Thinking better of it and sliding probably saved my life.
Two satyrs, armed with small but wicked-looking hatchets, leaped out of the underbrush and bore down upon Brithelm.
Who had not seen them. Who was still walking casually down the path.
I was paralyzed, as though I were watching one of those huge, hypnotic snakes brimming with poison, which the men of Neraka mail in baskets to one another during times of political upheaval. I saw movement across from me; saw Bayard for a second as he began to rise, to go to my brother’s rescue; saw a strong arm—probably Agion’s—drag him back.
Saw Brithelm pass through the satyrs unharmed. Saw the weapons wave ineffectively through the air. Saw the satyrs blend back into hiding so quickly that it seemed they had vanished from the spot.
Brithelm had noticed nothing.
He continued walking casually down the path, then turned, parted the reeds with his arms, and shook hands with a thunderstruck Bayard, then with an equally thunderstruck Agion. Then Bayard stepped into the clearing, the centaur behind him, neither of them taking his eyes off my brother.
Since the satyrs had temporarily dispersed, I came out, too.
We stood around Brithelm, agape. Brithelm looked from one of us to the next, smiling, nodding—you almost hated to break the news to him that he had been assaulted.
I finally broke the silence, addressing my commander, the supposed brains of this rapidly unraveling operation.
“You figure this one, sir.”
“First, we should get back off the path,” Bayard insisted. “The satyrs may return at any moment.”
“If they do, we can always hide behind Brithelm,” I offered.
Bayard shot me an annoyed glance as he led us back to where he and Agion had been hiding—a little clearing made larger because it is hard for tall grass and reed to stand up to the weight of a centaur. Already, though, the foliage was righting itself and even growing again, and we stood chest high in the rushes—well, flank high for Agion and waist high for the other two men. Agion cleared the place of reed and vine, swinging the scythe he had recovered where it lay in the road, untouched by satyr hand.
It reassured me, somehow, that Brithelm’s account of how and why he was here was familiar, even soothing.
My brother was every bit as harebrained as ever.
It seems that Brithelm had wakened from a trance on the morning I left, and found me gone. That much, he admitted, he had expected—that his younger brother would be gone, off on his “knightly calling,” as Brithelm put it so generously. Bayard was generous not to laugh.
“But I also awoke to the unexpected, little brother, more unexpected than you could even imagine or dream. For accustomed as I am to receiving signs and visions, never have I received one so … manifest, so tangible as this.”
Brithelm fumbled in the pockets of his robe and brought out the dog whistle.
“It is a dog whistle, Galen,” he explained serenely, “used for …”
“For calling dogs. Really, Brithelm, I know what the thing is and how it got there.”
“As do I, my brother, as do I,” Brithelm exclaimed blissfully. “It is a sign from Huma. A sign from Huma that urged me to come to the hermitage.”
Bayard smiled broadly and nodded encouragingly to my poor addled brother.
“For you see,” Brithelm went on serenely, “I had been meditating on whether to return to this hermitage after the bees drove me out.”
I remembered when that happened. My brother was all welts for weeks. Agion nodded in sympathy.
“Did you learn to sleep standing up?” he asked my mystical brother, who smiled and nodded, though I do not see how he could possibly understand what Agion had said to him.
“This whistle is the sign,” Brithelm continued. “I shall call to the animals, to the things of Nature, and they shall answer, shall come to me. Shall commune.”
There was a sound on the path, rising from the center of the swamp and coming slowly in our direction—the sound of reeds rustling, of splashing. I could guess that Brithelm had been bumbling delightedly in our direction for hours, blowing that whistle, alerting the entire swamp to the whereabouts of one fool at least. There was some chance that the oppressive silence we had been traveling through was the whistle’s doing. There was an even greater chance that now, with Brithelm in our midst, we were much more likely to commune with satyrs.
Bayard signaled for quiet, so at the moment I had no chance to tell Brithelm that the whistle had come from my pocket instead of from Huma’s Breast, somewhere beyond the stars.
Not that it would have made any difference.
But we were speaking of satyrs. There were four of them crouching on the trail, each clutching a toothed scimitar. I could not imagine a more nasty-looking weapon.
Agion, crouched painfully low for a thing his size, peered through the bushes at the creatures, then turned to Bayard and whispered—much too loudly, I thought—“I think we can take four of them, Sir Bayard, even if the holy man carries no weapon and does not fight.”
“Fighting isn’t the point, Agion,” Bayard hissed. “At least not until we try to make the peace I promised Archala. The point is how to manage this so that the satyrs don’t attack out of sheer preference when they see us, so that we don’t have to fight them to get things calmed down enough to talk.”
“Why don’t you show them your armor, sir?” I whispered, tugging at Bayard’s sleeve. “You can tell them you’re just a knight and leave out the Solamnic part, and maybe they will escort us.”
“That would be just fine except for two things, Galen. One, the armor is probably still galloping through the swamp somewhere, on the back of our pack mare.”
I had forgotten that.
“Two, even if we do not have the armor beside us, I could not advance a lie, which is what you’re suggesting. The armor is Solamnic, forged in Huma’s name. I would dishonor it by resorting to falsehood, for every falsehood discredits the Order.”
“But, Sir Bayard …” I began.
“Fighting is not the point at all,” Brithelm interrupted. “Nor is imposture,” he pronounced in a loud and joyous voice. “For you are mistaken. These are innocent creatures, full of trust and altogether harmless.” He stood and walked toward the satyrs, his arms extended.
The rest of us hurried to our feet. Agion and Bayard followed my generous brother, scythe and sword at the ready. I started to follow, reluctantly drawing my own little sword.
It was then I felt it, that icy grip in my blood that held my feet in place, that sucked me down like the quagmires of the swamp will entrap the unwary traveler who steps into them.
Upon my shoulder I felt the prickling of talons. I felt the soft brush of feathers, smelled flesh and loam and the distant scent of decay and heard the voice again, unchanged from the night in the library.
“Follow me, little one,” it whispered. “The first payment of your debt has come due.” The wings fluttered at my ear, the weight on my shoulder was lifted.
All of a sudden, there seemed no choice. As I was bidden, I turned from the trail straight into knee-deep waters that slowed my retreat from the negotiations or impostures behind me, following the fitful path of the raven through the branches ahead of me.
Now there were only false trails and hidden places among the leaves. Those, and mud, and night approaching. And crocodiles, of course.
Now the bird had vanished. Diving through a tangle of broad-leafed plants, it had not emerged, evidently, and search though I might, I was left alone at this juncture. The light in the swamp was all but gone.
I sat down upon a cypress tree in yet another large clearing—a clearing that branched into a dozen trails like it was the hub of an enormous wheel. I had no idea how far I had traveled, but I was sure to be out of earshot of my companions.
And within earshot of other things.
I took stock.
Perhaps I should try to go back. Perhaps my companions would believ
e that I had been protecting them from possible ambush by scouting the rear. At great personal risk, I might add.
Brithelm would buy it. After all, he believed that Huma was in the business of dispensing dog whistles.
For my other two companions I could not speak, except to be sure that Agion would be easier to convince than Bayard, since the centaur was slow-witted to begin with.
But Bayard was another matter.
Perhaps I could cut myself. Only slightly, mind you, but enough to exhibit. Then perhaps I could invent a terrible knife fight with a satyr—no, two satyrs, I’d say—bent on circling around us for another ambush. Two small satyrs, since Bayard would be listening. Yes, it just might work.
Unless the satyrs had defeated them. Then I would be walking into the hands of the enemy. That would demand an altogether new set of lies.
Then, of course, there was the raven, which had conveniently dropped out of sight. Was I free to go, even if I could make up my mind? Would I be allowed to escape the summons of the Scorpion?
The cries of birds and reptiles around me seemed more hostile now, and branches and tree limbs leaned even farther over the dozens of paths that ended in nowhere or, even worse, ended in danger. What’s more, I was steering only by moonlight now and could see scarcely ten feet in front of me.
I started down one trail, which narrowed into nothing scarcely a dozen yards from the clearing where I had picked it up. The next one I tried ended in a wide pool of bubbling and boiling mud like those we had seen only hours ago when we set off toward the satyr camp.
So I returned to the clearing, seated myself once more on the cypress tree, tried to calm myself and push down my rising voice of panic.
Lost. Lost. Spiralling down into the quicksand. Eaten by crocodiles. Snake bitten and poisoned, crawling down a trail to nowhere.
All of a sudden, the clearing grew quiet. To my left a covey of quail took wing, flying overhead in one of those brief, scrambling flights they make in the face of danger. I followed them with my eyes, watched them settle on the other side of the clearing.
When they were lost to sight, when I turned my eyes and thoughts back to the clearing in which I was sitting, he was only a few strides away.
It took a second more to make him out in the darkness. I was startled anyway. I gasped, fell backwards off the cypress tree, and managed only one word before I hit the ground, before I landed on my back, helpless as a capsized turtle. Before the familiar strong hands began to throttle me.
“Alfric!” I shouted, as he pounced.
CHAPTER 7
Alfric’s grip tightened on my throat. He scrambled, trying to get footing on the wet ground, then suddenly was kneeling above me, pinning my arms beneath his knees, grinding them painfully into the mud. For a man whose highest ambition was Solamnic Knighthood, he was awfully skilled at dirty fighting.
Struggle as I did against my brother’s strength and weight, the only thing I could raise from the ground was mud. My arms hurt under something edged and metal; Alfric was wearing Father’s armor, of all things. It made you feel as though you were being assaulted by your entire family tree.
“This time we’ll do things right, Weasel,” my brother whispered hatefully. In the dark I couldn’t see what he was about to do, but I was sure that it wouldn’t seem all that right to me.
“None of your talking. None of your wheeling or dealing or bargaining. Not this time. You left me back in the moat house. Left me there so’s you could go parading off in glory around the countryside as a squire—the squire I would of been, had politics and brothers not kept me from it.”
I heard the sound of a knife being drawn from its sheath. Alfric was ready to clean what he had trapped, evidently.
“I beg you, Big Brother, to reconsider what you’re doing here.”
“I’m not listening to you. Remember, I said no talking.”
I felt the edge of a blade at my throat.
“Look, while we are struggling here in this swamp …”
“Oh, I don’t see us struggling all that much, Galen. The way I see it, you’re pinned down, waiting for something you can’t escape.”
I could see him grin in the dark.
“You see, little brother, I been watching this swamp ever since I got here. It sure grows quickly, don’t it? Why, it may well be years before anyone finds your bones, and by that time they won’t know who you are. Even if they do, who’s going to suspect me?
“I’ll probably be head Pathwarden by the time your leavings surface up. I’ll own the moat house and all lands pertaining. Nobody rich ever murders.
“I’ll be just as sorry as I can about the remains of my long lost brother who disappeared many years past when he followed Sir Bayard Brightblade of Vingaard, trying to become the squire he really didn’t have it in him to become.
“Do you like my story so far, Weasel?”
Hardly. At best, it promised to be a long gloat.
Still, I didn’t want to rush him towards the conclusion he had in mind. So I stayed silent, yielding, but above all listening. Far more than whatever foolishness my brother had to say, I was interested in the sound of someone—anyone—approaching.
I had guessed by now that the man the centaurs had seen following us was not Brithelm, but Alfric. But it no longer made any difference.
After all those years of throttling me, of strangling me until I almost blacked out and he remembered that Father frowned on fratricide, Alfric was out of the moat house, far from the long arm of the old man’s discipline. He seemed prepared to go through with it.
I saw his knife glint in the moonlight.
“Alfric.”
“Shut up, Weasel. I will do whatever I please from this point on. And whatever I please is … to become squire to Sir Bayard Brightblade of Vingaard, Knight of Solamnia.”
“Oh, that can be arranged, Brother,” I exclaimed, bargaining frantically for anything that would stop the blade from menacing my throat, listening desperately for any approaching footsteps, any hoof beats, any reason to cry out. “You can take my place polishing his armor at the tournament.”
“Tournament?” The pressure of the knife blade slackened. “What tournament?”
“Indeed. At Castle di Caela, over in southern Solamnia. All the bullies and thugs will be there, vying for the hand of Enid di Caela and the deed to her father’s holdings. It’s a place to make connections, I assure you. In fact, I’ll help arrange your squirehood. I’d be more than delighted to …”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort, Galen. You see, Sir Bayard’s going to be short a squire when his pet weasel submerges somewhere in this swamp. That makes me an obvious candidate for the vacancy. I won’t need introductions or letters of reference from you. I’ll be all that’s left.
“From there, it’s but a little maneuvering and some tournament folderol and, who knows, in the end perhaps they will consider me for the hand of this Lady Enid di Caela. I can sit a horse as well as the next man. I can handle a lance.”
“But, Brother,” I improvised, the edge of the blade now tight once again on my gullet, as my brother followed phantasms of glory. “Let’s start with your first obstacle before we make you head di Caela and all. Surely you realize that you’re going to arouse some suspicion, crawling out from under some rock the instant the job of Bayard’s squire is open.”
“So we do it my way. And here is the way I have it figured,” he proclaimed, lifting the knife. I took a deep breath, pretended to listen respectfully as Alfric gleefully, almost rapturously, explained his foolish plan.
He paused for a long time. I could almost hear him figuring the angles, hear those rusty wheels turning in the great gap of his head.
“Here it is,” he began tentatively. “I shall tell Bayard that … Father … found some evidence that you, not me, was the negligent one.”
“And that evidence was?” It was uncomfortable, lying here draped over the heavy arm of my brother.
Again a long pause.
<
br /> “Well?”
“Shut up, Weasel. I’m contriving.
“Something about …” he drawled, then shook me with excitement until my head ached. “Something about your naming ring! That was what sprung you in the first place, Bayard finding it on his mantle, of all the dumb Weasel luck!”
“What about the ring?”
Another long pause, during which the knife withdrew. Then my brother lifted me, setting me down roughly on the cypress tree, and turned me to face him.
“Uh … what do you figure, Galen?”
I figured he was mine now.
“Oh, that’s easy,” I began, scrambling for a reasonable story. “How about … that Father looked more closely at the rings … and discovered that the man in black had the real naming ring, and that the one Bayard found was a forgery, planted to make him do precisely what he did do, which was pass over you and take on your ‘wronged’ younger brother as a squire. Then Father sent you with the news to Sir Bayard so he could set the whole squire business straight at once.”
Alfric nodded joyously and eagerly. He was the only one stupid enough to believe a story so close to the actual truth.
“You know, I just think Sir Bayard will believe that one,” he said, hopping up and down until he tottered in the heavy armor.
I nodded innocently in agreement.
“Oh, by the way, Galen. The man in black? Well, he’s dead.”
“Dead?” The news gave me a shudder.
“It was the strangest thing, Father says. An hour after you leave, he sends the guards down with food for the culprit and finds him dead. The door is still locked and the bars on the windows was intact—so nobody got in to do him in. He was wrapped in his black cloak, and the smell, the guards said, was just horrible.
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