was young; I didn't want to do anything for my own good. Too late now, though, right? He said the brandywine would rot my brain, and I took it as a personal challenge.'
Silverdun sighed, rolling his eyes. This was going nowhere. But Ironfoot held up his hand. 'Go on,' he said to Tye. Ironfoot seemed to grow taller and stronger when he said it. Ah. The Gift of Leadership. Interesting fellow, this Ironfoot.
Tye responded to Ironfoot instantly, seeming to forget that Silverdun existed. 'Like I said, all he had left was those books, and I know they weren't worth much because I tried to sell some of them after he died, and I couldn't get anyone to even look at them. Some of them are in different languages, even. He could read Thule Fae as well. Can you imagine that? There's but ten or eleven in all the Known who can read the Thule Fae these days. But he could. He was retired; you know that. He spent all of his last days up here reading and writing.'
'Did he ever speak to anyone?' said Ironfoot. 'Did anyone ever come to see him?'
'Just the one fellow,' said Tye Benesile. 'Another scholar. Unseelie. That was before, of course. Before the war and all. My father didn't care for that scholar, though. He was the wrong sort, if you know what I mean.'
Silverdun leaned forward, now interested. 'I'm not sure I do,' said Silverdun. 'What sort would that be?'
'Black Artist,' Tye Benesile whispered. 'That's what Father said. I never met him. But if Father knew things that a Black Artist wanted to know, then you can put that in your book for certain.'
'What was this Black Artist's name?' said Silverdun. He supposed it was possible that there were still Black Artists among the Unseelie, though Tye Benesile was clearly not the most reliable witness.
Tye thought for a moment. 'Father never said it. If he had, I would have remembered, because I've got a fine memory, even now. You can't imagine how fine it was then. But he was a Black Artist, even if you don't believe me.'
'When was this?' asked Ironfoot. 'How long ago?'
'That was before, I said. Before all this,' he said, waving his hand around. Silverdun assumed that by 'all this,' he meant the Unseelie invasion.
'How long before?'
'It was when I was still working at the mill,' said Tye Benesile. 'I remember it, of course. That was three months to the day before.'
'And did the Black Artist continue visiting your father until he died?'
'No. They had a falling out; something Father had that he wanted. Tried to buy it off of him, but Father refused. Funny thing with lights in a box. So he beat Father up and took it.'
'I don't suppose you've kept any of your father's books?' said Silverdun.
'Well I couldn't sell them, could I? So I threw some away, burned some. There are still a few left, though. The really expensive-looking ones. Figured maybe a book dealer in Mag Mell might take an interest if I could ever find the time to make the journey.'
Tye led them to the tiny bedroom, where a sunken mattress sat on the floor and a wooden box served as a bedside table. There was an antique wardrobe pushed up against one wall. A nail had been hammered into its crest and a clothesline strung from it to the wall. Tye nodded at the wardrobe; then his face fell.
'Stupid! Stupid! Now you're going to take them, aren't you? I never should have said anything!'
'Don't worry,' said Ironfoot, the Leadership resonating in his voice. 'We aren't going to take anything.'
That seemed to satisfy Tye. He sat down heavily on the bed and watched as Silverdun opened the wardrobe.
It was stuffed with books. Silverdun picked one up and read from the spine. Inquiry into Matters Philosophical and Theological. Prae Benesile's own Thaunaatical History of the Chthonic Religion. Another was in High Court Fae, and Silverdun struggled to translate its title. Something like A School of Thought Regarding the Gods of the Earth, Bound, and Their Origins. The next books he examined were in languages he couldn't read. One appeared to be from the Nymaen world, a human tongue. Another was in Thule Fae, like the inscriptions on the Tuminee burial mounds north of the river in Oarsbridge, where Silverdun had been raised. Ironfoot, scholar that he was, seemed to be having an easier time with the translation, but still looked confused.
'I don't supposed you're versed in Thule?' Silverdun asked Ironfoot.
Ironfoot looked up from the book he'd been flipping through. 'I am,' he said. 'But I can't imagine what a Black Artist would have wanted with someone who studied all this stuff.'
Silverdun scanned a few lines of verse from Prinzha-Las Days and Works. A story about one of the daughters of the god Senek, who fell in love with a mortal Fae. Senek turned him into a ram. You always had to be careful messing around with a powerful man's daughter. Some things never changed.
