The chancellor’s envoy, using the same words except that he said “the chancellor’ instead of “King Lyf’, set an electrum plate beside the platina disc.
Rix bowed, spoke the usual courtesies and took the safe conducts. Then he said, “Why?”
“I beg your pardon?” said the Cythonian envoy.
“Lyf has the upper hand. Why would he make peace when he could soon have it all?”
“Our Lord King is not a vengeful man,” said the Cythonian envoy. Tali snorted. The envoy gave her a cold stare. “The lesson has been taught. It’s time to end the bloodshed, and the war.”
The envoys bowed, withdrew and immediately set off for their next destination.
“Well?” said Rix when the gate had been closed and they returned to his chambers. “What do I do?”
“This reeks of a set-up,” said Tobry.
“What if I ignore the summons?”
“By convention,” said Tobry, whose knowledge of history and customs was masterly, “ignoring a royal summons, or a summons from the chancellor, is considered a mortal insult. You and your household would be hunted down by both sides.”
“So what? I’m already at the top of their death lists,” said Rix ruefully.
“Your household isn’t. Ignore the summons and you condemn them too.”
“So I don’t have any choice.”
“That’s the way these things are usually designed.” Tobry rubbed his jaw. “There’s another reason why the chancellor wants you there, of course. Possibly a more important reason.”
“What’s that?”
“You bear Maloch, Grandys’ sword. The only weapon that’s ever injured Lyf — and you’ve hurt him with it, twice. Lyf’s afraid of it, and having you there, wearing it, makes it a potent symbol for the chancellor.”
“What if it’s a trap? If I leave, will I ever return?”
“And if the chancellor plans to take Tali’s pearl,” said Tobry, “how can we defend her in his camp?”
“But you can’t come,” cried Tali. “The chancellor ordered your death back in Caulderon, and nearly succeeded. He won’t fail twice.”
“Try and stop me,” said Tobry.
CHAPTER 68
“Chancellor!” cried Tali.
She had been dreading this meeting all the week-long trip to Glimmering-by-the-Water, yet still his appearance came as a shock. Was he planning to take her back and start it all over again?
“The Lady Thalalie,” he said sourly. “You’re looking well.”
“I feel well, now you’re not sucking my blood. I suppose that’s why you had me brought here.”
She studied him in the bright sunlight. He did not look a well man, nor a confident one. The failures of the past weeks must have ground him down. Tali felt a shiver of fear. Lyf would see it in an instant; why would he agree to peace when his opponents were so weak?
They were standing on the southernmost tip of the Nusidand Peninsula, which ran south for miles into Lake Fumerous. The peninsula was only a hundred yards across here, with low limestone cliffs all around, falling into deep water.
The roofless temple of Glimmering-by-the-Water, seven lines of columns by nine, stood fifty yards away on the western side of the peninsula. Tali did not know the name of the god the place was dedicated to — presumably one of the Lesser or the Forgotten Gods.
The conference was due to start in an hour, and would be held within the temple, at tables set up on the limestone-paved floor. Entry was controlled by a line of paired guards, one guard of each pair being the chancellor’s man, the other, Lyf’s.
“I no longer need your healing blood,” the chancellor said indifferently.
“Why not?”
“It only works on shifters in the first few days. Those of my people who could be healed were healed long ago, and the ones who could not had to be put down.”
“But you still want my master pearl.”
He smiled. “I do. Indeed, it’s my main hope now, though…”
“What?”
“At the rate magery is failing, I’m not sure it’ll be much use to me.” He looked up at her. “It’s time for desperate measures, Tali. But I must go to my pre-conference meet. Good day to you.” He walked off, hunch-backed, leaving Tali alone and more troubled than ever.
She looked around but there was no one in sight save the distant guards. Rix, along with Hightspall’s other invited leaders, had been called to the chancellor’s meeting, which was to be held several hundred yards from the temple. Rix had taken Tobry and Glynnie with him, and Tali had not seen Holm all day. Where could he be?
Tobry had been cold and unforgiving ever since her disastrous attempt to heal him, and Tali had no idea how she felt about him now. He hadn’t said I don’t love you. He had said I can’t love you. But what did that mean? Could it mean he still loved her, but had rejected his own feelings because their love could never be?
What were her own feelings? She had, with great difficulty, come to terms with his first rejection — the night she had come to his bed and he had revealed himself to be a shifter. But his attack in caitsthe form was another matter. Though she understood why it had happened, she could not get past the fact that he would have torn her to pieces.
Were I to look on your loveliness through a shifter’s eyes, all I would see is meat.
It had created a barrier that could never be broken. If she were near him when his inevitable descent into shifter madness began, it could happen again. How could her love — any love — survive that?
It was too painful to think about. She wandered the other way, down the slope to an oval depression where the cropped grass was starred with little white daisies that flowered here even in winter because the lake was warmed by subterranean fires. Outcrops of white stone around its uphill side mimicked an amphitheatre, though it was only twenty yards across. To the south, across the lake she could see the surviving towers of Caulderon, three miles away.
She was sitting in the sun, her broad hat pulled well down to ward off her agoraphobia, when a child shrieked, “Tali, Tali.”
“Rannilt?” said Tali, jumping up.
Rannilt came racing down, tripped, got up, rubbing a grazed knee, ran and threw herself into Tali’s arms with such force that she was knocked off her feet.
“I’m sorry!” wept Rannilt, and it burst out of her. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. It’s all my fault Lizue nearly killed ya. You were cross with me for takin’ your blood and I wanted to hurt you back, and she was really nice — and how was I supposed to know she was just pretendin’, and she was there to kill ya?”
“It’s all right,” said Tali, hugging the skinny child. “It’s all right, Rannilt. It wasn’t your fault.”
“It was, it was!” howled Rannilt.
“She was too clever for us. I thought she seemed nice, too.”
“You did?” said Rannilt, looking up at Tali, then wiping her nose on her sleeve.
“Really nice,” said Tali, exaggerating more than a little. “But wicked old Lyf sent her, you know. And he’d put some enchantment on her so she seemed nicer than she was, and prettier too, I dare say. She fooled everyone — ”
“Except the poor old Sullen Man,” said Rannilt. “He didn’t trust her a bit, and we were all horrible to him — ”
“He hardly ever looked at us. He just kept staring at her the whole time.”
“I used to stick my tongue out at him. And now he’s dead, stabbed right through the heart and out his back, poor man. There was a hole in him you could have put a cucumber in.”
“I don’t think we need to dwell on the gory details,” said Tali. “Poor man, he risked his life to save me. He was a spy for the chancellor, did you know?”
“Of course,” said Rannilt. “I could tell the minute I saw him.”
“You didn’t tell me,” Tali exclaimed.
“I was cross with you. I was sure you were fed up with me.” She looked hopefully at Tali.
“Never for a second,” Tali lied. “I was really sick, Rannilt. The chancellor had robbed me of so much blood I didn’t know what I was doing half the time.”