Luthien's Gamble

  That same night, the dwarfs crawled out of the Montfort mines, many of them looking upon stars for the first time in more than a decade. Almost without exception, they fell to their knees and gave thanks, cursing King Greensparrow and singing praises to the Crimson Shadow.

  Shuglin put a strong hand on Luthien’s shoulder. “Now you’ve got your army,” the blue-bearded dwarf promised grimly.

  With five hundred powerful dwarfs camped about him, Luthien didn’t doubt those words for a moment.

  Standing off to the side, Oliver’s expression remained doubtful. He had previously offered to Luthien that perhaps the dwarfs should run off into the mountains, and that he and Luthien and whoever else would come could ride north, into the wilder regions of Eriador, where they might blend into the landscape, so many more rogues in a land of rogues. Despite the victorious and heartwarming scene around him now, Oliver seemed to be holding to those thoughts. The pragmatic halfling understood the greater nations of the wider world, including Avon, and he could not shake the image of Greensparrow’s army flowing north and crushing the rebels. Many times in the last few weeks, Oliver had pondered whether Avon used the gallows or the guillotine.

  Oliver the highwayhalfling longed for his life out on the road, an outlaw, perhaps, but not so much an outlaw that an entire army would search for him!

  “We cannot flee,” Luthien said to him, recognizing the forlorn expression and understanding its source. “It is time for Montfort to fall.”

  “And for Caer MacDonald to rise,” Katerin O’Hale quickly added.

  A WISE MAN’S EYES

  The many winters had played hard on the old wizard Brind’Amour’s broad shoulders, and the crow’s-feet that creased his face were testament to his many hours of study and of worry. No less were his worries now—indeed, he suspected that Eriador, his beloved land, was in its most critical time—but his shoulders were not stooped, and anyone looking at the wizened face would likely not notice the crow’s-feet, too entranced by the sheer intensity of the old man’s deep blue eyes.

  Those eyes sparkled now, as the wizard sat in the high-backed chair before his desk in a roughly circular cave, its perfectly smooth floor the only clue that this was no natural chamber. A single light, sharp like a spark of lightning, illuminated the room, emanating from a perfectly round crystal ball sitting atop the desk between a human skull and a tall, treelike candelabra.

  Brind’Amour leaned back in his chair as the light began to fade and considered the images that the enchanted ball had just shown to him.

  The dwarfs were free of the Montfort mines and had come into the city beside Luthien and Oliver.

  The dwarfs were free!

  Brind’Amour stroked his snow-white beard and brushed his hand over his white hair, which he had tied back in a thick ponytail. He could trust these images, he reminded himself, because he was looking at things as they were, not as they might be.

  He had done that earlier, looked into the future. A risky business, and an exhausting one. Of all the magical enchantments a wizard might cast, prophesying was perhaps the most troublesome and dangerous, for looking into the future involved more than harnessing simple energies, such as a strike of lightning, and more than sending one’s consciousness to another real-time place, as in simple scrying. Looking into the future meant bringing together all the known elements of the present in one place, a crystal ball or a mirror, then forcing logical conclusions to each, as well as resultant new conflicts. Truly such prophesying was a test of a wizard’s intelligence and intuition.

  Brind’Amour rarely dared such prophesying because, despite his curiosity, he realized that the future was not dependable. He could cast the spell over his crystal ball, huddle close, and study the fleeting images—and they were always fleeting, flickers, and partial pictures—but he could never know which were true and which were only possibilities. And of course, the mere fact that some prying wizard had glimpsed into the potential future made it more likely that the natural outcome would be altered.

  Brind’Amour hadn’t been able to resist a quick glance this one day, and he had come away with one image that seemed plausible, even likely: a man atop a tall tower in Montfort. Brind’Amour had a general idea of the current events in the city—he had visited Montfort mentally on a couple of occasions, looking through the eyes of a half-elf—and though he didn’t recognize the man on the tower, he knew from the rich clothes and ample jewelry that this was obviously one of Greensparrow’s supporters.

  The wizard leaned back in his chair. A man atop a tower, he thought. Taunting the populace. A leader, a symbol of what remained in Montfort of King Greensparrow. Something would have to be done about that, Brind’Amour mused, and he knew that he could work this change himself, without great expense and no risk at all. Perhaps his journey into the realm of what might be had been worth the cost this time.

  The cost . . . He remembered the many warnings his masters of centuries ago had given him concerning prophesying. The risk . . .

  Brind’Amour shook all that from his mind. This time was different. This time he had not looked primarily at what might be, but at what was. And “what was” was a full-scale revolt in Montfort, one that might turn into a revolution for all of Eriador. In a roundabout way, Brind’Amour had begun it. He was the one who had given the crimson cape to Luthien Bedwyr; he was the one who had set the Crimson Shadow and his halfling cohort on the road to Montfort. At that time, Brind’Amour had only hoped Luthien could cause some mischief, perhaps renewing the whispered legend of the Crimson Shadow, hero of old. Brind’Amour had dared to hope that in the years to come he might build upon the whispers surrounding Luthien to gradually diminish Eriador’s acceptance of wicked King Greensparrow.

  Fate had intervened to rush events much more quickly than the old wizard had anticipated, but Brind’Amour was not saddened by that fact. He was excited and hopeful. Above all else, Brind’Amour believed in Eriador and her sturdy folk, Luthien Bedwyr among them.

  His divining had shown him that several villages, including Luthien’s own of Dun Varna on the Isle Bedwydrin, had taken up the cause. Just that morning a fleet, mostly converted fishing boats, had put out from Dun Varna, braving the icy waters of the Dorsal on the short trip to neighboring Isle Marvis. Aboard were reinforcements for the eorl of Marvis as he, like Gahris, eorl of Bedwydrin, tried to rid his land of the hated cyclopians.

  Brind’Amour whispered a few words and snapped his fingers three times, and the many tips of the candelabra flickered to flaming life. He rose from his chair, smoothing his thick and flowing blue robes as he made his way near a table that lay deeply buried under a pile of parchments. Brind’Amour shuffled them about, finally extracting a map of the Avonsea Islands. Thousands of colored dots, green and red and yellow, covered the map, representing concentrations of people and the sides they represented in the conflict. South of the mountains, in Avon proper, those dots were nearly all green, for those loyal to the throne, or yellow, indicating a neutral bent. North of the mountains showed many green concentrations, as well—the merchant section of Montfort remained one green blob—and most of the others were yellow still. But the red dots, symbolizing the rebels, were growing in number.

  The wizard held the map up before him and closed his eyes, reciting the words of another spell. He recalled everything the crystal ball had just shown him, the new events in Montfort and the fleet in the north, and when he opened his eyes, the map now indicated the changes, with a wave of red flowing toward Isle Marvis and a red wall thickening about Montfort’s entrapped merchant quarter.

  “What have I begun?” the old wizard mused, and he chuckled. He hadn’t anticipated this, not for another hundred years, but he believed that he was ready for it, and so was Eriador. Luthien had retrieved Brind’Amour’s staff from the lair of the dragon Balthazar, and now Luthien, with handy Oliver beside him, and a growing number of other leaders surrounding them both, was showing remarkable progress.

  Brind’Amour rep
laced the map on the table and pinned down its corners with paperweights that resembled little gargoyles. He sighed deeply and looked back to the immense desk and the dancing flames of the candelabra, throwing more light than normal candles ever could. The crystal ball tugged at his curiosity, as it had for many weeks, not to look at Eriador, but to explore beyond the land’s southern borders to see what was brewing in Avon.

  Brind’Amour sighed again and realized he was not prepared for that dangerous venture. Not yet. He needed to rest and gather his strength, and let the budding rebellion grow to full bloom. Briefly, he regretted having looked upon the future earlier, for the present continued to call out to him and he was too tired to answer. Scrying the future was taxing, but for a wizard in Brind’Amour’s secret position, sending his magical energies over the miles to view the present events of the wide world was simply dangerous. Such energies could be detected by Greensparrow and his dukes, and since few wizards remained in the world, any of Brind’Amour’s scrying attempts could be traced to this most secret of caves in the Iron Cross.

  The wizard spoke a word of magic and gently puffed, and the flames atop the candelabra flickered wildly, then blew out. Brind’Amour turned and went through the door, down a narrow passage which led to his bedchamber. He had one more thing to accomplish before he could lie down for a well-deserved sleep. He trusted in his vision of what might soon come in Montfort, of Greensparrow’s man standing atop that tall tower, and he knew what to do about it.

  He stopped at a side room along the corridor, a small armory, and searched among the hodgepodge of items until he located a specific, enchanted arrow. Then he delivered it—a simple magical spell, really—to a certain beautiful half-elf in Montfort, one who always seemed to be in the middle of the trouble.

  The wizard went to his rest.

  • • •

  Luthien woke with a start. He spent a long minute letting his eyes adjust to the dim lighting and looking about his small room, making sure that all was aright. The fireplace glowed still—it could not be too late—but the flames were gone, the pile of logs consumed to small red embers, watchful eyes guarding the room.

  Luthien rolled out of bed and padded across the floor. He sat on the stone hearth. Its warmth felt good against his bare flesh. He moved the screen aside, took up the poker and stirred the embers, hardly considering the movements, for he was too filled with a multitude of emotions that he did not understand. He put a couple of logs on the pile and continued blowing softly until the flames came up again.

  He watched them for some time, allowing their tantalizing dance to bring him back to Bedwydrin, back to Dun Varna and a time before he had taken this most unexpected road. He remembered the first time he and Katerin had made love on the high hill overlooking the city and the bay.

  Luthien’s smile was short-lived. He reminded himself that he needed his sleep, that the next day, like all the others, would be filled with turmoil, with fighting and decisions that would affect the lives of so many people.

  Luthien replaced the poker in its iron stand near the hearth and stood up, brushing himself off. As he approached the bed, the light greater now that the fire was up once more, he paused.

  The covers had rolled over when he got up, the thick down blanket bunched up high, and beneath it he could see Siobahn, lying naked on her belly, fast asleep. The young man gently sat down on the edge of the bed. He put his hand under the edge of the cover, on the back of Siobahn’s knee, and ran it up slowly, feeling every inch of her curving form until he got to her neck.

  Then he spread his fingers in her lustrous hair. Siobahn stirred, but did not wake.

  She was so smooth, so beautiful, and so warm. Luthien couldn’t deny the half-elf’s overwhelming allure; she had captured his heart with a single glance.

  Why, then, had he just been thinking of Katerin?

  And why, the young man wondered as he crawled back under the covers, snuggling close to Siobahn, was he feeling so guilty?

  In the days she had been in Montfort, Katerin had given no sign that she wanted to be back together with Luthien. She had not uttered a single word of disapproval about the relationship Luthien had fostered with Siobahn.

  But she did disapprove, Luthien knew in his heart. He could see it in her green eyes, those beautiful orbs that had greeted him at dawn after the night he had become a man, on a hill in Dun Varna, in a world that seemed so many millions of miles and millions of years away.

  • • •

  It was all lace and frills, niceties and painted ladies who served the court well. The sight revealed in the crystal ball turned Brind’Amour’s stomach, but at the same time, it gave him hope. Carlisle on Stratton, in Avon far to the south of Eriador, had been built for war, and by war, centuries before, a mighty port city bristling with defenses. Greensparrow had come to the throne ruthlessly, in a bloody and bitterly fought battle, and the first years of his reign had been brutal beyond anything the Avonsea Islands had seen since the Huegoth invasions of centuries before.

  But now Carlisle was lace and frills, an overabundance of sweetened candies and carnal offerings.

  Brind’Amour’s magical eye wove its way through the palace. The wizard had never before been so daring, so reckless, as to send his mind’s eye so near to his archenemy. If Greensparrow detected the magical emanations . . .

  The thick stone walls of Brind’Amour’s mountain hideaway would be of little defense against Greensparrow’s allies, mighty demons from the pits of hell.

  The sheer bustle of the palace amazed the distant wizard. Hundreds of people filtered through every room on the lower level, all drinking, all stuffing their faces with cakes, many stealing away to whatever darkened corner they could find. Burly cyclopians lined the walls of every room. How ironic, the wizard mused; many of the one-eyes stood before tapestries that depicted ancient battles in which their ancestors were defeated by the men of Avon!

  The eye moved along, the images in the crystal ball flitting past. Then Brind’Amour felt a sensation of power, a magical strength, and for a moment, he thought that Greensparrow had sensed the intruding energy and he nearly broke the connection altogether. But then the old wizard realized that this was something different, a passive energy: the strength of Greensparrow himself, perhaps.

  Brind’Amour leaned back and considered that point. He recalled Luthien’s battle with the wizard Duke Morkney atop the tower of the Ministry. Morkney had called in a demon, Praehotec, and had given the beast his own body to use. In watching that battle, Brind’Amour had felt this very same sensation, only it was stronger here.

  The old wizard understood, and he was filled with revulsion. With a low growl, he leaned forward, throwing all his concentration into the divining device and moving the eye along, following the beacon of Greensparrow’s energy. It sailed up the back stairs of the palace, to the second floor where there weren’t so many people, though even more one-eyed Praetorian Guards. It went down a maze of thickly carpeted hallways and came to a closed door.

  Brind’Amour felt a jolt as the eye came up to that door. He tried to force it through, but found that a barrier was in place: the room had been magically sealed.

  Greensparrow was behind that door. Brind’Amour knew it, but knew, too, that if he sent enough of his own energy to break through the blocking ward, the wizard-king would surely sense it.

  Suddenly, the image in the crystal ball went dark as a huge cyclopian passed through the insubstantial eye. The door opened, and Brind’Amour was quick to urge his eye to follow the brute through.

  The room beyond was relatively empty, considering the lavish furnishings throughout the rest of the palace. A single throne was centered in the square chamber, atop a circular dais, two steps up from the floor, and while the chair was ornate, decorated with glittering gemstones of green and red and violet, the floor was bare, except for narrow strips of red carpeting running from each of the room’s four doors to the dais.

  Greensparrow—Brind’Amour knew i
t was the wretch, though he hadn’t seen the man in centuries, and had never known him well—lounged in the throne, fiddling with a huge ring upon the middle finger of his left hand. His hair was long and black and curly, and his face was painted and caked, though the makeup did little to hide the obvious toll his years of study and dealings with demons had taken. He appeared foppish, but Brind’Amour was not fooled. When Greensparrow looked out to regard the approaching cyclopian, his amber-colored eyes flickered with intelligence and intensity.

  Brind’Amour wisely kept his magical eye near the cyclopian, hoping the strength of the imposing brute would somewhat mask the magical energy.

  “What news, Belsen’Krieg?” the king asked, seeming bored.

  Brind’Amour dared to move his magical eye out enough to get a good look at the brute. Belsen’Krieg was among the sturdiest and ugliest cyclopians the old wizard had ever seen. Rotting tusks stuck up over Belsen’Krieg’s upper lip, which had been split in half diagonally just below its wide, flattened nose. The brute’s eye was huge and bloodshot and a thick brow hung out over it like an awning on a storefront. Scars crossed both of Belsen’Krieg’s cheeks, and his neck, as thick as a child’s chest, seemed to be a yellow-green blob of scar tissue. His black-and-silver Praetorian Guard uniform, though, was perfectly neat, with gold brocade stitched on both shoulders and an assortment of medals and ribbons making his massive chest seem huger still.

  “We have heard nothing from Montfort, my King,” the cyclopian snorted, his diction impressive for one of his race, but his articulation difficult to understand due to his almost constant snuffling.

  “Morkney’s other cannot get back into the city,” Greensparrow said, more to himself than to Belsen’Krieg.

  “Morkney’s other?” Brind’Amour whispered, thinking the choice of words odd. Was the wizard-king implying that all of his dukes had personal relationships with specific demons?