by Glen Cook
After a misty-voiced, "Doe's Eyes, Dove's Breast, will be better after second birth. Promise," he faded from her company.
The Star Rider worked over the remaining corpses, his hands darting feverishly. Occasionally he made a quick check on Varthlokkur. The Old Man sat in silence, remembering, waiting. The easterners turned on one another again, but with flagging devotion.
Nepanthe's feelings grew ever more pallid. She had little desire to do anything but wait. She seated herself beside the Old Man, took his hand.
The whistle and hum of the coffin stopped. The Old Man's grasp tightened. "He can manage one more. For sure." He said it with little force. He, as did she, wanted to live, but was drifting farther and farther from the shores of life. Before long, Nepanthe suspected, she wouldn't care at all, might not heed the call to resurrection.
Which one?, she wondered as the Star Rider tumbled Mocker onto the floor. Hope flared, but couldn't ignite any will to survive. She turned to the Old Man. He had closed his eyes. Maybe it should be better that way, not knowing... Squeezing his hand, she closed her eyes too.
The waiting went on forever.
A feeling of presence came toward the tower, lightly, as if some dread dark hunter of souls were snuffling an uncertain track.
Time awakened. Its plodding pace rapidly turned into a headlong plunge toward Hell. Faintly, Nepanthe heard the terror of the easterners. Maybe it wasn't imagination. Maybe something was coming...
She was fading. She could sense it. Her grasp on the fabric of her existence was weakening, weakening...
A pity that her son would never live...
Blackness.
Happiness, because she was no longer afraid.
TWENTY: Aftermath
"A man can work up a powerful thirst climbing El Kabar," Varthlokkur told Mocker. They faced one another over their first evening meal following their resurrection. "I've done it a dozen times."
Mocker peered at this man who might be the father he had never known. He banished a surge of filial feeling, condemning it as unfounded, saccharine. "And in Shadowland," he replied. "Self, having considered, believe same will be leading torture in Hell. Maybe after abstinence."
He avoided the wizard's glance by looking for the wine steward. They were far from comfortable with one another. But the steward wasn't there to rescue him. Like the rest of the staff, the night had left him in wild confusion. None of them could get themselves organized.
"Yes. The Shadowland."
The subject died there, with an unspoken agreement that words spoken then, and deeds done before, were best forgotten.
A child, bolder than his companions in a small party watching and giggling nearby, came over. He stared at Mocker for several seconds, then squealed and fled when the wanderer made an ugly face. "Am forever haunted by couthless, unwashed urchins," Mocker grumbled, recalling Prost Kamenets' Dragon Gate. That he accounted his point of no return, after which it had been too late to escape the strange, grim adventure that had led him to his father.
Surreptitiously, from beneath lowered brows, he studied Varthlokkur. Was some new evil growing in the nest of the wizard's mind? He was who he was, and had done the things he had done. He had his wicked reputation.
Mocker's hand strayed to the hilt of his sword. His gaze lanced about the hall in search of incipient treacheries.
His eyes met hers among unfamiliar faces. He froze. She seemed more beautiful than ever. More desirable, despite the pallor left by her trials. How sound was her mind? How bitter were her memories? Had she suffered any of the brain damage the Old Man had harped upon?
Could he and she abandon past anger and jealousy and salvage something from the wreckage others had made of their lives? Could they recover the happiness that had been theirs, so briefly, before Ravenkrak's fall?
She sat beside him, placed a hand on his. She smiled as if nothing had happened the night before.
Their truce was holding. She remained willing to forget. "What became of the Star Rider?" she asked.
"Gone," said Varthlokkur. "That's the way he is. He never waits around. Probably so he doesn't have to answer questions. He apparently tucked us in, took care of the Old Man, disenchanted the servants, then took off. That's his way. He may not be heard from again for a hundred years."
"Old Man. What of him?" Mocker asked.
"I'm not sure. The tower is sealed. I haven't the skill to bypass the spells warding it. But I suspect that means he's alive. Probably in his deep sleep."
The wizard guessed near the truth. Contrary to his own dire expectations, the Old Man hadn't been allowed to die. But neither had he been permitted to return to life. His body, clad in ceremonial raiment, sat upon the stone throne in the chamber atop the Wind Tower. His eyes, if ever they opened, would gaze into the magical mirror. Beneath his blue-veined, wrinkled hands lay tiny, fragile globular phials. A fresh stock of drugs had gone into his cabinet. One day, if the need arose, the Director might once again cause his eyes to open.
He was completely a tool, unlike the other there. His usefulness was at an end, his edge dulled. But the Star Rider was frugal. He wasted nothing that might, someday, have value again. The chamber atop the Wind Tower became the tool's box, a place of peace and safety. Even Varthlokkur hadn't the power to rifle it. And the fullness of his Power had returned.
The Old Man's Dark Lady had, again, been left standing at the altar.
Sharing the Old Man's chamber, perhaps as memorials or mementos, were the seated cadavers of the Princes Thaumaturge.
The main course arrived. Mocker attacked his portion, willing to let someone else talk for once. He hadn't had a decent meal in months.
"I kind of hate to see the Old Man out of the game," Nepanthe said. Mocker thought he caught a whiff of better-he-than-me. "He was all right, even if he was a grouch."
"He's not gone, just waiting. On the will of the Star Rider. I think there might have been something between them that nobody ever suspected. But, yes, I'll miss him too. I just wonder how much he knew and never told. We had too many secrets from each other."
Slowly, thoughtfully, the wizard downed several mouthfuls. Then, "For all his crochets and grumbling, he was kind and a good friend. It's too bad he never had a goal. Other than to escape living out his role. Whatever it might be."
"Let's hope he's happier next time around."
"Child?" Mocker grunted around a mouthful of roast pork.
"Fine. And I'm glad you cleaned up and shaved. I never saw a hill bandit as dirty, smelly, and wild as you were." She and Varthlokkur resumed reminiscing and speculating about the Old Man.
Disturbingly, the wizard suggested, "You know, there're scholars who claim the Star Rider is some sort of avatar of Justice. Maybe he judged all of us, not just the Princes."
"You mean?..."
"Yes. The Old Man could've been the only one of us who really got rewarded. The rest of us got dumped right back into the middle of whatever's going on."
Mocker cocked a dubious eye his way, but didn't let up on the chicken he was gnawing.
Nepanthe looked sour. "Sometimes I have premonitions," she said. "And I've gotten one from this. There're hard times coming. A lot of pain and sorrow for my husband and I."
Varthlokkur hadn't yet performed a divination to see what the future looked like unobscured by the interference of the Princes Thaumaturge. He had been putting it off, afraid of what he might foresee.
It would have done him no good. Other Powers were afoot, and had their eyes upon him.
"No doubt," he replied to Nepanthe. "I believe the real reason we're here is that we're expected to be useful again."
Behind the mindless glutton mask Mocker was critically alert, weighing every nuance both of what the wizard said and the way he said it. He was hunting the false note. Father or not, he just didn't trust Varth-lokkur's forgiveness.
It was time, he decided, to give the hornets' nest a gentle poke, to see what buzzed, time to cast a stone to see what rose from
the turgid deeps of this falsely pacific pond. Hand on sword hilt, he belched grandly, leaned back in his chair. Eyes closed, conversationally, he observed, "If memory doesn't prevaricate, same being impossible in steel-trap brain of genius like self, time was, man once promised fat trickster and friends vast emoluments for doing small deeds for same. Being possessed of elephantine memory already noted, can say with certainty promissory was: gold double shekel pieces, mintage of Empire, one thousand four hundred. Same gentleman aforementioned advanced mere eighty. Self, considering distance to home of same, touch purse, and cry, 'Woe!' Fingers feel nothing. Not even bent green copper. Foresee great hunger..."
Nepanthe, understanding at last, gasped. "Why not add in what you lost in Iwa Skolovda?" she demanded, amazed by his nerve.
Mocker grinned. His eyes popped open, wide with innocence. "Silver: three hundred twelve kronen. Copper: two hundred thirty-four groschen, of Iwa Skolovda. No gold. Of other realms, various, maybe five silver nobles, of Itaskia, total. Conservative estimate, but self is renowned for generosity, for lack of pinch-penny heart, for interest only in minimal income accommodating subsistence of same. Am, at moment, considering same in new wife, newly impoverished."
He had a point there. The wealth of Ravenkrak had vanished utterly. Someday bits and pieces might begin surfacing when Haroun's soldiers began pawning plunder.
Nepanthe was as destitute as her husband.
Varthlokkur laughed till tears ran down his cheeks. "You've got to be the most brazen footpad since Rainheart, who slew the Kammengarn Dragon."
Mocker grinned again. Nepanthe kicked him beneath the table. He ignored her warning. "In coin of Ilkazar, please. With interest being ten percent from date due on wages, same being morning when soldiers of crafty associate impregnated impregnable fortress Ravenkrak."
"Well, why not?" Varthlokkur mused as he recovered his composure. "I've got buckets full. I do owe you, technically. And there's your friends, who may give me no peace... Nepanthe, you help yourself too. As a wedding present."
Mocker's eyes narrowed. Something was going on here. After all his trouble, Varthlokkur was backing down this easily? He didn't believe it. There was a catch somewhere. A trick or a trap...
But, "Buckets?" His eyes widened. Avarice banished any other consideration. "Am permitted to pick and choose?"
So greedy, this man. Properly marketed, the right coins, the rare ones, would bring a hundred times intrinsic value from rich collectors. He could parlay a moderate fortune into a huge one. He knew the men who would buy and which coins were in demand. He had once had a go at counterfeiting them-till he had found the necessary research and marketing too much work.
The point passed over Varthlokkur's head. "Of course." To the wizard one coin was like another. Puzzled, he said, "I'll show you the strongroom."
Mocker spent the day there, becoming intimately familiar with every gold piece. Varthlokkur soon lost interest and went about his business. Then Mocker set about filling every pocket he had in addition to putting aside what was "due" himself and his friends. They, Varthlokkur told him, were alive and well, though chastened by close brushes with doom.
After all, as Mocker asked Nepanthe later, what good was gall if he let it go to waste?
Four days ground away. Mocker eventually had to concede that Varthlokkur really meant to let Nepanthe go. He didn't understand why, and remained thoroughly suspicious till long after they made their departure, following friendly farewells.
While traveling, Nepanthe dwelt on her agreement with Varthlokkur. She couldn't quite put it into perspective. Doubts remained. Would the wizard maintain his end? Was it fair to Mocker? Had it placed him in jeopardy? Would he live with the unknown threat of a knife in the dark henceforth?
The gods knew she loved her husband. Shame overwhelmed her whenever she recalled her behavior in the Shadowland. Her heart hammered when she reflected on how close she had come to massacring his feeling for her...
But there was this newly recognized feeling for Varthlokkur to reconcile with that for Mocker, against the romantic schooling of twenty-nine years... / did it for you, she lied to herself, looking at her husband.
But it had all worked out, hadn't it? Everyone had-though compromised-approached his or her desire. The world was rid of several old evils. Maybe the future would bring the fulfillment of a few dreams.
Varthlokkur still hadn't performed a divination. Possibly some subliminal premonition compelled him to avoid looking whither bad news might lie. Whatever, Nepanthe rode westward armed with hope-however forlorn it might be.
"Mocker, I love you."
He flashed her the old Saltimbanco grin. But his mind was far away, haunting the labyrinths of schemes founded on his newly acquired wealth-however foredoomed they might be.
tmpó±
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