His shirt was white silk, covered by a scarlet vest with gold embroidery. His pants were also scarlet, stuffed into gleaming black boots. A basket-hiked sword rode his hip. A matching scarlet hat dangled from one hand, complete with a sweeping black feather. Rings glittered from his long fingers. "Well, Calum, what do you think of your young friend now?" His voice was a rich tenor that held something of the music he made his living from.
Calum lay on his back now, pillows cradling him so that he could only stare at the man. "Have you come to whisper more lies in my ears?"
"Not lies, my friend, promises."
"What do you want of me, Harkon?"
"Your help." Harkon Lukas laid his hat on the foot of the bed and leaned against the bedpost.
"I cannot betray my friends."
Harkon smiled, even white teeth flashing in his dark face. "I have given you my word that none of the others will be harmed. I want only Konrad Burn."
"Why him?"
Harkon shrugged, a somehow graceful gesture in the tall man. "He is handsome, young, strong. He can travel beyond the boundaries of Kartakass. You can't tell me as a bard you have not longed to escape this prison, to travel the lands your friend Jonathan and his gypsy woman have told you of. The songs I could sing. The tales to be told. Think of it, Calum."
"But to possess his body? What becomes of Konrad when you are inside him?"
"He will get my body." Harkon glided round the bed. Calum could only move his eyes to follow the bard.
"Don't you think my body a fair trade for his?"
Calum did. It was a strong, healthy body. "If you truly command some. . sorcery that will switch your body with Konrad's, but not harm him, why not ask him? Why not gain his cooperation?"
"Do you really think he would agree? Our angry, honor-bound Konrad?"
"Would anyone agree?"
Harkon sat on the edge of the bed. The slight movement caused Calum to gasp. "Oh, my friend," Harkon said, "did my sitting down hurt you?" He leaned forward, face concerned.
Calum did not want the man to touch him. He knew the concerned looks would fade instantly, chased by whatever new emotion entered Harkon's mind. He was as changeable as a spring wind, and as reliable.
Harkon's hand fell back into his lap. He smiled down at Calum. "I have found a body for you. A man in his twenties. Tall, strong, in perfect health, handsome. He is a little shorter than you were in your prime, more slender, perhaps a shade more handsome, though."
To be young again, with his whole life ahead of him, but with the knowledge of a lifetime. To leave his pain-ridden body behind. To live. It was a tempting offer, and Harkon knew that. Why make it otherwise?
Calum licked his lips. "And what happens to this young man if I take his body?"
"Why, he gets yours."
"He would die, horribly."
"As you are dying?" Harkon stood and paced back to the foot of the bed.
"Yes!"
"But, Calum, don't you plan to give the boy back his body? As I plan to give Konrad back his?"
He stared into that handsome face. The dark eyes mocked him. He knew if he once tasted the freedom of a new, healthy body, he could never return to this dying shell. He wanted to live. But at what cost?
"Mo one would agree to such a trade."
"But I assure you, the young man will."
"How could I come back to this pain once I was free?" Calum closed his eyes. "I would not be strong enough to make such a choice."
"Then make another choice, Songmaster," Harkon said.
Calum opened his eyes to find the tall man looming over him. "What do you mean?"
Harkon smiled a knowing smile. "Keep the body, be young and healthy. Escape this dying husk."
"What of the young man?"
"He will die."
"You would kill him?"
The smile deepened. "I would do anything to see you whole and well again, my friend."
"You don't plan to give Konrad back his body, do you?"
Harkon gave a soft, purring laugh. "Oh, Calum, do you really want to know?"
Mo, Calum decided, he didn't, not really. What they were speaking of was evil. As evil as anything he had ever fought against. He did not know why Harkon pursued this sorcery, but he, Calum Song-master, would not steal the youth, the life from another human being. It was monstrous.
Harkon leaned close, eyes drowning-deep, face solemn. "This might be our last visit together, Calum. Not that I wouldn't want to see you again, my friend, but you may simply not be here. If you die before our bargain can be struck …" He leaned close, whispering against Calum's skin. For a moment, he thought the man would kiss him gently, as you would kiss a sick child. He was loathe for those lips to touch his skin. But only Harkon's words burned along his wrinkled cheek. "Once dead, I cannot help you."
A wave of bone-grinding, stomach-churning pain burned upward from his rotting gut. When the pain receded, he lay gasping, staring up into Harkon's dark eyes. "What do you need me to do?" Harkon smiled. "Very little, my friend, very little." Calum waited for the words to fall from Harkon's lips, waited to hear how he would betray his friends, how he would destroy one of them utterly. They both knew Konrad would not survive in Harkon's body. He, too, would be killed. Calum knew that, and yet he listened.
His eyes flicked to his desk and the waiting skull. He felt he should apologize to the bones of his friend for forcing them to watch his fall. He had fought the land his entire life, but finally it had offered him something too precious to refuse. He wanted to live. And he was willing to pay the price, even if that price was another person's blood. Even if someday he paid with his soul. For a second chance, even that seemed a small price to pay.
TWO
Elaine Claim knelt in front of the huge kitchen fireplace. The children crowded close to the fire, not for the heat, but so they would not miss any movement of Elaine's hands.
Her small, slender hands passed in front of the flames. Fingertips fanned wide, so close to the flames that heat wavered round her skin. She stared into the leaping fire, the backs of her fingers touched together. Her wrists rolled outward like flower petals unfolding. From the tips of her fingers images leapt. A tiny, perfect man walked in the flames. It was as if the fire were a wavering mirror on which the man moved.
He wore a white fur cloak, hood thrown back to reveal shoulder-length yellow hair. The hair was the same pale gold as the winter sunshine. He strode through knee-deep snow, surrounded by black, winter-bare trees. Elaine whispered, "Elaine."
A second man walked with him, wearing a three-cornered hat tied round his head by a multicolored scarf. The grip of a great two-handed sword showed at his coat collar. "Thordin."
The two men passed under a tall tree. It was the great tree. It towered over the rest of the forest like a giant among dwarves. Lightning had killed it two years ago, but its dead, bare branches were still a landmark for miles around.
The branches twitched, swaying above the men. A branch began to move downward, a slow creaking effort that had nothing to do with wind. The skeletal bough reached for Elaine, icy twigs like daggers.