A Cruel Wind

by Glen Cook

  Ragnarson sat on the edge of his bed. He was confused. “She kept a lot of secrets.”

  “Maybe one of the living can tell us something,” Varthlokkur observed, searching faces with dreadful eyes.

  “I saw it once,” Preshka volunteered. “When we were on the Auszura Littoral, when I was wounded and we were hiding. It was like a ruby teardrop, so by so, that she kept in a little teak casket.”

  “Teak?” Bragi asked. “She didn’t have any teak casket, Rolf. Wait. She had one made out of ebony. Runed with silver. It just laid around for years. I never looked inside. I don’t even know if it was locked. It was always around, but I never paid any attention. I thought she kept jewelry in it.”

  “That’s it,” Preshka said. “Ebony is what I meant. The jewel, though… It was spooky. Alive. Burning inside.”

  “That’s it,” said Varthlokkur. “One of its most interesting properties is its ability to escape notice. And memory. It’s incredibly elusive.”

  “Hell, it ought to be around somewhere,” Ragnarson said. “Seems like I saw it the other day. Either in that wardrobe there, or in the clothes chest. She never acted like it was anything important.”

  “A good method of concealment,” Varthlokkur observed. “I don’t think it’s here. I don’t feel it.”

  Ragnarson grumbled, “Michael, Jarl, look for it.” He buried his head in his hands. Too much was happening. He was being hit from every direction, with worries enough for three men.

  He had a premonition. He wasn’t going to get time to lie back and absorb his grief, to settle his thoughts and redefine his goals.

  The search revealed nothing. Yet the assassin in the park had carried nothing. And Ragnar had said the man hadn’t gotten into the master bedroom. “Jarl, where’s Ragnar?”

  “Mist took him to her place.”

  “Send somebody. It’s time he saw what grown-up life can be like.” He might not be alive much longer. There would be more assassins. Ragnar would have to be his sword from beyond the grave.

  “Jarl,” he said when Ahring returned, “bring some more men over here tomorrow. Find this amulet or talisman or whatever. Valther. Do you think Mist would mind taking care of my kids for a while? I’ll be damned busy till this blows away.”

  “With Nepanthe’s help she can handle it.”

  Ragnarson eyed him. The strain remained. Valther must have known… But that was spilled ale.

  What would he have had Valther do? Rat on Turran? Who else had known? Who had cooperated? Haaken?

  Haaken had been in the house… No. He knew his brother. Haaken would have cut throats had he known.

  He was starting to dwell on the event. He had to get involved in the mystery.

  Varthlokkur beckoned him to an empty corner. “I appeared at an emotional moment,” the sorcerer whispered. “But this wasn’t what brought me. That hasn’t yet happened. And it might, if we’re swift, be averted.”

  “Eh? What else can happen? What else can they do to me?”

  “Not to you. To Kavelin. These things aren’t personal. Though you could suffer from this, too.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Your other woman.”

  Ragnarson’s stomach tightened. “Fiana? Uh, the Queen?”

  “The child is what caught my attention.”

  “But it’s not due…”

  “It’s coming. In two or three days. The divinations, though obscure, are clear on one point. This child, touched by the old evil in Fiana’s womb, can shake the roots of the earth—if it lives. It may not. There’re forces at work…”

  “Forces. I’d rid the world of your kind if I could…”

  “That would leave you a dull world, sir. But the matter at hand is your Queen. And child.”

  “Gods, I’m tired. Tired of everything. Ten years ago, when we had the land grant in Itaskia, I griped about life getting dull. I’d give anything to be back there now. My wife would be alive. So would my kids…”

  “You’re wrong. I know.”

  Ragnarson met his gaze. And yes, Varthlokkur knew. He had lived with the same despair for an age.

  “Karak Strabger… Baxendala. That’s almost fifty miles. Can we make it?”

  “I don’t know. Fast horses…”

  “We’ll rob the post riders.” One of Ragnarson’s innovations, which Derel had proposed, was a fast postal system which permitted rapid warning in case of trouble. Its way stations were the major inns of the countryside. Each was given a subsidy to maintain post riders’ horses.

  The system was more expensive than the traditional, which amounted to giving mail to a traveler bound in the right direction, to pass hand to hand to others till it reached its destination. The new system was more reliable. Ragnarson hoped, someday, to convince the mercantile class to rely on it exclusively, making his system a money-earner for the Crown.

  “Jarl. Have some horses saddled and brought round front. Make it… three. Myself, the wizard, and Ragnar. Haaken’s in charge till I get back. His word to be law. Understand?”

  Ahring nodded.

  “Valther?”

  “I’ve got it.” He eyed Bragi, expression unreadable.

  Bragi realized that his going to the Queen would support the rumors. But he didn’t comment. His associates could decide for themselves if they should keep their mouths shut.

  He studied faces. His gaze settled on Michael Trebilcock. The pallid youth still held his aim on Varthlokkur. A machine, that man.

  “Excuse me,” Ragnarson told the wizard. “Michael, come with me a minute.”

  He took Michael downstairs, outside, round to the garden. Dawn had begun painting the horizon toward the Kapenrungs. Somewhere there Fiana lay in pain, this child of theirs struggling to rip itself from her womb before its time.

  “Michael.”

  “Sir?”

  “I don’t know you very well yet. You’re still a stranger, even after several years.”

  “Sir?”

  “I’ve got a feeling about you. I like you. I trust you. But am I right?”

  The garden was peaceful. From the rear Ragnarson’s house looked as innocent of terror as were its neighbors.

  “I’m not sure I follow you, sir.”

  “I don’t know who you are, Michael. I don’t know

  what.

  You stay locked up inside. I only know what Gjerdrum says. You don’t give away a thing about yourself. You’re an enigma. Which is your right. But you’ve become part of the gang. I hardly noticed you doing it. You’re unobtrusive.

  “You hear things. You see things. You know everybody. I’ve got a feeling you’ve got the kind of mind that leaps to conclusions past missing data, and you’re usually right. Am I wrong?”

  Trebilcock shook his head. In the dawnlight he appeared spectral, like a mummy returned to life.

  “The question, again. Can you be trusted?” Bragi waited half a minute. Trebilcock didn’t respond. “Are you really with me? Or will I have to kill you someday?”

  Trebilcock didn’t react in the slightest. Again Ragnarson had the feeling that fear, to this young man, was meaningless.

  “You won’t need to kill me,” Michael finally replied. “I’ve been here since graduation. This’s my country now. You’re my people. I am what I am. I’m sorry you don’t see it. And you can’t help thinking whatever you do. But I’m home, sir.”

  Ragnarson peered into Trebilcock’s pale, pale eyes and believed. “Good. Then I’ve got a job for you.”

  “Sir?” For the first time since he had met Michael, Bragi saw emotion. And thought he understood. Michael was a rich man’s son. What had he ever been able to do for himself or others?

  “It’s simple. Do what you do. Eyes and ears. Hanging around. Only more of it. Gjerdrum says you’re always prowling anyway.” Ragnarson stared toward the sunrise. “Michael, I can’t trust anybody anymore. I hate it…”

  Ahring came out. “The horses are ready. I had some things thrown together for yo
u.”

  “Thank you, Jarl. Michael?”

  “Sir?”

  “Good luck.”

  Ragnarson left the pale young man in deep thought. “Jarl, I’ve changed my mind. You know what’s happening with me and the Queen?”

  “I’ve heard enough.”

  “Yeah. Well. There’s not much point my hiding it now. But don’t quote me. Understand?”

  “Of course.”

  “Does it suggest any problems?”

  “A thousand. What scares me is what might happen if she doesn’t make it. Your witch-man friend sounded… They say she had trouble with the first one.”

  “Yeah. Here’s what I want. All capital troops but the Vorgrebergers and Queen’s Own confined to barracks starting tomorrow, before what’s happening leaks. And right now have Colonel Oryon report to me ready to travel. I’ll keep one serpent in my pocket by taking him along. Oh. Put the provinces on alert. Militia on standby. Border guards to maximum readiness. Valther can drop hints about an intelligence coup. It’ll distract questions about the confinement to barracks. Got it?”

  “It’s done.”

  It was well past dawn before three men and a boy rode eastward.

  E

  IGHT:

  W

  INTER-

  S

  PRING, 1011 AFE

  T

  HE

  P

  RISONER

  The pain never ended.

  The whispers, the gentle evils in his ears, went on and on and on.

  He was stubborn. So damned stubborn that yielding in order to gain surcease never occurred to him.

  He didn’t know where he was. He didn’t know who had captured him. He didn’t know why. Pain was the extent of his knowledge. The man in black, the man in the mask, was his only clue. They wouldn’t tell him a thing. They just asked. If they spoke at all.

  At first they had questioned him about Bragi and Haroun. He had told them nothing. He couldn’t have. He didn’t know anything. They had been separated too long.

  He wakened. Sounds…

  The Man in the Mask had returned.

  “Woe!” Mocker muttered, slumping lower against floor and wall. It would be rough this time. They hadn’t visited for weeks.

  But there were just four of them this round. He was thankful for little favors.

  Each bore a torch. Mocker watched with hooded eyes as the assistants placed theirs in sconces beyond his reach, one on each wall. The Man in the Mask fixed his above the door.

  Mask closed the door. Of course. Not because Mocker might escape. He didn’t order it locked from without. He simply closed it so his prisoner wouldn’t get the idea there was a world beyond that slab of iron.

  Mocker’s world was twelve by twelve by twelve, black stone, without windows. Furniture? Chains.

  There were no sanitary facilities.

  Having to endure his own wastes was good—for his captors’ designs.

  The most distressing thing was the Mask’s silence. Invariably he just stood before the door, statuelike, while his assistants demonstrated their pain-mastery.

  This time they had given him too long to recover, and hadn’t brought enough muscle.

  He exploded.

  He tripped the nearest, drove stiffened fingers into the man’s throat. He screamed, “Hai!” in bloodthirsty exultation. Cartilage gave way. He made a claw, yanked with all his remaining strength.

  One was dead. But three were left.

  He hoped they would get mad enough to kill him.

  Death was all he had to live for.

  He scrambled away, bounced up, threw a foot at the crotch of the Man in the Mask.

  The others stopped him. They were no off-the-street amateurs. They put him down and took him apart.

  There had been so much pain, so often, that he didn’t care. It had gone on so long that he no longer feared it. Only two things mattered anymore. Hurting back, and getting them to kill him.

  They didn’t get mad. They never did, though this was the worst he had done them. They remained pure business.

  Once they had beaten him, they rolled him onto his belly and bound his wrists behind him. Then they pulled his elbows together. He groaned, writhed, sank his teeth into a bare ankle.

  The blood taste was pure pleasure.

  He tasted his own when a boot smashed into his mouth. He wouldn’t learn. Resistance just meant more pain.

  They attached a rope at his elbows and hoisted him.

  It was an old torture, primitive and passive. When first Mocker had arrived he had been fifty pounds overweight. His weight had yanked his shoulder bones from their sockets.

  After he had screamed awhile, and had lost consciousness, someone would doctor him so they could hoist him up again.

  Back then there had been no night whispers, just the pain, and the unending effort to break him.

  Why?

  For whose benefit?

  What would the program be this time? Five or ten days on the hook? Or straight to the point for once?

  One thing was certain. There would be nothing to eat for a while. Food was strictly for convalescents.

  When he was fed at all he got pumpkin soup. Two bowls a day.

  One week they had given him cabbage soup. But that petty change had been enough to revive his morale. So it was pumpkin soup or nothing.

  The remnants of his most recent meal splashed the floor. Bile befilthed his mouth. He spat.

  “Day will come,” he promised in a whisper. “Is in balance of eternity, on great mandala. Reverse of fortunes will come.”

  His torturers spun him. Around and around and around, till he was drunk with dizziness and pain. Then they hoisted him to the ceiling, brought him down in a series of jerks. He heaved again, but there was nothing left in his stomach.

  One of them washed his mouth.

  This time was different, he realized. Radically different. This was new.

  He paid attention.

  The Man in the Mask moved.

  He peered into Mocker’s eyes, pulling each lid back as would a physician. Mocker saw eyes as dark as his own behind slits from which the jewels had been removed. No. Wait. This mask wasn’t the one he usually saw. Instead of traceries of black on gold, this bore traceries of gold on black. A different man? He didn’t think so. The feeling was the same.

  There was no emotion, no mercy in those eyes. They were the eyes of a technician, the bored eyes of a peasant halfway through a day’s hoeing midway through planting season.

  That mask, though… The changes were slight, yet, somehow, the alienness was gone. He began searching the burning attic of his mind.

  The mask, the black robes, and the hands forever encased in the most finely wrought gauntlets he had ever seen, those were things he knew…

  Tervola. Shinsan. He remembered them so well he was sure this wasn’t a genuine Tervola.

  Trickery was the way

  he

  would have programmed this had their roles been reversed.

  That mask… He remembered it now. He had seen it at Baxendala. It had lain abandoned on the battlefield after O Shing had begun his retreat. Gold lines on black, ruby fangs, the cat-gargoyle. That one, Mist had said, belonged to a man called Chin, one of the chieftains of the Tervola.

  They had assumed, then, that Chin had perished.

  Maybe he hadn’t, though the eye-crystals had been removed from the mask…

  “Chin. Old friend to rescue,” Mocker gasped, straining for a sarcastic smile.

  The man’s only response was a slight hesitation before he said, “There will be more pain, fat one. Forever, if need be. I can wait. Or you can listen. And learn.”

  “Self, am all ears. Head to toe, two big ears.”

  “Yes. You will be. The time of crudeness has ended. Now you begin listening and answering.” He straightened, faced the door.

  Two men pushed a wheeled cart through. Mocker ground his teeth though he didn’t understand what he
saw on the cart.

  The Man in the Mask made him understand those sorcerer’s tools.

  The pain was worse than any he had known before. This agony was scientifically applied, to one purpose. To drive him mad.

  Mocker never had been very stable. It took just two days to crack him completely.

  They let him rave in darkness for a week. Something happened then. More pain. Smoke smells, of flesh burning. Screams that weren’t his own. Men struggling. A scream that was his own when he hit the floor of the cell… Darkness. Peaceful, restful darkness.

  The night whispers returned. They changed, becoming gentle, delicate whispers, happy, cheerful whispers, like those of a nymph beneath a waterfall. They calmed him. They shaped him.

  Then there were gentle, feminine hands, and the distant murmur of grave-voiced men. But for a long time he was bound, his eyes blindfolded. His memories remained vague, confused. A man in a mask. El Murid’s men… he thought. And Mercenary officers.

  They kept him drugged and he knew that, but occasionally he came round long enough to catch snatches of conversation.

  Once, evidently, a new nurse: “Oh, dear! What happened?” Horror filled her voice.

  “He was tortured,” a man replied. “Burned. I don’t entirely understand it. From what he says, he was set up by men he thought were his friends. Nobody knows why yet. Lord Chin rescued him.”

  What? Mocker thought. His brains must be scrambled. Wasn’t Chin the torturer?

  “It was a complicated plot. One of his friends apparently tipped El Murid’s agents, who kidnapped him. Then he sent mercenaries who staged a rescue—then turned him over to this Haroun, who wore the mask the Lord lost when the Dragon tried invading the west.”

  “You said…”

  “There’s a link between man and mask. The Lord lost his, but he still knows everything that happens if someone wears it… Hold it. I think he’s coming around. Better give him another sniff. He needs a lot more healing before we let him wake up.”

  It may have been a day or week later. It was another man and another woman. This time the man seemed to be the newcomer.

  “… says Lord Chin transferred right into the dungeon. For some reason bin Yousif wore the captured mask that day instead of the one he’d had made to look like it. Lord Chin knew the minute he put it on. He’d broken the eye crystals, apparently thinking that was enough to end the connection.”