The Prophet Of Lamath

by Hughes, Robert Don

  "And he is sure Tohn rides against him?" "Dorlyth wouldn't lie about such a thing." "And he says he needs my sword, does he?" "He does." Chogi shook her head in dismay at this son of hers. Such a splendid physical specimen, and such a sloth! The fact was that, once roused to war, there was no finer swordsman in all the Mar than Pahd mod Pahd-el, Lord of the High City-unless it might be this same Dorlyth. But what did it take to rouse him? She had to build a small fire under him just to move him from this room. Perhaps a sorcerer could aid him, create some interest in the outside world within him, tell him stories, show him tricks-something.

  "But if I go," Pahd was saying, "I'll have to raise an army, and you know how much of a bother it is to raise an army-" "You have a standing force housed in the caverns below this castle!" Chogi yelled. "All you need do is order them to war!" "Yes-I could do that, but it would take most of the afternoon to get the order worded just right, and I haven't even eaten breakfast yet-" "It's dinnertime, dear," Sarie whispered.

  "Dinner then-maybe-" "Yes?" Chogi lan Pahd-el sighed, knowing what was coming.

  "Maybe if I started first thing in the morning-how would that be?" He was ringing the bell to call for service, and the serving lady appeared, bleary-eyed, in the doorway. "Do you think you could find me something to eat? I'm not dressed to come to the table-" The woman curtseyed and went out, and Pahd looked once again at that bumpy, inviting mattress.

  Chogi had gone back to the mail. She knew him well enough to know his mind was made up on the question of aid to Dorlyth. He would wait to decide later.

  "This is bad news, too," she growled. "Production is falling off in the diamond mines. Whatever you've got, Pahd, it's catching." "Oh really?" said Pahd. That was just before his head settled back into his favorite pillow. Before the girl returned with his tray, he was snoring again.

  As Dorlyth had said, the assembly of warriors began around noon. Throughout the morning men and women had scurried about the keep, making preparation for their arrival. Wood was gathered for a fire in the inner court, and barrels of pitch, set aside long ago for just such an eventuality, were rolled out of storage. The pulley system was rehung on both the towers for fast transport of the heated pitch from courtyard to castle walls. Sheaves of arrows were carried to the battlements and placed loosely, tip down, in baskets spaced at ten-yard intervals. Certain of the warriors coming to join Dorlyth were powerful archers; in the initial battle shock, these bowmen would take the highest toll on the enemy. Tohn would not be expecting a siege situation, and a large number of early casualties could dissuade him altogether from further aggression.

  There was a small village to the southwest of Dorlyth's castle, where many of Dorlyth's freemen lived with their wives and children. By ten in the morning, the village was deserted; all of its inhabitants had moved inside the keep. The children had arrived first, driving sheep and goats before them. These were housed in the stable. Older children and youths were then sent to the fields and the woods to collect all the fruits, nuts, and berries that could be found. There was little that was ripe, for it was still early in the season, but Dorlyth was less interested in providing food for the castle than he was in keeping it out of Tohn's hands. Thus the children, though they complained about the waste, obediently returned with half-filled buckets of unripe foods.

  The women worked together to help one another transport what was left of their winter stores to the storage rooms of the keep. The dirt road from village to castle was thick with dust from the constant motion of ox carts traveling back and forth.

  The men of the village helped to strengthen the fortifications, and then dug pits and set traps in the surrounding areas, more for nuisance value than anything else. All bushes and shrubs within fifty feet of the castle walls were cut down, to rob the enemy of any possible cover from watchful eyes above.

  Dorlyth's greatest interest centered on filling the water cisterns, carved of the stone under the floor of the lesser tower. There was no well, and the precious liquid had to be piped from the stream to the base of the rock the castle stood on. There it flowed into a cavern below the lesser tower, and was hoisted up to floor level, bucket by bucket, by means of a water lift. Dorlyth feared that Tohn would cut his main pipe. Though buried for most of its length, it would still be quite evident to a careful observer on the river bank. Dorlyth cut down all the trees between the castle and the point where the pipe entered the water. His archers on the lesser tower would have their main responsibility in keeping the merchant's people away from that line of pipe. If they failed, the water in the cisterns would have to go a long way-and already the keep was getting crowded.

  It grew more so through the afternoon, for warriors from the surrounding areas began to arrive at the gates in twos and threes, then in groups of ten and twelve. By dinnertime, a hundred and fifty experienced fighters crammed the banquet hall, laughing and joking and enjoying the reunion. All had fought beside each other under Dorlyth, but they rarely had the chance to gather together anymore. Only at the winter holiday did many of them see one another, and then only in small groups, for Dorlyth's castle was really too small to hold this many men in peacetime. But a new war had come; some soul as yet unknown to them was bringing them a battle; and so they jammed the tables of their friend and lord and ate happily what was placed before them. That wasn't much-Dorlyth's seneschal had not expected so many. Now he fluttered at the doorway into the kitchens, telling the servers who passed in and out to cut back on the portions.

  "Feed them well!" Doriyth thundered, overhearing his steward as he came into the dining hall.

  "But Lord Doriyth," the steward began anxiously. His voice was drowned in the greetings and cheers. These warriors knew Dorlyth's gravelly bass voice, and they roared their approval of his appearance. The cheers and applause went on for several minutes, and Doriyth beamed back at them, choking a bit, wishing only that Rosha could be here with him to hear this welcome. Then an expectant hush settled over the room, as they waited to hear from Doriyth whom it was they were fighting, and why.

  "I want you to eat well," Doriyth began, and there was another round of cheers before he could go on. "This is the best we could put on the table-" "And that's plenty good for me!" a warrior in back shouted, and there was noisy agreement from all parts of the room.

  "But it may well be the last good meal some of you ever eat," Doriyth finished. Some men nodded assent to this, but there were no more shouts. It was a sobering thought. "I wish I could offer you more. You are my friends, my fellows-in many ways my family. But we're facing a siege, and this castle is not well prepared for siege." "Then why don't we just meet them and beat them out on the field?" someone asked from the back of the room.

  "We may be forced to, depending on how long they decide to stay and on our water situation. But the real victory in this conflict rests in making it last a long time. I see some puzzled looks. I know you are fighters, not sitters. I'll explain. Tohn mod Neelis, whom some of you know personally and all of you know by reputation, is marching against Doriyth castle." "Why?" someone asked.

  "He's the best warrior among the merchants, that's sure," someone in another corner of the room observed.

  "He's breaking the Confederacy then?" an old warrior near the front asked. "Have you informed the sloth?" "The King has been notified," Doriyth answered. "I hope," he added under his breath. "You all are well aware of the King's problem so I won't bore you with it. If Pahd comes, he comes, but I don't expect him. What we do, we must do ourselves, and I've chosen to defend rather than attack-" "But why-" "I'm getting to that. Tohn mod Neelis has broken the Confederacy on the orders of the Council of Elders." "I told you a merchant couldn't be trusted," one soldier growled to his neighbor, then cursed.

  "He is a merchant, and it was well known to the Confederacy before he joined that his real loyalties were elsewhere. So be it. There's nothing we can do now except defend against his coming. He marches against me because he believes I am sheltering a fugitive the merchant families
want badly." "Are you?" someone shouted.

  "If I were, I'd fight to protect him!" Doriyth yelled back, and there was a roar of Mari approval. "The fact is, I no longer am. The party is in the process of escaping the area. I want to give them all the time I can." "And that's why the siege strategy?" a young warrior asked.

  "Look here," Doriyth chuckled. "Even Venad mod Narkis is starting to think like a general!" Laughter greeted Dorlyth's comment, and the young man grinned good-naturedly. He was known for his skill with the bow, not for the quickness of his mind.

  "Our problem is our water supply," Doriyth continued. "If they cut that, we'll be forced to take to the field." There were some scattered cheers in reaction to that, too, but Doriyth shook his head. "No, that's not what I want!" The room grew quiet. "My wish is to keep Tohn tied up for as long as possible without engaging him in battle. The longer we stay inside and the longer he waits, the more time our friends have to get away. And it is imperative that they escape, not only for their safety but for our security as freemen!" All listened grimly to Dorlyth now as he paced behind the head table that lined the length of the platform. Many of these men had been slaves, whose freedom bad been bought or won for them by Dorlyth. They knew little of the relation of other bondsmen of Ngandib-Mar to other lords, and cared less-but their bond to Dorlyth had been forged out of a struggle for personal freedom. They valued it-and listened closely: "It is the purpose of the merchant houses to force total economic slavery on us by crushing our governments and replacing them with merchant kings. This attack is only the first flexing of merchant military muscle, and if we can weaken them now, I say we should do it." Dorlyth stopped pacing, and looked out at this gathering of dear friends. "But I won't risk your lives if I can avoid it. We'll hurt Tohn's army as much as is necessary to drive him home-and hope that he chooses to stay home next time. But I won't waste lives by going out to meet him in the field." "Yet if the water-" "We'll face that if and when we have to," Dorlyth said. Then he held up his hands to stop further comments. "That's enough for now-your dinner is getting cold and so is mine. Let's eat it." Dorlyth sat and began to tear into a slab of beef. Soon the kitchen crew was back in business, and the seneschal had gone back to his worrying.

  As Dorlyth mushed, the bird handler stepped into the room and walked quietly to his side. The man bent and whispered in the swordsman's ear, and left again. It took a few minutes, but enough of the company bad witnessed the exchange that soon the room grew quiet again. Dorlyth, forced to comment, stood once more.

  "My falconer shared some news that you may be interested in. I sent a rider half a day's journey east with orders to watch and count. Tohn mod Neelis will arrive two hours before tomorrow's dawn." He waited for a moment, but no one went back to eating. He smiled. "You want the count. He brings a force of six hundred. Against this crowd, I feel sorry for the man!" There was laughter then, and Dorlyth sat down to sop his plate. He felt a weariness in his bones, and he looked forward to sleep. It had been a long day, and tomorrow would be longer.

  They rode from before dawn to well after midnight, with precious few stops. What few moments of rest they had taken were too short by half, in Bronwynn's estimation. All three riders were exhausted, and the last few hours of the journey had been especially tense with the passing of the light. The night was moonless; and though the stars were brilliant, they did little to light the way. Instead they dazzled the eyes, making the ground and trees seem only more black and shapeless. Pelman's commands took on a sharp edge, for the rough terrain seemed determined to part them from one another. He spoke only when necessary, so deep was his concentration on holding them together. Rosha, of course, said nothing. There were times when Bronwynn felt herself all alone in the universe, and several times she said silly things just for the sake of hearing a human voice tell her to be quiet. She tried to content herself with the muted shuffle of horses moving cautiously through moist new grass and mud. She rubbed her cheek along the feathers of the falconet that stolidly rode her shoulder, and passed the time by quietly voicing various names for the bird. She settled finally on Sharki, though she really didn't know why that appealed to her. It did seem to her, though, that she had heard sailors tell her father of a great sea creature by that name that was as graceful and deadly in the water as her falcon was in the air.

  "Sharki I'll call you," she whispered to the bird.

  "Quiet!" Pelman scolded.

  They rode on.

  She sang songs in her head, counted hoofbeats, rehearsed a score of biting replies she would give the next time Pelman hushed her-and she sighed a great deal. What about this Rosha, what does he think about? she wondered. He was back behind her again. Pelman had appointed him to keep her from getting lost-and she one of the best horsewomen in the whole Chaon court! Just when Bronwynn was ready to scream in frustration, Pelman decided to stop.

  "Quietly now," he said, "I know you're both exhausted, but I need your help. We are at the edge of the Great North Fir. Dismount and come here beside me." Bronwynn swung her right leg over her pony's rump, and was about to drop to the ground when she felt strong hands clasp her waist. Startled, she yelped.

  "J-j-just me-" Rosha whispered quickly.

  "Well, warn me next time," she snapped. The loudness of her voice surprised her.

  Pelman warned her again, "Quietly, Bronwynn!" Unfortunately, she had so unnerved herself that she couldn't remember any snappy replies. Instead, she jerked free from Rosha and walked, hands outstretched before her, in the direction of the black shape she knew was Pelman. Rosha followed closely behind her. As they neared the magician, each imagined the dark shape was moving his hands before him. Then they realized that he was indeed, and that an orange glow was forming two feet from his face, at eye level.

  Soon it was a ball, and Pelman caused it to rise above his head. "Look around. Gather all the firewood you can find and place it directly under this light-and please do it quickly!" The young people moved off to obey, Rosha vigorously, Bronwynn reluctantly. The powershaper knelt on the ground and closed his eyes. While sustaining the fireball in midair, he concentrated most of his power elsewhere. By the time he opened his eyes, the boy and girl had returned, and Rosha was building a cone of small logs below the fireball. The girl sat and watched him, her face drawn, her eyes heavy.

  "Very good," Pelman announced loudly, and both looked up at him, surprised. He had been kneeling for half an hour, and Bronwynn had assumed he was sleeping. "How about a little fire?" he murmured, waving his hand. They all watched as the fireball dropped onto the carefully stacked wood. It burst almost immediately into a nice little blaze, and Pelman smiled at Bronwynn. "Now that was easy enough, wasn't it?" "For you maybe." She shrugged. "You didn't have to carry the wood." She wrapped her fur cloak around her, and moved as close to the fire as she could stand. The night had turned cold. Pelman shook his head, and he and Rosha moved swiftly to put up the tent. It was a fine shelter, made of that costly fish-satin acquired with such effort by divers in a land so far away no one included it when the world was discussed. Packets of food were broken open and shared out. Bronwynn wolfed hers down without a complaint about its quality.

  Once wanned and fed, the little group felt their spirits improve considerably. Pelman began to tell stories that set Rosha to giggling, and Bronwynn relaxed and dreamed of other places. After a time the conversation between sorcerer and fledgling warrior took on a more serious tone.

  "I don't know what the relationship is," Pelman said. "I only know there are powers, and then there is the Power. Powers one may shape, if one has the gift. But the Power seems to work on men as a magician works on the wind and fire." "The P-p-p-power is greater than m-men, then," Rosha concluded, taking a bite of a crust of bread.

  "Perhaps-if you say that which controls is more powerful than the object it controls. But it isn't always so, you know. I can shape the wind and yet it can still blow out of my control and possibly harm me. I am not greater than the wind-I don't compare myself with it. Perha
ps I shouldn't compare myself to the Power, either. I may sometime find ways of controlling even that." Rosha raised an eyebrow in comment. "And yet," Pelman continued, as the boy had expected he would, "perhaps I tease myself when I say that. The wind may blow me, but it has no soul. The Power-" Rosha looked surprised. "The P-p-power has a s-ssoul?" Pelman smiled. "A bad word, maybe. The Power has conscious being, something the powers lack." "B-but how did you f-f-find it?" Pelman chuckled. "I didn't. It found me." "Where?" "In this forest." "B-b-but-didn't your ab-ability find you in this fforest,too?" "Yes, in a way. But my ability I wished for. I did not wish for the Power to control me." "C-could it be that the P-p-power gave you the ability?" "I suppose-" "Or that you c-could ask the Power to c-control you, and that it would?" "I don't know," Pelman said, truly surprised at the depth of the young man's thinking. "I don't know if I could enter that state by trying-" "Don't try!" Rosha said, pushing his jaws together fiercely to form the words. "If you are n-not in control, then we m-may fall into d-danger!" "You're right, of course. I won't. But I need to warn you, Rosha. The deeper we travel into this great forest, the more chance that this Power will take me. It is a risk we run-" Rosha snorted derisively.

  "Why did you do that?" Rosha struggled to answer. "M-my father said 'Let it b-be his risk, for he s-s-somehow is p-p-pulled to it. You ca-can't stop him, but d-do d-d-defend him.'" Rosha looked almost angry.