The fall of Highwatch con-1

by Mark Sehestedt

  "Where am I?" she said.

  "My humble abode," said Menduarthis. Stepping away from the bed, he extended his hands and twirled in a little circle. For all his bluster and power, there was still very much the element of a little boy about him. A mischievous little boy.

  She kicked away the blankets and set her feet on the floor. Her coat, gloves, and boots were gone, but she still had on her lighter clothes. "And where is… here?"

  "You are still in the realm of Kunin Gatar. We're in the mountains between her palace and the camp where we first took you."

  Hweilan remembered the walk from the uldra's camp to the palace. She looked around at the walls and ceiling, wondering how strong they were, and said, "Those moving tree things…"

  "Won't bother us." He smiled, and when she scowled in return, his smile broadened. "You hungry?"

  She was. Starving. When had she last had a good meal?

  "Yes," she said.

  "Good! Good!" Menduarthis clapped and sauntered over to the hearth. "Have a seat at the table-any place you like. I'll get the food."

  Hweilan sat. Menduarthis hummed tunelessly as he set wooden bowls and spoons on the table, then stirred whatever was cooking in the kettle.

  Hweilan watched the glow bubbling up out of the goblet. She could see no light source. The liquid simply seemed to bubble up and glow as it spilled over the rim of the goblet. But it never ran out, and the vapor simply evaporated on the skin cloaking the table. She reached out and passed her fingers through the vapor. It was cool and tingling, almost pleasantly so, and when she pulled out her hand, the bits of whatever it was glowed on her hand a moment before evaporating.

  "Here we are," said Menduarthis. He set the kettle on the table and filled Hweilan's bowl with a thick brown stew.

  The smell of the food wafted over her, and her stomach gave a low growl. Hweilan blushed.

  Menduarthis chuckled. "Your compliments to the cook, eh?"

  "I'm starving," said Hweilan.

  Menduarthis sat in the chair to her right and filled his own bowl. "Then eat," he said.

  She did. With a vengeance. The stew was wonderfully warm, but not too hot to eat. And it was delicious, sprinkled with small chunks of meat, vegetables, and herbs.

  "You like it?" said Menduarthis after his first few swallows.

  "Mm," said Hweilan. "Very much. What is it?"

  "Raven stew."

  Hweilan coughed, spraying stew back into her bowl.

  Menduarthis erupted into laughter. "Ah, you're too easy! Don't worry. Even if this were raven stew-and it isn't-I'd never eat that old bird, Roakh. Never know what he's had in his mouth. This meat is simply a plump rabbit."

  Hweilan studied his face for any sign of deception, then resumed eating. After two more bites, she said, "I've never tasted rabbit this good."

  "You warm my heart, little flower."

  "My name is Hweilan."

  "Yes, I know."

  "So stop calling me 'little flower.'"

  He grinned as he swallowed, then said, "Why does it bother you so?"

  "It isn't my name."

  "Menduarthis isn't my name."

  Hweilan scowled. "But… but Lendri called you Menduarthis. I heard him. And Roakh. And the queen."

  His smile faded. He left his spoon in the bowl and left the table. For a moment, Hweilan thought she'd offended him, but he merely went to a cabinet near the hearth, retrieved a black bottle and two glasses, then said, "So they did. But remember, Hweilan." He placed a glass beside Hweilan's bowl. A tapered cylinder the length of her forearm, it seemed made of finest crystal. "Remember what I told you on the night we met: "You can name yourself, or others will name you.' I spoke from experience."

  He tipped the bottle over her glass and filled it with a dark red liquid.

  "Wine," he said, and filled his own before sitting down again.

  "What is your name, then?" she asked.

  "Ah, Hweilan, I don't think we're close enough yet for such intimacies."

  Hweilan scowled again. "Well then, why Menduarthis? Does it mean something?"

  He took a sip of the wine, then said, "My black hound."

  "What?" Hweilan snorted.

  "Well," he said, "the short of it is that my coming to live here, among the queen's people, had a less than wise beginning. Perhaps even a bit foolhardy, you might say."

  "You? I'm shocked."

  "The flower's thorn doth prick me," he said and took another swallow of wine. "To tell the long tale short, I killed the queen's most prized hunting hound-a vicious black monster named Venom. To be fair, I did not know it was the queen's hound at the time-or even that there was a queen. She was furious at Venom's loss, but intrigued that a… well, a person such as I had stumbled into her domain. Very much in the fashion of Kunin Gatar, she told me that she was going to kill me unless I could give her good reason not to do so. Seeing her power-not to mention the score of hunters and half-dozen guards she had with her-I told her that I would take her hound's place. She laughed and accepted my offer, naming me My Black Hound in her language."

  Hweilan finished the last of her stew and decided to try the wine. It was delicious, but the fumes hit her throat like fire. She choked it down and coughed. "What kind of wine is this?"

  "The strong kind. Do you like it?"

  A very pleasant warmth was spreading through her, but unlike the wines she'd taken at her grandfather's table, this did not dull her senses. In fact, sounds and smells seem to hit her with sharper clarity, and the light seemed richer.

  She took another drink and managed to swallow this time without choking. "What's going to happen to me? "she said.

  Menduarthis leaned back in his chair, took a slow drink, watching her over the rim of his goblet the entire time. He swallowed and said, "What do you mean?"

  "What the queen did… what she said…"

  Menduarthis let the silence build until it was becoming uncomfortable, then he set his almost empty goblet beside his bowl and said, "How much do you remember?"

  Hweilan shuddered, and her stomach clenched. Suddenly, she didn't seem that hungry anymore. "I could feel her… inside me. In my mind."

  She took another long drink of the wine. The queen had scraped through Hweilan's most intimate secrets, and she still sat up there in her palace, smug with victory. But still, something had happened, something…

  "You surprised her,' said Menduarthis, breaking Hweilan's reverie. He sounded more serious, more solemn, than she had ever heard him, and when she looked up, he was scowling into the depths of his wine. "The last person who surprised Kunin Gatar… well, he's been through a hellish day, and he might not survive another."

  "You mean Lendri," said Hweilan. She'd seen what the queen had done to Lendri. Or had others do for her.

  The solemnity in his gaze dropped, and for a moment he looked… not contrite. Something told Hweilan that this one probably wasn't capable of such an emotion. But perhaps… sad?

  "Hweilan, I must ask your forgiveness. Perhaps if I had warned you what to expect, things might not have… gone as they did. You must understand, I wasn't sure of you. Why you were traveling with an outlaw, why despite your rugged clothing you obviously had not lived a hard life in the wilderness, and you being… Other."

  "I'm not like that!"

  Menduarthis didn't flinch at her shout. Instead, he locked eyes with her and said, "You are. I'm sorry if that is upsetting for you, but it's the truth. Somewhere-some way back, I suspect-you have an ancestor who was… well, let's say, from beyond."

  "You're mad."

  "Mad, bad, glad, sad-all boiled into one. That's me. But it doesn't change the truth." He put his elbows on the table and leaned forward. "All your life, you have dreamed, but not like others. Sometimes-not always-you dream true, of things past, things yet to be, and things far away. You can sense the truth-and the lie-in people. And your eyes itch."

  Hweilan snorted. "My eyes itch?"

  "An expression of the uldra. It means y
ou are discontented. Always. No matter how happy your surroundings, how much you are getting everything you want and need, you're never satisfied. Your eyes are always on the horizon, wondering what might lie beyond. Others might see rain coming to water the grass. You wonder from what distant seas the clouds came. Others wonder at the beauty of sunset. You wonder on what lands it is rising. Others fear the moon and the night. You lie awake, wondering if there is a way to make them fear you." Menduarthis smiled. "Am I close?"

  Hweilan took a long, slow sip from her goblet, then looked away. "I'm not like you."

  Menduarthis chuckled. "Well, you aren't nearly as good a liar as I am, that's for certain."

  "You never answered my question."

  "I have yet to answer many of your questions, as I recall. Which one do you mean?"

  "What's going to happen to me?"

  "I'm no seer, but if you mean what is Kunin Gatar going to do about you… I don't know. When she was…" Menduarthis cleared his throat and looked down, obviously finding the subject uncomfortable. "When she was sifting your mind, she found something…"

  "Something that surprised her, you said."

  "Hmm, yes, well… I'm not sure 'surprise' is the best word. Truth be told, you scared the frost out of her tightest orifice." Menduarthis pushed his bowl and goblet aside, leaned forward, and dropped his voice almost to a whisper. "She was sifting your mind, Hweilan, like a miser might sift through an old sack of coins, hoping for gold. Like dwarves dig through dirt, hoping for shiny rocks. And she found something. Something that knocked her on her arse." His voice dropped further so that she had to strain to hear it. "What was it?"

  "I don't know. Why should anything in my mind scare her?"

  Menduarthis stared into her eyes, and she could sense him searching her for the slightest flinch, the barest sign of an evasion. "Hm," he said at last. "Well, that is why you aren't sharing your friend's fate, I expect. "Someone else has a claim to her,' she said. No idea what that means?"

  Hweilan looked away and searched her memory. "They wanted me for some reason," she said.

  "Who?"

  "On… on the day Highwatch fell, the traitors sent someone after me. A horrid slug named Jatara. I don't know why. But the other day in the woods, that pale man who came after me-"

  "The Frost Folk?"

  "Yes. Kadrigul. That was Jatara's brother, and he was screaming at the… the other thing, screaming at him that he wanted me alive."

  "Why do you suppose that is? You'd be easier to carry off dead."

  "I have no idea. Kadrigul and Jatara serve Argalath. Some sort of half-Nar shaman. Spellscarred. Makes my skin crawl. But he somehow wormed his way into the good graces of the captain of the Highwatch guard. I… I have reason to believe that they were the ones responsible for…" Hweilan took a deep breath, choking back tears. "For Highwatch."

  "Hm," said Menduarthis. "Well, it does sound as if this Argalath is up to something. But a Nar shaman? That wouldn't even make the queen twitch. She'd give him no more thought than a horse brushing a fly off its rump."

  She could sense the truth in much of what he was saying, but still…

  Someone else has a claim to her.

  But that wasn't all that had been said.

  She is to live, then?

  I very much doubt it. But she isn't mine to kill.

  "Who is Nendawen?" said Menduarthis. He was watching her intently, and he grinned when her eyes widened at the name.

  "I don't know," she said. "Is that a riddle?"

  Menduarthis sat there a long time, staring at her, then said, "I was wrong. You are a better liar than I thought."

  "It's no lie! I don't know who Nendawen is. Where did you hear it?"

  "You talk in your sleep." His grin widened.

  "I…" Never heard of him, she'd meant to say, but something stopped her. Some feeling like an unremembered dream.

  "What?"

  "I… don't know. Can't remember."

  "Lendri never mentioned Nendawen? Never?"

  She thought a moment, then said, "No," sure of it.

  Menduarthis chuckled, but it sounded more in disgust. "That flea-bitten little bastard," he said. "How much do you know about your friend Lendri?"

  "I just met him. He… he saved me. Told me that he is some sort of blood brother to one of my grandsires. He offered to help me."

  "Help you?" Menduarthis snorted. "Help you what?"

  "Bring vengeance to those who killed my family."

  "So you went with Lendri, hoping he would help you kill several hundred Creel and Damarans?" Menduarthis shook his head.

  Hweilan scowled. "Well, for one who used to lie awake wondering of ways to make the moon and night fear her, several hundred Creel doesn't seem like much."

  Menduarthis threw back his head and laughed. "Ah, Hweilan, I did misjudge you! Ah, well, the gods favor children and fools, they say. Why not both in one?"

  Hweilan stood so fast that her chair fell over behind her. "I'm no fool, and I am no child!"

  All jollity left Menduarthis's face. He pursed his lips, and for just an instant, he reminded Hweilan of her Uncle Soran, disapproving and in the midst of a scolding. "You've called me mad several times," he said. "Do you know the true madness of a madman?"

  "What?"

  "He thinks he's the only sane man in the room. The truly sane? They know we're all a little mad, deep down. So pick up your chair and sit down. There's a few things you need to know about your little elf friend."

  Hweilan stood there, glaring down at Menduarthis, wanting nothing more than to smash that smug look off his face. Her chair still lay on the floor behind her.

  "Why should I believe anything you say?" she said.

  Menduarthis spread his hands and rolled his eyes. "Why should you believe anything Lendri says? You listen, try to understand, then you make up your own mind. You don't want to believe me? As you wish. But at least hear what I have to say. Now, please, sit. I like to sit while I drink, and I hate looking up at someone when I talk."

  Hweilan picked up the chair, though she placed it back up a few feet from the table and sat with her legs in front of her and her arms crossed.

  "Your… friend"-Menduarthis twisted his lips round the word-"Lendri. Well, I'd call Kunin Gatar warm and cuddly before I'd call that pup a liar. He holds the truth like a dwarf holds his last copper. But he has a talent for telling you only what he wants you to know and holding back more. A lot more."

  "He admitted he killed…" She couldn't recall the name.

  "Miel Edellon. Bah." Menduarthis waved his hand as if shooing a fly. "Good riddance to that one. I told you Lendri's no liar. He did us all a favor when he ripped that throat-though I'll admit our beloved queen hasn't been in the best of moods since. But that isn't what he's hiding from you."

  "What then?"

  "What's he told you of Nendawen? What's he told you exactly?"

  "Nothing. Never mentioned it."

  "No?" Menduarthis's brow creased. "You said his name in your sleep, Hweilan. More than once. If Lendri has never told you, let me tell you now. The Vil Adanrath call Nendawen the Hunter. He's some sort of demigod or some such to them. Not a greater god, but he is… what you might call a very, very powerful spirit. Something primal."

  "A powerful spirit… hunter?" Hweilan snorted. "Sounds like a bard's tale."

  "Nendawen is a hunter, girl. But not only of swiftstags or bear. Nendawen's favorite prey walks on two legs."

  "He hunts men?"

  "Men, elves, dwarves… whomever finds his disfavor, or sometimes whomever just happens to fall in his path. I've heard stories…" Menduarthis shuddered, though to Hweilan it seemed affected.

  "You're saying he's evil?"

  "Evil? No. I don't know that Nendawen even thinks in those terms. No. Nendawen is… primeval."

  Hweilan smirked. "He's old and woodsy?"

  "You have to understand, Hweilan, your world… your cities and walls and castles and fires that keep out the night
. Your wizards waving their wands and warriors strutting with their swords on their hips… they think they've tamed the world. Made it serve them. And maybe in their little cities and towers they have. They've tamed it by keeping it out. By hiding. But there are powers in the world that were ancient when the greatest grandfathers of men still huddled in caves by their fires and prayed for the gods to keep out the night. These older powers… they don't fear the dark or the things that stalk in it. They revel in the dark. They are the things that stalk it. You speak of good and evil. When a wolf pack takes down a doe, are they evil? When a falcon takes a young rabbit, is it evil? Or are they merely reveling in their nature?"

  "You're saying Nendawen is some sort of beast?"

  "Nendawen is to beasts what Kunin Gatar is to snowballs."

  Hweilan laughed, but Menduarthis did not join in her mirth. He simply sat there, looking at her, as grave and solemn as she had ever seen him.

  "How do you know all this?" she said.

  He shrugged. "I've been around awhile. A long while. I was here when little Lendri came here like a little lost puppy. I was here before he and Miel Edellon had their falling out, and I used to have to listen to Lendri pine away." Menduarthis rolled his eyes, very much the mischievous little boy again, and did a very impressive imitation of Lendri's accent. "O, I'll never see my people again. I'm so alone. Woe is me!'"

  Hweilan scowled. "You shouldn't mock him."