Luthien's Gamble

25 Ghosts

The highlander, Malamus, spoke not a word on the two days of riding it took the companions to get into Glen Durritch, the wide and shallow vale just southeast of Princetown. Here, there were no more trees for cover and only a single road, a brown snake winding through the thick green turf.

Luthien, playing the role of general again, studied the land, imagined a battle that could be fought and won here. The ground sloped up to the left and to the right, into rolling, tree-covered hills. Perfect cover and high ground. Elven archers could hit this road from those trees, he realized, and down here, there was no cover, no place to hide from the stinging, deadly bolts.

So intent was the young Bedwyr that he was caught fully by surprise when Oliver’s rapier tapped him on the shoulder. Luthien pulled up on Riverdancer’s reins and looked back to see the halfling dismounting.

“The western end of Glen Durritch,” Malamus explained. Oliver motioned with his chin to the west and Luthien squinted against the low-riding sun. Mountains loomed dark and cold, not so far away, and before them . . .

What? Luthien wondered. A sparkle of white and pink.

Oliver walked by him. “Five miles,” the halfling said. “And I do not like to walk in the dark!”

Luthien slipped down from Riverdancer and gave the reins over to Malamus. The highlander matched Luthien’s gaze for a long moment. “The blessing of Sol-Yunda go with you, Crimson Shadow,” he said suddenly and turned about, pulling hard with his massive, muscled arm to swing all three riderless mounts with him. “I await your return.”

Luthien just grunted, having no reply in light of his surprise. Sol-Yunda was the god of the highlanders, a private god whom they said watched over their kin and held no regard for anyone else, friend or foe. The highlanders hoarded Sol-Yunda as a dragon hoarded gold, and for Malamus to make that statement, to utter those seven simple words, was perhaps the most heartening thing Luthien Bedwyr had ever heard.

He stood and watched Malamus for a few moments, then turned and sprinted to catch up with Oliver as the halfling plodded along, toward the spec of white and pink below the line of dark mountains.

Less than an hour later, the sun low in the sky but still visible above the Iron Cross, the friends came close enough to witness the true splendor of Princetown and to understand why the place had earned the nickname as the Jewel of Avon.

It was about the same size as Caer MacDonald, but where Caer MacDonald had been built for defense, nestled in between towering walls of dark stone, Princetown had been built as a showcase. It sat on a gently rolling plain, just beyond the foothills, and was widespread and airy, not huddled like Caer MacDonald. A low wall, no more than eight feet high, of light-colored granite encompassed the whole of the place, with no discernable gatehouses or towers of any kind. Most of the houses within were quite large; those of wood had been white-washed, and the greater houses, those of the noblemen and the merchants, were of white marble tinged with soft lines of pink.

The largest and dominant structure was not the cathedral, as in most of the great cities of Avonsea. That building was impressive, probably as much as Caer MacDonald’s Ministry, but even it paled beside the fabulous palace. It sat in the west of Princetown, on the highest ground closest to the mountains, four stories of shining marble and gold leaf, with decorated columns presented all along its front and with great wings northeast and southeast, like huge arms reaching out to embrace the city. A golden dome, shining so brightly that it stung Luthien’s eyes to look upon it, stood in the center of the structure.

“This duke, he will be in there?” Oliver asked and Luthien didn’t have to follow the halfling’s gaze to know which building Oliver was talking about. “We should have kept our horses,” the halfling remarked, “just to get from one end to the other.”

Luthien snickered, but wasn’t sure if Oliver was kidding or not. The young Bedwyr couldn’t begin to guess how many rooms might be in that palace. A hundred? Three hundred? If he kicked Riverdancer into a full gallop, it should take him half an hour to circle the place but once!

Neither companion spoke, but they were both thinking the same thing: how so oppressive a kingdom could harbor such a place of beauty. This was grandeur and perfection; this was a place of soaring spirits and lifting hearts. Was there more to the Kingdom of Avon than Luthien, who had never been to the south before, understood? Somehow, the young Bedwyr simply could not associate this spectacle of Princetown with what he knew of the evil Greensparrow; this fabulous city spread wide before him seemed to mock his rebellion and, even more so, his anger. He knew that Princetown was older than Greensparrow’s reign, of course, but still the city just didn’t seem to fit the mental image Luthien had conjured of Avon.

“My people, they built this place,” Oliver announced, drawing Luthien from his trance. He looked to the halfling, who was nodding as though he, too, was trying to figure out the origins of Princetown.

“There is a Gascon influence here,” Oliver explained. “From the south and west of Gascony, where the wine is sweetest. There, too, are buildings such as this.”

But not so grand, Luthien silently added. Perhaps the Gascons had built, or expanded, Princetown during their occupation of Avon, but even if Oliver spoke truthfully, and the architecture was similar to those structures in southwestern Gascony, Luthien could tell from Oliver’s blank stare that Princetown was far grander.

Shaken by the unexpected splendor, but remembering Katerin in the clutch of the demon and focusing on that awful image, Luthien motioned to the north and started off at a swift pace; Oliver followed, the halfling’s gaze lingering on the spectacle of Princetown. From somewhere within the city, near to the palace, it seemed, came a low and long roar, a bellow of pure and savage power. A lion’s roar.

“You like cats?” Oliver asked, thinking of the zoo and wishing that he could have visited Princetown on another, more inviting, occasion.

The sky was dark and dotted with swift black clouds by the time the companions had circled Princetown, moving along the granite wall back to the south, toward the palace. They came around one sharp bend in the wall, and Luthien stopped, perplexed. Looking to the west, he discovered Princetown’s dirty secret.

From the east, the place had looked so clean and inviting, truly a jewel, but here, in the west, the companions learned the truth. The ground sloped down behind the palace and the eight-foot wall that lined the city proper encircled into a bowl-shaped valley filled with ramshackle huts. Luthien and Oliver couldn’t see much in the darkness, for there were not many fires burning down below, but they could hear the moans of the poor, the cries of the wretches who called a muddy lane their home.

Luthien found the sights and sounds heartening in a strange way, a confirmation that his conclusions of Greensparrow and the unlawful and ultimately evil kingdom were indeed correct. He sympathized with the folk who lived in that hidden bowl west of the city’s splendor, but their existence gave him heart for the fight.

Oliver tugged on his cloak, stopping him.

“Close enough,” the halfling whispered, pointing up to the side of the palace, looming dark and tall not so far away.

“Here now!” came a bellow from the wall, a guttural, cyclopian voice, and both friends dropped into a crouch, Luthien pulling the hood of his cape over his head and Oliver scampering under the folds of the magical crimson garment.

On the wall, several lanterns came up, hooded on three sides to focus the beam of light through the fourth. Luthien held his breath, reminding himself repeatedly that the cape would hide him as the beams crossed the field before him and over him.

“Get back to your holes!” the cyclopian roared and from the wall, several crossbows fired.

“I would like it better if the one-eyes could see us,” Oliver remarked.

The barrage continued for several volleys and was then ended by a shared burst of grunting laughter from the wall. “Beggars!” one cyclopian snorted derisively, followed by more laughter.

Oliver came out from under the crimson garment and straightened his great, wide-brimmed hat and his own purple cape. He pointed to the south, toward the towering palace wall, and the pair moved on a few dozen yards.

Oliver went right up to the wall, listening intently, then nodding and smiling at the sound of snoring from above. He pushed his cape back from his shoulder and reached into the shoulder pouch of his “housebreaker,” a harness of leather strapping that Brind’Amour had given him. Oliver wore the contraption all the time, though it was hardily noticeable against his puffy sleeves and layered, brightly colored clothing. It seemed to be no more than a simple, unremarkable harness, but like Brind’Amour himself, the looks were truly deceiving. This harness was enchanted, like many of the items it contained: tools of the burglary trade. From that seemingly tiny shoulder pouch, Oliver produced his enchanted grapnel, the puckered ball and fine cord. But before he could unwind and ready the thing, Luthien came over and scooped him up.

Oliver understood; the wall was only eight feet high, and Luthien could hoist him right to its lip. Quickly, the halfling looped the grapnel openly on his belt, within easy reach, and then he grabbed the lip of the wall, peering over.

A parapet ran the length of the wall on the other side, four feet down from the lip. Oliver looked back to Luthien, a wicked grin on his face. He put a finger over pursed lips, then held it up, indicating that Luthien should wait a moment. Then the halfling slipped over the wall, silent as a cat—a little cat, not the kind they had heard roaring earlier.

A moment later, while Luthien grew agitated and wanted to leap up and scramble over, Oliver came back to the wall and held out his hand to his friend. Luthien jumped and caught the lip of the wall with one hand, Oliver’s hand with the other. He came over low, slithering like a snake, rolling silently to the parapet.

Luthien’s eyes nearly fell from their sockets, for he and Oliver were right between two seated cyclopians! The startlement lasted only a moment, stolen by the simple logic that Oliver had been up here and knew the scene. On closer examination, Luthien realized that neither of these brutes was snoring any longer. Luthien looked to Oliver as the halfling wiped the blood from his slender rapier blade on the furred tunic of one dead brute.

Barely thirty feet away, the other group, the ones who had fired at the companions, continued a game of dice, oblivious to the invasion.

Oliver slipped under Luthien’s cape and the two started off slowly, away from the dicing band, toward the looming wall of Princetown’s palace.

They had to slip down from the wall and cross a small courtyard to get to the building, but it was lined with manicured hedgerows, and with Luthien’s cape helping them, they had little trouble reaching the palace. Oliver looked up at the line of windows, four high. Light came from the first and second, but the third was much dimmer and the fourth was completely dark.

The halfling held up three fingers, and with a final glance around to make sure that no cyclopians were nearby, he twirled his grapnel and let fly, attaching it to the marble wall beside the third-story window.

The marble was as smooth as glass, but the puckered ball held fast, and after testing it, Oliver scampered up. Luthien watched from below as the halfling again went to his harness, producing a suction cup with a wide arm attached. Oliver listened at the window for a moment, then popped the cup onto it and slowly but firmly moved the compass arm in a circle, against the glass.

Oliver came back down a moment later, bearing the cut glass. “The room is emp—” he began, but he stopped and froze, hearing the approach of armored guards.

Luthien stepped up and swooped his cape over Oliver, then fell back against the wall, the halfling in tow.

Half a dozen cyclopians, wearing the black-and-silver uniforms of Praetorian Guards, came around the corner in tight formation, the one farthest from the wall carrying a blazing torch. Luthien ducked low under his hood, bending his head forward so that the cowl would completely block his face. He held his confidence in the enchanted cape, but could only hope now that the brutes wouldn’t notice the fine cord hanging down the side of the palace wall, and hope, too, that the cydopians didn’t accidentally walk right into him!

They passed less than four feet away, right by Oliver and Luthien as though the two weren’t even there. Indeed, to the cyclopians, they were not, purely invisible under the folds of the crimson cape.

As soon as the brutes were out of sight, Luthien moved out of hiding and Oliver jumped to the cord, climbing quickly, hand over hand. Luthien braced the rope for a moment, allowing Oliver to get up to the second story, then the young Bedwyr also took a tight hold and began to climb, wanting to be off the ground as quickly as possible.

It seemed like many minutes drifted by, but in truth, the two friends were inside the palace in the space of a few heartbeats. Oliver reached out through the hole in the window and gave three sharp tugs on the cord, freeing the puckered ball and pulling it in behind him. Gone without a trace—except for the circle of cut glass lying on the grass and the image of a shadow, a crimson shadow, indelibly stained upon the white wall of the palace.

Luthien settled himself and waited for his eyes to adjust to the shift in the level of darkness. They were in the palace, but where to go? How many scores of rooms could they possibly search?

“He will be near the middle,” reasoned Oliver, who knew his way around nobility fairly well. “In the rooms to one or the other side of the dome. That dome signals the chapel; the duke will not be far from it.”

“I thought the cathedral was the chapel,” Luthien said.

“Duke-types and prince-types are lazy,” Oliver replied. “They keep a chapel in their palace home.”

Luthien nodded, accepting the reasoning.

“But the dungeons will be below,” Oliver went on. He saw the horrified look crossing his friend’s face and quickly added, “I do not think this Duke Paragor would put so valuable a prisoner as Katerin in the dungeons. She is with him, I think, or near to him.”

Luthien did not reply, just tried hard to keep his breathing steady. Oliver took that as acceptance of his reasoning.

“To the duke, then,” Oliver said, and started off, but Luthien put a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

“Greensparrow’s dukes follow no law of God,” the young Bedwyr reminded him, suddenly wondering if the halfling’s reasoning was sound. “They care not for any chapel.”

“Ah, but the palace was built before Greensparrow,” the halfling replied without the slightest hesitation. “And the old princes, they did care. And so the finest rooms are near to the dome. Now, do you wish to sit here in the dark and discuss the design of the palace, or do you wish to be off, that we might see the truth of the place?”

Luthien was out of answers and out of questions, so he shrugged and followed Oliver to the room’s closed door, distinguishable only because they saw the light from the corridor coming through the keyhole.

That hole was about eye-level with the halfling, and he paused and peeked through, then boldly opened the door.

In the light, Luthien came to see that Princetown’s palace was as fabulous on the inside as on the outside. Huge tapestries, intricately woven and some with golden thread interlaced with their designs, covered the walls, and carved wooden pedestals lined the length of the corridor, each bearing artwork: busts of previous kings or heroes, or simple sculptures, or even gems and jewels encased in glass.

More than once, Luthien had to pull Oliver along forcibly, the halfling mesmerized by the sight of such treasures within easy grasp.

There was only one treasure that Luthien Bedwyr wanted to take from this palace.

Gradually, the companions neared the center of the palace. The hallways became more ornate, more decorated, the treasures greater and more closely packed together, giving credence to Oliver’s reasoning concerning the likely location of the duke. But so, too, did the light grow, with crystal chandeliers, a hundred candles burning in each, hanging from the ceiling every twenty paces along the corridor. Many doors were thrown wide, and all the side rooms lit; though it was very late by then, near to midnight, the palace was far from asleep. A commotion caught the pair, particularly Luthien, off guard; the young Bedwyr even considered turning around and hiding until later. But Oliver would hear none of that. They were inside now, and any delay could be dangerous for them and for Katerin.

“Besides,” Oliver added quietly, “we do not even know if the party will end. In Gascony, the lords and ladies are known to stay up all the night, every night.”

Luthien didn’t argue, just followed his diminutive companion into the party. Merchants and their prettily dressed ladies danced in the side rooms, often sweeping out into the hall to twirl through the next open door, joining yet another of the many parties. Even worse for Luthien and Oliver, Praetorian Guards seemed to be around every corner.

The halfling thought that they should walk openly, then, and pretend to be a part of it all; Luthien, realizing that even the magical crimson cape could not fully shield them from this growing mob, reluctantly agreed. He was well dressed, after all, especially with the fabulous cape shimmering over his shoulders, and Oliver always seemed to fit in. And so they half walked, half danced their way along the corridors. Oliver scooped two goblets of wine from the first cyclopian servant they passed who was bearing a full tray.

The atmosphere was more intoxicating than the wine, with music and excited chatter, promises of love from lecherous merchants to the many fawning ladies. Oliver seemed right at home, and that bothered Luthien, who preferred the open road. Still, as he became confident that their disguise, or lack of one, was acceptable in this company, particularly with Oliver’s foppish clothing and his own magnificent cape, Luthien grew more at ease, even managed a smile as he caught in his arms one young lady who stumbled drunkenly out of a room.

Luthien’s smile quickly disintegrated; the painted and perfumed woman reminded him much of Lady Elenia, one of Viscount Aubrey’s entourage who had come to Dun Varna, his home on faraway Isle Bedwydrin. Those two ladies who had accompanied Aubrey, Elenia and Avonese, had started it all; their bickering had precipitated the death of Garth Rogar, Luthien’s boyhood friend.

Luthien stood the woman up and firmly straightened her, though she immediately slumped once more.

“Ooh, so strong,” she slurred. She ran her fingers down one of Luthien’s muscled arms, her eyes filled with lust.

“Strong and available,” Oliver promised, figuring out the potential trouble here. He stepped in between the two. “But first, my strong friend and I must speak with the duke.” The halfling looked around helplessly. “But we cannot find the man!”

The woman seemed not to notice Oliver as he rambled along. She reached right over his head to again stroke Luthien’s arm, not fathoming the dangerous glare the young Bedwyr was now giving her.

“Yes, yes,” Oliver said, pulling her arm away, pulling it hard to bend her over so that she had to look at him. “You might rub all of his strong body, but only after we have met with the duke. Do you know where he is?”

“Oh, Parry went away a long time ago,” she said, drawing frowns from the companions. A million questions raced through Luthien’s mind. Where might Paragor have gone? And where, then, was Katerin?

“To his bedchamber,” the lady added, and Luthien nearly sighed aloud with relief. Paragor was indeed in the palace!

The lady bent low to whisper, “They say he has a lady there.”

Oliver considered her jealous tones and, understanding the protective, even incestuous, ways of a noble’s court, the halfling was not surprised by what was forthcoming.

“A foreigner,” the lady added with utter contempt.

“We must find him then, before . . . before . . .” The halfling searched for a delicate way to phrase things. “Before,” he said simply, with finality, adding a wink to show what he meant.

“Somewhere that way,” the lady replied, waggling a finger along the corridor, in the same direction the companions had already been traveling.

Oliver smiled and tipped his hat, then turned the woman about and shoved her back into the room from whence she came.

“These people disgust me,” Luthien remarked as the pair started off once more.

“Of course,” Oliver outwardly agreed, but the halfling remembered a time not so long ago when he, too, had played these noble party games, usually lending a sympathetic shoulder for those ladies who had not snared the richest or the most powerful or the most dashing (though Oliver always considered himself the most dashing). Of course they were disgusting, as Luthien had said, their passions misplaced and shallow. Few of the nobles of Gascony, and of Avon, too, from what the halfling was now seeing, did anything more substantial than organize their drunken parties, with the richest foods and dozens of young painted ladies. These frequent occasions were orgies of lust and greed and gluttony.

But, in Oliver’s thinking, that could be fun.

The pair grew more cautious as they continued toward the center of the palace, for they found fewer partygoers and more cyclopians, particularly Praetorian Guards. The music dimmed, as did the lighting, and finally, Luthien decided that they should drop the façade and hide under the protection of the magic cape.

“But how are we to find information to lead us to the man?” Oliver protested.

It was a good point, for they still had no idea of which room might be Duke Paragor’s, and no idea if this “foreigner” the lady had spoken of was even Katerin. But Luthien did not change his mind. “Too many cyclopians,” he said. “And we are increasingly out of place, even if we were invited guests to the palace.”

Oliver shrugged and hid under the cape; Luthien moved to the side of the corridor, inching from shadow to shadow. A short while later, they came to a stairwell, winding both up and down. Now they had a true dilemma, for they had no idea of which way to go. The fourth floor, or the second? Or should they remain on this level, for the corridor continued across the way?

The companions needed a measure of luck then, and they found it, for a pair of servants, human women and not cyclopian, came bustling up the stairs, grumbling about the duke. They wore plain white garb—Oliver recognized them as cooks, or as maids.

“E’s got ’imself a pretty one this night,” said an old woman, a single tooth remaining in her mouth, and that bent and yellow, sticking out over her bottom lip at a weird angle. “All that red hair! What a firebrand, she be!”

“The old wretch!” the other, not much younger and not much more attractive, declared. “She’s just a girl, she is, and not ’alf ’is age!”

“Shhh!” the one-tooth hissed. “Yer shouldn’t be spaking so o’ the duke!”

“Bah!” snorted the other. “Yer knows what he’s doin’. He sends us away fer a reason, don’t yer doubt!”

“Glad I am then, that we is done fer the night!” said one-tooth. “Up to bed wit me!”

“And down to bed with the duke an’ the girl!” the other shrieked, and the two burst out in a fit of cackling laughter. They walked right beside the companions, never noticing them.

It took all the control Luthien could muster for him to wait until the pair had passed before running down the stairs. Even then, Oliver tried to hold him back, but Luthien was gone, taking three steps at a time.

Oliver sighed and moved to follow, but paused long enough to see that the cape had left another of its “crimson shadows” on the wall beside the stairwell.

Their options were fewer when they came down to the next level. Three doors faced the stairwell, each about a dozen feet away. The two to the sides were unremarkable—Luthien could guess that they opened into corridors. He went to the third, curbed his urge to charge right through, and tried to gently turn the handle instead.

It was locked.

Luthien backed up and snarled, meaning to burst right through, but Oliver was beside him, calming him. From yet another pouch of his remarkable housebreaker, the halfling produced a slender, silver pick. A moment later, he looked back from the door at Luthien and smiled mischievously, the lock defeated. Luthien pushed right past him and went through the door, coming into yet another corridor, this one shorter, incredibly decorated in tiled mosaics, and with three doors lining each side.

One of those, the middle door to Luthien’s left, had a pair of burly Praetorian Guards in front of it.

“Hey, you cannot come in here!” one of the brutes growled, approaching as it spoke and moving its hand to the heavy cudgel strapped to its belt.

“My friend here, he needs a place to throw up,” Oliver improvised, jabbing Luthien as he spoke.

Luthien lurched forward, as though staggering and about to vomit, and the horrified cyclopian dodged aside, letting him stumble past. The brute turned back to complain to Oliver, but found a rapier blade suddenly piercing its throat.

The other Praetorian, not seeing the events behind Luthien, moved to slap the apparently drunken man aside. Luthien caught the hand and moved in close, then the guard went up on its toes, its expression incredulous as Blind-Striker sunk into its belly, angled upward, reaching for its lungs and heart.

Oliver shut the door to the stairwell. “We must hope that we are in the right place,” he whispered, but Luthien wasn’t even listening and wasn’t waiting for any lockpicking this time. The young Bedwyr roared down the corridor, cutting to the right, then back sharply to the left, slamming through the door into Duke Paragor’s private bedchamber.

Paragor was inside, sitting with his back to his desk in the right corner of the room, facing the bed, where Katerin sat, ankles and wrists tightly bound, a Praetorian flanking her on either side.

Something else, something bigger and darker, with leathery wings and red fires blazing in its dark eyes, was in the room as well.