Spellbreakers (11 page)

“Dee told me once that that kind of magic can taint a
place for a hundred generations of men. Can you imagine a hundred generations
of men?”

“Not even close. But I can see now why Hassia never
gave up on trying
to conquer
Escarra. That sort of
bloody mess is bound to piss people off. I don’t know whether it is a tragedy
or a blessing that war magic is dead in Escarra. I would not want to be part of
that
. It is worse than black magic.”

Leal nodded. She, too, had mixed feelings about the
subject. When Hassia had opened the Red War, all those years back, they had not
been interested in the small kingdom of Escarra. Escarra just happened to hold
all the mountain passes on the Llers, the only door, barring a sea-born
invasion, to the immensely rich, prosperous plains of Andalou in the south. The
lasting terror of the five great battle spells of the Order of the White
Crescent had closed those passes to Hassia for more than three centuries, but
they had also gained Escarra an unrelenting enemy. In three hundred fifty years
the borders had shifted, and the pass under the Roca Entravessada was now in
Hassian territory, an eternal reminder of that merciless slaughter.

“They will never forgive us, not in a hundred
generations of men,” said Leal quietly. “We must succeed in this quest, Daria.
If Admund puts his hands on Escarra, and me, or Amee, gods between us and evil
... they waited three hundred and fifty years for their revenge.”

Daria gave her a haggard sideway look and didn’t
comment, but she spurred her horse with a determined face. “Let’s go, then. I
had enough of this place.”

****

They made good time after that. The Roca Entravessada
was the last high mountain pass on their way. From the lake under the falls the
Nekkar wound away westward in lazy curves towards the plains and the sea, a
hundred leagues away. They turned north along the seventy mile canal that
joined the lake to the Nister in its rich valley among sweet hills covered with
lush chestnut and oak forests, interspersed with rich pastures and fields of
barley. It was a beautiful, populous country, in stark contrast with that sinister
place in the mountains, but its apparent idyllic peace was belied by the
triangles at every bridge and crossroads. This was where rebellious or
unsatisfactory slaves were publicly whipped. At one of the triangles they saw
the gaunt remains of an old man, fought over by crows and dogs. The filthy
white hair was the only recognizable human thing in the reeking, rotting
corpse.

Leal and Daria spurred on and on, headlong along the
grassy lane, putting as much distance as they could between the horrid spectacle
and the tail of their horses.

 
About ten days
after passing the Roca Entravessada they finally reached the plains. The Nister
left the last grassy plateau in a splendid rippling appropriately named
Lachfelle, the Laughing Falls. A still, peaceful canal broken up by a veritable
staircase of locks, slanted away at a gentler angle somewhat eastwards, towards
the Volme and the river-town of Treiström. The canals and their towpaths, banks,
and locks were a work of such enormous scale that Daria wondered if magic had
been used to finish it. Leal remembered Dee telling them it had been simply
achieved by employing a vast number of slaves. Hassia’s thirst for conquest had
little to do with land. Hassia had enough of that. What it wanted was slaves,
slaves, and ever more slaves.
 

The canals made for such an easy way to follow that
they might have been terribly dull after a while, but they allowed them to
cover miles very fast. A wide green ride flanked the waterway on both sides at
all times, as perfect a riding ground as they could wish for. Sometimes they
overtook a slow team of oxen or draft horses towing a barge on the water.
Sometimes they passed a bridge or a lock with its attending lock-keeper
cottages. The rivers had different characters according to the geography of the
regions they traversed, but the stretches of artificial canal in between were
all similar.
 
The water and towpath were
shadowed by enormous, century-old plane trees, their pale patchy bark ghostly in
the green twilight beneath the canopy. The towpath ran straight and true
between the water and a high bank on the other side. Leal and Daria soon came
to hate that bank, which shut off all view of the countries beyond, making
their riding hours even duller, but the shadow of the trees was a blessing.

They were now well north of Escarra, and yet it was
indescribably hotter down here on the sun-baked, sultry plains. It might have
been impossible to keep up their quick traveling pace without the cool shadow
of the plane trees, and the reliable water supply always at hand for their
horses. Leal thought there was a grim irony in the fact that the slave-built
canals of Hassia might provide Escarra with the means to foil their old enemy
once more.

Two days after passing the Lachfelle, it was perhaps an
hour to sunset, or less, and Daria was riding well ahead on the towpath. Her
long legged gelding was always faster on these flat grassy paths, and she often
scouted ahead for a resting place in the evenings. They had mostly slept
outside since their departure, except some rainy nights in the mountains, when
they had taken refuge in one or other of the many deserted stone cottages
scattered among the pastures. It felt like an age of the world since they had
had a proper roof over their heads and a bed under their tired backs. It was
the natural state of things by now, but they always hoped to find a friendly
house along the way, if only for the sake of varying their meager diet. They
had been able to restock their saddle bags several times on the way, but portable
food could become unspeakably boring.

“Ah-ah!” exclaimed Daria riding past a bend in the
canal. She turned to look at Leal with a radiant smile. “We are in luck! Cheer
up, princess!”

Leal spurred her tired mare to an unwilling little
trot, and indeed beyond the bend in the canal were a straight stretch of water
and then the rusty gates of a lock. She smiled. Where there was a lock, there
was a cottage, and down here all the cottages were occupied by lock-keepers and
their families, who were for the most part friendly and used to travelers. They
seldom had any room to offer even for one night, but they were almost certain
to have some fresh food to sell.

This lock’s cottage was embowered in a mass of fig
trees alive with bees. There was an awning of reeds stretched among roughly
shaped wooden poles by a side of the house. The poles were almost overgrown by
vines covered with tiny green grapes, and there were a dozen rickety chairs in
the cool shadow under the awning.

Daria led her horse over the last few yards of the
little grassy lane to the cottage, and she called out. A very old couple came
out of the little house, two small, nut brown, wrinkled faces with deep smile
lines and dark eyes under silvery hair. They might have been married, but they
looked so alike that they were more likely brother and sister.

“Good evening, young sir,” they said, in the harsh
guttural language of Hassia. Leal had studied the Hassian tongue for a while.
It was considered the polite, diplomatic thing to do in time of peace, but the
rough sounds and weird grammar had defeated her. She could read it, but
conversing in it was impossible for her. Daria quickly answered in the lingua
franca of the western kingdoms, which, they had decided early on, was their
safest course of action when dealing with strangers. Neither Daria nor Leal
spoke it very well, since it was used mostly by merchants and travelling
craftsmen, but they were at least fluent enough, especially Daria, for
commonplace conversations, and they were getting better every day. The elderly
couple immediately answered in the same language, with the barbarous harsh
accent of their nation but with great good will.

“We would like to spend the night here, if possible,”
said Daria as clearly as she could. “We don’t need a room. Just some grass for
our horses, and food, if you have any. We will pay for everything, of course.”

The old woman waved her hands hastily and directed
them to the awning. The man offered to take care of their horses, but this they
did not allow, not so much out of mistrust, but because he was so old and frail
that they feared he might die under the weight of a saddle.

“It would be a poor thank you for their kindness,”
said Leal quietly in Escarran.

“It might definitely ruin the prospect of hot dinner,”
said Daria.

Finally, among much good-humored screeching, they
hobbled their horses in the grassy lane behind the cottage, and brought their
saddles and bags under the awning. They finally sat down at the rough table,
and the woman brought out a jug of wine cooled in a rill of clear water that
trickled across the vegetable patch behind the cottage. The homemade wine was
white and thin, but sweetened with peaches and herbs, lemon balm, woodruff,
peppermint, borage. It went down very well in the heat and immediately rose to
their heads. The simple dinner of dressed fresh greens, young marrows fried
with garlic and parsley, dark bread and grilled fish—a somewhat muddy whiskered
fish freshly caught in the canal—tasted better after that heady drink than they
would have thought possible.

“So, what brings you here all the way from the Llers,
young sirs?” asked the man when they had finished their dinner and they sat
under the awning with the last of the wine. The light was golden, and the air
was finally cooling down.

Daria stared, and the old man laughed. “Ah, you did
not think you could fool me, eh? I’d know an Escarran’s speech in whatever
tongue he might speak to me. But there is naught to fear from my Paola and me.
The Hassians are not fond of Escarrans, but that does not concern
us
.”

Leal put her head to one side considering him. “You
are not Hassian, yourself?”

“Bless me, I was born here in servitude, and so were
my father and his father. My forefathers came as slaves from the northern vales
of Umbria, more than a hundred years ago.”

Leal nodded gravely. “I am sorry to hear it.”

He shrugged. “It all happened long ago. Our father was
the lock keeper here.
And his father before him.
And
his
father used to say that
his
father had helped build the canal. So, we
are as much part of the canal as that old lock over there, eh? The whole canal
is run by serfs. Our forefathers came from every corner of the western
kingdoms, and even farther off. But nowadays we are all canal men. And women,
of course.”

He spoke cheerfully, but something in his expression
suggested that not in a thousand years he would feel a Hassian.

“Don’t you ever wish to go back home?” asked Leal.

He laughed. “Young sir, you have big horses and good
clothes, and the manners of noble lords, and coin. We canal people hardly own
the rags on our backs. How could we ever go home? No,” he said, shaking his
head. “We are better off than some, here. We have a roof, and the fish and a
bit of land for our greens. And the barge men come and go, and tell us all the
news from places far away. We have no children to worry about. We never
married, neither my sister nor I, so we are the last of this line. One day we
won’t be able to work anymore, and we’ll end up at one of the triangles. Or
we’ll drink a cup of nightshade juice together before that happens. This is the
only way we have to finish the servitude, the likes of us.”

He shrugged again, as if it didn’t matter anymore.

Leal wished she could say something, anything. But
what could she do? In Escarra their hosts would be freed, but Escarra was far,
far to the south by now, and her road lay north, across all of Hassia and
beyond. She could not assist the old couple any better than she could help the
thousands and thousands of slaves that still labored in Hassia’s fields, mines,
canals, galleys. She took a deep sigh.

“Do not take it so hard, young sir. I see you have a
good kind heart. But nobody can fight all alone against Hassia.”

Leal observed him gravely, and then gave him a
tremulous smile.

“Who knows? If one arrow can claim the freedom of my
people, maybe your turn will also come. I hope so indeed.”

****

The next day, they bought from the old couple some
bread and cheese and an earthenware jar full of olives spiced with garlic and
hot red peppers. The old woman added a small basket of figs and the old man a
couple of grilled fish wrapped in vine leaves.

“There,” he said, “I caught them for you before dawn.
You must have them for lunch, not later.
A little gift from
the canal people.”

Leal paid them with a gold coin, which was more money
they had ever seen in their lives and made them stare in disbelief. She mounted
her mare before he could say anything, but before she turned and spurred away
the old man made some curious signs with his hands, staring straight into her
eyes. First he waved the fingers of his left hand quickly, and then he brought
his hands together in front of him, flat, fingertips touching, a bit like,
Leal, thought later, the gates of a lock. But she didn’t think about that
strange sign for a long, long time.

“What was that about?” asked Daria as they rode away.
“If you start paying bread and cheese with gold, we won’t go far on this trip,
princess.”