by David Drake
A sailor, already turning to flee the ammonite of his fancy, grabbed Liane by the shoulders. He gasped and doubled up, but two more sailors and the admiral himself had Liane's arms before she could break free.
A sailor twisted the bloody stiletto out of Liane's hand. The girl bit him. Another sailor clouted her across the forehead with the hilt of his cutlass.
Ilna settled her noose over Nitker's neck and pulled hard. The admiral flopped backward, clutching the rope. Ilna braced a foot on Nitker's chest. Her victim's face turned purple.
Four sailors were bundling Liane out the door, wrapped in a long shawl they must have brought for the purpose. The last man was on his knees, weeping in terror as he tried to stuff coils of intestine back through the slit in his belly. The engraved blade of Liane's dagger was no longer than a girl's finger—but that was long enough, and it was as sharp as remorse.
Ilna eyed Silyon, weighing her options. The Dalopan wizard threw a pinch of dust toward the mirror. The metal surface flashed with the silent brilliance of the sun, blinding Ilna.
She lurched backward into a wall; she'd lost her sense of balance with her sight. She closed her eyes—too late! She hadn't expected that attack. Orange and purple blotches danced in her mind.
Ilna heard Silyon and the sailors escaping through the overgrown gardens that separated the structures within the palace compound. The man Liane knifed had collapsed and was wheezing bubbles in his pooling blood. Nitker had ceased to struggle.
Ilna slipped the noose free and stepped forward. She could make out shapes again, though their outlines flip-flopped orange to purple and back every time her heart beat.
“Guards!” she shouted from the doorway. “Guards!”
Figures were running toward her. She ran the noose through her fingers, making sure that neither blood nor vomit had gummed its easy action.
“Mistress?” said a young male voice she didn't recognize. “What's the matter?”
There were three of them, carrying spears. Most of the troops who'd ordinarily be guarding the palace were off training and stiffening the city militias against the threat drifting down on the currents of the Inner Sea.
“Did you see five men run away carrying a woman in a cloth?” Ilna said, furious at her inability to see clearly. She didn't even know which direction the wizard and his minions had gone.
“Mistress?” the guard repeated. The men were still only forms, though Ilna was beginning to contrast the gleam of armor from the duller blur of their faces.
“Take me to Garric at once!” Ilna said. “I can't see, so you'll have to guide me.”
A gasp from the cottage reminded her of Nitker. She supposed it was a good thing that he'd survived to explain the attack, though for her own part Ilna wouldn't have lost any sleep if she'd killed the admiral as she'd intended to do.
She gestured behind her. “Take that one, too. Garric will want to question him. And don't let him get away!”
Two soldiers entered the cottage while the third took Ilna’s hand.
Garric wasn't going to like what Ilna had to tell him. She touched her waist. The sash she'd woven as a twin to Liane's was still in place. Ilna guessed that she'd shortly be able to make up for the unjust hostility she'd shown toward Liane from the beginning.
She smiled. She'd either help Liane escape from the present danger, or she'd die. Either result would cancel the debt Ilna felt she owed the girl.
Garric rested his hand on Ilna’s shoulder. He'd put it there to support his friend while a healer applied ointment to her eyes, but now it was Garric himself who needed the contact.
“The Beast is the only one who can defeat the queen's forces,” Admiral Nitker said in a rasping whisper. “Silyon said he could raise the Beast through his mirror of art, but the Beast won't help unless...”
Nitker subsided, coughing. Ilna’s noose had left a bleeding purple welt the full circuit of his neck. The healer had given Nitker a draft of effervescent salts in wine to gargle before the man could speak, but the swelling flesh still threatened to finish the job that the silk had begun.
The healer held a ceramic bowl in which he'd mixed more of his potion. He looked at Garric. Garric shook his head curtly.
“Talk,” Garric said, “or there's no reason for you to live further. If you pretend again that you can't go on, I'll kill you with my own hand.”
The voice and words were his. King Carus nodded grimly at the edges of Garric's awareness, but the cold anger Garric felt was a thing of his own.
“The Beast must be fed,” Nitker whispered. “Silyon said we should bring the woman Ilna to the Beast's vault, but she raised a monster against us. When the other girl came to the door, I suppose Silyon decided she'd be better than nothing.”
“Why?” said Ilna. “Why me?”
Her eyes were red and the sockets glistened with the ointment, but she could see again. Garric wouldn't have wanted Ilna looking at him the way she did the admiral; but then, Garric's own expression was much the same.
Halphemos and the crippled Cerix entered the conference room. The courier Garric had sent for them at Ilna’s direction bowed himself out and closed the door.
“I don't know,” Nitker said, huddling with his hands clasped in his lap. “And I don't know where the vault was. I'm not a wizard!”
He isn't a man, either, Garric thought with a cold bitterness. Though Nitker must have had courage at one time, or he'd not have claimed the throne when Valence had virtually abdicated.
The door opened for Royhas. To Garric 's surprise. King Valence was with the chancellor. The king walked with the small steps of man twice his real age. Two worried-looking attendants followed, ready to catch him if he fell.
“I thought His Majesty should be present,” Royhas said. “He's... for the most part, he's himself again.”
“The Beast is coming,” Valence said quietly. Everyone in the room was watching him. “It'll be over soon.”
“One way or another, it may,” Garric said softly. “Your Majesty, do you know where Silyon would have gone with—”
His tongue wanted to choke on the words, but he forced them out without a pause.
“—the sacrifice?”
“To an underground chamber in the palace of the Tyrants of Valles,” Valence said. “Attaper knows the place; most of the Blood Eagles do, I suppose. I took them there often enough.”
The king wore a tunic decorated only by simple embroidery at the sleeves and neckline. There were neither food stains nor other signs of his recent degradation. “That's where the Beast will enter our world, Silyon told me.”
“Right,” said Garric , rising from the seat he'd forced himself to take. He drew his sword a finger's breadth, then let it slide back; just making sure it was free in its sheath. “I'll take a few Blood Eagles and be back as soon as I can.”
“He'll already have lowered her to the Beast, Prince Garric,” Valence said with the simple clarity of a man who has accepted his end and no longer feels the concerns that rack the living. “Once in the vault, she won't be able to return. Nothing can leave that prison until the Beast itself breaks through the walls that hold it.”
Garric clasped his hands. He'd sent for Tenoctris, but he knew it would be at least an hour before she could arrive from the queen's mansion. As great as Garric's need for advice from a wizard he could trust, he knew also that Tenoctris had chosen to deal with the queen first and only then to face the Beast.
Ilna had unbound her sash. She threw it on the floor in the middle of the gathering. To Garric 's surprise, the fabric began to unravel. The twisting fibers looked almost like—
“Those are words in the Old Script!” Garric said.
“Cerix,” Ilna said in the cold calm of her anger. “Does this mean anything to you?”
The cripple bent closer in his chair. He licked his lips and said, “Mistress, I believe it's the first phrase of the Yellow King's Key, a spell of opening. But...”
Ilna balled the fabric in her han
ds and Sung it down again. “And this?” she said as the wool writhed into a different pattern.
“Yes, the next phrase,” Cerix said. The pain that twisted his face now was not that of physical agony from his missing legs. “Those two portions are all that remains of the Key. But mistress, even if you can form the whole sequence, there's no wizard alive who can chant it out.”
Cerix slammed his fists on the stumps of his legs. He was crying. “I'll fail!” he said. “I'll fail, no matter how much I want to help!”
“If you can write the words for me, Cerix,” Halphemos said quietly, “I'll speak them. As we've always done.”
“Alos, even for you!” Cerix said in a tone of desperate grief. “No one since the Yellow King could chant this spell, and he was a myth!”
The younger wizard looked at Ilna. “This is what you want, mistress?” he said,
“Yes,” Ilna said. “It is.”
Halphemos nodded. To Garric he said, “We'll need a carriage for Cerix. I have my athame.”
He gestured with the knife of ivory he held in his hand. “Cerix, will I need anything else?”
“More strength than I believe you have, Alos,” the cripple said. “I wish I could believe in the Gods.”
“Right,” said Garric. “Let's—”
“Garric,” Royhas said. He didn't raise his voice. “Prince. You have an army to command and a country to rule. Leave this business for others.”
“I didn't stop being a man when you made me a prince!” Garric said.
Royhas didn't flinch. “You know that I'm right,” he said. He stood in front of the door. Garric could push past him—or cut him down!—but the chancellor wasn't going to move of his own volition.
And Garric knew that he wouldn't be so angry if he didn't in his heart agree with Royhas.
“You think I'm letting everything else go because I care about Liane,” he said. “All right, I do care about her! But you're all looking at what the queen may do, and I'll tell you, the Beast Silyon called up is as great a danger. You know that, Royhas!”
No one spoke. The image of King Carus, grim as a granite crag, watched from the edges of Garric's mind. This time Carus offered no advice. There were some decisions a king—
With a leap of understanding in his heart, Garric turned to Valence. “Your Majesty,” he said, “your people face a great danger. Go out and lead them. You'll have the best of generals and advisors, but they can't be king.”
Valence looked at Garric with eyes that were a century old. “Me?” he said musingly. “I've never been king, not really.”
“I don't believe that's true,” Garric said, hearing his tone grow hard though not harsh. “And even if it were, Your Majesty—this would be a good time to start. Your people need you.”
Valence turned to the man at his side. “Royhas, you'll help me?” he said. “I always trusted you, you know.”
“You can still trust me, Your Majesty,” the chancellor said quietly. “We'll get you into your regalia. Having you to encourage the troops is better than another ten thousand men on the walls!”
They started from the audience room arm in arm; as friends rather than sick man and attendant. Royhas turned his head and gave Garric a quick nod of appreciation.
He really was the king's friend, Garric realized. A better friend than any toady could have been. Even though at the end Royhas had been willing to replace Valence in order to preserve the kingdom.
Garric looked at the others who waited for him to act. His mouth quirked in a smile. “Let's go, then,” he said. “The sooner we start, the sooner we'll—”
He laughed, checking his sword again by a reflex not originally his own.
“—finish, whatever that means, right?” Garric said, completing the thought. In his mind, King Carus joined in Garric's laughter.
* * *
“Allasan,”Sharina said. It was the third time she'd spoken the words of the incantation; each iteration grew harder. She felt as though her mouth were full of dry pebbles. “Eomaltha beth iopa kerbeth...”
She noticed that the fierce chill was gone and her skin felt warm again. The light changed, shifting from red to blue as though a gossamer screen had dropped and been replaced by one of a different color.
Sharina and the queen watched a moonlit garden, facing the front of a free-standing loggia. At either end of the structure, stone nymphs played in a fountain whose waters spilled into channels among the beds of azaleas.
On the loggia's bench a richly dressed couple made love.
The shadowed figures were anonymous. Cut in the roof molding was a ring on a shield, the coats of arms of the ancient royal line of Haft. Beside it, easily distinguishable because the carving was fresh in decorations otherwise softened by lichen, was the narwhal of the bor-Nallials, an Ornifal noble house.
The couple gasped and moved apart. Both were fully clothed. The woman smoothed the front of her gown while the man laced up the fly of the horseman's breeches he wore with a short jerkin. Embroidery and appliques of metallic fabrics ornamented the garments of both.
Night-flying insects buzzed among the plantings. Occasionally a bat swooped through them, its staggering flight obviously different from a bird's.
The man turned, looked around cautiously, and walked from the loggia. Sharina recognized him from the miniature portrait she'd long ago found among her mother's belongings: he was Niard bor-Nallial, Count of Haft by his marriage to the Countess Tera. He had been killed eighteen years before in the riots during which Sharina's parents had fled Carcosa.
Niard strode away without looking back. For some time only the insects and the breeze-ruffled blossoms moved in the night. After a safe interval the woman stepped out of the loggia and walked in the opposite direction.
Sharina's breath caught. The woman was a maid from Countess Tera's household, not the countess herself.
The woman with Count Niard was Sharina's mother, Lora.
The queen was apparently ignorant of the real meaning of what she had just displayed. She smiled at Sharina and flicked her crystal staff, melting the idyllic scene into one of chaos. Sharina's heart was cold.
A midwife wearing the black apron of her profession attended Lora on piled straw in the stableyard of a palace. Men armed with a mixture of weapons and household implements—knives, turning spits, and table legs broken off for clubs—streamed past the open gate. Some carried torches; flames gleamed already in many of the palace windows.
Lora thrust with a great cry. The midwife eased the child halfway through the birth canal. Lora gave a final contraction and slumped back in the straw, gasping as the midwife cut and knotted the umbilical cord.
A mule waited, its eyes bandaged. The animal was harnessed to a two-wheeled cart like those couriers used on the western side of Haft where the roads were better than anything near Barca's Hamlet. Shouting and the smell of smoke made the mule restive despite being blindfolded.
A man came from the palace carrying a bundle wrapped in silk brocade. The midwife bleated in fear, then relaxed when light from the burning building fell across his face.
Sharina recognized the man also, though not so quickly as she had Lora. The intervening years had worn hard on the visage of Reise or-Laver, the man Sharina had always thought was her father.
The midwife had wrapped Lora's child in fine wool. Reise handed the woman his bundle, another newborn infant. He bent and helped the barely conscious Lora first to her feet, then into the cart.
The vehicle had a narrow bench and, behind it, a basket for the courier to place letters and parcels. Now it was filled with straw. Reise took the infants from the midwife and tucked them into the basket one at a time. Lora moaned and clutched herself, swaying on the seat.
Reise handed the midwife a coin; moonlight winked on gold. He walked to the front and tugged awkwardly on the reins to guide the blindfolded mule. It obeyed, though nervously. As the cart passed into the riot-torn street, the infant swaddled in rich damask kicked away its cover
ings.
The queen's art provided diamond-sharp observation. In the firelight there could be no doubt at all that the child Reise had brought from within the palace was male.
The vision faded into mist. Sharina faced the queen. For a moment the wizard's visage was one of human rage; then it changed and the queen's whole form changed, becoming a demon consumed by demonic fury.
“You're not of, the royal line!” the demon cried in a voice like grease burning. “Your brother is the descendant of King Lorcan, not you!”
It was like staring into a lightning bolt. Sharina said nothing, waiting for the anger to blast her to dust.
The queen and the red sphere vanished. Sharina stood in the chamber where she had first been imprisoned. Now she was able to move. Beyond the slitted windows was a landscape of smooth, featureless red.
Sharina tried to squeeze through a window. Her slender body fit between the edges of stone, but a barrier as hard as polished ruby stopped her there. She pushed until her muscles trembled and spots danced in front of her eyes; then she sank back on the floor of her cell.
Somewhere Sharina heard chanting.
The 5th of Partridge (Later)
Besimon, the officer in charge of the guard detachment and Garric's guide to the entrance of the Beast's lair, reined up his horse beside the one remaining pillar of a decorative arch and looked angrily to right and left. “We didn't come in the daylight,” he explained apologetically. “I need to...”
Two Blood Eagles rode with Garric and Besimon; two more accompanied the carriage thundering close behind with the rest of the party. Garric had decided he neither needed nor wanted more guards.
“This way,” Besimon decided, pointing his bare blade to the right. He wheeled his horse down a tree-grown avenue. On either side were fallen columns and architraves whose carvings were too weathered for Garric to be quite sure of their subject.
They came out in a court originally surrounded by a circular portico which had collapsed to a line of column bases and fluted stone barrels nestled into the undergrowth. Silyon knelt beside a well curb more ancient than the neighboring ruins. The sailors who'd helped him had fled, perhaps even before they heard horsemen approaching.
