This time Dowser succeeded in licking his chin. He ruffled the pup’s ears.
“With nothing to do but stumble over your training and wait for her to arrive… I suppose we’d best put some thought into how we’ll set each of our lives back on track when this is through, eh? Now that will take some doing.”
Chapter 7
Dowser stood in a wide, low stance, tongue wagging and eyes locked on a handful of animal pelts Desmeres held just over his head.
“Let me see… this one is four days old. That should be enough of a test,” Desmeres said.
He took a swatch of gray fur and held it down to the dog, who buried his nose in the fur then raised his snout high to sample the air. His large, fumbly feet pattered quickly in a circle and he lowered his nose, dangling his ears side to side to stir up the dust. A few seconds of slow consideration sent the pup bounding off to the east.
“That’s the right direction, so we’re off to a good start.”
He paced along behind Dowser as the tracker in training followed the trail. It had been two long weeks, and progress had certainly been made, but Dowser remained a slice too enthusiastic. He’d not yet come to grasp the concept of keeping his nose to the ground to follow a scent. Instead the excitable beast alternately galloped in a straight line then stopped to find the trail again. This often required him to backtrack a fair distance before choosing a new direction to sprint. It wasn’t the most efficient way to track, but correcting behavior could wait. Right now two other points needed to be addressed.
Dowser passed the first test with flying colors as he stumbled upon a swatch of brown fur strategically placed on a bush. He sniffed it twice, then continued on, still seeking the pelt he had been assigned. Getting the praise-hungry puppy to overlook the first likely target along the way had been a laborious task, but it seemed he’d made progress there. The puppy continued thumping along, sampling the scent, then skidded to a stop at the base of a tree.
Here he would face the second test. The rest of the gray pelt he’d been offered was indeed up among the branches. For several minutes Dowser galloped in every conceivable direction. “Up” did not seem to be anywhere near the top of the list of places he believed a trail might lead. That wasn’t the true challenge though. After a time, Dowser looked up and spied the pelt. Desmeres lingered a dozen or so paces away. The puppy looked to him and opened his mouth, but did not howl. He did everything but, dancing in place, pawing at the tree, waggling his entire body, and releasing an assortment of huffs and pants that were howls in everything but volume.
Finally, Desmeres stepped up to him and gave him the praise and treat he deserved.
“Good work, Dowser. Good work indeed,” he said. “I thought you’d never learn to keep quiet once you’d found it. Having a tracker who alerts both my potential targets and those who are after me wouldn’t be much good for me, would it?”
Dowser chomped happily on the bit of dried meat that concluded every successful training session and waddled behind Desmeres as he returned to his campsite.
It had been two and a half weeks since he’d holed up in the same general section of Melorn Forest’s fringe. His actual campsite had moved three times, thanks to a small group of Elite soldiers coming quite close to discovering him and having to be led astray a week or so after his initial arrival. Eventually he was able to leave enough blatant clues along the path to the nearest town and onward from there that they moved along, following a false lead from the stable-operator about his intention to head for the Tresson border to hide out beyond the Elite’s grasp. Once they were gone, he’d returned to wait for Genara. The nice thing about their appearance and discovery of his time in Melorn Forest was that he could be reasonably certain they would be a long time in returning. When so small a group was stretched so thin, they would need a very good reason to search someplace they’d already been.
About halfway back to the campsite, Dowser’s head suddenly shot up and he bolted in the direction of the cloud-shrouded sunset.
“Dowser,” Desmeres called in a harsh hiss.
The dog didn’t turn back. He drew a dagger and moved as quickly and low to the ground as he could manage, following the dog’s path. Dowser got quite a lead, putting his shaggy coat and saggy skin to good use as he slipped effortlessly through the thorny brush with nary a care. Desmeres navigated the brush with careful leaps and sidesteps, trying to both keep track of the dog and determine what he was after. It was a losing battle, but a distant cry of dismay soon assured him there was nothing to worry about.
“What!? No! Dowser, down! Get your nose out of there! Go get Desmeres!” squealed a frustrated female voice.
Desmeres pushed his way through a few more trees and found Genara, leading a brand new horse, attempting to avoid the uncontainable excitement of the puppy who had clearly missed her.
“Genara,” Desmeres said, stepping up to her to pluck Dowser from the ground. “You found my note.”
“Of course I did. It was right where you said it would be. And I see you haven’t taught this dog any manners in the last few weeks.”
“He’s happy to see you,” Desmeres said. “Can you blame him?”
“You’re the one who should be hopping all about with excitement, because I deserve some sort of gratitude for the gauntlet I had to go through.”
“Not the most uneventful trip?”
“You try hauling a stolen cart across half a blasted kingdom after the Elite have already seen it once. You should just thank me I’m as resourceful as I am.”
“What happened?”
“They got close. Fortunately the inn at one of the towns just so happened to belong to a gentleman of my acquaintance from some years ago. He gave me a place to hide the cart and sent them in the wrong direction.”
“I hope the price for that favor wasn’t too high.”
“Not at all. I simply had to politely fail to acknowledge our history while in the presence of his wife, who it turns out is the source of his riches and not terribly confident of his fidelity. At any rate, I got to the mine. Took me three hours to dig enough of a hole in the snow to actually start moving things into it. But your things are safe. However, for my trouble I took the liberty of taking a stipend from your vastly excessive amount of gold. And I’ve spent a bit of it on this.”
She pulled a carefully wrapped cloth bundle from the saddle bag of her horse and unfastened one of the knots. It held two stout and somewhat ornate glass bottles, as well as three loaves of crusty bread, some dried venison, and two different types of cheese.
“I’d say in light of your skilled performance a reward was in order. Now that you are here, though, I’ll pack up camp and we shall get moving before—”
“Oh no,” she snapped. “No, Desmeres. I have been moving for more than two weeks. I have rattled atop an overloaded cart, I have slept in ratty inns and, on two separate occasions, a hay loft. I have torn clothes and worked my hands ragged digging in the snow. I’ve moved a library of books and an arsenal of weapons. I am through moving for the day. I am through riding horses. I am through looking over my shoulder. Unless there are Elites hiding behind each and every one of these trees, you and I are sitting down and we are taking a moment to breathe. Or at the very least I will, because that brandy is calling my name.”
Desmeres raised an eyebrow. “You make a convincing argument, Genara. I think we can manage another night here.”
“Good.”
She tied up her horse and swept a rock beside the fire clean before dropping her bedroll atop it as a cushion. Desmeres fetched a small crate from the provisions he’d fetched during his brief diversionary trip and set it between them as a table. While each faced the fire, Genara began to lay out the meal.
“I trust you can keep the puppy from ruining this?”
“Dowser’s been coming along well enough,” Desmeres said, inverting the pup between his feet and giving him a rub.
Genara tipped out a generous sample of the brandy into two
glasses and picked took hers.
“Is a toast in order?”
Genara drained her glass in a single swallow. After a sigh, she said. “We’ll toast on the third glass. Right now I need to get my nerves settled and my insides warmed up.”
“So be it,” Desmeres said, drinking his own.
The liquor was potent, but well-suited to the biting cold it was intended to remedy. It traced a line of pleasant burning all the way down, and had a complex and spicy-sweet flavor. She splashed a bit more into her glass and his.
“What have you been up to?” she asked, nursing the second drink.
“Gathering the ingredients for the potion and preparing it. It required some dealings with a gnome, which didn’t go as poorly as it might have. Though I’m afraid we shall have to pay him another visit together.”
“Why?”
“He’s offered to make me a friend of the burrow if I introduce him to a woman.”
She furrowed her brow. “What is a friend of the burrow, why do you want to be one, and what do you mean by ‘introduce?’”
“Lain wasn’t wrong when he saw the value of favors. Quite valuable things if those who owe them can be trusted to follow through when the time comes. A friend of the burrow is something of an honorary gnome. They don’t owe me favors as such, but they are obligated to give me the same consideration as they might give to one of their own.”
“… From a gnome.”
“From gnomes. They are usually quite plural.”
“And that’s useful?”
“Magnificently useful, if one knows how to put it to good use.”
“As curious as I am as to how a slew of tiny people could be handy to have in your debt, I’m more concerned about this introduction.”
“No worries. I’m sure it isn’t for anything you would consider expensive. He’s seeking inspiration, and I don’t think he can be blamed for believing someone such as you could provide it in spades.”
“Inspiration for what?”
“Art. He’s a painter, among other things.”
She sipped again. “I’m not doing it unless I’m a friend of the burrow as well.”
“That’s reasonable.”
“And he’d better have good manners. Painters… I haven’t met a single painter who knew how to be a gentleman.”
“We’ll be sure he stays in line.”
“That’s right we will.”
Desmeres sipped again.
“So is that all you’ve done?”
“I also finished preparing the sigil while I was waiting for you,” Desmeres said.
He rummaged through the sack beside him and pulled free a stamp of sorts, the finished result of his careful bending and soldering of iron strips. It was terribly complex, thin bits of metal tracing out intricate swoops and swirls. The result was unmistakably arcane, bearing no resemblance to any letter or word in a proper language. The entire assemblage had been affixed to a short, sturdy wooden handle. All told the sigil itself was as large around as a small apple, and the handle fit comfortably in his closed fist.
“Lovely… may I see it?”
When he handed it to her, she clutched it delicately with two fingers on the grip, as though she were wary of breaking it, and held it up to the light of the fire to admire it.
“I’d forgotten what fine work you could do.”
“You’d forgotten that? Unforgivable,” he said, taking the sigil back. “Forget my face, forget my name, but never forget what these hands can create.”
She swirled her brandy and idly twisted the blue glass ring around her finger. “Tell me, Desmeres. Do you think back much to that first night, when you chose to tangle yourself in this madness?”
“Oh, the madness began long before that night at Clennock’s, if that’s what you mean.”
“That is indeed what I mean.”
“It lingers in my mind from time to time. You’ll recall I was quite purposefully impaired at the time. My memories aren’t as sharp as they might be.”
“It seems ages ago now…”
“I do lead a very full life.”
“That you certainly do. Having been a part of it for these few weeks I feel a fool for ever dreaming of such a thing. Give me back my warm beds and handling my girls. It may not be heroic but it is a damn sight less harrowing.”
“I wouldn’t have imagined that.”
“Why not?”
“I’ll admit I’d not put a tremendous amount of thought into it, but if you’d asked me, I would have anticipated that your profession isn’t one that one would call pleasant or calm.”
“Oh, believe me, the lowest rungs of the ladder are treacherous. If you aren’t a good judge of character or can’t afford to be choosy then you’ll find yourself in a bad way in short order. But if you’ve got a good head on your shoulders you can find your way. And at my level, at Clennock’s, things are… civil. Orderly. Or as near as this world gets to it, anyway. Not like out here. I’ve never been one to shun a good lesson, but some of the things I’ve had to learn since I met you I’d just as soon do without.”
“Such as?”
“Such as this for example,” she said, slapping his chest to jingle the charms beneath. “I’ve been laying awake nights thinking about how you’ve got a cluster of amulets dangling around your neck to keep you safe and here I am with a blasted copper protecting me. For all I know this nonsense about it warding of the spirit you’ve made an enemy of is just a fairy tale to make me feel better.”
“It will keep you quite safe, I assure you.”
“And you wouldn’t lie to me, of course, because you’re honest to a fault.”
“Quite so.”
“That’s a tricky thing to prove.”
“Lucky then that it isn’t my concern if you can trust me, only if I can trust you.”
“And you’re certain of that.”
“I’m not certain of anything not in my direct control, but if betrayal were your aim at this point, I wouldn’t have much to worry about.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ve missed a dozen far better chances to turn on me. That means you either have no intention to do so or else you’ve got terrible intuition for such things, and thus don’t pose much of a threat.”
She took the last swallow of her brandy and stood.
“Rely upon your reason if that helps you sleep at night, but it takes a bit more than to set my mind at ease.”
Genara flipped open her saddle bag again and pulled a cluster of amulets quite like those Desmeres wore.
“As near as I can tell,” she said, plopping the amulets beside their meal, “These are the same sort of amulets you’ve got on, only without any of the fancy markings and such.”
“These are some of my blanks. You went through my bags of equipment?”
“You mean the ones I lugged one by one into a decrepit mine entrance? Yes, I went through them. I thought we might make another batch of your lucky charms for me to wear.”
“We’re a bit early in our relationship for you to be demanding heaps of jewelry, aren’t we?”
“Oh, sure, make jokes. But it isn’t as though I’m dim enough to believe when this is through I’m just going to slip back to my old life without repercussions. You may be confident that you’ll best this ancient demon that the blasted Guardians of the Realm couldn’t finish off, but I’m not so sure. I want whatever protections we can muster before you get yourself killed. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”
Desmeres slipped a knife from his belt and sliced a bit of cheese and tore some bread, setting them each aside before sipping his drink.
“You don’t need all of these,” he said, pulling the cluster from beneath his shirt. “This makes my scent difficult to track. That’s not a concern for you. This one makes it difficult to target me directly with spells. This one conceals my soul from mystic searchers, this one helps silence my footsteps when I need to.”
“Fine, fine. But which one prot
ects you from that Epidime character?”
“These three, each to varying degrees,” he said.
“May I see them?” she asked.
“They wouldn’t be a terribly effective protection if I took them off, now would they?”
“No, I suppose not.”
She took some cheese and bread and nibbled. He did the same.
“These pair quite well,” he noted.
“Another necessary skill in my line of work. Above all else, I should be a capable hostess. I’ve been hired out to oversee society galas, you know.”
He grinned. “Have you now?”
“Who better to ensure everyone has a good time than a professional?”
“I’d vastly underestimated the flexibility inherent to your field.”
“Oh, sure. We need to be flexible. That goes without saying.”
He threw his head back in a belly laugh. She joined in. When the fit passed, she wiped a tear from her eye.
“I hate to spoil the mood, but as far as I can tell, we’ve only gotten together the tools to possibly fight Epidime. We haven’t decided how we are going to use them.”
“I’ve been putting some thought into it. Naturally we can only operate upon what we know, or what we believe. It seems certain that Epidime has an interest in Entwell, and in me because of my capacity to lead him there. Correct?”
“I suppose.”
“And we can be similarly certain that he has infiltrated the Elites, if not outright taken over the group.”
“Again, I suppose.”
“And what we know of the Cave of the Beast suggests it could be as treacherous for Epidime as it is for anyone else.”
“I’d have to take your word for that.”
“And I am as good as my word. So if the cave has been concerning enough to keep him away for generations, that will be our primary weapon. We catch his attention, which shouldn’t be difficult. After the beating he took, I suspect Anrack is still floating around the capital. According to the woodsmen who eventually let me where I needed to go, a shipment will be going out in a few days. We can simply send Anrack a direct message. He won’t be able to ignore it. When he comes, Epidime will be with him, in some form. We identify him. That will be difficult, but not impossible. Then we lead him inside, which again is precisely where he wants to go, and we trap him there by closing off a chamber, dousing our barricade with the potion in yonder bottle, and inscribing it with the sigil. This will form a cage from which a spirit cannot escape, assuming the sigil is as effective as we hope. At that point we can wash our hands of him or leisurely seek out a means of eliminating him entirely.”
The Redemption of Desmeres Page 32
