Deverry - A Time Of War Part 32

'Hila!' the anchorman whirled the hooks round his head and threw.

The cl.u.s.ter hit the braid, grabbed and stuck fast in the web. The anchorman flung his whole weight back, tightening the throw rope.

'Gong!' he yelled.

Rhodry grabbed a padded stick he found dangling from a chain and swung hard. The boom echoed and quivered over the sound of the white water. With a creak and almost human groan the wheel began to turn, and the webbed strip began to move, hauling them upstream against the current while the rowers bent and sweated. It was no wonder Haen Marn had the reputation of being so inhospitable, Rhodry thought, if it took all of this to bring strangers in. With the anchorman clinging and leaning to the rope like a groom, the boat bucked like an angry horse, but they moved forward, creeping past the rough stone walls toward a small and distant patch of light. Rhodry heard the helmsman yell something in Dwarvish.

'Keep striking the gong.' Garin yelled, translating. 'He says our lives might well depend on it.'

Rhodry struck, grabbed the stick in both hands and swung again, finding and keeping a regular rhythm as the boat inched along, its slender figurehead bowing and rising, the helmsman cursing a steady stream as he fought with the current. If the prow should dash against the stone wall, they were all lost. When he glanced up between strokes, next to the widening square of light Rhodry saw another wheel. Just beyond, on a sandy strip of beach, two dwarves bent over a crank such as turns meat on a spit.

'Hila!' the anchorman called.

'Hola!' they called in return.

The boat inched past the wheel, then broke free of the dark, scooting with a sudden lunge to the rope's length out to grey light from an open sky and Haen Marn. While the anchorman struggled to free his hooks from the web of ropes, and the two dwarves who'd been cranking the pulley scrambled aboard, Rhodry stared across the lake, wide miles of dark water, surrounded by hills that plunged down steeply without a sign of level sh.o.r.e. He could just make out forests marching down, deeply shadowed in the last of the sunlight. Directly across from the entrance flashed a silver glint that seemed to be a waterfall pouring into the lake from some great height.

Out in the centre rose a small island shaped like the crest of a rocky hill and topped by a strange tower, all right angles and built square, with other rectangular buildings huddled beneath it. Off behind this main island rose islets, some no more than huge boulders poking their heads above water. He found himself remembering Jahdo's description of Cerr Cawnen and Citadel, because mist rose heavily in the far reaches, hinting at warm water bubbling up from springs.

'Gong!' the helmsman screamed. 'Gong now!'

Rhodry realized that he'd been so taken with the sight that he'd slacked off. He swung two-handed, found his rhythm again, and kept it up while the new dwarves bent to the oars. With fresh oarsmen the boat darted across the lake. Echoing off the distant hills, the sound of the gong fled before them, then turned to greet them again as the island came closer and closer. Garin scrambled to his feet and moved up next to Rhodry.

'They say the noise drives beasts away,' Garin yelled. 'I'll take a turn,'

Rhodry surrendered the stick gladly and moved away from the boom, which was beginning to throb in his temples with a tangible ache. He found a spot on the other side of the figurehead where he could lean on the prow and have a good look round. When he looked behind, the flat cliff rose high above the water level, then levelled at the top in a suspiciously regular manner. So, then, the entrance ran through some sort of dam, and Haen Marn was not entirely a natural creation, no matter which world it belonged in, When he looked ahead, he could see the main island clearly, with its tall watchtower rising from a grove of wind-bent trees, and what seemed to be a long manse at its base, a cl.u.s.ter of small sheds round that, and then a boat dock jutting from a covered boathouse. Off to his left a trail of tiny islets led back toward a cove among the hills.

In the cove something was moving, gliding through the gathering mists, not very large or visible from its distance. At first Rhodry a.s.sumed it was another longboat, because he could see the same curved neck, the same tiny head arching above the rippling water, but this head suddenly turned, swivelling on a neck as glossy as snakeskm. A ma.s.sive wave formed and buckled as a body like an overturned boat rose out of the lake. Rhodry yelped and swore. The dwarves all screamed.

'Gong!'

Garin pounded harder, faster. The other dwarves began screaming and swearing at the top of their lungs.

The creature hesitated, staring their way, waves rippling round it as, or so it seemed, it kept its place with some subaqueous paddling motion. It swung its head away, swung its body majestically after, then arched its neck and dived, heading back toward the distant inlet and cove. As it disappeared under mist and water, Rhodry was for a moment unsure that he'd really seen it, simply because it moved so smoothly, so silently. The others seemed to have no such doubts. They kept up their deliberate cacophony until at last the boat pulled in beside the wooden jetty.

'They hate noise,' Garin yelled at him over the general din. 'Or so I've been told. The beasts, I mean.'

'I see,' Rhodry yelled back. 'Are they common?'

Garin merely shrugged to show his ignorance.

On the jetty someone stood waiting, dressed in a pair of bright blue trousers of fine wool, a Deverry style pullover shirt, belted in at the waist, and a grey cloak, fastened at one shoulder with a dragon-form brooch as big as a man's hand. Judging his distance the anchorman crouched, then leapt onto the jetty, wrapping his rope round a bollard while the oarsmen backed water. Hawser in hand, the helmsman leapt out as well. The waiting figure strolled over just as they got the boat secure.

It was a woman, standing a bit over five feet tall with the dark narrow eyes and thin slit of lips of the dwarven race, but her mane of pale hair, pulled back into a loose braid, indicated Deveny blood in her veins. In the fading light it was impossible to tell her stage of life, but she stood and looked about with far too much authority to be a la.s.s.

'Angmar!' the helmsman cried. 'Guests!'

She nodded, looking his pa.s.sengers over one at a time, slowly, carefully, while they scrambled out of the boat and got their gear safe on the jetty. Rhodry she saved for last, looking him over coldly even though he bowed to her. Her eyes carried such authority that he wondered if she had dweomer.

'Welcome to Haen Marn.' Angmar spoke in Deverrian of a sort. 'You be the man who covets a dragon, hain't you?'

'I am,' Rhodry said. 'I was told that a man named Enj could help me.'

'Enj be my son, not but what I have rule over him no more, not this long score of year or mayhap it be more now. But over Haen Marn I do have rule, and of more import I have knowledge of its ways, and it were a wise thing that you all do remember such.'

'My lady.' Rhodry bowed again.

Garin had already followed his lead several times. Otho and Mic looked back and forth, one to the other, then bowed as well.

'And what do it become me to call you, then?' Angmar said.

'My mother named me Rhodry, but a woman who lived deep in the heart of the earth called me Rori once, saying it was a better sounding name. Which do you prefer?'

She looked him over, smiling a little.

'Then welcome to Haen Marn, Rori, you and your friends both.' She nodded their way. 'Envoy Garin, welcome.'

'My lady. It gladdens my heart to see you again.'

Angmar acknowledged his bow with a small nod, then turned and began snapping orders in Dwarvish.

The helmsmen picked up the gear and carried it as they all trooped down the jetty and onto the island, heading for the manse with Angmar in the lead, clumping along like a boy in her sheepskin boots. A little path led away from the lake front through trees all bent and twisted from the wind, then came out into a vast kitchen garden, pa.s.sing through row after row of cabbages and turnips, winding round a hen-house, too, before it brought them to the manse, where windows glowed with firelight, and the ma.s.sive oak door stood ajar.

Dwarven servants, all young men, waited to take the baggage and lead them inside to a great hall where fires crackled in two hearths of slabbed stone, one on either side of the square room. The walls were made of ma.s.sive oak planks, scrubbed down and polished smooth, then carved in one vast pattern of graved lines rubbed with red earth. Looping vines, spirals, animals, interlace - they all tangled together across each wall, then swooped up at each corner to the rafters, before plunging down again in a riot of carving. At one hearth a small boy turned a spit where an entire side of beef was roasting; at the other stood tables and benches, scattered hospitably over the water-polished plank floor. At the far end a wooden staircase swept up into shadows.

'Show them chambers,' Angmar said to the servants. 'And bring them what they need as to water for wash and suchlike.' She glanced at her guests. 'When you do a.s.semble here again we will begin our eating.'

'My thanks, my lady.' Garin said. 'Is Enj in residence here?'

'Not this day, no, though I do think he will appear as soon as soon. All his life has he dreamed of the searching of high mountains for a great wyrm and of the seeing of such fly. If he do not know that his hour has come, then he be no son of mine.'

Rhodry's chamber turned out to be square and spare, a mattress upon a wooden floor and naught else, though when Rhodry begged water for shaving a servant did bring him a stool to put the basin upon and a silvered bronze mirror as well as a chunk of soap, herbed with bergamot. The water itself came in a big iron pan, so hot that the servant wrapped his hands in rags to carry it, and the water stayed warm enough for all the time it took Rhodry to rid himself of ten days' beard. He was just finishing when the dwarves knocked on his door and let themselves in.

'Just like an elf,' Otho said. 'Shaving a perfectly good beard away. You people have no sense, you know.'

'Hum.' Garin looked round. 'More than a bit plain, this room.

We've fared a good bit better in ours, I must say, with proper beds and shutters at the windows and suchlike.'

'It'll do,' Rhodry said. 'Silver daggers are used to taking what they get.'

'I should hope it's dawned on you by now that the silver dagger doesn't mean one cursed thing up here.' Garin gave him a grin. 'Our people think you carry it because it's a nice piece of work and naught more.'

Rhodry laughed.

'It hadn't occurred to me, truly. But of course you're right, and it's a relief as well, knowing that.'

They went downstairs to the great hall and a meal set for them and Angmar alone, strong ale and beef, mostly, though an elderly servant brought in a scant ration of bread a-piece before retreating as if he were afraid they'd ask for more. Rhodry and Garin shared a trencher at one side of the table, the other two dwarves at the other, while Angmar ate alone and sparingly in her chair at the table's head. Outside the wind rustled and whistled. Shutters banged in distant windows, the front door creaked, candles guttered on the table and in the sconces, while from outside came the slap and murmur of waves on the sh.o.r.e.

Rhodry thought on occasion of making conversation, but whenever he glanced Angmar's way, she seemed so distant, so wrapped in brooding, that he found nothing to say. In the shadowed light she seemed too young to have a grown son, though no doubt as a dwarven half-breed she had a lifespan as uncertain as his own. While he never would have considered her beautiful - and he suspected that such a soft compliment would have offended her - she was an attractive woman, slender and muscled all at once, reminding him in some ways of Jill when she'd been young. Loosed, her mane of blonde hair would set off her high cheekbones and clean features, he supposed. Every now and then she would glance his way, but her dark eyes revealed nothing of her possible opinion of him.

All at once Mic swore and slewed round on the bench. When Rhodry looked toward the door, he saw the woman in white, her silver tore gleaming in the candlelight, leaning on her spear and watching them while tears ran down her cheeks. Although the dwarves sat stunned, Rhodry swung himself free of the bench.

'My lady,' he said. 'We meet again. My sword is at your service if you have need of it.'

She smiled and, smiling, disappeared.

Open-mouthed and gaping the dwarves exchanged troubled glances on the edge of words, but Angmar merely picked up her tankard and had a sip of ale in such an ordinary way that Rhodry felt abruptly foolish. He sat down again, looking her way. She merely smiled "vaguely, then attended to her meal.

Rhodry decided that following Her lead was the best idea. The dwarves seemed to agree as well, and for a while they all ate in silence.

'Be there enough food on my table for you?' Angmar said at last. 'There is, my lady.' Garin said. 'And you have our humble thanks indeed for so splendid a meal.'

She rose and walked out of the room without another word. The servant bustled in with a bowl of apples, then withdrew. For a few moments they all waited, but when there was no sign of Angmar, Mic could stand it no longer.

'What was that woman with the spear?' he burst out. 'A ghost?' 'I've no idea,' Garin said. 'I didn't sec any apparitions before, when I was here the other two times, I mean.'

'I was going to ask you that,' Rhodry said. 'You saw naught so weird?'

'Naught, except, well, for Haen Marn itself, and the road to it. I came on strict business from our merchant guilds, of course, on some mundane affairs, not hunting dragons in the midst of a dweomer war.' 'Bound to be a bit of a difference,' Otho sighed. These cursed bizarre things seem to hover round our Rori here like flics round horscs.h.i.t.'

'Otho!' everyone snapped at onec.

Otho mugged dignity and poured himself more ale. Though they lingered by the fire a long time that evening, drinking and wondering about the woman in white, Angmar never returned.

Although the servants brought her guests everything they needed, the lady kept herself hidden all the next day as well. It was sunny, too humid for sitting in the great hall, and Rhodry and the dwarves walked round the island, though none of them went too close to the waterline for fear of the long-necked beasts.

The wind lapped at the water and drove waves on the pale sand of the island's sh.o.r.e, rustled in the trees, whined and sighed through the warren of buildings cl.u.s.tering round the stone tower. Every now and then Rhodry thought he heard a woman weeping, but most likely, or so he told himself, it was only the wind.

'Tell me somewhat, Garin,' Rhodry said 'Well, if you can, anyway. What does the name Haen Marn mean? Old what?'

Garin laughed.

'Haen may sound like the "hen" m your tongue, but in ours it means black. Haen Marn. Black stone.'

'Ah. My apologies.'

Their circuit brought them back round to the boathouse and the jetty, where the oarsmen of the day before were sitting, legs dangling over the edge, and fishing. When Garin hailed them, they spoke up in Dwarvish, beckoning for the guests to join them. Rather than listen to talk he couldn't understand, Rhodry decided to head back to the manse. He wouldn't mind a tankard of ale, he decided, and the servants had made it clear that it was theirs for the asking.

He began following the path that had led, the night before, through the kitchen garden and to the door.

Ahead, through the trees, he could see the peaked roof of the manse and beyond that, the stone tower.

He walked along, thinking that the path was a bit longer than he'd been remembering, rounded a little bend, and found himself at the lake sh.o.r.e. He'd taken a wrong fork, no doubt, and he turned to retrace his steps. Ahead rose the manse, on the other side of a stone wall and some hedges. He headed toward it, found himself among trees, could still see the manse, walked a few yards more, and saw the boathouse directly ahead of him.

'Oh. Well, more fool me!'

Still, he decided to try one more time. This time he sighted on a shed near the manse in the hope that perhaps he could trick whatever road dweomer lay upon the place. The path led him right along to the lake sh.o.r.e on the opposite side of the island. He turned to find the tower directly in his way.

'Ron!'

Angmar came striding along the lake sh.o.r.e. He waited, afraid that if he went toward her, he'd lose her.

'My apologies,' she called out. 'You've no dwarven blood, and by your onliness it be not allowed for you to come near the manse.'

'I see. This place has some powerful dweomers upon it.'

'You might say that.'

She strode up and joined him, her golden hair shining thick in the sun.

'No doubt you be a-wondenng when my son will get himself home. From what the envoy has said, this task be needful for you to complete soon.'

'It is, truly. And sadly, as well. Haen Marn seems a pleasant place for a man to linger.'

She smiled, just faintly.

Rhodry caught movement out of the corner of his eye, glanced at the lake, and saw the woman with the spear, standing upon the water and watching him. When he caught his breath, Angrnar turned and saw her as well. As before, she wept until he spoke to her.

'My lady, please, what aches your heart so badly?'

She vanished without a word. Angmar was considering him with a peculiar lack of expression, as if it were important for her to show not a shred of feeling.

'Well, here,' Rhodry said. 'I don't know how much it's lawful for me to ask.'

'Ask all you want. The answering is mine to judge.'

'Fair enough, then. Whose spirit is that?'

'It be good you do ask, but that I mayn't answer,'

'Ah. I rather thought not. Did you lay the dweomers here, my lady?'

'I did not, though I may maintain them, for I were not born here on Haen Marn.'

'And it's needful that the lady of this place be born here?'

'It is. The last true lady had only sons, and I was brought here for the marrying of her eldest.' She seemed amused about something. 'I think rne you do understand the unwinding of dweomer ways more than another man might, Ron.'

'Whether I wanted it or no, the dweomer's ruled my life, my lady. I feel like one of those wild horses out on the gra.s.slands, caught in elven ropes and dragged off where I've no stomach to go.'

'A bitter man you sound.'

'Do I? I suppose so. My Wyrd's been a bitter one, you see, and it's ruled me ever since I was a lad.

I've given up kicking and let them saddle me.'

He strode to the edge of the lake, stooped and picked up a stone, rubbing it between his fingers, In a moment she joined him. When Rhodry sailed the stone flat over the lake, it skipped seven times before it finally sank, far out from sh.o.r.e, 'A good toss.' Angmar said, grinning.