Wizards’ Worlds (6 page)

The invaders had not reached this Grimmersdale, but
there were other lands beyond with darker luck. He was going to find one of those—one
where there was no lord left to sound the war horn. If there was a lady trying to
hold a heritage, well, that might even fit well with his ambitions. Now his tongue
showed for an instant on his lower lip, flicking across as if he savored in anticipation
some dish which pleased him. He did not altogether believe in the over-ride of good
or ill fortune. In his calculations a man mostly made his own luck by knowing what
he wanted and bending all his actions toward that end. But he had a feeling that this
was the time when he must move if he were ever to bring to truth the dream which had
lain in him since early boyhood.

He, Trystan out of nowhere, was going to end Lord Trystan of some not inconsiderable
stretch of land—with a keep for his home and a dale under his rule. And the time to
move was here and now.

“Fill!” His near companion, young Urre, pounded his tankard on the table top so that
one of the candles shook, spattering hot grease. He bellowed an oath and threw his
empty pot beyond the screen to clatter across the flagstones.

The lame pot boy stooped to pick it up, casting a frightened look at Urre and a second
at his scowling mistress, who was already on her way with a tray of freshly filled
tankards. Trystan pushed back from the table. They were following a path he had seen
too many nights. Urre would drink himself sodden, sick not only with the rank stuff
they called drink back here in the hills, but also with his life, wherein he could
only bewail what he had lost, taking no thought of what might be gained.

Onsway would listen attentively to his mumbling, willing to play liegeman as long
as Urre’s money lasted or he could use his kin ties to win them food and lodging at
some keep. When Urre made a final sot of himself, Onsway would no longer wallow in
the sty beside him. While he, Trystan, thought it time now to cut the thread which
had
brought them this far in uneasy company. Neither had anything to give, and he knew
now that traveling longer with them he would not do.

But he was not minded to quit this inn soon. Its position on the highway was such
that a man could pick up a wealth of information by just sitting and listening. Also,
here he had already picked out two likely prospects for his own purposes. The money
pouch at his belt was flat enough, he could not afford to spin a coin before the dazzled
eyes of an archer or pike man and offer employment.

However, there were men like himself to be found, rootless men who wanted roots in
better circumstances than they had known, men who could see the advantage of service
under a rising man with opportunities for rising themselves in his wake. One did not
need a large war band to overawe masterless peasants: half a dozen well-armed and
experienced fighting men at his back, a dale without a lord—and he would be in!

Excitement awoke in him as it did every time his plan reached that place in his thoughts.
But he had learned long since to keep a tight rein on his emotions. He was a controlled
man, abstemious to a degree astounding among his fellows, though he did what he could
to conceal that difference. He could loot, he could whore, he could kill—and he had—but
always calculatingly.

“I’m for bed,” he arose and reached for his bow, “the road this day was long—”

Urre might not have heard him at all, his attention was fixed on the tray of tankards.
Onsway nodded absently; he was watching Urre as he always did. But the mistress was
alert to the hint of more profit.

“Bed, good master? Three coins—and a fire on the hearth, too.”

“Good enough.” He nodded, and she screeched for the pot boy, who came at a limping
waddle, wiping his grimed hands on the black rags of an apron knotted about him.

While the inn gave the impression of space below, on the second floor it was much
more cramped. At least the room into which Trystan tramped was no more than a narrow
slit of space with a single window covered by a shutter heavily barred. There was
a litter of dried rushes on the floor and a rough bed frame, on which a pile of bedding
lay as if tossed. The hearth fire promised did not exist. But a legged brazier with
some glowing coals gave off a little heat, and a stool beside a warp-sided chest did
service as a table. The pot boy set the candle down on that and was ready to scuttle
away when Trystan, who had gone to the window, hailed him.

“What manner of siege have you had here, boy? This shutter has been so long barred
it is rusted tight.”

The boy cringed back against the edge of the door, his slack mouth hanging open. He
was an ugly lout, and looked half-witted into the bargain, Trystan thought. But surely
there was something more than just stupidity in his face when he looked to the window—there
was surely fear also.

“Thhheee tooods—” His speech was thick. He had lifted his hands breast high, was clasping
them so tightly together that his knuckles stood out as bony knobs.

Trystan had heard the enemy called many things, but never toads, nor had he believed
they had raided into Grimmerdale.

“Toads?” He made a question of the word.

The boy turned his head away so that he looked neither to the window nor at Trystan.
It was very evident he planned escape. The man crossed the narrow room with effortless
and noiseless strides, caught him by the shoulder.

“What manner of toads?” He shook the boy slightly.

“Toodss—Thhheee toods—” the boy seemed to think Trystan should know of what he spoke.
“They—that sit ‘mong the Standing Stones—that what do men evil.” His voice, while
thick, no longer sputtered so. “All men know the Toods o’ Grimmerdale!” Then, with
a twist which
showed he had long experience in escaping, he broke from Trystan’s hold and was gone.
The man did not pursue him.

Rather he stood frowning in the light of the single candle. Toads—and Grimmerdale—together
they had a faintly familiar sound. Now he set memory to work. Toads and Grimmerdale—what
did he know of either?

The dale was of importance, more so now than in the days before the war when men favored
a more southern route to the port. That highway had fallen almost at once into invader
hands, and they had kept it forted and patroled. The answer had been this secondary
road, which heretofore had been used mainly by shepherds and herdsmen. Three different
trails from upcountry united at the western edge of Grimmerdale.

However: had he not once heard of yet a fourth way, one which ran the ridges yet was
mainly shunned, a very old way, antedating the coming of his own people? Now—he nodded
as memory supplied answers. The Toads of Grimmerdale! One of the many stories about
the remnants of those other people, or things, which had already mostly faded from
this land, so that the coming of man did not dislodge them, for the land had been
largely deserted before the first settlement ship arrived.

Still there were places in plenty where certain powers and presences were felt to
this day, where things could be invoked—by men who were crazed enough to summon them.
Had the lords of High Hallack not been driven at the last to make such a bargain with
the unknown when they signed solemn treaty with the Were Riders? All men knew that
it had been the aid of those strange outlanders which had broken the invaders at the
last.

Some of the presences were beneficial, others neutral, still others dangerous. Perhaps
not actively so in these days. Men were not hunted, harried, or attacked by them.
But they had their own places, and the man who was rash enough to trespass there did
so at risk.

Among such were the Standing Stones of the Toads of Grimmerdale. The story went that
they would answer appeals, but that the manner of answer sometimes did not please
the petitioner. For years now men had avoided their place.

But why a shuttered window? If, as according to legend, the toads (people were not
sure now if they really
were
toads) did not roam from their portion of the dale, had they once? Making it necessary
to bolt and bar against them? And why a second-story window in this dusty room?

Moved by a curiosity he did not wholly understand, Trystan drew his belt knife, pried
at the fastenings. They were deeply bitten with rust, and he was sure that the window
had not been opened night or day for years. At last the fastenings yielded to his
efforts; he was now stubborn about it, somehow even a little angry.

Even though he was at last able to withdraw the bar, he had a second struggle with
the warped wood, finally using sword point to lever it. The shutters grated open,
the chill of the night entered, making him aware at once of how very odorous and sour
was the fog within.

Trystan looked out upon snow and a straggle of dark trees, with the upslope of the
dale wall beyond. There were no other buildings set between the inn and that rise.
And the thick vegetation showing dark above the sweep of white on the ground suggested
that the land was uncultivated. The trees there were not tall, it was mainly brush,
and he did not like it.

His war-trained instincts saw there a menace. Any enemy could creep in its cover to
within a spear-cast of the inn. Yet perhaps those of Grimmerdale did not have such
fears, and so saw no reason to grub out and burn there.

The slope began gradually and shortly the tangled growth thinned out, as if someone
had there taken the precautions Trystan thought right. Above was smooth snow, very
white and unbroken in the moonlight. Then came outcrops of rock. But after he had
studied those with
an eye taught to take quick inventory of a countryside, he was sure they were no
natural formations but had been set with a purpose.

They did not form a connected wall. There were wide spaces between as if they had
served as posts for some stringing of fence. Yet for that they were extra thick.

And the first row led to a series of five such lines, though in successive rows the
stones were placed closer and closer together. Trystan was aware of two things. One,
bright as the moon was, it did not, he was sure, account for all the light among the
stones. There was a radiance which seemed to rise either from them or the ground about
them. Second, no snow lay on the land from the point where the lines of rock pillar
began. And above the stones there was a misting, as if something there bewildered
or hindered clear sight.

Trystan blinked, rubbed his hand across his eyes, looked again. The clouding was more
pronounced when he did so. As if whatever lay there increased the longer he watched
it.

That this was not of human Grimmerdale he was certain. It had all the signs of being
one of those strange places where old powers lingered. And that this was the refuge
or stronghold of the “toads” he was now sure. That the shutter had been bolted against
the weird sight he could also understand, and he rammed and pounded the warped wood
back into place, though he could not reset the bar he had levered out.

Slowly he put aside mail and outer clothing, laying it across the chest. He spread
out the bedding over the hide webbing. Surprisingly the rough sheets, the two woven
covers were clean. They even (now that he had drawn lungfuls of fresh air to awaken
his sense of smell) were fragrant with some kind of herb.

Trystan stretched out, pulled the covers about his ears, drowsy and content, willing
himself to sleep.

He awoke to a clatter at the door. At first he frowned
up at the cobwebbed rafters above. What had he dreamed? Deep in his mind there was
a troubled feeling, a sense that a message of some importance had been lost. He shook
his head against such fancies and padded to the door, opened it for the entrance of
the elder serving man, a dour-faced, skeleton-thin fellow who was more cleanly of
person than the pot boy. He carried a covered kettle, which he put down on the chest
before he spoke.

“Water for washing, master. There be grain mush, pig cheek, and ale below.”

“Well enough.” Trystan slid the lid off the pot. Steam curled up. He had not expected
this small luxury, and he took its arrival as an omen of fortune for the day.

Below the long room was empty. The lame boy was washing off table tops, splashing
water on the floor in great scummy dollops. His mistress stood, hands on her hips,
her elbows outspread like crooked wings, her sharp chin with its two haired warts
outthrust like a spear to threaten the woman before her, well cloaked against the
outside winter, but with her hood thrown back to expose her face.

That face was thin, with sharp features lacking any claim to comeliness, since the
stretched skin was mottled with unsightly brown patches. But her cloak, Trystan saw,
was good wool, certainly not that of a peasant wench. She carried a bundle in one
hand, and in the other was a short-hafted hunting spear, its butt scarred as if it
had served her more as a journey staff than a weapon.

“Well enough, wench. But here you work for the food in your mouth, the clothing on
your back.” The mistress shot a single glance at Trystan before she centered her attention
once more on the girl.

Girl, Trystan thought she was. Though by the Favor of Likerwolf certainly her face
was not that of a dewy maid, being rather enough to turn a man’s thoughts more quickly
to other things when he looked upon her.

“Put your gear on the shelf yonder,” the mistress
gestured. “Then come to work, if you speak the truth on wanting that.”

She did not watch to see her orders obeyed, but came to the table where Trystan had
seated himself.

“Grain mush, master. And a slicing of pig jowl—ale fresh drawn—”

He nodded, sitting much as he had the night before, fingering the finely wrought guard
about his wrist, his eyes half closed as if he were still wearied, or else turned
his thoughts on things not about him.

The mistress stumped away. But he was not aware she had returned until someone slid
a tray onto the table. It was the girl, her shrouding of cloak gone, so that the tight
bodice of the pleated skirt could be seen. And he was right: she did not wear peasant
clothes, that was a skirt divided for riding, though it had now been shortened enough
to show boots, scuffed and worn, straw protruding from their tops. Her figure was
thin, yet shapely enough to make a man wonder at the fate which wedded such to that
horror of a face. She did not need her spear for protection; all she need do was show
her face to any would-be ravisher and she would be as safe as the statue of Gunnora
the farmers carried through their fields at first sowing.