A Handful of Men: The Complete Series

by Dave Duncan

  It might be worth a try, though.

  But even if she could escape from the College, it was certain that Jain and his friends could find her again before she ever discovered Leéb. She did not know where to look.

  She did not even know what he looked like.

  His memories of her might have been destroyed as utterly as her memories of him. And perhaps he did not exist at all. Leéb. Leéb? The name meant nothing except her own romantic delusion.

  The trees were wrong! She stopped, feeling a jolt of childish alarm before she could remind herself that she was safe in the care of the Keeper. The College would certainly not go to all the trouble of bringing her here and then let her be hurt.

  The Way ran on ahead along a hillside, a faint glimmer in the dark. The ground sloped down to her right and in that direction she could see dark branches waving against dark sky and a few silvery shreds of cloud. A distant ridge marked the far side of the valley, dark, also, and anonymous. To her left the forest rose steeply, scrubby grass and trunks cutting off her view. Moonlight danced through waving pines behind her. The air smelled of pine, not of the familiar woods around her cabin.

  She listened, hearing only the wind in the trees and a hint of water far below. And the beating of her heart.

  Gods preserve me!

  She had been walking far too long anyway, she realized, and this was certainly not the Way she wanted to go. It was new to her. It was not the Way to anywhere she had been taken in the College. Shivering, she tried to work it out. Could this be the Way to the Gate? Perhaps her desire to escape from the College had unconsciously led her the wrong Way, just as Mist’s romantic hopes had caused him to take her to his Place when he had not deliberately planned to. Sometimes, obviously, the Way heard the heart and not the head.

  But Mist had said you could only follow the Way to somewhere you knew already, so her chances of arriving at the Gate must be slim. Yet if she did not keep moving, she would freeze. She was wearing nothing under her cloak except a triple layer of goose bumps. Sternly repeating to herself Jain’s statement that she could be in no danger within the College, she decided to carry on and see where this Way led.

  As she limped along, weary muscles stiffening in the cold, some other, nastier, possibilities came to mind. She had gone to Mist’s Place and accepted his seed. In the ways of the pixies, she had bound herself to him for life. True, neither of them had made any promises. She had intended none and was quite certain he had not, either, but it was the acceptance that counted. By strict reckoning she was now Thaïle of the Mist Place, forever. So perhaps this Way led nowhere at all, and the Thaïle Place no longer existed. She would have to turn back and go home to that big parasitic canoeist.

  Which might be what the foul scheming Jain had intended. He had deliberately thrown her into Mist’s company. How strong was Mist’s talent? If her suspicions were correct, friend Mist inspired other people to care for him. She had cooked his supper and very nearly volunteered to clean out his filthy den. She had gone to his bed of her own free will, she had thought. Believing that she was using him for her own purposes, she might have been serving his. God of Mercy!

  Thaïle of the Mist Place? Now there was a revolting prospect!

  The valley was narrowing, and the trees thinning out. She could hear a mountain torrent below quite clearly now and discern the bare ridge across the valley — silver grass in the moonlight, with only a few stunted trees casting long shadows. The moon was near to setting and dawn was hours away.

  She must be very high, up near the timberline. She would not be at all surprised to see snow soon, and the wind felt fresh from mountain crags. Wandering unknown hills in the middle of a winter’s night? This was madness!

  She spun around and headed back, with the moon in her eyes.

  “The Thaïle Place!” she said aloud. “Take me to the Thaïle Place!” She called up a clear mental picture, and hurried.

  She would accept the Mist Place, of course, if that was to be her only choice. To climb into bed beside that big lunk and lay her icy feet against his back would be purest bliss.

  Don’t think about the Mist Place!

  Thaïle Place!

  The Way was curving more than she expected. She did not remember so many bends. She was not back into the forest yet — in fact, trees seemed to be even scarcer.

  With the valley on her left now, and the moon temporarily slid around to her right, she came to deep shadow, where the Way’s pale trace skirted a high buttress of rock. She had not seen this before!

  Nor had she crossed a bridge, and yet the Way ahead quite clearly swung away from the vertical face and crossed to the far side by a narrow stone bridge. It was old, its parapets half fallen away, and it glimmered with the same spooky pallor as the Way itself. She had most certainly not seen it, or crossed it, earlier.

  Whimpering with cold and fear, she sat down on the path and chafed her feet while she considered the prospect.

  Obviously the sorcerous Way changed all the time; it just had not changed quite so blatantly before. Also obviously, if she crossed that bridge, she would again have the valley on her right and the hill on her left. And the valley itself bent out of sight — to the left, of course — so she would then have the moon behind her again. Obviously.

  The Way was taking her somewhere, whether she wanted to go there or not. Her retreat had been cut off, and both directions led to the same place. She had two choices — go where the Way led, or stay where she was and freeze.

  She could not even be sure of the second alternative. If she shut her eyes for a minute, the landscape might start changing on its own.

  Evil take it! “Can’t fight the weather,” Gaib would say — usually under his breath when her mother was laying down the law. Here was an excellent example of weather not to be fought. Groaning with stiffness and weariness, Thaïle clambered to her feet and hobbled across the bridge.

  As she had expected, she soon found herself going the same Way as before, trudging along a hillside with the gorge to her right and the moon behind her. The wind was really whistling along the valley now, the noise of the stream much louder. She must just hope that wherever she was being taken had a roaring fire and something steaming hot to drink. And a bed. With no men in it.

  She had sinned, of course. Virtuous women did not go to strange men’s Places and seduce them; but the Gods rarely dispensed punishment so candidly. Her brother-in-law, Wide, was a libertine, but his philandering did not attract divine retribution, so far as she knew. A couple of her childhood friends had told her stories they would never have told their parents.

  Perhaps…

  Just maybe…

  Could the Gods have taken pity on her? Could it be that this so-willful Way was taking her to Leéb, whoever he was?

  She did not dare to hope for that, but she decided she had better do some praying. Not to the Keeper, though, just to the Gods. She began muttering prayers, making them up as she went along.

  The valley became a gorge, the wind buffeting at her with icy fists, trying to hurl her from the narrow path, down into the shadowed chasm on her right. On her left, the rock rose almost sheer. Moonlight glowed on racing clouds overhead, but did not penetrate this sinister cleft in the hills. She had only the spectral gleam of the Way itself to guide her.

  And then a final bend brought her to what had to be her destination. A single shaft of moonlight fell on white masonry ahead, closing off the ravine. Ragged and undoubtedly ancient, a single arch spanned both the Way and the chasm, the stonework springing out from the steep rock on either side. Once the arch had supported a gatehouse, for she could see remains of windows in the ruins above, and trees growing there. Water roared in the unseen depths, sending up a faint odor of spray.

  Old — and evil. It was gloating at her in the moonlight.

  “No!” she cried aloud. “I am not going in there!”

  She turned and fled, floundering down the path on hurting feet, repeatedly stumbling against t
he rock in her efforts not to tumble over the precipice on her left. The wind blustered at her, pushing and tugging without pattern or reason. She rounded a corner, and saw a bridge ahead, and the same gateway beyond. She staggered to a halt, whimpering. Both Ways led to the same end.

  Suddenly her perception changed and in place of a moonlit ruin she saw an idiot, leering face — the irregular, tree-covered top as hair, empty windows staring at her life eyes, and the arch itself as a gaping mouth, with the silvery Way lolling out one side like a tongue. Whatever it was, she was convinced that it was evil.

  Her limbs began shaking harder than she could ever remember. Frightened of falling from the ledge, she leaned back against the cliff.

  “No!” she screamed into the wind. “I will come no farther! I will stay here!” She heard only the roar of the falls below and the whisper of branches above.

  Stay there and freeze? If necessary, yes! What other tricks could the Way use? She glanced nervously behind her — suppose a bear appeared on the path, to drive her toward that gloating aperture? When she looked back to the bridge and the gateway beyond, she fancied they had already crept closer. Could that demonic mouth draw in the Way like a tongue, with her on it?

  Any real fright would bring sorcerers to her aid, Jain had promised. She had never felt so fearful in her life, and yet no one had come. Perhaps the sorcerers were all abed and asleep.

  The final words of the catechism: Who never sleeps?

  The Keeper.

  This was the Keeper’s doing.

  “No!” she cried again. “If you try any more tricks, I shall leap from the path!”

  She hoped she was bluffing.

  She cowered down small, hugging the cloak tight around herself, keeping her gaze firmly on that leering archway lest it creep closer while she was not watching. She would stay there and freeze! Except that the moon was setting and when dark came the gate would draw in its tongue with her on it like a crumb. In her fear, she recalled the humble prayers of her childhood, the pleas every pixie was taught: Keeper keep me in the right, Keeper keep me through the night…

  Something moved in the corner of her eye. She looked around sharply. A patch of moonlight and shadow? She peered harder, striving to make out the dark shape in the darker. It wore a cloak that hung motionless to the ground, as if the wind did not know it was there. It seemed to peer at her, but the face was hidden in the utter blackness of its hood.

  Thaïle sprang to her feet. The apparition drifted closer like smoke. It was taller than she was.

  “Child?” The rustly whisper was dry as wind on dead grass. “What are you doing here?”

  “Nothing, er — my lady.” She thought it was female. Her Feeling could detect no one there, though. Her teeth chattered frantically and her whole inside had turned to ice. What had she summoned? The Keeper Herself? Or a wraith?

  “Thaïle?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Ah!” The apparition sounded surprised. “Why did you come here?”

  “I didn’t want to! The Way brought me! I was trying to go home.”

  Thaïle heard a faint sniff, as if of surprise.

  “But why here? Had you been shown this place?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “’Tis strange.” The cowl moved as if the apparition shook its head, but still the wind did not ruffle it. “The time is not right. The Defile is dangerous enough when the moon is full, especially to those whose Faculty is strong. At the quarter it would… Who told you of it?”

  “N-n-no one, ma’am.”

  “Strange indeed. But we must save you from freezing, mustn’t we? Or you will never meet your destiny. The mistress of novices will be most upset to hear that one of her charges has been wandering the night.” A hint of a chuckle seemed to confirm that the invisible presence inside the cloak was at least partly human. “To which bed shall I send you?”

  Thaïle shouted “Leéb’s!” before she had time to think.

  The apparition did not reply for a dozen heartbeats. Then she sighed, and the dead-leaves voice became fainter than ever. “Child, child! How did you… ? Oh, I see. Incredible strength! I could not have, at your age… But you must bear the sorrow. I would not let them use a greater oblivion on you, and it would have done no good anyway. If I apply all the power your mind could endure, I fear you will still shake it off in time. Best to suffer the loss now, while you are young. Close your eyes, child, and I —”

  “Where is Leéb? Who is Leéb?”

  The cowled dark surged closer and Thaïle shrank back hard against the rock. The voice came more quietly yet, crackling like thin ice on a winter puddle. “He is a young man, of course. You fell in love, Thaïle, tragic error! For you, there can be no love, not ever. It would destroy you, and it would destroy him. Will you believe that?”

  “No I won’t!”

  “It is true, nonetheless. In time you will understand. Romp in men’s beds if you want. If a man attracts you, enjoy him, as you did that boy tonight — you will not lose your heart to him. But do not love. Never love. Do you want Mist’s comfort again now?”

  “No!”

  “Then close your eyes and I will return you to the Thaïle Place.”

  Come by moonlight:

  Look for me by moonlight;

  Watch for me by moonlight;

  I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though hell

  should bar the way!

  Alfred Noyes, The Highwayman

  EIGHT

  A new face

  1

  The sun had not yet arrived in Krasnegar, and when it did, it would not linger long.

  Nevertheless, in a cozy little kitchen in a modest dwelling near the docks. Captain Efflio had just completed breakfast. His landlady, Mistress Sparro, was plying him with innumerable “last” cups of tea, plus even more numerous questions about the queen’s council and the business of today’s meeting. Efflio declined the tea, being already awash in it. He was answering the queries as well as he could without betraying confidences, and he knew she would just invent the rest anyway. Having a member of the queen’s council as lodger had given Mistress Sparro an enormous boost in status on the gossip circuit. She would be off to visit with her friends as soon as he was out the door.

  Half a year had passed since he had settled in Krasnegar. His first choice of lodgings had not been a success, but he had since found a worthy anchorage with Mistress Sparro. She was a widow in her forties, a typical imp, dark and dumpy, although she had two huge jotunnish daughters, both married. Such mismatches were not uncommon in Krasnegar. Her cooking was excellent. There was nothing significantly wrong with her figure. She had already dropped hints that a proposal to make their cohabitation permanent and intimate would not be declined. He was thinking about that quite seriously.

  If Efflio had regrets about Sea Beauty, it was only that he had not sold the old hulk years earlier. Life on the beach had turned out to be much more tolerable than he had expected. Krasnegar was a quiet and friendly haven, and secure. After a lifetime at sea, he did not find it small. He had made friends, found interests, and was loaning out his surplus savings at very attractive rates. Any time he needed a little excitement, he could always drop in on one of the jotunn saloons and watch the fights. True, the climate was unspeakable, but a sailor found nothing untoward at wearing fur boots while eating breakfast, as now. He had learned to do without the sun, and already it had started its return, anyway.

  And he was a member of the queen’s council. That was both an honor and an interest — imps and jotnar together could never be dull, as he knew from his life afloat. Only once had he watched the king chair a meeting. The queen did very well in his absence. Before Efflio came to Krasnegar he would not have believed for an instant that any collection of male jotnar would ever allow a woman to call it to order.

  He was quite looking forward to today’s meeting, therefore, but he was not looking forward to getting there. With his weak lungs, he could not walk up the hill. In the
summer he had traveled by coach. When winter plugged the road with snow, he had resigned himself to missing the meetings. The queen had not. The queen of Krasnegar was not easily balked.

  Mistress Sparro lifted the kettle from the hob and topped up her best pink china teapot without dropping a stitch in her cross-examination. Abandoning the subject of the recent rise in prices, she tacked back to the matter of the king’s disappearance and what the council knew of it. All the imps in the kingdom were going crazy with curiosity on that subject. So was Efflio, and he knew no more than Mistress Sparro did, but of course he could not admit that.

  “Matter of state, ma’am,” he said for the hundredth time. “Can’t discuss it.”

  There was a knock on the door.

  To be precise, something drummed deafeningly on the door, slamming it to and fro on its hinges, almost ripping the latch from the wall, and creating enough noise to be heard in Nordland. Before either Efflio or Mistress Sparro could rise, the door surrendered and flew open. Two youths burst in, making the kitchen seem very crowded. There was something about young male jotnar that could make anywhere seem crowded.

  Efflio stayed in his chair. He would still have to crane his neck if he rose, for they were both an arm’s length taller than he was. They looked very broad and bulky in their winter fur and wool. They both sported uncertain mustaches, one silver and one almost reddish. Red professed to have a beard also, but it was the sort of beard that needed a good light.

  “This the baggage for the palace?” Silver boomed, jabbing Efflio with a finger like a belaying pin.

  “Come on, Granpop!” the other said, equally loudly. “Can you walk as far as the door?”

  Mistress Sparro slammed down her kettle. “Captain Efflio is a member of the queen’s council!” she snapped.

  “He’s baggage to us,” Red said. “Salted herring or fat old men, it’s all the same.”

  “Listen!” Silver cupped a large horny hand to his ear. “Can you hear a pussy cat somewhere? Charge extra for livestock.”