Your vital energies are dwindling. It’s to be expected—but in order to protect you from true death, I must change you for a while. Don’t be afraid. If all goes well, you’ll awake later in your own home, quite restored.
“And if it goes badly, will I die?”
Don’t think of that. Only come and touch me.
She cringed. “You always forbade it before this.”
Now it’s necessary. Come. Hold out your hand, close your eyes, and let me take care of you.
The dead black tentacle with its glowing blue chains reached out to her. She lifted her bony old hand and squeezed her eyes tight shut.
With a faint ringing sound, a tiny emerald sphere no larger than a pea fell to the cavern floor.
The One Denied the Sky was alone again. He picked up the sphere with great care, turned about, and pressed it into the ice of the wall behind him. It sank in until it was deeply embedded, joining scores of other glimmering little objects, all of them shining hopefully green.
There is a remedy. If it works, you’ll live. If it fails, you’ll also live, my poor human soul.
But what a life.
The slow-witted youth named Vorgo Waterfall had sense enough to follow the sarcastic advice of the bitch-princess who had slain his father. He floundered back to shore, stripped himself naked, and lay on a flat rock in the midsummer sun, shuddering and blubbering, until the encroaching tide forced him to move further inland. After his blood warmed and his skin dried, he wrung out his woolen shirt and trews and put them back on. They weren’t too uncomfortable. He still had his belt and his sheath-knife and the little charm sack hung round his neck on a string. But nothing else—not even boots.
His father’s body had boots. Maybe other things. It was awash now, rolling a little with the wavelets that had appeared along with a rising wind. The thought of touching a dead man made his flesh creep with superstitious fear, and for a long time he held back, watching the ravenous, noisy mob of birds that dived and pecked, dived and pecked.
Finally he ran at them through the shallows, throwing stones and yelling at the top of his lungs. Some of the birds flew away, but others attacked him with such viciousness that he was afraid they’d get his eyes. So he gave up, sobbing, and ducked his head in the water to wash away the filth they’d splattered on him, and the blood.
What am I going to do now? he asked himself. The lugger had long since gone away, its escape from the shoaly bay assisted by the rising tide. The bitch-princess hadn’t even bothered rowing with the sweeps. She’d just hoisted the sail and jibed out through the reefs slicker’n eel slime!
Cursing monotonously, Vorgo Waterfall trudged along the shrinking beach. He knew he wasn’t clever. Dad’d told him that often enough, sometimes with a curse and a smack on the ear. “But you be a crafty one, Vorgo,” he’d also said. “You got a nose for the main thing, like a cur pup. You can do lots worse than follow that nose o‘ yourn.”
Right now, his nose was leading him back the way the women and the boy had come, toward the sea-hag’s steading. The tide was half-high, and in many places the going was hard, even dangerous, until he rounded the point and came to the fjord beach. There all he had to do was slog on. He tried to come up with a plan. Dad always had a plan. But now the bitch-princess who would have made them rich was gone. Only the sea-hag was left.
She was a witch, a very powerful one. All of the fishermen of the northwest shore knew that it was death to enter her fjord. But why should that be? He thought hard about it as he tramped and waded along. Why didn’t she want visitors? Other magickers were glad to sell their potions and amulets and spell-dollies to orn’ry folk, but not old Dobnelu. Why?…
Maybe she had gold hidden in her house!
He touched the bag of charms hanging at his throat. What was it they were supposed to do? Make him invisible once he entered the circle of magic stones? Fend off the sea-hag’s sorcery? He couldn’t recall. But the charms had to be strong, because Dad had paid a lot for them, and they were good only on Midsummer Eve.
So he had to get on with it. Find that gold!
He climbed the cliff path, crossed the meadow, and stopped at the boundary of stones—ordinary-looking things with nothing special about them at all. He clutched the charms and held his breath as he stepped between them, but nothing happened.
Am I invisible now? he wondered. No way to tell. There was a tiny hut not far away, near the vegetable garden. He decided to start looking for the gold inside it. People often hid things under the floor of sheds.
When he pushed the door open he gave a yelp of fear and froze in his tracks. The sea-hag herself was in there, lying on a low cot! She didn’t move but he could hear her raspy breathing. He was amazed at how small she was and how frail. The sorceress who’d terrorized the entire coast of Tarn was just a little old bag of bones dressed in a ragged robe!
Why, he could wring her neck like a chicken…
Vorgo bent over her and very carefully touched the hag’s sunken cheek. She slept on, so he screwed up his courage and did it, and she never squirmed or cried out or even opened her eyes, but only ceased to breathe. He let go of her and lurched away. Sweat ran from his hair into his eyes and he was shivering in spite of the day’s heat.
Dead! The awful sea-hag was dead, and her treasure was his for the taking. All he had to do was find it.
He searched inside the farmhouse for four hours.
But he found no gold, no money, no jewels, hardly anything of value at all save a dented silver cup and a string of agate beads and a finely wrought little dagger with a carnelian pommel. Frustrated and furious, he kicked a wooden bucket across the kitchen. Now what? He’d have to hunt more carefully, try the byre and the hen coop and the backhouse. But first he’d have something to eat from the well-stocked larder—
The outside door opened.
Standing there was a robust man of medium stature, clad in a simple brown deerskin tunic and matching gartered trews. He wore crossed baldrics having many small bulging compartments, and on his breast was a massive pectoral of gold inset with Tarnian opals. His hair and beard were as red as fire-lilies and his deep-set black eyes glittered with unshed tears.
“Did you do it?” he asked.
Vorgo had heard of him: all Tarn had, although few had ever seen him face-to-face. This was Red Ansel Pikan, the High Shaman, leader of nearly all the other magickers in the sealords’ realm, the most famous wizard of the northland. Too shocked to speak, the youth stood stock-still with his mouth hanging open.
The shaman lifted a small baton of carved unicorn-ivory. There was a soundless flash. Vorgo gave a despairing wail and his legs folded under him. He knelt on the scrubbed wooden floor with his hands clasped in entreaty. “I didn’t kill her! I never did!”
He felt a frightful pang of agony in his right ear. He shrieked and writhed as something small fell from his head, bounced off his shoulder, and smashed into white shards on the floor.
Ansel’s black eyes had grown enormous and they held no pity. “Tell me your name. Explain what you’re doing here. If you lie to me again, your other ear will freeze solid and fall off. More lies will cost you your nose and your lips-”
“No!” Vorgo howled. “I’ll tell!” The sordid tale poured out, disorganized and half-coherent; but Ansel understood it well enough. Dobnelu’s physical body had been casually slain by a half-wit, barely sixteen years of age for all his brawny build, corrupted by his venal father, hardly knowing right from wrong.
He sighed. “So the princess and the maidservant and the boy sailed away in your boat?”
“Yes, my lord.” Vorgo hung his head and bawled. Strings of snot leaked from his nose.
Ansel’s eyes lost their focus and he windsearched the sea south and east of Useless Bay. Found her almost at once, handily steering a fishing smack under a louring sky. What a woman! Rusgann and Dyfrig were with her in the cockpit. The maid was honing a long kitchen knife with an oilstone. Maude wore an even larger blade on her b
elt. They had tied up their skirts to simulate trousers, donned tattered oilskin jackets, and wrapped their heads in grubby kerchiefs.
They’d reach Northkeep late tomorrow, with the wind light and fitful.
Here’s a pretty mess, Ansel thought. I must take Dobnelu’s body to the Source without delay. The tricky crossover is bound to take hours, and only the Three Icebound Sisters know how long I’ll have to tarry in the cave once I do arrive. Meanwhile, Maude is giving me the slip as nicely as you please! I can’t becalm her with the weather brewing up as it is, and I certainly can’t capsize the boat with a windblast. So she’ll take refuge with her brother Liscanor at the castle. And he’ll use his resident windvoice to inform High Sealord Sernin of the news about Maude and her son—and a talented Sovereign sitting on Blenholme’s throne. The gaff will be well and truly blown—and how will Con-rig Wincantor survive to play his part in the New Conflict?
Shall I abandon Dobnelu and transport my subtle self to Maude? I could subdue her and the others and sail their boat back to the steading. But she might arrive at Northkeep before I finish the drumming ritual and am able to transport myself.
Shall I carry on trying to save my friend and let the Source sort out the others? He’s not omnipotent. Once Maude lets Conrig’s cat out of the bag, it’s out to stay.
God of the Heights and Depths! Is there any other way I can salvage this situation? Why not bespeak Liscanor’s windvoice, scare him silly, and command him to keep his mental gob shut?
“Workable!” Ansel Pikan exclaimed out loud.
“M-my lord?” the wretched youth mumbled. He sat slumped on his heels. A thin trickle of blood from his amputated ear stained the shoulder of his shirt.
Ansel had nearly forgotten the murderer’s presence. Time to deal with him.
“Vorgo Waterfall, you have committed a grave sin by taking a human life and you must atone for it. You are young, however, and sadly lacking in brains. And as it happens, I can use you.”
“Me?” The dullard slowly lifted his head.
“You. I’m going to attempt to bring back the woman you slew. Restore her life. It may take a fairly long time. If she does return, I want her to find her house and her livestock just as she left them. So you will stay here and take care of them as if your own life depended upon it. Because it does. Do you understand me, Vorgo?”
“You’re not gonna kill me?” Dawning hope.
“Not if you work hard. Can you do that?”
“Oh, yes, my lord!”
“I can’t promise to let you go, even if the sea-hag lives. She’s a very old woman and needs help to survive in this place. You’d have to stay with her until her natural death occurred. Natural, Vorgo! It could take years. After she passed on, I’d come and take you back to your people in Northkeep Port. What do you say? It won’t be an easy life, and if you can’t bear the thought of it, I’ll just freeze you to death right now. You won’t feel a thing.”
“No! No! Please, I’ll do it. Anythin‘ you say.”
I’ll have to spell every task out for him three times over, Ansel thought in resignation. But first, I’d better bespeak Liscanor’s windvoice—and any others near to Northkeep.
“Stay here and beg God’s forgiveness. I’ll be back in a moment to tell you what to do.” The shaman stepped outside the door and closed it behind him.
Back in the kitchen. Vorgo wiped his eyes and nose with his sleeve. Only now did he truly understand his great good luck. He wasn’t going to die! Instead, he’d feed ducks and herd goats and sheep and hoe the sea-hag’s cabbages. It would be lots easier than gutting fish or mending nets. This house was much larger than the squalid cottage on the waterfront he’d shared with his evil-tempered father. Probably fewer rats, too. And the larder was crammed with food and barrels of home-brewed ale and jugs of malt. Not bad at all!
He’d worry about the sea-hag coming back to life later.
Meanwhile, there was still her treasure to hunt for…
The rain began late the next day when they were still a league out of port, and Maudrayne was glad of it. With no darkness to hide them, she had been concerned about being recognized. Lukort Waterfall’s lugger Scoter would be familiar to every sailor and fishmonger in Northkeep, and she had wondered if it might be safer to moor it in some secluded spot, go ashore in the coracle, and push on to the castle by some roundabout route afoot.
The misty rain and the false dusk brought on by the low-hanging clouds made that unnecessary. Boldly, she steered straight for the castle’s deepwater landing stage. A few other returning skippers hailed her, but she deflected their interest in the time-honored fashion of the trade by growling, “No luck,” and adding a salty curse on fickle fish.
Torches burned on the castle landing. Two large schooners and a single tall fighting frigate, Liscanor’s beloved Gayora, were tied up there, along with a score of smaller craft. For some reason, the slip where she’d always berthed her own sloop-rigged yacht in days gone by was empty, so she guided Scoter in with easy competence while Rusgann tossed the bowline to a boy who had been sitting on the dock, fishing, indifferent to the gentle rain. No one else was in sight. They were probably all celebrating the Solstice Day.
“Can’t tie that old tub up here,” the urchin said with a grimace of contempt. He was about ten years old, dressed in rags, with bare feet. He had already caught a pair of fat speckled rockfish. “Sealord’s guards be along to send you packin‘ afore I get ’er snubbed to a cleat.”
“Make that line fast!” Maudrayne commanded in a no-nonsense voice. She rummaged in Lukort’s confiscated wallet and held up a silver penny. It was probably more money than he’d seen in a year. “Then fetch the watch commander quick as you can, and this will be yours.”
“Aye, cap’n!” He obeyed, then ran away.
“Get Dyfrig,” she told the maid, and hopped onto the dock with the stern line to secure it. Her son had gone below to the boat’s tiny cabin when the rain started, and now he emerged rubbing sleep from his eyes, staring up at the immense curtain wall and looming towers of Northkeep with something akin to fear.
“Where are we, Mama?” he said.
“This is the castle where I was born. Now it belongs to my dear brother, who is your uncle Liscanor.” She released her bound-up skirts and stripped off the concealing headcloth. Her long auburn hair gleamed in the torchflame, spangled instantly with tiny drops of rain. For a final touch, she pulled the spectacular opal wedding necklace out of her dress and arranged it on her bosom. Then she jumped back into the boat.
“Now listen to me carefully, Dyfrig.” She crouched to meet his eyes. “We must once again play the game where you pretend to be Rusgann’s son. We do this because, for the time being, I don’t want anyone in the castle to know who you are.”
“Not even Uncle Liscanor?”
“Not even him. I’ll reveal our secret to him later, but probably not tonight.”
“All right, Mama.” Dyfrig looked at her askance. “Are there wicked men inside the castle, like Lukort and Vorgo?”
“None so evil as those two villains,” she reassured him, hoping that she told the truth. “Only men and women who talk too much—who might carry tales about you if they knew you were a crown prince. Without meaning to, they might betray our great secret and put us in danger. So while we’re in the castle, you must call Rusgann ‘Mama’ and stay close to her always. Try not to talk to me at all. The child of a servant wouldn’t do that. But if you must, call me ‘my lady.’ Can you remember that?”
He smiled in a somber manner that was anything but childlike. “Yes, my lady.”
She kissed his forehead. “Well done.”
“Here come the guards,” Rusgann muttered.
They heard the tramp of studded boots, along with the excited cries of the dockboy.
Maudrayne leapt back onto the dock. Rusgann handed up Dyfrig to her and followed more decorously.
“There they be, just like I said!” The dockboy came dancing impatientl
y ahead of a squad of four guardsmen, then skidded to a halt with his eyes like saucers. “Mollyfock! They be wimmen—and a wee brat!”
The sergeant, a grey-bearded veteran, strode up to Maudrayne with his hand on the hilt of his sword. “Now then, what’s all this? Who do you think you—” His mouth snapped shut like a trap. He stood silent, his gaze sweeping her from head to toe, before whispering, “My lady Maude?”
Maudrayne nodded regally and smiled. “So you remember me, Banjok. It’s been many years since last we met, and so much has happened.”
The younger guards obviously had no notion who she was and stood well back, their expressions uncertain. That suited Maudrayne. She said to the sergeant, “Please say no more at this time—especially not my name.” She pulled her oilskin jacket closed to conceal the necklace. “Only take us to the sealord at once. I presume he is here?”
Banjok looked dazed. “Yes. He’s within, with Lady Fredalayne, presiding over the Solstice Day feast for the Line Captains and their families. It was moved to the great hall because of the rain. Please follow me.” He turned and marched off.
The urchin thrust himself forward, blocking Maudrayne’s way. “Hold on! My penny!”
She had to smile at his determination. “What is your name?” “Eselin. Someday I‘ll be a Line Captain and eat with the sealord!” She handed the coin to him. “It will happen, Eselin, if you make it happen.” Then she walked away into the rainy evening, trailed by Rusgann, Dyfrig, and the three silent guards.
Once they were inside the walls, Banjok dismissed his men, warning them to say nothing about the odd visitors if they valued their sword-hands. After the three retired to the guardroom inside the gatehouse, the sergeant led the women and the little prince into an antechamber called the Peace Room, just off the great hall. The dinner guests who came armed left their weapons and shields there, hung on wall pegs, according to the Tarnian custom. The place had a few padded benches but no other furniture.
Banjok locked the outer door that gave onto the corridor along the wall of the central keep. “Wait here. It may be a short time before the sealord is able to leave the high table.” Banjok opened the heavy inner door and slipped quickly into the hall, from which loud sounds of music and conviviality emanated.