Heart of the Staff - Complete Series

by Carol Marrs Phipps

  “If you're cold, we could be alone in the parlour,” said Abaddon. “Everyone's been asleep for some time.”

  “Even with everyone getting ready to go to sea?” said Ariel. “I could hear voices when I came in. Somebody was up besides you. And since the diatrymas have already headed for the coast, Vyrpudi and Shot 'n' Stop will be in to bother us the moment they hear us talking. They're fun to be with, but when I'm about to go, I want my last moments to be alone with you, out in this moonlight.”

  “So do I,” he said, putting his arm around her. “I just wish that tomorrow wasn't tomorrow.”

  “Fates Abbey!” she said, stopping at once. “Please don't. I thought you were over all of this.”

  “I am,” he said, turning away as if to listen for the owl. “Now please. I can be altogether 'over all of this,' as you put it, and still wish it were otherwise. Can't I? I do indeed know why you must go, and I truly believe in you and Daniel. With you all going off to save the world, maybe I feel helpless, I mean plain useless, truth to tell.”

  “Useless? My word, Abbey! Staying behind to help protect everyone is anything but useless. And it could be perilous. If more of Spitemorta's army shows up here, who knows? They'd have gonne powder at the very least. And how much of her magic will she be tossing about before we get her? Let's enjoy our walk under the stars without another word of this. We'll face tomorrow in the morning.”

  “I swear you're always right,” he said as if he were suddenly relieved. “Now hold out your hand.” And he took from his neck the amulet he always wore.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I want you to wear this from now until you come home to me.”

  “Mercy, Abbey! Without this, she’ll find you if ever she tries to scry you.”

  Abaddon closed her fingers over the amulet. “No she won’t,” he said, shaking his head. “Spitemorta stopped scrying for me a very long time ago because she probably thought I was dead. You will wear it the whole time, won't you?”

  Ariel nodded.

  “Good!” he said. “Now here's the one that Lance wants Daniel to wear the same way.”

  “But Spitemorta has no idea where I am, so how could there be a risk of her scrying me?”

  “Don't count on it. She's already sent soldiers.”

  “Yea. And the moment she scries here, Abbey, she'll know that you're alive.”

  “Awww!” cried the owl, just out of sight nearby.

  “Maybe. But look 'ee here. The fate of the entire world rests on you, not me. And if you and Daniel can risk your lives, why shouldn't I?” A glowing yellow fire scorpion scuttled away from the path and vanished under a rock. “Hey look,” he said, squatting to see.

  “Hug me,” said Ariel as he stood up at once and took her into his arms. “I love you Abbey. And I always will.”

  “Just slay her and come live with me forever.”

  “I will, Abbey. I will!”

  ***

  Ash and Toast arrived for them in the next moments, so that Abaddon could see off Ariel and the others for Niarg from Rose's agave garden before daylight. He was in a daze when Toast flew him back to the Vaults of Loxmere to get some sleep, but the moment she left him on the ground and had leaped back into the starry sky, he was in motion, dashing all about to make certain that he had everything he needed.

  He had just put on his heavy woolen hose and quilted doublet, and was sitting on the edge of his bed, about to don his boots and cote-hardie when he heard a knock.

  “Shit!” he hissed.

  “I know you're in there, Abbey,” came Toast's voice. “And if you're sleeping, you can't be, because we're supposed to go hunting. And we're late because I just plain forgot.

  And besides...”

  “Come on in!” he hollered with a roll of his eyes.

  “Are ye dressed?”

  “How would that ever make a bit of difference to a dragon?”

  “Well it would to you, so I'm being polite and everything,” she said as she came in and stopped short. “My! Aren't you going to smother in all that, even if you are on my back?”

  “No, because I'm chilled. And I don't think I want to go...”

  “But you have to,” she said, going after an itch in the feathers on her rump. “You have to because you're only shivering because Ariel's gone. And the only way not to do that is to be out hunting. Right? I mean, we had to be out flying all the time because she was just training, so now that this is the real thing, we have to at least be out hunting the whole time we're flying...”

  “No, look. I think I'm sick. Please. Just leave me here, today.”

  “You going to vomit?”

  “I might.”

  “Very well,” she said, looking him up and down, “but I'll be back tomorrow, because if you don't go hunting, your thinking about Ariel all the time really will have you sick.”

  The instant she was out of sight, Abaddon pulled on his boots, put on his cote- hardie, got his staff from under the bed and found the box in his trunk with the scrying marble pendant which Demonica had given him all those years ago. He sat on the bed, studying the marble for some reasonable place to end up in Niarg. “Love of Fates, I hope this works,” he said as he began mumbling a traveling spell.

  Suddenly he was sitting in the potato peelings thrown behind the Silver Dragon as a half dozen hogs fled, ears flapping in terror, woofing and belching away into the alley.

  He immediately grabbed about, making certain that he still had his staff and scrying marble. He rolled onto his hands and knees at once, thinking for a moment that he might vomit before he got to his feet. He glanced at the sun and found that it was at least an hour and a half later than he had expected.

  “My word!” he said at the sight of Spitemorta's enormous coal black castle, looming over the town. He took a deep breath and set out for it at once. Dogs barked here and there as shopkeepers set up tables in the streets. Hawkers rattled their carts over the cobblestones. A huge flock of pigeons rose up in a great flapping eddy over the buildings near the castle. Inside the gate of the outer ward, he asked the guard what his chances might be of having an audience with the empress.

  “This is your day,” said the guard with his pike and polished helm. “She's having petitions and audiences at nine bell.”

  “Isn't it about two hours early?”

  “Hit's the best time. I'd get in there right now. Go have 'ee a seat.”

  Inside the inner gate, Abaddon looked up at the leering gargoyles and shuddered.

  He trotted his way up the gritty steps, paused to whisk at himself and walked inside. He was directed to the outer chamber of Spitemorta's throne room where he took his place on a long bench beside two others. Looking back at the commotion in the doorway, he could see that the guard had known what he was talking about. It was a long two hours. By nine o' clock, the benches all 'round the room were filled and a crowd of newcomers had gathered outside. Presently an orderly stepped out through the doors to the throne room.

  “Hear ye!” he called out, as heads came up 'round the room. “Petitions will not be heard this morning, since Her Omnipotence has been called away. You may return this afternoon at two bell, but bear in mind that the doors will close to petitions promptly at three as usual, and that she will not be granting audiences beyond ten, tomorrow.” And with that, he stepped back inside the throne room.

  A stir of grumbling and shaking of heads swept through the room as everyone got to his feet. Abaddon had no place to go, so he slid to the end of the bench near the doors and folded his arms. By the time everyone was gone, he was fast asleep.

  At two o' clock, Abaddon woke with a snort to find that there was a fellow next to him, giving him a shake.

  “Are you going in?” said the fellow. “I shall if you aren't.”

  Abaddon blinked, looked about and rose with his staff to go in.

  “I'll take your stick,” said a guard.

  Abaddon squinted at him.

  “I'll have it right
here for you when you come out. Kneel before addressing her.”

  Abaddon gave a nod and handed it over. It only took one glance up the black runner for him to be wide awake. “Fates!” he thought “There she is.” When he was close enough to see that she had not changed in the least since he had last seen her, his knees became so weak that his kneeling saved him from collapsing in front of her. She wasn't even looking at him.

  “Rise and speak,” she said in a tone fit for turning out a pet to relieve itself in the yard.

  “I've escaped and come home at last, Mother,” he said when he had risen.

  “You're dead,” she said, leveling the Staff at him. “But I do want to take some time with your death. Guards!”

  Four guards stepped from behind curtains and had him before he had quite taken his eyes off her.

  “Take this traitor to a cell at the far end of the dungeon,” she said as she stood.

  “He's a wizard, so be careful with him. I'll follow along and put up a ward when you have him there.”

  “It is a place to sleep, I suppose,” said Abaddon when they were underway. “But I'm the only one alive with the very key to slaying the Elven twins. You're aware of the Prophecy. If you kill me, then you'll die too.”

  “Take him back and put him on the floor before my throne,” she said, turning on her heel and leading the way. When she had taken her seat with the Staff across her knees, she waved away the guards. “That's a clever lie,” she said, raising her chin. “Are you able to prove that it isn't?”

  “I've just spent twenty-one years with those twins amongst your enemies,” he said. “Now that they're distracted by their move against you, I've managed to escape in order to help you defeat the two who will destroy you if I don't.”

  “You idiot!” she sneered. “I command the Great Staff and the Crystal Heart, the two most powerful tools in all history. As for your warning, traitor, I already knew of their piddling plan to attack my empire and murder me. They'll fail, just as you have.”

  She pecked the Staff on the stone floor. “Guards!”

  “I'm bonded to one of the twins,” he said calmly.

  “You're what?”

  “Bonded,” he said with an odd smile. “And bonded to an Elf means trapped.

  Trapped as I have been from the time I first saw her. And you want to know why I'm here? Do you really want to know what's in it for me if I save you? I get to be free of that arrogant witch. I don't just want her dead. I want to see her die.”

  “Yea?” said Spitemorta with an odd smile of her own. “We shall see. Guards! Take him back down. I'll come along behind.”

  No one said a word the whole way down. Spitemorta cast her ward, returned to her throne and crossed her arms with a sigh to consider whether this bastard of hers might be telling the truth.

  “Your Omnipotence?” said the circuit clerk. “Are you ready to grant your next audience?”

  “What!” she said, irritated that he would be anywhere about.

  “Well. I mean. Are you ready to grant another audience?”

  “Did you get down the details of this last one?”

  “Why of course. Every word.”

  “Throw it on the floor.”

  “I don't understand...”

  “On the floor away from the carpet!”

  “You mean these very last minutes?” he said, hurriedly thumbing through a couple of pages and picking them up.

  “Yea,” she said, setting them alight in his hands.

  The poor circuit clerk jerked back with a squeal and fell over a chair onto the floor.

  “Hey,” she said as he labored to his knees, cradling his elbow. “If you remember a single word of this afternoon in your sleep, you'll never wake up. Now send everyone home. No more this month.” She drummed her fingers on the arm of her throne as she watched him frantically grab up his ink bottle and folders and race down the carpet.

  The doors closed, leaving the hall silent. Spitemorta still drummed her fingers.

  “Maybe I need to have a word with the bastard,” she said, grabbing up her skinweler as she got to her feet and started for her bower. She found a plain grey kirtle in the first closet she tried, threw it across her bed and sat with a bounce to take off her slippers.

  “Drab are we?” said Demonica, carefully stepping through the dresses on the floor in front of the wardrobe as she took the chair by the bed. “I believe that this is the first modest flourish I've ever seen from you...”

  “Damn you!”

  “Damning is too big for you, I'm afraid. The best you ever managed was to make me 'drop dead,' as I believe you're inclined to put it...”

  “Get out!”

  “So. Going skulking, are we?”

  “No!” she said, wriggling into a different chemise. “I do not skulk. I merely wish to go about my own castle without causing a stir. Now leave me to my business.”

  “Which would be trying to catch your general with that pretty wet-nurse, aye?”

  “I'm busy.”

  “Yes. But you're hiding something, such as why you would choose the word 'bastard'. You were married to James, after all.”

  “And James was nobody at all.”

  “I see,” said Demonica, looking at the backs of her hands. “Well then. When you do manage to tie the bodice of your skulking dress, I'll just come along with you. I'm sure I skulk better than you. Besides, I'm Abaddon's great-grandmother and I've missed the poor child ever since Lance kidnapped him.”

  “What kind of game is this, Grandmother?”

  “Games are for having fun...”

  “And you think the return of my traitor son is fun?”

  “Traitor. Are you quite sure, dear? What if he's telling you the truth? If he does indeed have a heart bond with that Elven girl, he really would be the key to your living to tell about all this.”

  “What do you know about Elven heart bonds?”

  “Not much. But I do know that they're serious enough that an Elf forced to sever one simply dies. And I had the impression that a Human bonded to an Elf might have a choice in some cases, but when I was having a skulk in the dungeon a bit ago, all that he managed to do was pace about his cell, muttering this and that about killing her so that he could be free at last.”

  Spitemorta gave her bow knot a tug and sat on the bed. “You believe him?” she said. “The last thing he ever did was turn on me.”

  “My word,” said Demonica, turning to look straight at her. “Why would he ever come here? He's no dolt. He'd know that if you doubted him, he'd be dead. He was far safer where he was. He either took this risk to save his very mother or to escape his imprisoning bond to this Elven witch, if not both. And if either part were true in the least, it would save your life.”

  Spitemorta was now on her feet, tapping at a tooth as she paced about.

  “By all means go ahead and kill him if you must. But I don't know how you'll avoid being slain by the twins when they arrive. And meanwhile, the one bonded to Abaddon will feel his death and be all the more determined to see to yours.”

  Spitemorta went to the bell pull and gave it a yank.

  “Now what's that for?” said Demonica.

  “I'm having the guards bring Abaddon to the throne room.”

  “Well. I'll just stay here then.”

  “I thought you missed the poor child.”

  “I do. But I can take my time, now that he's going to live. And besides, I'm really not here, don't you know, as I'm right sure you'll explain to him.”

  Chapter 202

  It was the gentlest of wind, scarcely filling every sail of the Lostgwyns under the cloudless sky and wonderfully warm ten o' clock sun. The main deck stood clear except for those leaning against the railing and except for Obbree, who stood before the stair to the forecastle, quietly scratching and patting his strike falcon Enoil, huddled with Baase, Caggey and Coady.

  “We're all a-waiting!” cried someone along the rail. “Let's see ye make those chickens step!”<
br />
  “I can't imagine that he's ever seen them in action, up at the Pastures the whole time you ones have been in the Black Desert,” said Bernard from the forecastle stair. “Of course, with his head up his nether eye, he's apt to miss his chance.”

  Obbree gave Bernard a sudden nod.

  Bernard raised his cupped hands and bellowed: “All right!”

  Someone at the aft end of the deck hauled a line, lifting a tarpaulin off twelve straw dummies wearing tunics. Obbree calmly went on scratching his four falcons.

  Without warning, the four birds raced down the deck to rip to shreds the five dummies with red hourglasses on their tunics without touching the others. Obbree sprinted after, flinging wriggling rats to each strike falcon to snap out of the air and swallow. He walked back up the deck to where Bernard was sitting.

  “How do you ever have enough rats in a battle?” said Bernard, speaking out, down the silent deck as he came.

  “Don't need any,” said Obbree, shaking his head. “They get to eat what they kill.”

  Suddenly there were cheers and applause all up and down the railing.

  “So those birds can actually see what you picture in your head?” said Bernard.

  Obbree sent a brown spit over the side and nodded. “It means I must keep my eye on things in a fight or they mightn't always know what they're doing,” he said, “though I believe they're pret' neigh as smart as a person.”

  “Tyr how!” cried a sailor from the top yard. “Land ho!”

  As the deck erupted with the pounding of bare feet, one of Bernard's men pushed away from the railing in time to be stopped by Arwr's wife, Meinir. “Strike Faulcones arne realy no thyng atte al lyche un-to chikenes, as thou knowest,” she said, peering at him from both sides of her ponderous ebony beak.

  “I see that now,” said the wide-eyed soldier.

  “Yeap,” said Bernard. “They're no more like unto chickens than we're like the rats they just ate. Of course, if all you see is the feathers, you might be confused.”

  “Ich wolde nat arounde Hubba Hubba bese confusid,” said Meinir with a shake of her feathers, “and eek Ocker myghte yiffe lessones.”