by Melanie Rawn
There was a different rhyme for women, of course—Blessed was your mother/In birthing a girl/And grateful your husband/For being his world! That Glenin was Garon’s world was clear in his eyes. He blinked in shock, laughed in delight, and embraced her with adoring arms. Anniyas acquired that smile again.
Glenin watched it grow more and more fixed during the lighting of all three hundred candles, the first three courses of the meal, and the interval in which each Councilmember’s gift was brought in—pretty, useless trinkets unique to each Shir. A carved obsidian horse from Brogdenguard; leather gloves from The Waste; a large bottle of Domburron brandy. Anniyas’s smile positively cemented when Garon unabashedly declared his favorite to be a painted miniature portrait from Gierkenshir—a portrait of Glenin.
The next courses were served. Halfway through, Anniyas excused herself to go wash a bit of sauce from her gray-and-white striped satin gown. In the next interval, more gifts were brought in—most of them insultingly cheap. Nested boxes, a dreadful vase, wine, books (that was a laugh—Garon hadn’t willingly read anything but the numbers on cards since leaving school). The couplet of Senison hounds was more like it, Glenin thought, deciding that hunting would again take up much of Garon’s time from now on. Elsvet, Saints bless her, gave him a book about sailing.
Anniyas hadn’t returned.
Glenin didn’t notice it until the round of gift-giving was over. It was nearly Half-Tenth. After dessert was served Glenin would make her announcement. She glanced at Auvry Feiran, seated across the table chatting pleasantly with ancient Kanen Ellevit. Before she could catch her father’s eye, her husband leaned close to whisper in her ear.
“Beloved, this is the most wonderful day of my life. I adore you. This day is the beginning of everything for us. And for the baby.”
His breath smelled awful, and he was at that stage of drunkenness when sentiment overcomes sense. Glenin drew back with a smile. “Darling, I’m so glad you’re happy. I’m just waiting for your mother to come back so I can tell everyone the news. Where is she?”
“Shall I go find her?”
“No, this is your party, Garon. My father can go look for her.”
“I don’t mind, truly.” He kissed her cheek and smiled at their guests before departing the Malachite Hall.
It was time she mingled again. On her way to the nearest table, she paused to ask her father, low-voiced, what had become of Anniyas. He shook his head. She was making the rounds of the third table when he casually left his seat and slipped out the doors—as many others had done throughout the evening, to blot off spills or repair makeup or relieve themselves.
“Marvelous evening. . . .”
“Exquisite food, Glenin dear. . . .”
“Such a lovely table. . . .”
“So gracious of you to include us. . . .”
“Delicious dinner. . . .”
“Beautiful flowers. . . .”
It went on and on, two hundred and ninety-six variations on the same compliments. She kept track of who was sincere and who was sucking up. In other words, who she would befriend and who she would ruin. The tally was heavily weighted toward ruination.
When she got back to her table, Anniyas was still absent. So was Garon. But her father had returned. She arched a brow; he shrugged and looked puzzled.
The last course was removed. Carts were wheeled in, laden with dessert plates and eight kinds of cake. She tapped playfully at Granon Isidir’s shoulder. “Get me something chocolate!” she commanded with a smile, and went to look for Anniyas herself.
The hallways of Ryka Court were deserted but for a few Guards on duty. Everyone who was anyone was at her party; everyone who was not at the party was in hiding, pretending illness or pressing business. Her high heels clicked a rapid rhythm toward the Octagon Court Ladder. But she changed direction halfway there, a terrible suspicion clenching her guts.
She ran as fast as she could for the albadon. Down ten flights of stairs, along a corridor, around a corner where she’d placed the first of her Wards—
Gone.
All her Wards, and the Minstrel with them. The white cube was shorn of all spells, nothing more than a cold, empty marble box.
That her father had betrayed her was unthinkable. Impossible.
So was the undoing of her spells.
But Anniyas was First Lord of Malerris, Warden of the Loom. She could unweave entire lives, not just the spells and Wards of a smug and arrogant young woman who wasn’t even acknowledged a Lady of Malerris.
By the time she reached the upper halls again there was a stitch in her side. She waited, cursing silently, until she could breathe without wheezing, then headed for her suite. Chava Allard was there, disconsolately beating himself at chess. He glanced up when she entered, hazel eyes brightening.
“Has my father come?”
“What? Oh—no. But don’t worry, Chava.”
“How’s your party? Is it fun? Thank you for sending the dinner, my Lady. It was nice of you to think of me.”
On her way to her sitting room, she threw him an abstracted smile. “I’m glad you liked it. There was plenty to share.”
She unWarded and unlocked a drawer of her desk and extracted the velvet Ladder. It was folded small, but she had no pocket to hide it in. She went through to her bedroom, seizing a dark green cloak from the wardrobe. Draping it over her arm to hide the Ladder clutched in her hand, she returned to the main room.
“From what I’ve heard about it,” Chava said, “you really need a warm cloak in the Malachite Hall.”
“Oh—yes. It’s rather chilly, even with all the people crowded in. I’ve got to hurry, Chava, but I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.”
“Good night, Lady Glenin.”
Distantly, St. Miramili’s struck the quarter. Glenin should be standing at the head table right now, waiting for the servants to pour celebratory sparkling wine into fresh glasses, waiting for the raising of a toast to Garon that she would turn into a toast to her son. Instead, she was muffled in a heavy cloak, hurrying to a corner of Ryka Court she knew to be empty—Anniyas’s own chambers—to claim her prisoner and her rightful place from the First Lord.
31
He knew his hands were undamaged. Unburned. Unbroken. Whole.
But he couldn’t move them.
Not so much as a flexing of the fingers or a twitching of the wrists. His hands dangled at the ends of his arms, numb and senseless lumps of flesh and bone. Useless—like Falundir’s. He bit his lip and refused to believe it.
Anniyas had come for him, unwrapped his hands from the Pain Stake, freed him from the white box. But not from spells. A new one was set with a flick of her fingers, taking what strength was left him and turning his muscles to lead.
A pair of stalwart young men with carefully blank faces carried his limp body to a nearby room. Under the First Councillor’s keen-eyed direction, he was swiftly and thoroughly bathed, shaved, dried, brushed, combed, and dressed in clothes that made him look like an overage offering at a cheap whorehouse. Skintight red trousers; blue shirt left half-open and tucked into a low belt; unbuttoned yellow longvest and matching coif heavily embroidered with red and purple roses; blue cloak with stiff shoulder pads. He was then draped into a chair, still unable to command his body to stand or move.
Anniyas surveyed him critically. “My son’s clothes,” she said, “suit you not at all.”
It defied imagination. Somebody actually wore all this on purpose?
“But never mind,” she went on. “You have two choices, Minstrel. Obey me, or die. I ask very little, as it happens—only that you stand still while we take the Ladder to the Octagon Court. As this is the place you most wish to be, I doubt you’ll try to kill me before we get there. I also assume you know that a Ladder cancels any other magic while it’s working, and that you’re thinking about the moments after we arrive. Let me assure you that my magic is faster
than your fists or your feet.”
The sentence echoed in memory, as if she’d almost quoted something he’d heard before. Something true. He believed her.
“So. Two choices. Do you agree to obey me?” She gestured slightly. “You’ll find you can nod.”
He could, and he did. The spell trickled from his head and face and neck like lightning-charged water. He looked down the length of his sprawled body, lip curling. Her son ought to be executed for sheer bad taste.
“Get him standing,” she ordered, and the young men each slung one of his arms over their shoulders. His head lolled for a moment before he straightened his neck.
“Walk ahead of me. I’ll tell you where to turn. There’s no one about, Minstrel, so don’t try calling for help.”
Now, that was funny. He couldn’t use his voice any more than he could use his hands. His tongue was still in his head and every finger was still intact in bone and sinew, but he was as mute as Falundir, his hands just as useless.
So much for his career as a Minstrel.
He wanted to ask her about Glenin Feiran. He’d thought she’d be the one taking him to Ambrai. As it happened, Anniyas was wrong. The Octagon Court was the last place in the world he wanted to go. Sarra was there. The Captal—whose name he couldn’t quite remember—was there. Bait or bargaining chip, he’d cause them nothing but trouble.
Truly told, he’d been hoping Sarra thought him dead.
He was dragged up a million steps and down miles of corridor, body helpless, brain working ferociously. Too bad Anniyas wasn’t talkative like the Feirans. She’d told him where they were going, and while he had a good notion of what she planned to do with him, she hadn’t supplied any details.
Confrontation was imminent; he’d seen that much in the glittering of her icy-blue eyes. Was she up to facing a Captal who was also a Scholar and another Captal and a Ladder Rat and the First Sword?
They reached an antechamber. Anniyas kicked the door shut. He watched her face, trying to judge her mood. Confident, but grim with it, as if she both anticipated coming events and—no, not feared them, exactly. Not dread, either. He narrowed his gaze, trying to read hers. As his body was placed in the center of the round room and the young men backed off with a bow to Anniyas, he finally had it: she considered this whole matter a vast inconvenience.
Now, that really was funny. He wished he had air enough in his lungs for the belly laugh this deserved. As it was, he could manage only a throaty chuckle. The wooden-faced porters backed off as if they thought him insane. Anniyas stood over him, hands on plump hips, scowling.
“Enjoying yourself, Minstrel?”
More laughter escaped in a snort, and he grinned up at her. Oh, how he wanted to sing “The Long Sun” again, just to see her prickle up and growl like an old boar sow.
“Get out,” she told the guards, who finally wore expressions—of abject relief—as they fled. She waited until the door slammed before continuing, “Cooperate, and I won’t kill you. More, I’ll even let you live. I trust you comprehend the difference.”
Again he nodded, no longer grinning.
“Good.”
She mumbled something under her breath. The spell sluiced down his whole body and he pushed himself shakily to his feet. He teetered a bit on the red leather boots; the heels were two and a half inches high. Evidently Anniyas’s son was as sensitive about his height as he was about his shoulders.
She stepped into the Ladder Circle. “Now,” he heard her whisper. “Tonight.”
The Blanking Ward began to gather around him. Saints, how he wanted the use of his hands—but his arms still worked, and the weakening spell was gone. He slipped around behind her, he flung one arm around her just beneath the ribs, trapping her left elbow against her body and forcing the breath from her lungs in a whoosh. With the other arm, he circled her neck and yanked back.
She tried to suck in air, crying out incoherently, almost voicelessly. He jerked again at her head, furious because this move usually produced swift unconsciousness—and sometimes, if he was really angry, a broken neck. But he hadn’t even half his usual strength, and all he could do was struggle to cut off her wind.
She was tougher than her softness indicated. He sensed the Blanking Ward gather inside the Ladder. She did it slowly, but she was doing it. He wrenched again, desperately, trying to take her head from her body.
The door opened. A glance over his shoulder showed him a handsome, hideously dressed man. Her son, he told himself distractedly. Had to be. No two people could have such consistently execrable taste in clothes.
Anniyas was gasping, her physical struggle weakening even as the Blanking Ward grew in strength. Another instant and she’d work the Ladder, and they’d be in Ambrai.
“Mother!” the man screamed, and rushed forward.
Most of him came to Ambrai with them.
Parts of him did not.
32
“—but I thought Taig would’ve told you what the latest arrivals said about the Rising—”
“—four cities and twenty-two towns—”
“—Neele, Isodir, and Domburr Castle in various stages of rebellion—”
“—hundreds dead, probably thousands by now—”
“—all the Council Guard either killed or driven out of Neele—”
“—Ryka Legion marching to Combel or perhaps Longriding—”
“—spread from Isodir to Firrense soon, or so they think—”
“—damned near spontaneous, and not really our doing—”
“—planned for years, of course, but this is out of anyone’s control—”
“—must stop before the Council can send Feiran with the Guard—”
“—and the Malerrisi!”
“Yes,” Cailet murmured to the remembered voices of that morning and afternoon. “Yes, it will stop. Now. Tonight.”
She’d heard them out, this delegation of Mages, her Mages, nodding every so often, saying little. Then she sent them away with a single order: Construct a Ward as Elomar Adennos will show you. I’ll follow you soon.
It was Eleventh of a fine spring afternoon now. At dusk the Ladymoon would rise, full and strong, white-silver and beautiful, and gaze sternly down on Cailet once more. But until that time, she could sit and think.
The place she chose for it had been shown her yesterday by Sarra. It had a grandiose name—Octonary or Octohedral or some such—but Sarra said Grandmother Allynis thought the emphasis on “eight” was a little too coy, so everyone had simply referred to it as the Hall. Audience chamber, banqueting facility, and reception room, its eight white walls—each corner a point of the compass—rose twenty-five feet high. A line of tiny inlaid turquoise octagons marched at eye-level all the way around the chamber. The floor tiles were solid black octagons, grayed by years of dirt and littered with broken glass. Cailet was reminded of the black mirror. Perhaps this was why she had come here.
She sat on a small step where Generations of Ambrai First Daughters had stood on a splendid Cloister carpet of black and turquoise octagons long since burned to ashes and blown away. Here her ancestors in direct line had governed, feasted, laughed, danced, celebrated victories, heard news of failures. Cailet sat with elbows on her knees, hands loosely clasped, and heard only silence.
She had taken off the red tunic of the Council Guard, and wore now only the uniform’s black trousers, white shirt, and high black boots. Gorynel Desse’s cloak lay beside her, his sword atop it. The hilt gleamed in the sunshine. Gorsha himself was silent within her, as were the others. She was alone, and curiously at peace with it.
At peace, when parts of Lenfell were at war. In the search for Mages and the Rising, thousands had been killed. Somehow, for whatever reason—Sarra would come up with one, she was sure—this had finally sparked the Rising. In four cities and twenty-two major towns, citizens either killed or put to flight the Council Guard, Justices, and ever
y other official of Lenfell’s government.
This frantic lack of organization fretted Sarra. To her mind, word should have gone out as planned, and an orderly, efficient Rising taken place. Cailet had hidden her amusement. So the Rising had a structure for rebellion, did it? As if there could be anything tidy about overthrowing a government. Far better for people to decide on their own: their choice, their timing, their fight. What they did, they did for their own reasons. If these coincided with Rising and Mage Guardian reasons, all well and good. If not . . . well, Sarra would just have to get used to it. Cailet found it bothered her not at all. The main thing was to get it done. Worry about the whys of it later.
But it must be done very soon. Every defiance—successful or not—was a threat to the Malerrisi. They were in roughly the same position as the Mage Guardians: there weren’t enough to spread around putting out brushfires. There weren’t enough to mass an attack. There would be no war pitting Mageborn thousands against each other. Not this time.
It would be just Cailet and Anniyas.
Now. Tonight. Here in the Octagon Court.
She felt the crawl of the sun along her arms, the heat fading as afternoon drew slowly toward night. The Mages—her Mages—believed she would join them soon. With luck, they wouldn’t realize what she was doing until she’d done it.
She’d told Elomar what she meant by a brick wall. She’d shown him how it worked in her own head by having him bounce a gentle probing spell off it. All Mages knew how to do this, he told her, surprised she hadn’t known. But this concept of each Mage sealing a Ward atop or beside another Mage’s. . . .
“A faulty image,” he decided. “Not a brick wall. The stones of the oldest shrines are cut to fit perfectly with the next.”
“You can call it a tongue-and-groove or a dovetailed joint for all I care. Just get it done. You did it in Renig with Elin, Keler, and Tiron. Show the others how. Anyone who balks can leave. And make sure everyone understands that once they’re in, that’s it.”