The Horse Lord (The Book of Years Series 1) Read online

  Aldric knew the expression ‘to see a ghost’. That was why he felt uncomfortable about the white-bearded man’s intense stare, and why he laid one cautious hand on the reassuring metal of his shortsword’s hilt.

  “You won’t need that.”

  Aldric’s hand stayed where it was, and fierce eyebrows drew together to make the stare a frown. One finger stabbed out, seeming only an emphatic gesture, but he jerked his hand from the weapon as if it had stung him. And it had, a brief jab like touching a candle-flame. He forced himself to relax, or to seem so at least.

  “From what I remember of last night, I gave you my name. Will you return the courtesy?”

  “Gemmel Errekren fits best on Alban tongues.”

  Aldric let the condescension pass. “Snowbeard?” he said. “That’s no clan-name.”

  “I have no clan; but I – we – have need of haste. The spell wears off at sunset.”

  “Spell…?” Aldric echoed the word as if making sure of it. Events were running too fast, if he stopped to get his bearings he would be swept away, yet some questions still needed answers. “Perhaps I should have asked what are you?”

  “I already told— No, I didn’t, did I? Forgetful.” Gemmel rubbed his short neat beard and smiled a little. “The villagers call me pestrior and purcanyath; rural dialect that even highborn ears should understand.”

  Aldric did, and a thin, humourless grin flickered across his face. “‘Wizard’ and ‘enchanter.’ So I’m hunted by one and rescued by another.” He raised one hand towards his taipan again, then thought better of it and instead bowed as well as he was able. “For which I thank you. Now, this isn’t your affair, so I’ll—”

  “You’ll come with me,” said Gemmel. “I have another home, more secret, more secure, and with better means to tend your arm. I don’t leave healing half-completed. Call it a matter of honour. A kailin-eir should understand that.” He met Aldric stare for stare until the younger man looked away.

  “Yes. Yes, I do understand it. And I owe too great a debt already.”

  “Debts are for merchants. Here.” Gemmel held out a thing like a long-dead mouse. “Put this on.” Aldric eyed it distastefully and raised an eyebrow until a shake of finger and thumb revealed the object as a false beard. His other eyebrow joined the first. He hadn’t played dress-up since he was very small, and as he fitted the whiskers round an expression of faint disgust he discovered, as he feared, just how itchy they were. He looked unlike anyone with a shred of self-respect, but also unlike like a high-clan kailin which, he reflected with a gloomy scratch, was the whole point.

  There were horses in the stable behind the cottage, two saddled for riding, the others already laden with packs of things best not left behind. Aldric examined his own steed with dismay. It was a stocky, barrel-bellied, shaggy little pony, the sort of horse he hadn’t ridden for almost thirteen years, and true to form it sidled, kicked and tried to bite.

  Gemmel sat astride his own much finer horse and watched the young man mount his skittish beast without difficulty, even one-handed. It made him wonder about the Alban’s other and more lethal skills, the ones involving a blade.

  “Best come on, son.” He watched for a response, but Aldric let it pass without comment as part of the role-play of escape. “Twenty riders passed at first light, and it won’t take many questions in the village to bring them straight back here.”

  “How did they miss it?”

  Gemmel waved one hand in the air. “A Sightwarp,” he said. “To prevent them seeing straight.”

  The explanation explained nothing, until Aldric rode away and realised what the enchanter meant. Stone and thatch faded from sight as if around a corner, leaving an empty place where only grass waved in the wind. Gemmel heard a short intake of breath come out as a muttered curse and took wary note. The ymeth-trance had shown him Aldric’s illicit fascination with magic; it had also shown him a raw, immediate reason why the young man should hate sorcery and everyone who used it. He had encountered that before, long ago. It was just as perilous now.

  Riding as fast as the wizard deemed sensible still wasn’t fast enough for Aldric. He kept thinking about those twenty horsemen, about being outnumbered ten to one, about being caught in the open. After half an hour of cantering across the moorland, always due west and uphill, he reined in and turned his horse around.

  “I thought there was somebody behind us,” he said. “I was right.” Gemmel drew a long-glass from his belt and peered at a plume of grey smoke rising from the horizon, then said something harsh that Aldric didn’t need to understand. “They’ll guess why you hid the cottage. Why you left in such a hurry. That I’m with—”

  “Yes, I’m sure they will.” Gemmel slapped the long-glass against his palm like a truncheon. “Whether it does them any good is another matter. Let’s go.”

  *

  It took almost a week for the Blue Mountains to change from a jagged shadow in the distance to a tumbled mass of crags rearing vast and menacing almost overhead. Snowflakes wavered down from a sky the colour of dirty sulphur and settled on anything they touched, including the two men walking their horses along the treacherous mountain path.

  “Almost there.” The taller of the pair shook a small avalanche from his hood as he moved. The other looked up without enthusiasm.

  “You said the same thing yesterday, and the day before.” The foul weather, his itchy false beard now mixed with real stubble, and Gemmel’s persistent optimism were so depressing that Aldric no longer even feigned interest to the wizard’s cheerful conversation. Bored, wet, sore and miserable, he saw nothing except snowy rocks, but Gemmel seemed to think otherwise.

  “There, by the standing stone,” he insisted, and Aldric dutifully strained his eyes through the blurring snow as Gemmel dismounted, scrambled up to the monolith and laid his hands against its side. When Aldric followed he realised the enchanter didn’t need his help, indeed the pressure from his wide-spread fingers barely disturbed the crust of snow, but it was enough.

  With a grating sound clearly audible in the snow-silence, twenty feet of rock-face slid open and Aldric’s eyes went wide. The cavern within was no dank cave but a smooth, polished tunnel whose walls and ceiling were lined with globes of some crystalline stuff. Gemmel touched one and they came alight, spreading illumination from globe to globe down the tunnel until it filled with warm golden light.

  When Aldric looked back down the slope he stared just as hard at what he didn’t see, because the horses and their baggage had vanished without a sound and without a trace. Questions, exclamations and simple bad language fought for precedence until he decided there was nothing worth saying. Live with an enchanter, and live with enchantments. Or learn to. Few Albans would accept that. But few Albans had stood where he was now.

  Double doors at the end of the tunnel hissed aside as Gemmel approached, and released a harsh glare that made Aldric squeeze his dazzled eyes almost shut. The cave beyond was as extraordinary as everything else, flooded with light of unreal whiteness and sparkling reflections from burnished machinery recessed into both walls. A humming in the air and a slight vibration underfoot hinted at incalculable power deep within the rock below. Yet it was still just a cave.

  The yawning vault at the far end defied that easy label.

  It was big enough to swallow an entire fortress, and so high the loftiest citadel turret would fit with space left over. More of those crystals shone from its walls, illuminating nothing and serving more to outline the enormity of height and breadth with tiny dwindling rows of jewels. A slight, cold drift of air moved out of the cavern, swirling as breezes will in such monstrous empty spaces, though this space was far from empty. There was… something… in the middle of the cavern floor, an ill-defined mountainous bulk of dark smooth shapes and glinting edges. It dwarfed all else both in mass and in the eerie suggestion of dormant power, and Aldric walked towards it with all his senses tingling.

  “Meneth Taran,” he said. “Is this the Mother of St
orms?”

  “It might be.”

  Gemmel steered him away without further explanation. Meneth Taran, Thunderpeak, was the heaven-scoring crag that birthed the great tempest in the story, so people gave the name to Sil’ive, tallest of all the Blue Mountains. They gave it half in fun, but never completely so, and with the very air thrumming in his ears Aldric could guess why. Even if he gained no other knowledge from the enchanter, he was learning about awe.

  *

  By contrast the living apartments were cosy and reassuring, with heavy, well-padded furniture, wood panels masking the starkness of half a mile of solid mountain behind them, and live flames dancing in the fireplaces. Aldric spent no time wondering who had lit and fuelled them, or where the smoke went. With warmth around him for the first time in six days, the wound was making its presence felt again. As it thawed, it throbbed.

  Gemmel noticed the wince as Aldric took a seat by the fire. “Enough of this. The arm will heal with time, but I can heal it faster.” He set a box down on the table and opened its lid. “Take off your tunic and shirt.”

  Aldric stared apprehensively at the glittering rows of instruments. Though he didn’t know what some of them did, the purpose of the small sharp knives was clear enough. “I’d rather have a bath and a shave,” he said.

  “And I’d rather have that wound dealt with. Tunic and shirt off, now.”

  With uneasy memories of having his arm set last spring Aldric obeyed, then shuddered like a bitten horse when the bandages peeled away. At least the small shiny device in Gemmel’s gloved hand wasn’t one of the knives.

  “Sit still. This won’t hurt—” the device made a droning sound like a swarm of metallic bees and Aldric yelped, “—much.”

  Yet within five minutes he was working the arm and shoulder as easily as if the wound had never been there, well aware such swift healing involved far more than medical skill. He was equally aware that any guilt he should have felt about accepting aid from sorcery had also vanished, as completely as the past week’s constant pain.

  “Now,” said Gemmel, “do you still want a bath, or would you prefer food and drink?”

  Aldric’s appetite came back with a rush. He was definitely in favour of eating first and said so, though tact and a reluctance to find out kept him from asking where the food came from. It was no lavish feast-day banquet but a meal of comforting simple dishes: meats braised and broiled, vegetables whose freshness belied the season, and seasonings which defied the distance from any market, all as good as anything Tewal’s tavern could prepare.

  Fastidious as the kourgath cat on his collar, he went to wash directly after the meal and left Gemmel staring at the fire, sipping Hertan grainfire as he tried to shape what he wanted to say to this young Talvalin with the unsettlingly familiar face. It wasn’t an easy task.

  Dead son, and unexpected stranger. So alike, yet so different. Aldric had begun smiling again this past week, yet there was an occasional air of freezing menace about him that Ernol had never possessed. This Alban kailin was frightening. Gemmel rejected the word at first, but found it returning to his mind.

  “Frightening,” he said, as if hearing it aloud would change its meaning.

  “Who is?” Aldric had found breeches and a clean white shirt, and held a towel in one hand. The wet hair sleeked close to his head and freshly shaved face made him seem so young and harmless that Gemmel’s chosen word seemed out of place. Yet he had looked no different in the ymeth-trance as he took down Baiart with brutal precision, and killed the two men in Dunrath with a single sword-stroke each. Youthful he might be, but harmless? No.

  “I was thinking,” the wizard said. Aldric settled into a chair by the fire and picked at a loose thread in the towel.

  “So was I.” He hesitated, watching through the lashes of eyes half-closed and apparently sleepy. The firelight carved deep trenches in Gemmel’s face and his strange wistful look was back: echoes of recognition and regret, all mingled with a bitter memory of loss. It made Aldric certain his half-formed guess approached the truth.

  “You knew someone long ago who looked like me. Or I looked like him. And he died. Was he a friend?” He looked straight at the enchanter. “Or a relative…?” What flickered across Gemmel’s features had nothing to do with firelight, and with an inward wince of embarrassment Aldric bit his tongue before it did more hurt.

  Gemmel stared at him, wishing he was less observant or less forthright. More like Ernol. No matter what had happened to drive him into the woods with an arrow in his back, no matter what his clan or history, the Alban was still in his own country. He could never, would never, know what it felt like to live down the long years, to walk through a crowded city, to exchange friendly words and yet be alone. Always alone. This young man with his dead son’s face was a cruel joke perpetrated by malicious fate. Unless…

  Unless nothing. Gemmel had no wish to contemplate that alternative either now or later. The brief clandestine relationship was long ago and long forgotten, at least that was what he had convinced himself until last week. He regained his composure with an effort and twisted thin lips into a thin smile. “No matter,” he said. “I was miles and years away.”

  Aldric inclined his head and let the subject close. “You started to say something when we were at table, then decided it was best left till later. This is later.”

  “Very well.” Gemmel leaned back and steepled his fingers, staring at their nails for a few seconds. “It had to do with what I think happened during your last boar-hunt. We talked about it once or twice, but you were in no fit state for lengthy discussions.”

  On several occasions during that ride Gemmel had come close to admitting his use of ymeth and what he had learned from it, but that admission would have led to more questions needing more answers, including some he would never give. So he had shied away from the subject every time, unsure how Aldric would respond. With his conclusion about the young man’s character fresh in mind, he was more unsure than ever.

  “There was a spell on the valley, to keep animals out. Not to preserve the honoured dead from scavengers, but to prevent anything being killed there. Blood’s a catalyst for powerful magic. The wizard who cast the spell suspected that any further bloodshed would have some unknown result. He was right, and you can blame Duergar for the rest.”

  “Duergar? But what had he—?”

  “He’s a sorcerer. Is taking the next step so difficult?” Aldric sat up straighter and prepared to make sensible remarks. He wasn’t asked for any. “You shot a wolf in the leg. Yet you failed to notice what leg Duergar limped on. He’s crafty, that one, and the shape of a fox would have suited him better.”

  “You know that bastard?” There was a sudden change in the kailin’s voice, and a look on his face that confirmed Gemmel’s judgement. For all his lack of years, Aldric Talvalin was frightening.

  “We met once. In a professional capacity. I didn’t like him then either. Agents of the Empire make my skin crawl.”

  “What’s an Imperial agent doing in Alba? Or is that another thing I failed to notice?”

  Aldric hoped Gemmel would snap at him again and give him an excuse to snap back. He was seething inside, with helplessness as much as anything else, because the Drusalan Empire made his own hopes and aspirations look very small. Seeking revenge against such a mighty realm would be like making war on the sea for drowning a friend.

  “You weren’t meant to notice,” Gemmel said. “Nobody was. And your family may only be the first, because when Grand Warlord Etzel turns his mind to conquest, he’s as inexorable as the incoming tide.” Aldric wondered at that choice of words, as if the wizard was looking into his mind. “But even the spring tide can be stopped, if a breached sea-wall is plugged before too much water gets through.”

  “An elaborate way of telling me that if I kill Duergar and do it soon enough, I’ll save Alba from Imperial invasion.” Aldric’s mouth twitched in an acid smile. “Me, all by myself?”

  “Yes.”

/>   The smile froze and faded. “Light of Heaven, man, that was blunter than I like. Why would the Grand Warlord want to invade us? Alba isn’t involved with Imperial policies, and King Rynert takes a great deal of trouble not to be involved with them.” He caught Gemmel’s changed expression. “What now?”

  “Surprise, no, amazement, to discover any high-clan kailin-eir could be so ignorant of politics.”

  “That was Baiart’s field, not…” Aldric’s voice trailed off and his eyes went distant. “Baiart wasn’t at Dunrath. He isn’t dead…”

  “Neither are you. Forget him for now. How much were you taught about the Drusalan Empire?”

  “Baiart never—”

  “Not now. I didn’t ask him, I didn’t ask about him, I asked you and I asked about the Empire. What do you know?”

  Aldric blinked. He hadn’t been addressed like that since sunny afternoons in dusty classrooms when one tutor or another lost patience, and he hadn’t expected it here. His reaction flicked from irritated to amused, because Gemmel sounded like all of them at once. But no matter what was said, he wouldn’t forget about Baiart.

  “Clearly, far less than I should. All right: Imperial borders have expanded for nearly two hundred years, mostly by profitable marriage and political annexation. Once in a while there’s open conquest, though they call it ‘keeping the peace’. The Emperor has most places across the East-Sea in the palm of his—” Gemmel shook his head, and he stopped. “What now?”

  “The Drusalan Empire rules across the Narrow Sea. The Drusalan Emperor is lucky if he rules the running of his own palace. Grand Warlord Etzel’s the true master of the Empire, like every Grand Warlord before him. Now things may change. Emperor Droek’s old before his time, and that time is running out. He’ll die within the year, and for a change Etzel doesn’t want it to happen because there’s a problem with the succession. Droek’s eldest son Taroen was raised from childhood to be a good Emperor: a puppet with strings pulled by the Warlord. Then six months ago the young fool fell off his horse and broke his neck.”