Innkeeper's Song

by Peter S. Beagle

  If he heard, it was no comfort to him. He vanished with the words, but the smell of his anguish burned in my throat long past dawn, as that glowing green trail lingered on the hills even after Lukassa and I were on our way once again. I pointed it out to her, but she could not see it. I thought then that my friend had just enough strength left to call to me, no one else.

  That day, I remember, I told Lukassa a little of myself and more of where we were bound, and why. For all her persistence, she asked no real questions yet but only, in different ways, “Am I alive, am I alive?” Beyond that, she seemed perfectly content to ride behind me, day after day, across a land so bitter and desolate that she might well have wished herself drowned again, safe in the sweet, rushing waters of her own country. I told her that a friend of mine was in great danger and need, and that I was journeying to aid him. That was when she smiled for the first time, and I saw what that village boy was following. She said, “It’s your lover.”

  “Of course not,” I said. I was actually shocked at the idea. “He is my teacher, he helped me when there was no help for me in all the world. I would be more truly dead than you ever were, but for him.”

  “The old man who sang to his vegetables,” she said, and I nodded. Lukassa was quiet for a while; then she asked, “Why am I with you? Do I belong to you now, the way that song belongs to me?”

  “The dead belong to no one. I could not leave you, neither could I stay to tend you. What else could I do?” I spoke flatly and harshly, because she was making me uneasy. “As for lovers, yours has been hot after us from the night I took you away. Perhaps you would like to stop and wait for him. He certainly must care dearly for you, and I am not used to company.” Whatever power was besieging my friend so terribly, she could be no help against it. I had no business bringing her any further, for all of our sakes. “Go home with him,” I said. “Life is back that way, not where we are going.”

  But she cried that one road was as foreign to her as the other, that in a world of strangers she knew only death and me. So we went on together, and her boy after us, losing and losing ground, but still coming on. As frantic for speed as I was, we began to walk by turns, to spare my horse; and there came days in that ugly land when we both walked. As for food, I can live on very little when I have to—not forever, but for a while—which was fortunate, because Lukassa ate, not merely like the healthy child she was, but as though only by eating almost to sickness could she remind herself that she was truly alive in her own body. I have been just so myself, over food and more.

  Water. I have never known country where I could not find water—where I was born, a two-year-old can smell it as easily as dinner. It is not nearly as hard as most people think, but most people only think about finding water when they are already in a panic of thirst and not thinking well about anything. But those Barrens came as close as ever I saw to being completely dry, and if it had not been that the green trail, glimmering more faintly every night, sometimes crossed the course of an underground trickle, Lukassa and I might have been in serious trouble. As it was, most times we had enough to keep the horse going and our mouths and throats from closing against the burning air. How that boy following managed, I have no idea.

  When we began climbing, the country improved, though not by much. There was more water, there were birds and rabbits to snare, and a small, small wind began to pity us just a bit. But from our first night, I could no longer make out the green trail, and I wept with rage when Lukassa was asleep, because I knew that it was still there, still trying to lead me to where my friend waited, but grown too weak now for even my eyes. The road, such as it was, forked and frayed and split constantly, going off in every possible direction: up box canyons, treacherous with tumbled stones; down and away into thinly wooded gullies; around and around through endless foothills, half of them sheared away by old landslides, and any or all of them the right path to take, for all I knew. I trusted to my luck, and to the fact that a wizard’s desires have body in the world: what one of those people wants to tell you exists, like a stone or an apple, whether or not the wizard has the strength to make you see it plainly. I could only hope that the reality of my friend’s road would call me by day, as the reality of his pain did by night.

  Nyateneri came out of the twilight of our fourth day in the hills. She made no attempt at stealth—I heard the hoofbeats before we had our cooking fire built, and Lukassa was burying the remains by the time she came in sight—but for all that, she surprised me: not there one minute, there the next, like a star. I cannot afford to be surprised, and I was angry with myself until I felt the prickle of magic on my skin, and saw the air tremble between us as I stared at her, very slightly. Live long enough with a magician, and you cannot help acquiring that sense, exactly as you’d feel just where a stranger’s shoe pinched if you lived with a cobbler. It wasn’t her own magic—she was no wizard, whatever else she was— but there was surely some sort of spell on her, though what it might be I could not say. I am no wizard either.

  She was brown-skinned, the shade of strong tea, and her narrow eyes, turned slightly down at the corners, were the color of the twilight itself. Taller than I, long-boned, left-handed; a lot of leverage in those shoulders, probably a powerful shot with that bow she carries, but not necessarily accurate—when you have lived as I have, those are the things you notice first. For the rest, she wore riders’ clothes distinguished only by a drabness that seemed deliberate: boots, trews, over-tunic, a Cape Dylee sidrin cloak—common west-country stuff, nothing quite matching. The hood of the sidrin covered her hair, and she seemed in no hurry to push it back. She rode a roan as gangling and strong-looking as herself, and behind her there followed a shaggy little black horse, not much bigger than a pony, and with the faraway yellow eyes of a carnivore. I have never seen a horse like that one.

  She did not speak at first, but only sat her horse and regarded us. There was no friendliness in her bearing, nor menace exactly: nothing but that least spell-shimmer and a sense of dangerous exhaustion. Lukassa came quickly to stand beside me. I said, “What you see is yours,” which is a greeting from home. I cannot break myself entirely of using it, perhaps because it says something important about the people to whom I was born. Generous they are with the physical—known for it—but they keep a close watch on the invisible. One day I will just stop saying it.

  “Siri te mistanye,” she answered me, and the back of my neck sparked coldly. That I did not take her meaning is not the point; there is a civilized understanding that a greeting is to be answered in the tongue of the greeter. Her tone was courteous enough, and she bent her head properly when she spoke, but what she had done she had surely done deliberately, and I would have been within my rights to challenge her or bid her ride on. But I was too curious for that, whatever my neck thought, so I compromised, asking merely for her name and adding that we could speak in Banli if common speech was too difficult. Banli is trade-talk, a pidgin for peddlers in markets far from home. She smiled at me then, taking the insult as it was meant.

  “I am Nyateneri,” she said. “Daughter of Lomadis, daughter of Tyrrin.” Then I thought that she must be from the South Islands, clothes or no, because only there do the women take their descent through the mother’s line. Her voice suited this, being lighter than mine and slower, moving from side to side where mine goes up and down. She said, “And you are Sailor Lal, Lal-after-dark. This other I do not know.”

  “Nor do you know me,” I said. There are two names I use when I journey, and I gave her one of them. “Why do you take me for this Lal?”

  “What other woman would be traveling in this heartless country? Let alone a black woman with a swordcane at her saddle? And why here, in the blind hills, with no road to guide her—unless she were following a green night trail to the aid of a great wizard in greater trouble?” She laughed outright as I gaped, waving me to hush. “And it is better known than you may think that Lal-khamsin-khamsolal”—she almost had it correctly—“was once the adopted comp
anion and student of the magician—”

  “The magician whose name is not spoken,” I said, and that time she was silent. I said, “Some call him the Teacher; some, the Hidden One; some, just the Old Man. I call him—what I call him.” I stopped myself, angry because I had almost told her my own name for him, though what harm it would have done, I could not be sure. One corner of her mouth twitched slightly.

  “And I have always called him the Man Who Laughs. One who knows him as you do may understand.” The back of my neck prickled once more, and I could not speak for a moment. He laughs quietly, that magician, and not often, but I never found a way to keep from laughing with him. It is a child’s laughter, loud and unseemly, and utterly innocent of its own power; it is the true heart of what he is. It was that laughter that held me and kept me safer than swords and dragons could have done when they found out where I was and came for me. Anyone who knew that knew him. Nyateneri swung a leg over the saddle and waited, raising her eyebrows.

  “Get down,” I said. “You are welcome.” Her hood fell back as she alighted, and Lukassa gave a small gasp to see her thick, graying brown hair chopped into random patterns of tufts and whorls and spearpoint strips: it looked like mud churned up by armies. I said nothing before Lukassa—that could wait—but I know a convent cut when I see it. I even know a particular handful by sight, but not this one. Not this one.

  We were helping her rub down and feed both horses, when the fox followed his nose out of the saddlebag. Nyateneri had a thin silver cord around his neck on the instant and introduced him to us as her familiar friend, her traveling partner of many years. Lukassa made much of him, begging to carry him everywhere, feeding him scraps and singing sad little lullabies to him as he lolled grinning in her arms. For myself, I studied that grim haircut and wondered what convent allowed its sisters to keep pet foxes in their cells. Nyateneri watched me wondering, while Lukassa asked and asked for him to sleep by her this one night. That granted, she carried him off in triumph to her blanket: he blinked back at us over her shoulder, and Nyateneri called to him in her own language, something sharp and warning. He yawned, letting us see his white teeth and wound-red tongue, and closed his eyes.

  “He will not harm her,” Nyateneri said. She stood looking at me out of her strange eyes, mist-gray a moment before, shading into near-lavender as the twilight faded. She said, “And now?”

  “How do you know him? And from where?” This time she smiled truly, her teeth just a little like the fox’s teeth. “From as far away and long ago as you do. The only difference is that I know where he is.”

  She leaned against a boulder, waiting for me to propose gratefully that we join forces. I said, “There is at least one other difference between us. I am not in flight from some fanatic convent, with a bounty waiting for whoever returns me to my vows. You could be a highly inconvenient companion, as well as an irritating one.” It was a wild shot, but for just an instant her superior air trailed away, leaving behind the look of a woman on a rack one turn away from madness. I know that look. I saw it in a puddle of muddy water, the first time.

  Her face recovered before her voice did. “There is no bounty on me, I promise you that. No one wants me back, anywhere in the world.” That long body, made for wars and winters, had not so much as twitched against the stone. She said, “The girl can ride my packhorse—we’ll all make better speed that way. And I will tell you the road, this very night, so that you will have no further need of me. After that, the choice is yours.”

  We looked at each other for some time, standing so quietly that I heard her breathing, as she did mine, and both of us heard Lukassa still singing sleepily to the fox. At last I said, “I have never called him anything but my friend.”

  THE FOX

  Yesyesyesyes, and if I want I can steal all their horses, all, all at once, out from under their stupid, ragged, hairy backsides. That boy has no notion, no one has any notion of what I can do if I want. When I want. No idea who I am, what pleases me, why, when. Mildasis, that boy, black woman, white woman, fat innkeeper, no difference. Only Nyateneri.

  Hoho, and what I know about Nyateneri, no one but me. Nyateneri knows what makes me laugh to myself, I know what makes Nyateneri afraid. Why Nyateneri sleeps on the floor, not in bed, and not for long, not ever for long. I sleep in the bed, sweet as mice, but if I twitch one ear where Lukassa’s arm crushes it, if I flick my tail across Lal’s breast, yes, then see Nyateneri up that moment, quicker than me, back to the wall and dagger out, shining in the moon, waiting. Sometimes I do that for fun all night, scratch myself, stretch, make little, little sniffs, and each time there is Nyateneri up and ready, ready. Ready for what?

  Ready for those two men, following for so long? Not the boy, who cares about that boy? Two men, small, light, running softly, mile after mile forever. No spears, no big swords, only teeth, like me. Nyateneri knows they follow, but never sees. But I see, smell, know what they eat, when they rest, what they think, what they will do. I know everything I want to know.

  It makes me laugh, so much hunting and chasing all scattering after us, all that way. That boy catches his girl, what then? I know him, she not a bit. Those running men catch Nyateneri—ho, what then? Best killers, all three, two dead anyway. Nicer if Nyateneri kills, otherwise no more riding in saddlebag, no more fire in cold night. Better with Nyateneri.

  Here at the inn, too many people crashing and tramping, nobody likes foxes. Sweet pigeons upstairs, on the roof, and chickens, little nice chickens tumbling everywhere under all the feet. Nyateneri says to me, “You eat my food, stay with us, never go near fat innkeeper’s birds, never let anyone see the tip of a whisker.” So I hide, sleep, wait, let Lukassa feed me yams and melons. And sometimes I sit so still, very, very still, and run far away inside, wind and blood and silence, day this way, night that way, listen for who follows, smell what comes. Roll in the dust, in the wild lands, laughing, sitting so still.

  “There will be a trail,” man-shape tells that boy, and so there is a trail, but I leave it, not man-shape. Hoho, see me slipping away from Nyateneri as we travel to squat on the hot stones, see me cock a leg, scratch, leap, squat again, leaving my mark for him through the rocks and the hills, straight to fat innkeeper’s front door. So I keep man-shape’s word, and that boy, sniffing after me he is still, and a long journey yet, looking down all the time. But he comes here soon, he keeps his word too. Yes.

  Two times now, I take the man-shape when Nyateneri does not see. Nice old man, such whiskers, sits in big room downstairs, talks to everybody, such a nice old man, visiting his grandson in the town. Marinesha brings the good ale after fat innkeeper goes away. Innkeeper does not like man-shape. Marinesha likes. Boy Rosseth, porter Gatti, they like red cheeks, bright old eyes. Sit and bring man-shape ale, ask questions, tell things. Tell about players sleeping in the stables, horsetrader come to buy and sell, shipbuilder on his way to Cape Dylee. Both times Rosseth talks, talks about three women in fat innkeeper’s own room. So pretty, all three, such wonder, why here, what for? Both times Marinesha walks away.

  Boy Rosseth never notices. Says, “Lal is nicest. Moves like water, smells like sea and spice together.” Laugh. Drink. Say nothing.

  Porter Gatti—little man, one white eye in angry little face—he says, “Nyateneri. Nyateneri. All woman, that one, no swagger, no swordcane, nothing but grace, modesty. She invades my dreams.”

  Not laugh, but ale runs down. Man-shape says, “Stay awake, stay awake, lucky Milk-Eye. Women from that country, they love short, strong men like you. Stay awake, one night she carry you off into woods, same way you carry strangers’ chests upstairs.” Gatti stare then, stare all the time at Nyateneri now. Waiting.

  Makes Nyateneri nervous. Asks fat innkeeper where comes Gatti Milk-Eye, how long here? Innkeeper answers, whose business? Nyateneri stares at him. Innkeeper says, eighteen years, walks away. Nyateneri goes outside, kicks over a rain barrel.

  Twelve days now, gone every day, Lal and Nyateneri, not a thought for
poor fox, never a thought for Lukassa alone. She sits, waits, walks outside, talks to players, talks to Marinesha, talks to me. Cries once. Twelfth night, those two come back so late Rosseth already asleep, they stable horses themselves. In the room, I drowse on pillow like kitten, very decorative. Lukassa lies by me, not sleeping.

  They come in, walk tired, smell angry. Lal says, “You said you knew.”

  Nyateneri says, “He is here.”

  Lal sits hard on the bed, pulls off her boots. “He is not in the town. We know this. So what is here?”

  Nyateneri only says, “Tomorrow. Every farm. Every hut. Every cave, every byre, every blanket stretched across a ditch. He is here.”

  Lal says, “If he could speak to us. If he could come to us in one more dream, one more.” Throws boots into corner.

  “Too weak,” says Nyateneri. “When there is too much pain, too much struggle, what strength is left for dreams, messages?” Open one eye through Lukassa’s fingers, see Nyateneri trimming feathers on arrow. Stops. I close eye. Nyateneri’s voice, all different. “Magicians die.”

  Bed bounces. Lal is up, turning back and forth, to door, to window where tree branches go crick-sish. “Not this one. Not this way. Magicians die sometimes because they grow greedy, because they become frightened, but this one wants nothing, fears nothing, laughs at everything. No power has any hold on him.”

  Nyateneri, sharp now. “You don’t know that. You know nothing about him, and no more do I. Tell me how old he is, tell me where he came from, tell me about his family, his own teacher, his real home.” Arrow breaks, goes after Lal’s boots. Nyateneri says, “Tell me whom he loves.”

  Lal draws breath, lets out again. Lukassa sits up, watches, smooths my fur. Nyateneri. “No. Not us. He was kind, he protected us—saved us, yes—he taught us much, and we love him, we two. We are here, as we should be, because we love him. But he does not love us.” Smiles then, teeth white, lips tight. “That you know.”