by Dave Duncan
royal earl at the moment."
Leofric shrugged. "Ae`edelno`ed was the last
adult Nyrping. His boys won't be contenders for
ten or fifteen years. The Tholings are down
to daughters who need a generation to produce sons.
Scalthings are even rarer than Catterings. The
tanist of We`ede is a Scalthing, but not
ambitious. Can you blame him?"
"That leaves Wulfwer?"
"Your cousin shows no signs of opposing his
father. He knows he isn't earl material, let
alone throne-worthy. If the witenagemot really
wants to jettison Cynewulf this time, it will have
to promote a new family to royalty."
The Baels exchanged glances that suggested they
had been trying not to think about this topic.
"Can it do that?" Wasp asked.
Radgar answered without looking around. "The
earls can rally behind anyone they like."
"It's been tried?"
"Often. It's even succeeded, but it always leads
to civil war."
Fires and candles dwindled and died. The King
and Queen had long since retired and so had most
of the earls--tomorrow might be memorable. Only the
youngest and most raucous of the thegns remained,
drinking as if it were a duty, singing foggy sea
chanties, quite incapable of noticing anything
untoward. One by one they rose and staggered out into the
moonlight or else slid to the floor to join the
slumbering cnihtas already there.
Radgar was still awake and apparently waiting for
someone or something. Even Leofric and Aylwin were
conscious and close to sober. They kept trying
to persuade Radgar to go home with them and spend
what was left of the night in their house, and he
kept refusing without explaining. He had moved a
bench to what seemed to be a special place and
there he remained, wearily slumped
back against the wall. The two thegns flanked
him; Wasp just stood and listened as the others
talked tactics, explored possibilities,
weighed theories. However much Radgar still insisted
that the throne was beyond his grasp, he had not lost
interest. Wasp thought he wanted it. Perhaps he
wanted it mostly for his father's sake, but he
wanted it.
"Cynewulf knew where I'd been ... and that
I was coming home. ... Can't prove it, but I'm
sure. ... Perhaps I was seen in Thergy? You
think that could be why he prompted Aelfgeat to go
after Ae`edelno`ed? Perhaps his friend Ambrose sent
word. Is Healfwer still alive, Leofric? ...
never realized what a superlative conjurer he
is. ... So Cynewulf learns I'm alive
and on my way home ... decides to clean up
the odds and ends like Ae`edelno`ed. ... Must
admit it's cleared the slate. ..."
"So you are the only threat left?" Wasp was
bone weary. He could not sleep, but he needed a
few hours' rest. He wondered how Radgar could
keep his eyes open. And why he did.
"It's made things interesting--this moot." His
pauses were growing longer. "Really like to know where
Cousin Wulfwer has got to. ..."
The hall trembled faintly; the volcano
rumbled. A stench of ash and sulfur drifted through
the hall. None of the sleepers stirred. Radgar
yawned and stretched.
"Think it's time! Aylwin, can you lift
Wasp?"
The Bael spared the Blade a brief and
contemptuous glance. "How far do you want him
thrown?"
"Not far. Remember the five swords that used
to hang right over where we're sitting?"
His companions all peered up into the darkness.
"Vaguely."
"My father pointed them out to me. They were the
swords of the five Blades who died at
Candlefen."
"Those were sent back," Leofric said.
"Treaty of Twigeport, Clause
Nineteen."
"Eighteen. I was there in Ironhall when they
were Returned. There's another sword up there in
their place. I noticed it the moment I came in
here this morning--yesterday morning. ... It's new
since my time. What's the story on that
one?"
Puzzled silence was the only answer.
Radgar rose and the others sprang up at
once, as if he were already royalty. "Then
let's have a look at it, shall we?"
However insane that suggestion should seem in the
middle of the night, nobody argued. Aylwin
climbed on the bench; Wasp removed his boots
and clambered onto Aylwin's shoulders. Then his
face was level with an exceedingly greasy
buckler that might have hung there for centuries. It
was much too slippery to provide any sort of
handhold and it might not be firmly fastened
anyway. Staring up with only indirect
moonlight to aid him, he could make out more
shields, a few axes, several antique
two-handed broadswords--and one sword more or
less by itself that seemed much more modern. He drew
Nothing and stretched, but reached only the tip.
"Too high."
"Lift him," Radgar said. "And then stand on
tiptoe."
Aylwin's reply was quiet and lurid, but he
gripped Wasp's ankles and hoisted him up at
arm's length with hardly a grunt. He might not
have come by his muscles honestly, but they were real
muscles. Working more by feel than sight, Wasp
managed to slip Nothing's point through one of the
mystery sword's finger rings and jiggle it off its
peg. It slid down his rapier with a rush that almost
stopped his heart, fortunately not killing him in the
process. He waited in silence.
"You got it?" Radgar said at last.
"Yes, but I want to see how long this lunk
can hold me up here."
That time Aylwin's comment was really lurid.
The four of them gathered around a hearth where a
few sickly flames still cast some light. Wiped
clean of grease and smoke, the sword was revealed
as a silver-hilted thrusting sword, slender and
straight but not quite a rapier because it had a single
edge for about one third of its length. It was no
amateur's weapon. The pommel was a
cat's-eye and its name was Fancy.
Radgar raised it in salute to the darkness.
After a moment he sighed. "I claim this. It
slew my father."
"Yorick is dead," Wasp said. "No one
hangs a Blade's sword on a
wall while he's alive."
"But who did that and why? And when? How and why
did he come to die here, back in Baelmark?"
Radgar strode toward the door. The others
jumped up to follow.
"That you will never know," Leofric growled,
catching up. "Is this the evidence you were bragging
about?"
"Part of it. You told me Healfwer was still
alive. You and Aylwin should go to bed, ealdor.
We have a big day ahead and I'll need both of
you bright-eyed
and sharp-toothed. Right now Wasp and
I have a job to do, for which we need a couple of good
horses."
"You can't ride to Weargahlaew in the dark."
"Have to. Necromancy won't work in
daylight."
As they clattered down the steps in the silver
moonlight, Wasp said, "This is madness. You
don't believe in necromancy!"
"No? I asked Healfwer once if he could
summon the dead. He said he could if he had
something distinctive, something that had been very close
to that person for a large part of his life and had not
been close to anyone else since he died. Like
offering a scent to a tracking dog."
Obviously a Blade's sword fitted the
requirements perfectly, and that one had been
hanging on a wall, untouched.
When they drew near the royal stable, Wasp
said, "Are you just going to help yourself?"
Aylwin said, "Why shouldn't he? Most of them
belong to him anyway."
"The King won't admit that. If he tries
to arrest Radgar for horse stealing, I'll have
to start killing house thegns."
"Sir Wasp is wise beyond his years," said
Leofric. "I have a couple of good mares boarded
here. You can take those."
Sir Wasp was seeing assassins crouching in every
velvet shadow. Even if those were just his imagination,
a ride up a volcano by night ought to seem like
safe recreation after this palace of deceits. His
Blade instinct did not work for volcanoes.
Leofric threw open a door and shouted at the
darkness inside. Almost immediately a pair of
thralls hurried out, rubbing their eyes and
shivering in the chill. Barefoot and naked, they
ran off to the stalls. The thegn said, "You wait
here," and followed them.
"Wretches!" Wasp muttered. "Couldn't we
have done it ourselves?"
Radgar glanced at him inscrutably but said
nothing.
"What?" Aylwin asked. "Why? That's what
thralls are for."
"It's unkind. They must need their rest. I
bet they spend every waking moment working."
"Of course they do." The young thegn seemed
genuinely puzzled by the Chivian's ignorance.
"When they're not working they lie down and sleep
until someone kicks them and gives them more
orders. Unkind? You can't be kind or unkind
to thralls!"
Wasp clenched his teeth in case his frayed
temper snapped.
"He's right, Wasp," Radgar said
quietly. "Thralls are never really awake."
"If thralldom is so pleasant, why don't
you get yourself enthralled?"
"People do. It's a form of suicide. And it can be
a sort of murder. That's one of the dangers I
hope you'll guard me from."
The nightmare conversation ended when Leofric
returned with the thralls leading two horses.
The moon, just past the full, ruled a clear,
starless sky. There was very little wind, that fine spring
night, but a ride up a volcano by moonlight
was not relaxing. It was crazy. Cwicnoll
rumbled almost continuously, and red lights flickered
in the monstrous cloud over his summit. His name was
masculine gender in Baelish and Cwicnoll was
definitely he. The horses grew ever more
skittish as the journey proceeded. Wasp would
never be a stylish rider, but he handled horses
well.
"What are the lights?" he asked once, as a
particularly bright flower of flame lit the sky.
"Pure fire elementals, probably. I
think they're getting wilder. You can hear the earth
spirits trying to escape, too. We may be going
to see a major eruption."
"How dangerous is that?"
"No danger to Waro`edburh. The wind very
rarely blows ash this way, and lava runs off to the
southwest. Cwicnoll rumbled for years
when my father was young and then just stopped, about the time I
was born. Old wives say Cwicnoll
signals a change of earl, but he did nothing for
my father's death. The last real eruption was forty
years ago. He's all noise."
The mountain roared protests at this insult.
"Of course he may open a new crater. That
might put the town in danger. Or spawn a
firedrake. There's always that possibility. He
did that in my grandfather's day. It destroyed the
Gevilian army."
"And your grandfather too?" asked Wasp, who had
been eavesdropping on talk in the hall.
Radgar did not answer.
As they rode higher, their view expanded
to include scores of islands and islets lying off
Fyrsieg like fragments of charcoal inlaid in a
sea of lead, their outer edges trimmed with a lace
of white surf. Radgar promised an even
better view at the lookout called
Baelstede, but the upper slopes were mantled in
snowy ash, making the rocky terrain treacherous for the
horses. When they reached the viewpoint a chilly
wind was stirring up clouds that stung eyes and
throats. In the gorge leading to Weargahlaew,
the trees were loaded and dying, while deep
drifts almost blocked the road. Every few
minutes the ground shuddered and ominous rattles
warned of stones rolling down the hillsides. Now
the danger was undeniable.
Wasp bit his lip to stop himself squealing out
protests until he could stand the strain no longer.
"I can't talk you out of this, can I?"
Radgar sighed. "No, you can't. Oh,
Wasp, I wish I didn't have to drag you
along. I know it's dangerous. Even if it
kills me, I must know who slew my father.
Fancy is the key to that. You know this!"
"Yes, I know. I understand. Well, let's
go on, then." Brave remark by Will of
Haybridge! A real Blade would find a way
to keep his ward from doing this.
The mouth of the tunnel presented the worst threat
yet. As the men dismounted, Cwicnoll roared
menace and rattled the world. Rocks skittered
down from the cliffs; the horses neighed in terror
and struggled. The stench of sulfur was nauseating.
Red-flickering cloud adorned the summit
overhead, staining the ash-caked scene with
blood.
"We'll have to leave them here," Radgar said.
"Tether them firmly. Better hobble them too."
As he was lighting the lanterns, another tremor
produced clattering sounds inside the cave itself.
"Glad we missed that one," Wasp remarked
and was pleased at how calm his voice sounded. With
any luck they would find the roof had collapsed and
blocked the tunnel completely.
No. What they did find was a trail of
footprints where ash had drifted into the mouth of the
cavern. Many people had passed that way.
Radgar said, "Going out. They've abandoned
Weargahlaew. I don't see any signs of
Healfwer's peg leg, do you? They probably
had to carry him."
Wasp could see at least one print going in,
but he was not going to mention it. "If there's nobody
left, then we needn't go any farther."
"They may not have all gone. I have to know, but
let's be quick about it."
Yet speed was impossible. What once had
been a decent path was littered with rocks, jagged
and sharp as glass. By the faint gleam of the
lanterns they clambered and scrambled their way
along the tunnel, holding their breath every time the
ground shook, which was often.
Between cursing wrenched ankles and bruised shins,
Wasp said, "This is crazy! You can find
conjurers in Waro`edburh, surely?"
"Only quacks and bunglers. They enthrall
prisoners and cure head colds, but that's about
all they can do." Radgar's voice echoed eerily
in the gloom. The light of his lantern wavered
over the dark rock, roiling the shadows into dancing
monsters.
Growl! Rumble! said Cwicnoll.
Rattle, click-click-click,
clatter, said the pebbles falling from the roof.
As soon as they emerged from the tunnel and
Wasp could stop worrying that the roof might fall
on his ward, he was able to start agonizing over the
chances of suffocating, for the air was a stinking fog that
blocked the light of the lanterns like wool
blankets. It was also ominously warm.
"This is crazy! Let's get out before the
tunnel collapses and traps us."
"I can't." The fuzzy glow that was Radgar's
lantern continued to move away through the
murk. "I must know. There's no danger here that you
can guard me against, so you go back and wait with the
horses. Should be a path about-- Ah! Here."
Wasp followed him without a word down a
breakneck slope of rubble buried in slippery
ash, over an ash-coated meadow, where every step
raised more choking clouds, and eventually, after some
searching, into a forest of trees bigger than he had
ever imagined. The branches had caught most of the
ash, but there was enough on the ground to show faint tracks
where people had passed. The fog was just as dense, just as
painful to the eyes and throat. The mountain rumbled
and trembled. Now and again there were nearer sounds of
rock falls. He wrapped a corner of his
cloak over his mouth and nose, but it did not help
very much. He was sweating in the stuffy warmth and the heat
of the ash hurt his feet.
Footprints became rarer, the path divided