Salamander (28 page)

The brazier too was out, its charcoal ash. Laurens must have forgotten to fill it on his watch earlier that evening. Odd. It had been going well enough just a while ago. Johan had warmed his hands over it. There was more charcoal in the corner, a bundle of kindling, flint and steel and tinder in his pouch. In a few minutes the charcoal was again beginning to glow, the lantern relit, Johan again at his post.

Looking back out of the night, Durilil could see the lantern and make out the figure of the guard; the guard, his eyes blinded by the lantern's light, saw nothing but snow.

An hour's walk brought him around the wall and a mile or so towards the pass. The road was bordered by evergreens; Durilil took shelter under one of them to rest. Master Dur was in good shape for his age, but miles of walking, uphill through snow, was not a task for an old man. The box in its leather bag was almost too hot to touch; he let his hand rest on it, fire pouring up through his body.

Some hours later, where the road bent left to find its way through an old lava flow, he stopped, stood for some minutes wrapped in his cloak, eyes closed. Still there, but blocked. He turned off the road, scrambled along the edge of the lava, uphill through the snow. Arrived at his destination he let his mind sink into the stone, felt for fire, found it. Unlimited fire, and nobody within miles to see. For once… .

He pointed with his right hand, the other resting on the rune that was the lid of the box; water ran steaming away. Where there had been a bank of unmarked snow was now bare rock, the cave mouth showing clear. The first few feet were half choked with dirt and broken rock where part of the roof had fallen in. His mind filled with fire, he pointed again.

No. Carefully, strand by strand, the mage pulled his mind free from what he carried. Turning broken rock molten might clear the cave, but while the Salamander could take no harm, his own body was flesh and blood. Hands might be slower, but a great deal safer.

It took him an hour to open a sufficient space to crawl through. Once past the rock fall, the tunnel, a vent formed long ago by hot gases through molten lava, was high enough for him to stand. Half an hour more brought him to the chamber at the tunnel's end. He folded up his cloak, lay down at full length upon it, the Salamander's box resting on his chest. The floor was warm, but not as hot as he remembered. Eyes closed, he felt through rock.

The fire at the mountain's heart had cooled a little in fifty years, the crust that roofed it thicker than he remembered. It took a moment to realize that what he was looking for, the work of the Forsting mages, would be found not at the top but the side, where the road through the pass ran by the flank of the mountain. The mages themselves he could barely make out through the greater flame, but their workings were clear enough. The pattern bright in his mind, Durilil reached up, undid the catch, slid open the lid of the box.

From where they stood on the parapet, the flattened cone of Fire Mountain was outlined against the evening sky. The wind off the mountains was cold; Mari let the Prince draw her into the shelter of his heavy cloak. When he spoke it was with less than his usual assurance.

"Will you marry me?"

Mari stiffened against his arm. "Perhaps. You and Father have agreed on your terms; I have yet to set mine."

"What are they?"

"Nan was a good and gentle lady. But I do not think that in all the years you were together she ever said no to anything you asked."

"And you?"

"And I am not Nan. If we wed I will deal with you honestly, serve King and Kingdom as best I am able. But merge my will in yours, no. If I believe you are mistaken I will say so, and I will act as I think right, with your leave or without it."

"You drive a hard bargain, lady mine. I could name three or four maidens of rank who would have me with no such conditions."

"If you would rather wed one of them … ."

"I think not. I know both sides of my bargain with your father; if I accept your terms, what do you offer in exchange?"

"Besides my person? You have not declared your love; are you inquiring as to mine?"

"If I say that I love you more than sun and moon and stars, will that suffice?"

"Too much and not enough. No."

"So far as the charms of your person, you are certainly the most desirable lady I know, but I do not think that is the question you are asking."

Mari said nothing, waited.

"You are the only lady I would be willing to have to wife on the terms you offer. I accept them. Does that suffice?"

"And does your son …?"

"Agree? Yes. I asked him before I made my final decision."

"That was well done. Then to answer your question, if I had my choice out of all men alive there is none I would rather wed."

The two fell silent, Mari held in the Prince’s embrace. After a long minute she pulled free. “That’s impossible.”

“That you should permit me to kiss you?”

She shook her head.
“Listen.”

He listened. A moment later he moved to the rampart’s edge; looked down. The ground below was dark. “It sounds like running water.”

Mari nodded. “It sounds like the stream out of the pass when the snow melts in spring, but even louder.” Before she had finished speaking the Prince was at the stairs leading down from off the rampart; she followed him.

By the time they reached the Great Hall it was clear that they were not the only ones to have noticed. Duke Morgen was already there; a moment later Bertil, the Castellan, joined him. Morgen gave him an enquiring look.

“The stream is running, and runnin
g fast,” Bertil said. “
Not
hot, but warmer than any water outside the hot springs has any cause to be this time of year.”

Morgen thought for only a minute
before he started giving orders: “I need four messengers, two to His Majesty, two to the Earls. Now. I also want Magister Coelus brought here as quickly as possible.”

He saw the Prince, motioned him over. “The streambed down from the pass is running full; I think I know what the Forsting mages have been doing for the past year. With luck Coelus can give us at least a guess at how they are doing it.”

“You think they are using magic to melt the pass clear? There aren’t enough fire mages alive.”

Mari broke into the conversation. “Can’t fire mages channel fire as well as making it?”

The Prince nodded, his expression shifted. “You are saying that …”

“The hot springs. There is a reason it’s called Fire Mountain. I expect there is enough fire under it to melt clear a hundred passes.”

“And the mages don’t have to make it, just channel it. It must still have been a massive undertaking.”

Duke Morgen turned back to them. “They’ve had most of a year to do it in. Do we have any idea how soon we can expect to see a Forsting army coming through the pass?”

The Prince shook his head. “Ask Coelus. Here he comes now.”

By the time Morgen and the Prince had finished explaining the situation to Coelus, the Castellan had returned with four of his men. Morgen turned back to them.

“It looks as though the Forstings have found a way of clearing the pass in winter and are about to descend on us in force; I must get word to His Majesty. They are obviously planning to cross the pass and take this castle before any help can arrive. One way of making sure they succeed is to ambush any messengers we send; they may have gotten a few men across already, and there may be people in place here to help them.

“I want two of you to leave tonight, separately, each carrying letters to His Majesty. Assume anyone you meet might be an enemy. Get as far as you can from here by dawn, get to the capital as fast as you can. I’m giving you courier chits to get you remounts at the stations, but don’t use them until you are well out of the Marches; at that point I think it will be safe to assume that the people at the stations can be trusted. The other two are going to the Earls to warn them.”

The Prince broke in. “Are you asking them for troops for the garrison?”

Morgen shook his head. “Not yet. For one thing, I want to see if the mages we lent Frederik a week ago come back.” He turned back to the four men. “You know yourselves better than I do; you and Lord Bertil can decide who does what. How soon can you be packed, mounted and ready to go?”

“Half an hour, Your Grace.”

“Meet me then by the front gate; I’ll have the letters.”

He turned back to Coelus. “Do you agree with His Highness about what is happening?”

Coelus nodded. “I expect they used a lot of static spells, set up over the past year. Probably started at the north end of the pass. If the melt water is coming south, the melting must be this side of the crest of the pass by now. Exactly how they are doing it and how long it will take I don’t know, but we may be able to learn more.”

“So if you are right, we will be blocked from the pass until the last moment, when they melt through the snow at this end, by which time they will probably have troops already filling the pass. Can they use the same heat against us—roast us in the keep?”

Coelus shook his head. “A disturbing thought, but I doubt it. Even if the magma layer under the mountain extends this far—as for all I know it does—they don’t have the spells set up to use it. The snow they are melting where they do have spells is just above the fire they are melting it with; we’re miles away. It might be worth figuring out how they are doing it so we can set up spells here and try to roast them next time, but I doubt it will help just now.”

The Prince touched Morgen’s arm, as he turned spoke in a low voice. “The Marcher lords?”

Morgen shook his head. “That we will have to see. I can assure Your Highness that I will be careful.”

Morgen spent the next half hour dictating letters, having them copied, signing and sealing, while the Castellan made his own preparations to ready the castle for what might come. Once the messengers were out the gate, Morgen and the Prince returned to the Great Hall. Coelus and Mari were still there, but the Prince noticed that Ellen, who had come in with Coelus, was gone. He turned to Mari: “Has your friend sensibly gone to bed?”

“I don’t think so; she spoke with Magister Coelus, then went off with a determined expression.”

Coelus heard, turned away from Morgen to the Prince. “Ellen has gone to see what she can about what the Forstings are up to.”

“Alone?”

“It seemed prudent. I realize there might be enemies watching the castle, but Ellen is good at not being seen. I don’t suppose His Grace has any invisible guards to keep her company.”

“I concede your lady’s skill with magery. Also that, despite appearances, she is probably the most dangerous person in this castle; I would not care to be the man who tried to take her prisoner. Is she also a practiced mountain climber?”

Coelus shook his head. “Not that I know of; I don’t think she plans to go that far. Her perception is much better than mine and probably better than yours, and she is, among other things, a fire mage. Her plan was to get to where the mountain starts and see as much as she can from there.”

* * *

Ellen joined the others at the morning meal, looking tired but undamaged. Coelus looked up from his plate. “Were we right?”

She nodded: “They are tapping fire from the magma under Fire Mountain, using a series of static spells to channel it, I think, under the control of fire mages. A lot of fire mages. There’s a channel that lets out its fire near the peak of the pass, another a ways this side of it, several the other side but too far to make out much detail. I couldn’t tell if they were set up to open more channels further south; they may just plan to use warm water coming down through the pass to melt the rest of it clear.”

“Nothing you could see that …”

“We could do to stop them? If I were at the top of the pass and nobody was paying attention I might be able to do something to interfere with their channeling, but not at this distance. It would take far more power than any single mage has.”

The Prince looked up as if he were about to say something, didn’t.

It was well past noon when a guard came down from the keep roof seeking the Castellan. Lord Bertil listened to him, then sent for Duke Morgen and the Prince.

“There’s a fair sized force approaching from west of here; my guess is it’s Earl Eirick. One of the men thought he saw something the other direction but wasn’t sure.”

The Prince looked puzzled. “That’s fast work; your messengers only went out last night.”

Bertil and Morgen exchanged glances; Morgen spoke: “Impossibly fast—it’s most of a day’s ride from Eirick’s keep here, and nearly as far from Frederik in the other direction. Neither retains an army feasting in their halls all winter; they would need to call men up from the lords in allegiance to them. If that’s who it is, it isn’t our messengers that brought them.”

An hour later, the western force was close enough to show both size—substantial—and banners, a red axe on a white field, the banner of Earl Eirick. A second force was approaching from the east but not yet as close. Morgen, standing with the other two on the eastern ramparts, turned to the Castellan. “The garrison is ready, the walls manned?”