She had not found the thief and now she feared she had lost her friends as well, for she had lost all track of her starting point. Despair mingled with exhaustion and her limbs ached. She needed to land or she risked falling, as she had done in the marais. She spotted a path, or what she hoped was a path, and angled toward it, but it was no good.
She was coming down and all she could do was to slow her descent so it wasn’t fatal. Even so, Then she spotted the column of smoke. The dwarf! It had to be. She angled toward it.
The trees rushed up at her like green lances. A tiny clearing was below her feet, but she overshot and crashed through pines. Branches and needles cut her, but she kept her balance, landed hard, and tumbled.
She got up carefully and took stock. No injuries beyond several bleeding scratches that were bleeding. Nothing bad; nothing broken. She was luckier than she deserved, she thought bitterly. She was only a few steps from the clearing and went out there to be in sunlight. She lay down among blue wildflowers and placed her hands on the warm earth under them. Plain dirt had never smelled better.
She had missed the smoke by a good quarter mile or so. She decided that was just as well. If the dwarf had not spotted her, she would be able to sneak creep up on the little sneak. But she was spent. She would rest, just for a few minutes. It would do no good if she surprised him by staggering and falling.
She fell asleep. She dihadn’t meant to, but her exhaustion, coupled with the warm sun on the fragrant earth, lulled her. She awoke suddenly, with a cold stab of sensation that someone was watching her.
Saveric.
The wizard spread his arms wide, holding the staff horizontal.
“I mean no harm,” Saveric said. “I am not your enemy, Talysse. Look! I lay down my staff, without which I am powerless.”
She shook her head to clear it. Why wasn’t that the dwarf? Where had the wizard come from?
She didn’t believe for a moment he was powerless, but as he squatted to put it down, his bad leg caused him to twist. He stood again only with great effort. Less powerful, anyway, she thought, but the real reason she hesitated was simpler, uncalculated: She was lost and alone.
“Why are you here? How did you find me?” She had a vision of Saveric trailing after them the whole time, waiting for his chance to get her alone.
“Can we not talk,” Saveric asked pleasantly, “and save explanations for another time?”
“No,” Talysse said firmly. “Explain now, then talk.” She was trying to gain some time to recover. She was too weak just now to fly away.
Saveric sighed, but nodded. “You got away from me with that river crossing. Very clever. I did not catch your trail again until the routiers crossed at Carcassonne. They claimed you perished with Brasc, but that was a simple ruse. I knew you would head into the mountains and sent scouts to find you.
“They found you quickly enough and I set out in pursuit. Alas, with this leg,…” hHe shifted uncomfortably,. “may I sit?”
She frowned, thinking he was playing for sympathy, but he really did look pained. “Go ahead,” she said.
He moved to a fallen log.
“But leave your staff at this end,” she said, pointing,” and you sit at that end.”
It was only a matter of a couple of yards, but it would at least keep him from attacking instantly. Saveric leaned the staff, then sat rather elaborately at the other end. He sighed.
“Thank you. I appreciate your kindness.”
She frowned impatiently. She did not like feeling sorry for him.
“So, where was I? Ah yes, Puig Balabor. You lingered there, giving me time to catch up. I’m sure you have already guessed that I hired Gans.”
She did her best not to show that she had not guessed that at all. She nodded. “To steal our things.”
“No,” Saveric said. “I did not expect him to leave you. I shall have to settle with him later.” He dismissed the dwarf with a wave of his hand.
“I stayed close; then I saw you fly. I had to pursue, of course, but you are surprisingly fast. You have quite worn out my horse, I’m afraid. That explains the smoke, yes? I could not catch up to you, so I signaled you to me.”
He shifted his leg with obvious discomfort. She supposed a day’s hard riding had indeed pained him.
“Now,” the wizard said, “is that sufficient? Your friends without doubt saw the signal, too, and are making their way here with all haste. I would speak to you alone, without chivalric interruption.” He smiled grimly.
He fascinated her. He sat in a swath of sunlight, his robe quite ordinary, stained by travel, his dark head cocked to one side, eyes bright. He looked like some exotic, interesting bird that might be friendly but might just as well leap at her and peck out her heart. I would run away, she thought, or even fly away, but I’m lost and don’t know which way to go. And he would only follow me again. Or worse.
“All right,” she said to the wizard, “we can talk. But if you do anything I don’t like, I’ll be gone in a flash.” She hoped that sounded convincing. She took a deep breath. He was right, she had plenty of questions. She did not like that he was right about her.
“Why are you following me?”
She tried to take it back even as she said it. The question was too weak. It whined when she wanted to demand. She vowed to be more forceful.
Saveric nodded. “A sensible beginning. I have reasons, but for them to make any sense I must ask my own question in return. May I?”
He was making a show of being polite. Surely it was only for show, though she recalled her earlier conversations with him. He’d always been polite, hadn’t he?
He was still waiting for her. “Go ahead,” she said.
“Do you know of Carolus Magnus?”
She snorted. “Charlemagne. Naturally. I’m not ignorant.”
“Of course you are not. Apologies. I shall not compound the insult by asking if you know about Roncevaux, the Breton captain, or the Archmage Turpin.”
He emphasized the third name ever so slightly. She nodded, but in truth she had barely heard of Turpin, nor any captains, Breton or otherwise. She thought Roncevaux might have been a battle or something. She preferred the stories about Charlemagne’s paladins.
“Then you know the archmage died at Roncevaux, alongside Roland.”
The name Roland brought back some memory. The betrayal by Ganelon. The troll ambush in the mountains. Roland and Turpin stayed behind, allowing Charlemagne to escape with the bulk of his army, back to the safety of Gaul. How this touched her was not at all clear.
“Few legends tell of what happened on the field after the battle had ended. Thousands of bodies picked over by thousands of trolls does not make a popular theme with poets. Most people think Carolus returned after the winter snows to bury what remained of the heroes of Roncevaux.”
Still pointless, though, Talysse thought.
“They found Roland with his mighty horn shattered nearby. But they never found the archmage, and they never found his staff, with which he had cast down trolls by the hundreds. What became of the staff of the Archmage Turpin, you may wonder.”
She did not. She was wondering if she was still in the same valley as Detta and the others. In case she had to make a run for it.
“We pass from legend to rumors, which run by the dozen. Trolls took it. Not knowing how to use it, they threw it away in some chasm. Or the Troll King of Hispania kept it in one of his hundred treasure caves at Altamira. One amusing version recounts how a troll thought the thing useless, so he threw it in a campfire, where it did not burn. He tried to destroy it with his tools, but ended with a pile of broken hammers and dulled saws. At last, he threw the Stave of Turpin into the sea at Saguntum. It floated for weeks, through the Pillars of Hercules, never to be seen again.”
Talysse shifted, stretching out her legs. “Is this going to tell me anything about why you want to go to the Redoubt? Or are you practicing to be a trovador like Gonsallo?” She suspected the wizard was trying to distrac
t her.
“It relates most directly,” Saveric said, “for one story in particular says Turpin survived the battle. He fled deep into the mountains and there built a fortress, bringing the Stave with him.” Her attention returned at once to Saveric.
“The Redoubt.” She whispered the words.
“The core of it, at least. There he lived long in arcane research, and his sanctorum was the greatest ever known—or would have been, but he kept it secret and unknown.”
“That doesn’t seem likely,” Talysse said. “Why did he not return to his king?”
“Some say his mind was unhinged by the powerful magics of the battle.”
“How could a witless man build a fortress? How could a fortress be built and not ever found?”
“I have asked those questions and many others,” Saveric said. “It seemed too improbable. If Remigius’ Redoubt were Turpin’s fortress, why was he not the most powerful wizard in all Europa? He and I are rivals—why did he not move against me? Why had he not worked wonders?”
“You have a theory.”
“I do. I shall tell it to you, then you will tell me if you think it nonsense.”
It pleased her that he would treat her as an equal, asking her opinion. The chief trouble with this wizard, she thought, was that he so often made sense.
“All right,” she said, “tell me. I’ll listen.”
“Turpin did not build a fortress after Roncevaux—he built one before, years before. He was not merely one of the great wizards of all time, he was a man of ambition. He built the fortress as his own castle, a place of defense but also of retreat, where he could conduct practices that may not have been tolerated at the imperial court.”
Talysse nodded. That much, at least, sounded reasonable.
“Ganelon was friendly with Turpin; he was perhaps even a student or protégé. I don’t know if Turpin knew what Ganelon intended, but he certainly knew that he would fall under suspicion, no matter that he fought heroically.
“Rather than face his enemies at Aachen, he slipped away to his mountain fastness. I suspect he was wounded—the song certainly makes much of his wounds—and he was too weak to go north anyway. Perhaps he died along the way, or at the Redoubt—for I shall now give it that name—or perhaps he lived for years there. It is all the same, for he was never heard from nor seen again.”
“You’re after treasure,” Talysse said. She gave a small, relieved laugh. This was all nothing more sinister than lust for gold and magic. Except…
“Why not go a month ago, or a year ago? Why did you wait for me? What have I to do with staves and gems?”
A memory of a table with blank cards rose in her mind. She shoved the image away, but the memory clung, cold and damp, like a ghost in fog.
“There, you see? Below the surface, beyond the veil. You ask exactly the right questions. I do believe you will become quite dangerous, one day.”
She waved a hand, as if to push him away. She knew it was only distraction, but she could not help feeling the pull of flattery.
“It was the patronage. Why was my rival, normally a coldly reasoned man, lavishing wealth and attention on a mere girl—you must forgive me, that was my impression at the time—a mere girl at the edge of the sea? Remigius never spent a farthing unless he thought it could become a florin. What did he see in you?”
“I suppose he thought I had potential.”
“No,” Saveric said, shaking his head emphatically, “not at Saldemer. If you had potential, he would have placed you in some great school, like Salerno or Fulda, or even at Perpignan.”
That single sentence devastated her. She knew at once he was right. Remigius saw in her a child of no promise at all. She shuddered and wiped hot tears from her eyes.
Saveric did not notice. He spoke facing her, but all his attention was inward. He might have been lecturing the trees.
“He was not grooming you, he was isolating you.”
“Prison,” Talysse said quietly, the word confirming her old convictions.
“Not that either. There are far better prisons than a cenobitum. You see, from the start you were a mystery to me, and I simply cannot walk away from a mystery. So I investigated.”
Talysse sat without moving, watching Saveric the way a mouse watches a viper. She could not run. She could scarcely breathe.
“The first lie was easy—your parents.”
She refused to start crying. She let ice form over her heart.
“They gave you up, but not to the cenobitum. No, Remigius himself brought you, under cover of night, to that fat, corrupt man, Trumbert. He gave the Prevôt money, with the promise of more, and he gave him a lie to tell—a lie about an elf chevalier and a beautiful noblewoman. He was lazy there, serving up an old Pirinaean legend rather than crafting something clever.”
He shrugged. The patch of sunlight had moved as they talked and Talysse was partly in shadow. She scooted over, but everything beneath her felt unsteady. She wanted to grab the earth with her hands, to keep from falling off. Lies and lies and lies. A person can’t stand on lies.
“When did he deliver you to Saldemer?” Saveric’s question drifted past her, mysterious.
Talysse stared. A long wail curled through her mind, reaching clear into her belly. She feared to open her mouth, lest it escape.
“Don’t remember?” He said it kindly. “It’s not important. I know when it was, or it’s a sure enough guess. He brought you to Saldemer about six years ago. Do you want to know how I determined that?” His voice preened.
Six years. She could remember that far. Six, or was it more? Her separation was a trauma, Trumbert had told her. That was the word he’d used, and it lodged in her memory like a stone. One day, she might remember scraps, but it might be best, he said, if she left the past buried. She had tried for months to recall even a single scrap, without success. Detta, meaning to be kind, told her of an uncle who remembered nothing of his entire childhood, and he was an old man.
She had no proper recollection--—he could be lying to her. But she nodded anyway.
“I knew you’d want to,” Saveric said, mistaking the nod. “It was because seven years ago, we made a discovery, Remigius and I.”
She looked at him, uncomprehending.
“Seven years ago we found the Redoubt.” He paused. When she did not respond, he frowned slightly and went on.
“We explored the place together, for we were not always rivals. Does that surprise you? There was a time when I admired Remigius. I am several years his junior and he is immensely learned. He was a teacher to me, at first. Later…” He trailed off. Lines appeared at the corners of his eyes and his lips thinned. He shook his head slightly. “We fell out. I shall say no more than that.”
Saveric seemed to gather himself again. He straightened, winced hard, and leaned again with one hand on the log.
“The Redoubt was well preserved despite its age,” he continued. “Dwarf-built, certainly, with much evidence of magical engineering. We had discovered Turpin’s fortress, but alas, it had been looted long ago. Search as we might, we found no gem of power, no staff, not even books of learning.
“I was disappointed, and then I made a mistake. I have made many in my life, but none of more consequence than this one.” Genuine regret colored his voice. “I left, and Remigius stayed. He wanted to restore the place and make of it his own great tower. The place was worthless to me, so I let him have it. I thought he was making little more than a gesture, too sentimental to be grand. I wished him the luck of our find and returned to Paris.”
Talysse wished he would stop talking. The sun was not warming her. The shadows under the big pines held the coldness of night in them. She wanted only to curl up under her blanket and listen to Detta snore. She even wished she were back at Saldemer.
“Then you came along. I had suspicions, but no theories. I had to see for myself. And oh, did I see!
“You were extraordinary, Talysse. All natural talent, completely unschooled. Great
promise indeed.
“I knew at once. Remigius, that sly fox, had found something at the Redoubt, something from the archmage himself, maybe. I did not know what you had to do with it, but I knew you were connected.
“He had not simply given you to the cenobites. He had not placed you. He was keeping you away. Not from himself, for he has visited you, so it must be from the Redoubt itself. Why? I don’t know. But you are a danger to him.”
“Me? Dangerous?”
“I don’t see how either, but the facts are plain. You may not want to hurt him, but I have no doubt he’ll not hesitate to hurt you.”
“But he’s my patron.” The wail inside her was at the back of her tongue. She clamped her mouth shut.
“And you are no longer at Saldemer. You are free, and that fact drives him now.”
Free. The word, so precious to her, was now coated with bitterness. This was not freedom, not boxed in by events on every side. She was hurtling down a long, dark slope, unable to turn, unable to stop. She drew a shuddering breath. With nothing to grab hold of, she grabbed hold of herself. She refused to disappear into chaos.
“You may be right,” she said, and was pleased her voice was steady. “You have questions and so do I, and only Remigius can answer them. I agree with you on this much: He is not my patron, not any more. But you listen to me. Just because I agree with you doesn’t mean I trust you.”
Saveric laughed softly. “We understand each other, Talysse. I might tell you I hold only good will toward you, that you have nothing to fear from me. Said to someone who mistrusts you, they are only empty words. And if someone does trust you, there is no need to say them.”
She was struggling to absorb it all. She felt beset on all sides by falsehood. She knew Saveric was watching her, so she fought to keep her emotions from her face.
“May I ask you a question?”
She did not reply at once. Her mind was darting like a hunted rabbit, with her heart trying to catch up.
“Come,” Saveric said, “you have asked several of me. I have been honest. May I not be allowed even one?”
A Child of Great Promise: An Altearth Tale Page 24
