A Tapestry of Magics

by Brian Daley

  Fat old Fordall Urth himself, commander of Willow’s tiny force, took Crassmor’s reins and wheezily bade him enter. There were even fewer servants than there had been on the knight’s last visit.

  An elderly, spindle-legged man unknown to Crassmor greeted him within, showing a certain irritability in introducing himself as Racklee. Crassmor dismissed the offer of an escort when he heard that Willow was under the Jade Dome. The fellow seemed glad, in a grumpy way, to have one less duty to perform.

  “How long have you served House Comullo?” Crassmor asked, curious that a new face should have appeared there.

  Racklee gave an annoyed wave of his hand. “Some two months and more now, lord. I work for my keep and precious little more; these are hard times, and this is no wealthy House.”

  Crassmor made his way through the place alone, being as familiar with it as a family member and well educated in its various spells of misdirection and glamours of concealment, which would have confused a stranger or intruder.

  Dust and thick soot were everywhere in the place. Many of the halls and chambers were sealed off, unused, and the paintings, and furniture, and sculpture covered. The garden, from the glimpse he caught of it, had grown into a jungle. Roof tiles were cracked or missing, water damage from unrepaired leaks was everywhere, and the place smelled of mold and mildew. The carpets were threadbare and, with none of the fireplaces lit, the air was chilly.

  Crassmor threaded his way through the maze of corridors and rooms, coming at last to the door of the Jade Dome. It was a remarkable door, not for its height or width, which were prodigious, or even for its substance, the same green jade as the Dome. It had two identical latch handles, one on either side of it, cast in bright brass in the shape of great, outstretched eagle’s talons. Only a very few knew how to tell the handles apart. A Sight, bestowed only on those whom House Comullo trusted, was needed. Selecting the wrong one would open the door, not to the Jade Dome, but to the Guardian of that place, and a grisly, horrific death. Also, the ensorcellment of the door was such that the two handles might exchange places at any time without warning.

  Seeing the correct handle with the Sight given him so long ago by Teerse, Crassmor opened the door, which swung easily despite its colossal mass. He passed under a portal hewn from a single piece of ivory and stepped into the verdant world of the Dome. It curved over him, a lustrous green gem bowl all of a single piece, smooth and polished. The very air seemed to have taken on that hue, to have become some thicker medium. Under the Dome was a perpetual emerald late afternoon.

  In the middle of the Dome, Willow was at work on the Tapestry. The treasure of House Comullo was suspended, flat and nearly motionless, in the center of the Dome, rippling only slightly to Willow’s touch as she wove new strands into the Pattern. It hung unsupported, standing free in the air without falling or moving from its place, its lowermost point at about Crassmor’s eye level. So it had hung since Willow’s ancestors had started it centuries before, slowly weaving its Pattern, employing the strange talent that was the gift of that family, reflecting in its resplendent weft events of importance in the Singularity. It had been begun in the center, unlike any other tapestry, and woven outward in fibers of pure light. Now, generations later, it stretched upwards to many times Crassmor’s height.

  Willow was at work on a portion of the Tapestry near its upper edge. Holding her aloft patiently, her feet steady on the hard palms of his hands, was a special servant of House Comullo, Pysthesis. He was a man-shaped creature ten times the height of a man, his hands disproportionately large for his size. Pysthesis had been serving the weavers of the Tapestry in this manner for generations now, without fail and without complaint—without any word whatsoever, as far as Crassmor knew.

  The knight pulled the door closed. Without looking around, the Tapestry undulating gently under her flying fingers, Willow called over her shoulder, “Welcome back! I shall be through in a moment more.”

  Crassmor crossed the Dome unhurriedly; he always felt a celestial calm here and loved the peace and quiet of it. No noise or disturbance from the outer world ever penetrated the Jade Dome. Looking up when he neared Pysthesis’ feet, he could see nothing at all of Willow; he saw the huge creature himself foreshortened, and the backs of Pysthesis’ enormous hands, with curly hairs as thick as yarn. Where Willow’s fingers danced, though, expanding the Pattern, light interplayed, spreading out, threads coming to life, giving off radiance. No one but the Comullos knew how they obtained those remarkable threads. For the hundredth time, Crassmor squinted, puzzled, and failed to get any coherent idea of the Pattern’s scheme, or of the meanings that Willow and her ancestors had perceived and augmented over the years; that Sight was restricted to her family alone.

  Her one personal indulgence was the variety of her clothing, worn for morale’s sake and to give diversity to the long sessions under the Jade Dome. Today Willow was wearing a jingling suit of fine, delicate silver mesh, belted at the hip with a broad band of black pearls, trimmed with much braid at each shoulder. Crassmor almost laughed aloud; Willow liked fun from her wardrobe.

  “Finished,” she said a moment later. “Down, please, Pysthesis.”

  The gargantuan man-creature obediently knelt and gently lowered his hands so that she could step off his palms. Remembering the savagery of the giant of John’s Winch, Crassmor took a closer look at Pysthesis.

  The creature had a wild mane of tangled black hair and thick, almost furry body hair covering his grainy white skin. His bulging muscles enabled him to hold a weaver aloft for hours without moving. In form, he was very like a man except for his single huge eye, set in the middle of his brow. He wore loose garments of wool and went unshod. He smelled strongly of homemade soap.

  The single eye lit now on Crassmor, then turned back to Willow. “Thank you, Pysthesis,” she said, and reached up to stroke the low, proffered brow.

  The cyclops rose to his full height, bowed once more, and shambled off toward the door, bound for the oversized outbuilding where he spent virtually all of his time when he wasn’t under the Dome. For all the door’s height and width, the placid cyclops had to crouch down on hands and knees to leave. According to Willow, Pysthesis spent the bulk of his time either sleeping or in a kind of meditative trance, perhaps thinking back over his long life. Crassmor wondered how much the feeding of the cyclops had added to the impoverishment of House Comullo.

  Pysthesis had been brought to the Singularity by a rather crafty mariner who had claimed he had quieted the cyclops’ natural savagery forever with potions, certain magics, and an application of guile, and was using the cyclops as a slave to row his ship. Willow’s great-grandfather had taken pity on the cowed and mind-clouded brute. He’d purchased the cyclops out of slavery—and brought him to the Jade Dome. Pysthesis had never spoken, but seemed to accept his altered life; free to leave, he’d chosen to stay. Crassmor wondered what thoughts and memories passed through the cyclops’ head.

  Willow threw her arms around Crassmor’s neck and kissed him a welcome that made him forget his troubles, trials, and dangers. When she was done, he kissed her back with every bit as much fervor.

  “If you’d come two days past, you’d have found your Lost Boys here.” She laughed. “I feted them and missed you terribly. I think they did too; none of them even chased me.”

  He guffawed. Then he became serious. “I was grieved to hear of Teerse’s death,” he let himself say, right moment or no. He’d liked the old man. His death added to their misfortunes because it left Willow without kin and thus reinforced Combard’s authority to select her husband.

  She nodded sadly. “He lived a long life and was happy, right to the end, with what had been given him. I don’t think he regretted anything. Not a bad life.”

  Would that I were so fortunate! the knight wished, but only answered, “I would put my oath to that; it’s high achievement.”

  He looked up at the Tapestry again. Iridescent lights of diverse colors flickered along its threads f
rom time to time in brief bursts, tracing lines in the Pattern, branching out across it then vanishing, only to be followed by new light flashes.

  Crassmor wondered again if there was any truth to the rumors that the Tapestry gave its weavers some degree of prescience or predictive powers. He’d never managed to get Teerse to talk about that, and Willow had let him see that she was offended by his attempts to learn more; in time, Crassmor had given it up.

  “It’s grown since I’ve been gone,” he observed, “but it grows slowly.”

  “There have been many things for the Pattern to record, events to integrate,” she answered. She looked up at it and murmured, “And how much longer will it endure? It’s a time of great peril, I fear, my love. An end to us all is not beyond the possibilities, a day that may see no more Singularity. The future has the seeds of our destruction, Crassmor; will they blossom, I wonder?”

  For a moment it had been on his lips to press her again for information about the Tapestry. He caught himself, wishing to bring no unpleasantness into this most joyous aspect of his homecoming. He belabored himself with logic: Look around you, fool; the place is crumbling and Willow must be near poverty. Is this the setting for an object of such power?

  “As may be,” he said in an attempt at lightness. “We are together once more; I find it a good day in every particular.”

  She threw her arms around his neck. “Crassmor’s home! We have so much to talk about! What of life in the Beyonds? Brave deeds? Heroic feats of arms?”

  “Considerable shirking and ducking,” he replied, “and the avoidance of all trouble whenever possible. And if I was no paragon of valor, what of you? A model of virtue?”

  She poked his belly. “Be you not so curious. I am still here in the Jade Dome, awaiting you; that should suffice.”

  He drew forth her red scarf. “It does.” She took it and knotted it at his throat.

  “Come away with me,” he begged; her breath caught. “Today. Now. We’ll go into the Beyonds and be together always. There are places where we can make a life for ourselves.”

  She stopped him from embracing her again. “I cannot; I’m bound by tradition and promises and—by other things. Will you accept that?”

  He bit back arguments and protests; he could see it in her face that she loved him. “I accept. At least we have this moment.”

  “We have.”

  He took her hand and led her from the Jade Dome. In the corridor, he turned them toward the bedchambers of the Lady Willow.

  Chapter 15

  SPELLBOUND

  His shadow was long when Crassmor crossed the last gentle hills riding toward House Tarrant in late afternoon, half-dreaming in the saddle, his thoughts entirely on Willow.

  It had taken her completely serious threat to summon her guardsmen and have him forcibly evicted to convince Crassmor to return home in observance of his father’s curfew. The hours he’d spent at House Comullo had only served to make him hungrier for her. When passion had been spent, love and desire had remained unchanged in its wake.

  The sun’s slanting rays showed a rider approaching. It took an extra second or two for the usually wary knight to break off his reverie and see that the Klybesian monk Mooncollar was riding at him. Crassmor’s hand started for his sword; then, recalling that Mooncollar would be unaware that he knew of his plottings, he changed the move to a wave to conceal his original intent. A moment later, he stopped before the monk.

  “I trust that this day finds you well, holy sir.” Crassmor resisted the impulse to look around for Saynday.

  The Klybesian made a sign of benediction. “And upon you, gentle knight, a blessing. May I ride with you a way?”

  “An honor.” At my side, but not at my back! Crassmor nonchalantly scanned the surrounding countryside for sign of ambush; he saw nothing in that open, rolling landscape to alarm him.

  As their horses plodded along, Mooncollar said, “I come to you at the behest of others, certain parties whose best interests lie aligned with your own.”

  Crassmor let show his genuine surprise and disbelief. Mooncollar went on. “Your plight is known in some quarters, yes, and looked upon with sympathy. There are matters that may be of mutual profit to you and these others of whom I speak.”

  “I’m always receptive to endeavors of self-improvement,” the knight admitted.

  “Such is your reputation,” the Klybesian commented with what Crassmor suspected to be a note of sarcasm. “But these are not subjects to be discussed openly on the road, or so casually. I know that there is, out in the hills above House Tarrant, a hunting lodge tended by one old retainer. Could we perhaps confer there tomorrow night, at the tenth hour?”

  “I see no reason why not,” Crassmor lied; he could, in fact, think of several. There would always be time to back out of the meeting later, or simply not show up.

  They’d come to the turnoff to House Tarrant. “Until then,” the Klybesian said, “may all that is good go with you.” Crassmor thanked him, and watched the monk ride away toward Dreambourn.

  Crassmor rode on, looking every which way. He came by a hole burrowed at the side of the road. A prairie dog popped out of it, sniffing, attentive. Although it had no mustache, Crassmor stopped and watched it, smiling. There had been no prairie dog hole at the roadside when he’d ridden by earlier.

  “How was that tongue?” the knight inquired.

  The prairie dog looked at him, erect in its hole, fore-paws folded complacently on its stomach. “Well, real good,” the prairie dog admitted.

  It scampered from its burrow; it elongated in different directions. The Trickster sat cross-legged by the side of the road to House Tarrant. “Mighty good; better than any chicken,” Saynday proclaimed. He grinned guiltily. “I should have saved some for pemmican. Couldn’t.”

  Crassmor laughed aloud.

  “I followed that fella, though,” Saynday went on. “I was comin’ along…”

  The knight stopped laughing. The Trickster told his story. Mooncollar had indeed shown up, an hour or so after Crassmor, Arananth, and Bint had gone by. Instead of going on to Dreambourn, the monk had turned off in the direction of House Tarrant. Saynday had trailed the Klybesian to a small pavilion on a stream’s bank some distance from the stronghold itself. There the monk had waited, and the Trickster as well.

  “I was Raven,” Saynday admitted. “No mustache this time.” They both chuckled.

  In time, a man had come down to the stream side to meet Mooncollar. Saynday described symbol-sewn robes; Crassmor was angry and not surprised. The Count di Cagliostro had strolled down, as if out for a walk at random.

  Crassmor stroked his goatee. “He must just have finished with his necromancies. Did you hear, Prankster, what transpired?”

  Saynday answered, “Well, they sat at the foot of that runnel that feeds into the stream, the spot where the bench is cut from the fallen tree.”

  Crassmor nodded absently; it had been a childhood play place.

  “I was on a branch then,” Saynday continued. “This count figures you’re either a help or a problem to some plan he’s fixin’. Didn’t say nothin’ about the plan. He gave Mooncollar a job: to meet you and get on a meetin’ for tomorrow night.”

  “This Mooncollar has already done,” Crassmor responded. “But to what purpose?”

  “Life or death,” Saynday answered. “Yours.”

  “Then I know which outcome I prefer.” Saynday rocked over backward with laughter at the reply, holding his toes. Crassmor was sniggering too. “Say on,” the knight invited at length.

  “Mooncollar’s supposed to get you mixed into whatever plans they’re hatching. But if you refuse, he’s supposed to make sure you don’t get through the night. They’ve cooked up something awful for you.” The Trickster shuddered; Crassmor involuntarily followed suit.

  Saynday went on. “This di Cagliostro’s got strong medicine. If Mooncollar can’t talk you in, he’ll drop it and act like it’s nothin’. He’ll turn the talk to drinkin
’ and singin’ long before midnight.”

  “An ominous moment,” Crassmor observed, doing his best to say it lightly. “And to what purpose?”

  “That di Cagliostro wanted to know if your Mooncollar knew somethin’ he called a catch-song. Somethin’ named ‘The Farm Wife’s Jolly Boy.’ The monk said he did.”

  Saynday’s eyes almost crossed as he went into a precise repetition. “The count said, ‘Contrive to be singing it at just the midnight instant. There is a clock in the lodge, always accurate; attend it closely. Take you the first part and leave Crassmor the second. At midnight, Crassmor is to be singing the lines of his part that run:

  “‘He chased her up and chased her down,

  pursued her round and round the town

  and in good time, did bed her down,

  just as he did intend—O!

  Her temper did amend—O!’”

  Crassmor gnawed a knuckle, commenting offhandedly, “Your voice isn’t bad; you must mind those high notes, though.” Saynday giggled shrilly. “Yet what of it, this caterwauling?”

  “The count promised,” the Trickster answered, “that at midnight there’d be a summoned spirit near that lodge, eavesdropping, bound and ordered with the best magic there is. What you call a demon. It’s gonna grab up the singer of those words and do terrible murder or worse.”

  Crassmor was already perspiring. “They sort of thought that you’re always the one for a drink and a song,” Saynday finished sadly.

  My false fame precedes me. It occurred to Crassmor why di Cagliostro hadn’t resorted to something more direct: poisons or assassins. But of course, whether Crassmor was out of favor or no, his murder would send Combard into a vengeful fury that the entire Singularity could scarcely contain—strange to realize that. Crassmor’s demise through trafficking with demons, on the other hand, would smack of some occult tampering of Crassmor’s own gone against him.