Master and Fool (28 page)

"But he's a
cripple, master. He's got a stick to help him walk."

Baralis was well
aware of Crope's weakness for cripples: the huge servant carried a three-legged
rat on his person at all times. "Very well," he relented. "At
least tell me who it is."

"He says his
name is Skaythe, master. Says he's Blayze's brother."

Baralis sipped his
holk. He was sitting in a comfortable, high-backed chair close to the fire. He
was dressed, for no matter how weak he was, he always took care to present an
appearance of strength. His journey to Lars had left him drained of all
physical energy, but his mind was as active as ever. So Blayze's brother wanted
to see him. Baralis motioned to Crope to bring him forth. His curiosity had
been aroused.

In walked a man
who was a long way from being a cripple. He had a stick, yes, and his left leg
was stiff about the knee, but Blayze's brother moved like no doddering invalid.

He was confident,
stood well, and had an arrogant manner about himself. He strode up to Baralis
and offered his arm to be clasped.

Baralis shook him
away. He had no desire to show his hands to a stranger. Skaythe sat without being
invited, resting his stick against the desk. It was long and straight, with a
swelling about a hand's length below the top. The swelling was ribbed,
obviously for gripping, but above the knot of wood jutted a spike of polished
steel. The walking stick was a barely disguised lance.

Baralis regarded
the man to whom the stick belonged. He was like Blayze, yet older, smaller,
harder. "Speak your business swiftly, then leave."

"My business
is your business, Lord Baralis." Skaythe smiled, showing sharp, uneven
teeth. He waited a moment before he explained himself, making a show of
settling down in his chair. "The man who murdered Catherine also murdered
my brother. You want him found. I want him found. I say we work together to
achieve what neither of us can do alone."

Baralis ill-liked
anyone pointing out his failings, but he bit the retort right off his tongue
and swilled it down with a little sour wine. He could use this man. "What
do you want from me?" he asked.

"Money,
information"--Skaythe shrugged-"access to your special skills."

Baralis leant
forward imperceptibly. He breathed in deeply and let the air tarry in his
lungs. Things were growing more interesting by the moment. Skaythe was a user
of sorcery. That could prove very useful, indeed. Skirting around the subject,
Baralis said, "So you want to track the knight down?"

"No one knows
the city of Bren like I do. Next time you get a tip," Skaythe emphasized
the word to illustrate that he knew very well how such a tip might be procured,
"you might come to me first. I won't blunder in and let everyone get away
like the Royal Guard did."

Baralis arched an
eyebrow. Skaythe obviously thought a lot of himself. "What if I were to
tell you that the knight plans on leaving Bren and heading south?"

"Then I will
head south, too." Skaythe was unruffled. Idly his hands toyed around the
knot of his stick. "I know the south well enough. I ride faster than any
man you care to pit me against. No one in Bren can match me with a knife, and
I've yet to miss a target I set my sights upon."

This was turning
into a most fortunate meeting. Skaythe was just the sort of man he needed:
driven, skilled, deadly, and, most of all, expendable. Baralis decided to test
the man a little. "What would you say if I told you there was another man
I wanted killed? One who will be traveling with the knight."

"I would say
it will cost you more than my expenses." Baralis smiled, showing teeth
more deadly than Skaythe's would ever be. "Then you have a deal, my
friend."

Skaythe's face betrayed
no emotion. "If I am to leave the city, I will require two hundred golds
minimum. I may need to change horse, give bribes, pay for intelligence, not to
mention the usual traveling expenses."

"Not to
mention them," agreed Baralis, nodding faintly. "I will, of course,
require more the farther south you send me."

Baralis continued
nodding. "Of course."

Judging from the
sun, which was straining for attention behind a bank of high clouds, it was
close to midday. All morning they had crawled through mud on their elbows and
bellies, now they were crawling through burnt chaff. Jack smiled grimly. The
mud had been a lot smoother.

They had left the
city just as dawn was breaking. The Highwall army was attacking the
southwestern wall, and they left to the southeast. Already the bodies had begun
to pile up. The gates had obviously been closed last night, and people waiting
until morning to gain entrance to Bren had been slaughtered where they stood.

Tawl insisted they
hit the soft and bloody ground straightaway, else risk being picked out by a
keen-eyed marksman. Nabber had taken to the mud like a leech, slithering along
chin down, nose up, bedroll trailing behind him like a disobedient child.
Tawl's movements were silent, efficient-he had obviously done this sort of
thing before. His face was dark and easy to read; it said: Do not talk to
me,
do not bother me, I have my own problems
to
deal with.

Seeing him with
Melli earlier, Jack could guess what those problems were. Tawl had to
physically wrench himself away from Melli this morning. The parting had been
more than difficult; it had been devastating. And the haunted look in the
knight's normally light blue eyes told that although his body was here, on the
burnt grainfields of rural Bren, his soul was in the city with the woman he
loved.

Jack did not
trouble him. So in silence the three crept through the smoking fields. Ash and
burnt chaff stole into their lungs with the air, and dry and blackened stalks
scraped against cheek and shin. Everything was dead: grass scorched to the
pith, field mice charred to the bone, and thousands upon thousands of insects
reduced to tiny filigrees-like snowdrops, only black.

Occasionally they
would come across roads. There were still some people wandering their lengths,
poor dazed souls who had nowhere to go now that the city had shut down for the
siege.

Sometimes they
caught sight of Highwall soldiers; they carried torches and were busily burning
what little of the countryside was left: barns, villages, farms. It seemed to
Jack that there was little difference between Kylock burning the fields and
Highwall burning the buildings. Ashes from one looked pretty much like the
other.

The sun managed to
push past a cloud for an instant, flooding the fields with light. Jack swung
round for a moment and looked back at the city. Its walls shone like hammered
silver. Highwall would not find it easy to break Bren.

Jack was surprised
by how near they still were. They'd been on the move for six hours now, yet
they were still close to the city. Or was it that the walls were so tall and
substantial that it just seemed that way?

Shrugging, Jack
moved on. After a while, Tawl raised his hand. It was a sign for them to stop.
More Highwall soldiers? wondered Jack. Tawl beckoned them forward, and Jack and
Nabber came level with him. All three of them lay belly-flat on the ground.

"This is the
last of the grain fields," hissed Tawl. "Up ahead is open country.
Nothing but grazing land. It's going to be harder to keep ourselves hidden. If
we spot anyone now, the chances are that they'll be mercenaries or stragglers
hoping to reach Bren. If anyone asks, we're traders from Lanholt, leaving the
city, yet afraid to travel west because of Highwall. I'll do the talking.
Right?"

"What if we
see any soldiers from the Wall?" asked Nabber.

"Up to three
and we kill them. More than that and we run." Tawl looked at Jack, and
Jack nodded. "Now, there's a small thicket of bushes directly ahead. I say
we make it as far as there, then take a break for a while. I for one intend to pick
all this cursed dry grass from my tunic and have myself a decent drink. Are you
with me?"

Ten minutes later,
they were sitting around a small puddle that might once have been a pond,
eating honeycakes and sipping on Cravin's best brandy. Yesterday Tawl had put
Nabber in charge of provisions, and the boy obviously had no liking for
traditional traveling fair, for there was no drybread or drymeat on the menu,
just items that were wellhoneyed or sugared or both. And cheese.

Everyone ate in
silence. Nabber had produced a pair of tweezers from his pack and was pulling
burnt stalks from his britches with all the finesse of a court dandy. Tawl
simply took off his tunic and beat it against the nearest tree trunk. Jack
hadn't begun his extraction yet. He was still trying to keep up with
everything. In fact, that was what he had been doing for the past three days:
just trying his best to keep up.

Even now he
couldn't take it all in. According to Tawl, he was the one named in an ancient
prophecy, the one who was supposed to bring an end to the war and the suffering
at Lam. Three weeks earlier in Annis, he had learned of another prophecy that
he guessed he was part of. He had deliberately not thought about the baking
master's verse since then, but now, having met up with Tawl, everything was
becoming harder to ignore or deny. Jack felt as if ancient forces were ganging
up on him, shaping his fate, controlling his movements, forcing him to see
himself in a new and terrifying light.

For the past two
days he had been in a sort of dazed shock. It was as if some invisible force
had punched him in the gut and was now dragging him south for the kill. His
whole body was still reeling from the blow. He couldn't even think straight. He
tried to remember the exact wording of Tawl's prophecy, but the details eluded
him. Something about two houses and a fool knowing the truth. Jack would have
liked to ask Tawl to tell it to him one more time, but he didn't want to admit
that he'd forgotten something so important.

Everything had
happened so fast. There was too much to take in. Jack glanced quickly at Tawl.
The knight was now leaning against a tree, restringing his bow to suit the
weather. Jack found it hard to believe that the man standing opposite had spent
five years of his life searching for
him.
It was the sort of thing that
legends were made of. He didn't feel worthy of such a search. He was just a
baker's boy from Castle Harvell, not a savior of the world, not a skilled and
fearless hero.

Larn must be
destroyed,
said Tawl. Kylock must be displaced.

How in Borc's name
was he supposed to do such things? Why should the responsibility have fallen to
him? Surely there must be others better equipped than he?

Highwall had an
army. The knights had their brethren. Kylock had Baralis, and Larn had its
seers. He had no one. Well, that wasn't entirely true. He had Tawl and Nabber,
but he didn't want the responsibility anyway. Give him a battalion of troops
and an armory of blades and he still wouldn't want to be the one.

Tawl and Melli had
treated him exactly the same: they just assumed he'd be willing to do what they
said. No one had asked if he wanted to go to Larn, it was just taken for
granted he would. But why should he? Oh, he'd heard all about the seers, and he
had to admit that being bound to a rock for life didn't sound too appealing,
but the practice had been going on for hundreds of years now, so why should
everyone suddenly decide that he was the one to stop it? He had no connection
with the island. The seers of Larn weren't his responsibility. Surely the
obligation of destroying the place should fall upon someone who had once been
involved with the island, or had a grudge to bear. Like Tawl.

Jack brushed his
hair from his face. He felt tired and confused. It was all so overwhelming. There
was so much to consider and so much that was unexplained.

What was he
supposed to do once they reached their destination? How could he possibly
destroy Larn? Yes, he could manage a few tricks with air and metal, but he
couldn't bring about an earthquake or a tidal wave, or anything else that was
liable to make an entire island disappear.

And what if he
didn't succeed? What would become of Melli back in Bren? Jack didn't know
anything about prophecies, but Tawl seemed quite adamant about the need for Larn
to be destroyed before Melli's child could take its rightful place. Jack
suddenly felt like running all the way back home to Castle Harvell. There was
too much responsibility for him to bear. Too much at stake, too little
information to go on. The truth was, he was just plain scared. Tawl and Melli
had put their faith in him, and he wasn't at all sure if he was worthy of it.

But for all his
doubts, Jack never once questioned that he was the one in the prophecy. In a
way he had known it long before he met Tawl. Not about the prophecy, of course,
but about his connection with Kylock and Baralis and the war. For months now
he'd felt as if he had some part to play in everything, and all along he'd been
traveling toward Bren. It was no coincidence that Tawl had found him when he
got there. No coincidence at all.

Jack became aware
that Tawl was no longer leaning against the tree; the knight was standing
behind him. Reaching forward, he rested a hand on Jack's shoulder. "You're
not alone," he said.

Jack spun round to
meet his gaze. He had a bitter reply ready, but when he saw Tawl's face, the
words died on his lips. He wasn't the only person to be given no choice-the man
before him had no choice, either. Not in a million years would Tawl
choose
to
leave Melli. He did so because he had to.

Suddenly the
knight's words meant more than one thing: they meant many things, and all of
them bound him and Tawl closer together. He wasn't alone, and it just might
prove
to
be more than a comfort: it might be his only advantage.