The High House (33 page)

“I never intended to be long. I thought I would soon find the keys so I could return you home. I sent the White Circle Guard, and placed all the resources of Evenmere toward that end, to no avail. The years went by, and my longing for your mother brought me here, to this sea. So I spent the days I should have spent with both of you. I am sorry, my sons, that I proved a poor father. But I loved you the only way I knew.”

He stood abruptly and strode to stare across the sea. The planes of his face subsided, becoming less Lord Anderson, and more a hunted animal. “It is never long; she calls me again. I will have to rebuild my yellow boat; I will have to seek her.”

Carter rose slowly to his feet. He spoke with quiet determination. “Since you are … not our father … I require the Tawny Mantle and the Lightning Sword.”

“Noooo!” the Thin Man roared into the night, his expression melted away, transfigured, alien. He stepped forward, menace in his eyes. “Go away! Go away! You can’t have it! Can’t!”

Duskin stepped between the specter and Carter. The Thin Man halted, but bellowed again, six inches from Duskin’s face, a deafening shriek. “Go awaaaay!” Again and again he cried, screaming like a child. For an instant, Duskin quailed beneath the affront, his fists knotted, sweat streaming down his brow, but then a light entered his eyes, his face grew impassive, and he stood firm as the Sending went on, screaming always the same words. Carter would never forget how firm he stood.

Failing to quail the younger brother, the Thin Man sidestepped Duskin, placed himself between Carter and the objects lying on the grave, and focused his tirade toward the eldest son. He raged, waving grasping hands before him, foam running down his face like a winded horse. “Go away! Leave here! You can’t have them. He doesn’t want you to be Master! He doesn’t.”

“I must,” Carter said, his voice little more than a whisper, but the whisper silenced the pitiful creature. The Thin Man looked about him, bewildered, then his features hardened again. In a clear, still voice he said, “Carter, Duskin, I could never hurt you. If the house needs you, you must obey, even unto sorrow. It is the highest calling. The very highest.”

The face slipped away. The Thin Man burst into sobbing tears. “You can’t have it. Can’t, can’t, can’t. You’ll be harmed. Oh, I know you will.”

Carter placed his hand gently on the specter’s shoulder and slowly drew him aside, away from the path to his father’s things.

The Thin Man collapsed as if his feet had been cut from beneath him, and lay weeping on the grave.

Carter turned to Duskin. “Now is the time, brother. The sword and the mantle are before us. We could pick them up together.”

Duskin shook his head, the stronger at that moment. “Only one can be Master. The High House has chosen; it will be you.”

“Are you certain? Once you dreamed of being Master, and I never desired it. I have learned to love you these past few days. I don’t want to lose that.”

“And I you. And I tell you, those ambitions are gone, purged by our journey together. We are both our father’s sons, and mine is a calling as high as your own; every king must have a trusted counselor.”

Carter nodded, greatly moved. He took up the Lightning Sword first; Duskin served as his squire, and helped him buckle it about his waist. As he touched its ornate hilt, small electrical charges coursed through his body, surges of power as if he tapped into an unseen dynamo. Duskin placed the Tawny Mantle about him, a dusky cloak, almost no color at all, with black spots like a leopard; it lay heavy, though it appeared light, and his shoulders felt broad as twin peaks, able to bear any burden.

He drew the blade from its sheath; it blazed golden in the night, its serrated edge circled by bands of smoke. He held it high, first toward the Rainbow Sea, then over the kneeling form of the Thin Man.

“The Master’s things have become mine,” he said, his face suffused with light and power. “I did not wish it, but it is so. One thing only do I lack. Answer me, then, with the mind of my father; the Master commands it. The Bobby holds the keys in his possession. Where can I find him?”

“Even Lord Anderson did not know that,” the Thin Man replied. “But the Bobby cannot always keep the keys upon his person; they were not meant for him; their power would eventually devour him. He must store them most of the time. If he wanted them kept safe, it would be where the Master could not reach, a place of peril and fear.”

“I understand,” Carter said. “Thank you. You have aided us greatly. I would help you in return. My father summoned you, a shadow of what he was, filled with his conflicting feelings for his wife and sons. What the Master has summoned, the Master can dismiss. I grant you peace. Be gone, gentle shade.”

Carter touched the specter’s shoulder with the tip of his sword. The Thin Man gazed at them one last time with Lord Anderson’s beautiful eyes, and spoke in his old voice. “Thank you, boys. I am very proud.”

Then he was gone, with only the whispering wind and the imprint of his knees on the mound to mark him.

Carter dropped down beside the grave, ran his hands upon the earth, and wept there, saying, “He was so strong. I thought he would never die.”

Duskin came and laid his hand upon his shoulder, and his voice trembled, though he did not weep. “I never really had any hope, I suppose. He has been gone so long.”

“Then I gave you false hope,” Carter said.

“No,” Duskin said. “You gave me the chance … to say good-bye.”

So they sat by the grave together, and because he had nothing else to offer, Carter drew a heart in the earth, as a child might do, and pressed his hand into the soft soil, leaving his print there. And they kept vigil throughout the night.

When the first traces of morning paled the sky, Carter stood, and Duskin thought he looked changed—a resolution lay upon him, and he spoke in a crystal voice. “Our path is clear. Now we will seek the Master Keys.”

“Do you know where they are?”

“Of course. The place where the Bobby thinks them safe. The one place I fear most. I must seek the Room of Horrors.”

Innman Tor

Midafternoon found Carter and Duskin traveling the halls of Arkalen, far from the grave of their father. As the morning sun, peeking behind the storm clouds, had set the Rainbow Sea shimmering iridescent, they had returned through the stained-glass doors, exhausted, and thrown themselves upon the carpet to sleep in the sunbeams until noon. Once awakened, they had eaten breakfast and made their plans. Carter had lost none of his resolve to reach the Room of Horrors, though he trembled when he thought of it. The day of his abduction he had been carried facing backward to the loathsome chamber, slung over the shoulder of the Bobby’s lackey, and though he had seen the way he recalled nothing of it. He determined to return to the library, to consult the Book of Forgotten Things, or failing that, to brave asking the dinosaur in the attic.

The door from Veth had been locked behind them, preventing them from retracing their route, and the only other road back to Kitinthim led far out of their way. But Glis had described a path to the Inner Chambers from Naleewuath, if they could reach that country. To do so, they would have to cross the western boundaries of Arkalen and pass through the country of Innman Tor, of which they knew nothing.

With the Tawny Mantle upon his shoulders and the Lightning Sword at his side, Carter truly felt like the Master of Evenmere, but it grieved him to wear these things, since it meant his father would do so no more, and the hours spent wandering the fading splendor of Arkalen were dark to him. He did not heed the blue porphyry lions carved beside the doorways, the basalt pillars lining the great halls, the curtains tinged in argent, shining like teardrops in the light from the high oval windows. Until Duskin spoke of it, he failed to see the stabs of sunlight crisscrossing the marble floors, a sign of the dwindling of the storm, as if the taking of the sword and mantle had diminished the anarchists’ power.

Despite their late start, they were weary by early evening, worn by the night’s vigil and their grief, and they made camp with the waning sun, in the shelter of a narrow sitting room off one of the main halls. By mutual consent, they avoided the bedchamber two doors away; sleeping in the dusty berths of long-departed men made them uneasy. Better to lay their bedrolls beside the mantled hearth, before a blaze fueled by a broken chair. They ate in silence, Carter’s face ashen as the cinders. The night wrapped itself around the room.

“Will you be all right?” Duskin finally asked.

Carter gave a mirthless laugh. “I wonder. My heart is empty; there is no hope for it. I thought him immortal and now he is gone. I’ll miss his smile most, the wolf’s grin. He smiled a lot, you know, even through his sorrow. And I keep seeing his eyes. I know now I could never have said good-bye enough times; there’s always more I would have said, and things I could never say though I stood beside him a thousand lifetimes. It is all regret. So many years my only hope was in finding him. What have I now?”

Duskin shrugged. “At least we know. When he had been gone several months, Mother told me he was dead. I was too young to question the information; perhaps she was in league with the Bobby even then and knew he had perished on the sea. I remember mourning him a long while, alone in my room. I miss his strength, his goodness, most of all. As I grew older, I used to ask Chant about him. He usually quoted Hamlet: ‘
He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again.
’ I suppose his enemies thought him terrible, but I think that says it well.”

“More than well,” Carter agreed. But then he remembered Lord Anderson standing before the Room of Horrors, the door shattered, the Lightning Sword in his hand. “Yet, you’re right; he could be dreadful in battle.”

They said goodnight soon after, but late in the night, when the fire lay in embers, Duskin awoke to see Carter sitting before the mantel, the Lightning Sword drawn less than an inch from its sheath, its golden light barely shining upon a face streamed with silent tears.

* * *

They woke late the next morning and traveled through a long, uneventful day. Near evening they reached a lightless passage so narrow their shoulders brushed the plaster walls. By lantern light they walked an uneasy hour, all cobwebs, creaking floors, and the threat of assassins at every turning, before they came to a dead end within a low chamber of rough-hewn stone.

“The map shows a doorway,” Duskin said.

Without hesitation, Carter strode to the left side of the room, and felt his way beneath the protruding stone edge until he depressed a small button. Part of the wall groaned inward, revealing yellow-green light beyond.

“How did you know?” Duskin asked. “You spoke no Word of Power.”

“I’m not certain,” Carter said. “It’s something that has been growing within me. It began when I was trapped in the dream by the Bobby, imprisoned by Lady Order, when she bound and gagged me, to prevent me from using the Words of Power. Yet I brought the Word forth, not out of my mouth, but from my soul. Since then, the Words have seemed a part of me. It was nothing more than that, though sometimes I would see them, suspended, their letters aflame within my mind. But since I took the mantle and the sword, it’s as if the maps of the High House are within me as well. At first I thought it a fancy, that I could summon them to mind, whole portions, in detail more accurate than the maps we carry—Wait, what are you doing?”

Duskin had dropped down to one knee, his head bowed, the sallow glow from the opening turning his blond hair olive. “I’m certain now. You’re no longer Steward. The house has taken you; you are the Master. I want to be the first to offer you fealty.”

Carter’s face grew hot. “Duskin, stand! You’re my brother! I want no allegiance, and I’ll have no such nonsense between us.”

Duskin raised his face; it looked like an angel’s, suffused with conviction, partaking of breathtaking serenity. “I won’t rise until you accept my fealty. The mark is upon you and can’t be denied. It’s better to serve in the house of the Master than to rule without right. And all my life I’ve wanted only to know my proper place. I see it before me.”

Sudden tears sprang to Carter’s eyes. He drew his Lightning Sword and laid Duskin’s hand upon the pommel. “Whether I am Master or not, I know now you are the better man. But offer your allegiance only to the good of the house.”

“To the house, but to the man as well, or not at all.”

“Very well. I accept your allegiance. Rise, brother.”

Then they embraced, and saying no more, passed through the doorway to the base of a stone stair.

The glow issued from the landing above; the light prevented them from seeing what lay beyond. The stair itself appeared half-ruined, the mortar worn away by time and water, the steps weary and leaning.

They heard alarmed voices, followed by heavy footfalls descending, and a man in plate mail approached, pausing three steps from the bottom to aim a crossbow level with their chests. “Who comes by the Narroway Gate?”

Duskin stepped between Carter and the weapon. “Strangers seeking safe passage.”

“You look like shabby men to me, tramps and castoffs,” the man said.

Another soldier appeared, a heavy man made larger by his armor. “Stay your hand, Capecot! No one has come down this passage since our father’s day. Let’s see what they want.”

The second soldier descended the stair to meet them, followed by the first, a young, lean fellow. Despite their differences, both men were dun-eyed and chestnut-haired, older and younger versions of one another. The portly man was obviously in charge.

“I’m Peelhammer,” he said, with an air of importance. “All strangers must be brought to the Main Station for registration.”

“We are only passing through your country,” Carter said. “And our mission is urgent.”

“Them is the rules,” Peelhammer said.

“Very well. I am Carter Anderson, and this is my brother, Duskin.”

Peelhammer nodded. “This way, then.”

He led them up the stair. All the halls of Innman Tor were brown—not chestnut, dun, ginger, mahogany, or sienna—but brown: brown carpet, newly laid; brown walls, freshly painted; brown curtains, recently cleaned; brown pictures of brown figures playing on brown hills. Even the woodwork was painted brown. The soldiers wore brown capes over their dull armor.