Ironcrown Moon (55 page)

he

CADAY ANRUDAY

?… What do you want?

EMCHAY ASINN… Transport all of us.

KO AN SO

?… Who are you?

SNUDGE.

He braced for the onslaught of pain but it held off. Instead, a wild cacophony of hisses, crackles, and shrill whistles assailed his ears, almost as though millions of small birds were trapped in a confined space, clamoring in fury. The throng of Lights whirled about him at vertiginous speed and their noise resolved into the speech of many individuals, fully understandable for all that the words were churned together.

His name his name we need his name! Snudge? SNUDGE?! It is. It’s not. It’s a trick!

Snudge? A snudge is a JOB not a name. His name his name we need his name we must have it to bind him!

We need his name to own him. This one is trying to cheat us. But he is Snudge! He was accepted twice over by us

!

He was given power and gave pain. As Snudge. For a Great Stone for the Great Link it’s not enough. His name his name we need his own true name!

He is Snudge. We accepted it and him. Snudge. He cheats he holds back he slips away!

He pays the price whatever his name. Let be.

Rage rage against the rule-twister! Hurt him kill him damn him to the Hell of Ice! His name is Snudge but it is not. Let be.

Indifference. Eat his pain. He wins. Laughter. The jest is on us. FOR

NOW.

The chaos of colored Light flared in blinding brilliance as the laughter became thunder.

Then they were gone, leaving him wrapped wholly in pain. He moaned aloud, felt himself lose balance and start to fall. Down through the jet-black starless void he plunged, down and down and down.

Strong arms took hold of him. “Easy, sir,” Hulo Roundbank’s voice said. There was firm earth beneath his feet, a smell of wet leaves and the sea.

He forced open his eyes and gave a gasp of agony. Daylight made the suffering all the worse. But he had to know whether the Gateway had opened to the right place, whether all of them had passed through safely.

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He saw the eroded stone walls of a steep ravine, an overhanging ledge, thick brush growing

‘round about that gleamed wetly with leftover rain. Gavlok and Hulo were on either side of him, holding him up. Hanan was on his knees a few ells away, shorn of all his cocky courage, losing his breakfast while Valdos patiently held his head. Only Radd Falcontop seemed to be missing.

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But then the stocky Mountain Swordsman stepped out from the tangled vegetation as silently as a ghost.

“I climbed to the rim of the ravine, Sir Deveron. Saw a little keep on a baldtop hill maybe half a league away. It’s Skullbone Peel, sure as dammit. Don’t worry. No one saw me. There’s plenty of cover up there, and naught about but a few birds.”

Snudge gave vent to a great sigh, unclenched his fist, and let Subtle Gateway drop away on its chain. “We’ve done it,” he said aloud.

His eyes closed, and he fell into a dark pit of ice, surrendering completely to the pain.

twenty-one

Duke Feribor Blackhorse, Lord Treasurer of the Realm, had been confident he could bamboozle the Tarnian magicker and compel him to cooperate. Blind Bozuk wanted money—enormous amounts of it. By agreeing to pay the shaman’s original outrageous fee without dickering, King Conrig had undoubtedly suggested to the old rascal that even more gold might be forthcoming, given a bit of crafty maneuvering. Feribor intended to beat him at his own game.

But not for the Sovereign’s benefit…

The shaman and the duke were now face-to-face across a table covered with a fine red-damask cloth, in the commodore’s cabin of the crack frigate

Peregrine Royal

, the swiftest warship in the Cathran Navy, presently docked at the deepwater quay of Northkeep Castle.

The duke had politely declined the hospitality of its chatelaine, Lady Freda—Sealord Liscanor was regrettably away from home—and arranged to receive Bozuk on shipboard. After regaling the ancient shaman with a splendid meal and ample amounts of fine wine, Feribor got down to business. He dismissed the ship’s officers, had the table cleared—except for the wine ewer and goblets—and commanded the first of the money-chests to be brought in and opened.

Then he and the blind man were left alone, and the game commenced.

The evening was now well advanced. Rain beat dismally against the stern windows and it was quite dark outside. The luxurious cabin was lit with gilded lanterns, and their mellow light glittered on the gold coins that Bozuk had piled in neat stacks. His eyes were shuttered pits but his manner was that of a sighted man, and Feribor was quite convinced that his guest scried everything.

“Two thousand and five hundred gold marks,” Bozuk said, fingering the last of the coins. “Half of the amount pledged. I suppose you intend to hold back the rest until you get your hands on Maudrayne and the child.”

“This is what my Sovereign has commanded. You are to tell me where the Princess Dowager resides. My windvoice, Brother Golan, will bespeak the information to Gala Palace, and from there it will fly on the wind to the Royal Intelligencer, one Deveren Austrey, who is already on his way to your country. Austrey will conduct the apprehension. When the High King is satisfied that Maudrayne and the child are alive and in custody, I shall pay you the remaining half of the reward.”

The shaman tilted his nearly hairless head and offered a gap-toothed grin. “And meanwhile, you
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cool your heels here in Northkeep, keeping me and my money hostage on your great ship.”

Feribor was suave. “You will be entertained in the most lavish style for the length of your visit.”

“And yet, I have a feeling that you hold something back, lord duke! I sense another proposition lurking in your clever mind, one you would have got ‘round to after plying me with more drink.

Well, I shan’t refuse another beaker of your wine. But why don’t we cut right to the chase? You’d prefer to nab the woman yourself, rather than waiting upon this Austrey fellow. And once you had her, you’d use her to bring down Conrig Wincantor and claim the throne of Cathra and the Sovereignty of Blenholme for yourself.”

Feribor threw back his head and roared with laughter. “You sly old rapscallion! And to think I once thought I’d find myself dealing with no more than a greedy bumpkin!”

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“I am both,” said Bozuk with cool off handedness, “and much more. Have I fathomed your scheme correctly, then?”

“You’ve hit on it, I don’t deny. The lady and the boy are the keys to Conrig Wincantor’s ruin, and there will be many other great lords in

Cathra besides myself who’ll rejoice to see him cast down. The Sovereignty is a political millstone about Cathra’s neck, as is Conrig himself, with his insane ambition to emulate Bazekoy the Great. My plan was to force him to recognize Maudrayne’s son as his legal heir. In time—perhaps a very short time, now that Somarus sits the throne of Didion—Conrig would perish in some ill-advised battle.

Without him, Blenholme would soon become as it was before—four states who trade and squabble as the spirit moves them. While I—“

“While you,” Bozuk said softly, “dispose of the boy-king and his half brothers and take the throne to which you have a legitimate claim, through your mother Jalmaire, who was old King Olmigon’s only surviving sibling.”

“You’ve studied up on Cathran genealogy.”

Bozuk cackled with laughter. “But there’s something I know and you don’t know, that would make a second deplorable massacre of royal children unnecessary. And give you the throne even before Conrig was dead.”

“What?” Feribor inquired with arch skepticism.

“First,” the old man said blithely, “the other half of the money. Now! And then the other five thousand marks in gold… with which you intended to bribe me to guide you to Maudrayne.”

Feribor went white. “You can’t have known about that!

How did you know

?”

“You and I are fox kits of the same dam, Feribor, brothers beneath the skin, guileful and wicked and having goals we would kill for, if need be! I want a secure old age in a warm country. You want a throne. Bring in the money and we’ll both win this game of wits.”

Without another word, Feribor strode to the cabin door and barked out an order. Then he returned to his seat at the table and sat in stony silence, flexing and unflexing his strong hands into fists, as though crushing something invisible.

Bozuk sipped wine while his sightless eyes seemed focused on the columns of golden disks lined up before him. After a while, the ship’s captain ushered in the bo’sun and his mate, carrying naked swords, and a file of seamen bearing money-chests.

“Is there anything else, my lord duke?” the captain inquired, when the open boxes rested upon the table and the men had withdrawn to the corridor.

“There is,” Blind Bozuk declared in a firm voice. “Outside on the quay, near the foot of your
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gangplank, you will find my servant Tigluk.

He is a man of middle age, strongly built and having a notable black beard. Tell him this: ‘The master orders you to bring the banker

Pakkor Kyle, a dozen of his well-armed lackeys, and the armored cart to this ship.’”

The captain looked to Feribor for confirmation. “My lord?”

“It must happen this way,” Bozuk addressed the duke without heat. “Either we do this thing together, forced to trust one another by circumstances, or we will not do it at all. You cannot coerce or harm me.” Again he smiled—mostly toothless, cheeks furrowed and white-bristled, balding head dotted with age spots like the egg of some enormous bird. Bozuk looked incapable of swatting a fly, but behind that unprepossessing, empty-eyed face Feribor Blackhorse somehow saw the shadow of a snarling wolf’s-head.

“Do as he says,” the duke told the captain, who saluted and left the cabin.

“And now you wish to know the other secret.” Bozuk opened one of the three newly arrived chests and again began to stack coins. “It’s one that Maudrayne Northkeep has already shared with her brother Liscanor, when she also told him about her son. Liscanor, in turn, informed High Sealord Sernin of it, and before long all of the other sealords of the Company of Equals will know it, too.” He paused.

“They’ll know it, but be unable to prove it. Yet.”

Feribor scowled. “Bazekoy’s Ballocks! Get on with it, old man!”

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Unfazed, the shaman continued in a leisurely fashion. “When I learned of the secret myself, lip-reading as I scried the Tarnian leaders discussing it, I freely gave the information to King Conrig, since he hesitated to pay my reward and I feared he’d slough me off as a backcountry crank. But he soon learned better. Oh, how distressed—how stricken with fear!—Conrig must have been to hear his windvoice repeat my dire words. But he agreed at once to pay all that I asked.”

“Tell me the secret, damn you!”

“Oh, very well. The second secret is this: Conrig Wincantor possesses a small portion of talent.”

“What! That’s ridiculous.”

“His arcane abilities are imperceptible to members of the Zeth Brotherhood, but Princess Maudrayne learned of them through the Conjure-Queen of Moss. The king’s brother Stergos also knows, but is sworn to secrecy. However, if the king were to be accused before a Royal

Tribunal, and Stergos made to testify under oath, he would not perjure himself or dishonor his vows to Saint Zeth. He would affirm the truth.”

“Great God,” Feribor breathed. “And you say that some of the Tarnian leadership knows of this already?”

Bozuk nodded. “There is no way Conrig can stop them from accusing him and demanding an official inquiry. It would be up to your cronies, the Lords of the Southern Shore, to make sure that the inquiry proceeds.” He continued making neat piles of gold. “It would also suit your purposes, while the king’s brother Stergos is under oath, to ask him whether Conrig’s two younger sons by Risalla Mallburn carry the same taint as their father. It may be that they do not. I think it likely that they do possess talent, as does their older brother!

Whatever the case, Stergos would feel obligated to tell the truth.”

Feribor sat back in his chair, his face aglow with ferocious triumph. “If all this is as you say, then my enemy is delivered into my hands.”

“Maudrayne would willingly act as principal witness to the king’s talent, especially if she thinks
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her son will inherit the throne. But later, if you should challenge the boy’s birthright—who can prove for certain who his father is? Your Cathran laws declare that one such as he may inherit the throne only if there is no reasonable doubt that the divorced queen never lay with another man while married to the king.”

“Witnesses will surely attest to her fidelity,” the duke said, “but it would hardly be difficult to ensure that opposing witnesses also came forth.”

Bozuk nodded. “As I understand it, Conrig was often away from Maudrayne, and she reproached him openly for his neglect.”

The duke was staring at the rows and rows of gold coins. Ten thousand marks, a prince’s ransom, half of it the fruit of his own raid on the royal revenues. So, in delicious irony, Conrig would pay entirely for the loss of his crown.

“I agree to pay what you ask!” Feribor said suddenly. He jumped to his feet. Going to a set of cabinets, he opened them and pulled out a rolled parchment. “Where is the Princess Dowager?

Show me her precise location on this map and instruct me on the difficulties that we might encounter gaining access to her. You will be my guide, of course, as you anticipated. You must also agree to hold me and my men unharmed by the sorcery of the Grand Shaman Ansel Pikan, who is Maude’s guardian.”