'What do you want with me, Dzin master?' In his weathered gray clothes and grayed face, except for the black beard and hair, he could almost have been a statue or a full-sized carving. 'To talk to you about Sergol.'
'Walk with me to the caves, then.' He grunted and turned, heading for an opening in the bushes. Not the one that led to the cart road around the lake but one leading toward the rocky slope to the south of the high cliffs that seemed to plunge straight into the deep azure of the lake.
'Caves?' Even I knew truffles grew under oaks, not in caves.
'Do mushrooms, too,' Wolyd said over his shoulder. 'Where you think they come from? Come on. Don't have time to waste.'
I followed the wiry man down a well-trod path toward another cliff, a mere fifteen meters high, unlike the hundred meter drop-off of the high cliffs.
'Sergol's a good boy.' Wolyd eased back a sliding door that covered a long tunnel, reaching inside and touching a plate. A line of glow lamps illuminated the low-ceilinged and ancient tunnel, a tunnel long enough that I could not see the far end.
'He's a very good boy. He's also been asking some strange questions. Using fish as examples,' I added blandly, then scrambled after the truffler as he walked toward the mushroom beds. My nose wrinkled at the dampness and acrid odor of manure.
'He should. Learn a lot from fish.'
'Every creature has lessons to teach.'
'What's the problem?' The truffler looked up from the long tray bed of mushrooms - portobello, I thought, but they were still small.
'I worry that he seeks knowledge for the sake of knowledge.'
'You Dzin-folk do enough of that.' A smirk crossed the man's face.
'If he wishes to follow the way of Dzin, then he will learn how to deal with knowledge.' I studied Wolyd's blank gray eyes, eyes that said nothing and revealed nothing. The man bothered me, but I couldn't say why, even as I attempted to hold on to a state of unremitting alertness.
'He's a boy. Why worry about his questions?'
How could I phrase the answer? I wondered. 'Sometimes ... sometimes, children need to ask questions, and that is right, especially if the questions come from their hearts.'
Wolyd cocked his head and studied me, a faint smile crossing his lips. 'And you're worried that a poor truffler's putting ideas in his head?'
'I didn't say that you were,' I pointed out reasonably.
'Who else would? His mother went back to Wyns years ago. Just Sergol and me.' He paused. 'You say you worry. Who worried about us when she left? Who worried when I had to pay a nurse? Now, boy asks a question or two, and you worry.'
'I didn't know.'
'Lots you Dzin masters don't know.' He moved down the bed, studying the small fungi.
'I'm sure of that,' I agreed, following.
'Anyone asks questions you don't like, and you start worrying about forbidden knowledge and demons ... and the like.'
Demons? I hadn't even thought about demons. What had brought that up? Was Wolyd a secret demon-worshipper? I tried not to swallow. 'I wasn't talking about demons.'
'What do you think about demons, Dzin master?' Wolyd's tone was too casual, and I wanted to step back.
'I don't know much about the demons. No one today does, except that anyone who crosses the border never comes back. Nor do any gliders. Sometimes, arrows of fire, or lasers, streak into the heavens.' I shrugged. 'They seem to want to be left alone, and so do we.'
'Do not mock the demons. Those in Rykasha are but pale remnants of the ancient demons.'
I stepped back, but the truffler narrowed the distance between us. What would a fisherman and truffler know about demons? And why was he angry at me?
'You do not believe me. Ah, well, I will tell you. In that, then, you will have the opportunity to brighten the mirror with cleansed perceptions.'
I had to frown at the misapplication of the Dzin saying.
'In the time of the demons, each and every demon wore a magnificent suit of clothes. If folded, it was no larger than a man's fist, yet when worn the demon could lift weights of more than five hetstones and dash as fast as the glideways for nearly an hour.' Wolyd bent down under one of the trays, as if he had dropped something.
A suit of clothes that would allow a man to lift the weight of, what, three glider cars? I smiled politely.
'So blind are you who do not see.' With a laugh he stood and turned, and he held a polished gun, the kind designed to hold and stop even demons.
'I am no demon,' I protested.
Whrrr...
My body convulsed, and I was held rigid by the current that froze my muscles, flowing through every dartlet that had pierced my flesh.
'Not yet.'
What did he mean, this fisherman and truffler? I tried to speak, but I could sense nothing.
When I woke, I was bound to a wooden frame, and the loose sleeves of my gown and undershirt had been rolled back. Both arms ached, and I could see and feel that they had been slashed, or cut, and then dressed rudely.
Where was I? My eyes blurred as I turned my head, discovering I was in another ancient tunnel, a damp one, and one without glow lamps. The only illumination came from the portalight held by Wolyd.
'The rope will keep you bound. That's until you can get free. Then you won't do nothing.' He laughed, nearly maniacally. 'You Dzin types, you think you're so smart. You know phrases that others have repeated from the old days, and the sayings never change, and you never learn. The demons learned, and you drove them out because you were afraid of what they had discovered. Now you ignore them and drive out anyone who questions.' Another laugh followed. 'You Dzin masters, you are so high and mighty. And you, you, Master Tyndel, you are among the worst, for you believe what you say and would have my boy believe you. Well, Wolyd the truffler would have you see how you fare in a world where none think you are high or mighty.'
Laughing again, he rolled a barrel next to me, lifted it onto the rock ledge by my head, and maneuvered a spigot covered with what seemed to be a rubber nipple close enough that it almost touched my mouth. An odor of rancid fish flowed over me, and I nearly gagged. 'Not much better than pig slop.' He nodded at the huge barrel. 'You think you will not eat it, but you will. The little demons in your blood will see to that. You will need it all before you are strong enough to break free.' A crooked smile crossed his face, revealing equally crooked and yellow teeth. 'Then you will be a demon. And you will leave Dorcha or die.'
'Demon?' I choked out stupidly.
'I know the secret of making demons. A demon died in these caves, long time ago, and in his dust... but you don't need to know that.' He held up the demon gun. 'If I must use this on you again, you will be carried to the demon cage in Hybra ... and you will die.'
A door clunked shut.
I was alone in the ancient tunnel, alone in the darkness, bound with ropes twice as thick as a truffler's thumbs. I, a master of Dzin, schoolmaster of Hybra, tied up like a pig for slaughter, tied up by a mad truffler in a place that no one would find. Tied up by a truffler convinced he had a mystical secret that would turn me into a demon.
I tried to wiggle free, but the ropes and the knots were firm, and all I got was rope burns and aching muscles. My stomach turned at the odor of rancid fish and at the fear of what Wolyd might have done. What poison had he introduced? Or had it all been a delusion, and had I been left to slowly starve in the darkness?
Was he angry at me? Or did he dislike all Dzin teachers?