High Deryni Page 11

  “See anything?”

  “Just Derry.” He sprang lightly across the last few feet of rubble to land in a clatter beside his kinsman. “Are you ready to move on?”

  “I want to show you something first,” Duncan said, gesturing with his crop toward the ruins farther back and beginning to lead in that direction. “The last time we were here, you were in no condition to appreciate what I’m about to show you, but I think it will interest you now.”

  “You mean, the ruined Portal you found?”

  “Correct.”

  Walking carefully, Morgan followed Duncan down the broken aisle of the ruined chapel, hand resting easily on the hilt of his sword. Saint Neot’s once had been a flourishing monastic school, renowned in its day as one of the principal seats of Deryni learning, but that had ended with the Restoration. The monastery had been sacked and burned, many of its brothers murdered on the very altar steps they now passed. Now Morgan and Duncan crossed the ruined nave of the school’s crumbling chapel to view the remains of something else lost from that time.

  “There’s the Saint Camber altar you told me about,” Duncan said, gesturing with his crop toward what remained of a marble slab jutting from part of the eastern wall. “I reasoned that a Portal wouldn’t have been placed out in the open, even in Interregnum times, so I looked further. In here.”

  As Duncan pointed, he ducked low to ease his way through a small opening in the crumbling wall, precariously supported by fallen and half-rotted ceiling beams. Mounds of rubble littered the floor on the other side, but as Morgan followed his kinsman through, he could see that this had probably been a sacristy or vestry.

  He dusted his gloved hands together lightly as he straightened in the ruined chamber, noting the cracked marble beneath his boots, the timber beams still supporting much of the ceiling. Against the far wall, he could make out the remains of an ivory vesting altar, its panels blackened by fire, fragments of chests and moldering vestment presses to either side. More substantial rubble made the footing precarious: blocks of stone fallen from the half-tumbled walls, rotting wood, shattered glass. Footprints of small animals tracked over the heavy layer of dust that covered everything.

  “Over here,” Duncan said, motioning him to a spot before the ruined altar and squatting down on his haunches. “Look. You can see the outline of the slab that marked the Portal. Put your hands on it and probe it.”

  “Probe it?” Morgan dropped to his knees beside his cousin and rested a gloved hand on the square, glancing at Duncan in faint question. “What am I supposed to feel? You said it had been destroyed.”

  “Just probe the slab gently,” Duncan urged. “The brethren left a message.”

  Morgan raised an eyebrow skeptically, then let his mind go blank, willing his senses to extend gradually to the slab beneath his hand.

  Beware, Deryni! Here lies danger!

  Startled by the intensity of the contact, Morgan drew back his hand and glanced at Duncan in question, then briskly pulled off his right glove and placed his hand flat on the slab, fingers splayed, again reaching out with his mind.

  Beware, Deryni! Here lies danger! Of a full one hundred brothers only I remain, to try, with my failing strength, to destroy this Portal before it can be desecrated. Kinsman, take heed. Protect yourself, Deryni. The humans kill what they do not understand. Holy Saint Camber, defend us from fearful evil!

  Drawing a deep, steadying breath, Morgan withdrew from the contact and looked across at Duncan. The priest was solemn, his eyes intensely blue in the shadowed chamber, but a ghost of a smile played about his lips as he stood up.

  “I would say that he succeeded,” Duncan said, glancing wistfully around the chamber. “It probably cost him his life, but he destroyed the Transfer Portal. Strange, isn’t it, how we’re sometimes forced to destroy the things we hold most dear? We, as a race, have done that. Look at the knowledge lost, the bright heritage tarnished. We are a shadow of the people we once were.”

  Morgan got to his feet and clasped Duncan’s shoulder in a gesture of reassurance. “Enough of that, Cousin. Our Deryni ancestors brought a large amount of their fate upon themselves, and you know it. Come. We’d better ride on.”

  They squinted against the brightness as they left the ruined chamber and emerged into the nave once more. The sunlight streaming through the empty clerestory windows set the dust motes dancing in its beams, throwing everything into sharp relief of light and sooty shadow. The two men were just approaching the ruined western doorway, where their horses waited beyond, when the air in the doorway suddenly seemed to shimmer, as if from heat.

  “What the—”

  The pair pulled up short, gaping as a figure took shape in the doorway, silhouetted against the brightness: the cowled form of a man in gray monk’s robes, with a wooden staff in his right hand and a nimbus of golden light around his head that outshone even the sunlight. It was the figure that both men had come to associate with Saint Camber of Culdi, the ancient patron of Deryni magic.

  “Dear God in Heaven,” Duncan whispered, crossing himself, as Morgan put out an arm and both of them backed off a step.

  The figure in the doorway did not disappear; on the contrary, it stepped through the opening and took several steps toward them. Morgan retreated yet another step, reluctant to contend with the strange being, whoever he might be, then jerked back with a grunt of dismay as his left shoulder encountered something sleek and unyielding, something that had given off a golden flash when he brushed against it.

  His shoulder seemed to tingle for several seconds, and he rubbed it gingerly as he eyed the stranger. Duncan moved closer to his kinsman, both hands lifted in a vaguely warding-off gesture, and did not take his eyes from the newcomer either. As both watched in awe, the stranger raised his left hand to push back the cowl from his head. The eyes, at once piercing and caressing, were of the same blued-gray as the sky beyond. The face was both ancient and ageless, the nimbus flaring about his silver-bright head like captive sunlight.

  “Do not go against the wards again, or you may be injured,” the man said. “I prefer that you do not leave just yet.”

  The lips moved, but the voice was more inside their heads than actually heard. Morgan glanced uneasily at Duncan to see his cousin staring at the stranger in rapt attention, a look of incredulity on his face. He wondered abruptly if this was the man Duncan had seen on the road to Coroth a few months ago, and knew even as he thought it that it had to be the man. Duncan started to open his mouth to speak, but the man held up a hand for silence and shook his head.

  “Please. I have not much time. I have come to warn you, Duncan, and you, Alaric, that your lives are in grave danger.”

  Morgan could not control a faint snort of derision. “That is hardly a new threat. As Deryni, we were bound to make enemies.”

  “Deryni enemies?”

  Duncan only stared at him numbly, but Morgan’s gray eyes narrowed shrewdly.

  “What Deryni enemies? You, sir?”

  The stranger chuckled with a silver laughter, as though pleased with the reply, and for the first time seemed to relax slightly.

  “I am hardly your enemy, Alaric Morgan. If I were, why would I come to warn you?”

  “You might have your reasons.”

  Duncan nudged his kinsman in the ribs and cocked his head at the stranger. “Then, who are you, sir? Your appearance is that of Saint Camber, but…”

  “Come, now. Camber of Culdi died two centuries ago. How could I be he?”

  “You answer a question with yet another question,” Morgan persisted. “Are you Camber of Culdi?”

  The man shook his head, slightly amused. “No, I am not Camber of Culdi. As I told Duncan on the road to Coroth, I am but one of Camber’s humble servants.”

  Morgan raised a skeptical eyebrow. Despite the disclaimer of sainthood, the stranger’s manner did not suggest that he was anyone’s humble servant. On the contrary, he exuded a decided aura of command, an impression that this was a man far m
ore accustomed to giving orders than to receiving them. No, whoever the man was, he was not a servant.

  “You say that you are one of Camber’s servants,” Morgan finally repeated, unable to keep a slight edge of disbelief out of his voice. “Would it be impertinent to inquire which one? Or do you not have a name?”

  “I have many names,” the man smiled. “But I pray you not to press me on this point. For now, I would rather not lie to you—and the truth could be dangerous to all of us.”

  “Then…you’re Deryni,” Morgan guessed. “You would have to be, to do all of this—to come and go the way you do.” He considered further as the man merely gazed at him in faint amusement. “But no one knows that you’re Deryni,” he continued after a slight pause. “You’ve been in hiding, like Duncan was all these years. And you can’t let anyone know.”

  “If you wish.”

  Perplexed and at a loss, Morgan frowned and glanced at Duncan, suspecting that the man was but toying with him, but the priest shook his head slightly.

  “This danger you speak of,” Duncan said, edging slightly closer for a better look at the man. “These Deryni enemies: Who are they?”

  “I regret that I cannot tell you that.”

  “You can’t tell us?” Morgan began.

  “I cannot tell you because I do not know myself,” the stranger interrupted, holding up a hand for silence. “What I can tell you is this: Those whose business it is to know these things have become convinced that you may possess the full spectrum of Deryni powers, some which even they were not aware still exist.”

  The two could but gape incredulously as the man moved back into the sunlit doorway once more and pulled his cowl back into place.

  “Remember, however, that regardless of your true powers, there are those who would test the theory I have just recounted, and would challenge you to duel arcane to discover your strength.” He turned slightly to regard them one final time. “Think on that, my friends. And take care that they do not find you before you are secure in your powers—whatever those powers may be!”

  With that, the man gave a curt nod and walked briskly to where the horses were grazing. The animals did not seem to notice his approach; and as Morgan and Duncan moved into the doorway to stare after him, he raised a hand as though in benediction, walked behind the horses, and disappeared.

  Stifling an oath, Morgan raced around the animals and searched anxiously for some trace of the stranger, but he could find nothing. Duncan remained in the doorway for several seconds, his blue eyes focused on some distant memory, then joined Morgan and absently began stroking one of the grazing horses.

  “You won’t find him, Alaric,” he said softly. “No more than I could find him after he disappeared on the Coroth road a few months ago.” He glanced at the ground and shook his head. “No footprints, no sign to mark his passing. It’s as though he was never here. Perhaps he wasn’t.”

  Morgan turned to glance sharply at his cousin, then went back to inspect the doorsill, the gritty floor beyond. There might have been footprints besides their own, but if they had ever existed, they had been effectively obliterated when Morgan and Duncan went in pursuit. Nor was there any sign of the man’s passing on the damp, grassy earth.

  “Deryni enemies,” Morgan breathed, returning to stand quietly by Duncan’s side. “Do you realize what that implies?”

  Duncan nodded. “It implies that there are far more Deryni than we ever dreamed; Deryni who know what they are and who know how to use their powers.”

  “And we don’t know who any of them are except Kelson and Wencit of Torenth,” Morgan murmured, running both hands distractedly through his windblown yellow hair. “God’s Blood, Duncan! What have we gotten ourselves into?”

  Just what the two had gotten themselves into was to become more and more apparent as the day wore on.

  SEVERAL hours later, Morgan and Duncan guided their horses into a dense thicket just off the Dhassa road and drew rein to listen. Bearded and mud-bespattered as they were, mounted on common horses of no certain ancestry, they had aroused no suspicion from the travelers they encountered on the well-traveled highway. They had passed farmers and soldiers and merchants with pack trains, and once even a pair of mounted messengers wearing the badge of the Bishop of Dhassa himself.

  But they had not been challenged. And now, as they made their final approach to the valley that led to Dhassa, the road was momentarily deserted. Beyond the ridge ahead lay the valley and Saint Torin’s, and both men sobered as they remembered their last journey to this place.

  Saint Torin was the patron saint of Dhassa. Custom decreed that those approaching the city from the south, as Morgan and Duncan now did, must first stop and pay homage to the city’s protector before being permitted to cross the lake to the city’s gates. In days gone by—up until three months ago, to be precise—there had been a shrine near the lake: a centuries-old structure built entirely of wood native to the area. There, after entering the shrine alone and unarmed and making a token offering, the pious traveler paid his respects and received the pewter cap badge that identified him as a proper pilgrim. With this he might obtain passage on the small ferry skiffs that plied the lake to the city beyond. Only the badge would serve as fare, and the boatmen could not be bribed.

  As a consequence, travelers wishing to enter the city from the south and avoid a two-day ride to the north gate, where the passage was free, gladly paused to pay their respects to Saint Torin. To most, the time saved was well worth a prayer.

  But the price for Morgan and Duncan, three months before, had been far higher; and they had never reached Dhassa at all. There had been a trap awaiting Morgan when he entered the shrine: a treacherous needle tipped with the Deryni mind-muddling drug merasha, so placed that Morgan was virtually certain to snag his hand on it.

  He had done so, and the drug had done its work. When he awoke, powerless and confused, he had found himself prisoner of the rebel Warin de Grey and one of the archbishops’ retainers. Only Duncan’s timely intervention had saved Morgan from a slow and terror-filled death.

  Nor had the rescue been without its price to Duncan. For in the course of the battle which ensued, Duncan had been obliged to reveal his Deryni identity, to use forbidden Deryni magic to make good their escape. In their flight from the death-filled shrine, flames had been kindled by falling torches, turning the ancient wood structure into a raging inferno.

  It was this event, coupled with deeds before the burning, which had brought the winds of anathema howling about the heads of the two who now approached. And it was this set of deeds which they hoped to expiate, could they once reach the relative refuge of the Bishop of Dhassa’s presence, to throw themselves on his mercy.

  The two men sat silently for a long while in the thicket, listening, sniffing the air, then easing themselves quietly from saddles to the ground. They had seen blue smoke rising in the noon heat beyond the ridge ahead: the smoke of many campfires. Now, as they listened and tested the wind with their extended senses, they could hear the sounds of animals tethered beyond the ridge, the murmur of voices in the valley far below, could catch the pungent scent of woodsmoke on the still spring air.

  With a sigh of resignation, Morgan glanced at his kinsman and gave a wry smile, then tethered his horse and began slowly working his way up the slope toward the crest of the ridge, Duncan following. There was ample forest cover as they climbed the ridge, thinning to brush and tall spring grass as they approached the crest. For the last dozen yards, they crawled through the tall grass on hands and knees, gradually sinking to their bellies as they neared the edge.

  Blinking like lizards in the brilliant sunlight, they raised their heads cautiously to peer over the edge. The valley below was lightly forested, but the trees concealed little from the two observing from atop the ridge. As far as the eye could see, to the south and to the eastern valley wall, the valley floor was alive with armed men and their encampment; with tents and pavilions, cook-fires and forges, picket lines of t
ethered horses, pens of animals for provisioning.

  Heraldic banners stirred outside the more ornate of the tents, their colorful devices bright and shimmering in the noonday sun. A few were familiar to the two who watched, but many more could not be identified. Only the occasional banners of violet and gold, the rich pennants of purple surmounting the regular battle standards, identified this encampment as an episcopal army. From the condition of the camp, they had been there for some time; by all indications, they expected to be there a good while longer.

  As Morgan suppressed a sigh of dismay, Duncan nudged his elbow and gestured to the left with his chin. Far in that direction, almost out of their range of vision, Morgan could just make out the former site of Saint Torin’s. A blackened pit yawned where the shrine once had stood: a charred tangle of beams and collapsed walls were all that was left of the once-famous place of pilgrimage.

  But there were soldiers swarming there as well, clearing out the debris and digging in the ruins. Over to the right, more soldiers were cutting new beams and timbers. Apparently the bishops had put at least some of their army to work rebuilding Saint Torin’s while they waited for war.

  Shaking his head grimly, Morgan inched backward until he could safely scramble to a crouch, then began to make his way back down the slope, straightening as he went. Duncan followed. When they had reached the comparative safety of their horses, Morgan sighed and leaned one arm across his saddle, glancing at Duncan.

  “Well, we certainly can’t slip past the entire episcopal army,” he said in a low voice. “Any ideas on what to try next?”

  Duncan toyed with a strap on his horse’s stirrup and frowned. “It’s hard to say. Apparently they aren’t requiring travelers to go through the shrine anymore, because there isn’t any. But I doubt they’re letting just anyone cross the lake to Dhassa, either.”