Wine of the Gods 08: Dark Lady

by Pam Uphoff

  "One week!" the Arbolian yelled.

  They turned and rode back to the gate, which opened for them, and then closed.

  Lady December, perfectly visible, was on the prince's heels as he trotted up the stairs. He was laughing incredulously. "I never thought magic could be so utterly satisfying."

  She pulled the black scarf off her head and shook out her fluffy light brown hair and took off her jacket to show an ordinary white blouse beneath it. "So I don't look like the Dark Lady, to them, if they notice me up here. That was fun, however, there's only one of me and about a thousand of them, and it looks like there are more still coming."

  Captain Stone, who was looking a bit pale, squinted down at the statues. "How close do you have to be, to do that?"

  "Almost close enough to touch. I can do sparks, like they did, but frankly I can shoot arrows faster and further. One thing that I can do is make corridors. Corridors might be useful. We could send scavenging parties out beyond them, bring in more supplies."

  "Err . . ."

  "Sorry, they’re . . . you just step in one side and out the other, sometimes miles away. Umm. Maybe I'd better try before I promise, the state my head is in."

  The Prince scratched his jaw. "Could we send troops out? Raid their back areas and make it look like there are some Imperial Guards out of the town?"

  "Oh yes, that would be easy. If I can do it at all, all sorts of things are possible."

  Chapter Twelve

  Friday February 27, 3493 AD

  Jeramtown, Arrival

  Liz spent the next day on horseback doing uncanny things.

  The lady had to have been someplace before she could make a magic corridor. So the first corridor was just to the north of town, where she had first ridden Phantom.

  "I think I can throw the end of the corridor a mile or two. Anything longer and I'll have to be there to stretch it." She frowned, looking introspective, then shrugged. Pantomimed grabbing something. Pulling it open, throwing it. She stepped up and patted the wall, pulling something across like a curtain of green grass and hillside.

  "Well, there aren't any troops on that side of the corridor." The lady walked back to Phantom and mounted.

  Kurt led the way with a troop on spooking horses being forced into the bright square drawn on the brick wall and out into a field outside of the town. They emerged to hear startled gasps. Behind them, a group of Arbolians, surprised, but starting to move. Liz reined frantically away from one reaching for his sword, but the lady kicked Phantom forward, her sword extended and braced and stabbed him. The lady pulled the sword free and spun the stallion to block another Arbolian's attack, sliding her sword down his then breaking loose to slash as she passed him.

  One of the guards ran him through from the back, and looking around Liz realized that the entire troop of Arbolians was dead. Three of the Imperials were wounded, and the lady produced a flask and warned them to only take a small sip. They were healed very nearly instantly, and rode looking uncomfortable. Out of the corner of her eye she saw them adjusting their britches and they occasionally cast longing looks her way. Kurt was biting his lip.

  "You look like you are trying to not laugh."

  He cleared his throat. "That is a wicked combination of herbs or spells or whatever in that wine. Especially for a man in a rather hard saddle."

  Liz blushed, and looked away. And frowned at a square image of a town street hanging a few inches off the ground. Right. I guess Lady December is uncanny after all.

  They found three farms, so far unlooted, and the lady made another corridor back to town.

  The gleaning crew and wagons lurched through and proceeded to loot. The owners were there to oversee, and a clerk from the baron's office made notes. The lady rode to four other farms whose owners or tenants hadn't had time to bring grain and hay to town, and she made corridors for them as well.

  "These will, umm, evaporate on their own in less than a day, because I didn't anchor them. If there is someplace you want a permanent, or at least, long lasting, corridor to, tell me. I can pin them down better, so they last."

  Kurt nodded. "We just don't have much time before they get it all. Even if we're just dumping it on the ground, we've at least denied it to them. Damn it, we were all stockpiling for the fourth year famine."

  The lady blinked. "Fourth year . . . Dumping it on the ground? Excuse me." She aimed Phantom back through the square, and stayed there for perhaps half an hour.

  Liz kept watch, feeling a bit helpless after the fight. The lady had killed a man without blinking, had more than held her own against another. All Liz could do was duck and run.

  Phantom jumped back through the square.

  "All right, I've fixed up some storage space for the grain, which has given me a brilliant idea about the rest of your list."

  They left the gleaners and rode on to the next farm where the lady disappeared three hay stacks, and a small silo half full of cotton seed.

  "It's right there, in a bubble. I can get it back, any time, so there's no rush for the gleaners. We'll come and get stuff as we need it." She remounted, and they continued a sweep around the foreign troops. They switched horses when they stopped for dinner, and for the lady to nurse a fortunately hungry baby to relieve her aching breasts. Then they were back out and finished all the farms within three miles of the troops.

  Kurt looked smug enough to nearly hide the weariness. "Unfortunately they already hold the nearby farms, but at this rate we can starve them out."

  ***

  They spent three days at it, with increasing numbers of clashes with enemy troops that were out doing roughly the same, then Kurt called an end to it. The lady slept like the dead for most of the next day.

  Then she settled down with a collection of copper and tin bars and produced handsome bronze helmets to convince the Arbolians that there were more trained and well equipped soldiers here than they had expected.

  Liz tried one on. "It's very uncomfortable."

  "It needs padding, there's a bunch of women knitting thick caps to go under them." The lady had given up all pretense of normality and Liz watched in fascination as she held a bar of copper and another of tin and mixed them with her hands, as if they were so much clay. She'd made, in much the same fashion, the rock form she now pressed the bronze down on and shaped another helmet.

  Liz helped as much as she could fetching and carrying, making sure the lady ate and rested.

  And of course, if you can store grain in a bubble that doesn’t quite exist in the real World, you can store people and animals as well. A thin skin of rock to provide a form for the bubble, and all that was needed was room for the doors. Liz was kept busy, just carrying requests from people a bit too shy to approach the lady directly.

  She seemed to be able to form rock as if it were putty, making room-sized open cubes, then making them disappear, except for the doorway.

  With a bit of experimentation—totally incomprehensible to Liz—Lady December figured out how to make a bubble that could be sealed and unsealed from the inside by ordinary people.

  Liz memorized the lecture that went with it. "It's dangerous! When you are sealed inside, you'll feel like no time has passed at all, but it goes by very fast on the outside. Your livestock can spend all winter in there, and not need to be fed or watered, but they won't be growing, the calves and lambs will all be late." But that same thing made it safe to hide inside, if the town was over run. "Wait for a slow count to ten, that'll be about a day, on the outside. If you stay inside for what feels like all day and all night—something like twenty-five years will have passed, out here." Liz paused while that sank in. "So don't sleep with the door closed. You'll wake up in ten years, with, at best, your farms taken for non-payment of taxes." Now that caught their attention!

  Good Lord. They looked all nervy and scared, but within minutes they were experimenting.

  Once Lady December got all the people off the streets, people started asking for bubble barns for animals. To
deliberately close them in. They wouldn't grow, produce milk, gestate calves or lambs, but they also didn't eat anything, nor produce waste products that had to be cleaned up and disposed of. Mr. Preston sealed all but his chestnut foursome into a bubble.

  "No point in feeding them, when I can make money boarding other people's . . . Here, now, how about another bubble for other people's horses that they won't be using? I could give 'em a special rate . . . "

  Even the guard's horses were stabled in bubbles.

  Moxie showed signs of coming into season, so the lady gave her some wine and left the horses to enjoy themselves. After three days she put her in a bubble as well. "If something happens to Phantom, I'll at least have a foal."

  Within days the town appeared nearly empty of horses. And beef cattle. And sheep. Only milk cows, milk goats, and chickens were useful enough to feed.

  The town got used to "uncanny" incredibly quickly. I wonder if they will want to store so many animals every winter, from now on.

  Liz shivered.

  If they survive this winter.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Saturday, March 7, 3493 AD

  Jeramtown, Arrival

  December smiled when she spotted Lucy's collection of children in the other room. Lucy and her husband had taken the bed into the small bubble room December had attached to the side wall. The boys still slept on the floor, but during the day it was a school room for both boys and girls.

  December had provided the slates and chalk, but given money, Lucy had prowled the town and bought every book she could find.

  Margarite, John and two other boys of ten or eleven sat in the back reading at the moment. Susan and Edward were copying something, and Benjamin and five other children of a wide range of sizes were learning their letters under Lucy's keen eye. It was a quiet and well behaved class.

  Christopher, the three year old, Avis and Quail were in the women's room, with three other babes and two toddlers. The mothers were all trading off minding the youngsters, and so far it was working out well. The door was open so Lucy could hear them and check occasionally. Probably kept the younger mothers alert.

  Quail was just starting to fuss when December got there. "Good timing," she smiled at the young woman on duty. The poor thing looked terrified of "the Dark Lady."

  Oh well. Finding Liz is enough luck for one year.

  She relaxed with the baby in her arms. She really needed to get more sleep. She'd done everything a witch could, and it was going to be a matter of endurance now. Even the raids on the Arbolians patrols were getting harder, The troops had several badly injured men in the last raid. Her wine was getting quite a reputation.

  The room was dimming as the sun set, and the other mothers, and one father, trickled in to pick up their children. The older ones headed out; they were all helping around the tavern in one capacity or another.

  Lucy came in with a sigh to pay attention to the two little ones, but they were too over stimulated by a day with other children to do more than whine. "Madam Cordes is delighted to have her two little ones out from underfoot. And some of the baron's staff are married and have children."

  "Excellent. Your school is growing. Once the siege is lifted, you may find yourself badly missed, or, of course, opening a school here in town."

  The woman looked wistful, but shook her head. "It wouldn't be allowed."

  December cocked her head. "Then don't stop, don't ask anyone for permission. Just keep teaching." She stirred restlessly, and had to remind herself to rest while she could.

  Another week and these children will learn about war.

  ***

  Liz shook her head in disbelief, leaning on the wall and watching the enemy. "I never thought I'd see a war." The Arbolians had built fortifications facing outward, as the guards raided at will. They had finished the wooden parts of the catapults, and were winding them down.

  Captain Franklin Stone paced, growling under his breath about princes.

  Liz grinned, "You just don't like him having all the fights."

  "Damn straight. All this year I figured he was trying to get himself killed. Now that he's finally back and solid, he's likely to actually get himself killed." He shot her a quick glance. "That Arbolian . . . well, I'd better not use witch as an insult . . . Princess they were going to marry him off to was utterly cold, completely loyal to her country. It would have been a soul destroying, loveless marriage. Oh, damn it all, what I wouldn't give to have those problems back! We've been friends since we were about six years old. Sorry, I'm babbling. He's not just a friend, he's an excellent officer, and one of the best men I know. I don't know if it's you or that very scary lady he likes. Look, he still needs love, needs someone to care about."

  Liz blinked. "I suppose so, but . . . I mean, he's a Prince, no matter what. I'm a . . . nothing. Scooped up by that very scary lady just when I thought I was destined for the gutter. I can't, he's a Prince, damn it. His father will marry him off to someone for political advantage, no matter how many rumors are true."

  "Oh good, you babble too." Stone grinned at her. "So who are you going to marry? What sort of person? Will he really mind that you hugged and kissed a guy that everyone knows isn't a threat to your virginity?"

  "Oh, that really cheers me up." Liz turned and leaned on the parapet. I really, really, did not want those rumors to be true.

  "Ha! Thought so."

  "Well, he's handsome, brave, charming and smart. He actually likes me. If he weren't a prince I'd be throwing myself at him."

  Light footsteps and the lady was there. "They finished it?"

  "Yes and they're maneuvering for an assault," the captain said, looking around at heavier footsteps.

  "So, they ran out of patience, did they?" Kurt joined them, leaning on the parapet between Liz and Franklin.

  "Yep." Franklin looked around at the lady. "Anything you can do?"

  "Stop fires. Shield a small area. I can move rocks, but only if they are close. Otherwise, we'll just have to survive whatever he throws." The lady shook her head. "Unless it's magical. That I can probably deal with."

  "How about a god?"

  "If it's God the Creator, I'm not only in trouble, I'm on the wrong side. If it's the sort of powerful magic user that gets called a god where I come from, I'm merely in trouble."

  Kurt chuckled. "I must say you sound very confident. Have you remembered where the Kingdom of the West is?"

  "Oh, that I've always known. It's through a dimensional gate. I fled through a gate, and I'm fairly sure I can find it again. North-west. In a straight line, probably a week's travel. I really do need to have a long talk with the preacher. I think, that when our ancestors were exiled, they were sent to more than one World. I would really like to talk to an expert. My World has suffered so many calamities that we've lost huge chunks of our history."

  Kurt stared. "You have just blabbed some of the royal family's and church's most deeply held secrets."

  "Really? Wow. Tell you what, first we'll deal with the Arbolians, then we'll burn me at the stake, Okay?"

  "Well, I don't think any actual burning is needed." The Prince grinned. "But I want to be there when you meet the bishop. My first courier should have dropped a message at Vista for Baron Randal, and be well on his way to White Bluff. He'll pick up the river, there, take a boat to the Capital . . . in another week. Depending on who and what he encounters along the way, we could be getting help in two weeks, or if Randal can't come, six weeks. Or longer. You can't move troops as fast as a courier . . . "

  Franklin nudged him. "I hate to interrupt, but they've maneuvered that catapult just a bit and it seems to be aimed right at us."

  "You think they can aim?" Kurt grinned. "And they haven't brought up any rocks yet. Maybe they'll wait for daylight tomorrow, for their ranging shots."

  "Oh, they're close enough they really can't miss. All they have to figure out is how heavy a stone they need to hit something specific."

  Kurt snorted. "All right, down we g
o. We should get an early dinner. I expect to be up late tonight. Although they may wait until they have all of the trebuchets finished. That'd give us a few more days."

  The whole town was astir, news from the wall spread fast. They walked quickly, not inviting questions, and ignoring the few that were shouted at them. Kurt's hand touched her twice, elbow and the small of her back. It felt . . . very good.

  ***

  Kurt escorted the women back to the tavern and watched them go with regret. Especially Liz. Had she actually said the problem was that he was a prince? He shouldn't have listened. It had been both amusing and painful to hear poor Franklin babbling on and trying to not use words like castrated or gelded. But God he knew Kurt well. Knew that the single silver lining to the whole disaster was that his father had cancelled the engagement to Princess Icicle. He'd joked about it himself, saying that marrying her, his sex life would have been over anyway, so at least this way he could still drink and play cards. But Liz.

  Oh God, I want Liz. I want Liz forever.

  He stomped up to his room and divested himself of the light armor that was all he had with him for this training trip. Metal strips on a leather jacket and gauntlets, a fancy parade helmet. A quick wash, a clean shirt. And down to dinner. The baron was waiting at the foot of the stairs.

  "I . . . I wanted to ask what you intend for my son." He looked away unhappily.

  Kurt sighed. "That will be up to my father. I think you may be sure that he will not inherit, but given your loyalty, I'll ask that his life be spared."

  The baron blinked away tears. "Thank you. I . . . I realize now, too late, what a poor job of raising him I have done. I indulged him, spoiled him . . . My sister married Baron Randal, they have several sons. I shall petition for one of the younger of them to inherit here." He raised his head, then, and frowned at Kurt. "You want to be careful around that girl. Like mother, like daughter!"