The Tales of Tarya, Books 1-3

Chapter 9 - Darkness and Light-2

Mina and Dario felt uneasy listening to the conversation without Uberto’s awareness. They were about to walk away when the teller’s next words stopped them.

‘It’s the girl, the one who was driving the wagon today. Not the flirtatious one. The solemn one. There’s something … I’d like to talk to her. I’ll gladly leave before your troupe commences rehearsal.’

‘Ah, Mina. She is a pretty one, for sure. I can understand your interest. But I am afraid I must ask you to leave now. Mina, of all of us, needs the most rehearsal, for she is the newest to the playing. I cannot allow time for your curiosities. I am sure you will be able to find lodging for the night. Story tellers are always welcome.’ There was a bitter edge to his last words.

‘I see you are determined in your course,’ the story teller said. ‘I thank you for your hospitality in bringing me this far, and wish you the blessings of the Creator in your endeavours at the festival.’

‘May the Creator guide your words,’ Uberto replied, and the footsteps of the story teller could be heard receding.

Mina became aware Dario was holding her hand. She was torn.

‘I want to speak to him,’ she said. Perhaps what he saw in her was the same thing Dario had just spoken of, the unnamed power. And perhaps this story teller might help her set it free. Uberto must know she was more story teller than player. Why would he want to stop her discovering her real gifts? Unless, she suddenly saw, he wanted to be the one to direct it.

Dario looked down at her, suddenly nervous. ‘I knew this would happen. I knew others would see you and …’ he took a deep breath, ‘… and fall in love with you as I have. Please Mina, stay with us. You belong with us … with me.’

Mina looked up at his earnest face, handsome and gentle. He was offering her a future, she realised, and knew with certainty she didn’t want to leave him. She leaned up and kissed him softly on the lips. After their kisses were spoken, they looked at each other in wonder, their eyes doing all the telling that was needed until Mama Tina’s cries called them back to the encampment.

As they stepped into the range of the firelight, the other players registered their joined hands and quickly surrounded them, making jokes and whistling. Mama Tina merely crossed her arms and said, ‘At last!’

Uberto’s stern tones called everyone back to the task at hand. ‘We must rehearse. Dario, Mina, this will not interfere with the playing,’ he said, and that was that.

Rehearsal continued until the moon passed its zenith, when Isabella began complaining about the need for beauty sleep if she was to be presented to royalty the next day. Everyone was tired but they’d run through six one-act canovaccio for the competition by the time the playing ended for the evening. Dario and Mina had little time for a sweet goodnight before Uberto and Mama Tina hurried them to their wagons.

~

Mina woke to complete darkness and in her disorientation she couldn’t understand why her bed shook. Then she remembered she was no longer in her parents’ home in Andon, but in a players’ wagon. Then she realised the wagon was moving. Becoming used to the darkness, she saw Isabella asleep on her bunk and heard Lisette snoring lightly beyond the curtain. A hand of panic clutched Mina. Were they being kidnapped? As quietly as she could, she crept forward to the wagon door. Opening the upper hatch stealthily, she peered into the blackness of night. Vincenzo sat at the driver’s seat, the reins slack between his hands as Petruchio trudged wearily along. The great moon was approaching full so the broad road was easy to make out.

‘Mina, back to sleep!’ Vincenzo demanded with barely a glance at her. ‘You need your rest. The next few days are crucial. It’ll be dawn soon enough.’

‘I couldn’t sleep now, Vincenzo. I’m too excited to see Aurea.’

Vincenzo sighed and pointed to the other seat. ‘Well then, we’ll watch for the dawn together. You’ve never seen Aurea before, I gather. It’s a feast for the senses, an absolute delight! But tell me, because my curiosity has been driving me wild. How do you create scenery in Tarya as you do?‘

Mina smiled ruefully. ‘I’m not really sure. It’s the only thing I can do. I’m no good at being a character. I can’t transform, at least not like the others do, even with a mask. I can only see Tarya when I am telling a story.’

‘You sound like you wish you could.’

Mina nodded.

Vincenzo rubbed his cheeks with one hand, musing. ‘I could make a guess why. You’re quite happy with who you are, eh? Don’t want a different life for yourself?’

Mina looked at him, confused. ‘Why would I want another life?’

‘So many people do! Look at Isabella. Wants to be wealthy, and adored. Or Mama Tina … she sees a life with no more travelling, no more cooking, just her own small house and a warm fire. Jal, he sees a life surrounded by women.’

Mina grinned a little at that. ‘More than us?’ she asked with a laugh.

‘Oh, many more.’ Vincenzo laughed back.

‘But how does that make them able to play?’ Mina asked.

‘They long to be different. They find their wishes in Tarya.’

‘But they’re finding other people’s wishes, other people’s dreams.’

‘Yes, they are, but they can only use them because they mirror their own dreams.’

‘I have dreams too.’

‘Do you wish your life was different?’

Mina thought carefully as she surveyed the landscape before her. In the distance she could see great gated walls. The first golden threads of dawn caused the stones of the wall to glow. In Andon she’d never envisaged coming to a place like this, yet here she was. She had longings too. She longed to find Paolo. And now, she longed to introduce Dario to her mother, and to show him the beauty of her town.

‘There are things I want.’

Vincenzo smiled. ‘Of course. But let me ask you this Mina. Do you want them as yourself, or as someone else?’

‘Why would I want to be someone else?’

Vincenzo laughed, a loud guffaw he quickly silenced. ‘Mustn’t wake the others, eh?’ he said in a stage whisper. ‘That’s it entirely.’

He faced forward, intent on the road. Dawn was taking hold now, spreading light across the horizon and upward.

‘So what about you?’ Mina demanded. ‘Why did you really leave the Archiari Players?’

Vincenzo looked at her appraisingly. ‘You’re a bold one, eh? One day I may even tell you. For now, I think I can help you. Do you want to learn to become a character?’

Mina nodded, a little unsure.

‘Let’s try it differently. You notice people. Use that, and tell someone’s tale, but as though you’re them, from inside their head. Perhaps a male, so they’re more removed from the way you think.’

‘But I don’t have a mask with me,’ Mina said, startled.

‘Try anyway,’ Vincenzo replied.

Mina thought about the possibilities. Who could she be? Dario? No, that felt too close to be comfortable. Then it came to her. She was trying to find Paolo. Perhaps if she learned to think like him she might realise where he’d gone. After all, she’d found Isabella simply by telling about her.

‘Speak to me,’ Vincenzo said.

Mina began tentatively. ‘I am young, and handsome. I’ve left my home in search of romance and fortune. Life at home was so dull. My family loved me, but my father was a tyrant.’

And suddenly, Mina was there, in Tarya, at the dense, indigo sea. She hadn’t even seen the lower levels. She’d gone straight to the place where she could shape reality. But this wasn’t right. She wouldn’t find Paolo here. This was an empty plain, filled only with what she chose to create. She pictured the River of Light, and it appeared. Without thought she plunged into it, and felt once more the strange sensation of being immersed in pure light.

She willed herself downward, intending to reach the Horizon. Her thoughts were still on Paolo, and suddenly she felt sure she would find some trace of him in the place where glowing echoes of people could be seen. She wasn’t aware of her body, didn’t know she was still telling Vincenzo the tale of an ambitious lad who escaped the strictures of his childhood village. She knew only the Light, and her efforts to push through it. But as she reached the pastel world where dreams reside, and broke through the border of light, a faint sobbing caught at the edge of her awareness. She saw the colourful, shifting reality of dreams, the figures with their web-like threads. Then she was drifting up again, into the Light.

At first all she saw was the incredible brightness she’d seen the first time she visited Tarya and crossed the River of Light. Then she became accustomed to the brightness and stopped moving. There was the sound of sobbing again. She became aware that the light around her, which appeared golden when you moved through it quickly, was really a refraction of endless colours. A tiny spark of colour burst out of the light and drew near. She saw a perfect, linear rainbow, pinpoints of colour aligned vertically, from the purest ruby red at the base to the deepest velvety purple at the top. And each pinpoint of light was spinning. Yet the whole rainbow was tiny, no more than a thumbnail in length. She reached out to it with star-shadowed hands, and connected.

Mina was flooded with a sensation of pain such as she’d never imagined. There was a terrible tearing, in her heart, and her head, and her gut. She was terrified her entire spine was being ripped out of her back and screamed a soundless scream. Around her the light split apart into infinite, brilliant points of light, before re-joining. The pain dissipated instantly and she felt remorse. She knew, then, that the tiny rainbow of spinning lights she was still connected to had caused the pain. But it had done so to let her know what it had experienced. Somehow it was showing her how it came to be here. But it wasn’t an it. It was a young girl, lost in the light, unable to return to her body.

Mina became fearful she would be trapped here too, but as the thought came, she became aware of the gold thread, fragile yet strong, connecting her with her real body. The girl, or what was left of her in the tiny points of light, was completely disconnected, floating lost in this golden river in Tarya. There was no sobbing now, but Mina became aware of a voice, frail and far away, pleading.

‘Find me,’ it said. ‘Return me to my home.’

And then she knew. With a rush, understanding came to her. The players stole dreams. That was bad enough. But this was far worse. By breaking the golden threads, they tore away something more fundamental, stealing it to create a new character to transform into. Did they know how much it hurt when they broke the gold threads? Did they realise they left these wretched souls sobbing and lost in the heart of Tarya, disconnected from the world?

Yet Uberto had told her most players couldn’t go beyond the Place of Dreams. They had probably never seen the consequences of breaking the gold threads. Though they might feel the searing energy she had, when she had touched a gold thread by accident, they probably had no idea what they left behind. If they knew, they wouldn’t keep doing it, surely. But what if they did know? The players all knew Mina well enough now to know she couldn’t let them continue to break the gold threads. Would they want to stop her telling anyone what she had discovered? Was this why Paolo had disappeared?