“I know the taste of your tears,” it told him again.
He woke late the next morning with a full bladder and a nasty taste in his mouth. His left side was bruised from the fall and his arm throbbed from wrist to shoulder. Holding it against his chest, he found a chamber pot under the bed and was in the midst of using it when the door inched open. Tobin peeked in.
“Good morning, my prince!” Arkoniel slid the pot away and eased himself back onto the bed. “I don’t suppose you’d be so good as to tell Cook I need another of her potions?”
Tobin disappeared so suddenly that Arkoniel wondered if he’d understood.
Or if that really was Tobin I was talking to.
But the boy soon returned with a mug and a small brown loaf on a napkin. There was no hint of the previous night’s shyness now, but he was still unsmiling and reserved. He gave Arkoniel the food, then stood there staring at him with those too-old eyes as he ate.
Arkoniel took a bite of the dense, warm bread. Cook had split it and slipped a thick slice of well-aged cheese inside. “Ah, that’s wonderful!” he exclaimed, washing it down with the brandy draught. It tasted weaker this time.
“I helped with the baking,” Tobin told him.
“Did you? Well, you’re a fine baker.”
This won him not so much as a hint of a smile. Arkoniel began to feel like a mediocre player before a very critical audience. He tried another tack. “Nari tells me you shoot very well.”
“I brought home five grouse last week.”
“I used to shoot quite well myself.”
Tobin raised an eyebrow, just as Iya might have when she was about to disapprove of something he’d said or done. “Don’t you anymore?”
“I went on to other studies and never seemed to find the time.”
“Wizards don’t need to shoot?”
Arkoniel smiled. “We have other ways of getting food.”
“You don’t beg, do you? Father says it’s shameful for any able-bodied man to beg.”
“My father taught me the same. No, my teacher and I travel and earn our bread. And sometimes we are guests, like I am now with you.”
“How will you earn your bread here?”
Arkoniel fought down the urge to chuckle. This child would be checking his mattress next to see if he was stealing the spoons. “Wizards earn their keep with magic. We make things and fix things. And we entertain.”
He stretched out his right hand and concentrated on the center of his palm. An apple-sized ball of light took shape there and resolved itself into a tiny dragon with transparent, batlike wings. “I saw these in Aurënen—”
Looking up, he found Tobin backing slowly away, eyes wide with fear.
This was hardly the reaction he’d hoped for. “Don’t be scared. It’s only an illusion.”
“It’s not real?” Tobin asked from the safety of the doorway.
“It’s just a picture, a memory from my travels. I saw lots of these fingerlings at a place called Sarikali. Some of them grow to be larger than this keep, but they’re very rare and live on mountains. But these little ones scamper everywhere. They’re sacred creatures to the Aurënfaie. They have a legend about how the first ’faie were created—”
“From eleven drops of dragon blood. My father told me that story, and I know what the ’faie are,” Tobin said, cutting him off as tersely as his father might have. “Some came here once. They played music. Did a dragon teach you?”
“No, a wizard named Iya is my teacher. You’ll meet her someday.” He let the dragon illusion fade away. “Would you like to see something else?”
Still poised for escape, Tobin glanced over his shoulder into the corridor, then asked, “Like what?”
“Oh, anything, really. What would you most like to see?”
Tobin considered this. “I’d like to see the city.”
“Ero, you mean?”
“Yes. I’d like to see my mother’s house in Ero where I was born.”
“Hmmm.” Arkoniel quashed a stirring of disquiet. “Yes, I can do that, but we’ll have to use a different sort of magic. I need to hold your hand. Will you let me do that?”
The boy hesitated, then slowly came back to him and held out his hand.
Arkoniel took it in his and gave him a reassuring smile. “This is quite simple, but you may feel a little odd. It’s going to be like having a dream while you’re awake. Close your eyes.”
Arkoniel could feel tension in the boy’s thin, hard little hand, but Tobin did as he was asked.
“Good, now imagine that we’re two great birds flying over the forest. What sort of bird would you like to be?”
Tobin pulled his hand away and took a step back. “I don’t want to be a bird!”
Fear again, or was it just distrust? “It’s just pretending, Tobin. You pretend when you play, don’t you?”
This was met with a blank stare.
“Pretending. Imagining things that aren’t really there.” That was another misstep. Tobin cast a nervous look at the door.
Arkoniel looked around at the toys available. With any other child, he would have made the little ships in the city’s harbor sail across the floor, or had the dusty wooden horse on wheels take a turn about the room, but something warned against it. Instead, he slid off the bed and limped over to the city. Seen at closer range, there was no mistaking the layout of streets and major buildings, even though it had seen some rough handling. Part of the western wall was missing, and there were holes in the clay base where some of the wooden houses had been lost. Those that remained varied from simple cubes of plain wood to fancy carved and painted ones recognizable as some of the principal houses and temples on the Palatine. The New Palace was done in detail, with rows of stick columns along the sides and tiny gilt emblems of the Four along its roof.
Little stick people lay scattered in the markets and on the roof of the wooden box that served as the Old Palace. He picked one up.
“Your father must have worked very hard to make all this. When you play with it, don’t you imagine that you’re one of these little fellows walking around the town?” He took his stick person by the head and marched it around the central market. “See, here you are in the great marketplace.” He changed to a comic falsetto. “‘What shall I buy today? Think I’ll see what Granny Sheda has for sweets at her booth. Now I’ll run down to Fletcher Street and see if they have a new hunting bow just my size.’”
“No, you’re doing it wrong.” Tobin squatted down beside him and picked up another figure. “You can’t be me. You have to be you.”
“I can pretend to be you, can’t I?”
Tobin shook his head emphatically. “I don’t want anyone else to be me.”
“Very well, I’ll be me and you be you. Now, what if you stay you but change form.” Covering Tobin’s hand with his own, Arkoniel transformed the figure Tobin held into a small wooden eagle. “See, it’s still you, but now you look like an eagle. You can do the same thing in your mind. Just imagine yourself with a different shape. It’s not magic at all. My brothers and I spent hours being all sorts of things.”
He’d half expected Tobin to drop the toy and flee, but instead, he was inspecting the little bird closely. And he was smiling.
“Can I show you something?” he asked.
“Of course.”
Tobin ran from the room, still holding the bird, and returned a moment later with both hands cupped in front of him. Squatting down beside Arkoniel again, he spilled a dozen little carvings and wax figures on the floor between them, similar to the ones Nari had shown him earlier. These were even better, though. There was a fox, several horses, a deer, and a pretty little wooden bird about the same size as the one he’d conjured.
“You made all these?”
“Yes.” Tobin held up his bird and Arkoniel’s. “Yours is better than mine, though. Can you teach me to make them your way?”
Arkoniel picked up a wooden horse and shook his head in wonder. “No. And yours are bet
ter, really. Mine are just a trick. These are the products of your hands and imagination. You must be an artist like your father.”
“And my mama,” Tobin said, looking pleased at the praise. “She made carvings, too, before the dolls.”
“I didn’t know that. You must miss her.”
The smile disappeared. Tobin shrugged and began lining the animals and people up in phalanxes across the painted harbor. “How many brothers do you have?”
“Two now. I had five, but two died of plague and the oldest was killed fighting the Plenimarans. The others are both warriors, too.”
“But not you.”
“No, Illior had other plans for me.”
“Have you always been a wizard?”
“Yes, but I didn’t know it until my teacher found me when I was—” Arkoniel paused as if surprised. “Well, since I was just a bit younger than you are now.”
“Were you very sad?”
“Why would I be sad?”
“Not to be a warrior like your brothers. Not to serve Skala with heart and sword.”
“We all serve in our own way. Did you know that wizards fought in the Great War? The king has some in his army now.”
“But you’re not,” Tobin pointed out. This clearly lowered Arkoniel in his eyes.
“As I said, there are many ways to serve. And a country doesn’t just need warriors. It needs scholars and builders and farmers.” He held up Tobin’s bird. “And artists! You can be an artist and a warrior, too. Now, how would you like to see the great city you’ll be protecting, my young warrior? Are you ready?”
Tobin nodded and held out his hand again. “So I should pretend that I’m a bird, but I’m still me?”
Arkoniel grinned. “You’ll always be you, no matter what. Now relax and breathe like you’re asleep, very gently. Good. What kind of a bird will you be?”
“An eagle.”
“Then I’ll be one, too, or I won’t be able to keep up.”
This time Tobin relaxed easily and Arkoniel silently wove the spell that would project his own memories into Tobin’s mind. Careful to avoid any sudden transitions, he began the vision with them both perched in a tall fir that overlooked the meadow outside. “Can you see the forest and the house?”
“Yes!” Tobin replied in an awed whisper. “It is like dreaming.”
“Good. You know how to fly, so spread your wings and come with me.”
Tobin did with surprising readiness. “I can see the town now.”
“We’re going to fly east now.” Arkoniel summoned an image of trees and fields passing rapidly below them, then conjured Ero and poised them high above the Old Palace, trying to give the boy a recognizable view. Below them, the Palatine Circle looked like a round green eye atop the crowded hill.
“I see it!” Tobin whispered. “It’s just like my city, only lots more houses and streets and colors. May I see the harbor, and ships?”
“We’ll have to fly to it. The vision is limited.” Arkoniel smiled to himself. So there was a child behind that stern face, after all. Together, they swooped down to the harbor and circled the round-bellied carracks and longboats moored there.
“I want to sail on ships like that!” Tobin exclaimed. “I want to see all the Three Lands, and the ’faie, too.”
“Perhaps you can sing with them.”
“No …”
The vision dimmed as something distracted the boy. “You must concentrate,” Arkoniel reminded him. “Don’t let any worries bother you. I can’t do this for very long. Where else would you like to go?”
“To my mother’s house.”
“Ah, yes. Back up to the Palatine we go.” He guided Tobin to the warren of walled houses that lay between the Old and New Palaces.
“Mama’s is that one,” Tobin said. “I know it by the golden griffins along the roofline.”
“Yes.” Rhius had taught his son well.
As they circled closer, the vision faltered again, but this time the problem did not lie with the boy. Arkoniel felt a growing uneasiness as the shape of the house and its grounds became more distinct. He could pick out the yards and outbuildings, and the courtyard where the tall chestnut tree stood, marking the dead twin’s grave. As they drew closer, however it withered before his eyes. Gnarled bare branches reached up to snare him like clawed fingers, just as the roots had held Tobin in his vision by the sea.
“By the Light—!” he gasped, trying to end the vision before Tobin saw. It was ended for him as a blast of cold buffeted them both. The vision collapsed, leaving him reeling and momentarily blind.
“No, no!” Tobin cried,
Arkoniel felt the boy’s hand yanked from his. Something struck him a stinging blow on the cheek and the pain broke the last of the magic, clearing his mind and his eyes.
The entire room was shaking. The wardrobe doors banged open, then slammed again with a crash. Chests jittered against the walls, and objects flew through the air in all directions.
Tobin knelt by the city, holding down the roof of the Palace with both hands. “Stop it!” he cried. “Go away, Wizard. Please! Get out!”
Arkoniel stayed where he was. “Tobin, I can’t—”
Nari rushed in and ran to the boy. Tobin clung to her, pressing his face to her shoulder.
“What are you doing?” she cried, giving Arkoniel an accusing glare.
“I was just—” The roof of the Palace spun up into the air and he caught it with his good hand. “We were looking at the city. Your demon didn’t care for that.”
He could see enough of Tobin’s face to know that the boy’s lips were moving, forming quick, silent words against the dark fabric of Nari’s loose gown.
The room went still, but an ominous heaviness remained, like a lull in a thunderstorm. Tobin struggled free of his nurse and fled the room.
Nari looked around at the mess and sighed. “You see what it’s like for us? No telling what it will do, or why. Illior and Bilairy shield us from angry spirits!”
Arkoniel nodded, but he knew exactly why the thing had chosen the moment it did this time. He thought again of bending over a small, still body beneath that chestnut tree, weeping as it sank out of sight, his tears sinking into the hard earth. Yes, it knew the taste of his tears.
Tobin wanted nothing to do with him after that, so Arkoniel spent the rest of the day quietly exploring the keep. The pain in his arm required several draughts of Cook’s infusion, and its dulling effects left him feeling like he was walking about in a dream.
His original impression of the keep was borne out in daylight; it was only partially inhabitable. The upper floor was in total disrepair. Once-handsome chambers lay in ruin, overrun by rats and rot. Leakage from the roof or attics above had destroyed the fine murals and furnishings.
Strangely enough, there was evidence that someone had continued to frequent these gloomy rooms. Several sets of footprints were visible in the dust that covered the bare floors. One room in particular had had a frequent, small-footed visitor, though the footprints had a new layer of fine grit in them now. This room lay halfway along the corridor and was sounder than its neighbors, and better lit thanks to the loss of a shutter on one of the tall, narrow windows.
Tobin had come here on numerous occasions, and always went to the back corner of the room. A cedarwood chest of Mycenian design stood here, and the dust on its ornate painted lid continued the tale. Arkoniel summoned a small orb of light and bent to examine the smudges and finger marks there. Tobin had come here to open this chest. Inside Arkoniel found nothing but a few tabards of ancient cut.
Perhaps it had been a game of some sort? Yet what game would a child play alone, a child who did not know how to pretend? Arkoniel looked around the dirty, shadowed room, imagining Tobin here all by himself. His small footprints crossed and recrossed each other for however many days the game had lasted. Another pang of compassion pierced the young wizard’s heart, this time for the living twin.
Equally intriguing were the sets of tracks
that led to the far end of the corridor. The door here was new, and the only one that was locked.
Placing his hand over the bronze key plate, he examined the intricacies of its mechanism. It would have been a relatively easy matter to trick it open, but the unwritten laws of guesting forbade such a coarse trespass. He already suspected where it led.
Threw herself from the tower window—
Arkoniel rested his forehead against the door’s cool surface. Ariani had fled here, fled to her death taking her child with her. Or had Tobin followed? It had been too long and too many others had come and gone here since for him to read the tale of their tracks.
Nari’s vague suspicions still nagged at him. Possession was rare, and he did not believe Tobin would have hurt Ariani himself. But Arkoniel had felt the demon’s rage three times now; it possessed both the strength and will to kill. But why kill his mother, who’d been as much a victim of circumstance as he and his twin?
Downstairs, he crossed the gloomy hall and went outside. The duke was nowhere to be seen, but his men were busy packing horses and stacking arms for the journey back to Ero.
“How’s the arm today?” asked Tharin, coming over to him.
“I think it will mend very well. Thank you.”
“Captain Tharin keeps us all mended,” a young sandy-haired man remarked, swaggering by with a handful of tools. “So you’re the young wizard who can’t manage a gelded two-year-old?”
“Mind yourself, Sefus, or he’ll turn you into something useful,” an older man snapped from a lean-to workshop built against the courtyard wall. “Get over here and help with the harness, you lazy pup!”
“Don’t mind Sefus,” another young soldier told him, grinning. “He gets irritable when he’s away from the brothels too long.”
“I don’t imagine any of you enjoy being so far from the city. This doesn’t seem a very cheerful place.”
“Took you all morning to figure that one out, did it?” Tharin replied with a chuckle.
“Are the men good to the boy?”
“Do you think Rhius would tolerate anyone who wasn’t? The sun rises and sets on that child, as far as he’s concerned. Far as any of us are concerned, for that matter. It’s not Tobin’s fault.” He gestured at the house. “Not any of it.”