She did not cry out. She did not fall. She stood as erect as ever, utterly motionless, transfixed by whatever she was experiencing: transported, it would seem, to some far-off realm.
There was no indication that the helmet was harming her. But a frown appeared on her smooth white forehead as the moments went on, and her lips tightened and turned downward in a grim expression that Dekkeret had never seen on her face before, and when, after what had seemed to him like an eternity, she finally raised the helmet from her brow and handed it back to Dinitak, there was the barest hint of a tremor in her fingers.
“Extraordinary,” she said. Her voice sounded deeper than usual, almost hoarse. She pointed to her circlet, lying before her on a table. “It makes this seem like a toy.”
“What was it like, mother? Can you describe it?” Prestimion asked.
“You would have to put it on yourself to understand. And you are far from ready for that.” Her gaze came to rest on young Barjazid. “I felt your father’s presence. I touched his mind with mine.” That was all she seemed to want to say about her contact with the elder Barjazid; but Dinitak’s face grew stern and dark as though he could understand precisely what she must have felt. Turning again to Prestimion, she added, “I encountered the Procurator’s mind too. He is a demon, that man.”
“You can actually identify individual minds, your worship?” Dekkeret asked.
“Those two stood out like beacons,” the Lady replied. “But yes, yes, I think I could find others, with some practice. I sensed the emanations of Septach Melayn farther to the east—I do think it was he I touched—and perhaps Gialaurys, or it might have been Navigorn. They are moving toward him through the most terrible of jungles.”
“What of my wife? And Akbalik?”
The Lady Therissa shook her head. “I made no attempt to rove as far from here as they must be by now.” And, to Dinitak: “I found your father so easily because he was wearing the helmet too. When I cast my mind forth to see what I could find, the first thing I felt was the mental broadcast coming from him. The one he has is more powerful than this, isn’t it, boy?”
“It is, ma’am, yes. A later model. I didn’t dare try to take it: it never leaves his side.”
“He’s employing it to spread the madness, just as we feared. I saw how easily that can be done. The spell of forgetfulness that you had the mages cast at the end of the war, Prestimion: just as you said, it created places of impairment in many minds, structural weaknesses, easily breached. Not much stress is needed to break through them. And if this man, using his helmet, simply touches such people—”
A sound that seemed almost to be one of pain came from Prestimion. “Mother, this has to be stopped!”
His anguish was profound. Dekkeret stared at him in horror.
“That may not be so simple,” said Maundigand-Klimd somberly. “He is using the helmet to defend himself and his master against attack, is he not, Lady Therissa?”
“Yes. You sensed that, didn’t you? He’s setting up some kind of shield that made it difficult for me to make contact with him. Even when I did at last penetrate it, I met with great murkiness. And could not tell you, within five hundred miles, where his camp is located.”
“Of course you couldn’t,” Prestimion said. “There’s every likelihood that Barjazid’s using the helmet to keep Dantirya Sambail’s camp concealed from attackers. Akbalik spoke of that. ‘A cloud of unknowingness,’ he called it. He thought the Procurator might be using a magus to create it for him with some sort of incantation. But then, when I told him Dekkeret’s tale of his encounter with Barjazid and his helmet in Suvrael, Akbalik suggested that Dantirya Sam-bail’s constant disappearances were probably Barjazid’s work.”
“You may be certain of it, my lord,” said Dinitak. “It is no difficult thing to use the helmet to cast this cloud of unknowingness, as you term it, over someone’s mind. I could do it myself. I could stand right here and you would think I had vanished before your eyes.”
Prestimion turned toward the boy. “Do you think,” he said, “that one of these helmets could be used to counteract the power of another?”
“That should be possible, my lord. It would not be an easy thing—my father is highly adept with these devices, and he is always a dangerous opponent—but yes, I think it can be done.”
“Well, then. The answer to our problem’s obvious. We use the helmet we have here for a counterstrike. If all goes well for us, we remove Barjazid and his device from the equation, and the spreading of the madness is ended, and Septach Melayn and Gialaurys will be able to find and attack Dantirya Sambail. What do you say, mother? Is that something you think you could do?”
The Lady Therissa met her son’s gaze levelly. And said in a flat calm tone without any warmth in it at all, “I’m accustomed to using my powers for healing, Prestimion. Not for making war. Not for launching attacks on people—even someone like this man Barjazid. Or Dantirya Sambail.”
Her unexpected response obviously jarred Prestimion badly. His eyes flashed amazement and color flared in his cheeks. He regained his poise quickly, though, and said, “Oh, mother, you mustn’t think of it as an attack! Or at least try to see it simply as a counterattack. They are the aggressors. What would you be doing, if not defending innocent people against their attacks?”
“Perhaps. Perhaps.” But the Lady sounded unconvinced. A certain darkening of her brow revealed the depths of the conflict within her. “You also need to bear in mind, Prestimion , that I barely know how to use this thing. Before we can even think of using it as you suggest, I’d need to gain more skill with it—to master its subtleties, to get a deeper understanding of its power and range. All that will take time. Assuming that I agree to do such a thing at all. And I am by no means sure that I will.”
The look of exasperation on Prestimion’s face intensified. “Time? We have no time! There are two armies of ours in that horrible jungle at this very moment. How long do you think I can keep them sitting there, mother? And the madness, spreading hour by hour at that man’s hands—no. No. We need to strike right away. You have to do it, mother!”
The Lady did not reply. She enfolded herself in her regal grandeur and calmly regarded her son in silence—a silence that was itself an answer, Dekkeret thought. The temperature in the room seemed to approach the freezing point. A quarrel between the Coronal and the Lady of the Isle: what an extraordinary thing that was to find oneself witnessing!
Then the high, clear voice of Dinitak Barjazid broke through the frosty stillness: “I could do it, my lord, if the Lady won’t. I could. I know I could.”
“You would strike out against your own father?” Dekkeret cried at once, amazed.
The boy looked at him scornfully, as though Dekkeret had said something impossibly naive. “Oh, Prince Dekkeret, why not? If he chooses to make himself the enemy of all the world, surely he’s my enemy as well. Why did I bring this helmet here, if not to offer it for use against him? Why did I flee from him at all?” His eyes were shining. His whole face was aflame with youthful zeal. “I am here to serve, Prince Dekkeret. In any way that I can.”
Prestimion was staring at him too, Dekkeret realized.
He understood suddenly that young Barjazid had put him in a precarious position. He was the one who had brought the boy to Prestimion, after all. He was the one who had urged the Coronal to have faith in him. From the moment Dekkeret had wrested the dream-stealing helmet out of the elder Barjazid’s grasp in Suvrael, Dinitak had taken the position with his father that it would be wise for them to go with Dekkeret to Castle Mount and demonstrate the power of their device to Lord Prestimion.