Kingdom Of Argylle - A Sorcerer And A Gentleman Part 56

"He told me not to!" she cried, throwing his hands away from her and jumping up, backing away from him. "You're always wanting more!"

A perfect, taut silence stretched between them. Dewar broke it. "Your pardon, Lady," he said. "Yet your father's-our father's-safety hangs on it."

"He couldn't make sorcery beyond here and I don't believe you could either even if I showed you the Spring," Freia retorted. Why had she trusted him? She should not have brought him here; she should have stayed in cold, hateful Landuc until Prospero returned for her. Her stomach cramped. She rubbed it and swallowed a lump in her throat.

Dewar gazed at his hands, not seeing her. "Well," he said then, "I must leave here at once if I'm to get to Landuc or to him in time to keep him from cutting his throat on your behalf, Lady." He had been too vehement. More gently, and she might have shown him the Spring. He suspected she'd not leave him an instant alone now, so that he'd not be able to find it himself.

"I'll go with you. To explain."

"It is your choice. The ride will be fast and hard. I do not constrain you," he said.

"We'll go. Utrachet will give us horses. Come with me," Freia said.

The city was out of sight behind them before Freia thought to look back. Utrachet had given them food for the horses and themselves and water in heavy skins for the desert area. "Perhaps I'll be able to work in that desert," Dewar had said. He understood now that the desert was where Landuc A Sorcerer and a Qentkman <^- ended="" and="" this="" place="" began.="" it="" was="" two="" days'="" cruel="" riding="" away="" from="" the="" spring,="" two="" days="" of="" rationed="" rest,="" of="" pus.h.i.+ng="" the="" horses="" to="" the="" limits="" of="" their="" endurance="" and="" encouraging="" them="" to="" go="" beyond="" if="" they="">

"If only Trixie had stayed," Freia said at one rest stop, as she rubbed down her mare, Epona.

"If, if, if," Dewar retorted curtly, having no patience with conjecture.

Freia said no more.

She knew the shortest way by some instinct and he followed her along the unmarked Road through the vast forest she said was called Threshwood, the core of the Spring's dominion. As they drew near the edge of Threshwood, Dewar began to feel again the beat of the Well, intermittent and weak. They saw no other people; the Road pa.s.sed only through forests. It was a straightway journey with none of the waits, detours, and enc.u.mbering procedures required in Landuc, yet they still took more than two days to reach the hilly, dark-skied semidesert where Dewar would try to open a Way to Landuc with the first trickle of the Well's power. The distance seemed wrong to Freia. She said nothing to Dewar, but it felt farther every time she travelled it. Usually distances shortened with use.

Dewar had collected f.a.ggots of wood, which load had slowed them, and with his sister now he piled these and lit them. She rubbed and walked the horses and watered and fed them slowly. The animals were nearly foundered; Freia had called for a halt again and again when her brother would have pushed onward, and now her care was more for the horses than for the sorcery. They paced heavy-hooved with her under the stars. A little food, walking; a little water, walking-the horses followed her dully.

She heard him chanting words and saw the light pulse upward, sparks flying to the night sky. A few heartbeats later he was calling her.

"Freia!"

The horses plodded with her, back to him, through the lumpy hillocks.

"Dewar."

460.

'Wiliey Leaning on his staff, he was soaked with sweat, his cloak, coat, and waistcoat discarded. "Not working," he said. "Can't quite get there."

"They can't go farther, Dewar. They can't. It will just kill them. They must rest."

The two looked at one another. Dewar muttered something and spat in the fire, mopped his face on his sleeve.

"Once when I was hurt," Freia said, "I'd fallen and broken my leg, you see, and I couldn't get home, Papa brought me home with sorcery. I was fainting and I thought I heard him call me, and when I woke he was holding me and we were home."

"A tender tale," Dewar said. "He Summoned you, a Great Summoning."

"Can you do that?"

"It is a basic spell. You mean Summon Prospero."

"Yes."

"If I cannot open a Way to Landuc, in all likelihood I cannot drag Prospero to me with a Great Summoning- against which, in all likelihood, he is well-guarded." He shook his head, "I have no token to Summon him with, anyway, Freia. You don't understand sorcery."

"You mean something that's his. I have something. If I give it to you, will you try?"

"It won't work. Why do you think it will?"

"Maybe he would at least feel it a little and, and-I don't know." She wasn't sure. Her thinking was as blown as the horses. She walked up and down, tugging their reins gently to make them move slowly with her.

Dewar drank greedily from one of the wineskins. He took out a flat loaf of bread, their last, and devoured half, considering. It would be a small gesture, and if he did not try she would think he meant them to fail; she was suspicious of him still, mistrustful. "To please you I'll do it," he said, brus.h.i.+ng crumbs from his sleeves. "We'll not move from here before the animals are ready anyway."

"If you don't want to-"

He held up a hand, silencing her. "It's as worthwhile a Sorcerer and a Qentteman 461.

way to spend the time as any," he said. "Give what you have to me."

"Here."

The token was a dagger, an elegant weapon tingling with sorcery, with an ebony handle that fit Dewar's hand like a lover's touch, the blade silk-smooth steel gold-damascened with clouds. The pommel was set with a glittering stone like a diamond, but black. "This is a thing of some power, Freia." He turned it over and over, sheathed it again after looking at it in the firelight. The sheath was plain and black, tipped with silver: a gentleman's accoutrement, functional, not ostentatious. Prospero was a man of good taste.

"He carries it often. I thought he might want it. Maybe he forgot it." It was a fixture in her mental picture of him: the gem at his belt, always, the blade drawn to cut a piece of bread at table; to dissect a dead animal and point to its parts, naming them to her; to split and graft a twig; to share an apple. Other things too, that she never saw.

"Maybe. I'll try, Freia." One bundle of wood was left, and he dropped it onto the fire. "Stand back. Well back. It may frighten the horses."

She led them away. As he began to speak and invoke Prospero (the dagger thrummed in his hands, cold though he held them in the very heart of the fire), Freia came and stood just behind him, watching.

The power of the Well's Fire coursed through and through Dewar, and a part of his mind recognized that this time it was going to work, and that part tried to brace itself for success, but most of him was caught up in the beautiful coils of his spell winding around and out and through the world, snaring already-tangled Prospero, snapping back- The fire exploded; sparks, coals, and half-burned wood sprayed high and wide.

A thunderous voice roared, "b.a.s.t.a.r.d! By Blood and Breath, I'll send thy soul to frigid h.e.l.la piecemeal-"

"Papa!"

Dewar ducked beneath the sword blow he barely saw; it whistled; Freia screamed the same note.

462.

Ttffky "Papa!"

A horse snorted and then a man. Dewar straightened, his own sword in his hand.

Black Hurricane had pranced out of the fire, which was only coals now, nearly consumed. Prospero on his back was staring down at him, the sword which had trimmed a few stray hairs from the top of Dewar's head still hovering ready for murder.

"Your pardon, sir," Dewar said weakly. "I-I didn't think it would actually-work."

"Cub! And I thought thee adept," snarled Prospero. "What manner of play be this, that thou mak'st Summon-ings with no faith in their potency- Give that me, 'tis mine own-" He sheathed the sword and dismounted, grabbing the dagger from Dewar. "Freia!"

Dewar said nothing as Freia leapt for Prospero, hugging him. The change from incandescent rage to confused relief and then solicitude on Prospero's face was nearly comic to watch.

"Puss, Puss," Prospero was whispering, stroking her hair.

"Papa. Papa. Oh, Papa. I was so worried," she replied, "I'm so happy to see you, Papa-"

Uncomfortable, Dewar looked away, at the shadows of the fire, and up at the stars, and then down into the ruddy coals.

"So thou'rt Avril's man," Prospero said, in a very different tone than he'd used to greet his daughter.

Dewar looked back. Prospero still embraced her; Freia seemed half-swooning with joy. Prospero's stance and voice were defiant and defensive.

"No," Dewar said, puzzled. "Far from it- Oh, no. We're too late," he whispered.

"What mean you, too late? I've given my word; did Gas-ton prevail 'pon Avril to pack off my girl betimes-"

"Papa, you mustn't go to Landuc," Freia said, coming out of her blissful reverie.

Dewar dragged a hand slowly down his face, half-turning away.

Prospero looked, and felt, heart-sick. "Puss, Freia," he Sorcerer and a gentleman 463.

said, and took her arms, bent down to stare into her face, "tell me what this means, that thou'rt here that erst I left in durance at the Emperor's pleasure. For my fear is that all's worked to great ill. Ease me. Tell me thy tale, be quick."

"This is Dewar," Freia said.

"I know him."

"He came and got me from Landuc," she said.

"He what," Prospero whispered.

"And brought me home, but you weren't there."

"When did he take thee from Landuc?"

"Eight days after you were there. Papa-P-" She began to weep, shaking. "I thought you wouldn't come back," she said.

"What!" he shouted, straightening, rounding on Dewar. "And how cam'st thou in this tale?"

"I had been trailing you for a little time, a few days, trying to catch up to you," Dewar said, "and I came across Ot-taviano in Outer Ascoiet, by a Ley from Mazhkeanea."

Prospero bared his teeth. "That misbegotten whelp. I hope 'twas none too soon after my pa.s.sing."

Dewar smiled. "A night or two, and he was in a compliant mood. So that when I had freed him I pried from him a strange story-that Freia was Landuc's captive, and that you her father had gone to set her free; that that a.s.s Avril had finally bargained with a sorceress, Oriana, to confine Freia-all that Otto knew he told me, on pain of being tree-tied again and used for target practice. I set out after you once more, but it took longer than I'd wanted to get to the capitol where Freia was, where I thought you were."

"Ah," said Prospero heavily. "And I was gone."

"Yes, sir. And she there, clearly against her will."

"He broke the gla.s.s," Freia said, "climbing up a rope, and made me cut my hand and put blood around the window and did a sorcery to let me out." She slid under Prospero's arm again, at his side, damp-faced.

Prospero inhaled slowly, his face grim. "Three days I tested that d.a.m.ned construction of Oriana's," he said. "And made no breach."

Dewar swallowed, daunted by the coldness in Prospero's 464.

'EGzaBetA voice. "We left," he said, "and Freia wanted to go home. She was ill. We rested a few days and then I carried her to Argylle."

"Hast been there too, then," Prospero said softly.

"Yes, sir," Dewar whispered, fear tickling his back. They could yet come to a duel. He had violated Prospero's stronghold, had ail but abducted his daughter, and the man had a violent temper and the sorcerer an apt command of violence.

"Wench, hadst thou no faith in my return?" Prospero turned on Freia, seizing her arm and shaking her sharply.

Freia flinched. "You didn't come back," she said. "You didn't say- I didn't know!" she cried. "I wanted to go home."

"Couldst not abide my coming?" he shouted at her, shaking her again. "Thou impatient infant! And thou, thou meddling monkey! What have you wrought, you two, but my destruction? Conspired against me to strip me, castrate me-"

"Papa, no!" wailed Freia.

"Prospero, be reasonable!" yelled Dewar over them both.

"My undoing's all thy doing, disobedient chit! Hadst but obeyed my first command to thee and remained safely in Argylle-but nay! Headstrong, self-willed, and full of thy own idea, wouldst not wait, needs must flit hither and yon, straight into the monster's maw, and deliver me into his hands with thyself!"

The sheathed dagger in Prospero's left hand caught Dewar's eye as Prospero gestured with it. Freia was sobbing incoherently, trying to argue, and then surrendering and sitting down abruptly, overcome.

"I-I-I'm-sor-sorry-" came out from her brokenly as Prospero paused in his tirade and caught his breath.

Dewar looked at her and then at Prospero. He had not expected Prospero to receive her thus. Clearly she hadn't either. He looked at her again, weeping silently, her whole body shaking. "All she's been able to think of is returning to you," Dewar said, "You wrong her."

"Impudence, wouldst tutor me? Thy-"

Sorcerer and a QentCeman 465.

"I didn't come here to be abused, Prospero; no more did she! It is all ill-hap, all ill-timed accidents and misencoun-ters! You missed her at Perendlac, at Chasoulis; you did not tell her you'd return to Landuc; how could she know? They told her nothing, a.s.suredly. And I have done as I thought best on her behalf and yours."

"What gives thee interest in my daughter?" demanded Prospero. "How's she known to thee?"

"We met in Chenay, where she saved my life by hauling me from the ditch where you had left me in the snow," Dewar said, "accidentally, you said; regardless, I'd have died without her help. She told me nothing of herself then- purely nothing, and I never thought to see her again until we met at Malperdy, where she'd gone to try to free you. But you'd freed yourself, and we fled together, and parted; met again and made common cause to find you, trading names and little more. Together we tracked you to Perendlac, and there were separated in the battle. We have been comrades, and it surprised us to be siblings too-and through all we've sought no ill to you, Prospero."

Prospero's storm of anger had blown itself out before Dewar's indignant front. His face lined, tired, he studied Dewar in the fading glow of the coals and then looked down at Freia, who had not risen.

"That fickle, teasing s.l.u.t Fortuna," he said heavily. " Tis her I must blame." He folded his arms. "Aye, one missed meeting on another, I see't now. Thou, she, I, haring one behind t'other, a steeplechase of folly leading o'er a cliff. And here's the cliff, and I leapt blindly. Fool I was! Not to demand to speak again to her ere I swore. And false Avril! d.a.m.ned and d.a.m.ned again, he and the others, who led me to take an oath that cost them nothing. For thou hadst freed her already. Freia-" he knelt, touched her shoulder hesitantly-"I did but seek to spare thee misery, not to torment thee. It so pained thee to see me once, and pained me too, I dared not go again. And I trusted Gaston would ward thee well, I asked it of him, and he said he had taken utmost care of thee; be none of them honorable, I thought him so-yet he said naught!-Freia, believe me, I had not abandoned 466 -=> 'EGzaBetd "Wittey thee. I was delayed by natural barriers, not by unnatural disinclination to redeem thee. When I knew thou wert captive I spared naught to find thee. Precious child, I rage at myself, not at thee. Thou know'st my ways. Thy heart is all affection, I know't." His voice dove-gentle, Prospero persuaded her into his arms again, and he bowed his head over hers, still bent, and went on. "They have rent me from myself, Puss, and it shall make me half-mad, and thou the lone thing to save from all the wrackage. Pardon a sorcerer's tempest and kiss thy father, for he loves thee."

Freia snuffled and took a pair of deep breaths, then looked up red-eyed and kissed Prospero on right and left cheeks, a favor he accepted gravely and then returned.

"Is the tale that this-that thy-thy brother hath spun me true?'1 he asked her. She nodded.

Dewar slowly sat on his heels beside them. "Thou'rt in sooth a huntress, to seek me so o'er all Lan-duc," Prospero told her, mustering a small smile. "Bravely done. Now tell me the end oft. He found thee, bore thee home at last-then what?"

Freia nodded and, after swallowing, said hoa.r.s.ely, "Utrachet and Scudamor said you had been there and gone again. They showed me the papers you left. Then we began to see what was happening-that you didn't know Dewar had gotten me. And we tried to find you in time, Papa- Papa, they can't make you do anything, can they? Can they? It's not right-"