Chapter

13

We’re in the service of a Mage Auditor,’ Zimak cried gleefully when he and Jelindel arrived back at the inn.

Daretor was eating his dinner, and looked up quizzically.

‘He means me,’ Jelindel explained. ‘The people here were expecting help from their capital for a very strange and dangerous problem.’

‘Hey, Daretor, stand to attention when you’re talking to the Mage Auditor.’

‘Shut up, Zimak. What is this problem, Jaelin? Is it related to the link?’

‘There are large, powerful and probably sentient beings appearing in this valley. Zimak had a brush with one, and was lucky to escape with just cuts and bruises.’

‘What’s sentient?’ asked Zimak.

‘Something you’re not,’ replied Jelindel coldly. ‘The chief monk in the local temple is a senior Adept, but no more than a nine. He can speak binding words just strong enough to slow the daemons down so that the town militia can kill them, but …’

‘But?’

‘He’s old, and he’s looking terrible. If he falls sick or dies this place will become famous for a lot more than heavy mists and fat cattle.’

‘You can speak those binding words, too,’ Daretor pointed out to Jelindel. ‘You ensnared that dog in the village when we were fighting the last linkrider.’

‘True, but that nearly cost me my life. Trying to speak binding words without a degree of training is like trying to trim your toenails with a sword while blindfolded. It’s difficult, dangerous and not very reliable.’

Daretor was clearly disappointed. The addition of binding words to their armoury would have been very helpful.

‘Well then, what is the source of these daemons?’ he asked.

‘There seems to be a rent in the fabric between paraworlds somewhere nearby, apart from the presence of the dragonlink and its rider. The only problem is that such a rent should have stood out like a beacon pyre on eclipse night when I checked the area from the paraplane.’

‘It may be opening and closing like a gate,’ Daretor suggested.

‘No, gates between paraworlds do not work like that; they should glow with the potential to create an opening.’

‘What of the dragonlink? Have you seen a suspicious glow or heard of any such thing?’

‘We just may have a problem there,’ Zimak cut in. ‘A warrior called, ah –’

‘Holgar Drusen,’ said Jelindel.

‘That’s him. Well, he saved us from the daemon with some very impressive pikework, but got his hand slashed through his gauntlet so that blood was dripping out. Even so, he would not remove his glove for a healer to treat him.’

‘So there might be more than a wound beneath his gauntlet?’

‘I’m sure of it. He was strong, but unusually skilled in pikework for a back-mountains blacksmith.’

‘So what do we do about the dragonlink?’ Jelindel asked. ‘He is using his skills in defence of the town whenever the daemons attack. How can we demand that he give us the link?’

‘He does not deserve skills gained dishonourably from the talents of others,’ shouted Daretor, slamming his fist down on the table, then standing up.

The taproom suddenly went silent, although nobody there could follow their Skeltian language.

‘I only meant –’

‘I know what it is like to have a decade’s skills and training sponged away. I despise anyone who would use a dragonlink to gain the skills of another. If he will not give it up I’ll fight him for it.’

‘But the blacksmith’s pike skills may be his own!’ Jelindel shouted back. ‘Like you, he might have been tricked into wearing the dragonlink and now he can’t afford to give it up.’

While both were standing up she barely reached Daretor’s chin, but her words hit with considerable force. Daretor flopped back onto the bench.

‘Aye, like me he might have been tricked,’ Daretor reluctantly admitted. ‘So what do we do if his fighting skills are needed here and we can’t take the dragonlink? We can’t stay forever. There are at least three more links to find after this.’

Jelindel turned away from him, arms folded high over her breasts, as always trying to hide their increasing size. She noticed that the rest of the taproom was silent, and everyone was watching them.

‘It’s all right; we had a small misunderstanding over who will pay for the lodgings,’ she said quickly in Baltor -ian. The atmosphere of the place relaxed at once.

She turned back to Daretor and Zimak. ‘I shall go to our room and lie down. Please see that I am not disturbed while I scan the town again from the paraplane.’

Safely in the woodroom, and with the sound from the nearby taproom dim in her ears, Jelindel again floated in the blackness laced with the glows and sparkles of healing enchantments and guard spells.

From the paraplane the magical aspects of the town looked little different by night than by day, but this time Jelindel was not on horseback, and she could concentrate better. Space was different in the paraplane, being related to strength of spells and their domains rather than physical distance between the doors and houses guarded by the spells.

The dragonlink was still there, a subtle carbuncle in the fabric of the blackness. From what she could deduce, it was moving. The effect was as if the entire town’s guard spells were rearranging themselves to keep the link at the focus of several domains.

Jelindel was about to return her senses to herself when the dragonlink’s domain suddenly blazed with light. A red glow now gleamed and moved amid the golden glows of the guard spells, quenching some in its wake. It was another daemon, Jelindel decided as her heart began racing, yet according to the monks they never came so close together. Whatever the explanation, the blazing red light had originated right at the dragonlink.

Jelindel heard a mighty crash somewhere in her own world, followed by the sound of men shouting. She immediately focused on the solidity of the mailshirt and returned to herself as fast as she could.

She sat up too quickly, reeled, then sat down heavily on the rough frame bed as the sound of splintering wood, shouting and screams of pain continued from the taproom. Another daemon, and it was here!

Picking up a woodsman’s hatchet she opened the door to be confronted by a broad red back and thick tail. Without even thinking she stepped through the doorway and chopped backhand up at the daemon’s head. The hatchet stuck fast, and its tail lashed out to fling her back into the woodroom.

Daretor moved in on the daemon, chopping at its arms as it clawed at its own head. It waddled backwards into the woodroom, saliva dripping from its jaws and leaving smoking spots on the floorboards.

Jelindel picked up a branch from the kindling rack and stood ready, but Daretor pushed her to one side. Zimak entered the fray next, half-sword in hand. He and Daretor bracketed the daemon, which was staggering by now from the wound to its head. Whenever Zimak cut at it from behind, Daretor followed up with a cut to its throat as it turned.

As before, the daemon began to weaken as it lost blood, and by the time the militia had arrived it was lying dead.

The body was impressive, even in death. Jelindel noted that it had a broad forehead and braided topknot of black hair-like fibres. What she had taken to be scales were really some type of tough fabric with glossy, overlapping plates, and there was a buckle of reflective red material on the belt at its waist. Even the massive claws on the outer fingers of its hands were inlaid with small, gleaming gems and threads of gold.

‘This is no warrior daemon,’ she said to Daretor. ‘I would guess that it’s a female, of perhaps my own age.’

‘You’re mad,’ retorted Zimak. ‘Why, it killed two men out in the taproom. It slashed them open like sacks of wheat.’

‘Let him finish,’ said Daretor.

‘Were Zimak to be dropped into a room of armed, intelligent rabbits, he too might fight and kill most fearsomely, wringing necks and crushing bodies under foot until overwhelmed. I don’t think these are invaders at all. I think there is a hole between our paraworlds through which they are falling either by accident or design.’

‘But you said anything like that would be plainly visible when you go into that trance and do whatever you do,’ Daretor said slowly, trying to get the reasoning correct. ‘You said you saw nothing.’

‘The first time, yes. Just now I saw a disturbance beside the dragonlink when this, ah, young lady came through. The link has some great and unusual powers stored within it, and perhaps the walls between the paraworlds are weaker here than elsewhere. Our own dragonlinks may begin to do the same thing if we stay.’

Brother Clevarian pushed past the crowd with the blacksmith behind him. They looked down at the body in astonishment; then, as before, the body vanished with a loud bang and a gust of wind.

‘You – you killed it?’ Clevarian asked, astonished.

‘These are not the worst daemons that we have encountered and killed,’ said Jelindel. ‘We shall teach your militiamen how to fight them more easily, then we shall set to work and close the gate between the paraworlds that is letting them through.’

‘Gate? Paraworlds?’ spluttered Brother Clevarian. ‘Heresy! These are the damned from the very depths of hell, not from worlds such as ours.’

‘No, you don’t understand; we need to find a glowing link –’

‘Yes! I understand only too well. You three are devil worshippers, come to allow more of them into our world.’

‘What?’ Jelindel spluttered incredulously. ‘We just killed one.’

‘Pah! A sham fight. You’re in league with them!’ he screamed, shaking his staff and tracing holy symbols in the air.

Holgar Drusen glared at them, his eyes hostile and fearful beneath his bushy eyebrows. He turned and followed when Brother Clevarian abruptly left.

‘What was all that about?’ asked Zimak.

‘It sounded as though someone doesn’t like competition,’ ventured Daretor.

‘And I think that another daemon will not be long in arriving,’ concluded Jelindel. ‘That dragonlink apparently does more than store impressive pikework.’

‘Drusen the blacksmith?’ said Zimak. ‘But he fights the things.’

‘And makes himself into quite a hero by doing so,’ said Daretor. ‘Why does he never take off his gloves, even if his hands bleed? Aye, he is the linkrider we must overcome to acquire this dragonlink.’

‘I apologise, Daretor,’ said Jelindel. ‘I fear you were right about him and I was wrong. Yet exposing him and getting the dragonlink will be easier said than done. He seems to be the most popular man in this town, apart from Brother Clevarian.’

‘As I said, nobody likes competition, especially if it’s superior. My guess is that Drusen can conjure the daemons at will, and as Jaelin says, yet another will be here very soon. Get ready, Zimak, we should barricade the place this time.’

‘No. No, you should flee,’ said Jelindel. ‘Head for the town gates and out into the fields.’

‘The fields?’ gasped Zimak. ‘At night? Not in any way known! The mist blocks out most of the moonlight. It’s as black as Black Quell’s ar–’

‘Take a torch!’ shouted Jelindel, fists clenched and stamping her foot.

‘The daemon will surely follow the light.’ He stared incredulously at Jelindel’s apparent stupidity. ‘And I’ll be holding it.’

‘All magic knows defeat in distance, Zimak. I warrant that the daemon can only go a half-mile from the linkrider if he is to maintain control. I’m gambling that the linkrider is controlling the daemons, forcing them to attack us. The linkrider will be forced to leave the town to keep the daemon after you.’

‘So you’re gambling, and my life is the stake,’ cried Zimak in disbelief.

‘Shush, Zimak. I think I know what Jaelin’s getting at. The linkrider will have to follow us out of the town if he wants to control the daemon. Once clear of the town by, say, two miles, we can turn and fight the thing.’

‘But who will engage the linkrider?’

‘Me,’ said Jelindel.

‘Jaelin fight the blacksmith?’ cried Zimak. ‘Don’t make me laugh. He can’t even fight his way out of a smoke haze, let alone stop that pike-master –’

Something outside bellowed. It was a deep, resonant challenge that echoed along the fog-shrouded streets of the town.

‘It’s here already,’ gasped Zimak. ‘Now, Jaelin, you stay with Daretor and I’ll – Jaelin!’

But Jelindel was not there. She had slipped out through a window in the woodroom.

The torches in the streets were burning low by this time of night. Although Reculemoon was high, it was difficult to see more than outlines amid the swirls of mist. Jelindel made for the town gates, which were closed for the night. A lamp burned wanly in the gatehouse on the wall.

Jelindel slipped something round and soft from her pouch. It was the size of a small lemon, about the same weight, and it trailed a short length of string. It had been a gift from Zimak back when they first struck their deal of sharing knowledge.

The shutters of the gatehouse were open on all sides, and two sentries were looking back into the town. Jelindel lit the string from a streetlamp’s flame and it spluttered and caught, burning as a brilliant point of light at the end. She watched it progress for several heartbeats, then flung it into the open side window.

At first nothing happened, then there were shouts of alarm as the guards burst out of the door, gasping and wheezing at the stench from Jelindel’s stink-pot as they clattered down the stairs.

Jelindel slipped up the stairs as they staggered away into the mist. Taking a deep breath she entered the guardhouse, scooped up the smoking stink-pot and tossed it out the window. Next she barred the door, unlatched the windlass and began winding the gate up while her eyes streamed tears from the remaining stench.

She was barely in time. A torch appeared in the distance, accompanied by a deep bellowing from the night’s third daemon. Jelindel continued to wind. She heard scrabbling at the gate as Daretor and Zimak squeezed beneath it.

‘We’re outside!’ Zimak called, then the windlass suddenly became a lot easier to turn as the daemon pushed up the heavy gate to squeeze its bulk underneath. Jelindel released the windlass and the gears whirred shrilly for a moment as the gate dropped. It boomed down onto the cobblestones.

The clatter of heavy boots approached from within the town as the militia arrived. Jelindel watched the torches glowing through the mist, then heard fists and weapons pounding on the gate.

‘Legions of reeking dead bodies drove us from the guardhouse,’ someone cried. ‘They raised the gate.’

‘So our visitors have escaped,’ Jelindel heard the blacksmith saying. ‘We’re best rid of them.’

‘No, we must be after them now!’ insisted Brother Clevarian.

‘They’re outside, praise be to fortune! The town is safe for the night,’ someone else retorted.

‘We must go after them!’ Brother Clevarian shouted back. ‘Raise the gate.’

Brother Clevarian! Jelindel gasped softly with surprise. It couldn’t be. His fingers and even his toes were all in plain sight. He wore no link, yet …

Jelindel lowered herself down the town wall by a rope through the outer window and stole quickly across the mist-shrouded fields. Behind her the gate was slowly raised again, and soon the torches of the cautious pursuing militiamen shone as dim globes of light through the darkened mist.

The baying of dogs mingled with the distant bellowing of the daemon; then there was the rumble of the gate being lowered again.

‘Forgive me, Daretor, but this is the only way,’ whispered Jelindel as she slipped the free dragonlink onto her finger.

It took precious moments to get the feel of the thing’s powers, but her practice at moving her senses between paraplanes came to her aid. Through the eyes of a huge four-horned bull she watched the militia approaching. Brother Clevarian would be at the centre, but all that was about to change. She extended her control, and the bull suddenly charged its bramblefang fence, ignoring the thorns that ripped at its hide as it crashed through. It charged straight for the militiamen.

The men and dogs scattered, and now Jelindel seized control of one of the dogs and sniffed for the temple incense that was on Brother Clevarian’s robes. Within moments the dog ran down the monk, leaping upon him even as he spat a word of binding to ensnare it. Jelindel now sent another dog after him from behind, and this one knocked him down and ripped at the leather cowl that covered his head.

Orange light blazed out of the link that he wore in his ear as the leather came away, but blue coils burst from his lips to entrap the second dog. Brother Clevarian began shrieking for help.

Jelindel seized control of the bull again and drove it back at the regrouping militia. Now the monk made a fatal mistake. He spoke a word of binding to stop the bull, a word that was at the limit of his life-force. The bull crashed to the ground, its front legs ensnared, but Brother Clevarian also fell to his knees with exhaustion.

Jelindel crept up to him now, guided by the glow of the link that was leaking through the fingers of the hand that was over his ear. Taking the link from her own finger and dropping it into her pouch, she crouched, crept closer, then spoke a word. Her aim was off, but she still ensnared the old monk’s legs.

Surprise was on Jelindel’s side. She sent the monk sprawling and the link again blazed out like an annular eclipse of the sun. Weakened, she staggered over, reached out for the link and ripped it from his ear.

Brother Clevarian screamed with pain and outrage, but Jelindel was already stumbling away into the mist. She crashed right into a tangle of blackberry bushes. Only the mailshirt saved her from severe injury.

‘After him; he stole a holy relic!’ shouted Brother Clevarian.

Blackberry thorns tore at Jelindel as she struggled to free herself, and the dragonlink was slippery with Brother Clevarian’s blood. As she fumbled to drop it into her pouch it slipped from her fingers and landed among the thorny fronds where it lay glowing brightly.

Militiamen and dogs finally approached, and Jelindel slashed her hands and arms on the thorns trying to reach the fallen dragonlink.

Suddenly the daemon strode out of the mist and among the militiamen. It bellowed loudly and they scattered in alarm.

Mesmerised, Jelindel saw the outline of it by the light of the burning torches. It lifted someone bodily from the ground with one hand and slashed down with the claws of its free hand, again and again and again. Brother Clevarian! He shrieked for help, then screamed in pain – a scream that ended in a sickening, retching sound.

The militiamen tried to rally, but now the monster was suddenly faster and far better coordinated. The short engagement was completely one-sided and the demoralised militiamen fell back. Jelindel knew that without Brother Clevarian, they would not last long.

She turned back to the blackberry bushes, striving to reach the dragonlink amid grasping thorns and clammy wet leaves.

Heavy, thudding footsteps approached from behind her, footsteps ominously far apart. She turned to see the daemon towering above her.

Jelindel fumbled for her pouch and slipped the other dragonlink onto her finger. Casting the animal control powers of the link across the fields, she realised that the bull had a broken leg and the nearest dog was hundreds of yards away. She drew the dog racing towards them, but she knew she would be dead by the time it arrived.

Jelindel shrank back against the brambles, petrified with fear. She was too weak to speak another word at the daemon, there was nothing she could do but wait for the end.

‘Allow me,’ said a deep, hissing, silky voice.

The daemon bent over and reached past Jelindel with its long arms that reeked of fresh human blood. The light of the fallen link was blotted out as a clawed hand closed around it and drew it out from amid the grasping thorns.

In an oddly dispassionate way, Jelindel considered running, yet something in the daemon’s manner had drained the fear out of her. She released control of the dog that was still racing to her rescue.

Huge fingers opened before her face and the light of the second link blazed out into the mist again.

‘Treasure worth thy life, yes?’ enquired the soft, hissing voice. ‘I am T’rr’ll. Know thy name be Jaelin. Here. Take it.’

Jelindel’s jaw worked in vain. She reached out a trembling hand and took the link from the enormous palm in front of her.

‘My race avenged,’ the daemon declared. ‘Without thee, we would still be his slave. Thank thee with all my hearts.’

The daemon went down on one knee amid the blackberry bushes and bowed its head to Jelindel. It was still more than double her height.

‘Uh, how many hearts do you have?’ she asked, unable to think of anything else to say.

‘Three,’ it replied, then slowly stood up.

Together they walked back to where the bodies of Brother Clevarian and two militiamen lay. The daemon picked up a burning torch and held it to the dead monk’s ear. Along the bloody rent were rough stitch marks where he had sewn the link into his ear years earlier.

‘Thee tore link from his ear, thus freed my people from his control. Avenged is myself. Returned, hope to be.’

‘How did you know, ah, about me?’ asked Jelindel.

‘Shared his perceptions by act of control.’

So the daemon had seen and heard everything from the monk’s perspective, Jelindel realised. It must have been a by-product of the dragonlink’s control gift. That would save a lot of explanations.

‘I’m, ah, relieved that you’re so understanding, T’rr’ll.’

‘I am from very civilised paraworld. This monster plucked dozens from my homeland, then sent them back dead and mutilated.’

Jelindel looked into the slit-pupils of the huge, reptilian eyes that gleamed in the light of the torch that the daemon held.

‘You seemed so fearsome to us. We did not know that Brother Clevarian was making your kind attack our people,’ she explained.

‘So I have seen,’ the daemon growled. ‘But we are not evil,’ it added with a voice like an approaching thunderstorm. ‘We were ripped from our plane and controlled like puppets in thy fairgrounds.’

‘How do you know our speech?’

‘We are very advanced in arts of control and enquiry. We have studied thy world’s images in our crystals for a long time. Also we have heard sounds of thy world resonating from our crystals. In them we saw our people die when drawn here, but we were helpless.’

‘I grieve for your slain brothers and sisters and friends,’ said Jelindel with genuine remorse.

‘And I thank thee for freeing us. What will thee do with this sevenfold-cursed dragonlink?’

‘I’ll weave it into the fabric from which it came, and strive to put it where evil hands will not reach it.’

‘We have devices like to this, Mage Auditor. Should thee split it, all talents stored therein will be lost, and it will not soak in more talents until made to be joined again.’

‘Then – then the mailshirt from which it comes has no power?’

‘It has power, no doubting. It is just not same power as petty tricks of these dragonlinks. When made whole, ah, real power of these combined dragonlinks will be manifest, but I cannot say what that power might be. Now will thee free me to return to my paraworld?’

‘Well, ah, yes. Just tell me how.’

‘Both of us to go to blacksmith shop and split the link, if be pleased?’

They returned to the town gates. There the daemon leaped to the guardhouse in a single bound, sending the guards screaming down the stairs for the second time that night. He raised the gate for Jelindel, then left it jammed open.

The townsfolk were watching through the billows of mist as Jelindel and the daemon walked through the geometrically straight streets to the closest smithy’s. As fate would have it, it was the shop of Drusen.

Nobody would open up when Jelindel knocked, but the daemon broke through both door and guard charm with a single blow that splintered boards and tore nails from beams.

The blacksmith’s wife was crouched in a corner in front of their son, brandishing an axe.

‘Put that thing down and fetch a hammer and chisel,’ ordered Jelindel wearily as the daemon stood quietly behind her with its arms folded. ‘Well? The sooner you help, the sooner we’re gone.’

The woman fetched the chisel and laid it on the anvil. Jelindel picked up the chisel and a hammer, but the daemon raised a dauntingly clawed hand.

‘Madame,’ he said to the blacksmith’s wife with a deep bow, ‘pleased to take little boy outside and wait. Danger in what we are to do. Mage Auditor Jaelin paid to face danger, but thee and thy boy are not.’

‘Oh, ah, aye,’ she stammered, then reached back and seized her son by the arm.

The little boy waved timidly to the daemon as they edged past. The daemon bowed gravely and made a gesture with its claws that might have been a salute. The boy smiled back.

‘Make sure chisel is held with edge of thy hand touching dragonlink, pressing against anvil,’ the daemon told Jelindel once they were alone.

‘You said this is dangerous.’

‘I lied, to get others out. Now strike with single blow.’

One blow severed the link, and Jelindel noticed that traceries of blue light enmeshed her hand. It felt as if a swarm of ants was on her skin. Suddenly the crackling blue tendrils dispersed.

‘There is a word that will release you from this plane,’ she said. ‘I know the word! How do I know this?’

‘Thee did split link while thy skin did touch it. This allowed gathered knowledge to disperse into thy body, rather than die as cold steel touched it.’

‘So it’s dead now?’

‘No. Link being used to harvest skills of fighting is like war chariot being used for carrying pigs to market. It does that well, but it is made for something much grander. I do not know what that grand thing might be. Link is still potent and link needs to be joined with mailshirt.’

‘I – I do not think I want the stolen fighting arts of others.’

‘Thee must take them,’ insisted the daemon. ‘Use skills to win back all other links for mailshirt.’

‘One of my good companions would beg to differ – violently.’

The daemon waved its claws as if such an idea was too silly to contemplate.

‘Warning, though. Skills will not stay with thee unless thee practise them. Dragonlink keeps skills fresh always. Without it, skills fade if not practised.’

‘But that’s … like any ordinary skill.’

‘Indeed.’

Jelindel split the other dragonlink. This time she did not allow her flesh to touch it, and the animal control skills died within the steel of the chisel.

‘I – I even have some skills with words of binding and swords from the monk’s dragonlink,’ she said, examining what was now in her own mind. ‘Will I retain all this as well?’

‘Only with practice, as with all skills. Now speak word that thee knows and I will be gone.’

‘Wait, one moment. I saw a mage split a link, but he did not gain the sword skills stored in it.’

‘I explain again, a link split by cold steel without skin touching it is a link that loses its skills to be smothered in cold steel.’

‘I see,’ Jelindel said, stalling. ‘Before you go, will you forge these two links into the mailshirt? I have no skills to do it.’

‘A small price for home. I will do this.’

The daemon was a fast and competent blacksmith. When it had finished, the mailshirt ceased to glow for the first time in five weeks. Jelindel had been watching carefully. She shook the mailshirt back over her head as the daemon held it up for her.

‘Now I shall send you home, T’rr’ll, and with my thanks. This may not mean much to you and your kind, but you are a gentleman. Goodbye.’

‘Would mean a lot, Mage Auditor, were I not female. Maybe more than on thy own plane and paraworld. Thee be gentleman, too. Be well faring, and take these as gift.’

From a fold in the tight-fitting fabric that clothed her, T’rr’ll took two blue teardrop shapes. Both were attached to fine chains.

‘Be transition gates. Our cold science mages developed them to help fight Clevarian, but now not needed.’

‘You mean I could visit your world?’

‘No, but thee could use them to visit … some world. Weight of thy body all wrong, less mine by fraction of four. Speak word ril’kss while holding gate. Go … somewhere. Once use only. If not use, wear around neck, look pretty.’

‘Thank you,’ said Jelindel, reaching her hand out to the daemon and stroking one of her jewelled claws. T’rr’ll bowed again.

‘Good basking, Mage Auditor Jaelin.’

‘Goodbye, T’rr’ll.’

Jelindel spoke an unfamiliar word that was somehow within her memory and the daemon winked out of existence with a sharp blast like a thunderclap and a rush of air.

Moments later the blacksmith began knocking on the remains of his door.

‘Are you all right, Mage Auditor?’ he shouted frantically.

‘I’m safe and whole. You may have your shop back with my thanks.’

Drusen entered alone, glancing fearfully around.

‘I’m sorry about the door,’ said Jelindel. ‘I can pay a few argents to –’

‘Damn that. I’m honoured that you chose my shop to do … what did you do?’

‘Assisted a four hundred tev lady in distress. There will be no more daemons, Drusen. I know that this will be hard to believe, but Brother Clevarian was conjuring them into our world and pretending to fight them.’

‘I know, I know. We were crouched nearby, listening to what you and the daemon were saying.’

‘What is concealed beneath your gloves, Drusen?’ asked Jelindel. ‘I thought that you wore an enchanted link because you never let your hands be seen. My warrior escorts were near to cutting your hands off to get hold of the link.’

Drusen slowly removed a glove, to reveal the ugly brands of crossed yellow feathers on the back of his hand. One of his fingers bore a roughly sewn gash.

‘The mark of a coward,’ explained Drusen. ‘I was in a minor border skirmish years ago, but I turned and ran from the enemy when the fighting went against us. My people won in spite of some ill fortune, and when I was run to ground I was branded a coward on the back of both hands. When I came here I learned bravery. I learned to fight unselfishly against the daemons. My wife has suspicions about me, because at night my gloves do not come off until the bedlamp be out, and I am always first up and about in the morning.’

‘But after all these years has she not once asked?’

‘I am a loving and hardworking husband to her, with no vices. All that I ask in return is that my hands be not seen, and she is wise enough to grant me this one little secret.’

Jelindel slowly reached out and shook his hand.

‘Put your glove back on,’ she sighed.

Zimak and Daretor returned to the town to find Jelindel being carried shoulder high in a cheering procession. They were quickly gathered into the crowd and feted as well, and the entire town mounted a spontaneous revel for the heroes who had ended their years of terror and misery in less than a day.

While Daretor and Zimak danced, ate and drank in the open-air feast in Proclamation Square, Jelindel borrowed a lyaral and joined in with the band. They can afford to relax but I cannot, she thought to herself grimly. She told the bandsmen that she liked to collect dance tunes in the towns and villages where the Temple sent her. In spite of all that was offered to her, she drank only rainwater and ate only honeycakes.

By midnight Jelindel suddenly noticed that Zimak had collected a girl, who was fawning over him and sneering at several others who were also trailing after the blond hero. All of them were probably older than he was. Something akin to jealousy stung Jelindel, and she missed several notes as she played a bracket of mountain jigs. Jealousy over Zimak? The thought surprised her. He was a friend, but she certainly did not love him. Then what?

Daretor pranced by, hand in hand with a dark-haired beauty who was the daughter of the warden. Another stab of – what? Not jealousy but resentment, she realised! They were free to do whatever they would, but Jelindel was trapped behind the bars of a male name and male clothing.

‘Not trapped, but protected,’ she whispered as she played, and the music smothered her words.

As Jelindel she would be dead. As Jaelin she was alive and freer than Jelindel could ever have been. She was leaner, stronger, could ride, could fight, and took no nonsense from anyone. If she was not as strong as Daretor or Zimak, she was nevertheless immune to the charms of female vendors and serving wenches with a mind to cheat them. In that sense she was a man without a man’s weaknesses.

The thought cheered her immensely, and now she gazed across at the dancing Zimak with the suave smile of a minor god. For all his skill with the footwork of fighting, she noted that he was a very clumsy dancer.

They spent two weeks in the Valley of Clouds, and were offered everything from free food and lodging to proposals of marriage.

When not translating embarrassing propositions for her companions, or avoiding girls who were even trailing after her, Jelindel studied for much of the time in the local temple’s library. She also went out to the more isolated fields and vales to secretly practise the skills of using words that she had absorbed from Brother Clevarian’s link. She planned to tell Daretor that they were more enchantments that she had managed to master by herself.

When they left the valley it was by one of the difficult back roads, and they gave false destinations to those who enquired. Daretor never let them forget that they were being hunted.

‘Such wonderful girls in that valley, with such milky white skins,’ said Zimak, scratching his head as they rode. ‘Of all the girls I’ve met with, they were the most lovely.’

‘One of them told me you didn’t know where to put it until she showed you,’ said Jelindel coldly.

‘That’s not true!’ exclaimed Zimak. ‘I was just tired.’

He scratched at his head again.

‘One of them also seems to have given you lice.’

‘What? Impossible. I’ve been washing my hair every week.’

‘That just gives you clean lice. I’ll boil up the roots of a plant that I know next time I see one beside the road. That will kill them.’

Daretor smiled as he turned back. ‘You get along well with girls, Jaelin, yet you keep your vows of chastity. Why did you flee the monastery if you follow its rules so faithfully in the world outside?’

‘Matters of principle and scholarship,’ was the only reply that Jelindel was able to give.

‘Well, I’m glad of your learning but I cannot understand how you think. I love girls, especially fat, fierce girls whose fathers are vintners.’

‘You’re wasting your time,’ sneered Zimak, then turned to Jelindel. ‘He’s never laid a hand upon a naked girl. I doubt he’d know how to give a girl pleasure.’

Some day, Zimak, I shall make you regret those words, thought Jelindel. For the moment she chose silence.

Something about Zimak did not quite match up to his behaviour. There had been more than generous offers for him to stay in the Valley of Clouds. He was obviously quite enamoured of the girls who paid him their attentions there, yet there had been no hesitation in him when Daretor declared that it was time to move on to Passendof and find the next dragonlink. Why?

Daretor wanted to collect the dragonlinks so that he could destroy them. Jelindel wanted to keep on the move under the protection of a skilled warrior until she was trail-wise enough to look after herself. She had only wanted Zimak along at first because she could not manage the horses by herself and Daretor was wounded. Why did Zimak stay with them if he could live in the Valley of Clouds in secrecy and safety?

Could he be more than he seemed, she wondered. Was he in league with the Preceptor, or someone worse? Was he a lindrak, biding his time and waiting for a chance to seize the completed mailshirt? None of those ideas seemed likely, and Jelindel began to feel guilty for thinking such thoughts of an obviously loyal – although often obnoxious – friend.

After a time the magnificent layers of striped rock in the mountainsides took hold of her attention, and her thoughts about Zimak faded away.