lintel, and a set of skulls were embedded in badly troweled mortar around the doorframe. Their hollow eyes were full of soft shadows and softer cobwebs.
"What news?" he asked the skulls.
In voices only he could hear, the dead answered. They told him he was safe from attack tonight and there were no travellers nearby to rob or murder.
"Good enough," said Mannagarm, and he went into the house. Inside, the longhouse stunk of smoke from the cook-fire where one of his servants was making dinner. He looked around and scrunched up his nose at the assault of smells. The thatch was wet and mouldy. The floor was mere hard-packed dirt. A mouse ran across the floor, surprised by the entrance of the old man. "Heh," he sneered. Maybe he could do with some of that gold and silver too after all. It was embarrassing, living in a filthy hole like this, lord of a filthy village, king of a rotten little kingdom of nothing. He adjusted the feather cloak around his neck and said, loudly, "Fetch, O' my Fetch. Come to me!"
Up in the rafters of the longhouse something stirred in the shadows and one shadow detached itself from the others. A thing that was made entirely of darkness, and had something like a body partway between a cat and a mink and an otter, slid elegantly and with a fluidness out from its hiding place, then down the wall, and with a leap it landed on the table. It curled up beside some chopped white carrots and a turnip and a skinned rabbit carcass. The servants were not done making his dinner just yet.
"Tsh, tsscch, tssh..." said the fetch. "Yes, oh wise and sagacious lord of lore? What ask you of me? Tssh. Tsch. Tsh." It blinked at him, though its eyes were the same dusky substance as the rest of it, so that it was only possible to see the blink by the slight shifting of the shape of its face.
"Hmeh," said Mannagarm. He tried to make himself imperious when talking to his fetch. The creature was the chief and greatest of his otherwordly thralls, and although a fetch was a petty sort of shadow-spirit—some wizards who thought themselves better than Mannagarm might have a dozen or a hundred fetches at their beck and call, after all—well, beside it being a petty sort of spirit, it was the best that Mannagarm had at his command and he didn't want it getting any clever ideas about who was in charge of whom... "Fetch!" he spat again, and gave the word a commanding air. "Go into the dreams of the sleeping village folk and find the bravest youth. Bring that person to me tomorrow morn. I've a task for such a one, and it cannot delay."
"As you desire, so shall it be done," whispered the fetch. It uncurled itself, jumped from the table to the floor and then to a window and out into the evening light outside. A fetch was too fragile to go about in direct sunlight, it needed to hide during the day, but at night it could go where it pleased, including into the dreams of sleepers.
Mannagarm watched it go and did not relax his pose until it was well out of sight. "Damn-becursed thing," he whispered. His shoulders sagged. He could feel twinges of pain in his shoulders and knees. The knuckles of his right hand were swollen again. Age was stalking him and death was not far behind.
"Heh," he said, angry. "Servants! Servants! Why's my even-meal not served and ready? I'll make you all writhe with pain tonight if I don't see food soon." It pleased him to order someone to do something.
With a huff he walked over to his cupboard of petty treasures, opened in and rummaged inside. At the back he found an old sword, made of pattern-welded bronze and cut with runes. It was as much an antique as a useful weapon, but it was the best piece of blade he had. Now... now... what else might a 'hero' need to slay an undead thing?
END
-oOo-
The next morning Mannagarm had half-forgotten that he had even sent his fetch out the night before. It would have been too much to say he was enjoying his breakfast of oily herb sausage, white and black pudding and duck eggs, but he was swallowing it mouthful by mouthful. Sometimes he thought the magic had taken away some of his sense of taste, leaving him with an ashy sensation no matter what he ate, but he had heard other aged folk complain of lost tastebuds and smell, so maybe it was all just agedness for him too. Who could say.
He was knifing a sausage in half when he heard a soft shudder at the door. He looked up. He remembered the fetch. "Oh, he said," waving a hand, "wards be lowered. Come in. Come in."
The change in the air about the door would have been imperceptible to anyone but a worker of magic and caller upon old names of power. Thin veils of transparent magic shed and slithered off the door and the wardings that kept it locked against unwanted visitors were scattered. The door pushed open then and the fetch curled itself around the door like a lazy cat returning home after a night out mousing in the fields.
He watched the shape move across the floor. "Well, Fetch O my Fetch? What have your brought me?"
It answered with words full of the sound of shadows. "The bravest youth in the village."
As the door swung open, Mannagarm was able to see a young woman, rather underfed and a bit dirty as if she'd been living in a cellar or cave or somewhere equally full of dust and grime. She had a hard expression on her face and her eyes were as cold and flinty as any of those various persons who'd come to kill him over the years. He was taken aback.
He had been expecting one of the young men, though he supposed the strict letter of his instructions was open to this turn of interpretation. Mannagarm spared a cool glance for the fetch. The little shadow-demon liked to play with words within the boundaries of instruction. It looked as if it was grinning at him, although it was difficult to be certain given its shadow-on-shadow expression. The other point of surprise was more surprising: Mannagarm kept an eye on all of the villagers who were old enough to be of any use as servants. He didn't recognise this young woman at all.
That was irritating. Somehow this girl had been hiding from him and his sorcerous spies. He scowled and waved at the stool opposite him, annoyed. "Sit. Sit. Don't stand there like a witless cretin. Come in. I sent for you didn't I? Come in then." Then a thought occurred to him. If the fetch could go into this girl's dreams last night and bring her here by charm and magic now, then the fetch knew about her all along. He glared. "Whyever did you never mention this charming young woman to me, Fetch O my Fetch?"
"You never asked," replied the fetch, curling itself into a ball in one of the darker places on the floor so that it very nearly disappeared among the ordinary shadows forming in the growing light of early morning.
"You might as well come in," he snapped at the girl again. "What was your name? How old are you exactly? And where have you been hiding? And how?"
With a sudden twist of her hand, the village girl jumped through the door and a flash of steel caught the grey dawn light. Mannagarm had barely enough time and quickness of old flesh to reel back and get out of her way. The knife, which looked sharp enough to peel skin, came within an inch of opening his throat. He twisted his hands into the shapes that could not be easily taught and a word of sorcery squirmed out of his mouth. It left a bloody trail. Words of power were sharp, like razors, and the inside of his mouth was bleeding as he spat the old magic at her. The knife she had in her fist shimmered and changed. In a slow blink of an eye it elongated, twisted into a long, rope-like form, gained a covering of silver-green scales and became a snake. It coiled about her wrist and hissed, threatening to bite.
She shrieked and shook her arm until the snake came free. By the time it hit the floor it thumped dully on the packed dirt, a knife again.
Mannagarm wiped the knotted, veiny back of his hand against his bloodied lips. He felt the old dry parchment of his skin rub against the wetness. In truth it never had been a snake. It was a mere glamour and yet the power had strained him to his limit. He had to let go of several wards and protections that lay like unseen cobwebs around the walls and fields of his hilltop house just to stay standing. He would resurrect his secret protections and alarums later, but for now he needed to gather strength. He could not let this one know how desperately close to being spent of all magic he was, what with his constant churn of protective weavings. Fool village
rs, he thought to himself. Ingrates. Fools. If they were not so uncooperative and chaffing he wouldn't need so many protective wards. But once he had some of the the elder power of this thing of the north, once he had some true old power of a true old artefact in his mastery—well, things would change.
He eyed the woman. "There is a dance I can do, that if I do it right would make you fall down in a fit or drop to your knees and worship me. There are words I can say that would take your sight away for as long as I want it. There is a weaving of the fingers that would take your soul and stuff it into a jar of vinegar on my shelf. Do you understand me?" These were truths and lies. Yes, such things existed and yes, in principle he knew the arts—but the truth was that any one of these would be the last magic he would perform. Except for the magic worked through his spellbound things, the fetch, his feather cloak, the necklace of bird skulls and beads he wore—everything else was as like to kill him as not. But she needed to be convinced very definitely otherwise. "Well?" he asked, archly and with cold, calculating meaning.
She said nothing. Looking down at her wrist, and rubbing it as if the illusory snake really had bitten it, she walked to the stool and sat. Her face