by Roland Green
Rynthala rescued her parents from confusion. “Plainly speaking, whoever lies there is half again Belot’s size and strength.”
“A shapechanger?” Krythis said, appalled.
“Whatever he is,” came a familiar voice from behind Krythis, “he has killed Lord Lauthin and attacked Rynthala. Now, can we cease bickering and wait for this man to die or else for Tarothin to ready himself to take off the spell?” Sir Pirvan stepped forward. He wore trousers, sword and dagger, helmet, and nothing else. Haimya was not with him.
“Why not Sirbones?” Rynthala asked.
Another familiar voice floated into the chamber. “Because taking a potent spell of illusion off a dying man will overtax a weary healer.”
Krythis turned. “I suppose you are a hale and hearty wizard, friend Tarothin?” The Red Robe sat in a sedan chair borne by two Gryphons and two men-at-arms, all well beweaponed. Several more of each flanked him, led by Haimya and Sir Darin.
Krythis felt his knees turn to half-congealed grease and he would have fallen but for his daughter and wife steadying him on each side. A third set of helping hands turned out to belong to Belot. Sitting with his head down did not restore Krythis’s wits. In that position he had to look at the bodies, until he also put his hands over his face.
At last he could stand. Meanwhile, Tarothin had touched his staff to the dagger, the dead false Belot, and Lord Lauthin.
“The dagger was his, and killed Lauthin,” Tarothin said. “Learning any more waits on breaking the spell, and for that I would ask to be alone. If someone will bring the green embroidered saddlebag from the sedan chair—”
Several pairs of eager hands departed on eager feet. Sir Darin and the true Belot were not among them. They stood on either side of Rynthala, as close as propriety allowed them to stand to a young woman wearing only a blanket. Neither was looking daggers at the other—or indeed, looking at the other at all. Both, however, were looking at Rynthala, as if she was a rare and precious thing that might crumble to powder at a harsh word.
It was probably the first time in years that anyone save her parents had looked at Rynthala in that way. Krythis hoped his daughter could get used to the experience.
A loud groan echoed around the chamber just as the messengers returned with Tarothin’s apparatus. He knelt beside the false Belot, resting his staff on the body.
“This may keep the illusion spell from crumbling the body to powder when it passes off. If it does not, we face more potent magic than I had feared.”
“Black?” someone asked.
“That is the problem,” Tarothin said in his lecture-hall tone. If he was capable of that, waked from sleep at this hour of the night, perhaps he was not so feeble after all. “If this is the spell I think it is, we face a unique combination of magic, drawn from black, white, and red. It—”
At this point the false Belot died, and the illusion spell departed with his spirit.
Krythis would have gladly been somewhere else when all recognized the bloody corpse. The best he could do was not join the gasps of horror, and not look at Sir Pirvan.
After a moment, he could even raise his voice. “Rynthala, you may leave or not, as you wish. The rest of you, I ask that you come with me. It would be well to leave Sir Pirvan and Master Tarothin with Sir Lewin’s body.”
Rynthala was neither awake nor asleep as she sat on the wall and watched the sun touch the battlements of the keep.
She also watched a few intruding besiegers scuttling for safety, across the still-shadowed ground outside the walls. Since the dwarves cleared away most of the old rubble and wall stubs, there was scant cover within bow shot of the citadel. Anyone caught close in by daylight was likely to be a banquet for the carrion birds by nightfall.
She wanted to take away the memory of this whole night. Not only from herself, for she had suffered more harm to her dignity than to her body, but from everyone else. What her father had felt breaking into the room and seeing her, what Sir Pirvan had felt when he recognized the body—those she would have gladly blotted from the record of events, even if it meant burning Astinus the Chronicler’s entire library to ashes!
That power was not likely to come to her, any more than the power to revive Sir Lewin. To do the knight justice, he probably would not wish to live once he learned what his body had done in the guise of another, with his mind turned from the path of honor by a third creature, a mage of immense evil.
It did not matter what Tarothin said. Evil had been wrought this night. Rynthala wanted some way of purging her parents’ home of it, until death itself drew back from the cleansing fury abroad in the citadel of Belkuthas.
“Your pardon, Lady Rynthala.”
She turned, and realized only then that it was daylight and the sun was glinting on Belot’s fair hair. No, it had not turned white overnight—that was a trick of the light.
“If I wanted to punish you,” she said wearily, “the best way would be to keep you up on the wall. Let us go down.”
They descended the stairs and crossed the courtyard. “Lady Rynthala—”
“You have not called me ‘lady’ for a while. Please do not start again.”
She realized then that Belot was at his wit’s end for what to say to her. Perhaps she could begin the purge of Belkuthas by purging him.
So she took him in her arms and kissed him.
He was at first as rigid as wood, and she heard his breath whuff out. Then he relaxed a trifle, and returned the kiss, in a brotherly manner. Finally he stepped out of her arms, and smiled.
“You did not find me—horrible?”
“You were not attacking me last night. I have a bad memory, or so my nurse said, but I can tell you from—the sorcerer’s puppet.” Then an appalling thought struck her. “You did not find my kiss dreadful, I hope?”
“No.”
“Good. I would hate to think I had unmanned you.”
“I doubt that any—woman—has that power.” Some of his old fire was back.
“I am told that all men feel that way when they are young, whether elven or human.”
Belot smiled. “I came to say farewell. I am about to give Nuor of the Black Chisel his first lesson in not falling off a pegasus.”
“I thought you would be leaving tonight.”
“I think it would be best to fly now. Then we can be outside the reach of our enemies by nightfall, or even in time to find a safe landing place.
“I also wanted to say this. Whatever you are, you are a whole—a whole being. Not half this or a quarter that or seven parts of one thing and six of another. You are Rynthala, and that begins and ends what you are.”
Then he kissed her again, longer but just as brotherly.
Rynthala gripped Belot’s shoulders. “If you say that often enough, Belot, you will be kissing many women. Most of them will make you better wives than I would.”
“Is that your answer?”
“It would be if you asked.”
“I was not asking.” He actually grinned, though he could have had no sleep the night before and was facing a long day now. “Do not worry about any noises you may hear from the stable. It will just be me stuffing Nuor into a saddlebag and tying it shut.”
Chapter 18
Well to the north of Belkuthas, a pegasus skimmed over the pine tops, circled, and landed in a small clearing. An elf dismounted and started undoing a bundle slung to one side.
“Ugh,” came from within the bundle. Then other sounds, indicating distress, dismay, and a reluctance to move.
Belot undid the last binding. The bundle fell to earth with a thud. Eloquent dwarven curses replaced the other sounds.
Nuor of the Black Chisel rolled out of the carrying bag and stretched his limbs. Then he stood up. He looked down at the ground and up at the sky, then shuddered.
“Never thought I’d feel ground under my feet again. Are we at the Lintelmakers’ caves yet?”
“Hardly. We have two more flights, each as long as this one.”
>
Nuor groaned. “That can’t be.”
“It is.” Belot laughed. “Of course, I admit that we have not flown directly north. I swung to the south, and this time I found elves. A good many, and on the march—I think.”
“You mean, they may just be going for a picnic in the forest?”
“It could well be.”
Nuor groaned again. Belot relented. “They had all the marks of an elven host prepared for war. I did not go low enough to be able to ask whom they intended to fight.”
“It won’t be dwarves, will it?”
Belot shook his head. “No dwarf laid a hand on Lord Lauthin or any other elf. Our quarrel is with the Istarians, unless they are very quick to withdraw from Belkuthas.”
“Men with the kingpriest breathing down their necks will not give up a victory over lesser races before Hiddukel’s priests give honest measure!” groused the dwarf.
“Then we must fly again, as soon as Amrisha has drunk.” Belot turned away, then halted. “Oh, and don’t call her ‘that confounded feathered pony’ again. She is sensitive.”
He walked away, leaving Nuor alternately cursing and laughing, the latter mostly at himself.
Pirvan studied the map hung on the wall of the keep chamber. This chamber, one level below his and Haimya’s quarters, had become his post of command, where they held councils of war. The councils had become so numerous and so large, and the messengers going to and from Pirvan so continuous, that he had not wished to intrude on Krythis and Tulia.
Particularly not Krythis. Since Sir Lewin’s death, something had broken within the lord of Belkuthas. It seemed to load on him as great a weight as if he had slain the Knight of the Rose by treachery or in cold blood.
Pirvan hoped Krythis would not forever treat the horrible mischance as a crime. No man’s body or spirit could bear the weight of such guilt for long. Krythis needed both in good order. Belkuthas needed him with both in good order—and Pirvan not least among those in Belkuthas.
He realized he had been exceedingly fortunate, not to be as alone as commanders commonly are. Krythis had done much to make this so. When he stood straight and unburdened again, he could do more.
Tulia and Rynthala had said that words did nothing to lighten Krythis’ burden. Pirvan assumed they spoke truth. What next? Time was lacking. Sirbones? He might have scruples. Also, guilt was often a sickness that did not respond to healing spirits.
Tarothin? He might have more scruples than Sirbones, and even less strength. What strength he had would be needed for the day of the assault. Fireball spells, for example, drew much from a Red Robe—more than from a Black Robe—and of course for a White Robe …
Pirvan turned back to the map. A knock made him realize he had turned his back on the door, which was well guarded, but still—
“Enter!”
It was Sir Esthazas. “Message for you, Sir Pirvan,” he said briskly. “It came in with the salt shipment through the tunnels.”
“How much salt?”
“Five barrels.”
“Good.”
That should be enough to salt down the meat of the milk cows and goats that, in days, would have to be slaughtered. Fodder for them had run out. The other livestock of the refugees had long since been slaughtered and either roasted or salted, which had exhausted Belkuthas’s supply of salt.
Sir Esthazas coughed, reminding Pirvan he had not yet asked about the message. I will make a good steward for somebody, when this is done, he thought.
“Speak.”
“Ah—some of the able-bodied refugees—they’ve been training in arms since they left. They sent a message. Can they come back and help in the final fight?”
“No!”
Sir Esthazas flinched.
Pirvan shook his head and continued more quietly. “The better-trained in arms they are, the more their families need them. If they come back and we fall, they are lost and their families defenseless. If they remain in the forest and we fall, they can at least try to lead their families to safety. We will have dwarves and elves aplenty before much longer, so that safety will not be far off.”
“As you wish, Sir Pirvan.”
Sir Esthazas’s turning away was slow, and Pirvan saw the young knight’s broad shoulders slumping. He sighed. Esthazas was barely two years older than his son Gerik. He probably had the same reluctance to admit that something was troubling him, even to one who might help him.
“Sir Esthazas. I will not force help or advice on you, but feel free to ask any question you wish answered. If I can answer, I will.”
The young knight turned back toward Pirvan and almost managed to look him in the eye. “What will our place be, when the fight begins?”
“Have your men not been taking their turns of duty, even on the wall?”
“Yes. But always with an equal or greater number of other fighters watching them. The Gryphons, particularly. Their distrust is—it reeks, to be plain about it.”
In their place, mine would too, Pirvan thought, but did not say.
“It would take time to persuade Krythis and Threehands that you and your men should fight together—more time than we have.” It would take even longer to persuade his own men-at-arms. They felt the shame of Sir Lewin’s dishonor even more keenly than the knights. “But on the day of battle, whatever has been said before, your men will fight as one band, and you will lead them.”
I can’t use the argument about not doubting the honor of a fellow knight again, thought Pirvan, considering what nearly happened to Rynthala because of it. I’ll have to think of something else.
Pirvan did not expect to have time for that, either. At least Krythis’s being apathetic meant fewer allies to persuade that Sir Esthazas should fight at the head of his Solamnics. But Threehands was as tenacious as ever, and Tulia and Rynthala were not only as stubborn as their husband and father, they were much less polite.
But Sir Esthazas would fight. The trail of dishonor Sir Lewin had left behind would end on the day of battle.
Zephros felt rather as he had when, as a small boy, he was summoned to his father on the complaint of his tutor.
Carolius Migmar’s round, ruddy cheeks did not reduce the grimness of his expression as he sat behind the camp table in his tent. “I trust you have an explanation for being late, in addition to your other offenses?”
For Zephros, the truth allowed him to speak without stammering. That had also been the case when he was a boy. “We became lost, trying to avoid trails watched by Belkuthas’s rangers.”
“There are more folk than those of Belkuthas prowling these forests, Zephros. Many of them may be laid at your door. Had your contemptible little host not foraged—to be polite—on the country as it did, fewer folk might be desperate or furious.
“As it is, we have had to kill or execute a fair number of folk who, if they are not Silvanesti subjects, are probably Istarians, or even humans under dwarven protection. I am not grateful for this.
“However, I am grateful that you have done as much against Belkuthas as you have. Without you and your men, much less would have been done. The place might be impregnable.
“My gratitude extends to keeping you at the head of those you have led the past two months. I will also recommend a formal pardon—although I think it would be as well to resign after you are pardoned.”
“I do not think the host of Istar and I will miss each other, my lord.”
“Speaking for the host, I agree. But there are two conditions. One is that you lead your men at the walls on the day of our assault.”
“Consider that done.”
“The second condition is that you have no further dealings with Wilthur the Brown. I am informed—how, I shall not say—that if you do, the Knights of Solamnia will demand your head. I will probably give it to them.
“I do not ask that you seek and arrest him. You could probably do neither successfully. I only ask that if you learn of his whereabouts, you tell those fit to take him and stand aside while
they do so.”
Zephros felt modest displeasure in discovering how much Carolius Migmar had learned. He felt great pleasure at leaving the tent a free man, and at the head of soldiers.
There would be a price for that pleasure—the head of a column advancing on the wall of Belkuthas would be a deadly place, no matter how many siege engines battered the citadel for however long. Yet if he fell, all who saw him fall would know of his end, and perhaps in time those who knew of his life would be shouted down.
At least he would not have those cursed kender on his trail any longer!
Pard Lintelmaker sat on a stone bench at the end of a long, low chamber. Several other dwarves shared benches on either side of him.
Before him, Belot, Gran Axesharp, and Nuor of the Black Chisel squatted on moss-stuffed deer-hide cushions. They could practically reach out and touch Pard Lintelmaker’s beard, for the “audience chamber” was mostly taken up with a museum of dwarven work.
Belot had thought dwarves were robust but clumsy, shrewd but lacking elegance of taste or execution. He had ceased to think that the moment he saw the chamber.
Every sort of rock and mineral was there, carved into lace, polished until it shone like mirrors, smoothed until it was as silk to the touch. There was gold, silver, copper, and jade jewelry and ornaments, some of it set with jewels. Some of the jewels were intricately faceted, while others were raw chunks of blazing color.
There was enough to keep anyone who was interested in beauty wandering the aisles of the chamber until snow piled high at the mouth of the Lintelmaker tunnels. However, if Belot was not out of here before the leaves began to turn, let alone before the trees were bare under a weight of snow, irreparable harm would come to all the folk of this land.
Therefore, while elven calm usually made humans look as fidgety as kender, Belot struggled mightily to keep his body quiet and his face expressionless. Before this day was over—whatever day it was in this underground world without sun—they would learn the fate of Belkuthas.
