The interviewers from the lower echelons, all military men, took interest in the expected sorts of things: the look of the outsiders’ tracks, the nature and range of their arrows, the men’s physical size and appearance, their tactics, and their possible points of entry into the kingdom. But when Teo was summoned before a panel of two high-ranking officials and the Warlord himself, the questions took a different turn. The archpriest of Vulkain, an unexpected visitor at a military interrogation, sat in the middle. His pure white robe contrasted with his sallow skin as he fired questions at Teo and meticulously recorded the answers. “What was the girl doing in the woods?” he asked. “How often does she go there?” “Where does she typically travel?” “What trails does she use?” The Vulkainian priest even asked a question Teo found utterly surprising: “Is she attractive?” When Teo responded, “Probably the most beautiful woman in Chiveis,” the priest nodded in a knowing way, a slight smile lingering at the corners of his mouth. He turned to the Warlord and signaled he was satisfied.
“Thank you for your time today, Captain,” the Warlord said through his bushy mustache. “You are being placed on administrative leave to recuperate from your injury. I trust it won’t prevent your representation of the Royal Guard at the upcoming tournament?”
“The fall equinox is three months away. I expect by then I’ll be as good as new.”
“Very fine. We’re counting on you, Captain Teofil. Your performance will reflect on all your fellow guardsmen. You are dismissed.”
Teo stood awkwardly, saluted, and hobbled from the room. But as he departed, a single question lingered in his mind: Why did the Vulkainian archpriest inquire so much about Anastasia?
After the peculiar events of the day before, then the interviews today, Teo felt relieved to leave the Citadel and make his way up the valley toward Lekovil. As a part-time professor at the University, he had been assigned rooms of his own there. He looked forward to staying in this restful location for several weeks while his knee healed. Since he would arrive unexpectedly, he’d have to send messengers across the realm to gather his students for a series of lectures. Such an interruption might be inconvenient for them, but they would willingly drop their carpentry or cheese making or sheep tending to spend a few weeks studying under Teo. Parents understood that the University was their child’s best chance of getting ahead in life.
Teo arrived at the intersection of the two valleys, pausing to water his horse in the frothy Chudeau River. Its gray waters tumbled downward, full of glacial silt, until they ran under the Citadel’s wall into Entrelac. To his left, on the road toward the east, lay the Troll’s Valley. Straight ahead to the south, on the road he was following, lay the Maiden’s Valley. An abandoned stone cottage stood at the juncture of the two roads. Teo shook his head at the silly little building. Chiveisian legend said the cottage had once belonged to a priest of Astrebril who protected a royal daughter from the evil troll in the next valley. Apparently only Astrebril could protect fair maidens from danger; at least that’s what mothers told their wide-eyed youngsters. There’s a fine line between folklore and religion, Teo thought. Both can be used to sway the masses—and both can be full of nonsense.
The world of the gods held little appeal for Teo. As an employee of the state-run University, he was expected to tip his hat to the official religion, then get on with more practical work. His own contributions to Chiveis were primarily lexical: he translated scripts from the Ancients’ language into the Chiveisian tongue so other experts could read them and perhaps find innovative applications. He wasn’t supposed to waste his time investigating the belief systems of the Ancients, but to focus on their vast technological know-how. Yet Teo’s curiosity sometimes got the best of him, and he found himself wondering what the Ancients believed about supernatural matters. Whenever such questions sprang to his mind, he tried to suppress them as unanswerable and irrelevant.
Shaking his head, he spurred his horse past the stone cottage into the Maiden’s Valley.
Down the vale a ways, Lekovil had lost none of its bucolic charm since Teo had last seen it. The warm sun shone on the steep-walled valley dotted with wooden chalets among the vegetable gardens and animal pastures. High above, the snowy summit of Elzebul’s Height gleamed in the late-afternoon light. The mountain was the only one of the three major peaks visible from the Maiden’s Valley.
The University at Lekovil stood at the base of a thin waterfall whose water spewed over the cliff’s rim, struck the rock face, and shattered into a spray that sprinkled onto the plunge pool below. Teo had seen the diagrams that guided the construction of the pool in Chiveis’s early days. A grassy hillock originally obscured the place where the water landed, but it had been excavated, and a pool of stone was constructed to encompass the waterfall’s spray. The drops now fell on the pool’s surface like rainfall on a still pond. As marvelous as this was, Teo reminded himself that the Ancients had their own marvels. They had constructed a stairway leading to a crack in the cliff face that went behind the waterfall. Visitors to the University still liked to climb up ladders to the ancient crack and walk inside the wet cliff, viewing the waterfall from behind.
Teo dismounted at the gate in the University’s outer wall. It was an imposing, U-shaped wall whose two ends were set against the cliff, creating a semicircular courtyard around the plunge pool. Rooms ran along the inside of the wall, looking out on the courtyard and its pool. Teo’s room was the fourth on the right from the gate.
“I’ll stable your horse for you, Professor Teofil,” the gatekeeper said. “Here’s the key to your room. The gods be over all.”
“Hail to the gods,” Teo replied instinctively. He curled his finger at the gatekeeper, who had started to turn away. “Wait. Before you go, I have another assignment for you. Send messengers to my entire class roll. I’ll expect my students tomorrow afternoon at my classroom.”
“Your room here in Lekovil or your theater at Vingin?”
“My open-air classroom, up at Vingin. Make sure they know that.”
“It will be done, Professor.”
Stiff from his long day of travel as well as from his injury, Teo limped wearily to his room. Before he had passed the first door, a booming laugh welcomed him from above. It was a laugh that lifted Teo’s spirits, for it came from the one man he wanted to see most right now: Maurice the Wise, his aged mentor. Or should I say, my “companion”? Teo grimaced as he recalled his awkward choice of words yesterday with Anastasia.
Looking up from the courtyard’s floor, Teo found Maurice smiling from the balcony of his personal rooms. He wore a richly embroidered blue robe edged with golden cord. The delicate diadem about his forehead signaled his status as a senior professor. Maurice’s head was shaved bald, but a trim white goatee adorned his chin. Teo knew him as a man who loved beauty in the natural world and who abhorred anything ugly or unwise.
“My dear Teofil, nothing but the most unfortunate of accidents would suffice to drag you out of your beloved wilderness in midsummer. But judging from your ragged appearance, such an accident must have indeed occurred!” Maurice’s words were spoken in the jesting tone that only a true friend can use.
“Master Maurice, your powers of observation never cease to astound me. If you can deduce from my limp, my dusty clothes, and my missing rucksack that I’ve met with misfortune, perhaps you’ll also be able to guess that the sky is blue and the waterfall over there is wet.” The rejoinder caused both men to burst into laughter.
When the laughter subsided, Maurice beckoned to Teo with his hand. “The kettle in my room is whistling for a friend to join it for tea. Come on! Walk—or should I say limp?—over this way, and we’ll discuss your misadventures.”
Teo obliged and soon held a soothing mug along with a plate of sausages and cheese. He settled into an upholstered settee and let out a deep sigh, then gave Maurice an elaborate account of the past two days, leaving out no detail. The convoluted story kept the old man on the edge of his seat throughout the telli
ng, until the topic finally seemed to be exhausted.
Maurice stroked his beard and mused on the story. “Only you, Teo, could manage to get entangled in the world’s two most deadly dangers in a single day.”
“Wild animals and hostile enemies?”
Maurice chuckled. “No, my son, I’m talking about mortal foes and a woman’s love!”
Teo snorted. “I hardly think love was involved in this escapade, Master.”
“You said the young lady of Edgeton was beautiful, didn’t you?”
Teo stood and walked to the window, gazing at the evening sky. “I suppose that word would apply,” he said.
“When a man perceives a woman as beautiful, it proves attraction to her exists. Attraction can lead to love, and love—well, when it takes root, it can overpower even the strongest man. So you see, the most vital question then becomes, what type of woman will conquer our hero? If she be of poor quality, he’ll become a slave. But if she be great, then her greatness will elevate the man to greater heights than he could ever have attained on his own.”
Teo returned to the sofa, trying to understand his mentor’s words.
“Be very careful, my son,” said the senior professor. “Wisdom is needed here, for there is no greater catalyst for change in a man than a woman. To love a woman is to become a new kind of man, in one direction or another.”
“Are you saying a woman has more power even than the gods?”
“Ah, the gods.” Maurice leaned back in his leather chair. “The difference between the power of the gods and the power of a woman is this: a god holds sway over but one facet of life. For example, the forests belong to Pon, while the subterranean passages belong to Vulkain, and dirt and filth to Elzebul. Rain falls from Astrebril’s dome, and there are other divine spirits who blow the various winds or stir the snows of an avalanche or fan away the heat that leaves us with winter cold. None of these events are connected, you see. Each god does as he wills.”
“And what of the power of a woman?”
Maurice smiled and touched his fingertips together before his lips. “A woman holds sway over all. Teo, my son, prepare yourself in advance. The right woman can assume command of every part of your being—both body and soul. Her conquest will be total, and she will leave no province unsubdued.”
“I hope that never happens to me.” Teo glanced out the window again.
“It is both fearful and joyous—and not to be missed.”
“I don’t have much interest in either religion or love,” Teo muttered. He yawned and leaned back against the embroidered pillows. For a long time, the two friends said nothing. Only the clock on the wall broke the silence with its ticking. And then, as Teo drifted off to sleep, he felt the old man draw a coverlet over him.
“Take your rest now, brave warrior,” Maurice said. “You did well to protect Anastasia from danger. Fall asleep here in my rooms with her face before your mind. I suspect that out in the village of Edgeton, the reverse may also be happening tonight.”
In a distant forest, three men stood in the red glow of a campfire. It was the only source of light for many leagues around.
“Let me see the brimstone,” ordered the archpriest of Vulkain.
Rothgar opened a canvas sack, and the Vulkainian nodded approvingly as he sifted the yellow substance with his fingers. Satisfied, the priest motioned for Red-Beard to load it onto his packhorse, then handed the reins of another horse to Rothgar. It carried the excellent steel weapons only the Chiveisi knew how to make. Rothgar picked through the saddlebags and selected a hunting knife to keep as his own. He shoved it into his belt.
The archpriest stood with his arms folded across his chest when Rothgar turned back toward him. The priest’s expression was scornful. “You botched the abduction,” he observed.
“I didn’t botch it! It was my archer here.” Rothgar jerked his thumb toward Red-Beard, who said nothing. “He missed the guardsman, and they got away.”
“Whatever the case may be, the girl is no longer available to you,” the archpriest said with a wave of his hand. “Our offer is rescinded.”
“Now hold on! Our king wants that girl as a wife! You made a promise.”
The archpriest sniffed. “The Chiveisi do not make promises to rabble like you. We make offers, and we are at liberty to retract them. This deal is getting out of hand. The Warlord may begin to suspect something. It’s not worth the risk.”
Rothgar began to feel desperate. It was bad enough to return home and face the king without the girl. Unless he could promise to fetch her at the next transaction, the king would surely demote him. Rothgar stroked his braided beard, trying to think of a way to salvage the situation.
“We’ll pay double brimstone for the girl! When we come on the equinox, we’ll pay double. And we’ll bring a stronger force. Our men will snatch her and go.”
“You failed once already. What makes you think you can succeed next time?”
Rothgar thought about it. “Maybe your people could get her for us? Knock her out. Tie her up and leave her in the woods at this spot.”
“No!” The archpriest was adamant. “We will not use any violence against the girl! Someone might see it, and word could spread. The people would be outraged. It would be disastrous for the High Priestess’s purposes.” He tapped his finger against his lips. “There’s already too much suspicion surrounding the Edgeton girl. Pick a different one. Take whomever you can find along the frontier.”
“I don’t want some ugly peasant! We have to have this girl!” Rothgar pounded his fist into his palm. “We’ll pay triple!”
At the word triple, the archpriest cocked an eyebrow. He remained silent.
“Come on,” Rothgar urged. “What do you say? Triple the brimstone.” He began to think a deal might get done after all.
The archpriest exhaled and stared at Rothgar through narrowed eyes. “Alright. But the same conditions would still pertain. It would have to look like a kidnapping on the frontier. Nothing messy on our end. Just a raid from the Beyond. I know the girl’s travel patterns now, so if we can find a way to alert you, we will. If not, it’s up to you to capture her. Either way, no trail leads back to us, or you’ll never see another Chiveisian blade again.”
“Deal,” Rothgar said, nodding emphatically.
The archpriest gestured toward a wooden shed in the clearing. “There will be carrier pigeons here on the equinox. You may communicate with us as usual. We will tell you how to proceed.” He stepped into the stirrup and mounted his white horse, then paused to look down at Rothgar from the saddle. “If the abduction doesn’t work this time, consider the deal rescinded for good. This sort of thing is dangerous for public perceptions.”
Rothgar watched him leave, leading the packhorse with its load of brimstone. “Dangerous for public perceptions,” he mimicked in an effeminate voice after the archpriest disappeared.
Red-Beard hawked mucus and spat on the ground while Rothgar poked at the campfire. “The king isn’t going to like this delay,” Red-Beard said.
“Do you think I haven’t thought of that, idiot?” Rothgar snatched a burning stick and hurled it at his partner, striking him in the chest. “All we have to do is tell him what happened. The king will be reasonable once we explain it.”
“And what’s our explanation?”
“What do you think? Gods! Your mind is as slow as your reflexes on the bowstring. We’ll tell him the truth—that you missed your shot and the guardsman took the girl away.”
“I don’t think so! Just because you’re the planner and I’m the archer doesn’t mean you can pin this on me.”
“Why not? I upheld my part of the task. You didn’t. You should take the blame.”
“I spit in your beard, Rothgar! It was your dancing around that caused the soldier to dodge. My aim was true.”
“Alright, calm down. Let’s do this,” Rothgar said in a conspiratorial tone. “If you take the fall here, I’ll make it up to you. Once we have the girl in our hands,
you can have a couple of nights with her to do as you please.”
“I’m not going to take the king’s consort! What if she told him? He’d kill me for sure! This plan of yours is garbage. I’m not going along with it.” With hands on his hips, Red-Beard glared at Rothgar.
Rothgar had reached the limit of his restraint. He drew his knife from his belt, feeling cold fury rise in his soul. “That’s the last blunder you’ll ever make,” he snarled.
Before Red-Beard could react, Rothgar hurled the knife with a practiced hand. It planted itself in his partner’s chest. For a long moment, Red-Beard stared down at it with a look of bewilderment. His eyes rolled up in his head. He sank to his knees, swayed, and landed on his side with a thump. He gurgled a few times and clawed the earth, then lay still.
Rothgar yanked his knife from the dead man’s corpse. “Maybe you can finally find a woman in hell, partner!” He cocked his head and laughed at his own macabre humor. An owl fluttered from its perch in the trees. Red firelight danced among the branches as the jarring sound of Rothgar’s cackle forcibly penetrated the stillness of the night.
CHAPTER
3
Teo sat by a window in the morning sunlight, eating a breakfast of soft bread, hard cheese, and fresh goat’s milk. The milk and cheese no doubt came from one of the mountain dairies scattered in the pastures above the Maiden’s Valley. The loaf of bread, warm and wheaty and slathered with butter, could have come from anywhere. Teo wondered if perhaps the grain might have been grown in Edgeton. His eyes drifted out the window of the University’s refectory.
A priest of the Elzebulian Order interrupted Teo’s thoughts. He stood over the table and peered down from under a prickly brow. “We’re not accustomed to seeing you in Lekovil this time of year, Professor Teofil.”
“I’ve experienced the misfortune of an injury in my other duties, so I’ve returned for recuperation. While I’m here, I’ll be taking the opportunity to instruct my students.”
The Sword Page 6
