The Morsarf and her sister ships reared up in full sail to meet her. A shudder ran through her at the recollection of vomiting over the side of the Flying Maiden. “Coel needs to earn the right to be so stinking comfortable in front of me,” she said between her clenched teeth, as she veered into great sweeping circles of the first ship, straining for a glimpse of General Cunedda. “There he is on the poop deck with Captain Bateman.” She circled the ship once more and landed before him, as if she had just stepped off the dais in her throne room.
Cunedda covered his sudden start with a deep and gracious bow.
“Get on,” she said, the moment he looked up. “We're off to see General Coel.” She threw her leg over the hovering staff and waited.
“But you're no pystryor, General,” said Captain Bateman.
“No,” said Cunedda, stepping over the Staff at once to hide his momentary paralysis, “but I've been given an order.”
The moment he had grabbed on, Spitemorta lunged into flight, nearly jerking the Staff from his hands. “So, pystryor is your word for what, General? Wizard? Sorcerer?”
“Either one, Your Majesty,” he said, blinded by her flying hair. Suddenly it was good that he could not see, for he knew that they were flying upside down. As a wincing pain shot through his head, they swooped from the heavens, hurtling for the poop deck, where Bateman stood transfixed, watching them come.
Spitemorta aimed the Staff, shooting out a ruby beam from the Heart, setting off Bateman's head with a deep rolling boom like a cannon at sea, flinging his arms end over end into the water on either side of the ship. “Bateman's mistake, losing his head like that,” she said as they went back aloft, “wouldn't you say?”
“Yes yes, Your Majesty.”
“And you're much too brave to lose yours.”
“Oh?”
“Why yes, General,” she said, slowing down as if they were on some sunny Sunday afternoon ride. “You got on behind me.”
“As I told Bateman, those were my orders.”
“Well going back to him, I've never once in my entire life got to watch a proper maritime keelhauling. And I so wanted to give him a good slow one first, don't you know, but we just don't have that kind of time this afternoon. So General?”
“Yes, Your Majesty?”
“Next time we're at sea, would you be so kind as to have one of your more disappointing men demonstrate one for me?”
“Well if... Certainly. By all means, Your Majesty,” he said, dreading at once what he had undoubtedly committed himself to.
And with that, they shot away for the Flying Maiden. General Coel was on deck, watching them arrive.
Spitemorta stepped off the Staff in a triumph of smooth aplomb as Cunedda dashed to the railing to turn red and cough out a great spewing shower of white boiled milk which the wind blew back onto his hose and boots. “Perfect!” she thought, turning to Coel as though she had not noticed, “except that Cunedda is not Coel.”
“Your Majesty,” said Coel, rising from his bow. “Now you see why I stayed on deck.
“I do indeed,” she said with the icy sweetness of a school-marm, “since Cunedda had the fortitude and the sense of duty to get on behind me.”
Coel stood there with a look of bright eyed amusement.
“Damn him!” thought Spitemorta. “So if you've no objection, General Coel,” she said serenely, “please see us to your quarter.”
Inside, Coel had Cunedda sit on the bed and offered him a fresh cloth and the same pitcher and basin he had brought to Spitemorta.
“He gets the very same treatment as me?” she thought, turning aside to fidget and pace while waiting for Cunedda to pull himself together.
“So you told General Cunedda about Niarg setting off the gonne powder in Castle Goll?” said Coel as he busied himself flattening out a rolled up map on the table and setting an inkwell and three teacups on its corners.
“You've got a good start, it seems,” she said, looking him up and down with her fiery eyes of chestnut. “And you need a lesson in deference,” she thought.
“Well General,” said Coel, looking up with a shrug, “they sure did.”
“So shall we discuss what is to be done about it?” she said.
“That's what we're here for, Your Majesty,” he said with an agreeable nod fit for equals. “Now, what about Niarg's army?”
“What am I supposed to tell you?”
Coel drew a breath and shared a look with Cunedda before going on: “By that I mean, did you see any sign of them on your way here?”
“Other than my burnt out castle?” she said, as if he had no grasp of the obvious. “And before you ask, no one in Castlegoll told me a thing.”
“Your Majesty, if I may,” said Cunedda, setting aside the wash basin, “that stick we just flew on gives us the fastest means of finding the enemy. If you were to fly about the countryside surrounding Castlegoll...”
“You actually expect me to locate the Niarg army? What do you think I have you for?”
General Cunedda took a deep breath and stood up to begin pacing about the room. “General Coel and I can indeed find the Niarg army all by ourselves, but it will take us far longer on the ground than it would for you in the air,” he said, turning on his heel to face her. “To begin with, we have at least another three day's sailing to reach Oyster Cove. When we get there, we'll have to work our way inland without being caught. And you know that they'll be expecting us and have an ambush waiting.”
“That staff is quite a military tool indeed, if you think about it,” said Coel, calmly taking a chair by the table. “You could find their army right now. But don't those Niarg folks have quite a reputation with the longbow? And can't you die from an arrow through the heart, just like the rest of us?”
“Demonica got it through the shoulder flying over Castle Niarg, just before we were in Gwael,” she said, irritated by finding herself enjoying his concern.
“How about your pellwolok?” said Coel. “Can't you use it as a pellweler?”
“My what?”
“That stone ball of yours. I know you can talk to your subjects with it, but can't you also see people in it who are so far away that they're completely out of sight?”
“Yea, but I have to know exactly where they are, first.”
“I see,” he said with a thoughtful nod. “Rules that out. And by the way, just what became of Demonica, anyway?”
“She became inconvenient.”
Coel stopped short.
“Got him!” thought Spitemorta as she caught him sharing a wide-eyed glance with Cunedda. She watched Cunedda sitting back down on the bed as she listened to the creaking of the ship's timbers while it gently heaved and fell like some behemoth in deep sleep under her feet. “Oh I definitely want to get Niarg's rogue army,” she said the moment she saw that she had the undivided attention of each of them. “I want every single stinking one of them dead, several times over. But my first concern is securing Goll and Niarg. I want to rebuild at once. I want a new castle at Niarg and one at Goll, though I intend to make Niarg the new capitol of Niarg-Loxmere-Goll. And I want to wash my new land with the blood of Niarg's army.
“All right,” said Coel, glancing at a nod from Cunedda, “then what be your orders, Your Majesty?”
“General Cunedda, you will continue on to Oyster Cove, where you will go overland to the ruins of my castle,” she said in the rising tones of one slowly pacing before a blackboard. “There you will secure the lands about and build a new Castle Goll.” She stopped to tap at her tooth. “General Coel and I shall return to Niarg where we shall find the labor to build a new castle there.”
Cunedda stared at something off in the immediate future and ended with a sigh of resignation. “And when we surprise Niarg's army on the way to Castlegoll?” he said.
“What kind of question is that? If you're a general, you engage them.”
“A cooperative question, I believe, with Your Gracious Majesty's pardon. I mean, do you want every
last one of them slain, or should they be made captive?”
“I want them taken prisoner. Their executions will be glorious and provide days of revelry and entertainment, once my castles are up.”
“That sounds like an excellent plan, Your Majesty,” said Coel, “but might I suggest another possibility?”
“I'm listening.”
“Well, look 'ee here at this map,” he said as he stood up and thumped the middle of the table with his stub of a forefinger. “Your rogue Niarg army is almost certain to be set up somewhere along the Loxmere River, waiting for us to come back the way we went down. If General Cunedda takes his army and marches upstream overland on one side, well away from the river, like this, and I take my army and go upstream overland on the other side, well away from the river, like this, our scouts could locate where they're set up, waiting for us. Then we could close in and trap them between us.” He thumped the map like a full stop and gave a quick nod to Cunedda. “And Your Majesty, if you want a labor force for the new castles, what would be better than an army of captive soldiers?”
“I love it!” she said with a sudden giddy bounce as both Generals looked up, wide eyed. “And when the castles are done, we could have a grand festival where we could draw and quarter them for days.”
“You'd not consider burning them in wicker men to release their souls?” said Cunedda.
Spitemorta threw back her head and laughed until tears came to her eyes.
***
Rose was enchanted by the sight of Queen Vorona's rambling one storey mansion, hiding well back in the shade of its own great eaves of big bluestem thatch. Tramman led her and Fuzz and Karl-Veur through a part in the cascades of lavender wisteria hiding the front door and knocked. A very agitated house wren scolded them with its chatter, flying back and forth in front of a wee hole in the wall as they waited. An old hen with her chicks wandered about under the eaves.
Presently heavy old Grayse opened the door in her cherry stained apron. “Now is this everyone?” she said, giving a hurried glance at the lot of them.
“Yeap.” said Tramman. “All three.”
“Well now you ones come right in,” she said, tottering just a bit as she waved them in. “Here she be. Here's Queen Vorona now.”
“I'm Vorona,” said the queen, holding out her hand. “And you must be Princess Rose.”
Rose gave a full curtsey at once.
“Oh go on!” said Vorona. “I don't need all that respect just so I can feel important. Come give me a hug.”
Rose hugged her at once with wide eyes of astonishment. Never had she seen the like in any royal house she had visited, not even at Oilean Gairdin.
“You've had quite a time a-getting here, haven't you dear? Well I'm right glad to see that your baby's in perfect shape.”
Suddenly Rose gave a bounce and found herself giving the old queen another hug.
“Now who are these fine young men?” said Vorona, turning to Fuzz and Karl- Veur. Directly she was seating them at the board in her kitchen and helping Grayse serve them pie and tea.
“This is much too beautiful a day to be a-sitting in here,” she said when she was satisfied that everyone had gotten all the pie he wanted. “Let's go out into the garden and visit. Grayse? Would you put this back where it goes?” She handed her an ancient book which had been by her saucer and stood up, motioning for everyone to follow. Soon they were out amongst the calls of doves and orioles, wending between peonies, roses and bushes and vines of all manner of honeysuckle being tended by scores of hummingbirds everywhere they looked. In spite of her wispy white hair and frail looks, she was fast, and it was clear that she was not about to wait on anyone, either.
“She's going to get away from us if we don't shake a leg,” said Fuzz quietly as he walked behind Rose, leading everyone else.
Rose paused for a moment. “Did you hear Inney say that she's over two thousand years old?” she said in a hushed voice.
“Fates!” said Karl-Veur, speaking out.” They even age better than we do.”
Rose raised her finger to her smile and shook her head.
“That's a problem?” said Fuzz.
“Nay, not with them,” said Karl-Veur, “It's me. I envy the things that they can do, and I envy their peaceful life. They seem altogether free of the endless power struggles which I've spent my life around. See this leg? I'd cut it off right here and spend the rest of my days on a walking stick if Yuna, young Yan-Ber and I could live like these Elves. Do I sound like a fool?”
“Not in the least,” said Fuzz. “But they've had to work for it like everyone else. Remember that the strike falcons are for fighting great hoards of bloodthirsty trolls which still come in the night and take women and children to feast on. And that's also why most of the Elves sailed across the sea. But you're quite right. Balley Cheerey has a kind heart.”
Tramman and Olloo came up behind them to plant their feet, nod at each other and give a hearty thumbs up.
“Well told, Sir Karlton Strong,” said Vorona, taking them by surprise from the other end. “And Prince?”
“Yes Your Majesty?”
“You're free to live here as long as you like in order to learn how we do things. You can even bring back Yuna and Yann-Ber, if I heard ye right. And since you have your own shawk spoogh, you're already a Balley Cheerey Elf. But I'll not have you ones cutting off your leg. Ye hear?”
“Thank you,” he said with a modest nod.
“Now,” she said, turning about and starting to walk, “I've got something to show you ones, right yonder.”
Directly, they came to a blinding white limestone statuary of a huge feathered dragon, endlessly pouring water from an urn into a basin large enough to wade in, which overflowed into a pond teaming with golden carp. Vorona sat at once on a circular stone bench in front of the statuary. “Come have a seat with an old woman, Rose,” she said, patting the spot beside her. She had Fuzz sit on the other side of her and Karl-Veur, Tramman and Olloo across from her.
“The fountain is beautiful,” said Rose, “and so very lifelike that I'd swear it could take flight if it weren't the color of limestone.”
“I need to bring you ones back here after dark to see the torches alight. It makes the running water look like fire.”
“I'd love to meet the sculptor, someday.”
“You already have.”
“I'm afraid that got by me. I've scarcely had the chance to meet anyone at all, since I've been here.”
“You're a-looking right at her.”
“You're certainly gifted,” said Rose. “I suppose that you have a lifetime of sculpture all over the place. I'd love to see anything else, you've done.”
“Karr-Nij there is everything I've ever done. I used to watch my husband when he chiseled things out of limestone.”
“Karr-Nij?” said Karl-Veur. “That's Headlandish. People are named that where I'm from.”
“Makes sense. He said he was from right south of Head, which he also called Pennvro. He said he was from the Mammvro, the land of the dragons. That's how I knew that Douar-Noz was the same thing as the Dark Continent...”
“Yea!” said Karl-Veur. “The Red Lands. I know where that is. The vile sorceress Demonica coerced my grandfather into selling it to her when he was emperor. So how on earth did you meet this Karr-Nij?”
“He appeared here one day, maybe twenty or twenty-five year ago,” she said as she studied the backs of her hands. “Flew the whole way. He said he returned to his clan's big cavern after a hunt and found them all gone. Nothing left but piles and piles of their feathers. So he stayed here for a good year or better. We became good friends. He had been apprentice to the great dragon sculptor, An Daouarn, so he found some good limestone for me in the Eternal Mountains and helped me get started. It took me months and months. One day, right after I'd finished, he just plain vanished. I haven't seen him since.” Meadowlarks called from out in the Strah as she paused to idly smooth the folds of her kirtle where it crossed her k
nee.
“So where are the Eternal Mountains?” said Rose.
“Right east,” said Vorona, as a pair of lambs bleated and jingled their bells, catching up with their ewe beyond the garden wall. “You have to get above the grass to get a good look at them. I'll take you ones up to the top of Creg Boayl Arrey for a look at it, off in the distance. And that reminds me, Rose. You met a Fire Sprite, down by the sea.”
“Yes. That's what she called herself. She talked to me by putting words into my head. It gave me goose flesh. It makes me shudder even now.”
“I know. They spoke to me when I was a girl and again on our way here, but I do remember. Did she give you her name?”
“Radella, if I'm not mistaken.”
“Radella! She could be the very one who led us through the mountain when we came out here to live, a thousand year ago. What did she have to say?”
“Well, she wanted to know if I had seen any Elves. I told her that I had not, since she was the very first person I'd seen since I had washed ashore from my ship going down, but that my brother was married to an Elf. And when she found out that my brother and his wife and I all live across the sea, she got very excited over finding out that Faragher and his brother Neron (who's now the king of the Jutland Elves) still live...”
“Just as we are,” said Vorona, sharing nods with Olloo and Tramman. “Did she say anything else?”
“Well, she wanted to know if my brother and his Elven wife had children. When I said that they had twins, she went grave at once and said that there was now a great peril afoot, and said something about a prophecy...”
Vorona was already nodding. “That old book I had at the table has it written down in it.”
“Would that be what we call the 'Elven Prophecy?'“
“I'd reckon ye might, if you've never heard of Fire Sprites,” said Vorona. “They're the ones who came up with it. Now, in the old book, it talks about two powerful witches who are supposed to set out to take over the whole world, and...”
Heart of the Staff - Complete Series Page 161
