A Gathering of Fools (Vensille Saga Book 1) Read online

  The temple complex that made up the official residence of the Lord Spiritual of the Western Province was only a little distance from the Traebarn Palace but Lords Spiritual didn’t walk the streets of the city like ordinary citizens. Lady Drocia made the short journey in a plain coach unmarked by either the arms of her office or her family. She was so deep in thought when the coach stopped outside her formal residence that her footman had to cough politely to attract her attention. She snapped back to the present, slightly surprised to find herself in her own courtyard, then, still acting the old woman, she stood and shuffled carefully out of the coach, walking stick clicking, and into the hallway of the house.

  Inside her maid, Ame, waited to take her summer coat and to help her through the residence to her study, which looked out over the small formal garden at the centre of the building. As soon as the door was closed Lady Drocia straightened her back and stretched to work out the kinks. She strode across the floor, rolling her shoulders to loosen the muscles as Ame fussed with her coat and stick.

  “You were limping on the wrong foot this afternoon, Mother,” said Ame, “it was the left that was giving you problems this morning but the right when you returned from the Palace. I don’t think anyone noticed.”

  Lady Drocia, grimaced.

  “Blast. Playing an old woman,” she paused, then corrected herself, “an even older woman, seemed like a good idea when I started but I’m beginning to wonder if it’s really worth the effort. Maybe, once things settle down a bit, I’ll suffer a miraculous cure and cast aside the stick.”

  She thought about this as she searched her desk drawer for the leather pouch that held her charmed key.

  “Yes, a miracle of healing in the Grand Temple, something beyond even the finest healers, something to convince the congregation that even the sufferings of the very ancient can be overcome with sufficient piety. That might be just the thing to fill the donation plates at the winter solstice.”

  She found the pouch and pulled it out of the drawer.

  “In the meantime, I think a light lunch with some watered wine, please Ame. I’ll take it here at my desk. And see if you can find Coewia, will you? I have letters to write.”

  “As you wish, Mother.”

  “And send word to The Farm that I plan to visit tomorrow. I may stay a few hours or a few days; I haven’t decided yet. Have the coach prepared so that we can leave shortly after dawn.”

  “Yes, Mother,” said Ame, closing the door behind her.

  Key in hand, she walked to the ornate cupboard that displayed some of her lesser charms and her collection of porcelain dragons.

  “Now, then,” she said quietly to herself as she ran her eye over the accumulated items, “ah, there you are.”

  She opened one of the doors and pulled out a tiny cylindrical charm, no larger than her little finger, from where it rested against the tail of a yellow two-headed dragon figurine. She slipped it into a pocket in her skirt and closed the cupboard door. Then she pressed the key into a non-descript section of the moulding and focussed a tiny flow of power to activate the charm. There was a click and a section of moulding hinged open.

  After a second press of the charm against another section of moulding and another tiny flow of power she pulled the secret door open so that she could slide out the shallow drawer that lay hidden behind it. Inside, nestled in cavities lined with red velvet, were six charms of varying sizes and shapes. She quickly removed all the charms then slid the drawer closed and locked the door.

  Back at her desk she laid out the six charms from the drawer and the one from the cupboard, then she reached around to open the taller cupboard behind her desk where she kept her walking sticks. She shoved the ornate stick she had used to visit the palace roughly into the cupboard and pulled out a far longer staff, plain but beautifully made. It would be less useful as prop for her ‘old woman’ routine but its other properties would be valuable and with Marrinek once again in play she didn’t intend to take any risks.

  Finally, she sat down at her desk and surveyed the seven charms arranged across its surface. She rolled up her sleeves to expose her forearms. On the desk there were two slim short-range shock cannons, one shaped to fit her hand - she slid that one into the pocket of her robes - the other fitted with straps of supple calfskin - she strapped this one to the inside of her wrist where it would be hidden by the long sleeve. The two guards, made from lightweight leather with iron cores, she strapped to the outside of her arms before rolling down her sleeves. The ring she slid onto a finger on her right hand, the necklace she hung from her neck. That left only the seventh charm, which should be safe in her pocket. She stuffed it back into the pocket of her robes alongside the shock cannon then returned the charmed key, now back in its pouch, to its hiding place in the desk.

  With her charms in place she stood and walked to the window, leaning the long staff against the wall. She focussed tiny trickles of power into each of the charms in turn, checking that they still worked and that she had remembered their functions. Eventually satisfied, she walked back to her desk and sat down just as there was a knock at the door and Coewia came in clutching a satchel.

  “You sent for me, Mother.” she said, approaching the desk. She was a timid creature and Lady Drocia found her manners extraordinarily annoying but she had a neat hand and was a reliable secretary, even if Lady Drocia trusted her with only the most public of secrets.

  “Sit down girl,” said Lady Drocia, irritably gesturing toward the small writing desk where Coewia customarily sat to take dictation, “and, we’ll start with replies to this morning’s messages.”

  She laid out the papers on her desk as Coewia flattened a clean sheet of paper and prepared her pen.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  THE FIRE CHARM flickered, giving off a small light no brighter than a candle as it was waved around the cellar. A little more power and the flame grew until it stood maybe six inches tall and lit the whole of the damp, dreary room. Part of the ceiling had caved in so that the rooms of the ground floor were visible through a gaping hole between the joists. Water dripped steadily into the cellar, falling on the remains of the ceiling and a thick carpet of leaves, carried in with the rain that poured down and was blown into the house through the gap where the front door had been. The cellar stank of damp and mildew and rotting vegetation but bizarrely, amongst the mess and destruction, a rack of bottles stood dry and untouched in one corner.

  The fire charm floated across the room as its owner moved to examine the bottles. He ran his long fingers over the necks and peered at the corks. He grabbed one at random and pulled it from the rack, holding it up to the light of the fire charm and blowing dust and muck from the glass. Satisfied, he stuffed the bottle into a leather bag that hung at his side on a long strap slung over his shoulder. Then he plucked a couple more bottles from the rack and loaded them into the bag as well.

  He turned away from the rack and looked over the rest of the cellar again but there was nothing else worth seeing so he headed back to the stairs and climbed carefully up to the ground floor.

  Upstairs the house was in worse shape than the cellar. Much of the roof had gone and decades of rain had made a mess of the interior. It had been a large house, a mansion for a wealthy merchant, maybe, but the fine tapestries had long since vanished, the furniture was riddled with rot and everywhere the creeping tendrils of ivy and other climbing plants could be seen. Another few years and the house would collapse and disappear, consumed by the forest that was taking back the whole town.

  The man tugged his hood up over his head as he stepped out onto the street from the meagre protection of the house’s porch. Here too the wild was reclaiming its territory, tearing apart the streets and pulling down walls. The cobbles were fighting a losing battle against grass, shrubs and small trees, all of which were growing thickly between the buildings. The man kicked his way across the street, hacking a path through the more stubborn shrubs with a long heavy-bladed knife, and walked into a larger
stone building that had kept most of its roof and wasn’t as badly decayed as its neighbours.

  “Hello,” shouted the man as he climbed the steps, shaking rain from his cape and hood as he crossed the open threshold into the relative dry of the building’s main entrance hall. He crossed the hallway, boots booming on the floorboards, and entered the dining room. There was a small fire in the hearth and someone had pushed the table to one side to make space for the group’s kit. The man extinguished his fire charm and looked around at his companions, although only three were present.

  “Where are the others?” he asked, squatting down on the floor next to his wife, Farwen, and setting his sack carefully on the floor, “I thought everyone would be back by now.”

  “They are,” said Farwen, leaning over to kiss her husband, “you’re the last. Thaurid and Ediaf are rummaging through the library upstairs, although there’s not much left to see. Looks like the place was thoroughly cleared out years ago. Stydd is checking the horses and we’ve just been sitting here working on our kit.” She held up her knife, sharpening block in the other hand.

  Gwilath looked round at Gendra and Theap, the two hands hired to do whatever rough jobs they were given. Gendra was checking the fletchings of his arrows, something he seemed to spend every free moment doing, and Theap was oiling and sharpening her knives. Both looked at him but neither said anything.

  “Well, this might cheer you up,” said Gwilath, pulling out one of the bottles from his sack, “found these in a cellar across the street. Can’t tell what it is but I plan to find out.”

  Theap grunted and went back to examining her knives. She had many blades of various lengths and weights and, like Gendra with his arrows, she checked them obsessively - cleaning, sharpening, polishing, oiling - an endless cycle of maintenance and preparation. Gwilath had tried to make a joke of it shortly after they had left Riverbridge, asking if maybe she rattled as she walked. Theap had just looked at him, totally unamused, before stalking off along the path they were following. He hadn’t tried again.

  Gwilath pulled out his own knife and set to work on the cork, eventually levering it out of the neck of the bottle before tossing it into the flames. He sniffed at the bottle then took a cautious sip, then a larger swig.

  He spluttered a little and thumped his chest, then passed the bottle to Farwen.

  “It won’t win any medals,” he said, “but it’s probably not poisonous.”

  Farwen looked sceptically at the bottle and doubtfully at Gwilath, then took a swig herself. She coughed, covering her mouth with her free hand, then offered the bottle to Gendra. He shook his head and focussed on his arrows but Theap, apparently happy with her blades, stood up and took the bottle from her. She took a long swig, shrugged indifferently, and passed it back to Gwilath.

  “Did you find anything else?” said Farwen, “anything of value?”

  “Nope,” said Gwilath, “just a load of that stuff in a corner of the cellar and piles of rotten vegetation. This came from the house over the street and it has lost most of its roof. The years haven’t been kind to it and most of the rooms are covered in creepers or piles of rotting timber. What about over here; anything?” He took the other two bottles from his sack and placed them on the floor.

  “I think Ediaf is hopeful of the library but then he always is. Thaurid went with him to keep him company but this place is just too close to the river and too easy to find. We’ll have to head further west, maybe turn north or north-west, to find anything worth finding, I think.”

  Gwilath pursed his lips. They hadn’t expected to find anything of great value here but it was still a little disappointing. They had been travelling roughly westward for almost two weeks and he had hoped to have moved into virgin territory by now. He put the bottle down on the ground and pulled a leather roll from his backpack, spreading the map it contained on the table they’d been using to store their gear.

  “We’re here, Little Moss,” he said, jabbing a long finger at the map and muttering to himself as the others went about their chores, “and Lankdon Gate is here. We know that pretty much every band of hunters stops here on their way west,” he took another swig from the bottle and wiped his mouth then turned his attention back to the map, “so we need to head further out.”

  He ran his finger over the map, mumbling the names of the towns, reviewing the route they were taking and where they would be heading tomorrow.

  All the towns and villages marked on the map, even the cities, had been abandoned decades ago when the kingdom of Sclareme had fallen. The Disaster, as it was known, had started slowly. At first there were just a few isolated reports of remote farmsteads and small villages being abandoned, apparently without reason. Travellers or traders would arrive one day to find the village or area was empty, its people vanished, their homes and farms and businesses abandoned and falling to ruin. Sometimes, if the abandonment was recent, visitors might find corpses on the ground or fires still burning in the hearths but always it was the same; the people simply vanished, their possessions left behind, their animals starving in the fields.

  The city dwellers and the townsfolk paid little attention. Everyone knew that living in the country was a hard, unpredictable life, especially in the north. People up there were a little cracked, they said, a little wild from living at the edge of the kingdom. In the foothills of the mountains the life was tough and people even tougher; who knew what might get into your head as the cold winter winds blew down from the north?

  But as the number of deserted villages grew and a pattern emerged, the people in the towns began to feel uneasy. Eventually even the cities started to pay attention. Lords were petitioned, rousing speeches were delivered and eventually a small military expedition was sent to ride the borders and seek out both the missing people - for where could they have gone except to the border? - and whatever enemy had forced them to leave their homes.

  Weeks passed but no word came and the expedition did not return. More villages were deserted, more farmsteads abandoned. The King and his Lords grew uneasy, maybe feeling the long fingers of Death himself tugging at the collar of their realm. And then the first large town fell to a night-time attack by an unknown invader.

  For the first time there were survivors, people who by luck or happenstance or skill had escaped and made their way south. They told tales of painted figures looming out of the dark with swords and spears and pain, of vicious attacks and inhuman cries, of horror and fire and death.

  Everyone agreed that something had to be done before the whole of the western region was overrun. The King and his Lords, shaken by the stories but confident in their martial prowess, gathered their armies at the northern fortress city of Lankdon Gate then matched westward to recover the lost territory and to seek out and destroy their enemy.

  For weeks they searched, combing the hills and the forests and the plains of the western counties. They found survivors, terrified individuals who spoke of night-time attacks and of foraging for berries in a land stripped of people. They found villages and towns and mining settlements, all abandoned, some destroyed by fire or weapons of unknown design. They sent back to Lankdon Gate a continuous stream of progress reports along with accounts of the ongoing desertions and descriptions of all that they had found.

  And then one day, after searching for nearly two month, the reports stopped coming and the King, his Lords and their army was never heard from again.

  In Lankdon Gate there was panic and the trickle of people fleeing southward became a flood. Within a week half the population had fled. A week later the gates of the city closed for the last time and no further news or people had ever emerged from Lankdon Gate.

  After the fall of Lankdon Gate the Disaster claimed more and more settlements, spreading ever wider across the country. Villages, towns and even cities were abandoned as people headed east to escape across the Guiln or south to the newly assertive coastal city states. In less than a year, the entire kingdom had been abandoned or lost.

 
; Gwilath knew all this. The history and collapse of the kingdom of Sclareme had been a favourite late-night topic of debate at university, where students of history and archaeology, or some of them, dreamed of heading west to unravel the secrets of the Disaster.

  “Or we head northward towards Lankdon Gate itself. Not many people go that way,” muttered Gwilath, “not many people at all.”

  “Yes, we know,” said Farwen, “but we’ve been over this before and people don’t go near Lankdon Gate because anyone who does is never seen again.”

  “It might be worth going to have a look, though,” said an excited voice from the door. Ediaf came into the room carrying a small pile of books and a map in a leather case.

  “You found something useful in the library?” asked Gwilath.

  “Yes. Well, no, not in the library, as such.” He stopped next to Gwilath and placed his charges carefully on the floor.

  “What he means,” said Thaurid, following in behind Ediaf, “is that there was a cupboard hidden in the panelling. It was lined with stone so that if you tapped the wood, it sounded like the rest of the wall but the damp must have got to it over the last season and warped the door.”

  “And so nobody else had found it,” finished Ediaf, spreading one of the maps on top of Gwilath’s and weighting the edges with pieces of wood, “which means we’re the first people to look at this in maybe seventy years.”

  “Look,” he said, pointing at the map, “Lankdon Gate is marked, here, about eighty miles northwest of Little Moss.” Interesting but not very helpful. Everyone knew the location of Lankdon Gate, the fortress-palace of the kings of Sclareme, but everyone also knew that the city’s wealth - powerful charms, a hoard of precious metals, great weapons and marvellous gems - weren’t in the city itself but in a lost room hidden in the labyrinthine dungeons beneath the palace.

  “Great,” said Gwilath, “so how does this help us?”