Varlarsaga Volume 3 - Consolation

Chapter - 55 Minca Is Swayed

‘No, and no, and no again!’ Minca rained the slaps of her open palm across a broad, marble balustrade, that wound up and back from whence she stood, upon the fifth bottom step. Behind her, reared the savage finery of architecture that marked the mansions and apartments of Erilar: sweeping vistas of stairways and columns, buttressed over-walks and domed ceilings. Hanging galleries, seemingly suspended in mid fall, thronged with spectators down the yawning hall at Menkeepir's back, where he faced her, standing tall and dignified, on the shining floor. He waited, brooding, silent. His brother Mendor, a pace to rear of him; stewing, brewing.

Away, a distance along the parquetry, sprawled the bulk of the ogre; surrounded by bowls and demijohns, many maidservants catering to his unflagging glut.

Eventually Menkeepir held up his clenched fist. ‘Lady, Lady!’ he shouted over the tumult. ‘We have warred, you and I, over days upon days. This has been fruitless. Meanwhile, others die outside. Some, maybe, mean something to you. Shall I not be permitted to speak openly a last time?’

‘No upon no!’ The Lorda Minca spat out the words. ‘Do you never understand me, I care not!’ She shook her head dizzyingly. ‘We are safe here within Erilar's encompassing walls. We are safe. No need is there to outset. Our bounds are held. Dorthillion stands, untouched. What transpires beyond, in other realms is not my responsibility, nor my burden. You, Menkeepir! Hey! You and all your huddling kinsfolk! Have we not taken you in: fed, clothed, housed? Why, here now dwell the whole remnant of Indlebloom at our behight, well treated. And you bleat, plead and entreat my people to follow back from whence was tasted utter defeat!’

‘Defeat one day, another day victory,’ scowled Mendor, his scarred face creasing.

‘A-ho to you,’ scoffed Minca, ‘and a laugh! What know you, scar-face? Piddle-winner of stray skirmish. Loser of Lord-dom. Ha! One third holder of nought! At least it appears your youngest Brother has some mettle, staying on to fate unknown whilst you both shirked hither!’

Insulted finally to the end, Mendor brushed past his brother and vaulted the stone betwixt he and Minca, and well may he have done her a hurt, but for the iron pikes and inglet blades of her guard. Surrounded before and behind, they rendered him helpless to do more.

‘Stay!’ Minca commanded. ‘Do not strike the Scarred-face!’ She might have spoken further that which lay hidden in her heart, barely awakened. ‘The dear face,’ came to her thoughts, though not a word of that did she utter. And still, for some time, a curious feeling of love-hate had been growing unbidden in Minca toward the stern Lord of Indlebloom. But instead, she broke through her own guard's swords and bars, there to grasp Mendor's throat between shaking hands.

‘I could throttle you!’ she shouted, frustrated by a mixture of whirling emotions. ‘Oh could I, if only my fingers were those of a man's, then even your sinews would yield!’ So she raged at him, grasping his neck, though did her efforts imply more an embrace than an injury. On his part Mendor strained forward, held helpless by her captains, Tarhunta and Trondilag, both strong-armed men.

A few paces off, Menkeepir stood motionless until he could stand it no longer. ‘Here!’ he said, striding forward to catch Minca's wrist ere any might hinder him. ‘We must not sink to brawling. Enemies abound outside and we squabble before the people of Erilar.’

Minca struggled, whipping about, flipping and flying like a fowler's bird, but Menkeepir would not let her go, even as blades clattered at his breast. ‘Very well,’ said he, ignoring the danger, ‘if you will not stand with us in this cause, that is finally that. Free my Brother, and we will both walk from these halls without your aid. And we shall not return!’

Minca ceased struggling, and nodded mutely to her restraining followers.

Meanwhile, a far door fell open, and in that distance, quite near to Broga's now standing bulk, a crumpling heap, a lump of something like a ragged ball of slumping movement, was hauled into the gloom beyond candle and fire-light. No one took much notice except the ogre, for he had heard a sound; a groan, familiar even in agony, to which he turned his shaggy head.

‘Take yourselves away then!’ Minca shouted, trembling free of Menkeepir's hold. ‘Go! Fight! Die! Hey, and whilst you be about it, find me the doughty Rohilkhand, my man-of-the-best, and your own Brother, that lamentable song-singer. No doubt Rohilkhand has him safe somewhere!’ She turned on her booted heel.

‘Mental-Sing-Songer-Here-Now-Fall-Down-Need-Food-Blood-Wine!’ Broga bawled, carting the shapeless mass up the hall. Behind him, in the shadows of the door, there stood a tall, dim-lit figure, though none heeded this, for at that booming, all eyes shifted to the towering ogre and the object caught up in his bulging arms, where he arrived before Minca and the others. There, he deposited his burden, and from the soiled and stinking shreds that once were garments, lolled a blackened, greasy head.

Minca drew back, aghast.

Menkeepir cried aloud.

Mendor shook free the restraining hands.

The eyes in the head rolled, the mouth croaked, ‘I... have... felt the... dread of death's... dolour... I know not... how... I return... to the... living... still I... live... Will this... hall... receive me? Some may... recall... the name... My... singir...’ Mysingir lay there, mouth agape, eyes pleading, body contorted amongst the ruin of rags, whilst for an instant, too horrified, the rest remained unmoving. Then, as a painting might leap to life, each started forward as one.

‘Give him space, let him breathe!’ Minca cried, pushing through. ‘Here, cut away the filth about him. Bring water to bathe his wounds and cleanse his skin!’

Someone else said, ‘Send for a physician to minister him. Bring cushions and furs! Do not move this man, if yet that may he be so called. More akin to some tortured, wild beast adrift of wit he looks.’

‘Fie that talk!’ shouted Minca, as she gently lifted the shaved and stubble-bloodied head to rest upon her bent thigh.

Mysingir's gaze went up, sought questingly hers, then the red-shot eyes tilted further into his skull.

‘He has swooned,’ she thought. ‘On my Father's grave!’ she thought. ‘He is going to die!’

Eight days went by, but still he did not, lingering instead on the brink, in a kind of twilight between life and death. All that could be done for Mysingir was done; attended day and night by Minca, and watched over by his two brothers. And somehow this mutual concern erased their animosities. Their caring, if anything, drew them together, at least for a time.

When, eventually, Mysingir opened his eyes, his slow-focussed sight at last coherent, he looked into Minca's steady, dark gaze.

‘Is this a contrived trick, a spell of the enemy, some conjuration. Or dream maybe?’ he mumbled: breath, word, pause, breath.

Minca rested her fingertips, cool they were, across his brow. ‘Nay, it is no device of evil, my Lord Mysingir. You are safe. You are come to Erilar, in the realm of Dorthillion.’

He stared at her, fair-puzzled, the past forgotten. Then, across his eyes, she saw a flicker, and she knew that this brutalised man was remembering. And she wept for him. For since his arrival, during the long days afterward, she had looked often upon his blackened face and manifold scars, his blued and broken fingers, the lacerations and contusions on legs and arms and body. And she had listened to his nightmare screams, the ravings of derangement.

For a long while, he lying couched, she kneeling silent-teared, they were. In the sterile, white-washed room that adjoined her own unsullied apartment, they were. He bound to wait, and remember, and convulse with horror at the memories. She bound to wait; to hold on, to help him in his needs, whilst he bled through the past terrors. His cries were as claws to her heart.

‘Is it true,’ Mysingir whispered. ‘Are you the woman who dwelt once in my life?’ He fell to a soft murmur, ‘There once was a warrior bold... in legend his tale has... has... hasn't been...’ He choked. He looked at her bewildered, yet lucid more than he had been since his arrival.

‘My dear,’ said Minca tenderly, ‘you are back at last, after a great battle. You fought in it, but you did not win. Still,’ and here she caressed his shrinking skin, ‘you have not lost either. And now you must rise, and go on to your next task.’

He hid his face in the crook of her arm. ‘I cannot,’ he sobbed, ‘cannot fight longer, alone.’

‘Hey, I will be your strength,’ said Minca, simply, softly. ‘I, and he who delivered you hither, this strange farer in the wilds.’ She drew before Mysingir's gaunt gaze the tall, dominating countenance of the wizard He´Remon.

‘Hello,’ said the wizard. ‘I see that you have won at least a signal victory of your own, your life yet holds. Though when I came upon you, that was nigh gone. It was fortunate that I, stalking through the land, fell that way along the fells. Elsewise, well, who can say? Still and all, I robbed you away from those nasty creatures, and here we are met again, man and wizard. Remember me?’

Mysingir nodded slowly, ‘Yes, I think I do.’ He curled his laboured body a little, and settled down to sleep. ‘You were my saviour, yes?’

The wizard began to speak, but already Mysingir had drifted off.

‘Here is more salve for his wounds, and do not forget the infusions of herbs. Keep him drinking these, as I have instructed. We cannot make him whole again without his will to survive and your aid. Heed to me young Lorda, only you can do that, in another, deeper way.’

‘Yes,’ answered Minca looking up at He´Remon, a doubt catching her heart, ‘and praise be to you, O Wizard, for your timely aid. My gratitude for your service. From what you say, the goblins must have kept him, torturing him for many days. It is a marvel that he survived at all.’

‘That much is true,’ the wizard replied, ‘and I believe they had some reason for not killing him. Though what it was, I cannot say, or even guess. An elf, one of the two who rode with him, they slaughtered; that I saw evidence of. I do not know what became the other, or the horses they rode. As I related to the Lords Menkeepir and Mendor, it was sheer chance which took me to that den of horrors whilst on my way hither. And I am now here for the self-same reason Lord Mysingir was on his way, I warrant.’

‘And that was?’ asked Minca, absently.

‘Why surely you, Lady of this wide, wild land, know the answer,’ returned He´Remon, a gentle censure in his tone.

Quick to take umbrage, Minca looked up, bridling, ‘I am the Lorda Minca. I brook no insolence or dalliance at play with words. If you have something to say, say it, and make it plain.’

‘And I am He´Remon the Wizard!’ stated he flatly and imperiously. And in his standing stature, he seemed to loom and cast himself; bending over her, so that his shadow fell across she, and the pale face of the one she nursed. Half defensively, for she was unguarded, Minca raised a hand.

But the wizard withdrew a little. ‘Listen to me. I am he who came far in wilder lands, through perilous danger. I am he, saviour and bearer of this one you claim dear to you. He, also dared to travel through the vales hung about with danger. And for what? Yea, he came in search of his Brothers and his displaced peoples. Yea, might he even have come to you, for you. Yet he came also, for a greater reason. And well you know it, though all along you have refused to accept such, for motives I now lay guess at.’

‘And what may they be?’ Minca asked, challengingly.

The wizard took breath into him and laughed, slow and rich. ‘I am a stranger to you. Ere a short time ago, I knew not young Mysingir. Still, through Master Corin, and others, have I heard somethings. It seems to me that on a time ago, you felt a passion for this Lord of Mendoth. A passion waxing and waning, whilst he pursued you and you cared enough to taunt him, that he might endeavour even further. Perhaps you deluded yourself. Perhaps you believed that, in your way, you loved him. It would appear so, since you travelled far. All the way from Erilar; these same sturdy, safe walls, to Kutha-Kesh, the Wanax Orsokon's distant domain. From then, did your ardour lessen? Had another taken your thoughts, stolen your mind and heart? Did you turn westward at the end of that adventure, unsure, uncertain of your feelings? So much so, that in the turmoil following you made headlong for Dorthillion and home. And then, then, once you had reached your haven, was it of no need to venture forth again, since the real object of your affections came here and stayed as long as you remained resolute.’

Minca's eyes welled with tears, her fingers chafed at poor Mysingir's withered wrists. ‘I'll fight you, Wizard or not,’ she said gamely. ‘Hey, what would you know? Guesses, guesses. You make not your barb.’

‘I shall now make that point,’ He´Remon softened. ‘If those who cherish Varlar, this earth, wish it to remain as it is, then must they fight for it. The place of altercation lies south and west of here. It is imperative that all those free-willed, with strength left, contest against the howling hordes who mass to take the world and destroy it in the doing. As Menkeepir patiently hounded, as Mendor stressed heavy-handed, as Mysingir near died to beg, you must give way; send the forces left of Indlebloom, combined with those of Dorthillion, to the aid of elves and dwarves. For without the hope of men, what can avail the rest? The dwarves are strong and crafty, still they are no match alone against the fiercest enemy ever known to them. Elves are courageous warriors, but lack the enormity of numbers the goblins can muster. Already it has come to pass that evil lurks the woody ways of this realm. The nugobluk who took Mysingir were within your domain, this side of the mountains you name Mirthin. Do you not understand? Already they bay at boundaries and bark at your outhouses. In time they will come in force, bringing war to you. If you wait whilst your allies are slain and defeated, sooner or later, the victors, gorged on blood and flesh, will look this way, and you will not hold them back, any more than could the citadel of Mendoth.’

‘Mendoth was a girt fortress,’ Minca agreed. ‘But Erilar is more than that,’ she added proudly. ‘Out of long and bitter generations of war and defeat, my forbears fashioned this place. Sweat and tears wrought the reared palisades. Fear dug the ring-moats, goaded the trembling arms, the straining backs. Death from exhaustion, presided over the quarries, wherein the monolith-stone was cut and dressed. Haste and pressing need drove the architects of this vast labyrinth. Why, it took days just to gain entrance to these inner mansions.’

‘Yes days,’ admitted the wizard. ‘Time spent convincing your soldiery that I had important business with you, almost to Mysingir's end. It was they who dumped him into your hall, not I.’

She dropped her gaze. ‘Of that am I aware. My people are suspicious and aggressive. It is a wonder that you were not both interred, or thrown to pierce and drown within the moats of spears.’

‘A wonder? Not a wonder. A way was forced to you because I was there. As I am here now. And I tell you this, proud may you be of the defences quarried and cut, and block upon block, raised. Yet catch this vision in your mind; behold your cunningly made narrowed ramps, where enemies fall from either side as they jostle abreast, and see their places taken, again and again.’ He´Remon made a swift pass before her face, and it was as if Minca suddenly saw rank on rank foe, the coal-glowing eyes of goblins charging, on and on until the dead-fallen filled the ankle-ditches, the sloped knee-wrenching trenches, and still they came.

‘Behold now the spike-moats, the hidden pits and jutting walls,’ the wizard said. And she saw the creatures hurtling to their deaths by the hundreds, the thousands, until the pits and waters choked and the high revets were piled with the slopes of the vanquished. And she saw them coming on; more and more, climbing the heaps of the dead, trampling them underclaw as rampart to get to those beyond the walls, splashing across the impaled bodies of their own kind, lying beneath dark-bloodied tracts.

‘There is no way to stem them,’ she muttered entranced.

‘No,’ answered He´Remon, ceasing his conjuring hands. ‘When they come, they will come in like force to that which you have just glimpsed. There will be no way to stop them. Not even the holds of this mighty bastion!’

Minca's gaze cleared, and blinking she looked up into He´Remon's mysterious, shrouded eyes. ‘Then you are right, 0 Wizard, and I give way to you. The peoples of Erilar and all Dorthillion must make ready to ride out for war!’ Almost feverishly, it seemed, she stroked Mysingir's knotted brow. ‘But,’ she further ventured, ‘I will say this unto you, you are a wily one. Mean I that with respect. For you have probed too deeply inside my heart and mind, deeper perhaps than I have dared. And you have unearthed secrets that none knew, but my own secret-self. You have looked aglance at my naked innerness, and I am embarrassed for such intrusion. Now it is that I see and know, as if for the first time, the truth which you have laid plain. Mysingir I loved, in girlish fashion. More so, I loved leading him on, for he had made overtures enough to inform his realm and mine of his intentions. Hey! And in its way was such sport a joy to me. No thought had I to the damage done. Yet now, and for a goodly while, something else has arisen in my heart of hearts. Something hardest to describe, a kind of hate-love that stirs to smoulder and defy my control. It is, as you said, for Mysingir's Brother Mendor, who only despises me.’

Here she thought long, pondering, then continued. ‘All three Brothers are so different. Menkeepir so self possessed, aloof, intent upon his chosen course. Mysingir, romantic and foolhardy enough to fight a dragon, if I impressed would be. And my Lord Mendor, he is the cool-hot proud one, who does not shirk to do the unsung deeds, who rides to win without want of praise, for the good of kith and kin and country. Oh aye, I know I rail at him, rile him at every turn. I am such a shallow-heart that I cannot bring myself to tell a man I find love, honest love, for him, out of fear that he will laugh in my face. It is a cruelty to know that no matter what, the one you finally true-love will listen with muted ears and turn his back upon you.’

Her words came now, lofty, slow and deliberate. ‘Yea, the peoples of Dorthillion will ride to war alongside those left of Indlebloom, and the Lorda Minca shall lead her Knights at the forefront. Yea, I will journey into the south-west, toward golden victory in the field, or benighted darkness in death. And though he shall not be aware, I will stay close by my Lord Mendor, that whilst I yet take breath I may guard him, limb and life.’

He´Remon sitting once more bowed his cowled, bearded face. ‘All decisions are at chance. For you, perhaps, this may be the best. You are a Lady-Soldier, who could not sit at home broidering; no delight would that avail you. Your flaring-love will ride out, nothing surer, and you would vine-wither waiting here, when to be at his side, ignored, would be better.’

Minca, Lorda of Dorthillion, smiled, no longer defiant. ‘The pity is that I cannot stay with this hard-wounded man, who is more worthy than I by far, even now though how low he is laid.’

At that, Mysingir's eyelids fluttered, and she wondered, for a time after, if he had heard anything of their conversation.

Some days passed, and during them the war-lords and war-ladies, the high and the low, prepared themselves in readiness to venture forth from the encircling margins of the great citadel.

Those left behind to hold that capital were few: youngest, oldest, doughty women, and those too wounded to travel. Still, Erilar itself held its own hazards against storming and sacking, and for a time the moated fortress was safe enough whilst conflict lay beyond.

At dawn of a new day, Mysingir stood, supported, upon a battlement overlooking those massing to take their leave. Beside him were three lieutenants, Tarhunta, Berrondo and Trondilag. These had been appointed by Minca, since by then she despaired of Rohilkhand's return, unaware that he was long dead. Mysingir and Minca waved to each other. He unsteady, for after his latest ordeal he again was touched, his mind wandering. She, excited, saddened, glory and death-ready; heedful of Mendor, scarred and dour at her side.

Menkeepir, meanwhile, spake with both his people and hers, and in this Minca did not object; she was far too absorbed, her gaze shifting from Mysingir on the walls to Mendor, where he sat horse, eyes downcast, listening to his brother.

‘We ride out of the Lorda Minca's gates, and we go not only to aid the elvish and the dwarf folk, they who confront our enemies at this very moment and who have in past times opposed them without stint, but also to aid ourselves. It is now that we must do the deeds, lest those hordes of foe decimate all lands. For your very lives, follow. Believe in your Lorda.’

Here Menkeepir turned to Minca where, in subdued turmoil, she managed a bold sweep of her arm.

‘She rides in the vanguard, sure sign that she means to win. Believe in me, for I am certain that we have a destiny to fulfil. Look all ye to the sky. A great day breaks! Clear, blue morn comes dawning, portent to us. Make way now, for we are awaying, our sign is the bright void. Make way. We ride forth, and the day is with us!’ So cried Menkeepir, whilst Minca raised her voice with his, almost as if blended in battle song. And the peoples, those remaining behind, exalted on the battlements.

Thus, down the winding concourse, they made their way, through the tree-lined outer defences, over many stony arches that forded swift flowing streams, and out into the rich countryside of Dorthillion; seen glistening dewy in the morning sun. Behind the foremost ranks, streaming like an endless ribbon, followed the host of Menkeepir and the Lorda Minca.

But the endlessness was merely an illusion. For even an army that boasts mounted knights, foot of slingers, archers, pikers, supply wains for victuallers, smiths and craft-folk for a thousand needs, has an end.

Left behind, watching with dread-filled eyes, was the lonely, frightened figure of Mysingir; and somewhere in his dancing mind, whilst the day and the army marched toward another eve he thought, ‘Minca loves me not, nor I her.’ Then, clutching at the stone that seemed cold even as the sun warmed it, he muttered, ‘Now she is gone away to be with Mendor, who treats her with nought but contempt. Ah, madness is to be alive, or at least awake. If sleep drives out waking, so should I seek. I'll drown beneath my own horrors, if I cannot fight off this biding pain of memory... This anguish. All is lost, and we are alone... Only the milk and the blood and the empty table are left...’

To the west, via the great river's direction, sinuously wound the caravan of Dorthillion's massed forces, travelling the narrow roads, at most two wagons abreast.

They had moved for two days, coming out of the upper reaches of that realm, and in that time had encountered no sign of the enemy.

‘But that means nothing,’ Mendor dismissed. ‘As that old Wizard-mage said, he saved Mysingir's life within the borders of your lands; yet that was far off, south and east of here in the region this side of the Mirthin mountains and the pass that runs to Indlebloom. There may well be no goblin betwixt here and yon broad stretch of water, though who can tell what awaits on the furthest shores?’

Minca nodded, wary. ‘Aye, the Cattarrin is a mighty river, and few are the crossings.’

‘And swift flowing, by all accounts,’ returned Mendor. ‘By the way, where is this He´Remon? I have not seen him for some little time.’

‘He is back a goodly way walking with our peoples, talking and encouraging as seems his wont,’ said Menkeepir. ‘I know this much for I have sent question of him already.’

‘And what make you of the Mage?’ Minca asked, directing the query to Mendor.

‘Only face value,’ he shrugged, ‘what more? Mysingir, alone of us, knew him before this.’

‘He appears many things to me,’ commented Menkeepir. ‘I feel that he has an immense knowledge, wisdom and power too. There is strength about him. He does not fear our enemies, of that I am sure.’

And Minca said, ‘Sometimes he is gentle and understanding, right persuasive into the bargain, hey! Else I should not be setting hence with you.’ Here she looked straight at Mendor, who seemed not to notice, and lifted her dark head in a laugh that at once ceased as she stared off in the direction her gaze bent. ‘Is that not yon loutish ogre away there? Left aways, bursting through the thickety scrub. Why, I thought you sent him down the river a'scouting. Now he comes, thrashing through the trees race-haste!’

The leaders of the van drew up as the ogre bore down from the greenery of the forest that screened the river, climbers and vines trailing from his neck and upper body like an enormous beard. He crashed to a halt all whirlwind, arms, and incidentally, stone club swishing about. 'Much-And-Many-Waiting-Now-Near-To-Here-Folk-Of-Dragon-Riders-Lord-Menkeepir-Has-Seen-!’ All this he boomed, excited, towering over horses, and knights there mounted upon.

Then, without Broga's further ado, Menkeepir began cantering forward at ease, alone and with no weapon drawn.

‘Wait!’ shouted Mendor, kneeing his mount on whilst the ogre looked askance, dimwittedly.

‘Well come on, you great lump, protect us!’ Minca called, spurring after the lords of Mendoth.

Almost together, the brothers, the Lorda Minca and Broga rounded a sharp bend, and even as Mendor struggled to gather up Menkeepir's reins for fear of deadly trap, they halted, the horses sucking in air at that short but sharp gallop.

And there, before them on the banks of the Cattarrin, amidst a sea of yellow flowers that rose ankle deep from sunny water's edge to tall trees, awaited an array of peoples. Many were astride beautiful steeds, many more knelt and stood. Others filled the high boughs, thronging. They were grey clad, and silver; spears and bows apparent, but not hostile brandished.

These were the Nolvæ elves of the Mayhenyodaro, arisen to join with men, for the good of all, in the great conflicts to come.

Chapter 56 [next]