Karrick was about to enter the room in his usual inimitable
style – barging – but thought better of it.
She might be resting, he
reasoned. He tapped lightly at the
door-post instead.
The reply was muffled by the heavy oak planks. “I’m awake, Karrick!”
Snorting in amusement, he banged the door open with a
shoulder. “How’d you know it was me?”
Amorda smiled wanly.
“My people have a slightly lighter tread.” She was sitting up in her bed, propped on a
stack of pillows and cushions, with a silken bed-jacket over her gown. Her hair was uncharacteristically tousled,
pulled out of the way into a single bushy pony-tail, its midnight sheen
contrasting sharply with her snow-pale features. “You’re the only man I know who stomps in
house slippers.”
“Least I’m not wearing the army boots any more,” the
warrior replied, glancing down at his feet with a sour expression. “Not that these are exactly my style. A little too girly, if you get my meaning.”
The elf-woman chuckled. “Nobody makes socci in your size. I had to
order them. The cobbler sent his
apprentice back three times to confirm the size.”
“Couldn’t take a simple measurement, eh?”
“No, he wanted to know if I was renting out rooms to
ogres,” she smiled.
“Hah!” Karrick laughed. “Amateur.
Ogres have four toes. Everybody
knows that.”
“I guess it’s not part of a boot-maker’s corpus of
knowledge, here in the realm,” Amorda shrugged.
“Is the fit all right?”
“They’re fine,” he shrugged. “Just so’s you don’t expect me to dance in
them.” Belying his words, he extended
his arms, went up on his tip-toes, and minced thunderingly across the
floor-boards to her bedside.
The floor-boards creaked, and the bed trembled. Amorda put her hands flat on the stragulum to steady herself. “Never fear,” she tittered. “Although I’d pay good money to see you ask
Inscia onto the floor at the next palace ball.”
“I’d do it, too,” the warrior nodded. “Just to piss your old boyfriend off.”
“Good for you.”
Nodding at a small book that he was holding in one hand, she said,
“That’s the one.”
The book in question was thin, narrow, and bound in
some sort of hardened, stained leather, smooth, glossy, and
midnight-black. The warrior flipped the
volume in his hand, bowed, and laid it across his forearm. “As Milady requested.”
“Thank you.”
She hesitated only a moment; then, with a little moue of disgust, she
took the tome. “Do you happen to know
where my husband is?” she asked.
“In the forecourt with Kalena,” Karrick replied. “Joraz is in the dining hall with Salus’
wife, Onyshyla. Breygon asked her to
come down from the College, and she brought Kalena with her. Seems they know each other from working for Kalestayne. They’re going through the stuff we brought
back from that White Fire shrine.”
“They’ll be busy awhile, then?”
“I imagine.”
Karrick sat on the edge of the mattress.
The bed-frame creaked alarmingly.
He nodded at the book. “I took a
look inside. I thought it was written in
Beszéd, but it isn’t, is it.”
“No, this is in a darker tongue,” she
replied pensively. She looked up. “You speak Beszéd, do you?”
“Yeah.
But I usually only use the cuss-words,” he admitted. “Orc-talk’s great for swearing.”
The elf-woman dimpled. “You should teach me some of them. I could use them to shock my lord husband.”
“I’m not sure how many more of your
‘shocks’ your lord husband can take,” Karrick snorted. “But yeah, sure, if you like. Anything in particular you want to know?”
“Why not?” she giggled.
“Okay.” His brow furrowed. “Near as I can figure, that’d be ‘Eke, mint egy kukoricatábla, hegyes fülek!’”
Amorda repeated
the phrase under her breath several times.
“You’re sure?” she said at last.
“I don’t want him to think that I’m ordering him to…to weed the garden,
or something.”
“Trust me,”
Karrick deadpanned. “Look, can I be
honest with you?”
“Of course.”
He reached out,
took her hand, and tapped her wedding ring.
“This was a bad mistake.”
She smiled
prettily. “Sirrah! I did not know thou had’st set thine aim upon
me!”
“I’m not
joking,” he growled. “And I’m not
talking about your wedding. The boss
wasn’t a big fan, but I could care less.
You and the half-elf wanna get hitched, more power to you. I meant that stupid ‘friendship ring’ you
conned Breygon into wearing.” He shook
his head. “That was a bad, bad move.”
Amorda’s face
darkened. “Tread lightly, my friend.”
“I’m not the
one who’s ‘treading lightly’,” the warrior shrugged. “Your man is.
And it’s going to get him killed.”
“I know you’re
not a mage,” the elf-woman said pointedly, “but I assure you that our rings
spare him harm. I bleed in his
place. That gives him greater strength.”
“No, it
doesn’t,” Karrick replied. “It weakens
him. Because instead of focusing on the
fight, he’s thinking about you. He’s
worrying about not getting hurt, in order to keep you safe. It makes him less effective in combat.”
“That’s
ridiculous,” Amorda snorted.
“You think so,”
the warrior said bluntly, “because in spite of everything you do know about, you don’t know shit about
fighting. You especially don’t know shit
about the way your man fights.”
“You’re not
making sense!” she retorted. “How could
this harm him?”
“By making him
hang back, and avoid risks. That’s not
how he works,” Karrick shrugged. “I’ve
been in a lot of battles. But your
Breygon’s not a soldier, like me and the boss.
He doesn’t fight in groups. He’s
a hunter. A killer. He’s used to fighting alone.
“Soldiers can
hold back, keep a reserve, husband their strength,” he went on as what little
colour remained in the elf-woman’s face slowly drained away. “Hunters don’t. Killers don’t. They can’t afford to. They have no fall-back position, no reserve,
nothing to save them if things go wrong.
They either win, or they die.
Forcing them to hang back, to guard their strength instead of throwing
everything into the fight – that just makes it more likely that they’ll lose.
“It could be
worse,” he went on, holding up a hand to forestall an angry interruption. “It could be a lot worse. He’s pretty
damned deadly with that bow, so sometimes it helps us to have him hang back a
little and shoot things. But it’s not
always going to be like that. He’s going
to get cornered again. Like your old dy…like
your friend Szelly cornered him. And
then it’s going to be ‘kill or die’. And
if he’s trying not to get hurt in order to spare you…he’s going to end up in
the ground.”
“Then so will
I,” Amorda said defiantly.
“And so will
you,” Karrick agreed. “But that bothers
me less. I like you, sweet cheeks, but
those three fellows are trying to save the world, and that’s more important to
me than what might happen to you along the way.
Your trick rings…you might’ve meant well, but it was a mistake. For you.
For him. And for everything he’s
trying to accomplish.”
“You go too
far!” the elf-woman cried.
“I calls’em
like I sees’em,” the warrior shrugged.
“You don’t like it, tough.”
Amorda glared
at him. Her obvious rage might have made
more of an impact if she hadn’t been sitting in bed.
At last,
though, all of the defiance bled out of her.
“You’re right,” she whispered, staring down at her hands. “I know.
You’re right. It’s…it’s why I
asked you to find this for me.” She laid
a hand on the book.
Karrick wiped a
trickle of sweat out of his right eye; he’d been watching her hands closely,
preparing to duck. “Okay, then.” He blew his breath out in a relieved
whoosh. “Good to get that off my
chest. Now, do you mind if I ask you a couple of things?”
“Go ahead,” the
elf-woman replied calmly, looking down at the book in her hands. It had an unpleasantly compelling feel to it.
“Great. First…” he reached over and tapped the book
with a finger. “You haven’t handled this
in a while. It was tucked behind a bunch
of other books, and had cobwebs on it.”
“I’ll have to
speak to Cayless about the cleaning staff,” Amorda mused.
Karrick crossed
his arms and waited.
After a long
pause, the elf-woman sighed. “No. You’re right.
I haven’t handled it at all, in fact.
Not since I acquired it, and…and found out what it was.”
“Yeah, that was
my next question,” the warrior growled. “What the hell kinda skin is that?”
“Are you sure
you want to know?”
“Yeah.”
“Elf-skin,”
Amorda murmured.
“Really?” he
asked, perplexed. “Dyed?”
“No. But that’s not the most disturbing part. This
is.” She flipped the cover back and ran
a finger down the inner liner, shivering a little.
Karrick
frowned. The inner side of the cover was
also made of fine leather, this time so light as to be nearly white. Unlike the outer cover, however, which was
unmarked, the inner cover was stamped with…
He leaned closer,
but couldn’t make it out. “What’s that?”
“That,” Amorda
said softly, “is also elf-skin. And the marking – it’s faded badly, but you
can still make it out – is the Bound Maiden.”
Karrick
blinked. “The Disciples?”
The elf-woman
nodded.
“The Disciples
skin people to make books?” he asked, incredulous.
“You
misunderstand. That is not a printer’s
mark. It is a tattoo.”
The warrior’s
face darkened noticeably. “Somebody
skinned one of the Disciples to…to make a fornicating book? What’s wrong with you
people?”
“Oh, this
wasn’t made by ‘my people’,” Amorda sighed.
“Or, at least not in the way you imply.
It was made...elsewhere. As the
language in which it is written suggests.”
“I was
wondering about that,” he said, pointing at the inscription in the
frontispiece. “What does that mean?”
“Librin e Lëkurës,” she replied. Her voice was
steady, and she was a little proud of that.
“It means ‘The Book of Skins’.”
She closed the
cover again and leaned back into her pillows.
“There’s a bit of a tale behind this thing, if you want to hear it. It might answer your second question.”
The warrior
frowned. “And what is my second question, lady?”
She waved the
book at him. “You were going to ask me
why I wanted you to find this for me,
instead of sending one of my own people to get it from my own library.”
Karrick
grinned. “Yeah, alright. You got me.
I was kind of curious about that.
Let’s hear it.” He looked
around. “Got anything to drink in here?”
There was a
pitcher and tumbler on a sideboard. As
he sniffed it, Amorda said, “I wouldn’t recommend that. It’s medicinal. A restorative.”
Karrick made a
face. “Gah! Who puts fruit juice in wine?”
“The same
people who make books out of elf-skin,” the elf-woman said grimly. “Pour me a glass, if you please. For you…there’s some winter-wine under the
board, if you’ve a mind to try it.”
He followed her
instructions, passing her a brimful goblet before tasting his own. His eyebrows shot up into his hairline. “Finally!
Something worth drinking!”
“Better than fæculerum?” Amorda snickered over the
edge of her cup.
“Much better!”
he crowed. Then his eyebrows drew
together. “Wait, how’d you –”
“Kalena likes
to talk when she’s drunk. It’s how I
kept tabs on Kaltas when I was in Eldisle.”
She tipped her glass at him. “Salutis!”
Karrick raised
his cup in reply, emptied it, and refilled it.
“How d’ye make this stuff?”
“It’s
winter-wine,” Amorda said in surprise, as if the name were its own
explanation. “Don’t you make winter-wine
in Ekhan?”
“Never heard of
it.” Clang.
“Well, as I
understand it,” she shrugged, “the vintners simply take strong, dry wine and
leave vats of it out at night, in winter-time.
Under cover, of course, to keep the snow out. When the ice forms on the top of the vat,
they cast it off. Repeat the process a
few times, and it concentrates both the flavour and the aqua vitae.”
“Sounds a lot
more complicated than distilling.”
“It’s easier,
actually, but it does take longer. And
it only works in cold weather, of course.”
She tapped the
book again. “Do you want to hear about
this? Or shall I go on about
winter-wine? Viniculture’s a passion of
mine, and I could ramble at you all night.”
“Sorry!” He refilled his glass a third – fourth? –
time, leaned back against the foot of the bed-frame, and put his enormous,
slipper-clad feet up on the spread. “I’m
all ears.”
Amorda shot a
meaningful glance at his gargantuan clod-hoppers. “I beg to differ.”
She put her
goblet down and picked the book up.
Flipping it open again, she tapped the interior of the cover. “This, as I said, is elf-skin. To be precise, it is the skin of an elf of
the Third House. A Disciple of the
Maiden, named Dareo Hister Terriloquus.”
“Isn’t that a
Duodeci name?” Karrick asked, surprised.
“And for that matter, isn’t Dareo a man’s
name?”
“Yes, and yes,”
Amorda nodded. “Terriloquus is one of
the lowest-ranked of the Twelve Houszes...today.
But in the middle of the last age – around about the time your empire,
my friend, was expanding to the north and west, making ill-advised (if I may
say so) forays into the Niriam Vale and what is now Gasparr – it was one of the
top three. House Æyllian and several of
the others had fallen on hard times, and the Terriloquii were within reach of
the Throne.
“But,” she went
on with a disapproving set to her lips, “the College still supported the
Æyllianii. And the magisters swing a lot
of political weight in the realm.”
“So I’ve
noticed.” Clang. “You need a refill
yet?”
“I’m fine,”
Amorda sighed. “Thank you. Archduke Navio, head of House Terriloquus,
decided to try to outflank the College by seeking magical support elsewhere.”
“Elsewhere? Like, at another college?”
“That might
have been an option,” the elf-woman replied, “save for the fact that the other
Colleges, in theory at least, all owe allegiance to the Master Magister of the College of Stars
“So what’d he
do?” Karrick asked, intrigued in spite of himself.
Amorda laid her
hand on the book. “He used his son, Dareo. And he sent him to the one covey of magical
masters among our folk who do not owe
allegiance to the College of
Stars
When she did
not continue, the warrior waved a hand to prompt her. “And that was…”
“The Sobrintrii. Our dark cousins,” the elf-woman replied
soberly. “The Drow.”
Karrick blinked
in astonishment. “I thought you lot hated the Drow?”
“Hate is
relative,” Amorda shrugged. “In Navio’s
case, he coveted the Throne more than he despised our subterranean kin. They offered him a way to increase the power
of House Terriloquus to the point that he would be able to neutralize the College of Stars
“Navio, as I
said, sent his son Dareo to Qëtëvaditur,
the capital of the Hidden Realm that lies far beneath the earth, in the
Deepdark; the place we call Aquaetaceo,
or ‘Silent Waters’ in the traveling tongue.
The son was sent in the guise of an ambassador to the Weeping Chair,
which at the time was occupied by Dyshue II.”
“He any
relation to that Glycomondas chap we killed in the Deeprealm?” Karrick asked,
interested despite himself.
“Only in the
sense that all Drow are related,” Amorda replied, her brow furrowing. “The Weeping Chair changes hands regularly,
as often by assassination or rebellion as by succession from father to
son. Or daughter. Dyshue, if memory serves, was the fourth king
of the Ilum Dynasty. There’ve been half
a dozen dynasties since his time; they rise and fall and rise again in the
Hidden Realm, and the only thing they all have in common is that all candidates
for the Chair must be able to prove their descent from the Kinslayer. Not that that poses a problem, of course, in
view of their…ah, common ancestor.”
She paused,
then added, “And of course, the claimant must possess the Crown of the Hungry
Earth. I can’t imagine what they’re
going to do about that now that you
fellows have done away with it.”
“Yeah, well, I
guess they’re going to have to find a way to finesse that part of the
coronation ceremony,” the warrior snickered.
“Or learn to live without a king.
Who’s the ‘Kinslayer’, by the way?”
“Mærglyn,” the
elf-woman sighed. “Only someone who can
prove that they descend, in lineage direct, from her, Bîardath’s fiend-child,
can make a claim to the Weeping Chair.
But as I said, most Drow can do so.
Unless they’ve allowed their family trees to lapse. Few do.”
“How can so
many of them be descended from one person?” the warrior wondered.
“Because of how
their race came to be,” Amorda replied.
“Do you know what the other name for the Drow is? Here in our realm, I mean?”
Karrick
shrugged. “Assholes?”
The elf-woman
cocked an eyebrow at her guest.
The warrior belched,
put a hand to his mouth, and said “Sorry.”
He placed his cup carefully on the floor. “Strong stuff,” he said apologetically.
“Indeed. To continue,” she went on, “when we speak of
the Sobrinatrii here at home, we
occasionally call them the Terdecii. Or the ‘Ides’. Can you think why?”
“I know that
word! Heard it in a play!” Karrick
replied. He held up his hands, wiggled
his fingers, and said in an ominous voice, “ ‘Beware the Ides of Vintersdyb!’”
“Ceorlinus,”
Amorda nodded. “Odd you should mention
that one. ‘The Tragedy of Rabirian’ is a
masterpiece, and it was written precisely about the events I am attempting to
recount to you.”
Karrick nodded
enthusiastically. “I saw it in
Whitefields once, but I never got the ‘Ides’ thing,” he shrugged. His eyes lost focus for a moment. “Hang on!
Didn’t you and Breygon get married on ‘the Ides of Vintersdyb’?”
“Very good,”
Amorda smiled. “Most people think the
‘Ides’ fall on the fifteenth day of the month.”
“Only in months
with solstices,” Karrick said solemnly.
“The rest of the year, ‘the Ides’ fall on the thirteenth.”
“Right
again.” She eyed him oddly, astonished
at the breadth of his knowledge. “So, as
you can see, our wedding day was auspicious in many ways.”
“That’s the
understatement of the age,” the warrior grunted. “Anyway, you were saying? About the Drow?”
“Yes, the
Drow,” Amorda sniffed. “We call them
‘the Ides’ not just because they portend ill omens – although they certainly
do, as Dareo found out – but in obedience to tradition. The whole ‘thirteen’ thing is really an
allegory. When the soothsayer in the
play cries out ‘Beware the Ides of Vintersdyb’ to King Rabirian, he’s really
saying telling him to beware the ‘Thirteen’.”
“The thirteenth
of the month?” Karrick asked, confused.
“No, the Terdecii,” the elf-woman sighed. “The thirteenth house of the Duodeci.”
The warrior
stared. “I don’t get it,” he said at
last. “I thought ‘Duodeci’ meant
‘twelve’?”
“It does. But do you recall what defines the ‘Divine
Twelve’? Do you know why those twelve
families are, and have always been, the great houses of the realm?”
“Nope.”
“The Divine
Twelve are the bloodlines that descend in lineage direct from Tîor Magnus,” Amorda explained. “They all can claim a share, however dilute
it might be, of the divine blood of his grandparents – Hara Sophus and, on the other side, Bræa
Lightbringer, the Holy Mother herself.”
Karrick spread
his hands. “I’m still not seeing your
point.”
“The Drow – all
of them, every last one,” the elf-woman continued, “are descended from Mærglyn
and her immense stable of consorts. And
she was the daughter of Bîardath, who was born of Xîardath, who was Tîor’s
son.”
The warrior
laughed aloud. “They’re all
Duodeci! That’s it, isn’t it?”
“Terdecii,” Amorda nodded. “The Ides.
The Drow are the Thirteenth of the Divine Houses. And unlike us, where perhaps one in twenty
count our descent from the gods, every last one of the Drow is by definition
descended from divine blood. Even the
most base-born Drow is, by our laws, as noble as the Queen herself.
“And that,” she went on as Karrick picked up
his cup again, “is why Navio hatched the plan he did. He sent Dareo to Silent Waters to seek an
alliance. Not with Dyshue, the King; but
rather with the most powerful magus in the Hidden Realm: Dyshue’s eldest
daughter, Burkura Padurueshëm. The High
Priestess of Vilyacarkin, their blood-thirsty goddess of evil and oblivion.”
“An
‘alliance’?” Karrick asked, raising a sceptical eyebrow.
“That’s a
convenient euphemism,” Amorda shrugged.
“What they intended was something a little more elemental. Dareo was a shining example of High Elven
manhood, noble of brow, clear of eye, and a duellist of renown. But he was more than that. He was one of Miyaga’s elect. A Disciple of the Maiden.”
Karrick’s
nodded. “That’s why his name confused
me. I thought only women could serve
Miyaga!”
“Whatever gave
you that idea?” Amorda asked, astonished.
“Well…I mean,
we’ve only ever seen…you know...”
“Of course you’ve only ever seen female
Disciples,” the elf-woman sighed, exasperated.
“You know what their skills are, and how they operate! No male Disciple would ever approach
you. There’d be no point.”
“Why not?”
Karrick asked, utterly baffled.
“Because they
only reveal themselves to targets they hope to entice,” Amorda said. “And none of you…er…swing that way.” She frowned.
“Not that there’s anything wrong with that. That said, Thanos and Mahanirion did…of course, you know…”
“Look,
seriously, you’d better drop that,” Karrick interrupted. “The boss is touchy about it. Don’t even joke with him unless you’re
looking for a fight.”
“Very well,”
Amorda smiled. “But you see my
point. Navio sent his son to seduce the
heir to the Weeping Chair. The Archduke
hoped to bring Burkura to Starmeadow as his son’s bride, relying on her status
as a descendent of Tîor to qualify her for the crown, and using her powers as
high priestess and arch-mage – and her knowledge of dark, terrible magic – to
neutralize the college, and win the Filigree Throne for House Terriloquus.”
“Ballsy,”
Karrick grunted. “And Dareo managed to
do it? Seduce her, I mean?”
“Yes.”
“Even though…I
mean, I thought Vilyacarkin’s priestesses had to be…er, celibate?”
“They do,”
Amorda nodded. “And most of them are
pretty strong-willed and adamant about it.
But most eventually slip. And the
Disciples can be very, very hard to resist.”
“No kidding,”
the warrior muttered, thinking about Vejborg, and the Countess Ildran
Gasterbarn. And about certain ladies
he’d met in Norkhan.
Amorda fell
silent. Karrick pondered her words for a
long moment, then said, “I’m not an expert in Elven law…”
“Yet,” Amorda
interjected.
“…but all of
this sounds an awful lot like treason to me,” he finished.
“It’s only treason
if you lose,” the elf-woman snorted.
“So, did Navio
lose?”
“Oh, yes. But not for the reasons you might
suspect.” She emptied her goblet and
waggled it at him for a refill.
He
obliged. “What were the reasons?”
“Dyshue caught
the two lovers in medias res,” Amorda
shrugged. “Drow nobles strictly forbid
mingling their blood with ‘lesser races’ like us, and Dareo and Burkura were
apprehended in flagrante delicto by
another member of Vilyacarkin’s hierarchy.
Burkura’s deputy, if I recall correctly.
She had just happened to bring along a dozen witnesses; and, as a
consequence of Burkura’s degradation, she immediately succeeded to the post of
High Priestess.”
“Ah-hah,”
Karrick snorted. “Now I understand. Church politics.”
“Oh yes,”
Amorda laughed. “Their apprehension
served Dyshue’s purposes, too; his daughter had been amassing power a little
too quickly for his liking, and she had been on the brink of orchestrating a
full-blown rebellion when her ‘perversion’ with a ‘blackhair’, as they call us,
became public knowledge.”
“So much for
Navio’s ambitions,” Karrick laughed. “I
guess little Dareo went home empty handed.”
“Oh no,” Amorda
said grimly. “Our dark cousins don’t
work that way, my friend. Dareo and
Burkura were tortured to death, side-by-side on Vilyacarkin’s altar; he for
defiling a priestess of the Dashnorrej,
and she for allowing herself to be defiled.
It took days.”
“Her father allowed that?!” the warrior exclaimed.
“Allowed
it? He ordered it,” the elf-woman replied.
“The scandal gave him the opportunity to eliminate a dangerous rival, and to promote
his daughter’s deputy to the purple, giving him a new and deeply-indebted ally
in the hierarchy of the Dashnorrej. A win for him, all around.” She shivered with disgust. “All it cost him was his child.”
“Gods,” the
warrior muttered.
“Dyshue even
sent a note to Starmeadow, thanking the High Elves for aiding him in cementing
his hold on the Weeping Chair,” Amorda added.
“But in true Terdeci fashion,
he didn’t send it to Navio. He sent it
to King Rabirian instead.” She tapped
the black-bound book with a slender finger.
“And he sent this along with it.”
“A book,”
Karrick snorted.
“A spell book,” Amorda corrected,
“containing the most terrible spells known to the Drow. A spellbook that gave to the Æyllian King the
magical knowledge that Navio had hoped to gain for House Terriloquus.
“A spell-book,”
she went on softly, regarding the ancient tome with a mixture of revulsion and
awe, “bound in skin torn from the living body of his daughter Burkura, and of her
paramour Dareo, the Terriloquus heir.
And written in their mingled blood.”
“That,” Karrick
said firmly, “pardon my Elven, is just fucking horrible.”
“I quite
agree,” Amorda said, her voice faint.
“But it’s not unusual for the Hidden Realm. And it was
a masterful stroke of diplomacy.
Dyshue’s message could not have been more clear. What Navio, for all his treason, had been
trying to do was rejoin the sundered Third and Fourth Houses of Harad. Dyshue’s message, delivered in his daughter’s
blood, was that there would be no reunion.
No reconciliation, no peace; no mingling of the blood of the estranged
Houses, save only in agony, torment and death.
He was saying as clearly as anyone could want that the future held
nothing but eternal enmity between his folk, and ours. Eternal hatred; eternal war.”
“So why’d he
give your king the spells?” Karrick asked.
“I mean, if it was to be war, why would he arm his enemy?”
“Pride, mostly,
I think,” Amorda shrugged. “The Drow
deem us fools for our scruples; for believing that there are some powers too
terrible to wield. No magical might is
beyond the pale in their eyes. I think
he might have been challenging the King to…to sink to their level.”
“I’d do
anything to win,” Karrick said bluntly.
“You’d murder
children?” the elf-woman asked, her eyes wide.
“Traffic with demons? Slit your
own daughter’s belly open while she writhed and screamed, tear her entrails
out, and –”
“All right!”
the warrior snapped. “All right, I get
your point.”
“There’s more,”
she went on bleakly. “I think Dyshue
meant to show our King what he might have faced, had Navio’s scheme
succeeded. I think he was hoping to prod
Rabirian into launching a blood feud against House Terriloquus. He was trying to spark civil war in the Realm,
if he could.”
“Hmm,” Karrick
grunted. “That’s clever. Did it work?”
“No, Rabirian
was too cunning a ruler for that,” Amorda allowed. “But it’s not like he didn’t react. He did
have Navio kidnapped. And he did use one
of Dyshue’s spells on him.”
“Which one?”
Karrick asked.
“Does it
matter?” The elf-woman shuddered. “I
only opened the book once, and I’ve never looked beyond the frontispiece. But I know enough of magic to be certain
that, from the titles alone, they’re all awful.
There are very few that can be trusted with this sort of knowledge.”
The warrior
nodded. “So that’s why you wanted me to bring it to you, then? Instead of one of your own folks? So they wouldn’t know you were looking for
‘awful’ spells.”
“More or less.”
“Hmm,” he said
again. “All right, two more
questions. Then I’ll let you get back to
your fruit juice and bed-time reading.”
Amorda
smiled. “Ask.”
He pointed at
the book in her hands. “If the King of
the Drow sent that to the King of the High Elves,” he said bluntly, “then how
in all the Hells did you manage to
get your hands on it?”
She laughed
weakly. “The same way I’ve managed
everything, friend Karrick, from earning my first groat, to accepting the rose
and cup from the only love I’ll ever know: by being in the right place at the
right time.”
She laid the
book down on the bed-covers and slid it away from her. “You mentioned ‘my old boyfriend’ a few
moments ago. We call it ‘side-wife’. I was ‘side-wife’ to your friend’s uncle,
Duke Bræagond, for a ten-year.”
“Yeah,” he said
without expression.
The elf-woman
shrugged. “He’s always been a wastrel,
with no end of gambling debts. He knew I
had connections in shady places, and he asked me to help him find
a…er…specialist, to sell some possessions that, and I quote, ‘were cluttering
up his quarters at the palace’.”
“He wanted you
to find him a fence,” Karrick snorted.
“Precisely. I did as he asked…but I went through the
crates before I sent them on to the criers.”
“And kept what
you liked,” he nodded. “Smart.”
“No, that
would’ve been stupid, actually,” she corrected.
“I said Bræagond was a wastrel. I
didn’t say he was an imbecile. He
would’ve noticed had anything been missing.”
She
grinned. “I simply noted the things I
thought would look nicer in my vaults than in anyone else’s, and I purchased
them at auction through an agent.
Actually, through a long line of different agents. Just to be safe.”
She tapped the
book with a finger. “That’s how I ended
up with this. It was one of many things
that, I suspect, were ‘cluttering up’ places other than his quarters. Like the Royal Library, for example.” Her grin broadened. “I also acquired a necklace that once
belonged to the Treasury. Diamonds and
emeralds set in mithral. It’s worth more
than half a million orries, and I paid not a tenth of that for it.”
The warrior’s
eyes bulged. “I wouldn’t mind seeing
something like that.”
“It’s with
Kalestayne. I’m having it enchanted for
my own personal use.” She winked. “I’ve already had a jeweller alter its
appearance just enough that nobody at the palace would ever recognize it.”
“Now, you see, that’s smart,” the warrior chuckled,
tapping his nose with a finger for emphasis.
“So you’ve had the book for…what, forty years? And never even opened it?”
“Other than to
examine the frontispiece and the titles of the spells it contains, no,” Amorda
replied. “It’s been tucked away in my
library ever since I acquired it.
Because the best place to hide a book is with other books.
“And besides,
I…I don’t really like touching it,” she added in a tiny voice.
“Yeah, I get
that,” he said fervently. “And no one’s
ever wanted to see it?”
“Just Kalena,
Kaltas’ wizard. She was doing research
on mental domination, and wanted to examine the...the ‘mind-rape’ spell.” She shivered.
“That was just after I’d bought it, forty years ago. She’s the only one I ever let examine it.”
She
grimaced. “There’s more to my fear of
the thing than just the…the binding. You
have to understand, most magical knowledge is generally harmless to the
uninitiated. But to those who know a
little, but not enough…books like these can be terribly dangerous. Especially books that contain such
spells. Most wizards would smother such
a thing with abjurations. This could be
defended by terrible, terrible magic, and you would never know until you tried
to use it.”
“If you’re
worried, you should ask the boss about it,” the warrior suggested. “He’s good at making magical problems go
away. And I’ll bet he’d like to take a
look at some of those spells.”
“I’ll consider
it,” she said unconvincingly. “What was
your final question?”
He put his feet
back on the floor and leaned closer to her, his elbows on his knees. “I don’t usually pry into other people’s
affairs, mostly because I don’t care what other people do,” he said. “But I’ll ask you just this once: are you
planning something I need to be ready for?”
“Possibly.” She wouldn’t meet his eyes. That sent a chill down his spine.
He ground his
teeth. “Will I get any warning?”
“Hopefully.”
“I love a
definite answer.” He stood. “Get some rest, would you? You look like a ghost.”
“I very nearly was a ghost,” she said with a wan
smile. She put a hand on the book. “That’s sort of what this is all about. I think there might be a spell in here
that...that could help.”
“If you say
so. It’s your business, lady.” He bowed sketchily and strode to the
door. “Think about what I said, though,
will you?” he added. “About Breygon, and
doing something about those rings?”
“I will,” she
promised. “Karrick?”
He paused with
his hand on the latch. “Yes?”
“Ask Ony to
step in to see me when she’s done, would you?”
“Sure.” He lifted the latch.
“And, Karrick?”
Her voice was
softer, smoother this time – more intimately insistent. “Uh huh?”
“Keep this a
secret, would you? Just between we
two. All right?”
He thought
about that for a long, long moment.
There was a heartfelt pleading in her tone that was most
compelling. He looked deep into her
glorious eyes, saw all of her heart in them, and felt the touch of her gentle
spirit on his own. A tremendous surge of
pity welled up in his breast, and he felt an overwhelming need to enfold her in
his arms, and protect her from all the ills and misfortunes of the world.
Then he
blinked, grinned, and said “Nice try, hot stuff. But I don’t work for you.”
♦♦♦
“You didn’t leave me very much to work with,” Onyshyla
said, eyeing the charred contents of the crate with obvious annoyance.
“At least we didn’t throw it in the river this time,”
Joraz replied evenly.
“Small mercies.”
She poked through the masses of burnt paper with the tip of her
wand. “Hang on, what’s this?”
“What’s what?” He leaned over the crate.
“This.” She
stabbed the wand into the heap of ash.
Instead of the crunch of crisped parchment, he heard a distinctive CLACK.
“That doesn’t sound like paper,” the monk mused. He stretched out a hand.
The wizard rapped him sharply across the knuckles with
the wand.
He pulled his hand back. She glared at him.
“Ow,” he said belatedly.
“That didn’t hurt!” she snorted.
“Didn’t even feel it,” Joraz shrugged. “But I can take a hint, if it’s applied with
a big enough hammer. You don’t want me
poking about in there?”
“I don’t want anyone
poking about in there,” Ony confirmed.
“At least, not until I’ve gone over it for traps.” She brushed the wand through the charred
ash. “More traps, I mean.”
He sketched a bow. “Be my guest.”
“Thank you.”
She gave the wand a brief flick and murmured a short, sibilant
phrase. A low hum issued from the short,
gnarled stick.
Inside the crate, a sickly green aura sprang up. There was an unpleasant buzzing, like flies
clustering on rotting meat.
“Trap?” Joraz asked, curious.
“No, evil,” the wizard growled, hissing the word between
clenched teeth. “A lot of it. An awful
lot. And magic, too.” She squinted, concentrating. “Conjuration magic. And something else.” She recoiled as though she had scented
something foul. “Anecros?”
“Necromancy?” he asked.
She nodded.
“But no traps?”
He reached for the chest again.
This time he was actually shuffling through the burnt
papers before Ony reacted. She rapped
him on the skull with her wand. “Feel that one?” she snarled.
“I felt it,” he confirmed, pulling his hands
back. “Still didn’t hurt.”
“Of course it didn’t,” she replied coldly. “It’s the hardest and least valuable part of
your body.” She pointed the wand back
into the chest. “What part of ‘an awful
lot of evil’ did you fail to understand?”
“Evil doesn’t worry me all that much,” he
confessed. “And frankly, it takes an
awful lot of anything to so much as
make a dent in me anymore. Aren’t you
curious about what’s inside?”
“I’m more curious about how dinner’s going to taste
tonight,” Onyshyla replied sternly. “So
I’d like to be around to taste it, if it’s all the same with you.”
She made a few more fiddling motions with the
wand. At last she lowered it and slid it
back into her sleeve. “All right. No traps,” she said with obvious reluctance.
He grinned, but didn’t move. “Do you want to get under the table or
something?”
The elf-mage rolled her eyes. “Just go ahead.”
Joraz shuffled the charred scraps of parchment here
and there, raising a cloud of choking black ash. His fingers closed on something larger and he
pulled it out. His face fell when he saw
that it was nothing more than a partially consumed bundle of bound parchment
leaves.
He passed this back to Onyshyla. “Here you go.”
She took the scorched sheets with obvious
distaste. “Oh, thank you.”
“You’re a wizard, it’s a book,” he shrugged. “Sort of.
Enjoy.”
“You know, it’s that attitude that caused me to give
up adventuring,” she snapped.
While he searched, she flipped through the damaged
notes. After only a few pages, she
froze. “Have you seen what’s in these?”
she gasped. “There are hundreds of names!”
“How could I? I
just gave them to you.” He dusted his
hands off and looked over her shoulder.
“ ‘Licia Faraj Hastafraxinus’?
Isn’t ‘Hastafraxinus’ one of the Duodeci families?”
Ony nodded, speechless. “It says kishëtje
beside her name. I don’t recognize that
language, though.”
Joraz felt a shiver grip his spine. “It means ‘priestess’,” he said
tonelessly. “And the tongue is that of
demons. The denizens of the Abyss.”
“Hara Sophus!” She ran a finger down an intact list. “Two more,” she said, tapping their names
briefly. “Both Terriloquus.”
Joraz smiled grimly.
“Look here.” He tapped another
name, this one abbreviated: B. Pcps.
Onyshyla choked a little. “The Queen’s grandson?!”
“How can you tell?”
“That’s the abbreviation for Princeps. You know any other
princes whose names begin with ‘B’?
“Just the one,” Joraz laughed. “But I can almost guarantee that he’s not a
member of the Lustroares.”
“This one is.”
She hissed something ugly under her breath.
“It’s not exactly a surprise,” Joraz shrugged. “At least, not to us.” He tapped another name. “What does ‘Imp’ mean?”
“Imperator,”
the wizard groaned. “Holy Mother,
they’ve suborned a general?” She flipped the page over. “Where’s the rest?”
“That’s all there was,” the monk replied. “The rest is burnt, I suppose.”
“Gods! So we
know there’s a general among the Lustroares,”
Ony said, horrified, “but we don’t know who
it is!”
“That’s typical,” Joraz observed blandly, to no one in
particular.
He flipped through the crisped pages a final
time. “Not much else here.” Handing the bundle of parchment to Onyshyla,
he returned to the chest, sifting through the ash with his fingers. After little more than a moment of rummaging,
he froze.
Ony’s wand – a different one this time, long, slender,
and silver – was in her hand a heartbeat.
“What is it?”
“Something big.” He grasped the thing he had found,
and pulled.
Moments later he was blowing the dust off of a horned
skull. The skull itself was hardly
larger than a man’s, but the horns were like those of a ram, enormous and
curled. It also had an elongated, equine
snout filled with pointed fangs; deep, oval eye-sockets; and an oddly flat,
polished base.
Joraz brushed ash from the bleached bone and held it
up. “What do you think?”
“I think it’s hideous,” Ony murmured. “More to the point, what do you think?”
“I think it’s another demon,” the monk sighed. He could feel the tearing oblivion of the
Abyss radiating from the thing, leaching out of it like venom, oozing into the
air, stinging his palms, his fingertips and his nostrils. He set the skull carefully down on the table
and stared at it.
“I don’t recognize the species,” Ony mused. “It’s definitely a soldier-demon of some
kind, because it’s not just a big sack of venom and pus. Whatever it was had an endoskeleton and
horns.” She scratched her cheek
idly. “Maybe Kalena will know.”
“Why is it radiating evil?” Joraz asked. “And magic?”
“Being a demon’s skull isn’t enough?” the wizard
grimaced. “If I had to guess, I’d say
that this is probably an exaugurum.”
Joraz stared at her.
“I know those words, but...”
“A talisman of desecration.”
“A what?” the monk frowned. He’d never heard of such a thing.
“Human magi would call it a ‘darkskull’,” she said
slowly. “It’s a profane item, created by
the clergy of the Uruqua to hallow their foul rites. It shrouds everything within a certain radius
in a smothering miasma of horror.
Sometimes, they have spells implanted in them.” She shivered involuntarily. “That’s probably the necromantic aspect I
could feel. Can’t you feel it?”
He could
feel it; that was the thing. The force
of the skull’s dark power throbbed against his consciousness, pressing inwards
all around him, like foul water at great depth, probing always, seeking to seep
into his soul. But it did not penetrate
his essence; it could not touch him unless he allowed it to. He knew that it was there, but he declined to
let it enter.
“Can’t you?”
she pressed, her voice catching a little.
“I can, but it doesn’t bother me,” Joraz replied in
soothing tones. “Look, do you want me to
destroy it?”
“No!” the wizard snapped. “No, don’t.
We need it intact. We can study
it. Figure out who made it, and which
god they served. I just…I need to…”
She stepped back several paces. Fumbling at her pouch, she withdrew a stick
of charcoal and a small crystal phial stoppered with wax. Moving swiftly but carefully, she drew a
series of nested circles on the marble floor-tiles, inscribing complex symbols
within their boundaries, stopping, erasing and fixing errant lines as
necessary. At last she un-corked the
phial and, with exquisite care, poured its contents into the gap between the
two innermost circles.
“What’s that?” Joraz asked.
“Powdered silver,” she replied, speaking slowly, her
lower lip clamped nervously between her teeth.
“Not that. I
meant the drawings.”
“Rhombos est. A mage’s circle,” she said. She straightened up and tucked the empty
phial back into her pouch.
She nodded at the skull. “Put that in the exact centre, would
you? Without disturbing any of the
lines.”
Wincing at the unpleasant feel of the thing, Joraz
complied. When he stepped back, Onyshyla
made a series of complex gestures and intoned seven harsh, echoing
syllables. Instantly a near-invisible dome
of blue-white light sprang up, enclosing the whole of the circle.
The acid pressure of the skull’s presence vanished
from his perception. He could still feel
the gasping maw of the Abyss behind it, but the overpowering stench of evil was
gone.
The monk bowed deeply.
“Marvellously done, lady.”
“Thank you.”
Ony wiped a bead of sweat from her brow.
“But it’s only temporary. I’ve
bought us a few hours, nothing more. We
have that long to figure out what to do with the thing.”
“The sooner we sort this out, the better,” Joraz
agreed.
“Yes. We need
to figure out where this came from.” She
bared her teeth in an uncustomary snarl.
“And then we can smash it into…”
The monk was shaking his head. “That’s not what I meant.”
“What did you mean?” Ony asked, confused.
“Just that we need to get this thing out of here,” he
replied with a half-grin, “before breakfast tomorrow morning. Before Amorda discovers that we’ve turned her
dining room into a shrine to the dark powers.”
“Ah. Yes,
well,” she elf-woman said with a wan smile, “so long as nobody sacrifices any
virgins in the immediate vicinity, the desecration ought not to be permanent.”
Joraz winced.
“Maybe Karrick should sleep at the embassy for the next few nights.”
♦♦♦
“Melt it down,” Kalena snarled.
“Why?” Breygon asked.
He hefted the golden knife in one hand.
It was an exquisite example of craftsmanship, but the style was entirely
unfamiliar to him. The hilt, for
example, was heavy, formed of interspersed layers of gold and…something. Some sort of smooth, carved stone.
“What’s this?” he murmured. It was blue and yellow, flecked with tiny
gold inclusions.
“Lapis Lazuli,” the wizard said. “And I’m afraid I’m going to have to
insist. If you don’t destroy it, I
will.”
The ranger gave her a mild glance. “Is this the sort of aid Kaltas had in mind
when he asked you to help us?”
The red-haired woman’s lip curled, and Breygon found
himself involuntarily bracing for sudden, quick movement. He didn’t want to harm the woman, but he had
no intention of eating a fireball either.
He was fairly certain that he was quick and strong enough to slap her
before she could get a spell off; but at the same time, he did not want to be
the one to…
Kalena’s shoulders sagged suddenly. Breygon released his pent-up breath. He watched her carefully for another moment,
then said, “You seem tired.”
That elicited a wry smile. “It is difficult being house wizard to a
traitor.”
The ranger relaxed.
“Everyone who matters knows the truth,” he said quietly.
“But a great many do not.” She shook her head angrily. “My reception at the College was…not warm.”
“That can’t have surprised you.”
“No,” she admitted.
“But things do not have to surprise in order to hurt.”
Breygon pursed his lips. “If it would ease things for you,” he said,
“you’re welcome to stay at Domus Casia. Until the situation resolves itself. Or as long as you like.” He smiled narrowly. “I know that my lady counts you among her
friends, and would be delighted to have you under her roof.”
That earned him a wry smile. “And once again, I am humbled,” the wizard
murmured.
“How so?”
Kalena scrubbed her face with her palms, and Breygon
noticed again how weary she looked. “We
magi of the book,” Kalena murmured, “count ourselves among the wise. And more; we disdain those who lack the
strength of will, the dedication, and the wit necessary to acquire through long
study the secrets that are ours to master.”
“Yes, I’ve known a few wizards,” the ranger
deadpanned, thinking of Qaramyn.
Kalena snorted.
“I only cultivated a friendship with your…your lady, at Kaltas’
suggestion, as a means of inserting myself into society at Joyous Light. He knew I was unhappy at having been posted
to Eldisle from the College – I once called it an ‘exile’, to his face – and he
said that he thought that spending time with Amorda would…would show me the
‘brighter side of his beautiful island’.”
“And it did, did it not?”
“Yes,” the wizard allowed, smiling. “But that had nothing to do with his real reasons for sending me to her. He knew that Amorda had been set to spy upon
him for the Queen, and he wanted to bring her into the fold, rather than force
her to pry her way in. He wanted to give
her an entrée into his inner circle. One
that did not involve the Queen’s own grand-daughter, the princess, who had been
appointed his custodes. And for her part, Amorda was happy to play
the friend to me; she was delighted to cultivate me as a source of
information.” She rolled her eyes. “Do you see my point?”
“I think so,” Breygon chuckled. “It must be galling for a wizard to discover
that she’s not the cleverest person in the room.”
“ ‘Galling’ is not the word I’d use,” the Hîarsk woman
grumbled. “I’d’ve taught them both the
price of my ire long ago, were it not – ”
“…were it not for the fact,” Breygon interrupted,
“that Kaltas is the most honourable and trustworthy man you’d ever met, and
that Amorda – her professional obligations notwithstanding – always treated you
as a friend, and would have bled for you.
Is that it?”
“Aye,” the woman nodded.
“Nobody is just one thing,” the ranger observed. “My – our
– offer stands. If staying here would
simplify things for you, then this House is yours, for as long as you like.”
“You see?” she sighed.
“This is what I mean. You’re all
a lot of bloody scoundrels. But you’re…”
“We’re your
kind of scoundrels.”
“In a word, yes.”
She nodded as if coming to a decision.
“Well. I thank you, but I must
decline.”
Breygon blinked.
“Really?”
“Really,” Kalena nodded. “I will not give the slanderers of my lord
Duke the satisfaction of hiding from their calumny. I will not permit them to sully his good
name.” She clenched her fists until the
knuckles cracked.
“I shall just have to see,” she added ominously,
“whether I remember everything that Kalestayne taught me about duelling.”
“Let us know when you’re going to begin,” the ranger
chuckled. “I’ll want to watch.”
“Of course.”
Her brow furrowed, then cleared. “If you do come, bring Karrick. I find that his mere presence inspires me violence.”
“I know what you mean,” Breygon agreed. “He’ll probably sell tickets.”
That earned him a tight grin.
“Are you willing to...to execute my principal
request?” he said, hesitating a little.
He knew how much he was asking.
Kalena grimaced.
“I am willing,” she replied, “but at present I am unable. I have not prepared the vision spell. If you like,
though, I can return tomorrow morning, and we can attempt it.”
“Will Shaivaun’s head be sufficient for a focus?” the
ranger asked. “Or would you prefer to
cast the spell at my grandmother’s shrine?”
“The head should suffice.” The wizard looked nauseated. “I presume it is the demon’s actions you are
interested in, rather than simply the events at the cathedral. Yes?”
“Yes. And
tomorrow will be fine,” he said, relieved.
“Done, then.”
Turning back to the table, she tapped the golden
dagger once more. “This is a haruspexiat. A sacrificial knife. It is enchanted, of course; but its greatest
power is that it imparts to the wielder especial potency when shedding blood in
worship of the wielder’s god.” She
shuddered. “The wielder’s dark god. Hence my initial reaction. This thing is altogether evil; it ought to be
destroyed.”
Breygon frowned.
“It’s a shame we don’t have a volcano handy. That worked fine the last time we had a lot
of foul trash to dispose of.”
“Magma does have the virtue of permanency,” Kalena
agreed.
She tapped the second of the three items that they had
recovered from the viscid, feculent ruin of the demon Shaivaun’s corpse – the jewelled
amulet. “This is not evil, but it is a thing of tremendous arcane
power. In the common tongue, it would be
called a ‘talisman of the multiverse’.
It allows the bearer to travel the River
of Stars to the outer planes; but only to four, according to the colours of the
gems with which it is crafted.”
She touched the sapphire first. “Asgard, the mountain home of Esu, the
Allfather of Men.” Then the gleaming
golden diamond. “Cælum, the Bright
Heavens, where Lagu toils in the Halls of Wonder.”
“Been there,” the ranger murmured.
Kalena looked up.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Nothing.”
She turned back to the amulet. The third gem she did not touch. “This ruby,” she said softly, “will take you
to hell. To the Nine Hells, to be
precise; to the deepest pits of treachery and torment, where Zaman the Deceiver
holds court.
“And lastly” – she nodded at the emerald – “that fell
stone will take you to the bottomless expanse of the Abyss. But where
amid the infinite realms of horror and chaos it will take you…that, you cannot
know.”
Breygon stared at the thing as though it were a live
serpent. “That’s a dangerous toy,” he
said weakly.
“All the more dangerous,” Kalena nodded, “as there is
a chance, however small, that the choice will go awry, and take the bearer
somewhere he did not intend. And, too,
it can be used only infrequently. The
silver star at the centre of the device will return the bearer to Anuru if his
journey goes ill; but it would probably not function immediately after one of
the other gems had been used. I counsel
you to handle this thing as little as possible, and to use it only with
caution. If at all.”
“I don’t suppose you’d like to buy it?” he jested.
Kalena gave him a level glance. “If you wish to dispose of it, you will have
to find someone with more money and less wit than I.”
He pointed to the last item – the engraved torc of
silver. “What of that?”
The wizard hesitated for a long time, long enough that
eventually Breygon turned and cocked an eyebrow at her.
“It is a thing of tremendous power,” she said
hesitantly. “A creation not of the
powers of darkness, but rather of our woodland cousins, the torvae.
Which rather makes me suspect that…”
He waited. When
she did not continue, he prompted her.
“What do you suspect?”
“That I know what it is, and who wore it last,” Kalena
replied. She stroked the figured silver
with a long finger. “I would tell you
what to do with it, save for one complicating fact.”
“And that is?”
“You,” she
said. With the same finger she prodded
him in the chest. “The complicating fact
is you. You are Centang
Lewat. And if I understand legend
and tradition correctly, you, and only you, may decide upon whom to bestow the
title and the powers that once accompanied this torc.”
“I’m not following you,” Breygon said, frowning.
“I believe that this was once worn by the High
Priestess of Istravenya,” Kalena replied.
She picked up the metal plate and ran her fingers over it gently. “I believe it to be the Collar of
Dardana. She was a true daughter of the
forest. A torva, one of the clanswomen of the north. She fell in battle with the orcs of Ensher in
what the torvae call the Starving
Time; the years that followed the Shadow War and the sundering of the earth,
ten centuries ago.”
“What does she have to do with me?” the ranger asked,
puzzled.
“If you wish, you may keep this, as spoils of
victory,” Kalena said stonily. “Or, if
you so chose, you might bestow it upon the next High Priest or Priestess of the
White Fire of the Woodlands. But if you
do so,” she warned, “you should know that you will be giving such a one more
than a mere magical item.”
The ranger crossed his arms, frowning. “What exactly do you mean by that?”
“According to legend,” Kalena began (Breygon leaned
against the table with a sigh), “during the Darkness, when he walked the earth
as the paragon of kesatuan, the
Warden Arngrím was forced to confront a corrupt and decadent servant of the
Forest Gods – the High Priest of Hara
Sophus himself. It was here in
Starmeadow, in fact. The Elflord accused
the priest of simony, treachery, and traffic with the dark powers, and
challenged him to single combat, offering him the opportunity to prove his
worthiness to continue to administer Hara’s sacraments.”
“That was decent of
Arngrím,” Breygon observed stonily.
“What happened?”
“They fought at the Eternal Grove,” Kalena replied,
“where the High Priest showed his true face, striking at Arngrím with forbidden
magic – with the darkest of powers, gifted unto him by the Uruqua.
“Though he was badly wounded,” she went on, “Arngrím
was vindicated, for he had forced the enemy to reveal himself. Armed with proof of the High Priest’s
perfidy, the Warden called upon the might of the forest, and the green rose up
about them, and the powers of the High Priest were shorn away. He was brought down, until he was nothing
more than a man. Arngrím took from him
his staff of office; and at the Elflord’s command, the trees seized the
miscreant, and bore him away into the forest, whence he never returned.
“Then,” she continued, staring off into the distance,
“Arngrím looked into the hearts of the High Priest’s followers, and he chose
one of the junior acolytes, a pure and untainted soul new to the service of
Hara. To her he gave the High Priest’s
staff; and upon her, he conferred all of the powers that the green, at his
behest, had reft from the corrupted one.”
She fell silent, watching him expectantly.
“Nice story,” he said at last. “But I’m afraid the point escapes me.”
“The point,” Kalena sighed, “is that, according to
legend, the Warden is empowered by his station to appoint worthy individuals to
the highest ranks of the service of the Forest Gods. Or, if necessary, to strike erring servants
down, and strip them of their powers, expelling them forever from kesatuan, and from the eternal glory of
the green.
“Or so ‘tis said,” she added blandly.
The half-elf wasn’t quite certain what to say to that.
♦♦♦
