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Avender woke in a small, white tent. His first thought was to wonder how the Wizard’s black pavilion had managed to change color and shrink. His second was why he was still alive.
Eyes half-open, he sniffed the sun-baked canvas. What felt like a narrow camp bed lay beneath him; a pillow cushioned his head. Beyond his feet the tent flaps had been tied back to reveal a band of bright blue sky edged at the bottom by the tops of tall cattails. Dimly, as if from a far off part of a large house, he heard the shouts and jingling harness of men and animals at work. Behind the odor of canvas the air itself smelled burned.
A wave of pain in his chest pushed him back down on the bed when he tried to sit up. Whatever else had happened, his wound was still there, though it didn’t seem as crippling as it should have. He found that, by bending his waist as little as possible and pushing against the edges of the cot with his elbows, he could sit up without feeling like he had torn himself in two.
Carefully he examined his bandages. His shirt had been removed and his chest bound in clean white cloth. Looking around the tent, he discovered a heavy rug covering the ground and a field desk and small folding chair set up in the corner, which suggested the owner was someone important. Several books and small jars stood neatly on the desk’s shelves.
Reiffen appeared outside.
“Looks like you’re recovering well,” he said, leaning with one arm raised against the tent pole at the entrance. His black armor was gone, replaced by ordinary traveling clothes, dull and dusty as Avender’s own.
“What day is it?” Avender was still too numb for any greater confrontation. The last thing he wanted was for Reiffen to have rescued him, not after his former friend had helped Ossdonc destroy Backford so utterly.
“You were wounded yesterday, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
“Did you capture the others too?”
“Others? Oh, you mean Lady Breeanna and her friend. No, they escaped. Your heroics gave them just the time they needed. Very clever of you, to give them your lamp.”
“They would never have gotten anywhere in the tunnel without it.”
“It also prevented me from using it to reopen the door. Though I did have to save you first, anyway.”
“Thank you so much.”
“You don’t think I went through the last seven years just so you could die, do you? If I’m to get any payment for what I’ve done, you and Ferris have to remain alive.”
“I’m sure Ferris will be just as grateful as I am.”
“More, I hope.”
Reiffen moved away from the entrance. His face was narrower than it had been when he was a boy, as if the years in Ussene had honed him to a sharper focus. Avender watched closely for signs of the Wizards’ compulsion but, truth be told, Reiffen looked better and more like himself than he had when they had rescued him years before.
Reiffen understood the look on Avender’s face. “I’m under no spells, if that’s what you’re thinking. At least none that I know of.”
“I’d kill you if I could, you know.”
“I don’t doubt you’d try. Maybe you’d even succeed. You used to beat me at everything in the old days, but this time I’m the one who’s rescued you. Now you’ll be able to ride with me into Malmoret, just as we always planned.”
Avender grimaced. “How can you think I’d ever do that now?” Then he remembered how, even when they were small, and Avender had caught Reiffen in some trick or small deceit, Reiffen had always been prone to ignore what he had done and continue on as if nothing had happened.
“There is that, I suppose.” Reiffen acknowledged his part in the previous day’s fighting with a slight nod. “Though I have tried to make it all as easy as possible. I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to, you know.”
“I don’t know that at all.”
“Well, I won’t.”
There was an awkward pause. Reiffen smiled reassuringly, delighted to be reunited with his oldest friend. Avender tried not to wince every time he breathed.
“How did you do it?” he asked to change the subject. “How did you save me?”
“My art gives me power for healing as well as death.”
“So it was magic?”
“Yes, though other factors are involved as well. Here. Let me show you. It’s time you had another draught, which is why I looked in on you in the first place.”
Reiffen busied himself among the bottles on the desk, his hands clicking whenever they touched a glass. Avender noticed the iron thimbles on both his old friend’s little fingers. Evidently the one left behind on the balcony of the Tear had been replaced.
Selecting a clean tumbler, Reiffen added something to the glass from each of three different beakers. The mixture bubbled and foamed, but stayed within the cup. A faint smell of ground walnuts and ice drifted past Avender’s nose. Pricking his index finger with the point of a knife, Reiffen pressed the tiny wound with his thumb and dropped a single spot of blood into the glass. The mixture sputtered a second time.
“Drink this.” He handed the cup to his prisoner.
“I’m not drinking that. You bled into it.”
“There are certain properties in my blood which will help your healing.”
“Or poison me.”
“Really, Avender. Why would I go to all the trouble of rescuing you just to poison you later? After all the years of you outwrestling me in Valing, you could show a little more grace the first time I finally beat you.”
“You didn’t beat me. Ossdonc and his soldiers did that.”
“True. But it was my plan. Now really, I insist you drink this. If you don’t, you’ll most likely die, and then you’ll never get the chance to kill me.”
All the old contests of will the two of them had ever had tugged at Avender’s memory as he met his former friend’s gaze. He didn’t suppose this challenge was one he could possibly win. Even without the wound in his chest, the advantages were all Reiffen’s.
“What is it?” he asked by way of compromise.
“That’s a fair question.” Reiffen settled comfortably into the chair beside the desk. “I wouldn’t trust me either, if I were you. It’s a concoction of my own invention to help you heal. The most appetizing ingredient is mold. A rather more complicated medicine than what Hern used to dose us with back in Valing. But I don’t know why you should mind a drop or two of blood. It’s not like this is something new.”
The memory of the oath, when the two of them had pledged eternal friendship in what they thought was the best Keeadini manner, rushed back to Avender. After visiting their fathers’ graves, they had cut shallow slits in their thumbs with a knife and pressed the wounds together. Later they told Giserre they had cut themselves while playing at scouts among Hern’s rosebushes. She had never said a word about the peculiar similarity of the scratches, which Avender suspected meant she had known the truth all along.
“How’s your mother?” he asked as he took the cup from his former friend.
“She’s fine. I expect she’ll be glad to see you.”
Drinking the mixture, Avender found the taste thick and salty, the way he imagined clay would taste if mixed with day old cream. But it wasn’t any worse than most of the medicines Hern had made him drink as a boy.
Sneezing, he handed the glass back to Reiffen and wondered if there was anything he might say to get under his former friend’s skin. As a boy, Reiffen’s sore spots had always been as obvious as bruises on an apple. Now he appeared to have more self-control.
“Do you think you can walk?” Reiffen asked.
“How far do you want me to go?”
“Just across the meadow. Ossdonc will want to meet you, now you’re awake. It will be better for us both if I’m present. His temper will surely come out with someone as stubborn as you.”
Breathing deeply, but not so deeply as to stretch his sore rib, Avender stood. He felt better than he thought he would: apparently the sitting had been good for him. Or maybe Reiffen’s draught had helped more than he supposed.
From a chest beneath the bed, Reiffen found his old friend a clean shirt and helped him put it on. His first steps halting, Avender came out of the tent into bright sunshine. Two soldiers standing guard bowed as Reiffen emerged behind him. Past the cattails, Backford Pool lay still as an empty mirror. A muddy path led through a gap in the tall stalks on the left, a watering spot for the horses that had galloped the meadow two days before.
Avender was nearly sickened as he looked back over the long, wide field. His nose recoiled from the acrid odor only hinted at inside the tent. Except for a few charred timbers standing like lightning-blasted pines, Backford was a smoking ruin. Plumes rose from dozens of sluggish fires, sissit and crows picking through the rubbish. Up on the hill the keep smoldered like a skull on a badly doused pyre. Its walls still stood, but greasy ropes of black smoke staggered from the shattered windows, the thick fumes almost too heavy for the air. Carrion birds feasted on the corpses of the manders next to the river, which were given a wide birth by the camping army.
Through that burned and trampled meadow they crossed to Ossdonc’s tent. Sissit and men, wearing dresses, rich cloaks, and bangles stolen from the town, bowed to the young wizard as he passed. But, as Reiffen and Avender neared their goal, they were forced to give way before a Keeadini war band galloping for the bridge. Ossdonc had proven his power now, and the young tribesmen were rushing to join him. Even if they didn’t follow the Wizard faithfully to war, their ravaging would cause the countryside as much misery as any sustained attack, now that Backford’s stout shield had fallen.
The Keeadini passed. Reiffen and Avender arrived at the black pavilion, its flaps hanging dead in the windless air. Ignoring the guards, Reiffen lifted a corner of the heavy curtain. Avender followed him into thick darkness greased with a few stains of yellow illumination. The dense, gritty scent within reminded him of a barn. Reiffen dropped the flap; the sounds of the outside vanished.
Large cushions filled the interior, some as tall as Avender’s waist. Pillows plump enough for a Wizard to lounge upon, he realized. Between them stood a few high tables, again set for a Wizard’s height, at the level of Avender’s nose. Several held burning lamps, thin wisps of brown smoke dirtying the tips of their flames. Others were piled with meat and drink, the joints and flagons looking like toys amid the massive furnishings.
Reiffen stood on tiptoe to take an apple from the largest table. “Would you like something to eat?” he asked.
“No.”
“You had better come further into the room all the same. Away from the entrance. Otherwise Ossdonc might trip over you when he arrives.”
Remembering the way the Wizard had crushed his own soldiers underfoot in his haste to attack the bridge, Avender moved deeper into the room. The animal smell thickened. Incense in the lamps, he thought, or maybe the smell of the beasts forced to cart all of this down from Ussene. He examined the rest of the room and noted it was smaller than it had seemed outside. Perhaps there were other apartments behind the dark fabric drooping from the ceiling.
“Where are the Dwarves?” he asked
Reiffen gestured toward the curtains. “In there. Wrapped in several hundredweight of chain. It’s a pity we didn’t catch them all. The netting worked exactly as planned. If Ossdonc had thought for a moment, instead of showing off his strength, we would have had all three.”
A slight tremor rolled through the earth. Reiffen turned to face the entrance. Sudden brightness swept the room as the flap was thrown entirely open. Ossdonc stood outlined against the meadow and sky, his shoulders broad as a double gibbet. His voice roared through the tent, battering Avender’s and Reiffen’s ears as thoroughly as the daylight singed their eyes.
“What have we here!” he boomed. “Another prisoner? The third Dwarf perhaps, or maybe the Baroness?”
Stepping farther into the tent, Ossdonc dropped the curtain. His black armor vanished into the sudden dark. Seizing a large punch bowl from the center table, he raised it to his lips and swallowed greedily. The odor of strong wine filled the room as the excess slopped down the Wizard’s stained and crusted armor to the floor. Puddles formed on the elegant rug, darkening as they settled into the weave. Ossdonc dropped the empty bowl to the ground with a rolling thud.
“So, what have you brought me?” He wiped his mouth with one of the smaller pillows and settled down on several of the larger.
“Avender of Valing, Ossdonc. The Hero of the Stoneways, as the Bankings call him.”
The Wizard pressed the wine from his beard. Despite his wild thirst and battered armor, he remained a handsome rogue.
“Avender,” he mused. “One of your friends from the little country.”
“My closest friend.”
“I’m no friend of yours any longer, Reiffen,” Avender declared. “You killed my friends yesterday, and helped capture the Dwarves. If I weren’t wounded, I’d show you how much a friend I am.”
“Oho!” Ossdonc’s colossal laugh sent the tent sides billowing. “A bold friend you once had, Reiffen. Shall I slay him?”
“No.” Reiffen weighed the apple in his hand. “It is not his fault he does not understand. I would keep him alive so he can see how wrong we all have been.”
Ossdonc shrugged. “It is no concern of mine. A cowherd from the mountains. You may have a dozen such. What of my other prisoners?”
“They remain on the other side of the tent.”
“Fetch them.”
“May I remind you we must still plan our next course of action?” said Reiffen. “Your troops await your orders.”
“Pleasure first.”
The lamps shook as the wizard got back to his feet and disappeared behind the draperies. The sound of dragging followed. Ossdonc reappeared pulling a pair of clanking bundles at the end of short chains. With a rattling crash, he dropped them at the center of the room. Only because he knew what the chains were wrapped around was Avender able to recognize the glimpses of Bryddin arm or leg he saw inside. Otherwise the two Dwarves were swathed from head to foot in heavy iron, a second layer of thick rope to bind the chains tight against them. Neither could move a toe.
Ossdonc seized the bundle on the right and propped it against one of the large pillows. With a few swift twists, the Wizard unwrapped the Dwarf’s outer covering of rope, then loosened the chain. Nurren’s face appeared above the iron links. Avender couldn’t quite tell in the dimness, but he thought the Wizard was gloating.
The Dwarf caught sight of Avender and smiled. “Hello Avender. Come to rescue me and Findle, have you?”
“Not this time, small one,” said Ossdonc.
Nurren frowned. He didn’t look particularly afraid. “Not this time what?” he asked.
“No rescue, this time. Or triumph.” Ossdonc’s eyes flashed. “This time you are the ones caught off guard. Your human friends were slaughtered without you. My sissit and I have greatly enjoyed our sport.”
The Black Wizard lifted something from one of the tables. Baron Backford’s Inach sword. In his hand the long, heavy blade looked like a stabbing knife, gleaming palely. Judging its balance, he lowered the point against Nurren’s beard at about the place where the Dwarf’s throat might be.
“You know what this is?” Ossdonc rasped the sword’s tip along a link of the black chain.
“Of course. It’s one of the Inach swords.”
“One of them? There are others?”
“Two in Rimwich, one in Malmoret—”
Avender leapt forward, ignoring the sharp pain in his chest. “Don’t tell him anything more, Nurren! He’s trying to find out what you know!”
A dark cloud stormed across Ossdonc’s face. Reiffen positioned himself in front of his friend.
“Remember what I said, Ossdonc. This one is mine.”
“Then curb him or face my wrath yourself.”
Reiffen turned to Avender. “It is important you not interfere,” he urged. “I cannot always answer for what Ossdonc does. His temper is worse than Redburr’s.”
“I don’t care about his temper. He can’t do anything to me I’ll regret.”
“Yes he can.”
Reiffen pushed Avender firmly back onto one of the smaller cushions. His thimble clicked against a button on his friend’s shirt. Avender sat rubbing his sore ribs, his mind filled with sudden visions of what the Wizard might do if he really put his mind to it.
Ossdonc’s irritation passed. “Please continue,” he said, returning to the Dwarf.
“What Avender said’s right.” Nurren pursed his mouth stubbornly. “I’m not saying another word.”
“And this?” Ossdonc waved the sword in front of Nurren’s eyes.
Nurren grew puzzled. “Why would an Inach sword make a difference?”
“It was an Inach sword that broke Finlis. You remember Finlis, don’t you?”
Nurren’s eyebrows rose, but it was a look of comprehension, not fear. “You’re right. I hadn’t thought of that. Do you intend to break me, too?”
“Only if you refuse to tell me what I want to know.”
Nurren set his mouth firmly. “You might as well go ahead, then. I won’t say another word.”
Admiration for the Dwarf swelled in Avender. He knew Dwarves were stubborn and independent, unwilling to take orders from anyone, but he had thought that simple obduracy would have evaporated before the threat of breaking.
Evidently Ossdonc had thought so as well. His eyes narrowed impatiently and he leaned closer to the Dwarf. “I do not think you understand, small one. If I break you, that will be the end. You cannot be rebuilt.”
“I know,” answered Nurren seriously. “I was there when we tried to put Huri back together. It didn’t work. The Breath of Brydds was gone. Without it we might as well be rocks in the dark.”
“Knowing that, you still defy me?”
“Breaking me won’t change anything. You’ll never learn what you want, then. If you don’t break me, there’s always the chance I might slip and tell you what you want to know by accident. I’m only a rockreader, you know.”
“Your life means so little to you?”
“It means a great deal. But it won’t be my life if I start doing what other people want instead of what I want.”
“You could live forever, under the right circumstances.”
“I guess these aren’t the right circumstances.”
“So be it.”
Ossdonc lifted the Inach sword above his head and brought it down swiftly on the trapped Dwarf. Reiffen raised a hand to stop him, but it was too late. A loud crack, as sharp as spring ice splitting on Valing Lake, burst across the room. The floor shook and the sword snapped in two as Nurren’s face exploded in a shower of splintered stone. His chains sagged and settled; shards of rock spilled out between the links.
Avender choked back tears.
“What have you done?” Reiffen stepped between the Wizard and the second bundle of chains.
“A threat means nothing if not executed in the face of defiance. Now the other will be more amenable.”
“Will he? Who knows if he even saw what happened?”
“He certainly heard it.”
Reiffen shook his head in exasperation. “Do you think we are going to capture any more Bryddin as easily as this? We were going to bring them back to Usseis. We certainly cannot kill the other one now, and he knows it.”
The Wizard’s eyes narrowed to black slits, as if the Abyss were locked behind his face. “Do not tell me what to do, human.”
Reiffen picked up the end of the sword. Ossdonc tightened his grip on the half still in his hand.
“I certainly will tell you what to do when you have done wrong,” said Reiffen. “We have not begun this war for your pleasure. There are other aims. Destroying opportunities to further our knowledge is not among them. The Dwarf did not know anything we cannot learn easily from my friend. You were just looking for the chance to slay a Bryddin. To do what Fornoch has already done.”
Ossdonc’s malice curdled the air, but Reiffen didn’t back down. Avender felt a reluctant admiration for his former friend. Despite the Wizards turning him, much of the old Reiffen remained. Avender wondered if Reiffen would use magic if the Wizard attacked him, and whether it would matter if he did.
“You remind me of your cousin,” Ossdonc said finally, his face and shoulders relaxing. “Loellin also used to defy me occasionally. I killed her in the end.”
“As I remember the tale,” said Reiffen, “it was Fornoch who killed her, and everyone else as well. Your blow only knocked Nolo into the gorge. But you’ve bagged your Bryddin now, so we will keep this last one for Usseis.”
Ossdonc shook his head peevishly. “I have no stomach to send him back now. My brothers will have finished with him by the time I return. I prefer not to miss the play.”
“Then take him with us.”
Ossdonc discarded his half of the broken sword. “And risk his escape? All it would take is the promise of a lamp, and every Keeadini in our train would set him free. The only answer is to kill him.”
“That is not true.”
“You know another way?”
“Tonight, before the moon rises, I shall take the Bryddin out to the deepest part of the lake and drop him in. Still wrapped in his chains, of course. The Bankings will have no idea what we have done with him. When Malmoret and Rimwich are ours, we can return to retrieve him.”
“Good. Remember to kill the soldiers who do the job.”
The audience over, Reiffen led Avender back to his own tent. His earlier cheerfulness had faded to a more somber mood.
“It must be difficult,” he said, “finding your oldest friend so changed. Even if I did just save the Bryddin’s life.”
“Save him? You let Nurren be killed.”
“I was too late for Nurren, that’s true. But I saved the other.”
Avender snorted in disgust. “For what?”
“That is the question, isn’t it? But not one we have to answer yet. Here. I think we both need some cheering up. I brought something special to eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Perhaps I can tempt you.”
The only thing tempting Avender was the urge to take a swing at Reiffen as the latter got on his knees in front of the bed. His chest still stiff and sore, he moved awkwardly aside instead. Wood scraped and buckles rattled as the young wizard dragged a wooden trunk out from under the cot. Avender wondered what sort of food Reiffen could possibly have in his trunk that would tempt him.
“Here it is.” A small paper parcel in hand, Reiffen regained his feet.
Avender recognized the plain brown wrapping at once. “Where did you get that?” he demanded.
The barest frown creased Reiffen’s forehead. “I was in Valing recently. You’ll hear about it soon enough.”
“But why—”
“I said you’ll hear about it later. Now isn’t the time. When I heard you were in the Waste with Redburr, I saved these for you. Even Ossdonc doesn’t know I have them.”
Reiffen spread the bag open on the desk. Avender caught himself almost reaching for a piece. He and Reiffen had spent half their waking hours in Valing scheming for ways to get at Mother Spinner’s maple candy. Obviously it was much easier with magic.
“I can’t eat that,” he said.
“Suit yourself,” Reiffen answered. “Just means there’s more for me if you don’t. It’s not magic, if that’s what’s bothering you. I may have used magic to get there, but the candy is Mother Spinner’s own.”
Avender’s thoughts shifted anxiously. “What were you doing in Valing? Did you see Ferris? Did you hurt her?”
Reiffen frowned, offended. Avender was glad he had finally found something that could throw his former friend off balance. “Of course I didn’t hurt her,” Reiffen said. “I didn’t hurt you. Why would I hurt Ferris?”
Avender gestured toward the meadow and the town beyond. “You hurt them. You don’t think that hurts Ferris and me too? It hurts us all.”
“True.” Picking up a sweet between forefinger and thumb, Reiffen took a thoughtful bite. “It couldn’t be helped, though. No matter which way I look at the question, someone has to be hurt. I may not like it, but there was never any other alternative.”
“You seem to like it fine enough as far as I can tell.”
“You can accuse me of many things, Avender, but you can’t accuse me of that.” Reiffen spoke wearily, as if he had been through this question so many times it no longer troubled him. “You’ve seen Ossdonc kill, more than once, I imagine. Is that who I remind you of? Is it really?”
Avender didn’t answer. He had been speaking from anger only. When Ossdonc had broken Nurren he had seen the difference, and it had made him ill. The Wizard’s delight had been immense, like a child with a new toy.
“You could have stopped him from killing Nurren,” he said.
“Could I?” Reiffen took another small bite from his candy. As a boy he would have eaten the entire piece at once. “Sometimes you have to give Ossdonc his head, if you want to manage him.”
“Is that what you’re doing? Managing Ossdonc?”
“Right now, yes.”
“Then why don’t you manage him back to Ussene? Then I might begin to believe you.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible.” Reiffen finished his candy with a third bite, then looked briefly at the ones he hadn’t touched. “I have to finish what I’ve started, and sending Ossdonc home, even if I could, would only make things worse in the end.”
“So you admit you’re responsible for all this, for all the people who died today?”
The accusation slid off Reiffen’s shoulders like snow off firs. “Not them, perhaps. Baron Backford and his people knew this day would come sometime. This ford between mountains and swamp has fallen before. This is just the first time it’s happened since the bridge and lake were built. Not many people remember there’s a dam at the other end of Backford Pool. I tried to persuade Ossdonc to smash it and pass through the old ford, avoiding the town completely, but as you saw, Ossdonc wanted to have his fun. No, I don’t hold the deaths here to my own account, but there might be others elsewhere.”
“I hope your efforts to manage the other Wizards are more successful,” said Avender bitterly.
“I don’t even try with them. Ossdonc’s the only one who’s manageable. His preferences are obvious. Fornoch and Usseis are much more subtle. Especially Fornoch. Be happy they’re not all here, or I’d have no chance with Ossdonc at all.”
“How lucky for us.”
“No, not lucky. Usseis prefers his workshops, and Fornoch dislikes the risks of fighting. They’d rather leave that to Ossdonc. Believe me, when they think their final triumph is at hand, they’ll be present.”
A soldier arrived with a meal: a pitcher of wine, two loaves of black bread, and a wedge of hard cheese. Reiffen poured two glasses of wine. “It’s not as lavish as Ossdonc’s table,” he said, “but it is filling. You can’t starve yourself to death, you know. I won’t let you.”
Avender found himself accepting the food, his hunger, after a long and trying day, overcoming his reluctance. The bread was coarse and dry, the cheese surprisingly tasty. Before he knew it, the meal was gone.
“You want dessert?” Reiffen glanced at the candy still spread out on the desk.
“I said I won’t touch that.”
“No sense wasting it then.” Reiffen carried the bundle outside to the guards. Avender thought they looked more than a little surprised by the gift.
“I have some things I must take care of,” Reiffen told Avender from the entrance. “I suggest you rest while I’m gone. You’ll heal faster. Whatever you do, don’t leave the tent. This is the only place you’re safe.”
Avender didn’t expect to sleep after Reiffen left but, after lying down on the bed to think, he only woke when he heard sissit shouting close by. Sitting up, he saw the reeds beyond the tent vanishing in the dusk. A pair of ducks sliced a corner off the sky as they flew deeper into the marshes.
The sissit were with Reiffen, who was directing a dozen of them as they guided a rattling cart to the lake. The solid wheels bit deep into the soft turf; something heavy jangled inside. A pair of flat-bottomed boats floated bow to stern in the narrow cut in the reeds like a pair of headless swans.
“Enough!” The sissit stopped at Reiffen’s command and allowed the wagon to sink deeper into the mire. “Now unload him.”
The axles creaked as half the sissit climbed into the back of the cart; the others waited at the open end. With muffled clanks and panting groans, the ones above handed something heavy wrapped in dark cloth to the ones below. Avender couldn’t quite make out the details in the darkness, but he could make a good guess. The bundle was the right size for Findle, and the clanking within was clearly from thick chains.
He joined Reiffen as the sissit, their shoulders straining, squelched toward the lake through the mud.
“Put him in the second boat,” Reiffen ordered.
In two rows, the sissit passed on either side of the skiffs, Findle suspended between them. One of the ones in front slipped in the weeds, dropping his burden against the stern of the second boat. Nervously the sissit looked back at Reiffen, expecting to be blasted for their clumsiness.
“Go on,” he said. “Put him in the boat. Just watch not to drop him through the bottom.”
Carefully the sissit lowered their burden. The skiff settled into the lake. Still cautious, the pale creatures let go and stepped back. The rowboat floated with barely a hand’s breadth of clearance, lolling deeply.
“All right. Back to your mice and beetles.” Reiffen dismissed the work detail with a wave and headed toward the tent. “Avender, you take the empty dinghy. I’ll row the Bryddin.”
“I’m coming with you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“So you’ll know where I sink him.”
“Aren’t you supposed to kill whoever helps you?”
“Only if they’re soldiers. Ossdonc was specific.”
“Do you think I can manage it?” Avender patted his bandaged chest.
“I think you’ll find you’re feeling much better,” said Reiffen. “I’ll be doing the heavy work. Go on. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Removing his boots, Avender waded into the lake. Soft mud seeped between his toes. Colder than he expected, the water came only to mid-calf. In the boat, he unshipped the oars and took a testing stroke through the air. His chest twinged, but not so much that he couldn’t row. Whatever Reiffen had put in his potion had worked remarkably well. At this rate he would heal fully by morning.
Softly the boat drifted against the reeds. A bullfrog croaked in the darkness. Campfires flickered in the meadow as Ossdonc’s army settled down for the night. Reiffen emerged from his tent, a glow at the top of the long walking stick in his hand.
It was an odd sort of light, brighter than a Dwarven lamp, but not seeming to burn naturally at all. No matter how hard Avender looked, he couldn’t find the source of the illumination. It simply clung to the end of the wooden shaft like a fallen star, or a bubble without sides.
Reiffen waded out to the second boat and pushed the bottom of his staff deep into the mud at the edge of the reeds. Next he threw something small and heavy into his skiff. A hand axe. So heavily loaded was the craft it didn’t rock at all as Reiffen settled in at the bow.
They rowed out of the cut together, the wizard-light marking their progress from the shore. Avender’s chest stung slightly with every pull on the oars, but it was no strain to follow Reiffen’s sluggish pace. Avender hated being so cooperative, but he did want to know where Findle was sunk, in case he ever had a chance to rescue him. A Dwarf could last forever at the bottom of a lake, no matter how long he had stopped breathing.
To his left, the town glowed like a dying hearth, a thin line of red to match the last light of the sky beyond the mountains. Smoke haze dulled the stars to the south, but the north and west were clear. The Hawk swept low across Keeadin’s hills, up too early for the moon.
They rowed until the sky was dark except for stars. Reiffen’s staff glowed like a single, tiny eye in the reeds along the shore. Blind in the featureless night, Avender wasn’t sure how far they had come, but he guessed it was at least halfway.
“This is far enough.”
Avender shipped his oars. The edges of the two boats shimmered indistinctly in the blackness of lake and sky. Water swirled as Reiffen sculled his craft closer to Avender’s, the skiffs jarring slightly as they bumped in the darkness. A loon called from the farther shore, its high, lonely cry ringing the night in an eerie noose.
“Hold the boats together,” said Reiffen. His skiff’s bottom scraped as Reiffen retrieved his hatchet.
Groping in the dark, Avender found the prow of the other craft. He listened as Reiffen whispered in a low voice; some spell to increase Findle’s misery, no doubt. A heavy knock sounded in the darkness, followed by a throaty gurgle. Reiffen’s boat shivered under Avender’s fingers as the knock was repeated; the gurgle deepened. Reiffen tossed the hatchet into Avender’s skiff with a loud thunk and followed it aboard. The skiff rocked; Avender let go the other craft. He was thinking about the hatchet lying somewhere on the wooden bottom just in front of him.
The murmur of the lake grew louder, almost bubbling. A soft gulp followed as the other craft went down. Crude laughter from the Wizard’s camp rang distantly across the darkness.
Avender bent forward. Luck was with him: he found the hatchet right beneath his fingers. Reiffen sat silhouetted against the smoldering town. Glad of the cloaking dark, Avender gripped the handle and raised the weapon quickly. There was no way he could miss. He swung the hatchet hard and fast, hardly believing Reiffen had made such a mistake.
The blow crunched against the gunwale. Avender’s chest burned at the jarring shock.
“You can’t harm me,” said Reiffen, his voice mild in the darkness.
Avender gritted his teeth. “Why not?”
“The potion I gave you did more than heal you. You’re no longer entirely your own master.”
Reiffen picked up the oars, though he would have to row backward. “I’ll teach you the spell, if you like,” he went on. “That’s the best way to understand it. It’s all about the blood. Mindrell made me drink a similar potion that night on Nokken Island.”
“How long will it last?” Avender flexed his arm in the dark, trying to see if it would still obey him.
“A day or two. I’ll have to give you another dose tomorrow.”
“What if I won’t take it?”
“You will.”
Without giving himself time to think, Avender pulled the hatchet from the side of the boat and tried to strike Reiffen again. This time his hand opened in the middle of the blow and the hatchet flew off into the darkness. The water plopped softly.
“You can try all you like,” said Reiffen, his manner still unconcerned. “I’ve tested the spell thoroughly. You won’t find any holes. You’ll have to keep drinking that potion for a while, though, until you stop wanting to kill me.”
Avender set his jaw. “That will never happen.”
“We’ll see.”
Far away across the water Reiffen’s staff gleamed, unwinking as the lights of Issinlough.