Senrid

  She pulled the cape on, thrust her arms through the slits—glad she’d not changed into a nightgown, but kept her sturdy walking dress on, in case those horrible Marlovens came for her again—and made it back to the window. If only she knew where Llhei kept her mittens!

  The whisper came again. “Now the trick is, test the vine first. Grab the bigger ones, not the little, and make sure each vine is strong. I’ll go first. See that your feet are placed right.”

  Sounds of slithering and rustling, and then the whisper came from outside, “Come on.”

  The journey down the wall was long and frightening. Her nose stung from the sharp smell of broken plants, and from the cold air, but she didn’t dare sneeze. Her fingers ached from their tight grip on the plants. Halfway down she thought, what about the guards on the wall?

  She didn’t ask, in case her rescuer expected her to be able to see whatever was going on.

  Instead, she concentrated on one foot, one hand, other foot, other hand, one at a time, until she made it down the wall.

  At the bottom, a hand closed on her wrist. “Can you ride?”

  Kitty shook her head.

  But a moment later a triangular head butted against the backs of her knees, and she felt about, and found a muscular, sleek-furred feline body. “Meta?” she whispered.

  A low raspy purr was her answer, and moments later she was seated astride the black leopard.

  Meta paced slowly for a short time. Kitty heard the clopping of hooves, muffled by the snow, and then Meta’s pace increased. Kitty leaned over, locking her arms around the thick, strong neck, as Meta raced feline-fashion next to a galloping horse.

  The fast pace lasted a while, then the animals both slowed, and again Kitty kept expecting a halt, but it did not come.

  Her fingers were numb and her arms and neck on fire from her bent posture when at last a voice said, “Here we are.”

  Kitty sat up, wincing, and swung her leg over. Her steps crunched in snow. Meta moved away, and Kitty said, “Thank you.”

  “Hmmph, very polite of you,” said the voice, no longer whispering. It was a light, cheery kid voice.

  Kitty’s insides swooped nastily. “Senrid!”

  EIGHT

  “And you are blind as a post.”

  Kyale groaned, wishing Senrid was near enough to kick. “So what now, my own personal execution?”

  “No,” he said, sounding disgusted. “Think, Kyale, instead of drowning in self-pity. If I wanted you dead, wouldn’t I just leave you there?”

  Kitty sighed. “All right. What do you want?”

  “Information.”

  “Oh, and I’m going to give it to you? Like this? Sounds like you’re the one who—”

  “Let’s get a fire going,” he interrupted. “Now, I’ll take that spell off your eyes if you promise me something.”

  “I don’t believe you can do it.”

  Senrid snorted. “This way. No, this way. Sit there. Hah! From the look of things, someone was here recently—and maybe means to return. Huh. I’ll be back in a moment. Have to start the fire and see to the horse. I note your cat friend is gone.”

  Kitty said nothing. Presently she smelled burning wood and felt faint warmth, and scooted toward it. As she held out her hands to warm up she heard noises: hooves, horse-breathing, then munchings; other horse noises that she couldn’t identify, all Punctuated by Senrid’s quick steps crunching dirt against stone. Then at last she smelled the sharp fragrance of dry wood catching fire.

  Senrid said, “Tdanerend knows something about eyes because his experimental spells caused Ndand’s vision Problems. He’s too incompetent to completely correct his mistakes, but he knows plenty about damage. I found and memorized the antidotes—I always planned to fix Ndand as soon as my uncle let me take power.”

  Kitty did not care about Ndand. She interrupted sourly, “So what do I have to promise? If it’s killing anybody—”

  “You being so well trained.”

  Once again his sarcasm stopped her.

  “Well, then, what?”

  “It’s easy. Nothing easier. You keep your mouth shut about my presence. That includes what I’ve done, and what I’m going to do.”

  “As if I’d tell that disgusting creep of an uncle anything, except how rotten and disgusting he is—”

  “And Leander. Anybody. I don’t want anybody to know. At all.”

  “Leander? But that makes no sense!”

  “I don’t care what makes sense to you and what doesn’t. Promise, and you see. Don’t, and I’ll leave you here and get back to work.”

  “What are you doing anyway?”

  “I’m having priceless fun,” Senrid said. Kitty could imagine that toothy grin that she loathed so much. “I want Tdanerend back on home ground, where he and I can have it out, winner take Marloven Hess. But I don’t want you involved, or your brother, or any other outsiders.” He paused, then said in a harder voice, “No interference.”

  “So…” Kitty thought rapidly. “Alaxandar isn’t doing magic after all. You’re the one who took down the border wards, and other things like that?”

  Senrid laughed. ‘”And other things like that.’ All part of my plan. Well?”

  “All right,” Kitty said, sighing. “But you’re a stupid, rotten, lying fool.”

  “Save the compliments for someone who cares a snap for your opinion. And sit still. This magic is complicated.”

  Kitty held her breath, listening to the low murmur of Senrid’s voice. Beneath it, beneath the whisper of the wind through bare trees, she felt a hum, like a bee at the edge hearing, and her skin prickled. Then a sharp, sudden pang shot through her head, and sparkling lights flashed across her vision. Her tearing eyes slowly compassed a gray blur, which resolved into a dark cave at night.

  A dark cave—Leander’s old hideout!

  Kitty blinked, looked about, and saw Senrid perched on an old log, face and hair golden in the ruddy firelight. At the familiar sight of those watchful gray-blue eyes, she frowned, loathing him all over again. “Oh, why didn’t you get lost.”

  “Still the same perfect princess,” Senrid retorted.

  “Shut up,” she snapped.

  “The first plan is to spring Leander,” Senrid continued.

  “Why?”

  “I told you. I want my uncle on home ground. If I get you two out, I can deal with him more easily. Right now with you gone he’s going to be more careful with Leander, or he’ll have lost you both. And if he loses you two, he loses this country, and he knows it.”

  “Why, because he has to put us in as puppets?”

  Senrid flexed his hands. The firelight highlighted their contours, making them seem tense “Or else stay here and enforce every single order, and watch for uprisings. And use half his army to guard the mines. While home is left open for enterprising sorts, such as myself, to walk in and take the throne. He thinks having you might be a stopgap, but he really needs Leander ordering your people to do his will—and doing the magic to ease the mining.”

  Kitty sighed. “Leander sounded really bad. I hope he’s—”

  “Tell me what happened,” Senrid cut in again, leaning forward. “Exactly.”

  Kitty shrugged, and outlined her experiences in detail. He said nothing, but his breath whooshed when she told him what Leander had said: Will you forgive me if I give in?

  At the end, he said, “It’s worse than I thought. If you want your brother back, we’ll have to act fast.”

  “What? I don’t get it. I mean, I know he said he’d consent if Tdanerend did anything creepy to me, but couldn’t that spell be removed?”

  Senrid’s eyes were almost black, his pupils were so huge “Kyale. Don’t you ever see anything past your own image in the mirror? Leander’s going to push them to kill him. He as much told you that.” He frowned as he stared into the fire. Twin points of orange light reflecting in those black pupils did not make his gaze any more pleasant, despite his round, fine-featured kid face. “He thi
nks—I’ll wager he sees it as the only way to defeat Tdanerend for certain.”

  Kitty gave a cry of dismay. Then she frowned. “Why should I believe a liar and a creep like you?” Anger and fear made her feel shivery. She wanted, so badly, for Senrid to be wrong.

  “Believe what you want,” Senrid said. “What I want right now is the exact layout of those dungeons of yours. You and Leander never took me through there on my visit.” Now Senrid looked and sounded as bland as ever.

  Kitty glared at him across the bright flames, but he went on. “I don’t suppose you noticed where the guards are posted, or when they change?”

  She shook her head.

  He shrugged. “I’ll assume that watches and posts will be will be what they would be at home, then. Never mind. Just give me the layout.” As he spoke, he knelt on the cave floor and smoothed the dirt over.

  Kitty closed her eyes, thinking. She’d been about to deny the knowledge—and it was true she’d seldom been there. But she remembered that the storage areas had been her best hiding spots during hide and seek games.

  All she had to do was think back, and she could picture the first big room, then the hallways leading this way, then bending, then that way…

  She sketched with her finger. Senrid watched in silence, his eyes narrowed.

  When she was done Kitty sat back, eying him in dislike. He was wearing the same shirt and trousers and boots he’d been in during the adventure on the other world; in place of the tunic he lost in the ocean he had a cloak now, way too long. A grownup’s cloak that dragged on the ground. The rest was the same—except far grubbier. He had obviously not been home in order to change his clothes.

  He scanned the finger-marks once more, smeared them out with a sudden movement, then sketched slowly. Kitty noted with sour disgust that he redrew it much faster than she’d done the first map.

  When he was done, he looked up. “Is that it?”

  “Yes.”

  He nodded. “Time to go.”

  “Why don’t you use magic to go in and get him and get out again?”

  “Tracer spells on the transfer,” Senrid said. “And my uncle keeps putting wards on the palace. See, the smaller the perimeter, the easier the ward. Big ones are toughest.”

  Kitty nodded. “Oh. And you messed up the one over the country—”

  Senrid grinned. “He’ll have lost an entire day of very intensive labor. Longer, because he’s such a terrible mage, and he won’t have the guts to get Latvian over to do it for him again.” He pointed back into the cave. “Extra blankets are back there.”

  “What? You’re leaving me here?”

  “You want to go back to my uncle?” He put his hands on his hips, smiling in derision.

  “No no no no no.”

  “You’re safe enough here. Tdanerend knows nothing about this place.”

  Kitty turned her back on him, and bustled about questing for blankets.

  Senrid led his mount out, and hoof-beats rapidly faded away.

  She was alone, except for the crackling fire, and the soft soughing of a cold breeze in the high pines on the hill. She wrapped up in three blankets, lay down by the fire, and drifted into dreams.

  When she woke up, one side of her was warm, the other chilled. She had been dreaming of rumbling thunder—not horrific thunder, but a curiously comforting distant thunder.

  When she opened her eyes to the blue-gray light of morning, she found Meta curled up next to her. Kitty sat up, reached for Meta’s flat head. She scratched the great cat, who yawned, displaying her sharp white teeth, then stretched.

  With a bound and a twitch of her long black tail, Meta vanished out the cave mouth. Kitty, peering after her, discovered that it was snowing outside.

  Kitty stared at her fire, which had been reduced to a few dull red embers. Leander didn’t keep Fire Sticks here—gave them all away. Leander—no, she couldn’t think about him.

  So she flung off her blankets and ran to the stack of firewood someone had cut from the dried-out old log. Picking up some small twigs, she returned and crouched down, poking the twigs at one of the last two embers.

  The first burst apart and faded out.

  She was more cautious with the last one, holding the twig above it. For a long time nothing happened, then it smoked, and at last she was rewarded with a tiny tongue of flame.

  By working with care, adding wood slowly, she soon had a nice blaze going again—and she’d done it all herself.

  She was hungry, but at least she was warm, and free.

  The day passed slowly. She wandered about, and even spent some time standing on the pretty little arched bridge. She looked down into the cold blue water trickling past the ice forming in glass-like beads along twigs and rocks, and thought about what Senrid had said.

  Leander was going to die!

  She felt icy inside. What would happen to her if Leander did die? Even if they got rid of the Marlovens, nobody would want her as the ruler. She knew that. They’d put some grownup in, someone who wouldn’t want Mara Jinea’s daughter around, and Kitty would have no place to go.

  And she would miss Leander. Horribly. He was the first person, besides Llhei, who was ever nice to her.

  She sighed. Well, if that disgusting Senrid had a plan, then she would do whatever he asked.

  When the sun began to sink beyond the frost-touched dark branches to the west she heard horse hooves, and scurried back into the cave to crouch behind some wooden boxes.

  Shadows flickered, then a voice called out, “Kyale?” It was Senrid.

  She ran out, relieved to see him, though she never would have admitted it. He slid off a horse—a different one than the day before—and leaned against it for a moment, blinking stupidly at the fire.

  “You kept it going,” he observed, then glanced at the woodpile. “I suppose you used half a winter’s supply.”

  “I’ve never tended a fire before,” Kitty said defensively. “It’s a servant’s job.”

  Senrid straightened up. “No more wood on it, we’re not going to be here long. My plan requires darkness. I’m here to collect you and explain.” He pulled a wrapped packet from the saddlebag and tossed it to her. “And you have to eat something.”

  He did some quick chores with the horse. She ignored that, wrinkling her nose at the smell of horse sweat. She didn’t like horses. Tall, uncanny things! Cats were much preferable.

  Senrid’s packet turned out to be fresh bread—so fresh the middle was faintly warm—and cheese and a single tomato. Kitty retreated into the cave and found the plain clay plates that Leander kept stored. She pulled out a knife, cut up the cheese and tomato, then slit one side of the bread and poked the things into it.

  It was the first time she’d ever done it, but she’d watched the cook often enough when she’d had to eat in the kitchen. When she was done she looked at it proudly, and took a bite. Wonderful!

  She felt much better when the bread was all gone, and she’d had some more of the water that she’d earlier set near the fire in a pan so it wouldn’t be so cold to drink.

  About the time she finished, Senrid rejoined her; she was shocked at the marks of tiredness in his face.

  “Yeuch,” she exclaimed.

  Senrid’s upper lip curled, but all he said was, “Ready to be the great hero?”

  She stared in surprise.

  “I’ve set it all up. It’s going to be all your doing.” He pulled something from his pocket and tossed it into her lap. “That’s the key to the row of cells he’s in. Don’t lose it!”

  “How did you—”

  “Never mind that,” he said impatiently. “You need to listen. I’ve messed with the magic wards, another reason we have to be fast, but I don’t think Uncle Tdanerend will find them all, and he sure can’t replace them—not unless he admits he’s incompetent and pulls Latvian in. And they’ve had a falling out.” He grinned.

  Mistrusting that grin, Kitty demanded, “You haven’t done anything to Hibern, have you?”
>
  “Never even seen her. It was all by messengers. Anyway, what’s going to happen will be a lot of noise and fire and confusion on the opposite side of the castle, so don’t get yourself in a panic. Tdanerend will go wild and summon the guards to defend him first, and as soon as they assemble, in you go.”

  “And what are you going to do?” she asked, still distrustful.

  “Borrowing Leander’s idea, I’ll have a host of illusory light cavalry with me—another reason for darkness. And Tdanerend’ll be my affair after that. You get Leander out and well away. If you can, take him to that old estate you were a child in—”

  “Tannantaun?”

  “That’s it. Uncle’d never send patrols there, cuz it’s too isolated.”

  “And?”

  “And when you hear what the results are, the two of you decide what to do. If I lose, you won’t be rid of my uncle but at least you’ll have some freedom of movement. Understood?”

  Kitty nodded once, then frowned. “I wish I knew why you were doing all this stuff. It seems to me you could fight Tdanerend just as well without rescuing us, though I’m glad to be free—”

  “Because it’ll make my uncle furious, of course. I want him so mad he can’t think, and I can get around him easier.”

  “So why not let Leander know?”

  “Are you ready to go?”

  Kitty persevered. “If I could be sure that you don’t have some nastier plan waiting for Leander. But then you’re such a liar you wouldn’t tell me the truth anyway—”

  “Have I lied to you since yesterday?”

  “You shouldn’t have lied to us,” Kitty pronounced loftily, sure now that she was completely in the right.

  “I suppose you’ve never lied in your life.” He checked the saddles.

  Kitty said smugly, “Never to betray friendships or honor.”

  Senrid gave a long sigh, and looked up at the stars beyond the tops of the trees. “I just want to go home,” he said finally. Then he gave her that derisive look again. “Speaking of liars, whatever did happen to my cousin? CJ wouldn’t tell me.”

  “She’s safe, according to a message from—from someone. And I’m sure she’s now quite happy. And you won’t find out where.”