was little. Then, when your grandfolk died, it all came out again, everything he’d bottled up, and he cursed her for their deaths, too, blamed her all over again, but this time it was different. He bellowed at her as if she were hiding in the woods and could hear everything he said. He told her she’d killed them by breaking their hearts as surely as if she’d murdered them by her own hand.”
The idea terrified her. “Is that true? Did she?”
Dymphana leaned forward and took her hand. “Now, you think on it. Years had passed between her going and theirs. She wasn’t no more responsible than you was. They were old people. Whichever of them went first, the other was going to follow. Them Kuseks up on Ningle had more to do with your grandfather’s going than your mother and you. No, Leodora, your uncle’s like the Omelunes—he needs there to be someone responsible for all the bad things. Someone he can point at. I think he was in love with your mother a little bit, and I think part of it’s envy. I think there’s a part of Gousier that’d like to roam the spans, but the dutiful part tells him he has to stay here and maintain the tradition that his father maintained. An’ if he has to, then so does everyone else.”
Leodora stared, dumbfounded. Her aunt’s story revealed a depth of comprehension and thought that she’d never suspected. How could Dymphana think and see and know so much, and keep it all to herself? Why didn’t she feel as Leodora did the need to express her feelings—to fight the restrictions that were placed on her?
Then Leodora’s face clouded with another puzzle. “If the boy from Omelune is dead, then who is the man who thought I was my mother?”
“I expect he’s one of the other villagers, someone who didn’t leave there with the rest. There was a handful, tried to rebuild. I daresay he won’t come our way again, not now he believes the witch is still with us.”
“But how can he have been there for so many years and not come here before?”
Dymphana shrugged. “Life’s full of mysteries. Not all of ’em have answers, Leodora. Why did a storm destroy Omelune when it did? And why not Tenikemac?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, and you won’t, neither. The world has its mysteries. The gods have designs into which we and the world are woven.”
“But—” She stopped herself. “But how can anybody know if the things they’re doing are part of that plan or not?”
Dymphana smiled. “And aren’t you the deep thinker?” She tousled Leodora’s hair. “Better be careful asking that sort of question aloud, or the archivists of the Library will hear and come take you away to teach them.” She laughed at the look of bemused terror on Leodora’s face. “Oh, it’s just a myth, dear heart. The Library’s just a story.”
“It is?”
“Of course.”
In that case, she wondered, why hadn’t Soter taught it to her?
. . . . .
Two years later she did know the story of the Library of Shadowbridge, and far more than that.
By the time she turned fifteen, Soter had given up all his stories, and there were mermen and archivists of the Library in among the tales, along with Meersh, and two brothers who coveted each other’s gifts, and brides who drowned their husbands and husbands who beheaded their wives—of course Bardsham could have spun even more stories, but Soter had attended so many performances that he remembered a great many of them.
Now, instead of teaching her stories, he taught her how to take the elements and mix them together to make new ones. “Not until you can improvise from all you know will you become a true shadowmaster,” he told her. “That’s where your
father
truly excelled.” The way he said it suggested that he didn’t anticipate her excelling there ever. Yet she was devoted to the craft. She had every intention of succeeding. The world of the spans was going to be her oyster. She had decided. But while she laid her plans and
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