"If you didn't want me dead, why didn't you respond to my call?"
"If I, or one of the princes, had crossed the river, all the greens, and all their warriors, would have turned out to fight us. I wanted winter raiding, not all-out war."
"And such strategic considerations aside, you were chastising me, even if it wasn't supposed to result in my demise."
"Just so. But when you returned victorious, your punishment was over. I wasn't angry anymore. I meant it when I lavished honors on you. Why couldn't you put the episode behind us?"
"Perhaps I would have," Rhespen said, "in time. But then I learned that Winterflower hadn't yielded to you of her own free will. You chained her mind and spirit with the foulest sort of sorcery."
Orchtrien stared at his prisoner in seeming amazement, then laughed. "My poor friend. My poor fool. Mind you, I'm not much better. She cozened me as well. She convinced me she truly had come to love me." "She… what?"
"I give you my word as a king and a gold dragon, I never cast any sort of spell on the lady, certainly not a coercion as abominable as that." Orchtrien sighed. "In retrospect, it's easy enough to see what happened. When Duskmere and his confederates lured your company into a trap, it was a useless, ill-considered tactic, born of anger rather than guile. But after Bexendral defeated them, they began to exercise their wits, and when I demanded hostages, they sent us a spy and a witch, to accomplish whatever harm she could. To that end, she established a liaison with you."
"No. That can't be. She despised me at first. I had to win her trust and affection."
"She made you think so, and me as well. She had to. Given her pedigree, we would have grown suspicious if she'd warmed to us too easily, and as I observed previously, her initial disdain made us prize her subsequent affection all the more. I wonder if she also used enchantment to make herself more appealing."
"She had no grimoire."
"That we discovered."
"If she'd cast a glamour on herself, one of us would have noticed. She had some rudimentary magical skills, but she wasn't a true wizard."
"Or so she told you. She was adept enough to snatch up your staff and use it instantly. Either way, it doesn't matter. Once you succumbed to her charms, she could attempt various ploys. She could try to wheedle secrets out of you, or subvert your loyalty and turn you into a rebel, too."
"Until you sent me away and took her for yourself."
"Yes. I daresay she had mixed feelings about being a royal mistress. It must have been difficult for her, loathing me as she did. She must have lived in constant fear that I, with my discernment and arcane powers, would unmask her. Yet she was in a still better position to spy, or even attempt regicide when I seemed most vulnerable, though she never mustered the nerve and stupidity required for the latter."
"Until I came home."
"Yes, whereupon she tried to manipulate you into serving as her assassin. Without suggesting it directly, of course. She knew you almost certainly wouldn't succeed, but even if I killed you, the realm would be the weaker for it, and perhaps she imagined that the ensuing commotion would provide her an opportunity to escape with whatever secrets she'd discovered.
"Unfortunately," Orchtrien continued, "her dupe succumbed to her blandishments as usual, but didn't behave precisely as she'd expected. You too went digging for secrets, in a place where she herself would never have dared to intrude. Now she's carried all that lore away, and I'll have to put off marching against the reds to recover it."
"Majesty," Rhespen said, "if what you're saying is true-"
"Of course it's true! Why would I bother lying to a creature in your situation?"
"Then I've wronged you, my benefactor, my liege lord, in thought and deed, and I beg for the chance to atone. Let me help retrieve the books."
"Traitors," Orchtrien said, "don't get second chances."
He jammed the gag back into Rhespen's mouth.
After Orchtrien's departure, Rhespen lay struggling to disbelieve the dragon's assertions. He couldn't. They made too much sense.
Winterflower had made him her pawn, led him into treason and stripped him of his honor and everything else he possessed, then abandoned him as soon as it became expedient. The shame and humiliation of it were unbearable.
But he had to not only endure but transcend them.
Otherwise, he'd rot and suffer in his cell until the king's servants either killed him there or led him forth to the scaffold.
That might happen anyway, because Orchtrien had every right to think him helpless. But in point of fact, Rhespen had long ago bound himself to his staff. The link was what enabled him to call the rod into his hands.
He'd always spoken a word of command to facilitate the process. His captors no doubt assumed it was a necessity, and it was entirely possible they were right. Rhespen hoped, however, that if he exerted all his willpower, and simply articulated the word in his thoughts, it might suffice.
He made the attempt repeatedly, while spasms wracked his guts, and shame, fury, and dread gnawed at his concentration. For what seemed a long while, nothing happened. Then the cool, rounded rod materialized in his left hand.
Its sudden appearance startled him, and for an instant, he was terrified that he'd fumble and drop it, whereupon the clang would summon a guard, or else he'd lack the mystical strength to draw it back into his grasp a second time, even though it was just a pace or two away. He gripped it with all his meager strength and succeeded in holding on to it.
In addition to the temporary spells he stored in it based on his anticipation of his needs, the rod possessed a few permanent virtues. One was the power that had unlocked the door to Winterflower's suite. He invoked the same attribute, and his shackles flew open. So did the buckle securing the gag.
He stood up. The dungeon spun, pain stabbed through his belly, and he had to clutch at the rack to keep from falling. He whispered his charm of renewed vitality. It steadied him and blunted the agony, but he was still weak. Truly potent healing magic was the province of the gods and their priests, and thus beyond the reach of even the ablest wizard.
Such being the case, he was in no shape for a fight, or even to cast spells of any complexity. Fortunately, he still had several enchantments of stealth and disguise stored in his staff, where he'd placed them in case he needed them to sneak into Winterflower's apartments.
He veiled himself in invisibility. Then, employing his staff as if it were a crutch, he hobbled up the stairs, unlocked the door at the top with a touch of his prop, and passed on into the dank, torchlit corridor beyond.
Working on the reasonable assumption that Winterflower had fled back to her kin and the rest of the rebels, Orchtrien had marched his army into the forest where they dwelled, only to find their treetop towns and fortresses deserted. The Count of Duskmere had led his allies to some hidden stronghold deeper in the wood, and if the king wished to retrieve his stolen secrets, he had no choice but to pursue and attempt to track his enemies down.
As the trees and brush grew thicker, and the way more difficult, the royal army had to stop more and more often to rest and regroup. Whenever it did, Rhespen, cloaked in the image of a human spearman, slipped away by himself. His comrades thought nothing of it. They'd grown used to what they took to be his odd and solitary disposition.
The reality, of course, was otherwise. He needed solitude to perform his divinations. It would hardly do for the other warriors to catch him engaging in occult ritual.
With the tip of his staff, which now appeared to be a common lance, he scratched a mystical figure in the loam then stared at the round empty space at the center. It was a window, through which he hoped to glimpse the objects of his search. But nothing appeared, and when it became apparent that nothing would, his mouth tightened in frustration.
After carrying the copybooks away from Orchtrien's keep, he'd placed a ward on the forbidden texts that would warn him if anyone else found and touched them.
Winterflower, or one of her fellow rebels,
had discharged the enchantment while Rhespen lay insensible in the dungeon. But he'd hoped that a trace of the link connecting the volumes to himself remained, and that the connection might enable him to scry for them where even the dragon monarch had failed.
But evidently not. He rubbed out the magical figure with the toe of his boot, looked up, and discovered a raven, head cocked, beady eyes bright, perched on a branch above his head. He caught his breath.
Anticipating that his divinations might fail, he'd convinced some of his friends among the birds to scout for him. The most difficult part had been making them understand that they needed to keep their distance until such time as they actually made a discovery. He couldn't let his fellow soldiers observe him conversing with ravens, either.
"What is it, Thorn?" he asked. After so many years of practice, the croaks and chirps were fairly easy.
"What do you think?" the raven snapped. "I found them!"
In his excitement, Rhespen nearly asked where, but caught himself in time. Thorn wouldn't be able to tell him, because he had no conception of the units of measurement elves and humans used, and Rhespen lacked any familiarity with the landmarks in this portion of the forest.
He glanced around, making sure once again that no one watched, then whispered an incantation, brandished a talisman, and dwindled into a creature virtually identical to the black bird overhead.
He beat his wings, rose into the air, and rasped, "Show
As it turned out, the rebel stronghold was nearby. But it was well hidden, and Rhespen suspected that without the aid of sorcery and flying scouts, the royal army could blunder about for a long while before discovering it.
It was a crude place compared to the settlements the elves had abandoned. Their former habitations were works of art, conceived for beauty as much as utility, constructed with painstaking care, and polished and perfected through the centuries. In contrast, it was plain that they'd fashioned their new treetop bastions in haste, and that concealment and defense had been their sole considerations.
Wearing his true body, and a shroud of invisibility, once more, Rhespen scrutinized the fortress, forming an impression of the general layout, then inscribed another scrying pentacle in the dirt. Because he was so close to the copybooks, a vision appeared where none had manifested before.
He beheld a number of elf mages absorbed in study of the pilfered texts, in a room where golden sunlight spilled through tall, narrow windows. The magic likewise gave him a sense of the chamber's location high in a shadowtop. At first glance, the gigantic tree, like its companions, resembled a pure manifestation of nature, untouched by artifice. But if a knowledgeable observer peered for a while, he began to notice the ramparts, the stairs, the places where the shadowtop had obediently hollowed itself to make halls and galleries, until he discerned that it was in fact the equivalent of a mighty keep, and the hub of a network of fortifications.
I know everything now, Rhespen thought. I can lead Orchtrien straight to the books. I should go back, reveal myself, and tell him so.
Yet he wasn't certain of that. The king had expressly refused him the opportunity to attempt to atone for his crimes, and if he simply offered information, might continue to treat him as a traitor. Orchtrien might believe that his own magic or aerial reconnaissance would have led him to the elves' stronghold in another day or so, and indeed, that was entirely possible.
But if I present him with the books themselves, Rhespen reasoned, surely that will constitute such an impressive act of restitution that he'll have no choice but to forgive me.
It would, moreover, afford him an opportunity to strike at some of the cursed rebels directly, not just slink about and spy on them. Since Winterflower had forsaken him, he'd had no opportunity to avenge himself on anyone, and his anger was a clenched, choking weight inside him.
He murmured an incantation. The world shattered, restored itself in a different configuration, and he stood in one corner of the elf wizards' sanctum. Thus far, he was still invisible, and despite the puff of displaced air, no one noticed his arrival. Thank the gods for open windows, and the breezes that blew through them.
He whispered words of power, brandished his rod, and power blazed from the end. The force was psychic in nature, incapable of disturbing physical reality but devastating to the ethereal substance of the mind. Some of the assembled scholars immediately fell unconsciousness. Others thrashed in the throes of epileptic seizures.
Either way, they no longer posed a threat, and he felt tempted to slaughter them all while they lay helpless. But perhaps that would be dishonorable, and in any case, it would be reckless to linger here any longer than necessary.
Instead, visible once more, he scurried about collecting the copybooks, making sure he found them all, shrunk them, and stuffed them in his backpack. Then he chanted the opening words of the spell that would whisk him back to the royal army.
During a necessary pause, he heard another voice whispering an incantation of its own. Alarmed, he tried to pick up the tempo and finish first, but the other spellcaster had too much of a lead.
She bobbed up from behind a table on the far side of the chamber, thrust out her hand, and a shaft of green light leaped from her fingertips. Rhespen tried to dodge, but was too slow. The beam struck him, and he experienced a momentary feeling of crushing weight, as well as a fleeting sensation that his feet had taken root in the floor.
He recognized what had happened. His foe had laid an enchantment on him, and while it lasted, it would keep him from fleeing the scene by magical means.
He lifted his staff to blast the female mage and so prevent her from hindering him any further. But before he could act, she flopped backward and sprawled motionless on the floor. Evidently, in the wake of the psychic assault, she'd needed a supreme effort just to cast the one spell.
Still, unlike her colleagues, she'd clung to consciousness, which suggested that she possessed more willpower and sorcerous ability than any of the rest. It seemed a bad idea to allow her to gather her strength a second time, and in any case, he was furious with her for complicating his escape. Still intending to smite her as soon as he had a clear line of sight, he stalked closer.
Then he froze, because the wizard was Winterflower. He hadn't noticed her presence hitherto because she hadn't been in current possession of one of the forbidden books.
Her sapphire eyes fluttered open. "When the staff disappeared," she whispered, "I feared you might try to find me. But I hoped that the wards from the dragon grimoires would keep anyone from scrying for us, as you promised they could."
"They did," he said. "I found you by another means, and now you're going to wish I hadn't."
"I didn't want to abandon you. It was just that the books were more important than anyone's life, yours or mine, and if I'd delayed for even another moment, Maldur might well have stopped me from taking them."
Rhespen laughed, though it made it feel as if something were grinding inside his chest. "You can't stop lying even when you know there's no longer any point."
"I'm not lying. After you fought Maldur to protect me, and I realized you were trying to help our people in your own way, I came to care for you, even though it was a mad, stupid thing for a spy to do. If we'd managed to flee together, I wouldn't have let any of my comrades hurt you. I would have done my utmost to convince you to stay with me and join our cause." "I don't believe you."
"Kill me then, if that's your desire. I don't have the strength to stop you."
He leveled his staff, but for whatever reason, found himself too squeamish. "You won't escape so lightly. I'll take you with me when I leave, and turn you over to Orchtrien. Now hold your tongue, or I'll hurt you."
He recited a counterspell, but the anchoring enchantment she'd laid on him remained in place. The great charm of unbinding he'd discovered in Orchtrien's grimoires might well have dissolved it, but after the loss of the copybooks, he hadn't had a chance to prepare another such for the casting.
Well, no matt
er. Winterflower's binding would fade away on its own in a little while. Until then, he simply needed to avoid detection. Wary that his erstwhile lover might not be as helpless as she pretended, and that it might be a bad idea to let her beyond his reach, he hauled her to her feet and dragged her along with him to the door. A word and a touch of his staff sealed the panel as securely as the sturdiest lock.
"Now," he said, "we wait."
"Punish me however you want," Winterflower said. "I deserve it. But don't go back to Orchtrien. By his lights, your treachery was too grave a matter ever to forgive. Hell kill you whether you give him the books or not."
"You just don't want him to have them. You think that as long as they're in someone else's possession, even mine, a chance exists that somehow, someday, the lore will wind up serving the cause of insurrection."
"I'm trying to protect both you and the texts, you, because I love you, and the books, because they're vital. We rebel wizards devoted ourselves to mastering the wards against divination first of all, in the hope of shaking Orchtrien off our trail. Beyond that, we've scarcely begun to decipher the lore-I suppose that, after a century spent in the company of wyrms, you had an advantage in that regard. But we can already tell that here, finally, is our chance to oppose the dragons' might with a comparable strength of our own."
Rhespen made a spitting sound. "Nonsense. But suppose you could succeed, and establish an independent realm of your own. What makes you assume that kingdom, won by lies, theft, and seduction, would prove any better than what exists now?"
"Perhaps it wouldn't. But at least we elves would rule ourselves, according to our own philosophies and traditions. The forest would be sacred, and if our archers died in war, it would be to protect their own people and homeland, not to further a conqueror's dream of empire."
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