by Paul Collins
Could he be more than he seemed, she wondered. Was he in league with the Preceptor, or someone worse? Was he a lindrak, biding his time and waiting for a chance to seize the completed mailshirt? None of those ideas seemed likely, and Jelindel began to feel guilty for thinking such thoughts of an obviously loyal – although often obnoxious – friend.
After a time the magnificent layers of striped rock in the mountainsides took hold of her attention, and her thoughts about Zimak faded away.
Chapter
14
The Preceptor looked down into the training yard from the battlements of Firebrand Castle, which was Fa’red’s main base and stronghold in the foothills of the Barrier Ranges. Two men were practising Siluvian kick-fist with lead weights attached to their hands and feet, while another, metal claws strapped to his hands and feet, was climbing straight up a stone wall with a bag of sand strapped to his back.
At the centre of the yard were two blindfolded men who were fighting each other with pikestaffs. They listened for the sound of breathing, the rustle of robes, the swish of the other’s pikestaffs, and even the crunch of feet on gravel. More often than not their responses were deadly accurate. In the pitch dark of some noble’s bed-chamber they would be able to stab accurately by no more than the sound of a snore.
The man who had been climbing the wall now leaped for a rope that hung from an overframe and climbed all the way to the crossbeam above using his arms alone. He descended to the yard, then removed the weight from his back and did the whole thing again. This time he did the vertical course in a third of the time.
The Preceptor was impressed.
The catch on a door in a nearby tower rattled and Fa’red came through. The senior Adept was healing well after the ordeal of escaping from his burning house in D’loom, although his skin was heavily scarred and some of his hair and beard had not grown back. His eyebrows were gone, which made a distinct contrast with the bushy hedgerows that had earlier adorned his face.
‘What do you think of them?’ he asked the Preceptor. They grasped each other’s wrists in greeting.
‘They are impressive. Now I can see why much is made of the King’s lindrak warriors.’
‘Impressive they are, lindraks they are not.’
‘I – I don’t understand.’
‘They dress like them, fight like them, and even have a similar language, but they are my very own creation. I call them deadmoon warriors to avoid confusion, but very, very few people know of them.’
They leaned over the battlements again and watched the warriors at work. The Preceptor now viewed the martial feats below with renewed interest. ‘Unbelievable,’ he said as he gazed down. ‘Lindrak training methods are guarded better than the royal treasury. How did you learn the lindrak way so well?’
Fa’red touched the Preceptor’s arm and gestured to a door in the tower. They entered and began descending a stone stairway. They went in single file, and in silence. When they reached the base of the stairway, Fa’red conjured a tiny globe of light to float along just before them and they started down a long, narrow corridor. There was nothing to see but the bricks of the walls and arched roof. Eventually they came to a door bound shut by writhing blue traceries. There was no sign of a bar, bolt or lock.
‘I feel obliged to warn you that what is behind this may be rather upsetting to behold,’ said Fa’red as if through obligation rather than concern.
‘Open it,’ said the Preceptor.
The creature lying on the hay inside the room was about the size of a small cow, but was covered in amorphous folds of pasty skin. Its eyes were bland and sheep-like, its head was closer to that of a goat, and it was ruminating contentedly.
A human head shared its neck, above the other and just forward of the shoulders.
The Preceptor made a sound like someone about to be violently ill who nonetheless had the self-control to fight it back down. Fa’red snapped his fingers and the thing got to its feet.
‘This is how I learned lindrak training methods,’ declared Fa’red, going up to the beast and rubbing the lower head between its ears.
‘You have lost me, Lord Fa’red.’
‘When you, ah, persuaded our King to have his lindraks burn Count Juram’s house in D’loom, you also arranged that the lindraks should be based at my own humble residence. Remember?’
‘Yes.’
‘They came there for refuge with their wounded comrade after they had done their work and started the fire. The man was clearly dying, so the chief of the squad struck off his head and they bade me good evening after stripping off his clothing and weapons.’
‘The lindraks are very pragmatic about things like that,’ agreed the Preceptor.
‘Very pragmatic, to be sure. I was left with a body and a head, and they were very much separate. I had a mind to open a gate to the next paraworld and heave the remains through, but it just happened that I also had a trained voriole in a cage at that time.’
‘A voriole?’ asked the Preceptor. ‘I cannot place the word.’
‘A very rare, enchanted beast with shapeshifter abilities but no intelligence. They can be used to keep wounded people alive while their bodies heal, because they can partly merge with their bodies. An idea came to me then, a very ambitious idea. I made the voriole assume a human-supportive essence and the common, stocky structure that you now see. After making an incision I had it assimilate the severed head of the lindrak. This was all within moments of the other lindraks leaving, but even with such a short interval the operation was perilously close to failure. As fortune would have it, I was lucky.
‘The mind of the dead man was a little damaged, but his memories were whole and he was quite compliant with my orders. I had him brought here and set one of my best Adept assistants to teaching my own people the way of both lindrak and Adept.’
‘A formidable but illegal combination,’ said the Preceptor uneasily. ‘A positively frightening combination.’
‘But very effective. The first of them are ready to be sent out at this very moment, and the training of most of the others is at a very advanced stage. I shall be sending them to Passendof, to assist my brave colleague Gilvier in retrieving the missing dragonlinks and mailshirt.’
‘If he is still alive.’
‘That, regrettably, could be a problem,’ declared Fa’red with something genuinely approaching regret in his voice. ‘I have heard nothing from him for some time. Still, I have contingency plans, so do not worry.’
The human head’s eyelids flickered, then opened to reveal unfocused eyes. The eyes turned to Fa’red.
‘Who disturbs my rest?’ asked a thin, high voice in rhythm with the animal’s breathing. The grafted head’s lips barely moved.
‘Fa’red and the Preceptor,’ said Fa’red. ‘Your masters.’
‘Masters,’ echoed the thin voice.
‘Ask him a question,’ prompted Fa’red.
‘What is the mark of a lindrak?’ asked the Preceptor.
‘The tattoo of a shadow walking upright, on the ribs, beneath the left arm.’
The Preceptor’s jaw dropped and he stepped back a pace.
‘It cost me the lives of three good, loyal friends and a pint of my own blood to learn that,’ he said in wonder.
‘Return to your rest now,’ Fa’red said to the head.
The head’s eyes closed, and it lolled slightly on the neck of its host. The voriole curled up on the floor.
The Preceptor managed to restrain himself for the first dozen steps.
‘That was miraculous!’ he blurted out. ‘Why a man could be all but immortal with the aid of such a beast.’
‘Living like that? Bah! That one only cooperated because I have promised to kill him after I have all that I need. What I need from him is men trained to be like lindraks, or better. They could be very helpful to realise the full power of the mailshirt.’
‘It always comes back to the mailshirt,’ said the Preceptor. ‘Say we seized the mailshirt. Wh
at then?’
‘Neither Kings, not lindraks, nor armies can stop us.’ Suddenly the Preceptor seemed to lose patience. ‘Is this why you brought me here? To show me this?’ he asked testily.
‘Yes, in part.’
‘And the other part?’
‘How well disposed is the King to the Marisa River treaty?’
‘Badly, as am I. It would give landlocked Baltoria access to the oceans. Baltoria is a rich and powerful kingdom that might quickly buy and build fleets and eventually dominate our war sloops.’
‘Persuade him to sign it,’ said Fa’red.
‘What? Insanity!’
‘Persuade him to sign it and I shall give you control of these deadmoon warriors. With them your back will be safe from the displeasure of the King.’
The Preceptor was tempted but tentative.
‘But what is so special about the Marisa River, Fa’red?’
‘It is a soft underbelly, Preceptor.’
‘Whose underbelly?’
‘All in good time, Preceptor, all in good time.’
The Preceptor had a dislike of the ceremony of court, and even the fuss of a minor audience with the King was annoying to him. The hospitalier dressed him in a shirt with flared white sleeves under a sleeveless gipon of oak-leaf green. To these were added burgundy tights and pointed slippers.
‘And a mantle, Preceptor – you must have a mantle,’ insisted the hospitalier.
‘This is just a private audience,’ the Preceptor snapped tersely.
‘Ah, but a look of style and prosperity inspires confidence in His Majesty. Clothing is the hallmark of the quality within: His Majesty is always saying that.’
One day it will be different, the Preceptor thought to himself, but for now he accepted a scalloped mantle buttoned at the right shoulder. He was a fit, lean man who led from the front in battle, yet a lean figure was equated with failure in the eyes of the appearance-conscious king.
A door herald escorted him along the plaster-faced corridors of Altimak Palace. He was shown into a balcony suite facing northeast, and the window gave a fine view of the Garrical Mountains beyond the Barrier Ranges. Protocol demanded that he remain standing until the King arrived, and that he face the window until the monarch entered and addressed him. The Preceptor knew and understood the protocols well, even though he despised them.
There was the clack of a latch being raised behind him.
‘Ah! Hail and well may you be, Preceptor,’ came the monarch’s familiar and distinctive voice behind him.
The Preceptor turned, spread his arms and bowed in a single motion.
‘My place to serve you, Sire,’ he responded.
‘Ha, ha, as plain as ever in your robes, I see,’ said the King as he motioned the Preceptor to a chair.
‘I try to make my service and loyalty to you speak louder than my clothing, Sire,’ he replied smoothly.
‘Well, yes, but the feeble-minded may mistake your dour exterior for impoverishment.’
‘Too true, Sire,’ replied the Preceptor, now desperately trying to suppress a fit of laughter. ‘I shall look to my robes with greater care henceforth.’
‘Good, good, I do care about your career, you know. Now then, I have been briefed that you wish to discuss the Marisa River treaty. I must confess to impatience with any part of my realm being given away.’
The Preceptor unrolled a map of the northern province of Skelt on the table between them. A stretch of the Marisa River running from the Chasmgyle Falls on the Baltorian-Passendof border to the seaport of Tol on the Skelt coast had been outlined in red ink.
‘I wish to brief you on an offer of improved terms,’ the Preceptor said as he placed tiny gargoyle scroll-weights to hold the map open. ‘The new proposal is not to give away any land at all. See here, the Marisa River skirts Dragonfrost then turns inland on the plain between the Algon Mountains and the Bravenhurst Ranges. The Chasmgyle Gorge marks the end of the navigable waterway.
‘As you know, Baltoria is landlocked, yet the border is only thirty miles from the sea across north Skelt.’
The King’s nose wrinkled as if a bad smell had intruded upon the air between them.
‘So are you again proposing that we merely give our territory to the Baltorians for their seaway access?’
‘No, not at all, Sire. The Marisa River could well be made into a joint sovereignty, along with Bargehorse Road beside it. That would extend all the way to the Chasmgyle Falls at the Passendof border.’
He traced the stretch in question on the map with his finger.
‘Note well that while the Baltorians get free passage along a mere thirty miles, Skelt gets access to seventy miles of the river through Baltoria.’
The King frowned and shook his head. This was not a bad sign. When he sneered, that meant displeasure. A frown and a shake merely meant that he did not understand.
‘I see,’ said the monarch, slowly and uncertainly. ‘So the Baltorians would still be able to take both their own and Passendof’s produce all the way to Tol by barge, and there unload it directly onto merchant ships. They would avoid paying border taxes and customs to Skelt.’
‘True, Sire, but so too would Skeltian barges and merchants have access to the Passendof border at Chasmgyle.’
‘But we have little trade with Passendof compared to the huge loads of Baltorian goods that are taxed in Tol.’
‘This treaty favours us through what it can become, rather than what it is,’ the Preceptor insisted, tapping the Chasmgyle area. ‘Grain ships from D’loom could go to Tol, and their cargoes be taken by barge to the Passendof border. It would open up a new market for our grain, and eventually lead to who knows what?’
‘There will be a loss of revenue, nonetheless. Most of the barges on the Marisa are Baltorian.’
‘Indeed, but barges can easily be built. Also, if Tol were to gain in importance as a centre of trade, armed merchant convoys would be calling there in greater numbers. This would reduce the number of privateers in the Tanglesea Islands and thus free your patrol sloops for work further south. It would be all for free, too.’
The King peered at the map again, and stroked his chin. The Preceptor noted that he was not frowning, which meant that he perceived an advantage.
‘I could be disposed to agree,’ he declared, sitting back with his arms straight and his hands spread on the table. ‘Where would the treaty be signed?’
‘Why in Skelt, Sire, here in Altimak itself. The crown prince of Baltoria would be instructed to journey here from Hez’ar, as his family and people are the beneficiaries and we are making the concessions.’
The thought of foreign royalty arriving to beg for favours from a resurgently powerful Skelt appealed to the King.
‘This has some virtue,’ he conceded. ‘There must be no loss of territory, mind.’
‘That has been discussed, Sire. The Baltorians would be allowed to build their own piers and pierhouses in the shallows off Tol, while we would be granted a diplomatic enclosure at Chasmgyle, a full hundred yards by two hundred yards, and with our own barge wharf.’
This was the Preceptor’s trump card. The King had an obsession with expanding his realm, and this actually gave him a crumb of Baltorian territory in exchange for nothing. The monarch’s response was not disappointing.
‘Ho then, so the mighty King of Baltoria would trade land for free passage, now there’s the act of a desperate man.’
The King of Skelt was no fool, however, and he now raised the matter of security around Tol – in the light of what would become a large Baltorian presence. There was also yet another hidden agenda. The Preceptor’s civil militia now numbered seven thousand mounted archers and four thousand heavy lancers at Yuledan, a mere fifty miles east of the capital. Since the death of the Adept 14 mage in neighbouring Hamaria there was less certainty about controlling rebellions through the defences of enchantment. The power, ruthlessness and discipline of the Preceptor’s militia made him a good man to have as far as p
ossible from the capital.
‘The new roads that I have been building in the Garrical Mountains are a measure of security,’ the Preceptor argued earnestly as the King thought through strategies. ‘They put the Baltorian capital of Hez’ar within easy reach of my mounted militia, should they decide to abuse our hospitality at Tol.’
‘Oh, the Baltorians are the least of our concerns,’ retorted the King with a dismissive wave. ‘You see if Tol becomes more prosperous, it could become the target for the privateers that swarm about in the Tanglesea Islands, or even some other hostile kingdom. No, Preceptor, the ideal use for your mounted militia would be the land defence of Tol and the waging of war on my behalf in the north.’
The Preceptor was aghast. Not only did he hate t he tropics, this would put him well beyond the Court and substantially reduce his influence.
‘Your Majesty, Bravenhurst, Passendof and Baltoria are our only neighbours to the north, and all are well disposed to Skelt. The privateers’ island kingdoms are too small to be a threat –’
‘Ah no, I’ll hear no more, Preceptor. As you said yourself, the situation could change enormously after the Marisa River treaty is signed. No, my mind is made up. I shall sign the treaty, and your militia will go north to Tol. You will be made governor of the northern province, as a reward for your diligence on our behalf.’
The Preceptor left after further talk about minor details, and the King went to the window and gazed out across a stone courtyard flanked by cloisters. He was rewarded by the sight of the Preceptor striding away in a towering rage, and the monarch laughed out loud as the scholar-warrior tore off his scalloped mantle and flung it back over the head of the pursuing hospitalier.
‘I think he took that very well, do you not agree, Fa’red?’ asked the King without turning.