Dangerous Games (2 page)

Sunbright asked, “What were you saying?”

Candlemas sank on his hams on the floor of his ruined workshop and found himself in a puddle of ice water, the last vestiges of his chill touch spell. He sighed, “I said, it’s nice to be home.”

Stumping across the filthy, littered floor, Candlemas pulled tassels to ring faraway bells. Despite seeping wounds, fiery pain, and swollen eyes, Sunbright saw first to his weapon, scrubbing ichor from the blade and touching up the edge with a stone plucked from a belt pouch.

Harvester of Blood was Sunbright’s weapon, his father’s sword, forged in some unknown southern land. The shank of the sword was as wide as three fingers, but the tip swelled to a curved and brutal edge where the backside was cut away to a deep hook. A good blade for slaughter and mayhem: wide-pointed for stabbing and driving home damage, heavy-nosed for lopping and slashing, back-barbed for sinking into an enemy’s vitals, then causing terrible damage twisting and ripping out. A weapon to destroy man or beast or pit fiend, and Sunbright had killed them all in his adventures since leaving the tundra. One reason he’d survived was because he always honed Harvester’s edge before tending to his own wounds.

Before long, a clutch of lesser wizards and black-and-white-clad maids swirled in, wondering when their master had returned and exclaiming at the wreckage and wounds. Candlemas ordered the lot to shush, demanded hot water, rags, and brooms. Within a few moments, sculleries were stuffing bug carcasses out the window, mopping up blood and sweeping up crockery. Two wizards blathered apologies to Candlemas while two maids undressed him. When the women and girls made to disrobe Sunbright, the barbarian let them close enough to swab his eyes with deliriously warm and clean water, but when they picked at his leather laces and rags, he pushed them at bay with bloody hands.

The babble was horrendous, everyone gabbling at once.

The chief assistant arcanist, a green-robed woman named Kalle, apologized over and over, “… sorry, Lord Candlemas. We thought it best to move the breeding boxes here where it was quiet in your absence …”

A clerk called, “… Lady Polaris is asking for you, my lord. She says it’s urgent and you must…”

Kalle’s assistant, a older man in red robes named Gibor, blathered, “… just a tad too much magic in the wrong place. Instead of growing tougher they grew bigger…”

Sunbright brushed in vain at helpful maids’ hands. “Candlemas, tell them to desist!”

“My lord, it’s all this fool’s fault. I had no idea—”

“Not true, Lord Candlemas, not true! She insisted we come up here—”

“How could you have been so stupid?” Candlemas roared at his mages as maids removed his sandals. “You know this workshop is saturated with magic—What is your problem, Sunbright?”

“They’re trying to tear off my clothes!” Older maids tsked and younger ones giggled as they plucked ineffectually. They wore plain black-and-white gowns, aprons and caps, the house colors of Lady Polaris.

“What did you expect? You need a bath! Kalle, I’ll have you scouring toilets if you don’t come up with a better reason—”

“I can bathe on my own!” Refusing to strike the women’s hands, the barbarian backed into a corner. Two maids giggled so hard they had to hold their stomachs.

“And you, Gibor! What kind of moron …” By now, Candlemas wore only a loin cloth. Maids scurried out with his torn, bloody clothing. None of the servants seemed to mind his paunchy, hairy near-nakedness. “What? No, you can’t bathe on your own! A lord is never alone, or at least not often! A gentleman is tended by underlings!”

“I’m no gentleman!” Sunbright retorted. A maid sneaking up from behind caught his long shirt and ripped it up the back. Sunbright yelped. “Stop that!”

The clerk insisted, “Lady Polaris promised to bleach my skull for a birdhouse if I didn’t tell you immediately …”

“My lord barbarian,” pouted the head maid, Hamuda. “If you’ll just allow us—”

“I’m no one’s lord!” Sunbright barked. Sensing a draft, he looked back and saw his own white rump. “My shirt!”

“To blazes with Lady Polaris! I’ll send to her when I get a moment! Salve this cut, will you, it stings like fury! Get used to it, Sunbright! You’re one of the rulers of this castle now, even if you are my underling!”

Candlemas went on berating his mages. It was true he’d ordered experiments made on these fleas. He’d had a vague hope they carried germs in their guts that could counteract the “wheat rust” that was threatening famine, since they fed on the cows that prospered eating blighted wheat. The arcanist was getting desperate, for every other experiment had failed. But he’d never intended his workshop to be the site of the testing. There were laboratories, storerooms, and halls aplenty in this castle, more than in some whole towns. And certainly he hadn’t ordered giant, man-eating fleas, though he had mentioned a magic grain-toughening spell he thought might help. Still, his underlings were supposed to think for themselves, not follow orders like drunken zombies. He wasn’t Sysquemalyn, after all. “You two’ll be flogged for your incompetence! I never—”

He halted, whirled in place by a mighty barbarian hand. Sunbright towered over the smaller man with a heart-stopping frown.

Up close, the wild man was frightening. Although his hair was bright blond—thus naming him—Sunbright wore only a topknot and horsetail, with his temples shaved close. He bore no facial hair, but made up for it with myriad scars: enough scars to stitch a tapestry, though he was not much over twenty years old. He was strapped with ropy muscle, tough as an oak tree and as hard to kill, for he’d been to hell and beyond and survived, killed more monsters than Candlemas could imagine. Blood-spattered and scraped, with his bulky clothes in rags making him look even wider and taller, Sunbright was a frightening sight. Candlemas knew he could handle this young wildling—most of the time—but there was a dangerous gleam in his eyes.

“Let’s split that nut now!” growled the northerner. “I am not your underling! You came asking my help! I agreed to study with you to learn Greenwillow’s fate, and to see if, together, we could solve our problems. But we’re to be equals in all things. Is that clear?”

Breathing carefully, keeping his face neutral, Candlemas replied, “Of course. My mistake. Being steward of this castle I tend to give orders easily, and forget. All apologies. But I might point out, if you are to live in this castle, you’ll need to conform to certain rules, certain … conventions.”

“I see no need for any conventions, or rules!” Sunbright leaned close, and Candlemas reflected even his smell was wild: wood smoke, pine sap, and musk. “I seek to become a shaman, to free Greenwillow’s soul from whatever slimy corner of hell she’s been banished to, and to eventually return to my tribe to … well, never mind why. So I don’t—”

“Yes, and I’ve plenty to do too,” Candlemas dared to interrupt. He needed to show some pride. “And that’s why I asked you here! I need to direct these nincompoops in finding a solution to this blight—which is beginning to spread to barley crops and apple orchards—before nine-tenths of the empire’s peasants starve to death! And I need to address the demands of Lady Polaris, may Tyche, our Lady Luck, see she prosper, because this is her Castle Delia you stand in! And I must also … well, enough about me. Just don’t think—”

“I’ll think as I please!” So intent was he on arguing, Sunbright failed to see the maids creep in. “Don’t tell me how to think! Or what to do! We’ll work together or not at all! I’m not some bull-whipped dung-shoveler you’ve cowed into subjugation! I’m Sunbright Steelshanks of the Raven Clan of the Rengarth Barbarians, and my tribesmen bow to no one, including each other. There are no freer people in all the lands of all the gods!”

“Fine, yes, wonderful,” Candlemas sighed, “but this is not the tundra, and you’ll do well to follow a few of our customs. Such as regular baths, especially when one is drenched in gore! Now, if you’ll be so kind—is that better?—please follow Hamuda and her girls to the baths. Because you’re now as free as a man can be.” He looked downward significantly.

Sunbright glanced down. While he’d glowered at the steward, the maids had industriously peeled off the rest of his torn, bloody, trail-worn clothing. For a moment, the barbarian stood in only his ring-studded moosehide boots, then the giggling maids wrapped him in a soft robe of black-and-white.

Candlemas raised his eyebrows. With a snort of disgust, Sunbright snatched his sword from a table and, boots jingling, followed a bevy of fawning, laughing maids out the door.

With no idea of their destination, Sunbright tramped after the frowning Hamuda with the giggling maids trailing. The twin girls were pretty, he noted, small, not one higher than his elbow, with short, dark hair, unlike the women of his tribe, who were mostly northern blonde like himself. The girls had pixie faces and white teeth, and looked alike, as if they were all cousins. They’d been recruited from one tribe, he reasoned, an idea reinforced when they occasionally whispered words in a language he didn’t recognize.

The dark, shining hair peeking from under their caps reminded him of Greenwillow’s hair, black as only an elf’s can be. The memory sent a pang through his chest. Greenwillow had been lost, crushed or burned to death in a fiery chasm of a lesser hell. He’d seen it with his own eyes, yet somehow couldn’t believe she was gone forever. Her spirit was out there still, he knew. But whether it was a forlorn lover or a shaman-to-be who hoped so, he didn’t know.

Lost in thought, he realized they’d stopped. The girls stood behind, Hamuda to one side. They waited.

So did Sunbright. “What is it?”

For answer, Hamuda waved a bony hand at the wall. It was all white, broken by square lines. A sigil of some kind was painted on the wall. When Sunbright hesitated longer, the head maid swallowed a sigh and pushed the wall. The square part swung back to reveal a room.

“Oh!” Sunbright nodded. “It’s a door! I’ve seen these in the cities.”

To the accompaniment of fresh giggling, he was ushered into the small room. The air inside was hot and steamy and the walls were lined with white tile. Two more maids waited inside, wearing only short white smocks and wilted hair. At the center of the room was a raised circular rim. Sunbright approached, touched it. “Is this a well? No, a hot spring.”

“It’s a bathtub,” rasped Hamuda. “If master would be so kind as to get in?”

“In?” Sunbright clamped his hands on the rim and leaned over carefully. “How deep is it? There’s a hot spring near our summer camping grounds that’s bottomless, and it gets hotter the lower you go. If you weight a trout with a stone on a line, you can cook it by sinking it nine arm-lengths.”

A gasp sounded behind, one maid finally losing control and setting all four sniggering with hands over their mouths. Sunbright smiled too, until he realized they were laughing at him. He bit down on a frown.

Hamuda clapped her hands, stifled the girls somewhat, and shooed out the two in black. Sunbright was left with the two bathmaidens, who held fluffy towels as they gestured to the water invitingly. When he still hesitated, one slipped over the edge of the tub in her shift, demonstrating that the “spring” was only knee deep. Still frowning, Sunbright shucked the robe, kicked off his boots, and climbed in. Unused to the slick bottom, he almost slipped and brained himself on the opposite edge of the tub. The bathmaidens pretended not to notice.

The water was so hot Sunbright’s toes tingled, and his many insect wounds itched and stung. Gingerly, he made to sit.

One of the bathmaidens asked, “Is it too hot, milord? We can add cold water.” Stroking a finger along a silver pipe to one side, she breathed, “Wet!” Cold water spilled from the spout, then she shut it off. “Dry!”

Wondering, Sunbright touched the pipe. It was cold. Sunbright stoked the pipe. “Wet!” Nothing happened. He asked the girls, “What is the secret?”

“No secret, milord. Just a simple cantra to turn the spigot off and on. The water is behind. It just needs to be released.”

Sunbright squinted in the steamy room. “You can work magic?”

Giggles. “Everyone in Netheril can work magic, milord. At least, everyone born and raised in the empire. It’s … part of our being.”

“Magic. Can-truhs. Spit-guts.” Suddenly Sunbright felt as thick as an addled mule. And as out of place. “I have a lot to learn.”

The girls nodded absently. One unbraided his horsetail to gently comb out sticks and specks. The other plied a washcloth soft as bird down to scrub wood smoke and blood from his face. Surrendering, Sunbright laid his head back on the tub rim and let the girls scrub him. Their quiet competence and dark hair again reminded him of Greenwillow and brought a fresh pang of loneliness. She would never have mocked his ignorance.

He sighed aloud. “So much to learn.”

Candlemas’s workshop had been swept, scrubbed, and aired, but the maids hadn’t dared to throw anything away, so the fresh-wiped tables were heaped with the remains of his work and hobbies.

A dark, dumpy, bearded, balding, paunchy man, Candlemas knew he was no beauty, and took little regard of his looks. Despite his status and personal wealth, he wore only a gray wool smock, rope belt, and sandals when working and administering from his high tower. Vanity, love of clothing and jewelry, and lust for fine robes only distracted an arcanist from his studies, he believed. Candlemas was determined to study hard and soar up the ladder, to someday be as fabulous an archwizard as Lady Polaris herself. Perhaps then, when he owned his own floating castle and lands, and had his own under-mages slaving to resolve his problems, then he might succumb to vanity. For now, he could look like a shepherd and keep busy.

But a lot of work had been lost. Some of the broken jars and pots he recognized on the table had been vital experiments that he’d pursued for months. Growling at the callous idiocy of his underlings, he gathered a handful of trash, marched to the high windows, and pushed it through the mild shield spell that kept out the icy wind. He let it drop onto the fields or forest or whatever lay below. Though he was steward of all the lands visible from the castle, right now he didn’t care what happened to them. They belonged to Lady Polaris after all, not him. Very little really belonged to him except his knowledge and studies; his hard work that had been destroyed, again.