Shadowdance

by Robin W Bailey

  Mourn thanked them for their aid, offering free beers if they returned tomorrow. They readily agreed. Mourn closed the door after them.

  He and Innowen were alone. Innowen caught his head in his hands and leaned on the table, remembering that awful last night he and Drushen had spent at Whisperstone, his first dance there, and the dark thing it had compelled Drushen to do. The memory of it burned in his mind, and he squeezed his eyes shut to stop the tears that tried to seep out.

  "Maybe you're not ready to talk yet," Mourn said with some sympathy. He reached across the table and collected Innowen's mug. "I'll refill your wine."

  When Mourn came back, he set the mug in front of Innowen, leaned back in his chair and propped his feet up on a corner of the table. Instead of waiting for Innowen, he started the conversation. "Drushen's very dear to most of us," he said, talking into his own mug. "Since he came here five years ago, most of the town—those who remain—have come to love him. He entertains everyone with his stories. You claim he was your guardian?"

  Innowen ignored the question. "He's blind!" he said, as if fully realizing the fact for the first time. "How? How did that happen?"

  Mourn merely shrugged. "Merit probably knows," he answered. "I don't. He was blind when he stumbled in here. I thought he was a beggar, but Merit knew him and took him in." Mourn paused to take a drink of his wine. He wiped his lips with the tip of a finger before setting the mug down and wrapping his hands around it.

  "Then, a few months later," he continued, tilting his head as he peered at Innowen, "along comes Lord Minarik, himself, riding in with five of his men. None of them ever spoke to Drushen as far as I know, or went anywhere near him. But before they rode out, they left coins with Merit to insure that Drushen was kept decently, and a rider comes from Whisperstone with a fresh purse every month." He leaned back in his chair again. "Ah, I see I've touched something there!"

  Innowen tried uselessly to hide his shock. He leaned forward intently, half out of his chair as he gripped the edge of the table. "Minarik? What's Minarik got to do with this?" He kicked his chair back and stood up. Pacing, he wiped a hand through his hair. "Mourn, I don't understand any of this! What's going on?" He stopped pacing suddenly and stared toward the door. "I haven't seen that man in five years!" He hung his head and covered his face with his hands, "Oh gods, Drushen, what have I done to you?"

  The door creaked open and closed softly. When Innowen opened his eyes, Merit stood there, watching him. Slowly, he came to the table and glanced at the mugs of wine. Then, like a bladder gently collapsing, he gave a little sigh, his shoulders sagged forward, and his back rounded. He trudged away from them and into the kitchen. When he returned moments later, he carried a wine cask that only he could have managed. He set it down beside the table and smashed the lid with two blows from his great fist. "I'm buying," he muttered. He went back to the kitchen long enough to grab an extra mug, which he dipped into the cask.

  Innowen bent impatiently over the table. "Merit, how do you know Drushen so well? And what's Minarik—"

  Merit held up a hand, silencing Innowen, while he raised the mug to his mouth and drained it. Red wine trickled down the corners of the giant's lips, over his chin, and dripped into the thick mat of hair on his chest, where the scarlet droplets caught the gleam of the lamps and congealed like shining blood.

  "Drushen was born here," Merit answered at last, wiping his mouth with the back of one hand as he refilled the mug with the other. "We grew up together, me a fisherman, him a woodcutter, like our fathers before us. Now pardon me, while I savor this fine-tasting tea again." He drained the second mug from top to bottom, his throat muscles working as he swallowed with great noisy gulps.

  "Oh, I know you, all right," he said to Innowen when the second mug was finished. "I know you now. I never would have let you in here had I known you before, but it's too late, so I'm just going to get good and drunk, instead."

  "Where's Drushen?" Innowen demanded indignantly. "I've got to talk to him. I've got to find out what's going on!"

  Merit watched over the edge of the cask as his mug refilled a third time. "He won't talk to you, boy," Merit answered condescendingly. "Don't you see he's terrified of you? I've got him calmed down a bit, but I had to lock him in his room so he can't get out. And I took out anything he could hurt himself with, too, 'cause I think he would, knowing that you're here."

  Innowen felt his anger growing and struggled to control it. It was almost as if Merit were taunting him purposely, and he didn't like it. "Well, what happened to his eyes? He's blind!"

  Merit turned a cool gaze on Innowen as he lifted the full mug from the cask. But he had overfilled it. The red wine ran over the mug's rim, down the handle, staining Merit's meaty fist. A ruby-colored rivulet ran down the giant's arm to his elbow. "He plucked them out himself," Merit answered with chilling calm. "He told me. His story sometimes varies, but either he saw something so beautiful he couldn't stand it, or something so terrible he couldn't face it again." He lifted the mug, then hesitated as his gaze left Innowen's face. "It drove him away from Whisperstone, whatever it was. He wandered around for a while, blind, before finally coming back here."

  Innowen fought to control his emotions. He thought back to that night in Whisperstone's courtyard, how he had danced freely and with abandon for Drushen, striving to surprise and delight his guardian with his new legs. For so many nights after that one, he'd lain awake wondering what had become of Drushen. Now he knew, and the pain and guilt were more than he could bear!

  He sank down into his chair and fell forward onto the table, barely aware of Mourn's gentle hand on the back of his head. "It wasn't his fault," he wept. "None of it was his fault!"

  "Tell me the story," Mourn said softly to Merit. "I don't know any of this. I've never questioned you as long as you did good work here, but I want to know the truth."

  Innowen sat up and pulled himself together. "Tell me, Merit," he asked quietly, picking up his own mug of wine. "Please."

  Merit frowned and looked glumly down at the tabletop. He shifted uncomfortably, his bulk too large for the chair that held it. He lifted his mug, then set it down again without drinking. "All right," he said at last, "I'll tell it then, and tell it straight, and afterward we'll all get drunk together." He looked directly at Innowen. "It isn't your fault, either, boy. You remember that. Isn't none of it your fault."

  Innowen knew that wasn't true, but he kept quiet and settled himself to listen. He drained his mug. Without saying anything, Mourn took it from him, refilled it, and placed it in his hands.

  "Some years back when a lot of us were a lot younger, and you two weren't born yet, a very beautiful young woman came from the island kingdom of Mikonos and settled here." Merit's eyes rolled up inside his head as he leaned back and remembered. "Oh, she was fine as any dawn you ever saw, and she colored her hair bright gold, the way Mikonos women know how to do."

  "The Witch of Shanalane," Mourn said.

  "Yes," Merit agreed, "only she wasn't called that, then. We only knew she was a great lady with great powers. She never harmed anyone. Instead, she treated us when we were sick and looked out for the village like she was a mother to us all, making sure the river was always full of fish and the catch was always good, making sure the town never flooded when the rains fell too heavily up in the mountains and the Kashoki swelled up like a pregnant woman's belly." Merit took a thoughtful sip of his wine and set the mug down. He drummed his fingers lightly on the handle as he shook his head. "We never did know her name, so some of us started calling her the Witch of Shanalane, as if she was our own personal good-luck charm, and it sort of caught on,"

  "Her name was Minowee," Innowen whispered.

  Merit repeated it. "Minowee," he said. "It's pretty. And I guess Lord Minarik thought so, too, when he rode through here one day and caught a glimpse of her. After that, he came a lot—Whisperstone isn't but a day's ride from here—or a night's, as the case may be—and it became plain to folks soon enough that
the Witch had taken a lover."

  Innowen got up and began to pace again with his mug in his hand. "I know that part of the story," he confessed. "Minarik told me, himself."

  Mourn had been sitting quietly for some time. At that, he looked up with interest. "How is it that you know an Isporan lord well enough to receive that kind of confidence?" he asked.

  "Another complication of this same story," Innowen said, not missing the irony of his remark. He began to twist the ring he wore—Minarik's ring—around and around his finger. "Minarik is my adoptive father."

  Merit leaned forward on the table, fixed Innowen with a piercing gaze, and waved toward the cask with his mug. "You better refill your cup, boy," he said, and he waited for a puzzled Innowen to comply. Only then did he continue. "Most folks around here who still remember will take bets that Minarik is your real father."

  The mug fell from Innowen's hand.

  "I can see I'm going to have to mop tomorrow," Mourn commented. "First Drushen's mug, now yours."

  "That's not possible," Innowen muttered, his eyes glancing about the room like nervous moths before a flame. "The Witch had a child, a son, by Minarik. But his name is Vashni. I've seen him. He even looks like Minarik."

  Merit smirked. "Haven't you looked in a mirror, boy?" He took a drink of wine and rose to his feet, nearly bumping his head on a suspended oil lamp. He touched it with one finger and set it spinning on its thong. All about the room, the shadows began to dance.

  "I remember the night," Merit said solemnly. "No other pregnant woman in Shanalane was even close to delivering, the night the Witch's child was born. Her cries were terrible, and half the countryside heard her when the labor was worst. She finally gave birth just before midnight, an ill-omened time." He closed his eyes for a moment as he continued to speak. "There were other omens, too. Two barges broke loose in the river for no reason that night. A warehouse caught fire and burned the owner's two sons." He opened his eyes again and looked at them both. "I remember my father caught two fish on the same hook that day."

  Innowen smacked his hand against the table with an impatient thump. "But what's all this got to do with Minarik being my father? Are you saying the Witch of Shanalane is my mother?"

  An uncomfortable silence filled the tavern, a silence perforated only by the sputtering of the small flame in the oil lamp spinning near Merit's head. Only Mourn remained seated. He, too, backed his chair and slowly stood as they all looked at each other.

  "You say you've seen the Witch's son," Merit said. They all spoke softly now, almost in whispers, aware that they uttered secrets that had been hidden for years. "Vashni, you called him. Well, I believe you, because there were lots of strange stories of a boy-child. Things like baby cries at odd hours, or childish laughter in the woods near her estate. Some people thought they heard the Witch singing lullabies sometimes late at night. But no one ever actually reported seeing the boy."

  Mourn moved around the edge of the table to stand by Innowen. "I still don't see what that has to do with Innowen."

  Merit let go a slow breath and folded his arms across his great wine-soaked chest. "Like I said, no other pregnant woman in the town was even close to her time when the Witch gave birth." He paused and looked directly at Innowen again. "Yet, the same night, Drushen found a newborn baby on the old east road. It couldn't move its legs at all, and somebody had left it there to die, exposed."

  Innowen bit his lower lip and took a quick gulp of his wine.

  "Drushen always had a bit of a soft heart," Merit continued. "And he didn't have any family here, since his parents had both died some years earlier. He left Shanalane that night with the baby, and none of us ever saw him again until he returned here five years ago."

  Innowen paced back and forth, his fists tightly clenched. The palm of his left hand burned as it clamped down on the splinter buried in its flesh, but he used that pain to focus his thoughts, deliberately increasing the hurt. "It can't be!" he shouted at last. "Vashni is the Witch's son!"

  "Innocent," Mourn said reasonably, using the nickname Innowen had confided to him. He held up two fingers. "Two barges. Two deaths. Two fish." He paused, and the shadows seemed suddenly to veil his face. "Two babies," he whispered. "Twins."

  An icy shiver ran down Innowen's spine. A memory came into his head of three thugs beating an old man to death in a Parendur alley. One of those men had mistaken him for Vashni. He had thought it funny, then.

  Mourn picked up his own wine mug and carried it around the table to refill it at the cask. "You said the baby Drushen found was malformed," he said to Merit. "Yet Innowen is whole. How could he be that baby?"

  Despite the summer heat that filled the tavern, Innowen shivered again.

  "I can't explain that," Merit answered, watching Innowen carefully. "But it's clear to me from all that Drushen has said, this is the child he picked up from the road that night."

  "But it's not clear that I'm the Witch's child!" Innowen snapped, turning to face them. "Or Minarik's. There's still some doubt."

  Merit dipped his mug to refill it again and raised it in an unspoken toast to the shadows that hovered so near. "The doubt is no smaller," he said pointedly, "than the allowance your father gives me for Drushen's upkeep. And that's quite generous."

  Innowen sat down in his chair, but he pushed the wine mug away. For all the liquor he had drunk, his head was remarkably clear. He didn't want it to be. He wanted the embrace of a thick fog around his thoughts, anything to dull and blot the visions that took form in his brain. But the wine couldn't help him tonight.

  "Did Drushen tell you what happened between us?" he asked Merit in a hushed voice. "Did he say why he ran away from Whisperstone that night?"

  Merit hesitated, then nodded.

  "Don't blame him," Innowen said firmly. "You've got to make him understand that it wasn't his fault." He wished he could see Drushen again, talk to him. He could explain to Drushen about his dancing, about its effect on any who watched. He could make him understand. But the old man's fear was too great, and he had no wish to cause him further pain. "I'll tell you something to help him understand," Innowen said at last, "and when you've told him, tell him also that I love him, just as I always did when I was little and he took care of me. Tell him that for me, and make him believe it."

  Merit and Mourn both nodded, and Innowen told them how, between the sunset and the dawn, a crippled baby could walk. When he finished his tale, he twisted the bird-shaped ring around his finger. "Now, it's more important than ever that I get home," he said.

  Merit drained his mug one last time, then volunteered to make the trip to the stable to fetch Innowen's horse. As he moved toward the door, his step betrayed no hint of the quantity of wine he had consumed. Innowen followed him as far as the door and watched him disappear into the night. When he turned around, Mourn was nowhere to be seen. His friend reappeared shortly, though, bearing Innowen's sword and the two bundles he had made from the Witch's cloak and his own.

  "Let's move out by the well," Mourn suggested, refusing to let Innowen carry the bundles.

  The square was dark and silent. The only light came from the tavern's open door. The doors and windows of all the other shops and apartments were black, utterly lightless. No one stirred in the square; no one appeared to stir behind the shutters. It was as if the town was in rehearsal for its eventual death.

  The air was too warm. Overhead, though, the pale stars shone in a cool patch of black sky. Innowen and Mourn sat down on the side of the well, and each tilted back his head to look at the stars.

  "Moryn," Innowen said, breaking the silence, "you've got to get out of Shanalane. Pack what you have and leave. Leave Ispor. There's a decay eating at this land, a corruption that spreads from person to person, and thing to thing. It hasn't touched you, yet, but it will, if you stay."

  Mourn looked down at his hands in his lap. "Where would I go?" he said modestly.

  Leaning closer, Innowen touched his friend's shoulder and squeezed it
. "Go find some stories of your own," he urged. "And lay in bed some night and tell them to a handsome stranger." He gazed around the square at the uneven line of black rooftops, gaunt against the starlit sky. Slipping one hand inside his belt, he retrieved the two gold cymorens he kept there. He pressed them into Mourn's hand. "These can get you a long way, if you spend them wisely."

  Mourn stared at the pair of triangular coins. The shiny metal glinted dully in the square's gloom. He closed his fist around them and craned his head back again. "As far as the stars?" he asked.

  Innowen leaned over and kissed Mourn lightly. They embraced, then, speaking no more, until they heard the quiet clip-clop of Innowen's horse as Merit led it into the square. Innowen rose, picked up his bundles from the place where Mourn had set them, and adjusted them over his mount's withers. Next, he strapped on his sword and took the reins that Merit handed him.

  "Remember," he whispered into Mourn's ear just before he mounted. "Your father walked away. So can you."

  He left them in the square, taking the north road through town that Merit said would bring him to the Witch's old keep. When the last outbuildings were behind him, and night had swallowed Shanalane, the road swerved gently toward the river and followed its bank.

  A few scattered pine trees rose up on either side of the river. Their feathery branches made a raspy susurrus as the wind blew through them. Off to his right, a low, ruddy moon shone through the branches like a half-closed eye that disinterestedly followed his progress. A few more nights, and it would be a full moon, and he would be in Whisperstone to share it with Rascal.

  The Witch's keep rose suddenly on the opposite bank of the river. He might have missed it in the dark if he hadn't been watching for it. Its roofs were low and flat, barely visible over the wall that encircled the grounds. Innowen steered his horse across the narrow ribbon of water and up the muddy bank to the keep's once-great entrance.

  The gate was a ruin. One great wooden door lay shattered on the ground as if a massive fist had smashed through it, ripped it off, and cast it down. The other hung at an unlikely angle on twisted hinges. A chill crept up Innowen's spine as he rode past them. It seemed inconceivable to him that someone had dared to vandalize the Witch's home.