The Silver Mage

by Katharine Kerr

  And Marnmara had told him something about a past life, hadn’t she? Something like, “You did great evil—”

  “Ah, there you are!” Faharn kicked open the door and strode into the chamber. He carried a bucket of water in one hand and a candle lantern in the other.

  Laz could have cheerfully strangled him, but he reminded himself that Faharn had no idea of what he’d just interrupted or of the importance of the insight he’d just driven away. One of these days I must tell him the great truth, Laz thought. Then he’ll understand.

  “Wash water?” Laz managed to sound reasonably civil.

  “I heated it at the cookhouse hearth, though it may or may not still be warm.”

  “As long as it’s not icy cold, it will do. My thanks.”

  “The prince wants to see you in his council chamber,” Faharn went on. “So I thought you might want to clean up.”

  “I do, but when does—”

  “In a bit, is all the page told me. He’ll come fetch you. The page, that is, not the prince.”

  “I assumed that.” Laz flashed him a grin. “My thanks for the warm water.”

  Laz had just finished washing and was putting on a clean shirt when the page arrived, carrying a candle lantern. Laz gathered up the wax-coated tablets and stylus that Faharn had put out for him and followed the lad into the hall.

  “Beg pardon, good scribe,” the page said, “but how can you write with those hands?”

  “How?” Laz grinned at him. “With some difficulty, that’s how.”

  The lad blushed and hurried on ahead of him. Laz followed the bobbing lantern light down a twist of the stone stairs and into what had once been the women’s hall of the dun. Laz remembered that Tren’s aged mother had once held a shabby court there for the rare visits of other noblewomen. Now it had been turned into a council chamber of sorts. A long table, lit with a lantern at either end, held a map of the Northlands, made from two whole parchments stitched together and anchored with a couple of large stones to fend off the drafts from the open window. Behind it, in a half circle of rickety chairs, sat the prince, flanked by the two men of the Mountain Folk who’d accompanied him at dinner. The page bowed low. Laz reminded himself to act humble and knelt in front of the table.

  “The Horsekin scribe, Your Highness,” the lad said.

  “Not Horsekin but Gel da’Thae,” the prince said. “Remember that. It’s very important.”

  “Very well, Your Highness, my apologies.”

  Blushing again, the page backed out of the chamber and shut the door behind him.

  “Do get up,” the prince said. “That floor looks more than a little uncomfortable.”

  “My thanks, Your Highness.” Laz rose and wiped the clinging straws from the knees of his brigga.

  “Have a chair.” One of the Mountain men, who was sitting at the very end of the table, shoved a chair Laz’s way with one foot. “You come highly recommended, loremaster, in the letter Exalted Mother Grallezar sent about you. Cursed good thing you’re here, too. My name’s Brel, son of Brellio, by the by, and I’m the avro of my lot.” He jerked a thumb in the direction of the other man of the Mountain Folk. “This is Envoy Garin.”

  Laz bowed to them both and took the chair. As he sat down, he noticed that the prince was holding a flat leather bag in his lap. He recognized it as a Gel da’Thae dispatch rider’s bag. The prince passed it to Brel, who gave it to Laz. As Laz took it, he realized that dry blood crusted the flap. The dispatch rider had apparently not given it over willingly.

  “I’m hoping you can read the letters inside for us,” Voran said.

  “So am I, Your Highness,” Laz said.

  The jest brought him a royal grin. Fortunately, the reading turned out to be quite straightforward. When Laz unfolded the two letters inside the bag, he discovered they’d been written in a common scribal hand.

  “As far as I can tell from the remnants of these wax seals, Your Highness,” Laz began, “the letters come from a commander of a regiment of mounted warriors. I can’t tell which one, thanks to their being shattered, but I don’t suppose it would matter now, with everything so changed in the cities.”

  “Probably it doesn’t, indeed,” Voran said. “Read them out.”

  “To Burc, King of the Free Boars of the North,” Laz began then stopped when all three of his listeners swore aloud.

  “King, is it?” Voran said. “Well, he’s got his gall, but then, we could have assumed that. You may continue, Laz.”

  Laz did so. “Prataen, warleader of the Second—” He hesitated over an unusual use of a word. “Warleader of the Second Horde sends his greetings.”

  “Do you recognize that name?” Brel interrupted.

  “I don’t, sir,” Laz said. “It looks more Horsekin than Gel da’Thae, however, as does the use of horde instead of regiment.”

  “Would you stop interrupting him?” Envoy Garin glared at Brel. “Do continue reading, good loremaster.”

  “Very well. I am sending you my last squad of men who understand fortifications—”

  “They never reached the Boar dun.” Brel glared right back at Garin. “That’s why we have the letters.”

  “Who understand fortifications,” Laz picked up the thread again. “Once your compound has been made ready, we will send a hundred men and wagons with supplies to maintain them. Please send me messengers once your walls are strengthened, so I may know to get these reinforcements on their way.” Laz lowered the parchment and glanced at his listeners. “That’s the first letter, Your Highness, and good sirs.”

  “Ye gods!” Prince Voran slammed both hands down on the table in front of him and made the candle flames dance in their lanterns. “That’s clear proof of treachery. I think we can assume that demanding the surrender of the Boar dun is well within our rights.”

  “Just so, Your Highness,” Garin said with a nod his way.

  Laz wondered if the lack of such evidence would have changed their minds about their planned attack on the Boars. He doubted it. When none of the others spoke again, Laz cleared his throat and started the second letter.

  “It’s from Prataen again,” Laz began, “to our supposed King of the Boars. I have sent messengers to Her Holiness, Fellepzia, High Priestess of Alshandra in Taenbalapan, concerning your request of a temple to be built in your lands. She has responded that she’ll gladly grant such a request. A temple to our most holy goddess will be a splendid way to mark our temporary southern border.”

  “Temporary?” Voran spat out the word. “How far south are they aiming?”

  “I’d assume they want a foothold in Arcodd, Your Highness,” Garin said. “They sieged Cengarn once.”

  “So they did.” Voran paused for a grimace. “Bastards.” He nodded Laz’s way. “Continue.”

  “She has sent a priestess of some standing south along with a contingent of two hundred cavalrymen. They have orders to secure a bridge somewhat to the north of you.”

  “What?” Brel broke in. “A bridge? What bridge? What kind of madmen would build a bridge in the wilderness?”

  Laz hesitated. From Berwynna he’d learned about the strange little village and its ramshackle bridge, but he wondered if it were wise to admit to the knowledge. Fortunately, Garin provided something of an answer.

  “Merchants from the west pass through there,” Garin said. “They’ve mentioned a wide river, and I’m assuming they bridged it to get their mules across.”

  “Of course,” Brel said. “My apologies. Go on, good scribe.”

  Laz did so. “Once the contingent has fortified the bridge site, the priestess, along with a suitable escort, will proceed to your dun.”

  “I wonder how many men they deem suitable.” This time Voran interrupted. “Not the full two hundred, at least.” He turned to look directly at Laz. “Is that the last of the letter?”

  “Except for some prayers and farewells, Your Highness,” Laz said.

  “We don’t need to hear those. Could you copy those letters
—in Deverrian, that is—for me? I’m going to send messengers to the High King. I want him to realize that we need more men up here on the border. The fear of losing northern Arcodd will doubtless inspire him to send some.”

  “Huh!” Brel snorted. “He’d better send a small army.”

  Voran ignored him and waved his hand in Laz’s direction. “You may go,” he said. “May I have those letters by the morrow morn? You’ll find me in the great hall.”

  “Of course, Your Highness.” Laz rose and bowed. “I shall deliver them to you personally.”

  With his maimed hands, carrying everything he held in his lap turned out to be difficult. Laz paused long enough to stuff the letters and his wax tablets into the dispatch case, and while he was doing so, the three others went on talking as if he, a mere servant, were no longer there, even when he got up and started for the door.

  “If they’re planning on taking Cengarn,” Brel was saying, “they’ll need a bigger base camp than that fortress the dragon saw a-building.”

  “Just so,” Voran said. “A place where they can winter if naught else. It’s a long way from their cities to Arcodd. I’ll wager it’s Cengarn they’re after.”

  “And if they take Cengarn,” Garin put in. “What’s to stop them from turning their greedy eyes to Cerrgonney? The Boars claimed all of it at one time.”

  “And its iron mines.” Voran smiled in a grim, tight-lipped gesture. “No doubt the king will realize that as well.”

  A sudden thought struck Laz like an arrow. He hesitated, unsure of protocol, near the door. Fortunately, Brel noticed him and once again demonstrated his lack of concern for the niceties.

  “What is it, loremaster?” Brel said. “There’s somewhat on your mind, isn’t there? Out with it!”

  “My thanks.” Laz bowed to him. “About that base camp?”

  “Go on.”

  The prince and the envoy turned slightly in their chairs to look his way.

  “Marshfort,” Laz said in Gel da’Thae then caught himself. “In the Deverrian speech, that is to say, Cerr Cawnen. I know Alshandra’s warleaders coveted it once, some forty years ago, I believe it was. It’s a fortified city with its own water supply.”

  “Of course.” Garin paused to swear under his breath in a language Laz didn’t know, although the tone was unmistakably foul.

  “Cerr Cawnen?” Voran said. “That’s the second time that name has come up. Where—”

  “I’ll show you on the map, Your Highness.” Garin got up and stood by the table. “It would be a grand spot to launch an attack against Prince Daralanteriel.”

  “Indeed,” Brel put in. “The bastards want grass as much as they want iron. Maybe more.”

  “Cerr Cawnen is the key to taking the Westlands and the grass.” Garin slapped his hands together. “We’ve been blind, Your Highness.”

  “So we have,” Prince Voran said. “I’ll send messengers to Prince Dar on the morrow. My thanks, good scholar. I’ll see to it that you’re well rewarded for your aid.”

  At this firm dismissal, Laz bowed and left. In the empty corridor he paused to make a small dweomer light. The silver glow bobbed along ahead of him as he returned to his chamber. There he found Faharn asleep, wrapped tightly in a blanket on his mattress near the door.

  Laz considered immediately writing out the translation of the letters, but the room lacked a table, and with his maimed hands, grinding and mixing ink would be difficult. He would wake at dawn, he decided, when he usually did, and get Faharn up to help him. He laid the dispatch case down by his saddlebags, dismissed the dweomer light, then sat on the wide windowsill to consider the night view. The camp below stood mostly dark, but here and there a faint glow indicated a dying campfire. Now and then someone walked through, a twitch of motion in the gloom far below. Stars glittered on the distant river.

  Lord Tren had sat here on summer nights, now and then, to take the air and brood over his cursed life. Laz pretended to be Tren once more, consciously tried to recapture his feeling that life was bleak and full of betrayals. If only—that was the key, Laz decided. If only I, Tren, lord of this miserable demesne, could—do what? He couldn’t remember what it was that Tren thought he wanted. Probably Tren had never been sure of it himself. Sorcery seemed as good a guess as any, whether or not the lord had ever used the word “dweomer” to himself.

  The hair on the back of Laz’s neck suddenly rose. Someone, something, had entered the room behind him. He wanted to twist around and leap to his feet in order to confront the intruder, but since he was perching on the edge of a long straight drop down to a cobbled ward, he turned and stood up slowly with great care. The spirit who had entered waited for him to face her. At first glance she appeared to be a pale, blue-haired woman, barefoot and wearing a blue dress, but when he looked more carefully, Laz realized that an etheric ectoplasm made up the dress and her body both, with the color the only difference between them. She glowed in the dark room like a ray of moonlight falling through an arrow slit in a wall. When he gestured out the sigil of the Kings of Aethyr in the air, she smiled and nodded.

  “Will you save the dragon book?” She spoke in Deverrian.

  “I’ll try, certainly,” Laz said in the same. “Will you help me?”

  “I shall tell those who guard it who you are. They cannot speak, but they can hear. The man with the beast on his face has the book.”

  With that, she vanished. Laz shuddered, suddenly cold, but pleased nonetheless. He would have help in this impossible-seeming task. This realization brought another, that the spirit called Evandar must have commanded immense power, if the fate of one of his artifacts could still trouble the Lords of Aethyr long after his death. Their concern had to be great if they’d send a messenger down the planes to a renegade dweomerman like himself. Suddenly, using the book as bait to hook Sidro looked like a less than prudent idea.

  I’d best think of somewhat else, Laz told himself. Tomorrow, though. After a long day in the saddle, plus dealing with both royalty and astral spirits, he felt exhausted. Faharn had spread his blankets out on the narrow bed. Laz took off his boots and lay down fully-dressed on the lumpy mattress. I’ll never get to sleep on this!

  But suddenly he was awake, and the room full of sunlight. He sat up, yawning, just as Faharn came bustling in with a basket of bread and a pitcher of water for their breakfast.

  With Faharn’s help, Laz wrote out a translation of the two Horsekin letters on the sheets of pabrus Salamander had given him. He had enough blank space left over to add a few notes concerning Cerr Cawnen’s role in Horsekin history.

  “Come to think of it,” Faharn said, “that’s where the Alshan drites’ supposed Holy Martyr Raena died. They probably want to build one of their cursed shrines in it.”

  “You are quite right,” Laz said. “Let me just add a note about that, too, and then I’ll take these to his highness, assuming he’s awake.”

  “I saw him in the great hall when I fetched our breakfast.”

  Sure enough, Laz found the prince sitting at the head of the honor table with Brel and Garin to either side. Laz decided that Brel would be the most approachable. When he knelt beside the dwarven warleader, Brel greeted him with a brief smile and took the proffered documents.

  “My thanks,” he said. “Your Highness, the loremaster’s brought back those letters.”

  “Good, good!” Prince Voran favored Laz with a nod. “Here, good scholar, I want you to continue in my service. It’s likely we’ll find more letters like those. I’m offering you your maintenance for the campaign, for you and your apprentice both, of course, and a silver piece a week.”

  “Very generous terms, Your Highness,” Laz said. “I’ll accept your commission gladly. I take it we’re heading for the Boar dun?”

  “We are.”

  “Well and good, then.”

  The prince sent a page for his quartermaster, who promptly paid over the first silver piece. Where he would spend it, Laz thought, was probably as great a mys
tery to the quartermaster as it was to him. After many bows and professions of gratitude, he left the prince’s company and hurried back upstairs to tell Faharn the news.

  “Exactly what you wanted,” Faharn said. “Now we see if we can get that book back.”

  “Just so.” Laz grinned at him. “And wouldn’t my mach-fala be proud of me? I may be only a humble translator, but I’m riding to war at last.”

  Out in the Rhiddaer, the oddly circular town of Cerr Cawnen sheltered some four thousand souls. It lay in the midst of water meadows, a first line of defense against Horsekin raiders, whose mounts would have had to pick their way through the little streams and springs that turned solid-seeming ground into bog. On its outer walls, made of good stone, guards prowled the catwalks and stood at the ironbound timber gates.

  Inside the walls, a wide strip of grassy commons surrounded the town, which in turn surrounded the roughly circular Loc Vaed, the crater of an ancient volcano. Most of the buildings crammed into the pale greenish shallows: a jumble and welter of houses and shops all perched on pilings or crannogs, joined by little bridges to one another in a confusing jumble. The edge of the crannog-town bristled with rickety stairs and jetties, where leather coracles bobbed at the end of their ropes.

  In the center of the lake lay deep water, fed by underground hot springs. Drifts of mist hung over the lake on cold days and veiled the shores of the rocky central island, Citadel. On Citadel, a few large houses and a scatter of shabby dwellings clung to its steep sides, along with the town granary, the militia’s armory, shrines to the local gods and ruins of an ancient temple, tumbled in an earthquake so long ago that no one remembered exactly when.

  Niffa, the dweomermaster who had once been Dallandra’s apprentice, lived with her brother’s family in a large house out on Citadel. Jahdo had grown up as an apprentice to a successful merchant, who had traded with Lin Serr among other places in the Northlands, though only rarely with the Gel da’Thae. After Verrarc’s death, Jahdo had become rich on his own, then married Cotzi the weaver’s daughter, who’d borne him a fine clutch of children. Just that spring he’d been elected Chief Speaker of the town council—an honor that had delighted him at the time. Now, however, his feelings had changed. Niffa was lingering at the breakfast table with him when he brought up the election.