A Tapestry of Magics

by Brian Daley

  He saw the absurdity of it and laughed. He told her of the meeting with Mooncollar and of di Cagliostro’s machinations, all revolving around the Tapestry somehow. “In giving me back my life,” he snorted, “your Tapestry has purchased itself an agent and ally.”

  “Those enemies move against me too,” she reminded him. “Remember that old free servant, Racklee? He’s disappeared; I fear for his safety. When I instructed the guards to keep you away, it was because the Pattern showed great peril for you when you were near me. It was all too true.”

  Crassmor showed his teeth to the Tapestry. “Danger to you is one more reason for me to serve that—that thing! And how many other lives has your precious Tapestry—”

  He stopped in mid-breath. He rose, spilling her from his lap, then pulling her up. He shouted, “Sandur! Willow, make that cursed Pattern bring back Sandur!” He shook his fist up at the Tapestry, addressing it. “You want a champion, do you? Then you’ll give me back my brother!”

  Willow pulled down the fist. “It cannot do that.” Crassmor listened against his will. “My love, it cannot! If such a thing were possible, don’t you think I would have accomplished it already?”

  He spun from her. She put a hand on the armored back. “The Pattern has its limitations,” she told him. “Any alteration risks diminishing its powers. Its permutability is slight. There are already flaws in the Pattern which can’t be corrected. They lessen its influence, because some attempted change did not work in the past. The death of Sandur was locked into the Pattern; there was nothing my father and I could do to bring him back.”

  He turned back to her. “Did you foresee it?”

  “There was always death and peril around the Outrider,” she answered in a level tone. Crassmor berated himself for thinking that she might have held back a warning. “But Teerse and I learned of Sandur’s death only when the Tapestry showed it. We couldn’t alter it; we could only tell Ironwicca of it.”

  She hushed him from the other questions he would have asked. “No more; you must go and do what you can against the Klybesians. It must be the road for you, and tonight.”

  That brought something to mind. He fished out the things he’d retrieved from Mooncollar’s script, the note and the medallion. Willow agreed that they offered a course of action, however vague. He handed Furd’s note to her for safekeeping and for whatever evidence it might be, should he fail to return.

  “I’ll need other clothes,” he decided. “Then we’ll see what’s about at that crossroads tomorrow.”

  Whether he’d been summoned in some manner that Crassmor hadn’t detected or simply shown up at that moment, Fordall Urth appeared just then, bearing Shhing, Crassmor’s dagger, and the helm he’d lost when his horse had pitched him. Seen in this light, the guard commander was once more a ponderous oldster.

  “We also found these on the bodies of the slain,” Fordall Urth explained. He held out two more medallions with the eye-in-pyramid.

  “I do not think di Cagliostro will dare come here,” Willow judged, “but he will send some other to find out what’s become of you.” She led Crassmor toward the door. “Deceptions may be worked around deceptions. You’re safer if you’re thought dead. Leave that to me.”

  The knight walked steadily, strength renewed, trying not to think about what would happen if the Tapestry’s dictates reverted.

  The weaver told her guard, “His horse stays in the bailey. If my weaving has removed the bloodstains from his saddle, mark it with sheep’s blood. Drop more on the front steps as well, and a trail in the hall.”

  Fordall Urth said that a fresh mount and provisions would be ready shortly.

  “There can be no companion for you from among my liegemen,” she told Crassmor at the doorway of the Jade Dome. “They are bound to these lands by Comullo magic. Nor can Bint or your Lost Boys be told; this part of the Pattern speaks to you and the Klybesians alone, at least for now.”

  With no talent for good-byes, he caught her up in his arms. Their kiss was urgent, hard. “You’re the woman I’ll love forever.”

  “Who’ll love you forever.”

  A moment later, Willow watched Crassmor go off to face the waiting danger, then turned to Fordall Urth. “Someone will come seeking me soon, on some pretext or other. Tell him that you will escort him into the Jade Dome, but arrange for some hubbub among the guards when you’ve come near the door, and go to see about it. The door will be left ajar; leave whoever it is near enough so that he’ll be able to steal over and peer through. Is this clear?”

  Fordall bowed. Willow saw him in his true form, a towering fighting man in war helm and glittering black armor. “And, Fordall, use your arts on Crassmor; disguise him.” Fordall Urth went to arrange things. Willow returned to the Tapestry.

  Under the barely rippling Tapestry she knelt, searching among the fallen threads that had been cut off short or rejected by determinations of the Pattern itself. The pulsations of light in some of the discards weren’t altogether dimmed yet. She drew various of them across the palm of her hand, seeking by her weaver’s powers. At last the one she wanted was in her hand.

  Patient Pysthesis lifted her up to a spot she selected. As Willow had long since learned, the Jade Dome’s design resulted in the light from the single doorway throwing shadows across the room to the base of the wall opposite. Held up close to the Tapestry as she was now, Willow would be unable to see it, as any onlooker would be able to tell. But the cyclops, standing where she’d bade him, could see over the top of the Tapestry.

  She craned her head to look up at the solitary eye. “Can you see light from the doorway across the Dome?”

  The cyclops nodded solemnly.

  “When you see that light blocked by someone peering in,” she instructed, “give no other sign, but press your thumb against my leg. Signal me again when that person is gone.” There was another inclination of the colossal head.

  She set about anchoring the salvaged thread to the Tapestry, even though she knew it would be rejected the moment she relaxed her control. She wasn’t trying to effect a change in the Pattern, but only a temporary fastening-on. Her plan required nothing more. Willow fretted, and even swore a little, at the Pattern’s resistance. At last she managed a tenuous attachment. Then she fell to an intent study of the Tapestry, passing time in trying to descry something more of the threat of the Klybesians and the hazards awaiting Crassmor. Over an hour passed.

  The cyclops’ enormous thumb brushed the side of her leg, then fell back. Willow’s hands flew at the Tapestry, her movements frenetic. She clicked her anger, rasped her disappointment. She knew that the exploding colors racing outward from her work would show how much energy she was throwing at the Pattern. At her unspoken command, the play of light was fitful, though, speaking of failure.

  Willow let the Pattern flash angrily; she moaned and released her control over the thread. It floated down, and she knelt in the cyclops’ palms, watching it, crying aloud. She stared at the thread drifting down leisurely between Pysthesis’ legs to the carpet, semaphoring its rejection, going dark even before it landed. She gave a little scream, then wept at some volume.

  A moment later, the thumb touched her arm. She had Pysthesis set her down. Searching there, she took up the thread she’d let fall, wiping away tears that had nothing to do with, its failure.

  A rap sounded at the open door. Willow spun as Fordall Urth came through. “His Eminence, Furd, abbot of the Klybesians, my lady!”

  Crassmor’s uncle entered, in the sort of waddle that kept his chubby inner thighs from chafing under his billowing robe. Furd had been at Gateshield that night, and both the Klybesians and di Cagliostro had their secret means of communication. No wonder, then, that the ambush had been so well timed.

  Willow stammered a greeting. Furd, grinning widely, hooking thumbs through his corded belt, wagged a puffy forefinger at her. “Have we grown so far apart that you no longer greet me as Uncle Furdie? I know it is not an early hour, but I was passing and t
hought to see if you were still working. How long it’s been since we have seen one another, my child! And, knowing the unusual hours you sometimes keep under the Jade Dome…”

  He shrugged broadly, awaiting her reaction. Willow spoke a welcome haltingly. Furd smiled. “Perhaps I should come back some other time? I noticed a bloodied saddle on a horse in the bailey, and your guardsman told me that there has been a… hunting accident.” There was sympathy in his voice, but none in his eyes.

  Willow gazed down blankly at the darkened thread she held, the last of the temporary energies she’d given it now exhausted. She opened her fingers slowly, watching it float to the carpet once more. She answered, “No, your—Uncle Furd. I’ve no work left to do here. But you will have to excuse me; I’m very, very tired.”

  The abbot smiled and splayed his fingers across his belly, permitting himself no more secret joy over the death of a kinsman than was proper in a triumphant Klybesian.

  Chapter 19

  AMONG THE CHOSEN

  Crassmor fingered the medallion and peered through the foliage at the band of rogues assembled around a small campfire fifty paces from where he crouched in hiding.

  By the side of the crossroads were a young Klybesian monk and four other men. As he watched, they rose to greet a new arrival. They stood in a line, ranged out in case of trouble, with the hint of unease of men who were not yet used to functioning together. Only the monk betrayed none. Crassmor, watching them for nearly an hour, was convinced that the fighting men were recent recruits.

  One of these wore a cuirass of horizontal metal hoops and an open-faced helm with hinged cheek flaps. He bore an oblong shield and was armed with shortsword, dagger, and heavy spear. His heavy buskins had seen much use. Crassmor had on occasion seen his kind before, a legionary.

  Two more of the men were of a kind with one another, arrayed in jerkins of white fur, leathern breeches, and muddy gaiters over heavy sandals. They carried short, cased bows and short axes. One, as he rose, slipped into his pouch a set of dice or knucklebones with which the group had been passing the time—the monk excepted.

  The last was extravagantly dressed, a man in a plate corselet and a plumed, wide-brimmed hat streaming with ribbons of many colors. His clothing was dazzling, with sleeves and breeches vented and slashed, billowed and gathered, and fine hose. He bore a huge, two-handed sword over his shoulder, as long a weapon as the longswords of the lizard riders. He carried a smaller one, with S-shaped quillons, at his waist.

  There’d been no sign of Furd or di Cagliostro. The knight had been dithering over whether or not to reveal himself; simply trailing the group from a distance held little promise of yielding useful information except their destination, and he had a feeling he already knew that. Still, going among them, even in the disguise provided by Fordall Urth, went against Crassmor’s every inclination.

  Not that he could complain about Fordall’s work, although it had cost the knight his mustache and goatee and transformed his hair to jet black. There had been something about Fordall’s craft—the puckered scar applied with a streak of something resembling tree sap that had drawn the corner of Crassmor’s mouth downward in a convincing disfigurement; the strokes of grime that had changed the shape of his cheeks—that had smacked of a master at work. He wondered where Willow’s guard commander had learned such things. But then, Fordall Urth’s own arts of disguise were of a far more curious nature.

  There’d also been no sign of anyone who might recognize Crassmor, and he badly wished to know what rendezvous this was. He blasphemed against the fate that had sent him into this adventure with so little opportunity to plan.

  The new arrival came in out of the ground fog hugging the intersection. He was an old man, small and bent, on a piebald pony, leading a pack horse burdened with large, carefully secured boxes. Crassmor had been speculating on who the agent mentioned in the note might be and what his cargo. Now at least one question was answered. The knight gave a start as he recognized Racklee, Willow’s missing servitor. Crassmor had begun rising, unconsciously; now he squatted back down slowly.

  The old man traded curt greetings with the Klybesian. The others began to gather their things and break camp. Crassmor turned and crept down the little rise behind his hiding place, swearing under his breath. Time was running out; the abeyance won for him by Willow was, as she’d been at pains to have him understand, very limited. This new development underscored the danger to her, to the Tapestry, and to the knight himself. He needed to know more, as quickly as possible, even if it meant going in among his enemies. He pulled up the hood of his borrowed, faded blue cloak, settling it low over his face.

  He mounted; when he left the copse of trees in which he’d hidden, he was coming from the direction of a nearby village. The armed men among the waiting group were quick to hear and turned on him. Hands went to weapons, and Crassmor made sure that his own was settled at his shoulder for the draw. He’d left his mail behind at House Comullo, but wore a stiff leather jacket, proofed with metal lozenges, under the short cloak.

  The waiting warriors had begun to integrate their actions. A quick exchange of glances, a hand signal from the monk, and they’d deployed themselves both to guard against what Crassmor might do and to keep watch for others appearing. The Klybesian came forward expectantly as the knight approached. Crassmor held up the medallion around his neck, the eye-in-pyramid he’d taken from Mooncollar’s script; all the others wore the same.

  “I was told to come here with this,” he said. If he’d said the wrong thing, there’d be a spear cast and arrows, and he carried no shield.

  “Who sends you?” the Klybesian, eyeing him, wanted to know.

  “Your fellow monk Mooncollar. I’d met him before; he bespoke me in the marketplace in Dreambourn two days ago.”

  The armsmen looked to the monk. The young Klybesian demanded, “Why so? Mooncollar is not here to speak for you.”

  Nor will he be here to speak against me, Crassmor knew. He scanned them, knowing that they saw a greasy-haired, sunken-cheeked swordsman down on his luck. He shrugged. “The cleric promised good pay, gave me this token to wear, and said to meet him here. My loyalty’s for you as well, if you have money.”

  The monk scratched his chin. “The day ere yesterday, you say?” He thought for a moment; Crassmor hoped that logic would allay his suspicions. If the plot and this meeting had been compromised, why should one man show up instead of Royal Borderers and Knights of Onn, who would have no need of any deception?

  The Klybesian apparently saw it that way, concluding that Mooncollar had recruited Crassmor before meeting his ghastly end. “Very well. If you’re of a mind to serve without question or condition, there will be reward for you in abundance.”

  Crassmor responded, “I say to you as I said to Mooncollar: I’ve a sword to sell, and nothing else. Not convictions, not reservations, not curiosity.”

  The others armsmen studied him. Crassmor was relieved to see that there were no hotbloods among them, none who cared to test themselves against every potential rival. These men were veterans, canny and sure of themselves. Not surprisingly, there were no introductions.

  Old Racklee was now dismounting stiffly. The Klybesian told him, “No, stay mounted. We should have been on our way already. We are expected.”

  Racklee, one leg on his pony’s croup, frowned. “Then another few moments will not matter. I have come far and spent long labor at my crafting. I am weary.”

  The Klybesian stepped closer. He looked hardly old enough to have taken his final vows, a handsome boy with soft brown hair, large blue eyes, and downy cheeks. There was something in his face, though, cold and absolutely certain, that endowed him with an air of authority. “You would do well to recall whom you serve, old one.”

  The sourpuss agent examined the boyish monk with a scowl, not used to being contradicted. At length he drew himself back into the saddle with a grunt and an exhalation, rubbing his tired joints.

  The rest were on horses now. Cr
assmor fell in behind Racklee, with the bowmen trailing him and the long-swordsman bringing up the rear. Ahead of the artisan was the legionary and at the head of things the monk. The Klybesian called over his shoulder, “We will stop when we have made some headway. By tonight you shall be well hosted.”

  Which, for Crassmor, confirmed the destination. Klybesians were rarely so glad-sounding as when they were going home.

  The headquarters of the Klybesian sect, its stronghold and generations-old seat, the monastery of Virtuary, opened before them by degrees. The place pointed up the monks’ penchant for hiding menace behind a benign face.

  Virtuary’s defenses were subtle and deadly, constructed over long years and carefully concealed. Its grounds were so designed that, as in most things Klybesian, there was no direct path, no straight road. The riders found themselves obliged to wind along through mazes of turns, covered bridges, and ramps engineered to function as defensive traps. The route was bordered with hedgerows, stone walls, fences, and steep slopes, all fashioned to look scenic and innocent.

  Crassmor knew better. He’d visited the place with his father and uncle. In the landscaped, parklike valley that gave access to the place, there were even more ways to come to harm, though any Klybesian would have maintained stoutly that the entire intent of the area was aesthetic. In fact, there was rumored to be not one edge or point anywhere in the place. That didn’t change the fact that any number of would-be thieves and intruders, and at least one hostile armed force, had met their end without ever reaching the redoubt that guarded Virtuary.

  A visitor came indoors by degrees, not by the simple crossing of a threshold. Countryside yielded to small lawns and gazebos, trellises, latticeworks of vines, and aged wisteria at the roadside. There were rain shelters among the paths, and ornamental walls. All these became more common, pressing in on the slope up to the redoubt which presided over all. Crassmor knew too, because Sandur had told him, that most of the slope was undermined and could be sent crashing down with the severing of a single cord within Virtuary.