This air of mystery only deepens, now, as the Talons strike their camp: for, with the full combined force of Bane and Broken warriors beginning to move up the southern route of ascendancy toward the great city, a ring of mist begins to form about the middle and upper reaches of the mountain. Pure white, the mist is nonetheless remarkably dry; and there is a fast-spreading tendency among both the Bane and the Talons—who have come to regard each other as allies with remarkable speed, a sentiment urged on by each of their trusted and even beloved commanders—to view the mist as some sort of a blessing from their respective deities, since it will make their movements far more difficult to detect from the walls of the city. (They cannot know, as you do, readers who encounter this Manuscript many years from now, that what they believe their unique and divine gift was, in fact, the first appearance in the mountain’s history of that same misty halo by which Broken has since become known, and by which it shall likely continue to be marked until the end of time.) Matched with the general enthusiasm for Caliphestros’s steel, which both Bane and Talons are experienced enough warriors to recognize is indeed an unqualified boon, the mist creates an air that further promotes the heartiest of feelings between former enemies.
The mist, meanwhile, is having an entirely different effect in Broken: as Arnem had hoped, it is indeed making it almost impossible for the men of Lord Baster-kin’s Guard who are manning the walls of the city to determine just what direction the allied armies are approaching from. The realization of this confusion, relayed by Akillus’s stealthy scouts, causes an increasingly congenial atmosphere to overtake the expedition below: for the Talons and the Bane both know full well that they will require such compensatory advantages. Say what one will of Baster-kin’s Guard, they shall now be fighting, not in the dark, foreign terrain of Davon Wood, but from behind Broken’s seamless walls and mighty oak and iron gates: a position whose superiority is almost impossible to measure in numbers or comparative skills. Certainly, however, odds of less than two warriors to one—which the Guardsmen will be facing, if they not only fight soberly, but organize their positions and their system of response to assault so that it is quick and effective—should not, under ordinary circumstances, be sufficient to cause any defenders of the city alarm, any more than they should bode well for the attackers. Thus Arnem and Ashkatar are inclined to view every favorable development or disposition with even greater encouragement than they usually would, and are forced to turn indulgent ears and eyes to the several and often amusing situations that grow out of the Talons and the Bane warriors becoming acquainted with each other’s ways during the march.
The need for this indulgence is only reinforced when they consider the probability that the Guard’s exacting and often quite terrifying commander will himself be at his men’s backs: the Merchant Lord, no doubt driven on by the consuming desire for a new wife and family, which he has sacrificed so much to gain, as well as by the defection of his seneschal, will press his men toward a rugged defense, one that they may well be capable of achieving.
“What think you of this, my lord Caliphestros?” Arnem calls merrily as he gallops back to the baggage train from his usual position at the head of the column. “A nearly dry mist? What does this herald for your certain prediction of rain?”
Caliphestros is still tightly clinging to Stasi’s shoulders, as the panther walks next to the first of the two carts, in which rides Visimar as Keera drives, making up for what she lacks in physical strength by her ability to communicate with the two horses that pull the conveyance through her manipulations of their reins and harnesses. Stasi, for her part, makes it ever clear to the beasts that only strict obedience to their mistress will be tolerated, without actually frightening the horses so greatly that they bolt. Veloc and Heldo-Bah manage the reins of the second cart, and in the beds of both vehicles, pairs of the Talons’ rearguard men make certain that the tie lines which secure the brass containers are neither too tight nor too loose, but offer just enough flexibility to both secure the apparently precious cargo and absorb whatever unseen jolts in the road the carts themselves cannot.
“I realize fully the military advantage of this strange phenomenon,” Caliphestros replies, eyes ever on the beds of the two carts. “And I am glad that it brings with it no moisture—yet. But when the time comes, Sentek, we shall require rain—a good, driving rain, and as I now have no clear view of the night sky, I am less sanguine than I was that we shall get it. Certainly, the wind from the west that was earlier so promising has died down—and that is not something that pleases me.”
“Well, if you would but tell me why you require such a rain,” Arnem replies, hoping that his roundabout attempt to pry will not sound so heavy-handed as its statement feels, “then I might dispatch several of Akillus’s men either farther up or down the mountain, to a position where they could more clearly attempt to divine the approaching weather.”
“And I might oblige your rather obvious ruse, Sentek,” Caliphestros replies, “if I thought it truly possible for your scouts to do so. But the dying down of the wind, together with the surrounding hills and mountains that both obscure and channel patterns in the weather, make it seem unlikely that their reading from anywhere on this trail would be accurate …” The old man nods once. “But I will offer you this, in reply: send Linnet Akillus—for I know he will never be able to pass up such an opportunity for adventure and the gaining of intelligence—as well as whatever men he requires on this errand, and if their news is good, I shall agree to explain what I can about what we carry in these carts.”
“Thus you trust Akillus fully,” Arnem says with a smile, “but myself only reservedly … Hak, in your scheme of ‘good’ and ‘bad,’ I cannot tell which of us thereby makes the better man …”
The old scholar is unable to keep from returning the soldier’s smile. “So you have thought upon my words, eh, Sentek? And, I suspect, understood them.”
“Studied, yes, but understood?” Arnem shakes his head, then turns to notice that both Keera and Visimar are listening intently. “Who, I still do not know, is the one good man in Broken who does evil in the name of what he perceives as good?”
“Truly, you have not divined as much, Sentek?” Caliphestros answers, surprised. Urging the sentek as close to his side as the Ox will bear, given Stasi’s presence, the ag scholar strains his body as far toward the commander as its compromised state will allow, speaking in a whisper: “It is Lord Baster-kin, himself.”
Keera gasps suddenly, in a manner almost audible to the eternally inquisitive drivers of the cart behind them. Arnem, for his part, pulls away, stunned. “Lord—!”
Caliphestros hisses silence. “Please, Sentek—I tell you this in all confidence. It must remain shielded, especially from that noisy sack of verbal and physical obscenities who drives the cart behind us. So let us speak no more of it. You shall study upon it, now, as you studied upon my earlier statement, and come to comprehend my meaning, in your own time.”
Still stunned, somewhat, from what he has heard, Arnem can only reply weakly, “I fear that time will be too short, my lord. We are not so far from the South Gate of Broken as you may think, and the time it takes to reach it is all I can give to such contemplation.”
“But this is not at all so,” Caliphestros replies. “Did you yourself not say that we shall need to pause at the open, roughly flat meadow upon which your cavalrymen train, just south of the city, before we reach the walls? Your purpose was, as I recall, to allow your engineers to begin the construction of the various ballistae that I requested from the wood of the surrounding trees, as well as to determine how many horses have escaped Lord Baster-kin’s efforts to capture them and thus supply additional stores of meat for the city’s population during the coming siege?”
“I did,” he answers. “And it will take some time—for those mounts have been trained to avoid capture by such clumsy, untrained hands as those of the Guard, and will likely be scattered. In addition, I don’t know why you continue to insist
on any ‘ballistae’ at all—for you know as well as I that both the granite of Broken’s walls and the dense oak of her gates are impervious to such weapons. In addition, the building of such devices will take the better part of a day and a night, even for such skilled craftsmen as Linnets Crupp and Bal-deric and their men.”
“Perhaps my explanation for wanting the machines, when you hear it, will alter your point of view,” Caliphestros replies, knowing that he dangles bait that the sentek cannot resist. “So it would seem you have time and reason enough, then.”
“And it would seem that I’ve been outmaneuvered by you again,” Arnem comments, without rancor. “I know, now, who taught Visimar that skill. Very well, then—Akillus!” The sentek, his mind back upon affairs at hand, spurs the Ox forward, and the others can still hear him shouting for his chief scout long after he has vanished back into the strange, surrounding cloud.
“Well,” Visimar comments, with a small laugh. “That was deftly managed—your skills at such negotiation have not suffered during your years among the denizens of the Wood, my lord.”
“Perhaps, Visimar,” Caliphestros replies, “but one thing I said was simply and unarguably truthful; we must know what change in the mountain’s weather this strange mist portends, if any change at all.”
“We shall, would be my guess,” Visimar says. “Akillus has a shrewd eye for details, as well as the ability to gather them quickly.”
“Precisely my impression,” Caliphestros rejoins. “We shall not have long to wait, then.”
“No, not long,” Keera adds softly, from her seat beside Caliphestros’s former acolyte. “But, perhaps, time enough—and distance enough from any ears save your own and ours, my lord—for you to explain, without fear of rancorous interruption, what took place in the Wood, just before the slaughter of the First Khotor of Lord Baster-kin’s Guard …?” The statement apparently comes as no surprise to Visimar, making Keera realize that Visimar and Caliphestros must already have discussed the latter’s encounter with the First Wife of Kafra. Keera is taken aback when Visimar turns to face the cart behind them and calls:
“Ho! Heldo-Bah! Veloc! Come help me down, that I may be certain your containers are properly secured. Not that I distrust your assistants—but neither they nor you have ever handled such materials as you now bear.”
“What makes you think we need the help of a man with one leg and half a mind?” Heldo-Bah replies. “Worry about your own cart, acolyte!” Stasi turns to Heldo-Bah and gives him an admonishing look, which, although a brief one, is sufficient to its purpose: “Oh, all right, go get the one old lunatic, Veloc …”
Veloc trots forward briskly, and, as the two wagons halt briefly, gives Visimar a shoulder and two good legs to lean upon, so that he can take his weight from the worn piece of wood and leather that has for so many years been strapped to his once-whole body.
“Let us get back under way as quickly as we can,” Caliphestros commands, at which Keera gets her horses moving once more and he speaks to her privately. “For I would be finished with this tale, ere we reach the meadow Sentek Arnem and I spoke of, when Akillus and his scouts will return …”
Heldo-Bah is soon preoccupied enough with the business of getting Visimar up and onto his cart’s bench that he cannot so much as try to listen to the conversation that unfolds in the conveyance ahead. Once his horses are pulling again, however, the gap-toothed Bane leans to his side and says to his new passenger:
“All right, acolyte—I will make my friendship easy for you: tell me what those two are talking about.”
“Why should you wish to know, Heldo-Bah?” Visimar says, in a congenial but firm fashion. “Even if I told you, it would be as a language deeply foreign to you: mere nonsense-speak that would only conflict with your outlook upon the world.”
Heldo-Bah’s eyes widen. “You know me so well that you can say this with certainty?”
“I believe so,” Visimar answers. Then he turns to the third forager, who walks beside the wagon. “Am I wrong, Veloc?”
Veloc laughs. “You are not, Visimar.” He looks to his gap-toothed friend, and says proudly, “They speak of love, Heldo-Bah, if I am right.”
“Oh,” Heldo-Bah answers. “And so I know nothing of love? Or of loss?”
“I did not say that,” Visimar answers. “Simply not of the type of love that they are discussing.”
“Believe what you like, you two,” Heldo-Bah says, attempting to rise above the insult with rather absurd pride. “But at the same time, return to our story—I want to know how that clever relic we’ve been traveling with”—he points to Caliphestros—“ever coaxed that supreme beauty into his bed.”
“And why need he have been the one who did the coaxing, Heldo-Bah?” Visimar demands.
“That argument again,” the sharp-toothed forager grunts. “Leave such ideas to fools like Veloc, old man—they are beneath you, if you are half the mystical scholar the Tall once believed you.”
His predicament obvious, Visimar shakes his head once. “Not so—and if Veloc will aid me in the occasional translation into your own unique language, Heldo-Bah, I shall relate it.” Immediately, Heldo-Bah nods in firm agreement, not realizing he has been roundly insulted; and the tale continues. “Well,” says Visimar, “I warn you, Heldo-Bah, what I have to say will not be what you have in mind, in any way. You desire a story rife with lasciviousness, but the truth runs in quite the other direction.”
“Whatever the direction,” Heldo-Bah replies, “I desire to know how that old man achieved such a feat as taking that beauteous creature to bed.”
“You will be disappointed,” Visimar repeats. “For, as I expect my master, or former master, is now telling Keera, it was Alandra who took him … And the results were—devastation. For both of them …”
2.
THE LARGE CAVALRY training ground of which Sentek Arnem spoke is bounded by short, cliff-like faces on its western and southern edges, so that the trail from below enters on its eastern edge and then continues upward from its northern. The last length of pathway that the two carts must cover to reach it is not long, but because of the plateau-like formation of the field the approach is steep, and special attention must be paid to the heavily laden carts; yet even such care for calm and quiet cannot prevent the horses from announcing their approach, for they are familiar with the place, having spent much time upon it training for battle; and they find the experience of dragging heavily laden carts toward it confusing and irritating. The remainder of the trip, then, is a tricky one, which only gives Heldo-Bah more time to harry Visimar with questions about the romance between Caliphestros and the First Wife of Kafra called Alandra. Not that Heldo-Bah has any difficulty understanding the basic facts of the tale: it is perfectly easy to see how a man like Caliphestros—then ten or more years younger, his body whole and fit, his experience, wisdom, and manner worldly, and his prestige with the God-King Izairn and the latter’s retinue so great that he was given chambers and a laboratory within the high tower of the Inner City’s royal palace itself, and the unprecedented position of Second Minister—could be seduced by the charms of a young woman such as the First Wife of Kafra, given her entrancing green eyes and her shimmering, straight lengths of coal-black hair, to say nothing of a form that to this day embodies all the attributes that the Tall admire. Caliphestros had indeed been tutor to Izairn’s royal offspring, from shortly after he arrived in Broken: throughout the period, that is, that he was also murmured to be the leader of a group (chief among them Visimar) who snatched dead bodies, performed profane experiments upon them, and dabbled in black arts of all kinds, while at the same time performing their royal duties. Which of the offenses was the greater, his accusers eventually asked, sorcery or the suppos “guidance” of a young girl into becoming his lover? The last was certainly an odd question, to be put by a society whose god and priests called for physical indulgences of all varieties, and between all sexes and ages (and in some cases species). And so the second indictment mig
ht never have carried any weight, without the first, which was why Caliphestros’s enemies in the Kafran priesthood—who first suborned the young Prince Saylal—knew that they must also gain the backing of the Royal Princess, if their dream of expelling the influential but no less blasphemous foreigner and his followers was ever to take shape.
And yet, the problem presented itself again and again: in a world where priests not only allowed but ritualized every physical excess, how could a romance (and, Visimar emphasized to Heldo-Bah, it was first and foremost a romance) between two people of merely differing ages, even greatly differing ages, be considered some sort of “perversion”? The only way to convince Alandra that she had been taken, rather than had given herself to Caliphestros, was for the priests to convince her that sorcery had allowed him to enter her very mind when she had been his pupil rather than his lover, and had filled it, not with sacred teachings, but with blasphemous science—and desires.