Dain was quite startled, when the Princess glanced up. Perhaps she had heard something? But no. She did not turn her head, as if some sound had caught her ear; and did not rise, as if to inspect the source of some kind of disturbance. She only looked up slowly, and gazed straight ahead – as if she were looking directly into Dain’s eyes.
At that very moment, there came a knock at the door. Dain sat forward quickly, passed a hand over the Sphere, and broke the channel with Eredor.
“Come in,” she said firmly, turning her eyes towards the door.
It opened slowly. Zana glided rather than walked, and looked to Dain in absolute annoyance, as she approached the table.
“You called, Sorceress?”
“I did,” said Dain. “And you know why.”
Zana shook her head, her expression one of feigned innocence. If she had honestly wanted to appear innocent, she could have done so flawlessly; but this act of sarcasm served as a reminder that she had far less respect for Dain than other members of her society. Even Biscayne, King of his people, was convinced of Dain’s absolute power. It was the only reason why, many times tempted as he may have been, he had never separated himself from her. He feared her Power – and feared her punishment.
But Zana did not.
“I am certain that I do not know what you mean,” she said. “Perhaps you should explain.”
Dain tried to suppress her rage; for she knew that it would please Zana.
“The Auren was never meant for you,” said Dain. “She was meant to be my own agent; and was meant to reside here with me. You know that.”
“I did not,” said Zana. “But even if I had – what has it to do with me?”
“I know that you have made her your pet. She cannot become what I wish her to, if you continue to coddle her.”
Zana gave her a crooked smile. “You are dealing with something, Sorceress,” she said, “that I do not believe you fully understand. She is nothing that either you or I have ever seen before. The cold and heartless soldier that you desire is not to be made.”
“I suppose we shall never know, if you are holding her hand when she is meant to be becoming less human.”
“I have done no such thing.”
Dain brought her hand down upon the table. “Curse you, Zana!” she said. “Why do you try to thwart me at every turn? Your true nature will be revealed eventually to Biscayne, you do realise that?”
“It won’t,” said Zana. “His eyes are blinded by the love he thinks he feels for me. If you try to play against it, it will only backfire upon you. You do realise that?”
Dain watched her carefully; for surely, she had tricks up her crimson sleeve, what would curdle the blood of even her adoring King.
“Will that be all, Sorceress?”
Dain said nothing. She only eyed Zana angrily, as she basked shamelessly in the self-importance of her own convictions.
Zana made her a low bow before she left; but raised her head slightly as she bent, so that she could smirk at Dain.
When she had disappeared, Dain leapt up from her seat, and overturned the table in her fury. The Sphere floated up out of harm’s way, and lingered there below the ceiling, as it waited for her rage to pass away.
“I am afraid you are in for a long wait,” said Dain, striding quickly across the room, and out of the chamber. She descended the stairs, down and down until she reached the prison.
If Antony Bier was asleep, he would not be for long.
XXII: Best-Laid Plans
The night is dark and quiet, offering up its delicate tranquillity for whatever use will be made of it. There is no way to hint at its foremost purpose, and though its silence bristles with unspoken advice, the listener can do nothing but guess at such a thing. Sometimes, one acts in a near-shot of the actual purpose; but sometimes one missteps, and is forced to wait many subsequent nights before a similar opportunity is presented again. One might wait for long hours before the start of their path is made visible, and might indeed wait for long years without ever seeing anything at all.
The truth of the matter is that, if one wishes to find the answers what are available only in that dark space between falling and waking, one has to search actively for oneself. There is no gift, no great concession to be made. It is perhaps this simplicity, and this lack of wrongly imposed complication, that renders the greater majority of individuals unable to locate the answers to their own questions.
Now, Lila’s dreams were woven together especially thick this night, and did not separate to a sufficient extent for her to peer into the spaces betwixt their bonds. Neither were the dreams themselves enough for comprehension. There was a reason they were strung together as they were; and without the cause of their coming together, there could be no way made betwixt them. Without such, of course, there could be no escape.
Lila’s body lay unaware of itself atop the covers, shivering and sweating as she ran down the long, empty halls of her mind. Each time she turned, and struck up against a dead-end, she fell for a moment to the floor, and rose more slowly with each fall. Just as she was beginning to suspect that one single and additional drop would be her undoing, a great light burst forth before her eyes, and the close corridors fell away from her. She found herself standing in the midst of a bright whiteness, and had to shield her eyes as she gazed around at the wide spaces all around her.
She heard someone call her name. She looked to the left and saw Antony there, bound with thick rope. A hand came forth to bind his mouth that had spoken. Lila lifted her eyes to see the Sorceress there beside him; and the very darkness of her, permeated the surrounding whiteness. She smiled at Lila, as she stroked Antony’s hair, and pulled back his head to expose the flesh of his neck. His eyes were wide and fearful; and he raised his hands, to show how the blood dripped down from his corded wrists, staining the ivory ground upon which he sat.
She did not call to her, but when Lila turned her head, she saw her mother standing there some ways up ahead. She beckoned to her, then, waving her arms in a desperate attempt to make her come. But something held her back – a strange, cold fear that invaded her body, and thrilled all up and down her spine. It warned against going; but she had never before denied the summons of her mother, and was not sure how to start. She walked slowly forward, step by step.
When she came to stand beside her, Abella looked at her sadly, shaking her head and speaking words which Lila could not hear. Her lips moved; but no sound came.
Far in the distance, a deep blackness was beginning to spread over the white. It stole all of Lila’s attention, and made her turn her eyes from her mother. She forgot, for a moment, about Antony; and against her better judgment, began moving towards the blackness. It seeped like ink, overturned mistakenly upon a carefully written letter. It filled the heart with the same anger, causing the blood to bubble quick beneath the skin. Lila watched it, spreading like wildfire – and was unsure as to what would happen when it finally reached her. Yet she was unable to move.
The anger began to fade, and was replaced again by fear, when it appeared as though shapes were rising up out of the blackness. They were much larger than Lila herself. They were still a far cry away, but she could see them as they moved, stepping out of the dark sea like creatures who had never before called the earth their home, and yet were determined to start.
Lila thought to run, but was rooted to the spot, as those shapes began to move steadily towards her. They took the steps of giants, and cast their long shadows even so far as to the place where she stood.
The Sorceress appeared beside her, and held out her hand – just as she had in the Hall of Mirrors.
“Take it,” she said; and her voice was of velvet, dark as the shadow that fell upon the earth. “Stand with me, and do not fear.”
Poor as the suggestion may have been, it sounded quite fair to Lila; for she was seized by fright, as she noted the approach of the monsters. There was a sudden knowledge of impending death.
But then another fo
rm took shape to the left of her, standing as close as the Sorceress did stand. And yet, even before she summoned the courage to look, Lila was aware that it was not a shape of the darkness. From the utmost corner of her eye, she saw its light glowing brightly.
She turned away from the Sorceress, to see who had come to her. Heidi Bastian stood there against the backdrop of white, with golden hair that spoke of the sun, and silver raiment that shone like stars.
“Take my hand,” the Sorceress repeated, trying to recapture Lila’s attention. She sounded this time somewhat more desperate.
“Do not take it,” said Heidi. “Stand with me, and our answer will come.”
“I will,” said Lila; and quite all of a sudden, she was removed from her place betwixt the blackness and the Sorceress. She was standing again with her mother, but Antony was nowhere to be seen.
Yet Heidi Bastian had come, to stand alongside her. She looked at Lila, and smiled – but then pointed back to the growing shadow.
What had seemed as giants now appeared only as men, standing at the edge of the shadow, and facing one another as if in preparation for battle. Both were dark-haired and strong, but were clothed differently, one in black raiment and the other in white. The Sorceress stood beside the one in black, and looked towards he who stood before them, with light all about his head. Lila looked back to Heidi, and saw there the same light upon her; and though she met Lila’s eyes with a kind gaze, she gestured back to the scene at hand, and turned away from her.
“You have asked for war,” said the White One. His face was stern and fair, and was free of fear. “You have sought continually an audience with He who cast you out, certain that you could overtake Him in battle. Are you still so certain?”
“I am,” said the Black One, grinning wickedly. “And I see that, instead of coming down to me himself, he sent you in his place. Does he fear me, I wonder?”
“He thinks nothing of you,” said the White One. “You are no longer a part of His affairs. The time is near, when finally He will come down to you – but that time is not now.”
“I have come ready to do battle,” said the Black One, “but you stand here only with your mouth full of words. Go back to him, why don’t you? Keep from me until you are ready to fight.”
The White One’s face was full of sadness. He looked upon the Black One without anger; and then looked to the Sorceress.
“Will you take his part?” he asked.
“I will,” she answered.
“There is time to change your heart. If you turn away now, His wrath will not kindle against you.”
The Sorceress spat upon the ground and said: “This is what I think of his wrath.”
The White One turned his face from her, and looked for a long moment into the shadow that lay thick upon the earth. It bubbled and frothed, and seeped into the ground, choking the very life from it.
“Now I will go,” he said. “The day is near, and I must prepare.”
“Go, then!” said the Black One, taking care to laugh in his face. “You will only fall.”
The White One said nothing more. Before he went, though, he turned his face towards the place where Lila stood, in between her mother and Heidi; and he nodded once to them. Abella held up her hand to him, and he did the same. Then he was gone.
Abella put her arm round Lila’s shoulders. Lila looked into her face, and then looked to Heidi; but she had disappeared. When she looked back, her mother was gone as well; and she stood all alone against the rising tide of darkness. She moved farther into the remaining spaces of white, calling Antony’s name as she went.
She woke to the shadows of her chamber, screaming still for her brother.
But he was not there. He was far away, in a place she could not reach – hiding in darkness with bloodied wrists bound by cords.
~
It was a hard thing, waiting for the sun to rise. Lila sat up through the remainder of the dark hours, holding Antony’s face inside her mind, and wishing more than anything that he might tell her where he was. But he had never paid much attention to their mother’s lessons, and had neither the knowledge nor the ability to tell her what she wished to know.
The Sorceress, of course, had known that full well, and had played it to her best advantage. She would never have dared to take Lila, for she would never have been able to contain her. Lila could not but search this truth, for blame that she might cast upon herself; and had done as such so very often, that the ensuing guilt was quickly becoming her reality.
She left her chamber shortly after sunrise, and was off in search of Thomas Henry. She found him on the ground floor with several other soldiers, talking sternly to them, and waggling his finger in their faces as if scolding them.
When Lila approached them, the young soldiers sucked in their breath, as if awaiting some kind of punishment. But Lila simply turned her face to Henry.
“Good morning, Princess,” he said, turning his back on the young men.
“Is there a problem?” Lila asked. She had made up her mind concerning something rather important, only moments ago; and had not a mind for anything that was not of great consequence. She felt quite as if she had been filled a kind of deadly force, what flowed now through her entire body. It seeped at last into her eyes, and spilt from her mouth. It seemed that the young soldiers could sense it; and they did indeed begin to shiver in their muddied boots.
“Not at all, Princess,” replied Henry.
“Very good. Would you mind, then, dismissing your boys, so that we might have a chat?”
“Not at all,” he said. He gestured roughly for the soldiers to depart, and they hurried away gratefully, taking great care not to meet Lila’s gaze.
“Flay did say that he wished to meet with me,” said Henry. “Would you mind very much accompanying me? We can speak on the way.”
“Of course,” said Lila. She fell into step beside him, and they made for the South Door. Neither of them spoke again till they had left the castle, and were trudging through the sloshing mess which the earth had become. It had not snowed for some days, and there were patches of dead grass showing through the white; but instead of heartening one as to the unforgettable nearness of spring, the produced effect was rather of an exactly opposite nature.
Finally, Henry asked: “What was it you wanted to speak to me about?”
“I’ve come up with a plan,” said Lila. “It’s not much of one, I’ll agree to that – but it is all I have. I fear that Antony is in terrible danger; and though the Sorceress claims that she will not harm him, I trust her not as far as I could kick her.”
“What do you intend to do?” asked Henry.
“It is a difficult thing,” said Lila. She tempered her words, much for her own benefit, by looking off into the distance towards the place where Henry was currently destined. Standing about three quarters of a mile away from the castle were the long, low buildings where dwelt the Army of Eredor (save for the higher officers, of course, like Henry – who dwelt inside the castle).
“We do not know how to find the Sorceress,” she went on, “and I doubt that we ever will. She has hidden herself too cleverly, from both my eyes and my mind. And yet her agents are forever roaming about, invading the small towns to the North and the West. Mostly Narken are the pillagers, and they, of course, are entirely useless. But the Lumaria go to those places, too – in search of food.”
Henry’s face twisted in disgust.
“If we were to catch them at such,” Lila went on, “we might very well be able to smuggle several of them into the castle. They are more intelligent than the Narken, and they place a much higher value upon their own lives. Perhaps, I can just –”
“But how are we to get them here?” asked Henry. “Won’t they only slip away like shadows, as soon as we lay our hands upon them?”
Lila gritted her teeth at the interruption, her dark mood leaving no room for allowances. Yet she resisted the urge to reprimand Henry, and simply said, “Don’t worry about all
of that. I told you: I have a plan.”
“All right, Princess,” said Henry dutifully; though he sounded none too happy about it. They came to a stop in the middle of the field, and he asked, “Should I gather the Commanders together?”
“Yes,” said Lila. “All of the first- and second-in-command, as well as the section leaders. Bring them to the Hall of Mirrors.”
“Yes, Princess.”
“Thank you, Henry,” said Lila. She walked quickly back to the castle, her boots sucking in the sticky mud as if voicing some kind of a protest to her plans.
Yet she lifted her feet only higher, and set her teeth in determination. Protest or no, she had made up her mind.
~
The minutes passed quickly, and she soon was positioned at the head of the table in the Hall of Mirrors, with the Commanders of her Army spread all around her. Henry sat directly on her right side. Harn Fala, leader of the First Regiment, sat to her left; and then came the first leaders of the other three Regiments. Second Commanders came next, and were followed by the section leaders. There were four sections to each of the four Regiments, which called for sixteen section leaders. Altogether there were twenty-five men seated at the table. This was not a meeting for hundreds of pairs of ears; and in fact those present seemed too many, at the moment, to Lila.
“Your Captain called you here today,” she began, “on my own behalf. There is a mission which will be assigned to a select group of soldiers – those of your choosing, I think. It is not a siege, and not an invasion of any sort, so I expect no casualties of any kind. If I did, I would have spent a good deal more time in the planning. This is rather a tactical mission. My orders are direct and specific, and if followed to a point, there should be absolutely no harm done whatsoever – at least, not to us. In order to ensure that all goes according to plan, I shall be accompanying you.”
“I beg your pardon, Princess,” said Henry, “but I really don’t think –”
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