“A shapechanger?” Krythis said, appalled.
“Whatever he is,” came a familiar voice from behind Krythis, “he has killed Lord Lauthin and attacked Rynthala. Now, can we cease bickering and wait for this man to die or else for Tarothin to ready himself to take off the spell?” Sir Pirvan stepped forward. He wore trousers, sword and dagger, helmet, and nothing else. Haimya was not with him.
“Why not Sirbones?” Rynthala asked.
Another familiar voice floated into the chamber. “Because taking a potent spell of illusion off a dying man will overtax a weary healer.”
Krythis turned. “I suppose you are a hale and hearty wizard, friend Tarothin?” The Red Robe sat in a sedan chair borne by two Gryphons and two men-at-arms, all well beweaponed. Several more of each flanked him, led by Haimya and Sir Darin.
Krythis felt his knees turn to half-congealed grease and he would have fallen but for his daughter and wife steadying him on each side. A third set of helping hands turned out to belong to Belot. Sitting with his head down did not restore Krythis’s wits. In that position he had to look at the bodies, until he also put his hands over his face.
At last he could stand. Meanwhile, Tarothin had touched his staff to the dagger, the dead false Belot, and Lord Lauthin.
“The dagger was his, and killed Lauthin,” Tarothin said. “Learning any more waits on breaking the spell, and for that I would ask to be alone. If someone will bring the green embroidered saddlebag from the sedan chair-”
Several pairs of eager hands departed on eager feet. Sir Darin and the true Belot were not among them. They stood on either side of Rynthala, as close as propriety allowed them to stand to a young woman wearing only a blanket. Neither was looking daggers at the other-or indeed, looking at the other at all. Both, however, were looking at Rynthala, as if she was a rare and precious thing that might crumble to powder at a harsh word.
It was probably the first time in years that anyone save her parents had looked at Rynthala in that way. Krythis hoped his daughter could get used to the experience.
A loud groan echoed around the chamber just as the messengers returned with Tarothin’s apparatus. He knelt beside the false Belot, resting his staff on the body.
“This may keep the illusion spell from crumbling the body to powder when it passes off. If it does not, we face more potent magic than I had feared.”
“Black?” someone asked.
“That is the problem,” Tarothin said in his lecture-hall tone. If he was capable of that, waked from sleep at this hour of the night, perhaps he was not so feeble after all. “If this is the spell I think it is, we face a unique combination of magic, drawn from black, white, and red. It-”
At this point the false Belot died, and the illusion spell departed with his spirit.
Krythis would have gladly been somewhere else when all recognized the bloody corpse. The best he could do was not join the gasps of horror, and not look at Sir Pirvan.
After a moment, he could even raise his voice. “Rynthala, you may leave or not, as you wish. The rest of you, I ask that you come with me. It would be well to leave Sir Pirvan and Master Tarothin with Sir Lewin’s body.”
Rynthala was neither awake nor asleep as she sat on the wall and watched the sun touch the battlements of the keep.
She also watched a few intruding besiegers scuttling for safety, across the still-shadowed ground outside the walls. Since the dwarves cleared away most of the old rubble and wall stubs, there was scant cover within bow shot of the citadel. Anyone caught close in by daylight was likely to be a banquet for the carrion birds by nightfall.
She wanted to take away the memory of this whole night. Not only from herself, for she had suffered more harm to her dignity than to her body, but from everyone else. What her father had felt breaking into the room and seeing her, what Sir Pirvan had felt when he recognized the body-those she would have gladly blotted from the record of events, even if it meant burning Astinus the Chronicler’s entire library to ashes!
That power was not likely to come to her, any more than the power to revive Sir Lewin. To do the knight justice, he probably would not wish to live once he learned what his body had done in the guise of another, with his mind turned from the path of honor by a third creature, a mage of immense evil.
It did not matter what Tarothin said. Evil had been wrought this night. Rynthala wanted some way of purging her parents’ home of it, until death itself drew back from the cleansing fury abroad in the citadel of Belkuthas.
“Your pardon, Lady Rynthala.”
She turned, and realized only then that it was daylight and the sun was glinting on Belot’s fair hair. No, it had not turned white overnight-that was a trick of the light.
“If I wanted to punish you,” she said wearily, “the best way would be to keep you up on the wall. Let us go down.”
They descended the stairs and crossed the courtyard. “Lady Rynthala-”
“You have not called me ‘lady’ for a while. Please do not start again.”
She realized then that Belot was at his wit’s end for what to say to her. Perhaps she could begin the purge of Belkuthas by purging him.
So she took him in her arms and kissed him.
He was at first as rigid as wood, and she heard his breath whuff out. Then he relaxed a trifle, and returned the kiss, in a brotherly manner. Finally he stepped out of her arms, and smiled.
“You did not find me-horrible?”
“You were not attacking me last night. I have a bad memory, or so my nurse said, but I can tell you from-the sorcerer’s puppet.” Then an appalling thought struck her. “You did not find my kiss dreadful, I hope?”
“No.”
“Good. I would hate to think I had unmanned you.”
“I doubt that any-woman-has that power.” Some of his old fire was back.
“I am told that all men feel that way when they are young, whether elven or human.”
Belot smiled. “I came to say farewell. I am about to give Nuor of the Black Chisel his first lesson in not falling off a pegasus.”
“I thought you would be leaving tonight.”
“I think it would be best to fly now. Then we can be outside the reach of our enemies by nightfall, or even in time to find a safe landing place.
“I also wanted to say this. Whatever you are, you are a whole-a whole being. Not half this or a quarter that or seven parts of one thing and six of another. You are Rynthala, and that begins and ends what you are.”
Then he kissed her again, longer but just as brotherly.
Rynthala gripped Belot’s shoulders. “If you say that often enough, Belot, you will be kissing many women. Most of them will make you better wives than I would.”
“Is that your answer?”
“It would be if you asked.”
“I was not asking.” He actually grinned, though he could have had no sleep the night before and was facing a long day now. “Do not worry about any noises you may hear from the stable. It will just be me stuffing Nuor into a saddlebag and tying it shut.”
Chapter 18
Well to the north of Belkuthas, a pegasus skimmed over the pine tops, circled, and landed in a small clearing. An elf dismounted and started undoing a bundle slung to one side.
“Ugh,” came from within the bundle. Then other sounds, indicating distress, dismay, and a reluctance to move.
Belot undid the last binding. The bundle fell to earth with a thud. Eloquent dwarven curses replaced the other sounds.
Nuor of the Black Chisel rolled out of the carrying bag and stretched his limbs. Then he stood up. He looked down at the ground and up at the sky, then shuddered.
“Never thought I’d feel ground under my feet again. Are we at the Lintelmakers’ caves yet?”
“Hardly. We have two more flights, each as long as this one.”
Nuor groaned. “That can’t be.”
“It is.” Belot laughed. “Of course, I admit that we have not flown directly north. I swung to the south, and this time I found elves. A good many, and on the march-I think.”