That he was still capable of swift decisions proved to be good fortune when the trumpet sounded and Marek ran screaming across the floor. Wulf saw a man with a limp enter and caught just a glimpse of a nimbus on the one behind him. The Church’s enforcers had found him; he was trapped. Go! Go where?
— Just go!
Then he had gone, into darkness in a cold, silent place. Unbalanced by the sudden move, he staggered, banged his leg on the edge of a stool, and steadied himself before he fell. His eyes adapted and found a faint light from barred windows, enough to show that he was in the seneschal’s counting room, which had flashed into his mind as a safe and private refuge. He had made the transition so fast that he wasn’t sure just what he had done, and had to think back and analyze it. He had gotten there by… how, exactly? Not by calling on his Voices. There had been no time for that.
“Holy St. Helena, hear my prayer.”
Silence.
Alarmed, he tried again. “Holy St. Victorinus, answer me, I beg you.”
Still silence. No Light.
Again he tried, and again there was no response. Were the Voices angry at him? Would they return after he had worried a while, or would he would never hear from them again?
He could worry about that later. Meanwhile, what was happening upstairs in the hall with enemy Speakers on the loose? If they came from the Church, then Marek was in danger, and if they were Wends, then his brothers were. Moving cautiously in the gloom, he made his way to the door, and was not surprised to find it locked. Could he repeat his miracle entry and magic himself back to the hall? Was it safe? What was going on? He needed to see!
Then he recalled that strange vision of Dobkov that he had been granted just two days ago.
— Look.
He could see! He saw just as if he were up in the hall. He felt as if he were peering through a peephole, as he had in the earlier vision, and his view was strangely jumpy. He was standing, apparently, above the high table, looking at four intruders standing in the center, facing in his direction but blocked from coming any closer by a line of young men, the knights of Cardice. One of the four wore a nimbus; his black gown and hat and his oversized pectoral cross showing that he was a cleric of some kind.
The peephole shifted, to show Marek back at his seat. It kept shifting: right, left, right, up, down. Then it switched completely, showing Wulf the hall from the side, looking across to where he had been sitting a minute ago. The tables there had been overturned since he left, and the floor was a midden of food, dishes, spilled wine, and happily scavenging dogs. Again, his view was restricted and would never keep still, as the owner of the eyes he was looking through kept moving them. His peephole was also much lower than it had been, so it might belong to Marek. He was seeing through Marek’s eyes. And hearing through his ears.
“…your rudeness,” one of the intruders said, “we have brought a gift for your lady, a bolt of fine silk from distant Cathay. Marijus?”
Madlenka had mentioned Sir Marijus Vranov, one of the Hound’s sons. The leader of this invasion must be the count himself. Again a shift, back up to the vantage point at the head table. There were the rest of his brothers, towering over the bishop and the dowager countess. Fair Madlenka in her steeple hat was the tallest of all.
Another lurch in viewpoint. Very high, so now he must be seeing through Anton’s eyes. He tried to look at where he felt he had just come from-almost certainly from Marek’s vantage point-but still could not control what he was seeing and hearing. The eyes reported to him as well as to their rightful owner, but they took only their owner’s orders. Wulf felt as if he were speaking, but the voice he heard was Anton’s.
Flip! again, and now he was one of the visitors, looking past the glowering knights. Much of this leapfrogging would soon nauseate him, but any new skill needed practice. If all high-rank Speakers could do this, that explained how these Pelrelmians had known that there was a banquet in progress and exactly when to intrude. It explained all sorts of things.
One of the the intruders slipped past the knights and headed for the high table-a youth, carrying something. He spoke with Madlenka, under Anton’s glare, and gave her a squirming puppy. She gave him a basket of cakes in exchange.
Wulf was inside Marek again when Vilhelmas’s aura blazed extra bright and the four uninvited guests vanished.
Ha! So the invasion was over, leaving the question of what its purpose had been. It might have been an admission of weakness. If Vranov had gone to all that trouble just to utter a fake curse and frighten the townsfolk of Gallant, then perhaps he and his Wend friends were having more difficulty than they had expected in bringing in their Dragon. The castle’s defenses would be weakened if most of the population fled. Or the intention might been something worse, which Anton’s quick action in blocking their approach had prevented.
So Vilhelmas did not need to Speak aloud to work his miracles or witchcraft, and now Wulf did not either. He must have moved up another rank. He wondered how far this new Seeing talent could reach. Could he consciously control it and peer out of anyone’s eyes? Branka’s, say, down in Dobkov? That would feel like the worst form of snooping. How about Count Vranov’s? Yes! He was looking straight at Vilhelmas, who was leering triumphantly through his beard and raising a beer stein as if about to propose a toast.
Wulf withdrew quickly in case his spying was detected, back to the silent dark of the counting room. But now his duty was obvious-he must use his new skills to track down that Pelrelmian Speaker and kill him. That move alone might win the war, if the Wends did not have another Speaker handy. And it ought to be done quickly. He would have to ask for Anton’s approval, though.
He knelt and said a formal prayer to his Voices. As before, there was no response at all. Had he offended them in some way? They had moved him out of the hall to safety, but he had not asked them for that blessing, nor had he spoken aloud. He had… he had thought a command, or a wish. He had better try it again, for if they would not help him somehow, he would be locked in until morning, at which time he would have a lot of explaining to do.
— Limbo! Wulf stepped through where the door ought to be. Fortunately the corridor was deserted and a bronze lantern on a hook cast enough light for him to see where he was going. His first attempt to free the lamp from its captivity burned his fingers, so he used his hat as a glove. Then he hurried off, back to the hall to find Anton.
He heard the riot before he reached it. A torrent of people was flowing down the staircase he needed, all heading to the castle door. From upstairs came weeping and cries of pain and occasional bellows from Vlad and others trying to impose order.
Wulf stood back against the wall and sought out Count Vranov again. Now he was sitting in a circle of men around a crackling fire in some sort of timber building, lit by lanterns, reeking of smoke and men and beer. His son Marijus was there, and Father Vilhelmas, the glow of his nimbus apparently invisible to everyone else. Someone was singing a song and the rest were joining in the chorus. The Wends seemed to be celebrating.
Back in Castle Gallant, the tumult was dying as order was restored. Wulf started up the stairs.
Receiving Anton’s permission to proceed was no surprise. Many leaders would have refused to dabble in Satanism, but Anton had taken that plunge days ago, at the royal hunt. Others might have maintained that a priest must be treated as a noncombatant, and sacrosanct, but Vilhelmas had cast away that defense when he led the attack on Long Valley.
Wulf had not expected Marek to want to join in. At first he pretended not to hear, but Marek was persistent and followed him all the way to the Orchard Room. The idea of a monk or friar helping to bushwhack a priest was bizarre, unthinkable; which raised the question of why such a deed would be any more forgivable when done by a layman. Had Wulf already been perverted by the devil’s voices? Had his saints fled from him because of that? He needed time to think about this; he was starting to regret his impetuous offer to Anton.
Even worse, if possible, was being questioned by Marek about his mysterious disappearance from the hall. How could he explain it when he didn’t know the answer himself? He was so far ahead of Marek now that even to describe his new powers must seem like hurtful bragging. Whatever the monks had done to Marek at Koupel, they seemed to have stunted his ability to Speak. He had managed a couple of minor miracles, but none of Wulf’s encouragements had helped him progress beyond the level he had reached before he left Dobkov, five years ago. Was it possible that people could only advance up the ranks by their own efforts? Was that why both the Voices and the monks declined to answer questions?
