Scribe. Dowser. Chemist. Dentist.
Rare Goods. All Alements Tended.
Lost Items Found. Anything Mended.
No Horoscopes. No Love Potions. No Malefaction.
Abenthy noticed me as soon as I stepped out from behind the building where I’d been hiding. “Hello there. Can I help you?”
“You’ve misspelled ‘ailments’,” I pointed out.
He looked surprised. “It’s a joke, actually,” he explained. “I brew a bit.”
“Oh. Ale,” I said, nodding. “I get it.” I brought my hand out of my pocket. “Can you sell me anything for a penny?”
He seemed stuck between amusement and curiosity. “What are you looking for?”
“I’d like some lacillium.” We had performed Farien the Fair a dozen times in the last month, and it had filled my young mind with intrigue and assassination.
“Are you expecting someone to poison you?” he said, somewhat taken aback.
“Not really. But it seems to me that if you wait around until you know you need an antidote, it’s probably too late to pick one up.”
“I suppose I could sell you a penny’s worth,” he said. “That would be about a dose for a person your size. But it’s dangerous stuff in its own right. It only cures certain poisons. You can hurt yourself if you take it at the wrong time.”
“Oh,” I said. “I didn’t know that.” In the play it was touted as an infallible cure-all.
Abenthy tapped his lips thoughtfully. “Can you answer me a question in the meantime?” I nodded. “Whose troupe is that?”
“In a way it’s mine,” I said. “But in another way, it’s my father’s because he runs the show and points which way the wagons go. But it’s Baron Greyfallow’s too, because he’s our patron. We’re Lord Greyfallow’s Men.”
The old man gave me an amused look. “I’ve heard of you. Good troupe. Good reputation.”
I nodded, not seeing any point in false modesty.
“Do you think your father might be interested in taking on any help?” he asked. “I don’t claim to be much of an actor, but I’m handy to have around. I could make you face paint and rouge that aren’t all full of lead and mercury and arsenic. I can do lights, too, quick, clean, and bright. Different colors if you want them.”
I didn’t have to think too hard about it; candles were expensive and vulnerable to drafts, torches were dirty and dangerous. And everyone in the troupe learned the dangers of cosmetics at an early age. It was hard to become an old, seasoned trouper when you painted poison on yourself every third day and ended up raving mad by the time you were twenty-five.
“I may be overstepping myself a little,” I said as I held out my hand for him to shake. “But let me be the first to welcome you to the troupe.”
If this is to be a full and honest account of my life and deeds, I feel I should mention that my reasons for inviting Ben into our troupe were not entirely altruistic. It’s true that quality cosmetics and clean lights were a welcome addition to our troupe. It’s also true that I’d felt sorry for the old man alone on the road.
But underneath it all I was moved by my curiosity. I had seen Abenthy do something I could not explain, something strange and wonderful. Not his trick with the sympathy lamps—I recognized that for what it was: showmanship, a bluff to impress ignorant townsfolk.
What he had done afterward was different. He called the wind and the wind came. It was magic. Real magic. The sort of magic I’d heard about in stories of Taborlin the Great. The sort of magic I hadn’t believed in since I was six. Now I didn’t know what to believe.
So I invited him into our troupe, hoping to find answers to my questions. Though I didn’t know it at the time, I was looking for the name of the wind.
CHAPTER NINE
Riding in the Wagon with Ben
ABENTHY WAS THE FIRST arcanist I ever met, a strange, exciting figure to a young boy. He was knowledgeable in all the sciences: botany, astronomy, psychology, anatomy, alchemy, geology, chemistry….
He was portly, with twinkling eyes that moved quickly from one thing to another. He had a strip of dark grey hair running around the back of his head, but (and this is what I remember most about him) no eyebrows. Rather, he had them, but they were in a perpetual state of regrowing from being burned off in the course of his alchemical pursuits. It made him look surprised and quizzical all at once.
He spoke gently, laughed often, and never exercised his wit at the expense of others. He cursed like a drunken sailor with a broken leg, but only at his donkeys. They were called Alpha and Beta, and Abenthy fed them carrots and lumps of sugar when he thought no one was looking. Chemistry was his particular love, and my father said he’d never known a man to run a better still.
By his second day in our troupe I was making a habit of riding in his wagon. I would ask him questions and he would answer. Then he would ask for songs and I would pluck them out for him on a lute I borrowed from my father’s wagon.
He would even sing from time to time. He had a bright, reckless tenor that was always wandering off, looking for notes in the wrong places. More often than not he stopped and laughed at himself when it happened. He was a good man, and there was no conceit in him.
Not long after he joined our troupe, I asked Abenthy what it was like being an arcanist.
He gave me a thoughtful look. “Have you ever known an arcanist?”
“We paid one to mend a cracked axle on the road once.” I paused to think. “He was heading inland with a caravan of fish.”
Abenthy made a dismissive gesture. “No, no, boy. I’m talking about arcanists. Not some poor chill-charmer who works his way back and forth across caravan routes, trying to keep fresh meat from rotting.”
“What’s the difference?” I asked, sensing it was expected of me.
“Well,” he said. “That might take a bit of explaining….”
“I’ve got nothing but time.”
Abenthy gave me an appraising look. I’d been waiting for it. It was the look that said, “You don’t sound as young as you look.” I hoped he’d come to grips with it fairly soon. It gets tiresome being spoken to as if you are a child, even if you happen to be one.
He took a deep breath. “Just because someone knows a trick or two doesn’t mean they’re an arcanist. They might know how to set a bone or read Eld Vintic. Maybe they even know a little sympathy. But—”
“Sympathy?” I interrupted as politely as possible.
“You’d probably call it magic,” Abenthy said reluctantly. “It’s not, really.” He shrugged. “But even knowing sympathy doesn’t make you an arcanist. A true arcanist has worked his way through the Arcanum at the University.”