Nightlord: Sunset (74 page)

The Duke rose slowly and carefully.  He looked older and thinner—I guess everyone did; it was a nasty, nasty poison.  But he rose without help and gestured us to approach.  The cheering diminished as we walked forward.

“Good sir wizard,” he began, once there was silence, “while you have slept, I have heard much of your doings.”

I bowed.  Tamara did not.  Priests (and priestesses) have different rules.

“Your Grace,” I replied, “I trust you found your keep in satisfactory order?”

He smiled.  “In better order than I dared to hope.  But I find myself at a loss to explain the disappearance of some thousand or more viksagi, to say nothing of the appearance of a dragon’s corpse almost upon my doorstep.”

“I accept the responsibility for these things, your Grace.”

“Then come to my table and be welcome, for I am of a mind to honor you.”

Tamara and I circled the table, and chairs were drawn out for us; I was guided to the Duke’s right hand, and Tamara to my right.  When the Duke sat, we all sat, and conversation broke out in a hubbub.

“It would seem we owe you our lives, sir wizard,” the Duke offered.

“In part, perhaps, your Grace.  But to Tamara you owe the rest, even as I owe mine.  I would have healed you, but I was busy dying under a dragon.”

“Ah?  Of course.  The efforts of the fire-witch are not unappreciated.”

I smiled.  “As you say, your Grace.”

Fire-witch, indeed,
I thought
.  She has a name, your Grace.  Maybe you’ll learn to use it, someday.

“You have done the kingdom a great service,” he went on. “A great service indeed, as well as preserving my own duchy from the invaders.  I would knight you, but you already are.  What sort of boon would you have, sir wizard?  If it is within my power, I will grant it.”

I thought about it.  A servant placed bowls of soup in front of us and Tamara and I spooned it up for a bit while I thought.  What would make a good boon?  A piece of land?  A noble title?  A ton of gold?

What do you wish for when you only have one wish?

“If I may, your Grace, I would think on it.  Perhaps I may have leave to call upon you this afternoon?”

“Of course.”

The remainder of breakfast was relatively uneventful; the Duke made light conversation and asked about the battle.  I ate everything I could reach while I told the tale, with the exception of claiming to rely on wizardly powers instead of vampiric ones.  The Duke was very pleased and much impressed.

My attention, though, was mostly on another table—a smaller one, where the priests were eating.  And their attention, for the most part, was firmly fixed on the lady to my right.

After breakfast, there were quite a number of people who wanted to see me.  Tamara tried to fade into the background and slide away; I caught her hand and kept her at my side.  Why?  I don’t know.  Maybe because I didn’t want to face a horde of admirers alone.  Part of it, at least, was the fact she deserved a great deal of credit for life-saving in her own right.

I smiled and chatted and thanked people I barely knew for what must have been hours.  We couldn’t go anywhere without someone saluting or shaking hands or otherwise falling all over themselves to be courteous and respectful.

Except the priests, of course.  We were anathema to them, and they ignored us.  I did grin and wave at Marel, though.  Of all the people who had to survive, he wasn’t one I would have picked.  He pretended not to see my wave.  I wonder how they must have felt in owing their lives to the blasphemous heretic?  Or did they pray for their own recovery without her?

Raeth and Bouger tried to hang around as we took a walk outside, enjoying the crisp, winter air.

“I’m fine, guys.  Truly I am.”  I flexed my arms.  “See?  I don’t even stagger.”

Raeth nodded.  “So I see, but you have the lady to steady you.  Yet you are not unmarked.”

“I am?”

“You move with more grace after your ordeal, and you are terribly thin.  How has it changed you?”

I wondered.

“I don’t know,” I admitted.  “Watch and see, will you?”

Bouger nodded.  “I will.  Raeth, too.”

“Good; I feel safer already.  In the meantime, I think we may safely take our leave of this place, don’t you?”

Raeth chuckled.  “I doubt they will protest that you have not done your duty and then some.  Where do you wish to go?”

“I have in mind to find a place where no one will bother me for a year or ten.  And there build that manor I once spoke of.”

Raeth’s eyes gleamed.  “I take your point, lord.  I shall see what can be done in that regard.”

I nodded at him and he took Bouger with him; they would find people we needed—and who wanted to go.  Stonemasons, perhaps.  Definitely a blacksmith.  Who else would I need for such a thing?

“Halar?” Tamara asked.

“Hmm?  Oh.  Tamara, I’m sorry, but that isn’t my real name.  I’ve been using it for what seems a long time and I forgot to tell you.  My real name, the one I was born with—”

She placed a finger over my lips.  “Hush.  I have no need to know it.  You are Halar, my wizard and my knight, chosen for me by the Mother.  That is all the name you need.”

I kissed her finger and shut up.  She smiled and lowered her hand before speaking again.

“Where do you plan to go?  Or, where do you plan for
us
to go?”

“I’m thinking of looking for some real estate on the far side of the Eastrange, but still in the mountains.  Someplace impossible to reach without going through Eastgate and riding for a day or more.  Someplace bloody inconvenient to get to.”

“The barbarians beyond the Eastrange are dangerous, are they not?”

I paused in our walk, our crunching footsteps in the snow falling silent.  I looked at Tamara for a long second, then drew her into the circle of one arm.

“Tamara, I have met those barbarians.  They are not as technologically advanced as people on this side of the Eastrange, but they are most definitely not barbarians.  They are people, with loves and hopes and fears like any other, and some of them were kind, even generous to me when I was shipwrecked in their land.  Okay?”

She nestled against me.  “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right.  I know I shoot my mouth off about things
I
don’t know anything about.  I just hope I don’t do it very often.”

“Shall I tell you when you do?” she asked, impishly.

“With a bucket of water in my face?  Or with soft words?”

“Either.”

“Try words.  If those don’t work, try a stick.”

“You may regret that.”

“Possibly.  But growing is sometimes painful.”

She dimpled.  “I cannot contest that.”

“Good.  So, do you think you could stand to live in a manor and teach people anything you know?”

She cocked her head at me.  “Such as?”

“I don’t know what you know.  I know I’ll be teaching people to read, do math, and both science and magic—at least until I can find people who know them better than I.  Herb lore?  The worship of the Lady of the Blessed Flame?  You pick a subject, because I’m thinking of opening a school for wizardry and anything else I can think of.”

“Perhaps I might.  But why?”

I shrugged.  “At heart, I’m a teacher.  Besides, I know there are a dozen guys out there who are really grateful to me and would like a job as a guard; if I can swing it, I’ll hire them.”  I paused for a moment, worrying at my lower lip.  “And another thing… Someone heard a promise I made to myself, I think.”

“I don’t understand,” she answered, fine eyebrows drawing together.

So I told her about my dream, or vision, or near-death experience.  As I did, her eyes grew steadily wider.  I found a sort of perverse pleasure in making a priestess have such an expression.

“You…
spoke
… with the gods?” she whispered.

“If it wasn’t all a dream.”

“I recognize the gods you mention,” she said, wonderingly.  “The Mother and the Father, of course.  The Huntsman.  And Ssthich, lord of the deeps.  But who is this other goddess that wishes you to teach?  Her I do not know.”

“I’ve no idea.  The Lady of Knowledge?  Mother Nature?  Quantum Physics?  The Patron Saint of Teachers?”  I shook my head.  “I couldn’t tell you.  But she was on my side in that argument, and she’s the only one that asked me to
do
something.  So I think I ought to try.”

“I suppose so.  How will you pay for it all?  Are you wealthy?”

I nudged her in the ribs, gently.  “I was hoping to marry you for your money.  And now I find you’re a gold-digger, yourself!”

She laughed and took my arm again.  “Silly.  You’ll find a way.  What about the Duke’s boon?  Would he not reward you well?”

I snapped my fingers.  “All that beauty and brains to go with it.  That does it; I’m keeping you.”

She smiled and half-curtseyed.  “As you will, my lord.”

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 18
TH

M
y new color scheme is mildly annoying.  Why a night-stalking creature of darkness should have
bright
skin is beyond me.  A reaction to having it burned off by dragon ichor?  I dunno.  I’ve taken to shifting my color with magic to hide my unusual shade.  It’s like remembering to put on my pants before leaving my rooms.  I don’t want to surprise or shock anyone.

The Duke was quite happy to reward me with money; I think he was lavish.  Raeth and Bouger started preparing for a journey, getting supplies and such.  I let them, being more interested in finding someplace
to
go.

It’s inconvenient, not having a mirror, but a glass ball is so much easier to get and to carry.  Still, some things are best done using a mirror—or, at least, easiest done
through
one.  So I spent the afternoon hunting down a mirror.

Okay, having one made.  I had enough silver for it.

So, now, nighttime and a large, flat sheet of polished silver.  Time to think of exactly what I’m looking for.

What I want is a spot on the far side of the Eastrange and isolated from everyone else.  Preferably a not-too-large mountain that can access the plains with nothing more than a couple of bridges and maybe a little blasting.  Near coal and iron, if possible—although that shouldn’t be hard; the Eastrange is loaded with natural resources.  I found that out in Delvedale.

I looked into the mirror and a deathly pale statue looked out at me.  My new appearance would take getting used to.

I enspelled the mirror and laid my will upon it.

These are the things I want.  Seek.

“Show me.”

Snowcapped peaks and rocky wastes flickered in its surface.  My own image dimmed and was gone, leaving only flashes of scenery like a badly-spliced film.

“Show me.”

Smaller mountains, backed by vast plains, overlapped in images that rippled and swirled in the metal.

“Show me.”

The storm of images slowed, hesitated, settled to stillness.  A mountain, right at the edge of the Eastrange, with its toes digging into the soil of the plains, made itself clear.

“You,” I told it, “are going to be my home.”

I fixed the look of it in my mind’s eye and sent a tendril of power out, into the mirror, and touched the cold, naked rock.  That was my link.  I held the mountain with that tendril, gripped it hard, and closed the spell on the mirror.  Like a whip, the tendril flicked to the side, twanging in my whole body like a plucked harp string.

That was my path.  That tendril, wrapped around the mountain, would be my guide.

I went to find Raeth and Bouger; they were with Tamara, still sorting out what we needed.  I guess a woman who jumps on a horse in the dead of night and travels a thousand miles or more with the clothes on her back might need a lot of stuff.  They greeted me, and I kissed Tamara.

“I’m off to find a place for us,” I said.  “I think I know where we’re going, but I have to look it over first.”

Bouger glanced involuntarily at the courtyard—and, invisible through the walls, the stables.

“I suppose,” Raeth said, “that is wise; you will find a place for your manor and there shall we build it.”

“You will come back, will you not?” Tamara asked.  “We won’t be… traveling alone?”

“I will.  But while I am gone,” I added, looking at Raeth and Bouger, “I trust these two will keep you as safe as a babe in its mother’s arms.”  They saluted.  Bless them. “Then I’m off to hunt for land.”

Tamara kissed my cheek,  and I grinned like an idiot.  Oh, yeah; I like her.

Bronze was happy to see me again.  I stroked her nose and smiled before I mounted up.  She pranced out of the stable, stepping high.  People saluted or pointed or just stared.  I forgot most of the people here hadn’t actually seen my horse, just heard about her.

Bronze ate it up.  Well, she was magnificent and she knew it.  I couldn’t blame her.

Outside the keep, we headed south out of sight, then east.  I didn’t want anyone to have a clue where we’d gone, so if all they knew was that we headed south, so much the better.  I’d have headed north, but nobody would buy that; people would
know
it was a false direction.  Besides, the river would be a pain to re-cross.

So it was southward first, then eastward, straight to the mountains.  And right up into them.

Bronze can leap like a maniac on a motorcycle.  I can play with gravity, both the angle of it and the force.  Between the two of us, the only thing that could give us more than momentary difficulty was a sheer cliff face—and there were a few.  We had to go around them.  It made me wish I knew how to fly; it’s a spell I just can’t seem to figure out. 

Altering the force of gravity is one thing, but negating it or reversing it… I just don’t see how to do that.  The amount of energy put into an anti-gravity spell varies roughly on the square with the fraction of gravity reduced for a given area.  Turning gravity to zero or negative would be expensive or impossible. I’m sure there’s a practical way to do it; I’ve seen a flying carpet!  It’s just the
how
of it escapes me.  There has to be something more to it besides just manipulating gravity—or my method of it.  I’ll have to think outside the box before I solve it.

Still, even with the occasional cliff face, it was only a little past midnight before we gained the far side of the Eastrange and the plains below.  I thrummed the strand that marked my destination, chimed it in Bronze’s ear, and she tossed her head to tell me she would follow it.  We streaked south along the edge of the mountain range like a locomotive.  Even so, it was nearly morning before we arrived.

Up close, the mountain looked more forbidding than I’d thought.  The whole Eastrange reminds me of the edge of a big plate, tilted up at an angle, the thickness of the plate forming the height of the mountains—except the plate is broken into many pieces.  It makes for unpleasant slopes and difficult climbs.  But this mountain was on the eastern edge of the whole range, a major pain in the kiester to reach from the western side—which suited me fine.  Some work in the mountains to the west would make them much harder to get through… yes, good plan…

Manor house.  Maybe.  But if I had my druthers, I’d build a wall all the way around the upper slopes and call it an estate.  Or a campus.

I looked it over, trudging up and down near the peak, and worked my way down.  It had snow on it, but it wasn’t the permanent thing elsewhere, just a product of winter; trees marched all the way up to the peak.  We were south of Eastgate, so it was warmer, and the lower snows had already melted.  There was a cave, without an occupant, and elsewhere a spring poured water out of one face of rock.  The mountains all around were covered in trees where they weren’t bare stone, and the trees gave way to grasslands not far from the foot of my mountain.

My mountain.  I like the sound of that.

How will this be different from a fortress in my own world?  I once fortified a house and it was not enough.  But in that case, they knew where we were and came loaded for us.  Here, with luck, I might avoid detection.  If no one sent a bird out this far to look for me.  If no one breached my spells.  If, if, if.

I heard a whisper on the wind.  Or was it just in my mind?

A goddess of knowledge chooses to whom she will grant it.

Fair enough.  I’d make the mountain mine.  But first, the cave. 
Sunrise was coming.

I explored it more thoroughly while I was waiting for the sun to come up; it was really a series of caverns interconnected by cracks.  It was deep, deeper than I could search easily.  It might work out to widen and shape the open areas into living chambers, at least as a start.  If it’s good enough for Norad…

And we might need a bomb shelter.

During the day, I mapped the mountain more thoroughly, planned out what to cut, where to build, and how to lay things out.  I wanted a university; eventually it would happen.  Right now, it would be a school with housing.

A very defensible school, to be sure.

Likewise, I got out my crystal and checked in with Tamara and Raeth.  Raeth was leading a pack mule, but didn’t feel me watching.  Tamara, though, sat on a horse of her own and looked up at me when I regarded her.

“Hello,” I offered.  She smiled and waved silently, then turned to explain to Raeth.  I wondered where they were; it was obvious they’d gotten under way, but these crystal balls aren’t exactly optical-grade lenses.  The mirror, sadly, was too large to lug around; I’d left it behind in the baggage.  Tamara blew me a kiss and I grinned.

“I think I found a good spot,” I told her, wishing I could hear through the crystal.  “I’ll be here a day or three, then I’ll be back.”  She nodded and turned to speak to Raeth again.  I could see him laugh aloud and made a thumbs-up gesture I’d used; they didn’t use it over here, but he’d gathered its meaning.

“I’m off,” I said, then closed the ball down.

It was going to be a lot of work to rearrange a mountain.  The sooner I started…