“Yes. Would you like it in writing?”
She made a peculiar expression. “Why would we need it in writing?”
He tried to make light of it, not wanting to offend her. “It’s a human custom. When such agreements are committed to paper, then there’s always a record of them to refer to. Nobody has to worry about being cheated.”
“The Zhiss’ta,” she informed him gravely, “are never cheated. More than once.” She smiled again and put her hands on his shoulders just as Hargrod had. Her grip wasn’t much weaker, he noted. “Thank you for your kindnessess, man. We can continue ssouthward relaxed in mind, knowing that we leave no unpaid billss behind uss.”
“You can go with more than that in mind,” he told her. “There’s treasure as well as danger to be found in Shadowkeep. If we’re successful, Hargrod will return to the family with his share.”
“That would be nice,” she said slowly, “but I would conssider mysself well rewarded to have Hargrod back alive.” She removed her hands from his shoulders. “Go now, and be a credit to your family.”
Maryld was pleased to learn that one of the Zhis’ta would be joining them, but Sranul’s reaction was something less than enthusiastic.
“What? One of those cold-bellied, unblinking snakes is coming with us?” He spat to one side. “That’s great. That’ll lighten things up even more. They aren’t exactly the life of the party, you know.”
“This isn’t a party, Sranul,” Praetor admonished the roo, “no matter what you think. This is a serious business.”
“Pagh. No business is so serious that you can’t have a little fun with it, but with a Zhis’ta around to put a damper on things…” He hesitated, acquiesced with a sigh. “Oh well. Maybe I can loosen the leather-head up a little as we go. Though those scaly facades are pretty hard to crack.”
“Just don’t try any practical jokes,” Praetor warned him, “and be grateful that he’s joining us. He’s as strong as the three of us put together.”
“Yeah, and I’ll bet the muscle goes all the way through his head. Although I guess I shouldn’t complain too much. You’re the nominal leader of this little expedition. It’s your responsibility to hold up the conversation. So you talk to him.” The roo bounded off toward a nearby stream.
“I wonder if that roo’s going to give us trouble?” Maryld murmured.
“I hope not. If he provokes Hargrod, we’ll be short one talkative companion. Though the Zhis’ta would have to catch him first.”
Chapter VI
They lingered long enough for Hargrod to bid goodbye to each member of the family. They might be solemn in manner and terse in speech, Praetor mused as he watched the Zhis’ta make his farewells, but there was no lack of affection among them.
When it was over Hargrod walked over to where they waited and looked up at Praetor. “I am ready.”
“You’re sure you’ll be able to keep up with us? We can go slowly for a while, if you wish. This is no time for a demonstration of false pride. A man named Shone Stelft taught me all about that. You won’t be any help to us at Shadowkeep if you run yourself into the ground getting there.”
“Go at whatever speed you wissh. I will sstay closse at hand. The faster we travel, the ssooner I may rejoin my family.”
“Right, enough talking,” snapped Sranul. “Let’s get moving.” He took off down the trail that led downhill through the trees.
The Zhis’ta family would follow more slowly, eventually turning onto another branch of the road which led due south. Praetor spurred Kaltar forward and Maryld followed. So did Hargrod.
True to his word, he did not slow them down, matching the horses’ pace with ease despite his short, thick legs. He was not built like a runner, but he ran tirelessly and seemingly without effort as the hours and the plateau slid past. Praetor forgot his initial concerns. Hargrod was not only as fast as Kaltar, he was probably stronger.
The trail led down into the great valley of the Charycun River. As they descended, the temperature rose and Praetor was able to dispense with his heavy outer cloak, stuffing it in a half-empty saddlebag. The trees grew slimmer and thrust out fewer branches, while flowers burst forth from crannies in the rocks. It was easy to imagine he was traveling through harmless country, on a casual sightseeing jaunt with friends, and was not engaged in a life-or-death mission on behalf of the civilized world. Much simpler to smell the flowers and think of more pleasant diversions.
They reached the river valley and turned upstream. The water flowed slowly, lazily alongside the road.
Sranul knelt to study their path. “A good road, this, made to handle regular commercial traffic. Nothing’s passed this way for some time, though.” He hopped to his left. “No, .wait, here’s evidence of passage. Many animals, humans, roos as well.” He looked up the trail. “All traveling in the same direction: south.”
“Away from Shadowkeep,” said Praetor. “Then we have even less time than the Spinner suggested.” He chucked the reins and Kaltar broke into a trot.
“You know, Maryld,” he said, “now that we’re actually almost to Shadowkeep, I’m beginning to wonder if perhaps you shouldn’t remain outside. We can come out and consult with you whenever we have a problem.”
She laughed. “Sure you can. What was that you said many days ago about Shadowkeep being easy to enter but hard to escape from? I’m sorry, Praetor Fime, but you’re not going to get rid of me that easily. Though I appreciate your gallantry. But my knowledge and advice will be no use at all unless I am with you when it is needed. You will not have time to come searching for me. Besides,” she added with a sly glance, “you’re big and strong. You’ll protect me, won’t you?”
“Don’t tease me. It’s not fair.”
“But Praetor, I thought you liked me.”
“I think I’ve already made that clear, but I’m promised to another. Your teasing me only complicates matters.”
“Poor Praetor.” She laughed then, a much richer and more full-bodied sound than should have come out of so slight a form. “You are quite right. I am not being fair. I will strike a bargain with you. I will stop playing the fragile flower if you’ll stop treating me like one. You must stop thinking of me as something delicate and easily broken. Size is no measure of toughness. You must treat me the same as you treat Sranul or Hargrod.”
He spared her a quick, sideways glance, admiring the way she held herself in the diminutive saddle. “That’s not going to be easy. You don’t look much like Sranul or Hargrod.”
She pursed her lips. “Really, Praetor, you must. I’m being serious now. If you should hesitate at some critical moment out of fear for my safety, it could mean your end as well as mine or any of the others. We must each of us be as one side of a square: if one side is weaker than the others, all will collapse under the pressure.
“I imagine there will be times when you will have to protect me, but there will also be occasions when my knowledge and skill will be called upon to shield you. Each must defend the other, but we must have a defense based upon equality.”
“It’s not going to be easy.”
“Nothing about this expedition is going to be easy. Unless we work together, each of us learning to rely upon the skills of each other, we’ll never leave Shadowkeep alive. Individually we are no threat to Dal’brad. But if we can function in concert, combining our disparate skills, we may yet surprise the demon king. We already have one advantage.”
“What might that be?”
“Surprise.” She smiled thinly. “I dare say that those who have entered Shadowkeep in the past have traveled no farther than the first room or chamber. Either one of the demon’s traps overcomes them, or else they are blinded by their lust to find the castle’s treasure. We four will not be so easily diverted or surprised.”
“No, we won’t.” He nodded grimly. “The last thing Dal’brad will expect to encounter in his sanctuary are intruders who are looking to find him, not avoid him.”
Sranul took a backwards boun
d and landed between the two horses. He nodded ahead. “People coming.”
“What kind of people?” Praetor asked him. “Roos?”
“Sadly no. Your own kind.” Praetor’s hand went instinctively to his sword hilt, and the roo hastened to reassure him. “They’re not going to cause trouble. The band is full of women and children, as was Hargrod’s.”
There were three times as many in the wagons that came rumbling down the trail as there had been in Hargrod’s extended family, however. Their dray animals, mules and yozen, were fat and strong. They pulled wagons piled high with goods and furniture as well as with people. But the people themselves, though obviously healthy and well-fed, looked uneasy, and their leaders were tired from lack of sleep.
Praetor turned Kaltar around to walk alongside an old man who rode the back of a striped yozen. “Where do you come from, stranger, and where are you bound?”
The man was on the portly side. He wore earrings of silver, and silver wire was twisted in his beard. “We come from the Kept Basin and we go anywhere else. You ride upriver?” Praetor nodded. “Have you not heard?”
Praetor exchanged a glance with Maryld, who had turned back to parallel the two men, then asked, “Heard what?”
“Of what is happening in the Kept Basin, at Shadowkeep.”
“No. We’ve just come down off the plateau. Why? What is happening at Shadowkeep?”
The man halted his mount, spoke as wagons and animals trundled past. “We who lived in the Kept Basin ignored the castle. For years and years it was nothing more to us than another pile of stone, a man-made mountain. We warned those adventurers who entered it seeking gold and prayed for their souls when they failed to come out again, but we never tried to penetrate its mysteries ourselves. Our gold lay in our lands and shops.
“Several fortnights ago strange lights were seen moving about inside the few windows of the castle. The bravest among us crept close to the gateway. They heard noises coming from within, noises fit to freeze the blood of a saint. At all hours of the day, though in the Kept Basin even day seems to have fled in fright from Shadowkeep. The sun shuns our land and mornings and afternoons are as gloomy and gray as the night.
“Smoke wraiths began to visit us even in protected homes, and—other things.” He looked upriver and the fear was plain on his face as well as in his voice. “Of themselves these visitations would not have driven us away, for we are not cowards, but one thing about them made us leave.”
“What might that have been?” Maryld inquired understandingly.
The man looked over at her. “All these manifestations that afflicted us came from within Shadowkeep. We of the Basin decided not to wait to see what might emerge next from that cursed place.”
Maryld looked grim. “It has begun. Dal’brad has sent his first scouts out into the world to study and to seek. When they return and he learns that there is no one to oppose him, then he will gather his dark forces and move against the civilized people of the earth. We have little enough time left to us. We must stop him before he learns that there are none to equal the imprisoned Gorwyther. Shadowkeep must become the demon king’s coffin, not his palace.”
The traveler’s eyes narrowed as he listened to the thaladar. “What madness is this?” He let his gaze shift to Praetor, sitting quietly nearby, then back to where Sranul and Hargrod waited, watching the long line of refugees. “Who are you people? Where do you come from?”
“We come from everywhere,” Praetor informed him, “and we go to Shadowkeep.”
“Then you go to your deaths,” the man told them.
“Perhaps.” Maryld shrugged. “Death comes for everyone eventually.”
“Yes, eventually,” the traveler agreed, “and better later than sooner, and without encouragement. And in between making its regular rounds, Death rests in Shadowkeep. If you go there you will disturb it and it will go badly with you.”
“Nevertheless, that is our intention,” Praetor told him. “We’re not afraid of death or of Dal’brad.”
The traveler stroked his beard, playing with the silver wires. “You are a peculiar lot, that much is certain. You might be heroes. I’ve lived a long time and I’ve never met any real heroes. Or you might be mad. Or perhaps you are half of each, yes, four mad heroes. You will need more than madness to get you through Shadowkeep alive.”
“What help can we expect to find in the Kept Basin?” Praetor asked.
The traveler rocked with laughter, though the sound was bitter. The last wagon had passed and he was alone on the trail with the four mad strangers.
“We of the Basin are sturdy folk, but mad we are not. Why else do you think you find us here like this, on the road traveling south with everything we own? Help? You will find no help in the Basin because everyone has fled the place. Everyone! Only fools remain where evil thrives. We left as quickly as we could, abandoning everything we could not carry with us: homes, businesses, farms, goods. Wealth is useless to a dead man.” He smiled humorlessly at Praetor.
“It is said that one benefits from doing a kindness to a madman, so you may make use of whatever you can find in the Basin. I will ride more easily knowing that through charity I may have helped make your last hours more comfortable.”
“If Dal’brad is allowed to break loose of Shadowkeep’s constraints, he will come for you and your neighbors soon enough,” Maryld told him.
The man shrugged. “What else can we do? Join with you? I am no hero, mad or otherwise, and neither are my neighbors. Myself, I am a shopkeeper, not a Shadowkeeper. I am no fighter and I prefer to run. So you four go to Shadowkeep and confront Dal’brad in his lair. All our blessings will accompany you, for all that I think you go on a fool’s errand to find only a fool’s death for a reward. We will hope for your success while we honor your memory—from a safe distance. Help?” He nodded down the trail. “These people, good folk all, my neighbors, can give you no help. Although…”
“Although what?” Praetor pressed him.
“I was just thinking, who better than a crazy man to aid a fool? There is an inn, the Inn of the Keep. It lies next to the river.”
“But you said all the people of the Basin have fled,” Maryld reminded him. Sranul and Hargrod had walked over to join them. They listened quietly.
“Perhaps—not all.” The shopkeeper looked yearningly down the trail. The last wagon was disappearing down the slope. He was anxious to rejoin his neighbors and friends, Praetor thought, yet he remained behind to offer what advice he could. Despite his disclaimer, that in itself was a kind of courage. Praetor hid his amusement. The man preferred to be thought of as a coward, so there was no point in shattering his illusions by complimenting him.
“The proprietor of the inn is a strange one himself, name of Norell. Strange, but honest and straightforward. As honest and straightforward as any crazy man can be. I myself have sold him wine when there was enough to spare from my personal stock. He paid me a fair price every time, on time. There are plenty of sane folk I cannot say that about. But most of his dealings were with the transients traveling through the Basin, so I did not see him often.
“My point is that Norell is just crazy enough to remain even after all the rest of us have left. The thought of a traveler having nowhere to sleep would upset him, you see, and he is not the sort to be forced out of business by anyone. Or in this case, anything. I think he’d offer the demon king himself food and lodging, but he’d fight to the death to keep from having to close down his business. There are those who say that Norell has gambled with the dark forces before and has won every time.”
“He sounds like a potential ally,” Praetor commented.
The shopkeeper shook his head. “Nay, Norell’s no ally of anyone. He’ll sell you a soft bed and a hot meal, but he’s interested only in building up his business, not in something as immaterial as the survival of the world. You see, if everyone else perishes, he’s convinced he’ll still have a business catering to the needs of travelers from the underworld.
“That is the only help I can offer you, stranger. Seek out the Inn of the Keep. If the owner remains, I’m sure he’ll be happy to put you up. At least you won’t go to your deaths on empty stomachs. Not if Norell has anything to say about it.” He turned his mule about, hesitated.
“There is one thing more you should know about the Basin’s resident crazy man. I can’t vouch for the stories myself, since I only sold him wine, but it is rumored that when he is so inclined, Norell can supply travelers with more than just food and lodging.”
“Like what?” Praetor asked. . “How should I know? I’m only a simple shopkeeper and my wants are uncomplicated. I’ve no wish to know what Norell keeps hidden in the secret places of his establishment, nor how he can operate it so efficiently all by himself. Maybe you’ll be lucky enough to find out.
“And now I really must go. I am one of those in charge of our little band of refugees, and sometimes even a coward may help to direct a retreat.”
“You’re no coward,” Praetor told him, unable at the last to let the man leave without some kind of thank-you. “A realist at worst, but a coward, no.”
“Your words are kind. I wish you luck, travelers. If by some miracle you should succeed, then maybe someday I’ll be able to reopen my shop. Unlike Norell, I don’t think I’d be very comfortable selling to demons.” He spurred his mount onward and soon vanished down the trail.
“What do you make of all that?” Praetor asked Sranul.
“Nothing good,” the roo replied tersely. “It’s one thing to see people running and screaming from something they don’t understand and can’t cope with, but this hurried, anxious flight is something else again.” He nodded down the trail. “That’s a sturdy, upright human, despite his words. I think he’d stand and fight for what he’s worked to build up over the years, if he thought he and his neighbors had the slightest chance of holding on. If mere sights and sounds are enough to frighten him off, then I don’t like to think of what might lie behind them.”
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