by T. O. Munro
“I have seen too many battles to be in a hurry to see another,” Thom replied.
“Maelgrum will not be defeated without at least one more battle.” Kimbolt glanced pointedly at the book on the illusionist’s desk. “Of course if you would rather pass the time reading.”
Two spots of colour appeared high on Thom’s cheeks. “I may not enjoy the spectacle of battle, as observer or participant, Seneschal,” he admitted. “But I will serve however and whenever the queen requires it.”
Hepdida returned holding a thin cracked piece of parchment in her outstretched hand. “There is not much to it. I thought the picture must mean something.”
Kimbolt took it from her and immediately shivered. It was a vivid image snatched by some artifice from within his darkest dreams and perfectly reproduced in ink and paint on the paper in his hand. It captured the azure oval spectre so precisely he might have thought he had drawn it himself, or at least personally instructed the artist. It was the gate he had seen the night that Dema had met his gaze with the cold sparkle of her unmasked blue eyes. He knew now, she had turned him to stone. He had spent weeks as a statue until Odestus’s craft had restored him to flesh and blood, albeit with his senses and his conscience, like his memory, scrambled by the ordeal. The blue oval of his nightmares had been a harbinger of doom, not in itself, but for what came after.
What omen should he see in such a picture drawn by another? What fate did it foretell and why had Niarmit been so moved by it as to seek him out when she had laid eyes on it? He had never told her of the blue portal. They had not spoken of his time as the medusa’s bedslave. His guilt and her consideration had always steered them away from such unwelcome reflections. But still this picture of gate had meant something to her, something she must have wanted to discuss with him. And Maia’s lies had driven the queen away, her questions unasked let alone answered.
“Where did you find this?”
“Do not be cross with her.” It was only when Thom spoke up that Kimbolt realised the grim set to his expression and the impatient discourtesy of his demand.
“I found it in the ashes of the hut that Haselrig used at Colnhill. It must have been his. It was a book once.”
“I can see that.” Kimbolt bit off the retort and, in a gentler tone, said, “I’m sorry I speak so sharply, Hepdida, but I fear for the queen. This sight has set her off on some solitary jaunt and I do not believe it can be a good omen.”
“What do we do then?”
“I will follow after her, the fastest horse I can find to take me to Karlbad or Colnhill or wherever she has gone. But first I would have words with Prince Rugan, he may know something of what this means. He is after all trained in the art.”
“Elise is here too,” Hepdida said. “She arrived a half hour before you did. She knows much of sorcery, perhaps she will understand what this is.”
“Elise?” Kimbolt frowned. “Has something gone ill with Kalan and our allies in Undersalve?”
Hepdida shook her head. “I don’t think so, she was in a hurry certainly. But she did not look distressed or alarmed. Like you she wanted to speak with the queen, but when she heard Niarmit had gone she agreed to see Rugan and Giseanne. She is with them now.”
***
Rugan and Giseanne sat on their thrones to receive Elise’s disappointment. The sorceress looked from the prince to his lady and back again seeking some glimmer of hope. “I had need of the queen’s instructions. I needed her to give a command on a particular matter to Kaylan.” She gripped her staff with whitened hands. “It was, it is, a matter of utmost urgency.”
“The gate to Karlbad is gone. We have no means to get Queen Niarmit’s instructions in any less time than it takes a horseman to ride to Nordsalve and back,” Giseanne said gently.
“I needed her authority.” Elise shook her mane of dry white hair. “Kaylan will accept no less and if I cannot get the queen’s approval for him to take a particular course of action, then many may die needlessly.”
Giseanne’s brow creased in a sad frown. “Too many have died already, Mistress Elise. Would Kaylan perhaps accept our intercession? My husband and I could take the responsibility for endorsing the strategy you prefer.”
Rugan reached out to squeeze his wife’s hand. “We should not over reach our remit, my dear. Remember you are regent no longer and we are both far removed from the particular dangers and opportunities which Kaylan faces. I would not presume myself to over-rule the man on the ground on the opinion of one less well versed in the realities of warfare.”
Giseanne shifted her arm, the lightest move that slipped her hand from beneath her husband’s. Elise was more open in her scowl. “I have seen plenty of the realities of warfare, my lord, buried quite a few of them.” It appeared that the half-elf had not yet lost his suspicions around her capability, if not her motives.
“I do not doubt that your heart is in the right place, Mistress Elise.”
The sorceress bridled at the prince’s condescension.
“I think her head quite well placed too, my dear,” Giseanne murmured none too softly. “Perhaps if you could give us an hour to discuss the matter in private.” She glared at her husband. “Then we may find we can come to an answer more to your liking.”
Rugan gave a shrug, unfazed by the prospect of a debate on strategy with his wife.
“I would be grateful,” Elise bowed. “But before you retire there is another that rode with me who would speak with you too. It may be he has another matter for you to consider in your private deliberations.”
“Bring him in,” Rugan barked.
“Summon Master Harris,” Elise told the flunky by the door.
Her fellow traveller was only a call away and came bustling into the room within seconds of his name echoing down the long corridor outside.
He was nervous.
He clasped his hands infront of him, slowly sliding the fingers of one hand over the back of the other until he caught Giseanne’s curious stare. In response he unclasped his hands and swept them behind his back where again they gripped and massaged each other so tightly that it looked as if his hands had been bound behind him.
“Your name is Master Harris,” Gieseanne prompted him gently.
“And you had something of importance to share.” Rugan spoke less kindly, unused to waiting for a petitioner to find his voice.
“It is most kind of you to see me, your highnesses,” Harris began. “However, I had hoped to speak with the queen. The matter I must convey is most urgent. I warrant it is vital to the course of the war against the mas… against Maelgrum.”
“Unless your urgent message can wait a week while you ride for Nordsalve, you had best share your information here and let us decide and advise on a way forward,” Rugan said. “Mistress Elise has persuaded us to see you. Perhaps you could justify her faith with a little openness as to your information.”
“Of course,” Harris muttered. “So sorry, I will begin.”
But he did not for just then the door opened again and Kimbolt rushed in with Hepdida and Thom hot on his heels. “Forgive the intrusion,” Kimbolt cried. “But I have need of your counsel as a matter of the utmost priority. I would speak with the queen but first…”
“It seems we are everybody’s second choice today,” Rugan drily observed to his wife.
“You are welcome, Seneschal, though unexpected,” Giseanne welcomed the latest addition to their gathering. “Though as my husband says, you are the third to seek audience on the same urgent terms. Perhaps Master Harris could complete his petition first, since he had I think already begun.”
Kimbolt looked across at Harris, and the latter met his gaze for an instant and quickly looked away. Kimbolt was frowning, lips pursed as a tangle of thoughts shaped his expression. “I know you don’t I?” he said stepping towards Harris.
“Our paths may have crossed, Seneschal,” Harris admitted without turning round. “Perhaps we may inspect our memories after we have each had our audience
with the prince and his lady.”
Kimbolt reached for the man’s shoulder and spun him round. “I have seen you somewhere before.”
Harris was looking at the floor shrugging either indifference or disinterest.
“It was someone like you.” Kimbolt bashed his temple with the heel of his hand. “Only younger and fatter.”
“Someone else then, perhaps,” Harris suggested.
Elise frowned. She had felt the same glimmer of familiarity about her travelling companion, that unplaceable sense of having met him before. Kimbolt’s words sparked a daisy chain of recollection. Harris, fatter, younger, with more hair. Yes she had seen that man, but where, where had she seen him?
“I think I can guess where you saw him, Seneschal,” Thom said, moving out from behind Hepdida. For once the illusionist wasn’t smiling, in fact his face was grimmer than Elise had ever seen it. “If I have understood your tale well enough, then the last time you would have seen him was the night that Sturmcairn fell.”
“What?”
“I’ve seen him more recently, at the fall of Morwencairn,” Thom went on.
Harris was looking at the floor, shoulders slumped, hands meekly by his side.
Kimbolt’s frown had deepened. “Then this is…” He shook his head. “It can’t be. That man he was much younger. Sturmcairn fell less than a year ago.”
Harris looked up, his eyes filled with regret. “It is true Captain Kimbolt. I had heard you were dead. I am glad to see I was misinformed.”
“You’re not called Harris.” Kimbolt jabbed a finger at the would-be petitioner.
“His name is Haselrig,” Thom said. “One time adviser and close confidante of Maelgrum. I have seen him walk at the Dark Lord’s right hand.”
A lot happened very quickly. Rugan’s hands spun in spell casting and only Giseanne’s sudden seizing of his wrist directed the bolt of lightning to one side of the unmasked traitor. Harris, or rather Haselrig, did not try to duck the spell, nor even the jabbing fist with which Kimbolt laid him on the ground. Then the man was buried in a crowd of flunkies and newly summoned guards with Kimbolt in the middle of it, hands fastened on Haselrig’s throat.
Elise found her arthritic knees gave way. She staggered back, tumbling into a chair, her heart thumping. She had glimpsed this man through the gap in the slats between her room and the living room. She had lain there as a child, consumed with her sickness, her sister Rancine sweating her life away beside her.
That man had been in her house, sitting at their table, talking in low voices with her father. He had risen and they had shaken hands across the table. This man had said then, “You won’t regret this, Marius.”
Her father had replied, “Oh I will regret it I am sure of that, I just hope I regret it less than the alternative.” And he had looked towards Elise, or rather towards the wall behind which she and her sister lay. She had fancied he saw the glint of her eye in the crack between the planks and she had spun away, tumbling back into restless sleep and on waking, mistaken it all for a dream.
“Haselrig,” she spat the name out.
“By the Goddess, have some sense,” Giseanne was crying out at the confused scuffle of bodies. “Whatever he has done he came here of his own free will and must surely be more use to us alive than dead.”
“Would you say the same if it was my bitch half-sister had come here?” Rugan circled the pile of humanity, searching for a point at which to strike. “Haselrig’s treachery was scarcely less odious than hers.”
Order was gradually restored to the chaos on the floor. Flunkies stood and straightened their uniforms, then Kimbolt rose, and finally Haselrig was hauled to his feet, held in a grip of iron between two guards so tall that they practically lifted him from the floor.
“I should kill him now,” Rugan growled.
“No,” Kimbolt snapped. “I should.”
“Have sense, you fools,” Giseanne cried stepping from her throne. “Call Deaconess Rhodra, we may have need of her services.”
Elise’s heart still thundered in her chest, breath coming in fitful gasps. Hepdida stood to one side, a pale spectator on the unfolding drama. Thom held her by the shoulders and she leant into the illusionist’s embrace.
Haselrig, Harris as was, shook his head clearing his senses. “You are right, Captain Kimbolt,” he said. “You too, Prince Rugan. My life is forfeit. My crimes considerable. But I have come here as Lady Giseanne has said, of my own free will and surely that is evidence of my good intentions.”
“My sister came here many times, always of her own free will and never with any good intention,” Rugan barked.
“You tricked me,” Elise stammered. “You fooled me with a false name.”
“And if I had not mistress Elise, would you have entertained me as you did so kindly, or would you have had those rude guards of yours strike me down where I stood.” He hurried on with sudden anxiety. “Not that I would blame you if you had done so, you would have had every right. But I had, still have, important news to share with those closest to the queen.”
“We want nothing from you, Haselrig, save your execution as soon as that can be arranged,” Rugan growled. “In the meantime I have a cold cell would suit you well. Guards, take him away.”
There was a thin wail from Haselrig as the two burly soldiers frogmarched him to the door. “I must tell you,” he cried. “Of the great danger that lurks ahead, of the blue gate.”
“The blue gate!” Kimbolt and Rugan repeated the traitor’s words simultaneously and then swung round to look at each other, stupefied that the same thought should have struck them as one.
“Hold him there,” again they spoke as one. “He has questions to answer.”
***
Odestus felt the chameleon scale snap just as he reached the wall of the two storey building. He would not be crossing the arena floor on the way back, not without being spotted by the orc guards who walked, always in pairs, along the battlements. But then, that had never been the plan. Get in to this unknown place, find her and then gate out. There were a score of safe places that he could access with a simple gate spell, some of them across the sea in the Eastern Lands.
He could even take them both back to Grithsank, but he did not want to. That plane was no safe haven now, not with the Galen and his risen dead somehow on the loose.
Wherever he chose to go, getting out would not be problem. The only problem, the only problem there had ever been, was finding her. She had to be here. It seemed much to stake on the dubious word and fragile memory of an orc of spectacularly limited intellect, but Odestus was sure. It was the only thing that made sense.
With his spell of concealment compromised, the little wizard twisted his fingers in a quick mime of opening. There was a click from the lock and the steel door swung open. He slipped inside.
The smell hit him like a wall, a dreadful stench of rotting meat and waste. It was all he could do to stop himself vomiting. He pinched his nose and breathed through his mouth dulling his perception of the foul miasma to a point where it did not obscure every conscious thought.
Glancing around, he saw that he was in a dark narrow corridor. No thought had been given to natural light in the design of this building, nor were there sconces for torches in the wall. Only a shred of daylight squeezing past the edge of the ill fitting door, leant any texture to the blackness, creating portions of lighter and darker shadow.
Odestus could have brought some magical illumination to the scene, but there was a quiet stillness in the house assuring him he had so far gone undetected. He did not want to alert the occupants, well none save the one he had come for.
He inched along the passageway. There were doors to left and right, a staircase led upstairs. The one he sought would be a prize above all others, he was sure he would find her on the second storey of the grandest building in this bizarre fortress.
There was a small landing on the upper floor, three doors led off it. A moment’s incautious nasal inhalation had him s
tifling a retching cough. The foul reek of the place extended to the upper floor just as much as the lower one.
It was time to choose. His hands danced as he tapped out a childhood rhyme of selection, before settling on the central door. Its crude lock submitted to his spell just as readily as the building’s main door had and he slipped through into another darkened room.
“Persapha?” he whispered as softly as he could. “Are you there Persapha? It’s me, Odestus.”
There was a sound from his left a groan too low voiced to be the adolescent medusa. By the little wizard’s calculations Dema’s daughter would have been just past fifteen years when Galen had come to Grithsank and plucked her from the karib’s protection. There was a slithering sound to his right. He thought of the snakes slowly taking shape on Perespha’s head, could they have been fully formed by now? Perhaps, but even so the slither was too loud for the truncated body of a medusa’s serpent. Something much larger was shifting its way across the floor.
It was time for some light.
It was the work of an instant to fill the sealed room with magical light as bright as the daylight beyond the shutters. Odestus blinked a little, grateful that his own eyes were able to adjust so swiftly to the additional illumination. Then suddenly not grateful for what the light was showing him.
There were four of them, each slumped on a pile of furs, cloth and filth in the different corners of the room. Within the piles Odestus glimpsed pieces of white bone, long human femurs, a rack of ribs scraped clean that had never belonged to a pig. A terror seized him as the creatures slithered and unfolded themselves. Despite their hunched stance they still towered above him, eight and half foot if they were an inch. They were thin wiry creatures with grey green limbs swinging loose by their sides. Tufts of coarse black hair sprouted in a variety of unlikely places about their near naked bodies. Filthy loin cloths were their only concession to modesty. Their heads were large, each with a pair of huge black voids of eyes perched above a long crooked nose.