Boldly she continued on her way, the pixie always a few steps ahead. Having arrived at the river, the mannikin tarried at the bridge’s entrance, where he was bounding back and forth and cutting ludicrous capers as if barring Asrthiel’s way. The weathermage, however, was not to be discouraged and she marched resolutely toward the wight, who never let up his nimble clowning. As she set foot on the bridge the pixie darted toward her, whereupon she swiftly leaned down, scooped him up with both hands dropped him into her basket. Quickly she secured the cover, delighted to have avoided the danger of being pixy-led while simultaneously obtaining a source of information.
Though capacious, the container was not big enough to allow the wight to move around, and he was obliged to sit without stirring. He was motionless, but not quiet, for as soon as the lid shut he began jabbering away in some outlandish tongue. The weathermage set down the basket, seated herself beside it, and attempted to ask questions through the wicker-work, but no matter how she cajoled she could get nothing out of her captive save for his continuous stream of babble, which she was unable to understand. At length the pixy’s flow of gibberish petered out and Asrthiel conjectured he had exhausted his speeches or withdrawn in sullen protest, or possibly nodded off. The mysterious silence was intriguing, and she could not help wanting to know what the wight was up to, so to satisfy her curiosity she carefully lifted the lid a fraction, and peered inside.
The basket held nothing.
She could only smile ruefully and acknowledge that she had somehow been gulled. How the dwarfish personage had extricated himself was a puzzle; perhaps he was a shape-shifter who could make himself small enough to thread his way through the woven canes. The damsel looked up at the clear sky and allowed the immensity of its glittering, sable dome to saturate her consciousness; then, with a sigh she rose to her feet, picked up her basket and continued on her mission.
The final ray of daylight twinkled through a flaw in the glass of one of the palace windows. Within a large and ornate chamber, portly King Chohrab II was reclining on a couch, surrounded by his courtiers. He was clad in robes colored tangerine and yolk-yellow, his curly brown hair caught in a jeweled turban, his fat fingers carapaced with rings of brass and red-gold. The Ashqalêthan emblem of the wheel patterned the rich fabric of his tunic. A goblet stood on a small table near his elbow, and an attentive butler waited nearby, carafe in hand. For the entertainment of Ashqalêth’s ruler, dancers were flinging themselves about the floor.
Chohrab’s interlude was interrupted by the precipitous entrance of his host. Startled, he hoisted himself to his slippered feet. “What’s amiss?”
The musicians and dancers ceased their efforts.
“I bear news, my brother,” said Uabhar, brushing invisible dust off his sleeve. Turning to his lord chancellor, who followed close at his heels, he said, “Dismiss these clowns.”
The lord chancellor snapped his fingers, shouting, “Begone,” and the performers scattered in retreat, bowing and scraping, hastily retrieving the silk flowers that had fallen from their costumes as they whirled.
“The Councilors of Ellenhall have lately arrived,” Uabhar told Chohrab, “and reliable sources inform me that they intend to do us mischief.”
The southern king gasped, clasping his hands in consternation. “Ill news indeed!”
“With Conall Gearnach and my Knights of the Brand away, I am poorly defended,” Uabhar continued, running his index finger around the inside of his heavy golden collar. “I ask you, brother, to allow your matchless Desert Paladins to make camp around the Red Lodge wherein the weathermasters are installed.”
“What? Are they in the Red Lodge?”
“Yes, yes. They demanded a well-fortified hostelry. The request seems strange to me, but as a good host I am prepared to go out of my way to indulge my guests, even when they plot against me. My only wish is to make everyone comfortable, but alas, I am so often rewarded with ingratitude and disloyalty. Well, friend and ally, will you deploy your knights around the Red Lodge?”
“Of course,” Chohrab said quickly. “It is the least I can do.”
“Keep your worthy knights well plied with liquor, at my expense. My coffers are open to you.”
“Do you think it wise,” Chohrab said nervously, “to let the Paladins get drunk? Matchless they are indeed, in battle, but they can be—“ he hesitated “—they can be somewhat unruly when in their cups. Overexcitable, one might say.”
“If your men’s wrath grows, fed by rumor of the weathermasters’ foul deeds and fouler purpose, there is nought I can do about it. I would be offended if you were to refuse my generosity.”
“Even so. Then, let it be!” Despite his acquiescence, the desert king continued to wrinkle his brow in perplexity.
Uabhar noted this. “You were right, brother-in-arms,” he said, sighing. “I ought to have hearkened to your advice in the first instance.” Distractedly he scratched his ear.
Chohrab’s eyebrows collided.
“Do you not recall? You advised me the weathermasters were becoming too dangerous,” Uabhar explained. “And you were not mistaken. It occurs to me they must be stopped.”
Between astonishment, righteous anger, excitement and dismay, Chohrab was lost for a verbal response. Instead, jowls quivering, he took a large swallow from his goblet.
Unseen behind a free-hanging arras stood Queen Saibh, thirty-five winters old, though her loveliness was barely tarnished by years and sorrow. A slender, glimmering shadow, she had entered the room alone, moments before, in her customary unobtrusive way. Her presence had not been marked. Now she paused, listening, her hand pressed tightly to her mouth. After hearing this exchange she glided away on silent feet, as quietly as she had arrived, in search of her most trusted courtier.
Fedlamid macDall was a brave man, named after the harper of a legendary king. He was of an age with her; indeed, she had known him since childhood. It was he whom she dispatched straightway into the starlit city, across the vale and up to the slopes of the third hill, whereon stood the knights’ hall. Before midnight macDall returned with his report, presenting himself before his liege lady in her private rooms where she sat weeping, attended only by two of her youngest handmaidens. Bowing on bended knee at her feet, the queen’s confidant kissed her hand and told her, “The knights of King Chohrab are in-deed setting up tents around the Red Lodge, and wineskins are passing freely amongst them, supplied by stewards of Slievmordhu.”
Saibh appeared slight and frail as she leaned upon the arm of a massive chair heavily carved with foliage and grotesqueries. Her arms were two pale wands, and her tears glistened like pearls swinging from fine silver chains.
“It was impossible for me to convey your message to the weatherlords,” her servant continued. His tone was gentle, and he looked upon the distraught woman with grave compassion. “Forgive me. I would never be able to pass unmarked through the pickets, for I am known as a member of your ladyship’s household, not of Uabhar’s, and I do not know the passwords. Be-sides, the lodge itself is sealed.”
“You need never ask me for forgiveness,” whispered the queen, and her countenance expressed more than words could convey. She handed macDall an envelope, fastened with her own seal imprinted in red wax. “My heart aches, Fedlamid,” she said softly, “when I speculate upon what wickedness the king might be plotting this very night. Without delay you must ride to Thorgild at the site of the Summer palace in Orielthir. I will send no message by the semaphore, else Uabhar will discover me. Take my best horse. Ride hard, dearest of all friends,” she said. “Ride swift.”
MacDall bowed his blond head and kissed her hand again, most tenderly. “At your service, my lady,” he said as he tucked the envelope inside his doublet. “The wind shall not outstrip me.” His eyes reflected two bright flames of candlelight as he gazed upon his queen while taking his leave.
There was scant sleep to be had in the palace that night. Even as Saibh was bidding farewell to her messenger, her husband, far off
in another suite, was in private conference with Primoris Asper Virosus.
“It is as I projected,” declared the king. “The Councilors of Ellenhall have arrived, and are established in the Red Lodge. I have them locked in my very fist.”
“The two best of them are not in your fist,” said the druid, “the Maelstronnar and his granddaughter. They are still at large. What will you do about them, eh?”
“Avalloc is old, and diseased now, too, from all accounts. He’s grown feeble. As for the chit, why, she’s only a woman, Virosus! If the day ever dawns when a woman stands between the likes of us and the greater glory of the Fates, that will be the day men’s brains turn into tweeting birds and take wing out of their skulls.”
The primoris merely grunted.
“By morning,” Uabhar progressed, “we shall have trumped up a charge against the weather-meddlers. Most importantly it must be publicly seen and understood that they deserve the fate of criminals. Soon they shall abide in my dungeons, unable to interfere in the affairs of Sanctorum and State, leaving the way clear for us to make our next move.”
“Send someone to observe them,” wheezed the ancient. “It would be best to know what they are at. What if they have grown suspicious, and are using their powers to call storms upon us?”
“I shall dispatch one of my servants and one of Chohrab’s,” said Uabhar. “Should the puddlers be at some activity that could be deemed treacherous, the buttermilk ninny of Ashqalêth will more easily be goaded to action if he learns of it from one of his own lackeys.”
“Whoever is chosen, let them be nimble and circumspect,” said the druid. “They must pass unnoticed to the walls of the lodge, and look upon the weathermasters without being seen.”
“Whom would you recommend?” the king asked. “No doubt you are expert in selecting the most athletic and enterprising agents for this kind of work, since your own affairs require the gathering of much intelligence.”
Apparently oblivious of the king’s dig at his character, which, according to the precepts of the Sanctorum, ought to be the very model of shining integrity, the druid replied, “Two men with the cunning, speed and slipperiness of rats would be appropriate. I would recommend that fellow of yours who does your spying on the lord high chancellor. As for the other, let Shechem choose; it makes little difference.”
Uabhar made no response, pretending to be lost in thought as an alibi for the snub; but later he did act on the druid’s suggestion.
To the judiciously appointed agents Uabhar said, “Go discreetly and spy on the weathermasters. Bring back news of their doings.”
Two men in dusky garments acknowledged their orders, bowed, and slipped away with practiced stealth.
A southwest wind blew the clouds over the river valley, near the hamlet of Cold Ash in northern Narngalis. Briefly, Asrthiel paused in her climb. In the gloom beneath the cloud-blotted sky, barely tinged by starlight, she could hardly make out her surroundings. She was ascending a steep slope at the edge of the vale, heading for a rocky crag that loomed black against the feeble pallor of the heavens. From a distance, when regarding that crag, she had noted a certain quality that hinted at the presence of glamor. Few human beings would have picked up the clue; weathermasters were amongst those few. After doffing her cloak she looked again at the crag, and this time she saw something different.
Fragments of dried four-leafed-clover and hypericum were stitched inside the lining of her cloak, which meant that when she was wearing it she could not be deceived by common eldritch enchantments. Without the cloak, she perceived a faint glow emanating from the window of a rude stone hut perched high on the brink of a cliff, and instantly guessed she was seeing some unseelie trap.
A plan formed in her mind.
Deliberately she folded the cloak, placed it in her basket so that she would continue to see the illusion, and clambered up the hillside.
The feigned hut’s single room, with its unlined stone walls, contained—or appeared to contain—a fireplace in which bright flames crackled, three stools, a pile of kindling, and some hefty logs for the fire. After entering, Asrthiel loosened the strings of a pouch tied to her girdle and took out handfuls of a coarse mixture, which she strewed about the room’s perimeter. It was salisfrax she was sprinkling, a carlins’ preparation; primarily a blend of salt, iron filings, and ash-wood shavings. All around the seeming walls she scattered the compound, but not across the fake threshold.
Asrthiel knew the night air was bitingly cold this far north, though being invulnerable she felt no discomfort. Nevertheless, she stoked the fire with fresh sticks, sat down in front of the grate as if she was warming herself at the flames, and waited.
Presently she drifted into a doze.
The door flew open with a bang and a duergar barged straight in, but though the damsel woke with a start she remained steadfastly in her seat, disciplining herself to show no sign of surprise, no evidence of alarm.
Dressed in a badger-skin coat, galligaskins of rabbit-skin, and a hat made of bracken adorned with a partridge-feather, the swarthy dwarf stood barely higher than a man’s knee. He was barrel-chested and sturdy, with bedraggled, soot-colored hair and an even sootier beard. For a moment he glared at Asrthiel, then he strode across to the stool on the other side of the fire and sat down.
The weathermage guessed what would follow.
Before the malevolent manifestation could begin to spring his trap she leaped up, slammed the door and dashed a quantity of salisfrax across the threshold. Uttering a cry of rage the dwarf lunged at his captor, but bran-dishing the bag of salisfrax in his face she warned, “Do not approach me, wight, for I have the power to overcome you.”
“Ih siue arleske,” the dwarf threatened in guttural accents.
“I am a weatherlord!”
Growling, the hostile creature drew back, while keeping well away from the strewn mixture.
“If you answer my questions,” said the damsel, “I will set you free.”
Impaling her with a look of hatred, the dwarf kept his mouth as tightly sealed as a snail in its shell, but neither did he move from the spot, so, without further ado, she proceeded to cross-question him, while the fire died down until it went out altogether.
An hour or so later the damsel was forced to admit defeat. The duergar proved as devoid of knowledge, or as intractable, as the rest.
“Go then,” she said at last, sweeping the scatterings of salisfrax away from the doorway with a leafy branch from the bundle of kindling. The duergar hurled himself over the threshold and charged out into the night, spitting invective in some foreign tongue.
A light breeze arose, and far away an owl hooted. The damsel wrapped her cloak around her shoulders and looked about. She was standing at the summit of a crag, on the very lip of a gorge. The hut and the fire were nowhere to be seen; the four walls had not been walls at all, but empty air. On the ground, a scattering of salisfrax in the shape of a rectangle was the only sign of the glamor. Where the stools had been, now crouched three grey stones. To one side, exactly where the logs of firewood had lain, the gorge plunged fifty feet straight down to a rocky stream.
“How many human lives have you taken with your death-traps, duergar?” Asrthiel wondered aloud. It gave her some small satisfaction to know that it would grievously provoke the dwarf to have been mastered by a human being. Kneeling, she scratched furrows in the thin soil within the nonexistent walls. Then she withdrew a handful of seeds from another pouch at her girdle and planted them; the germs of four-leafed clover.
Vexed at her failure to extract a useful testimony from the wight, she set off down the hill to continue her hunt.
It was after midnight. Within the Red Lodge, the Councilors of Ellenhall, awaiting the consideration of their royal host, rested uneasily. By unspoken agreement no one lay down to sleep. The sounds of a gathering of military forces filtered through the log walls from outside; men’s voices, the jingle and clank of metal, the tramp of boots.
“Why do t
hey bring men-at-arms so close to the Red Lodge?” they asked amongst themselves. “And why so late at night?”
“This is the Hall of Knights,” answered Baldulf Ymberbaillé. “Perhaps those soldiers have recently arrived after some long march. I daresay they would be quartered here if it were not for our presence.”
“Lord Rainbearer, let my knights bar all the doors and windows,” Sir Isleif said suddenly.
“Whyfor?” asked Baldulf.
“My heart tells me something ruinous is imminent this night. Let us fortify this place.”
“To do so would be discourteous to our host.”
“Better to risk offending him than hazard the welfare of those who are under my protection,” said the knight. “My charge is to guard you. Will you agree to this precaution?”
A vote was taken, after which the windows and doors were barred. Subsequently the entire company felt more at ease. As the night deepened, some of the weatherlords engaged in conversation, while others sat in contemplative silence, allowing their senses to wander out beyond the massive walls of oak into the currents of the upper atmosphere. Ryence Darglistel discovered a checkered board and a casket of heavy chess-pieces. Each piece was cast from bronze and finely detailed, spiky with weapons and crowns. He and Galiene arranged the toys in formation, and began to amuse themselves with a game.
Meanwhile, two figures swathed in drab raiment glided through the encampment of Chohrab’s Desert Paladins, moving barely noted amongst the groups of carousing soldiers. Easily the spies proceeded, because they knew the passwords.
Weatherwitch: Book Three of The Crowthistle Chronicles Page 36