An Empire Unacquainted With Defeat (24 page)

"Hmm. How so?"

"Well, tell me where to find the Keeper of Shadows, the Castle of Tears, and the Forest of Night."

"You shouldn't want to know. All are euphemisms for darker things. The first you'll find in the second, and the second surrounded by the third, and all neither here nor there."

"Ah-huh. That tells me a lot. How do I get there?"

"'Walk the left hand by the right,

To the Forest of the Night,

Not of this world, nor of any,

But in Darkness, 'twixt the many . . . .'"

"You're not helping."

"An old canta from my apprenticeship. For a small fee of a promise of service in the future, I could send you, though my advice, as a friend, would be to stay away."

"What kind of service?"

"I'd let you know when I needed it."

"When?"

"I'd call when I called."

"Bah! Your first apprenticeship course must have been plain and fancy obfuscation."

"Remember Greyfells' wrath. His gold can buy a long dagger."

"So. You already know what's going on."

Visigodred smiled enigmatically, shrugged. "I know everything, and nothing. I see all, and am blind."

"Talk endlessly and say nothing," Ragnarson concluded. "Alright, I'll do it. But it can't be anything bigger than the service you do me."

"But of course. I'm just trying to cover costs, you see. This's a non-profit business. Just a hobby. I make my living from the vineyards."

"Sure. Look, I've only got four weeks. I'd love to hang around and chat about old times, but . . . ."

"Of course. I understand. Come to the study."

Ragnarson followed Visigodred into a large, gloomy room filled with thousands of books, with cabinets of rare coins, cut crystal, antique weapons. The man was an avid collector and amateur historian. His major claim to fame was his having reconstructed the Lost Passages of Thislow by raising the shade of the poet and compelling him to re-write them. Thus he justified his dabbling in the Black Arts.

"Stand over there." The sorcerer waved an arm as he settled onto a tall stool beside a cluttered table. "Directly over the silver star in the pentagram on the floor there."

Ragnarson moved to the star. He hadn't the least idea what Visigodred meant to do.

"Hair of the toad and tooth of the frog,

Eye of the newt and toe of the hog . . . ."

"Hold it, damn it!" Ragnarson thundered. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Sending you to the Forest of Night. That was what you wanted, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, but . . . ."

"But what?"

"I thought I'd need a few minutes to get ready. A little up front about what to expect. You know."

"Pointless. No one's ever ready. You decide, you'd better go, get what you want, and get out. When you're ready to come back, you say, 'Shoshonah heluska e irmilatrir eskonagin.'"

"Eh?"

"Shoshonah heluska e irmilatrir eskonagin."

"Right. Anything else?"

"Some advice. Don't waste time. It flows differently in the Forest. Passes slower. Stay a week and you might return to find me an old man. If you could get back at all."

"Why's that?"

"Who can say? The gods? The Forest lies in the time river of eternity, where sentience alone enforces familiarities on the fabric of a space with no reasonable substance."

"How can I tell when to get out?"

"That's knowledge hidden even from me. Perhaps when you feel the incantation slipping from your mind. The Forest experience is unique to each visitor. You make of it what you will. The only way to discover your own version is to go there."

"So send me."

As Ragnarson spoke, the wizard sketched a fiery mystical sign in the air before him. The mercenary's universe reeled. There was a gut-wrenching twist, then blackness.

Blackness surrounded him when he wakened. His first panicky thought was that he had been blinded. Then he began to discern objects around him, though by what means he couldn't determine. There was no light source. No stars, no moon.

Around him were black-trunked trees leafed with metallic ebon leaves, and beneath him lay a carpet of dark crystalline grass. Above him lay a deeper blackness, an infinite, hungry darkness that could hardly be called a sky.

He rose and turned slowly. Everywhere, the same thing. Blackness and trees. "The Forest of Night," he murmured. It echoed mockingly in the stillness. He shuddered, felt his weapons to make sure they were in trim. He turned again till he found a direction that felt right, started walking.

He had begun to worry about the time before he finally encountered a break in the Forest.

Light! Through the quiet trees came a greenish light. Witch light. His breath came more quickly. He walked faster, crouched more, took more precautions against discovery.

Before him, surrounded by a broad, blackly watered moat and black-grassed glen, stood a strangely shifting and shapeless black edifice. It had many tall, tube-like spires, each of which had tear-shaped bulges slowly working down their heights. Sparks of almost invisibly pale green light appeared briefly in what might have been windows.

"The Castle of Tears," he muttered. He had thought that the name had to do with pain or sorrow.

He invested an estimated quarter hour in catching his breath and overcoming his awe. Then, very slowly, sword in hand, he stalked toward the castle. He stopped at the moat, leaned back, considered the towers. The great teardrops slowing ran down the pipe stems and disappeared behind the shifting walls.

Something stirred the surface of the moat. He caught a glimpse of an oily back, shuddered, began following the bank.

Again and again he caught a flicker of motion as some creature roiled the stagnant waters. Perhaps it was best he didn't get a direct view.

He came to a narrow drawbridge. The gate beyond was open. Trap-wary, Ragnarson cautiously stepped onto the bridge. Nothing happened. Five rapid steps took him to the gate, which seemed alive. Its shape, width, and height constantly changed. He entered the courtyard beyond. A greenish mist filled the place. It stirred and boiled, yet was not there to his touch.

Growing more uncertain, and increasingly time-worried, Ragnarson crossed to steps leading to the only doorway in sight.

Within lay a room lighted in green mist, revealing nothing threatening. He cautiously stalked ahead . . . and found himself surrounded by a great weeping, as of ghost voices from afar. He whirled, saw nothing but shadows.

The weeping went on. The shadows stirred. But nothing threatened him.

Once more he modified his theory about the fortress's name. The weeping . . . .

Speculation would not get him the Heart. He began searching.

He wandered for what might have been hours, constantly worrying the passage of time. He climbed and descended strangely shifting stairways, ventured into a hundred oddly shaped rooms. Always he was surrounded by blackness and haunted by patchlets of weeping, shadow-containing green mist.

Then he entered a hall where the mist was dense. The weeping was louder. Shadows swirled around him as he pushed through the fog, swarming over him. His fear grew as the weeping became like the wailing of women over a field of ten thousand fallen. Ragnarson at last realized that he had entered a place that was vastly more than a haunted castle in a strange forest. He realized it was a place beyond forests, beyond worlds, beyond times. A place where gods or demons dwelt.

He went on.

He found a small door. A red light glowed from beyond it. Shadows swirled and moaned as he approached. He intuited that he had reached his goal.

Two steps took him to where a small calamander chest rested, lid open. Within lay a glowing heart-shaped ruby. "The Heart." He reached for it.

"Yes," said a whisper from behind him.

Ragnarson whirled. His sword leapt out as swiftly as an adder's strike.

And encountered nothing. Yet a creature stood before him, unharmed.

"The Heart of Lorraine," the creature whispered. "Very precious to me. Why do you want it?"

"To return it to Duke Greyfells, to whom it belongs. So his daughter can be freed from an enchantment and marry the Lord of Four Towers."

"Greyfells doesn't own the Heart. No man can trade a Heart like so many pounds of cabbage. It belongs to Lorraine, to be given when and where she wills. It's here because she wills it to be. I, and only I, have the power to remove it against her will."

"What is this place?" Ragnarson asked, closing the calamander chest, slipping it into his jerkin.

"This is the place beyond places, the end after ends. It has many names. It is the gathering place of the shades of hopes that have died, and I am their keeper. The Heart is mine."

"And yet I must have it."

"And yet you must have it." The Keeper shifted form. "I will think on it. It may be that all can gain heart's desire, including myself. Return to the gate. Your time grows short. I will meet you there."

Ragnarson went. As he understood it he was in Hell. And soon might be trapped there forever. Fear lent speed. He reached the gate in a quarter of the time it had taken to find the Heart.

The Keeper of Shadows was waiting. Thick green mists surrounded him.

"I have considered," said the specter. "You may take the Heart. Thus, Greyfells will gain his wish. Yet he will be disappointed. You, too, shall see a wish fulfilled, yet learn despair. And you will have to flee Greyfells, though you fulfill your commission. Now speak your words and go. Your time is short and I have not yet prepared a place for your dream."

A wall arose as the shadows protested an escape from the Castle of Tears.

Ragnarson bowed, muttered, "Shoshonah heluska e irmilatrir eskonagin."

Something stirred in the Forest of Night. Leaves long unmoved sighed. Trees bent toward the mercenary as if loath to let him escape.

The wind arrived. For an instant it opened the mist surrounding the Keeper.

Ragnarson screamed. He had seen the true face of Despair.

He woke in the center of the pentagram whence he had departed Mendalayas. Visigodred poured fiery liquid into his mouth. "Four weeks. I'd begun to fear you'd stayed too long. But you got what you went after?"

"Uhm. Four weeks? I was only there a day. Wouldn't want to go back."

"We'll all go sometime. A part of us. Well, we'd best get you moving toward Greyfells. You have less than two days." Castle Greyfells lay some sixty miles east of Mendalayas.

Ragnarson gagged on another draught of liquid, spat, staggered up, snatched up the casket. "Yeah. It'll be a hell of a ride. Thanks for helping."

"Helped myself while I was at it. The pledge of service. I'll collect. And I needed the exercise." Making small talk, the wizard led him to the courtyard, where a page had his horse ready.

A minute later Ragnarson galloped toward Greyfells.

He rode that horse till she collapsed, stole another, and continued till he reached Castle Greyfells. He arrived barely a half hour before his deadline.

Ragnarson was impressed by the castle's size and stories he had heard of its unique construction.

There was a remarkable structure, called the Echo Tower, which guarded the gate. Greyfells, pathologically afraid of treachery, had had the sorcerer Silmagester contrive him a structure in which there could be no secret communications. The slightest whisper there could be heard for miles around. As Ragnarson approached, a sentinel was muttering about the weather, which threatened rain.

The man from the Red Hart waited at the gate. "Well, it's about time! You have it?"

"Yes. And hell's own time getting it. Thirty sovereigns aren't enough."

"You knew there would be risks."

"But the risk of soul?"

"Let's have it."

"No."

"There're a thousand men here. They could kill you before you escaped."

"No doubt. But I'd destroy the Heart before I died."

"Uhn. Thief." He drew a small sack from within his shirt. "I haven't time to argue. The wedding's too close. Give me the casket."

Ragnarson surrendered the Heart, seized the purse, galloped away. As he wheeled, he noticed Greyfells himself running toward the Echo Tower. He thought little of it till, moments later, as he rounded that same tower's exterior, he heard a scream from its parapet.

Looking upward, he saw the Duke waving the casket before a slim young woman.

"I'll never marry that savage!"

"You will!"

"Never! Sooner the Keeper of Shadows."

"Do as I say."

"Sooner the Keeper."

"Lorraine! . . . "

The woman hurled herself into space. She plummeted toward the moat. Ragnarson sprang from his saddle, ran to the waterside, waded in, grabbed a handful of hair. He managed to keep her breathing, but could do nothing about her crushed insides. She kept gasping, "Sooner the Keeper of Shadows."

Ragnarson looked up angrily. Beauty ruined, life wasted . . . . Men were coming. He didn't know their intent, didn't care to learn it. He jumped into his saddle, galloped away. The frustrated curses of Greyfells, amplified by the Echo Tower, pursued him.

He remembered the prediction of the Keeper. Yes. Everyone had gained a wish, yet had been disappointed.

He shrugged. Of such unpleasant yarn did the Norns weave lives—and deaths. He had seen youth and beauty destroyed many times. This world might well be the true Forest of Night and Castle of Tears.

He would forget his own disappointment sooner than would any of the others.

The extorted purse contained disks of lead.

This was the second
Vengeful Dragon
story. It appeared in
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
for July 1980. It proved that few endings are irrevocably final. It received numerous excellent reviews, many Nebula Award recommendations, and was a finalist on the Balrog Awards ballot for best short fantasy of 1980.

The figure wore scarlet.

It had a small, hairless skull. Its face was as delicate as that of a beautiful woman. A rouge colored its lips. Kohl shadowed its eyes. Zodiacal pendants hung from its earlobes. Yet no observer could have sworn to its sex.