Navarin, Thunder and Shade

by William Stafford

  The Duke picked up the bag and folded it. “I shall hang on to this,” he announced. “For evidence.”

  “I am to be tried then,” Broad said sadly.

  “There are still the deaths to be accounted for,” said the Duke, suddenly cold towards the young man. “You will be examined by a doctor to see if you are fit to stand trial. I am sorry, lad; it’s the best I can do, under the circumstances. Guards!”

  Two soldiers emerged from the foliage. They took Broad away from the garden, leaving the Duke to marvel at the object in his hands.

  Goldinium, at last! Within my grasp! An expert smith could extract the thread from the cloth... The element could be reformed into any shape, any object of my choosing...

  I should tell that malodorous wizard at once!

  No. He stopped himself. Let that smelly fellow continue his search. I fancy I shall keep this windfall to myself.

  With that, he pocketed the bag and went back indoors; the handsome youth, now languishing in a dungeon, was already forgotten.

  Seventeen

  Pezzackeron tracked Smedlock through the northern forest. All I need to do is follow my nose, he thought bitterly. My brother wizard leaves quite a pong in his wake. He’s heading to Ptorf, as arranged, that was no surprise; I just have to stop him before he gets there.

  Up ahead, Smedlock came to a stop. Yet another piss-break, Pezzackeron rolled his eyes, but no, it was worse than that. He watched in horror as Smedlock hitched up his robe and squatted in a bush. Pezzackeron pressed his back against a tree and held his breath. As if things weren’t smelly enough already out here.

  His business done, Smedlock ripped a handful of broad leaves from the bush. Pezzackeron grimaced. It was all so undignified. You won’t catch me doing any of that out here in the open.

  A crackle of a twig underfoot informed him Smedlock was on the move. Pezzackeron edged around the tree and was confronted by the bearded countenance of his quarry.

  “Aha!” cried Smedlock. “I should have guessed it was you!”

  “Well, well,” said Pezzackeron. “Fancy meeting you out here of all places!”

  “Fancy,” said Smedlock. “Did you get lost on your way to Lurkin Mount?”

  “I suppose I must have done. Yes, that’ll be it. See you.” Pezzackeron tried to sidle away but the head of Smedlock’s staff pressed against his breastbone, pinning him to the tree.

  “You were following me,” said Smedlock.

  “Coincidence,” shrugged Pezzackeron.

  “There’s no such thing,” said Smedlock. “Not where wizards are involved. Why aren’t you sticking to the plan? Why are you not at the Mount as agreed?”

  “You don’t believe I got lost?”

  “Not for a second. The truth...” He held his free hand to Pezzackeron’s face. Pezzackeron saw with shock and disgust the fist was full of broad leaves and the leaves were full of-

  “All right, all right! I was hoping to catch up with you before you got to Ptorf. It seems I’m not the only one not keeping to the agreement.”

  “Meaning?” Smedlock’s fist got a little closer to Pezzackeron’s nose.

  “Meaning it’s not part of our arrangement for you to come to my home and bugger about with my private things.”

  “What are you talking about? I don’t even know where you live.”

  “Well, somebody’s been there. Things have been moved; I can always tell.”

  “Well, it wasn’t me.”

  “And I’m supposed to believe that!”

  “You can believe what you damned well like. It’s the truth. I’m on my way to Ptorf.”

  “That’s what you say.”

  “It is. And it’s the truth.”

  “I thought you said there is no such thing as coincidence.”

  Smedlock clenched his fist. Some of the stench wafted toward Pezzackeron’s nostrils. He recoiled, wishing the bark at his back would swallow him. Spending the rest of his life as a tree nymph would be preferable to this.

  “Very well,” said Smedlock. “If it wasn’t you, who was it?”

  A breeze coiled around them, entwining them in the aromas of rotting leaves, fungus and Smedlock’s fist.

  “Our brother,” they said at once.

  ***

  Their brother, Tarkwayne, turned over the next card and peered at it. As he had feared, it was a Child Inverted. A bad child. An evil child. Meaning: there was one on the loose in the Principality.

  Or... the meaning could be more symbolic. A child could be an idea, a project in its early stages. Inverted could mean it would not reach fruition, it would go awry before it really got underway.

  Tarkwayne preferred this second interpretation. He turned another card.

  A draught caused the candle on his card table to flicker. Tarkwayne glanced over his shoulder; the window was closed and shuttered, he distinctly remembered fastening the clasps.

  He looked at the card. A Dagger Drawn.

  Hmm...

  An attack. Was this the disruption that caused the plan to go wrong? Of course, it need not be assault with a knife. It could be a verbal attack, say, or unwanted interference...

  Hmm...

  The next card, Ruined Castle, did not necessarily forewarn of structural damage. It could mean the downfall of an important family, a Royal house...

  Next: Wall of Fire. Wholesale destruction but not necessarily by flame. Or... something impenetrable, inescapable, something overwhelmingly powerful...

  The candle flickered again and went out, plunging the garret into gloom. Tarkwayne swore and froze. The chill of the draught caressed the back of his neck - like someone or something breathing... He spun around, squinting into the darkness.

  “Who’s there?”

  His fingers fumbled the means to light the candle anew, dropping the flint onto the floor. He crouched to retrieve it, losing the rest of the tinder box in the process.

  “Shit.”

  His hands closed around the objects and he stood, banging his head on the underside of the table and sending the cards, once so carefully arranged, flying to the floor. He righted the toppled candle and tried to strike up a spark. The draught increased to a breeze, which grew into a gust, which swelled into a squall. The shutters were torn open, the windowpanes blown out. Tarkwayne clung to the table, squinting against the wind.

  “Who is there?” he roared but the gale grabbed his voice and drowned it, roaring in reply.

  Tarkwayne stood firm but his voice wavered. “What do you want of me?”

  The cards swooped up from the floor and danced like autumn leaves on a blustery day. One card hung in the air while the others fell away. Tarkwayne reached for it. As his fingers closed tentatively around it, the wind ceased and the room became still. He rushed to the window and turned the card over in his palm. Moonlight revealed the picture.

  Inverted Child.

  Tarkwayne stared at it in confusion. He looked across the moonlit lake that surrounded the isle of Herran’s Polp.

  Somewhere out there, a child of evil...

  Tarkwayne let the card fall out of the window. Let wind or water take it, I care not.

  He returned to his table and lit the candle. Something was trying to lure him away from Herran’s Polp, to distract him from his purpose. This is the attack, the Dagger Drawn, that scuppers the idea, he decided. But I will not be swayed.

  He picked the pack up from the floor. The first card he looked at was Ruined Castle. He was almost relieved to see it.

  ***

  Pezzackeron and Smedlock parted company at the Wide North Road. The former would head south to Lurkin Mount while the latter would press on north to the Ptorfian coast and its lighthouses. Each had his suspicions of the other and of their third brother Tarkwayne. Perhaps
he was behind the incursion into Pezzackeron’s private quarters, sending the wizard up a mountain so he could ransack his belongings.

  They both doubted that; it wasn’t Tarkwayne’s style. He didn’t like to sully his hands with the physical world. He did everything via his precious cards and, you had to say this for him, was always above board in his dealings with everyone. There was nothing underhand about Tarkwayne, however stuck-up and standoffish he may be.

  Then who?

  The question occupied the mind of both wizards as the distance between them grew. Smedlock carried on through the night. By morning’s first light, he saw the lighthouses silhouetted against the pink and orange dawn: foreboding fingers in an obscene gesture.

  “Same to you and all,” he muttered, hastening to the westerly facing structure. The door was rotten through and seabirds had colonised the interior, plastering it with their droppings. Smedlock climbed the rickety staircase. A couple of treads snapped, brittle underfoot. The wizard reminded himself to take care; it would not do to fall through and break his neck before the project was completed - or at any other time, really. Smedlock would rather keep his neck unbroken and every part of him intact.

  He reached the lantern room at the top of the stairs. The wind was blowing through it; there was hardly a pane of glass unsmashed. The lantern itself, and its mirrors, were also in smithereens. It was of no matter to Smedlock. He wasn’t there to send a warning to shipping. He looked through the hole in the eastern-facing window. Across the bay, the other lighthouse appeared to be in a similarly dilapidated condition. It was a pity, he supposed. With the war over, the lighthouses were no longer required - their purpose was never to guide ships safely to shore but to warn those further inland of the approach of a seafaring foe. They were beacons rather than lighthouses, he reflected. But he was not there to quibble. He was there to make a triangulation point and could only hope the other two, in their appointed locations, were doing the same.

  But first things first: he wheeled around and snatched the nearest gull by its neck. Before the bird had time to flap, he bit off its head and spat it out of the window. Orange feet paddled in the air while blood spurted from the neck, and then were still.

  Smedlock dropped the body, feathers and all into a pot, along with an assortment of vegetables from his pockets and the contents of his canteen. He lit a fire, filling the tower with smoke; it got rid of the other gulls, at least. They scrambled out in flapping, squawking protest.

  Lamb is best for navarin, he reminded himself, but under the circumstances, seabird would do. He stirred the pot and gazed across the surface of the concoction. He inhaled the vapour and closed his eyes.

  An onion became the bald head of that fool Pezzackeron. Smedlock could see him clearly but from a distance, climbing a rock face. Of course, a seagull would show him a cliff, but it was true that Pezzackeron was bound for Lurkin Mount. A strong wind plucked at his cloak and rain lashed at him, making his handholds slick and slippery. But the wizard clung on doggedly, using a hook as replacement for his missing hand, his face tightened in a scowl, like a-

  A cauliflower floret bobbed to the surface of the stew. The vision was gone.

  At least that bald bugger’s almost there. Smedlock took a sip from a wooden spoon. Salty.

  He stirred it again and concentrated on the haughty countenance of the third member of the triumvirate. He inhaled the vapour and closed his eyes but nothing came. He murmured Tarkwayne’s name with increasing urgency and then a carrot’s tip broke the surface of the soup. He focussed on it and it became the wizard’s sharp nose.

  And there he was, in his garret, turning his cards. Those damned cards! They weren’t proper magic as far as Smedlock was concerned. They were too pat, too open to misinterpretation. Unlike his own more culinary approach. That, at least, was tied to nature, and you ended up with a tasty meal at the end of it. You couldn’t chow down on a deck of cards, could you?

  He reminded himself to concentrate on the vision. The cards were on the table but he had lost sight of the wizard. He scraped the top layer of the broth to clear it. The ingredients bobbed and rolled. Smedlock’s eyes rolled white; he saw Tarkwayne lying on the floor, his neck broken, his face contorted in a silent scream.

  Smedlock sprang from the pot, gasping as the lantern room came back into view.

  Dead! Tarkwayne!

  But was that the present or the yet to come? That was the trouble with cooking up visions: there was no time or date stamped on them.

  I will have to hope for the best. It’s a vision of the future and Tarkwayne yet lives. He will set up his triangulation point in time and all will be well - except for him, of course. Then he can meet his end and the project will continue without him.

  Smedlock clung to that hope like Pezzackeron to that cliff face. Perhaps it was for the best that things turn out this way and I should be grateful to Tarkwayne’s murderer.

  After all, he has saved me a job.

  ***

  Krom, the finest tailor in Grimswyck, examined the cloth bag by the light of a candle. The hooded man stood over him, awaiting his response. Krom sucked in his breath.

  “I could do it, I suppose,” he pulled a face. “Stitch by stitch. It would take a few hours. And hours cost money.”

  The hooded man tossed a purse onto the table. It landed with a heavy chink. Krom nodded. “That will do to begin with.”

  “Complete the task and you shall be rich enough to retire.” The hooded man spoke in a low murmur, his vowels strangely elongated, for the Duke was trying to disguise his voice as well as keep his famous face concealed.

  Krom clucked in disbelief. “And what would I do then? How would I fill my days?” He picked up a pair of sharp-nosed tweezers. The hooded man started; the tailor caught the movement. “I know, I know, I am not to touch the inside nor put anything in it. Allow me to know what I’m doing”

  But you don’t know, thought the Duke. Come to think of it, neither do I. All I want is the goldinium so that I may give my wife the anniversary present of her life.

  The nose of the tweezers worried away at a stitch at the bag’s collar, tweaking it into a tiny loop. The Duke held his breath. The tweezers pulled slowly and gently and the loop grew until - with a frown, Krom stopped pulling. He sent a puzzled look to his customer who could do nothing but shrug. The tailor tried again. The loop of thread resisted.

  “Perhaps if I-”

  He brought the tweezers together with a snip.

  They broke.

  He turned, wide-eyed to his customer. “I shall add those to the bill,” he said. “Where are you going?”

  The Duke was backing toward the door, scrambling to get out. In the tailor’s hands, the wizard’s sack yawned and stretched, swallowing first the man’s arms and then his head and shoulders. In seconds, Krom was gone and the bag lay flat and empty on his chair.

  The Duke approached it with caution. The unpicked stitch was back in place. He let out a gibber of frustration and fright. Threatened, the bag had defended itself and was now restored to normal. It was indestructible, then? Or would it take a wizard to take it apart?

  Gingerly, he took up the bag and hooked it onto his belt. He left the bag of coins on the table and, on second thought, added another to it. He didn’t know whether Krom had family or children or even a cat that would need to be fed.

  Full of sorrow and fear, the Duke hurried back to the palace. He would have to think again and fast, for the anniversary was looming ever nearer.

  Eighteen

  Lughor wiped steam from the looking glass and peered at his reflection before the hot water could cloud it again. He was pale with soap, making his eyes and particularly the shadows around them, all the darker. I’m still in great shape for a man of my age, he consoled himself, scraping off the soap and the bristles beneath with the edge of his knife. After
every stroke, he wiped the blade on a towel, transferring suds and stubble to the cloth. There was more salt than pepper in the stubble these days, as there was in his hair, which was thinning at the crown. Other men my age are completely bald by now, he thought. I have done well. Other men can’t see their own feet because of their paunches. I have done well. Other men grow short of breath just by climbing a staircase. I have done well. Other men have wives, children and grandchildren to comfort them as they slip into old age.

  Ha!

  Other men my age are long since dead. In that respect, I am fortunate.

  But he was not so sure of that.

  He caught his reflection’s eye and there, behind his own bitter amusement, was the old haunted look, the wary yearning of a caged tiger, just longing to be let out to rip something apart.

  Not tonight.

  He finished shaving and sluiced the remnants of the soap from his neck and his ear.

  Age has not exactly withered me but it is making its presence known, he mused, dressing in a clean shirt. What have the years done to her, he wondered and not for the first time? Was her hair a bank of snow, her once proud posture bent over with the weight of being in the world for so long? Because the longer one lives, the heavier life becomes, unless you have, perhaps, the aforementioned children and their children, to lighten one’s load. Have you those children, Callie? Are you even still alive?

  A tapping at the door wrenched him from his maudlin musings. He admitted the innkeeper’s daughter, carrying a covered tray, which she placed on the table.

  “Your supper, sir,” she bobbed. He gave her a coron; her eyes widened to see it. “Bless you, sir. Most gracious, sir.”

  “Has anyone asked for me, sweetheart?”

  “Who?”

  “Anyone at all.”

  “None that I know of, sir. I shall keep my ears open, shall I?”

  “Do and there’s more corons for you. But be discreet!” he raised an admonishing finger.