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CHAPTER FOUR

A man yelped, then another began shouting only to have his shouts cut short, and his throat by the sound of it. Frost heard horses after that, hooves beating on the hard surface of the road. Two men went yelling after them, their voices fading quickly up the road. Running full out, Frost thought. One of the voices suddenly grew faint and stopped. The other began to yelp like a frightened dog. He kept yelping, kept going up the road.

Then Sharryl and Rosivok reappeared. Too quickly, Frost thought at once. Something was not right.

"Someone comes," Rosivok said, making room. From behind him, a moment later another figure emerged into the firelight. No, three figures. Two of them were soldiers. Frost recognized the hat and jerkin of the other—Cantor.

"Good evening, my friend," Cantor said. "My compliments to your Subartans. My men are still alive this time."

Frost threw another branch into the fire, watched it catch and burn on the glowing embers. The men with Cantor were splendid by any means, each one dressed in fine jerkins and polished armor and helms. Well paid, well fed and fresh, that was clear. He would have expected nothing less from Cantor.

"From what I heard, someone is short a few men all the same," Frost said.

"Soldiers," Cantor said. "From Worlish. We found them prowling about, eyeing your camp. They have been following you."

"We knew," Frost said.

"Of course." Cantor stepped closer to the fire. "My men killed three of them and cut their horses loose. One caught his horse just as they were running off. You will miss them?"

"Not at all," Frost said.

"The other one will not return," Rosivok said.

"I can track him a ways," Sharryl said. "Do you want him killed?"

"No," Frost said. "Stay. Let him go. I will conjure the warding spell back, and we will get our rest. We all still need to mend. We have a few good days' walking ahead of us before we reach Briarlea, and there is no telling what awaits us there. Though . . . I could cast the stones, and consider what they tell me."

Rosivok and Sharryl were quite silent. Even Cantor seemed suddenly preoccupied with the leaves on the trees.

"Tomorrow, perhaps," Frost muttered. "I am not sure they work at night."

"Doubtful," Cantor said, and the Subartans nodded.

The flames at their feet were already dying again, allowing the darkness to creep back into the clearing once more, surrounding them. "What brings you here?" Frost asked Cantor. "Or can I guess so easily?"

"I tell you as you might guess wrong," Cantor said. "I came to warn you. News has already spread of your coming. Many will seek you out, for one reason or another. Andair is sure to have his own designs on—"

"And of Andair," Frost interrupted. "Why did you not tell me he was king of Worlish?"

Cantor seemed taken aback by the sudden harshness of Frost's tone, but he shook his head and shrugged easily enough. "You did not ask. You would know him of course. Old friends?"

"I have sworn to destroy him," Frost said.

Cantor's brow went up. "Indeed. He is my best customer, you know."

"As will be the next king, no doubt."

"No doubt," Cantor said, smiling at that.

"You waste your time just as before if you hope to bargain for the Blade again," Frost went on. "No matter what you say of your purpose here tonight, I find it hard to believe otherwise."

"You are mistaken," Cantor said. He clasped his hands behind his back and began slowly to pace back and forth in front of the fire.

Frost could almost hear the wheels turning in the man's head and as he turned to the fire, he could see the depth of deliberation in the man's eyes. This was not Cantor at his best and both of them knew it, but Cantor seemed bent on seeing this through, no matter. Frost waited until Cantor paused and looked up again.

"I was there, in the mountains," the merchant said, biting nervously at his lower lip as he considered his next words. "I saw what happened. I felt it. I have traveled to a good many places in this world, seen a good many things strange and wonderful, been in the company of sorcerers, kings, conquering armies."

Again he fell silent and began pacing, though this time his hands were held up in front of him, fingers flat against each other, prayerlike, as if he were asking the Greater Gods for help, and his eyes were cast downward. "I know enough about magic to know . . ."

Cantor turned abruptly and faced Frost, fingers locked together, eyes set, and took a breath. "Ten times the greatest sorcerer in all this world could not have done what you and the Demon Blade did in that battle and I saw what it did to you as well. Why you still live is beyond knowing. More troubling still is this notion I have that what I witnessed was only a small part of the terrible darkness the Blade can touch, a power more terrible than—"

Cantor closed his eyes and rubbed them with his fingers, gently at first, then harder. "I have come to tell you, Frost, that I no longer want the Blade. I do not even want it or you in Calienn, and as long as you are in Worlish I will not sleep well at night. The Blade is far too dangerous for any man to have, therefore, every man desires it."

"Except the one who has it," Frost remarked.

"Unless that one is a fool, and I suspect you especially need not be told of the troubling number of fools about these days. No, I wish you as far from here as possible, you and that Blade. I will pay you to go. No reasonable price will be rejected. Even the unreasonable will be considered. Go, Frost, leave this part of the world. Find a land where no one dwells, where you can hide the Blade forever or devise a means to render it harmless or give it back to the Greater Gods if you will. If you can. Whatever you need I will see you get, but go. On your own if you can, with my help if I must. I see your dilemma, perhaps more clearly than you. Worlish will bring you sorrow and war on some scale, or troubles unknown. Your quarrel with Andair only makes matters worse."

"It is not that simple."

"Then it must be made so. Alone you would have only your own fate to worry about, but your fate is bound to that of the Blade, and that is something the living and perhaps the dead as well need fear."

"You are a curious sort of friend," Frost said, "but I do understand your concern. I will make my stay as brief as possible, but I will stay for a time at least. I must. I can promise you only that I intend to be rid of the Blade first, and Lord Andair second."

"A small comfort," Cantor said. "I will be watching you most carefully. I bear you no ill will, Frost, but trust that I will ally myself and all my resources with anyone I must in order to save the home and the life I have built."

"Would you?"

Cantor nodded.

"And all the innocent ones, of course," Frost concurred, with a slight bow of his head.

"Yes."

Both men looked into the fire for a moment.

"Well then, tell me what you need," Cantor said.

"For now, nothing, but I will let you know. Truly, I will. For now just be on your way."

"You would send me out into the night?" Cantor asked, as though surprised. "You too are a curious sort of friend. I thought we might talk a while, you and I." He added a faint grin to this, an offering of sorts.

Frost shook his head. "You have threatened me, Cantor. There is nothing more to it. You have yourself intact, your men too, your advice well taken; now, accept all that and leave."

Cantor drew back as if buffeted by this last. He just stood there for a moment staring eye to eye with Frost, reflecting. His gaze slowly narrowed, as if his thoughts were weighing down the lids of his eyes. Finally he nodded once. "For now," he said with a bow, then he turned and motioned to his men, and without another word they were gone.

* * *

The road into southern Worlish was wide and level and in many places laid with flat stones, some of them worn smooth, others worn to ruts. This road dated back to ancient times and had been built by a civilization that hadn't existed for a thousand years. New roads had been added. Frost left the main way and trailed off to neighboring fiefs and holdings. Most of what Frost could see did not impress him. The lot of Worlish's serfs and peasants had not improved notably in his absence, and in places looked like it had declined.

As Frost walked along he noted that work was being done by the crown in places: at the split in the road that would take a traveler eastward into Briarlea or west into Treserlea, he saw a marked difference—the eastern road had been recently repaired, and many of the holes and ruts filled in. The other road looked much the worse for wear, however. The flow of trade clearly favored Briarlea.

Treserlea was a collection of fiefs similar to Briarlea, but the region had long been considered somewhat less blessed. Two rivers, the Rosha and the Worl, ran north and south through Worlish, essentially splitting the country into three pieces. Between the rivers lay a deep, lush valley many leagues across. Beyond Rosha, the more western river, the land grew hillier; it was a poor land for farming or traveling, and sparsely populated. Over time the region had become like a separate province whose lords still owed fealty to the Worlish crown in Briarlea, but who seldom had any more to do with the eastern fiefs than that.

Good only for taxes and in time of war, Frost thought. Even when he was young, some of the nobles in Treserlea made no secret of the fact that they would sooner drop all association with the rest of Worlish tomorrow, and might even be willing to fight for that end; but the odds did not favor them to start, and fealty to Briarlea meant the same in return—an attack on Treserlea by the Grenarii or anyone else would bring all the resources of every part of Worlish to their defense.

Frost considered making that trip first. He might find allies among the hills, but the effort might just as well turn up nothing worthwhile, and he was too eager to get home.

He took the eastern road, steady along, letting the mule set the pace and letting his body continue to heal along with those of his two Subartans. Andair must be doing well, he thought, to keep such a fine road. But Frost found this no surprise. Andair was not the type to allow wealth to slip though his fingers; that had been true since they were boys. Almost nothing else about the new king of Worlish could be taken for granted, assumed, or even believed. Frost had made that kind of mistake once before.

His thoughts kept straying back to those times as he walked, to the worst of his memories. No matter how often he tried to redirect them to the better ones, to his mother, his aunt, his life in those days, so full of grace, expectation and discovery—his mind strayed back. To a time fouled by the fates, by indiscretion, and tragedy.

By the time he'd gotten his mind arranged in reasonable order it was nearly dark, and they began looking for a place of sanctuary for the night, and thinking about food. They had entered into the southernmost edges of Briarlea. Here peasant villages and the sprawling manors of local lords were more common, but no more prosperous. Most village inhabitants were more than willing to give whatever they could spare to travelers who could pay. Food and shelter would not be a problem until word of who he was, and what he might possess, reached into the countryside. At least that had not happened yet, so far as Frost could tell. No one they had spoken to on the road seemed to know him.

"There," he said, "that will do." It wasn't much, a small, haphazard manor surrounded by fields of spring wheat and barley and rows of cabbage. A clutch of peasant huts stood down a gully a little way from the road. That would have been Frost's first choice before; no one bothered him in such places save the occasional Reaver, and they were most often easily bought. Now, so close to home and already approached by soldiers and merchants, Frost saw less value in keeping to cover and some advantage to knowing what the smallest of Andair's barons knew.

An older man answered the door, a squire who told them to wait while he retrieved the lord of the manor. He returned in only a moment with an even more aged fellow, fairly well dressed in a dark, reddish brown tunic decorated with intricately woven detail at cuff and collar, and well made shoes. Slim for a lord, Frost thought, but then this man was old enough to have passed on some years ago. He had graying hair and roughly half his teeth, which became evident as he smiled at his guests, and greeted them. "I am Burrel," he said, looking his visitors over with an increasingly judicious eye. "What do you call yourselves?"

Frost made the introductions truthfully, then waited for a reaction. He got none. Anticipating the next question he added, "We are journeying to one of the northern fiefs, and seek a night's comfort in your home."

"Have you good stories to tell in return?" Burrel asked, clearly hopeful.

He did, stories this lord who had surely spent his entire lifetime in Briarlea could hardly imagine. Frost however was in no mood to spend the best part of the night drinking too much ale and telling endless tales, and his Subartans were far less garrulous than he. "We have gold," Frost said instead.

Burrel's spirits seemed to sink more than a little, though he recovered quickly and set a most reasonable price. Frost took the pouch from his sash and counted out the necessary coins. "Now," he said, that out of the way, "we are very, very hungry."

Burrel sent his squire to see to dinner, then he showed his guests where they would sleep. "Tell me, if you will," he said to Frost after that, as they stood in the manor's small but warmly appointed great room eating chunks of brown bread while the meal was prepared. "Would you be the one I have heard all the stories about, the sorcerer come from Ariman who carries the legendary Demon Blade?"

Frost nearly choked on the bread as he swallowed. He forced the bread down his throat. "Whatever gave you that idea?"

Burrel shrugged. "To have such a great adventurer and mage as my guest would be quite a rare luxury," he said, clearly hopeful, and showing no signs of fraud or deceit.

"What if I was, and I was not prone to kindness toward those who speculate so loudly about such things?"

Burrel's expression turned grim. "You have that potential, I can see that. But I meant no harm. I am not the young and steadfast champion of the crown I once was. I will tell you that I do not fancy Andair greatly, or many of my neighboring lords. A vicious lot, all but one or two. The first surprise of each day is that none of them have come and killed me while I slept. One by one, most have crossed or swindled me over the years. No, Andair and his favorites will be all your problem, and none of mine."

"You are keener than you look," Frost said.

"I am not at all sure of that, but these days I feel I have been a fool often enough already. If you are who I say, certainly Andair will look for you and find you, but whose purposes that suits does not concern me. For now you are here in my home, and I am curious about a great many things that you might know. All I wish is to chat. Nothing more. You have nothing to fear from me."

"Nor you from me, as it stands," Frost said. "After dinner we will talk, but only for a while, as I am in great need of good rest." Burrel nodded swift agreement. Then he turned without another word and headed toward the table.

The meal was simple yet satisfying, much as Frost found the manor and Burrel himself. They ate more breads, a rich vegetable stew, and a great amount of cooked fish taken fresh from the river and some sort of small bird or other, of which there were more than two dozen. Everyone ate in relative silence, though even Frost began to grow uneasy with this; while pleasant, it was unnatural to have a meal in another man's house without conversation, and he had offered, after all.

"I will tell you one story," Frost said when they had finished, and tankards of ale had been set about. "About a meeting I had with a dead warrior mage in the depths of Golemesk swamp, and the leshy creatures that share his realm.

Go and gather what serfs and squires you might."

With that, Burrel nearly leaped up and instructed those present to do as Frost had said. Then he excused himself and went to help see to it personally.

Frost had done more for many—removed a curse, aided the ill, or tipped the balance in quarrels between men and armies, or the demons and the gods themselves. Trying to make amends. Trying to make sense of things. Yet this was more than an aging lord, a survivor, could hope for, a tale of mystery and magic from a faraway land, something he could remember and retell again and again, for as long as he lived.

Frost sat back as he waited for all to gather, and found himself in a curious light—he had never fancied himself such an altruistic fellow . . .

Perhaps you are losing what is left of your edge, he told himself. Or he had left this land too long ago, left too much unfinished business to ever return.

"Can we bring you anything else before you begin?" Burrel asked, as he reappeared with a handful of others.

"Nothing."

"We will have visitors tomorrow, I think," Burrel said. "Perhaps you can stay and be my guest at dinner once more?"

"I have only a two days' walk ahead of me before I reach my home, and I grow anxious."

"I see," Burrel said, his eyes drifting toward the heavy tabletop, his hands looking for something to do. "You know, now that I think of it, I do remember a man named Frost, son of a great sorcerer, nephew to another. The stories were told for years. You are the same man, I say. And Shassel would be your aunt."

Frost eyed the lord more carefully. It seemed he truly could not be taken at face value. He was certainly old enough to know of Shassel and much more. Frost was in no mood to play a guessing game with someone known to withhold knowledge. After all, that was his own domain, not Burrel's. "What kinds of stories?"

"Some good, some bad. There are always stories."

"Indeed."

"Can I ask why have you come back?"

"I have my reasons."

"I would be happy to honor your stories with a few of my own, which may interest you," Burrel said.

Frost nodded. "Fair enough."

Burrel smiled at that. The others were seated about. It seemed time to begin. Frost regretted agreeing to this telling already; he had little interest in old tales, even the good ones, in this place where the past met future. But it was too late now. He started with the tale of Madia's fall from grace and expulsion from Kamrit, then realized this was too much and skipped ahead to the events in Golemesk swamp and the finding of the Demon Blade itself. When he had finished he discovered every mouth in the room hanging slightly ajar, every eye fixed upon him. No one so much as blinked. He allowed himself a satisfied smile.

"Now," he said, looking to Burrel. "You spoke of Shassel. What do you know of her? Is she well? Where can I find her?"

"Find her?"

"Yes," Frost said, noting the tension in Burrel's voice.

Burrel look stricken as he took a small breath. "I-I am sorry, truly I am, but I think she is dead."

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