Stillbright

by Daniel M Ford

  “It is the way of things. I must wait for the name I am given, even if it is given by a clumsy fool.”

  “You do not like your master, then?”

  There was no answer, and once again, Allystaire was alone in the darkness.

  * * *

  If he dreamed, the agony he awoke to washed it away. The sorcerer was standing near him once more, illuminating a tiny circle of the room with the ugly red light that leaked from his fingers, that had once again formed a web of threads around Allystaire’s body, from which tendrils dipped into his skin.

  His breath was too quickly stolen from him for any kind of a scream, and his lungs began to burn before the web of energy grew quiet; it still hovered over him, but no longer flashed into his skin. The breath he drew was less a deep inhalation than a ragged, inward moan.

  “No bravado for that, ah?” The sorcerer chuckled, while Allystaire simply sought to regain control of his breathing. “This must be getting wearying for you.”

  “I just lie here,” Allystaire croaked. “You are the one expending all the effort.”

  “There is truth in that,” the sorcerer admitted. “And I am no closer to discovering the source of your power. I find no evidence of thaumaturgy, sorcery, witchery, or possession. I run short of ideas to test.”

  At that, Allystaire laughed, though it was a dry, dusty chuckle. “You could simply have asked.”

  “And why would I expect that you would answer, or answer truthfully?”

  “Well, you are right that I might not answer. Yet if I did, it would be the truth.”

  The sorcerer came closer, lifting his head to peer at Allystaire, who saw tiny lines and motes of red flickering where Bhimanzir’s eyes must be, under his cowl.

  “Well then. I have witnessed, or have reports I have no reason to doubt, attributing powers to you. Unnatural strength, mostly, though some speak of healing and others of being compelled to speak when they would have been silent. Where do these powers come from?”

  Allystaire smiled very faintly. “A Goddess.”

  There was silence for a moment, then a small sound of indignation from the sorcerer. “And you expect me to believe that?”

  “Your belief is irrelevant to me,” Allystaire replied. “I have seen Her, been touched by Her, been called by Her. I know it as I know how to breathe or to sleep. I know that it is a part of me that no amount of pain can make me deny. So go on not believing. When I am given the chance to prove it to you, that will be enough for me.”

  “Whether gods, as you mean the word, exist, is something hotly debated among my order. There are those who insist that they do but are at best indifferent, at worst openly hostile to this world. There are others who suggest that they are merely the spirit or the residual energy of the most powerful practitioners of our or some other discipline. I find myself incredulous of the former and inspired by the latter.”

  “You talk too much.”

  “Suppose that a benevolent god did exist,” the sorcerer went on, as though Allystaire hadn’t spoken. “Why would any being of unimaginable power choose, as its agent, a disgraced minor warlord from this pathetic, fractured hinterland? You tried, briefly, to walk in the world of power. Believe me when I say that power—real power, the kind that moves the world—does not come clad in steel. It has no need of swords, or hammers.”

  The sorcerer stepped closer, raised a hand, and let go a shockwave of red power that smacked Allystaire in the face like a blow from a club. His head jerked back against the wooden frame he was bound to, and he gingerly pressed his tongue to his teeth, expecting to find them cracked and broken, and felt mild relief when he realized they were not.

  “In short, Allystaire Coldbourne, real power has no need of you.”

  Bhimanzir let that statement sink in for a moment, then spoke again. “This conversation has, I believe, illuminated a possibility I had not considered. If a spirit is controlling you, but hiding that very fact within you…yes. But how to unlock it? Or how to turn it…” The sorcerer suddenly hurried out of the room.

  In the darkness again, Allystaire let himself wonder, for a moment, what truth might be in the sorcerer’s words. But the thought lasted only a moment, just long enough for the memory of the Goddess’s voice, of Her hand upon his head, of the sound of Her tears at the farmhouse, and his doubt was replaced with a flash of anger and a deep pang of shame.

  Chapter 4

  A Distraction is Arranged

  Idgen Marte waited on the quay impatiently. She wanted to wrap herself in darkness, disappear into the shadow. Standing there in plain darkness made her feel exposed. She had a feeling Tibult might not take it well if she disappeared on him. He was getting edgy as it was, grimacing and trying to find a comfortable position for his leg. More than once she started to scold him, only to stop herself short.

  Patience, Idgen Marte, patience, she thought to herself. You’ve never had a wound like that. One hand strayed to her throat.

  Finally, after an interminable wait, she heard the click of oars in muffled locks and a boat glided into view. Nothing fancy, a simple tar-smeared fisherman’s rowboat, with Torvul a dim, round shape at the stern. He tossed a rope without a word and she caught it with a graceful shift of her wrist, pulled the boat alongside the quay, and tied it neatly on a cleat.

  Torvul hauled himself up onto the quay with surprising speed, and even in the darkness she could feel his gaze slide questioningly towards Tibult.

  “Thought Allystaire was the one more like t’collect hangers-on,” he muttered.

  “Tibult, meet my friend Torvul. Torvul, Tibult,” she said, moving briskly past the dwarf’s disapproval. “Man’s hungry, dwarf,” she added quietly.

  “What’s that got to do with me?”

  “It’s got to do with whatever food you’re carrying,” Idgen Marte said.

  “What makes you think…”

  Idgen Marte sighed and stepped closer to Torvul, lowering her head towards his. “Dwarf, take a closer look at the man and produce some biscuit or some dried meat, for the Goddess’s sake.”

  Torvul stepped closer to Tibult, reaching for a large pouch on the side of his belt, drawing from it a cloth wrapped bundle that proved to be a thick wedge of cheese so white it was almost luminous in the dark.

  “Some of the best your city has to offer,” Torvul said, holding it out to the man. “Fresh goat’s milk packed in honey,” he said. “I’ve often thought that the finest part of living on the world above is the abundance of cheese. Go on.”

  “Why’re ya doin’ this? What’ll ya want?” Tibult reached out and took the proffered cheese but held it cautiously.

  “I told you. Nothing more than a word or two dropped in the right tavern. And gold in your palm for the trouble,” Idgen Marte calmly replied.

  “How’m I gonna make it to the right tavern,” Tibult said, around a mouthful of expensive cheese. “My crutch is on the bottom o’ the bay. I can barely walk.”

  “Might be I can do somethin’ about that,” Torvul said. “Nothin’ permanent, mind. But I can ease the pain for a bit, make walkin’ easier.” The dwarf patted the pouches on his chest, fingering them as if he could divine the contents with the touch of a hand. He slipped one bottle out and held it towards the veteran.

  “I’ve had enough o’ freezin’ potions and their peddlers,” Tibult said with a snarl, one hand curling into a fist.

  “You haven’t had any like mine.”

  “That’s what the last one said, after I saved up for months, hidin’ links and starvin’ myself—”

  “The last one? You bought from a dwarfish alchemist? There is one in the city?”

  “Dwarfish? No.”

  Torvul’s voice went a little cold. “Then you bought from a false alchemist. This art has belonged to my people and mine only, and if there are a dozen with command of it left in the world I wou
ld count myself surprised. Now listen to me,” Torvul said, stepping forward and pressing the potion bottle into the man’s free hand. “This will ease your pain. It will make it easier to walk. It won’t cure your wound and it won’t make you forget that you’ve got it. Each spoonful will let you walk across this city with no more pain than most men your age. And it’s yours to keep, no matter what you do or don’t do for my associate. For this,” the dwarf said, with a certain sober formality, “the product of my craft, I ask for nothing. I will accept nothing. It is freely given.”

  Torvul stepped back from Tibult, leaving the potion bottle snugly in the man’s hand. The veteran stared at it for a moment, then tucked it away in his rags.

  “Not like anyone in this city to give somethin’ of real value away for free. Man’s got to be short a leg or an eye to end a day w’ a bowl full o’ lead bobs and copper halves,” Tibult muttered.

  “Well there’s not anyone else like us in this city, Tibult,” Idgen Marte said, drawing a string of links from a purse with one finger. “Less the friend of ours we need to help.”

  “Eh? And where’s he?”

  Idgen Marte pointed across the water at the hulking shadow of the Dunes. “In there. And not like to come out again unless we go and fetch him.”

  “You’re mad,” Tibult said. “And just what am I to say, what words do I drop in anyone’s ear, that’s gonna make any difference in a madwoman and a dwarf stormin’ the walls of the tightest keep in the baronies?”

  Idgen Marte smiled. “It’s not about helping us get in,” she said. “It’s about helping us make it clear of the wall. The city wall.”

  Chapter 5

  A Rescue is Mounted

  “Dwarfs were a sea-faring people once, you know,” Torvul said, as he and Idgen Marte drifted along in their borrowed rowboat in Londray’s harbor, the gloomy hulk of the outer sea-facing wall of the Dunes looming above them and casting shadows on the swells that lapped against the boat. “I think I feel it still in my blood as I make the oars sing.”

  “You’re gonna feel it in your boots if you don’t shut up, dwarf,” Idgen Marte said. “And if the oars sing, we’re done for, so keep rowing only when we stop drifting.”

  Torvul grumbled quietly and readjusted his grip on the oars. Idgen Marte crouched at the stern, bow in hand, sword shifted so that it rested against the small of her back, the hilt projecting out past her hip. The oarlocks were muffled with cloth, for all the good it did. She still thought they were far too loud.

  “We didn’t have to leave a gold link for the fisherman, you know,” Torvul replied. “I’m sure it’s worth no more than two silver.” He gave the oars a quick and efficient pull, and the rowboat glided forward several more yards.

  “Why did I even bring you along?”

  “You can’t row and carry the walls single-handedly at the same time, I suppose,” Torvul murmured. “And besides, I have an idea or three.”

  That’s more than I’ve got, Idgen Marte thought, but she shoved that thought down. There’s a problem. I’m reacting. I’m going to get him out. No thinking needed.

  “You sure our new friend will do what you asked?”

  “Sure as I can be,” Idgen Marte whispered back, with a shrug. “He won’t throw himself off the next quay, I don’t think.”

  “He does it, there’s chaos. Maybe the city burns.”

  “It won’t. Not where their anger’ll go.”

  The wall was drifting closer. Torches were faintly visible along its top as guards went on their rounds, but either Idgen Marte’s prayers for shadow were answered or the single rowboat simply wasn’t visible from that height. “One more pull,” she whispered, the dwarf obliged, and suddenly the boat was within the shadow of the walls. It struck the wall, stopped with a force that shivered its side, and, she was sure, was audible to the entire keep.

  They’d sailed right into a portcullis set low along the harborside wall—a possible sally port, or a place for emergency supplies to enter in a time of siege, Idgen Marte reasoned.

  “This, also, is why you brought me,” Torvul replied. “Grab a hold and make the boat fast.”

  Idgen Marte leaned forward and found a cold iron bar, wrapped her free hand around it as Torvul rummaged among his many pouches. By the time he spoke again, she’d taken a spool of rope that was fastened to a cleat on the boat and tied a mooring hitch around the bar.

  “Now,” he said, “take this skin. It’s uncorked. Do not squeeze it. I can’t emphasize that point enough. Do not squeeze.”

  “Why?”

  Torvul sighed, even as he carefully leaned forward to hand her the skin. “Always with questions. Just do it.”

  Idgen Marte took it, a small leathern bag that sat heavily in one hand, but wasn’t terribly large. “Now,” Torvul said, “this fleece. Pour some of the liquid onto it, then rub it across the bars, and work fast.”

  She reached out and accepted the thick piece of lambswool he handed her. “Why?”

  “Because if it does what I expect it’ll do to the gate, you don’t want to see what it’ll do to your hand, and the fleece will only absorb it for so long.”

  “Why aren’t you doing this?”

  “Well,” Torvul said, still whispering, though his patience was clearly thin, “if you’d like to take the risk of flipping the boat as we clamber over each other in the dark, let’s. But honestly, if you just want to clamber over each other in the dark, this is hardly the—”

  “Finish that thought and die, dwarf,” she whispered, before she went to work. As instructed, she made sure the fleece covered her entire right hand, holding the skin in her left; she carefully poured out a measure of the stuff, and instantly felt her hand begin to warm. She wrapped the fleece around a bar and rubbed, then a second, third, fourth.

  The fleece began to smoke, and Torvul hissed, “Drop it. In the water. Now.”

  She did, and the ruined bit of wool hissed as it hit the water, and disintegrated on its surface.

  “I’ve another. Now we need to work fast. This might make some noise coming free, and they’ll send someone to investigate it.”

  Idgen Marte paused as she reached out for the second fleece, and suddenly voiced a thought. “Why are we bothering? It’s not like the walls can stop me.”

  “Can you take me in with you? Or Allystaire out?”

  “Ah.” With that, she repeated the process, rubbing the strange, burning liquid all over the bars the boat rested against. From behind her, Torvul suddenly hissed in alarm.

  “Stones! Cut the rope. Cut it now. Now!”

  She saw the danger as soon as he said it, and time seemed to slow as she threw the fleece overboard and reached for a dagger. Her blade bit into the rope and began to saw through it, even as the portcullis gave a sigh and slid free, as if cut in half, everywhere she had rubbed the alchemist’s strange liquid.

  The rope gave. The resulting splash tugged on the boat, and was loud, but didn’t drag them under, and Torvul gave the oars a quick tug to shove them into the channel of water flowing into the castle’s bowels.

  “Well,” Torvul said, “that went well. We’ve got a quarter of a turn, mayhap a bit more. Hurry. Take that liquid with you. Mind that you get none of it on your skin.”

  “Noted. What’ll you do?”

  “I thought I might set a few likely places on fire.”

  “We aren’t here to burn the keep to the ground.”

  “No, and I don’t mean to. Just enough to give them something to think about.” The dwarf struck something against the side of the boat, and quickly a tiny shuttered lantern flared to life in his hand. There was a ramp cut into the stonework and a small dock to tie up to, though with the amount of rope they’d lost, Idgen Marte simply hopped out, splashed along in the shallows with Torvul following, till they could tug the bow up onto the ramp itself.

  “Goddess
go with you, Idgen Marte,” Torvul said, a bit solemnly. “If you find him, and you can’t get back here, or I’m not here when you do, just go.”

  “We are all walking away tonight, Torvul.”

  “Oh, I don’t mean t’die here. No. I’ll get clear—but he has t’get out, and you know it. Promise you’ll not wait for me.”

  “Shut up, dwarf,” Idgen Marte said, filling her hand with a dagger and disappearing into the darkness surrounding them.

  “Now,” Torvul murmured to himself, “where would I be if I were Baron Delondeur’s wine cellar?” He thought a moment, pointed the tiny ray of light his lantern provided, and walked off.

  * * *

  For once, the sorcerer came bearing a light source other than his own trails of red—an expensive and large wax candle protected by an even more expensive glass lamp atop a silver tray. The sudden intrusion of that small point of brightness after so many turns in the dark caused Allystaire to recoil briefly.

  “I do hate polluting my work room with this unnecessary light, but I do not come alone,” Bhimanzir said, and Allystaire could not help but note the hint of gloating in his voice. Behind him came a short, thin boy of perhaps ten or eleven years, Allystaire thought. The light from the candle was minimal, so details were hard to make out, but the boy’s skin appeared dusky, lighter than Idgen Marte’s, but darker than most barony folk. Whatever his hair might have looked like, it had been carefully shaved. His eyes were large dark pools above cheeks still round with youth.

  And behind them came a guardsman, wearing Delondeur green, armored, with a sword hanging at his side, dragging a woman behind him. It wasn’t hard to tell she was a prisoner, wearing a ragged homespun dress that was too big for her, chains on wrist and ankle, and her eyes downcast.

  Dress probably fit her when they took her, Allystaire thought, and he felt his hands curl into stiff-fingered, aching fists.