The Wise Man's Fear

The two men were talking loudly, laughing the wild, braying laughter of men too drunk to care about the weather.

Eventually a third man emerged from the dark trees, stepping delicately over the trunk of a nearby fallen tree. He was wet, if not soaked, and his dark hair was plastered flat to his head. When the soldiers saw him, they lifted their bottles and called out an enthusiastic greeting.

“Didn’t know if you’d make it,” the blonde soldier said. “It’s a shit night. But it’s only fair you get your third.”

“You’re wet through,” said the bearded one, lifting up a narrow yellow bottle. “Suck on this. It’s some fruit thing, but it kicks like a pony.”

“Yours is girly piss,” the blonde soldier said, holding up his own. “Here. Now this here is a man’s drink.”

The third man looked back and forth as if unable to decide. Finally he lifted a finger, pointing at one bottle then the other as he began to chant.

Maple. Maypole.
Catch and carry.
Ash and Ember.
Elderberry.

He ended pointing at the yellow bottle, then gripped it by the neck and lifted to his lips. He took a long, slow drink, his throat working silently.

“Hey there,” said the bearded soldier. “Save a bit!”

Bast lowered the bottle and licked his lips. He gave a dry, humorless chuckle. “You got the right bottle,” he said. “It’s elderberry.”

“You’re nowhere near as chatty as you were this morning,” the blonde soldier said, cocking his head to one side. “You look like your dog died. Is everything alright?”

“No,” Bast said. “Nothing’s alright.”

“It ain’t our fault if he figured it out,” the blonde one said quickly. “We waited a bit after you left, just like you said. But we’d been sitting for hours already. Thought you were never going to leave.”

“Hell,” the bearded man said, irritated. “Does he know? He throw you out?”

Bast shook his head and tipped the bottle back again.

“Then you ain’t got nothing to complain of.” The blonde soldier rubbed the side of his head, scowling. “Silly bastard gave me a lump or two.”

“He got it back with some to spare.” The bearded soldier grinned, rubbing his thumb across his knuckles. “He’ll be pissing blood tomorrow.”

“So it’s all good at the end,” the blonde soldier said philosophically, lurching unsteadily as he waved his bottle a little too dramatically. “You got to skin your knuckles. I got a drink of something lovely. And we all made a heavy penny. Everyone’s happy. Everyone gets what they wanted most.”

“I didn’t get what I wanted,” Bast said flatly.

“Not yet,” the bearded soldier said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a purse that made a weighty chink as he bounced it in his palm. “Grab a piece of fire and we’ll divvy this up.”

Bast looked around the circle of firelight, making no move to take a seat. Then he began to chant again as he pointed at things randomly: a nearby stone, a log, a hatchet . . .

Fallow farrow.
Ash and oak.
Bide and borrow.
Chimney smoke.

He ended pointing at the fire. He stepped close, stooped low, and pulled out a branch longer than his arm. The far end was a solid knot of glowing coal.

“Hell, you’re drunker than I am,” the bearded soldier guffawed. “That’s not what I meant when I said grab a piece of fire.”

The blonde soldier rolled with laughter.

Bast looked down at the two men. After a moment he began to laugh too. It was a terrible sound, jagged and joyless. It was no human laugh.

“Hoy,” the bearded man interrupted sharply, his expression no longer amused. “What’s the matter with you?”

It began to rain again, a gust of wind spattering heavy drops against Bast’s face. His eyes were dark and intent. There was another gust of wind that made the end of the branch flare a brilliant orange.

The hot coal traced a glowing arc through the air as Bast began to point it back and forth between the two men, chanting:

Barrel. Barley.
Stone and stave.
Wind and water.
Misbehave.

Bast finished with the burning branch pointing at the bearded man. His teeth were red in the firelight. His expression was nothing like a smile.

EPILOGUE A Silence of Three Parts

It was night again. The Waystone Inn lay in silence, and it was a silence of three parts.

The most obvious part was a hollow, echoing quiet, made by things that were lacking. If there had been a steady rain it would have drummed against the roof, sluiced the eaves, and washed the silence slowly out to sea. If there had been lovers in the beds of the inn, they would have sighed and moaned and shamed the silence into being on its way. If there had been music . . . but no, of course there was no music. In fact there were none of these things, and so the silence remained.

Outside the Waystone, the noise of distant revelry blew faintly through the trees. A strain of fiddle. Voices. Stomping boots and clapping hands. But the sound was slender as a thread, and a shift in the wind broke it, leaving only rustling leaves and something almost like the far-off shrieking of an owl. That faded too, leaving nothing but the second silence, waiting like an endless indrawn breath.

The third silence was not an easy thing to notice. If you listened for an hour, you might begin to feel it in the chill metal of a dozen locks turned tight to keep the night away. It lay in rough clay jugs of cider and the hollow taproom gaps where chairs and tables ought to be. It was in the mottling ache of bruises that bloomed across a body, and it was in the hands of the man who wore the bruises as he rose stiffly from his bed, teeth clenched against the pain.

The man had true-red hair, red as flame. His eyes were dark and distant, and he moved with the subtle certainty of a thief in the night. He made his way downstairs. There, behind the tightly shuttered windows, he lifted his hands like a dancer, shifted his weight, and slowly took one single perfect step.