Pathway

"How wonderful," Kaerin said. "It will be a fine tale. Clear the stage! Places!"

The lute player vanished. She reappeared a breath later, without her lute and wearing a black cloak. She flipped her hood over her face and joined the rest of the troupe assembling at the back of the stage. They were all dressed identically, their clothes and features covered by the cloaks.

Kaerin jumped onto the stage, taking his place at the front of the assembly. "Who will play the lead?" he asked. He put his hand theatrically to his ear to hear the response of the crowd.

"Kaerin!" they cried on cue.

"Yes, and don't you forget it," Kaerin said. "Tonight, I will be playing the part of the boy lost in another world, the boy named Ju Feng." He swept an arm up, and suddenly he was swathed in black too.

Ju Feng sat forward, his jaw muscles rigid. "What are they doing?" he said.

Bao answered. "They're going to tell your story," he said eagerly. "You're lucky to be chosen. Most newcomers never get picked until they've been here at least a season."

"How do they know what to say?" Chang Chang asked, as Ju Feng lost more color. "They know nothing about us."

"Silence before a performance! We know all we need, just by touch," Kaerin said from the stage. His voice sounded deeper, older. He swept off the cloak. It dissolved into a flurry of crows that flew out over the crowd. The stage transformed in the birds' wake.

The bow of the boat was now a forest glade, draped in dense green ferns. A small, stagnant pond dominated the scene, its watery arms wrapped around the exposed roots of an oak that crawled up the hull.

Chang Chang's eyes blurred at the sudden appearance of the illusion. She knew it wasn't real, yet she swore she could smell the moss clinging to the pond stones. Unseen, a sparrow chirped its shrill song. Wind rustled in the wild grasses.

"Not natural," Zu Ruo said. She swiped a hand across her nose, as if she could smell the green too. "Magic can't mimic life, not like that."

"Ah, but death can mimic life. The dead remember." Kaerin's voice echoed from the heart of the glade, though they could not see him. His voice still sounded strange.

Two cloaked figures, male and female by their shape, came from opposite ends of the glade to stand in front of the pond. They faced each other. Only visible were the skin of their hands and bare feet.

"Where is my son," the woman cried, "my foolish, fanciful boy, who runs through the forest like a wild animal?"

"He likes to run," hissed the man. "Loves to run away and worry his mother. What a terrible boy; he thinks the village is not good enough for him. Poor, foolish boy."

"This is not true. I never remembered this. This wasn't me. " Ju Feng murmured in confusion, but only Chang Chang could hear him above the cloaked woman's wailing.

"Where are you, Ju Feng!" With her slender arm extended to the forest, the woman dropped to her knees as a blue light foun-tained from within the green pond. The light cast the ferns and the cloaked figures in glowing relief. The woman shouted, "He is doomed!"

She disappeared. The man crouched to address the audience in a stage whisper.

"But does the boy know why he is doomed, of his prophecies? Did his mother never warn him of what lurks in the dimensional worlds? Poor, poor mother. Poor, ignorant son."

The blue light faded, and the man vanished, his cloaked form revealing a small figure sitting by the pond, his back to the audience. Lazily, he reclined on his elbows and tossed a fishing line into the water. Somewhere, a bird called, and the boy turned his head to stare at the audience.

Chang Chang felt Ju Feng stiffened in confusion next to her. She made to put her hand on his arm, but he moved away, closer to the stage. Chang Chang looked at the boy. It took her a moment to realize that it was not Kaerin sitting there, but an older boy. He lacked Kaerin's mischievous air and had an overly serious demeanor, his mouth twisted in an introspective frown.

His hair was dark, with brambles and grass clinging to its wild strands. But his eyes… they were common brown, yet so familiar.

Chang Chang looked from Ju Feng to the boy and back again. In her mind she filled in the progression of years—the widening jaw, the added height and musculature of manhood. Ju Feng was around eleven years old, the boy only five or six, but Chang Chang could see it. They were not so different, except for the eyes.

The boy was Ju Feng.

Chang Chang watched the younger Ju Feng strip down to the waist and wade out into the pond. Up to his elbows in the green muck, he took swipes at the water, coming up with a bright green frog. He put it back in the water and watched it swim.

When the dark energy came back, the boy didn't see it at first. He was too absorbed in watching a dragonfly glide in dizzying circles over the water. Its wings touched the edge of the dark energy. There was a flash, and the dragonfly disappeared, vaporized by the magic surge.

Seeing the roiling dark energy, the boy tried to get away but couldn't. The boy waded to the spot of the dark energy his hand outstretched.

"Don't do it," Chang Chang said. "Don't touch it, you'll be killed!" Bao and the others were looking at her strangely, but she ignored them. She looked at the adult Ju Feng. His body was still tight, but he watched the scene with a kind of bewilderment. It was as if he had never lived this life before.

The boy stepped into deeper water. The darkness wrapped around him, flowing up his legs and chest until he had to squeeze his eyes shut against the brightness. Panicked, he tried to back away, but he lost his balance and fell, his head going under the water.

The beggars gasped. Hatsolm murmured, "He's lost now. The plague'll rot his mind."

Chang Chang knew better. She waited, her hands clutching her skirt.

The boy's head burst from the water, and he was screaming, clutching his face, and thrashing while he tried desperately to find the shore. He crawled onto the bank and collapsed in a snarl of cattails. Their brown heads quivered above him.

The dark energy continued to whirl furiously, but Chang Chang could see the pond's surface bubbling. The floating plants and moss shriveled up and turned black, their essences consumed by the Soul-plague. Soon, the water itself began to recede, pulling away from the bank and leaving behind a jagged shelf of claylike soil.

The boy rolled onto his back, his eyes staring vacantly at the crater where the pond had been. Streaks of blood ran down his cheeks. He climbed unsteadily to his feet and ran blindly into the green glade, away from the empty crater.

He stumbled and fell against the oak tree. There was a loud, sickening crack. The boy screamed and clutched his arm. He stumbled and ran on. The boy vanished, the glade melted from green to brown, and suddenly a small parody of a village square grew from the ship's hull. The tallest buildings stood to the port and starboard side. Each adjacent building was smaller than these, making the village appear to recede down a long tunnel.

An old woman hobbled across the dusty path down the center of the village, passing in front of a thatched house with no windows. In the open doorway, a sullen boy crouched, playing with the rocks at his feet. A dirty linen bandage covered his left eye. The other was red and swollen. He blinked rapidly when the wind kicked up.

That same wind yanked the old woman's shawl from across her shoulders. The scrap of green fabric tumbled through the dust and tangled with the boy's dirty feet.

Wearing an irritated expression, the boy tore the shawl away and started to hurl it across the square, but he stopped when he saw the old woman. They watched each other—the shawl dangling from the boy's hand—each unsure what to do. Slowly, the old woman walked to the doorway and stood over the boy. When she stretched out her hand, he put the shawl in it and started to back away, but she caught his hand in both of hers.

"I am so sorry about your soul, boy," she said. "Your soul is failing you.. Someday soon, we both of us will have to help each other."

"I'm not dying," the boy cried. "I don't need any help! Let go—your hands hurt." The boy struggled to loose his hand, but the old woman clutched him tighter.

"It's all right to be scared," she said. "It' s all right to be scared."

"You're cold," the boy whimpered. His hand had turned blue in the woman's grip. "Your hands are too cold. Get away from me!"

He shoved her. She dropped his hand and fell in the hard dirt. Her cry of pain brought more figures running from the neighboring buildings. The boy ran inside his house, screaming, "Mother!"

The old woman's shawl drifted away on the wind. Chang Chang's eyes were still following the patch of green when the scene changed again.