Echoes of the Fourth Magic

Chapter 20
Treachery Unmasked

SYLVIA WENT TO rouse the men early on the morning after Mitchell and Reinheiser had made their escape. The early haze had burned away soon after sunrise, leaving the air warm and clean, and Sylvia wanted the three guests to enjoy as much of the day outside of their rooms as possible. Unconcerned and seeking only to make the men’s stay more pleasant, the elven maiden could never have imagined at that moment that Mitchell and Reinheiser had just begun their wild ride across the plains as prisoners of the Calvan scouting party.

She sensed trouble as soon as she fitted the key into the door to their room and found it already unlocked. This was more than an oversight, she knew, for she had locked the door personally the night before. Yet the two guards beside her, as perplexed as she, assured her that they had been faithful to their watch throughout the night and that she had been the last one in or out of the room.

But the room was empty. Still not quite comprehending the magnitude of the escape, Sylvia crossed the hall to rouse Billy. The mere fact that he was there to answer her knock brought her a measure of comfort and made her believe that there must be a simple explanation for the absence of the other two.

Her relief proved short-lived, though, for her question about his companions’ disappearance jolted the sleepiness from Billy’s eyes as completely as if she had splashed him with icy water.

For every image Billy Shank held of Mitchell since they came to this world led him inescapably to one frightening conclusion. He looked grimly at Sylvia, her innocent and hopeful smile heightening his suspicions, and his anger. “Go find Arien, and quickly,” he instructed. Sylvia hesitated, waiting for more details, but Billy couldn’t bring himself to tell her that Mitchell and Reinheiser, his companions, were probably on their way to betray her people.

Sylvia had a good idea where her father would be on such a fair morning. She bade Billy accompany her, and he agreed, though he dreaded confronting the elf-lord with such grim news. They came upon Arien a short time later on a back balcony of the house overlooking the great gorge. He and Ryell sat quietly, enjoying the serenity of the ever wondrous spectacle of dawnslight on the Crystals.

Arien recognized immediately that something was terribly wrong when he saw his daughter, her face flushed and pained. He grasped Sylvia’s hands to steady her. “What is it?”

“They are gone!” Sylvia cried. “Captain Mitchell and Martin Reinheiser are not in their room!”

“Treachery!” Ryell yelled. “I knew that no good would come of these men.” He started threateningly toward Billy, but Arien intercepted him with an outstretched arm.

“Find Erinel,” a very calm and composed Arien said to his daughter. “Gather your friends together at once and search the tunnels to Mountaingate. Until we know more, those two are to be considered as guests and not enemies. But I want them found and brought to me.”

“They might yet be in the city,” Sylvia offered.

“Doubtful,” Arien replied, “but leave a group behind. Instruct them to search the whole of the valley and even Shaithdun-o-Illume. Now go and hurry. We will await your findings here.”

Sylvia nodded and was gone. The two guards remained at Billy’s side, unsure now of his status among their people and a bit nervous about him being so close to their Eldar. Arien, though, waved them away, steadfastly refusing to let the actions of Mitchell and Reinheiser detract from his trust of this man who had done them no wrong.

“Where have they gone?” Ryell snapped, his suspicions bubbling over and showing him to be certain that Billy must be in on some conspiracy.

Billy shrugged his shoulders and looked away, wisely withholding his theory until more information could be gathered and calmer heads prevailed.

Ryell didn’t wait for an answer anyway. Seeking outlets to vent his fury, he turned on the guards.

“And what of you two?” he scolded. “You were supposed to be guarding them!”

“We remained at their door throughout the night,” replied one of the unfortunate elves with strained conviction.

“Ha!” Ryell scoffed. “If I discover that you fell asleep, I shall-”

“Oh, hush hush! Hush up, I say!” came a voice from behind the guards, and Ardaz stepped out onto the terrace, Desdemona the cat wrapped in peaceful slumber like a boneless stole about his neck. “I, too, had eyes posted to watch the ancient ones: Desdemona here.” He lifted the limp cat off his shoulder and held her close to his face. “And she wouldn’t let me down, would she? No, she wouldn’t!

“She kept watch on your house from just outside and saw no one leave, no one at all, not a one,” Ardaz assured Arien with complete confidence. “Never sleeps, either. Not at night anyway. Sleep all day, bother everyone at night; rule of cats, you know.” He gave an amused snort and turned his attention back to the cat, petting her affectionately to make up for his last comment.

“But they are gone,” Ryell insisted, the simple fact challenging the wizard’s reasoning.

“I know that, of course I know that!” a flustered Ardaz replied. “Sylvia told me just a moment ago out in the hall.”

Ryell shook with frustration. “If they are not here,” he asked with deliberate sarcasm, “and that cat assures you that they did not leave, then where are they? Might it be that they simply disappeared?”

“Oh, yes, I see your point,” Ardaz replied, enlightened and confounded all at once. “And a very good point it is!” He again pulled the cat from his shoulder and shook her awake. “Des, did you fall asleep, you nasty little kitty!” He gave her another shake and eyed her suspiciously, then, as if talking to her in her own tongue, he uttered a series of varying “meows,” and Desdemona replied with an emphatic “Meow!”

The wizard flopped her back over his shoulder and seemed appeased.

“Says that she didn’t fall asleep,” he explained to the astounded onlookers. “Doubt that she did, too.” His gaze drifted absently out across the gorge. “Couldn’t have disappeared, no no,” he continued, talking more to himself than the others. “There are ways, of course, but they were just, ordinary men. Certainly not wizards, after all!” He paused to scratch his bearded chin. “Unless…”

Arien and Ryell waited for him to let them in on his apparent revelation, but as the moments slipped by and an expression of dark worry crossed the wizard’s face, Arien’s patience ran thin.

“What is it?” he demanded.

“I am not sure,” Ardaz replied, his voice suddenly sobered. Shaken from his contemplative trance, he looked back at the Eldar. “Not sure. But I shall find out!” he asserted, and headed for the door.

“Wait!” Arien called. “You cannot leave now.”

But Ardaz kept moving.

“Things to do,” he called. “Things to do!” And he scurried away.

“Why do you allow him to stay in Illuma?” Ryell groaned. “He is of no use to us at all.”

Arien knew better than that. He knew the side of Ardaz that was the wise and kind Glendower, savior to the elves at the dawn of their race, when Ben-rin ruled Pallendara and Umpleby would have had them killed. Arien recognized that the compassion and power of the wizard remained, hidden beneath a bumbling facade, but ready to come forth as a shining light of hope in their darkest moments.

“Blame not Ardaz for our troubles,” he warned Ryell.

“But what are we to do?” Ryell asked softly, the cutting edge of his anger diminishing with the growing realization of their potentially disastrous position.

“We wait,” Arien replied grimly. “And hope.”

The Eldar sent the guards away to join in the search, and he, Ryell, and Billy remained on the balcony, staring out at the towering mountains, seeking refuge from their worldly concerns in the profound contemplations so glorious a landscape oft inspired. They spoke little, each of them finding solace in his private meditation, and a semblance of hope budded among them as the initial shock of the escape faded. Though they did not track the time, it seemed like hours later when Sylvia and Erinel finally returned.

Then their hopes were dashed.

“They are not in the city,” Sylvia said.

“Nor in the tunnels,” Erinel added. “I traveled as far down as the lower trails above Mountaingate.” He looked over at Billy and gave a sympathetic shrug, for he knew that what he was about to say would reflect badly on his new friend. “I found two sets of footprints in several places-less than a day old.”

“And were these tracks known to you?” Ryell growled, intent on tearing from reluctant Erinel confirmation that his own mistrust of the humans had been justified.

“They matched the strange boots of our visitors,” replied Erinel.

Ryell eyed Arien smugly, confident that the Eldar could no longer reprimand him, then turned his fury on Billy. “What have you to say of this?” he snapped.

“They’ve gone to Calva,” Billy declared firmly, in a voice that trembled just a little from embarrassment.

“How do you know this?” Ryell shouted accusingly before benevolent Arien could react. “And why did you keep it from us?”

“I didn’t keep anything from you,” Billy replied. “I just now figured it out from Erinel’s findings.” He pointedly turned back to the Eldar, turning away from Ryell. “I admit that I feared this-feared Mitchell. He lives for glory and power and will do anything to get it. That night of council on the mountain shelf, he tried to persuade you to grant him an army. You refused, so he seeks it elsewhere. My guess is the court of Ungden.”

“Bah!” Ryell said. “It seems more to the truth that you were a part of the whole deception!”

“You’re wrong,” Billy said.

“I am right!” Ryell insisted. “And what of DelGiudice? An emissary sent ahead to prepare the way for his Captain? And you were left behind to cover their escape, to keep us from suspecting the worst until it was too late for us to prevent it!”

“No,” Billy said, but he saw the strength of his argument slipping away. How could he hold credibility with Arien and the others in light of Mitchell’s terrible deception? His empathy for Ryell and the elves’ desperate situation put him on the defensive, for he knew that Ryell’s rage was founded on the very plausible fears that all of Illuma had been placed in mortal danger. “Del and I had no part of this.”

“You lie!” Ryell screamed.

“Enough of this,” Arien demanded, and Ryell turned away, biting back curses and accusations through gritted teeth. Then Billy was truly wounded, for the look Arien gave him revealed doubts and suspicion. “Pray tell us all that you know,” he asked. “It is important.”

“There isn’t much I can add,” Billy answered. “Mitchell will do what he has to do to get what he wants, and you’re right to be concerned. But I’ll do anything I can to help you, and I guarantee that Del had nothing to do with this. He hates Mitchell even more than I do. Those two have been at each other’s throats since the first day they met, and that fight has only become worse since we landed on the shores of Ynis Aielle.”

“And what of the other one, Martin Reinheiser?” Arien asked.

Billy shrugged and shook his head. “I don’t really know. He and the captain stick together, but I can’t figure out why. They’re nothing alike. Maybe it’s just because they have nobody else to get close to, or maybe each of them needs the other to make up for what he lacks himself. Either way, I wouldn’t trust Reinheiser any more than Mitchell. He might not be as openly dangerous as the captain, but he’s sneaky, and smart enough to manipulate things the way he wants them.” He paused then and all of them went silent, digesting the information.

“I am satisfied,” Arien assured him, but the declaration of renewed trust in Billy did not relieve the pained look from the Eldar’s face.

Again despair smoothed the edge of Ryell’s anger. “Then we are lost,” he stated with hopeless resignation.

“Not yet,” Arien declared, but despite his determination, his voice seemed clearly strained, and a vein of deep worry stood out clearly on his temple. “Caer Tuatha is many miles to the south, and the two have no horses. We do not know if they will ever reach the city, or how Ungden will receive them if they should.”

“But if they do get there,” Ryell said grimly, “the humans can muster ten thousand spears.”

“That would take weeks, even months,” Arien replied.

“We must know for certain,” Erinel cut in. “Eldar, allow me to go down to the Calvan fields. Among the farmers, I may be able to discern the destination or even the intentions of the two men. Surely it is folly for us to sit back blindly and wait for whatever is to befall us.”

Arien looked questioningly at Ryell, granting his friend, as Erinel’s guardian, the final authority to permit or reject his nephew’s proposal. Both of them knew well the risk that Erinel would be taking if he walked among the Calvans, for both of them had done the same thing many, many years before. But that was when the heirs of Ben-rin sat on the southern throne, and the Calvans, though not openly acknowledging the existence of the elves, tolerated them with winks of promised secrecy and spoke of them only in exaggerated tavern tales. With wicked Ungden in power and all of Calva on alert for the mutants hiding in the mountains, Erinel’s journey would indeed be much more dangerous.

Ryell sighed helplessly. “We have no choice.”

Arien put a comforting hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Be ever cautious,” he said to Erinel. “Remember that the shadows of the night have always been a friend to your people. I expect and await your safe return.”

Erinel nodded his assurance and left the terrace with Sylvia.

“I wish to post a watch at the trees above Mountaingate,” Ryell said, and Arien agreed.

In his tower home of Brisen-ballas, high above Illuma Vale, Ardaz sat staring out the highest window of his tower.

“You watch over this place while I’m away,” he told Desdemona, the cat curled comfortably on his lap. “Not that I really want to go, you know. Who would, after all?” An involuntary shudder ran up his back as he thought of what awaited him; Talas-dun, the fortress wrought of Morgan Thalasi’s black heart. Castel Angfagdt it was called in the enchantish tongue, the castle of utter darkness.

A title Ardaz knew to be well earned.

The wizard rose and shook off his fit of trembling, setting himself with firm resolution to do what he must. “Still, we have to know for certain!” he explained to Des, lifting her seemingly boneless form from his lap, but keeping her in the same curled position as he placed her on the ground beside him. “I’ll be back as soon as I can be back!” He grimaced away a second shudder and, chanting in trancelike monotone and rhythmically dancing through a few twists and turns, robes floating all about him, he became an eagle and flew off.

He soared out of the tower, riding the updrafts of the sun-warmed air rising up the cliff facings, and was soon gliding high along the southern ridge of the Crystals. Ardaz truly enjoyed the effortless freedom of this wind riding, but time was pressing, he knew, so he tilted out away from the cliffs, beyond the reach of the lifting currents, and plummeted into a swoop down toward Blackemara, leveling off just above the swamp and riding the tremendous rush of gathered momentum far out into the desolate land of Brogg.

Unfaltering, the wizard sped on toward the distant shadows of the Kored-dul range and the waiting blackness of Talas-dun, where he hoped to find some answers.

The passing days were agony to the elves and Billy as they awaited Erinel’s return. The wait became even worse for Arien when he found that Ardaz, too, was gone.