The Longsword Chronicles: Book 03 - Sight and Sound

by GJ Kelly

  “Aye.”

  “And you yourself have met his Majesty and doubtless have your own opinions of him. On the occasions when you have spoken of him, the respect, and possibly even affection, in your voice has been clear even to my dullard’s ears.”

  “It’s true. Brock is his own man, and doesn’t tolerate fools gladly. Nor whitebeards, come to that. I like him.”

  “He once beat a servant half to death, maiming the man for life, for a simple lack of courtesy in the presence of her Majesty, Queen Elspeth. It happened in the gardens of the Castle. No-one else could have possibly overheard the servant’s lapse, what guards there were, were posted on the walls and too distant to hear anything until the screaming started.”

  Gawain swallowed, and eyed his half-eaten bar of elven rations.

  “The thing is, my lord, after the event, even the servant would tell you he deserved the thrashing. The incident did not diminish his Majesty in the eyes of any in Callodon. It merely served to remind everyone that there are certain boundaries beyond which it’s unacceptable to trespass, unless one is prepared to accept the consequences. I know little to nothing of court life in Raheen, my lord, and I’ll say no more than this, if you’ll forgive me: this is not Raheen.”

  “Thank you, my friend. Yet I fear my discomfort extends beyond my lack of understanding of elves and their protocol. There’s something else, too. Looks like Allazar is returning.”

  Tyrane twisted around on his seat and noted the wizard hurrying along the tow-path, staff held low and parallel to the ground as he almost jogged to catch up with the royal barge. It didn’t take long before Allazar joined them in the deckhouse, an acrid scent following hard behind; Arramin had lit the brazier to warm some breakfast wine.

  “I have passed your instructions to the soolen-Viell, Longsword.”

  “And asked your questions?”

  “Yes. And you, you both seem sombre.”

  “We were speaking of change, and my discomfort.”

  “Ah. Well, change there is. I have been pondering the matter of this Keeve of the soolen-Viell and discussing it with Master Arramin. We concur that yes indeed the Viell’s powers may enjoy a certain richness here in their own domain which is not evident beyond it, but we also concur that the development of new tools such as that ‘snowball of lightning’, as you quaintly describe it, is much more than the result of any domain advantage they might possess.”

  “Allazar, in all our time together have you ever known me to prefer a hundred words when one will do?”

  “Ah.”

  “And not that one, if you can call it a word at all.”

  “Very well. We don’t trust him.”

  “You say that as though I should be surprised.”

  Allazar smiled ruefully, and pushed forward a little into the deckhouse, crammed with supplies and saddles, and sat on a stack of boxes facing the two men, lowering his voice even further.

  “Master Arramin and I have attempted to glean information from the elfwizard these past few days, and the information has not been readily forthcoming. This is a surprise, since Master Arramin is of the D’ith Sek, and there has always been mutual respect amongst the Viell and the D’ith. Moreover, the Sutengard are a sullen lot and not given to speaking openly about matters they deem to be far above their station and thus beyond their concern. There are wizardly ways to detect when a person is lying and it is foolish for one wizard to attempt to deceive another, but as you have so often pointed out, Longsword, a wizard has ways of employing words to deflect or obfuscate.”

  “To be a weasel, you mean. Yes. And there goes another hundred words.”

  “Ah, well, one of the weasel ways, if I may borrow your colourful description, is not to attempt to deceive or disinform, but to answer only those questions which are put, and decline to volunteer any other information unless specifically asked.”

  “And?”

  “And so I tested our new friend Keeve of the soolen-Viell with a few simple enquiries and yes, he is being, as you might say, a weasel. When I asked if his messages from Ostinath contained news from Shiyanath, he deftly avoided an answer by saying all was in readiness there. When I asked ‘in readiness for what’ his reply was in readiness for your arrival, which even I must accept as a trifle worrisome.”

  “Then our status becomes clearer,” Gawain sighed, “And my earlier discomfort was more than imagination. Not that there’s much we can do about it here on the chains.”

  “Your earlier discomfort?”

  “Yes. I was telling Tyrane about my feeling unwelcome, and the uncomfortable sense that something had changed. How we’ll need our strength soon. I even recalled to him your feelings, back on the ridge after Arramin and Terryn met up with us.”

  “Yes, I remember.”

  “I don’t trust any wizards, you don’t trust the elfwizard. My lady doesn’t trust him either. Leaving aside the means she employed to put him in his place, there’s the fact that she sent two elves to this province of Minyorn, taking a message to her cousin there. A message for her father, Thal-Hak.”

  “Has she told you what the message was?”

  “No. But the fact that she entrusted it to one of the Minyorn Sutengard rather than give it to that arrogant little whitebeard and his snowballs tells me all I need to know about how much we can trust him. And how much we can rely on a warm and friendly welcome waiting at the end of this great water road.”

  “Ah.”

  “So. Tyrane, if you wouldn’t mind, before we turn in… we’re a day and a half, perhaps two days from Ostinath. Between now and then I’d like our saddles and packs quietly prepared. When we leave this the barge for the last time, I want us to have everything we’re likely to require for a hasty trip to Shiyanath and the Council. I don’t want to waste time with such mundane matters once we’ve docked. Besides, we might not have time when we leave the chains for the last time.”

  “Aye, m’lord.”

  oOo

  20. Ostinath

  Life aboard the royal barge become filled with quiet purpose. Supplies were taken from the boxes and packs commandeered from the Sutengard and evenly distributed in saddle-bags, backpacks, and strapped to the saddle of the surviving packhorses. And all of this activity unnoticed by the elves at the rear of the 3-vessel flotilla or, if it had been noticed at all, ignored. The end of the long journey, which had begun at Raheen for most and Armunland in Goria for two of them, was now in sight, and knowing that a mere ten days on the Threnderrin Way was all that remained between them and the King’s Council gave added impetus to their actions. Everything was double-checked, including weapons, and then checked again.

  Gawain attended to the horses, talking to them, checking their legs and hooves and making certain they would be fit for the long ride north. Their regular exercise along the tow-path had been essential, not just to prevent boredom aboard the barge as it trundled along on the chains. Gwyn knew something different was going to happen soon, she could feel the anticipation rising in her chosen mount, and that sense of anticipation spread to the other horses. They’d had enough of riding in the maw of the metal monster, and yearned for the plains and good green grass.

  From time to time they glimpsed patrols in the trees on each side of the canal, and once even smelled cooking meat on the breeze, but the elves remained in the shadows and did not emerge from the tree line. Several fizzing snowballs zipped back and forth overhead, signals perhaps of the imminent arrival of the three vessels, confirmation perhaps that whatever waited at the end of this leg of the journey to Shiyanath was in readiness.

  There were no buildings to mark the approach to the ancient elven city, nor was there a mighty tower to be seen looming high in the distance. Indeed, there was little to differentiate the final stretch of the canal from any other, either here in the north or south of the wheels almost two weeks before. The Toorseneth, Arramin explained, was said to be to the northwest of the terminus of the Canal of Thal-Marrahan, and given the height of the tr
ees lining the great water road, would be obscured from view until the forest gave way to the city outskirts.

  The storm threatened by the wispy cirrus several days earlier had passed over them to the south, but a chilly and penetrating drizzle wafted in from the east at sunrise. Gawain and Tyrane had taken it in turns to doze during their final night’s watch, but real sleep proved elusive for all of them in the last miles of their journey from the city in the south.

  Cloaked against the dampness of the incessant drizzle, the day’s watch rose early on the twentieth day of their journey from Jarn. They packed away their bedrolls and belongings for the last time on the great water road, and horses were saddled and made ready for the final disembarkation. When all was prepared, the group huddled at the forward deckhouse, Elayeen standing slightly to the starboard side, peering forward past the side of the deckhouse, squinting against the misty rain.

  “Oh,” Arramin suddenly exclaimed, his face a picture of anxiety. “Oh, my lords…”

  They followed his gaze to the trees sliding by on the west bank, and saw the reason for the shock on his face. The remains of a stone-built edifice, little more than crumbling walls, a mighty pine growing through what had once been its roof. Through the haze of drizzle as daylight bloomed and shafts of morning sunlight lanced through low cloud in the east, more ruins were visible.

  “No,” Rollaf muttered, “No no no, not again…”

  “Peace, lad,” Tyrane urged, softly, “This is the north, remember?”

  Yet, the fear in the scout’s voice and the sight of tree-blown ruins on both sides of the canal brought the horror of Calhaneth to the forefront of their minds. Names. Screaming memories, the awful sounds of death, and horror, and catastrophe on an unimaginable scale. Shapes moved in the gloom of the ruins, the forest thinner here. Shadows, moving, adding to the eerie aspect of all about them. Elves.

  “Ostinath,” Eldengaze rasped, making them all start.

  “How can this be? How can this be?” Arramin muttered.

  “My lady had said that the Toorseneth has lost much of its greatness in the centuries since its construction. She did not say Ostinath was a ruin.”

  “What has happened here?” Arramin whispered, his lips trembling.

  “Time,” Allazar answered. “Ostinath is a ruin. There is nothing here.”

  “Not true,” Eldengaze rasped once again, and they followed her gaze forward, Arramin and Gawain peering through the portholes. Ahead, perhaps five or six hundred yards, a lock gate barred the way.

  All around them, the outskirts of Ostinath lay shattered and hidden by the leaf-fall of centuries, little more than vague shapes in the gloom of the forest. There were signs of recent activity though, a fallen tree had been dragged to the bank on the east side, marks on the tow-path there showing that it had until lately blocked the canal. Doubtless its removal was part of the preparations for their arrival.

  “There!” Arramin cried, pointing to the northwest, “I thought I glimpsed it through the trees! The Toorseneth!”

  Again, Gawain peered through the porthole, but saw nothing. Then came the clatter of booted feet running up from behind them on the tow-path on the west bank, passing them on the port side, a group of six Sutengard sprinting ahead of the flotilla. At the lock, one began cranking the gate wheel, the lock gate squealing a little as it opened possibly for the first time in an age. Then as the barge continued to slide forward, the trees parted, and gasps from behind told him the others had seen what now held his astonished gaze.

  Beyond the trees, a great empty space, a vast expanse of blue- and white-stone paving far broader than the Wheel of Thought in the centre of that dread city in the south. It glittered, damp with rain, sparkling in the sunlight. In the northwest, rising majestically, a broad and squat stone-built edifice far too broad and squat for the simple meaning that the word ‘tower’ conveyed. It was a citadel, or an immense castle Keep, round, yes, and rising to a height of perhaps a hundred feet. But it was vast, clearly far bigger than anything Arramin was expecting if his expression were any measure. Even from this distance, Gawain estimated its circumference to be at least a mile at the base. It glistened and sparkled as if studded with jewels, flecks of mica in the massive blue-stone blocks damp with drizzle and reflecting the early morning sunshine streaming in from the east.

  There were few openings in the tower near the ground that they could see from their vantage point on the canal, but higher up, rings of arched openings spoke of at least eight storeys or levels within the structure, though whether it was solid or merely an immense circular wall enclosing a great empty space, Gawain did not know. Nor did he particularly care at the moment, for with a final clunk, the barge disengaged from the chain for the last time. He heaved on the lever and cranked the wheel as Terryn, crossbow at the port, hopped up to the walkway at the prow to steer the vessel towards the lock with his boot on the tiller and his eye fixed on the elf at the lock control. It was Jaxon and Rollaf who took to the poles, and eased the barge into the lock.

  It took a few moments for the elf to close the south gate and another to open the north, the lock lifting the barge by about a foot, but when they finally poled through into the vast mooring pond that was the northern terminus of the Canal of Thal-Marrahan, Arramin choked back a sob. At least sixty barges lay in various states of disrepair on the western side of the pond, many of them sunk below the gunwales, just the deckhouses jutting up from the water to testify to their existence. A green mould clung to the hulls at the waterline, the water a muddy brown. It was as though the wrecks had been moored together and simply abandoned, though it was more likely the prevailing winds had blown them into a jumbled heap, like autumnal leaves pressed up against the base of a wall and left to rot.

  “We’ll dock to the east,” Gawain called through the porthole, and Terryn used his boot to guide the vessel away from the jumble of abandoned craft to the empty eastern dockside. Jaxon and Rollaf, well used to the poles by now, thrust the vessel forward, and when it bumped alongside they were ashore and hooking the chains on the bollards there while the elfwizard aboard the second barge to the south was still waiting for the outer lock gate to open.

  “Let’s go,” Gawain ordered.

  Tyrane had the ramp in place in the blink of an eye, and before the outer gate had finished swinging open to admit Keeve of the soolen-Viell into the lock, the party from Raheen, and their horses and supplies, were all ashore, mounted, and turning the horses towards the distant Toorseneth.

  “So much for a friendly greeting,” Allazar muttered, eyeing the vast and empty expanse of stone paving that lay between them and the tower.

  “Wait,” Eldengaze ordered, and pointed to the northeast, where a small group of riders emerged onto the paving.

  “Who is it? Can you see?” Gawain asked.

  “It matters not. We must speak with them. I shall lead. Your lights block my vision.”

  And with that, Elayeen eased her horse forward, Kahla hurriedly exclaiming that the way ahead was clear of obstructions.

  “Wait!” a voice protested from behind them, and a splash and cries of dismay where a pole had been dropped brought a smile their faces. The elfwizard’s barge had swung around in the lock and was moving broadside on into the inner gate, and it would be some time, by the looks, before the barge would be docked, much less the last of the convoy with the horses admitted to the lock.

  “Ignore him,” Gawain ordered, “Stay close to my lady, Allazar. Kahla, let her go, stay beside Jaxon please.”

  The group moved forward at the walk, Gawain scanning this way and that. Aside from them, the Sutengard on the floundering barge and at the lock, only the small group approaching from the northeast were visible. Ostinath, and the Toorseneth it seemed, had been abandoned a very long time ago.

  It was only when they were within an elf’s bowshot of the dozen or so riders approaching that Gawain noticed the lack of birds around the tree line, and by then it was too late to call a warning. Just as he
was about to call a halt, at least a hundred riders emerged from the shadows of the trees, forming a line, advancing slowly, and ominously.

  “Dwarfspit,” Gawain managed. “There’s our friendly greeting, I think.”

  “None shall bar the way,” Eldengaze announced, and when they were fifty yards from each other, the two groups reined in.

  Behind the elves, the hundred or so riders continued to advance until they formed an arc some forty yards to the rear of the lead party, and then stopped.

  “Elayeen,” Gawain said softly. “I think that is your brother, Gan!”

  Elayeen cocked her head slightly, and then dismounted. Gawain at once followed suit, Allazar at his side as he strode to keep up with Elayeen walking briskly towards her brother, boots ringing on the paving, bow held in readiness.

  Gan dismounted, together with two elves who marched dutifully behind him. Then, as the remainder of the party from Raheen dismounted and followed their leaders, so too did the remaining elves.

  “It seems,” Allazar said softly, “Anything we can do, they can do too.”

  “Except we can’t muster a hundred of the Red and Gold behind us in support. There’s just thirty more of them to our rear.”

  “None shall bar the way!” Eldengaze announced, loud enough for Gan to hear, and he stopped.

  Elayeen, Gawain, and Allazar continued, until the Queen of Raheen came to a halt six feet from her brother.

  Gan studied her for a moment, and then he held his hand to his heart in salute. “Thalin-Raheen. Thal-Gawain. Welcome to Ostinath.”

  “You bar the way, Gan-thal. Why?” Elayeen threatened.

  “The way is barred, Thalin-Raheen, for you have no purpose now at Shiyanath.”

  “No purpose!” Gawain gasped, “Mifrith Gan-thal, breth-hoth, we are summoned to Council there!”

  “The Council is no longer at Shiyanath. Thus, you have no purpose there. The Threnderrin Way is closed to you. The way north is barred. I am sorry.”