by Brian Daley
Crassmor saw one young buck of the hordes who seemed about to speak out. An older warrior who stood beside him, kinsman perhaps, put a hand on the youth’s shoulder and shook his head gravely; to go against Ironwicca the King would be to waste a life.
One graying brave spoke up. “Go your way for now, O King. We have a new Warlord to select, and this one to honor. But harken: on a day soon, you will find yourself among us again.”
The rest were quick to second that. Soon voices were raised in a war chant. Weapons were being beaten together in time, though no one made a move toward the King and the knight. But when Ironwicca walked toward them, the lizard riders fell back and opened a path for him. Crassmor was at the King’s heels, trying to look as unhurried, holding the medicine wand conspicuously. Around him resounded the war chant, lifting from the throats of the massed lizard riders, riving the stillness of the alien wilderness.
Chapter 8
TAKEN IN AND CAST OUT
“But—but how could Ironwicca possibly know how to use a lizard rider’s whistle?” Willow asked. “Isn’t that a guarded secret among them?”
Crassmor nodded. They sat together in the untended gardens of House Comullo, the House of the Jade Dome. He was still in armor, tired and foul-smelling. She wore loose pantaloons and blouse of a lavender, feather-light material. Elsewhere in the dilapidated, once-grand place, Ironwicca took counsel with Willow’s father Teerse and with Combard.
Crassmor’s mind was still fixed on the expression that had illuminated Willow’s face when he’d first appeared with the King. A look compounded of several elements, it had shown joy and relief the most. There had been another thing in it also, which Crassmor had refused to let himself think about too much. A glory had suddenly transformed her face at his safe return. Willow’s expression had been so fluent and compelling that he’d had to resist the impulse to turn and look behind him to see for whom it was meant. He’d felt that he happened to be standing between Willow and someone who had called forth her innermost beauty; it had been inconceivable that that radiance had been meant for him.
He’d known her all his life and always made himself keep his feelings for her in some insulated compartment locked by his love of Sandur. Seeing her that day, back from death, he’d let himself acknowledge how unique and utterly precious Willow was.
“Ironwicca knew the whistle nonetheless,” he answered now. “He played it with the skill a lizard rider might have envied.” He frowned for a moment and framed his next words carefully. “And it seemed—oh, seemed that they knew one another or had something in common, Ravager and the King. Ironwicca would say nothing on it, laughed when I asked. He was an eerie grim-merry all the way home, even though the barbarians are jostling right now to choose the new Warlord and carry on the invasion. Ironwicca wasn’t concerned, even when he left orders to monitor the lizard riders closely.”
Though the King’s decision to come to House Comullo rather than go on to Dreambourn had surprised Crassmor, objection had been the farthest thing from the knight’s mind. Combard had been visiting Teerse and seeking Willow’s company in mourning. Though she hadn’t said as much, Crassmor understood that this was a source of discomforted helplessness to Willow. Sandur’s death had hurt her terribly, but Combard’s grief was all-consuming, an implication that hers and Teerse’s should be the same. Such boundless, debilitating sorrow wasn’t in Willow’s nature.
“All the arms and fighting contingents that can be raised have been,” she said. “It’s plain that Ironwicca feels the need for counsel now.”
But why here? he asked himself. Certainly Willow’s father was astute, calm, sparing with words yet keen and candid with those he used. Crassmor couldn’t understand, though, why the King would seek that advice alone, before he consulted his generals, statesmen, and seers.
Boots sounded on cracked paving-stones, grinding the rubble of those that had fragmented over the years of neglect. Crassmor and Willow looked up to see the King, Combard, and gentle old Teerse approach. Crassmor stood to bow, Willow to drop a delicate curtsy. Their faces were all question; the dread of war was in both.
Ironwicca’s rare mood was evident, though; he laughed outright, a pleasant, puissant sound. “Didn’t I tell you, Sir Crassmor, to be of easy mind? Your father and Lord Teerse agree with me; the lizard riders’ threat will end—has ended. Ravager held them together, and their First Shaman gave them their navigation. There is no one of the Warlord’s stature among them now; they will fall out and feud among themselves there in the Beyonds. The probabilities and chains of events that brought them upon us in the first place will be severed or altered. If their surviving shamans are astute, they will find their way back to their own Reality, though I think that world would be better off if the hordes wandered forever. In any case, the barbarians’ inroads to the Home Plane have dissipated.”
Crassmor considered the King’s certainty of tone and how it was connected to his conference with Combard and Teerse. It had been rumored for generations, ever since the Comullo family had begun their marvelous Tapestry, that the Tapestry had, for its weavers, properties of prediction. Crassmor had always doubted that; it had seemed to the young knight that if House Comullo possessed an object of such value and power, it would not be in decay and disrepair, impoverished, maintaining a mere handful of guards and servants. Willow had simply dismissed the subject by refusing, in her good-natured, stubborn way, so much as to discuss it.
Combard, Crassmor noticed, looked, if not happy, then at least less dispirited than he had been. He would never get over the death of Sandur, but he’d now begun to live with it. Combard had greeted Crassmor with surprising forbearance, an unaccustomed warmth which, however labored, had pleased Crassmor mightily.
Combard came to him now. “This casting-out of the invaders is by his Majesty’s hand, true, but the King has pronounced it your deed in some part as well.” Ironwicca, coming up behind, seconded that. Son and father traded awkward smiles.
Teerse and his daughter departed to see Ironwicca to the bailey, where his escort of Royal Borderers now awaited him. When they were alone, Combard took from the folds of his sash a golden band, the heir’s ring, which Crassmor had last seen on the Outrider’s lifeless hand.
The old man held it out. As it was, so often, between them, words came only with great difficulty; gestures must speak. Crassmor accepted the ring and slipped it onto his finger. It was a loose fit, though it had been snug on a lesser finger of Sandur’s big hand.
Combard sadly eyed it there for a moment, then squared his stooped shoulders, drawing breath. “All is arranged,” he said, “with the Grand Master of the Order of the Circle of Onn. You will join our ranks, as did Sandur. Each Tarrant generation must have its serving member; this is our tradition.”
“Thank you, fa—fellow knight.” Crassmor caught himself, then made formal acceptance. Combard’s answering smile was no less welcome for being slight and mingled with sorrow. Unwilling to let the extraordinary moment slip away, Crassmor blurted, “I’m not Sandur; we know I never will be. Son to House Tarrant, though; that I shall be as best I know how.”
Combard’s lips tightened. He cuffed his heir’s cheek lightly, affectionately, about to respond. Just then there came a racket from beyond the seamed and crumbling garden walls. Willow appeared, laughing, calling their names. She shouted as she drew near.
“The scouts are back! The lizard riders are gone!” She reached them by then, panting. “It’s as the, as the King said. The barbarians have wandered back into their Reality! Ironwicca has set those fierce Challa horsemen the task of following to make sure, but there seems little doubt!”
She threw her arms around Combard and kissed him for joy. He yielded to it stiffly, but his elation was plain. Crassmor clapped hands, laughing straight up into the sky, back arched. Out in the bailey, men were whooping as if drunk; hounds barked and bayed over their masters’ exultations. Ironwicca’s victory roar sounded above all. Combard hurried off to hear the rep
orts firsthand.
Left behind, Willow stared at Crassmor and he at her. Rejoicing was replaced by simple astonishment at what they saw in each other’s eyes. They leaned closer, no longer hearing the exuberant madness nearby but feeling its joyous release. At a moment they both recognized, they kissed.
Crassmor took Willow into his arms and kissed her again as she responded eagerly. When they parted for a moment, he held her a small distance from him and lost himself in the brown-green eyes. His desires were locked in tormented conflict with his conscience. The things he needed to say to her were those he’d never even have permitted himself to think if Sandur had lived. He fought the hardest battle of his life, to convince himself that this elation was no betrayal of his brother.
“I love you, love you, Willow.”
He hadn’t thought that her face, transformed with happiness, could become so much more rapt, an enchantment. Begun, the words spilled from him before she could utter the acknowledgment forming on her lips. “I always have loved you for so long that I cannot remember not loving—”
He was gripped from behind with brutal fervor, yanked away from her, thrown headlong across the garden path, as a little scream escaped Willow. They’d been so intent on one another that neither had heard Combard re-enter the garden.
Combard stormed, “Animal!” He spit at his son, then turned to Willow with a moment’s tenderness. “Has he hurt you?” In shock, she shook her head as she tried to frame a reply, to explain.
Crassmor heaved himself up off the ground. “Father, you don’t—”
“Silence!” Combard’s voice made the very air crack. Lips pulled back from his teeth, he half-drew his longsword with a grating of metal. “Your brother’s only days gone, barely in his crypt. What manner of creature comes slithering after his betrothed?”
It was a misrepresentation so horrid that Crassmor had trouble apprehending it. Combard took a step toward him. “Out! Get out without another word, or, by the Circle I wear, I’ll sword you!”
Combard seldom swore by the circlet of stone on his finger. Gasping, Crassmor looked to Willow, about to say the truth even though his life rode with it. Her eyes held an entreaty not to.
Combard missed that look between them, glaring at his son. “She is not for you, I vow.”
Crassmor realized what his father meant. As Lord of the Elder House of Willow’s slain fiancé, it was, if he chose to exercise it, Combard’s right to select her husband. Aroused, Combard was fully capable of such an act.
Willow was right. The matter must be left as it stood until Combard’s fury had cooled. To pursue it now invited an unheeding, irrevocable decision from Lord Tarrant. Crassmor had seen that rage in his father before. Crassmor lowered his eyes to where the heir’s ring gleamed and mocked him from his own hand. Then he turned for the bailey. Combard clashed his sword home into his scabbard, coming after like a jailer. Willow looked on hopelessly.
Crassmor entered Gateshield, the fortress of the Circle of Onn, as custom demanded that each initiate do, alone and by the Least Door, which was at the rear of that ages-old, impenetrable mass of masonry.
He had to stoop to do it; the Least Door was a low affair just off the scullions’ privy behind the kitchens. Pausing amid the reek, he turned, stooping low to avoid bumping his bare head on the abrasive stone of the ceiling. He read, in the uncertain light leaking out of the kitchens, the graffito over the entrance of the Least Door. It had been scratched there by some nameless initiate generations before: “All Things Cyclical Imply Futility.”
Crassmor passed into the kitchens, between carving blocks, stewing vats, ovens and grease pits and cauldrons, through aromas and steamy heat. The kitchen help would be aware of his impending arrival, knowing the tradition of the Least Door. They were preparing a celebratory dinner for the Knights of Onn, though; they had only a few harassed seconds to spare for an inspection of him as they rushed back and forth in their labors, sweating, remonstrating, straining, yelling, mixing, basting, and striving.
As gestures of humility went, Crassmor supposed, this one was rather modest. At least it made a worthy point; the armored, belted, sword-bearing champions in their lofty hall, surrounded by mementos of the Order and boasting their deeds, were fed by the efforts of other human beings. Something was owed in return.
Beyond the kitchens was the traditional waiting place—a small, dark alcove—of the guide who would take him into Gateshield’s Great Hall. This duty was carried out by a squire or servitor, or some other who was not numbered among the Circle’s knights. In the alcove, Crassmor found his cousin Bint waiting with a glowing lanthorn. Crassmor was pleased that the boy would participate in the ceremony of investiture. Though silence was the rule, he gave Bint a conspiratorial wink. Bint, wooden-faced, turned from him to lead the way.
As custom demanded, the new knight followed Bint through the darkened halls and galleries, despite the fact that he knew the way well, having played there in the fortress many times as a child. Theoretically, Crassmor was meditating on what he’d seen in the fortress and what was to come. In fact, he spent the time pondering what had already happened.
Many eyes and many ears had taken notice of events in the gardens outside the Jade Dome. Combard’s attitude toward Crassmor during the ride home and the days thereafter had made his feelings even more apparent. At his father’s curt command, Crassmor had remained at home in the interim. No occasion for an explanation had arisen. Combard had refused to permit any mention of the incident. There’d been a single outburst between them, during one of the few meals they’d taken together. The Lord of House Tarrant had flung down his goblet suddenly, vowing, “No man is worthy of the Outrider’s bride, least of all you!”
Crassmor’s mother Anthalla, kind but by years of habit submissive to Combard, incapable of defying him, had offered what tenuous comfort she could. The all-encompassing sorrow for Sandur and the rift between Combard and Crassmor consumed her, making her presence difficult for Crassmor to bear for long. He’d picked bouquets and sent them to her. He’d paid her brief, painful visits in the quiet, darkened inner quarters to which she’d retired along with her widowed older sister Byborra and a few servants. Lewan-the-Rake had refused an arranged marriage for his heir; Crassmor wondered if Combard had selected Anthalla, in part, for her frailty of spirit, for her acquiescence. He wondered too if Combard blamed Anthalla in part for the disaster in his life named Crassmor. Usually Crassmor avoided her; mother and son were helpless to aid or even comfort one another.
Crassmor had come to understand that Combard saw Willow as a sort of shrine to Sandur, presuming her to feel the same. The Lord of House Tarrant had sent her lavish gifts in lieu of wedding presents. Along with these he’d dispatched several of Sandur’s most treasured possessions, taking it for granted that Willow wished to keep her grief always in mind, as Combard did. That his father would marry Willow to another in order to keep her from Crassmor, the knight didn’t doubt for a moment now.
In the main, the groom’s lord’s right of selection of a successor was a tradition observed only by the great Houses of the Singularity. Any number of different customs and rites had found their way through the Beyonds. More appeared constantly, making tolerance an absolute necessity. The traditions of the Elder Houses, though, were bound up with their assorted powers and heritages as well; any disruption risked disorder in, or even loss of, some of those prehistoric gifts and talents that were the bulwarks of the Singularity. If the choice of a new fiancé for Willow were made by Combard, not even Ironwicca could interfere, under law. Moreover, there were few other forces in the Singularity that could challenge the wealth and might of House Tarrant. Any woodcutter’s son was freer to make his own life than was Crassmor. Willow’s father Teerse might defy Combard’s edict for his daughter’s sake, but it would serve no point. Combard had the means to pull down the Jade Dome without effort, all within the traditions.
And if Crassmor were simply to take Willow and spirit her away? They would be
exiled from the Singularity; there would never be peace or safety for them there. Combard would certainly throw his total resources into locating them and exacting revenge, calling in every debt and oath of fealty owed him. Every hand would be raised against Crassmor and Willow. Too, there was Willow’s affection for her frail, aged father. Crassmor didn’t see how he could ask her to leave Teerse kinless by running away; he shrank from the thought of presenting her with such a decision, and feared what her decision might be.
The Tarrant heir’s ring was still on his finger. Once given, it couldn’t be retracted short of death or exile, and Combard hadn’t invoked those. The Tarrant lord, stubborn and diligent in observing tradition, had apparently come to peace with his son’s possession of the ring. It was Crassmor’s sustaining hope; the day might come when Combard would be swayed to allow a match between his remaining son and Willow. Or, failing that, Crassmor would be free to marry her when the Tarrant lordship passed to him on Combard’s death. He preferred not to reflect on it, but Sir Crassmor had decided that he could wait until then if no other opportunity arose.
So he followed Bint to the investiture. Combard expected Crassmor to take the vows of the Order of the Circle of Onn since he, Combard, had already posted sponsorship. To withdraw it would have brought shame on House Tarrant.
Crassmor and Bint entered the Great Hall of Gateshield through its rear door, then paused. Bint went on ahead, according to form, to announce the initiate’s arrival to the Grand Master of the Order. As Crassmor waited, he glanced around to find his prospective comrades-in-arms eyeing him, at least those who stood in the rear of the hall, each man leaning on his sword. Because of the lizard riders’ threat, nearly the entire Order was present tonight.
Those in the rear were members of lesser prestige, remittance men and ne-er-do-wells. Most of them had been given the dangerous, arduous job of patrolling in the Beyonds and along the borders, dispensing what justice they could—or were inclined to—and keeping vigil for any threat to the Singularity that might materialize there. Among these was a particular group, the Lost Boys, some of whom Crassmor recognized.