Authors: Julian May
I'll think of something, she thought. I won't let my lady down.
In a brief moment of apprehension, she wondered how Maude fared back at Gentian Fell. Lord Tinnis had to know of Rusgann's flight by now. The report of it, bespoken by the wizard Vibifus, would have been passed on to the constable at Boarsden by one of the staff windvoices. But surely Tinnis would never punish the Princess Dowager for the escape of her lowborn friend. The man loved Maude to distraction.
No, Rusgann reassured herself. There was no danger to her dear lady - only to herself, as she'd known from the beginning and freely accepted. But she'd see the precious letter placed in Prince Dyfrig's hand or die trying.
She pulled her damp hat down over her face and closed her eyes. Something half-remembered nagged at her mind like a mouse nibbling maddeningly inside a wall, out of reach; nevertheless it was no time before she drifted off to sleep.
Over by the dying fire, the hostel-keeper stood with hands on hips, staring thoughtfully in her direction.
For Tinnis Catclaw, Constable of the Realm and chief enforcer of the laws of the Sovereignty, there would be no rest at all that night. He stood at the window of his tower-room in Castle Boarsden, and his unseeing eyes streamed with hot tears.
It had finally happened, as he knew it must one day. The runaway wench could have only one purpose: to effect the release of her captive mistress - probably by carrying some appeal to the Princess Dowager's son Dyfrig, who was how an adult and a belted knight with legal status before the law.
Perhaps Rusgann Moorcock would be captured before achieving her goal, but Tinnis could hardly count on it. The woman might already have passed on the secret to someone - perhaps when she stopped in Beorbrook Town. If the earl marshal's people went up to Gentian Fell to investigate, they
must
not find Maudrayne.
Tinnis Catclaw's lofty position, his fortune, and his very life depended on it.
'I must order it done,' he groaned, 'even though the very thought tears the heart from my body.'
Wiping the tears from his face, he opened the door leading to the corridor outside his chamber and shouted for his captain of the guard, Sir Asgar Beeton, to fetch his chief wind-speaker at once.
Deep in the Green Morass, alongside a wilderness game-trail that led from the Raging River to Black Hare Lake, Dyfrig Beorbrook felt himself come suddenly wide awake. His companions still slept like dead men, huddled together for warmth.
Earlier, thickening clouds had blotted out the light of the stars and forced his party to halt their forced march back to civilization. Vra-Erol Wintersett, the resolute military wind-searcher, had wanted to press on regardless, using his
farseeing talent to lead the others through the pitch-dark forest. But the trapper Calopticus Zorn stubbornly balked at walking blind with only a hand on another man's shoulder to guide him; and Stenlow, Dyfrig's equerry, was nursing a bad heel blister. So they'd made a simple bivouac beneath an oilskin lean-to, intending to continue when the sky cleared or at daybreak, whichever came first.
Dyfrig had fallen into a profound and dreamless slumber almost instantly. None of them had rested properly since leaving the Raging River, so anxious were they to reach the lake villages where they might obtain horses and hasten their journey to Boarsden and the Sovereign.
The prince was unsure of what woke him. The boreal woodland was silent, enshrouded now in dense mist, but not quite dark. Off to his right, spruce trunks were faintly silhouetted against a fuzzy greenish glow, like the foxfire of rotting wood or the corposants of marshlands. As he studied this phenomenon in perplexity, another insubstantial shining cloud sprang suddenly into being on his left hand. Then a third appeared out of nowhere, immediately in front of the open lean-to. All three of the radiant patches were about a stone's-throw distant.
Could they be spunkies?
He felt his skin crawl. The intelligent nonhuman beings properly named the Small Lights were not normal denizens of the morass, but frequented areas further south, and eastward into Moss. Long years ago, Conjure-Queen Ullanoth was said to have summoned enormous legions of the tiny bloodsucking fiends to assist Prince Heritor Conrig in his daring land assault on Didion's capital city.
But spunkies glowed gold or white, not green.
With each passing moment the shining enigmas brightened. Soon he could discern that within each nimbus were two distinct sources of illumination, paired orbs of emerald, slowly coming closer, growing larger.
Three sets of huge eyes glowing in the mist.
Dyfrig's heart leapt with terror. He opened his mouth to cry out and rouse his companions, but found he could make no sound.
You will not speak aloud. You will not move. You will answer our questions soundlessly, through your thoughts. Do you understand?
He couldn't help it: a raspy cry escaped his lips.
BE SILENT, HUMAN! Speak through your thoughts. Are you too stupid to understand?
'No.' He said the word and heard himself say it, but knew that it had come mutely, from his mind. 'I understand, and I'm not stupid. You're a Morass Worm, aren't you!'
The creature did not answer the question.
Why have you dared to invade our lands? Who are you? Are you allies of our ancient foe, the Salka?
The prince saw one pair of shining eyes rise slowly. The sinuous body of an enormous creature materialized as it approached, reared up, and finally halted some four ells away, looking down at him from more than twice the height of a tall man. Its head was ornamented with webbed frills and mobile tendrils, triple-crested, perhaps covered with close-fitting feathers or oddly marked fur. Its profile was wolfish rather than froggy like that of the grotesque Salka; but its teeth were equally huge, glassy daggers nearly six inches in length. It squatted on powerful hindlegs while holding its forelimbs at its sides with the sickle-sharp claws turned inward, as if indicating that it intended no harm. Because of the swirling vapors, Dyfrig could not see how long the creature's body might be; but it seemed to have a thick tail, rather like a lizard.
Or a dragon . . .
Answer me, human. Who are you and why are you here? Have you come from her who made the promise to us?
'My name is Dyfrig. I am a prince of my people. I'm here with my four companions seeking information about the Salka invaders. They are our enemies - just as you say they're yours. The Salka want to kill all humans and seize High Blenholme Island for themselves.'
All of it? The entire island and not merely this part?
The worm seemed surprised.
'Yes. It's their stated intention. We've been fighting off Salka attacks for years along the coast. Their latest invasion from the north almost caught us by surprise. We gathered a great army of warriors to oppose them. When their advance suddenly halted, our leaders were puzzled. They didn't know if the monsters had suffered some disaster - or if they were only biding their time before moving ahead again.'
The worm's long tongue, forked and black, emerged from its mouth and flicked its lips.
WE were the disaster that befell the Salka! This foolish horde had apparently forgotten that we dwelt in the morass, and shared the island with them and with certain other entities in the time before the Old Conflict. It was pointed out to us that we could overwhelm the Salka if we fell upon them in a certain way - and so we did. Now we have driven them back into the sea. We presume we will now be allowed to live in peace, as she promised us.
Dyfrig managed to grin. 'We found a track made by one of your people, and a broken tooth, and wondered if you were responsible for the Salka retreat.'
You know the truth. So leave this morass and never return. This is part of the agreement.
'You have my solemn word, as a prince of my people, that we will go away. All of my race owe you a great debt of gratitude for stopping those evil brutes. We might not have been able to defeat them and their sigil sorcery if you hadn't intervened.'
The worm threw back its terrible head and uttered a
voiceless howl.
We spit upon sigil sorcery! We spit upon all abominable users of sigils! We spit upon the Great Lights who tempt Ground beings to exchange pain for power!
Taken aback, Dyfrig could think of no response. What was the creature talking about? But before he could put the question, the Morass Worm abruptly dropped to all fours, extended its neck, and uttered a soft vocal hiss.
But that will be resolved in the New Conflict that is to come. For now, I command you to quit our lands and never come back. Do you intend to obey me?
'I've said I would.' The prince replied with dignity. 'We were already hastening to leave - but darkness and fatigue forced our halt. My friends are tired and sore. If you'd be kind enough to let them sleep until daybreak, I'd count it a courtesy.'
The fierce head inclined graciously.
They may sleep. So may you.
Dyfrig's smile was rueful. 'I'll probably lie wide-eyed. You've frightened me half to death, you know.'
Sleep,
the Morass Worm insisted.
And farewell.
The creature who had spoken and its two companions, visible only as disembodied pairs of emerald eyes, vanished like blown-out flames. A strange sensation came over Dyfrig. His mind seemed caught in a dizzying whirlpool of stars that carried him down, down, into a place where there was only darkness and quiet. A last question hovered in his mind: Who had convinced the worms to attack the Salka in force?
But it was of little account, so long as the monsters were gone. Prince Dyfrig forgot the matter and slept.
* * *
The false dawn of a new day greyed the sky of Tarn. It was the final, bleakest hour before sunup when human vital energies are at their lowest ebb and the mortally ill and the frail elderly cling most precariously to their hold upon the Ground Realm.
Ansel Pikan's grip was finally failing. But he fought to stay alive with stubborn tenacity, and as he endured, he cried out.
'So many enemies swarm about, threatening him,' he raved, his voice stronger than it had been for days. 'Enemies - and he himself is likely the worst of them all. Source! You know that if Beynor's wicked scheme succeeds, the world falls down to ruin. Can you hear me? Use me one last time! Source, let me help Conrig Wincantor. Warn him, at least! He's Blenholme's only hope and he's doomed and I don't know what to do. Help him, Source!'
'Hush,' said the woman at the Grand Shaman's bedside. 'Help will come. Cray and Thalassa have bespoken me that the wild-talented Deveron Austrey is safe with the Green Men near Castle Morass. He is to provide assistance to the Sovereign. Our two good friends have gone entranced beneath the Ice to try to clarify the man's mission. The Source will advise them.'
'But does the Source
know
what must be done?' Ansel whispered. 'Does even the Remnant of the Likeminded know or care? They use Conrig! They used poor Maude and her child. They used you! They and the Source of the Conflict use all of us poor groundlings and then cast us aside. Ah, God have mercy -'
His words dissolved into a moan of anguish and she began to weep, knowing her charge was beyond the help of any physick or healing magic. She could only hold his hand now and pray he would soon pass.
For a time, the shaman subsided into gentle delirium, mumbling incomprehensibly until he fell silent and she thought that he was slipping away in his sleep. But his body stiffened suddenly, he took a deep rattling breath, and his eyes opened wide. They gleamed with marvelling triumph even as his windvoice spoke plain and calm to her mind's ear.
'Oh, my dear! Listen to me! We mistook the Source's meaning in his earlier message. Deveron Austrey is indeed sent to aid the Sovereign of Blenholme during the New Conflict. . . but that Sovereign is
not
Conrig Wincantor! Tell Deveron. And when you call out to him with a general wind-hail, as you must since you don't have his signature, you must use the name that the Beaconfolk know: call him Snudge.'
'Snudge? But that's no name at all. It's an epithet - what you call a snoop. A sneak.'
Ansel gave a crooked smile. 'He's all that - but much more as well. Do as I say. Pass on the message. And now farewell, daughter. The crucial Sky battle approaches. Be strong as you play your own part in it. Be strong!'
'What do you mean?' she cried. 'Ansel! Ansel!'
But the spark of talent was already fading from his eyes, along with all evidence of life. She released her pent breath in a great sigh. "Voyage safely beyond the stars, dear friend, into peace.'
She kissed his brow, then sat back pondering the troubling things he'd said.
Had he suffered a deathbed delusion or was he
favored with a last revelation
of truth? By rights, she ought to relay his words first to Thalassa Dru, down in the Green village near Castle Morass. But the entranced sorceress would be absent from her fleshly body for heaven knew how long. Her visit to the Source might take days, and beneath the Ice she was far beyond the range of human windspeech.
What Ansel had said about Deveron Austrey hardly made sense. She had some memory of her former lover's Royal Intelligencer and recalled that Conrig had given the man an odd nickname. But Aunt Thalassa had told her nothing of Austrey's mission in the New Conflict.
And how could Conrig
not
be the Sovereign this person was sent to aid?
'Moon Mother mine!' she exclaimed in vexation. 'I suppose there's nothing else to do but bespeak this Snudge. Let him pass along the puzzling message to Thalassa when she returns to the Ground Realm.'
Ullanoth sha Linndal, once Conjure-Queen of Moss, for long years isolated from the outside world of her own free will so she could atone for her heinous misdeeds, pressed shut the eyelids of the dead man and drew the sheet up to cover his wasted features. She debated calling Wix, but decided to wait. Her devoted old retainer would be up and about soon enough. She needed time alone to settle her nerves with a strong cup of tea before attempting to bespeak the onetime Royal Intelligencer across the barrier of the White Rime Mountains.