“Alya!” I said, trying to command her attention away from her fears. “Alya, it’s Minalan! Alya, come back to me,” I urged. It wasn’t a magical spell, just a sincere desire. But my wife’s eyes did focus on mine for a moment.
“Min!” she whimpered. “Minalan! They . . . they . . .”
“Shhhhhhh!” I hushed her, stroking her cheek. “You had but a dream, my love,” I soothed, “a bad dream, is all. You are safe, now. You are awake,” I insisted.
“Am I?” she demanded – nay, snarled at me.
That took me aback. It also sparked a thousand questions, from the practical to the philosophical, but I ignored them, for now.
“At the moment, you’re as awake as I am,” I said, feigning a smile. “And I assure you, I am quite awake! And very concerned about you,” I added, continuing in tones usually affected by physicians with their patients. “I know you are distraught, but there is nothing amiss with you. You merely had a nightmare. No doubt rich food and a change in the weather contributed,” I said, making excuses automatically as I took hold of both hands. “But it was but a dream, a dream that should be fading from memory already.”
“But it was . . . it was real!” she insisted, and started sobbing again for a moment. “I swear, it felt so real! I was me, only I . . . I wasn’t! I was here, only I was elsewhere! Someplace strange, Min, so terribly, terribly strange . . . and there were these . . . these things on me, crawling all over me, thousands and thousands of them. Crawling on me like I was dead or something, swarming over every part of me, but . . . but it was as if they were supposed to be there, as if they owned me, or I them, or . . . or . . . Min, it doesn’t make any sense!” she wailed.
“Nor does it need to, my love, for nightmares rarely do,” I lied. “It was but a dream, and it is passing. Wine?” I asked, as Sister Ocori returned with a thick wool blanket. The nun nodded and dashed off again, clearly relieved that I was here and taking care of the situation.
“It was so real, Min,” she insisted in a harsh whisper. “So utterly real! I don’t know where such strange visions came from, but it seemed as real as you sitting here in front of me . . . more,” she admitted, guiltily. “It was as if that was wakefulness and this is a dream.”
“I’ve brought Ruderal, my lord!” Sister Bethdra informed me, as she appeared with my apprentice. He took stock of the scene at once, and understood what was happening. He quietly knelt beside me and began . . . well, just looking at her, but I assumed he was using his Talent, as I wished.
“Rudi!” Alya smiled, recognizing the boy.
“I’m here, my lady,” he assured her. “It seems you took a turn, didn’t you?”
“It was a . . . a dream,” she admitted. “Just a dream. A silly dream. I’m sorry I startled everyone so.” Sister Ocori returned with a small goblet of wine from the buttery, and I held it to Alya’s lips.
“Just a few sips, love,” I encouraged, holding the cup for her. “It will help steady your nerves and calm you. How are you feeling, now?”
“Better,” she admitted, after swallowing a bit of wine. “I feel so foolish,” she added, looking away guiltily. “I didn’t meant to—”
“Don’t concern yourself with us, my love,” I soothed, handing the glass back to the nun. “What do you say, Ruderal? Shall we put her back to bed? Or will a nice walk in the garden help?”
Ruderal gave us both a discerning glance.
“Master, I’m thinking a treatment may be in order,” he suggested. “If you’re up to it, my lady, he added, to Alya.
“Yes, yes, a treatment may help,” she conceded. “I hate that I’m becoming dependent upon them, but . . .”
“Of course, my dear, but medicine is medicine. And this is much more pleasant than some bitter draughts I’ve had,” I promised, as Ruderal and I moved to assist her to her feet. “Steady! It’s been a few days, now,” I reasoned, as we led her toward the stairs, “and there’s a lot going on. It’s understandable that you’d need another. Don’t let it concern you.”
“I feel like such a waste,” she said, miserably. “And I felt so good this morning, too. I was just tired, after playing with the children this morning, and after lunch it seemed like a good idea for a nap.”
“I’m sure it was,” I agreed, as we made it to our big four-postered bed. It was a magnificent construction of local craftsmanship, fit for a count and countess, and equipped with the softest sheets and linens that Barrowbell could acquire. “Just lay down and get comfortable, and I will start the treatment.”
“I love you, Min!” she said, a little desperately, as her head found the pillow. “I’m so sorry!”
“Shhh!” I said, as I directed the Magolith to take its position. “Just close your eyes, relax, and let the Handmaiden work on you. In an hour, this will all be but a hazy, unpleasant memory. In a week you will have forgotten it.” As soon as she took a deep breath and closed her eyes, she gave me a single nod. I gave her a kiss on her brow and then activated the spells that awakened the Handmaiden paraclete within. In moments, the energy from the sphere washed over her like a soft rain, and Alya was breathing normally again. Ruderal and I quietly withdrew from the chamber and went back downstairs.
“She’s not fine, Master,” he said, disturbed. “Not this time. She really was . . . someone else. Her enneagram is fractured, I suppose you could say. I don’t know what caused it, but it . . . slipped. As if she were two different people. It’s hard to explain,” he admitted.
“But you think a treatment will put her aright?” I asked, hopefully.
He shrugged. “It always has before. Whatever the Handmaiden does, she does it well. And she’s getting better at it,” he added, as we returned to the fireplace. Both nuns were standing by, expectantly. “The Handmaiden, not Alya,” he specified.
“I think she’ll be fine,” I assured the sisters. “Could I trouble you for more wine? For all of us, I think,” I decided, though it was early in the day for such indulgence. “It’s been a rough day.” The nuns both nodded and left to fetch it.
“The interesting thing is,” I said to my apprentice, as we both took seats in the hall, “that she really is covered in tiny creatures. We all are.” Any mage who had mastered magesight learned how to alter his perception to see that their own bodies were covered with billions of creatures too small to be seen otherwise. Most folk went around without any knowledge or concern of the tiny menagerie that was always crawling on them. If they knew, I’d always theorized, it would drive them mad. Not only are some of those microscopic beings horrific in their regard, but the sheer number and variety of them was enough to fuel a lifetime of nightmares.
“Well, yes,” Ruderal agreed, having learned of such things only in the last year. “But I wonder if that was what sparked this fit. How did she even know about those? She’s not Talented . . . is she?”
“She showed no sign of expressed Talent, before the accident,” I told him, as the nuns returned. “But I imagine she’s got the usual amount of latent rajira. Of course, she’s been through a lot. And she’s lived for years on top of all the snowstone in the world. There are a lot of factors to consider,” I sighed, as I took my cup from Sister Bethdra.
“Without magesight, how could she perceive them?” Ruderal asked.
“Is my lady going to be all right?” Bethdra asked, after taking a sip of her own modest cup.
“I think so, Sister,” I said, as soothingly as I could. “I think Ruderal and the Handmaiden will put her right. Again.”
“This is the worst one since you arrived, my lord,” the older nun informed me. “That scream, it would have woken the very stones.”
“Compared to where she was, this is minor,” I insisted. “This is progress, believe it or not.”
“Nothing gets born without birthpangs,” conceded Bethdra, with a sigh. “I’m just glad that the children weren’t about to witness it, this time.”
Both of the children knew something was wrong with Mommy, but they’d also pi
cked up enough to know not to mention it in polite company. That was a burden of guilt I did not want them to bear, but there was little use in trying to intervene. The fact was, both of them wanted desperately to do something – anything – to help their mother, but they were no better equipped to contend with her mercurial moods and mad fits than I was.
Almina coped by giving her mother her deepest, most sincere empathy. Though it frightened her if Alya veered from the expected into the insane, Almina was the first to rush over, give her mother an embrace and assure her that it would be all right.
Minalyan, on the other hand, was more perplexed by the situation, and fell back on the masculine basics of protection and support. Neither one was particularly useful to Alya, but the resolute way the lad tried to contend with his mother’s eccentricities was the only mechanism he had.
I tried to speak to both of them when they came home from playing and learned that Mommy had endured another episode. I was trying to help soothe their disquieted spirits, with limited success. There were no easy words, nor easy solutions, and attempts to foresee some sounded false in my mouth even as I spoke them.
The children could tell. They trusted me, of course, and I assured them that I was doing everything I could to fix their mother, but they could sense the doubt in my words as easily as I could. They just had the good grace not to mention it.
While it was difficult to explain the process of healing to the children, they understood I was trying to help . . . and they had an unshakable belief that I could and would, eventually, bring their dear Mommy back to them in full. In the meantime, they were willing to put up with the disquieting behavior of the once-comforting figure. It was disturbing to watch, but then I had little alternative to give them.
It was troubling, but I had little recourse.
I found some distraction in the continuous series of meetings and planning sessions required to prepare some sort of credible defense for my new realm. But Alya’s fits, and her periods of recover, began to consume more of my attention, in a broody sort of way. My uncomfortable relationship with my wife was beginning to monopolize my thoughts when, thankfully, Tyndal arrived at the head of a caravan of knights, adventurers and retainers and distracted all of us.
The lad had led them from his staging area in Losara, in northern Gilmora. Astyral had kindly put him up at his new castle as he assembled his entourage for the journey, and he’d set out as soon as the roads were clear enough to go. Plenty of strong young knights errant wanted to enlist under Tyndal’s banner. That seemed to be where the glory was.
I was less concerned with glory and more with the needs of my realm when I invited Tyndal up to my solar with Sandoval, the day he arrived. Alya, much recovered from her fright, seemed genuinely pleased to see a familiar face from Sevendor, and wanted to celebrate his arrival, but I had business with him, first. He was plenty curious about his new mission. It was time he learn the truth of it.
“Am I to assail one of the Penumbra fortresses?” he asked, eagerly, as we drank wine and looked at fresh map, newly sent over from Gareth’s office. “I’ve got just the fellows with me to do that sort of thing,” he bragged. “With or without alchemical enchantments,” he added, as if that was of especial importance.
“That’s actually not your task. Indeed, I’ve decided that it’s time you started having some real responsibility,” I lectured Tyndal as I spread out the map. “Welcome to your new home, on my northern front: Callierd.”
“Callierd?” he asked, skeptically.
“It’s the region around the ruined town of Nandine,” I explained. “Now it’s mostly deserted. A few tiny hamlets, a village and some freeholds that survived the invasion. At its peak, Nandine was home to three thousand souls, and the domain had more than ten thousand.”
“So an empty wasteland is my just reward for tireless service?” he smirked.
“It has a lot of potential,” Sandy soothed. “Nandine has been pillaged, but it’s still largely intact. There are about three hundred former residents in town who might resettle the region, if they were provided security and proper incentive. Yeoman farmers and herders, but men who would fight for you, if you armed them.”
“What’s the strategic goal?” he asked, sagely. “I know you have plenty of empty farmland, closer to hand.”
“I need a stout guard on the northern frontier,” I admitted. “Your domain would exceed the old boundaries significantly. Callierd will now contain all the land between Traveler’s Tower east to the Maier, and then everything north of the Maier from that point to the eastern ridge. That’s over fifty miles of river valley and likely five hundred square miles of territory you’ll be responsible for. The entire Maier Valley will be yours. That’s where the remaining villages are, little Calmaier, here, and tiny Havut Hamlet, fifteen miles upstream of there.”
“Behold, my riches,” he sighed, sarcastically. “All right, I suppose I need to reoccupy Old Nandine. What about the fortifications, there?”
“Kasari scouts have been camping in the ruins of the hill tower about three miles from the town. It’s reparable, with some effort,” Sandoval proposed. I thought it best to include him on the meeting, since seeing to the establishment of an army was his responsibility. “There are plenty of fallow fields around there that could be planted quickly. But we need someone to take it, hold it, and improve it. A mage,” he added.
“A famous mage,” I corrected. “One who can attract eager young idiots to his cause. Like I did.”
“We all faithfully follow in your footsteps, Master,” he nodded, wryly. “So am I a tenant lord, now?”
“You get special consideration,” I chuckled. “You’ll own Callierd outright, in fief to me as Count. Nandine was a thriving Wilderlands town, once. The land north of the Maier is fertile. If you people the province, you could have a tidy little domain in a few years.”
Tyndal spent two weeks putting together an expedition in Vanador and then rode out at the head of a column of ten wains and nearly five hundred men. He rode to Havut first, and he helped the peasants get their plowing done with magic before moving on to Calmaier, up-river; there he repaired the bridge over the Maier that led to his new fief. By early summer he had taken residence at Callierd Castle – a modest rectangular keep – and began to restore it while his yeomen broke ground on the fields below.
It was a tense time for the lad. There were still plenty of pockets of gurvani deserters in Callierd, and scattered bands of human bandits. There were tribesmen there, too, on his frontiers: the Kasari to the northwest, and the remnants of the seminomadic Austig tribes to his far east, on the frontier of the alkali wastes. While the tribes were quiet – the Kasari were actually pleased at having a friendly Wilderlord on their borders for a change – and the bandits were willing to come work for Tyndal, when given the standard “submit or die!” speech, the gurvani began raiding his efforts almost as soon as they began.
That pissed him off.
There weren’t many, of course, but some gurvani always seemed to be lurking around our frontiers. Deserters, tribal warriors, scouts and sappers from the hordes all lingered in the wilderness, watching. When an opportunity presented itself, they struck, usually by night and by surprise. That was one of the reasons Callierd had remained barren.
A common Wilderlord would have fought back by tracking the goblins back to their lairs and driving them out. Tyndal was a magelord with a grudge. He meticulously located the hidden raiders by magic, and then destroyed them and their lairs with violent spellwork. It was a one-sided campaign, and it was over in weeks. There were few shamans in the region, and none who carried witchstones, so the lurking gurvani were not well-protected.
Sometimes these expeditions turned into extended hunts as the goblins fled one refuge for another. Tyndal pursued them doggedly, and destroyed them everywhere he could.
Some questioned his single-mindedness about rooting out every single scrug from Callierd. But we had seen what happens when the gurvani w
ere left unchallenged in a region over the winter. They dug in, nested, and prepared for the next raid, often inviting their friends.
The plains northwest of Lorvay had been largely ignored by the local Wilderlords, and the gurvani had been free to tunnel into the landscape. There were hidden lairs concealed in rocky outcroppings or tunneled into the hillsides, deep pits with concealed entrances that lead to outposts all over the land. Goblins were natural sappers, outstanding diggers with their broad hands. Many of those lairs were like underground fortresses.
Some were empty, built and abandoned. Some were teeming with goblins, hidden and waiting against the day when their services would be needed by their dark masters. They would sneak out at night to observe and occasionally raid, and then slink back to their holes before dawn.
When the peasants who remained in Lorvay became lax, they would strike. Not with fire and blood, but with ropes and chains. Two freeholds in the northeastern portion of Lorvay were pillaged that way, I’d heard, led into bondage across the icy river into the Penumbra.
Tyndal was having none of that. He guarded his people relentlessly, and would not endure any threat to them. He ruthlessly exterminated the hidden lairs and drove the survivors into the hills beyond his frontiers. He kept them at bay long enough to get fields plowed and plant that spring. By autumn he even had a small settlement re-inhabiting ruined Nandine.
Tyndal’s struggles with the goblins took a lot of time and energy, of course, but he was quick to import help. He hired the Kasari liberally to scout his lands and range his frontiers. He invited parties of young Wilderlords to come enjoy his hospitality, the fine hunting Callierd offered, and a chance to cross swords against the goblins. He hosted young warmagi to practice their arts, raising new wards and strong defenses across his frontiers.
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