Our Court is infected with the disease of 'tolerance.' Would our fathers' fathers welcome Ibergs to our shores? Would they bargain with the magicks of the Kwendi? Beware, Arkendia! For today if one shows proper fear of magick in the Court, he is mocked, thought a lack-wit, old-fashioned. Hear me, Arkendia! Shun this tolerance! Return to the strength of our fathers!
— From "Virtue Undermined," illegal pamphlet, circa Chasia I
Chapter Twenty-Five
By the time the Mad Moon set, the soft gray light of dawn was enough to reveal the path along the river's course. The walls of the canyon became less sheer, and the roads that had been cut into its walls gave way to a dirt path along the water's edge. The trail led them along a wooded lake into a bowl of rocky peaks. In the middle of the lake was a bare grave island, with crude monuments erected by timber men or trappers. At the foot of the lake stood a tall, crooked stone like an old man's thumb. They stopped there for a brief rest during which Brolli dubbed the aged stone "Willard's Finger."
"See what yours looks like after seven lives of battle," Willard growled.
"The lake I name, Willard's Tub. May you live to make a soak in it."
Beyond the lake, the mule track climbed a saddle of granite between peaks to descend into the adjoining watershed. A young forest of spoke-limb and ash trees greeted them on the other side, crowding the path with exuberant growth and limiting visibility to sixty paces. Ancient blackened stumps stood like rotten teeth amidst the riot of green, testament of fire in years past.
Caris stopped at the foot of a log bridge where a painted sign stood pegged to a post.
Royal Fire-cone Range
Open Flame Prohibited Beyond This Point!
NO SPITFIRES
NO ADMITTANCE WITHOUT
ROYAL WARRANT
Turn Back
ON PAIN OF DEATH
By Order of
Her Majesty's Fire-cone Prelate
Sir Tilate Patche
"Let's see how well you read, boy," Willard mumbled. "What's it say?"
When Harric finished reading it aloud, Willard nodded. "We're getting close, then."
Caris pointed to the green-mantled ridge toward which they climbed. "When we reach the crest of that ridge, we'll get our first view of the fire-cones."
Similar signs dotted the mule track all the way to the ridge, each freshly painted and free of obstructing foliage, as if maintained by industrious sprites.
Though green from a distance, the ridge was bare and rocky, which allowed a brief but expansive view east over another forested valley to a yet higher ridge beyond, on whose loftiest spur stood a kingly stand of fire-cones. The golden spires soared into the sky like a many-towered castle in a ballad, and from their midst rose the black spike of the thunder rod, half-again as tall.
"That's the lightning-stealer I told you about, Brolli," Caris said. "Abellia's tower is below it."
Though the trunks of the fire-cones obscured much of the tower, the thunder rod appeared to rise from its top like the mast of the ship, its giddy height made fast with a multitude of stays slanting down to the forest. To Harric the stays looked like the ribbons of a gigantic maypole, but he knew they were likely cables of steel.
"And that shine," said Willard, pointing vaguely. "That shine in the top branches, that's the resin cones. Her Majesty's most valuable crop."
"Magnificent," said Brolli, peering through his daylids. "Fire-cone do not grow on our side of the Godswall. Your toolers are clever indeed, to steal the lightning and take the cones."
Willard gazed dully across the valley, face haggard.
"We'll get you there by sunset, sir," said Caris.
Willard swallowed. "I admit that tower looks mighty welcome."
"Drink," Brolli said, handing him a limp water skin.
"I should warn you about Mudruffle, Abellia's servant," Caris said, as Willard drank.
Willard paused to breathe, as if raising the skin sapped his strength. He looked at Caris. "Who?"
Caris hesitated. "Well, Abellia is a little eccentric, of course...but Mudruffle. He's actually strange." She watched Willard carefully, as if the news might overtax him. "He's made of clay, I think," she added, exploratively. "Abellia made him."
Harric's interest piqued. Willard stared, uncomprehending.
"You mean a magical creature?" said the Kwendi. "Like a shadow or trysting servant?"
"No no no — I mean, yes, but.... You see, I was afraid of him at first, but he's very sweet and kind, and he would never do magic on you if you didn't want it. He is very respectful. Abellia made him, I think, out of sticks and clay." Caris halted abruptly, and watched their reactions.
Sir Willard raised an eyebrow. Harric expected the old knight to explode, but he merely nodded weakly. "Seen such...in the Iberg capital. Harmless. Servants for cooking." Willard closed his eyes again and rocked forward in the saddle as if he might faint. Brolli retrieved the water skin before Willard dropped it.
One gray eye opened and found Brolli. "This witch...Abellia. Your..... first Iberg?"
"I see some on gallows. We kill one in Gallows Ferry, yes?"
Willard grunted. "Never so many here. Come for your...magic."
Brolli nodded. "They are a magic-using people, yes?"
"But you...you bottle it. In witch-silver...yes?" Willard's eyelids closed. He breathed heavily through a slack mouth as if the effort of speaking might cause him to faint.
Brolli gave Harric a look of concern.
"I can explain," Harric said. "The Ibergs never figured out how to use witch-silver. They've been seeking the secret for ages, with no luck. So they want to learn it from you. Or steal it."
Brolli smiled. "I hear so. And she may to ask me for it; is that your meaning, old man?" Willard nodded. "It is not to trouble," said Brolli. "I never to know how to make it. Only how to use it. So I cannot to tell her."
* * *
When they finally reached the far side of the valley, the mule track climbed the escarpment beneath the fire-cones, and the trees blazed orange in late evening light. Within a couple bowshots of the trees, the mountainside leveled to form a peaceful meadow with a chattering brook. The trail took them along the brook and above the meadow into a terraced garden.
Harric stopped his horse and stared. Many of the plants around him, which seemed merely healthy from a distance, turned out to be shockingly huge and lush. Bean stocks grew like trees, grappling each other toward the sky; cabbages squatted like rockfalls of green and purple boulders. And the entire place had been manicured in a kind of weedless precision.
Caris saw the look on his face and laughed.
"Mudruffle has a bit of a green thumb," Caris said.
"Green thumb?" Willard snorted. "Whole arm must be green."
Harric glanced at the old knight. Willard seemed to find a second wind as they neared the promised destination — much like the horses, who responded to Rag's eager whinnies by increasing their paces.
The track wound up the rocky spine of ridge in a series of switchbacks amid the fire-cone trunks and the sweet smell of resin. Like the garden below, the grove was meticulously kept: lower branches had been pruned to reduce fire danger, the tinder-like needles that collected beneath had been swept up to expose rock-grappling roots, and not a cone lay uncollected.
Once they gained the top, Harric spied the warden's tower, and a pulse of excitement thrilled through him. This near, he could pick out the lanky rod of iron running up the timber mast; he could also see how the timbers of the mast itself had been lashed together with bands and bolts as thick as his wrist. Nearby, several cable stays swooped down to find anchor in the bedrock.
Caris halted their approach when only a bowshot from the tower. "We should leave the horses here."
Brolli stirred from his blankets, and lifted the daylids to his forehead. He gazed about sleepily with round golden eyes. "Ah." He yawned. "We're here. Scat, cat."
Spook hopped from his lap onto the fire-cone roots, eyes narrowed in feline annoyance. He sneezed once, sniffed about, then padded ahead toward the tower. Harric now noticed a pair of barns beside the tower, and a grassy yard and garden surrounding.
"That is the lightning-stealer, yes?" said Brolli, pointing.
Willard grunted. "No magic required."
"Your hex strike here, old man? You say women make it come, too. This Abellia, she to make it come?"
Willard's cheeks flushed an unhealthy red, but he seemed imbued now with a desperate, brittle spark. "She's a woman. But old. So she won't wake it. Otherwise it strikes when I'm in danger; if Caris is right, this Abellia will offer help."
"Caris is woman. Why does she not to make the hex come?"
Willard studied Caris. "She's...different. Horse touched. I don't know the logic of the thing, Brolli, but maybe that's why." Willard was beginning to sweat and pant again with the effort of speaking, but this time Brolli seemed to want the old man to pass out, and kept talking.
"And Caris wears a wedding ring," said Brolli. "That might to be the difference."
Willard nodded, as if in acknowledgement of some previous conversation on the topic. "That's so. No romantic threat."
"Still, we should warn this Abellia."
"I'll tell her in private."
Without explanation, Willard positioned Molly beside a boulder that reached to the Phyros's belly. "Help an old man down?"
Even from paces away, Harric could smell the rot on Willard. His breath stunk like pond scum, and his quilting reeked of sweat and blood on ripe flesh. He was relieved, therefore, to picket the other horses while Caris and Brolli scrambled up the rock to help the old knight down. It was a messy process, but by the time Harric tethered Idgit and Rag, they got Willard free of the saddle without dropping him. Willard grimaced as he clambered down from the boulder. New stripes of blood leached into the bandage on his hip.
Caris and Brolli each took a shoulder and steered the old man across the swept yard to halt before a fan of ten stone steps at the foot of the tower.
Willard studied the tower with a military eye. "Standard drum. Bottom floor can take a half dozen horses and hay for a fortnight." He frowned at the upper floors. "Not near enough arrow loops, and the windows are too big. Still, if we stock the place with hay and water and a few sacks of beans, we might hold against Bannus long enough for the Blue Order to catch us up."
He peered into Caris's face beside him. "You think this Abellia would shy from a bit of a siege?"
She tried to hide her alarm. "I—I'll ask her, Sir."
"Good."
*************************************
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