The fall of Highwatch con-1

by Mark Sehestedt

  But there were other shadows.

  Hweilan saw them out of the corners of her eyes-shapes watching them from the storm. But when she turned to face them, she saw only snow, heard only a whisper of footfalls that might have been the snow settling all around them. She couldn't smell anything over the halbdol paint on her face.

  A terrible power emanated from some place in front of her, like an invisible sun. It touched the very marrow of her bones, but not with warmth. This sun burned cold.

  Still she followed Menduarthis.

  Thinking on it, it came down to simple choices. Her family was dead. Murdered. Her friends too. Even people she hadn't much liked. Slaughtered. And what she would have given to see them now. Lendri… Dead? Alive? Did it matter? He wasn't here. It all boiled down to one simple fact:

  "I have nowhere else to go."

  "Ah, now that's not true, little flower," said Menduarthis, and it wasn't until he did that she realized she'd spoken her thoughts aloud. "We always have a choice."

  Another shadow loomed to her left. She turned with a gasp, but it was gone.

  "Don't mind them,' said Menduarthis. He stopped for a moment, until she was beside him, then he put an arm around her shoulder and led her on. "Hmm. Choices, choices. Everyone has choices." He chewed on his lip, made a clicking sound in his cheek, then said, "Not always good ones, though. Damned on left or right. Story of my life."

  "Are you saying I can choose to turn around? "said Hweilan. "Go back? Not face your queen?"

  Menduarthis chuckled, though there was no humor in it. "Afraid not."

  "You said-"

  "I said there are always choices. I didn't say there are always good ones. And that one, I'm afraid, is beyond you. You've been summoned. You will answer to Kunin Gatar."

  "So I have no choice, then?"

  His voice dropped to a whisper. "Oh, but you do. You can go in there all weak-kneed and scared. Maybe even blubber a little. Fall on your knees and beg mercy. You won't get it. Kunin Gatar's heart is as cold as her… well, let's just say I don't recommend that choice. Or you can go in there and face her. Tell the truth. Don't lie, I warn you. She'll know if you do.' He looked away, and she detected a slight trace of his mocking manner returning, though there was a sadness to it now. "I speak from experience."

  "You're saying I should-"

  "Don't misunderstand me," he said. "I'd say there's a decent chance you're about to die. But I've been wrong before. I would have bet my left eye Lendri would be dead by now, and I would have lost that bet. Though I can't say he's any better off. But you can do one thing. Face your fate standing up. Look her in the eye. Tell her the truth. If you die… well, at least do it without shame. No one likes a coward."

  A great shadow loomed out of the storm before them. At first, Hweilan thought it was simply an errant breeze swirling the snow. But with each step, the shadow loomed larger and grew more distinct. It took up the entire sky before them.

  At first she thought it was the most magnificent sculpture she'd ever seen-taller than the outer wall of Highwatch by far, but elegant beyond anything she'd ever imagined. All curves and eddies, like…

  A waterfall. The largest she'd ever seen. A river falling off a precipice that had to be at least a thousand feet high. But the entire waterfall was frozen. Not slowly, like the usual winter grip of the Giantspires. This great cataract had been locked in ice in an instant of glory, thundering fall and tumbling waves and spray. The fall seemed a great multifaceted curtain, shaped in every shade of blue, white, and purple. The waves at the bottom large as houses, no two alike, all curves and swirls that melted into one another before freezing forever. All beautiful beyond description. But the frozen spray… it reached out at jagged angles, like thorns or curving blades. Sharp as razors.

  "The palace of Kunin Gatar," said Menduarthis. "Ellestharn. Snowthorn."

  Hweilan suddenly felt very small. She'd always taken great pride in Highwatch, even though in her heart of hearts she'd never really loved the place. Carved onto the mountain's face, crafted from the bones of the earth, it rose above the steppe, the tallest dwelling for hundreds of miles. A great house of stone in a land where most people lived in hide tents. Shaped by the hands of master stoneworkers, it demanded awe. But this…

  The crude buildings of men, dwarves, their mightiest works… they seemed ugly, crude, the scratchings of petulant children in comparison to this. Ellestharn was a work of magnificent, terrible beauty.

  "How could… this"-she gestured at the frozen palace-" be?"

  "Kunin Gatar," said Menduarthis. "The Queen."

  Hweilan heard the raven before she saw it-a harsh caw! caw! that broke through the reverent silence of the storm. She turned and saw the bird circling them.

  Menduarthis kept walking, ignoring the bird. Hweilan followed, though she kept a wary eye on the newcomer. It faded in and out of the storm behind them.

  They stopped just in front of the nearest walls of the ice palace-a great wave of ice shards that curved over them, almost like a reaching hand.

  The raven alighted on the nearest column of ice. It regarded them with one eye, then flapped its wings furiously. Feathers flew about it, mingling with the snow, and the bird's form blurred, seeming to suffuse like a droplet of blood in clear water. Its black feathers became smokelike, spreading then swirling amid the snow. The swirls coalesced and reformed into a more human shape.

  At first Hweilan thought it was some sort of twisted elf child-small, thin, all loose angles connecting lanky limbs. Black eyes set in gray skin beneath an unruly shock of black hair that still had the look of feathers. His entire body, crouched on the ice, seemed to be letting off a faint black steam, but it fell around him rather than rising.

  "Govuled, Menduarthis," he said, and Hweilan was shocked at the deep voice that emanated from such a small frame.

  "Well met, Roakh," said Menduarthis. "You should speak so that our guest might understand."

  Roakh cocked his head sideways and looked at Hweilan. A shiver went down her spine, and she felt suddenly very helpless. One of her Uncle Soran's knights had once told her stories of great battles, how the corpses might lie for days under a sun broken by clouds of ravens. The dead were lucky. Those who were too wounded to move had to wait for one of the healers to find them-if there were any combing the battlefield, and many times, there weren't. That, or the youngest squires whose job it was to wander the battlefield with a knife and slit the throat of any living too far gone to heal.

  Those who were found by neither waited for the ravens. As little Hweilan, no more than six or seven at the time, had listened, she had imagined lying there helpless, surrounding by corpses and buzzing flies, having only the strength to breathe and close her mouth to keep out the flies. A rustle of feathers, and she'd look up to see the pitiless black eye of a raven and the long beak the instant before it jabbed right into her eye.

  The raven, hopping among the corpses, looking for a tasty morsel… that was the look that this Roakh gave her now.

  "And what is our guest's name?" he said.

  Hweilan stood there staring.

  "No one likes a coward," Menduarthis whispered.

  "Hweilan," she said. "Of Highwatch."

  "Highwatch," said Roakh. He closed his eyes, leaned his head back, and smiled. "Stone houses in the mountains. Damarans so far from home. Nar at their feet. Dwarves dig-dig-digging deeper at Damarans' demands. Ahh… Hweilan. Hweilan is not a Damaran name."

  Hweilan returned his stare. He hadn't asked a question, and something about his manner was stirring Hweilan's anger.

  "Haven't brought us another liar, have you, Menduarthis?" said Roakh.

  Menduarthis gave the silence no chance to become uncomfortable. He looked down at Hweilan and said, "A nswer him."

  Hweilan kept her gaze fixed on Roakh. "He didn't ask me anything."

  Roakh threw back his head and laughed-a raucous guffaw in which Hweilan heard the sound of a corpse-hungry raven. "Oh, I like this one!
I can't quite decide which way my hopes should go."

  Hweilan gave him a quizzical look.

  "It is my honor to take you to our queen," Roakh said. "If you please her, it will be my job to take you back out again. If not… well, Kunin Gatar is a most kind and benevolent ruler, and she usually allows me to eat unpleasant guests." He smiled, and Hweilan saw that his tiny teeth were very sharp. "After she's done with them, that is. But alas. I've just eaten, and I'm not at all hungry. So you see, I'm not quite sure whether I should be hoping you live or die."

  "That's enough, Roakh," send Menduarthis.

  Roakh slipped off the shard of ice and stepped toward them. He had a hunched way of walking, his arms and head both thrust forward, but even standing up straight he would have had to look up at Hweilan's shoulder.

  "True enough," he said. "If things don't go my way today, there's always tomorrow. Let's test fortune's favor, shall we?"

  He held one hand toward the wall, and Hweilan saw a yawning passageway through the ice. It hadn't been there a moment ago. It was higher than the main gates of Highwatch, and wide enough for four horsemen to have ridden in side by side. A few steps led upward-either ice or a pale marble, she couldn't be sure. But beyond that, the light failed.

  Roakh leading, Menduarthis following, they entered the palace of Kunin Gatar.

  Inside the palace, the cold pressed in, making the air heavy. As the light, dim as it was, of the outside world faded, the darkness took them. Menduarthis stepped beside Hweilan, took her arm, and led her onward. The stairs were shallow and widely spaced. Even in the dark Hweilan had no trouble despite their gentle curve. The only sounds were their footsteps, their breathing, and the frost of Hweilan's breath whispering to the ground in a fine frost.

  "Can we not have some light, Roakh?" said Menduarthis.

  In front of her, a raven cawed, followed by the flap of wings. Instinctively, Hweilan squeezed her eyes shut. But the bird was moving away.

  She opened her eyes and could see. Set along the wall at every dozen paces or so were misshapen pillars, black as onyx but gleaming as if wet. From the top, a sort of waterfall of frost and fog, its stream no wider than her hand, fell away into a basin. The frost and fog glowed with blue light, dimmer than lamplight, but the walls seemed made entirely of ice, and they caught the glow and reflected it back a thousand times.

  The stairway ended a dozen steps above them. They stepped onto a landing, broader than a tourney field. It was lit in the same manner as the stairway. Hweilan could not see the ceiling. The walls went up and up until they were swallowed by darkness. Many doorways lined the walls. Some led into halls, others to stairs leading down. But to their left, a passage opened large enough for a parade, and more steps led up.

  "That is our way," said Menduarthis.

  From the stairway came a raucous cry. Hweilan could not tell if it was the caw of a raven or words. "Come! Come! Come!" A bit of both, she decided.

  The wide stairs straightened for a while, then wound back and forth, passing more landings lit by the little falls of glowing frost. Not even a candle burned in the entire palace, much less torches or lamps. It was entirely bereft of flame and warmth, and as near as Hweilan could tell, she, Menduarthis, and Roakh were the only living things in the palace.

  They passed through an arch, and the wall to their right disappeared into nothingness. The stair clung to the wall of a huge chamber of ice. It was about as far across as the inner bailey of Highwatch, but the drop…

  Fifty or sixty feet down, the light failed. It might well have been bottomless. And there was no rail. One wrong step…

  Looking up, the walls of the chamber glowed cold blue, lit by more of the little falls of frost. Hweilan could see that the stairs ended at a landing some hundred feet or more above them on the opposite wall of the chamber.

  "Almost there," said Menduarthis.

  They kept going, and when Hweilan heard the flutter of wings, she looked up. A raven was flying back and forth across the chamber. It dipped close a few times, then flapped up to the landing.

  When they reached it, Roakh was sitting upon the top step, elbows on his knees, chin on his crossed arms. When his eyes were level with Hweilan's, he said, "You never answered my question."

  She stopped a few steps beneath him. "Which question was that?"

  "You say you are from Highwatch," he said. "Highwatch founded by Damarans, populated by Nar, a few score of dwarves, and whatever draped-in-rags wanderers find a place to feather a nest. Yet your name, Hweilan, is neither Damaran nor Nar. So are you one of the draped-in-rags wanderers? Or was it your mother, buying a warm bed by sharing it?"

  Hweilan lunged at him, one fist cocked back.

  Menduarthis caught her wrist before she could pummel him.

  "Oh, I like this one!" said Roakh. He hopped to his feet and backed out of Hweilan's reach. "She'll do well, I think. A pity? A grace? Could be either, 'specially in this place."

  Hweilan jerked her arm out of Menduarthis's grip and glared at him.

  "Roakh asks a discourteous question," said Menduarthis. "Don't give him a discourteous answer. That can only harm you here."

  Hweilan held her glare a moment more, grinding her teeth, then she looked back at Roakh and said, "My father was Damaran. My mother was not. I was given a name of my mother's people."

  Roakh smiled, showing his sharp teeth. "And those would be…?"

  "Vil Adanrath."

  All glee melted from Roakh's eyes. When his smile returned, it was pure malice. "Well," he said. "Looks like we know which way this is going to go after all."

  "What do you mean?"

  Roakh looked at Menduarthis. "You can see to things from here?"

  "Yes," said Menduarthis. He sounded subdued, like a man who had just gotten back to his feet after a strong punch to the gut. "Where are you going?"

  "To work up an appetite," said Roakh. He ran to the ledge and jumped. He fell out of sight, but a moment later a black raven rose through the air. It circled the chamber a few times, cawing raucously, then dived into the darkness.

  The hall was wide enough for several wagons, but the ceiling low enough that Menduarthis probably could have reached up and trailed his fingers along it as they walked. It gave their footfalls an odd echo.

  The hall was unlit, but Hweilan could see light not too far ahead. She walked beside Menduarthis rather than letting him lead.

  They emerged into a domed room. The floor was black and smooth as the bottom of a deep well. The ice walls curved around, and they held inside them ancient trees, their trunks and branches black and hard. Only a slight curve of the trunks protruded from the walls, but their bare branches spread out into a low ceiling, and cold white globes of light dangled from their clawlike branches. They gave off no heat, so Hweilan assumed they were lit by magic. Their glow reflected off the flawless blackness of the floor, giving Hweilan the sense of walking on the night sky.

  Across from Hweilan and Menduarthis, two of the trees framed tall double doors, which seemed to have been crafted from the same wood as the trees. To the right of the door, a pale figure hung from the branches of one of the trees.

  "Lendri!"

  Hweilan ran to him, and Menduarthis did nothing to stop her.

  Lendri had been stripped naked. Cuts, welts, and bruises covered his face, legs, and torso. Ugly blue bruises covered his forearms like fresh tattoos where he had obviously tried to ward off blows. Dozens of black cords bound his upper arms. The other ends had been tied to the limb so that he hung like some lifeless puppet. He could have stood if he tried, but he hung limp, his knees bent beneath him, and for one moment Hweilan was sure he was dead.

  She fell to her knees in front of him and lifted his face in both her hands. Through her gloves, she couldn't feel for warmth, but she could see that his skin tone, abnormally pale to begin with, had taken on a sickly, grayish cast. Something had taken a few small bites out of his left cheek. A raven's beak. Roakh's beak. Her stomach turned.


  Lendri's eyes beneath the lids had sunk into his skull. She shook him and whispered his name.

  His eyelids fluttered open. He licked his lips and tried to say something, but all that came out was a soft rasp.

  She looked over her shoulder to Menduarthis, who stood a few paces away, arms crossed over his chest and looking down on them. Given what little he'd told her about Lendri, she expected to see disapproval on his features. But instead his face was a stone mask. Only the slight softening around his eyes told her that he was masking profound disapproval.

  "Do you have anything for him to drink?" said Hweilan.

  Menduarthis shook his head. "No. And even if I did, I wouldn't give it to him. His fate is up to the queen now."

  Hweilan looked back to Lendri. Something nagged in the back of her mind. "His skin."

  Before, tattoos had covered Lendri, most old with age. Every bit of skin she'd seen had been decorated in some sort of design, with scars overlapping many of them. They were gone now, his pale skin decorated only by the rents caused by the thorns.

  "Flayed off him," said Menduarthis, "then grown back by Kunin Qatar's healers."

  "That's monstrous!"

  "It is," said Menduarthis. "But unless you'd like that confirmed firsthand, we need to be out of here." "Can we do nothing for him?"

  "I don't know about we. But my counsel to you is the same as it was before. Be strong. Don't cower. Tell the truth. You won't be any help to anyone if you end up there beside him."

  She turned back to Lendri and bent down so that she looked him in the eye. "I'll do what I can for you. I promise."

  She stood and turned away. Menduarthis spared Lendri a final glance, shook his head, then led Hweilan over to the double doors. She could see no handles, and the crack between them would not have fit a razor.

  "Is there no one to announce our presence?" Hweilan asked.