For a few minutes the monk did not answer. Then he stood.
“Tell the Queen Mother,” he said, “Salvator will come.”
Epilogue
NO ONE noticed when the Witch-Queen slipped away from her guests. Wine was flowing, music was playing, and the carefully chosen guests were keeping each other occupied, mostly with ribald tales of previous gatherings. If one chose the right mix of guests to begin with, such things took care of themselves.
Quietly she slipped out of the great hall. The closeness of so many people was giving her a headache, and she needed a moment to herself. Such bouts of introversion had been rare things once, but now, toward the end of her days, they were becoming more and more common.
Or perhaps that was simply the natural result of discovering that one was soon to die, and that there was nothing any living man could do to change it.
No one knew the truth yet. No one saw any change in her. A few faint lines that the Magisters’ sorcery could no longer conquer had begun to creep across her face, but no one noticed them. A vague lethargy enveloped her at seemingly random moments, but she covered for it well.
The effort was exhausting, though. As was playing the perfect hostess when what she really wanted to do was stand up on a table and scream out her fury at the world, for the cruel trick it had played on her.
And the Magisters. Never forget the Magisters.
Wrapping her arms about her as if it were the depths of winter rather than a balmy summer evening, she slipped out onto one of the wide terraces that overlooked the harbor. Hundreds of boats bobbed on the water below, waiting for the morning’s tide, and lanterns lit the piers and walkways like rows of fireflies. From where she stood she could hear the drunken laughter of sailors, the wheedling promises of women, the thousand and one sounds of life as usual in Sankara. In the morning the sun would rise once more and merchants would make their deals, fisherman would set out with their nets, stray dogs would nuzzle strangers in the hopes of handouts. Life as usual.
How easy it would be, to cast herself off the balcony and end it all. One single, slow dive into the darkness, a brief kiss of midnight waters as they closed over her head, and then she might live on forever young in memory, a creature of legend.
Tempting. So tempting. But she had not become monarch of a keystone state of the Free Lands by giving up on things before their time, and she would not do so now. No, until the very end she would fight this thing and rail at her fate, and deny Death his due by every means she could, until that due could no longer be denied by any means.
With a sigh, she turned back from the view and prepared to return to her guests.
“It is a sad thing when a woman must leave the world in her prime,” a male voice whispered.
Despite the sudden pounding of her heart she turned about calmly, with true regal composure; in such situations proper demeanor could make the difference between life and death. “Who are you, that you speak to me thus?”
There was a figure in the shadows, and as it moved forward the shadows moved with it. In another time and place she could have banished those shadows and forced the speaker to reveal himself, but no longer.
“One who watches. One who understands. One who sees an ally discarded by those who should have valued her more.” The whispering voice was strangely accented; she could not place its origin. “But being a Magister does not make a man less of a fool, does it? Only a more powerful one.”
“What is it you want?” she said sharply.
“Only to inform you that their way is not the only way. And that not all allies are as fickle and inconstant as your black-robed lovers.”
Her heart was pounding so loudly she was afraid he might hear it, but she kept her voice steady and calm. “You have another way to offer, then?”
He reached out suddenly; she backed away quickly, wary of his purpose. But the move had simply been to cast something small upon the floor of the terrace. It glinted in the moonlight and rolled a few feet away before it stopped.
“We will speak again,” the visitor promised. “In the meantime, a token to remember my words. So that those who bear similar signs will be known, and welcomed.” He paused. “You are worthy of much more than your current allies have given you, my queen. Others will not be so miserly with their power.”
He disappeared then, or seemed to. More likely he was still on the terrace, simply cloaked from her sight. In her current state there was nothing she could do to affect such sorcery, or even to detect it.
She waited for a time in silence, to see if some other surprise would manifest itself, but nothing did. At last she knelt down, wary, to retrieve the small object the visitor had left behind. It was a narrow silver ring, unremarkable save for the odd stone set in it: a cabochon gem of the deepest blue, that swirled with rainbow sparks when the light fell upon it.
Was there really hope for her? Or was this some new and cruel game of the Magisters? There was no way to know.
Cursing softly, praying secretly, the Witch-Queen returned to her guests, uncomfortably aware that a spark of hope had taken root with her . . . and dreading to find out what might be required to nourish it.
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