Mordecai

by Michael G. Manning

  “What sort of workaround?” I asked.

  “I broke the rules,” said Moira, hesitantly.

  I nodded. “I expected you to.”

  Moira went on, “I’ve done something similar once before, for a girl I met who couldn’t speak. I created a specialized spell-mind, essentially just the part that I normally use to give my spellbeasts the ability to speak, and then grafted it onto Sanger’s mind. It will allow him to speak and understand our language.”

  “How long will it last? Will it run down like a spellbeast over time?”

  My daughter shook her head. “No, it’s attached to him in such a way that it is sustained by his aystrylin, as if it were a part of his natural body and mind. It will last as long as he lives, or until it is removed.”

  “Could any mage remove it?” I asked. “For example, one of their magic users.”

  Moira grimaced. “It’s possible, but if anyone other than a Centyr tried, it would likely render him insane. It might even kill him.”

  “That’s comforting,” I muttered. “What else did you do?”

  “To make him ‘safe,’ I had to alter his personality to a degree, reversing some of his values. He now regards us as allies, and his own people with mistrust. I didn’t change his memories, since we need that information. Instead I changed his fundamental reaction to those memories. It was a lot simpler than making a lot of subtle alterations, but it’s bound to cause some problems for him.

  “He’s loyal to us now. He’s even aware of what I did to him, but he sees it in a favorable light. Over time, the internal conflict between the artificial values I’ve implanted, and his normal values, will probably tear him apart. He might go insane, develop headaches—I don’t really know,” Moira admitted. “But I’ve created a contingency.”

  “How so?”

  “The spell-mind fragment that handles language for him does more than just that. It also monitors his thoughts. If he becomes violent, or somehow begins to contemplate betraying us, it will kill him,” she finished flatly.

  The sweet child I had once raised could never have done such a thing. It was a stark lesson for me in how much the ordeal in Dunbar had changed my daughter. What she had done was evil, pure and simple, and I had sanctioned it. No, I had asked her to do it.

  “Don’t be,” said Moira suddenly.

  “Don’t be what?”

  “Sorry,” she explained. “Don’t be sorry. This wasn’t your fault.”

  I rubbed my face to relieve some of the tension that had built up. “I was the one that put you in this position. How much did this hurt you?”

  “It isn’t like physical pain,” said Moira. “It doesn’t work like that. It just gets easier each time, and harder for me to stop myself. But this needed doing, and I’m already a monster, anyway.”

  We both are, I thought silently.

  “That’s true,” said my daughter. “I got a glimpse of what happened inside you yesterday.”

  I almost shuddered. “I wish you hadn’t.”

  “It made me feel better, if we’re being honest,” she replied. “I’m not the only one. We’ve both done terrible things, but we’re doing them so other people won’t have to. We’ll take on the burdens so the rest of them can sleep in peace, so they can stay sane.”

  “That still doesn’t justify our actions,” I argued.

  She nodded. “No, but we’re doing it anyway, so let’s make a pact.”

  “What sort of pact?”

  “We watch one another. If you go too far, I’ll take care of it. If I go too far, you can squash me with a boulder or something.”

  As much as I disliked the idea, it had a few glaring flaws. “If I know you’re about to kill me, you won’t stand a chance,” I pointed out.

  Moira patted my cheek, her eyes sad. “I’ll make sure you don’t see it coming.”

  “The other problem,” I went on, “is that you can pick up my thoughts too easily. If I decided you needed to be put down, you would know about it long before I could trap you.”

  She shook her head. “I had Myra insert a compulsion in my subconscious over a month ago. If you decide that, if you even think it, I will submit, regardless of how I feel on the matter. I also can’t alter your mind, or that of anyone else in the family. Not anymore.”

  This had to be the most disturbing conversation any father and daughter had ever had, but somehow it put me at ease. Maybe it was simply knowing that despite the dark changes she had suffered, Moira was still thinking about her family before herself. Unable to restrain myself, I leaned over and kissed the top of her head. “We may be monsters, but we’ll protect those we love. Won’t we?”

  Moira jerked her head in a quick motion that was taut with barely suppressed emotion. “We’ll be monsters, so they don’t have to.”

  Chapter 28

  Our prisoner sat at a table on one side of the great hall, eating a large bowl of stew with a spoon in one hand and a large hunk of rough bread in the other. One of my guardsmen stood close by, watching him carefully, but he wasn’t alone. Every man and woman eating there also stared at the stranger.

  The dwarfish prisoner looked up at me as I stopped beside him. Dropping his spoon, he stood and executed a quick bow. “My lord, forgive me, I didn’t see you until just now!” He spoke with a deep voice with no accent, in spite of the fact that he had never used our language before today.

  I could see the traces of my daughter’s magic buried in his skull, and while it chilled me to see how effective it was, I couldn’t help but be impressed with how flawlessly it granted him command of a new language. “What is your name?”

  “Sanger, my lord,” he answered quickly.

  When he spoke his name, I could hear a strange lilt to his tongue, and I guessed that must be because it was spoken without any assistance of my daughter’s magic. “Why did your people attack us?” I asked abruptly.

  “They thought you were responsible for stealing our land, my lord,” he responded. “Though I understand now that they were wrong. I was wrong to help them.”

  “And you will help us now instead?”

  “Of course, my lord. I will do whatever I can to help you,” said Sanger emphatically.

  It was bizarre hearing such obeisance from a man who had so recently been determined to kill us, but thus far it appeared Moira’s alterations were working just as she had said, so I pushed further. “Why should I trust you?”

  Sanger lowered his eyes to the floor. “Lady Moira has changed me. The world is different now. Somehow, I can speak your strange language, and I also know that I will do as you wish. I don’t really understand it, but it is true.”

  “Tell me about your people then,” I commanded. “Describe how you came to be here.”

  “They are not my people, my lord,” answered the dwarf. “Not any longer.”

  I raised one brow. “Oh, then to what people do you think you belong?”

  “None. I am of no people, but I belong to you,” returned Sanger.

  The absolute devotion in his eyes was disturbing. “Tell me about the Ungol, then, who were once your people.”

  “They are a proud race of warriors, far greater than the weak men I have seen here in your fortress,” said the dwarf honestly. “The tribe I was born in, the Talbrun, were nearly two thousand strong.”

  “Tribe? Aren’t they part of some larger nation?”

  “No,” said Sanger. “The Great Ones decreed long ago that we must not gather or form greater alliances. Each tribe lives alone in their place within the mountains, though they trade some. Any who defy this rule are destroyed and their names wiped from the scrolls of the ancestors.”

  Now my curiosity was piqued. “Are the Great Ones some sort of tribal elders?”

  “They are not men,” insisted Sanger. “Their power and wrath are not to be questioned.”

  Moira sent me a silent thought, I picked this from one of his memories last night, but it will clarify. The leader of these Great Ones is known as
Mal’Goroth.

  My mind reeled at that revelation. Were the Ungol from the place the She’Har had created to hold the Kionthara? Was that possible? I had no idea what it was like. I knew the Dark Gods had been kept within another dimension, one meant to protect ours from external threats, specifically ANSIS, but I had always imagined it as an empty place.

  Further questioning revealed that Sanger’s world was much like ours, with forests, plains, and mountains. The Ungol lived primarily in the mountains, in widespread villages from what I could understand. After taking him outside and asking him about directions, it seemed that his village had somehow been relocated to an area about a day’s travel north of Arundel, just across the border between Lothion and Gododdin.

  “How many more of the Talbrun are left in your village?” I asked after a while.

  “A thousand perhaps,” answered Sanger. “Mainly the women and children, along with the old warriors.”

  In other words, nearly all the adult males of his community were now dead. Once, such a realization would have crippled me with guilt. These days, though, while I felt remorse, it was only one more addition to the pile of regrets I kept in the dark storage of my soul. Misunderstanding or not, they had threatened my people, they had attacked first, and I was no longer kind enough to spend much time beating myself up over it.

  “What will happen to them?”

  Sanger’s face twisted momentarily, as conflicting emotions warred within him. I wondered for a second if Moira’s magic would break under the strain. If so, would he die in front of me? Then his face smoothed and he answered, “They will starve. The food stores were lost when the village was transported. The crops are gone. Most of the hunters were in the warband. The warband itself was a last-ditch effort to find or take a reliable food supply.”

  ***

  At the other end of Lothion, Matthew and Gram rode at the head of a group of fifty mounted soldiers. They had arrived in Cantley via the World Road sometime in the darkest hours of the night, not long after midnight. Not wasting time, they had ridden out immediately, Matthew and Gram astride their dragons, Zephyr and Grace, while the soldiers were on horseback.

  With their enhanced eyesight, not to mention Matthew’s magesight, the darkness wouldn’t have been a problem for the dragonriders, but for the men and horses it was a more significant obstacle on a night with no moon. Hence, Matthew had kept a set of ten glowing orbs floating above their heads to light the way.

  Carrying lights at night was a risk in its own right, for a military expedition. It meant they were well lit for whatever enemy might be waiting ahead in the dark—perfect targets, but this was mitigated by Matthew’s confidence that he could detect any hidden enemies long before they were in range of missile weapons.

  For now, it was most important that they catch up to the Queen’s companies before they encountered whatever foe had destroyed Brodinton.

  Those they were trying to catch up to had left the previous morning. If they had ridden for eight hours, then they were probably still four or five hours ahead of them. With luck they could reach them before they broke camp in the morning.

  It was still several hours before dawn when Matthew sensed movement ahead of them. Holding up one hand, he called for a halt while he examined what his magesight was showing him. Then he announced, “A large band of men are heading this way. Almost all of them are on foot, and some carry torches.”

  “The Queen’s men?” asked Gram tensely.

  “It’s hard to tell at this distance,” said Matthew. “They’re still over a mile distant. I’ll know in a few minutes.” Reaching out with his power, he spoke a single word, “Haseth!” and the light globes hanging above them vanished. They were in total darkness, and the men began to grumble. Facing a possible enemy while effectively blind was not to their liking.

  “We don’t want to give away our position,” said Gram, his voice calm but loud enough to be heard. “This will also allow our eyes to adjust to the dark.”

  “Don’t matter how much they adjust. It’s pitch black,” muttered someone in the ranks.

  “I’ll light the field when they are almost upon us. It should surprise them,” said Matthew. Then he studied the terrain. The River Surrey lay fifty yards to their right and the edge of Cantley Forest was on their left. Their group rode on a small market road that followed the edge of the river almost half the way to Albamarl.

  “We should move into the forest,” suggested Gram. “With the trees and darkness to hide us, we can make the decision to ambush or aid whoever is riding this way in relative safety. If it’s an enemy, we’ll catch them by surprise, exposed on the road with the river to their backs.”

  Matt agreed, and so they began leading the horses carefully into the trees and underbrush on the north side of the road. He could see those approaching more clearly now, and he was certain they were men. Normal men, and therefore probably the Queen’s guardsmen. He relayed that information to the others.

  Then he spotted those that they ran from, a mass of squat, heavyset foot soldiers. The short-legged pursuers ate up the ground between them and the Queen’s men in steady, powerful strides. Matthew studied them for a while, feeling something was strange about their movements, until he finally realized.

  They carried no torches, or magical sources of light, and yet they moved with surety in the darkness. The Queen’s guardsmen, by contrast, were struggling and stumbling, even with their torches in hand. “They can see in the dark,” he muttered.

  “What?” said Gram, slightly alarmed.

  “There are several hundred of those short invaders chasing the guardsmen. They carry no light, and they seem to be moving better than our allies,” explained the young wizard.

  “How many of the Queen’s men are there?” asked Gram.

  “Fewer than we have with us,” said Matthew darkly.

  Sir Gram began swearing, a bad habit he had picked up sometime in the past from one of his teachers, Chad Grayson. After he recovered himself he spoke again, “If the Queen’s men are running ahead they’ve probably been routed. If we try to help them in this darkness, they’ll have no clue what’s happening. They’ll keep running. That leaves us and our fifty men to handle several times our number. Yet if we do nothing, they’ll be run down and slain.”

  Matthew didn’t reply, brooding silently.

  “But, we have a wizard, and two dragons,” added Gram.

  Absently, Matthew replied, “And you. You count for more than you realize.” Then he sighed. “The enemy have mages as well. I can spot them now—four, no, five of them.”

  Gram growled in the darkness, “This is ridiculous!”

  Quietly, Matthew said, “It seems that way. What do you want to do?”

  “If it was just me, I’d walk down there and stand in the road. Cut down as many of the enemy as I could manage—”

  Matt cut him off, “It isn’t just you. Don’t be stupid. We’re going to do this together. I’m asking how you think we should arrange our forces for an ambush.”

  Gram bit his lip, thinking. “Their mages will see us, even if we hide, right?”

  Matthew nodded. “Probably. Since they’re running, they might not notice as much as if they were moving slowly, but they’ll detect me and the dragons for sure. We stick out like beacons to magesight.”

  “How about me?” asked Gram.

  “Once you call your armor, the enchantment will be just as visible. Until then you look almost like a normal person,” answered Matthew.

  Gram made up his mind quickly. “Take the dragons and fly back the way we came. I’ll wait in the road and greet the Queen’s men as they run by. When the enemy reaches me, I’ll armor up and slow them down while you and the dragons circle around to come at them from the river. Once the fighting starts, our men can charge in from this side and turn it into a real fight. They’ll be too busy with us to prepare for the dragons when they see them. Strafe them with fire and we’ll clean up the rest.”

  Afte
r listening, Matthew nodded. “That sounds good, but I’m going to drop in during the first flyover. I can do a lot more from the center than I can in the air.”

  Grace chimed in then, speaking silently in both their minds, That’s stupid. You can’t risk yourself, Matthew. For that matter, Gram shouldn’t be out there alone either.

  Gram agreed, partly. “You shouldn’t risk yourself.”

  “Too bad. You don’t get a say in what I do,” replied the wizard. Then he launched Zephyr into the air and Grace took wing behind them.

  ***

  Gram was waiting in the road when the Queen’s guards ran past. They spotted him in the torchlight and veered, running past him on both sides. He could see panic and fear in their eyes, though most were unhurt. The wounded hadn’t been able to run, or if they could, they had fallen behind long ago. He waved at the men as they ran by, ignoring the warnings that some of them shouted to him.

  Then someone recognized him. “It’s Gram!”

  The one who knew him slowed down to a walk and then made his way back, followed by one other. Both wore the distinctive armor crafted years ago for the Knights of Stone. It was Sir William and Sir Thomas.

  His vision was sensitive enough to see the onrushing enemy, and the sound of their feet pounding toward them was audible even for William and Thomas. “Follow your men,” said Gram loudly. “It’s too dark for you to fight yet, but the sky will light up in a few minutes. When it does, get as many as you can to come back.”

  “But what are you…?” began Sir William.

  “Run!” shouted Gram. Then he whispered a quiet word and Thorn appeared in his hands, while a cloud of metal scales whirled around him, settling into place.

  At fifty feet he could see his enemy clearly, and by the enthusiastic looks on their faces, he knew they could see him as well, or perhaps even better. Seconds later, they reached him, axes swinging toward him from several different directions.

  Thorn was longer, and he didn’t wait for them to get close enough to make deep cuts. Gram’s first sweep of the blade caught three of them, delivering a shallow cut that was only inches deep, but it served its purpose, forcing them to pull up short. More piled into them from behind, forcing the first Ungol warriors closer while others streamed around him on both sides.