While the fire devoured the wood and its light kept the wolves away, Dustfinger found himself thinking of the boy again. He couldn’t count the many nights when he’d had to tell Farid how fire spoke, for the boy knew only mute and sullen flames. “Heavens above,” he muttered to himself as he warmed his fingers over the glowing embers, “you’re still missing him!” He was glad that the marten at least was still with the boy, to keep him company as he faced the ghosts he saw everywhere.
Yes, Dustfinger did miss Farid. But there were others whom he had been missing for ten long years, missing them so much that his heart was still sore with longing. It was with those people crowding his mind that he strode out, more impatiently with every passing hour, as he approached the outskirts of the forest and what lay beyond it – the world of humans. It was not just his longing for fairies, little glass men, and water-nymphs that had tormented him in the other world, nor his desire to be back in the silence under the trees. There weren’t many human beings he had missed, but he had missed those few all the more fiercely. He had tried so hard to forget them since the day he came, half-starved, to Silvertongue’s door, and Silvertongue had explained that there could be no way back for him. It was then he had realized that he must choose. Forget them, Dustfinger – how often he had told himself that! – forget them, or the loss of them all will drive you mad. But his heart simply did not obey. Memories, so sweet and so bitter . .
they had both nourished and devoured him for so many years. Until a time came when they began to fade, turning faint and blurred, only an ache to be quickly pushed away because it went to your heart. For what was the use of remembering all you had lost?
Better not remember now, either, Dustfinger told himself as the trees around him became younger and the canopy of leaves above grew lighter. Ten years – it’s a long time, and many may be lost and gone by now.
Charcoal-burners’ huts appeared among the trees more and more often now, but Dustfinger did not let the soot-blackened men see him. Outside the forest, people spoke of them slightingly, for the charcoal-burners lived deeper in the forest than most dared to go. Craftsmen, peasants, traders, princes: They all needed charcoal, but they didn’t like to see the men who burned it for them in their own towns and villages. Dustfinger liked the charcoal-burners, who knew almost as much about the forest as he did, although they made enemies of the trees daily. He had sat by their fires often enough, listening to their stories, but after all these years there were other stories he wanted to hear, tales of what had been going on outside the forest, and there was only one place to hear those: in one of the inns that stood along the road. Dustfinger had one particular inn in mind. It lay on the northern outskirts of the forest, where the road appeared among the trees and began to wind uphill, past a few isolated farms, until it reached the city gate of Ombra, the capital city of Lombrica, the Laughing Prince’s realm.
The inns on the road outside Ombra had always been places where the strolling players called the Motley Folk met. They offered their skills there to rich merchants, tradesmen, and craftsmen, for weddings and funerals, for festivities to celebrate a traveler’s safe return or the birth of a child. They would provide music, earthy jokes, and conjuring tricks for just a few coins, taking the audience’s minds off their troubles large and small. And if Dustfinger wanted to find out what had been happening in all the years he was away, then the Motley Folk were the people to ask. The players were the newspapers of this world. No one knew what went on in it better than these travelers who were never at home anywhere.
Who knows? , thought Dustfinger as he walked down the road, with the autumn sun, by now low in the sky, on his face. If I’m lucky I may even meet old acquaintances.
The road was muddy and full of puddles. Cartwheels had made deep ruts in it, and the hoofprints left by oxen and horses were full of rainwater. At this time of year it sometimes rained for days on end, as it had yesterday, when he had been glad to be under the trees where the leaves caught the rain before it drenched him to the skin. The night had been cold, all the same, and his clothes were clammy even though he had slept beside his fire. He was glad that the sky was clear today, apart from a few shreds of cloud drifting over the hills.
Luckily, he had found a few coins in his old clothes. He hoped they would be enough for a bowl of soup. Dustfinger had brought nothing with him from the other world. What would he do here with the printed paper they used for money in that world? Only gold, silver, and ringing copper counted in this one, with the local prince’s head on the coins if possible. As soon as his money was gone he’d have to look for a marketplace where he could perform, in Ombra or elsewhere.
The inn that was his destination hadn’t changed much in the last few years, either for better or for worse. It was as shabby as ever, with a few windows that were hardly more than holes in the gray stone walls. In the world where he had been living until three days ago, it was unlikely that any guests at all would have crossed such a grubby threshold. But here the inn was the last shelter available before you entered the forest, the last chance of a hot meal and a place to sleep that wasn’t damp with dew or rain .. and you got a few lice and bugs thrown in for free, thought Dustfinger as he pushed open the door.
It was so dark in the room inside that his eyes took a little while to adjust to the dim light. The other world had spoiled him with all its lights, with the brightness that made even night into day there. It had accustomed him to seeing everything clearly, to thinking of light as something you could switch on and off, available whenever you wanted. But now his eyes must cope again with a world of twilight and shadows, of long nights as black as charred wood, and houses from which the sunlight was often shut out, because its heat was unwelcome.
All the light inside the inn came from the few sunbeams falling through the holes that were the windows. Dust motes danced in them like a swarm of tiny fairies. A fire was burning in the hearth under a battered black cauldron. The smell rising from it was not particularly appetizing, even to Dustfinger’s empty stomach, but that didn’t surprise him. This inn had never had a landlord who knew the first thing about cooking. A little girl hardly more than ten years old was standing beside the cauldron, stirring whatever was simmering in it with a stick. Some thirty guests were sitting on rough-hewn benches in the dark, smoking, talking quietly, and drinking.
Dustfinger strolled over to an empty place and sat down. He surreptitiously looked around for a face that might seem familiar, for a pair of the Motley trousers that only the players wore. He immediately saw a lute-player by the window, negotiating with a much better dressed man than the musician himself, probably a rich merchant. No poor peasant could afford to hire an entertainer, of course. If a farmer wanted music at his wedding he must play the fiddle himself.
He couldn’t have afforded even the two pipers who were also sitting by the window. At the table next to them, a group of actors were arguing in loud voices, probably about who got the best part in a new play. One still wore the mask behind which he hid when they acted in the towns’
marketplaces. He looked strange sitting there among the others, but then all the Motley Folk were strange – with or without masks, whether they sang or danced, performed broad farces on a wooden stage or breathed fire. The same was true of their companions traveling physicians, bonesetters, stonecutters, miracle healers. The players brought them customers.