by Eve Forward
Robin shared with most centaurs, those of the Commots in particular, a fear of heights. Now, the dizziness caused by his recent head-wound, the terror of the previous fall, the sudden danger of the hostile villains, and the vertiginous drop below the pass all struck him at once.
Robin’s blood ran cold as he imagined a terrible crashing fall, snapping bones ... and as he shook in nameless fear frozen on the ledge, afraid to move, pebbles rattled down from his hooves. The others, hearing the noise, turned around just in time to see him suddenly slide down the cliff as the path gave way under him. He was too terrified to even make a sound, hooves backpedalling in fear until at last he came to a halt again on a tiny ledge on the rocky slope, half-sitting on his haunches, a few inches away from the sheer drop.
“Och, that takes care of the spy, then,” snorted Arcie softly.
“Help.” Robin’s voice drifted up to them, very small, very scared, very young-sounding. He was past screaming, past scrambling or fainting, just locked into that paralyzed animal fear that sends creatures into frozen deafness, unable to move, or think, or run, as their death approaches. Valerie smiled down at him, but he didn’t see her.
“Well, centaur. It looks like your friend Mizzamir isn’t going to help you now, eh?” she purred. Robin’s ears didn’t even twitch. They were laid back flat against his skull, hidden in his thick gray mane. A whimsical wind whipped his plumed hat off his head and sent it spinning away into the chasm.
“Might we give him a wee push, or just let him fall when his legs gets woozy?” asked Arcie, looking down at the stricken centaur.
Sam looked away. He’d seen enough of death in his time. He didn’t enjoy it, but he didn’t hate it either. It was just something that happened, something he did, as a farmer would slaughter hogs. But when death came, he felt, it should be swift and sudden, unforeseen, unsuffered.
He didn’t like to see this lingering misery, fear ...
He shook his blowgun out of his sleeve and snapped it together.
A quick spot of sleeping toxin would send the minstrel tumbling unaware into the depths, to die in his sleep. He glanced up at Kaylana. She stood back, not looking at the centaur, not looking at them. He wondered what she was thinking. By her stance on good and evil, he would imagine she expected this sort of thing from the group of evildoers, and because of the great imbalance, would condone the act. But how she felt personally about the whole thing was another matter; the green eyes, the stern face told nothing.
“Help.” The voice floated up to them again. There was no hope in it, not even any pleading now; it was simply the only word his frozen voice could produce.
“A pity,” mused Valerie. “We won’t even get so much as a steak off him now.”
She was enjoying the spectacle. Sam shook his head slightly. She must have an awful lot of bitterness inside somewhere to act like that... but, of course, she was evil.
They all were, even Kaylana by association. He fitted a needle into his gun, raised, aimed... and was stopped by a hand on his shoulder. A gauntlet, to be precise. He lowered the blowgun and looked quizzically up into the dark visor of Blackmail.
The knight shook his head slightly, pulled a coil of rope from the shoulder pack Kaylana had given him, and handed it to Sam. “What?” he asked. The knight indicated the centaur, made a scooping gesture, and then indicated Sam. Sam shook his head. The others didn’t seem to notice their quiet one-sided conversation. “Save him? No. He’s a spy. He’s a liability. Besides, that’s not my business.”
“Help,” said Robin again, softer now.
Blackmail then reached inside the wrist joint of a gauntlet, and drew out a tiny black leather pouch in his mailed fingers. He handed it to Sam. Sam took it, puzzled, opened it, and shook the contents out into his hand.
And caught his breath in wonder.
In his palm sparkled a perfectly faceted stone, spherical, slightly larger than a cherry-pit. It was clear, but with radiance unlike anything so common as a diamond. It picked up the colors of Sam’s hair and eyes and clothing, and sent glittering flashes of black and hazel and gold dancing in its depths. He’d never seen one before, but he knew, by legend and rumor, what it was. It tingled slightly against his skin.
He looked up at the still and silent figure of the knight, reverently placed the stone back into its pouch, tucked the pouch into his tunic, shouldered the rope, and smiled.
“Well, Blackmail, it just so happens that the price of a one-assignment mid-hire complete reversal of my profession is one, count ‘em, one, Heartstone.” He stepped to the edge of the cliff and looked down, motioning to Arcie to step back.
“Move, old chum. I’m hired to get that centaur to safety,” he explained cheerfully. He looked over the side.
The ledge the centaur was huddled on was already crumbling around the edges. It probably wouldn’t take his weight in addition. Have to come at it from the side.
“Hired to save him?” hissed Valerie sharply. “Who by?”
Sam refused to answer; no assassin would answer such a question about an assignment, but Blackmail raised a mailed hand. Valerie stared at him. The two matched gazes a long moment, then the sorceress backed down from that inscrutable black visor. “I assume you have a reason, strange one,” she muttered. The helmet nodded.
“Well, it had better be a good one.”
“Here now, laddie,” complained Arcie, moving out of his way. “Ye bein’t whitewashing, now are ye?” Sam shook his head as he checked his boots carefully.
“Nope, just greed, old chum. Perfectly acceptable motive.”
“Ye’ll be risking yer life, ye great clommox!”
“Aren’t we all? Now don’t drop pebbles on me.” Sam swung himself over the side. The group watched in silence.
Sam crawled down the ledge like a spider. It was obvious what would have to be done: get Robin to tie the rope around himself, or tie it around him by hand, then hope that Blackmail could pull hard enough and that Robin would snap out of his fear enough to scramble back to the ledge. Robin was obviously in no state to get the rope on himself, the others didn’t seem willing to assist; hence the need for Sam. And he felt great. He hadn’t liked having to see the poor colt get snuffed, and with this unexpected sparkling bonus ... The cliff wasn’t too bad, vertical, sure, but plenty of handholds. His legs swung out over a three-hundred-foot drop, and he looked down at an eagle flying below. He almost laughed in delight.
Sam liked heights.
“Och, I told you he were crazy,” Arcie said to Valerie.
“A whatsit, splitten personality.”
Sam worked his way hand over hand to where Robin sat. The centaur’s eyes were open, staring, and focused only on the empty space below. Sam could almost hear the double-thumping of the centaur’s two hearts. The human grinned.
“Hi, ponybutt,” he greeted Robin, fixing his feet and one hand into holds on the wall while he unslung the coil of rope from his shoulder. “Gonna get you out.”
“Help,” whispered Robin.
Fates, he looks just like a kid, thought Sam. Did I ever look like that? He whipped the rope around the centaur’s human waist, over the shoulders and withers in a harness, and secured the whole with a knot he painstakingly tied with his free hand. Then he gave a shrill whistle, and Blackmail appeared on the ledge above.
He threw the other end of the rope, and the knight caught it. Sam pulled his old black scarf out of his tunic, and whipped it around the minstrel’s staring eyes, tying it in a blindfold, blocking out the view of certain death.
After a moment, the centaur’s trembling eased.
“Help?” he asked, with a little more interest this time.
“Right,” agreed Sam. “We’re going to pull you, but you have to back up and out as best you can, all right?”
“Up, out,” agreed Robin shakily. “All right.”
“Now, Blackmail!” called Sam, and he quickly climbed up and away as the rope pulled taut. Robin began painstakingly backing his way up the steep roc
ky ledge, his hooves slipping on the loose stones but still making progress. Sam threw one leg over the edge onto the path and hauled himself up to safety. Blackmail stood on the path, his armored feet set, pulling hand over hand on the rope. And soon up over the edge came Robin’s gray hindquarters and singed tail, and finally with a clatter of hooves he scrambled back onto the path, still wearing his blindfold, feeling his way with his hooves.
“Don’t take the blindfold off,” cautioned Sam, as he got to his feet.
“Well, you were lucky this time, minstrel,” Valerie said, as Robin panted with exertion and clung to the path. The centaur gulped and nodded.
“You know about Mizzamir,” he said.
“Aye,” agreed Arcie.
“And yet you saved me ... Why?” His covered face looked at Sam and Blackmail, his furry ears swiveling to pinpoint them. Sam spread his palms.
“I was paid. Ask him,” he answered, jerking a thumb in Blackmail’s direction. Blackmail just stood still and silent.
Robin dropped his head. “Mizzamir told me you were all evil...”
“That’s right,” said Valerie. “Except for Kaylana, of course.”
“Druids dinna count,” put in Arcie.
“No,” agreed Kaylana. “That does seem to be the case, at times.”
“And yet you let them save me...” argued Robin.
“Here, would you wish to be crossin’ Blackmail and that great muckle sword of his?” asked Arcie, raising an eyebrow.
“And you work together...”
“Better than dying,” commented Sam.
“And you haven’t been fighting or stabbing each other in the back or even abandoning each other anymore!” exclaimed the minstrel. “I don’t understand it! Why? Why are you acting this way? You aren’t acting like evil people!”
“Oh pshaw, the whole good/evil lot again,” grumbled the Barigan scornfully.
“Look,” began Sam, but Valerie broke smoothly over him.
“Centaur, an evil person can do all the things a good person can do and still be what they are. The only difference is motive.”
“And a good person can do some incredibly evil things, with the right motive,” added Kaylana softly.
“For instance, is it evil to kill sentient beings?”
“Umn, yes?” hazarded Robin.
“But Fenwick and his men are good, and they want to kill us. That doesn’t make them evil.”
“And we destroyed those skeletons,” put in Valerie, “which were creatures of darkness ... but that doesn’t make us good.”
“This fool Sam went an’ killed a rapist off in Martogon,” said Arcie, as he took out his pipe. “What do that make him? Hero, for saving the lassie, or villain, for killing the man?”
“Yes,” added Sam. “And Arcie risked his hide to steal healing for us... is he evil, then, for stealing and hurting all those barbarians, or good, because he helped us?”
“We are evil because we help each other for selfish motives,” admitted Valerie. “We have realized that without all of our help, without working together, our quest will die, and we and the world with it.”
“If it were anything smaller, less important, this group would not last five minutes,” said Kaylana solemnly.
“An ordinary ‘adventure’ would have us cutting each other’s throats over who got all the treasure ... but when this much is at stake, the choice is work together or die ... and we are far too self-centered to want to die.”
“There’s more to people than some definded label,” said Arcie. “There are more than straight good and evil, aye, even more than law or disorders or fence-sittin’. There’s prejudice, whimsey, affection, superstition, habit, upbringing, alliance, pride, society, morals, animosity, preference, values, religion, circumstance, humor, perversity, honor, vengeance, jealousy, frustration ... hundreds o’ factors, from the past and in every present moment, as decides what some one person ‘ll do in an individious situation.”
“You have a good vocabulary for a shire-peasant, Barigan,” Valerie commented. Arcie squirmed slightly.
“Och, well, you picks up things in the trade and like that...” he muttered.
“Sometimes there’s other reasons for helping, other than personal gain or benefit,” added Sam softly.
“Friendship, companionship, trust and love are not confined to light alone ... they are harder won, fewer seen ... but no less real.” His eyes were looking wistfully at Kaylana as he spoke, but no one noticed. Robin raised his blindfolded head.
“You really believe the world will be destroyed if your quest fails?” he asked. There were general sounds of agreement, ranging from Kaylana’s “definitely” to Arcie’s
“Aye, why not?”
Robin thought for a long moment, his ears twitching, then he appeared to reach a decision.
“Then I have a motive to join you, a selfish motive. I don’t want to die, and I don’t want the world to be destroyed either. And you have saved my life. I owe you, Blackmail in particular, my life. By my culture and society, I owe you a life-debt. What you seek to do may be dark, but the alternative is far worse, and the motive, surprisingly, is right. It may be good, it may be evil, I can’t say, but it is right. I will help you to the ends of my strength.”
He pulled the defunct silver bracelet off his wrist and threw it into the chasm. It made a sound like the breaking of a chain.
“He speaks the truth,” Kaylana said, quietly- The Druid took Robin’s hand and led him along the edge, and they walked on through the mountains. Sam looked up at Blackmail, and the knight nodded slightly.
XI
“Tasmene, I trust you as my own brother, but I know these villains. If ever there was an escape from death at the other end of that chute, they’ll have found it.” Fenwick bent over his arrows, fletching them in green and yellow feathers.
Tasmene blinked in bewilderment. “But where can they go?” he inquired. “There’s nothing on that side of the mountains but... well, more mountains.”
“It doesn’t matter,” stated Fenwick. “I’ve chased them across half of the Six Lands already, and I’m not going to give up now. I want them brought to justice, and the centaur and Druid saved from their clutches. And I do hope, Lord Tasmene, that you won’t give up on me.”
“No, of course not, Fenwick ... but, really ... what harm can they do?”
Fenwick looked up, his eyes cold.
“All the harm in the world, my friend. All the harm in the world.”
The woodsman looked out at the dim shadows of the mountains. “We shall have to move quickly; we don’t know where they’ve come out. Send your men through the north pass, Tasmene, and my company shall move in from the south.” In a makeshift scrying mirror, borrowed from the store of the Castle’s magical treasures, Arch-Mage Mizzamir looked thoughtful as he listened to the conversation between the two heroes. It would take some time to complete the enchantments on his new scrying font; the loss of both water and enchanted gems had caused difficulties. He dismissed the image, and stared into his dusty reflection thoughtfully.
“Well, perhaps I had better attempt to see how my agent is doing,” he mused, and concentrated on the bracelet he had given the young centaur. The magic of Druid and Nathauan had thwarted many of his attempts to espy the location of the bracelet, but it was not so now.
He saw it quite clearly, lying broken on the bottom of a gorge, its stones missing. The sight caused the mage to raise one fine silver eyebrow in surprise.
“Hmm, it seems the young fellow has turncoated... or been found out and slain. Well, if it is the first, then I shall use my magic to bring him back to the light with the others ... and if it is the last... Well, revenge is a nasty thing. I’ll just do my best to find his body and restore him.”
He tapped the glass of the mirror in thought, then turned away. He walked away from it and looked out the newly repaired window.
“But first things first,” he said to himself. “They are obviously not delving into
Putak-Azum any longer, so the other alternative, as we presumed before ... Somewhere, the last Segment of the Key ... and then, to the Labyrinth? With the Key assembled, it is easily possible ... even the Nathauan would likely know that. The Labyrinth’s magic, my magic and that of others, would prevent me from journeying there by magical means while it is still unriddled... But should those villains solve it, the magic will weaken, and I will meet them at its center. And should they fail...” He sighed sadly.
“A tragedy, but as I have said, the problem would be solved.” He turned and strode from the room in a swirl of silver-white hair and robes, sending the dustmotes swirling past him like a host of fairies. They tumbled down the last of the scree slopes of the Durdrudin Mountains and found themselves standing on low hills at the edge of what was known as the Frozen Waste. It was cool, but not cold, yet the ground seemed to be rimmed with frost. Arcie kicked at it, puzzled, then scooped some up in his hand. It was dry and not frozen.
“Salts,” explained Valerie, noting his confused expression.
“Leached out of the ground from the blood of a thousand fiends, some say.”
“So it’s not really frozen?” asked Robin, yawning. He was brushing at his singed tail with a comb, trying to get the mud and char out of the silky gray plume he was so proud of.
“It will get very cold at night,” said Kaylana, frowning up at the sky. The sun was certainly taking its time about setting. “Whenever that is.”
“Told you it was six o’clock,” Sam commented with a trace of smugness. “Of course, now it’s more like eleven at night.”
Kaylana continued to glare at the sun. Her people had raised vast stone monuments to its orderly rise and fall and turn of the seasons, and she didn’t like what it was doing now at all. It was just skirting the horizon, going to shortcut around the edge of the world and come up on the other side.
“The time are out of joint,” muttered Arcie, scooping up some of the larger salt crystals into his pouch, out of idle interest. “And I’m dead beat and half-starved. Night, morning, noon, whatever, I say we’d best snooze and snack and be headin’ out when we’re ready.”