by T. O. Munro
Vlyndor stood at the head of the open grave. The scales of his multi-coloured skin seemed duller than before. His tail curled around his three toed feet much as a grief struck human might hug themselves for warmth and reassurance. He held his hands up high and began the song of mourning, a low rumbling chant which the assembled congregation took up in a dozen elegant harmonies.
They brought the body then, all wrapped in woven reed cloth. So small, no bigger than a human child. Four karib elders each bore a corner of the shroud. It was, the wizard knew, a great honour for Vlyndor’s wife had been much beloved amongst the karib people.
Odestus clasped his hands behind his back, head bowed in respect. He was clad in karib garb, the single set of his own clothes had worn threadbare during the unplanned long sojourn in Grithsank. His intention had merely been another flying visit before he returned to the daily frustrations and fears of his own world. But all those plans had been shattered by a stone butterfly.
The singing was nearly done, the last note fading away as the body touched the bottom of the grave. Odestus looked across to where the children stood apart from the adults. She was there, gathered with the playmates of her infancy. She was already a head taller than them and in these past months she had closed the gap on Vlyndor as well. But she was still a child. The karib boys and girls had readily forgiven her her humanity and absorbed her into their games and circles. Paradoxically it was her reptilian side they struggled most with. She had worn her mother’s gauze mask with unthinking obedience and there had been no more stone butterflies, no games of tag where children found her gaze would freeze them to the spot, no chilling stare to make an adult shiver.
But now she chose to wear a hood as well. The other children had grown up knowing the strange corded structures that covered her head. Devoid of hair themselves, they saw nothing odd in a bald child while the scaly surface of the raised protrusions across her scalp made her more rather than less like them.
However, the development of an involuntary flexing to these rope like strands had begun to unnerve them, as though some alien life were stirring beneath their friend’s skin. That was when she had taken to wearing a hood. She said it stopped her head itching, but Odestus knew it also quietened the threads that crawled across her head and in so doing eased the minds and companionship of her friends.
The simple service was over. Vlyndor led the party away from the graveyard. The lichen covered walls of the great cavern dimmed as though in sympathy with the old lizard’s sombre mood. The rest of the karib chittered their sympathy as he strode past them, following the path by the lake back to the collection of huts which was their village.
Odestus still kept to the rear. With the formalities concluded he called her to his side. “Persapha!”
She came at once, falling into step beside him. “Yes, uncle.”
“How are you?”
“How should I be?”
He frowned. “You’ve just buried your mother.”
“Lyndat wasn’t my mother,” she said touching the gauze mask. “You said my mother wore this, she was like me.”
Odestus patted her on the shoulder. “Lyndat raised you, she and Vlyndor both. She raised you more and better than I or your mother could have.”
The girl fell into silent contemplation for a score of paces, before observing, “My real mother is dead too isn’t she.”
Odestus nodded. “You know she is.”
“I would like to have met her.”
“I would have liked that too, Persapha.”
“Did she ever think of me, did she ever talk of me?”
Odestus combed his fingers through thinning hair. “There is much I must tell you of your mother. But not today. It is not the right time.”
“Then when uncle? You have been here for ages and you’ve not told me anything really.”
“I thought you were enjoying my company,” Odestus chided. “A chance to see someone of your own kind.”
She looked at him, a faint sparkle through the gauze. “But you’re not my own kind, Uncle. No-one is.”
He turned his wince into a smile, knowing that she never meant to upset him. “I have a plan about that, Persapha. I have a plan.”
The mask lifted slightly with the raising of her eyebrows. “Will it stop my head itching?”
He nodded slowly. “I hope so Persapha, I really hope so.”
***
The snow was still thick on the ground, but the shovels and brooms of Rugan’s many servants had kept the avenue clear enough for the two princesses to ride in comfortable safety. Giseanne rode side saddle with effortless elegance, while Hepdida sat astride her cob concentrating with fierce intensity on binding the animal to her will.
“You make progress, your Highness,” Giseanne assured the crown princess.
Hepdida grimaced more at the formality with which Giseanne addressed her than the challenge of courtly riding. Both were unpalatable changes which accrued with confirmation of her and her cousin’s status.
“I’ve not been on this animal in nearly two months. I was hoping it had forgotten how it used to torture me. And please, my lady, call me Hepdida. I don’t feel like any sort of princess, still less a crown princess.”
“Then you, Hepdida, must call me Giseanne. I will not answer to my lady and I am not too sure about aunt, it sounds so old.”
Hepdida shivered, haunted by the recollection of how her last ride had ended, with an ambush by a snowy tree stump and a descent into a conscious insanity. She twisted in her saddle to check that Sergeant Jolander and his little troop of cavalry followed them still, a mere two lance lengths behind. “Do you think we will ever be safe, Giseanne?”
“I hope so. The enemy has been foiled in his plans, a traitor has been exposed, the Goddess is on our side. When the spring thaw comes, I am sure we will find a way to finally defeat the Dark Lord.”
Hepdida nodded dumbly. She wasn’t sure if Giseanne spoke from sincere belief or a vapid reassurance. Either way, she feared what the price of eventual victory might be.
There was a shout and a jangle of spurs from behind and suddenly Jolander and the lancers were streaming past her. The cob shied nervously at the jostling of the cavalry horses, like a piece of flotsam caught in the grip of a breaking wave. As the horse high stepped its anxiety, Giseanne guided her mare close and seized her niece’s reins.
“I can manage,” Hepdida assured her, flexing knees and heels to bring the cob under her control.
Ahead of them the lancers cantered towards the sharp bend in the avenue. It was the point at which, by design, the magnificence of Rugan’s palace was first revealed to visitors and conversely it was the point where new arrivals first appeared in view from the direction the princesses were travelling in. The lancers’ alarm was at the appearance of a pair of horsemen leading a perfect double line of children as though on a school outing.
The lead rider was holding up a hand in greeting to the lancers even as Giseanne observed, “I see no danger there, well none that a dozen lancers cannot keep us safe from.” She kicked her horse into motion with a youthful grin. “Come, Hepdida, let us give these visitors a more courteous welcome than the point of the sergeant’s lance.”
Hepdida’s confidence was a little shaken by the realisation that the children were wearing beards, helmets and axes, but the joyful hails of the two riders quickly restored her equanimity.
“My princess!” A tall rangy figure slipped from his saddle and dodged between the lancers mounts to reach her side.
“Kaylan!” She smiled a welcome at the thief, though his ragged appearance had shocked her. Always lean, he was now starvation thin, with hollowed eyes and a noticeable limp. Niarmit had told her some of what had passed during their incarceration and escape from Morwencairn, but she had not truly realised how ill it had gone for the loyal thief. “My Kaylan, you are looking …. well,” she managed to say.
“You have the prior to thank for that.” Kaylan waved behind him where Abroath
gave a courteous nod and smile of greeting. “Tell me is my lady truly well? When last I heard she had ridden off into danger.”
Hepdida nodded. “She is well. The traitor has been unmasked and we are all the safer for it.”
“Half-breed witch.” Kaylan spat on the ground and then hurriedly raised his sleeve to his mouth, shamefaced at the coarseness of his reaction. “Forgive me…”
Giseanne interrupted his apology. “Tell me Kaylan, who have you brought as your other companions on the road.”
“Ah,” Kaylan exclaimed. “They are ambassadors come to see our queen with news of a great opportunity.”
“Indeed,” Giseanne replied. “Then we had better not keep this news waiting.”
***
Vlyndor was alone when Odestus came bent backed into the karib’s simple shack. The wizard took a seat and murmured, “I am sorry, Lyndat was a good karib.”
Vlyndor took a deep breath, twin eyelids shuttering up and down across his H shaped pupils. “Grithsank is a dangerous place, Odestus. Every moment one spends beyond a shelter such as we have here, one is in peril from the sky above and from the sand beneath. You know that.”
Odestus nodded, remembering another occasion when Vlyndor was much younger and a foolish wizard had dared to revisit a place his foul master had shown him. “If you and Lyndat hadn’t found me that time, my bones would have been long ago bleached white under a Grithsank sun.”
The karib gave a guttural laugh. “If it had been my decision, wizard, that is exactly what would have become of you. It was Lyndat took pity on you.” He emitted a sibilant sigh. “Who knows, maybe that was what happened, she found another foolish sunburnt lobster she was minded to take pity on. Maybe that is what she was doing when….” His voice faltered and he closed his eyes.
“You are good people, Vlyndor. That is why I brought Persapha to you. I knew you and Lyndat would keep her safe and raise her well. And I owe you more than I can ever repay.”
“Each kindness brings its own reward, Odestus. There is no need of payment. The child has brought us much joy in exchange for the safety we have been able to offer her.”
“But it cannot last. She is growing and changing.”
“That does not mean she must fall into her mother’s ways.”
“I do not know how far your gentleness can protect her from her nature. Her mother tried and ultimately failed to keep the monster at bay.”
Vlyndor turned his head slightly to scrutinise Odestus with an unblinking stare from his right eye. “You have some plan, Wizard?”
Odestus nodded. “I think so, but to execute it I need to be back in my own realm. I cannot stay here.”
“You have been here nearly three months, wizard. Will your people back there not have noticed your absence.”
Odestus flicked the concern aside. “With the planes out of step as they are, a mere three days have passed at Listcairn. My door is firmly locked and I am becoming known for my reclusive nature.” He frowned, thinking on how far he had pushed the envelope of Galen’s suspicions and Vesten’s capacity to cover for him. “But I must go back now.”
“And how long before your plan comes to fruition?”
Odestus pressed his palms together, rested his chin on his thumbs as he breathed into a mask of his own hands. Vlyndor waited patiently for his friend’s answer. “Weeks, months more like,” the wizard admitted at last.
“Weeks? Months? In your world? That means years will pass in Grithsank, years where the girl grows up into the inheritance you fear.”
Odestus nodded.
Vlyndor’s thin tongue flicked out as he considered the problem. “Can you not take her back with you? In your world a few weeks or months would not wreak too terrible a change in her.”
Odestus stood up abruptly, banging his head on the ceiling as he spluttered his refusal. “No Vlyndor, I’m sorry. I can’t take her back, not as she is. I couldn’t hide her and there are people who would try to use her. It is too dangerous.”
“So you would leave her here with us for the years it will take her to become an adult?”
“I ask too much I know, but Vlyndor, what else can I do?”
The karib raised a hand, three fingers splayed in a sign of peace. “Odestus, old friend. We raised that child from an egg, Lyndat and I. My wife would not have forsaken her, and neither will I. Do what you have to do, we will keep Persapha safe.”
“Thank you.” Not for the first time Odestus was overwhelmed by karib generosity.
“But Odestus, one thing.”
“Anything”
“Do what you have to do quickly!”
***
Kimbolt’s previous experience had been ill-preparation for the intricate protocols of dwarven politics. A few brief encounters in the high markets of Morwencairn may have brought him some finely crafted dwarven jewellery to bestow on the latest girl to catch his eye. However haggling over the price of a necklace was hardly a rehearsal for placing twenty delegates from ten clans with sufficient precision to properly reflect their order of precedence. It had been difficult enough finding sufficient chairs in Rugan’s palace that were suitably sized for the beggars to be seated with all due dignity. To remember the formal titles and their corresponding place in the dwarven hierarchy was just too much, notwithstanding the intense briefing he had been given by their leader the blond bearded one called Pardig.
He had fluffed it, he could tell from the grim visage of Pardig and the laughter in the corners of Kaylan’s eyes. He did not care what the thief thought of him, though he would rather have Kaylan’s curses than his laughter. Niarmit’s opinion was a different matter. He glanced across at the queen, impassive in her throne while the dwarves tried to re-impose the correct order to their bowing introductions in the face of his fumbled announcements. She greeted each dwarf pair in turn with a courteous word. For two in particular she spared a special welcome. “Glim-ap-Bruin, Mag-ap-Bruin, I have heard much of you. You have done me the great service of saving the life of my friend Kaylan, and he in turn has saved my life, so you could say by proxy that my life is in your debt.”
“Our clan may not be the oldest, your Majesty,” Mag replied with a sideways glance at Pardig. “But my brother Bar-ap-Bruin has always said the greatest deeds are done by new muscle not old blood. I will convey your gratitude to him.”
Kimbolt caught a twitching of the tapered ends of Pardig’s moustache. The council chamber seemed suddenly a more complex mosaic of forces than any battlefield he had ever encountered. And in the midst of it the queen smiled her peace at everyone from the forlorn Tybert, bereft of thought without his brother, to the brooding Rugan, scowling his prejudice at the newcomers.
Kimbolt wished he could tell them all ‘I saved her life too’ but they had never spoken of that moment in the narrow defile where he had struck the medusa down. He had felt too much shame to voluntarily speak of Dema’s life or death. Niarmit for reasons of her own seemed also to have kept secret the last moments of their most formidable foe save Maelgrum himself.
At last the delegates were all seated and, while Tybert ineffectually stifled a yawn, Niarmit called on their spokesman. “Well Pardig-ap-Lupus, please share your news with us.”
“Your Majesty,” the blond dwarf stood and bowed low as a precursor to any declamation. “As you know the ten clans have held the passes of the Hadrans since before the time of the Vanquisher. No man or beast has crossed the mountain range from north to south, or south to north without our knowledge or our blessing.
“Indeed, we have ever bridged the way between the Kingdom of the Salved and the Province of Undersalve. My grandfather could even remember the time before King Bulved, the first of that illustrious name, when that province was still a collection of lordships. Lords of Swalle, they called themselves, fiercely independent. But Bulveld tamed them, bringing the land within his juresdiction to their eternal blessing as the fourth Province of the Salved Kingdom.”
“Forgive me Pardig-ap-Lupus,” R
ugan interjected with an unapologetic air. “But is this to be a history lesson?”
The dwarf’s moustache rippled with annoyance. “The past is the key both to understanding the present and unlocking the future, Prince Rugan.” Pardig accompanied his retort with a bow, though Kimbolt noted it was an obeisance of significantly slighter degree than the one that had been granted to the queen.
“Please continue,” Niarmit urged.
Pardig tucked his thumbs into his richly jewelled belt. “The ten clans have watched the rise and the fall of the power of the salved, south of the Hadrans. We have been a bulwark against the evil forces which sought to break free of the fallen province. No orc or nomad has passed our guard.”
“There were twenty thousand of the buggers fought against us at the battle of the Saeth,” Rugan snapped.
Pardig bristled. “We keep no vigil on the marshes, nor do we answer for the elf Feyril and his forest watchers. However, they came against you, Prince Rugan, it was not through the mountain passes.”
“I’ll tell Major Darbon’s widow, I am sure it will be a great comfort to her.”
“Prince Rugan,” Niarmit snapped. “A little of your famous courtesy would be most welcome now.”
Rugan had the good grace to raise an eyebrow at the rebuke, in admission that, whatever he might be famous for, it wasn’t courtesy. Then with a nod to the queen and a slight opening of his palm to Pardig, he bid the dwarf continue.
“In the Hadrans we know well that two great armies of the enemy have been stripped from the fallen province of Undersalve. And we of the ten clans have kept our ears close to the ground.”
Kimbolt saw Rugan roll his eyes as he forsook the opportunity for a sharp comment at the dwarf’s expense. On the other side of the chamber Tybert, slower witted but less controlled, had to clap a hand over his mouth to stifle his giggling at Pardig’s unfortunate choice of phrase.