Hal's Mask

HAL’S MASK

Hal of W’ik looked ahead, saddlebags and crossbow across his own shoulders since he had lost his horse – by his own folly earning an eagle’s Word of Ban. A double gentle arc of heavy rope crossed the River Cale between two tall oaks. He pulled himself to his feet on the branch he had reached and worked his way around to the makeshift bridge.

A hint of wind rose and moved the trees imperceptibly; the ropes slowly flexed above the deep current.

Here at the ropes’ end, the two strands came close together, but they drooped farther as they reached mid-span. Hal realized the one bearing most weight would likely sag more than the other: what an insane set-up! Still, someone had probably used it. Hal moved cautiously along the ropes. They creaked softly.

The tree on the south bank already looked nearer than the northern one from which he’d started. A stronger breeze set Hal’s pulse pounding as he clutched at the upper rope and his feet pedalled in the air. They found the lower rope again.

Suddenly his feet felt a deep vibration in the lower strand. Fibres had broken. Hal tried to move more quickly and smoothly. Dark water flowed steadily below.

A stronger gust struck the bridge: the lower rope thrummed, and suddenly sagged sharply. Hal clutched at the upper strand, but his bags and bow slipped from his shoulders and into the river.

The bow sank, but the bags remained near the surface as the current swept them off toward W’ik Castle. Hal’s heart sank as well: his cloak, drinking bottle . . . He managed to get both feet back onto what remained of the lower rope. An eagle’s curse seemed to leave little in the way of resources.

After what seemed like hours, Hal clung not to failing strands of rope but to a stout branch.

He hung there until he gathered enough of his senses to pull himself all the way onto the branch and look around.

He sat on a thick limb among the lower branches of a strong oak, the green of its leaves brushed with the first warm hints of fall. Here on the Cale’s south bank no hints of the Fair Host’s most recent inroad smudged the glory of the day.

A dusty trail ran past the bridge-tree. Hal looked back across the river just in time to see the frayed lower rope stretch in some new wind—and snap completely. He felt the break vibrate through the wood of the tree.

Returning now was impossible. Hal edged his way around the trunk to one of the lowest branches and dropped to the track beneath.

As he rose from the dust, he first saw two pairs of bright-coloured leggings, and then heard a voice say cheerily, “Good-day, Sir Dropped-from-the-skies!”

“Are you a robber bent on despoiling us travellers?” a second voice chimed in. “You’d better practise your entrances, if so.”

Hal looked up to see two men not much older than himself, with close-cropped hair and beards. They were dressed mostly in scraps and patches of bright colours, and pulled a hand-cart heavily laden with bundles and cases, and drums, pipes, and other musical instruments.

“Greetings again, sir,” said the taller of the pair. “Have you a voice?” Hal noticed they kept hands near slim daggers that hung from their belts, although they spoke lightly.

“Light’s blessing, neighbours,” Hal answered. “I’m no robber, but a wanderer . . . seeking my way to Palanduur. What are you, and where bound?”

“Light’s blessing also to you,” the stockier of the strangers said with a bow of his head. “We are men of the arts. This tall string is Kelo, and I’m called Car.”

“We, too, aim for Palanduur,” the other said, “as singers and tale-tellers for the reward of our listeners’ gold—or at least copper.”

“Nonsense, brother, gold alone is worthy of our art! Though we’ve been known to settle for a meal or a warm bed, cold nights. Have you gold, Sir Treetops?”

“I’ve nothing but what you see,” Hal declared. “An ill doom has taken all and set me on a perilous road to make my future out of whatever I can find.”

“I see you do still have a sword,” the other said. “Will you use that to ‘make your future’?” The travellers kept hands near their dagger-hilts.

Hal looked down at his thigh: he had all but forgotten his short-sword. The Stag of Paar himself had sung: “Accept and wield your sword, Defender of the Light! Use well what you have learned from failing!”

And now failure again: a careless shot, a dying eagle’s curse, exiled wandering. Far from W’ik, the Warders and Defenders, the daily celebrations of the Words of Life. Yet somehow, he’d fulfil the purpose the Stag had granted him.

He realized that Car and Kelo still waited, a little tensely.

“No, I’ll never use my sword to take my own living,” he said. “This blade will never leave its scabbard except to defend the Light! I . . . No, that’s enough for now.”

“That sounds well enough—your name?” Kelo prompted. “Or will we call you Firehead!”

He almost said,“Hal of W’ik,” but realized that his true name might raise questions. “Call me—Kiw,” he said, on an instant’s inspiration.

“Well, ‘Kiw,’you might help us if you could sing or play an instrument or recite the Great Tales,” Car responded. “We really need a third part for our harmonies, and—I mean no carping, but—your beard is still light enough for you to make a fine boy or lady in a sketch, if you shave.”

Kelo added, “You won’t make Palanduur without coin, unless you have some skill to trade on.”

Hal realized that he had never in his life needed money. “Folk say I have the voice of my mother’s people, as well as their colouring, and I have a true ear for the seven pitches. I know a few fingerings on the harp . . .”

“Then your doom may not go so ill after all!” tall Kelo said. “Travel with us, good Kiw, and we’ll teach you to turn those things into money—and a few other comforts as well.”

“Will folk really give gold for tunes and tales?” Hal said doubtfully. Music and story came free to all in the hall of W’ik Castle.

“Not much, in these up-country holes, but in Palanduur, or even Lur’ik, there’s gold and more for art. We spent a good winter in the great city and came north from the heat of full summer to Paarsbank and our parents’ tables.”

“Of course,” Car said, “that gave a good view of a new tale: the great Eladaar War and victory over the Fair. Kelo and I are composing some songs that should bring plenty of money: ‘The Ballad of Wil,’ ‘The March of the Fair,’ that kind of thing.”

“Were you in our host for the battles?” Hal asked.

Kelo laughed. “We’re wiser than to risk our art! Others are heroes: we simply polish the sheen of their names.”

“Were you in the battles, friend Kiw?” Car interjected, still with a thoughtful eye on Hal’s looks.

“I was—near,” he said. “I saw much that others did not know.”

“Then you can add fresh details to our songs!” Kelo suggested.

“The War of Light with Dark is far more than money, or even art; I’ve looked into the eyes of a great white Stag and heard him sing Words that become Life to those who listen . . .” Hal’s voice trailed off.

“Well, we’ve all had mystical moments with a pair of bright eyes!” said Kelo. Car recalled a girl in Palanduur he hoped to see again. “Will you seek your fortune with us now?”

“If you’ll have me after you hear me, I’ll give you a try!”

“Hurrah, Kiw! Kiw can’t lose!” the two players cried. They then explained that to change wigs and costumes quickly, they’d have to clip his head to stubble like theirs. Hal realized the change of hair might make it easier to pass where someone might recognize the Lord Defender’s son.

The shearing was quick; they scraped off his chin-fuzz as well. “And now, as new lad, you’ll take first turn with our handcart!”

Hal’s shaky new optimism dived, but he had agreed to join them, so off they swung down the riverside trail. Car and Kelo began trading line and response in a familiar song as they walked. Hal found breath, even hauling the cart, to provide harmonies in his clear tenor.

“Ah, friend Kiw,” Kelo said, “you’re born for music!” They trudged on with songs on their lips, if not quite in every heart. Hal let his new friends and their stories keep his thoughts away from his quest to end the Eagle’s Word of Ban.

Dance all the day, dance the night; dance the Triumph of the Light!

As the sun sank, the songs sank from dancing spirits to plodding feet. Ahead, among woody and orcharded hills, they saw a long, shoulder-high wall of dry-laid stone.

“Here’s old Torm’s house!” Kelo exclaimed. “Just as we’re due for supper!”

“Hail, Torminant, and bless your generous table!” Car echoed.

“I know Torminant of the South!” Hal said. “He’s one of my—of the Lord Defender’s old companions from the Moonlit Night. A great Defender, but very old.”

“Nonetheless, he loves a good song and tale and keeps a free table for travellers with something to share,” Kelo laughed.

With his bare poll and his growth, Hal/Kiw thought, Torminant would probably never link him with a redheaded child rarely seen. Still—“Now that I think of it, could I wear some mask for our show?”

Kelo gave Hal a sidelong look. “Well, friend Kiw, whatever the crimes of your past, we’ll help hide them tonight. I’d been thinking, anyway, that we might do the Piggish Knight for our laughs until you have more time to learn lines—we make a lot of that up as we go, and all the Knight has to do is wear a mask and snort like a hog whenever I stamp my foot!”

Car exclaimed, “Anyone with half his wits—I mean, as talented as our brother Kiw—can do the Piggish part, and he gets all the laughter while we strain our brains! We’ll sing some of the old songs we’ve been trying on our road, like ‘Wastrel Boy’ and ‘Dance to the Light,’ and earn supper and beds well enough, I’m sure.”

Kiw/Hal already wore a garish tunic and leggings like theirs. From the cart they added a floppy cap with a long drooping feather, and a mask with a pig’s snout that covered his eyes and nose.

They crossed Torminant’s household gardens with fresh energy. Except for cabbages and roots, most of the crops and blooms had already finished. A short but forbiddingly sturdy tower crowned a low hill in the centre of the walled acreage; Kelo struck a huge bell at the gate, and a porter sprang from his booth. The print of a mail-shirt sleeve was on the man’s cheek, and his confusion suggested he’d been napping. “What do—fah! Who comes clanging my lord’s gate-bell just at table-time?”

“Merrymakers three!” Kelo declared. “We passed this way, times past, as only two, but two whom all enjoyed.”

He stamped his foot with a side-glance toward Hal, who caught the hint and snorted loudly, pig-fashion.

“You two weren’t bad last spring, I do remember! We’ll have to see what your pig-faced friend can do.” The porter chuckled. “A touch of something fresh might add savour to the lord’s meat in these darkening days,” he added. “Wait here till I ask our loaf-giver’s will—as long as your new friend doesn’t eat like a pig!”

Soon the porter took the trio and their gear into a small court within the thick walls. They parked their handcart in safe-keeping, and then went inside the house itself. A giggling girl took them to a side room to wash for supper. Then, to table: Torminant had rheumy eyes but received them warmly. “Guests are welcome! Dine before you play, but all will judge if you earn a bed!” He waved them to seats near the last of the board.

Supper proved hot, tasty, and plentiful; the weary miles seemed to roll away, but Hal worried about giving a half-impromptu show for strangers. Darkness deepened outside and among the beams and trusses above them in Torminant’s hall. People talked and laughed in politely hushed voices by lamp and candle-light over the food and ale.

The show began as the sweet puddings went round the tables: a politely-received chorus thanking their host, in which all finally joined. “The Piggish Knight” earned plenty of laughter.

With harp and pipe, drum and voices, the trio returned to music. Hal began to see faces in the room, not merely a nervous blur. Old Torminant’s features seemed to smooth as laughter and music swirled in his hall.

Then a weird, moaning shriek sounded outside and seemed to echo in the roof-timbers; music and talk fell coldly silent. Even the lights seemed to cower.

“It comes again!” cried a solemn-looking girl, Hal’s age or a bit more. Her dark grey eyes had followed the players’ every movement.

Hal saw red rise in Torminant’s furrowed cheeks. “My land and house are warded by the Light, within and without!” he declared aloud. “How dare any scattering of Eladaar’s fall come here?”

“My Lord, does some creature of Darkness plague you?” Hal said. The short sword he still wore at his side felt heavy.

Torminant waved a dismissive hand. “Noise and nothing!” he said loudly, as if to be heard plainly. “No Dark things could enter this hall. Play on, play on, with songs of Light!”

The three began the last of the few songs they had practised on the road:

Dance all the day, dance all the night; dance the Triumph of the Light!

The song seemed like hurling a challenge; they sang of victory when an enemy so evidently prowled the deepening autumn night outside. People clapped along and joined the chorus as if to frighten Darkness away.

The shriek came again, as if hurling the challenge back in their faces. Suddenly the fire in the central brazier went dark, along with every lamp and candle, and people shrieked. The hall-doors banged open, and a dark shape appeared there against a weird glow.

That shape had haunted Hal’s most uneasy dreams. Into Torminant’s dim hall stalked the spectre-thin figure of a woman, wild-haired, in a long, grey-white dress. She raised her hands claw-like, but blood oozed thickly from the stumps of her fingers. She turned as if scanning the room with the empty pits of her eyes. “What have you to do here, Bane of Eladaar? Have you brought your curse here? Let me see you!” she shrieked.

“What have Shadows to do with this house of the Living?” Hal cried in a fell voice of his own. He remembered this creature from the Forest of Paar: guardian of a cave on the borders of Eladaar, she had then had a partner of sorts, a huge, smoke-grey, horned serpent from which Hal and his friend Dermian had run, brave intentions in rags.

Now, again, something moved in the shadows at the hag’s feet. With its hiss and its flicking, flame-edged tongue, the serpent oozed slowly, hunting, into the hall. Some screamed in horror; others were simply shaken with revulsion.

Hal remembered the sword at his thigh and the Stag’s assurance that he would use it in defence of the Light and of his people. “W’ik and the Light!” he cried as he threw aside a small harp he had carried and took his ready-position, sword in hand now.

“Foul waste of Eladaar, find death and Second Death!”

The sword sang in a punishing arc and slashed the thick snake body into quivering slabs: the hag’s shrill cry froze every heart in the hall but Hal’s. Before he even reached her, both she and the serpent’s corpse had crumbled into ancient decay and disappeared.

“W’ik and the Light!” Hal shouted again, brandishing his sword. He felt that he was living his purpose at last—but then he remembered the fallen eagle. Even in the surge of victory, Hal felt starkly certain that he still had to travel far and seek some great Knowledge to escape the slain bird’s dark rhyme.

Folk brought fire for the lights again and cleaned the room, but only thin flakes like ash remained where the intruders had been.

Hal’s mask had fallen off, but no one seemed to link the red-stubble-headed player and the scion of W’ik, even after he’d made much more than theatrical use of his sword.

“Thank you, Master Player,” Torminant said with tears in his eyes. “These had haunted my house a-nights for weeks, though sometimes leaving us in silence many days.”

“Why did you say nothing when we came?” Hal asked.

“We hoped,” the old Defender said. “We hoped each night would be a quiet one, and we hoped, this night, that guests and songs might drive the Darkness back.”

“But they didn’t, alone of themselves—yet one of the guests had a sword, and knew how to use it!” Car said, clapping Hal/Kiw on the shoulder.

“Aye,” Kelo said with a grin. “We have a rare man of art and action here.”

“Would I had been so bold in times past,” Hal said, looking at his feet and colouring deeply.

“If we regret nothing, we’ve learned nothing,” Torminant said. “I believe that you, young friend, can yet be a great Human if you continue your learning.”

“No debt for duty!” Hal said. “Someday I may serve you and your people better, with the Light’s help.”

“Let’s all sing to the Light some Words of Life,” Torminant said, “and turn gratefully to our rest. We certainly have beds for our rescuers this night!”