“To get here, and no doubt to get to other places as well,” Abasio said, frowning. “We must be sure to keep that in mind.”
Chapter 6
The Dragdown Swamps
Overnight, heavy weather came to the abbey and to most of the surrounding countryside. Snow fell from black clouds that boiled suddenly from the west, one of those freakish early storms that would melt away long before autumn was over, though not as quickly as it came. In the meantime it meant tall drifts of snow, cold, wind, ice underfoot, much stamping of feet, building of fires, shoveling of walks and wall tops so that guards could keep watch without freezing their feet.
In the Old Dark House, the Duchess of Altamont was infuriated by the weather. When the eastern slopes of Altamont became spongy (as the Old Dark Man had described them), her attempts to move quickly from place to place became at first uncomfortable, then dangerous, and finally impossible. When the old mines were dry, there were underground routes she could use, old tunnels where ponies swiftly pulled carts along rails, old elevators that still functioned when valves were turned to fill shafts with water, thus raising or lowering floating platforms in others. Some of the old-time miners or their sons still stayed in the huts nearby to be sure the ponies, the carts, and the elevators kept working, for their livings, their lives, and the lives of all their kindred depended upon the duchess’s getting what she wanted as soon as possible. From various places in these ancient systems, some actually under the upland valley of the Wells west of Benjobz Inn, others near the abbey, she could dispatch her servants, including Jenger—though he would have been dismayed, even frightened, to learn that she thought of him in the “servant” category, for he had been in the habit of assuring himself he was important to her. In truth, only Mirami was important to Alicia, because Alicia feared and hated Mirami more than she feared or hated anyone else.
From the mine shaft opening in the forest near Benjobz Inn, Alicia could travel within a few days to the court of King Gahls to “consult” concerning the family business. To Alicia, consultation meant receiving her mother’s instructions without question or complaint. When the area was flooded, however, the shafts became wells, and the slopes became drowning pits, mortally dangerous even to those familiar with them. When such times seemed imminent, the old men used the elevators to lift themselves and their ponies to their huts on higher ground. While the shafts were flooded, nothing moved for a time, and even Mirami understood this. While Mirami could do many things others thought impossible, she could not control the weather. “Yet,” she laughed when this was mentioned. “I can’t do that yet.”
The duchess had returned to the cellars of the Old Dark House after her almost wasted visit to Benjobz, arriving as the rains began. They were followed by heavy snow in weather just warm enough to let it melt continuously. The combination had made her usual ways impassable, and it was during a temporary lull in her preoccupation with the Tingawans that she overheard two of her servants in the castle above talking with one another. They were chattering about Justinian having left Woldsgard and the fact that Wold was now occupied by the army of Hallad, Prince Orez, while another army, this one from the abbey, had settled itself for the winter at Netherfields.
Among Alicia’s rages, the one that followed was one that might possibly have been assuaged by totally destroying everyone within several miles of the Old Dark House and applying curses to their descendants for the next seven generations. Fortunately for the locals, she had overheard these remarks through an air duct while she was sequestered in her secret room set deep in the rock below the Old Dark House. What she overheard so blinded her with rage she was unable to remember the “key” to the door that always locked itself behind her. The key was a lengthy coded entry tapped onto a transparent plate that was ancient, badly abraded, and possessed of some hundreds of symbols that changed their arrangement each time they were called up. In the time it took her to quiet herself, remember the key, then find the symbols required in the specific order required, she also had time to recall that Mirami was deeply concerned with Justinian’s movements. Justinian was part of the family project, but Alicia had not been concentrating upon the family project because of the Tingawans. She took a few moments to think it through. If she were to avoid her mother’s criticism, which was often accompanied by painful consequences, it would be wise to inform Mirami of the current situation immediately.
Mirami’s mirror was in the mirror room, next door. It was early in the morning. Mirami might still be abed, or she might be at breakfast. Alicia went to stand before it and say, “Show me!” The mirror cleared to show vague shadows, perhaps a table, one person more clearly, evidently eating a meal. Alicia murmured very softly. One mirror seeing its target would not transmit words, but it would creak a little. One of the shadows looked up, nodded slightly, and went back to the meal. Alicia pulled a chair in front of the mirror and waited. The mirror followed that one figure through the meal, through the transit of several dim corridors, and into its own, locked, mirror room. The image became three-dimensional, and Mirami spoke. “What is it?”
“I have just learned . . . ,” said Alicia, going on to quote what she had, in fact, just learned. With the two mirrors linked, they could hear each other very well.
“And why were you not aware
