by Daniel Ford
“This,” Torvul said, gently fingering the bag, “is a revolution in agriculture, my good man. An absolute guarantee of bumper crops, no matter the ground, little matter the rain. This potion, small in volume though it may be, is a piece of craft and power so ingenious it…” His voice began to pick up speed and volume, and his hand lifted in an expansive gesture.
From a pace behind, Allystaire cleared his throat and shifted his weight so that his riding boot tapped on a flagstone.
Torvul paused in mid-gesticulation, and stopped. “Listen, Henrik. I know it’s too late in the year to do aught about this year’s harvest. This is for next year’s. When you gather your seed corn, you take this bottle, and, by the drop, mind you, the merest drop you can coax out of it, and it’ll be tiny, I designed this bottle myself, you see, and the neck impedes the movement of liquid—”
Allystaire began gathering his breath for another interruption, but Torvul stopped himself short. “Sorry. By the drop, you mix this in with each farm’s seed corn, or turnip tops or mushroom spawn or potato eyes, whatever it is they’re growing. Stretch it as far as it’ll go. Next year’s harvest will be more than you’ll know what to do with.”
“Beggin’ your pardon, dwarf, but what d’ya know of farming?” Henrik’s wife, Nora, a short, thin, hard-worked woman with ash-blonde hair going grey, ducked out of the kitchen behind the bar with her arms floury up to the elbow, wiping them on her apron as she came. “And what do you think happens if we have a good year? D’ya think we get to keep any of it? With no end of war in sight, how many new taxes d’ya think you’ll bring down on us?”
Allystaire stepped forward and seized the moment. “Goodwife, who is your lord in these parts?”
“S’Lord Carrinth of Ennithstide,” the woman said, her mouth twisting as though she’d like to spit.
“Does he use your people ill? Mistreat them?”
“No more’n any other, I ‘spect,” she replied, her eyes shifting nervously. “I mean no disrespect, m’lord.”
“I am not a lord,” Allystaire said, attempting a reassuring smile. “And you shall not offend me by speaking ill of any man who deserves it, be he ever so great in the eyes of law. Listen to me now; there is a village a good ride east and north of here, the other side of the mountains, called Thornhurst. The Mother’s Temple rises there even now. If this Lord Carrinth, or his soldiers, or his agents, come to you asking a tax you should not or cannot pay, if they use you ill or ply strength and fear to keep you hungry, you send word to that village, and it will come to me. And no matter if I am in some far-flung corner of the world, I will come back here, I will go to Lord Carrinth, and I will take back every link, every crumb, every ounce you are owed. And if I must leave Ennithstide a smoking ruin when I do, then so be it. You are people of the Mother now, if you wish to be; this potion is one of Her gifts to you. My protection is another.”
The woman’s eyes hadn’t lost their nervous cast as Allystaire spoke. “D’ya mean that, m’lord? You’d come fight for us for…for what?”
“I would fight for you, good lady Nora, because it would be the right thing to do. Because no one else has. Because the Mother calls me to. Pick the answer that suits you. All are true.”
When Allystaire called Nora ‘lady’, at first she gasped in fear. And then, for just a moment, her blue eyes showed the tiniest hint of a tear in each corner. Allystaire gently laid one gauntleted hand on her arm and squeezed lightly, then stepped back.
“Now we must go,” Allystaire said. “Know this; I will forever regret that I was not here a day sooner. I will remember what happened here, and I will find the man who did it, and he will face the Mother’s justice. And you, remember Thornhurst. Send someone there, if you can spare him, and tell him to speak with Mol, the Mother’s priestess there. If there is any help you need, and it is in Mol’s power to grant, you will have it.”
Allystaire turned to leave, and Torvul pointed a thick finger at Henrik. “Remember—careful hand with the drops. It’ll work on any crop you mean to grow.”
“What do I owe you, m’lords?”
Allystaire and Idgen Marte glanced at Torvul as the question was asked. The dwarf simply shrugged his broad shoulders. “It’s free. Just mind it well.” With that, he stumped on out the door, his thick boots ringing hard on the stones. Idgen Marte and Allystaire headed for the door, but Torvul’s head and shoulders suddenly burst back through it.
“And another thing,” the dwarf called out, squeezing between the paladins and walking back to the bar, “I’m not accusing you of anything, but you need to know. Since that is freely given to you,” he raised a hand and pointed one finger at the bag and the bottle inside, “it must be freely given by you. The moment anyone tries to sell it, tries to take links in exchange for its power, the magic in it will be not destroyed, but changed. You would not like to see what happens to fields sewn with seed cursed by that potion if gold or silver changes hands for it. Understand?”
The dwarf barely waited for Henrik to nod enthusiastically before he turned and made haste through the door again. He was but a few steps beyond it when Allystaire and Idgen Marte heard him bellow.
“You two are a festering carbuncle on the ass of progress. Get out here already.”
Idgen Marte gave Allystaire a light shove, laughing, and he went, shaking his head, into the bright morning sunshine, where the dwarf was already turning his team for the road.
They mounted, Idgen Marte on her courser, Allystaire on the broad-shouldered destrier. Ardent whickered happily and tried to tear off down the road; Allystaire felt the huge muscles beneath him gathering, but he gave the horse only enough head to catch up with Torvul’s wagon.
“I know what you’re going to ask, and I’ll save you the trouble,” Torvul said. “Potion’ll work. I promise.”
“That is not what I was going to ask,” Allystaire returned mildly. “Your potions worked when the villagers were ensorcelled, and they worked when I was poisoned.”
Torvul coughed delicately, his eyes narrowing as they focused on the road ahead. “Well, in point of fact, in the interest of precision and truth, they didn’t work when the villagers were ensorcelled. They were supposed to be smoke and noise. Not flames.”
Allystaire stifled a laugh by coughing into a gauntleted fist. “Well. No, Torvul, the question I was going to ask is about the, ah, the price.”
“Prices are between me and Her Ladyship,” Torvul replied. His lips clamped shut.
Allystaire raised a conciliatory hand from the reins. “Then I take back the question. If it concerns your Ordination, then it remains yours in private, unless you choose otherwise.”
Torvul was quiet, and Allystaire rode beside him in silence. For a few minutes, the only sounds were the occasional chattering of birds, the roll of Torvul’s wagon’s wheels along the road, the clomping of horseshoes, the jingle of harness. Finally the dwarf broke the silence.
“There is somethin’ I need to do when we get to Londray. It’s about the bow that assassin carried.”
“What of it?”
“It’s Dwarfish make. Old Dwarfish make. I need t’know who sold it, and when, and if there are more.”
“There are plenty of crossbows in the world.”
Torvul turned his gaze from the road, and Allystaire saw a glimpse of stone and iron in his expression. “Not like that there aren’t. My bow is a little bit alike to it in the same way that a noble maiden’s first palfrey is alike to that monster you’re riding. I need to know who, and where, and how many. I’m gonna need your help with it. Aye?”
“Aye,” Allystaire nodded.
Allystaire let Ardent run for just a few moments then, and the restless horse soon pulled away from the wagon, but with a few yards distance he reined in and slowed the destrier’s pace to a walk. They passed the time, and several miles of road, in watchful silence.
* * *
They made camp that night before twilight, which meant few turns on the road, as the days were growing short. The land was hilly, caught between the mountains that divided Barony Delondeur in its middle and those that guarded its coast, and the terrain offered them a sheltered and elevated spot to park the wagon, though little cover was afforded by the increasingly leafless trees. The horses and the mule were picketed and calm, and Torvul was busy starting a fire in the light-shielding brazier he had brought out of his wagon.
“Just what else have you got in there?” Idgen Marte asked, as she leaned casually against a pile of her saddle and some baggage, legs stretched out in front of her and crossed at the ankle.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Torvul struck something against the side of the brazier and soon light flared within it, and in moments a full fire was burning away on whatever fuel he’d added. “Stones but it feels good t’have the touch back,” the dwarf murmured. He stepped up and entered his wagon again.
Allystaire had been rooting through a pack, and came to the fire with hard squares of salty biscuit and leathery strips of meat and handed sizable portions of each to Idgen Marte. “Torvul certainly has a lighter step since…”
“Didn’t you?” She nibbled cautiously on the end of a biscuit, turning her head to the side in order to bite with her grinding teeth.
“Not as such. Felt rested, I suppose. He seems a full ten years younger.”
At that, Torvul emerged from the door of his wagon and hopped down lightly, two crossbows held in his bent arms—his own, and the one they had taken from the would-be assassin.
“More’n ten years. Thirty, if it’s one,” the dwarf said. He approached the fire, set down the bows, and reached for the food Allystaire offered him. He took one tearing bite at the meat and quickly spat it out, his face twisted in pain, and tossed the remnant to the ground.
“New rule,” he said, spitting again. “You’re no longer responsible for food.”
“Ask me to cook and I’ll feed you your tongue,” Idgen Marte warned him. “You’re taking it on yourself.”
“I’m the only one who can be trusted with it, apparently,” the dwarf replied, eyeing his forsaken jerky and biscuit balefully.
“Many a time on campaign I have eaten worse, and been glad of it,” Allystaire replied. “I suggest you make yourself used to it, for we have little silver left, and no gold.”
The dwarf waved a hand dismissively. “We’ve plenty. Just wait till we get to Londray and I’ll fit out my kitchen proper. You’ll see. Now, to important business.”
He held up his own crossbow, its plain wooden stock resting on the palms of his hands. “Helped a weapon-crafter of my own caravan make this. I have this,” he flipped a large, clear crystal set in a brass ring and hinged on the top of the stock, “for measuring distance.” He gently eased the ring down, seating it snugly into a recess cut into the stock. “And this.” Another, much smaller crystal set in a silver ring; the crystal itself was a dark red, and cracked. “This is for the dark. It doesn’t work too well, but a decent bowman can make use of it. Otherwise, well, it’s your basic crossbow. I’ve toyed with trick bolts, y’know, filled with alchemical whatnot. No more accurate than just trusting my good right arm, I’ve found.” He set his bow down and reached for the longer, slightly thinner one.
It was, Allystaire noticed for the first time, not simply a darkly burnished wood, for no wood could have been that rippling dark blue color. The spiraling stock of the weapon seemed made for a short, fairly thick arm to slide into it.
“This weapon is from the Homes, from before we took to wagons. If any dwarf still living knows how to make one, and much less can find the mchazchen—that’s the stone it’s made from—”
“You can’t make a bow out of stone,” Idgen Marte protested. “That’s absurd.”
“And yet here it is.” Torvul cleared his throat, briefly glared at the warrior, and resumed, “If any dwarf still living knows how to make one, then he is older or cleverer than he has any right t’be.” He reached up and flipped up no less than four separate crystal lenses. Unlike those on his bow, these were smooth and clear as glass. “Measuring distance, wind, darkness, fog, cover, terrain, armor. There’s very little that can stop such a bow. This weapon was fashioned with a potent and forgotten magic, and best it stays that way.”
“I have a question, Torvul. And I mean no offense by it,” Allystaire said quietly. “If the weapon is so very powerful, and your people had the making of them, what did defeat you?”
“I never said we were defeated,” Torvul answered evenly. “Only that we left the Homes behind. And when we came up, and took to wagons, one thing every crafter agreed upon, every soldier who carried such as this,” he hefted the bow before setting it down at his feet, “was that we’d not sell them at any price. Not at any measure of desperation.”
“Agreements like that are made to be broken,” Idgen Marte said. “You can’t expect everyone to simply give their word and mean it.”
“You don’t know much about dwarfs,” Torvul said sternly. “It was entered into The History by the Loresingers. Every dwarf in every caravan carries that in his soul and is reminded of it at every Singing. Had that changed—had any dwarf consented to sell these—then every dwarf would learn of it, and fast. So if it’s happened, it’s been since…” Here the dwarf paused and drew in a heavy breath. “Since I left.”
“History? Loresingers?” Idgen Marte sat up, her half-eaten biscuit forgotten, and leaned forward with an eager curiosity.
“One thing at a time,” Allystaire said, forestalling her questions with an upraised hand. “It could have been taken as a prize on a battlefield.”
Torvul smiled faintly. “Don’t you think we took that into account? If that happened, the magic of the bow simply wouldn’t work, and he’d only be able to point it and shoot. There are steps that have to be taken, lessons; this was given or sold by a dwarf.”
“How do we know he was not just pointing and shooting?”
Torvul turned to Idgen Marte. “How far would you say an ordinary crossbow can shoot, and hit what it’s aimed at?”
“Three hundred span or so, if the bowman knows his business. Bit more if he knows and is damned lucky.”
Torvul nodded. “And how far away was the assassin using this?”
Idgen Marte paused to consider, then said carefully, “A lot freezing further than that.”
“Right.” Torvul reached down and flipped up one of the ring-set crystal lenses. “The only reason he could even see you, Allystaire, was because the bow was working for him. He was too far away, the elevations were all cocked, and he was hanging in a damned tree. No normal crossbow makes that shot, not even if you’re strung up like a target at a fair game and he got forty bolts at a copper half. You have to see that.” Torvul closed down one lens, the large clear one, and flipped up another of bright peridot hue. “And you—” he pointed at Idgen Marte, “since the Lady’s Gift, how many have seen you coming when you meant them harm? I’m guessing the answer is one, and it’s him. And didn’t you stop to wonder why he could even see you?” The dwarf tapped the ring with a fingertip and then pushed it closed on well-oiled, noiseless hinges.
“I’m sold,” Idgen Marte said, leaning back again. “We’ll do what we can. Where do we start?” Allystaire nodded his agreement and went back to chewing a hard, musty biscuit.
“In Londray. Bound to be some of my folk around.”
“Good. Now that’s settled, Loresingers. History.” Idgen Marte made herself comfortable, uncrossed and re-crossed her feet at the ankles, and looked at the dwarf expectantly.
The dwarf sighed and rather nimbly tucked his legs so that he was sitting with his hands resting on his knees. “These are big questions, woman. But you’ve a right to know some things, I s’pose, and I’m not opposed to telling you a little.”
“Torv
ul, trust me—if you start answering any of her questions, they will never, ever stop,” Allystaire warned.
The dwarf shrugged. “I like t’talk almost as much as you like t’chew.” He tossed his discarded biscuit toward Allystaire, who caught it in the air and, with the equanimity of a seasoned soldier presented with unexpected food, serenely began nibbling on it.
“Now. Songs. For such as you, they’re what, a turn’s entertainment? An old and twisted and broken story? For dwarfs, though, they’re who we are as a people, who we have been; everything that we do, everything that we decide, our laws and our memories and our plans—all of these are sung by our Loresingers.” He raised a hand to forestall further questions, for Idgen Marte was already leaning forward again, her mouth half open. “Every so often when caravans meet—it used to be a lot more often in the Homes—there is a Singing. Things are added to the History. Marriages, deaths, births, great events, new contracts, new creations.” He paused here and looked to Allystaire. “I do like talkin’ but it’s thirsty work.”
Allystaire snorted softly, but amiably, and pushed himself to his feet and walked over to Torvul’s wagon, where wineskins and waterskins hung in sacks from pegs along the side. He returned with two, tossing one to Torvul and keeping one for himself. The dwarf nodded obligingly. He pulled off the cork, tilted his head, opened his mouth, and squeezed the back of the sack.
He suddenly sputtered and shouted, “Water! I said I was thirsty, not dirty.” Allystaire, meanwhile, enjoyed a chuckle as he poured a good measure of sour red wine down his own throat before handing the bag over to the dwarf.