The Darkling Child

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 there was to stand 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. He 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.

His parents and the village healers nursed him back to health. No one could identify the boys responsible or say why they had chosen to make an example of him. No one seemed to know anything about what had happened. His father went door–to–door and spoke to everyone who would listen. He did this for days. One man told him he’d heard it was a mistake, that the boys thought he was someone else. Another man said he thought it was something Reyn had said or done. Nothing came of any of it.

Months went by. He recovered from his injuries, and the details of the incident dimmed in his memory. Life returned to normal.

But all too soon the boys came again. They caught him coming home after an afternoon of fishing. It was night, and he was alone. They came at him in a clutch, whispering what they were going to do to him. Terrified, he screamed. And something happened. His voice slipped out of register, the level of intensity shifting dramatically. He lost control of what he was doing. All at once his scream had an impact to it, a punch that struck his attackers like a physical blow and sent them sprawling. Many were left unconscious. They others picked themselves up and ran. The boy stood staring after them. He had no idea what he had done.

Several days later, a couple of them found him again. But this time one of them had brought his father. The man was big and mean and drunk, and he was carrying a knife.

“Gonna carve you a new face, boy!” he hissed. “Gonna cut that wailing witch tongue right out of you!”

Reyn Frosch never hesitated. He screamed again, but this time with dark intent and terrible purpose. The big man slowed, dropping to his knees, hands over his ears. He screamed back at the boy, then scrambled to his feet and lurched toward him anew.

And then he simply disintegrated. His body blew apart; separating at the joints, bones breaking, blood emptying out, he turned into a lump of raw, shredded meat.

In that moment Reyn seemed to lose consciousness. He didn’t fall, didn’t collapse; he simply lost track of what was happening. He stood there in a daze, his mind gone somewhere else, and it was several long minutes later before he even realized where he was.

By then, the boys who had brought the man had fled. Reyn stared at what was left of his attacker, appalled by what he had done. Even to save his life, he shouldn’t have done this. But the power of his voice was new to him, and he had been frightened so badly by the size of the man and the presence of the knife that he had simply reacted. He ran home to tell his parents.

The boys who had attacked him had run home, too. But they still weren’t finished with him. Over the next few days they revealed themselves, telling everyone what he had done. A black haunt, they called him. A wraith of darkness and destruction. He’d killed a man for no reason. He was possessed and should be stopped before he could hurt others. No mention of their intentions toward him; no mention of the knife.

Eventually, they stirred up a response from the already superstitious townspeople. They came for him then, dozens of them, men and women from the taverns and ale shops, intoxicated and angry, their courage emboldened by numbers, a mob made wild at the thought of a creature in their midst that was inhuman and capable of doing great harm. The family of the dead man was among them, fueling the flames of fear and rage, knowing only one way to deal with things they didn’t understand.

A miller from the next town over and a friend of their father’s who did business with the bakery and had stopped in one of the taverns for a drink before heading back rushed to tell the family. Reyn’s father persuaded the miller to hide the boy in his wagon and spirit him to safety until matters settled down. The miller, an older man with grown children and better sense than those who were hunting for the boy, agreed to help.

So Reyn was hiding in the miller’s wagon beneath an old canvas covering, rolling down the road leading out of town when the mob surged past, heading for his home. He never saw what happened after that, but he heard. Just hearing was enough to imprint on his mind the scenes that followed. The mob breaking into his home and dragging his parents out. The destruction that followed as his home was torn apart by those searching for him. The deaths of his parents, whom the mob decided quickly enough were likely the same as he was, creatures of the netherworld who spawned this demon that had escaped them, and so should be stoned.

Soon enough, the miller and his wife had decided Reyn could no longer stay with them. The townspeople who had killed his parents were still hunting for him, obsessed with their task and consumed by their fears. Already, the search was widening to the surrounding communities. The boy would have to go. The miller would take him to one of the cities, far enough away and sufficiently populous that he would not be found.

Thus, at the age of eleven, he found himself making his own way in the world and discovering just how badly equipped he was to do so.

And all this had happened because of his voice, because of a magic that caused him to do terrible things. There was no escaping the truth of the matter, though he tried for years to deny it, arguing in the privacy of his mind that he had only done what instinct and fear had driven him to do. Had he known the truth about the sort of power he possessed, he might have been able to change the way things turned out. Had he known, he might have been able to save his parents’ lives.

So he believed, and the belief hardened into certainty and became a weight around his neck that would not release itself. He carried it everywhere, and after another few incidents in which he reacted spontaneously and foolishly with similar results, he needed no further convincing that it would always be there. If not for adapting a regimen of strict control over his life that mostly separated him from encountering the extreme emotional moments that would cause the dark side of his voice to resurface, he would have remained cursed every waking moment for the rest of his life.

But it was the singing that saved him, too. The discovery that he could infuse listeners with whatever emotions he chose to stir, just by modulating the sound of his voice, provided him not only with a way to make a living but also with the realization that he could control his own fate. Now his voice became a gift as well as a curse, and he employed it to good advantage. A sense of self–confidence followed, his growing skill and experience in using his voice providing reassurance that he needn’t go through life afraid that he was without hope.

Of course, there were still lapses. And there was that odd and troubling disconnect he experienced each time one happened, a going away from himself that left him empty and vulnerable …

“Well, well, look what we have here.”

His thoughts and memories scattered, and the night closed in about him, its silence suddenly oppressive. He glanced over to find Borry Fortren standing only a few feet away.

“He looks a little surprised, don’t he?” Yancel, moving up beside him, laughed. “Guess he thought he could slip out the back door, and we wouldn’t know.”

“That what you doing, chicken–boy?” Borry Fortren pressed, his smile an ugly sneer. He made a rude gesture and spit. “You trying to get away from us?”

Reyn shrugged, fighting to remain calm. “Staying away from you two is a lifelong ambition.”

“Oh, listen to him!” Yancel clapped his brother on the shoulder. “Clever with words, ain’t he? Does all that singing, and now it turns out he thinks he can be clever, too!”

“He ain’t so clever.” Borry was cracking his knuckles and moving to cut off any attempt at escape, which Reyn could already tell was not going to happen in any case. “Else he wouldn’t have let himself be caught out alone like this. You want to try us now, boy? Or do you just want to take what’s coming to you and be done with it?”

“Yeah, maybe that. Just take your punishment for that smart mouth. We won’t break too many bones.”

“’Course, you won’t be playing those pretty songs for a while. Or maybe never, once we’re done with you.”

“Singing, Yance. He won’t be doing much of that, either, I don’t expect.”

“Well, I’m sick of his singing in any case. Best if we don’t be hearing him at all after this. You know what he’s gonna sound like? Like a chicken head after it’s been twisted off, throttled good and proper, all croaking and slobbering. No one gonna understand him anymore. Not a word.”

So there was no avoiding this, no way to keep it from happening. Reyn thought momentarily of trying to dash back inside fast enough that they couldn’t catch him. But if he did that, he would be a marked man and they would call him a coward. There would be no end to their mockery. Better to try to stop it here and now. He was strong enough to take either one alone. He might have a chance against both if he kept his wits.

And if they didn’t use knives.

Then he saw the iron bar that Borry was holding down against his leg. So much for that.

“You really don’t have much confidence in yourself, do you?” he said, taking a step toward them. “If you need that iron bar, you must think you’re in trouble.”

Borry laughed. “Don’t need it, chicken–boy. I just like the idea of it. I don’t want to hurt myself more than I have to on pig slop like you. Come on, step a little closer.”

Reyn unslung the elleryn and leaned it back against the wall of the building, searching as he did so for something he could use as a weapon. He saw a washtub and a clothesline. Useless. Some wood was stacked against the back wall. He moved over quickly and snatched up a four–foot length. Better than nothing.

“You sure about this?” he asked them, advancing a few steps.

The brothers exchanged a quick glance, and then both grinned. “Sure enough,” Yancel spat at him.

“Gonna hurt you bad,” Borry added. “Real bad.”

They came toward him, separating slightly so they had room to maneuver. Reyn kept his eye on Borry and the iron pipe, letting Yancel think he was free to act. As he expected, Yancel came at him first, charging in a sudden rush that surprised his brother and caused him to shout out a warning.

The big man paid no attention, however, and threw himself at Reyn in an attempt to overpower him using his superior size and strength. But the boy dropped into a crouch, braced himself, and jammed one end of the piece of wood deep into his attacker’s stomach. Yancel gasped, retching uncontrollably as he dropped to his knees. Reyn was already leaping up to meet Borry’s attack but to his surprise found the other Fortren just standing there, staring at him.

“You’re so tricky, ain’t you? Just think you can make us look like fools, but I ain’t stupid, chicken–boy. I ain’t my brother. I got something else in mind for you.”

Borry backed toward the tavern wall. “See, hurting you ain’t just about breaking bones. It’s about breaking your heart. By doing this.”

With inexorable purpose he moved to where the elleryn rested. Several violent swings of the iron pipe smashed it to pieces. Reyn stared in shock as his instrument was reduced to broken bits of wood and severed strings, ruined beyond any hope of repair.

Borry turned back to him. “How do you like that, you pissant? How do you like your pretty plaything now? Why don’t you play something for me? Why don’t you make your pretty music?”

Reyn felt the rage building in a slow, steady boiling that worked through him like a fire given life by kindling and air. He started toward Borry, gripping his piece of wood.

But Borry was ready for him. He had discarded the iron pipe and now held a long knife in its place, the blade glinting in the moonlight. “Oh, you think you’re ready for this, do you? Come get it!”

Fighting down the urge to run, Reyn braced himself, ready to block the other’s knife. But suddenly arms wrapped about him from behind as Yancel, having finally regained his feet, came to his brother’s aid. Reyn thrashed and twisted, but Yancel was strong and his grip solid and unyielding.

Borry howled with glee, then lifted his knife and charged.

Reyn, all chance of escape or defense gone, howled back at him in response.

Instantly the air seemed to change color, even in the darkness, and the faint silvery light of moon and stars seeping through the departing rain clouds took on a crimson blush. Borry Fortren felt the impact of the magic as he slammed into its invisible wall, not two feet away. The knife blade shattered. Reyn screamed louder, any attempt at control lost. Yancel’s arms released their grip on him, and he tumbled away.

Borry, still fighting to get close enough to grip the boy with his bare hands, simply exploded. It happened spontaneously, with a shocking and terrible suddenness, pieces of the big man flying everywhere. Reyn stumbled back, shielding his eyes, trying to stay upright. But Yancel snatched at his legs from where he lay on the ground in an effort to topple him. The boy reacted instinctively, all hope of ending this any other way gone. His scream came from somewhere deep inside. It felt as if it came from somewhere else entirely, the intrusion in his own body harsh and raw. Yancel was flung backward, his arms torn from his shoulders, his blood flooding out of his body as he lay gasping out the last of his life.

Then Reyn Frosch felt the familiar disconnect, and he was tumbling into that familiar dark hole in which there was no light or sound and from which he could not extricate himself.

Everything around him disappeared, and his thoughts ceased.