Ironarm returned to George and Coram as the thief tied a rough bandage over the wound in Coram’s side. The man-at-arms grinned at Liam, dark eyes glittering in his sweat-soaked face.
“Ye’re late, Dragon.”
Liam smiled grimly. “I was delayed. Where’s Alanna?”
“Back there,” George said tightly. By now he wondered where she had gone. “I have to get to the Hall of Crowns.” Reaching in his purse, he brought up the Jewel.
For a moment Liam stared in the direction George had indicated, clearly wanting to find Alanna. Then he sighed. “The Jewel’s the important thing. Let’s go.”
Coram didn’t even speak. He had a feeling his knight-mistress was no longer in Thom’s rooms, and that he couldn’t follow her down the path she walked now. Together the three men set out at a trot for the Hall of Crowns, George supporting Coram.
Alanna came around slowly. Her skull pounded with the force of her rage when she remembered Si-cham had stripped her of her Gift, loading it all into Jonathan. She did not like the Mithran’s highhanded way of ordering her life, and she planned to tell him so. Rolling onto her stomach, she pushed herself onto all fours. She felt sick and empty—far worse than when Thom “borrowed” her Gift to bring Roger back to life.
Faithful’s yowl and Si-cham’s scream alerted her to danger: the old man struggled with someone at the door. Alanna grabbed a chair, dragging herself to her feet.
A double-headed axe chopped down, biting deep into Si-cham’s collarbone. He dropped. Josiane stood in the doorway, spattered with his blood, trying to work her axe free.
“Why didn’t you blast me, old fool?” she panted.
Alanna knew the answer, although she refused to tell the Princess: if Si-cham had taken that chance, he’d have been open to Roger’s leeching spell. He’d broken the link to Alanna and Jon for the same reason; Roger would have taken his Gift unless he concentrated on his own defense. Now Si-cham was dead. He and his Gift were forever out of Roger’s grasp.
Josiane freed her blade and stepped over the old man’s body, smiling. “He told me you’d be here,” she explained. “He said he didn’t think I could take you, but I was welcome to try. You aren’t doing well, are you?” She inched forward, ready to pounce. Maneuvering for room, Alanna tripped over a footstool. Josiane darted forward, her axe high.
They’d forgotten Faithful. Screeching, he flew into Josiane’s face, clinging as she howled and dropped the axe.
Stop Roger! the cat ordered as Josiane gripped his small body. The Princess hurled him down and stepped with all her might. With Faithful’s agonized cry, strength poured into his mistress. She crouched and lunged, drawing Lightning as she moved. With a single, brutal slash she cut Josiane down. Her new strength pounded in her ears as she shoved the dying woman aside to pick up Faithful.
Time to go home, he cried, and was gone. Gently she placed him on a table.
Her fingers shook as she unbuckled her sword belt, letting it and the sheath drop. With Lightning gripped in her hand, she walked out the door, heading for her last conversation with Duke Roger of Conté.
Coram, George, and Liam arrived in the Hall of Crowns as the fifth quake began. This time the fighting halted as everyone waited to see if the roof would come down. The stone floor of the chamber rolled and shuddered like the deck of a seafaring ship, throwing more than one person to the ground.
The crowds were gone, most escaping through the City Doors: only the combatants remained, each involved in his or her own separate battle for survival. Duke Gareth, Gary, and Myles were all that was left of the circle guarding Jonathan. Raoul and several of the King’s Own fought desperately to stem the flow of Tirragen and Eldorne men coming from the chambers behind the Hall. The Provost and more royal men-at-arms contained a rush of enemies from the main aisle.
Liam quickly appraised the situation and grabbed a pike, going to Raoul’s aid, where the danger of a breakthrough was worst. Coram joined the men around Jon, steadying himself for a long morning. Buri, streaked with dirt and sweat, saluted him with a grin before she and Thayet attacked a cluster of archers. He saw Rispah guarding Eleni, just as he saw several groups of enemies struggling against the invisible ropes George’s mother had bound them with. George thrust the Jewel into Jonathan’s hands and turned to become part of Jon’s protective circle.
The King closed his eyes and reached out with his mind, gripping the Jewel tightly. He called all his magics—his own Gift, the Bazhir desert sorcery, the power of the kings and the land of Tortall that was bound into the crown, the magic of the Dominion Jewel—and he threw them over the length and breadth of Tortall, feeling the Earth’s pain as if his own body were being shattered. Like an ancient tree sending out its myriad roots, he bound each crack and fault with sorcery, gripped the whole to him—and held.
The crown, dedicated to the realm for centuries, blazed. The Jewel shone even brighter than the crown, and the battles raged in the corridors of the palace. Jonathan was part of all of it, his vision reaching everywhere. Being the Voice of the Tribes had prepared him for such a confusing moment, when someone else might have been driven mad by the consciousness of each person, animal, tree, and stone in the realm. Jonathan was able to encompass it, to set the greater part of it aside, with a bit of his awareness to guard it. His chief vision focused on a small, copper-and-gold figure traveling through the bowels of the castle.
The ground floor, the level below Thom’s quarters, consisted of public rooms: the Hall of Crowns, salons, libraries, ballrooms, the banquet room. Alanna bypassed it on one of a hundred staircases without hesitation, her mind and will fixed on the catacombs. Next was the level where everyday business took place: healers, tailors, laundrywomen, scribes, armorers, quartermasters, and mapmakers all worked here. Today this level was empty; Alanna’s feet made the only sound. Next was stores: endless rooms filled with every imaginable supply. This level, too, was silent.
The dungeons and guardrooms were the third level below ground. She heard fighting, but the way to Roger that Si-cham had shown her was a safe distance away from it. Here, the shock that Jonathan had contained found her. She waited after its halt, expecting another: it never came, but the ground shivered continuously, shifting slightly from time to time. Pieces of the ceiling hailed down; the staircase began to exhibit tiny cracks and to lose small pieces.
Jon’s stopped the big quakes, the Mother-shakers, she thought, but how long can the palace—or any building—take this constant stress?
Down Alanna went, her eyes blazing in her tight face. She halted once, to wipe sweaty palms on her shirt. Then she gripped Lightning afresh and moved on.
The length of the stairs increased as she descended; they were broken up by landings, with guardroom off each landing. Since the stair she followed was little used, the guardrooms were shut. Now, approaching the catacombs on the fourth level, she found one blazing with light. She halted a few steps above it, considering her options.
Perhaps the occupant knew she wanted no delays: Alex of Tirragen, silver mail glittering, stepped out onto the landing. His unsheathed sword rested in one black-gauntleted hand. “Just you? I’d’ve thought you’d bring others.”
“I’m in a hurry.” Her eyes sparkled dangerously. “Get out of my way, before he tears the palace down around our ears.”
Shapes moved on the stair below the landing—two big men-at-arms in Tirragen purple-and-black. “Yer lordship—” one rumbled nervously.
“She’s panicking,” Alex snapped, his eyes not leaving Alanna. “Hold your positions!” He indicated the lit room with his blade. “Step inside, lady knight. There’s more space.”
She hesitated, looking from Alex to his men. She wanted to scream with rage, or blast them with her Gift...
She walked inside. The furniture had been shoved into a second chamber; branches of candles lit the main room. “Aren’t you going to have your friends watch?”
“The only witness I need is right here.” He touched his temp
le with a gloved finger. “You can stretch first, if you like.”
“And lose more time? No.”
Alex tried a few lazy passes with his own sword, taunting her. “I’ve waited for this chance.”
Exasperated, she snapped, “You’re crazy, to want to play ’best squire’ at a moment like this.”
Alex moved into place. Both swung their weapons up to “guard.” “Think what you like.”
He attacked savagely, his calm face a violent contrast to his rapidly spinning and slashing blade. Alanna blocked repeatedly, hiding her dismay: after the draining of her Gift, she was a touch slower than she needed to be against an opponent with whom a touch of slowness made all the difference. She fought with her brain, carefully maintaining her defense, watching for Alex to make an error out of his need. She circled, Lightning flowing to stop Alex’s blade each time he thrust or cut inward—high, low, either side. She caught his eyes shifting away from her shoulders; like a novice he was plainly searching for an opening. She smiled grimly.
“No one ever wins fighting defensively,” Alex snarled.
“I’m not the one obsessed with winning,” she gasped, her voice cracking.
Alex faltered. Alanna whipped her blade into a reverse crescent; he blocked jarringly, almost too late. She clenched her teeth and swung immediately into a crescent: as Alex’s sword rose to stop Lightning, Alanna whipped down into a vertical butterfly too fast to watch, scoring lightly across Alex’s middle to bite into his shoulder. The grate of sword on mail made her wince, and she swore for letting her preoccupation with Roger make her forget her opponent’s armor. She lunged back to get away from his counter-cut. They were back to circling as the fanatic gleam deepened in Alex’s eyes.
Alanna scrubbed her free hand dry, then gripped Lightning’s jewel-studded hilt with both hands. Now it was her turn to attack in a series of harsh, downward-chopping blows meant to cleave Alex from crown to sole. He blocked, retreating, until he lunged forward to lock swords body-to-body. As she strained under his downward pressure, Alex snarled and kicked her in the stomach. Alanna yelled and went down, rolling to keep out of his way as he sliced at her. The gold mail across her shoulders grated, and she clenched her teeth against the bruising pain of the impact. Ignoring it, she flipped to an upright stance: Alex lunged in and she countered blindly, Lightning extracting another screech of metal from his armor.
He retreated. She lunged. They exchanged a flurry of blows and blocks, neither gaining an advantage. From the corner of her eye she saw his men-at-arms had disobeyed his order to keep their positions to watch.
A breath too late she saw the complex pass he’d begun. Lightning flew out of her grip into a corner—behind Alex. He leveled his swordpoint at her throat, smiling tightly. “Say farewell, Lioness.”
She edged back. “An honorable opponent would let me get my sword and continue.”
He shook his head. “I learned what I need to know. You were good, I admit that. But I knew I was—”
She moved in a burst of speed, the little she’d kept back. She leaned away from his sword; her left foot curled up and in, then thrust out, slamming into his belly. Alex crashed into the wall. He got up and threw himself at her with a yell of fury.
Liam had taught her only a few kicks and blows, making her practice incessantly. She could not beat a Shang warrior of many years, but her own speed and the endless repetitions caused what she knew to carry the weight of a fully trained Shang. As Alex charged she swung out of the way and kicked again, throwing him against the same spot on the wall. He lunged once more, cross-cutting with a speed she could not dodge, slashing across her cheek and her bare right hand. In the split-second opening in the path of his sword she rammed forward, crushing his windpipe with one fist as she struck his nose with the other, thrusting bone splinters deep into his brain.
They were pressed together so tightly she felt the life flee his body. She backed away hastily, letting him drop. “Is this what it means to be the best, Alex?”
He would never answer.
She seized his blade and spun, determined to finish the guards—but they had fled.
Alanna retrieved Lightning and set off down again. She hadn’t gone far when her body reacted to the killing: she vomited over the stair rail for long moments, heaving dryly. She shook with exhaustion. Her treacherous knees threatened to give at every step; she was scared that the stairs would give way under the constant earth tremors. In spite of everything, she forged on, lightheaded, her jaw set. The remaining distance only seemed endless.
She reached bottom at the rear of the catacombs. Had she chosen to go the proper way, she would have entered several hundred yards from her present spot, at the foot of the gently sloping ramps leading from the palace temples to the tombs. Roald and Lianne’s burial place, newly plastered and decorated, was somewhere near that entrance. Alanna had emerged by tombs three and four hundred years old. Someone had thoughtfully lit the torches. She followed the vision Si-cham gave her, ignoring her growing terror.
The tombs ended, opening onto a great stone floor. In its center, a large, circular design—apparently of white sand—was drawn, its many curls and loops and whirls dizzying to see. On its edge, near her, was a splash of still-wet blood. Si-cham’s, I bet, Alanna thought as she gulped back a surge of bile. This was the variant on the Gate of Idramm normally used to summon elementals, a spell to drain off the Gift of anyone unfortunate enough to step onto it. This was also the spot where Si-cham lost his hand.
Behind the Gate was an abandoned structure. Legend said it was a temple. Roger lounged there against a fallen pillar, arms crossed over his chest. The air around him was filled with bloody fire that glittered evilly on his black silk robe.
He smiled. “I knew you wouldn’t disappoint me. You took longer than I had anticipated.”
Alanna prodded one curl of the Gate with her sword, to find the sand of the design was melted into the rock. White heat flashed up Lightning’s edge; she yelped, pulling the blade away. He was scrutinizing her. Suddenly she knew why. The knight spread her hands with her old, reckless grin. “Didn’t you know, Roger? I’m Giftless. There’s nothing for your Gate to take from me.”
His eyes narrowed. “How did that—ah. Sicham. Now I understand.”
“That’s why your earthquake spell hasn’t succeeded,” she taunted. “Jon’s stopping you. He’s got the Jewel, the crown, my Gift—even magic I bore for Thom. Which means he’s stopping you with some of your own Gift.”
He shrugged. “So that’s why I didn’t have enough to bring this comedy to an early finish. It doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter,” she snapped. “There are no more chances for you, Roger. You’ve bought an ugly death on Traitor’s Hill. When it’s over, I personally will scatter your ashes on the wind!”
“You think I left any of this to chance, dear one? I had a long time to plan. You see, I wasn’t quite dead when they buried me.” She opened her mouth to deny it, but he shook his head. “If we had time, I would explain a powerful working called ’Sorcerer’s Sleep.’ For your purposes, I was dead. For my own—” His face was bleak, terrifying. Then he waved the mood away.
“I planned carefully because you, sweet Lioness, too often escape me—you and my kingly cousin. He studied well, better than when I was his teacher. Where he got power that smells of the desert, I suppose I shall never know.
“You saved yourself from my Gate, but you’re tired. Come within my reach—” He smiled and picked up a blade lying beside him; it was blood-stained. “I need only lop off a small part of you, as I did Si-cham. That bit will give me a tie to your inner self, and thus a clear road to Jonathan and the sorcery he wields.” Alanna paled and stumbled back a step.
Roger put down the knife to walk to the rim of the Gate. “You’ve grown so prudent, it may be you won’t allow me that easy a way. Tell me, then—how long can Jonathan last?”
“Forever!” Alanna threw it at him like a challenge.
?
??Perhaps.” He stepped onto the Gate as the energy whipping through the design tugged at his robe. Silver glittered against black; the Gate’s design was duplicated on his clothes. “If Jonathan musters no other sorcery against me—and all those who might make a difference are accounted for—I need only to wait.” He came forward until he stood at the Gate’s center. “The Earth has her own means of dealing with unbearable pressure. She sheds it, redistributes it, expends it in small tremors. When she can do nothing else, she convulses—and continues to do so, until the pressure is gone. Even the gods cannot stop such an earthquake. Jonathan holds the land, but the pressure of my spell remains. How long, do you think, until that inescapable convulsion begins?”
Alanna felt cold and alone. “You’ll be just as dead,” she croaked.
His smile was frightening. “Indeed, I hope so.”
She gripped her sword, measuring her strength against his. “Why’d you tell me any of this?”
“Because, lady knight, you will share it with me. Did you think I would end it without you?” He chuckled. “I’ll tell you a secret. Years ago, when I was your age, just finding the limits of my power, I took up jewelry making. To each thing I made, I attached a bit of my Gift, to mark it as mine. Necklaces, rings—sword hilts. I even forged swords, to create a masterpiece of a weapon. Why you had to corrupt my design is beyond me.”
“It was warped.”
“You would think so.” He reached out, red fire eddying around his fingers. Voice soft, he said, “With silver and stone I made thee; With Gift and blood I bound thee; With my name I call thee!”
Lightning jumped, straining toward Roger. If she had still carried his original sword, instead of melding it with Lightning for a whole blade, she never could have kept hold of it. As it was, enough of the crystal blade and its hilt remained to wrench her arms as Alanna gripped it. Her cold eyes met his.
“It will come to me eventually,” he said. “And you will follow.”
All her muscles knotted; the scars on her palms broke and bled. She dug in her heels and held. What can I do? she thought, despairing. Cant I make even one decision he hasn’t anticipated? What does he think I’ll do?