Kingdom Of Argylle - A Sorcerer And A Gentleman Part 44

"Let us begone," the woman said. "The forces are disrupted here; someone may come to investigate."

"Master!"

"Ariel?" Prospero sat bolt upright in bed and lunged over to the nightstand to light a candle. It guttered. Ariel was fidgeting about the bed hangings, fluttering the fringes. "Report!"

"I've found her, Master, I've found Freia, she is a prisoner!"

"h.e.l.l's ice! Where? Of whom?"

"In Landuc, Master. I had great difficulty searching because of the prevalence of sorceries there, and moreover I was caught up by a wind-Summoning. The Summoner of winds was a sorceress, and she used them to destroy a fortress. But in the same place as the sorceress was the Lady Freia. She was bound and hooded, and I tried to communicate with her but could not."

Ariel, excited by his own tale, had become a dusty little whirlwind carrying sc.r.a.ps of paper and feather and lightweight debris in his spinning form, balanced at the end of the bed. Prospero stared at him.

"Tell on."

"The place was that where the men of Argylle were held, Master. Perendlac. They left that place, however, having 366.

"EfizaBetfi Sorcerer and a (jentteman 367.

destroyed it, and moved up one of the rivers-I believe the Rendlac, is that not the one from the North?-to a fortress which commands a great long view being on a small mountain. They took her within. There she lies still if they have not moved her again."

"She was alive, well."

"Alive, and 1 detected no wound, although, Master, I am not expert at these things. She is flesh, and I cannot penetrate it."

"Of course. But she had no maleriat hurt."

"No, Master. A prisoner, bound and hooded, held by a sorceress."

Prospero threw back the heavy coverlet and got out of bed, lighting three more candles. The whirlwind hopped into the fireplace and made circular patterns in the powdery old ashes there.

"Shall we rescue her?" asked Ariel excitedly.

"What think'st thou?" snapped Prospero. "The fool, to be taken- What did she at Perendlac, I'd like to know." Freia, taken by a sorceress: she could not have done worse had she set out with intent to do so. He threw clothing onto the bed, took his sword from the wall and half-drew it, looking at the blade, tarnished to blackness that could never be polished away: the stain of Panurgus's blood.

Ariel, who did not engage in conjecture unless ordered to do so, waited. Ashes plumed up the chimney.

"Shall travel thither with me," Prospero said. "We leave tonight." He slammed the sword back into its scabbard and dropped it on the bed with the clothing.

32.THE SORCERESS NEYPHILE, WHOSE SIMPLY-DRESSED hair W3S the color of dark honey, wore a low-cut gown of pale yellow satin with white lace. She half-reclined on a blue velvet divan, which was entirely out of place in the dank stone dungeon, tn the corners of the room, things moved in the decaying straw. She considered the subject of her investigations with a remote, indifferent expression.

The subject was chained to the opposite wall, leaning back, eyes closed, panting.

Neyphile was not a major sorceress. Her bargain with Panurgus for a taste of the Fire of Landuc had been accomplished with difficulty, and only Panurgus's death had freed her of some of its more onerous clauses. Panurgus had trained her just enough that, had she been more clever, she would have been killed by her own ignorance; instead, she had made other bargains, in other places, and advanced her knowledge thus and by the dint of her own plodding labors. Competent, but never brilliant, she could not be like Prospero, a self-made adept capable of holding her own beyond the Limen, in Phesaotois; nor was she sufficiently skilled at negotiation to be like Oriana, who had used trade and blackmail to leave the limits of Phesaotois and improve her standing in Pheyarcet. Neyphile's particular interest was Bounds, and, like many other diligent but dull scholars, she had acquired a sound and extensive knowledge of this specialty, with scant comprehension of the universal. Still, she was a sorceress.

Today she had met something beyond her reach in Golias's recalcitrant prisoner. A peculiar barrier sheltered the girl from the deepest sorcerous workings, and although she suffered greatly under them she was still mistress of herself enough not to speak.

^ Neyphile's curiosity was piqued, and her professional pride was insulted. After the removal of Ottaviano's spells . and Neyphile's replacement of them with her own, the girl should have been stripped open, her thoughts available at the asking. This was not the case.

Press though Neyphile did, distract the girl's concentra-% lion with other things as she might, the girl held her v thoughts within.

:v- Neyphile lifted a small silver bell on a turquoise cus.h.i.+on * beside the divan and rang.

^ The door opened and a guard entered, saluting. ^ "Prince Golias must join me," Neyphile said.

368.

"E&za&etfi Itfittey The man saluted again and left.

Neyphile continued to study her subject in various lights until Golias sc.r.a.ped open the door and entered.

"What is the provenance of this?" Neyphile demanded of him, gesturing at the prisoner.

Golias frowned. "Prospero's," he said. She knew that.

"From what circle of the world? Where on the Road was she engendered?"

"No idea. Why?"

"Strange," Neyphile said. "I shall have to think about it."

"Where is Prospero's headquarters?" Golias demanded.

Neyphile ran her bone wand through her fingers. "Ask her yourself," she said. "I must retire and consider another matter at present." She stood and left the dungeon. Golias scowled after her.

The prisoner was fastened to the wall by chains at her waist, wrists, and ankles. Golias went to her and lifted her head, blew in her face. She blinked involuntarily.

"Don't feel like talking?" he said mockingly.

She swallowed.

Golias smiled. "Let's see what kind of noise you can make," he said, and took out his knife. Her leather trousers were fastened with b.u.t.tons. He cut them off, one by one.

Dewar's etched black tabletop was overlaid with a softly glowing webwork of light, barely visible in the midday suns.h.i.+ne from the high windows. He leaned over, staring at one pulsating point near the far edge of the table, in an area devoid of engraved and inlaid lines.

After a moment, he picked up a tiny lens on a golden tripod and carefully inserted it in the webwork. A line brightened. He nodded and chose a prism on a similar stand and another and placed them at junctions.

The bright spot grew brighter.

Dewar extended a finger and put it in the bright spot. Coldness spread up his arm; it was like dipping into near-freezing water. Pain followed the cold. Dewar hissed, then gasped and yanked his hand away. His arm felt flayed. He shook it vigorously, then unb.u.t.toned the lace-trimmed cuff Sorcerer and a QentCeman 369.

and looked at the skin to a.s.sure himself that all was as it should be.

The cold feeling was gone. It had stopped as soon as he had withdrawn his hand.

In its place was a not unpleasant rippling, which was fading with the pain. He b.u.t.toned his cuff again.

Dewar pulled a stool over to his table and sat down, looking at the lines of light.

"Contradictory. Cancellation," he said. "Clash of Elements."

He drummed his fingers on the edge of the table.

"On the other hand," he added.

The last time he had felt anything like that was when he had pa.s.sed the s.h.i.+mmering, unreal Fire of Landuc's Well. That had burned through and through him-it burned yet, when he paid attention to it. That was the point.

"Theory," he reminded himself, and went over to a chalkboard.

Stone of Morven, in Phesaotois. The Bright Well in Lan-duc.

Me, he wrote between them. Water, active.

The Stone: Earth, active. The Well, Fire, active.

"Well, but the Fire didn't kill me," he remarked. "Buffered by Stone?"

He wrote this down, erased the word Me, and scrawled it on the other side of the Stone, out of place. No, he decided, and erased Me altogether.

"Can't have much to do with it at this level, or I'd be dead," he decided.

He went back to the table, his miniature recreation of the grandest plan of things. A trickle of the Third Force, channelled and amplified, and behold, he could map it if he chose. Indeed he had done so, on all the usual scales. The piecemeal maps were on large table-sized sheets, copied on smaller ones; they formed the beginnings of a new Map for his travels, implying a new world-if he could find their origin, if he could follow them without being able to perceive them.

Thus far he could not, not without lugging his table and 370.

ttizoBetk fragile, beautiful devices around, or without being able to detect tt himself.

Which he could not do, since he did not know where the Third Force's source was. Now he hypothesized that it manifested as water in some way, but its location was unclear. He knew only its stray currents as they surfaced in the Well's spa.r.s.er, weaker areas. This newest, strongest upwell-ing, far from the rest of the traces of the Third Force, only muddied the problem further. The Spheres moved continually, he knew, but rarely so quickly.

Dewar decided to consider the problem from another angle. Was there anything which could be construed as telling him where the Stone lay, when he was in Landuc? What betrayed it?

The vanes on some of the instruments spun slowly. The clocks whirled. Sunk in thought, Dewar gazed at the table without seeing it and delicately picked through threads of force with the special inward sense attuned to them.

Ottaviano sat on his horse staring at Perendlac for several minutes, unable to believe he saw truly. The tower was gone. He could see broken masonry-a wall?-still standing, but the great keep was gone.

He rode quickly toward the walls and the gate, which was closed but opened as they approached. The small troop of Ascolet men who had gone with him to Landuc followed.

"Sir!" yelled Clay, standing in the gap between the thick iron-studded wooden slabs. The lieutenant had a sling on his left arm.

"What the h.e.l.l is this?"

"Treachery, sir!" Clay replied, holding Otto's bridle as he dismounted.

"Golias," Otto said, turning and staring at him.

"Yes."

They looked into one another's eyes.

Otto set his teeth, covering his sinking feeling. "Tell me about it."

"Simply said, sir, we were ensorcelled. A curse fell over all the Ascolet and Lys troops on the fifth day after you left.

Sorcerer and a Qentteman 371.

We set on one another. For-I don't know how long-a quarter-hour, a bit more-we were berserk to a man, a melee, sir, and then there was a stunning loud thunder that knocked down those that hadn't fallen to their friends." Clay turned and looked at the collapsed fortress. "When we woke, sir, it was thus and Cap-Prince Golias and his men were gone. He had had a woman here-"

"In gold? Brown hair, bone-thin, heart-shaped face?"

"Yes."

"b.i.t.c.h! Neyphile! Go on."

"We tried to recover bodies from the ruin, but-" Clay shook his head. "As you see. It wants better tackle than we have tools to build."

"How many killed?"

"One hundred twenty-two outright, sir. A large number of injuries too. The men are dispirited."

Otto drew his breath in and looked at the stones which had been Perendlac. It could be rebuilt.

"It would have been worse, but the roof did not come all the way down on one side, as you see," Clay said. "But it has been bad, sir."

"The prisoner? They took her?"

"No way to tell but I a.s.sume yes," Clay said. "I suspect that was the point."

"I suspect you're right." Otto closed his eyes. Things were not going according to plan.

"They went to Chasoulis," Clay told him.

"Not far."

"I've had scouts watching the place. No one's joined him."

"Chasoulis."

"I have plans of it, sir, and maps-"

"Good," Otto said, biting the word off. "He'll regret this." And in his mind echoed the words of his lost hostage: "You will regret this all your days." As stupid and careless as Prospero, now, he looked on the ruin of his plan in the ruin of Perendlac and felt the regret begin, a hollowness under his rage at Golias.

372.

'EGzaBetA Prince Gaston on horseback was higher than anyone else in the regiment behind him. Otto picked him out easily without a spygla.s.s and Clay confirmed his guess.

"It's the Fireduke."

Otto nodded. He had not sent word of Golias's change of allegiance to the Emperor. He had tried to negotiate with Goh'as, pointing out the advantages of going along with Otto, but Golias was convinced he could do better for himself. Rather as he had cut Bors of Lys out, years ago. Bors had died for that. Sebastiano of Ascolet had died after taking a mortal wound in defeating Golias. Ottaviano pushed these thoughts aside. Soon he would be as broody and half-cracked as Prospero from chewing over the injustices of history.