by Chris Bunch
“Do you know if there’s enough in the way of ruins for us to shelter in?”
“You’re welcome to stay with us,” the woman said.
“No, we cannot,” Peirol said. “Uh …”
“We have a vow,” Zaimis said smoothly, “to travel a certain number of leagues a day, and I’m afraid even that castle might be too close.”
“You wouldn’t want to tarry there in any case,” the woman said. “For the curse of the lord lingers on, and strange creatures — changelings — haunt the ruins, dooming anyone who dares enter the walls. I’ve not seen them, but my cousin’s grandfather’s sister did. No, travelers, monstrous things happen inside those walls.”
“I thank you, lady,” Peirol said, and bowed in the saddle. “We’ll certainly heed your advice, stay far distant from that castle, and continue to a village beyond it, where we may find lodgings.”
He dug a coin from his purse, tossed it to her. She caught it, one-handed, without swaying a bit. “I thank you, but I did nothing to deserve a reward.”
“Use the money,” Zaimis said, “to drink a beer in remembrance of thirsty wanderers, who cannot pause.”
“Oh. Now I understand. You’re cursed yourselves! No, no. Coins from such as you might bring wickedness.” She spun the money back to Peirol. “Now be on your way,” she said, suddenly unfriendly. “For my people have enough troubles to contend with.”
• • •
An hour later the castle loomed over them, battlements jagged daggers against the afternoon skies.
“Up here,” Peirol said, pointing to where a lane might have been, winding upward between rows of tall trees.
“Toward the castle?”
“Exactly.”
“But what about the curse?”
“I don’t believe in changelings,” Peirol said. “But I do believe in Aulard.”
“Then why’d you tell the woman … oh. Aulard will ask and be misdirected,” Zaimis said. “Clever dwarf.”
“I hope so.”
Whoever or whatever had ruined the castle had done a fairly thorough job. Only some of the ringwall was still standing, as were two round towers set into it. All else, including the center keep, was little more than heaped stones. Peirol and Zaimis guided their horses across the granite outcropping the castle had been built on to the far wall and tied them, still saddled, in a nook.
“And now?” Zaimis asked.
“Now,” Peirol answered, “we find a peephole, and determine just how clever this dwarf is.”
It was twilight when they saw, far below, a cluster of riders. Moving at a trot, they rode past the turnoff to the castle.
“Clever indeed,” Zaimis said. “After they pass, what will we do?”
“I’m not sure,” Peirol said. “I’m not much concerned about this ruin being haunted. There isn’t a pile of rock anywhere in the world that doesn’t have ghastlies hanging about it, which were last seen by somebody’s grandmother’s cousin’s grandfather’s aunt’s uncle. Perhaps we’ll stay here the night, then look for an east-west road, and then another track going south. Or perhaps we could be very cunning, like a fox I saw once, and follow the good Aulard from behind. He’d never think of backtracking, and his band of thugs would scare off any banditry that might be lurking ahead of us.”
“Clever, clever, clever. Perhaps we should begin thinking about a suitable reward for a clever dwarf.” Zaimis leaned over, ran a tongue in and out of his ear. “Perhaps we should spend the night here.”
Peirol was about to turn and kiss her when he saw the riders turn back.
“Gods damn it!” Peirol swore. “And we covered our trail so well!”
“Maybe he’s just being careful and checking the side roads,” Zaimis said hopefully.
“No,” Peirol said. “See how he’s got outriders in front? If I crane hard, I can see they’ve got bows ready. He knows he’s onto something.” He looked again. “There’s a woman with them. Would he have brought one of his wives? And why?”
“I can’t think of who … wait a moment. Aulard sent for a witch when he was sick.”
“And she’s sniffed us here,” Peirol said.
“Do we have another plan?”
Peirol shook his head. “Nothing.”
“Let’s run.”
“No,” Peirol said. “They’d just ride us down. And I don’t know where we can run to.” He rubbed his chin. “About the best I can think of is we wait until the middle of the night, then slip out afoot and make our way cross-country, hoping they aren’t master trackers.”
“Aulard is a great huntsman,” Zaimis said gloomily. “Perhaps if we remain still he’ll think we’re not here. Or if there is a curse on these ruins, maybe it’ll confuse the witch’s scenting powers.”
“Maybe,” Peirol said, looking out again. The riders — there were eleven of them, plus the witch and Aulard — stopped short of the castle, dismounted, and began making camp.
Aulard strode to where the castle gates had once been and stood, hands on hips. “Cower in your nests,” he shouted. “I know you’re in there. But it’s getting dark, and I’ll not chance one of my men tripping over a stone or giving you the chance to backstab him. I’ll give you the night to think of the ways you’ll suffer, as I have been planning them. After dawn, I’ll come for you. Pleasant dreams.” He roared laughter and went back to where a campfire was smoldering into life.
“I’ll not wait to be killed,” Zaimis said.
“Nor I,” Peirol agreed. “We’ll try to slip out in the wee hours.”
But that never happened.
• • •
They waited in a stone cubicle Peirol thought might’ve been for a prized horse, since it was larger than a normal stall. Or, his mind thought, since the castle’s builder had supposedly been in the thrall of demons, it might have been some fabulous monster chained within. He decided not to dwell on that subject. At least the stall was next to the ringwall, and there was a chest-sized hole they could squeeze through and flee down the back slope.
Neither slept, and they kept their weapons at hand. It was clear, with a three-quarter moon, when Peirol wanted rain and thunder. But again, the gods paid no attention to a dwarf’s prayers.
The night dragged, lasting for years. Peirol crept out from time to time, peered out at Aulard’s fire. It guttered down, and he began to hope, then someone threw dry wood on it. It flared up, and he saw two alert men walking back and forth on guard.
It was just around midnight, Peirol guessed, when he heard the first baying. Zaimis’s eyes went wide in the moonlight. Peirol smiled reassuringly. If there were wolves in the hills, that was the least of their worries. He wondered if he should chance calling to them, if they’d come and possibly attack Aulard. That had worked once, but only by pure luck, and he was afraid to try again. It would be far more likely the beasts would steer well clear of armed men with fire and go after two running, harmless ones, he thought, remembering how wolves dearly loved mice as appetizers to their main feast. He tried to guess which direction the pack was, but was puzzled. The baying was very faint, but seemed to come from all around them.
There weren’t that many wolves in the world, he knew. It must have been a trick of the stones around him, miscasting the sounds. The baying came again, still louder.
“Are they coming here?”
“I don’t know.”
Peirol slid his sword out of his sheath, looked into the keep. It was very light, just as, he thought, it’d been light in the ruins of Thyone, showing those wolves clearly. Peirol shuddered reflexively, and Zaimis saw the movement, whimpered.
Out there, in the moonlight, there was movement. Something shimmered, like heat waves over a furnace. Peirol couldn’t make out what it was, exactly. Its form kept shifting. He thought it to be a man, then some sort of beast.
“Look,” Zaimis whispered, and another being came to life beside the first, then there were half a dozen, more. Peirol heard low muttering, a sound more like apes wou
ld make than wolves. Then a bit of cloud came across the moon, and the creatures moved toward the stone cubicle.
Very suddenly, Peirol believed in changelings.
The creatures drifted toward them as if being blown by a gentle wind, and then one lifted its face — snout? — to the sky and bayed loud, and the others echoed him. Zaimis screamed then, and the creatures came closer.
Peirol wondered if his steel would cut them, or if he needed some magical weapon, which he was a bit short of at the moment.
One of their horses, tied across the way, echoed Zaimis’s scream as it, too, saw the unnatural monsters. Again the pack bayed, this time in unison, and Peirol thought of calling back, hopefully confusing them. Then he remembered the pin Zaimis wore, the wolf’s-head pin Aulard had told him was meant to call changelings. Perhaps that had summoned them. Or perhaps they just … came when they sensed prey. But he had no spell, knew nothing of magic.
“The pin,” he managed. “Give me that wolf-pin!”
Zaimis stared, then understood and fumbled the pin off her jacket. Peirol cast it out into the keep as he’d spin a flat stone across a pond, into the midst of the changelings. Then he cried out, the distress cry of the moor wolf, the cry that should bring the pack to savage anyone one trying to harm their fellow. The changelings hesitated, waving from side to side, then fell back. One bent, and Peirol thought it picked up the pin.
Peirol saw torchlight at one of the gaps in the ringwall. “What … gods above … where in the hells did they come from?” The voice was Aulard’s. Someone shouted, and a spear arced across the keep, went through one of the changelings, clattered against stone. A musket slammed, and Peirol saw smoke rise in the moonlight.
The changelings turned and moved toward the torches. Peirol saw six or more armed men beside Aulard. Arrows spat at — through — the creatures of the night.
Peirol and Zaimis scuttled to their horses. The changelings were closing on Aulard and his men, and then a scream came, this one deep, from a man’s panicked throat. Peirol’s hands fumbled the reins free, and he pulled the horses toward the nearby gap in the wall. Then they were through, as clouds moved on and the moon shone down brightly.
Peirol heard the clash of steel, another scream, more musketry, angry shouts, and Aulard’s mad raging.
Leaping into their saddles, they struggled down the steep rock face, horses trying not to slip, as near to panic as their riders, while behind them howls of triumph and bellows of agony grew in the night.
14
OF LOVE AND MESSIAHS
Peirol and Zaimis reined in by the small stone building guarding the bridge into the walled city of Isfahan. Two guards came out, neat if not very warlike. “Salutations, travelers,” one said.
“And we greet you. It’s nice to see a real city again,” Peirol said, again grateful for Abbas’s language spell.
They’d ridden hard for two days after escaping Aulard, not sure the changelings, whatever they were, had completely destroyed him and his banditry. Seeing no dust clouds behind them, they finally slowed their pace. They passed through two villages large enough to have merchants interested in gems. Peirol sold a few small stones, traded for others, coming out a few gold coins to the good. Zaimis had wondered why he’d bothered, and Peirol explained it’d been so long since he’d done business, he wasn’t sure if he was still able, or if a runny-nosed urchin could outbargain him.
They hadn’t lingered in either village, since they had no inns as such. Peirol thought he’d as soon sleep in the open as pay a ridiculous amount for some peasant’s flea-bitten feather bed, lumpy enough to suggest the feathers were still on the chickens, or sleep on the floor with the pigs. Zaimis kept looking at Peirol oddly. He had an idea why, but said nothing, waiting for the right moment.
It came a day’s travel beyond the last village they’d traded in. It’d been a hot day. Near dusk, Peirol had seen a secluded place not far from a spring, with a small pool. He made camp, fed and tended the horses, and the two of them collected dry wood. He built a fire next to the spring and lit it. Peirol filled the horse’s bucket from the pool, propped that over the fire on stones to heat.
“Now, my lady, your bath awaits,” he said, bowing.
“So that’s why you’ve made no approaches to me! You think I smell!”
“You do, my lady. And so do I.”
“You surely are romantic, Peirol of the Moorlands. Now I know why I didn’t wait until you knocked on my cabin on the Petrel. You probably would’ve checked me for fleas before you kissed me!”
Peirol waggled his eyebrows. “If you’ll be so kind as to undress, while I modestly avert my eyes.”
“Why are you suddenly so modest? We’ve been sleeping next to each other for days.”
“There is a right way and a wrong way for everything.”
Peirol looked away, heard clothing rustle. His body suggested this was, indeed, the proper time.
“Now what?”
“Take this dipper, and wet yourself.”
Splashing.
“Now what?”
“Now you take the soap, and lather yourself.”
“I don’t understand your instructions, master,” Zaimis said in a pouty voice. “Perhaps you’d better show me the way. But without peeking.”
“As a master of the bath, that is easy.” Peirol, ostentatiously looking off, took the soap from her, lathered her back and legs.
“You slighted an area, you know.”
“You mean, here.”
“Mmmh,” she breathed. “Yes, that particularly needs attention. Now, I think I have learned sufficiently well, so it’s time for me to become mistress of the bath, and you obey my instructions.”
“As you wish, my lady.”
• • •
Now the journey became an idyll, Peirol not wanting this happiness, after so much travail, to come to an end. But a day before he guessed they’d reach Isfahan, he woke, remembering a bare bit of a dream. He’d been once more in Abbas’s study, and the magician was in his great carved chair, arms folded, silent, just staring at Peirol, and his gaze was hardly friendly.
After that they rode on more quickly, taking to the wide, level beach when it presented itself. And so they came to Isfahan. The city filled a canyon that sloped down from the hills to open on a small ocean bay. The waterfront, businesses, and warehouses were deserted. Fishing boats were beached, and rotting merchantmen tied up at the docks.
The canyon’s mouth was closed with a stone battlement, and along the canyon wall were guard towers. They rode to the guardshack, were greeted.
“Welcome to Isfahan,” the other guard said. “In the text of Makonnen, it’s written that it’s good to gift a stranger, for he might be the Redeemer.” Peirol blinked. The guard unbuckled his sword belt, handed it up to Peirol. “And for the lady, I have but these few copper coins,” he went on. “But the text of Makonnen says it is better to give from the heart than the purse.”
A bewildered Zaimis took the coins.
“Uh …” Peirol managed. “Thank you. But …”
“It is the custom,” the first guard said, “to respond to a gift with another gift, for as the text of Makonnen says, only he who has nothing will recognize the Redeemer.”
“Oh. Well, here.” Peirol passed the sword belt back. “Uh … as my priest once said, the tools of a man’s trade should never be far from him.”
“I thank you,” the guard said. “And your priest showed wisdom, but it is a pity that he has not been given the opportunity to learn from Makonnen, and thus will be doomed to be torn by demons, as all unbelievers shall be, when the Redeemer comes.”
“Including us?” Zaimis asked.
“So the text of Makonnen says.”
“Who is this Makonnen?”
“He is the one who came to pave the way for the Redeemer,” a guard said. “We have been fortunate that he has chosen to remain with us, awaiting that day.”
“Which is?”
“Comin
g fast,” the other guard said. “But Makonnen says the exact day must not be asked, though it is soon. So you will have a chance to convert, to sing hosannas and be present when the Redeemer arrives.”
“I note the docks and shipping areas seem deserted,” Peirol said. “Is this a particularly special holiday for Makonnen or something?”
“As for the bigger ships,” a guard explained, “trade by sea has been scanty since those damned Sarissans began their piracy. Makonnen has written this is yet another sign we are in the Latter Days. But why should we worry, if the Day of the Redeemer looms close, when all shall be as we wish, and no one’s desires will be denied?”
“We are truly fortunate in arriving before such an exciting time,” Peirol said, “We feel doubly welcome in your city, and know we shall be greatly enlightened.”
The guards saluted, and they entered Isfahan.
“What happens if this Redeemer doesn’t show up at all?” Zaimis asked.
“I think that might be a very frightening day indeed,” Peirol said. “We should do our trading and be on our way before that happens. Let’s hope the whole city isn’t given over to this sort of silliness, which I fear it is, for what sort of business can I do if everyone simply gives things away?”
Isfahan was old, very clean, well designed and solidly built, streets winding through the main canyon and up side draws. There were trees and parks, green oases with ponds that broke the heat reflecting from the tan stones of the buildings, the high canyon walls above.
Zaimis shook her head. “I wouldn’t want to live in this gloomy place. They can’t get more than a few hours of sunlight each day. And I’d keep thinking the walls were closing in on me.”
They stopped a prosperous-looking merchant and asked him where a good inn might be found. “In the text of Makonnen, it’s written that a humble abode with those you love is better than the finest lodging,” he said. “But I would suggest the Place of the Contented Duck.”
He gave instructions, and they rode on. Peirol listened to bits of conversation as they passed:
