Whitemantle

by Robert Carter

  Will shifted uneasily. ‘You said you would never try to use Maskull’s weapons against him, no matter how desperate the strait.’

  Willow said, ‘He won’t have to. Master Gwydion need have nothing to do with them, for I’ll gladly play the queen’s part and put them on Maskull myself – so long as the rest of you promise me that you’ll kill him when you catch him!’

  Will sat back slowly, seeing just how desperate their strait had become. ‘No, Willow. The cost of failure—’

  ‘—is too high,’ Gwydion finished. ‘Your fiery courage does you much credit, Willow, but yours is not the way.’

  Will looked from face to face, relieved. But then his concern hardened. ‘Then what? How do we attack Maskull?’

  ‘My friends, you have learned much, but you know little of wizardly matters. No member of the Ogdoad has ever tried to kill another. The very idea is repellent, and no occasion of necessity has ever arisen. There are sound reasons why even Maskull should not have tried, and sounder ones why we of the Ogdoad must not attempt to punish our betrayer with death, no matter what his crime. You see, there is a principle that magic and paradoxes make poor bedfellows.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Will asked. His feelings closed against the argument. But Gwydion’s gesture called for a moment of indulgence. ‘For a lawmaker to kill a man because he has committed a murder – that is a paradox, do you see? So if a punishment of death were to be visited on that murderer using magic, then a number of unfortunate consequences would result, consequences that would in the end outweigh the justice of the case.’

  ‘But Maskull has no scruples about using magic to kill,’ Willow said. ‘If anyone deserves—’

  Will sliced the air with his hand. ‘And that’s why he’s a sorcerer – he has no scruples about using magic to kill. Now, are you saying that we should all descend to sorcery?’

  The Wortmaster, who had said nothing until now, broke his silence. ‘Of course we must not sink to his level. We do not believe, and have never believed, that an eye is worth any other eye, or that a tooth is worth any other tooth. We believe that eyes and teeth are better sitting in people’s heads, hey? Isn’t that better sense?’

  Lotan growled at that, but otherwise held his peace.

  Willow said, ‘Then what are we to do with Maskull? If Master Gwydion will not try to kill him, and killing him is beyond the powers of anyone but an Ogdoad wizard, what shall we do? It’s all very well having high principles, but unless you can stop him doing what he wants by throwing a barrel of kindness over him, then you’d better find another way.’

  Morann calmed her. ‘We’ll just have to try again to send Maskull away somewhere. Somewhere even further away than last time. If there is any such place.’

  ‘Are you joking?’ Gort said. ‘He escaped from the Realm Below. If that endless maze of darkness could not hold him, I should like to know what manner of place can!’

  Gwydion was tired and his hands, lifting momentarily from the carved arms of his chair, revealed a deep frustration. ‘Alas! No remedy is simple. Maskull’s jealousies have driven him to seek ever more arcane knowledge to use against me. He has wandered far in the world. Long ago he overreached me in the destructive arts. In his search he learned much and took to himself many cunning skills, though most would have been better left undisturbed. He took something of great value from a cave in the east, and many years passed before I found out what it was.’

  ‘Another weapon?’ Willow asked.

  ‘In fact it was just the opposite – a protection of sorts. It is said that whomsoever washes in the Spring of Celamon shall henceforward only ever suffer one day of imprisonment.’

  ‘And did Maskull wash there?’ Will asked.

  ‘He has twice boasted to me of it. And I believe him.’

  ‘Well, it couldn’t have been a very thorough wash,’ Willow said. ‘What about the four years of peace that followed the battle at Verlamion? We only enjoyed peace because Maskull was locked up for all that time.’

  Will nodded. ‘That’s right. It was four years that Maskull was exiled in the Realm Below. How does that square with his washing in the Spring of Celamon?’

  Gwydion got up and slowly began to pace the room. ‘You must be more careful with your use of words – exile is by no means the same as imprisonment. Nor is wandering in a maze the same as being locked up. Maskull was not confined – he was merely elsewhere and lost.’

  ‘Surely this is splitting hairs,’ Will objected. ‘Mere words.’

  ‘Oh, not so. Not so.’ The wizard let his own words sink in, then he said, ‘Laws are made of words. Magic is brought into being by them, for they are ideas that have been given expressible form. Words, and the meaning and power of them, are what we all live by.’

  Morann touched his shoulder indulgently. ‘What Master Gwydion is trying to say is that Maskull could not find a way out, but there was a way out.’

  The wizard spread his hands. ‘That is why I did not try to trap Maskull into any kind of locked prison. I vanished him deeply – to a place so vast and labyrinthine that it should have taken him the rest of the Age to find his way out.’

  ‘That’s no use to us now, Master Gwydion,’ Willow said.

  ‘Maskull caught one of those poor, shadowy creatures who dwell in the Realm Below,’ Will said, remembering the ked. ‘He forced it to show him the way out, so his return is no mystery. But where can we put him that’s more secure than the Land of Annuin? Perhaps we can sail him to the Rim of the World and cast him down into the space between sea and sky. Once he tumbles into the Desolate Sea that lies below—’

  Gwydion raised his hands like one who has grown tired of fruitless debate. ‘And how would you tempt him aboard your ship and keep him there? My friends, we must do the seemingly impossible. We must find Maskull a place of exile where there is no guide to conduct him out again, a place from which there is truly no escape.’

  Then out of the silence an unlooked-for comment came. ‘I know of such a place…’

  Gwydion had reached the window. Now he turned and looked at Lotan. ‘Did you speak?’

  ‘Yes. I said I know a place from which there would be no escape for Maskull.’

  Gwydion showed his impatience. ‘Do not concern yourself with things about which you cannot possibly know any—’

  ‘I not only know of such a place,’ Lotan said, shoving aside all objections, ‘I have been there.’

  ‘You?’

  ‘Yes, me.’ The big man’s voice became wistful. ‘In my youth I sailed with sea rovers across many an ice-cold ocean. I visited the Baerberg, which is the northernmost isle of the whole world.’

  ‘I suppose you will claim to have stepped ashore there,’ Gwydion said as if he were interviewing a liar.

  ‘No mariner will willingly land there. But I have seen it as close as any man – from the distance of a bowshot. It is a tall mountain that rises from the sea, and on its frost beaches there are mermen and mermaids who bathe by night in the silvery moonbeams. Their skins are blue and green and their teeth are sharp and they are a handsome and strange folk. They come in great numbers to swarm around any ship that dares to approach their beaches, but there can be no trade with them, for they go bare and lack for nothing, and no one knows their tongue, for they speak a language known only to gulls and skarvens.

  ‘The mountain called Baerberg has a great stone stair that rises up into the sky. I have seen it, though its top is most often wreathed in cloud. A secret is kept by the Sightless Ones that speaks of it. At the top, so they say, there stands a door, and the keyhole in that door awaits a golden key. I do not know what lies beyond the door unless it be only the brightness of the stars. But I will tell you this – the Fellowship believes the legend of the Baerberg, and part of it says that mountain is a place where no magic can be worked.’

  All of them stared at Lotan, while he in turn gazed in fascination at the merry flames crackling from the log in the grate.

  ‘Fire is so
beautiful,’ he said. ‘I would have risked everything a thousand times for just one moment such as this.’

  The sentiment touched Will’s heart, but still he wondered about how Lotan’s view of the Baerberg fitted with what he had once been told by Gwydion; that Maskull had visited the Baerberg, that it was there he had opened the door in the sky and first gained knowledge that there was another world. Few men had ever travelled in sight of that far island, and Will found it wonderful that Lotan should be one of them. From the calculating expression on Gwydion’s face, however, it seemed that the wizard did not share Will’s sentiments. One by one, the company began to stir from their thoughts. Lotan’s interruption had served to draw a line under their talk. Willow sensed their mood and said, ‘We’d all better get some sleep, for tomorrow looks like being a very long day.’

  ‘Sound advice,’ Gwydion said, moving towards the door. ‘And since it is poor policy to send you to your dreams with no greater hope in your hearts than this evening has so far provided, let me say to you in parting: I may have the beginnings of a plan in my mind. I shall summon Maskull to a meeting. And if all goes well, it will be a meeting he will wish he had never attended!’

  All except Will greeted the wizard’s words with nods and gestures of approval and they too began to head for the door. As they stood before it, amazingly, Lotan began to sing.

  ‘Patta inca tutna,

  Farel sut sehutma.

  ‘Isi arki par charwan,

  Gurna, ganta, gusarnan.

  ‘Lamba uscra ra raahan,

  Jarga hura maddana chan.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Willow asked, surprised at the sudden melody.

  ‘A ragha, or song. It comes from the Tortured Lands, and is a very old form, woven from thoughts of hope and despair.’

  Will looked to him perplexed, not knowing why he had burst so unexpectedly into song. ‘Well…what does it mean?’

  ‘The first part of a ragha is always hopeful. It says that even a broken stone can be made whole. The second part is always despairing. It says that life passes as quickly as sand falls in a – what do you call it?’ He made a shape with his hands like the contours of a woman.

  ‘An hour glass,’ Willow said, grinning.

  ‘Yes, an hour glass.’

  ‘And the third verse?’ Gwydion asked. His presence was becoming more real, swelling suddenly like a fanfare as his interest burgeoned.

  ‘The third and last verse is always the most hopeful. It says something like…hmmm…that, nevertheless, it is a long road to the cemetery.’ Lotan grinned at the wizard. ‘I think the song has much truth in it, but I didn’t expect to find it written here.’

  Will’s eyes went wide with the sudden realization of what had prompted Lotan to sing – it was the parchment pinned to the back of the door. Lotan had not only read it, he had sung it out!

  The wizard pulled everyone away from the exit and made them sit down again. Then he tore down the parchment on which he had written the inscription from the Delamprey stone and spread it wide on the table.

  ‘Show me the script,’ he commanded. ‘I want you to tell me everything you can about it.’

  PART THREE

  ON THE SEVENTH DAY

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  THE FAST-FLOWING STREAM

  The next morning they waited for their horses in Albanay Yard during the last dark before dawn. The air was very cold and dry, and though rain puddles had collected over the last few days they had now largely drained away. The king’s ostler brought out their mounts and baggage horses. Will heard Gwydion and Morann whispering in low tones, and something about the manner in which they huddled made him suspicious. But it was the way they switched to the true tongue as soon as he appeared that irked him.

  ‘I don’t care what you’re planning,’ he told them both as he passed, ‘but if I’m going north then Lotan goes too.’

  Gwydion looked back stonily. ‘Is it your wish to humble me?’ he asked quietly. ‘Have I not already agreed that, between your wife and I, Willow has by far the greater wisdom? I have merely warned that we should not forget Lotan’s oaths to the Fellowship.’

  Will stuck his foot in the stirrup and swung himself up into the saddle. ‘Oaths like that count for nothing. He was suffering and in misery.’

  ‘That’s when the oath works hardest,’ Morann said.

  ‘He’s helped us once. He deserves to be trusted again. And Master Gwydion has said himself that without Lotan we wouldn’t know where to go.’

  Gwydion forced a smile and offered a compromising gesture that Will decided concealed much.

  He sees difficulties everywhere, Will thought. But he should remember the rede that says, ‘Perfection is the enemy of progress.’

  He recalled how bitterly it had pained Willow and himself to kiss their daughter goodbye for the second time. Bethe would stay in the duchess’s tender care once more, and though Gwydion had not liked the instant obligation that the favour had put Will under, he had had little choice.

  Breath plumed from the horses’ nostrils as they passed out through the gatehouse. Will pulled on his gloves, glad to be quit of the suffocations of the palace. Willow rode to his left, darkly cloaked, her face pale and drawn, but she had been adamant that she would not be left behind. He respected her for that decision – more than she knew, for he was quietly aware of the honour it did him, and his spirit blazed up at the depth of love her choice had shown.

  After the gates slammed shut the horses walked quietly along by the tilt-yards. This road, which usually reeked of horse dung, now smelled only of clean night air. Damp that had fallen overnight as dew now rimed everything with frost, and the uneven dirt of the road that had been shaped by the previous day’s traffic was now unforgiving under the horses’ hooves. As the road widened Will noted that they were being followed by a point of light that stood over the City. It was violet and intensely bright, and Will knew it as Rhiannon’s Spark, the sky wanderer that often heralded the dawn.

  As the roofline fell, he looked to the east and saw the reluctant day gathering. A haze of smoke hung over the sleeping city and he felt a hollowness in his belly, something like hunger or disappointment – a feeling that confirmed Chlu had left the City. He had gone into the north to prepare himself for the final conflict. Will understood that the bond linking them was strengthening, for he, in his own way, was doing exactly what Chlu had already done.

  But the mood now was far from being one of trenchant resolve. They were sneaking, rather than spurring, out of the City. They went on in silence a little way until Lotan showed them a half-hidden lane opening to their left. He suggested they take it, saying it would lead them wide of the Charing and the lone sentinel who always stood at the foot of the spire-like monument.

  ‘And why should we do that?’ Gwydion said, turning to Lotan.

  ‘The watcher is there to control the crossroads,’ Lotan explained. ‘If he steps out into the Charing and blows his horn then the road will be set swarming with Vigilants. We should not go that way.’

  ‘Do you fear they will come for you?’ Gwydion asked.

  ‘No. I fear they will know Will for who he is.’

  ‘He’s right,’ Morann said. ‘Best not show our hand unless we’re forced to, eh, Master Gwydion? Or they’ll have us marked for sure.’

  ‘As you wish.’

  It was a reluctant agreement on the wizard’s part, but then Will saw the confirming glance that Morann sent Gwydion’s way, and he knew that Lotan had been up for some secret test – and had passed it.

  They led their horses alongside a tall brick wall, then a little while later they came to a pair of ornate iron gates. Gwydion opened them easily, though they were locked and chained. Then they crossed a plank bridge over a shallow ditch and began to make their way through what Will knew was the royal deer park.

  Here leafless oaks grew black from the mist-white ground. It was said that the ghostly figure of Herne the Hunter sometimes appeared among the herd, tho
ugh his true home was at Wyndsor, many leagues to the west. Will pulled his cloak tighter around him and turned his mind instead to the way Gwydion had become fired up last night. He had leaned over the verse and questioned Lotan rigorously over his knowledge of the Delamprey inscription, then he had run what he heard through the medium of the true tongue.

  ‘And this word means?’

  ‘Break.’

  ‘So this one is “stone”?’

  ‘Yes. That is the root-word.’

  ‘And in this line the roots are “make” and “heal”?’

  ‘Yes. And here – “sand”, “fall”, “hour”, “glass”. And here – “long”, “road”, “awake” and “field”.’

  ‘But you said this word undoes what comes after it, so “not awake”.’

  ‘No. This and this together means “not sleeping”. But here it means a place of burial.’

  ‘A graveyard? Why?’

  ‘Why?’ Lotan had made noises like an affronted expert, then he had given a dismissive gesture towards the parchment like a gamer casting down dice or knucklebones. ‘Because it is.’

  But there had been many more questions about the finer points of grammar and even the poetic form that Lotan had called a ragha, before finally Gwydion had stood up, satisfied, and said,

  ‘The stone that was broken,

  Is now healed.

  The shadow falls fast,

  Like sand in a glass.

  And the way is long,

  To the sleepless field.’

  The meaning had hardly been very clear, Will thought. But it reminded him of something, and after a while he realized that it rang eerily like the verse he had read on the Harle Stone.

  ‘Soon no more the plague pits,

  Shall hold the dead of Corde.

  A field of statues shall awake,

  And death shall walk abroad.’