"That's a half-orc?" Olwen blurted, and he cleared his throat and coughed repeatedly to cover his rather blunt observation.
"Arrayan?" said Gareth. "Ah, good lady, please approach. You are most welcome here. I had hoped to be in Palishchuk by now to present you with your well-deserved honors, but the situation here intervened, I fear."
Arrayan skittishly moved toward the imposing group, though she relaxed visibly when Riordan offered her a confident wink.
"We had been told that you would not be journeying south to the gates," Gareth said.
"And so I was not, good king," Arrayan replied, her voice barely above a whisper. She bowed, then curtsied, halfway at least, before turning it into another uncomfortable bow.
"Pray be at rest, fair lady," said Gareth. "We are honored by your presence." He turned to Dugald and Kane and added, "Surprised, but honored nonetheless."
Arrayan's glance at Emelyn, one full of nervousness, clued in Gareth and the others that she wasn't there merely as a courtesy.
"I did as you bade and traveled to the gates to see if our friends Jarlaxle and Artemis Entreri were there," Emelyn explained. "I found them."
"At the gate?" Gareth asked.
"Nay, they had already passed through, within hours of the skirmish here in Heliogabalus, so it seems."
"There is more magic about that pair than we know," Friar Dugald remarked, and no one disagreed.
"North?" Gareth and Celedon asked together.
"To Palishchuk?" Gareth added.
"Beyond," said Emelyn, and he looked to Arrayan.
When she hesitated, the old mage put his arm around her shoulders and practically shoved her forward to stand directly before the throne. Arrayan took a long moment to collect her wits then produced a parchment from a loop under a fold of her robes.
"I was bid travel here and read this to you, my king," she said in an uncharacteristically quiet voice. "But I do not wish to speak the words." As she finished, she reached out with the parchment.
Gareth took it from her and unrolled it, arching his thick eyebrows curiously and looking briefly to his friends. He silently read the proclamation of the Kingdom of D'aerthe and the rule of King Artemis the First, and his face grew dark.
"Well, what is it?" Olwen demanded of Emelyn.
The old wizard looked to King Gareth, who seemed to feel his gaze and at last lifted his eyes from the parchment. He regarded all of his six friends alternately and said, "Rouse the Army of Bloodstone, all major divisions. Within a fortnight, we march."
"March?" said a confused Olwen, perfectly echoing the thoughts of the others, other than Emelyn, who had seen the proclamation, and Kane, who, principal among them, was beginning to understand the complexity of the web.
Gareth handed the parchment to Dugald. "Read it to them. I go to pray."
"There is nowhere to run, I assure you," Knellict said to Calihye, after simply appearing before her in her private quarters. "And I would advise against going for the sword," he added when the woman's eyes betrayed her and glanced at her weapon, which lay against the far wall. "Or for the dagger you keep at the back of your belt. In fact, Lady Calihye, if you make any movement against me at all, I can promise you the most exquisite of deaths. You know me, of course?"
Calihye had to force the words past the lump in her throat. "Yes, archmage," she said deferentially, and she only then remembered to avert her gaze to the floor.
"You wanted to kill Entreri for what he did to your friend," Knellict said matter-of-factly. "I share your feelings."
Calihye dared to look up.
"But of course, you buried that honest desire for vengeance, silly girl." The archmage gave a great and exaggerated sigh. "The flesh is too, too weak," he said, and he reached out to stroke the trembling woman's cheek.
Calihye instinctively recoiled—or tried to, but Knellict waggled his fingers and a wind came up behind her, pushing her back to his waiting hand. She didn't dare resist any more overtly.
"You have taken one of my mortal enemies for your lover," Knellict said, shaking his head, and he added a few mocking "tsks."
Calihye's mouth moved weirdly, trying vainly to form words.
"Perhaps I should simply incinerate you," Knellict mused. "A slow burning fire, carefully controlled, that you might feel your skin rolling up under the pressure of its heat. Oh, I have heard strong men reduced to whimpering fools under such duress. Crying for their mothers. Yes, it is a most enjoyable refrain.
"Or perhaps for such a one as pretty as you—well, as you once were before a blade reduced you to medusa-kin…" He paused and mocked her with laughter.
Calihye was too terrified to respond, to show any emotion at all. She knew enough of Knellict to understand that they were by no means idle threats.
"Still, you are a woman," Knellict went on. "So you are possessed of great vanity, no doubt. So for you, perhaps I will summon a thousand-thousand insects, that will bite at your tender flesh, and some that will break through. Yes, your eyes will reveal your terror no matter how stubbornly you choke back your screams when you see the bulge of beetles boring underneath your pretty skin."
It proved too much for the warrior woman. She exploded into action, leaping forward at Knellict with raking fingers aimed at his smug expression.
She went right through him and stumbled forward. Stunned, off balance, Calihye tried quickly to re-orient. She spun around, focusing on the image, which was even then fading to nothingness.
"It was so easy to fool you," came the wizard's voice, over by her sword. She looked that way, but he was not to be seen. "You were so terrified by the thought of my presence that a simple illusion and an even more simple ventriloquism had you feeling my touch."
Calihye licked her lips. She shifted her feet beneath her, setting her balance for a spring.
"Can you get to the sword, do you think?" Knellict's disembodied voice asked, and it still seemed to be coming from very near the weapon.
Before he had even finished the sentence, Calihye's hand reached behind her, grabbed the dagger, and whipped forward, launching the missile at the voice. It seemed to stutter in its progress for just a moment, before pressing on with a flash of bluish light. Then it hung there, in mid-air, hilt tilted down as if it had struck into some fabric or other flimsy material.
"Oh, and it is a magical dagger," Knellict said. "It defeated the weakest of my wards!"
His position confirmed, Calihye swallowed her fear and darted for her sword. Or tried to, for even as she started, the archmage materialized. Her dagger hung limply, caught in a fold of his layered robes. He extended his arm toward her, finger pointing, and from that digit came a green flash of light. A dart shot forth to strike the woman in the midsection.
"My dart is magical, as well," Knellict explained as Calihye doubled over and clutched at her belly. Her grimace became a loud groan, then a continual scream, as the dart began to pump forth acid.
"I have found gut wounds to be the most effective at neutralizing an enemy warrior," Knellict said with detached amusement. "Would you agree?"
The woman staggered forward a step.
"Oh please, do press on, valiant warrior woman," Knellict teased. He stepped aside, leaving the path to her sword clear and visible before her.
With a growl of defiance, Calihye grasped the dart and tore it free of her belly with a bit of intestine, yellow-green acid, and bile dripping forth from the hole, followed by the bright red of blood. She threw the dart to the ground and grabbed for her sword.