THE BLUE BOY
by Lynn K. Hollander
Prologue
MINDO
Ingelram watched the four men poke and jab at each other. From the stables, he could not hear them, but it seemed that they were arguing. The four men turned from the closed gate and walked through the orchard. At the far end of the orchard, they helped each other up to the top of the wall. Suddenly, there was a cry and a thud and a yelp as one of the four slipped over the wall and landed on the rocks at the river's edge.
Ingelram jerked his head up. The three men still on the wall called down to the fallen man in his father's accent. "Hey," he started to say, then hushed as he saw a shadow move out from the darkness surrounding the main castle and silently approach the three remaining men. Ingelram froze, his dark blue shirt and darker blue trousers blending with the darkness of the interior of the stables. The shadow did not even glance at him, but without a sound moved from the shelter of tree to tree through the orchard.
From the walled garden, a figure in a long white robe opened the gate and walked across the yard to the castle door. This figure did not look at the orchard or any of the other men as he hurried into the dimly lit castle. Ingelram looked back at the wall. No one was there. Quickly, but not as silently as the single shadow, he slipped from the stables, across the service road, through the kitchen garden and into the circle enclosure.
"Mommy!" he said. "Mommy, I want to come home." The pale circle in the dark moss started to glow. "Mommy! I don't like it here." A gleaming ring of light slowly brightened above the stone circle. He stepped through the ring and emerged in daylight.
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