by Widowmaker
“You aren’t as useful as you believe,” he said brutally. “In fact, you never were. But now you’ve become a nuisance. A small, whining annoyance, like a mosquito. Do you know what happens to mosquitoes, Ivern ar’Diskan?”
This time there was no rush of light and heat. Only chill and darkness flooded the cellar now, flowing from the chasm that had opened, not just in the floor under Ivern’s feet, nor even in the wall behind him.
It yawned all around him, a gateway torn through the very structure of the world, sucking the air of the cellar through it in long streamers of icy fog. Beyond it lay a vast black drop into nowhere. There were stars at the bottom, but these stars were not the friendly twinkling sparks of the night sky.
They burned steady, with never a twinkle. They burned cold.
Ivern’s shriek trailed away into impossibly distant gulfs and silence, but long before it faded beyond hearing, the black starshot abyss slammed shut like the jaws of an iron trap.
Marc ar’Dru stared at where the void had been, and never moved. He was only too aware that he was the last remaining witness to what had been said and done here, and of the best way to keep such a witness from talking.
But Kalarr dragged one of the other chairs over in front of him and sat in it, backwards, his arms folded and cradled across the back. Then he just gazed at nothing, breathing hard, a man trying to regain control of his breath, or his temper—
Or his appearance.
Because that still flickered like the two faces of a spinning coin, one minute bright and the next dark, polished and dull, day and night: fair, handsome Kurek giving way to black-haired, elegant Kalarr. And slowly, the face of Kalarr was gaining prominence. Or no longer being hidden, as if the need for concealment was past.
Neither face was ugly, but of the two, Kalarr’s was by far the most forbidding. By the set of the features it was a young face, but there were deeper lines in the skin than there should have been, and a shadow deep within the eyes, that made him look older than his years.
They were blue eyes, like and yet unlike Kurek’s; his were bright and clear, like sapphires, like Marc’s own. Alban eyes. These, like everything else about Kalarr, were darker, a deep cyan like the poisonous salts of iron. A sinister glamour hung about him, that both attracted and repelled.
The word glamour struck a small, spluttering spark in Marc’s mind, but no fire, and as Kalarr cu Ruruc’s gaze focused on him, any meaning the word might have had was lost in the shadows of that sombre regard.
The combination of black hair and dark-blue eyes was something Marc had seen before, a long time before. Not among his own people, where blue eyes went with fair hair more often than not, so that Albans with dark hair tended more to have grey eyes, or brown. And then he remembered, an image seven years old rising up through the pain and the confusion and the simple shock of the past half hour. There had been men of that colouring with Gelert, the day after the Landing, when the High Lord of Prytenon came face to face with Albanak the Overlord of the Albans for that one and only time.
Gelert’s hair had been red, not black, but then red hair could be either common enough to be a stamp of the family line – like House ar’Lerutz – or so unusual that it would appear only once in a generation. The thought went round and around, until it wore itself out with trying to make sense when so plainly there was none.
“There was a time, not long ago, when I might have listened to ar’Diskan’s suspicions,” said Kalarr cu Ruruc. He had always been Kalarr; Kurek ar’Kelayr was gone, as though he had never even existed. “I might have given credence to them, even. Because I was suspicious myself. I watched you, when you came here. Followed you, overheard you, took note of where you went and who you saw and what you said.”
“I saw nobody else.”
“There was nobody else. Only me. And if I wish it,” Kalarr smiled, made a small movement with those bruised and blackened fingers, and the ropes knotted around Marc’s wrists and ankles fell away, “I can oversee the running of this fortress without the need even to leave my chair. I wondered about you, Marc ar’Dru. To defy your lord is one thing, but to turn eijo for emphasis… It was too much emphasis, I thought. Or thought then. But now, now you are more than halfway mine. And soon you will be mine completely. Even without coercion.”
“Coercion? I was never forced to anything.”
“Just so. It would have snapped your mind, and what use would that have been to me? No. The reed that bends easily is always the most receptive to gentle pressure.”
At first that sounded like some sort of delicate insult, but for the life of him Marc couldn’t see where the gibe lay. As he looked into the blue eyes that were so dark with secret wisdom, he knew that even in jest this man would never insult a companion or a loyal retainer.
After what he had seen, there was still a small, faint doubt lingering back in the furthest recesses of his mind. It was almost as if the voice of someone infinitely far away was shouting warnings. Marc dismissed the voice, dismissed the doubts, dismissed the warnings.
If Kalarr cu Ruruc chose to regard him as his friend and lord’s-man, then he would repay that trust, and be both.
9. - Allies
Even though it wasn’t raining, in Bayrd Talvalin’s opinion it was another typical Elthanek summer’s morning. That meant no sun visible, even though it had been above the horizon for more than three hours now. Instead there was mist, and chill, and no colour to the day. Nothing but shades of grey.
The mist that hung low to the ground was dove grey, and swirled behind the horses so they left a wake like a ship in still water. The low moorland hills were leaden grey, rolling off into the mist as though they were dissolving into it and the world ended just beyond the limits of sight. Even the sky was a pearl grey overcast, like a grey pillow pressed over the face of the world and smothering the life out of it.
But there was a world beyond the mist, and it was intruding in a way that couldn’t be ignored. Bayrd had seen them more than once, a flicker of movement that was gone as soon as seen.
Horsemen.
It was a small column, thought it still outnumbered the twenty men who rode with him. These riders had been shadowing his on the western skyline for more than an hour, arrogantly careless of being seen – when the mist permitted – and confident of their advantages. They had all of them: the advantage of height, of familiarity with the ground, and above all of surprise.
Because it didn’t really matter that he or anyone else had seen them. With every swirl of the mist they were gone again, and had to be refound. Each time they were in a different place. It was as if they were playing a game, and not the usual Great one. This was simpler, more childish, but just as deadly.
It was ‘See me, Live. Don’t See me, Die.’
“You’ve seen them too?” he said to Eskra, watching her stare at the distant ridge. His voice was no more than a murmur. It was a pointless precaution. The other riders were well beyond earshot and his own retainers, aware of the tension that hung in the air as thickly as the fog, had pulled back a decent distance to give their lord and his lady privacy in which to argue. Even then it wasn’t really an argument, just a sort of worrying aloud.
They might be out of earshot, he thought, but probably not out of bowshot. There was something about the way in which they moved. They were manoeuvring to maintain that advantage above all.
“I’ve seen them.” She glanced at him, then back at the hillside, but in those few seconds the mist had rolled over its crest and once again there was nothing to be seen. “Gerin’s men?”
Bayrd shrugged, but the movement of his shoulders was lost inside the heavy travelling-coat he wore to keep the damp cold of the mist at bay. “I hope so,” he said. “I really hope so. Otherwise Kalarr cu Ruruc has been moving a deal too fast for my liking.”
“No. I would have known.”
“Would you…?” Bayrd reined Yarak to a standstill – there was a clatter behind him as the rest of the column followed s
uit to maintain their distance – and looked at Eskra thoughtfully. There wasn’t accusation in the look, just concern. “You let Marc go in harm’s way, and now there’s no good way to get him out again. You told me that you could spy on Kalarr in safety through his eyes, and now you tell me that those eyes are clouded. You told me—”
He thumped his clenched fist against the pommel of the saddle hard enough to startle Yarak and make the grey mare skitter sideways until he leaned forward and gentled her again. “’Skra-ain, it doesn’t matter what you told me any more. If it was true then,” – she opened her mouth to protest, but closed it again as he hushed her with a quick gesture of his hand – “it isn’t true now. All of it changed with what you told me last night. That my friend was pretending to be my enemy, but the pretence has gone too well. That Kalarr knows about you—”
“Everyone knows about me.”
“Yes. But he knows about me, too. And what I don’t know is what sort of weapon that knowledge could be. How much support could I lose? How many men? How much respect?”
“Respect is—”
“What buys and keeps kailinin. Not silver, not land, not promises. Respect. Honour. Things you can’t hold in your hands or carry in a purse. The thing I’ll need most of all if Gerin ar’Diskan is even going to give me the time of day.”
They had been on the road to Hold ar’Diskan this past three days. The normal journey required five; a man alone and in a hurry could do it in two. For an armed column equipped well enough to be an adequate honour-guard between one high-clan lord and another, three days was better than good. But Bayrd was still afraid it might not be good enough.
For all Eskra’s promises, her plans had gone savagely awry after Ivern ar’Diskan’s death – although that, like what Kalarr had found out, could be a sharp weapon one way or the other if it was used properly. And as for the rest…
It was as if Marc ar’Dru had pulled down the shutters on the windows of his eyes, the windows through which she had been peering.
Ivern was dead. Etek ar’Gellan was dead. Something was happening in Cerdor, if Kalarr could be believed. And he himself had finally laid aside his pretence of being a son of Clan ar’Kelayr. What had happened afterwards…
Remained a mystery.
Marc was still alive, Bayrd was sure of that much. Eskra had told him – gently, as bad news was always broken, but clearly enough that even he could understand the implications behind the complex phrases of the Art Magic – that she would have known if he too had died. And he had not. But he was no longer encharmed. No longer protected by her spell-borne pretence of hatred for Bayrd. And he was still alive. That, she had told him quietly, could mean only one thing. The feigned hatred had become real.
The mist began to thin out, and having begun, cleared so swiftly that Eskra stared distrustfully at the last vanishing wisps. When the weather was right, conjuring a mist for concealment and controlling it so that it stayed in one place was one of the easier enchantments. Even though she knew that at this time of year, mists and fogs were common enough on the moors, this too-convenient disappearance made her uneasy.
She was the only one who felt so. All the others, Bayrd included, were glad enough to see where they were going, where they had been – and most important of all, who else was out there. Kian ar’Terel had seen a banner, or so he claimed. Red and white, with black blotches that might, seen through an optimistic eye, have been a black bear. If that was so, then the men on the ridge were ar’Diskan’s. That was a sort of comfort.
At least they weren’t cu Ruruc’s. Or ar’Kelayr’s; or far too many other people who would be more than happy to find the Clan-Lord Talvalin almost alone on the Elthanek moors.
But that raised more worries for Bayrd. If he set his pride aside and faced the truth, then there was no denying that Gerin ar’Diskan was the most powerful lord in the northland. That meant – or should have meant – that he had no need for such boundary-riders as these.
Unless…
Unless he was suspicious of something. Of raids, of surprise attacks, or of assassins from Cerdor. The answers to all those questions were inside the walls of the fortress of Segelin. Assuming Bayrd and his party ever got that far.
“He knows,” muttered Eskra. “I don’t know how he found it out, but he knows—”
“What?” Bayrd’s voice cut through the sound of her fretting, and she straightened up to stare at him.
“What do you think? You want to ask him when we get there? He knows who’s coming calling, Bayrd. That’s enough. And he wants to see you dead.”
“He’s an honourable man,” said Bayrd, aware that he sounding like someone trying to convince himself. What had seemed entirely reasonable in the council chamber of Dunrath lacked credibility out here in the wilderness. From the look on Eskra’s face, she heard that tone of voice as well. “At least he’s a practical man. He may want me dead, but he wants Dunrath as well. Murder won’t help him get it, or keep it anyway. He’ll need consent. From Erhal, or Yraine, or whoever’s finally approved as Overlord when all this is over. Otherwise what’s the point?”
“You, dead.” Her voice was flat, the statement simple. Bayrd forced a grin onto lips that didn’t feel inclined to carry one, and managed to keep it there.
“You do harp on one string sometimes, loved. He’s had plenty of chances to try that over the years, and he hasn’t yet.”
“As you say. Yet.”
“So why would he do it now?”
“Because of the confusion: Kalarr out of Erdanor, you out on the moors, a mist that concealed who we really are—”
“It’s gone.”
“And who’s to tell, if you, and I, and all these others, aren’t alive to say so?” She shot another glare up the hill, to where the other troop of horsemen should have been but weren’t. “These are troubled times, and we might have been a raiding-party. We weren’t identified until too late. How sad. ‘Accidents’ happen, Bayrd, even in clear air. Remember Reth ar’Gyart? But most of all, there’s no Overlord to prevent someone from taking the law into their own hands.”
Bayrd drew breath to correct her, and Eskra wiggled her hand in the air, a ‘maybe, maybe’ gesture that he knew all too well. “All right,” he conceded. “No proper Overlord. And Kalarr might have been lying for his own benefit.”
“Small benefit to Ivern, though.”
“Ivern was ar’Diskan’r.” Bayrd flashed another quick grin; it was smaller this time, but more sincere. “He was like his father. Stubborn. Stupidly so. He wouldn’t bend in the breeze, and he couldn’t stand up to the storm.”
“Will you tell Gerin that?”
“About his son being stupid? He probably knows.”
“About his son being dead.”
“I might. But without proof…”
Eskra smiled grimly. “As you’re so fond of saying yourself, what’s the point?”
And then the horsemen crested the ridge and came thundering down from the hill, and the most immediate points were those of their spears.
It looked so like the long-anticipated ambush that Bayrd was within a breath of ordering a counter-attack; but an instant later he had thrown out both arms wide as a signal for his men to remain as they were. There was more than steel on the points of those spears. Wreaths of green leaves had been wrapped around them as a sign of peace, and Bayrd breathed a small sigh of relief.
The young kailin-eir commanding the newcomers reined his horse to a flashy, skidding halt on the turf, and even before the animal had properly recovered itself, he had risen in his stirrups to give Bayrd and Eskra the deep, elegant bow from the waist that did duty on horseback as Second Obeisance.
“Lord, Lady,” he spoke the titles as though he meant them both, “I am Aymar ar’Haleth, Bannerman to Lord Gerin ar’Diskan, and your guide to Segelin.”
“I thank you, Aymar-an,” said Bayrd, acknowledging the bow with the curt nod that was all a clan-lord required – especially one whose insides were still flut
tering with shock. This youngster was what he had once been, and he gave his replacement a wry look. “But I know well enough where Hold ar’Diskan lies. We need no guide.”
“My lord,” said Aymar, “I must insist.” There was no need for any crudely threatening gestures like waving at the spears behind him, which green branches or not were still weapons. He was too good a Bannerman for that. But there was enough steel in his voice to suggest that argument was not an option.
“Then I thank you.” Bayrd nodded again, dismissal this time. “Lead on.”
Not a guide, he thought. Just an escort. Gerin must be worried about something. I wonder if it’s the same thing that—
And then he realized that the escort was a guide after all, and for a very good reason: Segelin was set for a siege.
Banners flapping sluggishly from its towers and the clan-lord’s long standard drifting from the topmost turret of the citadel were the only touches of colour in that whole grey mass of stone. Despite what he had told the young kailin, Bayrd had never seen the place before. Looking at it now, he knew he was in no great hurry to see it again.
The architecture of Hold ar’Diskan was severe to the point of brutality. It had been built very much to impress on any who saw it – the Elthanek vassals of the domain, for the most part, and any visitors with an eye that understood – that this was the residence of the ruler of the land. A ruler who had taken that land by force, and if need be would keep it by force.
For all that the fortress of Segelin had towers as tall as any in Alba, they didn’t seem to loft towards the sky. Instead the whole structure seemed to squat ponderously on the earth, like a huge beast crouched over the body of its prey. Bayrd studied it for a few moments more, then shook his head and dismissed the image. It wasn’t deliberate enough.
Hold ar’Diskan’s shape and posture said much more than that. It was a wood and stone and metal boot placed across the throat of the entire domain. And its lowering presence had never been more obvious than now.
