Steel, Blood & Fire (Immortal Treachery Book 1)

by Allan Batchelder

  Once inside the gate, he determined to get as far from those guards as he could. Better safe than sorry, Wims told himself. What he needed now was a dive, the sort of place where a fellow reeking of poverty and the road could blend into the crowd, take in the latest gossip and maybe make an arrangement or two that could bring him one step closer to his goal. Fortunately, despite its magnificence, Lunessfor boasted an impressive array of taverns, pubs and inns to suit any taste or budget, but especially those without either. It took Wims no time at all to find what he wanted, a dilapidated three-story inn by the name of “The Fretful Porpentine.”

  Stepping inside, his eyes took a moment to adjust from the bright outdoors to the smoke-hazed gloom of the inn’s main room. Against the right wall, a narrow staircase ascended to the second and, one presumed, third floors. A bar of sorts occupied the left wall, and large fireplace stood in the wall straight ahead. Tucked neatly into the room’s corners on either side of the fireplace, doors led off into other parts of the inn – the kitchen, perhaps or the jakes. Wims would have need of both, eventually. In the meantime, he scanned the room, made note of the few men who seemed the likeliest threats should anything untoward develop and plunked himself down at an open table. Then he remembered: it was his job to initiate untoward developments.

  Wims needed to find someone of low station who worked inside the Queen’s castle – a stable boy, a chambermaid, a cook – or, alternatively, someone from the town’s criminal element who knew the old and secret ways into the castle, private tunnels the Queen’s ancestors had used to slip out for midnight assignations, or to flee the city during outbreaks of the plague. Its occupiers pretended they didn’t exist, but every castle of size had them. With patience, Wims would find one.

  Patience, however, was his greatest challenge. How long had he been away from his master? Weeks? A month? More? He enjoyed his separation from the End-of-All-Things, but felt sure his master was expecting an update soon. And one did not keep the End-of-All-Things waiting. Even at this distance, Wims was certain the man could kill him in a heartbeat. Of course, it wouldn’t take a heartbeat. The sorcerer liked to draw things out, especially when they involved others’ pain. No, his master would take an eternity to kill him, if Wims ever gave him cause. The funny thing, to Wims’ mind, was that he could easily kill his master but for his spells and his sword. But that’s all one, Wims thought, I can’t so I won’t.

  *****

  Spirk and D’Kem, In the End’s Camp

  The boy was missing. D’Kem was so preoccupied with other matters, he hadn’t seen Spirk go, but go he had. The question was whether he’d been taken or had somehow managed to exit the enclosure of his own free will. Even as the old Shaper puzzled over this mystery, however, Spirk reappeared. D’Kem was not amused.

  “Fool boy!” he growled in an urgent whisper. “Where in Mahnus’ name have you been?”

  “I had to go get my magic stone,” Spirk explained defensively.

  D’Kem blinked. “Your what?” Then he remembered. “What do you mean go get it?”

  “Well, I didn’t want them to steal it, so I had to swallow it. And just now I needed to go collect it again.”

  D’Kem took in the surrounding prisoners. In general, none were allowed to leave the holding pen for any reason and many absentmindedly shat themselves. The Shaper had arcane alternatives, but the boy…

  “Do you mean to say you walked out of here and over to the pit latrines?” D’Kem asked, amazed.

  Spirk flushed, guiltily. “Yeah,” he admitted.

  The older man was flabbergasted. He’d seen evidence of Spirk’s strange gift before, but he’d never given it much credit. He remembered how Janks had once boasted that Spirk did indeed have something to offer their once-upon-a-time adventuring party, that the boy was so unremarkable as to be invisible. D’Kem had dismissed the idea at the time; now, he was reconsidering. In the back of his mind, too, he felt he should be disgusted by the boy’s purpose outside the pen, but it was all he could do to come to grips with the fact Spirk had gotten outside the pen.

  “Have you been outside before?” he queried.

  Spirk shrugged. “Sure. Couple-a three times.”

  “Three times?” the Shaper said, almost raising his voice.

  “Yeah. I think so.”

  “And nobody saw you or said anything to you?”

  The young man thought about it for a moment. “Lots of people saw me, I reckon. They just – I dunno – didn’t care?”

  “I need to think on this,” D’Kem declared and sank to the ground in one motion, pulling his cloak down over his eyes and muttering to himself.

  “Only,” Spirk ventured, “only, I’m gettin’ pretty hungry again…”

  The Shaper blew his lips out in exasperation. “Well, don’t go walking out there again. Let me…”

  “They were making huge pots ‘o stew, though,” Spirk interjected.

  D’Kem shot out an arm and pulled the boy down beside him. He whispered a frantic word or two, and Spirk found himself unable to talk.

  “I need you to be silent. And, more to the point, you need you to be silent.” The Shaper’s eyes locked onto Spirk’s with desperate intensity. “Have you noticed they don’t feed us prisoners much?” Of course, the boy didn’t answer. “That’s because this is one Mahnus-cursed enormous horde. There will never be enough forage to feed this many mouths, and winter’s coming. So…” D’Kem’s voice took on a hard edge. “What do you think’s in that stew, boy? Or should I say ‘who do you think is in that stew?” He gestured around the pen using only his eyes, and by the terror in Spirk’s gaze, he knew he’d made his point, which was some kind of miracle as far as the Shaper was concerned. “The fears you expressed our first night in this pen have proven to be spot-on.”

  D’Kem took a moment to collect his thoughts before he spoke again. When he did, Spirk gave him his undivided attention.

  “There are worse things than dying, boy. And if we don’t get out of this camp, we’re like to be seeing a bunch of them. Now, I want to try something,” D’Kem pointed at the nearest guard. “See that ugly brute over there?” Spirk nodded. “I want you to go over and try – yes, actually try – to get his attention. Don’t touch him. Just, you know, wave your arms a bit and jump up and down in front of him.”

  Spirk gave a look like a whipped dog.

  “Don’t worry,” D’Kem added, “I won’t let him hurt you. My word on it.” He shooed the boy off and focused his thoughts on the guard.

  Spirk advanced to the man like the condemned approaching the chopping block. He stopped a couple of times as if he’d lost his nerve and looked back to find reassurance in D’Kem’s countenance. The Shaper bobbed his head almost imperceptibly, and Spirk continued. Finally, the young man arrived within five or six paces of his target and raised his hand. The guard scratched at his beard and looked terribly bored, but gave no sign of noticing Spirk. Flustered, the young man tried again. He raised both hands above his head and waved them back and forth. The guard sucked his teeth. Spirk jumped up and down. D’Kem had forgotten to remove the spell that silenced him, so Spirk tried whistling instead. That didn’t work, either. Finally, foolishly, he hauled off and punched the man in the upper chest. The guard blinked, curiously, and his eyes slowly settled on his assailant – not with anger, but with the look of someone emerging from a particularly strong daydream.

  “’Ere, you. Wot you doin’ over ‘ere? Get back over there,” he ordered with no discernable animus towards the prisoner.

  As he turned back to face D’Kem, Spirk rolled his eyes melodramatically, as if to say “talk about dumb, eh?” The Shaper winked back. It was almost funny.

  By day’s end, Spirk had repeated the procedure three more times with three other guards, all with the same outcome. At last, D’Kem removed the enchantment that kept the younger man quiet.

  “I believe,” he began, “I believe we may be able to escape this predicament.”

  Spirk, unfamil
iar with the word, adopted his usual strategy of bluffing his way through the conversation. “That’s a relief,” said he. “I’ve never been in so grubby and foul-smelling a pre-dic-a-ment in all my life. Maybe ‘cause it’s so big, eh? I mean, a smaller predicament might be a bit tidier. D’you think the Queen’s predicament is this big by now?”

  D’Kem quickly replaced the spell of silence upon Spirk. “Listen, lad,” the old Shaper confided, “no offense, but you don’t really need to talk for what’s coming. Just follow my instructions.” He searched the shuffling multitude surrounding them and found no immediate threats. “Come nightfall, we’re just going to walk out of here.” Spirk’s eyebrows shot up in surprise and concern. “If they don’t see you right in front of their noses in broad daylight, they’re not likely to see you in the dark, either. And I’ll make damned sure they never spot me.” He paused. “Time comes, I’ll pat you on the shoulder and point you in a direction. You start walking and I’ll be right behind you.” The young man remained skeptical, but D’Kem had an answer for that. “Unless, o’ course, you want to sample a bit of that stew first…”

  *****

  He was dreaming of home, of simpler times, of his mother’s bread and his siblings’ lame-brained roughhousing. He even thought fondly of his father, who’d never had much use for Spirk. And he dreamt of his old cat, Maunce. The fleabag had only one ear remaining after years of scrapes with other toms in the neighboring meadow, and his meow was more like a bullfrog’s croak, but Spirk had loved him all the same. He wondered whether Maunce was still hanging on back home – he felt a thud on his shoulder and opened his eyes. D’Kem prodded him with his boot.

  “Up, lad. Time to go, if we’re going at all.”

  Spirk stumbled to his feet, sleep still heavy in his limbs and between his ears. The old man grasped him from behind by both shoulders and shoved him off amongst the other prisoners and into the dark. Although all light had drained from the sky and their enclosure offered no fire for light – or warmth – Spirk was painfully aware of the location of the various guards charged with keeping him and his brethren captive. As D’Kem had suspected, the guards remained inexplicably blind to Spirk’s presence and passing. Must be the magic stone, Spirk told himself. Has to be my magic stone. Magic stone. Magic stone. He chanted the words over and over inside his head until they became a mantra of sorts or a benediction. It was undoubtedly the longest walk of his life, and yet, inevitably, he found himself ducking under the ropes that had been strung up to contain the prisoners and moving off into the camp proper.

  Spirk passed dozens of pens like the one in which he’d been imprisoned. Each of these pens held anywhere from fifty to five hundred of the ensorcelled thralls who had once been townspeople before they’d encountered the End-of-All-Things. Now, they were fodder, battering rams of flesh and bone, to be used once and replaced. Or served for dinner. Spirk’s gorge rose at the thought of it. But he was curious, too. Funny how things worked like that, sometimes.

  At last, he found the courage to glance behind himself, interested in knowing how far he had walked and was startled, instead, to find no sign of the Shaper. In a panic, he took two or three quick strides in the direction from which he’d come and ran smack into…air. Falling onto his ass in the mud, Spirk was only slightly relieved when he heard the old man’s voice growling at him from the empty air in front of him.

  “Idiot boy!” D’Kem hissed. “Trying to get us killed?”

  Fortunately, Spirk was still under the Shaper’s silence spell, or, the old man was certain, his companion would have let loose with a litany of foolish questions and observations. “Turn around and keep walking until we’re clear of this camp,” D’Kem commanded. “I should think an hour will suffice.” He could well imagine the complaints and protestations this would have brought on and was beginning to wonder why he hadn’t silenced the boy weeks ago.

  Mercurial though Time often is, in this instance it crawled at a pace much, much slower than a frightened and somewhat dimwitted young man could walk, so that even Spirk was aware it travelled considerably faster on other occasions and thus must somehow be angry with him that it moved so reluctantly at the moment. And it was in wracking his brains – such as they were – for answers to this conundrum that he finally achieved D’Kem’s directive and wandered free and clear of the enemy’s host.

  A visible hand appeared on Spirk’s shoulder, and the Shaper’s voice urged him to stop.

  “I think this will serve for now.” The old man paused. “I suppose I should remove the enchantment,” he said to himself more than Spirk.

  Suddenly, Spirk found he could talk again. “D’you think Time is mad at me?” he asked.

  Of all the damn-fool things D’Kem might have expected the boy to say, this was by far the most baffling. “Time? What in Alheria’s…never mind.” He was, he decided, too tired to expend further energy on nonsense. “Let’s see if we can find a small copse of trees or a pile of boulders or some such. That should give us enough shelter for decent rest.”

  Spirk frowned. “But…what about the sergeant? And Mardine?”

  D’Kem was evasive. “We’ll talk about them in the morning, lad. But if we don’t get some sleep – and soon – I’ll be useless to you.”

  *****

  Aoife and Toomt’-La, In the Forest

  Aoife’s second birthing went much the same as her first, except that Toomt’-La was there to act as her guardian and mid-wife. As before, she produced an array of eldritch creatures, the likes of which she had only heard of in folktales and children’s stories. And yet, they were real and had been born of her body. If she thought on it too much, the whole thing frightened her witless. At such times, Toomt’-La emitted an alien, musky odor that immediately calmed her nerves and filled her with a profound and patient peace. When she asked him about it, the satyr typically smiled, shrugged and responded, “Toomt’-La does what he can, as he must. You understand this, no?” And she did. She, too, did what she could, as she must.

  Watching the rapid growth of her latest brood, Aoife wondered aloud how her first born must look after so many days of growth.

  “Aha!” the satyr exclaimed. “Let us go and see them, shall we?”

  The A’Shea regarded him with gentle skepticism.

  “Come, come,” he urged, “take of my hand, and let us be off!”

  Did he mean to retrace their journey over the past several weeks? Or was this some sort of fey humor, previously unknown to her? Aoife could not tell, nor was she prepared to leave her young so soon. But Toomt’-La was insistent.

  “Come, come,” he said again. “It is here-there, you will see.”

  “Here-there?” Aoife asked.

  “Just so. Come.”

  Clearly, her guardian/son was not going not let the matter drop, so Aoife relented, took his hand and followed him. But where their little clump of trees should have ended, they stepped back onto the woodsy farm where Toomt’-La had been born. At least, the A’Shea thought it was the same farm. Now, it was surrounded by enormous – and apparently ancient -- trees. The structure itself had gone riotously green with a lush carpet of bearded mosses and sword ferns sprouting from and covering every surface. Aoife heard a peculiar clucking sound and, looking around, realized the satyr was laughing at the look of wonderment on her face.

  “It’s grown so much!” she gasped.

  “Aye, and will do, for as long as the moon sings to us.”

  “The moon…?”

  “It is a saying amongst our people.”

  “And how did we get here from…there?”

  “It is here-there, do you see?”

  Aoife shook her head.

  “Anywhere you give birth to the forest is here-there to you, Mother-sister. Any grove you wish to see, is here-there.”

  “And outside, too? Cities?”

  The satyr frowned, as if he’d suddenly discovered something most unsavory in his mouth. “Pah!” he said. “Only forest. Only your forest.” />
  This, Aoife understood, was an amazing gift. If she continued birthing the fey folk and their forests, she could cross the world in a breath.

  “But…where are my…children?” she asked.

  Toomt’-La seemed to delight in her confusion. “Look, Mother-sister. Look around you. They are everywhere!”

  And it was true. Slowly, the things she’d thought were trees, bushes and stones became animate, gradually resolving into the trolls, goblins and other creatures she’d known before. In short, her children were both of the forest and the forest itself, until it became impossible to tell plant from animal and visa versa. This epiphany explained to her, at last, why it was that so few mortals had ever seen any of the fey in person: they simply hadn’t known what to look for or how to look for it. Aoife took the time to stroll amongst her offspring, reaching out to touch each in gentle acknowledgement of their existence and worth in her life. The larger ones murmured so deeply, their voices thrummed in her chest. The smaller ones whispered their love in her ears. And the A’Shea found she was loath to leave them.