B. Larson - Amber Magic

“What about Myrrdin?”

Corbin made an expansive gesture. “Perhaps Gudrin could perform the ceremony. She seems as wise as any.”

Brand looked at him quizzically. “Everyone around here seems so taken with outsiders lately.”

“What's wrong?” asked Corbin, squinting at him. Just then the bucket came into view and they hauled it up and filled one of the tin pails. The bucket dropped back down with a long clinking rattle of the chain and a distant, echoing splash.

Brand frowned before answering his cousin. Should he tell Corbin of Telyn's insane plans? She would be angry when she found out, but perhaps he could come up with some way to stop her. Still, he was reluctant to tell Corbin something she had told him in confidence. It was a troubling dilemma, he couldn't recall ever having held something back from Corbin before.

“I don't know,” he said at last. “Nothing seems to be the way it was a few weeks ago.”

They hauled up the bucket a second time, and Brand waited for what Corbin's mind to digest this. He began to fear that somehow Corbin already knew everything. It sometimes seemed as if he knew things that no one else did, simply because he reasoned them through so carefully and clearly.

“It must be something about Scraper-Telyn, then,” he said slowly, piecing it together. Brand oftentimes thought of Corbin's head as a miller's wheel and stone. He always ground down hard facts into a fine dust. “She was acting oddly last night… Almost as if she expected someone besides Myrrdin. Not a pair of the Kindred, either.”

Brand glanced at him and chewed a bit on his lower lip. He looked away, lest his eyes give away the rest of the puzzle somehow to Corbin's millstone. The bucket rose to the top a second time and they filled the second pail in silence.

“Ah, I have it!” said Corbin triumphantly. “She expected to see the Faerie at the door!”

Brand and Corbin looked at each other. Brand shook his head in defeat. “I was never good at deceit, and you are like a wolf hunting a lost lamb if there is a fact missing in the world.”

Corbin's look of triumph faded quickly, as more ramifications came to him. “But how is such a thing possible? And why would anyone want to meet the Faerie on their doorstep during a midnight blizzard?”

Brand sighed. He explained what little he knew. He cautioned Corbin to secrecy, but knew that there was little hope that Telyn wouldn't figure out that Brand had told him of her schemes. She was almost as good as Corbin at delving into the truth, and Corbin was probably worse than Brand at hiding it.

It was when they were trudging through the new fallen snow back to the house that Corbin dropped his pail of water.

“Corbin, what are you doing, man?” Brand demanded. Then he stopped as he noticed that Corbin was standing stock still, looking out through the opening in the hedge where the path led down into the apple orchard. “What's wrong?”

Corbin backed way to Brand's side. He pointed into the white encrusted trees. “There,” he hissed. “Beyond the fourth row. I saw something moving about.”

They crouched down like hunters, Corbin pointing. To both their ears then came the sweet music of distant pipes. Corbin looked into Brand's eyes, their faces close together, the white plumes of their breath fogging the space between them. Brand knew the truth before his friend spoke.

“It was your shadow man, Brand. I'm sure of it. I feel his spell now, calling us to come and dance.”

The two of them rose up and ran into the house. Behind them the two tin pails spilled their water onto the snow, melting dark patches in the smooth expanse of white.

Brand, always fleeter of foot, won the race to the door and burst through it. “Jak!” he shouted to his brother. “Get your crossbow!”

Jak, who had been sitting on his favorite chair with his feet hanging over the arms, jumped up in alarm. He spilled the tea that he had been sipping. Modi surprised everyone by producing his battleaxe, which he had placed out of sight behind his chair. He leapt up and charged to the door as if an army was on the island. Brushing Brand and Corbin aside, he pushed shut the door and barred it, putting his broad back against it. Only then did he turn to the boys.

“What did you see?” he demanded, his bass voice ringing with command. He gripped his battleaxe in both hands, at the ready.

“The shadow man,” said Brand, pointing toward the orchard and the dock beyond. “Corbin saw the shadow man who has been following us for some time.”

Modi's eyes narrowed. He went to the shuttered window nearest him and released the latch, peeking outside. White light illuminated his weathered face and hard eyes. “Just one man?”

“Yes, but he is very mysterious,” replied Brand.

“Are you sure it is the same one?” Jak asked them.

Corbin shrugged. “I don't know. This time we heard the music of pipes.”

“Perhaps we should go out and thrash him,” suggested Jak, rolling up his sleeves and donning his cloak and boots.

Corbin shook his head. “He is not a normal man. It was like Brand said, I–I felt a cold dread come over me. Even to look at him was difficult. Perhaps he is one of the Faerie. One of the Dark Ones.”

Modi slammed the shutters and latched them. They all jumped at the noise. “I see nothing. Faerie, you say?” he said, snorting. “What do River Folk know of Dark Ones?”

Before any could answer him, Gudrin and Telyn came into the room. “I'm sorry, but I seem to have slept late,” said Gudrin. Brand was a bit amused to note that although she wore a nightshirt, she still had her package under her arm and her rucksack on her back. Gudrin looked at Modi and sighed. “I see your weapon is ready again, Modi of the warriors. What is all the commotion about?”

Brand quickly explained about the shadow man while Jak finished dressing and went upstairs to get his crossbow. While Brand was describing the shadow man, Gudrin became increasingly concerned.

“And the length of the weapon you saw the first time…”

“I couldn't be sure it was a weapon,” interrupted Brand.

“Yes, yes, but if it was, would you say it was the length of a dagger or a sword?”

Brand pondered for a moment. “In between, perhaps.”

Gudrin nodded, kneading her chin. She held her package to her chest, as if it gave her comfort of some kind. Brand watched her and noticed that her rucksack gave a tiny twitch again, as it had last night, a small movement. Brand blinked and frowned. He surmised that Gudrin must have some kind of odd tick in the muscles of her back. Perhaps it only showed up when she was thinking, the way old man Tad Silure's cheek would twitch when he spoke before the Riverton council.

“We must investigate this, Modi,” Gudrin said to her companion.

Modi shrugged his massive shoulders. “It is but one man.”

“They describe not a man, but one of the shirik,” said Gudrin.

At this, Modi came alive. He strode forward to Gudrin's side. They spoke briefly in their own tongue, which, to the ears of the River Folk, sounded both crude and subtle. It was a language of many hard sounds and careful inflections. Each word seemed clear and clipped; none ran into the next as words tended to do in their own tongue. Only Telyn seemed to enjoy the sound of it.

“There was one other thing,” said Corbin. “We heard the sweet music of pipes after the phantom had disappeared.”

Gudrin and Modi exchanged glances. “Man-sized? Bearing a long knife and playing sweet pipes? It can only be Voynod,” said Modi.

Gudrin nodded, but gestured Modi to silence. “It is best not to name them so casually when one is near,” she said.

Telyn had followed Jak and his crossbow to the door, both now fully dressed for the cold. In her hand she held a long thin dagger. Brand frowned at the look of it.