“Is this the place? If not, we can ride back through the border and try somewhere else.”
Gwyd looked about. “Ah, yes, Princess. Duncan’s manor be in those distant woods.”
“Hmm… Well then, we’ll head that way, but once I reach the line of trees, you’ll have to guide us toward the mansion.”
“Aye,” said Gwyd, and once again he fell to pondering.
It was nigh midday when they came to the forest. At Liaze’s call, Gwyd surfaced from his thinking, and he said, “Tell me, Princess, can ye sing?”
Liaze looked at him and frowned. “What has this to do with stealing the elixir?”
“Nought,” replied the Brownie. “Regardless, can ye sing?”
“I’ve been known to carol a ballade or two, not as well as Camille or Alain, but I’m a fair hand at it.”
“Can ye play a harp?”
Liaze sighed. “Oui. My pere and mere thought it proper that all of us-Borel, Alain, Celeste, and I-learn several instruments: harpsichord, flute, lute, harp, and drum. But what does-?”
“I might ken a way t’break Lord Fear’s hold o’er ye, but y’ll hae t’do y’r part while I do mine.”
Liaze’s eyes flew wide in surprise. “You do? You have a way?”
“I nae be certain, and I’ll hae t’ponder on it some more, but I think it j’st might work, given the Fates be on our side.”
“Oh, tell me, tell me,” urged Liaze.
“Nae. Gi’e me more time t’think on it. But I’ll tell ye this: we need t’steal not only the elixir and the crystal decanters fra the Trolls and Goblins, but also the silver harp I left behind-’twas ma own-and we’ll need t’take one o’ the laird’s red scarves.”
“You’re not going to tell me, are you,” said Liaze, her words not a question.
“Ah, Princess, I dinna want t’get y’r hopes up. Besides I need t’take consultation wi’ them what might know. Then I’ll tell ye what I hae in mind.”
Liaze sighed in exasperation, but Gwyd said, “Go straight on f’r a ways. Up ahead we’ll stop and get some good rest-e’en sleep if we can-while we wait f’r night, cause we’ll nae be goin in t’the place until the wee marks. Then we need approach the manor fra the downwind side so as not t’be scented, especially the animals, f’r Trolls and Redcaps prize horse flesh above e’en that o’ Humans, though I think they would find ye a tasty morsel.”
Liaze shuddered to hear of the dietary habits of these Folk, and she said, “Then let us make certain that they do not sniff us out.”
In the moonlight they quietly slipped from tree to bush to tree and then to the low stone wall surrounding the mansion, Gwyd leading the way, for he knew every nook and cranny and rock and plant on the laird’s manor grounds. As they crouched by the wall, and as Gwyd peered through a slot where a brick was missing, Liaze softly said, “Tell me, Gwyd, with Trolls and Redcaps about, how think you the farmsteads nearby deal with such?”
Without taking his gaze away from the manor, Gwyd said, “I would think they ne’er go out alone at night-in fact put up barricades and stay wi’in-and they are nae doubt weel armed by now.”
Liaze nodded and said, “My thoughts exactly. Yet, were these Trolls and Goblins in my demesne, I would take a warband and clean out this vipers’ nest. Is there no one nearby to do the same?”
“ ’Twould hae been the laird’s t’do, f’r he was the first one raided and taken by surprise.”
“Were there no guards posted?”
Gwyd shook his head. “ ’Twasn’t needed ere the Trolls came, and then it were too late.-And speakin o’ guards, there do be a Redcap makin rounds.”
Gwyd moved aside and let Liaze peer through the slot. In the moonlight a Goblin shuffled alongside the building.
Liaze and Gwyd waited and watched, and finally, after several rounds, they determined that this Redcap seemed to be the only sentry.
“We’ll wait until he turns the corner on his next pass,” said Gwyd, “then we’ll make f’r the door t’the root cellar.”
“The root cellar?”
“Aye, it connects t’the wine cellars, and they in turn lead up and in. And we can slip through the halls and t’the second floor and t’the laird’s study, f’r that be where the elixir be kept as weel as the crystal decanters. Too, ma own quarters be in the cellars, and that’s where ma harp lies, assumin o’ course they have nae melted it adown f’r the silver it bears.”
“And the red scarf?”
“Next t’the laird’s study there be a dressin’ room, and several should be inside.”
“Ha, then, the most dangerous part is getting from the cellar to the study and back, eh?”
“Aye.”
“Then let’s have at it, my friend.”
As they waited, Gwyd said, “It be nae meet t’blame the laird f’r nae bein ready. He took a bad wound in his escape, and where he went I know not. But I hae nae doubt as soon as he be mended, he’ll be out raisin a warband. Yet all his weapons and armor and such lie in yon manor, and it’ll take a bit o’ time t’gather up the men and the gear he needs in order t’-take this place back and t’slay all o’ those what took it away in the first place.”
Finally the sentry passed once more, and the moment he rounded the turn, across the lawn they zigzagged, keeping to shade and bush, Liaze with an arrow nocked and a rucksack at her side, Gwyd with Liaze’s scabbard at his waist and her long-knife in hand, the blade a sword to one of his stature.
They came to a slanted cellar door, and, as Liaze stood watch, Gwyd haled on the handle, but it didn’t budge. “Garn! It be barred fra inside.”
Liaze glanced ’round and up. “We can climb to the balcony.”
“Aye,” said Gwyd, and he sheathed the long-knife and up a trellis he scrambled.
Liaze slipped her arrow back into the quiver, and slung her bow, and followed.
Just as she swung her leg across the balustrade, “Oi!” came a call from below. It was the Redcap guard. And he stood gaping up at them.
In the moonshadow, Liaze whipped her bow off her shoulder even as the sentry took a deep breath to shout.
“Foe!” he yelled. SsssThock! The arrow took him in the throat, and he fell clutching his neck, a bubbling gargle now his cry. Momentarily his feet drummed the sod, and then he fell still.
In the near distance sounded a door opening.
“Come, quickly,” hissed Gwyd, and he stepped to the glass doors, but they were locked. Liaze jabbed a leather-clad elbow into a pane, and it shattered. Gwyd reached through and twisted the handle, and they slipped into the darkened room.
By moonlight they crossed the chamber, and Gwyd stood with his ear to the door, listening.
From outside the manor there came a deep call: ’twas the voice of a Troll.
Footsteps went running past in the hall just beyond the door.
Silence followed.
Gwyd opened the panel a crack and peered outward. “Now!” he hissed, and he stepped into the corridor.
Down the passageway he ran, Liaze following, and he darted into a chamber. Liaze came after, and Gwyd stood, his fists clenched in rage, peering at a large desk. “Those bloody fools!”
In the moonlight on the desk Liaze saw a jumble of papers and a heap of coins-gold, silver, bronze-next to an empty crystal vessel lying on its side and another standing upright, with their stoppers and a crystal bar lying between. “What is it, Gwyd?”
“Knobbleheads! They’ve drunk all the elixir.”
Liaze groaned.
“Stupidly thinkin, no doubt,” said Gwyd, “ ’twas nought but apple brandy.”
“What can we do?”
“The decanters are here and unharmed”-he took up the crystal bar and examined it-“as well as the bridge, and can we get some more o’ the golden apples, we’ll be all right.” Liaze drew squares of cloth from the rucksack at her side, and Gwyd capped and wrapped each decanter separately and then the bar and slipped them into the bag. Then he laded fistfuls of coins onto another square and t
ied it tightly so as not to jingle and slipped the improvised purse into the rucksack, saying, “We ne’er ken when treasure might be needed.”
On the grounds outside there was a hue and cry and a thrashing about of bushes.
“The red scarf,” said Liaze, and Gwyd stepped to a hidden door and within the chamber beyond, and a moment later he emerged with a scarlet length of winter neckwear. Into the rucksack it went.
“Now f’r ma harp.”
In the yard a Troll roared and Goblins squealed, as the search for intruders went on.
Back into the corridor went Gwyd and Liaze, blade in hand and arrow nocked. Gwyd ran to a stairwell and listened, then darted downward, Liaze running quietly after.
Down they went to the first floor and along a short hallway there. And then down more steps they ran, and they came into the cellars. Gwyd hissed, “Wait,” and after a moment and the sound of a striker, light seeped out through a crack of a hooded lantern. Broken wine bottles were strewn about the floor and sacks of supplies were torn open. Cursing at the mess, Gwyd quickly strode to a small door and opened it and stepped within, while Liaze again stood ward without. In moments Gwyd emerged with a small silver harp. It, too, went into the rucksack.
“Now t’escape,” said Gwyd, and he led Liaze to another door.
They entered a root cellar, with tubers and leeks and beets and other such hanging from ceiling beams, and jars of preserves on shelves within. A short set of steps led up to a slanted door barred on the inside by a heavy beam. Together they slid the timber out from the brackets and set it aside.
“Wait,” said Liaze, unlooping the heavily laden rucksack from over her shoulder and setting it down. “We need to draw them away from the grounds. Give me the lantern, and I’ll take care of that.”
“What be ye goin t’do, Princess?”
“Start a fire on the first floor.”
“In ma laird’s manor?”
“Oui.”
Gwyd groaned but handed Liaze the lantern.
Away she ran on light feet, and up the stairs to the first floor. She stepped into a room-a dining hall-and went to a window facing the yard where the Redcap was slain. Flanking the window were ensconced lamps. Quickly she pulled one down and emptied its oil on the drapery. Then she took the other lantern and lit it and set the curtains aflame. Whoosh! Fire roared up the cloth, and Liaze hurled the second lantern crashing through the window and shouted, “Oi, uglies, I’m in here!”
Yells came from outside the manor, and Liaze grabbed up the shuttered lantern and bolted from the chamber and down the corridor and into the cellars below.
Swiftly she ran, and as she crossed the floor she heard footsteps pounding above. To the root cellar she fled, where Gwyd stood waiting.
“Now,” said Liaze, closing down the lantern and shouldering the rucksack and then nocking an arrow, “ ’tis time to fly.”
In the dark, Gwyd opened the slanted door, and up and out and into the moonlight he stepped, right into the grasp of a great Troll.
“Rawww!” roared the twelve-foot-tall creature, snatching up the wee Brownie, the long-knife flying from Gwyd’s hand.
But then the Troll gasped, and looked at his chest, where the arrow had pierced his heart.
Thock! And another shaft sprang forth from his left eye.
The Troll reeled and stumbled backward and thudded to the earth, the fiend dead even as it hit the ground, Gwyd yet clutched in its monstrous grip.
Liaze stepped out from the cellar, another arrow nocked, but it was not needed.
She helped pry the Troll’s fingers loose, and groaning in pain, Gwyd said, “I think some o’ ma ribs be broke.”
“Nevertheless,” said Liaze, taking up the long-knife and sheathing it in the scabbard at Gwyd’s side, “we must flee before others come.”
And so, across the lawn they ran, where Liaze helped Gwyd over the wall. Into the forest beyond they fled, Gwyd gasping in agony, while behind flames roared out from the dining chamber window, the bellow of the fire counterpoint to the shouts and squalls of Redcaps and Trolls as they battled the blaze inside.
29
Moor
The sun had risen by the time they rode out from the woods, and Gwyd said, “Princess, head f’r the nearest burnie, I canna catch ma breath, and I need t’take a simple.”
Liaze looked downslope to left and right and angled Nightshade a bit dextral, and they rode to a wee bourne running toward a farmstead below. She halted the horses and then helped Gwyd down from Pied Agile and said, “What can I do to aid?”
“I be needin a cup, if ye dinna mind, Princess.”
As Liaze fetched a cup from the goods, the Brownie stepped to the rill and, groaning, eased down. He took a pinch of powder from one of his belt pockets, and when Liaze knelt beside him and handed him the cup, he dipped up some spring water and dropped the powder within. After swirling it ’round a bit, he gulped it down.
“We’ll need t’sit awhile, m’lady,” said Gwyd. “Soon I’ll be ready t’ride, and ma ribs, they’ll be mended in a day or two.”
“A day or two? What did you drink, a magic potion?”
“Weel, I would nae call it magic, but merely quick healin. Och, we Brunies seldom be injured in the daily course o’ livin, but I would nae call gettin squeezed by a Troll as bein in the daily course. Nae, Princess, ma herbs nae be magic, but the laird’s decanters do be.”
“Ah, the decanters.” Liaze stood and stepped to the horses to retrieve the rucksack.
“Och, m’lady, would y’fetch one o’ them bottles o’ wine while y’r at it? Ma ribs could use a bit o’ soothin.”
Liaze laughed and grabbed one of the cloth-wrapped bottles from the cargo, along with a corkscrew from the cooking gear.
She brought all back to Gwyd and sat down and popped the plug from the bottle and handed it to him. Gwyd offered her the first drink of the wine, but Liaze shook her head. Instead, she took the small harp from the bag and set it aside, and then one by one she took out the wrapped crystal goods and removed the cloth from each decanter and examined them: arcane runes were deeply carved into their sides.
She unwrapped the crystal bar. It, too, had runes carved into its sides, and along one side at each end there seemed to be a stopper. “You called this a ‘bridge,’ Gwyd. What is it for? And these runes: what are they?”
Gwyd took another long pull on the wine and wiped his mouth along his sleeve and said, “Wellanow, Princess-these runes? — they be what powers the magic. Them and the fact the decanters and bridge be carved fra the same single piece o’ pure crystal. Y’see, when I came t’ma laird’s place, he told me that the runes be used t’turn grape juice t’wine, and then the wine t’brandy. Here, let me show ye.” Gwyd took up one of the decanters, uncapped it, and poured a cupful of wine in it, and then picked up the crystal bridge. “Though it now be wine therein, usually y’put ord’nary juice in this one and stopper it wi’ the bridge, like so. Mind ye now, top j’st this vessel and nae the other. See this rune on the decanter-and this end o’ the bridge wi’ the matchin rune-that be the cap f’r this one.” Gwyd popped the stopper on the side of one end of the bar onto the decanter, the bar itself now jutting out thwartwise. “Then ye wait f’r the juice t’ferment, which it does o’ernight.-And don’t that be a wonder?” He paused in his explanation and took another slug of wine as Liaze examined the decanter and bar.
“Then what?” asked Liaze.
“Then, Princess, ye connect the other end o’ the bridge t’the other decanter-see these runes on the bar and the matchin ones on the vessel? — so that it spans fra this one t’that one.” Now the decanters stood side by side, with the crystal bridge spanning crosswise from the top of one to the top of the other. “This one, the first one, turns hot,” said Gwyd, “and that one, the other, turns cold. Here, feel them.”
Liaze reached out and placed a hand on each, her eyes widening in wonder. “Why, yes. Warm and chill. How splendid.”
Gwyd took anot
her gulp of wine and said, “As the heated vapors be driven fra the hot t’the cold, they drip out as brandy. And that do be a wonder in itself.”
Liaze watched as the first drop fell into the cold side. “How long does that take altogether?”
“If the hot decanter be full when y’start, less than a candlemark, Princess. This one, wi’ nought but a cup or so in it, well, it should be done right soon.”
Liaze nodded and then shook her head in bemusement. “How marvelous these are. In the Autumnwood, we make brandy using copper vats and a coil of copper tubing.”
“Aye, and that’s the way I maself always did it, but when I heard my laird hae such wondrous thin’s, I knew I could take ma golden-apple juice and turn it t’cider and then connect the bridge and distill the elixir o’ life-givin all in a day or so. Och, wi’ them, I could be done so much faster than I otherwise could.”
Liaze nodded and watched as brandy was distilled from wine. “Gwyd, what if we connected the bridge backwards? Would it make a death-dealing drink instead?”
“I nae ken, m’lady, f’r I hae ne’er tried it such. F’r all I ken, it j’st might explode.”
They watched while more brandy dripped into the cold side, and finally Liaze said, “This life-giving elixir, how far must we go to fetch some golden apples?”
“Many a day, Princess. Many a day.” Gwyd gestured toward the horses and said, “Though on Pied Agile and Nightshade, it’ll be quicker than me afoot, as I hae always gone before. But, list: fetchin the apples be a dangerous thin’, f’r the garden and the apples themselves be well warded.”
“Garden?”
“Aye, a high-walled garden wi’ but a single e’erbearin tree.”
“And this tree is well warded?”
“Aye, by a giant unsleepin serpent.” Gwyd drank the last of the wine and Liaze got up and fetched another bottle.
“If it’s warded by an unsleeping serpent, how did you get some of the apples in the first place?”
As Liaze sat down and opened the second bottle, “Ah, Princess,” said Gwyd, “there be but one day a year when the serpent dozes f’r a moment-and a moment only-and that gi’es him all the rest he needs f’r another entire year. It be in that moment the tree itsel’ be unwarded, and that be when I dart in, fetch a single apple and dart away fra the garden. I hae done it thrice altogether, and in the third instance I was nearly the snake’s dinner. But I got o’er the wall j’st in time, and he missed his strike.” Again Gwyd offered the princess first drink, and again Liaze shook her head.
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