“I’m at your disposal, my lady.”
“Excellent!” Alliere turned to Rhovann. “You don’t mind, do you, Rhovann?”
“Of course not, my dear,” Rhovann answered. He slipped his arm through hers and patted her hand, drawing her a little closer. “I know how you can’t resist caring for any lost little creatures of the forest you come across. I suppose it’s your compassionate nature.”
Alliere favored the elf lord with an arched eyebrow, and looked back to Geran. “Then let me be the first to welcome you to Myth Drannor, Geran Hulmaster. May you find whatever it is you seek in our fair city.”
“I hope that I will,” Geran answered her. He settled back in the seat, already enjoying the warmth of the blankets. The singing grew stronger as the sleigh glided onward through the soft wet snow, and he knew that he was lost no longer.
ONE
The lights of Thentia glimmered below Geran at dusk as he descended from the lonely moors to the settled lands ringing the old port. He rode past snow-covered fields, steep pastures bordered by crumbling stone walls, black orchards stretching barren branches to the darkening sky. Thentia’s valley was wider and more gentle than Hulburg’s, and its belt of farmland stretched for many miles from the city walls. He came to a cart track that ran northward, away from the city, and guided his weary mount into the muddy lane.
The cottages and barns of Thentia were not much different than those of Hulburg to Geran. The two cities enjoyed something of a mercantile rivalry, since they produced similar goods and had more or less the same wants, but their people came from the same stock, the sturdy Moonsea settlers who’d tamed this cold and bitter land in the days of old Thentur. Many Hulburgans had kin in Thentia; as a young man, Geran had always thought of Thentia as “the big city,” looking for any excuse to visit. He knew the place almost as well as he knew Hulburg or Myth Drannor.
After another mile, he crested a small rise and started down toward an old manor house that lay within a deep hollow hard under the mistblown slopes ringing the city. Home, such as it is these days, he told himself. He tapped his heels to the tired gelding’s flanks and picked up the pace, anxious to be in from the cold.
The manor known as Lasparhall was not quite a palace and not quite a castle. It was a large house with thick stone walls, sturdy barred doors, and rooftop battlements, standing in a lonely vale just under the eaves of the Highfells, a little more than four miles from Thentia’s walls. In warmer seasons sheep grazed on the windy green hillsides that mounted up behind the old estate, but in the dark months of winter the manor’s flocks were kept in fenced pastures and low stone barns just behind the great house. The old estate had come into Geran’s family as a dowry when his grandfather Lendon Hulmaster married Artissa, cousin to Thentia’s ruling prince. In the decades since Geran’s grandparents had passed away, the Hulmasters had left the place to its caretakers for the most part, visiting every summer or two as the mood took them. As a child, Geran had spent many hours exploring the wide green pastures and wild moorland that waited just beyond a thin ring of apple orchards, or playing chase with the servants’ children up and down the long hallways, thick with sunmotes and the redolent scent of the golden brown lasparwood beams that gave the old house its name. It was far from a wealthy estate-the meager rents paid by shepherds and orchard keepers hardly paid for the house’s upkeep-but it was otherwise a comfortable home in exile for the Hulmaster family and those retainers loyal enough to follow them to Thentia.
How long before a home in exile simply becomes a home? Geran wondered tiredly. Three months earlier, the usurper Maroth Marstel and Geran’s old rival Rhovann drove Harmach Grigor and the rest of the Hulmasters from the castle of Griffonwatch. Fall had faded into winter, and still they seemed no closer to reclaiming their home. The swordmage sighed as he studied the old house-a fine enough place in its own way, but a far cry from the great halls and lofty towers of Griffonwatch. Every day that Marstel remained in power, the borders of Lasparhall grew more familiar, more acceptable … and more cagelike to Geran.
He trotted into the courtyard before the manor house, dismounted, and led his horse to the stable nearby. After passing the animal to the care of a stablekeeper, he hoisted the saddlebags over his shoulder and walked to the manor’s door. A pair of Shieldsworn guards in the blue and white surcoats of the harmach stood watch just inside, displaying to visitors that the Hulmasters in exile still commanded a small company of loyal armsmen-and were important enough to have enemies to be wary of.
“Welcome home, Lord Geran,” said the Shieldsworn sergeant by the door.
“Home, Noram?” Geran snorted and shook his head. “Hardly
Sergeant Noram flushed in embarrassment. He was a young soldier, new to his rank, having been promoted after the heavy losses in the fighting against the Bloody Skull horde nine months past. “Your pardon, my lord. I meant no offense,” he stammered.
Geran winced. He hadn’t meant to snap at the fellow. He paused in the doorway, and said, “It was nothing you said, Sergeant. Forgive me; it’s been a long day.”
Noram smiled nervously, and relaxed a little. “We’ll see to your saddlebags, Lord Geran,” he said. “I think the harmach and the rest of the family are at their supper, if you’ve a mind to join them.”
“My thanks,” Geran said. He allowed the sergeant to take the heavy pouches from his shoulder, and shrugged off his damp cloak. He was hardly dressed for dinner at the harmach’s table, but he was more than ready for a hot meal, and he figured that his uncle would forgive his informality. Working the stiffness from his neck, he crossed the manor’s front hall to the doorway under the great stairs and headed toward the kitchens. Lasparhall had a fine old banquet hall that was more impressive, but it was too big and drafty for anything less than twenty or thirty at a seating; the harmach preferred the smaller dining room that stood in the back of the house. He passed a few of the serving staff, folk from Griffonwatch who’d followed the Hulmasters into exile, exchanging greetings as he went. Then he came to the dining-room door and let himself inside.
Harmach Grigor, his uncle, sat at the head of the table, a roasted quarter-chicken untouched on the platter before him. To his right sat Grigor’s sister, Geran’s aunt Terena, and next to her Geran’s cousin Kara, who wore a simple dress of green wool instead of the armor she often wore during the day as the captain of the Hulmaster’s Shieldsworn. On the other side of the table were Erna and young Natali and Kirr, the widow and children of Grigor’s son Isolmar, dead almost five years now. Before Geran could even open his mouth to greet his family, Natali and Kirr scrambled out of their chairs and bolted around the table to launch themselves at his waist.
“Geran’s back! Look, Geran’s back!” the youngest Hulmasters shouted. “What happened, Geran? Is Marstel still calling himself the harmach? Did anyone recognize you? Did you see Mirya and Selsha? Can we go back to Griffonwatch now?”
“One at a time, one at a time! And who said anything about Hulburg?” Geran protested. He’d done his best to keep his travels secret, not wanting the children to worry about him while he was gone, but it seemed that the young Hulmasters had discovered his whereabouts anyway. He leaned down to hug his young cousins. Over their young lives Natali and Kirr had heard many stories about the Hulmaster who was off to see the world, and even after months of living under the same roof as Geran they still regarded him with appreciable wonder. Natali was the older of the pair, a clever, dark-haired girl of ten years with dark, thoughtful eyes. Kirr had his mother Erna’s reddish gold hair and a rambunctious, inexhaustible energy to him that seemed enough to vex and bother half the adults in the manor, Hulmaster, Shieldsworn, and servant alike. The one good thing about the family’s fortunes in the last few months, he reflected, was that he’d finally come to know Isolmar’s children.
“Geran, my boy, good to see you again,” Harmach Grigor said. He motioned to the far end of the table. “Please, sit down, have something to eat. I’ll wager you’ve had a long ride today.”
“Twenty-five miles by my guess. I just came in.” Geran gave his uncle a tired smile, but he found himself surprised by how gaunt and pale the old man looked. In the tenday that Geran had been off to Hulburg and back he’d somehow forgotten just how fatigued his uncle was. The defeat at Marstel’s hands and the subsequent flight into exile had taken a heavy toll on the harmach; Grigor was better than seventy-five years of age, and he hadn’t enjoyed very good health to begin with. The swordmage shook himself free of his young cousins and ventured over to clasp his uncle’s arm in greeting. The harmach’s grip was shockingly weak.
“Well?” said Geran’s Aunt Terena. She was Grigor’s younger sister and Kara’s mother, a woman who wore
