“Oh, Shirii.” Mr. DeLivre rested a hand atop hers. “If the wings of your soul and mind yet stir, there is hope.”
“Oh, they flutter, but I am bound. Trapped in this…cage my body has become, a prison from which I cannot, even for a moment, escape.” She swallowed, struggling to hold back tears. “’Tis no prison of solid walls, but a cage of iron, beyond which I can still see, hear, and smell…life.”
Mr. DeLivre slid his chair in front of hers and took her face in both hands, as he had when she’d been a child.
“That’s…the greatest torture of all,” she whispered, the tears breaking the last of her resistance and flowing over his gnarled fingers. “At times, a wisp of life brushes my hand as I reach for it through the bars of fatigue that hold me captive. Yet, it eludes my grasp.”
Lyssanne rested her head against his shoulder, his arms wrapping her in grandfatherly comfort. “I just can’t bear to lose the cottage, but the councilmen don’t know, can’t see this enemy I battle every day.”
Was it not enough that she must suffer this pain in her head; must she also endure pain of the heart? What was she to do?
Dragging in a breath, she pulled away. This wasn’t helping. One could not open a cage by huddling in its corners. “Forgive me. What was that story you wished to share?”
At the western edge of the village, Noire alighted on a woodshed roof. The current target of his espionage stood ten paces away, hacking at a log, strands of Shadow Mist snaking around his feet. The man, Willem, one of the first to fall beneath Venefica’s power, had become central to her latest strategy to destroy the Light-Wielder.
Noire dug his talons into the roof. If her scheme to infect the children hadn’t succeeded, why should this one? Now, he was to act as a conduit of her power, but how would gaining control over this man give her the leverage to ensure the chief councilman fell to the Mist? Venefica’s cryptic vow to use the villagers’ own laws against them made no sense. Well, let her keep her secrets. Noire certainly had his.
He stiffened as Venefica’s taunts whispered through the Mist—no, through him—into Willem’s mind. How could this be? Did observing through Noire’s raven eyes give her a deeper connection to him than he’d suspected? He must guard his thoughts, just in case.
“Ignored once again, while all Cloistervale celebrates Kevan’s success?” Venefica’s voice whispered, as if springing from Willem’s own thoughts. “He sits whittling at slivers in his spare time, while you bend your back, sweating beneath the sun to build the homes they live in, the furniture they rest upon, and the carts and tools that make their work possible.”
Willem’s knuckles whitened around his axe handle.
“Oh, your grand Council claims all in Cloistervale are equal, but you know it isn’t so.” The Mist around Willem’s legs began to thicken and rise. “You are heir to a noble trade, the only man in the valley with the skill and right to carry on the building that keeps this village alive. And this Kevan, what is he? Youngest son of a common farmer! A man with so little inheritance, he turned to carving frivolous wares for profit.”
Droplets of sweat poured from Willem’s brow to mingle with the rising darkness.
“And yet, this trinket-carver has taken the one thing you most desired.”
A chip of bark flew toward Noire’s head. He ducked just in time.
Willem’s chopping grew erratic. He swung his axe harder and harder, gouging the log in random places, oft missing the notch he’d labored to carve. Still, Venefica taunted, her voice growing stronger with every passing moment.
“You repair the sagging beams of the very hall in which the Council meets, and does Chief Councilman Torin grant you his only daughter’s hand? No. A merchant shows a little interest in Kevan’s useless trinkets, and Torin weds the most beautiful girl in the valley to him! Oh yes, Kevan has stolen what should have been yours by right.”
Willem’s blade stuck fast in the wood. He braced a foot against the log, struggling to free it.
“The land is parched from drought,” Venefica whispered, “yet Kevan’s meager fields flourish. What will happen when harvest is done? Will the village hold a feast in his honor?”
Willem swung his axe free in a high arc over his head then buried the blade, to the haft, in the log. He stood motionless, fists clenched, eyes squinted shut.
Noire’s vision wavered. Instead of gazing upon the angry young man in front of him, he found himself staring into the face of the sorceress. She leaned forward, her image shimmering as if he viewed her from the bottom of a clear pool—or the water mirror she used when observing through his eyes. After a dizzying moment, the world righted itself.
Venefica smiled, looked into his eyes, and whispered, “It is time.”
She raised a fist to her lips then eased it open, blowing across her palm. Her image rippled, and a smoky darkness crept over everything in his sight.
Noire blinked. Again appeared Willem and his unfortunate log. Shadow Mist gathered about him from all directions, coating him in a sooty blackness he could neither see nor feel. Willem opened his eyes. They blazed with the heat of a forge fire.
Willem stalked into the shed. Moments later, he emerged carrying a burlap pack, skirted a stack of planed boards, then began rummaging in a box of scrap wood. Into the pack, he tossed bits of dry wood and straw. After tying its straps, he stormed into his large house, sparing not a glance for the work he’d left unfinished.
Within moments, a second door slammed. Noire flew to the front of the house just as Willem stalked off up the road.
Venefica’s command vibrated through Noire, more sensation than sound. Follow him.
He needed no encouragement, however. Already, he was soaring over Willem’s head.
The man halted at the edge of a field. Stalks of grain grew tall and golden, and a quaint little cottage guarded the far end of the plot. Dropping his pack, Willem crouched beneath a tree at the end of a row.
Noire perched atop a scarecrow, as Willem pulled brush from beneath the nearest stalks and crushed it in his hand. The dry vegetation crumbled away like dust. Willem nodded then began emptying his pack—two long sticks, a flinty stone, and bits of wood and straw—all the while surrounded by a thick cloud of Mist.
Venefica’s laughter rang through Noire’s mind.
“What shall we read next?” asked Mr. DeLivre, placing his book back on a shelf.
Lyssanne glanced to the far wall where he kept scientific volumes. “Have you anything on the workings of the eyes or the kinds of things that can go amiss with them?”
“Mm, not that I recall.” He strode past her. “Why do you want such a book?”
“I think my sight has grown worse.”
“Oh, Shirii, no!” He rushed back to his seat. “You can still read, yes?”
She nodded. “But…there’s this…blur.”
“Ah, just your eyes growing weary.”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “Sometimes it happens when I’ve hardly used them. This is unlike in childhood, when I tried to read text that was too small. That’s why I fear I’m losing what sight I have. That, and…’tis dark.”
“Dark?”
“Like a black haze. Foggy. I can see a person through it, but only just. ’Tis as if night has taken on solid form and wrapped itself around someone.”
“Someone? Is it only people who are blurred?”
“I…Yes! I hadn’t realized until just now.”
“Let us list the times this has happened, determine what is common among them.” Mr. DeLivre fetched parchment and a quill from his desk, then settled across from her.
“Well, the first time was…” Lyssanne closed her eyes and took a slow breath. She could trust him with this. He would never say or do anything that might endanger Jarad or the other children. She told him of the incident at her cottage, leaving out Jarad’s frightful rage.
“When was this?”
“Last autumn.”
“Ah, so it began after you’d bee
n ill for some time.”
Lyssanne’s eyes flew wide. “Do you think the two maladies are connected?”
“Impossible to know. Go on. Perhaps we shall discover the answer.”
“Hmm.” She spoke as if half in dream. “Early this spring, Mr. Riles and the Furins’ sons—oh, and Mr. Cutler last week.”
“So, this comes and goes. Several months between incidents, but now more frequent?”
“Yes. Strange, it didn’t plague me all those months I was most ill. Of course, I rarely left the cottage except…” She gasped. “At Aderyn’s wedding. Aderyn said Willem looked furious, and…he was covered in the dark haze.”
“That was at the close of winter, yes? Perhaps—"
Bells rang out in three sudden peals, cutting off his words. Their clangs vibrated through Lyssanne’s head as if she’d become the bell tower atop the meeting hall.
“They’re summoning the fire brigade!” Mr. DeLivre shouted.
Clamping her hands over her ears, Lyssanne followed him to the door.
After long moments and several attempts to gain information from passing townsfolk, Mr. DeLivre at last snagged Madam Sewell’s attention.
She met them on the steps. “Half the men are helping put out the fire,” she shouted, her high voice almost as painful to Lyssanne’s ears as had been the bells. “Tell ya the rest inside.” She pushed past them, her ample girth pressing Lyssanne to the doorframe. “Oh, the Chief Councilman’s poor daughter!”
“Aderyn?” Lyssanne asked, as Mr. DeLivre closed the door, muffling the clamor outside.
Madam Sewell shook her faded, red hair from her eyes. “House and field blazed up like a feast day fire.”
Lyssanne’s heart forgot to beat. “Is she—?”
“Safe,” Madam Sewell said. “She wasn’t home. Was with Evlia when it happened, receiving joyous news. But now, with that new husband of hers gone…”
“Kevan, gone?” Lyssanne’s throat seized.
“Neighbor saw him fall tryin’ to put out the blaze. Went to help but, well, good thing Evlia was with Aderyn when they came to tell her. Poor man never knew he was to be a father.”
“Oh, Aderyn!” Lyssanne rushed back to the table to grab her basket. “I must go to her.”
“The real mystery is,” Madam Sewell said, “what caused that fire.” She lowered her voice. “Some say—and I’m not tellin’ who—but they say Willem was lurkin’ where he ought not be.”
Willem.
“What is it, Shirii?” Mr. DeLivre asked. “You’ve gone pale.”
“I—I’m just worried for Aderyn.” She snatched up his list. “May I keep this?”
“Of course.”
Lyssanne hurried from the shop. As she made her way toward the healer’s door, faces obscured in shadow raced through her mind. Chief among them, the man who had once sought Aderyn’s hand.
Noire perched in the rafters of the meeting hall just as the last villager entered. Once again, Venefica claimed the events about to unfold would rid them both of the obstacle to their goals. Well, he would swallow that meal when it landed in his beak.
The obstacle in question stood near the back of the crowded hall, one arm looped about the waist of the woman whose husband they’d buried earlier that day. Lyssanne flinched each time the chief councilman banged his cobbler’s mallet like a gavel for order.
Noire dug his talons into the rafter. Venefica’s plan had failed. The chief was yet free of the Mist.
“Citizens of Cloistervale,” Chief Councilman Torin said, his voice resonating through the hall, “we call this meeting to address an urgent concern. Crops are failing, the mountain wolves have grown bolder, and”—he cleared his throat—“crimes are increasing, all at levels we haven’t seen since the Days of Noble Oppression.” His gaze swept the hushed crowd. “I submit to you, this is no natural occurrence.”
“Some say as how smoke’s been risin’ above the trees o’ the North Forest,” said a withered old man. “Some say from Mount Mortiferra. That ain’t no natural occurrence neither.”
Noire folded his wings tighter to ward off the chill of Venefica’s displeasure.
As the townspeople’s murmuring increased, Lyssanne glanced from her friend to the crowd and back again. She pulled away and inched toward the dais. Color drained from her cheeks, then they flamed a vivid rose. Her wide eyes darted about as if she were a deer preparing to bolt. Instead, she lifted a hand.
“Lyssanne?” said the chief councilman. “You have something to share on this matter?”
“Y-yes.” She cleared her throat. “Yes, Councilman Torin. I’ve seen something that may be causing all this. Or, at least, I think it is somehow connected to the trouble.”
The villagers jostled Lyssanne until she stood before the Council’s table.
“What have you seen?” asked Torin.
“’Tis difficult to describe…like a black blur, a fog. It hovers around people, just before some misfortune befalls them or they cause such for others.”
The Mist. The chill air surrounding Noire grew teeth of ice.
The chatter rose again, this time with a distinct air of irritation borne on wisps of shadow.
Councilman Torin raised a hand for silence. “This…fog? What do you mean it hovers around people?”
“It surrounds someone like a dark, filmy curtain, making it difficult for me to focus on that person. If I look away, the blur dissipates.”
“’Tis just your poor vision, dear,” said the healer. “Doubtless acting up because of your illness.”
“I thought so, at first.” Lyssanne’s eyes scanned the crowd as if searching for the healer, who stood mere paces away. “Then, I realized trouble always follows in the wake of the fog.”
“We’re wasting time,” said the councilman at the chief’s right hand, eddies of Shadow Mist swirling about his feet. “Let’s get on with the reason we called this meeting.”
“In a moment, Ratomer,” said the chief, waving away further protests. “Trouble? You’ll have to be clearer, Lyssanne. Give us an example.”
“Well, I don’t like to air other people’s misfortunes—”
“This is pointless!” Ratomer rapped a fist on the table, Mist crawling up his legs.
Lyssanne fidgeted, glanced back toward her friend, then sighed. “Just before Mr. Irvin’s daughter fell ill and his well was found fouled, Mr. Riles came into Madam Sewell’s shop to pick up something for his wife. He was covered in the fog. Every time I’ve seen him or Mr. Irvin since, they’re shrouded in it.”
Still Mist-cloaked, the men in question glared at each other across the hall.
“That was during their dispute over property borders,” said the chief councilman. “Did you know they were feuding at the time?”
“No, I hadn’t seen either of them in months.”
“Surely, this fog has nothing to do with that,” said an elder councilmen. “Madam Sewell doubtless told you of their dispute, so they caught your attention.”
“She didn’t, I’m sure of it,” said Lyssanne. “Besides, that wasn’t the only time I’ve seen the black mist precede trouble. Just yesterday, Madam Nettleworth—”
“There was nothing there, I tell you!” A wiry matron shouted, pushing to the front of the hall. “This girl comes up to me in the middle of the market, after all that fuss with the fire, and starts brushing at my skirts. Says I must get away from the fog before some ill befalls me. I told her then, and I say it again”—she jabbed a finger at Lyssanne, wisps of shadow dancing about her feet—“there…was…no…fog,”
Lyssanne stared into the woman’s face. “But later, at the butcher’s stall—”
“Coincidence!” the woman snapped. “That pig was worth more than all those chickens combined, and Cutler knows it. Serves him right if the pig went amuck. Calls himself a butcher, humph. No magical mist made him cheat me.”
“Has no one else seen this, er, fog?” asked Councilman Torin.
Negative murmurs swept through
the room.
“Like Evlia said, her eyes are deceiving her,” said a junior councilman.
“In any case,” said the chief, “our village cannot continue in such a state, especially with the time of the queen’s tax soon upon us.” The room fell silent. “We, the Appointed Council of Cloistervale, have been meeting of late to determine the cause.” He paused as if to ensure he had their full attention. “Our conclusion? Someone has violated one of our sacred laws.”
Gasps rolled through the chamber like whitecaps on a roiling sea.
“We’re suffering because we allow this person to go unpunished?” asked the miller.
“That is our suspicion, yes.”
A groan filled the room.
“Our task tonight is to identify the offender and decide how to proceed,” said Torin. “This requires a consensus of the entire community. To avoid swaying opinion, I’ll not voice the Council’s conjectures until you’ve discussed this among yourselves.”
Neighbors began whispering against neighbors, every eye regarding with suspicion those standing near. As insult and anger rose, the sparse tendrils of Shadow Mist throughout the hall coalesced and thickened. Noire flexed his talons and prepared to spring, searching out every available exit. Venefica had sworn the Mist wouldn’t be permitted to touch him, but could she wield such precise control while her power was still diminished?
“Which law has been broken?” asked the baker, his head towering above all others. “Determine that, and the offender shouldn’t be difficult to find.”
A junior councilman began reciting the five sacred laws of Cloistervale—superstitious drivel forbidding blasphemy against their invisible King of All Lands, along with statutes prohibiting theft, violence against people or property, self-importance, and finally, sloth.
“Each citizen of Cloistervale shall perform such useful tasks as enhance the lives of all,” quoted the councilman. “Thus, none shall burden his neighbors. Sloth is akin to pride, and pride is an abomination against the King of All Lands.”
Keeper of Shadows (Light-Wielder Chronicles Book 1) Page 5
