Inos gave her aunt a hard stare. Kade fell silent.
“Vinisha, you look absolutely enchanting!” Inos said, earning a stammering blush. “Now, Aunt, let’s you and me go and have a little chat?”
Kade nodded in innocent surprise. “If you wish, dear.”
3
The town was shadowed now, the sun just setting. Inos leaned on the cool marble balustrade and stared down at distant sails on the enamel blue of the bay. She felt uncomfortably aware of her own grubby stickiness as Kade came to stand beside her, ignoring the comfy divan she normally favored on this balcony.
“Zana found me an Imperial breviary today!” she said brightly.
Inos muttered congratulations. Kade liked to offer a prayer each night before retiring, but her illuminated pocket prayer-book had remained behind in Krasnegar. Its loss had wounded her deeply, because it had been a gift from her mother and one of her most treasured possessions. Worse, she had discovered that the prayers in Zark were different—and therefore wrong, of course. Kade was old enough to believe that the Gods had the same traditions that she did and would prefer to be invoked in old familiar words. Inos suspected that They might enjoy a little variety after so long. Kade must know most of the prayers by heart, anyway.
To business! “Pray explain that gown,” Inos said. “If I appear in the palace in that, then nothing will remain for me in Zark except a career in belly dancing. Or have you already arranged for my first lessons? ”
“Gracious! Certainly not, dear.” Kade looked shocked and sounded slow-witted. Kade, therefore, was choosing to be inscrutable, and that meant being a good deal less scrutable than a cupful of tea leaves. “Her Majesty planned it all, of course. She has asked that you call on her this evening, and she wants you suitably dressed.”
“Suitably for what?”
“Suitably for a queen, I suppose.” Kade peered up blankly.
Inos felt baffled. Zarkian hunting she thought she now comprehended, but she had not yet got around to learning all the niceties of social life; if there were any, which she doubted. But her ignorance was her own fault. She had seen little of her aunt lately, probably because she had not wished to confess to lack of progress in her pursuit of the sultan. Most evenings she been so exhausted by a day of persecuting wildlife that she had just tumbled into bed as soon as possible.
The royal guests had been granted a standing invitation to Azak’s daily state dinners, but after the first experience had shown what was involved, Inos had pettily declined, protesting that she was not a devotee of belly dancing. Kade, however, had been attending regularly, and must thereby have befriended many of the senior palace ladies in their spectators’ gallery.
Moreover, Kade had been spending her days nibbling cookies with a sorceress. Could she have become so used to the situation that she saw nothing sinister in this odd development with the gown? Or was it Inos who was missing the point? Kade had never been a gossip and in their few brief chats she had volunteered little information about Rasha. Possibly this mysterious appointment would turn out to be just an innocent get-together.
And yet … a full formal ballgown for a private chat? It made no sense. It was wrong for Zark, it was out of character for Rasha. Rasha was quite capable of magicking Inos to a grand Imperial ball in Hub itself in that gown, or she might be planning a ball of her own under the great alabaster dome, a coven of sorcerers and sorceresses from all over Pandemia.
Why bother with a real gown when sorcery could make Inos look like anything or anyone? That question suggested a possible explanation for tonight’s activities that roused whole legions of internal butterflies.
“She didn’t say what she had in mind?”
“She wants you to meet someone, I believe.”
But that time Inos heard a wrong note. “Aunt!” she challenged.
Kade laughed and reached out to squeeze Inos’s hand where it rested on the balustrade. “I’m sorry, dear! I just couldn’t resist teasing. You are to be presented! Such an honor!”
The butterflies took flight again. “Presented to who … whom?”
“His Omnipotence Warlock Olybino, my dear! Warden of the East.” Kade began exuding copious ladylike excitement. “There is news of Krasnegar! Not all good news, I’m afraid, but now the imperor knows what has been happening, and the Four do, of course, even if the capital itself has not officially been informed—mundanely informed, that is—or so her Majesty tells me. Just think, Inos, you and I, here in faraway Zark, know things about Krasnegar that even the Senate in Hub hasn’t heard yet!”
That had been true ever since they arrived. Inos listened with half an ear to the preliminaries, while running her mind’s eye over the possibilities. Surely the warlock would not be coming here? So she must be going to Hub.
Escape from Zark!
Why did that prospect make her feel so uneasy? It should be good news!
Kade was at last getting to the point.
“… Hub yet, not by post, but apparently there is a sorcerer somewhere in northwest Julgistro, and he, or perhaps she, reported what was going on to one of the wardens, Witch Bright Water, because that area is within her sector. She’s North, you see? So the Four met with the imperor.” Kade lowered her voice and glanced around. “His Imperial Majesty is very upset! It’s never happened before in the history of the Impire, the sultana says.”
“What hasn’t?” Inos inquired sweetly.
“Goblins, dear! They’ve burned Pondague and they’re raiding over the pass! Raiding inside the Impire!”
“Good for them!”
The odious Proconsul Yggingi had not only taught the goblins how to ravage, he had moved the entire Pondague garrison to Krasnegar. He had left the door unbarred.
“And of course the imperor … Inos? Inos, did you say—”
“The goblins want revenge, Aunt. Wouldn’t you? If you’d been burned and pillaged?”
Kade blinked uncertainly. “I suppose so. I hope they don’t do any serious damage!”
“I expect they’ll try. Now, what of Krasnegar?”
“Well, no real change, dear. No signs of the jotnar yet. The ice is not out of the bay yet.”
“And what exactly is the sultana planning for tonight?”
A faint hesitation … Kade gazed for a moment at the other bay, the harbor of Arakkaran, a bay that would never know ice.
“Just a meeting with Warlock Olybino, dear, to discuss how you may be restored to your throne.”
Kade was clearly holding back now, and yet what she had said was enough to stir the tiny hairs on Inos’s arms. “What is there to discuss? He has two thousand men in the town, doesn’t he? The warlock of the east controls the legions, doesn’t he? He need do no more than send me back there with a letter to Tribune Oshinkono. Need he?”
“That wouldn’t solve everything,” Kade said firmly.
No, of course it wouldn’t. Not with Kalkor and his raiders due any day, a population divided and perhaps disloyal, a queen who could certainly not be trusted to choose herself a husband.
Now it was Inos who scowled out at the exotic city below her, the waving palms, the moon wakening to silver as day retreated in somber tones of mauve. She ought to be enjoying this adventure at the far end of the world. She ought to be excited at the thought of accompanying the sorceress to great Hub itself, to play the royal role, a queen making a state visit. Or at least she ought to be sighing for the safety and comfort and peace of Kinvale. But instead she was merely very homesick for dowdy little Krasnegar—Krasnegar as it used to be, without invading imps and the looming threat of Nordland. Without sorcery!
Father dead. Rap dead. Possibly many others dead now, if there had been fighting. But it was Krasnegar that stuck to her heart. Like a molasses sandwich. Rap would have said.
“A visit to Hub?” Inos mused. No more need to fret about Azak and Kar and family men. That should be exciting—why wasn’t it?
“Isn’t it wonderful?” Kade enthused. “I have dreamed all m
y life of visiting the capital, as you know, dear. And you are very fortunate to have a powerful sorceress like her Majesty to act on your behalf like this!”
Again a wrong note. Inos peered hard at her so-cheerful aunt.
“What gown will you be wearing?”
A momentary flicker of worry crossed her aunt’s face and disappeared. “I’m not invited. Just you.”
So that was what Kade was hiding!
Inos turned and hugged her, tightly. “I’m not going anywhere without you, Aunt! Absolutely not! After all, you are my chancellor and chamberlain, and so on!”
Kade gave an almost imperceptible sigh. “That’s very kind of you, dear, but of course you must be guided by her Majesty.”
Meaning that a mundane could not resist a sorceress. Whatever Rasha wanted, Inos would have no choice but to comply. Why was Kade not included in the invitation?
Inos released her, suddenly remembering that she was not in a state for closeness, not even polite company. She must certainty wash up and make herself presentable before she was presented to a warlock.
Kalkor the fearsome thane of dark … Foronod the factor … imps and jotnar … even the imperor himself … none of those mattered now. If the wardens wanted Inos to be queen of Krasnegar, then she would be queen of Krasnegar.
And if they refused to support her, then nothing in the world would help.
4
At the third hour of the night, Inos draped her revealing gown in a voluminous cloak, covered her face, and set off across the palace grounds, escorted by four grim family men. They were all fierce, husky types bedecked with things for slashing, stabbing, or throwing; one bore a battle-ax slung on his back. They looked collectively capable of dismembering an Imperial legion, but when they came to the entry to the sorceress’s quarters, they stepped aside to let Inos pass without even trying to conceal their relief that they need not accompany her farther.
She acknowledged their salutes with a regal nod, lifted her skirts, and started to climb the long stone staircase, her heavy train rustling over the treads behind her. She went quickly, so that she could attribute the thumping of her heart to exertion. At the top, she paused to discard the cloak, then set off along the wide corridor, her progress lighted by the restless flames of torches in golden sconces. She must have come this way on her first day, but she had no memory of doing so.
The voluminous samite gown was heavy and awkward, and yet a comforting reminder of similar, lesser gowns she had worn at Kinvale. She felt much more assured in it than she would have been in a Zarkian chaddar.
This was not a game, she reminded herself. This was not like calling on the fearsome Ekka, dowager dragon of Kinvale. This was politics, an affair of war and death.
But how to deal with the sinister Rasha? Kade had reported what little information she had been able to glean about the sorceress. Rasha had been the only daughter of poor fisherfolk in a tiny coastal village. At twelve she had been married off. Sold had been the word she had used to Inos herself, that first day, and a poor family with seven sons and one daughter had probably needed money to feed those more-valuable sons. Small wonder that Sultana Rasha hated men!
Her life had undoubtedly been hard and horrible in ways that Inos could not imagine, and yet somehow she had gained occult power. Now she was effectively ruler of a kingdom and could negotiate with warlocks. There was a great mystery there.
The corridor was barred eventually by massive double doors of metalwork and carven wood, inlaid with bright-fired jewels. Inos paused, irresolute. Should she knock or try to enter? Nestling amid writhing serpents and clawed reptilian monsters, the centerpiece of each great flap was a hideous demonic face with ivory tusks and eyes of some bright yellow stone that gleamed ominously in the wavering light. Inos reached for one golden handle, and the two faces sprang into life. Four eyes rolled around to regard her. She froze.
Lips of mahogany writhed over sycamore fangs, and a sepulchral voice boomed from the face on the left. “State your name and business!”
Kade had warned her, but it was a moment before she found her voice. “I am Queen Inosolan of Krasnegar.”
The faces faded back into inanimate carvings, and the doors creaked open on their own.
She blinked, momentarily blinded by light that seemed as bright as noon. Then her eyes adjusted, and she blinked again. This was the same great circular bedchamber she had seen before, but now the jumble of ugly furniture and grotesque statuary had been removed.
Filmy draperies still floated around the same enormous four-poster bed at the far side, but everything else had changed. The wide expanse of mosaic floor was no longer concealed by rugs. Chairs and tables were few and elegant, vulgar clutter had been replaced by restrained good taste, and the tapestries on the walls now depicted landscapes or demure rural merrymaking. Inos recognized Angilki’s touch, even if at secondhand. Now she knew what Kade had been up to in her days with the sultana.
The moon hung beyond the windows, but its rays were drowned in a flood of what seemed to be sunlight streaming down the central stairwell. Rasha was not present and must therefore be waiting in the upper room. Determined that a queen would not be intimidated, Inos raised her chin in defiance and set off toward the stair. She heard a gentle thump as the doors closed behind her.
Climbing purposefully, she looked up and saw that the white dome itself was the source of the light, blazing as if the sun were directly overhead and shining through the stone. Evil-begotten sorcery! Her curving path brought her within sight of the top, and it was flanked by the basalt panther and the glittery gray wolf, their front paws hooked over the uppermost step, their shiny amber eyes fixed upon her. They continued to watch as she approached and passed between them, but they remained statues.
Kade had been busy in the upper chamber also, transforming cluttered ugliness into elegance, letting the intrinsic beauty of the great circular space speak for itself. A few simple divans and tables assisted, and did not argue. Inos was impressed, thinking that the duke of Kinvale himself would have been hard put to do better, even with the same occult resources. She could see evidences of sorcery: a potted palm whose fronds were writhing more than the usual breeze could account for, a bronze bust that represented a different person every time she looked at it, a device like a blue birdcage that buzzed and hummed. She decided to ignore those.
Three windows imprisoned stars and moonlight within their darkened arches, while the fourth was obscured by the jeweled drapery of Rasha’s magic casement. Inos turned away quickly, oppressed by a sudden jolt of memory. Automatically she glanced over to the big looking glass in its silver frame—the glass that had told her of Rap’s death. Now it was reflecting a distant image of Inos herself, her fine gown of pale green, her golden hair piled high and seeming strangely alien in Arakkaran now, even to her.
A tall girl was standing near it, waiting in solitary grandeur. Inos took a deep breath and walked toward her.
It was Rasha, but so transformed as to be barely recognizable. She seemed little older than Inos herself, but now she was using youth and beauty to depict ice-maiden innocence instead of voluptuous seduction. The high-prowed djinn nose seemed somehow less conspicuous but no less arrogant; thick rosewood-colored hair was piled high and pinned with gems; her gown was a luxurious miracle of yew-green silk, patterned in scrolls of a million tiny rubies. When selecting a style for Inos’s gown, Kade had apparently held back from the extremes of Hub’s current fashion, but Rasha had not. Her scanty lace bodice did nothing to conceal the jutting curves of large and shapely breasts, nor their hot djinn coloring.
Inos could not imagine herself ever appearing in public like that—not in Hub, nor Kinvale, nor Arakkaran.
She can inflame any man to madness, Azak had said. Would men prefer this challenge of haughty majesty or the previous brazen inducement? That might depend on the man, of course, and either would be effective. Much less allure than this had reduced Rap to a babbling jelly.
Inos stop
ped and curtsied.
Rasha nodded approvingly. “It suits you to perfection, child. You are a great beauty.” She had lost her harsh Zarkian accent.
At a loss for words, Inos curtsied again and then blurted, “I shall not be noticed beside yourself, ma’am.”
Rasha registered faint amusement. “I certainly hope not! You know why I summoned you this evening?”
“To call on the warlock of the east, I understand.” Inos wished her mouth was not so shamefully dry, wished she dare clasp her hands to restrain their need to tremble.
“Oh, hardly!” Rasha’s laugh was a genteel tinkle, not the raucous mockery she had used before. “I would not fall into that trap! No, his Omnipotence will be calling on us!”
So Inos need not demand that Kade be summoned to accompany her! A deluge of relief told her how tense she had been at the prospect of arguing with the sorceress. That discovery annoyed her.
Rasha continued her calculating inspection of Inos. “However, he may send a votary in his place. As long as whoever comes is male, you will impress him, in that splendid Imperial-style costume.” There was more than a hint of sarcasm in her tone.
Inos curtsied again.
Rasha sneered. “Think you can impress a warlock, do you?”
Well … yes! Inos was a far more genuine queen than this upstart slattern before her. She had been trained to wear finery and converse with cultivated gentlemen.
“I repeat, your Majesty, that he will not even see me in your company.”
“That depends. If he materializes fully he will. That is why I arranged for your gown—your beauty is mundane and genuine, mine only occult artifice. Even if Olybino does appear in person, he will probably send only a projection of himself, and in that case his ability to penetrate my glamour will be very limited. He will also be harmless.” She shrugged perfect shoulders. “It works both ways, of course. I hardly expect him to reveal his true appearance. What good is sorcery, if it will not nurture vanity?
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