Andrea K. Höst's Blog, page 6
May 31, 2017
Inn - Chap 3
What is it with me and abandoned white stone buildings?
Chapter ThreeAn uncomfortable cot. A dark, enclosed room. Cold. Dull, lingering pains, none much more than skin-deep.
Shan registered the facts separately, slowly coming awake in work-mode, where waking was a cautious transition. She was on assignment, had been making the journey home from an assignment when all this had happened. One of the most important tasks she'd ever been given, and now with no hope of completion in time. Perhaps having one of the Hands in Irrelath was even more important than the letter hidden in her gear, but that would be small consolation to those whose futures were tied to the information it contained.
Sighing, Shan opened her eyes, blinking at darkness. Her room had apparently been a cupboard until recently. A cot had been shoved into it to take advantage of the mass of travellers heading to Arras Island for the five-year convocation of all the Charter Councillors. It left room for practically nothing else, not even a bedside table, let alone a window to release the lingering scent of wet cloth left to moulder.
Glad as ever for the disks that were reward and tool of her profession, Shan slid a hand under the thin pillow and pulled out the light disk, turned it over four times and blinked at the ceiling instead of the dark. The view wasn't that much better.
Casting off lethargy, she slid out from the warmth of the bed and stripped so she could salve and reinspect the wounds she'd collected from her tumble with the table. Deliberate attempts to kill her had done less damage than this. She wondered if it had, after all, been an attempt to waylay her, and nothing to do with Armitans.
All her gear, including the useless saddlebags, was piled beside and under the bed, taking up what little standing room the cupboard offered. She wished for a thicker jacket, but expected her heavy cloak would take care of the matter. To think she'd been cursing bringing it along! Having endured the cold long enough, she dressed rapidly, wrapped the cloak around her body and opened the door, thumbing the light disk off as she did so.
It was dark in the corridor as well, but there was a glimmer around the corner, in the common room of the inn, and without surprise discovered that Stehl Lacey knew shadow mages as well as Shan, and was up before the dawn, talking in a soft voice with...hmm, Lady Kinrathen. Shan abandoned the idea of listening to the conversation from the shadows of the doorway. If there was one thing she'd learned from that time in the Armaithe Lands, it was that Armitans had damnably good hearing. The woman had probably heard her walking up the corridor, soft-footed as Shan was. Well, most people called it good hearing, but Shan suspected 'sixth sense' was a better term. They just tended to know when someone was watching.
Walking out, she thought obliquely that a latrine trench would definitely have to be on the morning's agenda, though she'd almost bet that any shovels owned by the inn-keep would have been stored in his cellar along with the rest of everything useful. Nodding to Stehl Lacey, she turned the courtesy into a quarter bow for Lady Elas Kinrathen, one of three Council members for the Armaithe Lands. A vidare in Armiten rank, which was something on the lines of an earl.
"Ah, sharp-eyes," Stehl Lacey said, eyes flicking over Shan in the comprehensive way which revealed her experience. "Do you have a name?"
"Shanataire Pendar."
Shan sat down on the edge of one of the long tables, and glanced over to the corner where the unfortunates who had reached the inn late, or couldn't afford the prices Jomny Hobben had been charging for rooms, slept on the boards the common room charge provided. Bring your own blanket space.
"Call me Shan," she added. "Mages started yet?"
"And the shadow crafters are supposed to be unpredictable," Stehl Lacey replied, with a brief flash of white teeth. Her features were strong and square and there was the faint white line of an old scar running the right side of her jaw. "They're outside, setting themselves up. Something tells me they're not too hopeful."
Shan nodded. She'd known that if the mages were going to make an attempt at communication outside of Irrelath, they'd do so before dawn or after sunset. Lord Twilight lent his strength to spells during those fleeting periods of half-light.
"Since they can't manage even the roughest scry in, stands to reason that there'd be problems getting a message out."
"I owe you my thanks, Shanataire Pendar," Lady Kinrathen said into the pause. "You gave Lonstathen release. I will remember."
Since there wasn't really an answer Shan could return to that she merely met the woman's deep blue eyes for a steady moment and nodded.
"What's today's agenda?" she asked Stehl Lacey. "The mages have their turn, we make sure it's safe to go down to the lake, organise water. Where then? Did my eyes deceive me as the mist rose, or is there some sort of settlement on the far side? The buildings looked new-made."
"And will be our target of the day. If there are people living here still, we will want to discover their nature, and seek their aid. If nothing else, we'll circle the lake to get some idea of the territory."
"Hunt as we go?" Shan asked.
"On the way back, probably," said a new voice. Harl Mendican had risen from the cluster of sleepers in the corner.
He grimaced, rubbing his eyes, though she suspected he'd been awake for more than a minute or two. She wondered how long the mercenaries would maintain their contract with the Spictish merchants. Rendell's Company had a good reputation, which would not have grown if they broke contracts casually, but this situation would probably soon lead to conflict between the merchants' plans and the mercenaries' own interests. That break would be a good thing, when it came, for Shan thought the leader of the merchants - they'd called him Ekridge - was dangerous enough without the added power of five combat-trained men under his command.
"But we won't be taking too many people along with us, Ker," Mendican continued, lean face polite. "Not in unknown and chancy territory. It's not a sightseeing tour."
"Do you have any skills to recommend you?" Stehl Lacey asked, neutrally. "Hunting or scouting experience? Better yet, a room full of snares and a spare bow or two? Harl's men have two bows but we'll be needing more."
Shan shook her head. "I've hunted, but it's not my occupation."
"Which is?"
"I lay ghosts."
There was a short silence, during which Shan managed not to look amused.
"You don't look like a ghost-layer," Harl Mendican said, eventually. "But then, I've only ever seen the one. A rare profession."
"Not many ghosts about," Shan replied, easily. She glanced at the door before meeting Lady Kinrathen's dark eyes a second time. "The Charter Council has matters well arranged so that restless spirits are sent on with the minimum of fuss. I'm presuming there are more here than average."
"Sounds like a useful skill to me," Stehl Lacey said, not displaying any of the discomfort Shan's public profession usually provoked. "I hope you have the tools of your trade with you. For now, we'd best go out, or miss the fun."
It was cold enough outside for breath to puff misty from mouths, only to be stolen by the wind. Shan drew her cloak more closely about her. It was only the first month of autumn, but Irrelath was many miles north of Gonwindar and high country besides.
The moon was much lower in the sky, the land not nearly so clearly lit as when they had arrived, and there was a hint of gray in the air, heralding the half-light that preceded the first edge of the sun. The horse, with one of the Armitans' guardswomen stationed by him, whickered a soft greeting to Lady Kinrathen.
The shadow mages were beyond the circle of consecrated stones, seated cross-legged on a relatively flat area in the dewy grass. Between them was a large flat bowl of water, which immediately made Shan wonder how they'd supplied themselves. Only liquids in sealed kegs had survived, which had naturally meant that those who were inclined had overindulged on dark ale last night and worked themselves up.
Since the mages had already begun the muttered chant that some called spell-casting and others prayer, no-one offered the hooded figures greetings, merely gathering in a loose row uphill from them. Shan amused herself by trying to make out individual words in what was practically a sub-vocal drone, but it was impossible. This was a different sort of casting from that single, power-rich word the woman had used to douse the fire. It required less energy in relation to the result, and produced a more complex effect.
She watched them for a while, but they rarely moved, and then only to pass hands across the flat water surface, never quite touching. The only interesting thing was the fact that they'd taken their gloves off, revealing the usual number of fingers, nothing spectacular. The woman bit her nails down, almost to the quick, which was, when Shan thought about it, very interesting indeed.
A more intensive study, from the wear on the soles of their boots to some determined staring at the glimpses of chin beneath the curve of the overlarge hoods, revealed nothing definitive, but Shan's memory could not produce anything to naysay, either. A interesting conclusion, but probably premature. She would wait on that one.
She was staring across the lake through the still-heavy gloom, when Lady Kinrathen spoke. "You are not adept at following orders, bondsman," she said, and Shan was not the only one who tensed, realising that a fifth person had joined them in watching the mages. Armitans. There was something unfair about being able to move that quietly.
"You are generous to leave me lee-way in your commands, my liege," the tallest of the Armitans replied.
Shan glanced at him, at the rich and beautiful cloak and the complete lack of wealth or decoration displayed by the rest of his clothing. He did not even sport the small circular metal ornaments most Armitans clipped to the beginning or ends of the braids they wore before each ear. The cloak was a glaring inconsistency and she suspected that he had not planned to use it yet. It had to be one of those honour commitments Armitans were so fond of. She looked back over the lake. Ironic. Perhaps no-one would turn out to be who they appeared. Shan, who really was a ghost-layer, knew a great deal about hiding truths beneath truths, and her public occupation was a wonderful excuse for travelling to all manner of places so she could practice the profession that paid her more. She wore ghost-hunting like that splendid cloak, a thing to transform the way a person was regarded.
The mages stopped speaking, in the abrupt, anticlimactic way that startled so many, and sat there for a heartbeat or two doing nothing. Doubtless those who were actually sensitive to magic would feel the building surge of directed power being drawn from the hooded figures, but Shan had to rely wholly on her imagination and descriptions others had given her of the culmination of spell-casting. Most cats were more sensitive to the arcane than she was. It was one of the requirements of being a ghost-layer.
The light was subtle: a small dawn rose out of the flat bowl of water, a glowing nimbus that expanded to the height of the two seated casters, and slightly beyond the width of the bowl. Pearly-pink in colour, it gradually grew opaque as it darkened. Insensitive as she was, even Shan could feel some hint of the effort that lay behind the long, long pause after it was no longer possible to see through the glow. It was usual for an image to form in the darkness at the centre of the glow at this point. For several flickering moments one appeared, a woman in the dark garb of a shadow mage standing in a gloomy, high-arched hall, but with her hood drawn back to reveal a weary, lined face. She lifted startled eyes, seemingly toward the male shadow mage. Her lips formed several words soundlessly as the image flickered, then she was gone, and the glowing nimbus lost its dark centre, wavered and collapsed.
"That's that," Stehl Lacey murmured, disappointed.
"We will try again in the gloaming," the female mage said firmly, picking up the bowl, which was now empty of water. "That is Lord Twilight's time of full power." She stood, looked the five watchers over, then glanced towards the inn as the first hints of colour tinted the dawn sky. "But even then it is unlikely we would be able to open a link for more than five or ten seconds, if that. By the time we have forced our way through the barriers about this land, we have no strength to maintain the communication. There are other options. We will send a wind word in due course, but that will take days or weeks to reach its destination and even if it is not waylaid, we will have no way of knowing of its arrival."
The male mage rose to his feet slowly, drawing his gloves back on with precise, deliberate movements. "We will rest for an hour, then see about explorations," he said, gesturing to his companion. The pair started back to the inn without another word, leaving a general impression of dismissal behind them.
"Shall we take stock of the grounds before breakfast?" Stehl Lacey asked, directing her question to both Harl Mendican and Lady Kinrathen. "Now that we can see our new demesne?"
"One would wish for a less wind-racked situation, Ker Lacey," Lady Kinrathen replied, mildly. The comment established to Shan that the ex-mercenary and the Armitan Council member had advanced a step beyond an uneasy alliance. Politeness you could always expect from an Armitan, but the very faint air of jest established Stehl Lacey as a person to be awarded something more than formality.
What this group needed was a clear-cut and popular leader, Shan mused as she walked along in the wake of the four other cloak-wrapped figures. It wasn't going to get one, but that did not change the fact that matters would be aided by the absence of groups of Armitan nobles and shadow mages, and the presence of someone who would not be nay-sayed. If Stehl Lacey had a deal more rank than that of respected ex-mercenary, the problem would be solved. The unofficial committee formed by those who walked in front of her had value, but there would surely come a time they would disagree on plans of action and there would be no-one to listen to all sides of the argument and say "Very well. Let us do it this way." The shadow mages had a certain way with commands, but fear and uncertainty would cause an instinctive rejection of them.
Shan found that she did not like an absence of clear authority. Although her assignments left her almost entirely on her own recognizance, there was a certain security in being able to send home for orders, or, as the very last resort, invoke authority at the local division of the Charter Guards. Out here... She sighed, and looked back at the lake as the others began a slow circle along the perimeter of the consecrated stones. It was very close, the lake, and there was something she did not like about it. But doubtless, when the sun had risen, and the morning greys had left the still water, it would become a more attractive place. She stared out at it a long moment, finally picking up the outline of those white buildings she had glimpsed the previous night. Then she cut across the circle to catch up with the others, ignoring the three people who had appeared outside the Cob and Signet and were watching their progress.
The forest behind the inn was more extensive than she had originally estimated. It would be a full day's journey or more to cross it to the rising hills beyond. At least another half day to approach the towers that could be glimpsed on the slope of the nearest mountain. The three nominal leaders were discussing this as Shan approached, and she did not contribute to the debate on how long it would be before the mountains had a covering of snow to make an approach more difficult, attention caught, as the Armitan man's seemed to be, by the stable they were approaching.
"No hostile intent," said the Armitan man, and glanced obliquely at Lady Kinrathen, who looked very steadily at the streamer of dew-wet blood trailing down the hill, and at various things which had changed since Shan had killed the horse.
"Lonstathen has provided a meal to the night-hunters," she said, knitting her brows slightly. Armitans were not sentimental about death.
They examined the stable in silence, noting the tracks of at least five animals crossing the blood-stream. Wolves, though Shan was no expert in animal tracks. They had dug to widen the gap beneath the inner stall wall and the ground, and feasted well on horse-flesh.
"Dispose of what remains of Lonstathen appropriately, Kier," Lady Kinrathen ordered her bondsman. She looked at Stehl Lacey and Harl Mendican thoughtfully. "It would not be wise, I think, to stable Reventh here, but we might be able to use the timbers to construct a shelter for him in a less exposed place."
Harl Mendican nodded. "I'll consult with Hobben, get him to collect together what tools will be useful. I hope he didn't keep everything in that blasted cellar of his. I don't look forward to trying to make stone axes."
Shan unlatched the stall Reventh had been in, and walked inside. She had been curious how the big horse had managed to come through the journey intact, and discovered what she presumed to be her answer in a ledge formed by a thick base board of the wall dividing the stalls, probably not even as wide as the gelding's hoof. It had come away from its mooring, pushed down instead of up, and Shan touched white, recent scarring on the wood with one gloved finger. "Smart horse," she murmured. "Or lucky." She glanced up to see Lady Kinrathen watching her, and thought about the tales which claimed that some of the animals which dwelt in the Armaithe Lands had shifter blood, were descendants of Armitans who had been in animal form when they had lost their ability to alter their shape.
No-one knew just why the Armitans had lost that ability, all at once. Most were of the opinion that it was a curse set upon them by a devotee of Lord Heth in retaliation for some offence, or merely to greatly weaken one of the most formidable fighting forces in the Realms.
The completed tour around the inn revealed more forest, hills and mountains. A dew-soaked land, early silence occasionally broken by the call of several varieties of birds, subdued and distant. The wind, finally slackening, contributed most of the small amount of noise to be heard. Their new home.
Returning to the inn, Shan gladly avoided the small, upright old woman who stopped Stehl Lacey and began to either lecture or interrogate her. A dozen early risers were scattered about the front room of the inn, and the scent of cooking emanated from the inner reaches of the kitchen. Having resignedly eaten the slightly burnt porridge that was eventually produced, Shan shut herself back in her cupboard to select what she might need for a scouting trip in Irrelath, stocking a light shoulder bag with care, then taking the opportunity to rest a little more, wanting to clean herself up, but settling for chewing a charam stick. She had so disliked the sharp taste of charam sticks when she was a child, had chewed them only because her mother would gleefully point out people whose teeth had virtually rotted away and make appropriate comments about living with the taste. Now there were times when her mouth simply didn't feel right if she didn't chew charam in the morning. She wondered if they would be able to find a supply here, and realised she had no idea what the plant looked like.
After an appropriate interval she went back out and knew immediately that word had spread about her profession. It was in the way people didn't look at her, or watched her when she was not looking at them. That was why ghost-laying was such a wonderful occupation for a Hand to hide behind. Most people were made so nervous by the thought of her association with the uneasy dead that they did not enquire too deeply into her activities. On more than one occasion, when Shan had been caught out in places she shouldn't be - foolish carelessness - she had bluffed her way through because ghost-layers did wander about into odd places. This lot would get used to her soon enough. There was usually a day or two of uncertainty, while it was established that her presence was not going to cause a sudden, mass out-turning of graves, and then they would begin to relax and accept, but never forget. There were so many stories, true and false, about what ghost-layers actually did.
Shan had timed herself to be out before the mages - she knew that the shadow breed had a tendency to exactness and, in saying an hour, would mean precisely that, despite the inn's sole clock being little more than shattered wood piled by the hearth. She judged it to be only little more than an hour after dawn, but most of the inn's occupants were now up and about. The watchfulness in the common room wasn't all awarded to her. The four Armitans stood just outside the door with their two guardswomen, having an involved conversation in the liquid language of their kind: discussing moving the stable. Some of the audience were hostile, the rest cautious. The distance Armitans liked to maintain from those outside their land meant they were both interesting and an unknown quantity. Similar to Shan's own position, there were many stories, true and false.
One girl, the red-haired Gonwindan, who was easily the most attractive resident of Irrelath, developed a particular expression in her eye and Shan looked to the door again, to see the Armitan Lady Kinrathen had called Kier pass out of view. It was a common enough name, meant "In honour" or something close to that. She wondered who he was when he wasn't being a bondsman. He wasn't wearing that cloak any more, but plain clothing could not disguise a certain unconscious confidence of carriage, not to mention the face, the height and the grace. Well, if the redhead wanted to try her luck, Shan would not begrudge her the chance. Armitans did not exclude humans from their beds - Shan had found that out when she had visited the Armaithe Lands - and certainly he would fill a bed most admirably during the cold nights to come. But taking on an Armitan meant taking on his culture. She doubted the redhead would be too eager to do that. Shan certainly had never met anyone she liked enough to consider it, in part because at least one of her professions would fit particularly badly with that culture. Armitans were too bound to their land and people to be happy with someone whose loyalties were not with them.
People would start to pair off, she realised, and resisted the urge to hug herself comfortingly. She did not want to spend her life here, had no wish to play settler, even in such a fascinating place. She had no illusions about how hard a life it would be. But to cross the Stone Plain-!
Ekridge, the merchant leader, rose abruptly from where he had been conferring in a low voice with Harl Mendican, and crossed to meet Stehl Lacey as she came down the stairs.
"I want to speak with you, Ker Lacey," he said, commandingly.
"Yes. I need to speak with you all, too," she replied, taking two steps back up the stair and clapping her hands loudly together twice, then waiting as all the low conversations came abruptly to a halt and people appeared at various doorways.
"Right. You probably know by now that the mages tried to get a message out this morning, without success. They'll try again later in the day, but I wouldn't cherish great hopes. Even if they had got through, there's not much which could be done for us, outside Irrelath. We can't expect to rely on any rescue attempts.
"I've spoken to the mages, and various people who know something of the legends of this land." She nodded at the bard's companion, who inclined her head quietly in return. "We'll see, as the days go by, how we survive in a land of wild magic, but the question of getting out is one we will naturally be putting a great deal of our energies into answering. Leah has informed me that the barriers about Irrelath, particularly that which operates on the Stone Plain, were supposed to be a thing the Irrelathans could turn off and on at will. The mages do not know, presuming we can somehow find the controls, if they would be able to successfully turn the barrier off, but they will most certainly try."
"What about who sent us here and why?" called one of the Gondwindan youths. There was a loud murmur of agreement. People wanted to know that almost as much as they wanted to hear that some attempt was to be made to get them out.
"I'd like to know that myself. One thing I am sure of: it is not so simple a matter as one of the Three deciding to fling us out into the wilderness. Even presuming magi were that powerful, to not only toss us into Irrelath, but to get us here with only a few casualties is not a feat I can see them achieving without days of preparation. You all know as well as I that magic doesn't work like that, and if anyone noticed a mage in the process of casting, they certainly haven't passed the information along."
"If not a mage, who?" Ekridge asked, returning to his seat without only a hint of stiffness to his back to show that he had not appreciated being classed among 'you all'.
"That remains to be discovered. It cannot be a coincidence, however, that we have found ourselves in a circle consecrated to the Greater Gods."
"The Gods have brought us to Irrelath?" scoffed the Harman, friendly as ever. "Aye, and last night the Star Maiden warmed my bed!"
"'T'would be a maiden no more, that were the case," laughed one of the farmers he had shared most of the ale with last night. Obviously their alliance had lasted to the morning. They were ranged together at one of the smaller tables, no longer with the merchants, who had apparently decided to distance themselves.
"Whatever the condition of your bed, Baron Wexted, the fact remains that we are in Irrelath, in a consecrated circle. We must look to our own survival. Today, after establishing whether it is safe to go down to the lake to fetch water, a small party will circle the lake. Some of you may have noticed what appear to be buildings on the far bank, which beg investigation. We will hunt on the way back, see if we can locate fruit trees, useful plants, whatever. Perhaps, in time, when we have established how dangerous this land is or is not, smaller groups may be sent out gathering, but otherwise I suggest you all remain here, to assist with repairs."
"What about that castle on the mountain?" asked another of the Gonwindan youths, brother to the first, judging by his similar dark honey hair and regular features.
"That will come in due course, but not until we know more of this land and are prepared for such a task."
"And the question of food, Ker Lacey?" called the innkeeper, from behind the bar. "It is true, is it not, that any expedition that ventures onto the Stone Plain takes its own supplies? Since the Gergan venture?"
The woman called Leah Condare answered this one. "The Gergan expedition fell ill after foraging for food on the Stone Plain, it is true. One died, others claimed to have experienced hallucinations. They had ventured further onto the Plain than most dare to, and many lost their lives making their way back again after the illness struck. But they were never certain if it was the food they had taken from the land that caused the illness, or the land itself. Everyone on that expedition ate the same things and only half fell ill. Only one died of the illness."
"Doesn't sound like that great a bet to me," said a lone woman.
"It is one we will take, or starve," said a soft voice from the head of the stair. The female mage, her companion a step behind, descended into a silent room. "Is all arranged?" she asked Stehl Lacey.
"For the most part." She looked around the room again. "If there is anyone I have not spoken to who is an experienced hunter or scout, tell me now."
There was a short, unresponsive pause, then Baron Wexted heaved himself to his feet, making Shan wonder if he'd found more of the dark ale for breakfast. "Why should we follow your lead, Ker High and Bloody Mighty Lacey? Tell me that now!"
"Didn't see anyone vote you queen of the castle!" called one of his friends.
Shan turned her gaze from Stehl Lacey's competent features to study the merchant, Ekridge. There was nothing in his expression to give him away, but her instincts told her the question had been at his prompting. He had the look of a man who liked to have a finger in every pie, and no-one, not even his own mercenaries, were bothering to consult with him. He was not, so far as she knew, titled, but his apparent wealth would place him on a level above minor barons such as Wexted.
"Very true," Stehl Lacey replied, not in the slightest bit fazed. "Are you proposing a vote?"
"That's the ticket. A vote."
"That is not necessary, surely," interrupted the smooth, strong voice of Ekridge. Right on cue, Shan thought cynically. "Ker Lacey's plan of action seems to me most sound," he continued, ignoring the look of confusion that crossed Wexted's face. "I support her in this, and I am sure she would not do anything which might affect us adversely, without consultation. Let us not make issue over leaders. All our lives are in the balance: we will all continue to have a say."
There was a general murmur of agreement and Shan supposed that Ekridge was not as transparent to everyone as he seemed to her.
"Rousingly said, Ker Ekridge," Stehl Lacey replied, not a hint in her tone to suggest Shan's own suspicions. "Perhaps you could aid in directing efforts here, while we scout out the land. I will look forward to hearing a good report from you when we return."
Shan slipped out the door as Stehl Lacey moved towards it, only half hiding her amusement. She caught one of the Armitans' guardswomen grinning at her in response and smiled more fully. Ekridge was clever enough to know that in a vote there was every chance Stehl Lacey would have gained acknowledged leadership. He would not want such a vote until he was certain of support, and so had set himself up as a wise peacemaker, generously giving her actions his approval. And without even blinking she'd turned it around and spoken to him as a superior officer would a subordinate who had shown some initiative. A clever woman. They were fortunate to have her.
The sun had risen to a pale blue sky, the day was almost warm with the wind gone, and the lake glimmered demurely as they headed towards it. Twenty to tramp down the hill, walking in clumps and lines. The crowd would carry water back, and therefore had brought with them every bucket and jug the inn-keeper could find. The trees, when they reached them, were widely spaced, a mixture of willows and diamond-leaf. Those who were armed went first, creeping around the trees as if they were planning to ambush someone. Shan wondered if they felt foolish when all they flushed out was a small brown bird, which scolded them then flew off over the water.
Gathered in a long line along the grassy, gently sloping bank, the waylaid travellers gazed out over the flat water. A view to charge through the nose for, as the inn-keeper had said.
"It's beautiful," said one of the Gonwindan girls, a pale, intelligent-looking blonde.
"There's even ducks," said the youth beside her. "You wouldn't think it, in Irrelath. Sparrows and ducks and not a magic-twisted monster in sight."
"Why isn't the sky reflected in the water?" wondered a third, the girl who had helped Shan carry stones the night before.
She was right, everyone seeing what she meant, now that it had been pointed out to them. A blue, sun-bright sky, with only a garnish of fluffy white clouds scattered about, but the water, depthless and still, gave back no such image, was of a tone more suited to a thunder-cloud sky. Shan was surprised she had not seen it before, and recalled a discordance that must have bothered her subconsciously the night before - though the moon had been bright, the stars clear, there had been no glimmer of the moon's reflection on the lake's surface.
"How can we use water in which even Lady Bright will not show her face?" Harl Mendican asked Stehl Lacey, who for the first time revealed a hint of uncertainty. She did not answer, watching silently as the male mage removed one of his gloves and dropped to one knee by the water, cupping his hand into the dark surface and lifting it to trail small streams of liquid, which shone with glints of fire. He cupped his hand again, lifted it to his lips, and drank.
"There is a great deal of power in the water," the other mage said, by way of explanation.
"In itself, I cannot see any harm to us here," her companion added, rising to his feet. "Power in plenty, but undirected."
"No harm?" echoed one of the mercenaries incredulously. "It glows when moved, is dark undisturbed! I have seen nought more unnatural."
"Doesn't seem to have hurt the ducks any," Stehl Lacey commented, and dropped to her heels to taste the water. "Cold," she commented.
The uncomfortable pause that followed was broken by Harl Mendican taking a bucket from one of the Gonwindans, filling it, then drinking deeply before washing his face and hands briskly. The effect was disconcerting. The water was clear enough, but the droplets he splattered about glimmered as they fell. Still, he did not appear affected in any way by the water and there was a general move to inspect it and drink. Shan considered the taste for a long time, but could not decide what it reminded her of, and went on to clean her hands and face as well, avoiding wetting the makeshift bandage crossing one palm.
"Glowing water's the least of our worries, Sein," the mercenary leader was reassuring one of his men. "Stay on alert while we're gone. The night passed quiet, but not exactly without incident. Keep them inside the circle and keep them calm."
"Any hints on what to do if you don't come back?" the man replied, almost too soft for Shan to hear.
"Avoid making whatever mistake we did," Mendican replied, after a pause. "Luck to you, brother."
They clasped hands briefly and Mendican nodded to Stehl Lacey, who made subtle indications to those who were to form the scouting party. The others watched them go: a much more compact and disciplined group, lacking buckets and heavy-footed city-dwellers. All the leaders, Shan thought, wryly, but the range of talent was here. She fell in step beside a woman who carried a worn longbow slung over her shoulder, the only person who claimed to be a professional hunter. Lady Kinrathen, her hair braided back, her clothes durable and close-fitting, drifted along in effortless silence beside her tall bondsman. The mages were taking the lead, almost as quietly as the Armitans. Shan, twisting her mouth wryly, thought that if this group didn't come back, the rest better start praying.
Chapter ThreeAn uncomfortable cot. A dark, enclosed room. Cold. Dull, lingering pains, none much more than skin-deep.
Shan registered the facts separately, slowly coming awake in work-mode, where waking was a cautious transition. She was on assignment, had been making the journey home from an assignment when all this had happened. One of the most important tasks she'd ever been given, and now with no hope of completion in time. Perhaps having one of the Hands in Irrelath was even more important than the letter hidden in her gear, but that would be small consolation to those whose futures were tied to the information it contained.
Sighing, Shan opened her eyes, blinking at darkness. Her room had apparently been a cupboard until recently. A cot had been shoved into it to take advantage of the mass of travellers heading to Arras Island for the five-year convocation of all the Charter Councillors. It left room for practically nothing else, not even a bedside table, let alone a window to release the lingering scent of wet cloth left to moulder.
Glad as ever for the disks that were reward and tool of her profession, Shan slid a hand under the thin pillow and pulled out the light disk, turned it over four times and blinked at the ceiling instead of the dark. The view wasn't that much better.
Casting off lethargy, she slid out from the warmth of the bed and stripped so she could salve and reinspect the wounds she'd collected from her tumble with the table. Deliberate attempts to kill her had done less damage than this. She wondered if it had, after all, been an attempt to waylay her, and nothing to do with Armitans.
All her gear, including the useless saddlebags, was piled beside and under the bed, taking up what little standing room the cupboard offered. She wished for a thicker jacket, but expected her heavy cloak would take care of the matter. To think she'd been cursing bringing it along! Having endured the cold long enough, she dressed rapidly, wrapped the cloak around her body and opened the door, thumbing the light disk off as she did so.
It was dark in the corridor as well, but there was a glimmer around the corner, in the common room of the inn, and without surprise discovered that Stehl Lacey knew shadow mages as well as Shan, and was up before the dawn, talking in a soft voice with...hmm, Lady Kinrathen. Shan abandoned the idea of listening to the conversation from the shadows of the doorway. If there was one thing she'd learned from that time in the Armaithe Lands, it was that Armitans had damnably good hearing. The woman had probably heard her walking up the corridor, soft-footed as Shan was. Well, most people called it good hearing, but Shan suspected 'sixth sense' was a better term. They just tended to know when someone was watching.
Walking out, she thought obliquely that a latrine trench would definitely have to be on the morning's agenda, though she'd almost bet that any shovels owned by the inn-keep would have been stored in his cellar along with the rest of everything useful. Nodding to Stehl Lacey, she turned the courtesy into a quarter bow for Lady Elas Kinrathen, one of three Council members for the Armaithe Lands. A vidare in Armiten rank, which was something on the lines of an earl.
"Ah, sharp-eyes," Stehl Lacey said, eyes flicking over Shan in the comprehensive way which revealed her experience. "Do you have a name?"
"Shanataire Pendar."
Shan sat down on the edge of one of the long tables, and glanced over to the corner where the unfortunates who had reached the inn late, or couldn't afford the prices Jomny Hobben had been charging for rooms, slept on the boards the common room charge provided. Bring your own blanket space.
"Call me Shan," she added. "Mages started yet?"
"And the shadow crafters are supposed to be unpredictable," Stehl Lacey replied, with a brief flash of white teeth. Her features were strong and square and there was the faint white line of an old scar running the right side of her jaw. "They're outside, setting themselves up. Something tells me they're not too hopeful."
Shan nodded. She'd known that if the mages were going to make an attempt at communication outside of Irrelath, they'd do so before dawn or after sunset. Lord Twilight lent his strength to spells during those fleeting periods of half-light.
"Since they can't manage even the roughest scry in, stands to reason that there'd be problems getting a message out."
"I owe you my thanks, Shanataire Pendar," Lady Kinrathen said into the pause. "You gave Lonstathen release. I will remember."
Since there wasn't really an answer Shan could return to that she merely met the woman's deep blue eyes for a steady moment and nodded.
"What's today's agenda?" she asked Stehl Lacey. "The mages have their turn, we make sure it's safe to go down to the lake, organise water. Where then? Did my eyes deceive me as the mist rose, or is there some sort of settlement on the far side? The buildings looked new-made."
"And will be our target of the day. If there are people living here still, we will want to discover their nature, and seek their aid. If nothing else, we'll circle the lake to get some idea of the territory."
"Hunt as we go?" Shan asked.
"On the way back, probably," said a new voice. Harl Mendican had risen from the cluster of sleepers in the corner.
He grimaced, rubbing his eyes, though she suspected he'd been awake for more than a minute or two. She wondered how long the mercenaries would maintain their contract with the Spictish merchants. Rendell's Company had a good reputation, which would not have grown if they broke contracts casually, but this situation would probably soon lead to conflict between the merchants' plans and the mercenaries' own interests. That break would be a good thing, when it came, for Shan thought the leader of the merchants - they'd called him Ekridge - was dangerous enough without the added power of five combat-trained men under his command.
"But we won't be taking too many people along with us, Ker," Mendican continued, lean face polite. "Not in unknown and chancy territory. It's not a sightseeing tour."
"Do you have any skills to recommend you?" Stehl Lacey asked, neutrally. "Hunting or scouting experience? Better yet, a room full of snares and a spare bow or two? Harl's men have two bows but we'll be needing more."
Shan shook her head. "I've hunted, but it's not my occupation."
"Which is?"
"I lay ghosts."
There was a short silence, during which Shan managed not to look amused.
"You don't look like a ghost-layer," Harl Mendican said, eventually. "But then, I've only ever seen the one. A rare profession."
"Not many ghosts about," Shan replied, easily. She glanced at the door before meeting Lady Kinrathen's dark eyes a second time. "The Charter Council has matters well arranged so that restless spirits are sent on with the minimum of fuss. I'm presuming there are more here than average."
"Sounds like a useful skill to me," Stehl Lacey said, not displaying any of the discomfort Shan's public profession usually provoked. "I hope you have the tools of your trade with you. For now, we'd best go out, or miss the fun."
It was cold enough outside for breath to puff misty from mouths, only to be stolen by the wind. Shan drew her cloak more closely about her. It was only the first month of autumn, but Irrelath was many miles north of Gonwindar and high country besides.
The moon was much lower in the sky, the land not nearly so clearly lit as when they had arrived, and there was a hint of gray in the air, heralding the half-light that preceded the first edge of the sun. The horse, with one of the Armitans' guardswomen stationed by him, whickered a soft greeting to Lady Kinrathen.
The shadow mages were beyond the circle of consecrated stones, seated cross-legged on a relatively flat area in the dewy grass. Between them was a large flat bowl of water, which immediately made Shan wonder how they'd supplied themselves. Only liquids in sealed kegs had survived, which had naturally meant that those who were inclined had overindulged on dark ale last night and worked themselves up.
Since the mages had already begun the muttered chant that some called spell-casting and others prayer, no-one offered the hooded figures greetings, merely gathering in a loose row uphill from them. Shan amused herself by trying to make out individual words in what was practically a sub-vocal drone, but it was impossible. This was a different sort of casting from that single, power-rich word the woman had used to douse the fire. It required less energy in relation to the result, and produced a more complex effect.
She watched them for a while, but they rarely moved, and then only to pass hands across the flat water surface, never quite touching. The only interesting thing was the fact that they'd taken their gloves off, revealing the usual number of fingers, nothing spectacular. The woman bit her nails down, almost to the quick, which was, when Shan thought about it, very interesting indeed.
A more intensive study, from the wear on the soles of their boots to some determined staring at the glimpses of chin beneath the curve of the overlarge hoods, revealed nothing definitive, but Shan's memory could not produce anything to naysay, either. A interesting conclusion, but probably premature. She would wait on that one.
She was staring across the lake through the still-heavy gloom, when Lady Kinrathen spoke. "You are not adept at following orders, bondsman," she said, and Shan was not the only one who tensed, realising that a fifth person had joined them in watching the mages. Armitans. There was something unfair about being able to move that quietly.
"You are generous to leave me lee-way in your commands, my liege," the tallest of the Armitans replied.
Shan glanced at him, at the rich and beautiful cloak and the complete lack of wealth or decoration displayed by the rest of his clothing. He did not even sport the small circular metal ornaments most Armitans clipped to the beginning or ends of the braids they wore before each ear. The cloak was a glaring inconsistency and she suspected that he had not planned to use it yet. It had to be one of those honour commitments Armitans were so fond of. She looked back over the lake. Ironic. Perhaps no-one would turn out to be who they appeared. Shan, who really was a ghost-layer, knew a great deal about hiding truths beneath truths, and her public occupation was a wonderful excuse for travelling to all manner of places so she could practice the profession that paid her more. She wore ghost-hunting like that splendid cloak, a thing to transform the way a person was regarded.
The mages stopped speaking, in the abrupt, anticlimactic way that startled so many, and sat there for a heartbeat or two doing nothing. Doubtless those who were actually sensitive to magic would feel the building surge of directed power being drawn from the hooded figures, but Shan had to rely wholly on her imagination and descriptions others had given her of the culmination of spell-casting. Most cats were more sensitive to the arcane than she was. It was one of the requirements of being a ghost-layer.
The light was subtle: a small dawn rose out of the flat bowl of water, a glowing nimbus that expanded to the height of the two seated casters, and slightly beyond the width of the bowl. Pearly-pink in colour, it gradually grew opaque as it darkened. Insensitive as she was, even Shan could feel some hint of the effort that lay behind the long, long pause after it was no longer possible to see through the glow. It was usual for an image to form in the darkness at the centre of the glow at this point. For several flickering moments one appeared, a woman in the dark garb of a shadow mage standing in a gloomy, high-arched hall, but with her hood drawn back to reveal a weary, lined face. She lifted startled eyes, seemingly toward the male shadow mage. Her lips formed several words soundlessly as the image flickered, then she was gone, and the glowing nimbus lost its dark centre, wavered and collapsed.
"That's that," Stehl Lacey murmured, disappointed.
"We will try again in the gloaming," the female mage said firmly, picking up the bowl, which was now empty of water. "That is Lord Twilight's time of full power." She stood, looked the five watchers over, then glanced towards the inn as the first hints of colour tinted the dawn sky. "But even then it is unlikely we would be able to open a link for more than five or ten seconds, if that. By the time we have forced our way through the barriers about this land, we have no strength to maintain the communication. There are other options. We will send a wind word in due course, but that will take days or weeks to reach its destination and even if it is not waylaid, we will have no way of knowing of its arrival."
The male mage rose to his feet slowly, drawing his gloves back on with precise, deliberate movements. "We will rest for an hour, then see about explorations," he said, gesturing to his companion. The pair started back to the inn without another word, leaving a general impression of dismissal behind them.
"Shall we take stock of the grounds before breakfast?" Stehl Lacey asked, directing her question to both Harl Mendican and Lady Kinrathen. "Now that we can see our new demesne?"
"One would wish for a less wind-racked situation, Ker Lacey," Lady Kinrathen replied, mildly. The comment established to Shan that the ex-mercenary and the Armitan Council member had advanced a step beyond an uneasy alliance. Politeness you could always expect from an Armitan, but the very faint air of jest established Stehl Lacey as a person to be awarded something more than formality.
What this group needed was a clear-cut and popular leader, Shan mused as she walked along in the wake of the four other cloak-wrapped figures. It wasn't going to get one, but that did not change the fact that matters would be aided by the absence of groups of Armitan nobles and shadow mages, and the presence of someone who would not be nay-sayed. If Stehl Lacey had a deal more rank than that of respected ex-mercenary, the problem would be solved. The unofficial committee formed by those who walked in front of her had value, but there would surely come a time they would disagree on plans of action and there would be no-one to listen to all sides of the argument and say "Very well. Let us do it this way." The shadow mages had a certain way with commands, but fear and uncertainty would cause an instinctive rejection of them.
Shan found that she did not like an absence of clear authority. Although her assignments left her almost entirely on her own recognizance, there was a certain security in being able to send home for orders, or, as the very last resort, invoke authority at the local division of the Charter Guards. Out here... She sighed, and looked back at the lake as the others began a slow circle along the perimeter of the consecrated stones. It was very close, the lake, and there was something she did not like about it. But doubtless, when the sun had risen, and the morning greys had left the still water, it would become a more attractive place. She stared out at it a long moment, finally picking up the outline of those white buildings she had glimpsed the previous night. Then she cut across the circle to catch up with the others, ignoring the three people who had appeared outside the Cob and Signet and were watching their progress.
The forest behind the inn was more extensive than she had originally estimated. It would be a full day's journey or more to cross it to the rising hills beyond. At least another half day to approach the towers that could be glimpsed on the slope of the nearest mountain. The three nominal leaders were discussing this as Shan approached, and she did not contribute to the debate on how long it would be before the mountains had a covering of snow to make an approach more difficult, attention caught, as the Armitan man's seemed to be, by the stable they were approaching.
"No hostile intent," said the Armitan man, and glanced obliquely at Lady Kinrathen, who looked very steadily at the streamer of dew-wet blood trailing down the hill, and at various things which had changed since Shan had killed the horse.
"Lonstathen has provided a meal to the night-hunters," she said, knitting her brows slightly. Armitans were not sentimental about death.
They examined the stable in silence, noting the tracks of at least five animals crossing the blood-stream. Wolves, though Shan was no expert in animal tracks. They had dug to widen the gap beneath the inner stall wall and the ground, and feasted well on horse-flesh.
"Dispose of what remains of Lonstathen appropriately, Kier," Lady Kinrathen ordered her bondsman. She looked at Stehl Lacey and Harl Mendican thoughtfully. "It would not be wise, I think, to stable Reventh here, but we might be able to use the timbers to construct a shelter for him in a less exposed place."
Harl Mendican nodded. "I'll consult with Hobben, get him to collect together what tools will be useful. I hope he didn't keep everything in that blasted cellar of his. I don't look forward to trying to make stone axes."
Shan unlatched the stall Reventh had been in, and walked inside. She had been curious how the big horse had managed to come through the journey intact, and discovered what she presumed to be her answer in a ledge formed by a thick base board of the wall dividing the stalls, probably not even as wide as the gelding's hoof. It had come away from its mooring, pushed down instead of up, and Shan touched white, recent scarring on the wood with one gloved finger. "Smart horse," she murmured. "Or lucky." She glanced up to see Lady Kinrathen watching her, and thought about the tales which claimed that some of the animals which dwelt in the Armaithe Lands had shifter blood, were descendants of Armitans who had been in animal form when they had lost their ability to alter their shape.
No-one knew just why the Armitans had lost that ability, all at once. Most were of the opinion that it was a curse set upon them by a devotee of Lord Heth in retaliation for some offence, or merely to greatly weaken one of the most formidable fighting forces in the Realms.
The completed tour around the inn revealed more forest, hills and mountains. A dew-soaked land, early silence occasionally broken by the call of several varieties of birds, subdued and distant. The wind, finally slackening, contributed most of the small amount of noise to be heard. Their new home.
Returning to the inn, Shan gladly avoided the small, upright old woman who stopped Stehl Lacey and began to either lecture or interrogate her. A dozen early risers were scattered about the front room of the inn, and the scent of cooking emanated from the inner reaches of the kitchen. Having resignedly eaten the slightly burnt porridge that was eventually produced, Shan shut herself back in her cupboard to select what she might need for a scouting trip in Irrelath, stocking a light shoulder bag with care, then taking the opportunity to rest a little more, wanting to clean herself up, but settling for chewing a charam stick. She had so disliked the sharp taste of charam sticks when she was a child, had chewed them only because her mother would gleefully point out people whose teeth had virtually rotted away and make appropriate comments about living with the taste. Now there were times when her mouth simply didn't feel right if she didn't chew charam in the morning. She wondered if they would be able to find a supply here, and realised she had no idea what the plant looked like.
After an appropriate interval she went back out and knew immediately that word had spread about her profession. It was in the way people didn't look at her, or watched her when she was not looking at them. That was why ghost-laying was such a wonderful occupation for a Hand to hide behind. Most people were made so nervous by the thought of her association with the uneasy dead that they did not enquire too deeply into her activities. On more than one occasion, when Shan had been caught out in places she shouldn't be - foolish carelessness - she had bluffed her way through because ghost-layers did wander about into odd places. This lot would get used to her soon enough. There was usually a day or two of uncertainty, while it was established that her presence was not going to cause a sudden, mass out-turning of graves, and then they would begin to relax and accept, but never forget. There were so many stories, true and false, about what ghost-layers actually did.
Shan had timed herself to be out before the mages - she knew that the shadow breed had a tendency to exactness and, in saying an hour, would mean precisely that, despite the inn's sole clock being little more than shattered wood piled by the hearth. She judged it to be only little more than an hour after dawn, but most of the inn's occupants were now up and about. The watchfulness in the common room wasn't all awarded to her. The four Armitans stood just outside the door with their two guardswomen, having an involved conversation in the liquid language of their kind: discussing moving the stable. Some of the audience were hostile, the rest cautious. The distance Armitans liked to maintain from those outside their land meant they were both interesting and an unknown quantity. Similar to Shan's own position, there were many stories, true and false.
One girl, the red-haired Gonwindan, who was easily the most attractive resident of Irrelath, developed a particular expression in her eye and Shan looked to the door again, to see the Armitan Lady Kinrathen had called Kier pass out of view. It was a common enough name, meant "In honour" or something close to that. She wondered who he was when he wasn't being a bondsman. He wasn't wearing that cloak any more, but plain clothing could not disguise a certain unconscious confidence of carriage, not to mention the face, the height and the grace. Well, if the redhead wanted to try her luck, Shan would not begrudge her the chance. Armitans did not exclude humans from their beds - Shan had found that out when she had visited the Armaithe Lands - and certainly he would fill a bed most admirably during the cold nights to come. But taking on an Armitan meant taking on his culture. She doubted the redhead would be too eager to do that. Shan certainly had never met anyone she liked enough to consider it, in part because at least one of her professions would fit particularly badly with that culture. Armitans were too bound to their land and people to be happy with someone whose loyalties were not with them.
People would start to pair off, she realised, and resisted the urge to hug herself comfortingly. She did not want to spend her life here, had no wish to play settler, even in such a fascinating place. She had no illusions about how hard a life it would be. But to cross the Stone Plain-!
Ekridge, the merchant leader, rose abruptly from where he had been conferring in a low voice with Harl Mendican, and crossed to meet Stehl Lacey as she came down the stairs.
"I want to speak with you, Ker Lacey," he said, commandingly.
"Yes. I need to speak with you all, too," she replied, taking two steps back up the stair and clapping her hands loudly together twice, then waiting as all the low conversations came abruptly to a halt and people appeared at various doorways.
"Right. You probably know by now that the mages tried to get a message out this morning, without success. They'll try again later in the day, but I wouldn't cherish great hopes. Even if they had got through, there's not much which could be done for us, outside Irrelath. We can't expect to rely on any rescue attempts.
"I've spoken to the mages, and various people who know something of the legends of this land." She nodded at the bard's companion, who inclined her head quietly in return. "We'll see, as the days go by, how we survive in a land of wild magic, but the question of getting out is one we will naturally be putting a great deal of our energies into answering. Leah has informed me that the barriers about Irrelath, particularly that which operates on the Stone Plain, were supposed to be a thing the Irrelathans could turn off and on at will. The mages do not know, presuming we can somehow find the controls, if they would be able to successfully turn the barrier off, but they will most certainly try."
"What about who sent us here and why?" called one of the Gondwindan youths. There was a loud murmur of agreement. People wanted to know that almost as much as they wanted to hear that some attempt was to be made to get them out.
"I'd like to know that myself. One thing I am sure of: it is not so simple a matter as one of the Three deciding to fling us out into the wilderness. Even presuming magi were that powerful, to not only toss us into Irrelath, but to get us here with only a few casualties is not a feat I can see them achieving without days of preparation. You all know as well as I that magic doesn't work like that, and if anyone noticed a mage in the process of casting, they certainly haven't passed the information along."
"If not a mage, who?" Ekridge asked, returning to his seat without only a hint of stiffness to his back to show that he had not appreciated being classed among 'you all'.
"That remains to be discovered. It cannot be a coincidence, however, that we have found ourselves in a circle consecrated to the Greater Gods."
"The Gods have brought us to Irrelath?" scoffed the Harman, friendly as ever. "Aye, and last night the Star Maiden warmed my bed!"
"'T'would be a maiden no more, that were the case," laughed one of the farmers he had shared most of the ale with last night. Obviously their alliance had lasted to the morning. They were ranged together at one of the smaller tables, no longer with the merchants, who had apparently decided to distance themselves.
"Whatever the condition of your bed, Baron Wexted, the fact remains that we are in Irrelath, in a consecrated circle. We must look to our own survival. Today, after establishing whether it is safe to go down to the lake to fetch water, a small party will circle the lake. Some of you may have noticed what appear to be buildings on the far bank, which beg investigation. We will hunt on the way back, see if we can locate fruit trees, useful plants, whatever. Perhaps, in time, when we have established how dangerous this land is or is not, smaller groups may be sent out gathering, but otherwise I suggest you all remain here, to assist with repairs."
"What about that castle on the mountain?" asked another of the Gonwindan youths, brother to the first, judging by his similar dark honey hair and regular features.
"That will come in due course, but not until we know more of this land and are prepared for such a task."
"And the question of food, Ker Lacey?" called the innkeeper, from behind the bar. "It is true, is it not, that any expedition that ventures onto the Stone Plain takes its own supplies? Since the Gergan venture?"
The woman called Leah Condare answered this one. "The Gergan expedition fell ill after foraging for food on the Stone Plain, it is true. One died, others claimed to have experienced hallucinations. They had ventured further onto the Plain than most dare to, and many lost their lives making their way back again after the illness struck. But they were never certain if it was the food they had taken from the land that caused the illness, or the land itself. Everyone on that expedition ate the same things and only half fell ill. Only one died of the illness."
"Doesn't sound like that great a bet to me," said a lone woman.
"It is one we will take, or starve," said a soft voice from the head of the stair. The female mage, her companion a step behind, descended into a silent room. "Is all arranged?" she asked Stehl Lacey.
"For the most part." She looked around the room again. "If there is anyone I have not spoken to who is an experienced hunter or scout, tell me now."
There was a short, unresponsive pause, then Baron Wexted heaved himself to his feet, making Shan wonder if he'd found more of the dark ale for breakfast. "Why should we follow your lead, Ker High and Bloody Mighty Lacey? Tell me that now!"
"Didn't see anyone vote you queen of the castle!" called one of his friends.
Shan turned her gaze from Stehl Lacey's competent features to study the merchant, Ekridge. There was nothing in his expression to give him away, but her instincts told her the question had been at his prompting. He had the look of a man who liked to have a finger in every pie, and no-one, not even his own mercenaries, were bothering to consult with him. He was not, so far as she knew, titled, but his apparent wealth would place him on a level above minor barons such as Wexted.
"Very true," Stehl Lacey replied, not in the slightest bit fazed. "Are you proposing a vote?"
"That's the ticket. A vote."
"That is not necessary, surely," interrupted the smooth, strong voice of Ekridge. Right on cue, Shan thought cynically. "Ker Lacey's plan of action seems to me most sound," he continued, ignoring the look of confusion that crossed Wexted's face. "I support her in this, and I am sure she would not do anything which might affect us adversely, without consultation. Let us not make issue over leaders. All our lives are in the balance: we will all continue to have a say."
There was a general murmur of agreement and Shan supposed that Ekridge was not as transparent to everyone as he seemed to her.
"Rousingly said, Ker Ekridge," Stehl Lacey replied, not a hint in her tone to suggest Shan's own suspicions. "Perhaps you could aid in directing efforts here, while we scout out the land. I will look forward to hearing a good report from you when we return."
Shan slipped out the door as Stehl Lacey moved towards it, only half hiding her amusement. She caught one of the Armitans' guardswomen grinning at her in response and smiled more fully. Ekridge was clever enough to know that in a vote there was every chance Stehl Lacey would have gained acknowledged leadership. He would not want such a vote until he was certain of support, and so had set himself up as a wise peacemaker, generously giving her actions his approval. And without even blinking she'd turned it around and spoken to him as a superior officer would a subordinate who had shown some initiative. A clever woman. They were fortunate to have her.
The sun had risen to a pale blue sky, the day was almost warm with the wind gone, and the lake glimmered demurely as they headed towards it. Twenty to tramp down the hill, walking in clumps and lines. The crowd would carry water back, and therefore had brought with them every bucket and jug the inn-keeper could find. The trees, when they reached them, were widely spaced, a mixture of willows and diamond-leaf. Those who were armed went first, creeping around the trees as if they were planning to ambush someone. Shan wondered if they felt foolish when all they flushed out was a small brown bird, which scolded them then flew off over the water.
Gathered in a long line along the grassy, gently sloping bank, the waylaid travellers gazed out over the flat water. A view to charge through the nose for, as the inn-keeper had said.
"It's beautiful," said one of the Gonwindan girls, a pale, intelligent-looking blonde.
"There's even ducks," said the youth beside her. "You wouldn't think it, in Irrelath. Sparrows and ducks and not a magic-twisted monster in sight."
"Why isn't the sky reflected in the water?" wondered a third, the girl who had helped Shan carry stones the night before.
She was right, everyone seeing what she meant, now that it had been pointed out to them. A blue, sun-bright sky, with only a garnish of fluffy white clouds scattered about, but the water, depthless and still, gave back no such image, was of a tone more suited to a thunder-cloud sky. Shan was surprised she had not seen it before, and recalled a discordance that must have bothered her subconsciously the night before - though the moon had been bright, the stars clear, there had been no glimmer of the moon's reflection on the lake's surface.
"How can we use water in which even Lady Bright will not show her face?" Harl Mendican asked Stehl Lacey, who for the first time revealed a hint of uncertainty. She did not answer, watching silently as the male mage removed one of his gloves and dropped to one knee by the water, cupping his hand into the dark surface and lifting it to trail small streams of liquid, which shone with glints of fire. He cupped his hand again, lifted it to his lips, and drank.
"There is a great deal of power in the water," the other mage said, by way of explanation.
"In itself, I cannot see any harm to us here," her companion added, rising to his feet. "Power in plenty, but undirected."
"No harm?" echoed one of the mercenaries incredulously. "It glows when moved, is dark undisturbed! I have seen nought more unnatural."
"Doesn't seem to have hurt the ducks any," Stehl Lacey commented, and dropped to her heels to taste the water. "Cold," she commented.
The uncomfortable pause that followed was broken by Harl Mendican taking a bucket from one of the Gonwindans, filling it, then drinking deeply before washing his face and hands briskly. The effect was disconcerting. The water was clear enough, but the droplets he splattered about glimmered as they fell. Still, he did not appear affected in any way by the water and there was a general move to inspect it and drink. Shan considered the taste for a long time, but could not decide what it reminded her of, and went on to clean her hands and face as well, avoiding wetting the makeshift bandage crossing one palm.
"Glowing water's the least of our worries, Sein," the mercenary leader was reassuring one of his men. "Stay on alert while we're gone. The night passed quiet, but not exactly without incident. Keep them inside the circle and keep them calm."
"Any hints on what to do if you don't come back?" the man replied, almost too soft for Shan to hear.
"Avoid making whatever mistake we did," Mendican replied, after a pause. "Luck to you, brother."
They clasped hands briefly and Mendican nodded to Stehl Lacey, who made subtle indications to those who were to form the scouting party. The others watched them go: a much more compact and disciplined group, lacking buckets and heavy-footed city-dwellers. All the leaders, Shan thought, wryly, but the range of talent was here. She fell in step beside a woman who carried a worn longbow slung over her shoulder, the only person who claimed to be a professional hunter. Lady Kinrathen, her hair braided back, her clothes durable and close-fitting, drifted along in effortless silence beside her tall bondsman. The mages were taking the lead, almost as quietly as the Armitans. Shan, twisting her mouth wryly, thought that if this group didn't come back, the rest better start praying.
May 24, 2017
Inn Chap 2
In this installment of this abandoned project, we see that SGM was not the first time I've balanced an experienced and competent POV with a younger and untried one.
Vanagar is very different from Kendall. I quite like the character arc I had planned for her. In fact, since I stopped writing after she made the major progression on that arc, I suspect that the transition was what I wanted to write, and since it happens relatively early in the story, is why this is unfinished.
Chapter Two
How was it possible to feel so horrible, and be so excited at the same time?
Vanagar sat at the end of the table she had successfully fallen under during the confusing tumble which had brought them here and tried not to look either miserable or overly animated, but as coolly calm as the woman with the long, black braid who had so matter-of-factly discovered the consecrated stones.
"It couldn't have been Owen Tregair," Jaelith insisted.
"Who but Owen Tregair would have done it?" Jaelith's brother, Zerith, shot back, his voice unfortunately loud. Vanagar was not the only one there who glanced nervously at the door, for fear that one of the two mages had heard him. Zerith, who did not count nerves among his failings, continued on. "Who else could have done it? Only one of the Three. So, choose between Owen Tregair, Madeleine Thorasen and the High Lady Ariantha."
"It doesn't necessarily have to be one of the Three," Cienne argued. "That's the most obvious explanation, but..." She hesitated, pale brows drawing together in concentration.
"Can't think of a good alternate explanation, can you?" Rithia mocked, voice a step beyond that ambiguous sneer which she used so well to make people, Vanagar especially, feel they had just said something foolish. But Rithia was upset and off-balance and her tone angrier than usual.
"Act of the gods?" Jaelith suggested, with the quick grin which made him so particularly likeable. "We did land in a circle consecrated to them, after all." Then he lost his cheerful expression, and glanced down at his large, capable hands. "Well, I guess we got the adventure we were looking for, and more besides. The price has been too high already."
"Will Arven be all right, do you think?" Nathan asked, hesitantly, then flushed as Rithia looked at him with an open sneer. Vanagar, who had a soft spot for the awkward Nathan because his shy uncertainty was all too reminiscent of her own, better-hidden self-consciousness, stepped in before Rithia could bite out something cutting which would guarantee that the sandy-haired boy wouldn't venture any more comments for several days.
"Jerian was his twin, Nathan," she said, looking carefully at the boy rather than watch any reaction from the rest of the table. It was one of the methods she had taught herself to keep the blushes from her cheeks, to hide her ineptness. "You know how close they were. He won't get over that quickly. Allia's with him. She'll help him grieve."
There was a general murmur of agreement.
"We need a plan of action," Zerith said, leaning forward to capture their attention. "We're in Irrelath, on the far side of the Stone Plain, by the looks of it. Surrounded by magic, wild and foul, amidst strangers who could prove to be foe as well as friend."
His voice had dropped to a dramatic whisper and Vanagar recognised her own secret thrill more openly expressed. This was Adventure. This was Romance, with every chance of Heroism thrown in. This was the epic ballad come to life, with everything thrown in from an Armitan Council member to shadow mages. Zerith had cast their small group, whose previous ambitions to adventure had risen only to visiting Arras Island during the Great Convocation, as the questers battling to win through to freedom, beset on all sides, no doubt with himself featuring as prime hero.
Vanagar, who daydreamed all too frequently of rising above the ordinary role of second child of Cayman City's Chief Justice, understood the vision which burned in Zerith's eyes. Her mother, when she had time away from dealing with the problems of Cayman City's courts, would chide her for thinking so much of the heroines whose deeds shone forth from the tales of wordsmiths, telling her to look to life's practicalities, not moon-dreams. But Vanagar had dreamed on, waiting for that prince who needed a timely rescuer, or the enchanted weapon that would fall into her hands, to transform and make anew...
She had lived a thousand triumphs, been honoured, rewarded, gone on to further and greater deeds. Never had any of those fantasies begun with the burial of a friend.
Jerian had not been a really close friend. Allia was the closest friend Vanagar had, and Allia's warm heart opened to everyone. Jerian, drawn as many were to the personable trio of Zerith, Jaelith and Rithia, had surely seen Vanagar as part of the background. Most of them did, because she was reticent, preferred to listen, and rarely had a quick and witty response. But Jerian had died, so suddenly, neck broken in the tumble that had only bruised Vanagar, and any chance of her mistaking what was happening as adventures had shattered.
Zerith, more resilient, had been solemn enough when they piled rocks over Jerian's still body, and then helped with wedging stones under the edges of the inn, but now he could not hide that, frightening as the situation was, he was already hearing the Ballad of Zerith Relien sung by Masterbard Sera.
"Strangers who will probably be the only thing preventing us from getting ourselves killed before a day goes by," Jaelith said, bringing Vanagar's thoughts back to the conversation with his usual good sense.
"Really, dear brother? Which do you suggest we place our trust in? The shadow mages or the Armitans?"
"Those mercenaries seem to know what they're doing. And that woman..."
"Who is this Stehl Lacey woman?" Rithia asked. "They all seemed to recognise the name, but I've never heard it."
"Some sort of ex-mercenary, by the looks of her," Zerith replied. "She doesn't wear a blank shield, or the insignia of a lord, so she can't be working at the moment. But she just proves my point. We know nothing about these people. We daren't trust them to place our interests on the same level as their own. We're nothing to them."
"No reason to assume that they're going to stab us in the back, Zer," Jaelith replied. "But in a way I agree. There're no Charter Guards here, no local Watch House to run to when someone breaks a law. And I don't expect that we're going to get back to Gonwindar in the near future. That's reason enough not to be unnecessarily rude to anyone. We might need their friendship, soon enough."
"All we have to do is decide which to be friends with," Rithia pointed out, echoing Vanagar's own thoughts. "There's no love lost between the Armitans and the Spictans, and if those mages hadn't interrupted, that Harman lord with the broken leg would have been calling for them to be strung up from the inn's sign-post."
"For no good reason," Cienne pointed out. "It's hardly Lady Kinrathen's fault if someone has done this to waylay her."
"She's the one opposing punitive action against Jutland," Keevan said, breaking out of his habitual brooding and silent mode.
"For the best of reasons. Whether or not Jutland broke the Charter laws by attacking Iswick civilians, their war's still an old territorial dispute and the Charter was designed to keep the other Realms from becoming embroiled in just that sort of thing. They're only fighting over a half-mile or so of land, which they both do have claim to," Cienne said, her usually mild voice growing a hint more positive.
"So Jutlanders can break Charter law with impunity? Without retribution?"
"They say it was a mistake. High Lady Ariantha will preside over an inquiry at the Convocation, but even if they are found guilty, and the due penalties handed down, that doesn't mean Iswick should be aided in their dispute. Or do you want to see the Great War starting up all over again?"
"I just think justice should be done."
"Keevan, if we take sides..."
"If we don't let them get away with it, you mean."
"Cienne, Keevan." Jaelith hadn't raised his voice particularly, but his firmness demonstrated the quality that made him the real centre of their group. Lady Relien's oldest child, trained to command. He waited until the table was quiet, attention on him, before he continued. "We can't afford to make this an issue for us. I can only thank the Star Maiden that there weren't any Jutlanders staying at the Cob and Signet. As it is, it's obviously more than a thing to argue about for some here. There are, what? Forty people in this inn? Fifty? If there'd been an attack on the Armitans, for no real reason, I bet some would have supported the Armitans. So, we fight among ourselves. I'm sure the wolves out there would be glad to pick over the remains of whoever loses, before moving on to the winners. Considering the reputation of Armitans, I would quite frankly prefer to have them on my side. Better still, I don't want to have to take sides at all. We're not to get hung up on the whole Jutland-Iswich problem. If anyone tries to draw us into it, we'll make it clear that we don't want to be part of that argument. Are we agreed?"
Even Keevan nodded, though less firmly than everyone else. Vanagar was distracted by a prickle at the edge of her senses, not the sort of thing she usually felt when arcane power was being expended, but vaguely similar. The two mages must have finally managed to set the ward on the circle of stones. She looked expectantly at the door, then remembered not to, and looked away. She was studying her square hands when the wind was let in and brought with it constraint.
Shadow mages. Vanagar waited to be last to turn to covertly study the two completely cloaked figures. There were four major schools of mages, and a scattering of minor schools, all allying with a particular god in return for control of their powers. The Vensi school was the most popular - it was the one followed by High Lady Aliantha, and those magi gave their fealty to Lady Bright. Most people considered it the 'good' school and forgot how harsh and unforgiving the sun could be. Then there was the Green School, whose link to Lord Arcturan meant both great skill with all that grew from the earth, and a need to pay blood price. The Aerin School, lofty in the sky with Lord Rictar, proud and remote, turning on the skewer of high ambitions. The shadow mages were of the Havner School, and paid homage to Lord Twilight. Seekers into the mystery, they called themselves, but they seemed more inclined to create mysteries rather than solve them. Despite hardly ever displaying their powers, they were certainly the most feared of the recognised magi.
Vanagar knew a great deal generally about the schools of magic, major and minor, even the whispers about those not recognised, like those who gave their power to Lord Heth or the Thunderer, forbidden as that was by the Charter. She had, after a year or more of agonising, decided to join the Vensi School, only to be told she did not have enough power to interest Lady Bright.
Not even her mother knew that she'd been to the Vensi School and been rejected. They'd recommended the Four Points School, aligned with the Star Maiden, which everyone knew was the school people went to when they weren't going to learn anything more than how to mend pots and light fires. The school for people who just weren't going to amount to much as mages. Soon enough, Vanagar expected she would give in and enrol, but she hadn't had the heart to capitulate yet. Discovering power inside herself had been a wonderful thing, a secret she'd kept close, and she wasn't ready yet to limit it by becoming a Four Points mage.
The two shadow mages were followed in by Stehl Lacey, who had remained outside to watch. And, Vanagar suspected, to talk to the two Armitans who had been tending to minor cuts on that massive horse, even before they looked to their own scrapes and bruises. One of the Armitans came in with her, but it was not, to Vanagar's disappointment, the tall man who had originally led the horse to the inn door.
Biting her lip, she turned her attention firmly back to her hands. This was not the time for another of her foolish crushes. Why did she always fixate on the best and the brightest, instead of deciding someone like Nathan would make her happy? Clenching her fingers firmly together, she tried not to think of how the tall Armitan man moved, of the way his eyes were tilted. She had never seen anyone quite as remarkable as him, and wished she knew the language so that she could have understood what he had said when he returned with the horse. There was always something so nobly tragic about Armitans, what with the loss of their power to transform, centuries ago in the Great War. And always so gorgeous, outshining dull-featured humans like herself, whose height was merely gawky, whose hands were square and wrists were thick, hair bushy brown frizz and eyes...
There. Vanagar knew that thinking about someone she was attracted to would only lead to a catalogue of her own faults. That was always the way.
Stehl Lacey spoke briefly to the mercenary leader, who was with his fellows at the corner table, then went upstairs with the Armitan. The woman paused as the boards creaked beneath her feet, and looked down at the room below. Things were almost as they had been before, minus a couple of broken chairs and anything resembling a bottle.
Had this quietly commanding woman also been on her way to the Convocation? Surely not for a little adventure, like Zerith and Jaelith: inviting their friends to stay at the Relien property in Lendan before crossing to Arras Island 'to see what they might see'. Vanagar shivered as the door opened again, and she saw the mercenary, Harl Mendican, heading outside.
There would be a watch through the night, she supposed. The inn-keeper had made much of having that chest of drawers drawn across the kitchen door, and every shutter firmly closed and barred. She would not like to be sitting outside in the chilly breeze, with only the horse for company. That was the difference between dreaming and living an adventure.
But no. The tall Armitan was outside, wearing that cloak covered with an incredible pattern of knot-work which he'd fetched for himself. It was one of the finest examples of Armitan decoration she'd ever seen, far more than the usual border of interlocked lines. She'd been an age studying him out of the corner of her eye, trying to work out what beasts were depicted in the centre of that mulberry-red, black and midnight blue design. Armitan knotwork always stylised its subjects so it was difficult to guess exactly what it was. Finally she decided the creatures were either dogs or horses. The cloak was a ground-sweeping piece, infinitely more complex than any other Armiten design she'd seen, and it suited him completely, hid the plain soldier's garb in its heavy folds and left him regal, aloof and handsomer than before.
Vanagar gave more of her attention to dreaming than the conversation continuing at their table, allowing her mind to produce a reason for her to find herself outside and alone with the Armitan. She would be just going up to bed when the mercenary would come back in, look around and, not seeing that serving-girl, would catch her attention and say that the Armitan wanted something to drink, before heading off upstairs herself. She would give him a look for treating her like a servant, which he'd ignore, then she'd shrug with resignation, clean out one of the battered pewter mugs with a cloth and draw off the last of the ale out of the keg behind the curved bar.
She would shiver in the cold and the ale would slop over her fingers as she stepped down from the doorway. He would glance at her briefly - she was sure he rarely missed a thing that went on around him - but his attention would be taken up by the big horse, nervously shifting because the howling of the wolves was closer still. A glint at his side, beneath the folds of his cloak would reveal that he had brought more than clothing down with him.
Waiting silently, as the gelding backed and tossed his head, Vanagar would shiver from more than the cold as she saw the strength of the man, and those differences which made him beast-kin would show clearly as he held the horse firm. Then he would speak, say something soothing in the liquid tongue Vanagar did not understand, and stroke the soft neck as gently as a dove. She would watch him openly, thinking about people who had never been animals, but who shared some common, silent bond with the furred and feathered. The blood of shape-changers should show more clearly. Even things like a hawkish nose or vaguely feline eyes were minor things, more in the mind of the observer. You'd think Armitans would at least have pointed ears, more than that slight tilt to their eyes. Abrian-Alsans had eyes like that too, but weren't Shifter blood.
There was nothing to say this man wasn't human. Just a very handsome man. His skin was clear, his features even, long jaw not heavy, but well defined, nose carefully sculpted, hair shoulder-length with the small braids before each ear practically every Armitan she'd ever seen wore.
Vanagar frowned, trying to remember how his lips had been formed. Fairly narrow, with a hint of a line forming by one corner, as if he lifted it cynically more often than he smiled. You'd never guess that the Armitans were ever anything but coldly reserved. Perhaps, as she handed him the mug of ale, he would award her the slightest smile as he nodded his head.
"My thanks, Ker," he would say, lifting the mug.
Ale, out in the cold wind? She sighed. Exactly the wrong thing. Surely some sort of hot drink - chocolate if it could be found in the kitchen - it might be expensive, but most inns were stocking it now that the supply from Oxland was increasing. She gave up on the daydream for now - she would embroider another version in greater detail later, as she waited for sleep.
Looking down the table to where Zerith was detailing what he knew of the various legends of Irrelath, Vanagar found Jaelith watching her, amused. She tried not to look annoyed. Occasionally Jaelith would tease her about her constant daydreaming, though he never sneered at her or dismissed her the way his brother or Rithia might. But she wished Jaelith hadn't noticed her just now. When he noticed that she was drifting on the edge of the group more than usual, it generally prompted one of his attempts to include her in the conversation. When Zerith finished, Jaelith would probably ask her something, and it would be glaringly obvious that he was trying to draw her out and, as always, what he asked would be something she had no particular opinion about, and she'd say something flat and dull and that would be that.
The gesture would be typical of Jaelith - he did the same thing for Nathan, with even worse results - out of a ready sympathy for the tongue-tied, she supposed. She wondered if he'd ever know how much she resented his kind attempts. It reduced her somehow, made her pitiable, childlike. She was not one of the bright lights of the group who could chatter easily, securely certain that others had some interest in their opinions. For the most part she liked listening more than contributing, occasionally putting in a question or a comment which it had taken most of the conversation to think up.
"...exactly what happened. How did fighting with magic result in magic running about uncontrolled? People fight with magic every day, and it hasn't happened anywhere but here."
"Probably because the magic systems are different," Rithia replied, surprising Vanagar. "The Realms use magic through an exchange with the gods. Irrelath didn't involve the gods at all. Well, much. I suppose they must have had some congress, or there wouldn't be this consecrated circle. Irrelathan magic involved an act of will, while the Realms have ritual and spells - or prayers, whatever you like to call them. So obviously the results are different."
Typical. Vanagar would have liked to have been at least better-informed about magic than Rithia, but as usual the red-head was able to provide answers and reasoned conclusions.
"...too cosy by half!"
It was that man with red hair and beard. He had been drinking deeply at the long window table with several other people; the Spictish merchants, an Iswickan woman, a pair of thickset men who looked like farmers, and a little out of place in the company. Now he rose unsteadily to his feet, glaring about him. "I've never trusted beast-blood and I never will. That woman's obviously in their pocket. You might say you've only heard good things about her, but y'can't tell me they weren't having a nice little chat behind our backs."
"Sit down, Wexted," the elder of the three merchants ordered, thick brows drawing together.
"Or what? You'll toss me out to the wolves? At least they're honest. You're not going to tell me you're happy to be stuck out here, all because Lady Fur and Feathers upstairs couldn't keep her trap shut!? You're pleased to be stuck out here, missing the Convocation. You don't care who cost you the profits of that get-together?"
"Be assured, someone will make full reparation, Wexted," the merchant replied, cold and soft. "Just now, however, you'll sit down and stop bellowing."
"In a day or two we c'd all be dead," said one of the thickset farmers, rising to his feet. "Bellow all ye want, Mure Wexted. We'll bellow with ye, for our wives and bairns, who'll be looking long and lonely for their das." The other farmer rose, thrust a particularly battered mug into the red-headed man's hand and clashed his own against it. "Here's to living!" he proclaimed, loudly. "To a thousand barrels of beer!"
"To a hundred saucy wenches!" his fellow added, and leered most definitely at Rithia.
Mure Wexted steadied himself with the aid of a chair, raised his eyes to the ceiling and sneered, lifting his mug in silent salutation, and obvious threat. "Here's to," he muttered, tossed the liquid back, before reeling into one of the farmers, who stumbled in turn and overset Cienne's chair. Suddenly everyone at Vanagar's table were on their feet, hands on sword-hilts.
"A challenge, by the Thunderer!" roared one of the farmers, obviously delighted by the prospect. He heaved himself forward, producing a thick-bladed knife. "Have at them Bol!" There was a sense of need about him, as if this a fight was a necessary release.
Bol obligingly hefted his mug as if he planned to level a few skulls with it, and Rithia, Zerith, Jaelith and Keevan all drew swords or knives in response. No-one else was carrying useful weapons, but Nathan hesitantly half-lifted one of the chairs as Cienne scrambled to her feet and out of the way.
"Ger! Auden! Sein!" The door was suddenly open, the cold wind sobering many as Harl Mendican ordered three of his men into the room. They did not draw their swords, merely shouldered their way deliberately between Vanagar's friends and the aggressors. The farmer called Bol swung his mug at the face of the tallest of the three, a giant with long moustaches who hailed from the western part of the Realms, judging from his blond hair and pale blue eyes. The man grinned humourlessly, caught the descending limb and, spun the farmer with a remarkable lack of effort, holding him painfully in an armlock.
Harl Mendican stalked into the room, surveying everyone as if they were rowdy teens caught rioting in a schoolroom, then looked to the head merchant for orders.
The Spictan rose wearily to his feet. "Thank you, Mendican," he said. "Time for the bar to close, it seems to me."
In short order everyone was drifting up the stairs, or around corners to rooms on the ground floor. Vanagar, pausing on the landing of the next level, looked back to see the woman with the black braid still sitting at her table, spooning up the last of her meal with uninterrupted calm. Then Rithia poked her sharply from behind and she hurried forward, fumbling along the barely-lit corridor around the corner to the left wing, where they'd engaged two rooms between the ten - no, the nine of them now, wasn't it? Rithia and Zerith had shared a room at the last inn, but they hadn't managed to get a room alone this time, and it looked like only a one-night rekindling of their affair, besides. So Vanagar had Rithia to deal with tonight, as well as Cienne and Allia.
This had been one of the disadvantages Vanagar had foreseen when she'd been deciding whether to accept Jaelith's invitation. It was not as if the other three snored or anything, but these last two days sharing rooms at inns with them, she'd been fully confirmed in her belief that she would not be comfortable sleeping in such close quarters. Vanagar was used to having her own room, and the small noises the others made through the night, as well as the constraint against making small noises herself, made it painfully hard to get to sleep. She also, more importantly, felt vulnerable and exposed, sleeping in a room not only with Allia, which would be disturbing enough, but with the often hostile Rithia as well. She felt she didn't want to sleep while they were awake.
There was also a thing she was annoyed with herself for worrying about at all. She certainly hadn't expected to find herself comparing the clothing she wore to bed with that of Allia and Rithia and Cienne. The voluminous, knee-length gowns were simply what Vanagar had always worn to bed. Allia and Cienne's neat cottom pyjama sets were inspiring a surprising amount of envy, while Rithia's transparent gown and shining silken robe simply made Vanagar feel an utter dowd. And, stuck out in the middle of Irrelath, there was no chance at all of changing matters.
"What will we do if we cannot cross the Stone Plain?" she asked Cienne, voice low since they had found Allia already asleep.
"If we can survive this place, you mean?"
Vanagar nodded, sitting down on her bed and remembering that she had thought it likely to be hard and lumpy when she first brought her gear upstairs. "The Stone Plain has always been the great barrier. We'll have to cross it to get back and if we can't, well..." She glanced at Rithia, who was sitting on her own bed, listening with a closed expression on her delicate features. "We might be living the rest of our lives in this place. Never see Gonwindar again."
"In that case, I nominate myself as the first queen of New Irrelath," drawled Rithia, unlacing the long boots she wore with her billowy riding pants. "We shall have to move to that castle over the mountain, however. We'll all soon be thoroughly sick of this inn."
Vanagar, who could all too easily picture Rithia enjoying the role of queen, hid her grimace and began to change into her night-clothes with the minimum amount of fuss, though she would never be as free about unclothing before the others as they seemed to be.
"Here," Cienne said, and passed her the damp cloth they had used to mop up spilt water when they had first checked the room over. Vanagar accepted it gratefully, wanting the luxury of a warm bath and knowing it would be a long time before she could indulge herself.
"I see what you're saying," Cienne added, after a pause. "Not only never seeing our families again, but the trials of actually living anywhere as isolated as this, let alone one which is haunted by magic. Hunting for food, gathering nuts against the coming of winter. No bread without grain, so we'd have to wait for spring, then turn farmer. No milk, which means no cheese or butter. Tanning skins for clothing and blankets. We'll be carting water up that hill whenever we need it."
Rithia took up the catalogue. "A forge to make tools - we can rework the metal we already have at the start, but soon enough we'll have to mine for it. Lacking sheep, we could search for flax or cotton plants, hope to encounter a wild goat. Learn how to spin wolf fur?"
"Learn how to spin," Cienne retorted, grinning.
"Tame a deer and milk it."
"Build houses, since we cannot share rooms forever."
"Wood, nails, rope, axes, spades, shingles," Vanagar cautiously contributed, wondering how much of this game would become their future.
"What are the odds that anyone here knows how to make shoes?" Cienne asked, pulling up her pyjama leg to inspect a bruise.
"No coffee, no chocolate, no tea. No ale, which might be a blessing in disguise."
"Be assured, that will be the first thing that pair try to make. Saucy wenches indeed!"
Rithia nodded, looking solemn. "We'll have to be careful of those two," she said, grey eyes stern. "No Watch here. No Charter Guards. No gaol-house."
"I've a knife which will enforce the law for me," Cienne replied, firmly. She tugged down her blankets and snuffed out the lamp, which was fortunate in having landed unlit and upright on one of the beds when they impacted. It hadn't even spilt.
"Where do you get oil for lamps?" Rithia asked, after a minute, and they laughed weakly, then fell silent.
Vanagar was tired, but she knew she would be awake a while yet. As Cienne and Rithia's breathing gradually deepened, she lay looking at the faint hint of light creeping through the shutters, thinking about the wicks that went in oil-lamps, and how to make candles, soap, everything that it was so easy to take for granted when someone else manufactured it. Then she thought about Rithia, who had been in too serious a mood to even bother baiting Vanagar. That was a development she liked, but doubted would last. When their future was a trifle less uncertain, Rithia would recover her poise and go back to normal.
Eventually she drifted back to constructing encounters with the tall Armitan, who probably would not, she decided, smile his thanks, but he would allow his expression to grow slightly less remote. She wondered what the Armitans thought of being trapped in Irrelath, and whether this had all indeed happened because Lady Kinrathen, like most Armitans, was steadfast in upholding Charter law.
Vanagar is very different from Kendall. I quite like the character arc I had planned for her. In fact, since I stopped writing after she made the major progression on that arc, I suspect that the transition was what I wanted to write, and since it happens relatively early in the story, is why this is unfinished.
Chapter Two
How was it possible to feel so horrible, and be so excited at the same time?
Vanagar sat at the end of the table she had successfully fallen under during the confusing tumble which had brought them here and tried not to look either miserable or overly animated, but as coolly calm as the woman with the long, black braid who had so matter-of-factly discovered the consecrated stones.
"It couldn't have been Owen Tregair," Jaelith insisted.
"Who but Owen Tregair would have done it?" Jaelith's brother, Zerith, shot back, his voice unfortunately loud. Vanagar was not the only one there who glanced nervously at the door, for fear that one of the two mages had heard him. Zerith, who did not count nerves among his failings, continued on. "Who else could have done it? Only one of the Three. So, choose between Owen Tregair, Madeleine Thorasen and the High Lady Ariantha."
"It doesn't necessarily have to be one of the Three," Cienne argued. "That's the most obvious explanation, but..." She hesitated, pale brows drawing together in concentration.
"Can't think of a good alternate explanation, can you?" Rithia mocked, voice a step beyond that ambiguous sneer which she used so well to make people, Vanagar especially, feel they had just said something foolish. But Rithia was upset and off-balance and her tone angrier than usual.
"Act of the gods?" Jaelith suggested, with the quick grin which made him so particularly likeable. "We did land in a circle consecrated to them, after all." Then he lost his cheerful expression, and glanced down at his large, capable hands. "Well, I guess we got the adventure we were looking for, and more besides. The price has been too high already."
"Will Arven be all right, do you think?" Nathan asked, hesitantly, then flushed as Rithia looked at him with an open sneer. Vanagar, who had a soft spot for the awkward Nathan because his shy uncertainty was all too reminiscent of her own, better-hidden self-consciousness, stepped in before Rithia could bite out something cutting which would guarantee that the sandy-haired boy wouldn't venture any more comments for several days.
"Jerian was his twin, Nathan," she said, looking carefully at the boy rather than watch any reaction from the rest of the table. It was one of the methods she had taught herself to keep the blushes from her cheeks, to hide her ineptness. "You know how close they were. He won't get over that quickly. Allia's with him. She'll help him grieve."
There was a general murmur of agreement.
"We need a plan of action," Zerith said, leaning forward to capture their attention. "We're in Irrelath, on the far side of the Stone Plain, by the looks of it. Surrounded by magic, wild and foul, amidst strangers who could prove to be foe as well as friend."
His voice had dropped to a dramatic whisper and Vanagar recognised her own secret thrill more openly expressed. This was Adventure. This was Romance, with every chance of Heroism thrown in. This was the epic ballad come to life, with everything thrown in from an Armitan Council member to shadow mages. Zerith had cast their small group, whose previous ambitions to adventure had risen only to visiting Arras Island during the Great Convocation, as the questers battling to win through to freedom, beset on all sides, no doubt with himself featuring as prime hero.
Vanagar, who daydreamed all too frequently of rising above the ordinary role of second child of Cayman City's Chief Justice, understood the vision which burned in Zerith's eyes. Her mother, when she had time away from dealing with the problems of Cayman City's courts, would chide her for thinking so much of the heroines whose deeds shone forth from the tales of wordsmiths, telling her to look to life's practicalities, not moon-dreams. But Vanagar had dreamed on, waiting for that prince who needed a timely rescuer, or the enchanted weapon that would fall into her hands, to transform and make anew...
She had lived a thousand triumphs, been honoured, rewarded, gone on to further and greater deeds. Never had any of those fantasies begun with the burial of a friend.
Jerian had not been a really close friend. Allia was the closest friend Vanagar had, and Allia's warm heart opened to everyone. Jerian, drawn as many were to the personable trio of Zerith, Jaelith and Rithia, had surely seen Vanagar as part of the background. Most of them did, because she was reticent, preferred to listen, and rarely had a quick and witty response. But Jerian had died, so suddenly, neck broken in the tumble that had only bruised Vanagar, and any chance of her mistaking what was happening as adventures had shattered.
Zerith, more resilient, had been solemn enough when they piled rocks over Jerian's still body, and then helped with wedging stones under the edges of the inn, but now he could not hide that, frightening as the situation was, he was already hearing the Ballad of Zerith Relien sung by Masterbard Sera.
"Strangers who will probably be the only thing preventing us from getting ourselves killed before a day goes by," Jaelith said, bringing Vanagar's thoughts back to the conversation with his usual good sense.
"Really, dear brother? Which do you suggest we place our trust in? The shadow mages or the Armitans?"
"Those mercenaries seem to know what they're doing. And that woman..."
"Who is this Stehl Lacey woman?" Rithia asked. "They all seemed to recognise the name, but I've never heard it."
"Some sort of ex-mercenary, by the looks of her," Zerith replied. "She doesn't wear a blank shield, or the insignia of a lord, so she can't be working at the moment. But she just proves my point. We know nothing about these people. We daren't trust them to place our interests on the same level as their own. We're nothing to them."
"No reason to assume that they're going to stab us in the back, Zer," Jaelith replied. "But in a way I agree. There're no Charter Guards here, no local Watch House to run to when someone breaks a law. And I don't expect that we're going to get back to Gonwindar in the near future. That's reason enough not to be unnecessarily rude to anyone. We might need their friendship, soon enough."
"All we have to do is decide which to be friends with," Rithia pointed out, echoing Vanagar's own thoughts. "There's no love lost between the Armitans and the Spictans, and if those mages hadn't interrupted, that Harman lord with the broken leg would have been calling for them to be strung up from the inn's sign-post."
"For no good reason," Cienne pointed out. "It's hardly Lady Kinrathen's fault if someone has done this to waylay her."
"She's the one opposing punitive action against Jutland," Keevan said, breaking out of his habitual brooding and silent mode.
"For the best of reasons. Whether or not Jutland broke the Charter laws by attacking Iswick civilians, their war's still an old territorial dispute and the Charter was designed to keep the other Realms from becoming embroiled in just that sort of thing. They're only fighting over a half-mile or so of land, which they both do have claim to," Cienne said, her usually mild voice growing a hint more positive.
"So Jutlanders can break Charter law with impunity? Without retribution?"
"They say it was a mistake. High Lady Ariantha will preside over an inquiry at the Convocation, but even if they are found guilty, and the due penalties handed down, that doesn't mean Iswick should be aided in their dispute. Or do you want to see the Great War starting up all over again?"
"I just think justice should be done."
"Keevan, if we take sides..."
"If we don't let them get away with it, you mean."
"Cienne, Keevan." Jaelith hadn't raised his voice particularly, but his firmness demonstrated the quality that made him the real centre of their group. Lady Relien's oldest child, trained to command. He waited until the table was quiet, attention on him, before he continued. "We can't afford to make this an issue for us. I can only thank the Star Maiden that there weren't any Jutlanders staying at the Cob and Signet. As it is, it's obviously more than a thing to argue about for some here. There are, what? Forty people in this inn? Fifty? If there'd been an attack on the Armitans, for no real reason, I bet some would have supported the Armitans. So, we fight among ourselves. I'm sure the wolves out there would be glad to pick over the remains of whoever loses, before moving on to the winners. Considering the reputation of Armitans, I would quite frankly prefer to have them on my side. Better still, I don't want to have to take sides at all. We're not to get hung up on the whole Jutland-Iswich problem. If anyone tries to draw us into it, we'll make it clear that we don't want to be part of that argument. Are we agreed?"
Even Keevan nodded, though less firmly than everyone else. Vanagar was distracted by a prickle at the edge of her senses, not the sort of thing she usually felt when arcane power was being expended, but vaguely similar. The two mages must have finally managed to set the ward on the circle of stones. She looked expectantly at the door, then remembered not to, and looked away. She was studying her square hands when the wind was let in and brought with it constraint.
Shadow mages. Vanagar waited to be last to turn to covertly study the two completely cloaked figures. There were four major schools of mages, and a scattering of minor schools, all allying with a particular god in return for control of their powers. The Vensi school was the most popular - it was the one followed by High Lady Aliantha, and those magi gave their fealty to Lady Bright. Most people considered it the 'good' school and forgot how harsh and unforgiving the sun could be. Then there was the Green School, whose link to Lord Arcturan meant both great skill with all that grew from the earth, and a need to pay blood price. The Aerin School, lofty in the sky with Lord Rictar, proud and remote, turning on the skewer of high ambitions. The shadow mages were of the Havner School, and paid homage to Lord Twilight. Seekers into the mystery, they called themselves, but they seemed more inclined to create mysteries rather than solve them. Despite hardly ever displaying their powers, they were certainly the most feared of the recognised magi.
Vanagar knew a great deal generally about the schools of magic, major and minor, even the whispers about those not recognised, like those who gave their power to Lord Heth or the Thunderer, forbidden as that was by the Charter. She had, after a year or more of agonising, decided to join the Vensi School, only to be told she did not have enough power to interest Lady Bright.
Not even her mother knew that she'd been to the Vensi School and been rejected. They'd recommended the Four Points School, aligned with the Star Maiden, which everyone knew was the school people went to when they weren't going to learn anything more than how to mend pots and light fires. The school for people who just weren't going to amount to much as mages. Soon enough, Vanagar expected she would give in and enrol, but she hadn't had the heart to capitulate yet. Discovering power inside herself had been a wonderful thing, a secret she'd kept close, and she wasn't ready yet to limit it by becoming a Four Points mage.
The two shadow mages were followed in by Stehl Lacey, who had remained outside to watch. And, Vanagar suspected, to talk to the two Armitans who had been tending to minor cuts on that massive horse, even before they looked to their own scrapes and bruises. One of the Armitans came in with her, but it was not, to Vanagar's disappointment, the tall man who had originally led the horse to the inn door.
Biting her lip, she turned her attention firmly back to her hands. This was not the time for another of her foolish crushes. Why did she always fixate on the best and the brightest, instead of deciding someone like Nathan would make her happy? Clenching her fingers firmly together, she tried not to think of how the tall Armitan man moved, of the way his eyes were tilted. She had never seen anyone quite as remarkable as him, and wished she knew the language so that she could have understood what he had said when he returned with the horse. There was always something so nobly tragic about Armitans, what with the loss of their power to transform, centuries ago in the Great War. And always so gorgeous, outshining dull-featured humans like herself, whose height was merely gawky, whose hands were square and wrists were thick, hair bushy brown frizz and eyes...
There. Vanagar knew that thinking about someone she was attracted to would only lead to a catalogue of her own faults. That was always the way.
Stehl Lacey spoke briefly to the mercenary leader, who was with his fellows at the corner table, then went upstairs with the Armitan. The woman paused as the boards creaked beneath her feet, and looked down at the room below. Things were almost as they had been before, minus a couple of broken chairs and anything resembling a bottle.
Had this quietly commanding woman also been on her way to the Convocation? Surely not for a little adventure, like Zerith and Jaelith: inviting their friends to stay at the Relien property in Lendan before crossing to Arras Island 'to see what they might see'. Vanagar shivered as the door opened again, and she saw the mercenary, Harl Mendican, heading outside.
There would be a watch through the night, she supposed. The inn-keeper had made much of having that chest of drawers drawn across the kitchen door, and every shutter firmly closed and barred. She would not like to be sitting outside in the chilly breeze, with only the horse for company. That was the difference between dreaming and living an adventure.
But no. The tall Armitan was outside, wearing that cloak covered with an incredible pattern of knot-work which he'd fetched for himself. It was one of the finest examples of Armitan decoration she'd ever seen, far more than the usual border of interlocked lines. She'd been an age studying him out of the corner of her eye, trying to work out what beasts were depicted in the centre of that mulberry-red, black and midnight blue design. Armitan knotwork always stylised its subjects so it was difficult to guess exactly what it was. Finally she decided the creatures were either dogs or horses. The cloak was a ground-sweeping piece, infinitely more complex than any other Armiten design she'd seen, and it suited him completely, hid the plain soldier's garb in its heavy folds and left him regal, aloof and handsomer than before.
Vanagar gave more of her attention to dreaming than the conversation continuing at their table, allowing her mind to produce a reason for her to find herself outside and alone with the Armitan. She would be just going up to bed when the mercenary would come back in, look around and, not seeing that serving-girl, would catch her attention and say that the Armitan wanted something to drink, before heading off upstairs herself. She would give him a look for treating her like a servant, which he'd ignore, then she'd shrug with resignation, clean out one of the battered pewter mugs with a cloth and draw off the last of the ale out of the keg behind the curved bar.
She would shiver in the cold and the ale would slop over her fingers as she stepped down from the doorway. He would glance at her briefly - she was sure he rarely missed a thing that went on around him - but his attention would be taken up by the big horse, nervously shifting because the howling of the wolves was closer still. A glint at his side, beneath the folds of his cloak would reveal that he had brought more than clothing down with him.
Waiting silently, as the gelding backed and tossed his head, Vanagar would shiver from more than the cold as she saw the strength of the man, and those differences which made him beast-kin would show clearly as he held the horse firm. Then he would speak, say something soothing in the liquid tongue Vanagar did not understand, and stroke the soft neck as gently as a dove. She would watch him openly, thinking about people who had never been animals, but who shared some common, silent bond with the furred and feathered. The blood of shape-changers should show more clearly. Even things like a hawkish nose or vaguely feline eyes were minor things, more in the mind of the observer. You'd think Armitans would at least have pointed ears, more than that slight tilt to their eyes. Abrian-Alsans had eyes like that too, but weren't Shifter blood.
There was nothing to say this man wasn't human. Just a very handsome man. His skin was clear, his features even, long jaw not heavy, but well defined, nose carefully sculpted, hair shoulder-length with the small braids before each ear practically every Armitan she'd ever seen wore.
Vanagar frowned, trying to remember how his lips had been formed. Fairly narrow, with a hint of a line forming by one corner, as if he lifted it cynically more often than he smiled. You'd never guess that the Armitans were ever anything but coldly reserved. Perhaps, as she handed him the mug of ale, he would award her the slightest smile as he nodded his head.
"My thanks, Ker," he would say, lifting the mug.
Ale, out in the cold wind? She sighed. Exactly the wrong thing. Surely some sort of hot drink - chocolate if it could be found in the kitchen - it might be expensive, but most inns were stocking it now that the supply from Oxland was increasing. She gave up on the daydream for now - she would embroider another version in greater detail later, as she waited for sleep.
Looking down the table to where Zerith was detailing what he knew of the various legends of Irrelath, Vanagar found Jaelith watching her, amused. She tried not to look annoyed. Occasionally Jaelith would tease her about her constant daydreaming, though he never sneered at her or dismissed her the way his brother or Rithia might. But she wished Jaelith hadn't noticed her just now. When he noticed that she was drifting on the edge of the group more than usual, it generally prompted one of his attempts to include her in the conversation. When Zerith finished, Jaelith would probably ask her something, and it would be glaringly obvious that he was trying to draw her out and, as always, what he asked would be something she had no particular opinion about, and she'd say something flat and dull and that would be that.
The gesture would be typical of Jaelith - he did the same thing for Nathan, with even worse results - out of a ready sympathy for the tongue-tied, she supposed. She wondered if he'd ever know how much she resented his kind attempts. It reduced her somehow, made her pitiable, childlike. She was not one of the bright lights of the group who could chatter easily, securely certain that others had some interest in their opinions. For the most part she liked listening more than contributing, occasionally putting in a question or a comment which it had taken most of the conversation to think up.
"...exactly what happened. How did fighting with magic result in magic running about uncontrolled? People fight with magic every day, and it hasn't happened anywhere but here."
"Probably because the magic systems are different," Rithia replied, surprising Vanagar. "The Realms use magic through an exchange with the gods. Irrelath didn't involve the gods at all. Well, much. I suppose they must have had some congress, or there wouldn't be this consecrated circle. Irrelathan magic involved an act of will, while the Realms have ritual and spells - or prayers, whatever you like to call them. So obviously the results are different."
Typical. Vanagar would have liked to have been at least better-informed about magic than Rithia, but as usual the red-head was able to provide answers and reasoned conclusions.
"...too cosy by half!"
It was that man with red hair and beard. He had been drinking deeply at the long window table with several other people; the Spictish merchants, an Iswickan woman, a pair of thickset men who looked like farmers, and a little out of place in the company. Now he rose unsteadily to his feet, glaring about him. "I've never trusted beast-blood and I never will. That woman's obviously in their pocket. You might say you've only heard good things about her, but y'can't tell me they weren't having a nice little chat behind our backs."
"Sit down, Wexted," the elder of the three merchants ordered, thick brows drawing together.
"Or what? You'll toss me out to the wolves? At least they're honest. You're not going to tell me you're happy to be stuck out here, all because Lady Fur and Feathers upstairs couldn't keep her trap shut!? You're pleased to be stuck out here, missing the Convocation. You don't care who cost you the profits of that get-together?"
"Be assured, someone will make full reparation, Wexted," the merchant replied, cold and soft. "Just now, however, you'll sit down and stop bellowing."
"In a day or two we c'd all be dead," said one of the thickset farmers, rising to his feet. "Bellow all ye want, Mure Wexted. We'll bellow with ye, for our wives and bairns, who'll be looking long and lonely for their das." The other farmer rose, thrust a particularly battered mug into the red-headed man's hand and clashed his own against it. "Here's to living!" he proclaimed, loudly. "To a thousand barrels of beer!"
"To a hundred saucy wenches!" his fellow added, and leered most definitely at Rithia.
Mure Wexted steadied himself with the aid of a chair, raised his eyes to the ceiling and sneered, lifting his mug in silent salutation, and obvious threat. "Here's to," he muttered, tossed the liquid back, before reeling into one of the farmers, who stumbled in turn and overset Cienne's chair. Suddenly everyone at Vanagar's table were on their feet, hands on sword-hilts.
"A challenge, by the Thunderer!" roared one of the farmers, obviously delighted by the prospect. He heaved himself forward, producing a thick-bladed knife. "Have at them Bol!" There was a sense of need about him, as if this a fight was a necessary release.
Bol obligingly hefted his mug as if he planned to level a few skulls with it, and Rithia, Zerith, Jaelith and Keevan all drew swords or knives in response. No-one else was carrying useful weapons, but Nathan hesitantly half-lifted one of the chairs as Cienne scrambled to her feet and out of the way.
"Ger! Auden! Sein!" The door was suddenly open, the cold wind sobering many as Harl Mendican ordered three of his men into the room. They did not draw their swords, merely shouldered their way deliberately between Vanagar's friends and the aggressors. The farmer called Bol swung his mug at the face of the tallest of the three, a giant with long moustaches who hailed from the western part of the Realms, judging from his blond hair and pale blue eyes. The man grinned humourlessly, caught the descending limb and, spun the farmer with a remarkable lack of effort, holding him painfully in an armlock.
Harl Mendican stalked into the room, surveying everyone as if they were rowdy teens caught rioting in a schoolroom, then looked to the head merchant for orders.
The Spictan rose wearily to his feet. "Thank you, Mendican," he said. "Time for the bar to close, it seems to me."
In short order everyone was drifting up the stairs, or around corners to rooms on the ground floor. Vanagar, pausing on the landing of the next level, looked back to see the woman with the black braid still sitting at her table, spooning up the last of her meal with uninterrupted calm. Then Rithia poked her sharply from behind and she hurried forward, fumbling along the barely-lit corridor around the corner to the left wing, where they'd engaged two rooms between the ten - no, the nine of them now, wasn't it? Rithia and Zerith had shared a room at the last inn, but they hadn't managed to get a room alone this time, and it looked like only a one-night rekindling of their affair, besides. So Vanagar had Rithia to deal with tonight, as well as Cienne and Allia.
This had been one of the disadvantages Vanagar had foreseen when she'd been deciding whether to accept Jaelith's invitation. It was not as if the other three snored or anything, but these last two days sharing rooms at inns with them, she'd been fully confirmed in her belief that she would not be comfortable sleeping in such close quarters. Vanagar was used to having her own room, and the small noises the others made through the night, as well as the constraint against making small noises herself, made it painfully hard to get to sleep. She also, more importantly, felt vulnerable and exposed, sleeping in a room not only with Allia, which would be disturbing enough, but with the often hostile Rithia as well. She felt she didn't want to sleep while they were awake.
There was also a thing she was annoyed with herself for worrying about at all. She certainly hadn't expected to find herself comparing the clothing she wore to bed with that of Allia and Rithia and Cienne. The voluminous, knee-length gowns were simply what Vanagar had always worn to bed. Allia and Cienne's neat cottom pyjama sets were inspiring a surprising amount of envy, while Rithia's transparent gown and shining silken robe simply made Vanagar feel an utter dowd. And, stuck out in the middle of Irrelath, there was no chance at all of changing matters.
"What will we do if we cannot cross the Stone Plain?" she asked Cienne, voice low since they had found Allia already asleep.
"If we can survive this place, you mean?"
Vanagar nodded, sitting down on her bed and remembering that she had thought it likely to be hard and lumpy when she first brought her gear upstairs. "The Stone Plain has always been the great barrier. We'll have to cross it to get back and if we can't, well..." She glanced at Rithia, who was sitting on her own bed, listening with a closed expression on her delicate features. "We might be living the rest of our lives in this place. Never see Gonwindar again."
"In that case, I nominate myself as the first queen of New Irrelath," drawled Rithia, unlacing the long boots she wore with her billowy riding pants. "We shall have to move to that castle over the mountain, however. We'll all soon be thoroughly sick of this inn."
Vanagar, who could all too easily picture Rithia enjoying the role of queen, hid her grimace and began to change into her night-clothes with the minimum amount of fuss, though she would never be as free about unclothing before the others as they seemed to be.
"Here," Cienne said, and passed her the damp cloth they had used to mop up spilt water when they had first checked the room over. Vanagar accepted it gratefully, wanting the luxury of a warm bath and knowing it would be a long time before she could indulge herself.
"I see what you're saying," Cienne added, after a pause. "Not only never seeing our families again, but the trials of actually living anywhere as isolated as this, let alone one which is haunted by magic. Hunting for food, gathering nuts against the coming of winter. No bread without grain, so we'd have to wait for spring, then turn farmer. No milk, which means no cheese or butter. Tanning skins for clothing and blankets. We'll be carting water up that hill whenever we need it."
Rithia took up the catalogue. "A forge to make tools - we can rework the metal we already have at the start, but soon enough we'll have to mine for it. Lacking sheep, we could search for flax or cotton plants, hope to encounter a wild goat. Learn how to spin wolf fur?"
"Learn how to spin," Cienne retorted, grinning.
"Tame a deer and milk it."
"Build houses, since we cannot share rooms forever."
"Wood, nails, rope, axes, spades, shingles," Vanagar cautiously contributed, wondering how much of this game would become their future.
"What are the odds that anyone here knows how to make shoes?" Cienne asked, pulling up her pyjama leg to inspect a bruise.
"No coffee, no chocolate, no tea. No ale, which might be a blessing in disguise."
"Be assured, that will be the first thing that pair try to make. Saucy wenches indeed!"
Rithia nodded, looking solemn. "We'll have to be careful of those two," she said, grey eyes stern. "No Watch here. No Charter Guards. No gaol-house."
"I've a knife which will enforce the law for me," Cienne replied, firmly. She tugged down her blankets and snuffed out the lamp, which was fortunate in having landed unlit and upright on one of the beds when they impacted. It hadn't even spilt.
"Where do you get oil for lamps?" Rithia asked, after a minute, and they laughed weakly, then fell silent.
Vanagar was tired, but she knew she would be awake a while yet. As Cienne and Rithia's breathing gradually deepened, she lay looking at the faint hint of light creeping through the shutters, thinking about the wicks that went in oil-lamps, and how to make candles, soap, everything that it was so easy to take for granted when someone else manufactured it. Then she thought about Rithia, who had been in too serious a mood to even bother baiting Vanagar. That was a development she liked, but doubted would last. When their future was a trifle less uncertain, Rithia would recover her poise and go back to normal.
Eventually she drifted back to constructing encounters with the tall Armitan, who probably would not, she decided, smile his thanks, but he would allow his expression to grow slightly less remote. She wondered what the Armitans thought of being trapped in Irrelath, and whether this had all indeed happened because Lady Kinrathen, like most Armitans, was steadfast in upholding Charter law.
May 17, 2017
An abandoned project - Inn Chap 1
I was just re-reading Sabriel, which I'm fairly sure was the inspiration of an old partial of mine with the working title of Inn. Then I started re-reading the old partial, instead of, y'know, working on things I intend to finish.
So I figure I shall spread the time-wasting around and give you the first few chapters of Inn over a couple of posts. There's a lot wrong with this story - it reads rather D&D-ish to me now, but I'm entirely amused by the situation. Don't read on if you like things like resolution, or endings...
[Caution: I am unkind to horses in this chapter. Reminiscent of a scene in Champion.]
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Chapter One
The inn fell sideways.
The only warning had been the man and woman in the corner jolting to their feet. And just as abruptly falling to the floor, along with every other person standing. Tables, chairs, plates and tankards, forgotten objects placed on dusty cross-beams, all flung themselves across the room in the direction of the kitchen.
Shan, who had been sitting by the entrance, experienced those brief moments as a minor eternity. First, the small table lifted away from her, upending its contents in an arcing tumble. She followed it, trousers parting company with worn bench, chin meeting the leg of the table as it overturned completely. Somehow she caught up with it, rolled into the rough and unfinished underside, and lay disoriented on her back as the table slid towards the shrieks and shouts of the rest of the room. Then direction reversed, much more abruptly, as the inn hit something hard enough to send every beam juddering, and fill the room with ominous cracking noises. Shan's table shot directly into the door, which thankfully was closed against the autumn breezes. There came a booming, thooming echo, and a clatter of crashes. Then a brief, half-quiet as smaller objects and pieces of plaster pattered to a belated halt, before the screaming began.
Stunned, bruised in odd places, and becoming painfully aware of several overlarge splinters, Shan attempted to rise, but fell back, head spinning. The screaming grew louder, drowned out by one particularly shrill cry.
Shaking her head did not clear it, but served to start it hurting. Shan succeeded in sitting up the second time, and gazed at the wreckage of the second-best inn in Kandalay. The best and the worst had been full, but the largest had not quite closed its doors to the saddle-weary. With less than a week until the Great Convocation, travellers were thick on the roads of Gonwindar and Shan had been lucky to bargain herself a small room at the Cob and Signet, out of the cool autumn air at twice the normal price. She'd almost had to accept a corner of the common room after lights out, which she did not like doing in the least, especially not with the day ahead of her.
It was difficult to see the extent of the damage, with most of the lanterns and candles extinguished by their falls, except for the one which was merrily exploring a new realm outside the confines of its casings, lamp-oil trailing pathways into conflagration. Two women in a guard's mix of chain and leather, with quicker reflexes than most, were already attempting to extinguish the fire. Shan started to stand, then stopped and hastily attended to the more pressing matter of the two-inch splinter which had scored a bed in the fleshy pad at the base of her right thumb.
"What happened?! What happened?! What happened?! WHAT HAPPENED?!" a man shouted above the increasing babble of noise.
Shan listened almost absently as she moved on from her hand to another spike of wood in her thigh.
"Jerro! Jerro!? Oh, Star Maiden, no!"
"...water, and quick!"
"Use the ale!"
"...happened?! What happened?! WHAT..."
"Help me! My leg! My leg!"
"Please wake up!"
"It's all spilt!"
"The fire! My leg! Help me, Thunder take you!"
"What do I...?"
"...if you pointed out a bucket of water, I'd gladly use it. Till then, give me the damn cloak!"
"No!"
"It hurts..."
"... happened?! Wh -"
Someone slapped the shouter, which seemed to make things quieter, though everyone else still cried out through the smoke filling the room. Shan, eyes stinging, regarded the sliver she had extracted from her thigh. It gleamed, slickly wet. Shuddering, she tossed it away and decided the smaller darts of wood could wait. She squinted through fire-painted dark across at a crumpled pile of benches, tables and chairs, licked at by the burgeoning flames, and blessed the habitual caution that stationed her close to the main exit.
An inn-keep with sense would keep buckets of sand, not water, and Shan, driven by a vague memory of just such a precaution, took a cautious and painful step towards the stair when a woman's voice cut through the noise like a note struck with crystal.
"Ashranhavat!!"
The word rang and throbbed in the air, deadening all other sound as it sucked light and life from the flames which licked at that tangle of broken wood. Even the tumbled coals of the fire winked out, dying stars swallowed by the night. The silence that followed was almost complete, marred only by a hiccuping sob and some coughing. And the wind, which rattled the shutters.
Shan, driven by an urge to clear her lungs, and an urgent need to get out of the room, reached out and dragged her table-sled out of the way. The scraping was like nails driven into her throbbing skull, and she hastily opened the main door.
The wind came in.
A strong, cold wind, with a strange scent, crisp and powerful in the stifling atmosphere of the room. She could see cold moonlight on water in the valley below, surrounded by the shadows of trees. And the scent was sharp note of pine, which was as confusing as all the rest, for there were no stretches of pine in Kandalay, or for leagues in any direction, not on the great fertile plain of Gonwindar. Gonwindar was flat and full of fields. Kandalay was flat and full of buildings and muddy streets.
Shan stood in the doorway, framed by moonlight and shadows, and looked out at a lake of black and silver in a wide, deep valley between hills and mountains where the wind played a cold song.
"Lord Twilight protect us," she murmured, hand falling from the doorframe, leaving a sticky red stain.
"What's there?" someone called. "What struck the inn?"
"'That was an earthquake, numbskull!"
"No! One of those twisty-winds. I saw such rip a house to tinder, long ago."
"Nothing natural," Shan replied softly, when a discomforted pause fell upon the room's occupants, and stepped out the front door, down to gouged earth that was a good foot below the buckled wooden floor. She glanced back into the inn, then further around about her, wanting to see where and how and why. The lake's nearest bank was beyond a cluster of trees at the foot of this rock-strewn hill. The water curved away behind more trees to the...
Shan frowned at the moon, and decided the lake curved west. It was much colder than it had been in Kandalay, and the wind cut through the cloth of her shirt with ease. But she did not feel inclined to go back inside to fetch a coat.
The rescue work could be safely left to those closer at hand while she made certain they were not in immediate danger of sliding off the hilltop the inn now perched upon. It was nothing at all to do with her unease in cramped places made dangerous by wounded and unpredictable people. Well, not much. If an extra pair of hands had truly been necessary, she knew she would have helped, but most of the people in the main room of the inn had appeared to be relatively unharmed, able to turn their hand to the task.
The Cob and Signet was shaped like a fat-bottomed horseshoe, two wings having been added as the inn prospered. A capacious stable had crossed the shoe at the inn's rear. This was almost entirely gone: only the nearest stalls still whole. Shan, having established that the crest of this hill was almost flat, more than sufficient to hold the inn, circled the building, drawn to the remainder of the stable.
Grass, slick with evening dew, made footing tricky, and she used the occasional convenient rock to ease her way. This wing of the inn had been unlucky, the hill sloping away beneath it more drastically than any other section. The stable walls were quite three feet above the earth at their furthest corner and Shan could make out, in the shadows beneath, the shapes of two horses, one of which was belting away for all its worth at the treacherous walls which still enclosed it.
Cautiously, she stopped at the open entrance, trying to adjust her eyes to the unrelieved black inside, to the stink of blood and dung and fear in that dark enclosure, overlying the usual warm scent of horse and hay. The sound the horse made was worse than that of any human.
Shan bit her lip and looked away, trying to decide what to do. The hill sloped down to a large forest in this direction, a blot of darkness filling another valley. Mountains this way too, not so high, and...she forgot even the screaming for a moment, eyes on a thin tower of white stone that could be glimpsed over the peak of a jagged mountain rising beyond the forest. A beautiful, delicate thing, but unlit, cold and somehow unfriendly. Where in the nine hells were they?
The splintering of wood brought her attention back to the occupants of the stable. Edging inside the stable, keeping as far from the gates of the stalls as possible, she fumbled with, and managed to open, the shutters which stood just right of the entrance, though they were now inconveniently high and out of reach. Moonlight revealed a glimpse of the wild eyes and laid-back ears of a very large horse indeed, trying to break its way free.
It was the second animal that made the worse noise, down where the slope of the hill was more pronounced. Shan wondered how it was that, since the stable did not have a floor, the animals had not fallen out when the inn was thrown wherever this was. The damage done was clear, and Shan slid her hand through the bottom of the false pocket in her trousers, and removed the knife she kept strapped to her upper thigh. It did not take long to do a kindness.
The other horse, having briefly been silenced, renewed its efforts to reduce the stall to complete rubble and she wondered if she would be able to calm it enough to lead it out of the dark. Then the problem was taken away from her as a man, presumably the owner, walked swiftly into the stable.
"Reventh. Ho, Reventh." His voice was light-timbred and soothing. Shan decided her presence would not help, and ducked under the jutting corner of the stable into the crisp, clean night. She shivered as the wind hit her again and she tried to judge how far off the snow was from this place.
Quickly wiping her blade on the wet grass and, sheathing it, she rounded the corner and watched until the man emerged, leading a far from calm but apparently uninjured animal from the stable.
Shan had not seen this man in the common room of the Cob and Signet, but it was late and the inn had been crammed full, many in their rooms when they were brought so dramatically out of Kandalay. He wore the plain dress of a guard, though the moonlight was not bright enough to make out any insignia clearly. The accent, the words he used soothing the horse, were Armitan, which could cause complications in an already fraught situation. Descended from shapeshifters, Armitans might have lost the ability to change their form, but they were strong and strange and difficult to deal with, particularly for humans who lived outside their convoluted laws.
Shan, who had met Armitans she liked and others she had loathed, decided against overtures of friendship or gestures of hostility both, until she saw how this one would act.
"The blood will draw hunters," she said instead, and he glanced towards the forest.
Shan fumbled in one of her pockets and drew out a white ceramic disc half the size of her palm, etched with tiny symbols. It was glowing steadily and evenly, as she had only seen it do in a room warded by layers of spells to prevent eavesdropping. She did not hide it from the Armitan as he looked back, but turned it twice over in her hand, then held it up for a more specific test. The disc had three functions. The first was to glow in the presence of enchantments. Usually it shone along one rim, in the direction of the enchantment, and was very useful for tracking down traps or spells set to listen. The function she used now was a more wide-ranging one, indicating the direction of the strongest source of magic in its not inconsiderable range, for this was an expensive little toy. She was not at all surprised when it indicated the direction of the tower, and she moved the disc back and forth to be certain it was not the forest which was causing the rim to burn silver.
Since the third function, a limited dispell, would destroy this handy little tool, Shan pocketed it without further experimentation.
"Irrelath," she said, voice quivering unprofessionally, "unless we're on a different world altogether."
The Armitan didn't react at all, though deciding they were in Irrelath was a revelation worthy of at least a mild flinch. Drama was served when a wolf howled, down in the forest, song faint and distant. They both stared down at it, then Shan, mind on a thin tube of magically-stiffened wax concealed among her belongings, turned and headed carefully back to the front entrance of Cob and Signet, choosing not to tackle the back entrance by the kitchens, where once a well had stood. Man and horse followed behind over the slippery grass.
One of the pair of guardswomen met them at the corner, and she hurried forward to examine the surviving horse. So those two were linked to the Armitan. A lithe man in mercenary garb had followed her, but hung back watchfully.
"Lonstathen was beyond hope," the Armitan said, in his people's language, and the guardswoman bowed her head as if she had heard of the death of a comrade. Shan rounded the corner, and found that dozens of people were now crowding the slope just outside the inn's main door.
"That's a wolf," said a distressed voice, the youth who had lost Jerro, from the sound of it. He saw on the edge of the crowd of people examining their cuts and bruises and gazing about at the hills and mountains and lake and trees and low heavy moon with fear and wonder. And not a little annoyance, especially from those who were nearest to Shan.
"...pay for this?"
"Someone, be assured."
"We could still get there in time."
"You truly believe that?"
"Who do..."
Three men, Spictish merchants and, from their fur-trimmings, wealthy, broke off their muttered conversation as Shan, followed by the Armitan, approached. She could see four distinct clumps in the waiting crowd. The merchants, with attendant mercenary guards. A clutch of young Gonwindan travellers who had previously been making quite a time of it at the longest table. The inn's staff, huddled about the tall, bearded inn-keep. And Armitans, four of them counting the one leading the horse: two men and two women. There was just something about Armitans, their height or the way they held themselves: you could always spot them. Added to their group were the two guardswomen, who were not obviously of the shifter blood, but patently aligned to them as they ranged behind their tall bond-lords. And there were travellers in pairs or trios or alone, but they were scattered between the others, not clustering together.
Moonlight made everyone stark and drawn. A few wept or shivered uncontrollably, many glanced constantly at the black and silver lake or into the inn, which Shan did herself, observing that the tables had been drawn roughly back into place, but no other effort had been made, not even to deal with the shards of glass scattered everywhere. A body, Jerro's presumably, was lying shrouded on the longest table, dimly lit by a ball of mage-light hovering among the rafters. Two other tables were occupied by uncovered victims, a woman whose dull grey dress and apron was drenched in blood and a man who screamed loudly as Shan looked in. A neat, calm woman in worn leathers ignored the bout of cursing which followed, nodding at the hooded figure at her side as she maintained a firm grip on the splints she was fastening on man's broken leg.
"The main stables are gone," the Armitan said, as he approached his tall, stern kin, people making hasty passage for him and his unhappy-looking mount. "Only Reventh came through intact."
One of the Armitan woman, apparently the leader of that group, bowed her head. "I heard his death," she replied.
"Speak no secrets, Shiftless Ones," snapped a very small, very old woman, who stood proud and indignant huddled in a thick cloak, flanked by a middle-aged woman and a younger man holding the hand of a ten year-old girl. A family group.
The name was a strong insult, and Armitans turned their heads as one to study her, faces cold, but the old woman showed no signs of quailing. Perhaps she had read the feeling of the crowd in general towards the Armitans, or, more likely from that imperious stance, she was used to speaking her mind and not suffering serious consequences.
"They spoke only of the stables, which are gone, good lady," put in a blond man of indeterminate age, briefly moving a sopping cloth away from his bleeding nose. Despite the blood, he had the diction of a trained bard, and the woman who stood close to his side was regretfully fingering the crushed remains of a set of reed pipes.
"'Tis mannerless, if naught else," the old woman shot back, entirely without irony.
"What do you mean, you're not going to heal it fully?!" roared the man with the broken leg.
If the woman attending him replied, Shan could not hear her answer. She and her equally cloaked companion turned their backs on the sufferer and walked to the entrance of the inn. These two were quite identical in unrelieved black. Trousers, shirts, boots, hooded cloaks, gloves.
The woman in leathers paused to cover the face of the occupant of the other table, before following the black-clad pair, and the crowd waited till this last woman reached the doorway to survey the lake below. She wore no shield-patch of a mercenary, or the insignia of any bond-lord. A traveller, sword-skilled, but no longer professional? She had forty years or more, and an air of unflappable calm.
"So this is Irrelath, is it? Not a place I expected to see before Lord Twilight passed me through."
"Irrelath?!" The leader of the Spictish merchants, fifties and greying, hawkish profile hardening as he stepped forward. "What mean you by that?"
"Where else could it be?" the woman replied, easily. "With magic so thick in the air you could almost choke on it? The stars tell me we are north and west of Gonwindar, my eyes see a place I have never been, in all my wanderings. Irrelath, or else Lord Twilight, in His humour, has passed us on to a place beyond our reckoning." She glanced again at the sky. "But the Maiden and the Jester look down on me. There can be no other answer. We are in the Forsaken Land."
Great was the consternation from those who had not realised this already, a hubbub of voices rising in fear, astonishment, wonder and anger. Shan, watching the fuss from a discreet location beside the doorway, caught the eye of the bloody-nosed man she judged a bard. He grimaced at her and she raised one shoulder in response. Although she felt no need to be so vocal, her own emotions were not so far divorced from those being expressed. Astonishment, fear and wonder, for the Forsaken Land was the last place any of them should be.
Once, Irrelath had been a great power in the Realms. A land of mages strong enough to dominate the world, if they had so chosen, but who had instead focused their energies inward, controlling themselves rather than others. An idyllic place, the wonder of the Realms. The occasional lucky supplicant was allowed within the borders of Irrelath, petitioning for healing or to study what they could of arcane arts, or to trade, or seek wise guidance. Only the rare few, however. The Irraines had taken good measure of the rest of the inhabitants of the Realms, most of whom cared little for the study of the soul. And such was their power that only an invitation could win passage north of the Shield Mountains.
Irrelath's downfall had not been due to outside attack, but rot within. One bad apple, they always say. Attempting to contain one man's ambition, and the forces he had summoned in defiance of Lord Twilight's ban, all Irrelath was lost. Wars of magic had such nasty side-effects, too. Magic run rampant, unbounded, feeding or feeding off the ghosts of the long-dead, mutating, living according to a law of its own, combating or even aiding the creature that had been summoned. The few survivors of that battle had stumbled south, many killed by their own defences, unable to defeat an entire Realm of magic running unchecked.
There were still many eager to visit Irrelath. It was a rich ruin, and every other year Shan heard word of another expedition determined to bring back ancient treasures, recover some of the wondrous items rumoured to be lost in the Forsaken Land. Most of these foolhardy folk merely scavenged along the edge of the Stone Plain, never even approaching the true land of Irrelath. Some, with arcane resources sufficient to counter the magical defences, ventured further onto the Stone Plain. Greater dangers, greater gain. Since most of the defences were concentrated on the Stone Plain, there had been occasional attempts to approach Irrelath by water, and even by air. The storms which had arisen not only wrecked ships, or dashed carefully constructed flying vehicles to the ground, they also spread down to the rest of the Realms, ripped the roofs off half of Elbian, drowned much of Ferrance and Medmusal. Suggesting that you would approach the Forsaken Land by air or sea was a good way to get arrested. No-one, however, had thought to throw an inn at it before.
"Surely the how doesn't matter," said the bard, when the imperious old woman demanded an explanation of their sudden migration from the unresponsive pair of magi. "Or even the who, since only one of the Three could have done this. It is why. Why, in the name of all the Gods, would one of the Three have done this to us? Taken an inn full of innocent people and tossed them into Irrelath like - like so much wind-blown chaff?"
"P'raps Lady Kinrathen there would care to answer that one for us," said a surly voice. It was the man with the broken leg, who had hopped slowly to the doorway, using a chair as a handy crutch. He was a big man, a red-haired Harman, his bearded, florid countenance showing the signs of past battles, and currently twisted with pain and anger as he glowered at the four Armitans. From his clothing, costly but functional, she thought he must be some sort of minor lordling, though she could not see anybody about who might be acting as servant or guard.
The bard looked surprised, then thoughtful, then worried. And the crowd's fear and confusion suddenly took on a distinctly hostile edge. Shan sighed inwardly. They did not need blame to make matters worse. They were in Irrelath. There were better things to worry about.
Lady Kinrathen, for it seemed it was, did not respond to the accusation with so much as a flicker of an eyelid. Her expression had already been imposingly cold, and did not change. The Armiten woman was known as one of the cornerstones of the Twilight Council's refusal to declare its support for Iswick after the Ash Field Massacre. Owen Tregair, one of the Three, happened to be a native of Iswick. And since only one of the Three could summon the power to do something so spectacular as this, it was very likely Lady Kinrathen was the target.
A haughty gazelle, Shan thought irrelevantly. Armitans tended to remind people of various animals, and Lady Kinrathen had the long-limbed grace of a gazelle, honey-blonde hair almost the right shade of the plainsbeast's pelt, just as the woman who stood at her shoulder, with her pointed chin and reddish tint to brown hair, brought to mind a fox. The eyes were always Armitan blue, and tilted.
Once Armitans had been organised into clans according to the beast they could shift into, and it often was possible to guess that clan simply by looking at the Armitan. Shan studied the remaining two to try and guess their clans. There was something feline about the shorter of the two men, whose gaze was heavy-lidded like a cat's bored gaze, but she could not guess what the Armitan who had brought the horse out of the stable resembled. He just looked...Armiten.
The red-haired Harman looked about the gathering, challenging onlookers with his angry gaze. "I say we..."
Much to Shan's relief, the man did not have the opportunity to finish whatever suggestion he was in the process of making. One of the black-garbed mages, the man, held up a hand, stepping into the centre of the gathering.
"You accuse Owen Tregair of waylaying one of the Council?" he asked, voice whisper-soft, as cold as the Armitans' faces.
The menace in the words gave the Harman pause. He shook his head brusquely, then paused, and said warily: "What other explanation is there?"
"You impugn a man's honour groundlessly," said the other mage, voice as soft as her fellow's. It was an unnerving thing, especially with his eyes still partially hidden by his hood. "In haste and hatred, without proof, you blacken a reputation without tarnish. Unsay your accusation."
The threat, the unspoken 'or else', hung in the air. These were shadow mages and Owen Tregair headed their school. Even two shadow mages against forty-something were odds many would not take, and the Harman did not find support as his eyes shifted from the twin dark hoods to those who watched. The wind brought the lone cry of a wolf to them once more. It seemed closer than before, and Shan thought of the stables. An uneasy spate of murmurs, sobs and shudders ran through the gathered travellers, dying away as the two mages remained perfectly still, facing down the Harman.
"I meant no insult," the blocky man muttered, face blotching red and white with anger, even as he bowed his head in submission. "I withdraw my words."
"Neither how nor why nor who need concern us this night," continued the hooded woman, turning to look at the Armitans, then facing out towards the lake. "Only where."
"We must ward the inn," continued the other mage. "There is more than magic in this land. There is darkness. If energy you have for argument, put it instead to preserving our lives."
"Then by all means instruct us," responded the woman in worn leather. She turned to the innkeep, who was morosely studying the shambles through his front door. "At the least, we are ready and willing to lend a hand to restoring some order, and perhaps making the doors and windows more secure."
"Prop her up round the edges," replied the innkeep absently, eyes on the significant gap between the sagging floorboards and the curve of grass beneath. Shan's uneasy imagination produced a pair of slitted eyes glinting back at him. She was surprised when the man grinned with sudden humour. "Well, I always wanted a view I could charge through the nose for," he said, philosophically. He patted the snivelling child still clutching his hand. "Dry yourself up, Thenda. Da needs you to be brave for him. Tell you what, hon', I'll put you in charge of the kitchens. Seft, Lektin - mind Thenda's words - I want to see the kitchen, if not spotless, at least bearable. Maybe, if the hotch-potch is still in its pot, you can see about dishing it out when you're done." He looked uncertainly from the leather-clad woman to the mages, and glanced surreptitiously at the Armitans. Lady Kinrathen was in all probability the person of highest rank present, but the innkeep clearly did not find potential leadership in that source, or from the cloaked mages. If he was inclined to follow the woman in leather's lead, he was probably holding off for fear of offending those of higher rank. Finally he said, to no-one in particular: "There's a cellar full of food and wine open to the air in Kandalay. What we've got in the kitchen will last a day or two, no more. I've heard tell the beasts and fruits, the very water of Irrelath is poisonous."
"That is tomorrow's concern," the male mage replied, voice registering an indifference few others felt. "For now, we need to construct a circle. Collect stones, none smaller than a man's head, but preferably larger. Pile them here, you will not be able to place them correctly." With this he turned and, followed by his companion, walked back into the inn.
"Who put him in charge?" muttered one of the Gonwindar youths.
"You going to argue?"
"You never know of a morning what the evening will bring," pronounced the bard, in an obvious attempt to be cheery. "Well, friend innkeep, I hope you have something about which we can dig with, or else it will be a wearisome task which has been set for us."
"I'm thinking the pokers from the hearths are the best that can be found," the innkeep replied. He looked about at the plentiful scattering of stone and shadow on the moon-drenched hills, and grimaced. "Seft, Letkin, go with Thenda and get some light about, then see to the kitchens. Jude, stop that snivelling and go about collecting everything reasonable for digging, then you can get the glass off the common room floor, make a round of the old place with your broom and bin. Any who'd care to lend a hand, it'd be appreciated. There's more than my girls can handle, plain to see."
A few looked grateful for the opportunity to be useful without actually wandering about in the dark digging up rocks. More than a few looked surly or uncomfortable or unwilling. Disdain was clear in the previously vocal old woman's "Come Charlotte," as she took herself back into the inn.
"But Da," said the serving-girl, apparently one of his daughters. "What do we do with the...the...dead folk?"
"Envy them," someone muttered from the midst of the Gonwindans.
"Leave them be, lass," the innkeep murmured, looking a trifle annoyed at that soft comment. "Poor old cook, no-one'll ever match her pies. You might fetch another cloth to cover her, before all else."
The gathering of people standing beneath a sign depicting a swan and its offspring broke apart with a spatter of nervous conversation. Most went back inside, glass crunching beneath their booted feet. The Spictish merchants went upstairs, after ordering all but one of their mercenary guards to remain to help. The Armitans began discussing the condition of Reventh in their language, and what they would do to stable the sizeable beast.
"Rendell's Company?" the woman in leather asked the lithe, watchful man who looked to be in charge of the small gathering of mercenary guards.
The man nodded. "Guess he'll be waiting a while at the meeting-point," he said, a Leven accent giving his words an incongruous lilt. He held out a hand, a smile crinkling the tanned skin about his eyes. "Harl Mendican."
The woman in leather gripped it firmly for a moment. "Stehl Lacey," she replied, and gave him a half-smile when his eyes widened slightly. Shan, who had associated with mercenaries from time to time, recognised the name as Mendican had, and was duly glad for the presence of one of the most experienced ex-mercenaries in the Realms. She heard notes of true respect in the voices of the other mercenaries as they introduced themselves. She might be retired, but Stehl Lacey's cool, precise brain was unlooked for fortune.
"It is an honour to meet a woman so reknown," the bard said, perfectly sincere, dropping a rock at Lacey's feet like some sort of peculiar offering. He dusted his hands, shook hers. "Val Romullar. And this is my sister, Leah Romullar." The wolf, having taken for itself the role of background accompaniment, howled, sounding closer than once it had been, drawing everyone's attention again. "Not the time for pleasantries," the bard added, as if to himself, and turned away with a half-bow, signalling a general movement away from the doorway, searching for stones larger than a man's head, which were free from the ground, since the serving-girl had not returned with anything to dig with. Unfortunately these were few and far between, despite the litter of rockery.
A leggy Gonwindan girl helped Shan carry a first stone back, but made an uncertain noise when Shan headed outside the range of light from the inn's door. Shan was trying to see more of the valley. There was a dull whiteness on the far bank of the lake which might be some sort of building. Mist was rising from the flat expanse of water, and it was hard to make out detail.
Moving further down the slope, she brushed against the rough, worn surface of a cone-shaped stone which reached halfway up her thigh, and jerked to a halt as a tingling response jarred her. Ignoring the uncertain gasp of the Gonwindan girl, she dropped to her heels, fingers returning to dance lightly across grey stone, locating by touch what the shadows hid.
Shan was not sensitive to magic, had no mage-gift to make her tasks easier, not even a sensitivity to the arcane. This, however, was not arcane. This was a symbol incised deeply against the elements, a vertical line within a circle, crossed by four large 'v'-points, the ends aimed in opposite directions, the middle two forming an 'x', in whole a diamond pattern within the circle. This was a thing of power which any mortal would recognise at a touch, the sign of Lord Twilight, the Watcher at the Gate, the God of Transition, of Journeys, of Birth and Death and, some said, all which came between. Some said Lord Twilight embodied Time itself.
Having taken in the shape of the stone properly, Shan peered through the silvered dark to her left, then her right, and found what she was looking for. She frowned up at the inn at the crown of the hill.
"Ker Lacey!" she called, putting the right note of importance but not urgency into her voice so the woman knew to come without running.
"What is it?" whispered the Gonwindan nervously, as more than one person began making their way towards them, probably glad of any distraction from collecting stones in the dark. Shan pulled from her pocket another of the flat discs, and turned it over in her hand so that it glowed, turned it again and again to increase the strength of the light, and waited until the first line of the curious arrived.
It was the mercenary, Harl Mendican, so Shan merely held the light to the carving, which was revealed to be set within a whole series of other, lighter symbols. She saw his watchful eyes narrow, and he reached out and touched the stone very lightly, then jerked as she had.
Stehl Lacey arrived then, so Shan said: "Perhaps we should ask the magus if the circle which is already here will serve his purpose?" and gestured with her free hand to the cone-shaped stone to her right, which stood out above the level of most of the stones on the hill without being overly prominent.
"Sharp eyes," Lacey said, the absent approval of a commander with things on her mind. Shan did not bother to respond. Being observant was most of her job, though of course the woman would not know that.
"I'll bring the mages," Mendican said, and moved off against the tide of people washing down the hill.
There proved to be three stones marked with the symbol of Lord Twilight, which was a strong summoning of the shadowed god. The small group that eventually circled with the two mages to locate and check each of the stones, slowly catalogued the rest of the gods' marks. There was a single radiant circle for Lady Bright, at the northernmost point of the circle. The four phases of the moon, wax and wane, full and black, brought silent looks of concern, since it was rare that any dared to draw the attention of Lord Heth by gathering the full progression of his dominion over mortal souls together. The Thunderer was also well-represented, four stones marked with crossed jagged lines. The mages seemed pleased by this, pointing out that these stones would serve to channel lightning and were protective in nature, for all that was not a function generally associated with the Storm Lord. Two water-lines for Lady Methari, three stylised trees for Lord Arcturan, a lone feathered stone for Lord Rictar.
"A powerful collection," the female mage said, when they had gone full circle and once again stood by the stone Shan had first touched.
"The strongest of the gods, none of them wholly benevolent, none of them truly dark." The bard reached out a hand to the grey stone, but stopped himself. "Each stone fully consecrated, which is no small task. To touch this stone is to have the Watcher at the Gate notice me. To sleep in this circle..."
"Is better than sleeping among the wolves," Stehl Lacey said, firmly, and looked deliberately but not challengingly at the silent pair of Armitans who had shadowed them around the circle. The man Shan had originally encountered and the foxy woman, who was also dressed in clothing that faintly resembled a guard or military uniform. Then, having established that the remark had not been meant as an insult, she turned her attention again to the mages. "Can you use this circle for the warding spell?"
"No." A single, very certain word from the man.
"That would be tantamount to using a king's sceptre to stir the stew," his companion continued, with a note of humour in her soft voice. She seemed the more forthcoming of this pair. "Very insulting. Given an hour or two, we should be able divine how to activate it, however, if one of those represented deigns to hear the prayer. This circle, from the runes, was constructed for many purposes; for summoning and transformation and, most simply, as a ward. By the Watcher's grace, none shall approach with hostile intent."
Shan knew well that a ward set to deny entrance to those with 'hostile intent', was not the same as a full ward. But it was far better than nothing, and likely better than anything the mages could cast, anyway.
"Then we need not fear direct attack, by Lord Twilight's whim," Stehl Lacey mused, grimly, the weaknesses of such a ward obviously familiar to her as well.
"Merely the approach of the curious and the aimless," said the male mage. "Use the gathered stones to prop up the building, then reinforce the doors and windows. Try to block up all easy entrances. And bury those bodies outside the circle."
Shan wondered if he was arrogant, frightened or very clever. Getting people used to following his commands might be the best move, since it was not altogether unlikely that the two magi would be the wisest leaders in a land of magic. They were of the Havner School, judging by the shielding clothing. Seekers into the mystery, clothed in the same.
She shrugged imperceptibly, and turned to help with the tasks set. The magi were not alone in their secrets and she doubted she was the only individual in this, or any group, who had things to hide.
So I figure I shall spread the time-wasting around and give you the first few chapters of Inn over a couple of posts. There's a lot wrong with this story - it reads rather D&D-ish to me now, but I'm entirely amused by the situation. Don't read on if you like things like resolution, or endings...
[Caution: I am unkind to horses in this chapter. Reminiscent of a scene in Champion.]
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Chapter One
The inn fell sideways.
The only warning had been the man and woman in the corner jolting to their feet. And just as abruptly falling to the floor, along with every other person standing. Tables, chairs, plates and tankards, forgotten objects placed on dusty cross-beams, all flung themselves across the room in the direction of the kitchen.
Shan, who had been sitting by the entrance, experienced those brief moments as a minor eternity. First, the small table lifted away from her, upending its contents in an arcing tumble. She followed it, trousers parting company with worn bench, chin meeting the leg of the table as it overturned completely. Somehow she caught up with it, rolled into the rough and unfinished underside, and lay disoriented on her back as the table slid towards the shrieks and shouts of the rest of the room. Then direction reversed, much more abruptly, as the inn hit something hard enough to send every beam juddering, and fill the room with ominous cracking noises. Shan's table shot directly into the door, which thankfully was closed against the autumn breezes. There came a booming, thooming echo, and a clatter of crashes. Then a brief, half-quiet as smaller objects and pieces of plaster pattered to a belated halt, before the screaming began.
Stunned, bruised in odd places, and becoming painfully aware of several overlarge splinters, Shan attempted to rise, but fell back, head spinning. The screaming grew louder, drowned out by one particularly shrill cry.
Shaking her head did not clear it, but served to start it hurting. Shan succeeded in sitting up the second time, and gazed at the wreckage of the second-best inn in Kandalay. The best and the worst had been full, but the largest had not quite closed its doors to the saddle-weary. With less than a week until the Great Convocation, travellers were thick on the roads of Gonwindar and Shan had been lucky to bargain herself a small room at the Cob and Signet, out of the cool autumn air at twice the normal price. She'd almost had to accept a corner of the common room after lights out, which she did not like doing in the least, especially not with the day ahead of her.
It was difficult to see the extent of the damage, with most of the lanterns and candles extinguished by their falls, except for the one which was merrily exploring a new realm outside the confines of its casings, lamp-oil trailing pathways into conflagration. Two women in a guard's mix of chain and leather, with quicker reflexes than most, were already attempting to extinguish the fire. Shan started to stand, then stopped and hastily attended to the more pressing matter of the two-inch splinter which had scored a bed in the fleshy pad at the base of her right thumb.
"What happened?! What happened?! What happened?! WHAT HAPPENED?!" a man shouted above the increasing babble of noise.
Shan listened almost absently as she moved on from her hand to another spike of wood in her thigh.
"Jerro! Jerro!? Oh, Star Maiden, no!"
"...water, and quick!"
"Use the ale!"
"...happened?! What happened?! WHAT..."
"Help me! My leg! My leg!"
"Please wake up!"
"It's all spilt!"
"The fire! My leg! Help me, Thunder take you!"
"What do I...?"
"...if you pointed out a bucket of water, I'd gladly use it. Till then, give me the damn cloak!"
"No!"
"It hurts..."
"... happened?! Wh -"
Someone slapped the shouter, which seemed to make things quieter, though everyone else still cried out through the smoke filling the room. Shan, eyes stinging, regarded the sliver she had extracted from her thigh. It gleamed, slickly wet. Shuddering, she tossed it away and decided the smaller darts of wood could wait. She squinted through fire-painted dark across at a crumpled pile of benches, tables and chairs, licked at by the burgeoning flames, and blessed the habitual caution that stationed her close to the main exit.
An inn-keep with sense would keep buckets of sand, not water, and Shan, driven by a vague memory of just such a precaution, took a cautious and painful step towards the stair when a woman's voice cut through the noise like a note struck with crystal.
"Ashranhavat!!"
The word rang and throbbed in the air, deadening all other sound as it sucked light and life from the flames which licked at that tangle of broken wood. Even the tumbled coals of the fire winked out, dying stars swallowed by the night. The silence that followed was almost complete, marred only by a hiccuping sob and some coughing. And the wind, which rattled the shutters.
Shan, driven by an urge to clear her lungs, and an urgent need to get out of the room, reached out and dragged her table-sled out of the way. The scraping was like nails driven into her throbbing skull, and she hastily opened the main door.
The wind came in.
A strong, cold wind, with a strange scent, crisp and powerful in the stifling atmosphere of the room. She could see cold moonlight on water in the valley below, surrounded by the shadows of trees. And the scent was sharp note of pine, which was as confusing as all the rest, for there were no stretches of pine in Kandalay, or for leagues in any direction, not on the great fertile plain of Gonwindar. Gonwindar was flat and full of fields. Kandalay was flat and full of buildings and muddy streets.
Shan stood in the doorway, framed by moonlight and shadows, and looked out at a lake of black and silver in a wide, deep valley between hills and mountains where the wind played a cold song.
"Lord Twilight protect us," she murmured, hand falling from the doorframe, leaving a sticky red stain.
"What's there?" someone called. "What struck the inn?"
"'That was an earthquake, numbskull!"
"No! One of those twisty-winds. I saw such rip a house to tinder, long ago."
"Nothing natural," Shan replied softly, when a discomforted pause fell upon the room's occupants, and stepped out the front door, down to gouged earth that was a good foot below the buckled wooden floor. She glanced back into the inn, then further around about her, wanting to see where and how and why. The lake's nearest bank was beyond a cluster of trees at the foot of this rock-strewn hill. The water curved away behind more trees to the...
Shan frowned at the moon, and decided the lake curved west. It was much colder than it had been in Kandalay, and the wind cut through the cloth of her shirt with ease. But she did not feel inclined to go back inside to fetch a coat.
The rescue work could be safely left to those closer at hand while she made certain they were not in immediate danger of sliding off the hilltop the inn now perched upon. It was nothing at all to do with her unease in cramped places made dangerous by wounded and unpredictable people. Well, not much. If an extra pair of hands had truly been necessary, she knew she would have helped, but most of the people in the main room of the inn had appeared to be relatively unharmed, able to turn their hand to the task.
The Cob and Signet was shaped like a fat-bottomed horseshoe, two wings having been added as the inn prospered. A capacious stable had crossed the shoe at the inn's rear. This was almost entirely gone: only the nearest stalls still whole. Shan, having established that the crest of this hill was almost flat, more than sufficient to hold the inn, circled the building, drawn to the remainder of the stable.
Grass, slick with evening dew, made footing tricky, and she used the occasional convenient rock to ease her way. This wing of the inn had been unlucky, the hill sloping away beneath it more drastically than any other section. The stable walls were quite three feet above the earth at their furthest corner and Shan could make out, in the shadows beneath, the shapes of two horses, one of which was belting away for all its worth at the treacherous walls which still enclosed it.
Cautiously, she stopped at the open entrance, trying to adjust her eyes to the unrelieved black inside, to the stink of blood and dung and fear in that dark enclosure, overlying the usual warm scent of horse and hay. The sound the horse made was worse than that of any human.
Shan bit her lip and looked away, trying to decide what to do. The hill sloped down to a large forest in this direction, a blot of darkness filling another valley. Mountains this way too, not so high, and...she forgot even the screaming for a moment, eyes on a thin tower of white stone that could be glimpsed over the peak of a jagged mountain rising beyond the forest. A beautiful, delicate thing, but unlit, cold and somehow unfriendly. Where in the nine hells were they?
The splintering of wood brought her attention back to the occupants of the stable. Edging inside the stable, keeping as far from the gates of the stalls as possible, she fumbled with, and managed to open, the shutters which stood just right of the entrance, though they were now inconveniently high and out of reach. Moonlight revealed a glimpse of the wild eyes and laid-back ears of a very large horse indeed, trying to break its way free.
It was the second animal that made the worse noise, down where the slope of the hill was more pronounced. Shan wondered how it was that, since the stable did not have a floor, the animals had not fallen out when the inn was thrown wherever this was. The damage done was clear, and Shan slid her hand through the bottom of the false pocket in her trousers, and removed the knife she kept strapped to her upper thigh. It did not take long to do a kindness.
The other horse, having briefly been silenced, renewed its efforts to reduce the stall to complete rubble and she wondered if she would be able to calm it enough to lead it out of the dark. Then the problem was taken away from her as a man, presumably the owner, walked swiftly into the stable.
"Reventh. Ho, Reventh." His voice was light-timbred and soothing. Shan decided her presence would not help, and ducked under the jutting corner of the stable into the crisp, clean night. She shivered as the wind hit her again and she tried to judge how far off the snow was from this place.
Quickly wiping her blade on the wet grass and, sheathing it, she rounded the corner and watched until the man emerged, leading a far from calm but apparently uninjured animal from the stable.
Shan had not seen this man in the common room of the Cob and Signet, but it was late and the inn had been crammed full, many in their rooms when they were brought so dramatically out of Kandalay. He wore the plain dress of a guard, though the moonlight was not bright enough to make out any insignia clearly. The accent, the words he used soothing the horse, were Armitan, which could cause complications in an already fraught situation. Descended from shapeshifters, Armitans might have lost the ability to change their form, but they were strong and strange and difficult to deal with, particularly for humans who lived outside their convoluted laws.
Shan, who had met Armitans she liked and others she had loathed, decided against overtures of friendship or gestures of hostility both, until she saw how this one would act.
"The blood will draw hunters," she said instead, and he glanced towards the forest.
Shan fumbled in one of her pockets and drew out a white ceramic disc half the size of her palm, etched with tiny symbols. It was glowing steadily and evenly, as she had only seen it do in a room warded by layers of spells to prevent eavesdropping. She did not hide it from the Armitan as he looked back, but turned it twice over in her hand, then held it up for a more specific test. The disc had three functions. The first was to glow in the presence of enchantments. Usually it shone along one rim, in the direction of the enchantment, and was very useful for tracking down traps or spells set to listen. The function she used now was a more wide-ranging one, indicating the direction of the strongest source of magic in its not inconsiderable range, for this was an expensive little toy. She was not at all surprised when it indicated the direction of the tower, and she moved the disc back and forth to be certain it was not the forest which was causing the rim to burn silver.
Since the third function, a limited dispell, would destroy this handy little tool, Shan pocketed it without further experimentation.
"Irrelath," she said, voice quivering unprofessionally, "unless we're on a different world altogether."
The Armitan didn't react at all, though deciding they were in Irrelath was a revelation worthy of at least a mild flinch. Drama was served when a wolf howled, down in the forest, song faint and distant. They both stared down at it, then Shan, mind on a thin tube of magically-stiffened wax concealed among her belongings, turned and headed carefully back to the front entrance of Cob and Signet, choosing not to tackle the back entrance by the kitchens, where once a well had stood. Man and horse followed behind over the slippery grass.
One of the pair of guardswomen met them at the corner, and she hurried forward to examine the surviving horse. So those two were linked to the Armitan. A lithe man in mercenary garb had followed her, but hung back watchfully.
"Lonstathen was beyond hope," the Armitan said, in his people's language, and the guardswoman bowed her head as if she had heard of the death of a comrade. Shan rounded the corner, and found that dozens of people were now crowding the slope just outside the inn's main door.
"That's a wolf," said a distressed voice, the youth who had lost Jerro, from the sound of it. He saw on the edge of the crowd of people examining their cuts and bruises and gazing about at the hills and mountains and lake and trees and low heavy moon with fear and wonder. And not a little annoyance, especially from those who were nearest to Shan.
"...pay for this?"
"Someone, be assured."
"We could still get there in time."
"You truly believe that?"
"Who do..."
Three men, Spictish merchants and, from their fur-trimmings, wealthy, broke off their muttered conversation as Shan, followed by the Armitan, approached. She could see four distinct clumps in the waiting crowd. The merchants, with attendant mercenary guards. A clutch of young Gonwindan travellers who had previously been making quite a time of it at the longest table. The inn's staff, huddled about the tall, bearded inn-keep. And Armitans, four of them counting the one leading the horse: two men and two women. There was just something about Armitans, their height or the way they held themselves: you could always spot them. Added to their group were the two guardswomen, who were not obviously of the shifter blood, but patently aligned to them as they ranged behind their tall bond-lords. And there were travellers in pairs or trios or alone, but they were scattered between the others, not clustering together.
Moonlight made everyone stark and drawn. A few wept or shivered uncontrollably, many glanced constantly at the black and silver lake or into the inn, which Shan did herself, observing that the tables had been drawn roughly back into place, but no other effort had been made, not even to deal with the shards of glass scattered everywhere. A body, Jerro's presumably, was lying shrouded on the longest table, dimly lit by a ball of mage-light hovering among the rafters. Two other tables were occupied by uncovered victims, a woman whose dull grey dress and apron was drenched in blood and a man who screamed loudly as Shan looked in. A neat, calm woman in worn leathers ignored the bout of cursing which followed, nodding at the hooded figure at her side as she maintained a firm grip on the splints she was fastening on man's broken leg.
"The main stables are gone," the Armitan said, as he approached his tall, stern kin, people making hasty passage for him and his unhappy-looking mount. "Only Reventh came through intact."
One of the Armitan woman, apparently the leader of that group, bowed her head. "I heard his death," she replied.
"Speak no secrets, Shiftless Ones," snapped a very small, very old woman, who stood proud and indignant huddled in a thick cloak, flanked by a middle-aged woman and a younger man holding the hand of a ten year-old girl. A family group.
The name was a strong insult, and Armitans turned their heads as one to study her, faces cold, but the old woman showed no signs of quailing. Perhaps she had read the feeling of the crowd in general towards the Armitans, or, more likely from that imperious stance, she was used to speaking her mind and not suffering serious consequences.
"They spoke only of the stables, which are gone, good lady," put in a blond man of indeterminate age, briefly moving a sopping cloth away from his bleeding nose. Despite the blood, he had the diction of a trained bard, and the woman who stood close to his side was regretfully fingering the crushed remains of a set of reed pipes.
"'Tis mannerless, if naught else," the old woman shot back, entirely without irony.
"What do you mean, you're not going to heal it fully?!" roared the man with the broken leg.
If the woman attending him replied, Shan could not hear her answer. She and her equally cloaked companion turned their backs on the sufferer and walked to the entrance of the inn. These two were quite identical in unrelieved black. Trousers, shirts, boots, hooded cloaks, gloves.
The woman in leathers paused to cover the face of the occupant of the other table, before following the black-clad pair, and the crowd waited till this last woman reached the doorway to survey the lake below. She wore no shield-patch of a mercenary, or the insignia of any bond-lord. A traveller, sword-skilled, but no longer professional? She had forty years or more, and an air of unflappable calm.
"So this is Irrelath, is it? Not a place I expected to see before Lord Twilight passed me through."
"Irrelath?!" The leader of the Spictish merchants, fifties and greying, hawkish profile hardening as he stepped forward. "What mean you by that?"
"Where else could it be?" the woman replied, easily. "With magic so thick in the air you could almost choke on it? The stars tell me we are north and west of Gonwindar, my eyes see a place I have never been, in all my wanderings. Irrelath, or else Lord Twilight, in His humour, has passed us on to a place beyond our reckoning." She glanced again at the sky. "But the Maiden and the Jester look down on me. There can be no other answer. We are in the Forsaken Land."
Great was the consternation from those who had not realised this already, a hubbub of voices rising in fear, astonishment, wonder and anger. Shan, watching the fuss from a discreet location beside the doorway, caught the eye of the bloody-nosed man she judged a bard. He grimaced at her and she raised one shoulder in response. Although she felt no need to be so vocal, her own emotions were not so far divorced from those being expressed. Astonishment, fear and wonder, for the Forsaken Land was the last place any of them should be.
Once, Irrelath had been a great power in the Realms. A land of mages strong enough to dominate the world, if they had so chosen, but who had instead focused their energies inward, controlling themselves rather than others. An idyllic place, the wonder of the Realms. The occasional lucky supplicant was allowed within the borders of Irrelath, petitioning for healing or to study what they could of arcane arts, or to trade, or seek wise guidance. Only the rare few, however. The Irraines had taken good measure of the rest of the inhabitants of the Realms, most of whom cared little for the study of the soul. And such was their power that only an invitation could win passage north of the Shield Mountains.
Irrelath's downfall had not been due to outside attack, but rot within. One bad apple, they always say. Attempting to contain one man's ambition, and the forces he had summoned in defiance of Lord Twilight's ban, all Irrelath was lost. Wars of magic had such nasty side-effects, too. Magic run rampant, unbounded, feeding or feeding off the ghosts of the long-dead, mutating, living according to a law of its own, combating or even aiding the creature that had been summoned. The few survivors of that battle had stumbled south, many killed by their own defences, unable to defeat an entire Realm of magic running unchecked.
There were still many eager to visit Irrelath. It was a rich ruin, and every other year Shan heard word of another expedition determined to bring back ancient treasures, recover some of the wondrous items rumoured to be lost in the Forsaken Land. Most of these foolhardy folk merely scavenged along the edge of the Stone Plain, never even approaching the true land of Irrelath. Some, with arcane resources sufficient to counter the magical defences, ventured further onto the Stone Plain. Greater dangers, greater gain. Since most of the defences were concentrated on the Stone Plain, there had been occasional attempts to approach Irrelath by water, and even by air. The storms which had arisen not only wrecked ships, or dashed carefully constructed flying vehicles to the ground, they also spread down to the rest of the Realms, ripped the roofs off half of Elbian, drowned much of Ferrance and Medmusal. Suggesting that you would approach the Forsaken Land by air or sea was a good way to get arrested. No-one, however, had thought to throw an inn at it before.
"Surely the how doesn't matter," said the bard, when the imperious old woman demanded an explanation of their sudden migration from the unresponsive pair of magi. "Or even the who, since only one of the Three could have done this. It is why. Why, in the name of all the Gods, would one of the Three have done this to us? Taken an inn full of innocent people and tossed them into Irrelath like - like so much wind-blown chaff?"
"P'raps Lady Kinrathen there would care to answer that one for us," said a surly voice. It was the man with the broken leg, who had hopped slowly to the doorway, using a chair as a handy crutch. He was a big man, a red-haired Harman, his bearded, florid countenance showing the signs of past battles, and currently twisted with pain and anger as he glowered at the four Armitans. From his clothing, costly but functional, she thought he must be some sort of minor lordling, though she could not see anybody about who might be acting as servant or guard.
The bard looked surprised, then thoughtful, then worried. And the crowd's fear and confusion suddenly took on a distinctly hostile edge. Shan sighed inwardly. They did not need blame to make matters worse. They were in Irrelath. There were better things to worry about.
Lady Kinrathen, for it seemed it was, did not respond to the accusation with so much as a flicker of an eyelid. Her expression had already been imposingly cold, and did not change. The Armiten woman was known as one of the cornerstones of the Twilight Council's refusal to declare its support for Iswick after the Ash Field Massacre. Owen Tregair, one of the Three, happened to be a native of Iswick. And since only one of the Three could summon the power to do something so spectacular as this, it was very likely Lady Kinrathen was the target.
A haughty gazelle, Shan thought irrelevantly. Armitans tended to remind people of various animals, and Lady Kinrathen had the long-limbed grace of a gazelle, honey-blonde hair almost the right shade of the plainsbeast's pelt, just as the woman who stood at her shoulder, with her pointed chin and reddish tint to brown hair, brought to mind a fox. The eyes were always Armitan blue, and tilted.
Once Armitans had been organised into clans according to the beast they could shift into, and it often was possible to guess that clan simply by looking at the Armitan. Shan studied the remaining two to try and guess their clans. There was something feline about the shorter of the two men, whose gaze was heavy-lidded like a cat's bored gaze, but she could not guess what the Armitan who had brought the horse out of the stable resembled. He just looked...Armiten.
The red-haired Harman looked about the gathering, challenging onlookers with his angry gaze. "I say we..."
Much to Shan's relief, the man did not have the opportunity to finish whatever suggestion he was in the process of making. One of the black-garbed mages, the man, held up a hand, stepping into the centre of the gathering.
"You accuse Owen Tregair of waylaying one of the Council?" he asked, voice whisper-soft, as cold as the Armitans' faces.
The menace in the words gave the Harman pause. He shook his head brusquely, then paused, and said warily: "What other explanation is there?"
"You impugn a man's honour groundlessly," said the other mage, voice as soft as her fellow's. It was an unnerving thing, especially with his eyes still partially hidden by his hood. "In haste and hatred, without proof, you blacken a reputation without tarnish. Unsay your accusation."
The threat, the unspoken 'or else', hung in the air. These were shadow mages and Owen Tregair headed their school. Even two shadow mages against forty-something were odds many would not take, and the Harman did not find support as his eyes shifted from the twin dark hoods to those who watched. The wind brought the lone cry of a wolf to them once more. It seemed closer than before, and Shan thought of the stables. An uneasy spate of murmurs, sobs and shudders ran through the gathered travellers, dying away as the two mages remained perfectly still, facing down the Harman.
"I meant no insult," the blocky man muttered, face blotching red and white with anger, even as he bowed his head in submission. "I withdraw my words."
"Neither how nor why nor who need concern us this night," continued the hooded woman, turning to look at the Armitans, then facing out towards the lake. "Only where."
"We must ward the inn," continued the other mage. "There is more than magic in this land. There is darkness. If energy you have for argument, put it instead to preserving our lives."
"Then by all means instruct us," responded the woman in worn leather. She turned to the innkeep, who was morosely studying the shambles through his front door. "At the least, we are ready and willing to lend a hand to restoring some order, and perhaps making the doors and windows more secure."
"Prop her up round the edges," replied the innkeep absently, eyes on the significant gap between the sagging floorboards and the curve of grass beneath. Shan's uneasy imagination produced a pair of slitted eyes glinting back at him. She was surprised when the man grinned with sudden humour. "Well, I always wanted a view I could charge through the nose for," he said, philosophically. He patted the snivelling child still clutching his hand. "Dry yourself up, Thenda. Da needs you to be brave for him. Tell you what, hon', I'll put you in charge of the kitchens. Seft, Lektin - mind Thenda's words - I want to see the kitchen, if not spotless, at least bearable. Maybe, if the hotch-potch is still in its pot, you can see about dishing it out when you're done." He looked uncertainly from the leather-clad woman to the mages, and glanced surreptitiously at the Armitans. Lady Kinrathen was in all probability the person of highest rank present, but the innkeep clearly did not find potential leadership in that source, or from the cloaked mages. If he was inclined to follow the woman in leather's lead, he was probably holding off for fear of offending those of higher rank. Finally he said, to no-one in particular: "There's a cellar full of food and wine open to the air in Kandalay. What we've got in the kitchen will last a day or two, no more. I've heard tell the beasts and fruits, the very water of Irrelath is poisonous."
"That is tomorrow's concern," the male mage replied, voice registering an indifference few others felt. "For now, we need to construct a circle. Collect stones, none smaller than a man's head, but preferably larger. Pile them here, you will not be able to place them correctly." With this he turned and, followed by his companion, walked back into the inn.
"Who put him in charge?" muttered one of the Gonwindar youths.
"You going to argue?"
"You never know of a morning what the evening will bring," pronounced the bard, in an obvious attempt to be cheery. "Well, friend innkeep, I hope you have something about which we can dig with, or else it will be a wearisome task which has been set for us."
"I'm thinking the pokers from the hearths are the best that can be found," the innkeep replied. He looked about at the plentiful scattering of stone and shadow on the moon-drenched hills, and grimaced. "Seft, Letkin, go with Thenda and get some light about, then see to the kitchens. Jude, stop that snivelling and go about collecting everything reasonable for digging, then you can get the glass off the common room floor, make a round of the old place with your broom and bin. Any who'd care to lend a hand, it'd be appreciated. There's more than my girls can handle, plain to see."
A few looked grateful for the opportunity to be useful without actually wandering about in the dark digging up rocks. More than a few looked surly or uncomfortable or unwilling. Disdain was clear in the previously vocal old woman's "Come Charlotte," as she took herself back into the inn.
"But Da," said the serving-girl, apparently one of his daughters. "What do we do with the...the...dead folk?"
"Envy them," someone muttered from the midst of the Gonwindans.
"Leave them be, lass," the innkeep murmured, looking a trifle annoyed at that soft comment. "Poor old cook, no-one'll ever match her pies. You might fetch another cloth to cover her, before all else."
The gathering of people standing beneath a sign depicting a swan and its offspring broke apart with a spatter of nervous conversation. Most went back inside, glass crunching beneath their booted feet. The Spictish merchants went upstairs, after ordering all but one of their mercenary guards to remain to help. The Armitans began discussing the condition of Reventh in their language, and what they would do to stable the sizeable beast.
"Rendell's Company?" the woman in leather asked the lithe, watchful man who looked to be in charge of the small gathering of mercenary guards.
The man nodded. "Guess he'll be waiting a while at the meeting-point," he said, a Leven accent giving his words an incongruous lilt. He held out a hand, a smile crinkling the tanned skin about his eyes. "Harl Mendican."
The woman in leather gripped it firmly for a moment. "Stehl Lacey," she replied, and gave him a half-smile when his eyes widened slightly. Shan, who had associated with mercenaries from time to time, recognised the name as Mendican had, and was duly glad for the presence of one of the most experienced ex-mercenaries in the Realms. She heard notes of true respect in the voices of the other mercenaries as they introduced themselves. She might be retired, but Stehl Lacey's cool, precise brain was unlooked for fortune.
"It is an honour to meet a woman so reknown," the bard said, perfectly sincere, dropping a rock at Lacey's feet like some sort of peculiar offering. He dusted his hands, shook hers. "Val Romullar. And this is my sister, Leah Romullar." The wolf, having taken for itself the role of background accompaniment, howled, sounding closer than once it had been, drawing everyone's attention again. "Not the time for pleasantries," the bard added, as if to himself, and turned away with a half-bow, signalling a general movement away from the doorway, searching for stones larger than a man's head, which were free from the ground, since the serving-girl had not returned with anything to dig with. Unfortunately these were few and far between, despite the litter of rockery.
A leggy Gonwindan girl helped Shan carry a first stone back, but made an uncertain noise when Shan headed outside the range of light from the inn's door. Shan was trying to see more of the valley. There was a dull whiteness on the far bank of the lake which might be some sort of building. Mist was rising from the flat expanse of water, and it was hard to make out detail.
Moving further down the slope, she brushed against the rough, worn surface of a cone-shaped stone which reached halfway up her thigh, and jerked to a halt as a tingling response jarred her. Ignoring the uncertain gasp of the Gonwindan girl, she dropped to her heels, fingers returning to dance lightly across grey stone, locating by touch what the shadows hid.
Shan was not sensitive to magic, had no mage-gift to make her tasks easier, not even a sensitivity to the arcane. This, however, was not arcane. This was a symbol incised deeply against the elements, a vertical line within a circle, crossed by four large 'v'-points, the ends aimed in opposite directions, the middle two forming an 'x', in whole a diamond pattern within the circle. This was a thing of power which any mortal would recognise at a touch, the sign of Lord Twilight, the Watcher at the Gate, the God of Transition, of Journeys, of Birth and Death and, some said, all which came between. Some said Lord Twilight embodied Time itself.
Having taken in the shape of the stone properly, Shan peered through the silvered dark to her left, then her right, and found what she was looking for. She frowned up at the inn at the crown of the hill.
"Ker Lacey!" she called, putting the right note of importance but not urgency into her voice so the woman knew to come without running.
"What is it?" whispered the Gonwindan nervously, as more than one person began making their way towards them, probably glad of any distraction from collecting stones in the dark. Shan pulled from her pocket another of the flat discs, and turned it over in her hand so that it glowed, turned it again and again to increase the strength of the light, and waited until the first line of the curious arrived.
It was the mercenary, Harl Mendican, so Shan merely held the light to the carving, which was revealed to be set within a whole series of other, lighter symbols. She saw his watchful eyes narrow, and he reached out and touched the stone very lightly, then jerked as she had.
Stehl Lacey arrived then, so Shan said: "Perhaps we should ask the magus if the circle which is already here will serve his purpose?" and gestured with her free hand to the cone-shaped stone to her right, which stood out above the level of most of the stones on the hill without being overly prominent.
"Sharp eyes," Lacey said, the absent approval of a commander with things on her mind. Shan did not bother to respond. Being observant was most of her job, though of course the woman would not know that.
"I'll bring the mages," Mendican said, and moved off against the tide of people washing down the hill.
There proved to be three stones marked with the symbol of Lord Twilight, which was a strong summoning of the shadowed god. The small group that eventually circled with the two mages to locate and check each of the stones, slowly catalogued the rest of the gods' marks. There was a single radiant circle for Lady Bright, at the northernmost point of the circle. The four phases of the moon, wax and wane, full and black, brought silent looks of concern, since it was rare that any dared to draw the attention of Lord Heth by gathering the full progression of his dominion over mortal souls together. The Thunderer was also well-represented, four stones marked with crossed jagged lines. The mages seemed pleased by this, pointing out that these stones would serve to channel lightning and were protective in nature, for all that was not a function generally associated with the Storm Lord. Two water-lines for Lady Methari, three stylised trees for Lord Arcturan, a lone feathered stone for Lord Rictar.
"A powerful collection," the female mage said, when they had gone full circle and once again stood by the stone Shan had first touched.
"The strongest of the gods, none of them wholly benevolent, none of them truly dark." The bard reached out a hand to the grey stone, but stopped himself. "Each stone fully consecrated, which is no small task. To touch this stone is to have the Watcher at the Gate notice me. To sleep in this circle..."
"Is better than sleeping among the wolves," Stehl Lacey said, firmly, and looked deliberately but not challengingly at the silent pair of Armitans who had shadowed them around the circle. The man Shan had originally encountered and the foxy woman, who was also dressed in clothing that faintly resembled a guard or military uniform. Then, having established that the remark had not been meant as an insult, she turned her attention again to the mages. "Can you use this circle for the warding spell?"
"No." A single, very certain word from the man.
"That would be tantamount to using a king's sceptre to stir the stew," his companion continued, with a note of humour in her soft voice. She seemed the more forthcoming of this pair. "Very insulting. Given an hour or two, we should be able divine how to activate it, however, if one of those represented deigns to hear the prayer. This circle, from the runes, was constructed for many purposes; for summoning and transformation and, most simply, as a ward. By the Watcher's grace, none shall approach with hostile intent."
Shan knew well that a ward set to deny entrance to those with 'hostile intent', was not the same as a full ward. But it was far better than nothing, and likely better than anything the mages could cast, anyway.
"Then we need not fear direct attack, by Lord Twilight's whim," Stehl Lacey mused, grimly, the weaknesses of such a ward obviously familiar to her as well.
"Merely the approach of the curious and the aimless," said the male mage. "Use the gathered stones to prop up the building, then reinforce the doors and windows. Try to block up all easy entrances. And bury those bodies outside the circle."
Shan wondered if he was arrogant, frightened or very clever. Getting people used to following his commands might be the best move, since it was not altogether unlikely that the two magi would be the wisest leaders in a land of magic. They were of the Havner School, judging by the shielding clothing. Seekers into the mystery, clothed in the same.
She shrugged imperceptibly, and turned to help with the tasks set. The magi were not alone in their secrets and she doubted she was the only individual in this, or any group, who had things to hide.
April 14, 2017
An award for Forfeit
Award recognition is one of those complicated things for writers. Is there such a thing as 'best'? Judges bring their own individual taste. Popular awards rely very much of a piece/author being known to the voting pool. It's all very complicated, so I've tried to adopt the attitude of appreciating any compliments coming my way without getting too hung up on missing out.
But I'm still going to enjoy adding to my display cabinet an Aurealis Award for "Forfeit" as the Best Fantasy Novella 2016.
HUGE thanks to Judith Tarr for prodding me into tightening up the story. And thanks again to my readers. You're the ones that really make my day.
You can watch the ceremony here if you're so inclined.
But I'm still going to enjoy adding to my display cabinet an Aurealis Award for "Forfeit" as the Best Fantasy Novella 2016.
HUGE thanks to Judith Tarr for prodding me into tightening up the story. And thanks again to my readers. You're the ones that really make my day.
You can watch the ceremony here if you're so inclined.
February 17, 2017
Self-pub Statistics 2017
Here's the latest round of statistics, for those who are interested in such things. I'm being lazy and just using a tool called Book Report to automatically turn all my Amazon sales into nice graphs. Amazon is still about 85% of my sales, so this gives you a good idea of how it all breaks down for a laid-back non-promo type like me. [I'd far rather just write and publish than go through promo hoops, which does mean my sales slide between releases.]
[If you want to see just how successful hard work and a solid promo plan (along with good books) can be, check out some of the posts Patty Jansen does on her far more active writing career.]
Earnings per monthFirst, here's earnings from when I first put my books up on Amazon (a few months after I'd first published them on Smashwords). The two big peaks are two Bookbub promotions, back when it was easier to get into Bookbub. The initial early leaps were in the days when putting a book free would have a tangible impact on your sales. [The third biggest peak, incidentally, is the release of In Arcadia.]
Earnings by book and storeThe Touchstone Trilogy is by leaps and bounds my bestseller, as can be seen by the pie chart. No prizes for guessing which books are represented by the right of the chart.
Numbers and dollars by bookDividing this by seven years makes the amounts seem much less impressive - but still definitely nothing to sniff at! Not anything I could gamble on early retirement with, but a solid supplement to my income. [Publishing and Amazon algorithms are such variable things that I don't think I would ever bank on book royalties until I no longer had things like mortgages to worry about.]
For the future...well, I'd still rather just write and publish and see what happens - the beauty of self-publishing is that the books are mine, and they're not going away, and I'm comfortable with letting my mailing list grow slowly and organically.
Not that I'd object to wild success. I recently had a rather heart-stopping query from a very major production company about the film/TV rights for Touchstone. It came to nothing, sadly, but it sure did give me some fun daydreams. I re-read the trilogy afterwards, and really don't see how it could be adapted without cutting down on the massive cast list - but I thought it would be fun to have a show that paralleled Zan and Cass. They both technically 'graduate' around the same time and are such different people.
[If you want to see just how successful hard work and a solid promo plan (along with good books) can be, check out some of the posts Patty Jansen does on her far more active writing career.]
Earnings per monthFirst, here's earnings from when I first put my books up on Amazon (a few months after I'd first published them on Smashwords). The two big peaks are two Bookbub promotions, back when it was easier to get into Bookbub. The initial early leaps were in the days when putting a book free would have a tangible impact on your sales. [The third biggest peak, incidentally, is the release of In Arcadia.]
Earnings by book and storeThe Touchstone Trilogy is by leaps and bounds my bestseller, as can be seen by the pie chart. No prizes for guessing which books are represented by the right of the chart.
Numbers and dollars by bookDividing this by seven years makes the amounts seem much less impressive - but still definitely nothing to sniff at! Not anything I could gamble on early retirement with, but a solid supplement to my income. [Publishing and Amazon algorithms are such variable things that I don't think I would ever bank on book royalties until I no longer had things like mortgages to worry about.]
For the future...well, I'd still rather just write and publish and see what happens - the beauty of self-publishing is that the books are mine, and they're not going away, and I'm comfortable with letting my mailing list grow slowly and organically.
Not that I'd object to wild success. I recently had a rather heart-stopping query from a very major production company about the film/TV rights for Touchstone. It came to nothing, sadly, but it sure did give me some fun daydreams. I re-read the trilogy afterwards, and really don't see how it could be adapted without cutting down on the massive cast list - but I thought it would be fun to have a show that paralleled Zan and Cass. They both technically 'graduate' around the same time and are such different people.
February 2, 2017
In Arcadia magnet winners
Whoo! The random number generator has spat out the following names for their own fancy magnet
:
- Jen (entered on Goodreads)
- AtillatheMom (entered on blog)
- G (entered on blog)
- Eun dong Park (entered on blog)
- TheSFReader (entered on blog)
- Meredith (entered on blog)
- katayoun (entered on blog)
- Lexie (entered on blog)
Congratulations! To claim your magnet, email me at mail at andreakhost.com with the address you want the magnet sent to, and the quote (from In Arcadia, or anywhere else in the Touchstone trilogy) you would like me to write in shiny gold pen across the magnet (you can also optionally include my signature, your name, bad drawings, other things - let me know what you'd like!) It's a big magnet! [But my handwriting is neither small nor neat.]
Magnets not claimed by April will be redrawn.
:
- Jen (entered on Goodreads)
- AtillatheMom (entered on blog)
- G (entered on blog)
- Eun dong Park (entered on blog)
- TheSFReader (entered on blog)
- Meredith (entered on blog)
- katayoun (entered on blog)
- Lexie (entered on blog)
Congratulations! To claim your magnet, email me at mail at andreakhost.com with the address you want the magnet sent to, and the quote (from In Arcadia, or anywhere else in the Touchstone trilogy) you would like me to write in shiny gold pen across the magnet (you can also optionally include my signature, your name, bad drawings, other things - let me know what you'd like!) It's a big magnet! [But my handwriting is neither small nor neat.]
Magnets not claimed by April will be redrawn.
January 8, 2017
In Arcadia TPB Giveaway
Here is a Goodreads giveaway for the TPB version of In Arcadia. Competition starts 9 January.
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Goodreads Book Giveaway
In Arcadia by Andrea K. Höst Giveaway ends February 17, 2017.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads. Enter Giveaway
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Goodreads Book Giveaway
In Arcadia by Andrea K. Höst Giveaway ends February 17, 2017. See the giveaway details at Goodreads. Enter Giveaway
January 7, 2017
A Touchstone special edition
The Book Smugglers are celebrating their ninth anniversary and have announced another Touchstone surprise for 2017: a special limited edition reprint of the trilogy with covers by Kirbi Fagan.
I'm SO looking forward to this - it's wonderful to work with Ana and Thea (and, well, I'm just a sucker for covers). Will post more info as it arrives.
I'm SO looking forward to this - it's wonderful to work with Ana and Thea (and, well, I'm just a sucker for covers). Will post more info as it arrives.
December 31, 2016
In Arcadia - Release and Competition
So it's 2017.
On the world scene, 2016 had quite a few down points, so I thought I'd start the new year off with a small gift for my fans. Now I know I've been promising a Touchstone short story for years, but I'm afraid I'm just not a short story writer...so you're going to have to make do with a brand spanking new Touchstone novel.
My first outright romance novel, in fact, with the story of how Cass' Mum Laura gets together with Tsur Selkie. Well, you know me - it's more a slice-of-life geek-fest because how would you feel getting to move to a place like Muina? Though Tsur Selkie sure as hell knows how to make a romantic gesture. [And I hope you all fall in love with Aunt Sue, because I sure did, and Aunt Sue will definitely be getting her own adventure some time.]
I love this cover image, btw.
One does not simply walk onto another planet. At least not without the help of a daughter who has developed unlikely powers, fought an intra-dimensional war, and then arranged for a family relocation to a futuristic clone of Earth. Laura Devlin would gladly have paid any price to have her daughter back, so living in a techno-paradise with spaceship views is merely an added bonus. And a dream come true.
But Arcadian paradises do not come without complications. Laura's include a plethora of psychic grandchildren. Interplanetary diplomacy. Her daughter's immense fame. And KOTIS, the military watchdog that seems to consider Laura's entire family government property.
Forewarned by her daughter's experiences, Laura had anticipated as many problems as she could, and didn't doubt her ability to cope with the rest. But she had not planned on Gidds Selkie, a military officer 'chipped from flint' and not at all the sort of man lifelong geek Laura had ever imagined would find her interesting.
Burned in the past, Laura is surprised to find herself tempted. Is this a new start to go with a new world? Or a mismatch doomed to failure?
Ebooks
Amazon US, UK, DE, FR, AU
Kobo (coming)
Barnes & Noble (coming)
Google (coming)Smashwords
Trade Paperback
Amazon (coming)CreateSpace (coming)
Competition!
I had a number of large magnets made up from the cover to give away, for those who are really keen on some new fridge decorations. When I say large, I mean large:
To enter, just add 'enter' in the comments of this post (or, if you can't comment, email me at mail at andreakhost.com). [Feel free, of course, to squee as well, but try to keep this relatively spoiler-free.]
Competition closes end of January. I can also sign your magnet with a glittery pen, if you so choose, or even a short quote from the novel of your choosing.
On the world scene, 2016 had quite a few down points, so I thought I'd start the new year off with a small gift for my fans. Now I know I've been promising a Touchstone short story for years, but I'm afraid I'm just not a short story writer...so you're going to have to make do with a brand spanking new Touchstone novel.
My first outright romance novel, in fact, with the story of how Cass' Mum Laura gets together with Tsur Selkie. Well, you know me - it's more a slice-of-life geek-fest because how would you feel getting to move to a place like Muina? Though Tsur Selkie sure as hell knows how to make a romantic gesture. [And I hope you all fall in love with Aunt Sue, because I sure did, and Aunt Sue will definitely be getting her own adventure some time.]
I love this cover image, btw.
One does not simply walk onto another planet. At least not without the help of a daughter who has developed unlikely powers, fought an intra-dimensional war, and then arranged for a family relocation to a futuristic clone of Earth. Laura Devlin would gladly have paid any price to have her daughter back, so living in a techno-paradise with spaceship views is merely an added bonus. And a dream come true.
But Arcadian paradises do not come without complications. Laura's include a plethora of psychic grandchildren. Interplanetary diplomacy. Her daughter's immense fame. And KOTIS, the military watchdog that seems to consider Laura's entire family government property.
Forewarned by her daughter's experiences, Laura had anticipated as many problems as she could, and didn't doubt her ability to cope with the rest. But she had not planned on Gidds Selkie, a military officer 'chipped from flint' and not at all the sort of man lifelong geek Laura had ever imagined would find her interesting.
Burned in the past, Laura is surprised to find herself tempted. Is this a new start to go with a new world? Or a mismatch doomed to failure?
Ebooks
Amazon US, UK, DE, FR, AU
Kobo (coming)
Barnes & Noble (coming)
Google (coming)Smashwords
Trade Paperback
Amazon (coming)CreateSpace (coming)
Competition!
I had a number of large magnets made up from the cover to give away, for those who are really keen on some new fridge decorations. When I say large, I mean large:
To enter, just add 'enter' in the comments of this post (or, if you can't comment, email me at mail at andreakhost.com). [Feel free, of course, to squee as well, but try to keep this relatively spoiler-free.]
Competition closes end of January. I can also sign your magnet with a glittery pen, if you so choose, or even a short quote from the novel of your choosing.
December 10, 2016
FFXV (mild spoilers)
Final Fantasy Boy Band came out last week, and I racked up 50-60 hours of gameplay and now it is done.
Another very pretty game, and gameplay-wise it was pretty solid Final Fantasy, with endless side quests and open world stuff that you could meander through at your own speed - at least until you hit the end game railroad.
Like many Final Fantasy fans, I was a bit dubious about the 'boy band' aspect. No female playable characters at all is disappointing - though not irredeemable to me - there has been at least one all-female FF game, and all male playable characters aren't necessarily a gamebreaker for me.
'Cindy the mechanic' nearly was. Cindy's outfit was a painful piece of fan service, and boy did they love posing her for viewing pleasure. The windscreen washing was particularly egregious. She was also the female character we spent the most time with. Still, at least she was competent. Aranea and Lunafreya were both better dressed, and we even got to do a dungeon-crawl with Aranea, who has a nice line of snark and some hilarious dragon cosplay going on.
Unfortunately, FFXV has a massive plot problem. For one thing, most of the plot isn't in the game, it's in an entirely separate movie called Kingsglaive (which I haven't watched). And what started as a reasonably enjoyable game dissolved into a shemozzle of epic proportions during the end-game, with most of the characters you met during the first forty hours of the game getting a brief mention rather than satisfactory final scenes, and even the primary 'brotherhood' theme coming off pretty weak since we needed more of the _beginning_ of these four's friendship to really appreciate that friendship being under stress, and then finally enduring.
So, for those trying to decide on whether to play the game - the first two-thirds are great classic FF, if lacking in playable female characters and backstory. The last third isn't particularly fun to play, and reads more like cliff notes or dot points of a plot rather than a satisfying story.
But it's very pretty, and I play quite a few of these games for the pretty.
Another very pretty game, and gameplay-wise it was pretty solid Final Fantasy, with endless side quests and open world stuff that you could meander through at your own speed - at least until you hit the end game railroad.
Like many Final Fantasy fans, I was a bit dubious about the 'boy band' aspect. No female playable characters at all is disappointing - though not irredeemable to me - there has been at least one all-female FF game, and all male playable characters aren't necessarily a gamebreaker for me.
'Cindy the mechanic' nearly was. Cindy's outfit was a painful piece of fan service, and boy did they love posing her for viewing pleasure. The windscreen washing was particularly egregious. She was also the female character we spent the most time with. Still, at least she was competent. Aranea and Lunafreya were both better dressed, and we even got to do a dungeon-crawl with Aranea, who has a nice line of snark and some hilarious dragon cosplay going on.
Unfortunately, FFXV has a massive plot problem. For one thing, most of the plot isn't in the game, it's in an entirely separate movie called Kingsglaive (which I haven't watched). And what started as a reasonably enjoyable game dissolved into a shemozzle of epic proportions during the end-game, with most of the characters you met during the first forty hours of the game getting a brief mention rather than satisfactory final scenes, and even the primary 'brotherhood' theme coming off pretty weak since we needed more of the _beginning_ of these four's friendship to really appreciate that friendship being under stress, and then finally enduring.
So, for those trying to decide on whether to play the game - the first two-thirds are great classic FF, if lacking in playable female characters and backstory. The last third isn't particularly fun to play, and reads more like cliff notes or dot points of a plot rather than a satisfying story.
But it's very pretty, and I play quite a few of these games for the pretty.
