Mercedes Lackey - Bard's Tale 2 - Fortress of Frost and Fire

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Fortress of Frost and Fire
by Mercedes Lackey and Ru Emerson
copyright 1993
version 2.1 fixed a few mistakes took out original page breaks
Chapter I
For the first time in many days, the west wind died away with sunset. It was fairly warm and very
quiet along the edge of the Whispering Woods. Quiet enough in the stable that the human boy grooming
two travel-worn horses could easily make out individual voices from the Moonstone Inn, some distance
to the west—and upwind—across a neatly tended courtyard. Mostly dry or downright sarcastic elven
voices, but of course, the Moonstone was owned by White Elves. An occasional, coarser human voice
rose above the rest.
Gawaine sighed and freed a hand from his present task to push long, loose carrot-colored curls
back under the edge of the cloth band, then went back to currying the horses. His master would wonder
where he was, why it was taking him so long to finish such a simple task. But I like being in a stable,
Gawaine thought. Even after four years, I feel like I've come home, tending to the horses, breathing
the smell of horses and hay. A loud burst of laughter from the inn made him jump; his gray stepped
back nervously and he automatically rubbed the heavy neck muscles, reassuringly. "It's all right, Thunder;
sorry I startled you," he said softly. "They startled me, though. Somehow you don't expect that kind of
raucous noise from an inn full of White Elves."
Probably that had been some of the humans.
Though Gawaine had had to reevaluate his notions of White Elves when Naitachal brought him into
elven country. "I thought they would be—well, look at them, tall and beautiful, so long-lived! You'd think
they would all have beautiful souls, too; that anyone with so much time would be more spiritual. It's just
like everything else, Thunder," he mumbled gloomily. "Things used to be so simple." Thunder—named
partly for his storm-cloud color, mostly for the heavy way he set his feet down—leaned against him and
lipped his hair. Gawaine chuckled softly, gave him a shove so he could get past him into the open, and
patted his rump on the way by.
Across the aisle, there were at least a dozen elven horses. He smiled and sighed happily. Thunder
was his own horse, and he dearly loved the cobby dapple gray, but those beauties . . . they made him
warm and shivery all over. "Look at those long legs, at that golden tail, and you," he murmured as he
wandered down the aisle. "Oh, you love." The horse in question turned its head to give him a long look
from under thick lashes, then turned back to its feed. Gawaine sighed again and turned back to take care
of his Master's black, Star. What an insipid name for such a nice-looking fellow, he thought. From
another point of view, he'd been named by his Master after one of the heroic steeds from an epic
verse—which was really silly when you got to know the phlegmatic, unexciteable Star.
Star munched while Gawaine rubbed, ignoring both the boy and Thunder, whose jealousy made an
hour like this difficult. Thunder caught hold of Gawaine's tunic and tugged, and when Gawaine turned his
head to free the garment, lipped at his hair again, catching hold of the band and pulling it off his young
master's head. Thick, copper-colored curls fell across his face and Gawaine had to shove them back and
hold them with one hand while he snatched at the cloth band. He finally caught it, slid it over his forehead
and smacked Thunder's neck. "Stop that. Behave yourself." Thunder simply looked at him. Gawaine
scowled as he shoved the last of his hair off his forehead and out of his eyes, and moved around to Star's
other side to finish his grooming.
Another burst of laughter from the inn; someone was telling lamp-wick jokes in there, from the
sound of things: ". . . only one, but the wick has to want to change!" And a cutting retort topping the
laughter, "How dreadfully witty the entertainment is tonight!"
Change. Gawaine stopped rubbing and let his chin rest on Star's back. Four years of change for
him—four years that sometimes felt more like a full lifetime. It was increasingly difficult for him to
remember that boy who had been one of Squire Tombly's horseboys. "Sixteen and looking for all the
world like twelve," he murmured. Star laid back one ear and Thunder turned to look at him curiously.
Not that it was much better now; at twenty, he still found that most of those around him looked at the
carroty hair, the slender build, and those wretched freckles and thought, "Fifteen, at most." It had been
worse, though: he had been short to boot, back then, smaller than anyone else on the squires land save
the genuine children.
Fortunately, he hadn't been the twelve he'd looked, because before his voice broke, he hadn't been
able to sing two notes in tune together. "I would probably have still been stuck in that foul-smelling little
cell where Naitachal found me—if the squire hadn't simply executed me."
Unpleasant thought. For five years—six?—his whole life had revolved around caring for the squire's
horses. Life had been hard, of course, especially for the smallest horseboy, and particularly for one who
looked like he did—the only pale, freckly redhead, half the size of the others, and especially for someone
as serious as he normally had been, even then. It had been even harder once he had shown so much of a
gift for dealing with horses and had come to the personal attention of the squire's horsemaster. Standing
out for size and looks had been one thing; standing out because he was good at what he did had caused
no end of trouble, with first one and then another of the other horseboys finding ways to make life
miserable for him.
All the same, it hadn't been a bad life. He'd been cared for, well fed, and there was a simplicity to
things he looked back at with longing. In that life, a boy performed his tasks and did them well, obeyed
orders, kept to his place and got on with the other boys in the stable—or at least, didn't fight with them
enough to bring himself to the attention of the horsemaster. That was Right; anything else was Wrong.
There weren't any complications, none of these moral dilemmas one tripped over constantly in the Real
World. No shades of gray anywhere.
Gawaine sighed, righted himself, and applied the brush to Star's dusty flanks. Probably that had only
been a boy's view of matters, or what Naitachal called "looking back with one blind eye." Things couldn't
have been quite as simple as all that, however they looked from a distance of four years and a lot of
miles.
They had certainly gotten complicated with a vengeance when the squire's prize stallion had
vanished—and Gawaine, as the horse's groomer and the only one of the stableboys who dared approach
the brute, had been accused of its theft.
"So stupid," he mumbled, and Star shifted to look back at him. "The horse vanished from his stall, it
was so obvious that magic had to be involved—and back then, what had I ever done that someone
could think I had the least bit of magic? Besides, if I'd been able to create Darkness all around the stable,
even at night, and then send the stallion elsewhere, wouldn't everyone been aware I had that kind of
Power?" He looked at Star and shrugged; the horse blinked and went back to his feed. "Anyway, what
was a mere stableboy supposed to do with a horse like Firestorm?" Sell it, and at a very high price,
they'd said. Yes, and how was a mere horseboy supposed to account for such sudden wealth? That had
been most conveniently glossed over—everyone ignoring the fact that Gawaine hadn't disappeared with
the horse, or shown any signs of having a personal supply of coin. The mage the squire hired to examine
the entire stable and all the staff hadn't been able to locate a cache of coin or find any trace in Gawaine's
mind of having cached anything—except the wooden top he had hidden, years before, to keep one of the
older and larger boys from taking it.
Gawaine grinned, remembering the look on that mage's face—and on the squire's—when the
compost heap had been excavated and they had found, not a bag of silver and gold, but a rotting bit of
fashioned oak. At the time, he had found that episode almost more embarrassing than being put on trial
for horse thievery.
There was no doubt the squire had been deeply embarrassed, too: bellowing all those orders, up to
his knees in the hole, waiting for evidence to be pulled from the hot, reeking mess only to find . . . That
moment had ended Gawaine's public trial; Squire Tombly had tromped off, shouting furiously, and his
final order had resulted in his erstwhile horseboy being chucked into a cell.
Magic. "Who would ever have thought?" Gawaine murmured. He hadn't ever given it any thought
himself; so far as he knew, neither had anyone on that entire vast estate. If it hadn't been for someone
saying what so many thought, that the stallion could only have been spirited out of the stable by magic . . .
Gawaine patted Star's neck, ran his fingers through the long mane to comb free several thorny
seed-pods. That had been the real cause of all his troubles: magic. He had only been a minor suspect in
the matter until that mage showed up. Tottery, white-haired, half senile, the mage had gone down the line
of horseboys and come back twice before stopping in front of Gawaine and leveling a trembly,
liver-spotted hand at his nose. And on the strength of his word that there was "something about this
boy"—and no other evidence whatever—the squire had named Gawaine horse thief, and turned him over
to the guard.
Gawaine leaned against the back wall of the stable and stared into space; he could almost see—and
smell—that nasty little dirt-floored chamber, right next to the goat sheds. Almost as if they had known
how very much he loathed the smell of goat and wanted to get in a little subtle torture. Not Squire
Tombly, of course: the squire wasn't a subtle man at any time, and he had no doubt been heating irons
and consulting with his by-the-day rent-a-mage, to see what would hurt the most—even if the first
application of pain got a response to the whereabouts of his stallion. Between the two—the reality and
the possibilities—Gawaine's spirits had been very low indeed.
"If I'd been squawking in a boy's soprano, I'll wager Master Naitachal would have gone right
by—probably at double step," Gawaine added to himself, and grinned. He'd been singing, partly to pass
the time and mostly to keep his spirits up, and the Dark Elf—once Necromancer, now a full Bard—later
claimed he had been stopped in his tracks by the underlying Power he felt in that voice. There wasn't any
doubt Naitachal had been impressed enough by Gawaine's singing, and his potential; as proof of that, he
had immediately gone to the manor house to find out who the singer was, and, when he had gotten that
far, discovering what such a singer had done to deserve such a fate. Learning that much, he had
somehow convinced the squire to keep the hot irons in the firepit and off his horseboy, and had talked
long and hard enough to—well, not convince the man of Gawaine's innocence, but at least to let
Naitachal investigate the matter on his own.
Of course, who would dare argue with a Bard? Naysay him, and Squire Tombly would have been
cringing for the rest of his life as his name was bandied across the kingdom in truly hilarious, eminently
singable, and extremely unflattering song.
Something tugged at his hair, Gawaine started back into the present and looked up to see Thunder,
his long gray head resting on Stars back, gazing mournfully into his face. Gawaine laughed, freed his hair
and gave Thunder a shove. "Stop that, you fool," he said. "You look so silly when you do that. And Star
has carried enough weight today!" Thunder shook his head, spraying grain fragments across Star's back;
Gawaine gave him another shove, this one hard enough the gelding gave him a reproachful look before
pulling back into his own stall.
"Naitachal," Gawaine mumbled, and sighed heavily. Oh, the Bard had gotten him released from that
gruesome, reeking little box of a cell. He'd found the horse and—unfortunately—also found the thief: the
squire's own son. "At least he took me with him when he left—and at least he left quickly." The squire
hadn't been wildly pleased to learn his spoiled son had gone from being merely spoiled to becoming
actively involved with the wrong kind; Gawaine was glad his new Master not only knew all the stories
and songs about the fate of messengers with ill news, he'd had the sense to act on that knowledge—and
to ask as his reward the services of the boy he'd rescued. "I wonder how long I would have lasted, if I
had remained there." Not a very good thing to think about.
He looked up, brought back to the present once more as several men came into the stable, two of
them noticeably weaving. One of these latter was at the stage of too much drink that he'd become
maudlin; his companions were trying to shush him, get their horses together, and get free of the inn and
surrounding country before full dark fell.
"Wretched, snotty elves," one of them whined. "Tell a few jokes, try to get people laughing, and
wha'd they do? They kick us out!" He turned to one of his companions and clutched his tunic. "Did you
ever see such a dull crowd?"
"Well, all right, not recently," the second man allowed. "Come on, Robyun, time we went home."
But Robyun had seen the boy at the far end of the stables; he pulled free of his friend and came down the
aisle. He wasn't so drunk he couldn't see Thunder edging a few steps back into the open, or the shift in
the gelding's withers; he halted two stalls short of Thunder's and asked cheerily, "Hey, boy! Carrots!
How many Mystics does it take to change a lamp-wick?"
"Sir?" Gawaine asked. He couldn't manage any more than that, without adding something truly
abusive. Carrots, indeed!
The man laughed raucously; his friend came up and started to drag him away, and the drunk shouted
out, "Two! One to change the wick, and one to not change the wick!"
"—and three to make loud fools of themselves," came a sardonic remark from the front of the
stable. The men halted so abruptly their joke-telling friend fell flat on his face. Gawaine sent his eyes
sideways to see a long, lean, silver-haired figure propped indolently against the doorframe, arms folded
across his chest. "Are you not gone yet?" he asked pointedly.
"We're just going." One of the standing men spoke quickly and loudly, covering whatever the fallen
one was trying to say. They pulled him to his feet and hurried down to the horses waiting there—still
saddled, poor creatures, Gawaine saw with irritation. Without a backward glance or remark, the three
mounted—the joke-teller had to be pulled up by one arm and the neck of his coarse-woven shirt—and
rode out the back way. As they vanished into the darkness, though, a loud voice slurred out, "Hey! How
many White Elves does it—" The voice was cut off abruptly, and the only further sound was that of
hooves moving quickly into the distance.
As if things weren't complicated enough, just being in elven territory—in the company of a
Dark Elf, Gawaine thought tiredly. He went back into the stall to check that Star had enough to eat and
that the bucket was full and knelt to collect the saddlebags Naitachal had left for him to bring—as usual,
all the heavy stuff, but that was one of the perquisites of being a Master—then staggered back to his feet.
He was watching the bags as he juggled them into better position, paying no attention to anything else, as
he put a shoulder into Star's withers to get past him. A low sound, someone clearing his throat, and the
sound of a pair of long shoes not two steps away.
Gawaine let out an airless squawk and dropped everything. He had forgotten all about the White Elf
who had followed the drunks out to the stable, assuming he'd gone back inside once they'd left.
Apparently not.
"My. Jumpy, aren't we?" the elf asked dryly. He ran a practiced eye over the bardlings
travel-stained shirt and breeches, ending at the scuffed boots, then looked rather pointedly, Gawaine
thought, at the pile of leather bags between them. His stomach tried to fall into those boots. Don't let him
see how badly he did scare you, he thought. He squared his shoulders and drew his eyebrows together.
"You weren't exactly making your presence known, and I was busy," he replied shortly.
"Did you expect me to tromp like a three-legged cow, or a human?" the elf replied. "And are you
going inside with those?"
"Why? Are you trying to say I'm stealing them?"
Impass. The elf bared his teeth in what could have been a smile except that it didn't move beyond his
lips. "Why would I? Or why should I care if one human steals the goods of another human?" He took a
step forward; Gawaine held his ground as the elf looked in both directions, then leaned close to his ear to
murmur, "Or those of a Dark Elf, hmmm?" He tilted his head to one side, waited for some reaction.
Gawaine raised one eyebrow, something he knew many found very irritating, and waited. "A
Necromancer?" the elf added, in case this fool of a human boy didn't understand. "The Necromancer
Naitachal?" he added helpfully.
"You mean, the Bard—my Master?" Gawaine asked with a lips-only smile of his own.
The elf tipped his head to the other side and studied him for a very long moment. He raised one
eyebrow himself then. "You—know what he is, then? And who?"
"If you want to know, if I know his name, I have for the past four years. And if I know the meanings
of those terribly long words," Gawaine replied dryly, "the answer is yes. If you have nothing important to
say, the Bard, my Master Naitachal, who was a Necromancer but no longer is, is waiting for his bags."
For a moment, he wondered if he might not have pushed his luck; the elf narrowed his eyes and
looked genuinely dangerous. Suddenly, he laughed, jumped back and gave the bardling a sweeping bow,
then turned and left the stable. Gawaine blotted a damp forehead with his sleeve, gathered up the bags,
and practically ran for the inn.
"What, does that make three of them now?" he grumbled as he had to slow for a very poorly lit
section of path. "Three White Elves with my best interests at heart and a very low impression of human
ability to tell nonhumans apart."
Even if he hadn't been able to tell White from Dark Elves—he would have to be blind or
babe-witted to not see that—it didn't matter. Because one of the first things Naitachal had done—even
before he had let Gawaine swear the oaths that would bind him as apprentice to Master—was to set the
boy down and explain who and what he was, and what he had been. He didn't really have to tell me,
not then; he could have let it go until I'd learned to trust him for what he was. But that had never
been Naitachal's way; the Dark Elf had always been totally honest with him, and however much his
Master irritated him by shunting aside his questions about matters mystical and the greater truths,
Gawaine had to admire his honesty. After all, most people—most beings—went out of their way to avoid
Necromancers. All Dark Elves, really, since it was said they all practiced that black art.
At least this elf had given up after a few moments of verbal fencing: The one who had accosted him
at the door had been maddeningly persistent. "He used topractice necromancy, do you know what that
is? What it means? Why would he have given it up, entirely? His kind don't, you know." And on and on,
halfway to the stables after a tight-lipped Gawaine. Getting no response, he had finally made a very rude
remark about his young companion's parentage and relative intelligence, and left him.
Oh, well. Gawaine juggled off-balance bags, muttered a curse under his breath as one of them fell,
and bent down to pick it up, dropping the other two in the process. "Could be worse," he reminded
himself. "You could have been inside the whole time, sitting with Naitachal and having to cut your way
through the atmosphere in there to get up to the bar for more ale." There had been plenty of other times
since they'd crossed into elven territory that the elves had gone out of their way to make it clear their
absence would be cause for celebration; here, things had been downright frosty from the first.
Except for the innkeeper, of course; like most innkeepers, he was willing to put up with just about
any clientele, so long as the coin they carried was honest and the guest showed some sign of reasonable
behavior. Coin they had, but then, Naitachal had done very well as far as bringing in coin with his singing,
at the last three towns they had visited. And though Gawaine had a sneaking hunch his Master minded
the cold shoulder he invariably got from his White cousins, he dealt with those at the inn much as he did
anyone else—elven, human, or otherwise—who used the word "dark" like a curse: with dry, cutting
humor at least the equal of any White Elf's.
The path was lit near the inn, the inn and the doorway lit as well, but Gawaine had the bags clasped
high in his arms and couldn't see his feet at all. He tripped up the single step; men and elves at half a
dozen tables close to the open door turned to stare. He righted himself against the doorframe, sent his
eyes briefly skyward, and walked into the close, dark room.
He had to cross the entire common room; Naitachal, as usual, had taken a table in the farthest and
darkest corner of the whole place. And between the sooty black of his garb and the near-ebony of the
Bard's visible skin, there wasn't much to see of him but startlingly intense blue eyes. Gawaine got a grip
on the bags, and walked over to join him, trying to show the same cool exterior his master did. Not easy,
with so many elves casting sidelong, narrowed looks into the corner, watching this most recent arrival
with the same suspicious glances.
"Master?"
"Hmmm? Ah. Good, you brought them. Keep them by your chair, will you? There's a good boy."
Naitachal waved him to one of the empty chairs. Gawaine felt around cautiously with his foot for the bag
that held his harp and the other that contained their shared lute, then set the saddlebags on the floor,
pulled the chair around so his back was to the door—and all those speculative and unpleasant
looks—and dropped down with a sigh. He had been on his feet longer than he'd thought; the backs of his
knees and the soles of his feet ached.
After that one rather abstracted remark, Naitachal went back to his companion. Gawaine scooted
his chair forward and planted his elbows on the edge of the table so he could listen to the low
conversation. The third at the table paused, eyeing Gawaine sidelong, then staring openly at the bright red
hair. Gawaine scowled, the man blinked as though suddenly aware he'd been caught staring—and
probably about to make some remark about fires, or carrots, or something else equally infuriating—and
turned hastily away.
The Bard stretched, looked up as the innkeeper appeared between him and the human with a
pitcher and an extra cup for the new arrival. "Gawaine, this is Herrick, a trader from the north. Herrick,
my apprentice, the bardling Gawaine. Herrick has been telling me about the lands he's passed through
recently, and he has the most interesting story about—well, if you don't mind telling it once more, master
trader?"
Herrick shrugged, drew his cup close and poured, sucked the foam off the rim before it could run
over the edge, then drank down half the contents. Gawaine watched him and fought a sigh; he suddenly
felt tired all over. I know full well what this means. I know that look. Master Naitachal has found
another detour on the road to the Druids. Another wretched Adventure, when all I really want is
Truth. And after all he had promised, after these last three side trips—! It's not fair. He's been
around for so long, he's seen and done so much, but when I ask for answers, he can't or won't help
me, and he—well, he doesn't laugh, but he might as well. And then, when I ask to go somewhere
where I might learn what I want to know, he does this. Again!
Well, there wasn't any use fighting it; only one of them was Master, and it certainly wasn't Gawaine.
He filled his cup, leaned back in his chair, and tried to make himself look interested in the man's story.
Chapter II
If Gawaine had to force himself to look attentive at first, he became genuinely interested as time
passed: Herrick had been plenty of places and had an ear for a good story; better, he could tell one
himself. One couldn't readily separate truth from tall tale, but Gawaine didn't mind that: As a bardling, he
knew quite a few tall tales of his own—most of his being set to a tune, of course—and he liked a good
one. The one Herrick had just finished, about the lake full of drowned men who rose to the surface at the
full moon and crept ashore to lure village women—well, that just begged to be set to music; Gawaine's
eyes glazed over as he considered a variation on an old, minor-key tune that might fit the tale's mood.
He came back to the present with a start as Naitachal kicked his shin under the table. Herrick had
moved on to another story and the Master's eyes were bright. Pay attention. Gawaine leaned forward
and nodded once, warily drawing his feet back under the chair in case the Bard decided to make certain
he was with them once more.
"Now, some of these things I've told you were told to me, young master," Herrick said as he turned
from Naitachal to Gawaine. "Though I know well the men who told them, and don't doubt their veracity.
This I am about to tell you I can swear is solemn truth, for I have seen this place with my own eyes, as I
swore to the Bard here." He lifted his cup and tipped his head back to drain it, let Naitachal fill it for him
once again, and slid down in the chair until he looked no taller than a dwarf.
"To the north of here, many days journey above Portsmith and not a little east, there is a broad,
rolling land where the peasants are rosy-cheeked, their sheep and goats fat, the babies plump, and the
grain grows very tall and thick—surprisingly to my mind, for the winters are long and there are many days
to each side of the shortest when the sun barely peers above the southern mountains before it sets again.
Then, the local people say, the snows come and lie deep in the valleys and dells, wind blows it into
sharp-edged peaks, and lakes freeze to a great depth so that a man who would take fish must spend a
long time indeed hacking his way through ice. The men sit around such holes, they say, drinking the clear,
oily and viciously strong liquor they distill from tubers, safe from the wind in tents which they bring onto
the lakes, and they fish and smoke, and tell tall tales. The bears which come down from the northern
mountains are very large, and there are men who swear to me they have seen white bears in particularly
cold years.
"The women spend the cold season spinning and weaving a truly splendid wool, some of which I
carry with me even now, in hopes of trading it to seamen who sail in chill northern waters—for the stuff is
waterproof, thick, and keeps out the worst of winter."
Naitachal stirred; this corner was dark even compared to the rest of the poorly lit common room,
but his eyes gleamed, and Gawaine bit back another sigh. "Yes, but my dear Herrick, all this of winter is
interesting, but surely no one would go there in winter." Herrick laughed, and the elves at the next table
who had been scowling at the three off and on for some time made a great show of getting up and
moving. The Bard turned a hand over and smiled faintly as the laughter died on the traders lips. "Pay no
heed; if we were out of line, the innkeeper would say so. They are simply paying guests, like us." His
voice had risen a little on the last words; one of the elves turned to glare at him and Naitachal gave him a
cheerfully toothy grin.
"Well—what was I saying?" Herrick asked, and supplied his own answer before either of his
companions could. "Oh, yes—winter. No, no one would go there in winter—or try to; he would never
reach his destination, between wild animals, creatures that prefer night to day and don't mind the chill,
and the roads are impassible in any event. Certainly no one would go and stay over the winter, who
wasn't used to such a climate; imagine a hundred days or more with nothing but a little twilight once a
day! I myself would go mad and slay the first man who laughed within reach of my knife!"
"So would I," Gawaine said, with a meaningful look at the Dark Elf across from him. Naitachal
merely grinned once more and waved the trader to continue.
"However, it is a pleasant enough country once the snow melts. But that is not the amazing part of
the tale, young bardling. Not far from that land, to the north, there is a valley where summer never
comes."
Herrick paused dramatically. Gawaine shrugged, adding when it became clear the man was waiting
for some response, "Well, yes, I have learned some of the songs myself, about the land well to the north
where there is ice all year round and not even twilight once a day during winter."
"You mistake me," Herrick said. "This is near to that northern clime, but no more so than that where
the peasants grow their grain and some of the most enormous cabbages I have ever seen. There are
seasons—ordinary seasons—all around the valley, but in the valley itself, there is never a spring, never a
summer. Snow and ice cover the ground there, even when the peasants not a league away have sheared
their sheep and planted their corn."
He paused again. Gawaine looked at him. "Oh." There didn't seem anything else to say. His
Master's eyes were very bright. The trader turned from apprentice to Master and spread his arms wide,
nearly knocking over his cup.
"Well. Anyway, there you have it."
Naitachal caught the cup, set it upright and refilled it. "And you saw this place, this valley, with your
own eyes?"
"Well—" the trader temporized "Well, I spoke with the natives. They don't actually go near it, you
understand; after all, what could cause something like that but a terrible curse or something"—he lowered
his voice dramatically—"something even worse than that?"
Gawaine shifted impatiently, snagged the pitcher, and poured himself what was left of the ale; it
wasn't much and the jug had long since lost its chill. Flat, too, probably, he thought gloomily, and sipped
at it. "Worse," he said finally. "Such as?"
"Now, lad, don't badger the poor man," Naitachal said cheerfully.
"No, sir."
"Its all right, sir," the trader said. He drank down the last of the ale, wiped his lips on his sleeve, and
set the cup down with a loud click. "As for what caused it—well, they wouldn't say, and my experience
with the kinds of nasty critters that like cold is limited. Avoid them, if you see what I mean. But I did find
one young man willing to take me to a place where I could look out over it—not that he'd go up onto that
hill himself, mind!—and though it was a goodly distance, I could see what looked like a tower of some
kind and definitely plenty of white surrounding it."
"White," Gawaine echoed. "Well, but early enough in the year, that could be snow that hadn't melted
yet, couldn't it? Or, maybe salt, or a glacier . . ." His voice trailed away; the trader was shaking his head
gravely.
"It was high summer when I was there, not spring, lad; there wasn't snow anywhere but on the high
peaks. If what I saw was that much salt, the peasants would know about it. According to them, there
was a time that valley was simply another place for their great grandsires to hunt in the summer, and
ice-fish in winter. So, no massive salt bed, no lake—and unless someone has come up with a way to
create a glacier overnight and fill a valley with it for no good reason, not a glacier, either."
Silence for several long moments. The innkeeper came with another pitcher of ale, collected the
empty pitcher and departed. Naitachal stirred finally. "Quite a mystery," he said softly. "And all
within—what would you say?—the last sixty years?"
"Perhaps that. They seem to be a long-lived people."
"I—see." His eyes hooded, the Bard sat in silence for a while, lips moving; his companions watched
him. "And they know this for certain, that summer never comes there?"
"So they tell me." Another long silence. The trader poured for all three, then asked, "Sir, you'll
forgive my curiosity, but—if you are Naitachal, aren't you the Dark Elf who traveled with Count Kevin,
some years back?"
"You know Count Kevin?" the Bard countered.
"Well enough." The trader shrugged modestly. "I go that way once or twice a year and he always
has me to dinner, so I've heard a great deal about how he came to be count, and—if you are indeed
Naitachal—how much of his present situation he owes to you."
Naitachal smiled faintly. "Well—I doubt I was as much good to him as I fear he says; he took fairly
good care of himself, you know, and he was as responsible as anyone for reverting Carlotta to the fairy
form that was properly hers. If it hadn't been for him taking on his full Bardic powers just then, I am quite
certain I would not be here talking to you just now."
"I hadn't heard about that part," the trader said. "At least—bits and pieces from some of those
around him, particularly that amazon warrior Lydia who captains his guard."
"Ah, Lydia. How is she, these days?"
"Impressive," the trader said shortly. He seemed disinclined to talk further about her. He took a
swallow of ale, looked around the inn. "I was going to ask, since you are the Bard Naitachal, if you plan
on performing tonight?"
Oh, wonderful, Gawaine thought. A human bardling and a Dark Elf Bard, performing in this
particular inn. But his Master was already leaning back in his chair to look the room over. Gawaine
shifted to look behind him and along the far wall. Not surprisingly, the place was jammed, but there were
nearly as many humans as elves at the moment, and over near the windows by the door that led to the
road, a few shadows that were neither elven nor—quite—human.
The Bard straightened up, glanced at his apprentice, and gave a small shrug. "Perhaps." He grinned
suddenly, and his eyes gleamed with brief, amused malice. "No one looks quite ready to feed me to the
wolves at the moment, anyway! More likely, I will let my apprentice do the singing for this evening; this
would be a good place for him to perform, and increase his reputation."
"If they don't feed me to the wolves," Gawaine mumbled under his breath, but the Bard kicked his
shins once again and he fell silent, bending down to pick up the mandolin case while his Master went over
to have a word with the innkeeper.
By the time he returned, Gawaine had the mandolin out and was bent over it, fine-tuning the lower
strings. Naitachal leaned across his shoulder to murmur, "He says the entertainment will be welcome, and
assures me that no one in the neighborhood has sold overripe fruit of late." Gawaine glanced up sharply,
and his Master gave him a positively evil grin. "A joke, apprentice mine."
"Oh. Of course." And probably meant to get him loosened up to sing and play comfortably;
Gawaine could feel his throat tightening the way it still did, now and again.
"Start with something about warfare," the Bard went on thoughtfully. "To get their attention. Maybe
the new one you wrote about the sea battle. Amazons against pirates, and that dragon?"
"Its not really finished—" Gawaine began doubtfully. Naitachal cleared his throat ominously and he
added with haste, "Yes, of course."
"From there, you can probably go to one or two of the classic love ballads, maybe another heroic or
adventure song—nothing too long, mind, I don't think at this hour you'll find much of an attention span out
there!" The Bard stood listening as his apprentice finished tuning the mandolin, and finally shrugged. "If
anyone has any requests, use your own judgment. Finish with something humorous, always best to leave
them laughing."
"Yes." Gawaine shoved the chair back and got to his feet. Silence from the tables around them,
rapidly spreading across the room.
He sang the sea-battle song first—even though it made him uncomfortable, performing something he
wasn't ready to share with the outside world yet. But when he finished, the room was very still; the
silence was followed by long and loud applause and even a few scattered bravos. He stood, bowed to
the room; back in his corner, he could see the Bard giving him that look that said, "Told you so." He kept
the smile in place somehow, sat back down and the room went quiet as he touched the strings.
Love songs—he sang one of the truly tragic ones, followed by a humorous tale of lovers parted by a
pair of snooty fathers, reunited only after a series of wild adventures involving disguises, misunderstood
letters and passwords, and counter-disguises. Midway through, he executed a rather complex run on the
mandolin, and when he dared look up once more, he could see that a few of the nearby elves were
paying close attention and—he would have sworn—even smiling, while most of the humans were
clapping or tapping the table.
He finished with "The Maiden, the Mage and the Blue Earring." It was an ancient piece, and as far
as Gawaine was concerned, extremely silly—the vain and arrogant young woman who covets something
she's never seen, the supposedly rare and wondrous blue earring, and the young lovelorn mage who
delivers it: a gold-colored circlet that turns her ear blue, and a smack alongside the head that makes it
ring.... Well, he might consider it silly, but his audience didn't. Quite clearly some of them had heard it
before and others hadn't, but all of them laughed so much he had to pick a repeat phrase on the mandolin
at the end of nearly every verse until the room was quiet enough for him to go on with the next one.
He sang one very short song after that, a soft little ballad that mothers used to put their children to
sleep—a sweet song that quieted the room and let him escape before his throat went dry. He scooped
up the few coins from the floor before his chair—dropped there by some of the men nearby, he noticed,
though he hadn't expected any of the locals to part with cash for the apprentice of a Dark Elf, no matter
how well he entertained them—and went back over to the corner table. Somewhat to his surprise, there
was a new round of applause out in the room, and someone cried out, "More!" Gawaine stood behind
his chair and took the full cup the trader had poured for him, but before he could even raise it to his lips,
Naitachal was on his feet, the harp in his long-fingered hands.
As the Bard settled on the stool in the middle of the inn's common room, there was silence—an
expectant hush on the part of the humans and some of the others present, a wary, tight-lipped and
glowering stillness on the part of the nearest White Elves.
Naitachal ignored them all, ran his fingers over the harp strings a few times, then began a pleasant, if
rather sad, song about a sailor's widow. He followed this with an instrumental, one his apprentice hadn't
heard before, and he listened as breathlessly as anyone else present. The Bard continued to play very
quietly under the applause as the song ended, then broke into a rousing run.
The bardlings jaw dropped and he stared. He wouldn't dare sing "Althiorian's Last Charge"—in
the Moonstone? But that was exactly what his Master was doing, and astonishingly enough, everyone in
the room, including the White Elves, was listening intently, and with every sign of pleasure as the epic
wound up to the great battle and then down to the moment when the great elven hero killed the last of his
undead enemy. Gawaine could feel his heart beating faster, the blood warming his cheeks.
And then it was over; Naitachal ran his fingers down the harp strings, stood and bowed. Deathly,
total silence, followed by thunderous applause and the ring of coins. The Bard bowed once more, smiled
as he straightened, and turned to take in the entire audience. He was still smiling as he returned to the
table, and as he brushed by his apprentice, he murmured, "Just go and pick up the take, will you?"
Gawaine scowled. "You would take money from those who have been looking at you like that all
evening?"
"Why not?" The Master clapped him on the back. "It spends as well as friendlier coin, don't you
think?"
"Hypocrites," the bardling grumbled, but Naitachal merely laughed, clapped him on the back
again—this time with enough weight behind the gesture to shove him away from the table—and went to
resume his seat and repack the harp.
Chapter III
Naitachal leaned back in his chair and shoved his long legs out before him as Gawaine settled into
his first song and the common room of the Moonstone went quiet. He sent his eyes sideways toward the
trader, watched thoughtfully for a moment or two. The man was impressed by the boys skill with that
mandolin, and by his voice, no doubt of that—partly, the Bard decided, because he had placed Gawaine
somewhere around 15 and couldn't believe someone that age would have so much honed talent. A
glance the other direction assured the Bard that his apprentice had the attention of most of those in the
room; even the innkeeper had stopped washing cups and carrying ale, and had propped his elbows on
the bar so he could rest his chin in his hands and pay heed to the tale.
Very nice. Very—technically correct. The Bard slid a hand off the table to surreptitiously scratch
his ribs. If his bardling had been doing a real job of it, he would have been able to kick off his boots and
scratch his feet; no one nearby would have paid the least attention.
But Gawaine's music, for all the flawless technique, the constant practice, the voice that never broke
or slipped from a high note—his music was about as exciting as an accountant's columns. This thing he'd
just written, now: Naitachal repressed a sigh. He himself could find half a dozen places in the first few
lines where he would be able to send men's blood beating and have them flocking to some lord's
banner—three or four others in those same lines where he'd have them all weeping, or cowering under a
bench.
Who would have thought two young humans could be so very different? Kevin—now Count
Kevin, of course—had been the same sixteen years Gawaine was when his Master found him and pulled
him from a very tricky situation. They'd both had red hair, both had obvious talent and that undercurrent
of magic buried deep down that was enough to make any Bard say, "Aha!" and grab the boy before
another did.
But the similarity ended right there. Of course, Kevin had been old Aidan's bardling—his loose
cannon, when Naitachal met him, because the Master had sent his apprentice out on his own. To copy
摘要：

FortressofFrostandFirebyMercedesLackeyandRuEmersoncopyright1993version2.1fixedafewmistakestookoutoriginalpagebreaksChapterIForthefirsttimeinmanydays,thewestwinddiedawaywithsunset.ItwasfairlywarmandveryquietalongtheedgeoftheWhisperingWoods.Quietenoughinthestablethatthehumanboygroomingtwotravel-wornho...

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