The rider must have known this, and maybe regretted his bald words. Perhaps he realised he had told them things they did not want to hear. They were scarred and grieving victims, ready to lash out only when they thought the odds were at last stacked in their favour. The rider scanned the crowd swiftly, then fixed Shan with a steady eye. He did not look angry now. Gathering up his reins, he urged his horse forward.
Before Shan realised what was happening, he had been grabbed and hauled up across the front of the saddle. Because he still ached so much, he could not struggle.
The rider wheeled his mount around in a circle a few times and addressed the astonished onlookers. ‘You will hear of this boy again,’ he said, and with these words, kicked his horse into a gallop, and careered off up the road towards the east.
The rider’s name was Taropat and he lived in a high narrow house in the middle of a forest, approached by a winding track. He was, Shan quickly realised, a wizard. The journey took two days, and during this time, Shan tried to escape on several occasions. It was then he discovered that Taropat was no ordinary man, because all he had to do to halt the runaway was raise his hand and say a few words, and Shan would come tumbling down as if someone had cast a rope around his ankles. Taropat was a light sleeper, and no matter how quietly Shan tried to slip away at night, his attempts always failed. It did not stop him trying, however.
‘Boy, give up,’ said Taropat, smiling, after the fifth abortive escape bid. He never bound Shan, or punished him. He did not have to.
Shan could not speak to him and only snarled and spat. He wondered if Taropat would do to him what the soldiers had done. This time he would die fighting. But Taropat did not come near him, except for the times when they rode the horse together, during which their proximity was unavoidable. As they rode, Taropat would ramble on, talking about distant lands, and demons and emperors and armies. Shan wanted to tell him to shut up, he did not care, but something had happened to his voice. It had flown away from him as if it had been a bird captive in his throat. Sometimes he could feel the ghost of its fluttering wings, but no matter how hard he tried, no sound would come out. Taropat did not seem concerned about this. ‘We will soon be there,’ he said, and then explained where ‘there’ was. ‘No-one can find my house, it is so safely hidden. It will be your sanctuary for a while.’ Shan did not question why Taropat had abducted him. It had simply happened.
The forest around the high, narrow house was very beautiful and very old, and the spirits of the trees were strong. As Shan and Taropat made the final stage of the journey along the winding path, ancient oaks seemed to reach out to them with gnarled hands. They were not angry hands, or cruel, but welcoming and curious. Shan felt as if they were riding through a silent, watchful crowd. Sunlight came down softly through the high crown of the forest; the deep green moss around the tree roots shone like crushed velvet. The forest was tranquil; birdsong was muted, but in the distance there was a chime of running water. Small purple flowers sequinned the short apple-coloured grass that grew between the trees. Squirrels leapt across the path, but far over the travellers’ heads, so that the heavy branches swayed and rustled. Shan could sense the presence of forest folk very near, although they didn’t show themselves. He felt comforted. In such a place, he might heal, although his conscious mind did not realise that.
Shan grinned when the house appeared through the trees. It was such a ridiculous shape, he could not see how it remained standing. It stood in its own glade, which was dominated by a large pool fed by a rushing stream that fell over a lip of rock, braceleted with ferns. The house was attached to a water wheel, and rose above it in a crooked spire, crowned by an immense weather vane that spun round madly even though there was no wind.
‘We are here,’ said Taropat and swung down out of the saddle.
Shan had been in a daze during the journey, but now they had reached their destination, a crashing wave of weakness broke over him. He felt exhausted, used up and withered and could not even find the strength to slip to the ground. He thought, I will never see my father again. It seemed impossible. How could life change so much so quickly?
Taropat lifted him off the horse and carried him towards the house. ‘You must sleep now,’ he said, ‘for three full days. In that time I shall conjure nymphs of respite to comb your mind with their cool fingers. When you wake, your grief will be raw and immediate, but at least there will be a wound to heal.’
Shan wanted to say that he could not sleep properly, but his voice had not flown back to him. All he saw of the house, as Taropat carried him through its dim-lit rooms, were picture fragments: a high-backed chair; a tilted painting of a frowning face; the gleam of a crystal ball on a cluttered table; a tattered cloth hung from the ceiling; cracked paint on the walls beside the stairs. He was taken to a room where the light was green because ivy grew over most of the narrow window. The air smelled of earth and ancient dust. Taropat laid him on a bed that was too soft; the billowy mattress seemed to swallow Shan up. His eyes felt gritty and it was becoming increasingly difficult to keep them open. He could not bear the thought of dreams and in anguish reached out and caught hold of Taropat’s wrist, forcing all his feelings into his reddened eyes. Don’t let me sleep! Don’t make me!
‘Be not afraid,’ said Taropat gently, and his hand came down upon Shan’s face like a swooping wing. The fingers were cool and soothing and Shan could do nothing but close his eyes. ‘I have put a charm on you,’ said Taropat. ‘Your eyes shall see nothing evil from within or without. If you dream, it will be of the distant past or the best moments of the future.’
Shan did dream. He saw lands spread out below him, as if he were as big as a god. He saw a pageant of banners, horses, and castles steepled with a hundred flagpoles. The panorama of life revolved about him in a swirl of colour and feeling. But all of this he forgot once he awoke. Only one dream stayed with him.
He saw himself as a very young child, sitting upon his mother’s knee in the cottage garden, his head resting against her bosom. She was an apple woman, rosy and ripe, in the time before the sickness took her breath. ‘Now, Shan, you be a good boy for your mammy. Keep yourself clean and always be polite - even to rude people. You have a secret eye inside your head that sees into people’s hearts. Learn how to open it, for you will need it.’ She tickled his stomach to make him laugh, and Shan could hear his own merriment ringing out in the summer air. Then his mother turned her head to the road and said, ‘Oh, I have a visitor.’ She put Shan down beside her chair, where a bowl of podded peas was lying. He saw her walk to the wicket gate and there was a tall dark figure, who had come to put his mark upon her. She came back frowning. ‘Now that’s a strange thing. I saw a man standing by the fence, but then he was gone.’
He is still with you, Shan thought, and could see a shadow hovering tall behind his mother’s body.
When Shan woke, the dream seemed so real, he wondered if it had ever really happened. As the images faded, he became aware of his surroundings and knew he was in a room that now belonged to him. He didn’t know it, yet it was familiar, and he felt at home in its ambience. It was dark, but cosy like a den, and cluttered with items he might have collected himself; strange stones, pieces of gnarled wood, bright feathers from magical birds, twisted rods of metal that might be the spears of lightning gods. After this awareness had settled, Shan’s grief made itself felt. It seemed to have been waiting next in line. Shan was too appalled to weep. He felt ashamed, terrified, and in indescribable pain, both in mind and body. His own cruel ordeal, the utter injustice of the death of Holme, the brutal waste, were beyond his comprehension. The soldiers were not a conquering army but a plague, striking people down at random. Shan knew little of war, but understood that it was the commerce of kings and generals. What had simple villagers to do with it? And surely war meant fighting on both sides? No one in Holme had had the chance to fight. They had been murdered, the victims of a lust that could only be sated by blood and pain. What kind of pe
ople were the Magravands? He remembered the two soldiers who had raped him in the field: their demon helms high above him as they circled their horses, the red sunset gleaming on their black leather armour, and the smells of leather, sweat and blood. Firmly, he forced this image from his mind. He did not want to remember any more.
Then Taropat came into the room carrying an enormous bowl of porridge. Shan’s body responded immediately; his stomach growled and his mouth filled with saliva. He had not eaten properly since before the soldiers came.
‘Now you are ready to begin again,’ said Taropat, sitting down on the bed and offering Shan the bowl.
Shan took a mouthful of the porridge, then felt sick. He was hungry yet couldn’t eat.
‘Force yourself,’ said Taropat firmly, ‘or I shall have to sit on your chest and feed you myself.’
Shan opened his mouth and a croak came out, the sound that an injured crow might make.
‘That’s better,’ said Taropat. ‘Now eat. I shall let you do so in private. Then, when you are ready, you will find clothes in the chest, and you may dress yourself and come downstairs. You have slept long enough.’
Left alone, Shan took small mouthfuls of the sweet porridge and although it took him nearly an hour, cleaned the bowl. It made his mouth feel dry and his stomach swollen, but there was a new strength in his body.
On top of the chest against the far wall was a large cracked bowl and a jug of cold water. Shan drank some of the water, poured the rest into the bowl and washed his face and hands with it, then he went to the window and looked out. The water wheel was turning slowly, making a grinding noise. Beneath it, the pool looked deep and dark and watchful, vibrating with unseen life. Bright blue birds flashed in the sunlight, flying so fast Shan could not make out their shapes. Perhaps they weren’t birds at all. The yellow horse was tethered below his window, cropping the lush grass. Beyond, the soughing green shadows of the forest hugged the house in its glade like giant hands. The air seemed to shimmer with the immanence of the guardians of the land. It was an idyllic scene. Shan wondered then what Taropat wanted from him. Was he seeking an apprentice, or had he just felt pity for the grubby urchin scrabbling through the ruins of Holme? What made people perform acts of kindness? Perhaps Taropat wasn’t really kind. It was difficult to tell. He could be fattening Shan up to eat him. Shan remembered his mother’s words in the dream. He wanted to open his inner eye that could read the hearts of men.
Chapter Two: The High Narrow House
Taropat had a familiar, a grim named Gust. When Shan first came downstairs into the kitchen and caught sight of the creature, he started gasping and panicking. Gust was squatting on top of the stove, hunched like a gargoyle. Taropat, who was sitting smoking a clay pipe next to the hearth, his stockinged feet resting on the hot-stones, sat bolt upright and uttered a few words that somehow forced Shan to calm down. ‘Don’t be afraid of old Gust,’ he said. ‘He may look a bit fearsome, but he’s a pleasant enough beast.’
Gust was black all over and had gleaming red eyes. His face wasn’t human at all, and he had long, shining claws, leathery wings and a tail. He was the size of well-built child. Later, Shan discovered he could disappear from one place and appear somewhere else at will. It became a game of his to hide in the rafters of the rooms and drop objects down onto Shan, such as bobbins, and saucers and gobbets of mud. But in those first few moments, Shan saw only a demon in the hearth and feared that his suspicions about Taropat’s nature had proved correct.
‘Sit down,’ Taropat said. ‘You cannot speak, so I must ask myself a question aloud that I know is in your heart.’
Casting nervous glances at Gust, Shan sidled across the room and sat down on a wooden seat at the table, some distance away from Taropat’s upholstered chair. Gust watched him unblinkingly, occasionally letting a string of drool fall from his jaws.
Taropat took a draw from his long, narrow pipe, his teeth clicking against the baked clay. ‘You must be wondering why you are here.’ He glanced at Shan quizzically.
Shan kept his face expressionless, made no sound.
‘You must not be afraid. Nothing here will harm you. All I want is that you should heal. The body is one thing, the heart another.’
Shan still felt unable to react, but this did not appear to bother Taropat.
‘When you are ready, I will talk to you about the future, but in the meantime get to know my home and find the part of you that fled your body in Holme. Now, will you send to me the shape of your name?’
Shan frowned, but immediately Taropat had spoken, he couldn’t help thinking of his own name.
‘Shan,’ said Taropat. ‘A good name.’
This man must be very powerful, thought Shan. It still puzzled him why Taropat had chosen him from among the survivors, and despite appearances and soothing words, there might be a sinister reason behind what seemed to be charity. Yet in his heart, he felt safe. Perhaps he could dare to believe he was.
For two weeks, Taropat left Shan on his own for most of the time. The wizard often shut himself away in a room that was an extension to the house at ground level. Shan never went into this room. At first, he was nervous of leaving the glade, for the spirit presences among the trees beyond were far more powerful than any he’d sensed before. The house had a number of sheds and outhouses, which Shan explored. They were full of interesting items, some broken, that kept him amused. Gust seemed curious about him, and followed him around, always keeping a distance between them. After a few days, Shan got used to the grim’s strange appearance, and began to welcome his company. Gust was like an animal. He did not expect Shan to talk, but seemed simply to like being with him. Shan remembered his aunt’s cat, and how it would follow her around. It never liked to be picked up or fussed, but was always near her. Something that felt like a spike of iron pierced Shan’s heart. He realised it was the first time he’d thought of his aunt since before the soldiers came. He had not seen her among the survivors, yet he’d not even looked for her body. She’d simply disappeared from his memory. He too had been like an animal for a while, dehumanised by the horror of his experiences. Shan sat down in the dust and wept; for his father and for his aunt. The grief hurt so much he could hardly breathe. His gut-deep sobs were inadequate expressions of his feelings. His face pressed against his knees, Shan became aware of something warm and living touching him. He looked up and saw Gust’s grotesque face very close to his own. The claws of one hand were resting lightly on Shan’s shoulder. Gust made a noise, a mournful whining growl. His long forked tongue flicked out and licked Shan’s cheek. Perhaps he liked the salt taste of tears. Shan reached up and gently ran the fingers of one hand down Gust’s arm. The hide felt alien; hot and scaly. He had never touched anything like it before. All his life, he’d sensed the presence of spirits and forest folk, but Gust was the first non-human sentient creature he’d seen. Living in Taropat’s house, he might see more.
Shan didn’t know whether he was allowed to bathe in the mill pool or not, but as Taropat was hardly ever around, he decided to do so anyway. Sometimes, when he ventured into territory, which he shouldn’t, Gust would somehow let him know by becoming agitated, or hissing. As Shan stripped off his clothes beside the pool, Gust merely crouched on the water wheel, nibbling his claws, which Shan took as a kind of permission.
The water was incredibly cold, very clear and had a wonderful taste that was almost sparkling. Shan imagined it was how an elden draught would taste, that magical potion the elden sometimes gave to human folk to give them wondrous dreams by which they were ensnared. Shan had been scared by stories of the elden as a younger child. His aunt had comforted him by saying that there were no elden haunts by Holme. She knew that because the villagers never found changelings in their children’s beds and no-one went missing mysteriously. The elden were very beautiful, but were so different from men and women, it was impossible for humans to comprehend their abstract morals. ‘To them, we are like beasts,’ his aunt had said. ‘If
a man or a woman loved a cow, that would be most unnatural, which is why I don’t believe any of the stories of people having elden lovers. It just wouldn’t happen. They do like to steal people though, and make them dance to death, or drink peculiar philtres that do strange things to the mind. They also find human babies fascinating. I’ve heard they always get bored of them after a while, as some people get bored of puppies, and then they leave them to die.’ She had frowned. ‘I don’t know many humans who’d leave a puppy to die, but still, elden are not like us.’
If there was a place where the elden had a haunt, the forest around Taropat’s house was it. As Shan floated in the chilly water, he shivered, suddenly aware of the rich, mysterious ambience of the glade, its deep-breathing watchfulness. His aunt’s cat had always warned her of unseen presences by staring at places where there was nothing to be seen. Shan decided that Gust would perform the same function, and at present the grim was still happily engrossed in cleaning his claws.
Shan put his head beneath the water and exhaled a plume of bubbles. As they cleared, he caught a glimpse of a sly pointed face in the depths below arrowing towards him. He’d never moved so fast, and was back on the bank in moments, hugging himself and staring at the deceptive waters. Perhaps it was not a good place to bathe after all.
At night, lying drowsily awake, with the moonlight falling through his open window, Shan would hear Taropat’s muffled voice somewhere in the house below him. It would sound as if the man were chanting, or reciting something. Spells, thought Shan, afraid and thrilled. Once he had a strange dream, where it seemed he woke up and went to his window. Out in the glade, Taropat was walking towards the trees. Shan could see him clearly in the moonlight. A pale, flickering shape like a marsh light was hovering through the forest, and presently emerged as a young female thing, who burned white like a flame and had smoking blue hair. Then its form shimmered and it changed into something else, a human boy with pale hair. It’s an eld, thought Shan, ducking behind the curtains. Had Taropat been bewitched? Would Shan be left here alone? He dared to peer out again, and the glade was empty. A fist of panic thumped him in the stomach, and then he was waking up, lying in his bed. It had not been real. He heard the eerie strands of Taropat’s chanting voice drifting up the stairs.