At last satisfied, he returned my dagger, then hefted the branch and edged out along the bough some twelve feet above the ground.
“Ho, there!” he called out. “Creature of ugliness! Come to Piercollo!”
The beast lifted its grotesque head, its huge eyes focusing on the Tuscanian. Piercollo stood very still with the huge spear held vertically, the point aimed at the ground below. At first the creature just stood, staring up at him, then it moved across the clearing.
“That is it, monster! Come to me!”
With a roar it charged at the tree.
Gripping the weapon with both hands, Piercollo dropped from the bough, his enormous weight driving the huge spear deep into the creature’s back, through its enormous belly, and into the ground beneath. The monster’s legs buckled, and it sank to the earth with blood pouring from its mouth.
Slowly I climbed down and walked among the many corpses.
Megan had said that magick and sorcery were more closely linked than I knew. But as I gazed upon the dreadful fire-blackened bodies, I hoped—prayed, almost—that she was wrong.
Five years before, when I had been living with Cataplas at his home by the Sea of Gaels, I had watched him experiment with dead mice, dissecting them, examining the innards. Then he had laid the bodies side by side.
“Look at them, Owen, and tell me what you see.”
“What is there to see, save two dead rodents?”
“Use your talent, concentrate. Think of colors, auras.”
I stared at the mice, and true enough, they glowed with a faint light radiating out from their tiny bodies. “What is that?” I asked, amazed.
“The essence of life,” he told me. “You will see that light for three days more, then it will be gone. But watch this!”
With a sharp knife he cut the bodies neatly in two, then took the hind legs and rear body of the first and laid it against the severed front torso of the second. Cataplas took a deep breath, and I felt the gathering of his power. The light around the two halves swelled, and I watched the skin of the bodies writhe together, the edges meeting, joining. The rear legs twitched; the head moved. The hybrid struggled to rise, took several weak steps, then fell again. Cataplas clicked his fingers, and the light faded, the twinned beast ceasing to move.
“You are a sorcerer!” I whispered.
“I am a seeker after knowledge,” he replied.
Here, in this clearing, I could see the result of his quest, and it sickened me.
Jarek Mace moved alongside me. “Where do they come from?” he asked. “There are at least three men here, and several hounds.”
“The beasts are … were … merged … creations of sorcery. Hounds, horses, men, boars, bonded together into …” I turned away, desperate to put the hellish scene behind me.
“Sorcery or not, we killed them,” said Mace, slapping my shoulder. “The fire you sent was unbelievable. I did not realize you had such power.”
“Neither did I. Can we leave this place?”
“Presently,” said Mace with a smile.
I watched in disbelief as he searched the remnants of what had once been the body of Patch. He returned with the bowman’s money pouch.
“Should have been mine,” he said, “and would have been had my string not snapped. Let us go.”
The attack left me in a state of numbed shock, the passing of terror leaving in its place an emptiness, a void that could not even grieve for the ghastly death of the archer, Patch. I stumbled on behind Jarek Mace and Piercollo, scarcely noticing the journey or the rising of the sun and the warmth of a new day.
Cataplas had moved from amorality to evil and was apparently unmarked by the process. Throughout my years with him I had never sensed his capacity for darkness, and none of his actions had hinted at the horror of which he was capable. Often we would journey on foot across the land, stopping at wayside taverns to entertain revelers or in castles to perform for the nobles and their ladies. Always Cataplas was punctiliously polite, soft-voiced, and charming. I never once saw him lose his temper.
Yet here he was practicing the darkest sorceries, merging men and beasts, blood-hungry creatures who lived only to kill. I wondered then—hoped might be a better description—if he himself had been put under a spell. But I knew it was not so.
Long-forgotten memories came back to me. A performance had been canceled because of the death of a child; the parents were grieving and had no wish to be entertained. Cataplas had been irritated by what he saw as their lack of good manners. “Did they not realize,” he said to me, “that I have walked thirty miles to show them my magick?”
“But their son is dead,” I answered.
“I did not kill him. What has it to do with me?”
All that interested Cataplas was the pursuit of knowledge. Magick he had mastered as no man before or since. But magick was, he said, merely a game played with light, illusory and—artistic consideration aside—worthless.
We parted company one winter’s evening just after a performance at the royal court in Ebracom. He had filled the great hall with golden birds whose songs were a joy to the ear and the heart and concluded with the creation of a golden-scaled lion who leapt upon the table before the king, scattering pots and dishes. Women screamed and men leapt back, tipping over chairs and falling to the floor, alarming the warhounds that sat beneath the table feeding on scraps. Only the king remained seated, a grim smile upon his cruel mouth.
The lion rose up on its hind legs and became a huge silver eagle that soared into the air and flew around the rafters, devouring the golden songbirds.
At the end of the performance there was tumultuous applause. Cataplas bowed, and we left the hall.
Outside, in the shadows of the corridor, he said his goodbyes. “I have taught you all that you can learn,” he said. “Now it is time for you to walk your own path.” He bowed stiffly, turned, and walked away, his long velvet robe brushing the cold stone of the walls.
As I lay in bed that night, I pictured again the golden lion. I can remember a cold chill sweeping over me, and I sat up, rigid with fear. The lion had scattered the dishes!
It was not a trick played with light, not a creation of magick. In the seconds before Cataplas transformed it into an eagle it had been real, solid, the golden claws and fangs capable of rending and tearing.
Not magick at all, but sorcery.
Now Patch was dead, as the burned corpses in the clearing were dead. I looked ahead to where Jarek Mace and Piercollo were walking in the sunlight … and I shivered.
In a world of violence, war, and sudden death these men could hold their own. But against Cataplas and all the demonic powers he could summon, what hope was left for them?
And for me.
Fear returned men with great force.
Toward midmorning we crested a tall hill and gazed out over the slender lakes that shone like silver in the valleys of the central forest. The land stretched away in great folds in a hundred variations of green and brown speckled with the hazy purples of bracken and golden-yellow splashes of gorse. The trees were thinner here, and we could see at least two settlements by the largest of the lakes—wooden houses, single-storied, built along the shoreline. Boats and coracles were out on the lake, fishermen casting their nets for the red-fleshed fish that journeyed in from the sea in late spring.
All in all it was a quietly beautiful sight.
“Not a single tavern,” grunted Mace. “And I doubt there’s a whore to be had.”
He was wrong. One of the first people I recognized, apart from the twisted figure of Wulf, was the blond mute, Ilka. She stood with arms folded across her chest, her great blue eyes watching us as we strolled into the settlement.
“You’re a sight for sore eyes, Mace,” shouted Wulf. “Where’s Megan?”
Mace explained, then told the story of the monstrous creatures that had hunted us. Wulf’s face was set and grim as he listened.
“We’ve heard of them,” he grunted. “They s
truck a family of tinkers the night afore last—ripped them to pieces. At first we thought it was trolls, but they’ve no cloven hoofs. There are hunting parties out, five in all. I was with one of them. We just got back.”
“Well,” said Mace with a grin, “they won’t be needed. Owen cast a mighty spell that burned them up like great torches. And our singing friend here took out the last with a spear the size of a small tree.”
Piercollo chuckled. “Life is not without excitement in your company, Morningstar.”
“Don’t call me that!” snapped Mace, uneasy. “It began as a jest, but it is no longer amusing.” Then he spotted Ilka and smiled, his good humor restored. Waving her to him, he took her arm and led her off into the trees. She glanced back once, and her eyes held mine. I cannot say what the look meant, but I sighed and my spirits plummeted.
Mace was gone for most of the afternoon, and Wulf took us to his campsite outside the settlement. He had crafted from woven branches a lean to shelter with a sloping roof and two movable windbreaks. A fire was burning with a circle of stones, and six rabbits were hanging from a tree branch nearby.
“Welcome to my hearth,” he said, settling himself beside the fire. Piercollo and I lay down on the dry ground. Immediately fatigue overtook me, and I fell asleep to the sound of Wulf’s flute and the deep tenor beauty of Piercollo singing a gentle ballad.
It was dark when I awoke. Mace was back and sitting with the others, throwing dice and betting on the result. Ilka sat apart from them, hugging her knees and rocking gently from side to side. I stretched and sat up, smiling at her. She did not respond, but her eyes remained locked to mine.
Lifting my head, I signaled to her to join me, but she shook her head and looked away.
“Ah, the mighty magician is awake,” said Jarek Mace, “and he has missed his supper.”
“I’m not hungry,” I told him.
The stars were out, the moon a glorious crescent, the light so strong that it cast shadows from the trees to the silvered ground.
More than a dozen men came moving from the undergrowth, grim men, dressed as foresters in leather jerkins and trews with daggers at their belts and longbows in their hands. I froze. Mace moved easily to his feet and waited. The newcomers walked slowly, purposefully, their eyes watching Mace. Piercollo eased himself to his feet, but Wulf sat very still, his hand on his dagger.
A tall bowman, his hair silver in the moonlight, strode forward to stand before Mace. “So you’d be the Morningstar?” said the newcomer, looking Mace up and down. “Why is it that I am not impressed?”
“I have no idea,” responded Mace, “but your wife was impressed the last time I bedded her. But then, the competition was not fierce.”
Even by the light of the moon and stars I saw the man redden. “Be careful, Mace! I am not known for my patience.”
“You are not known for anything, Corlan,” snapped Mace. “Now say what you have come to say and then begone!”
“You think I won’t kill you? You think your life is charmed?”
“I know that if you try, I’ll cut your throat,” Mace told him.
Corlan’s gaze swept to the dagger at Mace’s belt; it was still scabbarded.
“You think you are fast enough to beat an arrow?”
“I know I am. Now speak your piece.”
“I want some of the profit from this … Morningstar game of yours. Let us face facts, Mace. Whatever plan you have cannot be carried off without men. And you have only Wulf. He’s good, and so are you. But you need more. I have them. All we want is a share. Isn’t that right, men?”
“Aye,” the foresters chorused.
“And if I don’t agree?”
“Then you die here. And perhaps so do I. Now, do we have an agreement?”
Mace swung to me. “Well, Owen, do we have an agreement?”
For a moment I was thunderstruck, but then I saw the look in Mace’s eyes—sharp, direct—and I knew he was warning me to be careful. Beyond that I could not guess at his reasons for drawing me into the discussion.
“Who in the devil’s name is he?” asked Corlan.
“It is his game,” answered Mace easily. “The Morningstar was his idea.”
“What is the game?” asked the forester, turning to me.
In that moment I set my foot on a perilous path. I am not sure now how far ahead I could see; I like to think that a small part of my mind, a deep dark corner close to the soul, inspired me. But I fear it was merely self-preservation that made me speak as I did.
“It is the greatest game of all,” I said, “and the profits will make beggars of kings.”
My voice was firm and resonant, deep and compelling, and the ease of the lie surprised me. I excused it then—as I do now—by saying that as a bard I was also a performer, and I was performing before an audience that, if it did not like my words, might kill me.
Corlan looked at me with fresh eyes. He saw a tall, dark-haired young man of Angostin countenance, straight of nose, strong of chin, keen of eye, and my confidence grew. “You are correct, Corlan, we will need men, but far more than you have here. These will come in time, but you will be the first—after you have pledged the soul oath.”
“I want to hear about gold, not oaths,” he said.
“You will hear all you need to in good time,” I told him. “Gather around me.” I moved away and sat, not looking at any of them. Corlan was the first to sit before me, the others forming a semicircle on either side of him. Mace, Wulf, and Piercollo placed themselves behind me. By now I had thought out my plan of action, one that would take the outlaws as far from us as was humanly possible. Better than that, it would also involve them in tackling Azrek and his men and perhaps diverting his attention from us. I was mightily pleased with myself as I began to speak. “The Highlands have been burned by war, the nobles scattered or slain. The land is in turmoil, and foreign lords have control of the cities. Taxes are ungathered, cattle unbranded, homes left empty, fields lie fallow. Here in this forest are many settlements, and the Angostins will seek to loot and plunder, thus paying their mercenary armies. But how many roads are there to Ziraccu? Only a handful that can be used by wagons laden with gold and coin. The first moves of the Morningstar will be to close those roads, to exact a toll from the Angostins.”
“What kind of a toll?” asked a lean, hatchet-faced man to the left of Corlan.
“All that they have.”
“We could do that without you,” said Corlan. “Where does the Morningstar fit in this?”
“Be patient, Corlan, and listen. You will take their gold. Half you will hide; the other half will be returned to the people. You will be known as the men of the Morningstar, and you will let it be known in the settlements that you are fighting for the freedom of the land. You will be heroes. When you need food, you will pay for it. You will steal nothing from the settlements; there will be no looting or rape. You will walk the forest with heads held high, and you will bask in the acclaim of the people.”
“I still don’t understand,” snapped Corlan.
“What is there to understand?” I answered him. “You will have gold and honor. And when the time is right you will know the full plan. And you will be rich, as all of you will be rich, with more gold than a man could spend in twenty lifetimes.”
“So you say. But you have told us nothing,” put in another man.
“You know all you need to know. How can you lose? If I am wrong or my plan is flawed, you will still have the profit from your raids.”
“Why the men of the Morningstar?” asked Corlan.
“You have heard the legends growing. You know what the people think of Jarek Mace. He is seen as the banner of rebellion; he is the heart of resistance to the Angostin evil. In his name you will be welcome everywhere. They will hide you and feed you; they will die to protect you; they will beg to join you.”
“Do you trust him, Mace?” Corlan swung to stare into Mace’s eyes.
“He has been proved right so far
.”
“I don’t know. You are a canny man, Mace. I don’t like you, but you fight like a demon and you’ve the mind of a wolf. You believe we’ll be rich as kings?”
“Why else would I be here?”
Corlan nodded. “I would guess that’s true. What of you, Wulf?”
The hunchback shrugged. “I follow the Morningstar,” he said with a twisted grin.
“Then we’ll do it,” said Corlan, making to rise.
“Wait,” I said softly. “First the soul oath.”
“I need no oaths,” hissed Corlan.
“But I do,” I whispered. Raising my right hand with palm upward, I stared down at the skin, holding myself still, forcing my concentration to deepen. Blue and yellow flames leapt from the palm, bright and hurtful to the eyes.
Corlan fell back, dropping his bow. “You are a sorcerer!” he shouted.
“Indeed I am,” I said, my voice deep as rolling thunder. It was a fine performance, and I risked a glance at the other men, seeing the fear in their faces. “This is the flame that cannot die. This is the light that feeds on souls. Each man will reach into this flame, taking it into himself. It will sear the flesh of oath breakers, spreading like a cancer through the body. Any man here who betrays another of the company will die horribly, his soul burning in the pit of a thousand flames. His spirit will fly screaming to the realm of the Vampyre kings. There will be no escape. Once you have touched this flame, the soul oath will have been made. There will be no turning back from it.”
“I’ll not touch it!” roared Corlan.
“Then you will not be rich,” I said, smiling.
“Have you done this, Mace?” he asked.
“Of course,” answered the warrior. “Would you like to see me do it again?”