“Seen what?”
“Oh, Mistress, this is not for your ears, and I certainly cannot say it in front of your warders; it might dishearten them.
Besides, I am tired and need a rest, and I wouldn’t mind a cup of tea. I would have you take me to Lord Orbane.”
“He is absent,” called down the witch. “So you will have to tell it to me, and I can get word to him.”
“Tell it to you?”
The witch drew herself up to her full height. “I am Nefasi, Orbane’s acolyte, and he trusts me with his very life.”
“Ah, Mistress Nefasi, I do not know whether to tell you or not.”
“I can always force it out of you.”
“Heh. Maybe. Maybe not. Yet perhaps as Orbane’s acolyte. .
— But if I tell you, it must be in a place of protection-a place of power and transmutation-ere I will divulge the message dire.”
The crone and the witch haggled, but finally, fearing the worst for her master, the witch allowed the hag to enter the castle for the message she would tell.
Accompanied by well-armed Troll guards, by winding ways and up stairwells and past many rooms-ways and wells and rooms the crone committed to memory-Nefasi took the aged soothsayer into Orbane’s own alchemistry chamber, where a pentagon of protection was permanently inscribed upon the floor. There did Nefasi cast a spell, one that temporarily rendered the Trolls deaf and mute, and then told the old soothsayer to speak. And so, surrounded by unhearing and unspeaking guards, with the crone and the witch sitting at a table within the pentagon, the hag looked about and then whispered, “Orbane will be defeated by his own hand.”
At these bodeful words, Nefasi’s gaze flicked briefly toward a small locked chest sitting atop a table, a chest the soothsayer clearly noted, though the crone did not let Nefasi see that she had. Nefasi asked if there were more to the sooth divined, and the beldame shook her head. Nefasi rewarded the soothsayer with a single gold piece and sent her on her way, and in spite of the hag’s grumblings, the witch did not give her the promised cup of tea.
That very same night, his disguise now gone, Valeray scaled the outside wall to the alchemistry room, and he picked the lock and found within the chest two clay amulets. Valeray was disappointed, for it seemed that they were nought but trinkets. Regardless, he wrapped them well and stood in the window and, using a sling, he cast them to Roulan who was waiting at the edge of the woods. Then down clambered the thief, and soon he and his accomplice were riding agallop to the waiting Firsts. Yet even as Valeray and Roulan passed through that dark forest, they were seen and recognized as strangers and pursued.
They managed to reach the Firsts, and the hounding enemy was routed.
. .
King Valeray took up a sword and sighted down its length, saying, “Despite their lowly appearance, Emile, the clay amulets were descried by Lisane the Elf who is a true seer, and she told the Firsts what they were: powerful magical artifacts cast by Orbane himself. Lisane called them Seals of Orbane, and said that likely there were at least seven of these dreadful relics about, for it seems the residue of power on the seals indicated such. In any event, the magic within-curses all-would be loosed when the clay seal was broken, and it would obey the desires of the one breaking the seal to the detriment of the one who was the target of those desires. These two seals were used against their maker: the first to destroy Orbane’s protection, the second to cast Orbane into the Castle of Shadows in the Great Darkness beyond the Black Wall of the World, where he remains still, for the Castle of Shadows is inescapable.” Valeray fell silent, but Alain said, “Because of Hradian, three of those seals were used against us: one to make my sire and dam seemingly vanish; one to curse me to be a bear by day, though I could be a man at night; and one to snatch me and my household away and betroth me to a Troll if my truelove ever saw my human face.” He paused a moment and smiled unto himself and added, “But Camille took care of that.”
Blaise frowned. “Why were those three amulets used in that manner? I mean, if they were so powerful, why not use them to set Orbane free?”
Valeray shrugged. “I repeat, the Castle of Shadows is inescapable, and apparently, the seals are not powerful enough to set him loose. Besides, that would be a boon to him and not a detriment, and the seals can only be used to visit ill upon someone or something.” Laurent shook his head. “Any prison can be breached, given enough men and arms. Hence the ones held therein-be they criminals or innocents-can be set free.”
“Not the Castle of Shadows, my boy,” said Valeray. “Those who go in do not come out.”
. .
“How can that be?” asked Simone, sipping her tea. “How can a mere castle be inescapable? Surely a large army could break him free, and if I understand you aright, he had a large army at his beck. . or if not him, at the beck of this Hradian creature.” Saissa shrugged, but Camille said, “Mayhap upon a time a Keltoi bard started a story: ‘In the Great Darkness beyond the Black Wall of the World there was an inescapable prison where only the most dreadful of criminals were kept.’ ” Camille paused and looked at Liaze and then said, “ ‘And there was but one key to this dreaded Castle, and it was held by a comte whose full title was
“Wait a moment,” said Avelaine, and she turned to Liaze.
“But for the name of Amaury, isn’t that your Luc’s title?” Liaze nodded and said, “It is when he is at Chateau Bleu.
Amaury was his sire, and the first keeper of the key.”
. .
“What key?” asked Emile, thumbing the green fletching of an arrow.
“This one,” said Luc, drawing an amulet on a chain about his neck up from his jerkin. The talisman was silver and set with a blue stone; the chain was silver as well. “Ere he rode off to war, my sire placed it ’round my throat when I was but a tiny babe.”
“What has it to do with ought?” asked Laurent.
“It is said to be the key to the Castle of Shadows,” replied Luc.
“That’s a key to the inescapable prison?” asked Blaise.
“If what they say is true, indeed it is.”
“Hold on, now: what if someone, say this witch Hradian, sends her minions to steal the amulet. Wouldn’t that mean she could set Orbane free? If so, I say we hunt her down and kill her like the bitch she is.”
Luc shook his head. “Non. Trying to steal the amulet would do no good, and in fact would probably result in the minion or minions being dead. The amulet has a powerful spell upon it, and if the witch or anyone else tried to take it without my permission or by means of duress, or if I were slain and Hradian tried to take it, the amulet would slay her too. No, it must be borne by the rightful heir, or freely given by the heir to someone of his choosing.” Luc removed the talisman and held it out to Blaise. “Here, I freely give it.”
Blaise set a helm aside and tentatively took the amulet and looked at it carefully. As he handed it back he said, “And you say this is the only key to that prison?” Luc slipped the chain over his head. “As far as I know, it is the only key, though I ken not how it opens the door or gate or barrier or whatever it is that locks one in.”
. .
“Oh, my,” gasped Michelle, her cup clattering in her saucer,
“perhaps that’s what she meant.”
“What who meant?” asked Simone.
“Lady Wyrd,” replied Michelle. She looked at the others and said, “Don’t you remember? It was at the ball celebrating the safe return of Celeste and Roel and Avelaine and the war bands from the Changeling land, and. .”
. .
At the midnight mark, King Valeray called a halt to the music, and he took stance upon the ballroom dais, and as servants passed among the gathering and doled out goblets of wine, Valeray called for quiet, for he would make a toast to the successful quest and to those who rode thereon, and he would toast the brides and grooms to be, and of course he would toast the child to be born to Alain and Camille.
But the moment that all had a goblet in hand, including the servants, of a sudden there came the sound of shuttles and looms, and before the gathering stood three women: Maiden, Mother, and Crone; the Ladies Skuld, Verdandi, and Urd; the Fates Wyrd, Lot, and Doom: one slender, her robe limned in silver; one matronly, her robe
