Darkspell

by Katharine Kerr

  “I will, then. But what is all this?”

  “No time now to explain. Our enemies might be able to overhear us. But you’ve got to get to Dun Hiraedd. Jill is in grave danger. Leave tomorrow at dawn.”

  “What? I’ll leave tonight!”

  “Don’t!” Nevyn’s image turned grim. “It’s not safe for you to be on the road alone at night. Do you hear me? Wait for dawn, but ride!”

  “Of course I will. Oh, ye gods, she doesn’t even have her gnome with her.”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “The little creature disappeared somewhere along our way. Jill was worried sick over it.”

  “As well she might be. I’ll look into it.”

  Suddenly the image was gone. Rhodry looked up to find a servant glaring at him.

  “Somewhat you need, silver dagger?” he snapped.

  “Naught. I’ll just get out of your way.”

  As he walked outside, Rhodry was wrestling with his honor. For all that he’d given Seryl his sworn word, he knew that Jill was the one thing in the world that would make him break it. His mood disintegrated further when, as he was crossing the dark ward, he caught a trace of movement out of the corner of his eye. Reflexively he turned, his hand going to the hilt of his dagger—nothing there. Dim light spilled from the open door of the kitchen, and in the shadows again it seemed that something moved.

  Rhodry drew the dagger and took one cautious step forward. For the briefest of moments it seemed he saw a tiny figure, vaguely human yet profoundly alien, standing in the shadows and grinning at him. The thing disappeared, leaving him wondering if he was going daft on top of all his other troubles.

  Over the last few days Nevyn had at times wondered why the gray gnome hadn’t come to him, but he’d assumed that the faithful little creature merely feared to leave Jill’s side. Now he could guess that it had fallen afoul of the dark master. That night he was camping by the road down in Yr Auddglyn, with a cheerful campfire burning for his scrying. In his heart he thanked the gods that had made Rhodry stare into that other fire so far away. Although Rhodry had no true dweomer-talent, his elven blood made him highly susceptible to dweomer worked upon him from outside. For just that reason Nevyn was as worried about him as he was about Jill.

  Nevyn turned his mind firmly to the task at hand and laid his worry aside for a moment. When he called upon the Wildfolk who knew him, they appeared immediately, crowding round, an obese yellow gnome, blue sprites, gray gnomes, sylphs like crystal thickenings in the air, and salamanders leaping up in the fire.

  “Do you know your little gray brother who follows Jill around the kingdom?”

  They nodded, a vast rustle of tiny heads.

  “And you know the bad man I’m chasing? Well, I’m afraid he’s gotten hold of your brother.”

  A faint sound of anguish swept over him.

  “Try to find where he is, but stay, very very far away from the bad man. Do you hear me? Be very careful.”

  Suddenly they were gone, and the fire was only a normal fire again. Nevyn turned his attention to it and thought of Jill. He saw her at once, sitting in a filthy tavern next to an enormously fat man, but try as he might, he couldn’t get her attention, couldn’t influence her enough to make her look toward the fire. He could feel, however, how frightened she was, and her fear fed his own. Finally he banished the vision and got up to pace restlessly back and forth.

  It was some time later that the Wildfolk returned, grinning and dancing in triumph. Nevyn hastily counted heads to make sure that they were all safe.

  “I take it you found him.”

  Rubbing his stomach, the yellow gnome stepped forward and nodded a yes. When he held up thumb and forefinger to define something small and square, Nevyn could guess his meaning easily.

  “The bad man bound him into a gem.”

  The gnome nodded.

  “Now for the hard part, my friends. I have to know where the gem is. Does the bad man still have it?”

  When the gnome indicated no, Nevyn sighed in relief. The gnome pointed to a salamander’s red face.

  “It’s a red gem.”

  It was, indeed. As the Wildfolk put on elaborate pantomimes and clever mimicking, Nevyn finally understood all that they had to tell him. The gnome’s elemental spirit was bound into a ruby stolen from the king himself; the dark master had given it to a bandit with red hair; that bandit had taken it to a town to sell. Although the name of the town was difficult, finally a sprite rode on a gnome’s shoulder while others indicated something big.

  “Marcmwr! A big horse!”

  In a swirl and dance they spun around him, then disappeared. Feeling a little weary from all that guessing, Nevyn sat down by the fire. It was just like a dark master to bind a spirit into a gem and then give it to someone who knew naught of such matters, thus trapping the poor thing there for all eternity. Fortunately, he would reach Marcmwr by noon on the morrow.

  “And then on to Cwm Pecl,” he remarked to the fire. “It’s a good thing that I know faster ways through these mountains than that wretched pass.”

  By staying in the stables, where he was sleeping, Rhodry managed to keep out of Comyn’s way all evening. Once the captain and his weary men were settled in the barracks some hours after sunset, Rhodry went back to the broch, where Seryl had been given a chamber on the second floor. The merchant was awake, staring blankly at the candle-light dancing in the room.

  “Here, good sir,” Rhodry said, “I’ve come to beg you a favor. I know I swore to stay with you, but one of the gwerbret’s men brought me a message from Jill. She’s in some kind of trouble down in the city.”

  “Then by all means you’d best ride tomorrow.” With a sigh Seryl raised himself on one elbow and looked around the room. “Do you see that pouch lying on my cloak? Take the lot, silver dagger, and my thanks with it. I’d be dead if it weren’t for you.”

  Although Rhodry’s honor nagged at him, he took the coin. As he left the chamber, he realized that he’d lied to Seryl, the very first lie he’d ever told in his life. He was starting to think like a silver dagger, and such a black hiraedd swept over him that he nearly wept.

  That night he had trouble falling asleep. Since he was determined to reach Dun Hiraedd by sunset of the next day, he thought out his plan carefully. Not only was his own horse well rested, but he had Sunrise. By changing his weight back and forth between them, he could make good speed, and if the bay gelding tired too badly, he could trade it for another horse, perhaps, at some lord’s dun.

  Yet the next morning Rhodry woke to the sound of rain. Although he left anyway, willing to ride wet for Jill’s sake, he could no longer travel fast. As he slopped and sloshed his way down the muddy road, he cursed his luck and wondered if it was only bad luck. If someone had wanted to keep him from reaching town by sunset, they couldn’t have found a better way.

  “That should slow the stinking silver dagger down,” Alastyr remarked, looking up from the fire. “The road’s turned to muck, good and proper.”

  “Splendid, master. Then I should be able to catch him a good long ways from town,” Sarcyn said. “Are you sure that I shouldn’t just kill him? I know he’s the better swordsman, but I can ensorcell him and slow him down.”

  “I’m tempted to tell you to just go ahead and get him out of our way, but the Old One ordered me to leave him alive.”

  There was no arguing with that, of course. Sarcyn felt fear clutch his stomach with icy hands. Although he tried to keep up hope, every day that the stone eluded them was a day that brought them closer to failure, a failure that could mean their deaths, whether at the hands of the dweomer of Light or of the Hawks of their own Brotherhood, who never tolerated the weak and the failed for long. Alastyr looked haggard, as if he too were thinking such unpleasant thoughts.

  “Well, Rhodry might well have the gem,” the master said. “After all, they travel together; things get shifted from one piece of gear to another all the time. If only I could scry out the wret
ched thing itself! Now, we know that she had it at one time. The Wildfolk were definite on that. If Rhodry doesn’t have it, I’ll simply have to summon them again, but ye gods, with the Master of the Aethyr keeping watch, it’s cursed dangerous.”

  “So it is. For all we know, the gem fell out of her gear during that fight with the bandits.”

  “Just so. Well, go look up our fat thief first, and then get on the road after the silver dagger. If all else fails, I’ll slip into town and try to ensorcell Jill myself. I’d forgotten that she must have dweomer-talent.”

  “And a strong one, master. She brushed me aside like a fly.”

  Alastyr snarled and stared into the fire. Sarcyn saddled his horse, told Gan to keep a good eye on Camdel, then left their camp among the trees and rode out through the dweomer-induced rain to Dun Hiraedd.

  On Nevyn’s side of the mountains, the weather held clear and warm, and he reached Marcmwr well before noon. Since he kept track of every smith in the kingdom who served the silver daggers—and that sort of smith usually traded with thieves as well—he knew to inquire at a rundown little shop on the east side of town. Just below the filthy thatch hung a sign bearing a faded picture of a silver goblet. When he opened the door, silver bells tinkled above him, and Gedryc came out to greet him from an inner chamber. A skinny fellow with enormous hands, the silversmith was going quite badly bald.

  “Well, if it isn’t old Nevyn!” he said with a smile. “What brings you to me, good herbman?”

  “A matter of some stolen property you’ve received.”

  Gedryc went pale.

  “Now, don’t waste my time,” Nevyn snapped. “I’m not about to turn you over to the laws if you just give me the ruby.”

  “The square one as big as a thumbnail?”

  “The very one. I figured it would pass through your hands.”

  “Right you are. Here, if I’d known it was yours, I wouldn’t have touched it.”

  “It’s not mine, and anyway, I’m just as glad you’ve got it. Have you cut it yet?”

  “I was going to this afternoon. Make it a little less recognizable, like, but it ached my heart to spoil a stone like that. You know, I paid a cursed lot for it.”

  “That’s your ill luck. Do you want to add your right hand to the price you paid? Ah, I see you don’t. Just bring it out. Time’s short.”

  When Gedryc handed over the enormous ruby, Nevyn cradled it in his palm. With his second sight he saw a faint crystalline pattern of force lines, the bound spirit within.

  “My thanks,” Nevyn said. “I trust you’ll remember that honesty costs less than this sort of thing?”

  “I will, indeed. Uh, I don’t suppose you could tell me what this is all about?”

  “You’re quite right. I can’t. Good day, good smith.”

  With the ruby clenched in his hand, Nevyn stalked out of the shop. Once outside, he paused beside his horses, gave a quick glance round, and saw that no one was nearby. He opened his hand and stared into the ruby. Unlike truly inanimate matter such as earth or leather, the crystalline structure of jewels gives them an extremely dim, extremely rudimentary consciousness, which can be influenced by a dweomer-master who’s done the necessary long years of training. This influence is a subtle thing, a matter of making the gem vibrate to a certain feeling, normally, and then release that feeling back to a human mind, as when a dweomerman makes a talisman of courage, for instance. Those who are highly trained can make the gem vibrate in exact sympathy with a certain elemental spirit, to the result that the gem sucks up the spirit and traps it within. Releasing the spirit again is usually a difficult process, but to Nevyn it was the work of a minute to persuade the gem to let its unwilling inhabitant go. He saw the lines of force in the ruby dim and wink out. All at once the gray gnome was clutching him by the legs and staring up, his face contorted with joy and gratitude.

  “There you go, little brother,” Nevyn whispered. “Now, never go near that bad man again. Get back to Jill. She misses you.”

  The gnome gave him one last hug and disappeared. Nevyn slipped the ruby into the pouch at his neck, then mounted his horse, caught the lead rope of the other, and rode out of town fast. Although he was low on food, he decided to wait to buy provisions, because he knew a place to get better than those Marcmwr offered.

  As soon as he’d left the town far behind, Nevyn turned off the main road and guided his horse north, directly into the foothills. For several hours he threaded his way along narrow tracks through the pines while the hills grew steeper and rockier round him. At last he came to an outcropping of pale rock that towered over him in a sheer cliff some hundred feet high. At its base were enormous boulders, scattered as if by a giant hand. Nevyn dismounted and led his horses through them until he stood at the base of the cliff. Since it had been many years since last he’d passed this way, he studied the various ridges and furrows in the stone for some time until at last he found the right pattern and pressed it hard with the heel of his hand. Although he could hear nothing, he could imagine the enormous bell inside booming as it turned over. Then came a wait while he fretted. Finally he heard a scraping sound above and looked up to see a shutter of stone swing open, revealing a suspicious, bearded face.

  “Tarko!” Nevyn hailed him. “I need to use your road, if your people will allow it.”

  “And when have we ever denied anything to the Master of the Aethyr? Stand back a bit, my lord, and I’ll open the door.”

  Nevyn got the horses out of the way, and Tarko disappeared back inside. In a few minutes pebbles began to bounce down; rock dust plumed like smoke on the cliff face. With a grinding rasp, an enormous door into the mountain swung open. A lantern in his hand, Tarko beckoned Nevyn inside. He was tall for a dwarf, about five feet, and even more heavily muscled than most of his folk. His gray beard was neatly trimmed close to his chin.

  “Haven’t seen you in years, my lord,” he remarked as Nevyn coaxed the nervous horses into the tunnel. “In fact, we haven’t even been using this door much now that your folk are living so close by. You’re lucky, truly. A party of the lads went out hunting, and so I was here to let them in again.”

  “You can’t know how grateful I am that you were. I need to reach Dun Hiraedd in a hurry fit for the Lord of Hell.”

  “Well, the big road runs straight enough.”

  So it did. In just twenty-five miles Nevyn would be free of the mountains, and the road would bring him out only thirty more from the town.

  “These horses are going to be exhausted by the time I’m through,” Nevyn remarked.

  “Leave them with us and take a pair of ours.”

  “My thanks. Then I can ride all night, too.”

  Nevyn mounted and, with a wave to Tarko, set off, the hoofbeats echoing under the high arched vault of the tunnel, lined with perfect blocks of stone and lighted by carefully cultivated phosphorescent fungi and mosses. Soon he would come to one of the great caverns where air shafts let in sunlight, and there he could buy enough food to see him on his way.

  Because of the drowsy sound of the rain on the roof, Jill slept late that morning. When she woke, she lay in bed for a while and debated going down to the tavern room. She was in for a terrible day, she knew, one spent in a boredom that was full of dangers, rather like marching to war. In her mind she could still see the driven eyes of the stranger, threatening her. Finally she got up and dressed. She was just buckling her sword belt when the gnome appeared.

  “Thanks be to every god!”

  When she threw open her arms, he rushed to her, leaping up to twine his skinny arms around her neck. She held him tight and rocked him like a baby while tears ran down her cheeks.

  “You little beast, I’ve been so frightened! I was afraid some harm had befallen you.”

  He pulled back to look at her and nodded his head in a solemn yes.

  “Something terrible did happen?”

  He flung himself against her and shook in terror.

  “My poor little creature
! Thanks to the gods you’re safe now. Here, how did you escape whatever the danger was?”

  In an agony of concentration he looked away, obviously trying to figure out a way to show her.

  “Nevyn saved him, you dolt, who else?”

  “Listen, you beastly gem! Don’t you insult me! If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be in this pile of horseshit up to my neck.”

  “I know, hut I’m worth it.”

  “Bastard.”

  “Well, if that’s the way you’re going to be, cursed if I’ll tell you one jot more.”

  Jill was too pleased to have her gnome back to care if the dweomer-stone spoke or not. For a long time she sat on the floor with him in her lap and fussed over him. When he finally did disappear, it was slowly, as if he hated to leave but had to go: a bit at a time he faded, became transparent, then at last was a smudge in the air that turned to nothing.

  Smiling to herself, she went down to the tavern room and got a bowl of suspiciously lumpy barley porridge. She was picking her way through it, looking for steamed weevils, when Bocc came in. He strolled idly past her table, glanced at her as if he’d never seen her before, then whispered, “To the Red Dragon” under his breath. Jill got her cloak from her chamber, then hurried through the drizzle to the inn, where she found a pale, sweating Ogwern sitting at his usual table. His vast paws were shaking so hard that he had to raise his tankard to his mouth with both hands.

  “What’s wrong?” she said.

  “You remember that fellow from last night? Well, he came back. He walks in here not an hour ago, as bold as brass and twice as solid, and sits himself down beside me without so much as a by-your-leave. If I don’t find the opal for him, he says, he’ll turn me into sausages! The gall!”

  “Gall and twice gall! He must want this thing really bad. I mean, it’s a big risk, coming here in broad daylight.”

  “Oh, I doubt me that he’s putting himself at any risk.” Ogwern paused for a comforting gulp of ale. “Now, here’s the strange part. I know it’ll sound daft, but, Jill, I swear it’s true on my fat but precious self. When he left, I decided to follow him. It was easy enough, because the street was crowded, and he walked right along without even a look over his shoulder. So he strolls along, and I trail him from a good bit back. He goes right down to the commons by the river. Do you know that clump of birches by the bridge?”