Maze of Moonlight (34 page)

An Elf's word is binding throughout all the Worlds
, Natil had said. And, true to her word, she had raised him from a stable floor, harped him back to some sense of honor, preserved him from captivity and death. But had he now asked too much? He did not even know why she had come to help him. An Elf? Helping a delAurvre? Dear Lady!

A fragment of stone wavered and fell, but only a fragment. The rest of the mass was proving obstinate.

But it must have been at about that time that Natil began harping, for there was a sudden change in the atmosphere, and the pervasive, liquid roar was joined by a sound that was not a sound, a vibration in the air that, though faint and almost without substance, nonetheless cut the ear as though with knives and razors.

At its appearance, Wenceslas staggered back as though he had been struck in the face, and the assault on the overhang lost momentum. Paul nodded and touched his forehead. “
Elthia Calasiuove.
”

The sound continued, building into a thrumming shriek of ephemeral energy. Magic. Elven magic. Christopher's thoughts fled to his grandfather, and he could not help but wonder what Roger had seen and felt during those last moments before his old, brutal life had been ripped from him. Shaking, he fought to keep himself from plunging away down the tunnel to the spring.

But Paul was unfazed. “Honor your God in your house, Abo. Honor my Lady in Shrinerock!”

He grabbed the heavy maul that the abbot had dropped and, with a cry in Elvish, smashed it into the outcropping. The stone suddenly vibrated, and an urgent groan came from above.

“That's done it!” he shouted. “Everyone out! Hurry!”

They ran, Christopher and Paul standing on either side of the downside aperture and thrusting the members of the party through as they counted heads. When everyone was out, and as rocks started dropping tot he floor of the cave, Christopher pointed to Paul and jerked his thumb down the passage.

Without comment, Paul seized Christopher and shoved him out of the cavern ahead of himself just as the entire, ponderous mass of the ceiling shook itself loose and fell, sealing the room and pelting the two men with dust, gravel, and cobble-sized stones as they ran down the passage to the spring.

A stream of loose stones and gravel skittered along the slope after them, then abruptly rustled to a stop. The whine of Natil's energies hung in the otherwise silent air like a taut harpstring, and Christopher discovered that he had a clear view of the moonlit mouth of the cavern. The cataract was gone. The pool was emptying.

“Sacrilege?” whispered the abbot. His voice echoed in the hush.

Faint grindings, growing louder. Paul snatched a torch, held it up, examined the mouth of the spring. “No,” he said. “It's stopped up. Run, you idiots!”

And now even the ubiquitous tremolo of Natil's magic was suddenly threatened with eclipse, for the groan of tortured rock built, mounted, crescendoed in lithic apocalypse. A loud crack, and a stream of muddy water exploded out of the passage, doubling and redoubling, growing in the space of a few heartbeats into a torrent that quickly overflowed the pool and went raging down towards the entrance to the shrine.

The men dropped their tools and fled. Christopher and Paul, following right behind them, sprinted down the path and threw themselves out and to the side of the entrance an instant before the flood filled the entire cavern and screamed and frothed its way down the slope.

Still, though, the air was caught in a noose of magic that seemed to be one with the very substance of the mountain. Lying on the moist earth beside the flood, Christopher looked up at the castle. It was glowing softly, its towers and roofs limned in pale blue. He swallowed and looked away quickly.

But the energies abruptly peaked, faded, dwindled into a murmur, vanished; and when Christopher looked again, the glow was gone. But though Shrinerock still lifted white towers toward the stars with a beauty and strength that many might well have deemed imperial, something was different about it now. Christopher, searching, straining his eyes in the moonlight, realized finally that the glint of its many glass windows was absent, as was the glow of lamplight and torchlight that had previously seeped from its closed shutters. In fact, when he looked more carefully, he discovered that, as far as he could see, windows, doors, and gates alike had been replaced by hard, unyielding surfaces of fused stone.

The word of an Elf was indeed binding: the free companies were trapped within Shrinerock.

Paul delMari was approaching middle age, but he bounded down the road like a youngster. Christopher's plan and Natil's magic had bought the refugees in the forest several additional hours in which to cross the pastures unmolested, but not until he was well out of earshot of the castle did Paul risk even a muffled call: “Isabelle! Martin! It's done!”

At his words, those who had gathered in the shadows just within the edge of the trees stepped clear and started off towards Malvern Forest. They were burdened lightly—they had little to begin with—and Natil had healed the wounded. They would make good time.

But Natil herself was not with them. Christopher was almost relieved. Perhaps she had decided that her work was finished, that it was time for her to depart. But she had admitted that the magic for which Christopher had asked would be taxing, and he was unnerved to find himself deeply worried that something had happened to her.

He ran, caught up with Paul. “Where did Natil say she was going to be?”

Paul paused in his merry jog down to the forest. “Up on the higher ground, my friend.”

Christopher frowned: he did not know the way. Paul, however, guessed his thoughts.

“I don't see her, either,” he said. “Let's go look.”

Together, they struck off along the moonlit paths of Shrinerock Forest. Paul knew the way of the woods, and he led Christopher through the trees, up slopes and across deep ravines.

The ground rose and turned stony and unfit for trees. Bits of scrub and weeds did little to soften a barren landscape. The two men puffed their way up, their boots clattering on loose shale and gravel. “They say that this is what all of Shrinerock looked like before Adrian worked his miracle,” said Paul. He laughed quietly. “I wonder, though, if Adrian had anything to do with it.”

“Elves?”

Paul nodded. “They've been here from the beginning, Christopher. I wouldn't be surprised at all to hear that they magicked up a spring and turned a little patch of Adria into a garden.”

Garden. And how about some peach trees? Christopher winced. “Do they . . . always do things like that?”

“Once.” Paul's boots sent a rattle of gravel down the slope. “It's different now, of course. They've faded, and it's harder for those who are left. Natil . . .” He shook his head, suddenly tight-lipped.

Christopher struggled after him. “What about her?”

Paul extended a hand, dragged Christopher up the last few feet. “She may have given everything, Christopher.”

Christopher stared. Everything?

“They're like that,” said Paul. The moonlight glinted in his blond hair. “That's all they seem to want to do. Give. Just as human beings always seem to want to . . .” He shrugged, shook his head. “. . . take.”

And Roger, a human being, had certainly taken. Gold, people, lives: it had all been the same to Roger of Aurverelle. Christopher, himself preoccupied with what life offered—or could be made to offer—found himself struggling with the idea of an entire race whose bent seemed so utterly opposite to anything he had known before.

Giving. Helping. Healing. Natil might well have killed herself to aid the survivors of the delMari estate after selflessly entering the service of a man whose ancestors had waged a genocidal war upon her people. Before that, Terrill and Mirya had braved Castle Aurverelle in order to bring healing to a dying peasant girl.

Christopher suspected that he knew why, but it was a grievous knowledge. “Paul . . .”

Paul had started off up another slope, but he stopped, turned.

“Did you know Vanessa, Paul?”

“I never met her. I knew her father, though.”

“What . . .”

“Charming girl, Christopher?”

Christopher blushed. “Very nice,” he said. “And very hurt.”

Paul strode up the slope. “Yes,” he said, “I heard that you took her in. And Martin, too. My deepest thanks. How is she now?”

Christopher followed him to the crest of the rise, laid a hand on his arm. “How should I know?”

Paul swung around, perplexed. “Isn't she with you? Martin said she's stayed in Aurverelle.”

“She did. But then she went down to Saint Blaise.”

Paul shook his head. “She never reached Saint Blaise.”

“But Ranulf—“ Christopher's voice caught, for, a short distance away, Natil lay stretched out on the rocky ground, unmoving. Her harp lay at her side as though it had been dropped, and someone was kneeling beside her, holding her hands.

Shocked by Paul's words, frightened for Natil's welfare, Christopher ran to help, his hand reaching for the grip of his sword. Natil did not stir, but the stranger with her rose gracefully. Like Natil, he was clad in green and gray, but his hair was as pale as frost. His gray eyes examined the baron piercingly, and then he touched his forehead and bowed.

Christopher recognized him, recognized his garb, recognized the immortal light. Terrill. An Elf. But he had guessed that already. Dizzy with confusion and worry, he knelt beside Natil, took her hand. “Dear harper . . .”

She did not appear to see him. Her eyes reflected the moon and the stars, and her gaze seemed to go through him, stretching upwards or inwards into regions that he knew he could never comprehend. But her lips finally moved. “Fear not.”

Fear not? “Natil! What the hell happened to you?”

Terrill spoke. “The spell was a difficult one, Baron Christopher. Natil took what she needed from the stars . . . and from herself.”

Giving. Giving and giving and giving. Christopher put his hands to his face. “Dear Lady . . . please . . .”

“She will recover,” said Terrill. Christopher noticed that he wore a sword, and that his hand looked ready to go to the grip in an instant. But the Elf nodded with as much reassurance as he seemed able to muster. “Be at peace. It is difficult to kill one of my people.”

Weakly, Christopher sat down on the ground. Paul hurried up, cried out at the sight of the harper.

“She will rise by morning,” said Terrill. “It would be best for you to follow your people, Paul.”

But Paul embraced Terrill, then knelt and kissed Natil's hands. “There is more valor in your fingers, sweet lady,” he whispered to her, “than in all the armies of Europe.”

Natil murmured a reassurance, but Christopher could only mumble, “But . . . where the hell is Vanessa?”

Paul looked up. “I don't know, my friend.”

Terrill spoke again. “Vanessa is in Saint Brigid. Two days' ride from here.”

Berard had finally cuffed Joanna out of her incessant sobbing and into something resembling acceptance of the fact that she was chained to his bed, that she would remain chained to his bend, and that no amount of tears and hysterical weeping was going to change the fact that she was chained to his bed. He was just slipping into sleep when the pounding came to his door. “My lord!”

Heart racing, sweating from the oppressive heat, Berard was on his feet in an instant. “What's the matter?”

The voice was muffled. “The doors and windows of the castle, messire. They're . . . funny.”

Funny? Startled and sleepless, Berard wondered who had been idiot enough to disturb him against his express orders. “I'm not impressed by your sense of humor, soldier.”

Joanna was crying again, but he silenced her with a kick, then pulled on a robe and went to the door. But the latch did not yield to his hand. It did not even rattle. In fact, the iron itself appeared to have been replaced with . . . something else.

Funny . . .

“Joanna, open those windows.” Joanna, though, was shackled to the bed, and his words only sent her off into a fresh bout of sobbing.

Groping, Berard went to the window himself. It was pitch dark in the room, without even a shred of starlight or moonlight to light his way—something which struck him as damnably odd—and he stumbled over a footstool and barked his shins on a chair before he reached the casement. He fumbled for the latch, but its touch and lack of cooperation informed him that it had acquired the same mysterious affliction as the doorknob.

Funny . . .

“Damnation!” He smashed a fist against the panes and was rewarded with a set of bruised knuckles.

The man in the hall was alarmed. “My lord!”

Joanna sobbed.

“Shut up, all of you!” Berard's fatigue was rapidly giving way to bewilderment, and thence to outright rage; but he groped about until he came up against a wall sconce. He removed a candle and thrust it into the embers of the banked fire. It caught in a moment, and he carried the light to the window.

But, instead of glass, he found only an unyielding surface of smooth, gray . . .

Stone?

“What the hell's going on?”

It was granite. It had to be granite. And as his shaking fingers now discovered, the formerly wooden rails and stiles were also granite, as was the window frame itself.

He stood, stunned, but was roused by another worried cry from the corridor. Heart sinking, he went to the door. Granite. Hard, impenetrable granite.

He crossed himself. “Mother of God.” But Joanna was sobbing hysterically again, and he recalled that God's mother probably cared for him little more than his own.

He threw a boot at the girl, then rapped on the door, carefully, with the pommel of his sword. “Get some men up here with hammers and picks.”

“Ah . . .” The man on the far side seemed to hesitate. Berard pursed his lips. A mutiny? That would explain a great deal. The expanded Fellowship was held together only by the promise of loot and the fact that Berard seemed to promise more of it than anyone else. It was always possible that some other captain . . . “I'm afraid that will take time, Messire Berard.”