Their soldier Duratan had not troubled to conceal his animosity toward me. I respected his fighting experience, but could not immediately judge the significance of his crystal tossing. Morfew had declared its purpose was to detect any taint by the Dark. How much more information could the peculiar exercise provide? Estcarp’s Witches were always female; males were not supposed to possess magical powers. The sole exception known to us in Alizon was the terrible Simon Tregarth, who was said to have come through a Gate from elsewhere. His three whelps bred by a Witch of Estcarp were also magic-wielders of sorts, although fragmentary accounts that reached Alizon held that the female of the three had fled from Witch training, by the aid of her littermates. Alizon preferred to have no dealings with the Tregarth pack, their sire and dam having severely interfered with our aims in the war with the Dales. I resolved to learn more from Morfew concerning the nature and extent of this Duratan’s magical talents.
I next considered Duratan’s mate, the disfigured Nolar. Was she a true Witch? She admitted accompanying a Witch on the southwesterly journey that had brought about the destruction of a Dark mage. That was daunting news . . . yet I had to smile, lying there in the darkness. What would Gurborian say if he knew that one or more Witches had already vanquished a Dark mage from ancient Escore? My ironic amusement was short-lived. If this Nolar was a Witch of such puissance, I must be doubly wary of her.
I was suspicious as well of the Wise Woman. Although such females lacked the raw Power of Witches, they nevertheless wielded certain noxious magics. Wise Women in the Dales had several times during the war induced our captured Hounds to babble, to Alizon’s sore disadvantage. We had therefore ordered our Hounds to slit the throats of any wounded who might fall into the Wise Women’s clutches—thus perished my last littermate.
The third female, the mute Mereth, had come to Lormt from the Dales. I could feel her hatred as plainly as if it were a blazing firebrand—yet she had not openly reviled me in her written messages to the group. I could not understand her appearance. No Dalesfolk had such eyes, skin, or hair. She must possess Alizonder blood, unheard of for a Dales female outside our breeding control. She could not have been whelped in Alizon as a mute, or she would have been killed at once. Perhaps she had been silenced in later years. Might she also be magic-tainted? She unsettled me for too many reasons. I had to learn more about her.
As Lormt’s chief scholar, Ouen seemed to be in charge, but Morfew had said there was no ruling council. The others deferred to Ouen as to a sire. Although I could, I thought, dismiss him as a potential fighter, he was of the Old Race and therefore dangerous. In this strange place, he, too, might command Witch powers.
And then there was Morfew. In the past, the Line Sired by Ternak had held influential positions in Alizon. Why would Morfew exile himself far away among enemies? As a noble Alizonder, he had to have deeper motives than the pursuit of powerless learning. Possibly I could gain his confidence to the point that he might disclose to me his true reasons for residing at Lormt.
From his long years at Lormt, Morfew could also enlighten me in the ways of these formidable Estcarpians. It was vital that I persuade them to allow me—indeed, actively assist me in searching Lormt’s archives for any hint of Escorian weaknesses.
The lack of available time deeply distressed me. Even now, Gurborian and Gratch were striving to locate Dark mages. My work here at Lormt had to be swiftly productive if I were to have any active chance to hinder them.
A chilling thought occurred to me. Even if I should find useful information at Lormt, how could I return to Alizon in time to apply it? There was also a secondary consideration: would the Estcarpians permit me to leave? Might they not hold me as prisoner or hostage, demanding ransom from my Line? I decided that potential difficulty was less worrisome than my primary predicament. My sole means for presumably immediate travel back to Alizon lay through the terrifying passageway in Lormt’s cellar . . . if indeed the magic spell that animated it remained in force. Would the portal beneath Krevonel Castle accept my return, or was its spell set to deliver only from Alizon to Lormt and not in the opposite direction? I could not know until I dared the attempt, provided the Lormt folk would allow me access to their cellar.
I twisted on the bed as I grappled with the many aspects of my plight. At the root of all the questions clamoring for answers lurked a truly gnawing fear. The very existence of an entryway between Estcarp and Krevonel Castle constituted a peril equal to that posed by the Escorian Dark mages. What if a whole troop of Estcarpian warriors—or far worse, a company of Witches—chose to invade Alizon through that portal, assuming that the spell permitted such a transit? In all of Alizon, I was the only one to know of this potentially fatal breach in our closely guarded borders. There was no way to warn the Lord Baron except by personally daring the portal again . . . and what could Alizon do to defend itself? If we sealed off the chamber beneath Krevonel Castle, might there not be other equally unsuspected horrors poised to open in still other sites?
Apprehensive and frustrated by my crippling lack of sufficient knowledge, I fell into a fitful but dreamless sleep.
Early the next morning, Morfew sent a slightly less elderly scholar (still decrepit to my eyes) to fetch me to him. He directed me across the courtyard to the second, lower stone building near the gates.
Morfew greeted me fairly, and offered simple fare to break our fast—gruel, barley bread, butter, honey, cheese, and ale or cold water to drink.
“I must confess,” Morfew confided as he spread butter on a bread crust, “even after all these years at Lormt, I do sometimes miss Alizon’s succulent meats.” He shut his eyes, and smiled as he recited, “Roast boar, moorhen, haunch of deer, rabbit in pastry . . . ah, well, an old scholar scarcely requires such rich viands. The puddings, though, did linger sweetly on the tongue.”
I saw my opportunity to seek answers to some of my jostling questions. “I commend the quality of your honey,” I began. “Ours has been bitter of late. Tell me, if you will, why you first came to Lormt, and why you stayed? As one of Ternak’s Line, surely, when young, you had firm expectations of advancement?”
Morfew waved his butter knife dismissively. “Although I was an elder whelp,” he said with a wry smile, “I was not suited to assume the barony. Kin lists and ancient lore had always interested me far more than hunting or contending with the other whelps for advancement. By great fortune, I chanced to hear of Lormt from a merchant who dealt in scrolls. I set out from Alizon City when I was twenty, and I have never thought of returning. I sought my way to Lormt for nearly ten years, but as soon as I entered these gates, I knew that I had found my true home.” His smile faded, and he sighed. “You said last night that my Line had been destroyed in a blood feud. How came that to be?”
“Most of the deaths occurred almost thirty years before I was whelped,” I replied. “Our sire related the tale to my elder littermates, who subsequently passed it to me. Shortly before our sire was to be Presented . . .”
“Forgive my interruption,” said Morfew. “I recall only some of the famed sires of Krevonel. Which is your sire?”
“I am honored to be sired by Oralian of that Line,” I said, touching my Line badge. “I was a fosterling far away from Alizon City when Gurborian ordered my sire’s murder. It was over fifty years ago when the blood feud between your Line and the Line Sired by Pagurian reached its climax. As blood feuds go, that one was unusually bitter—I gather that a number of pack alliances had been obstructed by kidnappings and poisonings. Pagurian’s forces finally surrounded Ternak’s main hunting lodge, and set it afire while its sire was within, Talfew by name. . . .”