by T. O. Munro
The antiquary stayed fixed in his scrutiny of the familiar scroll until they heard the crash of the outer door being slammed shut. “Has he gone?” he asked.
Udecht saw that Haselrig’s hands were trembling so much that the parchment tumbled from his fingers. “Why do you vex him so?” the Bishop asked, massaging his own bruised throat.
“In Maelgrum’s service, your reverence, one must not show weakness even when you are weak.” Haselrig sat down heavily and drew a handkerchief from his sleeve to mop his brow. “I remember when Rondol first passed beyond the barrier into exile. We found him whimpering at Eadran’s folly, his skills stolen by mind numbing juice. The big bastard was in pieces. He thought we’d come to kill him. He cried when I told him he would live, that we had food and shelter for him. Yet fifteen years later here he is, the Master’s heir apparent.”
“It must be hard to find yourself supplanted,” Udecht muttered with more sincerity than he had expected. When the sympathy met only silence he asked, “tell me Haselrig, have you no regrets?”
“To regret is to look backwards on what cannot be changed, your reverence. One should always look forward. Tell me, do you regret the indiscretion that gave you a daughter?”
“I regret that Maelgrum knows of her.” Fear made him frank.
“The Master knows everything, your reverence. His eyes and ears are everywhere. Still if Archbishop Forven had known of the extent of your straying perhaps it would have been you not I assigned to the dead end of court antiquary.”
“Your misdemeanours predated mine, Haselrig.”
“And you were a prince, so all would have been forgiven and hidden.”
“But I would never have turned to betrayal as you did.”
Haselrig turned a baleful eye on him. “We have work to do, your reverence. Come there is a chest of documents we have not touched yet. Let us hope we can spot the worst of Chirard’s traps somewhat more reliably this time.”
The antiquary shuffled down into one deeper arched recess. Udecht waited as the silver chain joining them paid out until the faintest tug at his wrist showed it had reached its full length. He rose at that and followed after Haselrig around a corner of dusty shelving.
“This is the earliest work we have of Chirard’s,” the antiquary was saying as he bent over a deep chest lifting out armfuls of papers. Udecht drew up behind him scanning the overflowing documents. “It dates from when he was nothing more than the third son of a man who never expected to be King. I cannot say I have much hope of enlightenment here but when you have looked everywhere that is probable, and everywhere that is improbable you start looking in the impossible places.”
“What was this blue gate, you mentioned to Rondol?” Udecht asked as a slim tome slid through the papers.
“In truth, your reverence, I know nothing more than what I told the bearded bastard. There is or was a blue gate. That is the beginning and end of my knowledge. That and the fact that it caused my Master some disquiet.”
“Would it have looked like this?” Udecht asked, fishing the volume from within the waterfall of paper.
“Like what?” Haselrig turned to inspect what Udecht had found. It was a small book about four inches wide by six inches tall and not much more than an inch thick with cracked parchment leaves. It was the cover, though, that had caught the Bishop’s eye. A vertical oval coloured in with swirls of different shades of blue, beneath a single word title “fate.”
“Yes,” the antiquary said slowly. “Yes, it would look something like that I expect.” He reached tentatively for it. “That is most interesting.”
Udecht stood up, holding the book back out of Haselrig’s reach, his idle curiosity unsettled by the antiquary’s greedy interest.
“Come now you reverence. This is no time for foolishness.”
“I’ll lend your cause no aid.”
“Don’t be an idiot, who knows what advantage this knowledge we seek may provide the Master. Like as not, understanding the Helm will tell him nothing new nor yield any new prize, but it may save our lives and your daughter’s.”
Udecht hesitated, his arm half dropping.
“Now, your reverence this book may be no more than a trifle, but its cover piques my curiosity and suggests it may contain more edifying reading matter than the chronicles of Chirard’s bowels. So if you please, your reverence, let me have it.”
Udecht handed it over with a sigh.
***
“It is strange to think of such order in those shrubs and flower beds, when chaos swirls around us,” Thom said to Hepdida.
The suite of rooms which Rugan had given over to Niarmit and her party were large, luxurious and close to his own private chambers. Quintala had said that this was more an indication of mistrust than of favour, but Hepdida had simply enjoyed the unparalleled comfort. The bedchambers were set around a central private sitting room with its own balcony overlooking the ornamental royal gardens and it was from this vantage point that the Princess and the illusionist had been surveying the precision of Prince Rugan’s horticulture.
They turned as the door to the sitting room crashed open and Niarmit stormed in closely followed by the Seneschal. Kaylan shot out of his quarters, alert and alarmed a question on his lips which Niarmit waved away before he could voice it. The Queen paced the length of the room back and forth, shaking her head but saying nothing. Hepdida looked across at Quintala, but the half-elf leaning against the door, arms folded gave nothing more illuminating than a swift shake of her head.
On the third circuit of the room, Niarmit finally spoke. “Bloody witch!”
“Who, my Lady?”
“Who do you think Kaylan?” the Seneschal intercepted the thief’s question before Niarmit could answer.
“By the Goddess, this is too hard,” the Queen exclaimed sitting down and thumping her fist against the table.
“Come, your Majesty,” Quintala chided. “The witch only hit you once.”
“She hit you?” Kaylan’s eyes narrowed as he spoke and his hand jerked towards his empty belt.
“She has a sharp hand for a two thousand year old woman,” Niarmit admitted, rubbing her left cheek where Hepdida could see a palm shaped reddening.
“She knows no respect,” Quintala admitted.
“More than that, Seneschal, she hurts our cause. The people of Nordsalve cower behind the Derrach, under their boy Prince and his cautious regent mother. We have no way to unite our forces or even communicate with them for the only way to reach them is a perilous path through occupied Morsalve.”
“Is there not a more direct route?” Hepdida racked her limited recollections of the Petred Isle’s geography.
“As the crow flies, there is a straight path through the Silverwood to Nordsalve, my Princess.” Quintala supplied the answer which Hepdida’s haphazard schooling had failed to instil.
“But the Lady Kychelle will admit no passage through her husband’s realm in obstinate observance of an age old decree that has no relevance in our present crisis,” Niarmit fumed.
“Can’t Quintala fly over the Silverwood, like a crow then, and take your messages?” Hepdida suggested. The half-elf gave her a look of sad pity, which annoyed the Princess.
“Magic doesn’t work like that,” Thom said.
“Well it should,” Hepdida snapped.
“My Princess, did you ever as a child stand upon a rope and try to lift yourself in the air by pulling on its two ends?” Quintala asked.
“No, of course not. That wouldn’t work.”
“It is the same with magic, I cannot lift myself aloft by magic, nor throw another in the air for any greater distance than the few hundred feet my humble powers reach. That is why the trick of flight has eluded every wizard in history.”
“It is not simply a matter of the barrier to communication that the old witch’s obduracy creates, it is her refusal to lend us the benefit of her spears or archers which further harms our cause,” Niarmit broke in on Quintala’s lesson in the cons
ervation of thaumatic momentum.
“At least Giseanne is accepted as Regent,” the Seneschal replied. “We may have a more sensible head than Rugan or his Grandmother bringing some coherent leadership.”
Niarmit gave a heavy sigh. “None of that matters while Kychelle remains such an obdurate block to any path of reason. We can make no headway while she stands against us. Oh if only she could be set aside!”
***
The Bishop snored heavily in the corner, slumped in the angle between the end of a bookshelf and a cold stone wall. Haselrig jerked round at the grating nasal sound, suddenly aware of the stiffness in his legs, the crick in his neck and the cold numbness of his fingertips as his body reminded him how little he had stirred these last long hours. Udecht drew another rattling adenoidal breath. Haselrig stretched his arms and twisted his head from side to side flexing tense sinews. He dragged his fingers down his face, leant back in his chair and gave a long slow exhale as the Bishop snorted again.
The book’s very title mocked him, that one word ‘fate’ and there it was. All the answers he had been seeking laid out in one place, brought to him by a daisy chain of fate. The sorcerer’s visit; his own attempt to rile Rondol; the Bishop’s curiosity piqued by the talk of a blue gate; the cover to the book and there within its leaves so many answers.
Even the encryption was not too hard to unpick. This was Chirard’s early work before he began to base his cyphers on the dead languages of the Monar Empire. The encoded messages tumbled out at Haselrig’s gentlest teasing, but it was hard to say who was fisherman who was fish as each new morsel of information drew the antiquary deeper into his study of the book’s opening pages, until the Bishop had slumped into slumber and the lanterns burned low.
At last Haselrig felt he had drained the book of information about the Helm. The later passages were now of Chirard’s line to accession, the different obstacles along his way, relatives with a greater claim, who would need to be eliminated. The route Chirard would take to the throne was well documented in the history books and it was no wonder that he would plan his course.
Those earlier pages, however, had stunned the antiquary. Against all the evidence and experience of other kings, Chirard had found someone who could tell him of the Helm, of what it was, of how it worked. At first Haselrig had wondered if perhaps the mad king had been transcribing information from some older now lost writing. But the more he read, the more the rhythm of the words sounded like notes made after the event from some lecture, an oral account whose key points Chirard had hastened to record as soon as possible.
However, it was not the fact that Chirard had found someone who could speak of the Helm which had stunned Haselrig, it was what that unknown magi had said. He shook his head at the new found comprehension of what the Helm was and reached inside his tunic to pull out the black medallion on its thick lanyard.
He ran his finger and thumb over its obsidian surface. He had rarely had to use it, being so often in Maelgrum’s company that a remote meeting of minds had not been necessary. But still he had the same token that all the Master’s servants bore and he recalled the few occasions when the medallion had warmed to its true function, something more than a badge of office. It had been a far from pleasant experience, letting the Master into his mind, to feel Maelgrum flicking through his thoughts and memories as the Dark Lord gathered information and communicated his orders. He imagined it would be far worse to be the one initiating the contact, to tug at Maelgrum’s attention and feel the malevolent presence flood into his own mind. Haselrig shivered at the prospect. The Master would be affronted at the impertinence, it would have to be a matter of much consequence to justify the intrusion on Maelgrum’s distant conscience.
Haselrig touched the token to his lips. If there was ever to be a time this was surely it.
Udecht abruptly rattled into disorientated wakefulness. “Where? What?” he stammered looking first about his semi-recumbent form and then at the antiquary leaning back in his chair. “Why are we still here? What hour is it? Are you done Haselrig?”
The antiquary drew a long breath. “By my reckoning your reverence, the first fingers of dawn will be stretching across the citadel above us. My work here is done and within but one of the three weeks that the Master promised us.”
“What have you to tell him?” The bishop spoke in some alarm, rubbing the sleep from one eye absently.
“Much that will interest him, some that may even please him. But it is not a discussion I would enter into when I am as fatigued as now.”
“Please him?” Udecht frowned. “Must you tell him all that you have discovered?”
“Your reverence, while I would confess I fear my Master, I am still his servant and a good and faithful servant keeps nothing back. In the meantime I have need of some rest so let’s to bed good Bishop.”
***
The silver guards uncrossed their heavy pikes to allow Niarmit and Quintala into Giseanne’s private suite of rooms, a portion of Rugan’s palace which had become an impromptu seat of Government for the Kingdom of the Salved. The internal furnishings had not changed much. The Regent of the Salved sat in the same easy chair which had sufficed for the Lady Giseanne. She rose as her guests entered. “I am pleased you could come, Lady Niarmit, Seneschal.”
“I am always at your service, madam,” Niarmit replied, making no comment or sign of recognition to the room’s other occupant.
Kychelle had not risen from her own seat and gave a harsh cough at being overlooked.
“Good afternoon grandmama,” Quintala greeted her with a grin.
“Good afternoon Seneschal,” the elf responded. She met Niarmit’s gaze and held it for a moment while Niarmit waited, her mouth a line of silence. “Good afternoon, Lady Niarmit,” Kychelle said at length as though the courtesy had been dragged from her by a team of horses.
Niarmit gave the faintest inclination of her head, “good afternoon, Lady Kychelle.”
Giseanne gave the broad smile of a satisfied parent presiding over the resolution of an infant squabble. “The Lady Kychelle had some reflections she wished to share with you, with you both.”
“Harsh words were spoken in council yesterday,” Quintala said fixing her grandmother with a frown. “They are the hardest to take back.”
The elf waved her interjection aside. “We are adults here, Seneschal. All old enough to set aside the heat of a past argument in the interests of a common cause.”
“Common cause?” Niarmit arched an eyebrow.
“I have given some thought to the strategic considerations we discussed yesterday,” the elf seemed to be choking on her own words.
“The Lady Kychelle has reconsidered her previous position,” Giseanne added.
“Reconsidered?”
“I have decided to set aside, for the duration of our current emergency, the interdict which the Lord Andril put in place of old.”
“You will allow…”
“Emissaries may pass through the Silverwood, under close escort,” Kychelle said, her hands massaging the head of her staff with knuckle whitening force.
“And,” Giseanne gave the gentlest of prompts.
“I have sent word to the Steward to that effect and also commanded that a force of elven warriors be sent here to serve against the enemy.”
“How many?” Niarmit gasped.
“Three thousand,” Kychelle spoke quickly as if speed would ease the pain the words caused her. “It is but a fraction of our strength, the Silverwood has always husbanded their force more carefully than Feyril ever did.” She looked up at Niarmit, scanning the Queen’s face for greed or triumph. “Do not think too far in ahead of yourself, Lady Niarmit. Whether they stay, still less whether any more come depends on how far success attends this,” she worked her lips a moment before enunciating with evident distaste, “this experiment.”
“We are most thankful, Lady Kychelle,” Giseanne gushed a gratitude which softened the sharp edges of Kychelle’s resentment.
> The elf shrugged, “there was no other sensible course.”
“When will these elven troops arrive?” Quintala demanded.
Kychelle rose to her feet leaning on her staff. “You seem unconvinced granddaughter by my words? Well your ingratitude has always been my curse. The message has been sent, the soldiers will be here within the week to banish your doubt with the evidence of your own eyes. In the meantime, you have no greater assurance than an old elf’s word of honour. If that is insufficient for you, then you are no blood of mine.”
Niarmit bowed low. “I look forward to further co-operation, to the benefit of all the Salved, Lady Kychelle.”
“You may thank the Lady Giseanne,” Kychelle met Niarmit’s eyes with a hooded gaze. “She is most persuasive.”
“What does my brother say to this?” Quintala asked.
“My husband has been appraised of these arrangements,” Giseanne assured her. “They meet with his approval, as I hope they meet with yours and the Lady Niarmit’s.”
“Entirely,” Niarmit exclaimed. “I confess myself surprised and delighted.”
Kychelle gave her a weak smile. “The Lady Giseanne thought you might believe it better from my own lips. If you are content, then our business here is done. With your indulgence, Lady Regent I might visit my great-grandson.”
“Assuredly,” Giseanne replied. “You may find your grandson there also. He is quite taken with fatherhood.”
Kychelle stopped at the threshold. “Lady Niarmit, I would ask one favour of you.”
“Anything.”
“The Lady Giseanne bid me tell you this now. She thought it meet you and my grand-daughter should know. But please, keep this intelligence to yourself. I would be the one to share it with the other council members in the morning session.”
“Of course, it is the least courtesy that I, that is we,” she elbowed the frowning Quintala. “Can extend to you, Lady Kychelle.”
Kychelle nodded slowly to herself. “You have very pretty manners, Lady Niarmit.”
