The Child Eater Page 2

  “I know, I know,” she said. “Jonana came to tell my father.” Jonana worked in the kitchen with Matyas’ mother, and liked to visit the blacksmith whenever she could get away.

  “Did he ask you to stable his horse?”

  “No.” She shook her head, as if Matyas might not have heard her. They decided to look for any signs of how the wizard might have arrived. Near the inn, stopping some twenty yards away, they found the tracks of some large animal, a big dog, or maybe even a wolf. Royja said, “That’s how he travels. He uses his wizard magic to summon some giant wolf to carry him. Oh, wouldn’t that be wonderful?” Her face got that funny look that came over her sometimes, like she’d jumped into a dream with her eyes open.

  “Or maybe he becomes a wolf himself,” Matyas said. “He turns into a wolf so he can run very fast, and hunt if he gets hungry, and then when he gets close to where he wants to go he makes himself a Master—a man—again. So no one will notice.”

  Royja clapped her hands, softly to make sure no one heard and came out to yell at them. “Oh, I like that,” she said. “That’s even better.”

  Matyas thought suddenly, She doesn’t understand. She’d never understand. It was all just stories to her. But if you could turn yourself into a wolf—or a boy into a toad—maybe you could become a bird. Then he could escape.

  “Do you want to walk around?” Royja asked. That was what they called their explorations and their imagined adventures.

  “I don’t think so. My father might need some help. With the wizard.”

  Royja looked so disappointed he almost changed his mind. But all she said was, “All right,” and then ran back to the smithy.

  It was late in the evening before Matyas got a chance to go upstairs. His father poured a glass of thick blackberry wine—“Our own special drink,” he would tell their guests, though Matyas noticed most took only a few sips—and ordered Matyas to, “Leave this outside the door. You can knock but very quietly. Never wake a sleeping wizard.” His father laughed, as if he’d made some joke.

  Matyas went up the stairs so fast his father yelled at him not to spill the wine, but as he approached the room he slowed down. What if the Master was sleeping, and Matyas couldn’t see him? What if he was awake, and Matyas could? As he neared the door he saw it was slightly open, enough that a crack of light shone from inside. Had he made the jewel on his staff glow? But when Matyas pushed himself to open the door just a little bit further, he discovered that the great wizard had simply lit the oil lamp, like anyone else. Matyas peered inside.

  The room was fancier than the others, or at least it tried to be. The bed, and the table, were larger, the table legs carved, the bed a four-poster with a drooping canopy. The single chair was also larger than usual, with a high back and arms that ended in lion heads. There was even an oval rug on the unpolished wood floor. But it was all rough, the weave in the rug too loose, the chisel strokes on the wood too obvious.

  The wizard did not appear to care about these lacks any more than Matyas did. He had laid his staff on the bed, cast his cap on the table—he was mostly bald on top, with little tufts of white hair among the red—and now he sat in the chair, leafing through some loose sheets of paper, a whole stack of them. The pages, which contained pictures rather than words, reminded Matyas of something but he could not remember what. From a dream, he thought vaguely.

  “It’s no good,” the Master said as he looked at one small sheet after another. “It doesn’t fit, there’s always something missing.”

  Suddenly he stopped. With both hands holding the papers as if they were birds that might fly away, he turned his head from side to side, even sniffed the air. Then, so fast there was no time for Matyas to set down the wine and run, the wizard jumped up, strode to the door and grabbed Matyas by the wrist, so painfully the boy had to bite his lip not to cry out. The wizard pulled Matyas into the room and slammed the door.

  “Please,” Matyas said, “don’t turn me into a toad! I just wanted to look.”

  “Shut up,” the Master told him. He had dropped Matyas’ wrist and set the pictures down on the table, and now he appeared to be examining the air around the frightened boy. Despite his fear, Matyas also looked around. He saw that the lights had come back. Without thinking, he batted at them with his hands, to no effect.

  “You won’t catch them,” the wizard said.

  Matyas dropped his arms, shrugged. “They’re just insects,” he said.

  The Master set his stack of pictures on the table and sat down heavily on the carved chair. “No,” he said, “they are not insects. How long have they been coming around you?”

  Matyas shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “A few days.”

  “Those lights are called the Splendor. Have you ever heard that term?” Matyas shook his head. “No,” the Master said, “of course not. ‘Splendor’ is a collective title, like flock of sheep, or murder of crows.” Matyas had no idea what the wizard was talking about. “The full expression is ‘Splendor of Spirits.’”

  “Spirits?” Matyas repeated, and looked again at the lights. “You mean like ghosts?”

  “No, no. Ghosts are simply leftover images of confused people. They’re not even actual remains, just . . . congealed imagoes that think they are trapped souls. The Splendor are third-order powers. They touch the world only at rare moments.”

  “And that’s these little lights?”

  “Oh no. The lights are simply markers. Tracks, really, the way prints in the dirt may show you a great lion has passed. If you could truly see them they would fill this room, this house. They would block out the night.”

  Matyas looked all around the room, up at the ceiling. He asked, “Can you see them? Truly, like you said?”

  “No. No one I know has ever seen them in their true form. Well, perhaps one. But if so, she has never mentioned it, at least not to me.”

  She? Matyas thought. Were there girl wizards?

  The Master went on, “The fact is, I have not seen even the tracks for some time. There are men who have studied, fasted, even cut themselves, for years just to invite the Splendor—those insects as you called them—to reveal themselves. I know of a man who drove himself over decades to amass a fortune only so he could give it away in one night, as a gesture to prove himself worthy. And you, an ignorant, filthy—”

  “Did it work?”

  Startled out of his speech, the Master said, “Did what work?”

  “The fortune. Giving it away. Did the lights—the Splendor—show themselves to him?”

  The Master laughed. “You know,” he said, “I’m not sure. That is a very old story, and it only ever describes the effort, not the result. Perhaps the tellers thought the outcome, either way, would not be a benefit. Isn’t that interesting?”

  Matyas didn’t think so. “Can you fly?” he asked.

  “What? Of course not. No one can fly.”

  Matyas felt stupid and hoped his face didn’t show it. Why did he ask that? He said, “There’s wine. It’s our best. My father sent me to give it to you.”

  The Master smiled. “Well, if it’s your best, I can hardly refuse.” Matyas stepped into the hall and brought in the glass. The wizard sighed and said, “So they’re gone.”

  Matyas looked all around and saw that the lights had vanished. Anger flashed through him, as if they’d insulted him by leaving. Then he thought maybe he should run back into the hall, in case they’d followed him there and didn’t return to the room when he brought in the wine. But he was afraid the wizard might slam the door. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “No doubt. I am sorry, too.”

  Matyas set the wine down near the stack of pictures. “What are these?” he asked.

  The wizard hesitated before he said, “They’re called Tarot cards.”

  Matyas thought of the card games some of the travelers played in the inn, but these looked much fancier, more like paintings. He thought about the word. “Ta-row?”

  A small smile, as if Matya
s had performed some trick just by saying the word. “Their full name is the Tarot of Eternity. Supposedly, if you held the originals in your hands you could change the very structure of the world.”

  “What do you mean?”

  The smile again. “Have you ever thought about the fact that the Sun comes up every morning, and that spring always follows winter?”

  Matyas shrugged. “I guess.”

  “What if it didn’t? What if the Sun, or the seasons, just did, oh, whatever they wanted?”

  Matyas frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  The wizard shrugged. “No, I suppose not. It doesn’t matter.”

  Matyas reached out his hand. “Can I—?”

  “No!” the Master said, then, “I’m sorry. What little power it holds works best when only one person touches it.”

  “But you said you could change the world.”

  “Yes, yes, the original. If I, if anyone, could ever hold that one—” He shook his head. “This—this is a copy of a copy of a copy. The true Tarot of Eternity has been lost for many hundreds of years. Maybe not lost so much as hidden. To protect us from seeing too much.”

  “Uh-huh.” Matyas tried to see the top picture without being too obvious. It showed a rich young man in green and gold clothes, dancing on a mountaintop, or maybe it was the edge of a cliff. His head was tilted back and he looked up at the sky, as if he didn’t realize he was about to fall off. His arms were out, so maybe he thought he could fly. As Matyas looked at the picture something twisted inside him, some fearful memory he could not quite bring to the surface. He asked, “What’s wrong with him?”

  “Wrong?”

  “Doesn’t he know he could hurt himself?”

  “Maybe he doesn’t care. Maybe he’s running away and it doesn’t matter what happens to him.”

  “Running away from what?” Matyas asked, but the wizard didn’t answer.

  Matyas wished he could toss the picture aside to see what lay beneath it, and the one beneath that. Instead, he said, “What good are they? If they’re just copies of copies.”

  “They can reveal certain things. In a limited way. But mostly they represent hope.”

  “Hope of what?”

  “Hope that the true Tarot will return to the world.” The wizard closed his eyes for a moment, as if reciting a prayer. “It is said, ‘Whosoever touches the Tarot of Eternity, he shall be healed of all his crimes.’”

  “That’s crazy,” Matyas said. “How can you be healed of a crime?” The Master said nothing. “I’m going to be a wizard. A Master.” The old man laughed. Angry, Matyas said, “The lights—that Splendor—they told me.”

  “Really?” Still smiling, the Master took out a rolled-up piece of parchment from his pouch, along with a small tube made of gold. There was a gold cap covering half the tube, and when the man removed it Matyas saw that the tube came to a sharp point, like a quill. Without dipping it into any ink, he inscribed some signs on the parchment, then held up the sheet in front of Matyas. “What does this say?” he asked.

  Matyas wanted to hit him. “I don’t know.”

  “It says, ‘Those who seek wizardry might learn to read before they enter the Academy.’”

  Matyas’ hands clenched into fists, but before he could do or say anything the Master leaned back against the chair and closed his eyes. “I’m tired now,” he said. “You should go. In the morning I will tell your father of the fine service you gave me.”

  Matyas was about to protest when the wizard waved a hand at him and he found himself heading for the door. At the threshold he turned and asked, “Can you really do that? Turn people into toads?”

  The Master pointed a finger at him. No lightning or dark cloud emerged, but Matyas’ body tightened, his throat became thick, his legs hard. He looked down at his arms. They were turning green. “Stop that,” he managed to say. “Please.” The wizard lowered his arm, and Matyas fell back against the door frame. A moment later he ran downstairs so fast he almost fell over his feet.

  The next morning the Master left early, before anyone had woken. By the time Matyas came to the door with a plate of rolls and a pot of tea there was no sign of the man other than a small bag of silver coins. Matyas stared at the coins a long time, then finally grabbed three and hid them in his shoes. He brought the rest to his father.

  Chapter Two

  JACK

  Once upon a time, in a town that came in fourteenth on a list of the “Fifteen Most Livable Cities,” there lived a man named Jack Wisdom. The name was unfortunate, because neither he nor his family were especially wise. Some unknown ancestor, they joked, must have done something smart, and now all they could do was try to survive having such a difficult name. “We have to be more normal than normal,” his father used to say, almost like a family slogan. Jack would roll his eyes when his father said that, annoyed for no reason he could understand.

  Once, when he was a boy in English class, Jack doodled a family coat of arms, with lots of crossed swords and elegant swirls, and a flowering tree. He’d seen this sort of thing in a book once, and now as he looked at it he thought it was pretty good. But then, as if he couldn’t help himself, he wrote across the top of the tree “More Normal Than Normal.” Jack stared at it, then crumpled the paper and stuck it in his backpack.

  Jack had not always lived in the fourteenth most livable city. He’d only moved there as a grown-up. Jack the boy lived in a housing development outside a town known only for a cough-drop factory and a halfway decent high school basketball team. Jack didn’t play basketball. He didn’t play any sport, really, though he liked to run and thought of trying out for track. But it was the running itself he liked, not having to make a competition out of it. Jack was never competitive, maybe because he had no brothers or sisters.

  Young Jack was thin and tall, with dark brown hair that would have been curly if he let it grow. He had bony shoulders and long skinny arms and large hands and feet. It was hard to buy clothes for him, his mother complained: either they were too big or the sleeves were too short. Jack hoped he didn’t look weird.

  Young Jack liked to play in the woods at the edge of the development. He would wander around between the trees, pretending a broken-off branch was a sword, or a fallen tree a fort. Sometimes he would sit very still, pretend he was a small tree or a stone. If he did it right, the animals got over their fear and came out in the open. Woodchucks and raccoons would wobble past him, deer would crash through the branches (it amazed him how noisy deer were), and now and then he’d see a fox or a coyote. People thought coyotes only lived in the desert, but Jack knew this wasn’t true.

  The only problem was, when he spent time in the woods with the animals he sometimes had bad dreams. They started when he was around eight, right around the time when he began to go into the woods. At first they were just glimpses—a sudden burst of fire, distant screaming, a stone room with rough walls and floors and no door to escape. Over time they became longer, and more detailed. In one dream, wild animals, coyotes and wolves and foxes, hunted down all the humans and locked them in cages underneath the streets. In another, dead people were coming back. Not ghosts or zombies, just themselves, except they didn’t know they were dead and wouldn’t believe it when anyone told them.

  Jack’s mother tried all sorts of things—no television after eight o’clock, no comics at all, no scary books. She removed such things as pepper, oregano and bay leaves from all her dishes and made sure Jack drank a full glass of warm milk before he went to bed. The dreams just continued.

  Jack’s mom suggested that maybe they should see a doctor, but Jack’s dad wouldn’t hear of it. “We’re Wisdoms, remember? Just imagine the jokes Jack would have to hear if people found out a Wisdom was getting his head shrunk.”

  “Maybe he just needs a pill or something,” Mom said.

  “No. No pills.”

  Jack’s parents didn’t think he could hear them but he could, even though they were in their bedroom with the door closed and he was
downstairs with his homework. That night, when his mother brought him his milk he almost said, “Mommy, I don’t want any pills,” but instead he just drank silently. His mom looked about to cry and he didn’t want to upset her.

  That night Jack had one of his scariest dreams. It started out all right. He was walking in the woods, watching some birds fly in and out of the branches. Something large flew overhead, big enough to move a chill shadow across the path. Jack looked up to see if it was an eagle (he would have heard it if it was a plane) and for a moment he thought it was a man. Not hang-gliding or parachuting, but actually flying. But the sun made it hard to see, and then it was gone.

  When he looked down again he was standing in front of a clump of gnarled, lifeless trees, their branches so entwined, like thick cables, it was impossible to see between them. When he looked at them a sick fear flooded his body, but he didn’t know why. He wanted to run away, to wake up, but instead he kept looking. He could see something, a flash of light.

  And then he saw a face, just that, skin all golden, surrounded by tight black curls, the eyes closed, the lashes so long they almost reached down to the tops of the cheekbones. Jack couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman and didn’t care, he had never seen anything so perfect.

  At first he thought a black tree trunk obscured the body, but then he realized it was a pole, polished ebony. The body wasn’t hidden—it didn’t exist. That wondrous head slept atop a black column hidden in the trees, had slept so long that dust, like flecks of gold, had gathered on the eyelids.

  In his dream, Jack turned his head away for just a moment, but when he looked again the trees and the head had gone and he was standing in a high-ceilinged room, very cold, with a black and white marble floor and some kind of mural on the ceiling. Angels or something, like on the History Channel. He ignored them to look around for the perfect head on its ebony perch.

  Now there was not one head but many, all on poles, all in shadows along the walls. Only, they were not beautiful. Their faces were twisted in pain. They were all children, Jack saw, the severed heads of boys and girls the same age as himself. Some were old and dried out—not just bloodless, but the skin shriveled and cracked. Others still had blood dripping from their necks, like fresh meat behind the butcher counter at the supermarket.