by Ed Greenwood
THE SOUP WAS wonderful, a rich broth thick with onions and the leavings of many spit-roasted fowl. Taeauna and Rod both ate heartily until they were more than full; Rod was amused to find that Aumrarr belched and groaned and sat back in chairs holding their bellies just like everyone else did.
They'd expected their summons to the velduke's table would mean sitting at a long table in a lofty and echoing hall feasting with a lot of haughty people, but instead they'd been shown into a cozy, book-lined study with a magnificent map of Falconfar on the wall that Rod spent a long time studying.
The room had no guards or servants or anyone but the two of them in it, and held books on shelves all around the walls, and a littered desk that had a lone dagger floating point-down in the air over it. ("Guard-blade," Taeauna had murmured. "Don't go anywhere near yon desk, even if papers blow off it by themselves.") It also held a table with four stout chairs drawn up around it. The soup had been served to them at the table, along with lemon-scented drinking water, a fragrant-smelling fresh loaf of bread, a sharp saw-knife to cut it with, and a bowl of garlic butter to spread on it. Rod could remember few meals as good, in all his life.
They'd sat over the remains of the repast until the last heel of the bread was quite cold, and Rod was fighting back yawns and wondering when a servant would appear to guide them back to their bed in those distant guest chambers.
"Shouldn't we...?" he got as far as asking Taeauna.
Her response was a sharp look and a firm, "Patience."
As if that had been a cue, a bookshelf swung open and Velduke Deldragon strode in, stroking his flaxen mustache. He nodded a silent greeting to them, his ice-blue eyes seeming somehow dull and washed out, and scaled the helm under his arm into a corner where it thudded down on a cushion Rod hadn't noticed before.
Suddenly the room was full of silent, deftly hastening servants, bringing a housecloak, wine and a platter of goblets and sugared nuts, and steaming platters of roasted meat. Just as suddenly, they were all gone again, and Velduke Deldragon was wearily forking meat running with red juices onto his plate and saying, "Lady of the Aumrarr? This is choice young stag; I smoke and hang my own."
"I'd love some, Darendarr," Taeauna said gently, "but let me carve and serve. You look tired."
"I am tired. I've been rushing around all day talking. I'd prefer to swing a sword daylong, any day. By the Falcon, it's tiring giving orders and explaining, explaining, explaining! You'd think my people of Bowrock would know about catching rainwater and bringing in hay for the beasts and all of that by now, but every time—"
"I know," Taeauna said sympathetically, and it sounded to Rod as if she really did.
Deldragon ran a hand through his flowing hair, and then gave Rod an apologetic grin. "It's a lot of work, preparing for a siege," he said, "but you don't want to hear all about that. Nor do I find I want to talk all about that, one more thuttering time."
He attacked his stag like a starving man, and then looked straight at Rod and asked, "What do you know about the Dooms?"
Rod was aware of Taeauna's sudden glare at the velduke—she was bristling as if she wanted to draw sword on him—but kept his eyes steady on Deldragon's before replying. "Not much," he said. "That there are three of them, maybe four someday, and that they're powerful wizards, really powerful wizards, who want to rule all Falconfar. Each of them, so they fight each other. And I believe I heard in Arvale that one of them is trying to rule Galath. The Dark Helms serve them, and maybe the lorn."
Deldragon nodded. "Three evil wizards at war with each other. Each of them seeks the magic of the past, for sorcery has fallen far in reach and mastery since the days when Lorontar butchered every wizard who wouldn't bow to him. So today the Dooms scramble to gather the most powerful spells and enchanted items from tombs, and the ruined castles of long-fallen kings, and the vaults of Galathan nobles. One of them does rule our king, and through him orders nobles slaughtered or banished, so their magic can be seized. Hence this siege; it comes now because I dared to aid Tindror, but it was coming anyway. Bowrock is awash in magics."
At that moment, a glow kindled in the air above the table, air that started to sing, high and faint. It grew very quiet around the table as the glow grew, and something small and wraithlike materialized into view on the polished table, right in front of Rod.
Something that became more solid, until all hints of wraith-smoke were gone, and they were all staring at something that looked like a little jewel box, that might comfortably fit in a lady's palm. It had a tail of fine chain, that ended in a finger-ring. The glow and singing sound faded, leaving it gleaming brightly against the dark, smooth wood.
"Don't touch it," Taeauna snapped at Rod. "Please."
She shot a glance at Deldragon, who was staring at the box in mute astonishment. "I was going to accuse you of producing these enchanted trinkets, as a test to see if my companion here is a wizard."
He tore his gaze from the jewel box at the word "accuse" and looked up at her.
The Aumrarr's gaze, on his, was both hard and cool. "Those curios on the table in our guest chambers were just that, weren't they?"
The velduke blinked, sighed, and nodded. "Yes. They were put there at my command by hired Stormar wizards; magelings of no great accomplishment, which is the only sort of wizard I can afford. Yet you just said you were going to accuse me this time...but?"
The Aumrarr's gaze softened. "But 'tis clear you're as surprised as we are. Wherefore this isn't your doing. Someone else has reached into Bowrock with their spells. Someone who knows this man is here."
"Someone who can reach freely into Bowrock, past the wardings cast by my hired mages," Deldragon added grimly.
"Or someone who is inside Bowrock, already here in this keep, hidden among your folk," Taeauna said quietly.
They watched the velduke slowly go white.
"BLOW ME HARD, Isk, if I can think of a good reason for us being allowed inside yon keep," Garfist growled. "They're preparing for a glorking siege, aren't they now? What idiocy could induce them to let two outlanders who look like us anywhere near their precious velduke?"
Iskarra pointed one long and bony finger at two wagons being drawn slowly up a distant cobbled slope that led to a gate somewhere on the far side of the keep. "Food. They'll want wagonloads of food in there. Turnips. Lar-fruit. Bloodbuds. Wheels of cheese from far Zharlay."
Garfist's gut rumbled like storm-thunder. "Huh. I wouldn't mind a wagon of cheese from far Zharlay."
He waved one shovel-sized hand in an expressive gesture of futility, keeping the other wrapped tightly around what was left of the keg of ale. He'd brought it with him out of the tavern despite its sour taste, because, well, it was beer. "And just where are ye going to get a loaded wagon of plenty from, hmm?"
"Behind the market, of course. They're still arriving now."
"And the drovers as owns it? They're just going to hand it over to ye, I suppose?"
Iskarra triumphantly bared her breasts and belly, plunged a hand into her navel which split apart vertically, into a wide, bloodless opening, reached up inside herself, behind her bulging breasts, fumbled with something there, and triumphantly drew forth two tankards. Theirs, from the tavern.
Garfist looked incredulous. "Ye're going to seek someone stupid enough to trade us a loaded wagon—and dray-beasts, mind—for two empty tankards?"
Iskarra rolled her eyes. "Stick to brawling and spewing and rutting, old Gulkoon, and leave the thinking to me, hmm?"
She nudged one of her breasts with a tankard. "With these, we distract the men we choose. You smite them to sleep, we leave the tankards in their hands and them propped sitting against a wall, and you half-fill the tankards and drench the rest of them with yon ale, and off we go. Everyone who sees them will think them drunkards. That much is so easy it's barely worth saying aloud. What's got me foxed and witless is what happens after we're inside the gates; what then?"
"Then we help unload, discover our beast-harness is broke,
and say we're too tired to deal with it now, we've come all this way, it can wait until morning. Should we sleep in our wagons, is there anywhere around here to shit, and by Galath we're hungry; are there kitchens still open?"
Iskarra smiled crookedly. "You can still think!"
"O'course, lass! That's how I get all the gels, and their coins, and then peels the one away from the other, remember?"
Iskarra rolled her eyes. "Peeling gels," she murmured. "All you ever think about..." She stowed the tankards away where she'd produced them from, and did up her clothing again, peering pointedly all around. She even looked under her own feet and around behind Garfist.
"What're ye playing at this time?" he growled. "Ye're being clever again, I know ye are! When ye get that look on yer face..."
"I'm looking for the gels," she snapped. "And the coins, too."
Garfist made a very rude gesture that ended with him noisily licking three adjacent hooked fingers clean.
Iskarra struck a pose, and made her crawlskin fashion lush curves with naughty areas of spectacular size. "You can do that if you can catch me," she said, sticking out her tongue at him, "but it's been years since you've been able to do that."
"If I was a rutting Doom of Galath," Garfist said heavily, "yer ass'd not be laughing so loudly!"
"If you were a rutting Doom of Galath," Iskarra replied tartly, "most Falconaar would be dead, and the rest of us'd all be in hiding."
Garfist grinned. "That's true. Heh. Let's go get us a wagon."
He peered again up at the soaring walls of the keep. "If there's one place in Bowrock that'll have magic, and coins, and gels, lying around for the taking, it's in there. Where the bloody velduke is probably snoring away, reclining on heaps of them right now."
"Heaps of coins or gels?"
"Both, Isk." Garfist belched so violently he filled his mouth with searing gulped-once ale, and had to swallow it down again. "Both!"
TAEAUNA SET HER boots ready beside the bed, drew her sword, and got into bed with it. Thankfully, she put it by her sword hand, to the outside, rather than between them.
Which left her free to roll over on her side, head propped on one elbow, and ask Rod, as he struggled to keep his eyes on, her face, "So. Are you going to show me these magics that have been appearing out of nowhere and dropping into your hands?"
"No," Rod said shortly. "Not yet. I don't want to touch them again. Yet."
"You're scared of them," the Aumrarr murmured, her gaze sympathetic.
"No, I'm not scared. Okay, yes, I am," Rod admitted. "I... that castle. I'm afraid if I do anything with them, even handle them too long, I'll somehow get taken inside that castle."
"And what do you fear will happen to you there?"
Rod looked at her. "That someone will hand me all this power you keep saying I have."
"And?"
"And I'll do the wrong thing, and wreck Falconfar."
'"Wreck?"'
"Kill everyone, hurl down kingdoms, make the mountains erupt, the seas drown the land, that sort of thing."
"But what you write, everything you do, you can reverse by writing more. You can put it all back."
"No, Tay," Rod whispered. "You can't. I can't. One can't. No one can ever put it all back. Once something's done, it's done. You can try to put it back, but the damage is done; you can never repair it all."
Something sad and terrible rose in Taeauna's eyes, and she whispered, "You're learning. Lord Rod Everlar, you are learning, and finally handing me hope thereby."
And she turned and blew out the last lamp.
Her voice had sounded as if she was on the trembling edge of tears; hesitantly Rod reached out a hand for her, in the darkness, meaning only to comfort.
It was captured in her fingers, and firmly turned over. Her lips brushed his palm in the softest of kisses before his hand was firmly returned to him.
"Please, lord, let me sleep," she whispered, sounding even closer to tears.
"Of course," Rod mumbled, rolling over.
He lay there as still as he could, listening for her to settle into sleep, but Falconfar's god of slumber—if Falconfar had a god of slumber—got to him first.
* * *
"WHICH ONE, OLD viper?"
"Well, we don't look like the most respectable traders, now do we?" Iskarra whispered hoarsely. "So then, we need one of the better-looking wagons. Not too grand, or we'll seem out of place riding it. But solid, respectable; all the things we aren't."
"Huh. I'm solid enough," Garfist growled, thumping the large, descending slope of his belly. "The other, I'll grant ye. Not that I see—"
"That one," Iskarra said, pointing across the walled wagon-yard. "Off by itself, there, hard by the wall."
Garfist promptly hefted his keg to a more comfortable carrying position under his arm, and set off across the yard.
Iskarra's choice was a larger wagon than most, nondescript and solid. It bore no badge nor painted name on the gray side or end she could see, and the two men busy around it were hitching its team of four draft horses back up, rather than unhitching and hobbling them for the night.
Iskarra turned her back, pulled out her tankards—it wouldn't do to bare all her secrets before she had to—and trotted hastily after Garfist, calling softly, "Ale? A quaff for the night? Only one copper tarth."
"No sale," one of the drovers said curtly.
"Begone," the other suggested, in no more friendly a manner.
Garfist sighed heavily and set down his keg.
"Blast and bugger-all," he growled. "Ye, too? What's a man got to do, to sell any ale in this— whoa!"
The drover beside him had drawn his sword. "See this? Get gone!"
"Well, now," Garfist growled, "that's not friendly!"
"It's not meant to be." The man showed his teeth, and jabbed the point of his sword in the general direction of the fat man's belly.
Garfist swiftly plucked the keg up and thrust it forward, catching the point of the drover's blade in its staves. When he flung the keg down, the sword was wrenched out of the man's grasp, and Garfist reached out with one ham-sized hand, caught the man by the throat, and snatched him off his feet to dangle in midair, kicking and strangling.
"Must be valuable, whatever's in there," he growled at Iskarra, as she darted past him to confront the second drover, who was advancing menacingly from his end of the wagon with drawn sword in hand.
"Likely," she agreed over her shoulder, running straight at the man and hurling her tankards, hard and accurately. His blade deftly struck them aside, and then thrust ruthlessly at her; she slowed not a whit, but twisted herself sharply sideways as she snatched a hairpin out of the tangled mess of her hair.
The sword went right through Iskarra, piercing the crawlskin back and front, plunging through her false breast and back, but thanks to her twisting, missing her emaciated real body within. By then her arms were around the drover, and she was stabbing his back hard and repeatedly with the hairpin. His leathers prevented it from going in that deep, but it didn't have to; Iskarra had dipped it plentifully in the strongest sleep-inducing drug known in Falconfar.
Nose-to-nose, the drover grinned mirthlessly at her, and then kissed her. "Skaekur, huh? Never forget the feel of it, bubbling through the body. Pity I'm spellguarded against it."
Iskarra tried to pull free, but there was suddenly something in her head, like a dark purple cloud stealing across her thoughts, dark and heavy... She couldn't seem to think straight, to care about anything anymore, but she could see, as if from a great and numb distance, that she was now energetically embracing the drover, and returning his kisses.
With a furious effort she managed to. swing their locked-together bodies around until she could see along the wagon to where Garfist had been happily throttling the other drover.
Her mountainously stout partner had set the man down and was now gently massaging the drover's bruised throat and dusting him down as carefully as a mothering-maid. Garfist turned and gave Iskarra
a smile, and she saw that his eyes had gone purple.
Nodding a respectful farewell to the drover, the fat ex-pirate came lurching along the wagon. The darkness in Iskarra's own head was forcing her to gently disengage herself from her drover, now, and spread her legs to accept his hands on haunch and crotch, boosting her up the back of the wagon to open its rear doors wide.
She did that, swinging them clear just as Garfist rounded the wagon and boosted himself inside, with a great rolling grunt and a heave that shook the wagon and made the hitched horses snort and paw.
Then the force in Iskarra's head was compelling her forward into the darkness of the wagon, between the stacked wooden crates of swords and arrows, to pluck aside a central stack she shouldn't have been able to budge an inch.
The end of the stack proved to be false, a single panel adorned with sawed-off ends of stacked crates. Behind it, smiling rather unpleasantly at her, sat an unkempt man with curly hair of dirty gold, and unruly eyebrows and a jaw-fringe beard to match.
His large, dark purple eyes were in her head already, floating dark and heavy and all-seeing. He was the source of the magic now ruling her and Garfist. Yardryk, his mind identified himself, apprentice of Arlaghaun. He was young and supremely arrogant and overconfident to a fault, she could tell; neither his name nor that of the great wizard he served was information she was supposed to know. He seemed unaware of how much his thoughts were leaking into her head.
Yardryk was hiding among all these swords and arrows so he could get into the velduke's personal keep; the wares had been chosen to make them irresistible to warriors facing a siege. The idea was Arlaghaun's, but the schemings and details had been Yardryk's own, and he was very proud of them.
He was also greatly pleased, now, by the unexpected arrival of Garfist and Iskarra, now that he had made sure no rival mage had sent them to him as lures, or was lurking in their mind. They were just what he needed: outlanders not of Bowrock or of Galath, who had been drovers before and could serve so again now, freeing his warriors to pose as guards of so precious a load.
