by Andre Norton
Kasai took the folded note, bowed courteously with it pressed to his forehead, opened it, and began to read. "Usual flowery nothings at first," he said to the
Chieftain in their own language. "Ah, here we come to it. Obern, Her Majesty reports, is alive and well, healed from his wounds, and ready to come home." He glanced at Snolli, then at the messenger who was politely pretending not to overhear. "She says she knows we will rejoice at this good news, having thought
Obern long dead." He read further. "We're to wait, and come take him off their hands in a fortnight, as there's to be a big wedding."
"The Prince?"
"Oh, no, it seems that the cata… the sweet young man—is King now. But he's getting married and Obern's to be part of the ceremony. That ought to lighten
Obern's disposition if he thinks as much of the new King as the rest of us do.
Very highly, of course," he added, for the messenger's benefit.
The messenger nodded without thinking, and Snolli almost laughed aloud. Trust that nest of eels in the capital city to send someone who understood Trader language, which was very similar to the tongue the Sea-Rovers spoke among themselves.
"Queen apologizes if she's offered you an insult by not inviting you, but it's a long journey between here and there, and the omens says the wedding has to be now." Kasai snorted. "Bride must be expecting. Queen says there wouldn't be time to entertain you anyway until after, let alone hammer out a treaty between us.
You can bring as big a retinue as you like. There's more, but it's just more flowery nothings."
Snolli nodded, and then turned to address the messenger directly. "Thank the
Queen for the good news when you return, and tell her that we are so glad to know that Obern is alive that we cannot take offense at anything even if it had been offered. When she is ready to meet with us, we will be there. Tell her also we'll take Dakin with us when we go," the Chieftain said. "He was left with us in trade for Harvas, one of our people, while we contemplated the terms of a treaty between the Prince, now the King, and the Sea-Rovers. I'm sure both men will be glad to be back with their own once more. And I'm sure also that changing circumstances have made the treaty King Florian proposed very much out of date. We might as well start all over, and being in Rendelsham should make it easier for all."
"Yes, sir," the messenger said. "I will inform my lady, who is properly known now as the Dowager Queen Ysa, of what you have said. And if you don't mind my saying so—"
"Yes?"
"I think you will find my lady more agreeable than the King. He is able but young, whereas she is more—steadfast."
"I'm sure," Kasai said dryly.
'Tell the Dowager also that we know about how the Bog-men have learned to cross the river, for we have run afoul of them ourselves from time to time," Snolli said. "This, and the news of Ob-ern's miraculous escape from death, strengthens what had originally been an uneasy peace at best. And so inform her."
"I will, Lord Snolli." And with that, the messenger bowed himself out of the presence of the Chieftain of the Sea-Rovers.
Snolli drew a long breath. "And what do you think, Kasai?"
The Spirit Drummer spat into the fire, made necessary by the unseasonable cold of this Rendelian midsummer. "I think Obem has earned his reputation for being lucky. By all rights, he should have been bones by now but instead he has been cosseted in the greatest of luxury instead of being thrown into a dungeon to rot, the way anybody else would have. And furthermore, I think the Queen— What's it mean, 'Dowager'?"
"I think it means the widow of a King."
"Well, I think she has something more in mind than just returning Obern to us.
She could have done that anytime."
"So she could. And I agree with you. These Rendelians are as slippery as a nest of sea-snakes, and their bite even worse, I'll warrant." Snolli glanced around the room. In the time that Obern had been missing, he had managed to begin furnishing the deserted keep once more, bringing back what the looters in years past had hidden, thinking to retrieve later.
Most of the walls in the Hall were now decorated with an arras depicting
Rendelians at work, at play, or engaged in flirtation. Furniture of a better quality than that hammered together hastily by Snolli's craftsmen replaced the crude table and chairs he had once made do with, even though it was carved more ornately than he liked.
Eventually New Void Keep would reflect the tastes of the Sea-Rovers, and not those of the Rendelians, but Snolli had discovered that much of what he had originally scorned as mere decoration had a purpose. Wall hangings went far to prevent the dankness from castle walls from sinking into one's bones, and glass windows kept out cold winds much better than oiled paper ever did. Also, velvet lined with fur was warmer than mere fur alone, for all the dandified appearance it gave the wearer.
Well, it did no harm. And so thinking, Snolli turned his mind to the more important question of how he was going to feed his people. The extended cold weather in the midst of the growing season had all but ruined the crops they had planted, and Snolli knew he might have to rely on stores of grain the Rendelians had put by, just in case of hard times, for their own supplies were utterly exhausted. The Sea-Rovers in New Void were already living on what fish they could drag from the sea, and what meat their hunting parties could bring in, and some of their number had died. Therefore it behooved him to step softly around the formidable Dowager Queen Ysa, and look with an easy eye at whatever treaty she chose to lay in front of him.
Later, if the terms proved too harsh, there would be time enough to renegotiate.
Or even, Snolli thought with an upsurge of Sea-Rover martial spirit, to go to war.
"I'm not of a mind to wait those two weeks just because the Dowager tells me to," Snolli said. "And I was careful not to promise to wait like a good boy."
"I noticed that," Kasai said. "Wonder if the messenger did. Probably not. He was too busy trying to pretend that he wasn't taking everything in, to report on later."
"We do have that piece of sorry news for Obern," Snolli said with a grimace, and
Kasai nodded gravely. "About his wife. And anyway, who knows what we might meet on the way, to delay us? Go notify the men. You know the ones I'll want with me.
Let us provision ourselves and start tomorrow, or the following day at the latest. If we arrive early, then we'll get to watch a royal wedding. If not, no harm done either way."
Kasai nodded, and then left to go and do the Chieftain's bidding.
Three
When the bustle of preparations for King Florian's wedding grew too onerous for
Ashen to bear, she began to escape into other parts of Rendelsham Castle. Obem's company was now closed to her, because of his unwarranted declaration—a declaration she most heartily hoped the Dowager never learned of—and so she began to venture out on her own.
One of the first places she visited was one where she had been before, the Great
Fane of the Glowing. She moved through the door with a group of pilgrims, hoping to catch a glimpse of the kind priest who had showed her and Obern the wondrous, changing windows before, and to her pleasure, she did.
He recognized her. "Lady Ashen," he said, bowing. "How nice to see you again."
"I fear I have come seeking a little peace and quiet from all the to-do in the castle," Ashen said, a little ruefully.
"This is a good place to come to," the priest said.
"Thank you—I don't know your name, or your title."
"Call me Esander. We don't set much store by titles here, where we are in the presence of the Everlasting."
"Then, thank you, Esander."
"You do not have your companion with you."
"No. He is—busy elsewhere with his own part in the preparations."
"You did not quarrel?"
Ashen felt herself blushing. Esander saw far too keenly into a person. Perhaps it was a part of his calling. "No, not exactly. But it is better that we b
e apart, at least for a while."
"Keep your secret as long as you want to. But remember that part of my duty is to help people with certain personal problems. When you are ready to tell me about it, I will be here. In the meantime, would you like to see more of the
Great Fane?"
"Indeed I wouldi" Ashen exclaimed. "But I thought you showed it all to us—I mean, to me—earlier."
"We barely scratched the surface. For example, did you know that there is a huge library, down in the depths of the mountain on which Rendelsham is built?"
Ashen blinked. A library! Riches untold. Zazar had taught her her letters, of course, but there had never been anything to read just for the sheer joy of it.
"No, I had no idea."
"Nor do even the great ones in the castle, I'll warrant. I only discovered it myself recently. The cobwebs were thick across the door. At any rate, it is there, and it is accessible only from a certain chamber here in the Fane, through a secret passage and a steep stairway down."
Ashen was reminded of the tunnels and stairways beneath Gal-inth, the ruined city in the Bog, where there had also been stored-up tablets containing lore of forgotten times. "Would it be possible for me to see it?"
"If I thought you were not one with whom this secret would be safe, I would not have entrusted it to you." The priest smiled, and a network of wrinkles formed around his kind eyes. "Come with me."
Willingly Ashen followed the holy man through winding pas-sageways until they came to a half-hidden door, which he opened for her. "Later, you will learn the way yourself and not have to rely on me to guide you."
" 'Later'?"
"Yes, Lady Ashen. You will return, and not just to relieve the tedium of your days here in the city, away from the freedom in which you grew up. Sometimes it is given to me to glimpse shadows of what I have no way of knowing, what no one has told me. I see in you that you are someone who needs to read and study and leam. 1 know also that our Dowager Queen is a student of certain lore, and that some of the books that she was at great pains to acquire, reside below as well.
It was through us, indeed, that she got what she has, for we searched other orders to fulfil her desires. Had she been aware of the treasure that you are about to behold, she would have removed it long since. But we hold it safe instead."
"I will try to be worthy of your great trust."
"As well I know you will be." With that, Esander struck fire to a closed lantern and, handing Ashen an additional flagon of oil, touched a spring and opened the secret door. "The lantern will last long enough to get there and allow you an hour of study before it begins to flicker. There is enough oil in the flagon to replenish it enough to show you the way back once more. It is not wise to linger too long in the dark."
"I understand."
Then, with a mingling of fear and anticipation making her pulse pound in her throat, Ashen followed the priest into the blackness beyond the door.
The next time she visited the Great Fane, Ashen tried, with Esander trailing her, to find the hidden room on her own. She took a couple of wrong turns, but the priest assured her that she surprised him by how easily she picked up the route.
"I was reared in the Bog," she told him. "Sometimes life itself depended on remembering where one had been, and how one got to that place." She did not mention a certain square of spicy-smelling wood, the hearth-guide Zazar had given her. She could have set it for the hidden room, of course, but somehow she felt that this would be much too trivial a use for such a valuable artifact. So she left it where she had put it early in her sojourn in Rendel— the bottom of the little jewel coffer Harous had given her. She tucked it into the lining, hidden under her necklace bearing her family emblem, the mysterious bracelet she had found on a dead man's arm in the catacombs of Galinth, and other less valuable trinkets she had accumulated. "You need not go with me. I assure you, I can find my way both in and out, and your absence will surely be noted sooner or later."
"You will find the lantern, along with flint and steel and the flask of oil, each time you return. This I promise."
"And again, I thank you."
She lighted the lantern and ducked through the doorway. Es-ander waited until she was out of sight, and then closed the door behind her.
Going surefooted in the near-darkness, Ashen fairly raced down the stairs and along the corridor leading to the door, recently cleared of the cobwebs, behind which waited a glorious store of information. She passed other doors, almost hidden under the dust and veils spun by spiders long since dead, but did not give in to any twinge of curiosity. Those mysteries could wait, possibly forever. She was not willing to let the ones already discovered sit idle while she investigated less important matters.
Esander had found a table in the depths of the forgotten library, and a chair.
He dusted them and set them up for her on that first visit. On the table she had left for further scrutiny three volumes of lore that looked interesting, and the oil in the lantern would not last forever. She set the lantern down on the table, adjusted the cover so that it cast a strong ray on the first book, and settled herself to read.
It looked like an earlier, more complete edition of one of the tablets she had begun to decipher back in the ruined city. The char-acters were clearly limned on the pages—real pages, that could be turned, rather than clay plates. Ashen thought of Weyse, the little furry creature who had been of such help to her in the ruined city, Galinth. She wished she had Weyse, or a creature like Weyse, for companionship. There were echoes in the cavernous chamber, and in the corridors, which she was certain she had not caused. One blessing, though, was that the spiders seemed to have vanished long ago, perhaps because they had eaten all the other insects and subsequently starved. She remembered also the pieces of what looked like bone, which gave off light. Surely, if Galinth had once been a part of Rendel, and if all lore was centered here beneath the Great
Fane, there might be something similar—
Ashen arose and took the lantern with her. With a start of recognition, she found identical bones embedded high on the walls, where their glow would illuminate the whole of the vast chamber. But they were dark. How to activate them?
Of course, Ashen told herself. The answer would be in the books, if she were clever enough to find the spell or incantation or trigger, or whatever it took.
She returned to the table and began to read once more, eager to know more about this kind of Power. It was, somehow, refined and tempered, as contrasted to the earthy magic she had been accustomed to, with Zazar.
She thought she found what she was looking for in the third volume. She checked the oil level in the light. It had not yet begun to flicker so she dared to risk it.
Hoping that she was saying the words correctly, she began to intone them aloud.
With suddenness that hurt her eyes, accustomed to the dimness, all the bones burst into light. She shielded her eyes, waiting for them to adjust. When she could see again, to her utter astonishment she found Weyse standing atop the table, staring at her.
"Oh!" she cried. "How wonderful!" She reached out to touch the little creature, hoping to hear an answering soft, loving purr, but to her dismay Weyse scuttled away, out of reach. "Oh, please come back. I have missed you."
Weyse waddled back a few steps, and plopped herself down on the open book, holding her paws over as many as possible of those words that still could be seen around her plump bottom. She glared at Ashen with what could only be described as a baleful air, as if Ashen had committed an unknown transgression.
Ashen stood quite still. She knew that Weyse seldom did anything without a reason. "Did Zazar send you?" she said.
Weyse looked away, and made a soft trilling noise that would have been lost anywhere but in the utter silence of the great Ren-delian library.
Ashen thought some more, remembering certain warnings Zazar had given her about exceeding her capabilities. "It is the magic, isn't it?"
Weyse trilled again, but did no
t leave her station, blocking the words on the book of spells.
"I believe that is your message, sent me by my Protector. I think she wants me to read, and learn, but not do. Not yet. Is that correct?"
For answer, Weyse moved off the book and let Ashen close the cover. Then she allowed Ashen to stroke her soft fur. Even as the girl caressed the strange, intelligent little creature, Weyse began to fade and Ashen's hands went right through her, as if she were no more than a shadow. Then she vanished entirely.
Ashen found that her knees would not hold her and she had to sit down.
Fortunately, since she had managed to activate the bone lights, she had time to think and collect her wits before she had to brave the dark passageway back to the outside.
