Shadow of All Night Falling (15 page)

Again, Saltimbanco sat in the chair before Nepanthe’s fireplace-but she was away, Downdeep, tending the wounded. She should be back soon. Her workload had eased as wounds healed. She now had time to spend with her man-for so she sometimes thought him, and so everyone named him. Only Saltimbanco himself was unsure he fit the part. With matters so nebulous between them, she seemed little closer than a friend. Away, as now, she disturbed him not at all. In her presence his soul turned chill. There was something about her, icy and strange, incomprehensible, that made him feel stark emotional nothingness when she was near. He went through the motions she permitted, but they somehow seemed directed toward someone else, an imaginary construct, not the genuine woman. An emotional vacuum separated them, one he couldn’t fill while her fears persisted. Oh, he had found sex less important than he had earlier thought-but her unreasoning fear! It birthed an unnatural tension devouring the hope of their relationship. Seldom had he been so far at sea-almost as far out as she claimed to be herself.

As he sat thus thinking, examining the relationship, peering at the fire through half-closed eyes, there came a knock at the door. He rose, went, found Elana. “Woman is in Deep Dungeons.”

“I know. Look, Haaken is out of his coma. They’re going to talk to him. You want to come down?”

“Maybe later. Am needing report, though. Meanwhile, must talk with strange woman.” He was silent a moment, then asked, “What is problem for same? Am unable to breach mental walls thicker than ramparts surrounding Ravenkrak.”

“She’s afraid...”

“Am making no such demands. Woman’s body is her own. Am living without that. Is total aloofness and coldness which makes for sadness of this one.”

“That’s not her only fear. She’s afraid she’ll hurt you.”

“Is stupid! Crazy.”

“Foolish, anyway, but real enough for her. If we weren’t besieged, she’d run away. She feels trapped. All her fears are closing in. She’s uncomfortable. More than she’s ever been. There’s nowhere to run; she’s afraid to accept; so she fights.

“There’re cycles in her moods, you know. Sometimes she loves you and wants you-then the fear takes over. Then she can’t fight. Or won’t.”

“What can this one do?”

“Be patient. What else?”

“Self, am being patient for many months. Love grows...” There! He had admitted it at last. “... but patience wears tinsel-thin. Is little finger of frustration-born wrath curling like serpent in back of mind. Is getting very difficult of control. Times are, self is tempted to scream, ‘An end!’, and go over wall, away, and damned be crazy woman with weird inside-of-head. Many pieces gold is not so tempting as surcease from mental mix-up. Wine and women soon make this one forget, is hoped. Soon, very soon, will do same. Beating head against wall is like for men outside castle. Gets nothing but sore spots. Ravenkrak wall is impossible of scaling: no booty for men outside. Nepanthe wall is impossible of scaling: no treasures for sad fool. Will leave very soon.”

Elana started to say something, stopped as a door slammed below.

“Weird woman comes,” said Saltimbanco. “Am no longer in mood for seeing. Will slip out back way. Come tell what Blackfang says.”

Nepanthe arrived in time to witness his retreat. “What?...”

“He’s unhappy.”

“We’re supposed to lunch together.”

“He loves you, and you’re not playing fair. He’s thinking of going over the wall.”

“He wants to desert?”

“Not desert. Escape. He feels trapped.”

“Aren’t we all? But it’ll be over come winter.”

“Don’t be dense!” Elana snapped, harsher than she intended. “You’re the reason he feels trapped. After getting nowhere for so long, he’d rather run and forget. Why should he beat his head against a wall?”

“But you know the trouble I have even talking about that...”

“That isn’t the problem. It’s the other barriers you put up.”

“Like what?”

“So many things. Your opinion of yourself, for one thing. You think you’re not good enough for him. So you put him off. And then there’s the things you talk about doing when the war’s over. They aren’t very realistic. But you hang on to them to keep the real world from getting to you. Only ydu keep Saltimbanco out too. And being moody all the time doesn’t help.”

“You’re harsh, Astrid.”

“Now the hurt puppy look? What’ll move you? Everybody’s been patient so long. If a beating would help, I’d tell Rendel to give you one. For your own good. Nepanthe, we’re talking about a man whose whole life revolves around you. You’re killing him and you don’t much seem to care. In fact, you’re doing everything you can to make him more miserable. Yet you say you love him! Look, you’re both twenty-nine. That’s a lot of lost years. You can’t make those up. And you want to throw the rest away? Grow up, Nepanthe! Wake up! You’re wasting something precious.”

“But...”

“You always have an excuse, don’t you? Think about this. Ten years from now, when you’re sitting here in your tower, what will your past be? A wasteland as barren as these mountains?”

“Astrid...”

“I don’t want to hear it! I haven’t got time. I’m going down to my husband. He’s real. You’re about to make a nail-biter out of me, too.”

“Astrid...”

But Elana left, ignoring her plea. Nepanthe slumped, entered her sitting room, strode to her fireplace. After a moment, she snatched a figurine off the mantel, hurled it across the room.

The crash brought the maid. She found Nepanthe attacking her embroidery with a dagger.

Elana stamped across the courtyard, still fuming.

Valther burst from the tower where old Birdman kept his pigeons. He was pale, stricken.

“Is Nepanthe in the Bell Tower?”

She nodded. As he ran past, he shouted, “Get your husband, and Saltimbanco if you see him, down to the Lower Armories. Fast!” He vanished into the Bell Tower.

Something had happened. What? Then she remembered that Bragi was in the Lower Armories talking to Haaken. The game could be up if they were overheard.

Minutes later she hurtled through a door, gasped, “Something’s happened. Valther’s running around screaming, collecting everybody for a meeting in the sorcery chamber. Bragi, you’re supposed to be there.”

Ragnarson froze, thought. “Kildragon.” He indicated his brother. “Gag him and hide him. Stick with him. Everybody else, down to the Deep Dungeons. Play ‘visit the wounded.’ Elana, where’s Mocker?”

“I saw him a little while ago, but I don’t know where he is now. He’s got it bad. Nepanthe isn’t helping.”

“Sometimes he goes up where the back walls meet and just stares into the canyon,” said Kildragon, knotting the gag behind Blacklang’s head. ‘That’s where he’ll be if he wants to think. It’s the loneliest place in Ravenkrak.”

“All right, let’s get,” Ragnarson growled.

Ten minutes later, exhausted, Elana reached the top of one of the short rear walls. A few yards away, staring into the canyon behind the Candareen, were Jerrad and Saltimbanco. They passed a wineskin while grumbling to one another. Silence greeted her approach.

“Something’s happened,” she said. “Valther wants you in the Lower Armories.”

“What is it now?” Jerrad demanded.

Saltimbanco said nothing. After a glance at Elana, he turned back to the canyon... What? What was that? Up the face of that impossible cliff? So! He turned, threw his arm across Jerrad’s shoulder. “Come, old friend. We make them happy, eh? But we take this wine, too. Make us happy, too. Hai! We raise some hell at meeting, eh? Good! We go.”

The others were waiting when they arrived. Jerrad took his usual seat. Saltimbanco assumed Ridyeh’s, saying, “Old plan of fat rascal big failure, eh? New intrigue for finding spy? Maybe still chance for same to be here?”

“Don’t sit there!” Valther snapped. “Take a chair off the wall.”

Eyebrows rose. Valther hadn’t yet divulged his secret. He did so once Saltimbanco settled himself.

“I just picked up a message from Luxos. He used his last pigeon to send it...” He paused. Sorrow and anger fought for control of his face. “Ridyeh’s dead!” It was almost a scream.

“What?”

“How?”

“Are you sure?”

Ragnarson and Saltimbanco sat quietly, unsure what to say or do. The operation had just turned nasty. A member of the family had been killed. Their treachery could be pardoned no longer.

“Shut up!” Valther bellowed into the clamor. “All I know is that he was murdered two weeks ago by one of bin Yousif’s assassins. Luxos says he was onto something. He went to buy information and never came back. They found him floating in the Silverbind, tied wrist to wrist with the informer. They’d both been knifed. Luxos says he’s coming home before he gets the same.”

Into the stillness that followed, Turran interjected, “All right, it’s no game anymore. We’ve got a debt to repay now.”

“When do we kill Itaskia?” Brock asked. He made it sound like a simple, unarguable balancing of the scales: a city for a brother.

“No, we can’t do that,” Valther growled. “We can’t afford any more enemies. And it’s not Itaskia’s fault anyway. Bin Yousif did it.”

“Bin Yousif is a damned Itaskian War Ministry client,” Brock countered. “He’s their hole card against El Murid and Lord Greyfells both. Anything he does, you can bet the Ministry is in it up to their necks.”

“Damn it!” Nepanthe cried. “Can’t we break this siege?”

“No,” said Turran. “We don’t have the strength. I can’t ask Rendel to commit suicide. What’s that got to do with it, anyhow?”

Nothing. She was looking for a path of escape from other problems.

One of Ragnarson’s mercenaries burst in, put an abrupt end to the meeting. “Captain, they’re comin’!”

“Sound the alarm, lithe.”

“Been ringin’ a couple minutes. The companies are on station. The cats and ballisters are firin’.”

“Well, let’s have a look.” He rose.

“Get moving!” Turran thundered. “The walls!”

When Ragnarson reached the main courtyard he found it a-riot with hurrying men and women. There seemed no apparent purpose to their motion, yet it was without panic, and quickly sorted itself out. The hurry had, in fact, been drilled in during long training, as support for those on the walls. There, men plied bows and served heavy weapons with cool efficiency. The women handed up fresh ammunition. A storm of death fled the battlements.

Ragnarson reached the command post atop the gate tower, quickly surveyed bin Yousif’s assault. Haroun had brought up ladders and grapnels, but his attack teams were retreating already. Just a probe. Had Haroun found a weak point? Would he exploit it before Turran finished doing his sums and cleansed his castle? Ragnarson knew he didn’t have much time to get Haaken’s information. His margin was getting damned narrow. Self-preservation demanded that he plant his feet firmly somewhere, soon.

“Congratulations,” said Turran. “Your drills paid off.”

“He wasn’t serious, just probing. Will you excuse me?” Awaiting no answer, he hurried down to Haaken’s hiding place. “The gag!” he snapped on entering. Kildragon removed it. “Well, Haaken, you remembered anything?”

“Yes,” Blackfang grumbled. “There was this old codger who looked like he was in charge. I figured to put him in the ground when the odds looked right. So when he wanders off by himself, I go after him. I swear, I never made a sound, but when I’m ten feet away, he jumps around, points a finger, and the next thing I know for sure Elana’s waking me up. Bragi, he was some sort of spook-pusher.”

“That’s it? That’s all?” Bragi tried shaking his brother, but Haaken had lost consciousness again.

“Don’t get excited,” Elana told him. “He already told me most of it. He said the old man kept talking to himself. That he remembers him standing over him, looking sick, and muttering something like, ‘Varth, you’re doing it again. Should’ve stayed in Fangdred. Should’ve never left the Dragon’s Teeth. This’s all it gets. More blood on your hands.’”

“The Dragon’s Teeth, eh? Ah! The Old Man of the Mountain? Sonofabitch!” His last word was a bellow.

“What?”

“I’ve got it. The Old Man of the Mountain. Gold of llkazar, paying us and Haroun. A sorcerer named Varthlokkur. The things Rolf said Nepanthe raved about in Iwa Skolovda. There’s a Varthlokkur in The Wizards of llkazar. Legends are, he lives with the Old Man of the Mountain. Add it up. If this’s the same one, we’re in it big. He’s supposed to be the greatest wizard ever.”

“So what?” Kildragon asked, unimpressed. “So we know who he is. We don’t know why he dragged us in.”

“Power, probably. There’re things here he’d want bad. The Horn of the Star Rider. The weather control things.” Ragnarson shook his head. The theory seemed inadequate. Yet nothing else came to mind.

Slowly, in a dark mood, Saltimbanco stalked the icy corridors. The question of the old man occupied but a tiny portion of his attention. The remainder went to Nepanthe, to dark arguments and fierce recriminations. A bitter conflict was rehearsing in his head. He felt down, trapped, frustrated, and obliquely angry. He loved, and was continually thwarted. Nepanthe also loved, he knew, but her strange fears and little-girl dreams stood between them like a barrier as impenetrable as time.

It occurred to him that, if he permitted it, the nonsense could go on forever. Elana had described her argument with Nepanthe, which had done little good. Nepanthe remained the same distant, fearful, dreaming woman-child. Well, he had decided, there had to be an end. There would be an end. He was done being an emotional handball. Purpose hardened. His stride quickened.

Outside, the first white flecks of winter fell. Time, it seemed, had finally rallied to the Storm King banner. The snow was weeks early.

In the Bell Tower he learned that Nepanthe was in the Lower Armories. Through a window he saw the snow, suddenly realized how near the end had come. He hoped the old man held no grudges, and Nepanthe likewise. When Haroun came, when Ravenkrak fell, he would have to show his true colors-and might then be trapped between parties thinking him traitor. Would the old man pay as promised? He’d have trouble if he didn’t. Haroun had an army, and was notoriously short on patience. And Nepanthe. Would she hate him? Would she reject him forever?