The hermit bowed low and touched the stones. “We have never before met,” he said, as if this were a small, unimportant detail. “Yet I know you! For one night, as I lay in my stony bower, a vision came to me in my sleep. A dream, you may well call it! Yet ’twas as clear as day, and as vivid. I was told of your coming.”
Malden tried to catch Morget’s eye, but the barbarian had backed his horse a few steps and was focused entirely on the hermit.
“A knight of honor, bent on holy quest. With him a mighty warrior of the East, and a lady who must be protected at all cost.”
“Don’t forget a pissed-off dwarf,” Slag insisted, “and a thi-” He glanced at Malden, who realized he’d been about to say “thief.” “An, erm, a whatever the hell this idiot is.”
“Well met, Herward,” Croy said. He took his hand off the pommel of his sword and reached out with both hands, as if he would embrace the hermit. “If you serve the Lady, you are my friend, and I thank you for this welcome. What else did She say, in this vision? It may be crucially important to our task.”
Herward scratched viciously at his armpit. Malden could see that the skin there was already badly irritated. Now that he’d had a chance to look at the holy man, he saw just how unhealthy the poor fool was. His wild hair and beard had fallen out in patches where ringworm and probably mange had afflicted him. His sun-baked skin was so dry it cracked around his nails and in other places looked as scaly as snakeskin. His eyes were as yellow as his teeth.
How long had this man been living in these rocks, with no human company at all? Malden couldn’t guess. Yet he had heard tales before of madmen, seized by holy zeal, who sought out the truly desolate places, there to worship in silence and utter privacy. He’d heard there were holy men who went to live at the bottom of abandoned dwarven mines, so they could be closer to the Bloodgod and his pit. Then there was supposed to be a hermit in the hills above Redweir who only came out to scream obscenities and throw his own waste at passing caravans. The drovers who passed that way considered it good luck to be so assaulted.
From what he could see, Herward was just as crazy. Malden tried to get the jennet to take a step back, out of range of flying excrement.
The hermit stared at Croy for a long while, saying nothing. Then he pulled at his beard and said, “She showed me your face, and his, and hers. She said I must aid you in any way I could, and allow you to pass as high as the gates of the House of Chains. She said I would be rewarded.”
“In what aspect did She appear to you?” Croy asked.
Malden’s eyes widened. Was the knight really taking this seriously?
Herward bent low and placed his forehead against the rocks. He was certainly limber for someone who probably lived on lichens and whatever grubs he could dig out of the stones. “She appeared to me in the form of the Crone. As an aged women, bent with the blessings of motherhood and the bounty of long years. She had hair the color of old iron, and a fearsome cast to her eyes.”
Cythera slumped in her saddle and covered her mouth with one hand. “Oh, Mother, tell me you didn’t…” she moaned, though not so loud that Herward might hear.
Chapter Twenty-four
“Please,” Herward said, “let me show you what meager hospitality remains in my power.” The hermit started walking away without another word. Malden got his jennet moving to follow, but when he looked back he realized he was the only one to do so. He looked at the others, wondering what was going on.
Cythera moved her horse near to Croy’s courser and whispered something in his ear. He nodded, and the two of them cut away from the group, heading up the hill rather than following the holy man. Morget had taken up a position near the head of the trail, where he could watch their rear, as if he expected the shire reeve and an army of knights to come after them. Slag stared up at the entrance to the Vincularium, perhaps impatient to get inside after so long on the road.
“Come along,” Malden said to the dwarf, and with a curse or two the dwarf followed where the hermit led. He left Morget to his own business.
The thief and the dwarf headed back down the hillside a way, then up another slope where the horses had trouble finding solid footing. The hermit climbed over the rocks like a mountain goat, never looking back. As they neared the top of the hill, Malden expected to see a crumbling shack or perhaps a simple monastic cell, just big enough for one hermit to crouch inside.
He was not expecting to find a fortress up there.
Not that it was such a grand thing, really. The structure could have been dropped into the Market Square of Ness and fit easily. It was not so large as a castle, nor so well made. Its walls were of unmortared stone piled together in thick sloping walls. It showed signs of immense age, one whole wall having been smothered by clinging vines, its stones bleached white by centuries of sun. Yet it looked strong enough to withstand a cavalry charge, or even a siege if it came to that. It had towers at two of its corners, though one had collapsed into a pile of rubble. A massive iron gate stood rusting at its front.
A hundred men could have barracked inside its walls. From that position they could hold off a small army. They also had a perfect view of the entrance to the Vincularium, and with longbows they could hold off anyone who attempted to enter the tomb, or leave it.
“Was this place built before the Vincularium was sealed?” Malden asked.
“Oh, no. After,” Herward assured him. “A hundred men waited here, for a hundred years, to make sure the door stayed sealed.”
“They must have feared the elves greatly,” Malden said, as the hermit shoved on the creaking iron gate and gestured for them to ride inside.
“Oh, the Elders were deadly warriors,” Herward agreed. “Every man of that race was skilled with a blade. Their archers could outshoot any man now living. Worse still, they didn’t fight like honest men. They would come out of the trees just long enough to slaughter a few of us, then slip back into the forest again where we could never find them.”
“The Elders?” Malden asked.
Slag explained. “That’s what the elves called themselves. They believed that dwarves, humans, goblins, and the rest were all descended from them. That we were all degenerate sports of their master race.”
“They had some terrible magic as well,” Herward went on. “They could butcher a man in his sleep from a hundred miles away, if they only had a hair from his head or a piece of cloth he’d once worn. Why, just giving an elf your name was enough. They could use it, gain power over you. You understand why we had to kill them all.”
Malden climbed down from the jennet and tied her to a post in the yard of the fortress. The place was a husk, he saw, nothing but a few walls still standing after so much time. A ruin.
“The war lasted for twenty years. Half a man’s life, but the blink of an eye to them. Here. Let me show you something I’ve found,” Herward said, his face lighting up with joy. He rushed through what had been a doorway-now it was just a hole in one wall-and busied himself in the shadowy room beyond. “Come in, come in!” he called. “Come see the prizes of my collection.”
Malden approached, and then stopped when he smelled the place. It must be where Herward lived, he thought, though it was also possible he used it as his privy. Maybe both. “So you collect things?”
“Yes! Come see!”
“You don’t collect your own droppings, though?” Malden asked, just to be sure.
The hermit poked his head out through the empty doorway again. “What are you talking about?”
“Your, ah-your… Slag?”
The dwarf dropped from the back of his colt with a thud. “He’s asking if you save your own shit. To throw at folks, or some other barmy purpose.”
“Shit,” Herward said, as if he’d only heard the word once, many years before. “Shit. Oh, no. I don’t defecate.”
That got Morget’s attention. The barbarian had stopped just inside the gate, perhaps expecting a trap. “Every man shits,” he said.
Herward shrugs. “I don’t eat,
you see. The Lady sustains me on black mead. No, I haven’t tasted food in nearly a year. So I don’t defecate. I do urinate quite often.” He gestured again. “Now, please, come here!”
Malden and Slag approached the doorway but didn’t step inside. The room beyond was hard to see, but it must have been an arsenal at some point. Bundles of swords and spears filled all the available space. Suits of armor hung from the ceiling, as if knights of old were sleeping up there in net hammocks. The armor looked subtly wrong to Malden, until he realized that the breastplates were far too slender for a human rib cage, and the helmets too long.
Moreover, all of the weapons and armor gleamed like gold.
“There was a battle here, long ago. The Elders fought a running retreat all the way to the entrance of the House of Chains, with the combined army of our king and all his bannermen hounding their heels. Many died on both sides. Now, so long hence, I still find their things here out among the rocks. When I find a good piece, I bring it back here to polish it and bang out the dents with a hammer.” Herward squinted at them. “Not sure why I do it. Maybe to help pass the time. Look at this.”
He handed Malden a shortsword with a square tip. The blade was notched and quite dull, but had not rusted to pieces like an iron sword would. It didn’t feel quite as heavy as he’d expected, though.
“Bronze,” Slag said.
“Are you sure?” Malden asked. It had occurred to him that Herward had so many golden swords he might not notice if one went missing. “It’s not gold?”
“I’m a fucking dwarf. I know my metals. That’s bronze.”
Herward nodded happily. “The Elders wouldn’t touch iron. Supposedly it interfered with their magic. Everything they made was of copper or bronze or brass.”
Malden made a pass through the air with the sword. “Well, that explains how we were able to beat them, eh? We had iron weapons. Clearly superior.”
“Bronze is as strong as iron, and carries just as sharp an edge,” Slag told him. “Also-it never rusts. It gets a nice patina, but it never corrodes. You come back here in a thousand years, these swords will be just as strong.”
“There has to be something wrong with bronze,” Malden pointed out, “since we won with our iron.”
“It’s more expensive, is your main downside.”
“Then we… we won because we were… our hearts were pure, or some such,” Malden said, trying to remember old stories he’d heard as a child. “Because our cause was just?”
“You beat them by outbreeding them,” Slag said. “An elf lived near on a century, and never had more than one child. You lot bred like rats when you came over here.”
Malden frowned. He wasn’t sure what that meant. “What do you mean, when we came over here? We’ve always lived on this land.”
Herward clucked his tongue.
“Wrong again,” Slag explained. “A thousand years ago this whole country was covered in a thick forest, right? All those fields of wheat were so many trees. Nobody ever cut them down, so they grew thick. My people, the dwarves, lived under the ground, and we had no use for that much wood. The elves lived in the forest, aboveground. Then the humans came, from the south. First they were just explorers. Looking for new lands to name after themselves. The elves laughed at the idea, but they didn’t drive you off, because they didn’t know what was coming. We barely even knew you were here, because you didn’t dig deep enough to disturb us. Should have paid more attention. It was missionaries, what came next. Then traders, and trappers, and then followed the fucking settlers. They had families that had to be fed. Every generation of humans chopped down more trees, to make more room for their fields. Finally the elves started noticing what you were doing to their homeland.”
“What happened then?” Malden asked.
Slag flicked the sword with his fingers to make it ring, a high piercing note like two blades coming together. “You weren’t the kind to leave peaceful like, not once you had your sodding big paws on a piece of earth. So it came down to you or the elves. This is where you finally wiped them out.”
Malden looked out through the gates of the fort, at the entrance to the Vincularium on the opposite slope. Though he could read and write and do figures, he’d never had any formal education. Certainly no one had ever told him this dark secret of his own history.
Chapter Twenty-five
Croy followed Cythera as she turned her horse up the ancient road that led up the mountain. “He seems a pleasant enough fellow,” he told her, because she’d said she wanted to get away and talk about Herward.
“I’m sure he’s harmless,” she said. “You should know, however, that he is not communing with your goddess.”
Croy frowned. “You doubt his sincerity?”
“I doubt his sanity. I know for a fact he didn’t see us in a holy vision. You heard the way he described the Lady in his dream. It didn’t sound familiar?”
“He described the Crone, which is one of the Lady’s primary aspects. She might also have appeared as the Mother, or the Maiden. Why She chose one over the other is a mystery to me, but She rarely reveals her plans to us.”
“He was describing my mother,” Cythera told him.
Croy shook his head. “Now that’s just silly-”
“My mother is a witch,” Cythera said. “As you know. Placing visions in the minds of lunatics is hardly stretching her powers. She must have sent him this vision the same day that we left Ness.”
“It’s blasphemy to impersonate the Lady,” Croy said. He thought of the witch, safe and comfortable in her lair in Ness, reaching across the world to cloud the minds of men, and he wanted to-well, he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do. Certainly rushing back to the city to slay his prospective mother-in-law didn’t feel like the kind of thing a noble knight would go in for. But surely there must be some retribution.
“She was only trying to protect us. She wanted someone to watch over us. And Herward can definitely be of help. For instance, we can’t very well take our horses inside the Vincularium. Someone needs to watch over them.”
“I had considered that,” Croy said. “I was hoping we could give you the task.”
Cythera sighed. She stopped her horse in the middle of the road. “I thought you might say that. I’m sure you’ve spent this entire journey trying to think of ways to keep me from entering the tomb with you.”
“It won’t be safe for a woman. There’s a demon in there.”
“Croy, I can take care of myself. I’m not some helpless damsel to be locked away in a tower.” She dismounted and rubbed her horse’s nose for a while, before dropping her reins to the ground. The palfrey was well trained, and knew that was the signal to stay put. She proceeded on foot, then, toward the massive gates of the Vincularium.
They were far more imposing from close up. The massive square pillars rose to dizzying heights above Croy’s head, and the chains between them proved so thick and solid that he could not begin to imagine how they had been forged. While rust pocked the surface of the iron, there was no doubt in his mind those chains would last another thousand years before they corroded away.
Behind the chains, recessed from the menhirs, stood a solid wall of enormous granite bricks, sealed with black mortar. The dwarven thorn rune-sign of death and destruction-had been carved deeply into each of the bricks, a warning to anyone who might try to unseal this massive portal.
Croy took a step closer and something crunched under his boot. He looked down and saw a scorched human skull staring up at him with empty eye sockets.
“Cythera, don’t look,” he said. The bones could only distress her. He glanced around his feet and saw more bones there, some shattered, some black with soot. He saw bits of cloth and metal amidst the bones, but no swords or armor. Were these the remains of past grave robbers? “And don’t come closer. In fact, get back on your horse and ride back to the others. This isn’t a good place.”
She was already walking past him, however. “These chains-what purpose do they se
rve?” she asked.
“What?” Croy replied. He was trying to kick broken shards of bone off his foot. “They held in the elves, of course.”
“No, they didn’t.” She was dangerously close to the entrance. “They attach to nothing but the columns. They do not brace the seal, or even touch it. They’re just strung across the gate, so that anyone trying to enter must duck underneath them. Yet that could hardly slow down an elfin warrior.”
“Wait,” Croy shouted as she ducked to look under the chains. “Don’t-”
He rushed toward her, but as he came close to the lowest chain he felt a sudden, searing pain in his head. Sweat burst across his back and he felt dizzy. The whole world started to spin. He reached out to steady himself, hand up to grab the chain above him, when he felt Cythera’s hands push against his chest and he went sprawling backward.
The heat and disorientation left him instantly, though he was already overbalanced and fell to clatter among the bones.
“They’re cursed,” Cythera said. “The chains are charged with magical power-Croy, get away, quickly. There are currents in the ether here, wild eddies, and I can feel the puissance growing-it’s going to discharge!”
Croy desperately wanted to get up and run. Yet he could never leave Cythera there, alone and defenseless. He struggled to his feet and lurched forward, intending to grab her. He saw terror streak across her face and was certain they were both about to die.
Then she reached up, with both hands, and grabbed a link of the chains.
Croy lacked the special senses that allowed witches and sorcerers to view the winds of magical energy that swept through the world. He could not feel the lethal power that flowed into Cythera then, nor the shockwave that burst outward from her body and swept across the land.
Yet he could see the painted flowers and vines that erupted across her face and hands, as if an invisible tattooist were working with demonic speed to cover every portion of her flesh. Vivid roses and tulips bloomed and withered on her cheeks and forehead. Creepers wrapped around her wrists and fingers, growing a thousand times faster than the plants they resembled. Her fair skin turned dark with the painted vegetation, until he could no longer make out her facial features at all.
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