With nods all around, they mounted and rode on more briskly than before. They came to a rise before they had gotten quite a furlong.
“The graveyard,” said Herio. “See that stone fence yonder? Do y'all mind? Looks like hit's the one thing not torn up or burnt down.”
Of course no one minded. When they reached the gate, they found it crowded with rows upon rows of muddy, newly mounded graves.
“I won't be but a minute or two,” said Herio, throwing his leg over Gwynt's rump.
“Sure, Herio, we understand,” said Hubba Hubba, giving a serious nod. “Take all the time ye need.” He could see that Herio had suddenly gotten quite pale.
Herio was already hurrying up to the mounds. A new wooden sign read: “Yonder Lie the Bones of the Brave People of Ash Fork, Mordred by the Witch Queen Spitemorta and Her Slave Army.” He jogged up to the graves. Each one had a wooden marker. The first one read: “Brave Woman.” His heart was already in his throat. He scurried frantically along, inspecting each marker in turn. There were no names on any of them. Suddenly he spied in their midst two stone markers. He raced up to them to find inscriptions carved into boards and driven into the ground beside the stones. The first read: “Cefnogi Rhywun. Eleven Year. Hero of Ash Fork Massacre.”
“Forever, tough little brother!” sobbed Herio, as he dropped to his knees and lightly ran his hand over the marker. “You'll always be in my heart!” But it was a glance at the other marker that undid him. It read: “Poor Woman Found Hanging beside Cefnogi Rhywun. Reckoned to be His Dear Mother and the Mother of Herio, Protector of the Queen.”
“Mom!” he cried out with a wail that at once brought Hubba Hubba and the sparrows on the wing. “Somehow, somehow I thought...!” By now he was on his face, sobbing into the dirt of her mound. After a long spell, he sat up. “Mom, I promise you that I will not rest until I see that witch dead,” he said with a quiet shudder. Then he saw that he was ringed by four very wide-eyed birds with long faces, silent as stones. “I'm ready now,” he said as he got to his feet.
“You ones don't have to go on our account,” said Hubba Hubba. “We just flew over to stand by ye.”
“Oh I'm ready, fellows. I had to say goodbye to my old family. You all are my family now, you all and Queen Minuet. Let's go.” He was astride Gwynt in a trice.
Just beyond the cemetery they found a huge pile of skeletons still wearing pieces of Gollish armor. A pike was set in the ground like a post, with a grinning skull impaled on its point. A sign was fastened to the shaft which read: “Reap Ye the Spoils of the Pitmaister in the Pit Which You Haven Digged!”
“Whew!” said Herio with a shudder. “Still stinks.”
Hubba Hubba stared at the words, beak agape. He clacked it shut, fluffed up and shook all over. “These ghosts are starting to get to me, Herio,” he said. “It does stink! And I think we need to get as far from this place as we can before we camp.”
“You're quite right, Hubba. This is no place to be anymore. Let's go, Gwynt.”
***
Spitemorta was furiously angry with Demonica. Her little flourish of getting even with her over the birth wasn't nearly as well conceived as she had hoped. She paced back and forth in a fuming agitation of silk and lace. “Throw her into the pit!” she chuffed with a snarl as she flung a statuette to crash across the tea table. “The witch is ugly and in the way, so why, why, why does she always have to end up being right?”
She stopped short with a sudden smile. “Why, I haven't told James about our twins,” she said, erupting with a laugh. “How negligent of me.” At once she was underway for the dungeon, pounding the hard heels of her brocaded silk shoes.
***
“I wish to visit the king (if he still lives),” she said, the crook of her finger hiding her smirk.
“Ah...yes, yes!” said the wide-eyed guard, springing from his stool, nearly falling. “Yes indeed Your Majesty,” he said, frantically fumbling with his keys as a white hot fire flooded his chest. It had been a few days since he had seen an empty bowl shoved back out from under the door, and he had not bothered to check. At last he managed to get the proper key into the hole.
“My dear fellow,” she said with aloof sweetness, “have you been running?”
“Why no, Your Majesty...”
“Well, perhaps you should. You seem so terribly out of breath. Your job requires you to be in good condition. From now on, I expect to see you practicing running each day when you aren't on duty. Now what are we waiting for?”
“We need a light,” he stammered as he thrust the end of a torch into the coals of the firepot by the door. “Right this way then, Your Majesty.”
“My! I guess you'll have to spend your time mucking out cells as well as running, Warden. It's putrid!”
“Yes, yes, Your Majesty. I certainly shall. Please mind your step. The sewage down the middle of the passage is not pleasant on your shoes.”
They were at James's cell in short order, the guard nervously fumbling one handedly through the ring of keys as he waved the torch aimlessly about with the other. At last the door groaned inward on its hinges as shadows danced and waved in the orange light.
“James!” snapped Spitemorta. “Don't you dare lie there with your back to me. Get up! I came to brighten your day with some news... Phew! Our twins have arrived. A dead little boy who looked just like you, and a gorgeous little girl who looks like me...Hey!”
She stepped up and grabbed him by the arm. He seemed awfully resistant for not having made one of his scathing retorts.
“Warden! Fetch the light over here.”
The guard stepped through the straw and held out the torch with trembling hands.
With a yank on James's arm, she hove him over, flat side up, as the black beetles on the wet spot under him scurried around to get out of the light. “Hand me the light and the keys, Warden,” she said as though he were the neighbor's child, caught with a fistful of candy. “No! You'll have to stay right where you're standing...” She stepped out and closed and locked the door. “You see, Warden, your prisoner is not James. He may be every bit as entertaining as James, but I do know James when I see him and I'm afraid he has traded places with your bloated guard, here, on your watch. So, you can stay here as long as you live and watch him. Ta-Ta!”
Chapter 122
Karl-Veur studied Yann-Ber's bandaged face with his grim blue eyes.
“You'll do it then?” croaked Yann-Ber, barely above a whisper.
Karl-Veur let out a tight-lipped breath and nodded.
Yann-Ber relaxed against his pillow, closing his eyes with a sigh. An olive veery called out its ethereal cascade through the boughs of spruce beyond the window.
“I'm sorry about this,” said Karl-Veur, clearing his throat after a spell. “This is all very awkward. I expect that this will be right painful for you, but you certainly have a right to know...”
“Know what?” he said, straining to rise out of his pillow. “I've nearly seen it all, don't you know. That vicious rock of Father's was rather small alongside the rest of it. You can tell me anything, so long as you'd be so good as to add a pillow behind my head, first.”
“Certainly,” said Karl-Veur, snapping up one from atop a pile of folded linen on a chair beside the bed. “How's that?”
“Well? Here I sit, listening.”
“It's Yuna...”
“Yuna?” he croaked, suddenly sitting completely upright for the first time. “How's she doing? Nothing bad has happened, has it?”
“Oh she's in perfect health. She's fine these days, though she was thoroughly shattered and heartbroken when you left her. Surely you'd expect that when you and she had only been wed a fortnight when Demonica got you...Oh my! I'm sorry. We could easily discuss it later...”
“Oh please finish. Yes, hearing her name was quite a jolt. You can't imagine how I've been tormented by my guilt over her. But since you've commenced, stopping here would be much the worse punishment. Please carry on.”
&nbs
p; “Well,” said Karl-Veur, addressing the bedpost, “she was heartbroken, as I said, and I was right envious of you for winning her heart. I was madly in love with her, but she was set on you and knew nothing at all of my feelings.”
“My word! This is certainly new to me.”
“Of course. How could I possibly have managed to tell you? She was yours.”
“Until I tripped up in Demonica's evil web and betrayed her, she was,” said Yann-Ber, sinking back into his pillows with a sigh. “Oh, I am the fool of fools all right, Karl-Veur. I do indeed deserve a big portion of what I endure...”
“Fiddlesticks! No one deserves what you're being put through.”
“Well, carry on. You surely had more.”
“Yes actually. The best part as far as I'm concerned, though I'm not sure how kind it is of me to be parading such things in front of you, but Yuna and I have been married for nigh onto four years. We've been very happy.”
“Yea, until this very minute!” he said, sitting up again in agitation. “Leaving her to you seems to be the only decent accomplishment of my life, and now I come back and capsize that. You and Yuna have a right to love and happiness. I would never knowingly interfere.”
“I do not feel that you have come along and done that, Yann-Ber. Your condition is upsetting to us all, as are your ominous tidings, but I can't imagine that you bring anything with which we would be incapable of coping, and certainly nothing which you bring is ill conceived or harmful on your part. Have you considered what Yuna might make of all this?”
“I don't understand...”
“Well, I've not really had time to discuss it with her much, but she was stunned by your return in your condition. She wants to see you. She's right outside...”
“Now? This minute?”
Karl-Veur gave a miserable swallow with his nod. “Shall I send her in?”
“You seriously want this?”
“Well no, but what can we do? How can any of us go on with this left hanging over our heads?”
“Yes, I see your point,” said Yann-Ber, collapsing back onto his pillows with a sigh. He studied the ceiling, listening to the veery. A red-eyed cuckoo called from somewhere away in the garden. “But I've caused more pain and damage than my conscience will ever bear as it is. Please don't let my return mar your happiness. How could I die in peace knowing that my last act was to ruin your life?”
“Yann-Ber, if your return destroys what Yuna and I have, then we've nothing between us in the first place, and we've been living a lie all this time. I've always been a realist. You know that.”
“Yes, I well remember that about you, and I've certainly envied you for it on more than one occasion.”
***
“Thou art resolved for to reskew Kyng James from Spitemortas dungeon, thanne?” said Nacea, as she made a final pass over the noodle dough with her rolling pin and came around the board to sit beside Lance.
He glanced at Nacea and Alvita, busy rolling out noodles, keenly following every word. “I can't just leave him there, Mother,” he said. “You know it's death for him if I do. Besides, Abaddon is in the best of hands. James is in peril.”
“And thou wolt an olde Ffairye hir dotynge grippe for to foryeven,” she said as she stood and pulled his head to her bosom with her floury hands. “Hit aynt esy for to sende out oure oonly child in-to the myddell of peril (corageous man thogh hee bethe), but thy forth-right honour whiche maketh thee ga oure proude hertes to seyl awey free in-to the hevenes ysette.”
And with that, Lance found himself being embraced, rocked and squeezed by Alvita, Nacea and Celeste and even Rodon.
“Weo wol love thy Kyng for to meete,” said Celeste, holding him out at arm's length, “Now seyst thou farwell to the smal helle-hond and ga, whilom weo make redy for thine joysome retourne.”
***
He found Abaddon playing quietly with the yarn dolls which he insisted were “soldiers.”
“So. You'll be leaving now,” said Abaddon without looking up. “I have no choice as you well know, Abbey,” he said, squatting beside him.
“Sure,” he said with a shrug and gravel in his throat, still refusing to look up.
“He's your friend. He's your best friend, and he counts 'way more 'n I do!”
Lance went wide eyed at the resentment he heard in Abaddon's voice. “These days, you've gotten to be my friend too, Abbey,” he said, putting his hand on the boy's shoulder, “but you know as well as I do what's going to happen to him if I don't get him out...”
“Well go then!” he said, flinging away Lance's hand. “But you're too late!”
“How? Wait a minute! You say I'm too late?”
“If you're so ready to leave, just go, but someone else rescued your friend James.”
“What?”
“I said somebody got him out...”
“Who?”
“I don't know. Some stupid knaves. Boy, is my momma ever goin' 'o kill them bad if she catches them. They'd better never get caught.”
“How do I know you're not making up all this so I'll not leave?”
“You think I'd lie about something like this?” cried Abaddon with wounded fury.
“Yea. I'm sorry to say so, but from what I've seen, if it got you what you wanted, you sure might.”
Abaddon yanked his scrying crystal from his neck, flung it at Lance and dashed out of sight into the lava tube.
Lance glanced at the talisman in his hands. “He was scrying the very moment I walked in!” he gasped, riveting his gaze back upon it. “Fates! Is that James? It is! He looks like a bearded ghost. And I don't know a one of those knaves, but each one of 'em looks familiar.” He gave the pendant a thoughtful heft before clenching it tight in his fist as he sprang to his feet to find Abaddon. “I sure hope my putting it straight to him hasn't undone everything.”
***
“Oh my!” thought Yann-Ber, going wide-eyed at the sight of the young woman who came quietly to his side to give his bandaged hand a tentative pat.
“Yann-Ber?” she said with a flicker of smile as she took a step back from the bedside to gaze down at him.
“My word, Yuna. Karl-Veur said you were doing well, but you're simply stunning. That doesn't sound right. I don't mean to overstep the bounds of propriety...”
“Thank you,” she said, as look of pity came and went. “I wish I could return the complement. I came here hoping to show you how well I've been doing, and now that I see you, I feel mean. That witch! First she drags you away with a spell so that you lust after her and throw away the woman who loved you since she was a little girl. Then she smites you with this mortal spell of heskidi...”
“Yuna! I...”
“And she'd jolly well better die in agony and rot for all time in the Nine Deepest Pits of Damnation!”
“I never expected you to be so outspoken.”
“No,” she said, dropping her gaze to her toes before looking away at the spruce tree just outside. “Neither did I. I was prepared for your condition before I came, but the very sight of you...”
“Like someone escaped from a crypt. It's probably best to remember me as I was when you last saw me.”
“That wouldn't do. You were delirious after Demonica, telling me that you'd never, never loved me.”
“Fates forbid! I'm so horribly ashamed. But make no mistake, but I'm truly pleased that you and Karl-Veur have made a happy life for yourselves. I can see it by the very way you look. I've tossed and turned countless nights since, haunted by the sight of you when I pushed you away. I'd give anything had I never done such a thing, but at least I'm getting what I deserve. At least you can be glad I'm getting what I earned.”
“And how could I ever be glad of such an awful thing?” she said, giving the edge of his bed a scolding shake. “Oh, believe me right well when I say I was torn to shreds for the longest time, but I've healed with a new found strength and a new found life, and I've always been above the like of vengeance. Well, at least never toward you,
anyway, but I could snuff out that witch in the blink of an eye, had I only the means.”
“You might change your mind when you hear what I've asked your husband to do.”
“Maybe not. I haven't discussed it with him yet, but just maybe not. Your dear friends, Rose and Fuzz introduced themselves and explained your plan while I was waiting outside, and it just might be my 'means.' I really like them, by the way, and they truly hold you in the highest regard.”
“Fuzz and Rose are simply wonderful. I'm right glad you saw them.”
Yuna nodded and they fell into a silence that quickly became uncomfortable. “I must go,” she said, “but there is just one more thing...”
“Oh?”
“Digarezit ac'hanon mar plij,” she said, quickly stepping out to return with a handsome blue-eyed boy. “This is Yann-Ber...”
“The boy or me?” stammered Yann-Ber.
“Both of you...”
“Well, my word! He looks seven or eight...”
“Yann-Ber is seven,” she said as she stroked the boy's thick black hair. “and yes, he was three when Karl-Veur and I wed.”
“With the scant two weeks we had I'd hardly...”
She nodded and put her finger to her lips.
“You named him...for me,” he choked as Yuna nodded and quickly ushered the boy from the room. “Thank you!” he called after. He dropped back into his pillows. The cuckoo called out from the spruce by the window. “That was a silly thing for me to holler out. I have a boy! At least some of me will live on after all.”
***
Lance found Abaddon skipping rocks across the simmering hot spring into which he had tried to fling Rodon's pet. “Hey Abbey!” he called out as he came. “Here's your crystal. I saw what was in it. I truly appreciate your saving me from one perilously dangerous journey.”
“Yea? I screwed up not letting you go. Momma and Nanna Demonica would 'ave fixed you good. It would 'a' been fun.”
“I'm sure they would have, but, you didn't let that happen. So, once again, thanks!”
Heart of the Staff - Complete Series Page 134
