Stormqueen! (53 page)

Allart wet his lips, too late realizing that even this gesture would be faithfully reproduced by the messenger standing before him, and wished he had not betrayed that small weakness. At last he said, “Say to my brother Damon-Rafael that I came here to Aldaran as his obedient subject and that I have faithfully performed all that he asked of me. My mission completed, I claim the right to domicile myself where I choose without consulting him.”
A poor answer
, he thought, and cast about for the best way to continue. “Say further that the climate of Hali did not agree with my wife’s health and that I removed her from Hali Tower for her health and safety.”
Let Damon-Rafael chew on that
!

“Say at last,” he added, “that, far from plotting against the crown, I am a faithful subject of Felix, son of the late king, Regis. If Felix, lawful king of Thendara, bids me at any time to come and defend his crown against any who would conspire to seize it, I am at his command. Meanwhile I remain here at Aldaran lest the lawful king Felix accuse me of conspiring to seize his rightful throne.”

Now
, he thought,
it is done and irrevocable. I could have sent a message of submission to my brother, and pleaded that as Aldaran’s guest I could raise no hand against him. Instead, I have declared myself his foe
.

Allart resisted the temptation to look ahead and see, with his
laran
, what might befall when Damon-Rafael and Lord Scathfell received that message. He might foresee a hundred things, but only one could come to pass, and there was no sense in troubling his mind with the other ninety and nine.

There was silence in the presence-chamber while the trained Voice digested the message. Then he said, “My lords, those who dispatched me foresaw some answer such as this and bade me say thus: “To Donal of Rockraven, called Delleray, that he is declared outlaw in this realm and that any man who slays him shall do so from this day forth without penalty. To Allart Hastur, traitor, we offer nothing save the mercy of his brother should he come and make submission to him before sundown of this day. And to Mikhail of Aldaran, that he shall surrender Castle Aldaran, and all those within it, to the last woman and child, forthwith, or we shall come and take it.”

There was another of those long silences. At last Aldaran said, “I do not plan to visit my Domain in the near future. If my brother of Scathfell has nothing better to do with his seed-time and harvest than sit like a dog outside my gates, he may stay there as long as it pleases him. However, should he injure man or woman, child or animal lawfully under my protection, or should he step beyond the line of my armed men so much as the width of my smallest finger, then I shall hold that as reason to annihilate him and his armies, and declare his holding of Scathfell forfeit. As for him, if I take him here I shall certainly hang him.”

Silence. When it was obvious that he had no more to say, the messenger bowed.

“My lord, the message shall be delivered faithfully as spoken,” he said. Then, the truce-flag before him, he withdrew from the room. Even before he had reached the door, Allart knew that there was no mistaking what the future would be.

It was war.

But then, he had never been in any doubt of that.

It was not long in coming. Within an hour of the departure of the Voice, a flight of fire-arrows winged up from below. Most of them fell harmlessly on stone, but a few landed on wooden roofs or on bales of fodder stacked within the courtyard for the animals, and the laundry-tubs of water were again put into play for extinguishing them before the fire could spread.

After the fires had been put out, silence again. This time it was an ominous silence, the difference, Donal thought, between warfare impending and warfare begun. Donal ordered all the remaining fodder doused down heavily with water from the inside wells. But the fire-arrows had only been the formal answer to the challenge, “… should he step beyond the line of my armed men so much as the width of my smallest finger…”

Inside the courtyard, all were ready to repel a siege. Armed men were stationed at the head of every small path leading upward, in case anyone should break through the outer ring of men around the entire mountain. Food and fodder had been stockpiled long since, and there were several wells within the enclosure of the castle, living springs in the rock of the mountain. There was nothing to do but wait…

The waiting continued for three days. Guards stationed in the watchtower, and those in the line around the lower peaks, reported no activity in the camp below. Then, one morning, Donal heard cries of consternation in the courtyard and hurried out to see what had happened.

The guardsmen were cooking their breakfast around fires kindled within hearthstones laid at the far end, but the cooks, and those who were carrying water to the animals, stared in fear at the water flowing from the pipes: thick, red, and sluggish, with the color, the consistency, and even the smell of freshly spilled blood. Allart, coming to see, looked at the frightened faces of the guardsmen and soldiers, and knew that this was serious. The success in outlasting a siege depended almost entirely on the water supply. If Scathfell had somehow managed to contaminate the springs which watered the castle, they could not hold out more than a day or two. Before sunset some of the animals would begin to die; then the children. There was nothing but surrender before them.

He looked at the stuff flowing from the pipes. “Is it only this spring? Or is the other one, which runs into the castle, contaminated also?” he asked.

One of the men spoke up. “I went into the kitchens, Dom Allart, and it’s just like this.”

Dom Mikhail, hastily summoned, bent over the stuff, let it run into his hand, grimacing at the thick texture and the smell; then experimentally lifted his hand to his mouth to taste. After a moment he shrugged, spit it out.

“How did they get at the wells, I wonder? The answer to that is that they
could
not; and therefore they
did
not.” He touched the matrix about his neck. He took another mouthful and when he spit it out the water ran clear from his lips.

“Illusion,” he said. “A remarkably realistic and disgusting illusion, but illusion nevertheless. The water is clean and wholesome; they have only set a spell on it so that it looks, and tastes, and worst of all smells like blood.”

Allart bent to sip the stuff, feeling the surge of nausea because to all appearances he was drinking a stream of fresh blood… but it was water to the texture and feel, despite the sickening smell and taste.

“Is this to be witch-war, then?” the guard demanded, shaking his head in consternation. “Nobody can drink
that
stuff.”

“I tell you, it’s water, and perfectly good water,” Aldaran said impatiently. “They’ve just made it
look
like blood.”

“Aye, Lord, and smell and taste,” said the cook. “I tell
you
- none will drink of it.”

“You’ll drink of it or go dry,” Donal said impatiently. “It’s all in your mind, man; your throat will feel it as water, whatever the look of it.”

“But the beasts will not drink of it, either,” said one of the men, and indeed they could hear the noises of restless animals from inside the barns and stables, some of them kicking and rearing.

Allart thought,
Yes, this is serious. All beasts fear the blood-smell. Furthermore, the men here are afraid, so we must show them quickly that they need not fear such things
.

Aldaran said, sighing, “Well, well, I had hoped we could simply ignore it, let them think their spell had no effect.” But while they might at last coax or persuade the men to ignore the look and taste of the water, the effort of this would sap their morale. And the animals could not be persuaded by reason to ignore it. To them, smell and taste
were
the reality of the water, and they might easily die of thirst within reach of all the water they could drink, rather than violate their instincts by drinking what their senses told them was freshly spilled blood.

“Allart, I have no right to ask you to aid in the defense of my stronghold.”

“My brother has seized the crown and makes common cause with
yours
, kinsman. My life is forfeit if I am taken here.”

“Then see if we can find what in Zandru’s seven hells they are doing down there!”

“There is at least one
laranzu
bearing a matrix,” Allart said, “and perhaps more. But this is a simple spell. I will see what I can do.”

“I need Donal here for the defense of the outwalls,” Aldaran said.

Allart nodded. “So be it.” He turned to one of the servants, who stood staring at the water that still flowed, like fresh blood, in a crimson stream from the pipe, and said, “Go to my lady, the lady Renata, and Margali, and ask that they join me in the watchtower as soon as they may.”

He added, turning to Dom Mikhail, “By your leave, kinsman, it is isolated enough that we can work in peace.”

“Give what orders you will, kinsman,” Aldaran said.

Within the watchtower, when the women joined him, he said, “You know?”

Renata made a wry face, saying, “I know. My maid came shrieking in when she went to draw my bath, screaming that blood flowed from the taps. I suspected even then that it was illusion, but I could not convince my servingwomen of that!”

“I, too,” Margali said. “Though I knew it illusion, I felt I would rather go dirty than bathe in the stuff, or thirsty than drink of it. Dorilys was terrified. Poor child, she has had another attack of threshold sickness. I had hoped she was past it, but with all this emotional upheaval - “

“Well, first we must see how it is done,” Allart said. “Cassandra, you are a monitor, but you, Renata, have had the most training. Do you wish to work central to what we are doing?”

“No, Allart. I - I dare not,” she said reluctantly.

Immediately Cassandra picked up her meaning. She put her arm around her kinswoman. “I had not known… you are pregnant, Renata!” Cassandra said, in astonishment and dismay. After all Renata had said to them… but it was done, and nothing to argue now. “Very well. You can monitor outside the circle, if you wish, though I do not think it is needed for this… Margali?”

A blue light began to glimmer from the three matrixes as they focused upon them; after a moment Cassandra nodded. It had been, indeed, the simplest of spells.

“There is no need for anything,” she said, “except to reinforce nature. That water shall be what it is, and nothing more.”

Joined, they sank into the surrounding energy patterns, repeating the simplest of the awarenesses, the old elemental pattern:
Earth and air and water and fire, soil and rock and wind and sky and rain and snow and lightning
. … As the rhythm of nature moved within them and over them, Allart felt even Renata drop into the simple spell… for this, in tune with nature instead of wrenching it to their patterns, could do nothing but good even to her unborn child. It repeated simply that he must be what nature had made him. As they searched out the fabric of the vibration that had set the illusion on the springs below the castle, they knew that every spring and every tap and pipe now flowed clear spring water from the rock. Remaining for a moment in the smooth resting rhythm of nature, they felt Dorilys, too, and Donal and Lord Aldaran - everyone within the castle who bore a matrix and could use
laran
- reinforced and strengthened by it. Even those who had not this awareness sensed the smooth rhythm, to the lowliest beasts in the courtyards and stables.

The sun, too, seemed for a moment to shine with a more brilliant crimson light.

All of nature is one, and all that one is harmony
. … To Cassandra, the musician, it was like a great chord, massive and peaceful, lingering and dying away into silence, but still heard, somewhere…

Dorilys came softly into the watchtower room. After a moment the rapport fell quietly apart, without any tactile break, and Margali smiled and stretched her hand to her foster-daughter.

“You look well again, sweetheart.”

“Yes,” Dorilys said, smiling. “I was lying on my bed, and suddenly I felt - oh, I don’t know how to tell you -
good
, and I knew you were working here, and I wanted to come and be with you all.” She leaned against her foster-mother, with a sweet and confiding smile. “Oh, Kathya said I must tell you that the water flows clean again in bath and pipes, and you can break fast when you will.”