by Melanie Rawn
He had never heard Mieka talk so seriously for so long. “You mean I have to do it for them? Teach them how?”
A nod of the dark head. “Did you ever notice that you don’t make eye contact much? I mean, we’ll be walking somewhere, just taking the air or heading over to chapel or off to see whatever sights there might be in some piddly little market town, and you don’t look at people. I know why. You think that if you do, you’ll see how they react to your face, the reaction you always saw as a child but never got used to, and the whole thing just makes you miserable, so you don’t make eye contact. You miss a lot, that way. For one thing, you miss that they don’t look at you like you think they do. They see your face, yes, and nobody could ever miss that nose—but they also see from your collar to your boots that you’re a success, that the world has recognized you in the only way most people understand: money. What they see is someone they envy.”
“Me!”
“You.”
They stopped in the middle of a block of shops closed for the night. No one was about. Elf-light was beginning to glow in defense against darkness, and Cade could just make out the pensive face, the solemn line of the mouth.
“It’s daft, y’know, this notion you have that pretty people don’t have problems, that they don’t get hurt or lonely or scared—”
“Ah, but they suffer so much more attractively!” Cade quipped.
“Stop it!” Mieka ordered again. “Everybody has a face like yours. If it’s not the face, it’s education, or birth, or accent, or not bein’ smart enough or good-lookin’ enough—that last, that’s especially with women. Haven’t you ever heard somebody say it? ‘Such a beauty she is, she could have any man she wanted!’”
“Or the other thing they say,” he mused. “‘Such a sweet girl, pity she’s so plain.’”
“Exactly! A man who marries the girl who could have any man she wanted, he wears her like a medal he won in the war.” He grimaced, with nothing comical about it. “Once she opens her mouth, it’s usually another story, but—”
“That’s not very kind of you,” Cade chided gently.
“But so often true! I can’t help it that I find girls fun but ultimately boring. Your Blye, now, she’s a shining exception.”
“She’s not ‘my’ anything.”
“Well, we’ll talk about that another time. We’re talking right now about you not seeing what it is you really do. Some of the men watching, they just take, and that’s fine—they pay for an evening’s entertainment, and that’s a nice, tidy little transaction. There’s not one of them could ever complain he didn’t get his money’s worth. There’s some who end the evening actually thinking about what they’ve seen. Those are the most satisfying, in a way. We’ve got to them somehow, reached something, y’know?”
“Sometimes,” Cade said, “just as Rafe is letting everything fade, I get traces of … I’m not sure what it is. Echoes, maybe, of what they’ve just seen, things that linger not just because you and Rafe and Jeska are good at what you do, but because they want them to linger.”
“Do you ever sense the ones who are so surprised they can’t hardly think at all? They’ve just seen something they’ve never seen before, and it’s shook them so hard they’re just staggering inside. That’s gratifying, only it’s a bit worrying as well, because the next time they come to a show they’re going to expect the same thing, and that’s just not possible.” A little smile graced his lips. “You can’t get drunk for the first time twice. I know—I’ve tried!”
“What else happens that I never notice?”
Mieka was abruptly serious again. “The ones who come out of it wanting to dream their own dreams. Whether they can, or end up sharing, those are things we’ll never know. But there’s a spark, and we lit it, and that’s one of the best feelings of all.”
“I think I understand,” Cade said slowly. “It’s something else I sense every so often.”
“But the ones as break my heart—those are the ones who come to see your dreams because they used to have dreams of their own and haven’t anymore. They want to remember what it was like before it all burned out.”
After a few moments, Cade said, “You’re telling me I shouldn’t use the blockweed anymore.” Which would leave him open not just to the dreams while sleeping but the frightening turns that happened while he was awake. He hadn’t had a single one since that first experience with the little glass thorn.
Mieka nodded gravely. “Your dreams are too important, Quill.”
Of all the things he’d ever thought or felt about his dreamings, that had never occurred to him. “Important,” he echoed.
“Yes. It’s—it’s the people we perform for, and it’s me, and Rafe, and Jeska—but mainly it’s you. Like I said, you need to dream.”
Staring down at the boy who had spoken with the insights of a man twice his age, he promised himself never to underestimate Mieka again.
Chapter 8
Not surprisingly, each time Cayden tried to settle on a final version of any of the Thirteen Perils, he came up empty. This was not a promising omen.
All else seemed to be going splendidly. They would leave on the special coach for Seekhaven in two days. Everyone was packed. The glass baskets were carefully crated. Mistress Mirdley had consulted Mistress Threadchaser and together they’d decided what their boys would be taking along by way of food (in a gigantic hamper, enough to last a month). Auntie Brishen had sent a half-barrel of whiskey with Mieka’s name on it. Cade had done the preliminary work on priming the withies, but couldn’t finish until he knew which of the Thirteen they would draw. Not that he had enough withies to work from; Mieka’s ruthless culling of those he considered substandard had depleted the collection. Blye had promised new ones before they left, but Master Cindercliff had been worse lately and she’d been tending him while trying to run the shop and get some work done at the kiln besides. At any other time, Cade would have helped her out, but this was Trials coming up.
He vacillated between calm confidence and a nauseating anxiety that blockweed soothed by letting him get some sleep. But what Mieka had said nagged at him—about the importance of dreams, and of his dreams in particular, a concept that still stunned him. He did want the dreams, but the ones that came before dreamless sleeping, the ones he could control, not the ones that invaded his mind with visions that might or might not come true. For the purpose of seeing what he chose to see, he’d become adept at judging how much of the prepared, liquefied mixture to siphon into the little glass thorn. Still, he was so edgy these days that less and less seemed to send him collapsing onto his pillows, rousing only when Derien or Mistress Mirdley pounded on his door in the morning.
Staring at the page on his desk, where the numbers 1 through 13 were all he’d written in the hour since dinner, he was within moments of giving it all up as a bad lot and reaching for the green wyvern wallet when Derien burst into his bedchamber.
“Aren’t you ready?” the boy demanded, breathless from running up all five flights of stairs. “Why aren’t you ready? Get dressed! Mieka’s here!”
He was indeed, and dressed to the ears—literally. Cade frankly stared at the display of honey-colored silk shirt, turquoise velvet jacket with black lace overlay on cuffs that reached nearly to his elbows, black trousers, and black boots polished to a mirror-gleam, with a little golden topaz charm dangling from the tip of his left ear. Glad that Dery had bullied him into his best, Cade stood at the bottom of the stairs, just outside the drawing room door, and watched as Mieka once again beguiled Lady Jaspiela into purring contentment.
“—isn’t true?” he exclaimed. “My mother will be crushed!”
“Well, it’s not for lack of trying,” said Her Ladyship with a refined sniff. “His reputation has become such that now he’ll have to look farther afield for a bride.”
“I’ve heard whispers about princesses and grand duchesses on the Continent.”
“You’re well-informed!”
“With
these ears, Lady, it’s difficult not to listen!”
Cade heard his mother’s laugh ring out—a real laugh, not the delicate tinkle she had spent a lifetime perfecting—and shook his head in amazement. The Elf was capable of anything, it seemed.
“Good, isn’t he?” Derien whispered beside him. “D’you think he’d give me lessons?”
“You do all right on your own. Besides, I think it has a lot to do with those eyes.”
With a resigned sigh: “I s’pose. You’ll be wanting this,” he added, and pressed something small and cool into Cade’s palm.
It was a collar-pin, beautifully worked in silver, depicting a falcon in flight. “Where did you get this? Did you buy it? Dery, you’ve better things to spend your money on—”
“Better than my brother’s nineteenth Namingday present?” He chortled softly. “Forgot, didn’t you? Mieka told Mistress Mirdley and me not to say anything, and not even make a special supper, so it’d all be a surprise.”
“It is that,” Cade admitted. He did have a habit—a deliberate habit—of forgetting his Namingday. His parents were just as glad not to have to make an expensive fuss. Mistress Mirdley customarily marked the occasion with his favorite foods or a pie, Dery usually drew a picture with his best colored pencils, and once—just once—Blye had given him a kiss. His first, as it happened. They’d been twelve. This gift from Derien and whatever Mieka planned for tonight were unprecedented. He didn’t know how to react.
“Here,” Dery said, taking the pin, hopping up two steps so he could reach. “You needed something new for Trials besides that gray coat Father sent from the Palace. He says it’s more fashionable these days to put this in a neckband, especially the sort with ruffles—raise your chin!—but Mieka’s right, you shouldn’t ever try to style yourself a fribbler. Simple and elegant, and no fuss. There,” he concluded, critically surveying his work. “The falcon looks like he’s flying!”
“It’s beautiful. Beholden, Dery,” Cade managed, and gave in to his affection for the boy, and hugged him tight.
“Have a wonderful time, and come tell me all about it when you get back! I swear I won’t be asleep,” he added as a protest formed on Cade’s lips. “And even if I am, promise to wake me up!”
“And what exactly is it that you won’t be able to wait for tomorrow to hear?”
“I’m not telling! It’s Mieka’s surprise, just like this was mine.” He touched the collar-pin. “You look good, Cade. You really do.”
He rolled his eyes. “Flattery just might get you a waking-up when I come home.”
“Oh, I’m positive you’ll come tell me—you won’t be able not to!”
“That special, is it?”
Dery folded his arms and tried to look stern. “I’m not telling!”
“That’s the way! Keep to the oath!” exclaimed Mieka from behind Cade. “And you needn’t try to winkle it out of me, either,” he warned. “Tease us or taunt us, threaten us or torture us—”
“—we’ll never tell!” finished Dery. “Now, hurry up, it’s just struck seven!”
Adding to the astonishments, Lady Jaspiela wished them a pleasant evening as Mieka took his extravagant leave of her before tugging Cade into the vestibule. As they donned their coats, for one of the few times in his life Cade voluntarily examined himself in a mirror. Same long-jawed, beak-nosed, wide-browed, sharp-boned, undeniably plain face, but there was something different in the way he held himself, perhaps because of that touch of elegance given by the falcon pin; something different about his eyes.
Mieka bumped him with a shoulder, laughing at him in the mirror. Cade blushed at being caught staring at himself.
“Oh, you’re a right eye-catcher tonight, you are, and that’s a fact,” the Elf murmured. He stood back a step and looked Cade over. Black trousers, pewter-gray shirt, charcoal silk tunic with dark red stitching at neck and hem—he’d taken the Elf’s advice about clothes, and the smirk on Mieka’s face meant that he knew it. “It’s good there’ll be no girls about at the place we’re going, or you’d never make it home tonight at all. And you just can’t disappoint the bantling, Quill, nor make him wait for tomorrow—he’s been so good at keeping the secret.”
“What secret?”
A grin was the only reply.
A hire-hack took them from Redpebble Square past the city mansions of middling-rich lords and very rich merchants, all the way to Amberwall Closure. This was another of the tincted districts of houses, long forsaken as a residential area and instead occupied by various businesses. The first two floors of each building were taken up by stores, snack shops where office clerks went for lunching, three rival tearooms, and, on the second floor of what had once been the home of the long-forgotten nobleman whose quarries all that dark gold rock had come from, a tavern.
The streetlamps were blazing bright when their hack stopped at the edge of the square. There were too many other vehicles, from pony carts to grand carriages, all woven together in an intricate knot, to permit a closer approach. But Cade suddenly knew where they were going, and sat back against the worn leather seat, stunned. Mieka paid the driver, hopped to the cobbles, and glared his impatience. Cade shook himself out of his shock and climbed down.
“Kiral Kellari?” Cade breathed. “Are you joking?”
“Happy Namingday, Quill!”
They started across the square, dodging others intent on hurrying to the tavern made famous in the last two years by the quality of its stage shows, and by one group of players in particular. Cade, taller by half a head than most of the throng, glimpsed the scrum at the entrance and frowned in dismay. “We’ll never get in, never.”
Mieka grabbed his elbow and pulled him away from the untidy horde, saying, “Haven’t you learned yet?”
Halfway down the block was perhaps the narrowest ginnel Cade had ever seen, scarcely wide enough for a drainage trench to the gutter. Gallantrybanks was webbed with these constricted little passages between buildings, shortcuts that allowed foot traffic from one street to another. Sometimes secondary passages would branch from a ginnel—there were several of them in Redpebble Square, a lovely maze to play in—leading to very private doors into houses or shops, or all the way through a building to the next alley. Unlit ginnels like this one made admirable hiding places for footpads who preyed on the unwary, and Cade held his breath as Mieka tugged him down a tributary passage.
Now it was seriously dark. Cade conjured a tiny flicker of bluish light over their heads before he was entirely aware of it, or realized why: Mieka was almost all Elf, and all Elves were afraid of the dark.
“No need for that, Cade. We’re here.”
Here was a solid brick wall. But as he doused the light, he caught the gleam of a flat brass plate with a spigot projecting from it. Mieka flattened his right palm to the plate, fingers on one side of the spigot and thumb on the other, and a portion of the wall glowed for a moment before vanishing. Cade was pushed through the doorway, and Mieka skipped after him before it solidified again.
A steep flight of wooden stairs was lit irregularly by torches that reeked of pitch. The Kiral Kellari had always been a strutty place, proud of the exotic interior that went with its exotic name, but there was no advantage in spending money on the back halls. Halfway up was a landing and a closed door through which seeped the commotion of several hundred men drinking, talking, laughing, impatient for the show. Mieka ignored this door and led Cade to the top of the stairs, where a sign above another door proclaimed ARTISTS ONLY.
For some reason, Cade balked. Mieka looked up at him, smiling in the flickering torchlight. “First time? Wrap your brain around it, Quill. This is where Touchstone enters from now on.”
The door opened onto a small, overheated, underventilated tiring-room, with a round table in the middle covered in faded sky-blue velvet and wine bottles. The same velvet swagged the walls, upholstered the one-armed sofas along the perimeter, and curtained another doorway: STAGE. The room was empty; the only sign that anyone had
ever been in here was a collection of hammered-silver goblets left lying about.
“Where is everybody?” Mieka wondered as he shrugged out of his coat. “I thought we’d have time for introductions beforehand. They must be setting up. We’re later than I thought.” He slung their coats behind one of the sofas and pointed up at the sign. “And you can get used to walking through this sort of door, too!”
Cade did walk through it, with a little tremor of nervousness—and impatience, because this wasn’t yet Touchstone’s night to play the Kiral Kellari. In one direction was the stage, but they went instead down a short flight of stairs into the familiar rowdy environment of a tavern packed with men of all ages who were already half-drunk and intended to get drunker—but not before they enjoyed the show.
Mieka elbowed a path for them to the bar. Whatever he said to the woman at the taps ensured that their ale was poured into the same kind of silver goblets Cade had seen earlier, not the cheaper pewter versions. Nodding his appreciation, he took a swallow and looked around.
The velvet draperies behind the bar were a darker shade of blue than the faded ones in the back room. The curtains across the stage were dyed a dizzying swirl of all the blues and greens of the sea. Cade thought it vulgar and distracting. The matching glass-shaded lamps on the tables were effective, though, their fragrant oils a distinct improvement over the torches in the back hall—though he wondered how much magic it would take to overcome those scents during a performance. “Silver Mine,” for instance, would be a right laugh if the air reeked of roses.
Someone’s magic had patterned the midnight-blue ceiling with twinkling stars that trickled golden Piksey dust—illusion, but very pretty all the same. The whole vast room sparkled with the gleam of silver and pewter and lamplight, reflected in the hundreds of palm-sized mirrors affixed to the dark blue draperies all over the side wall, framed in hammered tin. The Kiral Kellari’s theme statement, however, was the wall that those mirrors reflected in fragments. It was a huge mural that stretched from the main doors to the side of the stage and all the way to the starry ceiling, an aquatic scene featuring a Mer King and two dozen or so of his ladies drifting about his cellar choosing wine. Never mind that pouring liquids was plainly impractical underwater; logic, after all, had very little to do with magic.