Master Of The Planes (Book 3) (38 page)

“Where in the name of the Goddess have you been?” Thren’s eastern twang grew broader when he was angry, the sounds merging and sliding in a way that had Niarmit straining her ears to decipher his meaning.

It was an uncharacteristic show of rage from the most mild mannered of monarchs amongst her royal forbears.  He stood before the gilded throne, hands on hips scolding the queen as though she were a child.  “We thought you were dead.  I thought you were dead.”

“I’m sorry,” Niarmit mumbled.

“We soon realised you weren’t dead, your Majesty,” Santos squirmed, trying to abase himself low enough to ensure he ranked beneath the penitent queen.   “When your sleeping body did not appear in the chamber of arrival, we knew you couldn’t have perished in the battle with the zombies. We had less than a day of doubt.”

Thren snorted.  “A day, you’ve been gone a week. We might have worked out that you weren’t dead, but where were you?  Captured, injured, dying, we didn’t know.  None of us knew.”

He swept his arm round the chamber of the Helm at the half dozen kings and queens who had been startled by Niarmit’s sudden re-appearance.  “We’ve been keeping watch, keeping the Kinslayer at bay against the chance of your return.  Not knowing when or if we’d see you again.”

“The girl is back, Thren,” Lady Mitalda said. “And you are upsetting her.”

Niarmit lifted the Helm to wipe at her eyes, smearing away the tell-tale trails across her cheeks which Mitalda had spotted.  Thren paused in his tirade, running a hand over his coal black hair. 

“I’m sorry,” Niarmit said.  “I wasn’t thinking. I just had a moment of doubt.”

“Bloody long moment,” one of the Bulvelds growled. 

Thren shook his head again, musing aloud. “I thought you were dead, I really feared you’d died.  The last we saw was the ground coming up before your face, knowing that something somehow had struck you.”

Niarmit mumbled a further apology.  “It’s just, the Helm, it betrayed me.  It left me vulnerable.  I thought maybe the Goddess did not want me to use it.  It is a thing of evil, its existence a blasphemy.”   A few of the monarchs in the second row harrumphed their displeasure at this description of their home.  “I thought I had trusted to it too much, forsaken the Goddess’s wishes.”

“The Goddess wants Maelgrum defeated, child,” Mitalda said.  “She welcomed my Grandfather with open arms to achieve that end a millennium ago.  Let us not forget that, much as I admire his memory, he was a murdering enslaving bastard servant of Maelgrum before he became the Dark Lord’s Vanquisher.”

“By the Goddess, with endorsements like that I’m glad you’re not my Grand-daughter,” Thren said.

“No,” Mitalda admitted.  “You got the little prick teaser who kept half the princes of the Eastern Lands dancing on the tips of her fingers, but that’s not the point.”  She wagged a finger at Niarmit.  “The point is the Goddess understands that we have to make dark choices if we are to overcome evil enemies.  She will not condemn you for using whatever weapon you have to hand, child, including us and this … this place.”

“I’m sorry, I should have come sooner,” Niarmit pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes.  Where was all this Goddess-damned water coming from.  She wiped her nose.  “I’m sorry I worried you so, I didn’t realise, I didn’t think.”

“Dry your eyes, child,” Mitalda commanded.  “There is work to be done.”

Niarmit shook her head, what was wrong with her.  She couldn’t stop crying.  Thren’s hands were on hers, lifting her up, pulling her off the throne.  “Work can wait,” he said more gently than before.  “She is here now and it is time she saw the gardens.”

“What about the Helm, I can’t leave it.  What if Chirard appears?”

Thren the Seventh looked around the room, “we have three Threns, two Bulvelds and the Lady Mitalda all quite eager to be at Chirard if he should be so unwise as to reappear.  I think the Helm is safe in their collective protection.”

He led her through a side passage and down a stairway into the garden.  It was the place where she had first arrived in the Domain of The Helm, at the moment of her self-coronation in the orc infested halls of fallen Morwencairn.  Thren tucked her arm in the crook of his and patted her hand. 

“It’s lovely,” she said, appreciating for the first time the delicate blooms and subtle shades of a garden that would have been a credit to Rugan’s palace at Laviserve.

“Santos is a keen gardener and he has had plenty of time to hone his craft, and reap the advantages that the Helm provides.” Thren breathed into his other hand and a butterfly appeared, its wings marked with a pair of dark discs within azure circles.  The creature flew away, its fluttering wings opening and closing like eyes as it hovered over the lush grass.

“How long has Santos been here?” Niarmit asked, blinking away incessant tears.

“Since before my time, before anyone’s time.  He looks after us curmudgeonly monarchs.”  Thren stopped and took her hands in his.  “But who is looking after you, my dear.”

“What?” she blinked up at him.  “No-one, I don’t need looking after.”

He stroked a strand of hair away from her face. “I knew a woman like you once, a long time ago.  She was the bravest woman I knew. She stood against Chirard, like you did.  Without her, he would never have been defeated.”

“Was she?”  Niarmit hesitated.  “Was she your wife?”

He smiled and shook his head. “No, my cousin, the Lady Yalents.  I wish you could have met her, you are so much alike.”

“I do my duty; that is all I can do.”

“And who looks after you while you do that?”

“I don’t need looking after.”

“Of course not, my dear.” He patted her hand and led her along another path, deeper into the garden beneath over hanging branches. 

A sudden memory of Kimbolt’s face struck her with such force that she stopped walking, the hurt look in his eyes at their last parting. 

“What is it, my dear?”

She batted away the memory. A question hurried from her mouth. “Chirard killed your family didn’t he?”

A wince of pain creased Thren’s expression, but he nodded nonetheless.

“What would you have done to have kept them safe?”

Thren shrugged.  “Anything.  Who wouldn’t do anything for those he or she loved?”

“Even if it meant never seeing them again?  If you could have had them at your side but in danger, or have sent them away to safety, despatched them beyond Chirard’s reach. Would you have chosen safety?”

He frowned.  “That’s the decision my parents made for me.  They sent me to the Eastern Lands, to be safe, to be beyond Chirard’s grasp.  I never saw them again, they probably knew they wouldn’t see me.”

“And did they tell you?  Did they tell you why they were doing it?”

Thren shrugged.  “There wasn’t time.  An old family retainer came to take me away, it was too dangerous for me to see my parents to say our goodbyes.”

“Did you think them cruel for doing that?”

Thren stared at the blossom filled branches.  “It was necessary,” he said.  “It had to be done.  It hurt at the time, yes, but it had to be done.”  He frowned.  “But enough about my trials and tribulations, all lost in the misty past.  We were talking about you and whether there was anyone looking out for you, before you changed the subject that is.”

“Did I?” she mused.

“You’re a stubborn one.” Thren’s tone was uncomplaining.  “That’s what your father said.  He spoke of you a lot while he stayed with me.”

“Gregor?”

“Of course.  He said how he watched you growing up, admiring you, wishing he could have been a better father to you.”

“I’m bastard born you know.”

Thren nodded.  “My great-grandfather was a bastard.  I’d never have come to the throne if Chirard hadn’t killed absolutely everybody else.” He paused, selecting his words with care. “It doesn’t mean you have to drive yourself into the ground to prove your own legitimacy.  You don’t have to do everything.  The world cannot rest just on your shoulders, and you should not try to make it.”

“I owe many debts.”

Thren raised a hand to brush away another leaky tear from her cheek.  “Be kinder to yourself, Niarmit.  There is a part of you that is crying and the rest of you will not even let it tell you why.”

“I’m fine,” Niarmit insisted.  “I really don’t need looking after.”

Thren gave her a long cool stare.  “My cousin Yalents…” he began.

“I’m not Yalents, Thren.  I’m Niarmit.” She hurried past his solicitation with a frown. “I don’t need looking after.  What I need is to know how far I can trust the Helm.”

“Aah!”  His eastern accent broadened, packing many layers into a single syllable.

“How could the zombies touch me without harm?”

He shrugged.  “I don’t know.  I didn’t design or enchant the thing.  Its dweomer is entirely beyond my wits.”

“But you know everything.  You know how to kill Dragons.”

He scuffed at the grass with an elegant boot.  “I read that in a book long ago, a book of useful information.”  His forehead wrinkled with effort as he examined the memory.  “It said some things about the Helm too.”

Niarmit brought him to a halt with a sharp jerk of her arm.  “Written down? Things about the Helm written down in a book? How can that be? I have tried to set pen to paper to tell people what the Helm is, to make my ardent but misguided advisers understand it better.  But all my attempts come to naught. I can no more form the words on the page than I can shape them with my tongue.  What was in this book about the Helm, was it lies, guesses or the truth?”

Thren nodded slowly.  “It was the truth, though by the time I read the words I knew it all already.  The nature of the Helm, the existence of this domain, the names of its occupants. I had worn the Helm while Chirard’s body was still warm by my feet.  I learnt then the hell I had consigned us to, both that demon him and I.  I found the book much later when I came to Morwencairn.”  Thren drew a cautious breath through pursed lips before admitting, “Chirard himself was the author.  It was in his collection of papers.”

“Chirard?”  Niarmit shook her head in wonder.  “How could he have broken the Helm’s spell?  How could he have written freely on matters of which we cannot even speak?”

Thren shrugged.  “The Kinslayer broke many rules, both in our world and in this.”

A thought seized Niarmit. “What became of the book?”

The King glanced down where Niarmit had grabbed his arms with urgent rigour.  His look of reproach had her loosen her grip but did not dampen her curiosity.  He frowned.  “I could not speak of the Helm, I could not speak of the book.  The same enchantment constrained both actions.  Having worn the Helm I could not bring anyone else to an understanding of it in writing, speech or deed. There were parts I could mention, the weaknesses of dragons for example, but I could not even share or show the book. I hid it.”

“But this was a book in which Chirard told the truth about the Helm and what it was.”  She pursed her lips. “Where did you hide it?”

Thren gave an uneasy shrug.  “Buried in his papers in the citadel at Morwencairn.  These were documents that none could touch. The Kinslayer’s own traps made them hazardous even to handle.  That is why I called off any attempt to catalogue them, or dispose of them, or indeed do anything other than store them.”

Niarmit raised her arm reaching for some understanding, and then let it fall as the simplest of truths washed over her. “That is how he knew, how Maelgrum came to understand the Helm and how to destroy it.  He must have found the book that you hid.”

Thren’s face darkened with a guilty pain.

Niarmit paced the garden, “and once he knew, he could share what he knew with his entourage. No spell of the Vanquisher’s binds his lips. Quintala knows, the whole world could know.”

“And what good would it avail them, Niarmit.”  Thren’s tone was calm, in deliberate contrast to Niarmit’s heightened anxiety. “The knowledge did not save the dragon, nor did it give the half-elf an advantage over you.  Knowing how the weapon works is not the same thing as stopping it or protecting themselves from it.”

“Maybe he found a way to make these zombies immune to it.”

Thren shook his head quickly.  “I have given that particular matter some thought.  I think I have the answer.”

She stopped, waiting for him to go on.  He spoke carefully, counting off points on his fingers. “The Helm’s defences, this bloodline enchantment in which Eadran invested so much effort, they are not triggered by dead bodies or by dumb animals.  There is a threshold of life and awareness in the attacker below which it would have been inconvenient and unnecessary for the Helm to fire out bursts of magical energy.  However he crafted it, the Vanquisher must have made it insensitive to the dead and therefore to the undead.”

Niarmit gave a grim flat mouthed nod.  “Can it be altered then?  Can it be made to destroy zombies as readily as it fries orcs?”

Thren spread his arms hopelessly wide.  “I only live here, Niarmit, I do not understand or control this enchantment.  The Vanquisher’s craft is immeasurably beyond my art.  He trained at Maelgrum’s knee remember, I only travelled the Eastern Lands for my education.”

“Then we must take care to tackle the undead differently, and I must trust to other armour as well as the Helm.”