If he regained the stone… Even without it he was a power to be feared, but the spellstone was held by one whom he could not judge by any of the rules with which he was familiar. What if this boy, this Aldric, somehow bent the stone to fulfil his own desires? He could pay an enchanter to use it on his behalf if he had not the skill himself. Any enchanter… Kalarr shot a sidelong glance of horrid suspicion at Duergar’s bowed head and considered several possibilities—but killing him now would be too soon, for his own deep-laid plans would benefit most from the confusion of an imminent invasion and the Drusalan had not yet sent the proper secret codes. But when he did…
A bead of perspiration trickled slowly past Kalarr’s eye, tickling the skin and making him blink. His teeth showed and in a sudden excess of frustration he flung the window wide and roared: “Where are you, Tal-valin?” into the afternoon air. Duergar started, but only the hollow echoes of cu Ruruc’s voice came distortedly back from the citadel walls. Kalarr bowed his head as the door of the chamber opened, then shifted his sombre gaze as the man in the shadows bowed low.
“Is anything wrong, my lord?” he said humbly. Ka-larr’s face twisted.
“No!” he barked. “Get out!” The man bowed again as he backed through the door.
“As my lord pleases,” said Baiart Talvalin.
For the first time in longer than he could remember; Aldric snapped out of sleep with an alarm tocsin’s clangour in his mind. Without taking time to think about it, he rolled sideways off the bed with one hand already reaching for the holstered
telek
behind the headboard. It cleared leather as he hit the floor and emitted a small, sinister double click as he wrenched its cocking lever back. The spring-gun had a magazine of eight stubby steel darts, and inside twelve paces would put each one through an unarmoured target just as fast as he could crank them out. It was the favoured weapon for places where a sword had insufficient range but a crossbow or longbow was too powerful—such as bedrooms. Such as now.
“Very impressive,” said Gemmel from the doorway. “All I had to do was think hard about attacking you and your sense of danger did the rest.”
“That wasn’t very clever,” Aldric replied severely, disarming the
telek
cautiously—it was all too easy to put a dart through one’s own foot. “You’ve trained me not to ask questions in a situation like that one. If I hadn’t remembered where I was…” Gemmel was not very concerned and said as much.
“The day you take me off guard when I set up the ambush, I’ll give up sorcery for keeping chickens,” he grinned. Aldric snorted and returned the
telek
to its hiding place.
“Don’t be too impressed with this sixth sense of mine, by the way,” he pointed out. “I’ve noticed it doesn’t always work.”
“Such things seldom do. Don’t rely on it, that’s all.”
“I don’t,
altrou
”
“Wise of you. But enough of this dazzling conversation. It’s time you found out what has been going on in the world these past few years, because within the next few days you’re going to rejoin it.”
“You mean I’m leaving? But… why?”
“Strange; I would have thought you much more eager to be away.”
“I
am
eager, but… well, this is one of the situations where you don’t like me not to ask questions. Isn’t it… ?”
“... and that, I guess, is why Kalarr hasn’t given Duergar any assistance so far—and why I think that Duergar himself doesn’t want to risk forcing the issue yet. But he isn’t a fool; if he hasn’t already worked out what the true controlling talisman is, a look at any contemporary sword will show him what it must be. Whether he has any notion about the spellstone I cannot say—but if he does enough research a process of elimination should tell him. I doubt if Kalarr will.”
“But
altrou
, you’re a wizard.” Aldric’s finger tapped the table to emphasise his words, making the cabochon stone wobble slightly in its velvet-lined case. Cold azure fire spilled out and made a dancing shadow-show on the young
eijo’s
intense features. “Why not use the stone yourself—let it focus your power instead of his?”
Gemmel smiled wanly and shook his head. “Sorcery isn’t as easy as picking up another man’s sword,” he said. “You could probably use a Jouvaine
estoc
, but a man skilled with it would defeat you easily. With any of the seven spellstones I would be the same; I could control them, but they’re not one of my fields of study. An expert could turn them against me without even touching the stones himself. And Kalarr cu Ruruc is an expert.”
“So then, what do I do?”
“You find out why I gave you such an elaborate education.”
They talked over dinner, or rather Gemmel talked and Aldric listened while he ate. The youngster never bothered to ask where food came from; he simply enjoyed it. This meal was a rich stew of three meats, served peasant-style with fresh vegetables on separate dishes and a little bowl of hot red spicy sauce which by the matching colour of Aldric’s face he was using liberally. Without the elaborate high-clan table manners Aldric took care to observe at all times, Gemmel finished in half the time and lit his pipe. Not that he was a gluttonous eater, merely that he saw no reason to use salt only left-handed, in three shakes only and setting down the cellar before another three, knife in right hand only and never lift drink with the left. Aldric did—it was a link with what had once been and he was unwilling to break that link, because there was so little else left to him.
“Since I can’t use the spellstone, you must get me something I can make use of. I spent this morning trimming down a list made last week, and you’ll be glad to hear you won’t have to go as far as I had feared at first. Look…” The old man cleared dishes to one side and spread a map on the table. “I marked the locations of various talismans on this, and although the closest is here”—his finger touched a red dot in the central Jou-vaine provinces—”that’s much too close to the Imperial frontier. The provinces are usually lax in the matter of magic, but right now two city-states are in rebellion and Imperial law is stringently enforced. The fact that you come from the country funding the rebels wouldn’t be in your favour, and looking for a sorcerous talisman would virtually guarantee your summary execution. However,” and a pleased smirk appeared on Gemmel’s face, “this ban on enchantments has rebounded on Warlord Etzel. Duergar Vathach isn’t his only agent and a Vreijek overlord caught one inside his city walls. The man was… induced to say who sent him, and since he was a wizard of some small cult his confession of Etzel’s name has that worthy embroiled in a scandal it will take him some time to live down. I was afraid that if old Droek should die Etzel would have tried to usurp Ioen’s authority, but now he won’t have enough support to risk the attempt. Indeed, the wonder of it is that he is still in office.”
“
Altrou
, why are the Imperial lords so much against magic?” Aldric was genuinely interested, because Alba had no such ban and yet the clan-lords had never bothered to use sorcery. Perhaps the two facts were related.
“Not just the lords, Aldric. The common people have been taught that magic is irreligious and disrespectful to Heaven.”
The young Alban instantly noticed what Gemmel had hinted. “So that’s the teaching. What’s the fact?”
With a little shrug the old enchanter poured himself wine and took a careful sip. “I travelled, before I came to Alba. We travelled—my son and I. For no other reason than to see other countries, other cultures. Curiosity, if you like. We came to a village in Tergoves province which for some reason was being… ‘disciplined’ is the Empire’s word. I would have left, for we could do nothing, but Ernol tried to rescue a girl and killed two troopers in the process. We fled. Later that afternoon the soldiers came.
“There was a young man with them, unarmoured but in rich robes. He called Ernol over and looked him up and down, smiling pleasantly. ‘Did you kill my soldiers?’ he asked. ‘Yes,’ said Ernol. ‘Why did you do that?’ Ernol told him. “They are expensive to train—can you repay me?’ I cannot,’ replied Ernol. ‘Oh, but you can,’ said the young man. And then—then…
“He slew my only son.”
“I went a little mad. I think I screamed—I know I wept. I saw the young man, smiling, wiping his sword, and he was red: his horse was red; the grass and the sky and the sun were all red with the blood of my son and the hate in my brain. Then I raised my empty hand and spoke the Invocation of Fire.
“He burned. He sat on his tall horse with a smile on his lips and a naked sword in his hand and he flared and died like dry straw in a furnace. It mattered little to me that he was the Grand Warlord’s second son, Etzel’s uncle, or that my action would make the Empire ban all magic thereafter on pain of death. All that mattered was that I had killed him too quickly. I had not repaid him in full for the death of my own, my only son.”
Aldric stared unblinking at Gemmel for a time, then poured wine and drank it, not in a careful sip but in a single long gulp though he hardly felt the liquor’s warmth through the icy knot in his stomach. He had only ever seen the gentle, studious side of the man he called
altrou
, and had sometimes wondered whether he knew the true meaning of Aldric’s own desire for revenge. It seemed that he did. “Not repaid him in full…” echoed again through the
eijo’s
mind—
it
might have been his own voice.
“What am I—” now that was his own voice, raspy and shrill from a mouth the wine had barely moistened. Aldric cleared his throat and tried again. “What am I to look for, then—and where?”
“There is a talisman which I think will answer my needs best. It’s called Ykraith—the Dragonwand.”
“Dragon… ?” Aldric wondered aloud. The word had a Drusalan sound.
“Firedrake,” Gemmel translated. “There’s a cavern on the island of Techaur. That’s where you’ll find it.”
“Where’s Techaur?” asked the Alban, squinting at the map. It was a strange thing, drawn on stiff glass-clear parchment with letters much too small to read unaided. The wizard touched a smudge of islands in the Narrow Sea south of Cerenau. Aldric realised what they were and groaned softly. “Not the Ethailin Myl! They’re not called the Thousand Islands for a joke!”
“Even so, they’re only five days’ sailing from Erd-haven.”
“And how many days finding one particular unnamed lump of rock, eh?”
“Less than you might think—there are only so many lumps of rock’ big enough to contain the size of cavern this is supposed to be. If in doubt, ask one of the local fishermen.” Aldric grunted, then found something else to quibble about.
“Look here, isn’t Kerys much closer? Two, three day sailing at most. Why don’t I—”
“Why don’t you look at the rest of the map? There’s a lot more riding from here to Kerys than there is to Erdhaven—and that much more time for you to be spotted by a spy and dealt with before you have the Dragon-wand.”
“Oh…”
“Yes, ‘oh.’ Now, I think it’s high time you had a sword of your own. Follow me—unless of course you have a few more objections for me to dispose of.” The old man’s voice wasn’t unkind, more dryly amused, and though Aldric could have mentioned pirates, Imperial Fleet patrol-ships and even water-monsters, he decided to save his breath and follow.
“This is my armoury,” said Gemmel, indicating a door with one hand and fishing in his pocket for keys with the other. As the door hissed open on well-oiled hinges, Aldric caught his breath at the glitter from within. After so long with a wizard, he was prepared for and accustomed to wonders where he least expected them, but the armory was somewhere he had long wanted to see. He saw it now, lit by a cool, pale light pouring from slots in the ceiling, and realised that he was not completely inured to the marvellous after all—which he considered privately was just as it should be.
He spent a long time simply wandering up and
dawn
, looking at things. Though he could not put the sensation into words, he felt that there was one particular weapon he should be looking for. The feeling was vague, amorphous, but still strong enough to bring him back to Gemmel empty-handed. The enchanter nodded as if he had expected something of the sort and took a sheathed blade from a locked cupboard on the wall. He locked the door again carefully afterwards, then extended the weapon to Aldric. “Try this,” he said. “I think it will suit you.”
The young
eijo
bowed politely, as was the custom when receiving the gift of a sword—though in truth it was just a blade, cased in a black battle scabbard chaped, clasped and throated with silver. Its tang was shrouded in a binding of soft leather, with the parts of the proper hilt in a box which Gemmel set out on the armoury work-bench—a metal box enamelled in deep blue shot with silver stars, its edges ornamented with designs of significance. How significant, Aldric was soon to learn. Within, each piece was cradled in its own nest of quilted satin; the metal was black and shiny, not because of lacquer or enamel but because the steel itself was jet black. Even the strips of tooled leather braided crisscross on the long grip were black, relieved only by an underlay of silver wire.
The weapon was a
taiken
of exquisite quality, and with sensuous care Aldric revealed part of the straight blade. By tradition no
taiken
was ever drawn by a new owner for the first time except under the light of Heaven, and he contented himself with a mere handspan of the mirror-burnished metal. It flashed under the harsh artificial lights. Smoky blue-grey lines of incredibly hard steel outlined the cutting edges, shifting in a constant play of reflected shadow as he turned the longsword this way and that. Slightly embarrassed to find his hands trembling, Aldric ran the shining blade home with the gentlest of pressures and unwrapped the leather binding from its tang.
This was the only part of the blade where writing was permitted; any other decoration was limited to stylised or abstract engraving. As they scanned the precise, beautiful uncials, flowing as elegantly as if they were penned and not gouged from the unpolished grey metal, Aldric’s eyes narrowed and he glanced at Gemmel for a nod of confirmation before staring more intently at the graceful letters. Both they and the language they constituted were in an old form of the Alban High Speech, so that he had to work at the translation—and even when the meaning was clear, his mind found it hard to accept.