The Hidden Land Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  TREACHERY

  Randolph took his place behind the King’s chair. The King had already proposed one toast, which Ted had missed. He drank some wine anyway, and grimaced. It made his tongue fur up. Well, they had decided that it must be strong enough to disguise the taste of the poison.

  People were beginning to relax a little. Matthew stood up and flourished his goblet at them. The red wine and the blue glass caught the candlelight and sent it reeling around the room in sparks of purple.

  “My lords,” said Matthew, “to the King. Both glory and length of days.”

  Everybody echoed him, and drank. Ted looked over the smiling King’s shoulder at Randolph, and froze. Randolph looked as if he were going to throw up.

  King William shook his head and put down his goblet with a thud.

  “My lord?” said Matthew into the hush.

  Ted got up, words from the warning labels on all the bottles of poisonous things he had ever seen going around in his head.

  King William put both hands to his throat, and in the hideous light of the candles his staring and contorted face looked like a gargoyle’s. . . .

  FIREBIRD WHERE FANTASY TAKES FLIGHT™

  FIREBIRD

  Published by Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England

  Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road,

  Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue,

  Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2

  Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand

  First published in the United States of America by Ace Fantasy Books,

  The Berkley Publishing Group, 1986

  Published by Firebird, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2003

  Copyright © Pamela Dyer-Bennet, 1986

  All rights reserved

  eISBN : 978-1-440-68443-2

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  To David Dyer-Bennet,

  kindest of project managers

  CHAPTER 1

  SUMMER swept on, faster, as it always did, than you expected. Ted, climbing the stairs of the West Tower on a blazing day in mid-August, wished that he had only the beginning of school to dread. It irked him how well the others had settled in. You would think they had lived in a castle all their lives, instead of in Pennsylvania. You would never think that their own elegant, symmetrical game, played over and over again every summer for nine years, had suddenly taken on a life of its own, flinging them into a country they had invented but that stubbornly refused to conform to their expectations and that, just as they were finding their feet, presented them with people they had never invented—like that weasel, Lady Claudia—and scenes they had never played—like that unexpected and awful moment in which Patrick broke the Crystal of Earth. You would certainly think that all of them might very soon be made to do in earnest the kinds of deeds that sound appealing only to the mind’s ear.

  Ruth was almost impossible to find; she was devouring the magic of the Green Caves as she had once devoured mystery novels, that summer three years ago when she declared that she was sick of fantasies. You would never guess that she had been obliged to change her outward behavior from that of a gentle, poetic person who had not only never hit anybody in her life but actually believed one ought not to hit people, into that of an irritable and haughty sorcerer from whose uncertain temper all the servants fled. You would never guess she’d never seen a servant until three months ago, either. And she had hit Patrick when he broke that Crystal.

  Patrick himself had acquired a sort of smug silence which displayed itself during any discussion of what they were going to do, but especially in talk of how they were to get hold of the swords of Shan and Melanie. Never mind that he was a materialist and didn’t believe in magic swords. Somebody whose authority he did not recognize—somebody, that is, who was neither a parent nor a scientist—had taken the swords away from him, and therefore he meant to have them back. That the swords were the only way any of them knew to return to their prosaic lives seemed to trouble him less than the assault on his dignity.

  Ellen appeared to be having the time of her life. This was perhaps the most irritating thing of all, it was so normal: Ellen always had the time of her life. In their game she had played princesses and pages and messengers and talking animals; now she must play a princess all the time, and although she occasionally said this was boring, nobody who had been allowed to tame a unicorn not two months ago should expect to be believed when she said things like that. She probably only said them because she thought princesses ought to be bored.

  So much for Ted’s cousins. His little sister was both more and less annoying than they were. Laura was not studying magic, like Ruth; nor plotting against High Castle’s resident wizard and its chief counselor, like Patrick; nor being lavishly rewarded for her native spunk even if it didn’t accord with that of the character she should have been playing, like Ellen. She was keeping out of the way and trying not to break things. Breaking things was her special talent: since the Princess Laura, her character in the game and the person she was now obliged to imitate, had had a great deal of grace and charm, Laura was probably unhappier than anybody except Ted. His misery liked the company; but Laura’s being unhappy was normal enough to be irritating, too.

  Ted wondered if she had seen any visions in torches or candles or people’s bracelets recently. That wasn’t normal for Laura, certainly; but when it happened to her, she reacted to it in about the same way she had when the first-grade teacher told their mother Laura had a very high I.Q.: she was dismayed, and she refused to do anything about it. He should probably ask her. Not that anything she had seen so far had been much help. And that was like Laura; if she must have mystical visions, they would be of no use whatsoever.

  Ted panted up the last steps and yanked at the door of the Garment Room. It was locked.

  “Will you kindly open?” he said.

  His tone was not polite, but the doors in High Castle seemed to hear only words. The door swung wide, and he went into the scent of cloves and dust. From seven of the West Tower’s nine narrow windows came a thin blue light; from one only the shadow of the East Tower; and from the last a line of pinkish sunlight that had found its way between the East Tower of this inner castle and the nameless towers of one of the outer walls. The sunlight was pinkish because every other wall of High Castle’s concentric five was made of violent pink marble. Ted had found this harder to get used to than the presence of Claudia, the appearance of Andrew, or even the harsh temper of Benjamin.

  He picked his way among the piles of clothing. He had come to find his costume for the feast at which, in accordance with their game, Lord Randolph would poison the King, unless somebody did something. Rummaging and sneezing, he wished they had chosen some other occasion for the murder. The feasts had been the beginning of the Secret, before Laura and Ellen were old enough to play. He and Ruth and Patrick, whenever parents were going to be absent from a meal, used to dress themselves up as
kings and courtiers and have their food in the barn. He had for his memories of such times a kindly feeling that he was quite sure would not survive an attempt, even an unsuccessful one, to poison the King.

  He was as bad as his sister and cousins, caught between his own somewhat rash character and the meek and bookish one of Prince Edward, who everyone thought him to be. Ted, if he had been free to be Ted, would not have come obediently up here to choose his gown knowing that Randolph might kill the King and that, if he did, Ted would have to kill Randolph. Edward, not knowing these things, would not have worried and fretted as he obediently chose.

  An orange velvet cloak ripped as Ted pulled apart its folds without noticing the brooch holding them together.

  “Shan can turn you into a toad!” he said to the brooch. He had heard Agatha, the royal children’s nurse, say this to a cat that had gotten into her sewing, and it had a better sound, in this gray castle room, than “God damn it!”

  Agatha being no sorcerer, the cat in question had not turned into a toad. Ted being even less a magician than she, the brooch remained a brooch also. It had caught in the bandage on his left hand. Ted worked it free thoughtfully. The cut from Melanie’s sword was not swollen or inflamed, and it never bothered him unless he knocked the palm of his hand against something, but it was remarkably slow in healing. If he had really been left-handed, it would have given him trouble. But it was Prince Edward who was left-handed. The cut was extremely convenient for Ted, since it gave him an excuse to use his right hand.

  It was true that Agatha had looked grave over the cut, and called Benjamin, the Royal Groom who was more than he seemed, to examine it. But Benjamin said that it was no more than Edward deserved for playing with enchanted weapons, whereupon Agatha looked at him sharply and shut her mouth, and Ted wished he had noticed how long it took Laura’s knee to heal. Laura’s knee had started this whole business: if she had not tripped and fallen on Shan’s sword where it lay peacefully concealed under a hedge, they would not be here now.

  Ted went on burrowing. It was a pity that they could not just play in the Secret Country. One of their old feasts would have been greatly enhanced by the costumes and food they could have wangled. He shook out a stiffly embroidered dress, thinking how much Ruth would have liked it if they had found it in her father’s attic. He might have liked it himself. But he was getting tired of gorgeous colors and decoration and jewels and feathers. He flung aside piles of green, gold, blue, scarlet; and came to a gray bundle. He unfolded it carefully. It, too, was fastened with a brooch, a twisted silver one with blue stones.

  “Not again,” said Ted, unfastening it. The magicians of Fence’s party, who probably could turn cats into toads if they could stop laughing at the suggestion long enough to say the spell, wore silver ornaments with blue stones. This one made Ted’s hand prickle, very faintly: it was enchanted. He put it into his pocket so that it would not be lost in the confusion. He unfolded the gray bundle, and stood up, and shook it out.

  It was a plain robe with no trimming, not even a hood, and it was less voluminous than anything else in the room. It would not have done for the old make-believe feasts, but it suited Ted perfectly for the real one. He fingered the material, which was thin, dull, and soft. It was too soft for cotton, too sturdy for silk.

  Ted gathered it up. He was not entitled to wear its brooch, not being a sorcerer. He would have to find another.

  “Maybe a nice iron pin,” he said, and dragged the garment with him over to the trunks that sat against the wall. It seemed reasonable that they would be full of jewelry.

  The first one was full of flutes. The second one was full of what he took to be drumsticks; the third held some very tarnished horns; and the fourth a hideous mass of strings. He had just flung up the lid of the fifth when he heard footsteps on the stone stairs. As they came closer, he also heard whistling. The words to the song came up from the bottom of his mind as the names of the fencing moves, when he had his lessons with Randolph, and flowers, when he went on the Unicorn Hunt, had done.

  The minstrel boy to the wars has gone;

  In the ranks of death you will find him.

  His father’s sword he has girded on,

  And the great harp slung behind him.

  “Land of old,” cried the warrior boy,

  ’Though none beside attend thee,

  Still one great harp shall sing thy praise

  And one strong sword defend thee.

  Ted shivered, and Lord Randolph came into the room. He stopped just inside the doorway, looking at Ted. He had a smile that could stop quarreling counselors in the midst of their most cherished imprecations, but he was not using it now.

  “Give you good morning,” he said, on an inquiring note.

  “And you,” said Ted. He barely had breath to say it. Here, dropped into his lap like a late birthday present, was a last chance to talk Randolph out of his plot.

  Randolph strode across the room and sat down on the trunk that held the flutes. “What are you at, then?” he asked.

  “I’m choosing my costume for the feast,” said Ted. A colder sweat than that generated by the August day and the close tower room was forming on his hands and creeping down his back.

  “I’ve come to do the same,” said Randolph.

  Ted swallowed. “I had thought that done already,” he said.

  Randolph looked at him, not sharply, but as if asking him to go on. There was a stillness, a calmness, an immovable quality about him which was not usual, and which made Ted doubt that anything could make him change his mind.

  Ted swallowed again. “Or is it only the mood you’ve chosen?”

  Randolph’s eyebrows went up. “That the feast chooseth,” he said, slowly. “I need only choose a color.”

  Ted wished, not for the first time, that he had paid more attention to the trappings of the Secret Country. Colors had definite meaning here. He pushed his hair off his forehead; it needed cutting in another world, but was becoming about right here. Black was death, blue was one sort of sorcery, green another, red another; yellow was sickness, white was health, gold was faithfulness, purple was kingliness, but violet was purity. Ted saw the robe he still held. Silver was treachery. He looked up at Randolph, and held out the robe to him.

  Randolph had been a little flushed from his climb. But now he turned dark red, and stood up. Ted expected him to put a hand to his dagger. But he thrust out his hand, the fingers stiffly spread, the back toward Ted, so that the blue stone in his ring caught the stray beam of sunlight and turned malevolent. The dim air of the room lightened, and here and there among the scattered clothes other gleams and glimmers answered Randolph’s ring.

  Ted blinked. He was too frightened to do anything except what he already meant to do. He shook the robe out as if he were an obnoxious salesman in a clothing store. It really was a fine color; why had they chosen it for treachery?

  “Is this not becoming to thee, my lord?” he said.

  Randolph closed his eyes and dropped his hand.

  “My complexion likes it not,” he said. He sounded deadly tired, but there was a glint of mischief in his tone as well.

  “But does your mind like it?” cried Ted, shaking it at him. The sudden relief had left him furious.

  Randolph looked straight at him, with a gaze so fierce that Ted wanted to turn away and so compelling that he could not.

  “Nay,” said Randolph, slowly, “nay. It likes not my mind neither.”

  Ted felt outmaneuvered. There was certainly a word that meant precisely the part of Randolph the robe did suit, the part of him that intended to poison the King no matter how little the rest of him liked it.

  “Has Fence spoken to you?” Ted said suddenly.

  “Often,” said Randolph.

  “Has he spoken of this?” demanded Ted, waving the gray robe again.

  “Of a certainty he has not,” said Randolph, sharply.

  “Well, I’ve spoken to him about it!” cried Ted.

  “T
hy speaking perhaps lacked an edge?”

  “I guess so,” said Ted, closing the trunk full of strings and sitting down on it. He knew so. Fence had asked him if he were mad. But Fence had promised to watch Randolph. He must not have watched closely enough.

  “Were I what you ween I am,” said Randolph, “more than thy tongue should have an edge were thou to hinder me.”

  “Is that why you never practice fencing with us anymore?” said Ted. This blessing had been too welcome to be seriously questioned. Prince Edward had been learning fencing for three years, but Ted had never held a sword until he came to this country. Sooner or later, the lessons with Randolph would have betrayed him.

  “I have many cares,” said Randolph, “and Fence needs me also.”

  He sounded perfectly sincere. He must think that not practicing with Ted and Patrick was a serious lapse. Well, and it was, thought Ted, if they were going to fight a battle in the fall. Something struck him for the first time.

  “If we fight the right way, we won’t need fencing, will we?” he asked.

  Randolph’s eyebrows rose. “What flummery is this?”

  “Now look,” said Ted. “Everybody is always arguing whether we need soldiers or sorcerers, and nobody lets me read King John’s Book.”

  Randolph looked as if this were almost too much for him. Ted watched him discard several expostulations and settle for simplicity. “The Dragon King,” he said between his teeth, “hath both an arcane and a mundane army and either is deadly to us. All else aside, no sorcerer may do’s work beset with even the most mundane of soldiers. Dost understand, or art as willful as thy brother?”

  “I hope not,” said Ted, almost to himself. His brother was in fact his cousin Patrick, the most willful of a willful family. Randolph actually smiled.

  “We’re getting off—we stray from the point,” said Ted. “What will you wear for the feast?”

  “Never,” said Randolph, “Shan’s robe of state.” And he whipped around, snatched at a mound of green on his way by, and strode from the chamber.