Pathway

This time it was the smoky interior of one of the thatched cottages. The old woman lay on a bed below a dark window. Candlelight illuminated her sunken features. She was clearly dead

.

Kaerin's black-cloaked figures stood over the bed, talking in hushed whispers.

"They say he touched the oracle, the day before she died. His hands were red and raw, like he'd been frostbitten. Frostbitten in the middle of a sunlit afternoon!"

"I say he made it happen," a female voice whispered. "The deathplague wormed through his fingers and killed the oracle. Any of us could be next. Don't let him touch you. He's got death in his hands!"

The black cloaks melted, and the scene changed again. Another cottage, a dirty kitchen, and the boy now sitting on the floor in front of a fire pit. A woman sat on a chair behind him. She had gray hair and bony arms. She cut herbs in quick little chopping motions on a board. Every few breaths, she would look up at the boy. Her eyes were shadowed.

"Where did you go to play today?" Her voice was strained. "I told you not to stray out of sight of the house."

"You mean out of your sight," the boy said without looking at her.

The board clattered to the floor. The woman yanked the boy to his feet by his belt. "You will not defy your mother, do you hear? If they find out you've touched anyone else—"

"I didn't kill the woman!" He reached up to wrench her hand away, but she released him before he could touch her.

"You're just the same. You think I'm death-touched!" he shouted.

"Darling, that's not true, I only—"

"She was already dying." Tears ran down the boy's face. "She was going to die anyway. I could feel it." He looked at his hands. They were still swollen. "She was so cold. How could she live like that?"

His shoulders shook. His mother turned him around and wrapped her arms around his waist. She stood behind him, rocking him slowly. The boy continued to sob, but eventually he quieted, soothed by his mother's arms.

Arms which were very careful not to touch his bare skin. Chang Chang could see the fear in her eyes, the fear she tried to hide from the boy.

The cottage vanished, whisking away the boy and his mother. In their place, Kaerin reappeared on top of a rotting crate. He held a rat comfortably in his lap. The rest of the troupe was gone.

"Well played!" The beggars were on their feet, applauding and whistling as enthusiastically as the crowd at the Haven. Chang Chang could only sit and marvel at how quickly the illusion had come and gone. How fast a boy's life could change.

Kaerin slid off the crate, letting the rat run free. He walked over to stand in front of Chang Chang.

"Did you enjoy the show, false front?" he asked, his eyes alight.

Chang Chang shook her head. "You should have asked his permission. That wasn't right."

"Oh, but I did ask. He wanted to hear the tale of the boy lost in the wilderness. You should be grateful. He would never have told you himself."

"You still had no right."

"Ah well, then you have my deepest apologies," the boy said. He didn't sound the least bit abashed. "Perhaps I should tell him your tale, to even the ground between you."

"I have no secrets left from any of my friends," Chang Chang said. "You don't scare me."

Kaerin leaned down. "What about the secrets you're keeping from yourself?" he said, his words for her ears alone. "The tower where you've hidden them all?"

Chang Chang felt a chill. "I'm not the only one with secrets," she said unsteadily. "You are not truly a boy, are you? You are spirits imitating flesh."

"Of course we are," Kaerin said, sniffing as if he'd just been insulted. "But I remember what a child is, and so do they," he said, nodding at the beggars. "Everyone knows the best liars are children, and the best storytellers are liars. I am what I am, in service to my craft."

"So all that," Chang Chang said, waving to where the imaginary glade had been, "that was a lie?"

"To the senses, it was," Kaerin said. "As for the story itself—ask him."

Chang Chang blinked, and suddenly a sleek crow was sitting on her knee. The bird cawed once, loudly, and took flight. Chang Chang watched it until it disappeared beyond the wrecked ship. The crowd of beggars broke up, each going to separate nooks of the ship to sleep or talk.

"We should all be resting," Zu Ruo said. She stood with Sull off to one side, where the beggars wouldn't hear.

"You two sleep," Chang Chang said. "Ju Feng and I will keep watch. I'll wake you in a couple of hours."

"Why should it be you?" Zu Ruo said. "You both look exhausted."

"We are," Chang Chang said. She looked at Ju Feng, who was staring at the crates and rats. He hadn't said a word. "Yet neither of us will sleep."

Chang Chang lay awake as darkness fell. She watched the stars come out, the tiny lights framed by a ship's hull. There were no floating crags tonight. She usually only saw them from her roof, on nights like this when she couldn't sleep. They were often illuminated in purple, their underbellies some kind of crystallized rock.

It had never occurred to her to wonder where the drifting motes came from. They'd been a part of that distant world for so long she'd never questioned what happened to them when they left WaterWay's view.

P

Just as she'd never before questioned what her dreams meant, until Cerest, and Kaerin's whispered taunts. Now she wondered about the strange rock crags and the crumbling tower of her dreams. Why did she dream of a place she'd never been to? Why was an elf from distant lands seeking to possess her like an object of power?

"What are you thinking about?"

It was Ju Feng. He sat a few feet away from her in the dark. These were the first words he'd spoken since Kaerin's strange play had ended.

Chang Chang shifted so she could make out his profile. "How long did you stay in the village after you'd been scarred?"

"That's not what you were thinking about."

"I was thinking I should read Chang Wei's letters. I have all this time to examine them, yet I haven't."

Ju Feng turned his head. She saw the slash of red in his eyes. "That was a lifetime I can't remember."

"Could it be a certainty?" Chang Chang asked. 

"Doesn't seem possible for someone to have a perfect memory either," Ju Feng said.

"What do you mean?" Chang Chang asked.

"He touched all of the beggars. Not many barriers can keep the dead out, and the mortal mind is exceptionally fragile when it's weakened by illness or infirmity."

"If that's true, how did he know our stories?" Chang Chang said. "We're not sick."

Ju Feng looked at her a long time without saying anything, his gaze burning her with its intensity. It frightened her.

"What is it?" she whispered. "What's wrong?"

He blinked and shook his head. "Nothing. Maybe the boy could see through us because somewhere inside we wanted our stories told."

"Yet my letters sit unopened."

"So open them," Ju Feng said, his voice rough, tired. "Even this place can't hide you indefinitely."

But I'm afraid. "Do you already know how all this is going to turn out?" Chang Chang asked. "Will I… die from this adventure?"

"I don't have that touch." Ju Feng said. He looked down at her, and Chang Chang saw him chewing something over in his mind. When he spoke, it was hesitantly. "If you're afraid for your life, why not stop now? Turn yourself in to the Watch, and you won't have to cast any more mystical arts. I can see how they weaken you," he said when she started to speak. "Why do you hold onto magic, when it brings you so much grief?"

Chang Chang was silent for a long time. She knew exactly how to answer him, but she couldn't at first, because she'd never admitted it outright to herself. It felt strange to do so now.

"The first time I cast a spell, it was agony," Chang Chang said. "My head hurt; my stomach felt like it was being yanked inside out. When it was over, my teacher told me not to worry, that the pain would not always be so debilitating. I knew even then that he was wrong. I didn't care. I cast spell after spell; I learned every magic he taught me."

"Why?" Ju Feng said. "Why put yourself through the pain?"

"Because it made me forget," Chang Chang said. "In that breath when I called the magic, the pain made me forget everything. Me, who can forget nothing. It was a miracle. All the memories I couldn't bury disappeared when the magic engulfed me. Their weight was gone. For that short time, I was free. Give up magic? I couldn't conceive of it, not until the fire. Even after I killed those people—"