“Hear me: Vicomte Guillaume, he who would be a full comte, asked me to find the rightful heir-Luc his name-and slay him and recover the trinket about his neck. Yet when I saw Luc in my black mirror and realized what this so-called trinket was, I knew that fool of a vicomte had no idea of its true worth nor what it was for. What’s that you ask? What is the trinket? Fool, it is a key forged in the hidden fires of this very spellcast mountain, a key struck by the enemies of my master to open one of their other creations-the Castle of Shadows beyond the Black Wall of the World.”
Iniqui laughed and said, “Ah, by the look of horror in your eyes, I see now you understand, for with that key I will free my master.”
The name Orbane hissed through Liaze’s thoughts, and she would have groaned had she the power to speak. Yet she did not.
“Oh, now your gaze turns desperate,” said Iniqui, gloating. “You would slay me if you could, but you cannot, for I am a sorceress dire. And, oui, it is Orbane whom I will free.”
Iniqui glanced at Luc, his faint breath puffing white in the frigid air. Then she turned to Liaze and snarled, “But you, you fool, you have set me back, and I will have to start all over, for the stone cannot be taken by force; it either must be freely given or released by the natural death of the wearer”-Iniqui laughed-“and what better way to die a natural death than by very slow exposure, and what better place than this?”
Iniqui gestured about. “Indeed, this is the only place where he must die, here on this mountain, else the amulet will not be empowered for one who is not a natural heir or one to whom the amulet is freely given, for, as I said, here it was forged in the hidden fires.”
There came to Liaze’s ears a barely audible clicking and a fluttering of air. Yet Iniqui did not seem to notice, wrapped up as she was in her triumphant monologue.
“But you, Princess, I can slay out of hand, for you and your family have been thorns in the sides of my master and my sisters and me; and your brother killed my sweet Rhensibe, and so it is only fitting that I, Iniqui, return the favor.”
The witch stepped back, and she began chanting, the words arcane and somehow causing the very air to tingle. Yet, underneath the intonations, Liaze could still hear a faint clicking and fluttering.
Of a sudden a great crevasse split open in the mountain between the sorceress and the princess, and fire roared up from the depths below, lighting the ebon sky above a deep crimson, as of a spill of old blood. On the far side of the split, Nightshade snorted and backed away.
Across the crevasse from Liaze, Iniqui laughed, and over the roar she gleefully said, “Incredible, isn’t it, that a mountain can be so cold, and yet have unquenchable fires raging within, eh?”
Iniqui reached a clawed hand out toward Liaze and sneered, “I will beckon you into the fire, sister of my sister’s killer, and there is nought you can do to stop me.”
She made a single gesture…
… and Liaze jerked a single step forward.
Iniqui laughed in scorn and made another gesture…
… and Liaze wrenched forward another step.
Iniqui made a third gesture…
… and Liaze jerked ahead again…
… and now she stood poised on the very brink of the crevasse, and, as if sensing a victim, searing fires roared up from the depths.
And, as Iniqui flexed her black-nailed fingers for the final beckoning — Twk on Jester, the bird madly flapping, leapt up the final few feet of the slope and onto the flat. And at a single word from the Pixie, the rooster crowed.
Even as Iniqui hissed in surprise and twisted a gesture toward the Pixie and the bird, the enthrallment upon Liaze lessened, and a moan escaped her lips, and she realized that she could speak. It was then that the words of Lady Doom echoed in her mind:
Remember war; loose the cry,
So ye and y’r love will not die.
And suddenly the meaning came clear, and though she could not move, still she could shout a command, and she cried out, “Night, attaques!”
Iniqui glanced at Luc yet lying unconscious upon the black slab, and she laughed and said, “Fool, your knight is entirely too weak to-”
— in that moment, a golden-shod forehoof of Deadly Nightshade crashed into the back of Iniqui’s skull-the stallion rearing and lashing out upon Liaze’s command-and, shrieking, Iniqui pitched forward into the raging crevasse. Yet she somehow managed to catch hold of a ledge, but from below the roaring blaze engulfed her, and she screamed and screamed as her dress and hair caught fire. Terror filled her gaze, and she shrilled in agony, and then her body itself burst into flames, and the flesh of her fingers charred and sloughed away. She could no longer hold on, and, howling in dread, into the fiery depths she plunged.
The fires died down, and with a jolt the crevasse slammed shut, Liaze falling backwards upon the cold glass surface. But Iniqui’s spell had died with her death, and the princess’s enthrallment vanished.
38
“I didn’t know whether it would work, Princess,” cried Twk. “I didn’t know whether it would work,” the Pixie both weeping and laughing at one and the same time.
Liaze scrambled to her knees and looked at Twk. “Oh, Twk, you and Jester saved us, for I could not speak until the rooster crowed.”
And then Liaze’s eyes widened, for gold coins had been tied to each of the chicken’s clawed toes.
Liaze began laughing wildly even as tears ran down her face.
Twk joined her, the Pixie also weeping in joy and relief.
Jester ruffled his feathers and crowed once again.
To one side Luc groaned. Liaze, suddenly sober, spun ’round and scrambled to Luc’s side. His eyes fluttered and Liaze grasped his hand. “Oh, my love, waken. Please waken.”
Luc mumbled something in his semiconscious state.
Liaze said to Twk, “He is so cold, so very cold; we’ve got to get him down from this mountain. A fire, we’ll need a fire.”
“There is scrub below,” said Twk, “but little else.”
“It will have to do,” said Liaze, and struggling, she managed to get Luc to his feet, the chevalier barely of aid.
Liaze called Nightshade to her, and the black came trotting. Groaning, lifting, heaving, and shouting at Luc to help, and finally calling for Nightshade to kneel, Liaze at last got Luc across the saddle, bellydown.
“Princess,” said Twk, “would you mind carrying me and Jester back with you? I think my rooster is completely tuckered out.”
Liaze lifted the gold-shod chicken and Twk to Nightshade’s back, and then she packed away the decanter and took up the lantern and mounted behind the saddle and held on to Luc, and said, “All right, my boy, take us down,” and she turned the stallion toward the way below and gently heeled him in the flanks.
Liaze gave the black his head, and to the edge of the flat and onto the slopes of the glass mountain they fared, Nightshade sliding the first twenty or so feet where the glass was steepest, but thereafter his footing was sound, for on precious steps of gold he went.
And as they went down, Twk said, “It was a wild idea, my riding Jester up, for, even though they say a cock’s crow reaves power from witches and such, I thought it only true at dawn, as it was with Lord Fear. I didn’t know whether it would work at night. I didn’t know what was happening between you and the witch atop this mountain, but I thought if I could help, it might give you a chance to spit her with your long-knife, or to put an arrow through her heart.”
“Jester’s crow was just barely enough to let me speak,” said Liaze.
“I am glad you did, Princess, for that motion the witch made at me and Jester, well, I was beginning to feel numb all over.”
“No doubt ’twas sorcery,” said Liaze.