“Oh, goddess, what have I done?” Chiamh muttered. He let go of her arms and looked away from her. “Aurian, I’m sorry,” he said wretchedly. “I Didn’t mean to give you such a dreadful shock. It was all an illusion—it was the only thing I could think of to save myself, not to mention Schiannath and Iscalda.—Why would anybody bother killing me, if they thought I was already dead?”
“You complete and utter bastard,” said Aurian, enunciating very carefully.
“How ever did you do it?”
“Well—you remember back at the fastness when I was holding the mob off with an illusion of a demon—only they discovered it was false and nearly killed me?”
Aurian nodded. “I was just thinking of that. Back then, when I thought you were dead,” she added acidly.
Chiamh flushed. “Well,” he went on hastily, “I almost made the same mistake tonight—but I remembered just in time, and I knew that if Schiannath and Iscalda were to get away, they would need some kind of diversion. For a few seconds I was out of everyone’s sight where that passage twists, and I ducked into a doorway and formed a second illusion.” He grinned at her. “Of me this time. Then when the passage straightened, I let the demon-phantasm falter, and they all rushed forward to kill me—except it wasn’t me, of course.”
He frowned. “I was watching, around the edge of the door—it gave me an awful turn to see myself killed like that....”
“It didn’t do much for me, either,” Aurian growled.
“The hardest part,” Chiamh went on, as though she had never spoken, “was creating the illusory wounds as the swords went in, and managing to stiffen the air to form some resistance to the blades. I doubt that there was enough to be realistic, but they were so fired up with blood-lust by that time, they didn’t notice.” He shrugged. “After they had gone, I realized I didn’t stand a chance of fighting my way down to the beach. I mean I can’t see much, as you know, but I could see quite enough to tell me it was hopeless. I looked down at my phantasm, and it looked so realistically dead—and that was when I thought, who would bother killing a man twice? So I dissolved it and took its place, creating the illusion of the wounds around me, instead. When you came along, I didn’t get a chance to warn you, before you took me out of time....—Aurian, I am sorry. It must have been a dreadful sight.”
The Mage shook her head in wonderment. The glacial calm of deep shock, which had been melting with his words, finally burned away in a flash of anger.
“Damn you, do you know what you put me through?” She hauled back her hand to hit him, but somehow found herself embracing him instead. “Chiamh, I could kill you for frightening me like that—if I wasn’t so bloody glad to see you alive.”
He held her—tentatively at first, then tighter. Aurian rested her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes, buoyed by a wave of relief and a happiness that seemed totally irrational, considering the horrors she had witnessed that night, but was no less real for that. Within moments, both Mage and Windeye were fast asleep in each other’s arms.
Grince, still valiantly manning the oars with more energy than skill, looked down with a scowl at his sleeping passengers. “Why, thank you, Grince, for rowing our blasted boat for us all bloody night,” he muttered sourly. “We really do appreciate it.”
Well, they weren’t the only ones who were tired. With a shrug, he pulled the oars back on board and tried to stow them where the drips would matter least.—Then he climbed over the thwart and curled up in the bows beside Frost and Wolf, who were asleep together. The weather seemed calm enough—surely the boat could take care of itself for an hour or two. . . . That was Grince’s last drowsy thought before he too fell asleep.
25
Zithra and Eyrie
Eliizar paced back and forth along the covered porch of the big, single-story wooden house in the clearing, his booted feet striking a hollow rhythm on the planked floor. Though it was still fairly early in the morning, he thought it best to hurry his wife along a little. The Gods only know, he thought, I’ll never understand why women take so long to dress themselves for a big occasion. “Nereni, aren’t you ready yet?” he shouted through her shuttered window. “The ceremony is due to start at noon—that doesn’t leave us much time to get there.”
There was no answer. Eliizar resumed his pacing for a few minutes, then stopped with a sigh. “What in the Reaper’s name is she doing in there?” he muttered irritably.
“Swordmaster—isn’t it about time you were leaving? Everyone will be waiting.”
Jharav hurried through Nereni’s garden and came clattering up the porch steps, mopping his face and panting from the exertion. Since his near-fatal wounding in the Battle of the Forest, which had finished the tyrant Xiang, he had retired from active service as a soldier and had spent the last ten years radiating contentment and good cheer—and growing a notable belly. “It’s a fair distance to the new palace, and—”
“How many times do I have to tell you—it’s not a palace,” Eliizar snapped.
“Well, what else do you want me to call it?” the grizzled warrior retorted, equally as testily. “You are the ruler of the Forest Lands, even though you make us call you Swordmaster instead of King. Your new home is the big stone building where the ruler will be living—in other words, the palace. If you ever get moved into it, that is. Aren’t you ready yet?”
“I am.” Eliizar gestured in disgust at his new finery. “And because of this accursed ridiculous frippery that you and Nereni insisted I wear, I daren’t even sit down in case I stain or wrinkle something. I look like a whore’s trinket box.. ..”
“You look magnificent,” Jharav told him soothingly. “Just like a Id—”
“If you say that word once more, I’m going to run you through with this jeweled butter-spreader that Nereni and the Skyfolk are pleased to call a sword.” Eliizar scowled at Jharav then glared with his one eye at the offending object, all decorated with gems and chased with gold, that hung in the glittering scabbard at his side. “I can promise you, it’ll be a long, slow death,” he added sourly.
“It’s a good thing you talked her out of the embroidered eye-patch.” The grizzled ex-soldier chuckled. “On top of the sword, that would have been too much. You’re nervous, Eliizar, that’s what ails you. Here—” He undipped a silver flask from his belt. “This should cure you—it’s Ustila’s new brewing of mead. You drink some of that and the world will seem a better place. In the meantime, I had better go and fetch Nereni... .”
“No, I’ll go.” Taking a last deep swig from the flask, Eliizar handed it back to his friend. “You go on up to the pa—to the new house, and tell Amahli we’re coming.”
Jharav went off with a cheerful wave, sipping at his own flask, leaving the Swordmaster alone with his reflections, on the porch of the house in which he and Nereni had spent the whole of their new lives, since they had first come to the forest with nothing but their followers and a dream of living in freedom from tyrants and sorcerers alike.
Eliizar was very proud of the community he had founded, and rightfully so.—From its scant beginnings of a few wooden shanties clustered together like fearful children between the gloomy trees, the settlement had grown apace in size, scope, and population. Its founders, the soldiers and household servants of the ill-fated Prince Harihn, had sent a group of experienced warriors sneaking back to the Khazalim capital of Taibeth in search of friends and family to swell the numbers, and as word of the new colony had spread, others, tired of living under the Khazalim yoke, had dared the lethal jeweled desert and come struggling in to join the autonomous forest community. Even a few runaway slaves had managed to make the perilous crossing, and Eliizar, with memories of Anvar, had made them welcome and declared them free and equal with the rest.