“In a circuit,” Terek corrected and tapped Woodberry. “Make that five villages. Maybe more.” He drew his finger over the map from village to village in an oval circle. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Mari paused to brush invisible lint from her ruffled crimson sleeve, reluctant to speak. “There’s a Bard involved. Only, no one can remember him after the carnage. They just know he was there the night of the deaths, but no one can find his body, and he isn’t in town the next day.”
“One of ours is doing this on my old circuit.” He looked up at his former protégé, his eyes bleak. “One of ours. And it has something to do with me.”
He listened to his lord’s voice as it instructed him where to bury the shard. Eyes closed, he stepped forward or to the side as it commanded. He could feel the power flowing through him as he dropped to his knees and dug a small hole. As he placed the shard, chanting the words that had become his mantra, his prayer, his obsession, he knew his revenge was nigh. Either the object of his hate would come to him, or everyone who used to laud the old Bard would suffer for ages to come.
Poisoned stone planted on the edge of the village, he stood and brushed the dirt from his hands. He hefted his pack with its evil secret, put on a real smile in anticipation of the carnage that would happen that night, and sauntered down the road into the village where kindly folk smiled at him, pointing him toward the nearest tavern.
It was a modest thing with only one story and small windows, but it was one of the nicer buildings in the square, with uncracked walls and a freshly painted sign of a mug frothing over with ale. He nodded to himself and entered. Empty at this time of day, the proprietor sat at one of the tables, eating from a bowl of steaming porridge. He didn’t get up, only nodded and gestured the stranger forward with his wooden spoon.
“Good day, I’m Sorrel. I’m looking for a room and a place to show my skill.” Sorrel tapped his drum for emphasis.
“Daven, here.” The proprietor gave Sorrel a critical once-over. “Bard, eh?”
“No, good sir. Merely a wandering minstrel. I wear not the red of an esteemed Bard.” He watched Daven calculate in his head for a moment.
“Then I can’t pay you Bard wages, but I can make sure you have a warm bed and a full belly and maybe a coin or two to rub together as you leave.”
Sorrel smiled, “Excellent. For that, I will give you an evening of entertainment you won’t forget for a long time to come.”
“May I sit with you?”
The old man looked up at Sorrel’s smiling face, glanced at the mostly full tables around him and nodded with a grunt.
“I’m Sorrel,” he said as he sat, arranging his pack and drum next to him on the floor.
“Aaron.” He gave Sorrel another look and then returned his gaze to his ale.
“You local?”
“Nah. Traveling through.”
“Where to?”
Aaron looked up again, “Why?”
Sorrel pulled back and raised a hand, “Just curious. I’m a traveler, too. Thought I’d make conversation. Sorry.”
The old man gave a long, gusty sigh. “Nah, I’m sorry. Heading to Woodberry. Got grandkids to look in on. Their Da died.”
“Woodberry. Bad bit of business there.”
“You know?” Aaron paused in his mug in midair.
Sorrel nodded.
“What’ve you heard?”
“Big brawl. Lots of people died. It was a mess.”
“You were there?”
“Nah. Just picked up the word on the road. Avoided it.”
Aaron drank deep from the mug and clonked it on the table. “Yeah. That’s what I’ve heard, too.”
“It’s why I travel.” Sorrel saw Aaron’s questioning look. “To spread joy and leave a place a bit lighter than when I arrived. He tapped the drum on the ground.
“A Bard?”
“Just a minstrel.”
Aaron nodded. “Playing tonight?”
“Aye.”
“Good. I could use some music. It lightens the soul.”
Sorrel gave him a smile with too many teeth. “This will be a night to remember. Speaking of which, it’s time for me to earn my supper.”
Word of the minstrel had spread throughout the small village. Music was always welcome, and the tavern was almost full. The sounds of wooden mugs clopping to the table mixed with the smacking of satisfied lips and the laughter of good conversation. However, when Sorrel took his place in the corner where the singers and dancers performed, the place quieted with an anticipatory buzz of people whispering to each other what they knew of the stranger. Two beats of a drum later and the tavern was almost silent.
“Tonight, a dream of mine is about to come true and all of you here will witness it unfolding.” Sorrel reached down into his pack and pulled out something small and black. “Terek, this is for you.” With that, he tossed the black thing toward Aaron.
It is the most natural thing in the world to catch something tossed to you in a casual manner. Terek’s hands were already wrapping themselves around the cursed item as Sorrel’s drum sounded out a slow beat and Terek realized that his real name had been used. By then it was much too late.
He rocked back as the power of the thing, a statue with large blank eyes and a larger mouth filled with sharp teeth, caught him in a spell. Staring into the statue’s eyes, Terek knew that Sorrel had captured the rest of the audience in a spell, and they would be no help. He felt his own power draining from him as he fell into the statue’s trance.
“Before me stand three promising youngsters, but not every dream can come true.” Terek recognized himself from years before while riding his last circuit. He had been asked to judge the children in the village for potential. And judge he did. “You, young Sorrel, you have some skill but lack both the creativity and the Gift of a true Bard. You will be welcome at campfires, but not in the halls of the Collegium.” With a shake of his head and a turn of his shoulder, he dismissed the boy. Terek saw the boy’s anguish as he fled the square, but that was no longer his concern. These other two children were.
“Aric, you have proven yourself to be both skilled and creative. I have spoken to your parents, and they have agreed to send you to the Collegium. You won’t go alone. You will take with you my personal recommendation. You will be welcomed in courts and merchant houses around Valdemar after your skills have been honed.” Terek gave Aric a scroll tied with a crimson ribbon while the villagers applauded. He patted the boy’s shoulder and gave him a gentle push toward his beaming parents.
Terek smiled and allowed the power of his trained voice to carry his pleasure as he made his final announcement. “Mari, my dear child, you have proven that you have the skill, the creativity, and the Gift to become a Master Bard. I have spoken to your parents, and you will travel with me, finish out my circuit, and then enter the Collegium as the most esteemed of students. You are what every Bard strives to become and the kind of apprentice every Master Bard seeks. You end my quest.”
Locked in a vision of the past, Terek could feel his power, his Gift, being torn from him bit by bit. He struggled to bring his considerable will to bear, but this trap was too well laid and too long in coming. He had fallen for it, and this knowledge settled heavy on his heart. All around him, he was vaguely aware that even his hidden companions, Kolan and Pala, Gifted bards both, were locked in Sorrel’s spell. He wondered how the unGifted peasant boy could have become so powerful. As if in answer to his query, a new vision clouded his mind.