Wrath Of The Medusa (Book 2) (20 page)

“So this is where you scurry like mice desperate to find some crumbs with which to curry the Master’s favour.” Rondol’s rumbling voice echoed like thunder around the crowded shelves and arched recesses.

U
decht looked up from the desk at the towering sorcerer coming through the gate, red beard bristling with ill intent.  Rondol spared the Bishop not even a glance as Haselrig came round a corner bearing an armful of papers.

“What brings you here, Rondol?” The antiquary quizzed.  “Bored with rulership already
?”

“Fear is a most efficient mode of government, Haselrig,” The sorcerer spat out the antiquary’s
name as though offended by the sound of it.  “With enough fear, the creatures that you serve anticipate the Master’s needs and fulfil them without ever being told, for fear they will suffer for failing him. They pass on that fear in a hierarchy of terror which leaves the one at the top with little to do save reap the credit.”

“It is a vile system which cannot endure,” Udecht said.

In an instant the sorcerer’s hand was about the Bishop’s throat and he found himself lifted aloft in a choking grasp while his toes stretched for the floor. “Did you speak to me, slave?  Did you dare to raise your eyes to me?”

“Rondol, the B
ishop is my slave,” Haselrig called.  Udecht could make no more than strangled gasps through his clamped larynx.

“And you are the Master’s slave and I am the M
aster’s deputy and so by right you both serve me.”  Rondol dropped Udecht into a crumpled heap on the floor. “I have a whip will remind you both of that in an instant.”

“The M
aster would not be pleased if he returned to hear that you had impeded our study,” the antiquary stammered.

Rondol snorted.  “I could smear the pair of you into
dirt on the ground, manage the Master’s affairs here and solve this trifling riddle which puzzles you so, all before the Master returned.   He would thank me for it, Haselrig.”

“Perhaps then,” Haselrig ventured.  “You might be so gracious as to spare me your opinion on that tome on the shelf by the gate.”

Udecht looked up.  It was the book which the antiquary had tugged him so vehemently from on their first day of this dungeon research.  The sorcerer plucked the book from the shelf.  There was a spark of static that fizzled out as he touched it and Rondol rubbed finger and thumb over each other in mild irritation.  Udecht looked across and saw a scowl of disappointment on Haselrig’s face for a fraction of a second, before the antiquary slipped back behind a mask of indifference.

“It is wise always to have one’s guard against enchantments up,” Rondol was saying as he leafed through the pages.  “But then I was forgetting Haselrig, how
you have no magic in you.  Why the Master indulges you I cannot imagine.”  He tossed the book on the desk.  “There is nothing of interest there.”

“Be not so quick to dismiss a source of knowledge, Rondol.
  There are many mysteries the Master has shared with me and I with him. I am privy to secrets you have not dreamed of.”

Th
e sorcerer leant close breathing in the antiquary’s face.  “There is nothing of consequence that has passed between the Master and you, little librarian which I do not know of.”

“So he has told you of the blue gate then
?”

“What?”

“A gate in the planes, blue in colour.  Surely the Master would have confided in you about it too since you are held so high in his esteem.”

“You lie, little librarian.”

“I do not, but if you do not believe me…” Haselrig shrugged and picked up a scroll which Udecht knew he had already examined in great depth.

“What is this blue gate?”

“If the Master has not told you Rondol, it is hardly my place to break his confidence.  You could always ask him to enlighten you when he returns.”

“I will not be duped by your trickery, Haselrig
.  There is no such thing as a blue gate.”

“Of course not
.  Either I lie and you fear to find the proof, or I tell the truth and you fear to admit your ignorance.  Whichever way you are most certainly not duped, Rondol. Not duped at all.”  Haselrig turned the scroll over idly and spoke to it rather than the glowering sorcerer.  “Fear is as you say such an efficient mode of government.”

 
Rondol bent close to Haselrig’s ear.  “I look forward to your failure and the Master’s return, librarian.  Your time is done, I am the future.”

Haselrig whistled softly to himself, an old nursery rhyme and after a few seconds of being ignored, the sorcerer straightened up, spat on the floor and strode from the archive.

The antiquary stayed fixed in his scrutiny of the familiar scroll until they heard the crash of the outer door being slammed shut. “Has he gone?” he asked.

Udecht saw that Haselrig’s hands wer
e trembling so much that the parchment tumbled from his fingers.  “Why do you vex him so?” the Bishop asked, massaging his own bruised throat.   

“In Maelgrum’s service, your reverence, one must not show weakness even when you are weak.”
Haselrig sat down heavily and drew a handkerchief from his sleeve to mop his brow.  “I remember when Rondol first passed beyond the barrier into exile.  We found him whimpering at Eadran’s folly, his skills stolen by mind numbing juice.  The big bastard was in pieces.  He thought we’d come to kill him.  He cried when I told him he would live, that we had food and shelter for him.  Yet fifteen years later here he is, the Master’s heir apparent.”

“It must be hard to find yourself supplanted,” Udecht muttered with more sincerity than he had expected.  When the sympathy met only silence he asked, “tell me Haselrig,
have you no regrets?”

“To regret is to look backwards on what cannot be changed, your reverence.  One should always look forward.  Tell me, do you regret the
indiscretion that gave you a daughter?”

“I regret that Maelgrum knows of her.” Fear made him frank.

“The Master knows everything, your reverence. His eyes and ears are everywhere.  Still if Archbishop Forven had known of the extent of your straying perhaps it would have been you not I assigned to the dead end of court antiquary.”

“Your misdemeanours predated mine, Haselrig.”

“And you were a prince, so all would have been forgiven and hidden.”

“But I would never have turned to betrayal as you did.”

Haselrig turned a baleful eye on him.  “We have work to do, your reverence.  Come there is a chest of documents we have not touched yet.  Let us hope we can spot the worst of Chirard’s traps somewhat more reliably this time.”

The antiquary shuffled down into one deeper arched recess.  Udecht waited as the
silver chain joining them paid out until the faintest tug at his wrist showed it had reached its full length.  He rose at that and followed after Haselrig around a corner of dusty shelving. 

“This is the earliest work we have of Chirard’s,” the antiquary was saying as he bent over a deep chest lifting out armfuls of papers.  Udecht
drew up behind him scanning the overflowing documents.  “It dates from when he was nothing more than the third son of a man who never expected to be King.  I cannot say I have much hope of enlightenment here but when you have looked everywhere that is probable, and everywhere that is improbable you start looking in the impossible places.”

“What was this
blue gate, you mentioned to Rondol?” Udecht asked as a slim tome slid through the papers.

“In truth, your reverence, I know nothing more than what I told the bearded bastard
.  There is or was a blue gate. That is the beginning and end of my knowledge. That and the fact that it caused my Master some disquiet.”

“Would it have looked like this?” Udecht asked, fishing the volume from within the waterfall of paper.

“Like what?” Haselrig turned to inspect what Udecht had found.  It was a small book about four inches wide by six inches tall and not much more than an inch thick with cracked parchment leaves.  It was the cover, though, that had caught the Bishop’s eye.  A vertical oval coloured in with swirls of different shades of blue, beneath a single word title “fate.”

“Yes,” the antiquary said slowly.  “Yes, it would look something like that I expect.”  He reached tentatively for it.  “That is most interesting.”

Udecht stood up, holding the book back out of Haselrig’s reach, his idle curiosity unsettled by the antiquary’s greedy interest.

“Come now you reverence.  This is no time for foolishness.”

“I’ll lend your cause no aid.”

“Don’
t be an idiot, who knows what advantage this knowledge we seek may provide the Master.  Like as not, understanding the Helm will tell him nothing new nor yield any new prize, but it may save our lives and your daughter’s.”

Udecht hesitated, his arm half dropping.

“Now, your reverence this book may be no more than a trifle, but its cover piques my curiosity and suggests it may contain more edifying reading matter than the chronicles of Chirard’s bowels.  So if you please, your reverence, let me have it.”

Udecht handed it over with a sigh.

“It is strange to think
of such order in those shrubs and flower beds, when chaos swirls around us,” Thom said to Hepdida.

The suite of rooms which Rugan
had given over to Niarmit and her party were large, luxurious and close to his own private chambers. Quintala had said that this was more an indication of mistrust than of favour, but Hepdida had simply enjoyed the unparalleled comfort. The bedchambers were set around a central private sitting room with its own balcony overlooking the ornamental royal gardens and it was from this vantage point that the Princess and the illusionist had been surveying the precision of Prince Rugan’s horticulture.

They turned as the door to the sitting room crashed open and Niarmit stormed in closely followed by the Seneschal.  Kaylan shot out of his quarters, alert and alarmed a question on his lips which Niarmit waved away
before he could voice it.  The Queen paced the length of the room back and forth, shaking her head but saying nothing. Hepdida looked across at Quintala, but the half-elf leaning against the door, arms folded gave nothing more illuminating than a swift shake of her head.

On the third circuit of the room, Niarmit finally spoke. “
Bloody witch!”

“Who, my Lady?”

“Who do you think Kaylan?” the Seneschal intercepted the thief’s question before Niarmit could answer.

“
By the Goddess, this is too hard,” the Queen exclaimed sitting down and thumping her fist against the table.

“Come, your Majesty,” Quintala chided.  “The witch only hit you once.”

“She hit you?” Kaylan’s eyes narrowed as he spoke and his hand jerked towards his empty belt.

“She has a sharp hand for a two thousand year old woman,” Niarmit admitted, r
ubbing her left cheek where Hepdida could see a palm shaped reddening.

“She knows no respect,” Quintala admitted.

“More than that, Seneschal, she hurts our cause.  The people of Nordsalve cower behind the Derrach, under their boy Prince and his cautious regent mother.  We have no way to unite our forces or even communicate with them for the only way to reach them is a perilous path through occupied Morsalve.”

“I
s there not a more direct route?” Hepdida racked her limited recollections of the Petred Isle’s geography.

“As the crow flies, there is a straight path through t
he Silverwood to Nordsalve, my Princess.”  Quintala supplied the answer which Hepdida’s haphazard schooling had failed to instil.

“But the Lady Kychelle will admit no passage through her husband’s realm in obstinate
observance of an age old decree that has no relevance in our present crisis,” Niarmit fumed.

“Can’t Quintala fly over the Silverwood, like a crow then, and take your messages?” Hepdida suggested.
  The half-elf gave her a look of sad pity, which annoyed the Princess.

“Magic doesn’t work like that,”
Thom said.

“Well it should,” Hepdida snapped.

“My Princess, did you ever as a child stand upon a rope and try to lift yourself in the air by pulling on its two ends?”  Quintala asked.

“No, of course not. That wouldn’t work.”

“It is the same with magic, I cannot lift myself aloft by magic, nor throw another in the air for any greater distance than the few hundred feet my humble powers reach.  That is why the trick of flight has eluded every wizard in history.”

“It is not simply a matter of the barrier to communication that the old witch’s obduracy creates, it is her refusal to lend us the benefit of her spears or archers
which further harms our cause,” Niarmit broke in on Quintala’s lesson in the conservation of thaumatic momentum. 

“At le
ast Giseanne is accepted as Regent,” the Seneschal replied.  “We may have a more sensible head than Rugan or his Grandmother bringing some coherent leadership.”

Niarmit gave a heavy sigh.  “None of that matters while Kychelle remains such an obdurate block to any path of reason.  We can make no headway while she stands against us.
Oh if only she could be set aside!”