Misthaven: The Complete Trilogy

by J Battle

  ‘Dryan; such a delight to see your friendly face on this bright morn.’ He strode across the hall to his great gilded throne.

  ‘My lord is in good spirits, I should say.’ Dryan bowed.

  ‘Indeed, I’d had some sport already, and mayhap there will be more, before the day is out.’

  ‘I received your summons, and rushed to do your will.’

  ‘Yes, yes; no more than I should expect, I’d say.’

  ‘Yes, my master.’

  ‘So, how goes the killing of the children? It has been three days, and not a single head has been laid before me.’

  ‘It is all in hand, my Lord, but there are arrangements that need to be made, and these have taken time, but the plans are now in place, and we start tonight.’

  ‘Be sure not to delay too long, Dryan, for I will not be insulted; not by them, and not by you.’

  ‘I would never insult you, my Lord. I have been your loyal servant since I grew to be a man.’

  ‘Yes, so you say. But I have not yet received your daughter; the delightful Esmere. Why is that?’

  ‘My daughter has been away these past seven days or so; nursing a sick aunt in the highlands.’

  ‘Has she indeed? And is that meant to be a concern of mine? Do you expect me to say ‘Ah well, my order has been ignored, but pish, what does it matter?’

  ‘No, sir. Not at all. I have sent word, and she will be back soon.’

  Lydorth laughed at that.

  ‘Have no fear; have no concern. It occurred to me that I was behaving like an unthinking monster, asking a man to give up his own daughter, just like that. And that is not how I see myself, if I’m to be honest.’

  Dryan breathed a sigh of relief. ‘You are very kind, my Lord. I must admit that it did cause me considerable concern.’

  ‘Well, all is good then, would you say, Dryan? I would not have my closest and most valued advisor put to such discomfort. Not at all.’

  He turned and cocked his head a little, making a show of listening.

  ‘I thought I heard something then,’ he said, after a moment. ‘Did you hear anything?’

  ‘No, my Lord. I heard nothing at all.’

  ‘You didn’t hear a scream?’

  ‘No, my Lord.’

  ‘Mayhap I am anticipating something that has not yet happened, in my eagerness.’

  ‘Mayhap, my Lord.’ He frowned, unsure of where this was going.

  Lydorth smiled and then a quiet chuckle sounded.

  ‘Oh, you don’t understand, do you? I must apologize for that; I’m such a fool. I think I may have inadvertently misled you. When I said that I wouldn’t have you give up your own daughter, of course I meant that I dispatched someone else to pick her up. And you’ll be so surprised to find that she was not, in fact, up in the highlands, as you thought, looking after her dear aunt. No, she was not a mile from your house when Harld and Orther picked her up. There was a man, I hear, who tried to get in the way. Always a mistake with those two, I think you’ll agree.’

  Dryan dropped his head into his hands and groaned.

  ‘No, my Lord. Please do not do this.’ His voice was hoarse; strained through his teeth.

  ‘That scream you didn’t hear was just Harld and Orther getting her ready for me. It is hard for a human female to accept the gift of passion from a creature such as me. The parts do not easily fit, if you forgive my indelicacy. Some stretching, and a little cutting is required. But there is no need to worry; Harld and Orther, whilst they could never be accused of being gentle, they at least know what they are doing. She is not the first, and she will not be the last.’

  ‘My Lord, please spare her this ordeal. Do whatever you must with me, but let her go.’

  ‘Oh, Dryan, don’t be such a fool. I’m hardly likely to derive much enjoyment from lying with you. The very idea! Here’s what I’ll say, and tell me if you think me too generous, if you fulfil my order and bring me the head of each firstborn child, before the week ends, then you shall have your beloved daughter back in your arms, provided, I have to say, that she survives until then. I have to admit that I am a monster when it comes to physical passion, and I do find it hard to restrain myself.’

  ‘My lord…’

  ‘No more! You begin to annoy me now, Dryan, and we can’t have that, now. Can we?’

  Dryan seemed to collapse in on himself as he answered. ‘No, my Lord. I’ll be about my business, then, if you so allow.’

  ‘Well, this has been such fun, don’t you think, but you are right; we have a land to administer, and idle chatter will get us nowhere.’

  ‘No, my Lord.‘ Dryan turned and walked away; suddenly an old man.

  As he left, Lydorth sat back on his throne.

  ‘Time to break my fast now, I think,’ he said to himself.

  ‘Meat! Bring me meat. As rancid, and rotten, and stinking as you can find. Bring it now!’ His voice rang through the rulehall, and the multilayered caverns, down to the kitchen, where there was much scurrying about to fulfil their master’s orders.

  Chapter 7 Fleur

  What had once been Prince Torn’s bleak rooms were now sumptuous and richly appointed apartments, with tapestries on the floor instead of the wall where they belonged, and hanging drapes of satins and silks that could be drawn together to block out the light of day.

  Why that should be at all necessary or desired, Fleur found it hard to fathom.

  There was even a balcony, decorated with gold and silver filigree, and shielded from the sun by a gold-inlaid canopy that could be moved with the aid of a long pole and a strong arm.

  She was standing on the balcony, for a breath of fresh air, though the view was not to her liking. Oh, the rich green lawn that surrounded Palace Gail was fine enough, and it even sported carefully arranged flower beds, with a colour-scheme that flowed from bright yellows on her right, to vibrant reds on her left, and all imaginable colours in between.

  But, beyond the garden, what was there to see? A world being slowly strangled by tangleweed. Even the road that led to the town was now barely passable; you certainly couldn’t get a horse and cart through.

  ‘He should be doing something about that,’ she said, as she rested her wrists against the cool, smooth, white material that felt liked stone, but wasn’t. What had Meldon called it? She wondered.

  ‘Oh, ivory; that’s what it is. Comes from some creature or other they find in Southland.’ She nodded her head, and she ran her fingers along the narrow rail.

  ‘Talking to yourself, my dear?’

  Her head dropped a little. She hadn’t heard his approach.

  ‘Well, there’s no-one else to hear,’ she said, without turning.

  There was no response, so she turned, and found him standing in the doorway, his face impassive. Without thinking, she covered her growing belly with her hands.

  With a snort, he spun away and was gone. But not before she saw the look of disgust on his face.

  She took a step after him, with one hand raised as if to call him back.

  With a heavy sigh, she walked back into the bedroom they no longer shared. She settled into a comfortable chair and rested her aching feet on a footstool.

  ‘This will not do,’ she said, softly. ‘Not at all. I have the baby to think of now, and it is time things were done.’

  With Meldon turning away from her more and more each day, her position was becoming precarious, and she couldn’t allow her child to be put at risk. The problem had occupied her much over the past few weeks, and there was only one solution that ever came to her, and for that, she would need her brother, Rekk.

  She picked up the silver bell from the table beside her and gave it a quick shake. The little bell’s tinkle was almost immediately matched by another bell outside her rooms, and, if she cared to listen, she would hear the ripple of consecutive chimes flowing through the palace until it reached her personal servant, wherever he might be.

  Only a few moments later, Jerrold came rushing in, all pantin
g and wide-eyed. He glanced around the room quickly to be sure that Meldon was not hovering around, waiting for the opportunity to mock him.

  ‘Ma’am? You rang, I think,’ he bowed as he spoke, and he kept his eyes down lest he spend too long looking at her breasts.

  ‘Don’t worry, Jerrold. The Regent is not here to make you look at my right breast.’ She smiled then, for who could resist that blush? ‘Unless you want to, that is?’

  ‘No, ma’am. Sorry, ma’am. Forgive me, ma’am, but I don’t…’

  ‘Stop talking,’ she snapped, her tone so cold that he seemed to shiver. ’I need you to go and fetch my brother.’

  ‘Oh…,’ he seemed lost for words at her sudden change in attitude.

  ‘You’ll find him in The Blushing Maid this time of the day, I should think.’

  ‘The Blushing Maid, ma’am?’

  ‘It’s a tavern in town. You can’t miss it. Just follow the smell of rotting toes, as my pa always said.’

  Jerrold’s nose twitched at the idea.

  ‘Yes, ma’am. Right away, ma’am. Er…forgive me, but how will I recognise him?’

  ‘Oh you’ll know him soon enough, I reckon. He favours a blue neckerchief, and he has long hair, and he’ll have a free drink off you before you’ve finished saying, ’How do?’’

  ‘I shall be off immediately, ma’am.’ He turned to go.

  ‘You know, you can call me Fleur when Meldon is not about? All this, ‘ma’am’ this and ‘lady’ that, well it gets on my tits, it does.’

  Jerrold blanched at the coarseness of her words.

  ‘Yes, ma’am. If you say so, ma’am. I’ll…I will try, ma’am.’ He left the room like a bird released from a cage.

  Chapter 8 BobbyJ

  ‘Well, what is it, do you think?’ asked BobbyJ.

  They were standing together, with the melting edge of the glacier, as tall as two men, behind them and the great column of bright red and orange flame before them.

  ‘Can you not see? Is it not obvious? Here is Magic; true and pure. Can you see deep into the flame? What do you see?’

  BobbyJ took a step closer, his left hand raised to protect his face from the heat.

  ‘Is there…there’s someone inside, there, look,’ he said, as he wiped the sweat from his eyes.

  ‘Ay, I think you’re right. Who was he? How did he come to be here?’

  ‘He looks big; taller than you, though he be bent over, I think. But he looks much broader, and he seems to be holding onto to something on the ground with each hand. Could he be still alive?’

  ‘No, lad. Who could survive such a furnace?’

  ‘Who knows what can be when we have Magic?’

  BobbyJ turned and looked at the edge of God’s Cradle; at the water streaming from it and running across the ground.

  ‘Is this some device to hold back the onslaught of the glacier, do you think?’

  ‘You may be right, but why put it here? And to so little effect? Look, you can see the glacier is flowing into yonder valley, and here, on this side too, it moves unhindered. So why such an extravagant use of Magic that is of no use at all?’

  He moved away from the glacier edge and leaned against a large grey boulder.

  ‘You see these markings, what do they mean?’

  He pointed at a tall wooden pole driven into the cold ground beside the rock.

  The pole was ringed across its lower two thirds; the rings grouped together and dated. At the bottom, there were twenty rings, narrow and tightly packed, carved into the wood, and dated some sixty or so years earlier. The next group contained twelve rings and bore a date fifteen years later. The last contained only eight rings, from a further six years later.

  ‘Some sort of record system, I should think, though I don’t know for sure.’ replied BobbyJ, as he rubbed his finger along the rings.

  Cavour took his pipe and a small pouch from his bag.

  ‘We’ve walked a good deal, lad,’ he said as he worked, ‘and we’ve talked a great deal, and we’ve looked a great deal. Now the time has come for a deal of thinking. So, I’d thank you to take yourself off somewhere for a short time, and leave me to my pipe and my harroweed in peace and quiet. Can you do that, lad?’

  BobbyJ straightened.

  ‘I can do that, though I know not where to go. If I go this way, there’s ice. If I go that way, there’s ice. And I’ve seen enough of that ice, and I’ll tell you that and not charge a penny.’

  ‘Just go! Enough of your chatter. I’ll call you when I‘m ready.’

  BobbyJ grunted and walked to the icy path into the valley below. ‘If I don’t freeze me to death, then I’ll come when you call.’

  Then he was gone, and Cavour was left with his pipe and his harroweed.

  He pressed just a tiny pinch of the potent weed into the bowl of his pipe, and topped it up with his favorite pipeweed.

  As he took the first draw, he allowed his long gaunt body to slip to the ground.

  As the acrid smoke flowed into his lungs, he felt the slight catch as the harroweed took hold.

  A stronger load would have sent him on a long, endless fall into the abyss, but this was just enough to open up his mind, and his senses.

  After a few moments, he climbed back to his feet, and took a turn around the small area between the glacier, the rock and the great white wall of mist.

  He stopped, and laughed to himself. It was always just so simple, with a touch of harroweed to lighten the mind.

  ‘BobbyJ!’ he called, not taking his eyes of the wall of mist. ‘Come on, lad. Stop your playing in the snow. There’s work to be done.’

  He heard a couple of grunts, and maybe a cuss or two, and BobbyJ was beside him.

  ‘What do you see, BobbyJ?’

  ‘I see ice, and I see fire; nothing more.’

  Cavour stepped behind him and placed his hands on the side of the boy’s head. He turned him to face the mist.

  ‘What do you see now?’

  ‘Naught but a rock and pole.’

  ‘Look beyond them.’

  ‘There ain’t nothing beyond…there must be something beyond them. There can’t be nothing, but that’s all that I can see.’

  ‘Keep on looking, and you shall see it.’

  ‘See what? My, oh my. There’s something there, isn’t there? My eyes keeping slipping back to the rock, but there’s something…it’s white, ain’t it? Something white; I can’t quite make it out. It’s not more ice, is it?’

  ‘No, lad, it’s not ice. It’s mist, and something is hidden behind it.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Cavour, now you say it, I can see it. Well, that’s a story to tell on a dark night, and no mistake.’

  ‘Ay, lad, we’ve found it, and there is something else to think on. They say that the only thing worse than a Mage with the power of a Wellstone, is a Fool with the power of a Wellstone. And we have a Fool here. Hiding his Magic behind a wall of mist, but proclaiming to the World with this flaming beacon that Magic is here.'

  ‘What do we do now, then?’

  ‘Why, we walk into the mist, of course, and see what we might find.’

  Chapter 9 Josep

  Josep had followed them across God's Saddle; shivering and cold and hungry. He'd been able to keep his distance, out of sight and following their voices as they crossed the ice.

  He'd fallen back a little as the second day neared its end, with his flimsy foot-ware beginning to fall apart with the cold and the damp.

  He'd had to stop and rip strips from his blankets to wrap around his feet, before he could continue. But he knew that he would not lose them. The bright beacon of light that lit up the ice would lead him to them.

  When he had reached the light and slid off the glacier onto the hard wet ground, he'd found them gone.

  He stood before the beacon for a long time; hours perhaps, as he felt the heat warming him through to his bones. His eyes were fixed on the shape within the fire.

  It was a figure; a man he thought, but unlike an
y man he'd ever seen. So big, so broad; even bent as he was.

  At last he turned away.

  He stopped for a moment to tighten the straps that barely protected his poor feet, then he was off across the ice into the valley to the left of the burning column, in search of his Uncle Henray.

  Of course, he didn’t notice the white wall of mist beyond the fire.

  **********

  Henray shivered as he waited for his master to come. It was always this way when he came before the crawlord, and he expected that it would not change anytime soon.

  The hall was long, drafty and poorly lit, but it wasn’t the draft that made him shiver so.

  There was a noise at the door, and suddenly the temperature seemed to drop even further.

  ’Henray! Why are you back so soon, and why do you rouse me from my bed?’ The speaker was tall and angular; the shape of his inhuman body disguised by his voluminous cloak.

  Henray lost himself for a moment in the incredible depths of those beautiful blue eyes; them he saw the long, lined face; the flesh seeming to hang from the cheekbones, and the misshapen, twisted limbs, and he knew he was in the presence of Crawlord Elstar, of the diminished and ravaged Elvenfolk.

  ‘My Crawlord, I seek forgiveness for disturbing your slumber, my Lord.’

  Elstar leered at him. ‘I was not sleeping, man. I was rutting, with two delightful creatures; eager and flexible they were, and they hardly screamed at all as I ploughed the furrow.’

  Henray looked away; hoping that they could move on from the crawlord’s passion for Humans.

  ‘Well, man. What do you want? My bed is still warm and moist and I am yet to be satiated.’

  ‘My Lord, I will get straight to the reason for my presence here. I have seen a light in the sky.’

  Elstar glowered down at him.

  ‘Yes, sir, and I thought, my Lord Elstar will want to know about this, so I made good haste and rushed back to tell you, sir.’

  Elstar sighed and moved to the Talking Stone. He sat on the lowest step, the Crawlord’s step, and leant one arm on the next step, the Broarlord’s step. Above him the steps rose until they reached the pinnacle, the Elflord’s step, and then descended on the other side of the stone until they reached the Crawlord’s step.