Adventures in the Liaden Universe Part 22

"Tween, old friend. I hope I find you well?"

The cat graciously touched his nose to the offered fingertip, then rose, stretched with languid thoroughness, and yawned.

"Tween?" Moonhawk asked quietly. Often, over the months of their travel together, she had deplored the magician's overfondness for words; yet, confronted now with a Lute who walked silent, she perversely wished to have her light-tongued comrade of the road returned.

Lute glanced at her, black eyes hooded. "It was Rowan's joke, see you. The cat is neither all black, which would easily allow of it being named Newmoon; nor all white, which leads one rather inescapably to Snowfall. Indeed, as Rowan would have it, the cat lands precisely between two appropriate and time-honored cat names-an act of deliberate willfulness, so Rowan swore-and thus became Tween."

He looked down at the cat, who was stropping against the care basket.

"Rowan loved a joke-the more complex the jest, the louder he laughed."

He shook himself, then, and mounted the porch, stooping to pick up the basket. The cat followed him to the door, tail high. Lute put his hand on the latch, pushed...

"Locked."

"Surely you expected that," Moonhawk murmured and Lute sighed.

"A man may hear ill news and yet still hope that it is untrue. Optimistic creatures, men. I did not hope to find Rowan alive, but ..." He let the rest drift off, raised his hard and brought sharp knuckles against the wood, then drifted back a step, head tipped inquisitively to one side. The cat settled beside him and began to groom.

At respectful intervals, Lute leaned forward to knock twice, then three times. The door remained closed."Well, then." He set the care basket down, slipped his bag from its carry-strap and shook it. Three spindly legs appeared, holding the bag at a convenient height. Moonhawk watched closely while he opened the clasp and put his hand inside: Lute's magic bag held such a diverse and numerous collection of objects that she had lately formed the theory that it was not one bag, but three, attached in some rotating, hand-magical manner undetectable to her Witch senses.

"What are you going to do?" she asked. "Break the lock?"

He looked at her. "Break the lock on the house of one of my oldest friends? Am I a barbarian, Lady Moonhawk? If things were otherwise, it might have been necessary to resort to lockpicks, but I a.s.sure you that my skill is such that the lock would have suffered no ill."

She blinked. "Lockpicks? Another hand-magic?"

"A very powerful magic," Lute said solemnly, and withdrew his hard from the bag, briefly displaying a confusing array of oddly contorted wires. "By means of these objects, a magician may learn the shape and secret of a strange lock and impel it to open."

"It sounds like thieves' magic to me, Master Lute."

"Pah! As if a thief could be so skilled! But no matter, we need not resort to lockpicks for this." He replaced the muddle of wires in his bag.

"No?" said Moonhawk, eyebrows rising. "How then will you open the door? Sing?"

"Sing? Perhaps they sing locks at Temple. I have a superior method." He snapped his bag shut and hung it back on the strap.

"Which is?"

"A key." He displayed it; a rough iron thing half the length of his hand.

"A key," she repeated. "And how came you by that?"

"Veverain gave it me. And Rowan gave me leave to use it, if by chance I should arrive during daylight and find the door locked." He gestured, showing her the lowering sun. "It is, I see, still daylight. I find the door-alas!-is locked. Bring the basket."

He stepped up to the door, key at ready. Moonhawk bent and picked up the care basket, settling it over her arm. A sharp snap sounded, Lute pushed the door open and stepped into the house beyond, the cat walking at his knee.

With a deep sense of foreboding, Moonhawk followed.

"VEVERAIN?" LUTE'S VOICE lacked its usual ringing vitality, as if the room's dimness was heavy enough to m.u.f.fle sound. "Veverain, it's Lute!"

Moonhawk stood by the door, letting her eyes adjust; slowly, she picked out a table, benches, the hulking ma.s.s of a cold cookstove.

"Let us shed some light on the situation," Lute said. A blot of darkness in the kitchen's twilight, he moved surely across the room. There was a clatter as he slid back the lock bars and threw the shutters wide, admitting the day's last glimmer of sun.Details sprang into being. Dusty pots hung neatly above the cold stove; spice bundles dangled from the low eaves; pottery was stacked, orderly and cobwebbed, on whitewashed shelves. The table was dyanwood, scrubbed white; the work surfaces were tiled, the glaze dull with dust.

"Well." Face grim, Lute shed cloak and bag, and dropped them on the table. Crossing the room, he pulled a lamp from its shelf and carried it and a pottery jug to a work table.

Moonhawk walked slowly forward. Despite the light from the windows, the room seemed-foggy. It was also cold-bone-chilling, heart-stopping cold. She wondered that Lute had put aside his cloak.

She set the care basket on the table and pulled her own cloak tighter about her. Lute had filled the lamp and was tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the wick with his silver knife. Moonhawk s.h.i.+vered, and recalled the neat stack of wood on the porch, hard by the door.

"I'll start the stove," she said to Lute's back. He looked 'round abstractedly.

"Yes. Thank you."

"No," said another voice, from the back of the room. "I will thank you both to leave."

Moonhawk spun. Lute calmly finished with the wick and lit it with a snap of his fingers, before he, too, turned to face his hostess.

"Veverain, have I changed so much in one year's travel? It's Lute."

"Perhaps you have not changed," the woman in the faded houserobe said, with a lack of emotion that raised the fine hairs along the back of Moonhawk's neck, "but all else has. Rowan is dead."

"Yes. I met Oreli in the High Street." Lute went forward, hands outstretched. "I loved him, too, Veverain."

She stared at him, stonily, and neither moved to meet him, nor lifted her hands to receive his. Lute stopped, hands slowly dropping to his sides.

"Leave me," the woman said again, and it seemed to Moonhawk that her voice carried an edge this time, as if her stoniness covered an emotion too wild to be confined for long.

Perhaps Lute heard it, too, or perhaps his skill brought him more subtle information. In any wise, he did not leave, but stood, hands spread wide, and voice aggrieved.

"Leave? Without even a cup of tea to warm me? You yourself said that I should never want for at least that of you. The thought of taking a cup of tea at your table has been all that has made the last day's walking bearable!"

"Have you not understood?" And the untamed grief was plain to the ear, now. "I say to you that Rowan is dead!"

"Rowan is dead," Lute repeated gently. "He is beyond the comforts of tea and the love of friends. We, however-" He gestured 'round the room, a simple encircling, devoid of stage flourish, and Moonhawk was absurdly relieved to find herself included-"are not."

There was a long moment of silence.

"Tea," Veverain said, and her voice was stone once more. "Very well.""I'll start the stove," Moonhawk said for the second time, and went out to fetch an armload of wood.

When she came back to the kitchen, some minutes later, Veverain was in Lute's arms, sobbing desperately against his chest.

MOONHAWK IT WAS who made tea in Veverain's kitchen that evening, and served it, silently, to the two who faced each other across the table. She carried her own mug to a wall-bench and sat, quietly watching and listening.

"I cannot," the woman was saying to Lute, "I must not forget. I-Rowan-we swore that neither would ever forget the other, no matter what else the future might destroy."

"Yes," Lute murmured, "but surely Rowan would not have wanted this-that you lock yourself away from kin, take from your neighbors' kitchens and give nothing-not even thanks!-in return. Rowan was never so mean."

"He was not," Veverain agreed, her fingers twisting 'round themselves. "Rowan was generous."

"As you are. Come, Veverain, you must stop this. Open your house again to your well-wishers. Tend the garden your niece has started for you, clear the flowerbeds and rake the gravel. Soon enough, the vines will need you, too. It will not be the same as if Rowan worked at your side, but-I promise!-these familiar things will soothe you. In time, you will-"

"In time I will forget!" Veverain interrupted violently. "No! I will not forget! Every day, I read his journals. Every day, I sit in his place in our room and I recall our days together. Everything, everything... I must not forget a syllable, the timbre of his voice, the lines of his face-"

"Veverain!" Lute reached for her hands, but they fluttered away from capture.

"You do not understand!" Her voice was shrill with agony. "Before you first came to us there was in this village a woman called Redfern, her man-Velix-and their babe. That summer, there was an illness in the village-many died, among them Redfern's man and babe, she grieved and would speak to no one, though she accomplished all her usual business. In the fall, she shut up her house and went to her sister in another village. Two years later, she returned to us, with a new babe and a man she had taken in her sister's village." Veverain's fluttering hands lighted on the cooling mug. Automatically, she raised it to her lips and drank.

"I saw Redfern in the street," she continued, somewhat less shrill. "We spoke of her babe, and of how things had changed in the village in the years she had been gone from us. I mentioned Velix, and she-she stared at me, as if I spoke of a stranger. She had forgotten him, Master Lute! It chilled me to the heart, and I vowed I would never so dishonor my love."

"Veverain, this is not the way to honor Rowan." Moonhawk had never heard the magician's voice so tender.

Veverain turned her face away. "You have had your tea," she said, hardly. "There are houses in the high village who will be happy to guest you."

Moonhawk saw Lute's shoulders tense, as if he had taken a blow. He sat silent for a long moment, until the woman across from him noticed either the absence of his voice or the presence of himself, and reluctantly turned her face again to his."Lute-"

He raised a hand, interrupting her. "How," he said and there was an electric undercurrent in his voice that Moonhawk did not entirely like. "How if you were shown a way to return to life at the same time you honor your vow to remember?"

There was hesitation, and Moonhawk saw, for just a instant, the woman Veverain had been-vibrant, strong and constant-through the diminished, grief-wracked creature who sat across from Lute.

"Can you work such a magic?" she asked.

"Perhaps one of us can," Lute replied and stood. "Excuse me a moment, Housemother. I must consult with my apprentice."

"FORGET?" LUTE REPEATED. "But it is the possibility of forgetting that is terrifying her out of all sense!"

"Nonetheless," Moonhawk said, with rather more patience than she felt, "Forgetfulness is all I have to offer. I know of no spell or blessing that will insure memory. I only know how to remove such pain as this, which is become a threat to a good and decent woman's life, she suffers much, and I may ease her-will ease her, if she wishes it. But I think she will choose instead to honor her vow." She hesitated, caught by a rare feeling of inadequacy. "I am sorry, Master Lute."

"Sorry mends no breakage," Lute snapped. Moonhawk felt a sharp retort rise to her tongue and managed, just, to keep it behind her teeth. After all, she reminded herself, Lute, too, had taken losses-not only Rowan, but Veverain, was gone beyond him.

"Your pardon, Lady Moonhawk," his voice was formal, without the edge of irony that often accompanied his use of her t.i.tle. "That was ill-said of me. I find the G.o.ddess entirely too greedy, that she must always call the best so soon. How are the rest of us to find the way to grace, when our Rowans are s.n.a.t.c.hed away before their teaching is done?" He sighed. "But that is matter between myself and the G.o.ddess, not between you and I."

Moonhawk inclined her head, accepting his apology. "It is ..." she sand formally, and bit down on the last word before it escaped, silently cursing herself for fool.

"Forgotten," Lute finished the phrase, tiredly, and looked past her, up into the starry sky. "There must be something," he murmured, and then said nothing more for several minutes, his eyes on the clear glitter of stars, for all the world as if he had entered trance.

Finally, he shook himself, much as a Witch might do when leaving trance, to re-acquaint herself with the physical body. He brought his eyes down to her face.

"I must try," he said, soberly. "Rowan would want me to try." He extended a hand and touched her lightly on the sleeve. "You are a Witch and have the ear of the G.o.ddess. Now would be a good time to pray."

VEVERAIN SAT AT the table where they had left her, hands tucked around the empty tea cup, shoulders slumped. Her eyes were closed, her cheeks s.h.i.+ning with tears in the lamplight.Seeing her thus, Lute paused, and Moonhawk saw him bring his hands up and move them in one of his more grandiose gestures, plucking a bright silk scarf from empty air. Another pa.s.s and the scarf was gone. Lute took a breath.

"There is something that may be attempted," he announced, and it was the Master Magician's full performance voice now. "If you are willing to turn your hand to magic."

Veverain opened her eyes, looking up at him. "Magic?"

"A very old and fragile magic," Lute a.s.sured her solemnly. "It was taught me by my master, who had it from his, who had it from his, who had it from the Mother of Huntress City Temple herself. From Whose Hand the lady received the spell, we need not ask. But!" He raised his hand, commanding attention. "For this magic, as for any great magic, there is a price. Are you willing to pay?"

Veverain stared into his face. "I am," she said, shockingly quiet.

"Then let it begin!" Lute's hands carved the air in the same eloquent gesture that had lately summoned the scarf. Stepping forward, he placed an object on the table: a small, extremely supple leather pouch.

Moonhawk had seen thousands like it in her life-a common spell-bag, made to be suspended from the neck by a ribbon, or a leather cord.

"Into this bag," he intoned, "will be placed five items evocative of Rowan. No less than five, no more than five." He stepped back and looked sternly into Veverain's face. "You will choose the five."

"Five?" she protested. "Rowan was mult.i.tudes! Five-"

"Five, a number beloved of the G.o.ddess. No more, no less." Lute was implacable. "Choose."

Veverain pushed herself to her feet, her eyes wide. "How long?" she whispered. "How long do I have to choose?"

"Five minutes to choose five items. Listen to your heart and your choices will be true."

For a moment, Moonhawk thought the other woman would refuse, would crumple back onto the bench, hide her face in her hands and wail. But Veverain had been woven of tougher cord than that. She swayed a moment, but made a good recover, chin up and showing a flash, perhaps, of the woman she had been.

"Very well," she said to Lute. "Await me here." She swept from the room as if her faded houserobe were grand with embroidery and the stone floor not thick with dust.

When she was gone, Lute looked up at the beam with its dangling bunches of herbs, reached up and snapped off a single sprig. It was no sooner in his hand than it vanished, where, Moonhawk could not hazard a guess.

That done, he went over to the table, pulled out the bench and sat, his hands flat on the table, apparently content to await Veverain's return in silence.

Moonhawk drifted over to the wall bench and settled in to watch.

"HERE," VEVERAIN SAID, and placed them, one by one, on the table before her: a curl of russet-colored hair, a sc.r.a.p of paper, a gray and green stone, a twig.

"That is four," Lute said, chidingly."I have not done," she answered and raised her hands to her neck, drawing a rawhide cord up over her head. Something silver flashed in the lamplight; flashed again as she had it off the cord and placed by the others.

"His promise-ring," she said quietly. "And that is five, Master Lute."

"And that is five," he agreed, hands still palm-flat against the table-top, in an att.i.tude both quiescent and entirely un-Lute-like.

"What will you do now?" Veverain inquired. Lute raised his eyebrows.

"You misunderstand; it is not I who will do, but you. If you expect that you will sit there and be done to, pray disabuse yourself of the notion."

"But," she stared at him, distress growing, "I am no Witch. I have no schooling, no talent. How am I to build a spell?" Moonhawk could only applaud the housemother's good sense. By her own certain reckoning, it required some number of years to become proficient in spell-craft.