The Seventh Sentinel

by Mary Kirchoff

  Bram shrugged. “Maybe we should find someplace out of sight for you to rest, while I continue looking for Kirah.” He stood in a crouch, looking for a doorway or dark alcove.

  “No!” Guerrand hissed. “You don’t know where to go!”

  Bram cocked his head in surprise. “And you do?”

  Pressing his palms to his moist temples, Guerrand told Bram of his sensation of being drawn through the palace. “You believe me, don’t you?”

  Bram frowned at his uncle’s anxiety. “Of course, Rand. I’ve been around magic long enough to believe almost anything. But this makes me nervous. Nothing good can come of us following this … feeling. Why haven’t we been pursued from the dungeon? Why haven’t we seen even a single person in this place? Why would anyone here lead us anywhere but into a trap?”

  “I’ve thought of all that, of course. But we were already in a trap,” Guerrand reasoned. “Why would anyone make it easy for us to leave one, only to send us to another?” He shook his sore head, stopping abruptly when the throbbing increased to a roar. “No, there’s something else afoot here.”

  “Another mage, perhaps?” Bram suggested.

  “I don’t see how, with Lyim wearing the gauntlet,” said Guerrand. “But we won’t know until we get to where I’m being led.”

  “Do you think that’s wise? Perhaps we should find our own way.”

  Guerrand grimaced. “I don’t have a choice,” he said, standing with effort. “I tried to force myself to stay here and ignore the pull, but the pounding in my head only got worse. I’m afraid my skull will split open if I don’t keep moving.”

  Without a thought toward caution, Guerrand stumbled down the corridor. At this point, he felt willing to do almost anything if it would make the pounding go away. Certain directions in the palace seemed, somehow, to hold out the promise of relief.

  “This way,” Guerrand muttered, rounding a corner. A slip of mist slithered across the floor at his feet. He stopped and blinked, but the mist remained.

  He rubbed his eyes and looked again, then staggered back a step. It was not mist he saw, but a red-haired woman in a pale pink gown, very like the kind Esme had favored back in Palanthas. The woman resembled a cloud, a rosy cloud at sunset, with slender, pale arms trailing like misty tendrils.

  She smiled at him. Guerrand’s heart thumped in his chest, and the pounding in his ears diminished.

  “What’s wrong?” demanded Bram, behind him. “Why did you stop?”

  “Can’t you see her?” Guerrand asked.

  Both men looked down the hallway, but only Guerrand gasped in dismay. “Where did she go?”

  “Who? I didn’t see anyone.”

  “But you must have! She was right in front of me!” Guerrand spun about, but saw only empty corridor in all directions. “Damn!”

  “Maybe your eyes have been affected by your headache. That happens with migraines, you know. Are you sure you don’t want to take some of my herbs?”

  “No, I want to find that woman,” Guerrand said fiercely, breaking into a run down the corridor. The hallway was long, open on the right side for half its length to overlook the hanging gardens. There were no doors to the left, just a long stretch of wall covered with elaborate tapestries.

  Guerrand thought he caught a glimpse of pink tulle at the far end of the corridor. “There she is!” he cried, anxious beyond all reason to speak with the mysterious woman. He ran after the tuft of pink fabric.

  “I don’t see anything,” Bram protested behind him. “Let’s not be hasty, here, Rand.”

  “I have to follow her,” Guerrand insisted. “Stay behind if you must.” His headache was gone now, but his thoughts were jumbled and overwhelmed by the pull he felt on his heart. Teased by fleeting glimpses of her pink gown ahead, Guerrand led them through more ornate rooms joined by corridors. Somehow he felt that if he could just talk to her, all the questions he had ever had would be answered. Even the purpose of the Dream …

  Guerrand rounded a corner and stopped. He recognized this hallway as the one the elf, Salimshad, had brought him to earlier. The woman stood before Lyim’s chamber door, between two armed sentries who seemed not to see any of them. Guerrand was not surprised by their oblivion, given the magic he was certain had led him here.

  Bram skidded around the corner behind him and saw the guards standing at attention, legs spread, hands behind their backs. “Great Chislev!”

  Still the sentries seemed not to see or hear them.

  The woman, who was within an arm’s length of Guerrand, waved the mage toward her as she slowly opened the door and slipped inside. Guerrand was so desperate to follow that it carried him straight toward the room past the unseeing guards.

  “Please, Rand, wait!” Bram hissed softly.

  “I have waited,” Guerrand responded, “ever since my Test at the Tower.” He knew his answer would only confuse Bram, but there wasn’t time to be more clear. Bram seemed to understand anyway, or at least recognize Guerrand’s determination. He released his uncle’s arm.

  The mage had spent months preparing himself for the events he felt certain lay ahead, and so he was strangely calm as he took mesmerized steps and pushed through the door behind the woman. His serenity didn’t last long, however. Nothing could have prepared him for what he saw behind the door.

  Guerrand stepped into Lyim’s chamber, looking for the mist woman. He found her standing on the far side of the enormous, canopied bed. Lyim was in the rumpled bed itself, his back to Guerrand. The potentate was obviously unaware of the mage, as he rolled himself to the side where the mist-woman stood. Barebacked, Lyim still wore the elaborate gauntlet, a fact that Guerrand might have overlooked but for one thing. While he watched, the woman coalesced into one brilliant red spiral of mist. She hung suspended above Lyim briefly. Then the rosy whirlpool coiled like spun cotton into the magical glove on Lyim’s right hand.

  “So you’re back, Ventyr,” Guerrand heard Lyim say. “Off running the palace while I indulged in a little distraction?”

  Guerrand scarcely had time to make the connection between the mist woman and Lyim’s gauntlet, when something stirred beneath the sheets in the middle of the gigantic bed. He almost stepped back, oddly embarrassed at having intruded upon Lyim’s philandering, when he heard a voice ask with drowsy familiarity, “Who are you talking to, Lyim?”

  Kirah pushed herself up under the weight of heavy golden damask covers. Looking for Lyim, she turned her head and gasped at the sight of her brother, standing openmouthed at the door. Her usually pale face had been flushed with pleasure, but it drained entirely of color. She gathered the covers modestly, dispatching to the rug the tunic that had been discarded on the bed.

  “What is it, my dear? An intrusive guard?” Lyim looked casually over his shoulder, then jumped to his feet, unconcerned by his state of undress. “Oh, I see. Only a morally outraged brother.” Bram burst breathlessly into the room behind the mage. “And nephew. Ah, well.”

  Guerrand shook with silent rage while his face boiled red. He was incapable of speech.

  “You’re all suited up for righteous battle, I see,” Lyim said, gesturing to the weapon in Guerrand’s belt. “We have all the players for a melodrama, don’t you think? The virtuous ingenue, unrepentant villain, irate family. Something you might see in Qindaras’s theater district, if I allowed such disruptions anymore.”

  “Shut up and get dressed, you bastard!” Guerrand barked, finding a voice for his anger at last.

  Lyim’s eyes narrowed with that glint Guerrand recognized when Lyim was amusing himself by manipulating others. Something about Lyim’s words, his shaved head and stance, reminded Guerrand so strongly of Belize under the plinths at Stonecliff, Guerrand thought he felt a chill wind play across his face.

  “Don’t let your anger allow you to lose sight of the goal,” Bram whispered in his ear.

  “It’s only strengthened my resolve,” Guerrand snarled back under his breath. “You just worry about doing your part.”<
br />
  “I had hoped to delay this,” Lyim said, casually slipping on his abandoned trousers, without any sign of embarrassment. He eased his tunic over his head. “I would be interested to know how you managed to find your way back here so quickly.” His words were light enough, but his tone suggested there were servants who would pay dearly for the slip-up that had granted them freedom. Particularly at this moment.

  Walking slowly around the bed, Lyim picked up Kirah’s discarded tunic. He tossed it to the pale woman casually. “You should probably get dressed, my dear.” Kirah wiggled into the shirt and trousers under the protection of the covers.

  “First the plague, and now this! You seduced Kirah just to punish me again!” raged Guerrand.

  Lyim sat down within reach of Kirah on the bed, tying the strings at the neck of his tunic. “Let me assure you, I never seduce a woman to punish anyone but myself with the inconvenient entanglements that inevitably ensue.” He sighed, as if it were a necessary burden he must bear. “Still, you underestimate your sister’s attractions, Rand.”

  “Oh, damnation, both of you!” Kirah wailed. “Why did you have to burst in here now, Rand? You would have been safe! He promised he would let both of you go afterward. That is …” Her voice trailed off awkwardly, having revealed more than she’d intended.

  “He told you that? Kirah,” Guerrand groaned, “Lyim told you he was giving you the antidote to the plague, too! What made you believe him now?”

  There was a brief, pregnant pause, after which Guerrand actually laughed aloud when he realized he was the greater fool here. Kirah had come to Lyim willingly, even if she would never admit the truth of it to herself. She wanted to believe his lies, just as she wanted to be where she was right now, from the moment she had first encountered Lyim’s charm.

  Guerrand didn’t know at whom he was angriest. His hand went to the sword he had thrust through the belt at his waist. He saw Lyim reach for Kirah’s arm.

  The threat was obvious. Where was Bram with his spells? Guerrand was searching his mind desperately for another answer, when a stream of pink mist swirled out from Lyim’s gauntlet and formed itself again into the unimaginable beauty that had led Guerrand through the halls. He shifted his eyes suspiciously between her and the potentate, surprised that Lyim appeared unable to see her. Words, more sharply pointed than any sword, came into Guerrand’s mind.

  He managed to conquer his rage to say with unexpected calm, “The circumstances have changed.”

  “How so?” Lyim was always willing to play the cat-and-mouse game, at least briefly.

  “Your gauntlet led me here. She protected us so that no sentries or servants stopped us along the way. Even the two outside your door were oblivious, and still are. They probably can’t even hear you.”

  Lyim’s eyes narrowed, and his composure finally shattered. “Guards!” he howled. When the door remained closed, Lyim looked as if he meant to charge toward it.

  But Guerrand and Bram stood shoulder-to-shoulder to block his escape. “She’s preventing them from hearing you, and you know it,” Guerrand said, his tone ripe with meaning. “You’re on your own now, Lyim.”

  Never losing his sneer, Lyim renewed his grasp on Kirah’s arm. “Not entirely.” He glared at Bram. “Try casting a spell, and she suffers with me.”

  Guerrand shrugged with feigned indifference, feeling a positive surge of power course through him. “None of us, not Kirah, not Bram, not me, is as important as stopping you from destroying magic. Bram and I vowed this before we left; Kirah will have to suffer the consequences of her rash behavior.” Guerrand meant the words for himself, but he knew Bram would hold back. The lord of Thonvil simply wasn’t capable of casting a spell that would harm Kirah. At least not yet.

  “I know you, Rand,” Lyim said smoothly. “You couldn’t watch while anything happened to her.”

  “I’ve come to terms with the fact that Kirah has chosen sides here, and it isn’t with me.”

  “That’s not true, Rand!” Kirah cried. “I—”

  “Shut up!” Lyim hissed, clamping a hand over her mouth. Above his fingers, Kirah’s eyes went wide with horror at witnessing this side of Lyim. She struggled to break free, but he only tightened his grip on her. Kirah thrashed defiantly until her energy was spent and she fell limp against his side.

  “You’re lying about the gauntlet,” Lyim challenged Guerrand, Kirah forgotten. “You’re just making a guess based on your knowledge of artifacts.”

  “Tell me,” Guerrand said, “did your head throb so badly you could scarcely think when she first called upon the magic in you?” He could tell from the subtle, wary shift in Lyim’s eyes that his remark had hit home. His guess about the mist woman being a manifestation of the gauntlet was correct.

  Kill him, a voice as musical as warm wind said inside his head. Guerrand looked to the mist woman. Her lips didn’t move in speech, though she smiled seductively. That’s why you came here. I can’t attack him directly while he wears the gauntlet, but I’ve left him vulnerable for you. Do it quickly!

  But why have you turned on him? he asked the voice in his head.

  Because I sense great magical power in you, more than in this one. Her red head jerked toward Lyim, who sat looking at Guerrand’s distraction with wary puzzlement. There is no hatred for magic in you, only … urgency.

  Kill him and become potentate, she prompted again when she saw him hesitate. Touch me, and you will understand everything.

  The woman didn’t wait for him to respond. She slid her fingers into his hand. Guerrand tried to pull away, but he felt … nothing. Only air touched the flesh of his hand, yet it was as if his whole body were enveloped by her soft fingertips. He knew he was under a spell, but he was powerless to stop it. As promised, every question he had ever asked seemed answered by a new, unswerving confidence in himself. He felt raw and energized at the same time.

  Suddenly the woman withdrew her vaporous hand from Guerrand’s. He gasped as if all the breath had been drawn from his lungs in one vicious burst. He fell to his knees, gulping for air.

  At his side in a blink, Bram yanked him back to his feet. “Rand! What’s the matter with you?”

  “You have seen Ventyr,” Lyim accused with a gasp, watching Guerrand’s face closely.

  “Lyim,” blurted Guerrand, his eyes earnest, “it’s as I feared. The gauntlet has a grip on you, not the other way around! It’s controlling you just as much as magic ever did, only you can’t see it.”

  Lyim laughed. “You’re such a fool, Rand. Always looking for the good in people. Well, some people don’t have any in them. I’m proud to say I’m one of them.

  “I vowed to destroy magic long ago,” he continued bitterly, “years before I seized the opportunity Ventyr offered. I’m using her to further my ends.”

  “The gauntlet is an artifact of magic, a sentient thing,” Guerrand said. “You don’t own it. No one can.”

  “No, but as long as I’m potentate, I control it.”

  “Then why can’t you stop Ventyr from appearing to me?”

  Lyim’s eyes blazed. “Because everything I’ve ever wanted or had eventually turns to you.” He held the glove up reverently, its gems catching and reflecting the lamplight. “But I’ll see us both dead before I let you take this from me!”

  With his teeth bared like a snarling dog, Lyim flung Kirah’s wrist aside and sprang at Guerrand. The curved sword sliced the air, but Lyim batted it away with his gauntleted right hand. Sparks flew as the steel rang against the magical glove. Guerrand slashed with all the ferociousness of his hatred for Lyim, but every attack was met by the impenetrable fist or palm. Lyim parried the blows effortlessly, regardless of how much force Guerrand put into them. He was laughing, and the more Guerrand’s anger grew, the more Lyim howled.

  But Lyim stopped laughing when he noticed Bram crouched by the door. The spellcaster’s eyes were closed in concentration, left hand gripping his carved staff, a crushed red rose visible in his right. The enraged poten
tate cast about, looking for something; his eyes settled on the round table. With a hand on each side, Lyim snatched up the table, dumping the soiled dishes to the floor. Jerking it over his head, he tossed the massive weight across the room toward the spellcaster.

  “Bram!” cried Guerrand as the heavy table sailed toward his unsuspecting nephew.

  Bram cracked an eye, saw the table coming, but looked unconcerned. When the table came within arms’ reach of Bram, it smashed in midair as if it had hit a wall. It crashed to the ground without harming Bram, who closed his eyes and returned to his casting.

  Relieved, Guerrand looked back toward his enemy just in time to see that Lyim had snatched up a soot-covered poker from the fireplace and flung it toward him javelin-style. Guerrand dodged to his left, but the filthy missile caught the outer muscle of Guerrand’s right thigh. The mage felt nothing at first, except disbelief at the sight of the sharp, black poker sagging halfway through his leg.

  The pain, however, followed instantly.

  Guerrand fell over with a shriek, clutching the shaft of the poker. He was only vaguely aware of Lyim sprinting for the door to the studio.

  “Rand!” Kirah cried, rushing to his side. She touched her hand to the wound; her pale palm came away red with her brother’s blood. “Do you want me to pull it out?” she asked, her eyes streaming.

  Guerrand didn’t answer. If he removed the weapon, he feared the pain and loss of blood would drive him to unconsciousness. But he had no choice. Biting his lip, the mage wrenched the metal rod out himself with a pain-racked grunt. Without asking, he reached out and ripped a square of cloth from the hem of Kirah’s tunic. He wadded the cloth into a ball that fit into his palm. Steeling himself again, he was about to press the cloth into the ragged hole when Bram grabbed his wrist and pulled it back. The younger man examined the wound briefly, then placed both his hands over it.

  “I don’t have time to heal this completely, and even what I can do will take several moments,” he said.

  Guerrand struggled to regain his feet, but was met by a commanding glare from Bram. The mage protested, “We haven’t time for this. Lyim is getting away!”