The Tales of Tarya, Books 1-3

Chapter 5 - Transformations-4

‘Does he ever …’ Jal began, then stopped. Does anyone ever reach him? he wanted to ask, but realised he was afraid of the answer.

Lisa kept her voice low. ‘I’m sorry. He’s always like this. I wish … I’d like to show you something. Maybe it will help. I don’t really understand what’s going on, but I have to tell someone. And you’ve been so sweet, flirting with an old lady. Made me feel young again.’

Jal took a last look at his father. He had finished shaping the dirt. Moving his hands away he revealed a face, black as the soil. With its empty eyes it reminded Jal of a mask.

He leaned forward and kissed his father on the forehead, to the old man’s confusion. He followed Lisa through the gate to the enclosed stairs on the side of the building, Lisa relocking the gate as soon as they passed through them. They mounted the stairs and Lisa unlocked yet another door, ringing a bell before opening it to alert those inside of her presence.

Jal looked down from his new vantage point above the garden and saw his father still squatting in the dirt, fingers moving rapidly as he continued to sculpt the moist soil.

‘Before we go inside, I need to tell you something,’ Lisa said. ‘This used to be the children’s wing, but we’ve moved them to another building nearby since … I could lose my job over this, but I have to tell someone. Since a few months ago the number of patients we have has doubled. But the new ones are different. Those you saw downstairs have been … like they are most of their life. Sometimes it runs in the family. But those up here … we were sworn to secrecy, threatened by the Royal Guards …’

‘Why are you telling me?’ Jal asked.

‘Because everyone in here is like your father, and like you,’ she said as she pushed the door open. ‘They’re all artisans.’

At first glance the room looked much like the one on the lower floor, filled with a mismatched collection of furniture and people. But as Jal looked from one person to another, he noticed some were dressed in costumes, while others had painted faces. Still others were engaged in some kind of performance, dancing or playing to an invisible audience. As with the room downstairs, there were also those who sat gazing off at a distant vision only they could see.

There were nearly as many people as there had been downstairs.

‘You’re telling me all these people only arrived here in the last few months?’ Jal couldn’t hide his disbelief.

Lisa nodded. She excused herself to speak to one of the burly men wearing a brown tunic, who hovered near the wall.

Jal wandered around the room. There seemed to be no need to follow Lisa’s earlier advice of not meeting anyone’s eyes. Every person here was locked in their own world, oblivious to their surroundings.

The other noticeable difference from those downstairs was that the artisans appeared, on the whole, ready to step onto their invisible stage. Their costumes were clean, their make-up perfect. Those not in costume seemed, like Jal’s father, absorbed by the minutiae of the room, their artists’ eyes taking in the curve of a chair back or the fall of light across a table.

Though they had taken care of their appearance, more than one had the skeletal frame of his father, as though they had simply forgotten to eat in their obsession with their surroundings.

Jal saw a young woman sitting on the floor, her hands pulling at the air. He crouched beside her, trying to work out what she was doing. Was she, like his father, sculpting with the only materials she could find, in this case air?

Her long river of shining hair hid her face, but she looked up as a silent sound caught her attention. Jal recognised her. He did not remember her name, but the last time he had seen her was at the Festival of Lights. She was the harpist who had conjured Tarya with her ethereal music and been dragged away by the Royal Guards for her gift.

‘Don’t be afraid,’ Jal whispered softly, realising as he spoke that her hands, endlessly plucking the air, were playing an invisible harp. ‘How did you come to be here?’

She c****d her head, hair falling in a cascade across her lap with the movement, then pulled a face as though hearing a dissonance in the soundless music.

‘Even if she wasn’t lost in her own world, she wouldn’t understand you,’ Lisa said from behind Jal. ‘She only speaks Rennish.’

Jal stood and faced his guide. ‘What’s going on, Lisa? What are all these people doing here? And why don’t any of them have their instruments or tools, or clay or masks? Surely that would help them?’

Lisa shook her head fearfully. ‘You’ll have to leave now. I can’t risk the palace guards finding out I’ve shown you this. Most of the men on duty now I can trust,’ she nodded to a nearby guard, his face blank, ‘but they’ll be changing soon and there’s a few on the night shift … We should go.’

She rushed him to another set of doors and down an internal staircase, then back to the front foyer of the building, locking every door behind her as they went. Jal expected her to lead him back to her office for more explanations, but she took him straight to the front doors and almost pushed him out.

‘I can’t tell you anything else, but please, find a way to stop this. More artisans arrive every day. Something is terribly wrong.’

‘They look safe,’ Jal said, ‘and you could keep them happy if you’d let them have the tools of their art.’

‘You don’t understand,’ Lisa said. ‘The Council of Muses have ordered they’re not allowed anything more than costume or make-up, if they’re performers. Nothing at all if they’re artists like your father. Every one of them has been accused of Arcani. The Council says they’re dangerous. They say their dark arts have turned their minds, made them crazy.’

‘But the Council has never interfered to this extent with what artisans do,’ Jal protested.

Lisa leaned in close and whispered, ‘I don’t think the Council is just imprisoning them. I’ve heard rumours they’re behind whatever is turning them mad.’

Without another word, she slipped back inside the building and shut the door with a thud.

‘Why show me? What can I do?’ Jal asked the closed door. It gave no answer, and he turned away. There was no sign of his mother or the wagon that had brought them. He began the long walk home. Obviously his mother had not been able to cope with being so close to a mansion full of madness, even if her husband was inside.

Jal cursed softly. Sometimes his charm brought him good fortune, or at least pleasant moments, but today it had brought only a burden. What was happening to all the artisans? And what could he do about it?

Chapter 6