Touchstone

by Melanie Rawn

  Rafe caught his eye, frowning slightly. “Cade—”

  “You shut up, too! This stupid little cullion needs lessoning.” Leaning even closer, so that his lips were a breath away from the tip of one pointed ear, he whispered, “Do you know how withies were used in the war? Shall I educate you? Wizards on both sides stuffed magic into them, just the way I work them. Only what they put in was cursing magic that killed and maimed. Some were naught but dazzle-spells—but they could blind. Some, on the skin, were like slow acid. In the lungs—if you took a breath when one exploded nearby, you were dead if you were lucky. If not … Blye’s father could tell you all about it.”

  Mieka whimpered again. “Cade—please—”

  “Wizard glasscrafting is forbidden. Did you think it was just the Guild protecting its own? It’s especially forbidden to me. Do you know what I had to swear before I could so much as hold a withie in my hands? Of course you don’t. You’re a rude little fuckwit who thinks he’s the Gods’ gift to the glisker’s bench. My grandmother devised some of those spells. Her personal favorite, so I’m told, was a delightful variation on the one that lets people feel the warmth of the sun across their faces. Lady Kiritin ignited their skin and burned them alive.”

  The Elf-light in the lamp over their heads flared as he reacted. Cade smiled grimly as Mieka’s whole body winced, and saw the boy’s hands grip the post for support. There was a small, frightened word that sounded like I. Cade ignored it.

  “You know what’ll happen to me if I put a foot wrong? First they’ll cut off my thumbs. Then they’ll take as much of my magic as they can reach and lock it up inside my head during the five or ten years I’ll spend in Culch Minster with the rest of the Kingdom’s garbage.”

  “Enough, Cayden,” Rafe murmured.

  “You’ll escape punishment for knowing me—you’re only an Elf, you can use withies but not bespell them. And you Elfenkind, you stayed out of the war, didn’t you? Hidden, nice and safe inside your ancestral forest hovels—”

  “Cade!” Rafe gripped his arm. Cade shook him off.

  “None of you ended up in prison after a battle, did you? They probably wouldn’t do anything to Jeska, either. But Rafe, he’s almost as much Wizard as I am, and he works with me, and they’d take him, too. So the next time you have an impulse to throw a pretty glass twig in the air and shatter it on its way down, ask yourself something, won’t you? Ask yourself if you trust Lady Kiritin’s grandson.”

  “Enough,” Rafe said again.

  Cade flung Mieka away from him. The boy stumbled, caught his balance, slipped on the ice, landed on his backside in a snowbank. Rafe held out a hand to pull him up, but he ignored it and sat there, staring up at Cade. There was a red welt on one side of his face where warm skin had been burned by icy metal, running diagonally from his temple to the corner of his mouth. But the fear that had shuddered in his body was nowhere visible in those eyes, and when he spoke his voice was steady and clear.

  “I don’t care who she was. It doesn’t matter. You could never do anything wicked. It’s not in you to be cruel.”

  Cade’s turn to stare. Good Gods, hadn’t he just proved the exact opposite?

  “Cade? Cayden!”

  He blinked, felt frantic hands touching his face.

  “What it is, Quill? What’s wrong?”

  He was holding Mieka by the front of his tunic, fingers bunched in thick blue wool.

  “Let go now, Cade.” Rafe’s voice, deep and calm. Rafe knew. Rafe understood.

  Cade unclenched his fingers and watched them tremble. “What did I say?”

  “Nothing.” Rafe was reassuring, his strong arm around Cade’s ribs keeping him upright. “It’s fine. Nothing happened.”

  “Yes it did,” Mieka whispered. “You both know what just happened. Why won’t anyone tell me?”

  Rafe growled a warning, and drew Cade gently over to a bench. But he let go too soon, and Cade stumbled against the metal pole. He squinted at the sign it supported, was informed that this was the queue for Central Gallantrybanks Coach Line Three, Law Courts and Adjudicators Chambers.

  “Rafe—”

  “Not now, Mieka. Leave him be.”

  “But—”

  “Shut it!”

  Cade heard them arguing but couldn’t much care. Sliding onto the bench, he mused for an unfocused moment on how much simpler his life would have been had he taken his great-grandmother’s advice and become a clerk in a law partnership. His only worry in that sort of life would be whether or not he’d be in time to catch Coach Line Three, Law Courts and Adjudicators Chambers … of course, Great-Granny Watersmith had been quite, quite mad … took dozens of teacups outside to gather up rain and poured the water into a washtub and complained when a new gown didn’t show up … he did have rather unusual forebears, no denying it … his father always said Uncle Dennet had been damaged in the war, but perhaps it had been an inheritance from their grandmother … had Great-Granny foreseen things, too, and had it worn away at her sanity until her mind splintered like glass withies high in the air tonight onstage … or had he dreamed that, too?

  He wrapped his half-frozen fingers around the sign pole. Behind his eyes was an image of Mieka’s hands—unusual hands, the ring fingers and little fingers nearly the same length—clenched around the lamppost. There had been fear in those hands, and in his voice. What was it he’d tried to say? Cade heard it again, over and over, finally hearing it for what it was.

  Not I. Light.

  And now it was another voice he heard in memory, cold, dispassionate, contemptuous as were all Wizards who had done battle when they talked of Elves who had not.

  “The story is that Elves contributed willingly to the safety and convenience of Gallantrybanks and other important towns. Light glows up in the streetlamps whenever the city grows dark—whether it be nightfall, rain, fog, or snow—it happens so predictably, in fact, that it seems almost instinctive. That’s because it is instinctive.

  “Our King’s predecessor punished the Wizards who had fought for the Archduke. But he punished the Elves as well for shirking their duty to him, for not fighting at all. Every adult Elf in Gallantrybanks was placed, one by one, into a lightless chamber. Elves are terrified of the dark. In their fear they instinctively conjure Elf-light. This light was collected by Wizards, again plunging the Elf into darkness, which created more light, and so on until the Elf was exhausted. Then the next one was brought in, and the process repeated.

  “Ever since, when it begins to grow dark, the Elf-light awakens because there lingers within each glass lamp a portion of an Elf’s fear. With sunrise or the passing of a fog or storm, the Elf-light fades with that fear.

  “An interesting corollary is that particularly sensitive individuals can on occasion sense the fear if they walk too close to a streetlamp. These persons are not always obviously Elfenblooded, and might not be instinctively afraid of the dark. But it’s one of many possible clues to a disputed or denied ancestry, this ability to experience the terror lingering in an Elf-lit lamp.”

  Cade turned as someone called his name from up the street. Jeska, running as quickly as he dared on slick cobbles, waving a spent, dead, but still dangerous length of glass in his hand. “Cade! Got it!”

  “Beholden, Jeska.” He tried not to notice his masquer’s confusion at the little scene presented to him: one angrily bewildered glisker, one adamantly stern fettler, and one absolutely exhausted tregetour, not one of whom would look at any of the others. Pushing himself to his feet, Cade held out a hand for the withie. “What did it cost you?”

  “A kiss.” Jeska was as blue-and-golden beautiful as an Angel in a chapel window, but at times he could produce the wickedest grin this side of the entry to any hell one cared to contemplate. “The man who caught it, he’s trying to court the elder daughter. She and her sister hide on the stairs, y’know, to watch us. Gave it to her, didn’t he, with bows and flourishes, I’d imagine. But we struck a bargain, she and I—while her mother and her su
itor weren’t looking, of course!”

  “Of course.” Yes, Jeska always found a way. Bless him. He experienced a moment of wickedness himself at the thought that he ought to carry through his threat, and make the Elf pay twice—no, he’d seen that, not said it—hadn’t he?

  “Time to get home, mate,” Rafe said, and slung a companionable arm around Cade’s shoulders. “I’ll see him to Redpebble, Jeska, don’t worry.”

  The dismissal was conclusive. Jeska wished them a good morrow and jogged off home; Mieka had the sense to do likewise, though he was still scowling.

  It seemed a long while later that Cade blinked in the sudden light of an opening doorway. Mistress Mirdley’s startled exclamation made him wonder vaguely just how awful he must look. She settled him before the kitchen hearth, draped a blanket across his shoulders, and put a mug of hot tea into his hands.

  “Turn took him, did it?”

  He closed his eyes and sipped at the tea, and let them discuss him as if he weren’t there.

  “Right out in the street. That’s the second time in the last few days. The ones someone witnessed, anyway.”

  How had Rafe known? Had he talked to Blye?

  Mistress Mirdley clucked her tongue. “It’s changes that set him off sometimes. Things becoming different than they were. That, and fretting himself instead of sleeping. The shows go well, don’t they?”

  “Better than we ever were before—and that’s a difference. Another is the venue. It’s not just a tavern, it’s got an honest stage. And then there’s the Elf.”

  “Hasn’t brought him round here yet. What does Blye think of him?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Hmph. I’ll ask tomorrow. And I’ll make sure he rests, will he or won’t he!”

  “We’ve four days until the next booking—the Downstreet again. He haggled it out with the owner tonight after the show. I think he’s angling for more pay as well as the trimmings.”

  “And Blye’s contract,” Cade said, not opening his eyes.

  “Master Silversun speaks!” exclaimed Mistress Mirdley. “Finish that and haul yourself up to bed, child. And you, Rafe, mind how you go and give my good wishes to your mother.”

  The Trollwife chivvied him up the wrought iron stairs all the way to the fifth floor. She turned back his bed, plumped his pillows, and would have yanked his tunic and shirt off over his head as if he were still a little boy if he hadn’t roused himself enough to assure her he was perfectly fine and really did remember how to undress himself. At last she closed the door and he was alone.

  When the small, square leather wallet fell out of his tunic pocket, he simply stared at it where it lay on the floor. In the light of a single candle—he was too weary to work any magic—there glinted at one corner of the green leather the stamped image of a thistle. The gilt had mostly worn off it, and also from the irregular pattern tooled around the edges. Cade held it close to the candle and squinted, thinking that a clumsy hand had spoiled the design of one shape repeated over and over. But it proved to be three different images: raindrop, seed, flame. Water, Earth, Fire. Though he wasn’t sure exactly which Elfen lines Mieka could claim—had he said something about Greenseed, Staindrop, and Stormchill in Mistress Threadchaser’s kitchen?—the symbolism was obvious enough.

  When he saw what lay within the wallet, Cade knew the leather was wyvern hide, the kind favored by Elves in their spellcasting, this one imbued with a cushioning bind to protect fragile items. It was a magic he wished he knew, in fact, to keep safe his glass baskets and withies.

  This wallet kept safe three things: a little paper twist of crushed greenish powder, a note giving directions on preparation for use, and a single delicate glass thorn about an inch long, its sharp tip sealed with a bit of green wax.

  Mieka’s handwriting was rounded and childish. He couldn’t spell. The instructions were straightforward, and so was the sentence at the end of the note.

  Don’t worry about going too lost, Quill, I’ll always come find you.

  Chapter 7

  “What in the world are those?” Blye snatched the new gloves from his hands, darting around her workbench, laughing as she waved them at him. “Cheveril, are they? Mmm—finest kid leather, softer than soft ever could be. And such an elegant shade of gray—almost dark enough to be mistook for black, innit?”

  “Blye, give ’em back!”

  “I was right, the Elf’s got you peacocking! Five weeks you’ve known him, and see what he’s accomplished! What’s next, lace ruffles at your throat?”

  “What’s next is my fingers laced around your throat if you don’t give those back!” But Cade was laughing, too, and when she finally gave a low, flourishing bow and presented him with the gloves, he bowed in return. “These aren’t all I brought to show you, though.”

  Her nimble fingers returned to the task of stacking a series of nesting bowls, five to a set, green-yellow-blue-red-orange. They were her own design, he knew, but executed by her father all this spring for they must bear his hallmark to be legally sold at prevailing prices. The Guild’s rule was such that anything hollow and hallmarked must be fashioned by a registered Master. Apprentices and assistants could make the handles of various items, the glass coils of stemmed and footed goblets or vases, or diverse implements, but the hollow part of any article had to be the Master’s work if it was presented for public sale. This of course included withies. Blye’s father had joked once that essentially the Guild gave him the authority to fashion emptiness, to make a nothingness for other people to fill.

  “Don’t pretend,” Cade scolded as Blye elaborately ignored him. “You’re not interested in getting those ready to be shipped. You want to know about my other surprise.”

  “Hmm?” She glanced up as if distracted from concentration on her work, and pushed silvery blond hair out of her eyes. “Oh, are you still here?”

  “Leave over,” he advised, “you’re no good at it. This is what I really came to show you.”

  He’d shown it to Rafe first, when he arrived early to rehearse in Redpebble Square’s undercroft. Then Jeska arrived, and finally Mieka. It was a good thing Lady Jaspiela was out for the afternoon paying calls, or she would surely have collapsed in shock at the whoop that echoed from the kitchen all the way upstairs to where Derien was supposed to be doing his lessons. Then again, considering that it was Mieka doing the yelling, she might simply have smiled.

  “So what is it?” Blye demanded, abandoning the glass bowls and the pretense that she wasn’t interested. “Something better than those gorgeous gloves?”

  Cade handed over the invitation with its many ribbons and heavy wax seals. Blye stared at it, almost as if she were afraid to touch it in case it might not be real, then grabbed.

  “‘The Office of the Lord High Master of the King’s Revelries,’” she read out, “‘desiring that the players terming themselves Touchstone present themselves to perform for His Gracious Majesty’s pleasure certain of their several works on a day to be determined at the Castle of Seekhaven, do hereby request said Touchstone to so attend upon His Gracious Majesty.’” She whistled between her teeth. “Do they really talk like that at Court?”

  “Don’t know,” he grinned. “Don’t care. It’s Trials, Blye, even though they never call it that.”

  “Trials!” She seemed stunned. “Which of your ‘several works’ will you be doing, then?”

  “None of them.”

  “But it says—”

  “That’s just a polite fiction. All Trials are done with one of the Thirteen. Lady and Lord, I hope we get a good one!”

  “I think you all deserve a present,” she decided, “to celebrate.”

  Looking wide-eyed around the room: “Haven’t you enough to do? The Downstreet—”

  Blye laughed. “That’s work. This will be fun.” Then she chewed her lip for a moment, a frown knitting her brows. “Cade … have you thought about it? I mean, it was going to come up sooner or later, now you’re leaving inns and taverns
behind for real theaters.”

  “Thought about what?”

  “Well … what’re you going to break now?”

  He’d had no answer for her that day, and two weeks later, when it was almost time to leave for Seekhaven Castle, he still hadn’t come up with anything. Neither had anyone else.

  Touchstone’s original contract had stipulated only three nights at the Downstreet. But the day after that third show, instead of three sentences filling an empty spot in a local broadsheet, the theater column of the Blazon gave them three words in the “recommended” section: Touchstone at Downstreet.

  On that memorable afternoon, Jeska had arrived breathless at the Criddow Close door to the Silversun home with news that couldn’t wait. Walking along Beekbacks, he’d overheard a cluster of young men arguing about Touchstone as they waited for the public coach. One of them had seen the Shadowshapers at the Kiral Kellari, and said Touchstone was just as good. Another said it was shocking, a group so wild as to actually shatter glass—but he couldn’t wait to get to the Downstreet the next time Touchstone played.

  Hearing this with satisfaction, Cayden winked at Mistress Mirdley. “Bring out the best cups, then, won’t you?”

  “And the priciest tea,” she agreed, chuckling with a sound like a rock wheel grinding across cobblestones.

  Confronted with Jeska’s bewilderment, Cade explained, “He’s here. The Downstreet’s owner. We’re about to start negotiating.” He laughed at the grin that spread across the golden face. “He’s in there right now, Jeska, melting snow onto my mother’s best rug!”

  As Lady Jaspiela came in from making calls that wintry evening, the unexpected guest was on his way out, having conceded rather more than he’d hoped but having gained what he needed: Touchstone. The tavern keeper and the titled lady stared at each other in the vestibule, and after resisting for a moment the haughty arch of her brows, he helped her off with her cloak. She gave him a curt nod, swept into the drawing room, and stopped with a tiny, inelegant blurt of surprise at the scene greeting her.