Chapter Four

4.

The plaza was awash in moonlight, its pale radiance blanching the flagstones and the surrounding inns white as bone.  More than two hundred soldiers stood around the fountain in precise groups of twenty, silent and unmoving.   All of them held long-shafted spears with the butt ends planted between their feet and the gleaming tips pointed straight up, threatening the stars.  Their eyes were hard and unblinking within the shadows of polished steel helms, every pair staring fixedly ahead at their commander.  

The dark robed witch stood at the center of the empty, decaying fountain, closely accompanied by Syros and his great sword.  More than fifty villagers were lined up on their knees in front of her.  The Dreanalai’s lips were pressed into a somber line that expressed nothing, but her over-bright blue gaze radiated satisfaction.  She was pleased with how things were progressing.  

They’d found the cave exactly where the boy had told them they would and had kept the lift cage within operating nonstop throughout the evening, bringing a thousand men up from Ganther’s Bowl two dozen at a time.  The horses had slowed their progress so they’d only bothered with a few of them, twenty or so for the captains and their best men.  The animals hadn’t been a critical part of her plans anyhow, all she’d really needed was enough men to form a perimeter around the town and blockade the roads in and out.  A thousand soldiers had proven more than adequate.  Eight hundred of them were now fanned out across the hills that encircled the sleeping village.  The other two hundred she’d taken with her into the center of town.  

She’d had the villagers plucked from the tavern rooms of the inns they’d passed on their march through the town, and what she saw on all of their faces, besides their fear, was surprise.  If the boy Wilhem had warned anyone that they were coming, they had not taken him seriously or they hadn’t expected them to arrive so swiftly.  She’d been careful to plant a few false seeds in the boy’s mind before sending him home; it appeared they had born fruit.  Everything was going quite well.  It was time to begin.

“Villagers of Thimble Downs,” the Dreanalai called out.  Her voice was firm and youthful, aided by the power of the Dreana coursing through her blood.  “You see the stars on our breasts, the symbol of Alteria and Queen Selthena.  I have come here as the Queen’s humble servant, to bestow upon the children of Triton a great honor.  In Alteria we have an old tradition.  Once a year in every city and town our babes are all brought together and examined for the gift of a god’s touch.  Any of those that bear the mark of a god are considered very special and are taken to the Thirteen Altars in the heart of our lands to be trained as Dreanalai.  This is a great privilege.”  

Matha watched the villagers closely as she spoke, reading their reactions.  Most were men, hairy-faced in the Triton way and groggy with drink or sleep, but there were a few women as well.  Simple folk in dusty, tattered clothing.  Only a few showed signs of anger, clenching their jaws and scowling.  The rest were stunned passive, staring up at her in open-mouthed fear and confusion. 

“As the Tritons have been our countrymen for some years now, Queen Selthena has decided it is time for you all to be welcomed into our tradition.  Tomorrow morning therefore--” 

“Matha--” interrupted Syros.  The Dreanalai abruptly stopped, following the High Captain’s eyes.  

At the back of the plaza, in the shadow of the strange blue barn that was also a bridge, two men armed with swords were trying to shove their way through the ranks of Matha’s soldiers.

“What is the meaning of this?” One of them shouted.  “Take me to your Captain!”  Matha nodded at Syros.

“Bring them to me,” she told him.  “Let them keep their weapons.”  

Syros leapt out of the fountain.  As he began making his way across the plaza two more men came rushing out of the blue barn, one tall and thin and hobbling on a bad leg, the other heavy around the middle.  Close behind them followed three more men--no, boys, Matha realized.  One of them caught her attention immediately.  He was the largest of the three with pale yellow hair and broad shoulders.  Even at this distance she could see the mark of the god gift on him; a radiance around his head as though the moonlight was puddling there.  A trill of excitement raced through her.  Suratha had not steered her wrong in guiding her to this odd little backwater.   

“Syros,” she called.  The High Captain turned his fierce head back in her direction.  He’d taken a blade to his skull before they’d left Ganther’s Bowl, leaving nothing but stubble that still glistened with oil. “Bring the young ones to me as well.”

“Yes, Dreanalai.”  

In short order all the newcomers were arranged in front of her with the rest of the villagers.  One of them however, refused stay on his knees no matter how many times Syros cuffed him with the back of his hand.

“What is the meaning of this?” the man raged at Matha.  He had hair as dark as the night sky without its stars and a look in his eyes that the Dreanalai knew well.  He was a dangerous sort.  So was the muscled one next to him with the cat-like eyes for that matter.  “I am Lord Jandegar Breylock, High Seat of Hollow Hill,” he blathered.  “You have no right to lay a hand on me and I kneel for no Altarian save the Queen herself.  What in Forger’s Hell do you think you are doing?”  

Ah.  Matha smiled.  One of their lords.  That explained a great deal.  

“Syros,” she said.  “Silence him.”  

Syros smashed his gauntleted fist into the lord’s face, breaking his nose.  The man screamed, in fury rather than pain, and then at least had the sense to stay quiet.

“Lord Jandegar,” Matha said sweetly, cupping the lord’s chin.  “I do not like being interrupted.  Please hold your tongue and I will explain everything.”  She traced one of her fingernails along his stubbled cheek.  “First, understand that I am an emissary of the Queen herself.  My orders bear her personal seal and I am to be treated as her proxy.  In my presence you will kneel.”  She patted his head.  The man snarled like an animal.  Matha chose to ignore it.  For now.  

She stepped to the next man, who was thin with an unruly reddish beard.  This one was wiser, she could see it in the lines worn into his face and the hard cast of his mouth; he’d seen a great deal of the world.  She took the end of his beard in her hand, tugging until his eyes lifted to confront hers, then she searched them for hate or fear.  There was nothing more to see there however than the cold dispassion of stone.  She bent down to whisper in his ear.  “Good. Very good.”  As she straightened she brushed her lips across his cheek; still the man held his expressionlessness, confirming the Dreanalai’s suspicions.  An honest soldier, this one.   

“Listen to me,” she spoke loudly, “All of you.  In the morning every child in Thimble Downs between their first and seventeenth Name Days is to be brought here to me to be examined.”  A troubled murmur passed through the villagers.  “It is painless for most and will not harm them.”  

She continued down the row of kneelers.  The next man was a hairy bear with a protruding stomach who’s stink was a peculiar mix of sweat and baking bread, then came a pretty, black haired boy with murderous eyes.  Just like his father’s, Matha noted.  She saw the resemblance to Lord Jandegar immediately--and something else too.  The air in front of the boy’s face shimmered as she stared, shifting colors and taking the shape of a mask.  At first it was an ugly, grotesque thing made of iron, with a twisted mouth and spikes jutting from the forehead; then it softened, turning handsome and youthful. . .a hawkish nose. . .grey eyes. . .Wilhem.  The mask had become the face of the Phaeon child.  Matha paused, unsure of what the vision meant.  Suratha was speaking to her.  Not so much about the lordling but about the boy, Wilhem.  He was important, somehow.  She had missed something.  That meant the boy Wilhem would have to be found.  The mask faded, leaving only an uneasy feeling in its wake.  Matha blinked, recalling herself to her task.  For the moment she had more pressing concerns.  

“Let us have a demonstration, shall we?”  She told the crowd.  “You will see, it is very simple.”

The Dreanalai pointed to the yellow-haired youth who was next in the line.  Even with soot on his cheeks he was still handsome.  “You,” she said.  “What is your name?”  The boy raised his eyes, a pale green, like the serpent’s eggs that were a delicacy in Alteria.      

“Wyeth,” he said, clearly.  “Wyeth Trawn of the Ember Isles.”  Matha reached into her robes, withdrawing the box that held her dreana kit.

“Wyeth Trawn,” she repeated, “tell me.  Have you ever had a dream that seemed to go on for hours?  A dream you cannot forget that was so real that even to this day you remember every detail about it?”

The boy glanced down uncomfortably.  Matha already knew that he’d had such a dream.  She couldn’t always see it, some Dreanalai had more of a talent for it than others, but on this one the mark was so clear it was unmistakable.  

“Wyeth Trawn,” she insisted.  “Have you had such a dream?”  

“I have,” he grudgingly admitted.

“Good.”  Matha opened her kit and crouched down in front of the boy.  “Tell me about it.”

“I--” he stammered.  

“Go on.  It’s all right, Child.”  The boy met her eyes.

“I. . .I was in a woods.  Lost.  There was a stream and I followed it.  A long way.  Most of an afternoon.  By the time the sun was falling though I realized I was back where I started...the stream had flowed in a circle.”

“Is that all,” said Matha.  “Did you see anyone else?”  Wyeth nodded.

“While the sun was setting a doe appeared on the river bank.  She had a drink of water and. . .”  The boys cheeks flushed red.

“And?”

“It is foolish,” he said.

“It’s the waking world that is foolish, Child.  Dreams rarely are.  What happened after the doe drank?”

“She turned into a woman.  She had hair hanging to her waist and a necklace made of horn.  She tossed a spear on the ground and told me to follow the point.”  

Matha smiled at him, bringing out one of her wasps.  Wyeth Trawn’s eyes widened.  “The pain is very slight, I promise you,” she told him.  “Give me your hand.”  He swallowed and tentatively offered his hand.  Matha brought the wasp’s stinger to his thumb and a silence so complete descended over the crowd that she could hear her own breathing.  She quickly stabbed the needle into his flesh.  Wyeth grunted, looking as though he might bolt.  “Be calm,” she said, removing the glass.  “It is done.”  She held the wasp high, showing the crowd the small amount of Wyeth’s blood captured inside.

“This is all that is required,” she told the villagers.  “Just a few drops.  And I will not take it from every child.  Only those that show signs of having been touched, as this one has.”  Wyeth Trawn’s face went taut.

Matha turned over the testing stone to reveal the depressions in its surface and the symbols of the thirteen gods.  “The boy says his tautem dream was of a doe that turned into a woman,” she announced to the crowd.  “The goddess Diedra sometimes takes the form of a doe.”

Deidra’s symbol was the seventh out of the thirteen, a half moon cradling two stars. Matha traced it knowingly with her fingers and carefully filled the corresponding depression with Wyeth’s blood.  Then she brought out a second wasp from the box, this one containing the dreana.  She held it over the bowl and let a drop of the writhing blue liquid fall into it.

“Diedra,” she whispered. 

The two liquids mingled and began to bubble, giving off wisps of blue-grey smoke.  It happened gradually at first, then the boiling suddenly grew rapid and the wisps thickened into heavy plumes, like a heap of smoldering straw had erupted into flame.  As the plumes rose they gathered into a swirling cloud and morphed into the shape of a woman, a very beautiful woman with a heart-shaped face framed by long silken hair.  The villagers stopped breathing, all of them transfixed.  The woman’s eyes opened, shining with all the greens of the forest.  She had no irises or pupils, her eyes were filled with trees and grass, birds and streams.  When she saw Wyeth Trawn beneath her, her mouth parted and she reached out for him.  The tips of her fingers nearly reached his cheek but the smoke began to drift apart before she could touch him.  Within heartbeats the ghostly figure was gone, melting up into the night as though she had been nothing more than a trick of the imagination.

Matha smiled at Wyeth.  “You see?  You belong to Diedra.  You will come with us and be trained as Dreanalai.”  

The boy looked so shocked Matha thought at first he had not heard her.  Then he shook his head.

“No,” he said gruffly.  “I will not go.  I would rather die.”  

Matha was impatient but she did not wish for the boy to make a scene.  She crouched down, bringing her eyes level with his.  

“You said you were of the Ember Isles, no?” she asked him in a whisper.  “The Ember Isles are not large.  Do you think it would be very difficult for us to find the Trawns amongst the rocks and sands of your homeland?  Your parents.  Your brothers and sisters.  One word from me and they die within a fortnight.  All of them.  Or. . .”  She pointed to the back of the fountain.  “You can go stand over there and wait for my next order.  That is how this works, Child.  Which do you chose?”  

It did not take Wyeth very long to make the right decision.  The boy looked like an ox but he was not as dumb as one, Matha was sure of that.  Avoiding her gaze he walked stiffly to the back of the fountain.

“People of Thimble Downs,” the Dreanalai called out.  “As you have seen Wyeth Trawn is marked by the goddess Diedra.  You and your lands must be very blessed to be so favored!  Let’s try another, shall we?”

The witch hadn’t planned on doing another test until morning, but as she’d been speaking she’d noticed something odd about the little boy that had been kneeling behind Wyeth Trawn.  He was timid and very frail, staring at the ground with his lip trembling, unremarkable except that the shadows cast over the cracked stones of the fountain seemed to quiver around him.  It was very subtle, but once Matha had noticed it she’d become increasingly convinced.  It wasn’t just the shadow play that alerted her, it was more an intuition, the feeling of Suratha stirring in her when she looked upon him, as she had with Wilhem and Wyeth Trawn.  She asked the boy his name.

“Shan,” he told her.  “Shan Breylock of Hollow Hill.”

“Ah,” said Matha.  “Lord Jandegar, is this one your son then?”  She glanced at the lord.  His eyes blazed back at her.

“He is,” he said curtly. 

“Lovely.”  Matha reached for Shan’s hand.

“You will not have my son’s blood,” Lord Jandegar said.  Matha laughed, raising her wasp.

“I will,” she said.  “Presently.”  

“No,” the lord growled.  “You will not.”  Lord Jandegar surged to his feet, drawing his sword.  The man next to him immediately leapt up to join him.  

The two were not without skill.  Instinctively, Lord Jandegar’s man leapt to cover his master’s back while the lord himself lunged at the Dreanalai.  Both men moved with impressive speed and coordination, but neither understood his opponent.  

Lord Jandegar’s man brought his sword up almost lazily to parry as Syros came at him with his massive broadsword.  The move was perfectly timed and should have worked except that he had not counted on Syros being as ferociously strong as he was.  When the swords met Syros’s larger blade crashed right through the other’s thinner steel, instantly leaving him defenseless.  

Rather than yielding however, the man smoothly dropped to his knees and attempted to drive the broken haft of his blade into Syros’s stomach.  Syros couldn’t react quickly enough to stop it; the other man was quicker and the blow landed.  The fractured steel wasn’t sharp enough to pierce Syros’s hauberk though.  He caught the man’s wrist and while he held it, drove his foot into his throat, pinning him to the ground.  

In the meantime, Lord Jandegar’s sword was descending toward’s Matha’s neck.  She felt no fear as she tapped into the well of dreana flowing through her veins; she had been hoping that he might try to attack her.  In her mind’s eye she reached into the sword and told its essence that it was a blade of grass.  It was a simple tell, one that did not take a great deal of dreana energy to perform.  When the sword touched her, striking where her neck met her shoulder, the blade abandoned its shape, folding harmlessly around her body.  

Lord Jandegar screamed, tossing the shapeless sword to the ground like it was a snake.  The look on his face was pure revulsion.  He raised his fist to strike at the Dreanalai.  As he swung she called upon the dreana again, telling the essence of his boots that they were stones.  Then she took a step back and watched Lord Jandegar strike at the air, unable to come within reach of her since his feet would not move.  He howled, the veins standing out in his throat and temple.

“Strike me down then, witch!” he hissed.  “Strike me down and in the morning five thousand men will pour from the gates of Hollow Hill.  The blood of your soldiers will run in rivers over these lands, by Ganther, I swear it!  On the morrow a Triton brother of mine will rip your black heart from your chest and piss in the hole!”  

Matha silenced the man with one last tell, transforming his tongue to wood.  “Villagers,” she said.  “Let this be a lesson to you.  As you can see it is pointless to raise a sword against me,  and because I am an emissary of the Queen the punishment for such foolishness is death.”  

She drew a long, jagged-edged dagger from within her robes.  “Lord Jandegar, for the crime of High Treason, I sentence you to die.”  She stepped toward the paralyzed lord, raising the dagger.  The man grinned at her.  At first she assumed his mirth was only a show of bravado, then she saw her mistake, just a heartbeat too late.  While she had been talking Lord Jandegar had produced a blade of his own, a slender rapier that had been stashed up his sleeve.  He did not even attempt to strike  her with it--if he had she would have seen it coming.  Instead he’d subtly turned the steel in his hand as she’d moved toward him, letting her step into the point.  Now that she was upon him, he threw his arm around her neck and embraced her to him, driving the blade deep into her abdomen, just beneath her ribs.

Matha shrieked, an enraged sound directed at herself as much as at the man twisting his blade in her belly.  She’d been a Dreanalai far too long to fall for such a ploy and this would undo the impression of complete invulnerability that she’d been working to create in the minds of the Thimble Downers.  Grabbing the lord by the jaw she raked at the flesh of his face furiously with her fingernails.  She’d use no dreana to help ease his pain now.  While he fought to rip her hand from his neck she drove her dagger into the exposed spot where his shoulder met his breast.     

Lord Jandegar’s mouth dropped open in a gasp, but his eyes were filled with mirth.  “You die wiff meh, witch,” he slurred, his tongue recovering from the tell.  Matha pushed him away from her and he slid to the ground.  

“I think not,” she told him.  She reached for the hilt of the rapier sticking out of her and jerked it out.  Blood sprayed from the wound, soaking her robe near to her knees.  Using a tremendous burst of dreana, so much that the air around her flashed blue with it, she told her own flesh it was healthy and whole.  The pain as her wound began to knit itself shut was intense, but in seconds the gash was gone as though it had never been—though not without cost.  She could already sense the exhaustion that would soon follow such an effort and saw the skin of her hands beginning to wrinkle and sag with age. 

“Matha!” Syros barked. “Are you well?”  The captain still had his boot on the throat of Lord Jandegar’s man, even though the fool was no longer resisting.  

“I am fine,” she spat, forcing an indifferent laugh.  Syros’s eyes told her he was furious with himself for letting her take a wound.  He glanced down at the man beneath his boot and stomped on his chest brutally in a flare of temper.

“Stop!” Matha ordered, raising her voice for all to hear.  “Let him up.  He acted only because he was sworn to Lord Jandegar.  Queen Selthena does not punish servants and smallfolk for the crimes of their lords.”  Syros growled but released the swordsman.  Sigmond calmly rolled to his knees, resuming the exact spot he’d knelt in before he and his lord had attacked.  Matha smiled coldly at the man.  In truth Selthena was usually not so forgiving but there was another reason why the Dreanalai wanted the swordsman to remain alive.  When he left the plaza he would surely report Lord Jandegar’s death and Syros’s prowess with a sword to the other lords of the realm.     

Matha reached into her robes for a skin of water and took a long drink.  Lord Jandegar writhed on the ground at her feet.  The villagers said nothing, their faces blank as they watched the man dying.  Blood was pouring out of his wound, spreading across the stones until it touched the knees of his two sons.  Lord Jandegar reached his hand towards the older of the two boys.  

“Lorel,” he croaked.  “You will avenge me.  Raise all the strength of Hollow Hill and unleash hell upon these Altarian dogs.”  

The corners of the boy’s mouth twitched, slowly curving into a wicked smile.

“No,” he whispered.

Lord Jandegar’s pained face darkened.  “I’m not asking you,” he grunted.  “It is an order!”  The boy leaned in close, careful to keep the sleeves of his shirt out of his father’s blood.  He spoke in a whisper, but Matha was near enough that she heard every word.

“You can’t give orders anymore, Father.  You’re dead.  I am the High Seat of Hollow Hill.  Very soon your name and all of your deeds will be forgotten, their glory eclipsed by mine own.”  The lordling leaned down to kiss his father’s forehead, very slyly leaning his weight on Matha’s dagger to deepen the wound.  Lord Jandegar’s breath rattled in his throat as Lorel’s lips touched him, and the boy held the pose until his father was well and truly gone, the last spark of life departed from his black eyes.

That was the trouble with dangerous men, Matha reflected.  Their sons tended to be even more dangerous.  She’d have to keep her eye on this one.  He might prove useful to her, but if not. . .  The Dreanalai raised her eyes to the crowd.  Their blue was paling, becoming ordinary.  It was time to bring this sorry business to a close before anything else went awry. 

“This need not have happened,” she told the petrified sea of faces.  “As you have seen the  examination poses no threat to your children.  There is no need to resist and any of you that attempt it will undoubtedly die.  Go home,” she flicked her hand at them. “Go home and spread the word.  Every child is to be brought here in the morning.  Do not attempt to hide any of them away from us.  Every hut, inn, shop, shed and cellar will be searched before the day is out, and there are eight hundred more of the soldiers you see here spread throughout these hills.  No child will get past them.  Anyone that tries to help a child escape without being tested will suffer the same fate as your Lord Jandegar.  You have been warned.”

Matha heard her voice growing feeble as she spoke and felt her posture deteriorating.  

“You,” she told Lord Jandegar’s younger boy, whose face was a mask of shock.  “Go stand with Wyeth Trawn.”  The child obeyed in a stupor, crossing the fountain on unsteady legs. 

“You are taking my brother?” asked Lorel.  

“He bears the mark.”

Matha was not certain the boy did bear the mark, but she had no strength to test him now and besides, she could use the boy as leverage should the new Lord of Hollow Hill prove troublesome. 

“What will be done with him?”  

“I’ve told you,” said the Dreanalai.  “He will be taken to Alteria to be trained as one of my kind.”  Matha saw in Lorel’s eyes how the news infuriated him, but he did not protest.

“What of me?” he said.  “Will I be examined for the god gift?”  

“I feel no stirrings of the spirit world when I look upon you.  You have no god at your back.  You are free to go.”  Lorel scowled, obviously slighted by her answer.  

The villagers had begun dispersing, rushing out of the fountain at a spot where the soldiers had parted to let them through the plaza.  Some were in a panic, pushing and shoving, others moved in a daze, uncaring of how many times they were bumped or shoved.  One fat man dressed in costly blue silk lingered, anxiously stroking a waxed grey beard.  He seemed about to speak when Lorel stood up and turned his attention to his father’s swordsman.  

“Sigmond,” he said.  “Collect my father’s body and find a carter to return it to Hollow Hill.  I will return shortly to the keep to bury him and ascend the High Seat.”  Sigmond sneered at the boy in disgust.

“I served your father,” he said.  “I will not serve you.”  Lorel shrugged.

“Your oath is to Hollow Hill.  You will serve me or I will have your head.  It’s up to you.”        

He did not wait to see how the swordsman was going to respond.  Instead he looked to the blue-eyed soldier, the one with the red beard that Matha had been unable to goad.  The man had not moved or made a sound since he’d been brought to the fountain, he was a statue.  

“You,” said Lorel.  “Come with me if you want your bloody horse.” 

The soldier appeared hesitant, but he got to his feet and followed Lorel out of the fountain.  His hairy bear of a companion went with him and then the one called Sigmond made his decision, gathering up the body of Lord Jandegar on his shoulder.  

Matha sagged once they had all departed, sinking to her knees.  Syros rushed to her side.  

“Dreanalai,” he wrapped an arm around her to pick her up.  “You are weakened.  You must rest.”

“Not yet,” she said, freeing herself from his embrace.  “Find us a decent inn.  I must speak with Suratha.”  She frowned, addressing something that had been nagging at her thoughts. “I made a mistake Syros.  You must find the boy.  Wilhem of Ashfall.”  The captain arched an eyebrow.

“The one you made me set free this morning?”  She glared at him.  She was not in the mood to be chastised.

“Yes.  Suratha showed me.  He is important somehow.”  Her forehead creased with anxiety.  “Perhaps very important.”  

“I will find him then.”  

“Excuse me?” A simpering voice interrupted.  Matha turned her head in annoyance and found that the expensively-dressed fat man was still standing there, stroking his beard.

“What is it?”

The man gracelessly dropped to one knee and bowed his head, showing a bald spot.  

“Dreanalai,” he said, “I am Thambol Collins, the mayor of Thimble Downs.  Forgive me but I happened to overhear that you are in need of an inn.   As a gesture of my respect I’d like to offer the hospitality of one of my own to you, free of charge of course.  It is that one, just there--” he pointed to towering six-storied building at the edge of the plaza, painted blue with decaying gold shutters.  “The Grand Cortigan.  I can assure you it is the finest establishment in our humble town.”  Matha nodded. 

“We will require privacy,” she said.  “Tell the other guests to depart.”

“All of them?  Respectfully, Dreanalai, I have many important patrons--”

“And I have many soldiers,” Matha hissed.  “If the tailor wanted to ingratiate himself to me do you think he’d offer me half a coat?”

“Of course not, Dreanalai,” the man spluttered, attempting another bow.  “You’re right, of course. Forgive me.  Come, come, this way.”  

“We’ll be along in a moment,” the Dreanalai refused.  “Wait for us at the entrance.”

“As you wish.”  The man retreated.  Matha turned back to Syros.

“Round up my guardsman.  They may have use of the inn but I want them to be silent and anyone caught raping or plundering I will deal with personally.  Order the rest of the squadron to divide between the two bridges and blockade the street.”