The Gray Tower
© 2014 by Walter Reimer

(This is a sequel to The Black Chapel. Reading the earlier story isn’t really necessary, but you may find it useful. Just saying.)

Art by  ZenaFox


21.


The points of the hoof never strayed too far up her ankle, and its motion was very gentle. As distractions went, it wasn’t much of one.

Still, it wasn’t something she was used to. She moved her hoof aside.

The Earl’s hoof moved about, questing, until it touched hers again and resumed its gentle touching.

Well, it wasn’t much of a distraction, so she turned back to the game. One of his Soldiers got too close to her Keep. A prompt action by the Guards eliminated that threat, and she started to move her Siege Engines forward across the board.

Chassi’s hoof withdrew as he sat up and leaned over the board, propping his chins on his paws. “Is there a problem?” Trasta asked.

“Hmm? No, Your Highness,” the buck said. “Moving your Engines forward while I still have mobility – while I am still able to strike back – is unorthodox, but not unknown.” He glanced up at her, smiled slightly, and went back to mulling over his next move.

Meki craned his neck to look at the board and snorted softly. “Trasta.”

“Yes, Brother?”

“You’re going to lose.”

Her ears flicked forward, aiming at him like pikes at the ready. “You think so?” She snorted at her older brother’s nod. “We’ll see about that.”

Chassi, and Seffa, wisely held their peace.

Two pitched battles later, Trasta had lost one of her Engines, but Chassi had lost nearly all of his Soldiers and both of his Cavalry. Five moves later, his last Soldier – the one in the Keep – was gone, and one Guard was being threatened. “You play well,” Chassi said as he grimaced at his position.

“Thank you. Battle experience seems to help, doesn’t it, my Lord?” Trasta asked as she accepted a small mug of ale from a servant. Chassi nodded, waving a paw in an idle gesture, and his donkey manservant refilled his wine. The two settled down to play out the rest of the game. Meki arose from his chair with a squeaking clank of his iron braces and he stood, watching the action intently.

The Earl used his Engines as Guards, helping to fend off her attacks but losing both towers in succession. “How long do these sieges usually last?” Trasta asked as she moved her King and Guards forward.

“There’s a record of a game lasting – twenty days, wasn’t it, Chassi?” Meki asked.

“Twenty-two,” the red buck replied, never taking his eyes off the board.

Trasta looked up incredulously at the Earl, and he glanced up. “It won’t take that long, though,” and his paw reached out.

A finger carefully tipped his King over.

Chassi sat back and raised his wine cup in a toast. “Congratulations, Your Highness. You win.”

Meki started to clap his paws, slow, almost mocking applause. “Well done, Sister.”

“What the Underworld did I do?”

Chassi pointed at the board. “The way things stand now, the siege could go on for a considerable number of moves,” he said in an almost pedantic tone. “When that happens, in the interest of saving time the besieged may take the step of conceding the game.” He sipped his wine, and smiled at her. “So congratulations, Princess, you won your very first game of shash.”

His hoof was no longer touching hers.

“Would you like another game?” Trasta asked.

Chassi shook his head, covering his muzzle with a paw as he yawned. “No, thank you. I find it growing late, and I think I’ll read a bit and then sleep. Come, Padzi.” He stood up and bowed to the other three in the room before walking out, his aide’s hooves clop-clopping after him.

“What a strange fellow,” Seffa remarked.

All Trasta could do was nod in agreement with her sister-in-law.


***


The raccoon sow slept, her legs tangled up in her sheets as moonlight shone down on her through the open window. Her chest rose and fell in a steady sleeping rhythm.

Halvrika wasn’t there.

This is getting easier, she thought to herself as she looked down at herself – or, rather, at her physical body. She had used the spell Master Maffa had taught her very slowly and carefully, making sure that she would be able to return to her body quickly and safely.

Carelessness, in this case, would result in a lot more than simply making it rain indoors. It would kill her.

Halvrika watched herself for a few minutes, ensuring that she’d be all right for a short time, and turned to See.

The collection of buildings that made up the Order’s Shuganath complex were a series of glass boxes of varying sizes. She moved carefully out of her room and into the hallway, making out bright beacons in the Writ that signified living bodies. There were Novices sleeping, and Acolytes and Apprentices sleeping, studying – or, in a few cases, fornicating. The raccoon smiled at the simple, almost childish wards set up around the rooms. Adepts had stronger, better crafted wards, a few rendering the glass boxes completely opaque to her Sight.

The Masters may have not been there at all, their wards being the strongest of all. More wards, vast skeins of power, lay wrapped around the entire complex. Taken all together, the collection of buildings fairly sang with power.

Halvrika’s Sight drifted further outward, toward the city itself. She kept contact with her body, like a mountain climber paying out a belaying line. Pausing at a point some yards above the gates, she briefly considered going to the Keep to look in on Trasta.

Something told her that the idea was wrong, so she carefully retraced her path back to her room and meticulously fitted herself back into her body as Maffa had shown her.

Midway through the procedure she paused as a brief flare in the brightness of the Writ drew her attention. Something had awakened briefly, to the northwest of the city; a bright upwelling of power that was just as quickly extinguished.

Halvrika made note of it, so that she could discuss it with Master Marok the next day, and resumed fitting herself back into her physical being.

The raccoon’s body twitched, then twitched again, and rolled over, still asleep.


***


“His Grace Evoli Kojaran, Duke of Lem,” the herald announced the next morning, and the fox knelt on one knee before the King. He had come to the Keep with a small retinue of housecarls and servants, and several dray-beasts hauling wagons. His surcoat was blazoned with the arms of his house, three gold talons on a field of blue.

“Your Grace,” King Aroki said as he gripped the fox by the shoulders and assisted him to his feet, then embraced him.

Evoli smiled. “Your Majesty,” he said as he returned the embrace. The crowd of onlookers cheered and applauded as the two ascended the stairs to the Keep’s entrance, while the local thegns and housecarls brought up the rear. Attendants took charge of the Duke’s baggage train and led the beasts off to the stables for food and water.

“I’ve been honored by the welcome your subjects have extended to me, Your Majesty,” Duke Evoli remarked. “Many times we were offered water or food.”

Aroki nodded. “Hospitality is a blessing from the Pantheon, Your Grace. I’m just glad that the Gods have blessed Shuga these past years of my reign,” he added with a smile as they entered the Throne Room. Trasta and her brother Meki were already waiting, and Evoli bowed as the King took his seat on the carved granite. “My Lord Duke, please have a seat here beside me,” and a thegn brought a chair and placed it beside the Throne.

The fox’s smile broadened. “I’m honored, Your Majesty,” and after he was seated comfortably he said, “I wish to speak to you about your daughter, Princess Trasta, and her conduct when she was in my domain.”

“She has told me what happened.”

Evoli nodded. “I hold no grudge against her for her actions, Your Majesty. Ten of my men-at-arms and Lord Jorj, one of my housecarls, were killed. But ten of your own men were killed by the actions of the rogue Adept.” His brush twitched. “I will forgive the one for the other, and will not ask for recompense, if it please Your Majesty.”

The elk buck scratched at one antler as he thought. “For my part, Your Grace, I will pay weregild for the loss of your men and your carl.” He raised a paw as the Duke began to protest. “These men had wives and children, and while it will not bring their men back to them it should ease their troubles.”

Trasta watched the fox glance down at his paws, his whiskers quivering slightly before he looked up. “I thank you, Majesty, and thank Azos for your generosity. Your gift will make many sleep better, I assure you. But a gift begs a gift, as they say, which brings me to the reason why I have come.” He glanced up at Trasta. “Your Highness burned the Black Chapel, part of my personal domain.”

Aroki glanced at his daughter, and the doe said, “I explained to you then, Your Grace, that I felt it necessary.”

He forestalled any further explanation with a gesture. “I know, and respect that. The evil that was living there needed to be purged. Therefore my gift is the ruin of the Chapel, and the lands around it. I wish to entail it to you, Your Highness, as a trophy of war.”

Trasta just blinked. Meki raised a brow. “That’s quite a trophy,” the Crown Prince said. “That’s a good slice of property.”

“Indeed. It is fertile, with an expansive forest and a lake. It had lain empty for years before Amb Tokarv began using it.” He extended a paw, and one of his retainers gave him a scroll. He opened it and displayed his family’s seal. “This document deeds the Chapel and the lands surrounding it to Princess Trasta of Issem and Shuga, if she will take the gift from my paws.” He rolled it up and held it out to the doe.

“In my father’s name, I accept this gift, Your Grace,” Trasta said as she took the scroll and the assembled nobles cheered, “and I will pray that Azos will smile on you all your days.” She bowed and stepped back.

Duke Evoli smiled. “So be it, Your Highness.”