Читать книгу Aramaya - Jane Routley - Страница 6

I woke up. It was dark. I was lying on the ground wrapped in a blanket near a big fire. The air smelt of sea salt and in the sky above me ragged dark clouds blew across a full moon. It took a moment or two for me to work out where I was.

The beach. The mages.

The moment I had introduced myself as Dion Holyhands, they had known who I was. They never for a moment questioned that I was telling the truth. But then Prince Terzu had had a taste of my power when I had flung him and one of the wreckers back across the beach.

"The Demonslayer of Gallia," the Prince had said bowing comprehensively. "This is an immense honor." Though his words were overly fulsome, he seemed quite serious.

There had been a kind of fluttering among his companions that had made me look at them more closely and I saw then that they were not mages or at least not grown-up mages, but all young men in their teens.

I smiled as I lay there by the fire now, thinking of them and the enthusiastic way they had gathered around me, wanting to shake my hand and ask me about Ruinac and the demons I had fought. Fine young lads despite the occasional spotty face and sweaty hand. Apart from the servants who awaited the party on the cliff top and welcomed we mariners with blankets and warm drinks, the only other member of the Prince's party over twenty was his nephew Count Alexi Ivanka.

It seemed we had suddenly become part of a school excursion. Every summer Prince Terzu retired from the capital Akieva to his estates on this coast and it was his habit to invite young mages from his and allied families to come and train with him. Looking for necromancy in the Bowl of Seeing was an obvious part of that training. It was while doing this that they spotted our ship out at sea.

"Your progress over the Ocean held us enthralled all afternoon," said Prince Terzu in his cool languid way. "When we saw how close you were coming we set out immediately to greet you. With most felicitous results I am glad to say, since it gave us the opportunity to be of service to you."

I suspected there was more to his story than that, but I did not press him. I doubted their discovery of the wreckers was just good fortune. And his original intentions towards me could well have been less hospitable. A powerful mage heading for your coast line at great speed is not always a blessing. A conscientious public official like a Demon Hunter might well find it necessary to investigate and even stop such a journey.

As I lay there drowsily in the firelight, I could hear considerable movement away to my left.

"What's going on?" I mumbled at Kitten, who was crouching nearby staring into the fire.

"Oh Hello. Welcome back to the land of the living."

I sat up and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. Although my magic had not been exhausted, the struggle with the sea had left me physically tired and I had fallen into a deep sleep the moment I had laid down by the fire.

"What time is it?"

"It's after midnight, but dawn is still some way off. You can lie there for a bit longer. The Prince has sent for carts to take us to his estate, but they haven't arrived yet"

"So what's all the noise?"

"The mages are getting ready to go off and find this necromancer."

I was suddenly wide awake.

"Necromancer? They didn't say anything about a necromancer."

"Apparently the wreckers are the henchmen of a necromancer who lives further up the coast. It was he who gave them the necromantic power they were using. Now that they've arrested the wreckers, the mages are worried that their master will be warned and escape before reinforcements can come. Count Alexi and Prince Nikoli have been arguing about it for some time, but it seems they have now decided to go."

"Go! Take on a necromancer with just a pack of boys! What does the Prince say?"

"Seems to me he is very reluctant to go, but would you let a necromancer slip through your fingers?"

Necromancers were rogue mages who used the pain and death of other beings to cement their pacts with demons and thus fuel their spells. The most powerful fodder for such magic was, of course, the life-force of humans. It was a cruel violent magic and naturally most ordinary mages were dedicated to wiping it out. But to take on a necromancer with inexperienced boys... That was terribly dangerous!

"Kitten, do you think the Prince would be offended if I offered him my help?"

She grinned wryly. "I think he would be very relieved. In Aramaya it is considered ill-bred to trouble a sleeping guest, but his party has been taking a long time to get ready and making a remarkable amount of noise in doing so. I've been wondering if I should be helpful and wake you myself."

I stood up, brushed myself off and peered round in the darkness. It was hard to make out the shapes after the brightness of the fire.

"So where is he?"

"Come I'll take you to him."

She gathered a blanket around her shoulders and moved off easily with her usual quick, sure movements. I stumbled over the tussocks of grass after her, past the bound and guarded wreckers who sat or lay in a huddle near the fire. The staff that had stored the necromantic power they had used had already been burnt in the fire. Had we been a party of ordinary mariners, the staff and the brute force of the wreckers would have overcome us.

Servants were packing bundles and walking horses round in the grass nearby. I saw immediately what Kitten meant about unnecessary noise and confusion. The night seemed to be full of restless impatient boys nagging servants over their slowness.

However, the Prince, when we came upon him, was not at all impatient. In fact the air of unhurried calm with which he was sitting cross-legged by a fire drinking kesh out of an exquisite little silver cup and saucer was remarkable. It was a calm not shared by his nephew Alexi, who was standing nearby, tapping his riding crop against the top of his boots and sighing. By the look of the long-necked kesh pot on the fire, Prince Nikoli had been there some time and might well be there longer.

Prince Nikoli Terzu was a remarkable looking man. His skin was brown and his hair was a black as night. In his black robes and cap the effect was very somber. Although he was tall, he was gracefully slim and light-boned. His face was smooth and soft-looking, as if his cheeks had never been troubled by the roughness of a beard, and he had the most beautiful dark eyes. Yet despite his delicate looks, he seemed very much in command. There was the suggestion of a strong will in the set of his finely chiseled lips and when I came to know him better I discovered that a cynical twinkle was seldom out of his eyes.

"Lady Dion," he said putting aside his cup, rising and bowing low. "How are you? May I offer you some kesh?"

"Yes," I said, for kesh was exactly what my sluggish and aching body needed at this moment. But I was not about to be deflected from my aim by someone who I could already see was a master in the art of people management.

"My friend, the Countess tells me you are planning to try and arrest a necromancer. Would you be interested in my.... May I offer you my services in this?"

Count Alexi and Prince Terzu looked startled. Kitten turned her head away from them and winked at me which reassured me that I had not committed a serious social blunder. Later she told me that no Aramayan would have come to the point of the conversation so quickly and without a proper exchange of niceties.

The Prince smiled as he poured steaming kesh into a cup held out for him by a servant.

"I would be more than delighted, my Lady." After handing me the cup, he ushered me gently onto one of the folding stools that the servants had set out for Kitten and myself. "But do you feel yourself strong enough? You fought the storm all yesterday. Are you not tired and at a low ebb in your magic?"

I remembered then that Aramayans liked all things polite and so I tried to phrase my answer with this in mind.

"Thanks to your kind hospitality, I am feeling much refreshed in body. As for my magic, I cannot with certainty say, but I do not feel myself very close to being drained. I beg of you to allow me to come."

"Lady Dion has always been remarkably strong and quick to recover her magic," said Kitten. "You need not have any fears on her account, Prince."

"Then I would be honored to accept your company," said the Prince. He dropped his voice. "In fact you have taken a great load off my mind. Many of my companions are very gifted, but they none of them have any practical experience."

He turned suddenly and clapped his hands.

"Yuri! What is taking you all so long?" he cried "Get those boys to their horses. We have no time to waste. And you, Alexi my dear boy, why are you standing about like this? Can't you see we are in a hurry?"

Count Alexi bowed and disappeared into the darkness with a grin that showed he suddenly understood his uncle's procrastination. It made him seem terribly young. Oh dear! I hoped Prince Nikoli and myself would be enough. Though somehow I never doubted that the Prince knew what he was doing.

The Prince's servants offered me food and water while the Prince strode about giving orders, suddenly all action. He set some servants to take care of the imprisoned wreckers and see that they were handed over to the proper authorities and organized a guard for our ship.

In a few minutes saddled horses were waiting for Kitten and I to mount.

"You’re coming?" I said to Kitten.

"What? Stay here and miss all the fun? Certainly I’m coming. Who will see you don't tire yourself out if I don't come? The Simonettis will see to our bags."

This was just like Kitten and there would be no arguing with her. If I had had some of the experiences she had had with necromancers I would have been too scared to go anywhere near them. But for Kitten fear would be the thing that was driving her to come now. For her, fear was a thing to face head on and conquer.

As we mounted up there was a muffled cheering from the young men, and several of them bobbed their heads at me as they walked their horses past to form into a column behind us. They did seem very pleased with me. And I had done nothing particular to deserve it.

"You’re a celebrity here," said Kitten. "Count Alexi and I were talking when you were asleep. All these boys have studied a report of your activities that was made for the Emperor by that mage Rosinsky. I remember you writing to me about him."

"Oh," I said uncomfortably. "Yes an extremely flattering report. But they don't even know me. Why, they can't even be sure I am who I say I am!"

"Come now. Who else could you be? 'A beautiful young woman fair of skin and hair with powers as mighty as a demons' as they say in the report. Such things do not grow in every cabbage patch. You forget the Prince felt the measure of your power on the beach. He told me he had begun to wonder if you were the Demonslayer even before you gave your name." She poked me in the side with her finger. "Evidently he knows 'a beautiful young woman' when he sees one."

I pulled a face at her. I knew full well that "beautiful" was no more than the illuminating effect of fame on a face and figure that were perfectly ordinary.

A couple of serving men were also mounted up and carrying torches to light our way. It is a sensible precaution not to use magic when trying to take any kind of mage by surprise.

At a shouted command from Count Alexi, the column moved off.

We took a path that lead across the tussocky heath land along the cliff top. I could hear the crashing of surf and from horse back I could just make out the bulk of the Eagle, that gallant ship, lying on the beach below. A chill wind blew around us making our shadows dance and sway in the flickering torch light. I was glad I had brought one of the blankets to wrap around my shoulders.

I had begun wonder if Aramayans and Morians fought necromancers in the same way, but I need not have worried. Immediately after we started, the Prince brought his horse up beside mine and we began to discuss tactics. To my relief they were not very different from what I was used to. This was not so surprising. Four hundred years ago the Peninsula I came from had been conquered by people from Aramaya who had brought with them the discipline of magic that I had studied. In effect Aramaya was still the centre of the Peninsula's intellectual and magical world.

"I would not even consider this expedition were it not for various things that lead me to believe that our opponent is not very dangerous," said Prince Nikoli. "For a start, his operating so close to the estate of a known demon-hunter smacks of both carelessness and inexperience. One of the stronger boys picked up traces of him quite easily in the Bowl of Seeing. We were actually looking for him again when we came across you. That is why we set out to meet you with such speed."

"For which I thank you," I said.

"Not at all. It was a pleasure to be of some small service. To continue with the necromancer, my mindsearch of the leader of the wreckers lead me to believe that he has been using the victims of wrecks to prolong his own life. It is a type of necromancy I have often seen. A mage who has been law-abiding most of his life is tempted into the lower levels of necromancy by a fear of death. Such men are never very powerful or they would not need to draw on demon power to gain what they seek."

"You make it sound easy and common," I exclaimed, surprised by his calm. "On the Peninsula nothing could be more difficult. The whole of the country side is constantly watched for signs of necromancy. This is not so in Aramaya, is it?"

"No, though I wish it was. It would please me to have no work. But though the Emperor commands all his subjects’ loyalty, the nobles are yet very jealous of their freedoms. Except for a few days ride around Akieva and a couple of the other big cities, there is no systematic watch for necromancy in Aramaya. Communities fend for themselves. Fortunately they often do so quite well. And then we Demon-hunters do what we can informally. For instance, the fact that I always bring my young mages down here in summer has been enough to discourage necromancy in these parts for many years."

"I would have thought the freedom to commit necromancy was not one worth respecting," I said, shocked at the shortsightedness of it all.

The Prince looked startled.

"I beg your pardon. I have been rude," I said realizing that no one likes to hear criticism of their countrymen.

Prince Nikoli inclined his head. "Not at all. It is I who should beg your pardon for my ill-bred surprise. If you will pardon my saying so, it is simply that you speak your mind more openly than I am used to."

"I must beg your pardon again, Prince. I have yet to accustom myself to the Aramayan way," I said

"It was not a criticism, merely an observation. And I beg you will not change your manner. It seems a remarkably sensible way of going along. I shall try it myself if you do not think you will be offended. As for necromancy, I entirely agree with you. It is a vile, vile practice, but sadly the hatred of it is not as strong among most Aramayans as they say it is among the Peninsula folk."

I was surprised, though shocked might have been a better word, to think this might be true so close to the intellectual centre of magery. The Prince must have read my face for he said,

"Yes you will think it very decadent and perhaps it is, but you see things are seldom black and white to an Aramayan. In general many Aramayans or at least those of our class would ask first what is the quality of the lives being sacrificed to necromancy and why?"

"Quality of lives?" I echoed. "What on earth do you mean?"

"Many would find the sacrifice of animals quite acceptable to necromancy. Such a point can be logically defended. We kill animals to eat them, such people would say. What is wrong with sacrificing them to demons to fuel small useful spells? More sinisterly there are others who would regard the lives of foreign barbarians as perfectly legitimate fuel for the pursuit of greater power. Or the lives of criminals who must be killed anyway. There are even those who regard their peasants as no better than animals."

"But to fuel a necromantic spell beings are usually tortured to death. What do such people say to that?"

He sighed. "I can imagine all kinds of excuses that might be made, but I will begin to find myself defending the practice if I keep on in this vein and I have no wish to do so. I am only trying to explain what must seem to you a shocking tolerance. You must understand what lies at the root of it. While my countrymen fear powerful rulers, paradoxically they also admire powerful men. And necromancy is about power. Any Aramayan will tell you that a powerful emperor brings effective and orderly rule and that is to be desired. The method of rule is regarded as secondary. To perform evil acts for a good end is seen a perfectly acceptable. Perhaps you can see how this might reflect on how people regard necromancy."

"I can," I said briefly. Many people who knew nothing of necromancy asked if it could not be used to do good things. But the power was always tainted by the cunning demons it was bought from. They could read the thoughts of the humans they colluded with and manipulated necromancers on to worse and worse crimes. It was just such happenings that had led my ancestors to migrate to the peninsula. Such attitudes to necromancy might conceivably benefit those at the top of a society, but those further down had little to gain.

"Unfortunately in such an atmosphere necromancy is very hard to completely root out," continued the Prince. "I am glad to say that the last three Emperors have been enemies of the secret colleges of necromancy and the Demon Hunters have flourished. But there have been times when the Demon Hunters have been discouraged, starved of funds and denied any legal power. The secret colleges have found footholds even in the highest families. Even the imperial family. There have been times when only the prohibition against an Emperor being a mage has prevented us from being actually ruled by a necromancer."

He turned and smiled at me.

"I must tell you how grateful we Demon Hunters are for your work Lady Dion. The Rosinsky report on your activities is set reading for young mages. Inspiring reading. When the report of your cleansing of Ruinac was first published here in Aramaya, recruits to the Demon Hunters increased five fold. And your discovery of just how deceptive demons can be has made the secret colleges of necromancy look like a pack of gullible fools. This can only be a bad thing for them."

I inclined my head politely though I actually felt very embarrassed. Rosinsky had come to Ruinac to interview me on behalf of the Emperor of Aramaya. He was looking to be impressed and had gone away and written things that made me seem like a visionary hero.

Shad had said it was a very fair report and he'd chided me for not giving myself enough credit, but I knew better. I had always had very ambivalent feelings about the title of Demonslayer. What most people did not know was that it was a series of acts of foolishness that lead my confrontation with the demon Bedazzer. Even in my later dealings with Smazor and the other demons, I had made mistakes and only really escaped through luck.

"It’s a very flattering report," I said.

"I am sure not," said the Prince politely. We were back to politeness, a state of being I could see that the Prince was more comfortable with.

Dawn had broken now, a chill grey dawn that was echoed in the chill grey seas below us. Birds began to call, both out over the sea and in the tussocky grass we rode through. Strange to think that only the previous morning I had been out on that sea thinking of Shad. Shortly after dawn we turned inland and rode along a rocky trail through heath and prickly gorse bushes.

After a while of riding through some low hillocks, the Prince called a halt. He sent a couple of the boys off on foot and came riding back to us.

"I've sent the boys to reconnoiter. If things are as straightforward as I hope, I suggest that we divide into two groups. You and I shall go carefully in at the front of the house and try to catch the necromancer unawares. Count Alexi and the boys will stay at the back wall and capture anyone who tries to escape."

I doubted that the boys would be happy with this rather pallid role in things, but it was by far the safest plan for them. Prince Nikoli and I would bear the brunt of any fighting.

It would have been useful for us to do some magic together in order to see how we harmonized, but it would have given our presence away to any vigilant mage so we talked more of tactics and power. The Prince asked me if I wished to take the lead, but my experience was more with fighting demons than human opponents so I suggested that he should lead the attack and I should defend. I discovered now that Aramayan mages had a far greater awareness of the extent of their own powers than Peninsula mages. On the Peninsula competition between mages was frowned upon. Only your teacher knew the full extent of your abilities.

Here in Aramaya, the Imperial court and the White Colleges held trials for young mages and rated them. The Prince was the most powerful mage in the Southern provinces and one of the ten most powerful in Aramaya. Having felt his power on the beach I could well believe this. If I managed to follow his moves properly, the two of us would be a formidable combination.

Count Alexi came up leading a grubby looking man in a sheepskin coat who was rubbing the sleep from his eyes. The Prince questioned him in a language I had never heard before. I looked at Kitten inquiringly.

"It's a southern dialect of peasant Aramayan," she whispered in my ear. The grubby man, who seemed to be a shepherd of some sort, was at first reluctant to answer any questions. However when the Prince threatened him with a mindsearch, he became suddenly co-operative and began to talk quickly and urgently. Finally he was taken away and tied up.

"He doesn't know much about the necromancer, but he did know the layout of the manor. He says there are dangerous dogs that look like men. Sounds like blood beasts."

By this time the two other boys had returned with news of the layout of the house and grounds. After we had examined this, the Prince called everyone around him and outlined his plan for them. As I expected there were disappointed looks all round, but surprisingly no one questioned the Prince's judgment or authority. What control he had over these lads! Kitten and the serving men were to stay behind the hill with the horses and the prisoner.

"What will happen to the man?" I asked the Prince, as the rest of us scrambled up the hill keeping in cover.

"Once we've arrested his master, we'll probably set him free. Serfs are not blamed for their master's sins in this country."

What was a serf? Well, there was no time for these questions now for we were at the top of the hill.

Below us was a small wooded valley with a little creek bubbling down the centre and further up the valley we could see the stone wall of the manor house with the tree tops of an overgrown garden behind it. The wall looked very new and very high. Usually there are people tending fields even this early in the morning, but there was no one in the neglected looking fields nearby. Prince Nikoli sent the others off around the back of the house. Then a few minutes later the two of us made our way up the gully and along the wall till we found a rough place to get over. Prince Nikoli, who was very tall, climbed the wall with remarkable nimbleness and helped me up after him. A tree branch and a stand of overgrown grey leaved bushes helped us to climb down the other side of the wall.

The garden was full of gnarled old trees hung about with long strands of moss. The ground beneath was covered in shaggy bushes. It was a storybook scene from a tale of evil magic. As we crept through the undergrowth I caught a scent of sulfur and rot.

"Demons!" I cried, just as two shapes came crashing out of the undergrowth to our right.

Bloodbeasts - strong human bodies covered in hair and with the faces of vicious dogs. I threw out a bolt of power. There was a flash of light as the Prince did the same. We both hit the closest beast. With yelp and a stench of sulfur, a mass of burning fur thudded to the ground, just as the Prince dodged the claws of the other beast.

"Look out," I shouted and thrust out a thud of power, which knocked the beast back through the air. The Prince threw another bolt of power which hit it mid-flight. For a moment it hung there in the air struggling and shrieking, its skin and hair crackling in the flame, before it too crashed to the ground. Blood-beasts are made of human flesh and the bones of a dog mixed with necromantic magic. Being magical creatures, they are very susceptible to magical attack.

The Prince turned and shook my hand. "Well saved!" he said as if we were good fellows out shooting ducks together.

"In future, you take the left and I'll take the right" I said.

"Good idea. We'd better go. He knows we're here now."

A few moments of stumbling brought us to the front of the house - a two-story building covered in ivy and graying white-wash and surrounded by a wide sagging verandah. I could clearly sense someone awake in that building - awake and using magic.

Without hesitation, the Prince dashed towards the front door. I raced after him. He threw out a short blast of power and the door burst open. We plunged through into the front hallway.

The Prince stopped short in the middle of the hall.

"Keep watch," he said.

He began muttering the words of a spell, a finding spell.

"There's a mage upstairs to the left," I told him, to save time. I could feel the mage's strong magic with its edgy feeling of necromancy. It had to be someone pretty powerful for me to feel him so strongly. I thought nervously about those school boys waiting at the back wall. We must try and stop this person before he made a run for it.

The Prince held up his three fingers on his hand while continuing with the focusing spell. Three. Did he mean there were three necromancers? Now I could feel a second person up there but... For a brief moment I felt a very weak trace of a third.

Three? Three necromancers. God and Angels!

Suddenly there was shouting and then a terrible shriek.

Woomph!

A huge fire ball come roaring down the stairs.

I yelped and spread a protection spell all over the Prince and myself. Not a moment too soon. We were engulfed in a world of roaring flame.

In the tiny peace inside the fireball the Prince opened his eyes. He grinned at me, lifted one eyebrow questioningly and pointed his finger up toward the ceiling.

"Yes!" I cried, exhilarated by our strength and power. Together we lifted our hands above our heads and turning them to fists of stone leapt upwards out of the fire.

Crash! The wooden ceiling and upper floor burst apart as we smashed up through it. The Prince disappeared in the clouds of rotting timber and swirling dust. There were several flashes of power. I leapt backwards out of the dust-cloud all senses at the ready just in time to see something like blue lightning disappear out of one of the windows.

I darted towards the lightning, tripped over something lying on the floor and fell headlong. Scrambling up, I threw myself at the window. A ball of blue fire was shrieking away through the air. An inexpert fire ball exploded close by it. The boys! For a moment I thought of flinging myself after that blue fire, but to do so would draw me a long way away. A room-shaking blast from behind me made up my mind. The Prince was shooting blasts of power at a fresh-faced young man. The necromancer was defending himself and sending out bursts of fire, but not at the Prince. He was throwing fire all over the room - trying to burn the house down! That was reason enough for me to stop him. I thrust out my power and began extinguishing the flames as fast as I could go. It was not easy. The rotting wood walls and shabby tapestries caught fire easily and beneath us the fireball had turned the ground hallway into an inferno.

Sometime during my frenzied extinguishing of the fire, the Prince must have bested the other mage for suddenly I found him working beside me.

Shortly afterwards we stood together in the smoking hallway surveying the wreckage. Though it had been a tough fight we were smiling. Using magic is exhilarating.

"Where's the mage?" I asked him.

The smile left the Prince’s face.

"When I bested him, he turned his power on himself. Poor young fool."

The stairs were unusable so we jumped back up through the ceiling again. The floor in the upper room was sagging alarmingly and together we moved broken pieces of wood around to shore up the floor.

Two charred bodies lay on the floor of that upper room. With a faint sense of revulsion I saw a foot print in the ashy flesh of one of them and realized that it must have been this that I fell over while racing to the window. I remembered the terrible scream that I had heard just as the fire ball had come rolling out of that upper doorway. It must have rolled right over him.

"The way I interpret this scene is that these fellows have some evidence they wanted to hide," said the Prince. He was searching the bodies. "And they would have succeeded too, if you hadn't been here and been so quick thinking as to put out those fires. But see ... this one here was probably the weakest of them and the other two killed him, so that he wouldn't be mindsearched. There's no honor among necromancers." He pulled something away from the burned corpse's finger. "Ah, Yes, this is good. A signet ring. We may well find that this is the Lord of the manor. Anyway, to continue, the other young man stayed behind to destroy the manor letting his master get away. It was probably always intended that he give up his life. Even among necromancers there are those who have the knack of inspiring such slavish devotion. And misusing it. I almost feel sorry that this poor young fellow died for nothing."

He smiled up at me. "However now we shall find out the secret they were hiding. Some new necromantic technique I hope. Necromancers are endlessly inventive."

He came over, took my hand and bowed over it. Since it was covered in ash and dirt I was relieved he did not kiss it.

"I cannot thank you enough for coming with us," he said. "Things could have gone very badly for us without you. I think it was the two of us who scared the strongest one away."

"It was my duty to come and help you. Nothing else," I said.

His dark eyes twinkled at me.

"If all mages did their duty, there would be no need for Demon Hunters. By the way, I must complement you on your sense for magic. You are very sharp. It was a pleasure working with you."

I tried not to blush at his appreciation. We were professionals here.

"Now, let us get the boys, and see what it was these fellows where hiding," he said.

A short time later I cast the Bowl of Seeing in the water-barrel in the back stable yard. Using the Bowl together with the pack of foretelling cards, which all mages carry, lets you see quite precisely what type of magic is being used in what location. And even when the magic is no longer being used you can usually see some traces of where it has been for a few hours afterwards.

"Look," said Count Alexi. "This place here glows with necromancy. He looked at the foretelling cards. "Here to the right of the house. It must be some kind of secret cellar. There's something in one of the attic rooms too. Can anyone see anything else?"

"There's something in that lower room," said the chubby young man who was standing beside me holding my stack of cards.

"Very good, Sergi," said Prince Nikoli. "Now you lads can do the house and Lady Dion and Alexi and Sergi and I will do the cellar."

There was a disappointed groan from the others which the Prince received with a good natured twinkle.

"I assure you there will be plenty for you to observe," he said. "And I shall give you all the opportunity to impress me with your careful reports later."

Once again this serious attack on necromancy had turned into a school excursion. Personally my first urge was to send these boys as far away from the manor house as possible, till it was safe for them to come back, but perhaps the Prince was right. Student mages needed to gain experience somehow. We had seen the dire results of inexperience on the Peninsula. There, very few people ever came into contact with necromancy and they had trouble recognizing it when they did.

The Prince was still very cautious. While the boys swarmed over the manor house, he carefully followed them throughout the rooms keeping an eye on them.

As well as the large number of graves in the back garden and the stinking place in the stable were the blood beasts had been kenneled, there was a golem - clay man covered in runic symbols - slouched in the kitchen. It was inert now, for its master was either dead or very far away. No doubt the necromancers used it as a kind of servant for there were no human servants anywhere in the house.

In the attic rooms, however, we found two young women in peasant dress lying on their backs on two narrow little beds. They did not react when we entered and at first I thought they must be dead. But their open eyes moved and blinked.

"They have been fed on by demons," said one of the boys. I nodded. It seemed the logical conclusion and yet something about the girls puzzled me. For a start they were uninjured. Demons feed on the life force of living beings and those forces are enhanced, made more delectable to them, by strong emotions. Though the emotion can be pleasure, necromancers usually use pain in order to extract the most nourishment from their victims. After all, pain is much easier to cause.

If the victims of demon feeding recover from the torture they are still diminished. They usually sleep the sleep of deep exhaustion waking only for a couple of hours a day to struggle from their beds to see to bodily functions. These girls were neither injured nor exhausted. They reminded me of nothing so much as the golem that lay downstairs - it was as if they lay there because some essential animating element was simply missing.

"I think I will have my healer look at these two," said Prince Terzu and I saw that he too was puzzled by the girls.

This painstaking search irritated me even though I knew that it was important to make sure the house was safe. I was edgy and keen to get into the secret cellar where the real necromantic business would have taken place. What if people were imprisoned there or lying wounded?

Finally we found ourselves in the basement of the house. Although we knew there was a secret cellar somewhere nearby, Sergi and Alexi had had no luck finding its entrance and even with all fifteen of us looking we could find nothing. Prince Nikoli suggested that we break through the wall and a couple of the boys used magic to pull several bricks out of it. We discovered a large dark space behind one of the walls. A foul stench of sulfur and carrion came from the space. With Prince Nikoli's help, Count Alexi changed himself into a snake and slithered through the small hole in the wall. Shortly afterwards magelight shone out of the hole. We could hear the Count making gagging noises and then with a grinding grating noise a portion of the wall directly behind us slid open. As the terrible smell flooded into the room, the young men drew back without having to be told.

The Prince calmly took a little pot of ointment from his pouch, rubbed a small amount under his nose and passed it around. It was some kind of strong sharp-smelling unguent and when I rubbed it under my nose I could smell nothing else.

With magic at the ready and sleeves held before our noses, Prince Nikoli, Sergi and I stepped through the door. Beyond a green-faced Count Alexi waited, a mage light burning white in his hand.

Prince Nikoli grinned at him wryly and offered him his pot of ointment.

"Enjoying yourself, dear boy?"

"Uncle dear, how could I not enjoy your company and in such appropriate surroundings too?"

The Prince bowed ironically as if acknowledging a complement.

"Please feel free to lead on at your leisure, dear boy."

The Count bowed mockingly in return and led the way down a long corridor to where a large cellar opened up. The source of the stench was easy to see. Several bodies lay huddled in a corner of the room and on a large stone table in the middle lay the body of a young woman. The whole of her middle was shattered as if it had burst. Small pieces of entrail, flesh and bone were spattered all over the walls behind. The sight set me gagging. Sergi leaned in a corner and vomited.

The Prince was made of sterner stuff however. With only the faintest hesitation, he moved forward and began to examine the body.

"Been here most of the night I would say from the dryness of the blood and other things," he said calmly. He turned away from the table and examined the other bodies.

"This is what happened to the servants then," he sighed. Poor souls. Used as fodder," He reached up and pulled at a piece of the wall, which I now saw was a large black curtain. Behind it was a huge mirror. Runes were painted on it in blood.

"Lady Dion, perhaps you could give me your opinion of this."

I read the runes to myself but not aloud. Runes are a language all their own, a language linked with magic. They made out a summoning spell.

"Look there is the gateway rune," I said. "They were constructing a gateway. To bring a demon though I suppose and use it as a bound servant. Though these three people, and the girl, would not have been much of a sacrifice for such a big spell."

"Perhaps they were used to simply put the gateway rune in place," said the Prince.

"Possibly. If that's so, it seems we have come just in time. Though this is not like other gateways I have seen - the runes are in the wrong order and I don't think they are all there. And what were they going to use for fodder when they opened the gate?"

"Perhaps the people from your ship," he said. "Though I agree it doesn't seem enough."

I understood his doubt. The last demon I knew who had come through a gateway into our world had required to be fed the life force of 450 people.

"Strange wounds this girl," said Count Alexi. "Surely blowing the poor creature open like this would have been too quick for a sacrifice."

I looked more carefully at the runes. I had learned a great deal about them after I had married Shad. His people, the Klementari, used runes much more than normal mages.

"Look at this one," I said. "That's the rune for enclosure. Surely that is not usual in a gateway spell."

"So that's what that is. I've never seen anything like it before. This can only be some kind of new experiment, but unfortunately with the fellows upstairs dead, I'm not sure we'll ever know what they were up to."

He turned and looked at the woman on the table. From here we could only see her face, blank with death.

"Poor woman," he said echoing my thoughts.

He sent Sergi back upstairs for pen and paper so that we could copy out the runes. While he was gone we examined the rest of the cellar.

Another wooden table in a corner showed signs of recent use. Prince Nikoli noted, with a certain satisfaction, that it had the youth runes carved in it.

"This is the table he would have been using to prolong his life," he said.

A large empty cage stood in a nearby corner. The sight of this chilled me. This horrible fate might have awaited Kitten and I. Locked down here in the darkness watching your fellows killed one by one. All Kitten's charm and all my skill at magic, all the things which made us special and our lives unique, made irrelevant by the fact that these monsters needed our life force to power their spells.

Though we spent the rest of the morning searching and scanning the manor and its grounds, it was clear that nothing else was alive there. At this point a party of Peninsula witchfinders would have declared themselves finished. They would probably have burned the house to the ground and left. The Aramayans had no intentions of leaving so precipitately.

First the Prince set Alexi to taking extensive notes on all aspects of the secret cellar while he examined the dead woman's body in gruesome detail. Interestingly enough there were a series of enclosure runes scratched into her back. I wrote them down and named them for him. Then I helped him wrap the body in a linen cloth and remove it for burial. Magic can be very welcome at such moments.

After the autopsy, Prince Nikoli took me and several of the older boys along the rutted cart track to the nearby peasant village. Our arrival at the settlement took on some of the qualities of a raid. The young men rounded up everyone they could find and herded them into the muddy clearing around the village well. The Prince addressed the serfs in the same strange dialect of Aramayan he had used with the shepherd. I was astonished by this language. Like all educated Peninsula folk I had learned Aramayan as a child and I could speak it easily with Prince Nikoli, but I could barely understand a word of this peasant dialect.

I was so fascinated at my first glimpses of Aramayan life that my attention quickly wandered from the Prince's incomprehensible words. Fascinated but repelled. What a mouldy and sagging little village it was. How poor the people looked, all thin and dressed in dirty rags. Some of them were covered in sores and several of the half-naked children had the bloated bellies of those who did not get enough of the right food.

When the Prince had finished speaking, a wizened old headman led us up to a great barn. At this time of the year after the harvest, the bins were full of grain, apples and vegetables and the loft was stuffed with hay. There was room for a table and chairs to be set up in the middle of the floor however. One of the young men now sat at the table and took notes while the prince proceeded to question everybody in the village. Unable to understand the questions, I read the student's notes over his shoulder. As I had suspected the Prince was questioning the people in great detail on the activities at the manor house. Even though he mindsearched several of them, he seemed to be learning very little that was really useful. They were able to identify the twisted signet ring the Prince had taken from the body as that of their lord, Igor Shugorsky, but they had no knowledge of the wreckers.

Rumors of Lord Shugorsky's dark activities at the manor house had abounded in the village for some time. The two strangers had arrived only the week ago and since then nobody had seen the manor servants. A couple of days before seven girls had been taken from the village to the manor. It was the first time in several years anyone had been taken from the village.

It sounded as if the resident necromancer had invited or been coerced into inviting two other necromancers to his house, but why was not clear.

Had any villages on the peninsula known so much about necromantic activities at their lord's house without informing their local mage, they would have been severely punished.

"Why did they not send for someone if they suspected all this," I asked one of the boys. All he said in answer was,

"They are serfs, my lady."

This explained nothing to me, but he gave me such a pitying look for having asked such an obvious question that I did not press him further. Nobody is as good as a youngster at making you feel pitifully foolish.

The Prince took the peasants' testimonies without a word of reproof and afterwards he gave each person a sack of grain and a bag of vegetables and apples.

"The Prince is a soft hearted fellow," said one of the boys nearby in a low voice. "These people are like the useless sweepings of a stable. They would probably be much better for a taste of the whip."

"Yes it is odd," said Sergi. "It's his one vice this foolish softness. He's notorious for it. Still he is very successful at finding out information. It’s not impossible there is some connection."

'And they had seemed such a nice young men too,' I thought, a bit chilled by the whispered exchange. Later I was to realize that he was just repeating the commonplace thoughts of most Aramayan nobles.

I helped the Prince by relieving the pain of the mindsearch victims, but I was very glad when Kitten arrived with the servants. I wanted to do something about all the sick people in this village. They seemed to so fearful I did not like to leap on them and just heal them without having someone to translate for me.

"How can this lord have done nothing for them?" I said to Kitten later as we went from house to house, examining the villagers and using healing magic where it was applicable. "They do not even have a village healer. They could not have been very productive workers. It's like the worst excesses of the Revolution of Souls!"

"He would hardly have wanted an educated and independent person in the place," said Kitten.

I picked up a little toddler holding a doll plaited out of straw. The child clung to me in a way which made my heart ache. Alinya would have been this child's age now had she lived. The thought upset me. I had avoided small children for the last two and a half years for just this reason.

"Oh look at this child. Its bones are not growing right," I exclaimed. "Tell this woman that her children must have more milk."

"Dion, don't you think these people would give their children milk if they could?"

I dropped my eyes in shame. I had been insensitive. They were obviously too poor to afford milk. I put the child down and tried to forget how empty my arms felt.

"They are serfs," continued Kitten. "They must look to their lord for their well-being."

"What are serfs?"

"They are bound to the land and they belong to the Lord in the same way that it does," said Kitten.

"You mean they are slaves!" I cried.

"Not exactly in law but in fact yes they are."

"God and Angels, how can this go on?"

"Actually it is like this all over Aramaya. It's the way the country is organized."

No wonder these people were so passive and cowed. No wonder they had not sent for the Demon Hunters. My God. How awful. All my life people had been telling me things were done better in Aramaya and I, like all Peninsula folk, had believed them. No one had ever mentioned the fact that most of the population lived in a state of semi-slavery. They say travel broadens the mind. It certainly opens the eyes.

Kitten and I spent the rest of the day healing people as best we could. Although it was a very short term solution to the problem it was better than nothing. Much later as we were helping an old blind woman with her cataracts, I looked up and saw Prince Nikoli standing in the door way. The old woman's daughter fluttered anxiously to the door and bowed low to him.

If he had come earlier I really think I would have scolded him for the shameless and shocking institution of serfdom, but I had had time to recover my temper and to realize it was not personally his fault.

"Are we going?" I said, a little shortly.

"I was just about to ask if you would mind spending the night here. I have a few more people to question and then we shall be through, but the boys are tired and I imagine you must be too. You seem to have found much to occupy yourself."

"I had to do something about the condition of these people," I said bluntly.

"Yes," said the Prince. He lent against the door frame. "You are angry about something?"

"I am shocked by the state of these people. Shocked!" I cried. "And now the Countess tells me that they are virtual slaves of this necromancer. And you said... Do they have no recourse? Is there nothing to be done? At least in Moria people can take to the roads if they are unhappy. Yet here the Countess tells me stories of hunting dogs and prison for runaways... It is not what I expected to find at the centre of the world."

"Ah,yes." said the Prince. "It seems I must again apologize for my countrymen. It is not a system I personally support and with every generation there are more of us against it. We are in hopes that this new Emperor will be one of us, but it is too early to tell. No doubt the state of the Morian peasantry is much superior."

That remark took the wind out of my sails. Perhaps it had been intended to. There were plenty of Morian peasants who could not afford to buy their children milk. Many of them had come to Ruinac to seek their fortunes in the new lands we were opening up there and had brought tales of starvation and cruel landlords with them.

"Is there no way that these children can get enough milk to help them grow properly?" I said, perceiving that there was no point arguing with someone who agreed with me.

"Lord Shugorsky had several cows. I can buy a couple of them from his bailiff and give them to the village."

"But will the milk be fairly distributed?"

"These villages operate as units. They must. Usually you can rely on the village elders, who are also serfs, to see that everybody gets a share. Come. We shall see what can be done."

Nobody wanted to spend the night in the manor house. The tithe barn was the next biggest and cleanest building in the area so we all spent the night there. An area was partitioned off with blankets for Kitten and I and comfortable beds of straw were made for us. It must have been all the little children I had handled that day or perhaps I was so tired that for once I did not need magic to put myself to sleep. Anyway that night I dreamt about my miscarriage.

They say all mothers feel the child in their womb, but a mage feels it even more strongly. From the moment Shad’s seed joined with mine, I was aware of the life force of our child within me. For five months I felt intense joy as she grew inside me. And then one terrible day, I felt that spark of life begin to struggle. Though I tried to keep it going, willing my own life force into my womb, still it failed. And was suddenly gone. And it stayed gone. A day later I gave birth to a small dead fetus. In dreams I still saw its tiny hands and feet.

Shad and I called her Alinya and buried it in a small grave in our garden.

"We will have other children," he said. But we did not.

Oh that terrible moment when the life flickered and I could do nothing. That terrible moment when I realized she had died inside me. Why oh why had she died?

I lay there in the darkness and wept silently as I had so many times before. It had been two and half years since Alinya had died, but at such moments the pain was sharp and the release that tears gave was small. When the tears had gone I lay awake, my eyes open and sore from weeping, and a kind of black emptiness pressing down on me. I tried the various relaxation rituals, but the depression was too strong for them to work. The only other option was to put myself to sleep with magic, but I could see the light of dawn already coming in through the window. Suddenly I wanted to get away from the dark soak of misery I lay in. Quickly I pulled on my clothes and went out of the barn. It was still quite dark. Though birds were twittering in the trees, there was no movement among the shabby little huts. I walked along the muddy smelly track through the village till the houses ended and on towards the sea which I could hear and smell a short way away.

I forgot the monstrous waves I had fought (was it already a day ago) in my delight in the sea as it was now. How magnificent the waves were breaking on the wide wet sands. When Shad and I had first lived together at Ruinac, sometimes we would make the long half day journey to the nearby coast to just such a beach. Though the land around Ruinac was grey and sterile after being laid waste by a demon, the sea shore had recovered. The sand dunes were covered in spiky sea grasses and little shrubs and seagulls nested in the nearby cliffs and swirled and dipped over the waves.

A day at the sea had always refreshed us for the long days of magic and digging that we needed to bring the land round Ruinac back to fruitful life. When it was too cold to swim we would ride our horses through the waves or run along the shore chasing each other and throwing lumps of seaweed. We had been so happy...

I found myself rubbing my ring finger. There was no ring there any longer. I had been too shocked to take my ring off when I first received Shad's ring and letter. It had taken me over a month to bring myself to do it and to send it to Shad at Ruinac, thus granting him the divorce he had asked for.

I had done so the night before Kitten and I had embarked to cross the Western Ocean and find Dally. Anything might happen to me on this journey. It was best to have all my affairs in order before I went. At least this way, Shad would be free to get on with his life and with the family that would hopefully inherit Ruinac from him. For myself there was nothing about freedom I wanted.

All kinds of bitter reproaches had filled my mind, but when it came time to pen the letter accompanying my ring, I simply wrote telling him how much I regretted that things had not turned out well between us and wishing him happy for the future. Anything else just seemed too petty.

Now standing here on the sea shore and remembering how happy we had once been, I bitterly regretted sending back that ring. It was so horribly final. I should have hung on. I should have gone back and tried to talk with him. Now there was no hope.

But no. There had never been any hope. I could not give him children and he had wanted children. All men did.

Naturally he had turned to Edaine, the young Klementari woman who had come to teach my students runework and who had decided it was her role to rescue my husband from the disastrous consequences of marrying a non-Klementari. I could still remember Edaine shouting at me.

"You are selfish keeping Shad with you when everyone knows that you are barren. Why can't you do the decent thing and let him go find someone who can give him a child?"

Shad had been furious when I told him. He had called Edaine to my office and told her in front of me that there was no longer any place in his house for one who said such things to his wife.

Yet they had been friends and on some level he must have agreed with her for five months later came the ring and that letter telling me he was going to start a new life with her; Edaine, who was younger than me and more beautiful, who was probably fertile and whose spirit was not blackened and twisted by grief over her childlessness. She had never liked me. I felt petty bitterness at her triumph now. As for Shad, I might rage at his decision but I could not really blame him for it. Not when I thought of our last time together and all the other times like it.

If Alinya had survived I would have had something of Shad to remember him by, just as I had been a souvenir of my mother's love for my father. But if Alinya had lived he would never have left. I wanted to weep again for my lost husband and all the promise that had simply disappeared but I had no tears left. That part of my life, the husband and family part was over now and I must just learn to accept it.