Master Of The Planes (Book 3) (57 page)

Odestus rubbed the feeling back into his frozen hands.  The ropes he had been bound with had bitten deep into his wrists, each spiral strand within the hemp leaving its own imprint in his skin.  Gingerly he flexed his fingers, it would be a while before he had enough freedom of movement to cast a spell.  He looked up at the dark shape in front of him; Maelgrum alone of the tower’s occupants seemed at ease with the cold.

“How doesss thisss confinement sssuit you, little wizard?”

Odestus looked around the open towertop.  It was but the work of a moment to survey his much reduced domain. He who had ruled the whole of Undersalve now had a circle of stone, twenty foot in diameter to call his own.  The battlements looked out over the many peaks of the Gramorc mountains and down into the bowels of the fortress of Sturmcairn and the tumbling waters of the young Nevers river.

“It is small and cold,” he said.

“And my ssservantsss, have they been feeding you.” 

Odestus looked towards the two orcs shuffling uncomfortable in the master’s presence, both backing towards the door to the dizzily spiralling staircase.

“They are poor marksmen,” he told Maelgrum.  “Even at the distance of a few inches they are as like to miss my mouth as to hit it.” He raised his numb hands.  “I will be grateful of the chance to feed myself again.”

“Yesss,” Maelgrum stretched out his hissing agreement.   “The medusssa hasss made sssome sssuggessstionsss ass to your comfort.  I have explained there isss a matter of risssk to be managed.”

Odestus frowned.  He had been imprisoned on the tower top for two days and nights.  He surmised that Dema must have demanded some means to check on his condition.  A small gate spell to open a spyhole on his lofty prison.  He wished he had known when she had watched him, or found some way to communicate with her.  There was too much still she had to know, too much he felt sure he must tell her.   For all Maelgrum’s fear, what greater fate could face Dema than her own death?  How much worse could knowing her future make that, and as for what it might do to him, what consequence was that?

He shivered, a residue of another cold night. Even in summer, the Gramorc mountain peaks were tipped with snow. A blazing fire in a brazier and a cloak cast over him by his orc guardians had not kept the chill from creeping into his bones.

“How long will you keep me here?”

“Until the medusssa’sss work isss done.”

“Let me see her, let me speak to her.”

“You know that isss impossible.  I have let her sssee you, but not hear your ravingsss.  No wordsss may passss between you.”

Odestus grimaced.  He knew he could expect nothing more and he bowed his head while he weighed his options.  Orcs were competent enough gaolers for a trussed and bound wizard, but far from adequate to a spell caster with the use of his hands.  Perhaps that was why Dema had argued for a more comfortable imprisonment for her pet little wizard. But then, if Dema and Odestus both knew that, Maelgrum would not be oblivious to the risk either.

He looked up, the Dark Lord gazed down at him, gumless mouth open in a parody of a smile.  “There isss a sssmall price you mussst pay for your comfort and my sssecurity,” he said.  “Pleassse sssubmit without protessst.  Orcsss are fond of battling resssitancsse in their prisssonersss, even when there isss none.”

The two orcs closed in on the numb wizard seizing him by his shoulders and dragging him towards the battlements.  For a moment, Odestus thought they meant to throw him over, but one seized his arm and prized open the fingers of his clenched fist.  The other drew a knife and dragged a jagged line across the wizard’s palm.  Rich red blood beaded in the wound, flowing more freely when the orc again closed the fist and squeezed it like a piece of fruit. Blood dripped onto the battlements, forming a trail as the orcs dragged him around the full circumference of his tower prison.

Then, the red circle complete, they let him slip to the floor.  One threw him a dirty rag for his wound.   Maelgrum’s eye pits were dim, his mind elsewhere as his blackened fingers whirled in a complex enchantment.  Odestus pressed on his cut palm, wincing at the pain the action drew.

“It isss done,” Maelgrum exclaimed. 

“What is done?” Odestus demanded.

“Thisss enchantment is usssually usssed to keep an inquisssitive wizard out.  Mossst ssspellsss cannot be sssent acrossss a barrier enchantment that has been enriched with the cassstersss own blood. In thisss cassse, however, for one who already liesss within the ssspell’sss perimeter, you will find no enchantment or gate will carry you beyond thisss tower top.”

“I could always jump,” he said sourly.

“And you would have three hundred feet in which to learn the trick of flight or sssome other meansss to evade the rocksss that claimed poor Prince Thren.  Remember, I wasss your teacher.  I know what ssspellsss you have massstered and, quick ssstudy though you were, I doubt that five sssecondsss would sssufice for you to massster a new one.”

Odestus pulled himself up to look pointedly over the parapet at the precipitous drop. He glanced back at Maelgrum, who raised his rotten shoulders in a shrug.  “Throw yourssself off if you mussst.  I have made no promissse to the medusssa to protect you from ssself dessstruction.  Your sssuicsside would be mossst convenient.”

Odestus edged away from the battements, recognising the truth in the Dark Lord’s words. “Tell her something,” he said.  “Tell her something from me.”

“I will tell her nothing,” Maelgrum snapped, cold vapour swirling about his body.  “I am walking a tightrope where I teassse the ssstream of time.  There isss nothing I will tell the medusssa of what hasss gone before.”  He spun on his heel, summoning a gate in the air as easily as any man might open a door. The blood rich spell he had cast clearly presented no obstruction to his own gate-craft. “If you wisssh for anything Odessstusss, wisssh for the Medusssa’sss successs,” he called over his shoulder.  “If ssshe failsss I will have no need to honour my bargain for your fate.”

And then he was gone, and the orcs disappeared at speed through the doorway, and Odestus was left shivering alone atop the tallest tower in the captured fortress of Sturmcairn.

The noon sun filtered through the canopy of trees to the overgrown tangle of foliage on the forest floor.  Elise picked her way carefully, probing ahead with her staff to check her footfall was free of bumps and burrows.  Hepdida clung to her arm, the girl lost in her thoughts as much as offering support to the sorceress.  Ahead and behind them the rest of their party stumbled along the hidden path in pursuit of their untroubled guide and his guard.

“Are you sure you remember it?” Rugan growled as he ducked past another branch hanging heavy with the summer leaves.

“This is where I left them,” Haselrig snapped back over his shoulder, but then the weight of his manacles dragged him off balance and he would have fallen without Sergeant Jolander’s steadying hand.

“I’m not sure which I mistrust most, traitor.  Your motives or your memory,” Rugan said.

“This is the spot,” Elise said.  “It was back by the road that we met him, when he called himself Harris.  He had just come from this direction, from within the forest.”

Rugan snorted.  “He was as like just come from taking a shit as from hiding priceless treasures in a wood.”

“Husband,” Giseanne chided from the rear, the half-elf’s coarse comment carried to her ear by the flicker of a breeze.  “Such language does not become the father of my son.  Everything that Haselrig has said or done has so far been borne out as true, we lose nothing by trusting him a little further.”

“A little further maybe, my dear,” Rugan admitted as they pressed on through the green undergrowth that surrounded the shaded trunks of the trees.  “Perhaps a dozen yards or so further I might, but then I must abandon this distraction and attend to the real danger that this wart claims he has warned us of.”

Haselrig gave a cry.  “It’s here,” he said.  “See where I buried them.” 

It was a small clearing in the midst of the forest with a loose pile of fresh earth a few feet from the trunk of a tall oak.

“That’s not a very well dug hole,” Rugan growled.

It was true, the earth was disturbed, low mounds of excavation on either side of a small central pit.  Haselrig gave a small yelp of alarm.   “I left them buried, covered, completely.”  His sudden leap forwards almost knocked Jolander off his feet.  The sergeant tried to rein in his agitated charge, but Haselrig shook him off.  “It was soft ground, I buried them as deep as I could.”

“And left an obvious mound of earth for any passing poacher or forester who might light on it,” Rugan said following at an easier pace as Haselrig fell to his knees at the hole’s edge.

The rest of the company fanned out around the distraught prisoner.  His shoulders were trembling. From where she stood Elise thought he was sobbing, but then a coarse laugh erupted around the small clearing.  It was mirth not grief that consumed the little man.

“Why did I even bother to bury them?” he asked the indifferent forest.

As his disparate escort drew close, Elise could see into the shallow pit. There, just poking through the dirt was the hilt of one ornate sword. A glint of metal glimpsed through the loose earth hinted at another object beneath it.

Haselrig’s laughter was long and loud, tears rolling down the man’s cheeks.  The sorceress felt her colour rising at such brazen merriment in the midst of these dark times and from one so stained with sin.   The prisoner looked to left and right then his gaze settled on a crushed bush by the base of an ash. 

“See,” he cried, stretching his arm towards the spot.  “There is where our thieving forester was flung. Shocked into insensibility by the Vanquisher’s wards.  Then doubtless fled once conscience and consciousness returned to him.”  He shook his head.  “I really needn’t have buried them at all.”

The sergeant’s moustache bristled as he looked down at the gleaming sword hilt.  “It certainly looks like one of the royal blades,” he said doubtfully.

Haselrig invited him to reach into the hole with a sweep of his palm.  “Go on, my good soldier. Try your luck, see if you fare any better than our unknown friend.”  

Jolander was in no hurry to make the experiment.

Kimbolt skirted round the other side of the pit.  “That is the sword that Prince Thren carried, I’ve seen its work at close hand.” 

“So,” Rugan sucked in a breath.  “Tell me you treacherous worm, how were you able to carry those blades a hundred leagues hither and thither across Morsalve and drag them at the last from Listcairn, all without being blasted into insensibility at the merest touch of the steel?”

Haselrig stretched upright, the laughter fading from his eyes as he reached beneath his cloak and pulled out a scrap of cloth wrapped around his waist.  He shook it free and it cracked a little as it hung flat and showed itself to be a worn torn robe.  He looked across at Hepdida with a sad shake of his head.  “This was your father’s,” he said.  “I took it from his body before I buried him.”

“What are those marks,” the princess’s face was creased in a puzzled frown as she sketched out the shape of a dark stain around one rip in the fabric.  Then she flung a hand to her mouth and shook her head to try and stop both the question and any attempt to answer it.  There were other slashes and stains, and some blackened marks where fire had scorched the fabric.

Hepdida clung more tightly to Elise’s arm.  The sorceress scowled at Haselrig.  “What kind of ghoul are you to take a priest’s death shroud.”

She got only a sad shrug in reply, as Haselrig wrapped the cloth around his hand.  Then, wearing Udecht’s death robe as a makeshift mitten he reached for the protruding hilt of the sword.  He stood up with the weapon, struggling a little with the weight.  The dirt slid from its gleaming blade and the steel caught the sunlight with a flash as he lifted it up.  He looped up a hanging strip of the stained robe in his other hand to support the blade as he offered the sword hilt first to Hepdida.  “You are the only one here who can touch these weapons,” he said.

She took it from him and the point swung heavily earthwards, her arm unequal to the challenge of its weight.  Kimbolt lunged to help her, but aborted the gesture even before Haselrig raised a hand to stop him.  “Careful, Captain,” the prisoner said.  “There really is no-one else here can wield these weapons.”

Hepdida struggled with the sword.  “I don’t know about wield, I can barely carry the bloody thing.  There’s only the queen could make any use of these.”

“Then you must carry them to her, your Highness,” Jolander said.  “If the abomination is abroad in Morsalve, then the queen will need every scrap of advantage she can secure.”

“We don’t know for sure where the queen is,” Elise reminded him.  “It is a perilous ride for a young princess.”

Hepdida looked at her squarely.  “Besides, my lady, we all know my journey carries me in quite another direction.”

Suddenly the ground and the forest held something for everyone’s attention as they all looked anywhere but at the princess.  Elise looked across at the seneschal and saw the tension claw at Kimbolt’s features. He glanced at Rugan and the half-elf gave a short sharp shake of his head.  Kimbolt turned quickly from the prince and gabbled words in haste.  “I may have been mistaken,” he said.  “I must have been mistaken.  It has been a long time, a lot has happened.  My memory.”  He dipped his head and mumbled at the ground.  “It must be at fault.”

Rugan circled closer, drawing his cloak about him, eyes on the silent seneschal.

“You think so?”  Giseanne asked, eyebrows arched in hopeful anticipation.

“If he had misremembered any of it, then he might have misremembered all of it,” Rugan said as he laid a hand upon his wife’s shoulder.  “We must trust all of the seneschal’s recollections or none of them.  More to the point,” he added heavily.  “We ourselves cannot unremember what he has already told us, can we.”

Giseanne frowned.  “Perhaps we are misunderstanding the meaning of it.  Tell us again, Kimbolt, what you saw and heard the night the medusa stoned you.”

Elise saw Kimbolt’s nervous gulp.  “I saw the gate where and as Haselrig has described it,” he admitted.  “Though no clear image could be seen through the swirls of blue.”

“And you heard?” Giesanne prompted gently.

“I heard Hepdida’s voice, I heard her call my name bubbling through the gate.”  He glanced again at Rugan, his lips pursed.  The prince gave a curt nod and Kimbolt looked at the ground to finish his tale.  “And then the gate vanished and the medusa was there, in full battle rage with unmasked eyes and a bloodied sword and she looked at me.”

“And that was all?” Giseanne said.  “All you heard and saw.”

Kimbolt glanced helplessly round the circle.  “That’s all I remember.  All I can remember.”

They were silent for a few seconds.  “And what this proves,” Rugan said.  “Is that this gate will be destroyed, that the medusa will be summoned back into the past.  We know that will happen, because it has already happened.”

“Which is good?” Giseanne said.

Her husband shrugged.  “The fact that it has already happened does not save us from the obligation to take whatever course of action is needed to make it happen.  Indeed, it compels us to pursue that action more vigorously than ever.”

Rugan looked sadly at Hepdida before he went on.  “And that means, since the princess has not yet seen or looked through this gate, still less called out the seneschal’s name so that it echoes in the past, then that is yet to happen and must in fact happen before the gate is or can be destroyed.”

“And so I must ride to Listcairn,” Hepdida’s voice trembled.

“Come on,” Thom told her with forced levity.  “You’ve broken into Morwencairn before.  Listcairn is much smaller and far less of a challenge.”

“Though it is held by my bitch sister with all her art,” Rugan said.

“And I had Tordil and the queen at my side the first time,” Hepdida added.

“You’ll not go alone this time either,” Thom stiffened with uncharacteristic annoyance.

“We all know what plans have been laid,” Rugan reminded them.  “This traitor has fulfilled one promise at least by leading us to the swords and showing how they may be handled.  Now they must be carried to the queen.  The seneschal is still equal to that task I assume.”

“Of course.” Kimbolt flushed red. He glared at the prince for a moment and then quickly turned back to Hepdida, “It was but an instant between my hearing your cry and the gate vanishing.  I am sure it is a task easily accomplished.”

Haselrig fidgeted unhappily.  “The blue gate of our present is anchored to a single stretched moment in the past,” he said.  “Though it has existed now for many weeks at our end of the stream of time, it existed there for a few hours at most, maybe only minutes.”

“And?” Kimbolt growled.

“When I looked through it, you were still abed and all time moved slowly, the torch’s flicker was a slow imperceptible beat.”

“Your point, Haselrig, spit it out.”

“Only that a short instant in your perception on the past side of the gate may not prove to be so brief a moment on this the present side.” He looked down and mumbled, “I do not mean to alarm anyone, merely forewarn you.”

Rugan broke the tense silence with brisk assurance. “The twisted perversion of these gates is hard to decipher or predict.  Time loops and swirls like the blooms of blue within the gate’s surface,” he said dismissively.  “We can know nothing of how this thing happens, only that it will happen and that we may guess we all have a part to play in it and in supporting the princess.  Maelgrum may have made the gentle stream of time into a raging torrent between the walls of a high gorge.   We are all of us obliged to shoot those rapids and hope we find a calm pool at the other side.”

They nodded in sober acceptance of the half-elf’s analysis.  “So,” Kimbolt said.  “Jolander and I ride for the queen.”  Haselrig stretched out to offer him the boodstained cloak, imbued with the last traces of Prince Udecht.  The seneschal took the old stained cloth with a brief nod of gratitude.

“And I am really to return to Lavisevre?” Giseanne shot a glare of challenge at her husband.

The half-elf nodded sadly.  “My realm needs governance and my son needs a mother.  The rest of us ride to the Gap of Tandar to plan out the assault on Listcairn.”

Giseanne reached out for the half-elf’s hand.  He took her arms and pulled her close.  “Take care.” She said.

Elise saw a stern look pass between husband and wife, before Rugan laughed.  “I always take care, my dear.   Have you not heard? I am famous for my caution. Infamous even!”

Hepdida stepped away from Elise’s side calling softly, “Kimbolt.”

The seneschal turned at her voice, his eyes hooded with concern.  The girl reached into her purse to pull out a folded piece of paper.  “Will you take this for me?”

He took it, weighing it in his hand with a speculative air.  “For your cousin?”

Hepdida shook her head quickly.  “No, give it to the boy.”  Her voice grew stern at Kimbolt’s raised eyebrow.  “He and I parted on bad terms, I would not want…” she glanced around catching Elise’s eye with a beseeching look.  The sorceress shrugged uncertain how she was supposed to help. The princess turned back to the seneschal.   “I just wanted him to know that I stopped being angry with him, that’s all.   Life is too short to waste it in anger.” 

Kimbolt slipped the folded paper inside his jerkin.  “You can tell him that yourself,” he said.  “When this is all over.”