by J. L. Doty
“True. But you can’t avoid it, mistress.”
Rhianne had acquired a shawl, simple homespun, but still a nice touch that added a hint of formality to her attire. She put it on now, closed the door to her hut and walked beside Fat John down the dirt, main street of Norlakton.
Rhianne knew of Jinella, was thankful she’d never met her face-to-face. A Tosk of high rank but middling power, Olivia had spoken of her as a possible bride for one of her grandsons. If she was now esk et Elhiyne, then she had likely married either JohnEngine or Brandon.
As they walked down the street, Fat John said, “She’s taken up residence at a table in the common room. Sittin’ there like a queen on her throne, she is. Ruinin’ me business, she is. Be glad when she goes.”
As they approached the inn Rhianne looked carefully at her hands. The illusion she had spent so much time crafting gave them the appearance of middle age, with the creases and lines and calluses of a woman just a step or two above the status of a peasant. The spell would do the same for her face.
When she stepped into the common room, Jinella’s power hovered at the edge of her senses, like a cat waiting patiently for movement in the brush where a mouse might hide. Rhianne almost reacted instinctively, almost fortified the spell, but the spell’s subtlety might be broken by such an overt act, so she willed herself to calmness and didn’t touch her power.
Rhianne hadn’t been in the presence of another witch since she’d left Durin, and she sensed now that she could command far more power than this Jinella. That surprised her; she herself had been a witch of middling power, but she realized now that she had grown, that her power had blossomed and matured far beyond the simple spells she’d learned as a young girl. That reminded her of the blade, and she wondered if resisting its pull had strengthened her power, just as a blacksmith’s muscles grew and thickened with use.
“Come, child,” Jinella said.
Rhianne hesitated, surprised at the audacity of a woman who would call another woman, apparently twice her age, child.
Jinella misinterpreted her hesitation as fear. “Don’t be afraid. I won’t bite. Come and sit with me.” With a wave of her hand she indicated a stool at her table.
Rhianne kept her eyes downcast as she shuffled across the floor, imitating the fear-filled walk she’d seen Braunye adopt so many times. She stopped at the table.
“Sit down,” Jinella said impatiently. “Don’t be so fearful.”
Rhianne sat down on the stool and kept her eyes downcast, though out of curiosity she looked up for just an instant. Jinella was quite beautiful, blond hair, shining blue eyes, and she actually had a pleasant smile hidden beneath the arrogance. Rhianne remembered looking beautiful herself, what seemed ages ago. But now, even without the illusion that added decades to her age, she had none of the trappings of a young noblewoman, and a piece of her longed to return to that life, to be young and beautiful again.
Jinella said, “I’m here to understand your capabilities. We take our responsibility as rulers of these people quite seriously, and would be most displeased were we to find a charlatan preying upon them.”
“Charlatan, Your Ladyship?” Rhianne asked, knowing her best defense would be to pretend to a very limited education. “I don’t know what that word means.”
“A faker,” Jinella said. “An imposter with no real power who mixes false potions and takes advantage of these people.”
Rhianne didn’t answer, though her confidence grew as she realized she could easily fool this witch with her far greater command of power, and with the spells she had so carefully crafted. Jinella, like any witch, could sense the magnitude of another witch’s power. But Rhianne had learned to mask her power, had learned to cast a veil that hid her own capabilities from other witches, and allowed them to glimpse only the tiniest hint of her abilities. So, in Mistress Syllith, Jinella would find a low level hedge witch of rather limited strength, but not a charlatan.
Jinella quizzed her for a good portion of the afternoon, asked her to demonstrate her most powerful spells. Rhianne pulled out a few spells young witches were taught in their first lessons, and pretended to struggle mightily to summon even that limited ability. Jinella sent her back to her hut to bring samples of the herbs and potions she’d prepared. She didn’t bring anything strong or powerful, nothing she might use on a truly bad injury. Jinella examined them carefully and seemed satisfied. Yes, she would leave under the impression Norlakton had a middle-aged witch with only a very limited command of true power, and that would suite Rhianne well. No one would learn Rhianne esk et Elhiyne still lived. No one, especially not that old witch Olivia.
“Well, Mistress Syllith,” Jinella concluded. “You’ll be a good thing for this village. A good sized village like this needs a healer, and should you need help, don’t hesitate to call on those of us more capable.” And with that, she dismissed Rhianne.
She walked back to her hut, careful to keep her eyes downcast, the meek and mild commoner. And not until she stepped through the door and closed it behind her did she relax. She sat down at the small table that served as a place to dine, and as a work place for preparing her herbs and potions, and there, once again alone, she breathed a sigh of relief.
But wait! Where had Braunye gotten to?
“I sent her on a meaningless errand.”
Rhianne gasped and jumped up from her chair; only then did she see the shadowy presence in the corner of the room. She sensed the vast power it commanded, though she understood she sensed it only because the witch before her wanted her to.
“She thinks it was you who sent her on the errand, so when she returns, don’t confuse the poor girl by denying it . . . Mistress Syllith. But shouldn’t I call you Rhianne?”
Rhianne gasped again, and the shadowy presence floated toward her. “You have grown in power since we last stood face-to-face, grown considerably.”
The shadowy presence snapped her fingers; the veil of illusion hiding her features vanished, and before her stood a tiny woman dressed in black from head to foot, a veil of thin material now hiding her features. She lifted the veil and said, “And don’t worry. I won’t give you away to grandmother.”
Rhianne blinked her eyes, and had to look twice to realize NickoLot stood before her. “Nicki,” she said, and rushed forward to wrap her arms around the tiny woman. And then it hit her: Nicki, AnnaRail, Roland and JohnEngine, people she loved.
“Oh Nicki,” she cried, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I miss you so much.”
“Then why don’t you come back?”
Rhianne released her and shook her head. “I can’t. I can no longer tolerate that old woman’s meddling.”
“But AnnaRail and Roland and JohnEngine all miss you; they mourn you.”
“Give me time,” Rhianne pleaded. She stepped away from NickoLot, threw out her arms and said, “Look at me.”
NickoLot raised a sardonic eyebrow. “You look like a common laborer.”
“No!” Rhianne said, spinning about once to take in the entirety of her small domain. “Not that. Oh, yes, I’d love to wear beautiful dresses and look pretty again. But I’m doing something good for these people, doing it without the aid of the clan—doing it in spite of the clan.”
NickoLot hesitated, and did look carefully about the small hut.
Rhianne continued. “When I’m ready I’ll get a message to you somehow, and you can tell them I’m still alive. But right now, Olivia would just find some way to use me. And I can’t let that happen anymore. I need to be my own woman. So please, keep my secret for now.”
“But what of Morgin? Why don’t you go find him wherever he’s gotten to?”
“Oh, Nicki, you know he’s dead.”
“I don’t believe it,” NickoLot said with absolute finality.
Rhianne hugged her again. “I’m certain I would sense his soul in some way if he were still alive. But there’s nothing; all I sense is that cursed sword. You have to accept reality.”
“You s
ense the sword? Where is it?”
“I don’t know. I can’t sense direction or distance. I’m not even sure if it remains on the Mortal Plane. But how did you find me?”
“I’m here with Jinella. Mother thought it would be good for me to get away from grandmother for a while, and I must admit, she was right. But you’ve spent quite a bit of time at the inn, haven’t you? And you’ve practiced some magic there, right?”
“Ah,” Rhianne said. “I see. You recognized the residual scent of my magic.”
Nicki smiled, the first time she’d shown any happy emotion that day. “Yes, so I went sniffing about. And since Jinella has never met you, she didn’t. She’s Brandon’s new wife, you know, and I rather like her; she’s quite a pleasant person.”
Nicki helped her dry her tears and they spent a brief time together. Nicki promised she’d keep her secret. But after she left, all Rhianne could think about was the strangeness in her eyes, old eyes for such a young girl, very old eyes.
~~~
Morgin moved carefully through the undergrowth of the forest, strung bow in hand, an arrow nocked, ready to pull the bow string back and fire it. He moved with Morddon’s Benesh’ere stealth and reflexes. Deer droppings not two paces in front of him told him he was close to his prey, a large buck he’d spotted from a nearby hill. He’d circled carefully to approach the animal from downwind. Like Morgin, Harriok and Jack the Lesser were tired of goat, and they’d decided venison steaks would make for a nice change. With summer approaching, the deer and elk had sought higher pastures to graze on spring’s bounty, so the three of them had ridden south of the lake, and then quite a ways up the side of Attunhigh.
About two hundred paces distant a raspberry bush shaking violently caught his attention, and he glimpsed the buck’s rack visible above it. He looked to the left where Jack stood crouched on another game trail. He raised a hand, caught Jack’s eye, pointed two fingers forward to let Jack know he’d spotted the buck. Jack nodded, so Morgin slowly turned his head to the right. There, Harriok nodded to indicate he too had seen Morgin’s signal.
The three of them moved forward carefully. Even Jack had finally admitted Morgin moved with the stealth of a whiteface, and that appeared to be proof enough that Morgin had told the truth when he’d spoken of living through the Great Clan Wars in the soul of a Benesh’ere warrior.
Morgin was about a hundred paces from the buck when it wandered out from behind the raspberry bush, still nibbling on ripe berries. He had a good line of sight to the buck, so he rose from his crouch, moving very slowly so he didn’t startle the buck. Since he had been the first to spot the buck, the first shot was his, so Harriok and Jack remained in a crouch.
With the same, slow careful motions, Morgin drew back the bow string and raised the bow. He sighted down the length of the arrow, sighted on a spot just behind the buck’s shoulder. His arrow would pierce its heart, giving it a quick, clean end. But something in the far distance caught his eye, and he hesitated. It hadn’t been a movement, or a flash of light, but something that had triggered a memory deep in his subconscious.
He lowered the bow and took in the sight of two spires of rock, two sharp peaks side-by-side in the far distance. He’d seen them before in a distant memory, though he couldn’t recall when. And too, he had never been this high up the side of Attunhigh before, at least not in this life.
That was the key that brought his memories back. He had seen those peaks through Morddon’s eyes, seen them as he’d ridden down the mountain after laying Aethon to rest in his crypt. And the memory was not a recollection stolen from the Benesh’ere whose soul he’d haunted. No, this was a memory of Morgin’s, his and his alone, a memory acquired by looking through the ancient warrior’s eyes.
An arrow hissed through the air and thumped into the buck’s side. It jumped, trumpeted a painful cry, staggered and fell to its side. Harriok cried out, “Good shot, Jack,” and the two of them ran forward to make sure the buck was finished.
Morgin remained still, transfixed by the two spires in the distance. If he moved south a few leagues, the two peaks might appear separated exactly as they had appeared twelve centuries ago. Morddon had ridden down from Aethon’s interment in sadness, while Morgin had concentrated on memorizing every feature of the land, every peak, every spire, though he’d carefully memorized only features of rock and granite that would not—had not changed in all that time. A league or two south of the Lake of Sorrows, he guessed, and then higher up the side of Attunhigh, and he’d be standing on the trail Morddon had followed down from the mountain that sad day. And with a dozen other such reference points rolling around inside his head, Morgin realized he might, after all this time, be able to backtrack up that trail, even in this day and age.
~~~
As they rounded a sharp bend in the trail, BlakeDown reined in his horse. Tharsk stood above them, a cold, black monolith carved from the solid granite of the mountain face. He always marveled at the fortress that commanded Methula.
The trail too had been chipped out of the solid stone of the mountain. Travelers tended to hug the uphill side away from the precipitous edge, and centuries of traffic—the constant wear of boots and hooves and cartwheels—had worn the rock there into a smooth and almost glassy surface, while the edge nearest the drop remained rough and uneven. The trail skirted the base of the fortress wall for a good distance, then entered the black shadow at the mouth of a tunnel, part of the fortress itself. Any traveler wishing to cross the Worshipers through the Pass at Methula must either pass into that tunnel, or climb the sheer rock of the fortress wall above it, and those in the fortress would have an easy time dislodging such a fool.
It had taken quite a bit of effort to arrange this meeting. The Vodah messenger had ridden back and forth between Durin and Penda several times, all in secret, carrying messages sealed by powerful magics.
Valso frequently went unseen by any but his closest advisors for days at a time. So it had been easy for the King of the Greater Clans to sneak away, to arrange a few ruses to leave the impression he remained closeted in the palace in Durin, while in fact he had ridden to Tharsk. But BlakeDown had ruled Penda for more than thirty years in a very public fashion, so doing something like that would have been impossible for him. Instead, he’d arranged a hunting trip to Methula.
He and PaulStaff had an agreement that he could hunt the bighorn sheep near Tharsk, and PaulStaff could hunt the wild boar that roamed the forests on the river Ella. Of course, they each required the other to give notice well in advance of such an encroachment on their lands, and to keep their numbers small enough that there would be no question of an armed incursion. In any case, PaulStaff was a boot-licker, and wouldn’t dare deny him. But such a hunting trip got him relatively high into the pass at Methula, within an easy ride of Tharsk.
He’d selected the members of his hunting party from those he knew to be loyal and discreet, and they’d set up a base camp a few hours’ ride from Tharsk. But hunting the big sheep couldn’t be done in large groups, so each morning he selected three of his liege men to accompany him, then set out for a day of hunting. They’d actually hunted the sheep for two days now, and bagged one kill. But on this, the third day, BlakeDown had selected three companions whom he could trust implicitly, and they rode directly to Tharsk. They could spend a good three hours at the fortress, and still return before dark with tales of an unsuccessful day of hunting.
BlakeDown looked up to the battlements at the top of the fortress wall. He saw a few dim shadows standing there, so he called out, using the false name they’d agreed upon. “I am a simple hunter named Doagla. I and my friends seek shelter for a few hours.”
A voice from above said politely, “You may enter the tunnel.”
A portcullis just within the shadows of the tunnel rose with a clanking rattle of chains dragging across stone. Behind it another portcullis rose slowly, and behind that another, and another, and another. When the way was clear, BlakeDown spurred his horse forward and
his companions followed. Behind them the portcullises descended with the same noisy scrape of steel chains on stone, and BlakeDown realized they were at the Decouix’s mercy. Perhaps he’d just have them murdered. They wouldn’t be the first men to disappear in the vastness of Methula.
The tunnel followed the curve of the mountain, and at its center they found a massive stone portal slowly opening with the grind of old hinges echoing in the close air. The portal let them into a circular courtyard open to the sky, surrounded on all sides by high walls cut from the same black rock as the tunnel, with another portcullis on the opposite side of the courtyard. Valso awaited him there, standing confidently and smiling. “Lord BlakeDown. Thank you for coming. It is a pleasure to see you again after so long.”
“The pleasure is mine, Your Majesty,” BlakeDown said, lying as easily as Valso.
He dismounted, and he and Valso shook hands, though BlakeDown did not bend the knee, for Valso was not his king. Valso showed no displeasure at the omission.
He led BlakeDown into the fortress proper to a small, comfortable room with a large hearth containing a blazing fire. Even with summer approaching, the mountain air held a decided chill. The room also contained a table onto which a hearty meal of meat, cheese, bread and ale had been placed, though the table contained only two chairs.
Valso smiled charmingly and said, “My men will entertain your men while you and I share this repast.”
“Excellent,” BlakeDown said, sitting down at the table, not waiting for Valso.
Valso’s men ushered BlakeDown’s companions out of the room and closed the heavy plank door. Valso threw the latch on the door, then returned to the table and sat down opposite BlakeDown.
They ate, and spoke of hunting, and the bighorn sheep, and other subjects about which neither of them really cared. A goodly amount of time passed before Valso casually said, “I’ve heard the annual meeting of the Lesser Council didn’t go so well.”
BlakeDown grunted angrily and wiped grease from his chin with his sleeve. “That old witch Olivia, she’s a thorn in all our sides.”
