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Four
The boy made his way to
the area where the armigers had laid their straw-stuffed palliasses. He
rummaged in his pack for a moment, then hurried to the opposite side of the
tower. Three document presses stood there. The left-hand one had a few ancient
crocks of dried-out ink on its lower shelf. Snudge pushed them aside so he
could creep in and touch a small stud at the rear of the cabinet, causing a low
door to slide soundlessly open. When he was safe inside in the dark he paused
for a moment, then struck fire with his talent, lighting the wick of the
candle inside his lantern.
It was cleverly made. A
fat waxen stub was affixed to the wall of the tankard. Tiny vent holes poked
into the base kept the flame burning when the tankard's hinged lid was shut. If
the lid was more or less held open by a thumb, a beam shone out. The only
problem with the thing was that a section of the handle tended to get uncomfortably
hot after a while; he'd wrapped it with a strip of leather, but he still had to
watch how he gripped it.
Snudge crept down the
constricted spiral stairway and paused for a moment to look through a peephole
into the library. The three Companions were dicing and
drinking. Count Sividian cursed his luck while the two younger lords cackled
and
jeered. The four armigers were out of eyeshot. Snudge prayed that none of them
had discovered the library's own door into the secret passage, and continued
down.
He had a fair distance to go. Castle Vanguard was an enormous place, almost
oblong in shape, with a tower at each corner and two more sited midway along
the extensive northern and southern wings. The repository tower lay across the
ward from the kitchen tower, which overlooked the stable area as well as the
brewing and baking, buildings. In order to reach the stables unseen, he'd have
to traverse half the castle's perimeter, moving through the south wing past the
great hall and the southwest tower, then beyond the solar, the west gatehouse,
and the chapel, into the northwest tower. From there he would enter the massive
north wing, in which the kitchen tower was emplaced. When he emerged at the
base of that tower, he'd be forced to abandon the safety of the secret passages
and make his way openly to the stables. He was unable to use his talent to hide
and simultaneously follow the watcher's trace.
He set out, moving
quickly enough through the familiar passages, treading in his own dusty
footprints (and those of Stergos and the prince), pausing only for a moment to
peep into the solar, where he was amazed to see his royal master pouring wine
like a pageboy. Then he came into places he had never been, and several times
made wrong turnings. There were no more footprints now save those of the rats.
He heard rustling noises now and again, but never caught sight of the
creatures.
Inside the gatehouse
wall he abruptly came to a dead end in a nook with small unglazed loopholes,
full of spiderwebs and bird droppings. The only egress led outside onto a
parapet where machicolations fronted the west barbican, above the top of the
massive main gate. He cracked the door open and peered cautiously out, then
withdrew with a curse. He dared not risk it. It was still bright twilight. Both
the northwest and southwest towers were manned by guards, and one or more of
the men would be certain to see him crossing. He couldn't muddle the minds of
several people well enough to hide himself unless it was full dark. But if he
waited until then, the council of war might come to an end and the windwatcher
cut off his surveillance.
He nearly gave it up,
but almost by accident he pressed the proper stone in the mold-encrusted wall.
A slab swung up, and he saw a black tunnel barely large enough for a man to
worm through. Dust lay two fingers deep inside.
"Codders!" he
whispered in disgust. It looked as though no one had gone that way for a
hundred years. Even though he had not yet reached his full growth, he was a
well-built youth with broad shoulders. What if he ended up wedged in there like
a cork in a bloody bunghole?
Had to try.
A footman, even one
serving a prince, owned no such luxury as a kerchief. So he used his small
dagger to cut out the fustian lining of his black livery jerkin and wrapped
that around his mouth and nose. Then, pushing the lantern ahead of him, he
started to wriggle through. His eyes watered fiercely, and as the dust
thickened in the meager air he feared he would smother. He pressed on, coming
at last to another stone slab. It pivoted easily. He thrust his body through
the opening and fell onto the floor of yet another passage, letting loose a
huge sneeze. The lantern clattered as he dropped it and its candle went out.
"Shite!" he
moaned, and lay still in the dark, first listening and then casting about with
his talent to determine whether he had been overheard. When nothing happened
he struggled to his feet and felt along the wall until he found one of the
interior peepholes. He could see nothing through it, but smelled candle-wax and
incense. A chapel storage room, no doubt, windowless and deserted.
He giggled. "Lucky
again, Snudge!" Found the lantern, rekindled it with his talent, dusted
himself down as well as he could, and started off.
Suppertime for the
stablehands: chunks of black bread, hot mutton pottage thick with barley and
onions and carrots, cannikins of strong brown Vanguard ale, famous in the north
country. The duke's men and the grooms and horseknaves of the visiting nobles
were gathered together around a flaming brazier in the small arcade between the
smithy and the saddlery, cursing the kitchenboys for ladling portions deemed
too small and loudly demanding more ale when the first barrel was emptied.
Snudge dodged past that
well-lit area into a shadowed corridor beside the granary and hay-store, where
he came upon a stack of iron-bound wooden buckets. He had turned his mutilated
jerkin inside out to hide the prince's silver stallion blazon, and no one
would think to question a scruffy waterbearer wandering about. He took a bucket
and slouched openly to the spring-shelter out in the midst of the ward, dipped
up a small amount of water from the basin, and headed into the area of the
stables where common-born visitors were lodged at night. It was there that he
believed the windwatcher was lurking. Almost immediately he met two head
grooms in Marley livery, who eyed him with disdain.
"You, knave!"
called one of them. "Where do the upper servants dine?"
Snudge bobbed his head
humbly. "In the kitchens, messire. Straight past the smithy yard and to
your left, within the middle tower."
They strode off without
another word, leaving Snudge with his heart pounding. He slipped into an
alcove hung with coils of rope, put down the bucket, and closed his eyes to
search closely.
Perhaps down that
corridor to the right . . . His mind's eye could perceive no human form in any
of the chambers, but there seemed to be a strange blur among the packsacks and
fardels and other baggage belonging to some lord's train. The boy concentrated
his oversight on the mundane objects near the blur. The room was dark, but he
was finally able to make out a heraldic device stamped on a small leather
coffer—a lymphad with the sail furled and oars over the side, flying a death's-head
flag: the arms of House Skellhaven.
Ha! Had the spy had come
in from the east coast, with or without the knowledge of the piratical
viscount?
An idea suggested
itself. Since there was small likelihood that the watcher would recognize his
own talent—not even Vra-Kilian, the Royal Alchymist, had managed to do that
Snudge decided to blunder into the room like an oafish servitor and hope for
the best. The water provided a suitable excuse. Perhaps the spy would be so
engrossed in his work that he wouldn't even notice an intruder.
Snudge ignited his
improvised dark-lantern, which he had hung from his belt like an ordinary
tankard, and hoisted the bucket. The first dormitorium, with its door wide
open, was untenanted. So was the second. The third chamber was closed but not
locked, and when Snudge opened the door and held high the lantern he stopped
short in astonishment.
"Futter me
blind!" he whispered, almost letting the bucket fall to the floor. At the
far end of the dark, shuttered room, which was strewn with baggage,
the wavering shadow of a
human form was dimly visible on the wall. A shadow without a body to project
it.
Open-mouthed, Snudge
advanced a few steps, sweeping the lantern from side to side. The movement of
the light caused the shadow to change shape. "Who's there?" he cried,
without thinking.
"Why, it's only me,
laddie—Jasiko, a man of Lord Skellhaven's! Who might you be?" The voice
was like dry oak leaves crushed underfoot.
The windwatcher had
appeared in the blink of an eye, and Snudge was aware of an insistent mental
whisper telling him he had only imagined the bodiless shadow. The magicker was
mind-mashing him!
He was a wiry little old
fellow bald as an egg, with a deeply lined face, as though he had experienced
great pain. He wore the dirty white pantaloons, waxed leather jacket, and
folded high boots of a sailor. Around his neck hung a short gold chain with a
square stone pendant that glowed as faintly as foxfire. The
The boy lifted the
bucket. "Here's w-water for Washing. I'll just put it here and go."
The spy started toward
Snudge, an ingratiating smile spreading his fur-rowed lips. His teeth were
decayed brown stumps. The pupils of his amazing eyes expanded until all trace
of their fiery color had been obliterated by blackness.
"Bide a moment,
lad. I'll take the bucket:' He held out a hand, striding quickly through the
scattered chests and packs of Skellhaven's retainers.
Snudge felt a terrifying
splinter of ice prick his throat. He cried, "Oh!"
"Don't be
afraid." The sorcerer spoke in a wheedling tone. His eyes had become
gleaming jet beads, enormous and compelling. Magic stiffened Snudge's tongue
and rendered him mute. He felt his fingers freeze. A wave of cold began
creeping up his arms. His feet tingled painfully, then lost feeling and seemed
rooted to the floor. Snudge's mind screamed:
Damn you! You won't! You
won't do that to me!
He drew arcane power
from somewhere; fending off frigid paralysis, and flung the iron-bound bucket
overhand, dealing the spy a glancing blow on the side of his head. The man
blinked, breaking the spell of encroaching ice for a moment, but kept coming.
The fatal cold took hold of Snudge again, and he hit his adversary in the face
with the hot lantern, which promptly went out. The sorcerer tottered and crashed
over backwards onto the wet, slippery stones, visible only because of the faint
gleam of his amulet. Snudge leapt on top of him, using his fists. Neither of
them uttered a sound.
The small man struggled
like a mad thing in the dark, exerting uncanny strength. Straddling his
adversary's torso, Snudge felt sinewy fingers seize his neck. Thumbs with nails
like steel pincers dug in on each side of his voicebox, bringing pain and
roaring dizziness and a red fog pulsing behind his eyes. He couldn't breathe. His
pummeling fists had no effect. He fumbled desperately at his waist, found his
little dagger, and grasped it in both hands as he felt death closing in on him.
Time for one strike—only one—and instinct or something else taught him the
appropriate place to drive in the blade, the sure route to the sorcerer's
heart. He knew how to thrust up under the breastbone, bury the dagger to its
hilt, and twist .. .
Then came an abrupt
relaxation of those claw-like hands, the melting of the muscle-fettering ice
whose power he had kept at bay for a few critical seconds.
The eerie glow of the
sorcerer's pendant showed Snudge a face contorted with incredulous rage. His
heart torn and stilled, the spy bucked upward in a last spasm of agony as all
thinking ground inexorably to a halt. There was a rattling exhalation of
breath, followed by a blare of windspeech:
Beynor!
A call?
How did the boy do it?
How? How? How?
Each soundless demand
was fainter than the last, until there was only silence on the wind. The
furious glint of talent in the sorcerer's eyes dwindled to blank nullity and
his soul fled to an inaccessible place, leaving only dead flesh and bones
behind.
The glow of his pendant
winked out.
Snudge took a shuddering
breath. For a time be did nothing but draw in sweet air, resisting a powerful
urge to spew up his supper. Then he fumbled for the fallen lantern, found and
lit it, and stared in wonder at his handiwork.
A human being once alive
was slain by him, as dead as a crushed ant or an arrow-shot stag or a chicken
with its neck wrung. He felt no remorse, no fear, no sense of relief at
escaping whatever perilous enchantment had threatened him—only an empty
numbness. Almost without thought he pulled out his blade, wiped it on the wad
of torn fustian lining he had crammed into his belt-wallet, and sheathed it.
Blood oozed forth from the small wound, not as much as he would have expected.
It slowly soaked the man's linen shirt, but was kept from leaking onto the
floor by the waxed leather jacket.
The pendant on the
sorcerer's breast had become a square of ordinary translucent stone, blue-white
in color, curiously carved.
A moonstone sigil.
Snudge had read of such
a thing in one of the books purloined from Vra-Kilian back at
After a moment's
hesitation Snudge unfastened the gold chain, slipped off the sigil, and thrust
the thing into his wallet. The valuable chain he replaced on the dead man's
neck, buttoning his shirt and jacket over it.
Snudge was not that kind
of thief.
He took the body by the
arms and dragged it over the water-splashed floor into a corner. A few pallets
of stuffed sacking had already been laid out as beds for Skellhaven's men. He
arranged the corpse in a fetal curl on one of them, face to the wall as though
sleeping, then pulled off the seaboots and set them neatly to one side. He used
the wad of fustian to mop up the spilled water as well as he could. Perhaps the
floor would dry before anyone else came. He put the sodden cloth into the
bucket.
Now I must search, he
thought, strangely calm, to see whether any talented person heard the
sorcerer's death-cry.
Shutting his eyes, he
became one with the wind again, seeking any trace of awareness, any thin strand
of oversight focused on the dead man, exploring nearby first, then outside the
castle, and finally sweeping along a narrow path three hundred leagues northward
to Royal Fenguard. The effort drenched him with sweat and weakened his muscles
so that he almost collapsed. But no magical adept watched from afar, and no
ordinary person had heard the brief com-motion in the stable and started out to
investigate its source.
Deveron Austrey,
mankiller, opened his eyes. After his strength returned, he stepped into the
dim corridor and used the lantern to examine his clothing, making certain there
was no trace of blood. Then he started back to the repository tower, moving slowly
like one half-asleep, taking the bucket with him until he could abandon it
safely inside the secret passage.
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