by Dave Freer
Finn touched his hat. “Finn. I’m a gleeman. A traveling singer and jester. I juggle a bit too.”
The man didn’t put the bow down. “Not many inns or villages around here. Where are you from, gleeman? Abalach? Annvn? Carmarthen? Vanaheim? The Blessed Isles or . . . Lyonesse?”
Fionn was an expert on tone. Lyonesse was probably not a good place to be from. He’d been there. He’d been everywhere, once upon a time.
In front of him the Silago still thrashed about. “None of those, recently,” he said cheerfully. “A place called Tasmarin. Back there.”
“Didn’t know there were any Ways over there,” said the traveler.
“It’s rather new, and I don’t think it’s going to see much traffic, judging by this charming countryside,” said Fionn, waving at the ash lands. “And anyway, Tasmarin is quite full of dragons. They’re not overly friendly.” The Silago was threshing rather more weakly now. Fionn could simply have jumped over it, but not if he wished them to believe he was human. He slowly, calmly, reached into his pouch, took out three balls and began to juggle one-handed. He’d found it very good for distraction and misleading before. And those little balls were made of osmium, both a lot harder and heavier than observers might guess. Fionn could throw them fast enough to knock an armored knight out of the saddle. “To tell the truth I am a little lost. And my dog could use a drink.”
The cartman smiled again. “I think we could probably sell you some water. And the road should see you to Annvn, if you stick to it. You’ll have to wait until the Beng-child is dead, though. They usually put themselves in the middle of the only safe path. It’s surprising you got this far.” His tone said that alone was reason for not putting aside his bow, just yet.
Fionn shrugged, not stopping his juggling. It was good for hypnosis too. “The dog is good at finding safe ways.”
“I like his footwear,” said the cartman.
“Worn by all the best dogs in the capitals of many great lands. It also keeps his feet from being cut up. Purely as a secondary thing, you understand,” said Fionn. He pointed to the Silago. “It’s dying, whatever it is.” There was no point in admitting to knowing too much.
“Give it a little more time, gleeman. Even half-dead, the Beng-child will have your arm off, and might scratch the dog’s boots. When it’s dead we’ll have the jaws off it. They’ll fetch a good price where we’re headed.”
Fionn nodded patiently, which was more than Díleas was showing signs of. “Where did you say you are bound for?”
“Annvn. Well, if it’s there. You never know these days.”
Fionn raised an eyebrow. “And where else might it be?” He was a planomancer. There was a logical consistency to where the various planes of existence interlocked. It was not variable. The multidimensionality and subplanes of it all meant it was more complex than a mere three-dimensional ring would be. It was possible that points of departure and arrival could be geographically close. But until Tasmarin had opened up a way to multiple planes, one link point did not lead you elsewhere. Had Tasmarin changed it all?
“Last time we took the giant’s road we found ourselves in Lyonesse. If that happens we’ll head back,” he said, putting the bow aside, and getting down from the cart. He pulled a long metal stake and a hammer from the cart. Looked for a crack, found one and hammered it in. “How far to this Tasmarin place?” he said casually, in an I-am-not-fishing-for-information tone.
Fionn was amused, and used to human ways. “Not far. I could tell you in some detail . . . in exchange for a drink for my dog.”
“Ah, you’re a sharp one,” said the cartman, grinning. “Worth a trading venture?”
“Probably,” said Fionn. “What are you selling?”
“Things which are exotic in one place and cheap in another. Peacock feathers and pepper, bottles of mermaids’ tears, amber, narwhal ivory, and carved walrus tusks this trip.”
“I’d say pepper would sell.” It was a game, and Fionn played it well.
“Ah. One of those places,” said the traveler. “Magic, and the creatures of it are more common than pepper. Hey, Nikos, Dravko. The Beng-child is ready for you to butcher the jaws out of. You might as well come across, stranger.”
Fionn could see things they could not. The Silago was not dead. He patted Díleas. “The dog thinks it is faking, mister. And he’s a sharp dog.” He caught all the juggling balls in one hand, and picked up another rock and flung it at the open jaws, which snapped closed viciously and sent splinters of rock flying.
The white-haired man looked very thoughtful indeed. “Sharp dog he is. And earned himself a drink, I’d say, gleeman. Maybe worth asking you about the way across to this place.”
“I made marks.” He had. With a talon. They were not intended as trail markers but they could work as that without undoing his purpose. Energies needed to flow, and the travelers could be vehicles for that. Travelers tended to be a cunning lot though. Over the years he’d known and journeyed with a fair number of these sort of folk, too many to believe them to be easily fooled or used without them knowing.
“Ah. It’s a sharp master too. A wonder you don’t cut yourself, gleeman. Nikos, come and give the Beng-creature a good poke with that black iron spear of yours.”
Someone knew—or had known—a great deal about demondim and the few creatures that survived just what they had made of their worlds, thought Fionn, looking at the spear in the next swarthy man’s grasp.
It wasn’t iron-edged and had a fair weight of magework about it. Antimony might not be the ideal metal for edging anything, but it was deadly toxic to the silicate sulphur of the Silago.
Soon Fionn and Díleas were able to pass the two traveler men cutting at the dead Silago. The dog on the seat of the lead cart growled and bristled. “Hear now, Mitzi. That’s no way to greet a dog with smart red boots,” said the lead cartman. Díleas was studiously ignoring her. The cart driver got down, and tapped some water out of a small keg into a bowl. Held it out to Fionn. “Here, gleeman. Best if your dog drinks a little way from Mitzi. It’s her bowl.”
Fionn gave a little bow. “Thank you, goodman. This place was hotter than we expected. Dustier too.”
“Ah well, you’ve a fair distance to travel in it. Best to be prepared. My name is Arvan, gleeman. I only look like a good man.”
“Call me Finn. Most do,” said Fionn, taking the water and setting it on the ground. He noticed the watchfulness of the lead cart driver. The watchfulness of the dogs on the seats of the other eleven carts. The fact that they had at least two other men hidden in them, and they weren’t watching him or Díleas. The water smelled all right, wasn’t bespelled . . . Díleas sniffed it too, and then drank with a great deal of tongue splashing. He had needed that. Well, he was wearing a good thick coat of black-and-white fur.
“And now, Finn, if you’d tell me a bit about this Tasmarin place, I could offer you a mug of beer,” said Arvan. Fionn knew the name was a small part of the traveler’s true name, which suggested that the travelers knew of the importance of those too. Well, they did accumulate knowledge or fail to survive.
“It’s an hour’s walk from here. See the double smoking peak? Bear just left of that. You’ll find this symbol scratched on the rock here and there.” Fionn scratched it with his toe in the dust. “There is a narrow white bridge that you will have to cross. Not much room for a cart on it. And the dragons on the other side are fond of gold, so I’d take care to appear poor.”
“Oh, we are,” said Arvan, tapping Fionn a small flagon of beer. It was good beer.
“They can smell gold at twenty paces,” said Fionn, who could smell theirs, above the beer. It was under the front end of the cart. Probably a hidden panel or something.
“Ah. There haven’t been many around for a while. People wondered where they’d got to. Some of us wanted to know.”
“There, that’s where,” said Fionn.
The jaw cutters had finished their work by now, and they carried them back to the ca
useway and roped them onto the back of the cart, still dripping black ichor. The little caravan set off again, Fionn and Díleas walking alongside the lead cart. It was, it appeared by Díleas’s behavior, the direction they needed to go.
A mile or so later the causeway was interrupted by what might have been called a river, if rivers boiled, and did not run with anything anyone could have called water, although scalding water diluted it. It ran through a fresh fracture in the dolerite, and the steam reeked of brimstone and the almond smell of cyanides. Arvan scratched his head. “That’s a new one.”
Fionn tried to work out the least obtrusive way of changing the situation. Energy and fire magic abounded here. There was even an ancient water pattern. The place had been verdant once. A tweak here and there . . . But it would all take time, and by the way that fool-of-a-very-clever sheepdog was pacing back and forth and bunching his muscles, he would try jumping soon.
* * *
The beautiful crone-enchantress, the queen of Shadow Hall, stared vengefully at her seeing-basin. Dun Tagoll—dark stone towers silhouetted against the moonlit sea—seemed to stare back at her. He’d protected it as well as he was able, and she could see no further into the castle on the cliff top. She had stared at it, the same way, for over fifty years now. Eventually, she would win. A few hours earlier she’d felt a surge of magical energy, and wondered if he’d finally died. But no, the tower still resisted her vision—it would not if he was dead, she was sure. So, the fight must continue. She was busy mustering her forces, yet again. She worked with her unwitting allies’ fears, and she had the Cauldron of Gwalar. It brewed and bubbled now. Soon she would cast pieces of yet another dead hero in the seethe of it. They had to be boiled apart, or at least finely diced, before she could reassemble them and reanimate them. And then dispatch them . . . to whichever of the nineteen worlds Lyonesse would try to leech off this time.
She stared at the image in the seeing-basin. The tallest tower and its highest window. There was a light there. He would be working away, creating falsehoods and illusions. Working on his simulacra and devices. Bah. Machinery. She had been fascinated by it once, the cogs and springs and the mechanisms for harnessing the tides themselves. The smell of oil, and magic . . .
He was not a summonser, but one who worked inanimate things and the laws of contagion and sympathy. She used that, but drew on higher powers too. The powers of life . . . and death. She learned as much of his craft as she could, of course. In those days Dun Tagoll had been the place to learn and to practice magecraft. He’d stopped that. He didn’t like competition.
To think she’d loved him once. Trusted him with their secret. Sworn eternal faith to each other and their secret. Dreamed that some day . . . She spat into seeing-basin, shattering the image.
Death would take him one day.
And it could not be a day too soon for her.
In the meanwhile she had to finish the warrior in her cauldron. And then get onto making more muryans. Shadow Hall would have to walk again, to follow Lyonesse, to raise war and chaos and foes against it. She followed Lyonesse’s progression across myriad leagues and subplanes in her palace of shadows.
Her hall moved. It did so on tiny ant feet. Many, many ant feet.
Chapter 2
“My name is Meb,” she said, clinging to a part of her youth.
“Mab?” It was said with a narrowing of the eyes. The sword came up a fraction and Meb wondered if the jump might be more pleasant. She had no idea if her untrained magical skill would work here.
It sounded as if “Mab” wasn’t too popular. “No. Meb. E, not A. My real name is Anghared. But I like Meb more.” Really, she preferred Scrap.
This had some rather unexpected effects. The oddest was from the man who had tried to kill her—who was now pinned down by three burly men-at-arms: he started to laugh. Several of the soldiers knelt. The sword tip threatening her dropped. “I suppose you can prove that?” said the once-sleep-addled man facing her.
“What proof does she need, Medraut? She is a summonser, able to work in cursed Dun Tagoll itself!” shouted the man on the floor.
If looks were poison, the prisoner would have been dead instantly. “Take him away,” said the man called Medraut. “I ask you again, stranger. Who are you, dressed like that, in my outer chamber? How did you get here?”
Meb shrugged. The bleakness of despair was settling over her again. She’d assumed the magic would send her back to the place where she’d been drawn to Tasmarin from. She’d assumed that it would be a place she somehow recognized as home. In truth she hadn’t cared. She’d simply known it would mean banishment from all she knew and loved. However, innate caution instilled by dragonkind’s hatred of human magic stopped her going too far with explaining. It might be different here. But it might not. “I don’t know. I was in Arcady and then I was here. But I’ll go away if you don’t want me to be here. I think I just stopped you from being murdered in your sleep.” She gestured toward the prisoner being dragged from the room.
“It is almost as if she was sent to save you, Prince Medraut,” said one of the guards, wonderingly. “The door wardens are dead, the door unlocked . . . and had this stranger not given the alarm, Earl Alois would have killed you. Alois nearly killed her.”
Prince Medraut blinked. “You . . . you are the Defender?” and part of the tone said: Why me? But there was hope there too.
Meb wasn’t sure who “the Defender” was. But she was pretty sure that it wasn’t her, anyway.
“I don’t think so,” she said, exhaustion, doubt and misery warring in her breast. “I am just someone who is hungry and tired, and going to jump out of this window, if you try anything with that sword.”
The prince suddenly realized that he was holding a naked sword . . . and that she was on a window sill. He looked faintly embarrassed. “Your pardon, lady.”
How did he know she was a woman? With a cropped head, boy’s clothes and tight breastband, she’d passed for a boy for months and months. Well, said her inner voice—the sensible pragmatic voice that overrode village thought, and overrode daydreams too: maybe the name Anghared is a clue. That and the fact that, somehow, her hair seemed to have grown to waist length in the transition here. The clothes remained, of course.
The prince put the sword down, on the floor, as that was the only surface available to him. “We will have chambers and food prepared for you immediately. We are deeply honored by your presence and pray we have not caused you any offense.”
She’d trusted him more when he’d been pointing a sword at her. It must have showed in her face. But the soldiers sheathed their swords, and they at least appeared to believe him. “I swear by the House of Lyon that we mean you no harm, lady.”
Reluctantly Meb came down from the stone sill. She hadn’t liked falling last time, and it looked as if the rocks would get her before a merrow could. Besides, she might as well die well fed. What worse could happen to her than certain death?
She knew some answers to that one, too. But she allowed the guards to respectfully escort her away to a small withdrawing room, where a generous fire burned in the grate and the hangings were rich and old. There was a riven-oak table that must have weighed as much as ten stacks of stockfish, painstakingly smoothed and polished. It was set with two branches of good beeswax candles, with a chair that was more like a throne than the three-legged stool she’d have considered luxury a twelvemonth ago. The guards bowed. “The old queen would dine here, Lady Anghared. They will bring you food and wine, very soon,” said a grizzled captain, very respectfully.
If there was one thing that was really intimidating, Meb thought, it was all this respect. But she was hungry, as well as miserable and a little confused. Just where exactly was she? Somewhere called Dun Tagoll? A castle hanging above the sea. The place where she had come from as a baby, presumably, before being magically snatched away to Tasmarin, to a world that had become her own, that she’d loved and had given all to Finn and Díleas. So this must be her
world. But, if she’d ever thought about it, she’d expected to return to a fishing village.
She’d never thought of herself as a castle kind of person. That was the place of alvar, after all.
It would seem that was not true here. These castle people were all human. She closed her eyes, and sat back in the chair, remembering. Remembering walking behind Finn in his ridiculous “notice me” lilac and canary-yellow silks and satins, juggling tasseled balls in the palace of the alvar at Alba, with its high arched roof, alv-lights and the butterflylike flitting of the courtiers, as she pretended to be dumb and tossed the balls.
Something landed in her hand. Instinctively she caught it. And the second, third and fourth. The sight of the balls, summoned out of nowhere, was enough to prick her eyes with tears. Someone cleared their throat. There was an elderly man, in neat clothing, but plainly a servant by his mein, with a silver salver, a stemmed goblet, and a chased jug. He was staring, rather wide-eyed, at the juggling balls. At her. He suddenly realized she was looking at him. “Er. I have brought the wine, lady. May I pour for you?”
Meb set the balls down, carefully. They were as precious as . . . no, more precious than the rubies of the Prince of Alba. She’d helped Finn to salt the sea and the river with those. She smiled at the thought. The servitor thought she was smiling at him and smiled back tremulously. “We’re so glad to see you, lady. People were praying for your coming.”
It only got more complicated.
He poured wine, looked around quickly. “Don’t trust him, m’lady. The old king hated Medraut even when he was a little boy. And I changed the wine Aberinn poured in the cellar,” he said quietly.