by Tina Daniell
One of the armored men took a step forward, his armor creaking. Kit braced for a challenge, but Lady Mantilla said airily, “Jump out a window for me, will you, Zierold?”
The heavily armored Zierold went to one of the windows curtained with velvet. With ballet-like moves he hoisted himself up to the ledge, turned to salute the Lady, then, without an utterance, hurled himself out the opening. There was a long moment of silence, followed by a muffled crash. Lady Mantilla positively squealed with glee.
Good, Kit thought, one less. She shifted her position slightly so that none of the remaining three Iron Guard stood directly behind her.
“Yes,” continued the Lady, “it was easy to catch up with Radisson and El-Navar, but a little harder to find that sneaky Ursa. He seemed to disappear, be swallowed up. He separated from Cleverdon for a while. We followed Cleverdon, but then he managed to lose us as well. They donned disguises, camped in the outlands, traveled hundreds of miles outside of my purview.
“I found out all I could about Ursa. I had spies and agents everywhere. He never visited the same place twice and always managed to stay one step ahead of us. But in the end I came to know more about him and his habits than his own mother did, and I knew I would eventually track him down.”
She shifted tone, velvety now, like her curtains. “To find out who you were proved harder than locating Ursa, my dear,” the Lady cooed. “Radisson didn’t have a chance to tell me before he died, and El-Navar does not converse very well as a panther. I know from the eyewitnesses that five people were involved, but I never considered that one of them might be a woman. Not until, purely by chance, one of my operatives was traveling on a boat and spotted my beloved’s sword. But even then, we thought it was this fellow, Patric. Of course he claimed to know nothing. But he had to be killed anyway. Just to be on the safe side.”
While the Lady was preoccupied with her tale, Kitiara had edged closer, until she was only a few dozen paces away. With her next step, Kit entered the cone of pale light that enveloped Luz so that, for the first time, the wretched woman could get a clear look at her. And as she did, Lady Mantilla gave a gasp.
She shrank in her chair from horror. Kit was so startled by her reaction that she froze, then took a step backward, retreating into the shadows. Then Kit realized that to the deranged Lady, she, with her short hair and fighting garb, must still resemble Beck Gwathmey.
Kitiara stepped back into the glare, Beck’s sword glinting in the light.
“It is you, then?” whispered the Lady. “It is you! You have the sword.”
Behind her Kitiara could hear the clanking of the armored men as they began to move again. She took another step closer.
“The sword I gave to my beloved …” the Lady moaned plaintively. “His betrothal gift. He was carrying it with him when he was … assassinated.”
“I had nothing to do with that,” Kit said truthfully.
The expression on the Lady’s face changed. She bent over and gave a shiver, then straightened up. Her face contorted with fury. “You will die for your part in it,” Lady Mantilla screeched. “You will die! Die! I have sworn!”
Kit could hear the armored men clanking behind her. She lunged toward the Lady, holding out her sword so that the crazy woman was trapped against her chair.
Close up, Kitiara could see that Lady Mantilla’s face was deeply creased with lines and garishly made up with white powder and rouge. “Call them off,” Kit said tersely.
“You can’t kill me,” the Lady countered. “I’ve been dead for a long, long time. Ever since that day.”
“Call them off,” Kit repeated, bringing the tip of the sword up to the Lady’s neck, glancing nervously over her shoulder. The three remaining guards were gliding closer to her, moving to a different rhythm, slower, more cautiously. Yet they still came forward with that peculiar grace that, despite their heavy armor, they were able to muster. They had formed a tighter triangle now, with Kit in the center, and were gradually closing in.
“Tell me your name!” the lady hissed.
“Kitiara Uth Matar!” Kit proclaimed.
All of a sudden, she heard a low sliding noise that she could not account for, then a high-pitched cry; from behind her, out of a door hidden behind a tapestry, charged someone she had almost forgotten—Colo.
The tracker was clumping on one foot, but made the short distance before anyone could react. She leaped gamely onto the back of one of the Iron Guard, wrapping herself around his neck and trying in vain to find a spot without leaden protection to plunge in her knife or sword.
Kit’s attention was diverted for all of three seconds, yet by the time she had turned back to Lady Mantilla, the woman had gone from the throne. She stood in another part of the room, cackling. Kitiara didn’t have time to ponder this failure, however, because she heard more clanking and wheeled just in time to see the danger, ducking beneath the swing of one of the Iron Guard.
Twirling like a dancer, this Iron Guard leaped behind Kit and aimed another blow at her head. She raised Beck’s sword up in time, and their weapons smote each other with tremendous force. The superior strength of the armored guard drove Kit back and smashed her up against a wall. Reeling, she stabbed upward with her knife, striking only metal.
Colo was faring no better. She was riding the broad back of the Iron Guard who careened around the room, knocking into furniture and walls in an attempt to dislodge her. She hung on stoically, her weapons futile, screaming curses at her enemy.
The third Iron Guard seemed momentarily unsure as to what he should do. He stood closer to Kit and her struggle, but Colo and her opponent covered a lot of ground, swooping and stumbling around the room. This third opponent took tentative steps toward Kit, then whirled and took a few steps toward Colo.
From one side of the hall, Lady Mantilla watched the melee with relish, shouting derision at Kit.
As if in reply, Kitiara feinted with her sword, then suddenly went limp. The Iron Guard, thrusting forward, was not able to break his heavy momentum. He crashed his helmeted head into the wall, and by the time he was able to turn around, Kit had slithered out from under him and was back near the center of the room.
Although somewhat dazed, Colo finally had figured out that her sword was of no use. She let it drop to the floor. Then, with her legs still wrapped around the guards chest, she reached around with two hands and stabbed her knife upward into the exposed eye-slots of the Iron Guard. An unearthly wail of anguish filled the room. He dropped to his knees, clawing at his eye-slots, as Colo held on and drove the knife home repeatedly.
Kit’s antagonist was coming hard at her again, and she backed up, dodging and feinting. Suddenly the Iron Guard took a step back and surprised her with a graceful, almost hypnotic gesture that did not involve his sword arm; he swept some object off a table, some decorative ceramic, and hurled it at her. It smacked Kit neatly in the chin. She buckled and then straightened, bleeding and wobbly.
“Kit!” Colo called out, breathing hard.
Kitiara managed to look over to her and give her a reassuring nod. But as she did, Colo was distracted for too long a moment. The third Iron Guard, who had been circling for a vantage behind her, found his opening and drove his sword into Colo’s back. Her face froze, and she slumped to the floor.
At the same moment, the Iron Guard with a knife stuck in his eye-slots collapsed into a twisted clump.
Kit gave a cry. Turning her back on the guard who had been stalking her, she vaulted across the room to the other side, straight toward the one who had stabbed Colo. The Iron Guard watched her charge with—surprise? Fear? Caught without his sword, which was still embedded in poor Colo’s back, the armored man struggled to pull his knife out of its sheath.
Kitiara knocked him over backward with her momentum, straddling his chest. The armored man flailed at her. But Kit swung the hilt end of Beck’s sword at his face, hard and fast, again and again, pounding the mask into a dented, twisted shape.
The Iron Guard clawed
at his mask, choking and strangling.
Kit got up and, as gently and swiftly as she could, pulled the sword from Colo’s bloody back and rolled her friend over. Colo’s mouth and eyes were open. Her face was pallid.
“Colo …” Kit tried to say something. She had no time to think of appropriate words, though, because she heard clanking. She looked up just in time to roll away from the last Iron Guard, who had heaved himself at her.
His sword fell and hers skittered away, knocked from her grasp by the narrow escape. He had a knife still; Kitiara had no weapon. He lunged at her, but she grabbed his mailed wrist.
They wrestled and writhed across the floor, spitting and cursing into each other’s faces. She was only vaguely aware of Lady Mantilla, crouched and hovering several feet behind her, hissing words. The Iron Guard weighed twice what Kit did. It was all she could do to keep him from crushing her.
They bowled over furniture as they rolled to the middle of the room. The struggle took its toll on both of them, but Kitiara was losing strength more rapidly. Finally the guard shook off Kit’s hold and managed to get on top of her, raising his knife high. Desperately Kit twisted her head to one side. She felt the Iron Guard’s dagger graze her skull and break its point on the floor.
Her left hand groped around on the floor, coming up with nothing. Her right hand reached out and touched the point of Colo’s sword.
The Iron Guard was frantically trying to pull out his other knife when Kit swung the tracker’s sword and smacked him in the head with its hilt. The blow knocked the guard off balance and caused him to drop his second knife.
Kit jumped up and stumbled backward. She managed to steady herself as the Iron Guard rose to his feet. Now she was the one with a sword, and he was weaponless.
Her opponent glided backward toward a wall. Kit wrapped both hands around the sword’s hilt, lowered her head slightly, and charged, thrusting upward at his helmet. Her aim was good. The sword ran through his mouth slit. The guard was effectively pinned against the wall, groaning and twitching.
Kit felt spent; her clothes were torn, nicks and bruises covered her body. It took all the effort she could muster to pull out her sword. The Iron Guard slid to the ground.
Kitiara turned toward Luz Mantilla. She had returned to her chair in the center of the room, encircled by the cone of pale light.
Kit picked up her own sword and approached her warily, scanning the room for other enemies or magical devices. The Lady observed her with a smirk.
“Pity about your friend,” oozed Lady Mantilla. “Colo? Was that her name?”
The Lady made a subtle hand gesture that, if she had not known about such things from Raistlin, Kit might not even have noticed.
Kitiara had come within a few feet of the Lady, but now found herself unable to get any closer. Some sort of force field, something like an invisible wall, stopped her. Stooping, Kit felt around with her hands to try and determine where the barrier started and ended.
“I lost a friend once,” said Lady Mantilla in her baritone. “The only dear friend I ever had. The only person I ever loved, who ever loved me. Now you know how it feels, Kitiara Uth Matar.”
Kit realized, with a shiver of apprehension, that the force field did not protect Lady Mantilla. It was surrounding her. Kit could move only a few feet forward or backward or sideways. The wall rose so high over her that she could not feel its top. She was caught like a spider in a jar.
Looking at Luz Mantilla, Kitiara noted that the Lady’s eerie gaze rested on the sword in Kit’s hands. Where the sword moved, Lady Mantilla’s eyes followed.
“My beautiful sword,” said Lady Mantilla in a low moan, stroking her white, tangled hair abstractly. “My precious gift of love. I should like to have it back. I should like to have it as a … memento.”
“You will get it back, witch,” murmured Kitiara, “right through your heart.”
“What did I ever do to you, Kitiara Uth Matar?” the Lady crooned mournfully, her eyes following the sword as Kit shifted it from one hand to the other. “What did I ever do to you that you would help kill my beloved?”
Kit said nothing.
“I don’t understand you,” said Lady Mantilla. “Now that I know your name, I am even more mystified by your behavior. By your allegiances.”
Kit stared at her. “What do you mean?”
“Your name—Matar. Your father was Gregor Uth Matar?
“What do you know about my father?” asked Kit, her confident tone wavering.
“I told you I gathered a long file on Ursa,” said Lady Mantilla, almost petulantly. “I told you I found out all about him—where he had been, what he had done, how he operated.”
“What are you saying?”
“What am I saying?” repeated Lady Mantilla. “I mean to say, how can you be in league with the turncoat who betrayed your own father?”
“What!”
Lady Mantilla’s eyes revealed complete astonishment. “You don’t know,” she murmured. “You really don’t know.…”
“What trick is this?” Kit took an angry step toward the lady. Futile. The invisible barrier stopped her.
Lady Mantilla tilted her head back and gave a long, high-pitched shriek of laughter. “It was in Whitsett, far to the north, four years ago. Ursa was part of a force of mercenaries that fought a climactic battle under the leadership of your father. Gregor’s men were successful, and when the contest was over it was Gregor who set the terms of surrender. Surrounded by his loyal entourage, he waited in an open field as the other army rode in to relinquish its arms.
“What your father didn’t know was that among his own men there was a faction that thought he did not fairly divide the spoils of his victories, who thought that he was growing rich at their expense. Among them was a man, a first lieutenant who until then had ridden faithfully at Gregor’s side. He organized the faction in a secret conclave. They pledged to betray Gregor. This group, under the leadership of Ursa II Kinth, helped to fake the victory and conspired to arrest Gregor at the peace council.”
“Liar!” Kit shouted, but the accusation was half-hearted. The tale Luz told was very similar to the one that Captain La Cava had told Kit aboard the Silver Gar. Perhaps the Lady had heard the same story and is embellishing it now to set me against Ursa, Kitiara wondered hopefully.
“No,” cooed Lady Mantilla, reading her thoughts, “not a lie. Too terrible a truth to be a lie, don’t you think? Ursa’s men surrounded your father, bound him in leather straps, and delivered him to the other side. Ursa took twice the purse your father had agreed to, apportioned it among the conspirators, and then they split up. Your father was led in chains to the dungeon to await his beheading. What a coincidence that his daughter would turn out to be partnered with his traitor!”
Again Lady Mantilla tilted her head back and let go with screeching laughter. The cackling went on for several minutes before, strangely, it disintegrated into choked sobs.
Kit’s head reeled. She clenched her fists and buried her face in them. As she turned away from the lady, a tremor went through her body. She dropped Beck’s sword.
A rustling made her look up. Lady Mantilla, her face changed, her composure almost placid, had stood. She was pointing toward the door behind the tapestry where Colo had entered.
There was a moment of silence.
Kitiara made a quick movement and kicked Beck’s sword, which lay at her feet, over to her captor. Lady Mantilla stooped to clutch it fervently. As she did, Kit heard a sibilance—the release of the force field. She dashed toward the tapestry door.
Behind her, Lady Mantilla, a strangely serene smile on her face, sat down again, fondling the sword of her beloved.
Kit bounded down the steps, only to come face to face with Ursa, who was squatting at the far end of his cell. The mercenary leaped up excitedly and grabbed the first row of bars.
“Kit! Where’s Colo? Can you get me out of here?”
For a minute, she couldn’t say anything, just stared
at Ursa, remembering when she had first met him, entirely by chance, and how, in unexpected ways, he had marked her life. He looked more dead then alive now; so did she, probably. Yet his eyes gleamed at her. Through it all, he’d kept that likeable, roguish aspect.
In other circumstances she would have been drawn to him, far more than to El-Navar. Yet she knew what Lady Mantilla told her was true, and at this moment she hated Ursa with all her heart.
“What’s the matter?” he asked when she did not respond immediately. “Did something go wrong?”
Kit leaned her back against one wall, and slid to the ground, exhausted. “Colo is dead,” she said simply.
“Dead!” He seemed genuinely shaken. “First Radisson, then El-Navar, Cleverdon, too, I suppose. Now Colo …”
“El-Navar isn’t dead,” she said in a flat tone,
“No?”
“I’ve seen him. He’s in another of these tunnels, changed into a panther. He didn’t recognize me. Lady Mantilla said she tried to kill him but couldn’t.”
“You’ve seen her then! You’ve bested her.” That old grin of his.
“No,” Kit said dully. “She bested me.”
“But,” said Ursa, bewildered. “You’re still alive. How—?”
She stood up. “I gave her Beck’s sword. That’s all she really wanted—the sword that you took from Sir Gwathmey’s son … and gave to me.”
He thought about that for a second. Then Ursa cocked his head and gave a laugh that, in spite of his ragged appearance, bespoke strength. “Good. Now, can you get me out of here?”
She looked at the cell without much enthusiasm. “I can’t,” she said, “and even if I could, I wouldn’t.”
“Why not?” he asked, confused again.
“In return for the sword she told me the truth—about you.”