by Tim Stead
As they drew closer to High Stone it became even more impressive. The curtain wall was the height of three men. It looked quite solid, and the gate was a triple affair of iron and wood and iron again, and one portcullis was hoisted as they approached, the others being already drawn up into the stone wall. The keep, even from outside the curtain wall, looked strong and functional. It was a place that had been made for war. All the windows were slitted; there was no hint of comfort or compromise about it.
Inside things got rapidly worse. As she dismounted she reached for her pipes where she had lodged them in a bag tied to the saddle, but her officer escort quickly seized the bag before she could recover it.
“Those are my pipes,” she said, expecting him to surrender the package, but he just nodded.
“My lady, the duke is nervous about magic within these walls. He does not wish mage craft practiced here.”
“Then I will refrain, but my pipes…”
“…Will be returned when you depart.” He turned and walked away, bag still clutched in his right hand. They had taken her pipes. It was a grand insult on a par with confiscating a lord’s weapons, but still she sought to excuse them. Perhaps they did not know. Yet for all that she felt her unease blossom into a sudden flower of fear. Part of her said that these men meant her harm, and if so, they meant Cain harm as well.
Yet she had a card to play. In her pocket was the wolf head ring, Narak’s sigil, his wedding gift to her that signified that she was in his favour; that she walked with the wolf. Surely they would not dare risk Narak’s vengeance? She had not worn it because it seemed loose on her finger, and she wanted to have it seen to by a good jeweller in the city so that it would not drop from her hand and be lost, and besides, they were not yet wed.
“You are Lady Sheyani Esh Baradan, betrothed of Cain Arbak, Lord of Waterhill?” It was phrased as a question, but the asker knew well enough who she was.
“I am,” she replied. Her horse was being led away and this new officer, younger and less appealing than the man who had stolen her pipes, was the only one paying attention to her.
“Please follow me,” he said. “I will take you to your quarters.”
She thought about saying no, saying that she wanted to walk on the walls, see the fortress, but she suspected that any resistance on her part would trigger less courteous treatment, and robbed of her pipes she was in no position to resist. She nodded and followed him.
They did not enter the great gates of the keep. Instead they went to a lesser door, a side door, and from there the steps went down. That was not a good sign. Sheyani followed meekly enough. She could not fight a thousand men, not even with her pipes in her hand, but she had other skills, and the ring to play as a trump card.
It was not a dungeon that she was taken to. At least they were that gracious. It was certainly a prison, though. The door was thick and the bolts were on the outside. There were no windows, but the lamps were adequate, and the rooms – there were two of them – were furnished with a bed, a table, a chair. There was a jug of sweet water on the table, a bowl of nuts and dried fruit. There was even a rug on the stone floor. It was almost as though they were doing their best not to offend her.
“I am to be a prisoner, then?” she asked. “This is the hospitality of the Duke of Carillon for one who stood at the wall?”
Her guard, or her gaoler, she should call him, had the decency to look embarrassed.
“I am told that you did not fight, my lady,” he said, but he did not meet her eyes.
“And that is why my pipes were stolen from me?” she asked. “Because I am no use without a sword or bow in my hand?” She looked down on him, a difficult thing, for he was nearly a foot taller. She stepped into her prison and sat at the table with all the dignity she could muster.
The officer hesitated in the doorway. It was clear that he wanted to reply, but thought better of it, and closed the heavy door. She heard the bolts shoot home. Sheyani kept her head turned from the door. Her eyes were bright with tears and she did not want them to see. She did not fear for herself as much as she feared for Cain. They would not have done this if they thought that Cain would come, and the only reason he would not come was if he was dead.
Cain had left with Tane Bargil and two picked men to answer a summons from the Wolf, but that summons had been delivered by Carillon’s men. But still she could not understand it. Why was she still alive? If Cain was dead and they did not fear the Wolf then why was she alive? And why kill her? Why kill Cain? Even the most stupid of lords must see that this was not a time to be playing inter house politics. Narak would be angry beyond words. Men would die for this. Even the Duke of Bas Erinor would not allow such arrant stupidity to go unpunished.
She touched the ring in her pocket. She felt the small knife that rested in the small of her back. They had not searched her. Their only concern had been the pipes, but Sheyani was not only a mage of the path of Halith. If these men had known anything of Durandar they would have known that a king’s daughter, an heir to the occult throne, would follow many paths before choosing her calling.
They would pay dearly for that ignorance. She had all that she needed before her. There was fire and water, and blood that flowed in her veins. These were all the things she required.
She closed her eyes and formed the words.
33. A Summoning
Narak sat with the heels of his hands pressed into his eye sockets, his elbows resting on his knees, hunched over in what otherwise might have been a comfortable chair. In the intimate darkness behind his eyes he conjured up the images of Perlaine and Narala, two of the three women who had ever meant anything to him. Both Dead. They had died because he had sent them into danger, and because he had failed to protect them. He was failing in everything he did. The Kingdoms, his friends, the Benetheon, all were being whittled away before his eyes, and now he was down to one last bold, lunatic strategy; something that was half dreamed and half stolen; a tactic so abhorrent to him that he hardly dared frame it in his mind.
The weariness he had felt after Narala’s death had not left him. He wanted to close his eyes and sleep, to forget for a while. But sleep itself was a battleground now. His dreams were more vision that dream, vivid and full of troubles of their own. It was many nights now since he had simply dreamed the confused, morning mist dreams that burned away with the touch of daylight. In fact he had not allowed himself to dream, to sleep at all, for three days.
He took his hands away and opened his eyes. He blinked to clear his vision. He could sense that they were here. He could feel their magic, weak as it was, immune to it as he was, he still knew it, smelled it.
It was Prince Havil who pulled back the tent flap. He liked Havil. The Prince of Berash was still a young man, but he was strong, intelligent, moral, and completely lacking in artifice. He had a good head for strategy and his men loved him. Yet one day Havil would be King of Berash, and soon after that he would be dead, and then a fading memory, confused with others even in the eyes of his own subjects as time wore away the present truth into legend. He could not save Havil, not preserve his life as he had with Caster. Kings were forbidden this gift.
“Deus, the mages are here,” Havil said.
“Bring them in,” he said. These were the mages that King Hammerdan had sent him before their relationship had soured. The king had tried to have Sheyani killed, and though Narak did not make a habit of interfering in Kingdom politics she had been aiding an allied army against Seth Yarra. It was a stupid thing to do, to kill a powerful ally. Hammerdan had promised to stop the attempts, under threat of death, and Narak had promised the king that he would see the implied challenge of the assassination attempt answered after the war. He would have done it, too, but Sheyani had renounced her claim to the throne to be with Cain Arbak, but Hammerdan did not know this.
Frankly, he was loath to see the occult throne occupied by so undeserving a man.
The mages filed in. They took the seats set out for them, ten stoo
ls arranged in a semi circle around Narak’s own seat. Their leader, Fadim, sat directly opposite Narak, wrapped in his green cloak. The mages were a deliberate rainbow of colours, each clad in the cloak of their trade. In truth he did not know for certain that he could trust them to do as he wished, they were Hammerdan’s subjects, but he would make it clear what the price of failure might be.
“Fadim, Mages of Durandar, I am pleased to see you, for I have need of your help once more.”
“We are at your service, Mighty God of Wolves,” Fadim replied. Narak could tell that one or two of the mages had sat straighter at his words, leaned a little forward in anticipation. They must all be bored, he thought, trapped in Berash by the war, unwilling or unable to risk a trip through a hostile Telas overrun by an equally hostile Seth Yarra.
“It is your weather skills that I require,” he said. “Your control of the wind.”
Fadim looked worried again. “Our skill is not absolute…” he began. Narak recognised the man’s concern. As a mage of the path of Karesh, and the only one among the ten, this task would fall largely on his shoulders.
“I know this, Fadim. But what I need is for the prevailing winds to prevail, and you will have a window of several days in which to begin.”
“How long must we maintain this wind, Deus?” Fadim asked. He still looked worried.
“Three days, perhaps. Five if you can.”
“I believe that this can be done,” Fadim said with a nod.
“I would prefer certainty,” Narak said. “The cost of failure will be high.” He paused and looked hard at Fadim. “For all of us.”
The Karesh Mage looked quickly from side to side. While he was the only Karesh Mage here, there would doubtless be some who were adepts of that path among the others. He would not be alone.
“We will not fail you,” Fadim said.
“I am glad to hear you say it, Mage Fadim,” Narak said. He sat back in his chair and gestured to a soldier who stood near the door. “Will you all join me in a cup of wine?”
The Mages seemed to relax. They exchanged glances and smiled. There had been a definite tension in the sir at their summoning, and Narak was sure that they had been aware of the trouble between their lord and himself. They had not really known what to expect. They had been afraid.
Now that the matter was settled and promises had been made he did his best to be a good host. He talked with them, made clear that he valued them. He tried to sound out which of them disliked Hammerdan, would stand against him if the chance arose, but they were all diplomatic on the subject of the Occult Throne and its occupant. Some of them nodded when he spoke well of Baradan, Sheyani’s father, while others simply changed the subject. Perhaps it was other Durander ears that they feared. He could not get a clear picture of how they felt.
Whatever his minor frustrations, Narak’s major goal had been achieved. They would work to his plan. The desired outcome of his wild gamble was a little less improbable.
He would send them at once to the White Road. It would not be long before Henn’s foresters would be through the pass and preparing for the Seth Yarra army. It seemed extraordinary to Narak that Seth Yarra had themselves barely begun to prepare for the campaign. Jidian and Pascha had been watching them, and as of a few days ago they were barely out of winter barracks. No force had yet marched north, and although preparations were now underway for such a march, it would be weeks yet before they arrived.
Incompetence in an enemy worried him, because it always seemed like a trick. He had seen so many foolish moves that had turned out to be not so foolish when viewed with hindsight and a Seth Yarra perspective. He had to remember that they did not overly value the lives of their soldiers, that they did not value their allies, and that they did not want peace. For them it was victory or death. They had taken the west, and very nearly broken through into the east, but now he thought he had the measure of them. Eyes everywhere searched the coasts for their ships, troops were held in reserve to attack any further incursion.
Perhaps it was not incompetence at all. They had the numbers. They had the time. If they had known about Cain’s wall they could have done little about it, short of magically producing an army in the middle of Avilian.
His duty done, his gratitude to the Durander mages displayed by adequate conversation and wine, he excused himself and went back to the tent reserved for his personal use. They were camped fifty miles the Berashi side of Fal Verdan, Narak, Aidon, Havil and most of the army. He had sent Cain northwards, and left a reluctant Skal Hebberd in reserve, camped on the Berashi Avilian border.
Not all the troops were yet assembled. Some Afaeli units were still marching west, and some Avilian regiments had yet to appear, but they were all on the road, and in a few days they would join him. For all the world it looked as though he was following his original plan – to take the army through Fal Verdan and attack Seth Yarra in the rear as they marched north. In truth he had not yet made his actual plans clear to anyone, not even Havil or Aidon. He had no intention of crossing the Dragon’s Back in numbers.
He reached his tent and lay on the bed they had made up for him. He did not want to sleep, but something called him to lie back, to close his eyes. He felt the need.
Almost at once he was dreaming, but it was not one of the wild, prophetic and historic dreams he had suffered so much at the hands of the Bren Alar. He was in a room without windows. A lamp burned on a table. Directly opposite him he saw Sheyani, sitting on the floor. He could see blood smeared on her eyelids, like some barbaric decoration. One hand rested in a bowl of water, and the other hovered above the flame of the lamp. She was staring directly into his eyes.
“I beg your leave to speak, Deus,” she said.
“What is this?” he asked.
“Forgive me, Deus, but I have summoned you. I would not have done so if there was not great danger.”
“Summoned?”
“Yes. You dream. I have been waiting a day for you to sleep. They may have tried to kill Cain. I am a prisoner.”
“A prisoner?” He felt stupid, just repeating her words with a question mark attached. “Who?” he demanded. “Who has done this?”
“It is Carillon who acts. I am held at High Stone. Cain was sent to a town called Bergan Rise, and sent by your name. They said you waited to meet him there.”
“It is not true. Carillon, you say?”
“Yes, but I do not doubt there is another who stands behind him. He has neither the courage nor the imagination for such a deed.”
“Cain is not dead,” Narak said. “I would have felt it.” He knew that this was what Sheyani would want to hear. He saw the smile his words provoked.
“If Cain lives he will already be on the way here. There are a thousand men camped outside the walls, and the castle is strong. I fear there will be bloodshed.”
“I will stop it,” Narak reassured her. “I will go to Cain, and then I will come to you. I shall be with you before midday.”
“I am in your debt, Deus,” she said. He saw her hand lift from the water, and the other move away from the flame, and suddenly he was lying on his back in the tent again, looking up at black cloth. Duty again. He swung his legs off the bed and sat for a moment. She was right. There would be bloodshed. This was treachery again, even if it was disguised in the cloth of ambition.
Narak picked up his swords and strapped them to his back. He wished there was another way, another path, but he had chosen this one so long ago that he could no more change it than he could be unborn.
He walked across the camp, calling at Havil’s tent and finding him absent. A Berashi guard there told him that the prince was training. He was always training, and always with his men. He walked to Aidon’s tent, and found the Duke of Bas Erinor there with several of his advisors. He allowed the guards to announce him.
“Deus, what can we do for you?” Aidon asked.
“I have to leave,” Narak told him. “There is a problem with the Duke of Carillon. It seems that
he has tried to kill colonel Arbak, and taken his betrothed prisoner.” He could see the shock on Aidon’s face at his words. Glances were exchanged between the advisors.
“What are you going to do?” Aidon asked.
“If he begs for mercy I will send him to the dungeons in Bas Erinor to await your pleasure. Otherwise I will probably kill him. We don’t have time to be circumspect. Carillon has kept a thousand men back to guard himself, and we need them.”
Aidon was clearly having trouble with the thought of Carillon in rebellion; especially now.
“Carillon? Are you sure?”
“There may be someone else behind it, and I will discover who.”
Aidon would have liked to question Carillon himself, in his own way, in his own time. That was clear enough to Narak, but he didn’t care. There was no time for what people might like. Carillon was a week’s ride away, and Narak had to know at once if there was a Seth Yarra hand in this plot. It could mean that all their plans were known. It could mean nothing at all.
