The Ale Boy's Feast

by Jeffrey Overstreet

  “He’s not one of them Seers, is he?” Weese asked.

  The driver scowled. “Says he’s the prodigal mage.”

  Weese snorted. “The third Scharr ben Fray this season.” He released the mug and reached backward, closing his hand over the handle of a polished stick the size of his forearm. Smacking it against his open palm, he said, “It’s gonna get ugly.”

  “He’s expecting a hero’s welcome.”

  “He might have had one if they hadn’t already bought drinks for the other Scharr ben Fray at that table.” Weese nodded toward the elderly longbeard seated next to the newcomer.

  The driver licked a line of foam from the side of the mug. “Why are herdsmen so eager to believe the prodigal mage will return?”

  “Simple. They hate the other mages of the Aerial. Scharr ben Fray, he’s different. He’s the one mage who walked away in protest. He went off to serve kings and commoners alike. He made something of his life. He’s the last living remnant of the ancient government that the Jentan Defenders were proud to protect. Some hope he’ll return to restore the house to its past glories.”

  The driver looked over his shoulder. “Why do you let these impostors carry on?”

  “The prodigal’s myth is powerful. It draws crowds. And crowds buy drinks.”

  The driver smiled. “The prodigal’s myth?”

  Weese shrugged. “Think Scharr ben Fray’s still alive out there?”

  “I hear all kinds of stories,” said the driver. “Killed by beastmen. Killed by the Seers. Killed by Deathweed. Killed in a cave collapse by his own stonemastery. Who knows? The sightings go on. Scharr’s been seen helping House Abascar’s survivors. He’s been seen traveling with a young boy rumored to be the world’s last firewalker. He’s been seen in the shadow of the Forbidding Wall. Some say they’ve even seen him riding a dragon.”

  “A dragon? Haven’t been any big ones in the Expanse since before our fathers were born.” Weese took the driver’s empty mug. “Enough about rumors. Give me real news, and I’ll pour you another.”

  “How’s this?” The driver drew an invisible map through beer puddles on the bar.

  He spoke of House Bel Amica on the western coastline. Deathweed had invaded the harbor, forcing Queen Thesera to move her ships south of the Rushtide Inlet.

  Then he described turmoil in the Cent Regus Core as beastmen fought for control after the death of their chieftain. “The beastmen are desperate and dying,” he said. “They’re cut off from the source of their strength. But Deathweed is spreading like the roots of some accursed tree. And if we don’t find a way to fight back against it soon, we’ll all have to find new homes across the sea.”

  Weese gave the driver a new mug twice the size of the first and full to the brim. “What about House Abascar’s survivors? Rumors have them wandering Bel Amica’s streets.”

  The driver confirmed it. The remnant of Abascar, he said, now lived under House Bel Amica’s protection, while their king, Cal-raven, had gone missing during a venture to rescue slaves from beastmen. “Some say he’s been seen haunting the ruins of House Abascar. Like a man who’s lost his mind.”

  “I want news,” said Weese, “not rumors.”

  The driver grinned, beer fizzing on his upper lip. “You think that story’s strange? Try this one on. A sky-man’s been seen over Deep Lake, soaring on bright golden wings.”

  “A sky-man?” Weese raised his eyebrows. “That nursery story’s still around? It’s tired as talk of the Keeper.”

  Hunch, the custodian, moved among the tables with his broom, bent low as if he were watching for some lost gemstone in the dust. As he passed behind the driver, he leaned in and murmured, “Shall I water your horses, son?”

  The driver nodded, surprised. “They’ll be grateful, I’m sure.” Then he leaned across the bar. “Say, what’ll you charge me for a bowl of Ribera stew?”

  “Ribera stew?” Weese narrowed his eyes. “I haven’t heard that name in years. I bought this place from Ribera Dan just before he died. Long time ago.”

  A mug smashed at the corner table. Uproarious laughter exploded from the drinkers there. Weese, teeth clenched, reached for the polished stick.

  The bearded geezer stood and pointed an accusatory finger at the red-cloaked stranger. “Me? A liar? I’m the real Scharr ben Fray. Everybody here knows it!”

  A small man with a Bel Amican glass over one eye squeaked in the longbeard’s defense. “I’d walk out of here now if I was you. This is the prodigal mage. I’m travelin’ with him to chronicle his past for posterity!”

  The stranger calmly pulled up his mask from under his chin so he could take a swig of beer. Then he said, “We’ll see if his stories can match mine.”

  “Shtories?” roared a drunkard. “Forget about shtories. We wanna shee tricks ’n’ powers! Scharr ben Fray, he talksh to animalsh!”

  The herdsmen agreed. It was time to expose the liar with a test. In a flourish that seemed rather magical itself, they produced two birdcages and planted them on the table before the rivals.

  Both men stared at the nervous birds. Both offered interpretations of what the chirps meant. The intoxicated audience quickly concluded that they had no way of verifying these translations. The cages were removed and set aside on the windowsill just inside the door.

  “Stonemastery,” rasped the red rider, turning to shake his opponent’s hand. “Which one of us can mold stone as if it were clay?”

  The longbeard did not accept the handshake. “I’m not a performing monkey,” he barked. “I’m leaving.” Then he began to groan, his face reddening, his hands splayed on the table, pressing as he tried to stand.

  The herdsmen gasped.

  The longbeard’s rump remained stuck to the bench.

  “He’s glued!” someone shouted. “His backside’s been affixed by stonemastery!”

  The newcomer stood and bowed.

  Weese began to tap the club against the bar to remind his customers that he was watching.

  “Well, then.” The driver drained his glass. “My passenger said he’d prove it. Now he’ll want to move on.” He slid unsteadily from his barstool and staggered toward the door. “I’ll prepare the horses.” He chirped a friendly farewell to the twittering birds on the sill, and they fell silent, watching him go.

  Meanwhile, the red-robed stranger made slow progress, his hands raised as if to deflect the praises of herdsmen who followed him to the door.

  As Weese calmly dragged a towel down the length of the bar, he looked at the birds in their cages. They were staring out the window, watching the driver.

  As the new hero and his admirers left the bar, Weese hurried to the table where the longbeard was furiously trying to free himself from the stone bench.

  “He’s no mage!” the impostor snarled, spitting a spray of beer. “That wasn’t stonemastery! Can’t you see? This here’s just a plate of fast-drying clay. He slipped it beneath me while I was standing. I just didn’t see him do it.”

  “Another impostor?” Weese sighed. “I thought we might really have Scharr ben Fray in our midst this time. Let me get my tools. We’ll set you loose so you can run.”

  “Run? I’m not running anywhere.”

  In the distance Weese could hear carriage wheels and the horses’ trip-trap. The departing carriage had reached the stone bridge over the snake-stream.

  “That mob? They’re coming back. And they’re going to punish you for lying.”

  The old man’s anger vanished on a sudden surge of fear. “I’m an actor,” he stammered. “Sometimes I … I just like to practice. Why would they punish me?”

  “They spent drink money on you.” Weese jerked a blade from his belt and cut a square from the back of the old man’s leather trousers. “And worse, you got their hopes up. They all wanted to meet the real Scharr ben Fray. He’s independent. Untethered. Won’t take orders from anybody. He is, to all of us betrayed by the Aerial, a hero.”

  Just then the cheers and laughter outside
diminished. In the awkward hush, Weese sensed new troubles brewing.

  “They’re coming.” The impostor leapt forward, dashing like a young athlete through the bar and out the back door, his hind parts plain to see.

  Weese ran to the swinging front doors and stepped outside. The mob of herdsmen was not coming back. They were charging toward the bridge. The carriage was rumbling off crookedly into the distance as if it had no driver. And the red-robed stranger was on the bridge over the snake-stream, down on all fours.

  “What happened?”

  “The driver!” Rik-pool, the dishwasher, exclaimed. Wiping his soapy hands on a towel, he went on. “The driver kicked the mage out of his carriage. Then he gave the fellow a reprimand. And the mage … he sank up to his elbows in the stone of the bridge!”

  Weese blinked. “Wait. You’re telling me that the driver’s a stonemaster?”

  “See? That red fellow’s stuck on the bridge. Hands and knees sealed in the stone.” Raising an eyebrow, Rik-pool added, “Perhaps he’s not the real Scharr ben Fray after all.”

  “Of course he isn’t.” Wiping his tattooed arm across his brow, Weese looked out at the escaping carriage. “You think the real Scharr ben Fray would come bragging into Mad Sun’s? He would know that the Aerial has eyes and ears everywhere.”

  But that driver, Weese thought. He knew so much about happenings all across the Expanse. And it turns out he’s a stonemaster.

  “Poor impostor,” said Rik-pool as the man on the bridge was surrounded by angry drunkards. “He’s gonna lose more than his fancy red costume.”

  “I think it’s closing time.” Weese pushed back through the swinging doors. Then he took the heavier front door—the sliding gate that would seal the bar—and mightily dragged it shut. Circling the room, he pulled down the shutters, then jumped over the bar to grab his best fightstick—the one with a concealed blade.

  Out front, the red-robed impostor was howling through the herdsmen’s assault.

  Out back, to the crack of a whip, the longbeard’s vawn was galloping away. Gonna be an uncomfortable journey for that old fool’s backside, Weese thought.

  Slipping out the back, he hurried to the bundle of blankets where Meladi was still, somehow, asleep. “It’s time, my joy. I’m taking our carriage. I’m off to tell the Aerial that I’ve seen Scharr ben Fray.”

  A hand emerged from the blanket, waving him off. “Bring back that reward. We’ve got spawn to feed.”

  In moments the wheels of Weese’s carriage were grinding through the sand. Even though the vawn groaned with effort, their progress was slow. The carriage seemed heavier than usual. Weese noticed this but did not investigate. His thoughts were distracted.

  “Saw him,” he sighed. “Finally. With my own two eyes.”

  Then he fell into fantasies of collecting his reward from the mages, taking Meladi and the children, and escaping to Wildflower Isle, where he could train up young rioters for the day when the people would take back House Jenta and bury the mages for good.

  “Freedom.”

  2

  THE EVER-WOVEN WORLD

  he only place finer for swimming than water is light.

  That’s what she whispers, this woman draped in a shining shroud.

  On the smooth stone shore of a river far below ground, she sits with him in a circle of shimmering phantoms, specters who carried him upstream all night. Their boat waits, rocking slowly, tugging at its tether. His mind is in pieces—he cannot remember what happened or where they are going.

  The only place finer for swimming than water is light, she says again. You’ll see.

  This strange, weightless sheet they’ve cast over him is sticky as a spider web. Through it, everything is coming into focus.

  Creatures leap and dive, wriggle and splash in the river—eels and frogs, pad-bellies and wrigglebeaks. Vines shine, their leaves green and broad. The water casts steam thick as cream into the cool air, and he does not know where he ends and the vapor begins.

  “You have no oars. But we moved upstream.” He says this, but there is no sound.

  She hears him anyway. Who is she?

  Yes, it takes time to get used to such things. Where we live, boats tethered to their destination can be drawn against the current by a thread.

  Frail wires like kite strings trail from the translucent sheet that covers him. They reach back into the dark. The boat in the water may be bound to their destination, but he—whatever he is now—is still bound to some kind of anchor downstream.

  He looks back. He remembers violence. Desperate endeavors. Failures. He was trying to rescue someone.

  A shape returns to his memory. He glimpsed it as they cast the sheet around him and took him onto the boat. A boy’s body—lying on a mat of weeds and branches that turn slowly on the water in a whirlpool. Arms outspread. Legs bent as if broken. Lips parted. Eyes wide and unseeing. Clad in nothing more than rags.

  “Who was the boy?” he asks. “He fell, didn’t he?”

  The strange company is whispering stories to one another, testimonies of things they’ve witnessed. But the woman beside him answers. His work was done. His sufferings are over. He did such great things that stories of his courage are already told on the mountain.

  A word is restored to his mind. Northchild. He cannot raise his hands as she does. He is like a balloon, a swirl of cloud in a sheet. “Are you Northchildren?”

  It’s what some people call us. She does not speak with a voice. It’s a wave of sensation between touch, taste, sight, scent, and sound. Like you, we grew in the Expanse. Our shells shattered, as they all do. We consented to be carried home and restored in an uncorrupted form.

  “Mother.” The word escapes him even before he knows what he’s saying.

  I’m here too, son, comes a voice from the circle. His father? He reaches for their names and for his own.

  We were sent to find you, says his mother. Your sufferings are over. No more fear. Only mercy.

  “You unstitched me. Just as you unstitched Auralia.”

  We untied cords that bound you in a broken shell. Don’t be afraid. On the mountain we’ll take you to the garden, where you’ll be refashioned. Your body will grow back from your spirit. And you won’t suffer any poisons from the Expanse. You’ll be free in the light to move from here to there, from past to present. Free to witness so many amazing things. And we’ll be together.

  “What do you mean—my ‘broken shell’?”

  Think of a soldier casting off battered armor after a war.

  “I was a soldier’s son.” He looks to the radiant figure of his father. “I was an errand-runner. I did simple things.”

  You were an ale boy. And more. From long before that, you were extravagant.

  He remembers it now. Their gloved fingers passed through him to loosen threads. As he floated among the river weeds, he felt a pain like a needle in his head. But the knot it touched would not unravel. Another at his center held.

  You’re a stubborn one. Her thoughtspeech feels like laughter. But you’ll let go in time. She gestures to the kite strings that run back into the dark. You’ll feel such relief when you do.

  “How is it I can see you? I have no eyes.”

  The borders of your senses have blurred. Knowing is easier now, and you’ll remember so much. Beyond your time in the Expanse.

  With her hand on his veil, he feels her memories fill him up. He begins to understand. These witnesses have come to this place, this time, like birds through air, like fish through water, coursing through the fullness.

  The only thing better for swimming than water is light, they like to say.

  He remembers now what they mean. Maybe that’s why he loved to float on a raft across Deep Lake under the stars, why he held his breath while swallows weaved in the air over the water, why he thrilled to run through House Abascar’s corridors. These pleasures remind him of how he first flew, how he’ll fly again.

  Among his mother’s memories, he learns how thes
e Northchildren came for him. They drifted like snowflakes between innumerable stars. The stars are bells, resonant with sound. The bells are made of cords, tightly woven, lines that swirl and tangle and rush like ocean currents. The cords are made of threads, twisted and braided. The threads are other histories, other worlds.

  As the Northchildren slid between the threads, the edges of their wings brushed against them, and the sound the bells made was gratitude. A song. Drawn by the gravity of a particular thread, like leaves drawn into a rushing stream, the Northchildren tumbled suddenly into a waterfall, long and cascading, which delivered them into an underground river, the same water that runs beside him now.

  But the Northchildren did not stay. They rose up through a break in the ceiling, emerging from the mouth of a well, where blue flowers bloomed between the stones. This was the Expanse, a place of peril and poison. But they were safe from such corruption, swaddled in their shrouds.

  They ran, feeling the world’s rough textures against their feet. Colors—the hot white of the mountain peaks, the lush greens of the Cragavar forest, the gleaming emerald of Deep Lake, the rust-colored dust and coal black rocks of the high southern plains.

  They gathered in a glen. One placed a candle at the heart of their quiet circle. In its luminous bloom, they shared stories of what they had seen. They spoke of events they hoped to witness in this world’s history, to see how all sadness, surprise, triumph, and mystery are drawn together into a whole.

  They laughed. They laughed a lot.

  If this is what I’ll become, I’m glad, he thinks.

  In their candlelit circle, the Northchildren watched a stand of cloudgrasper trees stretch, soak in sunlight, raise arms and hands in praise, hum with the blood of sap, tremble with birds. They observed this as if it was as rich as any human story, seeing so powerfully that he felt as if he had stumbled through his earlier years in a half sleep.

  He realizes now that all he’s known in the Expanse has been a song. Everything he’s seen, everything he’s overlooked—a testimony, inviting him to answer.

  When mystery sent you into the Expanse, his mother tells him, you were invited to follow the questions. So many people cling to what’s not theirs and resist the invitation. But you’ve recognized the endless song, the golden thread, verse by verse. You’ve run after it. And in doing so, you’ve expanded the richness of mystery.