I liked his answer. “If I take that necklace off will you give me your word on something?”
He looked at me suspiciously, “Perhaps, it depends upon what it is. More importantly, of what value is my word to you?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer that, but I trusted what Penny had told me. I also found that the more I talked to Walter the less I hated him. He definitely wasn’t a man given to violence or aggression. If anything he might even be something of a coward, though I had no way to judge that yet. But I got the impression he was at the very least a man of compassion, a man who had been badly used. “Its value will depend upon how you honor it. Betray me and you will never get another chance,” I responded somberly.
“If it conflicts with my need to protect my family I won’t give it. If I give it and discover later that my family is jeopardized by my keeping it, I will break it without a moment’s thought. Is that the sort of honor you would trust?”
I thought of Cyhan and his unbending oaths. If I had not known him I might have had a different answer, but now I had a wiser view on the matter. “It sounds exactly like the sort of honor I would trust. Help me with this Walter, and if it is possible I will do all I can to help recover your family safely.”
He sighed, “Fine. Tell me what you want me to swear to.”
“Swear you will not seek to escape or use your power to oppose me. Swear you will follow my orders, except and until they endanger your family. Swear that, and I will remove the necklace.”
Walter watched me carefully as I spoke and when I finished he answered, “I so swear.” A moment later he added, “I see why the king fears you now.”
“What do you mean?”
“If he had been like you he would never have taken my family hostage, nor would he have needed to do so,” he explained.
“You don’t know me Walter,” I replied.
He laughed, “On the contrary I was watching your every move for almost two months. I think I know you fairly well. Your people trust you and your armsmen would walk through fire if you asked them to do so.”
His praise was honest but it made me uncomfortable. And what about my wife? I thought to myself. The last part of the fairy tale should have been that my wife was the most beautiful woman in the land and that every man was jealous of our happiness. I swallowed as a bitter knot rose in my throat.
I ignored his comments and reached over to gently grasp the necklace. With hardly any effort I picked out its voice and in an instant it became a part of me. I pulled it apart as though it were made of soft cheese instead of metal. Once I had it off I put the ends back together and watched the silver chain reform as if it had never parted.
Walter watched with keen interest, “How are you doing that? I can’t sense any power being used at all.”
“I just listen,” I said patiently.
He snorted, “If my wife were here she would say that rules me out as far as being able to do whatever it is you just did.”
I laughed politely, but thinking about his wife didn’t make me feel any better. Glancing down at the necklace I decided I had better remove the iron sphere just to be safe. The last thing I wanted was an accidental explosion. Repeating my action of a moment ago I separated the iron ball from the silver clasp.
Now that his magesight was restored Walter could sense the power stored within it. “That’s what you had set in case I broke the necklace? I doubt there would have been anything left of me. How did you manage to store so much energy in there?”
“That’s a conversation for another day,” I told him, not wanting to get into the details of how I had rediscovered the art of enchanting. “I’d better get rid of this.” I had a chest full of similar explosive iron balls, tucked away, and the pouch at my belt allowed me to safely store and access them without actually carrying them around with me, but I wanted to make one further point while I had Walter’s full attention.
With a word I formed a shield around the iron ball and then I redoubled it. Once I felt sure it was strong enough I pulled the glass ball that matched it from my purse and swiftly broke it with a second word. The iron ball exploded silently.
The force of the explosion in my hand was incredible and it came very near to exceeding my ability to contain it in the fist-sized shield I held around it. I was careful to keep my face calm and my features smooth the entire time, but I needn’t have worried. Walter’s attention was entirely focused upon the roiling sphere of light and flame I held before me. He had leapt back several feet and erected his own shields reflexively. “Sweet Lady protect us!” he yelled and I worried he might hurt himself further trying to move so quickly on his injured leg.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” I lied. I had definitely meant to startle him. I walked nonchalantly over to the window and then carefully created a small opening on one side of the shield I had around the tightly compressed ball of pure energy and iron fragments. The force vented violently into the air beside the castle and if I hadn’t already braced myself the reactionary force might have thrown me back into the room. As it was, I hoped my demonstration had made the desired impression on Walter.
He didn’t say anything else, but I could see the wheels turning in his head. I hoped he had gotten my message, which if I had put it into words would have been something like this: don’t even think of crossing me, because if I decide I need to do something about you it won’t be any more difficult than it would be for an ordinary person to swat a fly. Of course the other possibility was that I had just convinced him I was a few cards shy of a full deck. Either way it would serve the same purpose.
Chapter 34
It was late afternoon when we finally rode into the foothills in the eastern part of James’s lands. In the distance the Elentir Mountains could be seen rising up on the horizon. Supposedly those mountains had been created long ago, by the first wizard to bear the name Illeniel. What no one really knew was why he had done it. Most people discounted the story as a fairy tale these days, but after my experience nearly destroying Lothion I had come to give the story greater credence.
Walter and I had used the teleportation circles to reach Lancaster quickly and borrowed horses from the duke’s stable. Sir Harold had showed up shortly after we arrived, leading a force of some five hundred of my armsmen. Seeing them mustered so quickly and efficiently made me even more aware of how much the war had changed my estate.
It wasn’t without irony that I realized I now had more soldiers than my liege, the Duke of Lancaster. Luckily we were friends; otherwise there might have been an issue with that.
I watched Walter carefully, it had taken us a four hour ride to reach the area that James said contained the cave where the shiggreth were hiding, and he looked weary. “How is your leg holding up?” I asked him.
He gave me a smile that only underscored the dark circles under his eyes. “It hurts like hell,” he answered honestly.
“We’ll be camping here tonight so you’ll be able to rest it before we press into the caves tomorrow,” I told him.
“A peaceful night sleeping on the ground should do wonders for it,” he replied sarcastically. Despite his tone I didn’t get the feeling he was really complaining, it was just his way of making conversation.
James and Harold had been discussing the camping plans during the march (most of the soldiers were afoot). As soon as we arrived James sent a detail to relieve the men guarding the cave entrance, while the main body was put to work preparing our field camp. A large area was cleared of the stones and small brush that were ubiquitous here and tents were erected. Latrines were dug and a picket line established around the camp.
All told we had a combined force of some seven hundred men camped there. A group of fifty men were on guard duty at the cave entrance and another hundred were kept active maintaining the pickets around the camp. Although that might sound excessive none of us wanted to have a rude surprise during the night and the shiggreth’s particular abilities made them difficult to guard against.