The soldierly Estcarpian sheathed his knife and stooped to pick up a lantern. “Can we not find a more comfortable place than this for our conversation?” he asked the old sire.
Morfew rose slowly from his bench. “By all means,” he agreed fervently. “My bones do not find these cellars hospitable.” Turning to me, he added in Alizonian, “Come along, young man. Let us seek a warmer, softer place to sit and talk.”
I noticed that they arranged for me to walk in their midst, for the spell-casting hag beckoned for me to follow her, and the soldierly male walked closely behind me.
As we picked our way around and over cracked and displaced stonework, I wondered what catastrophe had befallen this place. The massive blocks and style of the joinery implied an enormous edifice above us, perhaps as old as my own castle. We passed through winding corridors and up many stairs, then suddenly an icy wind gushed through an outer door as we emerged onto the snow-covered stones of a night-shadowed courtyard.
Never had I beheld such a space enclosed by towered walls. Moonlight reflected on the snow revealed severe damage to parts of the rectangular enclosure. Teeth chattering in the chill, I clasped my arms tightly across my chest and glanced upward. I halted so abruptly that the soldier following behind collided with me. “The stars!” I exclaimed, jarred into speech. “Beyond the walls—mountains!”
Morfew touched my arm, evidently for reassurance. “This is Lormt,” he said. “The skies here are somewhat different from those above Alizon City, and we are truly tucked away among the high peaks. At least we have our cloaks to shield us from the wind. Hurry along—we have not much farther to go to reach a sheltered fire-side.”
A tall stone building reared before us, and the spell hag plunged into a recessed doorway at its base. We climbed yet more stairs, then the hag opened a heavy door into a snug study lined with scroll-stacked shelves. Kneeling by the hearth, she coaxed a fire from coals banked for the night.
Morfew settled himself on a cushioned chair at the head of a long table, and offered me the chair to his left. The soldier withdrew briefly, then returned with a tray of pewter goblets and a flask of ale, which he poured into a pannikin to warm over the fire. I let the others sip their brew before I tasted my portion. I had noticed that the goblet I chose was empty before the pouring; it seemed unlikely that they would try to poison me at this juncture. Morfew must have observed my brief hesitation, for he smiled and said, “We keep no poisons here, only old documents.”
The soldier drew a leather bag from his belt and spilled from it a scattering of crystals upon the table surface. At the same time, the spell hag placed in front of her a carved wooden board ornamented with red, black, and gold markings.
I felt the hair rise on the back of my neck. Was I to be subjected to Estcarpian magic? “Morfew,” I demanded, “What means this display?”
“Do not be disturbed,” he replied in a soothing tone. “My friends are merely testing whether any Power of the Dark presently threatens us.” Morfew repeated his remark in Estcarpian.
The soldier frowned as he scooped up his crystals and tossed them a second time. “I see no taint of the Dark about him,” he said, glancing dubiously at me. “There are, however, strong indications of pending danger.”
“My rune-board confirms your crystals,” said the spell hag, as she returned the wooden strip to her belt fastening.
Stung by their remarks, I held my tongue until Morfew had repeated their words in Alizonian, then I asserted, “My Line has ever rejected any resort to magework. What taint of the Dark do you have reason to associate with me?”
I paused, struck by a tantalizing thought. Could it be possible that these folk might oppose Gurborian’s plotting? If they reviled Dark magic, would they not despise any Escorian alliance proposed by Alizon? I decided to take a calculated risk. “How stand you anent any traffic with the Dark Ones of Escore?” I inquired. “In my studies of ancient lore, I have read that Estcarp once warred mightily with those from the east, but we have heard naught further in Alizon for many years. Is there still enmity between Estcarp’s rulers and Escore’s mages?”
Morfew seemed intrigued. “What a curious question,” he observed. After he had relayed my words to the others, he resumed in Alizonian. “As I try to recall how matters were viewed in Alizon, my counter question to you would be, ‘Why do you ask that? On which side does your interest lie?’ But pray contain your reply for a moment, for I perceive an opportunity to explain to you our somewhat different ways of thinking here at Lormt. More than fifty years ago, I was prevented from pursuing knowledge in Alizon, so I journeyed here, where all scholars are welcome to reside.
“You must understand, young man, that Lormt has no rulers like Alizon’s Lord Baron and his Baronial Council. As a community of scholars, our sole purpose is to seek and organize lost lore from the past. The Council of Estcarp’s Witches scorns us for our predominant maleness, but tends chiefly to ignore us. We thus rarely affect one another—still, two years ago we suffered from their great Turning of the land, which caused the damage you observed to our walls and foundations. For our part, we prefer to be left undisturbed, each of us working as he chooses.
“As for Escore,” Morfew continued, “we have had scant word of it until relatively recent years, when some of the Old Race have ventured there. Puissant powers still abide in that land, some pledging homage to the Light, but others serving the Dark. I am certain that I speak for Ouen, our chief scholar (he gestured at the old sire), when I say that Lormt stands firmly for the Light.”
The others around the table hearkened closely to his translation, their expressions grave.
“But would you fight against Escore’s Dark mages?” I persisted. “Would you defend this place against them?”
Appearing alarmed, Morfew repeated my questions. The soldierly Estcarpian frowned at me, and snapped, “Do you warn us or threaten us?”
A sudden loud thump made us all start in our chairs. The white-haired old female had pounded her staff on the floor. She appeared to be unable to speak—yet another maimed foe!—since she scribbled on a slate and handed it to the old sire so that he could voice her message. “Enough questions,” he read aloud. “Answers must now be offered.”
7
Mereth—events at Lormt
(early 7th Day, Month of the Ice Dragon/Moon of the Knife)
As we plodded back toward Lormt’s upper levels, I labored under a double burden: the physical exertion of retracing our way through all those corridors and staircases, added to the internal exertion of controlling my seething feelings. I could scarcely suppress my sense of dread and revulsion at being within actual touching distance of an Alizonder.
It was true that Morfew was also of that cursed race, but from the moment I had met him, I discerned that his spirit was distinctly different from those of his rapacious countrymen. Like Dame Gwersa, Morfew was a true scholar. In recent years, he had been immersed in kinship studies. A quantity of documents had been sent to Lormt from the collection of Ostbor, an elderly Estcarpian famed for his kinship knowledge, who had died some months before the Turning. The lady Nolar had been Ostbor’s student, Morfew told me, and upon her settling at Lormt, she had assisted him greatly in bringing some order to her former master’s scrolls. Vast quantities of additional kinship records had been disclosed when Lormt’s hidden cellars were revealed by the Turning. I had just begun to work with Morfew and Nolar on that section of Lormt’s archives dealing with the Dales when this genuinely threatening Alizonder shattered our peace.