Upland Outlaws Page 22

  Perhaps the greatest wonder of all was the mirror. Thaile knew about mirrors. Her great-grandmother had owned one, and when Thaile had kept Death Watch over her, she had passed the time by playing with it. The family had almost come to blows afterward, determining who would inherit the mirror and who must continue admiring themselves in water. Phain’s mirror had been foggy, an irregular shape, and about the size of a cowpat. The mirror on Thaile’s new bedroom wall was straight-edged, taller than Mist, big as a door, clear as air.

  She was definitely plumper than she had thought.

  Something about the Place roused her to assert herself. She was a pixie, this was her Place, and Mist was only a visitor. She resented his supercilious air as he showed how familiar he was with magic bathtubs and magic cookpots and beds made of feathers-less than two weeks ago, he must have been just as ignorant as she. She especially disliked his emotions when he demonstrated how to submerge in the featherbed. Let him fantasize about the girls he had left behind, she would rather be left out. She wanted to explore every tiniest corner of this wonderful cottage and experiment with all the magical gadgets, especially the hotwater bathtub. She wanted to try on all the sumptuous clothes now heaped so carelessly on a chair, and see what she looked like with no clothes at all. She most certainly did not want this brash canoeist with his oversize hands and buttery eyes rolling around when she did so, not even if he sat outside on the porch. Maybe there were no chinks in the walls, but there might be knotholes.

  “Are you hungry?” she inquired. “Yes!”

  “Well, you may not be much of a cook, but I am. So you go back to the Market and get some food.”

  A big smile lit up his very ordinary face. “Right. What?”

  “Anything you like. And, Mist?”

  “Yes? “

  “Don’t hurry back.”

  For a moment she Felt hurt, then resignation. “An hour?”

  “Make it two.”

  She watched through the glass pane of the window as Novice Mist went striding off along the Way in the rain, magnificent in his gleaming new blue and silver cloak.

  By the time he returned, the strange day was almost over; shadows were lengthening. She Felt him as he approached along the Way, but the urgent desires that now troubled Novice Mist originated more in his belly than in his groin. She was hungry, too, now.

  She had managed to stop her weeping some time before, and had washed her face in cold water. A last glance in the mirror persuaded her that the remaining tinge of red around her eyes was faint enough to escape Mist’s attention. She would certainly not start weeping again with him present.

  She stepped out on the porch, prepared to force a smile of welcome, but it came easier than she had expected. Jain and the recorders were the evildoers. Mist was innocent, she was sure. Well, not quite innocent. He had some illicit longings that must be discouraged, but he was not part of the conspiracy, only a fellow victim.

  Clutching a basket, he came hurrying along the path with giant steps. The rain had ended shortly after he left, but Thaile had worked out the sorcery of the Way now and was not at all surprised to see that his cloak and hood were soaked. Then he noticed her standing there in her frilly white blouse and dark gold skirt, and for a moment food dropped back to second place on his wish list.

  “What did you bring?” she asked, grabbing the basket almost before he stepped up onto the porch.

  “Fish! You know how to cook fish?”

  “I can try.”

  As he stripped off his wet cloak, she went inside, rummaging in the basket already. By the time she had spread out the contents on the kitchen table, he had followed her and was looming in the doorway. He had changed his clothes again, to a frilly white shirt-open all the way down to his silver belt buckle-and very snug green velvet tights. Oh, he really did fancy himself! The cottage was growing dim, and somehow he seemed even larger than before.

  Thaile stared at the four enormous fat perch, the crusty loaves, onions, yams, eggs, lemons, butter, three bottles with labels she could not read … “We’re entertaining the whole College?”

  “I can eat every bit of that,” Mist said firmly. “But I’ll spare you some. Do you like wine?”

  “Never tried it,” she said, and Felt a surge of satisfaction that raised her hackles.

  She took out one of the gorgeous metal knives and set to work. Her father owned one metal knife, and she had a dozen! Mist busied himself with opening a wine bottle. He filled two beakers, then brought a chair in from the sitting room and made himself comfortable to watch. She had a fairly good idea now what his talent was.

  Her hands moved deftly, needing little direction from her. “Funny,” she remarked airily. “I’ve completely lost track of time. “

  She Felt no reaction-no alarm, no guilt. Unless Mist was a sorcerer who could convey false emotions, he was innocent. “Not quite first quarter. This wine is delicious.”

  She lifted her goblet with care-he had filled it to the brim. “Which moon, though?”

  “Second!” He was surprised by the question, of course. “I don’t think I care for wine.”

  “It grows on you! ” he said hopefully.

  I’ll bet it does. She could guess its effects just from his anticipation.

  Second moon of the year … that confirmed what she had worked out while he was gone. She began peeling the onions so she would have an excuse if her eyes misbehaved again.

  The cottage had been wonderful, and heartbreaking. As she had uncovered all its marvels-working out how drawers worked, and door handles, and the chimney flue-she had become more and more distraught. Eventually she had realized that she was frantic with the need to share all these marvels with somebody. Gaib? Frial? Or Sheel, her sister? None of those. Nor her brother Feen. Nobody she knew.

  Knew now?

  She had soaked blissfully in the bathtub with its magical hot water-after scalding her foot on a first attempt-and at the same time discovered that she was utterly miserable. Eventually she had begun to wonder if she could just be lonely. Lonely? A pixie? Many times she had spent days on end wandering the hills by herself and been almost sorry to go home and reassure her parents she was still alive. Pixies never got lonely!

  In the end, the mirror had convinced her.

  A thousand times in her childhood Thaile had helped her mother and sister wash their hair, as they had aided her. She could easily call up their image in her mind, kneeling by the spring. The back of Frial’s neck had always been paler than the back of Sheen’s neck, because a goodwife wore her hair long and a maid did not.

  Today, in the mirror, Thaile had seen that paleness on the back of her own neck. Then she had noticed the edges of her hair. She had never seen hair cut so neat and even-until today, here at the College. All the people she had observed at the Market had been well trimmed like that, although the detail had not registered with her at the time.

  The second moon of the year …

  She could not even remember Winterfest!

  At fourteen she had kept Death Watch for old Phain in the first moon. Almost exactly a year later, Jain had come to the Gaib Place and told her she had Faculty. She had hung around there, moping, for a couple of moons. Then she had gone to visit Sheen at the Wide Place. And then … And then what?

  She could not remember. She could not recall coming to the College, even this morning. She had just been here. Trying to think about the journey made her feel sick.

  She must have run away!

  So Jain and the other recorders had followed her and found her. She remembered how strangely sleepy she had felt at the Meeting Place, and his curious probing questions, testing what she could recall and what had been deleted from her mind. “Smells terrific!” Mist remarked.

  Thaile stared down at the sizzling fish in the pan.

  When had she learned to cook fish?

  She was a hill-country girl. She had never eaten fish at the Gaib Place, but now her hands had known what to do, how to gut them and sca
le them, how to smear them with egg and roll them in breadcrumbs. Who had taught her?

  Part of her life had been stolen away. Months were missing, the better part of a year.

  And someone was missing, the person she had wanted to share the wonders of this cottage with. Who? The boy she had always dreamed of ? The one with the smile and the pointy ears?

  She looked up at Mist with eyes that nipped, and onions had nothing to do with it … This was not the one, certainly! Not him, with his empty glass and his open shirt and his fancy boots up on a stool and the trail of mud wherever he walked. Never him. She would not have run away with Mist.

  She must have run away with someone, though, or why had she let her hair grow long?

  Jain and his foul friends had done this awful thing to her. She gulped away the ache in her throat. “You say you can’t cook, but you knew exactly what supplies to bring.”

  “I’ve seen it done often enough, ” he remarked blandly. “You haven’t touched your wine. “

  “You take it. I’ll stick with water. And I think this is ready to eat. “

  He swung his feet down to the floor. “I know I am. “

  She would not have run away with Mist. Oh, he was likable enough, but she knew now what his talent was.

  Mist pushed his chair away from the table, stretched out his long green legs, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “That was delicious! You are a terrific cook.”

  Thaile had finished her meal some time back. She had never seen anyone put away quite so much at a sitting as Mist just had. “Thank you, my lord.”

  He smiled tolerantly, missing the sarcasm. His emotions were oddly fuzzy, because of the wine. “It’s very nearly dark out there! ” He stared at the window for a moment and then began to emit worry. “There’s a lot of places I was supposed to show you and haven’t. “

  “There’s a moon.”

  “There is here …”

  “But it may be raining elsewhere? Mist, how big is the College?”

  He shrugged blankly. “No idea.”

  “There’s only the one path, isn’t there, the Way?”

  ” ‘Sright.” He grinned. “That’s quite a trick, isn’t it? No branchings, no side roads. It starts where you are and ends where you want to go.”

  “Provided you’ve been there already.”

  He nodded, and stretched. “You have to be shown the Way. Just means you have to know what your destination looks like, I think-it’s only a Way back! But I ought to show you a few more places before it gets too dark. Course we can take a lantern.”

  “Can you show me the Gate?”

  He shook his head as he stood up. “No, I was blindfolded when … You mean you weren’t?” If butter could look suspicious, then it would look like his eyes now. “Why do you want to know the Way to the Gate?”

  Thaile was not worried by Novice Mist, or what he was thinking. “Maggot and Worm and whoever the other one is-they were blindfolded also?”

  “Yes. “

  “So you’ve talked about it with them?” She Felt his uneasiness and did not wait for an answer. “I was just wondering if you and I came in by the same Gate. There must be several, mustn’t there?”

  He bent over to lean his elbows on the chair back; he regarded her warily. “So I’m told.”

  “How big is the College, Mist?”

  “You think it’s all over the place?”

  “I think it’s all over Thume-hill country for me, river bottom for you. Hot lands, cool lands … That’s why the weather changes along the Way. “

  “Evil take it!” He smiled sheepishly. “It took me a week to work that out! Something Maggot said about the seashore to the south tipped me off. I just thought you were gorgeous, I didn’t know you were clever, as well.”

  Compliments were nice, but an offer to wash up would have been nicer. Sensing trouble ahead, Thaile decided it was time to move Novice Mist out into the cool night air.

  Stars were appearing in the darkening sky, the waxing moon was bright enough to cast shadows. As they set off along the Way together, Mist reached for her hand and she moved it to safety.

  “It’s a beautiful evening,” he grumbled. “Romantic!” It was. He wasn’t.

  “But we have all our lives ahead of us here in the College,” she said. “Don’t we?”

  The implications silenced him. Mist, she suspected, did not think very far ahead. About twenty minutes would be his limit. The forest grew deeper, and dark, but the Way glimmered pale before them. Leaves whispered busily all around. Soon she smelled rain and heard a faint patter on the canopy high above. An owl hooted in the distance.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “The Commons. That’s where you eat if you don’t want to cook. Great food! I don’t mean better than yours, of course. After that, maybe the Library?”

  “Fine.” What was a library?

  A few minutes went by. Thaile sniffed suspiciously. The air was warmer, muggier, bearing a strangely familiar scent. River? Yes, it might be a river. Not one of the mountain torrents she knew from her childhood, but one of the slow, sinuous floods of the lowlands, muddy and weedy. And that chirruping sound? “Is the Commons near a river, Mist?”

  “River? No. Why?”

  “Just wondered. What’s that noise?”

  “Frogs.”

  Of course frogs-she knew that now. Not a river, but a swamp, perhaps? Or a lake.

  She Felt no guile in her companion-he was genuinely puzzled by her questions, still foggy from the wine. But then he must have detected the change in the air, also, for his puzzlement rose to worry, and confusion.

  The trees thinned out to reveal a moonlit glade and wide water beyond. And a cottage, with a canoe inverted on trestles beside it. She winced at the explosion of embarrassment from Mist.

  “This is your Place!” she said wryly. “On a lake, you said, right?”

  “Thaile! I’m sorry! I truly didn’t mean … I didn’t mean to bring you here. Not now. I was hoping maybe later. I don’t understand! “

  No one could lie to her, and he wasn’t trying. She laughed uneasily. “I think you weren’t thinking hard enough about where we were going, Mist. You took the wrong Way by accident!”

  “That must be it. ” He was genuinely upset at seeming foolish and worried that she would think evil of him. All talk, Jain had called him.

  “Well, we’re here now. You want to show me?” The surest road to a pixie’s heart was to praise his Place, her mother had taught her. It was only good manners to ask to be shown around.

  Eagerly Mist led her over to the little house. He pushed open the door and called light from magic lanterns, then bowed in mock formality. “I am Mist and welcome you to the Mist Place. “

  Before she could invoke the Gods’ blessings in response, he rushed on: “It isn’t very tidy, I’m afraid.”

  As an understatement, that remark would be hard to equal. The floor was muddy and every scrap of furniture was littered with clothes. She saw dirty dishes, banana skins, orange peels, leftover scraps that would be certain to bring vermin-already a legion of bugs whirled around the lantern. An open door showed a rumpled, unmade bed. He had managed all this in only ten days?

  “It isn’t, is it?” she said sadly. It would be a pleasant cottage otherwise. She could hardly scold a man so much older and larger than herself-indeed, his woebegone expression made her more inclined to demand a broom and start a cleanup. She resisted that temptation, for she recognized his talent at work. She had guessed what the second recorder had recognized in Mistan occult ability to make other people want to tend him. Cook his meals, for example, wash his dishes. For all his size and muscle, he just stood there looking likable and helpless as an oversize puppy.

  Then her eyes wandered to the cottage itself. walls of tightwoven basketwork, roof thatched with banana leaves, rafters of bamboo. A pulse in her throat began beating uncontrollably. A terrible sense of familiarity engulfed her. Somewhere she had kno
wn a house like this, impossibly like this. She backed away, taut with a growing horror, feeling unknown wraiths rise to gibber in the dark corners of her mind.

  Even the unperceptive Mist had registered her alarm. “What’s wrong?” he demanded.

  “Nothing. Just very tired. It’s lovely, I’ll see it better in daylight, excuse me.”

  She turned and fled out the door-ignoring his shouts, ignoring the rain, racing off across the clearing and along the Way, awkward in her unfamiliar shoes, with her cloak streaming behind her. As she rounded the second bend, his fear and distress cut off abruptly and she was alone again. A few more panting steps, and the warm mugginess of the lowland air faded also. Moonlight began to filter down through the trees. The spectral path glittered pale before her.

  Bamboo and wicker. Somewhere she had known a house like that. Somewhere, sometime, it must have mattered greatly to her.

  The Thaile Place, she thought. She must concentrate on her destination. If she worried too much about Mist’s cottage, the Way might take her back there. The Thaile Place, home … Except that the shiny dream cottage she had been given did not feel like home. Thaile of the Thaile Place-it sounded wrong!

  Thaile of Who’s Place?

  She slowed to a walk, conscious of the painful pounding of her heart. She forced herself to breathe more slowly and unclench her fists. Fool! What was there to be afraid of? Jain had said she could be in no danger in the College. Forest never troubled her, even at night. Open grassland would be much more scary.

  Soon she smelled the air of the high country, the familiar tree scents. The moonlight grew brighter. She came around a bend and saw the Thaile Place ahead … dark, deserted. Not home, true, but a familiar refuge. She stumbled up the porch steps and went in, closing the door on the terrors of the world.

  Life’s young day:

  I’ve wandered east,

  I’ve wandered west,

  Through mony a weary way;

  But never, never can forget

  The luve of life’s young day!