The Forgotten War

by Howard Sargent

  36

  He watched the mass of tousled brown hair spread out over the pillow as its possessor slept, peaceful at last. He had not slept since he had seen her, veins running with fire, her nightdress blackened. Little unnerved him at his age, but to see her vindicated in such a terrible way was something he would not forget easily.

  Ebba joined him about an hour ago and, like him, was sitting in a chair looking at the girl intently. ‘What can we do, my Lord?’ she had said to him when he had told her of the night’s events. Any answer totally eluded him.

  He had retrieved the stone from the pitcher earlier and spent some time studying it. He saw the strange movement of its viscous centre but aside from that there seemed little to note about it. Holding it, he half expected to see visions of soaring dragons breathing fiery doom from the sky, but there was nothing. Absolutely nothing.

  ‘Call me when she wakes,’ he said to Ebba and left the room.

  In the main hall a handful of people, guards and tradesmen bringing in provender were having breakfast. So, too, were Ulian and Alys. He went over to them and told them the events of the previous night as well as relating the tale of the fishermen at Oxhagen.

  ‘What is it you want to do?’ said Ulian, with a worried frown that seemed to knit his eyebrows together.

  ‘I don’t know. All I want to do is get rid of that cursed stone.’

  ‘You want to take it back into that labyrinth? To face these spirits? Peasants can see phantoms in any shadow but there is obviously something in this tale. People died there – do you wish to take such a risk?’

  ‘Well, we cannot let the current state of affairs continue. As it stands, I propose paying a couple of my more trusted men a lot of money to go with me. If these ... things see I have something they want, hopefully it will go well for us.’

  ‘You have no successor, have you?’

  ‘No, it is something I should consider. I had better get something legal drawn up.’

  ‘It is not really my business, my Lord, but do you know who would inherit your estates if, Artorus help us, something terrible did happen to you?’

  ‘It is no secret, at least not to the people that know me. A quarter of my lands that border Einar’s go to him; the rest goes to the Hartfields. I have done that, because to bequeath it to my wife alone, would put her life in danger. There are many barons around here I trust little enough, but the thought of dealing with an army from the capital should rein in their ambitions nicely. No one would dare back-stab a Hartfield.’

  ‘Do you think she is capable of ruling alone?’

  ‘She has Bruan. And Einar. She has taken petitions on her own and done well. I have no concerns on that score.’

  ‘May I go and see her, my Lord?’ asked Alys.

  ‘Of course, though she is asleep at present.’

  After Alys had gone, Ulian wiped some gravy from his mouth. ‘Very tasty. I commend your kitchens most highly. I will, of course, be coming with you; there may be something I can do to help.’

  ‘No. It is too dangerous. You have told me everything you know; there is no need for you to make the journey.’

  ‘I disagree. If I go there, into these tunnels, I might just see something important that you may not recognise as being so. If these are Wych tunnels, it is something I have more knowledge of than, with all due respect, you. ‘

  ‘You think you can navigate them?’

  ‘I don’t know till I get there, but I at least have as good a chance as you.’

  Wulfthram thought for a moment. ‘I will think about it.’

  ‘Good, when are we, I mean you, leaving.’

  ‘The weather is foul at the moment, not a good time to put to sea, but, assuming it does improve, I intend to leave as soon as I can – hopefully in a couple of days.’

  ‘Have you told your wife you are not taking her?’

  ‘No,’ he groaned.

  ‘It is just that she seems quite stubborn of mien; she might...’

  ‘Yes, she might. I will speak to her when she wakes up.’

  At that point Ebba entered the room and came towards them.

  ‘My Lord, her Ladyship has just woken. You asked me to let you know...’

  ‘Right, fine, right. Run along, tell her I will be there presently.’

  As Ebba did as she was bid, Wulfthram stared at the table, perfectly aware of the steady gaze Ulian was giving him. At length he stood, looked like he was about to say something, then sat down again calling for one of the servants.

  ‘You know, what you said about the kitchens has made me quite hungry. I may just help myself to some breakfast first.’

  Ceriana sat on the edge of the bed, running a comb roughly through her hair. Her skin was a sickly white colour and there were dark grey circles under her eyes. Alys was sitting next to her holding a hand mirror; she seemed pretty reluctant to hand it over, something the other girl obviously noticed.

  ‘Do I look that bad? I can take it, Alys. Hand it over.’ She took a quick look and groaned. ‘Elissa’s eyes, am I dead?’ She handed the mirror back. ‘Sorry, Alys, I was wrong. Is there anywhere I can get a new head? A prettier one that doesn’t look like it died a week ago?’

  ‘You don’t need a new head, my Lady. We just need to sort this problem out, so you can recover yourself, get your health back as it should be.’

  ‘I could take the waters at Zerannon,’ she laughed. ‘I have heard that mentioned by some. No, I need to do something with that infernal stone. I know what I have to do but my husband and others may be ... resistant.’

  ‘Why not just throw it into the sea?’

  ‘What? Hop in a ship, find the deepest ocean I can and just throw it over the side?’

  ‘Well yes, my Lady.’

  ‘It sounds tempting, doesn’t it, but the dragon is awake now; if the stone is the key to returning him to his slumber, having it at the bottom of the ocean is not a particularly good idea. Besides, the link between the two of us is there now and I don’t feel putting distance between myself and the stone will help anymore. There has to be another way.’

  ‘What about trying to smash it? There must be a sledgehammer or something powerful enough to crush it into pieces.’

  ‘But that might kill me!’ She ran her hands through her hair. ‘By the Gods, what a mess! Alys, talk to me about something else. I am sick and tired of thinking about the damned thing. Tell me about your man, or life at St Philig’s, anything. You assisted some washerwomen before Cedric took you under his wing, did you not? What was that like?’

  ‘Hard, my Lady, but we were a big family and it helped put food on the table. I have been working for Master Cedric for three years now, it is a lot more enjoyable than my former employment even though he cannot afford to pay me much of a stipend.’

  ‘And your man?’

  ‘Willem? He is the only person I know who is shyer than me. He came to St Philig’s on a scholarship from a monastery. At first I avoided him thinking he was probably very religious.’

  ‘Would that bother you?’

  ‘Not in itself, no; it is just that religious people can talk down to you so. To be honest, my faith isn’t that strong. I have seen both a brother and a sister lose their lives in a harsh winter, neither of them being any more than babes. If the Gods can take innocent children so easily, are they really worthy of our respect? Do we worship them out of fear in case it is us next?’

  ‘The church says their motives are beyond our capacity to fathom. It is a question that has troubled me in the past, too.’

  ‘Anyway, my Lady, Willem is a good disciple of the church but he has never spoken of his faith to me. We share an interest insofar as we are both keen to learn and are grateful for the opportunity Master Cedric has given us. He is kind, considerate and funny. There is the problem of him being a church scholar and so not permitted to marry, but Cedric has told me not to worry over such things and that ways can be found to get around this matter.’

  ‘It is a barrier,
though,’ said Ceriana. ‘I will help, if I can; if a letter to his monastery is needed, I will be happy to send one. I have sworn to help Ebba marry and it would be wonderful if I could help you, too.’ At last, she thought, something to take my mind off recent events, to get me to stop thinking of just myself for a change.

  ‘I am grateful, my Lady. Perhaps if Master Cedric manages to get here, the two of you could discuss the matter.’

  ‘A splendid idea; I do hope he manages to get here soon. I suppose I had better get dressed and washed for breakfast.’

  Just at that moment the door opened. She knew who it was as everybody else knocked. ‘Yes, my husband?’

  ‘You might want to come to the main hall.’

  ‘I will – just let me get washed and dressed first.’

  ‘Get dressed by all means, but you might want to leave your grooming till afterwards.’

  She turned to face him, a perplexed expression on her pale face. ‘Why? What in Elissa’s name has happened?’

  ‘We have ... visitors.’

  She stood up; she and Alys became all bustle and animation. ‘Is it the scholar? Has he arrived here?’

  ‘No. It is not the scholar. They are in the main hall being watched by all the guards I have available.’

  ‘Stop teasing me, Wulf. Who by all that’s holy are they?’

  ‘There are three of them. Their leader says his name is Luto; he says he wishes to help you if you return what has been taken from him.’

  Realisation slowly dawned in her thumping head. ‘You mean...?’

  ‘Yes, Ulian’s black priests; they are waiting to talk to us.’

  She nodded slowly and started to pull on some clothes. For one of the first times in her life she neither saw nor cared about what she was wearing, or about make-up, or jewellery, or even washing.

  It was as he said. In front of the high table, surrounded by guards whose halberds formed a ring of steel around them, stood three of the black priests.

  To Ceriana, they barely seemed human. With their shaven heads and identical garb they looked as though they had hatched from the same egg or burst from the same seed pod. Their faces were devoid of expression, blank and inscrutable. They stood, awaiting their audience with a certain calm serenity, as though they had all the time in the world. The leader of the three, though, was a little different. His cheeks and eyes looked as though they had partly sunk into his face and his forehead was high and domed. He was also impossibly tall, Ceriana reckoned he could not be far short of seven foot in height and he stooped slightly with his shoulders pointing forwards, hunching slightly over his torso. Ulian was waiting there on the other side of the table, looking extremely discomfited. Wulfthram, however, gave no sign of being at the least troubled by the bizarre sight ahead of him. He walked to the table and sat down with all the self-assurance in the world, Ceriana and Alys followed behind in a much more timorous manner. When they were all seated, Wulfthram beckoned for their visitors to do the same. They remained standing. The tall man finally spoke.

  ‘It is not for us to be seated and comfortable in the house of one who has wronged us.’

  ‘I see.’ Wulfthram spoke as if he were hearing the hundredth petition that day between farmers squabbling over the tiniest portion of land. ‘And how exactly do you feel you have been wronged?’

  The tall man’s steely gaze alighted on Ceriana. ‘The woman. She knows. She knows what she has taken.’

  Ceriana squirmed in her seat. Wulfthram barely glanced at her. ‘Oh you mean that stone. You are mistaken, my friend; she found it on a beach. She has stolen from the fish, the crabs, and the seaweed – no one else – and if you wish to accuse my wife of theft, you had better have some evidence to back this up otherwise I deem a flogging might be in order.’

  The man’s expression hardened, if that was possible. He spoke again, his accent thick, guttural. It required full concentration to understand what he was saying. He was obviously not speaking his native tongue.

  ‘We came here to collect a precious object. We found it. It is now in the possession of that woman. For that wrong to be righted, it has to be returned.’

  Ceriana realised that one of the men standing behind the spokesman was the same one she had seen when out riding in Thakholm. Plucking up courage and in a thin raspy voice, she asked the next question.

  ‘If this stone was returned to you, what exactly would you do with it?’

  The man met her stare; it took her all her willpower not to flinch, but she held firm.

  ‘It is not your business to know this. We, of the Order of the Draigo, obey the will of the Ancient One. What that will is we have spent centuries discerning. How can I explain it to you in one afternoon?’

  ‘You will have to try. Otherwise, you will have no chance of seeing the stone.’

  The man smiled, a cruel smile. ‘Are you so eager to accept the changes that the stone is working upon your body? Do you know how it will end for you? We can read the stone, we can locate it, we can see you are sensitive to its call. If you persist in keeping it, with communicating with the being you are linked to, then the stone will be lost to us; we will be unable to bend it the way we wish, but the cost to you will be a lot worse than that. You are young, your life could be long and happy, but retain this object in your possession and it will be anything but. A lifetime of pain and isolation in a body that is no longer fully human – that is what awaits you. We are prepared for this change – for us the transformation is a glorious one – but are you?’

  Ulian had a book open in front of him. He asked the next question as Ceriana pondered the man’s words, trying to fight the chill that was gripping her throat and stomach.

  ‘It says in this book that your order was founded in imitation of the dragon worship common in elven societies about a thousand years ago. It also says that you wish to control dragons and use them to purge this world of the unworthy, so a new order can be brought about. Can you tell us exactly who the unworthy actually are?

  ‘That will not be for us to decide; the creatures that have been awakened will choose. The wisest ones, the Aelva, will be spared – that we know – but, apart from that, the will of the oldest creatures is closed to us.’

  Ulian cleared his throat. ‘What you are saying is that you wish to awaken these monsters and let them loose to wreak havoc upon the world. What if they deem you unworthy and set about slaughtering you?’

  ‘Then we will accept our fate and commend our unworthy spirits to the Ancient One. Death holds no terrors for us.’

  ‘Don’t believe him!’ Ceriana said to her companions. ‘They can control the dragons through the stones. They are hardly going to attack their own people.’

  ‘No,’ said the man. ‘Not if the will of the creature proves stronger. When one of our priests fuses with one of the Oldest Ones, it is never certain who will emerge the more dominant of the two.’

  ‘How many of these stones are there?’ asked Wulfthram.

  ‘There are descriptions of each of them,’ said the man, ‘and their location, in ancient works of the Aelven, which were granted to us by them as reward for our long and trusted friendship. They were, however, written in cypher; it has taken us a millennium to decrypt but part of these writings. There could be hundreds of these stones. The unencrypted writings were carved on dragons’ teeth, bound in gold and kept in the great Aelven cities. Each tooth contained a portion of the writings found in the entire book; all six of these, however, have been lost over time.’

  The man behind him whom Ceriana had recognised earlier spoke: ‘None of this is important. We have come here for the stone. Will you give it to us, or do we leave empty-handed? If that is to be the case, let us warn you – we will bide our time and take it back when we can, by force if necessary. Not to do so would dishonour our god.’

  ‘That depends,’ said Wulfthram. ‘Tell me, is there any way this stone can be neutralised? Its power drained? Do your Wych tomes cover that at any point?’

 
; ‘There are ways,’ said the tall man. ‘But we will never do this. It is to defy the will of the Ancient One to do such a thing. And’ – he leaned forward, looking intently at Wulfthram – ‘we will never tell any other of the way it is done either.’

  Wulfthram spoke airily. ‘Beneath this mansion there is a small dungeon; I use it rarely – only for the most heinous of criminals and egregious of offences. There is a man I can engage in the town, an expert on hot iron brands, a man thorough in his work pulling teeth or nails, turning the thumbscrews, fixing the bridle, that sort of thing. Do you wish me to employ him now? It is cold and damp down there. Wounds will never heal; rather they will fester, fill with pus; maybe an amputation would be necessary; we have the saw and the rag to put between what is left of your teeth to do such a thing. It would be easy for us to arrange it. So I ask again: how do you drain the power of this stone?’

  The tall man smiled mirthlessly. ‘We have come here voluntarily to request the return of our property and you threaten us with torture and mutilation. I doubt that the Oldest Ones would find you worthy. However, we were expecting such an eventuality and have not come unprepared. Our temple is close to the great jungles in the south. Many toxins thrive in these conditions; some, when mixed together, can produce unusual effects. Before leaving our ship this morning the three of us drank such a substance. If we do not return by noon on the morrow, its poison will kill us. The neutralising substance is with my brothers on the ship.’

  ‘Noon tomorrow,’ said Wulfthram. ‘It still gives us enough time to persuade you to talk.’

  ‘Our deaths will be assured, but so may yours. The substance we have imbibed is corrosive and unstable. Before we die we will sweat profusely as our organs start to break down. Any man nearby who touches us will contract the poison and suffer the same fate. It is an agonising way to die. The longer we are away from the antidote, the greater the chance of this happening. Your torturer is as unlikely to see noon tomorrow as we.’