Why had he asked to be trailbreaker? Out of cockiness? A desire to lead, and not always follow in his master’s steps?
In Lanse’s face, though, Carin had seen more dread than pride. What, suddenly, was her nemesis afraid of?
The crack widened, then opened to the high-walled canyon they had traveled for days. Snow made deep drifts among the trees, but the wind had scoured clean the nearly dry streambed down the middle of the canyon. Remounted, they followed the frozen channel through a hushed world. Loud in the silence were the sounds of their passage, reverberating off the canyon walls.
Carin, lagging behind as usual but closer than yesterday, glanced nervously on all sides, instinctively hunting the phantom riders who seemed to travel with them but who existed only in the echoes. In front of her, Verek was also on his guard, but not for echoes. He scanned the canyon rim above them as though wary of attack from that quarter.
If anyone was up there, they stayed quiet. So did the weather. For four more days, Verek’s party followed the streambed, through afternoons sharp but sunny and nights stingingly cold but dry. Midmorning of the following day, the wizard—now in the lead again—brought his little company out of the canyon.
The gorge had opened to a wide valley where flocks of sheep and goats grazed winter grasses. The blades showed green under a powdering of snow. At the valley’s northern reach, a band of antlered beasts, stocky and short-legged, cropped the lower flanks of the mountains that rose above them as steep as temple pinnacles.
Trosdan deer. Carin recognized them from a drawing in a book she had pored over in Verek’s library. She almost squealed with surprise to see Trosdan deer with her own eyes. They actually existed. Most people who lived in the south of Ladrehdin, far from these mountains, scoffed at any mention of the animals. Purple-antlered Trosdans were supposed to be only fairy-tale beasts.
Verek turned aside from the beaten path that split the valley down its center. He headed for the northern reach where the deer grazed. But rather than approach directly, the wizard and his followers hugged the base of a wooded slope. They kept covered within a fringe of trees that straggled out from the foothills.
Through the trees, a walled town appeared, well down the valley. The track that Verek had abandoned led to the town’s eastern gate. Round towers, chimney stacks, and temple spires rose above the high, defensive wall.
Carin’s gaze roved from the Trosdans on the slopes ahead, back to the town that Verek was so resolutely leading them away from. She looked long at the town, and pictured hot baths, soft beds, and good food.
Drisha’s teeth! she swore silently. Couldn’t we stop at an inn first, warlock? She aimed the thought ahead, hoping to sway Verek with it. Can’t we hunt the deer tomorrow? Folklore held that rubbing the velvety antler of a wild Trosdan brought good luck. Carin needed the luck. But she also needed a bath.
The deer saw them coming long before Verek’s party reached the valley’s northern tip. They didn’t take fright, however. The Trosdans merely stared at the riders, their stubby tails twitching and their interest short-lived. They soon returned to cropping the grass at their feet.
As the riders neared the deer herd, streaks of color on the animals’ necks and shoulders became recognizably halters and light harnesses. The beasts didn’t spook because they weren’t wild, Carin realized. She felt a little disappointed to know that some herdsman claimed the fairy-tale creatures. The deer looked to be tamer than the goats and sheep down in the valley.
The riders rounded a slope that jutted its foot out far enough to break the valley’s contours. Beyond it was a hidden glen, slicing into the mountains that rose above. Pines and balsams shaded the glen and overlooked a scattering of oak, ash, and birch.
A largish cabin of unpeeled logs and roughhewn stones nestled among the trees. The cabin had four rubbly chimneys, one at each corner. The smoke that rose from all went straight up, scarcely wavering in the cold, still noontime. Behind the cabin stood a three-sided, slope-roofed shed, long enough to house all the Trosdan deer that grazed the flanks of the mountains—
“With room for you too, girl,” Carin whispered, leaning over Emrys’ neck to breathe the observation in private.
The mare’s ear flicked back, then forward again. Emrys clearly shared her rider’s interest in the structures. Since Deroucey, they had been nearly a month on the trail with no sign of a house or hostelry, and no cover for the horses but the blankets and saddles the weary beasts wore.
As Emrys bobbed her head and gave a soft, hopeful snort, Carin patted the mare’s neck and leaned forward to whisper again.
“I bet this is why your master led us away from the town in the valley—he knew about this place. I hope we get to stay here tonight. It’s a pretty little glen.”
She straightened and looked at the peaks which rose, pitiless, above them. And she let herself hope for even more: maybe this was journey’s end. Maybe they’d stop here at the foot of these mountains. They might spend the winter here, and Verek might abandon any thought of pushing higher up the slopes.
Carin felt increasingly optimistic as a figure came barreling out through the cabin doorway. He looked every inch the sort who would put travelers up for the winter. A smile wider than any that Carin had seen on a face since Myra’s lit up the countenance of the round little man who rolled down his front steps toward them.
Verek dismounted and all but ran to meet the fellow. The two hugged each other like bears. Carin gaped at the unabashed show of affection. The wizard she knew was too aloof for such a display.
With great interest, she studied the fellow who greeted Lord Verek of Ruain like a long-lost cousin—or, possibly, as uncle and nephew. The man appeared to be considerably older than Verek. His salt-and-pepper hair, which was caught at the nape of his neck in a ponytail, fell down his back. His face was a curious mixture of doughy jowls, windburned cheeks, and rheumy eyes. Carin pictured him indoors, eating too much and straining his eyesight in dim candle-glow. She could also imagine him up on the slopes with his deer, reckless of the cold, daring bitter winds to do their worst. But his smile—the grin that welcomed Verek and gave Carin hope—was his most conspicuous feature.
Second most, Carin amended. Her gaze left the man’s face to study the brown habit that swathed his rounded shapelessness. The robes were a monk’s. Was it possible? Could this fat, happy elder be a man of Drisha the Divine? And could a Drishannic monk be a friend to the sorcerer Verek?
The wizard seemed to wonder as much. He stepped back from the little man who had greeted him so warmly. With his head atilt, Verek looked the monk up and down.
“What’s this, Master Welwyn? When did you take the cloth? Last I knew, you were as much a reprobate as any—wickeder than some.”
The one called Welwyn scratched his head and grinned.
“Times have changed, son. And don’t you know it? The day is past when a funny old wysard can live in his cabin in the woods, reading his books and working his magic. People talk. And don’t they say the craziest things? Stories were flying ’bout the evil sorcerer in the glen.” He chuckled. “So I hied me down to the monastery at Cardan, took vows, and studied with ’em a couple of years.”
Verek snorted. “They must have been hard up for candidates, to let you into the order.”
Welwyn laughed. “They let me in but they didn’t cloister me, not when I confessed a hankering for the contemplative life—knowing of this tumbledown cabin in the mountains that’d make a fine hermitage.” He waved a hand toward the structure behind him. “When I begged leave to come home, they let me go—with their blessings, don’t you know. Seems I asked too many questions ’bout Drisha’s teachings.” Welwyn chuckled again.
“Unwilling, were you, to take every word on faith?” Verek asked drily.
“Just keen on the details,” Welwyn replied, grinning. “But while I was away,” the monk added in his rich, resonant voice, “folks forgot about that wicked sorcerer. Now they call me the Merry Monk of the Dale an
d leave me to my books. And don’t I have a fine set? Got home with twenty temple scrolls and a fair copy of Drisha’s Twelve. Between those and all my old books of magic, I’ll not be wanting for reading.
“But am I tying myself to the stake, spilling the beans to these two youngsters?” Welwyn interrupted himself. He looked from Lanse to Carin. At the monk’s mention of “Drisha’s Twelve,” Carin’s fingers—intact and aiming to stay that way—had gripped the reins so tightly that Emrys backed a step, drawing Welwyn’s attention to the riders who still sat their horses.
“Your secret is safe, you old dissembler,” Verek said. He motioned for Lanse to dismount and join them.
Carin, too, dropped from the saddle. She held back, though, several steps from where the wizard was presenting his groom.
“This, Master Welwyn, is Lanse,” Verek said. “He came to my service as a boy of a scant eight years, his parents dead by wildfire. He has become, in the decade since, a most knowledgeable horseman, an archer of rare skill … and as valued of me as my own right hand.”
That’s high praise, Carin thought, and pursed her lips. But warlock, I doubt that you really value your horseboy as much as you treasure the hand that invokes your wizardry.
“You’re welcome here, my boy,” Welwyn rang out. “The champion who undertakes a perilous journey must have a strong second at his side—and someone to do the cooking, don’t you know!” The monk laughed heartily and clapped the pair on their shoulders.
Then without waiting for Verek to call his “footboy” forward, Welwyn turned to Carin.
“And who is this stripling, wearing his own weight in wool as green as his big eyes?”
Verek cleared his throat—nervously? Carin shot him a look. Certainly there was reluctance, if not actual apprehension, written all over her captor.
She looked back at Welwyn and walked to meet him.
“This is … ” Verek began the introduction, then hesitated.
Drisha’s knuckles! Carin mentally cursed the wizard. Can’t you bring yourself to say my name? Or don’t you remember it! Quite possibly, he did not. Never in their ten weeks together had the warlock called Carin by name.
Welwyn’s gaze was on her. His beefy hand with its thick, strong fingers reached for the hood of Carin’s cloak and threw it back. He brushed her hair off her face. Then he gently pinched her chin, and peered at her with his watery brown eyes. Their look was kind but piercingly direct.
He picked up where Verek had left off:
“This is … no more a boy than I am a saint. From what I know of women—and don’t you suppose there’s some would say I know far too much of the gentle sex?—I will wager the farm and all the stock that this small mite of womanhood is a lass neither girl nor grown, who’ll thank me to show her to suitable quarters and a bath. And that I’ll do, don’t you know, quick as a knotless thread slips away, when I’ve made her ladyship’s acquaintance.”
“I’m Carin,” she said in a voice that was clear and firm enough to reach the deer on the slopes above. “I’m happy to meet you, Master Welwyn. Your offer is the best I’ve had in I-don’t-know-when. I’d love to wash up and change my clothes—if Lord Verek will allow me the time.” Carin cut the warlock a glance through narrowed eyes.
Verek nodded, curtly. “Get your baggage off your horse and stable the beast,” he ordered. “When you have seen to the mare, then you may partake of the hospitality that Master Welwyn offers.”
Carin looked back at the monk and gave him one of her rare smiles. But before she could excuse herself to return to Emrys, Welwyn had spat on his finger and was rubbing moistly at an encrusted cut on Carin’s forehead.
“How did you get this wound, Lady Carin?” the monk asked in a voice that was too low to reach any ears but hers. Welwyn inspected the dried blood that came off on his fingertip. He wiped it on his robe, then licked his finger and again dabbed at Carin’s brow.
She tried not to flinch from his slobbery ministrations. “I fell off my horse,” she said in a voice louder than Welwyn’s; better that Verek knew what they were talking about. “Or Emrys threw me. I don’t really remember. An ice storm caught us, I was freezing, and I guess I passed out. Anyway, I got cut up. Lord Verek moved me in out of the cold and gave me hyweldda for my head.”
The monk nodded, a look of satisfied relief on his face.
“Good,” he said. “Don’t you know, it looks just like the kind of cut a riding whip could make.”
“A horsewhip?” Carin spoke out for the wizard to hear. “No, Master Welwyn, it’s nothing like that. Lord Verek doesn’t carry a riding crop. He would never whip … a horse.”
“And don’t you know I’m pleased to hear it, Theil Verek,” Welwyn rumbled. He turned to the wizard. “Now I’ll make bold to invite you into my humble home, and your groom and this winsome young apprentice may join us—”
The monk got no chance to finish. Verek and Carin began their protests together:
“She is—”
“I am—”
And ended together: “—no apprentice!”
Welwyn looked from one to the other, his brown eyes wide. Then he laughed … and he laughed, till his round belly shook and he needed both hands to hold it, as though it might jiggle off his frame and go rolling down the valley.
When at last his mirth had spent itself, the monk wiped the tears from his eyes. Then he put one hand on Carin’s shoulder and the other on Verek’s.
“And don’t you know I’m delighted to hear how firmly in agreement are the two of you upon that point!” he said, and grinned like an imp. “I beg leave to amend the invitation. See to your horses, get your gear, and come into the house, all of you—be you lord or lady, lad or lass, master or novice. Fair weather find us! Our boots could freeze to the ground as we stand here sorting the ‘who’ from the ‘what’ and the ‘is’ from the ‘isn’t’!”
Welwyn ushered his noble guest into the cabin. Lanse led the wizard’s Brogar, his gelding, and their packhorse to the shed; Carin followed with Emrys. His master’s words of praise had evidently heartened the boy: Lanse wasn’t playing the weak sister around Carin, as he had been for the past five days. Even so, he stabled the three horses in his charge so that Carin could slip the mare in nowhere but at the end of the line. While Lanse unsaddled Brogar, groomed and fed the animal, she was three stalls away tending Emrys.
“What’s wrong with that idiot?” Carin whispered to the mare. She slipped the bridle off. “Ever since the blizzard, he’s been keen to have me nowhere near him. Not that I mind, but he’s got me wondering … What happened that night when I was knocked out?”
The mare could shed no light. She didn’t lift her head from the oats she munched.
Carin mulled it over while she groomed Emrys with a wisp of straw. She left a more thorough rubdown to Lanse. He always repeated her attentions to the mare anyway, as though to annul them. Shouldering her bags, Carin headed for the cabin.
As she rounded its front corner, a snatch of conversation drifted out to her. She paused, listening, her eyes on a window that was open a crack to the cold but sunny day. Through the crack came Welwyn’s voice, his every word distinct.
“So it’s a water spell that my lady’s using, eh? Don’t you know it would be! And that slip of a girl came here riding the crest of it. Charms and chancels! There’s tough mettle beneath her tender years. But is there naught to be done, Theil, short of proceeding down this path that you’ve chosen? Could you not do the deed from the depths of Ruain and save yourself the … ahem … unpleasantness of an encounter?”
“I tried that,” Verek snapped. His voice was as curt as the monk’s was mild. “Fixing the girl to the task is like herding hielts. She’s off in all directions at once—most of them wrong. Or else, she stands rooted to the spot, daring me to move her. One bridge only did she deign to dismantle while I held her head above water at both ends of it. And before that night was over, her willfulness nearly got us both drowned. There was no prevailing upon
the girl to make the second attempt. But what little was accomplished before we left Ruain persuaded me of this: what must be done shall not be done from afar. Nor can it be carried through at leisure. Each day that dawns brings with it a fresh chance of disaster.”
“Are you so sure of the peril?” Welwyn asked, gently. “Mayhap, you have already done all that is needful in this matter.”
“No.” Verek’s reply was a firm, flat assertion. “Had the girl done the whole of my bidding in Ruain—and not merely acquiesced in such small measure as it pleased her to do—the danger would not, even then, be entirely removed. The few keys which have fallen into my hands—and the girl’s—close off only the side paths, not the center span.”
Welwyn’s chuckle sounded out of place amid the doomsaying.
“‘The girl’ this and ‘the girl’ that!” he exclaimed. “Since she’s much in your thoughts, perhaps I may have leave to say what strikes me most rousingly about this business, with ‘the girl’ rising from a millpond. It seems to me that you’ve netted a water-sylph. And don’t you know what the legends say about them? It’s the wisest catch you might have made—or the most foolhardy. She’ll be a mistress true and loving, so long as you never forget who she is. But give her less than her due and she’ll be gone, back to where she came from—and taking a big chunk of your soul with her. They say the sylphids always leave their land-bound lovers in the end. So take care, son. She’s a prize, don’t you know, but a hard one to hold.”
Verek snorted. Carin nearly dropped her bags on the monk’s front porch. She arrested their fall barely in time, and eased them down to the broad steps. Then she seated herself as quietly, with her head just below the window that was yielding such grand absurdities.
“A prize, Master Welwyn?” Verek retorted. “Be nigh on three months in her company and give me then your opinion. The girl outdoes a jennet for stubbornness; for pride, a princess. And there is no bone in her body that does not harbor suspicion. She believes the worst of me that her imagination can conjure up. And, mistrustful to the core, she’ll tell me anything but the truth. A rare breed she is, I grant you, but too fiery to be a water-sylph.” He sniffed. “I think, old worthy, that you’ve read too many hero tales. You have become in your graying years, not only wysard and monk, but a giddy romantic. As abundant as the stars are the objections to such a union as you propose.”
The Wysard (Waterspell 2) Page 15
