Darkspell

by Katharine Kerr

  —The Secret Book of Cadwallon the Druid

  It was a beautiful sunny day, and the sun sparkled on the waters of the River Lit. Lord Camdel, once Master of the King’s Bath, sang as he rode beside the river, just snatches of songs, jumbled in no particular order, because he was having a great deal of trouble remembering the words. He was, in fact, having trouble remembering anything at all, such as the reason he was riding through the lonely hills of the province of Yr Auddglyn. From time to time the question would occur to him, but no matter how long he pondered it, he never found an answer. It merely seemed perfectly correct that he would be there, hundreds of miles from court, with a mysterious packet of jewels in his saddlebags. He knew he’d stolen the jewels, but he could no longer remember why, or who the owner was.

  “I must be drunk,” he said to his chestnut gelding. “But why am I drunk out here?”

  The gelding snorted as if wondering the same thing.

  A few miles on, the river road curved sharply, and as he rounded the bend, Camdel saw three men on horseback. In his muddled way he knew that they were waiting for him. Of course, it was Sarcyn and Alastyr, and that third man was doubtless some servant. Doubtless he was here to buy some opium with those jewels. At last it all made sense.

  “Well met, my friend,” Alastyr said. “Are you ready to come with us?”

  Camdel started to agree, but suddenly a thought came into his mind. Don’t! They’ll hurt you! The thought sounded so loudly, so urgently, that without a moment’s pause he wrenched his horse’s head around.

  “Here!” Sarcyn spurred his mount after him.

  Run!

  Obediently Camdel kicked his horse, but just as it sprang to a gallop, it screamed in agony and reared. Camdel was thrown forward hard; he clung to its neck as it staggered. He saw a sword blade flash up and slit the horse’s throat. Barely in time, he kicked his feet free of the stirrups and rolled off as the gelding went down. He staggered up, groping for the hilt of his sword. Then a sharp blow caught him across the back of the head, and he crumpled into darkness.

  “Good work, Sarcyn,” Alastyr said. “Gan, get those saddlebags! We’ve got to get on our way fast.”

  “Cursed nuisance about that horse,” Sarcyn said, kneeling down by Camdel. “We’ll have to steal him another one.”

  “I’ve been thinking that we should just kill him and be done with it. Things are much more dangerous than I thought they’d be. Don’t forget, there’s a war going on around here. We might meet a patrol or suchlike on the roads.”

  Sarcyn looked up with a flash of mutiny in his eyes.

  “I know I promised, but—” Alastyr hesitated, remembering the Old One’s warning that his apprentice hated him. “Ah, well, he doesn’t weigh much. You can tie him onto your horse until we get another.”

  “I want a little of my own back from this stinking swine. Besides, we can use him for the ritual.”

  “So we can, and tonight. Ye gods, I’m exhausted.”

  Their mute servant, Gan, hurried up with the saddlebags. Although Alastyr was tempted to open them and gloat over the jewels then and there, time was short. Nervously he glanced round, half-afraid of seeing some noble lord and his full warband riding toward them. Camdel was going to be a blasted nuisance. He felt hurt, he realized, that Sarcyn would hate him, after all he’d done for the little gutter rat! Still, there was no time to worry about such things now, and hatred or not, Sarcyn was too useful to get rid of.

  His head throbbed, blinding him, and there were arms around him. But where was he? On horseback. Somewhere. Camdel opened his eyes and saw green meadows around him. The Auddglyn. He’d tried to escape. With a groan he twisted in the saddle and realized that his ankles were tied to the stirrups.

  “Awake, are you?” Sarcyn said.

  Camdel realized, then, that Sarcyn was riding behind him and holding him on the horse. He heard the sound of other horses following them. The green meadows danced and shifted in his tormented vision.

  “My apologies for the blow on the head,” Sarcyn went on. “But we couldn’t have you just riding off like that.”

  “Why? What do you want me for?”

  Sarcyn laughed, a little mutter under his breath.

  “You’ll find out tonight.”

  Camdel was too exhausted to ask more. Although he was thoroughly trained in weapon craft, and had indeed won several tournaments, he’d never ridden to war or indeed exerted much of any kind of energy in his life. The pain took over his mind for the rest of the long, miserable ride.

  At last they rode up to a farm, which had been deserted for some time, to judge by the crumbling earthen wall around it and the sparseness of the thatch on the roof of the farmhouse itself. When the others dismounted, Sarcyn cut Camdel’s ankles free and pulled him down from the horse, then shoved him along inside to a big half-round room that had once been a kitchen. There was traveling gear scattered around on the floor and a pile of blankets by the hearth.

  “Lie down and rest,” Sarcyn said. “But I’m tying your hands and feet to make sure you stay here.”

  Once he was bound, Camdel lay very still and tried not to move his throbbing head. The others came in, talking among themselves about their booty, then moved on to another chamber. Although Camdel tried to drift off to sleep, he suddenly heard a howl of rage.

  “It’s gone! It must have fallen out when his cursed horse got killed! Everything’s here but the Great Stone of the West. Sarcyn, get your horse saddled and get back there to search.”

  The Great Stone of the West. What was that? Camdel vaguely remembered the name, but the pain in his head was making it hard to think. He drifted off into unconsciousness, only to have a frightening dream that Alastyr was questioning him about this mysterious stone.

  When he woke again, it was night, and a fire was burning in the hearth. Nearby Alastyr and Sarcyn sat on the floor and talked quietly in a cold fury while the servant huddled in the shadows in the curve of the wall. When he realized that they hadn’t found the stone, he was pleased. Although he gave an involuntary groan when he tried to move, the pain in his head was bearable.

  “Give him somewhat to eat and drink,” Alastyr said. “I want to work the ritual straightaway. All this astral traveling I’ve been doing has left me drained, I don’t mind telling you.”

  Camdel’s heart started pounding like a drum. Every tale of evil magicians he’d ever heard came back to him as Sarcyn strolled over.

  “Oh, we’re not the opium runners you thought we were,” Sarcyn said as he knelt down. “Soon you’ll learn more of the truth, Your Lordship. At first you’ll hate what I’m going to do to you, but in a while I think me you’ll develop a strange taste for it. You’re just the sort who does, you stinking little weakling. Your Lordship!”

  When Sarcyn cut his hands free, they shook so badly that Camdel could barely hold the waterskin he was handed, but he was so thirsty that he forced them steady and drank in long gulps. Sarcyn watched with a small smile that made his flesh creep.

  “Hungry?” he said.

  “I’m not.” Camdel gasped out the words. “Please, just let me go. My father’s rich, he’ll ransom me, by the gods, please, let me go!”

  “Oh, you’ll never see your father again, lad. You’re coming with us to Bardek, my fine, swaggering, noble lord. When you’re of no use to the master anymore, you’ll be sold as a slave. And when I’m done with you, too. I think you’d best try to please me and make sure that I don’t tire of you straightway.”

  All at once Camdel understood his implication. Involuntarily he shrank back as Sarcyn laughed down at him.

  “He probably couldn’t get food down,” Alastyr broke in. “Cut his ankles free and bring him along.”

  When Sarcyn hauled him to his feet, Camdel staggered. He’d been bound so long that it was hard to walk. The apprentice half shoved, half carried him into another chamber, where a piece of black velvet, embroidered in strange signs and sigils, hung on one wall. Candle lanterns hung
glowing from hooks, and in one corner was a small bronze brazier, giving off a soft cloud of incense. In the middle was a stout iron ring set into a trapdoor, which doubtless led down to a root cellar or some mundane thing.

  “We’ve had everything ready, just waiting for you to wake,” Alastyr said, and Camdel hated his oily voice more than ever. “Now, if you struggle too much, you could be hurt, so lie quietly.”

  At that Sarcyn shoved him facedown on the floor so hard that he gasped for breath. Quickly the apprentice bound his hands to the ring, then stepped aside. When Camdel looked up, he saw Alastyr standing at his head not more than three feet away. His hands were raised, palms forward, about shoulder high. In the dancing candlelight his eyes seemed to glitter as he stared into Camdel’s own. All at once he couldn’t look away, even though he struggled to. Alastyr’s eyes had him caught, pinned there, and he felt as if the old man were sucking life out of him, draining him in some mysterious way that he couldn’t understand.

  Then Sarcyn knelt down beside him and began pulling off his brigga, reaching under him to unlace them and to fondle him. He struggled, thrashing like a caught fish, but the apprentice was too strong. Shivering in fear, he lay half-naked and stared up into Alastyr’s eyes while Sarcyn spread his legs apart and knelt between them. The old man began to chant in some incomprehensible tongue, a soft, rhythmic mutter that was the more frightening for being done so slowly, with such perfect control.

  Then he felt Sarcyn’s hands grasp his buttocks. When he realized what was about to happen to him, he wanted to scream, but no sound would come.

  In the gray, humid dawn, the camp began to wake—the men yawning and cursing, the horses rousing themselves and pulling at their tether ropes with soft snorts. At his guard post down by the stream, Rhodry sheathed his sword and rested his shield on the ground while he waited for the captain to come release him from duty. On the other side of the stream stood a crop of spring wheat, turning pale gold and ripe for the harvest. Summer’s here, Rhodry thought. My first cursed summer as a silver dagger.

  Finally the captain released him with a shout and a wave. Rhodry hurried back to camp, dumped his shield beside his bedroll, and went down to the wooden carts to get his horse some oats and himself some breakfast. The twenty other men in the warband were already there. He took his place in the provision line behind Edyl, a square-faced young rider who was, so far at least, the only man in the warband who’d talk to a silver dagger.

  “Morrow, Rhodry. I take it you didn’t see any enemies creeping toward us, or were you asleep out there?”

  “Oh, it was easy to stay awake, what with the lot of you snoring and farting.”

  With a laugh Edyl gave him a friendly cuff on the shoulder. Up at the cart Lord Gwivan’s portly manservant shoved himself in at the head of the line to fetch his lordship’s breakfast.

  “How far are we from this Lord Daen’s dun, anyway?” Rhodry said.

  “Just about fifteen miles. If these horse-dung carts don’t break down again, we’ll be at his side tonight.”

  “Think we’ll get pinned in a siege?”

  “Well, that’s the rumor, isn’t it? Let’s pray it isn’t true.”

  Since he’d ridden into the middle of this war in the Auddglyn, Rhodry was still trying to sort out exactly what was happening. As far as he could tell, Lord Daen and a certain Lord Laenrydd had a feud going of long standing, and some little incident had set it off. Each lord had called in all their alliances to muster as big an army as they could. Rhodry had been hired by Daen’s ally Marclew, but since Marclew only owed Daen twenty-one men, he’d stayed at home and sent his son, Gwivan, to lead the warband. The shame of it ate at Rhodry constantly. Only last summer he’d been the cadvridoc of a large army; now he was just a silver dagger, hired to spare another man from riding to war.

  They broke camp smoothly and were on the road by two hours after dawn. Half the warband ambled along with their lord at the head of the line; the carts jerked and jolted in the middle; the rest of the riders formed a rear guard. As a silver dagger, Rhodry rode at the very end and breathed everyone else’s dust. He found himself thinking about Jill and wondering if she was safe, back at the dun with the rest of the warband and, for that matter, the widowed lord himself. His jealousy was a constant riding partner, gnawing him, taunting him with memories of just how beautiful she was. When they’d ridden away together, he’d managed to forget that they’d be separated for weeks and months at a time, when he would have no way of knowing if she was faithful to him.

  Slowly the straggling line wound through the low hills, scrubby with trees and underbrush. Methodically Rhodry recalled every man at the dun and wondered if she would find him tempting. That every man who saw her would want Jill was a foregone conclusion in his mind; the question was, would she take someone up on it? All at once the sound of a silver horn cut through his black brooding. With an involuntary shout he rose in the stirrups and looked around. Far ahead down the road was a warband, armed and ready, drawn up across their line of march.

  “Enemies, lads!” Gwivan shouted. “Arm!”

  While he unlaced his shield from his saddle peak and pulled it up on his left arm, Rhodry guided his horse with his knees, turning it out of line and urging it up past the carts. The line of march dissolved into a swirling, cursing confusion as the other men did the same. Just as he reached the front line, another horn sounded, and down from the hills swept a second warband to cut them off from behind. Rhodry began to wonder if he’d ever see Jill again, faithful or not. Swearing under his breath, he pulled a javelin from the sheath under his right leg just as the enemy warband began to walk their horses forward.

  “Gwivan!” the leader called out. “Surrender, you young dolt.”

  The lord urged his horse a few paces ahead of his grim and jostling men. Since Rhodry estimated that there were forty men behind them and thirty in front, he braced himself to die fighting if Gwivan refused to surrender.

  “Use your wits, lad!” said the enemy lord. “It’s not even your feud. Let your father ransom you and your pack. As long as you don’t reach Daen’s side today, I don’t give a pig’s fart about killing you. There’s no dishonor in surrendering to this kind of odds, and besides, we can use the coin.”

  “That’s all well and good, Ynryc,” Gwivan called back. “But what about Lord Degwyc?”

  “He’s not riding with us, and I’ll give you my solemn word of honor that you’ll be safe from him while you’re under my charge.”

  Gwivan considered for so long that Rhodry wanted to curse in frustration. His life was hanging in a web of other men’s feuds, and he didn’t even know who they were.

  “Done,” Gwivan said at last. “I’ll take your pledge.”

  Rhodry sighed sharply in relief.

  Slowly the waiting enemies rode forward and surrounded them. Ynryc took up a position by one cart and watched as, one at a time, Gwivan and his men rode up and disarmed. Rhodry came at the very end. He threw his javelins into the cart first, then slowly and reluctantly drew his sword, a beautiful blade of the finest steel, with a hand guard worked in the shape of the dragon of Aberwyn. It was the one thing he loved as much as Jill, and laying it down on the pile hurt.

  “That’s a fine sword, silver dagger,” Ynryc remarked. “Battle loot?”

  “It wasn’t, my lord, but a gift from a man I served well.” Rhodry was thinking of his father, who had given it to him.

  “You must have fought like a fiend from hell to have earned a blade like that.” Ynryc turned to Gwivan, sitting sullenly on horseback beside him. “Your father must be serious about his obligations if he’d actually part with coin to hire a silver dagger.”

  Gwivan set his mouth in a tight line.

  “Ah, it’s no fault of yours that your da’s a cursed miser,” Ynryc went on. “Think he’ll pay the ransom for this lad?”

  “My father is an honorable man,” Gwivan snarled. “And he’s not a miser.”

  “Merely a bit careful w
ith his coin, eh?”

  When Ynryc roared with laughter, Gwivan’s face went scarlet with shame. Rhodry felt a cold, sinking dread. If his lordship didn’t pay over the ransom, Rhodry would be reduced to little better than a bondsman, Ynryc’s virtual property for years until he worked off the debt.

  Lord Marclew was in such a rage that everyone in the great hall heard the news. With a flustered scribe and chamberlain trailing after him, he strode back and forth and bellowed out curses on Ynryc’s name, clan, and masculinity. In the curve of the wall, Jill stood with a cluster of serving lasses and watched the lord, an enormous man, still hard-muscled for all the gray in his hair. He clutched Ynryc’s message in one massive fist and shook it at the scribe as if the poor man were responsible for writing, not merely reading, it.

  “The gall!” Marclew snarled. “Taking my son on the road by a sneaking piss-proud bastard’s trick, and then mocking me for a miser!” He threw the parchment back at the scribe, who caught it and ducked back out of reach. “What was that bit again, the whoreson?”

  The scribe cleared his throat and smoothed out the message.

  “I know his lordship values his coin, hugging it tight the way most men prefer to hug a wench, but doubtless his own son means enough to him that he will part with some of his treasures. We have set his price at twenty Deverry silvers, ten silvers each for his men, five for the silver dagger, and for the servants, one.”

  “The gall!” Marclew howled. “Do they truly expect me to pay ransom for a stinking silver dagger? They’re doing it to mock me, and cursed if I will.”

  With a growl Marclew went back to his pacing. The chamberlain turned Jill’s way and beckoned, inviting her to come plead with the lord, but Jill shook her head no and stalked out of the great hall. One of the serving lasses followed and caught her by the arm.

  “What are you doing? Why won’t you plead?”

  “Because I’ve got the coin to ransom Rhodry myself. In all my years on the long road, I’ve never been treated so shabbily by a lord, and cursed if I’ll stand for it anymore. If I were a bard, I’d make a satire about Marclew.”