by Max Keith
The mage had watched as Parwin clipped the rope to himself using a complicated little metal ring, and then the boy had pulled on a pair of thick leather gloves before he nodded to himself. And then those black eyes had bored into Poildrin, and he’d sat wordlessly with his legs hanging off the edge of the world and taken a deep, hard breath.
The trip down, through the slow hands of Parwin, had been a nauseating experience. He’d felt like a pendulum, swinging free over space with the rock passing inexorably along his back. And all the while the fortress between his feet grew larger and larger, the torches and cookfires flaring up all over the perimeter while he drifted down. A massive rock overhang had soon loomed off the rock face below him, huge and scary in the dusk, and just as he’d swung beneath it he’d twirled to a slow, dizzying halt, the boy above him sure of his measurement. Gingerly he’d stretched his foot down.
There’d been hard, solid earth there.
He’d collapsed against a low parapet, panting and wheezing, with the cliff face rising dark above him. He’d heard himself chuckle somewhat maniacally before reminding himself that shadowmages don’t go in for such crude displays, and he’d shut it off like a man turns a faucet. He’d gone to work on the knots at once, realizing immediately that Parwin had been very clever with all his loops: the knot had held tight, but now it pulled apart like loose taffy. He soon found himself stretching high on his toes, stretching his back as the rope snaked quickly up into the night beside him, and then he was alone.
Before Firkis got down, he’d discovered the little cave chipped into the rock behind, complete with a deeply delved hole covered by a lid; the smell told him what that was for. He’d found the canvas shelter, folded neatly atop a sealed barrel of salted meat, and a few moments’ groping and squinting had revealed metal hooks hammered cleverly into the stone overhead, sized neatly to fit the grommets he found in the big piece of canvas.
His heart had sunk as he’d begun to realize Jerren was every bit as clever, ruthless, and dedicated as the Princess was, and probably more organized. Raxillene would not be pleased when she found she had a rival, even one who didn’t care much about her; she was a woman who didn’t like taking second place, in anything. But Poildrin had realized, as he heard Firkis squealing faintly high above, that the satisfaction he himself had been feeling was tied not to the present, but to the past. It hadn’t been hard to figure out what the feeling was.
He was proud of Jerren.
It seemed she and her friends used this ledge often, as a way to survey the fortress. From the looks of the stonework, it had been used the same way for many decades before, though Firkis, with his knowledge of the fortress and its ways, had never heard of it. He sat now, panting; his ear had lost its bandage yesterday, and though he insisted it didn’t hurt they could all tell he was lying. Alorin came bouncing down the cliff face as though she’d done this sort of thing many times before.
“Funny boy, that Parwit.” Aimee was babbling, halfway out of her mind from the exhilaration of the descent. She’d followed after Firkis, and she’d promptly sat down and hugged her knees to her chest with her back to the mountain. “He never did talk.”
Alorin nudged at the weedy turf with the toe of her boot. “He talked to me,” she mentioned. “Just before he sent me down.”
The healer looked expectantly up, but it was clear Alorin wasn’t interested in saying more.
“Well?” Surprisingly, the urging came from Firkis. “You can’t leave us hanging like that. I thought the lad was born mute.”
“You’re one to talk,” Aimee had muttered, but the smile she gave him took the sting out of her words. The valkyrie had thought for a moment, then decided it didn’t matter.
“He had sat me on the side of the cliff,” she’d said, telling the story the same way she’d have discussed a trip to the market. “He checked the knot, leaned down, and nibbled on my earlobe.”
“What!” Aimee had thought the boy rather cute, and could not keep the jealousy from her voice. “He didn’t!” Even Poildrin had stopped wrestling with the shelter.
“He held my shoulders, blew into my ear, and whispered, ‘You’re the most gorgeous woman in the world.’” Alorin smiled, despite herself. “It’s nice to be admired, I suppose, but I’m not used to such cheekiness. I’d have smacked him then and there, if I wasn’t so worried he’d take it out on Pixie.”
There was a silent pause, the tale apparently ended before its time. “Come on,” Aimee pressed. “There’s got to be more.”
Alorin shrugged. “He asked me if he could think about me when he masturbated. I thought that was both polite and rude at the same time.”
“Gods,” Aimee breathed. Firkis chuckled. “What did you say?”
“What could I say?” Alorin frowned as thought the answer was obvious. “I was about to trust him not to drop me down into the Starkhorn. I said ‘Of course!’ Then I flashed him my nipples to help him out later, and that was all.”
Silence.
“Well, I never,” huffed the healer as Poildrin got back to work on the shelter. She sniffed. “He groped my thigh as he passed the rope between my legs,” she pointed out defensively.
Eight
The thrill of that first night out on a narrow ledge under the stars, with the entire world spread gloriously beneath them, had evaporated with the first morning’s dew. “Just wait there,” Jerren had told them gently. “You’ll know when it’s safe to leave.”
“How will we get past the fortress?” Poildrin had asked. He’d thought it a perfectly fair question, deserving a straight answer. He’d been disappointed.
“You’re a shadowmage.” She’d given his shoulder a reassuring pat. “You’ll think of something.
Story of my life, he thought, surveying the Royal Army. The little outpost was nicely stocked with plenty of provisions, and the cliff’s various knobs and cracks mostly hid them from the view of most of the fortress, the rough rock parapet and the grey canvas shelter taking care of the rest.
He was slowly, after two days, coming to terms with what she’d done. She’d deliberately stranded them here with no way to get rescued and no real way for them to rescue themselves. Poildrin knew exactly why: she’d stashed them, keeping them up here where they would stay out of her way as Traxtell betrayed the fortress. On Jerren’s behalf, not on Raxillene’s. And she was letting Poildrin know she didn’t really trust him to stay out of her hair.
You’ll think of something. Sure. He’d think of waiting until the Starkhorn fell, until Jerren of Red Castle had all her people in the top posts there, until those people had slain or outmaneuvered the Princess’ people. The fortress wouldn’t be Imperial anymore, but it wouldn’t really be Royal either.
It would belong to Jerren of Upper Thead. Or of Red Castle. Or of wherever she was claiming to be from, whomever she was choosing to work for.
And then? Poildrin knew what he’d see: Parwit, descending on a rope, coming down to truss them all back up and have them hauled up the mountainside. They’d be treated courteously, their horses would be returned, and they’d be led gently but firmly down the main road to the lowlands. They’d be prevented from murdering Traxtell, who would sit smugly in an office at the Starkhorn and continue demanding the Princess’ gold while doing nothing for it, and that would be the only blemish on an otherwise smooth operation. They’d be able to point to a fallen fortress and a friendly garrison, at least as far as anyone knew.
Even their commander, who wouldn’t even ask about why Lady Traxtell was discouraging him from sending patrols to the northeast. She’d instead advise him to send his troops… well, wherever she bid. And the list of places would all be the homes of Jerren’s enemies, who might or might not be the Princess’ enemies.
Poildrin was angry with himself. Shit. He felt himself enmeshed in a vast web of intrigue and oddness, and he’d been too handily outmaneuvered to do anything at all about it. What was the good in being a shadowmage, he asked himself savagely, if he couldn�
��t see traps like this until after he was in them?
Alorin drifted to his side for her daily progress report. “We remain trapped here uselessly.”
He sighed. “Yes.”
She glanced over at him, then down into the dusk-netted fortress. “We can shit on them, but nothing more.”
Again, he replied with short and bitter precision. “Yes.”
The valkyrie nodded. “Until tomorrow, then.” She disappeared underneath the shelter. She was nowhere near crude enough to point it out, but she disapproved of his attitude most severely. The Free Fighters of Lammorel did not believe in hanging about, watching the world pass before them. They believed in action. But there was no rope in the eyrie, and none of them would have known what to do with it if there was.
Not for the first time, Poildrin wondered where his familiar had got to. He’d been worried about the owl for some time, ever since he’d sent the thing to the Princess after they’d delivered Traxtell to Leyn. It was not unheard of for the bird to have difficulty finding him again, especially in such a nonsensical spot as this, but still he was overdue. He sighed. The owl would have been useful here.
Gods, but he’d mismanaged this. Years of muddling through, convincing others he had all the answers, and now his luck had run out. He’d always known it would, someday; he’d just hoped nobody would be around to see it happen. Especially Aimee; she would spread the tale to all the rest of the Princess’ retainers, to Drinn and Lynna and Cashel and even Old Jeery, down in the scullery.
He’d never recover.
So, while Alorin fretted and Firkis healed and Aimee sulked, he knew he’d better come up with something. Under the circumstances, it needn’t be anything complicated; down the mountain, into the lowlands, and he’d be content. It would be satisfactory enough just to get off this damned mountain, with Jerren wondering how he’d done it. And what else he’d done.
* * *
His scheme was, perhaps, the least rational of any he’d ever come up with. It concerned the barrel, the shelter, and the shit-pit. “Simple,” he pretended, as he explained it to a skeptical Alorin the next day.
By now the Royal Army was strung out in a long, sullen line before the fortress, the muffled ringing of the farriers and the shouts of the sergeants carrying even up to here. The fortress still glowed on, unconcerned, every night; its sentries still paced the rock walls by day as though the surrounding host was just an interesting part of the landscape. “We start by slicing up the canvas and tying it together. That ought to give us enough rope to reach three quarters of the way down from here.”
“Useless,” the valkyrie declared. Aimee agreed soundlessly, her eyes wide. “That leaves, what, twenty fathoms still to go?”
“Straight down, yes,” Poildrin admitted. His gaze, in the fitful light of the lamp, went toward the smith. “Firkis?”
He frowned; you could tell from the way his beard descended. Firkis looked warily up. “Eh?”
Poildrin smiled broadly. “That rear gate? The one with the cave, or tunnel, and the switchbacks?” He spread his hands. “It’s east of here, no?”
The smith cocked his head. “What’s your idea, mage?”
“Well,” Poildrin announced as confidently as he dared, “we fall to the bottom of the canvas, then just hang onto it and, well, sort of walk across the mountain.” He looked around at his companions’ doubtful faces. “You know, like a clock. The part that swings.”
“The pendulum,” Aimee pointed out.
“Exactly so, the pendulum.” They were not as excited as he’d hoped, but he kept on anyway. “The path goes all the way over the shoulder of the mountain, and we’re well east of the main face above the fortress anyway. As long as the trail passes within, say, sixty fathoms of here, we’ll find it and take it down to the fortress.”
“Gahh.” Aimee waved her hands. “Count me out of that. I’ve got no need to stroll across mountainsides, thanks.”
Alorin Kaye thought a moment, then got fluidly to her feet and peered over the side of the parapet. “I wonder if that would work,” she pondered doubtfully. “I don’t see a path over there.”
“It’s dark,” Poildrin snapped. “Unless someone was using it right now, you wouldn’t. We might see it in the morning; we just haven’t looked for it.”
“It never was very well-traveled…” Firkis wasn’t frowning anymore.
“Come on, people!” The mage tried to sound encouraging. “Sixty fathoms! It’s bound to be there somewhere.”
Firkis arched an eyebrow. “And then?” he grumbled. “Walk down and stroll through the tunnel during a siege?”
“No.” Poildrin took a deep breath. “We distract the guards on the tunnel gate.”
“How?”
The mage smiled weakly, knowing he’d have to tell them at some point anyway.
* * *
In the end, most of the plan went unexpectedly well.
The broad light of midmorning the next day didn’t show them how far away the switchbacked path was, but it certainly let them mark where the path came out of the tunnel gate. It seemed encouragingly close, though who knew what the path did once it began to rise. Alorin remained skeptical. “If I find myself scaling this fucking chain of tied bedsheets in the dark,” she declared, “I’ll murder you, Franx.”
Poildrin, his headache growing once more, simply ignored her and tied another length of canvas to his growing pile. The cloth was very tough, hard on their knives; they’d already dulled two of them, but that was an encouraging sign. All four of them, plus the barrel, would be tied to the end of the line; it had better be fucking tough. He shook his head, feigning unconcern. “I’m telling you, Alorin, the only hard part will be keeping ourselves together in the dark.” The plan was for all of them to be spaced perhaps three feet apart, and stand sideways as they ventured across the rock. The barrel would be swinging below, at the end of the line, providing weight. “As long as we all walk in step, the actual swinging should go fine.”
She sniffed. “We’ll see.” The valkyrie was not enthusiastic. “I don’t like this.”
“Calm down.” Aimee was sick of tying knots. “You’re from the mountains. This should be fine for you.”
“I left the mountains.” Alorin’s tone was icy. “For a reason.”
“Whatever.” Poildrin was beginning to get very anxious, and the sun was coming down. They’d spent all day preparing, and a good bit of that had been very highly unpleasant. They were all short-tempered. “Just shut up and tie.”
Firkis was examining the metal hooks that had held the shelter in place, deciding which one ought to support their weight. Like the rest of them, the smith was trying hard not to think about the risk. “I think,” he said slowly, “that I’d recommend using two of the hooks. In case one gives out.”
Aimee dropped her knot nervously, then sprinted for the shithole and vomited loudly. Her retches echoed in the now-empty hole. Alorin and Poildrin exchanged an unreadable glance. “Fine,” the mage said flatly. “Sounds good. Just choose the two best hooks, mind.”
“Like I’d do anything else.” Firkis valued his knowledge of metals, and got angry when folk talked down to him. He sniffed and went back to work. The mutter of evening bustle from the fortress below began to fade as they made ready.
And that was how Poildrin found himself sideways, walking across a sheer mountain, trying desperately not to look at the sleepy fortress some hundred feet straight down, but to his right. It was very disorienting. He was confused and anxious, his perceptions all thrown off, his ears dominated by the continual whimpers of Aimee, on the other side of Alorin. The valkyrie, just three feet away from Poildrin and with the canvas bulging around her hips like a poorly fitted cummerbund, seemed calm. “You know,” she observed at one point as Firkis, on top of the stack, called for another step, “this is probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.” They all lurched forward one step, found whatever vertical footing they could, and caught their breath. The barrel swung g
ently against the cliff face beneath them. “No, certainly,” she corrected herself.
The mage, concentrating his attention ahead of them, was not a religious man, but that didn’t stop him from bothering every god who was listening, in every language he had, for success. He was not sure whether he was more worried about falling off the mountain, or about the path not being there. He was fairly sure it was the second one. “Just keep on,” he grated, trying to sound airy and confident.
“And… step!” Firkis at least sounded calm, though that might have simply been shock. The line swung a few feet further, the boots found their nooks and crannies again, and four pair of eyes strained into the eastern gloom, squinting to make out the pale line of switchbacks they were hoping to see.
It was Aimee, unexpectedly, who found it. She hadn’t noticed, and the others hadn’t told her, that they’d be walking higher and higher on the cliffside as they moved, that the swing of the rope would pivot them up the mountain. She likely couldn’t tell, anyway; the array of torches in the vast bowl of the Starkhorn below seemed to get neither bigger nor smaller, but then she wasn’t looking down there anyway. “Hey!” she grunted, a harsh whisper from above. They’d been moving for nearly ten minutes, crossing the mountain, their legs deadening steadily. In places, they’d had to use their arms to climb. “I think I see a trail!”
Poildrin squinted, then peered, then sighed. Yes, it was there: a thin grey thread ahead and above, with a matching one far below as the path wound and curved. They would come up on the path from below, the smith hitting the trail first. They hadn’t discussed how they’d do this, and Poildrin hadn’t a clue. “Firkis!” he hissed up. “It’s maybe ten feet above you. Say three or four more steps?”
