Nor Iron Bars A Cage (14 page)

That rocked me again. True ghosts lost power as they aged, slowly fading.
Unless they were undead. Surely the King’s Mages would know the difference.
I took a breath, and forced myself to think it through. They might locate such a ghost. One that was a millenium old would have to be either a very powerful man in life, or filled with emotion strong enough to sear the summoner. I was deeply glad not to be part of the actual working. In fact, I really didn’t want to be anywhere near it.

I didn’t realize I’d made a pained sound, a whine of “No,” until Tobin took my arm in a punishing grip. The king was glaring at me. I said quickly, “You don’t want to mess with ghosts that old, Your Majesty. Truly you don’t.” I pulled my arm free of Tobin’s hand.

The king had the gall to smile. “I think my sorcerers can handle it.”

I looked at them. There were always three of them, titled Firstmage, Secondmage, and Thirdmage, even though they no longer had powers of true magecraft. That I knew of. Meldov had said they didn’t. But perhaps that was another state secret. Or perhaps, as we all assumed, it was just a name. They stood behind the king, three men all tall and lean and grey, ranging from late middle age through elderhood. They all had piercing eyes, which at that moment were turned on me with the disdainful expression I bet they’d use on a new apprentice who’d spilled soup on a working.

I said to them, “I saw a wraith, once.”

“I assure you,” Firstmage said, “This is a ghost and no wraith. I
do
know how to identify a revenant spirit.”

I could only nod.

“This man was a hillstribe leader, judging by the style of the focus. We believe from the artifact that he led one of the largest tribes on this side of the mountains, at the time the NaR’gin invaded. But he will speak only the ancient tridescant of his people and none of us know enough to understand more than a word or two. We brought in a questioner able to ask our questions in modern tridescant and got no responses. It took weeks of work to find this ghost and the chance we’ll locate another spirit from that era are vanishingly small.”

I had to ask, “How did you choose him? Was there no one else?” I regretted the implied criticism before it left my lips. But the king gestured at Firstmage to answer me.

“We know the date of the invasion, of course, and the plague which followed. The treasury has artifacts from many leaders and artists of the times, whose date of death was recorded. We inspected all that we could find of their possessions, for signs that they still served as focus for a ghost we could call. As expected, over that span of time, almost all were inert. Other than that.” He pointed to the fourth point of the working, where the focus object had been placed. From where I was, all I could see was that it looked like some kind of necklace. “That one still had resonance, although its original owner was not one of our people. When we called the ghost forth, none of us could speak with him.” It was clear how much that annoyed Firstmage.

King Faro said, “My sorcerers will call the ghost and control him, and compel him to speak. I will tell you what I need to know. You’ll ask him, in his own language, and listen to the answers, and translate for us.” As if it would be just that simple.

At least I wouldn’t have to be close to the ghost, or bound into the working. I still asked, “What’s his driver?”

“Driver?”

“Yes, Your Majesty. The thing that makes him linger as a ghost, so long after all his people have moved on. It pays to know what it is, because speaking of a ghost’s driver can turn them to such grief or hate or fear that they’ll rage and cry and speak no more sense.”

“What we call the ghost’s
motivator
, Your Majesty.” Firstmage’s tone was superior.

“Oh, that. We don’t know, obviously. If we could ask that, we’d be able to ask the rest.”

I supposed that was true. My whole body felt chilled. Tobin bumped my shoulder with his, as if trying to compensate for the shortness of King Faro’s response. I shivered and leaned against him, hard enough to really feel his solid bulk.

“We’re ready, my liege,” one of the other sorcerers said.

“Begin.”

Without further ceremony they took their places on the working. Because they were three, their pattern was a circle within a square, with a sorcerer in each of three active corners, and the framework of the spell, the focus used to find and bind the right spirit, in the fourth corner. I wondered how a tribesman’s artifact had come to be in the palace treasury. Perhaps a spoil of war. The tribes of that time had sniped at both us and the NaR’gin equally, whenever we got too far into the hills, and we’d returned the hostilities. Something which had not changed over the centuries.

The King’s Mages worked fast. Thirdmage lit the intersect-candles with brisk economy of movement. Then they turned to building the spell-construct with their chant. A small part of me wanted to join in. My memory supplied the form, the responses, whispering to me that I had done this before, that the magic still sang in my bones. I’d had this power once. A far larger part of me wanted to run far and fast. I leaned harder against Tobin and kept my place. There were guards on the door anyway, and I knew the king’s secrets. They wouldn’t let me go.
They might never let me go.

I was staring at my feet and hyperventilating badly enough that I almost missed the ghost’s arrival, but I felt Tobin tense to living steel beside me. I looked up. The ghost was standing there, shorter and browner than a modern hillsman, dressed in simple furs and leathers, with a spear in his hand. I fervently hoped their circle was well wrought.

“
Who calls me?
” he asked, in
tridescant
far more liquid and tonal than the modern. In fact, tone was all-important and the words barely ran under it. Ancient
tridescant
was more like music than speech. I hoped I had the voice for it.

“We command you,”
Firstmage said, in the modern vernacular.

The ghost turned to look at him, cranking his head further round than anyone could in life. Some old ghosts began to forget their original shape, or perhaps he’d died of a broken neck.
“Who speaks?”

Firstmage looked at me. Already the word “speaks” had a tonal lift at the end missing in the modern. The closest modern equivalent that I knew would mean,
“Who makes music”,
and I could see where they’d needed me. But with every eye in the room turned my way, I shook like a leaf, unable to open my mouth.

Against my side I felt Tobin move, as if getting ready to explain or excuse. To cover for me. Well, to all the deepest hells with
that
. I said, “
I will speak for us.
” I must have gotten it about right, despite the hoarse edge in my voice, because the ghost focused his dead eyes on mine.

“You speak strangely, man of the plains.”

“I learned your tongue late.”

“Most do not learn it at all.”

“What are you saying?” the king snapped.

“Introductions, my liege. He wants to know who we are.”

“Tell him as little as possible. He might be called up later by someone in R’gin.”

That was always a possibility. Calling a ghost gave you no more ownership than the time it spent in your circle. It could be summoned elsewhere a minute later, if they had another focus for it. Although you could sometimes wear it down too thin to be recalled by anyone. I hated when the Meldov-wraith had done that deliberately, to keep secrets for himself. For itself.

I gave the ghost a nod.
“My leader wishes information.”

The ghost seemed to struggle for a moment. But the King’s Mages knew their work— calling a ghost would be of little worth if it could just refuse to speak to you. Compulsion was part of the spell. He said slowly,
“It seems I must answer.”

“Who are you?”
It seemed smart to establish that first.
“When were you born?”

“I am Xan, leader of the Swiftrock peoples. I was born in the fourth turn of the Hunter’s Year.”

That was pretty useless. Their cycle of years turned over every fifteen. Sixty Hunter’s Years had possibly passed between then and now. But I translated, and Tobin hurriedly left my side to fetch the book and pen. I was more thankful than I could express when he came back to my side to write, brushing my sleeve with his.

King Faro said, “Ask him about the invasion. If he saw it, then his age is settled.”

“Were you there, when the horsemen of the east crossed the mountains? When they poured by their thousands into the land of the west to conquer it?”

He turned and spat, although nothing hit the floor.
“I was there.”

King Faro straightened his shoulders when I relayed that. “Good. Very good. We should have brought a translator like you into this weeks ago, as soon as we knew it was a tribe artifact. Ask him what he saw.”

“I need to hear what happened then, Chief Xan of the Swiftrock.”
There was no harm in courtesy. Although a ghost was constrained to speak truth, the stronger ones could resist in small ways. The stronger the spellcaster, and the weaker the ghost, the more complete truth you got. These sorcerers were strong, but despite his age, Xan was not weak. I added,
“I will go slowly, and ask your indulgence to do the same. Your musical tongue is hard for me and I must translate for those who don’t speak it at all.”

“You bray like a mule.”
That sounded more like dispassionate truth than insult.
“Ask your questions.”

I didn’t translate the mule part. I had some pride. I’d almost stopped shaking too, in the fascination of this. I was using an ancient tongue, however painfully learned —
don’t think about that—
an almost unknown tongue, at least in this country, to speak to a man a millennium old. The things I’d have liked to ask him, about customs and people, would probably have no chance to be uttered, but it was still a thrill to me. I said,
“Tell me about the invasion.”

“It was none of our concern. At first.”

“How did it begin?”

“We heard rumblings from across the God’s Horns pass, that things were stirring.”

“In the east?”

“Yes.”

“Ask him how they crossed the mountains,” the king urged me.

“Did the Easterners ride through the mountain passes?”

“No.”

Everyone in the room took a breath when I reported that. I could feel the burning concentration in all of them. My next question came out hoarse and incomprehensible. I swallowed and tried again.
“How did they come, then?”

“Boiling up out of the earth like ants from a hive. Small hand by small hand. In an unending stream.”

A small hand was four. The king said, “A narrow opening then, but not too narrow, if it let four men come through abreast.”

“Did you see them yourself?”
I asked.

“On the second day. For a day and a night and another day they came. Word was brought to me, and I went to see.”

“Soldiers came out of the ground?”

“An army of the East, leading horses, they came. A small hand at a time, massing into ranks in the narrow valley. More men than I have ever seen, and even small wagons.”
He spit again.
“Flatlanders need too many things when they travel. But they had good bows, and swords.”

“Where?” King Faro demanded. “Ask him where.”

I did so.

“On the edge of the plains.”

“That’s a big place, Chief Xan. Where on the edge?”

“Where the foothills rise.”

I thought he was being deliberately unhelpful. Clearly the King’s Mages did too, because I felt the increased force of will that they put into the compulsion. The ghost’s face twisted and his seeming thinned slightly. I could see the floor through the corner of his cloak.

“Tell me about this place. Describe it.”

“There are rocks. There is brush. There is a hidden trail below, but from above I watched them come.”

“How far from…”
I tried to think of my history, of a town that would have been known to him.
“from Camrocktown?”

“A day and a half’s ride.”

Nice and ambiguous, depending on how fast one rode.
“How many…”
I tried to say “miles” or “leagues” and realized that the language I was speaking didn’t seem to have equivalents. My voice faltered.

King Faro growled at me. “Go on. Ask more. We can’t search all the foothills for it.”

A thought came.
“How many arrow-flights from Camrocktown?”

“Ah, many and many.”

That might not be deliberate obfuscation. The tribes didn’t have much use for higher math back then. Even now, they tended to count in other languages than their own.
“How far from the trail head that leads to Eagle’s Pass, beside the Twins?”

“Many and many.”

“How far from Whitecliff?”

“I don’t know that name.”

It occurred to me that mountain names change too, even if the rocks themselves didn’t. I said,
“The place where the cliff is chalk and gleams in the sunlight, white as snow.”
Or so I’d heard. I’d never been there.

“Even more days.”
He grinned at me, showing yellowed teeth.

I took a steadying breath. At least this querying with a ghost was familiar territory, although I wished desperately I’d studied more history. I was fast running out of famous places in the foothills of antiquity.
“How many from the Tallribbon Falls, where the river that will be the Snake begins?”

“Maiden’s Hair Falls lead to the Snake.”

“From those then.”

He frowned.
“Many hands of hands worth.”

“How many?”

He shrugged.
“Beyond my count. A shaman could count it. Less far than Camrocktown.”

“Less than a day’s ride on a good horse?”

“Yes.”

“A half day’s ride at full speed?”
I tried to make the parameters narrower.

“Yes”

“Less than two hour’s ride.”