Upland Outlaws (25 page)

She must be very high, up near the timberline. She would not be at all surprised to see snow soon, and the wind felt fresh from mountain crags. Wandering unknown hills in the middle of a winter’s night? This was madness!

She spun around and headed back, with the moon in her eyes. “The Thaile Place!” she said aloud. “Take me to the Thaile Place!” She called up a clear mental picture, and hurried. She would accept the Mist Place, of course, if that was to be her only choice. To climb into bed beside that big lunk and lay her icy feet against his back would be purest bliss.

Don’t think about the Mist Place! Thaile Place!

The Way was curving more than she expected. She did not remember so many bends. She was not back into the forest yetin fact, trees seemed to be even scarcer.

With the valley on her left now, and the moon temporarily slid around to her right, she came to deep shadow, where the Way’s pale trace skirted a high buttress of rock. She had not seen this before!

Nor had she crossed a bridge, and yet the Way ahead quite clearly swung away from the vertical face and crossed to the far side by a narrow stone bridge. It was old, its parapets half fallen away, and it glimmered with the same spooky pallor as the Way itself. She had most certainly not seen it, or crossed it, earlier.

Whimpering with cold and fear, she sat down on the path and chafed her feet while she considered the prospect.

Obviously the sorcerous Way changed all the time; it just had not changed quite so blatantly before. Also obviously, if she crossed that bridge, she would again have the valley on her right and the hill on her left. And the valley itself bent out of sightto the left, of course-so she would then have the moon behind her again. Obviously.

The Way was taking her somewhere, whether she wanted to go there or not. Her retreat had been cut off, and both directions led to the same place. She had two choices-go where the Way led, or stay where she was and freeze.

She could not even be sure of the second alternative. If she shut her eyes for a minute, the landscape might start changing on its own.

Evil take it! “Can’t fight the weather,” Gaib would sayusually under his breath when her mother was laying down the law. Here was an excellent example of weather not to be fought. Groaning with stiffness and weariness, Thaile clambered to her feet and hobbled across the bridge.

As she had expected, she soon found herself going the same Way as before, trudging along a hillside with the gorge to her right and the moon behind her. The wind was really whistling along the valley now, the noise of the stream much louder. She must just hope that wherever she was being taken had a roaring fire and something steaming hot to drink. And a bed. With no men in it.

She had sinned, of course. Virtuous women did not go to strange men’s Places and seduce them; but the Gods rarely dispensed punishment so candidly. Her brother-in-law, Wide, was a libertine, but his philandering did not attract divine retribution, so far as she knew. A couple of her childhood friends had told her stories they would never have told their parents.

Perhaps … Just maybe …

Could the Gods have taken pity on her? Could it be that this so-willful Way was taking her to Leeb, whoever he was?

She did not dare to hope for that, but she decided she had better do some praying. Not to the Keeper, though, just to the Gods. She began muttering prayers, making them up as she went along.

The valley became a gorge, the wind buffeting at her with icy fists, trying to hurl her from the narrow path, down into the shadowed chasm on her right. On her left, the rock rose almost sheer. Moonlight glowed on racing clouds overhead, but did not penetrate this sinister cleft in the hills. She had only the spectral gleam of the Way itself to guide her.

And then a final bend brought her to what had to be her destination. A single shaft of moonlight fell on white masonry ahead, closing off the ravine. Ragged and undoubtedly ancient, a single arch spanned both the Way and the chasm, the stonework springing out from the steep rock on either side. Once the arch had supported a gatehouse, for she could see remains of windows in the ruins above, and trees growing there. Water roared in the unseen depths, sending up a faint odor of spray. Old-and evil. It was gloating at her in the moonlight.

“No!” she cried aloud. “I am not going in there!”

She turned and fled, floundering down the path on hurting feet, repeatedly stumbling against the rock in her efforts not to tumble over the precipice on her left. The wind blustered at her, pushing and tugging without pattern or reason. She rounded a corner, and saw a bridge ahead, and the same gateway beyond. She staggered to a halt, whimpering. Both Ways led to the same end.

Suddenly her perception changed and in place of a moonlit ruin she saw an idiot, leering face-the irregular, tree-covered top as hair, empty windows staring at her like eyes, and the arch itself as a gaping mouth, with the silvery Way lolling out one side like a tongue. Whatever it was, she was convinced that it was evil.

Her limbs began shaking harder than she could ever remember. Frightened of falling from the ledge, she leaned back against the cliff.

“No!” she screamed into the wind. “I will come no farther! I will stay here!” She heard only the roar of the falls below and the whisper of branches above.

Stay there and freeze? If necessary, yes! What other tricks could the Way use? She glanced nervously behind her- suppose a bear appeared on the path, to drive her toward that gloating aperture? When she looked back to the bridge and the gateway beyond, she fancied they had already crept closer. Could that demonic mouth draw in the Way like a tongue, with her on it?

Any real fright would bring sorcerers to her aid, Jain had promised. She had never felt so fearful in her life, and yet no one had come. Perhaps the sorcerers were all abed and asleep. The final words of the catechism: Who never sleeps?

The Keeper.

This was the Keeper’s doing.

“No!” she cried again. “If you try any more tricks, I shall leap from the path! “

She hoped she was bluffing.

She cowered down small, hugging the cloak tight around herself, keeping her gaze firmly on that leering archway lest it creep closer while she was not watching. She would stay there and freeze! Except that the moon was setting and when dark came the gate would draw in its tongue with her on it like a crumb. In her fear, she recalled the humble prayers of her childhood, the pleas every pixie was taught: Keeper keep me in the right, Keeper keep me through the night …

Something moved in the corner of her eye. She looked around sharply. A patch of moonlight and shadow? She peered harder, striving to make out the dark shape in the darker. It wore a cloak that hung, motionless to the ground, as if the wind did not know it was there. It seemed to peer at her, but the face was hidden in the utter blackness of its hood.

Thaile sprang to her feet. The apparition drifted closer like smoke. It was taller than she was.

“Child?” The rustly whisper was dry as wind on dead grass. “What are you doing here?”

“Nothing, er-my lady.” She thought it was female. Her Feeling could detect no one there, though. Her teeth chattered frantically and her whole inside had turned to ice. What had she summoned? The Keeper Herself ? Or a wraith?

“Thaile?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Ah!” The apparition sounded surprised. “Why did you come here?”

“I didn’t want to! The Way brought me! I was trying to go home.”

Thaile heard a faint sniff, as if of surprise.

“But why here? Had you been shown this place?”

“No, ma’am.”

” ‘Tis strange.” The cowl moved as if the apparition shook its head, but still the wind did not ruffle it. “The time is not right. The Defile is dangerous enough when the moon is full, especially to those whose Faculty is strong. At the quarter it would … Who told you of it?”

“N-n-no one, ma’am.”

“Strange indeed. But we must save you from freezing, mustn’t we? Or you will never meet your destiny. The mistress of novices will be most upset to hear that one of her charges has been wandering the night.” A hint of a chuckle seemed to confirm that the invisible presence inside the cloak was at least partly human. “To which bed shall I send you?”

Thaile shouted “Leeb’s! ” before she had time to think.

The apparition did not reply for a dozen heartbeats. Then she sighed, and the dead-leaves voice became fainter than ever. “Child, child! How did you … ? Oh, I see. Incredible strength! I could not have, at your age … But you must bear the sorrow. I would not let them use a greater oblivion on you, and it would have done no good anyway. If I apply all the power your mind could endure, I fear you will still shake it off in time. Best to suffer the loss now, while you are young. Close your eyes, child, and I-“

“Where is Leeb? Who is Leeb?”

The cowled dark surged closer and Thaile shrank back hard against the rock. The voice came more quietly yet, crackling like thin ice on a winter puddle. “He is a young man, of course. You fell in love, Thaile, tragic error! For you, there can be no love, not ever. It would destroy you, and it would destroy him. Will you believe that?”

“No I won’t!”

“It is true, nonetheless. In time you will understand. Romp in men’s beds if you want. If a man attracts you, enjoy him, as you did that boy tonight-you will not lose your heart to him. But do not love. Never love. Do you want Mist’s comfort again now?”

“No!”

“Then close your eyes and I will return you to the Thaile Place. “

Come by moonlight:

Look for me by moonlight;
Watch for me by moonlight;
I’ll come to thee by moonlight,
Though hell should bar the way!

— Alfred Noyes, The Highwayman

The sun had not yet arrived in Krasnegar, and when it did, it would not linger long.

Nevertheless, in a cozy little kitchen in a modest dwelling near the docks, Captain Efflio had just completed breakfast. His landlady, Mistress Sparro, was plying him with innumerable “last” cups of tea, plus even more numerous questions about the queen’s council and the business of today’s meeting. Efflio declined the tea, being already awash in it. He was answering the queries as well as he could without betraying confidences, and he knew she would just invent the rest anyway. Having a member of the queen’s council as lodger had given Mistress Sparro an enormous boost in status on the gossip circuit. She would be off to visit with her friends as soon as he was out the door.

Half a year had passed since he had settled in Krasnegar. His first choice of lodgings had not been a success, but he had since found a worthy anchorage with Mistress Sparro. She was a widow in her forties, a typical imp, dark and dumpy, although she had two huge jotunnish daughters, both married. Such mismatches were not uncommon in Krasnegar. Her cooking was excellent. There was nothing significantly wrong with her figure. She had already dropped hints that a proposal to make their cohabitation permanent and intimate would not be declined. He was thinking about that quite seriously.

If Efflio had regrets about Sea Beauty, it was only that he had not sold the old hulk years earlier. Life on the beach had turned out to be much more tolerable than he had expected. Krasnegar was a quiet and friendly haven, and secure. After a lifetime at sea, he did not find it small. He had made friends, found inter ests, and was loaning out his surplus savings at very attractiv rates. Any time he needed a little excitement, he could always drop in on one of the jotunn saloons and watch the fights. True the climate was unspeakable, but a sailor found nothing untoward at wearing fur boots while eating breakfast, as now. He had learned to do without the sun, and already it had started it return, anyway.

And he was a member of the queen’s council. That was both an honor and an interest-imps and jotnar together could never be dull, as he knew from his life afloat. Only once had he watched the king chair a meeting. The queen did very well in his absence. Before Efflio came to Krasnegar he would not have believed for an instant that any collection of male jotnar would ever allow a woman to call it to order.

He was quite looking forward to today’s meeting, therefore but he was not looking forward to getting there. With his weallungs, he could not walk up the hill. In the summer he had traveled by coach. When winter plugged the road with snow, he had resigned himself to missing the meetings. The queen had not. The queen of Krasnegar was not easily balked.

Mistress Sparro lifted the kettle from the hob and topped up her best pink china teapot without dropping a stitch in her cross examination. Abandoning the subject of the recent rise in prices she tacked back to the matter of the king’s disappearance and what the council knew of it. All the imps in the kingdom were going crazy with curiosity on that subject. So was Efflio, and he knew no more than Mistress Sparro did, but of course he could not admit that.

“Matter of state, ma’am,” he said for the hundredth time “Can’t discuss it.”

There was a knock on the door.

To be precise, something drummed deafeningly on the door, slamming it to and fro on its hinges, almost ripping the latch from the wall, and creating enough noise to be heard in Nordland. Before either Efflio or Mistress Sparro could rise, the door surrendered and flew open. Two youths burst in, making the kitchen seem very crowded. There was something about young male jotnar that could make anywhere seem crowded.

Efflio stayed in his chair. He would still have to crane his neck if he rose, for they were both an arm’s length taller than he was. They looked very broad and bulky in their winter fur and wool. They both sported uncertain mustaches, one silver and one almost reddish. Red professed to have a beard also, but it was the sort of beard that needed a good light.

“This the baggage for the palace?” Silver boomed, jabbing Efflio with a finger like a belaying pin.

“Come on, Granpop!” the other said, equally loudly. “Can you walk as far as the door?”

Mistress Sparro slammed down her kettle. “Captain Efflio is a member of the queen’s council!” she snapped.

“He’s baggage to us,” Red said. “Salted herring or fat old men, it’s all the same. “

“Listen! ” Silver cupped a large horny hand to his ear. “Can you hear a pussy cat somewhere? Charge extra for livestock. ” Efflio could do nothing about his wheezing, but he did not intend to tolerate the ill manners of a pair of common porters. He had been taken unaware the first time the queen had sent a carrying chair for him; he had thus had to endure the effects of what jotnar regarded as a sense of humor all the way to the castle. He had been jeered at and insulted; he had been rocked and bounced to establish whether he was prone to seasickness; he had been stranded at a saloon halfway up a steep staircase until he agreed to buy a round of beer.

That had been the first time. Since then he had traveled with more dignity. He had a lifetime of experience in handling jotunn louts. Young ones were easy, no matter how big they were.

“There’s been a mistake,” he said, and held out his cup to Mistress Sparro for a refill.

“Huh?” Silver said.

“I am expected at the palace shortly. Major Domo Ylinyli was supposed to send a sedan chair and two men. There has been an error, obviously.”

“What’djer mean?” Red demanded. “Men. Not boys.”

With no visible effort, Silver took the front of Efflio’s doublet in one hand and lifted him to his feet. “Don’t get smart, Fatso! “

“Somebody should.” Efflio sat down again. “We agreed we needed men and he sends boys. We agreed we needed imps and he sends jotnar. Oh well, the queen can manage without me, I’m sure. “

“Another muffin, Captain?” Mistress Sparro said calmly, offering the plate.

“Imps?” Silver said, looking bewildered. “What’ju want imps for?”

Efflio paused with his hand poised over the muffins. “So I can get there before midsummer.” He looked up in exasperation. “Off with you both! Tell Ylinyli to be more careful next time, and close the door quietly.”

“We was told to carry you to the palace!” Red said stubbornly. “Silver penny apiece.”

“You couldn’t.” Efflio sighed. He leaned back and stared up at the two giants-Silver’s woolen cap was actually touching the ceiling. “Listen, sonny! In the Impire there are lots of sedan chairs, see? They’re all over the place in the cities, and they are always carried by imps! Imps can run, you see. Jotnar don’t have the wind for it. “

Silver said, “Wotchermean, wind?”

Red said “Run?” with a hint of caution-that one might discover he had a spark of intelligence if he wasn’t careful. Efflio took a sip of tea. “I mean that a couple of impish bearers from Hub, say, or Shaldokan, would run that chair back up to the castle in a few minutes. You northerners make good sailors, and I agree you’ve got muscles to spare, but you don’t have the wind that imps have. Not for running with a burden. It’s a knack. I don’t plan to spend all day in a carrying chair while you two lumbering hulks stagger around. Tell Ylinyli I stayed home.” Wheezing contentedly, he took another muffin.

Red was suspicious. “Vark and Zug never said nothing about running!”

Efflio had no idea which pair they had been. He laughed. “Of course not! They wouldn’t!” He smirked at Mistress Sparro. “Remember me telling you? The jotnar who tried to run?”

“Oh, yes!” Mistress Sparro sniggered. “Was that one of the ones who fainted on Whalers’ Steps?”

“And the one who kept throwing up. I did warn them that jotnar shouldn’t try to run with a load like that, but no, they thought they could do as well as imps … “

Silver’s wispy mustache bristled with fury; pale-blue eyes burned. Again he lifted the captain bodily to his feet, and this time he stooped, so that they were nose to nose. “Get your coat on, Imp! We’ll show you running!”

“Oh, don’t give me that!” Efflio protested. “You young jotnar think you’re tough, but I’ve seen what happens, and you’ll never-“

Silver raised him off the floor, still one-handed. Tea slopped. The kid’s face was scarlet with anger. “Get your coat on or you go without it! “

Red and Silver did very well, the best pair yet. They made a fast trip, and neither had breath to mar it with jokes about the captain’s asthma. Had it been physically possible for two men to run all the way up Krasnegar carrying a sedan chair with a fat old sailor in it, then they might have been the first to do so. Alas, they collapsed simultaneously at the top of Royal Wynd. Efflio left them crumpled on the ground and embarked on an easy stroll to the palace gate. At that point, their breathing was a great deal louder than his.

“Rank profiteering, that’s what it is!” Foronod screeched, thumping a fist on the table. His decrepit old jotunn face was flaming red, his skimpy silver hair awry, as if it were trying to stand on end. He was drooling in his fury.

The old man was past it, Inos thought sadly. He contributed nothing to meetings now, but he was a Krasnegarian monument, the nearest thing the kingdom had to an elder statesman; to dismiss him from her council would be unthinkably unkind.

“And what you propose is outright robbery!” Across the table, Mistress Oglebone was becoming even redder, swelling ever larger and more pompous as the discussion grew more heated. She was blustering, but for any imp to face up to the old factor was an unusual display of courage and conviction. “One quarter the stock at the usual price means one quarter the income, and the merchants will starve!”

“Starve?” Foronod sprayed the word. “Live off your fat, you oversize pigs!”

“Councillors!” Inos hammered with the whale’s tooth that served as gavel at meetings of the state council. Candlesticks shuddered, dribbling hot wax.

The resulting silence presented an unfortunate opportunity for Havermore to intervene. “Indeed, your Majesty, honorable ladies and gentlemen, I think our first moral duty here is to consider the poor, who certainly may starve, or freeze, or being faced with the choice may, in the way of our less fortunate brethren … ” The old bishop could be counted on to blether for at least ten minutes, but perhaps that would give everyone else a chance to calm down.

The council was discussing the price of peat.

Looking along the length of the long table, Inos reflected that her advisors were growing old and predictable. She needed some new faces, with some youthful spark and fresh ideas. She had made few appointments since she first came to the throne, and even the youngsters she had added at that time were showing their years now-Kratharkran, for example. Then he had been a gangly, muscular young giant, vigorous and restless. Now he was a stolid human walrus, who made chairs creak when he squeezed into them. She could not wait for the oldest to die off; she must expand the council again. It could use at least another six members. Young ones. She would ask Rap …

Another idea that must wait for Rap’s return.

“And who’s to pay for that?” yelled Oglebone, her substantial bosom heaving with outrage. The bishop had just suggested a distribution of free peat to the poor.

The council had split along the usual lines, imps versus jotnar. Although he was an imp the bishop was an outsider, from the Impire, and should have been able to conciliate the two factions. His blundering efforts usually just antagonized everyone.

And this time there was good reason for the division. The imps were largely drawn from the tradesmen and merchants, with Oglebone their leader. The jotnar represented artisans and fisher-folk, all of whom-being jotnar—were hopelessly short of money so late in the winter, and especially this winter, with the cost of fuel rising faster than smoke. Farther down the agenda the price of credit lurked like a hungry bear. It would certainly provoke allegations of usury and demands for royal decrees.

Rap had warned months ago that fuel would run short, and the weather had been harder than usual, if that was possible. The cold at Winterfest had been the worst in memory. Some children and old folk had frozen in their beds. Foronod and Oglebone were both shouting now, and others joining in.. Inos gritted her teeth. This was when Rap would have intervened with some quiet, sensible suggestion. She hammered again. Nothing happened. “Councillors!” She was ignored. She rose to her feet and hurled the whale’s tooth clattering along the length of the table, scoring a strike on the fourth gold candlestick. Lin caught it just before it fell over.

“Quiet!”

Shamefaced silence. Inos sat down again, seething. “The next person who speaks out of turn will be evicted from this meeting! ” She glared around, meeting every eye in turn and watching their owners cower before her royal fury. That was Rap’s old sorcery at work, she supposed, but she was almost mad enough to throw a few subjects into dungeons.

A hand rose at the far end. Peering around the flames, she recognized the junior member of the council.

“Captain Efflio?”

“I have a couple of questions, ma’am, if I may?”

The old seaman had not spoken a word so far. The few times she had noticed him, he had been watching the fracas with amused tolerance. He was an outsider, and a newcomer, and he usually made sense on the rare occasions when he chose to intervene. She hoped he was going to do so now. “Certainly.”

“We have been given figures on the reserves of peat remaining and average monthly consumption. Obviously that will change as the weather warms up. If we had some more detailed numbers, we could assess the situation better. And how about previous years? Are there records? Do we have any idea of the normal requirements between now and springtime?” He paused, wheezing. “And, finally, are there no alternatives? I seem to recall seeing quantities of driftwood along the mainland shore, outside the bay. “

“Driftwood?” Foronod bellowed scornfully.

The logistics of winnowing driftwood from pack ice and dragging it back through a subpolar night would be nightmarish. The present situation might be serious enough to justify the effort, but at the moment driftwood was a monstrous irrelevancy. If the council took off after that, it would never be seen again.