Moriana started to protest. Thinking she'd suffered enough, Fost put in, 'They're intelligent. And very cunning.'
'Intelligent? Nonsense. They're mere beasts.' Erimenes sniffed his contempt for such a notion.
'And are the war eagles of the Sky City mere birds?' Darkwood shook his head. 'No, my friend. You've now met the third part of the triumvirate that rules Nevrym.' 'The third?' asked Moriana, intrigued despite her anger.
'We're another.' Darkwood doffed his triangular cap and bowed. 'The last is the trees, of course.' 'The trees?' Moriana scoffed.
'He's telling the truth. Do you think you could find your way to the Tree again unaided?'
'Of course.' She glared at Fost. She was a veteran warrior. Once she'd passed over terrain she knew it by heart.
'Of course,' agreed Darkwood, in an infuriating imitation of the woman's voice, 'provided your intentions were peaceful toward the forest and its various inhabitants. Were they otherwise, your party might wander lost until you died of starvation.' He smoothed straw-colored hair back from his forehead. 'Only foresters can find their way unimpeded by the trees' magic. And where our allies of wood don't want us, we generally don't go.'
'But your people are well armed and prepared for invasion.' Moriana was genuinely puzzled. The many-tiered keep carved into the heart of the Tree was meant to serve as a fortress, its outer walls dotted with arrow slits and its interior honeycombed by well-stocked caches of emergency stores. Most of the humbler dwellings of the foresters were built like birds' nests high up and secure in the embrace of anhak limbs, reachable only by ladders.
'It's not unknown for Nevrymin to settle their little differences by force of arms. We are individualists at heart and not prone to taking commands of others.' Reminded of this, Moriana recalled that most battles the Nevrymin fought were internecine. That was the key to the seeming puzzle of a jovial king in Nevrym named Grimpeace. It had been Fost who explained this to her.
'He's a friendly man, but he's friendly because we come as friends. He earned his name by the way he imposed order in Nevrym when he acceded to the Tree twenty-three years ago. The Nevrymin all respect the Tree, but they're divided into factions as antagonistic and rivalry-ridden as tenement blocks in The Teeming. North Nevrymin, Central Nevrymin, Eastcreekers, Coastrunners, a score in all. Few of the factions were inclined to pay much heed to the authority of a boy who'd scarcely started to sprout his first growth of beard. They learned what the young king offered was a grim peace, indeed. Since then, banditry and sectional strife in Nevrym have been at an all-time low.
'Then, too,' said Darkwood, all trace of mirth vanished from his blue eyes, 'it isn't unknown for Nevrymin to guide outwoods foes along these ways in defiance of tradition and the trees.'
'What kind of man would do that?' asked Ziore in wonder. Her empathy gave her an appreciation keener even than Fost's of the sacred nature of the compact between men and beasts and trees.
'You've met one, I fancy.' Darkwood's voice turned winter cold. 'Fairspeaker by name.'
But not even the thought of Nevrymin breaking faith with their forest was enough to keep the summer in Darkwood's nature suppressed for long. He warmed and the skin around his eyes and mouth settled into well-worn smile lines.
'But the day's too lovely for talk of that, and we've leagues yet to travel before reaching the North Cape range.' He set the cap on his head at a suitably jaunty angle and started off along the leaf-carpeted path.
'One question, my good man.' Darkwood stopped and regarded Erimenes with his hands on hips. His grin hadn't been dented by the spirit's supercilious tone. 'How do you know the flesh of the unicorn stag is succulent if your folk lack the gumption to hurt them?'
The forester's cheer was the equal of even Erimenes at his most infuriating.
'My good ghost, from the height of your exalted years you must realize that any forest exists in a delicate balance,' he said in the tone of one explaining a simple lesson to a dull student. 'No single population can be allowed to grow unchecked. So we hunt the unicorn stag, and a most demanding sport it is.' His smile showed prominent eyeteeth. 'And they, of course, hunt us. We give them rare sport, too, or so I'm led to believe.'
Their reception at North Keep was less than cordial.
In response to five minutes' pounding on the twenty-foot-tall iron gates, first with Fost's fist and then with the pommel of his sword, a small peephole set four feet off the stone roadbed scraped open. A single bloodshot eye peered forth without any hint of friendliness. 'Go away,' came the growl from within.
'We've come a long ways up the coast road,' said Fost. 'We're in need of food, baths, a good night's sleep. We're prepared to pay.'
The latter phrase usually unlocked the domain of the dwarves. The dark maroon eye blinked once.
'We want nothing to do with your filthy money. The gate's shut for the night. Go away.'
Fost's dog growled. Astride her sidestepping dog a few yards behind, Moriana tightened the grip on her reins. She didn't like the dwarf guard's tone any more than the dogs did.
'My good man, I suggest you open this gate immediately if you desire that your head should keep company with your shoulders. I am a guest of state and your rulers will be little pleased by your insolence to me.'
'Who're you?' came the rude question, the eye swivelling to bear on her.
'I am Moriana Etuul, Queen in exile of the City in the Sky, and if you don't admit us at once…'
The eye withdrew but only to permit heavily bearded lips to appear and spit through the grill.
That for you,' said the eye, appearing again, 'and for all decadent lordlings who oppress the people! And for their running dog lackeys, as well,' he added for Fost's benefit. The peephole slammed shut.
As the clang reverberated down the valley, Fost thought Moriana's hair was about to start smouldering at the roots as Synalon's had done when she was angry.
'Why, that horrid upstart, that, that groundling! How dare he take that tone with me!'
'He's got three inches of iron and a foot of anhak between you and him,' pointed out Fost. 'That's how he dares.'
'Small good that protection will do him when I loose my wrath upon him.' She let reins fall and raised her hands.
'No, no, don't start flinging salamanders or deathspells or anything like that,' Fost said quickly, waving his arms in hope of breaking her concentration. 'And why not?' she demanded.
He pointed upward. Forty feet above the poorly kept road two grotesque figures squatted in alcoves set on either side of the gates. Spindly limbed with squinty eyes and oddly spurred elbows and knees, they regarded the travellers over ludicrously attenuated noses and mouths thrust out to form. lipless tubes. 'And what might they be?' She eyed them with distaste.
'Old dwarven caricatures of true men,' he said. 'The mouths go to funnels in a room dug out of the rock. The dwarves keep a pot of lead bubbling by each in case applicants rejected for entry react the way you were about to.' Moriana dropped her hands to her sides.
'We'll have to find lodgings in the Outer Town. It's only a few miles away on the other side of the mountain.' 'But it's getting dark!' 'All the more reason to start now.'
When they got to the Outer Town they got some insight into the nature of the recent developments in the Realm. The moons hung high in the sky when they came around the tip of Northernmost, the mountain cradling the dwarvish citadel of North Keep. Built on a slate beach butting up against the western face of the mountain, the Outer Town was an odd conglomeration of black dwarf masonry, scattered cosmopolitan edifices of Imperial dome and column marble, prim Jorean geometry, pastel stuccoed Estil, and shanty-town. The streets were paved with rubble and indifferently repaired. Though the dwarves ruled the Outer Town, it was primarily a place for the gangly Other Folk to stay while doing business. The dwarves weren't noted for their hospitality, though Fost had hoped they would invite Moriana to stay in their keep because of her royal status. For the most part, the Others entered North Keep solely to strike bargains and were ushered forth with varying degrees of politeness when the deals were done.