Never Trust a Dead Man

by Vivian Vande Velde

Page 6

 

  He set the body - with its arms now folded properly across its chest - back into the wall niche, which he thought meant they would be ready to leave the cave.

  Apparently not.

  "What?" Farold demanded. "No prayer?"

  Elswyth sighed - loudly - but waited.

  Selwyn gave Farold what his uncle Derian had spoken at the cave mouth: "He was a good boy, with a lot of years ahead of him. "

  "Thats it?"

  Selwyn was ready to cope with annoyance. But Farold sounded so dejected, Selwyn didnt have the heart to point out that hed done a fairly good imitation of Derian. Nor did he think it appropriate to say: "Here lies Farold. He wasnt as bad as a skunk dying under the porch. " Instead, he said only, "Its distracting, with you standing there listening. "

  "Ill be happy to help," Elswyth offered, "when we set you down for good. "

  Farold didnt take amiss what sounded, Selwyn thought, much like a threat.

  Still, even then, leaving wasnt easy. Farold, in the bats body, had as much trouble flying as he had had trying to stand upright.

  "Let the bats mind take over," Elswyth recommended. "It knows how to fly. "

  "It doesnt have a mind to speak of," Farold said. "It only wants to go outside to eat bugs with the rest of the swarm. "

  "Swarm?" Elswyth repeated contemptuously.

  "Flock, herd, whatever a gaggle of bats is called. "

  "Colony," Elswyth said. "A group of bats is called a colony. I was about to say youre thinking too much, but never mind. "

  "Eat bugs and leave droppings," Farold scoffed. "Big thinkers. "

  "Hang upside down by their toes," Elswyth added, making a lunge for him.

  Apparently the malice in her tone and the sudden movement frightened Farold enough that the bats mind was able to take over. He fluttered up to Selwyns shoulder, leaving - as he had said - bat droppings along the way.

  Selwyn didnt protest. He was in no humor for anything that would delay just getting out of the cave. "You can practice once we get outside," he told Farold. And, to Elswyth, "Its all right, Ill carry him. "

  "Youll carry the pack, too," she reminded.

  Selwyn reached down to pick up the pack, which was heavier than he had anticipated, and bulky. He needed a moment to swing it across his back and adjust the ropes across his shoulders - which made Farold grumble at the inconvenience of having to move to his other shoulder - and by then Elswyth had started without him.

  "Dont lose her," Farold complained. Everything Farold said came out sounding like a complaint.

  "Oh," Selwyn said, as though the thought had never occurred to him. "All right then. "

  Farold missed the sarcasm and just muttered, "Dumb twit. "

  Elswyth led them deeper into the cave, the light above her head bobbing with her quick sure steps. The awful smell lessened, for the bodies this far in had rested here a very long time and were mostly dust The way narrowed and became even more twisty.

  And then Elswyth ducked her head and stepped sideways through a crack, and her magic light winked out.

  "Now youve done it," Farold told him.

  Theres nothing worse than a traitor, except a traitor with a bats night vision: Farold lifted off his shoulder and abandoned Selwyn to the dark.

  Selwyn hurled himself at the crack. He could feel it with his fingers, but even when he turned sideways as Elswyth had done, he couldnt fit through.

  The pack, he realized; it was the pack that was bumping against the wall, blocking him. He swung it off his back and held it in his right hand, edging his left shoulder into the crack. He scuttled sideways, feeling rock at his back and his front. There was no time to delay for panic at the prospect of getting wedged between immovable rock: He was sure Elswyth would never have the patience to come back for him. Two shuffling steps. Three. And then the walls of rock were gone, both the one his back was scraping against, and the one before his face.

  He was still in darkness, but he could make out shadows, and darker shadows, which meant more light than there had been before. Best of all, the air was crisp and clean, smelling of fallen leaves and apples. He tipped his face upward and saw pinpricks of light.

  He was outside, looking at the night sky.

  Elswyth smacked him on the back of the head. "Are you going to stand there all night gawking at the stars?"

  She couldnt ruin his mood. He was outside. He wasnt going to die after all. Or at least not within the next day or so. Or at least not that he knew of. And, anyway, it wouldnt be all alone in the dark, surrounded by those who had gone before him.

  He was outside.

  And even the fact that there was no sign of Farold couldnt diminish that. He trusted that Farold would have the sense not to wander far.

  "This is very inconvenient, you know," Elswyth told him, taking the pack, as though she hadnt carried it all the way here without him, as though she hadnt been in the habit of carrying it herself before she met him. With her finger she traced a circle on his forehead. "Seven days before the circle closes," she said, using the voice that he already recognized as her voice of power. She walked around him, her finger still touching so that she made another circle, this one going around his head, from his forehead, over his right ear, around the back, over his left ear, back to his forehead. "Seven days, then you will be drawn to me. " She moved the finger down, over nose, lips, chin, and neck, then off to the left, where she made a circle over his heart. "Seven days, and you will have to come to me. " She laid her palm over his heart.

  Selwyn felt the beat alter, the rhythm shifting - he suddenly knew without knowing how he knew - to match hers.

  She withdrew her hand, adjusted the backpack, and started walking.

  "Wait," Selwyn called after her. Hed never been here before, on the far slope of the hill that held the burial cave; hed never heard of this second entrance. But he could get his bearings by the tall hill that was called the Grandfather because it somewhat resembled the profile of an old man with a beard. "Penryth is that way. "

  "Go that way," Elswyth called, without even looking back. "Come to me in seven days. "

  So she wasnt going to stay to get him out of any trouble he might get himself into: He could have guessed that. "But I dont know where you live. " Selwyn took several steps to keep her within hearing. "Beyond the wood, did you say?" Not that that helped: The whole area was heavily wooded. The only witch he had ever heard of nearby was in the village of Woldham, but that one was tiny and stooped and gnomelike, by all accounts, and had only one good eye. Elswyth, though white haired and wrinkled, stood tall and straight, and he hadnt noticed that either of her eyes was cloudy.

  "In the wood," Elswyth corrected. She turned then to look at him. "You will find me. " She gestured toward him, then toward herself, resting her hand against her own heart. Selwyns heart did an odd, almost-painful flutter. "In seven days, you will be drawn to me irresistibly. You will be unable to keep from finding me. "

  She let her hand drop, and Selwyns heart stopped its frantic racing, his head cleared of the buzzing that had suddenly filled it, the muscles in his arms and legs stopped throbbing, and he could catch his breath.

  Elswyth turned once more, and Selwyn would have let her go, but something smacked into the back of his head.

  "I just cant manage those landings," Farold said. "And gnats and midges taste terrible. Have you ever tasted gnats or midges? Why couldnt you have made me a fruit-eating bat? Whats the plan? Are you going to let her go before you have a plan? That doesnt sound very smart to me. What if you need her magic again, and youve gone and let her go?"

  Finally, someone had said something that got Elswyths attention. "Do you need another spell?" she asked, coming back.

  Selwyn could guess where that conversation was heading. "No," he assured her.

  "Yes," Farold said, settling once more on Selwyns shoulder.

  Selwyn snapped at him, "You want to deal with her, you make your o
wn arrangements. "

  "I dont need her magic," Farold said. "You do. " Before Selwyn could object, Farold continued, "I can walk - so to speak - right into Penryth, and not a person is going to recognize me. Is that your plan? To have me listen outside peoples windows and hope to overhear someone saying to himself, Ho hum, last Tuesday 1 murdered Farold and nobody knows it What will I do for fun next Tuesday? Maybe Ill murder Bowden, and then I can tell Bowden that whoever-it-is is going to murder him and we can lie in wait and catch him trying, and then hell admit to killing me, and so everyone will know you werent the one, and you can come back? Is that your plan? Because as soon as anybody sees you, how do you think theyre going to react? I think theyre not going to listen to a thing you have to say, and theyll decide they cant risk putting you back in a cave you obviously are capable of getting out of, so theyre just going to go ahead and stone you or burn you or chop off your head - which they may or may not get right the first time, since they dont have any experience at it. "

  Elswyth said, "The bat makes sense. "

  "Well, that wasnt my plan," Selwyn said.

  "What is?" both Elswyth and Farold asked together.

  Selwyn tried to think.

  "He needs a disguise," Farold said.

  "That doesnt have to be magic," Selwyn said.

  "Where are you going to get a disguise without magic?" Farold asked. "And how are you going to be sure people dont see through it unless she magically changes you?"

  "Fine," Elswyth said. "For another year. "

  "I didnt say yes," Selwyn protested quickly.

  "I suppose you could go back in there" - Farold waved a bat wing back toward the burial cave - "and get different clothes by stripping one of the bodies. And maybe somebody was buried wearing a hat, and you could pull it down over your face and hope nobody wonders why. "

  "Six years, seven years," Elswyth said. "Not that much difference. But I dont have all night for you to make up your mind. "

  Selwyn hated being rushed.

  "Maybe you could shave your head," Farold suggested. "Do you think anybody would recognize you if you shaved your head? Not that I have a blade, of course, excepting the one in my back if no one removed it. But someone probably did, or my body wouldnt have lain flat. I could pull your hair out, one strand at a time. "

  "I do have other things to do," Elswyth said. It seemed as though they were determined not to give him a moment of silence to think. "Im gathering supplies for a very important spell. If you delay me too much longer, I may get grumpy and raise the payment to two years. "

  He was being pressured into a too-hasty decision, Selwyn knew it.

  "I have an idea," Farold said eagerly to Elswyth. "You could make the two of us look like wealthy merchants from the East. Give us silks and jewels and gold. "

  "I am not," Selwyn said, "giving up a year of my life so that you can try to impress people with fancy clothes. "

  "Fine," Farold said, "have her disguise you as a wealthy merchant, if you think no one will wonder why a wealthy merchant is carrying a bat along with him. "

  Elswyth settled the problem. "I couldnt disguise you as a person anyway," she told Farold. "Youre a bat. Youre this big. " She gestured with her two hands not very far apart. "Theres not enough of you to stretch out" - she spread her arms - "to human size. "

  "Hmpf," Farold said.

  Elswyth looked at Selwyn. "I could make rich-looking clothes for you, but I cant actually make you rich. "

  And what would a richly dressed merchant be doing, all alone, without any merchandise, in a small village like Penryth? Selwyn said, "Why dont you just give me different clothes, different color hair. . . " He gestured helplessly.

  "Different eyes," Elswyth finished, "bigger nose, smaller mouth. . . "

  Selwyn nodded.

  "For a years service?"

  She was determined, he realized, not to give him the excuse that he hadnt actually accepted her bargain. "For a years service," he agreed.

  "People will get suspicious if you have a bat with you," Farold warned.

  He just wanted a disguise, Selwyn thought. "Let them get suspicious," he said. If he was lucky, maybe somebody would catch Farold and wring his neck.

  Chapter Eight

  Selwyn asked for pilgrims clothes, which made Farold - whod been incessantly whispering into his ear, "Rich merchants clothes" - cry out in disgust and flutter away. But Selwyn felt his choice was sensible. In all of his life, he had rarely seen strangers. Penryth was too small to attract newcomers; and it wasnt on a trade route, so even people passing through on their way to someplace else were infrequent Most of the strangers he had seen had meant trouble: renegade soldiers, bandits who occasionally turned up in the most heavily wooded section of the road to Saint Hildas, the two feuding wizards - banished from the kings court for incompetence - who had been competent enough to nearly level Oriks tavern. But Selwyn remembered that when he was a child a small group of pilgrims had traveled through on their way to the shrine of Saint Agnes of the Lake. Theyd worn rough-spun robes and sandals, and those whod been on pilgrimages before had badges and emblems and necklaces of seashells to show where theyd been.

  Now at the last moment he thought to ask, "And could I be a clean pilgrim, please?"

  Elswyth said, "Pilgrims arent known for cleanliness. "

  "Theyre cleaner than this," Selwyn said, mightily aware that he stank. He had gotten used - he had thought - to the smell of death. But now that he was out of the cave and within hope of once more in his life being clean, the lingering smell of death on him was becoming intolerable. "A little road dust is fine. "

  "We need water for the spell, anyway," Elswyth told him.