“Yes. You and this man”—the elf gestured at Alfred—“are reported to have kidnapped the prince of Volkaran. There is a price of one hundred thousand barls on your head,” he said to the horrified chamberlain, “two hundred thousand for Hugh the Hand, and the reward is good only if one or both are brought in alive.”
“What about me?” Bane raised his head. “Isn’t there any reward for me?”
“Stephen doesn’t want you back,” Hugh growled.
The prince appeared to consider this, then giggled. “Yes, I guess you’re right,” he said, and returned to his work.
“But this is impossible!” cried Alfred. “I ... I am His Highness’s servant! I came with him to protect him—”
“Exactly,” said Hugh. “That’s just what Stephen didn’t want.”
“I don’t understand any of this,” said Captain Bothar’el. “I hope, for your sakes, you are being honest about the High Realm. I need money to run this ship and pay my crew and I’ve just passed up a lot.”
“Of course it’s true!” cried Bane, lower lip thrust forward in a charming pout. “I am the son of Sinistrad, Mysteriarch of the Seventh House. My father will reward you well!”
“He had better!” said the captain.
The elf glanced around sternly at his prisoners, then stalked out of the hold. Bane, looking after him, laughed and returned to his scribbling.
“I can never go back to Volkaran!” murmured Alfred. “I’m an exile.”
“You’re dead unless we can figure some way out of this,” said Hugh, lighting his pipe with a coal from the small magepot they used to heat their food and to keep themselves warm at night.
“But Stephen wants us alive.”
“Only so that he can have the pleasure of killing us himself.” Bane, looking up at him, smiled slyly. “So if you had gone out there, someone would have recognized you and turned you in. You stayed because of me, didn’t you? I saved your life.”
Hugh made no comment, preferring to pretend that he hadn’t heard. He relapsed into a brooding, thoughtful silence. When his pipe went out, he didn’t notice. Coming back to himself sometime later, he noted that everyone—except Alfred—had fallen asleep. The chamberlain was standing beside the porthole, gazing out into night’s gray gloom. The Hand, rising to stretch his stiff legs, wandered over.
“What do you make of this fellow Haplo?” Hugh asked.
“Why?” Alfred jumped, stared at the assassin fearfully. “Why do you ask?”
“No reason. Calm down. I just wanted to know what you made of him, that’s all.”
“Nothing! I make nothing of him at all! If you will excuse me, sir,” Alfred interrupted when Hugh would have spoken, “I’m very tired. I must get some sleep.”
Now what was that all about? The chamberlain returned to his blanket. He lay down, but Hugh, watching him, saw that Alfred was far from sleep. He lay stiff and rigid, rubbing his hands, tracing unseen lines upon the skin. His face could have been a mask in a play called Terror and Misery.
Hugh could almost pity him.
Almost, but not quite. No, the walls Hugh’d built around himself were still standing, still strong and unbroken. There had been a tiny crack, letting in a ray of light—harsh and painful to eyes accustomed to darkness. But he’d blocked it up, covered it over. Whatever hold the child had on him was magic—something beyond the assassin’s control, at least until they came to the High Realm. Retreating to a corner of his cell, Hugh relaxed and went to sleep.
The flight to the High Realm took the elven dragonship almost two weeks, far longer than it should have, according to Captain Bothar’el’s calculations. What he hadn’t calculated on was that his crew and slaves all tired far too quickly. Magical spells cast by the ship’s wizard enabled them to withstand the reduced air pressure, but he could do nothing to relieve the thinness of the air that left them always feeling as if they were short of breath. The elven crew grew nervous, sullen, and uneasy. It was eerie, flying through the vast and empty sky. Above them, the firmament glittered and sparkled brightly by day, glistened with a pale sheen at night. Even the most gullible person aboard could see that the mysterious firmament was not made of jewels floating in the heavens.
“Chunks of ice,” announced Captain Bothar’el, studying it through the spyglass.
“Ice?” The second in command appeared almost relieved. “That’s stopped us, then, hasn’t it, captain, sir? We can’t fly through ice. We might as well turn back.”
“No.” Bothar’el snapped his spyglass shut. It seemed he was answering himself, replying to some inner argument rather than to the words of his mate. “We’ve come this far. The High Realm is up here somewhere. We’re going to find it.”
“Or die trying,” said the second in command, but he said it to himself. On they sailed, higher and higher, drawing nearer the firmament that hung spanning the sky like a monstrous radiant necklace. They saw no sign of life of any type, let alone a land where dwelt the most highly skilled of human magi.
The air grew colder. They were forced to wear every article of clothing they possessed, and even then it was difficult to keep warm. The crew began to mutter among themselves that this was mad folly, they would all perish up here, either of the cold or stranded in deepsky, lacking the strength to fly back.
After days passed with no sign of life, supplies running short and the cold growing almost unbearable, Captain Bothar’el went below to tell the “guests” he had changed his mind, they were returning to the Mid Realm. He found the prisoners wrapped in every blanket they could get their hands on, huddled over the magepot. The Geg was deathly ill—either from the cold or the change in air pressure. The captain didn’t know what kept him alive. (Alfred did, but took care no one should ask him.)
Bothar’el was just about to make his announcement when a shout hailed him.
“What is it?” The captain ran back to the bridge. “Have we found it?”
“I’d say, sir,” said a stammering midshipman, staring with wide eyes out the porthole, “that it’s found us!”
44
Iridal stood at the casement, gazing out the crystal window. The beauty of the sight before her was incomparable. The opal walls of her castle glistened in the sunlight, adding to the shimmering colors of the magical dome that was the High Realm’s sky. Below the walls, the castle’s parks and forests, carefully sculptured and tended, were traversed by pathways whose crushed marble was pricked by glittering gems. Its beauty could stop the heart. But it was long since Iridal had seen beauty in anything. Her name itself, meaning “of the rainbow,” mocked her. All in her world was gray. As for her heart, it seemed to have stopped beating a long time ago.
“Wife.” The voice came from behind her.
Iridal shivered. She had supposed she was alone in her room. She had not heard the silent padding of slippered feet or the rustling of silken robes that invariably announced the presence of her husband. He had not entered her room for many years and she felt the chill of his presence grip her heart and squeeze it tightly. Fearfully she turned around and faced him.
“What do you want?” Her hand clutched her gown tightly around her, as if the frail fabric might armor her against him. “Why do you come here to my private quarters?”
Sinistrad glanced at the bed with its flowing curtains and tasseled hangings, its silken sheets, smelling faintly of the lavender leaves scattered on them every morning and carefully brushed away each night.
“Since when is a husband forbidden his wife’s bedchamber?”
“Leave me alone!” The chill in her heart seemed to have spread to her lips. She could barely move them.
“Do not worry, wife. For ten cycles I have not come here for the purpose you fear, and I do not intend to resume. Such doings are as repugnant to me as they are you; we might as well all be beasts, rutting in dark and stinking caves. However, it does bring me around to the subject I came to discuss. Our son is coming at last.”