The Sword of the South - eARC

by David Weber

“Perhaps.” Ashwan stroked his black mustache thoughtfully. “But it seems Chernion was even wiser to plant a spy on them than he realized. Without it, they’d probably have escaped. As it is, we have a friend to mark their trail for us.”

  “If she doesn’t kill us all!” Umaro growled. “Well, it’s nice something’s working out! Get the horses. We’ll have to ride hard to catch up, but I want to be close enough for this Elrytha to contact us tonight. Then we’ll see what Chernion has in mind—I hope!”

  “Oh, I’m sure Elrytha can tell us that,” Ashwan murmured.

  * * *

  “I think we should leave the high road for a while,” Wencit said thoughtfully. He touched Byrchalka’s neck gently as he spoke, and the black stallion stopped and turned so that they faced the others while the wizard glanced around under the early afternoon sun. “We seem to have the road to ourselves at the moment, so let’s try to vanish.”

  “I thought you’d pulled the assassins’ fangs,” Kenhodan said.

  “Only temporarily. Anyway, I don’t want them catching up with us. Not now that we’re getting closer to Wulfra.”

  “Why not?” Kenhodan asked.

  “Because,” Wencit said patiently, “we’re almost close enough for her to try some long-range sorcery, but she can’t do it unless she can see us. That’s why I want to avoid the assassins’ eyes. She can’t pierce my glamour from the outside, but if she’s set a trap link on one of them, she can use him as a focus to get through.”

  “A trap link?” Chernion asked the question just a shade too quickly but recovered in time to resist looking away and making it worse.

  “Yes, Border Warden,” Wencit said, his eyes glowing. “A trap link is a means of turning another person into a sort of beacon for a wizard’s scrying spells. You might say it’s the same as bearing the wizard’s mark.”

  “I see. And you think these assassins may have been marked that way?”

  “I’m almost certain of it,” Wencit replied. “It’s a favorite trick of dark wizards, usually managed through a gift or a payment. It’s easier that way. You place a simple little spell on a valuable object and present it to your victim. The first two or three people to handle it—especially if they covet it—are marked for your spells.” He shrugged. “You can do almost anything you want in the way of spying on them after that, even through a glamour. And if they prove unreliable, you can use it to guide a death spell to them.”

  “That seems like an excellent reason to have no dealings at all with wizards, if you’ll pardon my saying so,” Chernion murmured.

  “Why should I mind, Border Warden? You’re quite right, where dark wizards are concerned. But to return to the subject at hand, I want to be safely out of eye range of the road before our friends catch up.”

  “What about this farm road, then?” Bahzell rumbled.

  “It looks promising,” Wencit said. “Border Warden, do you know this countryside well enough to guide us?”

  “Certainly. How close to the high road do you want to stay?”

  “Close enough we can check to watch behind us every so often.”

  “All right. There’s a trail up this lane that leads toward South Keep. It doesn’t go much of the way, and it’s rough in places, but it tops out every so often and lets you look down on the high road.”

  “Excellent.”

  Wencit nodded and Chernion touched heels to her dappled mare, moving up beside Bahzell, grateful that she actually did know the lay of the land well. She felt confident she could leave enough signs for Umaro to follow, no matter where they went, but for the moment she let the surface of her mind carry her along while she pondered Wencit’s words, and her palms tingled as she recalled the touch of Wulfra’s gold. Was it possible?

  It was, she thought grimly. And if she could prove Wulfra had forged such a link—or even infer it, for Chernion was no court of law—the sorceress would die. The safety of the Guild and its master required it.

  * * *

  Wulfra felt cautiously satisfied that the spells around her castle were now little short of impenetrable. Wencit could certainly break them, but not without using wild magic, which would both warn her of his arrival and tire him before they met. She’d also augmented her guards, but she didn’t rely on them for warnings—only as swords to be sent wherever her trap spells indicated.

  Still, it would be far better for Wencit to suffer a mischance on his journey. By her calculations, he must have passed Sindor by now, which put him somewhere on the South Road between there and South Keep. There should be opportunities in plenty for misadventures along that route, but to arrange them, she had to be able to find him. Besides, as the object of his intentions, she had every reason to keep track of his location. The points at which he had to pass through towns ought to have given her an opportunity to do at least that much, but towns were few, far between, and avoidable between Sindor and the border. The only city he had to pass through was South Keep and, unfortunately, no wizard’s scrying spells could breach the mage barrier maintained around the fortress.

  Still, the South Road was chancy enough without arcane enemies, she reminded herself. Winter, when avalanches were more common, would have been better, of course. Such “natural disasters” could eliminate enemies without suggesting the art. That would have been ever so much more convenient than what she might find herself driven to now. The last thing she needed was an investigation by the Council of Semkirk, but if events persisted in forcing her hand…

  Yet to attack Wencit at all, she had to find him—and she couldn’t. It was maddening to command so much power without having quite enough. With more power, she could have broken his glamour. With more power, she wouldn’t fear confronting him. She might not even need her cat-eyed ally at all.

  She blanked that thought quickly. It wasn’t the wisest thing to be thinking, however hard it was to avoid, given the tight leash on which he kept her. Not that he hadn’t made good suggestions. The lightning in Belhadan had been brilliant, but Wencit had guessed at the last minute. The shadows had been a weaker ploy, but worth attempting when the cat-eyed wizard delivered the shadowmage. And she’d entertained strong hopes for the madwind, once more subtly strengthened by her patron, as well.

  Unfortunately, none of them had worked in the end. It was maddening to have come so close so often, yet all the tales seemed to be true. Wencit did live a charmed life. Whatever she did, he always produced an unexpected ally or counter just when he needed it. How did he keep surviving? It was unpleasant of him to be so durable.

  Yet none of her attempts had been a complete waste. Each gave a clearer indication of his strength, although the indications to date were uniformly unfavorable. He’d used the wild magic more than once, but only as a power source for the most capable wand wizardry she’d ever seen. Unfortunately, he hadn’t been forced to rely on the wild magic to survive any of them, and that had unfortunate implications for the balance of strength between them.

  All of which made the cat-eyed wizard’s latest refusal to share his full information with her even more intensely frustrating. He’d made it clear that he intended to remain silent on Wencit’s doings unless and until she could suggest some plausible means by which she could track the wizard out of her own resources, curse him!

  Well, the game might still prove worth the risk, given the power involved if she won it. The only difficult bit would be surviving to claim it.

  She considered checking Chernion again, but rejected the thought, for she was beginning to wonder just how acute the assassin’s senses were. She certainly seemed sensitive enough to have felt it, and it wouldn’t do to rattle the killer—or to warn her of the link’s existence. Besides, there were other demands on her art. She could no longer put off strengthening the spells on the sword, much as she dreaded it. She’d given the matter considerable thought and expended a great deal of effort on those spells already, enough to give even Wencit pause if he ever got that far, but they could never be too strong…not against W
encit of Rūm. Of course, she’d probably be dead already if he did get that far, but it was pleasant to think he might perish shortly after her own demise.

  She rose from her desk and turned to the spiral stair into the bowels of Castle Torfo. Its narrow iron treads rang oddly under her slippers as she descended it gracefully, and she held the hem of her gown delicately high.

  The walls congealed with damp as she passed the cellars and entered the dungeons. She didn’t hesitate as she threaded her way through the cold, dark corridors few of her ancestors had used as heavily as she, and she went still deeper, into a maze of tunnels which were no part of the castle’s plans. They were smooth, black, and circular—polished and burned out of the rock by the art. How long ago and by whom she didn’t know, though she suspected the Carnadosans had taken a hand in their making. Whoever had done it, the tunnels still tingled with the power which had seared them into the stone’s heart, and the years were thick as dust in their dry air.

  The castle was five hundred years old, yet until Wulfra’s budding sensitivity to sorcery drew her here, the maze had been unknown. Now she knew it as intimately as she knew the power sleeping at its heart.

  Muted rustles and scrapes made her smile, for the creatures of her sorcery prowled the darkness. Let Wencit break in! First he must win his way across Angthyr and the Scarthū Hills. Then he had to avoid her spells and patrols, then find a way into the dungeons and from there into the maze. And even if he managed all that, he’d face her little pets. His art might protect him, but it wouldn’t help his companions very much.

  If only she had a few more years to study the sword! Its vast power had eluded her most subtle probing for over ten years, yet she’d learned enough to know that its power would have let her stand even against Wencit…if only she could unlock it! But unlocking the sword would be a lengthy and risky business. She needed time for that, and she needed to prevent the cat-eyed wizard from guessing her intent. If he suspected she might actually win control of the sword, his response would be quick and drastic. Normally, a direct attack from Kontovar would have been impossible, but he’d helped her with many of her defensive spells and, for all she knew, had installed his own triggers to turn them against her at need. So no thought of mastering the sword must cross her outer mind unless her fortress could be warded against anyone—even him.

  She turned the last bend and entered the cavern of the sword itself.

  A faint silvery-blue light pulsed at its core like cold fire, though the art hadn’t created this dark void in the earth. She was certain of that. The maze about it, yes, but not the cavern itself. Yet despite its natural origins, its walls reeked of the power crackling in its cold, damp air. She hadn’t suspected the presence of the ancient artifact beneath her castle when first she found the tunnels, but the cat-eyed wizard had led her to it even before she’d acceded to the title, trolling her with a lure of sorcery she’d accepted eagerly. The power pulsing here was neither good nor evil, yet its raw strength had sealed her future, for she’d known the strength trembling about her was only what had leaked through the sword’s wards over the centuries, only a pittance beside the furnace of arcane energy trapped within those wards. It had whispered to her of a destiny beyond her dreams, that power, yet after long years of study, she was no wiser as to how it came to sleep here.

  No matter. The sword was hers, and no one would take it while she lived.

  She ignored the soft, frightened sounds of her last prisoner as she approached the blade with familiar avarice and awe. Its power smote her through the corona of its wards, and she stared at it in fascination.

  It was longer and narrower than the common words of Norfressa: needle-tipped and gleaming with the blue wickedness of a razor. The hilt was a deep half-basket set with a spiral of rubies and emeralds that flickered in time with the wards’ slowly shimmering radiance, but the pommel was gone, snapped from the hilt in some long-forgotten cataclysm of power.

  Her eyes rested on that broken edge, and she shivered. A sliver of red crystal remained, as if the pommel had been a single ruby. Given the strength which still clung to the blade, the exchange of sorcery which had broken it must have been instantly lethal to any wizard within twice a thousand yards.

  She let her senses press against the wards, hungry to reach through and take the sword for herself, but she dared not. The power in the cavern might be neutral, but it was only the byproduct of the sword itself, and that was far from neutral. She sensed the weight of its purpose, but had no notion what that purpose might have been or whether it would tolerate her touch. Yet she’d learned that the Strictures of Ottovar were artificial in at least one sense. Sorcery might be black or white, but any power—as power—was equally apt to “good” or “evil.” If she were strong enough to endure its touch, she might draw the sword and shatter mountains with its strength.

  That might explain the struggle the sword threatened to precipitate, but not why it had begun so suddenly. From tiny clues her ally had let slip, she was certain the cat-eyed wizard or one of his allies had concealed it here, though it seemed a strange hiding place. Or perhaps not. If it had been hidden as long ago as she suspected, it had lain here since the Strafing of Kontovar had laid the Council of Carnadosa in ruins. Under those circumstances, hiding it in Norfressa, where none of his fellows might have thought to seek it, might very reasonably have struck any of the surviving Dark Lords as a very good idea. If that was the case, however, the cat-eyed wizard obviously knew where it lay now, so why not simply remove it now that Wencit had become aware of it? And if, as he claimed, no one could ever use it, where was the danger in letting Wencit have it? And if Wencit couldn’t use it, why was he so determined to secure it in the first place?

  Her lips tightened as she pondered the same old questions. They’d troubled her mind often enough to wear deep channels, flowing beneath her thoughts, nagging unceasingly, making her wonder to just what extent and end her patron was manipulating her. That he was manipulating her was a given, and however glib he might be, there was a core of inconsistency at the heart of all the “explanations” he’d seen fit to share with her.

  He was mistaken or lying, she thought firmly, and with Wencit so hell bent on taking the sword, she suspected it was the latter. But it made no difference. She would surrender the blade to no one!

  She turned from the sword, consciously hearing the frightened whimpers of her prisoner for the first time. She smiled coldly at the gypsy girl upon the altar, then stepped into the pentagram on the cave floor. She laid the long, silver-bladed knife with its dried, gory stains before the central candle, and her captive’s weeping grew louder as she lit the wick and the scent of acrid, sinus-searing incense rose from its dancing, livid green flame. She ignored the sounds. The wench would play her part soon enough.

  But the sounds reminded her of other tears, and she bent to stroke the lines of the pentagram. They were rusty-red, the color of long-dried blood, which was hardly surprising. She hoped her older sister’s ghost appreciated the manner in which her death still contributed to the power of Torfo, but she rather doubted Wilfrida approved any more now than she had then.

  No matter.

  Wulfra of Torfo lit the other candles and raised her hands, turning pitiless eyes upon the last of the three sisters her guards had brought her. She hated to waste the girl, but she was necessary for the spell to work, and so the baroness pushed the small regret to the back of her brain as she centered on the delicate control her trap spell would require.

  * * *

  The cat-eyed wizard watched his crystal and smiled. Such a delightful creature, Wulfra! As cuddly as an asp…and half as trustworthy.

  That really was a credible bit of spellcraft, he reflected, given the rather…unconventional nature of her training, although he often wondered if she truly realized how far above her own level she was competing. He knew all about her designs on the sword, and they didn’t concern him. Had it been possible to conquer the sword, he would have done so long
since. Unlike Wulfra, however, he knew its history. All of its history, from the instant it was forged until the moment its pommel had shattered. There was a hole in that history, immediately following the Fall, for the original Council of Carnadosa had been smashed down to bedrock when Wencit and the White Council strafed the continent. There was no telling who’d actually placed it under what would become Castle Torfo, although there were hints in the Carnadosans’ oldest records that it might well have been Chelthys of Garoth, Herrik Ottarfro’s lover and closest ally. It seemed a strange place for her to have hidden it, but she certainly would have had every conceivable reason to want it far, far away from Kontovar in the immediate aftermath of the Fall! Its jagged, savagely radiating power would have been last thing any of the wizards trying to rebuild from the ruins wanted within a thousand leagues of them!

  It was remotely possible that it might have been hidden by one of the handful of surviving white wizards after the Fall, but that seemed far less likely than the chance that Chlethys had been responsible. The cat-eyed wizard had analyzed the working which had created the tunnels leading to its cavern, and they’d been the work of an immensely powerful and skilled wand wizard, clearly beyond the reach of anyone less skilled than a member of the Council of Ottavar itself, and of all the White Council’s wand wizards, only Sharelsa had survived with her power—and mind—sufficiently intact for such a task. Surely if she’d hidden it, Wencit would have known where it lay all along, and he hadn’t. The Council of Carnadosa knew precisely when he’d discovered its location, for they’d been watching through his glamour when he stumbled across the fact that it still existed. He’d been completely focused on discovering just how Wulfra had killed Queen Fallona’s father; his reaction had been priceless when he’d probed the wards the sorceress had set about her castle in search of evidence of Carnadosan involvement in the assassination and turned up the sword instead. It was also the true reason he hadn’t involved those infernal pests on the Council of Semkirk in his effort to eradicate Wulfra once and for all. There were some powers so great, some artifacts so ancient and—now—so deadly in their broken, half-mad agony, that even a wild wizard could approach them only with the utmost circumspection and only after years of study and research.