There followed six months of unrelenting effort for the boys. They had to make more baskets and more varied types than ever before. Idressin would bring in an example of a new kind of fishing creel and expect perfect reproductions for sale two days later. But the physical work was the easiest to cope with. The tutor was pitiless in the additional tasks he set them, which became increasingly difficult despite their protests. Hardest of all was dealing with Grellek's constant jibes or rather with their own reactions to them. He had a sure instinct for their sorest spots, and the more determined they were not to be affected the more his interest seemed to be aroused in wounding them.
They were helped by realising that Idressin, who acted towards them just as coldly as before in the presence of the farmer's son, had to deal all day with this 'pompous fool' and to treat him as a person of great importance. Seeing their tutor handle that daily trial with apparent unconcern made them resolve to take their own indignities less seriously. And little by little they found that it became possible. Strangely enough they discovered that it was by dropping their defences, initially through exhaustion, that they actually became invulnerable to Grellek's thrusts. Once they stopped resisting his assault on their own sense of importance, they did not need to cling to any false feelings about their superiority and his hatefulness; things became simply what they were - which usually meant slightly farcical.
At first they could not maintain this impartiality for long; there were still many times when their habitual defences were raised with predictable results. But the new feeling grew with time and effort, until by the end of the year their lapses were becoming rarer and were in themselves occasions for amusement. As the destructiveness of their emotions abated, so their other work progressed apace, until sometimes they felt almost tireless in body and mind.
At Winterturn in bitter cold the Tinker came back. He appeared to have travelled immense distances, which enabled him to keep them entertained with stories of journeys far across the Quezma Republic to the Trinta lands. From the first he examined Caldar and Berin with something like surprise and that evening he raised his glass to them in a repeat of the previous year's gesture.
"I salute you again, my young friends. You have changed indeed. Your pupils do you honour, Idressin, and I think maybe I should thank Hasban and Grellek also. By the way, how is it that Hasban hasn’t asked for more money? Are the baskets so profitable?"
Idressin chuckled and held a finger to his lips. "Sshh! It's never a good idea to let the labourers know how much the master makes. Yes, Hasban's been making a tidy sum. But I've had to take extra precautions since early summer. Something happened to make me think someone was watching us."
The Tinker went very still, as the tutor recounted what had happened on that return journey from Torven.
"It's alright. I'd have got a message to you if there'd been any developments. They must have either drowned or lost us or perhaps I was wrong and they were casual voyagers on the same haphazard course as us."
Doubt was plain on the Tinker's face, but he did not pursue the matter of the watchers. Instead he asked, "What do you mean 'extra precautions'?"
"You know that metals were a speciality of mine, even more than yours. Well, I made a knife and showed it to Hasban. It was a special alloy, sharp enough to cut a feather in mid-air and hard enough to split a hammer head when I struck the edge of the blade. His eyes opened wide at the sight and I could see the thought of what such blades would fetch in the Free Cities grip him like a fever. Nothing was too good for me then, if only I'd make Grellek my apprentice. I agreed on condition of total secrecy, something demanded by the Guild of Master Alloy Smiths."
He cocked an eye at the older man. "Didn't know about my new guild, did you? Just formed, but very strict. No one was to know I was a tutor of anything at all. To outsiders I was a farmhand and the boys were basket-weavers. Hasban swallowed the lot.
It’s worked out well for us. This pair were becoming fixated on basket-making and I needed Grellek's help to broaden their horizons. I told Hasban it would take me at least a year to teach his son the secret trade, so although I still don't trust him, we should have no trouble for a while. Grellek's not a quick student, even if I was actually trying to teach him anything."
Caldar snorted and drew a reproving glance from the tutor before he turned back to the Tinker. "How long are we all going to be here anyway? These two will take root here if they stay very much longer and I wouldn't mind a bit of truly warm sunshine on my back again."
"I don't know." The Tinker was addressing them all. "The signs are that we'll be making a move this year. No, not now, Berin; I'll tell you all about it when I'm certain. Right now I'm still short of some vital pieces of information and I don’t know how long it will take me to get them." He looked at Idressin. "Can you give me until Midsummer? I'll return then, successful or not, and we'll start."
Idressin nodded, and the Tinker transferred his attention to the two youths. "You want to know more." It was not a question. "In fact you need to know more. I promise you that even if I can't unravel my own uncertainties before the summer, I'll tell you what this is all about when I return. Now let me have another drink, and tell me what you’re going to do about their clothes, Idressin. It's alright for you to look like a tramp if you want to, but this pair are growing right out of everything they've got. Forget the baskets for a while and teach them how to make jerkins." From then on there were to be no more serious words that night.
The next day they went for a walk. It was not walking weather, with deep snow and a low biting wind; but Idressin had just shown them how to make broad flat shoes out of hazel rods and a few thongs, which were supposed to make it easier to move about in the snow, and nothing would satisfy Caldar except that they all go out and try them straight away. The shoes were awkward to use at first, requiring a tiring wide-legged gait. But they worked! They could walk on top of drifts which would normally have had them floundering thigh deep.
There wasn't enough wind to stir the heavily laden trees and the winter forests were almost silent, apart from their own noisy progress. It was with complete surprise that Caldar, who was in front as usual, came over the lip of a small valley and found himself facing three gaunt wolves across the deer they had killed an hour before. Caldar was feeling very pleased with himself. He knew that he had changed profoundly in the last year and he also knew that the Tinker acknowledged it. He felt confident enough to tackle anything, and here was a perfect opportunity. He would talk to the wolves. That would certainly impress Berin and show the two men what he could do.
As the wolves snarled and bristled, he tried to repeat what had happened in the Hamna tent. His body flooded with energy and almost instantaneously his awareness of himself came into sharp focus. But the wolves took no notice. Instead they put their ears back, dropped into a menacing crouch and inched forward. Caldar was just beginning to push desperately at the limits of his own awareness to see if he could open some kind of contact, when a strong hand landed on his shoulder and the Tinker's voice said, "Step back. Slowly. One step at a time. Don't turn round."
His legs were trembling by the time they had taken the ten steps back from the valley rim, which took them out of sight of the wolves. When they rejoined the others, who had halted fifty paces away, he sat down abruptly on a snow-covered rock and mumbled dazedly, "What went wrong? What did I do wrong?"
The Tinker whose face had been twitching from the first, let it go and doubled over with laughter. When he had recovered enough to speak, he reenacted the little drama for Berin and Idressin.
"If you'd only seen him." The Tinker adopted a stiff upright posture and a very serious face. "He's about to be eaten by a pack of extremely hungry and angry wolves. He's just interrupted their first course and is about to become the second. But does our hero flinch. Never! He doesn't even blink. He's dedicated solely to his research into inter-species communication."
The serious expression gave way to another gust of laughter. "A
h, Caldar. I applaud your intentions, but talking to wolves over dinner is a risky business. And wanting to look clever isn't a good starting point either: it changes everything."
It was a chastening experience for Caldar; his attempt to show off had turned into a clownish failure. But the resilience acquired in the last few months let him laugh at himself along with the others. He smiled, realising that a year ago he would have been deaf and blind for several hours while he attended to his own shame and resentment.
In the hardest winters the Lake could apparently freeze over at the top of the Norleng. This year there was a great deal of snow, but only the margins of the Lake held ice. It was an easy job two days later to smash through the thin surface and launch a small rowing boat to take the Tinker out to the ferry.
After his departure things settled back into their normal routine, except that Idressin now tended to spend his evenings with Caldar and Berin in the cottage. In the daytime he was even more attentive to Grellek and dismissive of them than before. In the evening he seemed to acknowledge that they had already learned what they could from his previous abandonment of them; he was content to drop all pretence and dealt with them now more like equals than master and pupils.
Winter turned into a lovely and uneventful spring, apart from one incident which brought home to the youths how little they knew. All three of them were on their way up the river valley above Hasban's farm to cut some more willow rods. Berin had just stepped onto one of the small snow patches which still dotted the woods, when there was a snap and a bang, and he looked down to see his leg caught in an iron bear trap, the vicious teeth just touching him on each side. Thrust low down in the jaws and keeping them apart was Idressin's staff. The tutor told Berin to keep still, while he and Caldar forced the trap open sufficiently for him to take his leg out. Then they let it close with a dull clang and dug it up, after which Caldar dragged it off and threw it into a deep pool in the river.
"I hate those things," he said, coming back to the other two. Then he turned to the tutor, "I saw that, Idressin. Or rather I didn't see it. It was impossible. One moment you were right beside me, the next you were several feet away with your staff in the trap. There was no time, no in-between. That's magic. It's not like any of the things we've been learning. How did you do it?"
He glanced at the tutor's smiling face and smiled in return. "Alright, alright, silly question. I ought to know by now that explanations are a waste of breath and won't help me one little bit. But you see, Revered Master," Caldar's voice became obsequious, "I have this unquenchable thirst for the true knowledge which falls from your lips. Better a crumb from your sublime table than a feast with lesser mortals." Then he added in a normal tone, "Just this once? I'm really very curious."
Idressin laughed and shook his head. "It's just as well our stay in Norleng is coming to an end this summer. How can I go on teaching pupils who show no respect? As for blocking the trap, yes, you could call it magic, and yes, it's pointless trying to explain it in words. Don't bother about it. What you've been learning is the beginning of something far more important."
He stopped, and just when they thought they would get no more, he resumed. "Magic comes in many forms. There's illusion, which you can learn if it pleases you; it consists of tricks of varying degrees of cleverness. There's true magic, which involves changing something, however small, in the structure of the normal world; not something to be lightly undertaken; you must use it rightly or it will use you. And there's real magic, which isn't magic at all; reality is stronger than any art, however skillful or powerful the practitioner. That’s what lies at the end of this road you've started down. It's a long road, and you may want to learn and use the lesser kinds of magic along the way. But don't be diverted by them. That's all they are, diversions."
After that they could get no more out of him on the subject.
"At least," Caldar joked that evening, “even if you won’t share your secrets, we homeless waifs know we’re a lot safer with an experienced magician to guard us."
He was wrong about that. He went to sleep in his bed in the cottage. When he awoke, he was lying on an unfamiliar wooden floor with his hands and feet securely bound.
*
Caldar felt disoriented and drowsy. He knew something was very wrong, but he was altogether too tired to find out what was happening. Slowly a measure of normality returned and his thoughts quickened into curiosity.
He was on a boat. The movement of the floor and the noises all around him were unmistakable. It was sailing fast too; the slap and bang of the waves and the rush of water along the hull reinforced the sensation of swift motion. He worked his way to the wall and sat up with his back to it. There was a part-open hatch above, which let in some light, enough to see that he was in a small bare space, noticeably narrower at one end. Apart from that, nothing.
He was still dully struggling to make some sense of it all, when there were footsteps on the deck above, the hatch was pulled back and a dark shape lowered itself into the hold. Kulkin. Caldar felt himself shrink back in surprise as well as fear. For the last two years he had not taken seriously the talk about danger and Kulkin had faded in his memory to a vague, almost clownish figure. There was nothing of the clown about him now. He wore the same disturbingly intent look which Caldar remembered from the mule-loading at Rimberford, and Caldar reminded himself that this was the man who had not hesitated to cut Brack’s throat.
Kulkin appeared startled for an instant when his eyes met Caldar's, but the surprise was replaced at once by a scowl. He came forward swiftly, taking a small vial from a pouch at his waist. Seizing Caldar's head in a powerful grip, he forced it back and pinched his nose. As Caldar opened his mouth to breathe, his captor neatly let a few drops from the vial fall onto his tongue, which burned for a moment until it went numb. After that he remembered nothing for a long time.
When consciousness returned, the first thing he was aware of was voices, Kulkin's hoarse tones and two other men with the sing-song accents of South Lake.
"It's asking for trouble to put more sail on her in this weather and no need. Told you, this is the fastest sloop on the Lake. Don't fret, nothing's going to catch us."
"I hope not." Kulkin's voice was loaded with menace. "You're being paid plenty to get us to Suntoren by tomorrow. If the people behind us catch up, they’ll skin you alive, except I’ll have done it already."
"Go on then, who's after us? No one's going to whistle up a fast boat up in the Norleng and then put all that effort into hunting for a young lad. What's more, they don't know where we're going, do they?"
There was a raspy wheezing sound, which appeared to be Kulkin laughing. He was still short of breath when he began to speak. "Certain of that are you? Nice safe feeling?” His voice became hard. "Someone will follow us, be sure of it. It will be best for you to reach Suntoren ahead of them. If the boy is no longer aboard, they'll not trouble you."
"There's other ways of making certain the boy's not aboard. We could dump him over any time with a few lead weights on him."
"Fool!" Kulkin hissed. "You're being paid to deliver him alive. Who d’you think you're dealing with? Harm this boy for whatever reason and my master will have both of you killed and every living member of your families obliterated."
There was a long uneasy silence. One of the South Lake men muttered something Caldar could not hear, then Kulkin resumed.
"No more argument? Good. Get more sail on her right now. The only thing you have to do is reach Suntoren as quickly as possible. Then your dangerous cargo will be gone and you'll have a year's money in your pocket."
After that there was no more conversation to listen to.
So he’d been kidnapped. Caldar could not help feeling relieved that Kulkin seemed determined to keep him alive, but his master sounded fearsome. He'd better try to escape before he was handed over to this monster.
When he tried to move, he could feel no connection with his body. It was impossible to tell whether his arms were
still bound, or whether he was lying or sitting. It could only be a dream, though his thoughts were so clear that it was unlike any dream he could remember. He grew more interested in this strange state, and as he did so, he noticed that he could now see his surroundings.
He was in the same small space as before, but to his surprise there was someone else in it now, lying on the floor in the gloom. He went close to the figure, noting the ropes binding his arms and legs, and then with a stunning shock registered that the person on the floor was himself. Was it just a body? Was he dead? No, he could see his own chest rise and fall as he breathed. Then it must be a dream.
A rattle and crash signalled the opening of the overhead hatch. Caldar did not wake from his 'dream'. Instead he felt peculiarly vulnerable and shrank back into a corner, as Kulkin clambered down and crossed over to the captive on the floor. The kidnapper lifted an eyelid to examine the eye and listened closely to his prisoner's chest. Apparently satisfied, he squatted back on his haunches for a minute contemplating his prize before climbing out on deck again. Not once had he glanced towards Caldar's corner.
Some time later Caldar found himself reunited with his body. He felt every separate ache and pain keenly and his stomach was growling with hunger; yet for all their sharpness his newly returned sensations were decidedly reassuring.
There followed a long period of frustration. He was aware all the time of what went on around him and his consciousness quite often drifted outside his body again. Although still not certain whether he was dreaming, he even found that he could produce the separation at will. But he could not move his limbs. Whatever it was that Kulkin dripped into his mouth at intervals, it produced a paralysis which made escape impossible. He had to content himself with experimenting with his new-found dual state, although he never dared to go out of sight of his own body. The possibilities were too frightening.
The Tears of Sisme Page 21