as he could. Then, stifling the strings, he picked up his eduldamer and slung it over his shoulder.

  "Gorlen, where...?"

  "I know you meant nothing by it, my dear, or at least I hope you did not, but I must now inquire as to the possibility of a back door from this place."

  "A back ... are you leaving then?"

  "I'm afraid I must, my dear Ansylla. You may find nothing suspicious in my demeanor, but your villagers, I fear, are not so charitable. Now, meaning no harm, I must ask again—"

  "There is no other door; that would have made it difficult to keep the children from slipping away unnoticed. However, a time or two, one spry child was known to climb the old willow in the corner of the yard, and thus gain the top of the wall. From there, alleys will lead you off through the town. But Gorlen, all the village gates are locked at this hour. And none will open while you are loose."

  "Matters to trouble me another time,” he said. “Hopefully, not so long from now. Now here, for you, a kiss.” Sweet, so sweet. She had begun to rise and pull her own raiments on. “And now, I must be off. I will carry word of your academic expertise to other towns, I promise, and soon perhaps you will hear from another of these institutes. One with a more wholesome student body, I would hope."

  With that he slipped into the hall and headed for the stairs.

  The villagers must have considered the school their public property, for even as he reached the darkened classroom, he heard a key turning in the front door down the hall. But that was not his avenue anyway. He moved quickly to the courtyard door and let himself through. Out in the courtyard, cut off from whatever light reached the square, he found himself in utter darkness. He stood very still for a moment, trying to recall the layout of the place from that afternoon. A simple rectangle, featureless except for the willow in the center and the other in the corner, which ought to be at his left hand now. If he crept straight ahead till he reached the far wall, and then moved left, he would surely find the corner and the tree with its promise of escape.

  Taking short shuffling steps, he advanced very slowly, trying to ignore the sounds growing louder beyond the classroom door. He glanced back once, and heard a murmur of muffled voices, and then a dim light bled across the dingy glass, as if someone had struck a match or lit a weak taper. Shuffle-shuffle a few more steps, and suddenly he realized the light was growing brighter. Bright enough to see his own shadow forming ahead of him on the flagstones. Surely he had not reached the far wall, and yet his shadow ended abruptly and flung itself up on a pale smooth surface ... too smooth and pale to be the opposite wall. Behind him, the door was creaking open. Ahead of him, the light it let loose glimmered briefly on two glossy black knobs, set in the pale wall like handles he might seize to pull himself aloft. But these eyes went up and up above a growing darkness vast and complete enough to steal his shadow. His toe caught on a rubbery edge or, more aptly, a lip; and because in spite of himself he had started to panic and to hurry, his momentum carried him forward, off balance, and over he pitched into the pitchy black.

  He lay there a long moment with his eyes shut, waiting for the villagers to set hands upon him, to drag him back into the classroom, to begin to do whatever it was they did to the strangers they caught in their midst. With one child left in the town, one child to spoil and protect with all their number, he suspected they had very few reservations when it came to dealing harshly with strangers. After all, they had prevented this last child from being abducted for ... for how long now? He had never thought to ask. Well, perhaps they would answer one simple question before thrashing the life out of him or pitching him into some cell where he might land upon the bones of other unsuspecting travelers.

  But no hands fell upon him, and in fact he heard nothing now of his pursuers. The floor was wet and sticky, but not so far as he could tell with his blood. He was unharmed. He could not imagine why they had let him alone so suddenly, but he did not trust their reluctance or change of heart to last. He might as well find the willow while he was at it, and hoist himself over the wall, and see if it might not be possible to leave the village by way of rooftop scampering.

  Shuffle-shuffle a few more steps, and then his paces grew longer. With his right hand out before him, he waited for the clink of stone against stone, but waited in vain. Soon he was striding briskly along, before he stopped in sudden realization of the vast interior into which he belatedly realized he must have strayed.

  "Good grief,” he said aloud, and thought: “He's swallowed me. Like one of his pies."

  That blackness beneath the beady eyes could have been nothing but the child's enormous mouth. The notion was so right that he wasted not a moment disputing it, but immediately tried to turn exactly half a turn around, and head back in precisely the opposite direction he'd been heading. But suddenly the ground, which had felt so level before, seemed a slope, and a sheer upward one at that. The darkness was designed to disorient him. And in his reluctance to become a willing participant in his own further ensnarement, he stopped and immediately sat down.

  This would take some thought. Some cunning. Neither of which emerged out of panic or panicked flight. The best thing to do, as always, was to give himself time to think, and a way of evoking his deeper mind, the cleverer nature of which ran dark and unseen but still quite tangibly beneath his ordinary surface thoughts. This lower tide of wise cunning he equated with the improvisations of music, for they were much the same.

  His eduldamer found its way into his lap, and he began to strum and play, stretching out calming patterns of sound through which he might weave patterns of thought substantial enough to support more weight.

  The unexpected result of his song was not, as he had hoped, the quieting of his own thoughts, but the sudden raising of other sounds from all around him.

  Voices began to call out. Worried, cautious, questioning. “Who's there?” “What's that, do you hear it?” “Is it real then, the music? Do you all hear it, too?” “I thought it was only me, but ... but it's not. It's real. It has to be real."

  Gorlen silenced the strings and listened, afraid that he himself was imagining only what he might have wished to hear.

  They were children's voices, and as the music stilled, they grew more plaintive.

  "Noooo!"

  "It's stopped!"

  "Why did it stop?"

  "Please, no!"

  Gorlen strummed again, and then began to hammer and slide on the strings. All the voices fell quiet. He played for several minutes before breaking off to say, “The music you hear, it's real. I'm real! None of us could have imagined this!"

  The darkness was full of gasping, amazement. He could almost see the awestruck eyes of children gaping through the dark. But of course, he could not. He had only sound to go by. Fortunately, he was expert in its uses.

  "Where are you all?” he asked.

  "Where are any of us?” called one voice. “Inside. The same as you."

  "No, but ... I mean, where inside? Are you together? Are you near me?"

  "Those things mean nothing here,” said another voice, older than the first, more worldly and despairing. “We're just lost in here. All of us. Forever. We've given up. You'll give up soon, just like the rest of us. Stop looking and trying to find each other."

  Several younger voices pitched in for a moment. “No! Stop! I want my Mummy...."

  "Your mum's not here,
none of ‘em's here or ever will be here, so shut your bawling."

  But that only made it worse. Several young wailing voices carried through the dark, while older voices groaned in misery. “Now you've done it!” complained the strong clear voice of an older girl. “There, there, dears, don't listen to him! He only wants to make you cry. Same as ever—a bully, even in here."

  "I'm no bully. I've hurt no one,” the petulant boy replied. “I just don't like ‘em making it worse than it is when it's already bad enough."

  "It wouldn't be that bad if it weren't for you always telling them how bad it is."

  "Me? What about you!"

  "I never—"

  Gorlen cut through the bickering with a plucked high note, which he held and shook so that it bound the dark together with one pure sound.

  "Do you all hear that?” he asked, as the note faded.

  Scattered murmurs of assent floated back to him. It sounded as if they were all around him in the dark.

  "That's what we need,” he said. “We need to move together, if we wish to get out of this place."

  "Out! You obviously haven't been here very long. There is no out. There is no place. This is all of it, mate."

  "Shut up,” said the girl who'd stood up to the bully before. “Just listen to him. He's making more sense than you have in a long time."

  "You need to stop arguing,” Gorlen said. “You need to start listening. Just listen to the music. And ... move toward it. I'm going to play now, all right? I'm going to play and I want you, all of you, to just come toward the sound."

  "We've tried this before,” someone said, “we've tried talking each other through it—"

  "But this isn't talking,” said another. “This is music. It's already different, can't you tell?"

  "Exactly,” said yet another.

  "What do we have to lose?"

  "Mummy!"

  Gorlen played till their chattering subsided, and kept playing. He hummed along with it a bit, but realized the pure tones of the eduldamer were strong enough to summon them. They needed the unadulterated tones to make up for the loss of their most relied-on sense.