Without waiting for a reply, he stomped off to seek sleep in what remained of the night.
CHAPTER THREE
The Castle's Secret
THE next morning Alodar again was roused out of deep slumber, but this time the figure bending above him was shrouded in black cape and hood.
'Master Periac?' Alodar squinted through sleep-filled eyes. 'I had almost given you up for lost in the underground chambers. We have not seen you for days.'
'Yes, it is I,' Periac said, pushing back his hood and patting into place his ruffled black hair. His temples were bare; but, by judicious positioning, he was able to cover the bald spot on the top of his head. His watery, pale blue eyes straddled a nose too small for the blocky face, and his mouth was hidden top and bottom by white flecked hair.
'I have been busy with contemplation, Alodar, busy with contemplation. A well turned thought may save the fevered activities of many. In any event, I trust you have conducted yourself to credit our craft in my absence. A good reputation goes a long way towards unlocking the next door, as I have often instructed you. But there is no time for lecture now. We must go at once for audience with the queen.'
Alodar immediately sat up, eyes wide awake. A chance for information, he thought. Information for the plan that I must soon put into shape.
'But Morwin and I are assigned to aid Feston's men on the west wall, master,' he said with distaste, 'and should prepare for the bombardment soon to begin.'
'There is no time for that; it will wait. The queen summons and we will go. It is an opportunity, and we must use it as best we can for advantage. A queen's gratitude goes even further than reputation.'
Alodar smiled and Periac's brows knit into a frown.
'Do not presume you know already the full value of what I instruct, Alodar,' he said. 'You are quick to learn, yes, and have experienced more of the craft than those who have spent twice the time as journeymen. The best that I have had, I truly admit. But the practice of thaumaturgy and living with profit from it can come only from patiently following what a master has to pass on to you.'
'But have I not correctly performed whatever you have asked of me?' Alodar asked, rising to his feet. 'And then eagerly pressed for more?'
'It is exactly that impatience of which I speak, Alodar,' Periac said, stroking his goatee. 'One evening's discussion on the weaker similarities of form, the next day a single trial with stream-rounded pebbles and a few acorns, and then you are done with it. Why, when I studied, I spent more than a year on that one subject alone. You seem less interested in learning thaumaturgy than in just getting through it. But as I have often said, there is no great mystery revealed at the end. You become a master by solid progress, not by superficial dabbling or sudden revelation.'
'I do not fault your methods, master,' Alodar said. 'The haste comes from beyond the boundaries of the craft. Look, when you were a journeyman, how sure were you to dedicate your life to the art?'
'Why, there was no question,' Periac said. 'My father and uncles were masters before me. From their hands I learned my trade. No other calling did I consider.'
'And had I come to manhood a nobleman and a nobleman's son, then I think I would have felt the same,' Alodar said. 'Content with my lot, not questioning what else could be. But instead, I have raced through thaumaturgy as I have the rest, seeking the mystery that you say is not there, the feeling that this indeed is what I really am.'
Periac stared at Alodar for a moment in silence. 'You have the makings of a master in you, Alodar,' be said. 'But that feeling will come only when you are truly worthy of it.'
He paused again, and then suddenly drew his cape around him. 'But enough of this for now. The business of the moment is the audience with the queen.'
Periac started for the keep in the center of the courtyard. As the barrage began, Alodar ran to catch up with his mentor.
Once inside the keep, they spiraled several times around the staircase along the inner wall before they arrived at the level of the queen. One of the two guards with crossed halberds at the doorway checked a list with his free hand and motioned them to enter.
Beyond the doorway, Alodar found himself in a large, quiet anteroom, with smooth stone walls hung with tapestries that damped the battle's din. Low benches and stools, covered with rich velvet and scattered about like a child's cast of jackstones, cluttered the entire floor. Two more men guarded a small archway draped with a thick curtain, and from time to time a page emerged and called out a name to the group sitting or pacing about. In response, one of the waiting men would spring up and follow the page when he just as quickly disappeared. No one ever returned; presumably they all left after their conference by some other door. From time to time, additional messengers burst into the room and proceeded unchecked through the curtain, waving hastily scrawled notes on the progress of the fighting down below.
Time passed, and Alodar saw Periac settle into a comfortable introspection, staring off into space. He tried to imitate the master as best he could, but the anticipation made the time crawl. The shadow from the window to the east diminished to nothing, and the one from the west had grown nearly full length when finally the page motioned them to come forth.
As the guard pulled back the curtain and Periac stooped to enter, Alodar understood why he had been asked to attend. The inner room was tapestried like the first, but almost devoid of furnishings. In its very center stood a long, oaken table with seats for eight. Seven of the chairs were occupied by Vendora and her advisors, and behind each stood an attendant arrayed in the colors of his master. Periac took the seat at the foot of the table, and Alodar stood behind him, gripping the chair back in imitation of the others.
He looked down the length of the table at Vendora and saw that she wore a sea-blue dress deeply cut in front with a large aquamarine snuggled like a nesting egg in the cleavage of her breast. Her hair coiled in elaborate wavelets, framed by a sparkling tiara. In regal attire, she seemed impersonal and distant, less of a woman and more like a trophy to be placed on the mantle at the end of an adventure.
On her right sat lord Festil, arms folded across his chest and his back ramrod straight. To her left, lady Aeriel rose to speak, and Alodar noticed she wore the same clothing as when he had seen her before, tunic and leggings on a pleasing slender form, dagger at the waist, but on her right side rather than the left. Her hair was shoulder length and simply kept, and her cheeks were clear and fresh, covered with freckles scattered about like a sunburst through a willow tree. She glanced down at Periac and Alodar, and her dark eyes smiled encouragement as she began.
'We have solicited and heard diverse suggestions today, my lords, from commander to soldier alike, on how we might break the grip that tightens about us,' she said. 'But we must leave no possibility unexamined, and I have recommended to our fair lady that we hear also what the common craftsman has to offer for our cause.'
'The hour grows late, my fair lady,' interrupted Festil, 'to waste our time in so fruitless a manner. Exactly what is it that you would perform for true men-at-arms, tradesman? How will your pox healing and wart removal gain us deliverance when sword and shield will not?'
'My lord Festil,' Periac responded in a voice cool with deliberation, 'judge the potency of my craft not merely by the practices you see about you. These wastelands are but one corner of the world. Here by tradition, for want of a better reason, thaumaturgy and the other arts play but a small part in warfare. But I assure you that in realms elsewhere, my craft has a bigger role in deciding affairs of state.'
'Then how shall you dispose of our problem?' interjected the short and corpulent man on Periac's left. 'Will you rip the earth apart and have Bandor's forces swallowed up whole? Or perhaps you can enchant each of our blades so that they can cut through his mail like a knife through butter?'
'My good lords,' Periac said in the same rolling tones of salesmanship that Alodar had heard so many times before. 'On one hand you belittle the scope of my skills and on the other you allude to the fantasies of the romances. My craft is neither trivial amusement nor total omnipotence. Like all things, its true worth lies between. And if we are to use thaumaturgy for our great gain, then we must all understand what its capabilities and
