The Wizard King

by Julie Dean Smith

  “Yes,” she answered him at last, “being seen together will help prove to the people both in the city and the camp that our alliance is real and not some sort of elaborate hoax. But don’t call them my people, Durek,” she chided gently. “They’re your subjects.”

  Durek’s expression was unreadable. True, they were his subjects, but even Athaya knew that the Lorngeld were subjects that their sovereign had no real power to rule should they not wish to obey him.

  “Shall I go with you?” Mason asked.

  “There’s no need,” Athaya assured him, knowing he needed nothing so much as a few days of peace. “You can be more useful to us here; perhaps you and Master Hedric can see to the castle’s defense if there’s any trouble from the Sarians.”

  “It’s not a question of ‘if’ at this point,” Mason said, his fatigue making him dismal. He turned his eyes to the window as if, even now, he could see Delfarham burning. “It’s only a matter of ‘when.’

  * * * *

  Athaya did not reach her bed until well after midnight. It had been no trivial task to persuade the council that his Majesty should travel anywhere at all in his sister’s company, much less to the heart of her wizards’ camp. What if the Sage’s army was closer to Kaiburn than anyone knew? they bleated. What if the bands of men Adam Graylen had seen were only meant to lure him there, to be killed on sight the moment he arrived? Only Durek’s eventual eruption of ill temper, heavily spiced with curses, had convinced them to grant the journey their sanction, though Athaya clearly sensed that more than one of Durek’s councillors did not expect to see his king survive this bit of folly.

  Shivering, Athaya woke in the still hours before dawn to find the brocade bedcurtains slightly pulled back. A tendril of chill night air snaked through the breach to tingle bare flesh. The pale glow of an oil lamp drew her eye to the windowseat, where Jaren sat cloaked in a heavy fur wrap, squinting at a sheet of parchment by the lamp’s wan light.

  “Jaren?”

  The paper crackled softly in his hands. “Shh, go back to sleep. I thought I’d read for a while… maybe tidy up what we wrote for the journal this morning.”

  Athaya frowned. “You haven’t gotten a decent night’s sleep since we’ve been here.”

  “Can you blame me? In case you haven’t noticed, we’re not exactly well-loved in this place. It’s like trying to doze off in a wolf’s den.”

  Athaya extended her hand; the feathery hair on her forearms bristled in the cool air. “Come back to bed. My feet are cold.”

  “I know,” he said dryly, “that’s the other reason I got up.”

  Athaya dipped her head, allowing a lock of black hair to fall seductively over one shoulder. “Then why not come back and try to warm them for me?”

  Jaren’s eyes skimmed the curve of her shoulder and the rise of one breast, limned with golden lamplight and peeking out from beneath the coverlets like a crescent moon from a cloudbank. Weighing the relative merits of his options, he soon abandoned the parchment on the windowsill. “Yes, your Highness,” he said, smiling as he came to her. He set the oil lamp on the bedstand and slid under the quilted coverlets, out of the brisk night air. Athaya moaned quietly as she sank into the mattress beneath his weight, content as she’d ever been inside these four walls.

  Then Jaren pulled away, abruptly breaking off what had promised to be a long and intoxicating kiss. “What was that?”

  “Nothing,” Athaya murmured dreamily, drawing him back. “Probably just Drianna laying a fire in the other room.”

  “Isn’t it a little early for that?”

  She brushed his throat with her lips, slowly working her way to his mouth. “Don’t be so suspicious.”

  “Athaya, there’s more than one person in this castle who would like nothing more than to have us murdered in our beds. I can’t help but be suspicious.” Despite her groan of protest, he rolled out of bed and crept to the doorway, peering into the outer chamber.

  Where does the servant’s door lead to? he sent urgently, shunning spoken words for the safety of silence.

  Athaya stiffened; Jaren was rarely so cautious without good cause. Past Drianna’s room and down to the courtyard at the base of the tower.

  Jaren lurched back from the door, snatching up his fur wrap and throwing her a dressing gown draped across the foot of the bed. Quick—get up and hide yourself Someone’s coming.

  Drianna?

  Jaren snapped his head to one side. Not unless she’s grown a beard since dinnertime.

  In breathless silence, Athaya fought her way into the gown and retreated to the far corner of the chamber. She called her cloaking spell to shield her from sight, and Jaren ducked beneath it as well, tightly clasping her hand when he joined her there seconds later.

  Mason used a decoy with some substance to it, he sent, but as I don’t have a mirror, a simple illusion will have to do. In the space of three heartbeats, Athaya saw an image of herself and Jaren take shape upon the feather bed. The phantoms slept peacefully in one another’s arms, intangible legs entwined in blankets and incorporeal faces glowing golden by the light of Jaren’s lamp.

  The ruse was finished only seconds before the intruder padded cautiously to the bedside, drawing up sharply at an unexpected squeak from one of his boots. The illusion was hastily crafted, but in the dim lamplight it would have taken a keen eye to notice that the features were not quite true; Athaya’s cheekbones were a shade too sharp and Jaren’s eyes spaced a bit too far apart. And had the intruder looked closely enough, he would have noticed that the slumbering figures’ chests did not rise and fall with breathing, nor did their weight make the slightest indentation in the mattress.

  The hooded figure crept closer, careful to keep his boots silent. He gave a cautious glance to the lamp, looked to the sleeping wizards, and after a moment’s pause, concluded that the feeble light did not disturb their rest, whereas dousing it might do so. He passed by Jaren’s phantom presence and circled to the other side of the bed, closer to Athaya. As he rounded the foot of the bed, he came perilously close to his true victims, unseen not an arm’s length away; both Athaya and Jaren took care not to make the slightest sound so as not to betray their presence until the time was right.

  He’s got a corbal with him, Athaya sent, conscious of the irritating itch beginning to form behind her eyes. More than one, I think. They’re covered, but I can sense them.

  Jaren’s counsel was composed, yet urgent. Then get ready to fight them—now; while you have time. Then, after a moment’s thought, he added: But if he has corbals, why isn’t he using them?

  Athaya lifted one shoulder in a shrug. Maybe he knows I can repel their power. The whole court knows that by now, after what happened at the gates when we arrived. He must have brought the crystals to use as a last resort. They may not hurt me, but they’d keep me from casting spells to defend myself.

  Jaren clutched a fist around impotent air, wishing he had thought to grab a knife as well as his fur wrap. And they’d keep me from doing anything at all.

  Anything magical, Athaya reminded him. Here’s your chance to find out how well you can fight without the luxury of spells. She touched a finger to his forehead and soundlessly mouthed the words of the spell; the next instant, Jaren was wrinkling his nose at the stuffed-up sensation that accompanied the seal, his powers corked inside of him like fine Evarshot wine. Now we’ll be prepared no matter what he does.

  In the little time that remained, Athaya steeled herself against the intruder’s still-hidden crystals, taking command of her thoughts and shaping them into readiness should the need to fight arise. She called on the Succession of Circles to lull herself into familiar self-control, her mind responding to the regimen like a highly trained gelding to the slightest tug on his master’s reins. Credony, lord of the first Circle, twenty-six years; Sidra, lord of the second, eleven years… She envisioned a crystal in her mind’s eye, a dazzling miniature landscape of purple plains and peaks, and envisioned as well the corbal’s hear
t—the source of its power, from which the deceitful messages of pain would come.

  The hooded man’s shadow danced on the wall behind him as he worked the stopper from a slender vial and spattered bloodred liquid over a gleaming silver blade—a peasant’s hunting knife, used to murder beasts. Then bending over the princess’ phantom form, he swept the blade down and across her undefended throat with one brutal stroke. But where the blade should have sliced through tender flesh, it bit instead deep into the pillow, leaving an ugly, crimson gash in the white casing and sending a thin fountain of feathers gushing upward.

  The man gasped and stumbled back, the tip of the knife shaking wildly in his startled grasp. Before he could recover his wits, Athaya eased out of her private mental sanctuary enough to conjure a small witchlight that bathed the room in a dull, reddish glow. The man started at the sudden ball of fire that bloomed above his head and started yet again when Athaya dispersed the cloaking spell that shielded her and Jaren from sight. The illusory figures in the bed faded into nothingness like smoke cleared off by the breeze, and the assassin, realizing the deception, backed away like a cornered dog, baring teeth.

  “You should be flattered, Athaya,” Jaren remarked steadily. His eyes never left the blade in the intruder’s hand, the steel still smeared with poison. “He went for you first.”

  Malcon, lord of the third Circle, seven years…. With the part of her mind not busily priming itself for battle, Athaya considered that she could simply scream; could simply raise an alarm and call the guard. But the knowledge that someone was daring enough to attempt her murder here, not fifty yards from his Majesty’s own apartments, caused her to question whether she would be any safer with Durek’s guardsmen at her side. Durek she trusted, but she could not say the same for his many servants; in fact, it was likely one of the guardsmen who had allowed this man access to her apartment. Perhaps her cries for help would only betray to the assassin’s allies that he had failed and summon others to finish the job.

  Athaya tipped her chin up fearlessly, acutely aware that she did not look particularly imposing in her linen dressing gown. “Who hired you to do this?” If the words sounded garbled in her ears, her speech fouled by the demands of her inner recitations, the assassin was too distracted by his own predicament to notice.

  “The Sage of Sare wants you dead,” the man said, but his answer came a shade too quickly, a shade too rehearsed.

  Athaya’s eyes narrowed. Kyria, lord of the fourth circle, one year… “That wasn’t my question.”

  “If the Sage wanted us killed,” Jaren observed, “then he would have taken the pleasure of doing it himself.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Athaya saw thin tendrils of smoke beginning to curl up from the ruined pillowcase. “Kahnil on the blade,” she remarked evenly, even as her belly twisted itself into a fleshy knot. “You wanted to be sure.”

  Jaren glanced to the knife with newfound caution; the weapon was dangerous enough as it was, but the kahnil made it doubly so. “Hardly the sort of weapon the Sage would have selected, is it?”

  Silently realizing the prearranged ruse wasn’t going to hold, the intruder’s eyes flickered covertly to the doorway to the outer chamber. Athaya and Jaren were blocking his route of escape, but his stony expression revealed that escape was not his sole intent; he had not yet forsaken the bloody service he had come to render. In a blur of pale flesh, gleaming silver, and grubby wool, the man’s hands darted to the purse at his belt and, not bothering with the laces, sliced it open like the belly of a dove, cupping one palm so that the treasure spilled into it like innards. Grinning now, he dangled his prize just above the oil lamp on the bedstand. It was a delicate lady’s necklace worked in silver, bearing one large crystal in the center and two smaller stones on each side—a vaguely familiar design, but one that Athaya had neither the time nor resources to place. The lamplight lent them strength enough, but that gentle glow added to the flare of her witchlight made the crystals inflict twice their power. And now, neither Jaren nor Athaya held the power to snuff the witchlight out.

  Sacret, lord of the fifth…

  “No, no—please! Put it away!”

  Jaren’s performance was so well acted that for a moment Athaya almost believed it herself; believed that the sealing spell she had set upon him had somehow failed. Crying out in pain and begging his attacker to lay aside the crippling weapon, Jaren collapsed to his knees on the floor, catching his balance on the rack of iron tools near the hearth and sending them spilling onto the floor. Then, as the intruder dared a step closer, his grin inching wider, Jaren sprang to his feet, fully lucid and armed with a sharp iron poker, ready to strike the gems from the man’s grasp.

  The ruse was over in mere seconds—though to Athaya’s deadened perceptions it seemed to take far longer. The assassin was startled at Jaren’s unexpected immunity to the crystals, but was well trained in his base art; as Jaren lunged forward, the man’s wrist jerked once, sending the kahnil-streaked blade flying from his hand to bite the flesh of Jaren’s bared shoulder. Jaren let out a low-pitched grunt of pain and stumbled backward, the iron rod clattering uselessly to the flagstones. Hissing in pain—none of it feigned this time—he hurriedly worked out the blade so that its remaining stripes of poison would not leach into his blood.

  The shock of the blow was enough to set Athaya’s focus badly off balance—had the assassin had another second to perfect his aim, the knife would have gone home in Jaren’s heart. She fought to regain control, turning her eyes from the sticky red liquid trickling down Jaren’s arm and coldly instructing herself not to be distracted by the wound, aware that her own presence of mind was the best hope for both of them. Where was I, then? she thought through gritted teeth. Yes, yes… Kyria, lord of the fourth Circle, one year; Sacret, lord of the fifth… But even in her trancelike state, Athaya could tell that Jaren’s pupils were wide and swelling still, proof that what little poison had tainted his blood was already doing its work.

  Satisfied that Jaren would be no further hindrance, the assassin turned to his true prey. Athaya ignored the smug look of success on his face and glared at the necklace as if it were a trio of snarling dogs threatening to bite. I feel nothing from you—any of you! she declared, masking her fear with the forcefulness of the assertion. You cannot harm me now. I know your secrets and you have no power over me.

  Light danced across the jewels’ myriad facets, beautiful in their deadliness, imbuing them with the power to lure her from her fragile sanctuary of control. The crystals called to her in trio, the center stone’s voice the loudest while the smaller two murmured in dreadful consonance. Pain, pain, pain! they cried in their wordless language of emotion. Flee from the danger! Athaya stood her ground against them, but knew she could not do so for very long. She had never tried to resist so many at a time before, and their clamor was frighteningly powerful. Honing her focus further, she gave full attention to the largest stone and began to scry its center—the source of its magiclike power—but the other two corbals remained to niggle at her brain, distracting her with urgent whispers.

  The assassin betrayed no surprise at her own immunity to the gems; someone had clearly warned him what to expect. “Looks as if you don’t have any tricks left, wizard,” he said, inching closer. He ran a lazy tongue over the few teeth he had, as if debating how good a meal she might make once dead. “You’re just like the rest of us now… and only a woman at that.” He looped the necklace over his wrist and produced a short strip of cord from his tunic. “And you’re the one I really came for.”

  Athaya’s throat constricted; she tried to cry out, but as if held in the grip of nightmares, nothing emerged. Aside from wrestling in the dirt with Nicolas as a girl, she knew nothing of hand-to-hand combat; chances were good that if she did not run now, her attacker would kill her with relative ease; not only did he outweigh her by no small margin, but most of her concentration was focused on repelling the corbals’ lure, making her physical reactions as slow as her mental one
s… and slow enough to be fatal.

  “Athaya, go!” came Jaren’s halting call. His breathing grew labored; the poison was taxing him badly. “Don’t stay for me!” He made a painfully useless attempt to shove Athaya from the room, but the assassin merely twisted his lips into a scornful smile and kicked him aside with a well-placed boot to his already injured shoulder.

  That done, the man crept closer with a telltale gleam of triumph in his eyes, backing Athaya against the wall. He coiled the slender cord around his hands, ready to snag it around her throat and pull it taut. Just like…

  She stiffened, remembering; remembering the last night she saw her father alive. In his mad rage, he had tried to strangle her with magic—an invisible rope of thorns and nettles—just as this man wished to do with a twopenny scrap of twine. Then she had called deadly coils of green fire to her rescue, not knowing what she did or how to use them; now she had the mastery of the deadly spell but it resided far beyond her, trapped in paths her divided concentration could not reach.

  The man’s arms were thick with muscle; the cord would be as tight as Kelwyn’s spell had been, draining her of consciousness as quickly as the corbal, did she falter in her guard, would drain her of magic strength. What was she to do? Her mind floundered, torn between two equally urgent tasks. She could not stop fighting the crystals; if she did, she would succumb to their crippling power and be a pathetically easy victim for the man looming before her. Nor could she break away and flee, leaving Jaren vulnerable to further attack. So, not knowing what else to do, Athaya pushed back even harder against the corbals, focusing desperate rage upon them, knowing their power was at least a thing she could control until she thought of something better. Perhaps, she reasoned, if she could quiet their clamor a bit further, it would dispel enough of the sluggishness to allow her mind to slip her a solution… preferably in the next few seconds.