by T. O. Munro
“How many days since we defeated Hetwith at the gorge?”
“H-H-Hetwith? was Thren, s-s-sure it w-w-was Th-Thren!” Kimbolt pulled feebly at the sodden rag across his back with his still bound hands.
A palm was pressed against his forehead, cool soft skin against his burning flesh. A voice cursed softly and then suddenly a huge thick cloak descended around his shoulders. “Wait here,” the voice commanded unnecessarily, and then its owner was gone and Kimbolt was alone with the rain once more.
***
“Well,” the old elf said after a moment’s silence. “Have you no words of welcome for an old comrade in arms.”
“It has been five years since Bledrag field,” she snapped, before finding a softer tone. “Forgive me, my Lord. But our past acquaintance is a lifetime away and I had no expectation of meeting anyone who knew me of old, least of all you.”
“You are forgiven.” Feyril managed a painful smile. “In exchange for a seat and a little of your time.”
Niarmit relinquished her own chair, the only one the shack possessed, with an easy shrug. “Please, make yourself comfortable. As for time, an hour is all you have. A few minutes past and a ship sails from the harbour. I will be on it.”
Feyril, in the act of lowering himself into the uncertain comfort she had offered, shot upright again. “A ship? Where headed?” A sudden urgency prevailed over curiosity in his voice.
“The Eastern lands, after a brief stop in Oostsalve.”
“You can’t, you mustn’t.”
Niarmit bridled at the unwelcome command. “Feyril you have no call on me. I do and go as I please.”
“You are a princess of the empire and a priestess of the Goddess,” he rebuked her.
“Was Feyril, I was once. Now I am just Niarmit, in my own service and no-one else’s.”
“You cannot leave, not now.”
“Feyril, if all you mean to do is harangue me about duty, then you have wasted much energy in a long and fruitless journey. Years of my life, my friends my family, all have I given in the service of Undersalve. No more. If you have other news to tell me, then say it swiftly or I will bid you good day, indeed good bye.”
The elf grimaced, part with worry part with pain. He met her gaze steadily, recognised the stubborn set to her expression, and began again in a more mollifying tone. “An hour of your time, please give me that much. It is a long story I have to tell, but I will try to tell it in an hour. For the trust I once had with Prince Matteus, just hear me out.”
Niarmit looked briefly around the sunbleached shanty town and then sat comfortably crosslegged before the old elf. “Dwarfport has few entertainments and I have no goods to pack save those I wear. My boat leaves in an hour. You have until then, my Lord Feyril.”
***
It was an uncomfortable experience. Kimbolt had submitted to priestly healing before. The Bishop Udecht had once invoked the Goddess’s power to repair an injured knee sustained in an awkward fall. It had been almost pleasant to feel the waves of holy power wash through the frozen painful joint until its normal movement had been restored. However, even though his fever was easing and his mind clearing, the Captain felt a sense of nausea as his body raged against this new intruding magic.
The shivering ceased, his wits restored Kimbolt was at last aware of the frowning Medusa and the disgruntled orcish shaman before him. “Are you better?” Dema demanded.
As Kimbolt nodded she turned to dismiss the orc. The lurching unholy priest seemed ready to voice some concern or complaint, but the urge quickly left him at the slight twitch of an eyebrow beneath the Medusa’s mask.
“He cured me?” Kimbolt gasped as the humanoid loped away.
“I told him to.” She pulled a knife from her belt and, before he could wince, cut through the cords that bound his wrists. “Things should be easier now, the need for secrecy is almost over. I have raiders out scavenging for supplies. We will eat well tonight and tomorrow we fight.”
“Another ambush?”
She frowned. “All in good time Captain, now stir some sense back into your frozen hands and try to get some comfortable rest.”
***
Feyril sat silent for a moment, brow furrowed as he searched for a suitable starting point. Niarmit watched with unhurried patience. At length the elf began.
“The recent news is perhaps the most grievous. Sturmcairn has fallen.”
Niarmit nodded grimly. “There has been gossip in the taverns that the beacon chain was lit, though none here seem to attach much importance to it. Word from Medyrsalve is that it was an accident or an over-reaction.”
“Well it was neither. Prince Thren perished in the fall of Sturmcairn. Prince Eadran died from some mischance or mischief on the road to Listcairn and orcs have been raiding the villages of Morsalve South and West of Morwencairn.”
Niarmit whistled softly but made no other reaction. Feyril paused in his tale, disconcerted by how little the news moved her. “You do believe this all my Lady? I do not jest.”
She nodded, “Aye Feyril, your story is not just credible but also familiar. A similar disaster overtook Undersalve but five years ago. I am gracing you with a better hearing than either King Bulveld or Prince Gregor gave me when I entreated them for support for my father.”
“Bulveld was a sick man. He died but a month after your embassy and Gregor was still distraught by his wife’s untimely death.”
Niarmit snorted. “My father always said that the duty of a Prince was to his people before his family. My father died for his people and for five long years I have held back my own grief in the thankless task of serving those people he died to defend. Had Gregor paid more heed to my embassy, his wife’s memory would not have been hurt by the effort, but many lives, not least my father’s, might have been saved.”
“King Gregor is dead.”
“Oh.” Surprise at last found Niarmit.
“Along with the household guard, the Marshal Bruntveld and the better part of the elves of Hershwood.”
Niarmit managed a murmur of sympathy. “I grieve for your loss, my Lord. I well remember that it was the elves of Hershwood alone who came to our aid at Beldrag.”
Feyril gave a weak smile. “Aye, yet still I would I had served you and your father better on that dreadful day. I had thought you lost with poor Matteus, your position overrun. ‘twas only then that I sounded the retreat.”
“It is not just old elves who can do magic. My father had a ring my mother gave him, a forbidden ring of wizard craft with a special dweomer. He made me wear it when the last charge came, made me speak the word of command.” She looked away from the Elf’s steady gaze. “It took me. Took me from his side to a place of safety. I never saw him fall. I never said goodbye.”
Feyril let the silence rest a moment between them. “If I had known you lived, my Lady, by the Goddess I would have o-er turned every stone in Undersalve to find you,” he said softly.
“That is much to swear for a poor landless orphaned once-upon-a-time princess,” she muttered as she smeared the heels of her hands across her eyes. “Tell me Feyril, what is it you want of me?”
The elf took a breath before launching at speed into his message. “My lady Niarmit, the Empire of the Salved faces its greatest threat in a millennium. The chief enemy of your people has risen anew and will sweep into the sea all those whom he cannot enslave or destroy, unless you stop him. You must ride to Morwencairn, take up the reigns and trappings of power for only you can stand against him.”
Niarmit was lost, floundering in the wake of Feyril’s rapid discourse. “My Lord? Me to Morwencairn, to lead the empire? You are mad.”
“You must. It is your duty.”
“No!” she slammed her palm against the fragile wooden floor. “Undersalve was my duty and I discharged that in full. I challenge any to say I could have done more in the service of that province. I am leaving now and, if the Empire of The Salved is in such trouble as you describe, then the appeal of the Eastern la
nds just calls all the stronger. I have no place on the throne at Morwencairn. The line of Matteus is but the most junior of the royal lines as was well rehearsed when first my father was made Prince. Why do you not call on Udecht or Rugan? I am sure they can brandish better claims to lead the Empire than I!”
Feyril realised he had overreached himself. He paused and took a careful breath before speaking. “My Lady, you are not of the line of Matteus; King Gregor himself was your father.”
Niarmit rose unsteadily, incredulously to her feet. “No,” she mumbled. “No, you lie! It is a lie!”
***
Kimbolt woke first. The camp around him was stirring and he shuffled off the thick cloak that Dema had flung around him. The Medusa herself was serenely asleep against a tree trunk opposite him. She was masked and hooded as always, but with her eyes hidden and her snakes soothed into sleep, it was uncanny how human she looked. It gave credit to her claim, “I was human once too.” Though to do so was to raise another host of questions. How could anybody, any human, choose the form she now inhabited? How was it possible?
“What made you do it?” It was only when she stirred into languid wakefulness that Kimbolt realised he had spoken the last question aloud.
“Do what Captain?” She stretched her arms above her head and arched the stiffness out of her body.
He saught some less intrusive query than the one that had been in his mind and his hesitation drew a sharp edge from Dema’s tongue. “Come Captain, you asked a question and I am minded to answer it, but do not try my patience with delay. There is nothing I have done of which I am ashamed.”
“You said you were human once. Why did you change?” Kimbolt abandoned the search for a more diplomatic question.
The mask lifted slightly as she raised her eyebrows. “Why? I think ‘how?’ would be the better question to which I would give the answer by accident, and by magic.”
Kimbolt could not help but crescent himself. “I had guessed as much, the magic anyway, though not the accident.”
Dema shrugged. “One would think a wizard could read, but it seems a spell can be written in many different and confusing languages. Still, my father was found of saying that everything happens for a reason and the way things turn out is the way they were probably meant to be. Sitting here, in independent command of an elite band on a desparate mission I would have to say he was probably right.”
“Your father?”
She looked at him squarely and he blinked in discomfort at the chill of her veiled gaze. “My father was a Captain, in the King’s guard.”
“He would be ashamed to see you now!” Her revelation drew a reflex of rebuke from Kimbolt and she in turn snapped her hand to the gauze mask, her mouth hardening in fury.
He looked away clenching his eyes shut even as she spoke with icy calm. “He is dead and there is another of the King’s Captains who is not long for this world, unless he learns to keep a civil tongue in his head.” With a rustle she was gone and only when he heard her voice barking impatient orders at a distance, did Kimbolt dare to look about him once more.
***
“Think, my Lady,” Feyril insisted at Niarmit’s shoulder. “Can you not see what sense this makes of things which must have seemed strange even to you?”
Pale and shaken, Niarmit understood his meaning well enough. “You are saying that is why my father, why Matteus, was granted the province of Undersalve.”
“Indeed, that is the only reason why Gregor could persuade Bulveld to dismiss the claims of Xander and of Rugan’s kin.”
“Old Bulveld knew? You knew? When was this?”
“At the court of Werckib, just before the decision was made.”
“Who else was privy to this vile slander?”
“Just Gregor, Bulveld and I. No-one else knew, no-one else has ever known.”
“My father, Matteus, did he know? Did Gregor tell him how he had been cuckolded, how he was given a province not for his military prowess but to secure a land and a living for a royal bastard?” Niarmit railed against the neat explanation of events which this unwelcome news unlocked. “No,” she cried. “It is a lie, my mother, my mother….”
“You never knew your mother,” Feyril reminded her gently. “She was a proud woman, but the prospects of an impoverished youngest daughter are never certain, no matter how noble the lineage. Matteus gave her many things, but he was old and could never have given her the child she wanted.”
Niarmit laughed bitterly. “Aye the child that cost her her life.”
“She thought the risk well worth the prize.”
“Are you saying she sought out this liaison, this fictitious affair, that she entertained any or all in hope of begetting a child?”
Feyril shook his head quickly before Niarmit’s ire. “It happened Niarmit. The Lady Kopetcha was much sickened when carrying Prince Eadran, Gregor and your mother .. it…” The old elf struggled vainly to find excuses for an old infidelity. “Human lives are complex.”
“It’s a story Feyril, a sordid and unpleasant story. Had any other lips than yours first uttered it, then be certain that the steel edge of my sword would have silenced the slander for ever. There is no proof, there can be no proof for such lies. My father, Matteus my father loved me as only one who sired me could. I have eighteen years of memories to set against this ugly and dissembling fiction that you trumpet so.”
“Time and custom can breed the love you remember but the magic of the bloodline cannot lie. See.” Feyril drew an ornately jewelled Ankh from around his neck. At its centre a great gem pulsated red then white with ferocious brightness. “This you know is the Royal Ankh, borne by all the rulers of the house of Eadran and entrusted to me by Gregor but hours before he died.”
Niarmit gazed in wonderment at the jewel whose light cast sharp shadows on the whitewashed walls of the shack. “Touch it,” Feyril urged and instinctively Niarmit reached for the artefact. When her fingers closed on it, she felt its warmth as though it were of living flesh not inert stone or metal. But in the instant that she touched it the rhythmic pulsing stopped. The gem glowed with a constant rose pink hue, a colour that dimmed slowly into the simple sparkle of a precious stone. At the same time the metal cooled until the item she held seemed nothing more than a well crafted coronation piece.
“What does it mean?”
“The Ankh has acknowledged you. You are indeed Gregor’s heir third of his three children, and now the Ankh tracks the life of your heir.”
“My heir?”
“The King’s brother, perhaps Udecht, perhaps Xander who we believed lost or, if both those have perished it tracks Giseanne their sister and Princess of Medyrsalve. Whoever it be it is no-one of your line. You have no children. Of this much the Ankh makes me certain.”
“And if I had?”
“Then the gem would glow red as long as they lived and breathed, just as it glowed red for your brothers Thren and Eadran and when they perished it glowed red for you.” While Niarmit gazed into the rose pink stone, Feyril gathered his arguments about him once again. “Niarmit, the royal Ankh cannot lie. The bloodline magic is the most powerful and enduring that Eadran the Vanquisher created. You must now believe that you are Gregor’s daughter. You must now take on the mantle of Queen. Ride to Sturmcairn while it still holds against the dread force of the enemy. Wear the helm of Eadran. Wield it for it is the only weapon with the power to vanquish the evil one.”
“The ancient helm is a weapon? How can that be?”
“The source and nature of its power is a mystery known only to those who have worn it and which they are forbidden to share, but I myself have seen in ancient days how nations trembled at the power of the wearer of the helm.”
Niarmit shook her head defiantly. “Feyril, in your long journey you must have left your wits some way behind. You come with some elven bauble in imitation of the coronation Ankh that only kings would bear. You tell me that my mother was a whore,” she stayed his protest with an upraised hand. “Tha
t my father, he who reared me, was a cuckold, my true father a philanderer. That both he and two brothers I never knew I had are dead. You would have me ride half way across the empire to wield a weapon you cannot describe against an enemy you will not name. It is a story not worthy of belief.”
“But it is true!”
“Whether it is true or not it is not worthy of belief. I have a better one to remember and since I am bound to leave this Petred Isle in a short while it is those memories I will take with me. Your fanciful story you can keep.”
“You must believe me,” he cried at last.
Niarmit strode pointedly out into the dirt track which served Dwarfport as a street. “In memory of dangers we once shared and of kindnesses you showed to my father, Prince Matteus, I leave you all I have in this land, to whit, this shack. This is what all the dreams I once cherished have come to. I will not ride another such whirlwind of disapppointment. You must excuse me, my Lord Feyril, suddenly the taverns of Dwarfport seem irresistible.”
***
Constable Kircadden was nervous. The chill of the evening breeze bothered him less than the wind of rumour and uncertainty that had blown along the great Eastway these past few days. His comfortable existance as the King’s officer in Listcairn seemed suddenly less secure.
While others might gossip about the lighting of the beacons, or the latest talk of missing livestock in the woods of Kelsrik, Kircadden had more concrete reasons for fear. It had been two days since the half-elf had ridden through with her escort of lancers and their sombre load. To Kircadden alone she had lifted the shroud to show the broken body of Prince Eadran, brought to his ruin by creatures of magic on the safest road in the realm.
The troop had stopped just to water horses and gather a few short hours of sleep before riding on across the River Saeth and towards the foothills of the Palacintas where Rugan’s province began. Like every other message and emissary since the lighting of the beacons there had been no reply or return from their passage.
Kircadden wiped his balding pate and wished again that his command were the secure and homely posting it had once been. On the safest highway, at the border between the strongest provinces in the Petred Isle, Listcairn had always been a place of absolute security and safety. Yet now, with unknown perils lurking in the woods to the West and a deafening silence from the hills to the East, Kircadden felt the awful loneliness of command.