“I haven’t discovered that yet.” She beckoned to him and moved to the tub behind the screen. “But you can be sure that I will find out. I have recently conjured a new sigil named Subtle Loophole that enables me to both oversee and listen closely to anyone, anywhere. This is a wonderful new weapon, a Great Stone purchased at the cost of much pain and suffering.”
His face was troubled. “Will not such a thing put you in greater peril of the Lights?”
“Let me worry about that,” she said, stepping into the now-steaming tub, which was made of burnished copper with a fine embossed-silver rim. “Forget about wars and sorcery for a few minutes, and concentrate on helping me to get clean again. And then let us take comfort in one another. I do love you with all my heart and soul, Conrig, and I long for the day when we can remain together for more than a few short hours.” She tilted her head, staring at him in smiling speculation. “Do yo u realize we have never seen one another truly, or touched—save through magic? But we’ll meet at last in Holt Mallburn, when you’re victorious, and I pray we’ll never be apart again.”
“It will be a wondrous day, in so many ways,” he said, striving to imbue the words with loving enthusiasm. Then he turned away to bring her the scented soap and a sponge, and to hang up her damp garments in front of the fire.
twenty
Beynor sulked behind Fortress in his regal apartment until all of the Mossland dignitaries had finally returned to their homes, taking with them the furnishings and appurtenances they had lent for the illfated coronation. Grand Master Ridcanndal and Lady Zimroth had urged him to deliver a parting speech, reassuring his vassals that the future boded well; but he was a youth of sixteen for all his kingship and magical talent, and too consumed by fury and the chagrin of his public embarrassment to accept their wise counsel. All he had done for three whole days was hide away and burn and curse his dead sister—she had to be dead!—knowing that the absurd botch of his crowning would never be forgotten by any of those attending.
He had not confessed the loss of Destroyer and the Unknown Potency to the Glaumerie Guild. Now that he was king, the wizards had no way to compel him to display the stones. He was uncertain whether Ullanoth had taken them away or destroyed them, but he did know now that she must own a Sender sigil. Its powerful sorcery was the only thing that could have penetrated Fortress; and he himself, all unknowing, had helped solidify the Sending.
His only consolation was that the Didionite royals had not repudiated their Treaty of Alliance, nor had they blamed him directly for the distressing events. So as his temper cooled, he set about to do as he had promised, shutting down Fortress for hours at a time and meticulously windsearching the kingdom of Cathra for any sign that an invasion force was gathering.
He discovered the peculiar fog.
It was confined to the northeast and north central part of the country and the Dextral Mountains, patchy but dense, and seemed natural enough. Except that it hid the principal northern roads of Cathra from his oversight, and completely blotted out the region between Elk Lake and Swan Lake that formed the crucial approach to Beorbrook Hold and Great Pass—the region that an army bent upon invading Didion would have to traverse.
Emerging at last from seclusion, he called upon Lady Zimroth and other members of the Guild highly talented in windwatching to concentrate their combined attention on the area night and day, hoping that they would descry something of importance when the mists finally broke apart. Instead, the vaporous blanket continued to expand until it began to pour over the mountainous divide into southern Didion itself.
“I’m beginning to think this fog might be magical in origin,” Beynor said to Lady Zimroth. They were with eight other wizard-observers in the Guild’s chapter room, seated at a great round table, and had just completed another frustrating joint survey of the enshrouded lands. It was early afternoon.
The dignified elderly woman inclined her head. She was dressed in robes, veil, and a wimple of grey silk. The skin of her face was grey as well and so full of fine lines and creases that no part of it remained smooth. Only her eyes had color, being the vibrant clear green of new alder leaves in spring.
“Boreal is the moon of mists, Your Majesty,” Zimroth said. “This fog certainly might be a natural manifestation. But the fact that it hides the strategic area and persists for so long is suspicious.” Her calm gaze was full of challenge. “Of course, there is one way to find out for certain if it is caused by sorcery, but one hesitates to suggest it, since you have so recently overexerted yourself using Weathermaker.”
Beynor squared his shoulders and rose from his seat at the table. “I’ll deal with the matter at once. You and the others wait here and keep watch until I return. I don’t know how severely the sigil will incapacitate me when I use it this time. It won’t be an easy job. Send Master Ridcanndal and the Physician Royal to my chambers if I don’t return in two hours. I’ll command Fortress to admit them.”
He left the chapter room and went to his apartment in a foul mood. Even Zimroth, who’d been his dear surrogate mother, still regarded him as a shrinking child, reluctant to experience necessary pain! What would he have to do to convince them he was a man, and strong?
Weathermaker rarely left his finger now. He stepped out onto the balcony and held the moonstone ring high, conjuring a strong north wind to sweep down from the mountain heights onto the plain surrounding Beorbrook Hold. As he completed the incantation, his head seemed pierced by a lance of agony that was first blazing hot and then stunningly cold. He screamed, doubling over, and dropped to his knees. The pain swelled to a white glare, and his voice failed as his breath was choked off. His heart gave a great hurtful leap within his breast, a wave of darkness engulfed him, and he fell senseless.
When he woke the sun was lower. He lay on the moss-grown stone floor of the balcony, chilled to the bone and stiff but otherwise not afflicted. Moaning and cursing, he staggered to his feet. Weathermaker glowed wanly on his finger, quiescent again. Down in the inner ward, Rothbannon’s Marvel revealed that he had been unconscious for just over an hour. He went inside, hauled on a warm robe, and made his way slowly back to the Guild chapter room where the others waited.
“Did the fog dissipate?” he asked. But their glum faces gave him the answer. He heaved a sigh of frustration. All his pain had been for nothing. “Tell me.”
Two of the wizards hastened to help him into a chair, and Zimroth poured him a glass of spirits, which he sipped thankfully.
“Your Majesty, did you command Weathermaker to dissolve the mist?” Zimroth asked.
“Nay.” Beynor wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “I conjured a mighty north wind to blow it away.” It had seemed the easier course, but he was not about to admit that.
“I thought as much,” the High Thaumaturge said. “As we watched, a gale began to push the fog down the slope before it. Great Pass was cleared and we saw no troops or other unusual activity. But upon reaching the lowlands, the wind seemed to strike invisible obstacles and form many conflicting streams of air. The fog whirled and thinned in some places, but never again did it disappear completely. Instead it seemed to become like a stormy sky brought down to earth, tumbling and chaotic. Your blast of wind then moved through the sea of vapor like a great wave—or perhaps an advancing avalanche. But when if had passed, the fog was still there. It was impossible for us to see what might be happening beneath it.”
“The fog is certainly of uncanny origin,” said a wizard named Makartinal. He was a craggy-faced scholar of impressive talent. “The fact that the widespread blanket was churned and thinned at times, yet was not torn open, leads me to think that it might be generated by more than one adept—perhaps by scores or even hundreds of magical practitioners who made more fog as the wind attempted to dissipate it. I believe the sorcery may be more powerful than the Brothers of Zeth can exert—or even our Guild.“
Beynor frowned. “But who could be doing it? Certainly not the Salka. They would never aid Cathra.”
“There are always the Green Men,” Makartinal said.
Zimroth nodded slowly. “They hate the folk of Didion, true enough. But an arcane phenomenon such as this would require cooperation amongst hundreds of them. And they live in widely scattered small bands in the wolds and the Green Morass, and the groups are said to have no bonds of loyalty one to another.”
Beynor sighed, rising from his seat. “My friends, I thank you for working with me. We can ponder this problem of the fog another day. I must go now and bespeak our Didionite allies, telling them what we know. And then I must rest. I’m all used up.”
Lady Zimroth said, “I’ll prepare a soothing draft for Your Majesty and bring it to your chamber.”
“That would be most kind.”
“But before you go,” she added, her voice tense with foreboding, “you must see this. The foreman of the crew clearing the rubble of the demolished South Tower brought it to me while you were away conjuring the wind. It severely burnt the hands of the slave who found it. I placed it in this box for safety’s sake.”
She took up a small golden casket that had been on the table before her and brought it to Beynor. He opened it. Inside was a faintly shining moonstone shaped like a small octagonal plaque. He felt his heart contract as he recognized the sigil named Fortress.
Not his own Fortress, which still guarded his chambers: this one had to be Ullanoth’s.
“The stone is no longer in operation, since the place it was charged to protect is gone,” Zimroth said. “But it is alive, as you see, and so must be your sister, its owner. Would you have us begin to windsearch the city for her?”
“No,” said Beynor, in a voice barely audible.
Alive… He’d deluded himself after all, and his secret fear was now confirmed. She was alive, and certainly beyond his reach. Could she have taken Destroyer and the Unknown Potency with her?
Damn Ullanoth to the Ten Hells of Ice!
“She will have gone south with the Didionites.” He spoke more forthrightly. “No doubt she stowed away on one of their ships while concealed by a sigil. I must think about this very carefully. How many other people know about this Fortress stone of hers?”
“The foreman and his crew of slaves,” Zimroth said. “No others, I should think.”
“Kill them,” said the Conjure-King. His gaze took in the group of wizards. “And all of you keep silence about this until I decide whether or not to warn King Achardus and his sons that Ullanoth may be alive and traveling among them.”
Carrying the golden box with its perilous contents, he left the room, knowing what he would have to do with this sigil. If Ullanoth should discover that it was not destroyed, she could command it, even from a distance, and perhaps do him great harm. So the stone had to be abolished and then empowered to him. Immediately.
Coldlight Army, smite her! he raged inwardly. Another hideous ordeal, and this time not a relatively brief one—and all for the sake of a redundant stone that would not significantly increase his own might.
Who could tell what havoc Ulla might wreak in Didion, laying the groundwork for Prince Conrig’s invasion? He doubted that she would attempt to empower his own stolen Great Stones. The risk was too formidable. But she certainly owned a Concealer; her uncanny appearances and disappearances proved that. And he was virtually certain that she possessed a sigil that enabled her body to become subtle. How else to explain his sword passing through her like a ghost, or her escape from the silken ropes? And only a Beastbidder would have enabled her to create chaos at his coronation with the fitches, gulls, midges, and rats. How many other stones did she have, and what were their capabilities? There was no way to know… until she used them against him.
I must find a way to kill her, he told himself in desperation. I must, or my own plans for the future will be forfeit.
But he had no notion of how to do that, short of seeking the counsel of the Lights, a prospect that caused his soul to shrivel. So from that time on, without even realizing it, he began to hate himself as much as he hated his sister, for being young and afraid.
==========
After departing from Swanwick at first light, the small force of Heart Companions and armigers had ridden steadily uphill all day and were now only a few hours away from Castle Vanguard. Vra-Stergos, riding with Conrig at the head of the party, did his best to scry the fog-swathed, dripping landscape ahead of them for villains lying in ambush, while Snudge, by order of the prince, brought up the rear and took a cautious windsight from time to time, making sure that no suspicious persons came up suddenly behind them. His labors were all but useless. The mists were so heavy that one could hardly see three ells, using either eye or talent. But the prince’s party was safe enough. No one traveled the road in such weather save a few peasants and other harmless persons, insubstantial ghosts in the murk who responded to Belamil’s regular calls of “Make way!” by drawing respectfully to the verge while the cavalcade of anonymous-looking armed men passed them by.
At the beginning of the journey, Snudge had been full of excitement and anticipation, like the other squires. But the unending clammy gloom of the last two days had lowered his spirits. With no observation of the passing scene to distract him while riding, he was bored. The other armigers were often able to converse among themselves; but he, relegated to the tail-end of the procession by his special duty, was mostly left on his own, jouncing through white blankness, occasionally calming his horse with his talent, silently bespeaking Stergos regularly to tell him that all was well, while the other armigers had no idea what he was doing.
Only one unusual thing happened to break the monotony, a sudden roaring blast of wind that came from nowhere and nearly blew him out of the saddle. But it was gone almost as soon as it arrived, amounting to nothing.
So Snudge brooded, thinking over his life thus far, his amazing good fortune and his narrow escapes from death, wondering what future his wild talent would bring him as he served his prince. He thought of many things… but most of all, he thought about the sigil hanging around his neck.