Nor Iron Bars A Cage (2 page)

I sucked in a harsh breath. My hand shook in his grasp. “What did you do?” The burn itself had an odd silver-black shine, and around it the skin was already rising, puffy and red.

“You wanted to advance to the next level,” he said, in a voice that sounded reasonable, as if he’d just had me sign a contract. “This will help us work together. Your power and mine will meld. Don’t be a child. The effect is only skin deep. I wouldn’t harm your body for the world.”

I opened my mouth to protest, to ask what he meant. But when I met his eyes, my questions died unspoken. Because he smiled, and it was slow and hungry and dark, and for the first time, he let me see the wraith who’d taken up residence behind his once-human eyes…

I woke shaking. Not screaming and not puking, which was an improvement. I sat up in bed, cradling my useless right hand against my chest, blinking in the light of the lantern I always kept lit. My wrist throbbed, as it had the night the brand had been set there. I couldn’t help looking at it, even though I knew what I would see. No circle. No feather. Just the wide, rough patch of thickly-scarred skin where I’d burned that mark off with real flame, afterward.

I rubbed the spot slowly with my left thumb, the habit of so many years. The ridges and tightness of it, even the atrophied way my hand curled over the ruined tendons, were reassurance. It was over. Cleansed and healed, as much as it would ever heal, and long over. I was here in my own home, with my own stone walls around me.

I felt both sick and embarrassed, even though there was no one to see me. It had been fifteen years since I was that boy. Almost half my lifetime. Surely I should be over this stupid, senseless panic. Whatever had happened then, I’d been safe for so long now that its effects should have faded. Surely a
normal
man would have gone on with his life, cheerfully, or at least sanely.

Sometimes there were stretches of time when all was well, and I believed I was finally past it; that my quiet solitary routine was now a matter of choice and preference, not necessity. Then something would set me off, and there would be night after night of bad dreams again, and days when speaking to anyone was difficult. Sometimes the trigger was something so humiliatingly minuscule as to be undefinable. I had no idea what had set me off now, only that last night and this, the wraith had once again stalked my sleep.

I took slow breaths, and looked about me for comfort. My house was small and I liked it like that. There was an alcove with my bed, a cleverly-designed fireplace, a kitchen area with sink and iron cookstove on the facing wall, and a table, a desk, a bookshelf. Other than the small door leading to the bath and garderobe, I could see every inch of the room. Even the desk was made of a spindly table with open shelves above it for my quills and paper. There was no place anyone could hide.

I sat in my tangled bedclothes and waited for my heart to slow down. Of all the nasty, terrifying dreams I had, that one was always somehow the worst— the first time I saw the soulless hunger, the spirit-eater, living in my mentor’s mind.

After a while I got up and fumbled about my kitchen shelves for the canister of dried mint. There’d clearly be no more sleep for me tonight. A cup of herb tea and something to read might get me through until morning. I’d done this for so long I had a rhythm for working the pump handle with my right forearm while holding the kettle in my left hand. The stove was cold, but a small fire burned in the fireplace as always, and I hooked the kettle onto the swing-arm and lowered it over the flames.

I knelt in front of the fire, added a log, and watched the tongues of red and gold lick over the fresh bark. Sparks of flickering white snapped out from the droplets of resin hiding there. The good smell of burning pine filled me, erasing the memory of burning flesh. Almost. I rubbed my wrist again. I’m not sure I’d have the courage now to do what had needed to be done. But back then I’d been desperate enough, and young enough, not to care how much it would hurt.

The kettle began to whistle. I swung it off the flame, wrapped a cloth round the handle and poured hot water into the pot. The rising steam further soothed me, carrying the fresh-grass smell of the mint and a hint of dried lemon peel in it. That was a luxury, but one that made a huge difference for me. Meldov, my real Meldov, had loved lemon but the wraith had hated it. The day we gave up lemon tea after a hard working, I should have known something was wrong. These days I couldn’t afford a lot of the imported fruit, but I added a hint to all my teas, and that citrus astringency in the steam was balm to my heart.
There’s nothing to fear here.

 I took the cup with me to my favorite chair, placed tight against the wall where nothing could lurk behind it. It was my only comfortable chair, actually, but then for fifteen years no one but me had crossed that threshold, so I had no need of more. It was deep and soft, upholstered in leather, big enough that it had been all I could do to haul it across the room one-handed, when the craftsman had left it by the door. Over the years, I’d dozed in it enough to be glad a hundred times over for its solid size.

I sank into the familiar leather upholstery, and held the cup to my nose to breathe the steam.
So good.

Truly, I had no cause for complaints. Half the men in the world, more than half, would’ve given their own right arms for the life I led. In this house I was safe, warm enough in winter, cool in summer. I worked in my garden, gathered wood nearby, cleaned and cooked, but my labor was far less demanding than that of most men. These days, my skill with languages was becoming more widely known. Translations now brought enough money to keep me well-supplied, even after I’d spent every penny I’d stolen from Meldov. I had clothing, good boots. I even had books of my own and the leisure to read them.

I was in no real pain, although my wrist ached sometimes when the wind was wrong. I had no dependents to worry and coerce me, no overlord to threaten me, no illnesses, no loss. Well, no more loss. This was as close to Paradise as this world offered. So it was wrong, very wrong, that the little knife on my desk should call to me with a siren song as sweet as the whisper of an incubus in my ear.

It was mostly lack of sleep making me weak. I knew that. But I set the cup aside and stood, and went to the desk. The little knife lay beside my blotter, with the whetstone above it. I picked up both in my left hand, and took them to my chair. The knife was a pretty thing— bone-handled, with a fine, thin blade no longer than my thumb, and sharper than my shaving razor. I pinned it between my right wrist and knee, picked up the oiled stone, and stroked it along the edge. I used a feather touch. Really, there was no need to sharpen it. I’d cut perhaps three quills since the last time. But it soothed me to hear the fine steel sing under the stroke of the stone.

Eventually I set the whetstone on the table beside my cup, pushed up my right sleeve, and picked up the blade. With the tip, I barely traced the lines of blue that marked the veins in my forearm, following them down from the crook of my elbow to where the color became hidden by the dense scar. I pressed inward there, lightly, and watched a drop of blood well up from under the blade. Blood was bad for steel. I’d have to clean the knife again.
Or not.
I pressed harder, and saw a second drop and a third, beading on that lumpy, taut white surface, like rain on a windowpane.
See, there’s life under the scar. I can cut through to it and set it free. Forever free.

After a long, long time, I put the blade beside the stone, and lifted the cup instead. The small stain on the cuff of my nightshirt turned from crimson to burgundy to russet. After I washed it, it would be as faded as the rest. Eventually, slowly, the sun came up.

****

CHAPTER TWO

I was cleaning up from my morning meal when there was a knock on the door. I was pleased to see Dag, the market boy, waiting on the step. He’d made good time today. He held out a full basket to me. “Here ’tis, Mister Lyon. Same as always, but Mum says to tell you there weren’t no eggs, on account of the hens weren’t laying well yesterday. She put in an extra rasher of bacon to go round.”

I took the handle from him, but set the basket on the step. “Thank her for me. I hope there’s nothing seriously wrong with the hens.”

“Oh no, sir. A fox came by, we think, and frighted them. But he couldn’t get through the coop I built. ’Twas too solid for him.” He gave me a crooked-toothed grin of pride.

I nodded back. Dag was skinny, his clothes worn thin, and his eyes were steadier than most youngsters’. His grin was pure happiness though. Despite being the man of the house since he was nine, he was every inch a fun-loving boy. He’d made this trip to see me twice a week for years now, and I’d come to enjoy our few moments of chat.
For years…
“How old are you now, Dag?”

“Near on fourteen, sir.”

That old. Sometimes I was amazed I was still here, after so long. “Getting too old for barley candy then, I guess.”

“Never too old,” he said cheekily. “Else why would there be a bag full of it in your
own
shopping? Sir.”

I laughed. “Take your wages, imp, while I get your mother’s money.”

I left the door ajar as I went to my desk and located my purse. I’d learned that if I tipped the boy with coin, it went straight to his mother’s hand. So I paid her well in coin, and him in candy. I brought him the money, in the old basket. “Here, keep that safe. And take a barley-stick for each of your sisters too.”

“Thank you sir.” He dug into the basket and pulled out two more sticks.

“And there’s a bit of paper in the basket to wrap them in.” We both pretended that wasn’t the most important thing I gave him, that he wouldn’t hold the candy gently in it and then at home press it flat and render wonderfully detailed drawings of animals in charcoal on it. I’d found a drawing of his once, when his mother had wrapped a cut of meat with it. I’d offered him a clean paper for the one clearly often used, erased and reused, and now spoiled. The light in his eyes had been something to see, and though we never spoke of it, I gave him another clean page weekly. His mother was a wonderful woman, but she’d never encourage something that frivolous.

I should have probably done more for him. Dag had amazing talent, and village life would give him no outlet for it. Unless the local temple decided to paint a mural or something, he might live and die here and leave not a trace of his art. By this time, I had contacts among the literate rich folk back in the cities. I could have done more to find him a mentor. But even this little chat on my doorstep sometimes made my skin twitch for hours afterward. And he was just fourteen and his mother needed him. I said, “Be off with you then. My regards to your mother. I’ll see you in three days.”

“Right, sir. See you then.” He gave me a jaunty wave, cheek distended with the candy, and turned. I liked that about him, that he would stay and chat if I chose, seeming quite happy to pass along gossip and news, but showed no hurt on the days I dismissed him abruptly. I desperately envied him that contented nature. I’d never been that way, even as a child.

I picked up the full basket, shut the door and carried my bounty over to the kitchen area. It took only a few minutes to set the food in its places, with the butter and cheese in the cool stone box low beneath the counter. When there was another knock, I almost cracked my head on the wooden edge above me. Grumbling to myself, I went to see what Dag could have possibly forgotten. But when I yanked open the door, the face staring at me was familiar, but not a fourteen-year-old boy.

“Lyon! It
is
you!”

I slammed the door in Tobin’s face. I’d have collapsed into my chair, but I didn’t even make it that far. My knees gave out halfway across the room.

How? Why?
My mind screamed in protest.
What was Tobin doing here?
Seventeen years without a word between us, and there he stood on my doorstep. And here I lay in some shameful puddle of dismay and self-disgust, and mangled unquenchable hope. That scared me more than all the rest. I was settled and safe here, and none could pry me out of my shell. But I hadn’t expected Tobin.

“Lyon?” He rapped on the door again, more slowly. “It’s me. Tobin. Remember me? We were friends once.”

Remember me.
I’d have laughed if I could have got breath to do it. Of course I remembered. Strong, sensible Tobin, two years older and headed for a high position, and all that I was not. He’d let me tag along after him for years. He’d been the focus of my days, and truth to tell, of my solitary nights, until Meldov’s cool, dark power had caught my full attention when I was sixteen. And after that…

I couldn’t stand to see Tobin now.

“Lyon? Can you answer the door? I need to talk to you.” After a long silence, in which I just managed to sit up enough to pull my knees to my chest and clamp my hands between them, he added, “I’m not here to do any harm. By Samal’s Hand, I swear it.”

I no longer believed in any gods, but for Tobin that oath apparently still meant something. I’d never thought he’d planned to hurt me. He just had no idea the harm he could do, simply by saying my name in that voice, as if I were still that boy. I didn’t uncurl from the floor or make a sound. Maybe he’d go away, if I said nothing, did nothing. He knew I was in here— there was no hope he’d believe the house was empty— but if I ignored him long enough maybe he’d go away and leave me in peace.

He knocked again, a slow steady rhythm that beat into my ears and echoed around my head until after many minutes I could no longer stand it. “Go away! Just go
away!
”

There was a moment’s silence. “It’s Tobin. We were boys together, back in Riverrun. Remember? I used to get us into trouble, and you figured out how to get us out.”

I remembered it the other way. He’d rescued me from the consequences of my folly, more than once.

He said, “Remember the time I said I was going to ride the white-foot stallion, and he got away from me? And you nailed a horseshoe to a bat and then lured the guards away for me, while I made it look like he’d kicked his way out of the stall?”