As she had before, Alca swung the crystal this way and that, till the rainbow it engendered fell across the bowl of new snow. As it had before, the snow began to steam. There all resemblance to the previous conjuration ended. Lanius stared in mingled fascination and horror at this new rainbow. Little by little, it grew redder and redder and redder, as though the color of blood were drinking up all the other hues, the oranges and yellows and greens and blues and violets. And as it got redder, it somehow got brighter, though the sunbeam from which it had to be formed remained unchanged.
More and more steam rose from the snow. Peering down into the bowl, Lanius saw it too looked as though it were made from blood—blood now boiling, bubbling—rather than frozen water. “Enough!” he said suddenly. “We have all the answer we need!”
All at once, the question wasn’t whether they would learn what they wanted to know but whether they could escape the chamber. With a whooshing roar, all the snow—the blood?—in the bowl turned to steam. Coughing, choking, his lungs half scalded, Lanius staggered out of the room.
Grus was only a couple of steps behind him, and dragged Alca along to make sure she got out, too. She had the presence of mind to slam the door behind them. For a moment, Lanius felt, or thought he felt, a power inside the room trying to pull the door open again and come after them. Then that perception faded. He breathed a sigh of relief, at last convinced they had won free.
Expressionless, Alca said, “Now you see, Your Majesties, why wizards fight shy of measuring themselves against the Banished One.”
“Er—yes.” That was Grus. Normally the most unflappable of men, he sounded shaken to the core. “Are we really so small when set against him?”
“As a matter of fact,” Alca answered, “yes.”
“Then why does he fear us?” Grus asked. “Why does he torment us? Why does he send this dreadful winter weather against us? What can we do to him that makes him even bother noticing us?”
“We hold back the Menteshe,” Lanius said. “We have our own wills. We don’t care to be his thralls. We fight back against him, and against his puppets. If we had the Scepter of Mercy, we might do even more.”
“Do you really believe that?” Grus still sounded dazed.
“I believe the Banished One believes it,” Lanius replied. “If he didn’t, why would he have stolen the Scepter in the first place? Why would he keep it closed away in Yozgat? He doesn’t want us to have it.”
“You speak the truth there, Your Majesty.” Alca seemed more like herself than she had a little while before.
Grus frowned. He started to say something. Alca raised a finger to her lips, telling him to stay quiet instead. Grus nodded. Lanius started to ask Grus what he would have said. The witch shook her head at him. He frowned. But then, after a moment’s thought, he also nodded. They’d just drawn the Banished One’s notice to them. If his presence somehow lingered, did they want him hearing them talking about the Scepter of Mercy? Lanius was willing to admit they didn’t.
Alca asked, “Do we have enough grain to get through this winter?”
“Of course we do,” Lanius declared. “The harvest was good, and we made a point of stockpiling while we could.” That wasn’t strictly true, but he didn’t care. If the Banished One was listening, Lanius wanted him to hear whatever would disconcert him most.
Grus came over and set a hand on his shoulder. The older king grinned and nodded. He understood what Lanius was doing—understood and approved. Somehow, and much to Lanius’ surprise, that made him feel very good.
After a couple of weeks, the grip of winter on the city of Avornis eased. Maybe the Banished One decided that keeping up his magic was more trouble than it was worth. Grus couldn’t have proved that, but he strongly suspected it. When the blizzards stopped coming one after the other, he hoped the Banished One had stopped paying attention to the capital.
With that hope in mind, he sought out Lanius and asked, “Do you think it’s safe to talk about the Scepter of Mercy now?”
“Why are you asking me?” Lanius replied. “Your witch would have a better idea of that than I do.”
“Alca’s not my witch.” Grus hoped he managed to keep the stab of regret from his voice. “And you’re the one who knows about the Scepter.”
Lanius only shrugged. “Maybe. I wonder if any Avornan these days can know about the Scepter of Mercy. It’s been gone so very long now. Everything we think we know about it is in the old books. But the people who wrote them really did know about the Scepter, because they’d seen it or sometimes even held it. I don’t understand some of the things they say. How can I? I haven’t done the things they did.”
“Good point,” Grus said. “What did you think when you realized reading something in a book wasn’t the same as actually doing it?”
His son-in-law gave him an odd look. “I didn’t much like the idea, to tell you the truth.”
That, Grus believed. Lanius was convinced books made the sun go round the earth. At least he had realized they weren’t a perfect reflection of and substitute for reality. That was something, anyhow. For somebody as naturally bookish as Lanius, it was probably quite a bit.
“What do you want to know?” the young king asked him.
“Suppose I was holding the Scepter of Mercy right this minute.” Grus held out his arm, his hand closed as though gripping a shaft. “What could I do with it? What would the Banished One be afraid I could do with it?”
“Remember how Alca said merely human wizards are all very small and weak when they’re measured against the Banished One?” Lanius asked.
“Oh, yes.” Grus nodded and shivered at the same time. “I’m not likely to forget—not after that snow turned to blood and boiled.”
“No. Neither am I. Neither is Alca, I expect,” Lanius said. “Well, if you were holding the Scepter of Mercy, you wouldn’t be small anymore. That much is pretty plain.”
“So I’d be able to face him on something like even terms, would I?” Grus said, and Lanius nodded. Grus went on, “Suppose I was holding the Scepter, then, like I said. How could I use it to smash the Banished One, to give him what he deserves?”
“That’s where things get tricky, or maybe just where I don’t understand,” Lanius answered. “The Scepter of Mercy isn’t a weapon, or isn’t exactly a weapon. It is what it says it is—the Scepter of Mercy. The way you’d use it is tied up in that—tied up tight.”
“Tied up how?” Grus demanded. “This is the important stuff, you know, or would be if we had the Scepter.”
“Yes. If.” Lanius’ tone made it plain how large an if that was. “It’s also what’s hardest to understand in the old writings. Some of the Kings of Avornis who used the Scepter of Mercy wrote down what they did and felt while they held it, but how can I know what that means when I haven’t held it myself?”
“I don’t suppose you can,” Grus admitted with a sigh. “But I’ll tell you something, Your Majesty—I wish you could.”
King Lanius sighed, too. “You aren’t the only one. But I don’t suppose it’s very likely, not when the Scepter’s been gone so long.”
“I’m sure that’s what the Banished One wants us to think,” Grus said. “How long has it been since anybody seriously tried to take the Scepter of Mercy away from him?”
“Two hundred and”—Lanius paused to count on his fingers—“twenty-seven years. The expedition didn’t get even halfway to Yozgat. Only a few men came back. The rest either died or were made into thralls.”
“Oh.” Grus winced. Down in the south, he’d seen more thralls than he cared to remember. To his way of thinking, a clean death was preferable. Still… “Maybe, if the time ever seems ripe, we ought to think about trying again.”