“Right into the heart of Ameronis’ lair. Well done! Well done, indeed!” He beamed at his friend. “This was a night well spent.” Immediately the knight’s mind began making calculations, racing ahead to make plans for the campaign to follow. “Can we cut through the ironwork?”
“Yes,” replied Theido with a yawn. “I did not see the gate, and we had no torches to properly examine the tunnel-all had to be explored in the dark-but the tunnel is not large, so they were able to at least reach the portcullis without difficulty. But yes, it can be cut through-given enough time. The iron is thick, and appears to be well made. It will take time.”
“Then we must begin at once.” He saw the look on Theido’s face and asked, “Can we reach the tunnel in daylight without being seen?”
“No.” Theido shook his head wearily. “At least not by land. But there is a chance that if we go by water, hugging close to the riverbank below the walls, we can reach it without being seen from above.”
“Swim?”
“Too difficult. We could not carry the tools we would need.”
“We have no boats.”
“Rafts. We must construct two rafts of size enough to hold a dozen men each with equipment and weapons.”
Ronsard stared across the table. “That will take a day at least, maybe two.”
“We have no better choice that I can see. Scaling the walls without help from inside is our last resort. The foe is well-equipped-certainly better provisioned than we are-and we cannot wait for them to be weakened by the siege. No, the secret gate is the only way.”
Ronsard fell silent as he turned the matter over in his head. Finally, he admitted that Theido was right and said, “In that case, I must not waste time sitting here. I will have the carpenters begin constructing the rafts at once.” He stood to leave. “You look weary to the bone. Sleep now; I will attend to the raft building and summon you if there is any need.” He moved to the entrance and held back the flap, hesitated, and said, “We will win, Theido.”
Ronsard’s voice asked for confirmation. Theido, always so certain before, so sure that the right would win out in the end, could not muster that same strength of conviction now. For once it seemed as if despite all they might do, they would not prevail, that the evil which had poisoned the realm so swiftly had achieved its end already and they were powerless to turn aside its effects.
Ronsard’s statement begged confirmation. Theido lifted his shoulders and sighed, “I wish I knew, brave friend.”
Ronsard lingered, watching him. Theido rubbed his face with his hands, and yawned. “It has been a long night,” he said. “I am tired.” At last Ronsard turned his face away, looking out into the camp, but not seeing the men moving there, cooking their breakfasts before the fire, carrying firewood and water, looking after their weapons and the horses. The light shining on his face, his jaw flexed and set, Ronsard stepped outside, leaving Theido to his sleep.
FORTY-SIX
QUENTIN STALKED the high wall walks of the castle. Restless, unable to sleep, he paced the bartizans and battlements, his short cloak flying out behind him like wings, his unkempt hair streaming back from his head in wild disarray. To any who saw him, the King appeared as one gone mad, roaming the high places in the dead of night like those unhappy spirits who haunted the desolate places.
The King himself was not aware of what he was doing. He only knew that he could not remain still any longer; he must move, walk, go, and keep going lest he fall under the weight of the blackness which had crept into his heart. He had wrestled with it often enough in the last days to know that he could not win against it. It held him in a death grip, and meant to drag him down into the dust of oblivion.
So, to hold the inevitable at bay yet a little longer, he prowled the walls by night, in the light of a pale sickle moon, like an animal half-crazed with pain. Quentin felt the night press in upon him, enfolding him in its velvet embrace, smothering him. He stared out across the land eastward and saw the dark line of Pelgrin hedging the broad, flat plain. Beyond Pelgrin, further east and north, lay Narramoor and the High Temple on its flat table of stone, overlooking the entire kingdom.
Somewhere within that temple his son waited for him to come and rescue him, waited as he himself had waited as a boy for someone to carry him away from that place. And he had been rescued-by a dying knight who placed in his hands a charge that he alone could fulfill. In those days it had been easy-easy to believe, easy to follow without asking for signs or assurances, or at least without requiring them at every turn.
Now it was much harder. He was no longer the simple, trusting acolyte with neither home nor family, and nothing much to lose. He was the Dragon King, leader of his people, protector of the realm.
Sadly, he had not been much of a protector of late. He had not been able to prevent Durwin’s death, nor his son’s kidnapping, nor any of the host of problems that so beset him. The god had removed his hand from him, had taken the blessing that was given to him and had departed, leaving him alone and helpless.
So be it. The god had moved away, had abandoned him as gods will. He could do nothing about that; he was only a man, after all. The business of the gods was for the gods; mortals could not influence or change affairs once the gods had spoken. And though Quentin had believed wonderful things, incredible things about the God Most High, and had trusted him with his life and the lives of those he loved, the god, like all gods, had ultimately disappointed him.
Still, he had a choice. He could abandon his faith in the Most High and reclaim his life for himself, or he could continue believing, continue serving and trusting, even though there was no good reason to continue, even though all good reason said to cast off the belief that had so long bound him in blind trust to a god who lied when he claimed to care about his children. Where was there ever a god who so much as pretended to care for his followers? None of the old gods, surely. None that he had ever learned about in the temple. If the ways of the gods were beyond the reckoning of men, then at least it made more sense to believe in the only one who held out the hope of something greater than the pitiful rituals played out by the scurrilous priests of the High Temple.
The old gods? Those ancient ethereal impostors? Those vague, capricious forces men called upon, worshiped, and revered with the names of gods? How could he believe in them, knowing them for what they were? As an acolyte, he had served long enough in the temple to learn that a priest’s fleshly lips applied to a hole in the stone brought forth the god’s oracle, and a priest’s avaricious whim became the god’s demand.
At least the God Most High shunned oracles and objects of silver and gold as sacrifices to win his favor. When he spoke it was directly, and with power. Yes, Quentin had felt the power. Even if he did not feel it now and would perhaps never feel it again, he would forever remember the time when he had known beyond all doubt that the god had spoken and empowered him.
This was more than mumbled words whispered through a speaking hole hidden in a stone. There was hope here, and that was something the old gods of earth and air, of crossroads and high places, of flowing water and seasons, could never give. Quentin could still remember what it was like to live without that hope, could still remember the aching despair that would come on him when as a boy he lay on his straw mat in his temple cell and prayed in the night to be shown the truth. He would wait, listen, and wait some more, only to have his words fall back upon him, mocking from the silent void.
No, having found the hope he had so long sought, Quentin would not abandon it now. He could not live without hope, for without it there was no life at all. Better a life without sight, or touch, or taste, or any of a dozen other faculties, including love, than a life without hope. He knew that road for what it was and would not travel that way again.