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PART ONE
The Thaumaiurge
CHAPTER ONE The Queen Besieged
ALODAR closed his mind to the pounding of the huge stones against the lower
walls of the keep. He ignored the growl of his stomach and tried to concentrate on
the spinning disk. Forty-one days of siege, he thought, and the last five on half
rations. Half rations for himself and the other craftsmen, while the men at arms
still received full shares.
"Faster, Morwin, faster until it buzzes like an angry hive," Alodar listened as the
apprentice pushed against the two-hand crank and the giant flywheel slowly
increased its speed. After several minutes, a faint tone from the serrated edge
mixed with the crash of rock and cry of pain below. Morwin stepped back from
the rough wooden frame which supported the rotating wheel and sat panting on
the smooth floor of the bartizan.
"Make the rest of your preparations, journeyman," the big man in mail next to
Alodar barked. "You two may rest if this air gondola proves its worth, but not
before."
Alodar disregarded the harsh tone. He squinted up at the sun midway between
the east and overhead. "They will have to look directly into the glare to see us," he
said evenly. "Your men can begin."
"They begin when I tell them," the sergeant said, pushing his thumb at his chest.
"You may have once been the son of Alodun, lord of the buttes, and had the right
to command, but now you are no more than the wheelwright. I owe you only what
I would give any tradesman."
Alodar spilled the air out of his nostrils in a long sigh. "My father struggled six
years for the justice due him and went to his grave alone and brokenhearted. The
anguish to carry on was too great a price to pay and I buried my feelings with
him. I am a journeyman at an honest craft and accept my lot. I desire no empty
formality that stirs up the dying embers of the past."
He stopped and stared into the big man's eyes. "And I ask no more than what you
should show any man who labors in our common defense, regardless of his
station." For a long moment their eyes remained locked, but finally the sergeant
shrugged and turned to the group of men crouching within the archway into the
keep. "To your positions, then," he ordered.
The men rose, and two edged out to the crenellations which framed a deep cut in
the hills to the west. The third, the smallest of the three, climbed into a waist-high
wicker basket which stood by the spinning disk.
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Alodar stepped to the woven box, withdrew a chisel from one of the pockets in his
cape, and hacked a fresh splinter from it. His cowl was thrown back over his
shoulders, revealing a narrow face topped with fine yellow-brown hair. His nose
and mouth were drawn with an economy of line, plain and straight, with nothing
to mark him as either handsome or uncomely. Only his eyes removed him from
the nondescript; they were bright and alive, darting like dragonflies, missing no
detail of what happened around him. His face held the smoothness of youth, now
marked only by two short furrows above his nose as he concentrated on the task
before him.
Standing scarcely taller than the basket's occupant, he stepped back from the box,
holding the scrap of wood at waist level, glanced again at the position of the sun,
and began the incantation.
He spoke with skill; the words came quickly but with the sharpness necessary for
success. His tone was even and the rhythm smooth. The two words of power
sounded with a lack of distinction. They fitted unnoticed into the stream of
improvised nonsense which surrounded them. In a moment he was done.
Alodar nodded a warning to the man-at-arms facing him and slowly began to
raise the splinter upward. Simultaneously the basket lurched and cleared the
stonework of the platform. The splinter rose with almost imperceptible slowness
but the gondola with its passenger climbed at a rapid rate.
The big man returned to Alodar's side. "Can you not
go faster? They will spy him before he lines with the sun."
"No, sergeant," Alodar said, not turning to nod in reply but keeping his attention
on the sliver he held in his hand. "This splinter is about one part in a thousand of
the basket as a whole. For each palm I raise it, your man climbs another forty
rods. Were I to move faster, we might use too much of the wheel's spin just in
fighting the wind we would make with our haste. I do not yet wear the cape of a
master, but I understand enough of thaumaturgy to do what is proper for this
task."
The sergeant grunted and Alodar continued to raise the splinter upward. Several
minutes passed and the basket rose to become but a speck in the sky.
"High enough," one of the men shouted while sighting through his sextant.
Alodar glanced at the wheel. The crank now turned lazy circles about the axle
with no hint of the blurring speed it had possessed moments ago. The sergeant
followed his gaze and looked back at Alodar.
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"If there is but little wind," Alodar explained, "there is enough spin left to keep
the gondola properly positioned for some time. It takes far less energy to resist a
sideward thrust than to fight the earth for height."
While he spoke, Alodar began to step in the direction of the hills. The platform far
above moved in proportion. The two observers darted their instruments about,
sighting first the sun, then the basket, and finally the crags themselves. Alodar
made but two slow steps and part of another before one of the observers called
him to stop.
"A little more forward now. Hold it an instant. Now to the left a palm. Freeze it in
place," he directed as Alodar shifted the splinter back and forth.
Morwin jumped from his inactivity beside the slowly turning disk and ran
through the archway to the chamber beyond. He fetched a tripod with a small
clamp attached and returned to where Alodar stood with the splinter still at arm's
length. After a few moments of adjustment, the clamp was in position to secure
the scrap of wood firmly, and Alodar relinquished his grip. Massaging his now
numb arm, he moved quickly to the edge of the bartizan to see the results of his
effort.
He whisked a telescope out from his cape and sighted the basket. It now stood
fixed firmly in the sky, suspended
directly in front of one of the sheer cliffs that was their target.
"Luck be with him soon," the sergeant muttered as he watched with his own
glass. "If he does not find a ledge wide enough for the catapult within the hour,
we will strike no blow for ourselves this day. And tomorrow may be too late for
any scheme, sound or foolish, to prevent a breach."
Alodar turned from watching the rider scramble onto the face of the cliff and
looked at the plain below.
"They will be in the bailey within two days for certain," the sergeant continued.
"And even if help did appear, how could it get through all that?"
Alodar followed the sweep of the mailed arm, and the sick feeling returned to his
empty stomach.
The gray hills in the west stretched from horizon to horizon, stark and unbroken
except for the one deep and wide notch, like a missing tooth, directly facing him
about hah! a mile distant. The walls on the right rose tall and sheer, unbroken
monoliths, smooth and inaccessible. The slopes on the left were as steep but
cracked with fissures, chimneys, and ledges, and upon these clambered the man
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Alodar had transported there. Between the two faces, a train of wagons and carts,
piled with baggage and arrayed with no pattern, hid the floor of the pass from
view. Alodar could make out a motley collection of tents rising in its midst, and
from the pinnacles of each flew a blue and silver banner.
Much closer stood an orderly array of artillery, drawn out in a precise circle that
Alodar knew completely surrounded the stronghold. With drilled exactness, their
crews would load and fire in unison. The great bows of the ballista’s hurled their
rock hard and flat against the battered outer walls, while the mangonels sent
theirs high and lofted to rain down on the foundation of the keep and the
surrounding courtyard. Lighter but more accurate trebuchets blasted at the spots
already weakened by the heavier siegecraft.
Nearer still, in more irregular array, many clusters of armed men crouched
behind full-length shields shining angrily in the morning sun. The groups farther
back used their protection, casually bobbing heads and torsos to see the battle's
progress. Those closer, within range of the de-
fenders' longbows, huddled in tight balls, exposing no arm or a leg as a target.
With each volley of the rockthrowers, the answering fire from the
manchicolations and loopholes in the castle's walls would cease, and the men in
the field would creep a little closer, their scaling ladders and belfries dragging
behind them. From high on the keep, Alodar could see that, long before the
clusters reached the outer wall, they would converge into a single continuous ring
of attackers.
"Yes, it would take a large force to break through to us," he finally agreed, "but
Iron Fist has never fallen to assault."
"It takes more than stone and iron to defend this mound," the sergeant said.
"Muscle pulls tight the bowstrings and swings the broadswords, and at last
muster we numbered fewer than two hundred fighting men. Two hundred for
over half a mile of wall."
He shook his head with lips pulled into a tight line of disapproval. "A mere two
hundred, because Vendora wanted to flaunt her might along the southern border.
Almost every garrison in Procolon stripped to nothing, so that those petty border
kingdoms think to stop their raids and return to bickering among themselves.
Hah, I wonder if those raids seem so important to her now? Fully provisioned, we
could withstand anything that Bandor could throw at us. As it is, only the great
height and thickness of these walls have saved her crown and pretty neck this
long."
"But her miscomputation was no worse than mine," Alodar said, spreading his
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palms outward. "How would anyone but a sorcerer surmise that one of her most
faithful vassals would suddenly lose his reason and plunge through that gap hi
the west, just when she was here? The gates clanged shut on noble and craftsman
alike who happened to be here, and none claim to have foreseen it."
"Yes, it is strange," the sergeant said. "The ferocity of the attack, the way he drives
his men on with no regard for their exhaustion. I have heard it whispered about
more than once at night that Bandor has lost not his reason but his will. Like a
mere craftsman, he has been possessed."
Alodar blinked with surprise, but before he could reply be was interrupted by one
of the observers.
"He has found a spot and is signaling for us to proceed."
"Sweetbalm, luck is with us today," the sergeant exclaimed, jumping his thoughts
back to the task at hand. "Start bringing up the beams and lashings."
Alodar stepped to the stand and released the splinter from the clamp. Holding it
at arm's length, be dropped his hand a fraction of an inch. The basket sank
correspondingly, and the wheel again started to spin. He retraced his steps, and it
shot across the sky to hover directly overhead. Finally, as he lowered the splinter,
it settled gently onto the floor of the bartizan. Again the giant crank was a blur as
the wheel spun, but it turned not nearly as fast as when Morwin had first
propelled it.
Alodar rapidly recited another incantation, virtually indistinguishable from the
first. When he was done, he flung the splinter high into the air with a dramatic
gesture while the basket remained unperturbed on the ground.
The men-at-arms wasted no time in loading two large notched beams into the
basket. Morwin against cranked up the wheel, and Alodar removed a fresh
splinter and spoke the incantation. Moving with more haste than before, he
brought the splinter directly to the clamp; the basket with its burden hurled from
the castle to the cliffs. The sergeant directed some small corrections until the
basket hovered directly below the ledge that the rider had found. Morwin moved
the clamp and secured the splinter in the new position.
After the gondola was unloaded, the entire process was repeated many times,
with each worker intent upon his tasks. Alodar broke the spell upon the return.
Morwin rewound the crank and the men-at-arms packed a new load of beams,
brands, or lashings. Another incantation and fixing of a splinter in the clamp and
another bundle would be delivered to the ledge in the distance. Several hours
later the men-at-arms were the passengers for the final two trips, and then the
job was done.
Weary from the concentration, Alodar looked to the west. "How long will it take
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