Dark Magic (54 page)

After long sessions of self-recrimination, Mrrydin again took to exploring his cell. It was an old habit, one that he’d not bothered with for months, as nothing had ever changed within his tiny tomb. There were the fleshy growths that grew like tubes to bring in air and water, and a third to exit wastes. There was the hard, smooth skin of the cell itself, which felt cool and waxy to his fingertips. To one side he found the bulbous growth of the fungus that fed him, and his pool of waste still wet his feet. Nothing was different.

It wasn’t until he felt the ceiling that he noted a change. There was a bulge there that he did not think had been there before. He frowned in the perfect blackness. Only afterimages met his eyes when he moved them, purple splotches and memories of vision lost in the dark. He felt the ceiling carefully, precisely, every inch of it.

There! He’d definitely found something different. A rupture—albeit a tiny one—had appeared in the surface above his head. He dug his finger up into it and felt a protuberance. Licking cracked lips, he worked at the fleshy object carefully. It felt like a root. There were hair-thin bits that came away from it, and the tip was narrower than the part above, which ran upward into the earth.

Myrrdin ran his fingertips over the root delicately, not wanting to damage it. A tiny spray of grit showered him. He wanted to encourage the root, to bring it down to him. He took wastewater and cupped it in his hands, lifting it high to the root to keep it wet and to attract it to grow further.

After hours of arm-breaking work, he squatted and slept. When he awoke, he felt for the root again. It was something living, something fresh…something from the wholesome world of starlight above. Strangely enough, its simplicity cheered him.

For a few panicked seconds, he could not find it. But then he did, and he exclaimed in surprise. The root was
thicker
. Where before it was no more than a man’s finger, now it was a tuber, as thick as a carrot that might win an award at the River Folk harvest festival.

How could this be? What could have grown so quickly?

Myrrdin felt it delicately, and rubbed it between his fingers. Such a supple, fresh root. He tasted it, and felt a familiar tingle on his tongue…he knew the truth then. There could be no doubt. Could his sire have made grievous error? Or was this all a grand trick? Or perhaps he was caught up in part of a masterful plan full of deceitful webs? He did not know which it was, but he was helpless against the power of hope’s flames, which had been relit in his mind.

He ripped away his remaining rags of clothing and stood naked in the dark. He grabbed onto the root, and indeed, found two of its hair-like brothers nearby. He wrapped himself up in them as best he could. He needed maximal contact—he needed to blanket himself in the essences of this living thing.

Days passed, and the root grew with astonishing rapidity. When he had as much of his person touching the roots as was possible, Myrrdin called to the living thing that had driven roots so deeply and managed to penetrate his impenetrable prison chamber. The roots became cool to his touch. They tightened in places, hugging to his skin, adhering to it.

Myrrdin called, and he was answered. For only one thing could have driven a root so deeply, so fast. Only Vaul could have done it. The Green Jewel was above, somewhere distant through the earth. It had grown a great oak tree
about itself, as it was the nature of the Green to do when left idle.

* * *

Puck was not the first elf to reach Castle Rabing. That distinction went to Kaavi, who’d wandered the Haven for a day or two before arriving in the Dead Kingdoms, which were now coming to life under Brand’s care. She’d traveled far and when she finally found Brand’s tent, she was announced by a Kindred with a single squinting eye.

“Some elf to see you, sir,” muttered the Kindred foreman.

“Eh? Show him in. Have you got those timber reports back yet, Grasty? We’ll be months behind by spring if we don’t step it up.”

Brand glanced up, then straightened in surprise as Kaavi stepped up to the other side of the table he had been poring over. Behind Kaavi, the one-eyed Grasty made grabbing motions at her hindquarters and leered.

Brand frowned at Grasty and cleared his throat. Grasty left quickly, winking his one eye.

“Kaavi?” Brand asked. “It’s been such a long time. You haven’t changed a bit.”

She came around the table, letting her fingers drag over it. She stared directly into his eyes, and her beauty was startling.

“
You
certainly have!” she exclaimed. “Who stole your razor?”

“Oh, yes,” laughed Brand self-consciously. He scratched at his beard and grinned.

“What a bristling forest of hair! You look the way that a king should now. Does Telyn like your face covered with hair?”

“Ah—I suppose she does,” Brand said.

Kaavi came very close and stared up into his face, ostensibly to study his beard. Brand found the effect of her proximity disconcerting.

“Have you found me a husband yet?” she asked.

“I—I didn’t know I was still looking for one. What of Puck? Wasn’t he taking on that duty?”

“He set me up as his housemaid and wet-nurse for darling Trev.”

“Wet-nurse?”

“Oh…not literally. But I’ve become tired of watching their married life. I want one of my own.”

“I see. In that case, why did you come here?”

She smiled up at Brand mischievously. “I’d heard there were a lot of lonely men down here, working far from home in this wilderness.”

“You’ll be happy to hear I’m not one of them,” Brand said. “Telyn and the children are here with me in camp.”

Kaavi’s mouth twitched. “Lovely,” she said.

“Well, glad to see you again,” Brand said with a tone of dismissal in his voice. “I’ve got a lot of work to do at the moment. Feel free to explore the camp. I’m sure someone will take an interest in you.”

“I’m sure they will,” Kaavi said, but she didn’t leave. She drifted around the tent, looking at things idly.

Brand could not help but glance at her when her back was turned. She did have a lovely shape to her, he had to admit. He cleared his throat again and tried to turn back to his reports and maps, but found he could not concentrate.

“What are you working on now?” Kaavi asked. “Anything interesting to report?”

Vaguely, Brand realized that he would have thrown almost anyone else out of his office. But he just couldn’t bring himself to be gruff with Kaavi.

“There is something, actually,” he said. Briefly, he told her of the depths below the castle and the noxious things that seemed to have festered there.

“How exciting!” Kaavi breathed, her eyes glowing like stars. “What are you going to do about it? Burn them all out?”

“Maybe,” he said. “I was planning an exploratory mission to start. Just to see what we’re up against. A man can’t build a castle without taking stock of what resides below it.”

“Wise thinking,” Kaavi agreed. “I’d love to see such a place. Always I’ve heard legends and whispers, but I’ve never been into the Everdark.”

“Well, I have,” said Brand. “It is not a pleasant place, let me assure you.”

Kaavi was suddenly close, at his elbow. Her sweet warmth and breath felt hot upon his shoulder. She touched his forearm lightly, laying her delicate fingers upon him. She plucked lightly at his arm hair, as if idly seeking to straighten it.

“Take me with you,” she said. “I’ve been
so
bored in the Haven. I’m quick with a blade, and you could use the senses of an elf.”

Brand looked down at her, and her tiny, perfect smile greeted him. He opened his mouth to tell her no, she was being absurd, but could not quite get the words out.

“I’ll think about it,” he said at last, after a titanic struggle within himself.

Kaavi beamed. “Oh thank you! You’ll not be displeased with my performance, Lord Rabing!” She ran out of the place then, letting the tent flaps fly behind her. He looked after her, both glad to see her gone and uneasy about the future.

Chapter Nine

Fae Coins

Mari, Puck and Trev all arrived at Riverton together. Puck took Mari to the freshly rebuilt and repainted
Spotted Hog
, and laid silver down on the innkeep’s counter. The man took the coins, pinching them up between his thumb and forefinger and examined them suspiciously.

“Is Fae coin no good here?” asked Puck.

“It’s not that, sir!” the innkeep said. “Quite the contrary. We just don’t get much of it, you understand.”

The innkeep was Pompolo’s son, Kalix. He’d inherited the place from his father after Pompolo had been killed in the Battle of the Dead Kingdoms some years back. He was, if anything, fatter and redder of face than Pompolo had been himself. After accepting the silver, Kalix turned his eyes upon Mari and her son Trev. He recognized Mari with a start.

“Aren’t you that young girl who brought a weasel of a Wee One here some time back?” he asked darkly.

Mari swallowed. Piskin had been his name, and he had escorted her here when she’d been pregnant with Trev. He’d burned down half the town back then, igniting the Great Fire of Riverton as a distraction while he spirited her away for a sacrifice.

“I was taken against my will,” Mari said. “I hope you won’t hold past associations against me.”

Kalix eyed the elf and Trev’s silver hair. The boy was obviously a half-breed. Mari regretted not having covered his hair before they’d come to town, but there hadn’t been time.

“I’m not sure we have space tonight,” Kalix said. “I’ll have to check the rooms. There’s a farmer’s market going this weekend, you know. We’re always full up on such occasions. Perhaps you should come back tomorrow.”

Puck leaned forward, placing his long-fingered hands upon the counter. “I killed the little bugger myself, you know. With my bare hands.”

Kalix retreat a half-step. “Who?”

Puck smiled. “Piskin, of course. The Wee weasel who burned down your Inn years back.”

“You did?”

“I swear by it,” said Puck seriously.

Kalix nodded slowly. The expression on his face shifted and became more affable. Mari felt relieved. She could tell the man knew enough about the Fae to understand they did not swear to anything lightly.

“All right then,” Kalix said. “But promise me…no more accidents! The last one nearly ruined the family.”

Puck nodded and gave him a second coin. Kalix seemed mollified, but still wary. He showed them to a room and Mari was relieved to see the Inn did not look the way it did before. The old place had burnt, and she was almost glad of it, as her memories of that time were grim indeed.

Trev bounced on the bed excitedly. A few feathers puffed out of the mattress. “Look mother!” he said. “I’m making it snow!”

“Get off there, boy,” Puck admonished him. “We just promised the innkeep there would be no mischief. Are you practicing to become one of the Wee Folk?”

Smiling, Trev climbed down and went to look out the window at the bustling town outside.

“He’s only playful like this when you’re home, you know,” Mari told her husband. “When you’re away, he’s somber and serious the whole time.”

“Well,” Puck said. “I’m staying in the Haven now until I figure out what’s haunting us.”

Mari felt warm inside hearing these words. She kissed both the men in her life then, impulsively. One was so young, and the other incalculably ancient. But she loved them both.

When everyone was asleep that night, Puck slipped away out the window. Mari sat up, watching him go. She’d known he would leave that way, when he believed she was asleep.

“Is father gone again?” Trev asked behind her.

She glanced behind her in surprise. Trev stared with shining eyes.

Mari turned back to the window and gazed out into the night. She could see the glimmer of her husband’s skin as he left Riverton behind.

“Yes,” she said. “But this time he’s going out to protect us.”

* * *

Many folk had died in the great battles of the Black Mountains some five years earlier. The River Folk had buried their dead upon the shoulders of Snowdon itself, as bearing so many corpses home to the Haven had been unworkable.

The graves were not deep, nor in many cases were they marked. Forming humps in the earth, hundreds upon hundreds of them lay strewn over Snowdon’s flanks. At the foot of the mountains, near the town of Gronig, many more graves were scattered here and there. The Kindred had done the burial work in this case, and they were more thorough and familiar with delving into earth. They had buried all the dead: Kindred, Merlings, elves, River Folk and even the blocky, stone pieces that were the remains of gnomes. Where their graves were placed, only small hummocks could be spotted in the fields.

The exception to all this were the abominations. Conglomerates of a dozen corpses that had died together, none of the races could rightly claim them. These were buried in great pits. Some had suggested burning them, but this was not done. For some folk, burning the dead was an insult, and everyone had suffered enough over slights and snarled words.

Here and there, amongst the grassy fields full of sheep, hillocks were raised over the bulging bodies of the abominations. It was soon found the best grasses did not grow upon these hillocks. Only twisted, spindly stalks with a yellowish tinge would sprout. Odd varieties of other plants grew as well: stinkhorn fungus, stichwort, carnivorous sundews and bladder-traps. None of these varieties were favored by the sheep of the fields, and so they shunned the hillocks and let them grow and fester.

Queen Gudrin was called upon by the shepherds of Gronig when it was noted the hillocks had
swollen
somehow. She came down from her fortress at a slow pace. Her age and her recent trials of spirit mastering Pyros had combined to make her more curmudgeonly than ever. She would not ride in a cart, nor mount a ram. She walked instead with only a stout staff of iron to aid her. Slowly, she marched down from the Great Gates of Snowdon and took three days to arrive in Gronig. By then, the shepherds were fencing off their fields and chasing their sheep from the region.

At last, Gudrin arrived at Gronig. This was the largest sunlit town of the Kindred, the only major community that stubbornly remained above ground. Used often as a trading post, it was an important spot where the Kindred met with the other races to do business. It had never quite recovered after the massacres during the war, however. A decade had passed, but still the Kindred avoided returning and settling here. Half the town’s houses, each built of heavy slabs of granite, stood empty. Each house was stoutly built and Gudrin knew pride to look upon them. The slabs, tilted up to stand on end as walls, were single sheets of cut granite, five feet tall or more and often more than twenty feet in length. The stone was thick, always thick. Each slab stood independently, hooked together with mortar and spikes of iron as thick as a Kindred thumb. They would stand here a thousand years, she thought, to greet any future generation of Kindred who might return to inhabit the place.

Gudrin did not head straight to the afflicted fields when she arrived in Gronig. Instead, she headed to the
Shepherd’s Rest
, which had been rebuilt, and there she laid low five stone mugs of fine ale. The townsfolk drank with her, but showed no gusto.

“A good brew still,” she said to the innkeep.

“Thank you, mum.”

She turned her head about the place, eyeing each detail of the tavern with a wistful air. There was a new line of stuffed
Merling heads over the mantle, she noted. The trophies were in poor taste, she thought, but she did not mention them.

“Now…let’s see what the matter might be,” she said, regaining her feet without aid. Hands reached out to steady her, to be sure, but she slapped them away with harsh buffets.

They had not yet even reached one of the mounds before she knew the sad truth. She did not speak about it, however. She allowed the locals to tell her their tales. The sheep avoided the spots where the abominations festered and dark areas of barren soil had grown from them. Reaching out like veins or twisting tree roots, these twisting paths led to spots where they stopped and formed humps in the earth.

Gudrin sighed to see the diseased lands. She shook her head and soon waved away the farmers and shepherds. She couldn’t do anything for them, and their tales of small woes did nothing to improve her spirits. She knew the tales before they were spoken to her. Animals that did dare graze here sickened and died. Water that ran nearby turned rancid. Crops harvested in the region caused sickness and delusions when consumed.

“Let’s dig this one up,” she said, pointing not to the big mound, which seemed to be the center of the affliction, but rather to one of the nodules it had spread to. She summoned her guardsmen with impatient waves of her gloved fingers. “Gather spades, men. I want this region of earth laid open.”

Surprised and blinking, the captain of her royal attachment walked near stiffly. He bent forward, his red Warrior’s cloak fluttering behind him in the open winds. In his hand a heavy-headed axe gleamed. The blade of it was polished so it reflected the sunshine blindingly. “My Queen,” he said, almost in a whisper. “Cannot these fine Clansmen of the farms do the work?”

Gudrin jerked her head around to face him. She glared up into his craggy face, and flames ran over her gloves. “Get shovels and dig! These people have suffered enough, and they will suffer a great deal more before this matter has ended.”

The captain offered no new arguments. The shovels were procured and soon a dozen kindred Warriors, red cloaks flapping, grumbled as they dug in the earth. The farmers nearby came to stare at the astonishing spectacle. The youngest among them dared to twitter, and earned themselves baleful glares from the sweating, irritated Warriors.

They had not dug down more than five feet before one of the men roared and stepped back. He clutched at the ground, dropping his shovel and grabbing up a battleaxe, which the Warriors had left in the grass.

“That’s my axe, man!” complained one of his fellows.

The Warrior with the axe stood with wild eyes. Gudrin came up to him and asked him what the matter might be. The rest of the troops furrowed their brows and shrugged their heavy shoulders.

“Something,” the man said, panting and staring. “Something in this hole is not right!”

Gudrin nodded and clucked her tongue. She bade them all to retreat. She stepped forward alone to inspect the wound they’d formed in the earth. There at the bottom, the soil had changed in both color and aspect. She did not see movement, but as she stared down into the hole, she thought she felt a
presence
of sorts. It was as if something down there, in that hole, returned her scrutiny.

She waved the warriors forward. “Dig further,” she said.

Muttering amongst themselves, they took up their spades again, and stepped forward. They dug down more deeply, keeping quiet and serious. Their eyes were narrowed and suspicious.

“I’ve struck something,” shouted a man. “It’s….”

Gudrin came forward, craning her neck and staring. “What is it?”

“A liquid of some sort, my Queen,” said the Captain, leaning over the hole and peering inside. “It seems to be filling the hole, and there is a strange vapor rising from it.”

“Get back!” shouted Gudrin.

Startled, several of her guardsmen stumbled back from the hole. Four of them, including the captain himself, either glanced at her in surprise or remained staring doubtfully into the hole.

A popping sound was heard by all. A gout of dark liquid splattered up into the faces of those who lingered. Like oil found deep within the earth, the liquid coated all who it touched. Unlike oil, however, this vicious stuff caused the men it touched to begin screaming.

Gudrin knew that her Warriors simply did
not
scream. They were as tough as stone wrapped in leather. The severity of pain they were suffering must be nothing a mortal could bear.

The men staggered away from the hole. Already, their bones were showing in spots. The man who had first sensed the danger and had taken up his axe stepped forward, taking his captain’s hand, trying to help.

“Stand away!” roared Gudrin at the top of her powerful voice. Pyros was upon her breast now, plain for all to see. Flames ran over her gloved hands. Her hairless scalp was a livid red beneath her simple Queen’s circlet of gold.

The warriors, suspecting what must come, threw themselves away from their staggering, screaming fellows. They grabbed up their axes and pikes, standing ready in a widening circle.

Moaning and gargling, the men coated in strange oils did not obey her or even seem to hear her. Sadly, Gudrin aimed her hand at them. A gushing cone of flame swept over the Warriors. They took a long time to die. When nothing was left but ashes and stumps in boots, she directed a new beam of heat into the exposed hole. The substance that had infected her men was destroyed.

“You,” she said, turning back toward the men who had run when she’d told them to. She pointed out the man who had first raised a weapon. The man who had come forward to help his captain. “Show me your hand.”