“The body, needless to say, was ashes also, and beyond recall. Old Gabriel was now beside himself, sure that the middle son had plotted outrage. So on the night of the equinox, in the chapel of Castle di Caela, in the presence of sixty Solamnic Knights and twenty clerics of Mishakal, the funeral chants arose for Duncan di Caela. But the chants arose for Benedict di Caela, too.”
“I don’t understand,” Agion interrupted. “Was Benedict dead?” The centaur scratched his head in puzzlement.
“Upon that night, Benedict’s father pronounced him dead over strong protest of Knights and clergy, naming Gabriel the Younger sole surviving heir to Castle di Caela. All of this without ever a shred of proof as to the guilt of Benedict di Caela.
“Who, it must be admitted, did not conduct himself in the days that followed as though he were innocent. Benedict fled the castle to raise an army in the lands north of Solanthus—an army of thieves, of goblins, and of the very bounty hunters sent out for goblin heads by the Kingpriest of Istar. It was a disreputable crew, to be sure, and one that set about to tax, extort, and do Benedict’s bidding in the southwest provinces of Solamnia.”
“Did anyone support Benedict when he raised the army?” Agion asked, his face just a little obscured by the waning light and the onset of evening. “I mean, any of the Knights and priests?”
“Most of the priests—not every priest, mind you, but certainly most—saw through Benedict’s illusions to the rats and spiders that peopled them, and what was more, saw that it was Benedict who was shaping those illusions. But there were many Knights who, seeing the legions he could muster, saw power for themselves as well, or what was even worse, feared dangers they dared not brave.
“His ranks, I am ashamed to say, were not free of our own. Solamnic Knights rode at the head of his columns in defiance of their most profound oaths.”
Bayard paused in the telling, stood up in the stirrups and looked about him, then flicked the reins lightly on Valorous’s neck as we began to ascend into a region where the once-thick grass grew patchy and thin.
“So this family you seek to join is descended . . .” Agion began to say, after a brief silence.
“From Gabriel di Caela the Younger, of course. He deposed the brother who had deposed him. He destroyed the usurper, though not utterly. For north and west went Benedict, toward the Throtyl Gap and toward Estwilde beyond it—that very Estwilde from which your foolish dice game comes, squire.”
I nodded in agreement, passing by our old argument to hear the end of Bayard’s story.
“It was there that the Gabriels caught up with him—Gabriel di Caela the Younger at the head of thirty Knights and two hundred foot soldiers, and his father at the head of a force almost twice that size. When the two joined, there was no hope for Benedict.
“Outnumbered, misguided, Benedict tossed illusion after illusion, some of which worked at great cost: thirty foot soldiers died crossing a bridge through the Throtyl Gap when it turned out that the bridge was not there, had never been there. Thirty more were stung to death by scorpions in their sleep.”
I sat back on Agion, breathed deeply and rapidly until the big centaur reached back and steadied me.
“What ails you, young master?” Agion asked, his big, stupid face narrowing with concern.
“Altitude, Agion. I’m not good with heights. But we’re interrupting Bayard. Go on, sir.”
Bayard frowned at me and continued.
“But all of these illusions were as naught when the battle was joined—when Gabriel di Caela the Younger waded through a barrier of renegade Knights, of goblins and goblin hunters and thieves and mercenaries until he stood facing his brother. In that moment, both of them no doubt knew that hundreds of years were hinging upon what happened next.
“Still, there was no choice, as there seldom is in the heat of battle. Gabriel the Younger raised his sword and slashed at his brother with a quickness and an accuracy born in the training of the Order. Those who were present said that the world seemed silent as Benedict di Caela’s head tottered a moment, severed above his shoulders, as the face went entirely pale and the eyelids closed. And who knows what the head was thinking when it fell from the shoulders, seeking the ground and oblivion.”
“But I gather that wasn’t the end of Benedict di Caela,” I said finally, when the silence between us had grown uncomfortable, almost oppressive.
“Something it was in pronouncing him dead,” Bayard mused, “that indeed unraveled the fabric of things. When Gabriel the Younger struck Benedict down, it seemed as though that was the end of it, that the di Caelas could sit easily upon their wealth and holdings from that time forth. But in the old age of Gabriel the Younger it came—the first visitation of the curse on the family di Caela and the castle in which they lived—a plague of rats and the diseases the rats carry. Two of Gabriel the Younger’s sons were lost—the eldest to disease and the middle son to madness.
“It was the youngest this time who survived, who was forced to the most radical of methods to lift the curse. Quickly young Rowland ordered Castle di Caela evacuated, carrying the old man Gabriel the Younger out through the iron gates on his shoulders, the old man screaming and cursing in protest with every step. It was then he fired the castle, and as flames licked through the stony parapets, over the crenelations and in the upper rooms of the towers, it was said that you could hear the rats screaming and a scream above those tiny fevered screams which was lost in smoke and in the sound of old dry beams collapsing. All that was left was the stony shell of the walls, and Rowland di Caela rebuilt the castle from the inside, ruling wisely and peacefully for thirty years, until again the curse returned.
“It is here that the story clouds, for Castle di Caela has been visited by the curse for nigh onto twenty generations, and each time it takes a different form. For the flood failed when Simeon di Caela introduced sluices in the moatwork, and Antonio di Caela stopped the plains fires by opening the right sluices at the right time. The ogre invasions were turned away by Cyprian di Caela, and Theodore di Caela turned back the bandit armies headed by a mysterious, black-robed captain.
“Even the Cataclysm had a hand in Benedict’s foiling, for at the end of the fourth generation since the curse it was goblins and goblin miners and sappers who tunneled to within a hundred yards of Castle di Caela, filling the inhabitants with panic for the enemy was unseen, beneath them somewhere. When the Cataclysm came, shaking the very foundations of Krynn, the tunnels collapsed upon their makers, upon Benedict himself.
“So with each generation he has come, unwearying, relentless. In each generation he is turned back, by the eldest di Caela son, sometimes, and sometimes by the youngest or the middle son. Often by the sole surviving heir, for Benedict’s assaults, though ill-fated, take their recurrent toll.
“Upon this generation a silence has fallen, as Robert di Caela repelled the last attempt some forty years back, when he was a lad of sixteen. Since that time, the House of di Caela has dwelt in peace, and those in the surrounding country have for the most part concluded that, since the sole surviving heir to the holdings is the Lady Enid di Caela, and whomever she marries, her heirs will take their father’s name and the land will pass from the di Caela family forever.
“For the most part, they have concluded that. But the di Caela family is not so sure.”
“And thou, Sir Bayard?” Agion asked as Bayard paused once more in the telling. “I have heard this four-hundred-year-old story of wrongs and vengeances and violence neaped on injustices, and I must confess I have many questions. The largest of these is thy part in an ancient story of woe.”
“That, too, is a long story,” Bayard began, waving as though he’d had enough of stories for the afternoon.
“Oh, but tell us please, Sir Bayard!” Agion insisted. “Galen and I love stories!”