“You do understand my problem,” von Spurzheim said, nodding his head. “In all
probability, you and the boy—quite innocently, I don’t doubt—would have led
my hastily-gathered troops into an ambush or a magical trap. If there are
valleys which are impossible to find, there might be others that are impossible
to leave. More soldiers would come eventually, of course, and my reports have
been transmitted back to Altdorf at regular intervals, but if I and my trusted
lieutenants could be destroyed now, the work we have done could be undone and
our cause set back by years.”
“Not now,” Reinmar said. “Now, for the first time, you know exactly what you
are dealing with—and it will not be easy to rebuild a chain of supply if there
are no goods to supply.”
Von Spurzheim smiled at that, and nodded in acknowledgement, but he did not
seem entirely reassured. “I’ll grant that you really did see far more than you
were supposed to see,” he said, “and that having seen it you took brave and altogether unexpected action. I
believe that you did strike a real and telling blow against our enemies, and
that you disrupted their scheme magnificently—but we may be sure that they
will react, as swiftly and as effectively as they can. What do you think they
might do now?”
Reinmar had not the slightest idea. “Brother Noel and Brother Almeric took
care to warn me that I had done myself more harm than good, even before they
knew that I had wrecked their storehouse,” he recalled. “The sergeant warned me
to expect reprisals—but I never paused to wonder about the wider consequences
of my actions.”
“How extensive was the underworld, Reinmar?” von Spurzheim asked him,
quietly.
Reinmar realised that he had not the faintest idea. He had seen only that
fraction of it that lay close to the entrance beneath the temple. Although he
had run in panic once he had plucked Marcilla from the cleft in which she had
been set, he had ended up at another covert in the same wall, not more than a
couple of hundred paces away. In the other direction, the underworld might have
extended for miles—or for tens of miles. The Grey Mountains were vast,
providing a barrier many hundreds of miles long that separated the Empire from
Bretonnia, passable only at widely-spaced intervals. Even if the cave he had
visited were no bigger than the valley it underlay, how many similar underworlds
might there be?
He realised that even though he had seen too much, he had not seen enough. He
had no idea of the enemy’s true strength, and no basis for guessing what new
plan might now be put in place of the one that had gone awry.
“Perhaps, for your sake, I ought to send you to Holthusen anyhow, even if you
will not be my spy,” von Spurzheim said. “Alas, there is nowhere in the world
that is truly safe, and the cities of the Empire are less safe now than they
were. I have no idea how useful you might be as bait in a trap of my own
setting, but you will understand that I have to consider the possibility.
Perhaps I should let you make your own decision—but I still have to make mine.
Should I set off tomorrow for this valley of yours, using the boy or the girl as
a guide, and risk an ambush? Or should I stay here and wait, hoping that the
enemy will now be angry enough to fight on any ground, no matter how disadvantageous? If I do stay, can I defend the town successfully?
If I were to ask the townspeople, I dare say they’d beg me to be gone, not
caring in the least whether I went forwards or back—but the townspeople don’t
know what you and I know, do they?
“By daybreak, I suppose the wings of rumour will have carried some account of
your exploits into every last shop and house—but the people who listen to
those rumours will not know a quarter of what you and I know. I have the
reputation of being a good tactician, but every man of my kind still alive has
that, because the first defeat he suffers is usually his last. I would ask for
advice, if I thought there was anyone in Eilhart capable of giving it, but there
is not. Everyone here who knows anything worth knowing is, for that very reason,
untrustworthy. Even you, Reinmar. Even you.”
Reinmar pondered that for a few moments—but he was not tempted to bring the
phial out of his pouch and hand it over to the witch hunter. If everyone who
knew anything had to be reckoned as being untrustworthy by the Wieland family,
then von Spurzheim was surely the least trustworthy of all. “I still have only
the faintest idea who or what it is that we are fighting,” Reinmar said,
dubiously. “If they come, should we expect men or beastmen, or something even
worse—daemons, perhaps?”
“I don’t know,” von Spurzheim admitted. “But I’m glad to hear you say ‘we’,
because I do want you on my side. I can’t tell you exactly what form the enemy
will take, but ought to warn you to expect the most dreadful beastmen you can
imagine, and things more frightful still. That way, at least, you will be
mentally prepared. Always remember this, though: these monsters can be
successfully fought. Their power is limited, in ways I cannot pretend to
comprehend. Even daemons, it seems, can only enter our world for brief periods,
and their tenure here is always fragile. While they are here they can be hurt
like any mortal creature. If you can keep your head and use your brain, you have
advantages of your own which most of your enemies have not. Whatever else they
are, they are no great thinkers, and such discipline as they have is very weak
indeed. They can be beaten. Whatever may happen, remember that. They are not
invincible. Powerful, vicious, treacherous, insidious… but not invulnerable.”
“The people of Eilhart,” Reinmar observed, wryly, “are not used to making do
with such small crumbs of comfort as that.”
“Well,” said Machar von Spurzheim, standing up as he spoke and moving towards
the door of the room, “I hope, as you undoubtedly do, that they will not be
forced to get used to it—but I dare not be optimistic. Go home now—but think
on what I have said. If you really have contrived to harm the cause of our
enemies, rather than merely serving as an instrument of their cunning, the
choice of battleground may not be left to me. If you have invited vengeance, it
will probably be swift in coming, and you will obtain more than your fair share
of our enemies’ attentions. Sleep, if you can—and pay close attention to your
dreams.”
While he was concluding this speech the witch hunter ushered Reinmar from the
room, but he left him to make his own way down the stair and out into the
street.
Reinmar walked home alone, nervous of every footfall and shadow because of
the possibilities that von Spurzheim had suggested to him, and wondering all the
while what kind of welcome his father would by now have prepared for him.
Reinmar was expecting anger, recrimination and complaint, but that was not
what awaited him. Gottfried Wieland seemed, instead, to have decided to make
himself abnormally calm and full of concern. He had obviously had a long
conversation with Godrich and Sigurd, and had fully absorbed all that they had
to tell him.
“The boy and girl are safely lodged,” the wine merchant assured his son.
“They shall have all the usual privileges of hospitality until their own folk
come to claim them. Have you seen Albrecht?”
“Yes,” Reinmar replied, slightly disconcerted by the politeness of his
father’s manner. “I think the witch hunter will release him in the morning. If
so, it might be as well for him to go to Holthusen—grandfather too, if he is
able to travel. Eilhart is not safe. Even if the soldiers march on in search of
the valley, there might be trouble here. That might be my fault, in part.”
“No it’s not,” Gottfried said, still acting out of character. “It’s no more
your fault than mine, and no more mine than my father’s. Our neighbours might
prefer it if the blame were to stop here, but it can’t. Eilhart has been a quiet
and peaceful town for generations, and there’s not a family here who does not know that a price has been paid for that quiet. There have been many here
more tolerant of the traffic in the wine of dreams than I, and even I made no
serious attempt to stop the trade, being content to divert it away from my shop.
It might have been better for everyone if the witch hunter had not traced the
trade-route this far, but now that he has there is no one of even moderate means
who can honestly claim that his own prosperity has not been fostered by the
trade. Whatever happens, Reinmar—to this house, or to the town—it isn’t your
fault. I don’t know what the witch hunter said to you, but Godrich has told me
that you conducted yourself nobly as well as bravely, and I am proud to hear
it.”
Reinmar had never heard such a speech from his father’s lips before, but he
was too tired for overmuch astonishment or gratitude. All he could say was:
“Thank you for understanding.”
“You must go to bed now,” Gottfried said. “But when you dress yourself in the
morning you had best strap on your blade. I have no idea what tomorrow may
bring, and nor has any other man, but I fear that we may have need of the
ability to defend ourselves.”
“They are not invulnerable,” Reinmar said, feeling that he ought to make the
effort. “The witch hunter was enthusiastic to press that point. They can be
beaten.”
“I know that,” his father replied. “I have lived my whole life with that hope
and expectation, else I would long since have gone the way of my own father, or
those who have suffered fates far worse than his. Now bid me goodnight, and go.”
For once, Reinmar was glad to do as he was told.
There were half a dozen hiding-places in Reinmar’s room that were capable of
accommodating the phial that he had stolen from the underworld, and he was very
glad to have the opportunity of relieving himself of that particular burden for
a while. He placed it in the hidey-hole that he had always considered the best:
a crevice in the brickwork that could be artfully concealed by a strip of mortar
that gave no indication to an inquisitive eye that it was not firmly bound to
its setting.
When he was finally able to lay his head upon his pillow Reinmar immediately
sank into oblivion, and was afterwards certain that he remained in that peace
for several hours—but long before he woke he was troubled by dreams whose
turbulent substance eventually coalesced into a remarkably coherent vision.
It seemed to Reinmar that he was lifted from his bed and that he floated out
of the open window of his bedroom, whereupon he was drawn into an erect posture
before beginning a stately ascent into the dark and starry sky. He put his arms
out on either side of him as if they were wings, and was careful in the meantime
to hold his legs straight and his ankles tight together.
When he was high enough to look down on the roofs of all the houses in
Eilhart, Reinmar’s ascent was halted and his head was tilted slightly forward so
that he could look down. It seemed to him that the town was surrounded by a
great ring of roseate mist, in which blue and purple shadows moved. Among those
shadows were groups of squat and ugly humanoids, and chimerical beings in which
human parts were combined with animal, or animal elements with insectile, but
they were no more than shadows and the mist had not yet encroached upon the
boundaries of the town. Wherever there was a light on the streets, however—and
there were many more than usual, particularly by the docks, where so many
soldiers had been quartered—there were fluttering moths.
While Reinmar strained his eyes in order to see these moths more clearly they
seemed to grow in size. Wherever he looked, the larger moths immediately began
to detach themselves from the crowds clustering about the lanterns and moved
upwards towards him, as if in answer to his curiosity. As more and more moths
began to fly up to him, Reinmar began to wonder if he too might be alight like a
lantern, not with fire but with some strange, pure white radiance that belonged
deep in the heart of the world.
As the moths began to spiral around him they were certainly illuminated by
some sort of light, and he was able to see that instead of insectile bodies and
heads, they had the bodies and heads of female manikins, although their deep
green eyes were large and compound and each of them had only a single breast. As
they fluttered about him, though, he saw that the legs of each seemingly-human
body were fused together, and wrapped around by a long tail. Their wings were
very beautiful. The pale blues and rose-pinks that were their predominant
colours were arrayed in whirling confusion, which became even more dizzying as
the wings beat rapidly back and forth.
A sourceless voice whispered in his ear, instantly recognisable as the one he
had heard as he quit the hidden valley to which—he now felt certain—he had
been carefully lured.
“It is not too late, my child,” the voice said. “Others stand condemned, but
there is hope for you. Whatever harm you did, you conserved the possibility of
setting matters to rights when you accepted a measure of my power—a measure
far more potent than its volume implies. You were right to guess that the nectar
of the flowers is the vital ingredient of its virtue, but you did not witness
the careful process of dilution and adulteration to which it is normally
subject. The phial you have contains pure nectar, and there is as much virtue in
a single drop of that syrup as there is in a case of the wine you were give to
taste. You fear, and rightly so, that you offended against my purpose when you
spilled the bottled wines, but I am the kind of master who knows the value of
forgiveness. An instrument at the heart of a rival camp has abundant opportunity
for reparation, and for reward. The best victories are won by stealth, and the
best of all are those in which the enemy does not know the manner or the extent
of his defeat.
You shall see horrors in the days to come, my child, that will make you
understand what a paradise my garden in the underworld should properly be
reckoned—but I can promise you that you shall not be torn apart, nor burned
alive, nor shall your mind dissolve into madness. This I do freely without
asking any recompense at all. I am content to tell you that you do have the
means to make recompense, not merely to me but to those whom you love, and that
I in my turn have the means to grant you pleasure far beyond the meagre
capacities of common men.