The Seventh Friend (Book 1) (32 page)

“I helped her when she was in trouble,” he said.

“And you have a Durander Court Piper playing at your inn!” he shook his head in amazement, and looked across at Harad. “Well, that explains a lot,” he said. He must have seen the slight puzzlement on Arbak’s face, because he smiled again. “You don’t know,” he said.

“What don’t I know?”

“What she is.”

“A friend,” Arbak said.

“It certainly does you credit to say so, Colonel,” Quinnial said. “She’s a court piper, and I’ll bet my sword there’s not another this side of the Dragon’s Back, indeed, not another outside Durandar. She’s a Master of the path of Halith, a Mage. If she wasn’t sitting in your inn charming the customers she’d be qualified to sit on Hammerdan’s council, the world’s heart itself.”

“A mage?” He could no longer hide his ignorance.

“My father would have given a thousand guineas to have her march with him to war. Do you know what she can do?”

“She plays very fine music,” Arbak replied. He had decided to be obstinate. He was beginning to realise that he had no really adequate notion of what Sheyani was, or what she was capable of, but to him she was exactly what he had said. She was a fine musician, a woman who he had helped, and a friend.

“You seem to be a man of singular sensibilities, Colonel,” Quinnial said. “I admire that in a man. Be careful what you use her for.”

“Sheyani is her own woman, my lord,” Arbak said. “She will do what she wants to do.”

Quinnial shook his head again. “You really need to learn something about Durander customs, Colonel. They are a very formal people. Every word has special meaning. What she called you, for example: Sheshay. Did she explain that?”

“She said it was a term of respect,” Arbak said, but he knew it meant something else, and he knew that Quinnial was going to tell him. It was like his brief flirtation with schooling, decades ago. Having learned to read and write he’d considered that education enough and fled the place to pick up a sword.

“It is, but it’s a special term of respect. She’s only permitted to give that title to one man,” he grinned at Arbak’s apparent alarm. “No, don’t worry, you’re not married.” Arbak felt slightly foolish, and slightly relieved, but there was a shade of disappointment there as well, and he wondered at that. “According to Durander tradition a mage can only have one master. Most talents of her rank would give that honour to Hammerdan. She has chosen you, for whatever reason. As long as you live she will do what you tell her in the face of all others. Sheshay means master; it means ruler, commander, wise man, all those things and more. The only thing she will not do for you is break Durander law.”

“I had no idea,” Arbak said. He tried to recall when she had first called him by that name, and could not, but he was sure that is was early, almost as soon as she had started working for him. “Why would she do that, choose me like that?”

Quinnial shrugged. “A man’s education only goes so far, Colonel, no matter how expensive it is. There are rumours, of course, but they contradict each other, and I would not want to feed you a lie.”

“Well, my lord, you have certainly added to my own education, and I will bear what you have said in mind, of course, but I am Avilian, and no matter the custom elsewhere I will do what is right in my own mind.”

“Spoken like an honest soldier, but Colonel be careful. There are those in the city who would not be pleased that a Durander Mage walks free in our streets, Telans among them. That is why none of us here will breathe a word of this,” and he looked at the lady who accompanied him, and at Harad with serious eyes. “Not a word, do you understand?”

They nodded.

“Have I done something wrong, my lord?” Arbak’s question was a bald one. He felt it was something he had to ask. So much of what Quinnial had said seemed to bode ill, and danger now seemed to threaten for all quarters. He felt he was being chastised for his foolishness, and yet in his heart he knew that he could not have acted any differently, he had done the right thing, and he challenged Quinnial to deny it. Besides, he had a protector; one that even the Lords of Avilian feared. He walked with the wolf.

“No,” Quinnial laughed. “I cannot fault you. With what you knew you could not have done better. You have acted with honour, and it has won you a great prize. I wish you joy of it.”

“Joy. Well, we shall see, my lord.” He stood. “I thank you for this commission, and I shall do my best to see that the regiment is raised and trained, but now I have a business to attend to, so I will leave you to your conversation. Anything you wish will be brought.”

He left them, but he did not go back to the public room. He opened the door to the kitchen just enough to let him see in, and watched Sheyani eating for a short while. She was sitting quietly, hunched over a plate of the excellent leek and onion stew; Arbak’s own recipe; and talking occasionally with the cook. She looked small, almost child sized, just as she had done on the first day she came into the inn. She looked harmless, even vulnerable. A mage?

He had been a fool. He allowed the door to shut quietly and went up to his own rooms above the inn. One of these days he was going to buy a house on the good side of town and leave the running of the inn to someone else, but not for a few years. He should have known better. The first time he heard her play, the very first time, when he was walking through the streets of Bas Erinor with Bargil and heard the haunting music beckoning him, he should have known.

A wise man would fear her. A wise man would not have a Durander Mage playing in his inn every night.

He smiled.

Why, then, I am a fool.

He had wasted three days, but they were days that he had needed to waste. He had spent them in the forest, being the wolf, running through the clean air and sleeping in drifts of dead leaves among the great trees, feeling the simple and grand spirit of it flooding into his soul.

There was no hurry. He had days. He knew where the armies lay, and it would be days yet before Havil joined the others on the northern borders of Afael. The enemy had not moved. He did not see the advantage in that, but did not doubt that it was part of a plan. The moves Seth Yarra had made so far had been foiled, all but one. They had taken blood silver from the mines of Bel Erinor, and now they could kill the members of the Benetheon, but it was not so great an advantage. Cavalry was more important.

Perhaps they thought that the fortifications they had built would alter the balance, but Narak had no intention of attacking walls. There were other ways.

Now he was at his ease. His muscles had lost the tension of the previous weeks, and he found himself able to relax and enjoy a meal with Caster in the old audience chamber. Now that war was certain he could put it out of his mind.

They talked of inconsequential things. Wine and food, the mildness of the season, but eventually the conversation drifted round to swords and sword play. It always did when he talked with Caster. Narak described in detail the fight with the twelve Seth Yarra cleansers at Bel Arac, carefully explaining each move they had made, and how he had countered it. Caster followed well enough, but after a while Narak noticed that his friend was growing less enthusiastic.

“You miss it, old friend?” he asked.

“I was once the finest bladesman in three kingdoms, Deus,” Caster replied. “I have not tested myself against another man for as long as I can recall.”

“You are still the finest I have ever fought, Caster.”

The swordmaster shrugged. “High praise, but it means less that it once did. You will forgive me for being blunt, Deus, but this is a just cause, and my skill would serve it well.”

Narak was silent for a moment. He understood Caster’s eagerness to be part of the battle, but he did not want to lose another friend, and Caster was only a man for all his skill, and in any battle he would certainly seek out the most dangerous places, test his steel in the hottest fires.

“You are Wolfguard’s protector, Caster…”

“Then I am a lock on an empty box, Deus. Nobody has attempted Wolfguard since it was built.”

“But if we fail in this battle…”

“You will not. Numbers and strategy are on your side, the armies that you lead are loyal and strong. You will sweep them aside as you did four hundred years ago, and I will sit here and grow fat and lose my self respect.”

“Caster, you will not go.” He spoke softly, but he saw from the look in the swordmaster’s eyes that the steel of his words had got through the other man’s guard.

“It is too late anyway,” Caster said, his tone resigned. “By the time I got to the east coast the battle would be a month past.”

“I am sorry, Caster,” Narak said. “But since Perlaine’s death I have been afraid to lose another friend. I have so few that have travelled so long with me, now only you and Narala and Poor remain.”

Caster nodded. “I know, but I have to say these things, Deus. I begin to doubt my own fighting spirit. It has been so long since it was roused.”

Narak poured another glass of wine. “
I
do not doubt it,” he said.

“And to think this all started with some fool killing dogs in Bas Erinor,” Caster said.

Narak stopped with his glass half way to his lips. A fool, Caster had said, and indeed it was a foolish thing to do, a thing almost guaranteed to draw his attention in the end, but he had not been looking, and finally it was a note that had appeared beneath his wine glass, or beneath Caster’s, at least, telling him where to look.

How foolish, then, were Seth Yarra? He had seen no evidence of it apart from this one thing, and so perhaps it was not foolish, and if not foolish, then clever, and that was a cause for worry. He had been drawn to Bas Erinor. He had found the spy, Keb, and Keb had pointed him to a place north of Afael, and there an army of Seth Yarra was landed and waiting. It was like a trail of flour laid along the floor for him to follow, and he had followed, barely looking to the sides. Even if he had not found Keb he would have picked up the knowledge from Bel Arac, from the Marquis. It was as though they had left signposts all across the kingdoms for him to follow.

Yet there was an army on the Great Plain, and it could not be ignored.

He tried to remember what the Bren had told him. They had a great many men under arms, the Seth Yarra, and many ships. Yet the Bren had promised to deal with them just a year and a few months from now; the spring after the one that comes. It was truly winter now, and spring would be hard on its heels. It was not a long time to hold, and knowing this much he could perhaps just wait, keep them penned behind their walls for a year and then step aside for the Bren.

“You are lost in thought, Deus.”

“I am sorry. My thoughts wander back to the war.”

“As they should,” Caster sighed and drained what was left in his glass in a single swallow. “And I shall leave you to your war, Deus. I have more inconsequential things to tend to.”

He watched his friend leave, wishing he could do more for him, and as soon as he was gone Narak rose and walked with purpose down to the lair. The Bren Ashet had said that it would wait in the lair, and he wanted to question it again.

He took a single lamp with him, trimmed it low. He knew that the Bren preferred darkness. There was no other light in the lair, and he looked about the large room, unable to see any sign of the creature.

“Are you there, Bren Ashet?”

“I am here.”

He hated the way the Bren could do that. It was standing to his left in full view, and yet just a moment ago he would have sworn he had looked in that direction and not seen it.

“I have questions,” he said. The Bren blinked. It said nothing. Narak put the lamp down and sat in a chair. “Of all the messages that you could have left, you chose to point me to the most trivial thing. You did not mention Seth Yarra; you did not mention that an army was being landed on the shores of the Great Plain. Almost any piece of information would have been more useful to me than the one you chose to give me. Why is that?”

“I do not understand the question.”

“It is simple enough. Why did you give me the least useful piece of information when you had many more valuable secrets to impart?”

“I carried the message. That is all.”

“I am asking the sender of the message. I take it that he has another Bren Ashet just like you at his side, and that even as I speak he is being told what I say.”

The Bren shifted uneasily. It blinked three times. It was the first time that he had seen it make an involuntary movement. He was right then. The Ashet were a conduit, one here, one there, repeating his every word, reporting every movement.

“It is true,” the Bren said.

“Does the sender who refused to name himself have an answer for me?”

The Bren said nothing again. It stood quite still and did not blink. It was listening, he guessed, to another part of its scattered mind. How would that be, he wondered, to be in ten thousand places all at once, to see the world through a myriad of eyes? He saw one thing at a time, sometimes less. He tried to imagine seeing through the eyes of every wolf, all the time; to know what they knew, to hear and scent the woods, the plains, even cities and mountains all in the space of a breath. Surely it would be a brief prelude to madness.

“The sender will speak to you,” the Bren said.

“What does he say?”

“You misunderstand, Narak. He will speak to your face. He will not converse through Bren Ashet.”

“He will come here?” Narak was on his feet. He wasn’t altogether sure that he wanted another Bren in Wolfguard. One was enough strangeness in the place.

“No. You will come to him.”

“I will?”

“There will be answers to your questions.”

“How far must I go?”

“It is far, but it will not take long. There are quick roads beneath.”

Quick roads? What could the creature mean by that? Roads were roads, and the speed you travelled depended upon your feet, of if you were more fortunate upon the feet of your mount. He had no more time for consideration, however. The Bren touched the wall next to where it was standing and the stone simply ceased to be there. Instead there was an opening about six feet in height and the same across. He saw stairs vanishing down into the darkness.

“I will be safe?” he asked.

The Bren paused before the doorway, its pale skin framed in the darkness of the opening. Listening again.

“It is assured,” it said. “Follow me. You will not need a light.”

Narak put the lamp down with great misgivings and when he looked up the Bren was no longer visible. He stepped up to the doorway. He would never have guessed that there was a secret door in his own lair, the safest, most private place in his home, but there it was. He could see steps leading down, plunging into stygian darkness.

He eased down slowly, one step at a time, and very quickly he was blinded by the dark, running his hands over the rough stone walls as he edged down. The steps seemed to spiral down to the left, and he paused after perhaps a dozen paces and looked back. There was a faint glow above him, yellow lamplight glinting off a few stones that caught it and passed on a fraction of its comfort, but no more.

He listened. He hoped to hear footfalls ahead of him, but he heard nothing. The silence made noises out of nothing, a faint hum, a hissing. These were the noises that he heard when there were no others, when he sat alone in the lair and listened to the rock, the blood pumping around his body, his own noise.

“Why have you stopped?”

The Bren’s voice made him jump. It was no more than a few feet away, and startlingly loud. He looked in the direction from which it had come, but could see nothing.

“I am blind here,” he said.

“There is light,” the Bren assured him. “It is enough for the Bren.”

Narak waited a little longer for his eyes to grow accustomed to the dark, but beyond the faintest glow he could make out nothing. He was as likely to break his neck as get to his destination like this. He thought for a moment about going back for the lamp, but he realised there was another solution. He was a wolf, after all.

He dropped the veil and took on his aspect. Suddenly he saw the walls, the roof of the tunnel above him, and the Bren just a few feet below. The walls themselves appeared to give off a faint, greenish light, and a closer look revealed a lichen coating every surface. It was the source of the glow. The Bren took a step away from him. It looked cowed and afraid. So the power of the aspect was not wasted on the night folk. Well, that was worth knowing.

“I see better in my true form,” he said. “Lead on.”

The Bren nodded and quickly began down again. It continued for some time, turning down the stair as it corkscrewed into the rock, always just in sight. It moved silently, did not brush the walls as it passed, a feat that Narak tried to emulate, but could not. His hands sought the comfort of the rock, otherwise their descent was so fast and spun them so that he felt he might fall from dizziness.

The passage ended, and they burst out into a vast chamber. This was the cave beneath Wolfguard, he was sure. The roof was a hundred feet above him, and great spears of rock plunged down from it, meeting towers from below like the teeth of some mythical beast. He paused. The lichen was here, too. It was everywhere, but not on the teeth of rock.