“Can we go now?” said the Champion. “We’ve little enough time as it is.”
“Oh sure,” said the Warlock amiably. He glanced at Rupert. “Race you to the window?”
“Wait a minute,” said Rupert. “Just out of curiosity, sir Warlock; why aren’t there any doors?”
“Windows are easier to defend,” said the Warlock craftily. “And besides; I never needed a door, till now. I never went out.” He paused to peer wistfully around the crowded room. “What a mess. I always meant to get organized one day, but I just never got around to it. I suppose I’d better put the animals into hibernation before I go. Kinder than … ah well. It’s all for the best, I suppose.”
He sniffed and shrugged, and walked toward the nearest window. “You know, Rupert; I should never have left the Sorcerers’ Academy. I was quite happy there, changing gold into lead.”
“Shouldn’t that be lead into gold?” asked Rupert.
“Why do you think I had to leave?” said the High Warlock.
The wall of swirling snow pressed close around the Dark Tower, and the still night air was bitter cold. A fresh silver frost covered all the grass and sparkled on the ancient brickwork of the Tower. The Warlock was leaving, summer was over, and already the bleak midwinter laid claim to the land so long denied it. Every now and again, Rupert glimpsed strange dark shapes moving purposefully through the howling blizzard, watching and waiting for the High Warlock to step outside the protection of his remaining shields. Rupert scowled, and rested one hand on the pommel of his sword. His guards were tired, battered and bloodied from their trip through the Darkwood, and now he had to ask them to do it again. The Warlock had said something about a shortcut, a way to avoid the long night, but Rupert knew better. The maps were clear enough. There was only one route that would get his people back to Forest Castle before the Full Moon, and that was the way they’d come. Through the Darkwood.
“I’m hungry,” said the unicorn.
“You’re always hungry,” said Rupert. “How can you think of food at a time like this?”
“Practice,” said the unicorn. “What are we waiting for now? I hate hanging around like this.”
“Well, not to worry. We’ll be heading back into the Darkwood soon enough.”
“On second thought, let’s hang around here for a while.”
Rupert laughed briefly, and patted the unicorn’s neck. “It shouldn’t be so bad this time; we’ll have the High Warlock with us.” He looked up and saw the sorcerer approaching. The Warlock was drinking wine and singing a bawdy song. The unicorn studied him carefully.
“This is the High Warlock? Our great hope against the Demon Prince?”
“Yes.”
“Then we’re in big trouble.”
“Shut up,” growled Rupert, and moved quickly forward to greet the Warlock.
“Ah, Rupert,” said the Warlock vaguely, draining his goblet. “Are your men ready to leave?”
“Yes, sir Warlock. They’re good men; you can rely on them to protect your back once we enter the Darkwood.”
“I’m sure I could,” said the Warlock. “But luckily that won’t be necessary. We’re not going back through the Darkwood. I’m going to transport us straight to the Forest Castle.”
Rupert’s heart sank. His mouth was suddenly very dry. “That’s your shortcut? A teleport spell?”
“Got it in one, dear boy.”
Rupert tried hard to hold on to his rising temper. “Possibly I’m mistaken, sir Warlock, but as I understand it, there are an awful lot of things that can go wrong with teleport spells.”
“Oh, hundreds of things,” said the Warlock. “That’s why nobody uses them any more. Except in emergencies.”
“Sir Warlock,” said Rupert slowly, “I did not lead my men clean across the Forest Kingdom and through the long night itself, just to throw their lives away on a sorcerer’s whim! Look at you; the state you’re in, they’d be safer facing the demons.”
The Warlock looked at him steadily. “Prince Rupert; if there was any other way to reach the Castle in time, I’d take it. But there isn’t. A teleport’s our only chance.”
“A teleport could get us all killed! Look, if it was just me and my men, I’d risk it, but I can’t allow you to put your life at risk. You’re the last hope of the Forest Land, sir Warlock; with you gone, there’d be no one left to stand against the darkness.”
“Don’t rely on me,” said the Warlock. “That’s a good way to get killed.” His voice was soft and tired and very bitter. “I’ve lived too long with myself to harbor any illusions, Rupert. I’m nowhere near as powerful as I used to be, and I never was as powerful as the legends had it. I could have been, but I threw it all away on wine and women, just like the Champion said. I make no apologies; I had my reasons. Good ones. But don’t be under any illusions about my magic. I can’t just snap my fingers and make the Demon Prince disappear. What magic I have is at your disposal, along with whatever knowledge and low cunning my tired old mind still retains. If I can get us to the Castle in time, I think I can help. But I’m not indispensable to your fight, Rupert; I’m not that important anymore. I never was, really.”
Rupert shook his head slowly. “I don’t doubt your magic, sir Warlock; it’s that goblet in your hand that worries me. Anybody can make a mistake when he’s the worse for drink.”
The Warlock smiled crookedly. “I’m not much of a sorcerer when I’m drunk, Rupert, but I’m worse when I’m sober. There are too many memories in my old head, too many unhappy memories. It’s only the wine that keeps them quiet. The Champion was right, you know; I could have been a Sorcerer Supreme. I could have been a hero out of legend. Unfortunately, I just wasn’t up to it. Not everybody is. When all is said and done, I’m not the stuff heroes are made of. I’m not particularly brave, or clever. I have a talent for magic, I’ve studied the Art all my life, but your family always expected so damn much from me! Every time some new magical menace appeared, they’d send me off to deal with it; never mind the risk to my life! Every ogre and demon and natural disaster … Eventually, I just got tired. Tired of the responsibility, the pressure, of being scared all the time. That’s when I started drinking. It helped, at first. And still your family piled more and more responsibility on me, until finally I broke under the weight of it. Simple as that. And then I fell in love with a Lady who turned out not to care for me, and … well, it’s a familiar enough story, I suppose.
“Look, Rupert; what I’m trying to say is … this is a kind of second chance for me. Don’t ask me to stop drinking, because I can’t. But if you’ll trust me, I’ll give you everything I’ve got. My word on it.”
Rupert looked steadily at the High Warlock. All the sorcerer’s new youthfulness couldn’t disguise the tired, defeated set of his shoulders, but still he held his head high, his pride ready to stand or fall by whatever answer Rupert gave. The Prince smiled, and reached out to clap the Warlock lightly on the shoulder.
“Prepare the teleport spell,” he said gruffly. “It’d be a long, hard struggle, fighting our way back through the Darkwood; I’d rather get my men home safely.”
“Thank you, Sire,” said the Warlock. “You won’t regret this, I promise you.”
Time passed, and the night wore on. The blue-tainted moon shone brightly down as the Warlock chivied the guardsmen into a small, compact crowd. At first, the guards hadn’t been all that impressed by the Warlock, with his wine-stained robes and absentminded airs, but after seeing what the Warlock had done to the Champion’s chain mail in a fit of pique, they suddenly developed a new respect for him. The Champion moved over to join Rupert and nodded at the High Warlock, who was sitting cross-legged in midair, staring at nothing.
“You mustn’t go ahead with the teleport, Sire. We can’t trust him.”
“I’ve made my decision, sir Champion.”
“He’s a traitor and a drunkard. He …”
“Shut up!”
The Champion blinked in surprise, taken aback by
Rupert’s sudden anger.
“I don’t want to hear another word from you,” said Rupert quietly. “Go back to your men and stay there. That’s an order.”
The Champion looked at him steadily for a long moment, and then he bowed slightly and moved away to take his place among the guardsmen.
“Was that really necessary?” said the unicorn.
“Yes,” said Rupert shortly.
“There are times,” said the unicorn, “when you sound a lot like your brother.”
The blizzard pressed closer, its solid wall of snow devouring the clearing inch by inch. The demons watched and waited in ever-increasing numbers, impervious to the unrelenting cold and the howling wind. Hoarfrost enveloped the Dark Tower in an icy cocoon, and shimmered whitely on the men’s armor. Rupert’s breath steamed on the freezing air, and his bare face ached from the cold. A light snow began to fall within the clearing. And then, finally, the high Warlock dropped his feet to the earth and nodded briskly to Rupert.
“Sorry about the delay, Sire; just checking the arrival coordinates. Get the decimal point wrong, and we might all appear several hundred feet above the ground. Or even under it.”
The guardsmen exchanged glances.
“Start the teleport,” growled Rupert hurriedly, and the Warlock nodded.
“Very well, Sire. If you and the unicorn would care to stand just here, beside me … thank you. And now, we begin.”
He raised his arms in the stance of summoning, and his gaze became fixed on something only he could see. For a long moment, nothing happened. The Warlock’s brow furrowed as he concentrated. Outside the clearing, the wind raged and the storm intensified. And then the air within the clearing seemed to dance and shimmer. A deep sonorous tone shuddered through Rupert’s bones, on a level almost too deep for hearing. The ground shook beneath his feet. Space itself ripped apart before the Warlock, revealing a wide silvery tunnel that seemed to fall away forever. The Warlock rose slowly into the air, and then, one by one, Prince Rupert, the unicorn, the Champion and the guardsmen left the ground behind them and followed the Warlock into the tunnel.
The rip in space slammed together and was gone, with no trace to show it had ever been there. The last of the Warlock’s shields collapsed and fell apart, and the howling storm, unfettered at last, swept forward to swirl helplessly around the empty Dark Tower.
CHAPTER SIX
Traitors to the Crown
“But darling …”
“Get the hell away from me or I’ll flatten you.”
King John sighed tiredly. Harald and Julia were at it again. The King leaned back on his throne, and tried to pretend he couldn’t hear the raised voices outside his Court. He had more than enough to worry about without having to deal with his potential daughter-in-law as well. A dozen petitioners from the outlying farms waited patiently before him, leaning tiredly on their great longbows, their homespun clothes battered and begrimed with the dirt and dust of long days on the road. They’d arrived on foot little more than an hour ago, pounding determinedly on the closed Castle gates as night fell early across the Forest. On hearing the nature of the news they bore, King John had cursed softly to himself, and granted the farmers a private audience. And now they stood before him in the empty Court: tall, broad-shouldered men with sturdy muscular bodies formed by continuous backbreaking work from dawn to dusk. There was nothing soft or weak about the harsh planes of their faces, but in their haunted eyes the King saw a naked fear and desperation that chilled him to his bones.
“Julia, my sweet, if you’ll only let me …”
There was the sound of fist meeting flesh, followed by a pained if somewhat muted howl from Harald. King John’s mouth tightened angrily, and he gestured for one of his Royal Guard to approach the throne.
“Your majesty?”
“Take my compliments to my son Harald and the Princess Julia, and tell them I will see them after this audience is ended. You will further add that if I hear one more word from either of them before that time, so help me I’ll have them chained together and cleaning out the Castle cess pits!”
“Yes, your majesty,” said the guard, and headed quickly for the closed antechamber doors.
King John shook his head slowly, and turned back to the waiting farmers. “Sorry about that; my eldest son’s courting.”
The farmers smiled and nodded, and seemed to relax a little for the first time since entering the Court. King John searched for something else to say that might help put the farmers more at their ease. It was clear they needed to talk, but none of them seemed to know where or how to start. The King leaned forward, chosing his words with care, and then the double doors slammed open as the Seneschal came limping furiously into the Court, followed by a protesting guardsman. The Seneschal glared him into silence, and then advanced, still glowering, on the King.
“Dammit, your majesty, this time you’ve got to do something!”
The King closed his eyes briefly, and wished wistfully that he was somewhere else. Anywhere else.
“What is it this time, sir Seneschal?”
“It’s those damned goblins again, what else?” The Seneschal lurched to a halt before the throne, nodded brusquely to the mystified farmers, and then leaned heavily on his walking stick and glared at the King. “You should never have let those disgusting little creatures into the Castle, Sire; they’ve been nothing but trouble since they got here. I don’t know what possessed Prince Rupert to send them to us in the first place; I’ve known Barrow Down guttersnipes that were more civilized! It took us three weeks to teach them to use the toilets. And another three weeks to stop them using the sinks. It’s not as though they contributed anything to the Castle’s defenses; they can’t fight worth a damn, and they won’t take orders from anyone except their own leaders. They’re passable scouts, when I can persuade them to set foot outside the safety of the Castle walls, but they will keep setting traps for the demons and then forgetting where they put them. You wouldn’t believe how many trackers we’ve lost that way. It’s keeping the poachers on their toes, I’ll admit, but that’s not the point …”
“Sir Seneschal,” said the King, cutting in firmly, “What exactly is your problem? What have the goblins done now?”
The Seneschal sniffed a couple of times in an embarrassed sort of way, and studied his shoes. “Well, Sire; for want of anything better to do with them, I put them in charge of manning the battlements. It seemed a good idea at the time, mainly on the grounds that anything which got them out of sight and out of mind had to be a good idea. I mean, what harm could they get up to on the damn battlements? I should have known better. You will be interested to learn, your majesty, that I have finally discovered why the kitchens are always short of cauldrons these days. It’s because those damned goblins have been stealing them to mix their boiling oil in! We only just got to them in time to stop the little bastards from testing their latest batch by dropping it on the three Landsgraves as they rode in from their day’s hunting!”
The King tried hard to look shocked, but a smile kept tugging at his mouth as he savored the thought of a cauldron of bubbling boiling oil being slowly tilted over the Landsgraves’ unsuspecting heads … He finally hid his grin behind a raised hand, and had a quiet coughing fit.
“Were any of the noble Landsgraves injured?” he asked the Seneschal, when he felt he could trust his voice again.
“Well, not actually hurt, Sire, but if they hadn’t been wearing cloaks and chain mail …”
Several of the farmers had a quiet coughing fit. It seemed the Landsgraves weren’t that popular outside the Court, either. The King made a mental note to look into that; he could always use more allies against the Barons.
“I’m glad to hear no one was hurt,” he said solemnly. “How did the Landsgraves take it?”
“You can ask them yourself, your majesty; they should be here any minute.”
King John glared at his Seneschal. “Thanks for the advance warning. Round up the goblins, and send
the lot of them out into the Forest. I need to know how fast the Darkwood is advancing, and the troop of guards I sent to find out hasn’t come back. If nothing else, goblins do make excellent reconnaissance scouts. Mainly because they have a positive gift when it comes to hiding from anything even remotely threatening.”
“Very good, Sire,” said the Seneschal. “I’ll send them on their way.” He hesitated, and then glanced at the King. “They do mean well, your majesty, it’s just …”
“Yes,” said King John. “They are, aren’t they.”
The Seneschal grinned, bowed, and left. As he walked out, the three Landsgraves walked in. The two Royal Guardsmen glanced at each other, and then moved protectively closer to the throne, their hands ostentatiously near their swords. Ever since he’d been dragged senseless from the Court after his assassination attempt, Sir Bedivere had been careful to wear an empty scabbard at all times, but even so, there wasn’t a guard in the Castle that trusted him an inch. Or the other two Landsgraves, for that matter.
Sir Bedivere, Sir Blays, and Sir Guillam marched silently forward, and the farmers gave way to them, stepping passively aside so that the Landsgraves could take their center position before the throne. They knew better than to protest to men who represented the Barons. Farmers might work the land, but the Barons owned it.
King John studied the three Landsgraves warily. There was a calm sureness about them that worried him. Still, when in doubt, attack. He leaned forward in his throne and glared coldly at Sir Blays.
“This is a private audience, sir Landsgrave. I have business with these men.”
“The peasants can wait,” said Sir Blays. “We have business with you.”
“And what might that be?”
“Demons overrun the Barons’ lands. What are you doing about it?”
King John scowled at the Landsgrave’s bluntness, and struggled to keep his voice calm and even. “You know damn well what I’m doing; my guards are running themselves ragged fighting the demons, training peasant militias in those towns nearest the darkness, and helping to stockpile provisions in case of seige.”