The Master of Heathcrest Hall (87 page)

Except Rafferdy knew it was not Beckwith he should be damning,
but rather himself. He was the one who had allowed Beckwith and Hendry to ride ahead. He was the one who had failed to realize the enemy soldiers had indeed turned to pursue them, bolstering their numbers along the way. Rafferdy had started to let himself think he really was something of a soldier. Now he saw what that conceit had cost them.

Turning his back to the Wyrdwood, he stumbled his way down the slope to the base of the hill. He came upon a young man in a brown coat lying facedown in the grass. It was one of his own men. One by one, Rafferdy went to the other bodies scattered around. There were eleven in all, most of them wearing brown coats, but a few in blue.

He turned around in the center of the battlefield, shading his eyes with a hand, trying to understand what had happened. Valhaine’s soldiers had surely had the upper hand. They had outnumbered Rafferdy’s company, and they had the element of surprise. The rebel soldiers might have retreated up the hill to gain higher ground, but there were no bootprints in the moist grass to indicate they had done so.

Yet that could only be expected. The men would never have retreated up the hill, not with the trees at its summit thrashing to and fro in what anyone could have recognized was a Rising. Which meant the rebels had been trapped between the approaching soldiers and the furious Wyrdwood. They should have been slaughtered.

But they weren’t, and as Rafferdy continued to survey the scene, the reason became evident. By the impressions of boots and hooves left in the soft dirt of the road, it was apparent that Valhaine’s men had never finished closing the distance to the rebel company. Instead, they had turned around and gone back the direction they had come. It could only mean one thing.

They had run away from the Rising.

That Valhaine’s men would turn their backs to an enemy and flee down the road astonished Rafferdy. But after all the stories that had been circulated about the Risings in Torland, and about the
way Morden’s forces had made alliances with witches, Valhaine’s men must have feared the rebels were going to use the Wyrdwood against them. Faced with such a terrible prospect, they had turned and fled.

For their part, the men of Rafferdy’s company had been no less afraid of the thrashing of the Wyrdwood. From the manner in which the mud of the road was churned, it was obvious they had rapidly departed the scene as well, making off in the direction of Pellendry-on-Anbyrn, as had been their original plan.

Amid this disaster, that was one bit of excellent news. The company could not be very far ahead of him—hours at most—which meant if Rafferdy hurried he would be able to catch up to them before they reached Pellendry. He might have a chance after all to make up for his errors, and to help his men survive what battles lay ahead.

Despite his urgent wish to catch up with the remainder of his company, Rafferdy took a while to see to the bodies of those who had fallen. He did not have the time to bury them, but he could make sure they were arranged with some degree of respect. Thus he dragged them into a line, shoulder to shoulder, and put each man’s hands upon his rifle. Each soldier still had his bedroll on his back, and Rafferdy used these to cover the bodies, for he was cognizant of the crows circling overhead. He paid the same courtesy to the enemy soldiers who had fallen, though he left them where they lay.

Once he had finished this grisly task, he wiped the sweat from his brow and began his march east down the road. It was his hope he might see his horse wandering about in the aftermath of the battle, and with it under him make better time.

After only a few dozen steps his hope in this regard was at once realized and dashed, for he saw a large gray shape lying off to the side of the road. It was his horse. By its bent and bloodied foreleg and the bullet hole in its skull, Rafferdy could deduce the manner of its death. With no rider at the reins, it had broken its picket line and had run away from the dual terrors of the battle and the Rising.
Only in its mad flight, it had broken its leg and foundered. As they marched from the scene, Rafferdy’s men must have come upon it, and shot the beast to put it out of its misery as they passed.

Rafferdy sighed as he knelt beside the fallen horse, and he stroked its neck. Well, at least there was some small good to be gained from this ill, for Rafferdy’s pack was still tied to the horse’s saddle. He opened it to retrieve only the things that were most precious to him, for he needed to remain unburdened so as to travel swiftly.

Thus it was he took his cup and his knife, and extra bullets and caps for his pistol. He took the onyx box as well, which still felt strangely hot within its wrappings, and put it in his coat pocket. Finally, he dug into the depths of his pack, then pulled out his black magician’s book.

The book gave a jerk, leaping out of his hands.

Rafferdy stared at the black book. It gave another twitch upon the ground. In the past, Rafferdy had sometimes heard a rattling emanate from the drawer in the writing table in his parlor at Warwent Square. By that sound, he always knew when a message written with particular urgency had appeared upon the pages of his magician’s book.

The book twitched again, and Rafferdy snatched it up. Hastily he spoke the runes of unlocking, then opened the book with fumbling hands. He turned past the last few messages that had appeared on the pages of the book, ones penned by Coulten and Trefnell and the other members of the Fellowship of the Silver Circle, stating that they remained in hiding and were well.

It had been some time since these messages had appeared—so long that Rafferdy had begun to fear the others were no longer safe. But at least one of them remained free at present, for there was a new message in the book now, one that had not been there before. Then, as Rafferdy read the writing upon the page, his relief was exchanged for a concoction that was equal parts wonder and dread.

You must discover a gate and pass through it to the way station on Arantus
, the message read.
Look within any stands of Wyrdwood you
come upon. One of them is bound to have a gate in its midst. Your ring will lead you in the right direction. But you must make haste, for the final hour draws nigh, and she has need of you
.

Again Rafferdy read the brief message, trying to make some sense of it. Which of the magicians of the Fellowship had written it down in his black book just now, causing it to appear in all of the others’ books? And to which of them had the message been directed?

The writing looked like Coulten’s, but those words hardly sounded like something he would say. And as for the intended recipient, Rafferdy could only think the message was directed at him. After all, none of the other magicians in the Fellowship knew about the ancient way station on Arantus. Or at least, he hadn’t thought any of them knew. But clearly, from the wording of the message, Coulten did now. Only why was Rafferdy to try to find a gate to the way station?

He didn’t know, but his eyes fell upon those last words once more.
She has need of you.…

Like the book, his heart gave a jerk. Who else could the message be referring to? Who else was familiar with the way station? And who else was worth journeying to a distant moon to aid?

“Mrs. Quent,” he said aloud.

Rafferdy shut the book and stood. He turned and gazed back the way he had come, and at the thick stand of gnarled trees that crowned the hill. He knew that there were arcane gates hidden within various stands of Old Trees around Altania, just as there had been within the Evengrove. Like the way stations on Tyberion and Arantus, the gates dated to the first war against the Ashen in the distant past. Mrs. Quent had passed through such a gate to reach Heathcrest Hall. Or at least, that had been her intention upon stepping through the leaf-carved door in the house on Durrow Street.

Now Rafferdy had to find such a gate himself. Was it possible there was one here, in this very grove? There was one way to find out.

Your ring will lead you in the right direction.…

Rafferdy tucked the book into his coat pocket, then dashed back along the road to the foot of the hill. Arms and legs pumping swiftly, he climbed to the top, and soon stood before the wall again. There was not a breath of wind, and the branches of the trees drooped over the top of the wall, listless in the warm brightness of day.

Lifting his right hand, Rafferdy peered at his House ring. He shaded it with his other hand, making sure it could catch no sunlight, and gazed into the blue gem. Its center was dark and lifeless, yet he was outside the wall. Could not the thick stones interfere with any arcane energies there might be?

Hardly believing he was doing such a thing, Rafferdy applied his hands and the toes of his boots to the rough stone wall, and after some amount of scrabbling and scraping he was able to reach the top. He swung his legs over. Before him was a deep tangle of green.

Sitting atop the wall, Rafferdy cupped his left hand around his House ring and again looked at the gem. As he did, he swore a soft oath. It was faint but unmistakable: a spark of light winking in the center of the gem.

Abruptly, the spark of light in the gem became easier to discern as the sunlight dimmed a fraction. Was a fog lifting again, or had a cloud passed over the sun? No, for when Rafferdy looked up, the sky above was clear. All the same, there was now an odd cast to the light, and the shadows all around were not as distinct as they should have been in full daylight. Yet if there was no cloud or fog, what else could obscure the sun?

Understanding came to Rafferdy with a shudder.
You must make haste
, the message in his black book had read,
for the final hour draws nigh
.

So it was beginning, then—the Grand Conjunction. One of the planets had begun to edge its way in front of the sun. One by one the other planets would join it, arranging themselves in a single line before the fiery orb. And when they did, all the world would be swallowed in darkness.

His alarm growing, Rafferdy gazed at the trees. The Quelling was always strongest by daylight. But if night were to fall again …

There was no time to worry about such things, for every moment so spent was another moment for the planets to turn. Rafferdy turned onto his stomach, then lowered himself over the wall. He had descended perhaps halfway when his fingers slipped on the mossy stones and he went tumbling. Fortunately, a thick carpet of leaf mold provided a cushion for his fall, and he regained his feet little worse for wear. He brushed the dead matter from his coat, then began to make his way into the trees.

His immediate fear was that he might come upon the bodies of Corporal Hendry, Lieutenant Beckwith, and the witch. He had no wish to see what the trees had done to the men, or to see what Beckwith’s foolishness had wrought upon the young woman who had inhabited this grove. Thankfully, Rafferdy had climbed the wall at a different point, and he saw no trace of them or the weapons cache.

Soon enough, though, another dread came over him. This was not the first time Rafferdy had walked among Old Trees, but while this grove was much smaller than the Evengrove, the air was no less dense and stifling. A feeling of oppression pressed down on him, making it a labor to draw a breath or take a step. Despite this, he clenched his jaw and moved ever deeper into the tangle of roots and branches. Daylight and the Quelling had made the trees calm, so if he did nothing to disturb them, they should remain so.

As he went, he glanced frequently at his House ring. At first the blue spark within the gem flickered like a candle caught in a breeze. Then, as the green gloom thickened, the gem began to shine more steadily, growing brighter and brighter with each step. Without doubt, there was something in the grove that emanated arcane energies. Though whether it was a gate, or some other relic of the ancient war against the Ashen, he could not say. An urge came upon him to utter runes of protection, but he resisted it, recalling how the witch had likened the language of magick to the
tongue of the Ashen. He did not want to do anything that might provoke the trees.

Rafferdy pressed on, until the stone wall was lost to view behind him. In the green twilight beneath the trees, his House ring smoldered like a blue coal. Whatever it was that lay within the center of the grove, it had to be close now. Then, as he gingerly pushed aside a branch, he saw it.

A blocky shape stood in the center of a small clearing. To other eyes, it would have been no more than a jumble of old stones—the remnants of a well or chimney, perhaps. Yet Rafferdy was sure no one had ever built a dwelling in the middle of this stand of primeval forest—just as he was sure no other person had laid eyes upon these stones in living memory. For an eon or more, these stones had stood here as the moss grew upon them: dark and dormant, waiting for the touch of magick to awaken them again.

And now, at long last, a magician had come.

Fascinated, Rafferdy drew close to the gate—for he had no doubt that was what it was. The shape of the arch was unmistakable beneath a shroud of vine and leaf, and as he brushed away the moss, deep gouges in the stones were revealed: angular lines and symbols that formed words of a language older than mankind itself.

Rafferdy supposed he was exceedingly lucky that this stand of Wyrdwood had indeed concealed a gate in its center. Or perhaps it was not luck at all, and many such artifacts remained hidden within the primeval groves. Maybe it was because of these very gates that such groves had endured over the years—maybe the presence of arcane energies associated with the Ashen served to agitate the Old Trees, and to prevent them from falling into a deep slumber under the force of the Quelling. Instead they remained restless. And so, being the most likely to lash out when cut or burned, these groves were the very ones that had endured the longest.

It was an interesting theory, at least, and one worth exploring at a later time. For the moment, it was enough to know this
one gate was here. As gently as he could, Rafferdy pushed the vines away from the arch and scraped the moss from the stones, so that he could discern the runes incised upon them. Once these were revealed, he studied them, making sure he recognized them all.