The Fool on the Hill

A personal prayer to the Unicorn from Constance, daughter of Julian, pt 16

News reaches me that Tobias is no longer Lord of Unman and Unman is a House no longer and that the Head of Flense is also dead now. Melvyn is to be married to Fuchsia of Groan and I remember her name being in the frame.

My last breakfast at my host House. Ariel is not sat with me and the atmosphere is terse. Prospero bids me goodbye with the whole House present and presents me with a medallion of a silver Wheel made to be worn about the neck. Ariel is stormy faced about the gift. Prospero demonstrates how to use it and then tells me that it is a mystical object named The Adrastic. With it, fortune can be invoked for good or for bad. If used, the user must be prepared for the eventuality for good to follow bad or vice versa. I thank him, such a gift demanding gravitas in return.

I mount a twitchy, impatient Morningstar. I am so relieved to be on him again. I have missed him, his smell, his quirks and his movements very badly. But there is a second gifting, this time from Kageorgis, who has given me a poison filled with Kafterós – which he describes as a general irritant poison. I thank him. In the strangest possible way I do kind of like him and I muse on the unlikelihood of this liking pre-War.

The final formal speeches and diplomatic replies are over and I take my customary place at the front of the column of Rangers. I command with Dirk as my second and my father is very firm over the fact that it is my command. We lead the army out across the Whispering Bridge.

A few horses and soldiers are lost from the flimsies and then the World starts to get a little strange. It does not improve. We scout ahead, reaching the Battle Plain to discover our dead are fossilised and those of Chaos have dripped apart to form meres. We carefully avoid them and communicate our findings back to William.

Benedict calls us together. The new is that home cannot be reached by Trump. It will be a long walk – I hope we can find some short cuts! Havelock warns me that he saw Imperial Violet leaving the Courts at speed, perhaps heading towards us. I put that aside as just another worry. But I still add it to my report to My Lord Warden.

I send out scouts only to find that some do not return for hours, exhausted as if after a ten-hour march. Others return within ten minutes of setting out, certain that they’ve been out for their regulated period, and some just do not return at all. Those who return tell me that topography is not to be trusted in this place.

It figures, we are close to Chaos and nothing is stable here. You can see under a few inches of sand through to the Abyss below. No Pattern-working here. Fiona’s orders ring loud. The landscape, both wider and in miniature, shifts endlessly. This is a busy day with the receiving and analysis of reports. Overhead I see Rachael, Sorashi and DeLambre undertaking aerial recon, which is a massive bonus to our information gathering.

I cycle my scouts to keep them – well, sane, really. My Lord Warden checks in on me occasionally, subtly reminding me not to over-tax myself.

Fiona is making micro-changes to our environment with the Pattern. She will evaluate all of us to measure our ability to spell her at that task. I am told in confidence that Darig’s daughter, Elektra, has, by whatever means, joined us and that it is to be kept very quiet.

But before all of this I am out with a small scouting group to follow-up on a report of a shack. We approach on foot. There are signs if habitation and out of the hut comes a decrepit old man. I have harsh words for my over-keen rangers when they force an old man in skins with a bow to the ground. He and his mad companion (Kalvin and Romaine), still inside the hut, are remnants – maybe the only remnants of the lost troops of the Jasper Yeomanry that had routed under Flora’s command during the battle.

I search the shack. Romaine, from his bed, recites a poem of sorts. It is simple – the simplicity of a child or someone whose wits are addled. But I remember a play Father had taken me to see. In it there is a character called ‘the Fool’. But with this Fool his childish demeanour was actually an indication of wisdom – if only the lead character in the play would listen. So I listened to this Fool speaking of The Fool on the Hill whilst searching and discovered that, from the window, a dark tower can be seen on a low hill. Very different to the landscape outside, with a glistening path leading towards it. Romaine is aware of it, Kalvin not so, I later discovered. When I went outside, I could just see the tower.

We return to the scout column after what seems an age and hand over our former comrades to the main body of the army for feeing and care. It is by no means certain that they will survive, such is their condition. I report the findings to my Lord Warden – emphasising the discrepancy between what I and Romaine could see and what his companion could not. I trust my intuition. It was there and led somewhere. To a tower on a hill, within residing a fool and a shortcut home, perhaps?

A father sends his daughter to rest for a few hours. On waking I am sent directly to Fiona for evaluation. There are a few of us who may be capable of undertaking Pattern work this delicate. It is incredibly difficult with infinitesimal changes being made to the immediate landscape about us. One step too far and we would fall. All I can safely do is to make tiny increases in Order about me but do so at a very shallow angle. That shack keeps making itself visible to me – definitely appearing to be seen. Meanwhile, I am working hard with Pattern and in a major way, influencing our route. Much as I want trees, oh so badly, I content myself with just tiny changes to the terrain. I can keep at it for an hour. Only an hour with the constant reminder not to run away with myself. I am exhausted again and a father sends his daughter to rest for a further hour.

Dirk and I are sent out with a mixed scouting group to revisit the insistent shack. We enter it and I show Dirk the ways to the Tower with its sparkly path, faintly yellow against the greys and a little green. After checking that the Tower is also visible through the window we return to the main body. Again, that takes time but seems easier as we get closer to the Army. We are creating the new paths through Shadow.

There had been reports in our absence. Two battalions of undead forces have been spotted to our left and a regiment to our right. Father immediately dispatches me to investigate with a chosen group of scouts with instructions not to use Trump except in extremis and to report back only to him.

I take Idris, of course. We canter off to the left and soon the camped group of undead are visible. We dismount and I split the group, having been spotted by a living mounted being within the encampment. It is Jäger of House Karm, and his forces are of House Karm. At least I know this one. I bring Morning Star forward to speak privately with him. If they meant ill, we’d already have been attacked.

Oh the supercilious tone of this one. Always amused and so amusing. My face remains set as I have never really found Karm terribly amusing.

Jäger offers me no assurances and no believable explanation for their presence. Their reason for being just there is that he and some others of his house had chosen to ride out in that direction entirely for their own amusement and the two battalions of undead are with them to ensure security.

My scouts are unnerved to be within such a force. Completely un-reassured by their presence I neutrally bid him goodbye and wheel Morning Star tightly around to return to my scouts at speed and to the Expeditionary camp.

I report to my Lord Warden who simply replies that the conversation with Karm is not to be reported to any members of the family. Meanwhile, my staff report to me that more scout groups have gone missing. I hope to the Unicorn that they can find us again – and that Torc is not among them.

Orders come from William. We are to investigate the Tower itself. He starts to issue orders to my Rangers. I give him a sharp look and hold myself to saying “Orders through me if you please, William!”

We set out – well all bar Darig. The land around the Tower is more real than the Expeditionary Force encampment. Sorashi seeks better visibility from the air but the Tower is wise to that and its walls rise above her even as she flies upward. The Tower seems to respond to our presence. The path becomes a gully and narrows further. Soon it is just we cousins on foot heading towards a foreboding – in every traditional sense – wooden door. We leave the scouts camped within reach if we should suddenly need them.

The door pull is rung and answered. ‘Welcome to the Tower of Telegon’ and we are taken in by a footman to join the competition of the suitors. News to us! The Lady Penelope greets us – no, not her from Kunstkabinett – and we introduce ourselves. Her husband has been missing from some time. She has 9 dozen suitors who must pass a series of tests before she will offer the winner her hand. Naturally, she would prefer not to offer her hand to any of them. I am all in favour of self-determination so when she says if we are to win the competition then she would be freed of that obligation, then I am happy to oblige.

The tests begin immediately. I watch William best all at wrestling; Margrath at Will; Sorashi at enduring cold. I am the dance competitor and I Glamour that green dress from the ball and have the most unexpectedly complex and utterly enjoyable dance with Lady Penelope. She has Grace and rhythm in bucket-fulls. What a joy! Then Dirk enters the next test after Havelock analyses the major requirements of Strength and Endurance. He wins but it is a bit of a squeak!

I take the next game – it could be Havelock or me. The first few games are quite difficult as I am learning the strategic tile game on the fly. I am far more confident by the final and although challenged into a more defensive game by my opponent I’m not as easily swayed by his theatrical confidence as his earlier opponents. I laugh at his theatrics and nail him within a few rounds. He looks profoundly shocked at his loss.

Margrath outstares his competitors in the next game and finally William shoots with accuracy and skill to win the final test.

Lady Penelope meets with us again and gives William her hand. Literally! The hand leads us eventually to a young man in a chamber at the top of the Tower. He is Penelope’s son, Telegon, and his first question to us is about his father. I really felt for him having recently been without Father myself. He allows us to ask 6 questions of him.

Havelock asks after the city herself and Telegon replies that a wing of the castle had fallen, and part of the city, and the steps from castle to city.

William asks if this is the only route to get from Chaos to Ygg and Telegon replies that it is the best route but there are other paths. What does ‘best’ mean in this context?

Sergeant Glaid, who with engineering skills has travelled up with us, suggests asking how we could get the army through the narrow gap to the tower and beyond? Sorashi then asks this question and Telegon replies that he can see nothing that could not be got through.

I ask what perils lie between here and Ygg? Telegon replies that there are many – to many to list – but that the Head has left the Slough of Despond and that our path lies through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. The distance is in itself a peril. Finding a short cut would be a great advantage. Trouble is coming! I thank him.

Finally, in terms of Amber, Dirk asks what shortcuts there are to Ygg and where we could find them? Telegon responds that this is the shortest direct way – and then that we would need to find a way of bypassing that. Pattern, I thought immediately.

Margrath asks us if can ask about Corillaine and we agree the last question should be his. Telegon replies that it is changed but safe, and governed by someone he knows.

With that, we are done and shown out of the Tower. We collect our escort who are surprised at our reappearance as to them we’d only been away for a few minutes. The path behind us is shrouded in fog now. Havelock looks back and notices that the Tower of Telegon is now a deserted ruin.

We remount and return to the Expeditionary Force camp.