House of Shadows (38 page)

“That won’t happen to me,” Mage Ankennes said with assurance.

Nemienne was sure he was right. She might not know exactly what had happened to Lord Miennes, but she was absolutely certain that her master was far more clever. She wondered if the foreign sorcerer realized this, or if he’d been misled by Ankennes’s brawn into thinking the mage dull. She edged around the final curtain of stone, drawing her sister after her, and then at last the girls were able to see into the dragon’s chamber.

The black pool was unchanged. Everything else was different. Mage Ankennes had not carried simple lanterns into the dark, not this time; instead, he had set balls of harsh magelight here and there around the chamber. The white light glared mercilessly off the dragon’s sinuous form, making it look somehow more like stone than ever, flatter and less real.

Mage Ankennes stood nearest to the pool, his back to it and to the dragon. He held a staff in one hand. The staff was heavy and
black, nothing Nemienne recognized. The mage looked tensely exultant. It was easy to see him as a man close to achieving his life’s great ambition.

A circle of light blazed on the stone before the mage, and within the circle stood Leilis and the Kalchesene sorcerer. Nemienne knew the man must be the foreign sorcerer because he was with Leilis, but he didn’t at all resemble the image Nemienne had had in her mind’s eye. She had imagined an old man, at least Ankennes’s age, with a scholar’s fine-drawn intensity. This man was young, not much older than Leilis. He possessed an unusual, long, sharp-featured face that instantly proclaimed him foreign, but he didn’t immediately
look
like a sorcerer. Leilis looked far more stern and proud than he. The Kalchesene only looked frustrated.

Within a separate circle, this one smaller and not so brilliant, stood another young man. Even without Karah’s intake of breath beside her, Nemienne would have known this man for the prince, for royalty was in the haughty set of his shoulders and back. He had pale hair caught back with a clip of jet, dark eyes that at the moment snapped with outrage, and a thin, arrogant mouth. He was standing very straight, his arms crossed over his chest and his jaw set.

“He looks so alone!” whispered Karah.

This, although she supposed it was true, would not have been Nemienne’s first thought. She hissed, “Shush!”

“Fulfill my requirement,” Ankennes said in a reasonable tone, “and there’s no reason you shouldn’t return to Kalches with perfect liberty and health. I may be a ruthless Lonne conspirator, but why should that matter to you? A Kalchesene bardic sorcerer surely hasn’t any deep concern for the well-being of the Seriantes, head or tail.”

The foreigner shrugged. “Perhaps I’ve little concern for the Seriantes, but less interest still in accommodating the murderous whim of a Lonne mage.”

Prince Tepres tilted his head to one side and said in a quick fierce voice, “Yes, Ankennes, do explain your odd
whim
to us all.
I’m certain we are all passionately interested to know your purpose.”

Mage Ankennes completely ignored the prince. He said to the young sorcerer, “I would prefer to harness your peculiar magic to my ends, but, believe me, there are other ways. You’ll play death for the Dragon’s heir and return unharmed to Kalches, or you’ll die first and he’ll still follow. Well?”

“Taudde, you can’t,” Leilis said in a low, passionate voice to the sorcerer. Her tone was odd: She spoke to the foreigner as though she had not only an interest in the outcome of this decision but a right to dictate it. She said, “It doesn’t even matter whether Ankennes can really murder the prince without you or not, and I’m not so sure he can or why would he complicate everything by forcing you to do it? But it matters to you, just you—as well as to, well, everybody else. It would be worse if you murdered the prince than if Mage Ankennes does it.”

The sorcerer tilted his head toward Leilis and listened to her as though he really cared about her opinion.

Mage Ankennes said with exaggerated patience, “The romance of the young! I assure you, Lord Chontas, the prince will be just as dead whoever kills him. So why not live? Play his death for me.”

The young sorcerer gave Ankennes a look of disdain. “You’ve made pipes of your own, then? But even if I would play one set of pipes, do you believe the prince is so foolish as to play the other set? Under any compulsion?”

“Oh, I’m sure he wouldn’t,” Mage Ankennes said drily. “Fortunately, his cooperation isn’t required.”

“Aware or unaware, the cooperation of the one to be ensorcelled is always required,” the foreigner began, and then stopped.

Mage Ankennes was holding a thin white flute out to him. Nemienne knew, with a creeping horror even though she didn’t understand why she was so sure, that this flute had been made of bone. She guessed further that it had been made from old, brittle bone—from
Seriantes
bone, though how the mage would have come to possess such a bone she could not begin to guess.

“He went to the tomb on Kerre Taum,” Karah breathed next to her. She sounded sickened, at least as sickened as Nemienne felt. “He stole a bone from one of the Seriantes kings—from Tepres’s great-great-grandfather…”

Nemienne had not even known there was a tomb of kings on Kerre Taum, but the idea of Mage Ankennes slipping into a tomb to steal bones was horrible. But horribly believable. If Ankennes
had
stolen a bone from the first Dragon of Lirionne, that would be… well, besides horrible, the flute he’d made would probably be
far
too suitable to the mage’s current purpose.

“This,” Ankennes was saying, “is not an instrument that requires the cooperation of anyone but a bardic sorcerer. I might even be able to play it myself. But I would prefer to use my strength elsewhere. You will play it.”

“You made that?” The foreigner sounded appalled, as well as shocked. “
You
made it?”

“Did you assume Kalches had a monopoly on bardic sorcery?”

“We have a monopoly on bardic training.” The foreigner sounded dismayed. “Is that flute grounded? Did you obtain permission of the, the donor?”

“It was a little late to ask permission, don’t you think?” Now Ankennes sounded almost amused. “I’m not entirely untrained, however. I am acquainted with the limitations with which you Kalchesene sorcerers hedge yourselves about. Charming, to be sure, but unnecessary when you use sea magic and good solid magecraft to compensate for the inherent limitations of bardic sorcery. Take it!” He threw the bone flute through the circle of light that surrounded the foreigner.

The sorcerer, apparently quite by reflex, caught it. Then he quickly tried to snap it in two, arms and shoulders flexing, but he didn’t seem surprised when the slim flute resisted his effort. After a moment he looked back at Mage Ankennes. His expression was neutral, but Nemienne thought there was fury behind the neutrality. He said, “You think I’ll play this dead-bone pipe? For you?”

“Oh, come.” In contrast to the young sorcerer, Ankennes
sounded simply matter-of-fact. “You have already demonstrated your willingness. What difference if you do away with the young prince for Miennes or for me?”

Prince Tepres said steadily, “Lord Chontas Taudde ser Omientes, I swear I will forgive any previous acts of yours in Lirionne if you will work on my behalf tonight.”

“Play, and I will see to it that no one suspects your hand,” said the mage. “Or do not, as you please, and I’ll play that flute myself, and then give it to the Dragon of Lirionne as evidence of your guilt. What do you suppose the Dragon will do,” he asked impatiently, “when he believes Kalches sent a sorcerer here, despite the Brenedde Treaty, to murder his last legitimate son? Kalches will look back on the war Geriodde Nerenne ken Seriantes ended fifteen years ago as on the mere breeze that precedes the storm.”

There was a silence. The Kalchesene straightened his shoulders and began, “You may be surprised at what the Dragon will believe—”

“He’s going to play it,” Karah whispered, with an agonized glance at the prince.

Nemienne wasn’t so sure. She thought that the foreigner might be proud enough that he would continue to refuse, no matter what threat Ankennes might make. As the pause lengthened, she found herself becoming more and more sure of it. But she also thought it would all go wrong if he did—Mage Ankennes was
prepared
for that refusal. “Look,” she whispered back, “If he does—if he
does
play that flute—Karah,
you
be ready to hold the prince in this world. We’ll get you into that circle, and whatever you do, don’t let go of the prince! You have to be his anchor—you have to hold hard to what you love, but remember I’m here, too! I’ll try to hold you, but you have to hold onto me, too! And be sure you give that kitten to the prince, all right?”

“What? Nemienne—”

“Just be ready to hold the prince! And don’t forget about the kitten!” As the foreigner drew a breath to speak, Nemienne caught her sister’s hand, scooped up the kitten herself, and pulled a
startled Karah after her into the light. Enkea curled her tail around her feet and sat behind them like a statue in the dimness.

Their sudden appearance got everyone’s attention. The young Kalchesene looked mostly at Karah, and he seemed furious. Leilis looked momentarily horrified, then went expressionless, as though she’d donned a mask. Prince Tepres, drawing a shocked breath, took a step toward the edge of his prisoning circle and put out his hands as though he meant to try to push through the light. But he stopped without touching it.

Mage Ankennes was not pleased to see the girls. “What is this?” he demanded of Nemienne, visibly trying to decide whether to be furious or merely annoyed.

“I had to, to come. To see,” Nemienne explained awkwardly, trying to sound young and ignorant. This was not at all difficult.

“
How
did you come?” Ankennes asked next.

“From Cloisonné House,” Nemienne explained, glad to have a ready excuse for bringing Karah. “Cloisonné House just, just echoes—all through—with ties to these caverns, you know. You can walk out of Cloisonné House right into shadow. Didn’t you know?”

Ankennes frowned at her, but now he seemed more interested than angry.

Karah, behind Nemienne, had tried at first to shrink into Nemienne’s shadow. But now she abruptly straightened her shoulders and stepped out in front of her sister, looking outraged, but in a surprisingly adult, elegant, keiso sort of way. “How dare you!” she exclaimed. “Don’t you have any shame? Trying to make somebody else do your murder for you!”

Mage Ankennes snorted, a rough sound that was almost a laugh. “Ignorant child! You would do better to be silent until you know whereof you speak.” He turned away dismissively, back toward Nemienne. “Come over here,” he commanded her.

Nemienne hesitated. “And Karah? She wants to be with the prince, she says—”

“Your sister’s presence doesn’t matter. She can’t interfere,” the
mage said shortly, and added to Karah, “You may certainly join Prince Tepres, if you wish.”

Nemienne put the kitten into her sister’s hands and gave her a little shove toward the prince’s prison. Karah lifted her chin, gave Ankennes a scornful look, and walked gracefully across the uneven floor of the cavern toward Prince Tepres. Her kitten climbed to a perch on her shoulder.

“No!” the prince said sharply, lifting a warding hand toward her. “Ankennes—”

“The girl won’t be harmed by your death,” the mage assured him impatiently. “I don’t pursue the deaths of innocents.”

Karah reached the prisoning circle and stopped, trying to decide how to enter it.

“Don’t touch it—it will burn through all your bones,” Prince Tepres warned her in a low voice, and put out a hand almost but not quite to the circle. Karah bit her lip and matched his gesture from her side.

“How many innocents do you think will die if the Seriantes are destroyed?” the foreigner inquired of Ankennes, his tone of academic inquiry underlain with contempt. “That is your intent, is it not? To use the prince’s death as a wedge against the family entire? And when the Seriantes are destroyed, what then? Do you care nothing for Lirionne?”

Ankennes waved a dismissive hand. “I hardly expected a Kalchesene to be dismayed at disorder in Lirionne. In any case, the side effects will be unfortunate, but they are unavoidable. Negative effects must sometimes be accepted to accomplish a great good.”

“How comforting to us all,” Leilis said tartly, “that a great man such as yourself should see so clearly the path we should all be compelled to take. I’m sure that the survivors of the wars and riots will sing praises to your name.”

The mage glanced her way and said simply, “I do not care for the opinions of the ignorant.” His tone was perfectly matter-of-fact. He was not trying to insult Leilis, Nemienne realized. He
genuinely did not care about her opinion, no more than if she had been a horse or dog.

Prince Tepres said sharply, “How can you think it right to do what you are about to do? Are you not a man of Lonne? What has my family done that is so terrible that you would wreak vengeance on your own country?”

Ankennes, harassed, snapped, “Vengeance is not my aim—nations and families are all ephemeral—I do not expect a Seriantes scion to understand greater necessities that overwhelm the transient welfare of his own small country.” He added, to Karah, “Join your young prince, then. You may have a moment to make your farewells.” At his gesture, the circle of light around Prince Tepres suddenly flickered and expanded to encompass Karah. She gasped and shrank back, and the kitten hissed, but the movement of the circle had been very quick and was finished almost before either of them had time to be frightened.