THE SILVER LIGHT OF FOREVER

THE SILVER LIGHT OF FOREVER, by Mike Adamson

 

Gareth waited with the same nervous impatience he had experienced before the Harvest every year. The green vestments of the duke fluttered softly about his chain mail and leather, and the worn grip of his sword was a comfort at his side, but the dread import of this of all full moons made the short hairs rise at his nape, for such dire things revolved upon it.

His horse pawed the earth impatiently, sensing the tension as soldiers held their formation to each side of the peasant labourers, and a night breeze came sweetly across the moonleaf fields. Gareth was watching the high battlements of the castle of Duke Manorino, his liege lord and master. Up there, on the high platforms, the duke’s astrologer, the grim sage Ferrilorne, was making final observations, his telescopes zeroed onto stars as he plotted the arc of the moon.

For maximum potency, moonleaf must be picked as its namesake traversed only a narrow celestial locus. While some impatient souls, the scions of lesser manors, would already be picking, had probably started as soon as silver light flooded the valleys and dales of Grendelius, the duke’s potioneers had determined that the finest elixir required the most careful timing.

 

All life was a matter of timing, Gareth reflected sourly. He looked down across the moonlit slopes to the scatter of torchlight in the town by the river, the hovels and shanties of his birth. His was the misfortune to be born to a boatman in the last years of old Duke Severin’s reign, a time of pestilence and want; then, the bad luck to be orphaned when days were hard and winters long. His next stoke of ill-fortune had been to seek refuge in the duke’s army, a choice he had oft regretted. But, for all to be said of the hardships of life in uniform, he had risen, scarred and embittered, to command the ducal guard, and thus, for ten years now, been entrusted to see in the Harvest, when the night of the moonleaves came around.

This was a world of orders, castes and hierarchies. Feudality was a jealous patron, and every peasant, waiting with wickerwork basket in hand to pick the precious crop, knew flogging or death awaited them if they were found to have held back so much as a single petal, indeed they were issued work coveralls without pockets. Leaf was not for their sort, indeed the guards rode far and wide and hanged any peasant found cultivating the pale, icy blossoms of the moon plant in the forlorn hope of its boon.

It was not for any sort beyond the privileged, Gareth mused as he continued to stare up at the walls a mile away, awaiting the signal. The elixir of moonleaf, after all, in its concentrated, purified, processed form, delivered the most sought-after prize of all human existence.

Immortality.

“Immortality,” Gareth whispered, rolling the word on his tongue, and frowning. He felt the breeze tug at his horse’s trappings, snapping the banners of the lances as his men held their formation, bored but tense. The duke had promised Gareth a phial in exchange for his decades of faithful service, and the thought of rejuvenation, of the healing of his hurts, of a very long tomorrow in which to enjoy his good health, had, at least at first, been enough to spur ever greater loyalty to the ducal line.

That promise was four crops ago. The first year it seemed the duke was just making magnanimous talk, yet it had been repeated the second. But there had been none to spare, some doddering senior seneschal being in line ahead for the favour of the ages. Only one phial each year was gifted outside the lineage, the rest spread amongst aging nobles and traded for favours between the powerful, and when the promise was made a third time Gareth was sure his day was nigh. On that occasion, the coming of age of an ally in the southern marches took precedence and Gareth bided his time, his bitterness tempered by an almost-desperate clinging to his belief in the verity of the system. The duke would not forget him, he would receive his gift…before time made it superfluous.

Surely?

This year, the promise was remade and Gareth expected it to be fulfilled. It was not easy to be fifty in a hard world… The ceremonial handing out of the gift of life everlasting would be in a few days, in the grand hall of the castle, while tonight the potioneers stood ready to accept the harvest and process it instantly. In the hours before dawn Gareth would take charge of at least ten phials of the elixir and place them in the hands of Duke Manorino himself—all being well. He had never failed to do so, but failure would certainly disqualify him from ever tasting of the leaf.

As he waited, an officer of the guard approached along the files of labourers and passed a message into Gareth’s hands, holding a caged lantern high. The heavy paper was unfolded and held to the golden candle glow, and Gareth’s craggy features clouded.

“A plot, Captain?” the messenger wondered softly.

“There are always plots. Everybody wants to drink of the moon, Aethelried. They come to nothing.” He refolded the paper and thrust it into a gauntlet. “All the same, when the Harvest is underway, I’ll need to speak to the Castellan.” He gestured up to the curtain walls. gleaming dull silver in the moonlight. “Here we go, the signal is lit.”

A fire had burst into flickering life on a high platform: the mage had completed his prognostications and pronounced the moment ripe to begin the picking. It would take about two hours to work through the duke’s garden, and the sooner they were about it the better. At Gareth’s cry, torches were lit from flint and steel, and carried along each line; in moments the soldiers bathed the workers in golden glare, and Gareth lead them forth.

The garden of the moonleaves was protected by an unscaleable stone wall, blocks cut, polished and fitted with such minute precision as to render a sheer face of mirror-bright granite. A towering, defended doorway ground open at the approach of the column, the guards of the precious plantation at last relinquishing their vigil with cries of welcome and salutation.

The soldiers took up watching positions, lit torches by the dozen, and the workers were marshalled forward, to begin at the near end—working over rank after rank of the pale, sweet moonleaves, their blossoms open to the chill, spectral light, ready to give up their heady perfume to the ages. The peasants bent their backs and began to pluck the silvery petals, careful not to drop a single one. Under the guards’ eyes they worked silently; their jealousy, their suppressed rage against the system which worked them as slaves but forbade them to ever touch the product of their labour, simmering behind their eyes. Yes, the duke was magnanimous, and every tenth year held a lottery for the ordinary people, and one, solitary, elderly peasant was granted life eternal. One. It was never turned down, but never failed to underscore the harshness of hierarchy. And was there not a commonly-held belief that should unjust lips ever touch the sacred stuff, the drinker would be immolated where he stood? A handy superstition, from the perspective of the nobility.

With the Harvest underway, Gareth left Aethelried in charge and ordered the gates closed and barred once more, then spurred for the castle on the slopes above. The message had been worrying, word from the duke’s spies of a plot, one he was obliged to take seriously. Self-interest played a part; if the year’s crop was lost—which was unthinkable—heads would roll, and, far from life everlasting for men like himself, what remained of their own would be drastically cut short. His Grace could be ruthless when he had reason.

The high road to the gates was well-lit on this special night, and the full moon rode white and lovely amongst stars and a few wisps of cloud as the late spring airs ushered in the warmer nights of summer. The castle was lit with flaming cressets, and every stained glass window was aglow. This was a night of rejoicing, but also of danger, and when Gareth passed his big, black horse into the care of the guard stablemen and swirled off his cloak, his face was grim.

The Castellan, master of the duke’s security, was cloistered on the second floor of the keep, and a guard was waiting at the head of the great stair to usher Gareth into the office. The balding, narrow-faced officer, dressed in the black appropriate to his sinister position, raised a hand in greeting. “Hail, Captain,” he said softly, rising only deferentially from the carven-backed chair behind his great desk.

“Hail Master Enrico,” Gareth replied with expected courtesy, though he had never liked the man. A strange hybrid of weasel and viper, he was said to know everyone’s inner thoughts and acquire such knowledge by the most merciless of means. Such a reputation was enough to make an honest man quail. “What’s this about a plot?”

“Nothing certain at this time, but one of my men overheard loose talk in a tavern, something about a foreign trader on the river with undue interest in our yearly event.”

 

“His Grace should bar foreigners from the city in this period,” Gareth grunted, then shrugged with a guarded smile. “Loose talk is rarely more than just that. Who would dare?”

“Who indeed?” Enrico settled back into his seat and steepled his fingers over the documents spread out before him, giving all the appearance of a sorcerer over arcane volumes. “The only time a theft is possible is after the potioneers have done their trade. The raw crop is unwieldy and must be processed at once or lose all effect. The elixir itself, however, is compact, stable and stores safely for long periods. Therefore moonleaf becomes attractive to thieves only after it leaves the laboratory.”

“Which is why it is chained to my wrist and I am surrounded by the Palace Guard between the workshops and His Grace’s vault. To steal it would require an assault of overwhelming force, actually inside the fortress.” Gareth shrugged. “We have never been able to conceive of a way it might be done.”

Enrico smiled, an ugly expression. “Therein lies the danger. If someone else has done so, then we will be blind to their strategy.”

Gareth nodded readily enough. “Then heading off all such notions is better than dealing with an assault if it comes.” He consulted the water-clock which presided over one end of the office, its black iron hands indicating eleven of the evening. “We have until four or after before there is any danger.”

He swung back, some particular comment at lip, but his eyes fell upon the parchments on the desk and swept across the florid script of the copying scribes, taking in their message at a glance. One was a prepared list of the recipients of the year’s crop, issued to the Castellan to allow his appraisal of the security risk of the ceremony. Below the list of distant cousins and uncles and in-laws of the duke to be admitted to the circle of the ever-living, at the foot of the paper, was the In Gratuitum—the gift. The name below the heading was Jacob Mallingdon, designer and supervisor of the ducal gardens.

Something in Gareth seemed to snap—he lost his concentration for a long, difficult moment, and felt anger well up in him, a sense of bitter betrayal by his feudal lord. Now gardeners were favoured before loyal troops? Gardeners may live to ripe old ages but they never faced naked steel and slingstones; a guardsman’s life may be curtailed at any time, and abruptly he saw His Grace never in fact intended to confer the gift, not so long as he perceived Gareth to be of value, because once life eternal was open to him, no man would remain in a violent profession by choice and thus jeopardize it. Immortality was not indestructibility, merely resilience. Gareth walked a tightrope between preserving his life in the admirable doing of his master’s business, and the eternal hope of a chance at another life which may be better than the one he had been granted by providence.

“You were saying, Captain?” Enrico prompted.

Gareth covered his disquiet with masterly skill, wondering if he heard some prescient, nigh telepathic knowledge, in the Castellan’s manner. The fear he invoked in even his fellow servants of the throne was terrible. “That we have some time, and I shall make best use of it. I’ll take a detachment into the town, if there is mischief afoot I’ll find it.” He nodded with a grim smile. “If you will excuse me?”

He left the Castellan with heart thudding in his chest, to make his way to his own office, enter and set taper to candles on his desk. He slumped into his seat and drew papers toward him, such that should he be observed from the passage, his door open as was proper on duty, he would be deemed diligently at work.

Tough fingers massaged temples and he fought his spinning senses. The duke was using a poor-born man, not as a comrade, not as a valued ally, but merely as a tool for a job; and, given the allegiances of the elite, would probably continue to do so. There would be no grateful gift, no rejuvenation, no graceful transition to a less dangerous profession, one with the possibility of comfort. Why else make and break the promise, four times? Promises, it seemed, were not binding when made to members of other classes.

Well, two can play at that game, Gareth thought bitterly, a dark cloud rising in his soul. His heart hammered behind his ribs and his vision seemed to grey-out for terrible moments as he contemplated something beyond imagining until this instant.

Treason. Something for which he would be hanged if caught, like the commonest thief, after the excruciating extraction of the facts. But he could also smile with a gritty, angry humour, for his role as Captain of the Guard had placed him in possession of the sort of privileged information whose absence made the idea of theft of the elixir so unlikely in the first place. He knew the layout of the castle to the last store room and antechamber—and all the secret passages. Abruptly he realized if anyone in the world could achieve it, it was himself.

To betray the duke… It was difficult to grasp, to accept, but the duke had betrayed him, and he felt suddenly as if he had spent his entire life, from his early teens onward, in service to a lie. Fight and kill, hunt and question, punish, torture and hang—all for a greater good, he had thought. Upholding the authority of the line ensured the continuity of the ages, and in the two centuries since moonleaf elixir had been perfected, the nobles had become nigh to gods in their distancing from the mortals who grubbed an existence from the dirt of the world. Surely it was meant to be, ordained from on high, how else could mortal man elevate himself to such status? But much about it was far from divine, and the more he thought the more clearly Gareth saw these things. He also knew kings and princes far beyond Grendelius, where the miracle of spring was unknown, coveted the moonleaf for the very same reasons, and would make a lord of any man who would bring them the secret.

For there were two mysteries bound up in this—how to grow the flowers properly, and how and when to process their essential oil. The former he already knew, having supervised the planting of each year’s crop on behalf of the duke. The latter was written down, and while it would take other astrologers to determine the precise moment of greatest efficaciousness, the night of the second full moon of spring was a simple enough date to keep. The method for derivation of the potion had been refined to an art by the duke’s alchemists, and the procedures were recorded for posterity, a master copy said to be stored along with the seeds of the moonleaf plant in the duke’s great vault. The vault was triple-protected by steel and locks, and guarded night and day, but Gareth was one of the few who knew it was all for show. The real cache of seed and knowledge was stored in a simple strong room with a keyed lock, in a maze in the hidden parts of the tower, part of the secret passage network.

The network also linked directly to the escape tunnels from Castle Grendelius, and as Gareth considered his options a plan began to form in his mind, an outrageous one calling for audacity, skill and no little courage. But in whom might those qualities combine if not the Captain of the Guard?

Enrico… Gareth frowned and massaged his temples once more, pretending to be absorbed in a document. The Castellan was as devious as he was cruel, and Gareth had stepped carefully around him for many years. The master of the duke’s secrets was said to have eyes and ears everywhere, and more, to be the master strategist of the realm. He only ever lost in chess to His Grace as an expected courtesy. So, Gareth wondered, had the list of favoured recipients been displayed purposefully?

Does he expect me to act on my betrayal? he wondered. Is it a trap? Is the only safe thing to do nothing? But how could he? Yet, as Gareth was the only one in a position to make the attempt, surely Enrico had positioned himself in anticipation? Abruptly, Gareth gave a grunt of sour laughter and fingered the hilt of his dagger. Enrico, for all his vaunted cleverness and unquestionable ruthlessness, was a man like any other, and they died so very easily. Life had fewer and fewer options for Gareth as his years drew out and his reflexes slowed. The time had come to roll the dice in earnest. If that meant playing the Castellan at his own game, double-thinking the master, then so be it.

The duke had had his chance to make good a promise to one who had shed his blood in faithful service, and had reneged on the contract. Therefore he no longer merited faith, loyalty, service or obedience. When Gareth rose and stalked from his office, his plan had taken on nigh-complete shape, and his contempt for the ducal line of Grendelius had grown deep.

 

#

 

The shanties by the river stank after the clean air of the hills, but a salty wind from the sea carried away hearthsmoke and brought the tang of other lands.

When Gareth lead his patrol into the town, shod hooves ringing on the cobblestones, it was to drag the taverns with an indelicate questioning of the wharf-rats, fishermen and any who made their living from the great estuary that opened eastward to the dawn. In each warm, smoky inn, conversation stopped as the leather- and mail-clad soldiers stamped in and cast about for foreigners. The swarthy sailors of Uldorn in the warm southlands, the tall, fair men from Nirilarne whose eyes were like blue ice, and the tough, rakish traders from the islands to the east, were all fair game, and harsh words were spoken as accusations were thrown. Gareth knew he could provoke them to a brawl and lock them up, pending Enrico’s merciless precision, but from the moment he had called his reserve detachment together, he had known he was just going through the motions. The last thing he needed was the work of arresting half the waterfront, and by one of the morn he was satisfied no one in the taverns knew anything.

The harbour master had been roused with a clenched fist at his door, and quelled his grumbling when he found the duke’s business before him. Ledgers were produced, listing every ship in the Duke Severin Docks by nationality, time of arrival, scheduled departure and stated destination. Three craft were due to depart with the morning tide, one a local trader coast-hopping, one for Uldorn, one for other townships further up river. The ship for Uldorn was the obvious choice for anyone fleeing the country with sensitive goods, but to seize a foreign vessel without concrete proof would provoke a diplomatic incident. Gareth considered doing just that as a parting gift to his liege lord, but could not be bothered. He had to get back to the castle, there were preparations to be made.

A report for Enrico was easily compiled, he set a lieutenant to work on it the moment the horseman clattered into the stable yards; the young officer interviewed the troopers briefly for details of the men they had questioned and collated notes taken in the field. The report would be signed by the Captain before it was turned over to the Castellan, and in the hours remaining Gareth busied himself.

First came the Harvest, of course, and without pausing Gareth spurred back down the hill road toward the gardens in the vale. By the arc of the moon, things should be nearing completion, and when he hailed the wall guards he was admitted at the main gate. The labourers were most of the way to the far end of the serried ranks of flowers, the glittering carpet below the silver light now almost rolled up for another year. Gareth took Aethelried’s report of all quiet, but, with the cold breath of fate, a cry from the walls brought them up the stone stairs to see, in the distance, a great boiling of flame.

Hands fluttered in gestures of reverence, and Gareth squinted, shaking his head in his cap of chain mail. “Those are the fields of Earl Morpeth,” he grunted softly. “We knew he was having disputes with some disinherited distaff bastard, but… His security must be lax indeed.” He nodded to his second in command. “All eyes double-sharp. It has nothing to do with us, but let’s take it as a warning.”

Fifteen minutes later the last flowers were plucked, their petals scattered into the baskets, and the labourers were mustered back to the gates, nursing sore backs. They stood to attention as torches were brought close, and a seneschal with long metal tweezers inspected them, plucking stray petals from their coveralls. He kept a scented kerchief pressed to his face as he worked; peasants could be vile at close proximity.

With his bull-voice upraised, Gareth called the Harvest done with, and up on the walls a guard tossed a torch into a krater, the signal fire blazing up to inform the castle the precious leaf was on its way. The potioneers would be alerted, and the duke would be watching from his high study, sipping fine wine and musing upon the mechanics of power.

The labourers began the trek to the castle, their baskets at their shoulders, and the soldiers walked in file to each side, swords drawn. There had never been an attempt to snatch the raw leaf, and no one expected it; the progress had taken on the aspect of a parade, and villagers waited to cheer in places—organized by Enrico’s men, none would cheer this spectacle of their own free will.

Half an hour later the weary peasants entered the torch-lit courtyard of the castle and placed their baskets before the waiting potioneers. The ceremony was swiftly over, the leaf disappearing under guard into the castle, bound for the workshops where boiling vats, distillation systems and curious additives awaited them. The labourers were rewarded for their efforts, a long table in the courtyard groaning with ale, meat and bread. They fell on it and supped heartily, by the grace of the duke and under the eyes of his soldiers.

Gareth took the salute of the watch commander, acknowledged Enrico’s disturbing presence, then dismissed his men to food and rest, and to resume their watch in time for The Great Progress of the Ages, the last ceremonial event, which sealed the year’s yield away until required.

He took a hot beverage and food in the kitchen, where serving staff kept cauldrons hot for the men working all night, and, suitably refreshed, the Captain of the Guard toured the watch positions in person. This gave him time to think as he circled the fortress. He ticked off in his mind how many knew of the secret passage network. The duke himself, of course, though not intimately—he had never had cause to use one of them.  Enrico knew them all, as did at least one of his senior men. Of the Guard, two lieutenants knew of a single passage each, but full knowledge of the network was a state secret reserved for the most highly placed. The fact was, Gareth could pass unseen from one end of Castle Grendelius to the other if he wished.

He wished to right now.

Disappearing into the network was not difficult. Gareth knew the secret doors throughout the castle, and one of his duties had been to ensure, with Enrico, that the supply of lanterns and candles by which one moved in the utter darkness of the passages was properly maintained. When alone in a long, airy hallway of dressed stone, he pressed a hidden latch and passed through a swinging panel that moved by counterweight on perfectly-balanced hinges. When the stonework was back in place, he found flint, steel and tinder on a shelf made to be explored by touch alone, and coaxed a flame to life. From this he lit two candles and set them into a lantern, then moved through the passages, past the filmy tendrils of webbing, under the oppressive sense of the castle’s raw and stony mass, with the sureness of intimate knowledge. The duke himself would need to follow a map.

In ten minutes he had scaled creaking stairs, descended them, passed between halls and floors, and made his way to the stables behind the Guard barracks. A discrete viewing slit allowed him to wait until the passageway was clear before depressing a latch to release a wall panel to slide. He was out in moments and passed through the tack and store rooms as if simply continuing his patrol of posts.

When free of observation, he selected plain, unmarked saddle bags from a shelf and returned to the hidden passage network, again unseen, and this time made his way through the musty, silent reaches of blackness with sure tread to the hidden strong room, on the third floor of the keep itself, unknown among the halls and chambers. He stood to look at the massive iron-bound door for a long, terrible moment, knowing the things he had held inviolate and guarded his whole life through, as well as the procuring of all he had ever wanted, lay on the other side of that portal.

The saddle bags were placed at a turn of the passage a dozen strides from the door, and he nodded over his work. He needed a few more things, and paced himself; he knew the alchemic workings in the potioneers’ laboratory could not be rushed, he had time. Nobles in their towers were resting, taking supper, waiting to be bathed and dressed, and to make their progress to attend the duke’s acceptance of the moon’s bounty.

He needed a horse waiting for him at the outer end of one of the tunnels, and this was easily arranged. When he stealthily emerged once more into the public corridors, he sought out one of his men, Travis, known for a heavy hand and a sour demeanour. If it came necessary to dispose of him, none would ever miss his sort, except perhaps Gryph, another trooper who had inexplicably taken to the man. Perhaps he saw worth in a coarser soul, and Gareth was willing to be charitable.

The surly guardsman was done with his stew and ale, and was belching with his mess-mates by a cookfire. They stiffened at Gareth’s approach and the Captain warmed his hands for a few moments, made small talk with the men before sending them on to their guard posts. This night was not yet done. Travis he held back with a crooked finger.

“Not you. I’ve a special job for you. This is one for Castellan Enrico, so don’t make a mess of it and don’t ask questions. Saddle up a horse and take it out to the old sheep-shed on the east slopes. No special hurry, just make sure it’s there and stay with it ‘till it’s collected.”

Mention of the Castellan won immediate cooperation, and Travis saluted before hurrying to do as he was told. That sorted out transport, and now Gareth turned to other things he would need. Nondescript trail clothes he gathered from his quarters, stuffed into a carryall, drew a standard-issue crossbow and bolts from the armoury, even signed them out, stopped by the cavalry forge and collected bolt-cutters and a fresh standard padlock. Then, with consummate care to remain unobserved, he disappeared back into the secret passage network. He collected extra candles and a second lantern and made his way up some levels to a very special room the old duke had ordered built. It was in the keep, one level below the throne room, beneath the entry corridor thereto.

It was a trap chamber, a means for snaring anyone bold enough to try to enter the heart of the realm unannounced. There were many methods of releasing the trap, one of them a series of hidden levers in the corridor above, for the discrete use of anyone attempting to snare an unwitting companion. Only one who knew the trap existed could turn it against its builders, and Gareth had been made privy to its existence when he was promoted to captain.

A trapdoor was operated by a system of counterweights and levers. The weight of the man above was enough to depress the leaves, and when he fell through into the chamber, counterweights raised the panels once more and reset the latches. It had not been used in a generation, but was tested by Gareth and Enrico once each year and was in perfect order.

The pack of riding clothes he left in the trap chamber along with the tools and one lantern, its candles lit. The inner door he propped open with the carryall, as it could only be released from outside in the connecting passage. The last thing he need do was cushion his expected fall, as a broken ankle, even a sprain, would ruin his plot and end his days. This was the most difficult to do, oddly enough, as the fall was meant to incapacitate the victim.

But one thing castles accumulated was junk, and at some point in the past a hidden chamber had been used as a convenient dump for all manner of goods. Under a dust-laden tarpaulin were bales of old uniforms, a generation out of date, and these would do. Gareth hauled them through, sack by sack, and arranged them under the trapdoor into a platform two bales deep. If he could hit them reasonably squarely they would break his fall nicely.

The only other member of the duke’s staff privy to every inch of these dark, anonymous passages was the Castellan, and he would be attending His Grace in the great hall. Gareth made his way to the three secret doors serving the passages on this floor of the tower and disabled them—all he need do was disconnect the counterweights. Then he moved on and sealed doors on other floors, every one he came to. There were a few others he did not have time to reach, but Enrico would have to try every one of them in turn to gain access to the system, allowing Gareth all the time he needed.

He had the makings of an escape. All remaining was to spring the direst surprise the duke had ever been dealt. Gareth smiled, skull-like in the lantern-glow, there in the dank and silent bones of the castle, walking unseen like a ghost among his unsuspecting betters. He could not embark on such a scheme without every confidence in his success, and now, as he surveyed his preparations, he could see it actually working.

 

#

 

The potioneers laboured in the small hours, processing the moonleaf petals. With the blessings of Ferrilorne upon their work and under the eyes of guards who monitored for any man who attempted to hold back so much as a drop—for such was treason—they boiled the petals in purified water, skimmed away the essential oils and distilled them for purity. A number of additions were made beneath a telescope which concentrated moonlight into the vats, and the process was repeated thrice.

At the final distillation, the elixir was collected drop by drop into phials of finest glass which were sealed with red wax and set reverently into a lacquered wood case, bound with polished brass. A phial was sealed every fifteen minutes or so, and the crop was a rich one—ten phials were predicted and ten phials was the year’s yield. The labour of hundreds, many thousands of man-hours of cultivation and obsessive security, for the contents of a small wooden box; but what human being would not invest dearly to hold eternity in the palm of one’s hand?

By four of the morn, the guardsmen were redistributed and every great door of the castle was closed and barred. Now was the Great Progress of the Ages, and though he had enacted it no few times, Gareth now found himself disgusted, no more than a pawn in a game. Duke Manorino, the Duchess Camille and their extensive family of immediate and distant relatives, had been prepared during the night and the thunder of the organ from the holy shrine heralded the grandest moment of the year, underscoring the ascent of their power.

In stately procession, the ducal party would descend the grand stair and sweep into the court chamber, the great hall of the castle, as lesser nobility looked on from the bowed position. Some hundred yards away, Gareth and a dozen of his best men were turned out in their finest parade uniforms, washed, shaved and barbered; mailcoats were polished, casques raised to a mirror sheen, and vestments of the duke’s green silk were emblazoned with the crests of the house. Swords rode every hip, and the troopers bore lances which streamed the banner of Grendelius. They waited outside the laboratory, and Castellan Enrico personally took the box from the potioneers, attached and closed a padlock of pure silver, matching its silver keys, then connected manacles between the handle of the box and Gareth’s left wrist. Enrico would report at once to the duke’s side and ceremonially release the locks once more at the handing over.

Every guardsman was tense, nervous smiles in place, waiting to escort their Captain to the ducal presence, and a seneschal waited to lead them to the hall. At the appropriate chords from the organ, he lead them off in a measured and stately progress, through banner-draped halls and passages, to the applause of the castle’s serving staff who crowded at doorways under the eyes of Enrico’s men. They ascended a stair, traversed a corridor, then paused for a few moments and turned into the broad passageway to the great hall. The double doors at the far end were closed, guardsmen waited on the farther side to open them with flare when the seneschal rapped with the staff he carried.

This was it, and Gareth tensed, his face held immobile though his heart was thudding. If he made a mess of it, his life would end, unpleasantly. He counted the sconces of each wall, knowing he must pause directly between the seventh pair, not the eighth as the parade called for. There would be a pause of about a minute as the duke’s formalities occurred, then at a cue from within the seneschal would rap three times.

Along the hall, step by agonizing step, Gareth advanced. Part of his mind told him to forget the whole thing, present the elixir as he always had and think no more of his schemes; but the greater part could not look upon His Grace, bow and smile one more time, knowing he looked upon his loyal soldiery as not worth keeping a promise to.

The candles in the sconces lit the hall like gold. Four pairs… Five… Six.

Seven. Gareth stopped astride the trapdoor, committing to his plan. The guards were puzzled and some nodded silently, suggesting he move forward, close up with the robed seneschal who now waited inside the great doors, but he would not move.

The speech in the hall was approaching its grandiose conclusion, something about immortality being the divine right of nobility, and that clinched it for Gareth. He nodded to the trooper at his right. “Give me your lance, son.”

“Sir?” was the puzzled whisper.

“Give me your lance.” Again, hesitation. “Just do it, son. Don’t make a scene.”

The young trooper frowned but did as his captain ordered, passing over the long-hafted weapon. The seneschal glanced back, gesturing urgently for the party to close up, but it was too late. Gareth reversed the lance, reached out with the butt and clashed it to a hidden lever, part of the decoration of the seventh illumination niche—and disappeared feet first through the trapdoor, elixir and all.

He had time to hear the cry from the seneschal before the counterweights resealed the trap, and he rolled on the bags of old uniforms, found his feet and in moments tugged out his keys. The manacles were just silver versions of the iron ones the guard used and he had them off in seconds. In the light of the candles he stripped off the parade gear, mailshirt, helmet, everything which would identify him, and scrambled into the riding clothes he had brought earlier. From above came muffled shouts and heavy blows as lance-butts were applied to the trapdoor, but it was very stoutly built. The cry would already have gone up, the duke would be crimson-faced in his rage, Enrico promising bloody reckoning and even now leading his men for the nearest entrance to the hidden ways.

The bolt-cutters made short work of the soft silver padlock which had only ever been for show, and Gareth replaced it with a steel model, to which he had the key. He opened the purple-velvet-lined box, drew out one phial, wrapped it in cloth and placed it in an inside pocket of his leather tunic, then relocked the case. Three minutes after dropping through the floor, he strode out of the trap chamber, sealed the door and kicked away the counterweight in case entry was forced from above, then, lantern in hand, turned into the close and musty gloom of the passages and made his way quickly down two levels to the strong room. He had a key for it, the Captain of the Guard was one of only three who did, and when the massive door opened back he was struck by the magnitude of his treachery. This was the holy of holies.

He ignored most of the contents and went straight for what mattered. A linen sack lay on a velvet tray, containing seeds for a thousand plants; the secret process for the elixir was in a coded volume alongside, and he snatched it up, glanced at the cipher and nodded. These items and the elixir went into the saddle bags and he relocked the strong room—anything to cost pursuers a few minutes more—before he hefted the bags over one shoulder, grabbed up the crossbow and double-timed by the glow of the lantern—down, down each stair, heading into the very bowels of the castle. The chill darkness was an agony of oppressive closeness, the terror of trip hazards that would stretch him senseless for the guards to find, and his heart raced for he was totally alone in his treason. There were hidden doors even here but he reached the eastern escape tunnel without sign of pursuit. With luck Enrico had not yet even found a way into the maze.

All was silence now, the blackness stretched away before and behind, only the puddle of orange glow from the lantern moved through this veritable grave. The walls brushed his robes, the tunnel wide enough only for one man’s shoulders to pass, and the roots of vegetation overhead had invaded it in places, creating eerie patches of feathery growth. Gareth ducked under them, putting all out of his mind but reaching the concealed outer end. The tunnel sloped downward and he took care on the paving stones, following the curve of the hill. The elixir whispered to him—take a few moments, enjoy your victory, don’t leave it too long or they might snatch your prize from you… But he resisted, focusing solely on getting out. When he was away, then he would taste of forever.

After what seemed an age he found the further end of the tunnel. It was hidden in a disused sheep shed lower on the hill, and a vision slit showed only darkness beyond. The secret door was set into the wooden wall of a cellar under the shed, a creaking timber stair lead up among rusting farm tools and rotten sacking, and Gareth went up, put an ear to the hatch and listened. Only the night wind… He blew out the candles, set the lantern aside and put a shoulder to the hatch, to lift it slowly and let his eyes acclimatize to the dark.

He lifted back the hatch, set the saddle bags to one side and cast around with the crossbow to his eye. The shed was deserted, and in the faint blue wash of moonlight, the night now waning fast, he crossed to a tumbledown wall of slats and put an eye to a gap.

And at that moment his plan seemed to unravel like a pulled thread, for not only Travis waited with the horse by the shed in the old moonlight, bur a second figure. No! he thought with a heart-pounding rush of frustration. Gryph? He should be at a different duty station, he was disobeying orders to have accompanied his friend, worth a scourging if it had in fact been Enrico’s business. But it left Gareth with a terrible choice that was no choice. He had courted death when he chose this course, and if it was to be other than his own, he must leave the tunnel system unobserved. He stared into the moonlit space, the two figures in stark black outline, and warred with his conscience. How could he take a life he had not planned to? But what choice was there? He was wasting the few minutes of grace available to him, hands sweaty on the crossbow as he grappled with the enormity of the deed some sneering fate had placed before him.

Travis and Gryph stood swathed in their cloaks, the former certainly angry and bored, tired enough to fall asleep if he was less than vigilant, though how Gryph felt was less certain. But his loyalty had lead him to ruin this night.

Travis did not feel the bolt pierce his heart from behind. Life left him with a great deal more mercy than he had extinguished it in others. He collapsed to his knees, sprawled face down, and was dead before Gryph could react, dropping into a crouch with blade drawn. But a second bolt hissed out of the darkness seconds later and took him squarely under the heart, pitching him in the dirt, the flutterings of death mercifully hidden by the night’s discretion.

Gareth left the shed and looked down on the two men, heart pounding as bile rose in his throat. He was not a murderer by nature, and while Travis he could put behind him with ease, Gryph was another matter. The price of his own longevity had abruptly become the stealing of another man’s days in total, a good man who deserved better, and Gareth trembled like a leaf in a wind for long moments until he clamped down on himself, stilled his muscles with a soldier’s pragmatism and shook his head sadly. “Sorry, Gryph,” he whispered. “You were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’m long-since committed, and you were in the way.” He secured the bags behind the saddle of the big guard horse, slung the crossbow, powered up at the left stirrup and was on his way in thirty seconds.

He would grimly pride himself in years to come, he thought, in never having looked back once, in having the hard, cold fortitude to stay the course he had chosen, as he followed a trail across the open ferns and bracken of the hillside. The moonlight was bright enough to make his way along the sheep and deer paths, around the curve of the hill and up toward the moorland, the treeless hinterland created by the cold sea winds. He knew where he was going, not down to the river docks but to the coastal fishing port of White Bay, five miles away across a headland. Here a minor river also flowed into the sea and hamlets clustered about a bridge. There were always plenty of boats, and every skipper wanted coin for his services. Down the coast to Arvenne was his plan, take ship and never return to Grendelius as long as he lived—which should be a very long time.

Gareth tried to imagine what would be happening back at the castle. Enrico would have forced entry to the passages by now, though he could not work in too heavy-handed a way or the annonymity on which the passages depended would be lost. He would need to find or force an entry point, swear a group of his or Gareth’s men to secrecy, and sweep the passages. He would find the abandoned gear in the trap room, then items missing from the vault, but he would have to follow prints in the dust to know which exit had been used. All this took time. It may be another half hour before they knew for certain he was outside the system, and even in the dark Gareth would be halfway to White Bay by then.

The duke’s cavalry would thunder out into the night and sweep in all directions, but only with the coming of the light would they stand a chance. Gareth was on the high moor as he thought thus, the moon settling at his back, becoming more golden as the night faded, and the first hint of day paled the east by the time he found the road winding down into the valley of the river which found the sea at White Bay. He paused in the chill night air, looked back and listened intently. Not a sound came to him other than the wind in the heather, and no lights showed closer than the castle, now far off.

With the greatest satisfaction, Gareth reached into his tunic for the comforting weight of the phial, brought it out and unwrapped it. The red wax seal broke easily and he put the bottle to his lips. The scent was heady, like a rich perfume, seeming like the potency of all the crop reduced to a few swallows.

Did he believe the legend? Would his treason earn him instant immolation by the hand of divine justice?

Of course not. He upended the bottle and the elixir cascaded over his tongue like the richest wine he could imagine. It was sweet, fragrant, but in ways his palate had never known before, flavours he could not comprehend. The potion slid down easily, three swallows, leaving a powerful aftertaste that filled his throat and sinuses, rose into his vision and clouded his head, leaving him gasping the cool air. He pushed the bottle into a pocket and sat to steady his spinning nerves.

I mustn’t pass out, he thought desperately, gripping his saddle horn with a firm hand. If he fell here, they would find him and it would all be for nothing. He had never been privy to the use of the elixir, he had no idea if this was normal… Was the drinker incapacitated as it did its work? The possibility had never occurred to him and he grinned with graveyard humour. But after a few minutes the cloying effects of the potion began to clear and he felt only a great warmth inside, a comforting sensation of wellbeing. He looked back again; still no sign of life across the moors, toward the setting moon.

He spurred down the trail into the first blue of day, and let his horse pick his way, stepping carefully. The road was kept in good repair, but a stumble would jeopardize everything. Time was going by, but before the early clouds flushed with their first hint of pink Gareth was entering the little town on the bay beside the chuckling river. A few dogs barked. Sleepy gulls stirred from their rest on bollards and fence posts, and an inn-keeper thrust his door open as the first fishermen loaded their boats for the tide.

Tying his horse at the hitching post, Gareth stepped into the tavern, saddle bags over his shoulder and crossbow in hand. He thumped into a corner seat and beckoned the landlord, tossed him a coin and was soon burying his face in mulled ale as fishermen came and went. As if in passing he hailed the landlord again, “Is there a boatman here who’d care to earn himself honest coin for a passage?”

The grizzled elder wiped his hands on an apron across his massive belly and spread huge hands. “Nigh any of ‘em, so long as it’s not too far. They’d be happiest home for supper.”

Gareth jingled the coin in his pouch to catch the attention of the breakfasting sailors and had bartered himself a ride down the coast in moments. He relaxed outwardly, but inside was tense as a mainspring, one hand on the pewter ale vessel, the other on his weapon below the edge of the table. Time… When was the tide? Minutes could count, really, could he step into a boat and be out to sea before the duke’s dragnet reached White Bay?

Maybe it was the ale, or the elixir, or both combined, but Gareth found his eyes closing, and against his better judgment he drifted into a light sleep. A hard night’s exertion was one thing, adrenalin could carry a man only so far, and now the pressure had eased he succumbed, if only momentarily. Yet it seemed it was enough to change the game, for when he jerked awake to the sound of boots around the tables and the clatter of breakfast dishes he found opposite him the last face he ever wanted to see.

Master Enrico was as sour, as unamused, as Gareth had ever seen him, but the dark, weasel-faced man with the balding pate sat quietly, wrapped in his black riding cloak, and waited for Gareth to stir. “Good morn, Captain Gareth,” he said softly. “You’ve been a busy man.”

Gareth froze, his heart raced and he let his eyes slide around the tavern. Sailors shouldered their kit and waved farewells, but there were no troopers, nor even shadows by the door.

“When your lantern was found at the end of the east tunnel I guessed you were heading for White Bay. True, you could have doubled back in any direction, and would expect me to be so devious as to assume it—thus I discounted the idea and took a boat from the docks around the headland as fast as sail could bring me. And here you are.” Enrico smiled thinly.

“What are you waiting for?” Gareth grunted.

“What indeed.” Enrico sat forward and lowered his voice. “Your boat will wait. We have a few minutes. Let’s say I am intrigued by the fact that for the first time ever, the elixir of the moonleaf is outside Castle Grendelius, outside official custody and unknown to our liege lord.”

For a long moment Gareth held his breath, reading the hard, miserable face across the table, then at last he let it go in a sigh. “You want one,” he hissed.

“I’m not immune to your reasons, Gareth. I know why you did it, and I’m quite impressed with how you carried it off.  I more than half expected you to, once you knew the gratuitum was destined for another, yet again. In fact I was counting on it… You and I are probably the only men alive who could do it. You’ve burned your bridges, but unlike you I prefer to keep my position. Have my pie and eat it, if you will. It may amaze you, but I don’t necessarily want to take you back.”

Gareth’s face betrayed only the slightest surprise; he was acutely suspicious of anything this man had to say. He sniffed, almost a scornful sound. “You’ll win fewer favours if you return without my head.”

“You’re not a man to tangle with. I left the boat crew on the river because I wanted to see you alone.” He showed his hands, gloved but empty. “As you say, I want one. His Grace is not concerned with keeping promises outside the lineage. Even that old fool of a gardener is related by blood. You may not know this, but I also am of common birth. You and I will never taste of the leaf without taking it for ourselves.” He smiled like a deathshead. “I see by your pupils, you already have. All I want is one for myself.”

“Then you’ll retire in a couple of years, maybe feign an injury, so you can regain your youth out of sight, out of mind, and start a new life?”

A long pause…. “Something like that. Let me take the rest back, His Grace will be so glad to have it he’ll cut his losses and search less enthusiastically than he might. I can also point him in the wrong direction to ever find your trail.”

“Two phials missing, two of us. It would not be a difficult conclusion to reach on the duke’s part.”

Enrico nodded. “Keep a third. Use it as bargaining power, wherever you’re going. It’ll take time and resources to get a crop grown and process it correctly. You need a patron, and he’s going to want to see proof it works.” Enrico smiled thinly. “I’ll tell His Grace the case was recovered as he sees it. He will curse you and your memory to hell, expunge your name from the annals of the land. Only you and I will know the truth.”

“And your boatmen?”

“Wharf rats, not staff. They forget what they’re paid to forget. Besides, how long do you think I’ll leave them alive, when life everlasting is at stake?” Enrico made an ironic face. “We found your men’s bodies by the shed. You also can be ruthless when you have to.”

“Travis, at least, was a swine.”

“Shape the justice of it any way you’re comfortable. But see the logic.”

Gareth warred with his thoughts. Enrico was right, his men would skin him alive, and he must accept his guilt as the price of eternity. Yet, to give up the rest of the case was anathema, he had envisioned winning power by gifting the phials to potential allies one by one, and with the power thus accumulated going on to sow his own crops. But, loathe as he was to admit it, the Castellan was making sense. Greed was, as ever, the enemy most worth guarding against. “You may tell His Grace we duelled, you struck the case from my hand and I fled before your men could overpower me. The last you saw of me, I was sailing for the eastern isles.”

“Done. And when the stupor of the elixir is upon me, you may give me a fresh scar.” He palmed his left shoulder as he spoke, eyes level and voice quiet. “Blood is always convincing. By the time I return to the castle, my pupils will have cleared.”

A fisherman looked into the tavern, his silhouette dark against the morning light at the door. “Your passage, m’lord. The tide calls.”

“A moment,” Gareth replied, his eyes never leaving Enrico. When they were alone he pushed the saddle bags along the bench seat around the table and fished out his keys with his left hand. “Be very careful, Enrico. I have a crossbow aimed at your gut, and not even the potion will save you if my fingers have cause to twitch.”

“You may trust my desire to live, for it is as great as your own,” was the soft reply as he reached slowly for the bags, to unlace one and reveal the case. The keys clattered as he released the padlock and lifted the lid. Purple velvet glimmered and the phials shone like diamonds. Enrico gasped very softly and looked down on them for a moment. “The stuff of dreams,” he whispered at last. “Well, it seems you and I shall both see out eternity.” He glanced around, then drew out two phials, passed one across the table and broke the seal on the other.

“Drink,” Gareth whispered as he passed the extra phial into an inside pocket, and Enrico upended the bottle at his lips. The results were akin to intoxication, a flush in the cheeks, a faint beading of perspiration, a momentary loss of coordination, and when he was clearly deep into the effect, Gareth set aside the crossbow, drew his dagger, reached forward and placed it at the Castellan’s throat. Enrico’s eyes widened and he drew a sharp breath of terror. “This is what it feels like to be afraid, you torturing bastard. This is what it feels like to be on the edge of a precipice with no way out and a broken back waiting fifty feet below. Savour this, Enrico, remember it. Remember all your plans drifting away like leaves in a wind, that all the things men may hope for are just the playthings of fate. How many men, women and children have been where you now find yourself, at your pale hands? You disgust me.” He held the Castellan’s dilated pupils for a long moment, then lowered the knife and opened a red gash across his shoulder. He clashed the blade back into its scabbard and lifted out the case of phials, to relace the saddle bag and rise, taking up the crossbow once more.

Enrico swallowed hard, his eyes going from Gareth to the case and back. He breathed deeply, mastering the effects of the elixir quickly. “You and I are not obliged to see eye to eye in this. Just to understand we are bound by our mutual knowledge.”

“Precisely. We each hold the other’s life in our hands, since you chose to mask your treason behind mine.” Gareth turned for the door. “I could as easily have killed you and taken all eight. But I bow to your logic. Return them to His Grace, and may the ducal line rot in its luxury. I will not wish you farewell… Just a long life.”

“And I, thee, likewise.” Enrico palmed his bloodied shoulder with a grimace of pain, then closed the padlock of the box with a decisive snap.

Gareth strode out, found the impatient boatman by the quayside, the rest of the fleet already heading out to the fishing grounds, and in moments he was aboard the well-rounded, sturdy little sea-boat. Oars dipped in the hands of four brawny sailors to take her out on the press of the river, and he saw the boatmen from the town making their way to the tavern. He was through the breakwaters in minutes and the sail was hauled up, to heel the craft as her head came about for the south, and he was on his way.

He sat in the stern by the skipper, saddle bags between his feet, and mused on his future, upon all the long decades, indeed centuries, to come. All life’s possibilities opened wide before him, and though he might put the life of a soldier behind him, he knew how well it would serve him. He had a long way to go, many shrewd negotiations to perform, and the ages in which to reap the rewards, as well as to reflect upon the stains, the wounds, he had accepted.

He would voyage to Uldorn, he decided, and there among the scented water gardens and exotic life, the warm seas and ways of other gods and men, he would make the offer that would tempt even the highest emperor. It was simple—the gift of life everlasting, resilience to disease, and the eternal energy of youth. This prize would win him all he would ever need, and a position second in the land, which was as high as he had any interest in ascending.

What need of ultimate power, what call for riches beyond measure, or the acclaim of multitudes, he reflected, when one already possessed the greatest gift of all?—the silver light of forever.

 

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Mike Adamson holds a Doctoral degree from Flinders University of South Australia. After early aspirations in art and writing, Mike returned to study and secured degrees in both marine biology and archaeology. Mike has been a university educator since 2006, has worked in the replication of convincing ancient fossils, is a passionate photographer, a master-level hobbyist, and a journalist for international magazines. Short fiction sales include to Hybrid Fiction, Weird Tales, Abyss and Apex, Daily Science Fiction, Compelling Science Fiction and Nature Futures. Mike has placed over 110 stories to date. You can catch up with his writing career at ‘The View From the Keyboard,’