Gaelin fought off his drowsiness long enough to pull out a whetstone and sharpen his blade, just in case he might need it soon. The smooth repetition and scrape of stone on steel sometimes steadied his mind and helped him to think. When he finished, he applied a light touch of oil from a flask at his scabbard. He stood, stretched, and stepped outside for a breath of air before seeking his bedroll.
The rain had slackened to a fine mist, and the night was cool and wet on his face. He drew in a deep breath, checking over the position of the sentries. Then he noticed that Seriene and Erin were standing nearby, engaged in a quiet but forceful discussion. Against his better judgment, Gaelin took two quiet steps to draw within earshot.
“Don’t you see what you’re doing to him?” Seriene was saying. “He loves you, and it’s tearing him to pieces.” Her voice seemed to catch in the darkness. “I beg you, Erin. You know that there can’t be anything for you and Gaelin in a long romance.”
“Can I help the way he feels?” Erin answered. “Or the way I feel? I can’t walk away from him, Seriene.”
“Erin, you have to. If you care for him as much as you say you do, you can’t let him wreck Mhoried by falling in love with you.”
Erin’s voice was bitter. “It would certainly be convenient for you if I abandoned the fight.”
Gaelin knew that he should slip away before they noticed him, but he couldn’t stop himself from listening.
“What if you had no rival, Erin? You’re a commoner, unblooded.
Mhoried is a grand duchy, and Gaelin must someday find a queen. Would you still hold his love, knowing that someday he must find a wife and raise children to continue the Mhoried line? Have you thought that far ahead?”
“What about you, Seriene? Would you love him if he had already won his kingdom back? If you didn’t know that he may be gone in a few weeks, if things go badly?” Erin paced away, her arms crossed in front of her. “Are you just infatuated with him?”
Seriene was quiet for a long time. “I’ve never met anyone like him,” she said at last. “Erin, you’re ruining Gaelin’s chance to be happy, and mine as well. He can’t rule his own heart – no man can. You must show him you aren’t interested.”
“What if I can’t?” Erin retorted, fire in her voice. “I’m not strong enough to deny my feelings.”
“Then you must leave. Not right now, but sometime soon.
If you truly care for him, Erin, you’ll understand you can’t keep his heart. It will hurt less if you do it sooner instead of later.” Seriene settled into the logic of her argument. “You know it must be this way,” she added.
Erin paced anxiously, a dark shape against the dim sky. She did not speak, but she hugged her arms tightly around her body, as if containing a violent outburst. Gaelin strained to listen closer, but she remained silent. Finally, her shoulders slumped and she turned away. “I’ll go,” she said quietly.
“Thank you, Erin. You’re doing the right – ”
“Don’t thank me, Seriene. I’m not doing it for you.” Erin squared her shoulders and wheeled toward the open fields.
Gaelin fled just in time, retreating to the campfire. He took out his whetstone and set to work on his sword, ignoring the fact that it was perfectly honed already. When Erin and Seriene came back inside about a quarter-hour later, neither even glanced at him. Gaelin abandoned the field altogether and retreated to the small chamber he’d appropriated for his own, a little way from the crowded main hall.
He found it difficult to sleep, and tossed and turned restlessly for an hour or more before falling into a fitful doze. In the middle of the night, Gaelin found himself lying awake, listening to the soft rain falling against the ruined roof. He could hear water trickling through the old beams and stones of the building. The moon had risen late, and a dim silver halo illuminated the room, barely penetrating the endless clouds overhead. Gradually, his eyes became accustomed to the light, and he lay back tracing patterns of light and shadow with his eyes.
A furtive movement by the chamber’s entrance caught his attention. Strangely, he was not alarmed; there was a dreamlike quality in his awareness, as if he still slept and only imagined that he was awake. He turned his head to look at the doorway. Erin crept into the room, moving with the silence of a falling leaf. She stopped a little distance short of his blankets, surprised to find him awake. Then, quite deliberately, she disrobed as he watched, until she stood revealed to his eyes, her long, slender body gleaming silver in the moonlight.
She kneeled beside his pallet, gazing at his face. “We’ll reach Caer Duirga tomorrow,” she whispered. “We may never have this time again.”
Gaelin sat up, leaning on one elbow. He let his eyes drink in her beauty, the soft curves and the fiery passion in her face.
She glimmered in the moonlight, like one of the fabled queens of the Sidhelien. His heart thundered in his chest.
“Erin, I – ” He swallowed and tried again. “What did you and Seriene – ”
She leaned forward, placing her fingers on his lips.
“Shhhh. There’s nothing to say.” Slipping beneath the blanket, she drew his face close to hers and kissed him with fierce abandon.
Some time later, they lay quietly with their limbs tangled together, listening to the rain without speaking. There were all sorts of reasons why he shouldn’t have made love to her.
It was cruel of him to accept her love when he knew he could be dead in a matter of days; he had nothing to offer her except struggle and risk, and even if he recovered Mhoried, it was inconceivable he could marry a half-elf with no lands or titles of her own. Yet all these objections seemed insubstantial as he listened to her heart beating, close to his own. For the first time in a long time, Gaelin felt at peace.
Chapter Fifteen
Early in the afternoon of the following day, they sighted Caer Duirga, across miles of rolling, mist-shrouded fells. It took hours to cross the treacherous vale, since dense thickets of briars and rank bogs barred their way. Although the day had started with the promise of clear weather, as they came closer to the hill the weather grew unseasonably cold, and a leaden overcast obscured the sun. By the time they reached the foot of the mount, Gaelin was wondering what had happened to spring.
Gaelin discovered a sense of brooding menace as they neared the place. The green, vibrant vegetation of the surrounding highlands seemed pale and sickly here, as if the sun didn’t shine with the same strength near the tor, and the air was unpleasantly clammy. Gaelin hadn’t been bothered by the cold rains of the past few days, not even when he was soaked to the skin, but he shuddered at the heavy dew collecting on the wool and leather garments he wore beneath his armor.
Caer Duirga rose several hundred feet higher than most of its neighbors. It was, in fact, a small mountain, crowned with a distinctive jumble of dark stone visible for miles. In local legend, the hill had once been a goblin fortress, in the years before mankind had come to Cerilia. A mighty warlock had held Caer Duirga and the lands around, the story went, until the day of Deismaar, where the goblin hosts perished in uncounted numbers. The few highlanders who lived nearby avoided the area, claiming it was haunted.
They camped in the shadow of the hill, surrounded by a dire sense of foreboding that was nearly tangible. Even the horses were nervous, prancing skittishly and pulling at their makeshift hobbles. No one argued when Gaelin suggested a double watch that night. After they ate a cold and tasteless dinner of hardtack and dried beef, Gaelin took Seriene a little ways away from the others. “Well?” he asked. “Have you found anything?”
The princess frowned. “I haven’t started to look. But I can sense something here. There’s power in this place, but it’s dark and twisted. This place draws mebhaighl, but it’s corrupted somehow.” She shivered. “What’s wrong with this place, Gaelin?”
He told her what little he knew of Caer Duirga’s history. A day ago, he would have scoffed at these stories as tales to frighten children. Now he was inclined to take them more s
eriously.
“I’ve been up and down these highlands for fifteen years or more, since I was a boy of nine or ten,” he finished.
“But for some reason, I never passed by Caer Duirga. I might not have been so quick to bring everyone here if I had.”
Seriene walked in a slow circle, surveying the hillside, and finally stopped and gazed up the dark flanks of the mountain, now shadowed with the deepening dusk. Its barren crest was easily three or four hundred feet above them, and she craned her head back to look at the peak. “Mebhaighl – the magic of the land – runs and collects like water, seeking the point where it belongs. We’ll find what we’re looking for up there. I’m certain of it.”
“You’re the authority. I’ll trust your judgment.” He paused, and added, “We only have three days before Bannier plans to meet me here. For that matter, he could be here now.”
“The powers of darkness are strongest at night, and this is a place where the powers of darkness are strong enough already.
I won’t challenge them until the sun’s in the sky again.” Seriene pulled her gaze away from the hilltop -
Gaelin noticed his own eyes had a tendency to wander that way, when he wasn’t paying attention – and sat down on a boulder, facing away from the hill. “Gaelin, what do you know about Bannier?” she asked.
He blinked. “Why, a fair amount, I guess. He was part of my father’s court for nearly as long as I remember. Fifteen years or more, I suppose. He’s intelligent and well-learned, but I’d expect that of a wizard.”
“Why did he serve your father?”
“The Mhor provided him with a stipend in exchange for his help – Bannier enjoyed both wealth and power as court wizard.”
Seriene smiled. “There are many forms of power, Gaelin.
I’m surprised a man like Bannier would have considered political influence to be worth his interest when real power, magical power, was his to command. Think, Gaelin – was there anything else Bannier did?”
Gaelin struggled to recall something useful. “I’ve heard Bannier was the only true mage in Mhoried. I recall the Mhor helped him to maintain his place by giving Bannier a free hand to discourage other wizards from settling in the kingdom.
Of course, there were dozens of magicians and illusionists who practiced lesser magic in the land, but Bannier was the only true mage.”
“Why would your father help him to keep other wizards away?”
“Back when my father was young, there were several wizards who competed for power in Mhoried. Bannier was one of these, and over the course of my father’s reign he defeated his rivals. Some of them were unsavory characters, so my father was glad to see them leave.” Gaelin laughed harshly.
“Until this year it seemed a wise policy.”
“So no other wizards draw upon Mhoried’s mebhaighl?”
“I wouldn’t know about that. But I do know Bannier is the only mage of any power in Mhoried and has been for many years.” He thought for a moment, and asked, “Would that be why he wanted no other wizards in Mhoried? So that he could control the land’s power, uncontested by any rivals?”
Seriene nodded. “It could very well be. What kind of spells did you see him cast?”
“He didn’t use his powers publicly, at least, not often. He knew what was happening all over Mhoried, and he could vanish and reappear hundreds of miles away in a matter of hours.”
Seriene frowned. “The halflings can do that by traversing the Shadow World. I wonder if Bannier has learned how to find his way through the Shadow?”
Gaelin blanched at her words. He’d heard of the Shadow World before – any one growing up heard the stories, of course – but Seriene’s earnestness terrified him. In legend, the Shadow World was a land that somehow paralleled Cerilia, existing alongside the daylight world. But it was a dark and dangerous realm, a land of spirits and ghosts, where things that couldn’t abide the sun lurked and preyed upon passersby.
Sometimes the Shadow was only a step away, the stories said, especially in places of great evil or suffering, and it was possible for someone with a bit of knowledge – or misfortune – to find a way into the realm of darkness. “Do you remember what Madislav said, as he was dying?” Gaelin replied. “He said that Bannier had imprisoned him in the Shadow World. He also said that Ilwyn was there.” He groaned in disappointment. “That could mean that we’re in the wrong place. Ilwyn could be anywhere!”
“Not necessarily, Gaelin. Look at this place – the Shadow World almost touches us. The walls between the worlds are thin here. If Bannier has learned to make use of the Shadow World, this is a place that would attract his interest.” Seriene looked away from the hilltop. “Is there anything else you can think of?”
“I studied under him for a time. He taught me a few cantrips, the barest start of the magician’s art, but he seemed to think I showed promise.” Gaelin shrugged. “He was a good advisor to my father for many years. I wonder what made him turn against House Mhoried.”
“It doesn’t matter now. It’s enough to know that he’s your enemy.” Seriene glanced back toward the campfire and stood up, brushing off the seat of her riding pants. “I should get some sleep, so I can study my spells in the morning. I’ll need them all soon, I think.” She threw Gaelin a sly look. “And besides, Erin might get jealous.”
“Erin?”
“It’s obvious, Gaelin. The way you’ve been looking at each other all day…” Her eyes flashed and her voice took on a sharp edge. “You know you can’t stay with her forever. She’s beneath your station.” Then she turned and went back to the camp. Gaelin looked after her, struggling with his feelings.
He glanced at the sky, seeking light, but the brooding menace of Caer Duirga returned all too quickly. As darkness fell, he went back to the camp.
That night, while the others slept, Erin came to him and silently led him away from the camp. There, out of sight and earshot, they made love again, fighting off the cold and the fear of the night. Before dawn, they rose and crept back into camp, masked by a simple illusion Erin wove softly under her breath. As they parted to return to their own sleeping rolls, Gaelin cupped her face in his hands and kissed her tenderly.
She shivered in his arms, and slipped away.
In the morning, Gaelin rose and donned his half-plate armor over a rust-stained aketon and a set of sturdy leather leggings. He left off his greaves and brassards, to save weight; he still wore forty pounds of iron, but he wouldn’t part with any more of his armor, even in the face of the morning’s climb. At one point, he glanced up and caught Erin watching him, while she tugged on her own long boots. He found himself remembering their encounter just a few short hours ago, and the mischievousness in her glance told him that she was remembering as well. He turned back to the business of dressing and arming himself, smiling until he glanced up and saw Seriene watching him. She closed her eyes and turned away, throwing herself into an intense examination of her spellbooks.
After everyone was dressed and armed, Gaelin set two guards to watch over the camp. The rest of the group started up the steep, slippery hillside in single file. Bull led the way; he was a skilled outdoorsman, and probably the best climber of them all. He chose a sideways path that curved around the slope of the mount, allowing them to more or less walk upright, although in several places they had to scramble on all fours. Seriene followed Bull, a distant expression on her face, as if she listened for a sound no one else could hear. Gaelin helped her along, while Erin, Boeric, and the remaining guardsmen brought up the rear.
The hillside was not a very difficult climb, but it was an arduous hike. By daylight, Gaelin could see more of Caer Duirga. It wasn’t a natural hill, or at least, it didn’t look like it belonged among the knife-edged ridges that surrounded it.
Caer Duirga was a mass of jagged stone that burst out of the surrounding hills, a titanic black claw emerging from a hidden grave. Tall pillars the size of castle turrets leaned drunkenly away from the main massif, hiding dark glens
and chimneys in their shadows. In the lower reaches, impenetrable briars and stands of black, twisted trees made the going nearly impossible. Here and there, Gaelin thought he could make out the ruins of ancient walls, now fields of wreckage hard to distinguish from the mass of the hill itself.
Within an hour, they climbed two hundred feet while zigzagging two miles across the hillside. Despite the clammy mists that surrounded them, Gaelin was sweating profusely.
The view would have been impressive, if the day were clearer – but Gaelin suspected that there weren’t many sunny days around Caer Duirga.
After two hours’ difficult work, they neared the hill’s summit.
The hill grew steeper as it rose, and the relatively easy going of the lower slopes was now becoming a dangerous and time-consuming chore. Bull selected their path a few yards at a time, and they spent more time picking their way up with hands and feet. Gaelin could swear the hillside deliberately obstructed their way, as solid-looking handholds crumbled away in his grasp or his foot slipped suddenly on what seemed to be dry, sturdy stone. One of the guardsmen lost his grip, and a nasty slide deposited him fifty feet down the slope.
Three hours after they left camp, they found themselves standing on the black, crumbling rock of Caer Duirga’s crest.
The air was cold and clear, almost unnaturally so, as if the hill was crowned in dark ice. Gaelin’s legs quivered in exhaustion, and his hands ached from a variety of small cuts and strains. Few of the others were in any better shape, and for a good twenty minutes they simply dropped onto boulders or flat spaces and caught their breath, shivering with the cold.
The guards’ jests and gibes fell flat in the desolate air of the place, and they soon lapsed into silence.
Seriene stood and began to examine the area, circling around their impromptu campsite. The hill crest itself was easily three hundred feet in width, and ran for half a mile to the east before descending into a rough jumble of broken rock and wiry thickets. The land was surprisingly level, and Gaelin found himself imagining that the rocky spires rising from the top of the hill were indeed an ancient keep, ossified or engulfed by the hill long ago. Seriene moved off slowly, examining the rocks while she muttered to herself and made strange passes with her hands. With a groan, Gaelin stood and followed her; he wasn’t about to let anyone wander out of sight.
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