Lyonesse

Chapter 26

CARFILHIOT'S CHAMBERS, at the top of Tintzin Fyral, were of modest dimension, with white plaster walls, scrubbed wooden floors and a bare sufficiency of furnishing. Carfilhiot wanted nothing more elaborate; that spare environment soothed his sometimes over-fervent nature.

Carfilhiot's routines were even. He tended to rise early, often at sun-up, then take a breakfast of fruit, sweet-cakes, raisins and perhaps a few pickled oysters. Always he breakfasted alone. At this time of day the sight and sound of other human beings offended him, and adversely affected the rest of the day.

Summer was changing to autumn; haze blurred the airy spaces over Vale Evander. Carfilhiot felt restless and uneasy, for reasons he could not define. Tintzin Fyral served many of his purposes very well; still it was a place remote: something of a backwater, and he had no command over that motility which other magicians, perhaps of higher order—Carfilhiot thought of himself as a magician—used daily as a matter of course. His fancies, escapades, novelties and caprices—perhaps they were no more than illusions. Time passed and despite his apparent activity, he had proceeded not a whit along the way to his goals. Had his enemies—or his friends—arranged to keep him isolated and ineffectual? Carfilhiot gave a petulant grunt. It could not be, but if so, such folk played dangerous games.

A year previously Tamurello had conveyed him to Faroli, that odd structure of wood and colored glass, deep within the forest. After three days of erotic play the two sat listening to the rain and watching the fire on the hearth. The time was midnight. Carfilhiot, whose mercurial mind never went quiet, said: "Truly, it is time that you taught me magical arts. Do I not deserve at least this from vou?"

Tamurello spoke with a sigh. "What a strange and unfamiliar world if everyone were treated according to his deserts!"

Carfilhiot found the remark over-flippant. "So you mock me, he said sadly. "You think me too clumsy and foolish for the sleight."

Tamurello, a massive man whose veins were charged with the dark rank blood of a bull, laughed indulgently. He had heard the plaint before, and he made the same answer he had made before. "To become a sorcerer you must undergo many trials, and work at many dismal exercises. A number of these are profoundly uncomfortable, and perhaps calculated to dissuade those of small motivation."

"That philosophy is narrow and mean," said Carfilhiot.

"If and when you become a master sorcerer, you will guard the prerogatives as jealously as any," said Tamurello.

"Well, instruct me! I am ready to learn! I am strong of will!"

Once more Tamurello laughed. "My dear friend, you are too volatile. Your will may be like iron, but your patience is something less than invincible."

Carfilhiot made an extravagant gesture. "Are there no shortcuts? Certainly I can use magical apparatus without so many tiresome exercises."

"You already have apparatus."

"Shimrod's stuff? It is useless to me."

Tamurello was becoming bored with the discussion. "Most such apparatus is specialized and specific."

"My needs are specific," said Carfilhiot. "My enemies are like wild bees, which can never be conquered. They know where I am; when I set out in pursuit, they dissolve into shadows along the moor."

"Here I may be able to assist you," said Tamurello, "though without, I admit, any great enthusiasm."

On the following day he displayed a large map of the Elder Isles. "Here, as you will notice, is Vale Evander, here Ys, here Tintzin Fyral." He produced a number of manikins carved from blackthorn roots. "Name these little homologues with names, and place them on the map, and they will scuttle to position. Watch!" He took up one of the manikins and spat in its face. "I name you Casmir. Go to Casmir's place!" He put the manikin on the map; it seemed to scamper across the map to Lyonesse Town.

Carfilhiot counted the manikins. "Only twenty?" he cried. "I could use a hundred! I am at war with every petty baron of South Ulfland!"

"Name their names," said Tamurello. "We shall see how many you need."

Grudgingly Carfilhiot named names and Tamurello put the names to the manikins and placed them on the board.

"Still there are more!" protested Carfilhiot. "Is it not understandable that I would wish to know where and when you fare from Faroli? And Melancthe? Her movements are of importance! And what of the magicians: Murgen, Faloury, Myolander and Baibalides? I am interested in their activities."

"You may not learn of the magicians," said Tamurello. "That is not appropriate. Granice, Audry? Well, why not? Melancthe?"

"Melancthe in especial!"

"Very well. Melancthe."

"Then there are Ska chieftains and the notables of Dahaut!"

"Moderation, in the name of Fafhadiste and his three-legged blue goat! The manikins will crowd each other from the map!"

In the end Carfilhiot came away with the map and fifty-nine homologues.

One late summer morning a year later, Carfilhiot went up to his workroom and there inspected the map. Casmir kept to his summer palace at Sarris. At Domreis in Troicinet a glowing white bail on the manikin's head indicated that King Granice had died; his ailing brother Ospero would now be king. At Ys Melancthe wandered the echoing halls of her seaside palace. At Oaldes, north along the coast, Quilcy, the idiot child-king of South Ulfland, played daily at sand-castles on the beach... Carfilhiot looked once more to Ys. Melancthe, haughty Melancthe! He saw her seldom; she held herself aloof.

Carfilhiot's gaze ranged the map. With a quickening of the spirit he noticed a displacement: Sir Cadwal of Kaber Keep, had ventured six miles southwest across Dunton Fells. He would seem to be proceeding toward Dravenshaw Forest.

Carfilhiot stood rapt in reflection. Sir Cadwal was one of his most arrogant enemies, despite poverty and an absence of powerful co

Malaise forgotten, Carfilhiot sent urgent orders down to the wardroom. Half an hour later, wearing light armor, he descended to the parade ground below his castle. Twenty mounted warriors, his elite of elites, awaited him.

Carfilhiot inspected the troop and could find no fault. They wore polished iron helmets with tall crests, chain cuirasses and jupons of violet velvet embroidered in black. Each carried a lance from which fluttered a lavender and black ba

Carfilhiot mounted his horse and gave the signal to ride. Two abreast, the troop galloped west, past the reeking poles of penance, beside the drowning-cages along the riverbank and their accessory derricks and down the road toward the village Bloddywen. For reasons of policy Carfilhiot never made demands upon the folk of Bloddywen, nor in any way molested them; still, at his approach children were snatched within, doors and windows were slammed shut, and Carfilhiot rode through empty streets, to his cold amusement.

Above, on the ridge, a watcher noted the cavalcade. He retreated over the brow of the hill and flourished a white flag. A moment later, from the highest portion of a fell a mile to the north a flutter of white acknowledged his signal. Half an hour later, had Carfilhiot been able to observe his magic map, he might have seen the blackthorn manikins designating his most hated adversaries departing their keeps and mountain forts to move down the moors toward the Dravenshaw.