A Time of Omens Read online

  It was close to an hour later when he felt the presence. At first it seemed only that a cold draught had wafted in from the door behind him, but he saw the salamanders in the fire turn their heads and look up in the direction of something. The room turned thick with silence. Still he said nothing, nor did he move, not even when the hair on the back of his neck prickled at the etheric force oozing from the haunt. There was a sound, too, a wet snuffling as if a hound were searching for a scent all over the floor, and every now and then, a scrabbling, as if some animal scratched at the floor with its nails. As the air around him grew colder, he concentrated on keeping his breathing slow and steady and his mind at peace. With a burst of sparks the salamanders disappeared. The thing was standing right behind him.

  “Have you left somewhat here that won’t let you rest, lad?”

  He could feel puzzlement; then it drifted away, snuffling and scrabbling round the joining of floor and wall.

  “Somewhat’s buried, is it?”

  The coldness approached him, hesitated, hovering some five feet off to his left. He could feel its desperate panic as clearly as he could feel the cold. Casually, slowly, Nevyn reached out and picked up a handful of the grubby thatch.

  “I wager you’d like to feel solid again, nice and solid and warm. Come over to the fire, lad.”

  As the presence drifted into the warm light Nevyn could feel its panic reaching out like tendrils to clutch at him. Slowly he rose to his knees and tossed the half-rotten hay onto the hottest part of the fire. For a moment it merely stank; then gray smoke began to billow and swirl. As if it were a nail rushing to a lodestone the presence threw itself into the fire. Since it “lived” as a pattern of etheric force, the matrix immediately sucked the smoke up and arranged the fine particles of ash to conform to that pattern. Hovering above the fire appeared the shape of a youngish man, naked but of course perfectly whole, since his killers’ knives could do no harm to his etheric body. Nevyn tossed in another handful of thatch to keep the smoke coming, then sat back on his heels.

  “You can’t stay here. You have to travel forward, lad, and go on to a new life. There’s no coming back to this one.”

  The smoke-shape shook its head in a furious no, then threw itself out of the fire, leaving the smoke swirling and spreading, but ordinary smoke. Yet enough of the particles clung to the matrix to make the haunt clearly visible as it drifted across the room and began scrabbling again at a loose board between floor and wall. Nevyn could see, too, that it was making the snuffling noise inadvertently, rustling and lifting dead leaves and other such trash as it passed by.

  “What’s under there? Let me help. You don’t have the hands to dig anymore.”

  The presence drifted to one side and gave no sign of interfering as Nevyn came over and knelt down. When he drew his table dagger and began to pry up the board, the haunt knelt, too, as if to watch. Although that particular board was somewhat newer than those around it, still the rotted wood broke away from its nails and came up in shreds and splinters. Underneath, in a shallow hole in the ground, was an oblong box, about two feet long but only some ten inches wide.

  “Your treasure?”

  Although it was faint now, a bare wisp of smoke in the firelight, the thing shook its head no and lifted both hands—imploring him, Nevyn thought, to forgive it or do something or perhaps both. When he reached in and lifted the box, some weight inside lurched and slid with a waft of unpleasant smell from the crack around the lid. Since he considered himself hardened to all forms of death, Nevyn threw open the lid and nearly gagged—not from the smell, this time, but from the sight. Crammed inside lay the corpse of an infant boy, preserved with some mixture of spices and liquids. Only a few days old when it died, it had been mutilated in the exact same way as the corpse nailed to the palisade.

  Since the box brought a lot of dust up with it, the haunt kneeling nearby looked briefly solid, or at least its face and hands were visible as it tossed its head back and threw up its arms in a silent keen;

  “Your child?”

  It shook its head no, then slumped, doubling over to lay its head on the ground in front of him like a criminal begging a great lord for mercy.

  “You helped kill it? Or—I see—your friends were going to kill it. You protested, and they made you share its Wyrd.”

  The dust scattered to the floor. The haunt was gone.

  For some minutes Nevyn merely stared at the pitiful corpse in its tiny coffin. Although he’d never had the misfortune to see such mutilations before, he’d heard something about their significance—some half-forgotten lore that nagged at the edges of his memory and insisted that he examine the corpse more carefully. Finally he summoned up all his will and took the box over to the fire where there was light to work in, but he got bits of rag from his saddlebags to wrap his hands before he reached in and took the mutilated pieces of the tiny mummy out. Underneath he found a thin lead plate, about two inches by four, much like the curse-talismans that ignorant peasants still bury in hopes of doing an enemy harm. Graved on it were words in the ancient tongue of the Dawntime, known only to scholars and priests—and some words that not even Nevyn could translate.

  “As this so that. Maryn king Maryn king Maryn. Death never dying. Aranrhodda ricca ricca ricca Bubo lubo,”

  His face and hands seemed to turn to ice, cold and numb and stiff. He looked up to find the room filled with Wildfolk, staring at him solemnly, some wide-eyed, some sucking an anxious finger, some gape-mouthed with terror.

  “Evil men did this, didn’t they?”

  They nodded a yes. In the fire a towering golden flame leapt up, then died down to a vaguely human face burning within the blaze.

  “Help me,” Nevyn said to the Lord of Fire. “I want to get that corpse outside in here, and then burn it and this pitiful thing both. Then both souls can go to their rest.”

  Sparks showered in agreement.

  Nevyn slipped the lead plate into his pocket, lest melting it cause Maryn some harm. He gathered his gear and loaded up his mount, then untied the horse and led it about a quarter mile down the river, where he tethered it out in safety. When he got back to the lodge, he found that the fire had already leapt from the hearth to smolder in the woodpile. With the Wildfolk pulling as he pushed, Nevyn got the rotting log that bore the corpse free of the ground and hauled it inside. He positioned the corpse and log as close to the fire as possible, then laid the mutilated baby on the desecrated breast of the man who’d tried to save it. Although he felt more like vomiting than ever, he forced himself calm and raised his hands over his head to invoke the Great Ones.

  “Take them to their rest. Come to meet them when they go free.”

  From the sky outside, booming around the lodge, came three great knocks like the claps of godly hands. Nevyn began ‘to shudder, and in the fire, the flames fell low in worship.

  Even though Nevyn had asserted, and quite calmly, too, that there was no danger, none of the silver daggers were inclined to believe him. After the men had tethered out the horses and eaten dinner, Caradoc gave orders to scrounge all the dry wood they could find and build a couple of campfires. Maddyn suspected that the captain was as troubled as any man there by this talk of a haunt and wanted the light as badly, too.

  “Full watches tonight, lads,” Maddyn said. “Shall we draw straws?”

  Instead, so many men volunteered that his only problem was sorting out who was going to stand when. Once the first ring of guards was posted, some of the men rolled up in their blankets and went to sleep—or at least pretended to in a fine show of bravado—but most sat near one fire or another, keeping them going with sticks and bits of bark as devotedly as any priest ever tended a sacral flame. After about an hour, Maddyn left the prince to Caradoc’s and Owaen’s care at one of the fires and went for a turn round the guards. Most were calm enough, joking with him about ghosts and even making light of their own nerves, but when he came up to Branoic, who was posted out near the herd of horses, he found the young
er man as tense as a harp string.

  “Oh, now here, lad! Look at the horses, standing there all peaceful like. If there was some fell thing about, they’d warn us.”

  “You heard what Nevyn said, and he’s right. There are some things horses can’t know. Maddyn, you can mock me all you like, but some evil thing walks this stretch of country. I can practically smell it.”

  Maddyn was about to make a joke when the knocks sounded, three distant rolls booming out like thunder from a clear sky. Branoic yelped like a kicked dog and spun round to point as a tower of pale silver flame shot up through the night. As far as Maddyn could tell, it was coming from the old hunting lodge. Even though they were over a mile away, Maddyn saw the river flash with reflected light as it seemed that the flames would lick at the sky itself. Then they fell back, leaving both men blind and blinking in the darkness. In the camp, yells and curses broke like a rainstorm. Around them horses neighed and reared, pulling at their tethers.

  “Come on!” Maddyn grabbed Branoic’s arm. “Somewhat’s happened to Nevyn.”

  Stumbling and swearing, they took off upriver, running because it would take too long to calm and saddle horses. Just as Maddyn’s sight was finally clear someone hailed them: Nevyn himself, leading his horse along as calmly as you please.

  “Ye gods, my lord! We thought you slain.”

  “Naught of the sort I did get a little carried away with that fire, didn’t I? I’ve never tried anything quite like that before, and I think me I need to refine my hand.”

  Nevyn refused to say anything more until they reached the camp. Shouting for answers the men surrounded him until Maryn yelled at them to shut up and let the councillor through. It was a good measure of the prince’s authority that they all fell back and did so. Once Nevyn reached the pool of firelight, he mugged a look of mild surprise.

  “I told you I’d lay the haunt to rest, lads, and I did. There’s naught more to worry about.” He glanced around with a deliberate vagueness. “If someone would take my horse, I’d be grateful.”

  Owaen grabbed the reins and led the trembling beast away to join its fellows.

  “Oh, come now, good councillor.” With all the flexible courage of youth Maryn was grinning at him. “You can’t expect to put us off so easily.”

  “Well, perhaps not.” The old man thought for a moment, but Maddyn was sure that he had his little speech all prepared and was only pretending to hesitate, “To lay a haunt you’ve got to burn its corpse. So I made a huge fire and shoved the ghastly thing in. But I stupidly forgot about the corpse-gas, and up went the whole lodge. I hope your father won’t be vexed, my liege. I’ve destroyed one of his holdings, old and decrepit though it was.”

  Much to Maddyn’s surprise, everyone believed this, to him, less-than-satisfying tale. They wanted to believe it, he supposed, so they could stop thinking about these dark and troubling things. Later, when most of the men, including the prince and the captain, were asleep in their blankets, Maddyn heard a bit more of the truth as he and Aethan sat up with the old man at a dying fire.

  “You’re just the man I want,” Nevyn said to Aethan. “You rode for the Boar up in Cantrae, didn’t you? Take a look at this pewter roundel. Is that pig the same heraldic device or some other version of a boar?”

  “It’s the gwerbret’s, sure enough.” Aethan angled the bit of metal close to the last blazing log. “The curve of those long tusks gives it away, and I’ve been told that pointed mark on the back Is the first letter of the word apred”

  “So it is. That settles it, then. There was at least one Boarsman in that lodge this winter—although, truly, he could have been someone who was ousted from the war-band, I suppose, and brought his old gear with him.”

  “I can’t imagine any of the lads I used to ride with treating a dead man that way.”

  “Ah. Well, the man this belonged to might well have been the man who was killed. He was murdered for trying to do an honorable thing. I did find out that much.”

  “You talked with the haunt?” Maddyn found it hard to speak, and Aethan was staring horrified.

  “Not to say talked, but I asked questions, and he could nod yes or no.” The old man gave him a sly grin. “Don’t look so shocked, lad. You were mistaken for a ghost yourself once, if I remember rightly.”

  “True enough, but I wasn’t exactly dead.”

  “Well, while this poor fellow was a good bit less alive than you, he wasn’t exactly dead either. He is now, and gone to the gods for a reward, or so I hope.” Nevyn considered for a moment, frowning at the roundel. “Tell me somewhat, Aethan. When you rode for Cantrae, did you ever hear any rumors of witchcraft and dark wizardry? Did anyone ever say that so-and-so had strange powers or the second sight or suchlike?”

  Aethan started to shrug indifferently, then stiffened and winced, like a man who shifts his weight in the saddle only to pinch an old bruise.

  “An odd thing happened once, years back. I rode as a guard over the gwerbret’s widowed sister, you see, and once we went out into the countryside. It was late in the fall, but she insisted on taking a hawk with her. There’s naught to set it on, say I, but she laughed and said that she’d find the game she wanted. And she did, because cursed if she didn’t fly the thing at a common crow, and of course the hawk brought it right down. She took feathers from its wings and its tail and threw the rest away.” He was silent for a long moment. “And what do you want those for, say I, and she laughed again and said she was going to ensorcel my heart. And she did, truly, but whether she used the wretched feathers or not, I wouldn’t know. She didn’t need them.” Abruptly Aethan rose to his feet. “Is there aught else you want from me, my lord?”

  “Naught, and forgive me for opening an old wound.”

  With a toss of his head Aethan strode off into the darkness. Maddyn hesitated, then decided it would be best to leave him alone with his ancient grief.

  “I am sorry,” Nevyn said. “Did Aethan get thrown out of the warband for courting the gwerbret’s sister?”

  “He did, but things came to a bit more than fine words and flowers, or so I understand.”

  “Ah. I saw the Lady Merodda once. She was the most poisonous woman I’ve ever laid eyes on. I wonder, lad. I truly wonder about all of this. Here, keep what you just heard to yourself, will you? The men have got enough to worry about as it is.”

  “And I don’t, I suppose.”

  “Oh, here.” Nevyn chuckled to himself. “As if you weren’t burning with curiosity.”

  “My heart was ice, sure enough. Well, my lord, I’m about snoring where I stand, and I’d best get some sleep.”

  Once he lay down in his blankets, Maddyn drifted straight off, but he did wake once, not long before dawn, to see Nevyn still sitting up and staring into the last embers of the fire.

  On the morrow a subdued troop of silver daggers rode straight home to Dun Drwloc. That night Nevyn summoned Maddyn and Caradoc to the king’s private chambers for a conference. Casyl had a map of the three kingdoms, drawn in great detail by the priests of Wmm, and, as he remarked, it had cost him far more than the weight of its thin parchment in gold. While Nevyn and the king chewed over the problems involved in getting Maryn to Cerrmor, Maddyn stared fascinated at the map in the flaring candlelight. Although he couldn’t read, he could pick out the rivers and the mountains, the Canaver and the Cantrae hills where he’d lived his early life, the long rivers of central Deverry running down from the northern mountains, and, finally, the Aver El, the river with the foreign name whose source lay in the lake just outside the window of the conference room.

  All the borders of the kingdoms and their provinces were there, too, marked in red. Even without letters Maddyn could see that it was going to be a long ride and a dangerous one from Loc Drw down to Cerrmor. As long as the prince was in Pyrdon, he was safe, but the Pyrdon border lay a good hundred miles from the border of the Cerrmor holdings. Part of his journey, therefore, would have to lie through hostile Cantrae lands.

&nb
sp; “It aches my heart that some enemy knows of Maryn’s Wyrd.” Casyl’s voice brought Maddyn back to the present meeting. “What matters the most, of course, is where their lands are, and whether or not the prince is going to have to pass through them, though I can’t help wondering just who they are, and where their loyalties lie.”

  “I strongly suspect, my liege,” Nevyn said, “that their loyalties lie only to themselves, but I’ll wager they’re not above selling information to whomever can buy it.”

  Caradoc nodded in a grim agreement.

  “There’s mercenary troops, and then there’s mercenary spies,” the captain pronounced. “I’ve come across a few of the latter. Fit for raven food and naught else, they were. All the honor of stoats.”

  “If that’s the case,” Casyl went on, “then I’ll wager the chief buyer for their foul goods is the king in Cantrae.”

  “Don’t forget, my liege, that Cerrmor is doubtless boiling over with intrigue at the moment,” Nevyn said. “For a long while now there have been omens of the coming of the true king as well as much speculation as to his name. I’m sure that by now Maryn’s bloodlines are well known there. And then we’ll have a good many ambitious men who won’t see why the omens couldn’t apply to them or their sons—with the right trimming and fitting, that is.”

  “Just so.” The king traced out the Pyrdon border with his fingertip. “There could be several different enemies laying for our prince. Here, Nevyn, do you know who’s regent down in Cerrmor? Or has the fighting over the throne already begun?”

  “I fear the latter, my liege, but I don’t truly know. If you’ll excuse me, I intend to find out.”

  The king nodded a dismissal, taking this hint of dweomer with a casual indifference. It was odd, Maddyn thought to himself, just how easily one did get used to dweomer, as if it were the natural order of things and a world without magic the aberration. Maryn was practically jigging where he stood in sheer excitement. Although Maddyn could sympathize—after all, the lad’s Wyrd lay close at hand—he was also worried, just because he could remember being fifteen and sure that he would never die, no matter what happened to other men. He knew better now, and he had no desire to see his prince learn as he had: the hard way. It seemed that the captain agreed with him.