:I'll shut the door behind me,: Altra told him. :just enough that he won't be able to see down the corridor. With luck, he'll be so excited that he won't notice.:
That was exactly how the next few moments played out; Celandine ushered Karal into the cluttered, crowded studio with much bowing and scraping, and Altra slipped in behind them, nudging the door closed without Celandine noticing. The place was a mess, with easels and half-finished sculptures on pedestals everywhere, supplies piled on top of furniture and spilling down onto the floor, blank canvases stretched onto frames and leaning against the walls, and dust all over everything. Karal doubted that the servants ever even tried to clean in here.
In fact, the mole was only interested in getting Karal to the area where several canvases stood on easels, covered with drop cloths. He positioned Karal in front of one of them, and made a great deal of fuss about getting the lighting absolutely right, before whisking off the cloth.
Karal did not have to simulate his reaction. Whatever else the mole was, he was also a genuine and superb artist. He had captured Ulrich in one of his rare moments of relaxation; good will and humor glowed in his face, and a half-smile played on his lips.
Karal's eyes filled, and two tears ran down his cheeks unheeded. He took an involuntary step forward; the painting only improved on closer inspection.
Celandine smiled, baring tiny teeth in an expression of greed and satisfaction at Karal's reaction.
"My—good Master Celandine, you are—" Another tear escaped down Karal's cheek, and he shook his head as he wiped it away. "There are no words. There are just no words. I must have this painting."
Celandine fussed over the canvas, preening, as he dusted the easel unnecessarily. "Well, I must admit, I was rather pleased with the way the robes came out. You folk who affect black—oh, forgive me, but it is so difficult for an artist to render properly! This particular shade of sebeline along the crease for instance, that is my own little secret for simulating the sheen of good black velvet—"
He nattered on, but Karal had frozen in place at the foreign-sounding word for the streak of blue-white pigment that ran along the top of one of the sleeves in the portrait. That was not a Valdemaran term!
:No. It's not.: The murmur of quiet noise in the background ceased, as Altra froze as well. :Stall him, Karal! I need time to have Mindspeech with an expert!:
"How did you make the eyes look so—so—" Karal choked out.
That was enough to set Celandine off again, this time on a much longer dissertation, about reflection and transparent colors and glazes. Meanwhile, Karal waited, the back of his neck prickling, as he tried to recall if Celandine had ever been in their quarters.
Then, as Karal leaned forward to look at the painting more closely, and noted the distinctive whorls of the background, he remembered. He was. Not only to make the preliminary sketches, either! I found him there poking at those decorations one afternoon, complaining that every time some plaster decoration cracked, the Seneschal ordered him to repair it on the grounds that he was an artist!
Celandine was a sculptor, who could probably reproduce anything he chose at will. He had access to plaster. He had put himself in a position to plant whatever he cared to by allowing the Seneschal to order him to fix broken decorations!
And all he had to do to be called into a particular room was to crack the original himself—before, during, or after the portrait-sitting.
:Karal!: Altra called, panic in his mind-voice for the first time since Karal had met him. :That word, it's Imperial tongue—what's more, the pigment is only mined somewhere east of Hardorn!:
Celandine had worked his way in behind Karal as he spoke of colors and pointed this or that effect out. The prickling on the back of Karal's neck had become an agony. He tried to watch the mole out of the corner of his eye without being obtrusive.
:KARAL!:
Karal did not need Altra's mental scream to warn him; he had sensed Celandine's sudden movement half a breath before. Karal ducked under the blow and whirled at the same time, then dodged past the easel and the painting it held, winding up facing the artist.
No—the agent.
The artist was gone; in his place was someone far more dangerous, and nothing at all like a mole, more like a cornered rat. Celandine's beady black eyes glittered dangerously; he had a mallet in one hand, and a sharp palette knife in the other. The edge of the knife had a nasty, sickly green tinge, and Karal had the sinking feeling that it wasn't paint. "He'll kill me, you know," the artist said, his voice deceptively calm.
"Who?" Karal asked urgently. "What's wrong? Why would anyone kill you?" Stall for more time. Help has to be on the way.
"The Grand Duke. Tremane. I'm not his man. I'm expendable. I didn't finish the job. The little birds flew, and only pecked out the heart of one of the targets." The glitter in Celandine's eyes wasn't danger, it was madness. He feinted with the knife, and Karal winced backward. "He'll kill me; he has my likeness and my hair, he can do it. Unless I finish the job, right now."
He feinted again, and Karal flinched. He obviously knew what he was doing; he had all the moves of an experienced knife fighter. Karal's best bet was to keep him talking.
But Celandine rushed him; he ducked and sidestepped and barely managed to avoid the knife and the mallet blow aimed at his head.
"If I get you, I can leave you in the garden with one of Elspeth's knives in your heart," he continued. "We made copies, you know, just in case. You know the one I'm talking about."
"Actually, no I don't—"
Altra's mind-voice was frantic. :Karal! I can't get him! You're in my line of attack!:
Karal stepped to the side at once, but Celandine lashed out viciously with the mallet, and he stepped back again hastily.
"The one Elspeth left in the heart of our ambassador, of course!" Celandine said, as if he was some kind of dolt. Then he blinked. "You're playing for time!" he accused, and slashed at Karal with the knife.
:Karal! There's poison on that knife! Stay out of reach—use something as a shield.:
A shield—something Celandine wouldn't want damaged!
He grabbed one of the canvases at random as Celandine drove him back, and held it in front of him as he backed toward the windows. Celandine's mouth twisted in a snarl.
"Put that thing down, you idiot!" he screamed. "How dare you put your hands on—"
He never finished the sentence.
There was a crash of glass as all the windows shattered at once. Karal ducked instinctively, crouching and making himself as small a target as possible as shards of razored glass went everywhere. Celandine came up out of his fighting crouch in shock and glanced around wildly—
Then a dozen crossbow bolts hit him at once from the direction of every window; his body jerked wildly in a grotesque parody of a dance—
—then he dropped to the floor, eyes already glazing in death.
Karal dropped to the floor as well, as his knees gave out.
"Karal!" Kerowyn leapt through one of the broken windows and crashed through the easels to get to him, knocking paintings in all directions. "Karal, are you all right? Did he scratch you? Sayvil said there was poison on his blade. Are you—"
"I'm all right, I'm fine," he replied weakly. "Oh, dear Sunlord, I have never been as grateful for any lessons in my life as I am for yours." He hugged the painting to his chest, and took deep, steadying breaths. "He was going to kill me and leave me with a copy of one of Elspeth's knives in me. He said they got it when she left one in their ambassador."
He was babbling and he knew it, but he couldn't stop himself. Altra finally wormed his way through the tangle of art supplies and tumbled easels, and began winding around and around him frantically, purring loud enough to make both of them vibrate.
"Elspeth's knife?" A large man climbed over the windowsill with a crossbow in each hand; after a moment, Karal's mind put a name to him. Skif. He wasn't a mage, but he often sat on the Council with Kerowyn.
"El
speth's knife?" the man repeated, scowling ferociously. "Demons take it, I knew that thing was going to come back to haunt us!"
Karal started to shiver, when he happened to look down to see just what painting he had snatched up as an impromptu shield.
Ulrich's warm, amused eyes gazed up at him; he froze for a moment, then burst into tears.
Sixteen
:Are you sure that you're ready for this?: Altra asked anxiously. :This is going to be very dangerous for you.:
Karal shrugged, and shook his head.
"Actually, I'm quite sure that I'm not at all ready for a confrontation like this," he admitted to the Firecat. "But we just don't have a choice. An'desha needs help; besides being afraid of allowing his emotions free play, he's locking down his anger because he is certain that if he lets it go, he'll use his powers to hurt whoever he's angry at. The problem with doing that is that it just makes things harder for him the next time he's angry." Karal rubbed the side of his nose thoughtfully. "He has to discover that 'control' doesn't always mean 'containment.' He's got to see that the simplest solution isn't always the right one."
The Firecat washed a paw thoughtfully. :I saw how he was when they told him how near you'd come to being killed—both times,: he said. :Terrible anger—then nothing. He just turned it all inside himself.:
"Terrible anger is dangerous when you are—or were—an Adept who specialized in destruction," Karal said grimly. "Someone has to prove to him that he can lose his temper and his self-control, vent his emotions, and not hurt anyone in the process. Then he'll feel safe enough to go after those very emotional memories of Adept Ma'ar and learn all the destructive magic that Ma'ar knew. Firesong thinks the Ma'ar memories are important; I know that they have to be the key to this situation. I can't tell you why I'm so certain, I only know that I am."
Hurry, hurry, hurry. That sense of terrible urgency made him as tight as a strung crossbow. The sense that time was running out on them was stronger than ever.
:But are you the best person to do that?: Altra asked, with complete logic. :Shouldn't it be someone who's also a mage, who can defend against his attack if he should lash out? He can turn you into a cinder, and you haven't got any kind of protection.: The Firecat looked up at him with large, bottomless blue eyes, full of candor and concern. :I'm not completely certain even I could protect you against his full power, in a killing rage.:
Karal sighed. "That's why it has to be me. It has to be someone so completely vulnerable that An'desha knows that person is defenseless. It has to be someone who knows An'desha well enough to make him rage with anger in a very short time. Firesong won't do, Firesong could hold his own against any attack An'desha could launch, and what would that prove? And it has to be done, because if it isn't, I think he'll be incinerated. Talia and Firesong both agree with me. If he keeps turning his anger inward, one day his power will turn inward as well, and it will consume him."
:And besides,: Altra added, :he's your friend.:
"That's right," Karal agreed. "He's my friend. Friends help friends. We're both strangers in this Valdemar place. Sometimes friends are all we have."
He didn't have to mention all the nights this past week that An'desha had held him while he wept out his grief for Ulrich; Altra knew all about that, since he'd been there. He didn't say a word about the thousand little kindnesses that An'desha had shown him since—and the way he had gently deflected Firesong's resulting jealousy. None of that really mattered anyway. What did matter was that An'desha needed help, and it was help that Karal could give him.
In the larger picture, if he didn't help An'desha, they might never have their "breakwaters" to use against the disruption-waves. The latest one had caught at least one large animal that Karal knew of, turning it into a monstrous killer that had savaged an entire herd of cattle before twenty men shot it full of arrows. Word had trickled back that the Tayledras Vales were suffering damage to their special shielding. According to Master Levy, the engineers and mathematicians had constructed a pattern of increasing power to these waves. Natoli had explained it to him, and he had felt the jaws of time closing on them. Something had to be done, and done quickly.
It had taken Karal the better part of the afternoon to work up the courage to face this particular trial. It had been relatively easy to steel his nerve to face a possible enemy, but to have to face a friend who just might kill him—that took a different kind of courage altogether.
Now, though, he was as prepared as he was ever likely to be. An'desha was hiding down in the tent in the garden, already shaken by a preparatory confrontation with Firesong, carefully planned and choreographed by Karal and the Healing Adept beforehand. The effects of the last disruption-wave were over, which meant there would be no interference from that quarter. Now, if ever, was the perfect moment.
As always, his eyes met the painted eyes of Ulrich in the portrait he'd hung on his wall. I hope I'm doing the right thing, Master, he told the painting silently. I'm not as sure of this as Altra and Firesong think I am.
He really didn't expect an answer from the portrait, and he wasn't surprised when he didn't get one. He tugged his tunic into place, and headed down the stairs into the garden.
An'desha had been getting alarmingly predictable in his reactions to emotional confrontation; now that Karal had the fabric-draped room—for Kerowyn did not want to risk another assassination attempt and ordered him to stay in the ekele for the duration, or at least until Solaris sent official word of what she intended to do—An'desha had no other refuge than the small tent in the garden. Whenever he was upset or had an argument with anyone, that was where he went.
He had been spending a lot of time in that tent, and the number of times in a given day he was retreating to it was increasing.
Karal nodded to Firesong, who was lurking just out of An'desha's hearing. Firesong's jaw tightened, and he nodded curtly back. Firesong didn't like this any better than Altra did; he liked his part in it even less. He was going to have to create a very tough mirror-shield around that tent to hold in whatever An'desha let loose.
If there're going to be any victims here, let's keep it to one. The expendable one. I am expendable. I am stupid. Here I go.
He pulled the tent flap aside and dropped down on his heels next to An'desha, who was sprawled on his back with his arm over his face, cushioned by a pallet identical to the one that Karal now used for a bed upstairs.
"Down here again?" Karal said incredulously. "What's wrong this time?"
An'desha didn't even remove his arm. "Firesong. He does not understand. He wishes me to sift through the memory fragments of Ma'ar again." An'desha's hands clenched into fists, and his mouth tightened, sulkily. "He will not understand. Those memories are very old, and to read them I must grow very close to them."
"So?" Karal let scorn creep into his voice. "I think that Firesong is right, An'desha. You aren't thinking of anyone or anything but your own self. You are, quite frankly, becoming a spoiled brat. We have been coddling you, making allowances for you, and now you have no more spine than a mushroom!"
An'desha sat up, suddenly, his mouth agape with shock, staring at Karal with a dumbfounded expression. "Wh-what?" he stammered.
"You are spineless, An'desha!" Karal accused. "You know yourself that what we need lies in your mind, and you are too frightened to even try to look for it!" He let his own expression grow pitiful and petulant, and pitched his voice into a whine. "'Those memories are dangerous, they might hurt me, I am afraid of them—' as if we all aren't afraid of much worse than a few paltry memories!"
"But I—" An'desha began, his eyes glazed with shock at the way Karal had abruptly turned on him.
"But you. Always you. What about the rest of us?" Karal asked. "What about all that we have been doing? What about the losses, the harm that we have suffered, while you have been curled here in your little cocoon of self-pity, feeling, oh, so put-upon? What about the Tayledras, who are trying to piece their Vales together again, the Shin'a'in who
fear their herds of precious horses will turn into herds of monsters—what about the Shin'a'in ambassador who died a few days ago? What about them? What about Karse? And Rethwellan?"
An'desha was on his feet now as he tried to push past Karal. Karal shoved him back rudely, not letting him leave the tent, and evidently it never occurred to him that he could just turn and slash his way through the walls to get away. An'desha backed up a pace, and Karal shoved him again, getting right up close and shouting into his face.
"You are a spineless, lazy, selfish coward, An'desha," he spat. "You've been playing the poor little wounded bird for too long! I have had quite enough of this, and so has everyone else! It is about time you started doing something to help, instead of whining about how afraid you are! We're all afraid, or hadn't you noticed? I was afraid, when Celandine nearly killed me, but you didn't see me whining about it, did you? You don't hear Firesong whining about how exhausted he is, even though he is working on shields until he is gray in the face?"
An'desha's face had flushed to a full, rich crimson.
But he wasn't angry enough yet, and Karal kept right at him.
"You don't hear Darkwind whining about how put-upon he is, even though his shoulder still isn't healed and he is working night and day with the other mages! It's time to stop whining and start doing something, An'desha—or go find someone else to whine at, because we are all tired of you!"
An'desha's face was contorted out of all recognition, but Karal continued the verbal abuse, continuing to attack him for being cowardly, selfish, and spoiled.
An'desha's hands were clenched at his sides, and he stood as rigidly as a tent pole—
—and there were colors swirling around those clenched fists—brilliant scarlets and explosive yellows, mage energies that, if they were visible to him, were probably quite potent enough to flatten an entire building.
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