Shadowdance (9 page)

"That's unkind," she answered, her voice stronger than before. "He's no older than my father or Lord Minarik." She turned her smile on Drushen. "I think he's very handsome, and obviously quite strong. I've never seen such arms before."

Drushen blushed and bowed very low.

"Recipe for a woodcutter," Innowen mumbled. "Two strong arms, one weak mind."

"Recipe for an Innowen," Drushen countered, straightening. "One mouth, two broken sticks."

Innowen whirled, heat rushing into his face. Then, remembering they were not alone, he calmed himself. He didn't want to make a fool of himself in front of her, and he'd asked for that, after all. Back in the cottage, he and Drushen had always poked and jibed at each other. Mouth games, they'd called it. To their rare visitor it had sounded pretty vicious sometimes. But it had just been their way with each other, no holds ever barred and no harm ever meant.

Still, that one had stung him.

The girl glanced away again and rose to her feet. "I should go," she said.

Was that regret in her voice? Innowen turned away from Drushen. "Stay," he said. "Please."

She looked at the pipe in her hands, then at last met his gaze. Her eyes were large and dark, and they sparkled with reflected lamplight.

"What's your name?" he asked.

She lowered her gaze again as she answered. "Dyan."

"Dyan," he repeated. "Two more notes of beautiful music."

Drushen made a strangled noise, then covered his mouth and feigned a coughing fit.

"Your name is Innocent," she said. "I overheard Minarik and Taelyn talking today. They said you were ill." She looked up once more.

He loved her eyes. "A passing thing," he answered. "I'm better now. In fact, I feel like dancing. Would you play for me?"

"Dyan!"

Her face went pale. Innowen spun around to see who dared to shout at her. Then he stiffened. Drushen shot a glance at him, his brow furrowing in question and confusion, and Innowen reminded himself his guardian had not yet met Kyrin. Ispor's new king marched across the courtyard toward them, his face full of rage. He thrust a finger at Dyan. "Get to your room, girl!"

Dyan fled, her feathered cloak rustling, the hood slipping from her head and her dark hair flying as she hurried over the smooth paving stones, through the door and into the depths of Whisperstone. Angrily, Innowen watched her go.

"You are Minarik's guests," Kyrin said with barely controlled menace. "But stay away from my daughter. You may have fooled my Uncle, but I know your kind. I know what you want." He gripped the hilt of his sword and exposed a portion of its bronze length. The lamplight rippled on its edge. "If you touch her, if you even talk to her again, I'll cut off your hands."

Drushen stepped between them, his hands clenching into huge fists, but Innowen caught his shoulder and tried to pull him back as the two men regarded each other, Drushen breathing rapidly, Kyrin's eyes burning with anger and challenge.

Finally, Kyrin sheathed his blade, though his anger did not abate. He backed off a step. "Your son has saved your life," he said arrogantly.

"My son," Drushen sneered, "has saved your teeth."

"Drushen, shut up!" Innowen pushed his guardian away and positioned himself between the two men. To Kyrin he said, "I didn't know she was your daughter. I heard her playing, that's all, and we exchanged a greeting. I meant no offense."

Kyrin's gaze burned into him. "Make sure you understand me, then. Stay away from her. She is uncorrupted, and I mean to keep her that way." He looked at Drushen, then back to Innowen. "This time I'll forgive his insult. It wouldn't be polite to sully my uncle's fine courtyard with common blood for so little reason."

He retreated a few more steps before he turned his back to them and set after his daughter.

Drushen gripped Innowen's shoulder. "You should have let me bend his spine a little, boy. Not too much, mind you, just enough to make him squeal."

Innowen embraced his guardian, knowing full well that Drushen could have carried out such a threat. But he loved this old man. It didn't escape his notice that Drushen had stepped between him and Kyrin. And now that he thought of it, his chest swelled with pride that he had done the same thing when Kyrin turned on Drushen. He could never have done that before when his legs were useless twigs. Now, though, he could walk, and he could stand beside his friends. He had the Witch of Shanalane to thank for that.

That reminded him. To
walk,
she had said,
you must dance.
He had not yet danced, and the night was passing.

"You would have bent his spine, would you?" Innowen said with a wry grin. "You'd have knocked out his teeth?" He clapped Drushen on the shoulder and made a show of straightening the woodcutter's tunic.

"You'd have done that to Kyrin, your king, king of Ispor?" He hugged Drushen and kissed his cheek politely. "I didn't know how much you cared for me."

Drushen pushed his charge back. "Kyrin?" he sputtered, his face clouding with shock at Innowen's news. "What do you mean, calling him king of Ispor? What happened to Koryan?"

Innowen bit his lip. Koryan was dead, but how could he tell Drushen without also explaining that the Witch of Shanalane was accused of his murder? Drushen wouldn't understand; he was already too upset about their meeting and what her magic had done for him. Yet he didn't want to lie to his guardian, either. He hated lying.

Drushen waited impatiently for an answer, and at last, Innowen made his choice. "Koryan is dead, that's all I know." He turned away and stared at the empty chair in the gazebo where Dyan had sat. "I'm only a woodcutter's waif. They don't tell me state secrets."

"But how did you find out?" Drushen pressed.

Innowen shrugged. "Minarik told me on the ride here. You were still sick and unconscious."

The wind blew down into the courtyard, making a low susurrus as it swept along the walls and over the paving stones. The gazebo creaked musically under the gentle force, and the green vines that grew on it rustled.

Innowen listened, then raised one arm gracefully. He leaned to the side and extended into a lunge. He stepped quickly through and drew himself erect as he raised his other arm and repeated the same phrase of movement.

"What are you doing?" Drushen asked uneasily.

Innowen closed his eyes. "Dancing," he whispered.

Drushen grunted, and Innowen heard the old man's steps on the stones as he moved out of the way. "I don't know any dance like that," Drushen commented.

Innowen didn't miss the strange edge in Drushen's voice, but he ignored his guardian. The wind was with him now, and from somewhere came an echo of Dyan's pipe. That was impossible, yet he heard it. The rush of the wind and the sound of her music filled his head. And there was the Witch's storm. The memory of thunder made a wild timpani that drove him. He spun and whirled as the pipe ascended an impossible scale, straining for notes undreamt of. He leaped, and the wind seemed almost to lift and buoy him. His muscles throbbed with energy, stretching in ways they never had before. Sweat quickly beaded on his skin; it ran in thick streams down his neck and chest until the chiton was soaked and clung to him like a rag.

Around the gazebo he moved, throwing back his head with every turn of his body, stopping before Drushen. He jumped, and his right leg described a perfect arc above his guardian's head. He pivoted three times on the ball of his left foot, stopped and clapped his hands together twice under the old woodcutter's nose. He whirled and stopped, leaped and turned and stopped. Each time he stopped, it seemed the world stopped with him and resumed its dance when he did.

He lifted one leg out before him and moved it to the side, a slow, perfectly controlled motion. The thigh muscle bulged with the effort. Sweat glistened there, catching the lamplight as he held it high. The muscle began to quiver, a delicious sensation, and he lifted the leg higher still, pointing his toe, extending his line as far as possible.

Suddenly, another movement caught his eye. With the lamps at his back, his shadow loomed on the far wall. It extended its leg just as he did, but that dark limb seemed to go on forever, reaching around the courtyard. He moved an arm, and his shadow moved, too, with an elongated grace, imitating his motion. He lunged, and it lunged, covering more distance, filling more space, mocking him with its immensity.

But Innowen would not be mocked, not by his own shadow. He challenged it instead, moving with a wild tempestuous frenzy, daring it to follow. It whirled as he whirled, leaped as he did. He couldn't defeat it, he realized. It was not a competitor, but a partner. They danced, his shadow and he, each the equal of the other, one black and ominous and insubstantial, the other in the light, gleaming with sweat-sheen.

He rolled his head back between his shoulders and stared at the small patch of sky visible above Whisperstone. Suddenly the stars were not stars at all, but the eyes of the gods all turned upon him. He danced for the hosts of heaven, danced until his heart was close to bursting.

He leaped and touched the ground, crouched like an animal, ready to spring again. He snapped his head to the side sharply. One hand shot upward to grasp those stars. And froze. The last burst of thunder shivered and rolled away. The last flurry of pipesong diminished and faded. The wind receded. Innowen sustained his effort until the final quivering notes melted away into the night.

Then the silence closed in upon him, and he sank to the ground. A small cry escaped his lips as he sprawled upon the cold stones and gasped for breath. He lay there for a moment, prostrate with exhaustion, too weak to move. Gradually, his heartbeat slowed, and the trembling left his limbs. He raised himself onto his elbows.

"What did you think?" he asked Drushen, his chest still heaving as he struggled to get out the words.

Drushen didn't answer. He stood mutely, hiding his face in his hands. His huge body shook all over. Innowen got to his feet and hurried to his guardian's side to see what was the matter. He slipped one arm around his old friend's shoulder. "Drushen, what is it?" he asked in a hushed tone. "What is it?"

Drushen took his hands from his face and regarded Innowen as if he were a stranger. Slipping free of Innowen's arm, he backed away a few paces and stared at Innowen again. His eyes were full of fear. Innowen went to him and tried once more to embrace him, to reassure him. Something about his dance had upset his guardian. But Drushen wouldn't let him near. He knocked Innowen's arms away when Innowen reached for him, and backed quickly toward the door. "No!" he whispered. "Stay away!" The old man lingered only a moment more, then turned and walked stiffly into the keep.

Innowen let him go. Alone, confused, he walked back to the gazebo and sat down in the only chair and tried to think. He didn't know what to make of the old man's reaction. Drushen had been afraid of him, Drushen, who had killed a wolf with his bare hands one winter when it attacked him at the woodpile as he fetched fuel for the fireplace. Innowen had seen worry on that rough, weathered face before. He'd seen desperation, and outright rage. But never had he seen Drushen in such a state. The unmistakable fear in his eyes, that had been plain enough to see. But there'd been something else, too. Something Innowen didn't understand.

He jumped up and ran across the courtyard. He had to find Drushen and learn what was the matter. The Witch had only healed his legs, that was all. That was nothing to fear. It was a gift, a blessing, even if he could only walk at night. Drushen had to see that. He had to.

He raced into the keep, back down the corridor they had taken to the courtyard and into the main hall. A sweeping stone staircase ascended to the upper levels, and he took the steps two at a time. The passages bent and twisted, seemingly without logic or reason. Sometimes lamplight illumined his way. Sometimes he ran in darkness. He began to fear that he was lost until at last he entered a familiar corridor.

He stopped just outside the door to his quarters and waited for his breathing to calm. Then he pushed it open quietly. Drushen was not in the first room. Innowen found him standing before the opened window in the second, staring outward, biting the knuckles of one hand.

"Don't come in," Drushen warned. "Go away."

"Drushen, I had to dance," Innowen tried to explain from the archway. "The music was so powerful...."

The woodcutter refused to look at him. "There wasn't any music!" he snapped, driving a fist against the stone wall.

"I heard it!" Innowen insisted. "The wind and Dyan's pipe and the thunder. Maybe it was in my head, I don't know. It had to be," because the sky was so clear. All those stars! I don't understand everything, yet. But why are you so angry with me?"

Drushen spun around. In the shadow it was impossible to see his face. Innowen wished uselessly that he had lit a candle or grabbed the lamp from the other room. His guardian came toward him with outstretched arms. "Angry with you, child?" But before he reached Innowen, the old man stopped and clutched his hands to his chest. There was still half the room between them. "No, I couldn't be angry with you. I couldn't." Suddenly, he covered his eyes and rubbed his fists in the sockets. "But what I saw! You were beautiful! It made me feel things! It made me... You made me want..."

Innowen moved swiftly, reaching his guardian and flinging his arms around his shoulders. "What, Drushen? What did you want?"