One Quest, Hold the Dragons

by Greg Costikyan

  Above the bowl, at the back of the niche, plain iron brackets held a naked saber. The blade was highly polished, the hilt wrapped with unadorned hide. Using both hands, von Grentz lifted it from its brackets and held it atop one bent knee, palms upward. He lowered his head to kiss the blade, then returned it to its place.

  A shadow moved noiselessly across the rushes and merged with the shadow of the wall beneath the eastern window.

  Von Grentz was still, kneeling before the bowl, gazing unseeing into the stone wall of the niche, the rectangle of pink on the floor behind him moving slowly toward its window, the pink transforming gradually to saffron, then to white. He was lost in meditation.

  Enter a lich. The door swung open; the creature glided into the room, black robe veiling most of its form, long finger bones protruding from the sleeves. Empty eye sockets turned away from the young morning light, as if uncomfortable at such brilliance. It moved with curious stillness, no sound of rushes crunching beneath its feet, no click of toe bones on floor.

  A shadow perhaps shrank closer to the wall; lichs were famously powerful mages. If it thought to cast a detection spell, it might sense that there was more in the shadows of the room than the mere interplay of light and matter.

  "You have examined the statue?" inquired von Grentz, without turning around.

  "I have," whispered the lich.

  Von Grentz stood gracefully and faced it. "And?" he said.

  "It is under several spells," whispered the lich, moving into the room's deepest shadow in search of sanctuary from the light; did that shadow flinch somehow away? "The most recent is intended to prevent others from detecting its magical emanations. The others are more complex, more powerful; a binding."

  "Yes," said von Grentz, "but is the rumor true? Does it contain the spirit of the Human King?"

  "Yes," whispered the lich. "Yes, indeed."

  "Excellent," said von Grentz. A smile danced momentarily across those thin lips. "You support our objectives still?"

  The lich was silent for a long moment. "Support your objectives?" it said at last. "I have aided you because I have found it useful—and profitable—to do so. But to reach accommodation with Arst-Kara-Morn? That's a fool's game. There is no accommodation, not short of the grave. Nor even then, I fear. You don't have the slightest idea what you're dealing with."

  "With what am I dealing?" said von Grentz, raising a skeptical eyebrow.

  "Would you have riches beyond your imagining?" whispered the lich. "Power beyond that any man has wielded in millennia? Houris at your beck and call? Whatever your desire, it may be yours."

  "I know what I wish," said von Grentz. "I intend to have it. Who are you, that you believe you can grant it?"

  "Not I," said the lich. "Arst-Kara-Morn."

  "And was it not you who just argued the impossibility of dealing with them?"

  "You do not know what you have," whispered the lich. "If you do not give it to them, for whatever price, they will hunt it, and you, for as long as it takes."

  "You serve them?" asked von Grentz bluntly.

  The lich shuddered. "I do not," it said. It did not add: I have. I shall probably have to again.

  "I have another notion in mind," said von Grentz. "But I don't know if you can be trusted."

  The lich emitted a curious whirring noise. The sound went on for several moments. It took von Grentz some time to place the noise: The lich was chuckling.

  Eventually, the whirring died away. "Do you trust your cat?" asked the lich.

  "I don't have a cat," said von Grentz, with considerable irritation. He was a dog person, actually.

  "Whom do you trust?"

  "Granted," von Grentz said, apparently coming to a decision. "Thank you for assisting me this far. I consider myself in your debt. I have ordered a carriage readied to your specifications, with thick curtains drawn over the windows; it will take you to your—"

  "Hold," whispered the lich, raising one bony hand.

  Von Grentz was silent, regarding the creature. After a pause, it spoke. "You called me here to verify the statue's authenticity, but an historian or any number of wizards could have done so. You wish me to perform some other task, but have decided I am not sufficiently trustworthy.

  "Mere possession of the statue bolsters your political position, since the credulous will take ownership to indicate divine favor. I conclude that this other task involves necromancy, and the statue."

  Von Grentz made no reply. The two stared at each other for a long moment, blue eyes into empty sockets.

  "If I assume you know more about necromancy than the usual layman," whispered the lich, "I come to an unsettling conclusion."

  "Would Arst-Kara-Morn still be interested if the spirit of Stantius no longer occupied the statue?" asked von Grentz softly.

  "I am not sure you understand the complexities," whispered the lich.

  Von Grentz raised an eyebrow. "It seems straightforward enough," he said. "Simply transfer the spirit from the statue into my body."

  The lich shook its skull. "No," it said. "The spirit is bound into the statue, by ancient and powerful magic; unbinding will require great power. Moreover, if I were to do as you ask, you would become schizophrenic."

  Von Grentz frowned. "But mind and spirit are separable; why should Stantius's mind be reborn in my body?"

  "It wouldn't," whispered the lich. "The claim that mindand spirit are separable is simplistic; mind is the epiphenomenon of spirit in body. Adding a second spirit to your frame would add a second mind to yours—a new one birthed on the instant, most likely without Stantius's memories."

  "This is not appealing," said von Grentz. "The idea is impossible, then?"

  "No," said the lich. "The trick is to free the spirit of Stantius while transferring its divine aspect to you. That is, not to transfer the actual spirit into your body, but to transfer its association with the divine, to render you king. This will require enormous power."

  Von Grentz frowned. "Do you have sufficient power?" he asked.

  The lich said, "No, no, you do not understand. I have the skill; the power I draw from death."

  "The task will require many deaths?" said von Grentz.

  "Precisely," said the lich.

  Von Grentz frowned. "Human sacrifice—"

  "Is not necessary," said the lich. "A revolution, say, put down as bloodily as possible; a battle, a massacre—"

  "Ah," said von Grentz with relief. "Something along those lines can be arranged. What do you want for your participation?"

  The lich considered. What did it want? Surcease, it supposed; an end. It gave a soundless sigh. Von Grentz's scheme was mad, of course; the ritual that bound Stantius's spirit was so powerful that a dozen wizards could not unbind it. The lich's only options were to flee, for the Dark Lord's servants would appear as soon as they knew the statue was here, or to stay close to it, hoping to get it away from von Grentz and then use it to ingratiate itself with Arst-Kara-Morn. The latter course seemed the more promising. "I shall think of something," it whispered. "If the carriage is ready, I shall depart now." It turned and glided for the door.

  "When will you report?" asked von Grentz.

  The lich stiffened. "I shall inform you of my progress," it whispered with disdain, "when I find it useful or advisable to do so."

  Von Grentz scowled after the lich. After a time, he turned back to his shrine, knelt, and considered the blossom; then rose, and let himself out by the door.

  Wolfe waited several minutes before she allowed herself to slip from the shadow of the wall. And when she did, she became suddenly aware of another presence in the room.

  An exceptionally old man lay, back against the wall of the room, atop the rushes that carpeted the floor. A gray, scraggly beard ran around a toothless mouth; his clothes looked as if they had not been washed in weeks. One hand clutched a bottle of wine.

  Wolfe felt a frisson of shock; the door had opened only the four times, for the entrances and exits of von Grentz and t
he skeleton. How and when had the old man entered? And how could she have failed to sense him-she, von Grentz, and the lich as well? He had not been a shadow, she would swear to that; another shadow she would have sensed.

  "Won't work," mumbled the old man, peering vaguely at Wolfe's shadow. "Binding'sh too powerful."

  And with that, he pushed off the wall, curled up on the rushes, and fell asleep.

  II

  "Fetch that dog Stauer," von Kremnitz told the woman behind the oaken desk. She looked up with the gaze of a startled bird, and scurried off down a darkened hall.

  Timaeus, Sidney, Nick, Kraki, and Mortise stood blinking in the foyer, Jasper shining faintly near them. The light inside was dim after the glaring sun of the streets. To the left, a door opened on a taproom, where a few souls sat drinking and a middle-aged man mopped the floor with glacial slowness. To the right, a carpeted corridor led past a series of doors, the first apparently that of an office, into which the woman disappeared. Behind the desk she had vacated, a wide set of stairs with curled banisters led upward to a landing.

  The office door was reopened; the woman reappeared, along with a grinning, pince-nezed man in frock coat and conservative hose—presumably Stauer. "Leftenant von Kremnitz," he said, bobbing delightedly. "How good to see you again."

  "The pleasure is yours," declared von Kremnitz coldly. "I will allow you to repair your late insult by providing these worthies with service of great alacrity and attentiveness, including, it need hardly be said, the finest rooms in your establishment."

  Stauer bobbed to each of the others in turn. He mumbled "Messieurs, ma-dame, " then threw open his arms and expansively declared, "Welcome to the Pension Scholari. If you will permit, Madame Steuben will show you to your rooms. I will join you shortly to discover your needs—if Leftenant von Kremnitz will come with me to the office?"

  Von Kremnitz assented. Sidney scowled, suspicions aroused; what would von Kremnitz and the innkeeper have to talk about? About spying on von Kremnitz's supposed friends? Madame Steuben inclined her head toward the stairs, then led the way upward. Von Kremnitz entered the innkeeper's office; Stauer closed the door, and at once a mumble of voices arose, Stauer's heated, von Kremnitz's cold. Sidney caught only a snatch of the conversation, but that was enough to set her mind at ease. It was Stauer, enraged: ". . . amounting to two dozen pounds, ten shillings and tuppence ha'penny!"

  Timaeus sighed with pleasure when he saw the sitting room. He collapsed into an armchair and complacently declared, "Civilization at last."

  Sidney surveyed the room; it did make a change from recent accommodations. Since leaving Biddleburg Castle, they had slept in the rough, once in a rather unpleasant publick house where guests were accommodated four to the bed. Four people, that is; the fleas had been uncountable. The Pension Scholari boasted actual bedrooms, each quite clean, the bedding fresh, with empty chamber pots and an ewer of water and a basin for ablutions in each room.

  The sitting room itself held deep, upholstered couches, achaise longue, armchairs, a bookcase stuffed with novels, and a sideboard bearing a basket of fruit and an array of bottles. French windows gave out on a balcony, where wisteria twined up trellises to form a canopy over the balcony itself. It almost seemed, Sidney thought, giving the room a professional once-over, as if it had been laid out with an amour in mind: The trellis was sturdy enough for a man to climb, one wall bore a balalaika in case one was seized with an urge to serenade, the wisteria scented the air, and one might progress, with a minimum of movement, from couch to chaise longue to the bedrooms, where soft feather mattresses and piles of pillows lay.

  Kraki had already found one of the beds; he lay on it, still in his travel-stained clothes, dusty sandals leaving marks on the comforter, snoring face down into a pillow. Nick was nervously checking locks on the windows, peering under the furniture and knocking on the walls; he looked faintly uneasy, mainly, Sidney knew, because with the pension's many windows and unlockable doors, there was no obvious way to secure their quarters. Frer Mortise was standing before the balcony and looking acutely uncomfortable.

  "What is the matter, Brother?" Sidney asked.

  "The Lady Beatrice bade me accompany you," he said, "but I fear the city is no place for the likes of me."

  "We have no hold on you," said Sidney. "You are free to depart when you wish."

  "It was Broderick of our land who stole the statue from you," said Mortise. "I will stay until you recover it."

  Sidney sighed. "If ever," she said.

  A sharp knock came at the door. "It is I, your host," came a voice. "May I enter?"

  "Yes, of course," said Jasper, the point of green light zipping toward the door. The handle turned, as if by an invisible hand, and Stauer bustled in, ignoring Jasper and approaching Timaeus. Sidney wondered why people always seemed to assume that Timaeus was the leader of their group. Was it his aristocratic air, or did they sense his profligacy with money and head for the easiest mark?

  "Good afternoon," said Stauer. "I do hope everything is to your satisfaction?"

  "Everything is most satisfactory," said Timaeus, perhaps a little sleepily in the afternoon warmth. "Would you have any pipeweed?"

  "Of course, monsieur," said Stauer. "Several varieties of Alcalan blackleaf, and an interesting Moothlayan offering; I shall send a boy up with a selection. I'm afraid I must raise two matters of, ahem, some minor importance."

  "Yes?" said Timaeus, sitting up.

  Stauer gave a little cough. "As pleased as I am to meet companions of the noble and valiant Leftenant von Kremnitz," he said, "the good gentleman has, in the past, been known to tend toward a lamentable degree of—how may one put it— impecunity? At the risk of indelicacy, I must tell you that this establishment caters to a select clientele; a clientele capable of meeting its, ahem, appropriate charges. The leftenant assures me that you have means of your own, and that—"'

  "I see, I see," said Timaeus, waving a hand. "You need have no worries on this score. We shall, of course, pay the house's customary charges; if there are details that need settling, I urge you to raise them with my man, Nicholas Pratchitt, who has my complete confidence in financial matters."

  Nick, who had been following this exchange with rising alarm, relaxed somewhat, though it was obvious he was nettled at being described as Timaeus's man.

  "Excellent," said Stauer with equal relief, turning to Nick. "There is one slight matter which we ought, perhaps, to settle at present."

  "Yes?" said Nick.

  "It concerns your mounts," said Stauer.

  Nick looked curious. "The horses?" he said.

  "Yes," said Stauer, somewhat apologetically. "No doubt beasts of such, ah, wisdom and experience, such loyal retainers, have great emotional value for all concerned; yet one wonders at the, um, economic efficiency of boarding them at our establishment."

  Nick blinked. "I don't follow you," he said.

  Stauer sighed, took off his pince-nez, and polished them with his ruffled neckpiece. "Our stables charge a shilling per diem," he said

  Nick choked, unable to respond.

  Stauer looked slightly offended at this. "And worth every penny," he said. "We curry them daily, ride them about to provide exercise when their owners do not, attend to their medical needs as necessary, and provide the finestquality provender, including fresh fruits and vegetables for a change in diet."

  Nick snorted.

  "Many noblemen, warriors in particular, appreciate this attentiveness to the needs of their mounts, among their prized possessions; on the open market, a trained warhorse of good breeding can fetch as much as—"

  "Yeah, yeah, I see," said Nick. "If your horse cost you a hundred quid, a shilling a day to keep it in shape is no big deal. But our horses are a bunch of broken-down nags."

  Stauer sighed in relief, and replaced his glasses. "Precisely," he said. "I can suggest more modest accommodations, if you like."

  "Maybe you can recommend a good knacker's yard," said Nick. "Glue is about a
ll they're good for."

  "If you wish," said Stauer.

  "By the way, Mr. Stauer," said Timaeus, "where has Leftenant von Kremnitz got to?"

  Stauer bobbed as if delighted to answer the question. "It is, of course, the gentleman's duty to report to the Maiorkest upon entering the city," he said. "Now, if there's anything-'

  "The Maiorkest?"

  "Ah? The mayoral palace; our seat of government. The Mayoral Foot Guard is stationed there."

  Sidney scowled again in renewed suspicion.

  What at first glance had appeared to be a taproom proved to be a bit more than that. A sign above the door bore the legend "Bistrot Scholari." There was an ornate mahogany bar, but the rest of the bistrot was decorated in what might be called dusty nook-and-cranny, lit more by the chandeliers overhead than the few shuttered windows. Innumerable walls divided the space into wood-paneled booths. On shelves sat dusty bottles of wine, dusty books, still-life displays of dusty plaster fruit in dusty baskets, and dusty oil paintings meant to suggest bounty—suckling pigs, cornucopiae, peasants reaping grain. "Six for luncheon, if you please," said Jasper to the maitresse d', who seemed only faintly startled to be addressed by a mobile point of light. She solemnly curtsied and guided them to a booth. She gestured to indicate where they should sit, then summoned a waiter with a showy snap of the fingers and an impatient stamp of the foot. Before she left, she reached up and took hold of a rod dangling from one of the chandeliers. She pulled on it and the chandelier moved, running on an iron rail bolted to the ceiling, closer toward the booth—presumably so that the diners might more easily study the bill of fare.