It gave Dekkeret great delight to see the way the Lady Taliesme was continuing to grow into the role that destiny was forcing upon her. He had spent almost half his life, now, among the princes of the Castle, and was no longer the provincial boy he had been, that long-ago day in Nor-mork, when he first had come to Prestimion’s notice. His mother had not had an opportunity for the same sort of education in the ways of the mighty. Yet she was learning, somehow. Essentially she remained as artless and unassuming as ever; but she was nonetheless going to be, at some time not very far in the future, a Power of the Realm, and he could see how capably she was making her accommodation to the strange and altogether unanticipated enhancement of her life that was heading her way.
A pleasant, civilized chat, then: a mother, her visiting son, the son’s friend. But gradually Dekkeret became aware of suppressed tensions in the room, as though a second conversation, unspoken and unacknowledged, was drifting surreptitiously in the air above them:
—Will the Pontifex live much longer, do you think?
—You know that that is something I don’t dare think about, mother.
—But you do, though. As do I. It can’t be helped.
He was certain that some such secret conversation was going on within her now, here amidst the clink of teacups and the polite passing of trays of biscuits. Calm and sane and stable as she was, and ever-tranquil in the face of destiny’s decrees, even so there was no way she could avoid casting her thoughts forward to the extraordinary transformation that fate would soon be bringing to the merchant’s son of Nor-mork and to his mother. The starburst crown was waiting for him, and the third terrace of the Isle of Sleep for her. She would be something other than human if thoughts of such things did not wander into her mind a dozen times a day.
And into his own.
4
Already, in his mind’s eye, Thastain could see the blackened timbers of the house of the Vorthinar lord crumbling in the red blaze of the fire they would set. As it deserved. He could not get his mind around the enormity of what he had seen. It was bad enough to have rebelled against the Five Lords; but to consort with Metamorphs as well—! Those were evils almost beyond Thastain’s comprehension.
Well, they had found what they had come here to find. Now, though, came disagreement over the nature of their next move.
Criscantoi Vaz insisted that they had to go back and report their discovery to Count Mandralisca, and let him work out strategy from there. But some of the men, most notably Agavir Toymin of Pidruid in western Zimroel, spoke out passionately in favor of an immediate attack. The rebel keep was supposed to be destroyed: very well, that was what they should set about doing, without delay. Why let someone else have the glory? Assuredly the Five Lords would richly reward the men who had rid them of this enemy. It was senseless to hang back at this point, with the headquarters of the foe right within their reach.
Thastain was of that faction. The proper thing to do now, he thought, was to make their way down that hillside, creeping as warily as that sharp-toothed helgibor, and get going on the job of starting the fire without further dithering.
“No,” Criscantoi Vaz said. “We’re only a scouting party. We’ve got no authority to attack. Thastain, run back to the camp and tell the Count what we’ve found.”
“Stay where you are, boy,” said Agavir Toymin, a burly man who was notorious for his blatant currying of favor with the Lord Gaviral and the Lord Gavinius. To Criscantoi Vaz he said, “Who put you in charge of this mission, anyway? I don’t remember that anybody named you our commander.” There was sudden sharpness in his tone, and no little heat.
“Nor you, so far as I know.—Run along, Thastain. The Count must be notified.”
“We’ll notify him that we’ve found the keep and destroyed it,” said Agavir Toymin. “What will he do, whip us for carrying out what we’ve all come here to do? It’s three miles from here to the Count’s camp. By the time the boy has gone all the way back there, the wind will have carried our scent to the Shapeshifters down below, and there’ll be a hillside of defenders between us and the keep, just waiting for us to descend. No: what we need to do is get the job over with and be done with it.”
“I tell you, we are in no way authorized—” Criscantoi Vaz began, and there was heat in his voice too, and a glint of sudden piercing anger in his eyes.
“And I tell you, Criscantoi Vaz—” Agavir Toymin said, putting his forefinger against Criscantoi Vaz’s breastbone and giving a sharp push.
Criscantoi Vaz’s eyes blazed. He slapped the finger aside.
That was all it took, one quick gesture and then another, to spark a wild conflagration of wrath between them. Thastain, watching in disbelief, saw their faces grow dark and distorted as all common sense deserted them both, and then they rushed forward, going at each other like madmen, snarling and shoving and heaving and throwing wild punches. Others quickly joined the fray. Within seconds a crazy melee was in progress, eight or nine men embroiled, swinging blindly, grunting and cursing and bellowing.
Amazing, Thastain thought. Amazing! It was ridiculous behavior for a scouting party. They might just as well have hoisted the banner of the Sambailid clan at the edge of the cliff, the five blood-red moons on the pale crimson background, and announced with a flourish of trumpets to those in the keep below that enemy troops were camped above them, intending a surprise attack.
And to think of the calm, judicious Criscantoi Vaz, a man of such wisdom and responsibility, allowing himself to get involved in a thing like this—!
Thastain wanted no part of this absurd quarrel himself, and quickly moved away. But as he came around the far side of the struggling knot of men he found himself suddenly face to face once again with Sudvik Gorn, who also had kept himself apart from the fray. The Skandar loomed up in front of him like a mountainous mass of coarse auburn fur. His eyes glowed vengefully. His four huge hands clenched and unclenched as if they already were closing about Thastain’s throat.
“And now, boy—”
Thastain looked frantically around. Behind him lay the sharp drop of the hillside, with a camp of armed enemies at its foot. Ahead of him was the infuriated and relentless Skandar, determined now to vent his choler. He was trapped.
Thastain’s hand went to the pommel of the hunting knife at his waist. “Keep back from me!”
But he wondered how much of a thrust would be required to penetrate the thick walls of muscle beneath the Skandar’s coarse pelt, and whether he had the strength for it, and what the Skandar would succeed in doing to him in the moments before he managed to strike. The little hunting knife, Thastain decided, would be of not the slightest use against the huge man’s great bulk.
It all seemed utterly hopeless. And Criscantoi Vaz, somewhere in the middle of that pack of frenzied lunatics, could do nothing to help him now.
Sudvik Vorn started for him, growling like a mollitor coming toward its prey. Thastain muttered a prayer to the Lady.
And then, for the second time in ten minutes, rescue came unexpectedly.
“What is this we have here?” said a quiet, terrifying voice, a controlled, inexorable voice that seemed to emerge out of nowhere like a metal spring uncoiling from some concealed machine. “Brawling, is that it? Among yourselves? You’ve lost your minds, have you?” It was a voice with edges of steel. It cut through everything like a razor.