Fiddler Fair (anthology)

“It’s more than possible, it’s likely,” Martis told him. “I’ve been shielding our movements ever since the attack.”

“But would you have gone on if this one had fallen? Would it not have been more likely that you would return to the Guild Hall to seek other guards?”

They had stopped on the crest of a ridge. Below them lay grasslands and scrub forest that stretched for furlongs in all directions but the one they had come.

Kelven’s tower was easily seen from here, and about an hour’s distance away. The sun beat down on their heads, and insects droned lazily. The scene seemed ridiculously incongruous as a site of imminent conflict.

Martis laughed—a sound that held no trace of humor. “Anybody else but me would do just that. But I’m stubborn, and I’ve got a rotten temper. Kelven knows that. He watched me drag myself and two pupils—he was one of them—through a stinking, bug-infested bog once, with no guides and no bodyguards. The guides had been killed and the guards were in no shape to follow us, y’see; we’d been attacked by a Nightmare. I was by-Zaila not going to let it get away back to its Lair! By the time we found it I was so mad that I fried the entire herd at the Lair by myself. If you’d been killed back there, I’d be out for blood—or at least a damn convincing show of repentance. And I wouldn’t let a little thing like having no other guard stand in my way.”

“Then let this one propose a plan, Mage-lady. The land below is much like this one’s homeland. It would be possible to slip away from you and make one’s way hidden in the tall grass—and this one has another weapon than a sling.” From his saddlebag Lyran took a small, but obviously strong bow, unstrung, and a quiverful of short arrows. “The weapon is too powerful to use for hunting, Mage-lady, unless one were hunting larger creatures than rabbits and birds. This one could remain within bow-shot, but unknown to the Mage-lord, if you wished.”

“I’m glad you thought of that, and I think it’s more than a good idea,” Martis said, gazing at the tower. Several new thoughts had occurred to her, none of them pleasant. It was entirely possible that Kelven wanted her here, had allowed them to walk into a trap. “If nothing else—this is an order. If Kelven takes me captive—shoot me. Shoot to kill. Get him too, if you can, but make sure you kill me. There’s too many ways he could use me, and anyone can be broken, if the mage has time enough. I can bind my own death-energy before he can use it—I think.”

 Lyran nodded, and slipped off his mare. He rear­ranged saddle-pad and pack to make it appear that Martis was using the ill-tempered beast as a pack animal. In the time it took for Martis to gather up the mare’s reins, he had vanished into the grassland without a trace.

Martis rode towards the tower as slowly as she could, giving Lyran plenty of time to keep up with the horses and still remain hidden.

She could see as she came closer to the tower that there was at least one uncertainty that was out of the way. She’d not have to call challenge to bring Kelven out of his tower—he was already waiting for her. Perhaps, she thought with a brightening of hope, this meant he was willing to cooperate.

When Lyran saw, after taking cover in a stand of scrub, that the mage Kelven had come out of his tower to wait for Martis, he lost no time in getting himself positioned within bowshot. He actually beat the sorceress’s arrival by several moments. The spot he’d chosen, beneath a bush just at the edge of the mowed area that surrounded the tower, was ideal in all respects but one—since it was upwind of where the mage stood, he would be unable to hear them speak. He only hoped he’d be able to read the mage’s intentions from his actions.

There were small things to alert a watcher to the intent of a mage to attack—provided the onlooker knew exactly what to look for. Before leaving, Trebenth had briefed him carefully on the signs to watch for warning of an attack by magic without proper challenge being issued. Lyran only hoped that his own eyes and instincts would be quick enough.

“Greetings, Martis,” Kelven said evenly, his voice giving no clue as to his mindset.

Martis was a little uneasy to see that he’d taken to dressing in stark, unrelieved black. The Kelven she remembered had taken an innocent pleasure in dressing like a peacock. For the rest, he didn’t look much different from when he’d been her student—he’d grown a beard and moustache, whose black hue did not quite match his dark brown hair. His narrow face still reminded her of a hawk’s, with sharp eyes that missed nothing. She looked closer at him, and was alarmed to see that his pupils were dilated such that there was very little to be seen of the brown irises. Drugs sometimes produced that effect—particularly the drugs associated with blood-magic.

“Greetings, Kelven. The tales we hear of you are not good these days,” she said carefully, dismounting and approaching him, trying to look stern and angry.

“Tales. Yes, those old women on the Council are fond of tales. I gather they’ve sent you to bring the erring sheep back into the fold?” he said. She couldn’t tell if he was sneering.

“Kelven, the course you’re set on can do no one any good,” she faltered a little, a recollection of Kelven seated contentedly at her feet suddenly springing to mind. He’d been so like a son—this new Kelven must be some kind of aberration! “Please—you were a good student; one of my best. There must be a lot of good in you still, and you have the potential to reach Master­class if you put your mind to it.” She was uncom­­fortably aware that she was pleading, and an odd corner of her mind noted the buzzing drone of the insects in the grass behind her. “I was very fond of you, you know I was—I’ll speak for you, if you want. You can ‘come back to the fold,’ as you put it, with no one to hold the past against you. But you must also know that no matter how far you go, there’s only one end for a practitioner of blood-magic. And you must know that if I can’t persuade you, I have to stop you.”

There was a coldness about him that made her recoil a little from him—the ice of one who had divorced himself from humankind. She found herself longing to see just a hint of the old Kelven; one tiny glimpse to prove he wasn’t as far gone as she feared he must be. But it seemed no such remnant existed.

“Really?” he smiled. “I never would have guessed.”

Any weapon of magic she would have been prepared for. The last thing she ever would have expected was the dagger in his hand. She stared at the flash of light off the steel as he lifted it, too dumbfounded to do more than raise her hands against it in an ineffectual attempt at defense.

His attack was completed before she’d done more than register the fact that he was making it.

“First you have to beat me, teacher,” he said ­viciously, as he took the single step between them an­d plunged it into her breast.

She staggered back from the shock and pain, all breath and thought driven from her.