The Darkling Child Read online

  He brushed drops of water from his shaggy blond hair and snatched a roll from a pan cooling on the stovetop. The cook gestured threateningly with his spatula but without enough emphasis to be convincing, then motioned to the platter of meat sitting next to him. Reyn helped himself, building a sandwich and devouring the results. Gammon found him a glass of ale to wash down his food and brought it over to him.

  The barkeep paused, watching him, then headed for the door. “Soon as you’re done, come on out and do some songs. They’re getting restless out there. If you can soothe them a bit, maybe they’ll fuss less.”

  “Voice of an angel, is it?” the grease-dog purred and grinned broadly.

  Reyn knew better than to say anything back and simply nodded as if it were a compliment rather than a taunt. One thing he could say for certain—there wasn’t an insult he hadn’t heard or a name he hadn’t endured. It came with the territory, and he’d learned long ago to absorb the blows.

  His voice—that was the spark to the fire. His fortune and his misfortune. Hard to know which, sometimes. Both, he supposed. Right now, it was paying for his way in the world and his place in Portlow, so he was feeling good about it. Other times, it had been a different story. That was the way life worked, though. He’d learned that much along the way.

  He finished his sandwich and drained his glass of ale. Moving over to the coatrack, he took down the elleryn, removed it carefully from its case, and slung the strap over his shoulder. Standing in the kitchen amid the smells of the cooking and the rise of the heat from the stove and griddle, he tuned it carefully, turning the pegs that tightened the eight strings one after another while plucking experimentally to bring them all into sync. Then he fastened the metal slide in place at the apex of the instrument’s narrowing neck and fretted multiple chords to check for tuning.

  When he was satisfied with the results, he took a deep breath, exhaled, gave a cheery call to the grease-dog, and headed for the tavern door.

  It was pandemonium beyond. Shouts and jokes and raucous laughter, voices seeking to be heard over the roar of other voices, empty tankards of this and that libation slammed on the bar in search of a refill, feet stamping and backs being slapped, the room jammed with patrons locked elbow-to-elbow and shoulder-to-shoulder, heads bent close, bodies radiating heat and sweat. There was barely room for him to get to the small platform where he performed, set back against the wall at the far end of the room. The tables and chairs closest were pushed right up against the edge of his four-by-four space. As he neared, shouts and whistles rose from listeners familiar with his playing, sounds of encouragement and approval that caused him to flush with pleasure. He knew he was good. He knew he could make them feel things they didn’t even know they were capable of feeling. He had the gift.

  He stepped onto the platform and settled himself on the stool placed there for his use. The room began to quiet immediately. He tested the strings of the elleryn once more, strumming chords, ear held close so he could hear accurately. By the time he was finished, voices had quieted almost to silence, and all eyes were on him.

  Without preamble, he began to play. He chose a crowd favorite, a tale about a highwayman and the woman he loved—who betrayed him to the authorities so that he was trapped and died calling out her name. It was sweet and poignant, its refrain instantly memorable after one hearing:

  Call, he did for Ellen Jean

  She who was his sweetest dream

  Call for her in spite of cost

  For Ellen Jean, his life was lost.

  When he was finished and the highwayman was dispatched and Ellen Jean was revealed for the faithless woman they all knew she was, you could have heard a pin drop. Then the clapping and pounding began, and the room was on its feet, calling for more. He went back to it immediately, another crowd favorite, a drinking song featuring an old woodsman and his dog.

  He played with almost no pause for the better part of an hour, his music and his voice ensnaring them like wondering children, mesmerizing them as they listened. He wove their emotions into each song, making it live and breathe for them in ways a mere tune never could. All felt the emotional ache his music aroused within, rejoicing in the happy songs, mourning with the sad. All were caught up in a transformative experience that for a few minutes at least changed everything about them.

  It was his gift that captured them, that wove through their hearts and minds and made them smile or cry. It was not the playing, which was only an accompaniment. It was in his voice where the real magic could be found, in the way he worked a song through changes in modulation, pauses, slides up and down the scale, emphasis added and withdrawn. With his voice, he could make them believe. No one was immune. Wherever he went, whomever he played for, they were his for as long as he sang.

  The problem was that it didn’t end there and the result wasn’t always pleasant. His voice could provide a healing balm, but it could be a weapon, too. And in the heat of a moment’s careless lapse or an ill-considered emotional surge, it could shift from the former to the latter.

  And even that wasn’t the worst of it. What it did to him was even more terrifying. When he used the magic in the wrong way, in an ill-advised response to anger or fear, it whisked him away and dropped him into a deep, dark nothingness, into a place where everything disappeared and time stopped. It happened all at once and without warning. It was as if he had been yanked outside himself. This had happened only a scattering of times—but they were times that were among the blackest of his life. To lose all sense of what was happening, to be stripped of control and become a helpless prisoner in a timeless nothingness was something he could barely stand to think about.

  He did not want it to happen to him ever again. He would do anything to prevent it.

  He sang his last song for the hour and stood up to receive the resultant applause before departing the tiny stage and moving back behind the bar to gain some space. Calls for drinks for the player, the singer, the music man rang through the great room, but he declined them all. Drink fogged his mind, and a fogged mind was dangerous for someone with his condition. As marvelous as his gift could be, it could also be unpredictable. No matter the urges he felt, he couldn’t let his guard down. With a moment’s carelessness, the darker emotions could take control and his singing could turn lethal.

  It had happened only that handful of times, but he remembered the consequences of each one vividly. He didn’t want any more memories to add to that bin.

  He stood behind the bar and drank from a glass of water, smiling and waving at his listeners. Off to one side, the Fortren brothers stood talking, heads bent close. Scheming, he corrected himself, not talking. Like weasels. The music never seemed to affect them in the way it affected others. They weren’t immune to the magic; they couldn’t be. They seemed mostly enraged by it, as if it awakened something in them that they would have preferred to leave sleeping. They had threatened him on more than one occasion because of it, never saying exactly why they were so troubled.

  At the back of the room, the stranger in the black cloak was staring at him, his narrow features revealed, bladed and flat. His eyes glittered, but there was no malice or ill intent reflected.

  Odd, Reyn thought. Then the head lowered, and the face disappeared into shadow.

  The boy studied him a moment longer, then he turned and went back into the kitchen for something more to eat. The singing, the turning of his audience from doubters into believers, the giving what they didn’t even know they wanted—it was all hard work and it made him hungry. Standing at the griddle, he made himself another sandwich, casting occasional glances at the old grease-dog as he cooked food, prepared plates, and called off the orders to Sorsi and Phenel, the two serving girls.

  His gaze shifted to a tiny window and the darkness outside. He wished he knew more about the source of his power. He didn’t question that it was a form of magic; he had accepted that a long time back. If you could use your voice to do the things that he had done—good and bad—you co
mmanded magic. But where had it come from? Why did he have it? His parents hadn’t told him, assuming they had even known. They were dead before he was even old enough to ask the questions that plagued him now. He could still see them in his mind, dragged from their home by the townspeople to be stoned until they were dead.

  Because of him. Because of his voice. Because of what he was suspected of being by frightened, superstitious fools.

  He shut his eyes against the thoughts and memories. He hadn’t seen them die, though he knew they had. He had been gone by then. He had done what they had told him to do and hidden in the old man’s cart so he could be spirited away from what was coming. He hated himself for having allowed it. He could have helped them. He could have stopped what had happened.

  Or he could have died with them. Or the old man who took him could have left him and gone his way.

  But none of that had happened. That was how life worked.

  —

  At the back of the great room, Arcannen sat pondering the contents of the tankard of ale in front of him. He was not drinking from it; he was using it as a prop to suggest that he was just another customer, albeit one who valued his privacy. He had just finished exchanging a long, searching look with the boy, and now he was considering, still wanting to make certain that what he believed to be true actually was. But having witnessed an hour of his singing and having watched the effect it produced on the raucous crowd, he felt there could be no mistake.

  The boy was an Ohmsford scion, and had inherited the use of the wishsong from his ancestors.

  But what to do about it?

  That he would do something was a given. That boy would give him the means to alter the history of the Four Lands in dramatic fashion. He knew the legends of the wishsong. He knew what it was capable of doing—what it had done for various Ohmsfords over the years. That there was one member of the family still alive was no small surprise, even after the rumors had reached him of this boy’s gift. He had suspected the truth then, but had not been convinced until now. What this boy could offer him, what he could provide in the way of support, was immeasurable. Paxon Leah had held promise as a bearer of the Sword of Leah, but a user of the wishsong could offer much, much more.

  He struggled to contain his excitement as he sat staring down at the tabletop, thinking. He didn’t show it, his face impassive and his body still, but his insides were roiling. With this boy as an ally, anything was possible. With this boy’s power…

  A chair scraped, and when he looked up the boy was sitting across from him. “Did you like my singing?”

  Arcannen steadied himself, then smiled and nodded. “You have great talent.”

  “I saw you staring at me.”

  “I admit, I was staring. I apologize. But I was surprised by how good you were. Much better than any singer I have ever heard. Who taught you?”

  The boy drank from a glass of water. “I taught myself.”

  “How did you end up here?”

  “I just did. Let’s back up. I think you were staring at me because you know me from somewhere. Am I right?”

  Arcannen hesitated. “I know of you. I know something of the magic you possess.”

  The boy said nothing. He just stared. He was very self-possessed and calm where others would have kept their distance. Arcannen admired that.

  “Who says it’s magic?” the boy challenged him at last.

  “I know it is magic because I have the use of magic myself. Tell me more about it. How long have you had it? How well can you control it?”

  The boy rose, his face tight. “Right now, I have to sing.”

  Then he turned abruptly and walked away.

  FIVE

  Reyn Frosch wasn’t sure how much of what the black-cloaked man had told him he believed, but of one thing he was very certain—the man knew entirely too much about him. And that frightened him—badly. He had spent his life hiding what he was, and to be revealed now was deeply troubling.

  Reyn crossed the great room to the kitchen door, noting as he did so that the Boar’s Head was even busier now than it had been earlier. There were no longer any seats or tables to be found, and what little space was left to stand in was down to almost nothing. He was forced to maneuver his way using shoulders and elbows to get through the raucous, hard-drinking crowd, and it occurred to him that if any sort of fight broke out at this point it would be difficult for Gammon to get out from behind the serving counter to put a stop to it.

  He made a mental note of that as he reached the bar and worked his way around one end toward the kitchen door.

  “You in a hurry, boy?” a familiar voice spat at him, one hand clamping on his shoulder.

  Borry Fortren. Reyn stopped and turned, facing the bully. The face that leaned into his was big, battered, and ugly. Nothing new there. Huge shoulders, massive arms, lots of muscle on display. “I’ve got a job to do,” he said evenly.

  “Singing that sissy music for these cow heads? Making everyone go all soft and squishy inside with your pretty words? What do you do to them, anyway, to make them all into chicken guts?”

  Reyn smiled. “I take their minds off faces like yours. Now get away from me or I’ll show you something really bad.”

  Borry hesitated. As he did, the boy turned away and continued on, forcing himself not to look back. Stupid oaf. He wouldn’t give this up until the two fought—something Reyn did not intend to do. Borry’s reputation suggested that he won fights however he needed to. He always carried an extra blade or two tucked into his clothing. One man he fought had him beaten, but Borry had used the knife and left the man with one good eye and one good ear. People were frightened of Borry and his brothers for a reason.

  Reyn passed through the kitchen door and went over to the coatrack to retrieve the elleryn. Strapping it across his shoulder, he drank another glass of water and went back out into the crowd and their immediate applause.

  He played for another hour after that, trying to calm his fears about the black-cloaked stranger. He worked his way through his repertoire of songs, using his voice and the elleryn to maximum effect, swaying the crowd’s responses by using the skills with which he had become so adept. Only once did he catch sight of the Fortrens, standing at the bar, heads bent close once more, backs turned. The only backs in the room that were, he noted.

  And he found the black-cloaked stranger, as well, still seated at the same table, still nursing the same glass of ale, his head lifted now, watching him, a noticeable gleam in his eyes as he listened. But looking at him made Reyn’s mind wander and his concentration on the music slide. He regrouped quickly, looked away from the stranger, and refocused on what he was being paid to do.

  When he finished and was standing in the midst of the crowd’s applause, he took a moment to look around once more but couldn’t find the stranger or the Fortrens. The table at the back of the room sat empty, and the brothers were nowhere to be seen. He took a short bow and walked off the stage for the kitchen. He had just passed through the door when Gammon followed him in, clapping him on the back.

  “Aye now, that was your best, Reyn! Just wondrous singing and playing. Everyone loved it. They’re all staying put for the last set, so you get whatever you need to eat and drink before you go back out. Really, you were amazing, lad!”

  The boy nodded and smiled, thinking that if Gammon knew what else he could do with his music he might not be quite so complimentary. That if he realized Reyn’s parents were dead because of him, he might feel differently. But the boy accepted the tavern owner’s accolades wordlessly, and the other beamed with satisfaction and disappeared back out into the great room.

  Reyn started to hang the elleryn on its peg with his cloak, but changed his mind and decided to keep it with him. He walked over to the counter and poured himself another glass of water, drank it down without stopping, then did the same with a second. He would need to relieve himself before he went back out to play, but he felt dried out and empty inside, and the cold well water helped
with both. He lingered for a few minutes, trying to decide if he needed food. But food didn’t seem necessary just then, so he set down his glass and went out the back door into the night.

  It was cool and overcast, but the rain had stopped. He fingered the strings of his instrument for a few minutes, taking advantage of the silence to adjust the sound of each as he plucked them one by one. Satisfied, he stood staring into the darkness and found himself remembering another night like this one. He had been eight years old, the only child of a baker and a home-keeper living in a Southland village below the Duln—a small community that in most ways was very much like every other. It seemed a long time ago now, though it was only a little more than seven years. He still remembered his parents’ faces and a few of their expressions and mannerisms. He remembered them as kind and good and caring. He used to fish with his father in the streams that ran through the woods surrounding the village. He used to take walks to the market with his mother to purchase goods.

  Then, one night, for reasons he never found out, he was attacked by a group of boys. They came at him in a swarm, and they overpowered his feeble and ineffective efforts to defend himself. They beat him until he was unconscious. They broke bones and cracked ribs. They nearly blinded him. He begged them to stop, pleaded with them to tell him why they were doing this, but they ignored him and continued pummeling him until he lost consciousness.