'Ah, forgive me,' Darkwood said. This time he pulled a scarf from a hidden pocket to dab tears from his eyes. 'But you see, Majesty, there is no King of Nevrym – unless you refer to the Tree, Paramount, Lord of All Trees. But the idea that a man could rule a forest, ah, you outwoods folk are droll. The man you seek is Grimpeace, ferocious to foe and fair to friend – and king in Nevrym, never of it.' Moriana smiled with visible effort. 'Please be so good as to guide us, Sir Darkwood.'
'So I shall. For none is allowed to travel the ways of the wood unescorted.' He smiled approvingly when she didn't try to claim they had done just that in the last few days.
They rode for several more hours. Still smarting from her humiliation over the matter of who was king of what, Moriana kept her twitchy greyhound at a long-limbed trot for the first several miles until it became apparent that the ever-smiling Darkwood kept up the rapid pace without breaking into a sweat.
'Great Ultimate, Fost, how did you ever manage to outrun a party of these folk?' she asked as she reined in the gray dog to a walk.
'I was young and in good shape,' he said, slowing to match her pace. 'Also I was scared cross-eyed.'
By design, the road took an abrupt turn around a dense stand of anhak so that the clearing in which the Tree stood appeared suddenly to view. Moriana gasped at the sight of it. Though he'd seen it before, Fost felt his heart clutch convulsively in wonder at the sight.
This was obviously the Tree. Next to it everything else was shrubbery.
It rose over a thousand feet in the clear forest air, a giant conifer with dark green needles and a red trunk. Their master of all trees was more than the symbol and pride of the Nevrymin, it was the seat of their government as well. For hundreds of feet its bole was honeycombed with entrances, passageways, small apartments and halls as grand as the Audience Hall of the Palace of Winds. The many tiers were a history of the foresters carved in wood. The Tree still grew and every generation a new level had to be hollowed out. Stairways and catwalks spiraled around the massive trunk. When Moriana realized that the antlike figures moving along them were people, wonder flooded back anew.
'Well, my friends,' said Grimpeace around a mouthful of good venison. 'Where do you go now?'
Fost and Moriana traded glances. It was a good question. Oddly, they hadn't discussed it on the way from Omizantrim. They had barely thought of it.
Each sensed that the life they'd known before had perished. The world had become a strange and awful place, a battleground for forces beyond their comprehension. Even if both survived, which seemed increasingly unlikely, they little knew what kind of world they'd be living in when this new War of Powers came to a resolution. If it ever did.
The message delivered, Fost and Moriana sat looking at one another on their side of a well-laden banquet table. It was a board fit for the Tree, forty feet long and eight across. No knife scars defaced it, as was customary at feasting tables, and spilled wine was hastily mopped up by attendants. In return, the wood, shining with a luminous luster, surpassed in beauty any piece of furniture Moriana had seen. Like the capital of the foresters, it was carved from the living wood of the Tree and kept alive by special magics known only to the Nevrymin.
'Where are we going?' Fost asked. Now that the news of the Hissers' defection was delivered, he didn't know the answer.
Moriana did. 'High Medurim,' she answered.
CHAPTER TEN
'Whoa!' cried Fost, motioning for a halt. Moriana's greyhound squealed in terror as she reined in harshly. In a single fluid movement, she dropped her bow from shoulder to hand and pulled an arrow from her quiver. By the side of the track, Darkwood stood looking on with his habitual smile. He didn't unsling his bow.
Heart racing, Moriana followed Fost's gesture. She expected enemies. What she saw made her heart leap, but not from fear.
A unicorn stag stood on a knoll to the left of the path. The trees grew sparsely there. The great beast stood between two of the black, gnarled anhaks and gazed down at the travellers, one forefoot raised.
Something in the animal's attitude told Moriana the posture was not that of a creature poised for flight. It regarded them with disdain, its eyes huge and amber, set in the capacious skull on either side of the single straight horn. Its hide was a glossy chestnut and its throat and wide chest glowed silvery. A long tail ending in a tuft of auburn was held curled over the animal's back like a manticore's sting.
'Will you shoot, Lady?' Darkwood's smile had taken on the tilt they had come to associate with some private jest. 'Their flesh is a delicacy beyond compare.'
Moriana looked at Fost. His mouth was compressed in a curious fashion as if he tried to suppress a grin. Erimenes swayed at his side.
'Shoot!' the genie urged, his eyes gleaming with spectral blood-lust.
'No,' begged Ziore, floating beside Moriana. 'He's too magnificent!'
Moriana lowered her bow, relaxed the string and slid the arrow back into its sheath.
'She's right. I could only slay such a beast if I starved. Never for sport.'
As if it heard her words, the stag dipped its horn once and vanished as abruptly as it had appeared.
'You chose wisely, Highness,' said Darkwood. 'You'd never have hit him.'
Moriana's mouth tightened. This groundling made jokes at her expense, and she didn't care for it. 'You forget I'm Skyborn,' she informed him haughtily.
'Oh, I know that, Lady, and I know well you could put three arrows out of three through my chest with that monster bow of yours. But skill counts for more in hunting the Nevrym unicorn than cleverness of hand and eye. You'd have missed him, this I know.' His grin widened. 'Even as I'd know you'd next have seen him charging from that clump of blackleaf.' He pointed at a clump of shrubbery twenty yards distant. 'With his head down and blood in his eye. And I know a unicorn's fighting horn will pierce a quarter inch of the finest North Keep plate as if it were parchment.'
Moriana started to protest. Thinking she'd suffered enough, Fost put in, 'They're intelligent. And very cunning.'
'Intelligent? Nonsense. They're mere beasts.' Erimenes sniffed his contempt for such a notion.
'And are the war eagles of the Sky City mere birds?' Darkwood shook his head. 'No, my friend. You've now met the third part of the triumvirate that rules Nevrym.' 'The third?' asked Moriana, intrigued despite her anger.
'We're another.' Darkwood doffed his triangular cap and bowed. 'The last is the trees, of course.' 'The trees?' Moriana scoffed.
'He's telling the truth. Do you think you could find your way to the Tree again unaided?'
'Of course.' She glared at Fost. She was a veteran warrior. Once she'd passed over terrain she knew it by heart.
'Of course,' agreed Darkwood, in an infuriating imitation of the woman's voice, 'provided your intentions were peaceful toward the forest and its various inhabitants. Were they otherwise, your party might wander lost until you died of starvation.' He smoothed straw-colored hair back from his forehead. 'Only foresters can find their way unimpeded by the trees' magic. And where our allies of wood don't want us, we generally don't go.'
'But your people are well armed and prepared for invasion.' Moriana was genuinely puzzled. The many-tiered keep carved into the heart of the Tree was meant to serve as a fortress, its outer walls dotted with arrow slits and its interior honeycombed by well-stocked caches of emergency stores. Most of the humbler dwellings of the foresters were built like birds' nests high up and secure in the embrace of anhak limbs, reachable only by ladders.
'It's not unknown for Nevrymin to settle their little differences by force of arms. We are individualists at heart and not prone to taking commands of others.' Reminded of this, Moriana recalled that most battles the Nevrymin fought were internecine. That was the key to the seeming puzzle of a jovial king in Nevrym named Grimpeace. It had been Fost who explained this to her.
'He's a friendly man, but he's friendly because we come as friends. He earned his name by the way he imposed order in Nevrym when
he acceded to the Tree twenty-three years ago. The Nevrymin all respect the Tree, but they're divided into factions as antagonistic and rivalry-ridden as tenement blocks in The Teeming. North Nevrymin, Central Nevrymin, Eastcreekers, Coastrunners, a score in all. Few of the factions were inclined to pay much heed to the authority of a boy who'd scarcely started to sprout his first growth of beard. They learned what the young king offered was a grim peace, indeed. Since then, banditry and sectional strife in Nevrym have been at an all-time low.
'Then, too,' said Darkwood, all trace of mirth vanished from his blue eyes, 'it isn't unknown for Nevrymin to guide outwoods foes along these ways in defiance of tradition and the trees.'
'What kind of man would do that?' asked Ziore in wonder. Her empathy gave her an appreciation keener even than Fost's of the sacred nature of the compact between men and beasts and trees.
'You've met one, I fancy.' Darkwood's voice turned winter cold. 'Fairspeaker by name.'
But not even the thought of Nevrymin breaking faith with their forest was enough to keep the summer in Darkwood's nature suppressed for long. He warmed and the skin around his eyes and mouth settled into well-worn smile lines.
'But the day's too lovely for talk of that, and we've leagues yet to travel before reaching the North Cape range.' He set the cap on his head at a suitably jaunty angle and started off along the leaf-carpeted path.
'One question, my good man.' Darkwood stopped and regarded Erimenes with his hands on hips. His grin hadn't been dented by the spirit's supercilious tone. 'How do you know the flesh of the unicorn stag is succulent if your folk lack the gumption to hurt them?'
The forester's cheer was the equal of even Erimenes at his most infuriating.
'My good ghost, from the height of your exalted years you must realize that any forest exists in a delicate balance,' he said in the tone of one explaining a simple lesson to a dull student. 'No single population can be allowed to grow unchecked. So we hunt the unicorn stag, and a most demanding sport it is.' His smile showed prominent eyeteeth. 'And they, of course, hunt us. We give them rare sport, too, or so I'm led to believe.'
Their reception at North Keep was less than cordial.
In response to five minutes' pounding on the twenty-foot-tall iron gates, first with Fost's fist and then with the pommel of his sword, a small peephole set four feet off the stone roadbed scraped open. A single bloodshot eye peered forth without any hint of friendliness. 'Go away,' came the growl from within.
'We've come a long ways up the coast road,' said Fost. 'We're in need of food, baths, a good night's sleep. We're prepared to pay.'
The latter phrase usually unlocked the domain of the dwarves. The dark maroon eye blinked once.
'We want nothing to do with your filthy money. The gate's shut for the night. Go away.'
Fost's dog growled. Astride her sidestepping dog a few yards behind, Moriana tightened the grip on her reins. She didn't like the dwarf guard's tone any more than the dogs did.
'My good man, I suggest you open this gate immediately if you desire that your head should keep company with your shoulders. I am a guest of state and your rulers will be little pleased by your insolence to me.'
'Who're you?' came the rude question, the eye swivelling to bear on her.
'I am Moriana Etuul, Queen in exile of the City in the Sky, and if you don't admit us at once…'
The eye withdrew but only to permit heavily bearded lips to appear and spit through the grill.
That for you,' said the eye, appearing again, 'and for all decadent lordlings who oppress the people! And for their running dog lackeys, as well,' he added for Fost's benefit. The peephole slammed shut.
As the clang reverberated down the valley, Fost thought Moriana's hair was about to start smouldering at the roots as Synalon's had done when she was angry.
'Why, that horrid upstart, that, that groundling! How dare he take that tone with me!'
'He's got three inches of iron and a foot of anhak between you and him,' pointed out Fost. 'That's how he dares.'
'Small good that protection will do him when I loose my wrath upon him.' She let reins fall and raised her hands.
'No, no, don't start flinging salamanders or deathspells or anything like that,' Fost said quickly, waving his arms in hope of breaking her concentration. 'And why not?' she demanded.
He pointed upward. Forty feet above the poorly kept road two grotesque figures squatted in alcoves set on either side of the gates. Spindly limbed with squinty eyes and oddly spurred elbows and knees, they regarded the travellers over ludicrously attenuated noses and mouths thrust out to form. lipless tubes. 'And what might they be?' She eyed them with distaste.
'Old dwarven caricatures of true men,' he said. 'The mouths go to funnels in a room dug out of the rock. The dwarves keep a pot of lead bubbling by each in case applicants rejected for entry react the way you were about to.' Moriana dropped her hands to her sides.
'We'll have to find lodgings in the Outer Town. It's only a few miles away on the other side of the mountain.' 'But it's getting dark!' 'All the more reason to start now.'
When they got to the Outer Town they got some insight into the nature of the recent developments in the Realm. The moons hung high in the sky when they came around the tip of Northernmost, the mountain cradling the dwarvish citadel of North Keep. Built on a slate beach butting up against the western face of the mountain, the Outer Town was an odd conglomeration of black dwarf masonry, scattered cosmopolitan edifices of Imperial dome and column marble, prim Jorean geometry, pastel stuccoed Estil, and shanty-town. The streets were paved with rubble and indifferently repaired. Though the dwarves ruled the Outer Town, it was primarily a place for the gangly Other Folk to stay while doing business. The dwarves weren't noted for their hospitality, though Fost had hoped they would invite Moriana to stay in their keep because of her royal status. For the most part, the Others entered North Keep solely to strike bargains and were ushered forth with varying degrees of politeness when the deals were done.
A smell of fish and less identifiable refuse hung in the pitted street in front of the inn Fost chose. A faded clapboard sign portrayed a flatfish grinning with drunken goggle-eyed delight.
'The Happy Flounder,' Erimenes read as the pair dismounted and tied reins to a sagging hitchrail. 'I believe they take fancifulness too far in naming these establishments.'
The innkeeper was a young dwarf with a thready beard and a premature bald spot on the top of his head. He was skinny for a dwarf but had the usual protruding eyes. He examined his prospective guests with suspicion. 'What do you want?' he rapped. His prominent nose wrinkled.
'Lodgings for the night, possibly longer,' Fost said hurriedly. Moriana was getting a dangerous glint in her eye. 'But who knows? We may spend some time sightseeing in this quaint and hospitable town of yours.' Sarcasm was lost on the innkeeper, as it was on most dwarves. 'Vouchers?' he demanded, in a tone of bored antagonism. Fost had no idea what the dwarf asked for and told him so.
'Well,' the little man said, folding his arms across his chest and tilting his fringe beard disapprovingly upward. 'I must accommodate you even if you can't pay, unless I want a drubbing from the damned militia, may their barracks roof fall on their pointed heads.' He drummed blunt fingers on the counter and turned to peer through a door leading to a muddy yard in back. 'I suppose there's room for you in the kennels.'
'We haven't any vouchers, whatever they are,' said Moriana, 'but will you accept this as payment for room and meals?' She held up an emerald from the pouch Sternbow had given her.
The innkeeper goggled more than usual. He snatched it away with deft fingers, held it to the dismal light of the guttering taper, scratched it along the table, and finally bit it. 'By the tunnels of Agift,' he murmured. 'I do believe it's real.'
He pulled in a breath that swelled his barrel chest until Fost thought the jerkin would burst. He looked from the emerald to Moriana, and an avid light danced in his immense dwarf eyes. Then the glint faded
and he expelled a heartfelt sigh.
'I cannot but tell you that a stone such as this would pay for my finest accommodations for a fortnight – possibly longer, depending on the water of the stone.'
Moriana shrugged it off. The Zr'gsz had been generous paymasters. There were many more where this one came from.
'For however long, then. I doubt we'll stay more than a couple nights at most.'
'I cannot change this with any currency you'd want to have.' Sweat stood out on his high, broad foreheadforehead. It cost him great anguish to tell them this.
'Don't bother.'
He came out from behind the counter, waddled to the door, stuck his head out into the noisome, muggy night. Nothing stirred in the streets except a fat yellow-striped tomcat roving in search of ship's rats on shore leave.
'You're strangers to North Keep,' he accused.
'Not altogether,' said Fost. His fingers played with his sword hilt. The publican's nervousness made him uneasy.
'But you don't know how things have stood in the dwarflands since the revolution, that much is clear.'
'Revolution?'
'Of the proletariat. Since the Worker's Party seized power a year ago, the use of money and barter are outlawed. Outlanders are compelled by law to convert their negotiables into credit vouchers before dealing with dwarves.'
'Who's head of state now?'
'Maanda Samilchut is the Party Chairman.'
Fost frowned but said nothing.
'Normally I'd have to report your presence to the Militia headquarters on Exchange Square – er, pardon me, it's Liberation Plaza now. But, by your leave, I think I might overlook this procedure.' Moriana nodded assent. The innkeeper sighed with relief and mopped his brow with a gray linen kerchief. 'I take it you'd prefer accommodations above ground, gentles?'
When the thick wood door of their second-floor room shut behind the now overly solicitous innkeeper, Fost dropped onto the low bed and broke out laughing.
'What's so funny?' asked Moriana, lowering herself more cautiously onto a bandy-legged stool.
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