Inkspice (The Mapweaver Chronicles Book 2)

by Kaitlin Bellamy

  “How do you mean?”

  “I mean, he’s off on all his adventures, isn’t he? When he comes back, he’ll be a Shavid. And I’ll be ...” She glanced down at her own soot-stained feet and flour-covered skirts. And then, she asked the simplest question she could. “I’m growing up, aren’t I?”

  “If you’re old enough to ask, then you already know the answer,” said Picck. “And what’s so terrible about growing up anyway?”

  “Is your closest childhood friend still around?” said Lai. And by his silence, Lai knew Picck understood. She sighed and slid from the countertop. “He’s coming back, one of these days. But he won’t be him, and I won’t be me, and we won’t be us.”

  She started to go, but Picck caught her by the sleeve. “Hang on there, my little spot of gloom and darkness.” He looked her over with a scrutinizing eye, then uttered a resigned moan. “Wait, just a moment.” He turned and ducked down to rummage through the bottom shelf of one of the cupboards. When he emerged, he was holding a small stack of parchment envelopes, tied together with twine. He looked hesitant, holding them to his chest protectively for a moment.

  “Picck!” demanded Lai, reaching out to snatch the letters from her cousin. “How long have you had these?” There were four letters, all addressed the same, in emerald green ink with a matching wax seal. Fox always used green.

  “A few days,” said Picck sheepishly. “A couple of weeks for one of them.” As Lai glared at him and opened her mouth to say something spiteful, Picck said hurriedly, “You just get in such a mood when you read them! And I thought ... maybe if I could hold off giving them to you for awhile, it might get easier.” There was apology etched in every bony angle, and he shrugged helplessly. “But perhaps tonight, you needed to remember that he’s still there. And you’re still you, or whatever you said.”

  It was impossible to stay mad at Picck, and Lai felt a smile creeping to her lips in spite of herself. She whacked him playfully across the arm with the stack of letters, then hugged him and whispered, “Thank you.” As they pulled apart once more, Lai looked at Fox’s letters. One of them was thicker than usual. Two had torn and ragged edges, as though they’d been through quite a lot on their journey back to her. For a moment, Lai let her fingers brush the twine that held them all together, toying with the knot. But then, she stuffed the packet, unopened, into her apron pocket. Then she cleared her throat and said, “Well, back to work with me, then! I’d better go take more of those miners’ money!” She sighed dramatically, crying, “Oh, what a shame!” Then she caught up her skirts with a flourish as she began to flounce back to the common room.

  Picck chuckled as he returned to his cooking. “Weren’t you supposed to be turning into a lady these days?”

  At the door, Lai turned and flashed him her biggest grin. “Didn’t take,” she said. And, with a mocking salute, she turned and swept back into the crowd.

  ∞∞∞

  The worst of the storm passed several hours later, but the rain kept a steady drumbeat on the roof all through the night. The Five Sides emptied in waves, with whole groups leaving each time the rain let up a bit. Borric returned in the early hours of the morning, drenched in mud from head to sopping boot, and Lai and Picck sent him immediately up to bed. Finally, Lai sent Picck up as well, saying she could close up on her own. With a grateful yawn, Picck dragged himself upstairs to his rooms, where Rose and Rivena would already be asleep. For a solid hour, Lai did nothing but focus on her work. She scrubbed every tabletop and swept the hearth with a voracity that sent soot and dust flying into the air. She mopped mud and puddled rainwater from the floor, ignoring the gentle thwack, thwack, thwack of the letters in her pocket, bumping against her leg with every step.

  It was only once the tavern was as spotless as mortal hands could make it that she finally sat, by the dying embers of the fire pit, and pulled the envelopes from her pocket. She peeled back the wax of the first with a practiced calm, and let the folded pages fall into her lap. Then, finally, with nothing but the sound of the dying fire and the rain to keep her company, she began to read.

  Dear Lai,

  I’ve just come from the Corners in Brookwind. It’s the oddest little market. All the shop fronts along the proper roads are so crowded already, that they made a ruling years back that only the street corners have enough room to be used for tents and booths for out-of-town vendors. Our company alone must have spread across five blocks! And with no room to bring in the wagons, my job was to keep running back and forth to camp, to bring more of the wares as they needed them. I feel like I’ve been running all week, though we’ve only just been here for two days so far.

  We’ve camped with two other merchant groups, one that specializes almost entirely in jewelry. I’ve been thinking about buying something pretty to send back to Mother, but I’ve spent most of my free coin on a better pair of boots (the old ones wore clean through the sole.) So it’ll have to wait. And don’t think I’ve forgotten your birthday is coming up. I expect I’ll find something for you one of these days. I’ve been looking, I swear I have, but nothing seems good enough.

  The other merchants – not the jewelers – said they’re planning to head up through Sovesta in a few weeks. I’ll send this letter with them. They’re leaving in the morning, though, so I’d better say all I mean to quickly.

  If ever Lai had been glad she learned to read, it was when these letters from Fox arrived. She pored over every word, savoring every tale from the road. If she could not be having adventures at his side, at least she could dream about them. She read every line as though it were the most thrilling story of daring and heroism. And though she’d only met a handful of the Shavid personally during their brief stay in Thicca Valley, so long ago, she felt she knew them all as close friends from Fox’s letters.

  She stretched across the wide seating stones that encircled the fire pit, and let herself fall into his ink-and-parchment stories. She read until the rain wore itself out, until it was nothing more than a gentle sprinkle, trickling and tapping on the windowpanes. And as she fell asleep by the pit, letters read and carefully folded again, she could almost hear the Shavid’s songs, coaxing her dreams into far-off places and exotic lands.

  Chapter Two

  Wanderers

  There was a red handkerchief tacked to a tree by the river. Fox could see it clearly from where he stood, several dozen paces downstream. He adjusted his stance ever so slightly, then slipped a throwing knife from his belt and hurled it, aiming for the center of the makeshift target. Almost before it hit, he had another knife in the air, and then a third. When he finished, all five of his finest throwing knives were buried deep in the center of the handkerchief.

  “Not bad,” said Neil, lounging nearby with a book and a careless expression.

  Frowning critically at his own work, Fox strode forward to inspect his aim. True, all five blades were very close together. But not close enough. Not like he had seen Farran do. With a grunt, Fox pulled them from the tree and went back to his starting mark. As he aligned and corrected his stance, he said, “I’ve seen those hilts so close together, you couldn’t slip a blade of grass between them.”

  “I think you may be measuring yourself a bit unfairly,” said Neil as Fox let his knives fly once more. “Your tutor wasn’t exactly mortal.”

  “Irrelevant,” retorted Fox, and Neil chuckled, finally looking up from his book.

  “In my land, people were not so cavalier about their gods.”

  “Then nobody ever had one follow them around before.” Fox yanked his knives from the tree again, determined to keep practicing. It was true, his own standards were inordinately high. There were many who would argue that Fox was rapidly becoming the best knife thrower in the company, despite his youth. And by mortal standards, that would be enough for most. But there was truth in Neil’s words: Fox’s tutor was not mortal. He was not a man, to be measured against the standards of other men. He was the pirate god, Farran, lord of all the seas. And it was him that
Fox was determined to impress.

  As always when thoughts of Farran passed through his mind, Fox caught himself glancing about, hoping to see the familiar flicker. The shadow of the god’s spirit. And, as always, he was met with nothing. After all the times Fox had once wished that Farran would simply leave him be, he now wished just as strongly that the god would reappear.

  It was with a fresh surge of frustration and guilt that Fox threw his knives this time. The last time he had seen Farran in person, they had argued. Fox had blamed him for the death of a friend, and sent him away in anger. After that, the god had appeared merely as a ghostly echo. Always watching, hovering in the shadows of Fox’s life. Until the Underbeast: the horrible monster that had made Fox a hero.

  Shuddering with the memory of it, Fox wrenched his knives from the tree with such force that they tore the handkerchief, already riddled with holes, clean in half. It was a creature that still crept into Fox’s nightmares. A creature that had dwelt in the darkest places of the Beneath, the very soul and skeleton of the Highborn Mountains. And Fox, leading his father’s merchant caravan through it, had defeated the monster, but at a cost. Farran had stepped in, using his own strength and power to help hold the beast off and save Fox’s life during the battle. And then, he had flickered away like the last breaths of a dying candle. Fox had been hailed as a hero by the caravan, and by their families back in Thicca Valley.

  But Farran had not returned since, neither in the flesh, nor in the ghostly shadow. And though there was a brief moment that Fox had been sure he saw a flicker of the god, overseeing his departure with the Shavid, the months had worn on without another sighting, and Fox was beginning to doubt that he’d ever seen such a thing at all.

  Now, Fox tugged the scraps of handkerchief from the tree and wandered over to flop down next to Neil. He handed the shredded crimson cloth back to his friend, asking, “Where did you get this, anyway?”

  Neil shrugged, tucking the fabric in the pages of his book to mark his place, then closed the volume. “Came across it in town.”

  “It’s not very practical,” remarked Fox, stretching out on the riverbank. “It’s fairly thin and flimsy. And it smells ... odd. Flower-ish. Like —” And then, as the truth dawned on him, he started to laugh. “Oh, who was she?”

  “If I were a better man,” Neil mused, “I would remember her name, wouldn’t I?”

  Fox shook his head. “That poor girl. Charmed by your exotic nature, was she?”

  Neil chuckled and aimed a kick at Fox’s side. “Nonsense. She was charmed by my scholarly air and my devilish brilliance.”

  “Yes, I’m sure that’s what she’ll be telling her friends about.” Still chortling, Fox said, “What happens when you pass back through these towns, anyway? Do you ever remember any of them?”

  “Only the truly interesting ones,” admitted Neil. And then, he heaved himself to his feet with a groan and said, “Come on, then. We should go back with something to show for it, other than what’s-her-name’s shredded handkerchief.”

  They passed the rest of the morning in companionable silence, scouring the riverbank for a very specific root that Radda, their company’s leader, had requested. They stuffed their pockets with the thick, green, gristly things, rolling their breeches up past their knees so they could wade into the shallows as they worked. The day promised to be hot and sticky, but the river was cool and refreshing, and Fox always enjoyed these chores better with Neil at his side.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t get along with the rest of the Shavid troupe; he liked them all very much. They were quickly becoming a second family to him, and a larger family than he had ever known. But there was a singular bond between Neil and Fox that could not be matched by any other of Radda’s Players. For, while the rest of the company were born and raised into the Shavid life, Neil and Fox were different. Both of them had found their way to the Shavid as young men. And neither of them, no matter how welcome Radda and his group made them feel, would ever truly belong.

  At least Fox had it easier than his dark, brooding friend. Fox had been Blessed with Shavid skills and gifts. A deep and ancient magic ran through him that even the Shavid struggled to understand. But at least he had their powers and instincts in his blood. He was Windkissed: one who is born outside the tribe, but with the Blessings of a true Shavid.

  Neil was not so lucky. He wandered with the Shavid by choice and happenstance and by their permission, not because the wind spoke to him. He learned their crafts and studied their trades, and made himself useful in every way he could. But there was a line that ran through the company, dividing them from Neil. And that line was magic.

  Fox glanced over at Neil, who was up to his elbows in the mud at the riverbank, plucking whole fistfulls of roots from the muck. Magic was a gift that mortals could not give, nor could they take. But if he could, Fox would willingly have shared his own gift with Neil. Instead, the two lived and learned like two sides of a damaged coin: Fox, welcomed into the Shavid fold with his talents, but lacking the family ties or history that came with being born one of them. And Neil, just as welcome, but unBlessed, choosing to study magic as a scholar, ever determined to find out what made one man attuned to magic, and another completely devoid of it.

  Fox returned his own attention to his work, scraping aside leaves and water-worn pebbles to reveal knots of twisted root. By the time the boys gathered their things to head back to camp, morning had worn into afternoon, and they were soaked but successful. They had stuffed several rope bags to bulging with the slimy green things. They didn’t bother putting their shoes back on or rolling down the hems of their breeches. Instead, they walked upstream through the shallows and the mud of the riverbank, enjoying the cool water playing around their ankles. Scraps of floating leaves and twigs clung to their skin, only to be washed away with the next step.

  Fox heard their company long before they were in view of the camp. Sounds were borne to him on the wind. Snatches of conversation and verses of song; the playful chiming of the bells that many of the dancers wore around their wrists and ankles; the heavier, more insistent clanging of the portable blacksmith forge. Fox could smell no less than three small cooking fires scattered through camp, and the simple, fresh waft of lavender soap. Fox picked up his pace, Neil matching him automatically, and they rounded the final riverbend.

  Fox had spent his whole life coming home. Returning from a long trapping journey with Father; bringing in the furs at the end of a long day; leaving the Five Sides and heading back up the hill to his parents’ cabin long after dark. And he had dreamed of one day returning home from an even longer voyage: the Caravan. The yearly journey when trappers, traders and waresmen from Thicca Valley took to the Merchant’s Highway to sell their wares. The feeling of coming home, whether it be at the end of a long day, or a long week, was always a comfortable one. It filled Fox with a familiar warmth, like sitting by the fire in Deep Winter, wrapped in his favorite pelts.

  It was a feeling he had grown to love. But it paled in comparison to the thrill he felt each time he caught sight once more of the Shavid campground. No matter where they were settled for the night, or the week, it was always like coming home. But to a home he’d never known he needed, or wanted, or belonged to. It was a sensation he couldn’t even put a name to. It was comfort and companionship, and the excitement and pure joy of adventure. Every tent was at once familiar and fresh. It was like greeting old friends with new faces. Fox grinned, and with two great, splashing steps, pulled himself from the river and out onto the grass.

  The Shavid camp sprawled through the clearing like a cluster of wildflowers. From the riverbank to the treeline, tents were pitched from the smallest, simple brown to large, sprawling and garishly adorned pavilions. Brightest of all were the three wagons that carried the Shavid from place to place. They were clustered at the heart of the camp like wild, unnatural bushes, brought to life with colored paints and curtains meant to draw the eye. The largest wagon had been unfolded into a stage at thei
r center, complete with a patched and worn but still vibrantly colorful curtain. The wooden stage surface itself lay bare, but Fox knew that in a moment, the Players could bring it to life with their stories.

  Fox breathed it all in, letting the very colors pour into his lungs. Something eager and childish within him simply wanted to run off and explore every tent, no matter how many times he’d sat inside them and watched the Shavid at work. As he and Neil slowly made their way through camp, Fox felt a longing tug to join Donlan in his tent, and watch him painstakingly carve the wooden swords and knives that almost came to life when children played with them. He could hear the storyteller behind his tent flaps, smoothing out the rough edges of his latest piece. No matter how often Fox watched him work, he couldn’t tell how the magic was done. But when children held and played with the simple props, the ghosts of stories came to life around them.

  A little farther in, he saw Tallac, entertaining a small group of giggling children. The juggler had conjured handfuls of sparkling, spitting flames. They passed through the air and between his hands in a dizzying swirl of red, gold, and blue. He juggled them with one hand, and kicked a stray one back into the air with his booted foot. Then, he appeared to swallow them all. The children gasped, and Tallac puffed up his cheeks, hoisting a comically exaggerated look of wide-eyed shock onto his face, before blowing a spectacular gout of flame high into the air.

  Everyone clapped and cheered, including Fox and Neil. They could hear the children still clamoring for more as they left Tallac behind, with one little boy simply begging to be shown how to do such a trick himself. “If only it were so easy to learn,” lamented Neil quietly. He still had a slight smile on his face, but Fox noticed it didn’t quite meet his friend’s eyes.

  “I’m sure if there’s a way, you’ll find it,” said Fox reassuringly, elbowing Neil. “You’re stubborn enough.”