Part 4 (2/2)

”Because,” she said for what seemed the umpteenth time, ”you have a destiny.”

I sighed and flopped back down on the hay. It was quite clear to me that we weren't going to get any further that night. The destiny business was what my mother always trotted out when she had no answers. She tended to trot it out a lot.

To her credit, Madelyne didn't endeavor to press the point. Instead she simply sat next to me, running her fingers through my hair as if she wanted to reaffirm for herself that I was still there. When morning came, I awoke to find that she had fallen asleep next to me. And I realized that, as the sun shone down on her face, I still loved her, even though I vaguely understood that I should by rights be ashamed of her.

She'd slept with me, and I loved her. I pulled the coin out of my tunic, the one that I'd found on the street a week previous. I'd been trying to decide what to do with it, and at that point I knew precisely what it should be used for. My mother's hand was lying open, and I pressed the coin into her palm. Her fingers automatically wrapped around the coin, even in her sleep.

I was officially a wh.o.r.e-lover. It didn't feel too bad.

Chapter 5.

Tacit was the one who taught me how to steal.

I enjoyed going about with him. I quickly learned that he was an orphan, and there was something attractive about that status. He answered to no one save himself, and whenever he came into town, it was always with a confident swagger, and coins jingling in a small leather bag that dangled from his belt. That self-confidence clearly translated into someone whom no one wished to cross, and it always amused me to watch the other kids give him a wide berth. I endeavored to imitate that swagger of his, but naturally with my lame and twisted leg, I was not overly successful.

Tacit walked a remarkably fine line with me. Since the day we met, he never made any mention of my handicap. One would have thought that he didn't notice it at all. However, when we walked about in the woods, he would always manage somehow to slow down, allowing me to keep pace with him, without ever giving me the impression that he was holding back himself. He never wanted me to feel as if I was a burden.

He maintained his home in the Elderwoods. This alone was enough to give him a certain cache, for the Elderwoods was considered a sorcerous place, where creatures of myth were known to gallivant about. It was said once that an entire army of weavers was set upon in the Elderwoods and was, to the very last one, slaughtered by a mad king who had vowed to rid the land of weavers once and for all. Although he had supposedly annihilated them, they unleashed a curse upon him so comprehensive, so frightening and so terrible, that the mad king's name of so long ago had been forever erased from the annals of mankind. His name disappeared from all histories, his image from all tapestries. He might just as well have never been born. A rather sad fate, really, for someone who set such store by trying to achieve fame for great deeds.

The slaying of wizards is a foolish endeavor, and should only be undertaken by those who are of a mind to commit suicide on a cosmic scale.

So supposedly the ghosts of the wizards strode the Elderwoods since that time. Tacit said that he had resided in the woods most of his life and had never seen any such evidence to support the rumor. He was not above, however, making use of this belief where he saw fit. For a number of shorter paths lay straight through the Elderwoods, and any number of travelers were inclined to brave the haunted forest for the purpose of saving some time. As a result of this tourist trade, Tacit would set traps and snares. But he was most adept at making his traps practically invisible, so that they could be ascribed to mystic forces.

Once, for instance, there was a rather portly merchant who was making his way through the Elderwoods with a most confident stride, until he stepped into a snare that hauled him upside down. Tacit had camouflaged the snare in such a way that it simply wasn't visible against the backdrop of the trees overhead-particularly difficult to spot when one was upside down and thras.h.i.+ng about. Convinced that he was in the hands of implacable spirits, the merchant did the only honorable thing under the circ.u.mstances and pa.s.sed out. Relieving him of his purse of coins was but the work of a moment. Tacit cut him down before we dashed off into the woods, leaving the terrified merchant unconscious on the ground.

”Why'd you let him go?” I asked.

”Because we're more effectively served if he returns and speaks of his horrifying encounter with invisible creatures, rather than to speak of the cleverly camouflaged cable which snared him. Indeed, by the time he's finished telling and retelling the story, I guarantee you he will have been accosted by twenty decapitated ghouls all pelting him with their severed heads.” He let out a low whistle as he emptied the contents of the pouch into his hand. Forty gold sovereigns poured out, the face of King Runcible looking at us in profile on each one of them. The coins glinted in the noon sun. ”This,” he said, ”was a wealthy individual.” He poured a little under half into his hand and offered them to me. ”Want your share?”

”My share?” I looked at him askance. ”Why should I get a share? You did all the work.”

”Maybe. But you shared the risk. We're partners now, you and me. Partners and friends.” He chucked me on the shoulder. ”Or haven't you noticed.”

Truthfully, I hadn't. I had simply taken to hanging about with Tacit, and as months had rolled over into years, I had always a.s.sumed that he kept me around more to kill boredom than out of any sense of loyalty or interest or any enjoyment of my company. ”We're friends?” I said, which was probably not the most brilliant comment to make.

”Well, sure we are! What'd you think?!” Seeing that I wasn't reaching out for the coins, he took my wrist, opened my hand, and poured the coins into my palm. My fist closed reflexively on them and he smiled approvingly.

”Why are we friends?” I asked. ”I mean . . . why are you my friend?”

”You don't know?”

I shook my head. ”You do most of the talking,” I said. ”I just sort of follow you about. I limp. I'm not much use.”

”How can you say that!” He perched on the edge of a rock and regarded me with open incredulity. A small insect nattered about in his face. He brushed it away without giving it any thought. ”Why, you and me, we're . . . we're . . .”

”We're what?”

He appeared to give the matter a good deal of thought. He scratched the side of his head and pondered the situation for a time more . . . and then he looked up and pointed. ”Do you see that?” he asked.

I looked where he indicated. All I could see was a hawk flapping gracefully through the sky. ”You mean the bird?” I asked.

He nodded, brus.h.i.+ng a hank of his hair from his face. ”Do you know how it flies?”

”It . . . flaps its wings.”

”And beyond that?”

There were certainly scientific answers to the question, but I had no clue as to what they might be. ”It just . . . I don't know . . . it just does. It flies.”

”It's the same thing with us, then, isn't it,” said Tacit. ”There's no reason to wonder why we're friends. We just . . . are. And you know what I see in you, Po? That hawk.”

I flushed slightly at the thought. ”That's silly.”

”It's not silly. That's you, Po. That hawk.” The creature swooped and dove over us. ”I can see it in you. You're going to fly, Po. What matters a lame leg when you're going to wind up soaring over all of them.”

”That's what my mother's always saying. That I have a destiny.”

”Well, perhaps your mother knows what she's about, then.”

At that moment, a large splotch landed smack on my head. As I felt its warmth dribbling down the side of my face, I didn't even have to wonder for a moment what it was. The hawk had shat on me.

To his credit, Tacit didn't say anything. If he wanted to laugh, he did a superb job of suppressing it. Instead he pulled out a cloth and handed it to me, and I wiped the bird c.r.a.p from me as best I could.

I looked up at Tacit and noticed that he had stiffened. Tacit's instincts were second to none, and something had attracted his interest. His nostrils flared. Clearly he scented something. I tried to sniff the air but I detected nothing.

”Not great, heaping snootsful,” he chided when he saw me trying to detect whatever it was that he had noticed. ”You have to be more attuned than that. Just relax, Po. Don't think about smelling it. Don't think about anything. Just relax. Relax and let the forest talk to you. When there's danger, it will tell you right enough.”

We had had talks like this in the past. Tacit seemed determined to transform the limping wh.o.r.e's son into a woodsman like himself, and the more I protested the uselessness of the endeavor, the more he seemed bound to proceed.

Once more, I tried to do as he said. I sat with my left leg crossed against my right thigh and tried to relax. There was a soft breeze blowing about me, and as I noticed the breeze, I also heard a gentle rustling in the trees and bushes. My imagination began to wander, and I forgot the immediacy of the situation. Instead I could almost begin to fancy that I heard the Elders of the woods whispering to me, speaking secret things of destiny and fate, of craft and wisdom, of smoke . . .

. . . smoke . . .

”A fire,” I said slowly. ”A big one.” And then I started to hear voices as well. ”And a crowd.”

He nodded when I mentioned the fire, and then nodded again when I further opined that there were people about. ”These are my woods,” he said, sounding rather possessive. ”If people are loitering around, I want to know why. Besides, the last thing I'm interested in seeing are drunken fools letting a fire get out of control and level the Elderwoods. Haunted or not, trees hereabouts still burn.”

I couldn't disagree with that. I shoved the coins into the pocket of my jerkin and followed Tacit as best I could. As always, he moved effortlessly. When he would push brush aside to pa.s.s through, it made no noise. Wherever he crossed, be it gra.s.s or dirt, he left no footprint.

There was still a great deal about Tacit that I couldn't begin to understand. His woodcraft was like nothing I'd ever experienced. It was almost magical, but he claimed no knowledge of weaving and indeed I'd never actually seen him perform any actions that could be ascribed to magic. I knew little about his early days, and one time I'd decided to press him on the matter. ”Well,” he had said, ”you've read tales of infants being abandoned in forests and raised by wolves?”

I nodded, and then had looked at him skeptically. ”You're saying you were raised by wolves?”

”No.” And then he had smiled impishly and said, ”Unicorns.”

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