“Gone,” said Varthlokkur. “That’s the way he is. He never waits around. Probably so he doesn’t have to answer questions. He apparently tucked us in, took care of the Old Man, disenchanted the servants, then took off. That’s his way. He may not be heard from again for a hundred years.”
“Old Man. What of him?” Mocker asked.
“I’m not sure. The tower is sealed. I haven’t the skill to bypass the spells warding it. But I suspect that means he’s alive. Probably in his deep sleep.”
The wizard guessed near the truth. Contrary to his own dire expectations, the Old Man hadn’t been allowed to die. But neither had he been permitted to return to life. His body, clad in ceremonial raiment, sat upon the stone throne in the chamber atop the Wind Tower. His eyes, if ever they opened, would gaze into the magical mirror. Beneath his blue-veined, wrinkled hands lay tiny, fragile globular phials. A fresh stock of drugs had gone into his cabinet. One day, if the need arose, the Director might once again cause his eyes to open.
He was completely a tool, unlike the other there. His usefulness was at an end, his edge dulled. But the Star Rider was frugal. He wasted nothing that might, someday, have value again. The chamber atop the Wind Tower became the tool’s box, a place of peace and safety. Even Varthlokkur hadn’t the power to rifle it. And the fullness of his Power had returned.
The Old Man’s Dark Lady had, again, been left standing at the altar.
Sharing the Old Man’s chamber, perhaps as memorials or mementos, were the seated cadavers of the Princes Thaumaturge.
The main course arrived. Mocker attacked his portion, willing to let someone else talk for once. He hadn’t had a decent meal in months.
“I kind of hate to see the Old Man out of the game,” Nepanthe said. Mocker thought he caught a whiff of better-he-than-me. “He was all right, even if he was a grouch.”
“He’s not gone, just waiting. On the will of the Star Rider. I think there might have been something between them that nobody ever suspected. But, yes, I’ll miss him, too. I just wonder how much he knew and never told. We had too many secrets from each other.”
Slowly, thoughtfully, the wizard downed several mouthfuls. Then, “For all his crochets and grumbling, he was kind and a good friend. It’s too bad he never had a goal. Other than to escape living out his role. Whatever it might be.”
“Let’s hope he’s happier next time around.”
“Child?” Mocker grunted around a mouthful of roast pork.
“Fine. And I’m glad you cleaned up and shaved. I never saw a hill bandit as dirty, smelly, and wild as you were.” She and Varthlokkur resumed reminiscing and speculating about the Old Man.
Disturbingly, the wizard suggested, “You know, there’re scholars who claim the Star Rider is some sort of avatar of Justice. Maybe he judged all of us, not just the Princes.”
“You mean?…”
“Yes. The Old Man could’ve been the only one of us who really got rewarded. The rest of us got dumped right back into the middle of whatever’s going on.”
Mocker cocked a dubious eye his way, but didn’t let up on the chicken he was gnawing.
Nepanthe looked sour. “Sometimes I have premonitions,” she said. “And I’ve gotten one from this. There’re hard times coming. A lot of pain and sorrow for my husband and I.”
Varthlokkur hadn’t yet performed a divination to see what the future looked like unobscured by the interference of the Princes Thaumaturge. He had been putting it off, afraid of what he might foresee.
It would have done him no good. Other Powers were afoot, and had their eyes upon him.
“No doubt,” he replied to Nepanthe. “I believe the real reason we’re here is that we’re expected to be useful again.”
Behind the mindless glutton mask Mocker was critically alert, weighing every nuance both of what the wizard said and the way he said it. He was hunting the false note. Father or not, he just didn’t trust Varthlokkur’s forgiveness.
It was time, he decided, to give the hornets’ nest a gentle poke, to see what buzzed, time to cast a stone to see what rose from the turgid deeps of this falsely pacific pond. Hand on sword hilt, he belched grandly, leaned back in his chair. Eyes closed, conversationally, he observed, “If memory doesn’t prevaricate, same being impossible in steel-trap brain of genius like self, time was, man once promised fat trickster and friends vast emoluments for doing small deeds for same. Being possessed of elephantine memory already noted, can say with certainty promissory was: gold double shekel pieces, mintage of Empire, one thousand four hundred. Same gentleman aforementioned advanced mere eighty. Self, considering distance to home of same, touch purse, and cry, ‘Woe!’ Fingers feel nothing. Not even bent green copper. Foresee great hunger…”
Nepanthe, understanding at last, gasped. “Why not add in what you lost in Iwa Skolovda?” she demanded, amazed by his nerve.
Mocker grinned. His eyes popped open, wide with innocence. “Silver: three hundred twelve kronen. Copper: two hundred thirty-four groschen, of Iwa Skolovda. No gold. Of other realms, various, maybe five silver nobles, of Itaskia, total. Conservative estimate, but self is renowned for generosity, for lack of pinch-penny heart, for interest only in minimal income accommodating subsistence of same. Am, at moment, considering same in new wife, newly impoverished.”
He had a point there. The wealth of Ravenkrak had vanished utterly. Someday bits and pieces might begin surfacing when Haroun’s soldiers began pawning plunder.
Nepanthe was as destitute as her husband.
Varthlokkur laughed till tears ran down his cheeks. “You’ve got to be the most brazen footpad since Rainheart, who slew the Kammengarn Dragon.”
Mocker grinned again. Nepanthe kicked him beneath the table. He ignored her warning. “In coin of Ilkazar, please. With interest being ten percent from date due on wages, same being morning when soldiers of crafty associate impregnated impregnable fortress Ravenkrak.”
“Well, why not?” Varthlokkur mused as he recovered his composure. “I’ve got buckets full. I do owe you, technically. And there’s your friends, who may give me no peace… Nepanthe, you help yourself, too. As a wedding present.”
Mocker’s eyes narrowed. Something was going on here. After all his trouble, Varthlokkur was backing down this easily? He didn’t believe it. There was a catch somewhere. A trick or a trap…
But, “Buckets?” His eyes widened. Avarice banished any other consideration. “Am permitted to pick and choose?”
So greedy, this man. Properly marketed, the right coins, the rare ones, would bring a hundred times intrinsic value from rich collectors. He could parlay a moderate fortune into a huge one. He knew the men who would buy and which coins were in demand. He had once had a go at counterfeiting them—till he had found the necessary research and marketing too much work.
The point passed over Varthlokkur’s head. “Of course.” To the wizard one coin was like another. Puzzled, he said, “I’ll show you the strongroom.”
Mocker spent the day there, becoming intimately familiar with every gold piece. Varthlokkur soon lost interest and went about his business. Then Mocker set about filling every pocket he had in addition to putting aside what was “due” himself and his friends. They, Varthlokkur told him, were alive and well, though chastened by close brushes with doom.
After all, as Mocker asked Nepanthe later, what good was gall if he let it go to waste?
Four days ground away. Mocker eventually had to concede that Varthlokkur really meant to let Nepanthe go. He didn’t understand why, and remained thoroughly suspicious till long after they made their departure, following friendly farewells.
While traveling, Nepanthe dwelt on her agreement with Varthlokkur. She couldn’t quite put it into perspective. Doubts remained. Would the wizard maintain his end? Was it fair to Mocker? Had it placed him in jeopardy? Would he live with the unknown threat of a knife in the dark henceforth?
The gods knew she loved her husband. Shame overwhelmed her whenever she recalled her behavior in
the Shadowland. Her heart hammered when she reflected on how close she had come to massacring his feeling for her…
But there was this newly recognized feeling for Varthlokkur to reconcile with that fop Mocker, against the romantic schooling of twenty-nine years…
I did it for you,
she lied to herself, looking at her husband.
But it had all worked out, hadn’t it? Everyone had—though compromised—approached his or her desire. The world was rid of several old evils. Maybe the future would bring the fulfillment of a few dreams.
Varthlokkur still hadn’t performed a divination. Possibly some subliminal premonition compelled him to avoid looking whither bad news might lie. Whatever, Nepanthe rode westward armed with hope—however forlorn it might be.
“Mocker, I love you.”
He flashed her the old Saltimbanco grin. But his mind was far away, haunting the labyrinths of schemes founded on his newly acquired wealth—however foredoomed they might be.
O
CTOBER’S
B
ABY
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NE:
T
HE
Y
EARS 994-995
A
FTER THE
F
OUNDING OF THE
E
MPIRE OF
I
LKAZAR
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NTO
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S A
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HILD
I
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B
ORN
i) He made the darkness his covering around him
Like a whispering ghost the winged man dropped from the moonless winter night, a shadow on the stars whose wings fluttered with a brief sharp
crack
as he broke his fall and settled onto the sill of a high glassless tower window of Castle Krief. His great wings he folded about him like a dark living cloak, with hardly a sigh of motion. His eyes burned cold scarlet as he studied the blackness within the tower. He turned his terrier-like head from side to side, listening. Neither sight nor sound came to him. He did not want to believe it. It meant he must go on. Cautiously, fearfully—human places inspired dread—he dropped to the cold interior floor.
The darkness within, impenetrable even to his nightseeing eyes, was food for his man-fear. What human evil might wait there, wearing a cloak of night? Yet he mustered courage and went on, one weak hand always touching the crystal dagger at his hip, the other caressing his tiny purse. Inaudible terror whimpered in his throat. He was not a courageous creature, would not be in this fell place but for the dread-love he bore his Master.
Guided by whimper-echoes only he could hear, he found the door he sought. Fear, which had faded as he found all as peaceful as the Master had promised, returned. A warding spell blocked his advance, one that could raise a grand haroo and bring steel-armed humans.
But he was not without resources. His visit was the spearthrust of an operation backed by careful preparation. From his purse he took a crimson jewel, chucked it up the corridor. It clattered. He gasped. The noise seemed thunderous. Came a flash of brilliant red light. The ward-spell twisted away into some plane at right angles to reality. He peeked between the long bony fingers covering his eyes. All right. He went to the door, opened it soundlessly.
A single candle, grown short with time, burned within. Across the room, in a vast four-poster with silken hangings, slept the object of his mission. She was young, fair, delicate, but these traits held no meaning. He was a sexless creature. He suffered no human longings—at least of the carnal sort. He did long for the security of his cavern home, for the companionship of his brothers. To him this creature was an object (of fear, of his quest, of pity), a vessel to be used.
The woman (hardly more than a child was she, just gaining the graceful curves of the woman-to-be) stirred, muttered. The winged man’s heart jumped. He knew the power of dreams. Hastily, he dipped into his purse for a skin-wrapped ball of moist cotton. He let her breathe its vapors till she settled into untroubled sleep.
Satisfied, he drew the bedclothes down, eased her nightgarments up. From his pouch he withdrew his final treasure. There were spells on the device, that kept its contents viable, which would guarantee this night’s work’s success.
He loathed himself for the cold-bloodedness of his deed. Yet he finished, restored the woman and bed to their proper order, and silently fled. He recovered the crimson jewel, ground it to dust so the warding spell would return. Everything had to appear undisturbed. Before he took wing again, he stroked his crystal dagger. He was glad he had not been forced to use it. He detested violence.
ii) He sees with the eyes of an enemy
Nine months and a few days later. October: A fine month for doings dark and strange, with red and gold leaves falling to mask the mind with colorful wonders, with cool piney breezes bringing winter promises from the high Kapenrungs, with swollen orange moons by night, and behind it all breaths and hints of things of fear. The month began still bright with summer’s memory, like a not too distant, detached chunk of latter August with feminine, changeable, sandwiched September forgotten. The month gradually gathered speed, rolled downhill until, with a plunge at the end, it dumped all into a black and wicked pit from which the remainder of the year would be but a struggle up a mountain chasing starshine. At its end there was a night consecrated to all that was unholy, a night for unhallowed deeds.
The Krief’s city, Vorgreberg, was small, but not unusually so for a capital in the Lesser Kingdoms. Its streets were unclean. The rich hadn’t gotten that way squandering income on sweepers, and the poor didn’t care. Three quarters was ancient slum, the remainder wealthy residential or given over to the trade houses of merchants handling the silks and spices that came from the east over the Savernake Gap. The residences of the nobles were occupied only when the Thing sat. The rest of the year those grim old skulduggers spent at their castles and estates, whipping more wealth from their serfs. City crime was endemic, taxes were high, people starved to death daily, or any of a hundred diseases got them, corruption in government was ubiquitous, and ethnic groups hated one another to the sullen edge of violence. So, a city like most, surrounded by a small country populated with normally foibled men, special only because a king held court there, and because it was the western terminus for caravans from the orient. From it, going west, flowed eastern riches; to it came the best goods of the coastal states.
But, on a day at the end of October when evil stirred, it also had:
A holiday morning after rain, and an old man in a ragged greatcloak who needed a bath and shave. He turned from a doorway at the rear of a rich man’s home. Bacon tastes still trembled on his tongue. A copper sceat weighed lightly in his pocket. He chuckled softly.
Then his humor evaporated. He stopped, stared down the alley, then fled in the opposite direction. From behind him came the sound of steel rims on brick pavement, rattling loudly in the morning stillness. The tramp paused, scratched his crotch, made a sign against the evil eye, then ran. The breakfast taste had gone sour.
A man with a pushcart eased round a turn, slowly pursued the tramp. He was a tiny fellow, old, with a grizzled, ragged beard. His slouch made him appear utterly weary of forcing his cart over the wet pavement. His cataracted eyes squinted as he studied the backs of houses. Repeatedly, after considering one or another, he shook his head.
Mumbling, he left the alley, set course for the public grounds outside the Krief’s palace. The leafless, carefully ranked trees there were skeletal and grim in the morning gloom and damp. The castle seemed besieged by the gray, dreary wood.
The cartman paused. “Royal Palace.” He sneered. Castle Krief may have stood six centuries inviolate, may have surrendered only to Ilkazar, but it wasn’t invincible. It could be destroyed from within. He thought of the comforts, the riches behind those walls, and the hardness of his own life. He cursed the waiting.
There was work to be
done. Miserable work. Castles and kingdoms didn’t fall at the snap of a finger.
Round the entire castle he went, observing the sleepy guards, the ancient ivy on the southern wall, the big gates facing east and west, and the half-dozen posterns. Though Kavelin had petty noble feuds as numerous as fleas on a hound, they never touched Vorgreberg itself. Those wars were for the barons, fought in their fiefs among themselves, and from them the Crown was relatively safe, remaining a disinterested referee.
Sometimes, though, one of the nearby kingdoms, coveting the eastern trade, tried to move in. Then the house-divided quickly united.
The morning wore on. People gathered near the palace’s western gate. The old man opened his cart, got charcoal burning, soon was selling sausages and hot rolls.
Near noon the great gate opened. The crowd fell into a hush. A company of the King’s Own marched forth to blaring trumpets. Express riders thundered out bound for the ends of Kavelin, crying, “The King has a son!”
The crowd broke into cheers. They had waited years for that news.
The small old man smiled at his sausages. The King had a son to insure the continuity of his family’s tyranny, and the idiots cheered as if this were a day of salvation. Poor foolish souls. They never learned. Their hopes for a better future never paled. Why expect the child to become a king less cruel than his ancestors?
The old man held a poor opinion of his species. In other times and places he had been heard to say that, all things considered, he would rather be a duck.
The King’s Own cleared the gate. The crowd surged forward, eager to seize the festive moment. Commoners seldom passed those portals.
The old man went with the mob, made himself one with their greed. But his greed wasn’t for the dainties on tables in the courtyard. His greed was for knowledge. The sort a burglar cherished. He went everywhere allowed, saw everything permitted, listened, paid especial attention to the ivied wall and the Queen’s tower. Satisfied, he sampled the King’s largesse, drew scowls for damning the cheap wine, then returned to his cart, and to the alleyways.