Wine of the Gods 08: Dark Lady

by Pam Uphoff

  "Yep. Time for us to go." She heard the rubble crashing down as they headed for the horses.

  They returned to the farm a lot faster than they'd left it, and jumped through the corridor into a scene of chaos.

  "Clear the way! Report!" Kurt raised his voice.

  "They snuck in, attacked suddenly. They killed the baron, three of the baron's men, the two men we had guarding Roger. They took Roger with them. Two of them went for the Lady's rooms but the women fought them and kept them away from the lady's babe."

  December choked, and flung Phantom's reins to a soldier as she dashed inside.

  Seigal was sitting against the hallway wall, pale but not looking too much worse. "They came in the front door, and headed straight for the room we had Roger in. Jasper and Donaldson didn't even have time to draw their swords. Then they split, some went up to the baron's room, two of them headed for the lady's room, but that Liz woman held them off with a pole and all the rest of the women and children, well, they sealed themselves up the magic room, and the Arbolians couldn't get in.

  "Nobody can, actually." His eyes slid in her direction.

  "What about Liz?" Her heart ached in dread.

  "She got a nasty cut to the head, knocked her out. I gave her some of that wine, and she was fine, except for, well, she's locked herself in your room and won't come out."

  December heaved a relieved breath and stepped over his legs to continue down the hallway. The door was cracked enough to warp, jammed in place, the door knob obviously not engaging. She tapped on her door. "Liz?"

  The door flew open and December was grabbed and pulled into the room. "Oh, M'lady." Liz threw her arms around her, and warm lips met hers.

  December pulled back. "Liz, how much wine did you have?"

  "I don't know, Seigal was pouring it down my throat when I woke up, and I want, I wanted, I locked myself in before I did something I'd really regret . . . Oh my God! Did I just kiss you?" She staggered back two steps, then spotted Kurt. "Oh, my." She staggered forward and tackled him.

  Kurt thudded back into the wall and returned her kiss with interest.

  "Kurt, behave! It's the wine, well, half of it's the wine. I need to check on the children, which means your potential Mother-in-law showing up in minutes."

  He freed his mouth with difficulty, "So, this is how that wine affects women? Can I have half a bottle for our honeymoon?"

  "I really don't think you'll need it. Unless you desperately want a child in nine months." She slipped through to the other room, eyed the shattered door jam. It held long enough. She studied the seal on the bubble. Undamaged, unbroken. She reached out and unsealed it, swept it open.

  Lucy flinched back, arm still raised from closing the door. "Oh, M'Lady, you're back! Liz!" She stumbled out of the room.

  December took a quick peek. Margarite had Quail in one arm, another baby in the other. The room was stuffed, all the children and the Mother-on-duty crammed into the corners, wide-eyed and frightened.

  "It's safe now, the guards have taken control." December reassured them.

  "Young man. You may be a Prince, but you had better get your hand off of that portion of my daughter's anatomy!"

  "You can come out." December kept an ear cocked toward the other room.

  "Liz! You have blood all over your dress and hair. You are going need a haircut to even things up . . . Liz! Stop that behavior at once!"

  December took Quail from Margarite and backed up enough to see Kurt make his escape. He closed the door behind him and leaned on the wall of the hallway.

  "I want that woman so badly!" he panted, thumping his forehead.

  "As far as I can see, your only problem is waiting until the wedding. Or, noble reputations, being what they are, having the nerve to tell her you aren't going to marry her."

  "No, not that. I want her forever. Which is going to be a hard sell with my father. Are you quite certain that wine can . . . "

  "Prince Kurt, can't you tell by the way you're acting?"

  "Oh." He thumped his head again. "Of course. And now I need to find out all of what happened here. Excuse me." He didn't quite bounce down the hall.

  A small surge of water rolled through town about daybreak, and everyone went to work filling containers.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Sunday, March 22, 3493 AD

  Jeramtown, Arrival

  Kurt argued the Lady into doing nothing whatsoever, especially anything magic, and resting for the next crisis that they would really need her for.

  "All right." She nodded reluctantly, over breakfast. "Liz has a hangover, and possibly terminal embarrassment. After church, I'll drag her out to feed the troops, hopefully without a sack over her head."

  Kurt snickered, unable to keep the smile from his face. "Franklin says those priests are spreading different colored sand all over that circle of theirs, making some sort of picture. Care to come look?"

  Her brows drew together. "A picture. How . . . odd."

  Looking down from the wall it was even stranger.

  Concentric rings of black and white around the outside, then a strip of dirt from which the priests were filling in the center with a pattern of two touching circles. The closest circle was solid black, with a rim of white. The further circle contained five red half circles arranged like flower petals on a background of yellow. Everything was outlined in black. Now they were making black triangles, pointing outward in a larger circle that encompassed both the smaller.

  "It's a location." The lady said suddenly. "It has magic in it, and the pattern is going to be one of the buttresses of a travel spell."

  Kurt thought that over. "So . . . who's coming?"

  "A wizard, at a minimum. Possibly a very strong witch. Or one of those gods they mentioned the first day." She leaned her elbows on the wall and studied the figure. "Prince Kurt . . . "

  "Ouch."

  "If they don't haul all that away, or I'm not around to deal with it, all that colored sand will need to be buried. Preferably further away from the river. On the south side of town, where anything that gets into the river will be downstream of the town. Plant a grove of trees over it. Nothing that can be eaten."

  "How dangerous is it?"

  "Not terribly, but it may be responsible for those pitiful little gods, and if you watch the priests, they're not terribly healthy looking." She tapped her fingernails for a moment. "Do you know what radioactivity is?"

  "It came up in science classes. Didn't seem terribly important."

  "It's not strong, but they've definitely contaminated some of their sand." She watched them forming their triangles for a long moment more. "I think I will rest. I have a nasty feeling I'm going to be in for a fight this afternoon or evening. If they start any sort of ceremony, let me know immediately."

  "Right." Kurt watched her go. Wondered deeply.

  Lieutenant Folley, on his rounds, followed his gaze. "I don't know if I want to know all about her or not."

  "I want to meet her husband." Kurt looked back over the wall to where the priests were fitting white triangles between the points of the black ones. "He got to be the bravest man in all Creation."

  "Oh, no sir." Folley asserted stoutly. "That would be the man who marries Princess Augusta."

  Kurt choked and started laughing. "No, that's the most terrified poor sod in the World."

  He walked the entire circumference of the town, stopping in a few places to talk to people. Miss Frouth insisted he come down and inspect the damage done to her floor. It was indeed quite lumpy. He was, however, glad to see that all the furnishing he'd had thrown down the hole had been hauled out before the hole was filled.

  "I'm afraid the siege is taking up most of my men's time, perhaps when it is over I can send a detail in to do something about it. Umm, how about brick or rock?"

  "Too hard to take care of. A good honest dirt floor is the best." She frowned forbiddingly at him.

  "I see." He took his leave and kept walking. The sealed south gate . .
. he climbed up and looked around.

  "Can't see anything sir, but I heard axes cutting trees." Private Cocker reported.

  "I hope it was for firewood, not towers or ladders." The forest was about four miles away. Had he actually heard something that far away? "Might be worth putting someone over the wall to check out." Cocker looked eager.

  "Depends on what they're up to on the north gate."

  "Demon summoning or some such, is what they all say, sir."

  Kurt shrugged, "Could well be." He was thinking though, that his men were well accepted by the community. They'd hear every rumor circulating.

  He was well accepted by the community. Was this what it was like to be the baron of a state? No. Not a single person had asked him about the baron. The funeral would be tonight, shortly after the funerals of his two men. He'd had so few losses . . . but every one hurt.

  At the east gate it was harder to see what was going on. Buildings, especially the baron's manor house and outbuildings gave the Arbolians cover to get within bowshot of the wall, so a wooden hording had been hastily constructed for additional protection.

  When he got back to the north gate the priests were making a braid-like band around their triangles.

  Women were handing out fresh rolls stuffed with ham and cheese, and spotting the red brown braids, he made sure he got his from Liz. She blushed a fiery red and refused to meet his eyes.

  He retreated to eat where he could watch the priests and their growing sand patterns.

  "What are they doing?"

  He smiled at the sound of her voice. "The lady says they're marking a location for a traveling spell."

  "I've seen drawings like that. They look a bit like those fancy badges and buttons that the Newindies used to wear. They thought they'd ward off evil spirits."

  "Damn. You're right."

  "I think I saw them in a book of Mr. Richover's. Shall I go see if I can find it?"

  "Yes. I'd like to see what they are summoning."

  She was back in half an hour with three books and Mr. Richover.

  The preacher was fascinated. "I suppose I should be horrified and refuse to even look at it, but intellectually, I can't resist."

  They flipped through several books.

  "That central flower structure in the far circle is associated with war, bad luck, assassination . . . See, here's a picture of it on a pectoral. Some scholars say it's to keep it away, others that it is to trap it and use it. The triangles are for summoning, the links for controlling—it's called the chain—and the outer circles are to prevent interference from outside influences. Did they do those first? That's the way they are supposed to do them. That track of bare rock—dirt in this case—is where the priests will probably be, for their calling, the actual summoning of the demon."

  "Controlling? Could they, for instance, influence someone up here? Make them attack their own side?" Kurt wondered about assassins . . . and Roger. "Are they after the Dark Lady?"

  "Now there's a nasty thought." The preacher went back to his books. "There are twenty central motifs, and the gods that are supposed to embody them. All are male. I don't know enough about magic to know if that matters. And I don't see a black circle anywhere, but the moon is a symbol of womanhood in many cultures, and that could be a new moon, or an eclipse. Could it be a symbolic representation, an attempt to control the Dark Lady?"

  Liz paled. "I'll warn her."

  Kurt nodded as she slipped away. "I really wish I'd paid more attention to ancient history in school. Or taken more archeology classes. Half the Diaries don't make the slightest bit of sense."

  "Well, don't look at me. I'm a country preacher, not a scholar, nor have I ever wanted to be high enough to have been allowed to read the Mysteries."

  "Well, I hate to tell you this, but they're called Mysteries because they don't make any sense at all. They are the diaries and notes of the Exiles, and there's so much background information that is assumed . . . the top scholars spend years arguing over what 'the net' is, or how one of them 'rodeoed' another of them. And it really doesn't matter. All that matters is that one understands that the Exiles could communicate quickly, all over, wherever they spread out to."

  "And I know that, I just don't know what they said." The preacher was eyeing him narrowly.

  "Mostly they gave weather reports and census type information. Asked for help with large projects or emergencies. Asked for advice." Kurt shrugged. "There isn't anything about the meaning of life or the nature of God. And we don't understand why they were exiled. It wasn't anything they'd done, they exiled merchants and traders and men of business and their wives and children. They keep using the word 'engineered' about themselves. The scholars argue about whether they were all engineers and were thrown out like plague victims, and other scholars argue about how you could possibly 'engineer' a person. Chop off parts and sew them together? Not likely."

  "Hmph. I suspect, Prince, that you are not supposed to speak of these things."

  "As far as I can see, the purpose of the secrecy is to conceal the Royals' and Bishops' complete befuddlement."

  Richover chuckled. "Then I shall tactfully forget I've ever heard it."

  "Depends on what happens after this damn siege is over, Preacher. The Dark Lady fled some catastrophe by passing through a gate to this world. The possibilities in that simple statement are tremendous."

  "A gate."

  "Somewhere three week's ride to the north-west."

  The sound of long striding hooves drew him to the other side of the wall. Phantom halted at the stairs. Liz slid off his back, then the lady. She left the reins over the saddle bow, and Phantom walked over and stood beside the two waiting guard horses.

  Kurt followed the lady as she made a beeline for the outside wall.

  "Good afternoon, Mr. Richover. Liz has told me about your, or rather these Newindies, symbols." She stared at the design, then closed her eyes and stood silently for a long moment. "The priests have power. I can't tell how much, they've got a solid barrier there. The powders they are using have been charmed, using their natural power sources. That's rather clever, now that I see it. As precursors to spells, part of a whole . . . definitely summoning. The Chain. That's a spell we all study, because it was once used to control the most powerful wizard in the world. In my world. Hmm, I should be able to defend against it. I know the spell, how to fight it." Her brows drew together. "I can't affect anything down there. Their ward is working quite well. Really, I'd never considered adding pitchblende . . . "

  Kurt studied the woman objectively. A bit over average height. Fluffy light brown hair cut short with no attempt to braid or restrain it. Nice regular features that skimmed the edge of beautiful. A dark wool suit that ordinarily would have looked trim and businesslike, today the clean lines were ruined by the belt, the knife and sword. Spinning normal words into gibberish.

  He sighed. "Do you realize how comforting it would be to be able to write you off as an utter madwoman? I'm never going to be able to disregard magic again, even if everything goes back to normal."

  She chuckled. "Perhaps I should not mention that these inconvenient holes in my memory are making me wonder if I'm just a madwoman."

  "They're doing something," Liz leaned over to watch. "They're lighting torches."

  "They're chanting." The lady turned and frowned. "I can hear . . . "

  Kurt's gaze jerked back. The lady was gone.

  Chapter Twenty

  Sunday, March 22, 3493 AD

  Jeramtown, Arrival

  "The chain is rust, it turns to dust." Left handed unlocking motion.

  December looked around quickly, left hand still unweaving against the powerful loops of the chain. Where did they get the power? Where am I going to get the power? She raised a shield, but it was strictly physical; she tried to raise one that would protect against spells, against charms and hexes. A stab of pain through her head dropped her to her knees.

  "The chain is gold, it's very old. The link will
fail, the Priests do wail. Old Gods that one was stupid." She could hear the pain leaking through into her voice.

  Left hand unlocking the spell. "The chain is a lie, it will untie."

  She unwove the chain and held the physical shield. At least she didn't have to worry about arrows. December rocked back on her heels, wavered upright. She was in the black circle, and she turned jerkily to the side, back. Looked up at the wall. The direction of the wall was where the chain was closest to her circle. She walked, unwove the chain, held the physical shield.

  "A lock of hair unweaves the snare. I'm worse than Romeau, whoever he is."

  Walk, unweave, shield. Walk, unweave, unweave, unweave.

  "Chain of Curses, fear my verses."

  Walk, unweave. Kick the sand of the white triangle over the black border and cover a link of the chain. This close, she could see the structure, see the gap that allowed the spell to be safely handled. The key words were direct and simple. "Control the Gods." She held the spell steady by those key words, drew her sword and reached across. Smeared the drawing. The links of the chain spell snapped, and she looked around.

  Looked at what had just landed in the other circle.

  The man was ugly, misshapen and lumpy. Thin hair. Manic, hating eyes. Power flowing. A god. She'd been so cavalier. "The gods are just very powerful magic users." Just. It was clawing at its neck, crumpling a personal chain spell.

  And I think I just freed it from all control. Gotta watch how far and wide those counter spells go.

  "What have you done woman?" One of the priests spun and leaped at her, swinging a heavy axe.

  She sidestepped, circled her sword. Her shield wouldn't attach to the ground. Damn these powders. A hit on it would jar her just as if it were a shield of wood and metal.

  "I think I've freed an enslaved magic user." She tried to keep track of the priests, the god and everything around. No one else seemed inclined to interfere. Even the other priests looked cowed. "What do you think I've done?"

  "You've released a vengeful god, a god of war." He glared at her, and she could feel her knees weakening. He was pulling power from her, and she dare not even try a mental shield again.