Lord of the Rose

by Doug Niles

  “How did you get up here?” the duke croaked before glancing again at the gold. With a strangled gasp he lunged forward, running his hands over the bars, insuring that it was not some cruel illusion. “Are you threatening my treasure?” he demanded.

  “Of course not!” the white wizard replied. “If you’ll remember, the magic protection I cast upon it makes it proof against theft. Even from myself. I am not interested in your gold.”

  “That spell is still in effect?”

  “It is permanent—it will outlast me, and you. Your gold cannot be stolen so long as you keep it in this room,” assured Coryn.

  “What do you want here then?”

  “I come to bargain with you.” She let her fingers trail across several smooth, gleaming bars. He resisted the urge to rush over and wipe off the smudges he was sure her touch had left.

  “Now, Lady Coryn. As always, it is a pleasure to see you, even if I would prefer that your visits take place in another, er, locale. Also, I am in the midst of pressing affairs. May I ask you to be as direct as I know you are capable of being?”

  “Of course, Excellency,” Coryn said, bowing slightly. Her black hair gleamed like satin, falling over her shoulders, framing her face and matching the indigo of her eyes. She was very beautiful, the Lord Regent reflected idly. He respected the fact that she did not use this beauty as a weapon, as so many women did. While he himself, of course, was immune to such charms, he knew they reduced many men to whimpering fools.

  Still, Coryn the White had other weapons at her disposal, and the regent resolved to remain alert. Once a useful ally during his reclamation of Palanthas, she had an increasingly annoying way of sticking her nose into matters where it didn’t belong. More than once she had insisted upon courses of action that had had serious repercussions for the regent’s profit margins. She had proven herself to be a populist at heart, and du Chagne had no fondness for populists. Bad for business, bad for maintaining law and order, bad for progress, they were troublemakers, every one of them.

  “I have been to the estate of Lord Lorimar,” she said without preamble, causing his eyes to widen. “I went to retrieve a document that should have been there—the Compact of the Free. No doubt you recall it, as you, yourself, were one of the signatories. He kept it in a strongbox with the six green diamonds.”

  “Yes, of course I recall it,” said the Lord Regent, trying to keep his tone neutral even as he felt a surge of irritation. The compact was a populist document if ever there was such a thing! “He also had that ancient banner of the three orders. We all know it was his goal to restore a united Solamnia—he would use the diamonds in the crown, and the banner of the Crown, the Rose, and the Sword would be the new royal sigil. So what about all this?”

  “The compact, the six green stones, and the pennant are all missing. That is, I could not locate them in the ruin, where they should have been, and I come to ask if you know what happened to them.”

  Du Chagne’s jaw flapped, and he stammered like a peasant before he gathered his wits and replied. “It was a parchment document, by Shinare! Why, that place burned to the ground! What makes you think it could possibly have survived?”

  “Because I know where the lord secretly kept it, and it was proofed against fire. Furthermore, he told me that only two other people knew where it was kept. One of those people was you.”

  “My dear Lady Coryn, I assure you I have no idea what you are talking about!” protested the regent. “I once saw his strongbox—knew that he wanted to make those six stones into a new crown—but it’s ridiculous to assert that I knew where it was hidden! Now, if you will excuse me, I have matters in the real world to address! Mundane things like road repairs—if you want the people of Palanthas to have anything to eat this winter! And those repairs will cost me more of this gold than I should like to part with.”

  That last statement was true.

  “No doubt,” Coryn replied. “If you insist you know nothing about the lost compact, then I shall ask the same question of your dukes. Do you think they know where it is? And the green diamonds?”

  “They’re gone, I tell you!” Du Chagne blurted.

  “Gone?” Coryn blinked, and he wondered if she was stupid—or was mocking him. “You mean, just like that?”

  She snapped her fingers, and all the gold, the more than twelve thousand bars in the treasure room, vanished. Du Chagne screamed in horror and spun around, staring in disbelief at the room that was utterly empty. There was no longer any brilliant reflection, no warmth—suddenly it felt very chilly and looked very dark in here.

  “What did you do?” shrieked the lord regent. “Where did it go?”

  “Oh, your gold is still here,” Coryn said. “I told you, it can’t be stolen.”

  “Where is it then?” he demanded, taking an angry step toward her, his fingers clenched.

  “Here,” she said, apparently unafraid.

  Du Chagne groped around, feeeling a solid mass of a block of golden bars. He fumbled, lifted one, felt the solid weight of an ingot. He hefted it but could see right through it—as if it wasn’t there!

  “I can’t see it!” he whined.

  “Neither can anybody else,” the wizard told him. “It’s invisible.”

  “I can’t trade with invisible gold!” cried the lord regent.

  “Perhaps not. Perhaps your partners will take payment on trust?”

  “Nobody takes payment in trust, as you well know!” snapped the duke. He glared at her, breathing hard, trying to gain control of himself. “What do you want?” he asked.

  “I want to find that compact and the missing strongbox. I want to know who killed Lord Lorimar,” the white wizard answered.

  “I don’t know where any of it is!” protested du Chagne. “The Assassin killed Lord Lorimar! We all know that!”

  “Perhaps your invisible gold will help you rethink these events,” Coryn said calmly.

  “How can it do that?” he demanded.

  Instead of answering, the enchantress murmured another word, a strange-sounding utterance that echoed in the air for several seconds after she disappeared.

  “My dear!” cried Lady Martha, embracing her husband, Duke Walker, as he came striding through the doors of the castle. The troops of his Ducal Guard were still filing into the courtyard, and the streets beyond rumbled from the weight of heavy wheels as the freight wagons of Walker’s personal baggage train rolled across the drawbridge and into the castle’s yard. “I did not expect to see you back so soon! Have the goblins been vanquished?”

  “Not entirely,” the duke said with a dismissive shake of his handsome head. “There were difficulties between Solanthus and Thelgaard—not too surprising—and I was unable to force them to cooperate.”

  “But Thelgaard—is he all right? I heard there was a terrible battle?”

  “He is a moron!” snapped Walker. “He lost the better part of his army and came in to my camp like a drowned rat after swimming the Upper Vingaard. If I hadn’t provided him with an escort, I doubt that he would have made it back to his keep in one piece!”

  “He went back to Thelgaard?” Martha was perplexed. “So the war is over, then?”

  “No, I keep telling you,” snapped the duke, growing more vexed. His sleep had been troubled by terrible dreams during the whole expedition “Thelgaard lost a battle. He is back in his keep with such few survivors as got away with him. I doubt they will be sallying forth any time soon. After Duke Jarrod’s men and the Crown knights were defeated, Duke Rathskell and his own force fell back to Solanthus. They are quite safe there—for you know that is the mightiest fortress anywhere on the plains.”

  “Yes, my duke. But what of the goblins—they have retired to the mountains then?” asked Martha, her pretty brow wrinkling.

  “I’m quite sure I don’t know,” said the duke. “They probably have taken Luinstat by now. I had to order the place evacuated, since Solanthus absolutely refused—refused, I tell you!—to stand before it.”
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br />   “But … that’s way over by the Garnet Mountains! Why did you bring the army back here?” the lady pressed.

  “Damn it, woman! It’s not the whole army—just my personal guard and my own wagons! The army is posted by the Kingsbridge, ready to move when need be. I have bigger problems than that! I haven’t had a good night’s sleep since I took to the field, and if this problem is going to get solved, I’ll have to get some rest! Now, have my servants draw me a bath!”

  “But … what about the goblins?” Lady Martha wasn’t the smartest duchess ever to don a tiara, but she knew that something about her lord’s grand strategy didn’t sound quite right.

  “If they create more problems, Joli knows one of those tiresome fools will let me know about it. As for now, I’m hungry as well as tired. Go tell the chefs that I would like something fresh for dinner as soon as I am done with my bath. I have been on the plains for too long—have them make something from the sea!”

  The Nightmaster stood on a high tower alongside the bulk of Castle Caergoth. His temple was far below here, but he borrowed this lookout whenever he wanted to look at the night sky. No one had ever spotted him here—at least, no one who had lived to tell of their discovery.

  From here the priest had watched the Ducal Guard return to the city, saw the knights stabling their horses, going to the houses of their wives and mistresses. This meant that Caergoth’s army was inactive, no doubt gone into bivouac somewhere on the plains.

  The cleric of Hiddukel knew that his god should be pleased with his labors. In truth, many of his plans had worked out as he desired. His goblin agent, sequestered in the dungeon below the castle, had been able to reach the mind of the Princess of Palanthas, had ensured that she would return across the plains instead of by ship. His crystal visions had revealed to the dark priest that the detour was working exactly as he and his master wished. The auguries were right—indeed, she had stumbled upon the Assassin!

  If only the Assassin had been killed. Instead, the fugitive was captured! The dark priest felt a shiver creep along his spine, for this was not what his immortal master desired. The Prince of Lies needed his most dramatic deceit to remain undiscovered, and that required that the man called the Assassin must die.

  That interfering bitch of a princess had seen to it that the man would live, for several more weeks at least. Each passing day was too long.

  It was necessary to prod events along, which he could do with the whisper of a dream that would carry through the evening’s dusk.…

  The Lord Regent’s palace was dark, save for the torches at the front doors and the lanterns carried by the watchmen who patrolled the outer wall and the upper parapets. Bakkard Du Chagne looked out from the lonely bedroom on the upper floor—his wife had long ago been banished to her own chamber on the far end of the royal wing—watching not the lights but the darkness. It was near morning, but he had been unable to sleep since a terrifying dream had roused him before midnight. In the wake of that nightmare, he had sent a secret message into the darker quarter of his city. Now he watched and waited.

  A memory, unbidden, provoked a shiver of terror. He recalled the empty-looking vault, all his vast treasure treacherously concealed by the White Witch. How dare she? And how could he force her to remove her spell. That, unfortunately, was not a problem he could solve tonight.

  There! He saw a shadow moving along the base of the wall, staying well concealed from the guards. The shadow followed a zig zag course through the garden, avoiding the hounds and even the servants’ quarters. When the shadow came to the base of the palace, it started up a trellis, climbing silently. This trellis was usually lit by several bright lanterns, but tonight the Lord Regent, claiming difficulty in sleeping, had ordered them extinguished.

  When the shadowy figure reached the top of the trellis, he slipped over the railing, crossed the balcony and entered the door that was being held open by Lord Regent Bakkard Du Chagne.

  “Excellency,” said the man, kneeling, “I await your order.”

  “Yes, of course,” said the regent. “Show your face.”

  The visitor pulled back the cowl of his dark hood. His visage was that of a Knight of Solamnia, right down to the bushy, but carefully trimmed, mustache.

  “Good, yes, that disguise will work.”

  “What are your orders, my lord?”

  “There is a file of knights approaching the city from the plains. They are led by Captain Powell, chief of my palace guard. A good man. Loyal, and true to the Oath and the Measure.”

  The man nodded, as the noble continued.

  “They will be entering the pass of the High Clerist within the week. They are bringing a prisoner with them, a notorious assassin they recently captured. I wish you to meet this party—I will send some message for you to convey, some missive for Powell to explain your trip. Call yourself … Sir Dupuy.”

  “It shall be as you command, my lord,” pledged the man. He bowed tentatively, sensing there was more to come.

  “Your payment … I cannot pay you in gold, not this time.”

  “No gold, my lord?” The man had the audacity to sound disappointed.

  “No, but here is a bag of good steel coins,” snapped du Chagne. “Convert them to gold yourself if you desire! You know where the moneychangers are! First, do this job for me.”

  “Of course, my lord. As to the job …?”

  “You will ride with the column of knights as they return to the city,” the regent said. “You will locate the captive. And, Sir Dupuy?”

  “Excellency?”

  “It is my express wish that this prisoner should not reach the city alive.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  TRACKER AND TRAPPER

  For long days Jaymes was chained to the saddle, his ankles shackled beneath the belly of the old, swaybacked mare. The mare’s reins were held securely in the fist of a knight riding just ahead of him. Two or more knights, their hands resting on the hilts of their swords, were never more than an arm’s length away.

  Captain Powell was taking no chances. Even so, while he and his men treated the prisoner with stiff contempt, they did not display any outright cruelty. They paid him scant attention, actually, except to make sure he was securely bound. He was fed indifferently, usually after the rest of the party ate, but not starved.

  As to the princess, she ignored her prize utterly. Despite her earlier apparent fascination with him, now she seemed content to ride along with the knights and wait for justice to run its course. Though Captain Powell switched from the head to the tail of the column at will, Selinda du Chagne always rode among the first rank. So far as Jaymes could see, she never even cast a backward glance at the outlaw she had contrived to snare.

  The knights made good time on their journey. The terrain was smooth, the midsummer weather tolerable, though it rained a lot. Within ten days, a fortnight at the most, they would arrive in Palanthas.

  Where the gallows awaited.

  The dwarf slogged along well behind the knights, pulling his shawl tightly around his shoulders, cursing the rain that soaked his beard, trailed down his chest, chilled him through his garments and his armor, down to his very bones. He cast a look back at the two gnomes, for Sulfie and Carbo always plodded behind him, every bit as sodden and weary and miserable as himself.

  “How much farther?” asked the female, plaintively raising her hood enough to look at Dram. “I say we should give up!”

  “How in blazes should I know how much farther?” groused the dwarf. “We’re going to follow those knights until I say we stop! And we won’t stop until they stop! So shut up, keep going!”

  Dram dropped his head and pushed forward, ignoring the whispered complaints exchanged by the two trail-weary gnomes. He was determined, implacable! He was a mountain dwarf, dammit!

  In the depths of his heart, though, his determination was beginning to flag. Dram didn’t have the slightest idea how they could possibly rescue Jaymes.

  For one thing, the knights, o
n horseback, made much better time than the three short-legged pursuers. Only by pushing on into the dark of each night, and starting off with the first glimmer of dawn, had Dram been able to keep on their trail.

  On yesterday’s trek, it had been nearly sunset by the time they reached the camp which the Knights of Solamnia and their prisoner had departed from twelve hours earlier. Now they were a full day behind the column of knights.

  “Why does that guy mean so much to you, anyway?” Carbo had asked the night before in the moments before they fell asleep. “Why do we have to catch up to them and try to save him?”

  “He saved my life once,” Dram had said—simply, and truthfully. Only to himself did he admit there was more to it than that. There was a destiny laid upon Jaymes Markham, a cause that propelled him. He was a man in search of vengeance, but it was more than that. The dwarf had embraced the man and his destiny. Win or lose, he was determined to share his friend’s fate.

  It was the tenth day following Jaymes’s capture. The jagged crest of the Vingaard Mountains had formed the western horizon, with its skyline to their left. Now the trail of the knights abruptly veered, with those peaks rising before them. The knights were heading west, straight into the mountain range.

  “We’re not going to climb those, are we?” asked Carbo hesitantly, as Dram stopped to take a drink from his water flask.

  “Nah,” the dwarf said with a lot more assurance than he felt. “There’s a pass right through ’em—High Clerist’s Pass. They’re heading to Palanthas, I’m pretty sure, and it’s a good short cut.”

  Of course, he had never taken that road, but he had heard of it. He knew it was guarded by an ancient fortress and tower, the site of many a crucial battle during past wars. How they would pass that castle undetected was a question that bothered him. Perhaps, as some had said, the fortress had fallen into ruin and disrepair. In any event, first they had to navigate the long, winding road leading up to the summit. Dram was certain that it would involve a lot more climbing than the gnomes were accustomed to. Of course he, being a mountain dwarf, was not deterred by the thought of a few miles of steep, uphill walking.