Leaving His Cares Behind

Kage Baker

The young man opened his eyes. Bright day affronted them. He groaned and rolled over, pulling his pillow about his ears. After thirty seconds of listening to his brain pound more loudly than his heart, he rolled over again and stared at his comfortless world.

It shouldn’t have been comfortless. It had originally been a bijou furnished residence, suitable for a wealthy young person-about-town. That had been when one could see the floor, however. Or the sink. Or the tabletops. Or, indeed, anything but the chilly wasteland of scattered clothing, empty bottles and unwashed dishes.

He regarded all this squalor with mild outrage, as though it belonged to someone else, and crawled from the strangling funk of his sheets. Standing up was a mistake; the top of his head blew off and hit the ceiling. A suitable place to vomit was abruptly a primary concern.

The kitchen? No; no room in the sink. Bathroom? Too far away. He lurched to the balcony doors, flung them wide and leaned out. A delicate peach soufflé, a bowl of oyster broth, assorted brightly colored trifles that did not yield their identities to memory and two bottles of sparkling wine spattered into the garden below.

Limp as a rag he clung to the rail, retching and spitting, shivering in his nakedness. Amused comment from somewhere roused him; he lifted his eyes and saw that half of Deliantiba (or at least the early-morning tradesmen making their way along Silver Boulevard) had watched his performance. He glared at them. Spitting out the last of the night before, he stood straight, turned his affronted back and went inside, slamming the balcony doors behind him.

With some effort, he located his dressing gown (finest velvet brocade, embroidered with gold thread) and matching slippers. The runner answered his summoning bell sooner than he had expected and her thunder at his door 7 brought on more throbbing in his temples. He opened to see the older one, not the young one who was so smitten with him, and cursed his luck.

“Kretia, isn’t it?” he said, smiling nonetheless. “You look lovely this morning! Now, I’d like a carafe of mint tea, a plate of crisp wafers and one green apple, sliced thin. Off you go, and if you’re back within ten minutes you’ll have a gratuity of your very own!”

She just looked at him, hard-eyed. “Certainly, sir,” she replied. “Will that be paid for in advance, sir?”

“There goes your treat,” he muttered, but swept a handful of assorted small coins from the nearest flat surface and handed them through the doorway. “That should be enough. Kindly hurry; I’m not a well man.”

He had no clean clothing, but while poking through the drifts of slightly less foul linen he found a pair of red silk underpants he was fairly certain did not belong to him, and pulling them on cheered him up a great deal. By the time he had breakfasted and strolled out to meet the new day, Lord Ermenwyr was nearly himself again, and certainly capable of grappling with the question of how he was going to pay his rent for another month.

And grappling was required.

The gentleman at Firebeater’s Savings and Loan was courteous, but implacable: no further advances on my lord’s quarterly allotment were to be paid, on direct order of my lord’s father. Charm would not persuade him; neither would veiled threats. Finally the stop payment order itself was produced, with its impressive and somewhat frightening seal of black wax. Defeated, Lord Ermenwyr slunk out into the sunshine and stamped his foot at a pigeon that was unwise enough to cross his path. It just stared at him.

He strode away, hands clasped under his coattails, thinking very hard. By long-accustomed habit his legs bore him to a certain pleasant villa on Goldwire Avenue, and when he realized where he was, he smiled and rang at the gate. A laconic porter admitted him to Lady Seelice’s garden. An anxious-looking maidservant admitted him to Lady Seelice’s house. He found his own way to Lady Seelice’s boudoir.

Lady Seelice was sitting up in bed, going over the books of her shipping company, and she had a grim set to her mouth. Vain for him to offer to distract her with light conversation; vain for him to offer to massage her neck, or brush her hair. He perched on the foot of her bed, looking as winsome as he could, and made certain suggestions. She declined them in an absentminded sort of way.

He helped himself to sugared comfits from the exquisite little porcelain jar on her bedside table, and ate them quite amusingly, but she did not laugh. He pretended to play her corset like an accordion, but she did not laugh at that either. He fastened her brassiere on his head and crawled around the room on his hands and knees meowing like a kitten, and when she took absolutely no notice of that, he stood up and asked her outright if she’d loan him a hundred crowns.

She told him to get out, so he did.

As he was stamping downstairs, fuming, the anxious maidservant drifted into his path.

“Oh, dear, was she cross with you?” she inquired.

“Your mistress is in a vile mood,” said Lord Ermenwyr resentfully, and he pulled her close and kissed her very hard. She leaned into his embrace, making soft noises, stroking his hair. When they came up for air at last, she looked into his eyes.

“She’s been in a vile mood these three days. Something’s wrong with her stupid old investments.”

“Well, if she’s not nicer soon, she’ll find that her nimble little goat has capered off to greener pastures,” said Lord Ermenwyr, pressing his face into the maidservant’s bosom. He began to untie the cord of her bodice with his teeth.

“I’ve been thinking, darling,” said the maidservant slowly, “that perhaps it’s time we told her the truth about… you know… us.”

Unseen under her chin, the lordling grimaced in dismay. He spat out a knot and straightened up at once.

“Well! Yes. Perhaps.” He coughed, and looked suddenly pale. “On the other hand, there is the danger—” He coughed again, groped hurriedly for a silk handkerchief and held it to his lips. “My condition is so, ah, tentative. If we were to tell of our forbidden love—and then I were to collapse unexpectedly and die, which I might at any moment, how could I rest in my grave knowing that your mistress had turned you out in the street?”

“I suppose you’re right,” sighed the maidservant, watching as he doubled over in a fit of coughing. “Do you want a glass of wine or anything?”

“No, my darling—” Wheezing, Lord Ermenwyr turned and made his unsteady way to the door. “I think—I think I’d best pay a call on my personal physician. Adieu.”

Staggering, choking, he exited, and continued in that wise until he was well out of sight at the end of the avenue, at which time he stood straight and walked on. A few paces later the sugared comfits made a most unwelcome return, and though he was able to lean quickly over a low wall, he looked up directly into the eyes of someone’s outraged gardener.

Running three more blocks did not improve matters much. He collapsed on a bench in a small public park and fumed, considering his situation.

“I’m fed up with this life,” he told a statue of some Deliantiban civic leader. “Independence is all very well, but perhaps”

He mulled over the squalor, the inadequacy, the creditors, the wretched complications with which he had hourly to deal. He compared it with his former accustomed comforts, in a warm and loving home where he was accorded all the consideration his birth and rank merited. Within five minutes, having given due thought to all arguments pro and con, he rose briskly to his feet and set off in the direction of Silver Boulevard.

Ready cash was obtained by pawning one of the presents Lady Seelice had given him (amethysts were not really his color, after all). He dined pleasantly at his favorite restaurant that evening. When three large gentlemen asked at the door whether or not Lord Ermenwyr had a moment to speak with them, however, he was obliged to exit through a side door and across a roof.

Arriving home shortly after midnight, he loaded all his unwashed finery into his trunks, lowered the trunks from his window with a knotted sheet, himself exited in like manner, and dragged the trunks a quarter-mile to the caravan depot. He spent the rest of the night there, dozing fitfully in a corner, and by dawn was convinced he’d caught his death of cold.

But when his trunks were loaded into the baggage cart, when he had taken his paid seat amongst the other passengers, when the caravan master had mounted into the lead cart and the runner signaled their departure with a blast on her brazen trumpet—then Lord Ermenwyr was comforted, and allowed himself to sneer at Deliantiba and all his difficulties there as it, and they, fell rapidly behind him. The caravan master drew a deep breath, deciding to be patient.

“Young man, your friends must have been having a joke at your expense,” he said. “There aren’t any country estates around here. We’re in the bloody Greenlands. Nobody’s up here but bandits, and demons and wild beasts.”

“No need to be alarmed on my behalf, good fellow,” the young man assured him. “There’ll be bearers along to meet me in half an hour. That’s their cart-track right there, see?”

The caravan master peered at what might have been a rabbit’s trail winding down to the honest paved road. He followed it up with his eyes until it became lost in the immensity of the forests. He looked higher still, at the black mountain towering beyond, and shuddered. He knew what lay up there. It wasn’t something he told his paying passengers about, because if he were ever to do so, no amount of bargain fares could tempt them to take this particular shortcut through the wilderness.

“Look,” he said, “I’ll be honest with you. If I let you off here, the next thing anyone will hear of you is a note demanding your ransom. If the gods are inclined to be merciful! There’s a Red House station three days on. Ride with us that far, at least. You can send a message to your friends from there.”

“I tell you this is my stop, Caravan Master,” said the young man, in such a snide tone the caravan master thought: To hell with him.

“Offload his trunks, then!” he ordered the keymen, and marched off to the lead cart and resumed his seat. As the caravan pulled away, the other passengers looked back, wondering at the young man who sat down on his luggage with an air of unconcern and pulled out a jade smoking-tube, packing it with fragrant weed.

“I hope his parents have other sons,” murmured a traveling salesman. Something howled in the depths of the forest, and he looked fearfully over his shoulder. In doing so, he missed seeing the young man lighting up his smoke with a green fireball. Alien he looked back, a bend in the road had already hidden the incautious youth.

Lord Ermenwyr, in the meanwhile, sucked in a double lungful of medicinal smoke and sighed in contentment. He leaned back, and blew a smoke ring.

“That’s my unpaid rent and cleaning fee,” he said to himself, watching it dissipate and wobble away. He sucked smoke and blew another.

“That’s my little misunderstanding with Brasshandle the moneylender,” he said, as it too faded into the pure air. Giggling to himself, he drew in a deep, deep store of smoke and blew three rings in close formation.

“Your hearts, ladies! All of you. Byebye now! You’ll find another toy to amuse yourselves, I don’t doubt. All my troubles are magically wafting away— oh, wait, I should blow one for that stupid business with the public fountain—”

When he heard the twig snap, however, he sat up and gazed into the darkness of the forest.

They were coming for him through the trees, and they were very large. Some were furred and some were scaled, some had great fanged pitilessly grinning mouths, some had eyes red as a dying campfire just before the night closes in. Some bore spiked weapons. Some bore treebough clubs. They shared no single characteristic of feature or flesh, save that they wore, all, livery black as ink.

“It’s about time you got here,” said Lord Ermenwyr. Rising to his feet, he let fall the glamour that disguised his true form.

“Master!” cried some of that dread host, and “Little Master!” cried others, and they abased themselves before him.

“Yes, yes, I’m glad to see you too,” said Lord Ermenwyr. “Take special care with my trunks, now I’ll have no end of trouble getting them to close again, if they’re dropped and burst open.”

“My little lord, you look pale,” said the foremost creature, doffing his spiked helmet respectfully. “Have you been ill again? Shall we carry you?”

“I haven’t been well, no,” the lordling admitted. “Perhaps you ought.”

The leader knelt immediately, and Lord Ermenwyr hopped up on his shoulder and clung as he stood, looking about with satisfaction from the considerable height.

“Home!” he ordered, and that uncouth legion bore him, and his trunks, and his unwashed linen, swiftly and with chants of praise to the great black gate of his father’s house. The Lord Ermenwyr was awakened next morning by an apologetic murmur, as one of the maidservants slipped from his bed. He acknowledged her departure with a sleepy grunt and a wave of his hand, and rolled over to luxuriate in dreams once more. Nothing disturbed his repose further until the black and purple curtains of his bed were drawn open, reverently, and he heard a sweet chime that meant his breakfast had just arrived on a tray.

“Tea and toast, little Master,” someone growled gently. “The toast crisp, just as you like it, and a pot of hyacinth jam, and Hrekseka the Appalling remembered you like that shrimp-egg relish, so here’s a puff pastry filled with it for a savory Have we forgotten anything? Would you like the juice of blood oranges, perhaps?”

The lordling opened his eyes and smiled wide, stretched lazily.

“Yes, thank you, Krasp,” he said, and the steward—who resembled nothing so much as an elderly werewolf stuck in mid-trans formation—bowed and looked sidelong at an attendant, who ran at once to fetch a pitcher of juice. He meanwhile set about arranging Lord Ermenwyr’s tray on his lap, opening out the black linen napery and tucking it into the lace collar of the lordling’s nightshirt, and pouring the tea.

“And may I say, Master, on behalf of the staff, how pleased we are to see you safely returned?” said Krasp, stepping back and turning his attention to laying out a suit of black velvet.

“You may,” said Lord Ermenwyr. He spread jam on his toast, dipped it into his tea and sucked at it noisily. “Oh, bliss. It’s good to be back, too. I trust the parents are both well?’

Krasp genuflected. “Your lord father and your lady mother thrive, I rejoice to say.”

“Mm. Of course. Siblings all in reasonably good health, I suppose?”

“The precious offspring of the Master and his lady continue to grace this plane, my lord, for which we in the servant’s hall give thanks hourly.”

“How nice,” said Lord Ermenwyr. He sipped his tea and inquired further: “I suppose nobody’s run a spear through my brother Eyrdway yet?”

The steward turned with a reproachful look in his sunken yellow eye. “The Variable Magnificent continues alive and well, my lord,” he said, and held up two pairs of boots of butter-soft leather. “The plain ones, my lord, or the ones with the spring-loaded daggers in the heels?”

“The plain ones,” Lord Ermenwyr replied, yawning. “I’m in the bosom of my family after all.”

When he had dined, when he had been washed and lovingly groomed and dressed by a succession of faithful retainers, when he had admired his reflection in a long mirror and pomaded his beard and moustaches—then Lord Ermenwyr strolled forth into the corridors of the family manse, to see what amusement he might find.

He sought in vain.

All that presented itself to his quick eye was the endless maze of halls, hewn through living black basalt, lit at intervals by flickering witchlight or smoking flame, or here and there by a shaft of tinted sunbeam, from some deep-hewn arrowslit window sealed with panes of painted glass. At regular intervals armed men—well, armed males—stood guard, and each bowed respectfully as he passed, and bid him good-morning.

He looked idly into the great vaulted chamber of the baths, with its tiled pools and scented atmosphere from the orchids that twined, luxuriant, on trellises in the steamy air; but none of his sisters were in there.

He leaned on a balustrade and gazed down the stairwell, at the floors descending into the heart of the mountain. There, on level below level to the vanishing point of perspective, servants hurried with laundry, or dishes, or firewood. It was reassuring to see them, but he had learned long since that they would not stop to play.

He paused by a window and contemplated the terraced gardens beyond, secure and sunlit, paradise cleverly hidden from wayfarers on the dreadful slopes below the summit. Bees droned in white roses, or blundered sleepily in orchards, or hovered above reflecting pools. Though the bowers of his mother were beautiful beyond the praise of poets, they made Lord Ermenwyr want to scream with ennui.

He turned, hopeful, at the sound of approaching feet.

“My lord.” A tall servant bowed low. “Your lord father requests your presence in his accounting chamber.”

Lord Ermenwyr bared his teeth like a weasel at bay. All his protests, all his excuses, died unspoken at the look on the servant’s face. He reflected that at least the next hour was unlikely to be boring.

“Very well, then,” he said, and followed where the servant led him.

By the time he had crossed the threshold, he had adopted a suitably insouciant attitude and compiled a list of clever things to say. All his presence of mind was required to remember them, once he had stepped into the darkness beyond.

His father sat in a shaft of light at the end of the dark hall, behind his great black desk, in his great black chair. For all that was said of him in courts of law, for all that was screamed against him in temples, the Master of the Mountain was not in his person fearful to look upon. For all that his name was spoken in whispers by the caravan-masters, or used to frighten their children, he wore no crown of sins nor cloak of shades. He was big, black-bearded, handsome in a solemn kind of way. His black eyes were calm, patient as a stalking tiger’s.

Lord Ermenwyr, meeting those eyes, felt like a very small rabbit indeed.

“Good morning, Daddy” he said, in the most nonchalant voice he could summon.

“Good afternoon, my son,” said the Master of the Mountain.

He pointed to a chair, indicating that Lord Ermenwyr should come forward and sit. Lord Ermenwyr did so, though it was a long walk down that dark hall. When he had seated himself, a saturnine figure in nondescript clothing stepped out of the shadows before him.

“Your report, please,” said the Master of the Mountain. The spy cleared his throat once, then read from a sheaf of notes concerning Lord Ermenwyr’s private pastimes for the last eight months. His expenses were listed in detail, to the last copper piece; his associates were named, their addresses and personal histories summarized; his favorite haunts named too, and the amount of time he spent at each.

The Master of the Mountain listened in silence, staring at his son the whole time, and though he raised an eyebrow now and then he made no comment. Lord Ermenwyr, for his part, with elaborate unconcern, drew out his smoking-tube, packed it, lit it, and sat smoking, with a bored expression on his face.

Having finished at last, the spy coughed and bowed slightly. He stepped back into the darkness.

“Well,” said Lord Ermenwyr, puffing smoke, “I don’t know why you bothered giving me that household accounts book on my last birthday. He kept much better records than I did.”

“Fifteen pairs of high-heeled boots?” said the Master of the Mountain, with a certain seismic quality in the bass reverberation of his voice.

“I can explain that! There’s only one cobbler in Deliantiba who can make really comfortable boots that give me the, er, dramatic presence I need,” said Lord Ermenwyr. “And he’s poor. I felt it was my duty to support an authentic craftsman.”

“I can’t imagine why he’s poor, at these prices,” retorted his father. “When I was your age, I’d never owned a pair of boots. Let alone boots of premium-grade elkhide, dyed purple in the new fashion, with five-inch heels incorporating the unique patented Comfort-Spring lift.’”

“You missed out on a lot, eh? If you wore my size, I’d give you a pair,” said Lord Ermenwyr, cool as snowmelt, but he tensed to run all the same.

His father merely stared at him, and the lordling exhaled another plume of smoke and studied it intently. When he had begun to sweat in spite of himself, his father went on:

“Is your apothecary an authentic craftsman too?”

“You can’t expect me to survive without my medication!” Lord Ermenwyr cried. “And it’s damned expensive in a city, you know.”

“For what you spent, you might have kept three of yourselves alive,” said his father.

“Well—well, but I’ve been ill. More so than usually I mean. I had fevers— and I’ve had this persistent racking cough—blinding headaches when I wake up every morning—and see how pale I am?” Lord Ermenwyr stammered. His father leaned forward and grinned, with his teeth very white in his black beard.

“There’s nothing wrong with you, boy, that a good sweat won’t cure. The exercise yard, quick march! Let’s see if you’ve remembered your training.”

Just what I expected,” said the Master of the Mountain, as his son was carried from the exercise yard on a stretcher. Lord Ermenwyr, too winded to respond, glared at his father.

“And get that look off your face, boy. This is what comes of all those bottles of violet liqueur and vanilla éclairs,” continued his father, pulling off his great gauntlets. “And the late nights. And the later mornings.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, where a bruise was swelling. “Your reflexes aren’t bad, though. You haven’t lost any of your speed, I’ll say that much for you.”

“Thank you,” Lord Ermenwyr wheezed, with as much sarcasm as he could muster.

“I want to see you out there again tomorrow, one hour after sunrise. We’ll start with saber drill, and then you’ll run laps,” said the Master of the Mountain.

“On my sprained ankle?” Lord Ermenwyr yelled in horror.

“I see you’ve got your breath back,” replied his father. He turned to the foremost guard bearing the stretcher. “Take my son to his mother’s infirmary. If there’s anything really the matter with him, she’ll mend it.”

“But—!” Lord Ermenwyr cried, starting up. His father merely smiled at him, and strode off to the guardroom.

By the time they came to his mother’s bower, Lord Ermenwyr had persuaded his bearers to let him limp along between them, rather than enter her presence prostrate and ignominious.

But as they drew near to that place of sweet airs, of drowsy light and soft perfumes, those bearers must blink and turn their faces away; and though they propped him faithfully, and were great and horrible in their black livery and mail, the two warriors shivered to approach the Saint of the World. Lord Ermenwyr, knowing well that none of his father’s army could meet his mother’s gaze, sighed and bid them leave him.

“But, little Master, we must obey your lord father,” groaned one, indistinctly through his tusks.

“It’s all right; most of the time I can’t look her in the eye, myself,” said Lord Ermenwyr. “Besides, you were only told to bring me to the infirmary, right? So there’s a semantic loophole for you.”

Precise wording is extremely important to demons. Their eyes (bulging green and smoldering red respectively) met, and after a moment’s silent debate the two bowed deeply and withdrew, murmuring their thanks. Lord Ermenwyr sighed, and tottered on through the long grass alone.

He saw the white-robed disciples walking in the far groves, or bending between the beds of herbs, gathering, pruning, planting. Their plain-chant hummed through the pleasant air like bee song, setting his teeth on edge somehow. He found his mother at last, silhouetted against a painfully sunlit bower of blossoming apple, where she bent over a sickbed.

“…the ointment every day, do you understand? You must have patience,” she was saying, in her gentle ruthless voice. She looked over her shoulder and saw her son. He felt her clear gaze go through him, and he stood still and fidgeted as she turned back to her patient. She laid her hand upon the sufferer’s brow, murmured a blessing; only then did she turn her full attention to Lord Ermenwyr.

He knelt awkwardly. “Mother.”

“Mv child.” She came forward and raised him to his feet. Having embraced him, she said:

“You haven’t sprained your ankle, you know.”

“It hurts,” he said, and his lower lip trembled. “You think I’m lying again, I suppose.”

“No,” she said, patiently. “You truly believe you’re in pain. Come and sit down, child.”

She led him into the deeper shade, and drew off his boot (looking without comment on its five-inch heel). One of her disciples brought him a stoneware cup of cold spring water, and watched with wide eyes as she examined Lord Ermenwyr’s ankle. Where her fingers passed, the lordling felt warmth entering in. His pain melted away like frost under sunlight, but he braced himself for what else her healing hands would learn in their touch.

“I know what you’ll tell me next,” he said, testily. “You’ll say I haven’t been exercising enough. You’ll tell me I’ve been eating and drinking too much. You’ll tell me I shouldn’t wear shoes with heels this high, because it doesn’t matter how tall I am. You’ll tell me I’m wasting myself on pointless self-indulgences that leave me sick and depressed and penniless.”

“Why should I tell you what you already know?” his mother replied. He stared sullenly into his cup of water.

“And you’ll reproach me about Lady Seelice and Lady Thyria. And the little runner, what’s-her-name, you’ll be especially sorrowful that I can’t even remember the name of a girl I’ve seduced. Let alone chambermaids without number. And… and you’ll tell me about all those poor tradesmen whose livelihoods depend on people like me paving bills on time, instead of skipping town irresponsibly.”

“That’s true,” said his mother.

“And, of course, you’ll tell me that I don’t really need all those drugs!” Lord Ermenwyr announced. “You’ll tell me that I imagine half of my fevers and coughs and wasting diseases, and that neither relief nor creative fulfillment will come from running around artist’s salons with my pupils like pinpoints. And that it all comes from my being bored and frustrated. And that I’d feel better at once if I found some honest work putting my tremendous talents to good use.”

“How perceptive, my darling,” said his mother.

“Have I left anything out?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You see?” Lord Ermenwyr demanded tearfully, turning to the disciple. “She’s just turned me inside out, like a sock. I can’t keep one damned secret from her.”

“All things are known to Her,” said the disciple, profoundly shocked at the lordling’s blasphemy. He hadn’t worked there very long.

“And now, do you know what else she’s going to do?” said Lord Ermenwyr, scowling at him. “She’s going to nag at me to go to the nursery and visit my bastard children.”

“Really?” said the disciple, even more shocked.

“Yes,” said his mother, watching as he pulled his boot back on. He started to stamp off, muttering, but turned back hastily and knelt again. She blessed him in silence, and he rose and hurried away.

“Mv son is becoming wise,” said the Saint of the World, smiling as she watched him go. The way to the nursery was mazed and obscured, for the Master of the

Mountain had many enemies, and hid well where his seed sheltered. Lord Ermenwyr threaded the labyrinth without effort, knowing it from within. As he vaulted the last pit, as he gave the last password, his heart grew more cheerful. He would shortly behold his dear old nurse again!

Twin demonesses guarded the portal, splendid in black livery and silver mail. The heels of their boots were even higher than his, and much sharper. They grinned to see him, baring gold-banded fangs in welcome.

“Ladies, you look stunning today,” he told them, twirling his moustaches. “Is Balnshik on duty?”

“She is within, little lord,” hissed the senior of the two, and lifted her blade to let him pass.

He entered quite an ordinary room, long and low, with a fire burning merrily in the hearth behind a secure screen. Halfway up the walls was a mural painted in tones of pink and pale blue, featuring baby rabbits involved in unlikely pastimes.

Lord Ermenwyr curled his lip. Three lace-gowned infants snuffled in cots here; four small children sat over a shared game there, in teeny-tiny chairs around a teeny-tiny table; another child rocked to and fro on a ponderous wooden beast bright-painted; three more sat before a comfortable-looking chair at the fireside, where a woman in a starched white uniform sat reading to them.

“…but the people in that village were very naughty and tried to ambush his ambassadors, so he put them all to the sword,” she said, and held up the picture so they could all see.

“Ooo,” chorused the tots.

She, having meanwhile noticed Lord Ermenwyr, closed the book and rose to her feet with sinuous grace.

“Little Master,” she said, looking him up and down. “You’ve put on weight.”

He winced.

“Oh, Nursie, how unkind,” he said.

“Nonsense,” Balnshik replied. She was arrogantly beautiful. Her own body was perfect, ageless, statuesque and bosomy as any little boy’s dream, or at least Lord Ermenwyr’s little boy dreams, and there was a dangerous glint in her dark eye and a throaty quality to her voice that made him shiver even now.

“I’ve come about the, er, the… those children I—had,” he said. “For a sort of visit.”

“What a delightful surprise!” Balnshik said, in well-bred tones of irony. She turned and plucked from the rocking beast a wretched-looking little thing in a green velvet dress. “Look who’s come to see us, dear! It’s our daddy We scarcely knew we had one, did we?”

Baby and parent stared at one another in mutual dismay. The little boy turned his face into Balnshik’s breast and screamed dismally.

“Poor darling,” she crooned, stroking his limp curls. “We’ve been teething again and we’re getting over a cold, and that makes us fretful. We’re just like our daddy, aren’t we? Would he like to hold us?”

“Perhaps not,” said Lord Ermenwyr, doing his best not to run from the room. “I might drop it. Him. What do you mean, he’s just like me?”

“The very image of you at that age, Master,” Balnshik assured him, serenely unbuttoning her blouse. “Same pasty little face, same nasty look in his dear little eyes, same tendency to shriek and drum his little heels on the floor when he’s cross. And he gets that same rash you did, all around his little—”

“Wasn’t there another one?” inquired Lord Ermenwyr desperately.

“You know perfectly well there is,” said Balnshik, watching tenderly as the baby burrowed toward comfort. “Your lord father’s still paying off the girl’s family, and your lady sister will never be able to hold another slumber party for her sorority. Where is he?” She glanced over at the table. “There we are! The one in the white tunic. Come and meet your father, dear.”

The child in question, one of those around the table, got up reluctantly. He came and clung to Balnshik’s leg, peering up at his father.

“Well, you look like a fine manly little fellow, anyway,” said Lord Ermenwyr.

“You look like a very bad man,” stated the child.

“And he’s clever!” said Lord Ermenwyr, preening a bit. “Yes, my boy, I am rather a bad man. In fact, I’m a famous villain. What else have you heard about your father?”

The boy thought.

“Grandpapa says when I’m a man, I can challenge you to a fight and beat you up,” he said gravely. “But I don’t think I want to.”

“You don’t eh?” A spark of parental feeling warmed in Lord Ermenwyr’s heart. “Why not, my boy?”

“Because then I will be bigger than you, and you will be old and weak and have no teeth,” the child explained. “It wouldn’t be fair.”

Lord Ermenwyr eyed him sourly. “That hasn’t happened to your Grandpapa, has it?”

“No,” the child agreed, “But he’s twice as big as you.” He brightened, remembering the other thing he had heard about his father. “And Grandmama says you’re so smart, it’s such a shame you don’t do something with your life!”

Lord Ermenwyr sighed, and pulled out his jade tube. “Do you mind if I smoke in here?” he asked Balnshik.

“I certainly do,” she replied, mildly but with a hint of bared fangs.

“Pity. “Well, here, son of mine; here’s my favorite ring for your very own.” He removed a great red cabochon set in silver, and presented it to the child. “The top is hinged like a tiny box, see the clever spring? You can hide sleeping powders in it to play tricks on other little boys. I emptied out the poison, for heaven’s sake,” he added indignantly, seeing that the hint of bared fangs was now an open suggestion.

“Thank you, Father,” piped the child.

Disconsolate, Lord Ermenwyr wandered the black halls.

He paused at a window that looked westward, and regarded the splendid isolation of the Greenlands. Nothing to be seen for miles but wave upon wave of lesser mountains, forested green as the sea, descending to the plain. Far away, far down, the toy cities behind their walls were invisible for distance, and when night fell their sparkling lights would glimmer in vain, like lost constellations, shrouded from his hopeful eye.

Even now, he told himself, even now down there the taverns would be opening. The smoky dark places would be lighting their lanterns, and motherly barmaids would serve forth wine so raw it took the paint off tables. The elegant expensive places would be firing up the various patent devices that glared in artificial brilliance, and the barmaids there were all thin, and young, and interestingly depraved-looking. What they served forth could induce visions, or convulsions and death if carelessly indulged in.

How he longed, this minute, for a glass of dubious green liqueur from the Gilded Clock! Or to loll with his head in the lap of an anonymous beauty who couldn’t care less whether he did something worthwhile with his life. What had he been thinking, to desert the cities of the plain? They had everything his heart could desire. Theaters. Clubs. Ballrooms. Possibilities. Danger. Fun

Having made his decision to depart before the first light of dawn, Lord Ermenwyr hurried off to see that his trunks were packed with new-laundered clothes. He whistled a cheery little tune as he went. The Master and the Saint sat at their game.

They were not Good and Evil personified, nor Life and Death; certainly not Order and Chaos, nor even Yin and Yang. Yet most of the world’s population believed that they were. Their marriage, therefore, had done rather more than raise eyebrows everywhere.

The Master of the Mountain scowled down at the game board. It bore the simplest of designs, concentric circles roughly graven in slate, and the playing pieces were mere pebbles of black marble or white quartz. The strategy was fantastically involved, however. So subtle were the machinations necessary-to win that this particular game had been going on for thirty years, and a decisive conquest might never materialize.

“What are we going to do about the boy?” he said.

The Saint of the World sighed in commiseration, but was undistracted. She slid a white stone to a certain position on the board.

High above them, three white egrets peered down from the ledge that ran below the great vaulted dome of the chamber. Noting the lady’s move, they looked sidelong at the three ravens that perched opposite, and stalked purposefully along the ledge until the ravens were obliged to sidle back a pace or two.

“To which of your sons do you refer, my lord?” the Saint inquired.

“The one with the five-inch heels to his damned boots,” said the Master of the Mountain, and set a black stone down, click, between a particular pair of circles. “Have you seen them?”

One of the ravens bobbed its head derisively, spread its coal-black wings and soared across the dome to the opposite ledge.

“Yes, I have,” admitted the Saint.

“They cost me a fortune, and they’re purple,” said the Master of the Mountain, leaning back to study the board.

“And when you were his age, you’d never owned a pair of boots,” said the Saint serenely, sliding two white stones adjacent to the black one.

Above, one egret turned, retraced its way along the ledge, and the one raven cocked an eye to watch it. Three white stars shone out with sudden and unearthly light, in the night heavens figured on the surface of the arching dome.

“When I was his age, I wore chains. I never had to worry about paying my tailor; only about living long enough to avenge myself,” said the Master of the Mountain. “I wouldn’t want a son of mine educated so. But we’ve spoiled the boy!”

He moved three black stones, lining them up on successive rings. The two ravens flew to join their brother. Black clouds swirled under the dome, advanced on the floating globe of the white moon.

“He needs direction,” said the Saint.

“He needs a challenge,” said the Master. “Pitch him out naked on the mountainside, and let him survive by his wits for a few years!”

“He would,” pointed out the Saint. “Do we want to take responsibility for what would happen to the innocent world?”

“I suppose not,” said the Master with a sigh, watching as his lady moved four white stones in a neat line. The white egrets advanced on the ravens again. The white moon outshone the clouds.

“But he does need a challenge,” said the Saint. “He needs to put that mind of his to good use. He needs work.”

“Damned right he does,” said the Master of the Mountain. He considered the board again. “Rolling up his sleeves. Laboring with his hands. Building up a callus or two.”

“Something that will make him employ his considerable talent,” said the Saint.

There was a thoughtful silence. Their eyes met over the board. They smiled. Under the vaulted dome, all the birds took flight and circled in patterns, white wings and black.

“I’d better catch him early, or he’ll be down the mountain again before cockcrow,” said the Master of the Mountain. “To bed, madam?”

Lord Ermenwyr rose sprightly by candlelight, congratulating himself on

. the self-reliance learned in Deliantiba: for now he could dress himself without a valet. Having donned apparel suitable for travel, he went to his door to rouse the bearers, that they might shoulder his new-laden trunks down the gorge to the red road far below.

Upon opening the door, he said:

“Sergeant, kindly fetch—Ack!”

“Good morning, my son,” said the Master of the Mountain. “So eager for saber drill? Commendable.”

“Thank you,” said Lord Ermenwyr. “Actually, I thought I’d just get in some practice lifting weights, first.”

“Not this morning,” said his father. “I have a job for you, boy. Walk with me.”

Gritting his teeth, Lord Ermenwyr walked beside his father, obliged to take two steps for every one the Master of the Mountain took. He was panting by the time they emerged on a high rampart, under faint stars, where the wall’s guard were putting out the watch-fires of the night.

“Look down there, son,” said the Master of the Mountain, pointing to three acres’ space of waste and shattered rock, hard against the house wall.

“Goodness, is that a bit of snow still lying in the crevices?” said Lord Ermenwyr, watching his breath settle in powdered frost. “So late in the year, too. What unseasonably chilly weather we’ve had, don’t you think?”

“Do you recognize the windows?” asked his father, and Lord Ermenwyr squinted down at the arrowslits far below. “You ought to.”

“Oh! Is that the nursery, behind that wall?” Lord Ermenwyr said. “Well, what do you know? I was there only yesterday Visiting my bastards, as a matter of fact. My, my, doesn’t it look small from up here?”

“Yes,” said the Master of the Mountain. “It does. You must have noticed how crowded it is, these days. Balnshik is of the opinion, and your mother and I concur with her, that the children need more room. A place to play when the weather is fine, perhaps. This would prevent them from growing up into stunted, pasty-faced little creatures with no stamina.”

“What a splendid idea,” said Lord Ermenwyr, smiling with all his sharp teeth. “Go to it, old man! Knock out a few walls and expand the place. Perhaps Eyrdway would be willing to give up a few rooms of his suite, eh?”

“No,” said the Master of the Mountain placidly. “Balnshik wants an outdoor play area. A garden, just there under the windows. With lawns and a water feature, perhaps.”

He leaned on the battlement and watched emotions conflict in his son’s face. Lord Ermenwyr’s eyes protruded slightly as the point of the conversation became evident to him, and he tugged at his beard, stammering:

“No, no, she can’t be serious! What about household security? What about your enemies? Can’t put the little ones’ lives in danger, after all. Mustn’t have them out where they might be carried off by, er, eagles or efrits, can we? Nursie means well, of course, but—”

“It’s an interesting problem,” said the Master of the Mountain. “I’m sure you’ll think of a solution. You’re such a clever fellow, after all.”

“But—!”

“Krasp has been instructed to let you have all the tools and materials you need,” said the Master of the Mountain. “I do hope you’ll have it finished before high summer. Little Druvendyl’s rash might clear up if he were able to sunbathe.”

“Who the hell is Druvendyl?” cried Lord Ermenwyr.

“Your infant son,” the Master of the Mountain informed him. “I expect full-color renderings in my study within three days, boy. Don’t dawdle.”

Bright day without, but within Lord Ermenwyr’s parlor it might have been midnight, so close had he drawn his drapes. He paced awhile in deep thought, glancing now and then at three flat stones he had set out on his hearth-rug. On one, a fistful of earth was mounded; on another, a small heap of coals glowed and faded. The third stone held a little water in a shallow depression. To one side he had placed a table and chair.

Having worked up his nerve as far as was possible, he went at last to a chest at the foot of his bed and rummaged there. He drew out a long silver shape that winked in the light from the few coals. It was a flute. He seated himself in the chair and, raising the flute to his lips, began to play softly.

Summoning music floated forth, cajoling, enticing, music to catch the attention. The melody rose a little and was imperious, beckoned impatiently, wheedled and just hinted at threatening; then was coy, beseeched from a distance.

Lord Ermenwyr played with his eyes closed at first, putting his very soul into the music. When he heard a faint commotion from his hearth, though, he opened one eye and peered along the silver barrel as he played.

A flame had risen from the coals. Brightly it lit the other two stones, so he had a clear view of the water, which was bubbling upward as from a concealed fountain, and of the earth, which was mounding up too, for all the world like a molehill.

Lord Ermenwyr smiled in his heart and played on, and if the melody had promised before, it gave open-handed now; it was all delight, all ravishment. The water leaped higher, clouding, and the flame rose and spread out, dimming, and the earth bulged in its mound and began to lump into shape, as though under the hand of a sculptor.

A little more music, calling like birds in the forest, brightening like the sun rising over a plain, galloping like the herds there in the morning! And now the flame had assumed substance, and the water had firmed beside it. Now it appeared that three naked children sat on Lord Ermenwyr’s hearth, their arms clasped about their drawn-up knees, their mouths slightly open as they watched him play. They were, all three, the phantom color of clouds, a shifting glassy hue suggesting rainbows. But about the shoulders of the little girl ran rills of bright flame, and one boy’s hair swirled silver, and the other boy had perhaps less of the soap bubble about him, and more of wet clay.

Lord Ermenwyr raised his mouth from the pipe, grinned craftily at his guests, and set the pipe aside.

“No!” said the girl. “You must keep playing.”

“Oh, but I’m tired, my dears,” said Lord Ermenwyr. “I’m all out of breath.”

“You have to play,” the silvery-boy insisted. “Play right now!”

But Lord Ermenwyr folded his arms. The children got to their feet, anger in their little faces, and they grew up before his eves. The boys’ chests deepened, their limbs lengthened, they overtopped the girl; but she became a woman shapely as any he’d ever beheld, with flames writhing from her brow.

“Play, or we’ll kill you,” said the three. “Burn you. Drown you. Bury you.

“Oh, no, that won’t do,” said Lord Ermenwyr. “Look here, shall we play a game? If I lose, I’ll play for you again. If I win, you’ll do as I bid you. What do you say to that?”

The three exchanged uncertain glances.

“We will play,” they said. “But one at a time.”

“Ah, now, is that fair?” cried Lord Ermenwyr. “When that gives you three chances to win against my one? I see you’re too clever for me. So be it.” He picked up the little table and set it before him. Opening a drawer, he brought out three cards.

“See here? Three portraits. Look closely: this handsome fellow is clearly me. This blackavised brigand is my father. And this lovely lady—” he held the card up before their eyes, “is my own saintly mother. Think you’d recognize her again? Of course you would. Now, we’ll turn the cards face down. Can I find the lady? Of course I can; turn her up and here she is. That’s no game at all! But if you find the lady, you’ll win. So, who’ll go first? Who’ll find the lady?”

He took up the cards and looked at his guests expectantly. They nudged one another, and finally the earthborn said: “I will.”

“Good for you!” Lord Ermenwyr said. “Watch, now, as I shuffle.” He looked into the earthborn’s face. “You’re searching for the lady, understand?”

“Yes,” said the earthborn, meeting his look of inquiry “I understand.”

“Good! So, here she is, and now here, and now here, and now—where?” Lord Ermenwyr fanned out his empty hands above the cards, in a gesture inviting choice.

Certain he knew where the lady was, the earthborn turned a card over.

“Whoops! Not the lady, is it? So sorry, friend. Who’s for another try? Just three cards! It ought to be easy” sang Lord Ermenwyr, shuffling them again. The earthborn scowled in astonishment, as the others laughed gaily, and the waterborn stepped up to the table. Stop complaining,” said Lord Ermenwyr, dipping his pen in ink. “You lost fairly, didn’t you?”

“We never had a chance,” said the earthborn bitterly. “That big man on the card, the one that’s bigger than you He’s the Soul of the Black Rock, isn’t he?”

“I believe he’s known by that title in certain circles, yes,” said Lord Ermenwyr, sketching in a pergola leading to a reflecting pool. “Mostly circles chalked on black marble floors.”

“He’s supposed to be a good master,” said the waterborn. “How did he have a son like you?”

“You’ll find me a good master, poppets,” said Lord Ermenwyr. “I’ll free you when you’ve done my will, and you’ve my word as my father’s son on that. You’re far too expensive to keep for long,” he added, with a severe look at the fireborn, who was boredly nibbling on a footstool.

“I hunger,” she complained.

“Not long to wait now,” Lord Ermenwyr promised. “No more than an hour to go before the setting of the moon. And look at the pretty picture I’ve made!” He held up his drawing. The three regarded it, and their glum faces brightened.

When the moon was well down, he led them out, and they followed gladly when they saw that he carried his silver flute.

The guards challenged him on the high rampart, but once they recognized him they bent in low obeisance. “Little master,” they growled, and he tapped each lightly on the helmet with his flute, and each grim giant nodded its head between its boots and slept.

“Down there,” he said, pointing through the starlight, and the three that served him looked down on that stony desolation and wondered. All doubt fled, though, when he set the flute to his lips once more.

AW they knew what to do! And gleeful they sprang to their work, dancing under the wide starry heaven, and the cold void warmed and quickened under their feet, and the leaping silver music carried them along. Earth and Fire and Water played, and united in interesting ways.

Lord Ermenwyr was secure in bed, burrowed down under blankets and snoring, by the time bright morning lit the black mountain. But he did not need to see the first rays of the sun glitter on the great arched vault below the wall, where each glass pane was still hot from the fire that had passionately shaped it, and the iron frame too cooled slowly.

Nor did he need to see the warm sleepy earth under the vault, lying smooth in paths and emerald lawns, or the great trees that had rooted in it with magical speed. Neither did he need to hear the fountain bubbling languidly. He knew, already, what the children would find when they straggled from the dormitory Like a file of little ghosts in their white nightgowns.

He knew they would rub their eyes and run out through the new doorway, heedless of Balnshik’s orders to remain, and knew they’d rush to pull down fruit from the pergola, and spit seeds at the red fish in the green lily-pool, or climb boldly to the backs of the stone wyverns, or run on the soft grass, or vie to see how hard they could bounce balls against the glass without breaking it. Had he not planned all this, to the last detail?

The Master of the Mountain and the Saint of the World came to see, when the uneasy servants roused them before breakfast.

“Too clever by half,” said the Master of the Mountain, raising his eyes to the high vault, where the squares of bubbled and sea-clear glass let in an underwater sort of light. “Impenetrable. Designed to break up perception and confuse. And… what’s he done to the time? Do you feel that?”

“It’s slowed,” said the Saint of the World. “Within this garden, it will always be a moment or so in the past. As inviolate as memory, my lord.”

“Nice to know he paid attention to his lessons,” said the Master of the Mountain, narrowing his eves. Two little boys ran past him at knee level, screaming like whistles for no good reason, and one child tripped over a little girl who was sprawled on the grass pretending to be a mermaid.

“You see what he can do when he applies himself?” said the Saint, lifting the howling boy and soothing him.

“He still cheated,” said the Master of the Mountain.

It was well after noon when Lord Ermenwyr consented to rise and grace the house with his conscious presence, and by then all the servants knew. He nodded to them as he strolled the black halls, happily aware that his personal legend had just enlarged. Now, when they gathered in the servant’s halls around the balefires, and served out well-earned kraters of black wine at the end of a long day, now they would have something more edifying over which to exclaim than the number of childhood diseases he had narrowly survived or his current paternity suit.

“By the Blue Pit of Hasrahkhin, it was a miracle! A whole garden, trees and all, in the worst place imaginable to put one, and it had to be secret and secure—and the boy did it in just one night!” That was what they’d say, surely.

So it was with a spring in his step that nearly overbalanced him on his five-inch heels that the lordling came to his father’s accounting chamber, and rapped briskly for admission.

The doorman ushered him in to his father’s presence with deeper than usual obeisances, or so he fancied. The Master of the Mountain glanced up from the scroll he studied, and nodded at Lord Ermenwyr.

“Yes, my son?”

“I suppose you’ve visited the nursery this morning?” Lord Ermenwyr threw himself into a chair, excruciatingly casual in manner.

“I have, as a matter of fact,” replied his lord father. “I’m impressed, boy. Your mother and I are proud of you”

“Thank you.” Lord Ermenwyr drew out his long smoking-tube and ht it with a positive jet of flame. He inhaled deeply, exhaled a cloud that writhed about his head, and fixed bright eyes upon the Master of the Mountain. “Would this be an auspicious time to discuss increasing an allowance, o my most justly feared sire?”

“It would not,” said the Master of the Mountain. “Bloody hell, boy! A genius like you ought to be able to come up with his own pocket money.”

Lord Ermenwyr stalked the black halls, brooding on the unfairness of life in general and fathers in especial.

“Clever enough to come up with my own pocket money, am I?” he fumed. “I’ll show him.”

He paused on a terrace and looked out again in the direction of the cities on the plain, and sighed with longing. The back of his neck prickled, just as he heard the soft footfall behind him. He whirled around and kicked, hard, but his boot sank into something that squelched. Looking up into the yawning, dripping maw of a horror out of legend, he snarled and said:

“Stop it, you moron! Slug-Hoggoth hasn’t scared me since I was six.”

“It has too,” said a voice, plaintive in its disappointment. “Remember when you were twelve, and I hid behind the door of your bedroom? You screamed and screamed.”

“No, I didn’t,” said Lord Ermenwyr, extricating his boot.

“Yes, you did, you screamed just like a girl,” gloated the creature. “Eeeek!”

“Shut up.”

“Make me, midget.” The creature’s outline blurred and shimmered; dwindled and firmed, resolving into a young man.

He was head and shoulders taller than Lord Ermenwyr, slender and beautiful as a beardless god, and stark naked except for a great deal of gold and silver jewelry That having been said, there was an undeniable resemblance between the two men.

“Idiot,” muttered Lord Ermenwyr.

“But prettier than you,” said the other, throwing out his arms. “Gorgeous, aren’t I? What do you think of my new pectoral? Thirty black pearls! And the bracelets match, look!”

Lord Ermenwyr considered his brother’s jewelry with a thoughtful expression. “Superb,” he admitted. “You robbed a caravan, I suppose. How are you, Eyrdway?”

“I’m always in splendid health,” said Lord Eyrdway. “Not like you, eh?”

“No indeed,” said Lord Ermenwyr with a sigh. “I’m a wreck. Too much fast life down there amongst the Children of the Sun. Wining, wenching, burning my candle at both ends! I’m certain I’ll be dead before I’m twenty-two, but what memories I’ll have.”

“Wenching?” Lord Eyrdway’s eyes widened.

“It’s like looting and raping, but nobody rushes you,” explained his brother. “And sometimes the ladies even make breakfast for you afterward.”

“I know perfectly well what wenching is,” said Lord Eyrdway indignantly. “What’s burning your candle at both ends?”

“Ahhh.” Lord Ermenwyr lit up his smoking tube. “Let’s go order a couple of bottles of wine, and I’ll explain.”

Several bottles and several hours later, they sat in the little garden just outside Lord Ermenwyr’s private chamber. Lord Ermenwyr was refilling his brother’s glass.

“…so then I said to her, ‘Well, madam, if you insist, but I really ought to have another apple first,’ and that was the exact moment they broke in the terrace doors!” he said.

“Bunch of nonsense. You can’t do that with an apple,” Lord Eyrdway slurred.

“Maybe it was an apricot,” said Lord Ermenwyr. “Anyway, the best part of it was, I got out the window with both the bag and the jewel case. Wasn’t that lucky?”

“It sounds like a lot of fun,” said Lord Eyrdway wistfully, and drank deep.

“Oh, it was. So then I went round to the Black Veil Club—but of course you know what goes on in those places!” Lord Ermenwyr pretended to sip his wine.

” ‘Course I do,” said his brother. “Only maybe I’ve forgot. You tell me again, all right?”

Lord Ermenwyr smiled. Leaning forward, lowering his voice, he explained about all the outré delights to be had at a Black Veil Club. Lord Eyrdway began to drool. Wiping it away absentmindedly, he said at last:

“You see—you see—that’s what’s so awful unflair. Unfair. All this fun you get to have. ‘Cause you’re totally worthless and nobody cares if you go down the mountain. You aren’t the damn Heir to the Black Halls. Like me. I’m so really important Daddy won’t let me go.”

“Poor old Way-Way, it isn’t fair at all, is it?” said Lord Ermenwyr. “Have another glass of wine.”

“I mean, I’d just love to go t’Deliatitatita, have some fun,” said Lord Eyrdway, holding out his glass to be refilled, “But, you know, Daddy just puts his hand on my shoulder n’ says, ‘When you’re older, son,’ but I’m older’n you by four years, right? Though of course who cares if you go, right? No big loss to the Family if you get an arrow through your liver.”

“No indeed,” said Lord Ermenwyr, leaning back. “Tell me something, my brother. Would you say I could do great things with my life if I only applied myself?”

“What?” Lord Eyrdway tried to focus on him. “You? No! I can see three of you right now, an’ not one of ‘em’s worth a damn.” He began to snicker. “Good one, eh? Three of you, get it? Oh, I’m sleepy. Just going to put my head down for a minute, right?”

He lay his head down and was promptly unconscious. When Lord Ermenwyr saw his brother blur and soften at the edges, as though he were a waxwork figure that had been left too near the fire, he rose and began to divest him of his jewelry

“Eyrdway, I truly love you,” he said. The express caravan came through next dawn, rattling along at its best speed in hopes of being well down off the mountain by evening. The caravan master spotted the slight figure by the side of the road well in advance, and gave the signal to stop. The lead keyman threw the brake; sparks flew as the wheels slowed, and stopped.

Lord Ermenwyr, bright-eyed, hopped down from his trunks and approached the caravan master.

“Hello! Will this buy me passage on your splendid conveyance?” He held forth his hand. The caravan master squinted at it suspiciously. Then his eyes widened.

“Keymen! Load his trunks!” he bawled. “Lord, sir, with a pearl like that you could ride the whole route three times around. Where shall we take you? Deliantiba?”

Lord Ermenwyr considered, putting his head on one side.

“No… not Deliantiba, I think. I want to go somewhere there’s a lot of trouble, of the proper sort for a gentleman. If you understand me?”

The caravan master sized him up. “There’s a lot for a gentleman to do in Karkateen, sir, if his tastes run a certain way. You’ve heard the old song, right, about what their streets are paved with?”

Lord Ermenwyr began to smile. “I have indeed. Karkateen it is, then.”

“Right you are, sir! Please take a seat.”

So with a high heart the lordling vaulted the side of the first free cart, and sprawled back at his ease. The long line of carts started forward, picked up speed, and clattered on down the ruts in the red road. The young sun rose and shone on the young man, and the young man sang as he sped through the glad morning of the world.

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