Liaden Unibus 01

by Sharon Lee

  "Attend me now," Lute said, tossing his cloak behind his shoulders.

  Moonhawk moved a few steps closer, her irritation forgotten.

  "Perhaps you think you have mastered the counter, but the counter may yet be the wiser, eh?" He smiled, but Moonhawk didn't see. All her attention—and all her Witch sense—was focused on his long, clever hands.

  "Now we enter the realm of magic, indeed. I am about to reveal to you the method for making a counter disappear." He extended his empty right hand, frowned and flexed the fingers.

  "First, naturally enough, one must make a counter appear." And there, held lightly between his first and second fingers was a bright green counter. How it had come there, Lute and his skill knew. Certainly, Moonhawk did not, having seen neither the movement that would have retrieved a cleverly hidden counter nor felt the surge of power that would have been necessary to create a counter. Or the illusion of one.

  Lute extended his hand. "Please verify that this is indeed a common wooden counter, such as might be found in any gaming house on Sintia."

  She took the disk, felt the smoothness of the paint, the rough edge of wood where the caress of many fingers had worn the paint away. No illusion, this. She handed it back.

  "I find it a common wooden counter," she said, for she must also practice the eloquence of his speech, which served, so he said, to divert the attention of an audience and give a magician valuable seconds in which to work. "Such as might be found in any gaming house on the planet."

  "Excellent," he said, receiving the token on his callused palm.

  "A common counter." He tossed it lightly into the air, caught it on the back of his hand and walked it negligently across his fingers.

  "Behaving commonly." He flipped his hand, caught the counter between thumb and forefinger and held it high.

  "Now, behold its uncommon attribute."

  Moonhawk stifled a curse: There was nothing between the magician's thumb and forefinger but sunshine and cool spring air.

  Lute lowered his hand and smiled. "Another lesson that may be practiced as one walks. Though we haven't far to walk now. Tonight, we shall eat one of Veverain's splendid dinners, sample somewhat of last year's vintage and sleep wrapped in soft, sweet-smelling blankets."

  Moonhawk stared from him to the red wooden counter in her hand.

  "I'm to practice? Pray what am I to practice, Master Lute? I saw neither pass nor Witch power."

  Lute smiled. "You saw that it was possible." He bent and retrieved his bag. "Come. Veverain's hospitality tugs my heart onward."

  * * *

  THE TRACK CURVED 'round a grove of dyantrees, and there was Karn, tidily laid out along two main streets and a marketplace. To the east of the village lay the fields; to the west, the winter livestock pens. Behind the village rose a hill, showing terrace upon terrace of leafless brown vines.

  There were folk about on the streets, and Lute's stride lengthened. Moonhawk stretched her own long legs to keep the pace, the red counter forgotten for the moment in the pocket of her cloak.

  "Ho, Master Lute!" A stocky man in a leather apron raised a hand. "Spring is here at last!"

  "And not a moment too soon," Lute agreed with a smile, crossing the street to where the man stood in the tavern's doorway, Moonhawk a step behind him. "How came the village through the winter?"

  The man looked sober. "We lost a few to the cold—oldsters or infants, all. The rest of us came through well enough. Except for—." The man's face changed, and Moonhawk caught the edge of his distress against her Witch sense.

  "You're bound for Veverain's?" he asked, distress sharpening.

  "Of course I am bound for Veverain's! Am I a fool, to pass by the best food, the snuggest bed and the most gracious hostess in the village?"

  "Not a fool," the man returned quietly, "only short of news."

  Lute went entirely still. Moonhawk, slanting a glance at his face, saw his mouth tighten, black eyes abruptly intense.

  "Our Lady of the Snows has taken Veverain?" he asked, matching the other's quiet tone.

  The man moved his hand — describing helplessness. "Not—That is to say—Veverain. Ah, Goddess take me for a muddlemouth!" He lifted a hand and ran his fingers through his thinning hair.

  "It was Rowan went out to feed the stock one morning in the thick of winter, and when he didn't come back for the noon meal, Veverain went out to find him." He paused to draw a deep, noisy breath. "He'd never gotten to the pens. A tree limb—heavy, you understand, with the ice—had come down and crushed him dead."

  Lute closed his eyes. Moonhawk raised her hand and traced the sign of Passing in the air.

  "May he be warm, in the Garden of the Goddess."

  The tavern-keeper looked at her, startled. Lute opened his eyes, hands describing one of his elegant gestures, calling attention to her as if she were a rare gemstone.

  "Behold, one's apprentice!" he said, but Moonhawk thought his voice sounded strained. "Moonhawk, here is the excellent Oreli, proprietor of the justly renowned tavern, Vain Disguise."

  Oreli straightened from his lean to make a somewhat inexpert bow. When he straightened, his eyes were rounder than ever.

  "Lady."

  Moonhawk inclined her head. "Keeper Oreli. Blessings upon you."

  He swallowed, but before he could make answer, Lute was speaking again.

  "When did this tragedy occur, Friend Oreli? You give me to believe the house is closed. Is Veverain yet in mourning?"

  "Mourning," the other man repeated and half-laughed, though the sound was as sad as any Moonhawk had ever heard. "You might say mourning." He sighed, spreading his hands, palm up, for them both to see.

  "Rowan died just past of mid-winter. Veverain . . . Veverain shut the house up, excepting only the room they had shared. She turned us away, those of us who were her friends, or Rowan's—turned us away, shunned our company and our aid. And she just sits in that house by herself, Master Lute. Sits there alone in the dark. Her sister's man tends the animals; her niece tilled the kitchen garden and put in the early vegetables. They say they never see her; that she will not even open the door to kin—and you know, you know, Master Lute!—that Rowan would never have wanted such a thing!"

  "A convivial man, Rowan," Lute murmured. "He and Veverain were well-matched in that."

  "Is she still alive?" Moonhawk asked, somewhat impatiently. "Her kin say that they never see her, that she will not open the door. How are they certain that she has not been Called, or that she has not taken some injury?"

  "We see the hearth smoke," Oreli said. "We—the care basket is left full by the door in the morning. Some mornings, the basket and the food is still there. Often enough, the basket is empty. She is alive, that we do know. Alive, but dead to life."

  Moonhawk frowned. "She has been taking care baskets since Solstice?"

  Oreli raised a hand. "A long time, I know. The baskets usually are not sent so long. Forgive me, Lady, but you are a stranger here; you do not know how it was . . . how Veverain cared for us all. When our daughter was ill, we had some of Veverain's baskets—hot soup, fresh bread, tiny wheels of her special cheese—you remember Veverain's cheeses, eh, Master Lute?"

  "With fondness and anticipation," Lute replied, somewhat absently. He glanced at the sky. "The day grows old," he murmured.

  Abruptly, he bowed to the tavern-keeper, cloak swirling.

  "Friend Oreli, keep you well. I hope to visit your fine establishment once or twice during our stay. Immediately, however, the duty of friendship calls. I to Veverain, to offer what aid I might."

  "You must try, of course," Oreli said. "When she turns you away, remember that the Disguise serves a hearty supper. And that Mother Juneper will gladly house you and your apprentice."

  Lute inclined his head. "I will remember. But, first, let us be certain that Veverain will refuse us." He turned, cloak billowing, and strode off down the street down the street at such a pace that Moonhawk had to run a few steps to catch him.

 
* * *

  VEVERAIN'S HOUSE WAS at the bottom of the village; a long, sprawling place, enclosed by a neat fence, shaded in summer by two well-grown dyantrees. The trees, like their kin at the bend in the track, showed a pale green fuzzing along their limbs; at the roots of each was a scattering of bark and dead branches—winter's toll. When the dyantrees came to leaf, then it would be spring, indeed.

  Lute pushed open the whitewashed gate and went up the graveled pathway, Moonhawk on his heels. The yard they passed through seemed neglected, ragged; as if those who had care of it had not come forth with rakes and barrows to clear away the wrack of winter and make the land ready for spring.

  There were some indications that neglect was not the yard's usual state; Moonhawk spied mounds which surely must be flower-beds under drifts of dead leaves, more leaves half-concealing a bird-pool, rocks set here and there with what might prove to be art, once the debris was cleared away.

  Gravel crunching under his boots, Lute strode on, to Moonhawk's eye unobservant. He was also silent, which rare state spoke to her more eloquently of his worry than any grandiose phrase.

  The path curved 'round the side of the house, and here were the neat rows of the kitchen garden put in by the niece, a blanket over the more tender seedlings, to shield them from the cold of the coming night.

  A few steps more, and the path ended at a single granite step up to a roofed wooden porch. A black-and-white cat sat tidily on the porch, companioning a basket covered with a blue checked cloth. Lute paused on the step, bent and offered his finger to the cat in greeting.

  "Tween, old friend. I hope I find you well?"

  The cat graciously touched his nose to the offered fingertip, then rose, stretched with languid thoroughness, and yawned.

  "Tween?" Moonhawk asked quietly. Often, over the months of their travel together, she had deplored the magician's overfondness for words; yet, confronted now with a Lute who walked silent, she perversely wished to have her light-tongued comrade of the road returned.

  Lute glanced at her, black eyes hooded. "It was Rowan's joke, see you. The cat is neither all black, which would easily allow of it being named Newmoon; nor all white, which leads one rather inescapably to Snowfall. Indeed, as Rowan would have it, the cat lands precisely between two appropriate and time-honored cat names—an act of deliberate willfulness, so Rowan swore—and thus became Tween." He looked down at the cat, who was stropping against the care basket.

  "Rowan loved a joke—the more complex the jest, the louder he laughed."

  He shook himself, then, and mounted the porch, stooping to pick up the basket. The cat followed him to the door, tail high. Lute put his hand on the latch, pushed . . .

  "Locked."

  "Surely you expected that," Moonhawk murmured and Lute sighed.

  "A man may hear ill news and yet still hope that it is untrue. Optimistic creatures, men. I did not hope to find Rowan alive, but . . ." He let the rest drift off, raised his hand and brought sharp knuckles against the wood, then drifted back a step, head tipped inquisitively to one side. The cat settled beside him and began to groom.

  At respectful intervals, Lute leaned forward to knock twice, then three times. The door remained closed.

  "Well, then." He set the care basket down, slipped his bag from its carry-strap and shook it. Three spindly legs appeared, holding the bag at a convenient height. Moonhawk watched closely while he opened the clasp and put his hand inside: Lute's magic bag held such a diverse and numerous collection of objects that she had lately formed the theory that it was not one bag, but three, attached in some rotating, hand-magical manner undetectable to her Witch senses.

  "What are you going to do?" she asked. 'Break the lock?"

  He looked at her. "Break the lock on the house of one of my oldest friends? Am I a barbarian, Lady Moonhawk? If things were otherwise, it might have been necessary to resort to lockpicks, but I assure you that my skill is such that the lock would have suffered no ill."

  She blinked. "Lockpicks? Another hand-magic?"

  "A very powerful magic," Lute said solemnly, and withdrew his hand from the bag, briefly displaying a confusing array of oddly contorted wires. "By means of these objects, a magician may learn the shape and secret of a strange lock and impel it to open."

  "It sounds like thieve's magic to me, Master Lute."

  "Pah! As if a thief could be so skilled! But no matter. We need not resort to lockpicks for this." He replaced the muddle of wires in his bag.

  "No?" said Moonhawk, eyebrows rising. "How then will you open the door? Sing?"

  "Sing? Perhaps they sing locks at Temple. I have a superior method." He snapped his bag shut and hung it back on the strap.

  "Which is?"

  "A key." He displayed it; a rough iron thing half the length of his hand.

  "A key," she repeated. "And how came you by that?"

  "Veverain gave it me. And Rowan gave me leave to use it, if by chance I should arrive during daylight and find the door locked." He gestured, showing her the lowering sun. "It is, I see, still daylight. I find the door—alas!—is locked. Bring the basket."

  He stepped up to the door, key at ready. Moonhawk bent and picked up the care basket, settling it over her arm. A sharp snap sounded, Lute pushed the door open and stepped into the house beyond, the cat walking at his knee.

  With a deep sense of foreboding, Moonhawk followed.

  * * *

  "VEVERAIN?" LUTE'S VOICE lacked its usual ringing vitality, as if the room's dimness was heavy enough to muffle sound. "Veverain, it's Lute!"

  Moonhawk stood by the door, letting her eyes adjust; slowly, she picked out a table, benches, the hulking mass of a cold cookstove.

  "Let us shed some light on the situation," Lute said. A blot of darkness in the kitchen's twilight, he moved surely across the room. There was a clatter as he slid back the lock bars and threw the shutters wide, admitting the day's last glimmer of sun.

  Details sprang into being. Dusty pots hung neatly above the cold stove; spice bundles dangled from the low eaves; pottery was stacked, orderly and cobwebbed, on whitewashed shelves. The table was dyanwood, scrubbed white; the work surfaces were tiled, the glaze dull with dust.

  "Well." Face grim, Lute shed cloak and bag, and dropped them on the table. Crossing the room, he pulled a lamp from its shelf and carried it and a pottery jug to a work table.

  Moonhawk walked slowly forward. Despite the light from the windows, the room seemed—foggy. It was also cold—bone-chilling, heart-stopping cold. She wondered that Lute had put aside his cloak.

  She set the care basket on the table and pulled her own cloak tighter about her. Lute had filled the lamp and was trimming the wick with his silver knife. Moonhawk shivered, and recalled the neat stack of wood on the porch, hard by the door.

  "I'll start the stove," she said to Lute's back. He looked 'round abstractedly.

  "Yes. Thank you."

  "No," said another voice, from the back of the room. "I will thank you both to leave."

  Moonhawk spun. Lute calmly finished with the wick and lit it with a snap of his fingers, before he, too, turned to face his hostess.

  "Veverain, have I changed so much in one year's travel? It's Lute."

  "Perhaps you have not changed," the woman in the faded houserobe said, with a lack of emotion that raised the fine hairs along the back of Moonhawk's neck, "but all else has. Rowan is dead."

  "Yes. I met Oreli in the High Street." Lute went forward, hands outstretched. "I loved him, too, Veverain."

  She stared at him, stonily, and neither moved to meet him, nor lifted her hands to receive his. Lute stopped, hands slowly dropping to his sides.

  "Leave me," the woman said again, and it seemed to Moonhawk that her voice carried an edge this time, as if her stoniness covered an emotion too wild to be confined for long.

  Perhaps Lute heard it, too, or perhaps his skill brought him more subtle information. In any wise, he did not leave, but stood, hands spread wide, and voice aggri
eved.

  "Leave? Without even a cup of tea to warm me? You yourself said that I should never want for at least that of you. The thought of taking a cup of tea at your table has been all that has made the last day's walking bearable!"

  "Have you not understood?" And the untamed grief was plain to the ear, now. "I say to you that Rowan is dead!"

  "Rowan is dead," Lute repeated gently. "He is beyond the comforts of tea and the love of friends. We, however—" He gestured 'round the room, a simple encircling, devoid of stage flourish, and Moonhawk was absurdly relieved to find herself included—"are not."

  There was a long moment of silence.

  "Tea," Veverain said, and her voice was stone once more. "Very well."

  "I'll start the stove," Moonhawk said for the second time, and went out to fetch an armload of wood.

  When she came back to the kitchen, some minutes later, Veverain was in Lute's arms, sobbing desperately against his chest.

  * * *

  MOONHAWK IT WAS who made tea in Veverain's kitchen that evening, and served it, silently, to the two who faced each other across the table. She carried her own mug to a wall-bench and sat, quietly watching and listening.

  "I cannot," the woman was saying to Lute, "I must not forget. I—Rowan—we swore that neither would ever forget the other, no matter what else the future might destroy."

  "Yes," Lute murmured, "but surely Rowan would not have wanted this—that you lock yourself away from kin, take from your neighbors' kitchens and give nothing—not even thanks!—in return. Rowan was never so mean."

  "He was not," Veverain agreed, her fingers twisting 'round themselves. "Rowan was generous."

  "As you are. Come, Veverain, you must stop this. Open your house again to your well-wishers. Tend the garden your niece has started for you, clear the flowerbeds and rake the gravel. Soon enough, the vines will need you, too. It will not be the same as if Rowan worked at your side, but—I promise!—these familiar things will soothe you. In time, you will—"