M errin did not know how old he was. He was in fact nearing his thirteenth birthday, but the guarded expression in his eyes made him look much older. Recently he had grown tall, and with the confidence of his new independence, plus the knowledge that he had enough money for many days to come, he strode into the Grateful Turbot Tavern. Making his voice as gruff as possible, he ordered supper and asked for a room for the night.
Some minutes later, Merrin was sitting by a crackling log fire with a tankard of the dark Turbot special on the table in front of him. He wished he had been brave enough to ask for lemonade. It was a quiet Sunday evening at the tavern and, apart from a couple of farmers haggling over the price of a cow, Merrin thought he had the place to himself. But what Merrin could not see, because he was not the kind of boy ghosts would normally choose to Appear to, was that the Grateful Turbot Tavern was stuffed full of ghosts. So much so that when Merrin had made his way from the bar to the fire he had inadvertently Passed Through half a dozen ghosts before they had had the chance to get out of his way, causing much ghostly grumbling.
As Merrin took what he thought was an unoccupied seat by the fire he was in fact surrounded by ghosts - who liked to stand by a blazing fire on a dark night as much as any Living person.
Next to Merrin were three fishermen, one of whom was somewhat grumpy, having been in the seat Merrin had just taken. Some fifty years ago, the fishermen had drowned right outside the tavern after an argument over who had caught the biggest fish, and they were still arguing. Sitting across the table from Merrin was an ancient and very faded tinker-woman endlessly counting her pennies. The tinker had died of old age at that very table and still did not understand that she was dead. Clustered around the fire was a party of six knights killed in a long-forgotten battle for the One Way Bridge. They were chatting with a couple of dairymaids who, only a few years back, had gotten lost in a blizzard on their way home from the market and had frozen during the night. Perched on the edge of Merrin's table was a Princess who had run away to meet her sweetheart, sheltered under a tree in a sudden thunderstorm and been struck by lightning. She studied Merrin with a mournful gaze until he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He looked, thought the Princess, a little like her long-lost love - but only a little.
There was, not surprisingly, a bit of an atmosphere in the Grateful Turbot - which was why it was generally frequented only by those who were too late to get into the Castle and needed a bed for the night or by Northern Traders who were banned from most of the Castle taverns. And the first ghost that Merrin ever saw - although he never realized it - was the ghost of one of these Northern Traders.
Sitting in the shadows, some way back from the gathering by the fire, was the ghost of Olaf Snorrelssen, a Northern Trader who had once fallen asleep on the One Way Bridge and never woken again. Olaf sat in his shadowy corner and watched Merrin from across the room. There was something about the boy that caught his eye - here was a fellow traveler, a stranger in a foreign land as Olaf himself had so often been. In a sudden rush of fellow-feeling Olaf decided to make his first Appearance to a Living person.
As Olaf made his way toward Merrin, he glanced in one of the dark mirrors that lined the walls of the Grateful Turbot. He saw himself for the first time in fifteen years - or rather, bits of himself. It was a shock. Olaf stopped in front of the mirror and stared. It was very strange: all his edges were in place, but there was a nasty gap in his middle that he could see straight through. And the top of his head wasn't quite there either. Olaf concentrated hard, and slowly the rest of his head, with its old leather headband and thinning blond hair Appeared. Goodness, was he really that thin on top? He put his hand up to feel the top of his head, but nothing was there. Olaf felt suddenly depressed; for a moment he had forgotten that he was a ghost. The advice other ghosts had given him about Appearing for the first time came back to him now. Take care, they had told him. Appearing to the Living will stir old memories. The Living will seem too fast and too loud, and they will make you feel more of a ghost than you ever have before. Olaf took a deep breath and steadied himself. The rest of his stomach came into view. He had the beginnings of a paunch. He didn't remember that, either, but then he never had taken much notice of his appearance when he was Living.
By the time Olaf had reached Merrin's table the ghost looked, in the dim light of the tavern, as solid as if he were Living. Merrin looked up at him and Olaf felt flustered - no Living person had seen him as a ghost before.
"Greetings," said Olaf, uttering his first words to a Living being in fifteen years.
Merrin did not reply. Unsure what to do or say, Olaf sat down opposite the boy. He did not notice the faded ghost of the tinker-woman, who leaped squawking from her place, scattering her pennies all over the floor.
"Oh! I am sorry, Madam," said Olaf, jumping up and scrabbling around on the floor to try to retrieve the pennies for the woman - which was impossible, as they were part of another ghost - and causing even more offense. The tinker pushed Olaf out of the way. She gathered up her pennies and retreated, muttering, to a dark corner away from the fire, where she would spend the next one hundred years counting her pennies to make sure they were all there.
"Don't call me Madam. I am not a girl," Merrin growled, scowling at Olaf. He wondered why this stranger had come over to talk to him and then suddenly ped onto the floor. Something was odd about him, but Merrin could not quite figure out what.
"Why no, indeed you are not a girl," Olaf replied, confused. "You are a stranger here, I think?" he persevered, speaking softly in his singsong Northern accent.
"No," said Merrin sullenly. "I'm not. I was born in the Castle. I...am coming home."
"Ah, home," said Olaf wistfully. "Then you are lucky. There are some of us who can never return home."
Merrin looked at the man opposite him. His weather-beaten face had a kindly look to it and his pale blue eyes were friendly. Merrin mellowed a little. It was the first time anyone had sought him out because they had been interested in talking to him, and the first time that anyone had ever spoken to him as if he were a grown-up, decent human being. It was a good feeling. Merrin risked a smile.
Encouraged by the smile, Olaf ventured, "You have family here?"
"No," said Merrin, quickly deciding that a possible mother in the Port did not count. "I...don't have any family."
Olaf, who had been one of a very large family, could not imagine what that must be like. "No family,"
he said. "Not one little piece of family?"
Merrin shook his head. "Nope."
"Then where will you stay? What will you do?"
Merrin shrugged. He'd been wondering that too but had put it to the back of his mind.
Olaf made a decision. Somewhere in the Lands of the Long Nights, he had a child who he had never seen and never would see. No matter that Olaf was sure for some reason he did not understand, his child was a girl. She would, he figured, be the same age as this boy. If he could not help his own, he would do another a good turn. "Tomorrow I shall take you into the Castle and I shall show you a good place where you can stay," he offered. "Tonight you are staying here?"
Merrin nodded.
"And today you have traveled far, I think?" Olaf was getting into his stride now and beginning to enjoy himself.
"All the way from the Badlands. Never want to go back."
"They were not your family there?" asked Olaf.
"No way. They treated me like a servant. Or worse. Took the first chance I could to get out of there."
Olaf nodded sympathetically. The boy, he thought, had had a hard life. It was time someone gave him a helping hand.
Encouraged by Olaf's attention, Merrin began to tell his story. "I got away once before but I ended up stuck in the marshes with a crazy old witch who made me eat eel and cabbage sandwiches."
"That is not good," Olaf murmured.
"It was disgusting. But to escape from her I took a job with Simon Heap, and that was even worse. I ended up back in the same horrible place I'd grown up. I couldn't believe it. Until a few weeks ago I thought I was stuck there forever with old Heap and that bag of bones."
"Bag of bones?" asked Olaf, thinking he had not quite understood.
"Yeah. Simon's old boss - and mine. DomDaniel. Lived in a sack till I tipped him out last night."
"Tipped him...out?" Now Olaf was sure he did not understand.
"Yeah. I got his ring - want to see?"
Without waiting for an answer, Merrin waved his beringed thumb in the ghost's face. "Mine now," he said, "and I earned it. It wasn't nice going through all those bones. Some of them had stuff on them like gristle. And slime. And they were bendy. Yuck. But I got it off his thumb. Chopped the end off, ha ha. That showed him. You know, thumb bones are just like toe bones?"
Olaf nodded warily. This boy was not turning out to be quite what he had expected; he was beginning to regret his earlier offer. It was true what they said about the Living - there were some weird ones out there. Trust him to pick one of them the very first time he Appeared. Olaf was saved from hearing any more about bones by the barmaid bringing Merrin his supper: a huge plate of sausages stuck into a mound of mashed potatoes.
"I will leave you to eat your supper," said Olaf, getting up quickly as the barmaid thumped the plate down in front of Merrin. Merrin nodded. He was pleased; he didn't want to share any of his meal with the stranger. Merrin stabbed a large sausage with his fork. Olaf winced. He thought the sausages looked like thumb bones. He could just imagine them in a sack. Wearing rings.
"See you tomorrow, then," said Merrin, his mouth full of sausage.
"Ah. Tomorrow. Yes, I will see you tomorrow," said Olaf gloomily. He never broke a promise.
"Good," said Merrin, looking up from spearing his second sausage. But the room was empty. The farmers had left, and so had the tall, blond stranger.