SORCERER SCURVY
EPISODE 2
"Murder is a terrible thing," mused Fear, rubbing his jaw while
unable to keep the grin off his face. "You'd wonder what drives mankind
to such lengths."
"Mankind, y'Fearship?" grunted Skarkill. "What's that got to do with
anything?"
"With me? Nothing." Fear's voice was almost overflowing with gloat.
"I ask out of curiosity, not relevance."
Skarkill nodded. In truth, he had never been entirely sure what
species his master was supposed to be, and it hadn't exactly been an
issue he was in a hurry to pursue. So he returned to the original
subject - murder, which was one matter of debate that neither he nor
Fear ever tired of. "Well, what does it usually involve?"
"Sex or money," spat Fear flatly.
"Really?" Skarkill pondered this as they stared up at the battlements
of Knightmare Castle. He'd killed a few times in his life, and he had
no memory of physical fulfilment ever being a motivation for him. Mind
you, killing was part of his job, so the motivation could have been
money. "Not anger then?" he suggested.
"That's about someone not getting enough sex," Fear pointed out, "or
someone else having too much money. And it's the same with jealousy
before you suggest it."
"What about straightforward, honest-to-badness, all-out hatred?"
asked Skarkill, who couldn't resist adding, "Luvly," and licking his
lips.
"That's a fear of sex," explained Fear, "and a lack of money."
Skarkill blinked. "Okay. And how about..." He shivered slightly,
"uurrgghh... love? Isn't that something people kill for?"
"No such thing, dear fellow," scoffed Fear. "It's still just sex."
Skarkill nodded. "There's always power too."
Fear stopped in his tracks and looked at Skarkill with a devilish
toothy grin. "You know, Skarks, old boy," he said darkly, "you're quite
right. There's always power."
* * *
Power was at stake, and so lives were at stake as well. The lives in
question were those of Treguard and Majida. They were both stood at the
top of a staircase with a door ahead of them that was barred closed
from the outside. Behind and beneath them lay the dungeon antechamber
through the door at the foot of the staircase. There was nowhere else
to go, which was a problem, because there was a rotting corpse in the
doorway of the antechamber... the corpse of a plague victim.
Strictly speaking, it wouldn't exactly be murder if they were to die
like this, but germ warfare. That made it no less murderous.
Treguard and Majida were huddled at the very top of the steps, making
futile gestures to try to distance themselves from the body below, like
leaning backwards against the door and jostling shoulder-to-shoulder.
"Thees reedeeculous!" cried Majida all of a sudden. "We no gon'
escape like dees!"
"No," agreed Treguard, the sarcasm gushing off his tongue like a
torrent of phlegm, "let's head for the front door." He made a polite
gesture. "Ladies first."
Majida rolled her eyes. "You never think I 'lady'," she pointed out.
"Big, strong Dungeon Master can go first."
"Let's not have an argument now," suggested Treguard, noting to
himself that even after all these years, sarcasm was still wasted on
this particular genie.
"Why not?" demanded Majida. "Nothing else we can do when we stuck
here." She thought about this. "Well, maybe one or two other things,"
she admitted, "but with you that be necrophilia."
Treguard was so impressed that Majida had managed to pronounce the
word correctly, he managed to miss the insult entirely. "Where did you
learn that word?"
Majida shrugged. "Merlin's library still exist. I go there to read
sometimes."
Treguard boggled. "What book would there be in Merlin's library that
would discuss the subject of sleeping with the dead?"
Treguard realised straight away that he didn't want to know the
answer to that question, but it was too late; Majida answered anyway.
"His diary."
This was almost enough to provoke Treguard into spluttering, "What?!"
but he realised just in time that that way lay madness. He just shook
his head. "Just be quiet! We don't need tittle-tattle or gossip about
the departed, we need solutions." He pointed down to the foot of the
staircase. "This is as far as we can get from Eadric's corpse, and it's
very clear that the disease spreads very easily through the air. We
won't have long."
Majida suddenly snapped her fingers. "We need two things."
"Yes," grunted Treguard, "a door leading outside and a door-handle."
"No!" growled Majida, "we need help from outside, and something to
slow spread of disease down."
"All right," nodded Treguard, "and we have access to neither. So
let's start again, with something a little more practi-..."
"Shut up, beard-breath!" snapped Majida with so sharp a suddenness
that Treguard didn't dare to lose his temper at being addressed in such
a manner. "You s'posed to be man of magic. And I am genie..."
"I've already reached my own opinions as to what you are, thank you,"
retorted Treguard. "Now if you don't..."
"Just listen," Majida insisted, to which Treguard fell silent with
just a touch of irritation. "I am genie. I have magic!"
Treguard glanced up at her, the sweat of fear and exasperation
already forming on his brow. Time was running out. For all he knew the
plague was already in the air around them, and Majida seemed to be
thinking that now was the time for delusions of grandeur. "What?"
"Magic!"
"What magic?"
"All genies have some magic," explained Majida. "Just no much."
"What do you mean?"
"Hey, in dees job we grant three wishes, ah?"
"What?" scoffed Treguard. "If I wish out loud that you could make the
plague go away, you'll just snap your fingers and the world will be
saved?"
"No," admitted Majida. "you no release me from lamp. You no get three
wishes."
"I did release you..."
"From bottle, not lamp!" growled Majida impatiently. "For Dungeon
Master, you no know very much about magic do you? You release genie
from magic lamp, you get three wishes. Nothing else count."
Treguard shrugged. "Fine, so what magic have you got then?"
Majida put her hands on her hips sternly. "I already tell you. We
need help from outside. We need to stop disease spreading upstairs."
She snapped her fingers and a vague purple haze surrounded them.
Treguard felt his nose tickle and sting as the thin miasma insinuated
its way inside and he sneezed several times on reflex.
"What is this stuff?" he wheezed as more of the haze got into his
throat.
"Great mystical Hispanic potion," explained Majida, her voice turning
increasingly ethnic and husky. "We call it 'El Poww-dahov Tahl-coom'."
Treguard thought about this. "I see," he nodded, not fooled at all.
"And how exactly is a cloud of pink talcum powder supposed to stop the
disease spreading?"
"It won't," admitted Majida, "but it might slow it down, ya?"
"Fine, I'll pretend I believe that," sneered Treguard. "Then what?"
"Last bit of magic," shrugged Majida, and snapped her fingers again.
A tiny ball of white energy emerged right in front of Treguard's face,
with thin tails of wispy power emanating from it. "We need help, you
call for it. Hurry up!"
Treguard looked blankly into the ball of light. "What do you mean
'call'?
"I no have any magic left, Treguard!" protested Majida desperately.
"Hurry up and speak into this before it too late."
"Call whom?" asked Treguard reasonably.
"Anyone!" cried Majida. "Hurry!"
Treguard looked into the ball of light and shrugged. What did he have
to lose? "Hordriss!" he called urgently. "Hordriss, can you hear me?"
* * *
The shivers suggested that the man was cold, but the sweat that ran
through his face, his grotty beard and over the clammy expanse of his
neck and torso would have suggested that he was burning up inside.
And paradoxically, both states of being were true about Sylvester
Hands, for he was dying. The surface of his skin would have burned to
the touch - were there a person alive who felt the inclination to
make contact with him - but beneath the surface a consuming chill
pervaded his very bones.
He lay sprawled in a miserable heap on the side of a road, where he'd
been dumped callously by his 'friends' after they'd realised that he
had contracted the plague.
Every so often he would wake. And that was very cruel on him.
"L-Lordsh-ship..." he stammered in his delirium. "Lordship... don't
leave me 'ere... don't let me 'urt like this..." He whimpered
miserably. "Please... pleeeease....!" And then there would be merciful
silence.
* * *
"One comprehends of course, Dungeon Master," nodded Hordriss with a
typically graceful bow of the head. "The bitter tidings of this hideous
plague were never likely to be slow in reaching one's ears."
The image of Treguard in the mirror was beginning to fade and become
obscure.
"We haven't got long, Hordriss," hissed the Dungeon Master. "We've
resorted to clouding the air between us and the corpse in the hope of
barring the plague from reaching us, but it won't buy us much time."
"Indeed not," Hordriss concurred, "and I fear that from my present
position I will not be able to lift yourself, Majida, or any other
occupants in the Castle by sorcerous means."
"I feared you'd say that."
"In any case," continued Hordriss, "it stands to reason that Lord
Fear would have anticipated such a move on one's part. He doubtless
will have some counter-spells in place to prevent one's direct
intervention."
Treguard nodded. "What can you do?"
Hordriss stayed calm. "You have friends beyond the walls of your
fortress, Dungeon Master," he explained. "I will contact them for you,
and arrange their involvement."
"Thank you," said Treguard, breathing out heavily as the strain of
death's proximity began to take its toll on his nerve. "Please get them
to hurry, Hordriss, whoever you contact."
Hordriss smiled slightly, in a way that Treguard wasn't sure he
liked. "Maintain your calm and dignity, Treguard," he instructed
casually. "One has the matter well in hand."
"Yes, but I'd feel better if you moved the hand with the matter in it
a little more qu-..."
Suddenly the image of Treguard's face in the mirror faded and
vanished into a cloud of pearl white. Hordriss turned from the mirror.
"Patience is a virtue, Dungeon Master. All good things come to those
who wait... including survival. There seems but one obvious place to
look to for the assistance we require."
* * *
Anwin Wood was not as Hordriss remembered it from his only previous
visit. It seemed colder and emptier somehow. Not that it had exactly
been a landscape of bustle and activity previously, but there was
undoubtedly a sense that there was something missing now. Or perhaps
someone.
Yes, that was it. The elves were never quick to draw attention to
themselves, but now they weren't just hiding from the eyes of men with
souls... many must have fled in terror. That was not good news for
Hordriss.
"Revelante, Arawn," he growled in his croaking, gravelly voice. "Elf-
King, show yourself to me now."
"You druids," came a scornful voice from behind Hordriss, "always
presuming to summon me... Your boldness is admirable enough to kill,
Confuser."
Hordriss turned to see the tall, lithe figure draped in green and
gold robes, the pale face twisted into a resentful jeer, his sword
unsheathed on the silken belt at his waist. The sparkling, untarnished
diadem of his Kingship was perched proudly on his brow. Most of the
face was as youthful as any mortal child's, and yet the sparkling eyes
told the tales of centuries beyond counting in a single glance.
"Perhaps," sneered Hordriss, never one to be intimidated by a back-
handed compliment, "and yet you still answered."
Arawn did not move in the slightest, and yet there still seemed to be
an air of him somehow retreating from Hordriss slightly, as though such
a blunt statement of the obvious had somehow frightened him. And why
not? It was a point of arrogant elfin pride to believe in the
inferiority of mortal men, and so to have it pointed out so flatly to
no less a figure than the Elf-King that he'd had to answer the summons
of a mere druid must have wounded him very deeply.
"State your business, druid," suggested Arawn.
"One is a warlock," retorted Hordriss defiantly. Time may have been
in short supply, but there was still enough for his ego to receive due
attendance, "druidism is a relative term."
"Whatever," shrugged Arawn, a mannerism that Hordriss found almost
disconcertingly mortal, "like your druidic ancestors you presume too
much in my realm."
"Your realm may soon be in tatters, Arawn," said Hordriss, "the end
of thousands of years of your rule."
"I will survive forever, warlock!" spat Arawn with what appeared to
be fierce confidence, but the agitated movements of his eyes showed
otherwise.
"You, perhaps," conceded Hordriss, less than convinced, "but your
people cannot. Admit it, O King, they are already dying in their
dozens. You may live on to rule the greenwood for another millennium,
but what will that mean when you have no subjects to rule?"
"It would not be an issue," hissed Arawn, "were it not for the
unseemliness of your mortal ways..."
"Again, that may even be true," said Hordriss, who knew very well
that it was not, "but does that change the nature of your current
needs? You must accept that it does not matter whose fault it is. The
survival of your entire race will be in the balance, no matter who must
accept responsibility for the plague's emergence."
Arawn did not answer this time, a stubborn confirmation to Hordriss
that the Elf-King knew that he was right.
"So," continued the Confuser, "perhaps you would care to discuss with
one what we are to do in our mutual interest of preventing the plague
from spreading any further?"
Arawn seemed to swallow slightly, as though the pain of accepting
that he needed help from a mere mortal was overwhelming him - which
it was of course. "Talk, warlock."
Hordriss drew in a deep breath. "You and I must investigate this
disease under conditions that protect ourselves from its fearsome
miasma. In order to do that, however, I believe we must trace it back
to its source."
Arawn considered. "You wish the aid of the elves to trace the source
of the plague then. Very well, I shall accede to this. But no more than
that."
"Any more may not be necessary," answered Hordriss.
"Good," nodded Arawn stiffly, "we shall send out my agents to search
and investigate." He hesitated from undermining his own authority any
further than he already had done, but then asked, "Do you have any
recommendations as to whom I should send?"
"Pickle, Velda and Dervlinne have all had past dealings with
Dunshelm," said Hordriss, "and Dunshelm is one of the places I am
endeavouring to protect. Do they still live?"
"They do."
"Then I recommend you send them, as their motivations will be less
indifferent."
Arawn hesitated once again, but then bowed his head very briefly. "So
be it."
* * *
Time. Such a baffling and unknowable quality, and yet one that
affects everyone and everything more completely than any other in all
the many planes of reality.
To Treguard it had been an even more enormous factor than ever in
recent times. It had been the very meaning of the Chronosphere that
Lord Fear had used to try and destroy him, and then it had been the
lifeblood of the dungeon's revival.
And now it was running out. He and Majida remained huddled at the top
of the steps, watching the torches on the walls above them flickering
ineffectually as they burned low. They wondered just how much time they
had left, but it could be a cruel master, and it was quite happy to
deprive people of any warning before it withdrew its tender mercies
from them.
"Treguard?"
Treguard was shaken from his reverie by an unusually timid and
squeaky voice emanating from between Majida's lips.
"What is it?"
"I... I scared, Treguard," said the genie, her voice trembling very
slightly.
Treguard blinked at her in astonishment. He had seen her scared
before. He had seen her panicky, he had seen her rattled, he had seen
her jittery and unsettled... but he had never heard her admit any such
things to him before. To his surprise, he found himself smiling at her,
sympathetically of course (which was something of a surprise in
itself). He put an arm round her and let her rest her exhausted head on
his shoulder. "So am I, Majida," admitted Treguard with such a softness
of tone that she had to strain to hear him. "We know this disease. We
know it's here. We know it's around us. We know what it can do, and we
know it could take us any time." He suppressed a shudder. "I don't
think I've ever been so scared in my life."
* * *
Time. What was it exactly? Hands didn't know, indeed he was now quite
unaware of its passage, let alone its nature. Several days had passed
since his body had been dumped by a roadside. He was starved,
dehydrated, and ill. People who passed him immediately turned and ran
in dread, knowing that he must have been one of the countless plague
victims, and that any contact would surely mean death for them.
But...
He was not dead. Not yet.
* * *
Pickle paused where he was, looked right, looked left, then resumed
walking. He was sure that he could actually hear the germs of the
plague as they scurried in and out of every tangled bundle of roots and
between every blade of grass.
It had been nine days since he had departed from Anwin Wood with
Velda and Dervlinne, and in that time the plague had accelerated and
now seemed to be everywhere in the land. In every village, every town,
every borough, the dead bodies were accumulating, and it was as if
there was no escape when the very air seemed to be against everyone. As
a result Pickle was even more jumpy and hyperactive than usual.
Walking a few steps ahead of him was his younger sister, Dervlinne.
Tall and lithe, fair of hair and disdainful of manner, her haughtiness
both infuriated and fascinated mortals in equal measure, especially the
very few men who had ever met her, even ones who were old enough to
know better.
Walking beside her was the hunter maiden, Velda. Her raven hair, her
sceptical, unfriendly eyes and her fierce lips were perhaps enough in
themselves to scare any plague germs from trying to infect her.
Unlikely as that was, she still effected the hostile manner, probably
to reassure herself more than anything else.
Dervlinne wrinkled her narrow nose slightly. They were presently
walking over heavy marshes in bright morning sunshine. There was a
stony path less than fifty feet to their left that they could have
followed, and it would have made their progress much easier if they
had, but the path was of mortal construction, and both Dervlinne and
Velda felt an aversion to using such contraptions. Pickle had long
since moved beyond such arrogant prejudices, but decided to indulge his
companions on this occasion as they didn't really have the time to
argue about it.
This was partly because they had already wasted a day on a futile
journey to Wolfenden where for many years now had lurked Dervlinne's
twin sister whose help they had hoped to enlist. But she had refused
rather rudely on grounds of a longstanding dispute with Dervlinne, and
they'd had to resume their search without her.
Perhaps oddly, the most impatient to push on was the one with the
most tenuous links to the Northguard, Dervlinne. She had aided and
served Treguard obediently enough during the recent Chronosphere
crisis, but she had never hidden her resentment of being drawn into the
pettiness of mortal affairs. Perhaps that is what fuels her impatience
now, her brother mused. The sooner the task is done, the sooner she can
end her involvement in mortal ways.
In truth he doubted it however. Little as he wanted to think about
it, he sensed with much pain that Dervlinne was still feeling stung by
the very public rejection by their sister, and was choosing to throw
herself into the present task with as much force as possible to help
keep her mind off the humiliation.
Pickle did feel for her. He had never liked Kulaemii very much, but
she was still family and a feud between two members of any family will
always affect the others, even in among elves.
"We still don't know how long honoured Treguard has left," fumed
Dervlinne as they walked, "but I would suggest there is less time ahead
of us than behind us."
Velda did not answer, and Pickle was feeling too perturbed to offer
an opinion. Just the thought of this plague set his nerves jangling
uncontrollably, and at such times statements exploring the numbingly
obvious were best met with silence - otherwise they would almost
certainly be met with angry words, which were never a very constructive
addition to a conversation.
"We should make more haste," insisted Dervlinne haughtily when she
realised that her previous remark would receive no response.
"And rather less noise," suggested Velda.
Dervlinne bristled a little. As the daughter of another Elf-king she
had a superior manner, and it was never difficult to offend her
dignity. Velda, who had once betrayed Arawn himself to Treguard, had
never been afraid of doing that to Royalty. Also she privately loathed
Dervlinne on a personal level.
Sensing that his sister was about to launch into a pompous tirade,
Pickle quickened his step until he was walking directly between them.
"We should reach the human settlement we seek in the next hour," he
said firmly, "which will be soon enough."
"We do not know that," sniffed Dervlinne.
"I know the Dungeon Master," retorted Pickle with a big brother's
authority, "he will survive."
"But for how long?"
"Long enough for us to find a cure for him!" hissed Pickle,
exasperation bringing him close to losing his temper. "Enough now,
Dervlinne."
Dervlinne pouted slightly. She may have been by far the youngest of
the three elves, but she still liked to imagine herself as the most
important, and to be spoken down to by anyone, even by her older
brother, very much rankled with her. But she remained silent, to
Pickle's and Velda's considerable relief.
They pushed on in silence for the next few hours, soon entering the
Gorge of Bran. The village of Branborough was located on the far reach
of the gorge, and as that was where the plague was supposed to have
broken out from, it seemed the likeliest place to head. Of course the
truth was that this was a powerful disincentive for them as the last
place they wanted to head was the source of an epidemic that had
already claimed thousands of lives among the mortal population alone.
"Is there anywhere in the world," Velda couldn't keep herself from
asking, "I'd less wish to be than here?"
"One," suggested Pickle. "Trapped within the walls of Dunshelm with
the plague closing in on you."
* * *
Within the walls of Dunshelm, Treguard and Majida had long since
given up trying to comfort each other or themselves. They were still
trapped where they had been for the last ten days. Only through vague
crumbs of Majida's magic had they been able to conjure up just enough
morsels of food and water to keep them alive. As it was, both were
still dangerously hungry, thirsty, tired and delirious. Majida's tricks
for damping the plague germs' path toward them were proving
surprisingly effective at least, but she was now almost out of
strength.
The lack of space to move about, the hardness of the stone steps that
they sat or lay upon, and the perpetual inertia were taking as great a
toll on their physical well-being as the deprivations of food.
Inevitably what few conversations they were capable of consisted
entirely of exhausted insults and aggravated scowling. This was little
different to the composition of their entire relationship of the last
eight years of course, but at a time like this it was really damaging.
Treguard's eyes flickered open in response to the sound of music
playing. How long he had been asleep he had no idea at all. He had lost
most sense of time after about the fourth day in the face of the
hardship, the inertia and the numbing monotony. All days and nights
just seemed to blur into each other.
He tried to sit up, but the joints in his waist had long since
refused to co-operate any further until their present fuel needs had
been attended to, and he couldn't attend to them. So he slumped back
onto the hard stone step, and rolled his head weakly to the side to see
the source of the music.
To his exasperation, he saw Majida was sat a couple of steps below
with her back to the wall and her knees tucked under her chin, staring
into the palm of her right hand, where there was a tiny glittering
image of a girl. The girl was dancing in rhythm to the music. Majida
appeared to be crying, which was not a sensible thing to do when she
was dehydrated, but she seemed not to care about anything but what she
was looking at.
"Majida!" croaked Treguard hoarsely. "What the blazes do you think
you're doing?"
"Dying slowly," answered Majida without looking up. She sounded so
distant.
"You're wasting your magic!" Treguard snapped as forcefully as he
could. "Your magic's the only thing that can keep the disease from
reaching us. It's the only thing keeping us from starving, and you're
wasting it... on music?"
Majida's eyes slowly rolled in Treguard's direction. There was a
still a lingering spark of defiance in them, a familiar air of refusal
to accept any rebuke no matter how rational or fair it might have been,
but there was also a bleakness Treguard had never seen there before.
She was hungry, thirsty, and so very, very tired of feeling the icy
fingers of fear working their insidious way up her spine and choking
her throat.
"It make no difference," she murmured. "Hordriss no get here in time.
We no live another night. And if we do, what for?"
"Survival is its own reward, Majida," gasped Treguard, trying to put
a conviction in his voice that his weakened condition would not allow.
Majida's eyes glazed over with a strange kind of exhausted anger. "We
live one more day?" she growled. "So what? It just be like today. Pain,
pain and more pain. I rather use magic on music than food now." She
paused and added, rather unkindly, "I rather die listenin' to music
than you snoring!"
Treguard's face coloured slightly, but then she had always had that
effect on him, and right now he didn't have the energy to lose his
temper. Especially as he happened to agree with her.
He had all but given up hope as well
* * *
It was bad to be ill when there were so many lives counting on your
success, but that pressure was on Hordriss now. He, Arawn, and several
elfin knights had been working for some days studying a sample of blood
taken one of the elves who had died of the plague. It had been a
hazardous business just finding a way to extract the blood without
becoming infected themselves, and since then they had studied
obsessively, all the while trying to ignore the nagging fear that any
of them could go down with the symptoms at a moment's notice.
The symptoms as they understood them appeared to be some kind of
hideous burning sensation under the surface of the skin that would
rapidly spread throughout the body, until every inch of flesh felt to
the sufferer like it was ablaze. Bizarrely, the skin would be cold to
the touch of anyone else who came into contact (who would almost
certainly fall ill themselves within moments). After a while the pain
would be so overwhelming that the sufferer would lose consciousness. As
they slept, the skin would lose its consistency and become discoloured,
first turning a greenish tinge, then grey, than finally pitch black. By
this stage of course, if the victim hadn't already died then they were
about to.
None of them had gone down with those particular symptoms as yet, but
they were all showing signs of frayed nerves and, Hordriss in
particular, a shortage of sleep. But Hordriss knew not to give into
that.
One of Arawn's youngest henchmen - a golden-haired stripling of
barely twelve hundred years - ran into the tree hut they were all
working in, carrying a large leather-bound book under his arm. "The
tome you requested, Confuser," he said, eagerly proffering the book to
Hordriss.
"One's thanks," Hordriss acknowledged, accepting and opening the book
without delay. He started reading feverishly.
"Records of ancient diseases," grunted Arawn with unhelpful
scepticism. "Do you have any idea just how many diseases there have
been in mortal history?"
"No," grunted Hordriss, refusing to look up from his research, "that
is but one of the broader details one is attempting to assess."
"Well I recommend you assess more quickly, warlock."
"I shall," replied Hordriss with impressive coolness, "when you cease
distracting one."
And he read on.
* * *
The gorge was shrouded in the gloom of dusk before the three elves
were even halfway along its stubborn, winding length. The ground
underfoot was harsh, stony and uneven, and in spite of centuries of
toughening against such things, it hurt and scratched their bare feet.
For all the tiring pain and nervous fear however, Pickle's
determination remained undented. He was driven, not just by fear of his
life, but fear for the life of another to whom he still felt a great
bond of loyalty, even though he had long-since left his service.
He might have chosen to return to the service of his liege, but
Pickle was still a Northguard, still one of the Powers-That-Be, and
that the Dungeon Master retained a great demand on his loyalty. That
was no longer with the insistence of the Elf-King, Pickle had recently
come to realise. And he had also realised he no longer cared what the
Elf-King's thoughts were on such matters. It even pleased him.
The other two were flagging some way behind him now. They clearly
wanted to stop and rest, so Pickle found the patience to stand still
and give them time to catch up.
Seeing him stop walking seemed only to motivate the other two to slow
down even further. To Pickle's surprise, he felt a surge of anger
rushing through his green blood. "I thought you were complaining about
us being too slow, Dervlinne!" he snapped. "Move faster!"
Dervlinne was taken aback to be addressed so harshly, but kicked her
heels into gear and hurried up to him. Velda took a little longer as he
rebuke hadn't been addressed to her, but nonetheless she too wasted no
more time.
"We can pause here to rest," suggested Pickle. "If you like."
Dervlinne nodded and slumped to her knees, exhaustion seeming to seep
from every pore of her. Velda made a more dignified attempt to sit
cross-legged on the ground, but she too was unable to hide how jaded
she was feeling. They'd been walking for more than three days now, and
while elves always had considerably more resilience than mortals, there
was still a limit to how far that resilience could stretch.
"Why?" muttered Dervlinne through agonised clenching of teeth.
"Because you are both tired," answered Pickle.
"No!" snorted Dervlinne. "I mean why are you being so... so..." She
couldn't find the right words.
"So forceful?" suggested Pickle. "So driven? So pushy? So unwilling
to be patient?"
Dervlinne turned these suggestions over in her mind for a moment,
then nodded stridently. "Yes."
"So like you in other words," sniffed Velda, taking the words right
out of Pickle's mouth.
Dervlinne looked at Velda defiantly. "Quiet, minion!" she snapped
pompously. "I and Pickle are both of Royal blood..."
"Blood of a Royal family long since overthrown," pointed out Velda,
unimpressed.
"...And," persisted Dervlinne forcefully, "you are nothing more than
a rebel who was given a fortunate pardon by our liege. You answer to
me, you do not insult me..."
"And I am your brother, and your elder," Pickle interjected softly,
"and I agree with Velda. I have been like you all day, and I'm going to
keep being like you all day because people I care about need us to
hurry."
"Care?" Dervlinne blinked. "What do you mean... 'care'?"
Pickle looked at his young sister and sighed. She may have learned
much from fighting alongside Treguard during the battle for the
Chronosphere, but she still had such a very, very long way to go, far
longer than she probably realised, to understand the ways of mortal
men. He had learned so very much during his time at Treguard's side in
Dunshelm, and it was because he had always been willing to learn.
Dervlinne, with her instinctive high-mindedness, seemed to sneer at the
very concept of mortals being worth the bother of learning about.
"You know the price of so much," Pickle noted sadly, "and the value
of so little. I believe that is the mortal definition of cynicism."
"Caring and cynicism?" Dervlinne now looked very confused. "You use
such mortal terminology. I'm beginning to think that you spent too long
with the honoured Dungeon Master - he has warped your reasoning..."
"On the contrary," growled Pickle, his anger setting in again - the
strain of their quest had taken its toll on everyone's tempers, even
his own, "I learned a great deal from Treguard. Some of it most of our
kin would find alien and bizarre. Incomprehensible in fact. But I saw
enough to realise that it is all still true."
"And what did you learn exactly?"
"That loyalty can be a choice, Dervlinne," said Pickle, his lean eyes
full of fire and intensity, a telltale sign of his passion for the
subject. It quite startled Dervlinne, who had rarely seen that in any
non-mortal. "Elves see loyalty as something that should be extracted.
Mortals give their loyalty by choice or not at all. They might submit
through fear instead but that is not loyalty..."
"Such nonsense!" scoffed Dervlinne. "Loyalty is a matter of
obligation, not choice."
"To those without a soul, perhaps," shrugged Pickle, finally sitting
down to rest his weary feet, "but not to them. An obligation can be
fulfilled, but loyalty lives on even after that."
Dervlinne looked utterly confused. "How? Once an obligation is spent,
neither person owes anything to the other and..."
Again Pickle cut her off in mid-sentence. "That's what I learned
though, Dervlinne. The 'obligation' as you call it lives on beyond the
events that embody it. In fact, it's even possible for two people to be
in each other's debt at the same time."
This time it was Velda's turn to snort derisively at what Pickle was
suggesting. "A logical impossibility."
"Not an impossibility," insisted Pickle. "Friendship has a different
definition to their minds, but I find it still makes sense. We never
understand its true nature, our kind, until we learn it from a mortal."
"I do not follow any more than your sister does."
Pickle sighed quietly to himself, and decided that he was too tired
to persuade them of something that they probably couldn't understand
until they saw it in action anyway. He gave up and lay back.
Then he decided he was damned if he was going to give up here and sat
up again.
"Look," he snapped, just getting a little testy, "friendship is not
business to a human. That's the difference between their kind and ours.
It is not about mathematics therefore."
"I never said it was," protested Velda, not sure whether she was
being entirely truthful.
"It certainly sounded like it to me."
Velda looked to Dervlinne for support, but it was clear that she had
lost track of the conversation some time before.
Seeing that his audience was running low on retorts to offer, Pickle
decided to press home the point. "Mortal friends," he explained, "do
good turns for one another simply because they are friends, not
necessarily because there is an imbalance of favours."
"I still don't understand."
This did not surprise Pickle at all, but still he persisted. "In
human circles, a great man can do a hundred favours for a humble man.
The humble man does him but one in return. An injustice we would think,
yes?"
"Indisputably," answered Velda firmly.
"And yet," continued Pickle, "because they are friends, the next time
the humble man is in need, the great man will help him again, for he
feels he will owe the humble man his favour."
Now Velda had lost track too. Her eyes were wide with perplexity.
"How can he owe him anything, when he is owed ninety-nine favours?"
"I told you, in human terms this is not about mathematics. It is
possible for two people to owe each other the same thing at the same
time. I've seen it and I understand it."
Velda shrugged. She was clearly too baffled even to remain
interested. "You must be the only one."
Pickle let out another sigh, and this time he did give up. So
exhausted with all the bickering, all the fear and all the stress, he
lay back, rolled onto his side, and was asleep before he'd let out his
next breath.
* * *
At nightfall on the battlements above Knightmare Castle, it was
Raptor's turn on guard. He had been nervous before - after all, the
plagued corpse was less than fifty feet from him. But all he had to do
was make sure that Treguard couldn't escape from the keep, which
appeared impossible as long as the door was kept sealed, which he and
his other sentries had done without difficulty. As long as they didn't
have to go inside there would surely be no problem.
What was starting to nag at Raptor was that they'd surely have to go
inside at some point to make sure that Treguard had in fact died. Lord
Fear (whom Raptor noticed was still refusing to come anywhere within
fifty yards of the castle itself - was it any wonder everyone's
confidence of avoiding infection was so low when their leader was being
so trippy?) was sure that he would be able to detect the moment when
Treguard finally expired, but, and this was the other thing that was
making for a lot of unease among the Opposition goons, that moment
seemed to be an awfully long time in coming. It suggested that either
Treguard was a lot more resilient than they'd imagined, or more likely,
Fear's detection sorcery wasn't working and they would eventually have
to go in to make sure.
Raptor leaned on the battlements and gazed out across the haunting
twilight landscape of hills and valleys. It was truly bewitching this
region of the north, so full of colour and yet so overwhelming in its
shape and towering scale. At heart, Raptor was not a sentimental man by
any stretch of the imagination, but even he had to bow to the
unsuffocating beauty of this place. He truly hoped that the Opposition
would be able to claim the castle after the plague had passed, just so
that he could come up here when he was off-duty and gaze out across the
landscape.
Ah such a pleasant dream to cling to.
* * *
Hordriss let out a colourful curse under his breath. The elves in the
hut with him looked up at him in some alarm - they hadn't heard such
Latin slang used since the fifth century, when they'd spied on Mordred
taking a pee in the river and getting attacked by a stray otter that
sank its teeth deep into his...
"What is it?" demanded Arawn, judging correctly that now was not the
time to get sidetracked with amusing reminiscences.
Hordriss looked up from the tome he was consulting and fixed Arawn
with a serious look. "The plague," he muttered voicelessly, "one
believes one has identified it."
Arawn paused, drawing a deep breath. "For once, Confuser, you don't
happen to be boring me. Keep talking."
"It is not quite as we thought, Elf-King," explained Hordriss. "And
it will make it doubly difficult for us to create an antidote if your
scouts don't find the source."
"Why?"
"Because if one's research is accurate," concluded Hordriss, "the
disease is not a naturally-occurring phenomenon. It is an ancient and
deadly weapon."
* * *
The tread of Dervlinne's feet on the ground next to Pickle's left ear
was enough to stir him from his sleep. He sat up sharply and looked
around in some alarm as he realised that it was now some time after
sunset.
"How long did I sleep?" he cried.
"Three hours," answered Dervlinne.
"Three..." Pickle almost choked. "You let me sleep for three hours?"
"You needed rest, we all did," called Velda from off to one side
where she was reloading her knapsack. "We are now ready to set off
again though."
Pickle sprang to his feet in a hurry. "We should have set off at
least an hour ago..."
"Maybe," grunted Dervlinne, still looking confused, "but we didn't.
So instead of complaining about it, we should move now."
Pickle hurriedly gathered his own knapsack from where he'd left it,
paused to find his bearings, and resumed his march along the gorge. The
two female elves glanced at each other wearily, and started to traipse
after him.
Ten minutes of walking rather more quickly than was altogether
comfortable led them to a point in the hill side with a path leading up
to high ground. Dervlinne suggested that they should climb the path so
that they could get a clearer idea of their position. Pickle accepted
reluctantly, and Velda quickly skipped up the hillside. When she
reached the apex, she surveyed the territory around them and then
blinked in surprise.
"Pickle," she called down.
"What is it?"
"There's a human edifice not far north from our position. Should we
investigate?"
Pickle and Dervlinne glanced at each other and exchanged nods. "Yes,"
Pickle called back up to Velda, "I would say it's as good a place to
start as any."
* * *
The 'edifice' to which Velda had referred was a low keep at the peak
of a nearby hill. It was very square and blockish in shape, a
traditional early Anglo-Norman design - built more for strength than
practicality in battle.
There was no moat or outer wall surrounding the keep, in fact it
didn't appear to resemble a stronghold very much at all, more a rather
grand and intimidating mansion house. This might not have been a
problem if the keep had been decorative, but in truth the rough stone
walls were of a grey that was aesthetically unpleasing.
There was a heavyset oak door in the front wall, doubtless barred and
bolted from the inside, and supported by iron struts along its full
length. It was the most eloquent way of saying, "No entry!" without the
employment of either written language or gunpowder.
"Shall I knock?" asked Dervlinne.
"No need," came a young voice from the other side of the door.
The elves looked startled and instinctively adopted defensive
crouches, while from the door there was the sound of keys turning in
locks and bolts being slid to one side. Then the door swung open with a
whine like a thousand hungry bloodhounds. Framed in the doorway was a
young gentleman of modest build and fair hair. His open expression and
handsome features were, to Pickle's mind, reminiscent of many Norman
aristocrats. But the lack of arrogance in his demeanour and his almost
innocent expression was entirely at odds with this.
Dervlinne looked unimpressed by the figure, while Velda blinked at
him in surprise. Not that she would ever admit it, but she had never
been slow to appreciate a handsome mortal face, and she clearly found
this mortal's face pleasing enough.
The man took in the image of three elves standing on his doorstep
while offering them a nervous, shy smile. "It's not often I have
visitors," he rather squeaked, "not since they moved the main trade
track down into the Gorge itself."
"You don't seem surprised to see us," noted Dervlinne, "for someone
who doesn't have many visitors."
"Oh I'm surprised," the young man replied, "especially as they appear
to be not entirely, er... human."
"That is a fine compliment," nodded Velda.
The man looked at her closely, and his expression seemed to soften
still further. It was clear that he appreciated too. "Oh where are my
manners?" he said with a start. "Do come in. My name is Baits,
incidentally, I own these lands. May I know your names...?"
The castle's interior proved to be a fine example of English
understatement, and thus all terribly un-Norman. The rooms were modest
in size, and cautious in decoration, like a troll walking around with a
hunch out of shyness.
Bait himself was inquisitive in that way that shy people always are
- quiet and withdrawn at first, but once he started talking he
couldn't shut up.
He was nattering away eagerly as he showed them into the main
audience chamber of his home, where they all seated themselves on
simple but comfortable cushioned chairs.
"Please make yourselves at home... I'm so glad to hear that someone's
finally decided to grab the nettle with this awful plague... nobody
else seems to be prepared even to investigate, let alone try to find a
cure, and I mean I know there's very little hope, but that's better
than no hope, which is what we'll have if people just keep covering
their ears and pretending nothing's happening, and I mean surely
someone's got take responsibility, right? Not for the plague itself
obviously, I mean nobody can be blamed for that I don't think, bad
things happen sometimes, it's just life, isn't it? But I mean the well-
being of the country is a responsibility isn't it? And that means that
those in authority have to start accepting the responsibility of
finding a way to keep the plague from spreading any further, don't you
agree? Well don't you?"
"Er..." began Pickle.
"I thought you would," beamed Baits. "Anyway, would you dear people
like to have dinner with me? It's not much... only sandwiches and
milk... but you're welcome to share it. I..." At this point a strange
expression trundled across his face and succeeded in doing something
nothing else present had so far been able to achieve - it made him
stop speaking.
"Is something wrong?" asked Pickle politely.
Baits suddenly turned and headed out of the room, calling over his
shoulder, "I'll be back very shortly. I just have to check on my
mother, as she's unwell at the moment. Help yourselves to food..."
And like that he was gone. Pickle and Dervlinne looked puzzled, while
Velda looked disappointed.
"My greatest ambition in life," sniffed Dervlinne, "is to meet a
mortal who can make sense. My quest goes on."
"It is good news that he has left the room in fact," murmured Pickle
softly.
"Why, don't you like him?"
"Likes and dislikes do not enter into the matter," said Pickle.
"He means he doesn't," noted Velda. "Baits is young, intelligent and
brave, so Pickle has three good reasons to be jealous."
"We need to search every possible location in the area for a source
of the plague," Pickle pointed out, refusing to be sidetracked by
personal abuse , "and most homeowners tend to be unco-operative about
having their property defiled."
"Are you suggesting," gasped Velda, sounding quite affronted, "that
we search the mortal's dwellings... without his permission?!"
"Oh yes," nodded Pickle.
Velda considered this. "All right."
* * *
Dervlinne took the top floor, Pickle the ground floor, Velda the
lower levels. They moved with all the silence and stealth of their
people, all the while wondering what the devil it was they were
searching for.
Pickle was stubbornly putting off the obvious conclusion that the
hunt here was pointless. After all, if the plague had originated in
this castle, surely Baits would have died ages ago. Wouldn't he?
Dervlinne was also wondering why they were bothering, but that was
simply because she had been wondering that from the word go. She had
such a loathing for mortal affairs. The small detail that the plague
was not just a mortal affair but had long since drawn in the elfin
population of England, she somehow managed to overlook.
Velda had found her way down a staircase into a long, ill-lit
corridor that appeared to go nowhere in a hurry. She also wasn't sure
what the point of being here was, but she was happy enough to stay for
now. She found Baits to be rather pleasing company for a human, and
certainly not the sort she was in a hurry to be parted from, which was
unusual for her but not unheard of.
She passed a door that had the words "Do Not Enter" scrawled on it in
white chalk. Never one to resist such a glaring invitation, she gently
turned the handle and pushed forward. The door swung inwards easily
with little noise and she stepped inside.
Within the room she found... very little. It was almost empty apart
from a thin haze in the air that seemed to emanate from a small marble
fountain in one corner of the room, from which a steady stream of water
flowed easily from the ceiling to the floor, where it ran down a narrow
groove to a drain in the other corner of the room.
And that was about it. It was, in truth, quite dull to look upon but
for some reason Velda found herself rather captivated by some simple
charm she apparently could see in the fountain. In fact, the longer she
stared at it, and the more she heard the mesmerising rush of water, the
less she wanted to leave the room.
She had always taken a secret joy in water. When Arawn had posted her
to guard the Vale of Vanburn some years earlier, she had been quietly
delighted, for the caverns of the Vale had many small springs of water
that she liked to drink and sprinkle over her fevered brow in those
uneventful moments when her duties grew tiresome.
Listening to the gentle lilt of the waters as they streamed from the
fountain, she was reminded of the Vale. She smiled to herself oddly and
walked forward toward the fountain and, tentatively, ran her hand under
the stream. She took a taste of the waters that pooled in her cupped
hand, and her smile broadened. They tasted... golden. She tasted them
again, and then again. Then she tilted her head back and laughed a slow
laugh. Then she stepped under the stream and allowed the golden waters
to rush over her, to cleanse her and revive her.
She had been walking for days on end after all, and she wanted to be
clean for a while. Nothing wrong with that surely...
She slowly ran the water all over herself, over her face, down her
neck, through her hair. She undid her jerkin and threw it aside so that
she could let the water run over the rest of her skin. How better to
wash away any plague germs, she reasoned. All the while her eyes
remained closed, which was unfortunate really. Because if they hadn't
been, she would have realised that there was now someone in the room
with her.
* * *
Velda had never been good at hiding her nervousness. She was quite
capable of panic and at times of panic she was also capable of
violence. For her to be confronted with a mortal male staring at her
with undisguised lust when she was in a state of partial undress took
her to a point some way beyond panic.
When she turned and saw Baits was standing there, the desire burning
in his eyes, she gave a slight shriek and assumed a crouch, trying to
defend her position while also trying to preserve her own modesty with
her arms.
Baits took a step toward her, and Velda immediately found herself
forgetting any previous attraction she'd felt towards him. She shrank
even further from him. She glanced about herself and saw, to her self-
disgust, that she had dropped her knife when she'd thrown aside her
jerkin.
She tried to make a move toward the weapon, but as soon as she tensed
her muscles she felt a strange dizzy sensation rushing through every
fibre of her body. She put a hand to her head and tottered for a
moment.
"I see you like my spring water," noted Baits, who was speaking with
his usual mildness, but it was now tipped with an unmistakeable edge of
arrogance.
"Sp-spring water?"
"Most fun a mortal can have, that stuff," sniffed Baits, gesturing to
the water stream, "with his clothes on and without getting a headache
in the morning. Unfortunately," he added, looking amused, "it does give
headaches to other species. And as for keeping your clothes on..." He
paused and eyed Velda's exposed body hungrily, "well, that was your
call I suppose."
Baits walked over and grabbed Velda by the wrist. She responded with
a typical defensive growl, but somehow it didn't seem nearly as loud or
fierce as it normally would, and as she tried to lash out, she found
the strength in her arms failing her.
"Don't bother," whispered Baits into her ear, "there's enough
sedative in your system to fell a pack of wolves. It makes you..." He
licked his drooling lips, "...very, very suggestible."
Velda swallowed weakly, finding she could scarcely lift a finger
against him. She uttered a pained moan of defiance and violation as she
felt his hungry lips running over her throat and his clammy hands
groping unceremoniously over her exposed skin, but she could muster no
more resistance than that.
* * *
Pickle and Dervlinne had both concluded quite quickly that they were
going to find nothing of importance, and not wanting to risk attracting
the hostility of the castle's inhabitants, they decided to return to
the audience chamber.
When they got there, they found that neither Velda nor Baits had
returned.
"Contemptible commoner," sniffed Dervlinne. "I knew all along she'd
be nothing but a liability. I'd better go and find her before Baits
catches her looking where she shou-..."
"Yes you should," agreed Pickle hurriedly. "Go on."
Again Dervlinne bristled. Her status as a princess had ended
centuries earlier when their father had been overthrown by Arawn as
King of Elvenhame, but even so, she was not used to being interrupted,
and it seemed to be happening an awful lot on this quest. Nonetheless,
she offered no complaint but headed off in search of Velda.
* * *
Baits had Velda in his power, and it was power that he wanted more
than anything else. That was the true value for him.
For the first time, Velda thought she understood why some mortals
felt the desire to take their own lives. How could anyone live with the
invasion, the humiliation, the...
"N-no!" she managed to stammer with just a little force.
But words were not going to offer any defence.
Then the door swung open behind Baits. He turned from Velda and saw
the lithe figure of Dervlinne standing over him, gaping in disbelief at
the sight ahead of her.
"Velda!" she cried. "Have you no decency at all?" She shook her head
in disgust. "I knew you'd taken a fancy to this germ, but in all the
worlds I'd never imagine you'd stoop so low as to bond with a mortal!
You must be..."
"H-help..." Velda managed to whimper.
"Quiet!" growled Baits, striking Velda hard across the cheek with the
back of his hand.
Dervlinne still hadn't quite put two-and-two together, but her elfin
blood was outraged at the sight of one of these germs a mere mortal,
daring to raise its unworthy hand to a maiden elf.
"Why you miserable little ape!" she cried and leapt at Baits without
thinking.
She may not have appeared that dangerous, but she was an elf, and she
was not only very lithe and agile, she was also far stronger than she
seemed. Baits was hurled backwards away from Velda by the force of the
collision. Dervlinne and Baits crashed into the floor together, where
he managed to wriggle free of her grip enough to find and scoop up the
knife from where Velda had left it.
Dervlinne didn't notice that her opponent was now armed, and leapt at
him again, just as Baits raised the knife in her direction. The force
of the impact between them bowled them both to the floor again... where
they both froze in their violent embrace, staring into each other's
eyes, both looking shocked.
Then the blood began to trickle free and to pool on the floor... and
it was green blood, not red. Dervlinne's grip on Baits' arms loosened,
and she slowly slid off him onto the floor with a last, strangled gasp
for air.
Velda let out another soft moan of anxiety as she saw Dervlinne fall.
She then heard another, much louder moan and looked up to see Pickle
stood framed in the doorway, his eyes fixed on his sister in horror.
* * *
Standing on the hillside beneath Dunshelm, Lord Fear smiled to
himself, and then turned to his henchman, who was sipping a cup of warm
grog against the harsh cold of the night.
"Skarkill, dear chap?"
"Fearship?"
"A correction to the conversation we had some days a go - when you
said power was the third possible motive for murder, you were wrong."
Skarkill looked nonplussed at this. He was quite used to Fear telling
him he was wrong, so he just shrugged and turned his attention back to
his grog.
Fear continued anyway. "Even there, the motivation to kill is still
only sex or money. Or rather sex and money. Because," he added with his
most sickening smile, "that's what power is all about."
To be continued...
EPISODE 2
"Murder is a terrible thing," mused Fear, rubbing his jaw while
unable to keep the grin off his face. "You'd wonder what drives mankind
to such lengths."
"Mankind, y'Fearship?" grunted Skarkill. "What's that got to do with
anything?"
"With me? Nothing." Fear's voice was almost overflowing with gloat.
"I ask out of curiosity, not relevance."
Skarkill nodded. In truth, he had never been entirely sure what
species his master was supposed to be, and it hadn't exactly been an
issue he was in a hurry to pursue. So he returned to the original
subject - murder, which was one matter of debate that neither he nor
Fear ever tired of. "Well, what does it usually involve?"
"Sex or money," spat Fear flatly.
"Really?" Skarkill pondered this as they stared up at the battlements
of Knightmare Castle. He'd killed a few times in his life, and he had
no memory of physical fulfilment ever being a motivation for him. Mind
you, killing was part of his job, so the motivation could have been
money. "Not anger then?" he suggested.
"That's about someone not getting enough sex," Fear pointed out, "or
someone else having too much money. And it's the same with jealousy
before you suggest it."
"What about straightforward, honest-to-badness, all-out hatred?"
asked Skarkill, who couldn't resist adding, "Luvly," and licking his
lips.
"That's a fear of sex," explained Fear, "and a lack of money."
Skarkill blinked. "Okay. And how about..." He shivered slightly,
"uurrgghh... love? Isn't that something people kill for?"
"No such thing, dear fellow," scoffed Fear. "It's still just sex."
Skarkill nodded. "There's always power too."
Fear stopped in his tracks and looked at Skarkill with a devilish
toothy grin. "You know, Skarks, old boy," he said darkly, "you're quite
right. There's always power."
* * *
Power was at stake, and so lives were at stake as well. The lives in
question were those of Treguard and Majida. They were both stood at the
top of a staircase with a door ahead of them that was barred closed
from the outside. Behind and beneath them lay the dungeon antechamber
through the door at the foot of the staircase. There was nowhere else
to go, which was a problem, because there was a rotting corpse in the
doorway of the antechamber... the corpse of a plague victim.
Strictly speaking, it wouldn't exactly be murder if they were to die
like this, but germ warfare. That made it no less murderous.
Treguard and Majida were huddled at the very top of the steps, making
futile gestures to try to distance themselves from the body below, like
leaning backwards against the door and jostling shoulder-to-shoulder.
"Thees reedeeculous!" cried Majida all of a sudden. "We no gon'
escape like dees!"
"No," agreed Treguard, the sarcasm gushing off his tongue like a
torrent of phlegm, "let's head for the front door." He made a polite
gesture. "Ladies first."
Majida rolled her eyes. "You never think I 'lady'," she pointed out.
"Big, strong Dungeon Master can go first."
"Let's not have an argument now," suggested Treguard, noting to
himself that even after all these years, sarcasm was still wasted on
this particular genie.
"Why not?" demanded Majida. "Nothing else we can do when we stuck
here." She thought about this. "Well, maybe one or two other things,"
she admitted, "but with you that be necrophilia."
Treguard was so impressed that Majida had managed to pronounce the
word correctly, he managed to miss the insult entirely. "Where did you
learn that word?"
Majida shrugged. "Merlin's library still exist. I go there to read
sometimes."
Treguard boggled. "What book would there be in Merlin's library that
would discuss the subject of sleeping with the dead?"
Treguard realised straight away that he didn't want to know the
answer to that question, but it was too late; Majida answered anyway.
"His diary."
This was almost enough to provoke Treguard into spluttering, "What?!"
but he realised just in time that that way lay madness. He just shook
his head. "Just be quiet! We don't need tittle-tattle or gossip about
the departed, we need solutions." He pointed down to the foot of the
staircase. "This is as far as we can get from Eadric's corpse, and it's
very clear that the disease spreads very easily through the air. We
won't have long."
Majida suddenly snapped her fingers. "We need two things."
"Yes," grunted Treguard, "a door leading outside and a door-handle."
"No!" growled Majida, "we need help from outside, and something to
slow spread of disease down."
"All right," nodded Treguard, "and we have access to neither. So
let's start again, with something a little more practi-..."
"Shut up, beard-breath!" snapped Majida with so sharp a suddenness
that Treguard didn't dare to lose his temper at being addressed in such
a manner. "You s'posed to be man of magic. And I am genie..."
"I've already reached my own opinions as to what you are, thank you,"
retorted Treguard. "Now if you don't..."
"Just listen," Majida insisted, to which Treguard fell silent with
just a touch of irritation. "I am genie. I have magic!"
Treguard glanced up at her, the sweat of fear and exasperation
already forming on his brow. Time was running out. For all he knew the
plague was already in the air around them, and Majida seemed to be
thinking that now was the time for delusions of grandeur. "What?"
"Magic!"
"What magic?"
"All genies have some magic," explained Majida. "Just no much."
"What do you mean?"
"Hey, in dees job we grant three wishes, ah?"
"What?" scoffed Treguard. "If I wish out loud that you could make the
plague go away, you'll just snap your fingers and the world will be
saved?"
"No," admitted Majida. "you no release me from lamp. You no get three
wishes."
"I did release you..."
"From bottle, not lamp!" growled Majida impatiently. "For Dungeon
Master, you no know very much about magic do you? You release genie
from magic lamp, you get three wishes. Nothing else count."
Treguard shrugged. "Fine, so what magic have you got then?"
Majida put her hands on her hips sternly. "I already tell you. We
need help from outside. We need to stop disease spreading upstairs."
She snapped her fingers and a vague purple haze surrounded them.
Treguard felt his nose tickle and sting as the thin miasma insinuated
its way inside and he sneezed several times on reflex.
"What is this stuff?" he wheezed as more of the haze got into his
throat.
"Great mystical Hispanic potion," explained Majida, her voice turning
increasingly ethnic and husky. "We call it 'El Poww-dahov Tahl-coom'."
Treguard thought about this. "I see," he nodded, not fooled at all.
"And how exactly is a cloud of pink talcum powder supposed to stop the
disease spreading?"
"It won't," admitted Majida, "but it might slow it down, ya?"
"Fine, I'll pretend I believe that," sneered Treguard. "Then what?"
"Last bit of magic," shrugged Majida, and snapped her fingers again.
A tiny ball of white energy emerged right in front of Treguard's face,
with thin tails of wispy power emanating from it. "We need help, you
call for it. Hurry up!"
Treguard looked blankly into the ball of light. "What do you mean
'call'?
"I no have any magic left, Treguard!" protested Majida desperately.
"Hurry up and speak into this before it too late."
"Call whom?" asked Treguard reasonably.
"Anyone!" cried Majida. "Hurry!"
Treguard looked into the ball of light and shrugged. What did he have
to lose? "Hordriss!" he called urgently. "Hordriss, can you hear me?"
* * *
The shivers suggested that the man was cold, but the sweat that ran
through his face, his grotty beard and over the clammy expanse of his
neck and torso would have suggested that he was burning up inside.
And paradoxically, both states of being were true about Sylvester
Hands, for he was dying. The surface of his skin would have burned to
the touch - were there a person alive who felt the inclination to
make contact with him - but beneath the surface a consuming chill
pervaded his very bones.
He lay sprawled in a miserable heap on the side of a road, where he'd
been dumped callously by his 'friends' after they'd realised that he
had contracted the plague.
Every so often he would wake. And that was very cruel on him.
"L-Lordsh-ship..." he stammered in his delirium. "Lordship... don't
leave me 'ere... don't let me 'urt like this..." He whimpered
miserably. "Please... pleeeease....!" And then there would be merciful
silence.
* * *
"One comprehends of course, Dungeon Master," nodded Hordriss with a
typically graceful bow of the head. "The bitter tidings of this hideous
plague were never likely to be slow in reaching one's ears."
The image of Treguard in the mirror was beginning to fade and become
obscure.
"We haven't got long, Hordriss," hissed the Dungeon Master. "We've
resorted to clouding the air between us and the corpse in the hope of
barring the plague from reaching us, but it won't buy us much time."
"Indeed not," Hordriss concurred, "and I fear that from my present
position I will not be able to lift yourself, Majida, or any other
occupants in the Castle by sorcerous means."
"I feared you'd say that."
"In any case," continued Hordriss, "it stands to reason that Lord
Fear would have anticipated such a move on one's part. He doubtless
will have some counter-spells in place to prevent one's direct
intervention."
Treguard nodded. "What can you do?"
Hordriss stayed calm. "You have friends beyond the walls of your
fortress, Dungeon Master," he explained. "I will contact them for you,
and arrange their involvement."
"Thank you," said Treguard, breathing out heavily as the strain of
death's proximity began to take its toll on his nerve. "Please get them
to hurry, Hordriss, whoever you contact."
Hordriss smiled slightly, in a way that Treguard wasn't sure he
liked. "Maintain your calm and dignity, Treguard," he instructed
casually. "One has the matter well in hand."
"Yes, but I'd feel better if you moved the hand with the matter in it
a little more qu-..."
Suddenly the image of Treguard's face in the mirror faded and
vanished into a cloud of pearl white. Hordriss turned from the mirror.
"Patience is a virtue, Dungeon Master. All good things come to those
who wait... including survival. There seems but one obvious place to
look to for the assistance we require."
* * *
Anwin Wood was not as Hordriss remembered it from his only previous
visit. It seemed colder and emptier somehow. Not that it had exactly
been a landscape of bustle and activity previously, but there was
undoubtedly a sense that there was something missing now. Or perhaps
someone.
Yes, that was it. The elves were never quick to draw attention to
themselves, but now they weren't just hiding from the eyes of men with
souls... many must have fled in terror. That was not good news for
Hordriss.
"Revelante, Arawn," he growled in his croaking, gravelly voice. "Elf-
King, show yourself to me now."
"You druids," came a scornful voice from behind Hordriss, "always
presuming to summon me... Your boldness is admirable enough to kill,
Confuser."
Hordriss turned to see the tall, lithe figure draped in green and
gold robes, the pale face twisted into a resentful jeer, his sword
unsheathed on the silken belt at his waist. The sparkling, untarnished
diadem of his Kingship was perched proudly on his brow. Most of the
face was as youthful as any mortal child's, and yet the sparkling eyes
told the tales of centuries beyond counting in a single glance.
"Perhaps," sneered Hordriss, never one to be intimidated by a back-
handed compliment, "and yet you still answered."
Arawn did not move in the slightest, and yet there still seemed to be
an air of him somehow retreating from Hordriss slightly, as though such
a blunt statement of the obvious had somehow frightened him. And why
not? It was a point of arrogant elfin pride to believe in the
inferiority of mortal men, and so to have it pointed out so flatly to
no less a figure than the Elf-King that he'd had to answer the summons
of a mere druid must have wounded him very deeply.
"State your business, druid," suggested Arawn.
"One is a warlock," retorted Hordriss defiantly. Time may have been
in short supply, but there was still enough for his ego to receive due
attendance, "druidism is a relative term."
"Whatever," shrugged Arawn, a mannerism that Hordriss found almost
disconcertingly mortal, "like your druidic ancestors you presume too
much in my realm."
"Your realm may soon be in tatters, Arawn," said Hordriss, "the end
of thousands of years of your rule."
"I will survive forever, warlock!" spat Arawn with what appeared to
be fierce confidence, but the agitated movements of his eyes showed
otherwise.
"You, perhaps," conceded Hordriss, less than convinced, "but your
people cannot. Admit it, O King, they are already dying in their
dozens. You may live on to rule the greenwood for another millennium,
but what will that mean when you have no subjects to rule?"
"It would not be an issue," hissed Arawn, "were it not for the
unseemliness of your mortal ways..."
"Again, that may even be true," said Hordriss, who knew very well
that it was not, "but does that change the nature of your current
needs? You must accept that it does not matter whose fault it is. The
survival of your entire race will be in the balance, no matter who must
accept responsibility for the plague's emergence."
Arawn did not answer this time, a stubborn confirmation to Hordriss
that the Elf-King knew that he was right.
"So," continued the Confuser, "perhaps you would care to discuss with
one what we are to do in our mutual interest of preventing the plague
from spreading any further?"
Arawn seemed to swallow slightly, as though the pain of accepting
that he needed help from a mere mortal was overwhelming him - which
it was of course. "Talk, warlock."
Hordriss drew in a deep breath. "You and I must investigate this
disease under conditions that protect ourselves from its fearsome
miasma. In order to do that, however, I believe we must trace it back
to its source."
Arawn considered. "You wish the aid of the elves to trace the source
of the plague then. Very well, I shall accede to this. But no more than
that."
"Any more may not be necessary," answered Hordriss.
"Good," nodded Arawn stiffly, "we shall send out my agents to search
and investigate." He hesitated from undermining his own authority any
further than he already had done, but then asked, "Do you have any
recommendations as to whom I should send?"
"Pickle, Velda and Dervlinne have all had past dealings with
Dunshelm," said Hordriss, "and Dunshelm is one of the places I am
endeavouring to protect. Do they still live?"
"They do."
"Then I recommend you send them, as their motivations will be less
indifferent."
Arawn hesitated once again, but then bowed his head very briefly. "So
be it."
* * *
Time. Such a baffling and unknowable quality, and yet one that
affects everyone and everything more completely than any other in all
the many planes of reality.
To Treguard it had been an even more enormous factor than ever in
recent times. It had been the very meaning of the Chronosphere that
Lord Fear had used to try and destroy him, and then it had been the
lifeblood of the dungeon's revival.
And now it was running out. He and Majida remained huddled at the top
of the steps, watching the torches on the walls above them flickering
ineffectually as they burned low. They wondered just how much time they
had left, but it could be a cruel master, and it was quite happy to
deprive people of any warning before it withdrew its tender mercies
from them.
"Treguard?"
Treguard was shaken from his reverie by an unusually timid and
squeaky voice emanating from between Majida's lips.
"What is it?"
"I... I scared, Treguard," said the genie, her voice trembling very
slightly.
Treguard blinked at her in astonishment. He had seen her scared
before. He had seen her panicky, he had seen her rattled, he had seen
her jittery and unsettled... but he had never heard her admit any such
things to him before. To his surprise, he found himself smiling at her,
sympathetically of course (which was something of a surprise in
itself). He put an arm round her and let her rest her exhausted head on
his shoulder. "So am I, Majida," admitted Treguard with such a softness
of tone that she had to strain to hear him. "We know this disease. We
know it's here. We know it's around us. We know what it can do, and we
know it could take us any time." He suppressed a shudder. "I don't
think I've ever been so scared in my life."
* * *
Time. What was it exactly? Hands didn't know, indeed he was now quite
unaware of its passage, let alone its nature. Several days had passed
since his body had been dumped by a roadside. He was starved,
dehydrated, and ill. People who passed him immediately turned and ran
in dread, knowing that he must have been one of the countless plague
victims, and that any contact would surely mean death for them.
But...
He was not dead. Not yet.
* * *
Pickle paused where he was, looked right, looked left, then resumed
walking. He was sure that he could actually hear the germs of the
plague as they scurried in and out of every tangled bundle of roots and
between every blade of grass.
It had been nine days since he had departed from Anwin Wood with
Velda and Dervlinne, and in that time the plague had accelerated and
now seemed to be everywhere in the land. In every village, every town,
every borough, the dead bodies were accumulating, and it was as if
there was no escape when the very air seemed to be against everyone. As
a result Pickle was even more jumpy and hyperactive than usual.
Walking a few steps ahead of him was his younger sister, Dervlinne.
Tall and lithe, fair of hair and disdainful of manner, her haughtiness
both infuriated and fascinated mortals in equal measure, especially the
very few men who had ever met her, even ones who were old enough to
know better.
Walking beside her was the hunter maiden, Velda. Her raven hair, her
sceptical, unfriendly eyes and her fierce lips were perhaps enough in
themselves to scare any plague germs from trying to infect her.
Unlikely as that was, she still effected the hostile manner, probably
to reassure herself more than anything else.
Dervlinne wrinkled her narrow nose slightly. They were presently
walking over heavy marshes in bright morning sunshine. There was a
stony path less than fifty feet to their left that they could have
followed, and it would have made their progress much easier if they
had, but the path was of mortal construction, and both Dervlinne and
Velda felt an aversion to using such contraptions. Pickle had long
since moved beyond such arrogant prejudices, but decided to indulge his
companions on this occasion as they didn't really have the time to
argue about it.
This was partly because they had already wasted a day on a futile
journey to Wolfenden where for many years now had lurked Dervlinne's
twin sister whose help they had hoped to enlist. But she had refused
rather rudely on grounds of a longstanding dispute with Dervlinne, and
they'd had to resume their search without her.
Perhaps oddly, the most impatient to push on was the one with the
most tenuous links to the Northguard, Dervlinne. She had aided and
served Treguard obediently enough during the recent Chronosphere
crisis, but she had never hidden her resentment of being drawn into the
pettiness of mortal affairs. Perhaps that is what fuels her impatience
now, her brother mused. The sooner the task is done, the sooner she can
end her involvement in mortal ways.
In truth he doubted it however. Little as he wanted to think about
it, he sensed with much pain that Dervlinne was still feeling stung by
the very public rejection by their sister, and was choosing to throw
herself into the present task with as much force as possible to help
keep her mind off the humiliation.
Pickle did feel for her. He had never liked Kulaemii very much, but
she was still family and a feud between two members of any family will
always affect the others, even in among elves.
"We still don't know how long honoured Treguard has left," fumed
Dervlinne as they walked, "but I would suggest there is less time ahead
of us than behind us."
Velda did not answer, and Pickle was feeling too perturbed to offer
an opinion. Just the thought of this plague set his nerves jangling
uncontrollably, and at such times statements exploring the numbingly
obvious were best met with silence - otherwise they would almost
certainly be met with angry words, which were never a very constructive
addition to a conversation.
"We should make more haste," insisted Dervlinne haughtily when she
realised that her previous remark would receive no response.
"And rather less noise," suggested Velda.
Dervlinne bristled a little. As the daughter of another Elf-king she
had a superior manner, and it was never difficult to offend her
dignity. Velda, who had once betrayed Arawn himself to Treguard, had
never been afraid of doing that to Royalty. Also she privately loathed
Dervlinne on a personal level.
Sensing that his sister was about to launch into a pompous tirade,
Pickle quickened his step until he was walking directly between them.
"We should reach the human settlement we seek in the next hour," he
said firmly, "which will be soon enough."
"We do not know that," sniffed Dervlinne.
"I know the Dungeon Master," retorted Pickle with a big brother's
authority, "he will survive."
"But for how long?"
"Long enough for us to find a cure for him!" hissed Pickle,
exasperation bringing him close to losing his temper. "Enough now,
Dervlinne."
Dervlinne pouted slightly. She may have been by far the youngest of
the three elves, but she still liked to imagine herself as the most
important, and to be spoken down to by anyone, even by her older
brother, very much rankled with her. But she remained silent, to
Pickle's and Velda's considerable relief.
They pushed on in silence for the next few hours, soon entering the
Gorge of Bran. The village of Branborough was located on the far reach
of the gorge, and as that was where the plague was supposed to have
broken out from, it seemed the likeliest place to head. Of course the
truth was that this was a powerful disincentive for them as the last
place they wanted to head was the source of an epidemic that had
already claimed thousands of lives among the mortal population alone.
"Is there anywhere in the world," Velda couldn't keep herself from
asking, "I'd less wish to be than here?"
"One," suggested Pickle. "Trapped within the walls of Dunshelm with
the plague closing in on you."
* * *
Within the walls of Dunshelm, Treguard and Majida had long since
given up trying to comfort each other or themselves. They were still
trapped where they had been for the last ten days. Only through vague
crumbs of Majida's magic had they been able to conjure up just enough
morsels of food and water to keep them alive. As it was, both were
still dangerously hungry, thirsty, tired and delirious. Majida's tricks
for damping the plague germs' path toward them were proving
surprisingly effective at least, but she was now almost out of
strength.
The lack of space to move about, the hardness of the stone steps that
they sat or lay upon, and the perpetual inertia were taking as great a
toll on their physical well-being as the deprivations of food.
Inevitably what few conversations they were capable of consisted
entirely of exhausted insults and aggravated scowling. This was little
different to the composition of their entire relationship of the last
eight years of course, but at a time like this it was really damaging.
Treguard's eyes flickered open in response to the sound of music
playing. How long he had been asleep he had no idea at all. He had lost
most sense of time after about the fourth day in the face of the
hardship, the inertia and the numbing monotony. All days and nights
just seemed to blur into each other.
He tried to sit up, but the joints in his waist had long since
refused to co-operate any further until their present fuel needs had
been attended to, and he couldn't attend to them. So he slumped back
onto the hard stone step, and rolled his head weakly to the side to see
the source of the music.
To his exasperation, he saw Majida was sat a couple of steps below
with her back to the wall and her knees tucked under her chin, staring
into the palm of her right hand, where there was a tiny glittering
image of a girl. The girl was dancing in rhythm to the music. Majida
appeared to be crying, which was not a sensible thing to do when she
was dehydrated, but she seemed not to care about anything but what she
was looking at.
"Majida!" croaked Treguard hoarsely. "What the blazes do you think
you're doing?"
"Dying slowly," answered Majida without looking up. She sounded so
distant.
"You're wasting your magic!" Treguard snapped as forcefully as he
could. "Your magic's the only thing that can keep the disease from
reaching us. It's the only thing keeping us from starving, and you're
wasting it... on music?"
Majida's eyes slowly rolled in Treguard's direction. There was a
still a lingering spark of defiance in them, a familiar air of refusal
to accept any rebuke no matter how rational or fair it might have been,
but there was also a bleakness Treguard had never seen there before.
She was hungry, thirsty, and so very, very tired of feeling the icy
fingers of fear working their insidious way up her spine and choking
her throat.
"It make no difference," she murmured. "Hordriss no get here in time.
We no live another night. And if we do, what for?"
"Survival is its own reward, Majida," gasped Treguard, trying to put
a conviction in his voice that his weakened condition would not allow.
Majida's eyes glazed over with a strange kind of exhausted anger. "We
live one more day?" she growled. "So what? It just be like today. Pain,
pain and more pain. I rather use magic on music than food now." She
paused and added, rather unkindly, "I rather die listenin' to music
than you snoring!"
Treguard's face coloured slightly, but then she had always had that
effect on him, and right now he didn't have the energy to lose his
temper. Especially as he happened to agree with her.
He had all but given up hope as well
* * *
It was bad to be ill when there were so many lives counting on your
success, but that pressure was on Hordriss now. He, Arawn, and several
elfin knights had been working for some days studying a sample of blood
taken one of the elves who had died of the plague. It had been a
hazardous business just finding a way to extract the blood without
becoming infected themselves, and since then they had studied
obsessively, all the while trying to ignore the nagging fear that any
of them could go down with the symptoms at a moment's notice.
The symptoms as they understood them appeared to be some kind of
hideous burning sensation under the surface of the skin that would
rapidly spread throughout the body, until every inch of flesh felt to
the sufferer like it was ablaze. Bizarrely, the skin would be cold to
the touch of anyone else who came into contact (who would almost
certainly fall ill themselves within moments). After a while the pain
would be so overwhelming that the sufferer would lose consciousness. As
they slept, the skin would lose its consistency and become discoloured,
first turning a greenish tinge, then grey, than finally pitch black. By
this stage of course, if the victim hadn't already died then they were
about to.
None of them had gone down with those particular symptoms as yet, but
they were all showing signs of frayed nerves and, Hordriss in
particular, a shortage of sleep. But Hordriss knew not to give into
that.
One of Arawn's youngest henchmen - a golden-haired stripling of
barely twelve hundred years - ran into the tree hut they were all
working in, carrying a large leather-bound book under his arm. "The
tome you requested, Confuser," he said, eagerly proffering the book to
Hordriss.
"One's thanks," Hordriss acknowledged, accepting and opening the book
without delay. He started reading feverishly.
"Records of ancient diseases," grunted Arawn with unhelpful
scepticism. "Do you have any idea just how many diseases there have
been in mortal history?"
"No," grunted Hordriss, refusing to look up from his research, "that
is but one of the broader details one is attempting to assess."
"Well I recommend you assess more quickly, warlock."
"I shall," replied Hordriss with impressive coolness, "when you cease
distracting one."
And he read on.
* * *
The gorge was shrouded in the gloom of dusk before the three elves
were even halfway along its stubborn, winding length. The ground
underfoot was harsh, stony and uneven, and in spite of centuries of
toughening against such things, it hurt and scratched their bare feet.
For all the tiring pain and nervous fear however, Pickle's
determination remained undented. He was driven, not just by fear of his
life, but fear for the life of another to whom he still felt a great
bond of loyalty, even though he had long-since left his service.
He might have chosen to return to the service of his liege, but
Pickle was still a Northguard, still one of the Powers-That-Be, and
that the Dungeon Master retained a great demand on his loyalty. That
was no longer with the insistence of the Elf-King, Pickle had recently
come to realise. And he had also realised he no longer cared what the
Elf-King's thoughts were on such matters. It even pleased him.
The other two were flagging some way behind him now. They clearly
wanted to stop and rest, so Pickle found the patience to stand still
and give them time to catch up.
Seeing him stop walking seemed only to motivate the other two to slow
down even further. To Pickle's surprise, he felt a surge of anger
rushing through his green blood. "I thought you were complaining about
us being too slow, Dervlinne!" he snapped. "Move faster!"
Dervlinne was taken aback to be addressed so harshly, but kicked her
heels into gear and hurried up to him. Velda took a little longer as he
rebuke hadn't been addressed to her, but nonetheless she too wasted no
more time.
"We can pause here to rest," suggested Pickle. "If you like."
Dervlinne nodded and slumped to her knees, exhaustion seeming to seep
from every pore of her. Velda made a more dignified attempt to sit
cross-legged on the ground, but she too was unable to hide how jaded
she was feeling. They'd been walking for more than three days now, and
while elves always had considerably more resilience than mortals, there
was still a limit to how far that resilience could stretch.
"Why?" muttered Dervlinne through agonised clenching of teeth.
"Because you are both tired," answered Pickle.
"No!" snorted Dervlinne. "I mean why are you being so... so..." She
couldn't find the right words.
"So forceful?" suggested Pickle. "So driven? So pushy? So unwilling
to be patient?"
Dervlinne turned these suggestions over in her mind for a moment,
then nodded stridently. "Yes."
"So like you in other words," sniffed Velda, taking the words right
out of Pickle's mouth.
Dervlinne looked at Velda defiantly. "Quiet, minion!" she snapped
pompously. "I and Pickle are both of Royal blood..."
"Blood of a Royal family long since overthrown," pointed out Velda,
unimpressed.
"...And," persisted Dervlinne forcefully, "you are nothing more than
a rebel who was given a fortunate pardon by our liege. You answer to
me, you do not insult me..."
"And I am your brother, and your elder," Pickle interjected softly,
"and I agree with Velda. I have been like you all day, and I'm going to
keep being like you all day because people I care about need us to
hurry."
"Care?" Dervlinne blinked. "What do you mean... 'care'?"
Pickle looked at his young sister and sighed. She may have learned
much from fighting alongside Treguard during the battle for the
Chronosphere, but she still had such a very, very long way to go, far
longer than she probably realised, to understand the ways of mortal
men. He had learned so very much during his time at Treguard's side in
Dunshelm, and it was because he had always been willing to learn.
Dervlinne, with her instinctive high-mindedness, seemed to sneer at the
very concept of mortals being worth the bother of learning about.
"You know the price of so much," Pickle noted sadly, "and the value
of so little. I believe that is the mortal definition of cynicism."
"Caring and cynicism?" Dervlinne now looked very confused. "You use
such mortal terminology. I'm beginning to think that you spent too long
with the honoured Dungeon Master - he has warped your reasoning..."
"On the contrary," growled Pickle, his anger setting in again - the
strain of their quest had taken its toll on everyone's tempers, even
his own, "I learned a great deal from Treguard. Some of it most of our
kin would find alien and bizarre. Incomprehensible in fact. But I saw
enough to realise that it is all still true."
"And what did you learn exactly?"
"That loyalty can be a choice, Dervlinne," said Pickle, his lean eyes
full of fire and intensity, a telltale sign of his passion for the
subject. It quite startled Dervlinne, who had rarely seen that in any
non-mortal. "Elves see loyalty as something that should be extracted.
Mortals give their loyalty by choice or not at all. They might submit
through fear instead but that is not loyalty..."
"Such nonsense!" scoffed Dervlinne. "Loyalty is a matter of
obligation, not choice."
"To those without a soul, perhaps," shrugged Pickle, finally sitting
down to rest his weary feet, "but not to them. An obligation can be
fulfilled, but loyalty lives on even after that."
Dervlinne looked utterly confused. "How? Once an obligation is spent,
neither person owes anything to the other and..."
Again Pickle cut her off in mid-sentence. "That's what I learned
though, Dervlinne. The 'obligation' as you call it lives on beyond the
events that embody it. In fact, it's even possible for two people to be
in each other's debt at the same time."
This time it was Velda's turn to snort derisively at what Pickle was
suggesting. "A logical impossibility."
"Not an impossibility," insisted Pickle. "Friendship has a different
definition to their minds, but I find it still makes sense. We never
understand its true nature, our kind, until we learn it from a mortal."
"I do not follow any more than your sister does."
Pickle sighed quietly to himself, and decided that he was too tired
to persuade them of something that they probably couldn't understand
until they saw it in action anyway. He gave up and lay back.
Then he decided he was damned if he was going to give up here and sat
up again.
"Look," he snapped, just getting a little testy, "friendship is not
business to a human. That's the difference between their kind and ours.
It is not about mathematics therefore."
"I never said it was," protested Velda, not sure whether she was
being entirely truthful.
"It certainly sounded like it to me."
Velda looked to Dervlinne for support, but it was clear that she had
lost track of the conversation some time before.
Seeing that his audience was running low on retorts to offer, Pickle
decided to press home the point. "Mortal friends," he explained, "do
good turns for one another simply because they are friends, not
necessarily because there is an imbalance of favours."
"I still don't understand."
This did not surprise Pickle at all, but still he persisted. "In
human circles, a great man can do a hundred favours for a humble man.
The humble man does him but one in return. An injustice we would think,
yes?"
"Indisputably," answered Velda firmly.
"And yet," continued Pickle, "because they are friends, the next time
the humble man is in need, the great man will help him again, for he
feels he will owe the humble man his favour."
Now Velda had lost track too. Her eyes were wide with perplexity.
"How can he owe him anything, when he is owed ninety-nine favours?"
"I told you, in human terms this is not about mathematics. It is
possible for two people to owe each other the same thing at the same
time. I've seen it and I understand it."
Velda shrugged. She was clearly too baffled even to remain
interested. "You must be the only one."
Pickle let out another sigh, and this time he did give up. So
exhausted with all the bickering, all the fear and all the stress, he
lay back, rolled onto his side, and was asleep before he'd let out his
next breath.
* * *
At nightfall on the battlements above Knightmare Castle, it was
Raptor's turn on guard. He had been nervous before - after all, the
plagued corpse was less than fifty feet from him. But all he had to do
was make sure that Treguard couldn't escape from the keep, which
appeared impossible as long as the door was kept sealed, which he and
his other sentries had done without difficulty. As long as they didn't
have to go inside there would surely be no problem.
What was starting to nag at Raptor was that they'd surely have to go
inside at some point to make sure that Treguard had in fact died. Lord
Fear (whom Raptor noticed was still refusing to come anywhere within
fifty yards of the castle itself - was it any wonder everyone's
confidence of avoiding infection was so low when their leader was being
so trippy?) was sure that he would be able to detect the moment when
Treguard finally expired, but, and this was the other thing that was
making for a lot of unease among the Opposition goons, that moment
seemed to be an awfully long time in coming. It suggested that either
Treguard was a lot more resilient than they'd imagined, or more likely,
Fear's detection sorcery wasn't working and they would eventually have
to go in to make sure.
Raptor leaned on the battlements and gazed out across the haunting
twilight landscape of hills and valleys. It was truly bewitching this
region of the north, so full of colour and yet so overwhelming in its
shape and towering scale. At heart, Raptor was not a sentimental man by
any stretch of the imagination, but even he had to bow to the
unsuffocating beauty of this place. He truly hoped that the Opposition
would be able to claim the castle after the plague had passed, just so
that he could come up here when he was off-duty and gaze out across the
landscape.
Ah such a pleasant dream to cling to.
* * *
Hordriss let out a colourful curse under his breath. The elves in the
hut with him looked up at him in some alarm - they hadn't heard such
Latin slang used since the fifth century, when they'd spied on Mordred
taking a pee in the river and getting attacked by a stray otter that
sank its teeth deep into his...
"What is it?" demanded Arawn, judging correctly that now was not the
time to get sidetracked with amusing reminiscences.
Hordriss looked up from the tome he was consulting and fixed Arawn
with a serious look. "The plague," he muttered voicelessly, "one
believes one has identified it."
Arawn paused, drawing a deep breath. "For once, Confuser, you don't
happen to be boring me. Keep talking."
"It is not quite as we thought, Elf-King," explained Hordriss. "And
it will make it doubly difficult for us to create an antidote if your
scouts don't find the source."
"Why?"
"Because if one's research is accurate," concluded Hordriss, "the
disease is not a naturally-occurring phenomenon. It is an ancient and
deadly weapon."
* * *
The tread of Dervlinne's feet on the ground next to Pickle's left ear
was enough to stir him from his sleep. He sat up sharply and looked
around in some alarm as he realised that it was now some time after
sunset.
"How long did I sleep?" he cried.
"Three hours," answered Dervlinne.
"Three..." Pickle almost choked. "You let me sleep for three hours?"
"You needed rest, we all did," called Velda from off to one side
where she was reloading her knapsack. "We are now ready to set off
again though."
Pickle sprang to his feet in a hurry. "We should have set off at
least an hour ago..."
"Maybe," grunted Dervlinne, still looking confused, "but we didn't.
So instead of complaining about it, we should move now."
Pickle hurriedly gathered his own knapsack from where he'd left it,
paused to find his bearings, and resumed his march along the gorge. The
two female elves glanced at each other wearily, and started to traipse
after him.
Ten minutes of walking rather more quickly than was altogether
comfortable led them to a point in the hill side with a path leading up
to high ground. Dervlinne suggested that they should climb the path so
that they could get a clearer idea of their position. Pickle accepted
reluctantly, and Velda quickly skipped up the hillside. When she
reached the apex, she surveyed the territory around them and then
blinked in surprise.
"Pickle," she called down.
"What is it?"
"There's a human edifice not far north from our position. Should we
investigate?"
Pickle and Dervlinne glanced at each other and exchanged nods. "Yes,"
Pickle called back up to Velda, "I would say it's as good a place to
start as any."
* * *
The 'edifice' to which Velda had referred was a low keep at the peak
of a nearby hill. It was very square and blockish in shape, a
traditional early Anglo-Norman design - built more for strength than
practicality in battle.
There was no moat or outer wall surrounding the keep, in fact it
didn't appear to resemble a stronghold very much at all, more a rather
grand and intimidating mansion house. This might not have been a
problem if the keep had been decorative, but in truth the rough stone
walls were of a grey that was aesthetically unpleasing.
There was a heavyset oak door in the front wall, doubtless barred and
bolted from the inside, and supported by iron struts along its full
length. It was the most eloquent way of saying, "No entry!" without the
employment of either written language or gunpowder.
"Shall I knock?" asked Dervlinne.
"No need," came a young voice from the other side of the door.
The elves looked startled and instinctively adopted defensive
crouches, while from the door there was the sound of keys turning in
locks and bolts being slid to one side. Then the door swung open with a
whine like a thousand hungry bloodhounds. Framed in the doorway was a
young gentleman of modest build and fair hair. His open expression and
handsome features were, to Pickle's mind, reminiscent of many Norman
aristocrats. But the lack of arrogance in his demeanour and his almost
innocent expression was entirely at odds with this.
Dervlinne looked unimpressed by the figure, while Velda blinked at
him in surprise. Not that she would ever admit it, but she had never
been slow to appreciate a handsome mortal face, and she clearly found
this mortal's face pleasing enough.
The man took in the image of three elves standing on his doorstep
while offering them a nervous, shy smile. "It's not often I have
visitors," he rather squeaked, "not since they moved the main trade
track down into the Gorge itself."
"You don't seem surprised to see us," noted Dervlinne, "for someone
who doesn't have many visitors."
"Oh I'm surprised," the young man replied, "especially as they appear
to be not entirely, er... human."
"That is a fine compliment," nodded Velda.
The man looked at her closely, and his expression seemed to soften
still further. It was clear that he appreciated too. "Oh where are my
manners?" he said with a start. "Do come in. My name is Baits,
incidentally, I own these lands. May I know your names...?"
The castle's interior proved to be a fine example of English
understatement, and thus all terribly un-Norman. The rooms were modest
in size, and cautious in decoration, like a troll walking around with a
hunch out of shyness.
Bait himself was inquisitive in that way that shy people always are
- quiet and withdrawn at first, but once he started talking he
couldn't shut up.
He was nattering away eagerly as he showed them into the main
audience chamber of his home, where they all seated themselves on
simple but comfortable cushioned chairs.
"Please make yourselves at home... I'm so glad to hear that someone's
finally decided to grab the nettle with this awful plague... nobody
else seems to be prepared even to investigate, let alone try to find a
cure, and I mean I know there's very little hope, but that's better
than no hope, which is what we'll have if people just keep covering
their ears and pretending nothing's happening, and I mean surely
someone's got take responsibility, right? Not for the plague itself
obviously, I mean nobody can be blamed for that I don't think, bad
things happen sometimes, it's just life, isn't it? But I mean the well-
being of the country is a responsibility isn't it? And that means that
those in authority have to start accepting the responsibility of
finding a way to keep the plague from spreading any further, don't you
agree? Well don't you?"
"Er..." began Pickle.
"I thought you would," beamed Baits. "Anyway, would you dear people
like to have dinner with me? It's not much... only sandwiches and
milk... but you're welcome to share it. I..." At this point a strange
expression trundled across his face and succeeded in doing something
nothing else present had so far been able to achieve - it made him
stop speaking.
"Is something wrong?" asked Pickle politely.
Baits suddenly turned and headed out of the room, calling over his
shoulder, "I'll be back very shortly. I just have to check on my
mother, as she's unwell at the moment. Help yourselves to food..."
And like that he was gone. Pickle and Dervlinne looked puzzled, while
Velda looked disappointed.
"My greatest ambition in life," sniffed Dervlinne, "is to meet a
mortal who can make sense. My quest goes on."
"It is good news that he has left the room in fact," murmured Pickle
softly.
"Why, don't you like him?"
"Likes and dislikes do not enter into the matter," said Pickle.
"He means he doesn't," noted Velda. "Baits is young, intelligent and
brave, so Pickle has three good reasons to be jealous."
"We need to search every possible location in the area for a source
of the plague," Pickle pointed out, refusing to be sidetracked by
personal abuse , "and most homeowners tend to be unco-operative about
having their property defiled."
"Are you suggesting," gasped Velda, sounding quite affronted, "that
we search the mortal's dwellings... without his permission?!"
"Oh yes," nodded Pickle.
Velda considered this. "All right."
* * *
Dervlinne took the top floor, Pickle the ground floor, Velda the
lower levels. They moved with all the silence and stealth of their
people, all the while wondering what the devil it was they were
searching for.
Pickle was stubbornly putting off the obvious conclusion that the
hunt here was pointless. After all, if the plague had originated in
this castle, surely Baits would have died ages ago. Wouldn't he?
Dervlinne was also wondering why they were bothering, but that was
simply because she had been wondering that from the word go. She had
such a loathing for mortal affairs. The small detail that the plague
was not just a mortal affair but had long since drawn in the elfin
population of England, she somehow managed to overlook.
Velda had found her way down a staircase into a long, ill-lit
corridor that appeared to go nowhere in a hurry. She also wasn't sure
what the point of being here was, but she was happy enough to stay for
now. She found Baits to be rather pleasing company for a human, and
certainly not the sort she was in a hurry to be parted from, which was
unusual for her but not unheard of.
She passed a door that had the words "Do Not Enter" scrawled on it in
white chalk. Never one to resist such a glaring invitation, she gently
turned the handle and pushed forward. The door swung inwards easily
with little noise and she stepped inside.
Within the room she found... very little. It was almost empty apart
from a thin haze in the air that seemed to emanate from a small marble
fountain in one corner of the room, from which a steady stream of water
flowed easily from the ceiling to the floor, where it ran down a narrow
groove to a drain in the other corner of the room.
And that was about it. It was, in truth, quite dull to look upon but
for some reason Velda found herself rather captivated by some simple
charm she apparently could see in the fountain. In fact, the longer she
stared at it, and the more she heard the mesmerising rush of water, the
less she wanted to leave the room.
She had always taken a secret joy in water. When Arawn had posted her
to guard the Vale of Vanburn some years earlier, she had been quietly
delighted, for the caverns of the Vale had many small springs of water
that she liked to drink and sprinkle over her fevered brow in those
uneventful moments when her duties grew tiresome.
Listening to the gentle lilt of the waters as they streamed from the
fountain, she was reminded of the Vale. She smiled to herself oddly and
walked forward toward the fountain and, tentatively, ran her hand under
the stream. She took a taste of the waters that pooled in her cupped
hand, and her smile broadened. They tasted... golden. She tasted them
again, and then again. Then she tilted her head back and laughed a slow
laugh. Then she stepped under the stream and allowed the golden waters
to rush over her, to cleanse her and revive her.
She had been walking for days on end after all, and she wanted to be
clean for a while. Nothing wrong with that surely...
She slowly ran the water all over herself, over her face, down her
neck, through her hair. She undid her jerkin and threw it aside so that
she could let the water run over the rest of her skin. How better to
wash away any plague germs, she reasoned. All the while her eyes
remained closed, which was unfortunate really. Because if they hadn't
been, she would have realised that there was now someone in the room
with her.
* * *
Velda had never been good at hiding her nervousness. She was quite
capable of panic and at times of panic she was also capable of
violence. For her to be confronted with a mortal male staring at her
with undisguised lust when she was in a state of partial undress took
her to a point some way beyond panic.
When she turned and saw Baits was standing there, the desire burning
in his eyes, she gave a slight shriek and assumed a crouch, trying to
defend her position while also trying to preserve her own modesty with
her arms.
Baits took a step toward her, and Velda immediately found herself
forgetting any previous attraction she'd felt towards him. She shrank
even further from him. She glanced about herself and saw, to her self-
disgust, that she had dropped her knife when she'd thrown aside her
jerkin.
She tried to make a move toward the weapon, but as soon as she tensed
her muscles she felt a strange dizzy sensation rushing through every
fibre of her body. She put a hand to her head and tottered for a
moment.
"I see you like my spring water," noted Baits, who was speaking with
his usual mildness, but it was now tipped with an unmistakeable edge of
arrogance.
"Sp-spring water?"
"Most fun a mortal can have, that stuff," sniffed Baits, gesturing to
the water stream, "with his clothes on and without getting a headache
in the morning. Unfortunately," he added, looking amused, "it does give
headaches to other species. And as for keeping your clothes on..." He
paused and eyed Velda's exposed body hungrily, "well, that was your
call I suppose."
Baits walked over and grabbed Velda by the wrist. She responded with
a typical defensive growl, but somehow it didn't seem nearly as loud or
fierce as it normally would, and as she tried to lash out, she found
the strength in her arms failing her.
"Don't bother," whispered Baits into her ear, "there's enough
sedative in your system to fell a pack of wolves. It makes you..." He
licked his drooling lips, "...very, very suggestible."
Velda swallowed weakly, finding she could scarcely lift a finger
against him. She uttered a pained moan of defiance and violation as she
felt his hungry lips running over her throat and his clammy hands
groping unceremoniously over her exposed skin, but she could muster no
more resistance than that.
* * *
Pickle and Dervlinne had both concluded quite quickly that they were
going to find nothing of importance, and not wanting to risk attracting
the hostility of the castle's inhabitants, they decided to return to
the audience chamber.
When they got there, they found that neither Velda nor Baits had
returned.
"Contemptible commoner," sniffed Dervlinne. "I knew all along she'd
be nothing but a liability. I'd better go and find her before Baits
catches her looking where she shou-..."
"Yes you should," agreed Pickle hurriedly. "Go on."
Again Dervlinne bristled. Her status as a princess had ended
centuries earlier when their father had been overthrown by Arawn as
King of Elvenhame, but even so, she was not used to being interrupted,
and it seemed to be happening an awful lot on this quest. Nonetheless,
she offered no complaint but headed off in search of Velda.
* * *
Baits had Velda in his power, and it was power that he wanted more
than anything else. That was the true value for him.
For the first time, Velda thought she understood why some mortals
felt the desire to take their own lives. How could anyone live with the
invasion, the humiliation, the...
"N-no!" she managed to stammer with just a little force.
But words were not going to offer any defence.
Then the door swung open behind Baits. He turned from Velda and saw
the lithe figure of Dervlinne standing over him, gaping in disbelief at
the sight ahead of her.
"Velda!" she cried. "Have you no decency at all?" She shook her head
in disgust. "I knew you'd taken a fancy to this germ, but in all the
worlds I'd never imagine you'd stoop so low as to bond with a mortal!
You must be..."
"H-help..." Velda managed to whimper.
"Quiet!" growled Baits, striking Velda hard across the cheek with the
back of his hand.
Dervlinne still hadn't quite put two-and-two together, but her elfin
blood was outraged at the sight of one of these germs a mere mortal,
daring to raise its unworthy hand to a maiden elf.
"Why you miserable little ape!" she cried and leapt at Baits without
thinking.
She may not have appeared that dangerous, but she was an elf, and she
was not only very lithe and agile, she was also far stronger than she
seemed. Baits was hurled backwards away from Velda by the force of the
collision. Dervlinne and Baits crashed into the floor together, where
he managed to wriggle free of her grip enough to find and scoop up the
knife from where Velda had left it.
Dervlinne didn't notice that her opponent was now armed, and leapt at
him again, just as Baits raised the knife in her direction. The force
of the impact between them bowled them both to the floor again... where
they both froze in their violent embrace, staring into each other's
eyes, both looking shocked.
Then the blood began to trickle free and to pool on the floor... and
it was green blood, not red. Dervlinne's grip on Baits' arms loosened,
and she slowly slid off him onto the floor with a last, strangled gasp
for air.
Velda let out another soft moan of anxiety as she saw Dervlinne fall.
She then heard another, much louder moan and looked up to see Pickle
stood framed in the doorway, his eyes fixed on his sister in horror.
* * *
Standing on the hillside beneath Dunshelm, Lord Fear smiled to
himself, and then turned to his henchman, who was sipping a cup of warm
grog against the harsh cold of the night.
"Skarkill, dear chap?"
"Fearship?"
"A correction to the conversation we had some days a go - when you
said power was the third possible motive for murder, you were wrong."
Skarkill looked nonplussed at this. He was quite used to Fear telling
him he was wrong, so he just shrugged and turned his attention back to
his grog.
Fear continued anyway. "Even there, the motivation to kill is still
only sex or money. Or rather sex and money. Because," he added with his
most sickening smile, "that's what power is all about."
To be continued...