by Rick Shelley
Castle Coriander sat atop a low man-made mound in the center of a mile-wide clearing—also man-made. The village was at the southwest edge of the clearing and even smaller and more primitive-looking than Nushur. This was just a couple of dozen rough cottages. The castle had one refinement I hadn’t seen before. The outer wall was lined with long barbed spikes, a nasty complication for anyone trying to scale it. The castle had no moat, not even a dry ditch, so it needed something.
The besieging army was there all right, at the edge of the clearing and in the village. The circle was complete. The Fairy army could move to intercept anyone coming out of the castle … or trying to get in.
We rode in a tight group, keeping Annick in the middle. Her hair was braided and under the hood of a forest-green cape. We didn’t want to advertise that we had a girl with us. That might look fishy in a combat zone. And I had removed my Cubs cap and replaced it with the steel pot that Harkane had brought along for me. I also had the mail shirt on again, despite the way it hurt me. We followed the road leading toward the castle gate, past hundreds of soldiers—men and those troll-like creatures—but only a few people who looked as though they had elvish blood. No one showed much interest in us at first. If the soldiers noticed anything, it was the elf sword hanging over my shoulder. I was acutely conscious of the sword myself. I had to fight the urge to draw it. I started whistling the sword’s melody under my breath, and that was no conscious choice. I couldn’t help it. As we neared the front lines, at the edge of the clearing, the number of Fairy soldiers increased. Finally, a mail-clad soldier blocked our path and held up his hand for us to stop.
“Go,” I whispered. It would have been too much to hope for to think that we could get all the way through without a challenge. We put our heels to our horses. I drew Dragon’s Death, and the soldier jumped out of its path. More soldiers came at us from the sides of the road, but not quickly enough to get in front of us. And then, after we were out in the clearing, archers started aiming for us.
“Unfurl that pennant,” I shouted as an arrow skidded along my arm, ripping the fatigue shirt and sparking on the mail beneath it. The arrows kept coming. Somehow, we avoided any serious wounds, though we all received minor cuts in that first flurry. I had a nick taken out of my right leg. Two horses were also hit, but not badly enough to stop them.
Harkane waved my pennant. Lesh bellowed my identity as loud as he could, over and over, starting long before anyone inside the castle could possibly understand what he was shouting. Halfway there, I looked over my shoulder. Several dozen soldiers were chasing us, about half of them on horseback. They couldn’t head us off, but we wouldn’t have time to dicker for the gate to be opened. If it wasn’t open when we reached it, we would have to fight—if our pursuers risked coming that close to the castle wall.
Fifty yards. I saw people above the gate, but no movement that suggested that they were ready to open up. Harkane kept waving the pennant. Lesh kept yelling. Then there was finally some movement on the parapets. I heard a creaking start. Then I looked over my shoulder again …
… and something happened.
I don’t know exactly what the cause was, but my horse stumbled and I went headlong over him, rolling and tumbling when I hit the dirt. I went down hard, ending up on my back, and that sent such a shock of pain through me that I nearly passed out. My horse jumped over me and kept going toward the castle. I rolled over and found that I still had the elf sword in my hand. Getting up proved to be nearly impossible. I only managed to get as far as my knees by the time Lesh and Harkane got back to me. Annick had her bow out and she was doing her best to slow down the pursuit. I pulled myself up to my feet, using Lesh’s leg and stirrup to help support my weight. Together, Lesh and Harkane managed to get me up on the horse behind Harkane. I was too shaken to do anything but hold on. Somewhere during this time, Annick stopped shooting arrows and chased down my horse. It carried one of the sacks of sea-silver.
We got to the gate with about a half second to spare. Archers on the battlements turned our pursuers back. More armed men waited for us inside the gate. There were plenty of hands to help me down from behind Harkane—and to support me afterward. I would have fallen without help. Harkane was too shaken by the accident to make his usual announcement of who I was, and Lesh was too busy trying to see to me, so I ended up introducing myself.
“I’m Gil Tyner, Hero of Varay.” I left off all the jazz about being prince and heir that Harkane would have added. “I need to see the castellan at once.”
“I recognize your companions, and I see your father in you,” one of the soldiers said. I had lost my steel pot when I fell. “I’m Baron Dieth, Castellan of Coriander.” Nothing about his dress distinguished him from the men around him.
“Let’s go inside,” he said. “You all look to be in need of a meal.” That drew a weak smile from me and a noisy smacking of the lips from Lesh.
“We need to talk, Baron,” I said. I could hardly recognize my own voice. “But first I’ve got to check our cargo.” As I feared, both of the sacks holding sea-silver had been pierced during the fusillade. At least Annick had managed to catch my horse after it threw me. We still had both bags of seaweed. “We need to keep this stuff wet—new pouches filled with water. And I’d like to save as much of the seawater that’s left in here as possible.”
Baron Dieth gave orders, and two of his men carried the leather bags of silver seaweed into the keep, doing what they could to slow down the leakage. We followed. Lesh and Harkane half-carried me. I was too wobbly to navigate on my own.
“I was your father’s first squire when he became Hero,” Dieth said. “I still grieve at his death.”
16
To Sleep
Coriander had been built strictly for its military function, and it was only barely adequate for that. No thought at all had been given to the comfort of its garrison or to style. Coriander was small, smoky, and horribly crowded with people, animals, and bugs.
Servants were beginning to haul in supper when we reached the great hall, but supper had to wait a few minutes for my companions and me. Dieth and one of his people worked to clean and tape the new cuts we had all received running the gauntlet to get into the castle. Then, at Annick’s insistence, my back had to be looked after.
“Not good,” Dieth said after he had looked and prodded about a bit. “I picked up some first aid from your father. I’d say the lowest rib is definitely broken, the one just above may be, and there seems to be infection in the wound. I can help some, but you really need more attention than I can provide here. Parthet or your mother would be better qualified.” He turned away from me and shouted across the great hall. “Aerbith, I’ll need a poultice of rimeweed and the flask of number.” He pronounced the last word num-mer, not num-ber. From “numb”—at least, that’s how the translation magic gave it to me.
The poultice was bandaged over the wound on my back and stung worse than iodine or Mercurochrome ever did. I squirmed and twisted until Dieth made me drink about a jigger of a bitter green liquid. I can’t begin to describe that, but it was the vilest taste I’ve ever experienced. Still, by the time I sat up and started to put my shirt back on after my ribs had been taped again, the pain in my back was almost gone.
“Better,” I said—cautiously, trying a few easy movements.
“That should take care of you for a few hours, time enough to get through supper at least,” Dieth said.
Dieth put the four of us at the head of the single trestle table with him. There were loads of food and plenty of beer. Coriander might be under siege, but the magic passages made siege a poor weapon against Varay. An enemy would have to ring every possible supply point for siege to work, as long as there was someone around to open the passages. The entire country would have to be under the domination of an invader, not to mention a certain house in Louisville, Kentucky. As long as there was a family member to open the doors, Varay could resist—unless a greater magic could block the passages. I didn’t
know if that was possible, but after my run-in with the Elflord of Xayber, I suspected that it might be.
“We haven’t been able to send out our usual patrols for ten days now,” Dieth said once we were at the table and starting to eat. “The elflord’s had us corked up tight.”
“Ten days? It’s just been six or seven since we saw all the men heading south,” I said. I dug right into the food as if I hadn’t eaten in weeks. At least the number made it possible for me to shove food in without pain.
Dieth shrugged expansively. “Then they’ve simply thrown another coil around us, not that they needed it. If Arrowroot’s near as hard pressed as we are, there won’t be a man available to send against the Etevar.”
“You know the situation, then?” I asked, talking around a mouth full of food.
“The Wizard Parthet was here a week back, on his way to Arrowroot. He briefed me. But when he saw the elflord’s army outside here, he said he didn’t know how it would affect the campaign.”
“A week ago? What was he doing, riding?”
“Of course not. He came and went by the doors, the way he always does. Maybe it was even nine or ten days ago. I’m not positive anymore. It’s been too hectic here.”
It didn’t make sense. Parthet wouldn’t have gone to Arrowroot to meet me that far back. It couldn’t have been ten days before. We had left only nine days ago, and he wouldn’t have started out just as we were leaving. Maybe he was inspecting, or maybe he was just moving closer to Fairy to better cast my message to the Elf king. With the doors, Parthet could flit around Varay at will.
“You’ll stay the night?” Dieth asked somewhat later. The pace of eating had slowed down a little. I still had an appetite, but I wasn’t cramming it in quite so roughly.
I shook my head and took a quick gulp of beer to wash down food. “I have to get to Basil and tell the king and Baron Kardeen what we’ve managed. But even before that, I need a quick peek at Arrowroot.” While I was still free of pain. “You’ll show me the doors?”
“Of course, lord.”
I stopped shoveling food in for a moment and looked at Dieth. “You were my father’s squire?”
“Many years ago, when I was just a lad.”
“When this crisis is over, I hope we have time for many long talks. I never knew of my father’s life here. A few weeks ago, I didn’t even know that Varay existed.” Something about the drug Dieth had given me must have mellowed my mood as well.
Dieth nodded. He did seem pained by Dad’s death, even in the middle of his own nasty little war.
After taking in a little more food and beer, I collected my people. We got back into our war gear and went for the doors. The passage to Arrowroot was in the cellar of Coriander’s keep. The door to Castle Basil was on the floor above the great hall.
“Have your swords ready when I open the way to Arrowroot,” I said. “I don’t know how close the danger will be.” The rest of our weapons were back in the great hall, except for my pistol, and I had pretty much discarded that from my thoughts. I stood in front of the door and stared at the silver tracing.
“You know where in Arrowroot this opens?” I asked Dieth.
“I’ve never been down here when it was open,” he said. “It doesn’t get much use. The old doorway opened into a gate tower on the Mist side of the castle, but your father set up a new passage after I left his service.”
“We going straight through?” Lesh asked.
“Depends on what happens when I open the way.” My palms were sweating. I couldn’t have been more nervous if I were about to stick my hand into a snake charmer’s basket. “Ready?” I looked around at my companions.
“Aye, lord,” Lesh said. Annick and Harkane nodded.
I stretched my hands toward the silver. I remembered the sense of danger from that first day, and I had seen enough evidence of the danger sense since. I closed my eyes while I took a deep breath, then opened them again.
“Here goes.” I touched my rings to the silver. The passage opened to a door on a blank corridor. I didn’t see anyone, any clue to what might be happening there, but a wave of such deadly peril engulfed me that I stepped back in a hurry and broke the connection.
“What is it?” Everyone asked that, more or less in unison.
“The worst I’ve felt.” Everyone understood what I meant, even Dieth, since he had once been Dad’s squire.
“You think the elflord’s taken Arrowroot?” Dieth asked.
“Or worse.” I wasn’t sure what I meant, but I didn’t have any doubt that the elflord could find something worse.
“What will you do now?” Dieth asked.
“Go to Basil and see if they know anything about it there. Then I think I’ll probably still have to go into Arrowroot.” I was the Hero, after all. Any solution was going to have to come from me, no matter what the problem was.
“If you’ll open the way here again, I’ll go through and start whatever needs doing,” Annick said.
“I don’t think so,” I told her.
“If you know what the danger is, you can prepare for it better,” she said.
I shook my head. Maybe Annick could do the spying, but if the elflord’s army had taken the castle, there was a good chance that she would just start killing and keep at it until somebody killed her. I didn’t want to give Xayber any more warning than absolutely necessary.
Dieth showed us to the doorway to Basil after we collected the rest of our gear and the new pouches with the sea-silver.
“Thanks for your help, Baron,” I told him. “We may be back this way or go straight on to Arrowroot from Basil.” I opened the passage—not a hint of danger at Basil. Annick, Lesh, and Harkane stepped through while I held the way open.
“Until we meet again, lord,” Dieth said as I got ready to follow my companions. He touched his hand to his head in salute. I nodded and went through the door.
We came through in one of Basil’s gate towers and headed across the courtyard for the keep and great hall. It was late evening. Supper was over, but a few men were still at the long table drinking.
“Lesh, check Parthet’s room and workshop. See if he’s around.” If he wasn’t at Basil, I’d have to pop through to his cottage, but I wanted to check the castle first. “I’m going to look for Kardeen. Harkane, find Timon. Maybe he knows what’s going on here.”
“What about me?” Annick asked peevishly.
“You’d better stay with me. You may have answers I don’t.”
Kardeen’s chambers were a floor above the king’s, close enough whenever His Majesty might want him. I banged on Kardeen’s door and waited until he called out—not too happily, I thought. The room was dark, so I took a torch from the hall with me. When Kardeen saw me, he got up fast and pulled on a fur robe.
“We were afraid you were lost,” he said as he hurried across the room, knotting the belt on his robe.
“Why?” I cocked my head a little to the side. “It’s only been nine days. Parthet said he didn’t think we could get back in less than ten, that it would probably take even longer than that.”
“Nine days?” Kardeen shook his head. “It’s been twice that.”
It was my turn to shake my head. “Impossible. Four and a half days going north, four days coming back.” I looked at Annick, who had stopped right in the doorway. “Nobody said I lost that much time during my struggle with the elflord.”
“It couldn’t have been an hour,” Annick said. “But time does strange things in Fairy. I’ve never heard of it running that much faster, but time is different there.”
I started to protest instinctively. Time is time. All parts of a solid world have to rotate in the same period. It was an outrage to the laws of physics to think otherwise … but then, there was a lot about the buffer kingdoms that seemed to have little relation to the laws of physics—magic doorways, ethereal duels, dragons. Those dragons had no more business flying than Wrigley Field would. But the protest never got out of my mouth.
&nbs
p; “Where’s Parthet?” I asked instead.
“At Arrowroot, waiting for you. He wouldn’t stay here.”
“Have you heard anything from him?”
“Not for a week. Why?” I told him about the intense danger I felt from Arrowroot and about the siege of Coriander. He knew about Coriander.
“Your mother has been handling their resupply, opening the way,” Kardeen said.
“How much time do we have to meet the Etevar?”
“Little enough to intercept him at Castle Thyme, at the border. If you opened a passage at Arrowroot this minute, then rode your horse to death, you might barely have time to reach Thyme ahead of the Dorthini army. And you say there’s trouble at Arrowroot and Coriander.”
“There is. When I ride east, I’ll start from here. I’ve been over that route before. Does that buy me enough time?”
He nodded hesitantly. “It should, a day or two. But we can’t abandon the northern castles if they’re under siege.”
“Did you send any other men on toward Thyme?”
“We have six hundred men near there now. That’s not nearly enough to hold the Dorthini army.”
I closed my eyes to think. There could be no help from either of the northern castles unless the elflord backed off, and if he already controlled Arrowroot, I didn’t see any way to make him back off. “I guess I have to go into Arrowroot first,” I said. “Find out just what’s going on there. Can you find me a half-dozen soldiers?”
“We’ll find them. When will you go?”
“Before dawn, when most of the people there should still be asleep, whether they’re ours or Xayber’s. Maybe we can raise a little hell.”
“We can do that!” Annick said. Kardeen looked at her.
“You’re Resler’s niece?” he asked. She nodded.