by Martin Ash
Again Feikermun glanced at Wirm. Then he narrowed his eyes in thought. ‘Is this what I have been waiting for?’ he murmured. He turned to me. ‘It is good. Let us try your root, Cormer of Chol. Bring it to me this evening at sunset. We shall test the veracity of your claims.’
I bowed my head. ‘It shall be so, Your Excellency.’
I realized at that moment that a newcomer had entered the room. In the dimness of a shadowed corner behind Feikermun stood a woman, watching us silently. She was of slender and shapely build, slightly above average in height, with long, lustrous golden hair, and was garbed in a pale grey robe which fell to her feet. Her age I could not determine. She was youthful, yet had a quality of maturity and womanliness which caused me to wonder. Her beauty was exceptional and extraordinary. She was quite possibly the most attractive woman I had ever laid eyes on. I stared, for the moment mesmerized by the sight of her. There was something about her - I could not say what - some entrancing, even angelic quality. I felt that she gazed right at me and into me, that her gaze penetrated my outer self and alighted upon my soul. Had she spoken then, had she asked something of me, anything at all, I would have obeyed her. I knew in that instant of seeing her that I could deny her nothing.
I rose, involuntarily, my whole being arrested by the sight of her.
‘What is it, Cormer of Chol?’ demanded Feikermun. He shifted to stare over the back of his couch in the direction of my gaze.
The loud, grating timbre of his voice shook me partly from my reverie. I felt myself suddenly embarrassed and fearful, yet I could not bear to take my eyes from the newcomer. ‘Your Excellency, I am sorry. Please, I do apologize. I am simply enchanted by the beauty of this lady. I have never seen anyone of such exquisite features. Please, I do beg you to forgive my impertinence.’
All were now looking towards the woman. Feikermun was agitated. He sat up erect, looked back at me, then to her again. ‘You see her?’
‘Here before us, aye.’
He rose abruptly to his feet. ‘What do you see? Tell me? What is it?’
‘The lady, my lord. I see the lady, that is all.’
‘Where, curse your rotten soul? Where do you see her?’
I felt my unease mounting. I glanced at the others. ‘This lady, Lord Feikermun. She who has just entered, who stands in the corner there. It is she I refer to.’
‘In this corner?’ Feikermun moved around the couch and stepped towards her, but he halted after only a couple of paces. ‘Here?’
He waved a hand vaguely in her direction, and as he did so the woman faded before my eyes. I blinked, stared. There were only shadows where she had been.
‘Lord Feikermun, she is gone.’
‘Gone? Hah!’ Feikermun threw up his arms and stomped quickly in a circle, his face to the ceiling, grimacing savagely. Then he wheeled on me. ‘But you saw her? You saw her? Describe her!’
I described the woman I had seen. Feikermun’s agitation grew, yet it seemed mingled with an uneasy satisfaction, as though my words had confirmed something for him. He turned to Bondo. ‘You saw her not?’
The bald man shook his head. Feikermun addressed the tall fighter. ‘Nor you, Hircun? Wirm?’
Both men signified no. ‘Yet that is she, as Feikermun has described her to you, is it not?’
‘It is,’ said Bondo, and looked curiously at me.
‘My lord, did you see her just now?’ Hircun asked.
Feikermun shook his shaggy head. He pointed aggressively at me. ‘But you, Cormer, tell me again.’
I repeated my description.
‘But she has gone now?’
‘She has. Lord Feikermun, may I ask, what is this? Who is this woman who has the ability to appear and vanish like this?’
He did not answer me but paced back and forth, his head bowed in an attitude of deep thought. ‘He has seen her. He has seen her,’ he muttered to himself. ‘What does this mean?’
He ceased pacing and glared at me. ‘Are you in league with my enemies?’
‘My lord, I am not. Be assured! Your enemies are unknown to me.’
He paced on. ‘What can it mean? What can it mean?’
Just then there was a loud banging at the chamber door. It
was opened briskly by a sentry, and a young officer of the guard strode in. He gave a quick bow, then hastened to whisper in the ear of the one-eyed Hircun. Hircun in turn stepped forward to speak softly to Feikermun.
‘Ah, the witch!’ Feikermun expostulated. He aimed a minatory finger at the newcomer. ‘Back, then! Keep the enemy contained. Your life and the lives of your children depend on it.’ As the officer departed Feikermun spoke to his general. ‘Well, Hircun, your assessment?’
‘It is pleasing news, Excellency, although we have lost some of our men. Malibeth’s fighters have advanced as we predicted they would. They have occupied a couple of streets in no great number and we have cut off their retreat. If I act quickly now with two score of your best marauders at my side, I will have the enemies’ heads within an hour of first light.’
‘Yes! Excellent! And Feikermun will accompany you. Let the men know that Feikermun fights among them.’ He rubbed his hands together gleefully. ‘Yes, let us indulge in a little light slaughter. My beasts shall have their day. And then soon, by all the devils, I shall make the mad Bitch rue the moment she first dreamed of opposing Feikermun!’
He turned and stormed from the chamber. The fighter Hircun followed.
I remained as I was, dazed. One of the dark slave girls stirred in her sleep and murmured something. I spoke to Wirm, who had risen from his rug. ‘What is happening here?’
Wirm moved close to me, his normally pale cheeks dark, his mouth taut and bitterly twisted. His small eyes burned into me, focused on the vicinity of my cheek. ‘Be warned, Cormer of Chol, you are meddling where you will not be tolerated. Heed my advice carefully: leave here now and do not return. Ever. Fail and you’ll know the price.’
He snatched up his cloak, which lay on the floor beside him, and with a heated glance at Bondo left the chamber.
Bondo eyed me with harsh and amused interest.
‘I am confounded,’ I said. ‘I understand nothing here. What is the matter with Wirm?’
Bondo gave a mirthless chuckle. ‘You have seen what you cannot see; you have done what you should not do. Master Wirm is gravely piqued.’ He patted his belly with both hands and rocked for a moment on the balls of his feet. ‘Ah, well, this is the way of it.’
Then he too gathered his robes about him and strode from the chamber.
Ten
It seemed like madness. I wondered if I was losing my mind. What in the world had happened in Feikermun’s chamber?
I had the feeling that my consciousness had been subject to involuntary alteration, that my mind had been hoisted high and shaken hard, twisted, bent, inverted until it had virtually disintegrated and lay now in fragments; spinning, twirling tatters and shreds. There was nothing to grasp hold of here. Everything felt dangerous, insubstantial, as friable as charred paper to the touch. I had been in Dhaout just a few short hours, yet I had undergone such a relentless assault as to leave my senses deranged. The entire place and everyone in it seemed to be without reason.
I had been escorted back to my chamber on the second floor. I sat now upon my bed. My thoughts raced.
The woman, the strange apparition, who was she? Why had no one but I seen her? Feikermun had known who she was. He was mightily perturbed by my description of her. Plainly she had appeared to him on at least one other occasion. Yet he had not seen her tonight.
What was happening here?
Malibeth? Could she be an enchantress? Had she the ability to project herself, or an image of herself, through space? I could not say. As far as I was aware I had never laid eyes on Malibeth.
News of movements by Malibeth’s fighters had come hard on the heels of the apparition’s vanishing, but that did not necessarily imply a direct connection. But, if she – the apparition -
was not Malibeth, who could she be?
I harked back, wishing to recollect my exact feelings when the woman had first appeared - that is, when I had first become conscious of her presence. It was possible that she had been ‘there’ for some time before I perceived her. My first sight of her had completely disarmed me, thrown my senses into disarray. I felt I knew her, yet did not know how. Her extraordinary beauty and the sheer power of her presence had drawn me to her. I could have wept, so strong was the effect she wreaked upon my emotions. I was aware of nothing but her. I was reeling.
She had worn a slight smile upon her lips; enigmatic, beatific, and yet her eyes held a deep sadness. I had felt rather than seen the aura she emanated and she had somehow reached inside me and touched my most hidden and secretive self. I had been stripped bare.
And then she had gone.
And I did not know who she was.
I did not know who she was.
Just for a moment I questioned whether the whole incident might have been set up. In truth, the others had all seen her. Feikermun had played another ruse in which they were each complicit, though I could think of no reason. But Feikermun needed no reason, other than his own perverse amusement. From the moment I had first entered and sat down he had been playing with me, taking delight in my helplessness when he told me he had executed my men, revelling in the power he held over me. It was plainly in his character to play these games.
But no. The woman had not withdrawn into the shadows or passed from the room. She had faded before my eyes. Could Feikermun command such magical effects?
I realized with a tightening of the muscles of my heart that I did not want this. Not only did I fear what it would mean if Feikermun possessed such abilities, I was agitated by the thought of her being a creation of his, or of anybody’s. I wanted... I wanted her to be. A sense of loss had begun to infuse my mind, that she had come and I had glimpsed her and then she had gone.
For some time I was unaware of anything but bewilderment and a feeling of longing for something I was at a loss to identify.
At last I forced myself to look back over everything else that had taken place in Feikermun’s chamber. I wondered about the conflict in Stonemarker which had sent Feikermun rushing to the fray. Neither he nor his general, Hircun, had shown particular concern over the news the young officer had brought. They seemed in control of the situation and went to battle convinced of victory. In their eyes Malibeth could be beaten.
It was plain that I would have to find out more about the conflict, investigate Malibeth and the forces she commanded. The indications from where I stood signalled that Feikermun was on the verge of securing power - a disturbing thought. And what about the third leader in this divided city? There had been no mention of him. The mystery of the Golden Lamb held good.
Now I wondered about Wirm and his bizarre behaviour during the final moments in Feikermun’s chamber. What could have occasioned his sudden hostility? Wirm was not a friend, nor by any stretch of the imagination a man I would trust, but he had until that moment, presumably for his own ends, been genial and cooperative, even helpful. Like everything else his changed attitude made no sense but simply compounded the overall madness of this place and my situation.
I tried to link Wirm’s volte-face with what had occurred. Was he angered by my vision? Did he know something about the mysterious woman? Had he taken offence at my being the only person privileged to see her? Or could it have been the news of the conflict that had troubled him? Surely it had to be one of these, yet the answer still eluded me.
I thought hard. We had spoken of nothing else during my audience with Feikermun, except for the condition of my two men, Jaktem and Ilian, and the business of the gidsha.
The gidsha!
...by Great Moban’s Knee, how could I have missed it? Suddenly it was plain!
I sat up, for I had been lying in bed in the forlorn hope of sleeping, and I let the fact of it hammer into me. Wirm was Feikermun’s supplier not simply of Twiner flesh: he brought Feikermun the gidsha root! And I had blundered in like an oaf in a blindfold and had whipped away his trade right there in front of him. No wonder his fury! I was fortunate that he had not stabbed me on the spot.
I struck my forehead hard with the heel of my hand, berating myself. I had made an enemy of Wirm here in the one place where his assistance had become almost invaluable. What a fool! What a perfect mooncalf!
How would he respond? Almost certainly he would get rid of me if he could. Would he risk it here, in Dhaout? Yes, if circumstances arose such that suspicion did not fall upon him, but I did not think he would risk offending Feikermun. He would attempt to turn Feikermun against me, which might not be difficult to do. All depended upon the gidsha. I prayed that it was as potent and effective as the Chariness had promised. If it failed to impress Feikermun I would be finished. But, if Feikermun approved, then Wirm’s influence would diminish - though not wholly, of course, for he still had his elver flesh with which to court Feikermun’s favour. Whichever way it went, I had now turned Wirm into a dangerous enemy.
I recalled Vecco’s fate, and shuddered, making a mental note never to return to Guling Mire.
Lying back again, I invoked calming techniques to still my mind. I remained concerned over Jaktem’s and Ilian’s condition and could only hope that they were, as Feikermun had eventually said, still alive. But anything was possible here; I could be sure of nothing other than that one fact: anything was possible.
It was still the middle of the night and there was little I could do but wait for morning, so with difficulty I slept. That is, I think I slept. But at some point I found myself awake and staring across the darkened chamber. She was there. There was no light, yet I could see her perfectly. And she stood as before, motionless, watching me.
‘Who are you?’
‘I cannot tell you now.’
‘Tell me.’
‘You will not understand.’
‘You must have a name?’
I rose from the bed and stood in my nightshirt before her. I was enthralled by her presence. She smiled and shook her head slightly. ‘You cannot know. Not now.’
I stepped forward. I wanted to take her in my arms, to hold her. I felt that I knew her, and yet she was a stranger. I loved her, and was afraid. Never before had I felt this way. I was helpless, wanting, longing for her, but not to possess her, not even to make love to her. Just simply to be with her, and to know, to understand.
But she raised a warning hand and moved back. ‘Do not touch. We cannot.’
‘Why?’
She shook her head. ‘You would not understand.’
Despite her words I reached out and grasped her hand. I had to know, was she ghost or flesh? The hand was warm and soft in mine. For some reason this shocked me. I think I had expected nothingness.
She pulled away quickly. ‘No more!’
‘Please tell me who you are!’
‘You must come. Enter the Citadel.’
‘What?’
‘When you are invited, though it may seem an invitation to your death, do not be afraid. Do not spurn us. Enter the Citadel, seeking. I will be there. There your questions can be answered.’
‘Where is the Citadel?’
‘Just be aware ... Be aware.’
She was fading. How? If she were flesh ...
‘Wait! Don’t leave!’
‘Please come ... I will wait for you there.’
She was gone. The chamber was in darkness. I groped my way back to bed and lay awake in a fever.
Later I wondered whether it could have been a dream.
*
With the dawn I was up and pacing my room. My eyes were swollen and heavy through lack of sleep and brain seethed with unanswered questions. A young woman brought hot water, soap and towels. I asked if I were permitted to leave the chamber; she shrugged and replied that she did not know.
When she had gone I opened the door. There was no guard posted there, though one stood a little
way down the corridor. I stepped out; his eyes flickered my way but he neither made a move nor spoke. I went on down the corridor, away from the guard. Ahead of me a door opened. A tall man came into the corridor.
‘Jaktem!’
‘Master Cormer! We were told you were close by.’
‘Where is Ilian?’
‘Gone into the town, at first light.’
‘Why?’
‘To see what there is to be seen. I am to meet him later.’