by Dave Duncan
Much good that would do him. Krasnegar was more renowned for its banana crop than the quality of its medicine. She’d tried for years to coax some decent Imperial medics to come and settle in the kingdom, but with no success. She’d sent promising youngsters south to study, and they had never returned. Looking at the wreck of her son, she knew she could not tolerate the local incompetency in this case. Gath might be in real danger. He might be crippled; he might be dying. Fortunately she had a little sorcery available, but just how she should use it she didn’t know yet — did she take the bucket to the well, or bring the well to the bucket?
Where was that sawbones?
Then everyone arrived at once — the peat and the blankets and Doctor Gundarkan and Eva and Holi, who was walking now and into everything. Pret began stoking the hearth. Eva erupted in screams and Holi began to cry, also, not understanding. Inos sent them off with Kadie. She realized that she had started to depend on her daughter a lot just lately.
Gundarkan was a tall, rawboned jotunn. He was pompous and ignorant, but he happened to be the jotnar population’s favorite physician, so he had extensive experience with fight injuries. The impish doctors were better at treating illnesses.
“I’ll have to do a complete examination, ma’am.” He looked at her expectantly.
“Everybody out, please!” Inos said. The servants headed for the door. Then she realized that Gundarkan meant her, also. Gath was no longer a child.
She stalked out into the corridor, closing the door just as her daughter came hurrying back.
“Kadie, I want you to do something secret, all right?”
Kadie’s eyes widened at this hint of intrigue. Her romantic soul would be thrilled. “Of course, Mama!”
“Get outdoor clothes for you and me — boots, cloaks, everything — and wrap them up in a couple of thick blankets. Put them in the room above the Throne Room. Try not to let anyone see.”
“But… ?”
“No questions! And bring a set of clean clothes here for Gath.”
Kadie gave her a very odd look as she left. The Throne Room was off the Great Hall, and a long way from outdoors.
Inos went back into the parlor and stood just inside the door. Gundarkan was bending over Gath, on the couch. Gath was whimpering and mumbling protests as he was prodded and flexed. The doctor looked up with a frown, then spread a rug over his victim and straightened.
He wiped bloody fingers on a dirty rag as Inos went over.
“There’s a bad bang on the back of his head.”
“I saw that, thank you.”
He pulled a face. “He has concussion, certainly. Did you see his hands? And these?” He pulled one of Gath’s skinny arms out from below the blanket. From wrist to elbow, it was already turning yellow. “I’d say he fought a good fight, ma’am.”
“I don’t give a whistle whether he did or not! How badly is he hurt?”
Gundarkan sniffed, disapproving of her attitude. “Against a very powerful opponent, or maybe two. They may have only laid that one blow on him.” He pointed to Gath’s chin. “Then he hit his head in falling. Nothing to be ashamed of, I’d say.”
Idiot! “How badly is he hurt?”
The doctor shrugged. “Too early to say. He may just have a fractured skull.” To a jotunn, of course, scrambled brains were unimportant. “I find no other bones broken, except possibly in his hands. They’re too swollen to tell. He won’t be able to fight again for a week or two.”
It would be ironic if Gath had broken bones in his hands. After his last beating, Inos had bullied Gundarkan into diagnosing a cracked wrist and encasing Gath’s arm in a plaster cast. That, she had assumed, would stop the fighting — jotnar would attack smaller opponents without scruple, but not injured ones. The deception hadn’t worked for long. Gath had endured the cast for three days and then removed it, explaining cheerfully that his prescience had told him his hand would be all right without it.
Gundarkan picked up his black bag. “There may be internal trauma. It could be serious.”
She did not need a doctor to tell her that. “So what do we do?”
“Keep him resting and warm. Try to waken him once an hour or so. He may fade in and out quite a bit after he starts coming around. Give him plenty to drink if he wants it. I’ll look back this evening and probably bleed him to relieve the swellings.”
Inos restrained a sharp retort. Krasnegarian doctors loved to bleed their patients. Bloodletting seemed to be the only treatment they knew, and it probably kept the victims bedridden a lot longer than they would have been otherwise. She made a polite response and escorted the pompous dolt to the door.
As the latch clicked shut, a groan from the couch made her rush back.
Gath stared up at her, as if in terror, trying to rise. He mumbled, “Goblins, Mom! There’s goblins here!” Obviously he was delirious.
“Yes, dear. Don’t worry.” She pushed him down and laid gentle fingertips on his lips. “Shh! Try to rest.”
Gath sank back; his staring eyes wobbled and then closed. Soon his twitching slowed, and he seemed to go to sleep, breathing heavily.
Well, at least he had started to come around. She hoped Kadie would return soon. She wanted to make her move before everyone collected in the great hall for lunch. The council would have to complete its business without her.
* * *
Doubtless a man of fourteen years and two months would be very embarrassed to be dressed by his mother, but Gath merely mumbled vaguely, not knowing what was going on. Inos made Kadie turn her back on the performance, though.
The bucket to the well, or the well to the bucket… If she fetched a competent doctor through the magic portal from Kinvale, then the great state secret would be hopelessly compromised. Even if the doctor himself was discreet, the palace staff would wonder where he had come from. Moving Gath in his condition was a real risk, but a necessary one. Moreover, he could then be kept away from Krasnegar until Rap returned and the problem was solved.
Fortunately it was almost noon, and there was daylight.
She would have to let someone else in on the secret, and Kadie was the obvious choice, as she would have to know eventually. She was old enough to respect a confidence now, and almost as tall as her mother. Surely Gath wasn’t all that heavy… If the two of them couldn’t manage, then they would have to enlist Krath or someone; but she thought they could.
“Mama?” Kadie said, without looking around.
“Yes, dear?” Inos tugged Gath’s underwear into position, restoring decency.
“If you don’t tell me what you are doing, I shall probably scream piercingly very soon now.”
“I’m dressing your brother.”
“I know that,” her daughter said sweetly to the fireplace. “I want to know why. Is there a history of insanity in the family?”
“Probably. You can look now. I’ll need you to hold him up while I put his shirt on. Gently!”
“Mama!” Kadie’s green eyes flashed.
“I’m going to show you a secret, a big secret.”
“That’s nice.” Kadie steadied Gath.
His head lolled drunkenly. “Goblins,” he muttered.
Inos pulled a sleeve over a limp arm. “You know your father went away by sorcery. If you didn’t know, you must have guessed. Well, we’re going the same way.”
“Going where?”
“To Kinvale, dear. Hold his head, if you can…”
4
By the time Gath was dressed, Inos had had another bright idea. She marched out into the corridor in search of an accomplice, and found Pret waiting patiently outside — in case he was needed, perhaps, or so no one else would give him something to do. Sounds of many voices came drifting along from the hall, meaning that lunch had begun.
“Is the council still in session?” she demanded.
“Er… yes, ma’am.” The little footman seemed sober enough, although one could never be sure with him.
“Good. Go and sound the f
ire alarm.”
His pale jotunn eyes widened like two snowballs. “Ma’am?”
“A practice. You heard me. Go!” She had not held a fire drill all winter and this would be a very good time, with Lin and the other leaders tied up in the council, but she was not going to explain all that to Pret. “I’ll look after Gath,” she shouted as he hurried off.
She went back into the parlor and closed the door. “Let’s see if we can lift him.”
Kadie looked just as disbelieving as Pret had done. “Is this wise, Mom?”
So Inos was back to being Mom again. “No, it isn’t, but we have to do it. He hasn’t any broken bones, the doctor said.”
Gath was taller than either of them and heavier than his willowy shape would have suggested — or perhaps he just seemed so because he was so limp. He hardly seemed to notice as he was maneuvered back onto the stretcher, although his gray eyes opened. He was more delirious than unconscious, muttering anxiously about imaginary goblins. As soon as he was tucked in, he went back to sleep.
Inos raised one end of the litter, and Kadie the other, and they exchanged worried glances.
“Can you manage?”
“I think so,” Kadie said doubtfully.
The corridor was empty. In the distance Pret was beating a carillon on the fire gong and there was shouting farther away yet. “Come on!” Inos said, and they headed for the hall.
* * *
The room above the Throne Room had once been called the Presence Chamber. Now it was just a storage for unneeded furniture, and it was cold. Inos wrapped Gath up in the extra blankets. He roused again, slightly, seeming to use his eyes alternately, as if they were pointing in different directions. He mumbled, but all she could make out was, “Mustn’t!… screaming? Torturing people!”
“Yes, dear. Terrible.” Shivering, she pulled on her winter furs. “Come on, Kadie. Your father used to call you a little mule. Now you’re going to have to live up to it.”
The stairs winding up inside the walls of Inisso’s Tower were steep and narrow. Inos made her daughter go first, which left her struggling to hold the stretcher high enough to keep Gath from sliding down on top of her. She recalled tales of lionesses defending their young and the maniacal strength attributed to desperate women rescuing their children — right now she could use some of that. She reminded herself that Rap had carried her up this tower once, and she had certainly weighed more than Gath. Rap had a lot more muscle than she and Kadie did, though.
They paused for a rest in the next room, their breath coming in huge clouds of smoke, as if the castle truly were on fire.
Kadie looked very worried. Perhaps she really believed her mother had gone mad. Inos did not wait until the questions could start again.
“Next level!” she said, and bent to lift the burden once more. In the stairwell, she banged her knuckles on the wall, but she did not have enough breath to say any bad words. Dim daylight filtered through tiny snow-covered windows.
Level followed level. The rests grew longer, but if they could do one stair, they could do them all. The air seemed to become ever colder.
Once in a while Gath would stir and mutter urgently about goblins. She wondered why his delirium had fixed on them. Was it possible that he had been attacked by a gang who had painted their faces green as a disguise? If so, Oopari would only have to look behind the ears of every young imp in the kingdom.
She did not die of heart strain. Nor did Kadie. They did not drop Gath, or let him slide off the stretcher, and eventually they staggered into the room that had once been the royal bedchamber. The furniture was still there, shrouded in cobwebs.
“One more to go,” Inos gasped, as soon as she could speak. “Open the door.”
Kadie gave her mother a sick glance, looked carefully around the room, and said, “What door, Mama?”
The door was in plain view, but of course there was an aversion spell on it.
“That one.”
Kadie tried again. “Oh! I didn’t notice.” She took a step, and stopped. Another. No more. “I can’t, Mom! I just can’t!”
Inos said, “Holindarn!” but she was still too short of breath to speak above a whisper, and that whisper wasn’t loud enough, apparently. She could feel the occult revulsion stopping her also.
“Holindarn?” Kadie shouted angrily. “What’s Holi got to do with it?”
That worked. Kadie rushed over to open the secret door.
5
The final stair brought them at last to Inisso’s arcane chamber and there they again laid down the stretcher to catch their breath. Gath mumbled in his stupor.
The big room was bare, with nothing marring its circular emptiness except the angular shape of the royal treasure chest — Inos certainly did not intend to tell Kadie the secret word for that yet! Faint marks in the dust on the floor showed a path crossing from the stairs to the magic portal, but the traffic had been slight this winter. Occupied with being both a mother and a full-time queen, Inos had come up here only twice since Rap left, each time in answer to a summons from Aquiala. Whenever there was need, the duchess would come through from Kinvale and leave a piece of parchment against the eastern casement, which Inos could see from her bedroom. The first time the marker had been a note from Rap, two days after he left, and the second paper had been an invitation to the Kinvale ball, which Inos had declined. She had done so in person, and thereby enjoyed a pleasant afternoon tea party.
As she stood and puffed, recalling dramatic memories of things that had happened in this chamber, her daughter was excitedly moving from casement to casement, peering down at the Winter Ocean. The sun was vanishing into the ice fog already, the brief arctic day almost over. Krasnegar did not sport as much smoke as it usually did in cold weather, which was a reminder of the peat shortage. The fire drill was probably over by now. The council would be back in session and Inos ought to return and take charge again before it voted in a republic or something…
Kadie said, “Eeeek!” She had discovered the magic portal itself, and was peering through one of the two windows that flanked it. Straight below her, a very long way down, was the castle courtyard.
“You go first,” Inos said, still puffing.
“After you, Mama!” Kadie said politely.
“Let’s move Gath over there, and then I’ll explain.”
Kadie came to lift her end of the stretcher. Within the circle of her fur hood, her face was flushed with excitement. Inos thought of the day she first learned of this chamber — her father, and Sagorn, and Kade’s tea party… She had not been so very much older then than her daughter was now, a couple of years maybe. How time passed!
They rested their burden again right beside the door. “The secret word is the same as before,” Inos said, still puffing. “It was my father’s name, of course. But watch out for the wind.”
“I think I’ll watch for the step, mostly.” Sometimes Kadie showed signs of Rap’s dry humor.
“You’ll be in Kinvale, don’t worry.”
“Darling Mama, please don’t think I don’t trust you —”
Inos laughed. “I know it looks scary, but remember this is sorcery! When you step through that door, you’ll find yourself in a very charming little parlor, in Kinvale. It belonged to my Aunt Kade, and no one uses it now. It’s been left just as it was, as a sort of memorial to her. It’s a wonderfully cozy room, you’ll love it. Go ahead.”
Kadie nodded uncertainly.
“Watch out for the wind, though,” Inos added. “There’s always a wind. Sometimes the door will hardly move, sometimes it flies open in your face. You want me to do it?”
“Er, no.”
“Then go ahead — try it.”
Squaring her shoulders, Kadie turned to the magic portal and twisted the handle. Nothing happened, because of course there was no door there yet.
“Magic word!”
“Oh! Holindarn!” Kadie proclaimed. The door rattled and she jumped.
“Well, open it!”
Kadie heaved. With a great struggle, she managed to haul it wide, while the cold air of Krasnegar wailed through the sorcerous opening, filling the little parlor beyond with billowing clouds of fog. Propping the heavy door with a foot, she stooped to lift her end of the stretcher again. Stumbling, Inos followed her as she lurched through. The journey ended with a rush as the door closed on Inos’s back, propelling her forward. Then it slammed shut with a shuddering boom! The whole episode was over so quickly that the matching slam of the parlor door itself came a moment later.
Now that was odd! Why should the door of this unused little room have been open? The fog swirled, misting the windows, slowly clearing to reveal the comfy old chairs, the elegant little tables… Kadie screamed and dropped her end of the stretcher.
Taken off balance, Inos tripped over a footstool and sprawled to the floor. Gath rolled on top of her with a cry of protest.
“Mom!” Kadie shrilled. “A body!”
Body? Inos lifted her face off the rug and stared in horror. It was a body. It was Aquiala, duchess of Kinvale. There was blood all over her gown and the carpet around her.
Smoke! She could smell smoke. And all that noise in the distance… Obviously Aquiala had been trying to reach the magic portal…
Gath was trying to rise. “Mom!” he wailed. “I told you!”
The door to the corridor flew wide and the goblins came in to see who was slamming doors and screaming.
There was blood on their swords.
A new face:
There’s a new foot on the floor, my friend,
And a new face at the door, my friend,
A new face at the door.
Tennyson, The Death of the Old Year
NINE
Questionable shapes
1
“Funny,” Ylo said. “I hadn’t realized it was so far from Hub.”
He was sitting on a hillside, eating lunch. Shandie sprawled beside him, doing the same. Their horses grazed the dreary winter grass nearby. For once, the sun was shining almost warmly, dappling the landscape with cloud shadows. The wind had a nasty edge, but there was a vague odor of spring in it. The vast ducal palace of Rivermead sprawled below them, its paddocks, outbuildings, and ornamental gardens filling the valley floor from side to side.
