Mere Acquaintances

  "He's here." The voice burst into her head like the boom from a firework. "The one who will find the sword. The one is here!"

  In the middle of a crowd as she was, she fell to her knees from shock and elation. It had been so long. After her failure to bring him Sonsedhor back when Cheyne held it, she had been cut off from him completely and without mercy. Now, to hear his silken gravelly voice again was ecstasy.

  As if he could read her thoughts– which he probably could, actually– his voice echoed in the back of her head again. "You are not in my favor yet, child. Do not believe you are. But perhaps you might redeem yourself. The one who will find that cursed blade is here. Bring him to me. Find the blade, and you may prove what little worth you actually have."

  As suddenly as it had come, the voice was gone, the itching buzz in the back of her head abruptly disappearing. Shaking, she got to her feet, her eyes doing more than just passing over the individuals that made up the mass. Now, she actually saw them.

  The plaza was filled to bursting with men and women, but her master had given her no way to tell which one of the men around her was the one. She picked out a chestnut-haired man not ten paces from her, but there was no guarantee Cheyne's rebirth would look like Cheyne himself had. The man around her were all as different as people could be. Dark-skinned and fair, blue-eyed Gaernin and brown-eyed Melistrati, black hair and red hair and brown and all shades in between... she even thought she spied a pale-haired Keidenelle savage among the rabble. She gave a start at seeing the man she thought was a Keidenelle. Either they were attacking and no one cared because there was only the one, or he was an attraction escaped from some menagerie or showman who had set up outside the city. She had seen menageries boast of captured savages before, but most often they turned out to be fakes, men or women who had drained all the color from their hair by a means Senne didn't know. This man's hair wasn't drained of color; it was more of a whitish-blonde, like fresh buttermilk or a none-too-clean linen shirt. He wasn't dressed like a savage either; his clothes fit in perfectly with the crowd. Perhaps he had drained the color from more normal brown hair himself, to instill fear in competition for the sword. No silver braid of a Seeker adorned his sleeve; the man wasn't out for the glory that would come with Sonsedhor. Senne dismissed him from her thoughts.

  She worked her way through the crowd, her eyes darting around at man after man, wondering if perhaps her lover's relationship with Cheyne before would help her recognize his rebirth. A thought struck; would he recognize her? Would that be one of the memories that came to his rebirth? Had she been recognized already, and he was simply avoiding her? There were too many questions. He was here, but where?

  Musicians were playing on every corner, and jugglers and acrobats performed wherever they could find space. Half the people in these crowds were drinking, the other half mostly drunk already, even though it was not yet noon.

  She found herself among a cluster of braid-wearing Seekers close to one of the gates to the city. Outside the walls, the colorful sides of a tent stretched towards the sky. The menagerie. She sneered; she hated menageries. A painted wooden sign named this Jonal Keffinen's Traveling Sights of Wonder. A long line of Seekers were strolling among the large tent and the few smaller tents surrounding it that housed smaller attractions. She sauntered through the crowds herself, dropping a coin in the box near the entrance arch to pay her way in. Money was easily come by; she could waste it on this, even though she hated them. Cheyne might be among the crowd.

  The smells of horses and mules reached her, and she wrinkled her nose. She let it stay wrinkled as she looked around and saw the people who wore vests made of the same colorful material as the tents; the vests marked them as workers of the Traveling Sights of Wonder. She glared at every one of them she saw. Menageries were peopled by nothing but con artists and freaks. Within one small open tent, a woman was contorting herself into all kinds of different positions that should have been impossible. Freak. In another, a man was "eating" fire and blowing it back out of his mouth. A small boy not wearing a vest darted among the crowd surrounding the fire eater. Senne saw the quick movements that showed he was picking pockets. No doubt he was employed by the performer. Con artist. A woman standing on a makeshift platform open to the air was swallowing daggers and knives and swords– nothing any honest person would do to make a living. Strange animals were in cages, strange items in large glass bottles and jars were lined up on a table, being watched over by a man with eyes far too large for him. He looked like an owl. A man with no arms wrote on a giant slate with his feet, his handwriting neat and perfect. Freaks and more freaks.

  And the other people were eating it all up. Any man who was truly Cheyne wouldn't be taken in by all this. He was not one to be entertained by the unnatural. She walked purposefully out of the menagerie's roped-off grounds.

  Back within the walls of the city, she got lost in the crowd and stood in one spot, looking around. Cheyne Firdin's new life was in here somewhere, but where?!

  CHAPTER TWO

  There was a certain window that looked out over the walled-in garden-slash-courtyard at Ighosia Falls, and it was there that one particular patient liked to spend most of his time. He was a big man, broad-shouldered and tall, with salt-and-pepper hair and stony blue eyes. Once a formidable member of the police force, he now held no gun, had no uniform. He spent his time staring out into the courtyard, babbling softly to himself, occasionally shouting "Don't!" or "Please, stop!" The doctors knew the shouts were linked to the incident that broke him.

  One intern just happened to be looking in his direction when something came over his eyes. So she was the only one to see his mouth clamp shut mid-babble, to see the sudden change in the look behind his eyes. He'd gone quiet, the abrupt change in behavior happening without warning, just as with the woman in the wheelchair. His change was certainly less violent and even less noticeable. But the intern was convinced there had been a change. Silence surrounded the big man; the cold look in his eyes became the only indication of life.

  Ara Fusica leaned over the rail of the balcony overlooking the main plaza of Necras, her feet a few inches above the ground as she hoisted herself up to look at the rabble-rousing below. All she could see were heads covered with many different colors of hair and the colorful splashes of their clothes.

  "My Lady, you shouldn't hang over the edge like that. You'll fall, and then where will we be?"

  Ara let her feet come back down to the marble floor of the balcony and looked up to her sworn guard. Roark Dow was a broad-shouldered man in the prime of his life. He didn't wear all his steel battle armor here in the city; rather a set of thick hardened leather protected him. His coal-black hair, usually disheveled and spiky with sweat from being kept under his helmet at all hours, was now dry and sitting neatly on his head. His chin was smooth as a boy's despite his thirty-five years. His eyes looked down on the milling crowd, appraising everyone and generally disapproving of the carousing in the streets below.

  This was the first time Ara could really see the onset of the Search; it only happened every fifteen years, and at age fifteen, had only experienced the last one as an infant. She was amazed now at the sight of all the men wearing the silver braid of Seekers. So many– it looked like nearly every man in the city wore one.

  "Every fifteen years, the Seekers of Sonsedhor set out from the four capital cities of the world to search for the sword that was lost," she said, her words almost a recitation. "I never imagined there would be so many."

  "And there may not even be one among them all who will find it. There have been nearly sixty Searches set out since Cheyne Firdin vanished, and they began long after his mysterious disappearance." Roark spoke matter-of-factly, his lips barely moving but his voice firm and commanding. Should the need ever arise, he would lead soldiers into battle to defend her.

  "Have you ever thought of joining the Search?" Ara asked, looking up at her guardian. "Did you go on the last one? You would have been old enough."

/>   "At the time of the last one, you were a babe in swaddling clothes in your mother's arms, my Lady," he replied, his voice remaining level, as if he were lecturing. "From the moment of your birth, I was bound to you, sworn to protect you, to give up my life to defend your own. I was not free to join the Search then, nor am I now."

  "I could free you from that bond if you wished," she said, still looking up at him. She was not short– not for her age, anyway– but he still stood head and shoulders taller than her. "At one word form me, your oath could be undone. Do you wish it? To search the world for Sonsedhor?"

  He turned his eyes back down to the rabble in the plaza. "I am not looking for glory," he said simply and firmly, ending the conversation.

  She refused to let it end. "Then what are you looking for?"

  He let out a loud sigh, but she thought he was about to answer, when below them, a hubbub began. A man shouted, his voice carrying over the raucous volume of the crowd. "That's my property! Stop him! Guards! Stop him!"

  She jumped up to lean her chest against the rail again so she could really see what was below her. Roark mumbled something, but she couldn't make it out. Probably something about not leaning over the rail again. She ignored him and looked for where the trouble was.

  Among the multi-colored heads, a pale-haired man seemed to be the center of attention. "Now what is happening down there?" she asked. "Go find out, Roark. Take some guards and sort this out. I won't have thieves in my city."

  CHAPTER THREE

  In the courtyard, on a stone bench, another patient sat calmly, looking around blankly at other people and humming softly to himself. He was squat but slim with a hollow quality to most of his features. His hair was brown so light it was almost blonde, his eyes green, and a small, neatly trimmed beard circled his mouth. He had enough control over himself that he could maintain his facial hair with an electric trimmer– under supervision, of course. He never complained about being watched like a child.

  Now, sitting on his bench, he continued his humming, the one thing he did constantly. His professional background in music still showed through in his mannerisms: constant noisemaking, either hums or whistling. Sometimes it was Mozart or Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky or Bach or Wagner, or even Webern or Berg although no one wanted to be around him when he whistled the noise they called music. But sometimes, when he whistled something and was asked what it was– a question he always answered in detail– he would simply respond, "Mine," and go on with it. He had once been a composer and music teacher for a college two towns over from Ighosia Falls.

  Draegon had come into Necras two days before the official onset of the Search, planning to perform at the ceremonies, or at least on the street corners if he couldn't get onto the official center-of-attention platform in the center of town. There were prizes for the best musicians and storytellers, especially for the best telling of the legends involving the renowned sword. On the day of the official onset, the contests began at noon. He had already added his name to the lists of storytellers, but he had yet to get up and tell his chosen tale; the tellings would go on late into the night. In the meantime, he had already made a decent handful of coins just from playing his hand dulcimer on a street corner.

  People tended to walk wide of him in the crowds, at least once they registered what he was. He knew it was because of his hair. Only the Keidenelle had hair any shade lighter than golden-brown– excepting the white and grey that came with age, of course– and his was whitish yellow, marking him as one of the uncivilized nomads that wandered the land, brutalizing and robbing whatever people they came across. Even with him alone, and dressed as well as any successful bard, and acting and speaking just like any civilized person, the people avoided him. If no one else noticed, at least he knew he was not a savage, although he didn't like to think about what he had to go through to become civilized.

  A man on one street corner stood on a small wooden box, shouting advertisements for the menagerie, Jonal Keffinen's Traveling Sights of Wonder. Had he not been standing on the box, he still would have been tall. He had a semi-tamed mop of black hair, a slightly crooked nose, and blue eyes that missed nothing. He looked like a man used to spotting trouble in a crowd. He spoke easily and cheerfully and with many grand gestures of the arms, and frequently stopped his advertising to banter amiably with a passerby. Draegon knew this man; he was Jonal Keffinen himself, the owner of the menagerie. He tried to step wide around him, but his own height and the fact that his pale hair marked him out in a crowd worked against him. He almost felt the moment Jonal's eyes fell on him, and the shout came aimed right at his shoulder. "That's my property! Stop him! Guards! Stop him!"

  Just as suddenly as with the man on the balcony and the woman in the common room, the musician's behavior changed. He jumped up and shouted at the tp of his lungs and darted away from the bench, running at top speed across the courtyard, through the flowerbeds, and even plowing through people milling about.

  "I'm no man's property!" Draegon dared to shout back before breaking into a run, careful to keep hold of his instrument cases so they didn't wind up lost or damaged. He pushed his way through the crowd; suddenly they no longer wanted to part for him. He cursed the days he had worked for Keffinen in the Traveling Sights. Those days were years gone, but they still haunted him. He cursed under his breath. He was no savage to be displayed anymore, no attraction to be viewed by gawking patrons for a few measly coins he would not see so much as a penny of. Not anymore. He was going to preserve his freedom even if it meant running.

  One of those he ran into was another patient, a mild-mannered and constantly sad woman with dark hair and almost purple eyes.

  Before he could slow down or turn, he barreled headlong into a merchant's wagon, throwing what looked like some rather expensive-looking porcelains and mechanical toys into the road, breaking them into pieces on the stone road upon impact. His momentum halted, he couldn't help but make eye contact with the dark-skinned and dark-haired woman sitting atop the wagon. Rich azure eyes stared into his, seeming to delve into his core.

  "Someone caught you and tamed you young, didn't they?" she said, sounding more amused than he was comfortable with. Too out of breath to reply, he gave her an apologetic look before beginning his run again.

  The salt-and-pepper policeman took it on himself to stop the ruckus, running through the halls and plowing over people himself to get at the running musician.

  More and more he ran through the crowd, plowing past people and mumbling out-of-breath apologies whenever he could. The crowd seemed to be thickening around him. Jonal Keffinen's condemning shouts still followed him, ringing in his ears and threatening a cage again. He refused to let his screaming legs rule him and make him slow; the crowd was making him go slowly enough.

  He ran headlong into a solid wall, and arms wrapped around him immediately, keeping him from continuing his sprint. A guard looked down at him, stern face glaring and accusing. "You've been called before Lady Ara of Melistrat."

  The crowd around him was silent. All eyes were on him and the guards; a wide empty ring had opened up around them. Three guards– that was what they had sent to capture him.

  "Mother punish that damned Jonal Keffinen," he muttered under his breath. Whatever punishment the Mother sent to him would be too good, he decided as the guard holding him released him from the tight bear's hug he'd had him in and marched him towards the largest building edging the plaza. Behind him, another guard called, "Anyone else who is involved with this man, come before Lady Ara."

  Draegon could hear both the sound of wagon wheels– the merchant woman's cart– and Jonal Keffinen's slimy voice trailing after him.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  In an effort to understand exactly what had happened in the courtyard, Dr. Carolyn Anderson had the three involved patients brought together under her supervision. Ryan Pellin the musician, and Emery Landers the former policeman, were both out of breath from their running and were now under the watchful supervision of a few o
f the burlier nurses. Lydia Rhys, the woman Ryan had barreled over in the courtyard, had voluntarily followed after Emery without being told to accompany them.

  The three patients sat in chairs facing each other in a bare-walled room. A two-way mirror sat on one wall, and behind that Dr. Anderson and her intern Becca Smitts observed their interactions with each other. The conversation baffled them both, though for a long time at the beginning, none of them said a word.

  "I want to know exactly what happened out there." Lady Ara Fusica said from her high seat on the dais of the audience chamber. It wasn't a throne room, nor was her chair a throne; she was no queen. Lady of the Land, yes, but no monarch. "I want the truth, from one of you at a time, with no interruptions from the other. Is that clear?"

  Before waiting for the Keidenelle man to agree, the dark-haired man stepped forward. "My name is Jonal Keffinen, my Lady, and I am the owner of the great menagerie outside the very walls of this grand city. If my Lady hasn't yet seen the wonders of my Traveling Sights, I would like to take this opportunity to invite you to a private showing– free of charge, of course– anytime you wish." Keffinen made grand gestures as he spoke, making many flourishes of a cape he wasn't wearing. The young Lady looked bored with him already, but she made her thank-you and bade him get on with his explanation of his actions in the streets.

  "I have known this man since he was a child," Keffinen began, letting his voice boom as if he were introducing performers in his tents and addressing his story not only to Lady Ara, but to all those in attendance. "Some years ago, while traveling– this was before my show grew to its present grandeur, of course– I came upon a squalling child in the wilderness. The baby had been abandoned by his savage parents and left to die. I expect he was meant as a sacrifice– you all know what those Keidenelle are like, of course. But I could not, of course, allow an innocent, helpless baby to die alone like that. So, even knowing of his bloodlines– for he had a bit of that pale hair even as a baby, my Lady– I took him into my wagon and vowed to raise him as my own son."