The Pleasure of Memory (8 page)

He slipped the door closed behind him, and groped his way across the covered porch until his hands found the relative security of the worn, moss-covered rail. Relieved at actually having made it that far, he closed his eyes, leaned into it, and savored a slow, cleansing breath.

The air was particularly sweet this morning. Or perhaps it merely felt that way by comparison. The fireplace was back drafting into the house again, and he’d awakened into the world with a plugged head and smoke encrusted tongue for it. That little gift was the icing on the cake of this sorely deserved hangover. He made a mental note to get his boy, Luren, up on the roof to clean the chimney first thing when they returned from their trip.

In time, he forced his eyes open. Sadly, dawn still had a tyrannical hold on the day. It was far too early for any rational man to have left behind a perfectly warmed bed, especially when said bed was the only truly effective treatment for his plight. He freed a hand from the damp rail and squeezed at his eyes. This headache was in no hurry to bid him farewell. He should just turn around right this very moment and make haste back to his pillow.

Instead, he sighed and leaned sideways into the rail post supporting the overhang. The shadows of night were finally on the run, making haste on their flight into the forest. Daylight always came too late to this yard, and night too early. His house sat atop a small mountain. The great cabin rested on the bare breast of a large meadow immediately surrounded by an endless wall of forest. These primeval woods were dense with ancient trees that rose hundreds of feet above him and his land. He peered up at the swath of immature sky capping the wide hole hanging above his yard. The heavens were a garish smear of the impending day’s pinks and oranges coarsely blended into the night’s fading blue. It was beautiful and excessive, and utterly unbearable.

He again buried his eyes into the meat of his palm. Some
one
or some
thing
was still beating that hammer against the walls of his skull, though with a tad less enthusiasm now. He began to worry that he may actually survive his misery. Eventually, he pushed back from the rail and lumbered down the few creaky steps to the meadow surrounding his cabin. Emerging rays of sunlight lit the grass in flames of gold and emerald. Hundreds of wet wildflowers sparkled like dark jewels in a darker mine.

As he followed the path through the deep, wet grass, he spied several massive branches floating in the taller grass at the periphery of his lawn just at the edge of the woods. They looked like the gnarled spines of sea serpents breaking the surface of a lake. They’d arrived overnight from their perch high up in the trees, sacrifices to the triplet demons of thunder, lightning, and wind. It was testimony to the violence of the storm that’d so effectively driven him into the fickle arms of his beloved wine. He made a note to get Luren sharpening the saws first thing when they returned. Just as soon as he swept the chimney.

The path led him south from the house through the long meadow and ended eighty paces later at a steep slope that plummeted steeply down to the primary forest floor at the feet of the mountain more than a thousand feet below him. A hundred yards wide, this precipitous slope was uniquely free of trees, a rare swatch of barren mountainside that allowed the sun to pour in unimpeded. Squatting just at the edge of this impressive drop was a tall, resolute, red-stone chair with a fractured back. It erupted from the earth like a jagged tooth. Chance collapsed happily into it.

Sitting there against that earth-warmed stone was nearly as satisfying as falling back into his care-worn bed. Some unseen force residing deep in the earth heated this chair. The warmth radiated up from the rock and into his back and shoulders like the fingers of love. It urged him back toward sleep, though he grudgingly resisted. The cruel truth was that there was simply no time for a nap this particular morning.

Today was the first full moon after the summer equinox, meaning it was time for his annual pilgrimage up to the high plains. He had a two-day window to find enough flowers of the Hangman’s Gloves herbs to supply his nostrums for the next year. It was a miserable, monotonous, and utterly joyless task that he’d been dreading for the past year. Two days of crawling through prickery weeds in search of a pale white flower no bigger than a bee’s rump. Two days scrounging on his hands and knees from dawn to dusk only to find enough harvest to fill a pouch smaller than a lousy sock. Two days of misery before he’d have to begin dreading it all over again for next year.

He slipped his head back against the chair’s high back and sighed. The warmth against the rear of his skull was joy incarnate. Within moments, his headache began to flee in terror of the stone’s healing radiance. Had that old chair ever felt so rejuvenating? Had he ever in the last one hundred ninety-four years ever needed that warmth more? Perhaps he should reconsider his refusal and snatch a quick nap after all. Perhaps just ten minutes of sleep was what he needed. A brief interlude of uninterrupted solitude and he’d surely feel like new.

“Chance!”

Tranquility died on the shriek of that adolescent boy’s unearthly voice. The monster in Chance’s skull started banging that damned pan again. He pressed a finger into his temple.

“Chance?” the voice mercilessly pressed, “Where the devil are you?”

Chance grumbled a curse, and then slipped his head back around the side of the chair. A boy in a shoulder-length mop of rebellious yellow hair walked slowly across the yard toward him. He wore a noxious blue tunic with a rope belt, frayed gray woolen leggings, and brown boots wrapped with rawhide strings to the full length of his calves. A small blur of pale blue light shimmered between his outstretched hands. He was levitating a small stone, his young face a knot of concentration. It was the first caeyl magic he’d mastered, and he was far too impressed with himself for it.

“Get a move on it, boy!” Chance called out exactly as harshly as he’d intended.

“Sure, sure,” Luren called back, making no effort to comply.

“I’m not joking, Luren. I want to reach the hut before supper.”

Luren laughed and let the stone fall as he skipped into a run. He slid to a stop beside the old chair, sending a cascade of pebbles bouncing down the steep mountainside. He was beaming a toothy smile at Chance. It wasn’t a good sign.

“What has you so amused this early?” Chance asked him, not caring in the least.

The boy’s grin persisted, though he offered no explanation. It was most irritating.

“Do I look in the mood for games?” Chance said. It wasn’t a question.

“I’d say not.” The grin didn’t retreat.

“Then just what in the Wyr are you staring at?”

“I’m studying the effects of early rising on the disposition of middle-aged mages after an evening excessive in grape.”

Chance grimaced. The boy was about as good for his headache as vinegar on heartburn.

“You don’t look so well, my dear sir,” the boy said, laughing.

“It’s a pity you weren’t born mute,” Chance said back.

“Do tell?”

Chance pressed his fingers back into his temples and glared at him through one eye. “A youth’s observations on his elders are about as useful as a monkey’s counsel to a king.”

Luren smirked. “Well, that’s…profound. Or it would be if it made any sense.” His voice broke on the last word.

Chance considered the knapsack hanging from the boy’s left shoulder. It didn’t look nearly full enough. “Did you bring
all
the supplies?”

“Of course,” Luren said, “Breakfast, lunch, your toothbrush…everything we don’t have stocked at the hut.” He dropped the bag to the gravel path and began rummaging through it. Soon he lifted out a pint-sized crystal jar with a rusting metal cap, which he raised to eye level before Chance, saying, “Of course, I’m confident this is what you’re most worried about forgetting.”

Squeezed into the jar and thoroughly covered in a murky amber liquid was the apple-sized head of a swamp shimlin. The hairless head had pocked gray skin, fleshy ears, and an oversized bottom lip that waved up and down with the motion of the jar's fluid, alternately covering and exposing stumpy yellow teeth. As a stray spike of early sunlight found the fluid, the bulging red eyes snapped open and shot directly at Chance.

The sight did nothing for the storm brewing in Chance’s gut. He frowned and waved it off. “That's fine. Put it away now.”

“You all right?” Luren asked, “You don’t look a bit well.” He was still holding the jar up.

In truth, Chance wasn’t sure. That face was the last thing his unsteady stomach needed this morning. “I’m certain I’m quite fine,” he lied, rubbing his hands on his robe, “I swear I should’ve sewn its eyes shut. The thing makes me sick.”

Luren laughed as he repacked the canister. “If someone preserved your living head in a jar, I doubt you’d be any friendlier.”

“Blood of the gods, it's just a minor shimlin's head. Surely no memorable loss to the world.”

“I suppose that's a matter of perspective. I’m sure the shimlin would argue it differently.”

Chance scowled at him. “Do I look like I care, Luren? It’s their own bad luck their body parts continue functioning after amputation, and none of my own.”

“You’re the one who keeps it pickled,” Luren said as he re-tied the pack, “It’d have suffered a natural death years ago without your help.”

“Is there a point to this argument?”

Luren shrugged. “Be honest, Chance. Limb regeneration isn’t the sole source of its bad luck. I’d say you had a reasonable hand in it, if you take my meaning.”

Chance fought back his irritation. “You’d do well to remember there are other heads that’d serve me as well as the shimlin’s.”

“Well, if you’re referring to mine, you’re going to need a bigger jar.”

Chance pushed himself up from the chair and immediately had to steady himself with the armrest. “You ready?” he asked. He paused there a moment as his head slowly stopped spinning.

“Are you?” Luren asked back.

Chance choked back the urge to say something he’d regret. Considering his headache and the impatience it was sowing, retreat seemed like the healthier option. He could indulge his irritation later. Instead, he steadied himself, then turned away and started down the path leading to the forest floor proper far below.

The path wove its way back and forth across the bare swath of the steep hill, weaving in and out through a maze of boulders and stumps and ancient rotting tree trunks. He’d been traveling up and down this very path for three mortal lifetimes. He knew every bump, every turn, every swell, roll, and dip on this old path, every stranded boulder he had to circumvent, every petrifying log he had to leap. He loved this meandering trip down to the forest road far below and savored every step. The trip back up, however, was never nearly as romantic.

As they eventually neared the bottom of the decline, saplings and shrubs began creeping back into the open space. Soon, the old forest engulfed them again. The path ended abruptly at the ridge of a tall stone wall hidden beneath a dense blanket of the familiar white ferns that covered most of the forest floor. The old stone wall bermed the last thirty feet of the mountain back from the densely shaded dirt road below it. A narrow stairway cleaved the wall at its center, dropping the remaining distance to the road like a waterspout from a gutter.

Chance climbed down first. He emerged from the stairwell and stepped down into the wet dirt beneath the steps, leaned his staff carefully against the mossy granite wall, and then sat with no little effort on the bottom step. The pressure of the motion nearly exploded through the top of his head. He buried his face in his hands and groaned.

Luren jumped past him and landed in the dirt before him.

“Hold up, boy,” Chance said through his hands, “I fear I’m going to need a minute here.” His stomach hadn’t appreciated the work of their descent and was again dropping hints that it may soon revolt.

“Taking a break already, are we?” Luren asked.

Chance just looked at him.

“Oh!” Luren said, smirking, “I see. Getting The Look now, am I? And so early? Less than a promising start to the day, I’d say.”

“Just sit down. I don’t appreciate looking up at you.”

Laughing, Luren fell back against the damp, mossy wall and slid down to his heels. “Fine, you’re the one who wants to make the plains by dinner. I’m content to sit here and wait out The Look all morning if necessary.”

Chance dropped his head and rolled the kinks from his neck.

“What?” Luren asked, “No witty retort?”

“I’m envisioning you without a tongue.”

Luren slipped the backpack off his shoulder and dropped it to the dirt. He dug out a fat leather water skin and held it out to Chance. “Drink,” he said.

Chance considered the proffered skin, but only shook his head.

“It wasn’t a request. You’re dry. You need water. Drink.”

Chance could find no strength to resist. He took the water. “How old are you?” he asked the boy, “Sixteen going on fifty?”

“Just drink, old man,” Luren said, laughing.

It seemed like the boy was always laughing. Chance considered a sarcastic reply, but nothing was forthcoming. He uncorked the skin and began to take a drink, but stopped just short of it when he noticed an odd sound above them. He lowered the skin and looked up at the canopy suspended hundreds of feet up. Something was humming above that tree line. It wasn’t the wind.