Then a verse came into her head. It was from a long poem, and she didn’t know all the lines, but she knew enough. “‘That’s my last duchess painted on the wall’—”
When she returned to the fire, she and Perin divided the last of the dried beef from his kit. Chewing the rank, salty strips of meat made her jaws ache. Nora felt disinclined to speak of Aruendiel again—it seemed uncertain ground—so she asked, after finally swallowing a particularly stringy morsel: “If you don’t want to take a court position in Semr, what would you rather do?”
Perin laughed, a little ruefully. “I’m happy enough serving in the King’s Guard, but my father is right. I can’t stay there forever. There’s not much chance for promotion or spoils these days, unless this Faitoren rebellion turns into a greater war. All the more reason, my father says, to make a good match.”
“You mean, to marry an heiress.”
Perin said nothing, but in the dimness, Nora made out a half nod. Then he said: “You said in Semr that you had had a cruel husband.”
“Yes.” Nora found that she did not much wish to discuss Raclin with Perin, either. “It was not a real marriage,” she added awkwardly. “I mean, he deceived me—I didn’t know what he was really like.”
“This was the Faitoren prince?” So Perin had heard that story in Semr, too. Was he going to press for details? No, he only said: “You deserve a far better husband.” He spoke with surprising warmth.
“I hope so!” Nora said. She laughed, and after a moment Perin laughed with her.
“So you think one ought to know what a husband—or a wife—is like before marriage?” he asked. Nora said yes, very firmly. “It’s not so easy, you know,” Perin said. “My family recently began marriage negotiations for me with Lord Denisk of Kaniskl, for his oldest daughter. I have met her just once. If the negotiations are successful and the marriage takes place, I would probably see her four or five more times before the wedding.”
Nora was surprised to register a pang of disappointment. But her instinct had been right: Men like Perin were always engaged. She said: “I think you should get to know her better. How did you like her when you met her?”
“Pretty, very shy. She wouldn’t talk at all at first, but I played with her puppy and I think she liked me a little better then. She is thirteen years old.”
“You can’t marry a thirteen-year-old!”
“She’d be fourteen or fifteen by the time of the wedding.” Perin sighed, an uncharacteristically gloomy sound. “To be honest, I’d much rather have a wife who is ready to cuddle her own babies, not just a puppy.”
“Then don’t marry a child! I think you should find someone closer to your own age to marry, to have children with. If that’s what you really want, a family,” Nora added, fumbling a little. “It sounds like it.”
“Oh, yes.” Perin’s tone was definite. “Not just to honor my ancestors, either. I like children—preferably a houseful of children, like the one I grew up in.”
Nora had a sudden, vivid mental picture of Perin with his yet-unborn family—roughhousing with the boys, carrying a little girl on his shoulders, holding a wiggling baby with gentle awkwardness. He seemed to cast a circle of light in which everyone was happy and safe; all of them were laughing, including the shadowy woman by the cradle. “You’ll be a good father, whoever you marry,” Nora said.
“The negotiations with Lord Denisk were not going well, the last I heard,” Perin said cheerfully.
* * *
The next morning they broke camp well before dawn. Nora groped her way over to Dorneng, hoping that it would be easier to rouse him this morning. Yesterday he’d been almost completely inert.
Today, though, as soon as she put her hand on his shoulder, she could feel that Dorneng was gone. His body was rigid, ungiving. She felt both relieved and somber. Every man’s death diminishes me.
“He had already departed,” Perin said gently when she showed him.
Nora remembered saying almost the same thing herself, the other time. “It was probably a stupid idea to drag him all this way,” she said. “But I couldn’t just leave him.”
“No, I see that,” Perin said. “You are not easily discouraged when you want to help someone.”
“Oh, no, it’s not that—” He was giving her too much credit, but his words made her glow. In silence together they weighted Dorneng’s corpse with stones, so that he would be buried in the marsh with the first thaw of spring.
By the time the stone towers of Maarikok turned pinkish gold in the first light, Nora and Perin were looking up at the castle from the eastern tip of the island. “Hmm,” said Perin. He was no doubt thinking the same thing that Nora was: Higher than we thought. On the island’s northern side, the hill on which the fortress was built reared almost straight out of the marsh.
Perin turned his gaze to the south and took off his helmet. The wind coming across the marshland ruffled his short-cropped hair. Nora admitted to herself that he was better-looking than she’d first thought: well-knit features, a level glance. Watch it, she told herself, recognizing the symptoms: not a crush yet, but a distinct tingle.
Perin held up his hand. “Listen,” he said. “The battle has begun.” She could make out only phantom shouts, a distant clatter. No gunfire, as there would be in her world. “It’s good for us,” he said reassuringly. “It’s a distraction.”
“Right,” she said, nodding. “Well, let’s take a better look.”
They made their way along the northern side of the island, under the cliff. From time to time, Perin glanced back at the ice demon on the sled. “Here?” he asked.
“Not here. Keep going.” The demon’s face was impassive as always, but there was poorly suppressed excitement in the way it shifted its position on the sled. It was looking forward to freedom and, Nora feared, a really satisfying meal after days of nothing but poetry.
Looking up, Nora could see how the demon had been able to climb the cliff on its earlier raids. The stone had split and eroded into jagged protuberances, where an exceptionally enterprising mountain goat—or an ice demon—might be able to find a path.
“Here,” the demon announced suddenly. “This is the way.”
“You’re sure?” Perin asked.
“I forget nothing,” the demon said.
Perin looked at Nora, a trace of skepticism in his glance. “Well, what do you think? Can you manage it?”
“I think so,” she said. Now that they were finally here, the rough wall of stone waiting to be attempted, she felt more sure of herself.
“Then—” He raised an open hand, an invitation that was mixed with faint bemusement. “Would you like to go first?”
Nora examined the rock in front of her and decided to aim for a ledge about eight feet off the ground. She took a moment to gather her thoughts. Then, putting a foot and a hand on the rock face, she worked as powerful a levitation spell as she could manage.
An instant later, she was scrambling up the cliff, moving easily, almost bouncing against the stone. The slightest purchase on the rock was enough to propel her higher. She went past the ledge she had been aiming for and pulled herself onto one above it.
She looked down at Perin’s upturned face and laughed. “It worked!”
He grinned up at her. “You can do the same with me?”
“Of course!”
As Perin swung himself upward, she did the spell again, keeping her eyes fixed on him. He moved rapidly up the cliff face and landed next to Nora.
“That’s a fine trick,” he said.
“Thank you,” she said with a small thrill of pride. She looked upward, trying to spot the next ledge.
“Wait!” It was the ice demon below, clambering down from the sled. “You are not going to leave me!”
Nora exchanged a look with Perin. “We can’t carry you up,” she called down. “Wait for us.”
“I want my body back!” the demon said. “I have fulfilled my side of the bargain. I have guided you to Maarikok. I ha
ve shown you the way that I took into the castle.”
“Well, we’re not in the castle yet,” she said. “I’ll give you the rest of your body when we come back.”
“If you come back,” the demon said suspiciously. “I am coming, too.” It scuttled to the bottom of the cliff, then reached up the rock face and began to climb. After a moment, Nora saw how: The demon could grip the rock by freezing to it, then pulling itself upward.
“Let’s keep going,” Perin said in her ear. She nodded. They went up the cliff by turns as the ice demon doggedly inched up the rock face below them. Nora decided it was better not to look down, to focus on nothing but working the levitation spell correctly and finding secure places to plant her hands and feet.
But during the brief intervals when she and Perin were side by side on the same ledge, she was embarrassingly conscious of the feel of his body against hers. She found herself looking forward to the moments when he would put his hand protectively against her back as she clung to the rock wall. Incredible that she could even think of sex in the middle of scaling a cliff, but there you have it, she thought. It had been a very long time.
Above, the castle wall rose smoothly from the rock, but when they were close to the top of the cliff, Perin pointed out the small dark gap at the base of the wall. One of the stone blocks was missing.
There were only a few yards to go—Nora had just pulled herself onto a ledge directly below the gap—when she heard the flapping of wings. Something bright flashed in the corner of her vision. She looked around carefully. A small bird whose feathers shone like mirrors had found a perch on a jutting piece of rock nearby. It fluffed its feathers against the cold and turned its head to look at her.
Nora frowned, then said hesitantly: “Hirizjahkinis?” The bird trilled, a faintly admonitory sound, and then took flight.
“What did you say?” Perin asked.
“The silver bird, did you see it? I think it belongs to a magician I know, Hirizjahkinis. You saw her at court.” Hirizjahkinis close by—perhaps Aruendiel was rescued already. Or could Ilissa mimic the flight of birds as well? Nora helped Perin onto the ledge, wondering how hopeful she dared to be.
“Let me go ahead,” Perin said, looking up at the hole in the wall. When he had gone past her, she looked down cautiously. The ice demon was still making its way up the rock face, perhaps a hundred feet below. Another disquieting thought struck her—could the bird be Hirizjahkinis’s own call for help? Once before, she had used it to summon Aruendiel to Semr.
Apprehension mounting, Nora scrambled through the wall opening into musty darkness. “Perin?” she whispered.
“Here.” His voice came from a few feet away. She caught the gleam of his helmet.
“Do we risk a light?”
“I think so. I don’t hear anything.”
Standing up, Nora conjured a weak light. They were in a low-ceilinged room about twenty feet square, the single doorway half-blocked with a rubble of stone and wood. Gritty icicles hung from the ceiling. Perin stooped and picked up a rotted barrel stave from the floor. “We’re in one of the old storage cellars,” he said. “We’ll need to find our way to the dunge—”
“So you did escape Ilissa!” A new voice, speaking louder than either of them.
Perin stepped forward, his sword already in his hand. Nora hastily summoned a brighter light and peered at where the voice at come from. “Hirizjahkinis?”
A column of air thickened, grew viscous and murky, then resolved itself into the shape of a woman, almost invisible except for her pale dress and the watery gleam of her jewelry.
“Hirizjahkinis?” Nora said uncertainly. “Is that really you?”
“Don’t be alarmed—it is only a fetch!” It was Hirizjahkinis’s voice, strong and confident. “I am some little distance away—and there is a Faitoren army between us, in fact—so I have come to see you without my body, so to speak.”
Nora badly wanted it to be Hirizjahkinis—but her own avidity was a warning sign, she reminded herself. “I don’t mean to be rude, but how do I know that you aren’t one of Ilissa’s illusions?”
Laughter, slightly strained. “You are cautious, little one.”
“That’s the sort of thing Ilissa would say to distract me.” Although Ilissa would have called me “darling,” Nora reflected.
“I am Hirizjahkinis herself, the only one, and if I were a Faitoren counterfeit of me, I could not say that. And are you a Faitoren illusion yourself?”
“No, I’m Nora, not a Faitoren. I’m sorry to be skeptical, but that’s how Ilissa kidnapped me, pretending to be you.”
“I would have liked to see that! She is a tricky one—cleverer than I thought, I must admit. It would be much easier—” Hirizjahkinis hesitated, uncharacteristically. “You know that we do not have Aruendiel now.”
“Ilissa said he had been captured. How—?”
“He lost his temper!” Hirizjahkinis laughed, a little bitterly. “I have never seen him so angry. He would not hold back, he would not wait for the rest of us—he would go after Ilissa and that lying scorpion Dorneng by himself—and by some means they took him.”
“Angry?” Nora was startled. She had been so sure that whatever had weakened Aruendiel must have come from his own blackest wishes, that Ilissa had tempted him by promising to do a second time what she had done once before. “What was he angry about?”
Hirizjahkinis stared straight at Nora. “You.”
“Me?”
“He was enraged that Ilissa had taken you. We were awaiting two other magicians, Euren the Wolf and Fargenis Gouv, when I heard your call, that you were with Ilissa and you needed help. I told Aruendiel—and then there was no stopping him.
“And now I see that you are free and well, remarkably enough. Unlike Aruendiel!” There was no mistaking the rancor in Hirizjahkinis’s tone now.
Nora put her hand to her face. “I never thought—”
“Never thought what? That Aruendiel would be such an idiot? You have done well enough without him or me, it seems. And now you are sneaking into a Faitoren stronghold. Or are they expecting you?”
Nora shook her head, her throat tight.
“Forgive my sharp tongue,” Hirizjahkinis said fiercely, “but I need to know the truth. Did you summon me at Ilissa’s bidding?”
“No, of course not. She didn’t even know I had your token—at least, not then.”
“But she let you go unharmed, I see.”
“It wasn’t like that at all,” Nora said, her voice rising. “I got away by pure luck, an accident. Dorneng was about to kill me—”
“Dorneng? Where is he now? We have lost track of him for some days now.”
“Dorneng is dead.” Perin spoke up matter-of-factly. “He died last night.”
The ghostly Hirizjahkinis looked at him for the first time. “Dead? How?”
“An ice demon killed him.”
“An ice demon? One of your vile northern monsters. Well, it served him right, but I am surprised. Dorneng was a good magician. He should have been able to fend it off.”
“He was too slow.” The ice demon’s piping voice came from behind Nora. She turned to see it clamber through the opening in the wall. “I took him before he could use his horrible magic. A very poor meal, though. I’m so hungry.”
“That’s how I got away, when the ice demon went for Dorneng,” Nora said. Edging closer to Perin for safety’s sake, she recounted the events of the past few days as quickly as she could. She could not tell from the apparition’s filmy countenance whether Hirizjahkinis believed her.
When she had finished, Perin added: “You must know, we would not have risked our necks climbing that cliff if we were to be guests of the Faitoren.” He spoke courteously but with nothing yielding in his tone.
“But why are you here?” Hirizjahkinis demanded. “Do you plan to take on that Faitoren garrison upstairs by yourselves?”
“No, we’re here to rescue Aruendiel,” Nora said.
“What
?”
Nora could not decide whether Hirizjahkinis sounded more incredulous, affronted, or amused. “Dorneng said Aruendiel was here at Maarikok,” she said.
“He is not here.” Hirizjahkinis’s voice was definite.
“What do you mean, he’s not here?”
“I would know. I would know his magic anywhere, and he is not here. I can tell that there is only one magician in this castle right now, and that magician is much, much weaker and clumsier than Aruendiel.” Hirizjahkinis laughed, and her laughter sounded colder than usual. “I do not mean me. I am not really here.”
Dorneng lied, Nora thought. Or they moved Aruendiel somewhere else. Or—
“Well,” she said, at a loss for words.
“Lady Nora’s magic got us up that cliff,” Perin said quickly. “She might not be as expert as some, but it’s the results that matter.”
“And who are you,” Hirizjahkinis said, “who risked his neck to escort Nora up that cliff?”
“My name is Perin Pirekenies.”
“That name is familiar. You are—ah, Holy Sister, I know who you are! And you came along with Nora—”
“To help her rescue Lord Aruendiel, yes. I did not like to see a lady take on such a dangerous task alone.”
Hirizjahkinis shook her head. “Lady Moon, what Aruendiel would say! Perhaps it is as well that he—I knew your grandparents, Perin Pirekenies.” Perin gave a brief nod of acknowledgment. “Perhaps they were not very sensible, but they were brave, they did the best they could with bad luck—I respect them both. And here you are, coming to Aruendiel’s aid! Well, I am sorry that I do not have better news for you.”
“Hirizjahkinis,” said Nora, “if he is not here, where is he?”
Hirizjahkinis looked very steadily at Nora, and her image seemed to grow a shade more defined, as though she were concentrating hard. “I am sorry, little one, I was too harsh with you earlier. I did not know what to think, seeing you alive and Aruendiel gone.”
“Gone where?”
“Aruendiel was my teacher and my friend,” Hirizjahkinis said soberly. “I knew his work almost as well as I knew my own, and if I listened carefully, I could always hear the echo of his magic, even from the other side of the world. Those echoes are quiet now.”
The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic Page 61