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were the walls and towers of Malencontri. He heaved a sigh of relief; and then
remembered that the castle did not promise relief, but a problem waiting
solution. He still had whatever trouble Secoh was waiting to drop on him.
He thrust worry from his mind for the moment. Now that he had the castle in
sight, he really began to appreciate the speed with which they had been
traveling. The castle seemed to be rocketing toward him.
"Down we go!" Hob-One sang almost happily; and they plunged into a chimney
that Jim assumed was the one leading down to the serving room in the tower,
right next to the hall of Malencontri. The serving room was where the dishes
were brought and attempted to be kept warm from the kitchen; since the kitchen
in most castles was outside the main castle buildings, and very often a wooden
structure. Fire was the great fear of those who lived in castles and used open
flame to cook by.
There was a flash of darkness around him, and he suddenly found himself
coming to a halt with both heels jarring on a floor right in front of a
fireplace with a comfortable fire burning in it.
But it was not the serving room nor any other room in the castle that he
recognized.
It was the interior of Carolinus's little cottage at the Tinkling Water, some
snow-clad miles away; and it was Carolinus himself who was facing him,
fiercely, in a room lit only by the dancing shadows of the firelight, which
made strange advancing and retreating areas of darkness in the further parts
of the room, and a surprisingly bright glow from the upside-down fish-bowl
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shape of the magician's scrying glass.
"Don't ask me!" snapped Carolinus. "It's not your fault; but I can't help
you."
Chapter 13
Jim stared at the older man. Carolinus looked the same as usual, in a red
robe, with the stains that always seemed to accumulate on one of his robes
after a day or so; whether from food, some by-product of magic-making, or some
strange other reason. But there were lines of strain around his eyes and Jim
was not deceived by the fierceness. This was not Carolinus being his normal
irritable self; it was Carolinus covering up something by pretending to be his
normal irritable self.
"But I didn't come asking for help," said Jim. "At least not in the sense I
think you meant it. I've got things to tell you and things to talk over with
you; and actually I was headed to talk with Secoh first; but I'm just as glad
I ran into you instead. I suppose you had me diverted to here."
"That's right!" said Carolinus.
"Well, to start off with," said Jim, "let me tell you something. There's an
army of trolls surrounding the Earl's castle."
"He knows. I've told him," said a familiar voice; and Aargh came out of one
of the shifting patches of shadow into the light, looking half again as big as
normal, and almost demonlike himself with his yellow eyes in the candle glow
and the light from the scrying glass.
"Did you see them?" demanded Jim.
"They were already under the snow," said Aargh, "but I smelled them. The
whole forest there reeks of troll; and my nose is not a troll's nose, nor a
deer's nose, nor a hedgehog's nose. I would smell even one of them, even under
a foot of snowdrift."
"But Mnrogar didn't actually talk as if he knew about them," said Jim. "And
it was only early the next day in the morning that it stopped snowing; so if
they were going to be covered by snow they had to be covered by that time."
"They were," said Aargh.
"Then why didn't Mnrogar act as if he knew they were out there?" said Jim.
"The only thing he seemed concerned about was this troll he thinks is upstairs
in the castle among the guests."
"They were outside his territory," said Aargh. "Also, under the castle down
there, unless the wind was blowing directly down his tunnel and even then he
might not be able to smell them at that distance."
"They were there when you left us and went out?" asked Jim. "You got through
and past them all right?"
Aargh laughed his silent laugh.
"They are not shoulder to shoulder under the snow," he said. "They neither
love nor trust each other, those trolls. There was more than enough space
between them for even a slow-moving animal to get through, with luck, let
alone me. Besides, what would one of them gain by leaping out of the snow at
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me? Only his own death. They're there for another reason."
Jim turned on Carolinus.
"They're after the castle, the Earl and the guests inside?" he said to
Carolinus.
"No," said Carolinus. His faded blue eyes burned fiercely under his white
eyebrows. "They're after Mnrogar's territory. Only one of them can get it in
single combat with Mnrogar but whether he wins or loses; whether he can hold
it, after he has won, from other challengers among the other trolls, makes no
difference. The very fact that they are there to try can be a thing the Dark
Powers have been seeking for some time an excuse to have you stripped of all
your magical powers and leave you defenseless before them. And, as I said, in
this, finally, I can't help you. I must stand aside. Because you're my
apprentice I have to stand aside."
Jim blinked at him.
"I don't understand," he said after a second. "What does stripping me of my
magical powers mean? And what's all this about the Dark Powers? As I [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]