Castle of Deception bt-1 Read online

  “Just this.” Berak murmured a quiet Word. And ... it wasn’t so much that his face and form changed as it was that a masking glamour seemed to fall away. Kevin stared. How could he ever have missed how high those cheekbones were» how sharply slanted those eyes? And that hair was surely far too silky to be human hair—

  “You’re an elf!” Kevin gasped in alarm. “You’re all elves!”

  Chapter XXIV

  Berak chuckled, “We’re all elves,” he agreed, “all my troupe.” The minstrel gestured to where they, laughing, had also shed their glamour of humanity.

  Tich’ki wriggled out of hiding. “So that’s it!” she exclaimed. “Clever disguises! So obvious, right under the humans’ noses and not one of them ever noticed!”

  Berak’s eyes widened ever so slightly at the fairy’s sudden appearance, but all he did was dip his head in polite acknowledgement and say smoothly, “Humans do tend to see what they expect to see.”

  Lydia snorted. “No wonder Seritha’s Power was so much more than anything a human could master!”

  “Exactly.”

  But Kevin was still staring. “1 know you! You’re the group who surrounded me in the forest that night! Yes, and scared the life out of me, too!”

  “We were trying to scare the life into you, youngling,” Berak corrected drily. “You were much too cocky then for your own survival.”

  “I don’t understand something,” Naitachal cut in. “You are very obviously White Elves, all of you, and yet you never hesitated to help an enemy.”

  “A Dark Elf, you mean?” Berak raised a brow. “And are you our enemy?”

  “No, of course not. But—” Naitachal gave a small sigh of confusion. “I really don’t understand. What clan are you? What clan can you possibly be that you don’t share the usual prejudice against my kind?”

  “No clan at all, or one of our own imagining.”

  “And what does that mean?”

  Berak smiled. “Simply that we are the bits and tatters of many clans, the outcasts, the ones who couldn’t fit in with all the staid and somber old traditions. We like to laugh, to rove, to sing and play our songs for others, elf or human, and share our joy with them. It amuses us, just as it amuses us to disguise ourselves as humans.”

  “My Master knew, though, didn’t he?” Kevin asked. “What and who you really are, I mean.”

  “Of course.” The green eyes narrowed slightly. “And it’s past time you started thinking about that Master. We’ve been crying all this time to track you down!” He shook his head. “We woke, and you were gone. We reached Count Volmar’s castle, and you were gone from there, too. We went back to Bracklin, only to learn you had never returned. Master Aidan has been frantic with worry. Why, he even considered going after you and the spell himself, despite his too-sudden age and ill health.”

  Ill health? Master Aidan? It was the first Kevin had heard of that. And yet ... with a sudden surge of guilt he remembered all the times he’d thought the old Bard lazy or afraid, remembered how he’d seen his Master’s pallor and shrugged it off as the result of too much of an indoor life. The signs of carefully concealed illness had been there all along. He’d simply failed, in his impatience and arrogance, to notice them.

  Wait, now, what else had Berak said? “Too-sudden age?” the bardling asked hesitantly. “I don’t—”

  “Think, boy!” Berak snapped. “Aidan was a youngling when he rescued the king, not all that much older than you. Only some thirty years have passed. Even for you short-lived humans that’s not such a vast span.”

  “But—but he’s old!” Kevin insisted. “He’s been old ever since I’ve known him!”

  “Ai-yi, Kevin! Who do you think created that spell to destroy Carlotta? Bardic Magic is a Powerful, perilous thing: it created the spell, yes, but in the process Aidan was forced to de up his age and health within the thing until he no longer had the strength to do anything about it”

  “Then speaking the spell—”

  “May restore him.” Berak shrugged with true elven fatalism. “Or it may not. But either way, you must make his sacrifice worth it”

  “I will,” Kevin said softly. And I’ll make it up to you, Master Aidan. “But there’s something I must do, here and now. Take these, please.” He gave Berak all but one of the remaining copies he’d made of the spell. “At least this way it won’t be lost with me.”

  “What ... is this thing?” Berak peered at the parchment. “ Elfish, yet not quite elfish ....”

  “It is, we pray, the spell that shall put an end to Carlotta,” Naitachal said. “Berak, if you will permit it, we will ride with you. And together you and I and Kevin can set about deciphering the thing.”

  “Why?” the minstrel asked suspiciously. “Why Kevin?”

  The bardling sighed. “Because the spell’s Bardic Magic. But I can’t read elfish. And unless you and Naitachal can tell me how to pronounce the glyphs properly, I’ll never be able to sing them.”

  “You!” Berak glanced sharply from Kevin to Naitachal, then began speaking very rapidly in the elven tongue.

  Naitachal held up a hand. “Kevin and I have gone over all the dangers. I agree, it’s an incredibly risky thing for him to try. But neither you nor I are qualified to handle Bardic Magic. Kevin is.”

  “But he’s not a Bard! The boy is just a bardling!”

  “Still, I’m as close to a Bard as we’re going to find in such a short time—And we’ve wasted enough of that time already. Will you help us, Berak?”

  “So-o! The cub grows fangs! Yes, youngling, I will help you. And pray for you as well,” he added wryly.

  It wasn’t an easy decipherment. As the wagons rolled and rattled their way toward Count Volmar’s castle, the two elves spent much of the next day bent over the parchment, arguing “It says teatal,” or “No, no, that has to read sentaila, not sentailach!”

  When they were satisfied with each glyph, they made Kevin recite it till they were sure he had the intonation correct, then sing it to the corresponding note.

  “When do I get to put the whole thing together?”

  “You don’t!” Naitachal said in alarm. “Do you want to trigger the spell here and now?”

  “Uh ... no. But if I can’t rehearse the spell now, how am I going to know I’ve got it right?”

  The Dark Elf grinned without humor. “Therein,” he said drily, “lies the adventure.”

  “But I think you do have the component glyphs properly memorized,” Berak added in what was presumably meant to be a comforting tone. “Naitachal, there is one unwoven thread to all this that bothers me.”

  “Eh?”

  “You say Carlotta is disguising herself as the count’s niece. Well then, what happened to the real Charina? There was one, after all ...”

  The Dark Elf shuddered as though a sudden cold draft had hit him—”I think I know what happened,” he said at last. “I...just could not bear to ...” Naitachal turned sharply away. “I was afraid to cast this spell. Afraid that I might find myself instead tempted to drag Eliathanis back from—I didn’t dare, do you understand?”

  “I do,” Kevin murmured. “But Naitachal, what are you saying? That—that the real Charina is ... that Carlotta ... that Charina ... Powers, what if her spirit’s enslaved?”

  “I thought of chat.” The Dark Elf slumped in resignation. “So be it I will do what I must—Berak, I will need a clear, sheltered place this evening, and as few distractions as possible.” The White Elf nodded. “You shall have that”

  The night there in the forest grove was very dark, the only light coming from the single small campfire built between the vee formed by the two wagons. The troupe was hidden in those wagons, or out in the forest, but when Kevin and Lydia would have gone with them, Naitachal called out:

  “Wait You, as well, Berak. Say nothing, do nothing, only sit where you are until I signal you to leave. I will need your presences as an anchor.”

  An anchor to what? To life? Kevin felt a cold chill
steal through him. What if Naitachal was dragged over the border into death? How could they possibly pull him back?

  But the Dark Elf didn’t seem particularly worried, though his face, picked out in stark relief by the dancing flames, was grim and his stance tense. Without warning, he began a chant, so softly Kevin almost couldn’t hear him. Berak heard, though; the bardling could feel him shudder.

  Somehow, soft though the words were, they weren’t quite obeying natural law. They weren’t fading. Instead, like so many layers of woven doth, each new phrase fell atop the one before it, never fading, slowly filling up the night, slowly filling up the very air, calling, demanding, summoning ...

  And suddenly they were no longer alone in the clearing. Kevin was only dimly aware of Lydia’s gasp, only dimly heard his own sharply drawn in breath. Lost in a mix of amazement and terror, he stared rill his eyes ached at a pale glow all at once there above the fire, slowly condensing into the figure of a girl ...

  Charina’s ghost ... She wasn’t as extravagantly lovely as her counterfeit Her hair was pale yellow, not spun gold, her face merely pretty rather than beautiful. And yet she was so much the more charming for not being perfect that Kevin felt his heart ache as though it would break, felt his cheeks suddenly wet with the loss of What Might Have Been.

  “Who are you?” Naitachal said in the human tongue, his voice the essence of gentleness.

  “I ... was ... I am ...” The ghostly blue eyes widened in fright. “] don’t remember ... Why am I here? Where am I?”

  “You must remember. Who are you?”

  “I...I...can’t ...”

  “You must—Who are you?”

  “I can’t’”

  Kevin ached to shout out, “Leave her alone! Can’t you see she really doesn’t know?” But somehow he managed to keep from making a sound, and Naitachal continued relentlessly:

  “Who are you?”

  “Charina!” the ghost screamed all at once. “I am Charina!”

  The Dark Elf’s head drooped, and Kevin could hear him gasp for breach. After a moment, Naitachal continued, his voice gentle once more:

  “Where are you, Charina?”

  “I... don’t know ... It’s so dark ... dark and cold ... so cold ... I don’t want to know!”

  “Never mind,” the Dark Elf crooned. “Go back. Back. See the day as it was. The day before the darkness. Do you see it?”

  Her frightened face seemed to tighten. “Yes.”

  “Where are you, Charina?”

  “The castle. My uncle’s castle. I am up on the ramparts and—oh, look at the pretty thing!”

  “What are you doing, Charina?”

  “Leaning forward to see the—No! No! Please, don’t! No!”

  The sheer terror of that scream cut Kevin to the heart. Oh, Naitachal, don’t! Let her be!

  But the Dark Elf continued softly, “Who is it, Charina? What is he doing?”

  “Uncle! Uncle, please! I won’t tell anyone! You don’t have to kill me!”

  “Who killed you, Charina?”

  “No, no, there’s been a mistake, it’s all a mistake. I’m alive and—”

  “Who killed you, Charina?”

  “I—My uncle killed me! He pushed me from the ramparts when none could see! He murdered me and threw my body down a refuse shaft!”

  She burst into an anguished keening, rocking back and forth in mid-air. Without taking his glance from her, Naitachal fiercely waved the watchers away. They scrambled up and behind the wagons without any argument.

  “Oh, that poor kid!” Lydia whispered. “She didn’t even get a chance to live before that bastard—”

  Berak waved her to silence. “Now comes the most difficult part.” His voice was so soft it barely disturbed the air. “Now he must help her deal with her own death and at last find rest.”

  They waited in silence as the time crept slowly by. And at last Naitachal staggered out to meet them. He said not a word, but sank to the ground, head in hands. Berak moved to his side, murmuring in elfish, and Naitachal nodded. The White Elf nodded as well, and returned to Kevin and Lydia—

  “It’s done,” he said softly. “That poor lost child is gone.”

  Naitachal continued to sit where he was, black cloak like a shroud about him, and all at once Kevin couldn’t stand it. Seritha was already brewing one other herbal teas, and the bardling took a flagon from her and hurried to the Dark Elf’s side.

  “Naitachal? Naitachal, it’s me. Kevin.” The Dark Elf slowly raised his head, his eyes empty. “H-here,” the bardling insisted. “Drink.” For a moment he wasn’t sure Naitachal was going to obey, but then a hand cold as the grave took the flagon from him. The Dark Elf held it for a moment in both bands, gratefully absorbing its heat, then drank. For a time he sat with closed eyes. Then Naitachal turned to look at Kevin again. And this time life glinted in the sorcerous eyes.

  “Thank you. I was wise to name you an anchor.” “And ... Charina is ...”

  “Gone. Though gone where I can’t say. And no,” the Dark Elf added with a hint of returning humor, “I’m not being metaphysical. She was a gentle girl, but she did, after all, come of warrior stock. I dare say we’ve not seen the last of her just yet.” “What ... ? “ But more Naitachal wouldn’t say.

  “The best way to be invisible,” Berak said with his usual dramatic flair, “is to be obvious. If we try to sneak into Count Volmar’s castle like thieves with something to hide, Carlotta is sure to notice.”

  Naitachal nodded. “Just as she’d be sure to notice any manner of magic-working.” He glanced at Kevin and Lydia. “Now, those two should make convincing enough members of your troupe.”

  “With a little judicious dying of hair,” Seritha added, eying Lydia’s curly black locks, “and some nice, minstrelly recostuming. But as for you,” she added, studying Naitachal, “hmm ...”

  “I am not,” the Dark Elf said flatly, “dressing up as a dancing girl—Once was quite enough, thank you.”

  Berak gave a shout of laughter. “A girl?”

  “You heard me. We made a pretty group, the lot of us, Kevin here and Lydia and Eliathanis—”

  Naitachal broke off in mid-sentence, pain flashing in his eyes. Kevin winced, remembering the White Elf’s embarrassment and the Dark Elf’s teasing, remembering that silly, happy time that seemed so long ago.

  Berak’s sharp, clever gaze shot from the bardling to Naitachal. “Never mind,” he said gently. “We won’t need anything quite so ... ah ... drastic. Hey-o. everyone! Prepare to ride!”

  The elven minstrel troupe paraded into Count Volmar’s casde with cymbals clashing and trumpets blaring, and sec up camp, along with all the other groups of minstrels, acrobats and stage-magicians, in the increasingly crowded outer bailey.

  “How do you think I look?” Lydia, grinning, tossed her newly dyed, brazen hair, and Naitachal shook his head wryly—

  “About as elven as Count Volmar. But definitely not like that wanton warrior woman.”

  “Wanton!” She tapped him with her fan. “I’ll give you wanton, you stage-magician, you!”

  The Dark Elf looked down at himself and laughed. “Stage-magician,” he said ruefully. They had decided to play up Naitachal’s dramatic coloring by dressing him in the gaudiest of red robes, a gold-threaded scarf draped theatrically about his head and face.

  Kevin, who was dressed in fairly gaudy yellow and purple himself, wasn’t really listening to their nervous banter, instead, he stared thoughtfully up at the various casde towers. “There,” he murmured suddenly, “beside the Great Hall.”

  “The chapel?” Berak asked. “What about it?”

  “Not the chapel. The bell tower next to it.”

  “What are you—Ah. You’re thinking of acoustics.”

  “Exactly.” Kevin studied the tower for a long moment. It was plain and square-sided, with no windows save for the great arches at the very top. “The bell can’t be rung. I remember someone saying it had cracked and they hadn’t gotten aro
und to getting it down and recast”

  “But that’s still a pretty-looking sound chamber it’s hanging in.” Berak smiled faintly. “Quite nicely designed. Anyone standing in it who decided to start singing would be heard all over the casde.”

  “He would,” Kevin agreed. “And if I have any say in things, he will be.”

  “That officious servant told me my troupe isn’t to perform until some time tomorrow. And of course the site of the performance, of all the performances, is going to be in the courtyard. Coincidentally, right in front of that chapel. With its oh so pretty bell tower.”