Instantly they passed through the void, and found themselves, feeling slightly disoriented, standing in the rear courtyard at Castle Crydee. Three figures stood waiting.
‘What did you see?’ asked Duke Marcus. He was a man nearly equal in height to Calis, and once he had been powerfully built, but while age showed little on the half-elf, on the fifty-year-old Duke it was starting to take a toll. Marcus was still a robust man, but some of his muscle had turned to fat and his hair was now completely grey.
Beside him stood two women, one obviously Marcus’s sister by the family resemblance. She had a straight nose, like her brother’s, and her eyes were even, unblinking, and despite the lines of age and sun, a striking brown. She was also a strong-looking figure for her age. Lady Margaret, the Duke’s sister and Anthony’s wife, said, ‘Anthony?’
He smiled as he said, ‘It’s cold up there, dear, even at this time of the year.’
Marcus smiled. ‘So you got where you wanted to go?’
‘Let’s have a drink and we’ll talk,’ suggested the magician.
The third person greeting them, the Duchess Abigail, said, ‘There’s a meal waiting. We didn’t know how long you’d be.’ Marcus’s wife lacked his or his sister’s outward signs of vitality, but her step was quick and her slight figure hinted at a dancer’s lithe strength. She smiled quickly as she motioned for Calis and her brother-in-law to come through the rear entrance to the castle.
‘Wasn’t much to see, really,’ said Anthony. ‘The battle’s not yet begun.’ Glancing toward the height of the sun, he added, ‘It will not begin until tomorrow. How far away did you say the Quegans were? Two days?’ he asked Calis.
‘Quegans?’ asked Margaret.
‘We’ll explain everything inside,’ said Calis.
They mounted the steps to the central keep. For Calis, Crydee had been his second home. His grandparents had lived here, years before, and his father had spent his childhood working in the kitchen and playing in the courtyard of the castle.
The castle had been gutted in the sacking of the Far Coast, thirty years earlier, when Calis had taken his first trip to the distant continent. Then he had been a simple observer, on behalf of his mother and father, but he had returned since several times, much to his sorrow and regret.
They moved down the long hall to the dining hall. A table long enough to seat a score of dinner guests formed the top of three sides of a square, in the old court fashion. The Duke and his wife would dine at the center of the top table, while guests and court officials would be seated in descending order of rank from there to the farthest seat.
Calis glanced around the hall. Brightly colored banners hung where once ancient and faded ones had been displayed. Calis remembered them from his childhood. They had been the war trophies of the first three Dukes of Crydee.
‘It’s never the same, is it?’ asked Marcus.
‘No.’
‘How’s Father?’ asked Margaret.
‘He’s fine,’ said Calis. ‘At least, he was the last time I saw him, which was more than a year ago. But his life is easy and I expect he’s unchanged. Had anything happened, Mother would have sent you word immediately.’
‘I know,’ Margaret said. ‘It’s just we miss him.’
Marcus said, ‘Yes, but it’s better to have him there, happy and living, than here, in the burial vault.’
Calis said, ‘Well, when this business is done, you could go visit. Mother and Tomas would certainly welcome you.’
Marcus smiled and Calis said, ‘Do that more often; it makes you look like Martin.’
A corner of the left and head tables had been set, at Marcus’s instructions, so the five of them could gather close. Wine, ale, hot food and cold waited.
Anthony said, ‘Ah, a little wine will warm me up.’
Abigail said, ‘It’s still early, so not too much, else you’ll be asleep before the festival is half-over.’
Marcus indicated they should sit. ‘We need to hurry, for I need to be in the courtyard at high noon to see things started.’
‘There’s not much to tell,’ said Calis as he broke off a hunk of bread. ‘Things are pretty much as we expected, with one change.’
‘What?’ asked the Duke.
‘Where the Emerald Queen was supposed to be sitting, in the middle of the biggest ship in the fleet, a very ugly demon squatted. Looked like he had some sort of mystic chain of control around the neck of all the “advisers” who surrounded him . . . or it . . . whatever.’
‘A demon!’ Marcus’s face showed surprise.
‘Well, we knew there were some involved, after that last business down in Novindus I told you about.’
‘But we thought they were destroying the Pantathians, not controlling them.’
Anthony sipped his wine. ‘Maybe there are different demons.’
‘Maybe so,’ said Calis as he took a gulp of wine. ‘Humans certainly come with enough politics to keep the world at war eternally. Who says demons can’t have politics?’