The Illusions In Between

by J M Robison

  “I got it.”

  “So…the baby?”

  “Fine. But only because Sant’Ivo brought you back from the dead and I don’t know why. Just know I can’t keep the baby indefinitely. We do not have the facilities to run an orphanage.”

  “Thanks, Fernie.”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  I wink at him and walk out of the temple in a much better mood than the one I put Ferdiano in.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Zadicayn

  I wake up because sunlight blinds my closed eyelids. I sit up in a panic, not knowing where I am. Heart racing, I spot Varlith sleeping directly behind me. Jaicom’s sound asleep against a tree, head hanging back, snoring. His top hat has fallen off. Joseara sits with her back to me, sharpening a stick.

  I cringe as I realize what happened, remembering my brief nap while waiting for Jaicom to come out of whatever he had claimed as his water closet. That must have been four hours ago. I don’t recall my usual nightmares–I must have been so tired. The sun is almost off the horizon, spreading crisp spring light across the hilly rise we’ve taken refuge on. A few trees guard us, and thank goodness Varlith’s scales are green because he doesn’t stand out too badly against the green hill. I blink as I search our surroundings, but I don’t see any signs of habitation.

  I stand, brushing the dirt off my clothes, angry at the unintended sleep I took, angry no one woke me. I walk over to Jaicom and tap him awake with my boot. He snorts and snaps his head forward.

  “Top of the morning.” He yawns and stretches.

  “Why did no one wake me?”

  “You clearly needed the rest. We all did. I didn’t sleep a wink yesterday evening.”

  I fist my hips and look around me again. I can’t refute Jaicom’s declaration. As much as I disagree, I can’t deny myself sleep until after I’ve rescued my wife. I’ve been working since we left on a spell to forgo sleep altogether, but I’m apparently not as smart as my six-year-old daughter to make up rule-less spells the Fae will approve. “We shall find a village and resupply. And eat. We shall stick to day travel, then. Between me and Varlith, we’ll think of an illusion spell so no one will notice a dragon flying overhead.” I look at Joseara. “Did ye catch all that?” I holler to her.

  She doesn’t turn around, only nods silently.

  “What’s gotten into her?” Jaicom rises to his feet by heavy use of his cane.

  I decline to respond, but he doesn’t concern himself with it further, walking past me to where Varlith has started to rise.

  We’re on Varlith’s back within ten minutes, and back in the sky. I illusion a blue sky beneath Varlith’s belly, though I can’t see for myself how effective it is for hiding his body.

  A good rest has lifted our spirits, and we land only twice–once close to a village where we eat and resupply, and later for a break–before our final descent into the evening, hazy with twilight. Varlith lands a few miles from the next cluster of village lights we come to. He upsets a herd of cattle as he does, morphing into his shambled human form in case the bellowing cattle draw the farmer our way to investigate.

  Jaicom stomps his cane into the ground. “I refuse to sleep on the ground again. I’m going into town to find a hotel. And clean clothes.”

  “Tis only a hamlet. There aren’t any inns. But I see a big barn where there is bound to be nice hay.”

  “Hay? You want me to sleep on hay?”

  I sigh with tired patience. “I’m going to the barn. You can sleep wherever you want to, Jaicom. We’ll all just plan to meet up at that bridge in the morning.” I point to the stonework bridge arching over a stream, barely visible in the twilight and rising fog. I walk toward it, Jaicom right behind me with Joseara trailing slowly. Varlith takes off in the opposite direction.

  Joseara is better at sneaking than I am, so I send her ahead of me to the barn to check for any animals that might fuss with our presence. She finds chickens, a goat, two milk cows, and three cats. All appear to have been put away for the night, even though the door is not locked. Small villages are trusting like that. Joseara would have picked the lock anyway.

  I climb the ladder to the hay loft, tucking myself into a corner so we won’t be the first thing the farmer sees if he comes inside before we’re gone. Jaicom is slower up the ladder, rather using the same leg to push himself up each rung. He drops his leather rucksack–newly purchased at the village we stopped at for breakfast–down across from me, sitting on a hay bale, and removes his top hat. Hats seem such a bother. He flew the entire time with one hand clamped upon it to keep it seated against the wind.

  “I’ll find us a well and bring back a bucket,” Joseara says, and scampers back down the ladder.

  She hasn’t said a direct word to me since last night when I so rudely commented on her scarred face. Keeping someone in close proximity for a long time is bound to chaff and irritate, which is what’s been happening to all three of us. Distance is healthy for us at this point.

  Jaicom removes his dirty coat and folds it, checking the cuffs on his long white sleeves, scowling. “Though I’m upset about our new mode of travel, it’s saving me money, and we are covering ground much faster.” He lays on his back, ankles crossed, hands under his head. “I hope Varlith doesn’t do anything to cause this hamlet to march out with torches and pitchforks.” He looks directly at me. “Isn’t that what happened back before my ancestors locked you in your castle? Since, I guess, you said dragons used to live in the Human Realm?”

  “They did, yes.” I yank off my boot. The sole is unthreading from the heavy black leather.

  “What a time that would have been to live in.” Jaicom stares up at the rafters, dreaming. “Castles and drawbridges, no water closets, the black plague, arranged marriages—”

  “And the church killing off wizards,” I end, though check my verbiage too late and look up from my boot to meet Jaicom’s stony silence. I shake my head to clear the dark cloud settled over me. Brynn and Levi are still gone from me, but I can’t let that depression bleed onto those come with me to rescue them.

  “Forgive me, Jaicom. I didn’t mean for that to come out so dark,” I attempt to repair. “I’m stressed over Brynn’s well-being, and I don’t intend to unleash that upon ye. I said something very dark to Joseara last night, too. I told her to stop seeking pity because of her face and to get over it.”

  “Ouch. No wonder she’s been avoiding you today.”

  “Even worse, I’m not in the frame of mind to know if that was the right thing to say to her. I’m broken, Jaicom. I’m…” I stop. I feel my body tighten, coiling, waiting to see if I’ll snap or spring. My crying outbursts come with a warning now, at least giving me a minute to decide how to release it or to get myself to a private space. It’s going to release no matter what I do, so without another word to Jaicom, I slide down the ladder and race outside the barn.

  My emotional hold crackles, but I manage to reach the stream in the dark without passing Joseara before it snaps. I dive into the water with my clothes on, sharp stones stabbing my bare feet. I bury my face in the cold surge to distract against the lonely agony unleashing inside me.

  I used magic to muffle all my emotions and my need to eat and drink during my incarceration in the barren stone undercroft in my castle. Upon my release from that place, all those emotions I kept blocked for three hundred and twenty-four years slammed into me at one time. I would have died with the weight of it all if it weren’t for Brynn coaxing me back out of my madness. My emotions still slam me during extreme times of aggregated passion. Six years later, and I’ve little progress to show I’m getting better.

  Sobs wrack my body, but I submerge my face and choke on water so I’ll cough instead. Enough of this and my body aches from coughing to the point it ceases to compel me to cry. I throw my head back, ponytail thrashing water in an arc. I stare at the moon dusted over with gauzy clouds. And laugh. When I left the undercroft, emotions weren’t the only things kicking back into function.r />
  My bowel movements did, too, so I made a mad dash to the river below my castle and leapt in before Brynn could further build a bad impression of me for what she might have seen exiting my body had I not been quick enough.

  And here I am. Back in a river. Brynn accused me once of always seeking out water–rain, streams, or otherwise–because it was a sensation of touch I’d not had in over three hundred years.

  She’s still right.

  I’ve controlled my embarrassing emotional breakdown, but I don’t leave the river, concentrating on the cold liquid sliding around my waist to further soothe me.

  Brynn figured out how to fix me long before I did. If I ever started having an uncontrollable emotional fit, she would touch me, and I would instantly relax. I just need touch. The stream sliding between my knees right now smooths down the bristling spark of anxiety in me, and I readjust my focus so I feel, in that moment, confident I can rescue Brynn and my son easily. And even if I meet obstacles in the way, I feel confident I can handle them with a clear purpose.

  “Fǽder?”

  I whirl around, slicing the arch of my foot on a rock. I’m too stunned to care. “Eudora?” I scan the moon-splashed bank. It’s light enough I’d be able to see her standing as close by as her voice sounded, but I don’t see her. I look all around, climb onto the bank and walk along the brambles and cattails, calling her name.

  After ten minutes, I conclude if she really were here she would have made an appearance, if just to prove to me she followed me despite my orders. Now I doubt whether I heard her at all. I blame it on my hunger to be with my family again. I hope my mind won’t conjure up any more familiar voices to confuse me.

  Out of the water and no longer dripping, I walk back to the barn.

  I heave my weary body back up the ladder. The Lord of Valemorren is fast asleep, trussed under loose hay for warmth like a pig. He had placed his coat, hat, and shoes neatly on the bale next to him. I don’t see Joseara. Enough bales line the loft that she could be sleeping behind one of them. I’m tempted to see if she’s there and if so, wake her up so I can relocate the water out of my clothes with my amulet.

  I feel our current status of communication still prickling, so I leave her be and strip out of my wet clothes instead, draping them over the loft overhang to dry. I pull my only change of clothes out of the bag I also acquired at the last village: a long green tunic and brown pantaloons.

  I bunch my blue coat into a pillow in such a way that I can see the patch Brynn sewed across the heart and the splatter of wine from when Eudora tipped my goblet across the table. I’ve got a bit of both of them with me right now. I sleep soundly.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Darik

  I own exactly two shirts and two pants: one to wear while saving the world; the other, nicer, cleaner one to wear while I work the clock shop with Elma.

  I tromp down the stairs, black hair slicked back into a ponytail. There’s no hiding my bandaged hand, and there are no customers to distract Elma from commenting on it and my failure to show up for work the past two days.

  She looks up at me, eyes hard and unblinking. “The only excuse I’ll accept for you failing to show up for work is you were buried in the cemetery because they thought you were dead.”

  “Morning, Miss Elma.” I slide behind the counter with an easy smile and wink at her.

  She blushes and looks back at the clock she’s buried her fingers in. “I’m serious. Where were you? I didn’t hire you out of the kindness of my heart.”

  “I was poisoned,” I say with a flare of casualness as if the statement is to be envied.

  “You’re still alive.”

  “A saint took pity on me so I could come back and work for you.”

  “Just show up and be reliable so you can keep your room.”

  I open my mouth to make a comical suggestion about her marrying me so I’d have reason to keep my room, but I lose the mirth as if it were a mere snap of a spark. The only thing that would change in my life by marrying her is I’d sleep down the hall in her room instead of mine. Because I don’t have a bed. Or even a room big enough for a bed. Or proper sheets. Or even a pillow.

  Or a clean blanket.

  I’m certain Elma would look over all that, except I know she has higher aspirations than greasing her fingers in clocks until she dies.

  I drown my sunken mood in conversation with the next customer who brings in a wall device that falls an hour behind every day.

  Elma helps when it gets busy but otherwise keeps to her work fixing the clocks for a business her dead father left her. Except when wealthy men walk inside, then she’s shoving the broom into my hands and telling me to sweep the hallway in front of my room. Upstairs. I’ve done it twice now. Swept my pile in front of her bedroom door.

  I usually give Elma either my mornings or afternoons, but I make up for the past two days I missed by doing a full day. She could kick me out of that closet space she calls a spare room at any time for any reason, such as if she feels I’m annoying, unreliable, ugly, too skinny, or wore my hair down instead of in a ponytail. I have exactly one secure thing in my life, and that is a safe, warm, and sometimes dry place to sleep.

  I’ve got my head in the shelf below the counter when the door opens for what must be the tenth time today. I put my hand on the top of the counter to rise, but I’m swarmed by skirt as Elma stands with an I’m-single-and-pretty-please-marry-me, “Hello, sir. How can I help you?”

  I know my cue, so I grab the broom and head toward the stairs, looking at the man as I pass. I grip the broom and lose track of my steps, and I drag the toe of my shoe across the floor boards. I make it to the stairs and out of sight, leaning my back against the wall in the stairwell.

  “…saving it?” asks the man.

  Recognizing his face gave me a start, but his voice confirms. He’s the one who gave away the baby and held the English girl captive.

  “…try. No guarantees. It’s badly damaged.”

  “Your efforts will be greatly appreciated.”

  I hear the wet mwit of a kiss on Elma’s hand. Footsteps come back toward the front door, and I turn my back and sweep the broom in a rapid left-right motion. The door closes.

  I lean the broom against the wall and open the door, seeing the man climb into a carriage.

  “Merda,” I curse.

  The horses spur forward with a clatter of harnesses. I close the shop door behind me and chase after it.

  I quicken my pace along the side of the street to keep up. Venders on both sides make the going slow for the horses, and I’m able to keep up until they turn right onto Via del Corso, where the horses pick up speed.

  All subtleties lost, I sprint along with it. If the coachman on the back turns his head, he’ll know I’m following. But he doesn’t.

  I’m falling behind with fatigue and the stabbing pain in my ribs, but the carriage is slowed again by protesters who put the carriage to a literal stop. The polizia shove at citizens to get them to move. The man in the carriage puts his head out and shouts at either the protesters or the polizia, I can’t tell.

  The stoppage lasts long enough for me to catch my breath. I push through the crowd after the carriage and resume my sprint.

  The vehicle turns left onto Via Tomacelli. We cross the bridge and turn left again, passing by Castel Sant’Angelo and over the spot where I waited for twelve hours to see if the man in the carriage and the English girl would exit again.

  I’m aching from my beating two days ago, sweating up my nice set of clothes, but my zeal to find out where this man works or lives keeps my feet moving; the carriage slowed every so often by pedestrians allows me a moment’s reprieve.

  The road bleeds directly into Saint Peter’s Square, where the carriage parks. I stop. The man exits, wearing the blood red robe of a Vatican Cardinal. I deny that a man of God would act so unchristian outside of his church duties by kidnapping women and giving away babies, so I race up to the carriage and look inside.
r />   “Need a ride?” the driver asks.

  The carriage is empty. The cardinal walks across the square, his robes like a smat of blood against the gray cobble.

  “No. Sorry.” I back off.

  The driver snaps his reins and wheels churn over the pavement and out of sight.

  I stand beneath the sunlight, people flowing around me like a stone in a river, grudgingly accepting only one explanation: he really is the guardian he said he was of the Englishwoman with an illegitimate child.

  Then why take her to Castel Sant’Angelo?

  To scare her?

  The magic, Darik. He used magic to fly over the castle. Explain that.

  …He used the power of God?

  …Maybe. What do I know about the power of God? I haven’t been to church since…I’ve never been to church.

  Struggling between my stupidity and an eagerness to still believe that woman has been kidnapped, I turn around and walk back to the clock shop, preferring to doubt myself than doubt a man of God. Have I been doing this for so long that the line between honest relationships and trafficking have blurred? Will they all merge entirely into one definition for me, so I’ll start believing every woman is a victim?

  I don’t know. Worse, I don’t know how to fix it. Or stop. I know of no other skill. No matter. The Camorra will find out I didn’t die after all. I sense my life won’t last long after that.

  Part II

  Chapter Eighteen

  Joseara

  I wake up to the silence of the barn. Morning glows through the open window. I tiptoe to the ladder and climb down, collect the chicken eggs, and climb back into the loft. A short time later, the barn door eases open, and the farmer comes in. He checks the chicken roosts for eggs, clearly upset with the offerings because his French tone does not bode happy findings.