by Melanie Rawn
“Silence!” Taig ordered. “When you took the Rising Oath, you agreed to obey the Captal as if you, too, were a Mage.”
“You’re not the Captal! I am!”
Sarra’s heart stopped.
The Malerrisi began to laugh. “A girl barely old enough to have breasts?” he jeered. “Run along and play with your dollies, little girl. Obey your sacred Rising Oath!”
A shadow crossed the hall ahead, and Sarra drew back behind the vase. Belatedly she recalled the “son running around loose.” I’m not here, you don’t see me, my Wards are too subtle for you to feel—
“Father?” High-pitched with fright, quivering with uncertainty.
“Go on—use the Ladder to Ryka Court. Make sure the chamber is empty, then wait for me.”
“But—”
“Obey the Fifth Lord!” the Malerrisi shouted.
“Y-yes, Father.”
The shadow resolved into a slim young boy at least a head taller than Sarra. He scurried to the Double Spiral and disappeared inside. She heard his clattering descent to the bottom, where the Ladder was.
A few moments later, his father said, “He’s gone.”
“Yes, he is,” said Cailet, to confirm it for Taig.
“And how would you know?” he snapped. “You’ve got about as much magic as one of my father’s Senison hounds!”
“Damn you!” she exclaimed. “You’re the one who wouldn’t feel a spell until it killed him! And this man is going to kill you, Taig, don’t you see?”
“Shut up.” With the sure knowledge of a Ladder Rat’s elder brother, he said to the Malerrisi, “I could have killed him before the Ladder took him, when all other magic is canceled. Take it as a gesture of good faith.”
“I take it as indication of idiocy. By the Weaver, but you people are all fools! Send the girl on her way. I’ve no interest in anyone not Mageborn.”
Sarra put a shoulder to the heavy vase and got it rocking.
“I’m not going!” Cailet shouted. “I’m the Captal, and—”
With a grunt and a wordless apology to her great-grandmother’s Wraith, she finally toppled the vase. The ensuing crash echoed in a sudden silence. Sarra ran through it, making no sound. She entered the Double Spiral, praying she had chosen the correct stair, with her knife in her hand.
She saw Cailet first, one step above Taig, who stood four steps above the Malerrisi. He was tall and brown, with massive muscles gone fleshy, and he held a Mage Globe between his uplifted hands.
The Globe of a Warrior. She knew that without thinking. She threw her knife at the same time the Globe burst and Cailet flung an intercepting sphere to block the gout of crimson fire on its way to Taig’s chest.
She would never know whether the Fifth Lord was more astonished by the knife in his guts or the revelation that this “little girl” was indeed the new Mage Captal. But instinct warned her that Cailet’s Wards were down, as they must be for her to attack this way—as the Malerrisi’s also were, or the knife would never have penetrated his magic.
“Cailet!” she screamed. “Wards!”
The pure white sphere expanded to catch spewing red flames. Blood-colored lightning crawled over its surface in crazy patterns, colliding in showers of sparks. Awed by so much controlled power that contained and controlled Malerrisi magic, Sarra couldn’t take her eyes away.
So she didn’t see the white-handled knife until it was on its way to Cailet’s heart.
Taig saw. He lunged up into its path, right into the flashing sphere of white and crimson. The Globe bounced off his shoulder and sailed over the balustrade, exploding against the far wall. The glare backlit Taig’s body as he fell, the knife embedded in his upper thigh.
The Malerrisi was laughing. With both hands he held Sarra’s knife in his belly, every chortling spasm doing more damage. “There’s another thread cut!”
Sarra screamed for Elomar. Taig was sprawled across the steps, trying to yank the white-handled knife from his thigh. Cailet supported him from behind, ashen-faced. Then all light was gone. Sarra stumbled on a step and fell to her knees. The laughter went on and on, horrifying now in the darkness.
“A good sharp blade—not my Scissors, but it’ll do!”
“Cailet!” Sarra cried, struggling to her feet.
A Mage Globe blossomed behind her. Elomar sidestepped both Sarra and the dying Fifth Lord of Malerris, who lay propped against the wall turning the knife in his own guts. He grinned up at the Healer Mage. “Killed him dead, snippety snip!”
Sarra pushed herself upright and fought the urge to reclaim her knife and slit his throat with it.
“The knife wouldn’t have hurt me.” Cailet cradled Taig’s head against her shoulder. “I was Warded. You didn’t have to—”
“I’m supposed to know that?” he answered with an attempt at a smile. “I’m not Mageborn.”
“And I’m not a child. You could’ve trusted me to—”
“Cailet.” Elomar’s voice was hushed. “The knife. . . .”
“What about it?”
“It’s spelled to go through any Ward as easily as a fish through water.”
“Then why didn’t he use it earlier?” Taig asked, grimacing as Elo put a fingertip to the knife hilt.
“The spell must be renewed after each use.”
Sarra tried and failed to catch her sister’s gaze. “He only had one chance. He couldn’t be sure which of you might be the Captal—or even Mageborn, for that matter.”
“Captal? Her?” The Fifth Lord found this hilariously funny. “A thin little thread of a girl?”
Without looking at him, Cailet said, “You begin to annoy me, Malerrisi.”
Sarra shivered.
“Get this thing out,” Taig said, tugging again at the knife.
Elomar replied softly, “It can’t be removed.”
He bit his lip, white-faced and sweating. For Cailet’s sake, Sarra knew, he said, “Well, then, if you have to cut, at least leave me an interesting scar.”
“It cannot be removed,” the Healer repeated, looking down into Taig’s suddenly wide eyes. “Except by his hand and his magic.”
Taig swallowed hard. “You mean if he doesn’t take it out himself, I’ll walk around the rest of my life with—”
“The rest of your life!” laughed the Fifth Lord.
Sarra sprang for him, realizing at last why he laughed, why he twisted her knife. Cailet was only a moment in joining her. They tried to pry his fingers loose from the hilt without doing any more damage. He struggled, writhing in agony now, but Sarra got one of his hands free and planted her knee on the wrist, cracking bones.
He grinned up at her. “Snip snip!” He finally found his heart with the tip of the blade, and died.
Sarra met Cailet’s eyes over the still body. Behind them, Taig said, “So now I bleed to death.”
Elomar answered, “The spell is a perversion of one I use on surgical blades to ensure a clean cut.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Sarra rasped.
“This spell . . . corrupts.”
Cailet’s eyes squeezed shut.
“How fast?” Taig asked in a steady voice.
“Very.”
“Can you amputate my leg?”
“No. The artery is severed.”
Taig glanced up at Cailet again. Sarra was reminded of another man’s eyes glancing up with that same look, and her heart wrenched inside her breast. Thinking only of her, worried for her, trying to spare her—
Elo went on in a wooden tone, “The corruption is spreading through your blood. I can do nothing.”
“You don’t know that!” Sarra cried. “You can’t be sure—”
“It is a White Knife. The signs carved into it—” His voice broke. “Taig, I’m sorry.”
“I’d rather go cleanly,” the young man responded. “Can you help?”
&nbs
p; “If you wish.”
“Please. It’s starting to hurt in more places than my leg.”
Sarra saw Elomar nod. She reached across the Malerrisi’s lifeless body to grasp Cailet’s shoulder. Black eyes opened and tears streamed down her cheeks.
“Cai?”
Taig’s soft call seemed to go through Cailet’s slight body in a spasm of anguish. Sarra rose and helped her to stand, whispering, “Tell him.”
Soundlessly: “I can’t.”
“You must.” Wisdom from her own hard lessoning in love and pride and waiting until it was too late.
Cailet wrenched free and knelt beside Taig. Took one of his hands. Twined the fingers with her own.
“Take me back to Ostinhold, Cai?”
She nodded mutely.
“Don’t cry, little one. You’re safe. That’s all that matters to me.”
“You always kept me s-safe,” she managed.
“Somebody else will have to do it from now on,” he said gently. “Find him, Caisha. Love him even more than you loved me.”
She shook her head fiercely. “Don’t tell me that, Taig, I can’t!”
“Of course you can. You’ll see. Go on, now.”
“No.”
Taig’s jaw set against pain for a moment. “I don’t want you here, Cai.”
She caught his hand to her chest, her voice feverish. “I can fix it—I can get the knife out—I’m Captal, I know all the spells—”
“Not this one,” Elomar said. “Sarra, take her away from here.”
“Come with me now, dearest,” Sarra murmured, stroking the silky hair.
Cailet jerked away. “No!”
Elomar took her shoulders and lifted her to her feet. She swayed; Sarra held her close. “Go,” he ordered. “Now, Cailet.”
Sarra guided her away into the darkness. They walked, Cailet stumbling, Sarra supporting, through half the Octagon Court before the younger girl suddenly moaned.
“I didn’t tell him!”
“He knew.”
Cailet whimpered softly. Sarra gathered her close and rocked her while she cried, thinking that only two nights ago Cailet had done the same for her.
But Collan was still alive.
Forgive me, she prayed silently, forgive my selfishness—just please let him still be alive. . . .
28
The boy was choking on a gulp of Anniyas’s best brandy when Glenin arrived in the First Councillor’s suite. Her father’s terse note had interrupted a frustrating session of floral redesign for Garon’s Birthingday party: the keepers of the Ryka Court greenhouses could not promise enough Miramili’s Bells for her original plans. Thinking that the Minstrel had finally divulged the new Captal’s name, Glenin hurried to Anniyas’s chambers. Instead of a prized revelation, she was confronted with the shaking form of Chava Allard cowering in an overstuffed armchair.
“Good,” said Anniyas, barely glancing at her. “You’re here. Get the boy talking, Auvry.”
Glenin sank into a nearby chair as her father crouched before the Fifth Lord’s son and said, “Better now, aren’t you? Easy breath. That’s it. Very good. Look at me, Chava, and start at the beginning.”
After a few false starts and several more swallows of brandy, the story came out of him. Vassa Doriaz’s determination and days-long search; the Traitor’s Ladder to the Academy that morning; the stealthy journey to the Octagon Court; the locked storerooms and empty halls; the sudden appearance of some girl Chava hadn’t seen and didn’t know, and Taig Ostin, who claimed to be the new Captal.
“Ridiculous.” Anniyas pushed herself out of a deep sofa and began to pace. “He’s as Mageborn as this table!” She slapped a palm on its jade top for emphasis, rings clacking. “Who was the girl?”
“I—I don’t know, First Councillor. I only heard her voice. Father made me hide and then he told me to wait for him here and that was hours ago—”
“So we have no idea what happened,” Feiran mused, “except that Doriaz was unable to come here as planned.”
“Doriaz,” said Anniyas, “is dead.”
Chava shrank back in the chair with a little cry. Glenin rose and poured him another brandy with her own hands. “Here, you need this,” she said kindly.
“Th-thank you, Lady.”
“Is there anything else?” Anniyas demanded. “Anything the girl said, anything Doriaz or Taig Ostin said, to indicate who the Captal really is?”
Chava sipped, frowned, and shook his head. “No, First Councillor. It all seemed to happen very fast.”
“We’re very pleased that you’re safe,” Feiran began.
“We’re pleased by none of this!” Anniyas snapped. “Find him somewhere to sleep. He can’t go back to Malerris Castle in this state, and I can’t spare either of you to take him.”
“You can stay with me and my husband,” Glenin said. “His valet can share with our new cook.”
“Always the heart of generosity, my dear,” Anniyas remarked—putting Glenin on notice that Anniyas knew full well she wanted the boy under her own eye. Glenin didn’t much care. Not only did she like the boy’s mother and owe her a favor, but Chava was Golonet Doriaz’s nephew and thus precious to her.
“Come with me, Chava,” she said, taking the chill, trembling hand in hers.
“I’m not through with him yet,” said Anniyas.
“With respect, First Councillor, he’s told us all he knows,” Feiran said.
“Which is no more than we knew when he got here! What did Doriaz’s stupidity do but warn the new Captal? Oh, get him out of here. He’s no use to me or anyone. Tomorrow send him back to his mother.”
Glenin put an arm lightly across Chava’s dejected shoulders as they went through the halls. She said nothing, concentrating on the bittersweet fantasy that this was her son, hers and Golonet’s.
When they reached her chambers, she ordered the maid to fetch hot tea and then move Garon’s valet in with the cook and change the bedding. Chava stood listlessly in the center of the room until she told him to sit down.
“It’ll seem odd going to bed this time of the afternoon,” Glenin added, “But in Seinshir it’s the middle of the night.”
“Is it?” he asked, merely to be polite.
“Mm-hm. Nearly Second tomorrow morning. Ladders certainly do play merry old hell with your body’s internal clock.” She smiled down at him, but he wouldn’t look at her. “Chava, pay no attention to Anniyas.”
“But she said my father is dead.”
“If he is, then all Malerris will mourn him. But you haven’t seen his body, have you? And neither has Anniyas.” The maid came in, deposited a tray on a nearby table, and left. Glenin handed the boy a cup of steaming tea. “Here. This will settle your stomach after all that brandy.”
He drank, coughed, and drank some more. When the maid reappeared to signal that all was ready, Glenin set down her own cup and said, “Now to bed with you, Chava. Tomorrow you’ll be back at Malerris Castle with your mother.”
“Can’t I—I mean, would it be all right if I stayed here with you? My father said to wait for him.”
Privately Glenin thought it would be a very long wait, for she agreed with Anniyas: Doriaz must be dead. But the boy’s wide eyes—dark green sparked with gold and brown, and undoubtedly the best feature of his bony face—were pathetic with trust and need, and Glenin was touched. She brushed at a few strands of brown hair that had escaped his coif to curl on his forehead.
“Perhaps you can remain a while. We’ll have to send word to your mother, though. Lady Saris will be frantic.”
“I left word,” he confessed. “I told one of the slaves to tell her in the morning where we’d gone.”
“I’m glad you did. But you know, don’t you, that it was wrong to go anywhere with your father—even if he is Fifth Lord—without first consulting her? Until a man marries, his first duty is always to
his mother.”
“But she wouldn’t’ve let me go.”
Secretly amused by this perfect adolescent logic, Glenin nodded. “I quite understand. Have you finished your tea? Come along, then.”
On the way to the valet’s small chamber, Chava asked, “When my father comes, you’ll tell me, won’t you?”
“Of course. It must’ve been very strange, hearing their voices and feeling their magic but not seeing their faces.”
He yawned mightily before replying, “I did see them, for just a second.”
“Ah.” She indicated the bedgown folded on a chair. “The girl was blonde, wasn’t she?”
“Uh-huh.” Sleepily, he began to undo the buttons of his longvest. “They both were.”
“And dark-eyed,” Glenin murmured, every sense alert. “And quite young.”
“Not much older than me. Isn’t that too young to be Captal?” he asked around another yawn. Then his eyes blinked wide open and he turned to her fearfully. “I forgot about that until just now—I didn’t remember to tell the First Councillor—”
“It’s all right, Chava. You were upset and it’s perfectly understandable that a few things slipped your mind. One blonde girl or two, it doesn’t matter that much.”
“I only saw the other one in the shadows, my Lady. When I was running for the Ladder—”
“I understand,” she soothed. “I’ll tell Anniyas for you, shall I? And that you’re sorry you forgot.”
He nodded gratefully. She smiled, bid him sweet dreaming, and shut the door behind her.
Leaning back against it for a moment, she wondered why he would say the girl was too young to be Captal unless someone else had said she was. Well, she supposed that, and the two blondes—or indeed anything else he’d forgotten—didn’t signify. Glenin knew who the girls were. She also knew that Doriaz was certainly dead after an encounter with the new Captal.
And she had no intention of telling Anniyas anything about it at all. She returned to her desk and, after fingering a thick letter, resumed redesigning floral arrangements, smiling.
She went to bed early, slept soundly and alone, and before dawn the next morning left her suite. Her father had spent most of the night at the albadon, and would be in his own rooms now, resting. She knew his work well, and was easily able to cancel all the complex series of Wards and spells to get inside the cold white box.