David Chandler - A thief in the night

About a third of the way up the slope, the vestiges of an ancient road ended at a pair of massive stones carved into the shape of upright menhirs. It was hard to judge their height from such a distance but Malden thought they had to be taller than the spires of the Ladychapel. Strung between them like the laces of a corset were countless chains, brown and red with ancient rust.

“The House of Chains,” Malden said aloud.

“What do you see, lad? Tell me what you fucking see,” Slag demanded from underneath his cloak.

“A doorway tall enough for the Bloodgod to walk through without bowing. Chains as thick as Morget’s waist, unbroken for centuries.”

“Aye, that’s the place.” Slag wrestled with the cloak until one of his eyes peered out of the shadows. “Oh, aye.”

They climbed as high as the horses could take them, intending to reach the entrance before sunset. The hills refused to make it easy. They had to force their mounts over long stretches of broken rock and up through a defile where some house-sized stone had cracked in half, leaving a passage as narrow as a man’s outstretched arms. They emerged into a barren waste of stones that shifted dangerously underfoot, where only a few sparse clumps of grass grew up through the scree.

It was as desolate a waste as Malden could imagine. A thin cold wind touched the rocks with icy fingers, while thin rivulets of water trickled past below the fallen stones. Had he been told no human being had entered that land in a thousand years, Malden would not have been surprised.

He was quite startled, then-as was Croy’s horse-when an emaciated man wearing nothing but a loincloth stood up from behind a rock and hailed them all.

Croy wheeled his horse around to keep it from bolting. One of his hands reached down to touch the pommel of Ghostcutter. The other he raised in a gesture of greeting.

“Well met, Sir Croy,” the stranger said. His voice was scratchy and thin, as if he had not used it in many months. “I am Herward, a humble servant of the Lady.”

“You know me?” Croy asked.

Malden didn’t like this at all.

The hermit bowed low and touched the stones. “We have never before met,” he said, as if this were a small, unimportant detail. “Yet I know you! For one night, as I lay in my stony bower, a vision came to me in my sleep. A dream, you may well call it! Yet ’twas as clear as day, and as vivid. I was told of your coming.”

Malden tried to catch Morget’s eye, but the barbarian had backed his horse a few steps and was focused entirely on the hermit.

“A knight of honor, bent on holy quest. With him a mighty warrior of the East, and a lady who must be protected at all cost.”

“Don’t forget a pissed-off dwarf,” Slag insisted, “and a thi-” He glanced at Malden, who realized he’d been about to say “thief.” “An, erm, a whatever the hell this idiot is.”

“Well met, Herward,” Croy said. He took his hand off the pommel of his sword and reached out with both hands, as if he would embrace the hermit. “If you serve the Lady, you are my friend, and I thank you for this welcome. What else did She say, in this vision? It may be crucially important to our task.”

Herward scratched viciously at his armpit. Malden could see that the skin there was already badly irritated. Now that he’d had a chance to look at the holy man, he saw just how unhealthy the poor fool was. His wild hair and beard had fallen out in patches where ringworm and probably mange had afflicted him. His sun-baked skin was so dry it cracked around his nails and in other places looked as scaly as snakeskin. His eyes were as yellow as his teeth.

How long had this man been living in these rocks, with no human company at all? Malden couldn’t guess. Yet he had heard tales before of madmen, seized by holy zeal, who sought out the truly desolate places, there to worship in silence and utter privacy. He’d heard there were holy men who went to live at the bottom of abandoned dwarven mines, so they could be closer to the Bloodgod and his pit. Then there was supposed to be a hermit in the hills above Redweir who only came out to scream obscenities and throw his own waste at passing caravans. The drovers who passed that way considered it good luck to be so assaulted.

From what he could see, Herward was just as crazy. Malden tried to get the jennet to take a step back, out of range of flying excrement.

The hermit stared at Croy for a long while, saying nothing. Then he pulled at his beard and said, “She showed me your face, and his, and hers. She said I must aid you in any way I could, and allow you to pass as high as the gates of the House of Chains. She said I would be rewarded.”

“In what aspect did She appear to you?” Croy asked.

Malden’s eyes widened. Was the knight really taking this seriously?

Herward bent low and placed his forehead against the rocks. He was certainly limber for someone who probably lived on lichens and whatever grubs he could dig out of the stones. “She appeared to me in the form of the Crone. As an aged women, bent with the blessings of motherhood and the bounty of long years. She had hair the color of old iron, and a fearsome cast to her eyes.”

Cythera slumped in her saddle and covered her mouth with one hand. “Oh, Mother, tell me you didn’t…” she moaned, though not so loud that Herward might hear.

“Please,” Herward said, “let me show you what meager hospitality remains in my power.” The hermit started walking away without another word. Malden got his jennet moving to follow, but when he looked back he realized he was the only one to do so. He looked at the others, wondering what was going on.

Cythera moved her horse near to Croy’s courser and whispered something in his ear. He nodded, and the two of them cut away from the group, heading up the hill rather than following the holy man. Morget had taken up a position near the head of the trail, where he could watch their rear, as if he expected the shire reeve and an army of knights to come after them. Slag stared up at the entrance to the Vincularium, perhaps impatient to get inside after so long on the road.

“Come along,” Malden said to the dwarf, and with a curse or two the dwarf followed where the hermit led. He left Morget to his own business.

The thief and the dwarf headed back down the hillside a way, then up another slope where the horses had trouble finding solid footing. The hermit climbed over the rocks like a mountain goat, never looking back. As they neared the top of the hill, Malden expected to see a crumbling shack or perhaps a simple monastic cell, just big enough for one hermit to crouch inside.

He was not expecting to find a fortress up there.

Not that it was such a grand thing, really. The structure could have been dropped into the Market Square of Ness and fit easily. It was not so large as a castle, nor so well made. Its walls were of unmortared stone piled together in thick sloping walls. It showed signs of immense age, one whole wall having been smothered by clinging vines, its stones bleached white by centuries of sun. Yet it looked strong enough to withstand a cavalry charge, or even a siege if it came to that. It had towers at two of its corners, though one had collapsed into a pile of rubble. A massive iron gate stood rusting at its front.

A hundred men could have barracked inside its walls. From that position they could hold off a small army. They also had a perfect view of the entrance to the Vincularium, and with longbows they could hold off anyone who attempted to enter the tomb, or leave it.

“Was this place built before the Vincularium was sealed?” Malden asked.

“Oh, no. After,” Herward assured him. “A hundred men waited here, for a hundred years, to make sure the door stayed sealed.”