Althyof chanted a lausaveesa as he trotted between the stone trees of the Mikitl Skowkur. King Hetidn had gotten himself lost—again—damn the man. He emerged into a clearing of sorts, and across the small clear space, Hetidn leaned against a thick stalagmite. “King Hetidn!” he called.
The king looked around, his gaze passing right over Althyof the first time, and then meandering back. “Is it you, Althyof?”
“It is, Your Majesty. I will lead you back to the others.”
“Good, good,” said the king, but his gaze kept losing track of Althyof as if the king were drunk.
“Are you well, King Hetidn?”
“Yes, fine,” groused the king with a surly expression crossing his face. “Tired is all.”
“Well, let’s get you back to the others.”
“Did you…”
Althyof crossed the open space and came up short five steps away. He sensed the strenkir af krafti wrapping around the king, and the king was neither a runeskowld nor a vefari. “Your Majesty, are you…alone?”
“I am alone, Althyof! Do you see someone else?”
“No, King Hetidn, no one else is apparent. But… Your Majesty, someone has accessed the strenkir af krafti with you as their focus.”
“Maybe it was that woman. Did you not see her?”
“Woman, Excellency? Only you stand before me.”
“Well, she was…” The king’s voice trailed away, and his eyes lost focus again.
“Come, Your Majesty. Let’s get you away from here. You can tell me about the woman on our trip back to the others.”
“Woman?” The king turned vacant eyes on Althyof. “What woman?” He held out his arm, allowing Althyof to lead him.
“I didn’t see her, Excellency. You mentioned her a moment ago.” Althyof took the king’s arm and walked back to the impromptu camp the king’s men had set up.
“Oh, yes. She was quite a beauty, Althyof. Beautiful! She gave me something to drink.”
“Something to drink, Excellency?”
“No, I’m not thirsty right now.” The king stumbled, and his eyelids drooped.
Althyof didn’t like the look of his pallor, nor the decline of his faculties. Poison? he wondered. “Tell me more of this woman, Your Majesty.”
“Ah, yes. Quite beautiful she was. Blonde-haired, blue-eyed, dressed provocatively.” The king’s tone was wistful with a dollop of lust.
“Blonde? She wasn’t a Tverkr woman, Majesty?”
“No, no. An Isir, but pretty.” Hetidn grinned at him. “Her dress was transparent, Althyof. Imagine it!”
“Yes, Excellency.” Althyof was busy imagining things, but none of them was a scantily clad woman.
“She gave me a drink. I was very thirsty,” said the king.
“What did she give you to drink, Excellency?”
“Some draught or another. Mead or something weak such as that. It offended me, of course, but thirst is thirst.”
“Yes, Your Excellency, quite right. Did she speak to you?”
“I…I think so, Althyof, but I can’t remember what she said. It’s as if a fog I can’t penetrate wraps the words…”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” Althyof led the king back to his men at arms and instructed the captain of the guard to set up a tent so the king could take a few hours’ rest. He turned on his heel and walked back into the Mikitl Skowkur without another word.
Althyof was already composing another lausaveesa, this one intended to bring him across the path of the mysterious woman. There were a number of questions he wanted her to answer. He trotted and chanted the lausaveesa in a cadence that matched the pace of his footfalls. The runeskowld ran for forty minutes before he realized his path was circling back on itself again and again. He stopped short, standing straight, in surprise. Someone was turning his lausaveesa back on him. That hadn’t happened since he’d earned the rank of master.
He composed his mind and put together a triblinkr, something powerful enough to resist being tampered with. When he had it all in his mind, he began to jog, again chanting in time to his pace. This time, the path his chanting led him down was arrow straight, and he emerged into the same clearing in which he’d found the king. The triblinkr urged him on, past the clearing, and into the stone trees on the other side. He ran on, past glittering formations of minerals and ores, past a small, mineral-infused lake. His legs kept pumping, and his lips kept chanting. Finally, he came to another clearing, this one larger than the last.
“Welcome, Althyof, Master Runeskowld,” said a blonde woman sitting in an ornate chair in the center of the clearing. He thought he detected scorn in her use of his title but decided not to take offense. Not yet.
“And you are, Lady Isir?” He called her that, but it felt wrong on his lips, even as he said it.
“For one, I am no Isir. I could have stopped you, you know.”
She really is beautiful, he thought. For a non-Tverkar. “Could have stopped me doing what?”
She laughed. “Your little triblinkr. I could have looped it back on itself with as much ease as I did your lausaveesa.”
Althyof took it as bravado. “Then why didn’t you?” he snapped.
“You intrigued me. Only rarely does someone of your abilities seek me out.”
“What did you do to King Hetidn?” he demanded, stepping forward.
“No, Runeskowld,” she said, and he froze in place. “I prefer you at a distance.”
He tried to move forward again, but the muscles of his legs wouldn’t obey.
“What happened between Hetidn and me is our own business and no concern of yours.”
“I beg to differ,” said Althyof. He compartmentalized his mind, using one part to maintain his conversation with the woman, and using the other part to compose a trowba meant to break her hold on him, to turn her spell back on herself and to hold her frozen against her will.
“I don’t care,” she said with a small, triumphant grin. “Well, I’ve seen you, Tverkr, and my curiosity is satisfied. You’ll not see me again.”
“Your name,” said Althyof. “Tell me your name.” As he said the words, he began to sing the trowba in his mind, imagining the dance that would accompany it, flinging runes into the world. After a moment, his feet moved to the steps of the dance and whirled across the clearing.
The woman’s eyes widened as he moved, and she shrank away from his whirling dance. As she leaned away from him, Althyof sang his trowba aloud, increasing his volume with each stanza. By the time he came to the refrain, he was shouting the words in her face.
A stricken expression twitched on her face, and she appeared frozen as he had been moments before. He ended his trowba and grinned at her. Her lips twitched, and she was shaking with fear. “And now, woman, you know the depths of my mastery.”
The woman burst out laughing. What he had taken for fear was an act—camouflage. She reached forward, moving easily, and pushed him away. She stood, grinning at his flabbergasted expression. “Goodbye, Master Runeskowld. You should return to your friends, they are waiting for you,” she said and disappeared.
Althyof decided it was time to take offense, after all. “Who are you,” he muttered. He turned and walked back to the camp.
When he arrived, the king was pacing back and forth, and the impromptu campsite had been struck. “Althyof!” exclaimed the king. “It’s about time you returned! We almost left without you. Where have you been?”
Althyof put on the expression he used when he wanted to appear mysterious. “A runeskowld’s business is his own, Excellency.”
“Runeskowlds in my employ have no business of their own. It would be best if you remembered that in the future.”
Althyof said nothing and resisted the urge to bow his head. Hetidn had ruled the kingdom for thirty short years, and Althyof remembered his father with fondness. Hetidn would never match his father as king. The Tverkr was just not suited for the job.
King Hetidn gazed at him coldly for a moment before turning to his men-at-arms. “Let’s go, men. We need to be in Yutlant before night arrives.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Althyof! A trowba for speed, endurance, and a direct path to Hokni’s summer palace.” He snapped his fingers as if he were calling his dogs.
Althyof decided it was high time to take offense, but he didn’t let it show. He set off at a quick pace, one sure to tax the indolent king, singing a rote trowba of travel rather than composing something tailored to the situation. Treat me like hired help, and hired help is what you will get.
They ran for hours, twisting through the stone trees of the Mikitl Skowkur like lithe wild animals. When Althyof stopped singing, they were near the summer palace of the king of Yutlant, Hokni by name. King Hetidn stood behind, hands on his waist, gasping for breath. “The summer palace, Excellency, as instructed.” Hetidn nodded but didn’t have enough wind to make some pompous declaration or other, and Althyof had to suppress a smile.
The king’s fighting men stood behind him, most in much better shape than the king, but the number of men who were gasping for breath appalled Althyof. It didn’t bode well for the battle to come.
“Well, Your Majesty? Should we set up camp?”
The king shook his head. “No,” he wheezed. “No camp. We strike in the night.”
Althyof stiffened. “What?” In his surprise, he forgot to use the honorific, but if the king noticed, he let it pass.
“No camp. We strike as soon as the men have rested.”
“But, Your Majesty, the conventions of war—”
“Damn the conventions of war,” snapped the king. “It’s Hokni’s wedding night. There will be no better time than this night.”
Althyof’s gaze slipped to the commander of the king’s troops. The man looked back stony-faced, but Althyof thought there was a flicker of discomfort in his eyes. Worse comes to worst, he thought. First, it’s a sneak attack after the day is done, and then it’s a sneak attack on a wedding party. Althyof pursed his lips, trying to think of an argument to dissuade the king from this rash act.
The king glanced at his face and shook his head. “It's decided,” he snapped. “And I’ll hear no arguments against it, Althyof.”
“Is this the work of the woman in the forest, Excellency?”
“What woman?” the king snapped.
“The beautiful blonde woman who bewitched you.”
“I remember no woman,” Hetidn said, but Althyof thought he caught a glimmer of recognition in his gaze.
“Your Excellency,” began Althyof, “if you permit me time to examine you, I’m sure I can compose a trowba to rid you of this spell.” His voice rang with confidence, but even as he said them, he recalled the results of the last trowba he’d sung against the blonde woman.
“No,” snapped the king. “We attack in half an hour.” The king spun on his heel and walked away.
Althyof glanced at the faces within hearing distance. They all wore the same expression: resignation. Shaking his head, Althyof walked away from the small army of men.
It’s not honorable, he thought. But it’s also not honorable to betray one’s king, even if the king is an insufferable fool. He shook his head. If he obeyed Hetidn, it would be to perform a dishonorable act. But wouldn’t the dishonor rest on Hetidn’s shoulders? Then again, if Hetidn was dishonorable, so was Serklant as a nation, and as a citizen of Serklant, the dishonor was his to share.
Althyof strode into the darkness, his mind awhirl, his stomach churning. There had to be an answer, had to be a solution, a way out. The answer came into his mind as if someone had whispered it in his ear, and his pace picked up. He sang a trowba of stealth and ran toward Hokni’s palace.
Technically, what he had in mind was a betrayal of his king, his countrymen, but outside the technicality, it was the perfect solution. He would eliminate the pall of dishonor from the attack.
Althyof snuck onto the palace grounds, and into a vacant room, where he let the trowba draw to an end and composed himself. He beat the dust of travel from his clothes as best he could. He would still look out of place—who attended a wedding in rough traveling clothes? At least he wouldn’t look as if he’d walked in from the road itself.
Althyof followed the sounds of merriment to the large hall where the wedding party was in full swing. He slipped into the room unnoticed and stood in the shadows, looking around. Hokni was easy to pick out: a tall Tverkr wearing gold-spun robes and a stone crown on his head, whose gaze was one of lust and impatience. The small woman next to him was beautiful—a dainty Tverkr woman with amazing vermillion eyes.
Like he had every business being there, Althyof walked toward King Hokni. The king saw him approach, and a look of concern flittered across his features. He made a hand gesture at someone behind and to the side of Althyof, but it was too late to change direction or to stop—to do so would be to scream he was a danger to the king.
Althyof didn’t see the blonde woman in the shadows behind the table until it was too late. In fact, he heard her whispering to the king before he saw her. Hands fell on his shoulders and upper arms with grips of iron.
“Your Majesty, King Hokni,” he said. “I am Althyof, the enchanter and runeskowld.”
The king nodded. “So I am told,” he said in a mild voice.
“The woman behind you, Sire, has led King Hetidn to be outside your walls this very night. She has brought him here, whispering poison in his ears until he is ready to attack tonight. During your wedding party.”
“Yes,” said King Hokni. He didn’t seem surprised, or even concerned.
“Sire! I’ve known King Hetidn for many years, and I served his father before him. It is not a dishonorable family. Serklant is not a dishonorable nation!”
“Be that as it may, Hetidn is outside, planning to attack,” said the king.
“Yes, but bewitched, Your Majesty. Bewitched by the blonde woman behind you.”
“Do you hear that, Messenger? You’ve bewitched Hetidn. Have you bewitched me, as well?”
“Of course, Excellency,” said the blonde, her tone one of jest, but her expression serious.
“I thought so!” joked King Hokni. “Tell me, Messenger, to what end?”
“To bring Serklant and Yutlant to war.” Again, the woman made it sound like a joke, but her eyes told another story.
“She means what she’s saying, King Hokni,” said Althyof. “She isn’t joking as she makes it sound.”
“Oh, of course,” said Hokni with a broad smile. “Why, Messenger of Suel, do you wish our two countries to come to war?”
“Queen Suel’s reasons are beyond the likes of you.” Hokni laughed, but the Messenger of Suel didn’t. The king didn’t seem to notice, but his bride’s eyes widened, and she brought a small, perfect hand to her lips.
Queen Suel? Of Osgarthr? What would she gain from this? Althyof squinted at the Messenger and began to compose a lausaveesa that would reveal her identity.
The blonde woman winked at Althyof and disappeared. He heard the war cries signaling the start of the attack outside. Hokni looked up at him and grinned. “Seems you will need a new employer soon,” he said and laughed.