R. Salvatore - Luthien's Gamble

He thought it was Greensparrow come calling, or one of the king’s lesser wizards, or perhaps even a demon. Had he erred in sending his sight out to the palace in Carlisle? Had Greensparrow postponed his announced vacation in Gascony to deal first with troublesome Brind’Amour?

Finally, the old wizard got the thick cloth off of his crystal ball, put the item on the desk in front of him, and calmed himself enough to look into its depths.

Brind’Amour sighed loudly, so very relieved when he learned that the call was not from a wizard but from a mere man, apparently a messenger.

Relief turned to anger as Brind’Amour continued to seek and he came to know that there were several men calling for him.

“Fool!” Brind’Amour grumbled at Luthien as soon as he realized exactly what was going on. “Daring fool,” he whispered. This was not Montfort; these lands were still in the hands of cyclopians and others loyal to Greensparrow. No open revolt had come, at least not as far as Brind’Amour knew.

And to speak Brind’Amour’s name so clearly, so loudly, where Greensparrow’s ears might hear! If the king of Avon realized that Brind’Amour was somehow connected to the revolt in Montfort, if he knew that Brind’Amour was even awake from his centuries-long sleep, then his eyes would surely focus more closely on Eriador; he would not go to vacation in Gascony and would turn all of his attention north instead. The cause would be crushed.

The cause.

For a long, long time, Brind’Amour, ever cautious, had tried to convince himself that the cause was not so important, that the fight in Montfort was just a prelude to what might happen many decades down the road. But now, fearing that all of the rebellion was in jeopardy, considering the deep feelings rushing through him, he had to wonder if he had been fooling himself. He might justify letting this rebellion die in Montfort, but only for a short while. When it was done, when the blood had washed from the fields and the city’s walls, Brind’Amour would lament the return of Greensparrow, the opportunity for freedom—for freedom now —lost.

Whatever course he now considered, Brind’Amour knew that he had to silence those silly boys with their silly scrolls. He felt strong indeed this morning and discovered that he dearly wanted to test his magic.

The wizard moved to the side of his desk, opened a drawer, and took out a huge, black leather-bound book, gently opening it. Then he began to chant, falling into the archaic runes depicted on the pages, falling deeper into the realm of magic than he had gone for nearly four hundred years.

The twelve men on their twelve hills had been reading and rereading their scrolls for more than two hours. But their instructions had been to read on from sunrise to sunset, day after day, until their call was answered.

Now their call was answered, but not in any way they, or Luthien, had anticipated.

A sudden black cloud rolled over the peaks of the Iron Cross, south of the readers. The blackest of clouds, a ball of midnight against the blue sky. A stiff wind kicked up, ruffling the parchments.

All twelve of the men held stubborn, loyal to Luthien and convinced of the importance of their mission.

On came the cloud, dark and ominous, blocking out the sun, except for twelve tiny holes in the blackness, twelve specific points that caught the rays of day and focused them through a myriad of ice crystals.

One by one, those holes released the focused ray of light under the cloud, and each of those beams, guided by a wizard looking into a crystal ball in a cave not so far away, found its mark, shooting down from the heavens to strike unerringly at the unfurled parchments.

The brittle paper ignited and burned, and one by one, the readers dropped the useless remnants and ran to their nearby mounts. One by one, they emerged from the foothills at a full gallop. Some linked up, but those who had charged out first did not stop and look back for their companions.

In the cave, Brind’Amour settled back and let the crystal ball go dark. Only a few minutes earlier he had felt refreshed and full of vigor, but now he was tired and old once more.

“Foolish boy,” he muttered under his breath, but he found that he did not believe the words. Luthien’s judgment in sending out callers might have been amiss, but the young man’s heart was true. Could Brind’Amour say the same for himself? He thought again of the uprising, of its scale and of its importance, of his own insistence that this was just a prelude.

Was he taking the safe route or the easy one?

“Could we not have gone in the lower door?” Oliver asked, thoroughly cold and miserable and with still more than a hundred feet of climbing looming before him.

“The door is blocked,” Luthien whispered, his mouth close to Oliver’s ear, the cowl of his crimson cape covering not only his head but the halfling’s as well. “You did not have to come.”

“I did not want to lose my rope,” the stubborn halfling replied.

They were scaling the eastern wall of the Ministry, more than halfway up the tallest tower. The night air was not so cold, but the wind was stiff this high up, biting at them and threatening to shake them free. Luthien huddled tight and checked the fastenings of his magical cape. He couldn’t have it blowing open up here, leaving him and Oliver exposed halfway up the wall!

He had been wearing his cape daily since the rebellion began, for it was the symbol that the common folk of the city had rallied behind. The Crimson Shadow, the legend of old come to life to lead them to freedom. But the cape was much more than a showpiece. Cloistered within its protective magics, the cape tight about him and the cowl pulled low, Luthien was less than a shadow, or merely a shadow blended into other shadows—for all practical measures, completely invisible. He had only used the cape in this camouflaging manner a couple of times during the weeks of fighting to go over the wall and scout out enemy positions. He had thought of trying to find Aubrey, to kill the man in his house, but Siobhan had talked him out of that course, convincing him that the bumbling viscount was, in reality, a blessing to the rebels.

This time, though, Luthien would not be talked out of his plan; in fact, he had told no one except Oliver of his intentions.

So here they were, in the dark of night, almost up the Ministry’s tallest wall. There were cyclopians posted up there, they both knew, but the brutes were likely huddled close around a fire. What would they be on watch against, after all? They could not see the movements of men on the streets below, and they certainly did not expect anyone to come up and join them!

Oliver’s last throw had been good, heaving the magical grapnel up to the end of the rope, but after climbing the fifty feet to the puckered ball, the companions found few places to set themselves. There were no windows this high up on the tower, and the stones had been worn smooth by the incessant wind.

Luthien hooked his fingers tight into a crack, his feet barely holding to a narrow perch. “Hurry,” he bade his companion.

Oliver looked up at him and sighed. The halfling, his feet against the wall, was tucked in tight against Luthien’s belly—the only thing holding Oliver aloft was Luthien. Oliver fumbled with the rope, trying to loop it so that he could fling it up the remaining fifty feet, all the way to the tower’s lip.

“Hurry,” Luthien said more urgently, and Oliver understood that the young man’s hold was not so good. Muttering a curse in his native Gascon tongue, the halfling reached out and tossed the magical grapnel as high as he could. It caught fast, no more than twenty feet above them.