“Yes, Your Highness.” The commander made a lofty gesture. “The Red Wall separates Silbariki Vale from the Valley of Amm. The Vale holds the ruins of the city of Silbariki, the capital of the Flower Dynasty. When God raised the Scarp the land tilted, so that in flood season Purification Lake spills into Silbariki Vale and fills it. The old city is drowned now, along with most of its surroundings.”
Terrell frowned. “It’s been three hundred years. Why haven’t we reclaimed that land and resettled—oh.” He paused. “Hellmouth.”
DiVetzi nodded and pointed northeast toward a trickle of smoke rising from beyond the horizon. “Exactly, Your Highness. The volcano is more than a hundred miles from here, but all of the River Amm between it and here is poisoned by the foul springs that pour from Hellmouth’s base. The only source of irrigation water on the east bank is the river itself, and using that water makes the land sick and the people sicker.”
“So that’s why the east bank has never been resettled,” Terrell mused. “The twin scourges of the Hellmouth Volcano and the rise of the Scarp left people no clean water.”
“Yes, Your Highness. Besides, all the irrigation canals on the east side were broken and the land twisted so that they cannot simply be reconnected. They would have to be reengineered and built completely new. Also, in wet years the dry canyons flood and turn Silbariki’s valley into a deeper lake that overflows back into Purification Lake. Marshes have spread over the whole eastern shore.” Commander DiVetzi shook his head. “A hundred miles of the east bank is a tortured wilderness now, plagued by terrible beasts twisted by magic gone bad.” Another happy sigh.
“I see.” Terrell wondered if the man wrote melodramas as a hobby. “Does anyone ever go there now?”
The commander shrugged dismissively. “Occasional hunting parties go by boat, seeking the hides of giant caimans from the marshes, or in flood times one can boat right over the marshes to dry land to hunt lions and antelope. The nearer, lesser ruins were picked over long ago, the greater ones are haunted or under water.” He glanced to either side to make sure his men were not close and lowered his voice to murmur theatrically, “It is said that Silbariki Vale is plagued by the ghosts of the twin brothers, still doomed to fight each other for all time as punishment for their fratricide. Some nights the dead rise again to battle back and forth across the broken lands, and woe to anyone caught in their clash.”
Pen had drawn Irreneetha and held her out over the lake. Pale purple flames flickered around her point. Terrell gave his friend an inquiring look.
“There’s something in that valley that she doesn’t like,” Pen reported, frowning. “I can’t tell anything more.”
Terrell stared at the distant gap, more than twenty miles away across the lake. The curve of the World put the bottom of the gap below the horizon and made it look like the lake extended between the ridges. This soon after the spring floods, he reflected, it might do so. The huge gleaming sheet of water sent shards of reflected light back at him until he had to look away.
He shrugged. “It’s not an immediate problem. Let’s get back, I want to reach Orantio before sundown.”
They remounted and turned their horses west. Terrell spared the distant Red Wall and its gap one final glance before he left the lake behind.
Someday perhaps I’ll visit that place. Something useful might be done with it.
* * *
Ten days later the royal party neared the crossroads where Pilgrimage Road came up from the fords on the River Amm and arrowed west into the Sacred Vale. The Vale made a hollow in the side of the Bright Mountains as if God had scooped it out. Terrell gazed west at the enormous bulk of God’s Footstool looming over the head of the side valley. The peak speared so high that it eclipsed the setting suns and cast its vast shadow over the plain. Sunlight glinted off the snowfields covering the upper half.
“It looks more like a dream than a real mountain,” Terrell heard Pen remark as they reined in their horses atop a small hillock.
“Perhaps it is,” Terrell answered. “A dream that Silbaris dream together. Or perhaps The One dreams us. Who can know?”
He dismounted and knelt at a small shrine atop the hill, where he reverently touched his forehead, heart, navel and groin in respect before he prayed the quick prayer that he’d adopted as his own. By Your grace, Father Seraph Haroun, and that of The One, let me prove worthy.
Pen made his own silent prayers while his eyes constantly roved around the stone-fenced sheep pasture that covered this rise in the floor of Silbar’s great central valley. The soldiers who had taken up positions around it waited until their lords left the hill before they gathered once more around Terrell. They rode back to the King’s Road in time to find the royal entourage turning aside into a large pasture only a little distance north of the crossing. The Wizard’s tent had been set up already and a knot of folk gathered around it, their voices low.
“What’s wrong?” Terrell demanded, dismounting.
“Your Highness,” a manservant said. “Dona Seraphina requests your presence in the Royal Wizard’s tent as soon as possible.”
“Is he ill?” Terrell’s breath came quicker.
“She said she would explain when you arrived, Your Highness.” The man looked uncomfortable.
Terrell crossed the camp at a dead run and barged through the door flaps of Shimoor’s tent. Dona Seraphina had her aura extended over the recumbent Wizard, who appeared to be dozing on his comfortable cot.
“He has had a mild stroke,” Seraphina reported quietly. “I’ve put him to sleep and I am repairing the superficial harm, but it is at best a patchwork. I cannot repair the deepest damage.”
“Should we hurry him to the healing shrine at Lonigo?” Terrell asked, matching her hushed voice. “Better yet, the Mother Temple’s hospital in Aretzo?
Seraphina shook her head. “Such haste would only impose greater stress on his already weakened health, Your Highness. Better we maintain this leisured pace and I continue doing what I can for him. There is no true recovery from this type of injury.”
“No true . . .” He stopped and gazed at his longtime teacher. Shimoor had become so frail and withered. Terrell though he might pick up the elderly wizard with one hand.
Father. Mother. Pyrull. Now Shimoor. They’re all leaving me—being taken from me—one by one. Sorrow left a physical pain in his chest as deep as a knife wound. You taught me so much. Engineering, magic, politics, mathematics, history. What would I be without you?
“Do the best you can for him,” Terrell finally told the priestess.
“Of course, Your Highness.” She continued casting minute spells around the elderly wizard’s brain.
Terrell left the tent to find Pen and DiCervi waiting outside, with dozens more clustered in a respectful ring beyond them. Evening had fallen. The tents were pitched, and the bustle of normal camp life went on around this island of quiet. He must have been hovering over Shimoor for a full candlemark.
“General DiCervi. Cancel tomorrow’s plans,” Terrell ordered heavily. “We make for Aretzo by the most direct route. I’ll visit the Sacred Vale later.”
“What about Guglione, Your Highness? Your cousin Duke Darnaud?”
“Klairveen’s youngest son.” Terrell scowled. “There’s a side trip that I don’t mind discarding. Send word to him that—”
A commotion stirred the waiting crowd, people separated, and a redheaded man barged through.
“Darnaud,” Terrell said without enthusiasm.
“Cousin Terrell! Well met!” The beefy redhead greeted Terrell with a cheery roar and strode forward to embrace him.
Pen tensed, nearly drew Irreneetha before Terrell waved him down.
Terrell broke the hug as soon as he decently could. Darnaud had never adopted the Silbari habit of personal cleanliness and he stank like an unwashed gambeson. “What a surprise to see you here, Your Grace of Guglione. Are you making a pilgrimage to the Mountain?”
“Haw!” The sunburned Gwy
thlo lord bellowed. “Good joke, Terrell, you always had a sly sense of humor. But by the Ice Hell, no! I came to visit you, of course. Brought you some of Madoc’s best wine, now that you’re a man we should get drunk together.” Darnaud beckoned peremptorily to a pair of servants in his livery; each lugged saddle bags that bulged.
Terrell suppressed a sigh and pushed a smile onto his face. He is my cousin, and ruler of a city on Silbar’s second-most-important trade route. I should take this chance to ask him about his fief. He led Darnaud to the royal pavilion a few steps away.
Four hours later grooms carried the snoring Duke of Guglione off to sleep in another tent. Pen helped Terrell walk the several steps to his own bed.
“Was that worthwhile?” Pen quietly asked.
“Ask me later,” Terrell groaned. “Right now, bring me a bucket.”
When he’d finished and washed his mouth out with cooled tea, and his face with a damp towel, Terrell sighed and beckoned for his valet to prepare him for sleep. “May the One be my witness, Pen, I’ve never enjoyed good wine less than I did tonight.”
“The company did leave something to be desired. His Grace,” Pen loaded the word with enough irony to sink a barge, “is surprisingly coarse for a man who is supposed to be a noble.”
“Yes, by the third tale of his sexual conquests I did my best not to listen.” Terrell didn’t try to hide the contempt in his voice as he struggled to marshal his half-drunk wits; talking to Pen helped. “I did pick out a few useful bits. He doesn’t pay much attention to the running of his fief, leaves most of it to his mayordomo. Who apparently is both competent and has more sense than his lord, since he found ways to talk Darnaud out of looting the trade caravans with extreme taxes.”
“The work of running the place is probably helped by the amount of time Darnaud spends out hunting,” Pen nodded. “But he can be poetic when he wants to be.”
Terrell shrugged out of his embroidered sleeves and let his valet take the shirt off him. “Pity nothing but hunting seems to bring it out. His descriptions of the broken lands northeast of Belluno were vivid and fascinating and that long stalk following a wounded lion through the hills gave me chills. He doesn’t lack for bravery, does he?”
“True, my lord, though only of the physical kind.” Pen scowled and touched Irreneetha’s pommel lightly. “Moral courage, on the other hand . . .”
“Yes.” Terrell sighed as he stepped out of his pantaloons. “Cruel, capricious, and venal only begin to describe him. God help his people when they come before him for judgement. I’m going to have to rein him in sharply after I take up the governorship.” Terrell paused, considering options through wine-heavy wits. “Tell General DiCervi to have one of his men start investigating Darnaud’s forces. I’ll have to make sure I can overawe him with my own if he resists me.”
“Very good, My Lord.” Pen bowed himself out.
Dona Seraphina entered as he left. She immediately wrapped Terrell in her Diagnosis aura and frowned. “You’re not going to enjoy the morning, Your Highness.”
“I know.” He held his arms out to the side and let his valet wash him, trying not to sway. He badly wanted his bed right now but knew that he’d better blunt the hangover before it began. “Do what you can, Dona.”
She smiled grimly as she began to cast. “You won’t enjoy this very much either. Please hold as still as you can.”
* * *
“Shimoor is still asleep,” General DiCervi reported to Terrell the next morning. The suns were above the eastern horizon and God’s Footstool glowed like a spike of ice and silver.
Terrell tried to blink the cobwebs out of his eyes. His servants had dressed him and sat him at this camp table under an awning so that he could eat while enjoying the cool breeze. It didn’t help. Breakfast tasted like dust and the fickle breeze brought a waft from the camp latrines that made his stomach churn. “Wish I was,” he mumbled as he flogged his wits awake. “Now tell me why you haven’t wakened him.”
“Dona Seraphina refuses to allow it.” The General didn’t quite grumble. “We need him to cast a new protection spell for today’s travel.”
“Let him sleep,” Terrell ordered, knuckling sand out of his eyes. Pen studiously avoided comment, which only made Terrell feel worse. Damn the drink! Wine really is Desrey’s Milk, just like the old saying, he thought ruefully. “His assistants will take on the burden of our protection spells for a few days.”
DiCervi did grumble now. “That will leave us significantly more vulnerable than we have been, Your Highness. We could stay here until we can summon a replacement mage from Aretzo. Acting Royal Wizard Chisaad would be able to get here in two days if you summon him by message construct.”
Terrell shook his head, then regretted it as the hangover headache punished him. “The risk is not great, General. We are in the most populated and civilized part of Silbar, where we can readily call for help if necessary, and get it from several different dukes and barons who will all be eager to outshine their neighbors in my eyes. Shimoor is to be moved to his horse litter and given an opportunity for rest while we continue as we have been.”
“As you will, my lord.” DiCervi coughed, waved a hand in the general direction of the tent where Darnaud snored like a carpenter’s saw. “What shall we do with His Grace the Duke of Guglione?” His oblique gaze implied that while strangulation probably wasn’t appropriate, the General might be willing to try it.
Terrell firmly shoved that temptation aside and scowled, rubbed his head as he considered. He discarded his next thought—to tie Darnaud across a mule and send him home still snoring—and the one after that—to tie him upright in the saddle on his horse and see how long it took for him to wake on his own. Two of Darnaud’s men were standing at the edge of the royal part of the camp, helmets in hand and heads bowed, with a look of resigned patience. They were probably used to this. “Fetch Dona Seraphina to tend the—to His Grace. She can wake him enough to ride his own horse.” Terrell beckoned Darnaud’s men toward him and pointed to the tent. They both bowed and hurried toward their sleeping lord; one had a wineskin ready in hand.
“As you will, Your Highness.” The general bowed, his face impassive.
Pen handed Terrell a beaker of strong tea; he grimaced and drank it all, pushed the remains of his breakfast aside with a shudder, and stood to allow his valet to finish the final lacings on today’s garb. By the time Terrell was ready to ride, Darnaud had come stumbling out of the tent, pursued by an exasperated Dona Seraphina and assisted by the two Guglione troopers, who were trying to help their lord walk without being too obvious.
“Get away from me, you darkie witch!” Darnaud howled at the priestess. “Don’t touch me! Gods, my head hurts.”
“Your Grace!” Seraphina barked angrily. “You need the rest of my healing spell if you are to avoid—”
“No! Devils take you, you black hag!” He pushed one of his men between himself and the priestess to keep her from wrapping him in her aura, then gazed around blearily, missing Terrell completely. “Somebody get this bitch away from me, and bring me wine, damn all your lazy asses!”
The prepared trooper pressed the wineskin into his lord’s hands and Darnaud swigged mightily, gasped, choked, drank again until wine spilled down the front of his slept-in clothes. “Ah! That’s more like it. Where’s my damn cousin?”
“Behind you,” Pen said succinctly.
Darnaud whirled around, staggered and nearly fell. The prepared trooper caught him under his left arm and helped keep him on his feet. The man’s quickness and bland expression said he’d done this before.
“Terrell!” Darnaud exclaimed with patently false cheer. “Cousin! Let’s ride over to my city today, I’ll show you my hounds!”
“No, thank you, My Lord of Guglione.” Terrell pantomimed ritual sorrow, which apparently went right over Darnaud’s throbbing head. Right, there’s no point to being subtle with you, is there? Aloud he said, “I am eager to take up my rule of Silbar and there are stil
l many miles to go. Thank you for a—” He had to force the word out, “—congenial evening, cousin, but I must inspect my troops and prepare to be off within the hour.”
A groom had brought up horses. Terrell and Pen swung into their saddles while Darnaud blinked at them owlishly and hunted for words. Terrell gave Darnaud a last nod and a “Fare you well, Your Grace,” then urged his horse away before his cousin found any.
Behind them servants began striking the royal pavilion. Darnaud’s men brought him his horse, helped him onto it, and led him away. Terrell pretended not to notice the backward looks the hungover Duke cast at him before he disappeared into the crush of busy men preparing to move the sprawling camp.
“Hard to believe he and Madoc are both your cousins,” Pen mused as his horse walked beside Terrell’s.
Terrell rubbed his forehead and sighed. “I know. Their mothers are Father’s sisters, after all. Let’s circle through the west side of the camp and hope he’s out of sight by the time we get to the east side. We’re on good roads, I want to be at least half way to Dalmatzo by evening. I think we can make Aretzo in four days.”
I’ll have to start dealing with problems like Darnaud, he brooded. I wonder how many others there are like him? Or worse?
CHAPTER 14: KIRIN AND TERRELL
“Kirin! Sevan! He’s coming tomorrow!” Maia’s voice rang across the Attic.
Kirin looked up from the rope he’d been splicing. Ordinarily they’d have replaced a frayed rope, but with money so tight Grandfather had decreed that they would make do with patches. If he had to risk himself on a patched rope he wanted to be sure of it.
Sevan looked up from testing the ropes that held the net and beat him to the question. “Who?”
“Prince Terrell of course! The Queen’s son!” Maia would have danced in excitement if she weren’t carrying a basket of wet laundry. Instead she pirouetted and the basket sprayed fine droplets over Kirin.
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