Through night the seasons ride into the dark, The years surrender in the changing lights, The breath turns vacant on the dusk or dawn Between the abstract days and nights. For there is always corpselight in the fields And corposants above the slaughterhouse, And at deep noon the shadowy vallenwoods Are bright at the topmost boughs.
Lyim hadn't found much to sing about in recent years, though singing had been a favorite pastime of his since his days at the feet of bards in the smokey, decadent inns of his youth.
The brown-shrouded mage came to the last green, gentle slope that led to the portcullis on Castle DiThon's northern curtain wall. Staring up at the castle, blatant symbol of elitism, Lyim was struck again by the inequity between Guerrand's upbringing and his own. Cormac and Rietta DiThon had served as Guerrand's parents. Though nobly born, he knew from his own brief encounter with them that they were of no more noble spirit than his own poor parents. It was difficult to say of which pair that was a greater indictment.
Ardem Rhistadt and Dinayda Valurin were considered trash by the worst trash of Rowley-on-Torath. Lyim's parents had never married, in fact had done no more than pass each other in the dark one night, as was common with Dinayda's profession. Lyim was the result. Ardem Rhistadt had done no more than allow the child to take his name. Dinayda always maintained that she did the best she could, which was to let Lyim run wild, with the understanding that he always had a place to rest his head if he wanted it. Lyim didn't want it after the age of six. When he was ten, Lyim heard that his mother had died of one of the unspecified diseases that commonly killed women of her occupation.
By that time, Lyim's father had long since moved away from Rowley. That as good as made Lyim an orphan, but practically speaking nothing had changed. He was earning a few coins and some scraps of food as a general errand and clean-up boy at the local inn. It was there, one night in Lyim's twelfth year, that he saw something that would forever change the direction of his life.
A traveling sleight-of-hand artist-a charlatan trickster, really-was passing through Rowley. The magician, a tall, lanky man with a dirty yellow cape and hair, was earning coin by doing tricks for the patrons, such as making coins appear in their ears or under their tankards. Lyim was mesmerized; he'd never seen anything like this magic before, nor seen the power it held over the viewer.
Staying to clean up the inn long after the patrons had left, Lyim had opportunity to watch the magician count the evening's take; it was more money than the youth expected to earn in a lifetime. For one night's work! By Lyim's standards the magician was wealthy, even after he gave Mowe the innkeeper his due. The young boy knew in that moment that he had earned his last turnips from sweeping floors.
Lyim begged the magician to take him along as an unpaid servant, in exchange for teaching all he knew about magic. He quickly learned that Fabulous Fendock saved all his charisma and good humor for his performances. Off stage, what lessons he offered Lyim were impromptu and enigmatic, and more often than not they left the young man disgruntled and frustrated. But sometimes, when ale softened Fendock's mood, he could change radically, becoming ebullient, almost (but not quite) genial, and he would bring precious gifts of insight to the information-starved boy.
Lyim learned two truly useful things from Fendock. First, he learned that the man was a prestidigitator who played at performing simple cantrips, because true magic was a far more complex and powerful thing and was well beyond Fabulous Fendock's ability. In many ways it was unfortunate that Lyim proved to be a quick study, for Fendock punished the young boy for outdoing him in subtle and obvious ways.
The harshest and most far-reaching punishment came as a result of the other thing of value Lyim learned from this odd "apprenticeship": the name of a true wizard both revered and resented by Fendock. That lauded wizard's name was Belize.
One night, after the magician had drunk too much during a particularly well-received performance in Lantern on the East Road, he had pridefully shown Lyim his most prized possession: a spellbook written by the great mage Belize. Fendock's good mood caused him to confess with arrogance that he'd stolen the small tome from a patron some years back. He was in such a good mood, in fact, that he let young Lyim open the book, confident that the contents would be beyond the urchin's understanding. But Lyim's natural magical abilities had allowed him to read one or two of the words in the magical books before Fendock had furiously slammed the book shut and told him to never touch it again.
Lyim had seen the jealous look in the man's eyes, and he quickly realized that the magician didn't have the skill to read the book himself. Fendock was like a man who could appreciate fine music but was totally without skill to play it. Lyim's punishment for demonstrating that he possessed the ability Fendock lacked was the cessation of even the pretense of magical lessons.
When, on one dark night after a year of intolerable servitude, Lyim slipped away from Fabulous Fendock's wagon, he took with him Belize's writings. The young man reasoned that the magician could never utilize Belize's work properly and that he had served Fendock beyond what he had received in magical training.
"Never explain, never defend," had become Lyim's motto ever after. It was why he'd lied without remorse to Guerrand about getting the book from some elves. He had no shame about lying, but plenty concerning his blood and magical heritage.
Lyim came to the Castle DiThon's portcullis and was surprised to see it closed, as well as the vast double door behind it. He had never seen it so, even when the residents should have been expecting an attack from the family whose land Cormac DiThon had confiscated.
Puzzled, Lyim looked up to his right, to the guard tower. "Hallo? Who defends Castle DiThon this day?"
After a time, Lyim heard a squeaky voice that sounded vaguely familiar coming from the ramparts above and to his right. "What is it? Yes? We're not having any merchants from the village."
Squinting skyward, Lyim recognized the befuddled chamberlain who'd thought to dispatch an entire army of Knights of Solamnia with the announcement that he hadn't the authority to recognize their siege. The old man's face was even thinner and creased with more worry lines than when last Lyim had seen him, his eyes more milky with cataracts.
"Good chamberlain, I am no merchant with wares for sale. I am an old friend looking for Kirah DiThon," Lyim called up to the man in his most persuasive tones. "I heard there is plague in the village and was concerned for her welfare."
"Kirah is well, as far as I know," said the chamberlain, his tone eased.
"As far as you know?" repeated Lyim, puzzled. "Have you not seen her in the castle with your own eyes?"
"How would 1?" asked the chamberlain as if the answer were plain. "I see little enough with these eyes. Even still, Kirah has lived in the village since shortly after she refused to marry the husband of her mother's choosing."
"Where does she live?" he asked the chamberlain.
"Above the baker's, I've heard," said the old man. "He's just died of the sickness, if Gildee the cook has it right from the gossips."
But Lyim was already on his way back to the village.
When Kirah heard the knock at her door, she thought it must be Dilb with some wood for her fire. With Bram gone to parts unknown, the baker's son was the only one she would trust to enter her little room. Still taking no chances, Kirah opened the door slowly and slightly, then pressed her right eye to the crack. Her breath abruptly caught in her throat, and her heart skipped a painful beat.