The Dragon Revenant (40 page)

“Your captor won’t be able to force himself through that.” The Old One actually sounded amused. “When you return to your body, he’ll question you, of course. Tell him the truth. I want him to know exactly what he’s facing. I hope he squirms, the dog.”

“Master, please, save me!”

“Eventually. Perhaps. You’re useful where you are for the moment. Where did he capture you?” “Indila. I was on my way to you.”

“What does he want?”

“Rhodry.”

“What? What does the idiot boy want with Rhodry Maelwaedd?”

Dimly Baruma knew that Rhodry’s full name was important, but in his terror and ensorcelment he could only stare like an idiot himself.

“I don’t know, master,” he said at last. “Or wait! He wants to know what you’re doing. Or something like that. I don’t understand.”

“No doubt he hasn’t shared his heart of hearts with you, no.” All at once, the face of the simulacrum smiled, a ghastly gesture, the draw of bloodless lips away from a hollow black cavity of a mouth. “Very well, little Baruma. Tell him everything you know, and tell him that the Master of the Aethyr is here in Bardek. Let him sprinkle every sharp thorn of the truth between his sheets and then have sweet dreams.”

In a flash of blinding blue glare the Old One disappeared. The wall of filthy light hung steady for a moment, then dissolved and flowed away into nothingness. Standing waiting was the towering simulacrum of the Hawkmaster, the face raging and swelling above its blood-red robes.

“It was the Old One, master.”

In the secret place of hatred in his mind Baruma laughed, seeing the Hawkmaster shrink—literally shrink out on the etheric—in fear. Then the simulacrum swelled again to larger than normal size, towering over him, forcing him to his knees.

“So!” The Hawkmaster’s voice boomed through the blue light. “Has he opened war upon me?”

“No, master, no. He said to tell you the truth, about Rhodry Maelwaedd, about everything, about the Master of the Aethyr, too.”

The Hawkmaster’s image hung as still and brittle as a piece of fine porcelain.

“The Master of the Aethyr?”

“That was the plan, to lure him here and kill him. He’s here now, so the plan is working. I’m to tell you everything now, master, everything. Don’t torture me! Oh please don’t hurt me!”

“I won’t, little piglet. Come back with me, and we’ll talk, long and hard.”

Thanks to the help of the Kings of Air, the
Guaranteed Profit
reached Indila in an amazingly short time, much to the relief of the horses as well as Perryn. As Nevyn supervised unloading the stock onto the stone pier, he noticed his volunteer servingman surreptitiously kneeling down to kiss the solid footing and pat the stone like a beloved dog. As it did at odd moments, the question of Perryn’s true nature rose to vex him, simply because he’d never seen anyone with such an instinctive antipathy to the element of water, but he put the wondering firmly aside. Such luxuries as the pursuit of knowledge would have to wait till his return to Deverry.

“That’s the last of the poor beasts off,” Elaeno said, strolling over. “We’ll have to buy a horse for me down in the public market.”

“Actually, I was thinking that you’d best stay here.”

“What? And miss the fighting?”

“Naught of the sort—maybe. Listen, once I get Jill and the rest of them out of whatever trouble they’re in, I intend to retreat as fast as I can. We’ve got to get Rhodry home first and worry about stamping out our nasty little enemies later. I’ve no desire to come rushing back here only to find your ship burned or destroyed some other way, and every captain in port mysteriously unwilling to give us passage home.”

“I see what you mean.” Elaeno laid an enormous hand on the hilt of his sword. “Me and my lads have fought off pirates before. We’ll be ready to do it again if we have to.”

“Good. You might. And keep up your astral seals, too. If naught else, it’ll give our enemies somewhat to stew about.”

Since they’d arrived soon after dawn, Nevyn decided to lead his small warband out that very day. Although they did go down to the marketplace and buy supplies, he skipped a formal and time-consuming visit to the archon of Indila, and they rode out the north gate just about noon. By then Perryn had revived enough to be absolutely certain that Jill was still in the same place, more north than east from Indila.

“This road will take us right to Pastedion, but it does run along the river,” Nevyn said. “Will traveling so close to flowing water keep you from finding her?”

“It won’t, my lord. Er, um, why would it?”

“Water troubles some dweomer-workings.”

“Oh, but I don’t have dweomer.”

“You know, I’m beginning to think you’re exactly right: you don’t. Just what you do have is the greatest puzzle I’ve faced in years.”

For a reply Perryn merely looked miserable, as if blaming himself for his peculiar mental structure—a legacy of self-loathing from his Uncle Benoic, Nevyn assumed, and he let the painful subject drop.

When the Old One judged that the Hawkmaster had contemplated his bitter truths long enough, he made contact with Baruma rather than go to meet his enemy on the etheric plane, where an ambush of sorts might be possible. He found his former student’s mind so clouded that it was easy to take him over, even through the scrying mirror, and look out of his eyes. As far as he could tell from body-empathy, Baruma was kneeling on a pile of saddle blankets while he fed twigs into a small fire. Nearby two men—Hawks, the Old One assumed—were playing knucklebones for splinters, while a third man, the Hawkmaster that the Old One had hired the year before, was sitting cross-legged with his back to the others and staring blankly out at the rain-washed hillside beyond the rough stone shelter. He was meditating, perhaps, or performing some sort of mental exercise, but whatever he may have been doing, he was properly distracted.

The Old One made Baruma’s head turn and look from side to side, but he could see nothing more of any interest, only the stone pillars and the rain. Slowly and carefully he made Baruma’s body stand up, stumbling a little until he gained full control. At the movement both Hawks looked up automatically, then returned to their game. Although the master never moved, not so much as a twitch, the Old One was willing to wager that he was perfectly aware of the movement. Wearing Baruma’s body like a suit of armor, he strolled down to the end of the shelter, turned back, paced a few steps and otherwise moved round to practice controlling this borrowed physical vehicle. With part of his mind he was aware of Baruma, whimpering and frightened at being so suddenly forced out into the etheric, but it was a weak distraction that he could ignore.

When he was ready, he strode back down to the fire and with a curse woven of evil names, forced the salamanders to flare up in a pillar of flame. All three Hawks leapt to their feet and swirled to face him—with sudden weapons in their hands.

“I am the Old One, not Baruma. If you kill this body, he’ll die, not me.”

The Hawkmaster flicked one hand; his confederates’ weapons disappeared into the folds of their clothing. Slowly, with an impressive disdain, the master slipped his own dagger into a hidden sheath.

“I’ve heard of such things being done. Why are you here?”

“To talk. To strike a bargain, perhaps. The Master of the Aethyr’s going to be a hard bird to net. I might be interested in hiring you again.”

“I see.” The Hawkmaster allowed himself a short bark of a laugh. “If I want to take your cursed money, anyway. Thanks to your little scheme, three of my best men are dead, and a fourth captured.”

“My scheme? Did I ask you to snatch the bait out of my trap? You were following the barbarian boy for reasons of your own. Don’t try to tell me otherwise. Don’t blame me if something went wrong with your plans.”

“Very well, then, I won’t. That ‘something’ is every bit as dangerous to you as it is to me, though.”

“If it wasn’t, would I be here bargaining with you? There’s another dweomerman involved in this, isn’t there?”

“Exactly—the man who rescued Rhodry in the first place. And I agree that we’d be better off working together. If I’m going to kill the Master of the Aethyr on the road, I’ll need the information you can give me.”

“Kill the …?” For the first time in years, the Old One laughed, a deep belly laugh that left his borrowed body shaking on the edge of his control. “You utterly arrogant idiot! You? Kill the Master of the Aethyr on the road just as if you were a common bandit and him some piddling merchant? I’m amazed. I’m stunned. It passes all description.”

The Hawkmaster’s dark face was suffused with a dangerous sort of purple.

“If I can lull an archon in the middle of his palace, when every door and window and even the god-cursed cracks in the ceiling are swarming with guards, I can cursed well …”

“You can do nothing against the Master of the Aethyr. Leave him to me. Come to my villa; Baruma knows where it is. We’ll lay a trap for him there.”

Slowly the Hawkmaster’s color returned to normal, and he smiled.

“Oh, I’ll come all right. But I’ll bring Nevyn’s head with me. I know a thing or two about traps.”

“Fool!”

The Old One slipped out of Baruma’s body and allowed its owner’s soul to rush in just as the Hawkmaster stepped forward and slapped it across the face. Whining and groveling, Baruma sank to his knees while the Old One withdrew his consciousness and returned through the mirror to his own body, propped in its chair back in his comfortable study in the villa.

As soon as he was fully awake, he laughed again. The Hawkmaster had taken the bait exactly as he’d hoped. No matter how the battle went, the Old One would profit. If, by some small miracle the Hawkmaster did indeed kill Nevyn, then the Old One could eliminate the assassin easily, any time he chose. It was much more probable, of course, that the Hawks would only succeed in killing the old man’s companions, including this lesser dweomermaster, before Nevyn was finally goaded into taking action and destroying them. By then his position would be considerably weakened; he would be alone, without allies in a foreign land, and the Old One could move in for the kill.

After the Old One withdrew, the Hawkmaster’s display of fury vanished just as suddenly. So, the ancient fool thought he could be goaded into a reckless attack like a mere apprentice, did he? He was going to be very surprised when the Hawks turned up at his gates, quite unharmed and with allies at their side. For a long time the Hawkmaster paced back and forth, thinking, wondering at himself and his ambitions, while Baruma cowered and whimpered and his men watched in silent anticipation, as if they knew that great things were afoot.

He would have to be very careful, the master told himself, to make certain that his ambitions didn’t exceed his grasp. For years the Dark Brotherhood had hoarded knowledge of the dweomer like some fat rich man gloating all grease-chin over his feasts and throwing only meager scraps of stale bread and gristled meat to the beggars at his door. Since the Hawks were useful to them, they received these scraps; since they were equally dangerous, scraps were all they got. But in the Old One’s villa were books and consecrated implements, perhaps even captive spirits who would speak of dark magicks upon command—if the Hawkmaster owned those things, wouldn’t every assassin in the islands come grovel at his feet for a share? Wouldn’t they pay with gold as well as adulation to learn what he knew? And once the Hawks were learned and strong in the dark arts, then there would be no more Brotherhood—only Hawks.

Before, no one had dared attack the Old One for fear of retribution, but now he had unleashed a dangerous enemy on the islands. No doubt the other members of the Brotherhood would agree that anyone who would knowingly bring the Master of the Aethyr—and apparently one of his disciples as well—down upon them all was growing daft and senile. No doubt the Brotherhood would not agree that the Hawks should have the Old One’s books, but once the books were in their hands, the Brotherhood could disagree all it wished. Its members would be welcome to try to take them back, if they dared.

There remained, of course, the problem of the Master of the Aethyr. Although the Hawkmaster had no intentions whatsoever of attacking the old man, he could ensure that no one for miles around would willingly help him and his disciple. Eventually, the Old One and the master of the Light would meet on a field of war; no matter who won that battle, the Hawkmaster would profit. Either the Old One would be dead and defeated, or a victor but severely weakened. If Nevyn did win, then the Hawkmaster would merely loot the villa and disappear. Or—and here the elegance of his plan gratified him no end—if he should kill a battle-weary Nevyn, wouldn’t the Brotherhood fear him all the more and let him study the books in peace?

There was, however, one last major difficulty: what if he never found Nevyn again after that last battle? The Hawkmaster had heard that masters of magic could kill one another out on the etheric plane while their bodies were miles apart. The Hawkmaster wanted them together on the physical plane, where he could move in on the winner. To ensure it, he would have to mark a trail in some subtle way that would lead the Master of the Aethyr right to the Old One’s door. It all sounded perfectly reasonable, there on the rainy hillside, reasonable and better yet, immensely profitable.

Smiling to himself, the Hawkmaster turned to his men, sitting patiently nearby.

“Take Baruma into the woods aways—no, don’t hurt him! Put that knife away, you idiot! Just keep him at a distance so he can’t overhear me. Baruma is very important to us. He knows the way to the Old One’s villa. In fact, little piglet, I’ll see to it that you get a real meal tonight, all you want to eat.”

Baruma grinned and drooled, peering up through cloudy eyes. The Hawkmaster patted him on the head, then signaled to the others to lead him away. He was about to contact possible allies through the black ink—there were several outposts of the guild in this part of the island—and he didn’t want to give the Old One the slightest chance of learning it.

That same night, just after sunset, Salamander came back from his day’s business at the law courts with another headache. Since Gwin and Rhodry were gone, chopping firewood for the temple for want of anything better to occupy their time, Jill was alone in the guesthouse when he came slouching in and flopped down on his cot. Without waiting to be asked, she poured him wine.