Shadowdance (10 page)

"Don't touch me!" Drushen pushed him back with a force that sent him sprawling in the middle of the floor. "You don't know! Gods, help me! I never would have! I never meant to!"

Innowen rose slowly, uncertainly, as Drushen took a step toward him. In the dim light that seeped from the other room, he saw his guardian's face and the anguish there. But there was more, too, and worse. Drushen's eyes burned with a dark desire.

"I never would have hurt you," Drushen whispered, coming closer, bending down. Innowen crawled back until the wall stopped his retreat. "I never would have. I promise I won't." The old man shook his head from side to side, but his gaze never left Innowen. "You shine like the moon, boy. You know that? So beautiful!"

Drushen's huge hands caught Innowen around the waist and lifted him as if he were no more than a doll.

Innowen pushed uselessly at his guardian, suddenly frightened and acutely aware of Drushen's powerful strength. "Drushen!" he screamed. The woodcutter didn't say anything as he carried Innowen across the room. "Drushen," Innowen appealed once more, resisting the urge to scream this time, trying instead to sound reasonable and calm. "Please, stop."

"I can't!" Drushen hissed, his breath hard and ragged. He laid Innowen on the bed, pinned him there with one hand, and lifted the blue hem of his chiton with the other. He leaned closer and placed a kiss on the boy's cheek.

"Drushen!" Innowen shouted as he tried to roll off the bed's far side. But a hand crushed down on his mouth, pinning him to the pillow, preventing any more cries. The old man loomed over him like a big monstrous cat, and Innowen was the mouse. He couldn't get free!

"Be quiet," Drushen urged with a terrible, certain calm. "I won't hurt you, child. But your dance! Oh, when I saw you dance." He spoke with a dreadful serenity as he unfastened Innowen's garments. Innowen squeezed his eyes shut, barely able to breathe for the hand over his face. He kicked and flailed to little avail, and the woodcutter ignored his feeble blows. A slight wind brushed over his suddenly naked flesh, and a hot hand began to massage his belly. "Dance for me, Innocent!" Drushen moaned softly. "Dance for me now."

Drushen bent down and kissed him in earnest. Innowen's head swam, and tears spilled from his eyes. The old man's hands roamed through his hair and caressed every part of him, creating fire wherever they touched, strange heatless fire that grew and spread all through him. He lay dumbfounded, burning with a terrible, dark fear and an awful pleasure. Too frightened to look, he turned his face to the pillow and covered his eyes with an arm. When Drushen entered him, he bit his lip, not daring to scream. The bed beneath him seemed to disappear; he melted into endless darkness, floated to a confusion of sensations, all beyond joy or pain, lost in a cruelly consuming tenderness.

He awoke later with the taste of Drushen still in his mouth. From the floor by the bed came a low, pitiful sobbing. Innowen listened weakly until he was sure of who it was. Then, he turned on his side to look. The woodcutter huddled on the carpets, clutching the edge of the bedsheet in one hand as tears streamed down his face. He looked up at Innowen.

"I'm sorry!" he said. "I couldn't stop myself. Innowen, I never would have hurt you!" Drushen got to his knees. His elbows pressed on the bed, and Innowen cowered away. "Forgive me," he begged. "I don't know what possessed me. Forgive me, Innowen!"

But Innowen slunk further back, his throat dry, his body trembling all over.

"Innowen!" Drushen stared in horror and shame. He extended one hand toward his charge while the fingers of the other clawed in the bedclothes. Abruptly, he let go a cry of pure anguish and leaped to his feet.

"I've got to get away," Drushen said in a stricken whisper. He shot a look wildly around the room, as a trapped animal might. "Far away from you before it's too late." He looked once more at Innowen, then fled. "I'm sorry! Sorry!"

Innowen heard the door wrench open, and Drushen's panicked footsteps echoed loudly in the outer corridor until they gradually faded.

He rolled onto his back, shut his eyes, and wept. Out of the darkness came the memory of Drushen's wide, pleading eyes to haunt and terrify him. Slowly, he curled into a ball and hugged himself. He burned all over with strange sensations, yet he felt hollow. His tears fell on the sheets, which were already damp with sweat. No matter how he tried, he couldn't stop them.

Alone,
he thought forlornly,
utterly alone.
It was his greatest fear.

He turned over onto his back again, opened his eyes, and looked to the sky beyond the window. He waited for the sun to rise, and he waited for the life to drain from his legs. He waited for Drushen to return, and knew he would not.

Chapter 4

Innowen didn't sleep at all that night, and the sun was high in the sky when someone knocked at his door. He didn't answer. After a moment, they went away. He listened to the receding steps, remembering Drushen. Sometime later there was another knock. He didn't want to see anyone, didn't want to talk, and shortly, the corridor echoed again with retreating footsteps.

It was almost noon when someone knocked again. He refused to answer, but this time the door opened anyway. Taelyn poked his head through the archway. "Are you awake?" he whispered. Taking a step into the room, he stopped, made a face, and pinched his nostrils shut with his fingers. "Oh gods!" he exclaimed in disgust. "You've soiled the sheets, young man. Couldn't you reach the slop jar? It's right under the bed!"

Innowen said nothing, just turned his head to the side on the pillow and looked away.

"Don't you play silent on me, boy!" Taelyn snapped. "You may be Lord Minarik's guest, but I'm the one who cleans up the messes around here. Now get out of that bed and wash yourself. Those sheets have to be scrubbed at once, or they'll never look clean again." He clapped his hands together sharply. "Move!"

Innowen closed his eyes. "I can't walk," he said without emotion. Languidly, he draped one arm over his eyes.

Taelyn came closer and bent over the bed. The distaste on his face was obvious as he pulled Innowen's hands down and peered at him carefully. "Where's your guardian?" he asked, suddenly quiet, his anger fading, a note of concern creeping into his voice.

Innowen pulled his hand free and covered his face again. "Gone."

Taelyn stood there a moment. "I'm going to get Minarik," he said finally. "But first, a drink for you. You're feverish." He left Innowen's bedside, went into the other room, and returned with an earthen drinking cup and an ornately decorated hydria jar. He poured a half measure of water into the cup and lifted Innowen's head while he held it for him to sip. Innowen only moistened his lips a little and turned aside again. "I'll get Minarik," Taelyn repeated, setting both cup and vessel where Innowen could reach them easily.

Once more, Innowen found himself alone listening to the sound of fading footsteps. He stared at Drushen's unused bed on the other side of the room, then shut his eyes and shed thick silent tears until, at last, he drew his hand across his face and wiped his nose. Taelyn had gone for Minarik, and lying in his own mess was shame enough. He would not cry before the Lord of Whisperstone if he could help it. He pushed against the bed with his hands and drew his back up against the wall until he could sit up. Beyond the window, the day was bright and crisp, but it failed to cheer him. He pulled the coverlet up to his chest and waited, thinking of Drushen and fighting back the tears that threatened to come again.

Minarik touched his shoulder. Innowen had not heard him enter. He looked up into his benefactor's worried gaze, and then down at his own dead legs. Taelyn came in behind Minarik with an armload of clean bedding, which he set down on Drushen's empty bed before coming to peer over his master's shoulder.

"How are you, boy?" Minarik said, settling gingerly on the edge of the bed.

Innowen turned his gaze slowly back to the lord. Minarik looked terrible. His faced appeared drawn and sleep-deprived. Shadows circled his eyes, and dirt runneled the deep lines of his neck and brow. He smelled, too, of sweat and horse-froth, as though he had ridden some long distance. Yet he had taken time to come see his guest.

"The day passes," Innowen answered in a flat voice, realizing he owed Minarik the courtesy of a response. Still, he could generate no enthusiasm. His lids quivered shut, and he hugged the coverlet as a chill rippled through him. "Drushen is gone."

"I know," Minarik said quietly. "The gate guard told me he left in the middle of the night, taking nothing with him. He said your Drushen was weeping, and that he mumbled a name over and over as he passed through the gate." A hand brushed tenderly over Innowen's damp forehead and pushed back a lock of hair. "Your name, Innocent."

Though he tried to stop it, a droplet squeezed from Innowen's eye and glided down his cheek. He reached up to intercept it, but Minarik instead caught it with his fingertip and held it up to sparkle in the light.

"What passed between you and your guardian last night, boy, to cause you both such grief?" Minarik lowered his hand and wiped the bit of moisture on his tunic near his heart. "The love you bore for each other was plain enough. No father and son could have shown more."

Innowen remembered the pain of Drushen's hands upon him, so strong, hurting, pinning him. Again, confusion and fear swept over him, so powerful, numbing. Yet he recalled also, one layer of memory over another, his guardian's anguish, his pleas for forgiveness, the sorrow and shame on the old woodcutter's face.

What had driven Drushen to hurt him?

He clenched his fists in the coverlet, struggling to make sense of it, knowing only that some dark desire had possessed his guardian last night and made them both its victim. How could he explain to Minarik? How could he tell such an evil truth, or speak of the deed that had been consummated under his roof? However he disliked it, he knew he had to lie again.

"We argued," he started honestly enough. "About the Witch, and about my legs."

Minarik stopped him. "You are crippled, then, as I'd heard." He nodded with sudden understanding as he lifted one of Innowen's arms and examined it closely. "I knew there was something odd about you. See? The calluses on your elbows where no normal man would have them. And the strange, careful way you walk as if any moment you expect to fall. This is the Witch's work, isn't it?" Minarik ran a hand along Innowen's thigh down to his knee. "She made you whole again."

"Only during the nighttime hours," Innowen said softly. "From sunrise to sunset I'm still half a man."

Minarik looked long and hard at Innowen, then turned away and rubbed his eyes with thumb and forefinger. After a moment, he turned back again, and his features settled into an expression of great weariness. "None of this explains why Drushen ran away."

Innowen drew a breath and let it out slowly. "He didn't know about the Witch's part in this. He thought it was some miracle from the gods. But last night I told him the truth." He looked up and met Minarik's gaze with directness. "Drushen's very superstitious, and he'd heard stories about the Witch of Shanalane. He said terrible things, and when I defended her, he said I was
abathakati—
tainted." Suddenly, he covered his face; he felt shame, but this lie was far better than the truth. "He
hurt
me." Innowen continued finally. He drew a deep breath and leaned his head back against the wall. That, at least, was no untruth. "And I hit him. I'd never done that before. He took it as proof of my utter corruption and fled." He rubbed a hand over his eyes and looked beyond the window. "Now I'm alone. Drushen won't come back, and I have no one."

Taelyn stepped closer. "Lord," he said, bending over Minarik. "You haven't slept all night. You should rest. I'll see that the boy is bathed and the room cleaned. The two of you can continue this discussion later."

Minarik waved him back, then rubbed his eyes as Innowen had done, and rose from the bedside. He shot a smile at Innowen. "You're not the only who needs a bath—I don't know which of us is worse." He sniffed himself and made a face before looking to his slave. "You're right, though, Taelyn. We can continue this, but after we've cleaned ourselves." He leaned down and rumpled Innowen's hair. To Innowen's surprise, he found he didn't mind. "You look after Innocent," Minarik went on, "and when he's presentable, carry him down to the courtyard. See that there's food waiting, too."

Taelyn protested. "You need sleep, my lord."

Minarik put on a patient grin. "You fret too much, old friend. I'm stronger than you think. Riding around pointlessly all night is admittedly a bit tiring, but it only takes an argument with Kyrin to stir the blood again, and mine's been whipped to a froth." He looked back to Innowen. "I'll join you in the courtyard shortly." Then turning again to Taelyn, "He doesn't look half as bad as you said."

Taelyn put on an exaggerated frown. "He perked up deliberately to make me seem like a liar."

Minarik's grin widened, then he shrugged and left the room. Taelyn followed his lord but returned moments later with the wash basin and a cloth. He poured water from the hydria jar by Innowen's bed into the basin.

"I like him," Innowen confided as Taelyn pulled away his coverlet and began to clean him. "But the villagers in Shandisti almost never speak of him. Why is that?"