“Then you would be swearing to little purpose,” Siamis said, and indicated the evidence of muddy footprints in the road below.
Dejain stared from those to the weathered sign that indicated travelers were about to enter Leath. Then she turned back to Siamis, whose light gaze had narrowed, reminding her unpleasantly of his far more dangerous uncle.
“Second question,” Siamis said, evenly enough. “Where is Kessler Sonscarna? I cannot believe he was a part of this idiocy.” A sharp lift of the hand, indicating all of Sartor, not just Bostian’s invasion army now wandering around in the weird forest beyond.
“He is,” Dejain said, with a spike of malicious pleasure. “He decided to take Sarendan.”
“Yes.” Siamis’s gaze went distant. “He’s holed up in a cave outwaiting a storm. Go fetch him.” The gentle voice gentled further. “Now.”
“When I do?” Her nevers chilled in spite of the mellow sun of early summer.
“Bring him to Eidervaen.”
She vanished, and he signaled to the horsemen waiting at a prudent distance. When they drew near, he motioned for a horse, saying, “I will have to ride in there myself, it seems. Meet me in the city.”
And he rode toward the forest alone.
Part of its strangeness was the suddenness of its border, as if an invisible ring had been laid down by some monumental hand. Most forests began with clumps of trees, or with shrubbery that thickens along the road until greenery surrounds the traveler. Sometimes there was a dramatic difference in vegetation between one slope and another, largely having to do with the angle of the sun as well as soil, but here, the road led into a sudden stand of trees that dimmed the light to greenish shadow, broken by slanting shafts of gold.
He entered Shendoral.
Late spring blossoms dotted the glades, a reassuringly normal sight. Siamis found it peculiar, how navigating here was not unlike navigation in Norsunder; it brought to mind the dire consequences of any kind of violence. Humans had not imposed this rule onto Shendoral. He did not know who had. Perhaps the indigenous species, who existed outside of time and space, as did Norsunder; only here, the animals as well as humans were forced to live in peace.
Did this cause surviving predator species to turn to nuts and fruit for sustenance, and had that spread outward, as had the dawnsingers’ and morvende embargoes on killing any living creature for food?
He gave himself a moment to appreciate the long view that such changes required, and then it was time for business. He focused on Bostian, the brash young commander who was too eager to make a name for himself by conquering Sartor, and so had ridden past elementary illusions, straight into Shendoral forest and its formidable magic.
This humiliation was going to be salutary.
Siamis found him around the next bend, as he expected, though anywhere else they might have been as much as a week apart in distance. Bostian, a big, burly fellow a year or so older than Siamis, looked almost comically dismayed, a reaction that intensified after Siamis told him where he was, and how long it had been.
“But I’ve only been in here a day!” Bostian protested. “Look at our stores. We’ve camped once.”
“Yet it has been eight weeks since you crossed the border,” Siamis said, his sense of humor tickled at the sight of rows of tough warriors walking their horses, treading carefully lest they step on some small creature unawares, and fall down dead. Shendoral was exact: a life for a life. “We can continue this unedifying exchange outside the forest border, if you wish, lest another couple of months pass while you argue. You can follow me out.”
Bostian’s interest was entirely confined to the cut and the thrust. As Bostian and his company fell in behind, Siamis focused on the border of the forest—and there it was.
Once they were well away from Shendoral’s imperceptible grip, Siamis said to Bostian, “I’m going ahead into Eidervaen, to see if I can rescue this fool escapade of yours from disaster before Detlev gets here.”
He watched Bostian’s rugged, tanned face blanch, then added, “When you arrive, you will become an occupation force. Everything will be peaceful and orderly as you take charge of the city.”
Siamis did not need mind-touch to sense Bostian’s anger, frustration, and above all disappointment. He laughed as he left them there, and left to conquer Eidervaen alone.
* * *
—
“They’re out of Shendoral,” the young Sartoran mage student reported, her eyes huge. “And Olvath, who was on watch duty at the forest road, says she’s certain it was Siamis who brought them out.” She looked around at Atan, Chief Veltos, and four of the high council.
“Siamis,” Atan breathed. “Then he’s here. In Sartor?”
Veltos whirled. “Call the high council to Star Chamber. Stay, the entire first circle—” She broke off, and made a profound bow to Atan.
It was sincere, but it was too late.
Everyone knew that only the monarch could summon the first circle of nobles. Atan forced her palms together, opening them outward in the gesture of royal order, an empty gesture as the order had already been given. By someone else. She watched them watch her confirm the order, confirming the fiction that she was the queen, then she said, “I will withdraw while they assemble.”
Everyone bowed deeply, and Atan saw in those lowered heads the silent acknowledgement of who really ruled Sartor. It was not Atan.
She went straight to her private chamber, where she looked for her notecase to report the sighting. It was not in its place. She frowned, her hand reaching to summon the duty page, but she hesitated. The pages, the cleaning servants, even Gehlei would not touch it without leave.
Atan wandered about the room, looking from round tabletop to lyre-legged chair to window sill where lay two private histories written by ancestors when they were her age. She remembered laying the books down. She remembered laying her notecase in its place on the table.
Who could have taken it?
She shook her head. Siamis on the way . . . This was not the time to bother with inquiries about absent-minded servants. She should be warning people, like the rest of the alliance. Beginning with Sarendan over the mountains. Since Chief Veltos was summoning the council (Atan sustained a flash of anger, and then determinedly dismissed it), Atan had time. She had the will. And she had the means.
So she transferred to Miraleste in Sarendan. While she was standing on the Destination tiles, she remembered hearing the quick patter of feet down the hall outside her rooms. Julian? Would Julian have taken it? Impossible. Julian wouldn’t touch anything that she thought connected in any way with lessons or princesses or queens. With responsibility, Tsauderei had said, when last they talked about her.
“. . . there?”
Atan blinked, to discover herself peering into a pair of familiar tip-tilted eyes widened with anxiousness. “Lilah?”
Lilah cast a sigh of relief. “I thought you were Siamised!” Lilah exclaimed. “Did you know a bunch of eleveners attacked us?”
“Siamis himself,” Atan said, “is in Sartor.”
Lilah gasped, then took Atan’s hand. “Come on.”
They found Peitar in the residence wing, where Atan stopped short, blinking when she saw Peitar wielding a paintbrush, busy sloshing black paint over a plaster wall. In the ochre light of late afternoon, the streaks in the paint looked oily.
He turned around, and waved the brush in greeting. At the look on her face, he grinned, and Lilah said, “I’ve been bothering him to redo the throne room all in black marble. You know, veined with gold. It got kind of ruined in the revolution . . .”
“And I’m doing this to demonstrate what an entirely black room might look like,” Peitar said.
Atan nodded, thinking that of course he wouldn’t order servants to paint it, when he knew very well that it was going to have to be unpainted.
Almost a
s if he read her mind, he said in a lower voice, “I pick up the brush every time I need to keep myself busy—”
A bustle at the door interrupted him. Lilah flitted to peer out, then turned back, paling beneath her freckles. “Derek is back,” she said.
Peitar flung the brush into the bucket, where it sent out a glurpy tide of black onto the floor unperceived. “Success? Success?” He could not bear to say the opposite.
The sharp stink of sweat nearly knocked Atan back, as a cluster of filthy, mud- and blood-splattered men entered Peitar’s interview chamber, exhausted after their battle and a three-day headlong gallop.
They collapsed onto the satin-upholstered chairs uninvited, unheeding; so dazed were they that Derek’s gaze crossed Atan’s and, other than the faintest check, passed on with no reaction.
Lilah gripped Derek’s arm. “Atan says Siamis is in Sartor!”
“Peitar,” Derek said. “Kessler Sonscarna is the one leading the invasion.”
Lilah gazed from one to the other. “Kessler? He’s scarier than Siamis,” she exclaimed with heartfelt horror. “He chased us in Sartor—” Lilah was about to remind them of those frightening days before Atan ended the enchantment over Sartor, but she saw that nobody was listening to her.
She sighed as Derek said hoarsely, “We would all have died. If it hadn’t been for a fierce storm. We ran. We ran and left our dead there.” Derek’s face puckered. Tears dripped down his face. He thumbed them impatiently away, and his head dropped back tiredly. “I think half are gone. Maybe more. I must go back.” His voice roughened. “And Disappear the dead. Do it right.”
Peitar said, “The rangers in Diannah Wood will have done that by now, if Norsunder’s warriors are no longer there.”
“They have to be right behind us,” Derek said. “At most a day away, if they were slowed up through the wood. We had our guides, who probably fouled the trails for them.”
“Then we have at least one night to prepare,” Peitar said. “Captain Leonos will raise the city guard, all watches. Including your defenders.” His voice changed to concern. “Derek, you need to get some rest.”
“I can’t sleep,” Derek returned flatly.
Peitar said, “At least eat, then. Mirah-Steward will have seen you enter, and unless I miss my guess, hot food will be along any moment. Surely you will not insult her by turning it down.”
“I can’t,” Derek began—as the door opened, and an impressive row of servants entered, bearing silver trays that trailed enticing smells.
Peitar’s gaze shifted as if he sought answers to unspoken questions, then his expression warmed briefly when he caught sight of Atan. “I beg your pardon. What news did you bring?”
Atan told him in a few short words as servants passed round plates, utensils, and food. Atan refused a plate. “I have to get back,” she said. “Can you report for me to the rest of the alliance? And don’t forget . . .”
“I know. If I lose the kingdom, I retreat to Delfina Valley,” Peitar said with a crooked smile. “So I don’t lose myself, and the kingdom with it, to Siamis’s spell.”
Atan walked to the door, then cast a thoughtful look back. Derek yawned between bites, his red-rimmed eyes marked with exhaustion. He seemed too tired to pursue his grudge, which made her own resentment dissolve. They were just two more weary humans, dealing with a new crisis. Why did it have to take a war to get them there?
She slipped into the hall and transferred home, where she plumped down at her desk until the swirl of tiny dots evaporated from her vision. She counted the pangs in her head until they were faint, then stirred her limbs. A last throb, and she could move.
She opened her door. Where was the duty page? A few steps, and she knew by some subtle sense that something was not right. Yet there was no noise, no clamor, no smell of fire. Through the open windows drifted birdsong.
It was the quiet, the empty hall. Halls were never empty. The duty page was missing. No one was in sight.
The back of Atan’s neck gripped. She whirled around and ran back to her room, then opened the old servants’ door, which led to a narrow stairway, the glowglobes dim. She picked up her skirts and skimmed down the stairs to the stewards’ quarters.
Then she froze in the doorway when she saw Gehlei pass through in the direction of the kitchen without looking right or left. Atan took a few steps in her wake, and glimpsed the senior staff moving about, no one speaking. As if asleep.
As if enchanted.
Horror wrung through her. What now? “The council,” she whispered. Back she ran, using servants’ byways to get to the Star Chamber. She paused outside the door to listen, and heard an unfamiliar man’s voice. A tenor voice, like a singer’s, pleasantly rising and falling—
A hard tug on her skirt jolted her. She looked down into Julian’s face. “Go away,” Julian said, clutching her dirty robe to her. “We don’t want you.”
“We?” Atan repeated, struck in the heart.
“My friends,” Julian said, as her quick fingers lifted the latch to the great door and she darted inside.
Atan heard the laughing male voice say, “Ah, here is our little friend back again.”
She knew who had to be in there, and the fact that no one reacted, no one even responded, meant she was too late. They were enchanted, and because everyone who really ruled the kingdom was inside that room, it meant that everyone in Sartor had fallen under the soft, dreamlike spell along with the council.
Siamis had enchanted Sartor once again.
Atan choked back a sob and mumbled the transfer spell. When the black dots—bigger this time—faded away, she remembered Julian’s angry voice, the push of her little hands. The sickening realization that Julian had not fallen under the spell because she had no loyalty whatsoever to anyone.
Atan covered her face with her hands as sobs wracked her.
“Go ahead. Cry it out.” Tsauderei patted his guest chair invitingly. “Then tell me what happened.”
* * *
Dejain had had magical access to Kessler, back in the days when she was working with him on his mad plot to eradicate bad kings from the world. Since then, she had been very careful not to remind him that she had this access, particularly since she’d found evidence that he was studying magic. Somehow. Without anyone else catching him at it, much less teaching him.
But now there was this direct order from Siamis, who was far too dangerous to cross. She saw no way around transferring directly to Kessler—with a fifty-step margin of safety—if she was to stay out of whatever trouble was brewing, and pretend to be an obedient minion, until she found someone strong enough to take Siamis down.
She transferred. It wasn’t a long distance, but the pain was sharp enough. She found herself in a cave behind a waterfall. When she could trust her body to move, she stepped cautiously into the gloom, toward voices. Kessler’s face, lit by the ruddy leap of a fire, tightened to anger when he saw her. She held her breath, ready to transfer out if he made a move toward his weapons.
But he jerked his chin in dismissal. His captains withdrew, weapons clanking and boots squelching, into what appeared to be a honeycomb of caves.
She did not make the mistake of assuming she was safe. But she pretended she was, as she looked around and tasted the air, registering the loud roar as a violent rainfall. Then made a discovery. She said to Kessler, “It’s not a waterfall, it’s a storm. It has magic in it.”
“I thought lighters did not do that to weather.”
“Someone did.” She took a step toward the fire, hating the chill air. “Siamis has summoned you.”
“Where?”
“Eidervaen. He should have it pacified by now.” She added acidly, “Or so he appeared to think would be the case.” And when he made no move, she said, “The palace in Eidervaen.”
He said, “Do you know the Destination pattern?”
&nb
sp; “Yes.” So he was going to cooperate.
“Take me there.”
This was going to hurt more. But she could not show weakness.
They transferred, both appearing in the cool blue and white vaulting of Sartor’s Destination chamber. The clawing nausea of a double transfer faded enough that she could stalk on watery legs around a corner, then sink against a wall, shivering and shaking. As soon as she could bear it, she used the transfer token in her pocket and returned to Norsunder Base, to recover in peace.
Kessler had already forgotten her. He glanced bemusedly up at the golden sun above the middle panel, the dragons rising on the attack, and a derisive smile twisted his lips. Would they ever want to actually see any of those things? He didn’t think so.
He left and began to search for Siamis. People moved sedately, paying him no heed. So the enchantment had happened again. He turned a corner, figuring he’d look for the most important rooms, but when he reached a marble-banistered stair, he was almost knocked over by a small figure hurtling down.
He backed up a step, a hand half raised, then lowered it when he gazed down into a vaguely familiar small face.
“I know you,” the child said. She barely came up to his middle. Her brown hair was tangled, full of leaves. She clutched some kind of grimy garment to her, looped and wound around her and dragging behind in a filthy train. “I do! You’re the one who almost broke my fingers.”
Kessler laughed. “But I didn’t.” Now he remembered: when he and Dejain were tasked to halt that Landis girl from breaking Sartor’s century-long enchantment that was, apparently, already weakening. No doubt the lighters had made a hero of her anyway.
The child went on. “They were talking about you. They thought I didn’t listen, but I did, when I was riding on your horse.”
Kessler was going to move away, but the girl darted in front of him, her round, droopy eyes intent. “I’m Julian. They want to make me one of Them, and then I’ll be dead. You’re the prince who ran away so you wouldn’t have to be a prince.”
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