For Love of Mother-Not - Alan Dean Foster [20]
In fact, the experience was so radically new that he had nothing to compare it with. Yet it was loneliness; of that he was certain. Loneliness and something else equally intense and recognizable: hunger. A gnawing, persistent desire for food.
The feelings were so bright and uncomplicated that Flinx couldn’t help but wonder at their source. They beat insistently on his mind, refusing to fade away. Never before had such emotions been so open to him, so clear and strong. Normally, they would begin to fade, but these grew not weaker but stronger—and he did not have to strain to hold them at bay. They kept hammering at him until his mind finally gave in and woke him up.
Flinx rubbed at his eyes. It was pouring outside the shop, and the narrow window over the bed admitted the dim light of Moth’s multiple moons, which somehow seeped through the nearly unbroken cloud cover. Flinx had rarely seen the bright rust-red moon called Flame or its smaller companions, but he’d spent his years of study well, and he knew where the light came from.
Slipping silently from the bed, he stood up and pulled on pants and shirt. A glow light bathed the kitchen and dining area in soft yellow. Across the way, ragged snores came from the vicinity of Mother Mastiff’s bedroom. The loneliness he sensed was not hers.
The feeling persisted into wakefulness. Not a dream, then, which had been his first thought. The back of his head hurt with the strength of it, but though the actual pain was beginning to fade, the emotion was still as strong as it had been in sleep.
He did not wake Mother Mastiff as he inspected the rest of the kitchen area, the bathroom, and the single narrow closet. Quietly, he opened the front door and slipped out into the stall. The shutters were locked tight, keeping out weather and intruders alike. The familiar snoring provided a comforting background to his prowling.
Flinx had grown into a lithe young man of slightly less than average height and mildly attractive appearance. His hair was red as ever, but his dark skin now hid any suggestion of freckles. He moved with a gracefulness and silence that many of the older, more experienced marketplace thieves might have envied. Indeed, he could walk across a room paved with broken glass and metal without making a sound. It was a technique be had picked up from some of Drallar’s less reputable citizens, much to Mother Mastiff’s chagrin. All a part of his education, he had assured her. The thieves had a word for it: “skeoding,” meaning to walk like a shadow. Only Flinx’s brighter than normal hair made the professional purloiners cluck their tongues in disapproval. They would have welcomed him into their company, had he been of a mind to make thievery his profession. But Flinx would steal only if absolutely necessary, and then only from those who could afford it.
“I only want to use my ability to supplement my income,” he had told the old master who had inquired about his future intentions, “and Mother Mastiff’s, of course.”
The master had laughed, showing broken teeth. “I understand, boy. I’ve been supplementin’ my income in that manner goin’ on fifty years now.” He and his colleagues could not believe that one who showed such skill at relieving others of their possessions would not desire to make a career of it, especially since the youth’s other prospects appeared dim.
“Yer goin’ into the Church, I suppose?” one of the other thieves had taunted him, “t’become a Counselor First?”
“I don’t think the spiritual life is for me,” Flinx had replied. They all had a good laugh at that.
As he quietly opened the lock on the outside door, he thought back to what he had learned those past few years. A wise man did not move around Drallar late at night, particularly on so wet and dark a one. But he couldn’t go back to sleep without locating the source of the feelings that battered at him. Loneliness and hunger, hunger and loneliness, filled his mind with restlessness. Who could possibly be broadcasting twin deprivations of such power?
The open doorway revealed a wall of rain. The angled street