The fall of Highwatch con-1

by Mark Sehestedt

  The queen had lowered her gaze and seemed to be staring off into nowhere. She motioned to Menduarthis with a flick of one finger.

  "Tell her," she said.

  Menduarthis bowed, then began to pace the room, circling Hweilan like a bird searching for a safe place to roost.

  "Your Lendri is not the most reputable of pups around here. We found him, years ago, wandering the valleys where our people hunt when it suits them. Our lord, uh…" He seemed at a loss for words, and looked to Kunin Gatar.

  "You may say his name," said the queen, still not looking up.

  "Our lord at the time, Miel Edellon"-he stopped his pacing a moment and bowed to Kunin Gatar-"our lady's beloved, decided to hunt your friend. But Lendri… a tricksy little cur that one. He evaded the hunt again and again, and when it became clear he could not get away, he turned on the hunters. Lord Edellon was so impressed that after he caught Lendri-for he did catch him at last-rather than take his tail for a pennant, he brought him home and offered him a place among our people. An offer that Lendri accepted."

  "He swore oaths," said Kunin Gatar.

  "So he did," said Menduarthis. "Loyalty, keeping our secrets, preserving our ways-all that. But… well, it seemed his heart wasn't in it."

  "Wh-what do you mean?" said Hweilan.

  "Faithless cur, he-" The queen stopped, and Hweilan was shocked to see a glimmering tear fall down one cheek. For a moment, she really did seem a bereft girl, no more than Hweilan's age, heartbroken and alone.

  "Understand," said Menduarthis. "Our world, our society… it isn't like the outside world. The mortal world… your so-called lords and kings, they swear oaths and vows like they wear clothes-easily sloughed off when they become uncomfortable. Here, that isn't so. Here, once you are one of us, the only way out is death. There is no…" He chewed the inside of his cheek, considering. "There is no change of heart. Here, you change your heart, we'll feed it to you."

  Hweilan swallowed. The halbdol must be wearing off, she thought, for her face suddenly felt very cold, almost too chilled to move, to speak. "You're saying… Lendri left?"

  "Left?" the queen shrieked. "That whorespawn murdered my beloved!"

  Hweilan looked to Menduarthis, who nodded. "Killed our lord, yes. That he did. Killed our beloved Lord Miel Edellon and ran."

  A murderer… no. Worse. A traitor. Someone who killed his own lord… among the Damarans, even trying that meant hanging. Among the Nar, they were even less merciful. They slit open a traitor's stomach, tied the entrails to his own horse, then slapped the beast into a gallop. Once the traitor stopped screaming, his own family would hack him to pieces and leave the remains for wolves and ravens.

  "I don't believe you," said Hweilan.

  "You doubt me?" Menduarthis frowned, but it was a theatrical gesture. Mocking. "After all I've done for you?"

  "Roakh!" the queen called. "Bring him!"

  Hweilan heard a snap! like someone breaking a dry stick, then turned to see Roakh entering the room, leaning away from a series of black cords, dragging Lendri behind him. Lendri didn't resist. Didn't even move.

  As Roakh passed Hweilan, he grinned at her and said, "Heavy, your friend. Dragging him makes me… peckish."

  He stopped halfway between Hweilan and the throne, then stepped back beside Menduarthis, who frowned down on the smaller figure. But Roakh didn't notice. His hungry eyes never left Hweilan.

  Kunin Gatar flicked her hand, and shards of ice shot up under Lendri, encasing his torso, arms, and lifting him off the floor. She walked over, grabbed a fistful of his hair, and pulled up his head. Hweilan saw icicles forming around her grip.

  She shook him. "Wake!"

  A groan escaped Lendri, but his eyes did not open.

  The queen looked to Roakh and spat an order in her strange language. Roakh shuffled forward and pulled a black phial from inside his jerkin. He pulled what looked like a wet wad of leaves from the mouth, then dumped the contents into Lendri's mouth.

  Lendri coughed, spraying Roakh and the floor between them with the green liquid. Roakh poured more, and clamped the elf's jaw shut. Lendri swallowed, and his eyes opened. Roakh shuffled back to stand beside Menduarthis.

  "Look at me," said Kunin Gatar, and she gave Lendri's hair a cruel twist.

  Lendri glanced at Hweilan, a look of sadness passing between them, then up at the queen.

  "Your new pet here," said the queen, "thinks Menduarthis a liar. Tell her. Tell her what you are. What you did."

  Lendri swallowed and licked his lips. "That would be a long tale."

  Kunin Gatar looked down on him, stood absolutely still for a long moment, then brought her free hand around, one finger pointing. Hweilan heard a crackling, almost like the sound of water thrown on a hot rock, and Lendri's mouth opened. But as Hweilan watched, his jaw kept opening, and Hweilan saw the ice forming there, growing, pushing his jaws apart. It was past the point of comfort, then kept going, into pain, and Hweilan feared at any moment she'd hear tendons breaking, skin tearing.

  When Lendri cried out at last, Kunin Gatar stopped and leaned down so that her face was only inches from Lendri. "I can send that all the way down your throat. I can freeze the blood in your veins and keep you alive. I can think of ways to kill you that will take days and nights and days again. But you'll be begging for mercy in the first few moments."

  The queen released him, whirled, and stomped away. The ice in Lendri's mouth shattered, and he breathed out in a great cloud of steam.

  Kunin Gatar stood in front of her throne and pointed an accusing finger at Lendri. "You killed him! You murdered Miel!"

  Lendri swallowed, flexed his jaw and seemed to bite back pain, then looked up at the queen. "He would have killed me."

  The queen's hand dropped back to her side. "Oathbreakers die," she said. "He did only his duty."

  "It was him or me," said Lendri. "I chose me."

  Kunin Gatar chuckled, but there was no mirth in it. "You chose poorly. Miel might have killed you. He might have even skinned you for a rug. But it would have been quick. Not at all what I'm going to do to you."

  Lendri said nothing. His head fell again, and his hair hid his face. Hweilan couldn't tell if it was from resignation, or if he simply no longer had the strength to look up.

  "Which brings us to you," said the queen, returning her attention to Hweilan. "What to do with you…" She sat and let her fingers play over the sharp shards of her throne. "You are kin to this one. Do you deny it?"

  "No," said Hweilan.

  "You share his blood," said the queen. "Would you share his fate?"

  "She does not share his crime, my lady," said Menduarthis. Both Hweilan and the queen looked to Menduarthis. Roakh was scowling up at him.

  "What is she to you, Menduarthis?" said the queen.

  He shrugged. "Interesting."

  The queen laughed. "You jest."

  "No, my lady. I knew it the moment I saw her. Human? Yes. And Vil Adanrath? Some, yes. But the other… can you not smell it in her?"

  Menduarthis smiled. Roakh looked from his queen to Menduarthis, and his scowl deepened.

  "Menduarthis is a liar and conniver," said Kunin Gatar. "And many troublesome things besides. But in this, I think he is telling the truth."

  "What is that supposed to mean?" Hweilan said.

  The queen looked to Menduarthis, and again Hweilan was struck by the girlish expression on a being of such power. She'd never had an older sister, but if she had, one who perhaps liked to torment her younger siblings, she would have very much expected to see a look on her face like the queen had now.

  "She really doesn't know?" said the queen.

  "So it would seem, my queen," said Menduarthis.

  "What is this?" said Hweilan, looking back to Menduarthis.

  "Yes!" said Roakh, a look of utter bewilderment on his face. "What-?"

  "Oh, flutter off," said Menduarthis.

  Roakh stood to his full height, which was still well below that of Menduarthis, and s
houted, "I demand to know what-!"

  "Be silent, crow," said the queen, barely more than a whisper.

  Roakh snapped his mouth shut and glared at Hweilan.

  "Hweilan," said the queen, and Hweilan turned to look at her. "Child of Damarans and Vil Adanrath. And what else, I wonder?"

  "I have no idea what you're talking about." It was true.

  The queen stood from her throne, and the seat crumpled to frost behind her. She walked to Hweilan, and it was all Hweilan could do to keep from backing away.

  "Let's have a look, shall we?" said the queen.

  There was a hiss in the air around her, and before Hweilan could move she found herself encased in ice, much like Lendri, only her hands and head free. She could not move, and she could feel the cold swiftly seeping through her heavy clothes.

  Kunin Gatar took Hweilan's right hand in both of her own, and very gently opened her fingers. Hweilan was too shocked to resist.

  "What is this?" said the queen, studying the scar.

  "Curious, isn't it?" said Menduarthis.

  "What does it mean?" the queen asked.

  "I don't know," Menduarthis said, and at the same time, Hweilan said "Death."

  The queen looked up, and Hweilan felt the Presence in her mind flex its claws. "What?"

  "S-so Lendri told me," said Hweilan. "K-A-N. The runes are Dethek. But Lendri says it is a word of the Vil Adanrath for 'death.'"

  "Hm," said Menduarthis. "Curiouser and curiouser. You are a mystery, little flower."

  Hweilan felt a sharp pain in her palm. She gasped and looked down. A thin shard of ice pierced the middle of her palm. The queen held the other end, and even as she watched, the ice turned red with blood.

  The queen pulled it out and held the red icicle in front of Hweilan's eyes. "We shall see."

  Kunin Gatar closed her eyes, her lips parted, just slightly, and slid the frozen blood into her mouth. She leaned her head back and swallowed. A slight, almost ecstatic tremor passed through her, and the queen sighed, long and low.

  "Oh, Menduarthis," she said, "you are a liar." The queen lowered her head and looked Hweilan in the eye. "But not today."

  The ice holding Hweilan disappeared, and she fell at the queen's feet.

  She heard the queen say, "Menduarthis, what is the word mortals use?"

  "See?" Menduarthis laughed softly. "In her blood. Something… other."

  The threads of Hweilan's emotions had been pulled as far they would stretch, and finally they snapped. She sat on her knees in the chamber of the fey queen and broke into an uncontrolled laughter until her gut ached and tears made it halfway down her cheeks before freezing solid.

  When she was able to gain control of herself at last, she looked up. The queen was sitting upon her throne, looking down on her with an amused expression. Menduarthis was still circling her like a cat considering what to do with a mouse.

  "You're mad," she told him.

  "You wouldn't be the first to say so," he said. "But even a madman can tell you which way the wind blows."

  "What game is this?" said Hweilan. "You capture me and drag me off to this godsforsaken wasteland, and now-"

  "Now you find out you're one of us," said Menduarthis. He stopped his pacing, stood before her, and gave an exaggerated bow worthy of a drunken bard. He spared a glance to Roakh and the queen. "A mortal nature? Yes. But also… something else. Something magical."

  "I'm not like you," she said.

  Menduarthis laughed and said, "Well, there's like and there's like. I was born eladrin, as was Our Lady Queen. But we have… improved ourselves, yes?"

  Kunin Gatar smiled.

  "Your parents were your parents," Menduarthis continued. "I'm not suggesting otherwise. But your father's father? Your mother's father? Or your grandmother's grandfather's grandmother? Who knows? The blood runs thin in you, perhaps, but it runs true. Someone from… well, somewhere else planted a seed in your family garden. You're Damaran, to be sure. If you say you're kin to Lendri there… well, I have no reason to doubt you. But make no mistake. You're something else too. Something… more."

  "I don't believe you!"

  "Believe what you like." Menduarthis rolled his eyes. "Believe Toril is flat and dragons lurk past the edges of the map. Believe a lie, but it won't stop the world from turning. And it won't stop you from being a god walking over ants."

  "Shall we find out, Menduarthis?" Kunin Gatar rose from her throne and walked past him. She had a most eager look in her eyes. Hweilan had once seen that same look in the eyes of two Nar boys after they'd pulled the wings off a grasshopper and headed for the nearest anthill.

  Menduarthis scowled. "Find out…?"

  "Find out whose seed went into whose garden."

  Menduarthis blinked twice, very quickly. It was the first time Hweilan could remember seeing him shaken. "Wh-why?" he said, and gave what even Hweilan could see was a false smile. "We see the flower in bloom before us. Does it matter who planted it?"

  "Ah, Menduarthis, you forget. This particular flower may need plucking. It would be wise to make sure we aren't trampling in the wrong garden."

  Roakh made a noise that was something between the clearing of his throat and the caw of a raven. "Does this mean you won't be needing me further, my queen?"

  Kunin Gatar kept her eyes fixed on Hweilan as she answered, "No one likes a glutton, Roakh. Haven't I already fed you today?"

  There was no reply, and Hweilan could not tear her eyes away from the queen to look at Roakh.

  "Careful, Ro," Menduarthis called to him. "If she is Vil Adanrath, she might eat you."

  The queen stepped in front of Hweilan and looked down on her. Had she grown taller? It seemed Kunin Gatar placed a finger under Hweilan's chin and pulled her gaze up so that she stared right into the queen's eyes. Hweilan could feel the sharp nail pressing into her skin. So cold.

  "Let's see what we can see."

  Hweilan could not break her gaze from the queen. Close up, she thought herself a fool for believing there was any blue in those eyes at all. They were two orbs of white, cold and pitiless as winter. They grew in Hweilan's mind, and she fell into them.

  The Presence in her mind was no longer the tiger lurking in the grass. The tiger had pounced and was devouring her, raking through her mind, taking great bites out of her, swallowing, tearing, then digging deeper, digesting every morsel. But then the Presence came to a deep part of Hweilan's mind, a tiny spark. And where the queen was cold incarnate, this spark burned hot. When the Presence bit down, something bit back.

  Kunin Gatar gasped and fell back as if struck. She and Hweilan hit the floor at the same time. Menduarthis simply stood there with his mouth hanging open.

  The queen rose first. Hweilan lay on the black floor, watching, but unable to move. She felt like a wineskin that had been filled to the point of bursting, then emptied completely.

  Kunin Gatar pushed herself to her feet and swayed a moment. Hweilan saw something strange. The queen had been the very image of cold, all whiteness like frost, broken only by cool shades of blue, gray, and black. But no more. A trickle of red ran out one side of the queen's nose. Blood.

  "Wh-what just happened?" said Menduarthis.

  "Get this creature out of my sight," said the queen, and she turned away.

  "She is to live, then?"

  The queen laughed, but it was a mirthless sound. "I very much doubt it, Menduarthis. But she isn't mine to kill. Someone else has a claim on her."

  Someone else? Hweilan's vision began to blur. She could no longer see Kunin Gatar. The queen was fading into a whiteness that seemed to be overtaking everything. Even the floor was more gray than black now. Menduarthis remained the only bit of color in the world, and his voice cut through the steadily building hum in her mind.

  "What would you have me to do with her?"

  "I told you. Get her out of my sight! Use your imagination, Menduarthis."

  Hweilan heard a raven cawing.

  Then Menduarthis shout
ing.

  Then nothing.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Behold your new army," said Argalath.

  Guric swallowed hard. He had to take careful breaths through his nose to keep the contents of his stomach from coming up. The stench in the enclosed cavern was overpowering.

  "Not an army proper, perhaps," said Argalath. "But the troops at your back will be only for show. These"-he motioned to the standing corpses, still starting at them-"will be all the army you need, once the Damarans see what they do."

  Their eyes had the same look as his beloved Valia's, that horror staring from the black eyes of her lovely face.

  Before becoming a squire, Guric had studied with the clerics of Torm in Damara, and he knew of demonic possession. He'd never seen an exorcism himself, but his fellow students had told him that their teacher had once been famed in his crusades against evil spirits. Whatever profane pacts Argalath worked with his northern devil-gods, it was nothing like any possession Guric had ever heard of.

  "What is this abomination?" said Guric.

  Argalath frowned. "Not an abomination, my lord. When the rite to restore your beloved Valia… did not go as planned, well, we seem to have stumbled upon this rather happy accident."

  "Accident?" Guric seized Argalath's robes in both his fists and shook him so hard that his hood fell back. "Happy accident!"

  The acolytes began to approach, weaponless but fists clenched tight, but Argalath shook his head, and they stopped.

  Guric lifted Argalath off the ground until their noses were only inches apart. "Give me one reason I shouldn't snap your neck right now."

  He saw no fear in Argalath's eyes. Only a little surprise, but he buried it in what Guric was suddenly sure was an entirely false deference.

  "I have three, my lord. The first and most immediate are your new troops. Killing me would rather upset my acolytes, I fear, and they might not be able to control our new creations."

  "Without Valia, I don't care."

  "Which brings me to my second reason, my lord," said Argalath, and the bastard even had the boldness to smile. "The forces we are dealing with… they do not know pity or remorse or fear. Only hunger. Their only delight is in death. The power is great, but the pacts we make with them… they are not bargains or alliances. We force them to bend to our will by words of power and deeds of blood. But they hate it. Hate it. It only fuels their hunger and malice. That thing up in the castle? The being using your beloved Valia's body like new clothes? Do you really think it will give her up unless we force it? It is trapped, my lord. We called it forth-"