fic - Strandline - part 3
Sep. 28th, 2014 12:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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last_herald_mage♥ ♥ ♥ Happy birthday Kat ♥ ♥ ♥
More of same. Kind of a longass, higgldy-piggldy chapter. .........This is literally the third time I have written an awful Van/Stef scene involving dead fish. What is wrong with me.
At the river's edge, he watched Stefen barter with an old man sat over a fire, haggling fast and in a cant too obscure for the trade to be comprehensible. Eventually Stefen handed the man a few coins and a large handkerchief, and as the withered man reached his weathered fingers to the fire and pulled out two blackened fish by their tails, Stefen clasped hands behind his back and sang. Valdir had never heard the song before, but knew it for a lullaby. The crowd hushed around them, and he could feel Stefen's gift rippling through the air - the sound, the energy behind it, was such a gentle balm on the senses that Valdir almost fell asleep on his feet. But there was a sharp oddness to the energy that Vanyel, for all the times he'd heard the songs of the Bards of Haven, couldn't place. He dimmed his eyes and invoked his othersenses, trying to assess the peculiar feel of Stefen's power. :Fandes?:
:I'm watching. He's certainly Gifted - how many people is he touching, in that crowd?: She sounded a little incredulous.
:More than thirty?: Stefen shone with a deep, intoxicating red in Vanyel's inner vision; red shot through with an unfamiliar tone. :But isn't there more to it than that?:
He caught an oddly human sense of her eyebrows raising, and then directed her attention to the centre of the energy's focus; the space between Stefen and the old cook. Stef's eyes were unfocused, and the man smiled in pure serenity, stretching his feet out into the river as if his frail body felt momentarily eager to stretch and to move. :Yes - that's something else. Not healing. Closer to mindhealing, I'd say.:
:Some kind of mental manipulation? No -: and he turned his gift of Empathy more closely to Stefen's subject. He felt only physical relief - nothing to indicate that Stefen was weaving any deception in his mind. :Whatever it is, he wasn't doing it earlier, and I've never seen anything like it.: The song rang bright in his ears and his Othersenses, the power so odd he couldn't perceive it as having its own colour - a sheen at the edge of the spectrum. :If you believe the Gifts we find are the ones we need...: he wondered.
:Hell of a thing to stumble over by coincidence. We had our hands full of trouble as it is.:
He nodded, and for a few seconds he just closed his eyes and let himself go. Let the music have him, slow notes promising him dreams and rest and comfort, warming him against the cold winds of the riverside. When the sound ceased, he was almost surprised to still be there - with hard stone under his old shoes, aches in his spine, hunger in his belly - everything the music had spared him of. A Gifted Bard selling tunes at a black market? It's incredible.
Stefen was treading back to Valdir, holding the handkerchief by its corners as fish oil dripped through the cloth. "Part the price," he explained quietly. "Folks who come here'd all rather feel good than keep their coin - my song does it for them. So I never got to put down much coin for aught. I don't let a good street-singer go hungry," he added, oddly fierce.
Valdir looked to him with genuine gratitude, and more than a little guilt. You traded your Gift so I could eat? "I can't thank you enough," he replied.
They ate at the edge of the spit of stone, so close to the water that the wind whipped spray over his boots. Stefen explained the history of the strange place between mouthfuls. "Wasn't even on purpose, the way Poll told it. Back in the day she lived in a cellar with her brother and sisters and their babes - did this and that to get them by. The place flooded early one springtime, before even the last frost, and landlord never did squit for them - whole family trying to live on a staircase for a month. The water froze over in their home, and when it had finally thawed and went down again, took part of the wall with it. That's how she found out they lived atop a damn cave. All hid between their walls and the river-wall. She's no fool; figured she'd clean it up and sublet it, and that's when she goes down there and finds that part of the river-wall had cracked open too." He shook his head. "Polly were right there, water up her boots and seeing daylight both ways and a crack in the wall big enough to shimmy through, and knows the rest of Cul Aber might kill for this - a way around the law and the gangs. First she just hangs up a lantern, and watches, and waits. She's changed the lay of things a bit since," he noted. "I don't mean just tossing stones in the river or taking a cut here and there, either. Making something of it, before we all gets washed away."
Valdir tried to comb through the tangled story for what he needed of it. "So people who, ah, prefer not to declare their cargoes just started following her lanterns and landing here?"
Stefen laughed. "Always used to land somewhere, didn't they? This game's new, though. Lighthouse Market is mostly for them as crossed the Rockharbour and can't pay the Morn." Having heard those names enough, Valdir had settled on capitalising them in his mind. "There's a balance, here," Stef noted thoughtfully, staring at his crossed feet as if the names themselves were etched in the stones below them. "You go with it, or you sticks your finger on it."
Valdir's eyes swept over the water, weaving between the dancing reflected lights. In his mind, the city took shape from from water, wind and words, its crumbling stones only a crucible that held its true essence. "And you did the latter?" Valdir asked, curious of Stef's reasoning in spite of himself.
"Always done what I could. Sometimes you ain't got a choice." He glanced around at the press of people. "You looking to buy aught else here? Because I'm inclined to take off for the night."
He was torn. He could shake Stefen off and try working the crowd - or follow his only certain source, who, doubtless, knew more than he had yet said. And if I had time to think beyond the next few days, I wouldn't want to lose sight of him. It troubled him - a strongly, mysteriously Gifted young man, living a tenuous life beyond the law on the very edge of Valdemar? That was trouble waiting to happen. "Take off where?" he asked.
This was delicate. He mustn't lead Stefen along, or show too much interest in the young man - should I have thought of that before I kissed him? - and Stefen knew how low his resources were, and was treating him as he was; little more than a beggar. Stefen's eyes cast over him thoughtfully. "Well, meant to ask where you were going to kip tonight - you feel like sleeping on the docks and getting robbed of the naught in your pockets?" Valdir allowed himself a worried look - he had been arguing with himself about whether to try to find a room, however seedy. A night at a seedy flophouse might be of use to him, and sleeping on the streets would do nothing for his quest or his temper. "I got a hearth of my own, you know?" offered Stefen.
"The price?" he asked warily.
"You knew there'd be one. Nothing steep, mind," and his smirk vanished, leaving him looking almost hesitant. "Would you show me how to use that lute of yours? I always wanted to know how."
He thought fast. What was he risking now? Other opportunities, for sure - but only ones he lacked the energy to advantage of, and turning his back on Stefen would feel much riskier. If he took the offer, would he be safe? He wasn't sure he could overpower Stef at close quarters without using magic - there was a toughness to the young man that belied his lithe figure, and he didn't doubt Stef knew how to fight. But he couldn't read anything threatening in Stefen's intentions; rather, Stefen throbbed with an overwhelming curiosity. That was dangerous to Valdir; but he had just as much need to pry information from Stefen, and he'd found that a few coy details from his cover story often won him far more in kind. I have to chance this, he realised for the second time, and nodded in assent.
Stefen led them back into the den within the wall, and led him upwards through its peculiar tunnelled confines. It was a strange mix of the natural and artificial; smooth hollows nearer the water, leading up to a rough-cut cellar, one far more extensive than the humble story Stefen told him would allow for. She had changed the lay of things, indeed. Every cranny of the cavern was full of people and heady scents, smoke and sweat. And noise. Mostly voices, the rattle of rolling dice, a drum and a pipe playing a drunken rhythm somewhere - music so poor it sounded painful with the memory of Stefen's voice still ringing in his ears. Curtains, hanging from rods forced into cracks in the stone, rippled suggestively as they passed. It became clear why Stefen had not descended to the Lighthouse Market by this route; each reveller they passed had a greeting or a question or an offer that Stefen could not possibly refuse, though he nevertheless did. Did he want to trade for half an ounce of - no, he did not. Were the gamblers from Hardorn still at the dock? Had he heard what the Morn had done? Who sold the best hempleaf in Rockharbour? "Gudvar, at the corner where the Row meets North Square," he assured the questioner, and turned his head to Valdir as they continued. "The fuck I know? Gudvar pays me to say that."
When they finally emerged from the subterranean den - slipping past people trying to get inside - the sky seemed far darker than it had by the shore. Lamplight blotted out the stars. Valdir pulled his worn cloak around himself, and Stefen looked at him with an odd pity. "Must be cold out on the road."
"Colder here," Valdir assured him. It was probably true. The river channelled the wind into a cruelty. "You've not been out on the road so much?"
"Never," Stefen replied, turning away from him.
"Not even to Mountather?"
Stefen snorted. "Cul Aber born, bred, like as not dead, I'm telling you," and walked off uphill as Valdir pondered his disdain, whistling a song as he went. The melody caught his attention, but he couldn't place it. He knew it, though was sure he'd never played it -
Oh, gods.
The sensation of wanting to sink down into the cracks in the cobbles was, at least, familiar. It's the Demonsbane song. He was frozen to the spot, shaken - and then fearful - does he know - but spent as he was, his habitual response soon took over. He was unfortunately used to stumbling into the myth of himself in public. It's just a well-known, well-liked song that I happen to despise. Nothing to worry about. It's not about me, it's just what someone wants me to be. Everyone. Thank the gods I'm merely poor, vagrant Valdir and I don't have to put up with such nonsense from anyone.
It was hard to blot out the sound when he was this tired. His mind sought other touchstones even as he hurried on Stefen's heels into the core of the city - Tantras. Need to talk to Tantras. Given what had become of Harri, he wanted to exchange what he'd learned as soon as possible.
:What's the matter, Van?:
Focus, he told himself. On something other than the trilled notes coming from Stefen's lips. :I found Poll - the Scale's leader.:
:What? How?: Vanyel filled him in on everything (almost everything) that had transpired since he met Stefen. :That was fast. Guess you picked the right person to show you around town.:
:Seems so. The so-called Duchess isn't trying to hide, though.: He explained the illicit market clinging to the riverside, the bright signal it shone to the traders from across-river. And how she'd worn the sign of the scale proud on her throat. How she'd warned him against daring the river. None of it was expected. From the ramblings of his cellmates in Mountather, Vanyel had envisaged a gang queen hidden away in some slum fortress surrounded by poison traps, heavies and hangers-on - definitely not the merry hostess of a beach party. He found he had an odd faith in her claim to know the moods of the Culway; how she did it, he wasn't sure. :She was quite disarming,: he realised. She was free with her advice and hospitality. Yet he was willing to bet that chance had brought others less pleasant introductions to the Duchess of the Scale.
:What have you turned up?: he asked, and Tantras responded with an incoherent blast of annoyance. :The city guard aren't thrilled to have a Herald in their fiefdom, then?:
:Indeed not,: Tran replied mock-cheerfully. :Almost as if they had a multitude of sins to hide. The port-master's book was interesting, if you find acres of mysteriously blank pages interesting.: He sighed. For all he'd doubted Tantras's methods - as much as Tantras had doubted his - it would have been a huge relief if he'd found something - some record of Harri setting foot back in Valdemar, somehow. :I need to talk to the nightwatchmen alone - no one wrote anything down, but that doesn't mean that no one saw any ships make the crossing in the dark.:
Clutching at thin straws. They both were. Because they had no time and nothing else to hang on to.
:So where is he taking you now?: Tran asked, and Vanyel let his attention drift outward again, looking for an answer to that question. Stefen led him through narrowing streets, and on the breeze he smelt coal-smoke, stale beer, cooking fat. The night was crowding around them again, but it was a far different populace from the throng on the beach. Better dressed, occasionally sober. Somehow caught in the same decay, though not yet at that tumbledown point where light shone through its cracks. Stefen had fallen silent, and moved with a tangible alertness; he's listening to the city. Hearing raucousness from the main streets that he appeared to be avoiding; thin beats of other people's music.
They stopped at what seemed like a midpoint between city and slum, and Stefen pulled a long key from his pocket. It opened a door at the corner of an unremarkable building of pale stone and cracked plaster; Stefen waved him inside. Valdir sagged against the wall of the inner hallway, desperately relieved to be out of the cold night.
The walls close around him creaked in the wind. Stefen palmed opened a door in the hallway, near the foot of a narrow stair; another door, at the back of the house, Valdir could assume lead to an outdoor privy. "Welcome to my home," Stef announced, with a little swagger to his voice - proud he had so much to offer to the vagrant Valdir. "Never mind upstairs - Tajinet lives there," he explained - the name sounded Cejan, but Valdir knew no more of it - and then they passed through a doorway so low as to brush the top of Valdir's head. Inside, it was almost completely black; a little light swam intermittently through a bottle-glass window. He heard Stefen fumble with a tinderbox, and the small room brightened.
He set down his lute and his tiny pack, and looked around curiously. Small though it was, the room was well-kept, with a worn rug on the floor. An opening in the far wall lead to another dark space, most likely a pantry. Furnishings were few - a simple bed under the window with a mattress and a blanket, a not-quite-level table, two chairs, a small chest. A shelf with a few earthenware plates and mugs, a simple wooden pipe standing up inside one of the latter. An upturned bowl on the table - perhaps a stash of bread and butter underneath. A few panels of silk hung from the walls; a surprisingly opulent source of extra colour. Stefen knelt at the promised hearth, building a fire from a stock of split logs. He lives well alone, he noted. Simply, but cleanly and with an obvious pride.
Stefen crossed the room to place his candle on the table, and he waved Valdir into the second of his plain wooden chairs. He looked solemn and thoughtful, and Valdir approached him hesitantly. "I don't take much company here," Stef said. "So it's not much - don't seem like you mind, though. Weren't scared of the thought of roughing it, was you?" He tilted his head, inquisitive. "And I know you not made as street-sort. Was you a soldier?"
Good idea - take it. "Yes - a couple of years ago, on the Karsite border," he replied.
"Old soldier," Stefen nodded. "I met a few of those out there, back in the day. Most of them got on the streets with a habit though, not a bloody lute."
The words dug sharp into his thin cover, scratching for details Vanyel had never so much as thought of. "I'm not most of them," he defended himself.
"You're not, are you?" He felt his lie encircled by Stefen's quick mind - Valdir had rarely been looked at so closely. Valdir was only ever an observer, a passing balladeer, not a person. "You're trouble, is what. Fairly screaming it. Down on your luck, I get, but you're not here but a moment and you're up for trading skin for - naught but more trouble, is what. I promise you a few damn words and you kissed me like your life hung on it?"
It had been a test, he suddenly realised. Or had become a test. And he'd conspicuously failed.
"I don't get it," Stefen continued, shaking his head. "I know you don't got a habit - if you did, that's what you'd have asked me for. And you looked at me like you never even thought about touching up strangers to get what you wanted before. I don't get you. You want to get to Ceejay? Why in hells?"
Vanyel pressed his lips together hard. His disguise felt flimsy and threadbare, too revealing. He was in need of a patch of truth. "If you must know, I've lost someone. He was in Ceejay, but he said he'd meet me in Cul Aber." Far away, he felt Yfandes startle at his sudden descent into veracity. "I have to find him -"
"He's dead." The words were flat. Dismissive. Final. There was an odd respect in Stefen's eyes as he shook his head. "You won't see him again." I know, Van acknowledged to himself, letting the truth harden his resolve. "Your lover?" he speculated.
"No," Valdir replied quickly. "Just a friend." Just a spy who was killed on his way home.
Stefen shook his head. "I wouldn't let no friend go to Ceejay." He snapped his fingers thoughtfully. "How were you meant to find him?"
He thought fast. "He told me he'd be in Cul Aber by the last full moon of winter, and he'd leave a message for me at the post house at the west gate -"
"Three nights past," Stefen frowned.
"I was waiting out the storm in Mountather," Valdir explained. "He left no word for me," and his voice shook with entirely real fear and despair. Oh gods, Harri, what happened to you? How could a Herald-Mage be lost without sign or trace? The thought was like scrambling over ice in the dark.
Stefen sighed, and rested an elbow on the tabletop, face resting in his own hand and eyes searching him in a way he found unsettling. How far through me are you seeing? Stefen tapped his fingers against his own face in agitation. "You're not giving this up, are you? Not even damn tired and broke on the streets. For a friend like you," he wondered.
You'd understand, if you'd ever sent someone to his death.
"I owe you," he recalled, needing distraction. "You wanted to see my lute?"
It was as if the candle-flame merged with Stefen's eyes; he straightened in his chair so fast that it creaked loudly. "If you would." The offer was clearly enough to make all else secondary - so he hoped - He sensed his own shadow at the back of Stefen's wide eyes (you're trouble) and shrugged it off as he reached for his instrument case.
He fumbled with the closures, surprised at how steady his hands were. "I'm not much of a teacher," he apologised, and Stefen turned his seat to make for more elbow room - almost giddy, he thought. What a strange young man. But he had once been as desperate to make sound with his hands - and I'm not a Gifted Bard. He handed his lute to Stefen with a thread of trepidation; it wasn't worth much to him, but was rather vital to keeping his cover. Stefen held it reverently, stroking the old wood with his fingertips. "Here -" and he stood behind Stefen and took his hands, arranging them on the strings. "Each string's tuned to a different note - try them, one at a time."
Stefen's fingers moved clumsily, slowly picking out strings between his forefinger and thumb. Then again, a little faster. His action was very far from correct, but the air between them rang with the sheer joy of the sound. I never thought about what Breda must go through, teaching Gifted apprentices. No skill, but so much desire for it infusing every sound they make - I would hate to hear a Gifted child becoming frustrated with their craft... Stefen's movements were taking on an awkward confidence, and he explored further up the instrument's neck. "What does my other hand do?" he asked.
"Look -" and Valdir placed his own hand a few inches down the instrument's battered neck. It wasn't the best tool for this; loops of gut were fraying off the fretboard. I'm probably dishonouring that Gift he doesn't know he has. "If you hold the string against the wood here, and then strike it -"
Stefen plucked, and his eyes went wide at the higher sound. His upper hand brushed against Valdir's as he squeezed his grip down on the string, and the note he felt out rang clear, and full of the wonder of discovery.
That intoxicating wonder.
He held the back of Stefen's chair, suppressing a shiver. Gods, this is strange. I've heard of all kinds of protocols for teaching Mage-Gifted younglings safely, but nothing about Bards. I guess most of them learn to play instruments before they come into their Gifts so fully...? This man lives off his Gift, uses it without thinking of it. Without understanding it. Without even naming it. And he's so good at putting it into even the clumsiest sound.
Stefen flexed his hand as the sound died away, and Vanyel tried to pull his tired mind back to the present. "You're holding too tight," he chided. "Relax a little. You'd be surprised how little force it takes." Stefen looked up at him, and raised his eyebrow as if he'd said something funny. "Here," and he put his hand over Stefen's thin, paper-dry fingers, surprisingly warm now; he guided them down the frets. "Try here," he instructed, and Stefen seemed delighted by the higher sound made as he squeezed on the string. He shook his finger, and Valdir's nerves quivered in sympathy with the vibration buzz working its way through his flesh. Stefen smiled at him, dazzlingly, and Valdir was struck once again by his beauty. Oh stars, as if I don't have enough troubles...
"So if I were to..." and Stefen played the note again, and sang the same tone softly as it rang out. He raised his hand up to the next disintegrating fret, held the note. It rang poor, and he frowned, adjusting his positioning. Then higher, feeling his way up a scale, singing each note as he tried to feel it out. Valdir slumped slowly back into his seat, watching Stefen explore. Perfect pitch. And such an instinct for how sound works. Technique could be learned - could be, and his heart sank thinking about what resources that required. Resources you just don't find in the gutter, and can't trade for at a black market.
Stefen's hands paused. However curious, there was only so much one could do after touching an instrument for the first time. He began feeling around the frets, looking for the right note. He found it, let it ring out, and sang, "Along a road in Hardorn -"
"Ah, as far as songs go you might want to start with something else," he interjected hastily. "Something a little - simpler." Stefen pursed his lips, and Vanyel tried to think of somewhere, anywhere, else it would be possible to begin. "Would you know the Tandere Cycle? The fourth part is a decent starting point." Stefen frowned, and Valdir sang him the first line.
"Oh - that one. Never knew it was called that. Learned it years ago, from a minstrel came up from the south."
Valdir stood behind him again, taking the lute in his hands and feeling out the simple fingering. "It starts here," and he played the first note. "Then down two frets - that's the name for the raised marks," he instructed. "And repeat those two notes again."
It was slow going to get through that first verse. There was so much he never realised he was doing when he played - so many movements he hadn't consciously thought about in years. It had been eight years since he'd even tried to teach anyone anything, and Medren had soon moved on to much finer tutors. Stefen played the first line again, singing as he went and Valdir felt the mood behind it shifting - from trepidation, to confidence - and neither the dull sound of the old lute nor Stefen's inexperience could dampen the dazzling joy he was projecting in the sound. What an extraordinary Gift. Even with precious time slipping by, Vanyel could not help but feel a tired delight in being near him.
Which was frightening. So deft, even I wouldn't feel manipulated if I didn't know he was doing it.
"You're ready to drop," Stefen observed, turning to look up at him. Valdir couldn't deny it. Stefen lifted the lute from his lap and handed it back - reverent still, but with a glimmer of faith in his expression, as if he looked upon a god and had received its sonorous blessing. He rose to his feet beside Valdir, and for an unsteady moment, Valdir was sure Stefen was going to touch him. He should have shrunk from the thought - no more testing, no leading someone on with this false person I am - but he didn't. Rather, it was Stefen who stepped back from him, and it was as if a shutter closed on whatever light had been in his eyes. "That hearth of mine should be pretty warm about now," he noted. "I got another blanket -"
"There's one on my pack," Valdir gestured, wary as usual of trusting in someone else's cleanliness, however neat Stefen's quarters appeared. It would not be a comfortable sleeping place, but he was so tired he doubted he'd notice. He retrieved the thin roll of woolcloth - borrowed from a stablehand in Haven - and tucked his lute in its battered case - which, at least, was his own, and had seen enough battles to render it helpfully scratched and battered. He turned in his crouch, and found Stefen watching him, hard to read in the dim light. "I owe you so much thanks," Valdir told him.
Stefen's eyes narrowed, with something more complicated than pity. "But you're still going east, right?" he glowered. I don't have a choice - "Your friend's dead. You could be alive here, or dead o'er there, and maybe that's not much odds to you but I wouldn't be so keen to find out the difference. What you even do for two days til the wind changes her temper?"
"Keep singing," he answered hopelessly. "What else could I do?" He was staring into troubled waters, and he recklessly threw in another hooked line. "I was wondering about trying to find people who'd crossed the river lately - maybe see if they'd seen my friend."
"You think to get rivermen talking? To someone who ain't in with anyone?" he sniffed. "Was hard enough to get them talking to each other." Stefen's words seemed wavering - puzzling, not defeated, thoughtful like a chess-player or military tactician - and Vanyel allowed a little real, desperate pleading to enter his countenance.
I have to find Harri.
Stefen sighed. "You don't begin to know how this city works. I could guess who been over lately, where to find them - better than anyone. No one knows folk on all sides but me. Though it's not like knowing them's the same as them telling me aught." He shook his head. "Rest up a while. Morrow come, we'll see who I can turn up. I ain't promising anyone will tell you shit," he cautioned. "But I know who to ask."
His chair scraped over the ground, and he snuffed the candle abruptly, leaving Valdir in the dark by the smouldering fire. "Thank you," he said again -
"I'm not one for favours," warned Stefen.
Dim shadows roamed the walls, outlined in red. His breath caught as he thought of being kissed again. On his back by a warm hearth, in a stranger's home.
He heard the telltale scratch of straw as Stefen settled down on his mattress to rest. "You keep teaching me stuff and I'd call it square."
Vanyel shook himself. Why was I even thinking of it? He'd vowed in the past not to make his way, as Valdir, by flirtation and false overtures, which made Stefen's tests and games rankle all the more. "Not sure how well I can help in just a few days," he replied, a little bitter. He wrapped his blanket all about him as he settled on the rug near the hearth. "For what it's worth, I think you've a knack for it."
"Hope so." Stefen's voice had become the horizontal murmur he knew from years past - candles out, young people sharing secrets in the dark. Sometimes more than secrets. "I think of songs a lot, just sing them to myself. Would be good to play them. I do well here, from knowing people, singing the right thing in the right ear. Always wonder, though - when the river finally washes us all away, what do I do then?"
When. "Something I - learned in the war," Vanyel murmured - it was hard to hide who he was, in the dark, even from himself. "The storm you're waiting for often doesn't come. It hangs on the horizon while you ache for it to break over you. You know the waiting won't last forever - the watchtower won't stand forever, the enemy can't hold their line forever - but even if you're watching it all collapse one piece at a time, it might still be there longer than you are. The oak tree that will have to come down one day can still outlive you. It probably will."
He knew, in the quiet, that Stefen was thinking on it. Nihilism was never the point, was it? Take it away, and then where do you go? "What if I got out of here before it came?" Stefen muttered. "I can't carry what I got here on the road - I'm not anyone without who I know about the city. If I were to learn to play, maybe I could go as I like. Worked for you, right?"
Misleading you just by being here, and he cursed himself silently. No point trying to tell him of the realities of life as an itinerant minstrel. It would be impossible to convince Stefen that the hardship wasn't worth it. Perhaps he'd known worse hardships. "Cul Aber born, bred -?" Valdir reminded him of his words.
"I don't know, alright," retorted Stefen stonily. "Maybe there's only so long I can keep this dance going. Didn't always have a nice gaff like this. Truce is only reason I ever made shit - anyone breaks truce, and I'm singing on the streets and sleeping on my pitch again."
You lived on the streets? The thought made his heart lurch - and he felt, instinctively, for signs of manipulation. Does it matter if he's tugging my strings? He's not lying. The thought of Gifted children - any children - sleeping on the streets ought to make him feel sick. What have I ever fought for?
But Valdir couldn't entertain such thoughts. He could only sympathise in silence.
Valdir closed his eyes. Deep inside, Vanyel's awareness remained extended - setting shields and alarums, performing all the usual checks he went through before falling asleep in a strange place. With the last of his energy he reached out to find Yfandes, not wanting to sleep without her knowing exactly where he was.
:Quite a rabbit-hole you've gone down,: she commented. She sounded disapproving and disillusioned, as if to say, and why not? What else were you to do but dally with a peculiar singer?
:If he really can introduce me to the river-smugglers, it'll be worth it.: He wriggled on the hard floor, futilely trying to get comfortable. :Though I think it would be worth it in any case,: he continued. :It seems a crime to me that he's not a Bardic apprentice. That's talent that ought to be in Valdemar's employ, and he's washed up hundreds of miles from Haven without a chance.:
:Bards aren't like Heralds,: Yfandes echoed his thoughts. :No one went on search for him.:
:We just expected him to show up in Haven one day? From the streets of Cul Aber? Are we really that foolish?: he snapped, frustrated. :It's not like we don't take the Bardic Gift seriously - Savil's always told me how vital the Bardic repertory is.: Vanyel's place in that repertory might cause him discomfort, but how would anyone from this far-flung clime know of the events that occurred at Stony Tor were it not for the words of the Bards? Without songs, how would anyone remember, fifty or a hundred years from now, what Valdemarans had done to protect their fellows? :And if it's so important to us, why do we ignore such sublime skill just because it's not where we're used to seeing it? Why ignore Gifted children whose parents can't pay tutors and luthiers, and don't have Haven connections? Or who don't even have parents?:
Yfandes's voice seemed sleepy as well as despondent. :What would you have us do?:
:I don't know. I'd suggest teaching a little music in Temple schools and looking out for children with great aptitude - but I'm not sure Stefen ever set foot in a Temple school.: He hadn't seen so much as a scrap of paper or spot of ink in Stefen's home, much less a book, which from someone drawn to verse and music was suggestive of illiteracy.
He yawned so deep that she felt it and sent him a shimmer of exhausted affection. :Sleep,: she ordered. :You've a lot to do tomorrow.:
That I do. He felt time shifting under him, as if the river really were washing the whole earth away beneath him. Harri had been dead for less than a day. The spell was most effective when cast by a group of mages - pooled energy, sinking deep into the surroundings and showing what had occurred from every angle, perhaps as much as a week hence. Alone, he wasn't certain how long he had. Two more days might be too late - or it might not. He couldn't know.
-->Part 4
More of same. Kind of a longass, higgldy-piggldy chapter. .........This is literally the third time I have written an awful Van/Stef scene involving dead fish. What is wrong with me.
At the river's edge, he watched Stefen barter with an old man sat over a fire, haggling fast and in a cant too obscure for the trade to be comprehensible. Eventually Stefen handed the man a few coins and a large handkerchief, and as the withered man reached his weathered fingers to the fire and pulled out two blackened fish by their tails, Stefen clasped hands behind his back and sang. Valdir had never heard the song before, but knew it for a lullaby. The crowd hushed around them, and he could feel Stefen's gift rippling through the air - the sound, the energy behind it, was such a gentle balm on the senses that Valdir almost fell asleep on his feet. But there was a sharp oddness to the energy that Vanyel, for all the times he'd heard the songs of the Bards of Haven, couldn't place. He dimmed his eyes and invoked his othersenses, trying to assess the peculiar feel of Stefen's power. :Fandes?:
:I'm watching. He's certainly Gifted - how many people is he touching, in that crowd?: She sounded a little incredulous.
:More than thirty?: Stefen shone with a deep, intoxicating red in Vanyel's inner vision; red shot through with an unfamiliar tone. :But isn't there more to it than that?:
He caught an oddly human sense of her eyebrows raising, and then directed her attention to the centre of the energy's focus; the space between Stefen and the old cook. Stef's eyes were unfocused, and the man smiled in pure serenity, stretching his feet out into the river as if his frail body felt momentarily eager to stretch and to move. :Yes - that's something else. Not healing. Closer to mindhealing, I'd say.:
:Some kind of mental manipulation? No -: and he turned his gift of Empathy more closely to Stefen's subject. He felt only physical relief - nothing to indicate that Stefen was weaving any deception in his mind. :Whatever it is, he wasn't doing it earlier, and I've never seen anything like it.: The song rang bright in his ears and his Othersenses, the power so odd he couldn't perceive it as having its own colour - a sheen at the edge of the spectrum. :If you believe the Gifts we find are the ones we need...: he wondered.
:Hell of a thing to stumble over by coincidence. We had our hands full of trouble as it is.:
He nodded, and for a few seconds he just closed his eyes and let himself go. Let the music have him, slow notes promising him dreams and rest and comfort, warming him against the cold winds of the riverside. When the sound ceased, he was almost surprised to still be there - with hard stone under his old shoes, aches in his spine, hunger in his belly - everything the music had spared him of. A Gifted Bard selling tunes at a black market? It's incredible.
Stefen was treading back to Valdir, holding the handkerchief by its corners as fish oil dripped through the cloth. "Part the price," he explained quietly. "Folks who come here'd all rather feel good than keep their coin - my song does it for them. So I never got to put down much coin for aught. I don't let a good street-singer go hungry," he added, oddly fierce.
Valdir looked to him with genuine gratitude, and more than a little guilt. You traded your Gift so I could eat? "I can't thank you enough," he replied.
They ate at the edge of the spit of stone, so close to the water that the wind whipped spray over his boots. Stefen explained the history of the strange place between mouthfuls. "Wasn't even on purpose, the way Poll told it. Back in the day she lived in a cellar with her brother and sisters and their babes - did this and that to get them by. The place flooded early one springtime, before even the last frost, and landlord never did squit for them - whole family trying to live on a staircase for a month. The water froze over in their home, and when it had finally thawed and went down again, took part of the wall with it. That's how she found out they lived atop a damn cave. All hid between their walls and the river-wall. She's no fool; figured she'd clean it up and sublet it, and that's when she goes down there and finds that part of the river-wall had cracked open too." He shook his head. "Polly were right there, water up her boots and seeing daylight both ways and a crack in the wall big enough to shimmy through, and knows the rest of Cul Aber might kill for this - a way around the law and the gangs. First she just hangs up a lantern, and watches, and waits. She's changed the lay of things a bit since," he noted. "I don't mean just tossing stones in the river or taking a cut here and there, either. Making something of it, before we all gets washed away."
Valdir tried to comb through the tangled story for what he needed of it. "So people who, ah, prefer not to declare their cargoes just started following her lanterns and landing here?"
Stefen laughed. "Always used to land somewhere, didn't they? This game's new, though. Lighthouse Market is mostly for them as crossed the Rockharbour and can't pay the Morn." Having heard those names enough, Valdir had settled on capitalising them in his mind. "There's a balance, here," Stef noted thoughtfully, staring at his crossed feet as if the names themselves were etched in the stones below them. "You go with it, or you sticks your finger on it."
Valdir's eyes swept over the water, weaving between the dancing reflected lights. In his mind, the city took shape from from water, wind and words, its crumbling stones only a crucible that held its true essence. "And you did the latter?" Valdir asked, curious of Stef's reasoning in spite of himself.
"Always done what I could. Sometimes you ain't got a choice." He glanced around at the press of people. "You looking to buy aught else here? Because I'm inclined to take off for the night."
He was torn. He could shake Stefen off and try working the crowd - or follow his only certain source, who, doubtless, knew more than he had yet said. And if I had time to think beyond the next few days, I wouldn't want to lose sight of him. It troubled him - a strongly, mysteriously Gifted young man, living a tenuous life beyond the law on the very edge of Valdemar? That was trouble waiting to happen. "Take off where?" he asked.
This was delicate. He mustn't lead Stefen along, or show too much interest in the young man - should I have thought of that before I kissed him? - and Stefen knew how low his resources were, and was treating him as he was; little more than a beggar. Stefen's eyes cast over him thoughtfully. "Well, meant to ask where you were going to kip tonight - you feel like sleeping on the docks and getting robbed of the naught in your pockets?" Valdir allowed himself a worried look - he had been arguing with himself about whether to try to find a room, however seedy. A night at a seedy flophouse might be of use to him, and sleeping on the streets would do nothing for his quest or his temper. "I got a hearth of my own, you know?" offered Stefen.
"The price?" he asked warily.
"You knew there'd be one. Nothing steep, mind," and his smirk vanished, leaving him looking almost hesitant. "Would you show me how to use that lute of yours? I always wanted to know how."
He thought fast. What was he risking now? Other opportunities, for sure - but only ones he lacked the energy to advantage of, and turning his back on Stefen would feel much riskier. If he took the offer, would he be safe? He wasn't sure he could overpower Stef at close quarters without using magic - there was a toughness to the young man that belied his lithe figure, and he didn't doubt Stef knew how to fight. But he couldn't read anything threatening in Stefen's intentions; rather, Stefen throbbed with an overwhelming curiosity. That was dangerous to Valdir; but he had just as much need to pry information from Stefen, and he'd found that a few coy details from his cover story often won him far more in kind. I have to chance this, he realised for the second time, and nodded in assent.
Stefen led them back into the den within the wall, and led him upwards through its peculiar tunnelled confines. It was a strange mix of the natural and artificial; smooth hollows nearer the water, leading up to a rough-cut cellar, one far more extensive than the humble story Stefen told him would allow for. She had changed the lay of things, indeed. Every cranny of the cavern was full of people and heady scents, smoke and sweat. And noise. Mostly voices, the rattle of rolling dice, a drum and a pipe playing a drunken rhythm somewhere - music so poor it sounded painful with the memory of Stefen's voice still ringing in his ears. Curtains, hanging from rods forced into cracks in the stone, rippled suggestively as they passed. It became clear why Stefen had not descended to the Lighthouse Market by this route; each reveller they passed had a greeting or a question or an offer that Stefen could not possibly refuse, though he nevertheless did. Did he want to trade for half an ounce of - no, he did not. Were the gamblers from Hardorn still at the dock? Had he heard what the Morn had done? Who sold the best hempleaf in Rockharbour? "Gudvar, at the corner where the Row meets North Square," he assured the questioner, and turned his head to Valdir as they continued. "The fuck I know? Gudvar pays me to say that."
When they finally emerged from the subterranean den - slipping past people trying to get inside - the sky seemed far darker than it had by the shore. Lamplight blotted out the stars. Valdir pulled his worn cloak around himself, and Stefen looked at him with an odd pity. "Must be cold out on the road."
"Colder here," Valdir assured him. It was probably true. The river channelled the wind into a cruelty. "You've not been out on the road so much?"
"Never," Stefen replied, turning away from him.
"Not even to Mountather?"
Stefen snorted. "Cul Aber born, bred, like as not dead, I'm telling you," and walked off uphill as Valdir pondered his disdain, whistling a song as he went. The melody caught his attention, but he couldn't place it. He knew it, though was sure he'd never played it -
Oh, gods.
The sensation of wanting to sink down into the cracks in the cobbles was, at least, familiar. It's the Demonsbane song. He was frozen to the spot, shaken - and then fearful - does he know - but spent as he was, his habitual response soon took over. He was unfortunately used to stumbling into the myth of himself in public. It's just a well-known, well-liked song that I happen to despise. Nothing to worry about. It's not about me, it's just what someone wants me to be. Everyone. Thank the gods I'm merely poor, vagrant Valdir and I don't have to put up with such nonsense from anyone.
It was hard to blot out the sound when he was this tired. His mind sought other touchstones even as he hurried on Stefen's heels into the core of the city - Tantras. Need to talk to Tantras. Given what had become of Harri, he wanted to exchange what he'd learned as soon as possible.
:What's the matter, Van?:
Focus, he told himself. On something other than the trilled notes coming from Stefen's lips. :I found Poll - the Scale's leader.:
:What? How?: Vanyel filled him in on everything (almost everything) that had transpired since he met Stefen. :That was fast. Guess you picked the right person to show you around town.:
:Seems so. The so-called Duchess isn't trying to hide, though.: He explained the illicit market clinging to the riverside, the bright signal it shone to the traders from across-river. And how she'd worn the sign of the scale proud on her throat. How she'd warned him against daring the river. None of it was expected. From the ramblings of his cellmates in Mountather, Vanyel had envisaged a gang queen hidden away in some slum fortress surrounded by poison traps, heavies and hangers-on - definitely not the merry hostess of a beach party. He found he had an odd faith in her claim to know the moods of the Culway; how she did it, he wasn't sure. :She was quite disarming,: he realised. She was free with her advice and hospitality. Yet he was willing to bet that chance had brought others less pleasant introductions to the Duchess of the Scale.
:What have you turned up?: he asked, and Tantras responded with an incoherent blast of annoyance. :The city guard aren't thrilled to have a Herald in their fiefdom, then?:
:Indeed not,: Tran replied mock-cheerfully. :Almost as if they had a multitude of sins to hide. The port-master's book was interesting, if you find acres of mysteriously blank pages interesting.: He sighed. For all he'd doubted Tantras's methods - as much as Tantras had doubted his - it would have been a huge relief if he'd found something - some record of Harri setting foot back in Valdemar, somehow. :I need to talk to the nightwatchmen alone - no one wrote anything down, but that doesn't mean that no one saw any ships make the crossing in the dark.:
Clutching at thin straws. They both were. Because they had no time and nothing else to hang on to.
:So where is he taking you now?: Tran asked, and Vanyel let his attention drift outward again, looking for an answer to that question. Stefen led him through narrowing streets, and on the breeze he smelt coal-smoke, stale beer, cooking fat. The night was crowding around them again, but it was a far different populace from the throng on the beach. Better dressed, occasionally sober. Somehow caught in the same decay, though not yet at that tumbledown point where light shone through its cracks. Stefen had fallen silent, and moved with a tangible alertness; he's listening to the city. Hearing raucousness from the main streets that he appeared to be avoiding; thin beats of other people's music.
They stopped at what seemed like a midpoint between city and slum, and Stefen pulled a long key from his pocket. It opened a door at the corner of an unremarkable building of pale stone and cracked plaster; Stefen waved him inside. Valdir sagged against the wall of the inner hallway, desperately relieved to be out of the cold night.
The walls close around him creaked in the wind. Stefen palmed opened a door in the hallway, near the foot of a narrow stair; another door, at the back of the house, Valdir could assume lead to an outdoor privy. "Welcome to my home," Stef announced, with a little swagger to his voice - proud he had so much to offer to the vagrant Valdir. "Never mind upstairs - Tajinet lives there," he explained - the name sounded Cejan, but Valdir knew no more of it - and then they passed through a doorway so low as to brush the top of Valdir's head. Inside, it was almost completely black; a little light swam intermittently through a bottle-glass window. He heard Stefen fumble with a tinderbox, and the small room brightened.
He set down his lute and his tiny pack, and looked around curiously. Small though it was, the room was well-kept, with a worn rug on the floor. An opening in the far wall lead to another dark space, most likely a pantry. Furnishings were few - a simple bed under the window with a mattress and a blanket, a not-quite-level table, two chairs, a small chest. A shelf with a few earthenware plates and mugs, a simple wooden pipe standing up inside one of the latter. An upturned bowl on the table - perhaps a stash of bread and butter underneath. A few panels of silk hung from the walls; a surprisingly opulent source of extra colour. Stefen knelt at the promised hearth, building a fire from a stock of split logs. He lives well alone, he noted. Simply, but cleanly and with an obvious pride.
Stefen crossed the room to place his candle on the table, and he waved Valdir into the second of his plain wooden chairs. He looked solemn and thoughtful, and Valdir approached him hesitantly. "I don't take much company here," Stef said. "So it's not much - don't seem like you mind, though. Weren't scared of the thought of roughing it, was you?" He tilted his head, inquisitive. "And I know you not made as street-sort. Was you a soldier?"
Good idea - take it. "Yes - a couple of years ago, on the Karsite border," he replied.
"Old soldier," Stefen nodded. "I met a few of those out there, back in the day. Most of them got on the streets with a habit though, not a bloody lute."
The words dug sharp into his thin cover, scratching for details Vanyel had never so much as thought of. "I'm not most of them," he defended himself.
"You're not, are you?" He felt his lie encircled by Stefen's quick mind - Valdir had rarely been looked at so closely. Valdir was only ever an observer, a passing balladeer, not a person. "You're trouble, is what. Fairly screaming it. Down on your luck, I get, but you're not here but a moment and you're up for trading skin for - naught but more trouble, is what. I promise you a few damn words and you kissed me like your life hung on it?"
It had been a test, he suddenly realised. Or had become a test. And he'd conspicuously failed.
"I don't get it," Stefen continued, shaking his head. "I know you don't got a habit - if you did, that's what you'd have asked me for. And you looked at me like you never even thought about touching up strangers to get what you wanted before. I don't get you. You want to get to Ceejay? Why in hells?"
Vanyel pressed his lips together hard. His disguise felt flimsy and threadbare, too revealing. He was in need of a patch of truth. "If you must know, I've lost someone. He was in Ceejay, but he said he'd meet me in Cul Aber." Far away, he felt Yfandes startle at his sudden descent into veracity. "I have to find him -"
"He's dead." The words were flat. Dismissive. Final. There was an odd respect in Stefen's eyes as he shook his head. "You won't see him again." I know, Van acknowledged to himself, letting the truth harden his resolve. "Your lover?" he speculated.
"No," Valdir replied quickly. "Just a friend." Just a spy who was killed on his way home.
Stefen shook his head. "I wouldn't let no friend go to Ceejay." He snapped his fingers thoughtfully. "How were you meant to find him?"
He thought fast. "He told me he'd be in Cul Aber by the last full moon of winter, and he'd leave a message for me at the post house at the west gate -"
"Three nights past," Stefen frowned.
"I was waiting out the storm in Mountather," Valdir explained. "He left no word for me," and his voice shook with entirely real fear and despair. Oh gods, Harri, what happened to you? How could a Herald-Mage be lost without sign or trace? The thought was like scrambling over ice in the dark.
Stefen sighed, and rested an elbow on the tabletop, face resting in his own hand and eyes searching him in a way he found unsettling. How far through me are you seeing? Stefen tapped his fingers against his own face in agitation. "You're not giving this up, are you? Not even damn tired and broke on the streets. For a friend like you," he wondered.
You'd understand, if you'd ever sent someone to his death.
"I owe you," he recalled, needing distraction. "You wanted to see my lute?"
It was as if the candle-flame merged with Stefen's eyes; he straightened in his chair so fast that it creaked loudly. "If you would." The offer was clearly enough to make all else secondary - so he hoped - He sensed his own shadow at the back of Stefen's wide eyes (you're trouble) and shrugged it off as he reached for his instrument case.
He fumbled with the closures, surprised at how steady his hands were. "I'm not much of a teacher," he apologised, and Stefen turned his seat to make for more elbow room - almost giddy, he thought. What a strange young man. But he had once been as desperate to make sound with his hands - and I'm not a Gifted Bard. He handed his lute to Stefen with a thread of trepidation; it wasn't worth much to him, but was rather vital to keeping his cover. Stefen held it reverently, stroking the old wood with his fingertips. "Here -" and he stood behind Stefen and took his hands, arranging them on the strings. "Each string's tuned to a different note - try them, one at a time."
Stefen's fingers moved clumsily, slowly picking out strings between his forefinger and thumb. Then again, a little faster. His action was very far from correct, but the air between them rang with the sheer joy of the sound. I never thought about what Breda must go through, teaching Gifted apprentices. No skill, but so much desire for it infusing every sound they make - I would hate to hear a Gifted child becoming frustrated with their craft... Stefen's movements were taking on an awkward confidence, and he explored further up the instrument's neck. "What does my other hand do?" he asked.
"Look -" and Valdir placed his own hand a few inches down the instrument's battered neck. It wasn't the best tool for this; loops of gut were fraying off the fretboard. I'm probably dishonouring that Gift he doesn't know he has. "If you hold the string against the wood here, and then strike it -"
Stefen plucked, and his eyes went wide at the higher sound. His upper hand brushed against Valdir's as he squeezed his grip down on the string, and the note he felt out rang clear, and full of the wonder of discovery.
That intoxicating wonder.
He held the back of Stefen's chair, suppressing a shiver. Gods, this is strange. I've heard of all kinds of protocols for teaching Mage-Gifted younglings safely, but nothing about Bards. I guess most of them learn to play instruments before they come into their Gifts so fully...? This man lives off his Gift, uses it without thinking of it. Without understanding it. Without even naming it. And he's so good at putting it into even the clumsiest sound.
Stefen flexed his hand as the sound died away, and Vanyel tried to pull his tired mind back to the present. "You're holding too tight," he chided. "Relax a little. You'd be surprised how little force it takes." Stefen looked up at him, and raised his eyebrow as if he'd said something funny. "Here," and he put his hand over Stefen's thin, paper-dry fingers, surprisingly warm now; he guided them down the frets. "Try here," he instructed, and Stefen seemed delighted by the higher sound made as he squeezed on the string. He shook his finger, and Valdir's nerves quivered in sympathy with the vibration buzz working its way through his flesh. Stefen smiled at him, dazzlingly, and Valdir was struck once again by his beauty. Oh stars, as if I don't have enough troubles...
"So if I were to..." and Stefen played the note again, and sang the same tone softly as it rang out. He raised his hand up to the next disintegrating fret, held the note. It rang poor, and he frowned, adjusting his positioning. Then higher, feeling his way up a scale, singing each note as he tried to feel it out. Valdir slumped slowly back into his seat, watching Stefen explore. Perfect pitch. And such an instinct for how sound works. Technique could be learned - could be, and his heart sank thinking about what resources that required. Resources you just don't find in the gutter, and can't trade for at a black market.
Stefen's hands paused. However curious, there was only so much one could do after touching an instrument for the first time. He began feeling around the frets, looking for the right note. He found it, let it ring out, and sang, "Along a road in Hardorn -"
"Ah, as far as songs go you might want to start with something else," he interjected hastily. "Something a little - simpler." Stefen pursed his lips, and Vanyel tried to think of somewhere, anywhere, else it would be possible to begin. "Would you know the Tandere Cycle? The fourth part is a decent starting point." Stefen frowned, and Valdir sang him the first line.
"Oh - that one. Never knew it was called that. Learned it years ago, from a minstrel came up from the south."
Valdir stood behind him again, taking the lute in his hands and feeling out the simple fingering. "It starts here," and he played the first note. "Then down two frets - that's the name for the raised marks," he instructed. "And repeat those two notes again."
It was slow going to get through that first verse. There was so much he never realised he was doing when he played - so many movements he hadn't consciously thought about in years. It had been eight years since he'd even tried to teach anyone anything, and Medren had soon moved on to much finer tutors. Stefen played the first line again, singing as he went and Valdir felt the mood behind it shifting - from trepidation, to confidence - and neither the dull sound of the old lute nor Stefen's inexperience could dampen the dazzling joy he was projecting in the sound. What an extraordinary Gift. Even with precious time slipping by, Vanyel could not help but feel a tired delight in being near him.
Which was frightening. So deft, even I wouldn't feel manipulated if I didn't know he was doing it.
"You're ready to drop," Stefen observed, turning to look up at him. Valdir couldn't deny it. Stefen lifted the lute from his lap and handed it back - reverent still, but with a glimmer of faith in his expression, as if he looked upon a god and had received its sonorous blessing. He rose to his feet beside Valdir, and for an unsteady moment, Valdir was sure Stefen was going to touch him. He should have shrunk from the thought - no more testing, no leading someone on with this false person I am - but he didn't. Rather, it was Stefen who stepped back from him, and it was as if a shutter closed on whatever light had been in his eyes. "That hearth of mine should be pretty warm about now," he noted. "I got another blanket -"
"There's one on my pack," Valdir gestured, wary as usual of trusting in someone else's cleanliness, however neat Stefen's quarters appeared. It would not be a comfortable sleeping place, but he was so tired he doubted he'd notice. He retrieved the thin roll of woolcloth - borrowed from a stablehand in Haven - and tucked his lute in its battered case - which, at least, was his own, and had seen enough battles to render it helpfully scratched and battered. He turned in his crouch, and found Stefen watching him, hard to read in the dim light. "I owe you so much thanks," Valdir told him.
Stefen's eyes narrowed, with something more complicated than pity. "But you're still going east, right?" he glowered. I don't have a choice - "Your friend's dead. You could be alive here, or dead o'er there, and maybe that's not much odds to you but I wouldn't be so keen to find out the difference. What you even do for two days til the wind changes her temper?"
"Keep singing," he answered hopelessly. "What else could I do?" He was staring into troubled waters, and he recklessly threw in another hooked line. "I was wondering about trying to find people who'd crossed the river lately - maybe see if they'd seen my friend."
"You think to get rivermen talking? To someone who ain't in with anyone?" he sniffed. "Was hard enough to get them talking to each other." Stefen's words seemed wavering - puzzling, not defeated, thoughtful like a chess-player or military tactician - and Vanyel allowed a little real, desperate pleading to enter his countenance.
I have to find Harri.
Stefen sighed. "You don't begin to know how this city works. I could guess who been over lately, where to find them - better than anyone. No one knows folk on all sides but me. Though it's not like knowing them's the same as them telling me aught." He shook his head. "Rest up a while. Morrow come, we'll see who I can turn up. I ain't promising anyone will tell you shit," he cautioned. "But I know who to ask."
His chair scraped over the ground, and he snuffed the candle abruptly, leaving Valdir in the dark by the smouldering fire. "Thank you," he said again -
"I'm not one for favours," warned Stefen.
Dim shadows roamed the walls, outlined in red. His breath caught as he thought of being kissed again. On his back by a warm hearth, in a stranger's home.
He heard the telltale scratch of straw as Stefen settled down on his mattress to rest. "You keep teaching me stuff and I'd call it square."
Vanyel shook himself. Why was I even thinking of it? He'd vowed in the past not to make his way, as Valdir, by flirtation and false overtures, which made Stefen's tests and games rankle all the more. "Not sure how well I can help in just a few days," he replied, a little bitter. He wrapped his blanket all about him as he settled on the rug near the hearth. "For what it's worth, I think you've a knack for it."
"Hope so." Stefen's voice had become the horizontal murmur he knew from years past - candles out, young people sharing secrets in the dark. Sometimes more than secrets. "I think of songs a lot, just sing them to myself. Would be good to play them. I do well here, from knowing people, singing the right thing in the right ear. Always wonder, though - when the river finally washes us all away, what do I do then?"
When. "Something I - learned in the war," Vanyel murmured - it was hard to hide who he was, in the dark, even from himself. "The storm you're waiting for often doesn't come. It hangs on the horizon while you ache for it to break over you. You know the waiting won't last forever - the watchtower won't stand forever, the enemy can't hold their line forever - but even if you're watching it all collapse one piece at a time, it might still be there longer than you are. The oak tree that will have to come down one day can still outlive you. It probably will."
He knew, in the quiet, that Stefen was thinking on it. Nihilism was never the point, was it? Take it away, and then where do you go? "What if I got out of here before it came?" Stefen muttered. "I can't carry what I got here on the road - I'm not anyone without who I know about the city. If I were to learn to play, maybe I could go as I like. Worked for you, right?"
Misleading you just by being here, and he cursed himself silently. No point trying to tell him of the realities of life as an itinerant minstrel. It would be impossible to convince Stefen that the hardship wasn't worth it. Perhaps he'd known worse hardships. "Cul Aber born, bred -?" Valdir reminded him of his words.
"I don't know, alright," retorted Stefen stonily. "Maybe there's only so long I can keep this dance going. Didn't always have a nice gaff like this. Truce is only reason I ever made shit - anyone breaks truce, and I'm singing on the streets and sleeping on my pitch again."
You lived on the streets? The thought made his heart lurch - and he felt, instinctively, for signs of manipulation. Does it matter if he's tugging my strings? He's not lying. The thought of Gifted children - any children - sleeping on the streets ought to make him feel sick. What have I ever fought for?
But Valdir couldn't entertain such thoughts. He could only sympathise in silence.
Valdir closed his eyes. Deep inside, Vanyel's awareness remained extended - setting shields and alarums, performing all the usual checks he went through before falling asleep in a strange place. With the last of his energy he reached out to find Yfandes, not wanting to sleep without her knowing exactly where he was.
:Quite a rabbit-hole you've gone down,: she commented. She sounded disapproving and disillusioned, as if to say, and why not? What else were you to do but dally with a peculiar singer?
:If he really can introduce me to the river-smugglers, it'll be worth it.: He wriggled on the hard floor, futilely trying to get comfortable. :Though I think it would be worth it in any case,: he continued. :It seems a crime to me that he's not a Bardic apprentice. That's talent that ought to be in Valdemar's employ, and he's washed up hundreds of miles from Haven without a chance.:
:Bards aren't like Heralds,: Yfandes echoed his thoughts. :No one went on search for him.:
:We just expected him to show up in Haven one day? From the streets of Cul Aber? Are we really that foolish?: he snapped, frustrated. :It's not like we don't take the Bardic Gift seriously - Savil's always told me how vital the Bardic repertory is.: Vanyel's place in that repertory might cause him discomfort, but how would anyone from this far-flung clime know of the events that occurred at Stony Tor were it not for the words of the Bards? Without songs, how would anyone remember, fifty or a hundred years from now, what Valdemarans had done to protect their fellows? :And if it's so important to us, why do we ignore such sublime skill just because it's not where we're used to seeing it? Why ignore Gifted children whose parents can't pay tutors and luthiers, and don't have Haven connections? Or who don't even have parents?:
Yfandes's voice seemed sleepy as well as despondent. :What would you have us do?:
:I don't know. I'd suggest teaching a little music in Temple schools and looking out for children with great aptitude - but I'm not sure Stefen ever set foot in a Temple school.: He hadn't seen so much as a scrap of paper or spot of ink in Stefen's home, much less a book, which from someone drawn to verse and music was suggestive of illiteracy.
He yawned so deep that she felt it and sent him a shimmer of exhausted affection. :Sleep,: she ordered. :You've a lot to do tomorrow.:
That I do. He felt time shifting under him, as if the river really were washing the whole earth away beneath him. Harri had been dead for less than a day. The spell was most effective when cast by a group of mages - pooled energy, sinking deep into the surroundings and showing what had occurred from every angle, perhaps as much as a week hence. Alone, he wasn't certain how long he had. Two more days might be too late - or it might not. He couldn't know.
-->Part 4
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Date: 2014-09-28 03:14 pm (UTC)And Vanyel too... you aren't half as good as pretending to be lowborn as you think, peacock xD
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Date: 2014-09-28 07:35 pm (UTC)And, thanks - I am not totally happy with the way this is unspooling, but I'm having fun with this Stef.
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Date: 2014-09-29 11:32 am (UTC)Yesss please! *_* Also I like how... competent Stef is. He is awesome but in the books he is overshadowed by Vanyel. Mostly because everybody makes a point on remarking on how much older/wiser/stronger/everything Vanyel is. Which is -aside from the "older" part because you can't argue with math- simply not true.
I want to see a badass Stef showing Vanyel how badass he is.
... I may have had a dream about a sort-of-crossover between LHM and Supernatural in which Stef became a hunter.
WHAT IS HAPPENING TO MY MIND?!
Everytime I come back to this fandom I have the weirdest dreams O_O
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Date: 2014-09-30 12:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-09-30 03:47 pm (UTC)I DISLIKE Shavri. A lot <.
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Date: 2014-10-01 01:41 am (UTC):P I'm still worried that I'm underplaying Van in this fic - he is having to go about his business subtly.
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Date: 2014-10-01 04:37 pm (UTC)Vanyel and subtliness go together like two things that don't go well together at all u.ù
I don't think you are underplaying him! He is perfect xD
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Date: 2014-10-03 05:13 am (UTC)I think more subtleness failure lies ahead here... XD
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Date: 2014-09-29 03:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-09-30 12:25 am (UTC)thank you! I am v grateful to hear your impressions because I am not good at predicting how things will be perceived/what thoughts they will kick up from the reader end. (I went on a long ramble about this years ago after getting totally blindsided by the peanut gallery's response to a horror fic I wrote).
i hope you had a great birthday! <3
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Date: 2014-10-03 05:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-09-30 01:45 pm (UTC)Seriously, I would pay you to write if I could.
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Date: 2014-10-03 05:11 am (UTC)