and know not even his naming. Worse than that, though he seems calm enough, pleasant company even, he knows not his own life nor remembrances. Are any healers guesting in Hollowtree, perchance?'
The warsword shook his head, his frowning gaze never leaving Rod. Though he appeared to make no signal, three arrows were suddenly aimed at Rod's head, riding straining bowstrings.
Rod swallowed, tried to smile, and decided it was safer to look at Taeauna than anywhere else. Pleasanter, too.
'Lord wizard!' the knight snapped suddenly, raising his sword, and Rod opened his mouth to answer without thinking. In front of his nose, Taeauna stiffened.
Oh, shit.
Quickly he asked, 'Where?'
He turned his head to look behind him first, heart icy as he waited for the hiss of arrows that would slay him.
None came, so he swung around again to look at the warsword. 'A wizard?'
Lhauntur sighed, and almost seemed on the verge of smiling. 'As artful as a lad caught chewing in the pantry. Down, please, goodman! And keep your hands stretched out flat!'
Rod stared at him.
'You,' the warsword snapped, and his mouth definitely crooked into a smile this time. An unpleasant smile.
Rod went down to his knees and then slid onto his belly, keeping his arms spread. The heels of his palms skidded away from him until his chin was resting on the moss. His boxers, now stiff with Taeauna's blood, scratched him as he moved.
The archers hastened forward, and Lhauntur's sword flashed a warning as he advanced on Taeauna.
'You understand our caution?'
'Of course,' she replied calmly as she stepped back. Then pointed leather boots were treading firmly on Rod's hands, and men who smelled of rank sweat and forest earth were kneeling over him, fumbling at their pouches. A length of crude cord that looked more like an old root or a knotted length of horse's tail was produced, and Rod's wrists were quickly and snugly knotted together. Then calloused fingers took hold of Rod's armpits and hauled him to his feet.
He found himself looking into Warsword Lhauntur's cool brown eyes-down the shining length of the man's short, broad, and deadly looking sword.
'I'll gag you if I hear even the first sound of what might be a spell, wizard,' the knight promised calmly. 'And if I find you've been working at that cord, I'll personally break your thumbs and your forefingers.' Then Lhauntur smiled and with the same ironic tone that Rod favored when dealing with publicists, added, 'So be welcome in Hollowtree Keep.'
Rod gave him an empty smile, and then turned to Taeauna and asked innocently, 'Lady, are these bad men?'
Emerald eyes widened ere Taeauna said soothingly, 'No, goodman. I've been well treated here in the past. Just do as they say.' She reached out a finger to his chin, as if to guide him into looking straight into her eyes, and gave him a silent look that said as clearly as if she'd shouted it: 'Don't overdo it, Dark Lord.'
'Yes,' Rod told her, trying to sound vague and yet contented. 'Yes, of course.'
Only the emerald eye that was farthest from the four Hollowtree men rolled derisively, a feat that left Rod staring at Taeauna in fascination. How did she
Probably because I once dreamed Aumrarr could, he reminded himself ruefully, as the warsword made a curt gesture with his sword and they all started to trudge along the lane up to the castle.
The map wasn't a sheet of weathered parchment at all, but a table covered with faintly evil-smelling mud that had been painstakingly shaped into what was presumably a miniature duplicate of the landscape of Falconfar. Every inch of the terrain close to Rod bore overlapping thumbprints; it had obviously been worked and reworked with care. Large green stains undoubtedly denoted forests, and tiny slivers of wood had been whittled into castles and thrust into place atop hills.
“So nameless goodman, mark you anything l.iiniliar?'
Lord Eldalar's question was sharp, but by now Rod was used to being regarded with suspicion. They'd retied his hands behind him after throwing a loose robe around him; beneath it, he was still barefoot and naked except for his boxers. Taeauna, on the other hand, was being treated with a respect bordering on awe.
She'd stayed close beside him, and made it clear that, wizard or not, the mind-mazed stranger was under her protection. Rod could feel her gaze on him now, watching him almost as closely, no doubt, as were Warsword Lhauntur and the gray-bearded Lord of Hollowtree.
'I'm sorry, but no, lord,' Rod replied, looking up to meet gruff old Eldalar's eyes. It wasn't hard to sound honestly bewildered when that's exactly what you were.
The map, however, was fascinating. It reminded him of a wargames table he'd seen in his youth, strewn with tiny model tanks and surrounded by chainsmoking men in suspenders who were waving tape measures in the air and chuckling a lot. If you almost closed your eyes, to make the green stain look more like trees and less like colored mud, this might just be a real landscape that you were hovering over…
As if by magic…
'Where are we?' he asked, pointing with his chin down at the model terrain. 'Hollowtree, yes, but where's Hollowtree on this table?'
Eldalar stared at him, frowning, and then stabbed a finger down at one of the smallest castles. 'Here, of course.' The old lord did everything gruffly and stiffly, it seemed. Even his magnificently embroidered tabard, or tunic or whatever it was, looked stiff.
Right now, he was thrusting his old neck out like a tortoise toward Rod, and harrumphing. 'And you, goodman, came from…?'
Rod looked helplessly at Taeauna.
Who leaned forward, still clad only in shards of armor and a few straps, and said firmly, 'From somewhere far beyond here, lord. Beyond Dalchace, this road runs to a moot of two rivers, and there are many smallholdings in the wedge of land between their upper courses. We were at one such, a place I saw only briefly, hight Aunduth.'
So she could lie like a banker. Hmm.
Rod almost grinned. The candle-lanterns in this dark-paneled inner room stank of tallow, and the flagstones were cold underfoot, but he minded not a whit. Nor did Taeauna's lie or the cord binding his hands bother him overmuch. He was in Falconfar, and this was all real.
And for the first time in years-decades-he was having an adventure. An honest-to-God adventure. If what Taeauna had said about his power was true, he could even heal himself if he got hurt, though he felt no eagerness to let some bowman or knight with a sword test that power. From her brief warning, it seemed as if revealing he was the Dark Lord just might prove very unpleasant.
'You must be tired and hungry,' the Lord of Hollowtree said suddenly, his tone a firm dismissal. 'Go with Lhauntur. He'll see you both provided for.'
He reached for Taeauna's shoulder, as if intending to murmur something more for her ears alone, but she slid gracefully out from under his fingers and said gently, 'I thank you deeply, lord. You are as gracious as always.'
Rod heard nothing but warmth in her tone, but Eldalar flushed as if she were his mother snapping a firm and well-deserved rebuke at him, and waved them both away abruptly.
As they went out, Warsword Lhauntur's eyes were narrow as he regarded the Aumrarr, but all she said to him was, 'I recall days when no hold in Falconfar needed to be wary, and regret that those days are gone.'
'As do we all, lady,' he replied heavily, as they went back down the dark and curving stair that had brought them to the map chamber. 'As do we all.'
As they passed the last lantern hanging above the stair, Taeauna turned as swiftly as a striking hawk, laid a warning finger to her lips, then mimed slumber by bending her cheek onto the back of her angled hand, and then repeated the warning finger.
Rod kept his face carefully blank, because the warsword had reached the bottom step and was already turning to watch them.
