Snowcastles & Icetowers

by Duncan McGeary

  PART TWO: ICETOWERS

  Chapter One

  The dim light of the desk lamp slowly revealed the pale ghostly face of the demon. At first, only the tortured, emaciated head of the Wyrr appeared before him, its thin lips forming soundless words. Danger! It seemed to be saying. Danger!

  A sense of evil permeated the bedroom, and Greylock realized that this dream was different from the others. He was awake, his eyes were wide open, but this seemed to have no effect on the clarity of the vision. Always before the demons had appeared in the guise of beauty, pleading for him to return to the Twilight Dells. They called him their Deliverer, and begged with an overpowering intensity for him to save them.

  “Beware Godshome!” the demon said, though Grey lock heard no word. He seemed to understand what the demon wanted of him. “The mountain awakes!”

  This was the entire message of the Wyrr, but it repeated the thought over and over again, until Greylock knew that his eyes had closed and he was truly asleep.

  He could not resist the intensity of their need! It mattered not that he denied being the Deliverer; the dreams came without bidding, night after night.

  Something passed before the lamp, briefly darkening the glowing face and breaking the spell. Greylock woke with the warning “The mountain awakes!” still echoing in his mind. His bed was drenched with sweat.

  But his relief at wakening was quickly replaced by alarm.

  A broad, gleaming blade hung suspended over him, its tip pointing downward only inches from his exposed chest. Greylock rolled violently off the bed to the floor.

  The assassin’s blade grazed his shoulder as it descended with the powerful force of unseen arms and gravity, passing through the bedding and fixing itself into the wooden frame. Unable to see who his attacker was, Greylock lunged to where Thunderer hung by its hilt from the wall. But before he could reach the royal sword he heard the grunt of the assassin as the other blade was pulled from the bed with a dull squeak.

  Greylock turned instinctively, without drawing Thunderer from its bejeweled sheath, and caught the assassin’s second blow on its glittering side. The other blade shattered a ruby and sliced through the yellow glyden, striking the steel of Thunderer.

  The assassin backed off, still too dark and fleeting a figure to identify. The shadow apparently expected Greylock to draw Thunderer, and seemed willing to let him do so while he caught his own breath. But Greylock pursued the retreating assassin without drawing the sword and struck at the side of the man’s head. The attacker collapsed limply.

  By the time the guards had responded to the clashing swords, Greylock had already rolled the man over and held the lamp to his face.

  It was another faceless assassin, one among many, a young man that the Tyrant did not know well, but was sure he had seen among the gatherings of the royal families.

  As the guards dragged the unconscious youth away, Greylock rubbed his shoulder and reflected ruefully that if the assassin had chosen a knife for that first plunge instead of a sword, or if the bed had been against the wall instead of standing free, the assassination attempt would have been successful.

  Slimspear would be enraged when he learned of the attack, Greylock thought. The steward would replace the guards, and punish the young man. But the attacks would continue for as long as he was Tyrant. He himself had once held the same ambitions. A Tyrant was fit to rule only so long as he could defend himself from those who thought themselves smarter and stronger—and luckier. How much longer would his luck last?

  The Tyrant realized that it was hopeless to try to go back to sleep, and was surprised to see that morning was breaking. Stopping only to put on his sword, he began climbing to the topmost guardroom of his icetower to survey his realm.

  It was a warm morning, and as he sat on the very edge of the balcony, he could almost believe that the snows were melting at last, that the glacier was drawing back to the summit of Godshome, never to return. In its place would be a fertile land, he thought, a warm land, a land finally capable of feeding all his people.

  The vigilance of the guards patrolling the white ramps of the snowcastle testified that the hoped-for thaw had not occurred, and that not all his people were content with his rule.

  The Tyrant gazed toward Godshome reproachfully, but the mountain was, as usual, indifferent to his anger. “Beware of Godshome!” the demon had said, and somehow the Tyrant was not surprised.

  He had climbed the icetower’s lonely turret quite often lately, to stare at the mountain and to rebuke the gods who were said to dwell within. But they had never answered his curses. Surrounded on three sides by the looming mountain peaks, it seemed to him that sometimes his domain was clutched between the threatening claws of an awesome creature of cold and ice, an evil, heartless creature that would one day leap and ravage the High Plateau.

  His land was now suffering from the latest challenge by the mountain. For a while the unpredictable snows had almost succeeded in destroying the icemelts, those precious oases of volcanic warmth that sustained the snowcastles, dotting the ice with startling patches of greenery. An unusually heavy snowfall, followed by a strange warming of the lava rock, had begun pushing the glacier downward.

  Just the day before he had inspected the network of caverns which ran beneath the plateau. He had felt for himself the warm air, coming from somewhere deep within the mountain.

  For centuries the icemelts had thawed the glacier as fast as the snows could encroach. Islands of sanctuary had been created, and the ponderous glaciers had been gently parted on their downward journey. Each snow- castle was surrounded by an icemelt, keeping the massive ice from tearing the icetowers from their moorings.

  Now, suddenly, the mountain was threatening to upset this ancient equilibrium. Was this what the demon had meant?

  He leaned further out over the parapet, looking for his own marker of the glacier’s progress. The turret was round and bare, with casements on four sides separated by narrow pillars of stone. Now he grasped one of the supports with his right hand and searched for the lava rock that had long ago been caught at the base of Godshome to be carried inexorably downward in its grip.

  He sighted the black boulder at last, and was shocked by how far it had traveled since he had last seen it. As a small child he had first noticed the stone from this very balcony; later he had begun to align it with the corners of Castle Tyrant. The boulder had taken many years to move halfway down one wall. In the last few weeks, however, it had covered the rest of the distance.

  His eyes lifted to the ugly black smoke, which spiraled over the snowcastles. He could see the flames created by the magic of Moag flickering over the snows. If they survived this crisis, Greylock thought, it would be with the help of the fire wizard.

  The floor of the icetower suddenly began to tremble, shocking him from his daydreams. Then the room swayed violently to one side, and he lost his grip on the stone pillar. As he started to slide toward the edge of the parapet, he saw to his horror that there was nothing to keep him from being pitched onto the hard- packed ice far below.

  He clawed desperately at the sweating ice of the tower, but his numbed fingers slipped off the surface futilely and into space.

  A beefy hand caught him firmly at the base of his neck as he reached the edge, and held him motionless in its powerful grasp. The mountain continued to sway for a few moments, then, as though frustrated in its attempt to kill him, grew still.

  Greylock quickly rolled backward onto the cold floor of the guardroom-.

  “You should not be up here alone, Tyrant!” he heard a familiar voice say above him. “Must I watch over you every minute?”

  Greylock looked up to see the plump and disapproving face of Steward Slimspear. “Oh?” he said, smiling. “And where were you last night?”

  The steward’s face flushed, and Greylock was instantly sorry that he had teased his old friend. It appeared that Slimspear had heard about the assassination attempt.

  “I beg your forgiveness, my l
ord!” the steward cried. “The guards have been replaced and will be punished. No one should be able to reach you without being challenged!”

  “It was just a boy, Slimspear,” the Tyrant said lightly. “I was never in any real danger.” Despite his tone, Greylock was shaken by the narrowness of his two escapes. If it had not been for the Warning of the Wyrr…

  Another slight tremor ran through the icetower, and he glanced down at the guards far below to see if they had noticed the trembling. They continued to patrol, unperturbed. Such tremors were not unusual on Godshome, though a large, destructive earthquake had not visited the plateau for many years.

  But Greylock did not trust the mountain to stay so quiet. All was not well within the mountain. His instincts for the forces working beneath the ground had grown much sharper of late. Once this sense had manifested itself in the simple skills of mountain climbing, and an uncanny ability to find his way. Now the very earth seemed to speak to him. The Gatekeepers told many stories of past destructions, he thought, of the mountain opening up with ash and fire. And now there was the warning of the Wyrrs.

  He uneasily turned from the sight and saw that Slimspear was still standing back diffidently, rigid and formal despite having just saved Greylock’s life. The severe posture was slightly ludicrous to the Tyrant, who knew from experience just how lazy and carefree Slimspear really was. The pudgy shape of the steward’s waist, and the cheerful lines in his round face, testified to this lack of discipline. In any other man, Greylock would have disapproved. But in Slimspear he forgave the indulgence.

  He himself was still slim and vigorous, unlike the lords of the other snowcastles, who, like Slimspear, usually let themselves go to pot. The Tyrant had tried to make himself an example to the other nobles of the High Plateau by sharing with servants and nobles alike what little food came from the icemelts of Castle Tyrant, but a massive girth had long meant status and he had been unable to change them. It was the slender ones, the hungry ones, he thought, that he had to look out for.

  His long hair, once black with a single gray lock, was now nearly all gray, cut square away from his face. Despite the gray mane, he moved with a speed and grace that came only with youth, and his dark eyes were bright. As was the custom with the people of the High Plateau, he dressed lightly despite the cold, and his simple tunic revealed a lithe, but finely muscled body. The royal sword Thunderer never left his side, for he was Tyrant only so long as he possessed the talisman.

  Right now he was wishing that he had not appointed Slimspear to the office of steward, though he knew that there had been no other choice at the time. He had looked among the new subjects to find that there was no one else he could trust. He had immediately installed Slimspear, the one man he could still trust, as steward in place of the missing Carrell Redfrock, the man he most distrusted.

  The Tyrant frowned at the thought of Carrell Redfrock. The guards had never found the old steward after his escape from the throne room, when Greylock had revealed the sword Thunderer. Long after he had been proclaimed Tyrant of the High Plateau, the feeling persisted in Greylock that the crafty traitor was still hiding somewhere on the mountain.

  Slimspear was continuing to stand at attention, and Greylock realized sheepishly that the steward was waiting for permission to speak. He sighed at the formality.

  “Was there something you wanted to tell me, Slimspear?”

  “Mayor Tarelton has just arrived from Bordertown, Tyrant,” the steward announced. “He wishes to speak to you again—immediately.” Slimspear mimicked this last word with a withering tone of contempt.

  Greylock frowned at this news. The once mighty lord high mayor of Border Keep was now the lowly mayor of Bordertown, a servant to the townspeople, watched always and reviled. Despite his lowered rank, the mayor remained irritatingly arrogant.

  Steward Slimspear received the instructions he seemed to be expecting.

  “Tell Mayor Tarelton that I will see him tomorrow, at my regular audience.”

  After all, he thought, the mayor was not officially his servant, though the yeomen had made it clear that Tarelton was to take orders from him as well. The revenge of the humble farmers on the mayor for his once dictatorial rule was subtle, but potent.

  “Wait,” he said, as Slimspear turned to leave. “On second thought, I will see him. Have him come to my chambers for breakfast.”

  Slimspear looked as though he was about to object, then he nodded and left the guardroom.

  Greylock turned to look at Godshome. The sun was suddenly caught behind the middle peak, and it grew dark in the guardroom. At the same moment, a shudder ran through the tower.

  For a few seconds Greylock thought the shudder was his own, but then realized that another quake was rumbling through Godshome. He left the turret abruptly, for the room had begun to freeze suddenly in the absence of sunlight. As he followed the winding steps down into Castle Tyrant, he tried to justify to himself giving the mayor a private audience. He realized that he dreaded another morning alone, spent staring into the giant fireplace of the throne room, fearing the mountain.

  Mayor Tarelton was not happy. The mayor was never very satisfied with the state of affairs, but occasionally Greylock had been able to ignore the intensity of his complaints. Not on this morning. It seemed, from what the mayor was saying, that the people of the High Plateau were doing everything in their power to obstruct the men of Bordertown in their attempts to create trade between the two domains. And it seemed as well that it was the Tyrant’s entire fault, though the mayor was careful never to say so in so many words.

  “Your people must show more cooperation, Tyrant Greylock,” the mayor insisted again. “We are forced to pry every bit of trade from them.”

  “I cannot reverse the centuries of isolation overnight,” Greylock repeated. “You must remember that, Mayor Tarelton.”

  “My people tell me that they are meeting resistance at every stage,” the mayor said in his high voice. “Can you not at least direct your people to help us? It is to the advantage of both our countries. You need our food, our clothing, all the things you never had before to make your lives comfortable.”

  “And you need our glyden?” Greylock finished for him.

  The mayor did not appear to be amused. Again, Greylock wondered what kept Tarelton working so hard when it was for the benefit of others. He seemed driven, not just by his own people, but by something deeper and hidden. Once the Tyrant had thought the punishment for the mayor to be merited. Now he could only feel sorry for the man.

  The lord high mayor had become a pitiful figure in the last year. Once the tall red-haired man had been bedecked in the finest robes and jewels. Now he was reduced to a single, worn green robe, which he was obviously not finding warm enough on the High Plateau. Tarelton had always been thin; now he appeared scrawny and unhealthy.

  As always, the familiar was on Tarelton’s shoulder, a rat, peeking out hungrily from under the tangled red hair of his master. At first the familiar had been taken from Tarelton, but the mayor had become so agitated that the farmers had kindly, perhaps foolishly, allowed him to keep his pet.

  It was this animal that kept Greylock from trusting the man, even now. It reminded him too much of the black crow of Steward Redfrock, which had always seemed to be hovering over tragedy.

  Tarelton and his familiar were both closely” watched, of course. Even in the presence of the Tyrant, the mayor had one of the sturdy farmers at his back not as a servant, but as a guard. Greylock smiled at the young man, but did not recognize him.

  “I will instruct my people again, Tarelton,” he said. “But it will take some time for my people to adjust.”

  “Some of my men—not I, of course—I instantly reprimand them—feel that the resistance is coming from the top. They feel that one or two leaders are responsible for the slowdown, and if they were to be removed …”

  “Oh?” The one word was cold, the end of the discussion. The Tyrant wondered how much of a threat had been in the m
ayor’s words.

  Greylock did not blame his people for refusing to deal with the Underworlders, though he encouraged them to trade. It was becoming difficult to remain friendly with the men of Bordertown, who were accustomed to sharp trading with the fiefdoms of Trold. The people of the High Plateau, on the other hand, had never had anything with which to trade, and Greylock was hearing more and more complaints of his people being cheated. This he knew was the real source of the High Plateau’s resistance, not the reluctance of its leaders.

  The Underworlders seemed to be interested only in gaining more of the precious metal glyden, something that Greylock had first noticed in the wizard Moag, but which he had come to learn was common to them all. He had rewarded the men of Border town well after they had helped him gain the throne. In his first flush of gratitude he had thrown open the royal treasury. Even Mayor Tarelton, who had proven to be a reluctant and treacherous ally—and though Greylock could not prove it, in league with Carrell Redfrock— had been given some of the glyden. There had seemed enough for all.

  But now the Underworlders seemed to believe that there was no end to the treasure. Though some of the townsmen remained honest, such as the yeoman Harrkor, they tended to stay on their farms and let the mayor, guarded by one of their number, conduct the business.

  Throughout the meal, the rat familiar had peered hungrily at the food. Greylock refused to have it feed at the table when he was eating. The animal had grown as scrawny as its master over the last year, now that it did not have the pick of the food, and its fur seemed to have ruffled a bit with age, both of which only seemed to add to the evil in its long face.

  Now it darted down its master’s chest and lunged for a scrap of meat. Greylock struck out at it, but the rat proved too quick and retreated with its prize to its nest under Tarelton’s red hair.

  Losing his appetite, Greylock pushed away from the table and approached the fireplace. The throne room was occupied by two bare thrones, a low crude table, and an enormous fireplace with logs half as long as the room. He moodily warmed his hands.