Part 47 (1/2)
Some minutes pa.s.sed, and ”Yes, Master,” whispered the Sylph amongst the rocks.
” Twas well done of thee to find the Lady and tell me oft. Well done.”
”Master,” replied Ariel, more strongly.
”Now do thou tell me: in whose company was she? What men had charge of her?”
”One in whom the Well burns strong stood over her, Master. She did not move nor wake, and she was not whole.”
Golias did not have her captive, then. ”Injured?”
”So thought I, Master; meseemed there was a gap in her, like the gaps in those dead in battle.”
”And unconscious. She breathed, but did not wake.”
”Yes, Master.”
Prospero considered. He might use Ariel to locate Freia, but he had set the Sylph a weather-task and it could not be much longer delayed. He couid find her himself with a little trouble and some sorcery, if she were simply held without Golias's sweet friend meddling Neyphile involved. ”Good Ariel, do thou whisk along now to thy work, and take with thee my thanks for good tidings. Dost serve me well.”
”Yes, Master!” The Sylph whistled with the words, cheery again, and bustled away, stirring dust-devils.
Sorcerer and a (jentkman 391.
”By my Road-weary soul. Hurricane,” said Prospero after a moment, ”it shall not be as simple as Home again, home again, after all.” Why could not Ariel have told him this news at Chasoulis? Now he must backtrack tediously into Landuc, and if Freia were hurt-though she would have had time to mend-he must travel away again more slowly than he wished. 'Twas all a mortal waste of time.
Hurricane snorted into his oats.
Prospero took out his loose-rolled Map and Ephemeris and began calculating the shortest path back to the neighborhood of Chasoulis in Landuc.
Dewar threw his hands up and cried, ”I concede!”
A fresh spray of the Third Force, fine but there, rippled through Pheyarcet, and what he had taken for a rogue single-point reading had become a fixed feature among all the scattered transient lines.
The sorcerer paced up and down next to his table, glaring at the clocks hard enough to stop them, then whirled on the table and, furious, measured again.
The point; the new Hne.
”All right, all right, all right,” he muttered, shaking with anger. ”I'm not that stupid. I am going to travel to Landuc and I am going to nail this down. No b.l.o.o.d.y wars, no s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around, no distractions. I am going to locate it and put my hands on it and study it until 1 know what it is and why it's doing this. And then I shail know what cursed kind of system this is, anyway, that bounces around and never settles. By Fire and Stone, by the very Spheres, 1 shall.”
He swept the papers into a pi!e, swept the pile into a folio, and knotted it shut with an air of determined finality.
After breakfast the next morning, he packed a leather bag with things he had found useful on previous investigative journeys. He brought mineral samples in a flat compart-mented wooden case, feathers rolled up in silk and tied with a wisp of the same, a.s.sorted dice of different sizes and probabilities, five bells in the tones of the pentatonic scale, a compa.s.s whose bezel was blank, a package of dried apricots, four pencils, a set of sorcerous lenses and gold lens- 392.
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In another bag he put a clean s.h.i.+rt, two pair of clean socks, a dark hat and a m.u.f.fler, and a pair of plain gloves. On top of these he put his Map and Ephemeris. He could have made s.h.i.+ft with a cloak and a sword, but the other things had often come in handy in the past and it was less trouble to carry them than to want them.
And then, taking up his staff, he opened a Way to a certain spot in Landuc which he had chosen for its simultaneous, fortuitous, isolation and convenience, and he set off on the trail of the Third Force once again.
”Where is my daughter,” Prince Prospero said, in a dry, distant voice, to Ottaviano, Baron of Ascolet.
Otto kept his eyes straight ahead. He spoke moving his mouth and jaw as t.i.ttle as possible. Prospero had his very sharp sword resting against Otto's throat, and he had p.r.i.c.ked two neat ruby-beaded lines from side to side, guides for cutting. The blade of the sword was blotched as though blackened by fire: stained, Otto knew, by the late King's blood.
Sorcerer and a QmtUman 393.
The stillness of the nightstruck forest around them was so deep Otto could hear his pulse echo from the trees around. He thought the cold rough-barked trunk at his back must be throbbing to his heartbeat.
”Gaston has her,” he whispered.
”Gaston. Where?” Prospero let his voice reveal none of his emotion. Ariel had seen her indeed. She lived: Golias had lied. She lived: he dared not leave her in their hands.
”Couldn't guess. Landuc best. Probably still has Ney-phile's spells on her.”
”Thou think'st Gaston hath her in Landuc.”
”Yes,” sighed Otto almost noiselessly.
The sword moved fractionally to Prosperous left. The chill of the tip returned to Otto's windpipe.
”Thou hadst her prisoner,” Prospero said, guessing.
”Hostage,” whispered Otto. ”To bargain.”
”For the Emperor,” spat the Prince of Air.
”Against the Emperor.”
”Thou didst seek to use her to thy advantage with Avril, who'd then use her 'gainst me.”
”For Ascolet.”
”Ascolet?”
”Barony now. Want it a Kingdom. As it was.1”
A boy's own fancy! ”Fool. Wouidst hold it an hour. Till Gaston or Herne lopped thy lofty head.”
”Not with Lys.”
”Lys?”
”My wife.”
”How sweet. A love-match, I'm sure. So thou, Neyphile's former apprentice, journeyman troublemaker, claimest Ascolet.”
”Sebastiano was my father.”
The Prince laughed unpleasantly. ”Cecilie was thy mother, at least,” Prospero said. ”No man can be sure of more than that. Didst prison my daughter and tell Avril she would be his as ransom for the Kingdom of Untrammelled Ascolet.”
”Yes.”