by Robert Beers
The small lives of the Duke and his guard were buzzing around him like midges. He chose to ignore them; they had little importance where he was concerned just now. A few of the voices wanted them, wanted to taste their fear, drink their despair, but McCabe forbore. They would have their uses. Later.
Later. A part of him told the voices. You may have them later, once they've served their purpose.
“I knows he hears us, milord. He's just not answering, that's all.” The guard wrung his cloth cap in sweaty hands. The pervert may be the one infuriating the Duke, but there was every chance he would be the one to bear his master's wrath.
Bilardi could not have been more frustrated. He knew torture on McCabe would only produce embarrassing results. Slapping him to get his attention, the same thing. How in the pit...?
“McCabe! You answer me, you disgusting pervert! You will answer me! I command you!” The Duke bellowed into his prisoner's ear to no effect. The man just lay there, staring at the ceiling. “Answer me!!” His voice grew hoarse with the effort.
“What can we do, milord? Iffn I prod ‘im he'll just ... you know.” The guard indicated his meaning with gestures that vaguely conveyed the message.
“Do you think I don't know that?” Bilardi rounded on the guard with his fist half raised. The guard flinched away, but the blow didn't fall.
“A dozen good men, plus one who'll never be good for anything but a door stop. How? How did he kill them?” The Duke spoke facing McCabe, but the questions were more to himself.
He turned back to the guard. “Did they find no mark on them at all?”
The guard shrugged. “You can look at ‘em yourself, milord. I got Lifetile keepin’ watch over the bodies in the first tunnel back over there.” He pointed over his shoulder to a pair of heavily studded oak doors set into the stones of the prison wall.
The Duke looked in the direction the guard pointed and shook his head. “No, I'll take your word for it.” He wanted nothing to do with that hulking mute.
Bilardi drew his attention back to McCabe. The little pervert had that same insipid smile on his face as he had last time. Something was going on and he didn't like it. “Thirteen men. How could this runt take out thirteen men?”
The guard didn't catch the Duke's mutter. “Milord?”
Bilardi came out of his reverie with a shake of his head. “Huh? Oh, nothing. Keep an eye on him. Use that...” He pointed in the direction of the studded doors. “...thing if you have to. Send word to me if anything happens. Anything at all.”
The Duke left, almost running up the stone steps.
The guard watched Bilardi hurry out of his dungeon then turned to look at his prisoner.
McCabe giggled softly, the first sound he'd uttered since being brought back to the palace. The guard wiped the sweat off his face with a piece of rag pulled from a pocket. “What in the pit have I gotten meself into?”
* * * *
“She stirs.” The Alpha Wolf's mate spoke quietly to Drinaugh.
The young dragon peered over the boulder outcrop he and the wolf pack hid behind to watch the human female as she came out of her swoon.
Thaylli opened her eyes, and saw small fluffy clouds scudding across a bright blue sky. The shadow falling along her body told her she'd slept well into the afternoon.
“What a lazybones I'm being.” She spoke to herself out loud. “And what a terrible dream. Dragons and wolves. It must be this life in the wild. I never dreamed about them in my bed back home.”
“She thinks she dreamed us.” Drinaugh told the wolves in a dragon whisper. “She speaks of her home.”
Thaylli heard Drinaugh's whisper as a low-voiced growl, and felt panic beginning to blossom in the pit of her stomach. “Who's there?” Her voice quavered. “I warn you. I've got a knife and a boy friend who can turn you into a toad!”
“We won't hurt you, young lady.” Drinaugh tried to pitch his voice high enough to sound reassuring to the human female. “We are friends of your fiancé... uh, the boy friend you mentioned. We would very much appreciate it if you would not faint again, please. It is very worrying.”
Some of Thaylli's panic diminished in the indignation she felt over being accused of fainting. “I do not faint!” She declared. “I'm not a child! I'm almost seventeen summers old.”
“Please?” The voice sounded like someone trying to imitate a child.
“I don't faint.” She said stubbornly.
“Well, whatever you care to call it, we cannot talk to you or introduce ourselves when you ... fall asleep, like that.” The voice insisted. “Please don't do it again?”
Thaylli stood and crossed her arms under her breasts. “Of course I won't. I don't, I mean.”
“Ok, we're coming out from behind the rocks now...”
Thaylli stepped back and then moved forward, mad at herself for her sudden alarm. “No, I'm coming around.”
“Very well, but remember, you promised not to faint.”
The insistence that she not ... do that, increased her temper and her indignation. She was going to give that ... whoever it was, a good piece of her mind.
She stepped around the outcropping and in spite of her resolution to the contrary, she nearly fainted again. A small scream escaped her lips and the world swam around her. A monster out of nightmare crouched before her surrounded by a pack of slavering wolves.
With an effort she managed to push the coming blackness away and remain standing, but the monster was coming toward her!
Thaylli tried to shield herself with her hands as she backed away. “No! K ... keep away from me! D ... don't hurt me!”
The monster spoke, using the voice she'd heard on the other side of the boulders. “I'm not going to hurt you. My name is Drinaugh. I'm a dragon.” He raised up to his full height and pointed at his chest with one of his right thumbs. “I'm one of Adam's best friends.”
Thaylli was not prepared for just how large Drinaugh was, and his size, coupled with his nearness alarmed her. She began to back away again. “P ... please. Don't eat me.”
The last thing she was prepared for was laughter. The dragon was laughing, at her! Fear became pushed away by a larger amount of indignant embarrassment. “You're laughing at me! Stop laughing at me!” She stamped her foot. Part of her noticed the wolves had not moved an inch since she had first seen them.
The dragon's laughter settled into chuckles and then it spoke again. This time, the voice was a full octave lower. “I'm laughing at the assumption rather than at you. The very idea of me eating you. I mean, really! Everyone knows dragons are vegetarians. Everyone.”
* * * *
The single light shone in the palace tower. Voices came from within, too far above the street below to be heard clearly.
Within the chamber, Jarl-Tysyn poured over a map of the northern lands around Grisham. A tightly rolled stick of weed jutted from between his teeth, and four members of his staff gathered around the map-laden table with him.
“Last time I was sent to the Embassy in Grisham, I had a good chance to look at the city walls.” Lancer Captain Ferrgyn traced the line of the walls with a middle finger.
“What do you think? Can they be breached?” Jarl-Tysyn took the weed stick out of his mouth and spat.
LC Ferrgyn shook his head no. “Too thick. Some parts are so deep they've got rooms in them. You could send a dozen balustrades against them for a year and you'd just be wasting your time. No, what we have to do is force the gates, preferably, from the inside.”
Jarl-Tysyn shifted his eyes to Ferrgyn's immediate superior, Major Gyst-Bersyn. “What about you, Major? You've done embassy duty. Do you feel the same?”
The Major looked at the map and pursed his lips. “Captain's got a point. I've been on those walls. Some parts are wide enough to house rooms. They run carts along the tops of them. Supplies for the guard points.”
“What about allies? Will Grisham stand alone, or do we have to take on the whole of the northlands?” The General looked back a
t the map.
LC Ferrgyn pointed to the lands north and to the west of Grisham. “There's possibilities of conscripts coming from as far north as Ulsta, and maybe from as far west as Berggren, possibly even north of the Dairy Lands.”
Jarl-Tysyn nodded his head. “Uh hmm. And us? What about our allies?”
The General's second in command, Sept-Colonel Fergus stepped forward to the table. “We have call upon over two millions. More, if we can pull from west of the spine.”
Gyst-Bersyn agreed. “Give us a few months to gather the armies and we should have what is needed to render Grisham to ashes.”
Jarl-Tysyn looked at the map again and then pulled another one over it. The map showed the Spine, the central range of mountains that split the continent in two, lengthwise.
He stabbed his finger onto the lone mountain east of the spine. “Cloudhook. Here is where our armies will gather.”
* * * *
Felsten met the librarian and his guests at the entrance to the room containing the main stacks.
Adam thought nothing else he saw in the library could awe him as much as the foyer did. He was wrong, and admitted it to himself freely.
The main stacks of the Library were housed beneath the central dome. As he looked up at the vast inner curve of the dome from the floor over a hundred feet below its apex, a golden, opalescent sky looked back.
The room's walls curved to match the circumference of the dome, and no potential storage space was wasted within the room. Bookshelves lined the walls from floor to ceiling, and ladders rode iron tracks set into the granite of the walls. Above the ladders, ancient hardwood balconies lined the wall with landings arranged to receive the climber.
Milward looked around the room and grunted in his beard. “Impressive, as always.”
The librarian raised his head from the small bit of ancient parchment Felsten had given him at Milward's statement. “Huh? Oh, yes, yes. I suppose it is.”
“How long has it been since you looked up, old friend?” Milward gently chided the librarian.
The old man smiled. “When you see what I've got to show you, you'll know why my eyes have been elsewhere than on pretty ceilings, Wizard.”
He handed the bit of parchment back to his apprentice. “I know, Felsten. It looks promising, but it is only a fragment of a recipe for Shepherd's Pie, and not a particularly good one, at that.”
Adam felt he could emphasize with the librarian's assistant. Milward could be just as condescending when teaching magik.
The librarian led them through the maze of stacks until they reached a point beneath the very center of the Dome. A small reading desk nearly buried in books, parchments and scrolls sat next to a single podium bearing the weight of a massive volume bound in Cave Dragon hide and Platinum.
Milward pointed to the volume. “Is that what I think it is?”
The librarian beamed like a proud parent showing off a favorite son. “It is, Labad's Book of Vision, the collected writings of the Philosopher King. Made so it could be added to in later days as an ever-growing tome of wisdom. Felsten and I found something to add to it just a few months ago, as a matter of fact.”
Milward raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
His old friend beamed from ear to ear. “Oh, yes. Felsten? If you would be so good as to open the Book of Vision to our new treasure?”
The librarian's apprentice looked at his master and his guests.
The librarian urged him on. “Go on, go on. No need to be intimidated, now. Open the book, there's a good lad.”
Felsten walked over to the volume and released the latch from the catch.
Milward noticed the boy had been well trained in the care of ancient bindings. Instead of just automatically flipping to the asked for page, which had to be at the end of the book, Felsten opened in sections, carefully turning small groupings of pages until he reached the desired place in the volume. The wizard pursed his lower lip and nodded appreciatively.
The apprentice turned to face the librarian. “Here it is, master.”
“Ah, good. Thank you, Felsten.” The old man stepped in beside his apprentice and beckoned to Milward. “Look at this. Would you believe we found it in an old chest?”
The old wizard moved in to take the place Felsten had occupied next to the librarian.
Adam walked over to stand next to the librarian's apprentice. “Is he always like this? About books, I mean?”
Felsten was startled that the young Lord would talk to someone as common as himself. “You're speaking to me, milord?”
Adam copied Milward's trick with the eyebrow. “Of course, I'm speaking to you. Is there anyone behind you?”
To his credit, Felsten didn't look. “But I'm a commoner, a mere librarian's apprentice, an assistant, at most. People of your type, you don't do with the likes of me.”
“First off,” Adam pulled down a finger with the other hand. “I'll hear no more of this milord tripe from you. You call me by my name, Adam. Second,” he pulled down another finger. “You are working in the greatest collection of knowledge this world has. That's what Milward calls it, and I have no reason to disbelieve him. You,” he pointed a forefinger at Felsten's chest. “Are about as far from being common as you can get without being royalty.”
Felsten was dumbfounded. “By ... but that's what you are, if I take the meaning of the prophecies aright. Don't you know?”
Adam shushed the boy. “Hssst. Don't say anything like that again. I don't feel like royalty, and I don't want to be royalty.”
“But...”
“I mean it.” Adam hissed. “I've heard the prophecy, in fact I've read it. There's a lot of things in there that could mean a lot of different things, if you catch my meaning. This,” he shifted the sword in its scabbard, “Is pretty convincing, especially after using it, but...” He let his breath out in a soft sigh.
“Just do me this favor, ok?” Adam patted Felsten on the shoulder.
The boy felt as if he was being knighted. He swallowed. He was looking at the next Emperor, he was sure of it. “As you wish, milo ... Adam.”
Adam smiled and nodded at Felsten. “Good. Now, what about my question?”
The apprentice blinked. “Question?”
“About your master, and ... the books?” Adam indicated Milward and the librarian huddled over Labad's book.
“Oh ... yes.” Felsten craned his neck to see his master and the old wizard. “Quite batty about them, he is. I expect I'll be the same when I'm his age. I've already some which are favorites.”
Adam envied the boy. Aunt and Uncle had taught both he and Charity to read at an early age, but books had never been much of a feature while they were growing up. The family was just too poor to afford them.
He turned to look at Milward and the librarian along with Felsten. The old man was showing off his treasure to the wizard.
“See this line? ...Guide to Eleven Chance, master of warriors, Ducal doom... it has to have something to do with what's been going on over in the city. The prophecy is coming to pass before our very eyes!”
Milward looked closely at the parchment leaf containing the copy of the prophecy. There were a couple of lines that didn't appear quite right in comparison to the original, similar to the ones he saw in the monastery near Ulsta.
He turned his head to look the librarian in the eye. “Are you sure it's accurate?”
The librarian reacted like a mother bear defending her cub. “How can you even ask such a thing? This is, at the very least, a second edition copy, if not a first! Labad could only have been gone a few years when this was penned. It might even have been copied upon the very battlefield itself!”
Milward smiled as he reached into the pouch that held the parchment Adam had given him. “I understand the possibility, but you must remember how Labad wrote his prophecy, and under what conditions. The legend is very clear on how it was done, and I've recently received a confirmation to that belief.”
“It is difficult at best to rea
d the words. A dagger does not make the best of writing instruments, and blood flows better inside a body than off of steel.”
“I know all that.” The Librarian blustered. “What I want is...”
Milward interrupted his friend with an upraised hand. “For example, the ancient symbol that reads as persevere becomes prevail with a very slight change. The same applies to the symbols for foe as well as those designating landed titles such as Duke, Earl or Baron.”
The librarian stared at the wizard for a long moment and then his eyes widened. “Of course! Why, that means Labad could have been seeing something entirely different than what the clerics have been saying he saw all these hundreds of years. I'll have to begin researching this immediately.”
“Felsten!” He yelled out for his apprentice as if the boy were a full room away.
“I think he wants you.” Adam said dryly.
“Milward, my old friend,” the librarian turned and placed a trembling hand upon the Wizard's arm. “You are a scholar of vast repute, I could greatly use your help in this regard. Think of all the directions this could take us in!” His face creased in a mischievous smile. “Think of the consternation of the clerics.”
He looked back at the copy on the podium. “Ah, if only we had the original and we could compare and be sure.”
Milward laughed softly, half to himself as he pulled the parchment out of his pouch.” Ah, but we do, my old friend. We do.”
* * * *
The rat nosed its way into the central dungeon chamber through the space between the bars across the drain. Bits of slime and fungus coated the sleek hair of its hide as it squeezed into the room.
The whiskers along the rat's snout quivered as it ran along the dungeon wall. There were new scents here since its last visit, possibly of something useable as food.
It turned from the wall and followed the scent trail to the granite block located in the center of the dungeon chamber. Dark streaks ran down the sides of the block. They smelled of salt and blood. The rat licked them eagerly. A meal was just above it!
Rats, especially large ones such as this, are marvelous jumpers and climbers. A bound put it onto the top of the granite block and next to the man it knew would be there. Instinctive caution pulled it back, but when the man didn't move, the rat crept forward in small stages, sniffing at the tantalizing aromas coming from the body.