by T. O. Munro
Maelgrum reached out a hand to stroke her hair, taking care not to let the freezing touch of his fingers make contact with her scalp. “They do not ssseee that, Quintala. They sssee a failed ssservant and a massster who isss loosssing hisss touch.”
Quintala shook her head. “You are sending me away.”
“Lissstcairn isss not exssile, Quintala. There isss work to be done that may earn you a jussstifiable rehabilitation, even in the eyesss of Rondol.”
“You want me to invade Medyrsalve?” The half-elf read at speed between the lines of Maelgrum’s observation.
“No!” Red eyes flared. “You will make no move beyond Lissstcairn without firssst alerting me to your intentionsss. I mussst have the opportunity to consssider whether you are pursssuing an error of judgment, before you act on it.”
“Then what does this deployment offer me?”
“It offersss you your life, Quintala, a commodity which you are sssurprisssingly carelessss of. Life and a chancsse to make amendsss for earlier failuresss.”
“But Odestus commands at Listcairn.”
“If Galen isss to be believed the wizard isss neglectful of hisss dutiesss, and even if he isss not, the two of them are an ill-functioning unit. I will ssset you in authority over both of them.”
“You mean for me to take Dema’s part. To be the next medusa?”
Maegrum’s head swayed in a slow shake. “There wasss only one medusssa, Quintala. There will not be another. You mussst carve your own reputation anew, by the banksss of the Sssaeth. You go tonight.”
“Just like that?” Quintala shoulders slumped. “Sent scurrying away in disgrace.”
Maelgrum was silent for a moment, head tilted as though listening for an answer to a question the half-elf had not heard. She was on the point of making a comment, some caustic observation on his indecision, when his voice whispered across the space between them. “Asss a parting gift Quintala, I will at lassst anssswer the quessstion you have asssked ssso often.”
She looked at him, frowning, for a moment unsure of the Dark Lord’s meaning.
“I will tell you about your mother,” he said.
Part Three
Thorns. Santos had said a wall of thorns.
Gregor, the Fifth monarch of that name, pulled the rough spun cloak around his shoulders. His sojourn in the Domain of the Helm had lasted for several months but still his skills of imaginative creation were unequal to the opportunity of the domain. Neither practice nor Thren’s patient instruction had enabled him to weave more than the simplest of coarse thick garments from the malleable fabric of the demi-plane.
“That was always your trouble,” he told himself. “No imagination.”
His voice the first human utterance he had heard in days sounded odd in his ears. Was it madder to talk to himself or to suffer the silence of his own thoughts? He worried about that. Too much travelling alone could drive a man mad, and insanity as Chirard so plainly demonstrated, was the only ailment that the demi-plane could not heal you of.
Still, thorns. Was this imagination or madness or both? He took a few steps back and looked up and left and right. Thorns, Santos had said, a wall of thorns. Well the bald description certainly fitted the obstacle in his path, but fell far short of doing it justice. It soared so high he could not see the top. It stretched sideways towards the horizons with no glimmer of a curve to suggest it encircled a space rather than extended eternally.
A mind had imagined this, this enormity of obstruction. Every dark brittle spike had been born of an individual thought and the whole assembled into a towering monument to isolation.
Gregor stepped up again. The branches were so thick set that it was impossible to see more than a few inches into the twisted mass. He slid his finger along one branch. As he drew his hand away the back of his wrist snagged a thorn, its point breaking off in his flesh, blood welling around a spike that did not entirely seal the wound.
He pressed his mouth against his hand to suck the splinter out, then pulled his sword from his belt. He might not have much imagination for silks and cottons, but he knew a sword, he could imagine a sword, a damn fine one and that was what he held in his hand.
A wisp of wind flicked the edge of his cloak and he launched himself at the wall. Slashing left and right, carving a tunnel through the thorns. He was sweating before he had even carved an indentation deep enough to permit a single step. His shoulders strained with the effort. The parade ground torture his father had put him through, hacking at great tree trunks for hours at a time, was a pleasant stroll compared to this.
The passage way his sweat was earning was too narrow to allow the easy swing of a sword. The blade snagged on the tangled weave of branches to left and right. He fell and felt thorns, longer than a man’s finger puncturing his cloak and the skin beneath. He swayed within his cell of bracken, a branch surrendered to his blade but gouged his cheek as he tried to brush it behind him.
The sword caught and slipped from his grasp as though plucked by the briar colossus. He reached for its hilt and yelped as a brace of thorns punctured his palm.
Working his injured hand close about him he pulled a knife from his belt and cut his way with smaller slices. He could not tell if the path he took ran true. His sense of direction lost as the vicious branches shepherded his struggle to left or to right. The hole behind was sealed with a mixture of discarded branches and the influx of thorny limbs which flowed in as the great barrier healed the void he had created.
Soon Gregor was stuck, buried within the wall, bleeding from myriad cuts and gashes. He stabbed weakly at the branch infront of him and the knife tumbled from bloodless fingers. He flung himself forward as far as the cramped space would allow, and the branches caught and held him, the only movement was his blood flowing freely from the wounds as he dozed into insensibility and death.
Except that no-one died in the Domain of the Helm. Consciousness returned as his body healed and he screamed an unheard sound to find himself still trapped and buried within the thorns. Writhing and struggling to free himself he opened another twenty score of wounds in seconds of turmoil. The effort afforded him just an inch of movement and in a direction which chance suggested was not forward.
Thrashing uselessly within a net of hooks, he sapped his strength in moments and was soon drained once more into oblivion. Until that is, health and sense was restored to him, so that he could again experience the pain and frustration of an eternal living burial within a wall of thorns.
***
Winter had fled, taking its white coat of snow with it. Hepdida sat atop the mound of rubble that had been Quintala’s tower, gazing across the broad plains of the seven counties around Colnhill. The fields were more muddy brown than lush green, but they still held promise of a season’s growth to come.
“Here, for you.”
She turned at Jay’s voice. “Where did you find that?”
The boy shrugged unhappily. Her curiosity was evidently not the reaction he had been hoping for, when he thrust the little collection of blooms towards her. Three flowers, each as scrawny as the lad himself. Their cups of white petals hung downwards as though nature itself were embarrassed at the offering. “They were on the track down to the village. They’re the first flowers of spring.” His tongue flicked across his lips. “I…” he began and then stopped and then pushed his arm out again. “Here, for you. Don’t you want them?”
She took them from him, careful not to disturb the arrangement of the three stems bound tight with twine. “Thank you,” she said at last. “They’re very nice.”
He took a seat beside her a foot or two away, but then decided to shuffle nearer with a stretch and flex of elaborate casualness that ended with the distance between them halved. She smiled into the flowers.
“I’ve not seen much of you lately,” he said. “Have you been avoiding me?”
She sniffed her disinterest in the accusation. “A crown princess has many duties,” she lied. “I can’t always have the time
to talk to every little boy when they want to talk to me.”
“Duties?” He snorted. “You don’t do anything. The queen does it all, I’ve watched you know. You just hang around with those elves and that wizard friend of yours.”
She let the flowers flop forward against her knees, one petal tumbled slowly to the ground. She felt the heat in her cheeks. “Do you do a lot of watching then? Are you spying on me too?”
“Spying is crawling in the dirt or hiding in the shadows to find out what someone is saying or doing. It’s not watching someone laughing with their friends while they ignore you in plain view.”
“I wasn’t ignoring you,” she lied. “I’m not ignoring you now.”
He shrugged. “I figured you might have no choice, now, seeing as how the queen has sent the elves away. Thought maybe you might spare a moment for the one who did you the big favour and got you here right where you wanted to be, in the middle of the action.”
“The thing about Elyas,” she pulled a few weeds from between the cracks in the rubble pile. “The thing I like about him, is even after all that he’s suffered and all that he’s lost he still manages to be cheerful, to raise the mood. He can sing songs and tell stories about the past that make you laugh and wonder.” She turned to look at Jay squarely. “He’s not at all miserable.”
Jay glared back. “Lucky him then.”
Hepdida looked away again. The boy picked up a stone, turning it over in his hand before stretching his arm out behind him and flinging the projectile towards the curtain wall. It fell short, so he tried again and again, each missile launched with fierce concentration.
Hepdida turned his offering over in her hands, more a spray than a bouquet of flowers. He was right, she had been ignoring him. Not that Niarmit had noticed or commented on her cousin’s sacrifice. The princess had put deliberate distance between herself and the dark haired boy, keeping only to company that the queen would approve of. She wondered why she had bothered.
The last of Jay’s stones skipped and clattered into the lower course of the curtain wall. “I’m not singing,” he said. “If that’s what you want. You’ll just have to wait until your elf friend gets back.”
“I don’t want you to sing.”
“What do you want me to do then?”
Hepdida shrugged. “Stay, if you want to.”
“She’s not going to send you away is she? The queen that is, like she sent the seneschal and then the elves?”
Hepdida snorted derision. “No Jay, she wouldn’t. At least not the way she sent them away. Elyas and Kimbolt both have important jobs to do, matters of state and strategy. That’s why she sent them away. Me? Where would she send me?” There was a bitterness to the princess’s laughter. “I’m not considered fit to speak with silver elves or Oostsalve princes. I’m just a child.”
“I don’t think you’re a child.”
She glanced at him through narrowed eyelids.
“And I don’t think I’m a child either,” he added.
Hepdida looked at the posy still resting on her knees, small and forlorn. She brought the three bound flowers to her face and inhaled their faint aroma, a promise of spring and summer to come. “Thank you,” she said.
***
It was unfortunate that the three newcomers had stumbled on a patrol of silver elves who were not within Marvenna’s inner circle. There was little the steward could do save welcome them and respond to their enquiries with studied courtesy.
“No,” she said. “I have not seen your bold Captain Tordil since that night at Lavisevre where we stood before poor Kychelle’s body.”
The one called Elyas spoke first, raising a finger to still the questions of his two companions. “You are sure of that, my lady? His target was here and the trail led to the boundary of your realm.”
Marvenna frowned. “The wards of the Lord Andril are powerful. You may have felt them tug at your senses before my patrol found you. Mere mayfly humans are rapidly overwhelmed and even an elf unused to their nature can feel a little confusion.” She watched the weight of her words strike home, the one named Michil was nodding, though Elyas gave her only a steady stare. “If Tordil was not found by a patrol, then it is has possible he wondered in confusion on and out of the realm perhaps nearer the coast.”
“Then we would have heard of it,” Elyas said. “An elf of the Hershwood does not simply get lost.”
She gave him a brief smile that did not touch her eyes. “There are no elves of the Hershwood, Lieutenant Elyas, there are only elves of the Silverwood now.”
Elyas looked at her askance. “We came in search of our captain and, if we could not find him here, then we are to convey the same message that our queen entrusted Tordil with.”
“I will hear your message, Lieutenant Elyas.” Marvenna smoothed her features, preparing to hear the tale that Tordil had already brought and to react just as she had when the news was fresh.
Elyas watched her closely as he spoke and she returned his gaze with the calm assurance of Lord Andril’s heir. “Tordil’s news was that we had found the murderer of Lady Kychelle. It was Quintala, her own grand-daughter a traitor to our people and to yours.”
Marvenna let a hand fly to her mouth. There had been shock when Tordil told her and still the name had the power to shake her composure. “That is unnatural.”
Elyas waited letting her fill the silence with her questions. She trod carefully into the void, what should she ask, if she knew nothing. What had she asked of Tordil. “Where is the murderess now?”
“Fled, taken refuge in the service of the Dark Lord her master.”
“Not brought to account for her crime then?”
“Not yet,” Elyas admitted. “Though we have inflicted a reverse upon her and her master’s plans. The other part of our message is to bid you now send the force Lady Kychelle promised, those three thousand elven spears will be vital to our plans as we campaign to recover the lost province of Morsalve.”
“No elf leaves the Silverwood, save by my command.”
Elyas nodded his understanding. “And we ask that you honour Lady Kychelle’s last wishes and make that command, Lady Marvenna.”
She turned away, taking light steps across the forest floor before she swung back to face the stubborn lieutenant. “The axioms of Lord Andril have governed the Silverwood for nearly two millennia, Lieutenant Elyas. I see no need to deviate from them now, there will be no elven spears marching to the aid of men.”
“Is that the answer you gave to Captain Tordil?”
She blinked at his bluff. “I have not seen your Captain Tordil, but that is the answer I would have given him.”
Elyas nodded grim faced. “Then we will bid you farewell, Steward and continue our search for him beyond the Silverwood.”
She shook her head quickly. “No elf leaves the Silverwood save by my command.”
Behind Elyas the elves named Michil and Caranthas looked at her in astonishment, their eyes widening in shock. The lieutenant’s glare was different, more appraising than angry. “You mean to keep us here?” he said sternly.
“I mean for you to join your people, those who have become part of the Silverwood. They are an honoured part of our community. My people have made great efforts and sacrifices to accommodate the poor remnant of Feyril’s people. They will do the same for you.”
“This is a prison!” Caranthas cried.
“You cannot keep us, we will walk free,” Michil declared.
Marvenna shook her head, and in so doing scanned the eyes of the dozen silver elves who had escorted the new arrivals to her presence. They may not have been her inner circle, but they were loyal and the newcomers’ harsh tones had stung the pride of the Silverelves. “This is a palace not a prison, but the wards of Andril are set firm. No man may enter and even elves must have the approval of the keeper of the wards if they are to cross beyond our boundaries.”
She drew a breath, it had not always been so. Andril had only raised the power of his ch
arms so that his daughter would be secure within the girdle of the Silverwood during her last confinement. It was another change in the schemes of things wrought by the half-breed Quintala, though this time before the half-breed had even been born.
Liessa had begotten the child on one sojourn beyond the Silverwood. Andril had been determined she should not escape again before the fruition of his plans for her future, and that of her child. Marvenna had not lowered the wards even after Andril’s departure; she did not dare to undo any of Andril’s works.
Elyas folded his arms across his chest “You mean to keep us here whether we will it or not?”
“You will not,” Michil insisted. “You cannot.”
“The Lord Feyril would never…”
“The Lord Feyril is not here,” Marvenna cut Caranthas short. The two elves were glancing round at the dozen silver elves around them, weighing the odds. Elyas alone seemed able to master his indignation.
“The queen awaits our aid, as well as yours. You will not bind us to this place,” Caranthas declared.
“We will fight you,” Michil said. “If we have to.”
“We will not.” Elyas held up his hand to silence his two comrades. “We will not fight you.” Michil and Caranthas looked open mouthed at the lieutenant.
Marvenna at last allowed herself a genuine smile. “You are wise Elyas. This is a place of peace. No harm is done, or can be done by one elf on another. Any such attempt would be both uncomfortable and unsuccessful.”
Caranthas whistled softly. “Then the wards of your Lord Andril are of uncommon power.”
“He was a great elf lord,” Elyas conceded.
“The greatest,” Marvenna corrected.
The lieutenant gave a curt nod of acceptance. “If you would be so kind then, Lady Marvenna as to take me to my people.”
Marvenna smiled. “Surely, Lieutenant.”
***
Haselrig hid his impatience. The languor which had assailed the half-elf for nearly a fortnight, persisted still as they maintained the same leisurely pace along the Eastway. Even the horses had tried to quicken their stride, eager for the comfort of a warm stable, but Quintala had reined her steed in. So they proceeded at the same steady walking pace that had carried them first to Morwencairn to retrieve Quintala’s possessions and then to Listcairn and the half-elf’s new position. It was a rate of progress so sedate it would barely have troubled an old cripple.