The Spirit Stone

by Katharine Kerr

  ‘What’s happened?’ Neb said, grinning. ‘You look like Lady Adranna’s been trying to poison you or suchlike.’

  ‘Poison would be a relief.’ With a groan Salamander flopped into the only chair. ‘I’ve been slaving away in the great hall, performing tricks and telling tales for the noble-born until my poor throat’s practically stripped raw.’ He flapped one hand in Branna’s direction. ‘Your uncle’s going to owe me a winter’s maintenance at least.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure you’ll be welcome, but it’ll mean telling more tales.’ Branna picked up the herbal, which had been lying next to her on the bed. ‘Let me see, Bardek wine’s a good remedy for an aching throat, but I don’t think Cook’s got any left. Perhaps I can find somewhat else.’

  ‘Horehound,’ Neb said, ‘the whole herb, minced, steeped, and reduced to syrup with honey water.’

  ‘Aha!’ Salamander said. ‘You’ve been studying.’

  ‘We have. Branni, do you think Cook has any horehound?’

  ‘She should. It’s blooming in the meadows, or at least it was, if all those horses haven’t eaten it. Gods, there’s a lot of them! And the men, too, and the servants—’ Branna shook her head in wonder. ‘It’s almost as many people as live in Cengarn, isn’t it?’

  ‘A few less.’ Salamander grinned at her. ‘Which reminds me. I’ve been scrying, and the army should arrive soon. Ridvar’s left Cengarn.’

  Branna felt a stab of grief, so sick at heart that she nearly wept.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Neb reached over and clasped her hand.

  ‘I’m frightened. My uncle, and Gerran, and my father—all the men, really. Who knows what will happen to them?’ She took a deep breath to steady her nerves. ‘Neb, you’d best start spending time with your brother.’

  ‘He’s going to the war?’ Salamander sounded astonished. ‘He’s but eight summers old!’

  ‘He’s Gerran’s page now,’ Neb said. ‘Where his lord goes, he goes. That’s one reason I wanted to go with the army, to look after Clae.’

  ‘I’ll do the looking after, then,’ Salamander said. ‘I shall be you, scribe and brother and all.’

  ‘My very great thanks,’ Neb said. ‘Truly, that’s most generous of you.’

  ‘I just hope he won’t take it amiss.’

  ‘I’ll tell him that he has to listen to you.’

  ‘Well and good, then.’ Salamander paused, thinking. ‘What about Matto? They must be taking him along, too. He’s the prince’s hostage, after all.’

  ‘They’re not,’ Branna joined in. ‘Voran sent a message about that, asking Mirryn to stand surety for the lad.’

  ‘Good. He’ll doubtless be happier after Gerran and I are gone. If naught else, at least he’ll be willing to take his meals in the great hall.’

  ‘No doubt,’ Branna said. ‘When do you think the army will get here?’

  ‘Soon. A couple of days. I’ll tell you if I see anything untoward. ’

  Perhaps the strangest thing of all, Branna decided, was how normal and ordinary it seemed to have a master of dweomer discussing an event happening far away. Only a few short months ago she would have laughed in scorn at anyone who’d tried to tell her that a person could know what was happening forty miles off. Now she knew that the world was not only bigger, but far stranger than she’d ever believed.

  That night, she stood at her chamber window looking out at the stars. Where was the silver dragon lairing, she wondered, on such a fine night? Surely not in some squalid cave. Someday, she told herself, I’ll have a chance to speak with him.

  ‘Oh do come lie down!’ Neb already lounged on their bed. ‘Are you thinking about that wretched dragon again?’

  ‘I am, truly. He’s just such a puzzle to me. I know Jill made a vow to free him from his evil wyrd. Getting himself turned into a dragon must be the evil, wouldn’t you think?’

  ‘I would.’

  ‘I’m assuming that I’ll have much to say to him when we finally meet, but I don’t know what it would be.’

  ‘Well, since we’re not going with the army, you’ll have plenty of time to think, so don’t worry about it now.’

  ‘You’re right.’ She turned to smile at him. ‘Do you want the shutters open or closed?’

  ‘Open, I think. It’s such a warm night. Now, come lie down. I mean, please?’

  With a laugh, Branna joined him, and for the rest of that night, she never thought about the silver dragon, not once.

  The dwarven contingent had reached Cengarn on the day before Gwerbret Ridvar was planning to leave it. After a single night’s rest, therefore, they set out again for the Red Wolf dun, though they found the trip less than gruelling. Travelling with an army of Deverry men turned out to be a much slower business than travelling with Mountain Folk alone. What was normally two days’ journey to the Red Wolf dun took three full and a bit over.

  Kov, in his role as dwarven envoy, used the time to get to know as many lords and captains as he could, although he spent most of it with Gwerbret Ridvar and Prince Voran. The prince, a younger son of a younger son of the royal house, was an ordinary looking fellow at first acquaintance, with his brownish hair, thinning a bit on top, large ears, and a generous mouth that made his grin border on the froggy despite the attempt of his full moustache to hide it. But the intelligence gleaming in his grey eyes impressed Kov. When someone spoke to him, the prince would listen intently, his eyes shrewd and focused as he weighed the words being offered him.

  Ridvar, on the other hand—Ridvar had inherited the rhan because both his father and his older brother had died in battle. He was a good-looking lad, dark-haired and hazel-eyed, but an arrogant child, in Kov’s opinion, though he did his best to keep the opinion to himself.

  ‘Just how old is he?’ Kov asked Blethry one noontide.

  ‘Not quite fifteen,’ Blethry said. ‘But a married man withal, and one who’s fought and fought well in a couple of scraps against the raiders.’

  ‘Very admirable of him, truly.’

  Blethry raised an eyebrow. Kov smiled blandly back. In a moment Blethry changed the subject.

  As the army travelled south, it gathered men and lords along the way, both those who owed fealty directly to Ridvar and those vassals of his tierynau who happened to live along the route. The gwerbret’s allies sent messengers, announcing that they were raising men and marching with all possible speed for the Red Wolf dun. Yet despite all the musters, by the time the army reached Cadryc’s, it numbered just over twelve hundred human men. Cadryc had a hundred waiting to add to the total. Without the dwarven sappers and miners, the chance of victory would have been slim indeed.

  The dwarves set up their camp in the meadow behind the dun along with the majority of the army. Cadryc’s lady and his elderly chamberlain put forth a superhuman effort and managed to house the noble lords in the dun itself. Kov and Brel found themselves classed with the nobility. Lord Veddyn, the chamberlain, offered them a small chamber near the roof that gave every sign of having been hastily vacated by someone else.

  ‘By the stone gods!’ Brel muttered. ‘I’d rather sleep in the meadow than turn someone out of their bed.’

  ‘Indeed, my lord,’ Kov said to Veddyn. ‘We have a comfortable tent in one of our wagons. Why don’t you return this chamber to its owner? We’ll camp in the meadow.’

  ‘Ah, your wagons.’ Veddyn’s rheumy old eyes briefly gleamed. ‘I’ve heard they contain many an interesting thing.’

  Kov smiled and said nothing. Ye gods! he was thinking. What do they think we’re carrying? Gems and gold and such? Considering the reputation of the Mountain Folk, he supposed, they might indeed have been thinking just that.

  When, therefore, Kov saw Lady Branna studying the mysterious carts, Kov assumed that she too was wondering about the rune-marked crates, but her reason turned out to be atypical.

  ‘This new kind of wheel—it’s awfully clever,’ she said.

  It took him a moment to realize that her comment was sincere. ‘It
is that. You’ll be seeing more of them, I’ll wager. Every cartwright in Cengarn took a good look at them. Your woodcutter did, too, here in this dun.’

  ‘Horza? He’s a marvel when it comes to making things, truly.’

  One of the dwarven carters was leaning over, hands on knees, and frowning at the cart’s left rear wheel. He muttered a few foul words, then knelt on one knee and began pulling something free of the strakes.

  ‘A lot of the wheels have tangled stuff on them,’ Branna said. ‘I noticed it earlier, when your men were lining the carts up.’

  ‘It’s the long grass,’ Kov said. ‘There’s one big problem with this new device. The strake edge can cut dry grass, and if it does, it gathers it up and spins it right round the wheel. It’ll be a cursed nuisance when we’re travelling over the grasslands. ’

  The look on Branna’s face surprised him—a sudden wondering, then a grin. Without a word to him she trotted over to the cart and watched the servant pulling the long stalks free. The action of the strake and its nailheads had twisted them into a messy sort of rope. Puzzled, Kov followed her.

  ‘Uh, is somewhat the matter, my lady?’ he said.

  ‘Not in the least!’ Branna looked up, and her grin turned even broader. ‘Here, good envoy. Surely your men have brought a lot of extra wheels along, haven’t they? Do you think I might have one of them? I don’t have any coin to pay you with, but I do have a bit of jewellery you might fancy.’

  ‘My dear lady! It would be an honour to present you with one as a gift, but um er, might I ask why?’

  ‘I’ve got an idea, that’s all. I wonder if one of those wheels or somewhat like it would spin wool as well as it tangles grass.’

  Kov had never felt so bewildered in his life, but his master Garin’s long training in courtesy saved him. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Here, let me find you one. I think our head carter’s just over there.’

  Once Branna had her straked wheel, she thanked him profusely, then carried it up to the dun. He heard her calling for Horza as she ran through the gates. I don’t know why I’m so surprised, he thought. Our women do love their contrivances, too. After all, he reminded himself, it was just such a womanly love of devices that had led to the secret carried in those wrapped and rune-marked crates.

  No one, however, could spare much time to wonder about mountain secrets. That very afternoon Prince Voran called a council of war. Since Cadryc had no proper chamber of justice—he judged local crimes and disputes right in his great hall—the prince, the gwerbret, Brel, and Kov met in the prince’s bedchamber, a smallish shabby room in Kov’s eyes but obviously the best in the dun. Servants had set up chairs near the window; a low table sported a map of Deverry that Ridvar had brought with him from Cengarn. Kov was expecting that Cadryc would be invited to sit in on the council out of courtesy’s sake, him being the lord of the dun, but he never appeared.

  In the curve of the wall sat a young brown-haired scribe—Neb, Kov thought his name might be, though he’d not heard it clearly—and an oddly handsome fellow with hair as pale as moonlight and slightly pointed ears. At first Kov thought this Westfolk half-breed an apprentice scribe, since Neb was showing him how to write upon waxed tablets with a stylus, but he turned out to be a fair bit more important than that.

  ‘Cadvridoc Brel, Envoy,’ Prince Voran said, ‘this is Salamander the gerthddyn, the man who discovered the existence of Zakh Gral.’ He abruptly frowned. ‘Here, lad, you must have some better name than Salamander.’

  Salamander handed his pair of tablets to the scribe, then rose to a kneel. ‘I do, your highness,’ he said, ‘Evan of Drwloc.’

  ‘Much better! Very well, Goodman Evan,’ the prince continued. ‘I had you brought here to tell us about the terrain around Zakh Gral once again. Neb, I’m hoping to you can take what he tells us and make some sort of picture of it on the back of this map.’

  ‘I’ll do my best, your highness.’ Neb glanced at Evan. ‘You talk, and I’ll make a sketch on the wax tablet. Then you tell me if it’s correct before I do it in ink.’

  ‘Good idea,’ the prince said. ‘Proceed.’

  By the time that the gerthddyn had finished his description, and the scribe’s drawing was done, Kov and Brel were exchanging grim glances. The Horsekin obviously knew a thing or two about siting a fortress. Zakh Gral sat at the edge of the grasslands, where the plateau began to rise into the foothills of the fabled mountains of the far west. To the north lay broken tableland, set off by a rise of cliff that, the Mountain Folk knew, marked the old coastline of the landmass back in ages so old that no one remembered them but the Wildfolk. The northern heights had spawned a river, running straight south to the sea, which Goodman Evan had crossed close to its source.

  ‘It might be called the Galan Targ. We travelled by such a roundabout route, your highness,’ the gerthddyn said, ‘that I was thoroughly confused by the time we left the forest. Thank the gods for sending us the dragons! They’ll see more than I did.’

  Dragons? Kov thought. We have dragons? Brel caught his glance, then rolled his eyes heavenward as if to say, ‘worse and worse’.

  ‘Very well,’ the prince said. ‘So you followed this river south to the fortress?’

  ‘We did, your highness,’ Evan said. ‘Zakh Gral must have been at least twenty-five miles south of the ford. We walked for nearly a day and a half to reach it. The road runs by the river at first, but as it flows south, the river gets faster, and the canyon grows deeper.’

  Much deeper, as it turned out—Evan estimated that the river lay thirty feet below the fortress, perched on the west bank cliff above. Brel began to stroke his beard in thought. The one hopeful thing about the description, Kov decided, was the nature of the cliffs—red sandstone, easily shattered by good steel picks, assuming, of course, that the sappers could reach the bottom of the gorge in the first place.

  ‘The hard question,’ Brel said, ‘is how we’re going to get the army across that river.’

  ‘I was hoping your men could build us a bridge,’ Voran said. ‘Everyone knows how clever the Mountain Folk are at such things. I have great faith in your—’

  ‘Flattery’s all very well,’ Brel interrupted, ‘but does timber grow around there, enough for the building of a bridge?’

  Everyone looked at Evan, who smiled in a sickly sort of way. ‘The hills to the west of Zakh Gral are wooded,’ he said, ‘but on the east side of the river, I saw only scrub and grass.’

  Brel muttered a Dwarvish oath foul enough to make Kov glad that he was the only one there who understood it. The young gwerbret looked back and forth between Brel and Voran.

  ‘Well, your highness,’ Ridvar said. ‘We can cross at that northern ford easily enough.’

  ‘We can,’ Voran said, ‘assuming they don’t learn we’re coming till we’re across it. If they do, we can still cross at the ford, but it won’t be easy in the least.’

  Neb the scribe, who’d been studying his map, suddenly looked up and shuddered, as violently as if snow had just slid down his back. Voran laughed, one sharp bark.

  ‘Geese walking on your grave, lad?’ the prince said.

  ‘I’ll hope not, your highness,’ Neb said. ‘My apologies.’

  Kov felt his stomach clench. He preferred to disbelieve in evil omens, but he couldn’t stop himself from thinking that he’d just seen one arrive.

  With the muster complete, the army would stay only a single night at the Red Wolf dun. Dinner among the noble-born that night, a feast laid on to honour Gwerbret Ridvar and Prince Voran, presented such a challenge that Branna was glad that they’d all be leaving soon, despite her fears for the safety of her clansmen. As lord of the dun, Cadryc kept his usual place at the head of the table of honour, while the prince sat at his right and the gwerbret at his left. Since the tierynau in attendance filled the rest of the seats, leaving no room for Cadryc’s family or lesser lords, Lord Mirryn headed the next table over. Branna, who sat at the far end to share a trencher with Gerran, could overhe
ar the conversation at the honour table. Neb found himself banished to the servitors’ table once again, some distance away.

  At the various honour tables, conversation proceeded slowly, in spurts, making eavesdropping even easier. Branna assumed at first that the men going to war were wrapped in their own thoughts, but when the servants were clearing away the last of the roast pork, Gerran pointed out the truth.

  ‘Keep an eye on your uncle.’ He leaned close and dropped his voice to a murmur. ‘He was never invited to that council today. If he starts to go off, can you pretend to faint or suchlike? Anything to cause a distraction.’

  Branna followed his glance and realized that Cadryc had turned red in the face. He was glaring at Gwerbret Ridvar over the rim of his tankard while Ridvar smiled blandly out at nothing in particular. Prince Voran slid to the edge of his chair and leaned forward, ever so slightly.

  ‘I’ll try,’ Branna whispered. ‘But I’m not very good at fainting.’

  Ridvar made some remark that she couldn’t quite catch, but she did hear him say the name ‘Matyc.’ At that Cadryc slammed his tankard down. His bellow carried quite clearly.

  ‘He’s up in the women’s hall with his mother, your grace. Since he’s but a little child, he can still eat there. You needn’t be afraid of him.’

  Ridvar flushed red, then went dead-white. Hampered by her skirts, Branna took several moments to get free of the bench. Fortunately Prince Voran could move faster. He was on his feet and standing beside Cadryc before Ridvar could say a word.

  ‘Your grace,’ Voran caught Cadryc’s arm. ‘You promised me a look at that Western Hunter in your stables. The air in here’s so hot and stale that I’d very much like to go see him right now.’

  Cadryc blinked in utter confusion, but Voran hauled him up bodily by one arm. Left with no choice, Cadryc allowed himself to be dragged away toward the door out. Branna darted forward and sat down in her uncle’s place before half the great hall even knew what had happened. She turned to Ridvar and smiled.

  ‘Oh, your grace!’ Branna mustered her best simper. ‘I know this is just awfully discourteous of me, but I really had to ask about your delightful wife. One of the servant lasses told me that she might be with child.’