Beyond the Blue Moon (Forest Kingdom Novels) (47 page)

“No bet,” said Hawk. “Though if truth be told, right now I feel strong enough to dismantle an entire Cathedral with my bare hands, brick by brick, if I had to. Or kick the Walking Man’s arse round to the front, if it came to it.”

“Please don’t even consider it,” said Chance earnestly. “I hate to think how much damage the two of you could cause if you really got into it.”

Sir Vivian had been looking closely at the Lady of the Lake, and he took a sudden step forward. “I know you. I know who you are.”

“Of course you do,” said the Lady. “But you mustn’t tell.”

She smiled at him and he sank on one knee before her. She put a hand on his shoulder, as if in blessing, and water ran down his arm. He didn’t notice. He looked up at her with earnest, almost tearful eyes, and something passed between him and the Lady that the others saw but couldn’t comprehend. The Lady raised Sir Vivian up from his knee, and the two of them left the room together. Chance looked at Hawk and Fisher.

“Do you know what that was all about?”

“Haven’t a clue,” said Hawk. “But then, I feel that way about a lot of things these days.”

“Oh, good,” said Chance. “I’d hate to think it was just me. I used to understand what was going on in the Castle. Hell, keeping on top of things was part of my job. But just lately, I might as well be walking around with a bag over my head, and a sign on my back saying ‘Kick me, I’m stupid.’” He shook his head slowly. “Look, we need to talk about the Walking Man.
Please
don’t do anything to upset him. He is immensely powerful, utterly devoted to his cause, and has about as much sense of humor as a dead frog. If you irritate him, he’ll probably kill you—and anyone else who happens to be around at the time. He says God talks to him, and tells him to kill people. In my experience, the best thing to do with people like that is just nod and smile and go along with it, in the hope he’ll move on somewhere else.”

“We used to know this guy in Haven who used to hear God talking to him,” said Fisher. “Apparently God told him to recite bad poetry in public and expose himself to nuns.”

“Until he tried it on the Street of Gods,” said Hawk. “And the Little Sisters of the Immaculate Razor turned him into a jigsaw, right there on the street.”

“We know about the Walking Man,” said Fisher. “He’s a legend, even down in the Southern Kingdoms. But we’re legends, too. We can look after ourselves.”

“The problem is, unlike most legends, the Walking Man is even more dangerous than most people think he is,” said Chance. “He’s killed a hell of a lot of people in his time. Not always for reasons the rest of us could understand. I was there at the end of one of his cases. The Dead Hand Abominations and the Wolves of September. Lament had been gone for over an hour, and they were still carrying bodies out of the town.”

“And he wants to talk to us,” Hawk said slowly. “Just as a matter of interest, does anyone know who he’s come here to kill?”

“No,” said Chance. “But he’s already beaten a magic-user to death with his bare hands, and that was just something he did along the way.”

“He could be after us,” said Fisher. “We’ve killed a hell of a lot of people, too, in our time. Always for what we thought were good reasons, but I suppose that’s what everyone says.”

“We’d better go see him,” said Hawk. “Try not to worry about us, Chance. If Lament gives us any trouble, Isobel and I will send the Walking Man to talk to God in person to explain what went wrong.”

Chance shook his head slowly. “I wish I thought you were joking.”

Sir Morrison, Lady Esther, and Franz Pendleton, those notable would-be traitors, waited impatiently outside Duke Alric’s private quarters while the Duke decided whether he wanted to see them or not. Half a dozen armed guards watched them closely with unsympathetic faces. Morrison and Esther sat calmly on their chairs while Pendleton paced nervously up and down before them.

“This is taking too long,” Pendleton said finally. “Something must have gone wrong. He knows why we’re here. He should have made up his mind by now. What’s taking him so long?”

“He’s just making us wait to demonstrate how important he is,” said Morrison. “The more important the person, the longer the wait. We’ll be lucky if the Duke sees us at all today. Now sit down and stop making an exhibition of yourself. Look at the nice portraits.”

“Stuff the portraits!”

“Shut up and sit down,” said Lady Esther firmly. “If the Duke gets the impression we’re weak and uncertain, he’ll walk all over us. It’s vital we persuade him that we represent powerful interests he can’t afford not to deal with. You embarrass us in there, Pendleton, and I’ll kill you myself. Now
sit down.”

Pendleton sat down on the very edge of a chair, wringing his hands together. “This is bad. Coming here in person. We’ve always dealt through intermediaries before.”

“And that’s why we haven’t gotten anywhere,” said Sir Morrison calmly. “Our message gets diluted. Our intensity goes unrecognized. Sir Robert was our last hope, and he proved dangerously soft. Didn’t have the balls for the kind of direct action needed to grasp power. So we will proceed without him and his expensive advice. If we can persuade the Duke to our cause, we’ll be halfway home.”

“That’s a hell of a big if,” muttered Pendleton.

Then the doors swung open and the guards gestured silently for the conspirators to go in. They got up and walked into the Duke’s private chambers, doing their various best to look calm and collected and people of power and destiny. The Duke was sitting in a chair in the middle of the room, held upright by his straps and braces and supports. He didn’t even bother to look at his visitors until they were standing right in front of him, and then his gaze was cold and almost openly contemptuous. Morrison and Pendleton bowed low to him, and Esther curtsied. The Duke barely nodded.

“You wanted to talk to me,” he said flatly. “So talk. And keep to the point, or I’ll have my guards beat it out of you.”

Pendleton flinched. The guards had already demanded they give up all their weapons before they were even allowed to wait outside the Duke’s quarters. Morrison smiled politely and addressed the Duke in tones of perfect reasonableness.

“We are here to present a simple proposition to you, Your Highness. My associates and I represent the Landsgraves of Gold, Silver, and Copper, and other assorted business interests in the Land. We are not as mighty as we once were, but we could be again, with your help. We have extensive information-gathering operatives spread throughout the Land, which could be put at your disposal. We’re talking about the kind of information—people, places, and troop positions—that would be invaluable to you if you found it necessary to invade the Forest Kingdom for its own good. We have no faith in the current regime, who have always failed to recognize our true worth. In short, we offer you vital intelligence in return for your support after you come to power. Our interests are purely economic, not political. All we want is for things to be as they were, when the Landsgraves were a force to be recognized and valued. Not much to ask for a trouble-free invasion by your armies.”

“We can even provide armed men to fight beside yours,” said Lady Esther. “Mercenaries, but good fighters. And we also command assassins within the Castle. We could kill anyone for you. Anyone at all.”

“Good plan,” said the Duke. “I admire ambition. And ruthlessness. But I don’t need you. Guards, kill them.”

The three conspirators gaped at him, shocked, and then looked quickly about them as the Duke’s guards moved smoothly forward to cut them off from the Duke and any escape route. Sir Morrison struggled to find his voice.

“You can’t do this! We are people of influence and power!”

“You are traitors,” said the Duke. “And no one will miss you.”

“At least give us back our weapons,” demanded Sir Morrison. “Let us fight and die like men!”

The Duke laughed breathily. “Do I look stupid?”

Sir Morrison snarled a curse and threw himself forward, trying to plow through the guards to reach the Duke. The guards cut him down before he was even close. Pendleton broke and ran, and the guards killed him easily. Lady Esther watched her allies die, then pulled a nasty-looking steel pin from her piled-up hair. She held the long pin like a knife, and the guards nearest her hesitated. Lady Esther shot the Duke one last look of defiance, then turned the pin on herself and thrust it through her heart, robbing him of the kill. The Duke watched her body crumple lifelessly to the floor.

“Dead is dead,” he said finally, unmoved. “And I never did have any time for traitors. Guards, take away the bodies and dispose of them where they won’t be found. And clean up the mess. These people were never here.”

Chance took Hawk and Fisher to meet Jericho Lament in the Queen’s private chamber adjoining the Court. No one would disturb them there. No one would dare. Along the way Chance persevered with his efforts to try and impress on Hawk and Fisher how they should act around Lament. As God’s chosen warrior, Lament had no doubts or uncertainties. That made him extremely dangerous and very narrowly focused. You couldn’t argue or reason with him, and if you tried to get in his way, he’d just kill you.

“Sounds like our kind of people,” said Hawk, and Fisher nodded solemnly. Chance wondered if he had time to stop off and update his will.

When Chance finally ushered them into the small chamber, Hawk and Fisher were immediately impressed by Lament’s sheer presence. Just standing there, he looked large and holy and altogether menacing, like one of God’s nastier angels slumming it in the mortal realms. Hawk wondered for a moment if this was how other people felt when they met him and Fisher. Or Prince Rupert and Princess Julia. Hawk felt like he should kneel and ask for a blessing, or at least absolution, but he didn’t. Partly because he answered to no other conscience than his own, but mostly because if he was going to have to work with this man, it was important he should see Hawk and Fisher as at least potential equals. So he bowed politely to Lament, and glared at Fisher until she did, too. Lament bowed politely in return, and gestured at the chairs set out. Everyone sat down and pretended they were comfortable.

Hawk looked at Lament and wondered what it must be like to always be sure you were doing the right thing. To never have doubts or hesitations, before or after. Hawk had always had doubts, even back when he was Prince Rupert. Perhaps especially then. He looked at Lament looking at him, and wondered whether such certainty made the Walking Man more or less than human.

“The Blue Moon isn’t finished with the Forest Kingdom yet,” Lament said abruptly. “There is a voice within me, the voice of God, and it tells me things. Things you now need to know. I have read certain books from church libraries, old books forgotten or forbidden to those with less authority than I, and what I learned from them has not comforted me. When the Magus opened the Rift, joining the north to the south, he upset the balance of Wild Magic in the world. The Rift is maintained by a
continuing
spell using appalling amounts of Wild Magic to keep the Rift open. It is this growth in magic that has led to the return of the Inverted Cathedral and made it possible for the Blue Moon to manifest itself again.

“Have you never considered the nature of the Blue Moon? What kind of sun the Blue Moon must orbit that it reflects such a terrible light? What kind of world it must orbit that needs such a light? Scholars have been considering these questions for centuries, and nowhere have I found an answer that satisfies me. All I have is a name, perhaps the name of the Blue Moon’s world: Reverie.”

He stopped for a moment to be sure they were taking in what he’d said, and then he continued in the same grim voice. “There is only one way the Blue Moon can be prevented from manifesting in our sky again, and that is why God has brought me here. I shall enter the Inverted Cathedral, cleanse it of evil, and make it holy again, reclaiming it for God. I will bring the Cathedral back into the world of men, and it shall spread its sanctity across the Land, as was originally intended, canceling out the influence of the Wild Magic forever.”

“Hold everything,” said Hawk, leaning forward. Lament raised an eyebrow at being interrupted, but Hawk pressed on. “Are you talking about reinverting the Cathedral? Make it rise up instead of down?”

“Essentially, yes.”

“Can I just point out that this Cathedral is right in the middle of the Castle? If it suddenly goes shooting up instead of down, what is that going to do to the surrounding structures? There are whole floors above it!”

“I don’t know what will happen,” said Lament. “It isn’t important. God’s will must be done.”

“People could die!”

“People die all the time,” said the Walking Man. “How many will die if the Blue Moon returns and the long night establishes itself in the world again? I have no wish to see the innocent harmed, but I will do what I must to prevent the triumph of the dark.”

“All right,” said Hawk, just a little heavily. “Let’s try this from a slightly different angle. What exactly is it that you’re going to do inside the Inverted Cathedral that will cleanse and reclaim it?”

“I don’t know yet,” said Lament. “All I have been told is to enter the Cathedral and then proceed as my voice and my experience suggest.”

“You’re not much of a one for forward planning, are you?” asked Fisher.

“With God guiding my steps, how can I go wrong?” countered Lament.

“We used to work the Street of Gods in Haven,” said Fisher. “We met a lot of people who claimed to be doing the work of one god or another. Some of them were nasty bastards, and we had to shut them down. And sometimes we killed them to stop them doing what their gods told them to. You say you hear a voice, Lament. That’s fine, but Hawk and I don’t, so we just have to do as our consciences dictate. You’ve got an impressive reputation, Walking Man, but so have we. And we will stop you if it looks like you’re threatening the Castle’s safety, or the Land’s. So I think Hawk and I will join you on your little excursion into the Inverted Cathedral. Just to keep an eye on things.”

“I knew you would,” Lament said easily. “The voice told me so.”