1
A man on a horse.
Without waiting for a tug on his reins or a spoken command, the horse stopped at the crest of a low ridge. The late morning sun was almost overhead. The man leaned on the pommel of his saddle and stared into the valley ahead and at the village it sheltered, off to his right a little.
“‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,’” the man quoted softly. It was not quite a prayer, but neither was it an expression of derision at the drought-stricken valley in front of him. Though the man shared his true name with no one, he often allowed himself to be called Silvas.
The horse snorted.
“This looks like a scene from some mad priest’s fevered nightmare,” Silvas said. The voice sounded tired, perhaps depressed. In any case, it didn’t seem to fit the speaker. Silvas appeared to be in his middle twenties, brawny and rugged, his skin tanned and weathered where it was exposed. The eyes that slowly scanned the valley were dark gray, almost black, with tiny flecks of indeterminate lighter color. Those eyes were sunk too deeply in his face for someone who otherwise appeared to be in the prime of manhood. Mostly the face was balanced and strong, though marred by a few dark wrinkles that made him appear brooding even in repose. His hair, light brown streaked with sun-bleached blond, reached almost to his shoulders, coarse and roughly cut. Silvas had the heavily muscled arms and shoulders, the callused hands, of a warrior, but he was dressed in simple traveling clothes of gray above knee-length riding boots. He carried no weapons but for a long dagger with an ornate hilt that he wore on his belt.
Silvas dismounted with the exaggerated care of the old or infirm and stood next to his horse, Bay. Although Silvas was over six feet in height and two hundred pounds in weight, he was easily dwarfed by the animal.
“The smell isn’t right for a priest’s nightmare. Those have a unique odor,” the horse said, turning his head to look down at Silvas. Bay was an equine giant, over eight feet tall at the withers. He was built along the bulky lines of a knight’s destrier, exuding raw power with every movement. His hair was a reddish brown, as befitted a horse of his name, with white highlights mixed in through the full, flowing mane and tail. Bay’s voice was a deep, rumbling bass, but his diction was clear, his accent that of the educated classes.
“One more wart on the butt of the kingdom,” Silvas said. “There can’t be many that we’ve missed.” He spoke softly, with resignation or pity rather than distaste. “I always feel that by the time we finish riding circuit, I’ll look like the decrepit old man these peasants always expect a wizard to be.”
Bay snorted again, clearly in derision. “Why must we go through this gnashing of teeth every time we approach a new village?” he demanded. “It sheds no light, offers no comfort, adds no truth to the world.”
“We go through it because I choose to go through it,” Silvas replied sharply.
“Are you afraid to admit your feelings even to yourself?” Bay asked. “There is nothing wrong with passion.”
“Passion? I have some great challenge to face—sometime, somewhere. All this …” He didn’t finish the thought. Instead he turned away from the horse and stared at the village below.
“You chose your life,” Bay said impatiently. “You help all these people along the way because you would not turn your back on them if you could.”
Silvas merely stared at the village, not even attempting to frame a reply.
“That is the village of Mecq,” Bay said after a moment. “The hill below the village, to the right on this side of the river, is Mount Mecq. The ridge on the other side is Mount Balq. The river between is the Eyler.”
For a protracted moment Silvas remained silent, absorbing the scene. Finally he said, “It doesn’t look like much.”
“This should be a fertile valley, like those around it, and in better times it has been,” Bay observed. The valley was clearly anything but fertile now. The Eyler wound past the village toward a gap between Mount Mecq and Mount Balq, winding generally north through the English countryside toward Wales and the Irish Gulf. The only water visible in the riverbed was a thin trickle in the bottom of a watercourse that could have carried a hundred times the volume without threatening to overflow its banks. The village stood on the near side of the river, on the higher bank. Most of the valley, and the fields of the villagers, were across the river.
“The valley beyond the river is a floodplain,” Bay reported. “In years of normal springs floods, the fields soak up enough water to return plentiful harvests. Mecq was once a prosperous village. But the floods have been poor for years, scarcely enough to grow a minimum of grain and vegetables to see the people and their few remaining animals through to the next harvest. The rains have been scant even longer, for more than a generation. Hunger and illness are common here.”
“They could easily dam the river to hold water,” Silvas suggested. He never questioned the accuracy of information Bay gave him. Whatever the sources, Bay’s facts were never wrong.
“It has been attempted,” Bay replied. “The last time it occasioned a short and inglorious war with the Duke of Blethye, whose demesne lies just downstream of the twin hills of Mecq and Balq.”
Silvas let his gaze drift north along the Eyler past the village to the sharp cleft that carried the meager stream and a narrow road between the two hills. By focusing his vision tightly, Silvas could see objects at any distance in his line of sight as clearly as he could at arm’s length. It was but a minor application of his will, of his magic. On the crest of Mount Mecq, the nearer height, a small castle, no more than a simple tower and low curtain wall, stood guard over the pass between the hills.
“The thane of Mecq has not the manpower to defend a dam against Blethye,” Bay said, as if he could read his rider’s mind, “and perhaps not the will. He sends messages of impotent anger and pleading to the king, but the fief is minor, too far from His Majesty’s thoughts for him to send warriors. And the Duke of Blethye holds an important section of the border for him.”
“There is evil here,” Silvas said.
“There is evil everywhere,” Bay countered.
There is indeed, Silvas thought. He took several steps away from the horse and continued to scan the valley: bone-dry earth clung to the roots of grain in the fields; peasants worked, their faces thin and devoid of expression; painfully thin animals tried to graze on scant grasses that were dry and dusty.
Life in these villages is never easy, but here it may be harder than it should be, Silvas thought. He breathed deeply and slowly, trying to make his mind a blank, a blotter to absorb the atmosphere of Mecq and its environs. His efforts were never completely successful. The threads of the past were too strong, too visible. The threads of the future, their ends hidden in inner mist, were too much in his thoughts. They end somewhere, Silvas reminded himself. They could even end here. For a moment that realization made him lose his concentration. He had no guarantees, not even that he would live to face the special challenge his Unseen Lord had prepared him for.
“It seems there will be work for us in Mecq,” Silvas said.
“There is always work for us,” Bay replied.
“But I have a feeling about this,” Silvas continued, as if the horse had not spoken. The sudden ripple of apprehension he felt turned to something much nearer to anticipation. “There is more here than we see, perhaps even the unknown work I must perform to win my freedom.” He had spoken of his pact with the Unseen Lord in that fashion for so long that he now even thought of it in those terms.
“Perhaps,” Bay agreed, dragging the word out and twisting it around, tired of this routine. “Perhaps I shall take the time someday to remind you of all the places you have said that. And perhaps the sooner we reach this village the sooner we will finish whatever we must do there.”
Silvas neither responded nor took the hint. He was too lost in his thoughts drifting along familiar byways. It was several minutes before he spoke again.
“I can’t help but think that the future would be easier to face if I knew what it is that I must face, and where, and when.” He spoke softly, as if merely distracted by a chance thought. The words came slowly, as if from far away. What is the challenge I must face?
“If you had to lead a horse through fire to get it safely out of a burning stable, how would you do it?” Bay asked, just as casually.
“Tie a cloth over his eyes so he wouldn’t panic at the flames,” Silvas replied, not thinking about the question or his answer. It was too basic.
“Perhaps your continued ignorance is that sort of cloth,” Bay said.
In one way or another Silvas and Bay had covered this point scores of times in their years together. When they were at rest and comfortable, the discussion could be quite protracted and philosophical—a pastime, a game. At times like this, facing a new village with its mostly common problems (but always with the chance of something rare and dangerous), the talk could be tense, abbreviated.
“Eighty, maybe a hundred cottages,” Silvas said after he had stared a little longer at the village that was a little over a mile to the south. “Two larger, substantial buildings in the center of the village, facing each other across the green. Another at the edge of the village, by the river.” The cottages were ranked around the village green and the two large central buildings. The road from the crest led down to the village and continued on from the far end, leading to the gap between mounts Mecq and Balq, with a secondary road climbing to the castle on Mount Mecq. Silvas hardly considered it a guess when he identified the larger buildings at the center of Mecq as parish church and village inn, or the one by the river as the mill. The church had a modest spire and cross. The mill’s water wheel was visible, its lower end hanging in air, not touching the water of the shrunken Eyler. On the near side of the mill, a pair of oxen walked a circle, harnessed to a geared apparatus that would turn the millstone inside.
“They’re long used to water shortages here,” Silvas said as he studied the mill and the ruts the oxen had worn in their circular marching.
“In a year of plentiful rain Mecq still does well, but such years have been increasingly rare in the last generation,” Bay said. “Mecq does best in years when the surrounding valleys have far too much rain. When the others have just enough, Mecq has drought. This valley alone suffers this particular scourge.”
Silvas stood with his hands on his hips and stared directly into the village. There were a few people visible on Mecq’s dusty streets, more working in the dry fields across the Eyler, pulling the few weeds that took water from the grain. Silvas felt the misery in Mecq. It tugged at him. After a few minutes, Bay walked over and positioned himself for the wizard to mount.
“All right,” Silvas said when he finally noticed the horse. “I don’t suppose I’ll learn anything more by standing here.”
“Not that you can’t learn more easily by going into the village,” Bay replied, but softly.
Silvas turned to the animal. Bay had two stirrups on his left side, one at riding height, the other lower, making a step so it was easier for Silvas to mount.
Silvas mounted and settled himself comfortably in the saddle. He held the reins loosely. Bay needed no direction and couldn’t be counted on to take it if given. Silvas started a soft chant while the horse followed the trail down into the valley toward the village. The chant was more prayer than conjuration.
Oh Lord, let me continue to be a fit vehicle for executing your will. Open my eyes that I may see what I need to see. Give me your direction, your help. Protect me that I may continue to protect your people.
Although Silvas had spoken that prayer many times, it was never an empty formula. He directed it to his Unseen Lord, the god Silvas knew existed but had never seen, the god who sometimes functioned through him.
Never an empty formula. If I am, then He must be, was the way Silvas had reasoned it out many years before. The wizard felt his skin begin to tingle. The hair on his arms stood up. The power was there again, flowing into him, through him. Silvas mumbled a prayer of thanksgiving. If he no longer paid full conscious attention to the words of these prayers, it did not mean that he took the arrival of this token of his master for granted. And the influx of power now did not mean that he was devoid of power at other times. There was a power that was always his, constant, reliable, the basis of his wizardry, conferred by the test of initiation—considerable enough on its own … and then there was this additional power that came when he approached a new village or town and faded when he left it behind after doing his master’s will there.
“I am a wizard of unbroken line, master to apprentice, fahn olduvia estu megidoay,” went the ritual affirmation, as much a part of Silvas as his names—both the open and the hidden.
“Breathe in the smell of this place,” Bay advised after they had covered half the distance from the ridge to the nearest cottages. “Flare your nostrils and drink it in.” The horse spoke softly now, as if afraid that someone might overhear. Bay never let outsiders hear him speak.
Silvas took one deep breath and then another.
“My nose is not nearly as sensitive as yours,” the wizard said.
“It need not be,” Bay replied. “The gates of hell might almost open on this valley.”
“I told you there was evil here,” Silvas reminded Bay. “I don’t need to smell it.”
Bay did not reply. He merely continued toward the village. Bay’s walk looked incredibly slow, but his stride was so long that the look was deceptive. Occasionally someone in the village or fields looked toward them. A racing horse would have caused worry, fear, perhaps even panic. A horse barely plodding along would cause no more than a moment of curiosity.
Silvas continued to cast his mind ahead, seeking any clues to the work that might await him in Mecq. The problem of water was obvious, but the pervasive sense of evil he felt was unusual enough to concern him. Despite Bay’s earlier jibe, evil of this depth was not everywhere.
Closer to the village, the more common smells of rural August became apparent—the odors of grain in the fields, people, animals, manure, and rotting garbage. The plan of Mecq was as common as its smells. Cottages with their small garden patches lined both sides of the road. More cottages were arrayed in rough arcs behind the inn and church and facing the ends of the village green. A faded wooden sign over the inn’s door—a red boar facing a tawny bear—marked the hostel as the Boar and Bear. The church was no larger than the inn. Both were built of rough-cut stone. The church had a wooden spire above it.
People. A small boy ran into the Boar and Bear. A man in the garb of a friar came out onto the small veranda of the church. A few faces peered out of cottage doors or paused in their labors long enough to glance at the approaching horse and rider. Silvas knew that Bay would be the first focus of attention. He always was. No one had ever seen a horse of Bay’s size. People looked at the animal first, then wondered what sort of man would have so majestic a steed. They would see that he was no knight in armor or courtier in fancy dress. And there were no bulging saddle packs to suggest that he might be an itinerant peddler.
People started to gather in the village green, but not many of them. When Silvas reached the edge of the “green”—its grass mostly a sunburned brown—only a score of people wore their curiosity honestly enough to stand in the open and stare … but more watched from the shadows of their cottages.
Bay ambled out into the center of the square and stopped a little closer to the inn than the church. People moved forward or back, coming to rest in a loose arc about twenty-five feet from the horse. Silvas let the reins drape loosely on Bay’s neck and sat with his wrists crossed over the saddle’s pommel. A few people edged closer. Most stayed well back. No one really cared to meet his gaze. Those who did so inadvertently looked away quickly.
The friar crossed briskly from the church, his eyes on Silvas more than on the horse. He didn’t flinch when Silvas met his stare. Another man, larger, burly, came out of the Boar and Bear. This man’s arms were heavily muscled, his hands rough with work, the joints of his fingers swollen and knotty. He stopped ten feet from Silvas, several paces in front of the other villagers. The friar stopped at his side.
Silvas nodded to them, then slowly scanned the rest of the small gathering of the curious. There were an even two dozen people watching him with suspicion, open wonder, or both.
“I am known as Silvas. I am a wizard,” he announced. That brought a considerable reaction. It always did. A few people took a step or two back, but almost as if they didn’t realize that they were moving. Others crossed themselves instinctively.
“I have come to Mecq because you have need of my services,” Silvas continued. “I will provide such help as you require, that I may honorably give. I will stay until all of those needs have been met or until I am needed more urgently elsewhere. And then I will leave. I ask no payment of any kind for my services. My reward comes from another place.” He glanced up briefly. Let them make what they will of that, he thought.
“I do not even require that you provide for my maintenance while I am here. If I stop at the inn for ale or wine, I will pay for what I order. If I require the services of any of your craftsmen, I will likewise pay full value for my needs.”
He stopped and looked around at the people again. There was no sudden outpouring of welcome, no rejoicing that he had offered free service. Most of the faces wore their suspicion openly. Silvas was a stranger. That was indictment enough for many people. He said he was a wizard. He said he would help. He said he would take no payment for his services and that he would pay for anything he needed from the villagers.
He said.
Silvas kept any emotion from showing on his face. None of this was a surprise. None of it was new. Villagers along all of the marches were like this, whether they faced Celts, Norsemen, Germans, or Franks. Strangers were rarely good news. Outsiders brought trouble if they brought anything. Silvas was accustomed to these silent, not quite hostile receptions, but they did rankle at times. Finally he let his gaze rest on the friar and on the man with the heavily muscled arms. The friar stepped forward, coming within a few feet of Silvas. His companion stayed with him, hardly a half step behind.
“Welcome, sir,” the monk said. He gave Silvas the scantest of nods and drew a cross in the air ahead of him. “I am Brother Paul, vicar of Saint Katrinka’s here, vicar of Mecq.” He pointed across the green at the small church. Brother Paul stood just under five feet tall, so he had to tilt his head back to meet Silvas’s gaze. He was extremely thin, but the extent of his emaciation was concealed by the robes he wore. “I am a friar of the White Brotherhood, an initiate of the Lesser Mysteries.”
“Friar.” Silvas nodded in greeting, then blinked and reached out with his mind to touch the borders of the monk’s power. Faint but noticeable. I couldn’t expect more in a parish like this, Silvas told himself. He easily detected the monk’s clumsy attempts to touch his power. “Your being here may be of assistance,” Silvas said, brushing aside the vicar’s probing with hardly a thought.
“Forgive my asking,” Brother Paul said, “but are you a loyal son of Mother Church?”
“‘He who is not against us is on our part,’ as it is written,” Silvas replied. “I have often worked alongside the White Brotherhood, but a member, no.”
The monk’s face relaxed, but only a trifle. He was clearly not ready to surrender his reservations despite Silvas’s show of candor. He is cautious, he does not leap to judgment, Silvas thought. That was not always the case, even among the White Brotherhood. The White Brotherhood, order of nearly all of the popes Silvas could name, was the largest and most powerful order in the western church, both pastoral and mystically militant in mission, known formally as the Congregation of the Guardians of the Faith.
“Welcome to Mecq, Lord Wizard,” Brother Paul said, nodding a little more deeply with this second greeting. “This honored burgher beside me is Master Ian, proprietor of the Boar and Bear Inn. You’ll not find better provision or service in the finest inn of St. Ives.”
Silvas shifted his gaze to Master Ian. Ian was taller and not nearly as thin as most of the villagers around, but he could by no means be described as fat.
“Master Ian.” Silvas nodded. “You have the arms of a blacksmith, not of an innkeeper.”
“Aye, sir.” Ian’s voice was gruff, gravelly. “I also do what smithin’ we need.” He glanced at Brother Paul for an instant before he returned his attention to the wizard. “I’d not make such lofty claims for my inn as the good friar, but I’ll warrant there are more places worse than better, in St. Ives or elsewhere. Might I ask what ye’ll be needing in the way of victuals and lodging?”
Silvas grinned, then stopped quickly. People sometimes misinterpreted that gesture from him. “I’ll likely stop by for a flagon or two of ale before the sun sets, but I have my own provision for the rest,” he said. Without looking, Silvas knew that nearly every pair of eyes around him flicked their glance toward the rear of his saddle. There were no packs, no saddlebags, no sign of any provisions.
“What sort of wizard would I be if I could not provide for my own comfort?” Silvas asked loudly. He sat straighter in the saddle and spread his arms out to the sides. As soon as he started to chant, everyone moved back, giving him more room for whatever he was about to do. Even the vicar and innkeeper stepped quickly out of his way.
They’ll have no doubt now that I’m a wizard-potent, Silvas thought as he started the incantation. He never prepared people for this demonstration. It was the only “revenge” he ever took for the cool receptions he received.
“Dar fistu sprath. Dar estu demiese. Fichu kevry sprath.” The words boomed out and echoed around Silvas, carrying volume of their own that did not depend on Silvas’s wind.
Wind. It comes. Silvas closed his eyes and repeated the chant. It was significantly louder the second time, though he put no more force into it. He didn’t need to see what his magic, and the power of his Unseen Lord, was producing. He knew. But the people of Mecq could not be certain what was coming. A couple of them scurried for cover, not waiting to witness whatever this wind would bring. But more of the people stood riveted in place, unable to move.
Silvas kept his eyes closed and brought the incantation into his mind. A small breeze started to eddy, stirring up dust in a perfect circle just wide enough to encompass the giant horse. The swirls of dust turned into thin white smoke. Then the circle widened until it was a dozen feet in diameter and the smoke thickened as it sought its way toward heaven. The spectacular visual display was only for times such as this. Alone on the road, Silvas used less ostentatious means to open the way to his home. This show was intended to impress the uninitiated.
Others: Brother Paul crossed himself. Most of the other villagers followed his example automatically, even if they were staring at the smoke and didn’t see the vicar’s reflexive gesture.
As the circle of smoke rose to hide the horse’s withers, a few of the people, including Brother Paul, saw the ghostly image of an immense castle with many towers. The castle seemed to be contained within the circle of smoke … but at a great distance, approaching rapidly. The illusion, the paradox, was so compelling that Brother Paul grabbed his rosary beads and clung to them, seeking comforting strength.
Silvas’s chant was clearly audible to those around the circle of smoke, loud and insistent, but no ears could hold on to the words long enough to fix them in their minds. The words, cadent and insistent, seemed to instantly erase themselves from every mind. No villager would be able to repeat these sounds of power that could not be grasped except by those with power of their own. Brother Paul came closest to comprehending the essence of the chant, but even he failed to grasp the words. An initiate of only the Lesser Mysteries, he knew that this was something that only those much more powerful in magic than him could ever hope to hear and hold. But he could see the approaching castle for a few seconds longer than the few others who saw it at all. The castle was huge, perhaps as large as the entire village, but it was also circumscribed by the twelve-foot circle of smoke—smoke that continued to climb straight into the heavens.
“Like the pillar that guided the children of Israel in the desert,” the vicar mumbled. He had crossed himself so often since the smoky circle started to form that he consciously stopped himself when he realized that he had started again. He couldn’t show fear or his flock would be terrified beyond belief.
The tower of smoke finally rose until its upper end—if it truly had one—was lost in the distance, blurred by the sun. The cylinder seemed perfect. Brother Paul walked around it, hand held to within a couple of inches of the crisp border. He could feel the hot tingle of power there, even if he could not touch it or fully understand the power that maintained it.
Are you really on our part, or against us, a tool of the Devil? the friar asked himself. He had seen wizards before. He had not spent all of his life in the backwater parish of Mecq. But none of the wizards he had seen before had displayed this level of power as their introduction.
We shall have to see, Paul promised himself. There was no fear in him, not of this wizard or any other. If the power of Silvas was too much for the country vicar … well, in the White Brotherhood, no brother ever stood alone.