by Sharon Green
Even so, Lorand made sure his talent was poised to call to the rest of his Blending if the enemy Five did happen to be there together, and then he strode to the door and threw it open. One of the people inside jumped to his feet, a pudgy young man with fear and nervousness peering out of his washed-out eyes.
“Thank the Highest Aspect you’ve finally come!” the portly man blurted, sounding for all the world as though Lorand were there to rescue rather than face him. “Another five minutes and I would have been completely out of my mind!”
“Why are you talkin’ to him?” the girl snapped, a girl Lorand was easily able to recognize. “He’s not my intended husband, he’s some stranger who can’t be very important. So where is Vallant, I’d like to know! He should be here to rescue me by now!”
“She’s not the one who needs rescuing,” the portly man said with a desperation which confirmed Lorand’s earlier impression. “She’s absolutely impossible, and I’m sorry I ever went along with this ridiculous scheme. Even if you were the man she awaited, I could in no way imagine you wanting to reclaim her. Now that I know you’renot and don’t, I do believe I’ll kill her.”
“I’d recommend against that,” Lorand said quickly as the other man in the room stopped being quietly amused and got to his feet with an exclamation. “I can understand how much of a trial you’ve found her, but there’s a difference between not being interested in marrying someone and not caring whether they live or die. Vallant has no interest in her, but as he would be upset if she died pointlessly, I must be the same.”
“That fat little slug won’t do anythin’ to me,” the girl stated to Lorand with her fists to her hips, clearly having no idea how close she stood to death. “I’m much too beautiful to be harmed, everyone has always said so. But how dare you stand there and tell lies like that? Vallant will be marryin’ me, I’ve already made up my mind about it. So you just turn around and march right back out, and go and fetch him and bring him here. I—”
“That’s enough,” Lorand interrupted, putting a harshness into the words that reached through to the girl to some extent. “If you open your mouth even one more time, you’ll probably be dead before I can keep it from happening. That’s because you aren’t too beautiful to be harmed, not when the ugliness inside you oozes out to cover any surface beauty. This man you dismiss so lightly has certainly killed before, and you’ve given him ample reason to do the same again. And as far as lying goes, you’refar more experienced at it than I am. Vallant has said more than once that there won’t be a wedding, and lying to people—and yourself—won’t change that. Now go and sit down and stop bothering us all with the actions of a brat.”
The girl was highly indignant over what Lorand had said to her, but the portly man—and the people who were probably her parents—seemed to agree completely. The portly man now wore an expression of some satisfaction, but that wouldn’t have helped the girl. The little fool opened her mouth to retort, most likely in the same obnoxious way she’d been speaking, completely ignoring the warning she’d been given. So Lorand had no choice but to touch her vocal cords with his talent, temporarily turning her mute.
“I told you to go and sit down, young lady,” Lorand repeated with the same harshness as she struggled to speak and—probably—end her life. “If you don’t do it immediately, I’ll take the strength from your legs—which will end you up on the floor looking ridiculous. You have five seconds…”
Lorand began to count silently to himself, not about to see the girl die because of her own foolishness. He reached the number four, preparing himself to do exactly as he’d said he would, and then the girl sniffed and flounced over to a chair and sat. She must have noticed that she was about to lose their argument the painful and embarrassing way, and therefore had backed down. If he managed to get through that confrontation, Lorand decided to reward himself with the pleasure of having a long, frank talk with the girl’s parents…
“Finally!” the portly man said, looking away from the girl with the tail end of impatience. “As though she were the important one here… Well, we’ve established that you’renot the Water magic user and I know you’renot Mardimil, so you have to be the Earth magic user. Am I correct?”
“Yes, that’s right,” Lorand agreed, refraining from pointing out that he would hardly have threatened to take the strength from the girl’s legs if he didn’t have Earth magic. “And since you were waiting for Vallant, you must be the Water magic practitioner of your Blending. You do realize how little chance you people have?”
“I realize nothing of the sort,” the portly man returned, echoing the girl’s earlier sniff of disdain. “We are the Seated Five and you and your friends are the interlopers, and I have every confidence that we’ll prevail. By the bye, how are you feeling?”
“If you’retrying to find out whether or not that poison worked, I’m sorry to disappoint you,” Lorand replied wryly, folding his arms as he looked at the man. “I noticed it immediately, so none of us touched it. But you can’t quite say the same, can you? The poison you were given is beginning to affect your entire system. Why not give up whatever your plans are, and let me see if there’s anything I can do for you?”
“I prefer to leave things of that sort to my groupmate,” the man rejoined, speaking dryly. “I may not be the brightest star in the firmament, but I do know the difference between trusting a friend and trusting an enemy. And besides … in order to help me—or face me in battle—you would be at something of a disadvantage. In order to be most effective you would have to use quite a lot of the power, opening wide to more of it should the need arise. But you can’t do that, not without worrying about being burned out, so I think it should be you who surrenders to me. Do it now, or face that attack you must be so worried about.”
Lorand thought about what the short, pudgy man had said with a frown, wondering how the little man could have made such a mistake. At the words “burned out” Lorand’s mind had hesitated an instant, as though expecting to have some sort of memory to bring forward, but there was no such memory. There was also no such problem…
“I hate to disappoint you, but you seem to have gotten your facts mixed up,” Lorand drawled after the moment of consideration. “I’m not the one with the problem about burnout, so everything you said applies to a different situation. My choices here have been and still are very simple: either I help you, or I destroy you. I tend to prefer to help people, but if necessary I can destroy them. So tell me which one you prefer to have done.”
“You have to be lying,” the small man stated, all of him covered with an air of confusion and distress. “I can’t possibly be mistaken, so you have to be lying! Oh, why did Delin insist on doing things this way? It’s always so much better for all of us when we Blend! Why does he have to continue to be afraid of Kambil-?”
The man had gotten a good start on working himself up into a state of frenzy, but suddenly all that changed. His face paled and he bent double with a gasp, and it took no more than a glance for Lorand to know what was wrong.
“The virulence in your body has now increased alarmingly,” he told the man, moving forward quickly to offer assistance. “When are you due to take the next dose of counteragent?”
“Not—not until tomorrow,” the man gasped out, crumbling to the carpeting despite Lorand’s attempt to help him to a chair. “It’s much too soon, but it hurts! Make it stop hurting, please, make it stop!”
Lorand went to one knee beside the man, using every bit of his considerable talent to examine the now-writhing body. It took only a moment or two to discover that he had been lying, as the poison had spread to an extent which Lorand couldn’t possibly do anything about. With or without help this man was about to die, and that fact felt more like a letdown than like a tragedy. Even the counteragent would no longer have been effective, assuming there had been any available to use.
“I’m afraid I have some bad news,” Lorand began after his examination, but then discovered that words were no
w useless. The man had been taken by pain so intense that nothing else penetrated to him, and even suppressing the pain centers in his brain would have been useless. The echo of agony would not have let him know the difference, and in another minute or two it would no longer matter. The poor fool couldn’t possibly last longer than that—
“No, please, Mother!” the man suddenly cried out, now moving with fear as well as pain. “I’ll be a good boy, I promise I will! Please don’t hurt me the way you do Father! I can’t bear it, I simply can’t bear it!” And then, after a number of heavily panted breaths, “Mother, protect me! She’s going to hurt me, I know she is! Please come back and protect me! I don’t know how to do it myself, you never let me learn! Please, help—”
The next word failed to come, and would clearly never be spoken now. The man’s entire system had collapsed because of the poison, and he’d slid into death in the middle of his appeal to his mother. Lorand had heard every previous word the man had gasped out, but preferred not to think about them as he straightened. It was much too chilling to think about them…
“He’s dead?” the older man, the one who was probably the girl’s father, said with shock. “I can feel the strength fairly radiatin’ from you, but you never used it! And if you never touched him, why is he dead?”
“Didn’t you hear me mention poison?” Lorand asked, gently trying to help the man—and his wife, who trembled against him—over his shock. “We learned that most of the falsely seated Five were poisoned, and it might have been too late even for the antidote to save them. This was one confrontation fated to never be, so let’s get out of here.”
“With pleasure,” the man agreed shakily, beginning to urge his wife to walk with him. “I never thought I’d be eager to get out of a palace, but this is one place I never mean to come back to.”
“But of course we’recomin’ back, Daddy,” the girl, whom Lorand had been lucky enough to temporarily forget about, put in firmly as she rose from her chair. “I don’t believe in givin’ up what’s mine, and Vallant Ro is mine. Especially now, when he and his friends will be takin’ over from this bunch of nothin’s. That will make me”
“The same exact nothin’ they were,” her father interrupted, his voice much more firm than it had been. “I have a lot of unspoilin’ to do with you, Missy, and I only hope it’s possible. If not, you’ll never be fit to associate with decent people. But the fault is mine so I’ll do my best with correctin’ it, and until then you’ll stay at home and do exactly as you’retold. If you don’t, you’ll surely regret it. Now let’s get ourselves out of here.”
The man clamped a big hand around his daughter’s arm before starting out of the room again, and she kept up a running protest and a whining all the way back to the beginning of the wing. Lorand kept as much distance between them and himself as possible, and when he reached the area of corridors which led to the public areas of the palace and then outside, they were already gone.
For a moment Lorand was alone in the area, and then a time of confusion and rushing around began. His groupmates appeared one after the other to ask for his help, as none of their opponents had managed to stand against the “interlopers.” After his own experience he really didn’t expect to find any of the former Five left living, and his expectations proved sound. One wing after the other yielded up death either singly or in pairs, and one of those deaths hit Lorand very hard.
“He sacrificed his own life for mine,” Tamrissa told him gently as he stood above the body of the man who had been his friend for most of forever. “He died a hero, Lorand, and I know he did what he did for you. In the end he showed that he loved you just as much as you loved him.”
“I hate to say and think it, but it’s probably better this way,” Lorand replied with a sigh. “Hat would never have been happy being anything less than a High, and if he’d lived he would have spent the rest of his life being bitter. But the other one is a surprise. He didn’t die from the same poison which killed his groupmates. There’s no sign of the other poison.”
Lorand had looked at the other body just to distract himself from the pathetically crumpled form of Hat, and had gotten more of a distraction than he’d been expecting. This was the last place he’d been brought, Tamrissa and Jovvi deciding on that together, and their people had long since been sent for to see to the surviving hostages. Lorand was relieved that they didn’t have to see to that chore, not when he needed a good, stiff drink so badly.
“Well, he’s dead no matter what caused it, and no one can claim that we didn’t face and best them first,” Tamrissa said with a sigh behind the words. “Let’s find someplace to sit down for a while, and then we can discuss what we’ll do next.”
That was the best idea anyone had come up with in a while, and their groupmates eagerly agreed. They might or might not end up living in that palace themselves, but if they did they ought to start getting used to being in it. They made their way back out to the common area, expecting to have to look around a bit to find that place to sit down for awhile, and were surprised to find the crowds that they did. Most of the people were their followers, having come into the palace to offer their congratulations, and the rest were the remnants of the palace serving staff. They’d put cakes and tea—and stronger drink—in a nearby meeting room, and happily urged the victors to partake of it.
Surrounded by friends and supporters and a number of delighted servants, Lorand and the others let themselves be swept into the meeting room. For his part, Lorand would have much preferred if he and his groupmates had been left alone to unwind and talk, but everyone had been under a lot of pressure and now they wanted to celebrate with the people who had freed them from the heavy hand of the nobility. He and the others would have to put up with the partying for a while, and save their conversation for later, when they got some privacy.
More than just a few items of food and drink had been prepared, and one section of the room—right near a dais with five chairs on it—seemed specifically reserved for the heroes. There were five plates near the selection of food, five cups near the separate tea service, and five glasses in case they wanted something other than tea to drink. Once again Lorand would have preferred to join everyone else rather than be set apart, but his groupmates were going along with the thing so he sighed and did the same.
“If we do decide to let ourselves be Seated, we’ll have to get used to this sort of thing,” Jovvi murmured to him as they walked over to “their” part of the room. “If you’regoing to rule an empire you have to allow a certain amount of pampering, or you find yourself being challenged every other day by people who have been made to think of you as ordinary.”
“I suppose you’reright,” Lorand grudged, then he smiled for how well she’d read him. “And since we might all decide not to go along with this after all, I might as well enjoy it while I can. That food looks delicious and the tea seems to be fresh, so maybe I’ll save more serious drinking for later.”
“That’s what I’ve already decided about myself,” Jovvi said with a smile of agreement. “And I can’t say I’m not a bit hungry, so let’s go choose among the goodies.”
Lorand had joined her in hanging back a bit to let the others at the food and drink first, but he’d made sure to check all the edibles for drugs and poison. The food and drink was entirely uncontaminated, but suddenly Naran pulled away from Rion.
“Wait, don’t anyone eat or drink anything!” she said warningly, especially to Tamrissa and Vallant, who had already filled up plates and cups. “There’s something very wrong here, but I’m not completely certain what it is. I’ve had this terrible flash of danger…”
“I don’t understand what might be causing that,” Lorand said as he stepped forward to frown at the food again. “I’ve checked everything on this table, and it’s all perfectly safe. It isn’t as if—”
Lorand’s words broke off as he suddenly noticed something he’d missed earlier, specifically the tableware. The plates and glasses and cups and si
lverware were top quality and were obviously very expensive and precious, but they were also the least bit … dingy. Even without a full staff to do the work, no one should have chosen those things for the new Five to use, not when there should have been other utensils to choose from. And for some reason that dinginess looked familiar…
Automatically reaching for more of the power, Lorand took a really close look at the nearest plate and fork. The substance on those things was so diffuse that it was very difficult to perceive it, but a minute examination revealed the substance to be the same poison which had killed one of the previous Five. Each tiny smear of it was harmless all by itself, but even a meal small enough to be called a snack would put enough of the substance into someone that it would quickly turn deadly.
“Naran, it looks like you’ve done it again,” Lorand said once he’d established what was going on. “The food and drink are as safe as I said, but the plates and cups and glasses and silverware aren’t at all as harmless. This must be the way the Earth magic user of the Five was poisoned. He undoubtedly examined the food carefully, but forgot about checking what he put the food on and ate it with.”
“Naran, remind me to buy you something really nice,” Tamrissa said as she and Vallant hastily rid themselves of the plates they held. “And I think it will be a good idea if we go looking for the person or persons who did this. Failing here will probably only encourage them to try again and again until they succeed.”
