“Well, if it’s a song about the Briar King, I don’t want to hear it. He’ll kill us all, soon enough. No need to trouble over him before it happens.”
Leoff wasn’t sure how to react to that, but he felt sure that if the world were about to end, Artwair would probably have mentioned it. “Very well,” he said at last, gesturing above. “Your malend. May I ask, how does it work?”
Gilmer brightened. “You saw the saglwic outside, auy? The wind spins it, which turns a shaft up there.” He pointed toward the roof. “Then there’s wooden cogs and gears, takes that turning and makes this shaft go up and down. That runs the pump, down under. I can show you tomorrow.”
“That’s very nice of you, but I won’t be here tomorrow.”
“You may be. Artwair has had time to gang and come from Broogh twice now, so something must be keeping him there. And I’m needin’ min rest. And judging by the way the Kuvoolds are pulling at your eyelids, I’d say you need a rest, as well.”
“I am rather tired,” Leoff realized.
“You’re welcome to stay until Artwair gets back, as I said. There’s another bed, on the next floor, for just such a purpose. Take it, if you’d like.”
“I think I shall, even if it’s only for a short nap.” He climbed the ladder to the next level and found the bed, just under a window. It was well dark now, but the moon was out, and up the canal some half a league he saw what must be Broogh, a collection of house-shaped shadows, a wall, and four towers of varying height. He saw no light, however, not even so much as he had made out in the far more distant—and probably smaller—villages.
With a sigh he lay on the rough mattress, listening to the wolf-wings and nighthawks singing, tired but not sleepy. Above, he could hear the gears Gilmer had mentioned clattering and clucking, and somewhere near, the trickling of water.
The end of the world, eh? That was just his luck. At the age of thirty-two he had a royal appointment in his grasp, and the world was going to end.
If he still had a royal appointment.
His thoughts on the matter were interrupted by the sudden breathy voice of a recorder. It was so clear and beautiful, it might have been real, but he’d lived long enough with his gift to know it was in his head.
A melody began, and he smiled as his body relaxed and his mind went to work.
The malend was teaching him its song.
It came easily, first the alto recorder, the wind coming along from the east across green plains. And now the drum, as the wheel—saglwic?—began to turn, and croths—plucked here rather than bowed—began playing the melody in unison with the flute. Then joined the low strings of the bass croths, the vast waters beneath the earth responding, but still all melody, of course—and now water flowing into the canal, a merry trickling on a flageolet, as the malend became the union of air, earth, water, and craft.
Now the variations began, each element acquiring its own theme—the earth a slow pavane on the deep instruments, but on the pipes a mad, happy dance as the wind quickened, and the strings bowing nearly glissando arpeggios . . .
He blinked. His candle had gone out, and it was pitch-black. When had that happened?
But the concerto was finished, ready to go to paper. Unlike the melody in the hills, the dance of the malend had come to him whole.
Which was perhaps why he only now realized that someone was in the room below, talking.
Two voices, and neither belonged to Gilmer Oercsun.
“. . . don’t see why we had got picked to do this job,” a voice said. It was a tenor voice, scratchy.
“Don’t complain,” another said. This one was a booming baritone. “Especially don’t complain around him.”
“It’s just that I wanted to see,” the first replied. “Don’t you want to be there, when they bust through the dike, and the water goes all a-rushin’ out?”
“You’ll see it,” the baritone replied. “You’ll see it well enough. You’ll be lucky not to swim in it.”
“Yah, I suppose. Still.” A cheerful tone crept into his voice. “But won’t it be fun, rowing a boat over all of that down there? Over the roofs of the houses? I’m going to row right over . . . what was the town?”
“Where the girl said you had a nose like a turtle’s prickler?”
“That’s the one.”
“Reckhaem.”
“Right. Hey, a turtle’s prickler is the best she’ll be getting, after tonight.”
“Still better than yours, from what I’ve heard,” the baritone said. “Now let’s be done here. We’ve got to burn every malend for four leagues before morning.”
“Yah, but why?”
“So they can’t pump the water back up, you dumb sceat. Now, come on.”
Burn? Leoff’s heart did a triple-quick-step.
The top of the stairway suddenly appeared, an orange rectangle, and he smelled burning oil.
4
The Praifec
Aspar White fought to draw a breath, but he felt as if a giant hand were clenched around his throat. “Sceat, this can’t be right,” he managed to gasp out. “Winna—”
Winna rolled her blue eyes and shook her honey locks. “Hush, Asp,” she admonished, “don’t be such a kindling. Haven’t you ever worn a Fading collar before?”
“I’ve never worn any damn sort of collar before,” Aspar grunted. “What’s the point?”
“The point is, you’re in Eslen, in the royal palace, not tramping through a heath in the uplands, and before the next bell you’re going to see His Grace, the Praifec of all Crotheny. You’ve got to dress for the occasion.”
“But I’m just a holter,” he complained. “Let me dress like one.”
“You killed the Black Warg and his bandit band, alone, with nothing but your bow, ax, and dirk. You fought a greffyn and lived. You mean to say now you’re afraid to wear a simple set of weeds?”
“They aren’t simple, I look stupid, and I can’t breathe.”
“You haven’t even seen yourself, and if you’ve got enough breath to whinge so, I’d say you’re doing fine. Now here, come to the mirror.”
He raised his eyebrows. Winna’s young face was broad with smile. Her hair was caught up in a black net of some sort, and she wore an azure gown that—to his mind—was cut far too low at the bodice. Not that the view didn’t please, but it would please every other man who saw it, too.
“Well, you look—ah—pretty, at least,” he said.
“Surely I do. And so do you. See?” She turned him toward the mirror.
Well, he recognized the face, even with it shaved clean. Burned dark by the sun, scarred and worn by forty-one years of hard living, it might not be pretty, but it was the sort of face the king’s holter ought to have.
From the neck down, he was a stranger. The tight, stiff collar was merely the most torturous part of a doublet made of some sort of brightly patterned cloth that ought to have ended up as a drape or a rug. Below that, his legs felt naked, clothed as they were in tight green hose. He felt altogether like a candied apple on a stick.
“Who ever thought of dressing like this?” He grunted. “It’s as if some madwoman tried to think of the most ridiculous outfit imaginable, and—Grim’s eye—succeeded.”
“Madwoman?” Winna asked.
“Yah, well, no man would ever invent such a clownish suit. It must have been some sort of evil trick. Or a dare.”
“You’ve been at court long enough to know better,” Winna said. “The men here love their plumage.”
“Yah,” he conceded, “and I’m damn ready to be away from here, too.”
Her eyes narrowed a little, and she wagged an accusing finger. “You’re nervous about meeting the praifec.”
“I’m no such a thing,” he snapped.
“You are such a thing! A nervous little kindling thing!”
“I haven’t had much to do with the Church, that’s all,” he grumbled. “Other than killing a few of their monks.”