A well-muscled arm swooped, fingers caught up the cloak, once more twisting it about a bare body, but this time a human body. “So be it.”
“You are a man—” The power that had filled me vanished as quickly as it had come. I was left with only amazement and a need to understand.
He nodded. Gone from him was all but the eyes—those were rightly his, marking him even through the foulness of the spell. “I am Ran Den Fur—a fool who went where no man ventured, and by my folly I learned. Now . . .” He gazed about him. I saw the cloak move as he drew a deep breath, as if inhaling new life to rid him of the old. “I shall live again—and perhaps I have put folly behind me.”
He looked at me with the same intentness as when he had tried to link earlier.
“I have much to thank you for, lady. We shall have time—now—even in the shadow of Thotharn, we still have time.”
Qazia seldom had a slack moment in her duties as tavern-mistress of the Joyous Goblet, but on this night she took time to gaze about her dark-beamed, torchlit, smoky-cornered tavern, thinking with quiet satisfaction, My family has run this place well for a hundred years. We have better served the pilgrims than the priests in the temple not too far away.
Caravanners wrestled with the tavern goblet-wenches or brawled among themselves with goad-knives. A sprinkling of omen-rovers hawked love-drafts, juggled gyro-balls, or cast plot-lines from the hands of any who wished to know their fate. The tavern’s beam-dancer collected lovesick stares and ration-silvers in equal amounts, while the man with the trained lixus made it beg for tidbit-coppers.
Her glance suddenly riveted upon a man seated in an alcove. He reposed with the powerful ease of a skilled warrior, but wore the garb of a song-weaver, resting his battered but well-crafted song-loom in the curve of his left arm.
As she made her way to the alcove, she saw that his golden eyes had the fixed stare of blindness, and where his skin was unscarred, it was deeply browned. His garments and boots, grayed nondescript by constant travel, almost concealed his refined, durable form that moved like a jessed jerfalcon.
Qazia tried to sit noiseless on the bench beside him, but his head tilted in her direction and he swung the song-loom into his lap. In a soft, unruffled voice he asked, “Who sits with Hoel?”
“Your tavern-mistress. Have a goblet?”
“My thanks, but excellent as your vintages are, they are not what I wish tonight. I await your pleasure to weave a song.”
Although certain he had never been in the Joyous Goblet before, Qazia only said, “Now’s fine. I’ll quiet this mob.” Rising to her full height, she set lean, muscular hands on her hips, whistled like a lixus screech, and the uproar ceased. Her blue-black hair and green eyes caught gold torch highlights as she announced:
“Give ear to song-weaver Hoel!”
Even the beam-dancer stopped her gyrations as Hoel felt his way to an open space where he could best be heard. Tucking the song-loom under his left arm, he ran his fingers over weft and warp in an opening tonal thread. In the fading hiss of that musical sword-blow, Hoel’s voice burgeoned forth the first set of verses.
Qazia watched as her tavern crowd savored the adventures of “Ryddeg’s Son,” who escaped the lesser enemies of his house, earned knighthood, and tried to attack the wizard-thane, Chond of Grimkeep.
But Ryddeg’s son proved easy prey for Chond. Song-loom thread-chords punctuated the air like spellstabs as Hoel chanted of the young knight’s capture, imprisonment, and torture by Chond’s sorcery.
Caravanners wept into their goblets, and the goblet-wenches joined in. Hoel’s blind face lost some of its mask-calm, darkening as he conveyed the despair of his trapped hero.
An uneasy rustle of movement among the omen-rovers, coupled with the odd glances they threw at Hoel, brought Qazia out of her enjoyment, but she had no idea why Hoel’s ballad had upset them.
He let the song-loom sound alone, plucking out isolated harmonies that told plainly of damp darkness, sliding of chains, dwindling of body and soul in endless isolation.
As the last notes faded, Hoel’s fingers stroked a marching air; he sang again:
“Chond is a powerful wizard
But his spell-strength will not last.
Ryddeg’s son defies him,
Despite enchantments vast.
One day a simple charm
Faded from Chond’s brain.
This forgetting of one spell
Released the young knight’s chains.
With his hands he freed himself,
And squeezed out of his cell.
Of all those in the wizard’s gripe,
He alone escaped to tell.”
A mournful theme shimmered from the song-loom, and a great sigh arose from Hoel’s audience as he continued:
“One does not escape Chond
Without paying baneful price.
Behind in Grimkeep dungeons,
Ryddeg’s son left his eyes.
How can he fight the wizard
Without eyes to see?
But he has vowed to avenge his sire
Faithfully.
Ryddeg’s son is friendless
And faces a masterful foe.
In that young knight’s place,
What would you do?”
Hoel stilled the last unresolved thread-tone with a quick muffling press of his right palm. In a weighted silence he seated himself by Qazia; then, pent-up crowd noise burst like a shattering melasvino jar.
“A fine song,” Qazia told Hoel. “Now will you guzzle?”
Although he refused a second time, Qazia did not leave him. To her he looked drained and off guard. She bristled at the way the omen-rovers extended their hands in the antihex sign of the bull’s homed fingers each time they neared Hoel. At last she could no longer refrain from asking, in a casual voice, “Song-weaver, how do you know so much about Chond of Grimkeep?”
A joyless smile flickered across his blind face. “I was his guest for five years.”
At his words the omen-rovers and caravanners began to mutter and look about with uneasy eyes. Some of the goblet-wenches whimpered.
Qella, Qazia’s senior goblet-wench, hurried over to whisper, “Tavern-mistress, I can’t handle the girls much longer. They’re too frightened to serve and won’t wrestle a single customer!”
“Pour everyone a stiff dose of comawine. Yes, the customers, too. Say it’s on the house. Then have the girls start a veil-shedding dance. Between the wine and the bare bodies it won’t take long to calm them all. Go on now, start serving!”
“My apologies,” said Hoel. “I did not mean to ruin tonight’s business. Let me absorb a small part of your losses by ordering a double ration of oblivabsinth.”
“You can have it free if you’ll enlighten me on certain points,” Qazia replied. “What’s the name of Ryddeg’s son? How does one escape a place like Grimkeep?”
“Ryddeg’s son must go unnamed, lest Chond hear he escaped. It is as my song says: when Chond forgets a spell, which happens once in five years, that is the time to escape from his clutch.” His head cocked to one side, Hoel paused, then smiled. “Do I hear a jug of oblivabsinth being opened?”
“Yes. Before Qella brings it, answer one last question. How do you know my tavern so well when I’m sure you’ve never come here?”
Hoel responded. “Who does not know the Joyous Goblet and its famous tavern-mistress? Boy and man, I’ve come here often.”
Qazia cast him a sharp look. “You’re Ryddeg’s son!”
Nodding assent, Hoel slipped the song-loom to the floor behind his legs and accepted his two goblets of oblivabsinth. Draining his double order in two long gulps, he pulled his cloak about him and leaned back to sleep. Though his blind face was slack with fatigue, he spoke distinctly. “If Chond sends one of his wights after me, cooperate.”
Qazia made a soothing noise. But as Hoel slumped into heavy slumber, she saw how he resembled a gaunt, maimed lixus, weary of running from pursuit by hunting volvers. She knew she had to save his life.
A few deft signals, and Qazia had ordered Qella and the lesser goblet-wenches to conceal Hoel inside the huge aging-barrel for Jerezian wine which was stored in the cask-shed. Her women obeyed with only a few scared looks at the sleeping song-weaver.
“Hearmo, get your carcass over here!” roared Chond, wizard-thane of Grimkeep.
His half-man, half-weasel ferret-fetch bounded to dungeon cell 974 where the wizard stood scowling at an open door.
“Rabbit-brain! Hoel’s slipped your soul-chains!” Chond scolded. “Breakbone knows where he is now! And you let him out!”
Belly-up in submission, Hearmo peered at his glowering master. “Master mine, it’s you who loses a spell every five years.”
“Doesn’t mean for you to be careless, too,” grumbled Chond, but he did not hit the ferret-fetch. Only his red eyes, irritated sparks in the expanse of his black, coarse-furred face, surged with power.
“Shall I hunt for Hoel, master?”
Chond nodded, growling deep-throated as an urso.
On his feet at once, Hearmo raced to the end of the dungeon corridor and vaulted his sleek, nimble black-silver-haired body out a window slit.
From her position by the half-open door cut into the barrel, Qazia watched Hoel stir in his sleep. A look of pain crossed his face; he stiffened awake, his blind eyes blinking rapidly despite no use for such an action. As he sat up, his blanket slid down, and she had to stifle her gasp at the slave-fetter marks that scarred his throat, wrists, and ankles.
Hoel held one arm across himself and asked, “Who’s there?”
When he heard her identify herself, he relaxed, muttering, “Thank wound-healer! I thought I was back in Grimkeep.”
“None of Chond’s wights showed,” Qazia assured him.
“Then I’d best leave before they do,” answered Hoel, groping for his bundled garments.
A little later she led him back to the tavern, handed him a chunk of carradbread and his song-loom, and steered him toward the main door to the road.
As Hoel put out his free hand to touch the doorframe, Chond’s supple, black-silver-furred ferret-fetch materialized on the threshold, purring, “Ah, here you are, dear soul-prisoner! I’ve spent all night tracing your path. Chond didn’t know you were gone for a year.”
Hoel’s face went gray; he let go Qazia’s arm and tried to break past Hearmo, who caught the song-weaver’s ankles in a whisk of firmly looped tail. Hoel dropped to the floor with a choked cry. Tightening his tail-grip of the man’s ankles, Hearmo addressed Qazia. “My thanks, tavern-mistress. You hid my master’s property well indeed.”
Even as the ferret-fetch spoke, Qazia snatched a stool and brought it down hard on the creature’s head.
Both Hoel and the Chond wight crumpled, but Qazia did not stop to ponder. She freed Hoel and tied the ferret-fetch up in its own tail, then called Qella in from the kitchen and ordered, “Force a jugful of oblivabsinth into the Chond wight and watch him like a lixus stalking prey. I’m going for Virmith. His forge should have what we need to foil Chond.”
When Qazia returned with Virmith the blacksmith, bearing a set of silver fetters, a distraught Qella greeted them, wailing, “I gave the oblivabsinth to the Chond wight, just as you told me, but the song-weaver keeled over, too!”
Hoel and Hearmo both shifted groggily on the floor. Virmith rushed over, snapped the silver fetters on the ferret-fetch, and stood back, grinning.
But the song-weaver and the Chond wight cried out and writhed in unison, their bodies shuddering equally in the silver’s grasp.
“See?” sobbed Qella. “Why’re they both reacting?”
Virmith gaped and scratched his head, but Qazia squatted by Hoel to ask, “Is this weasel-piss of Chond hexing you?”
Between slow rasps of breath the song-weaver groaned, “Soul-fettered to Hearmo, one of Chond’s banes. Harm Hearmo, hurts me.” Face drained of color, body shaking, he broke into low screams, such as a trapped lixus makes.
Grabbing the ferret-fetch by the scruff of its neck, Qazia demanded, “Stop making Hoel hurt!”
“Can’t help it,” whimpered Hearmo. “Silver takes away my control.”
“I’ll make him stop!” bellowed Virmith. “See this hammer, Chond wight? It’s twenty vekils’ weight, enough to dent your skull good!”
“Don’t try it,” Hearmo shot back, “Chond knows I’m here.”
“Does he?” retorted Qazia. “Well, this time he’s outsmarted himself. If he tries to get either you or Hoel back, we’ll kill you both.”
In the silence that was broken only by Hoel’s weakening screams, Qella fled to the kitchen, hands over her ears.
“What now?” said Virmith. “We can’t stay stalemate forever. Sooner or later someone’ll have to back down.”
Qazia’s eyes flashed. “I won’t turn Hoel over to that wizard-fiend!”
“Please,” gasped Hoel, “bargain with Chond! He’ll accept Hearmo for me.”
“Both of them will just seize you somewhere else!” she snapped. “No! I can’t let that happen, either!”
“Decide fast,” put in Hearmo. “Silver can’t kill me, but Hoel’s not immortal.”
Suddenly Qella burst toward them from the kitchen. “Help! Help! An urso’s coming down the chimney!”
Hearmo grinned. “My master’s come to make up your minds for you.”
Chond’s black-robed, bearish form, with its spark-red eyes and black-bristled snout, stalked into the tavern’s main room.
Qazia and Virmith did not recoil; the smith flourished his hammer in a protective swipe.
With a snarl, Chond reached for his ferret-fetch, then drew off at the sight of the silver fetters. When the wizard grabbed for Hoel, Virmith’s hammer blocked him.
Chond’s eyes flared. He ran his blue urso tongue in and out between his red tusks, then spat a spell. Morning day shine winked out as an electric green haze infiltrated the Joyous Goblet.
Virmith stood solid, but Qella sighed and collapsed, lying too still for Qazia’s peace of mind.
Steel in my thigh-dagger ought to combat Chond’s bane, thought the tavern-mistress. She whipped her blade from under her skirt.
In the acid green glare her dagger began to throb a brilliant wine red. Blade held before her as a shield, Qazia confronted Chond and forced him to retreat a few more steps. He barked a second incantation; the tavern heaved like a storm-driven sail.
Hard put to keep her footing, Qazia hung on to her dagger and shook it in Chond’s hairy face. Reflected in the wizard’s fiery eyes, she saw Virmith, untroubled by the buck-leaping tavern, still guarding Hoel and Hearmo. She had barely registered this glimpse when she stumbled against Hoel’s song-loom.