The Years of Longdirk- The Complete Series

by Dave Duncan

  The prisoner shrugged.

  Oreste smiled, amused by something. "So the big, dumb Highland lad is hunted by the full majesty of the law and two of the finest hexers in Europe. What odds would you give on his chances? Yet he escapes! Your companion, by the way, the boy who sailed with you—Hamish Campbell, wasn't it? He can hardly be a boy now, any more than you are. He is well?"

  "The last I saw him he was, Excellency. He must be eighteen now."

  That remark amused the baron even more. He laughed until his paunch shook. "I am supposed to infer that you haven't seen him for a long time? No matter. Let us get back to you and your demon."

  "It isn't a demon. What happened was an accident."

  "Not a demon, no. It's the local elemental from Strath Fillan, a partially domesticated sprite, or hob as you call them. But it is dangerous, isn't it, Toby? Even more dangerous than a demon in some ways. A demon always has a conjuration to control it, but the hob is a free spirit, untrained, childlike. It doesn't know good from evil. It is liable to do anything, ja?"

  The young man nodded. "It scares me sometimes."

  "Scares you, Toby? Oh, I don't think so, I really don't. Not you! No matter. You also had another spiritual companion, even more unusual. Lady Valda had stolen the soul of King Nevil of England. During her bungled efforts to conjure with it, that soul was translated into a jewel, an uncut amethyst. I want that soul. I want that amethyst! Where is it, Toby?"

  "How do you know all this?"

  "From your former companion, Father Lachlan. He was very forthcoming. He had no choice, of course."

  "What did you do to him?" For the first time anger flashed in the prisoner's deep-set dark eyes.

  Oreste sighed. "Killed him. I had to, Toby. He was a pleasant old man, although rather ineffectual. He was muddled on the details, but he had learned—learned from you, I'm afraid—that the soul in the king is a demon. Anyone who knows that must die."

  The prisoner ground his teeth. Suddenly he looked almost dangerous enough to explain the severity with which he was being restrained.

  "Ah, Toby, Toby! You also told Fergan, the pretender to the Scottish throne. He was useful to us as bait for the unruly, but after he learned that truth, he had to go, too. You must have heard that he was caught and executed?"

  "Murdered!"

  "Oh, come! You weren't one of his foolish rebels. You knew he would never sit on his throne again—not with Nevil wanting to keep it, he wouldn't! It doesn't matter. Anyone who knows, dies. Only you and Hamish Campbell are left. And you have the genuine king's soul hidden somewhere. I want it, Toby. I will have the amethyst no matter what it costs ... costs you, of course. I will do anything to get it."

  The prisoner licked his lips. The thick muscles of his neck were tense. "I think you're mistaken, Excellency. Valda couldn't find any trace of Nevil's soul. I think it was lost somewhere in all that hexing. So the amethyst's only a piece of shiny stone as far as I'm concerned. It has sentimental value for me, but if you want it so much, you can have it. You ought to be willing to perform a small favor in return, yes? You're a great hexer, and I admit I find the hob troublesome at times. You could remove it from me, exorcize it. Do that and let me go, and I'll give you the amethyst gladly. That's a fair bargain, isn't it?"

  "Bargain? Bargain, Toby?" The baron shook with mirth. "You stand there, chained up like a side of beef, and talk of bargaining? Oh, dear me no! You won't be bargaining. And you find the hob troublesome you say? When the Maid of Arran was wrecked on the coast of Brittany, only three people survived: you, Campbell, and a sailor, Derek McGonagall. McGonagall blamed you for that wreck and all those unfortunate men lost at sea."

  Longdirk swallowed but did not speak. His cheeks above his beard were visibly paler than they had been a moment before.

  The baron shook his head sadly. His jowls wobbled. "But it was the hob's fault, wasn't it? I don't suppose it meant any harm, but it drove the ship on the rocks and killed all those men. So what did you do? At Vannes, in Brittany, just a few days after the wreck, you tried to go to the local shrine. You were convulsed by cramps before you even reached the door. Your friend, young Hamish, helped you back to your lodgings. The keeper insisted that Vannes had never hurt a suppliant like that before, so it wasn't the spirit that was keeping you away. The culprit was the hob, yes?"

  Receiving no answer, he smiled again, obviously enjoying the game. "So you tried once more in Nantes, where there was a full sanctuary and a powerful tutelary that would surely not tolerate any insolence from a trespassing hob. As before, you did not even reach the building. Halfway across the courtyard, you fell to the cobbles in convulsions, choking and vomiting blood. Young Campbell was forced to hire porters to carry you home. I was told you writhed in pain for some hours, until the hob forgot why it was mad at you. I can see why you might find it a little troublesome."

  The prisoner glared angrily but did not comment.

  As if he were growing stiff with sitting, Baron Oreste rose and flexed his back, smiling apologetically at the prisoner. He strolled off to inspect the rack, still talking.

  "You tried again when you reached Bordeaux. A great city like that must have a great tutelary, a wise and powerful spirit to protect and guide it. The sanctuary there is enormous and splendid, although somewhat too ornate for my own taste, I admit.

  "And there you took an acolyte into your confidence. That was very rash of you. You risked denunciation and a blade through the heart, Toby, but I expect you were becoming desperate. Father Verne was disbelieving at first. After all, who ever heard of voluntary exorcism? An incarnate does not ask to be dispossessed and will certainly not allow its husk enough free will to do so for himself. But you convinced him eventually, and he agreed to provide an escort of novices for the deluded foreign youth. Thus you went to the sanctuary that time in the company of Hamish and three brawny young men, all instructed to get you inside the holy premises at any cost, yes?"

  The baron took a vicious-looking hook down from an array of implements and hefted it in his hand, frowning as if trying to decide what it was used for.

  "Again you collapsed in a heap of agony, but this time your henchmen picked you up bodily. It still didn't work, did it? The hob countered instantly with a local whirlwind. Horses panicked, carts were overturned, chimneys toppled, three women killed." The baron shook his head sadly.

  "So you never did manage to get the hob exorcized. You could never be rid of it. And those three women were not the first nor the last innocent bystanders to die around Tobias Longdirk. At La Rochelle —"

  "What did you do to Father Verne?"

  "Killed him also. Quite painlessly, I assure you. I am not a creature, Toby. I have no demon inside me. I work for a demon, yes, and I am hexed to obey him utterly, but I am allowed to choose my own methods—most of the time." His eyes were still hidden behind slits, and his smile did not crinkle the pudgy flesh around them.

  "Did you choose your own methods at Zaragoza? Did you enjoy wasting Navarre, burning, torturing, public —"

  "Be silent!" the baron snapped. "Or I will make you silent. My only purpose was to track you down. But the hob defended you. Without the hob you would have died a dozen times, and I would have caught you a dozen times. I nearly had you in Bordeaux, although I admit I did not realize how near that was until you told me just now. Ah, but you were a wily quarry! In Brittany and Aquitaine you were within Nevil's realm, so I could get at you easily, given just a little more time. But then you slipped away south, over the borders, into Navarre and then Castile, and there you were in lands still loyal to the Khan. That presented a problem for me. Of course you did leave quite a trail.

  "Two able-bodied young men wandering a continent at war ... There were attempts to recruit you, weren't there? You were conscripted more than once. But loud noises make the hob excited, don't they? And when guns went off around it, terrible things happened. No army could hold you. There were other stories... . " His tone sharpened. "What did happen at Mezquir
iz?"

  The prisoner shivered, chain tinkling, but he did not answer.

  "How many people has this troublesome hob killed since you left Dumbarton, Toby?"

  "I don't know. Lots."

  "Thousands. Tens of thousands."

  "No! Maybe a hundred. That's bad enough, but not thousands!"

  Oreste shook his jowls. "The only way to get at you in Spain was to come and get you. You seriously inconvenienced his Universal Majesty."

  "You mean the Fiend."

  "Guard your tongue, Toby!" The baron waggled a fat finger. "The penalty for using that name is five hundred lashes. Nevil has been fighting the Khan for twelve years now. Because of you he had to break off his war in Saxony and march his army down here to invade Aragon, Navarre, and even Castile."

  "For me? You're telling me it's my fault the two of you turned half of Spain into a desert?"

  "Absolutely, dear boy. You have the soul of the genuine King Nevil, and Rhym will never rest until he can destroy it." The baron came wandering back, still clutching the hook. "I don't think you are a callous man, Toby. Not like King Nevil, whose favorite occupation is watching children being tortured to death, preferably by their own mothers. You seem to have a conscience. A nice young man like you must be very tired of leaving a trail of dead and dying wherever he goes." Oreste smiled up at the prisoner.

  For the first time the big man raised his voice. "All right!" he shouted. "Yes, I would do anything to be rid of the hob! I detest the damage it does, the deaths and injuries. Take the hob from me, let me go, and I'll give you the amethyst."

  Baron Oreste shook his head pityingly. "I warned you there would be no bargains, Toby. Your purse is empty. The hob is powerless in this chamber, so it cannot save you this time. The amethyst is mine to take." He raised the hook in front of the prisoner's face. "With this!"

  "What do you mean? You said you weren't going to torture me!"

  "I said I wouldn't torture you with anything as crude as this. That's not quite the same. But watch."

  Oreste slipped the point into the neck of the prisoner's doublet and with one long pull ripped it away. Another rip and his shirt followed, leaving him effectively wearing only a small leather locket—a rough-made, ugly thing hung on a thong around his neck.

  "That's a very impressive chest, Toby, but this is what I want, isn't it?" The baron lifted the locket on the hook and broke the thong with a quick jerk. Chuckling, he minced back to sit on his stool and peer at his prize. He picked carefully at the stiff flap. "That wasn't so difficult, was it?"

  The prisoner was breathing harder than before, shifting his stance more often, perhaps feeling the cramps starting. "So now will you kill me?"

  "Hmm?" Wary of breaking a nail, Oreste was now trying to push the point of the hook under the locket's flap. "Seems the Inquisition does not believe in sharp edges. I wonder if that's a matter of policy? Kill you? No, I don't think so. Not yet, anyway. Think of yourself as a trophy of the hunt, dear boy, mounted above a fireplace." Inside all the grandiose garments his blubbery form shook with quiet laughter.

  The prisoner eased his shoulders and hips in a clink of chain. Drained of blood, the hands over his head shone unnaturally pale, like white bats clinging to the stonework. "Mounted how long?"

  "As long as I please, dear boy. You and your resident hob are an interesting problem in gramarye. I used no less than eight demons to ward it on the way here, but it is powerless inside this chamber, as I told you, so we shall leave it—and you—until I have time to think about it. I may try to extract the hob, because it could be useful if properly trained, but the operation is likely to rip out large parts of your mind as well. I may decide to leave the hob in you and hex both of you to obey me. We shall see. All I really needed, and what I have now obtained thanks to your generosity, is the amethyst containing the soul of ... "

  He had worked the packet open. The stone that fell out was a smooth black pebble, nothing at all like an amethyst. He looked up and stared hard at his prisoner, who smiled mockingly back at him. It was a smile that said the game was not quite over yet, however hopeless it might seem.

  "Where is it, Toby?"

  "Are you sure we cannot bargain, Excellency?"

  Oreste bit at his bottom lip with small white teeth. He might reasonably be seething with fury at this absurd defiance, but if he was, he concealed the fact admirably. He laid the hook on the floor beside him so gently that it did not even clink. He tucked the pebble and locket inside his cloak; then he crossed his legs and folded his hands.

  "You have nothing to bargain with, Toby. Not now. Granted, you managed to escape from Castile, although King Pedro swore on his mother's eyes that he would catch you and hand you over to us. I expected you to head for Portugal, or even Africa, but I knew you might try doubling back, as you have before. So I set up a few trip-wires for you in Aragon and Navarre—I do rule those countries now, useless as they are. One of the groups I had looking out for you was the Inquisition, specifically a group of Black Friars led by Father Vespianaso. You eluded him, too, which really surprised me, I admit. How did you manage that?"

  The prisoner shrugged. "Ask him."

  Oreste smiled. "I have. Father Vespianaso is extremely indignant. He feels you insulted him—all Castilians are excessively prickly, as I'm sure you know, even their preachers. He feels you, um, belong to him, you understand? Were I to mention to him that you are chained up here in the Inquisition's own dungeon, your life would at once become nasty, brutal, and much too long. Sometimes the Inquisition holds prisoners for years, Toby. I am sure you have heard stories of its methods, hmm?"

  The young man just glowered defiantly. He had discovered the Sway already, moving his right foot and left hand as far as possible, then left foot and right hand, then back again... . clink—clink—clink—right—left—right—left ... They all discovered the Sway sooner or later. It could not do very much to help his circulation, but now he had started, he would keep it up for hours, until his wrists and ankles were bloody and torn by the fetters. Only exhaustion would stop him. That might take a long time in his case.

  Oreste seemed peeved by the lack of response. "That's just one possibility, you understand. His Majesty has expressed admiration for your abilities and may well take you into his service, with or without the hob. You will be hexed to absolute loyalty as I am, but you will be a man of authority and power, respected and obeyed. You will have a team of demons of your own to serve you. This is a glittering future you have earned, Toby!"

  "I'd rather go to Father Vespianaso."

  Absurd defiance! Oreste rose to his feet and strolled over to him. "That decision is not yours to make. Now, little Toby, listen well. The chase has ended. You lost. Don't be a sore loser, lad. Let bygones be bygones, ja? I need that amethyst. I also want Hamish Campbell. You will give me both of them."

  "You can hex me into doing anything you want."

  "Yes, I can. Anything. So why struggle? We may be working together for many years, serving his Majesty. It would be a pity to have unhappy memories stand between us."

  The young man stared at him without expression, just swaying: right—left—right—left—clink—clink—clink —

  "Tell me what really happened at Mezquiriz."

  No response. Clink—clink—clink —

  Oreste clenched a fat fist. "Toby, Toby! I only put you in here because of the warding. Just answer my questions and I will let you have enough chain to sit down, even lie down. I will get you some blankets and leave you a light."

  No one in the prisoner's position could refuse that offer, and yet somehow the baron knew it was not going to be accepted this time. He might not keep his side of the bargain if it were.

  It wasn't. Nothing, absolutely nothing except that steady, heavy-browed stare and the animal Sway. Clink—clink—clink —

  "How curious!" the baron said softly. "Why is the sweetness of victory soured when the vanquished refuses to concede? It should be even sweeter. No, I shall not he
x you, boy. Having spent three years hooking you and landing you, my foolish pride wants to gut you by hand. Gramarye is a battleaxe, and in such cases I still prefer the stiletto. I can break you easily enough without it." He ran his tongue over his scarlet lips. "I have lost a lot of sleep over you in the past, Tobias Longdirk. Tonight I shall sleep soundly, knowing I have you safe. Tomorrow, unfortunately, I believe I have other business to attend to. I hope I will be able to spare some time to drop in and see you later in the week."

  Simpering, he patted the prisoner's cheek. "Sleep well, Toby."

  He took the guttering lantern and walked to the center of the cellar. There, safely out of earshot, he issued orders to one of the demon gems on his fingers and repeated his little dance. The supernatural light died away. When the door closed behind him, the crypt returned to total darkness.

  Clink—clink—clink—clink—clink —

  TWO

  The Road to Barcelona

  1

  On their second night out of Valencia, Hamish said, "I am still not certain that going by way of Barcelona is a wise move. It will take us a month to get there at this rate, and we're going to starve to death first. Supposing Oreste is there? He'll detect you with gramarye. You'll never slip past him."

  Toby did not answer. He might be asleep already, or else just not want to repeat an argument they had rubbed raw several times. He insisted that the best way to escape from Spain was to tiptoe past the monster's lair. All other ways out would be more heavily guarded, he said, and once Toby made up his mind nothing would ever change it.

  "We ought to head inland," Hamish muttered. "Back to Navarre."

  Still no reply. Toby must be asleep. It had been a hard day. The walking was not so bad—they were seasoned walkers—but the heat was absurd. This was September, after all, or perhaps even October, and weather like this was ridiculous. Every night Hamish dreamed of fine misty rain blowing down the glen, wet moss under his toes and shaggy, long-horned cattle wallowing in the bog. How wonderful it would be to shiver again! Spain was just sweat, sweat, sweat.