“You know, you talk some rubbish. You were prepared to sacrifice your life when we climbed out of the cisterns—and you put Emerelle’s life in my hands, ill-bred barbarian that I am. I know enough elves to know that most would have chosen a very different course. They would have sent me and my men against the trolls, not entrusted us with the queen. That was one of the proudest moments of my life. Now let’s drink to that.”
Orimedes raised the goblet to his lips, and Ollowain did the same. The wine was mellow; the aroma of the grapes had held up well, and the liquid contained a touch of honey and wild berries. “It would be a shame for wine like this to disappear down a troll’s gullet,” Ollowain said.
Orimedes nodded with satisfaction. “A crying shame. About the humans . . . what do you think of them? I mean, the thing with the ships is pure madness. I know you raised Alfadas, but his plan, well, I would never have come up with an idea like that, not even staggering drunk.”
Ollowain thought back to the quarrel that had unfolded in the council of war, and how, in the end, Alfadas had won out. “The good thing about his plan is that it’s so insane that the trolls will never know what’s coming their way.”
The centaur laughed, and droplets of wine sprayed Ollowain in the face. “No dog would think that one of the fleas on its back had made up its mind to kill it. And even if the dog did, would it be worried? No!”
Ollowain took a good swig of the wine and held it in his mouth, savoring its taste and aroma. Orimedes’s objections were justified. But if Alfadas’s plan worked, then things might never go as far as a siege. The attempt was worth it.
“Come. Drain your cup!” the centaur encouraged him. “This wine doesn’t go to your head.”
But maybe it can help one forget. Ollowain glanced up at the bridge, then he placed both hands around the bowl of the goblet and drank.
Orimedes gave him a friendly cuff and grinned conspiratorially. “I have an admission to make. I’ve hoodwinked you. I know my race has a reputation as a band of drunken louts, and maybe there’s some truth in it, but there’s a method to our drinking bouts. Fixed rules. When two men share a wineskin, then from that day forth, they’re friends and no longer strangers.” The centaur leaned forward and threw his arms around Ollowain, taking him completely by surprise. “Now that’s behind us, know that you can confide in me. And know also that I would bite off my own tongue before I betrayed any secret of yours.”
Ollowain looked at the centaur prince in confusion. “What are you talking about?”
“I might be a barbarian, but I’m not blind. You’re not the same man I left at the Albenstar in Windland. Something’s on your mind, so spit it out! Drinking and talking helps. Trust me. Take it from a notorious tippler and gabbler,” Orimedes said, refilling both goblets.
Ollowain had to smile. Maybe his new friend was telling the truth. And what difference did it make if he wasn’t? The days for all of them were numbered.
“It’s Lyndwyn. She . . . she used our escape to steal the Albenstone from Emerelle. And she . . . it’s . . .” He tried desperately to find the right words to describe what he had not yet managed to explain even to himself.
“Odious witch!” Orimedes snarled. “The moment I saw her, I knew she could not be trusted.”
“I’m in love with her.”
Orimedes choked on his wine. He coughed and gasped for air. A long, embarrassed silence followed. “Well,” he finally said. “Sometimes it takes a witch to turn your head, doesn’t it? Have you already . . . you know?” He gestured obscenely.
“Yes,” said Ollowain curtly. “And we quarreled. I haven’t seen her since.” He told the centaur the full story, and found, in fact, that it really did help to talk about Lyndwyn. He was able to sense the truth behind all the disappointments, and he felt a pain he could not put into words. “I try to forget her, but she has touched my heart. I . . .”
Orimedes laid one hand gently on his shoulder. “I fear you are irretrievable, my friend.” He smiled understandingly. “You’re in love. Find her. That’s all you can still do.”
“But where?” Ollowain said in despair.
“Landoran will know.”
Ollowain thought of his youth, of the dismay in his father’s eyes when young Ollowain was not able to work magic, no matter how hard he tried. He was not the son that the prince of the Normirga had wished for, and Landoran had made that very clear to him. He would never help him! “Phylangan is concealing something from us. Something is going on that the Normirga are not talking about. And my father has drawn Lyndwyn into it.”
The centaur stroked his beard thoughtfully. “My men have explored partway through the mountain. We ought to know what we’re defending, after all,” he said apologetically.
“One should also know where the wine is stored.”
Orimedes laughed loudly. “We are truly kindred souls! There is a large stairway that descends from the front of the Skyhall. If you follow it down, you reach a place where three guards stand on duty. If you can get past them, I suspect you’ll find what you’re looking for.”
“You think they’re holding Lyndwyn captive? That’s not possible, Orimedes. She is a sorceress, and she possesses an Albenstone. No one on this mountain could hold her against her will.”
“And if she’s down there because she wants to be?” the centaur conjectured. “She—”
Orimedes suddenly stood stock-still.
“What is it?” Ollowain said.
The centaur’s mouth gaped as he looked out onto the lake. As if in a trance, he lifted his arm and pointed out at the water. “The fish. Look.”
Eerily pale fish bodies were floating up from the dark depths of the lake. They bobbed lifelessly, their white bellies up on the gentle swell. Soon there were hundreds of them.
“What’s going on?” Orimedes retreated a little from the shore, as if he feared he might share the fishes’ fate. “The lake! It must be poisoned. More and more are coming up. Everything is dead!”
Ollowain gazed out at the green water. It was almost the color of Lyndwyn’s eyes, those marvelous green orbs sprinkled with gold.
The centaur shook him. “What’s going on?”
“Lyndwyn.” Ollowain blinked. The spell was broken. “Stay here. Make sure no one drinks from the lake.”
THE SPIDER UNDER THE RAINBOW
Gundar kneeled in the snow before the figure of the god. Ole had really done it! This was where the dog breeder’s pilgrimage had ended in a moment of madness.
The priest ran his fingers over the rough surface of the wood. The sculptor had hewn the likeness of Luth from a thick oak trunk. Its head and bulging eyebrows were carved well and quite detailed, but from the shoulders down, the artist had only vaguely suggested the form of a body. Most of that had long disappeared beneath an armor of rusted iron pieces all jammed together in the wood: nails, pieces of broken blades, rings, a chunk of flattened iron, a horseshoe. A dozen or more of these idols stood at intervals along the trail that led over the pass. Every traveler going that way sacrificed a bit of old iron to them and asked the weaver of fate for protection on the way over the mountains. Over the centuries, the statues had become dressed in a suit of iron and rust that had earned them the name “ironbeards.”
Ulric picked up the hammer with the stone head that lay on a flat rock beside the statue. Summoning up his strength, he drove a nail into the idol’s foot.
Gundar was still looking at the gaps picked into the statue’s rusty coat. What had gotten into Ole, robbing a god?
“Will Luth protect us?” Ulric asked, returning the hammer to its place.
“Your uncle made the weaver of fate angry,” the priest replied grimly. “Let’s pray that we can make him merciful again.”
“But we’re bringing everything back. Won’t that make things right?”
Gundar sighed. “Perhaps.” He opened the leather pouch that contained the rusty iron pieces that Ole had woven into the tails of his whip. Then he took the hammer and tried carefully
to drive them back into the wood.
“Gundar?” Ulric rubbed his hands together for warmth. They were red from the cold. “If I stab my magical dagger into the ironbeard, will Luth make Halgard well again?”
The priest paused in his work and looked up at the sky. How could he possibly answer that? “The dagger is a great treasure, isn’t it?”
The boy nodded.
“And you would sacrifice it for Halgard?”
“If Luth would make her well again.”
“It is not the way of Luth to steal from us. I am quite sure that Luth has heard what you would be willing to give up, and he knows that you speak with a pure heart. Keep the dagger. It was Luth who knotted the thread of your life so that you would meet the elves’ swordmaster and so that Ollowain would give you that gift. That also means the dagger is a gift to you from Luth. One does not return a gift to its giver. That would be an insult to the god.”
“I didn’t want to hurt his feelings,” said Ulric remorsefully. “Sometimes it’s very hard to understand the gods. I’m glad you’re here and can explain what they want.”
Gundar swallowed. “Yes,” he said softly. He thought of the number of times he himself had doubted. He found the child’s trust in him both comforting and a burden. He could not let Ulric down and hoped against hope that the wolfhorse would simply vanish as it had come.
The priest stared into the statue’s great eyes, and the god returned his gaze, unperturbed. Luth had sent him the dream the night before. Spiders watched over the god’s golden palace and sometimes helped him weave the threads of fate as well.
“I told you about my dream, Ulric. Look for a rainbow for me. Luth will send it to us as a sign when he has made his peace with us.”
The boy looked up doubtfully at the radiant blue winter sky. There was not a cloud in sight. It was far too cold for any rain to fall, so where was a rainbow supposed to come from? Gundar was acutely aware that they were waiting for a miracle.
The priest returned to his labors, doing his best to force the purloined bits of iron back into the wood without breaking them. He had also brought along a small crucible of sticky fir tree resin. He used it whenever a piece seemed too fragile to risk hitting with the hammer.
Progress was slow. From the corner of his eye, he saw Ulric exploring the narrow defile that the mountain path rose through. The boy looked among the leafless bushes and searched for clues in the snow and rocks.
When Gundar was done with the stolen iron, he opened his second bag. Every resident of Firnstayn had given him a small gift to take along for Luth. He hammered on tirelessly, only occasionally checking on the boy.
Suddenly, a shrill cry made him jump. “There it is!” Ulric was jumping around like a young goat leaving the stable for the first time after a long winter. “The weaver of fate has sent us a sign! Come quickly, Gundar! Here’s the rainbow. And I can see the spider, too!”
Gundar saw a colorful spot of light glittering on the gray rock wall opposite the ironbeard. Astonished, incredulous, he stood up. His old bones creaked, and his knees ached as he hobbled over to the boy.
“Look, Gundar! There on the rock. You have to look closely, just beneath the rainbow!”
The priest blinked and rubbed his eyes. Then he stepped closer to the rough rock wall. His fingers traced the weak lines, as if demanding physical proof of the unclear image he saw. A spider had been carved in the rock. It was almost weathered away and no bigger than the palm of his hand. Above the spider stood a crooked patch of light that shimmered in all the colors of the rainbow. “The spider beneath the rainbow,” he whispered. His heart leaped. It was a sign from his god! How could he ever have doubted Luth? The god had accepted their sacrifice.
The priest looked up toward the pass. The sun was already low among the mountains. A sparkling icicle dangling from a branch caught his eye. Was that causing the rainbow? What difference did it make? Luth had given him a sign. That was all that mattered.
“Let me clear the snow,” Ulric said excitedly. “What gift do you think he’s hidden here?”
Gundar spread his arms wide, smiling. “How should I know?” He looked up blissfully at the sky as Ulric dug. A gift from Luth! The weaver of fate honored him beyond measure.
“I can’t go any deeper.” Ulric had shoveled the snow aside with his bare hands but had come to a layer of brown leaves encased in ice.
“His gift to us may have been here a very long time. It might have been covered up by falling leaves over the years. Maybe it’s actually buried in the earth? Do you think you could make a fire here to thaw out the earth?”
“I don’t have a flint or tinder,” said the boy sadly.
“But I do. You find a little dead grass and some dry twigs. Maybe a thick branch we can use to dig with.” Gundar looked up at the sky again. The sun was indeed very low. They would not make it back down to Wehrberghof before nightfall. If they wanted to get their hands on their treasure today, then they would have to spend the night right there. With the sky so brilliantly clear, it would be very cold. The priest pointed to a patch of fir trees surrounded by thick brush. “Let’s make ourselves a camp for the night. We’ll be sheltered from the wind, and there’s a big rock that will reflect the heat of the fire. But first things first: we need to have a good supply of firewood to get us through the night. Then we can continue. Can you find us a pile of wood, Ulric? I still have a few of the offerings to knock into the ironbeard.”
Ulric nodded enthusiastically and ran off.
Two hours later, they used sticks to push the hot coals aside. Ulric had gotten carried away and had built a fire they could have used to grill an ox. The dead leaves in the ice had burned to ash. Gundar was apprehensive. It had occurred to him too late that, should Luth’s gift be something that could burn, it would be lost to the flames.
Ulric stabbed his digging stick into the ground with all his strength. It took some pushing and twisting to get the rubble and humus to move. The priest held up a torch to give the boy some light, while Ulric stabbed and dug at the earth until he was kneeling in a shallow excavation. Several times he came across larger stones, and Gundar helped him lever those free.
“There’s a gap!”
“Can I see?” The priest leaned forward as far as he could. Alfadas’s son had revealed a finger-wide crack at the base of the rock wall. Beside it stood a pile of fist-sized stones. “Those stones look strange, don’t they? As if someone stacked them on purpose.”
Ulric pulled a thin branch from the remains of their fire and pushed it into the gap in the rock. “It goes down a long way. Maybe we’ve found a treasure cave?”
Gundar had to smile. While he had no real idea of what Luth might have given them, he certainly did not believe it would be a treasure cave. He pushed the digging stick into the gap behind the stacked stones; with a quick pull, he levered them aside.
Ulric eagerly tossed the rocks out of the shallow pit he’d dug. The deeper they went, the wider the gap became. Finally, it was wide enough for Ulric to put his arm inside. He lay flat on his belly and fished around with his fingers inside the hiding place. “There’s something slimy down there.”
“Can you pull it up?”
“It’s heavy. I can’t get a good grip on it. It keeps slipping out of my fingers.” Ulric stood up again. His white cloak was covered in mud and grime.
They dug deeper in silence for a while until the opening was big enough for Gundar to get his arm inside. His fingers touched something cold and slippery. A smell of decay rose from the hole. When the priest finally was able to get a good hold on the mysterious treasure, it took all his strength to lift it out.
Luth’s gift was wrapped in moldy leather. Something inside the wrapping clinked softly when Gundar laid his discovery on the ground. The leather had apparently been oiled very carefully at some point in the past. In a few places there was no mold, and the leather still gleamed as if wet.
“Don’t you want to open it?” asked Ulric impatiently.
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Gundar shook his head. He thought he knew what he would find inside the leather, but he had no idea what he, as a priest, could possibly use it for.
Apparently, Luth was sending him to war. But against whom? Could it be that the wolfhorse had not been sent by the weaver of fate at all?
“Let’s go over to our camp and add some wood to the fire. We’ll want to look at our treasure in the light.”
THE LOG OF THE ICE GLIDER ROSEWRATH
First day, morning: The council of war convened long before dawn. An ill omen overshadowed the day of our departure from the Snow Harbor of Phylangan. All the fish in the Skyhall lake are dead. There is no explanation, just as there is none for the dead kobolds found three days ago. An invisible enemy seems to have slipped into the fortress.
Afternoon: The Rosewrath still smells of fresh paint. Like the Willowwind and the Grampus, our glider was painted white to make it harder to see against the ice. The human, Duke Alfadas, has come aboard: he is to lead our small squad. His first officer is a man with only half a nose. Apart from myself, there are only seven elves on board. It is similar on the other ships. By order of the duke, many alterations have been made. Heavy, winch-drawn crossbows have been mounted to the railings, and long steel blades have been set close together, side by side, along the hull. The blades have been fashioned from the steel runners of other boats. The humans on board are an irreverent, unwashed lot. Though my only official role with the fleet is as a windsinger, I cannot deny myself the opportunity to keep a logbook, as I have done in happier times.
Evening: The fleet departed the Snow Harbor at dusk. It was hard for me to go. Shaleen fears that I will not return. I have asked her to get away from Phylangan on the next ice glider that leaves the Sky Harbor. Impending disaster hangs over the fortress like an all-smothering shadow.
Second day, morning: The gliders are making good headway. We hope by midday to have reached the hills where we last saw the troll army.
Afternoon: The trolls are nowhere to be seen. Alfadas has sent three small ice gliders to scout ahead. Our flotilla is moving slowly in an easterly direction.
Elven Queen Page 10
