The Masked Witches Read online

  “You have a point,” Cera said, resting her hand on Jet’s neck as though to calm him. “But do you have an alternative?”

  “I hope so,” Vandar said. “We Rashemi know the fey and spirits. We know how to make peace with them after we’ve given offense. So if you haven’t broken the curse by moonrise, I’m the one who’ll go to the top of the mound.”

  “Not by yourself,” said Jet.

  “Yes, and unarmed,” Vandar replied. “We don’t want to give the creature any reason to suspect that I might be trying to draw it out to attack it.”

  “You realize,” Cera said, frowning, “that for all we know, the entity protecting the mound has thrown in with our enemies. Or it could be dark fey, and so full of spite that nothing can placate it.”

  Vandar shrugged. “I still think my way is best,” he said.

  Jet snorted and turned away, seemingly abandoning the humans to their folly.

  The griffon’s doubts actually mirrored Vandar’s own, and he prayed that Cera would be able to break the curse. But he was the master of the lodge, and if she couldn’t, it was his responsibility to set things right.

  And though she tried until she had exhausted her ability to channel Amaunator’s might, she failed. Maybe, Vandar thought, the sun god was weak in a realm where neither he nor any masculine deity received much worship. Or perhaps he had trouble manifesting his power in the north in the dead of winter.

  Or maybe the guardian of the mound was so formidable that even an accomplished cleric, fully initiated in the mysteries of her faith, was no match for it.

  Whatever the problem was, it left Vandar with no recourse but to lay aside his javelin, broadsword, and dirk, and climb back up the slope when Selûne appeared, just as he’d said he would. By then, a catarrh had set in to augment the misery of his headache and cramping guts, and as he sang his song of appeasement, of praise and apology, he had to pause repeatedly to cough. Behind him, his friends were hacking and snuffling, too.

  He could see nothing above him but gray, gleaming snow, trodden up to the point where he and his brothers had hiked before and unmarked beyond. He supposed that was better than if the insects had come buzzing forth again. Maybe their absence meant his hoarse, phlegmy song was actually doing some good.

  Even when he clambered to the crest of the mound, the snowfall masked anything that might have warned a traveler that it was more than just a patch of high ground. After singing his song to the end one last time, Vandar shrugged off his leather backpack, opened it, and brought out a straw-wrapped bottle of firewine and a little loaf of oat bread. He looked for someplace to set them up out of the snow and opted for the fork in the trunk of a black alder.

  “It’s good,” murmured a cold, dry voice behind him, “that you at least know how to behave when someone forces you to do so.”

  Somehow Vandar managed to refrain from jumping and so revealing just how badly the voice had startled him. He took a breath, then turned around.

  The entity before him was somewhat easier to make out than the flickering shapes he’d glimpsed when the insects were attacking, but not a great deal more so. It seemed composed of glimmer and shadow smudged together like a spoiled charcoal sketch. Vandar discerned long, slanted eyes under a high, broad forehead, something that might be embossed leather covering the apparition’s lanky torso, and the implication of a knife hilt on its hip. But he had no idea whether the creature was a spirit of nature, a living fey protecting the resting place of its ancestors, or a ghost standing watching over its own remains. He only sensed that it was old and uncanny. It made the hair stand up on the back of his neck in a way even the undead durthans hadn’t.

  He bowed low. “I apologize for our rudeness before,” he said. “My friends and I couldn’t tell we were walking where we shouldn’t have been.”

  “Why, I wonder,” the being answered, “did the highest powers make mortals as they did, without eyes, wits, or memories, either? How can it be anything but mercy to send you into the dark whenever the opportunity presents itself?”

  Vandar swallowed. “I can only tell you, my lord,” he replied, “that our lives have value to us. Even we berserkers, who give up all thought of our own safety when we charge into battle, hope that our very recklessness will overwhelm our foes and bring us through alive.”

  “And where are you charging to now, in the middle of winter, across country most mortals have sense enough to avoid?”

  “The Fortress of the Half-Demon,” Vandar said. He waited for a response, but none came. “Do you know it?”

  “Not by that name,” the apparition said. “Perhaps by some older, truer name your kind has forgotten. But I know you, berserker. I know your mind. Those who garrison the stronghold have raided your squalid little settlement, and, full of wrath, you race to retaliate. Or else you are the marauders, thinking yourselves the cleverest folk who ever drew breath because you will fall on your foes in winter, when they won’t expect it. Either way, it’s all the same. Just ants snipping one another to pieces when their swarms come into contact.” The murky figure turned away.

  Vandar hesitated. Though the guardian’s scorn rankled, a prudent man would leave it unanswered rather than risk annoying the creature any further, except that he didn’t know if the phantom had lifted the curse, or if it intended to. So far, he certainly didn’t feel any better. His head was still clogged, and his nose made a wet, rattling sound when he breathed.

  “Wait,” he said.

  The apparition pivoted and said, “Do you think it’s your place to give orders, to me, here, under Selûne’s mournful eye?”

  “No,” Vandar said, “and I apologize again if it sounded that way. But you truly don’t understand. My friends and I aren’t chasing bandits, ice trolls, or any of the foes our fathers and grandfathers fought before us. There’s something new happening in Rashemen.”

  The guardian chuckled. The sound of its mirth was clipped and hollow, like the notes a drummer played by striking wooden blocks. “Rest assured, little ant, it only seems new to you,” it said.

  “Please, listen before you judge,” Vandar replied. “Before this, whatever human rulers came and went, in the truest sense, the fey and the spirits of the forests and hills controlled Rashemen. But if the folk in the Fortress of the Half-Demon have their way, the undead will set themselves above all the living, mortal and immortal alike.” It belatedly occurred to Vandar that if the entity before him was a ghost, that might not sound so bad to it. “And not even our own dead, at least not at the top. Dead things from some faraway place that no one has ever heard of!”

  The apparition’s eyes narrowed. “Explain,” it said.

  Vandar did his best and hoped the story made an impression. Since he could barely make out the guardian’s blurry features, it was difficult to judge.

  All he knew was that when he had finished, and the phantom spoke again, its tone was as disdainful as before: “And you, blind man, trespasser, profaner, you are the champion who will defeat this threat?” it said.

  “Not alone.” Vandar said before he had to stop to cough. “My lodge is marching with me, and the Stag King—do you know him? He is coming to join forces with us. The Iron Lord and the Wychlaran will help, too, if we ask.”

  “But you haven’t,” the guardian said, “because you want the griffons for yourselves. To make your little lodge more prestigious than any other. Perhaps even to make its chieftain the Iron Lord when the throne becomes vacant again.”

  Vandar felt a twinge of discomfort different from the uneasiness that came from simply being in the phantom’s presence. For the first time, and to his own surprise, he wondered if his ambitions were somehow tainted and unworthy.

  But how could they be, when they were simply what every proper Rashemi man wanted? What older warriors taught him to want, especially if he hailed from a family of no particular prosperity or distinction? He tried to scowl the crazy feeling away.

  “My lord, I don’t deny that I hope that, by serv
ing the realm, I can also do well for my lodge and for myself,” Vandar said. “That’s how mortal men think. If the stories I’ve heard all my life are true, it’s how fey and spirits think, too. But it isn’t just ambition or greed that draws me to the griffons. From the moment Yhelbruna called them down from the sky, I felt connected to them, like the spirits meant for me to have them. You have magic. Tell me if I’m wrong.”

  To his surprise, the sentinel chuckled again, and the sound was arguably less cold and dismissive than before. “If I saw everything that’s hidden,” it said, “I wouldn’t need you to tell me about revenants coming here from a distant land, would I? I will say this: It speaks well of you that you answered honestly. And it might indeed be unfortunate if the dead claimed dominion over Rashemen.”

  “Well, yes, plainly,” replied Vandar.

  The murky figure shook its head and said, “So declares the ant, imagining it’s surveying all the wide world from the top of a blade of grass. But you don’t see what I do. If a vampire clan keeps a herd of human cattle somewhere else—in the land you call Thay, for example—you and I have no practical reason to care. But this country has always been unique, and even after the death of the Lady of the Seven Stars, it remains so. This is still where the fey worlds and the mortal sphere interpenetrate more closely than anyplace else, and if your undead intruders take it for their own, their victory may strike echoes and reflections. That may even be why they came here, although I doubt they possess such depth of comprehension.”

  Vandar smiled a crooked smile. “You’re right,” he said. “The ant doesn’t understand, or at least, not much. But I take it you agree that my friends and I are doing something worthwhile. That being so, will you help us?”

  “I’ll call back my anger, certainly,” said the apparition.

  Vandar hacked for so long and hard that he felt like he might pass out for lack of breath. But when the fit ended, his head and chest felt clear, as though he’d expelled every particle of phlegm. And nothing ached anymore.

  “Thank you,” Vandar said. He hesitated, and then, impatient with his own caution, pushed onward. “Truly. But is that it? All you did is cure the sickness you gave us yourself.”

  The phantom smiled. Or perhaps it was simply a trick of the light, as a wisp of cloud drifted past the moon.

  “Did I find something to like about your kind once, for a moment or two in the morning of the world?” it said. “Perhaps … and it may be more than chance that led you here to disturb my rest. Even more unlikely things have happened, I suppose. But I’m not like your Stag King. I no longer march to war. My own vows would scrape me to nothing if I tried. But that means I no longer need what I once carried to war.”

  The apparition waved its hand. Something rumbled, and a patch of snow collapsed in on itself. Or rather, Vandar realized, peering, it was falling into a hole like a deep and irregular grave that had opened beneath it.

  “Climb down,” the phantom said.

  Wonderful, Vandar thought. According to every word on the subject he’d ever heard, simply treading on a fey mound was dangerous. Entering one was a hundred times more so. Still, the phantom itself had opened the way, and if it meant to do him further harm, it scarcely needed to be tricky about it. It already had him at its mercy.

  Besides, what sort of berserker, let alone a berserker chieftain, refused a dare?

  Clinging to pieces of the frozen earth, Vandar clambered downward, and shadow swallowed him. The only remaining light came from the stars directly overhead and their gleam on the snow below. That was why it wasn’t until he reached the bottom that he realized the starlight was glinting on more than snow.

  Once, he thought, a body might have rested in the hole. But if so, time had obliterated every trace of bone, flesh, hair, or clothing, or at least every one he might otherwise have noticed in the dark. But, not corroded, tarnished, or even dirty, were a long spear and broadsword that remained. They appeared to be made entirely of some strange crimson metal, even the shaft of the spear.

  The sword’s scabbard had fasteners to clip it on his hip. The spear was more awkward to manage, but by running it down his back and through his belt, he managed to carry both weapons up out of the hole.

  “What do you think?” asked the apparition, irony keen as any blade in its voice. “Are the arms worthy of an Iron Lord in waiting?”

  Making sure not to point it at the phantom, Vandar lowered the spear into a guard position. Though he was far more proficient with a sword, even he could feel how light and perfectly balanced the weapon was. It seemed awake and eager in his hands, an instrument capable of killing even dragons and demons as required.

  “I’m no Old One,” he said, “but even I can feel these are full of magic. What do they do?”

  “I can’t tell you that,” the guardian said, “because the weapons behave differently in every set of hands. They magnify what you already are. Knowing that, do you still want them?”

  “Of course!” Vandar exclaimed. “Except for a place in my lodge—and the griffons—I’ve never wanted anything more.” He bowed as deeply as he was able. “And I thank you with all my heart.”

  “As well you should,” replied the phantom. “And now you have everything I had to give. Well, except advice. I told you I don’t see everything. No one does, not the wisest prophet in the bright world or the cleverest seer in the dark one. But now that I’m taking an interest, I see something.”

  Vandar had grown at least a little accustomed to the spectral presence of the guardian, but suddenly his mouth went dry all over again. “What do you see?” he asked.

  “I see treachery and murder flying down from the sky. I see that you shouldn’t trust the outlanders.”

  Vandar opened his mouth to ask for more, but before he could, the guardian vanished. The gap in the earth closed at the same instant, just as swiftly, silently, and completely. If not for the spear in his hand and the weight of the blade hanging on his hip, he might almost have wondered if the conversation had only been a dream.

  His feelings were mixed as he strode back down the mound. Naturally, a part of him was jubilant. There would have been cause for joy if the guardian had simply lifted the curse, but it had done much more. It had given him enchanted fey weapons and as much as prophesied that he would win the griffons and rise to be a great man in the days to come. And when his brothers spotted him descending and started cheering, their vigor restored, it made the moment even sweeter.

  Yet even so, when his own gaze fell on Cera and Jet, he felt a pang of disquiet.

  It wasn’t difficult to believe that Aoth and Jhesrhi might ultimately play him false. Fighting for coin instead of kin or hearth, sellswords were little better than bandits, and dishonorable by definition. In addition to which, the war mage plainly thought himself above everyone else—why else did he constantly try to order others around? The tall, slender elementalist was as cold a woman as Vandar had ever met, even if she did have fire running in her veins.

  But Cera was the servant of a god, and he liked her friendly conversation, saucy jokes, and general good cheer, as well as her willingness to take a turn at performing the various chores camp life required. She made a striking contrast to Yhelbruna’s grim taciturnity on the trek into the High Country. And Jet was the living emblem of courage and fidelity as the Griffon Lodge defined them.

  Still, the griffon was also a winged war steed, and when his Thayan master commanded it, he could plunge down from on high and kill a man like a falcon killing a rabbit.

  I’ll watch them, Vandar resolved. I’ll watch and see what happens.

  * * * * *

  Mario Bez looked on as two of his crew examined the weathered menhir by the silvery glow of conjured phosphorescent orbs. One of his experts—to give them more credit than was probably their due—was a tubby-horned runt of a tiefling warlock who claimed considerable knowledge of the denizens of the lower worlds. The other, in spiked gauntlets and a red-trimmed jupon, was a human priestess of
Tempus the Foehammer. In theory, she would provide the insights of an exponent of divine magic, as opposed to the arcane variety that the tiefling, Bez himself, and a dozen others aboard the Storm of Vengeance practiced.

  It was a cold night, with a frigid wind whistling down from the higher peaks, and Bez’s scholars had been at their task for a while. The skyship was presently anchored on a broad ledge on the mountainside above the standing stone, and those of the mining village far below it. The lights burning aboard her taunted a shivering son of the Shining South with the possibility of warmth. Still, nipping at a flask of Sembian brandy, Bez managed to curb the impulse to urge his subordinates to hurry. Nothing good could come of that. Instead, he comforted himself with the reflection that at least the stone wouldn’t suddenly run away and hide.

  Olthe, the Foehammer’s battleguard, stepped back from the monument. She was as big and as broad-shouldered as many a fighting man, and could swing a battle-axe to as deadly an effect when she channeled the war god’s power. Or she could just grab a man and break his back over her knee, as Bez had witnessed in several camp fights and tavern brawls.

  Presumably she’d completed her investigations, so he tossed her the flask. “What have you learned?” he asked.

  “The trap has two fiends inside it,” she replied. Her alto voice was melodious and cultured, a perennial surprise issuing from her lumpish face and brutish frame.

  “I believe there might even be three,” said Melemer the tiefling, his yellow eyes slightly chatoyant in the starlight.

  Olthe glared. “You’re wrong,” she said.

  Melemer spread his hands. “Of course, battleguard,” he replied. “If you’re certain of your estimate, then be assured, I’m certain of it, too.” In combat, he was as brave as any mercenary Bez had ever known, but away from the battlefield, it was always his way to apologize, flatter, and defer … at least until the person who’d offended him dropped his guard.

  “It doesn’t much matter if it’s two or three,” Bez said, “as long as they aren’t too powerful. What can you tell me about that?”