After Lauthin departed, Belot and Pirvan looked at each other. The pegasus rider tossed up his hands in a gesture that made Pirvan want to smile, except that the elf was still prickly with everyone except Rynthala.
“I would like to think that means he has summoned aid,” Belot said quietly.
“Can he?” Pirvan’s knowledge of Silvanesti law and statecraft was more limited than he wished.
“As a high judge, he can summon any number of fighting elves to observe. He cannot order them to fight without the approval of two other high judges. But there would likely be that many or more if any good number of elves came north.”
“Will they?” Pirvan knew he must sound like a child begging for his naming-day treat a month early. Belot actually smiled at the knight.
“I can fly to the south and see if any are coming,” Belot said. “My eyes can spy out what Lauthin’s lips may not reveal. And do not ask whether I shall do it, for I will, or why I do it, because I will not tell you.”
He strode off, the cloak he had come to affect flowing dramatically behind him.
Pirvan rejoiced in Belot’s turning useful and Lauthin’s turning almost civilized. He hoped that in return for his aid, Belot would not make a claim on Rynthala that would offend her, her parents-or Darin.
Belot found no elven hosts advancing, but that proved little. The Silvanesti were masters of woodscraft, and five thousand of them could hide under a canopy of trees and not be seen by even a fellow elf. Belot had landed twice, but in the north, elven settlements were few and far between.
“They are also mostly old warriors or rangers, sworn to the king and the high judges and as clannish as the Kagonesti,” Belot said. “They would not tell a strange elf descending from the sky the price of hazelnut bread if they doubted his right to know it.”
More useful was another flight, to the north. On this scouting foray, Belot sighted a wagon train with an armed escort. He returned, reported its position, guided some of Tharash’s ground scouts to it, and returned with their message.
Upon hearing the message, Pirvan immediately called a council of war.
“The Istarian commander Carolius Migmar comes against us with three thousand fighters. They are more skilled than any we have faced, and a thousand of those still lurk around Belkuthas. Migmar also brings the fittings and men of a siege train. Give him a few days in the forests about Belkuthas, and we will face siege engines of the best Istarian kind. This plainly puts a new face on our battle. We do not know yet if we have help coming.”
“ ’Fore anybody says yea or nay to fighting on, I’ll say this,” Nuor of the Black Chisel put in. “I think we can have some help from the Lintelmakers and their friends. They fostered Krythis and Tulia, even if maybe they only think them pets.”
Krythis and Tulia tried to glare at the dwarf, then broke up in laughter. It was the merriest sound that Pirvan had heard in some while.
The only one who did not join the laughter was Sir Lewin. This was the first council of war on which he had been permitted to sit. It had taken until now for Pirvan to persuade the others to offer Sir Lewin’s honor that last accolade, and he had done everything save threaten to surrender the castle to move some of the rest of the council.
“But they’ll need to be formally appealed to if they’re to send enough dwarves by the underground ways, and soon enough.”
“Amrisha can carry two,” Belot said. “She will need a rest at the far end of the flight, but she can do it.”
“I rejoice,” Krythis said. “Sir Pirvan, with your permission, I shall pen the appeal. I had hoped our courage would outlast our enemies’ folly, but if this cannot be, we must ask, beg if need be, for aid.
“Belot may not be the right messenger, so-” His eyes searched the room, rested briefly and fondly on Rynthala while Pirvan sweated within his tunic, then nodded to the dwarf himself.
“Nuor. It’s a good idea, and you’re a good one to carry it out.”
“Me? I can’t fly!”
“Have no fear, Nuor. Amrisha will do all the flying for us,” Belot said.
“But-I mean-if I fall off-”
“You won’t,” Belot said. “Trust me.”
“I’ve no head for heights.”
Pirvan realized that Nuor must be really uneasy about the flight, or he would hardly have shown such naked fear in Sir Lewin’s presence. The knight vowed that if Sir Lewin so much as twitched an eyebrow, he would be put out of doors.
At last, Nuor heaved a gusty sigh. “Can I have a good drink of dwarf-spirits before I go?” he asked.
“You can have any we have left,” Pirvan said.
“Just don’t drink so much that you’ve no thirst when we land,” Belot said. “Or when we have the victory feast.”
As much as he tried, Pirvan remembered very little of the rest of the council. It was as if everyone was trying to remember only Belot’s cheerful admonition to the dwarf and forget how many pitfalls lay on the road to that feast.
He did remember that Sir Lewin’s face bore a strange, set expression as he left afterward. He also remembered asking himself whether it would be questioning the honor of the other knight to ask how he was faring under his burden of a divided mind.
Chapter 17
It was a spell known to only a few wizards in the history of high sorcery. It was one that still fewer renegades had actually performed.
Yet in spite of this, Wilthur found it admirably simple to put another shape on a man in Belkuthas and a few new thoughts in his mind. After having spent much of his years trying to balance white, red, and black spells within his mind and magic, almost anything else was simple.
Still, Wilthur the Brown would admit in the privacy of his camp quarters that the man himself might unwittingly be making the work easier.
A spell divided among the three aspects of magic had, it seemed likely, a natural affinity for a mind divided more ways than its possessor had fingers and toes.
Wilthur cast another handful of redwort pickled in honey vinegar into the charcoal of the brazier, and the smoke rose thicker. Outside, the scent escaped on the breeze, and men made gestures of aversion. They also held their noses or, if they had no work close by, tried to find a place upwind of the tent.
Within Belkuthas, Tarothin muttered uneasily in his sleep, without waking.
Sirbones was not asleep-healing a dwarf who had slipped descending the cellar stairs. Even dwarven bones could crack if they struck stone hard enough, and Sirbones knew the dwarf had to be not only healed by tomorrow but ready to fight within days. This required a healing spell of such potency that, for Sirbones, everything beyond himself and the dwarf might as well not have existed.
A third man was asleep when the spell began, but soon afterward awoke and dressed. He did not look in the mirror as he went out, although he was (at least by daylight) careful of his appearance. It would have unsettled his mind to see his ensorcelled self in the mirror, and his mind was already uneasy. Sir Lewin of Trenfar would probably not have cared to wander about the castle wearing the aspect of Belot the elven pegasus-rider.
At least not at first. By the time he reached Rynthala’s quarters, the spell had sunk far enough within him that he would not readily doubt anything that happened-or hold back because of it.
Rynthala had undressed for bed and was pulling on her night robe when the knock came. Her father coming back? She hoped Krythis had nothing more to say to her; he had begun to look like a corpse.
She wished the ill-omened thought out of her mind and prayed briefly to Mishakal to heal or at least order her thoughts and her father’s body and spirit. The knock came again. She drew the night robe down to her knees and went to open the door.
Belot stood there. His hands hung empty at his sides, and his face was blank with-what? Surprise that she had opened her door?