Lord of the Rose

CHAPTER TWENTY

Ankhar had initial difficulties integrating the human soldiers into the ranks of his goblin horde. The two races possessed an instinctive antipathy that resisted his most persuasive efforts to tame. They were forced to set up their camps some distance from each other. Yet many a passing glance, sneer or curled lip escalated into blows, bloodshed, even a few fatalities.

Ankhar had a brainstorm on the day when Blackgaard came to him and complained that two of his men, suspected of some slight, had been ambushed and severely injured by their allies.

Actually, it was Laka-and Hiddukel, Prince of Lies-who gave her adopted son the idea. She whispered it to him in the dark of the night. At first light the next day, Ankhar asked for a demonstration of battle magic from Hoarst and his compatriots. The half-giant suggested a broad, flat-bottomed valley for the occasion. The many thousands of gobs and hobs assembled in more or less regular ranks on the slopes to watch, while the half giant, together with Laka, Captain Blackgaard, and Rib Chewer, sat upon a low hilltop with a good view of the target zone.

The half giant roared with delight as the Thorn Knights spewed blazing fireballs, searing lightning bolts, and thunderous hailstorms against hapless thickets of thornbushes, a beaver dam, and a clump of cottonwoods. When these had all been reduced to charred pulp, the three wizards demonstrated other talents. One launched from his fingertips a blazing spear that struck down a hapless prisoner staked nearly a mile away. Another, a female elf, vanished from sight and startled the hill giant by appearing behind him. She handed him a conjured rose with the hint of a smile.

Hoarst himself performed the most spectacular spell, calling down a swarm of meteors that apparently obliterated the Thorn Knight, as well as pummeling and cratering a large section of the plain. Only when the dust settled did the viewers see that Hoarst was alive, strolling casually out of the ruined swath of ground. He saluted Ankhar with a little click of his heels and bowed as the half-giant and his companions applauded.

After a moment, the hobs and gobs of Ankhar’s army added a massive roar of approval, awed-just like their half-giant leader-by what they had witnessed. As Laka had predicted, the goblin-kind were more amenable to their human compatriots after that.

“When next we meet knights, there new kind of Truth upon the battlefield!” crowed the commander, clapping the former dark knight Blackgaard on the back. Ankhar was impressed that the man wasn’t staggered by the blow, though the human did murmur something unintelligible underneath his breath.

“What you say?” the half giant asked with a scowl.

“Est Sudanus oth Nikkas,” the Dark Knight captain replied.

“What that mean?”

“Perhaps you know that the Solamnics pledge Est Sularus oth Mithas — My honor is my life?” the human suggested.

“I hear this,” Ankhar lied, starting to lose his patience.

“Est Sudanus oth Nikkas means ‘My power is my Truth.’ ”

The half-giant thought about that saying for a moment, then laughed, a dull rumble of amusement slowly bubbling from his chest. “Yes,” he agreed. “That the way of my army.”

He looked to Laka, who bobbed her skull rattle. The eyes glowed bright green in approval.

“Yes, my power is my Truth,” he repeated.

“Look at these figures!” snapped Bakkard du Chagne, waving the parchments in the general direction of Baron Dekage. “It’s as if the miners are purposely slowing down production-merely to spite me!”

“I am sure that is not the case, my lord,” the aide de camp tried to reassure him. “After all, the rains have been intense during this season. You recall, a score of workers lost their lives when the north dam burst and they were unable to escape their flooding tunnels. Surely that is more a cause of the production drop than any recalcitrance on the part of the common laborers.”

“Bah! You know what those towns are like, there along the north coast! Barely getting on their feet again since the Scourge! So twenty men lost their lives? A hundred should be willing to step forward and take their places! Where else in all Solamnia might they expect to earn that kind of money?”

“Quite right, Excellency. Their ingratitude almost boggles the mind. Er, what action would you like to direct on this matter?”

Du Chagne grimaced and turned to the tall window. As usual, the sun was streaming in, the azure waters of the Bay of Branchala glittering like a million sapphires. Ships plied these waters in increasing numbers, a dozen or more tall-masted galleons arriving in the port. Several massive galleys were just now rounding the point, no doubt bearing tin and spices from the east. The Lord Regent nodded-his share of the docking taxes alone would add more than a hundred steel to his ledgers, for each of the newly arriving ships.

He glanced at the conspicuously empty docks, near the smelting yards. He knew that the coal reserves on the Norlund peninsula were extensive and only now being tapped after long years of wastage under the Dragon Overlords. Every day, those mines should be able to produce enough of their black fuel to send at least one, and soon enough two, heavily laden barges down the coastline. In truth, his smelters, his forges-all his industries! — clamored for the fuel like hungry chicks in an eagle’s nest.

Yet coal production continued to decline. The last barge had arrived three days ago and had already been emptied and towed back to the mines. There were no coal barges in sight in that direction, and the reserve of coal piled near the waterfront had dwindled from the dozen or more mountainous cones that were the norm to a couple of pathetic hillocks that would barely last the week. He thought of his mountain of gold, secure in his towertop high above, and he dreaded the thought that he would have to dip into it to help the city pay for routine operations.

“I won’t stand for it, do you hear!” snapped the Lord Regent. “It is completely unacceptable!”

“Indeed, Excellency. I merely await your orders,” DeKage said patiently.

“Bah-enough of coal headaches for now. Tell me, have any interesting dispatches arrived in the morning pouch?”

“Yes, there is one here, sent by Captain Powell. I believe it arrived by pigeon, shortly after dawn. It has been transcribed for you and is ready for your perusal.”

“Very well-that might be distracting. Let me have it.”

The aide handed it over, and the lord regent perched his spectacles upon his blunt nose. He hated to wear the damned things, they were a sign of weakness, but in truth his eyes were not what they used to be. He certainly could not read the finely printed foolscap of a messenger pigeon’s paper, if it hadn’t already been transcribed into large letters in solid, dark ink. He read the missive quickly.

“Well, this is big news. They have caught the bastard-the Assassin of Lorimar!” He crumpled the short missive and glared at DeKage. “They are bringing him here!”

“Indeed!” The baron allowed himself the luxury of a thin smile. “Good news indeed, is it not, my lord?”

Du Chagne was looking out the window, thinking. It never failed-things always became more complicated. He nodded. “Yes, very good news, of course,” he agreed. “Now, moving on-what else is on the agenda?”

“Very good, my lord. Now, there is the matter of the wheat harvest. As you can see from the charts, it has been a good year on the northern plains. Unfortunately, the late rains have caused two deleterious effects. First, some of the stockpiles have been flooded in the yards on the eastern end of the High Clerist’s Pass. Secondly, some of the road through the pass remains washed out, and it is apparently beyond the ability of the local residents to repair-at least in a timely fashion. I have here a series of messages, urgent requests for assistance from the city.”

“Why must I do everything for these people? Are they too lazy to lift a pick and shovel?” Du Chagne slumped into his leather-padded chair, putting a hand over his face. He was starting to get a headache. He pictured the cost in more gold: gravel purchased from local quarries, teamsters to haul the fill, lazy workers who would siphon off his hard-earned fortune.

Just then, du Chagne’s attention was drawn by a knock at the door. He scowled; his councils with his aide de camp were inviolate unless something significant warranted an interruption.

“What is it?” he barked.

A liveried doorman hesitantly opened the portal and stood at attention. “Begging your pardon, Excellency, but you have a visitor. I told her you were in conference, but she was really quite insistent.”

“She? A woman. Most inconvenient. Who the devil is it, man?”

“The White Wit-that is, the Lady Coryn.”

Du Chagne almost groaned audibly. He didn’t have time for this! “Tell her to come back next week!”

“Er, I can’t, my lord. That is, she’s not here. She spoke to me, and said… let me see, she said, ‘Tell the Lord Regent I await him at his highest counsel.’ Then she blinked out of sight, Excellency.”

“Damn it.” Du Chagne left the baron and his servant, running out the door and up the spiraling stairs to the top of his loftiest tower. His stocky legs propelled him toward the gold that was his only, and thus his highest, counsel. He arrived at the glass-walled room, panting, fumbling for his key at the landing, and when the door opened he stumbled inside, terrified of what he might find.

His gold was still there, every bar of it, stacked just as it had been when he left it that morning. A quick glance across the neat stacks confirmed that not a single ingot had been stolen.

Coryn the White emerged from behind one huge pile of gold bars. Her robe, as pure alabaster as a layer of new fallen snow, glistened in the sun-brightened hall. Silver symbols, etched in thread-thin wire, winked and sparkled as the light shone on the robe.

“How did you get up here?” the duke croaked before glancing again at the gold. With a strangled gasp he lunged forward, running his hands over the bars, insuring that it was not some cruel illusion. “Are you threatening my treasure?” he demanded.

“Of course not!” the white wizard replied. “If you’ll remember, the magic protection I cast upon it makes it proof against theft. Even from myself. I am not interested in your gold.”

“That spell is still in effect?”

“It is permanent-it will outlast me, and you. Your gold cannot be stolen so long as you keep it in this room,” assured Coryn.

“What do you want here then?”

“I come to bargain with you.” She let her fingers trail across several smooth, gleaming bars. He resisted the urge to rush over and wipe off the smudges he was sure her touch had left.

“Now, Lady Coryn. As always, it is a pleasure to see you, even if I would prefer that your visits take place in another, er, locale. Also, I am in the midst of pressing affairs. May I ask you to be as direct as I know you are capable of being?”

“Of course, Excellency,” Coryn said, bowing slightly. Her black hair gleamed like satin, falling over her shoulders, framing her face and matching the indigo of her eyes. She was very beautiful, the Lord Regent reflected idly. He respected the fact that she did not use this beauty as a weapon, as so many women did. While he himself, of course, was immune to such charms, he knew they reduced many men to whimpering fools.

Still, Coryn the White had other weapons at her disposal, and the regent resolved to remain alert. Once a useful ally during his reclamation of Palanthas, she had an increasingly annoying way of sticking her nose into matters where it didn’t belong. More than once she had insisted upon courses of action that had had serious repercussions for the regent’s profit margins. She had proven herself to be a populist at heart, and du Chagne had no fondness for populists. Bad for business, bad for maintaining law and order, bad for progress, they were troublemakers, every one of them.

“I have been to the estate of Lord Lorimar,” she said without preamble, causing his eyes to widen. “I went to retrieve a document that should have been there-the Compact of the Free. No doubt you recall it, as you, yourself, were one of the signatories. He kept it in a strongbox with the six green diamonds.”

“Yes, of course I recall it,” said the Lord Regent, trying to keep his tone neutral even as he felt a surge of irritation. The compact was a populist document if ever there was such a thing! “He also had that ancient banner of the three orders. We all know it was his goal to restore a united Solamnia-he would use the diamonds in the crown, and the banner of the Crown, the Rose, and the Sword would be the new royal sigil. So what about all this?”

“The compact, the six green stones, and the pennant are all missing. That is, I could not locate them in the ruin, where they should have been, and I come to ask if you know what happened to them.”

Du Chagne’s jaw flapped, and he stammered like a peasant before he gathered his wits and replied. “It was a parchment document, by Shinare! Why, that place burned to the ground! What makes you think it could possibly have survived?”

“Because I know where the lord secretly kept it, and it was proofed against fire. Furthermore, he told me that only two other people knew where it was kept. One of those people was you.”

“My dear Lady Coryn, I assure you I have no idea what you are talking about!” protested the regent. “I once saw his strongbox-knew that he wanted to make those six stones into a new crown-but it’s ridiculous to assert that I knew where it was hidden! Now, if you will excuse me, I have matters in the real world to address! Mundane things like road repairs-if you want the people of Palanthas to have anything to eat this winter! And those repairs will cost me more of this gold than I should like to part with.”

That last statement was true.

“No doubt,” Coryn replied. “If you insist you know nothing about the lost compact, then I shall ask the same question of your dukes. Do you think they know where it is? And the green diamonds?”

“They’re gone, I tell you!” Du Chagne blurted.

“Gone?” Coryn blinked, and he wondered if she was stupid-or was mocking him. “You mean, just like that?”

She snapped her fingers, and all the gold, the more than twelve thousand bars in the treasure room, vanished. Du Chagne screamed in horror and spun around, staring in disbelief at the room that was utterly empty. There was no longer any brilliant reflection, no warmth-suddenly it felt very chilly and looked very dark in here.

“What did you do?” shrieked the lord regent. “Where did it go?”

“Oh, your gold is still here,” Coryn said. “I told you, it can’t be stolen.”

“Where is it then?” he demanded, taking an angry step toward her, his fingers clenched.

“Here,” she said, apparently unafraid.

Du Chagne groped around, feeeling a solid mass of a block of golden bars. He fumbled, lifted one, felt the solid weight of an ingot. He hefted it but could see right through it-as if it wasn’t there!

“I can’t see it!” he whined.

“Neither can anybody else,” the wizard told him. “It’s invisible.”

“I can’t trade with invisible gold!” cried the lord regent.

“Perhaps not. Perhaps your partners will take payment on trust?”

“Nobody takes payment in trust, as you well know!” snapped the duke. He glared at her, breathing hard, trying to gain control of himself. “What do you want?” he asked.

“I want to find that compact and the missing strongbox. I want to know who killed Lord Lorimar,” the white wizard answered.

“I don’t know where any of it is!” protested du Chagne. “The Assassin killed Lord Lorimar! We all know that!”

“Perhaps your invisible gold will help you rethink these events,” Coryn said calmly.

“How can it do that?” he demanded.

Instead of answering, the enchantress murmured another word, a strange-sounding utterance that echoed in the air for several seconds after she disappeared.

“My dear!” cried Lady Martha, embracing her husband, Duke Walker, as he came striding through the doors of the castle. The troops of his Ducal Guard were still filing into the courtyard, and the streets beyond rumbled from the weight of heavy wheels as the freight wagons of Walker’s personal baggage train rolled across the drawbridge and into the castle’s yard. “I did not expect to see you back so soon! Have the goblins been vanquished?”

“Not entirely,” the duke said with a dismissive shake of his handsome head. “There were difficulties between Solanthus and Thelgaard-not too surprising-and I was unable to force them to cooperate.”

“But Thelgaard-is he all right? I heard there was a terrible battle?”

“He is a moron!” snapped Walker. “He lost the better part of his army and came in to my camp like a drowned rat after swimming the Upper Vingaard. If I hadn’t provided him with an escort, I doubt that he would have made it back to his keep in one piece!”

“He went back to Thelgaard?” Martha was perplexed. “So the war is over, then?”

“No, I keep telling you,” snapped the duke, growing more vexed. His sleep had been troubled by terrible dreams during the whole expedition “Thelgaard lost a battle. He is back in his keep with such few survivors as got away with him. I doubt they will be sallying forth any time soon. After Duke Jarrod’s men and the Crown knights were defeated, Duke Rathskell and his own force fell back to Solanthus. They are quite safe there-for you know that is the mightiest fortress anywhere on the plains.”

“Yes, my duke. But what of the goblins-they have retired to the mountains then?” asked Martha, her pretty brow wrinkling.

“I’m quite sure I don’t know,” said the duke. “They probably have taken Luinstat by now. I had to order the place evacuated, since Solanthus absolutely refused-refused, I tell you! — to stand before it.”

“But… that’s way over by the Garnet Mountains! Why did you bring the army back here?” the lady pressed.

“Damn it, woman! It’s not the whole army-just my personal guard and my own wagons! The army is posted by the Kingsbridge, ready to move when need be. I have bigger problems than that! I haven’t had a good night’s sleep since I took to the field, and if this problem is going to get solved, I’ll have to get some rest! Now, have my servants draw me a bath!”

“But… what about the goblins?” Lady Martha wasn’t the smartest duchess ever to don a tiara, but she knew that something about her lord’s grand strategy didn’t sound quite right.

“If they create more problems, Joli knows one of those tiresome fools will let me know about it. As for now, I’m hungry as well as tired. Go tell the chefs that I would like something fresh for dinner as soon as I am done with my bath. I have been on the plains for too long-have them make something from the sea!”

The Nightmaster stood on a high tower alongside the bulk of Castle Caergoth. His temple was far below here, but he borrowed this lookout whenever he wanted to look at the night sky. No one had ever spotted him here-at least, no one who had lived to tell of their discovery.

From here the priest had watched the Ducal Guard return to the city, saw the knights stabling their horses, going to the houses of their wives and mistresses. This meant that Caergoth’s army was inactive, no doubt gone into bivouac somewhere on the plains.

The cleric of Hiddukel knew that his god should be pleased with his labors. In truth, many of his plans had worked out as he desired. His goblin agent, sequestered in the dungeon below the castle, had been able to reach the mind of the Princess of Palanthas, had ensured that she would return across the plains instead of by ship. His crystal visions had revealed to the dark priest that the detour was working exactly as he and his master wished. The auguries were right-indeed, she had stumbled upon the Assassin!

If only the Assassin had been killed. Instead, the fugitive was captured! The dark priest felt a shiver creep along his spine, for this was not what his immortal master desired. The Prince of Lies needed his most dramatic deceit to remain undiscovered, and that required that the man called the Assassin must die.

That interfering bitch of a princess had seen to it that the man would live, for several more weeks at least. Each passing day was too long.

It was necessary to prod events along, which he could do with the whisper of a dream that would carry through the evening’s dusk…

The Lord Regent’s palace was dark, save for the torches at the front doors and the lanterns carried by the watchmen who patrolled the outer wall and the upper parapets. Bakkard Du Chagne looked out from the lonely bedroom on the upper floor-his wife had long ago been banished to her own chamber on the far end of the royal wing-watching not the lights but the darkness. It was near morning, but he had been unable to sleep since a terrifying dream had roused him before midnight. In the wake of that nightmare, he had sent a secret message into the darker quarter of his city. Now he watched and waited.

A memory, unbidden, provoked a shiver of terror. He recalled the empty-looking vault, all his vast treasure treacherously concealed by the White Witch. How dare she? And how could he force her to remove her spell. That, unfortunately, was not a problem he could solve tonight.

There! He saw a shadow moving along the base of the wall, staying well concealed from the guards. The shadow followed a zig zag course through the garden, avoiding the hounds and even the servants’ quarters. When the shadow came to the base of the palace, it started up a trellis, climbing silently. This trellis was usually lit by several bright lanterns, but tonight the Lord Regent, claiming difficulty in sleeping, had ordered them extinguished.

When the shadowy figure reached the top of the trellis, he slipped over the railing, crossed the balcony and entered the door that was being held open by Lord Regent Bakkard Du Chagne.

“Excellency,” said the man, kneeling, “I await your order.”

“Yes, of course,” said the regent. “Show your face.”

The visitor pulled back the cowl of his dark hood. His visage was that of a Knight of Solamnia, right down to the bushy, but carefully trimmed, mustache.

“Good, yes, that disguise will work.”

“What are your orders, my lord?”

“There is a file of knights approaching the city from the plains. They are led by Captain Powell, chief of my palace guard. A good man. Loyal, and true to the Oath and the Measure.”

The man nodded, as the noble continued.

“They will be entering the pass of the High Clerist within the week. They are bringing a prisoner with them, a notorious assassin they recently captured. I wish you to meet this party-I will send some message for you to convey, some missive for Powell to explain your trip. Call yourself… Sir Dupuy.”

“It shall be as you command, my lord,” pledged the man. He bowed tentatively, sensing there was more to come.

“Your payment… I cannot pay you in gold, not this time.”

“No gold, my lord?” The man had the audacity to sound disappointed.

“No, but here is a bag of good steel coins,” snapped du Chagne. “Convert them to gold yourself if you desire! You know where the moneychangers are! First, do this job for me.”

“Of course, my lord. As to the job…?”

“You will ride with the column of knights as they return to the city,” the regent said. “You will locate the captive. And, Sir Dupuy?”

“Excellency?”

“It is my express wish that this prisoner should not reach the city alive.”