by W. C. Conner
Two point riders preceded the troop of guards surrounding the coach carrying Mertine and Angela, one of the younger handmaidens that Mertine had taken under her protective wings. Caron, in the uniform of one of her own guards, rode astride a horse beside Mitchal at the head of the troop of guards. Besides confounding any who might be watching for her, she found the breeches of a soldier far more comfortable for riding than the dresses she was condemned to wear while at the castle.
Turning his head and nodding slightly toward his left, Mitchal said loud enough for Caron’s ears alone, “We are arrived at the point just there at which Harold left the road, Highness.” Caron’s head swiveled but she gave no other indication of having heard Mitchal’s words.
The trees and undergrowth at this point leaned in close to the road and were exceedingly dense. There were thistles and brambles much in evidence, so much so that Caron did not see how Harold would have been able to get himself into it, much less his horse, without doing himself serious injury as well as leaving a massive sign that he had departed the road. Her pride in her childhood companion’s skills and bravery only made worse the ache in her heart at his loss.
“Was he really that good?” she asked, looking over at Mitchal.
He nodded. “Aye, he was.”
“I wonder that neither of our messengers has returned with news yet.” Caron said after several minutes of silence.
Mitchal opened his mouth to reply when a cry arose from one of the point riders. “Rider coming!”
Caron stiffened in the saddle at the call. The sound of galloping hooves immediately became clear to her and she spurred her horse at the same moment as did Mitchal. Together they cantered forward to meet the incoming rider.
Stopping some little way in front of the company which had halted at the point rider’s cry, Caron and Mitchal waited restively as the rider slowed his horse to a walk and drew up to them.
“What news, Dale?” she asked.
“He abruptly departed Wrensfalls only one day after his arrival, Highness,” replied the rider. “Nobody I spoke to recognized his name and only the tavern keeper recognized his description, but he gave me as much as was needed.” He dropped his voice slightly even though no one else was near. “First, he was certain he heard your name spoken, Highness, when he overheard some strangers mention what they called ‘the rebellion’. Second, he told me that the person Harold traveled all this way to visit moved out more than a few weeks ago. Finally, the strangers left shortly after Harold did. It appeared to the tavern keeper that they were following him.”
Caron looked across at Mitchal. His dark eyes revealed no emotion but both now knew the worst had happened; they had been waiting for anyone who might show up, and it was known by them that Caron worked actively against Greyleige outside the confines of Castle Gleneagle.
Mitchal turned and motioned the rest of the party forward. As they approached, he rode up beside the sergeant of the guard. “Find a defensible position for an encampment, sergeant. We will ride no farther today.”
In the gathering darkness outside her tent, Caron’s guards were setting their watch while Mertine and Angela stood near the cook fire cutting herbs and potatoes and dried mutton into the boiling water of the kettle from which everyone’s meals would come.
Inside the tent, the atmosphere was tense. “What is to be done now, Highness?” Mitchal asked, his voice heavy with the fatigue that had finally caught up with him. The death of his brother, and the knowledge that the Princess’ active opposition to Greyleige had been discovered, had taken its toll and his mood was heavy.
“We must disappear as smoke before the wind and send my father a warning,” she replied. “Unless Dale was observed in Wrensfalls and followed here – and we have no indication that he was – then we are not yet found. But Harold’s warning to me was clear. There was nothing ambiguous about it and now we know why for certain; we are known to Greyleige. It appears we took this trip at just the right time.” Caron got to her feet as she spoke. Moving around behind the campaign chair, she leaned over it and placed her elbows on its back.
“It appears most all of the players are in place,” she observed, staring into the dancing light of the lantern on the well worn campaign desk. “The game is fully afoot, but like any good game of hide and seek, we do not know where all the players are. We need to find the rest of the players, but we need invisibility to do so.”
She looked determinedly at Mitchal. “We will break camp tomorrow and return to the castle. All will see the company return and will note the three women in the coach, as would be expected.” She straightened up and paced the three short steps back and forth allowed by the confines of the tent. “The three will be Mertine and Angela ... and Dale.”
“Dale?” Mitchal wondered aloud. Then, grasping her intent, his enthusiasm returned to him. “Of course! And you and I will be well on our way toward...” He hesitated. “Where are we going, anyway?”
“You will be with the coach. I will be in Wrensfalls awaiting you,” Caron replied.
“You can’t...” Mitchal began, but Caron cut him off.
“If the coach and guards return without you, even the village idiot would see through it,” she told him. “Think, Mitchal. Dale and I are about the same size. Mertine and Angela will carry on as if I were there but indisposed and you will be the one to present a message privately to my father. There truly is no one else I can trust in this … not even Mertine.”
“But you will be completely alone,” Mitchal complained. “You will be exposed and vulnerable.” He glowered at her. “I won’t allow it!”
Caron smiled. “You have no choice, my faithful Mitchal. That is an official command from her Highness, the Princess.”
“You know I despise it when you do that,” Mitchal growled through clenched teeth.
“Of course I do, but I don’t do it to anger you. I do it this time out of necessity. We must make this illusion work to give us the space to disappear. And you, of all people, should know I’m not the helpless little princess that the world sees back at the castle,” Caron said in an attempt to soothe his concerns. Pulling her left arm out of its sleeve and into her shirt, she looked conspiratorially over at him. “I shouldn’t think there would be much interest in a wandering one-armed beggar man in Wrensfalls. Would you?”
Mitchal shook his head and smiled. His princess could be deadly with the dagger that would be carried in the hand of the “missing arm” inside the ill-fitting shirt of the wandering beggar man.
12
As Mitchal stood to attention before Prince Gleneagle, he prayed his anxiety about the meeting was not apparent. “You are returned very quickly,” Gleneagle said. “Am I correct in assuming that Caron had mis-heard the reports of the blooms in Wrensfalls?”
“Much blooms in Wrensfalls, Highness,” Mitchal returned, “but we were unable to see any flowers.”
“A shame,” the Prince replied. “But I am anxious to see Caron. I have sent for her.”
“Your Highness,” Mitchal said, his voice grave, “the Princess will not be able to attend you soon for she is not in the castle.” Gleneagle’s eyebrows rose in surprise and dangerous annoyance and Mitchal hurried on, handing over a sealed scroll to the prince as he did.
“The Princess bade me deliver this to you personally and alone. Thus my request for a private audience.”
The prince reached out and took the scroll from Mitchal’s hand without removing his eyes from the guardsman’s face. Following the space of several breaths he broke the seal and began to read.
Beloved Father and Prince:
Should My Friend petition you for an audience for any reason, do all in your power to avoid granting it. Stall him, lie to him, but do not allow him into the castle. He has become ever more dangerous with his obsessive gathering of wayward magics and his desperation to find a way to control the elven magic locked in the Old Forest. I had been hesitant to openly declare my belief before this, but all signs now convince me
that we are living in the time foretold in the scrolls.
My Friend has not been quiet as you had hoped, nor has he abandoned his goal of access to the Old Forest for it appears there is a way for him to gain control over the ancient elven magic locked within and to bend it to his purpose. We do not yet know what mechanism may make this happen, but we seek, as he does, to find this key. The scrolls suggest the solution will involve a talisman of some sort. My Friend has become aware of our efforts and, though he does not know who all of us are, the knowledge of our quest has caused him to become bolder and more desperate. He has turned to murder and torture to gain this key.
We are now being watched and pursued when discovered. On our way to Wrensfalls we met one of our messengers returning therefrom and it became clear that I am now known to My Friend as one who works actively against him beyond the confines of the court. Of those within our circle of knowledge, at least two have been murdered, the most recent of whom was my childhood friend and member of my personal guard, Harold.
Prince Gleneagle glanced up briefly at Mitchal, then immediately back to the paper.
I am safe for now, but I must not return to the castle. The game is afoot and I am now an active player. I have directed Mitchal to rejoin me as quickly as prudence dictates and I pray you will honor my request for my sake as well as his.
Know that I love you and have all faith in your honor and your strength. I will contact you as events allow.
Your devoted daughter,
Caron
Without looking up, Prince Gleneagle asked evenly, his struggle to maintain his self-control evident, “How long have you known of this, Mitchal?”
“She recruited me shortly after she became involved, Highness” he replied steadily.
“How long ago was that?”
“Two years, my lord.”
The prince sighed deeply and slumped against his high-backed chair.
“Tell me all I need to know, Mitchal,” he said in resignation.
“Where would you wish me to start?” Mitchal asked softly, the concern for his Prince’s mood obvious.
“Tell me, first, of your brother,” Gleneagle replied, “for I am grieved to hear of his death.”
So Mitchal told him what he could of how Harold had died in service of the Prince’s daughter. As he finished the telling the prince sat quietly, his head bowed in thought before he spoke once more. “Caron speaks of ‘we’ repeatedly in her message. I would know who ‘we’ are.”
“Her Highness anticipated that you would ask regarding this, and she instructed me to be as honest and open as she herself would be, were she here.” Gleneagle’s eyes betrayed his impatience so Mitchal hurried on.
“It is no secret to you that your daughter has always mistrusted Greyleige. I daresay it would be nearer the mark to say that she despises the man, and I know that she believes his ambitions reach far beyond this principality. She is convinced his intent is to control all magic and through that, all life upon earth as foretold in the scroll.
“So determined is she to prevent this, or any part of it, that she has recruited several unlikely allies to her cause and they, in their turn, have recruited others. While the princess and one other stand at the head of the fellowship and between them know the key members, there is no one member of this fellowship who can provide an accounting for everyone who is committed to the cause, and that is the way she desires it to be, for in that way there is no single person beyond the core able to bring down the entire fellowship.”
He looked to Gleneagle whose eyes were intent upon him, his attention totally focused on his face and his words. “It is apparent, I am certain, that I am a member of this fellowship,” Mitchal continued. “As for any others, I may not name those whom I know to anyone except the princess.”
“Would I be correct in assuming there are others within this castle who are participants?” Gleneagle asked.
“You would be correct, Highness. I am certain there are several you could guess without a moment’s hesitation,” Mitchal replied, “and there are many beyond this castle of whom we have no knowledge.” At the raising of the prince’s eyebrow, Mitchal hurried on. “It’s a dangerous game we play, Highness, and the princess is fully aware of the stakes, but she feels the reward of thwarting Greyleige and upholding her responsibilities enumerated within the scrolls is more than worth the risk of involving people over whom we have no control. We must trust that those who recruit others will use the same type of judgment we would use ourselves.”
“Just what is it this fellowship is trying to accomplish?” the prince asked. “Are you intending to make war on the wizard?”
“No, Highness,” Mitchal replied, “Her quest is knowledge; the knowledge of what Greyleige is about and whether there is some way he can be thwarted, and in that we have had some successes, one of which speaks to her reason for requesting that you avoid any meetings with the wizard.”
At the question in the prince’s eyes, Mitchal explained. “She has studied the scrolls at length and has found texts therein which point to your elven heritage as being crucial to the accomplishment of Greyleige’s goal of controlling the elven magics bound up in the Old Forest and bending them to his evil purposes. That is the only logical reason he would want access to it. What exactly can be accomplished through the Gleneagle heritage is unclear, but the text was clear enough that the elven heritage is one of the keys.”
“Might she not be the key herself?” the prince asked.
“She might,” Mitchal replied, “but she might not. What she does know for certain is that the wizard now knows of her active participation in a shadow group working in opposition to him. For that reason, she has gone underground.”
“And you are to join her, and you will with my blessing. You will protect her, I have no doubt.
“But now,” the prince said, fixing Mitchal with a severe look, “I have one last question. How came my daughter by these skills that make her so confident in her abilities to defend herself?”
Mitchal flushed noticeably and had difficulty holding the prince’s eye as he replied, “I taught her them myself, Highness, upon her command.”
Gleneagle smiled. He knew just how willful his daughter could be. “I should be angry, but I know how persistent she can be. My one comfort is that she was trained by the very best,” he said.
Mitchal bowed his head slightly at the compliment. “She was an excellent student, Highness. Her skills with sword and dagger, bow and lance are all admirable. She is fully capable of defending herself. That part of her which came from you shows strongly in her skill with weapons.”
The Prince shook his head slowly in wonder. “Remarkable, and right under my own nose.” There was a moment of silence where the only sound heard was the snap of an ember from last night’s fire in the hearth. “And my own dear, sweet, innocent daughter a leader in this? Remarkable. By the powers, Mitchal, she is her mother’s daughter, as her mother would have wanted her to be.”
The distant look in his eyes was replaced by a new look of avid interest. “Now, tell me more of this part of my daughter I have yet to meet, Mitchal. Tell me of my little game player.”
Though it was late when Mitchal departed Gleneagle’s apartment, the prince went to the library and let himself into the hidden chamber in which was kept the history of the house of Gleneagle.
He now sat reading a scroll laid out on the small table in the room. The light of four large candles, wax dripping down their sides, cast their wavering illumination on the words. The first part of the scroll contained history which he remembered clearly though he had been only a youth at the time he first read it. It was the last part that he had discounted as a youth and thus did not remember clearly. It was the last part that addressed those prophecies that Caron had alluded to in her letter to him.
... In the retrieval of these scrolls from the case in which they are stored, you will have seen and touched the green gem which is my life-force elfstone. I alone of all the elv
es have left this part of myself behind that I might maintain my sight of this world after we depart. Additionally, I have gifted it to you to maintain the strength of your elven heritage across the generations. It is a strength that will confer longer than normal lifespan and a sensitivity and bonding with the earth that surrounds you. That strength and sensitivity will be required in the pursuit of the charge with which I here bind the lineage of Gleneagle. As my legacy of caring for this world which I must reluctantly leave, each of my descendants who reads these scrolls will be prophecy bound to serve as monitors and guardians of the forces of good in the world.
From before the beginnings of consciousness, there has existed a stasis between the forces of good and the forces of evil. The aggressive restlessness of evil seeks constantly to overbalance that equilibrium. While the elves lived in your world, we were the guardians of that stasis. With our removal from your world, that precarious balance will be threatened as evil seeks to find a way to overwhelm the stability that has existed since the creation. Evil is patient and ever watchful; time itself favors an opportunity for it to find a weakness.
As evidenced by these scrolls and my life-force elfstone, you will know that we do not depart without a thought for those who are left behind.
Within what is commonly called the Old Forest, we have created a great storehouse of benign magical power. As do all living things, it has a sentience of its own and works its will undirected. This force is sufficient by itself to counter the continuing attack by evil for many, many lives of men. It will repulse any attempt to enter the Old Forest unbidden or to suborn its power to any purpose other than that for which it was created. The magics of the Old Forest will be forbidden to all except those deemed worthy. The key to entry will reside with you who have been charged with the guardianship of the good.