Master Of The Planes (Book 3) (44 page)

Niarmit chased the last drop of soup around the bottom of her bowl taking care not to catch it.  The rush of lunchtime clients was dying down, the crowded tables thinning so that she drew less hostility from the innkeeper for her extended occupation of one of his more popular discrete booths.  She shook her head.  He hadn’t come.  The bastard Greebo must have swallowed her money and her message.   She was minded to set out to the town square to make that point with her fists through the little hatch in the double doors if need be.

She half-rose from her seat but then froze at the sound of a familiar but unplaceable voice.  A woman’s voice, distinctive but, without the visual clue of a face, she could not match the sound to a name.  The woman had a companion, younger with a tinkling laugh.  Niarmit wracked her brains to place the first voice and then, by a circuitous route, realised in a rush who was sliding into the booth behind her, even without the female friend gushing, “Oh Lady Maia, you are too much.”

Maia!  Who else would it be, what other woman in the whole of Oostsalve had Niarmit heard speak at any length.  She settled back down in her seat, scraping the spoon around the bowl.  Maia might just see through the disguise, it would not do to risk walking out past them.  She would have to wait.  

“So,” the other girl chattered gaily.  “Enough tales of Lord Tybert, tell me more about the brave seneschal.”

Niarmit’s ears pricked up and she found herself gripping the spoon a little tighter.

“Come now, Lady Jade,” Maia said in her most silken husky voice. “You cannot expect me to gossip away a man’s secrets.”

“But, Lady Maia, that is exactly what I expect.”  There was a swish of silk as Lady Jade bent forward to beg another question.  “Is it true what they say of him?”

“That depends what they say.”

“That he has been bed slave to a medusa and a queen.”

“Let us just say there are number of things the good seneschal would rather forget.”

“And you are certainly one to help a man forget, Lady Maia, or at least to give him something better to remember.”

“I like to think I have been helping the seneschal in the healing process.”  Maia’s voice was a contented purr.  “Though it would be indiscreet of me to say too much.  There are some secrets that should stay within the bedchamber.”

“Ohh!” Jade’s intake of breath was pure pleasurable shock.  “Then you have! You did?”

“Hush,” Maia hissed.  “As I have said, discretion in all things.”

Jade tittered.  “When was it then? When did you break down his ramparts and conquer our bold soldier?”

Maia’s laugh was deeper and richer.  “Well I have to say his ramparts were definitely up.”

“You are so shocking, Lady Maia.”  There was admiration in the younger woman’s voice.  “It was at Duke Unslow’s reception wasn’t it?  That’s when. I was sure, I should have guessed.”

“That was the first time, yes.”   Maia left a pause before adding with evident pride.  “And the second as well.”

“I am sure you lost nothing by comparison with a queen or a medusa.”

“I like to think that, besides a little easing of his spirit, I may have shown him that there are other women in the world worthy of his attention.  A man like that should not pine. He has no reason to.”

“Is it true,” Jade’s voice dropped to a hoarse whisper in anticipation of being scandalised.  “Is it true that the medusa could turn a man to stone with her gaze.”

Maia gave an ugly laugh.  “I believe so and experience would suggest there is one part of good Seneschal Kimbolt that the abomination spent a long time staring at.”

Niarmit stumbled to her feet.  Despite the afternoon hour and the blessing she had drawn from the Goddess she found a wave of morning nausea washing over her.  She gulped back vomit as she fled the inn, tossing a silver piece at the barman and staggering against a couple of tables on her way out.  She dared not look back at the two women who had inadvertently tormented her.  There was silence behind her, the precipitous but clumsy departure having drawn the ladies’ attention away from their vile discourse.  

She couldn’t remember much of the running walk through focal park.  She had blundered into a baker’s boy sending loaves of bread flying and earning a tirade of abuse which she returned in decidedly unregal language.  It was not the lad sprawled on the path that she really wanted to feel the sharp edge of her tongue; the accusations of imbecility and incaution were for herself. 

She had been so stupid.  Stupid to let him go.  Stupid to trust him.  Stupid to think she was or could ever be anything other than alone.  Davyd tried to betray her to orcs, Albrecht had emotionally belittled and physically abused her, Kimbolt had abandoned all memory of her in a harlot’s bosom.  The Goddess clearly meant to give her a message, and this was the third time it had been delivered.  The deity must think her servant deaf, to need such unsubtle guidance.

She wrenched open the gate to the maze and slipped inside.  The cloudiness of her vision misled her and she found herself brought up by a dead end.  She had strayed into one of the dog-legged side turnings from the main path.  She stood a moment, breathing heavily trying to clear her head of the cacophony of self-reproach and anger. 

There was a seat, a simple bench, against the closed wall of the hedge lined passage.  She set herself down on it, trying not to think of the many courting couples who must have used it before her.  This was a choice location for the young men and women of Oostport to snatch a discrete moment together concealed within the green walls of the maze.

Her vision cleared as she asserted her will over the clamour of weak piping emotion washing through her.  She had faced the dragon, she had faced Maelgrum himself and she had done it alone.  When it came down to it, she had always been alone.  This would be no different.  Alone.  That was how it was meant to be.

Her eye caught a dark stain on the hedgerow opposite, a blemish of a deeper duller green against the summer vibrancy of the maze’s ancient shrub.  The leaves were broad and cardioid in shape with a white trim around their edge.  They spread across the thin bladed ferns behind, stealing their light.  She knew their shape, their colour.  She reached out and plucked a leaf as large as her palm.  The plant did not grow everywhere, she had only seen it twice in her life. 

The first time had been when she was ten or so.  One governess had taken her on a woodland walk, making an adventure of hunting down this strange plant with its variegated leaves.  Niarmit had been so proud when she had found them and the governess had promised her a special treat as a reward, whatever she wanted she could have it.  Niarmit had stayed awake long into the night trying to think what she could ask for and dimly aware of the strange sickly sweet smell coming from her governess’s room.  Sleep had claimed her eventually, but then she had awoken to raised voices, her father stern, the governess pleading.  She had known better than to get out of bed to see what the adults were arguing about.  She would find out in the morning.  But in the morning the governess was gone.  Her father tight lipped would only say that he had been disappointed that she had shown herself not fit to be governess to a princess. Niarmit had asked how, but he had only promised to tell her when she was older.

Niarmit crushed the leaf in her hand.  Again that sickly sweet smell. She shook her head slowly, amazed at how the Goddess guided her.

The second time she saw the plant had been six years later.  The deaconess in charge of her training in midwifery had shown it to her.  It was an area Niarmit had chosen not to specialise in, beyond a grasp of the basics, but this was one of the basics.  “Beware this weed,” The deaconess had said.  “It is called mother’s bane and with good cause.  Mind now, there is many a foolish lass who has sought it out of her own volition thinking it a solution to her woe.”

“What does it do?” she had asked and the deaconess had told her.  And suddenly she had understood the young governess’s desperate search for the plant, a means to relieve her of an inconvenience.  With equal clarity she had grasped her father’s disappointment in the woman’s fall from the high moral standards he expected from his staff.  Although General Matteus had not found the occasion to explain the woman’s peremptory dismissal, after that lesson from the deaconess, Niarmit no longer sought or expected it from him.

And here it was, the weed itself, thrust into her line of sight.  She pulled another leaf free from its stem, taking care not to break the cuticle and unleash the distinctive aroma.  Was it irony or design that had this plant growing in exactly that place where young couples might, in a relaxation of inhibitions, find they had created a need for its powers?

She gathered more leaves, laying them out flat until she had a stack of ten.  She added a couple more for good measure and then put them carefully in the pocket where she had stored the note for Kimbolt.  Then with a grim smile of resolve, she rose from the bench and made her way to the centre of the maze where the shimmering gate awaited her.

The room at Lavisevre was warmer than when she had left.  The sun rose high above Rugan’s palace even as, in Oostport, it had already begun its slow descent towards the western horizon.  She plucked her crescent symbol from the handle of the cupboard and watched the window on the Oosport maze shrink out of existence.  Then she changed quickly from her simple clothes into attire more fitting for a queen. 

Her heart was beating a little faster.  The course of action she had resolved upon had its perils, not least of which was ensuring that, unlike the long ago governess, she could pursue it undiscovered.  She hung the crescent over her neck, stroking the cool metal of its edge, feeling for the reassuring nick in its smooth surface.  She nodded a conclusion to a brief internal argument.  If it were done, it were best done quickly.

Haselrig stood shivering at the doorway to the castellan’s chamber.  Fear might have played some part in the shaking which consumed him, but there was also the pure physical chill which leached through the walls and the door into the spaces around Dema’s place of internment.

“You’re not going to do anything stupid are you, Governor?”  He had to ask the question, though he was unsure what he could have done if Odestus had answered yes.

“Just get me in there.”  The little wizard must have seen the uncertainty written across Haselrig’s face for he managed a ghastly smile of reassurance.  “I simply want to satisfy myself on a particular point.  I will change nothing, disturb no-one.”

“And you will answer my question?”

“I will tell you all you need to know, Haselrig.”

The ex-antiquary took a deep breath.  Who to trust?  No one in Maelgrum’s service was ever entirely trustworthy, but the little wizard was probably one who came closest to that quality.  He turned and traced a sigil on the door with his finger.  The wood glowed blue where he touched and then faded and the door swung open at the lightest touch of his fingers.

Odestus tutted a note of admiration.  “Clever, very clever.”

“I just had to remember the sign,” Haselrig blushed at the praise.

“I wasn’t talking about you and your finger painting,” Odestus punctured Haselrig’s pride.  “I meant the magical lock itself.  Something so simple, and yet it still locked me out both physically and by spell.”

“You tried to break in already? Tried and failed?”

Odestus shrugged.  “What else could have driven me to come and bargain with you, Haselrig?”

“And now the first part of the bargain is done and you have something of mine to return?”

Odestus grinned and pulled the precious cloth from within his robes. He tossed it towards Haselrig and gave a dry laugh at the ex-antiquary’s lunge to catch it.  “Now, let’s be inside.”

The little wizard led the way.  Haselrig folded his prize and pushed the door to behind them, keeping a watchful eye on his companion’s movements.  Odestus had walked straight to the bier on which the still form lay beneath a white shroud.  He stood waiting, watching. His fingers twitched towards the simple sheet covering the body and then withdrew.

“See, nothing has changed.”  Haselrig crossed to stand by the little wizard. 

Odestus suddenly grasped the shroud and pulled it back.  A soft “oh!” escaped his lips as he exposed the head and shoulders of the body beneath.

“What did you expect?”  Halserig looked down on the fallen medusa in human form.  Blond hair framing a pale face.  Eyes closed as if in sleep. 

“I knew he was mistaken,” Odestus murmured.  “I knew it was not you.”

Haselrig was about to voice his confusion when he realised that the little wizard was talking to the corpse, not to him.

Odestus traced a finger along the line of the scar along Dema’s cheek, shaking his head slowly.  Then suddenly he bent and kissed her, pressing his lips softly against the medusa’s cold mouth.

“She won’t wake up,” Haselrig told him.

“I promise you, I will find her.”

“Find who?”  Haselrig was a little put out to find he could still be the excluded third party in a conversation, even when one of the trio was dead.

Odestus made no answer, instead walking through to the stone landing beyond Dema’s chamber.  There he closed his eyes and twisted his fingers in a delicate conjuration, pulling his hands steadily apart.  Between his splayed hands a skein of shimmering light grew and cleared and became an oval window in space.

“Hey, where are you going?” Haselrig failed to keep the panic from his voice at the prospect of the little wizard’s flight.  “What about the answer to my question?” The vision through the gate was of a river bank, a sandy cove where the few trees cast long evening shadows.  The sun had already set on Listcairn so Haselrig was sure this was not the river Saeth or any other nearby location.

Odestus reached up and lifted a lanyard from around his neck.  As he raised it over his head the black medallion was pulled free from within his robes.  The little wizard handed it to Haselrig, pressing it into the other man’s hand and closing his fingers over it.

“What is this, Odestus?  What are you doing?  Have you gone mad?”

“On the contrary Haselrig, I think I have gone sane.”

“Where are you going? Who are you seeking?”

“You asked me a question a while back and I promised you an answer.”

“You said you would tell me all that I needed to know.”

Odestus nodded.  “Indeed, and there are only three things you need to know.  The first is that all we can leave the world are people’s memories of us and hope that there is enough warmth in them that someone sheds a tear at our passing.  The second is that friends, true friends, would do anything for each other and each other’s kin.”

“This is balderdash, Odestus.  Tell me something I need to know.”

The little wizard looked him in the eye.  “This is what you need to know, Haselrig.  And I think you know it already, you just will not let yourself see it. Goodbye.  I doubt we will meet again, but there is still time for us both to bring a little light into the world before we leave it”

Odestus turned to go, pressing his hand against the yielding surface of the gate to the distant river bank.

“Wait.”  He turned at Haselrig’s command.  “Wait.  Three things, you said there were three.  What is the third?”

Odestus gave a broad smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes. He pointed at the black medallion in Haselrig’s hand.  “The third is that he can only sense where you are, while you wear his token.  Take it off and you can become invisible to him. Good luck.”

Haselrig raised a hand to call him back, but the wizard stepped through onto the distant sandy shore with a crunching footfall.  As soon as he was wholly through, the gate shrank to a point and disappeared.

The ex-antiquary shook his head, baffled and alarmed.  He was alone by the castellan’s chamber, with only Dema’s cold corpse and his own fears for company. He had no friends, had never had had any friends.  Not one. 

A memory swam into his mind, a plain stone cairn on a low ridge facing Morwencairn.  A rock on which he had carved the simplest of inscriptions, the letter U.  A man who had given him a message to convey, because there was no-one else to tell it to.   Suddenly weak knee-ed Haselrig staggered to the chair behind the desk and sat down.  What was he to do?  Odestus storming off on some mad excursion, abandoning all pretence at serving Maelgrum.  Himself a party in some way to that betrayal?

He shook his head.  Seventeen years of pursuing a dream of greed and power, willing to pay the most terrible of prices.  Seventeen years and now he found that, despite the price he had paid many times over, the rewards remained just as distant but now less lustrous than they had once appeared.  There might be nothing for him anywhere else, but there was less than nothing here.  Odestus had struck out, Udecht too.  Was it his turn next?

He stood, shaking with his decision.  He held out a trembling hand and caught, out of the corner of his eye, a distracting electric crackle from beneath the door to Dema’s bedchamber.