It was hard to care about people who didn't care about themselves.
Visigodred and Varthlokkur came to an agreement. The former returned with Haaken. The other went to the Mausoleum of the Kings.
The Prime Circle watched in silence.
The necromancy didn't take long. Neither woman had been dead long.
Even now, with ghosts walking, Michael Trebilcock showed no fear. But Ragnar whimpered.
That alerted Bragi. He drew his sword. What devilment...?
He recognized the wraiths, saw the sadness in their faces,their awareness of one another. "Have you no decency?" he thundered, whirling his blade.
Invisible hands seized him. His weapon slipped from numbed fingers, falling so that it stuck in the soft graveyard earth. The hands compelled him to face the ghosts.
A voice said, "Settle it. Finish it. Make your peace. Slay your grief. A kingdom can't await one man's self-pity." It was no voice he knew. Perhaps it was no voice at all, but the focused thought of that dread circle.
Both women reached out to him. Hurt crossed their faces when they couldn't touch him.
He was compelled to look at them.
There was no hatred, no accusation in his Queen. She didn't blame him for her death. And in Elana there was no damnation for his having failed her, in life or in death. She had known about Fiana. She had forgiven long before her death. In each there was a stubborn insistence that he was doing himself no good with his morbid brooding. He had children to raise and a kingdom to defend. All Elana asked was that he try to understand and forgive her, as she had done for him.
He had forgiven her already. Understanding was more difficult. First he had to understand himself.
He believed he had always done poorly by women. They always paid cruel prices for having been his lovers....
He tried to tell Elana why he had buried Rolf Preshka nearher....
She began fading back into her new realm. As did Fiana. He shouted after one, then the other, calling them back. Fiana left him with the thought that the future lay not in a graveyard. He had maneuvered himself into a Regency. Now he must handle it.
Kavelin. Kavelin. Ravelin. Always she thought of Ravelinfirst.
Well, almost. She had allowed Kavelin to come second occasionally, and had paid a price, her belly ripped by the exit of a thing conceived in the heart of darkness. That darkness was responsible for Elana, too. And two dozen others. His friend Mocker....
Something could be done.
Tendrils of the anger, the outrage, the hatred which had driven him during his ride from Rarak Strabger insinuated themselves through his depression. He glanced round, for the first time fully grasped the significance of this gathering.
203
Ravelin's peace was a false peace behind which darkness marshaled. This mob would not be here were the confrontations not to begin soon.
Nepanthe. Argon. It was all he had to work on. He would pick it up from there....
"Michael. Walk with me. Tell me about Argon." He recovered his sword and strode from the circle, eyes downcast but mind functioning once more.
Early next morning, as the sun broke over the Kapenrungs, he figuratively and literally followed an innkeeper's advice. He went onto the ramparts of Castle Krief and stomped and yelled. This was no quiet alert to the army and reserves, this was a bloody call to a crusade, an emotional appeal calculated to stir a hunger for war.
That innkeeper had been right about the mood of the country folk, the Wesson peasants and Marena Dimura forest-runners.
TWENTY-THREE: The Hidden Kingdom
The winged horse settled gently into the courtyard of Castle Fangdred. The fortress was even more desolate and drear now that Varthlokkur had departed. The small, bent man stalked its cold, dusty halls. When he came to them, he had no trouble passing the spells that had kept Varthlokkur from the chamber atop the Wind Tower.
He paused but a moment there, apparently doing nothing but thinking. Then he nodded and went away.
The winged horse flew eastward, to the land men named Mother of Evil when they didn't call it Dread Empire. From there he flew on to a land so far east that even the Tervola remained ignorant of its existence. The bent man believed it time to employ tools named Badalamen and Magden Norath.
It was morning, but light scarcely penetrated the overcast. Great shoals of cloud beat against the escarpments, piled up, and were driven upward by the Dragon's Teeth. From their dark underbellies they shed heavy, wet snow.
The air stirred in the chamber atop the Wind Tower. Dust moved as if disturbed by elfin footfalls.
A single muscle twitched in the cheek of the old man on the stone throne. Varthlokkur had said his former friend neither lived nor was dead. He was waiting. And his next passage through the world would be his last. He had been burned out in a life extended beyond that of any other living creature (excepting the Star Rider), and by the things he had had to do.
He had even died once and, a little late, been resurrected. It remained to be seen how much the Dark Lady had claimed of him.
An eyelid, a finger, a calf muscle, twitched. His naked flesh became covered with goose bumps.
His chest heaved. Air rushed in, wheezed out. Dust flew. Minutes passed. The old man drew another breath.
One eye opened, roved the room.
Now a hand moved, creeping like an arthritic spider. It tumbled a glass vial from the throne's arm. The tinkle of breakage was a crash in a chamber that had known silence for years.
Ruby clouds billowed, obscuring half the room. The old man breathed deeply. Life coursed through his immobile limbs. It was a more powerful draft than ever he had wakened to before, but never before had he been so near death.
He heaved himself upright, tottered to a cabinet where his witch tools were stored. He seized a container, drained it of a bitter liquid.
He operated almost by instinct. No real thoughts roiled his ancient mind. Perhaps none ever would. Lady Death had held him close.
The liquid refreshed him. In minutes he had almost normal strength.
He abandoned the room, descended a spiral stair to the castle proper. There he drew waiting, ready food from a spell-sealed oven and ate ravenously. He then carried a platter up to the tower chamber.
Still no real thoughts disturbed his mind.
He went to a wall mirror. With sepulchral words and mystic gestures he brought it to life.
A picture formed. It showed falling snow. He placed a chair and small table before it. He sat, nibbled from his tray, and watched. Occasionally, he mumbled. The eye of the mirror roamed the world. He saw some things here, some there. Like a navigator taking starshots he eventually got enough references to fix his position in time. Bewilderment creased his brow. It had been a short sleep. Little more than a decade. What had happened to necessitate his return?
Thoughts were forming now, though most were vagaries, trains of reasoning never completed. The Dark Lady had indeed held him too tightly.
Much of what he had lost could be called will and volition. Knowledge and habit remained. He would be a useful tool in skilled hands.
The hours ground away. He began uncovering events of interest. Something mysterious was happening at the headquar-ters of the Mercenaries' Guild, where soldiers ran hither and yon, parodying an overturned anthill. Smoke billowed and drifted out to sea. Curious debates were underway at the Royal Palace in Itaskia, and in the Lesser Kingdoms princes were gathering troops. The tiny state called Kavelin was a-hum.
Something was afoot.
A footfall startled him. He turned. A tall, massive man in heavy armor, in his middle twenties apparently, dark of hairand eye, met his gaze. "I am Badalamen. You are to come with me."
The absolute confidence of the man was such that the old man--his only name, that he could remember, was The Old Man of the Mountain-rose. He took three steps before balking. Then, slowly, he turned to his sorcery cabinet.