The rest of their party, Jaston and Fardale, shared the wit’ch’s side of the table. The wolf crouched on the floor beside the wit’ch’s chair, nosing his plate, while Jaston sat stiff beside the handsome woman and tried his best to keep his scarred features away from the light.
The only other occupants of the huge dining chamber were the wit’ch’s servants, three of the swamp boys clothed in brown pants and white shirts. The trio now watched from beside the crackling hearth, eying the table like hungry hawks, awaiting a mug to refill or a dirty plate to replace with a clean one.
The woman’s eyes finally met Er’ril’s stare, a bemused smile on her lips. “You teem with so many questions, plainsman. Perhaps I try your patience and should now talk.”
“You misjudge me,” he replied. “All I wish is for Elena to be rid of your bewit’ching. I care nothing for your story or your words.”
His harsh statement did nothing to remove the amusement from her eyes. “So you have no curiosity about a wit’ch living in Castle Drakk?”
He just stared.
“Well, if he doesn’t, I do,” Mycelle said. “Cassa, how did you come to live in these swamps?”
Her gaze moved to the swordswoman. “Come to the swamps? Why, I’ve always been here. It was the swamps that came to me.”
Mycelle’s eye twitched with this declaration. “Are you saying you’ve been here since the lands sunk?”
“Even longer, I’m afraid. I was apprenticed to the assassins’ caste a decade prior to the great cataclysm.”
All seated at the table wore shocked expressions, but it was Mycelle who spoke. “That would make you over five hundred years old—as old as Er’ril. But that’s impossible . . . Or does some magick sustain you?”
Cassa Dar shrugged. “I am rich in elemental magicks. But you know this and know my power. Though vast, it cannot stop time’s aging.”
“Then how did you—?”
The wit’ch held up a hand. “You dwell on the trivial.”
“Yes, she does,” Er’ril said. He knew a way to test the veracity of this wit’ch’s statements. “If you speak the truth, then prove your words. Show us your assassin’s mark.”
He had expected her to balk and seek some excuse, but instead she leaned over the table closer to one of the thick candles and tilted her head to the side. She fingered back the trail of curls from behind her right ear to reveal a small tattoo of a bloody dagger done in red and black dyes hidden there. She ran a long painted nail along the hilt of the tattooed blade, tracing a vine wrapped around the handle. A small flower bloomed just at the apex of the hilt. “Nightshade,” she said, naming the deadly plant. “I was a poisoner.”
The disgust could not be kept from Er’ril’s face and was clearly noted by Cassa Dar. “Poison is just another weapon,” she said. “Like your sword or Elena’s magick. Why do you judge it so harshly? It takes as much skill to master the art of poisoning as it does to master your sword. How much nettleburr will kill a man versus incapacitating him? Which poisons kill quickly and painlessly, and which kill slowly and torturously? How do you lace a blade so the merest scratch will either fester a wound or kill instantly?” She nodded toward the spread of food. “And how do you prepare poisons that the tongue can’t taste?”
She smiled at their glances of horror. “Fear not,” she said. “I told you I meant you no harm, and my word is good. If I wanted you all dead, I could have done it in a thousand ways. So, Er’ril, if you are done testing me, perhaps we can move to more appropriate topics.”
Er’ril was undaunted. “One more question. What happened to the other members of your foul caste?”
“Foul caste? You do seem a well of prejudices, plainsman. I would have you know that the master who ran this keep was as noble a soul as you. He cared for the rejected, cast-out children of both Alasea and lands beyond and paid good coin for the honor. He fed us, clothed us, treated our injuries, and taught us to survive. And at the last, he gave his life freeing the surviving members as the waters rose to claim the castle. So I will not have you disparaging his good work.”
“Good work?” Er’ril said. “He created killers.”
“And what do your schools of swordplay teach? Do they teach you how to use your swords to knit wool into sweaters? Death is death, and the art of stealing a life is no nobler at the point of a blade than from a powder mixed in a drink.”
“But what of rumors that some of the weaker children were used as sport in training?”
“Just that, swordsman—rumors. In the libraries here, I have read the histories of the assassins’ caste as far back as the foundation of Castle Drakk. We served the land and its lords as justly and evenly as any knight. The assassins here were oath-bound to our elder members. The elder council judged the worth of any assignment before undertaking it. We did not kill on the whim of some errant lordling who needed an inconvenient person eliminated.”
Er’ril snorted. “So you stabbed folks in the dead of night, but you did it nobly?”
“Some matters are better dealt with quietly. Sometimes a battalion of mounted swordsmen is not the best way to solve a problem. Sometimes it takes a well-placed knife or a hidden poison to make a problem go quietly away.” Cassa Dar nodded toward Mycelle. “Sometimes poison in tiny jade vials solves many future dangers.”
Mycelle’s eyes widened. “So you know of my work?”
The swamp wit’ch waved one of her boys over to her and placed a hand on his shoulder. “These are my children, constructs of moss and illusions. They are my eyes and my ears in the swamp and around its edges. There is little I don’t know that occurs in my lands, including the city of Shadowbrook. When the wit’ch arrived, I watched and listened . . . and suspected that in her magick lay a chance of salvation.”
“Salvation for whom?” Mycelle asked.
She held up a hand. “In due time. What I can tell you now is that your other companions in Shadowbrook did escape the destruction of the Keep and are already on a barge toward the coast.”
Elena sat up from where she slouched in her chair. “Did they find Meric?”
“The elv’in? Yes, he is injured but lives. I am afraid I can’t give you much more detail than that. It taxes my strength to stretch my reach that far. But I can tell you this: When they broke the Keep, something escaped—something that has since been trailing your party.”
“The thing that tried to attack us at the lodge?” Jaston asked.
She nodded. “I have been unable to get a clear look at it—something black and foul of form. Its dark magick obscures my vision. And after being thwarted at the lodge, it grew more wary and stays hidden in the waters. I lost it somewhere in the deep swamps. But little passes through that area without my help.”
A grudging respect for this wit’ch grew in Er’ril with her tale. She had managed to hone her elemental gift over the centuries into a formidable tool. Yet could she be trusted? He wished he had Kral here to judge the truth of this woman’s tongue. “So why did you help us?”
“To offer your wit’ch a bargain.”
“And what is this offer?” Er’ril asked.
“I will free her of the bewit’ching no matter what she decides, but I can also offer her a tool that will prove invaluable in her war upon the Black Heart. All I ask in exchange is a small promise.”
Er’ril’s eyes narrowed. “What is this promise?”
“That when you are finished with this tool, you return it to its original lands and its rightful place.”
“Where is that?” Elena asked meekly.
Cassa Dar stood up from the table. She glanced sadly at Elena. “Before we bargain, I must first put aside all illusions.” Standing, the wit’ch reached up with her arms, and with a slight shake of her body, as if slipping from loose clothing, her illusions fell away from her. Trailing vines and mounds of moss fell away from her body until her true form was revealed.
Before them hunched a misshapen creature, squat of form and pale of skin. Her back was
bent with age, and her pendulous breasts drooped like rotten melons. Her face, as she shied from the light, was more wrinkles than features. Only her ebony eyes still shone with the keenness and intelligence of the one named Cassa Dar.
Er’ril knew what he was looking at. He had fought such creatures on the battlefields with the coming of the Dark Lord. “You’re a d’warf!”
ELENA WATCHED FARDALE and Jaston dance back from the revealed wit’ch. The wolf growled and retreated around the table. Soon their entire party clustered on the far side of the room. The stout oaken table stood between them and the d’warf.
“I am a d’warf,” Cassa Dar admitted as she kept her face in shadows. Even her voice was a harsh gravel compared to its smooth tones from a moment before. “But as you disparaged the assassins a moment ago, you now misjudge my people.”
“Misjudge?” Er’ril spat. He had his silver sword in hand. “It was your armies that ravaged our lands.”
She lowered her head, as if its weight were too heavy. “I know. But before you lay blame, hear my story. I—”
“We have no time to hear your sick tale,” Er’ril declared hotly. His cheeks had darkened to a deep red. Elena had never seen him so disturbed. “Between your people and the dog soldiers, we were slaughtered. I saw a cousin of mine torn to shreds by the beasts leashed to d’warf overlords. They laughed at his screams. And you ask me to hear your tale?” Er’ril’s voice had risen to a sharp pitch. “May your people be forever cursed!”
Elena saw how his words wounded the wit’ch, how her back seemed to bend under his assault. Finally she raised her face toward him; tears ran in rivulets across her marred features. “If it gives you any relief from your sorrow, we were cursed, plainsman.” The pain rang clear in her hoary voice. “We were cursed before we ever set foot upon your lands.”
Before Er’ril could vent more bile, Elena placed a hand on his arm. He glanced down at her, his eyes aflame with rage. She had to tense her knees not to balk from his gaze. “I wish to hear her story,” she said softly.
He started to argue.
She squeezed his arm. “No, I will hear her out.”
Er’ril pulled back and could only nod, obviously fearful of even speaking lest he lose control.
Satisfied he would mind his tongue, Elena turned to the d’warf. “I will listen to what you have to say.”
The creature nodded but remained quiet, collecting her thoughts and composing herself. When she finally spoke, her voice was hushed. “In the southern mountains of Gul’gotha, we lived in peace, trading our forged goods to the human settlements of northern Gul’gotha and sometimes even across the waters to neighboring lands. That is how I remember my people and our homeland. I still remember racing in the tunnels as my brothers and I played games of sneak-and-seek. I remember our scolding mothers and proud fathers. I remember the strike of hammers on anvils echoing through the valleys, and the flames of a hundred forges glowing like stars across the mountains.”
She dwelt in her memories in silence for several heartbeats. When next she spoke, her voice had hardened. “But then it all changed. A troupe of deep miners discovered a vein of ore leagues under the mountain. They had never seen such a stone: blacker than the darkest tunnel and impervious to any tool. Undaunted and determined to mine this vein, they used the kingdom’s strongest hammer to attack the stone. They employed the Try’sil, the Hammer of Thunder. Its magick-wrought iron was said to shatter any stone. And this claim proved true. The stone was mined and given the name ebon’stone by its discoverers. At first, it was greatly treasured; every d’warf lord lusted to work a piece, to prove his skill at fashioning the new ore. Bowls, cups, plates, swords, even statues were carved from the material.
“But then something happened. The stone began to warp and bind our people in ways we did not understand. The lands, too, began to sicken and poison. Volcanoes grew, and the ground constantly shook. Gasses and ash soured the skies. Poisonous beasts, the mul’gothra and skal’tum, began to appear from pits deep under the mountains. From somewhere, the Dark Lord arose among our people, almost as if out of the bowels of the land. Some said the Black Heart was a d’warf, one who had succumbed to the stone’s black magick, while others said he came from the stone itself, released by our miners from an ebon’stone tomb. No one knew for sure, but all knew that the corruption of our people was under way. Some tried to fight it; some fled from it. My parents sold me to the assassins, not for the silver from the sale, but to get me from those lands. I was sent out here to Alasea before the stranglehold of the Black Heart was complete.”
Cassa Dar turned her gaze to Er’ril. “I, too, saw the result of the Dark Lord’s hold on my people. It was a d’warf army that came to Castle Drakk and slaughtered my teachers and friends here. They came with beasts and monsters and laid siege to our keep. I saw the deadness in their eyes and knew them thralls to the ebon’stone and its master. We tried to enlist the aid of surrounding hamlets, but our messengers were spat upon and reviled. So much for the nobility of your Standi clansmen!”
It was now the wit’ch’s turn to grow angry. She glared at Er’ril. “But they paid for their pettiness. To our castle came a blackguard, the foulest of the ill’guard. Where the ill’guard are bound to their ebon’stone talismans, the blackguard were fused to the stone itself. Their very skin was impenetrable ebon’stone. We attacked this foul creature with every weapon and magick in the castle’s arsenal, but all failed to pierce its stone skin. It was an unstoppable storm that swept over us, killing all in its path. While we fled up the tower, it marched to the roots of our school. Only I had an inkling of its true purpose. Only I understood the weapon held in its black fist. It had come to Castle Drakk with the Try’sil.”
“Why?” Elena asked as the wit’ch paused her story. “Why did it come here?”
Cassa Dar wiped at the beads of sweat on her brow, as if she were experiencing it all again with its telling. “Do you have a map?”
Er’ril nodded, his brow wrinkling.
Cassa Dar waved a hand for her boys to clear a space on the table. Her servants, as ever, were quick. “Spread it out,” she instructed Er’ril.
He did so, unfolding his map and flattening the parchment with a pass of his hand. His growing interest in her tale was clear in his eyes: It was the history of his own lands. Keen curiosity had damped his prior rage.
The wit’ch bent over the map. “Across the world, there are points where the land’s core magicks rise close to the surface, locus points of its energies.” She traced a crooked finger along Er’ril’s map. “If you follow the southern and northern cliffs of the Landslip to where they meet in the west, do you see where the cliffs point?”
“Toward the Teeth?” Er’ril asked, obviously unsure of her meaning.
Cassa Dar sighed as if exasperated with a foolish child.
Elena, though, stared closer at the map. “It points to the Southern Fang,” she said.
The d’warf woman’s eyes swung to Elena. “Very good, child. So it does.” She placed a yellow, cracked nail on the map. “The Southern Fang is one such locus of the land’s deep magicks, as is the Northern Fang. Have you never wondered why the ancient mages placed their school in the shadow of the Northern Fang?”
Elena spoke up, remembering when she had received her amulet from her uncle in the hidden chamber under his cottage. “My Uncle Bol said that the mages may have chosen Winter’s Eyrie because of the rich elemental energies in the area.”
“And so the founders of Castle Drakk chose this site. From these two Fangs, potent magicks flow out like snowmelt from the other peaks to form channels and rivers of energy through our lands. Below the cellars of Castle Drakk lies just such a river. It fed this entire region all the way to the Archipelago.”
“What does this have to do with the sinking of these lands?”
“I am coming to that. You see, at first, I also failed to understand what the blackguard was doing skulking through our cellars with our people’s most tre
asured possession in its foul fist. So I followed the creature. It ignored me, believing me a member of its d’warf army. The creature delved deeper into caves under the cellar, places I don’t even think the founders knew about. But the blackguard moved unerringly, as if it were on the scent of some prey. Finally, it came to rest in a huge cavern, as large as a ballroom. Along the floor lay a thick vein of pure silver.”
She glanced up from the map. “But even I could tell it was more than precious metal that ran through this vein. The magick contained therein sang to the elemental powers in my blood. Though only crudely trained in my magicks, I knew that here lay a font of pure power. Before I could react, the blackguard stalked to this vein and smashed it with the Try’sil. The hammer tore the vein of silver, and the entire world shook. The cavern swelled with magick as the channel burst. It bathed me in the raw magicks, swelling me with potent energies. As the quake settled, I touched my magick. How could I not, since it was everywhere? Vines and moss bent to my will, sprouted from rock, and attacked the blackguard. I knew what the creature did was an abomination to the land and had to be stopped. So I thrashed at it, but its stone skin was impervious to my magick. Vines cannot choke stone. Undeterred, the blackguard raised the Try’sil again and hammered at the vein of silver. Even more violent quakes occurred. I swear I heard the land itself split with this second strike. I knew if the hammer struck again, the vein would be completely severed, and these lands would be forever lost. I renewed my attack. As I lashed out at the blackguard, my probing vines discovered tiny chinks in its stone skin where reverberations from the use of the Try’sil had cracked its ebon’stone armor. I sent my smallest vines and mosses through these chinks to attack the d’warf inside. I tore at him and shredded him from the inside. As he fell dying, the Try’sil tumbled from his raised fingers to strike his head. The hammer split the blackguard’s stone helmet and revealed the d’warf inside. With death near, he was finally released from the Dark Lord’s enslavement. He turned to me with eyes that recognized the horrors he had committed.”