Master Of The Planes (Book 3) (7 page)

Vesten surveyed the disorder in dismay.  “What are you doing?” he exclaimed.  “The governor will be incensed.”

The red robed wizard looked up from the scattering of crates which his two nomad warriors had flung around the small wine cellar.   “I’m just checking the supplies,” Galen said.

“But these are the governor’s own private supplies. You have no business to be examining them,” Vesten wheedled.  “How did you even get in here? This door is always locked.”

Galen smiled.  It was not an improving or comforting gesture.  From polished scalp to hirsute chest, every detail of the necromancer’s appearance was designed to project an image of personal power and arcane mastery.  It was not, however, the final effect that was intimidating so much as the evident self-belief that lay behind it.  Galen was a self-important arsehole, everyone agreed, but that wouldn’t stop him shitting on them and on Vesten most of all.    “I had a report that some contraband was being smuggled in concealed in the governor’s possessions, Secretary Vesten.” Scorn dripped from his thin lips.  “I am duty bound to investigate.”

“What contraband? How could it possibly be in the governor’s possessions?”

“Where better to hide two casks of orc flame-breath?” Galen replied.  “Think what damage that could do if it got shared out in the camps?”

Vesten shivered.  The most fearsome spirit in existence.  One to which orcs were dangerously drawn and especially vulnerable as the powerful liquor exaggerated all the traits of their race in acts of violent and destructive cruelty.  Entire tribes had been known to wipe themselves out in a night after sharing little more than a half-gallon tankard of the stuff.  In the encampments of cold and bored orc tribes around Listcairn two casks of the brew would be a recipe for utter disaster.   Certainly the prospect that such a proscribed cargo might be secreted in the governor’s own personal supplies was justification enough for this intrusion.  Or at least it would have been if the story were not such a damnable lie.

The Necromancer’s grin grew broader as Vesten folded his hands one over the other in impotent rage.  “This is preposterous, Galen.  The governor will have your hide for this.”

“Then go and fetch him, Vesten, bring him here.”  Galen cried.  “I did send word to summon him, to let him witness our search, but he could not be found.”  He spread his arms wide.  “I mean, where is the little bastard? Do you even know Vesten?”

“He’s in his study.” Vesten stared at the stone floor.

“He’s been in there for three days. The bastard’s probably died of a stroke, or of stroking something.  If I could be bothered to break open the door we’d probably find his rotting corpse with a silly grin on his face.”

There was a grunt from one of the nomads as another case cracked open and he lifted out a glass bottle of a thick green liquid.  Galen was strangely uninterested in the find and it was Vesten who admonished, “be careful with that.  It is the governor’s favourite liqueur, he sends for it from the Eastern Lands especially.”

The nomad shrugged and placed it none too gently back in the straw filled box.

“What are you looking for, Galen?  What are you really looking for?”

The necromancer frowned, torn between discretion and a desire to share his own imagined cleverness.  He shrugged and confessed.  “I’m not sure, Mr Secretary.  But your precious governor is up to something and I mean to find out what.   Whatever treachery he has been planning, I intend to be the one who shares the news with the Dark Lord.”  His hand went to the heavy gold disc on its chain around his neck. Vesten knew the reverse of the disc held a plain black medallion through which, like all his key servants, Maelgrum allowed Galen to commune with him.

“Odestus has always been the master’s most loyal servant.”

“Has! Vesten, has!” Galen wagged a triumphant finger in Vesten’s face.  “All things change.  Since his snake headed bitch got herself killed I think we would all agree your governor’s grip on affairs has been slipping.  My time is coming, Vesten!”

A guttural shout from the other nomad interrupted the necromancer’s spit flecked invective. Both Galen and Vesten crossed to the case he had uncovered.  Unlike the others this one had small holes punched in the sides and tops.  “Open it,” the Necromancer commanded.

The nomad wedged his short curved dagger in beneath the lid and twisted it. Nails squealed their way out of the wooden sides while Galen waited breathless for the revelation.  As the lid fell back the three of them looked in on a deep straw filled chest.  A dozen scaled eyes swivelled to look back at them as six fat bodied reptiles each a little more than a hand-span in length blinked owlishly in the dim lantern light.

“Lizards?” The nomad grunted.

Galen shook his head and lifted the nearest green bodied creature onto a fold in his scarlet cloak.  “Not just lizards, no, my friend.”  The reptile sat on the necromancer’s cloak flicking out a long thin tongue to taste the air and slowly but surely turned from green to red.  “Not just lizards, they’re chameleons.”

He glared a challenge at Vesten.  “What the fuck does Odestus want with a crate of chameleons?”

It was cool in the heart of the dead volcano, walls of rock insulating them from the extremes of Grithsank’s harsh climate.  Odestus stood at the back of the gathering.  He was the outsider and, despite the courteous welcome which the karib people had always afforded him, this was an occasion above all others where he should fade into the background.  

Vlyndor stood at the head of the open grave.  The scales of his multi-coloured skin seemed duller than before.  His tail curled around his three toed feet much as a grief struck human might hug themselves for warmth and reassurance.   He held his hands up high and began the song of mourning, a low rumbling chant which the assembled congregation took up in a dozen elegant harmonies. 

They brought the body then, all wrapped in woven reed cloth.  So small, no bigger than a human child.  Four karib elders each bore a corner of the shroud.  It was, the wizard knew, a great honour for Vlyndor’s wife had been much beloved amongst the karib people.

Odestus clasped his hands behind his back, head bowed in respect.  He was clad in karib garb, the single set of his own clothes had worn threadbare during the unplanned long sojourn in Grithsank.  His intention had merely been another flying visit before he returned to the daily frustrations and fears of his own world. But all those plans had been shattered by a stone butterfly.

The singing was nearly done, the last note fading away as the body touched the bottom of the grave.  Odestus looked across to where the children stood apart from the adults.  She was there, gathered with the playmates of her infancy.  She was already a head taller than them and in these past months she had closed the gap on Vlyndor as well. But she was still a child.  The karib boys and girls had readily forgiven her her humanity and absorbed her into their games and circles.  Paradoxically it was her reptilian side they struggled most with.  She had worn her mother’s gauze mask with unthinking obedience and there had been no more stone butterflies, no games of tag where children found her gaze would freeze them to the spot, no chilling stare to make an adult shiver. 

But now she chose to wear a hood as well.  The other children had grown up knowing the strange corded structures that covered her head.  Devoid of hair themselves, they saw nothing odd in a bald child while the scaly surface of the raised protrusions across her scalp made her more rather than less like them.

However, the development of an involuntary flexing to these rope like strands had begun to unnerve them, as though some alien life were stirring beneath their friend’s skin.  That was when she had taken to wearing a hood.  She said it stopped her head itching, but Odestus knew it also quietened the threads that crawled across her head and in so doing eased the minds and companionship of her friends.

The simple service was over.  Vlyndor led the party away from the graveyard.  The lichen covered walls of the great cavern dimmed as though in sympathy with the old lizard’s sombre mood.  The rest of the karib chittered their sympathy as he strode past them, following the path by the lake back to the collection of huts which was their village.

Odestus still kept to the rear.  With the formalities concluded he called her to his side.  “Persapha!”

She came at once, falling into step beside him.  “Yes, uncle.”

“How are you?”

“How should I be?”

He frowned.  “You’ve just buried your mother.”

“Lyndat wasn’t my mother,” she said touching the gauze mask.  “You said my mother wore this, she was like me.”

Odestus patted her on the shoulder.  “Lyndat raised you, she and Vlyndor both.  She raised you more and better than I or your mother could have.”

The girl fell into silent contemplation for a score of paces, before observing, “My real mother is dead too isn’t she.”

Odestus nodded.  “You know she is.”

“I would like to have met her.”

“I would have liked that too, Persapha.”

“Did she ever think of me, did she ever talk of me?”

Odestus combed his fingers through thinning hair.  “There is much I must tell you of your mother.  But not today.  It is not the right time.”

“Then when uncle?  You have been here for ages and you’ve not told me anything really.”

“I thought you were enjoying my company,” Odestus chided.  “A chance to see someone of your own kind.”

She looked at him, a faint sparkle through the gauze.  “But you’re not my own kind, Uncle. No-one is.”

He turned his wince into a smile, knowing that she never meant to upset him.  “I have a plan about that, Persapha.  I have a plan.”

The mask lifted slightly with the raising of her eyebrows.  “Will it stop my head itching?”

He nodded slowly.  “I hope so Persapha, I really hope so.” 

The snow was still thick on the ground, but the shovels and brooms of Rugan’s many servants had kept the avenue clear enough for the two princesses to ride in comfortable safety.  Giseanne rode side saddle with effortless elegance, while Hepdida sat astride her cob concentrating with fierce intensity on binding the animal to her will.

“You make progress, your Highness,” Giseanne assured the crown princess.

Hepdida grimaced more at the formality with which Giseanne addressed her than the challenge of courtly riding.  Both were unpalatable changes which accrued with confirmation of her and her cousin’s status.

“I’ve not been on this animal in nearly two months. I was hoping it had forgotten how it used to torture me. And please, my lady, call me Hepdida.  I don’t feel like any sort of princess, still less a crown princess.”

“Then you, Hepdida, must call me Giseanne.  I will not answer to my lady and I am not too sure about aunt, it sounds so old.”

Hepdida shivered, haunted by the recollection of how her last ride had ended, with an ambush by a snowy tree stump and a descent into a conscious insanity.  She twisted in her saddle to check that Sergeant Jolander and his little troop of cavalry followed them still, a mere two lance lengths behind.  “Do you think we will ever be safe, Giseanne?”

“I hope so.  The enemy has been foiled in his plans, a traitor has been exposed, the Goddess is on our side.  When the spring thaw comes, I am sure we will find a way to finally defeat the Dark Lord.”

Hepdida nodded dumbly.  She wasn’t sure if Giseanne spoke from sincere belief or a vapid reassurance. Either way, she feared what the price of eventual victory might be. 

There was a shout and a jangle of spurs from behind and suddenly Jolander and the lancers were streaming past her.  The cob shied nervously at the jostling of the cavalry horses, like a piece of flotsam caught in the grip of a breaking wave. As the horse high stepped its anxiety, Giseanne guided her mare close and seized her niece’s reins.

“I can manage,” Hepdida assured her, flexing knees and heels to bring the cob under her control.

Ahead of them the lancers cantered towards the sharp bend in the avenue.  It was the point at which, by design, the magnificence of Rugan’s palace was first revealed to visitors and conversely it was the point where new arrivals first appeared in view from the direction the princesses were travelling in.  The lancers’ alarm was at the appearance of a pair of horsemen leading a perfect double line of children as though on a school outing.

The lead rider was holding up a hand in greeting to the lancers even as Giseanne observed, “I see no danger there, well none that a dozen lancers cannot keep us safe from.” She kicked her horse into motion with a youthful grin.  “Come, Hepdida, let us give these visitors a more courteous welcome than the point of the sergeant’s lance.”

Hepdida’s confidence was a little shaken by the realisation that the children were wearing beards, helmets and axes, but the joyful hails of the two riders quickly restored her equanimity.

“My princess!” A tall rangy figure slipped from his saddle and dodged between the lancers mounts to reach her side.

“Kaylan!” She smiled a welcome at the thief, though his ragged appearance had shocked her.  Always lean, he was now starvation thin, with hollowed eyes and a noticeable limp.  Niarmit had told her some of what had passed during their incarceration and escape from Morwencairn, but she had not truly realised how ill it had gone for the loyal thief.  “My Kaylan, you are looking …. well,” she managed to say.

  “You have the prior to thank for that.” Kaylan waved behind him where Abroath gave a courteous nod and smile of greeting.  “Tell me is my lady truly well? When last I heard she had ridden off into danger.”

Hepdida nodded.  “She is well. The traitor has been unmasked and we are all the safer for it.”

“Half-breed witch.” Kaylan spat on the ground and then hurriedly raised his sleeve to his mouth, shamefaced at the coarseness of his reaction.  “Forgive me…”

Giseanne interrupted his apology.  “Tell me Kaylan, who have you brought as your other companions on the road.”

“Ah,” Kaylan exclaimed.  “They are ambassadors come to see our queen with news of a great opportunity.”

“Indeed,” Giseanne replied.  “Then we had better not keep this news waiting.”