“Yes,” Grus said. “I trust you don’t mind going back aboard a river galley full of marines?”
Lanius said what he had to say. “No, I don’t mind in the least, as long as you haven’t told them to pitch me into the Enipeus as soon as we get out of sight of camp here.”
“Sosia would have something to say if I did,” Grus remarked.
Lanius wondered how true that was. Even more than most in Avornis, his had been a marriage made for reasons having nothing to do with any initial attraction between the two parties most intimately involved. But he’d done his best to please Grus’ daughter once they were joined. Thinking about it, he supposed she’d done the same for him. Maybe he’d succeeded better than he knew. He hoped so.
When he didn’t answer, Grus asked, “Does it suit you, Your Majesty?”
“Yes—very much so.” Lanius considered, and then added, “Thank you.” He said that seldom; as best he could recall, he hadn’t said it to Grus since the older man put the crown on his own head.
Grus noticed that, too. “You’re welcome,” he answered, the same note of formality in his voice as Lanius had used. He hesitated, made a small pushing gesture, as though urging Lanius to be on his way, and then held up a hand to stop him from leaving. When he spoke again, he sounded uncommonly serious. “We can work in harness together, can’t we, Your Majesty?”
“Maybe we can,” Lanius said. “Yes, maybe we can.” Now he did turn to go. A moment later, he turned back again. “I’ll see you in the city of Avornis… Your Majesty.”
Grus had always been scrupulous about using Lanius’ royal title. Lanius had always been grudging about using Grus‘, which he hadn’t reckoned—and still didn’t reckon—altogether legitimate. Grus had noticed. By the nature of things, Grus would have had to be a far duller, far blinder man than he was to keep from noticing. Now a broad smile spread over his face. “So you will, Your Majesty—and, with luck, sooner than you think.”
“Really?” Lanius pointed an accusing finger at him. “You have some sort of plot in mind.”
“Who? Me?” Grus’ smile turned into an out-and-out grin. For a moment, gray streaks in his beard or not, he looked hardly older than Lanius was. He asked, “Do you want to stay around awhile longer and see what it is?”
Lanius thought it over. He hadn’t expected to be tempted, but he was. Tempted or not, he shook his head. His answer needed only one word. “No.”
Grus and Alca walked along together at the base of the crag. The witch nodded. “Yes, I can do that, Your Majesty, or I think I can. You do understand that even if I manage it, it may not do everything you want? They may have other ways of solving the problem.”
“Not from what the prisoners say,” Grus answered. He looked up at the sky, which was fine and blue and fair. Motion on the battlements caught his eye. Someone up there in the castle, implausibly tiny in the distance, was looking down at him. Was it Corvus? No way to tell, of course, any more than Corvus—if that was he—could recognize Grus down here at the base of the mountain whose peak was all the kingdom he had left. “With any luck at all, we can do this quickly and get back to the city of Avornis.”
Alca gave him a sidelong look. “Are you really so worried about Lanius?” she asked.
“Among other things, yes,” Grus told her. “Some more than others, I grant.” He sighed. “Now that I’m King of Avornis, I worry about everything. The only way I have of taking care of the worries is deciding which one to fret about first.”
That made Alca smile, though he hadn’t been joking. She said, “Well, Your Majesty, I will do what I can to make sure you need not worry about Corvus anymore. I think I can find everything I need.”
“If it turns out that you can’t, say the word,” Grus replied. “Whatever it is, I’ll get it for you.”
“I thank you, Your Majesty,” the witch said.
“Believe me, you’re welcome,” Grus said. “This is for my advantage, after all. And for the kingdom’s advantage,” he added, but he didn’t think he was dishonest in putting his own first.
Alca began her magic the next day at noon, when the sun stood highest in the sky. She took from a silk sack a curious red and white stone, all branched like a tree. “This is coral,” she told Grus. “It washes up on seaside beaches.”
“I’ve heard of it,” he answered. “Up till now, though, I haven’t seen it more than once or twice in all my days.”
“Coming out of the sea, it naturally has power over water,” the witch said. Grus nodded. From everything he knew about sorcery—admittedly, not much—what she said made good sense.
Alca held the coral up high over her head and began to chant in an ancient dialect of Avornan. Grus recognized a word here and there in what she said, but no more than that. Lanius would probably follow every bit of it, he thought. After a moment’s resentment, he shrugged. Yes, Lanius had more education than he, but so what? I’m the one who makes things happen.
Just then, after a sharp word of command, Alca took her hands off the coral. It kept on floating in midair, above the level of her head. The shadow it cast on the ground was of a hue different from ordinary shadows—it was reddish, like the coral stone itself. Grus muttered to himself when he saw that. Power might command knowledge, but a powerful man didn’t necessarily know things himself.
In that scarlet shadow, Alca set a basin of water. Then, moving swiftly, she mixed lime and olive oil and wax and some strong-smelling substance—“Naphtha,” she said, seeing the question on Grus’ face—and shaped them into the form of a man. On the image’s chest, she placed a pinch of earth from beside the basin. “This is the land Corvus claims as his own. With it, I will make the image stand for him.”
Grus nodded again. Even he recognized such correspondences, such links, between the everyday world and that in which magic worked.
Alca held up the image as she’d held up the coral stone. Her chant, though, was different this time, harsh and angry and insistent. When she finished, she cast the image into the basin of water instead of letting it float in the air.
It burst into flames. Grus exclaimed and took a quick step back. Whatever he’d expected, he hadn’t expected that. The image burned and burned, with a sputtering blue-white flame painful to the eyes. A great cloud of steam rose from the basin.
Alca smiled at his surprise. “Sometimes, sorcery should be interesting, don’t you think?” she remarked.
“Interesting? By King Olor’s beard, that almost made my beard turn white,” Grus answered. “I wouldn’t mind seeing Corvus go up in flames the same way.”
Now the witch frowned. “That is not the purpose of this wizardry,” she said severely.
“No, I suppose not,” Grus admitted. “Magic’s almost killed me twice. I don’t really have any business wishing that sort of death on anybody else, do I?”
“I would think not, Your Majesty.” Alca still sounded offended. As one skilled in sorcery should have, she took its limits seriously, and expected everybody else to do the same.
Respecting that, Grus changed the subject by asking, “The magic you worked did what it should have done?”
“Oh, yes.” Alca nodded. “The spell is accomplished.”
“Will Corvus’ wizards be able to reverse it?”
“They will try. I have no doubt of that,” the witch answered. “But some things are easier to do than to undo once done. This is one of those, or so I believe.”
“May I ask one last question?”
Amusement glinted in Alca’s eyes. “You are the King of Avornis. You may do whatever you please.”