The Very Best of Charles De Lint

by Charles de Lint

  Tetchie burrowed a little deeper into her moss and cloak nest at the base of the gnarlwood. She knew better than to call attention to herself. When people saw her it was always the same. At best she was mocked, at worst beaten. So she’d learned to hide. She became part of the night, turned to the darkness, away from the sun. The sun made her skin itch and her eyes tear. It seemed to steal the strength from her body until she could only move at a tortoise crawl.

  The night was kinder and protected her as once her mother had. Between the teachings of the two, she’d long since learned a mastery over how to remain unseen, but her skills failed her tonight.

  The tattooed man turned slowly until his gaze was fixed on her hiding place.

  “I know you’re there,” he said. His voice was deep and resonant; it sounded to Tetchie like stones grinding against each other, deep underhill, the way she imagined her father’s voice would sound when he finally spoke to her. “Come out where I can see you, trow.”

  Shivering, Tetchie obeyed. She pushed aside the thin protection of her cloak and shuffled out into the moonlight on stubby legs. The tattooed man towered over her, but then so did most folk. She stood three-and-a-half feet high, her feet bare, the soles callused to a rocky hardness. Her skin had a greyish hue, her features were broad and square, as though chiseled from rough stone. The crudely-fashioned tunic she wore as a dress hung like a sack from her stocky body.

  “I’m not a trow,” she said, trying to sound brave.

  Trows were tall, trollish creatures, not like her at all. She didn’t have the height. The tattooed man regarded her for so long that she began to fidget under his scrutiny. In the distance, from two hills over and beyond the town, she heard a plaintive howl that was soon answered by more of the same.

  “You’re just a child,” the tattooed man finally said.

  Tetchie shook her head. “I’m almost sixteen winters.”

  Most girls her age already had a babe or two hanging on to their legs as they went about their work.

  “I meant in trow terms,” the tattooed man replied.

  “But I’m not—”

  “A trow. I know. I heard you. But you’ve trow blood all the same. Who was your dame, your sire?”

  What business is it of yours? Tetchie wanted to say, but something in the tattooed man’s manner froze the words in her throat. Instead she pointed to the longstone that reared out of the dark earth of the hilltop behind him.

  “The sun snared him,” she said.

  “And your mother?”

  “Dead.”

  “At childbirth?”

  Tetchie shook her head. “No, she…she lived long enough….”

  To spare Tetchie from the worst when she was still a child.

  Hanna Lief protected her daughter from the townsfolk and lived long enough to tell her, one winter’s night when the ice winds stormed through the town and rattled the loose plank walls of the shed behind The Cotts Inn where they lived, “Whatever they tell you, Tetchie, whatever lies you hear, remember this: I went to him willingly.”

  Tetchie rubbed at her eye with the thick knuckles of her hand.

  “I was twelve when she died,” she said.

  “And you’ve lived—” The tattooed man waved a hand lazily to encompass the tree, the stone, the hills, “—here ever since?”

  Tetchie nodded slowly, wondering where the tattooed man intended their conversation to lead.

  “What do you eat?”

  What she could gather in the hills and the woods below, what she could steal from the farms surrounding the town, what she could plunder from the midden behind the market square those rare nights that she dared to creep into the town.

  But she said none of this, merely shrugged.

  “I see,” the tattooed man said.

  She could still hear the wild dogs howl. They were closer now.

  * * *

  Earlier that evening, a sour expression rode the face of the man who called himself Gaedrian as he watched three men approach his table in The Cotts Inn. By the time they had completed their passage through the inn’s commonroom and reached him, he had schooled his features into a bland mask. They were merchants, he decided, and was half right. They were also, he learned when they introduced themselves, citizens of very high standing in the town of Burndale.

  He studied them carelessly from under hooded eyes as they eased their respective bulks into seats at his table. Each was more overweight than the next. The largest was Burndale’s mayor; not quite so corpulent was the elected head of the town guilds; the smallest was the town’s sheriff and he carried Gaedrian’s weight and half again on a much shorter frame. Silk vests, stretched taut over obesity, were perfectly matched to flounced shirts and pleated trousers. Their boots were leather, tooled with intricate designs and buffed to a high polish. Jowls hung over stiff collars; a diamond stud gleamed in the sheriff’s left earlobe.

  “Something lives in the hills,” the mayor said.

  Gaedrian had forgotten the mayor’s name as soon as it was spoken. He was fascinated by the smallness of the man’s eyes and how closely set they were to each other. Pigs had eyes that were much the same, though the comparison, he chided himself, was insulting to the latter.

  “Something dangerous,” the mayor added.

  The other two nodded, the sheriff adding, “A monster.”

  Gaedrian sighed. There was always something living in the hills; there were always monsters. Gaedrian knew better than most how to recognize them, but he rarely found them in the hills.

  “And you want me to get rid of it?” he asked.

  The town council looked hopeful. Gaedrian regarded them steadily for a long time without speaking.

  He knew their kind too well. They liked to pretend that the world followed their rules, that the wilderness beyond the confines of their villages and towns could be tamed, laid out in as tidy an order as the shelves of goods in their shops, of the books in their libraries. But they also knew that under the facade of their order, the wilderness came stealing on paws that echoed with the click of claw on cobblestone. It crept into their streets and their dreams and would take up lodging in their souls if they didn’t eradicate it in time.

  So they came to men such as himself, men who walked the border that lay between the world they knew and so desperately needed to maintain, and the world as it truly was beyond the cluster of their stone buildings, a world that cast long shadows of fear across their streets whenever the moon went behind a bank of clouds and their streetlamps momentarily faltered.

  They always recognized him, no matter how he appeared among them. These three surreptitiously studied the backs of his hands and what they could see of the skin at the hollow of his throat where the collar of his shirt lay open. They were looking for confirmation of what their need had already told them he was.

  “You have gold, of course?” he asked.

  The pouch appeared as if from magic from the inside pocket of the mayor’s vest. It made a satisfying clink against the wooden tabletop. Gaedrian lifted a hand to the table, but it was only to grip the handle of his ale flagon and lift it to his lips. He took a long swallow, then set the empty flagon down beside the pouch.

  “I will consider your kind offer,” he said.

  He rose from his seat and left them at the table, the pouch still untouched. When the landlord met him at the door, he jerked a thumb back to where the three men sat, turned in their seats to watch him leave.

  “I believe our good lord mayor was buying this round,” he told the landlord, then stepped out into the night.

  He paused when he stood outside on the street, head cocked, listening. From far off, eastward, over more than one hill, he heard the baying of wild dogs, a distant, feral sound.

  He nodded to himself and his lips shaped what might pass for a smile, though there was no humour in the expression. The townsfolk he passed gave him uneasy glances as he walked out of the town, into the hills that rose and fell like the tidal swells of a
heathered ocean, stretching as far to the west as a man could ride in three days.

  * * *

  “What…what are you going to do to me?” Tetchie finally asked when the tattooed man’s silence grew too long for her.

  His pale gaze seemed to mock her, but he spoke very respectfully, “I’m going to save your wretched soul.”

  Tetchie blinked in confusion. “But I…I don’t—”

  “Want it saved?”

  “Understand,” Tetchie said.

  “Can you hear them?” the tattooed man asked, only confusing her more. “The hounds,” he added.

  She nodded uncertainly.

  “You’ve but to say the word and I’ll give them the strength to tear down the doors and shutters in the town below. Their teeth and claws will wreak the vengeance you crave.”

  Tetchie took a nervous step away from him.

  “But I don’t want anybody to be hurt,” she said.

  “After all they’ve done to you?”

  “Mama said they don’t know any better.”

  The tattooed man’s eyes grew grim. “And so you should just…forgive them?”

  Too much thinking made Tetchie’s head hurt.

  “I don’t know,” she said, panic edging into her voice.

  The tattooed man’s anger vanished as though it had never lain there, burning in his eyes.

  “Then what do you want?” he asked.

  Tetchie regarded him nervously. There was something in how he asked that told her he already knew, that this was what he’d been wanting from her all along.

  Her hesitation grew into a long silence. She could hear the dogs, closer than ever now, feral voices raised high and keening, almost like children, crying in pain. The tattooed man’s gaze bore down on her, forcing her to reply. Her hand shook as she lifted her arm to point at the longstone.

  “Ah,” the tattooed man said.

  He smiled, but Tetchie drew no comfort from that.

  “That will cost,” he said.

  “I…I have no money.”

  “Have I asked for money? Did I say one word about money?”

  “You…you said it would cost….”

  The tattooed man nodded. “Cost, yes, but the coin is a dearer mint than gold or silver.”

  What could be dearer? Tetchie wondered.

  “I speak of blood,” the tattooed man said before she could ask. “Your blood.”

  His hand shot out and grasped her before she could flee.

  Blood, Tetchie thought. She cursed the blood that made her move so slow.

  “Don’t be frightened,” the tattooed man said. “I mean you no harm. It needs but a pinprick—one drop, perhaps three, and not for me. For the stone. To call him back.”

  His fingers loosened on her arm and she quickly moved away from him. Her gaze shifted from the stone to him, back and forth, until she felt dizzy.

  “Mortal blood is the most precious blood of all,” the tattooed man told her.

  Tetchie nodded. Didn’t she know? Without her trow blood, she’d be just like anyone else. No one would want to hurt her just because of who she was, of how she looked, of what she represented. They saw only midnight fears; all she wanted was to be liked.

  “I can teach you tricks,” the tattooed man went on. “I can show you how to be anything you want.”

  As he spoke, his features shifted until it seemed that there was a feral dog’s head set upon that tattooed torso. Its fur was the same pale hue as the man’s hair had been, and it still had his eyes, but it was undeniably a beast. The man was gone, leaving this strange hybrid creature in his place.

  Tetchie’s eyes went wide in awe. Her short, fat legs trembled until she didn’t think they could hold her upright anymore.

  “Anything at all,” the tattooed man said, as the dog’s head was replaced by his own features once more.

  For a long moment, Tetchie could only stare at him. Her blood seemed to sing as it ran through her veins. To be anything at all. To be normal…but then the exhilaration that filled her trickled away. It was too good to be true, so it couldn’t be true.

  “Why?” she asked. “Why do you want to help me?”

  “I take pleasure in helping others,” he replied.

  He smiled. His eyes smiled. There was such a kindly air about him that

  Tetchie almost forgot what he’d said about the wild dogs, about sending them down into Burndale to hunt down her tormentors. But she did remember and the memory made her uneasy.

  The tattooed man seemed too much the chameleon for her to trust. He could teach her how to be anything she wanted to be. Was that why he could appear to be anything she wanted him to be?

  “You hesitate,” he said. “Why?”

  Tetchie could only shrug.

  “It’s your chance to right the wrong played on you at your birth.”

  Tetchie’s attention focused on the howling of the wild dogs as he spoke. To right the wrong…

  Their teeth and claws will wreak the vengeance you crave.

  But it didn’t have to be that way. She meant no one ill. She just wanted to fit in, not hurt anyone. So, if the choice was hers, she could simply choose not to hurt people, couldn’t she? The tattooed man couldn’t make her hurt people.

  “What…what do I have to do?” she asked.

  The tattooed man pulled a long silver needle from where it had been stuck in the front of his trousers.

  “Give me your thumb,” he said.

  * * *

  Gaedrian scented trow as soon as he left Burndale behind him. It wasn’t a strong scent, more a promise than an actuality at first, but the farther he got from the town, the more pronounced it grew. He stopped and tested the wind, but it kept shifting, making it difficult for him to pinpoint its source. Finally he stripped his shirt, letting it fall to the ground.

  He touched one of the tattoos on his chest and a pale blue light glimmered in his palm when he took his hand away. He freed the glow into the air where it turned slowly, end on shimmering end. When it had given him the source of the scent, he snapped his fingers and the light winked out.

  More assured now, he set off again, destination firmly in mind. The townsfolk, he realized, had been accurate for a change. A monster did walk the hills outside Burndale tonight.

  * * *

  Nervously, Tetchie stepped forward. As she got closer to him, the blue markings on his chest seemed to shift and move, rearranging themselves into a new pattern that was as indecipherable to her as the old one had been. Tetchie swallowed thickly and lifted her hand, hoping it wouldn’t hurt. She closed her eyes as he brought the tip of the needle to her thumb.

  “There,” the tattooed man said a moment later. “It’s all done.”

  Tetchie blinked in surprise. She hadn’t felt a thing. But now that the tattooed man had let go of her hand, her thumb started to ache. She looked at the three drops of blood that lay in the tattooed man’s palm like tiny crimson jewels. Her knees went weak again and this time she did fall to the ground. She felt hot and flushed, as though she were up and abroad at high noon, the sun broiling down on her, stealing her ability to move.

  Slowly, slowly, she lifted her head. She wanted to see what happened when the tattooed man put her blood on the stone, but all he did was smile down at her and lick three drops with a tongue that seemed as long as a snake’s, with the same kind of a twin fork at its tip.

  “Yuh…nuh…”

  Tetchie tried to speak—what have you done to me? she wanted to say—but the words turned into a muddle before they left her mouth. It was getting harder to think.

  “When your mother was so kindly passing along all her advice to you,” he said, “she should have warned you about not trusting strangers. Most folk have little use for your kind, it’s true.”

  Tetchie thought her eyes were playing tricks on her, then realized that the tattooed man must be shifting his shape once more. His hair grew darker as she watched, his complexion deepened. No longer pale and wan, he seemed
to bristle with sorcerous energy now.

  “But then,” the tattooed man went on, “they don’t have the knowledge I do. I thank you for your vitality, halfling. There’s nothing so potent as mortal blood stirred in a stew of faerie. A pity you won’t live long enough to put the knowledge to use.”

  He gave her a mocking salute, fingers tipped against his brow, then away, before turning his back on her. The night swallowed him.

  Tetchie fought to get to her own feet, but she just wore herself out until she could no longer even lift her head from the ground. Tears of frustration welled in her eyes. What had he done to her? She’d seen it for herself, he’d taken no more than three drops of her blood. But then why did she feel as though he’d taken it all?

  She stared up at the night sky, the stars blurring in her gaze, spinning, spinning, until finally she just let them take her away.

  * * *

  She wasn’t sure what had brought her back, but when she opened her eyes, it was to find that the tattooed man had returned. He crouched over her, concern for her swimming in his dark eyes. His skin had regained its almost colourless complexion, his hair was bone white once more. She mustered what little strength she had to work up a gob of saliva and spat in his face.

  The tattooed man didn’t move. She watched the saliva dribble down his cheek until it fell from the tip of his chin to the ground beside her.

  “Poor child,” he said. “What has he done to you?”

  The voice was wrong, Tetchie realized. He’d changed his voice now. The low grumble of stones grinding against each other deep underhill had been replaced by a soft melodious tonality that was comforting on the ear.

  He touched the fingers of one hand to a tattoo high on his shoulder, waking a blue glow that flickered on his fingertips. She flinched when he touched her brow with the hand, but the contact of blue fingers against her skin brought an immediate easing to the weight of her pain. When he sat back on his haunches, she found she had the strength to lift herself up from the ground. Her gaze spun for a moment, then settled down. The new perspective helped stem the helplessness she’d been feeling.