"Not for me," Thesius protested. "You can't be exiled from somewhere you've never been! The Pacha are plenty interesting enough to keep me busy for a long time!"
"Nor for me," Faro said. "This isn't exile-"
"No, my dearest friend," she told him, with a warm smile. "For you, it is freedom. You may stay with me if you wish, or go if you wish-"
"I'll stay," he said firmly. "Someone has to keep you out of trouble."
That left only Ware, but as he slipped his hand wordlessly into hers, she knew what his answer was. She squeezed the hand, the unhumanly graceful, beloved hand, for a long moment-
Then turned her horse and led them all back to the last Pacha village they had visited.
There was only one thing remaining.
To wait for the Queen's answer to this betrayal.
The answer was not long in coming.
"What?" Adria shrieked, rising from her throne like an enraged cat.
The Pacha agent, still in her leather and paints, repeated her news, although she shrank back a little from the Queen's rage. "Xylina has obtained the stone you wished, but has evidently decided to retain it for herself. She has had it set in gold and wears it about her neck. She has taken up residence with the Sandfox Clan of the Pacha. They are building a home for her and her retinue. There are three men with her: the demon, her personal slave, and another man who looks like her brother."
Adria's anger cooled as swiftly as it had heated, but it did not leave her. Instead, it turned to something colder and more purposeful. She sank back down onto her throne, and considered the matter carefully, dismissing the spy with an absent wave of her hand.
She had hoped that the naive child would bring the shard directly to her, but the demon must have revealed what it was and what its powers were to her, and greed had overcome her. This was unsurprising, really; it was what Adria herself would have done if their positions were reversed.
But there were only three with the girl. The Pacha would not protect her against the Queen's wrath. They had a treaty, after all; they would abide by that treaty. There was only one thing to be done: to go and take the shard from the girl by force.
Adria summoned her majordomo and ordered him to bring Xantippe to the private audience chamber. When the old warrior appeared, Adria studied her for a long time before speaking.
"You once commanded one of the armies, did you not?" she asked.
Xantippe nodded, brusquely. "It was before your reign, my Queen," the older woman replied, "But yes, I did. My record will show that I was a very successful commander."
"Good," Adria replied, leaning forward. "Now-how would you like to participate in both the downfall of Xylina and the destruction of her slave Faro?"
Xantippe's eyes widened slightly, and she smiled.
Less than a day later, two armies marched out of the capital. The first, smaller and faster than the second, and composed entirely of veterans, was commanded by Xantippe, and was intended to cut Xylina's path of escape across Pacha lands. The second, composed mostly of newly-recruited slaves, was commanded by Queen Adria herself. This was the army that Xylina was intended to see.
The other, she was not meant to see until it was too late.
"I'm sorry, Xylina; I should have guessed she would do something like that-" Thesius was babbling; this was the fifth or sixth time that he had repeated his apology, but the second of Adria's forces had come as a terrible surprise to all of them. Xylina could not blame him for babbling. The jaws of the trap had closed on them, before they even realized that it was a trap.
Adria had done exactly what Xylina had expected-in part. She had brought an army across the border, and had come straight for Xylina, presumably to claim the crystal. Xylina had thrown dozens of traps, pitfalls, and dangers into the army's path; Adria had simply used her men to clear her way, marching forward sometimes literally over the bodies of her slaves. The Mazonite Guards with the army had ensured that no man who tried to desert survived the attempt-so the poor slaves had the choice of a probable death, or a certain one.
All four of them were exhausted by their work on defenses; they had not changed their clothing in days, or eaten except whatever they could snatch on the fly. But Xylina was the weariest, for upon her had fallen the burden of conjuration. She had been aided by the shard, but the time and effort still were hers. It had not helped that Ware had insisted on training her in a special way, to learn to better control the new power the shard gave her to affect temperature. So that she could not only freeze water, but heat it to boiling, or heat other substances to the burning point. She understood his logic, for the ability of temperature conjuration was potentially an enormous asset. But the constant practicing was wearing, and she wished he had been willing to let it wait until she didn't have so much else to do.
Xylina had been sickened by the wholesale slaughter; so much so that she had not thought to look for some other trick of Adria's until it was too late. Now their only route of escape was closed-and Adria and the remnants of her army were closing quickly.
There must be something she could do, she thought in desperation. There had to be some other way out of this trap! If only she could challenge the Queen to single-combat...
"Xylina," Ware said urgently, recalling her to her surroundings and the tiny rock-walled room in which the four of them sat, "you must challenge the Queen. It is the only way."
"How can I?" she wailed, despairing. "This is not Mazonia! She is not bound by the rules with a traitor and an oath-breaker! She need not-"
"But you have something she wants, little mistress," Faro pointed out, shrewdly and unexpectedly. "You have the shard. Send to her by the Pacha, and tell her that you will destroy it unless-"
"Unless she agrees to meet me! Of course!" Xylina's despair turned again to hope, and she jumped out of her simple wooden chair to hug Faro around the neck. He blushed, but grinned. Thesius had already run out of the room to fetch one of their Pacha "allies," who were willing to act as messengers and sometimes scouts so long as such duty did not directly involve them in combat.
But no sooner had the messenger been dispatched than Xylina's mood deflated. "I will not need to-" she said to Ware, pleadingly. "Will I? I do not think I could bear to-"
He sighed. "You do realize, beloved, that this is the shard's first effect upon you? That it makes itself so precious to you that you cannot bear the thought of destroying it?"
She nodded, sadly. She did know that, and her intellect rebelled at being so controlled-and yet, controlled it was, and she could no more smash the shard than destroy Ware.
But the demon moved to stand behind her, and put his hands on her shoulders, massaging the tense muscles of her neck and shoulders gently. "Do not worry, beloved. The Queen is more influenced by her desire for the shard than you are. She will think only that you are serious, and seeing yourself lost, your cause in ruins, and yourself about to be killed, that you will be willing to take the shard with you. She will believe your bluff, and she will not know that it is a bluff. You will see."
Before half the morning had passed, the messenger had returned, and all was as Ware had foretold. The Queen had agreed to meet Xylina in a traditional Mazonite challenge. She had even proposed the conditions, all of which both Ware and Xylina agreed were reasonable. With one addition. They were to meet at noon, in an isolated area of Xylina's choosing. All men and Mazonites were to stand out of bowshot range of the site. Xylina was to be permitted to booby-trap the area, so long as she led the Queen inside herself, thus ensuring the safe way in. They were to meet nude, so as to ensure than neither carried in physical weaponry, and the crystal was to be placed on a stone in the middle of the ground, to be taken by the survivor. Other than that-there were to be no rules. Just one modification, concerning the crystal, to make that aspect fair.