Chapter 25
“Thank goodness you have come, Towermaster!” cried Blaithamlwg. “Just in time to stop our queen from making a terrible mistake!”
I sighed. What now?
“Tell me about it,” I said.
He heaved a sigh of relief.
“I think it’s because of being with child; it affects women,” he said, and looked over his shoulder, cautiously. “You need not mention that to Tancryfwys.”
“No, of course not,” I said, blandly.
The royal palace had grown apace and was now a fine building with stone footings, and timber-framed upper floors. It was well embellished with carvings, and the timber framing curved from trees hewn and split to retain their natural shapes, rather than the straight beams with occasional ‘knee’ beams I was used to. It probably needed magic to make it stable, but it was uniquely elven without the need to torture trees.
Blaithamlwg went on.
“My Queen wants to introduce a marriage law, whereby all full elves are required to marry half-elves, if not already married.”
“Bloody hell, that would be disastrous,” I said. “The towering resentments on both sides would lead to civil war.”
“Exactly,” said Blaithamlwg.
He led me to the queen who was holding forth to her husband, who looked worried, and Tancyfrwys, who looked outraged.
I banged my staff on the ground and the crystal flared.
“NO!” I said. “Just no, no, and no. It’s a stupid idea. Do you want to lose the support of your closest friends and advisors, Blaithamlwg and Tancyfrwys by making them marry half elves not each other? How did you like being wrest from Cyfaill? Don’t you think your subjects will resent such a law as much as you resented being kept from your love? And what of the idea that an elf might essentially enslave a half-elf as close to his or her choice as possible with the half-elf having no say in it? Have you been at whatever addled your father’s brain, you silly little girl?”
She looked very mutinous at being called a silly little girl.
“I did not mean where people had already formed attachments,” she said.
“And do you think some of the arrogant louts in your city will take any notice of whether a half elf of their choice has attachments? Not to mention the resentment at the perceived superiority being diluted. We know it isn’t, but it’s how it will be seen, and the half-elven half will be exploited.”
“Oh! I wanted to put right the concept that we were breeding ourselves to death!”she wailed. “Tell me what to do, Castamir!”
I sighed.
“You are long lived people. You have time to be subtle,” I said, soothingly. “You need to bring some willing half-elven girls to court as your ladies, and lads as gentleman attendants to Cyfaill, and show them favour. By the nature of politics, there will be those who wish to know those who are the ‘in’ crowd, and in doing so, there will be affections which form quite naturally. You could also ennoble half-elven merchants who do well, and promote elven welfare by good and prosperous trading. Poor nobles will always choose to marry rich merchants, so long as there is no social stigma. And if more half-elves are seen at court, it will become quite natural.”
Chessina was smiling smugly that she was educating me well; and Queen Ariannaith hugged me.
Tancyfrwys flew to Blaithamlwg’s arms in relief.
Crisis averted.
We made a visit to the half-elven enclave, and ran into a half-elf I knew. It was the young man, Iespr, who had been used by Sekhemef to go and get his belongings.
He stared, and bowed.
“Towermaster! Oh, this is embarrassing, you saw me in the throes of being ensorcelled by that awful fellow! And you were so kind to me, too. The royal wizard was kind, too.”
“Don’t worry about it, my dear chap,” I said, kindly. “He fooled many people and he was very good at charming people. The important thing is that you were moved out of the Royal Tree before it burned, and that you are over all his spells.”
“Totally! Why, I had always despised him before, and I still do.”
I turned to Cyfaill.
“Iespr here performed a signal service, albeit involuntarily, in opening Sekhemef’s cabinet, why not pick him as one of your gentleman attendants? He’s a most amiable young man.”
Cyfaill raised an eyebrow, and I could almost hear the thought that perhaps Iespr might not add much in the way of intellect to the breeding pool, but considering that the High Fae had imparted to their elven descendants a twisted cruelty which also marked their kinship to the demonic, amiable might be of more use than clever.
I was thinking of other ways to mix the two communities. Perhaps a lottery for the half-elves to bring the luckiest to court for a year, their expenses picked up by the court, so there was a rotating population there, three male, three female, perhaps. I discussed it with Tancyfrwys.
“Are you breeding us for luck, then?” she asked, waspishly.
“There are worse things,”, I said, mildly. “How else might you choose? Beauty contests, and breed for look not substance? Public examination to breed for scholars? Games to pick the fittest? Maybe all of them, for a rounded selection?”
“Maybe competition featuring a number of skills for permanent placement as nobility, open to lower-class elves, too,” said Tancyfrwys. “That way, it can be demonstrated that being a pure bred elf is not automatically superior, and half-elves who succeed that way would be acceptable as being plainly superior in many ways, and worthy of consideration as elves.”
It would be a long, long while before the prejudices were eroded;
We stayed a few days, and attended court, just to make sure the fluttering fools were used to the occasional visits of the Towermaster and friends; and Tancyfrwys asked to speak to me.
“Castamir… you know I told you that my master warned me of the Towermaster? He was old, the oldest elf I have ever seen, hairless when he died, and with skin like parchment. He… he was of the late king’s family, and they renewed ties with the High Fae. But I found some of his old writings. He… He had been apprentice to the then Royal Wizard at the time of the second favour… and he had been bought as eyes at court by Sekhemef, to help him with his ensorcellment of the king of the time. I… I knew he was ancient, but he lived an unnaturally long time, owing to an artifact, which was interred with him… and I went there, and saw horrible, unnatural creatures! But I did not know how to tell you, and you have come because of Ariannaith’s foolish ideas…”
“Take me to it,” I said.
Silavara shuddered when we had walked to the grave of the former royal wizard, for the forest in a hundred yard radius felt most unpleasant.
I used spells to dig where Tancyfrwys said he was buried. As his apprentice, she had seen to the obsequies, and had grown a carving of his face into the bark of the nearest tree as a memorial. Silavara plainly disapproved, but as far as I could see, this was no more than a small cosmetic change. Mind you, I should not like to have a tattoo placed on my skin involuntarily as a memorial to any parasite on my body I had killed, so perhaps her disapproval was fair. I did not mention my parallel of parasites and elves to Tancyfrwys, who was truly upset.
You can imagine my shock was the earth shook under the digging spell, and a horrible, dessicated, spidery body burst out of the soil, and attacked me.
Demonslicer was in my hand at a thought, and slashed through it; I severed its backbone, but the upper half was still clawing at me. Leaving Chessina to cast a globe of protection on me, I smashed Demonslicer down on its head, and then, finally, it collapsed.
There was an amulet about its neck with a familiar blue crystal embedded in it; but this artefact was definitely abyssal in design. I used gloves to pick it up by the chain, and turned a random rock into a box for it.
“Destroy it,” said Silavara.
“I was hoping to find out more…” I began.
“Destroy it,” said Silavara.
I don’t disobey that tone of voice from one of my family, and I laid the thing down. I saw visions of greatness, living forever, being the greatest wizard in the land, power unprecedented!
“Shut up, you lying piece of rock,” I said. “I have all I could ever want or need already.” Then I cut it in half with Demonslicer.
The air of oppression and evil dissipated.
Tancyfrwys fainted. Silavara went to her.
“That thing has been causing some effect to her, too,” said Silavara. “You’re a good boy, Castamir.”
“Why was the elf even alive?” I asked.
“He managed what Pondichook didn’t,” said Chessina. “He was a lich – I think. He must have been short some power and sank into a deep coma which Tancyfrwys believed was death, as he hadn’t been breathing for a very long time. It’s not dissimilar to the phylactery Pondichook drew in his journals, that Florisin found for us, but powered with the elven moon crystal, to allow him to maintain a semblance of life by draining others. Because he never tried to split the parts of his soul as Pondichook did, he hung on to the lot in a dead body, and the back of that thing has a mirrored surface. You recall how Djehuti found his father’s soul trapped in the mirror and transferred it to the corpse to allow it to speak? Well, this is a development of it, the runes in abyssal are much the same as the runes in ancient Agarakian. Sekhemef secretly made the royal apprentice his own disciple, trapped his soul, and then bound it back into his own body with the addition of the power-draining in the crystal. The alignment of the crystal is like that in the chest, two stones set crosswise.”
“Father and son have been tinkering with soul magic for a long time,” I said, grimly.
Tancyfrwys came to.
“By all the gods! What happened?” she asked.
“I have to tell you, dear friend, that your former master was a lich; an undead,” I told her. “And it is a tribute to your strength of mind and innate purity of spirit, goodness, if you will, that you were not more greatly affected. I now know that all the actions towards the child Castamir were not entirely yours – and that your shame over such is your natural feelings, which had been far enough from the artefact, the phylactery, to get over any influence. When you buried him, he had gone into a period of hibernation – perhaps he had done magic which overtaxed his unnatural power. He has been feeding on the creatures of the forest, which enabled him to attack. He is gone for good, now. And may his soul meet with its just deserts. He had been worshipping Sekhemef for a long time, and had been undead almost from as soon as he agreed to be his agent.”
“Oh! Will we never be free of this blight?” sobbed Tancyfrwys.
“I believe that finally, you are free of it,”I told her. We took her back to the loving arms of Blaethamlwg, and left them to comfort each other as we took our leave.
“He had access to the crystal very early, then,” said Chessina.
“And I can’t help wondering whether Sekhemef found a way to visit the Crystal Moon as a supplicant to gain knowledge,” I added.
“He whom they call ‘Trickster’ might find it amusing to be aiding demons with a mutually beneficial outcome,” said Silavara.
It was a grave thing to contemplate, and once again the two tasks laid upon us by the gods seemed to be tied irrevocably together, however different they might seem.
The problem lay in how to deal with the false gods of the elves.
“I can see only three ways of fulfilling the prophecy,” I said. “Firstly, to somehow trick the Fae into leaving their moon to defeat here.”
“They wouldn’t come unprepared,” said Silavara. “And they are each powerful enough to be taken by the elves as gods. I’m not sure how many there are…”
“Eight, plus their attendants,” I said. “Well, that’s the tradition. I tell you what, we need to get that book of tales King Thorogar has to Frigermar to work his preservative magic on it.”
“Ask him after sending the dragon meat,” said Chessina. “Two other ways?”
“Go there, somehow, which has the same problems as bringing them to us, plus finding a way to escape,” I said. “I fancy it’s one of those one-way missions, and I don’t think that was what the gods had in mind for us.”
“And the third way?”
“The nature of the crystal is such that it drains magic or amplifies it according to the alignment of the crystal structure,” I said. “If we could find a way to cut them off from their draining, we could, essentially, starve them to death.”
We were silent.
Nothing sounded very hopeful.
“All I know is that Silvana finds the second moon to be unnatural,” said Silavara. “And it is always in the same place, just above the horizon, in line with the elven city.”
“It’s the right height above the world to go round it in exactly the same time as it takes to rotate – a day, in other words – and so it stays always in the same place,” I said. “I presume they were attracted to the joint power sources of the forest and the combination of the Stone Circle and the Tower.”
“Silvana has told me that the compact with the Towermaster and with her Circlemistress of the time was that the race of elves would be made and the Fae might feed on them, but not on the creatures of the forest,” said Silavara. “I sense that the need for their destruction is within a few years, not months, so we have time to work on this.”
“And resources with which to do it, with a dragon and its hoard,” said Chessina. “And the material from the false moon to investigate.”
I hadn’t forgotten.
Well, we might take the children to dismember the dragon; they wouldn’t learn any younger.
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