But then I did not run or cry out or seek to escape. Naked, I stood erect across from Thornden and faced him. Anger and pain and betrayal had taken me beyond fear. I had done Ryzel too much honor by thinking him in league with Queen Damia; doubtless he feared her too much to ally himself with her. Instead, he had chosen Thornden for his machinations—chosen to submit me to rape rather than accept the risks of my Ascension. The bones of my cheek flamed as if they had been splintered.
“Resist me!” Thornden snarled. “It increases the pleasure.” He began to stalk me around the fable.
With all my strength, I shouted. “NO!” and hammered both fists against the tabletop.
I was only a woman—and not especially strong. My blow did not so much as cause the candle flames to waver. Yet the sheer unexpectedness of it stopped him.
“You are a fool!” I snapped, not caring how my voice shook. “if you harm me. further, the result will be your doom, not mine.”
For the moment, I had surprised him into motionlessness. He took his pleasure from harming the weak and fearful; he was not prepared for me. And while it lasted I took advantage of his amazement.
“First, my lord of Nabal,” I said in a snarl to match his, “let us agree that you dare not kill me. If you do so, you will forge an unbreakable alliance between Canna and Lodan against you. In the name of survival—as well as of ambition—they will have no choice but to do their uttermost together in an effort to punish my slayer.”
I did not allow him time to claim—or even to think— that he was ready to fight any opposition in order to master the realm. Instead, I continued, “And if you dare not kill me, then you also dare not harm me. Look upon me, my lord of Nabal. Look!” I slapped the table again to startle him further. “I am indeed plain and puny. But do you think that I am also blind and deaf? My lord of Nabal. I am aware of my appearance. I understand the consequences of such plainness. You cannot render me unfit for any man or marriage; I have long since given up all hope of such things.
“Therefore it will cost me nothing to denounce you to Canna and Lodan if you harm me. I will not be afraid or ashamed to proclaim the evil you have done me.” If he had any more than half a wit in his head, he was able to see that I would not be afraid or ashamed. “The result.. will be the same as if you had slain me. In self-interest if not injustice, Canna and Lodan will join together to reave you of your crown so that I will be avenged.”
His surprise was fading; but still I did not relent, did not allow him opportunity to think. I knew what his thoughts would be: they were written in the sweat and darkness of his face. He had reason to avoid anything which might ally Canna and Lodan against him. Why else had he given any credence to the counsel that he should offer me marriage?—why had he sought to rape rather than to murder me? But he also had reason to think that he might be strong enough to prevail even against the union of his foes—especially if Ryzel stood with him. I sought to deny his conclusions before he could reach them.
“And if you dare not murder me—and you dare not harm me—then you also dare not risk battle. Ryzel supports you now because you are the strongest of three. But if Canna and Lodan join against you, you will be the weaker of two, and so Ryzel will turn from you for the sake of the realm.”
But in that I erred. Thornden’s purpose was suddenly restored. His stance sharpened, a grin bared his teeth. Clearly, his hold upon Ryzel’s support was surer than I had supposed, and so the threats I had levelled against him collapsed, one after the other. As he saw them fall, he readied himself to spring.
Still I did not waver. I could not guess the truth between Ryzel and Thornden: but my ignorance only made my anger more certain.
“But if you are too much the fool,” I said without pause, “to fear Ryzel’s defection, then I will not speak of it. And if you are too much the fool to fear Queen Damia’s Dragon, that also I will not discuss.” Though Thornden’s wits were dull, Brodwick’s were as sharp as they were corrupt: and he had undoubtedly brought his lord to Ryzel’s conclusion—that Damia’s Dragon was an image of a Creature she could not identify, and that therefore it was not as dangerous as it appeared. “But are you also fool enough to ignore King Thone? Have you not observed that his Mage has left the manor?”
That shot—nearly blind though it was—went through Thornden like a shock. He stiffened; his head jerked back, eyes widened. I tasted a fierce relish for my gambit.
“My lord of Nabal, Cashon is a master of Fire. Without Brodwick to defend them, your armies are lost. Cashon will turn the very ground beneath their feet to lava and death.
He could not know that I was lying. With a howl of rage, he sprang toward the door, heaved the chair aside, burst from the chamber. From the outer passage, I heard the pound of his running and the echo of his loud roar:
“Brodwick!”
Relief and dismay and anger and fear rose in me as nausea. I wanted to collapse into a chair and hug my belly to calm it. But I did not. Unsteadily, I walked to the concealed door which should have brought the guards to my aid.
When I thrust the tapestry aside. I found Mage Ryzel there.
His eyes were full of tears.
The sight nearly undid me. I was so shaken that I could hardly hold back from going to him like a girl and putting myself into his arms for comfort. At the same time, I yearned to flay his heart with accusations and bitterness.
I did neither. I stood and stared at him and said nothing, letting my nakedness speak for me.
He was unable or unwilling to meet my gaze. Slowly, he shambled from his hiding place as if he had become unaccountably old in a short time and crossed the room to the door. Bracing himself on the frame as if all his bones hurt and his Scepter alone were not enough to uphold him, he called hoarsely for any servant within earshot to attend him.
Shortly, he was answered. His voice barely under control, he told the servant to go to my private chambers and fetch a robe. Then—still with that painful slowness—he closed the door and turned back to face me.
“All I proposed to him,” he said with a husky tremor, “was that he ask your hand in marriage—or in alliance. if you would not wed him. I conceived that Scour’s Dragon would teach you your peril so plainly that you would give up your reasonless pretensions.”
“Oh, assuredly, good Mage,” I replied at once, scathing him as much as I was able. I only kept myself from tears by digging my nails into the palms of my hands. “That was all you proposed. And then you commanded the guards away, so that he would be free to act violence against me if he chose.”
He nodded dumbly, unable to thrust words through the emotion in his throat.
“‘And when he sought to harm me, you did not intervene. He was certain that you would not”
Again, he nodded. I had never seen him appear so old and beaten.
“Mage,” I said so that I would not rail against him further, “what is his hold upon you?”
At last, he looked into my eyes. His gaze was stark with despair. “My lady, I will show you.”
But he did not move—and I did not speak again— until a knock announced the return of the servant. He opened the door only wide enough to receive one of my robes.
Without interest, I noted that the robe was of a heavy brocade which had been dyed to highlight the color of my eyes, so that I would appear more comely than I was. While I shrugged it over my shoulders and sashed it tightly, Ryzel averted his head in shame. Then, when I had signified my readiness, he held the door for me, and I preceded him from the meeting-room.
I desired haste; I needed movement, action, urgency to keep my distress from crying itself out into the friendless halls of the manor. But somehow I measured my pace to Ryzel’s new slowness and did not lose my self-command. The death of my father had left me with little cause for hope and no love; but at least it bad given me pride enough to comport myself as a woman rather than as a girl. Moving at Ryzel’s speed, I let him guide me to the upper levels and out onto the parapets which overlooke
d the surrounding hills.
The night was cold, but I cared nothing for that. I had my robe and my anger for warmth. And I took no notice of the profuse scatter of the stars, though their shining was as brilliant and kingly as a crown in the keen air; they were no more Real than I was. I had eyes only for the moon. It was full with promise or benediction; and its place in the heavens showed me that little more than an hour remained before midnight.
The manor was neither castle nor keep, not built for battle; it had no siege-walls, no battlements from which it might be defended. The first Regal had designed it as a seat of peace—and as a sign to the Three Kingdoms that his power was not founded upon armies that might be beaten or walls that could be breached. In consequence, the Mage and I encountered no sentries or witnesses as we walked the parapets.
Still he had not spoken, and I had not questioned him. But after we had rounded one corner of the manor, he stopped abruptly. Leaning against the outer wall, he peered into the massed darkness of the hills. Sharply, he whispered, “There!” and pointed.
At first. I saw nothing. Then I discerned in the distance a small, yellow flicker of light—a traveler’s lamp, perhaps, or a campfire.
“I see it,” I murmured stiffly.
Moonlight caught the sweat on his bald head as he nodded. Without a word, he began walking once more.
Within ten paces he halted again, pointed—and again I saw a yellow flickering among the nearby hills.
Down the next stretch of the parapet, he showed me three more glimpses of light, and along the following section, two more—barely visible bits of flame at once as prosaic as torches and as suggestive as chimera. When we had completed a circuit of the manor, I had seen that we were surrounded at significant intervals by these uncertain lights.
Around me, the chill of the dark seemed to deepen. I knew from many strolls at night upon the parapets that the few villages among the hills were hidden in valleys, invisible. And in all truth these lights did not appear to be the lamps of travelers. I had not seen them moving— and in any case none of them lay on the roads which led to the manor.
Yet Ryzel did not speak. Hugging his Scepter to his chest, he stared in silence into the heart of the wide dark.
I had resolved patience; but at last I could endure no more. “I have seen, Mage,” I breathed tightly. “What have I seen?”
“Carelessness, my lady.” His tone was distant and low. “Count Thornden is shrewd in his way, but not meticulous. You have seen the ill-muffled lights of his armies.”
I held myself still and listened, though his words made my blood labor fearfully in my temples.
“He cannot believe that a woman will prove Regal, and so he lacks one fear which constrains both King Thone and Queen Damia. It was his intent to besiege the manor this night—to put it to the torch if necessary—in order to rid himself of all opposition at one stroke. You know that we have no defense; I was hard-pressed to persuade him to hold back his hand, at least until after midnight. Only the promise of my support brought him to hear me at all, and only my offer of an opportunity with you—or against you—caused him to agree that he would first allow me chance to give him the rule, before grasping it himself with bloodshed.”
Therefore my lies about Cashon had turned Thornden aside from my harm. Only the Fire which Cashon might cast could hope to protect the manor from the forces of Nabal.
That I understood. I understood many things; my thoughts were as clear as the cold night. And yet inwardly I was stricken with treachery and loss, scarcely able to hold up my head. The presence of those armies surpassed me.
“You knew this,” I whispered like weeping. So many men could not have moved among the hills to surround the manor without the knowledge of Ryzel’s spies. “You knew this—and did not tell me.”
The sense of betrayed hope filled my throat. Only dismay restrained me from shouting. “There was no need to. fear these armies. Cashon would easily have been persuaded to aid us, if I had known to ask him Thornden would not have dared his forces against Fire—not if he had known that you were able to silence Brodwick’s Wind. All this could have been forestalled. If you had told me.”
But now the chance was lost. Proud of my-victory over King Thone—and ignorant—I had in effect sent Cashon from the manor, thus unbalancing the powers arrayed against me, tilting the scales in Thornden’s favor. Now I could only pray that Queen Damia would be able to counter him.
That thought was gall to me.. I grew sick from the mere suggestion of it.
Ryzel’s presence at my side had become insufferable. Gripping my voice between my teeth, I said, “Leave me, Mage.”
“My lady—” he began—and faltered. He was old and no longer knew how to reply to his own regret.
“Leave me,” I repeated, as cold as the night. “I do not desire your company in my despair.”
After a moment, he went. The door opened light across the parapet, then closed it away again. I was alone in the dark, and there was no solace for me anywhere.
If he had stayed, I would have howled at him, You were my friend! Of what value is the realm, if it may only be preserved by treachery?
But I knew the truth. My father had gauged the Mage accurately: he could not have been driven to such falsehood, except by one thing.
By the fact that I had no Magic.
From the moment of the Phoenix-Regal’s death, all other considerations had paled beside the failure of my heritage. Born of a Creature—from a line of Creatures— I had nothing in common with them except yearning and love. Ryzel would have been steadfast in my service if he had held any hope at all for my Ascension.
I should have stopped trusting him much earlier. But he had told me so much, taught me so much, that I had not once wondered if he had indeed told or taught me everything. So I had been left to work my own doom in ignorance.
Above me, the moon entered its last hour before midnight. The end was drawing near. In me. the line of the Regals and all their works would fail. Because I did not wish to flee, I had nothing left to do with my life except approach the Seat as if it were an executioner’s block.
Perhaps I would go to the Seat early, attempt my Ascension now, before midnight, so that my part in the ruin of the realm would not be protracted beyond bearing.
“My lady.”
His voice startled me. He had not come through the door behind me—I had seen no light. And I had not heard his steps.
Handsome as a dream in the moonlight, Wallin stood before me.
I tried to say his name, but my heart pounded too heavily. Clasping my arms under my breasts, I turned my back so that he would not observe my struggle for self-command. Then, to ease my apparent rejection, I said as well as I could, “You are a man of surprises. How did you find me?”
“I am a servant.” His tone conveyed a shrug. “It is an ill servant who remains unaware of the movements of his lady.” Now I felt rather than heard him draw closer to me. He seemed to be standing within touch of my shoulder. “My lady,” he continued gently, “you are grieved.”
Somewhere in the course of the night, I had lost my defense against sympathy. Tears welled in my eyes. I was incapable of silence. “Wallin,” I said in misery, “I am a dead woman. I have no Magic.”
lf he understood the implications of my admission— how could he not?—he paid them no heed. From the beginning, he had done and said things which I could not have expected from him; and now he did not fail to take me aback.
“My lady,” he said in his tone of kindness, “some have claimed that your grandmother failed of Ascension be-cause she was not virgin.”
“That is foolish,” I replied, as startled by his statement as by his sudden appearance. The Seat was a test of blood, a catalyst for latent Magic, not a measure of experience. “None have claimed that the Regals were virgin, either before or after they came into their power.”
“Then, my lady”—he placed his hand firmly upon my shoulder and turned me so that I would look at h
im— “there can be no harm if you allow me to comfort you before the end.”
The pressure of his kiss made the sore bones of my cheek-burn; but I found in an instant that I welcomed that pain like a hungry woman, starving in the desert of her life. The smell and warmth and hardness of him filled my senses.
“Come,” I said huskily when his embrace loosened. “Let us go to my chambers.”
Taking his hand, I drew him with me back into the manor.
I had no reason to trust him. But everything trustworthy had been proven false: therefore it was not madness to place trust where none had been earned. And I was in such need—I cared for nothing now except that he should kiss me again and hold me during my last hour, so that I might die as a woman instead of as a girl.
In part because I wished to be circumspect—but chiefly because I did not want to be interrupted—I chose the back ways of the manor toward my chambers. As a result, we encountered some few servants busy about their last tasks, but no guests or revelers—and no one that I recognized as a minion of Ryzel’s. During our passage, Wallin remained silent. But the clasp of his hand replied to mine; and when I looked to him his smile made his features appear dearer than any I had seen since the death of my father. I did not know how such eyes as his had come to gaze upon me with desire. Yet—by a Magic I had not felt before—their regard seemed to make me less plain to myself, leaving me grateful for that distant taste of a loveliness I did not possess.
But at the door to my chambers I hesitated, fearing that I had mistaken him, that I had been misled by my need—that at the last he would think better of himself and recant. Yet now his eyes were dark and avid, and the muscles at the corners of his jaw bunched passionately beneath the skin, so powerful were the emotions which drove him.
To my surprise, the sight of his intensity increased my hesitation. Suddenly, I found myself truly reluctant for him. I was reconsidering the danger he represented.
That he was dangerous was manifest. A harmless man would not have dared the things he had done this night. And how was it possible for a woman with my face to believe seriously in his desire for me? Deliberately,! placed my hand on his chest to restrain him from the door and said, “Wallin, you need not do this.” Somehow, I contrived to smile as if I were not sorrowing. “Your life is too high a price for my consolation. I am content to think that perhaps you have cared for me a little. That is enough. Accept my gratitude and go to procure what safety you can for yourself.”