The Spirit Stone

COPYRIGHT

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

HarperVoyager

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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2007

Copyright © Katharine Kerr 2007

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020

Cover illustration by Andrew Davis

Katharine Kerr asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780007128730

Ebook Edition © JULY 2014 ISBN: 9780007371167

Version: 2020-03-02

DEDICATION

For all my readers without whom this series would not have existed

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue: The Northlands Summer, 1159

Part I: Dun Deverry and The Westlands Spring, 983

Part II: The Westlands 1159

Keep Reading

Author’s Note

Glossary

Appendices

About the Author

Also by the Author

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE

The Northlands Summer, 1159

In some sense, every magician is a weaver, merely one who works with invisible strands of the hidden light. With it we weave our various forms, just as a weaver produces cloth, and then stitch them into the images we desire, just as a tailor sews cloth into a tunic or robe. If we be journeymen in our craft, forces will come to inhabit our forms, just as a person will come to buy the tunic and place it over his body. But if we have plumbed the secret recesses of our art, if we are masters of our craft, then we can both weave the forms and place our own bodies within them.

The Pseudo-Iamblichos Scroll

Two men of the Mountain Folk sat on a ledge halfway up a cliff and took the sun. Below them, at the foot of a cascade of stone steps, a grassy park land spread out on either side of a river that emerged from the base of the cliff. Just behind them, a stone landing led to a pair of massive steel-bound doors, open at the moment to let the fresh summer air into the rock-cut city of Lin Serr. Kov, son of Kovolla, was attending upon Chief Envoy Garin, son of Garinna, while this important personage nursed a case of bad bruises and a swollen ankle. A few days previously Garin had been talking to a friend as they hurried down these same steps; a careless engrossment in the conversation had sent him tumbling down two full flights.

‘Sunlight’s the best thing for the bruises,’ Kov told him. ‘Or that’s what the healers told me, anyway.’

Garin muttered a brief oath, then continued blinking and scowling at the brilliant summer light. He’s getting old, Kov thought, ready to stay in the deep city forever, like all the old people do. At a mere eighty-four years, Kov was young for one of the Mountain Folk and still drawn by life above ground.

‘Well,’ Kov continued, ‘the sun’s supposed to help strengthen your blood.’

‘Doubtless,’ Garin said. ‘I’m out here, aren’t I?’

Kov let the matter drop. From where they sat, Kov could look across the park land and watch the workmen raising stone blocks into position on the new wall. The city sat in the precise middle of a horseshoe of high cliffs, dug out from the earth and shaped by dwarven labour. Eventually the wall would run from one end of the horseshoe across to the high watchtower at the other, enclosing the park land. Until then, armed guards stood on watch night and day. Everyone in Lin Serr knew that the Horsekin had been raiding farms on the Deverry border. Although no Horsekin had been sighted up on the Roof of the World in forty-some years, the Mountain Folk always prefer safe to sorry.

‘What’s that noise?’ Garin said. ‘Sounds like shouting.’

Kov rose to his feet and listened. ‘It’s the guards.’ He shaded his eyes with his hand and gazed across to the wall. ‘Strangers coming.’

A cluster of guards surrounded the strangers and led them across – four human men, leading riding horses and a packhorse. As they drew near, Kov recognized the sun blazons of Cengarn. One of the humans, a dark-haired fellow, shorter than his escorts, with the squarish build of someone whose clan had mountain blood in its veins, also looked familiar.

‘It’s Lord Blethry, isn’t it? The equerry at Cengarn.’

‘I think you’re right.’ Garin held out his hand. Kov handed him his walking stick. With its help Garin hauled himself to his feet and looked out towards the wall. ‘Yes indeed, that’s Blethry. Those other fellows look like a servant of some sort and then an armed escort.’

Kov rose, too, and watched as dwarven axemen marched the human contingent across the park land. At the foot of the stairs, they paused and allowed Blethry to shout a greeting in Deverrian. ‘Envoy Garin! May I come up?’

‘By all means!’ Garin called back in the same. ‘What brings you here?’

Blethry waited to answer till he’d panted his way up to their perch, some hundred and twenty steps high. He wiped the sweat off his face with one hand and snorted like a winded horse.

‘War, that’s what,’ Blethry said. ‘The Horsekin are building a fortress out in the Westlands. We figure they want a staging ground for a strike at our borders.’

‘And if they take over your lands,’ Garin said, ‘they’ll be heading north, no doubt, for ours.’

‘No doubt. Gwerbret Ridvar’s hoping we can count on your aid to destroy the place. It’s called Zakh Gral.’

‘Our High Council will have the final word about that. Now, as for me personally, I hope his grace Gwerbret Cengarn doesn’t take this as a slight, but I’ll have to send my apprentice here to Cengarn with the news, whatever it may be. I can barely walk.’ Garin used his stick to point at his wrapped and swollen ankle.

‘I’m sure young Ridvar will understand.’ Blethry turned to Kov and bowed. ‘My thanks for accompanying us.’

‘Most welcome,’ Kov glanced at Garin, who was smiling in what appeared to be relief. It’s not the ankle, Kov thought, he just doesn’t want to leave the safety of the dark.

‘Kov,’ Garin said, ‘go down and help his lordship’s men tether their animals and set up their tents and suchlike. Then join us in the envoy’s quarters.’

Lord Blethry had visited Lin Serr several times, but the sheer size of the place always left him awed. The steel doors led into a domed antechamber that could have held Cengarn’s great hall twice over. The shaft of sunlight from the open doorway cut across the polished slate floor and pointed like a spear to a roundel, inlaid with various colours of stone to form a maze some twenty yards across. Beyond it, on the curved far wall, tunnels opened into distant gloom and led down to the deep city, forbidden to strangers.

Some ten feet in, well before they reached the floor maze, Garin turned left, hobbling along with his stick, and led Blethry down a short side tunnel that ended in a tall wooden door, carved in a vertical pattern of chained links. Yet for all its massive appearance, when Garin poked it with his stick it swung open without a sound to reveal a small room, bright with sunlight.

‘Here we are,’ Garin said. ‘You’ve stayed here before, haven’t you?’

‘I have,’ Blethry said. ‘It’s a comfortable place.’

A big window made the small room seem large and airy, thanks to its view of the green park land far below. Tucked against the inner wall stood a bed, and near it a table and a pair of wooden chairs. On the walls hung steel panels, chiselled and graved into hunting scenes. Garin shoved a chair in to the most shadowed corner of the room, then lowered himself into it with a grunt of pain. Since the last time Blethry had seen him, a thick streak of white had appeared in Garin’s close-cropped hair. His short beard had turned entirely grey.

‘I’ll have Kov bring in another chair,’ Garin said. ‘Brel will want to join us once he hears the news.’

Indeed, Brel, the avro, to give him his dwarven title of ‘warleader’, arrived at the same time as Kov and the third chair. He strode in, stood for a moment to glower at Garin, then sat down in a chair near the window and stretched his legs out in front of him.

‘The Council’s called an emergency meeting,’ he said to Blethry. ‘They meet down in the deep city, of course, so you’re to describe the situation to me, and I’ll relay it to them.’

‘Very well,’ Blethry said. ‘In that case, I’d better speak formally.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I come in the name of Ridvar, Gwerbret Cengarn, to call in the aid owed to us in time of war from the Mountain city of Lin Serr. By treaty and solemn oath we are bound together to render assistance to one another for our mutual benefit.’

‘He speaks the truth.’Garin joined this recitation of ancient formulae. ‘We did renew our pact on its prior terms after the hostilities known as the Cengarn War, concluded at the date 1116, as is written in the –’

‘Worms and slimes!’ Brel broke in. ‘I know all that. If the Council can’t remember it, they have gravel where their intellect ought to be.’

‘It’s a question of the proper wording,’ Garin snapped. ‘The Council needs to know that we’ve heard Lord Blethry speak the proper wording, and that I responded in the same way.’

Brel growled and cross his arms over his chest.

‘As is written in the documents pertaining to that war, that time of blood and darkness.’ Blethry took over again. ‘In that most solemn instance we did celebrate a victory over the army of the peoples known to us as Gel da’ Thae or Horsekin, when they made so bold as to besiege our city of Cengarn. In thankfulness for that aid, we did renew our bonds with the Mountain Folk who do inhabit the city of Lin Serr.’

‘I too did witness this,’ Garin said. ‘So be it.’

‘Are you two done now?’ Brel said.

‘We are.’ Blethry grinned at him. ‘You can tell the Council that we brought a sacrifice to the temples of proper manners.’

‘Huh!’ Brel snorted profoundly. ‘Oh, and welcome! It’s good to see you, by the way.’

‘My thanks.’ Blethry smiled again. ‘It’s good to see you too.’

Young boys carrying trays of food marched in and began to lay a meal upon the table: a platter of bats, disjointed and fried, a soft mushroom bread, and stewed purple roots of a sort new to Blethry. Kov shut the door after them, then sat on the floor for want of another chair. Garin poured everyone pewter stoups of a thick brown liquor, which Blethry had encountered before. He drank it in small sips and made sure he stopped well before he finished it. He noticed Kov doing the same.

While they ate, Blethry expanded upon his reason for coming to Lin Serr. Some of the savage Horsekin of the far north had turned themselves civilized – they’d become Gel da’ Thae, as settled Horsekin called themselves – but living in cities hadn’t slaked their thirst for war. They were building a fortress, Zakh Gral, on the edge of the grassy plains that belonged to the Westfolk.

‘How did you find it?’ Kov said. ‘Or was it the Westfolk?’

‘Not us nor them,’ Blethry said. ‘But a gerthddyn name of Salamander. He –’

‘Never mind that now,’ Brel cut in. ‘What matters is that they found it. Details later.’

‘We figure that it’s only the point of a salient,’ Blethry went on. ‘Other fortifications will follow, I’ll wager. Apparently they want to take over the western grasslands. They need pasturage for those heavy horses of theirs. And of course, they claim that their wretched fake goddess wants them to have it.’

‘Alshandra yet again?’ Brel said.

‘The very one. They refuse to believe she’s dead.’

‘How convenient for them,’ Garin muttered. ‘It’s amazing how these gods and goddesses always appear when someone wants someone else’s land.’

‘My thought exactly.’ Blethry nodded Garin’s way.

‘They won’t stop at the Westlands,’ Brel said. ‘But no doubt you realize that, or you wouldn’t be here. What’s this fortress like?’

In as much detail as Blethry could remember, he repeated Salamander’s description of the place.

‘It sits on the edge of a cliff over a river gorge,’ Blethry finished up. ‘Clever scum, the Horsekin.’

‘Wooden walls, did you say?’ Brel shot a significant glance Garin’s way.

‘For now,’ Blethry said. ‘They’re working hard at replacing them with stone.’

‘Huh,’ Brel said. ‘We’ll see how far they get. I take it that your lords have worked out some sort of plan to bring this fortress down.’

‘They have. Gwerbret Ridvar’s calling in all his allies, and what’s more, Voran, one of the princes of the blood royal, is on hand with fifty of his men.’

‘Only fifty?’ Garin said.

‘At the moment. He’s sure his father will send reinforcements. The messages may have reached Dun Deverry by now, for all I know. I left Cengarn weeks ago. As for the Westfolk, Prince Daralanteriel’s keen to join the hunt.’

‘He should be,’ Brel said drily. ‘He stands to lose everything if the Horsekin move east.’

‘True spoken, of course. He’s promised us five hundred archers. Ridvar can muster at least that many riders.’

Brel winced. ‘Is that the biggest army you can put together?’

‘Until we hear from the high king.’

‘And how long will it take to get a full army up here from Dun Deverry?’ Brel went on and answered his own question. ‘Too long. With what you have, you’ll never take the place. You’ll have to lay siege and hope you can hold it.’

‘I know,’ Blethry said. ‘Till those reinforcements arrive from Dun Deverry.’

‘The Horsekin are likely to see a relieving force before you do. All it’ll take is one messenger to slip through your lines when you’re investing the fortress. If they’ve got a town up in the mountains, they doubtless keep a reserve force there. I hate the filthy murderers, but I’d never say they were stupid.’ Brel paused to pick a fragment of fried bat out of his grey-streaked beard. ‘So I wouldn’t plan on a siege. With us along, you won’t have to.’

‘Sir?’ Kov spoke up from his place on the floor. ‘What can we –’

‘Think, lad!’ Brel snapped. ‘This fort’s perched on the edge of a cliff.’

Kov suddenly grinned. ‘Tunnels,’ he said. ‘We’ve got sappers.’

‘They’re our main hope,’ Blethry said. ‘If the High Council allows you to join us.’

Brel snorted profoundly. ‘They will. There’s not a family in Lin Serr that didn’t lose someone in the last Horsekin war.’

‘Kov.’ Garin turned to his apprentice. ‘What do we owe Cengarn by treaty?’

‘Five hundred axemen, sir,’ Kov said, ‘and a hundred and fifty pikemen, along with provisions for all for forty days.’

‘Very good.’ Garin nodded at him, then glanced at Blethry. ‘Do you think the gwerbret will be offended if we replace those pikemen with sappers and miners?’

‘Huh! If he is, and I doubt that with all my heart, then Lord Oth and I will talk some sense into him.’

‘Good,’ Garin smiled briefly. ‘The council meets tomorrow morn. We should know by noon.’

On the morrow, Blethry woke at first light and spent an anxious hour or so pacing back and forth in his quarters. Every now and then he stuck his head out of the window and tried to judge how long he had to wait till noon came around. Well before then he heard a knock on the door. He flung it back to find Garin, stick raised to strike again, with young Kov behind him.

‘Ah, you’re awake!’ Garin said. ‘I thought you might be asleep still.’

‘Not likely, is it?’ Blethry said. ‘Well?’

‘The Council saw reason quickly, for a change,’ Garin said. ‘They’re organizing the muster now, and the army will march at dawn on the morrow. Five hundred axemen and a full contingent of sappers and miners with all their gear and the like. Oh, and provisions for twice forty days.’

‘Splendid!’ Blethry said, grinning. ‘And my thanks. I’ll go down and tell my men the good news.’

Kov slept little the night before the march out of Lin Serr. He packed up his gear, worried about what he might have left out, unpacked the lot, added things, took things away, then packed it all up again. Although he’d visited Cengarn several times, he’d never gone farther west than that city. He’d never seen a war, either. When he finally did fall asleep, he had troubled dreams of shouting and bloodshed.

Just before dawn, Garin woke him when he arrived to give him some final instructions. As well as his walking stick, the elder dwarf carried some long thing wrapped in cloth.

‘You’re not the apprentice any longer,’ Garin said. ‘You’re the envoy now. Remember your dignity, lad. Speak slowly, listen when you’re spoken to, and think before you answer. Follow those simple precepts, and you’ll do well.’

‘I hope so.’ Kov caught his breath with a gulp. ‘I’ll do my best.’

‘I know you will. Now, you’ve got your father’s sword, I see, so here’s something to go with it.’

The long bundle turned out to be a staff, blackened and hard with age, carved with runes. Kov took it with both hands and turned it to study the twelve deep-graved symbols. He could recognize Rock and Gold as Mountain runes, and two others as Deverry letters, but he’d never seen the rest.

‘Do you know what those mean?’ Garin said.

‘Well, no.’

‘Neither does anyone else. They’re very old, but we do know that they once graced the door of Lin Rej.’

‘Lin Rej? The old city?’

‘The very one. It had carved wooden doors. When the Horsekin arrived, back in the Time of Death, they didn’t hold. The besiegers lit a fire in front of them, and when the doors burned through, they finished the job with axes. But one of our loremasters carved these runes here –’ Garin pointed at the staff ‘– on a scrap of wood so they’d be remembered. Over the years, they’ve been carved on other staffs, but this one came to me from my father’s father. It was a hundred years old when he received it as a child.’

‘It must be nearly a thousand now, then.’

‘Yes. There’s a superstitious legend about the runes, too. They’re supposed to contain a dweomer spell.’ Garin rolled his eyes heavenward. ‘Anything that’s no longer understood is supposed to contain a dweomer spell, of course. Don’t take it seriously.’

‘Oh, don’t worry! I won’t. But now I know why Lin Serr has steel on its doors.’

‘We may learn slowly, but in the end, we learn.’ Garin paused for a smile. ‘Now, spell or no spell, I’m letting you borrow that staff because I can’t go to the battle myself. We’ve never had a formal badge for our envoys, but you’re new on the job.’

‘Very new.’ Kov could hear his voice shake and coughed loudly to cover it.

‘Just so.’ Garin smiled at him. ‘So I decided you might need something to mark your standing and keep your spirits up. This staff’s never left the city since the day my father’s father brought it inside. Carry it proudly, and never shame it.’

‘I’m very grateful for the honour. I’ll do my best to live up to it.’

‘That’s all any man can do, eh? Now get on your way. There’s a mule for you to ride, by the by, down at the muster.’

Out in the meadow, five hundred dwarven axemen drew up in marching order, followed by a veritable parade of carts, each drawn by two burly menservants. The sappers and miners were milling around, scrutinizing each cart, repacking some, adding wrapped bundles to others. Kov invited Lord Blethry to come along as he and Brel Avro inspected the muster. Blethry murmured his usual polite remarks until they came to the line of carts. Most carried provisions, ordinary stuff all of it, but those at the head of the line were loaded with mysterious-looking crates, barely visible under greased wraps of coarse cloth that would keep them dry during summer rains. Embroidered runes decorated each cloth. Blethry fell silent, studying the runes, craning his neck to get a better look at the crates.

‘Can your read our runes?’ Kov said with a small smile.

‘I can’t, truly,’ Blethry said. ‘I was just noticing the wheels of your carts here. The design is quite striking.’

Good parry! Kov thought. Aloud, he said, ‘A little innovation of ours.’

Blethry nodded, and indeed, to his eyes the wheels must have possessed a fascination of their own. Instead of the solid slab wheels of Deverry carts, dwarven craftsmen had lightened these with spokes radiating from a metal collar that attached them to the axles. Strakes, that is, strips of metal studded to give them a grip on the road, protected the wooden rims.

‘Much lighter,’ Kov said, ‘but just as strong. Easier to fix, too.’

‘Stronger, I should think. I trust you’ll not be offended if our cartwrights look them over when we reach Cengarn? I shan’t be able to keep them away.’

‘Of course not. I’m sure our men would take it as an honour if they should copy them.’

‘Would you two stop jawing?’ Brel turned on them both impartially. ‘The sun’s up, and it’ll be hot soon. Mount up, both of you! Let’s march!’

Kov and Blethry followed orders. During the long ride down from the mountains, whenever the contingent camped, Blethry found excuses to walk by the dwarven carts that contained the wrapped bundles and crates, but, Kov could be sure, no one would ever give him one word of information about their contents. The design of a set of wheels they were willing to share, but the formula for the mysterious cargo was going to remain a secret forever, if the Mountain Folk had their way.

They reached the border of Gwerbret Ridvar’s rhan when they came to the dun of one of his vassals, a small broch tower inside a high stone wall, perched on a hill wound around by a maze of earthworks. All around it stretched litter from a military camp – firepits, garbage, broken arrows, broken tent pegs, and assorted ditches, hastily filled in. The dwarven contingent drew up to camp some distance away in a cleaner area. Kov remembered this dun as belonging to the clan of the Black Arrow, but men wearing Cengarn’s sun blazon on the yokes of their shirts came trotting over to greet them.