The prophet of lamath, p.11
The Prophet of Lamath, page 11
"That's it. You didn't look in it, did you?" the old . man growled.
The boy shook his head vigorously. "I know it's something sharp though, sir," he volunteered.
"How do you know?" "It poked me in the leg!" "Here-you'd better give it to me then." It wouldn't do to have the lad concentrating on the mysterious object when Tohn's co-conspirators tried to contact him this afternoon. He took the bag, hung it by its string from his saddle horn, and smiled his dismissal at the squire. As the boy rode off, Tohn looked at the bag and told it, "You poke me in the leg and I'll toss you off the first bridge we cross." The tiny army was riding past Tohn toward the west. The passing riders heard the old man talking to himself, but they paid no attention. All were used to his eccentricity.
"Six hundred men," he was saying. "Well, that'll be plenty-if it's a surprise." A thousand feet above the snow-shrouded peaks of western Ngandib-Mar flew a bright blue messenger bird. A tiny sheepskin page, rolled into a tight cylinder, had been tied to the bird's leg by Dorlyth's falconer. This flyer was bound for the High City, and would not rest until she reached it. Throughout the night she had coasted along the air currents, finding the swiftest wind paths and spreading her wings to let them catch her and carry her onward. Dawn found her gliding along the treetops of a small forest, ignoring the calls of other birds as if they spoke a foreign tongue. She was not like other birds-she had a mission to perform. For she was a messenger bird, far removed from the life of the forest. She dwelt in the palaces of kings.
Blue flyers had been so long domesticated that few people now remembered their wild origins. Those whose business it was to know such things believed the species had been born in the Great North Fir, in the days before the coming of the dragon. But that was perhaps only speculation, formed on the basis of the flyer's peculiar power. It was indeed a magic bird, for it could take an impress from any human mind. If a man could form a visual image of a place and fix in his own mind the direction and distance to that destination, the bird by some marvelous ability could absorb that knowledge and fly there. How long it took depended to some degree on the bird's health and on the weather, but the primary factor in prompt communication was the clarity of the bird handler's mental directions. Once tossed into the air, a blue flyer would deliver its message or die in the attempt; many a bird had perished as a result of fuzzy directions.
Now this brightly feathered creature began to beat the air in strong, swift strokes, rising up the face of a sheer mountain cliff. A road crisscrossed that rock wall, carved of the stone itself. It was the major thoroughfare of the King of the High City, known to most as the Down Road. It was heavily trafficked this morning. Those passing downward looked in considerably better spirits than those who trudged up, for the road was certainly one of the steepest in the world.
But the blue flyer ignored the Down Road, shooting ever higher with each powerful stroke, until at last she topped the cliff. She flew above a broad plateau that stood some five thousand feet above the valley floor. Below was Ngandib, the High City, capital of the Maris. It was a beautiful sight, or would have been if the bird thought in such terms, for the city had that slightly wild flavor of the people of the highlands, and its architecture reflected a heritage rich in magic. Ngandib-Mar had been the dwelling place of shapers for as long as the city had stood on this spot. No one knew how long that had been, since the Maris had little use for history. Their only concern was for now.
Though the traffic on the Down Road was heavy, it appeared deserted in comparison with the bumping and pushing and selling and stealing going on in the marketplace. No one noticed the flyer as she passed over, her small black eyes seeking everywhere for the landmarks Dorlyth's falconer had impressed upon her mind. Her flight took her over most of the city, for the citadel of the King was in the center of the table land, while the main city rimmed its eastern edge. The palace stood on a mesa, carved from living rock by an extremely powerful magician in times long forgotten. Its parapets rose another six hundred feet above the plateau itself. It was inaccessible, except by a cavelike entrance cut into the rock at ground level. One had to enter the castle from inside, by climbing a closely guarded flight of stone steps.
Yet with a flick of its tail and flash of feathers, the blue flyer soared even above the pinnacle of the King's own tower, looking for a place to alight. This was her destination; having reached it, she felt at last the urgent need for rest. She finally spied the picture Dorlyth's falconer had planted in her mind-a window in the tower with a large blue circle painted around it.
She flew through that circled window, and joined a line. For others had sent messengers to Pahd mod Pahd-el, the High King of Ngandib. And since no one in Pahd's court did anything very quickly, the messengers tended to stack up. All these flyers were tired and hungry, and now they set up a chirping that must wake every sleepy head in the tower. At last a barefoot servant came padding across the straw-covered stone floor, his mouth wide in a yawn. He was not particularly gentle in his handling, but he did finally slip the cylinder of parchment off the flyer's leg, and the bird followed the others to a trough filled with seed. They belonged to no one in particular, these birds. They simply were servants to men, flying wherever they were told to fly. Yet it was a rare man who truly appreciated this wonder.
Dorlyth's message had been the last one to be removed, which was fortunate. It became the top missive in the stack. The pile of letters changed hands several times until it reached that golden tray for its final trip into the King's chambers.
"Your messages, Sire," the serving lady said, curtseying before his Majesty, Pahd mod Pahd-el.
He was the fourteenth Pahd mod Pahd-el to rule Ngandib, if anyone cared about such things. Pahd certainly didn't. Nor did he care about his mail. His answer was a low snore, and a few grunts and groans as he rolled over in bed, turning his back on both the lady and her tray. The serving woman had expected this, and she placed the tray on a small table and tiptoed out, just as happy not to wake him. If he did wake, he would just send her after something. This would give her another hour to sleep.
"You mean you're not up yet!" screamed Pahd's mother as she powered her way through the door. The noise blew Pahd out of bed, just as it had done all his life. Chogi lan Pahd-el was built like a bulldog. Her bark was bad and her bite was much worse. Nothing could make Pahd get out of bed except his mother, but his mother always could.
"Of course he's not up yet, he's never up by noon." This was the voice of Sarie lan Pahd, Pahd's own lan, or wife. Between the two of them, these women made Pahd's life miserable. At least, he thought he was miserable. He couldn't be sure. He was constantly asking them if he were.
"I have a headache-" Pahd began.
"Of course you do, dear," Sarie soothed. "You always have a headache in the morning." "Shouldn't I go back to sleep? Maybe it will go away-" "No, you're not going back to sleep!" Chogi belted out, grabbing the covers off the bed, wadding them into a large ball and tossing them into the comer. "You want me to get up, Mother? Is that it?" Chogi didn't answer him. Instead she sat on the bed, picked up the mail, and began to sort through it. Sarie pulled Pahd to his feet.
"It's a beautiful day," she was saying as she pushed him toward the window. "Isn't it?" "Is it?" Pahd asked, looking out. He blinked at the harsh sunlight and stumbled quickly back into the room. "What do you think, Mother?" he asked.
"I think you need to have your head examined," she muttered without looking up.
"Didn't we already have my head examined?" Pahd asked his wife, and Sarie smiled sweetly. "Yes, dear, we did." "Ah, I remembered. And what did we decide?" "We decided you need more exercise!" the young woman exclaimed brightly, raising Pahd's hands above his head.
"We did?" he murmured absently.
"We did! What would you think about taking a nice ride through the city?" "We-we could," Pahd said, "but on the other hand, we would have to get dressed-and that would take the afternoon-and by the time we were ready to go it would be getting dark, and-" "Then how about some practice in the armory? You need some, you know-" "I-I could, but I'd have to get dressed, and get out the sword, and notify the swordmaster, and-" "Give up on him, Sarie," Pahd's mother said. "He's not worth the effort. There's a message here from Dorlyth mod Karis." "Dorlyth?" Sane asked. "Isn't he the Lord who knows the sorcerer well?" "Yes, he's Pelman's friend," Chogi replied. "We sent that ugly slave master-who now?" "Admon Faye, wasn't that it?" Sarie offered. "That's the name. We sent Admon Faye to him to try to find Pelman." "Why are we trying to find Pelman?" Pahd inquired with moderate curiosity. His mother moaned at his question and buried her face in her left hand.
Sarie smiled bravely, patiently, and put her hands on her husband's shoulders. "We decided you need a court magician, remember? We had a long conference with the advisors and the local Lords of the Confederacy and decided we would invite Pelman to be your personal powershaper, remember?" "We did?" Pahd asked. "Yes, dear," Sarie answered, forcing herself to smile her brightest, cheeriest smile. "And we asked this Admon Faye to locate him, and sent nun to Dorlyth, remember? And then he told us that he had heard Pelman was in Chaomonous, having been sold into slavery by the King there." "Really? Why would Pelman let them do a thing like that, if he's a shaper?" "Give up, Sarie," Chogi advised tonelessly, mulling Dorlyth's message over in her mind.
"We explained that, don't you remember? That Pelman isn't a magician in Chaomonous." "That's curious," Pahd observed, his eyes on the soft contours of his down-stuffed bed.
"Anyway, we sent this slave master to Chaomonous to buy the magician for us and bring him here," Sarie finished.
"Why?" Pahd asked simply.
"To try to bring you out of your stupor!" Chogi exploded. "To give you something to be interested in besides this bed!" "Would he be able to do that?" "We hope so." Sarie sighed. Then she winked at her husband. "Maybe this is good news Dorlyth sends us. Maybe Pelman has been found." "No," Chogi grunted, "it's not good. It's bad news. Listen: Tohn mod Neelis, Lord of the west before Dragonsgate and an elder of Ognadzu, marches against me, breaking the confederacy. Your Majesty, may I count on your sword? It's signed Dorlyth, and there's an added note: Speed is essential-decide now." "That's presumptuous!" Sarie exclaimed, rubbing her husband's neck. "To demand that Pahd decide today-" "Presumptuous maybe, but it's certainly practical," said Chogi. She looked at her son, who was lost in thought. "Well?" she demanded.
"We do have an agreement, don't we?" he asked.
"The King of the Mar has agreed to defend his Lords against those who break the Confederacy, yes," Chogi replied.
"And he is sure Tohn rides against him?" "Dorlyth wouldn't lie about such a thing." "And he says he needs my sword, does he?" "He does." Chogi shook her head in dismay at this son of hers. Such a splendid physical specimen, and such a sloth! The fact was that, once roused to war, there was no finer swordsman in all the Mar than Pahd mod Pahd-el, Lord of the High City-unless it might be this same Dorlyth. But what did it take to rouse him? She had to build a small fire under him just to move him from this room. Perhaps a sorcerer could aid him, create some interest in the outside world within him, tell him stories, show him tricks-something.
"But if I go," Pahd was saying, "I'll have to raise an army, and you know how much of a bother it is to raise an army-" "You have a standing force housed in the caverns below this castle!" Chogi yelled. "All you need do is order them to war!" "Yes-I could do that, but it would take most of the afternoon to get the order worded just right, and I haven't even eaten breakfast yet-" "It's dinnertime, dear," Sarie whispered.
"Dinner then-maybe-" "Yes?" Chogi lan Pahd-el sighed, knowing what was coming.
"Maybe if I started first thing in the morning-how would that be?" He was ringing the bell to call for service, and the serving lady appeared, bleary-eyed, in the doorway. "Do you think you could find me something to eat? I'm not dressed to come to the table-" The woman curtseyed and went out, and Pahd looked once again at that bumpy, inviting mattress.
Chogi had gone back to the mail. She knew him well enough to know his mind was made up on the question of aid to Dorlyth. He would wait to decide later.
"This is bad news, too," she growled. "Production is falling off in the diamond mines. Whatever you've got, Pahd, it's catching." "Oh really?" said Pahd. That was just before his head settled back into his favorite pillow. Before the girl returned with his tray, he was snoring again.
As Dorlyth had said, the assembly of warriors began around noon. Throughout the morning men and women had scurried about the keep, making preparation for their arrival. Wood was gathered for a fire in the inner court, and barrels of pitch, set aside long ago for just such an eventuality, were rolled out of storage. The pulley system was rehung on both the towers for fast transport of the heated pitch from courtyard to castle walls. Sheaves of arrows were carried to the battlements and placed loosely, tip down, in baskets spaced at ten-yard intervals. Certain of the warriors coming to join Dorlyth were powerful archers; in the initial battle shock, these bowmen would take the highest toll on the enemy. Tohn would not be expecting a siege situation, and a large number of early casualties could dissuade him altogether from further aggression.
There was a small village to the southwest of Dorlyth's castle, where many of Dorlyth's freemen lived with their wives and children. By ten in the morning, the village was deserted; all of its inhabitants had moved inside the keep. The children had arrived first, driving sheep and goats before them. These were housed in the stable. Older children and youths were then sent to the fields and the woods to collect all the fruits, nuts, and berries that could be found. There was little that was ripe, for it was still early in the season, but Dorlyth was less interested in providing food for the castle than he was in keeping it out of Tohn's hands. Thus the children, though they complained about the waste, obediently returned with half-filled buckets of unripe foods.
The women worked together to help one another transport what was left of their winter stores to the storage rooms of the keep. The dirt road from village to castle was thick with dust from the constant motion of ox carts traveling back and forth.
The men of the village helped to strengthen the fortifications, and then dug pits and set traps in the surrounding areas, more for nuisance value than anything else. All bushes and shrubs within fifty feet of the castle walls were cut down, to rob the enemy of any possible cover from watchful eyes above.
Dorlyth's greatest interest centered on filling the water cisterns, carved of the stone under the floor of the lesser tower. There was no well, and the precious liquid had to be piped from the stream to the base of the rock the castle stood on. There it flowed into a cavern below the lesser tower, and was hoisted up to floor level, bucket by bucket, by means of a water lift. Dorlyth feared that Tohn would cut his main pipe. Though buried for most of its length, it would still be quite evident to a careful observer on the river bank. Dorlyth cut down all the trees between the castle and the point where the pipe entered the water. His archers on the lesser tower would have their main responsibility in keeping the merchant's people away from that line of pipe. If they failed, the water in the cisterns would have to go a long way-and already the keep was getting crowded.
It grew more so through the afternoon, for warriors from the surrounding areas began to arrive at the gates in twos and threes, then in groups of ten and twelve. By dinnertime, a hundred and fifty experienced fighters crammed the banquet hall, laughing and joking and enjoying the reunion. All had fought beside each other under Dorlyth, but they rarely had the chance to gather together anymore. Only at the winter holiday did many of them see one another, and then only in small groups, for Dorlyth's castle was really too small to hold this many men in peacetime. But a new war had come; some soul as yet unknown to them was bringing them a battle; and so they jammed the tables of their friend and lord and ate happily what was placed before them. That wasn't much-Dorlyth's seneschal had not expected so many. Now he fluttered at the doorway into the kitchens, telling the servers who passed in and out to cut back on the portions.
"Feed them well!" Doriyth thundered, overhearing his steward as he came into the dining hall.
"But Lord Doriyth," the steward began anxiously. His voice was drowned in the greetings and cheers. These warriors knew Dorlyth's gravelly bass voice, and they roared their approval of his appearance. The cheers and applause went on for several minutes, and Doriyth beamed back at them, choking a bit, wishing only that Rosha could be here with him to hear this welcome. Then an expectant hush settled over the room, as they waited to hear from Doriyth whom it was they were fighting, and why.
"I want you to eat well," Doriyth began, and there was another round of cheers before he could go on. "This is the best we could put on the table-" "And that's plenty good for me!" a warrior in back shouted, and there was noisy agreement from all parts of the room.
"But it may well be the last good meal some of you ever eat," Doriyth finished. Some men nodded assent to this, but there were no more shouts. It was a sobering thought. "I wish I could offer you more. You are my friends, my fellows-in many ways my family. But we're facing a siege, and this castle is not well prepared for siege." "Then why don't we just meet them and beat them out on the field?" someone asked from the back of the room.
"We may be forced to, depending on how long they decide to stay and on our water situation. But the real victory in this conflict rests in making it last a long time. I see some puzzled looks. I know you are fighters, not sitters. I'll explain. Tohn mod Neelis, whom some of you know personally and all of you know by reputation, is marching against Doriyth castle." "Why?" someone asked.
"He's the best warrior among the merchants, that's sure," someone in another corner of the room observed.
