by B. V. Larson
Deciding this was a lucid moment in what had already been a trying morning, he gently pushed the blades into his pack and released the handle.
The rush of fatigue, aches and pains that wracked his body a moment later almost caused him to stumble. He wasn’t a young man any longer. He’d passed his fortieth birthday and his children had grown too big to hold in his arms. All this running about, busting down doors and raging at Hob had wearied him more than he liked to admit.
Brand forced himself to stand firm and easy, however. The wave of fatigue quickly passed. He gave Old Hob no hint of his frailty without the Axe. He crossed his arms and looked up at the oldest Goblin, the self-styled King of the Goblins. He smirked then, noticing that Old Hob’s robes had been scorched black around the lower hem. That was what had given him away: a burnt, brimstone-like stink.
“I see I burned you right out of the air,” Brand said, almost laughing. “Sorry about that.”
Old Hob was visibly relieved now that the Axe wasn’t tickling his throat.
“I must say, you need to keep better control of yourself in these situations, Brand.”
“And I say that people who come flapping down from the sky unannounced and uninvited can take what they get. I owe no hospitality to skulking devils who seek to glide into my castle unseen.”
“Very well,” Old Hob sniffed, “I may have made a mistake in that regard.”
“You said something about Trev? That I’m not to listen to him or to help him? You must realize I trust him a thousand times more than I trust you.”
“Perhaps. But I know that you trust my nature. I would not come here to play an idle trick like Wee Folk souring milk. I came because you and I both have so much to lose.”
Brand scowled. “You’ll have to do better than that.”
“Very well, let me show you something.”
Old Hob turned, and with grunting steps, he bent down and entered the tower. Frowning, Brand followed him.
The other was already halfway up the stairs when Brand entered the cool gloom of the tower. How had Hob moved so quickly? Knowing it must be a trick of the Lavender Jewel, he rushed after the beastly creature to the roof.
Up atop the tower, the cool morning breezes could be felt coming up from the river. The clouds had pulled apart like torn cotton while they’d been speaking, and they could now see for miles to the distant horizon.
Old Hob extended an impossibly long arm. After a knobby series of joints and baggy, wrinkled green skin, a finger as tapered as a dinner candle pointed to the south.
“There. Look there.”
Brand peered in the indicated direction. A lone figure was on the road, coming toward them. He frowned and turned to Hob.
“Who’s that then? Are you saying it’s Trev, come already?”
But he was talking to no one. Hob had vanished and was presumably soaring away into the heavens.
Brand twisted this way and that, squinting into the sunshine and the blue sky, both patched by rising white clouds. But without mists to mark him, Hob was impossible to see. He thought about drawing the Axe again and burning holes in the air, but it seemed pointless and foolish.
He shrugged, and looked southward again. Could that really be Trev?
Yes…he thought he saw silver locks reflecting the sun like a soldier’s polished helm. And that stride—the boy had always been fast, but today he seemed to move over the land like one of the bounding Wee Folk.
Brand frowned, thinking about Old Hob’s words. He was going to have to talk to Trev to get to the bottom of all this. He would have to question him on every detail.
Perhaps that was precisely what Old Hob had wanted.
* * *
Trev, being half-elf, didn’t often feel a need for urgency or directness. When he reached the gates of Castle Rabing, a grumbling watchman let him pass. The gates always opened at dawn and closed again at dusk for all save people who were on the lord’s business.
Trev knew he could have scaled the walls during the night, but that would have been rude and possibly dangerous if a misunderstanding had ensued with the guards. So, he’d waited for the sun to come up before making his approach from the outer lands where he’d camped for the night.
Once inside the outer walls, he headed first toward the copse of woods that stood in the eastern corner of the interior lands. There, his aunt Tegan and Ivor lived. The region was known to be home to unusual folk—folk like his cousin Ivor, who was an ogre. The people who lived in the main village shunned the area, but they tolerated it. They knew that if a time came when the walls of Castle Rabing needed defenders, the strange creatures who dwelt there in that wooded corner would muster and could man their posts well. So the stranger folk were tolerated even if the townsfolk often whispered and cast dark looks in their direction.
Tegan had lived under a sugar pine tree near the south wall for years. Off and on, Mari and Trev had journeyed here during the summer months to visit them. That had not happened for nearly three years, but for a half-elf, three years are little more than the blink of an eye.
When he arrived at the base of the sugar pine, he frowned in concern. There he found Ivor’s stake and chain, worn nightly for show. It helped to keep the locals calm about sleeping with an ogre in their midst. Tegan had always slept in the tree’s branches in summer, as did Trev when he visited. But Ivor had slept on the gnarled roots of the trunk. These had never seemed to bother him in the slightest, which had fascinated Trev throughout his youth.
“Aunt Tegan?” called Trev squinting up into the sugar pine’s branches.
There was no answer from the tree. The wind stirred the needles and caused them to rustle. That was the only sound which came to his sharp ears.
He thought perhaps they’d gone to market, but upon investigating the place he found many signs indicating they’d been gone for a long time. The bucket they used for water was bone dry. The leather sacks of goods they hung from the branches were flaccid or missing entirely.
Trev looked around in concern. When he found no signs of any wrongdoing, he shrugged and headed for the central encampment of the Fae.
Here he found elves, half-elves, Wee Folk and even two young, immature ogres at play in the shade of the trees. Unlike humans, elf settlements were not places of drudgery and hard work. These people preferred to live upon the land with a minimum of comforts. It was not that they were unskilled, nor that they were particularly lazy, but they did place value upon the elements of life in a very different order than humans did. Building complex structures and luxuries were not their priorities. Rather, they did enough to survive and frittered away the rest of their time upon what others might consider idle pursuits. A Wee One might spend a decade perfecting a reed flute, for example, playing it nightly at sunset—all the while he lived in an unadorned burrow under a slab of rock.
At last, at midday, Trev met a familiar face. It was none other than Kaavi, sister to Tegan.
“Auntie Kaavi!” he shouted and embraced her immediately.
She returned the hug and they beamed at one another.
“My, how you’ve grown!” Kaavi said. “Has a century passed so quickly?”
“Of course not,” he laughed. “I’m not pure elf, you know.”
“But you have the spirit of an elf. I feel it in every movement of your person. I’m so glad you’ve come, Trev. Will you be staying long? It is still spring, and we can spend the entire summer together.”
Trev shook his head. “This isn’t a social call. Not exactly. I wanted to talk to Aunt Tegan and Ivor, but I can’t find them.”
Kaavi’s face clouded. “They’ve gone. Oberon recalled them last year for the Winter’s Feast.”
“But that was months ago.”
Kaavi shrugged. “Yes, here it was. But it’s hard to say how much time has passed back in the Twilight lands. They may think they’ve only been there for a long weekend.”
“I see. I’m disappointed.”
“So, if not just for a v
isit, why have you come?”
Trev hesitated. “I need to know some things…about certain types of creatures.”
Kaavi cocked her head to the side and studied him. “What kind of creatures might you be talking about?”
“Creatures which might be found haunting the foot of a rainbow.”
Kaavi’s eyes widened in surprise and alarm. “Since you’re seeking Tegan and not me, can I assume you think she would know more about this subject than I do?”
“Yes, that was my assumption.”
Kaavi rose and rummaged about in her hut for a kettle. She hung it on a tripod of sticks and lit a tiny fire underneath as she talked to him.
“Let me see if I can figure this out,” she said. “Tegan spent years in the marshes, and she’s raised Ivor. She often met strange things out there, I know. You must have heard the stories, yes?”
“Some of them might have reached my ears during summer visits.”
“You little snoop,” Kaavi laughed. She filled the kettle with spring water and let it simmer. When steam rose up, she crumbled bits of leaves and sticks into the bubbling liquid. A minty smell arose from the tea that Trev thought was quite pleasant.
“Well, I’ve heard those stories as well. Short of asking every outlander in this wooded corner, or traveling to Oberon’s court, you might as well ask me—since you’re here.”
Trev looked down in some embarrassment. He’d not planned to tell his tale to Kaavi. She was younger and somewhat more innocent than Tegan—for an elf. She had yet to take a husband. Since the story involved seduction and bargains with unknown creatures, he felt he could better confide in Tegan, who, after all, had given birth to a hulking ogre.
Kaavi watched him closely, and seemed to make a startling series of conclusions.
“I don’t believe it!” Kaavi exclaimed. “You’re only half-elf. No true elf would feel shame and try to hide activities.”
Trev looked at her sharply. “Hide what activities?”
“It’s as plain as day to me. You’ve been out whoring with nymphs and dryads—or worse. It’s all right, Trev. Pursuing females in forests is in your blood. You shouldn’t be ashamed of it, even if your mother doesn’t approve.”
Trev tried to keep smiling, but he was horrified. She’d guessed so much already. He’d admitted the matter to his mother, but somehow Kaavi was different. He wanted to please her and he knew she’d been thinking of him as a child until this very day.
“It’s not that simple,” he said, and then he finally began his tale. He told her of his pursuit of the rainbow, and what he’d found at its vibrant foot.
While he spoke, she poured the tea into two cups made of walnut shells. The cups were absurdly small, but he took one and sipped. He was surprised by the full flavor and the filling nature of the drink. It was as if he’d had a mug of hot brandy. It had a nutty odor, and he wondered if that was due to the walnut husks.
He told her the rest, glossing over the fact that he’d bedded the strange woman he’d met out in the forest. He simply said she’d upheld her part of the bargain—but that he had not yet completed his.
“An excellent drink, Auntie,” he said as he finished his tale and his tiny cup of tea.
“I’m glad you like it, Trev,” she said, patting his arm absently. Her eyes did not meet his. They were distant and unfocussed.
“What did you think of my story?”
“I’m unsure what to make of it.”
“Do you think less of me?”
She turned to him at last and eyed him. “Why would I? Oh, you mean for having fallen for her seduction? No, of course not. Even a pure elf might have taken the bargain, especially one so young. No, I’m thinking about who this stranger might be, and what she might want.”
Trev bit his lip as he upended his tiny cup and shook the last drop out onto his tongue. It burned there, slightly.
“May I have more?”
“No!” she laughed. “You’ll be in a drunken stupor.”
Disappointed, Trev stayed quiet and let her think. His own mind seemed fuzzy. He thought he must be tired after his long run from the Haven.
“I don’t know,” she said at last. “As you said, I’m not the wisest about such things. She could be Fae, or one of the Dead. But it doesn’t sound like it. She doesn’t sound playful like the Fae, or twisted and grim like the Dead. But she was definitely some kind of Sorceress if her claims are to be believed.”
“What claims?”
“Didn’t she say she guided the rainbow to lure you there? Or someone like you? Not everyone can plant a rainbow like a beanstalk in their garden!”
“I suppose not. I hadn’t thought about that part.”
Just then, the two of them heard a heavy tramping sound. No elf or Wee Folk could make such a heavy tread, except possibly as a mockery. There were definitely several feet involved, which ruled out the possibility of the local ogres being involved. That left only one clear answer.
“Men from the castle?” Trev asked.
“Yes,” Kaavi said, frowning at him. “Have you told me everything, Trev? Is there more? Should you be fleeing now?”
“I don’t think so. Are you sure they’re coming for me?”
“Oh yes,” she said. “I’m quite sure of that.”
On instinct, Trev bounded up from his seat on a flat round stone and vanished into the thicket behind Kaavi’s hut. He lingered there, not wanting to flee further without need. He wasn’t entirely convinced that he should be running away. Wasn’t Castle Rabing a sanctuary for his kind?
Still, caution made him retreat and stay hidden.
* * *
Brand had waited patiently until midday, whereupon he’d begun to fume with unease. He’d paced the echoing stone floors of his keep, refusing everyone’s questions about what was bothering him—even those questions voiced by his own captains. He’d kept his mind occupied during the morning by changing into a more suitable set of clothing, but even that was considered odd. Some of his retainers looked at him in askance, and muttered about his unusual choice in attire.
Brand no longer wore a red robe and red slippers. Instead, he’d dressed himself properly for a day of riding, hunting—or possibly for going to war. He clad himself in a shirt of finely-woven chain, with gauntlets to match. The shirt had been a gift from the Kindred, and the craft that went into the light armor was obvious to any observer. Over the tinkling chain shirt he wore a fresh cloak in the livery blue of Riverton. The cloak hung down to his boots and fluttered upon his back while he paced. Finishing the outfit, a pair of studded leather trousers and two knee-high boots covered his legs and feet, both made of well-oiled Merling skin.
Some might have thought this could be thought of as an insult to Merlings, but it was customary among them to wear the skin of their enemies—either human or that of a rival Merling tribe. Among their kind such gear commanded respect, and as light armor it wore better than any other, come rain or shine.
He mounted his horse and set off. His steed was a fine roan, a beast he’d grown fond of over recent years at Castle Rabing.
His boots were black and had been polished till they shone. His head bristled with dark hair, dark eyes and a thick beard. Around his neck was one last item that was impossible to ignore. It had been made for him by Tomkin of the Wee Folk. A silver cage rested upon his chest, hung from a thick silver chain. He wore the cage like a large locket upon his breast. The cage attracted the eye, but there was nothing inside. Nothing but an empty, ovoid slot where a Jewel might rest.
Clearly, the cage was meant to transport a Jewel of Power, should he encounter one. Brand wore this in case he might need to carry a second Jewel, but it was also there as a reminder to all who met him that he alone among all living folk of Cymru had managed to wield two Jewels at once for a short time. And although the experience had all but killed him, it had also gained him fame as no other feat had. It had cemented his place as a powerful member of the elite who could master and wield magic in
his world. Just seeing the small silver cage dangling there often caused visitors to raise their eyebrows in surprise and alarm. Despite their obvious interest, few had dared to question him directly concerning its purpose.
By the time the sun began to fall behind the Black Mountains to the west, Brand lost his patience. He’d been fretting about Old Hob’s warning concerning Trev all day long. He’d expected Trev would come to talk to him, and he had chosen to wait like a calm powerful lord in his keep.
But Trev had not come.
Brand was beside himself by midafternoon. He was determined to act—but what should his course be? The argument in his head was a two-sided affair, involving a battle between the calmer part of his mind and the rest, which seethed. On one hand, he wanted to know what this was all about. He wanted to find Trev and wring every detail from him. But on the other, he felt manipulated by Old Hob. How much of his current mood had been planted by that wily devil? Was he committing a grand error by confronting Trev, by doing what Old Hob had urged him to do? Had Hob made the visit and created a distracting performance, pretending to warn him, when his true goal was to stir up trouble and intrigue?
He just didn’t know, and it was driving him mad. To make matters worse, the Axe ripped at his mind demanding action and seeing every event as a dire portent. That hadn’t helped him to think clearly. Ambros clouded his thoughts less when it wasn’t in contact with his flesh, but even while it safely rode his back, it was always prodding at his mind, lurking under the surface of every idea and random reflection. Every time he had a dark thought, he had to question the source of it.
As the sun began to sink, Brand knew the world was only a few hours from darkness. He sent out guardsmen to inquire concerning Trev’s whereabouts. For a short half-hour, he was calm. He expected the boy to make a beeline to his court when he heard the lord of the castle was looking for him. Time passed however, and the guards returned empty-handed.
