Century of the Soldier: The Collected Monarchies of God (Volume Two) (91 page)

"I certainly think so."

They smiled at each other in the same moment, and Baraz felt a warmth creep about his heart. But the moment was broken by the urgent squeaks of Mirren's familiar.

"Mij! What in the world is wrong?"

The little animal was clambering distractedly about her shoulders, hissing and crying. She halted her horse to calm it and Baraz took her reins as she bodily seized the tiny creature and stared into its face. It grew quiet, and whimperingly climbed into the hollow of her hood where it lay chittering to itself.

"He's terrified, but all he can show me is the face of a great black wolf." Mirren took back her reins, troubled.

"There's someone on the track ahead of us," Baraz told her. He loosened his sabre in its scabbard. A tall figure was standing some way in the distance, seemingly oblivious of their presence. He was motionless as a piece of statuary, and was staring down at the walls of the capital, mustard-coloured in the morning light, and the blue shine of the estuary beyond where the Torrin widened on its way to the sea.

"He doesn't look dangerous," Mirren said. "Oh, Baraz, stop topping it the bodyguard. It's just a beggar or vagabond. Look - there's another one, sat off to one side. They seem lost, and old, too."

They rode up to the men, who appeared to be absorbed in the contemplation of the city in the distance. One was sat with his back to a stone and a hood which seemed like a monk's cowl pulled over his head. He might have been asleep. The other was dressed in a travelstained robe, buff-coloured with dust, and a wide-brimmed hat that hid his face in shadow. A bulging haversack hung from one bony shoulder.

"Good morning, fathers," Baraz greeted them as they approached. "Are you heading for the city?"

The man on the ground did not stir, but the other answered. "Yes, that is my goal." His voice was deep as a well.

"You've a fair step to go then."

The man did not reply at once. He seemed weary, if the sag of his shoulders were anything to go by. He looked up at the two riders and for the first time they saw his face and gasped involuntarily.

"Who might you two be then?"

"I am Ensign Baraz of the Torunnan army, and this is -"

"The Princess Mirren, daughter of King Corfe himself. Well, this is a happy chance." The man smiled, and they saw that despite the ruin which constituted one side of his face, his eyes were kindly.

"How do you know who I am?" Mirren demanded.

And now the man sitting on the ground raised his head and spoke for the first time. "Your familiar told us."

Baraz drew his sabre and nudged the grey forward until he was between Mirren and the strange pair. "State your names and your business in Torunna," he rasped, dark eyes flashing.

The man on the ground rose to his feet. He also seemed tired. The two might have been nothing more than a pair of road-weary vagabonds, but for that last statement, and the aura of unquiet power which hung about them.

"They're wizards," Mirren said.

The disfigured older man doffed his wide-brimmed hat. "Indeed we are, my dear. Young man, our business is our own, but as for our names, well I am Golophin of Hebrion, and my companion -"

"Will remain nameless, for now," the other interrupted. Baraz could see a square jaw and broken nose under the cowl, but little else.

"Golophin!" Mirren cried. "My father speaks often of you. The greatest mage in the world, it is said."

Golophin chuckled, replacing his hat. "Perhaps not the greatest. My companion here might bridle at such an assumption."

"What are you doing here in Torunna? I thought you were still in Abrusio."

"I have come to see King Corfe, your father. I have some news for him."

"What of your taciturn comrade?" Baraz asked, pointing at him with his sword.

As he gestured with the blade the weapon seemed to flick out of his grip. It spun coruscating in the air for a second and then flicked away into the heather, stabbing into the ground so that the hilt stood quivering. Baraz shook his hand as though it had been burned, mouth gaping.

"I do not like blades pointed in my face," Golophin's companion said mildly.

"You had best leave us be," Golophin told Baraz. "My friend and I were in the middle of a little altercation when you arrived, hence his testiness."

"Golophin, there is so much I must ask you," Mirren said.

"Indeed? Well, child, you may ask me anything you like, but not right now. I am somewhat preoccupied. It might be best if you said nothing of this meeting. The fewer folk who know I am here the better." Then he looked at his companion, and laughed. The other's mouth crooked under the cowl in answer.

"You may tell your father, though. I will see him tonight, or possibly tomorrow morning."

"What is this news you have come to deliver? I will take it to him."

Golophin's ravaged face hardened into a mask. "No. One so young should not have to bear such tidings." He turned to Baraz. "See the lady safe home, soldier."

Baraz glared at him. "You may be sure I will."

S
PRING MIGHT BE
in the air, but up here in the hills there was still an algid bite to the air when the wind got up, and as the day drew on Golophin and his companion kindled a fire with a blast of rubescent theurgy and sat on pads of gathered heather warming themselves at the transparent flames. As the afternoon waned and the sun began to slide behind the white peaks of the Cimbrics in the west, Golophin was aware that a third person had joined them, a small, silent figure who sat cross-legged just outside the firelight.

"That is an abomination," the old mage told his companion.

"Perhaps. I am no longer sure I care greatly. One can become accustomed to all sorts of things, Golophin." The speaker had thrown back his cowl at last and now was revealed as a middle-aged man with close-cropped grey hair and a prizefighter's face. He reached into the breast of his habit and brought forth a steel flask. Unscrewing the top, he took a sip and tossed it across the fire. Golophin caught it deftly and drank in his turn. "Hebrionese akvavit. I applaud your taste, Bard."

"Call it a perk of the job."

"Call it what it is; spoils of war."

"Hebrion was my home also, Golophin."

"I have not forgotten that, you may be sure."

A tension fizzled across the flames between them, and then slackened as Bardolin chuckled. "Why, Golophin, your hauteur is almost impressive."

"I'm working on it."

"It is pleasant, this, sitting here as though the world were not on fire around us, listening to the hunting bats and the sough of the wind in the heather. I like this country. There is an austerity to it. I do not wonder that it breeds such soldiers."

"You met these soldiers in the field I hear, a decade ago now. So are you become a general now?"

Bardolin bowed. "Not much of a one, it must be said. Give me a tercio and I know what to do. Give me an army and I am baffled."

"That doesn't bode well for your master's efforts in this part of the world, Presbyter."

"We have generals, Golophin, ones who may surprise you. And we have numbers. And the Dweomer."

"The Dweomer as a weapon of war. In the days before the Empire - the First Empire - it is said that certain Kings fielded regiments of mages. But it has never been recorded that they tolerated the presence of shifters in their armies. Not even the ancients were barbarian enough for that."

"You speak whereof you know nothing."

"I know enough. I know that the thing seated across the fire from me is not Bardolin of Carreirida, and the succubus which hides silent in the shadows behind you was not conjured up for his comfort."

"And yet she is a comfort, nonetheless."

"Then why are you here? To sit and wax nostalgic about the old days?"

"Is that so inexplicable, so hard to believe?"

Golophin dropped his eyes. "I don't know. Ten, twelve years ago I thought there was a part of my apprentice which could still be saved. I am no longer so sure. I am consorting with the enemy now."

"It does not have to be that way. I am still the Bardolin you knew. Because of me, Hawkwood is alive."

"That was your master's whim."

"Partly. The survival of the other had nothing to do with me, though, you may be sure."

"What other?"

"The new Lieutenant of Hebrion."

"I don't understand, Bard."

"I can tell you no more. I, also, am consorting with the enemy, do not forget."

The two wizards stared at each other without animosity, only a gentle kind of sadness.

"It is not as though Hebrion has been destroyed, Golophin," Bardolin said gently. "It has merely suffered a change in ownership."

"That sounds like the self-justification of the thief."

"You are so damned wilful - and wilfully blind." Here Bardolin leaned forward so that the firelight carved a crannied mask out of his bluff features.

"The fleet did not make landfall in Hebrion out of a mere whim, Golophin. Your - our - homeland is vital to Aruan's plans. It so happens that Hebrion, and the Hebros Mountains were once part of the Western Continent."

"How can you -"

"Let me finish. At some time in the unimaginable past Normannia and the west were one great landmass, but they split apart aons ago, drifting like great lilypads and letting the ocean flood in between them. Aruan and his chief mages have been conducting research into the matter for many years."

"So?"

"So, there is something, some element or mineral in the very bowels of the Western Continent which is in effect the essence of the energy we know as
magic
. Pure theurgy, running like a vein of precious ore through the very bedrock of the earth. It is that which has made Aruan what he is."

"And you what you have become, I take it."

"This energy runs through the Hebros also, for the Hebros and the mountains of the Western Continent were once part of the same chain. That is why Hebrion has always been home to more of the Dweomer-folk than any other of the Five Kingdoms. That is why Hebrion had to fall. Golophin, you have no conception of the great researches that are underway, in the west, at Charibon, even in Perigraine. Aruan is close to solving an ancient and paramount riddle. What are the Dweomer-folk, and how were they created? Is it in fact possible to imbue an ordinary man with the Dweomer, and make of him a mage?"

Golophin found his bitter reply dying in his mouth. Despite himself, he was fascinated. Bardolin smiled.

"Think of the progress this army of mages can make in the pursuit of pure knowledge, given all the materials they need, allowed to proceed in peace with their studies. Golophin, for the first time in history, the bowels of the library of St. Garaso in Charibon have been opened up and laid bare. There are treatises and grimoires down there that predate the First Empire. They have been sealed away by the Church for centuries, and now they are finally being studied by those who can understand them. I have seen a first edition of
Ardinac's Bestiary
-"

"No! They were all destroyed by Willardius."

Bardolin laughed, and threw his hands up in the air. "I've seen it, I tell you! Golophin, listen to me, think about this. Imagine what a mind like yours, allied to that of Aruan, could mean for the progress of learning, both theurgical and otherwise. An eighth Discipline is only the beginning. This is a precious opportunity, a crux of history right here and now, with the bats squeaking round our ears in the hills north of Torunn. It may be there are things about our regime that you find distasteful - no man is perfect, not even Aruan. But damn it all, our motives are pure enough. To lead mankind down a different path.

"At this time, there is a fork in the road. Man can either follow what he terms as science, and develop ever more efficient means of killing, and build a world where there is no place for the Dweomer, and which will eventually see its death. Or he can embrace his true heritage, and become something entirely different. A society can be created in which theurgy is part of daily commerce, and learning is treasured above the sootstained tinkering of the artisan. At this point in history, mankind must choose between these two destinies, and that choice will be made in a tide of blood, because that is the way of revolutions. But that, regrettable though it may be, does not make the choice invalid.

"Join us, Golophin, in the name of God. Perhaps we can spare the world some of that bloodletting."

The two men stared intently across the fire at one another. Golophin could not speak. For the first time in his long life he did not know what to say.

"I'm not asking you to decide now. But at least think about it." Bardolin rose. "Aruan has been away from Normannia a long time. It is a foreign country to him. But that is not true for us. Learned though he is, we possess a familiarity with this world of today that he lacks. He respects you, Golophin. And if your conscience still niggles, think on this; I am convinced you would have more influence over his deeds as a counsellor and friend rather than as an antagonist.