by Sean Russell
The shadows of the hills sundialed across the valley, and the sky tones softened to near-pastels. Darkness was not far off, and yet Sir John hardly slackened his pace. Kent would catch glimpses of him between the green seas of hills.
The painter began to wonder if he had misread Sir John altogether. Perhaps he was not going to meet the mage. Kent wasn’t sure if he felt dismay or relief at this, for his own courage ebbed and flowed by the hour.
Occasionally his mind would stray to what Eldrich might be doing with the countess, and the pictures that appeared in his mind caused him such anguish that the resultant anger would solidify into resolve. For an hour he would not care what Eldrich might do to him.
The limb of the sun bobbed on the crest of a western mountain and shadows stirred in the depths of the forest—restless for release.
Kent pushed his mount forward now, wanting to close the gap between himself and Sir John. Would the man travel in darkness? Kent still wondered how he had managed the previous night.
“The mage and his servants have no need of lanterns,” he said aloud. A sign, surely, that Sir John’s situation had changed.
Kent topped a rise which provided a long view of the road ahead, but there was no sign of Sir John.
“Martyr’s blood!” Kent swore, and set his tired horse to race the gathering darkness.
* * *
* * *
Sir John brought his trap to a stop before the lane Bryce had marked on his map. Stepping down to the grass he paced quickly forward, looking into the deepening green of the wood. The lane wound into the trees, revealing no sign of men or habitation.
“Farrelle preserve me,” he whispered. Sir John had never dueled, but he was certain approaching a duel would be no worse than this.
He thought seriously of climbing back into his carriage and hurrying on, down into the lowlands. On the coast he could take ship for some foreign port—escape. Escape Eldrich.
But some part of him knew this was impossible. One did not escape a mage.
He found his breath coming in short gasps, and his hands shook a little. His horse snorted, and Sir John jumped, whirling around.
“Take hold of yourself, man,” he muttered, trying to calm his heart.
With utter resignation he climbed back into the trap and set off down the lane, into the heart of the wood.
It was only a short distance to the lodge, which stood in the midst of a lawn and a seemingly abandoned garden. The last light of the day found its way here, creating long shadows, like incursions into the world of light.
The lodge was stone and dark wood, and Sir John was certain that if it had been inhabited by anyone else, it would not have had such a threatening air.
Sir John could not imagine what would befall him here, but in his heart he knew that his life would never be the same after this night—as though he were about to make a pact with a devil. Flames, but he wished he had never met Bryce. Better ruin, both social and financial, than this. He was about to become the servant of a mage!
But you have been one for some time, he reminded himself, a thought that brought no comfort.
He stopped the trap before the main entrance. As he stepped down, the door creaked open and a mild looking, silver-haired servant appeared.
“Who are you, sir, and, pray, what is your business?” the man asked.
“Sir John Dalrymple. Mr. Bryce has sent me to deliver a letter.”
The man nodded, and disappeared inside. The ordinariness of the servant’s appearance and manner made the situation somehow more macabre.
Although it was only a moment before the servant returned, twilight rose from beneath the trees, shadows bleeding out across the lawn, enveloping everything in their path.
The servant held aloft a lamp. “Come in, Sir John,” the man said as though it were not an invitation to give up one’s soul.
The lodge was not well lit inside, and though it was a common structure for its service, it took on a more ominous appearance for its darkness.
The servant led him quickly on, saying nothing. They saw no one else, as though the place were empty but for the mage and this one aging manservant.
Sir John forced himself to go forward, his nerve very near to breaking, but he had passed a threshold and there would be no turning back now.
As they came to a hall below a heavily built stair, the servant bid him wait and disappeared down a hallway, leaving Sir John with only the light of the faintly flickering hearth.
He sat on a hard, wooden bench, and without warning, bile burned up his throat as though his rising fear had spilled over. Farrelle’s flames, man, he chided himself. Eldrich isn’t going to murder you.
The hollow echo of footsteps sounded somewhere above him, falling lightly, then descending.
Could this be the mage? Sir John wondered, and though he wanted to rise, to greet his fate standing, he shrank back into the shadow, fighting to catch his breath.
A faint glow tripped lightly down the stairs to his right, touching each step in turn before it spilled onto the polished floor. The footsteps followed, hardly more substantial—as light as a girl’s, but even and purposeful.
The lamp appeared, and then its bearer—a woman darkly dressed, long tresses swept back from her beautiful face by silver combs.
She passed the cowering figure of Sir John without the slightest notice, and carried on down the hall, like an apparition.
The Countess of Chilton, Sir John realized, and he hadn’t the wit to speak, to ask after her, as any gentleman should. Again he choked on his own bile.
You are still of use, he told himself. Bryce came to you with instructions. They’re not done with you yet, so you are safe from harm.
The flames in the hearth flickered and pulsed, like a tiring heart. Sir John felt his slim hopes fade with the dying light.
A door opened, and a lamp appeared in the hallway the servant had taken. Footsteps reached him, loud in the silence—two sets this time. As the servant neared, Sir John could see that another followed behind, just on the edge of the light.
This time he forced himself to his feet, standing bent, his knees none too steady. The servant stopped before him, and the second man came into the light—a small round man of almost comical aspect.
Was this the great Eldrich?
“I am Walky,” the little man said. “You have a letter from Mr. Bryce?”
Sir John nodded, speech having abandoned him, and reached into his coat for the missive, which he proffered in a trembling hand.
Walky took it, paused as though contemplating Sir John, said softly, “A moment,” and then followed the servant up the stair. The lamplight retreated after them, flowing up the treads like a bride’s train.
Sir John collapsed back onto his bench, staring at the embers glowing in the hearth, a lone flame that whisped up, wavered, and was inhaled into the glow. He waited in the dark, watching for the return of lamplight, listening for footsteps. For some moments he sat, his growling bowels the only sound.
“Have you never heard that a mage walks in perfect silence?” came a musical voice, and involuntarily Sir John threw himself hard against the wall. A shadow on the last stair might have been a man.
The hearth erupted into flame, but the shadow on the stair remained untouched by the light.
“Have you any idea what Bryce wrote?” the shadow asked.
Sir John could not speak but only shook his head.
Silence, as though a great beast contemplated him—wondering if he would be worth eating.
“He believes that you cannot gain the support I require from the powers in Avonel—at least not of your own influence. . . .”
Sir John was not sure if it was a question and remained frightened into silence. Had his use ended? Was that why he was sent to Eldrich?
“I’m waiting . . .” came the
musical voice, perhaps touched by amusement.
“I would not gainsay,” he gasped involuntarily, “Mr. Bryce.”
“That is your answer?”
Sir John nodded.
The shadow stepped to the floor, and though it crossed before the fire Sir John saw nothing but a gathering darkness which passed silently down one of the unlit hallways. The flames in the fire died away, returning Sir John to the dark.
He moves without sound, Sir John thought. Could be standing beside me at this moment. He pressed himself back into the wall, half-raising his hands as if he would ward off a blow.
Footsteps sounded again, lamplight lilting down the stairs.
The servant and the small man appeared.
“We have prepared a room,” the small man said, his voice not unkind.
Sir John nodded, but he found he could not rise.
“Sit a moment,” the man called Walky said. “Many find their first meeting with the mage . . . strangely overwhelming.”
The two men waited in utter silence, as though there were nothing odd at all in the situation.
Finally Sir John pushed himself up and, though not perfectly steady, thought he could go on.
He followed the others up the stair, terrified at the thought that he was expected to spend the night here—in the house of the mage. But to what purpose? Had he proven himself unworthy with his admission? What would be done with him?
He clutched the rail as they went, up to a landing and open hallway. A door stood ajar emitting a soft light. Here they stood aside and let Sir John enter. A lamp and fire burned within.
“The fire will take the dampness from the room,” Walky said. “You will find everything you need here. Sir John,” he said, making sure of the other’s attention. “Do not leave your room, and I say this for your own safety. If you need anything at all, ring the bell. Do you wish food?”
Sir John shook his head.
“Then I bid you sleep well.” He turned to go.
“But,” Sir John hesitated, “what will be done with me?”
Walky shrugged. “Only the mage knows,” he said, and the two men went out, closing the door firmly behind them.
* * *
* * *
The wandering star appeared, a tiny flame in a mother-of-pearl sky. Slowly the opaque dome dissolved to the infinite depths of night, and stars flickered into focus. Kent stood, immersed to the shoulder in the edge of the wood, his field glass trained on the lodge.
He’d found the lane, open gate, and the signs of Sir John’s passing. Having hidden his mount he made his way through the twilit wood.
His trap stood before an outbuilding, proving him right—Sir John was inside. But was this where the mage dwelt and, more importantly, was the countess here? Kent hoped with all his heart to find her in an open window and whisk her away before even the mage realized what had been done. But most of the windows were dark, and those that displayed feeble light never framed a silhouette, let alone one so fair as the countess.
Kent stepped out onto the lawn, for moving through the wood made far too much noise, and slipped quietly along the edge of the trees. At the back of the house he scrutinized each window, with the same result. One would almost have thought the inhabitants asleep—perhaps like the old tale, asleep for a hundred years.
He passed behind the stable and paddock, arriving at the lodge’s far side. The windows here provided no more information than the others. From far off a howl floated through the trees—not an uncommon sound in the hills at night, but with Eldrich at hand it sent a chill through Kent. For a long moment he froze in the shadow, listening like a frightened beast.
* * *
* * *
“A small bird,” the countess said, “like a hawk, though more colorful. It hovered before my window.”
“A kestrel,” Eldrich said. “It is a small falcon. I saw one at the edge of the wood today—and did one not appear in your vision?” He nodded, as though giving his approval, though his gaze was far away.
“What will happen now?” the countess asked. “Will it . . . come to me?”
“A familiar is not a pet,” Eldrich said, shaking himself from his reverie. “You might lose sight of it for days at a time—but if you are agitated, angry, frightened, it will appear. Not just then, of course, for it performs a duty. In times of danger you will see it, and you will know. The familiar has been called a reflection of the soul—but I think it is more like a shadow. Imagine if you stood with your back to the sun and looked down at the earth—and you saw the shadow of a hawk . . . or a wolf.”
Eldrich began to eat again—something that he did with little sign of pleasure. Wine he appeared to enjoy—but food seemed a mere necessity. The silence returned, the silence in which he seemed barely aware of her. She watched his hands as he manipulated his utensils, the long fingers curling around the bowl of his wineglass, white against red.
The countess thought he had the most elegant hands she had ever seen, almost articulate in their movements. The fingers were long and fine, certainly the hands of an artist. A shiver coursed through her at the thought of his touch. She had begun to dream of his hands, hands reaching out of shadow and caressing her.
She glanced up at his face; his large eyes appeared to be focused on something unseen. His presence disturbed her, especially in the silences, and this often forced her to make conversation.
“I have noticed something else; my throat . . . It seems tight, somehow. I feel it when I speak—though not all the time.”
Eldrich barely nodded. “Yes, it is the king’s blood,” he said, his voice reaching out and brushing her intimately. “It will give you a voice like . . . there is no description, for it is hardly human. But we will keep your voice as youthful and mellifluous as it is now. I will speak to Walky.”
The countess nodded. She had barely seen Eldrich since their arrival here, and now she found him strangely subdued. Oh, he was as remote as ever—that had not changed—but the arrogance that so offended her was largely absent. He seemed like a man in mourning—as though he had lost someone close to him.
This impression was only offset by the two occasions during the meal when she had found him staring at her. The intensity of his gaze had unsettled her completely. She had known such looks too often to wonder what they meant.
He desires me, she thought. Despite all of his feigned indifference, he desires me. She felt a wave of warmth sweep through her core and her face and neck colored. If she had been standing she would have wavered.
“What is it he wants of me,” she had asked Walky, naively.
“He will tell you in his own good time, Lady Chilton,” Walky had said, but she had an answer, here. He wanted this, and something more. The something more was what frightened her.
He desires me, yet steels his will to resist. She felt her head shake, overwhelmed by confusion of thought and feeling.
Eldrich reached out and drew a sheaf of paper toward him, holding his hand upon it as though contemplating the content.
“From Mr. Bryce,” he said suddenly, pushing the papers toward her.
He did not say if she was to read it or not—for all she knew it might have been an explanation for his state of distraction—but she took it up and began to read.
It was a long letter running to several pages, precise in the extreme, from the hand through the observations, which were few but stated with a vivid clarity. The letter retold the tale of Erasmus and the others who had gone down into the cave and dealt at length with a chamber they had discovered—Landor’s chamber, they called it—and the escape of a woman named Anna with the seed of the king’s blood.
A few days earlier the countess would not have understood, but now, as a somewhat-unwilling initiate in the seed, she realized this was a cause of the greatest concern.
Eldrich lifted his wineglass while she read,
abandoning all pretense of eating. Walky came in and stood by silently, as though sensing his master’s need.
“What does it mean?” the countess asked at last, mystified by what she had read. “Who was Landor, and why did he leave seed buried far beneath the surface?”
Eldrich looked like a man so overwhelmed that he was about to take refuge in wine. She could not imagine the mage acting in this manner. The mage!
“Landor . . .” Eldrich said, staring out into the descending darkness. “Landor was among the first—he was the first. First and most skilled of the mages who journeyed to Farrland from beyond. Why did he leave seed? For those who wished to make the journey back from whence they came. I can think of no other reason. But it is difficult to say what Landor might have planned, for he lived so long ago that he has become a myth. Yet it was Landor who found the way—the way by darkness. Landor who led the others, and laid the foundations for the arts in these lands.” Eldrich paused, lost for a moment attempting to see into the past. “All of this is of little more than scholarly interest now. This woman, Anna, has the seed—Landor’s seed. . . .” He rocked forward in his chair and stared down at the table, unsettling her with the strangeness of his manner. “It is a disaster beyond any I had contemplated,” he whispered. “More than a disaster.” He shook his head, beginning to raise his hands to his face as though in horror, but he caught himself and stopped.
“Have I been so unworthy, Walky, that I should be punished so?” he asked, not even glancing at his servant.
Walky shifted from one foot to the other, his wrinkled face etched with concern. “It is not a matter of worth, as you well know,” Walky said. “It is the seed, sir, it is the arts themselves, struggling to live. They are like a man being suffocated; he will find his greatest strength just before the end.” The little man shook his head. “The arts will not pass away without a struggle, sir. We have long known it.”
