As Helain adjusted the small pack filled with roses for the long journey ahead, Ganelon took her by the arm and studied her face. Wrinkles creased the corners of those gorgeous blue eyes, the leavings of worry and despair. So, too, the frown that tugged at her mouth. These would vanish after the Beast doused the fire of guilt consuming her from within. She would be whole again, the Helain he cherished in his heart.
If she reaches the Beast, Ganelon thought sadly. The words of Inza's curse were always fresh in his mind; he could not help but wonder if, by sending Helain off, he was not fulfilling it somehow. His direction, his hand, would be her doom.
"Tell her to go back to the Beast," Ganelon said suddenly to Malocchio. "Lord Aderre, please be the one to tell this woman to go."
Malocchio smirked. "Can't bear to do it yourself? Very well. Run along, girl. Deliver your flowers."
She turned, but Ganelon held her hand in his for an instant longer. "I only wish one thing, dear heart, and that is for you to remember me."
Helain's blank expression was too much for Ganelon to bear. He released her hand and bowed his head. Mournfully he watched her hurry off- then stop and turn back to him.
Slowly, eyes fixed on her lover's face, Helain returned. Without saying a word, she took Ganelon's hand and placed in it a perfect red rose. She smiled down on the bloom, then at Ganelon. He fixed that smile in his memory, letting it linger in his thoughts even as she hastened over the hills and disappeared into the forest beyond.
"Now that the wench is disposed of," Malocchio noted glibly, "we can discuss what it is I require of you."
"Yes, lord," Ganelon replied in a subdued tone.
"What do you know of Veidrava?"
"The mines? I know them like the veins on the backs of my hands."
"Fine, fine. You will go there and be the agent of my wrath against that treacherous beast Azrael. I want you to kill him, if possible."
Ganelon laughed bitterly. "Is that all, lord?"
Malocchio did not bridle at the grim joviality, for he knew the last laugh, as always, would be his. "Azrael must be made to pay for his betrayal. Those troops you say are now marching toward Nedragaard were never meant as more than a diversion. They were supposed to stay close to the border, to buy the little monster time in which to perform a rite to oust the death knight from the throne. He would take over Sithicus, hand over Magda and her Vistani as thanks for my help, and the world would be a better place.
"He's obviously got something else in mind. He must have bribed my men, purchased an army he could not hope to raise in Sithicus." The Invidian frowned at Ganelon. "What's your concern? You may speak."
"How am I supposed to challenge Azrael?" The youth held up his empty hands. "I don't even have a sword."
"A blade will do you no good against a thing like Azrael," Malocchio noted. He reached into his black cloak and brought out a small bag. "This, however, will make his twisted little brain boil in his skull."
Ganelon undid the drawstring on the silken bag. The pouch contained nothing more than poppy seeds.
"Slip enough of the seeds into his food, his drink, and he will be the Sorrow of Sithicus no more," Malocchio said brightly.
Aderre reached into his cloak again and produced a clear crystal orb. He rolled it in the palm of his hand, letting the sunlight flare upon its flawless surface. "This will be of use to you against his minions at the mine."
"What does it do, lord?"
"Azrael surrounds himself with creatures of the living dark, salt shadows and the like. This is a conduit for their opposite." He held it up to the sun. The orb flared brightly, almost as brightly as the sun itself, before resuming its appearance of mundane glass. "You need only speak a single word to activate it."
"What is the word?"
"Whatever you choose," replied Malocchio, "though you'll want it to be a word you won't forget."
"Helain," Ganelon replied softly.
The smirk returned. "The wench again." Malocchio murmured something as he passed his fingers over the orb. It darkened for an instant before he dropped it into Ganelon's outstretched hands. "I think you'll be able to remember the trigger."
"There's one thing I don't understand," Ganelon said as he tucked the orb and the seeds into a pouch. "Why are you trusting me with this task?"
"Your dearest Helain," the black-clad youth said. "The rite Azrael hopes to perform will destroy her-and everyone else you love in Sithicus. He'll gain control of their shadows, and they'll be his slaves. I'm certain you can imagine what Sithicus would be like if that were to happen."
Ganelon could imagine. That horrible thought drove him on through sleepless nights and exhausting days as he trekked back across the border, through the Fumewood, and on to Veidrava. At the same time, Inza's curse taunted him. If, as she had promised, everything he held dear would perish by his own hand, was he returning to the mine to save Sithicus, or to destroy it?
Fourteen
Nabon's daydreams had once been simple. In them the giant wandered faraway hills, to places familiar and places fresh. Beyond that, their content was inconsequential. Freedom was all.
Freedom was, of course, something Nabon no longer possessed.
That theft darkened the giant's fantasies. He dreamed now of roaming the land, but not in idle explorations. Nabon ranged the Sithican wilds in search of the one who had first ensnared him: Inza, a Vistani girl with hair as black as her soul and a viciousness in her heart the likes of which the giant had never seen in all his wide travels.
Deep in the Fumewood, Nabon had responded to her cry for help but found himself set upon by the girl instead. With a cudgel of unbreakable wood she shattered first one kneecap, then the other. As he lay on the ground, howling in pain, she beat him unconscious.
The greatest indignity of all was the purpose the assault served. Inza had captured him and broken his legs so she could barter him to Azrael for a mere dagger. The dwarf had been given the blade by Malocchio Aderre as a symbol of their recently forged alliance. Inza wanted it, and Nabon was the substantial price she was willing to offer.
Azrael was wont to torment Nabon with this tale on nights the giant slacked in his ceaseless toil. Nabon loathed the dwarf and wished him harm more times than he could remember, but his chief hatred was reserved for Inza. Had she not preyed upon his kind nature, he would never have fallen into Azrael's hands. Worse, the Vistana had hunted Nabon only after hearing stories that lauded the giant's gentleness of spirit. That, Inza explained as she hauled him to the salt mine that first night, made him the perfect slave.
With the mine shut down, the men all shuffling off to war, Nabon passed the time in a fitful drowse. He envisioned himself inflicting his revenge upon the girl in myriad ways, but only after he had pursued her through the Sithican wilds. The chase made the kill all the more satisfying. In those dreams, his footfalls shook mountains and sloshed rivers from their banks. His legs were whole. He was free.
One morning, in the quiet moments before dawn, he awoke to find the dream had become reality. At least parts of it, anyway.
The pain was gone. The shrieking ache of mangled flesh and broken bones had left his legs. He squinted into the darkness, reached down with trembling hands. It was true. His legs were sound again. The shackles that had pinned him to the filthy floor were broken.
The joy in Nabon's heart was overwhelmed an instant later by a terrible dread. This had to be a trick. Surely Azrael lurked in the darkness. Worse still, maybe Inza was there. When he moved, when he got the first fleeting taste of freedom after his long imprisonment, they would descend upon him. This time they'd cut off his legs and rob him of any hope at all.