The Witches of Ne'arth (The Star Wizards Trilogy Book 2)

by Joseph Schembrie

  Both her personas almost laughed. “That won't be necessary.”

  The woman in the form of Inoldia walked to the wall and touched the wine shelves. Inoldia had no interest in wine and the bottles may as well have been full of stale water. Matlid had invested a sizable portion of her allowance as a servant in wines, and knew which were best. She selected a bottle and took from the shelf a pair of ornate goblets.

  “My Lady?”

  “I should like to meet the prisoner named Faron.”

  “Well, at the moment I have an appointment – “ Bivera halted at her gaze. “Uh, yes. Now.”

  Bivera summoned a colonel, who summoned the captain of the guard. Together they were led by the warden to a windowless building at the opposite end of the government compound. Past three layers of barred doors was a dank courtyard surrounded by barred doors. The warden stopped at a door. Guards readied swords and the warden twisted keys in multiple locks.

  The door swung open. A wave of stench gushed forth. Inside the tiny squalid cell, sprawled on the floor, a ragged man with an explosion of filthy beard and hair blinked in the daylight. Inoldia took the lantern and entered alone.

  “Close the door,” she said. She heard the locks click. She turned to the man and said, “Hello, Letos.”

  A defiant stare. “Who the hell are you?”

  “One who has your fate in her hands.”

  “Are you come to have me executed?”

  “Oh no.” She knelt, opened the bottle and poured the wine, handed him a goblet. “I've come to celebrate your release. But first, we shall talk.”

  He lifted his manacled wrists and sullenly glared. “You're within reach. I could strangle you.”

  You're welcome to try, Inoldia thought.

  Matlid said, “You'll want to hear what I have to say.”

  Letos hesitated, then clumsily gripped the goblet with both bound hands and maneuvered it to his mouth. He tentatively sipped. “Tell me, why do you say that I am 'Letos?'”

  “The man able to marry Prisca, the most beautiful woman in Britan, would be a man with great ambition. A man with great ambition would be a king. A king with great ambition would rebel against the Romans. When the Romans destroyed his rebellion, the man with great ambition would become a brigand. After all, what is a brigand but a king without a crown? And so here is Faron. Is it not plausible that Letos and Faron are the same?”

  “Yet according to Roman justice, Letos is without his head.”

  “Roman justice can be fallible.”

  “Never heard a Roman admit that!” Letos laughed in a wheeze. “I like you.” Then he spat: “What do you want?”

  “To give you another crown.”

  “I never had a first one, but I'll let the turn of phrase go. I take it you're promising to restore my kingdom?”

  “Oh no, I'm giving you a bigger kingdom.”

  “You are, are you? How big?”

  “All of Britan.”

  Letos gulped the rest of his drink. “You're jesting at my expense!”

  Matlid refilled his goblet. “I would never do such a cruelty.”

  “Why do such a favor?”

  “Direct Roman rule leads to unrest. Rule instead by indirection, through a king who is of their own, and the people will believe their nation free, and so they will remain placid.”

  “If you know that I'm Letos, then you know that I led a rebellion. You still want me?”

  “At the time, you believed a rebellion could be successful. Now you know it can only end in blood. That is bad for Rome, for Britan, for you. You see the futility now, don't you?”

  He chugged the goblet. “Yes.”

  “Then you possess a wisdom that few in Britan seem to have learned. Now, King Letos, for you to ascend to your throne I will need your cooperation. This is not a matter of exchange for mutual advantage, or anything so tawdry. It is simply that in order to install your rule, we must take control of the Leaf. And to do that, I must know of someone who is part of the Leaf.”

  “I've given six names already.”

  “All of them proven false. Perhaps they were the names of your political enemies, or of suspects that your interrogator suggested and you agreed rather than face torture.”

  “My lady, you're quite insightful.” He mulled the empty goblet. “But I know of no contact.”

  Inoldia poured again. “I believe you. Yet nonetheless I also believe that there was a contact. The Leaf would have had someone close to an ambitious king, watching the king without the king being aware.”

  “Well . . . Geth was my second. If ever a man hated Rome enough to join the Leaf, it would be him.”

  “We know of Geth, but no, the agent we're looking for would have been more subtle than Geth.”

  “Then he was too subtle for me. I am at a loss to discern.”

  “Here is a question that might.” She locked onto his eyes, and spoke softly: “Was there ever a person in your association who hated Rome with passion, and then without explanation seemed to lose that passion, even to becoming neutral toward the Romans or even a sympathizer?”

  His eyes widened.

  A few minutes later, she exited the cell and gave instructions to Bivera: “Have him fed and washed and taken to a barber. Give him some sun, else he'll be too pale to play his part convincingly. Also, ready a detail of twenty soldiers. Ten in uniform, the other ten dressed as Britanian civilians.”

  “They are to be infiltrators?” Bivera asked.

  “See that they know how to speak with a Britanian accent.” She headed to the courtyard door.

  “Where will you be?”

  “It is best that I act in secret.”

  Matlid strode out of the Government House compound onto the streets of Londa. She had never been to Cork Street, but Letos had given detailed directions and with the intelligence that the Mother had augmented her with, she remembered his words infallibly.

  As she passed through the streets, she saw Roman children playing in fine clothes and local children begging in rags. How like Tur! She tossed a ten-gram piece to the beggars. They tussled like starving wolves. She opened her purse deeper and made sure that every child had a coin. The persona of Inoldia cursed.

  A conversation between the three personas commenced:

  After he shaves Letos, the barber will be the only civilian able to identify Faron as a prisoner and collaborator of the Romans. He should be executed immediately.

  It is not likely that the barber is part of the Leaf –

  Mother, do you hear this blather! She would risk all to spare the life of a worthless baseline! She is too much a baseline herself, she has no stomach for the task! Let me control!

  Her talent in relating to people has proven useful.

  With a chilling shudder, the ghost of Inoldia receded into the shadows of Matlid's subconscious.

  Inoldia/Matlid reached Cork Street and identified the tailor shop from the description that Letos/Faron had provided. The door was padlocked, the windows shuttered. She went around back, hopped onto the roof, and ripped away tiles. When the opening was large enough, she dropped inside.

  It was a small room with little more furnishings than a stove, table, and chairs. She caught the scent of one who was like Letos, but not the same. That would the brother he mentioned, Ral. She sniffed again, and started. The trace was faint, but the mutant girl had once been here! Not entirely surprising; just as Letos was her father by law, Ral would be her uncle by law.

  Matlid pushed aside the curtain and entered the front room. Robes and rolls of fabric were spread over tables and shelves. There was also a full-length mirror. Matlid paused to stare at the reflection. It looked like Inoldia, but she saw herself in there too, and more so as she concentrated –

  Face the window, Matlid! Matlid, face the window! NOW!

  Shaking off the trance – or, some would say, resuming the trance – Matlid turned from the mirror and faced the window. A figurine of a man on a horse rested on the sill.


  Notice the patterns in the dust around the base? her imprintation of the Mother asked. The orientation is changed too frequently for the figurine to be merely an ornament. It is employed as a surreptitious signal device.

  At the Mother's instruction, Matlid opened the window shutters. She turned the figurine the other way. She receded into the shadows and waited.

  Hours passed from morning to afternoon. Many people walked by. Then came a man who came by a second time. He walked up to the door and pulled the handle. Finding it still locked, he called, “Ral? You there?” With an apprehensive expression, he hurried quickly away.

  Matlid returned to the rear of the shop and leaped through the hole, outside onto the roof. She jumped down in the rear and came to the front and sniffed at the door handle. She followed the scent through the streets. The trail ended at a bakery. Inside, on a table by the window, was a rolling pin that was rocking, as if it had recently been touched, its axis oriented to point exactly at a corner of the table.

  As if in signal, Matlid thought, catching on.

  She hid in an alley and waited. More time passed. A man circled and entered the shop. The CLOSED sign was hung in the window and the curtains were drawn. Matlid stole near and eavesdropped.

  “I thought he had gone to stay in the west, but the signal was in the window. Yet I saw no sign of him! What could it mean, Hul?”

  “Only trouble. If Ral is interrogated and confesses what he knows, then we may all be arrested shortly. Now, Bint, are you sure you were not followed?”

  “I was careful as always.”

  “We'll have to convene the town cell tonight. Inform the others to meet at the farmhouse at nine. Tell them to bring weapons, and show caution that they are not followed.”

  Matlid returned to the Government House compound. Bivera was in his office, and brought her to a room where Letos was waiting. The once and potentially future king was bathed, clean-shaven, and slightly sunburned. He wore clothes that would have befitted an upper class merchant, but he'd already stained them with the oils and grease of the food that he was gobbling. It reminded her that underneath an admittedly handsome frame he was still just a peasant chieftain with, as they said in Frans, visions of grandeur.

  She faced Bivera. “Can you provide horses?” With his nod, she faced Letos. “Can you ride a horse?”

  “My lady, you offend me if you think I'm the one Northlander who can't!”

  “We'll need to dress you into what a brigand would wear.”

  “I thought I was to be king.”

  “You will be on your way to kingship soon. I will explain your role in tonight's action.” She addressed Bivera: “Do you have those twenty soldiers?”

  “Yes,” Bivera said.

  “I want ten prisoners as well. And have them dressed in uniforms.”

  Bivera looked mystified, but Letos laughed.

  With preparations made, including rehearsals by Letos, Matlid returned to the bakery shortly before seven. The sun had set and she was invisible in the gloom of the facing alley. Around a half an hour to eight, the baker left his shop. He hurried through the streets, casting frequent glances behind his shoulder. Matlid followed by scent and kept in the shadows between lanterns.

  The baker claimed a horse at the stable outside the city gates. Matlid watched him gallop into the distance, then sprinted after, keeping pace. When she reached a wooded area a kilometer outside of town, she raised her hand high. On horseback, Letos and the soldiers emerged from concealment.

  Ten men were dressed as civilians, twenty as soldiers. Ten of the twenty men dressed as soldiers were in truth prisoners, blindfolded and bound, their horses led by the others. Matlid nodded at the precautions.

  Mounting the horse that had been brought for her, she led under the stars on the invisible trail of scent from the baker's horse. She rode through a forest and came a valley. Across the fields, in the moonlight, she perceived a farmhouse. The curtains were drawn, with lanterns placed against them – so that shadows would be cast inside rather than out, Matlid knew.

  She directed the men into the concealment of brush, and together they watched from half a kilometer distant.

  The baker dismounted and led his horse into the barn. He emerged on foot and knocked on the farmhouse door. When it opened, Matlid saw the play of human silhouettes within. Her nose caught the scent of half a dozen men. Her force could easily overwhelm them, but that was not how infiltration worked.

  Matlid motioned the officer in command aside and said softly, “Place the prisoners there, then deal with them as was instructed. Quietly!”

  The captain whispered to his men. The prisoners were brought to the place that Inoldia designated. Still blindfolded, they were unaware that knives were being drawn to every throat. At the captain's signal, the soldiers slit every throat at once. There no hesitancy on the part of the soldiers, and no struggle on the part of the prisoners. The prisoners were dead before they hit the ground.

  Very professional, Inoldia said. Bivera has given us his best men.

  Matlid wanted to faint. At least this time Inoldia wasn't feeding on the corpses.

  The soldiers were done, standing at attention. Inoldia's persona came to the fore and motioned toward the farmhouse. The soldiers started to pick up the dead bodies and follow her. Almost too late, she spotted the watchman on the porch.

  “Hold!” she whispered to the captain. “Wait here!”

  She stole among the bushes toward the farmhouse. The lookout was a young man. His features were fully visible in the moonlight: barely more than a boy!

  Matlid pictured him as a farmer, with a young wife and child not far from here. She imagined him as he would have been minutes earlier: leaving his house, pecking his wife on the cheek, assuring her that he would be gone only a short while.

  He would place his hand tenderly on the child's forehead, as no father had done for Matlid . . . .

  What is the delay? Inoldia demanded.

  Matlid pictured what the child would look like. His father had curly hair, so would he. Or would it be a she? The upturned nose, the smooth skin, the wide, prominent eyes . . . yes, the same features would make a lovely girl.

  Matlid! Obey!

  Matlid flinched, clutched her belly and bent, groaning. Her head throbbed, the world spun, and a hundred daggers of pain brought her to her knees.

  Do what you must do. No more delay!

  I can choke him into sleep. That's all that is required.

  They must believe that a Roman attacked him. And a Roman would kill.

  The Mother spoke: Matlid, the deception will not succeed if they see mercy.

  But he's only a boy!

  Time had no meaning in a universe of anguish. Matlid fought with all her will, but she was outnumbered two to one, and either persona was more than a match. Together they quickly overwhelmed her. Her will was beaten to the far recesses of her mind, where she watched helplessly as Inoldia's persona became fully dominant.

  The pain was gone. Mechanically, the body that had once belonged to Matlid rose to its feet. It waited until the lookout turned away, then hurled toward the porch like dark lightning.

  He's only a boy. She wrapped her fingers around his neck.

  He's only a boy. With firm pressure, his neck snapped.

  He's only a boy. He went limp, unbreathing.

  He's only a boy. Silently she lowered the body to the planks of the porch. Lifeless eyes stared at the moon.

  Inoldia receded into the brush as the actors came on stage.

  Silently, the soldiers-dressed-as-soldiers spread the bodies of the prisoners-dressed-as-soldiers across the field in sight of the farmhouse, posing arms and legs, placing swords in hands, turning heads so that the throat slits were hidden. When all was in place, the ten soldiers in uniform made mock battle against the ten soldiers in civilian clothing.

  The clang of the swords and the shouts and battle cries of the soldiers caused the farmhouse door to fling open, and the men of the Leaf pou
red out with swords drawn.

  As they had been instructed, the soldiers in uniform took the appearance of the Leafmen as the cue to flee. The soldiers in civilian clothes made a show of chasing. When the uniformed soldiers were gone, the soldiers in civilian clothes gathered around Letos.

  Letos hailed the warily approaching Leafmen, and responded to their inquiries by reciting his lines:

  “I am Faron the Northlander, we prey against those who prey against Britan . . . we saw these Romans on the main road, and wondered why they headed to a farm house . . . good riddance to the scum, at least we got a few . . . . “

  He gestured his sword over the field that had been set according to plan. From concealment, Matlid watched the faces of the Leafmen. They were accepting the evidence of their eyes: the dead soldiers on the ground, the memory of the soldiers that had fled, the victorious fellow Britanians who stood before them now, and who had clearly spared them from surprise attack by ambushing their would-be ambushers.

  “We've been compromised,” said the baker. “We must flee before more Romans come.”

  “I can conduct you to safety,” Letos replied. “If you can trust me.”

  The men of the Leaf looked again at the dead prisoners whom they had been misled to believe were soldiers. They all nodded and bowed – except for one man, who was frantically looking about.

  “Where is Glant?” he asked. “Where is my son?”

  And then he turned back to the porch, stared and staggered. He rushed and knelt, cradled the body and sobbed. Matlid wanted to close her eyes, but Inoldia wouldn't let her.

  Matlid had seen Inoldia kill at the palace gate and at the airship cave. But this was different. This was just a boy. How many more murders of innocents would she have to watch – and how many more would her own hands participate in?

  You did well, the Mother said. Your obedience is commended.

  She must kill the barber, Inoldia said.

  Yes. Sadly it is necessary. I'm sure she understands. Don't you, Matlid?

  Matlid wanted to weep, but that also was not allowed.

  14.

  Valarion rose to the podium and faced the Senate chamber. Another day, another Session of Examination. This time, however, he did not need to force his smile as he read from his notes.