Heart of the Staff - Complete Series

by Carol Marrs Phipps

  Veyfnaryr pointed.

  “So where from here would Niarg be?”

  Veyfnaryr pointed a little to one side of where he had before.

  “Excellent!” said Neron. “Now just take your ball and point it that way.”

  “Houses,” said Veyfnaryr after a moment. “That is what you call them, isn't it?”

  Neron nodded.

  “And that is Niarg, right?”

  “I see a light here and there. They'll all be awake, directly.”

  “So I could just go there by saying phnirr dyrija, as I did when I got the loon?”

  “After you've worked up to it a bit at a time, as I said. And you certainly wouldn't want to end up on one of their streets looking the way you do now.”

  “Why?”

  Neron paused to take a breath. “Well you're stark naked for one thing,” he said with a sincere look. “None of them ever go abroad that way. You'd have to have clothes like they wear. But even that wouldn't be good enough. You're just pure Dyrney, to look you in the eye.”

  “I suppose I will need a glamourie to hide my Dyrney features as soon as I learn how to cast them. If I go.”

  “Oh you'd have to. They'd very likely try to kill you on sight...”

  “I'm a little surprised,” he said wistfully. “I mean, I'd understand if they were Elves and all, but we've never done anything to Humans. We've not even set foot out of these woods.”

  “Well they've feared the trolls in these woods for generations before Spitemorta and Demonica brought the Dyrney here.”

  “The vyr-ray-yoy-ana? The stupid ones who live off in the woods by themselves?”

  “I suppose,” said Neron. “But that's not the half of it. After bringing you all here, Spitemorta used her skinweleriou to tell her subjects that all you new trolls were brought over here by Niarg and the Elves so that you could steal people's children in the night.

  She warned them to kill you on sight. But that was years ago.”

  “Well, well!” said Veyfnaryr, sitting up straight. “She told us that Humans would be fearing us, but she certainly left out why.” He paused to nod knowingly into the shadows. “You know King Neron, the Dyrney will have to show Humans that we aren't like the stupid ones in the woods, but not just now. That would take time and ought to wait until after Spitemorta and Demonica have been done away with, don't you reckon?”

  Chapter 188

  “I'm beginning to think that it would be a good thing indeed to use these balls to spy on Spitemorta,” said Veyfnaryr as he let his skinweler go dark where it sat on the reading table. “And you say that you've not yet tried it?”

  “I've not had the chance,” said Neron. “I had only just paid for this one when Spitemorta put us in the dungeon. And all my time since has been taken up with coming here.”

  “Shall we each try at the same time to see what she's doing?”

  “That would be good,” said Neron, scooting back his chair and standing up. “It might work best if we were on the same side of the table. Just remember that if she looks into her skinweler, she'll be able to see either one of us. If that seems as though it's about to happen, drop yours back into the bucket and I'll cover mine with my hat. And neither one of us will want to say a word for fear she'll hear. Now, she might not even be awake yet.”

  “So then I what, scry Niarg again where I found all those houses?”

  “That's what I'm doing right now.”

  “So what am I looking for, some sort of palace?”

  “We're looking for an enormous black stone castle,” said Neron, gathering his brow at the swirling colors in his ball. “Find it and then start looking about for her somewhere inside it. I'd begin in the upper storeys...”

  “I'm not seeing such a thing. Wouldn't it stand above the other houses? All I have here is this odd patch of fog...”

  “I've got the same thing,” said Neron. “And I know that I'm looking in the right place. I remember the lay of the land and many of these surrounding houses.”

  “Is this what Razzmorten might have been calling a 'ward' in his Compendium of Magic?”

  “Exactly. That's precisely what it is. And I remember Razzmorten himself discussing that very thing with your older brother Abaddon. It seems that when no one could get through Spitemorta's wards, Abaddon was doing it merely by waiting until her ten o' clock deliveries to her subjects by skinweler.”

  “Then that's just what I would like for us to try,” said Veyfnaryr.

  “It can be pretty bright at ten in the morning.”

  “Then it's time I got used to it, though I have no idea what time of day o-ten clocks would be.”

  “Very well then,” said Neron with a nod. “I am exhausted from staying up all night, truth to tell. So with your leave, I'd be obliged for three or four hours' sleep. But if you let me, I'll have Sulacha or someone wake me at nine and I'll come tell Badharan. I'd say we should start scrying her a little before ten. Now doesn't Badharan have a sundial or at least a peg in a window sill?”

  Veyfnaryr gave a very bewildered shake of his head. “Well,” he said, suddenly sitting up straight. “Go have your nap. Then have Badharan wake me from mine.”

  Neron gave a nod and vanished into the blackness of the hallway.

  Veyfnaryr sat there between his stubs of burning candle with his knitted beetle brow, turning the pages of Razzmorten's Compendium, hunting for any possible reference to sundials. “I guess not,” he said with a shake of his head as he closed the book and blew out the candles. The blackness out the window had taken on a hint of blue. He was not the least bit sleepy. He stood up and went outside. A cardinal chipped and flew away from the bushes by the door. “He said it was bright out at clock o' tens. Surely he wouldn't call this bright yet.” And with that, he set out on a walk along the edge of the lake, stooping here and there to pick up stones to fling out across the water.

  Well down the shore, not far from the hog wallow, he wandered through the briars and into the woods, where he sat for a very long time in a patch of spring beauties, listening to the chorus frogs calling from the lake and watching the sun through the trees as it rose well into the sky. “The world wants rid of Spitemorta,” he said. “And if they learn that I helped do away with her, maybe they'll stop fearing and hating the Dyrney.”

  And with that, he was on his feet, tramping through the leaves and the cries of jays, making his way back to the library where he found Badharan already seating Neron at the reading table.

  Veyfnaryr lifted his dribbling skinweler from its bucket and rolled it about in the fur of an old bear hide. “See anything?” he said as he took a chair beside Neron.

  “Fiddlesticks!” said Neron. “The castle is still just one big black cloud. Well, it shouldn't be long until ten.”

  “Is this her castle?” said Veyfnaryr. “It's huge and black and right where the cloud was before, and I don't see any...”

  “Ha!” said Neron. “Without a doubt. I see it. She's just now dropped her wards.

  I'm going to hunt in that top storey between the towers.”

  “Then so shall I.”

  “I'm all the way down the hall. That has to be her bower, her apartment.”

  “I see her!”

  “Be careful. We have to have these covered before she ever picks up hers.”

  Veyfnaryr jerked back at the sight of her lunging out at him with her food smeared tongue.

  “You know,” said Spitemorta through her busy mouthful of breakfast as she turned back to the mirror with her brush, “I'd far rather find 'possum scat in my toad in the hole than have to see your smug face first thing.”

  “My word!” gasped Neron, pressing his hand to his chest. “For a moment, I thought she'd seen us.”

  “Well pardon me,” said Demonica, ambling up to Spitemorta's dressing table. “I was just thinking what a lovely new dress that makes for your morning delivery. Best that you wear it now. I mean with it so tight in the bodice, it'll be one of the first you'll have t
o lay aside. Ironic when it was the very one you undid for your general, don't you think?”

  “Shut up Grandmother!” said Spitemorta into the mirror as she gathered up a lock of hair to braid. “You've already made a huge enough deal about my being pregnant by General Coel. And isn't it a bit early to be discussing maternity clothes? And just why do you have to go on breathing, anyway?”

  “Where is she?” said Veyfnaryr. “Do you see her?”

  “You mean Demonica?” said Neron. “No. I'm not finding her anywhere.”

  “Just habit I suppose, dear,” said Demonica. “After all, I was alive long enough for it to become quite customary.”

  “Do you actually want something, Grandmother?”

  “You might be wanting for something yourself, if you think about it,” said Demonica. “You might consider a visit to the Dark Continent while you're still able. If you spend too much time away from there, Azenor will begin thinking he's in charge again...”

  Spitemorta smacked down her brush with an eye rolling sigh, immediately picking it back up to resume brushing.

  “He's not at all the type to spend his days tirelessly searching for ways to serve your interests, is all I'm saying.”

  “How could I ever neglect such a thing with you here to remind me?” growled Spitemorta through the ribbon in her teeth. “Look. Here I am, just back from your stinky trolls. Can't I have a day or two to be empress here before you have me calling on another petty ruler? Surely it's best to be visible here once in a while. I need to be seen governing this place.”

  “Righty-o. Visible to do what? Visible to impress your subjects here in Niarg by doing in hired boys for coming to your aid, like what's his name...?”

  “Pissant?”

  Demonica gave a great sigh. “He had a name, dear.”

  “Yea. Pissant.”

  “No wonder you had your handsome general upset over it...”

  “What is this? You're the one who taught me to put fools on the rack and skin them.”

  “Indeed. But I've never done that to someone for trying to help me. And certainly not in front of my subjects...”

  “Because you never had any subjects, Grandmother!” roared Spitemorta. “And you sound more like Coel every single day. Now shut up! Beat it!” And without warning, she grabbed up her skinweler from the washstand by her bed.

  “Aah!” wailed Neron as he and Veyfnaryr shot to their feet, grabbing at their skinwelers like scalding potatoes and plunking them into the bucket of muddy water on the floor between them.

  Spitemorta paused with a squint at her skinweler. “Now was that flash in the ball from Grandmother's winking out?” she said. “Oh well.” And with that, she walked straight out to the balcony to give her morning delivery.

  “That was close, don't you think?” said Veyfnaryr.

  Neron gave a wide-eyed nod as he paced around in a tight circle.

  “You don't think she saw us, do you?”

  “Surely not,” he said, still pacing. “It certainly made my hair stand up, but surely not.”

  “Why didn't we see Demonica? I mean I never once heard a word out of her, but she was in the room with Spitemorta, wasn't she?”

  “I can't begin to tell you,” said Neron. “But I will say this: I really need some sleep.”

  .

  “So do I,” said Veyfnaryr. “Let's meet here right after dark and we can discuss your departure, if you don't mind. And say. Do you know much about this General Coel, the one who seems to have sired Spitemorta's next child?”

  “I've met him. And he nearly seemed like a decent fellow to me at the time, too, except that he was under orders from Spitemorta to take off my hand with a heavy cleaver.”

  ***

  Even before the Pastures had been established up in the Machlud Mountains, the dragon council decided to give choice caverns to the royal houses of the Elves, Niarg and Loxmere-Goll for as long as they were needed. Lukus and Sulacha had already spotted Spring 'n' Drain, a few miles to the west of the dragon settlement, so the surrounding cluster of caverns and lava tubes were at once named New Gairdin and given to Neron and his extended household.

  Immediately north of the New Dragon Caves lay a vast system of black limestone sinks, caverns and underground streams overlain by a great black obsidian cheese of lava tubes and tunnels, wending and pointing to a horizon of ancient volcanoes, long crumbled away under the desert sun. In the midst of this lay a group of particularly enormous caverns called the Vaults by the dragons, punctuated in their eternal black silence by the echoing fall of occasional drops of water. The furthest north of these, along with the caves all about and the lava tubes above, became the Vaults of Loxmere-Goll and were moved into by King James and Queen Mary the White and Abaddon, Lance, Sir Owain, Sir Llewyrch, Sir Aeron and all of the refugees from Castle Goll.

  The southern vaults and their surrounding sinks, caves and obsidian tunnels became the Vaults of Niarg and were taken up by Minuet, Razzmorten and Herio and by Rose, Fuzz, Lily, Edward and Laora and enough help from Castle Goll (including Bedivere) to run a proper house. Rose and Fuzz's lava tube apartment opened onto a ravine oasis, which became her agave “rose garden,” and a great sink, open to the sky, with a thundering river at the bottom, surrounded by the vaults became Razzmorten's underground “tower.”

  Between the two underground castles lay the grandest vault of all, large enough to serve as a community dining hall for everyone from the dragons and both castles to the Pastures. The kitchen which developed at its small end became in time, the kitchen and tavern (without rooms) for both castles. A smaller vault nearby came to be called the Circle. The gathering of the dragon council with the leaders of the respective groups of refugees was called the Extended Council from the very beginning, and was soon gathering around the enormous table within this vault which was also known as the Circle.

  Razzmorten scried Meri Greenwood at once, and soon Ocker and Urr-Urr were bringing starts of glow lichen which Queen Mary soaked in a broth of her invention that caused them to grow astonishingly fast, so that after a few short years, most of the occupied caverns of the New Dragon Caves were lit well enough to read in.

  Rose's long garden ravine opened out into a broad alluvial fan at its lower end which was used for a year-round vegetable garden, hidden from above by a magical ward maintained by Razzmorten, Mary, Minuet and by Rose herself. And here, Lily and Avel swooped from the late afternoon sky and came to a running halt on a meandering path through the strawberries and beds of carrots, onions and salsify.

  “You want to come in?” said Lily, catching her balance against Avel in the black sand. “There's probably tea hot, late as it's getting to be, or you could just have a nice long drink of water.”

  “So you're missing Edward, aye?” said Avel, watching her with one eye as she ran her teeth down a flight feather.

  “That's not why I asked you in, silly goose. But truth to tell, since he and Laora moved out, I swear Mother and Father have been giving me three times the attention. Can you imagine being the only chick in the nest?”

  “No,” said Avel with a conclusive ruffling shake. “No more than you can imagine what it's like with twenty-three brothers and sisters. I mean, it's been twenty-one year since we all pipped, and we're still setting eighteen places at the board for supper. But maybe in another hundred and fifty year, when the last one of us walks out, they'll plug the kitchen door with a big old rock and hide.”

  “I can't picture it.”

  “Nay. I can't either. No one looks forward to the last one gone for good. And I'd allow that's Rose and Fuzz's problem. Down deep. You know what I mean?”

  “Ah!” came a voice from up the hollow, as an old Elf stepped from behind the hedge of agave by the mouth of Rose and Fuzz's part of the vault and came crunching down the path, scattering chickens as he came. “There you be. I was thinking I wouldn't find you, mistress. Your mother...”

  “Down here, Cuir!” called Lily.

  “Some of t
hat triple strength?” murmured Avel.

  “Your mother...” said Cuir, catching his breath with a deep nod for Avel.

  Lily caught Avel's eye with a knowing nod of her own.

  “Your mother wants you to come straight away to the first parlour...”

  “Company?”

  “Of a sort, mistress. It's only Herio and Edward and Laora, truth to tell. But Herio's had some excitement...”

  “You said Herio?” said Lily, slipping off her soiled wimple at once to feel of her hair.

  Avel cocked her head and look askance.

  “Herio, Edward and Laora...”

  “Goob,” said Lily around the hair pin in her mouth as she wound her braid into a better coil. “Tell Mother we're on our way. Thanks, Cuir.”

  Cuir was already on his way up the path. He gave a wave and a big nod without looking back.

  “You are coming, aren't you Avel? I know you were in a hurry...”

  “Sure. It's getting too good not to,” she said with a snap of each wing.

  Lily gave Avel a playful poke in the ribs. “Ariel's right!” she said, giving her a sudden hug as they set out at a good clip. “You are a toothy poop hole.”

  They reached the parlour just as the help was setting out two pots of tea and a big tray of hot prickly pear tarts, new cottage cheese and honey on the low table. Rose stood at the sight of them, cleared a place for Avel by Laora and drew a chair for Lily.

  “Uncle Herio,” said Lily with a hint of a curtsey and a flickering blush to match.

  “Mother,” she said through her teeth as she took the chair. “I'm a mess! I've been flying all afternoon.”

  “You look fine, dear,” said Rose in front of everyone, “though I can't imagine your concern when everyone here has seen you far worse. Herio has just returned from 'way up in the mountains, where he and Sergeant Philpott were held captive for a whole fortnight by the very giants who've been stealing our sheep.”

  “Giants?” said Lily. “My word!”

  “Howlies,” said Herio, reaching beyond his knees for a tart. “Great dark hairy fellows...”