The Window and the Mirror

by Henry Thomas

  He was a good rider, Bellan, Joth noted, for he had recognized the youth almost immediately. The boy let his tall mount stretch himself out over the low rise and he brought him to a sit-down stop once he reached Joth and the Lady Eilyth. He was wearing his hat and a fine short blue coat with full sleeves, a modest array of pleats creasing the front. He also donned his finest hosen and some fine soft leathered knee boots with loose folds at the top, a sort of buff color. His spurs were harnessed on, as well, and at his belt there dangled a dagger, the military type that men-at-arms wore. It was a sandwich-hilted, round guarded affair, the blade a single-edged triangular spike designed to pierce plate armor or drive through the weak points in the harness. What this fool spruced-up groom was doing with that sort of a weapon, Joth had no idea, but once he put his mind to work, he had figured the lad had set out to join with the Norandish horsemen and belted on the dagger to make himself look a touch more imposing. His costume and bedroll and stuffed saddlebags told the story alone.

  “What in blazes are you running from?” Joth asked the flush-faced boy.

  “It’s me, It’s Bell from the stableyard!”

  “I know who you bloody are, you dullard! What are you running your horse like that for?” He laughed and looked at Eilyth, but she was regarding the boy with interest.

  Bellan hesitated and looked furtively over his shoulder back the way that he had come. His horse was blowing as he sat him.

  “What is it? Tell us, boy!”

  Eilyth looked to where he had looked and back to him when she saw nothing.

  He regarded them both as he caught his breath. “You mustn’t go that way. They’re waiting for you. They mean to kill you.”

  “Who?”

  “The Norandishmen. The mage has set a trap for you, you mustn’t go that way.”

  Joth looked at Eilyth and back to the boy. It made no sense to him what the lad was saying, but the lady regarded him gravely.

  “The signs do not speak falsely,” she said softly.

  Twenty-Two

  Rhael had considered it very fortunate that he had only to kill one of the Kuilbolts before they shrieked and surrendered themselves to him. It had been fairly simple to pick out the leader, who he simply set ablaze like a torch and listened to him shriek and crackle. He demanded the Kuilbots swear fealty to him, and it had only taken him lifting the swirling blue orb above his head and the strange fear stinking beings were prone on the ground calling him master and begging him not to bring the energies down upon them.

  He bade them to unlock the gate of the tower and to leave him the key there on the stones. As the jerkin-clad Kuilbolt scampered away down the ramp, Rhael had bent to pick up the key and paused to look out over the assembly. He had a force of about fifty Kuilbolts, by his reckoning. Enough for a small raiding party, and more than enough to run his operation. My army, he thought. My soul harvesters.

  “I am your master now.” He let his voice carry over the yard and bounce back from the palisade. They regarded him with their strange unreadable eyes. “When the old masters arrive, send them to me.”

  He turned and strode to the gate. He shut it and locked it behind him. He would not leave anything to chance. The key was large and bronze and ancient-looking. Its teeth were intricate and complex in their form, the entire key an impressive object chased with silver along the many grooves in its surface. When he locked the gate, he heard a noise behind him and realized it was a lock mechanism being operated on the tower door just beyond the gate where he stood. He looked at the key again, realizing that there was some form of Goblincrafted magic at work here in the stronghold. Rhael was enjoying this more and more as he tried the tower door. It give way easily to the pressure of his hand, swinging on smooth, well-oiled hinges and opening before him.

  Inside, the tower was far from utilitarian—much to his satisfaction. The floors were smooth and white, much like the floors in the orb tower beneath the mountain. A staircase spiraled up around the wall and disappeared through the vaulted ceiling. The stonework was elegant and intricate, the timbers beautifully carved and decorated. The furnishings were equally rich and tasteful. In the round room at the center of the tower stood a finely crafted desk with all of the paraphernalia for letter writing and document making: quills and inkpots and wax and candles, a stack of fine parchment, and several backed chairs scattered around it. It was stood on a woven rug of such intricate design that Rhael marveled at its beauty. He had never seen its like. A fireplace was set into the wall behind the desk and next to it a small narrow wooden door.

  When he pushed against the door it swung on hinges that barely hinted at a whisper and revealed a small kitchen that utilized the same chimney as the fireplace. It housed a larder filled with sealed crockery jars and pots as well as a small trap door set into the floor that led to a fully stocked wine cellar, its racks brimming with dust-covered bottles of wine. Rhael forgot everything else for a moment and felt his mouth water at the thought of food and drink.

  He tore into the waxed seals of the crocks and jars and tried to discern their contents. A gnawing dread in the pit of his gut compelled him to look as he remembered the cook pots and the slaughterhouse, where he had been in the caves below. He half expected to see a jar of ears but was pleased when he found a crock containing stacks of dense small loaves with dried fruits and nuts and honey baked into them as well as some sort of cooked beans in a savory sauce and another jar holding stewed pears. It was the best food he had tasted in months and he devoured it like the half-starved, half-crazed, ill-looking wretch that he was. After he had sated his hunger he searched the kitchen for a wine key and opened one of the bottles he had liberated from the cellar.

  Swigging from it, he made his way back through the tower and started up the staircase. The wine was good, but unlike anything he had ever tasted. It was dense and rich and floral on his tongue and in his nose. Fine things, he thought, fine things. This was a seat of power, and the former masters could not be faulted for their tastes, Rhael acknowledged.

  He made the first landing of the tower and saw a lavishly appointed room that seemed to be dedicated for entertaining company. A strange musical instrument, some sort of hurdy-gurdy or cased harp or portative organ, he guessed, but he had little taste or knowledge of music. Tables and couches and the fireplace at the rear of the rooms, several doors leading out from the central hub. Rhael peered inside them all and found comfortable but modest sleeping quarters: small beds with curtained canopies built into the walls and a small table, access to a garderobe through a small door near the window.

  He continued up the stairs and found what he was looking for at the second landing. It was a large opulent chamber that had been sectioned off into three separate private areas. One was a sitting room or parlor of some sort with several elegantly upholstered silk couches arranged on another richly woven carpet, the other a sleeping chamber with a small writing desk and a small table and chairs set in one corner near the fireplace, the bed a luxuriously canopied affair taking up much of the room, and the last division of the chamber was the most interesting to Rhael because it was a private library and reading room with two full cases of literature. He stopped himself from going through them just then. He needed to explore the rest of the rooms and have a look at what the Kuilbolts were doing before he got lost in the treasures of his new tower. Not that he had anything to fear—he could at any moment unleash the power of a single orb on this fortress and kill every last living thing within the palisade if he should choose to—but he saw the usefulness of the Kuilbolts and realized within his dark heart that he needed them to help him farm the people of the Dawn Tribe. He could never fully trust them, but he would have them fear him. Out of that fear they would learn to respect him. In return he would let them live and continue their horrid practices of human tannery and gargantuan rat husbandry.

  He still needed something better, something more threatening than pain. He n
eeded to know what they feared most, for that was the only way he could solidly retain them.

  And what of these Kuilbolt masters? What was immediately clear to Rhael was that they were no Oesterners. The furnishings, the textiles, the food, the kitchen, the bedrooms, the garderobes—they were all foreign in their execution. The food was spiced exotically, the furnishings and implements fashioned strangely, to Rhael’s eyes. Opulent and luxurious, but assembled differently than an Oesterner would have done. The scale itself was grand and more lavish than any lord’s estate that he had seen in Oesteria, but then again, comparing the two made one seem more alien than the other.

  He made his way back toward the staircase and would have kept climbing up had a fluttering tapestry not caught his eye. Upon investigating he discovered a narrow passage that led into a private chamber set with a bronze bathing tub and dressing mirrors as well as a large cabinet filled with fine clothes cut in a strange fashion. Rhael regarded himself in the mirrors and wept. His once flawless skin was now littered with scrapes and scars, his nose a broken mess, his eyes still bruised and healing. His emaciated frame looked crooked as he stood on account of his game leg, and he looked like one stuck somewhere between life and death. He would have one of the Kuilbolts bring him some servants from among the human slaves and have the wretches draw a bath for him. Then he would dress himself in these strange garments he had found and emerge from his tower, the lord of the fortress. He left the mirrors and went back to the stairs and climbed up and out of the tower onto a battlement strewn wall that wrapped around the tower so that the land was visible in all directions and Rhael could see quite a long distance from this vantage point. He could also keep an eye on the entire mining operation within the palisade very easily. He followed it round until he came to another doorway, a staircase continuing to wind its way up inside, but the passage back the way he had come from was on the other side of the tower. He supposed it had something to do with defending against attackers should they manage to breach the tower’s defenses and storm it.

  He climbed the stairs, grimacing as his leg tightened and throbbed with pain. He was near the top now, and all the way round the arrow slits gave good vantage of the walk below, as well as the mining yard and the palisade. Yes, he thought, an entirely good and defensible position. At the top of the stairs was a trap door outfitted with a counter weight that could easily be removed in siege time, should one find themselves here at the last line of defense. Rhael pushed against the trap door and felt the counter weight assist him in lifting the heavy bronze-bound oaken door.

  He emerged from the trap door and found himself on the top of the tower among the battlements and bracing against the cold wind. The top of the tower was planked with wide flooring and there were two large bronze rings set into the inside of the battlement stones on opposite sides of the tower. Perhaps the anchors for some siege engine, Rhael surmised. He could see for miles. It was a fine position to erect a tower upon. He had no doubts about that.

  He was staring out to the south when something caught his eye to the west. A small speck in the sky growing larger in size as he charted its progress. It was an airship, and it looked to be heading for the tower and its palisade. Rhael sped down the stairs as quickly as his injured leg would allow and was putting the key into the gate when a Kuilbolt ambled up to him and bowed lowly.

  “Master, my lord, the old Masters arrive. You asked us to tell you, so we have obeyed you. What would you have us do, Excellency?” He was a bronze-helmed warrior Kuilbolt, tall and powerfully built for his race, and he regarded Rhael with utmost caution and wariness.

  Rhael thought about it for a long moment. “You shall welcome them, and bring them to my tower.”

  “As you command.” The Kuilbolt crossed his arms across his chest and bowed in some fashion of salute and turned to leave.

  “What are you called?” Rhael asked.

  The creature stopped and turned again. “I am Trilk, Excellency.”

  “Fetch me some humans from among the slaves to serve me in the tower. Bring me two of the fairest and the best behaved. Do you understand me?”

  “Yess. I beg your leave, my lord.”

  “I want them here in my tower quickly. I need a bath drawn and some proper food made up, and I want to have it done before that airship arrives, so be quick about it.”

  “As you command, Excellency.”

  “I shall look upon you with favor should you do this in a way that pleases me.”

  The Kuilbolt bobbed and nodded and ambled off.

  For the first time in a very long while Lord Uhlmet prepared to receive guests. And he was practically giddy with anticipation.

  Twenty-Three

  Joth rode alongside Eilyth while Bellan rode slightly ahead of them both, turned back in his saddle so that he could look at them while he spoke. They wound their way together down a narrow game trail and Joth felt for a moment that he was once more back in the Dawn Tribe Territories, riding away from the hill that Wat and he had sought shelter in after their flight from the battle. It all seemed so long ago now.

  They had left the road at the boy’s urging, but the logic was not clear to Joth. Why would Norden have let them go only to have them killed on the road? He made this point to the lad, but Bellan had dismissed it.

  “Master, I am only saying what I gleaned off those Norandishmen.”

  “Those fellows don’t speak Oestersh, in case you hadn’t noticed,” Joth said.

  “Well, I know that, master! I speak a bit of Norandian. My own father was a Norandishman.”

  Even Eilyth looked surprised. Joth wondered if she knew where Norandia was.

  The youth went on. “He come over to Oesteria to soldier in the wars, he did. Met my mother and the love grabbed them, like. He stayed here, a lot of the soldiers did. He made a trade out of horses. He knows a lot about horses, how to train them, raise them. He taught me everything I know.” He said it as though he were a veritable tome of equine knowledge on legs, all fifteen or sixteen winters of him.

  “So you understood them talking, then?” Joth steered the lad back to the point.

  “What’s that? Oh yes, master. I understood them clear enough.” His face went from jovial to grave in the blink of an eye. “They were to kill you; and begging your pardon, lady, but they was to drag you back to the mage.” Bellan said it in earnest, but Joth was scrambling in his mind trying to find a reason for Norden to want to kill him. As far as dragging Eilyth back to Grannock, Joth had a pretty fair assumption of what the lecherous mage had in mind with that order. This all assumed that the boy was not completely running off of some half-supposed threat he half understood in his second tongue, seeking to join a band of horsemen and follow in his father’s footsteps. Joth was willing to bet all of their horses on the chance of that dagger at Bellan’s belt belonging to his soldier father, and the same weapon being liberated without the lad’s father knowing about it, and the son himself seeming to innocently set off for work of a morning as usual when in fact he was stealing away for his own taste of adventure.

  Not that he blamed him. Joth remembered what it was like growing up in a middling town dreaming of different places and adventure; it was what had drawn him to military service once he realized that his situation would never be socially acceptable or forgiven. He had besmirched a girl’s honor and shamed his family and hers in the process, and his father had told him time and again that it was a dire thing that he had taken part in, and then his father had passed away suddenly and Joth was left holding the reins.

  What was Bellan running from? He did not doubt the boy’s earnestness, and he recognized that he had not yet considered the bravery and the loyalty he had shown to them in seeking to warn him and the Lady Eilyth about this presumed plot. He was a young man seeking to do right and Joth felt his heart melt for a moment when he looked at the frail-looking youth astride his tall, rangy gelding.

 
“You were going to join up with those Norandish boys,” Joth stated.

  He took a moment. “Yes, Master. I surely was.”

  “But you didn’t. You came back here to warn us. You were looking for us?”

  The boy ducked a low hanging limb and said, “Sure I was! I didn’t want nothing awful to happen to you. Either of you.”

  He covered it well, but it was obvious to Joth that the boy was enamored with Eilyth. That might have been his impetus for running away in the first place, once Joth thought about it. How could he blame him for that? Once he had thought about it, he knew that he could not blame the lad, nor could he disbelieve what he was telling them; he had to take it as fact and stop second-guessing Bellan.

  “Thank you for your warning, and thank you for not just giving us up.”

  Bellan nodded. “You are most welcome.” He looked fiercely proud for a moment. He inclined his head awkwardly.

  Joth smiled and looked to Eilyth, who held his eyes a moment.

  She shifted her attention to Bellan. “What then? How do we avoid these Norandishmen?”

  Bellan looked at her, his jaw working slightly. “Lady, never you fear. I know the short way to Torlucksford through the wilderness. I’ll have us there well ahead of them boys, and we’ll never be on the road. Never you fear.”

  She let his words hang for a long while. “As you say then, Bell. We are in your hands.”

  She had said it lightly, but the lad still gulped. “As it please you.”