Peter Beagle: Innkeeper's Song

His thick white mustache softened the fox’s pointed grin. “The bird can turn into us. That’s what matters.” As jaunty as though he had never been helpless in the hands of the Mildasis, beaten bloody, listening to his death song, he dropped down beside me and began plucking feathers. The sacrifice paint on his face was gone, and the bruises on his pink cheekbones were already fading. He kept on smiling at me as he worked, and I kept on staring at him.

“If you’re expecting me to drip my tongue out and pant,” he said gently enough, “I don’t do that. Nor will I eat this bird whole and raw, crunching the bones. In this shape, I am a man like you.”

I laughed then, though the effort almost put me on my back. I told him, “A man like me has opened as many bellies with his teeth as any fox.” Which was not true, but I felt it so then. The old man answered me, “Well, then perhaps you might be pleased to start a fire for us, since men cook their food when they can.” He took flint and steel out of a leather scrip at his waist and handed them to me.

There was dead wood—an armload, no more—within easy reach, or I could never have gathered even that much. Merely breaking up the kindling twigs took me so long that the old man had the bird cleaned, neat as you please, by the time I had the fire going. Hardly enough heat to cook it through, but we managed, and we dined together like men, though the very last of my strength went to keep me from gobbling my half-bird half-cooked, and after that his, too. For his part, he chatted along blithely, getting my name from me—though never offering his own—and telling me that he was companion to a great lady from a far shore. I asked if she were black, but he shook his head. “Brown, if you will, but certainly not black. She is called Nyateneri, and she is very wise.”

“And you stole the Mildasi horse for her,” I said. “My soul, I wish I had such a loyal and valiant servant.”

That provoked him, as I thought it might. “We are comrades, equals, make good note of that. My lady sends me on no errands—I come and go on my own affairs, exactly as I choose.” For a moment he was truly angry, gray eyes gone almost yellow with it. “I do not serve.”

“What need of a horse, then, for one who can travel on four feet as he chooses?” I hoped to make him careless in his anger, but he was already on guard again, laughing at me, lolling tongue between teeth on purpose. “That was only my sport with the stupid Mildasis. Should it surprise you that my idea of play is not yours?”

“They beat you half to death,” I said, “and would have cut your throat, but for me. What kind of sport is that?”

“I was never in danger,” he answered me, haughty as a man may be with his mouth full and greasy. “Your diversion was well enough, but completely unnecessary. It was my play.”

I said, “They would have killed you. I saved your life.” For once he did not speak, but only turned his head, watching me out of the sides of his eyes. “Man or fox, you are in my debt,” I said. “You know you are in my debt.”

His mustache truly bristled, and he licked it down again. “Why, so are you in mine, boy, with my food and water in your belly. If you saved me indeed, you did it by chance—and well you know that —but I chose to help you, when I could have left you to get on about your business of dying. I hunt for no one, but I hunted for you, and so we are well quits in your world and mine.” And he would say nothing further until we had finished the bird and buried the scraps, to leave no trace for the Mildasis.

“If you want to wash your face and paws,” I said then, “I could look away.” I yawned as I spoke, because the good meal made me want to sleep immediately. The old man sat back with his arms around his knees, considering me long and long after that, not moving at all. Kind and cozy as a grandfather he looked, but I felt the way that bird must have felt in the last seconds, seeing him too late.

“You’ll never catch them, you know. Not on a Mildasi horse, not on any other. And if you did, you would dearly wish you hadn’t.”

I did not ask whom he meant, or how he knew. I said,

“The black woman is a great wizard, surely, for my Lukassa was drowned and she brought her back to life. And whatever terrible things she can do to me, she will have to do, and do them all twice over to make sure of me. For I will find her, and I will bring Lukassa home again.”

“Boys’ talk,” he answered contemptuously. “The woman’s no more magical than you are, but what she does not know about flight and following, about tracking and covering tracks, about sending the hounds howling off after their own smell, even I do not know. And now my lady Nyateneri has joined her—yes, as you guessed—and between the pair of them, a poor fox can only chew his paws and pray not to be too corrupted by their subtlety. Give over, boy, go home.”

“Fox talk,” I said in my turn, praying myself not to be convinced. “Tell your mistress, tell them both that Lukassa’s man is coming after her.” I swung myself up on the Rabbit’s back and sat still, glaring down at the old man as fiercely as I could, though I could hardly see him for the sudden giddiness that took me. “You tell them,” I said.

The old man never moved. He licked his mustache and licked it, and each time his smile slid a little wider. He said, “What will you give me if I leave you a trail to follow?”

The yellow-gray eyes and barking voice were so mocking that I could not believe what I had heard. “What will you give me? You’re still too near death for vanity—you know you’ve lost their track forever unless I help you. Give me that locket you wear on your neck. It’s cheap, it’s no loss to you, but I help no one without pay. The locket will do.”

“Lukassa gave it to me,” I said. “For my name-day, when I was thirteen.”

The old man’s teeth glittered in his mouth like ice. “Do you hear, Lukassa? Your swineherd sweetheart prefers your bauble to you. Joy of it, then, boy, and good luck.” He was on his feet, turning away.

I threw the locket at him then, and he whisked it out of the air without looking back at me. He said, “Get down, you are in no case to travel yet. Sleep out the day there”—he pointed, still not turning, to a rocky overhang where I could lie shadowed—“and start north at moon-rise, keeping those hills on your left. There is no road. There will be a trail.”

“A trail to where?” I demanded. “Where are they bound, and why are they taking Lukassa with them?” The old man began to walk away down the slope, leaving me infuriated. I slipped from the Rabbit’s saddle and ran after him, reaching for his shoulder, but he wheeled swiftly, and I did not touch him. I said, “What about yourself, tell me that at least. That’s not north, the way you’re going.”

Pink cheeks, white mustache, hair as wicked-white as the water that took my girl, he grinned until his eyes stretched shut to see me afraid of him. Even his whisper was harsh. “Why, I’m off after that black horse, where else?” And he was the fox again, loping off without a glance or farewell, brushy tail swaggering high as a housecat’s until he thought himself out of my sight. But I watched him a long way, and I knew when that tail came down.

The dreams began again as soon as I gave my ring to that girl. I knew they would, but there was nothing for it, because of the other dream, the one my friend sent. Drowned white, crying out with all the unused strength of her unlived life, calling so desperately from the riverbed that even my skin hurt with it, miles distant, even the soles of my feet. She was still alive when that dream came to me, three nights before.