"And I'll tell you straight off that your story sounds stupid, it's been done before, and anyway we'd rather play Beastmaker than watch some incompetent stripling fumbling about with light puppets," said the man.
"You're the Light Vizier?" asked Tal. He had a terrible sinking feeling in his chest. They were both so old, and they didn't appear to be listening to him at all!
"Uthern Lalis-Offin, Light Vizier to… to her," replied the man. He waved his hand vaguely and a faint violet glow came off his Sunstone. He leaned forward and almost fell out of his chair, both furry servants arriving only just in time to catch him. "Confidentially, my boy," he whispered, "I'm the elder brother. I should have been Emperor after we kicked Mercur out. But she was in more with the Violet and the Indigo." Tal's nose wrinkled as Uthern leaned back. The Light Vizier wasn't just old. He was drunk, and so, by the look of her, was the Empress. "I'm not pretending," he said urgently. "I'm telling the truth. Sushin is in league with the Aenirans and they are unsealing the Keystones!" At Sushin's name, Empress and Light Vizier looked at each other like children caught in a Lector's glare. "Not our business," announced the Empress. "Ceremonial duties only. Made quite clear. Long ago. You may leave us." "But you have to listen," urged Tal. He jumped to his feet and stood over the Empress. "You have to do something! My father is trapped inside the Orange Keystone! Lokar is trapped inside the Red. Look!" He undid the knot in his shirt and pulled out the Red Keystone. It flared brightly as he raised it, and both the Empress and Uthern whimpered and tried to shield their eyes. "We don't want it!" shrieked the Empress. Tal stared down at the two of them, cowering in their chairs. He couldn't believe these were the highest and mightiest of the Chosen, the pinnacle of Castle society. What was wrong with them? "Look into the stone," he pleaded. "Your Highness, you have to use the Violet Keystone to release Lokar! You have to." "Haven't got it," whimpered the Empress. "Foundation of doubt." Tal lowered the Red Keystone and stepped back. "What do you mean you haven't got it?" he whispered.
"I've come so far… gone through so much…""
She never had it," said Uthern with a vindictive look at his sister. "Mercur had a back way out, all the way down to the Underfolk levels. He took it. The Violet Keystone, the Claw of Ramellan, the secret knowledge. But I struck him as he ran."
The old man raised a skinny arm and mimed throwing a bolt of light.
"I never had it," repeated the Empress.
"No one could know. We agreed, Uthern. But you told the shadow."
"I didn't," hissed Uthern. "It was you, you."
"What shadow?" asked Tal slowly. "What did you tell the shadow?"
"Sharrakor, Sharrakor, Sharrakor," crooned the Empress. "How we wish he had never slithered across our path."
"Sharrakor?" asked Tal. "Your Spiritshadow?"
The Empress and Uthern laughed, a mad giggle that raised the hair on the back of Tal's head.
"Not mine, no, no," cackled the Empress. She gestured at the furred servants behind her. "There are our Spiritshadows. No one to guard us in the Castle. No loyal Spiritshadows to make sure we survive. Sharrakor is his own master."
Tal stared aghast at the little black humanoids. Apart from the fact that as bound servants they should be guarding the two Chosen's bodies back in the Castle, they were obviously completely harmless and were totally unsuitable to be Spiritshadows to any Violet Chosen, let alone the Empress and the Light Vizier.
Yet everyone thought Sharrakor was the bound and true servant of the Empress. Sharrakor, who was regarded as the most powerful Spiritshadow of them all.
"And Sushin?" he asked. "What is Sushin?"
"Shadow-pawn," said Uthern. He had stopped laughing and was weeping now, the tears sliding down his aged and wrinkled cheeks.
"Shadow-pawn of Sharrakor."
"You have betrayed us," said Tal. He couldn't believe it. They'd undermined everything. It was their fault that his father was trapped in the Orange Keystone. They were ultimately responsible for the disappearances and the deaths. The Pit and the perversion of the Hall of Nightmares.
"You have betrayed us all to the shadows."
"No," said Kathild. "I am the Empress of the Chosen. I am Most High!"
"No," said Uthern, but his voice quavered and the tears still fell. "I am Light Vizier. Nothing will change. The Chosen will go on. The Castle will stand. The Veil will hold."
"No they won't!" screamed Tal. He was almost sobbing himself, but with rage, not sorrow.
"I should kill you both! It's what the Icecarls would do to traitors!"
He stepped back still farther and raised his own Sunstone. It swirled with violet light. Tal fed his anger into it, and the violet light grew and strengthened. Tal didn't know what he was going to do, or what spell he could cast. He just let all his rage, frustration, and fear fly into the stone.
Violet lightning began to spit out of the Sun-stone, crackling and flashing. It shot out and around Tal, spinning a barrier of violet streaks. Tal tried to make it stop circling and strike the two Chosen, but it wouldn't be directed. It rose higher and higher until there was a spinning storm of violet lightning bolts flashing over Tal's head.
The Empress and the Light Vizier stared up at it, white-faced. Then they fell out of their chairs and prostrated themselves at Tal's feet, sobbing and clutching at his ankles.
"Spare us! Spare us, Mercur, Ramellan, whoever you are!"
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Tal stared down at the two Chosen, then up at the crackling violet light above his head. It had formed into the shape he knew well. The Jagged Lightning Crown, worn by the Empress on the Day of Ascension and Dark Return. Why was this strange light replica of the crown hovering over his head?
"I'm so sorry, Highness," sobbed Uthern. "She made me do it!"
The Empress hissed and scratched at Uthern. In a second, they were rolling around on the ground, weakly kicking and hitting each other, more like children or baby animals than people.
Tal bent down and pulled them apart. They were so thin and light, he could have picked one up in each hand. He sat them back in their chairs and their servants hurried forward to straighten their clothes and hair.
"Why do you call me Highness?" he asked. The anger had all gone out of him now, though the crown of violet light remained. He felt cold and hard now, without anger. Or mercy.
"You wield the Violet Keystone," whispered brother and sister together.
"Are you Ramellan come again, to punish us?"
Tal looked at the stone on his finger, now revealed in all its Violet glory. He remembered the skeleton in the heatway tunnel. It must have been the late Emperor Mercur, who had not quite managed to escape the traitors who had supplanted him.
He also remembered Ebbitt splitting the Sun-stone. What he wore on his finger now was only half the Violet Keystone. The other half was probably atop the mast of the Far-Raiders ship. Or lost with Milla upon the Ice, he thought with a pang.
But even half the Violet Keystone might be enough to release Lokar and his father. It might be enough to reseal the Keystones and save the Veil. It might be enough to rally the Chosen and turn them against Sushin and Sharrakor.
But only if Tal had the courage and the strength to use the Keystone properly. Now there really was no one else he could go to. It was all up to him. He had to make the right decisions, starting right now.
Tal felt like he had before he decided to climb the Red Tower, in a life that seemed long ago. That simple decision had changed everything. Now he stood on the brink once more, in the frozen moment before he did something that could not be undone.
He felt every muscle in his body tense, as if he were a spring being compressed as far as it would go. What would happen when it was released?
Tal stared at the two cringing Chosen. What was he to do with them? What was his next step? He couldn't kill them, he realized. He might not really be a Chosen anymore, but he wasn't an Icecarl, either. He was prevented from making a decision by a shout from Adras, who ha
d drifted off to suck up water from an ornamental pool nearby. Tal turned to see what was the matter. As he did so, Kathilde and Uthern both leaped forward, drawing crystal daggers from the arms of their chairs. "Die!" they screamed. Tal twisted back, but he was too slow to do anything else. The daggers flashed down and were met by bolts of violet lightning from the crown above his head. Crystal exploded into powder, and then more lightning struck, straight at the hearts of the Empress and the Light Vizier!
Tal reeled back and was caught by Adras as the violet lightning jumped the gap between Kathilde and Uthern and struck their servants as well. There was a tremendous flash, a boom louder than any of Adras's thunder, and all the crystal leaves were blown off the canopy.
Tal and Adras were thrown to the ground. Through slitted eyes Tal saw Kathilde and Uthern struck again and again by bolts of violet lightning. It played over their bodies, striking every part of them, the flashes blinding and the thunderclaps deafening. Sunstones on the Chosen's clothing absorbed some of the lightning, and for a few seconds the two continued to struggle, to try to get away. But in the end the last Sunstone exploded into dust and the Empress Kathilde and her Light Vizier were still.
The violet crown that had been above Tal's head drifted across to them, and the bands of light rearranged themselves into a vaguely human shape. It hovered above the dead Chosen, raised its arms in triumph, and disappeared in a fall of violet sparks.
"Did you do that?" asked Adras.
"I liked the lightning."
"No," said Tal wearily.
"That, I think, was the death curse of the Emperor Mercur. I just delivered it."
He got up and dusted himself off. He didn't go and look at the bodies. There wasn't much left of them, and the ground around them was still smoking.
"What were you going on about just then?" asked Tal.
"Hmmm?" asked Adras. He was inspecting the burn marks on a nearby pole.
"Oh, a ship."
He pointed. Tal looked. Sure enough, a large boat was approaching the island. It was brightly lit with Sunstones and crammed with the Empress's Guards and other Chosen. A familiar rotund figure was standing at the bow.
"Sushin," groaned Tal. Now was not the time to confront him, or to try to win the Chosen over. Not with the Empress and the Light Vizier dead at his feet.
"I hope you haven't had so much water you can't fly," Tal said.
"Why?"
"Because we have to fly, of course!" shouted Tal. "There's no need to shout," sniffed Adras.
"Where are we going?"
Tal shook his head. He felt incredibly tired again.
"I don't know. Away from here before that boat lands."
"Too late for that," said Adras.
"It just did."
"It can't have," said Tal. He didn't bother to look.
"It was hundreds of stretches away."
"No," explained Adras patiently.
"The other ship. The one I didn't see before."
Tal looked. Another boat full of Guards had grounded on the western shore. The first Chosen were jumping off the bow. They saw him, and an angry shout went up.
Tal's tiredness disappeared. He turned to run, tugging at Adras's hand.
"Come on," he shouted, holding up both arms.
"Running takeoff!"
"I feel sick," announced Adras. But he pushed off the ground and grabbed Tal's arms as he lifted him into the sky. The very low part of the sky. Tal was dragged along the ground, and only saved from being sliced apart because two flower-creatures leaned over backward to let him past.
"Higher!" Tal screamed. For a moment his feet rested on the shoulders of a golden statue. He jumped off and they gained a bit of height, only to lose it again as Adras groaned and dipped.
They were almost at the lake on the far side of the island when Adras finally managed to get properly airborne. He kept heading toward the crater rim, mindful of all the Chosen and their Sunstones that were behind him. Tal breathed a sigh of relief, only to lose it in panic as he realized something truly horrible.
He'd dropped the Red Keystone when they were knocked over back in the courtyard.
CHAPTER TWENTY
"Take us high," said Tal bitterly. "Then you can drop me." "How high?" asked Adras.
"High enough," muttered Tal. How could he have been so stupid? He'd been so careful not to lose the Red Keystone. That Icecarl Crone had prophesied truly when she said, "Sunstones fall from you, yet into other's hands."
"Um, Tal, why am I going to drop you?" asked Adras. "You're not," said Tal shortly.
"I'm just angry at myself. I don't really mean for you to drop me. Is that cloud up there? Let's join that for a while."
"Sure," said Adras. There was a long strand of cloud drifting over the crater. "Why are you angry at yourself?"
Tal bit back an angry response. There was no point in yelling at Adras.
"I dropped the Red Keystone," he said dully. "I've practically killed Lokar, just like everyone else."
"The Red Keystone?" asked Adras.
"Is that the red Sunstone?"
Tal took a deep, slow breath. "Yes, it is the red Sunstone."
"Oh, I picked that up," said Adras.
"I thought you'd want it."
"You picked it up?" Tal repeated. He looked up at the Storm Shepherd, who was smiling down at him.
"Where is it?"
"I put it in my pocket."
"Your pocket? You haven't got a pocket… um… have you?"
"When I want to have a pocket I have a pocket," replied Adras proudly.
"Look!"
He let go of one of Tal's arms and the Chosen boy swung wildly underneath. But Tal didn't panic. He just gripped a little tighter himself.
Adras reached into his stomach area and two big puffy fingers pulled out a small red-glowing Sun-stone. He started to hand it over to Tal. "No, you keep it for now," said Tal urgently. "You've earned the right to look after it."
He didn't add that the last thing he wanted to do while hanging beneath a Storm Shepherd a thousand stretches up was take an irreplaceable Sunstone from two oversized cloud fingers and try to tie it in his shirt.
When they rendezvoused with the cloud, Tal had Adras stay a fraction beneath it, so he could watch what was going on down below. There was a lot of activity, not only on the Empress's island, but all over the Chosen Enclave. Sunstones were flaring brightly everywhere, in houses and on walkways and bridges. It was a colorful sight from a safe distance.
While the death of the Empress was bound to cause a stir, Tal couldn't figure out why absolutely everybody was dashing around. There were even Chosen running back from the tunnel that went through the crater wall.
Tal and Adras stayed with the cloud for some time. The sun had risen and the last of the night darkness was slipping from the crater below when Tal finally figured out what was going on.
"They're going back," he said, disbelief in his voice. "The Chosen are going back to the Castle. But it's months yet to Dark Return!"
Even the death of the Empress would not prompt a return to the Castle. It was unheard of. From the Day of Ascension to the Day of Dark Return, all
Chosen were in Aenir. It was as simple as that. But there was no mistaking what was going on below. The Orders were gathering in their respective areas. Tal could see the different colors in their Sunstones as they assembled along the major bridges. There was his Orange Order on the West Bridge, every single one of them.
Tal peered down. He wished he had a telescope. There were a number of litters with the Orange Order, for the sick and the infirm. His mother would be lying on one. She had to be. He refused to consider that she might now be dead.
A bunch of Chosen around the edge of the Orange ranks suddenly disappeared, leaving a prismatic afterimage. Tal blinked. That was even more unusual than the fact that the Chosen were returning. There was a set order to going back to the Castle. Red went first, from lowest to highest, and then it went in order of seniorit
y through the other colors.
A group of Blue Chosen suddenly shone and then they were gone, too. Then a couple of Indigo, and a bunch of Yellows.
"Let's go lower," Tal instructed. "I need to see this." They sank lower, but no one looked up. They were all too intent on getting back to the Castle. Tal watched as the transfers became even more confused. People seemed to be transferring back as soon as they were ready. A lot of children and sick Chosen were being sent back even when they weren't ready. Tal saw one little boy running away from his mother when he was struck by a kaleidoscopic whorl that signaled the transfer.
It took Tal a few minutes to realize that what he was seeing was a panic. The Chosen were desperate to return to the Castle and the Dark World. But why? Had the Spiritshadows already revolted? Surely that would be accompanied by an attack here in Aenir as well?
Whatever was going on, Tal knew it was an opportunity for him. He looked down at the steadily thinning ranks of the Chosen. If it was chaos here, with everyone translating back, it would be even worse in the Castle.
Now was the time to go back and give the water spider antidote to his mother… if he hadn't lost it. Tal felt the other knot in his shirt, the one he had never undone. Two vials of precious antidote were there. Provided they weren't harmed by the transfer to Aenir and then back, they should bring Graile out of her coma and make her well.
"Take us to the crater wall," said Tal.
"We're going back home."
"This is home," said Adras.
"The Dark World," said Tal.
"You'll be a Spiritshadow again."
"Hhmmph," snorted Adras. But he headed for the crater wall.
Home, thought Tal. Where was home now? Almost everything he had thought was true about the Chosen and the Castle was a lie. The Empress had proved to be a usurper and a coward, her Light Vizier likewise. The Dark Vizier was the puppet of a shadow.