Thornlost (Book 3) (19 page)

“Why don’t you?” Rafe asked. “Even the tiny piece you’ve let him tell sounds a good story.”

“And I’d tell the rest of it,” Chat said pointedly, “if this lot would shut up.”

“Something to moisten your throat, then,” Mieka said, passing over a bottle.

When Chat—and everyone else—was sufficiently lubricated, he went on, “The
balaurin
invaded, and the Humans were losing, and even alliances with Wizards and Gnomes and Goblins and Elves and all other magical folk couldn’t help. There were great battles and small skirmishes, and every day the
balaurin
killed more people and took more land. So the wisest elders of all the races had
a lengthy and worried talking, and it was decided that a special order of knights should be created, and bestowed with powers given by each of the magical races according to their ability.”

“Like ‘The Pikseys and the Sunrise Child’!” Mieka exclaimed. “You know, the one nobody does anymore, about the baby and the gifts the Pikseys gave her, and the Fae weren’t invited to the Namingday and got all huffy and then—”

“Tripe,” Vered sniffed.

“Twaddle,” Rafe agreed.

“Twee,” was Sakary’s verdict.

Mieka sulked. “I
like
that story.”

“Let him get on with this one,” Cade said. He rested his head against the piled pillows of his chosen couch, watching the lantern crystals spin rainbows over the ceiling as a breeze drifted through open windows. His imagination supplied what Chat’s narrative talents did not, and he began to see what a true storyteller might do with it.

“Where was I? Ah. It’s not known exactly what skills and powers were given these knights, or who gave what, or how it was done. There was a mighty battle, and once the dust blew clear, the
balaurin
were all dead, except for a few that were sent back to their Eastern homeland in silver chains.” He glanced at Mieka and added, “And draped in necklaces of garlic, because, it was said, that was the only plant with a scent strong enough to counter the stench of demons.”

“So how did garlic get linked to warding off Vampires?”

Chat gave a shrug. “Hells if I know. Anyways, once the
balaurin
were defeated, the knights were so exhausted that none of them lived much longer. All of them died within weeks of each other. They were buried in a single huge tomb with a stone monument above it, and a shrine that got added to as the years went by. The shrine’s a ruin now, of course, after all these centuries. But spellcastings were put onto the tomb and the
stones have never so much as quivered in an earthquake—and that part of the Continent gets earthquakes every few score years or so. They say the locals talk of a curse being put on it by the few
balaurin
who survived, and they won’t go near the place.”

“And from that,” Vered said, “he wants us to write a play.”

“It could be done,” Cade mused. “Pick one of the knights to be the hero, do the scene with the giving of powers—”

Sakary gave a soft, heartfelt groan. “You’re about to suggest the big battle, aren’t you?”

Rafe nodded in sympathy. “Dust, blood, wounds, terror, clashing swords and screaming horses, shouted orders, thirst, confusion, spellcastings—and that’s just for starters. It’d be a horror for a glisker, even worse for a fettler.”

“One of the stories,” Chat said stubbornly, “says that some of the new-made knights were given silver arrows. Some others were given wooden lances. And one of them, who’d had his hand lopped off in an earlier battle, he got a replacement hand made of wood that worked as well as his real one.”

“Not with the girls, I’ll bet,” Mieka said.

Jeska was unamused and saucer-eyed. “But—garlic and silver, and a wooden spike—those are all to do with Vampires!”

“Exactly.” Chat drained his drink and wrapped his arms around a huge crimson pillow. “Which is why it’s so odd that tales about Vampires linger on the Continent, and even crossed the Flood to Albeyn. If the
balaurin
were all killed, except those few who were sent back, and there were never any more of them seen again, why do we know about garlic and silver and wood?”

“We like nightmares,” Cade mused. “The more scared we are, the better it is to go home to our nice warm safe beds.”

“The way I hear it,” Rauel said with a sly grin, “no bed is safe from Mieka Windthistle. There’s a girl in Sidlowe—”

“Which one?” Mieka asked innocently.

Rafe drained his drink and pushed himself upright amidst
his nest of pillows. “By your kind leave, gentlemen, I’ve heard enough stories for one night. I make my living by them, ’tis true, but there’s naught in my contract says I have to listen to
him
any more than absolutely necessary. I give you good evening,” he finished, and fell over onto the carpet.

Yazz was summoned to carry him off to his chamber. The Shadowshapers’ driver, Rist—also part Giant—came to help, but Sakary, Rauel, Chat, and Jeska departed under their own power. Mieka lingered a while, finishing off a bottle, then made his slow, lurching ramble to the stairs.

Vered waited for him to go, then turned to Cade. “Learned me lesson, finally, about drink,” he confided wryly. “One glass of wine with dinner, one glass of brandy after, and I’m done.”

Cade grinned. “Keep it quiet, though, or you’ll ruin all our reputations.” So saying, he upended the last of a bottle down his throat.

“Can you keep it quiet that I’ve been working on the very tale Chat told us tonight?”

“Have you, now?”

“I know a good story when I hear one—even if it’s been mangled in the meantime. Like your ‘Treasure’ piece. That’s what gave me the encouragement.” He hesitated. “Mieka says you have a lot of old books.”

“Ah.” Now Cade understood. “Anytime. For an appropriate fee, of course!”

Vered threw a pillow at him. “You’ll be in luck if I don’t hold them to ransom, once I’ve got me hands on ’em! Where’d they all come from, anyways?”

“They belonged to my grandsir, who was a fettler.”

“Not a Vampire tregetour, like you and me and Rauel?”

Cade spluttered with laughter. “Where’d that notion come from?”

“Think on it, son. When we prime the withies, is it just our
own experiences we use? No. It’s observing other people. Taking note of how they react. Gathering up bits and pieces from all over the place to put into the plays. We take, whether people want to give or not—and if they don’t want to be giving of it, we know how to be taking of what we need anyways.”

Cade had never thought of it like that before, and said so.

“Like the knights in the story,” Vered went on, speaking to the starlight outside the windows. “They were given powers and spells, I reckon, just like us. They used them, just like us—”

“And knackered themselves unto death! Not one of my ambitions!”

“Yeh, but—I’ve a thought that perhaps they took, too, mayhap what they weren’t supposed to, and there’s more to their dying after the final battle than Chat ever heard the telling of. So I’d like a look into your books, if I may. Something’s there in that tale that niggles at me brain.”

Cade tried to weave his own brain around it, and for a moment thought he knew where Vered was going. Then the last swallows of brandy hit him, and he lost the threads.

{“—writing about the Knights of the Balaur Tsepesh, Your Grace. At least, that’s what I gather from what my daughter’s husband has said.”

It was a dim little room, scarcely more than a cubbyhole, with no windows and no furnishings. But although it was very cold, she wore only a thin cloak. She stood with hands folded and head raised high, an interesting combination of servility and arrogance. The disparity of emotions on the man’s face was more complex: impatience, a contrived boredom, alert interest, and annoyance at his dependence on this person he despised and needed.

“Tell me precisely, woman.”

“Yes, Your Grace. Vered Goldbraider has borrowed books from Cayden Silversun. One afternoon Goldbraider arrived at Wistly Hall, where Touchstone had gathered for rehearsal, to return several of these books and request several more. His words were these: ‘Anything to do with the Knights of the Balaur Tsepesh, the ones with a red dragon as their symbol.’ My daughter’s nephew-by-marriage is a child fascinated by dragons, so she looked into one or two of the books, thinking most kindly to find a story to tell him—”

“I care nothing for tales told to children at bedtime,” the Archduke snapped. “What else did Goldbraider say?”

“He asked if Silversun has any books dealing with your part of the world, Your Grace. He meant, of course, the lands your ancestor came from. Silversun replied that he might have better luck at the Royal Archives. It was mention of Your Grace’s name that alerted my daughter, you see, and she paid attention, but nothing else of interest was said.”

“I have told you before,
everything
Silversun says and does is of interest to me.”

“And I have reported what I have been able to discover, Your Grace—”

“All of it?”

“All of it, Your Grace.”

“Goldbraider,” he murmured then. “Pity he’s so stubborn. So volatile. He would have been useful.”

“But the Shadowshapers refused Your Grace’s offer—”

“How did you hear of that?” he demanded sharply.

“The Elf.”

“Of course. The Elf. Always the Elf.” He pulled from his coat pocket a folded piece of parchment, extending it to her as a wary kennel-master extends food to a bitch known to bite.}

“Cade? I asked what you think, and you haven’t said a word.” He looked over at Vered: the white-blond hair, the dark skin, the combination of Elf and Wizard and Goblin and who knew what all else—except that Black Lightning with their magic could have touched whatever was in him and he would feel it, sense it, know what exactly he was, just as Cayden had felt and sensed and known the Fae and Troll and Goblin blood in himself—

“Sorry,” he managed. “Just thinking it over.”

—the
dirty
blood, just as Piksey and Sprite and Gnome were
dirty
, children of the Lord and Lady yet banished as unworthy in Black Lightning’s version of the story—

“Sounds interesting,” he said at random.

—Black Lightning, who either had been or soon would be approached by the Archduke, Cade felt certain, even though he’d never seen it in an Elsewhen—the Archduke who wanted to know everything Cade said and did, and had Mistress Caitiffer in her hooded cloak of thin black velvet that kept out the cold with warming spells to spy on him through her daughter, the way her daughter had told of Mieka’s drunken rant that revealed Cade’s foreseeing—

“Of course. The Elf. Always the Elf.”

“How—how would you go about it?” he asked, abjectly grateful that the question seemed to have some meaning for Vered, who started talking again. Not that Cade really heard him.

—and did this all mean that the Archduke actually believed? Cade had reassured himself for months now that the notion was too outrageous to evoke aught but laughter. But what if the Archduke
did
believe?

With an effort he collected his scattered thoughts and concentrated on what Vered was saying. The night breeze had freshened, tinkling the crystal drops with a noise that hurt his ears.

“—mainly through the eyes of the Wizard who gives one of the knights a silver hand.”

“I thought it was made of wood.”

“Rotten stage effect. Can’t think yet what a silver hand might
do, but it’s a much better visual than wood. And the knight—”

“The Knights of Balaur Tsepesh,” Cade heard himself say.

“Of what?”

“I–I heard it someplace. Vered, I’m sorry, but I’m too paved right now to remember. I need some sleep.”

Eyeing him, Vered nodded agreement. “Might be an idea to follow my example, y’know, about the drinking,” he suggested. “You’re not so luffed that you’ll forget about the books?”

Cade shook his head and pushed himself to his feet. “I’ll remember. Come see me at Redpebble when we’re back in Gallybanks. And lend us a shoulder, eh? There’s too many stairs between me and my bed.”

* * *

H
ad this been the Winterly, Mieka would most likely have been in the throes of his annual head cold and spent their time off recovering. This year—healthy and ready to have some fun—he was relentless. Rising at noon, he ran through the gardens, the castle, the nearby village, and the serving girls until well after midnight, and he did this for five solid days.

Jeska occupied himself most days with riding, professing himself sick to the eyeballs of any company but his own—but of course he found congenial female company by night. Jeska, Cade was convinced, could find congenial female company in the middle of a desert. Rafe explored the castle between penning a long letter to Crisiant, appearing each evening at dinner to detail newly discovered amazements. Lord Rolon Piercehand’s ships traveled all over the world, and constantly brought back the latest in beauties and oddities to amuse him and his guests. Rafe (and Mieka) devoutly avoided the room with all the stuffed animal heads; these had a tendency to roar. In his meanderings he found an upstairs chamber full of glass cases containing lidded baskets of all sizes made of all sorts of things: reeds, rope, beads, bones, spun silver, and something he swore looked like hair. Another room was devoted to rock specimens, some of them as large as a horse trough. There was a collection of weird white marble figures, all of them with folded arms and blank faces, in the same chamber as about a hundred little black metal figurines with elongated spidery limbs. A smallish chamber contained an assortment of human skulls, some of them painted or decorated with beads. The display of clocks had been added to, as had the roomful of musical instruments.

“And somebody’s bespelled it,” Rafe concluded, “so that when the door opens, everything there plays the same note. As for the room with the skulls—”

Mieka shuddered. “They open their jaws and yell. Been there. Not going anyplace near it again!”