The Woad to Wuin Read online

  I had had enough, and more than enough. “All right,” I said, standing, propping myself up with my staff. “I said that I would listen, but there’s only so much of a limit to my tolerance. You spin a pretty enough tale, Visionary, but let me tell you of some facts. Fact one,” and I counted them off on my fingers, “Despite your assurances to the contrary, I do not known anyone named Denyys. Fact two, I am not in the habit of standing up to armed men if I don’t have to. Fact three, if someone shows up seeking my aid against armed men, I can personally assure you that I will turn that individual over to the armed men without a second’s hesitation. Fact four, there are no catacombs beneath Bugger Hall. And fact five, which should be the most salient to you, is this: I refuse to listen to any more of this drivel. Satisfy yourself that you have availed yourself of my ale with impunity, for I’ve no stomach to continue this nonsense, nor a desire to hear any more …”

  “You are in luck,” spake the Visionary. He was looking with what seemed great sadness at the parchment, and I could see that his pointer finger, which he had been sliding along the letters to keep his place, had rested on the final words of the runes. “As it so happens, you are not going to have to hear any more.”

  With what I fancied to be my customary, hard-edged cynicism, I asked, “Oh, and why would that be? Do I lose my hearing? Does this rune here say ‘deaf’?” And I pointed at one runic symbol at the very bottom of the page.

  He stared up at me, and the fire from the hearth was reflected in his eyes, as if perdition itself was peering through to me, and he replied, “Ironically, you’re close. It doesn’t say ‘deaf.’ It says ‘death.’ “

  And despite the absurdity of the pronouncement, nevertheless I pulled my hand away as if the paper had suddenly lit on fire.

  Apparently because the entire thing simply was not sufficiently melodramatic, the front door once again burst open, propelled by the fury of the rising winds. Exceedingly annoyed, I made my way over to the door and placed my hand against it to close it. It was at that moment, my hand resting against the portal, that I heard an unmistakable sound.

  There are many noises in this world, but very few highly individualistic ones. One such is a sword being drawn from a scabbard. Another was the one I heard just then: The sound of a bolt being discharged from a crossbow, from somewhere in the darkness most drear.

  When it came to self-preservation, my reflexes were simply unparalleled. The second I heard that all too familiar noise, I knew there was no time to try and slam the door shut to intercept it. I had barely a split instant to react, which meant that I gave it no conscious thought whatsoever. Instead I pivoted on my good foot and turned myself sideways, leaning back from the doorway.

  I barely saw the crossbow bolt as it streaked past me. It was little more than a slight blurring of air. I did, however, hear it, like a swarm of angry insects, and then I heard an ugly, thumping squish of a noise, like a knife slamming down into a melon. My head snapped around, and I saw the Visionary sitting there, half out of his seat, looking down in shock—but not, curiously, in surprise. The bolt was still quivering in his chest, and then he said, “Oh, my. This may hurt a bit,” before he slid back down into his seat. Then he slumped to one side, and I could see that he was still breathing, but the blood was already begining to ooze from his chest and drip onto the word that he’d designated as “death” on the parchment.

  I did not know what to attend to first. I turned away from the door, the wind still blasting through, chilled to my very bones for more reason than just the weather. For I knew that passing strange had transpired this night, and was still occurring, and I knew that I was being dragged into it against my will … provided I had any will. The wind suddenly took the parchment then, yanking it from beneath the still hand of the Visionary, and tossed it carelessly onto the fire, where the ends began to curl and blacken.

  With a cry I reflexively made for it, forgetting about the open door, forgetting about everything except my fate as it was laid out on that piece of paper. I took several steps toward it, then paused, realizing that it would be useless to me. I couldn’t read ancient runic. But then I further realized that I might be able to find someone else who could, and on that basis I should have it with me just in case. There might be further information of which I could make use. It was, however, too late. The paper was curling back upon itself, crackling and flaring up, and most of it was already scorched and unreadable even to someone who had the eye for it.

  I spun, faced the fallen Visionary, dropped to one knee so as to be able to look him in the eyes. “Your death!” I practically shouted in his face. I knew that I was talking to a dying man, but naturally I was far more concerned about my welfare than his. “You foresaw your death, didn’t you! Not mine, but yours!”

  He didn’t reply, unless you would count a throaty gurgle as a reply.

  “What else? What else did you see?” I demanded to know. But I wasn’t even getting gurgling. “Is it happening? All happening, right now? Where’s this Denyys? Can I control my fate still? Am I a helpless pawn? What is to become of me?!” I wailed.

  The door had been sitting open all that time, and suddenly my heart leaped as a figure cloaked in gray burst in. It spun without looking in my direction, the edges of its great cloak whirling about, and with a grunt it shoved closed the door against the buffeting of the wind. The newcomer on this night of insanity—the mysterious Denyys, perhaps?—turned to face me while simultaneously pushing back the hood of the cloak.

  It was a female, her dark and disheveled hair framing her face. She took exactly two steps and stopped in her tracks. I knew her. And why shouldn’t I have? She certainly knew me.

  “Apropos?!” she cried out, not sounding particularly thrilled to see me.

  “Sharee,” I said, my mouth twisted in a parody of a smile.

  Chapter 4

  Destiny’s Bastard Stepchild

  Of all the ale joints in all the towns in all the world, I had to wander into yours!” said Sharee with clear ire. The door suddenly rattled on its hinges, and Sharee jumped slightly in response to it, perhaps thinking that someone was trying to break through. As I’m sure you can imagine, the notion that someone might be endeavoring to smash down my door any moment was not a concept destined to give me much peace of mind. Upon realizing that there was nothing at the door save gusts, she appeared to take some small measure of relief … but not much.

  “I assure you, Sharee, I am no more thrilled to see you than you are to see me,” I informed her.

  But clearly Sharee was in no mood to listen or trade borderline-witty repartee. Despite the passage of years, she looked precisely as I remembered her. I wondered if this involved some sort of sorcery, or if she just knew how to take care of herself. Her eyes flashing, she stepped forward and said briskly, “I need you to hide me.”

  Naturally I guffawed rather loudly. There was much I did not know at that point. I did not know whether this was actually “Denyys” I was seeing before me. Or mayhap this was simply an odd coincidence. “You can’t be serious,” I replied.

  She looked over her shoulder fearfully, and that certainly struck me. Fearfully. That was not an emotion that came easily to Sharee, or Denyys, or whatever name she truly bore. When I had first encountered her, seemingly a lifetime ago, an angry mob had been about to burn her at a stake. In the face of imminent incineration, she had never once lost her composure. Indeed, she had treated those before her with outright contempt, as if she held their lives in her hands, rather than the other way around. So if there was something after her now that was actually cracking that infernal composure of hers, it must be a very considerable challenge and threat.

  Naturally I wanted no part of it.

  My response of “Get out of here” was uttered at the exact same moment that she said, “Of course I’m serious.” She stood there then with her mouth open, clearly surprised by what I had said. She walked toward me, emotions warring in her face, the inclination to tell me to go to he
ll battling with the impulse to ask more insistently for my aid. But before she could say anything, her attention was suddenly caught by the slumped-over man at the table nearby. The fellow, you’ll remember, who had an arrow in his chest.

  Apparently forgetting me completely, she went over to him quickly and tilted his face so that it caught the glow from the fireplace. “I know him,” she said. “I know this man. He’s a Visionary. What is he doing here?”

  “Bleeding, and I’ve no intention of joining him, thank you very much.” I figured I couldn’t have made it any clearer than that. “This assault is not your doing?”

  “Don’t be an ass,” she retorted as she touched the base of his neck. Her eyes widened. “He’s alive!”

  “He won’t be for long. Nor will I, quite possibly, if you stay.”

  Quickly Sharee turned away from him and advanced on me. Involuntarily I took a step back and held my staff in a defensive posture. I wished at that moment that I was holding the crossbow, but it was out of reach on the floor, underneath a bench that had fallen over when I’d jumped up earlier. She took one scornful look at the staff and said, “What did he say to you? What did he tell you?”

  “He said if I help you, this place is going to be destroyed! So you see,” I explained in a surprisingly conversational manner, considering the circumstances, “why I’m being less than hospitable. Not that I thought I needed a reason for doing so when it involves someone who tried to blast me out of existence last time I saw her.”

  “You took advantage of me!”

  “Oh, as if you didn’t of me!”

  “I wasn’t in my right mind!”

  “The stone against my back was as hard and cold as if you had been in your right mind, Sharee, and I’ve still got the scars to prove it.”

  She was five paces from me, and I swear she only took one step, but suddenly she was right there in front of me and she grabbed me by the front of my tunic. In a low, angry voice she said, “You have to help me, and you are going to help me.”

  “I’m going to help you out the front door! Who fired that arrow in here, anyway, if not you?”

  “My pursuers. It was pure happenstance. The bolt went astray, but they aren’t far behind, I can promise you that.”

  I wasn’t intimidated by her proximity or the threat implicit in her nearness. The fact that I had seen fear in her face had humanized her for me to some degree. That, I suppose, and the fact that I’d seen her naked. That also helped. “Good, I’m glad they aren’t far behind,” I replied. “That means you’ll be out of here that much sooner.”

  “Apropos …” she said, and there was a hoplessness to her tone as she stepped back, releasing the fistfuls of cloth she’d been grabbing. She looked as if she desperately wanted to convince me to help her, but hadn’t the faintest idea how to go about it.

  My ears were attuned for the slightest sound of pursuit. I didn’t hear anything yet. But that in and of itself meant nothing. It could be that they simply valued stealth, and were approaching slowly and cannily since they had no idea just who or what was awaiting them in Bugger Hall. Certainly if I were in their situation, that’s what I would be doing. Only fools come barreling in without thoroughly ascertaining just what it is that awaits them.

  “I’m going to regret asking this, most likely,” I admitted, “but my curiosity is up. Just what in the world did you do, and to whom, to land yourself in this degree of trouble?”

  I suppose I should address the fact that neither of us were doing a damned thing to aid the bleeding Visionary. I would chalk that up to the fundamental pragmatism by which both Sharee and I operated. I knew the man was done for. She knew the man was done for. We’d seen the positioning of the bolt, we saw blood pouring out of him as if he were a wine casket with the spigot knocked off. Dwelling on it would have been pointless, and neither of us were of the temperament to stand with the fellow and give him hollow assurances that everything was going to be all right when, in fact, the minutes of life he had remaining to him could likely be counted on the fingers of two hands, if one alone didn’t do the job. Matters of a far more pressing nature were seizing our attention.

  Apparently the Visionary was sporting enough to comprehend this as well. His breathing slowed and he hummed some vague tune softly to himself, but otherwise he left us to our own problems. Since he’d obviously seen his own death foretold in his writings, at least he could take some small pleasure in the notion of a job well done.

  “I … may have made some enemies,” she said slowly. “One enemy in particular.”

  “I see. And does this fellow have a name?”

  “Lord Beliquose.”

  The name meant absolutely nothing to me. “Should I know him?”

  “He’s a warrior chief, the captain of a squad of sellswords. He claims the title was given to him legitimately, but nobody knows for sure.”

  “I know for sure that I don’t care,” I informed her. “What did you do to this Beliquose?”

  She shifted uncomfortably, once again looking back over her shoulder at the shut door. Any moment I half-expected a large booted foot to kick it open, and a brace of arrows to come hurtling in. “I … may have taken something for which he had developed a certain fondness.”

  I moaned quite loudly. “You stole something from him.”

  “I may have done.”

  “Sharee—!”

  “Apropos, please!” she said with growing urgency. I knew she was hating the entire concept of seeking help from me, and I admit I derived some bleak pleasure from watching her grovel. “You have to help me!”

  “I have to do no such thing! If I help you, your Lord Beliquose is going to come marching in here and bring the place down around my ears!”

  She looked at the Visionary. “Did he tell you that?”

  “Yes, if you must know, and I have no particular reason to doubt him. And even less reason to help you!”

  Her face flushed, she snarled, “You owe me! You owe me, you pig, for what you did to me!”

  “I owe you nothing save a quick boot to the backside! You have powers! If you’re so worried, you do something about him!”

  The moment I said it, I knew that I had inadvertently stumbled upon the true problem. Her lower lip quivered ever so slightly before she brought it under control, and she said tightly, “No, I don’t. I have no powers. Or almost none. I call upon the storm, I get at most a slight brush of rain on my face. I summon lightning, and I receive less than what would be required to make a decent-sized spark. I call for the snow—”

  “And nary a flake, yes, I comprehend the situation.”

  “Do you?” she demanded. Now she was pacing, her body catlike and tense. “I don’t think you do. A weaver is what I am, Apropos. It’s all that I am. If my abilities desert me for some reason …”

  “Don’t sell yourself short,” I said in what was hardly designed to be a comforting tone. “Even if you aren’t a weaver, you can fall back on being a colossal pain in the ass …”

  My voice trailed off then, for my ears had caught a sound that rose above the howling of the wind. It was a branch snapping in the manner that could only be a foot setting itself upon it. My voice a sharp whisper, I said, “Sharee! Get out of here! Now! I will defy this prediction! I will defy the fates! I spit in the face of my so-called destiny, and there’s nothing that you can say or do that—”

  She fumbled within the folds of her cloak and withdrew a jewel so large, so fiery, so impressive, that it caused my voice to dry up in my throat.

  I got a chill just looking at the thing. At first I thought it was reflecting the flames within the hearth, but upon closer inspection I realized that it was generating its own inner fire of beauty. The thing was big as my fist, and was magnificently clear. I put out a hand before I even knew that I had done so, and without a word Sharee placed it in my open palm. I gazed at it wonderingly, angling it, examining the facets. I was no jeweler, but I certainly had an eye for valuable gems. One does not spend
as much time as I have as a thief without developing a knack for being able to separate the quality jewelry from the dross. And this was as far from dross as I was from ever passing through the gates of heaven.

  There were no flaws whatsoever. Not only was it the largest gem I had ever seen, but it was perfectly cut. “Where … where did you … ?” I managed to get out.

  She didn’t answer directly, which was certainly nothing unusual for weavers. Sometimes they could be counted on to answer every question you might have … save for the one you really, truly needed an answer for. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it.”

  I considered a smart-ass reply, but couldn’t get my lips to produce the words. Instead I admitted, “Yes … yes, it is. It’s … it’s like nothing I’ve ever … it’s …”

  Conspiratorially, with yet another glance over her shoulder, she said very quickly, as if sensing that time was running out, “There’s a mountain range with more like this. Hundreds more. Every one just as perfect. I’ll bring you to it. More of a fortune than a hundred Apropos could spend in a thousand lifetimes.”

  “Where? What mountain range?” I asked suspiciously.

  “If I just tell you, you might try to go without me. But I said I’ll take you there …”

  The glitter of the diamond danced before my eyes. I had never seen such beauty. I felt as if my brain was going to explode just from trying to comprehend it, as if the thing was not made for mortal man to gaze upon.

  My avarice bubbled to the surface, filling my mind, my heart and soul, until there was nothing in my consciousness save for the glitter of the jewel. The world was moving up and down slowly, and then I realized belatedly that I was nodding. I saw the smile on Sharee’s face, and suddenly caught myself.

  “No!” I said abruptly, shaking off the entrancing power of the gem as if it was the foggy vestiges of sleep. Her expression fell, and before she could react I started shoving her toward the door. “Leave me alone! Get out of here! This is how it starts! This is how it always starts! I let my avarice or thirst for fortune and glory send me on an insane path toward self-destruction. Sooner or later my luck will run out, and I’d just as soon it be later, thank you very much! If there are so many damned gems in the mountains, give this one back to Beliquose and go get some of those! Now go! Get out of here right n—”